Introducing... Brian Batt

"I think most paintings are a record of the decisions that the artist made. I perhaps make them a little clearer than some people have." - Chuck Close, Batt's inspiration.

"Jackie Robinson"

"Dance"

"Frida Kahlo"

A few weeks ago I was set on an adventure through New York City’s Lower East Side to interview artist Brian Batt. I know, I know, he isn’t technically a music-news related piece, but he was too good to not include in my blog.

I am able to somehow tie it into music, nonetheless. I think a huge reason why I respected his work so much was because his pictures were mostly of rock-gods throughout the ages. I was looking at life-sized canvases of Pete Townshend, Paul McCartney, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Russel Simmons (even though he is more hip-hop) and so much more. He also had two pieces of JFK, which particularly caught my eye. I have gone through my own Kennedy-obsession stages—and who doesn’t love Jackie O?

Besides his celebrity appeal (he has sold paintings to Reese Witherspoon and John Krasinski, his buddy’s old college roommate-so cool!), his images were so different, warped and trippy that I was immediately pulled.

You see, all his photos were pixilated. If you are familiar with art, Chuck Close, who took the form of pixilation to the extreme but in a much more colorful and unique way, inspires him. I highly recommend checking him out, and Batt’s other inspiration Shepard Fairey. Many are more familiar with Fairey’s street name, “Obey.”

But it wasn’t just his subject matters that drew me in (he didn’t just paint celebrities- he also painted his nephew, athletes, ex-girlfriends, strangers and friends), and it wasn’t just the pixilation that allowed him to be able to separate himself from all other artists. It was his ability to do something so weird and bizarre looking, but to be able to pull it off in a way that so surreal and real at the same time… if that makes sense.

Let me try to interpret what I just said. I felt like I was looking at an image that looked real—too realistic, like the image was an actual-sized three-dimensional human being—but then you look at the other side of their face and its like, woah, completely computerized and unrealistic.

Batt explained his artistic process. He takes the canvas (as a completely uneducated guess, I would say they are 2-3 feet each) and grids it out in small squares. Then he goes through and paints it over once, paints it over twice, paints it over three times and, if necessary, a fourth-fifth-sixth-seventh-etc. time. Each canvas can take up to 3 months to complete, but Batt explained that patience is necessary to get the perfect blend.

Interested in more Brian Batt? Check out his website (and follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. He’s experimenting with the realms of social media-as am I), and click here to see my exclusive interview with him on Dualshow.com! 

Gregg Allman's Big Engagement News

"Sunbeams shining through his hair, appearing not to have a care. Well, pick up your gear and Gypsy roll on." -Gregg Allman in "Sweet Melissa"

Gregg Allman with his third and most well-known wife, Cher (married 1975-1979).

You know what, I really don’t get celebrities.

Sure, people love them because they are talented, beautiful, rich and amazing at almost everything they do, but then they have a mental breakdown and shave their entire heads at the expense of negative attention from various media outlets. Or is that still only Britney Spears?

However, in Gregg Allman’s case, he goes and gets engaged to a girl 20 years younger than him.

Every celebrity is entitled to a mental breakdown, but Allman really has been shaping up lately. Well, besides the whole liver failure/hernia surgery forcing him off the stage a few months back at the band’s annual Beacon Theater concerts, which also caused him to delay his “Cross to Bear” book tour—but you can read all about that in an article I wrote for Dualshow.com.

Nope, Allman is back to health and plans on joining his band this summer at the All Good Music Festival and the Peach Music Festival, celebrating 40 years since the 1972 live album “Eat a Peach.”

Allman spilled the engagement-beans on a semi-awkward interview on CNN last week with Piers Morgan. When asked how Shannon (the newest fiancée who coincidently looks very similar to Hilary Duff’s sister- who I only know from Napoleon Dynamite) feels about becoming Allman’s seventh wife, he replied, “That’s not what she is becoming. She’s becoming wife Number One. I don’t have a wife, I haven’t had one for years.”

And there you have it folks: that is the smoothness that probably got Gregg Allman all the girls back in the hey-days, and apparently these days too.

I don’t know if it’s his slow drawl, long hair or wrinkly skin that got her, but maybe the fact that he is the founder of one of the greatest rock and blues bands in American history was a factor in his charm. Yeah, I guess I would go for him too.

Check out part of Morgan’s interview here.

Also, if you are interested, here is one of Allman’s greatest, early songs. It just wouldn’t sound the same to replace “Melissa” with “Shannon,” though.

And more:
"One Way Out," "Whipping Post," "Ramblin' Man," "Blue Sky," "Midnight Rider," "Revival," "Jessica," "Statesboro Blues," "Southbound," "Ain't Wastin' Time No More," "Little Martha," "Crazy Love," "Wasted Words," "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed," "Done Somebody Wrong," and "Blind Love."

Happy Memorial Day

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace." -Jimi Hendrix

"Hippie" inserting flower into guard's gun during an anti-Vietnam protest in the late '60s.

To all American Troops:
To those who fought in large wars, or who fought in small battles;
Those who fought for what they believed in, or were drafted against their wills,
You still fought for me either way;
To those who are buried in Arlington National Cemetery,
And to the Unknown Soldier;
To both my grandfathers, and many grandfathers and grandmothers, fathers and mothers, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, friends and acquaintances around the world;
This day is for you.
Thank you.


Happy Memorial Day
Playlist:


"We Gotta Have Peace" by Curtis Mayfield

"(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding" live by Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe

"Give Peace a Chance" by the Plastic Ono Band

"War/No More Trouble" by Bob Marley

"Masters of War" by Bob Dylan

"Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World" by Israel Iz Kamakawiwo'ole

"The General" by Dispatch

"Star Spangled Banner" by Jimi Hendrix

"All These Things I've Done" by the Killers

And for those setting of on their first, second, third or many more tours,
"For Those About to Rock, We Salute You" by AC/DC

Remembering Adam Yauch

"The only limit is the mind." - Adam Yauch

Adam Yauch, "MCA," with smiling other bandmates blurred in the background, Mike Diamond, "Mike D," and Adam Horovitz, "Ad-Rock".

Sure, I can admit that I was never the biggest Beastie Boys fan, but that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t touched by Adam Yauch’s death. The music industry suffered a loss and it was felt around the world. Any young adult would be lying if they said “Fight For Your Right To Party” wasn’t part of their childhood.

Cancer is a powerful and destructive weapon, and like Yauch, it has taken too many young lives. The 47-year-old died earlier this month from a tumor on his salivary gland, a very rare form of the disease, and the world has been lamenting since. (Click here to see some cool street artists’ graffiti tributes to Yauch.)

The other two-thirds of the Beastie Boys, Adam Horovitz and Mike Diamond, admitted that they were unaware of the severity of Yauch’s condition. “I believed, up to [the] last week, that Adam was somehow coming back,” Diamond confessed to Rolling Stone in an interview on May 23.

Yauch was a unique hip-hop/rapping star. His voice was a raspy baritone, making him sound just a tinge more soulful than his counterparts. “Even when we were doing our first hip-hop records, when we were 19 and 20, he sounded like a gruff 40-year-old,” said Diamond.

Years after forming his band, Yauch experimented (and stuck with) the realms of Buddhism. After experiment with LSD in the recording room, he found that there were layers to his music beyond what was explicitly heard.

“He abandoned the band for months in the winter to go snowboarding, on this very serious level. Then it wasn’t snowboarding. He would disappear for two months of teaching by his Holiness the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala. He gradually incorporated that into the music. He was the first to realize we had this soapbox, and we needed to use it,” said Diamond on how Yauch’s Buddhism affected the band.

Yauch was more than a musician. He was an activist, fighting for the Tibetan independence movement and feminism and LGBT rights. Not many people are familiar with this side of Yauch, I wasn’t even enlightened until hearing reports about his life after death.

Another marvel possibly unknown is the star-studded revisited music video to “Fight For Your Right.” It stars “The Beastie Boys,” Seth Rogen, Elijah Wood and Danny McBride stumbling through town after a wild and drunken (and acid-filled) night, until they bump into the “Future Beastie Boys,” John C. Reily, Will Ferrell and Jack Black. Also included in the video are Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci, Will Arnett, Orlando Bloom, Danny Masterson, Zach Galifianakis and more. Although the video at times is redundant and dragged-out, I still found myself laughing, especially at the scene where Elijah Wood and Will Ferrel start peeing on each other, starting a full out pee-tastic war. Also, of course, the beginning where the boys are wasted walking down the street, acting as if no one can notice their drunken antics.

Here it the vid, check it out and enjoy:

And just because I love this song: "Intergalactic"

Here are some more Beastie Boy songs to look at for in memoriam:

"Sabotage," "Make Some Noise," "So What Cha Want," "Shake Your Rump," "Root Down," "Paul Revere," "Hey Ladies," "Shadrach," "Sure Shot," "Pass the Mic," "Car Thief," "Body Movin'," "Jimmy James," "She's Crafty," and "Get it Together."

Happy 71st Birthday, Bob Dylan!

“If I wasn’t Bob Dylan, I’d probably think that Bob Dylan has a lot of answers myself.” -Bob Dylan

Vintage Dylan Promotion Pic for Movie I'm Not There, a 2007 tribute movie to the star.

It must be cool being Bob Dylan. Imagine waking up every morning and getting to think, “Damn, it feels great to be Bob Dylan.”

His first album debuted 50 years ago (in 1962), and since then not only has Dylan skyrocketed to the top of the charts, but to the top of the bizarre world of the counterculture. Singlehandedly, he transformed his Minnestoa-smalltown-boy image to the face of the musical protest revolution of the 1960s and beyond.

With hits like “Blowing in the Wind” and “Times They Are A-Changin’,” Dylan cynically led the world away from its distorted delusions. He introduced a form of poetry that was so blunt and real, that the beatnik was more of a spectacle. He was almost like a trend that is so different and bizarre that everyone gets hooked on it. (I guess in a way like Nicki Minaj… can anyone decipher her songs for me? Or decipher her wardrobe, maybe?) Thankfully the Dylan craze stayed. 

Bob Dylan revolutionized folk music with his introduction of the electric guitar. How could that crowd at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival boo him off the stage? Was the first listen of “Like a Rolling Stone” really that bad?

Don't worry, the newly 71-year-old has calmed down a little since his "freewheelin'" days. Dylan will continue his Never Ending Tour (and we like it that way) well into the summer in Europe, and we are just waiting patiently for him to return to the states.

So, Bob, you are a hero to us all. On behalf of all your fans, we would like to wish you a happy birthday.

Oh, and congratulations on your upcoming Presidential Medal of Freedom (receiving May 29 at the White House- the highest award possible for an American civilian.)

Cheers!

Some Songs to Check Out:

Here is: “Subterranean Homesick Blues”

Circa 1967 from film Don't Look Back

Also:
“Visions of Johanna,” “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” “I Shall Be Released,” “All Along the Watchtower” (Also check out Jimi Hendrix’s and Dave Matthew’s versions), “Just Like a Woman,” “Tangled Up in Blue,” “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” “Highway 61 Revisited." 


Here is his first ever 1969 interview with Rolling Stone Magazine.