True stories of totally undeserved suffering. Spectacularly depressing. Nobody gets their just deserts. Crushing defeats. No happy endings. Abject misery. Pointless, endless grief.

No lessons of temperance or moderation. No saving grace. No divine intervention. No salvation.

Sin, suffering, redemption. That’s the movie, that’s the front page news, that’s the story of popular culture–of American culture. A ray of hope. A comeuppance. An all-for-the-best. Makes it easier to deal with the world’s misery–to know that there’s a reason behind it, that it’ll always work out in the end, that people get what they deserve. The fact: sometimes people suffer for no reason. No sin, no redemption–just suffering, suffering, suffering. Tales of Woe compiles today’s most awful narratives of human wretchedness. This is not Hollywood catharsis (someone overcomes something and the viewer is uplifted), this is the katharsis of Ancient Greece: you watch people suffer horribly, and then feel better about your own life. Tales of Woe tells stories of murder, accident, depravity, cruelty, and senseless unhappiness: and all true.

The Tales: strange, unexpected, morbidly enticing. Told straight–with elegance, restraint, and simplicity. The design: a one-of-kind white text on black paper, fluidly readable, and coupled with fifty pages of full-color art. - John Reed

Check out the website at www.talesofwoe.com for details about the book and all the artists (be forewarned: if you’re at work, the intro page has audio!). The lovely and amazing Lis Alba illustrated several of the Tales too…check them out on the book’s site!

This one is still my favorite…love her!

I never get around to blogging, so don’t be surprised that this album was released at the end of November! This is Radio Eris‘ best album, hands-down, and is a must for anyone who’s sick of the slickly overproduced sounds and clumsy high-school lyrics all over the radio, movies and TV these days.  Full disclosure: I love this album and I love my cover for it. I can’t stop listening; each song is a blessed relief to my ears and heart. As if that weren’t enough, the band even put the album online so that anyone can listen to it for free! You should buy the CD afterward though.

Following is the story of the album’s process as well as singer/songwriter Lora Bloom herself on the thoughts and emotions behind the songs.

BROADCAST MUSE recorded in 2008-2009 at Eris Temple, the band’s West Philadelphia headquarters/performance gallery is, as with all Radio Eris releases, a fully DIY operation, recorded and mixed by mad-professor keyboard/bassist Matt Stevenson. Amazingly, it is the band’s first album in a almost a decade (since Beautiful Losers in 2000) to feature their repoirtoire of written, studio-rehearsed songs.   Previous albums Strength, Monkey Island, and The Cruel Tutelage of Master Hotei or Who is Toulouse Turac leaned more towards the band’s spoken-word, electronic,  experimental and improvisatory sides, though with a rising tide of rock structure and progression that seems to coalesce into Broadcast Muse’s tightly-arranged bouquet of rock styles.

The suite of songs presented on Broadcast Muse will be recognizable to long-time fans of the band’s dynamic and unpredictable live performances.  Radio Eris sets often involve a tension between free-form explorations and oddly-wrought songs.  The avant-gardisms don’t stop them from indulging in sixties garage and seventies punk influenced moments, such as  in the offbeat  “Yellow” and bleak  ”Deafend”, or in such classic rock moves as the blues jam that runs through a spectral take on the traditional song “Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child“ (discovered in an ancient Pete Seegar songbook).

The album also features  a cover song: an epic, doom-laden take on Tom Waits’s “Dirt In The Ground” , one of a number of opportunities to showcase Dan “Redbeard” Baker’s psychotic mastery of the guitar solo.  “Pale Lights” and “Work Song” offer 90s-vintage distortion and drone, while the delicately fractured piano ballad “Remember” and opener “Caul” with its chiming central guitar figure played by vocalist Lora Bloom, take place in a hushed, spacious sonic mode carved out by sound sculptor Kenneth “The Extremist”.

On a more somber note, this was the final album recorded with beloved drummer Lisa Sunshine, a vital aspect in the creation and development of all pieces on Broadcast Muse, who has moved on to pursue her solo songwriting career.  Current Radio Eris drummer Brad Rothman takes the wheel gracefully and adds his unique energy to the live versions of these strange songs.

Radio Eris vocalist/poet lyricist Lora Bloom discusses lyrics and themes on Broadcast Muse:

“I feel it is a perfect  partnership to be working with Delia Gable  for the album art and Sara Sherr for the CD release because there is a strong female-energy that runs through the lyrics  and a spirituality and deep emotional current behind many of the songs on Broadcast Muse.

Caul has all kinds of vaguely disturbing images of parts of women’s bodies, and Work Song and Pale Lights were both inspired by my experiences as an exotic dancer. Work Song was originally a spontaneous improvisation that was released  as-is on the album Strength and it talks about the way it feels to make money so intimately, literally on your body, dollar by dollar, while Pale Lights has a more symbolic/emotional tone, the feeling of being under the lights, scrutinized for the pleasure of the crowd.

Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child was originally sung by slaves on plantations and it seems to conjure a timeless and universal emotion of loneliness and despair.   Remember is me imagining the dead looking back on life and how it would feel to them, which sort of juxtaposes with Dirt in the Ground, written by my hero Tom Waits, a song about the inevitability of death and the way this taints our lives. 

Yellow was just sort of a playful romp making connections with the concept of yellow; I loved connecting the Beatles’  Yellow Submarine with the yellow submarine in the Illuminatus Trilogy.   Deafend was written shortly after 9/11 and is about the silence at the heart of tragedy that we who try to live normal lives can neither express nor comprehend.”

Things have been pretty crazy lately, and I’ve been working on some other projects like photography, some new collaborations with writers and, of course, comics. More updates soon!

HORNS AND HALOS Group Art Show @ Claude Gallery
Opening: 7pm Saturday December 5th 2009

The Claude Gallery in Eastchester, New York in conjunction with TVT Productions presents their fourth theme group art show HORNS AND HALOS with a great line up of over 30 talented artists from across the country. The curators of this show are RT Vegas, Frankie Teardrop and J. Tonga.

The opening festivities will commence on Saturday December 5th from 7 pm until 1 am. Complimentary refreshments will be served throughout the evening. Live music will be played in the basement sound studio of the gallery starting at 10pm. Your host will be gallery owner Artie Walker.

(flyer design: Delia Gable)

*** PRESS RELEASE***
TIKIS AND TATTOOS Group Art Show@ Claude Gallery
Opening: 7pm May 2nd, 2009

The Claude Gallery in Eastchester, New York presents their third theme art show: Tikis and Tattoos, with a line up of over 20 talented artists from across the United States. The curators of this show are J. Tonga, Frankie Teardrop and RT Vegas. All of the art at this show will be associated with Tikis and/or Tattoos.

The opening festivities will commence on Saturday May 2nd from 7 p.m until 1 a.m. Complimentary refreshments will be served throughout the evening. A live musician jam session will coincide with art opening starting at 9 p.m. and will be held in the basement sound studio of the Claude Gallery. Your host will be gallery owner Artie Walker.

FEATURED ARTISTS:
THOM DOWNS
RICHARD FUGGETTA
H. S. OLDE MONK INK
NIK CAESAR
MISTAH METRO
DON VEE
SCOTT JONES
CHRIS MACHIN
MIKE RIMBAUD
TOM WILKINSON
M6M
MARYANN HAMEL
LISA POST
FRANONYMOUS
DELIA C. GABLE
TEMPLE TERKILDSEN
ADAM ZUCKER
DON BUFF
VERMIN
D. V. S.
J. TONGA
FRANKIE TEARDROP
RT VEGAS

TIKIS AND TATTOOS Art Show at the Claude Gallery
Runs from May 2nd through May 30th 2009
The Claude Gallery
282 Main Street
Eastchester, New York 10707
Artie Walker, owner
(914) 779-8822

1. illustrations & CD interior design for electro-pop-punk sex queen Jasper James (myspace.com/jasperjamesmusic) (images below)

2. works on display at Harmony Designs (harmonydesignsfurniture.com) in Mount Vernon, NY

3. recently completed portrait commission (image below)

4. illustrations in John Reed’s Tales Of Woe (talesofwoe.com), to be released by MTV Books in Fall 2009 (images below)

#1.

individual portraits

#3.

“Fish Story”: commissioned for a woman who loves fishing (pencil, digital color)

#4.

“The Chimney Hick” (L); “Fashionista Feast Of Sisters” (R)