Drayton Hiers

This Promises to Be. The Party. Of the Year.

To say any more would ruin the surprise.

Our second night of the tour, we played at Eyedrum, a super funky art gallery and performance space near downtown Atlanta. I had come to Atlanta with a lot of trepidation - as a Southerner, I’d always regarded Atlanta as something of a Northern monstrosity in the midst of the Deep South - but it was actually a very charming place, the nearest thing the South has to a Los Angeles type city, with both the good and bad that implies. (As a side note, Dallas is arguably even more LA than Atlanta, but Dallas is less a city than a giant mistake parceled up into areas that consider themselves neighborhoods, so I’m dismissing it out of hand.)

We spent the afternoon resting and hanging out with Lily’s cousin, and then descended upon the gravel parking lot of Eyedrum, where Evan felt compelled to spin some donuts - in our minivan - with our mannequins up on the roof and instruments in the back - in front of the water tower.

The guys went out to get barbecue on our dinner break, and then Evan and Adam snuck a swig of whiskey in the van before the show, as if they were hiding a shared cigarette from their parents, all of which might go some distance to explaining the following performance. This, by the way, easily makes my top ten list of great moments on the tour. I don’t know what it will take to entice Evan to do a repeat performance, but hopefully it won’t be too long in coming.

(Since we’re coming into this in the middle of the story: a girl’s out on her own, camping, but keeps getting the feeling she’s being watched…)

I’m not sure if Eyedrum has recovered yet.

Many months ago, when I was visiting Amsterdam for what may turn out to be the last time for a number of years (after visiting or living there every year since 2003), I went to Rotterdam to do some investigation into the art scene. Friends in Amsterdam had been telling me that to truly get a taste of the underground art world, I would have to head to - well, really, I’d have to go to Berlin, but failing that, I could go to Rotterdam. So I went.

I turned the results into an essay that was featured in Ins&Outs,a local magazine put out by some arty folks up in Long Island City. A sample of it goes like this:

“Rotterdam has a very active scene for being still a small city,” Ties explains. We’re drinking tea in his live-work space in an old public school in the Charlois neighborhood of Rotterdam. The building was squatted nearly twenty years ago by a bunch of art students who had formed their own foundation, and is now an important arts and event space in the city’s working class South Side. “You look at Berlin and things are happening every night and there’s so much energy, but Berlin is maybe twenty times the size of Rotterdam. And it feels like a lot of what’s happening there is as much about being able to do something, rather than the quality of the work. I think we get to focus more on the work we’re doing here.”

He explains that artists in Rotterdam are more interested in building an identity and a community for themselves. They are undertaking initiatives to work with each other on large scale projects, as well as bringing in artists from around the world. “We have to work together,” Ties says. “It’s the only way to survive.”

For the full story, follow this link to Ins&Outs, and then click on “Planet”.

So I am fresh back from the road, after spending two weeks bombing through the southeast and midwest in a van with the Suite Unraveling. After workshopping our show here in New York for the last half year, going on tour was my first real chance to play the show night after night, and really settle into a groove with what I do as part of the band.

We started the show in Athens, Georgia, a mecca of sorts for off-the-radar music, and we had a phenomenal response. We were fortunate to share the stage at the Caledonia Lounge with Antarctic, as well as some great Athens area bands, and we were even visited by Mike White, of Deadly Designs. He took some amazing photos of our gig that night. A few can be seen below, for the rest you’ll need to click on the link above.

Thanks so much to Mike for all of the photographs.

Annie Reichert, late of Flux Factory but partying it up in North Carolina, is doing a residency at Elsewhere and has been forced to keep a blog while she is there. It’s fair to say that Annie went into blogging kicking and screaming, but it’s also fair to say that her blog is amazing. This really shouldn’t be a surprise, seeing as Annie is amazing.

Annie has turned her artists’ residency into a baking extravaganza, including this dish, which I am looking forward to eating when she returns to New York in a few weeks. It’s a maple bacon cake, with vegan frosting. Which is exactly the kind of veganism that I’m into (you do know that I’m a vegetarian who eats meat, right?). Here is a picture:

And here is her blog. Enjoy.

Unless, of course, you want to have fun. But even then, be careful how much wine you let her put in your glass.

In a not entirely related note, I bring you this video, which is actually her video, but which I am in, making a fool of myself, which is my currency in this fair city.

Katrine and Tarjei from christina kral on Vimeo.

Last week, a few of us from Eyebeam went to see the staff show at the Phillips Gallery, which is down the street in the Milk building, across from Chelsea Market (I mention these places because in a few years time they won’t be there anymore). I hadn’t really been aware that Eyebeam was a type, rather than a place, or that - seeing as how Eyebeam is my day job rather than my art job - Eyebeam as a type would apply to me, but being at this opening, I have never felt more Eyebeam.

Looking at Christina, Friedrich and Jamie, seeing how we were dressed, how we carried ourselves, compared to all of those around us; thinking of the people who come to our openings at Eyebeam, or even how I dress when I want to be “fancy” at an Eyebeam opening (and you do know that I was fashion blogged at the last Eyebeam MIXER), and I realized:

Eyebeam is a type, and Eyebeam is a state of being, and we are all very Eyebeam, and everyone else at this opening - the Phillips opening - is very hip artiste, and while I wouldn’t go so far as to say “never the twain shall meet”, I would say this is a Venn diagram situation and the area of overlap is very specific.

Which I think our behavior only goes to prove.

July 31, 2008 Phillips Gallery Chelsea from christina kral on Vimeo.

And we weren’t even the ones drinking.

This video is one of a series that Christina is working on while doing a residency here in the States. You can see more at her website Video Days.

In the bathroom at Here Arts Center:

I’m not really sure if this is comedy or tragedy.  Maybe a little of both.

In any event, I put it to good use.

Jane Montosi, set to make her Zebra Crossing debut tomorrow night in the new episode of “Wikipedia Brown”, was recently interviewed by the folks over at The Fab Marquee.  Along with the revelation that Jane was an eight year old Ophelia, the talk gives a fairly good run down of what to expect from the show even if - spoiler alert! - she does give away the big surprise (or at least one of them).  Read the full article here.