Courtesy Ellen Forney: 

FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKSTORE & GALLERY HOSTS “MARTIN BLAND’S RANDOMIZED CONTROL TRIALS” ON SATURDAY, APRIL 12

Fantagraphics Books’ resident genius will present his recent experimental sound project, “Martin Bland’s Randomized Control Trials,” on Saturday, April 12 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery. This event coincides with the colorful “Georgetown Second Saturday Art Attack.” The bookstore will also offer a huge “Spring Cleaning Sale” with hundreds of graphic novels marked at 50% off from April 11 though April 13.

Fantagraphics Bookstore employee Martin Bland has an impressive musical pedigree. He was the drummer for Australia’s legendary psyche-garage band Lubricated Goat prior to relocating to Seattle 1992. He performed with Bloodloss and Monroe’s Fur and later joined Fantagraphics alums Mark Arm (Mudhoney, Mr. Epp) and Tom Price (U-Men, Gas Huffer) in the grunge supergroup Monkeywrench, which also featured Tim Kerr (Big Boys) and Steve Turner (Mudhoney). Monkeywrench recently released a posthumous collection, “Gabriel’s Horn,” on the Birdman label.

Martin Bland’s Randomized Control Trials represents a departure from his previous work. “The premise involved using the ‘shuffle’ program on a group of compact disc players running simultaneously to produce unique arrangements of original music,” Bland explains. “All of the pieces followed a few guidelines: the musicians should be recorded separately from one another with little or no idea what the other musicians had played. They would be given a loose theme to improvise on and a rigid tempo to follow. These recordings were transferred on to a computer and cut into short phrases and fragments. Once all of the music for a piece had been recorded, each instrument was then assigned a CD player. The CD players were then played simultaneously with the ‘shuffle’ program activated, thus producing a unique arrangement of the piece each time. Some of the voices were of a ‘found’ nature but none of the music was sampled from other sources.”

The resulting recordings are often stunning and always entertaining. The presentation on April 12 will reflect the random nature of the concept. Featured musicians include Bland, Price, and Arm, as well as violinists Janis Wildy and Tom Swafford, pianist John Wright, and a host of contributors from various musical genres. Examples can be heard by clicking headlines at: http://martinblandsrct.blogspot.com.

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery will also be the site of the publisher’s “Spring Cleaning Sale” on April 11 though April 13. Hundreds of slightly marred or damaged graphic novels will be offered at half price. Titles by Fantagraphics superstars including Peter Bagge, Charles Burns, Daniel Clowes, R. Crumb, Ellen Forney, Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, Charles M. Schulz, Joe Sacco, Jim Woodring and dozens more will be featured. And Drew Friedman’s exquisite exhibition of original art “The Fun Never Stops!” remains on display through May 6. The space is located at 1201 S. Vale St. (at Airport Way S.) in the heart of Georgetown. Open daily 11:30 – 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM. Phone: 206.658.0110 As always, patrons of all ages are welcome, and admission is free.

Listing Information

Martin Bland’s Randomized Control Trials
Saturday, April 12, 6:00 – 9:00 PM
Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery
1201 S. Vale Street, Seattle
206.658.0110
Hours: Monday – Saturday 11:30 – 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM
www.fantagraphics.com

Two great Baltimore tastes that taste great together: One of my favorite bookstores (Atomic Books), and one of my favorite TV shows (The Wire).

How does McNulty find time to read in between police work, boozing, and whoring? See more cool pics at the Atomic Books Flickr page, including a Bunny Colvin cameo for you fellow Wire-lovers.  

There's not too many people I'd follow into a psychedelic swamp, but Gary Panter is definitely one of them. 

The ever-intrepid Peter Bagge hit the New Hampshire primary beat for Reason mag and reports back in his latest strip. See! Pete riding the Straight Talk Express. See! Pete inadvertently hurting Ron Paul's feelings. See! Pete ogling Hillary Clinton's ass. 

It seems Mayor Michael Bloomberg has declared this Paul Hornschemeier week in New York City, beginning tomorrow! First up, we have this in the early evening:

ABOVE: Paul Hornschemeier, Dialectic on Preference, 2004 

Dave Eggers curates
Lots Of Things Like This
April 2 - May 10, 2008

Opening reception:
Wednesday, April 2, 6-8pm

With works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Leonard Cohen, David Berman, Ted Berrigan, Joe Brainard, Georges Braque, Jeffrey Brown, R. Crumb, Henry Darger, Marcel Duchamp, CM Evans, Shephard Fairey, David Godbold, Alasdair Gray, Philip Guston, Paul Hornschemeier, Jay Howell, Chris Johanson, Maira Kalman, Kenneth Koch, David Mamet, Quenton Miller, Tucker Nichols, Alice Notley, Ron Padgett, Raymond Pettibon, Dan Perjovschi, Amy Jean Porter, Steve Powers, Royal Art Lodge, Peter Saul, George Schneeman, Olga Scholten, David Shrigley, Shel Silverstein, Nedko Solakov, Ralph Steadman, William Steig, Saul Steinberg, Kurt Vonnegut. This show will explore a very small and specific type of artmaking exemplified by contemporary people like David Shrigley, Raymond Pettibon, Nedko Solakov, and Tucker Nichols. This kind of art, which we refuse to name, is somewhat crude, usually irreverent, and always funny. It exists somewhere between one-panel cartoons and text-based art. What we're talking about, basically, is a show of about 100 works that subscribe (unknowingly) to the following criteria: a) they're drawings, usually very basic or crude; b) these drawings are accompanied by hand-drawn text on the artwork, and this text refers to the drawing, much like a caption; c) this caption-text is funny. So in many ways you might say these are cartoons, because we've just listed the qualifications of a cartoon. But the works in this show are usually found in galleries, not newspapers or magazines, and so we have something interesting to think about: Is humor allowed in art, and in what forms? Are captions allowed in art, and why? And most importantly, why doesn't David Shrigley spell better?

All events are open to the public and free.
Gallery hours are Tues - Sat, 11-6.

apexart
291 Church Street, 
NYC, 10013
t. 212 431 5270
www.apexart.org
Subway: A, C, E, N, R, W, Q, 6, J, M, Z to Canal or 1 to Franklin.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

After the above event ends at 6PM, head out to Rocketship in Brooklyn for this at 7PM: 

And, then that doesn't sate your Paul appetite, check out this the next day at Dartmouth:

Courtesy Dame Darcy (sorry, this was a tough one to photograph without getting any glare): 

Good ol' G.W. Bush hopes to kick-start the U.S. economy by giving everyone a tax rebate this year. We say, what better way to use your windfall than by affirming your freedom to read great comics! In honor of Tax Day on April 15, save 15% on select books in our Politics & World Affairs category all throughout the month of April 2008!

Whether fictional satire skewering our malevolent and/or less-than-competent leaders, journalistic comics reporting from conflict-torn regions, or trenchant commentary on societal issues, these books present the finest in topical cartooning and exemplify our time-honored tradition of freedom of speech.

Sale ends at 11:59 PM Pacific time on April 30, 2008.