Prelude to the Beginning!

Well, even though I have too much on my plate, I thought I'd keep a blog through the next two weeks. Why not record my thoughts, and invite yours.

Ron just got back from Berlin, and his head is still spinning from a whirlwind trip of performance, and meetings preparing for his upcoming turn directing the Cheap Collective and their production "Cheap Daddy" (click here for Vaginal Davis's turn in Cheap Blackie.) He gave a provocative, perhaps jetlag induced hallucinatory artists talk at UCR yesterday - to students who seemed a little stunned at first, and then full of questions. I've never seen so many people ask about his involvement with the deathrock band Christian Death! Gotta love the IE, for getting right to the heart of the matter.

Ron's work extends the energy and the spirit of the spaces of defiance I remember from back then - the late 70s, the 80s. When it seemed like everyone was in a band, making art, making noise, and making a spectacle of themselves. I think folks in the I.E. are more tapped into that vibe than are folks swimming in more official art waters.

With that - below is a youtube photo montage set to a Premature Ejaculation (Athey's collaboration with CD's Roz Williams) track. Listening to it now, I think "this is DARK". And then I think, "You know, I listened a lot of this kind of thing when I was about 20, and soaked in misery." It helped. Ron mentioned in his talk last night that he thinks of his work in terms of healing - but not healing as not a gentle process - more a painful working through, a burning, a wringing out. This makes a lot of sense to me especially when I think about what deathrock, punk, and noise meant to me back then.