Kokopelli School Music and Arts - Welcome to Kokopelli

This little treasure just surfaced in my own tiny little hometown.  I noticed their advert sign leaving work this evening.  Reading through their site, it appears they are a work in progress.  I hope they are successful not only in their performance programs but in the eventual addition of fine arts.

Kokopelli School Music and Arts - Welcome to Kokopelli:

'via Blog this'

Artists' Survey - A new kind of "Occupy"

This is a call to artists, managers, producers, promoters, "road moms"-ANYONE involved in arts and entertainment.  I want you input on this.  Do not read this post because you want my blog to have hits.  NO!  This survey is to determine not only the viability of this blog but of a project I am seriously considering that will involve, basically?, the investment of a good part of my life right now.

Let me start with a statement of observation.  THE "OCCUPY" MOVEMENT IS NOT WORKING!  Why?  Because no one is working.  They're not even trying to come up with focus issues.  They're sitting on their asses in, albeit public, areas trying to piss off the cops and anyone who will notice them.  As a child of the 60's and 70's I now see why those protests worked.  Because there was a lot of other WORK going on in conjunction with sit-ins and marches.  People were writing their political representatives.  They were voting.  They were supporting businesses owned by minorities, women, whoever the latest FOCUS issue was about.  And they were FOCUSED.  Dr. King rallied the African-American contingent for their fight.  Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem pumped up the energy of the "girls' club" and charged forth with "womens' lib".  Stonewall is a remembered event because the LGBT community didn't stop with that one act of civil disobedience.  They'd been pushed to their limit and pushed back.  They reclaimed their businesses in The Village.  They took credit for all the work they had been doing in the entertainment industry and their fight continues and they moved forward taking on the AIDS battle, legal protection for their families, their jobs and their property.

Occupiers are not fighting.  They're whining.  Yes, the cops beat you up.  No, police brutality is not right.  BUT...how about fighting back?  I'm not talking violence.  Don't like the banks?  Find private investors and start some good old fashioned savings and loans.  Don't have a job?  Make one.  All you 6-digit engineers and mechanics?  How about some new manufacturing of green products?  Come up with new energy sources.  REINVENT THE FUCKING CAR!!!  Don't depend on Corporate America to save your sorry ass.  They're not gonna change.  They will continue to try to control America and buy out our government.  The only way to win is to DO IT YOURSELF!!!

So here's my survey.  I want to start an Anti-Corporate Arts and Entertainment network.  A place that anyone looking for help can come and find producers, directors, galleries, labels, whatever support they need to get GOOD art out there that is not corporate or government sponsored.  I do not want to take a dime from NEA because I don't want anyone involved to be beholden to a politician or be at the mercy of the any fed budget vote for financial support.  I will however apply for tax-exempt status as a non-profit because why should we give any more money to the people who do NOT support US!!

Many of you know I have my own conspiracy theory in regards to controlling Americans through entertainment.  You'd have to have been living under a rock for the last 30 years to know that GOOD music does not spin on terrestrial radio with very few exceptions.  I would venture to say that at least 75% of U.S. radio is now owned by ClearChannel and CBS who survey the following markets: New York, Miami, Chicago, Houston and L.A.  Playlists are handed down by corporate bosses to PDs who in turn give them to DJs.  TV shows have deteriorated to "reality" contest shows or privacy invasion of the biggest whack-jobs in the country.  Everything is geared for "short attention span theater".  Movies?  Don't even go there.  Thank the gods for Jerry Bruckheimer and Pixar who somehow get big studios to fund their projects.  Every so often we are teased with a British film so that we're thrown off the scent that we are being played.  Even Broadway has sold out.  Reusing old pop/rock music instead of finding original score composers and PAYING them to make good theater.

While pondering the fact that some of my old-school 'Burner' friends have decided against returning to the Playa this year due to the negative changes to the event, I saw an analogy as I considered them spinning off and creating new smaller festivals in other places.  It's like a dandelion.  The base cannot hold the seeds any more so it releases its hold so that the wind can take them where it will.  They land, they take root and the following year they will repeat the process with those seeds going to other places and so on and so on.  Burning Man will always be the parent but the kids are going to take what they learned and build something new somewhere else with it.  That's how this network can work.  I already have connections in Boston, New York, Chicago, Austin and L.A.  Those people are connected to other cities and so-on and so-on.  Get where this is going?  Databases can be created and constantly updated.  People can be connected.  Money can be found in the private sector.  With a national community/tribe of all the satellite tribes working together a powerful thing can happen and when it finally comes to the attention of Corporate America and the government it will be too late.  We will have put good art and entertainment into the eyes, ears, hands and feet of Americans,  seen artists paid what they deserve and all with only "rendering unto Ceasar" what our annual individual income tax returns require.

Here's what I'm asking you:
1) If you are someone who would be directly involved in this effort, leave a comment
2) If you are a casual arts fan but know people this would pertain to or know people who know people, pass this link on.  You're welcome to leave comment here also.

What I want to know:
1) What is your position currently in the arts and entertainment industry
2) Are you currently corporately sponsored (signed to a major label, studio, publisher, etc)
3) Would you consider leaving that sponsorship for an endeavor such as this
4) If you are already an independent artist, writer, filmaker, performer would something like this help you
5) If you are a philanthropist would you invest in projects involved in this effort
6) How much would you pay for a monthly or annual membership to this organization
7) What would you expect in return for that subscription fee

This is a marketing survey.  I really believe in this project.  I know it will be huge if it works.  I don't expect to be the soul proprietor of it.  I will depend on the networking of the project to provide the experts that can bring it to its maximum effectiveness.  I have the passion and the drive though.  I'm tired of seeing some of the most fantastic talent in the country squelched, stifled, marginalized and sometimes even vilified to keep their music off the radio and out of the racks, their screenplays off the big screen, their gorgeous street painting deemed vandalism and their books relegated to on-line publishing for which they see little or no return.  So PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE  take a minute to respond to this, then pass it on.  I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Success vs Sellout - hanging on to idealism and integrity

A cup of coffee and a shower got the brain moving into this train of thought...if an artist reaches the point of “success” will it always result in “sellout”.  Can idealism and true creativity survive a record deal, business venture or publishing contract.

In the circles I run in, probably the best known cry of “sellout” gets thrown at Green Day.  These Bay Area punk rockers started with their altruistic mission to share the angst of the young to the point where the kids would sing along.  Billy Joe and his cohorts created musical art that broke the rules.  They felt the simple design atheistic of three or four chords, a solid bass line and a drum track that was the heartbeat of a patient suffering from a severe panic attack and worked it into really good songs.  In the beginning success was getting a gig in a small club and having ten people turn out.  Success was those ten people sharing the emotional experience of Green Day’s musical art.  The boys went home, after calming their adrenalin high with the beer they got paid in, and relived the moment over and over, allowing it to feed the muses.  

Everything seemed to genuine and organic through album after album.  The artistic integrity prevailed until...American Idiot.  Now it wasn’t that Green Day didn’t have any radio hits to that point.  Gods only know how many high school graduations had to suffer through “Good Riddance” (Time Of Your Life)?  But...it was still music for the sake of recreating emotions and sharing them with an audience.  American Idiot, initially, was a grander creation.  I’m not saying that it was the band's vision for it to become a massive pop-rock record that would produce multiple singles, massive videos, arena tours and a shit-ton of merch.  I want to believe it was created from the heart.  And maybe Billy did have thoughts in the back of his head about the eventual Broadway musical and that it would be art for art’s sake with nothing to do with the major bank it would all bring in.  But it is obvious that somewhere along they way, American Idiot became a cash cow and the follow up album was just a rehash/sequel.  

With new artists of all genres showing up on the radar screens lately, especially in the current pop culture environment of “cheap art”, what does it mean for them?  First and foremost, it’s easy to separate sheep and goats when it comes to people with talent who just want to make a buck.  They are picked out easily by managers, promoters, and agents.  You hear them on the radio, see them on movie posters (as graphics artists and actors), watch them stealing shows on television or choosing their sculpture from a display at Pier 1.  Could any of them be a real artist?  Yes.  Do they want to be?  Well they think they are but it really is about the dollar signs.

Then there are the people that truly do have the artist mentality and heart.  They start out with the greatest of intentions to change the world through their creations.  Today they take their royalty checks feeling the tug on their guilty conscious, telling themselves that they need to eat and as soon as the car, house, boat, etc. is paid off they will go back to creating art with substance.  They won’t but they tell themselves they will.  Does some genuine art come from this group?  Yes.  Definitely more than the previously mentioned one.

Then there are the true idealists.  They really do love the ‘payment’ they receive in the reactions of their audiences.  They smile watching us walk down the street in their clothes knowing that not only is their name on the label but they actually designed it.  Their hearts melt a little when they hear us humming one of their compositions.  Watching us ooh and ahhh as they hang upside down in the midst of an aerial ballet makes them fly higher and spin faster.  

I want to believe, as more of them enter the mainstream and share their art with larger audiences, that that idealism remains.  Coming from tribes where it has been nurtured and cultivated with added measures of concern for humanity and the planet, there is a strong ethic within them.  But it will take audiences challenging themselves to open up to this level of art rather than demanding it be brought down to a discount store level for it survive on a broader plain and for the artists to make enough money to live without selling out.  To help promote this effort, visit your local gallery, small music venue or summer stock theater.  Don’t break down and turn on Top 40 radio, patronize some big arena tour or buy a framed print at Home Goods.  Help grow a new integrity in the arts and their audiences.

Spiderman-Turn Off The Dark...Not Your Mom's musical

Reeve Carney and Jennifer Damiano in a scene from “SPIDER-MAN Turn Off The Dark” © Jacob Cohl

 So the fact that I found Spiderman-Turn Off The Dark exciting and entertaining makes sense.  Most of the 'critics' who work for big snooty papers like NYT and WSJ say it sucks.  But if you're going to compare it to Streetcar Named Desire or Our Town for play-writing?  Yes, the script is lame...IT'S BASED ON COMIC BOOKS PEOPLE!! If you want to put it in a wrestling match with any other musical's score?  Seriously, for me the only show that ever really had great songs was Chorus Line.  All the old Rogers,Hammerstein, Hart and Gershwin stuff all sounded the same and Andrew Lloyd Webber really had one hit with "Superstar" because EVERYTHING after that is the same score...over (Cats), and over (Whistle Down The Wind) and over (Starlight Express) again.

Lets start with the score.  I was nervous.  U2 has worn on me over the years.  Back in the Joshua Tree days I loved Bono but he's grown into an old, pompous ass.  The Edge however has never lost that distinct 'edginess'.  And it is that signature guitar riffing that barrels through on more than one song in the Spiderman repertoire.  Heck, these Irish rockers were even pretentious enough to include one of U2's biggest hits, "Hello", in this final rework of Broadway's biggest monstrosity to date.  Did I like it? Yes!  Why?  Because it isn't "like every other musical".  The style of the songs don't try to be rock, they just are.  'Superstar; tried too hard to be a "rock opera" unlike "Tommy" (which...I know was a concept recorded album before it was even a movie) which was organically just that.  The Spiderman score sort of fits the designated criteria with the love song, the power ballad, the big dance number, the huge finale but...it's the songs.  Even "Bullying By The Numbers", the cheesy dance scene with all the boys...no one is wearing tap shoes or a straw boater nor do you get that feel from the song.  It's definitely "Not Your Mom's Musical". 

As far as the technical aspects of this show?  They go from 21st century technology to 1950's electro-mechanics.  The set piece graphics borrow the angled perspective that is part of traditional comic book art.  Lots of black, gray and white with RED and YELLOW and BLUE being punched at you to make you gasp.  Truly a "wow factor".

A scene from “SPIDER-MAN Turn Off The Dark”

© Jacob Cohl

Many have written about the craziness of the rigging for all the 'flying' called for in this show.  Even to watch it up close with the eye of an engineer, this shit is unreal.  What the 'flight crew' achieves with harnesses, cables, weights and other weird mechanical devices, has them swooping within a few feet of the tops of the heads of sections of the orchestra to soaring to landing pads on the edge of the upper balcony.  At one point I, literally, had the Green Goblin in my face (8th row center). 

Then there are the subtle nuances of the electric "El" train that travels on its little track above the stage.  I will say one thing that could be worked on is the fire escape element for "If The World Ends".  I'm a purist so if you're sitting on a fire escape that is lag-bolted to a brick wall...it shouldn't swing when Reeve or Jennifer move.  They need to maybe drop a couple of weighted cables to the floor of the stage to keep the rig still.  But other than that?  Lightweight fabric backlit with red and orange with a fan under it to cause the flames of a burning building? Awesome.  Using hydraulics to angle the center of the stage to provide perspective (big effect introduced by Cats in the 80's). Perfection.  But then to take those mechanics and hydraulics to the next level raising and lowering backdrop pieces along with creating the huge Chrysler building set for the final fight between Spidey and the Goblin...totally badass.  Add a lighting design that is beyond words and sound that belongs in an arena pop or rock show, visually and sonically your senses will be on overload (note to parents, please provide ear plugs or other sound attenuation for children under 12. It gets very loud in some parts and the explosions are really loud).

Costuming goes from simple to downright nuts.  Carnage comes the closest to his comic book version after the web thrower himself.  The Green Goblin will scare the shit out of you while Electro and his handheld pyro-technics is 'shocking'.  Aunt May and Uncle Ben are still the 1960's versions of Stan Lee's creations while chorus members span era's from the 50's to the 21st century.  Bad guys and victims are clad in three-dimensional versions of old-school comic book pen and ink drawings while Peter Sports a two-town denim jacket that mirrors the "Spidey suit".

Patrick Page in a scene from

“SPIDER-MAN Turn Off The Dark”

© Jacob Cohl

As for the acting?  It's over-the-top in some parts, not emoted enough in others but at the end of the day...IT'S SPIDERMAN!!  It's a comic book brought to the stage.  Reeve Carney's rock chops are a necessity so the fact that he had to learn how to act and dance too?  He did a damned decent job.  Can he improve?  Yes.  He and Damiano need to work on making the love scenes a little more believable.  On the flipside, Isabel Keating, Patrick Page and Michael Mulheren kill it.  Keating plays three roles-Aunt May, the teacher and a Bugle reporter.  She is reserved and mushy as May, sassy as the teacher and snarky as the reporter.  Page is superb as both Norman Osborn and The Green Goblin.  Flamboyant, fierce and downright frightening with a biting wit that has all the adults laughing (yeah,  I'll venture even the tightasses from the Times).  That Patrick can face-act through the mask and all that makeup is really his crowning achievement in this show and if it doesn't get him a Tony nod, I'll be shocked.  As for Mulheren?  He IS J.J. Jameson, brimming over with bombastic energy teetering on the edge of a major coronary any second.  He too is the source of a lot of the show's comedy.


I guess, without really knowing the subjectivity of rating stars for live theater, I'd give it three.  It needs work.  Parts need to be polished up like being able to see an exiting flyer still when the next one enters.  Mary Jane needs a shot of caffeine directly to a vein and the chorus should spending more time with the dance captain and a case of Red Bull.  I think those things will work themselves out as the show continues.  I'd like to give a special shout out to Chris Tierney for not only returning to the show but continuing to fly his little heart out.  He also is impressive as Grim (Kraven) Hunter even though that part doesn't involve a lot.

The show is definitely worth the ticket prices.  Between still paying for some unbelievable set pieces, like the "Goblin globe", the power bill to run this thing, technicians and their maintenance of everything along with the poor souls who have to clean up all the paper "webs" at the end of every performance...this show costs an assload of money to keep running.  But it is worth every cent if you are into superheroes, comic books, blockbuster spectacles and decent rock music.

Describing ‘The Tribes’

Over the past four years I’ve crossed paths with many artists. At the beginning most I knew as musicians. Over time I’ve learned that most of them also work in numerous mediums from film to clay to pen and ink. These folks also tend to gravitate towards each other and take up residence in art communities within the locations they actually reside.
Truly established U.S. tribes seem to be strongest in southern California with other outposts being in Seattle, Chicago and parts of Texas. Surprisingly, the large numbers of artists in New York City tend to keep to themselves with only small close-knit groups with a few cross-overs. Boston seems to be the same with one band of hippie/gypsies that I have been able to pick out.
The point of this blog is to be a beacon to all the tribes mainly in North America but also internationally. As more artisans come forward to identify and define themselves and their communities, the picture should become clearer and the definition more precise of modern neo-tribalism amongst artists.

Come join the circle

Peace. Shalom. Aloha. Pax.
Here is a meeting of the tribes.  You will be introduced to members, communities, troupes, and events.  There are gypsies, troubadours, mistrals, acrobats, painters, sculptors, weavers, smiths, and bards.  We come from every corner of the globe and share a love of languages of the arts.  Even though we may not speak a particular dialect, we understand it and revel in its unique beauty.
Here will be shared color, sound, texture, smell and taste.  You will find all the elements; earth, air, fire and water in this place.  You will be encouraged and inspired while sharing that encouragement and inspiration with others.  Muses will be revealed.  Young ones will be taught.
Over the next day or so, I will introduce you to three artists I interviewed a while back.  Two are members of the West Hollywood, CA (WeHo) tribe and one moves between the Wicker Park (Chicago) tribe and the New York City tribe.  Going forward there will be other conversations with all manner creators.  There might be an occasional review of a performance, gallery show or museum exhibit.  Maybe a topic for a comment discussion amongst the readers of this blog.  It will be a creative space.
Pour your favorite libation, bring your own version of a peace-pipe, pull-up a chair and join in.  If you wish to add your own tales to this tome, please contact me and we’ll schedule a chat.
The Scribe