arbitrarysigns.bandcamp.com

I'm moving operations over to https://arbitrarysigns.bandcamp.com/

Please visit the new site.  There's lots of cool archival stuff to listen to, and I'm regularly updating the site with all kinds of new stuff as well as a current catalog of objects to purchase and listen to.   Thank you so much.  Pete.. Arbitrary Signs

Joshua Light Show Record by Devin Flynn Available Now!

" For the music, I gave Devin four of the vaguest themes. I said make four soundtracks, and told him we’d put them at separate ends of the space and we’ll play them simultaneously."

These were the instructions given to Devin Flynn for his creation of this masterful soundtrack to the Joshua Light Show Exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts in 2010.  For those unfamiliar with the Joshua light show check this out:

Joshua White and his team were the house light show at the Philmore East in New York City.  They invented the 60's light show and made their spectral art behind every great band of the era.  This record comes with original screen printed art by Gary Panter and a 4 page foldout full color insert with interviews with Joshua White and Gary Panter (comic book artist, musician, light sculptor).  

The music is total psych madness from Devin Flynn of Devin, Gary, and Ross fame whose Honeycomb of Chakras made serious waves last year for all "heads" with ears.  We're seriously honored to be putting this record out and we hope that you'll dig it too.  Check out an interview reprinted from the Huffington Post with Gary Panter and Joshua White Below.

Cost Includes Shipping

United States $25.00 USD Other Countries $30.00 USD

Joshua White, Gary Panter Take Over Museum Of Contemporary Art Detroit With Light Show (PHOTOS)

First Posted: 02/10/2012 4:13 pm Updated: 02/14/2012 1:21 pm

React

AmazingInspiringFunnyScaryHotCrazyImportantWeird

Follow

Video , Detroit Travel , Gary Panter , Gary Panter Joshua White , Joshua White , Joshua White Gary Panter , Joshua White And Gary Panter's Light Show , MOCAD Light Show ,Museum Of Contemporary Art Detroit , Pee Wee's Playhouse , Best Of Detroit , Detroit Around Town , Detroit Arts , Light Show Detroit , Mocad , Detroit News

For the next three months, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit will be mostly in the dark.

But flashes of changing light will unexpectedly illuminate the sculpture, drawings, video, music and ephemera in the museum's new installation, "Joshua White and Gary Panter's Light Show."

The two New-York-based artists worked together to create a one-of-a-kind exhibition that takes over a large portion of MOCAD's 22,000 square-foot space. They came to Detroit to see the space in late 2011. Feeling charmed and energized by the city, they left after just 36 hours and started making plans for the exhibition on the plane ride home.

"I've been building this in my mind," said Panter. "It's coming out very much like I imagined."

White has been working with light for many years; he founded the Joshua Light Show in 1967 at New York's Fillmore East. Visual artists performed live behind musical greats like Frank Zappa and Janis Joplin. White also spent many years as a television director and producer.

Panter works in a range of mediums and styles but is probably most widely known for his design of the cult classic television show "Pee-wee's Playhouse."

Panter had long respected White's work. In the 1990s, the younger artist started making his own table-sized light shows, re-invoking, he explained, all the things he liked about the '60s. People who happened to find out about his barely-advertised shows would come see him perform in his Brooklyn studio. One time, White was in the audience.

Panter remembers White saying afterward, "I like your light show -- I think I could make it better."

The two have been friends for about a decade now and have been collaborating as artists since 2004. While both have long careers behind them, they're still making new leaps.

"We're still growing as artists," Panter said. The MOCAD show, he added, "is the first chance we've got to go nuts."

Luckily, he said, White is not intimidated by scale. When trying to imagine how they would create a new environment within a much larger space, they decided the museum would have to be primarily dark.

In the show, Panter's sculptures are layered with patterns of their own, with cartoonish characters, blacklight lines and deftly employed colors activating the 2-D surfaces. White worked with local company Fantasee Lighting to design the lighting scheme, which is all run by computer.

Music is part of the experience, too, and composer Devin Flynn wrote four separate tracks to play simultaneously in different parts of the exhibition, each meant to evoke a different reaction. Flynn's compositions, Panter said, are informed by Detroit's musical history.

While the exhibit sounds like it could be overwhelming or disorienting, that's not the artists' goal -- the exhibition is meant to be an active, exploratory experience. In the past, parents have brought their children to see the artists' work, and that's something they like. Both White and Panter talked about the inherent spontaneity and improvisation in the show.

"The thing we do ... [is] really engender daydreams," Panter said. "People will see things that aren't there. Your minds starts organizing [what you see and hear] into patterns."

But the show is really designed to be a platform for performances, from dance to folk music. Those shows kick off Friday night with dance punk band Adult., White Car and Monster Island.

The stage the artists created is behind a large white screen, and Panter imagines musicians could perform behind it like human shadow puppets, or in front of it, or behind it with a moving audience -- they have purposely left specifics undefined, trusting MOCAD and future performers.

While some artists get caught up in the minute details, White seemed to find it unnecessary -- and perhaps even destructive to the work -- to spend time worrying about things like the exact shade of blue paint used on a wall. As a television director, he's found he gets the best results when he finds ways to say what he wants with the least number of words possible.

"It's not going to break," White said. "There's nothing sacred."

Joshua White And Gary Panter

1  of  13

PLAY

FULLSCREEN

ZOOM

SHARE THIS SLIDE 

Joshua White and Gary Panter have worked on installations of all sizes. The two artists have been collaborating for more than a decade.

"Joshua White and Gary Panter's Light Show" opens Friday, Feb. 10 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit at 4454 Woodward Ave with a free reception from 6 to 8 p.m. followed by a show with performances by Adult., White Car and Monster Island, $8. The exhibit closes April 29.

MOCAD is open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday. The museum recently introduced a suggested admission price of $5 for entry into its exhibitions during normal operating hours.

MERCH!!!

best album cover of the month in Vice (click it and see) Devin Gary & Ross is a mind melting three- man music making machine. Four Corners Bounce is their first record. The six tunes on it are full spectrum serving of psychedelia that includes washed out wanderings over well- worn terrain, bold ventures into a candy-col- ored abyss and a snappy title track that you will end up signing in the shower. Don’t just take it from us. Here’s Father Yod himself, Byron Coley, on the record about the record: Gary Panter is a bad penny. If he were German, the phrase might be, schlechter pfennig, which is much less euphonimous. So it’s a good thing Gary is no Kraut. But what the fuck is he? A Texan. A famous artist. A writer of songs, poetry and prose. As well as a gifted primitve musician. Thus, in this instance, bad means good, and penny means rennaisance man. Panter first burst into the public gut in the 1970s with his Jimbo strip in Slash magazine, his design work for Ralph Records, and some really goddamn UGLY commercial art. A few people were also aware he was a musician, although many who discovered him through his first single— “Colahaus”—would deny the word actually applies to what he does. After his next record, a collaboration with the Residents entitled “Tornader to the Tater,” people began to take his roistering a bit more seri- ously. A Japanese company even let him do a gorgeous bizarro-world country-and-acid LP called Pray for Smurph. That one was so good, people started to realize—hey, he actually is a musician!. Moving from L.A to Brooklyn, he eventually fell in with the evil genius, Devin Flynn, who widened Panter’s aural palette and also to got him playing somwhere besides closets full of pot smoke. The duo cut a dandy album, Go Outside, then managed to corral the wildly talented Ross Gold- stein into their conspiracy. The results are this new record, and brother, it is a treat. They create miniature brain-damaged nuggets ranging from fake jazz to sloth psych with a nimble touch that’ll make your head squeal with pleasure. Marty Robbins might toss around in his velvet-lined grave when he hears it, but screw him. All four of your corners will bounce like crazy. Guaranteed. —Byron Coley, Victoriaville QC 2011 Side B El Paso Peppermint Patty Meets the Phantom of the Opera Cat Swim Side A 4 Corners Loin Green After Donk About the band Devin is Devin Flynn, best known as the creator and illustrator behind the very insane Y’all So Stupid, a cartoon that once ran on Super Deluxe. In DGR, he does the drumming and a lot of the singing and more or less plays just about everything. About the same goes for Ross Goldstein—the Ross of the band—except he plays a lot more piano than percussion and in the art zone he does more photography and sign painting than crazy animation. The G in DGR is for guitar, played by Gary Panter, who also blows a little trumpet on this record. Gary’s been blowing minds with his art—paintings, album covers, illustration, comics, set design, light shows—since the late seventies. For more information, to order records, or just chat about how awesome DGR is, contact Arbitrary honcho prices

USA $15.00 Other Countries $25.00 Mars $3,000.00  The United Waters lp's have arrived! The new totally solo jam from Brian Sullivan of Mouthus fame is a quiet beautiful masterpiece of loner psych majesty. We went to great lengths to make sure these lp's maintained the pristine tones intended and have been mastered for crystal clarity. Beautiful full color sleeves with artwork by Mary Kidd and inserts with lyrics included. We're very proud of this record. Shipping is free. Get yours today! Prices  USA $15.00 Other Countries $25.00 Other Planets $700.00  ASCS008 Magik Markers "Isolated from Exterior Time" Cassette... get some basement clues to the Markers new direction... 60 minums long prices  USA $8.00 Other Countries $12.00 USA $8.00  AS LP 003 Spectre Folk "Compass Blanket Lantern Mojo" Psych lushness miraculously recorded in a home studio while looking after a 3 month old. Close to my heart. Not many left: Spectre Folk  PRICES  USA $17.00 OTHER COUNTRIES $25.00 USA $17.00  AS LP 002 Magik Markers "BOSS" Recorded in the cavernous confines of Echo Canyon West with Sonic Youth maestro Lee Ranaldo running the boards. Screen printed covers WITH ORIGINAL POSTER INSIDE PRICES  USA $20.00 OTHER COUNTRIES $25.00 USA $20.00  Magik Markers/Sic Alps split lp Yik Yak recs Not and Arbitrary release.. but a burner for sure.. Good old Steve Lowenthal at Swingset says it's his fave Markers release to date.. Mike Wolf said it sounds like Yeti.. WE'LL TAKE IT! PRICES  USA $20.00 OTHER COUNTRIES $25.00 USA $20.00  Spectre Folk s/t cd on 3 Lobed Early Bushwick 4 track recordings from the s.f. Got a birds cover and still has that dirt porch vibe. Nice little package from 3 lobes. $10.00 - available as a digital download from PRICES  USA $10.00 Other Countries $15.00 USA $10.00  Spectre Folk "Sparking Age" Cassette latest Spectre cassette in stunning mono. Get a clue to the new zoo. Prices  USA $8.00 Other Countries $12.00 USA $8.00  Please feel free to inquire about any past Arbitrary Signs releases that you don't see listed with me: petenolan@hotmail.com ..

Happy Sounding Jams

Our hearts are going out to our friends and everyone who's suffering in our old hometown, New York.

Here's a couple of happy sounding tunes we've been digging lately.  Wanted to include Michael Chapman's "sleeping in my clothes again" but I couldn't find it.

4 freaks, one record... July 31st is Ancient Storm day!

Spectre Folk, (Pete Nolan, Peter Meehan, Steve Shelley, and Aaron Mullan) have a new record out today via the good folks at vampire blues and revolver.   It's called the Ancient Storm and it's totally sick!  Get a copy today!  

Markers Play Brooklyn Roulette on Sunday with Guitar Roberts

The Magik Markers will appear in full symphonic glory Sunday (July 15) night.  Rumors have it they'll be adding a grand piano to their usual arsenal of guitars, drums, synths, tapes and everything.  They've been touring recently on a shady unnamed cassette release.  Will their next record ever reach the light of day?  It remains to be seen.  They're guaranteed to be unleashing tunes from future vinyls at Roulette on  Sunday along with all kinds of other ethereal and blistering bliss.  Altho currently based, like squirrels in the attic, out of Massachusetts... the Markers have been making a platform out of a series of gigs in Brooklyn.  When asked what their plans were for 2012, the Markers, like a giant suddenly roused from a deep revery were heard to retort with surprise "2012!?  What we do is secret!"


Catch them in Brooklyn Sunday with the Chicago Underground duo and legendary ghost of blues act Haunted House (fronted by Guitar Roberts aka Loren Mazzacane Connors) as part of the Northern Spy festival.  Here are the venue deets for the gig... it's an early show so don't be late!!

Spy Music Festival: Chicago Underground Duo / Haunted House / Magik Markers

15July

Tomorrow, July 15, 2012, 7:00 pm

509 Atlantic Ave, Brooklyn, NY | Get Directions »
$15.00