Bike Culture: A Roundup

How to slam-dunk rubbish, or what abandoned bikes have to do with the economy of war.

By now you likely know that we’re devoted to bikes, to riding them as well as admiring them in all their variety. Today we’d like to steer you to three waypoints in the growing bike culture trend—at least we hope it’s both growing and a trend.

BICYCLE INFRASTRUCTURE

David Byrne’s New York City bike racks (remember those?) double as an editorial in iron—each rack is designed to comment on the character of the neighborhood, its businesses and denizens.

We all know that lots of adults ride bikes in Copenhagen—about 30% of that city’s population regularly commutes by bike. That compares to about .07% of New Yorkers. So it makes sense that the city planners would think of all the little improvements aimed at making the cyclist comfortable, such as this footrest.

David Hembrow documents life on a bike in a country perhaps most deeply associated with practical riding in everyday life, The Netherlands. In his blog, “A view from the cycle path,” David recently showed how civil and green the Dutch can be, all without stepping off their bike — rubbish receptacles for coasting and disposing.

For the big bicycle picture, for advancing its place at the center of US politics, there’s the Bike Caucus, run by congressman Earl Blumenthal who always begins his speeches on behalf of the caucus with a dedication to all those Americans stuck in traffic on the way to the gym to ride a stationary bike.

To chart not only the increase in bike-friendly infrastructure, but also to chart your next ride, use the new Google Maps directions for cyclists. Map it, cycle it, and then give Google your feedback—all ways to do your own two-wheeler activism.

BICYCLE ART & STYLE

Joe Schumacher is a NYC-based photographer who walks a lot and takes pictures of things he finds. His blog, what about the plastic animals?, captures the off-beat and pedestrian, but we’d like to direct you to his haunting and beautiful photos of abandoned bicycles of Gotham.

Those who don’t abandon their bikes can also evoke a striking scene. Perhaps a cousin of steampunk, the Bicycle Tweed movement is rolling through cities across the U.S. Here’s the site dedicated to San Francisans astride their velos and attired in their distinctive and antique wool.

Art and commerce come coasting together at Bertelli Bici in New York City. The site’s photography is simple and gorgeous and these bikes, built from a combination of old and new parts, achieve a kind of sculptural beauty.

BICYCLE ACTIVISM, OF SORTS

We all know about the Critical Mass movement spreading around the world. But devoted cyclists have a nice set of alternatives to express their dreams of making the world a better place. One organization we’ve long admired is Bikes Not Bombs in Boston. It’s an organization that stitches together community, education and employment of the under served, and bicycle culture as an alternative to cars, the oil economy, and war.

And what could be less threatening than a kid on a bike looking for a high five? Well, not so much if that kid happens to be a SCUL pilot steering a ship called Angry Candy and offering a high five from about six or seven feet up, roughly the position of a pilot on a typical SCUL ship. SCUL (Subversive Choppers Urban Legion) is a Massachusetts-based “anti-elite band of pilots testing out experimental ships, exploring the Greater Boston Star systems and occasionally other galaxies” from their “subspace communication broadcast headquarters.”

Finally, we’ve got to give a shout out to our local bike culture faves, the volunteers at Bikerowave. Lots of cities have them, but this LA neighborhood tool library and DIY bike repair hangout has a great vibe and lots of knowledgeable and friendly volunteers.

Andrew Lynch is a refugee from the academy now working in advertising. While he sometimes misses writing heady sentences including words like “teleological”, he’s enjoying his stint decoding the more varied and messy signs and symbols of pop culture, consumer trends, and brand stories.

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The Museum of Everything

What Disney animation, Kabuki performance art and styrofoam trays have in common.

The world of contemporary art, for all its global reach, is relatively small. A select group of collectors, critics, and curators define an equally select group of artists as “in,” and those same names repeatedly fill exhibitions and installations from Amsterdam to Venice. Not for nothing is the string of major art festivals called a circuit.

What’s left out, on the other hand, is a vast range of work that for the first time has a dedicated space in the UK. Just open this month, the Museum of Everything in northwest London calls itself a place “for artists and creators living outside our modern society.” And indeed, most of the names shown at the Museum will be unfamiliar to the art-world denizens currently in Regent Park for the annual Frieze Art Fair. (To our knowledge, this is the first such museum in Europe; however, the American Visionary Art Museum and other museums of so-called folk art have significant institutional legacies.)

Located in a former dairy factory in Primrose Hill, the Museum of Everything displays work typically called intuitive or outsider art. No one genre defines the collection, and “mixed media” is the descriptor that accompanies much of the work. What the artists do have in common, however, is that they are all self-taught and create work with singular and distinctive vision.

Sister Gertrude Morgan, 'God's Greatest Hits,' 1978

Sister Gertrude Morgan was a self-proclaimed missionary, poet, and musician whose self-portraits on paper, styrofoam trays, and window shades often depict her as a bride of Christ. A more widely known name, Henry Darger worked as a custodian in Chicago for more than fifty years while also creating elaborate drawings and paintings based on a fully formed fantasy world and narrative.

Henry Darger

One artist whose work we discovered thanks to the Museum is Kunizo Matsumoto. The Japanese-born Matsumoto fills notebook upon notebook with stories of the things he loves, among them Disney animations and Bunraku and Kabuki performance art. The densely covered pages seem to speak in shibboleths, scripts whose real meaning remain mysterious to all but the artist himself.

Kunizo Matsumoto

James Brett, the Museum of Everything’s founder, is a filmmaker who has collected these visionary works for years. In addition to his own selections, the Museum’s inaugural exhibition was curated by some very “inside” artists and cultural figures. David Byrne, critic Hans Ulrich Obrist, and artist Marcel Dzama are among the big names involved, ironically drawing the fringe inside the typically closed contemporary-art circuit.

Brett’s collection comprises artists’ complex inner worlds, replete with characters, codes, and customs we may not understand. We can, however, enjoy them, and be grateful that places such as the Museum of Everything have discovered this art and given it a place to call home.

Use the Museum’s list of artists as a jumping-off point from which to explore their worlds.

Kirstin Butler has a Bachelor’s in art & architectural history and a Master’s in public policy from Harvard University. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn as a freelance editor and researcher, where she also spends way too much time on Twitter. For more of her thoughts, check out her videoblog.

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Music Spotlight: This Must Be The Place

Axe-swinging, rope-jumping, or what David Byrne and Christian Bale have in common.

We love David Byrne. (Heck, he even has his own tag around here.) And we love remix culture. So, naturally, we’re all over actor-slash-singer Miles Fisher‘s electro-pop cover of The Talking Heads’ This Must Be The Place (Naïve Melody), in the video for which Fisher recreates scenes from iconic film culture hallmark American Psycho.

The cover is a free download on Fisher’s site and comes as a promo for his self-titled EP, which compensates for its — we’re sorry to say — lack of depth with incredible catchiness of the can’t-get-it-out-of-your-head variety.

Not a bad trade-off on a hot summer day.

Monday Music Muse: Brain-Picking Ghost Away

What Radiohead and Japanese cuisine have in common, or why the future of the music business is in the hands of those who just love making it.

Today, we’re doing something a little different — we’re picking the brains of an indie band we love, Ghost Away, whom you may remember from encounters past. Their music is part Radiohead, part Byrne/Eno, part Beck, part experimental recording project unlike anything you’ve heard before.

And it doesn’t hurt that Eric Haag (vocals, guitar, keys, laptop) and Brian Medlin (vocals, keys, drums) are two incredibly smart, forward-thinking guys, either. 

You were among those few progressive artists to “pull a Radiohead” and give your albums away as free downloads online. What was your reasoning?

Brian: The idea was to get as many people as possible to hear the record. We’re very proud of it. It being our first record, we wanted to give people an excuse to check it out. Everyone is constantly being bombarded with new music on the internet. So I think people need an excuse to check something out for the first time.

Eric: Also, we produced it entirely on our own, out of our own pocket, recorded in practice spaces and living rooms, not expensive studios. We have released stuff through labels with other bands, them paying for the studio time and helping to promote it, but this was different. It started as a side-project. A just-for-fun kind of thing. We had been working on it for years, and just wanted to get it out there. We probably discussed this for about 5 minutes. We knew that giving it away for free would get it to the most people, and there was really no need to shop it around. If we had released in on a label, they probably would have been able to help promote it, of course, but we were impatient and just wanted to do it ourselves.

Possibly the toughest question to ask any music fanatic: What’s your all-time favorite album? Why?

Brian: This is a hard question, one I can’t truely answer. I can tell you that Radiohead is probably my favorite band. And I would have to pick Radiohead’s OK Computer. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s my favorite of theirs or it’s their best. It’s just the one album that comes to mind simply because it’s the album that got me into them. I loved it when it came out, and I still love it today. It’s a personal classic album to me, and I’m sure to many other people.

Bob Dylan is another one of my favorite artists. It’s just really hard to narrow down your favorites to one thing they’ve done. It’s really all about their entire body of work.

Eric: Yeah, I feel the same way. I have never been a good list-maker or favorite-picker. I agree Radiohead is one of the best bands out there, but it’s not because of one particular album, it’s their depth and breadth that make them who they are. For me it was Kid A that really made me notice them, and by the time Hail to the Thief came out I was practically salivating for it. But, can I say any of those are my all-time favorites? I don’t know. I feel like that question tends to imply that the album itself was genius in it’s vision. So I guess Kid A is probably my pick.

I am totally into the idea of rock band renouncing rock music and doing something else. I can completely relate to that.

And some of those songs are so hard to understand how they arrived there, which is a beautiful thing.

Anyway, other albums that I feel almost as much love for are Demon Days by the Gorillaz and Beck’s Guero. Also, David Byrne’s Lead Us Not Into Temptation, and Phrenology by the Roots. All of those would be in consideration, but can any really top Kid A? Probably not.

If your music was a type of ethnic cuisine, what would it be? Elaborate.

Eric: Well, it’s not Ukrainian. We don’t sound like cabbage and pierogies. And not Spanish, cause we’re just not sexy enough. Not Indian, because that would imply it was colorful and playful and fun. And we haven’t done much like that yet.

Maybe our music is Japanese. Siberia is at least. It’s cold and raw, but it’s also got some spicy beef in there. We are hoping to make a Mexican album next.

Eric, your “day job” is graphic designer. Do you find any overlap in the creative processes of design and music? Which one gives you more “flow” – you know, the kind of work you get completely absorbed in, time stops, you forget to eat, drink, sleep?

Eric: Well, they both do that. The best stuff tends to happen when you get in that zone. When I was in art school, that definitely happened all the time. But now, more and more, design is just a day job and it’s not something I stay up late doing just out of passion. It’s commercial art, after all, and not really about personal tastes as much. I will stay up late doing it if I have to meet a deadline, but otherwise, I pour most of that kind of energy into my music. It is now the thing that makes me lose sleep and skip meals and and forget to take my dog on a walk.

When I’m working on my own writing lyrics or writing a new song, or trying to make some beat on the computer, it happens a little. But when we get together, it’s even worse. We sometimes stay out until 4 or 5 in the morning, just messing around with stuff, and I’m not someone who will just stay out that late for no good reason. We’re not teenagers anymore.

But when you get wrapped up in it, time just flies by. When things just start to come out, you have to take advantage of that energy. In that way, all creative things are like that.

You have to learn to let yourself get absorbed in it until you get that “flow.” It is so much better than sitting in your apartment beating your head against the wall.

It’s all fun and games until someone goes broke: What’s your prediction about the future of the music industry and its business model?

Brian: Well, being musicians, I guess we’re a little uncomfortable with that question. Well, not uncomfortable, but we just don’t spend much time thinking about that. We all know that it’s nearly impossible to make money as a band right now. It seems like the industry is being turned on its head.

We had a friend tell us recently that he thinks there are only like 5 bands out there making any profit off of what they do. That is not to say you can’t survive, breaking even.

Eric: But making money is a whole other thing, and apparently that doesn’t really happen anymore. If it every really did at all. It is harder and harder to make money off of recordings. Even those that cost $500,000 to make.

I don’t think hard-format music will ever completely vanish, though. Vinyl is on the rise again. It’s nice to hold something in your hands. It makes it feel more valuable.

But, we all know, that it probably won’t be a mainstream thing anymore. Pop stars won’t be able to count on selling a million records anymore. It just won’t happen. Live music will probably continue to be the best way to make money as recordings become more and more devalued. Bands have more and more ability to make and distribute their own music without the help of a label. But, labels will stick around. For real bands, maybe they’ll pay for studio time in exchange for a percentage of live profits, and not expect to make much off of the actual recorded music. For pop stars and the like, they’ll pay for expensive recordings with the hope that they can license it for commercial use and continue to sell out huge venues.

Anyway, I’m just rambling. I really have no idea. We have one foot in the industry but don’t really like to speculate too much. Brian spends almost all his time around other musicians, spending as much of half of his time lately out on the road. He says it’s not a subject that comes up much. We just think about making it. Not really selling it.

To simplify things, though, it may help to say that the music industry will always be people making music and trying to make a living off of it. It will be paid for one way or another.

Artists will have an increased ability to peddle their own wares, but there will always be the salesmen of the world around to help sell it. Who knows what the exact methods will be.

Thanks, guys. Pleasure having you. Rock on — hope to see you on Coachella or SXSW stage soon.

You can catch Ghost Away on MySpace, snag their albums for free on their website, and follow them on Twitter for a glimpse inside the minds of incredible talent.