Icon of perversion Jack Smith, Club 57 DJ Dany Johnson and Ann Magnuson at a party on Crosby Street, 1980. Photo by Ande Whyland.
In anticipation of the opening this weekend of Ann Magnuson and Kenny Scharf’s big East Village West exhibit at the Royal/T gallery in Los Angeles, original Club 57 D.J. Dany Johnson has made an exclusive two-hour musical mix for Dangerous Minds readers:
Club 57 was a magical little club in the basement of a Polish church at 57 St. Marks Place. This mix is like a mixed salad of all the kinds of stuff I played. I spent many nights digging through my old suitcase full of the 45s I had picked up at neighborhood thrift shops, mixing them with records by my contemporary favorites such as ESG, Bush Tetras, Tom Tom Club and the like. This mix may be a little more mixed up than a typical set I would have played, but not by much. There might be some places where I waited too long for the next record or put one on too soon, just like the old days. The only way it could be more authentic is if I spilled a gin and tonic on it.
The block quoted text below is a slightly edited email that Dangerous Minds pal Ann Magnuson sent me this morning regarding an amazing sounding art exhibit that she and artist Kenny Scharf are curating at the quirky Royal/T gallery in Los Angeles. Titled “East Village West” (in official partnership with “Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980”) the show aims to link the fabled New York neo-Dada art scene of the late 70s/early 80s that coalesced around Magnuson’s Club 57 nightclub with its campy Hollywood influences. In the words of the curators “Walt Disney, Russ Meyer, Roger Corman, The Beverly Hillbillies, Sonny & Cher, The Partridge Family, Hanna-Barbera, Ed Wood, Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, Sid and Marty Krofft, The Monkees, Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass, The Mamas & The Papas, the cast of Rowan & Martin’s LAUGH-IN, Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, Rodney Bingenheimer and his glam rock English Disco and every Shindig-lovin’, hullabaloo-ing teenager who ever rioted on the Sunset Strip.”
This is a museum-quality show, another art world score for Royal/T.
The exhibit is primarily art and ephemera from the collections and archives of Kenny and myself. Funny enough, I was finally sorting through all my East Village memorabilia when Kenny called me and asked if I’d take on the lions share of this curating job as he has a big show coming up and is painting night and day. It’s become massive! We have paintings, sculpture, fashions, video, photographs, ephemera….it is really a museum quality show! We focus primarily on Club 57 but there are many other elements as well…
We have art by Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, Jean-Michel Basquiat (one real and two of my fakes), Tseng Kwong Chi, John Sex, Kitty Brophy showing art she’s never shown before, Bruno Schmidt, Kenny Scharf, Ann Magnuson, Vincent Gallo, Frank Holliday, Scott Covert, Stefano Castronova, Nancy A. Kintisch, Greer Lankton’s Terri Toye doll, Paul Monroe, Plasticgod and Randy Focazio; photographs by Robert Carrithers, Harvey Wang, Ande Whyland, Lina Bertucci, Joseph Szkodzinski; video by Barry Shils, Steve Brown, Andy Rees, Tom Rubnitz, and others; fashions by Natasha Adonzio (Natasha N.Y.C.) and Katy K; special ‘vintage’ DJ mix by original Club 57 DJ Dany Johnson in the “Porta Party” installation pod; PLUS cool ephemera and rare video provided by original Club 57 members like Marc Shaiman & Scott Wittman, Kristian Hoffman, Howie Pyro, Naomi Regelson, Jerry Beck and so many more! PLUS excerpts from THE NOMI SONG (directed by Andrew Horn) and ARIAS WITH A TWIST (directed by Bobby Sheehan)!
We are showing a lot of John Sex’s art that has never been exhibited. He made these gorgeous silkscreens and several feature Klaus Nomi. We also have many of the beautiful large silkscreen posters he did for events at Club 57.
Joey Arias is sending us several of Klaus Nomi’ costumes. The Victoria and Albert Museum’s Postmodernism show is currently showing two of Klaus’ costumes. They wanted the vinyl coat that we will be exhibiting (a very early costume of Klaus’ that he had made based on the Sixties plastic raincoat Howie Pyro stole out of his mother’s closet so Klaus could use it to create his Nomi character that he debuted at the New Wave Vaudeville show). Joey couldn’t find it when he was gathering items for the V&A but he finally did find it and he sent it to us! (Howie is also DJ at the opening).
There is a beautiful slide show featuring work from 5 different photographers on the scene. LOADS of video including live footage from Club 57 never shown. Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (who won the Tony for HAIRSPRAY) did some of their first musicals at Club 57 and we have a clip from one of them. Clip from THE NOMI SONG about the New Wave Vaudeville show and clips from ARIAS WITH A TWIST to give the youngin’s a quick East Village history lesson.
Kenny Scharf videos (very Warholian if Warhol was a complete goofball), my MADE FOR TV, the video of the Ladies Auxilliary LADY WRESTLING night…
A compilation of our California influences that were transmitted into our still forming noggins via TV edited by Jonathon Stearns that I KNOW you are gonna love.
A special display for the Monster Movie Club (Howie Pyro lending us his MMC t-shirt).
Young members of the ‘new generation’ carrying on the tradition of Club 57 will be performing. Fresh off last seasons AMERICA’S GOT TALENT, Prince Poppycock will sing The Mumps song THAT FATAL CHARM to a track he is recording with Kristian Hoffman (who wrote the song). Another Hoffman hit is one originally sung by Klaus Nomi and sung by Timur of the Dime Museum who is simple astounding! Drag King Mo B. Dick is ‘coming out of retirement’ to do John Sex (John Waters says she is his favorite Drag King, she was featured in PECKER) , and more! (Everyone is listed in text below).
Austin Young is doing an on site art installation called CALIFORNIA NEW WAVE creating New Wave makeovers, Austin Young style.
Dany Johnson made a 4-hour DJ mix of her Club 57 favorites.
The list goes on! As you can see, the show and the opening in particular is going to be a bona fide old skool ART HAPPENING!
We encourage everyone to pull their pointy toed shoes and ripped fishnets out of mothballs and come on down!
We hope to inspire and encourage the young kids how to have fun and be wildly creative with no money! We did it during the first great recession, it can be done during the second!
The details: Royal/T presents East Village West, curated by Ann Magnuson and Kenny Scharf. From October 1, 2011 until January 10, 2012. Opening reception Saturday, October 1, 8-11pm
DJ Howie Pyro and performances by Prince Poppycock, Timur of The Dime Museum, Drag King “Mo B. Dick” as John Sex (along with “his” Bodacious Ta-Tas), Stacy Dawson Stearns, Gregory Barnett, and Meg Wolfe are The Psych-Out Dada Go-Go Family and of course Ann Magnuson and Kenny Scharf.
Plus video from Club 57 never before shown in public. Doughnuts are promised.
Below, a slideshow of some of Harvey Wang’s great photos of Club 57:
The Dirty Show®, Detroit’s infamous underground erotic art exhibition, returns to Los Angeles for another go-round June 10-11.
Instead of being held in a gallery space, this exhibition will be held in the “authentically appropriate” rooms of the sleazy City Center Hotel. (As they organizers admit: “You probably won’t find it in Frommers”).
“We see it as a mix between and exhibition and an art fair. A really fucked up art fair, but an art fair nonetheless,” Jerry Vile, The Dirty Show® founder says.
Artists will include actress/singer/performance artist Ann Magnuson, stained glass artisan Juan Martin del Campo Jr., photographer Greg Firlotte, painter Scooter LaForge, fashion illustrator Richard Haines, sculptor Cheryl Ekstrom, Carol Sixsixtysix, fashion stylist Bill Mullen, fetish photographer Steve Diet Goedde, painter Brian Viveros, fine art illustrator Jeff Wack, graphic designer Rick Morris, photographer Lisa Boyle, physique photographer Gabriel Goldberg and about 50 others. Special rooms will be curated by Pop Tart gallery founder Lenora Claire, Bughouse Design and Rick Castro’s Antebellum Gallery.
Lenora Claire writes:
“I thought it would cool to curate an entire room of erotic art by musicians as so many of them are talented in different mediums and call it GROUP SEX. Kid Infinity, who have the amazing 3D light show that was intended for Michael Jackson before he died, will be doing a really cool erotic 3-D video that people will have to watch with glasses and everything. So cool! Boobs are better in 3D.”
Other musicians participating in Lenora’s suite of the hotel include Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh, Cole Whittle (Semi Precious Weapons), and Brett Anderson (The Donnas). There will be a video installation by Steve Stevens (Billy Idol’s longtime guitarist) and erotic portraits of musicians by photographers Austin Young and Dean Karr.
The East Wing of the historic City Center provides 17 rooms staged as artist salons while retaining an adult bookstore vibe.
“Context is king,” quipped Vile.
Dirty Show® L.A. #2 (Hotel Edition), Fri & Sat June 10 & 11 8-11 p.m. City Center Hotel, 1135 West 7th Street, Downtown Los Angeles, $15
This weekend for two nights (Sat/Sun) at the intimate Steve Allen Theater, Ann Magnuson and backing band, the Star Whackers From Mars (Kristian Hoffman, Jonathan Lea, Joe Berardi, Kristi Callanand, Miiko Watanabe, plus guest performer Michael Des Barres), will present a special evening of David Bowie songs in honor of the Thin White Duke’s 64th birthday (which is January 8).
La Magnuson told the LA Weekly: “I’m not impersonating Bowie so much as rekindling the ecstasy of a teenager who is singing and dancing along to those records in the basement of the house she grew up in back in West Virginia. I feel all the radiant joy those songs brought me then - with all the attendant hormones and unbridled excitement over the endless possibilities that lay ahead. In short, I feel what Bowie was bringing to the world- permission to step out of the black & white mundanity of a Kansas farm house and enter the wild, wonderful Technicolor world of Oz! And since Bowie isn’t performing at all anymore, someone has got to sing these songs live on stage!”
As another teenaged Bowie fanatic from the hills of West Virginia, I add a “+1” to what Ann says. The shows are nearly sold out, but standing room tickets will still be sold on the night of the performances. And so you know, a “little birdie” (okay, Ann via email this morning) told me that like the Spiders from Mars’s last stand at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1973, this will probably be her last show for quite some time—and she’ll be doing her “infamous” Jobriath medley (not performed since 1997)—so be warned. You snooze, you’re gonna lose, got that?
The Steve Allen Theater at the Center for Inquiry-West, 4773 Hollywood Blvd. L.A., CA 90027 (323) 666-4268. Get Tickets here
Watch a FREE video stream of The Nomi Song, Andrew Horn’s excellent 2004 documentary about New Wave opera diva from outer-space, Klaus Nomi. Follows the rise of Nomi’s unlikely career until his death in 1983 from AIDS complications. With Kristian Hoffman, Kenny Scharf, Ann Magnuson, Tony Frere, Page Wood, David McDermott and in a great performance clip, David Bowie and Joey Arias. Oddly sponsored by American Express.
Club 57’s entertainment, much of it rooted in punk rock and an ironic take on campy TV re-run culture, had the same kind of “let’s get up and put on a show” spirit as a Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney musical, but against a much more decadent backdrop. It’s fascinating to see how this era is being defined by contemporary art historians, as well as first rate digital fare like this unique portfolio.
From photographer Robert Carrither’s statement:
I lived in New York during the early ‘80s, a very special unique time of creativity in New York. I was a regular at a place called Club 57 in the basement of a Polish church on St. Marks in the East Village. It was a creative laboratory that would change night after night with themes and happenings. One night there would be an art opening and then another night there would be bands, films or a crazed theme party. Many talented and fun people developed their art at Club 57 throughout this time. The following photographs capture some of these memorable people through portraits or at the various events.
Each of these photos has its own story. Please read them and you can understand each one better.
Carrithers: “Ann Magnuson was one of the founders and the first creative manager of Club 57. She developed her performance skills night after night going from one incredible character into the next. From Soviet lounge singer to country and western to heavy metal. She went from performance artist in the downtown 80’s New York to the thirteen all-girl band Pulsallama (and was the lead singer and lyricist for the band Bongwater and in the fun heavy metal band Vulcan Death Grip). She went on to Hollywood films and TV. A charming, talented chameleon performer. There really is way too much to write about her. It is best to go to and see for yourself: www.annmagnuson.com.”
Carrithers: “I guess I do not need to write too much about Keith. He was a regular at Club 57 and had his first shows there. He took off as an artist not so long after. An inspiring person and artist of the early 80’s in New York. I photographed him at one of his first shows outside of Club 57 somewhere on the west side of New York City.”
Dangerous Minds pal Ann Magnuson wrote a terrific appreciation of this year’s L.A. Opera’s Ring Cycle for Brand X and I thought I’d cross post it here, too, for your reading pleasure:
Like many opera illiterates, I used to associate Richard Wagner’s “Gotterdammerung” with one thing: Nazis. Those ominous strings, the rumbling timpani, the heroic heralding horns; they could mean only one thing ... more Hitler footage on the History Channel.
No more. Not after Sunday’s decidedly surreal and willfully nontraditional production directed and designed by the German artist and Bertolt Brecht protege, Achim Freyer.
“Gotterdammerung,” or “Twilight of the Gods,” is the final installment of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, and the L.A. Opera took a big chance giving Freyer the $32 million it cost to reinvent this cycle of four epic operas. And reinvent it he did. Gone are the horned helmets, the historical costumes and the idealized 19th century romanticism favored by purists bound to the literal. Freyer has, instead, presented an unsettling but beautiful dreamscape inspired by all the surreal, Dada and expressionistic urges that must have motivated practically every one of the “decadent” artists banned by the Third Reich.
Staged on a minimalist set often resembling a cosmic chess board, Wagner’s story of love, lust and betrayal (based on Norse myths and Germanic hero sagas), featured day-glow lighting, bizarre masks, haunting projections (my favorite was during the Act 2 wedding celebration when the red balloons seemed to transform into portentous red blood cells), make-up reminiscent of Heath Ledger’s psychotic Joker character, florescent tubes doubling as swords and Valkyries who look like drag queens. Siegfried, our hero, was literally dressed like Superman (complete with pumped-up faux muscles) while the evil Hagan, (presented as a paraplegic dwarf dressed like a dandy gangster in a bright yellow suit with hot pink gloves) conjured up memories of Klaus Maria Brandhauer in the 1981 film “Mephisto.”
Add an apocalyptic ending worthy of present doomsday predictions for 2012 and you have one helluva candy-colored Armageddon happening onstage at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion!
Not everyone was digging the Jungian excursion into the collective subconscious. “It’s nonsense!” “It’s junk!” “They got the horn all wrong!” But eavesdropping on outraged “Ring-nuts” (who, I hear, travel the world, like Deadheads, to see the various productions) was just part of the fun on Sunday afternoon. The more angry and pompous the Ring-nut, the more I applauded Freyer’s shamanistic visions!
Even though there were moments that whisked me back to New Wave performance art epics mounted by the Brooklyn Academy of Music in the mid-1980s (which may have been inspired by Freyer’s work), the nearly six-hour-long production kept me riveted throughout. So much so that I want to go back and see the entire Ring cycle when it is remounted in May.
And I plan to alert all my friends who, like me, were never opera fans but are likely to become fanatics after they take this psychedelic trip.
Oh, and the best part of all? Hitler would’ve hated every fabulous, subversive, Brechtian minute of it!
—Ann Magnuson
Photo: John Treleaven as Siegfried, left, Alan Held as Gunther, center, and Linda Watson as Brünnhilde in Act II. Photo: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times
Dangerous Minds pal Ann Magnuson was rather unceremoniously booted from Facebook this morning? If Facebook wants to look seriously unhip, picking on someone as awesomely cool as Ann Magnuson would seem to be the right way to go about it. But I’ll let Ann explain:
My photographer friend Austin Young called me today to ask if I was mad at him. Mad? Yeah, because he’d been blocked from my Facebook profile. Then my husband FWD’d me a message from a mutual FB friend that my page had been taken down.
“a question… call it odd coincidence, but i somehow just now noticed that ann has vanished from fb. hmmm… since i can’t imagine it was anything i said i’m hoping she didn’t get deviously hacked or something.—T”
I panicked. Deviously hacked??? What’s next? My bank account? But I went on FB and discovered my personal profile had, indeed, been disabled. WTF? I could not for the life of me figure out why.
UNLESS….
Unless it was a photo I did with Austin that I recently posted as my profile pic. It spoofed the iconic Roxy Music album cover for Country Life. We shot it over a year ago. It was a bit of an afterthought but it turned out so fantabulous that I wanted to save it for something special. But on March 29th my husband sent me this:
...with the explanation:
“New album from J. Mascis and some other dude who was in a band called Cobra Verde in the 90’s.”
DAMN! I knew Austin and I better get our “Country Life” cover out into the world TOOT SWEET lest we be accused of copying Mr. Mascis. (Oddly enough, I was saving OUR cover to use for future artwork on a CD of my own Seventies-inspired tunes and cover versions. Oh well.)
So I posted it on Easter. It seemed as appropriate as candy-colored Peeps or chocolate bunnies.. I thought, well, it is a TAD racy but not really considering what’s out there these days—case in point: Michelle “Bombshell” McGee. I mean, I wasn’t wearing a Nazi’s officer’s cap with outstretched arm and improvised Hitler ‘tache.
But someone must’ve complained. I read the FB fine print. “Obscene”? “Pornographic?” It seemed pretty harmless to me. (The only violation may have been the copious amount of photoshopping.) I suspect that complaint MIGHT have come from someone in my homestate of West Virginia. I’ve had to block a few of ‘em for the right-wing harangues. I try to be friends with everyone but….it can’t always be done.
Or maybe not? Maybe was it my last comments railing against Don Blankenship and Massey Coal for all the safety violations that are ignored time and time again until we lose more miners’ lives back in West Virginia? (Not to mention Massey’s mountaintop removal rape of Almost Heaven, turning huge swathes of the Appalachian mountains into Almost Hell). Or…WHAT?
Whatever the reason, I’m somewhat relieved to be off the damn thing. I’ve found I have a LOT more free time. Hey, I’m reading books! But I miss my 4,000 plus ‘friends’. Even the ones I really know!
Facebook, what gives? Can I have my original profile page back? There were so many great comments on that photo, the best being from someone who knew the original photographer of the original Roxy album cover who offered all sorts of insider info on how the photo was shot and who those girls were and what Bryan Ferry was up to in Spain where he found them!
.
Forget about Twilight or that lame True Blood series, this is how vampire should be done! The insanely brilliant opening moments—featuring Bauhaus performing Bela Lugosi’s Dead—from Tony Scott’s 1983 film, The Hunger has lost none of its power over the years. The film stars Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie and Susan Sarandon and if you haven’t seen it, it’s a sexy, smart delight. The unlucky goth chick who is the recipient of Bowie’s vampiric intentions in this scene was played by none other than Dangerous Minds pal, singer/actress Ann Magnuson.
This is one of the great opening scenes of any movie ever made if you ask me. I actually saw this in a theater all by myself—or so I thought—and the effect was electrifying. I was 17 at the time and I’d just gotten massively baked in the parking lot. I walked in, sat down to THIS and just when things calmed down a bit onscreen, I was scared witless by an extremely elderly woman, who had been sleeping two rows in front of me, suddenly darting up and staring straight at me and wagging her finger in my face!
This Saturday night at the Downtown Independent there will be a special anthology screening of the 2009 video and film work by The Masses, a film production collective started by director Matthew Amado, Jon Ramos and the late Heath Ledger. Work featuring artists such as Modest Mouse, Daedalus, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, the Dodos and many others will screened, along with a new short directed by actress-singer Ann Magnuson, who described her film as being about “a time-traveling hooker who meets up with the spirit of Gram Parsons (played by Grant Leuchtner) in Joshua Tree.”
After the screening Magnuson will perform a new spoken word piece backed by Dublab.
Downtown Independent, 251 S. Main St., Los Angeles.
Saturday, Nov. 14, 8 p.m., $10.
i’m hoping she didn’t get deviously hacked or something.—T”
has lost none of its power over the years. The film stars Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie and Susan Sarandon and if you haven’t seen it, it’s a sexy, smart delight. The unlucky goth chick who is the recipient of Bowie’s vampiric intentions in this scene was played by none other than Dangerous Minds pal, singer/actress 