Radio Tania

Music, Electric Style

This week I spoke with Academy Award winning filmmaker Davis Guggenheim (also the director of An Inconvenient Truth) about his latest film, It Might Get Loud. This film centers on the history, evolution, and artistry of the electric guitar through three of the most significant guitarists of our time: Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), The Edge (U2), and Jack White (The White Stripes). Blending concert footage with interviews with the musicians, Guggenheim highlights three unique approaches to the electric guitar.

The legendary Jimmy Page,an undeniable influence on all of today's musicians, equates playing guitar to having sex, likening the curves of the guitar to those of a female body and comparing the progression of "Stairway to Heaven" to making love, gradually building in sound and intensity to the equivalent of a guitar climax.

The Edge, real name David Howell Evans, has a sound that is at once melodic and abrasive, focusing on heavy distortion, delay and effects pedals to create more of the arena rock sound that distinguishes U2 from other bands.

Known for his minimalist rock sound, Jack White articulates the influence that old blues musicians have had on his sound and style. One scene shows White playing the song "Blue Vein" with his band The Raconteurs and he seems to be engaged in a violent struggle with his guitar, playing it so hard that his hands visibly bleed all over it.

In the film, Page, The Edge and White come together for a meeting (which ends up being a jam session) perfectly exemplifying how the electric guitar can produce varying sounds and effects based on the techniques with which it is played, and that it is a language onto itself.

 

Next week I will be speaking with Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, the director of the film, "Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love." The film focuses on world-renowned singer Youssou N'Dour, who is credited with popularizing mbalax, a genre that combines traditional griot percussion, praise-singing and Afro-Cuban arrangements. The film documents the frustrations that N'Dour has with the world's misconceptions of  Islam as a violent and dangerous religion. In an attempt to convey to the world the positive messages found in Islam, N'Dour released "Egypt" in 2004, a heavily spiritual album that found success with Western audiences but stirred up a big pot of controversy in his home country of Senegal for what many said was a blasphemous integration of sacred Muslim themes into his songs. Vasarhelyi follows N'Dour from Senegal to Paris to New York and every in between to capture the artistry and charisma that is Youssou N'Dour.

John Baldessari

As promised, here are some images of John Baldessari's work. 

Levels of Intimacy

Neil Young's box set, titled Archives, was released a couple of months ago to great acclaim. Made up of 10 Blu-ray discs, each holding 50 gigs of information, it is truly Neil Young's life in a box. There’s a beautiful moment we stumble upon in the box set where we see a film showing Young leaning out of an old car on his property in the hills of California, a land that I am so intimately connected to from having grown up here and watching the subtle changes of coastal light, and he says, “No matter how many people are around me, I keep talking about all the things that go on inside me.” The joy and vulnerability on his face against the bright blue sky suddenly made me see him as a dreamer, as someone who followed the only thing that he could do and followed it fully, preserving all the evidence of that journey in his music.

Humpday is the winner of the 2009 Sundance Special Jury Prize for Spirit of Independence and screened at the Cannes Film Festival, the Edinburgh Film Festival, the Los Angeles Film Festival and the Seattle International Film Festival. I spoke with Lynn Shelton when she was in San Francisco and you can find that interview on the Radio Tania website.

 

John Baldessari has been called an LA artist, a conceptual artist, a pop-artist, but is quite simply and completely an artist. Winner of the  2009 Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale, Baldessari is one of the most important artists living and working today. In October, he will have a retrospective at the Tate that will travel to Barcelona, Los Angeles and New York. Stay tuned for an article on him in The Times.

Piet Mondrian, Broadway Boogie Woogie (detail)

Piet Mondrian, Broadway Boogie Woogie (1942-43)

 

Pop-Up Magazines, Pictures and Kitchens

On April 22nd, Pop-Up Magazine had their first event and I was delighted to be involved as one of the performances of the night with my friend and partner Ahri Golden. We filled out the "Society" section of the night, showing material from "Born," our piece about the postpartum experience in America. Here is the clip we played.

The Pop-Up Magazine event was a confetti of talented artists, one of which being Bay Area artist Todd Hido, who showed photographs from his recent series, "foreclosed homes." 

Also in attendance was Larry Sultan who entertained the crowd with his fictional family history that he devised from images in a  photo album he found years ago. Above is Sultan's photograph (not from the photo album) titled, "Mom Posing By Green Wall And Dad Watching TV."

I interviewed Larry Sultan several years ago, lovely man.

The ever-brilliant Kitchen Sisters who produce and host the NPR series, "Hidden Kitchens," showcased their new piece "One Big Soul" which looks to reveal the secret life of girls.

A most extraordinary piece

Yesterday, I went to gather a gift from the Museum of Modern Art here in San Francisco. It was part of a project by Jochen Gerz who had a piece in an exhibition called The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now. I interviewed the curator and was taken by this piece. What we had to do, as visitors, was stand in line and have our picture taken, a head shot, no smiling, just looking straight into the camera. That picture was then printed and framed and exhibited in the Museum for several weeks, amongst several hundred other faces. At the end of the exhibition, those who participated got a gift and many assumed it would be the image of themselves. We were suggested to go down to the museum and pick up the gift on a Sunday between 1-5. When I got to the Museum, I surely didn't expect to see a couple hundred people there standing in line for their gift. I also didn't know that the image we would receive would not be our own but rather that of another person. I was relieved by the fact that I wouldn't receive an image of myself (because why would I put that up on the wall) and I was excited that somehow, some way another person would become part of my life, almost randomly. At the offering of The Gift, Jochen Gerz was there, giving out the pieces. People in line were so excited, amazed, laughing and wondering about the value of this gift. It extended the project, it surprised, it offered a connection and it reminded us of how we are all part of each other, this collective experience we had, and have regularly. Jochen Gerz himself that as you look into the face of this stranger, you see yourself, regardless of race, class or gender.

I made a podcast!

I did it! I made a podcast! I have been wanting to make a podcast of Sight Unseen, particularly so that my friend Michael could listen to the show (Michael is the person I drove around America with who is highlighted in the Happiness piece I produced for Studio 360). I am not quite sure why it took me so long to make this when 13 year olds across the world are creating podcasts but it did and now, well soon, you can look for Sight Unseen in iTunes. So check it out. The first one is the Steven Soderbergh interview (with an intro of Che at the start). Enjoy....

Wim Wenders and Steven Soderbergh and me

OK, so I have a couple of exciting interviews coming up in the next week and while I normally don't voice my excitement over these sorts of things (people had to pry it out that I had interviewed His Holiness the Dalai Lama), this time I am changing my ways. Maybe it's a 2009 thing, the year of the ox supposedly, a year of great struggle and great work. Maybe it's just that I am really looking forward to these two interviews with Steven Soderbergh and Wim Wenders. Regardless, I wanted to share a few things about each director. First, Philip and I just got through seeing CHE, Soderbergh's epic film about the legendary, near mythical revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, played by a subdued and potent Benicio del Toro. It was an interesting role for him, and one that must have meant a great deal to him since he co-produced CHE. It takes great passion and drive to produce a film. I also wonder about the challenges of making films about legendary figures. The film was gorgeous and deserved the four plus hours of screen time because it offered the pace and sense and challenge of starting revolutions. From the lush, jungle quality of Cuba's countryside to the arid mountains of Bolivia, the cinematorgraphy was magnificent and real. For those interested in revolutionaries or in Che himself, I recommend it. Then next week, I am speaking with Wim Wenders about his recent film Palermo Shooting. I have interviewed Wenders before but I have always worried that in that interview I confused him with Werner Herzog. I think I might have said, "in your previous film, Grizzly Man...." Oops! I hope that didn't happen but at least I have a second chance to redeem myself!