Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before /  by Tim Lane

I was sort of chuckling the other day around lunch time with Jeff and Bill about Morrissey’s recent open letter to Johnny Marr. Too funny. Morrissey, man. Sheesh. C’mon. Whatever. Next thing that happens, Jeff texts, “Top five Smiths songs?” The endorphins surge. Right away, Bill and I can agree upon “This Charming Man.” That’s a no-brainer. Jeff’s short list looks similar to mine, including later songs “There Is a Light” and “Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before.” Naturally, I listen to The Smiths for the rest of the afternoon while working from home, the beginnings of a Smiths top ten list forming in my head. I tend to go on Smith jags, anyway. Bill gives it a day before sharing a Spotify playlist—Mix: The Smiths. He reveals that he favors twenty-song playlists, so I try to follow suit, but mine has to include two bonus tracks.

I tried like hell to cut two songs but just couldn’t do it.

Thus, after staying up way too late, I’ll be texting Jeff and Bill the following Spotify playlist in the morning: Mix: The Smiths (Red Meat Version) *Two Bonus Tracks.

(Note: In an effort to preserve some of the mixtapes I made and received back in the day, I recently bought a Walkman-like device that converts cassette tapes to mp3 files. Don’t waste your money.)

You can check out my Smiths playlist below.

#mixtape #playlist #Spotifyplaylist #thesmiths #morrissey #johnnymarr #genx #80s #80smusic #postpunk #alternativemusic #yoursilentface

Paintings Make a Wall /  by Tim Lane

#paintingsmakeawall #paintingsmakeahome #collecting #personalcollection #favoritepaintings #worksonpaper #acrylic #spraypaint #salon #artofinstagram #timlane #travisbruceblack #yoursilentface #yoursilentfacetimlane #lovelansing

More works have gone into the bedroom salon-style hung personal art collection. The additions include two Aaron Curtners and a painting by an artist from D.C. She was selling work in front of Afterwords one night #dupontcircle.

This corner of the bedroom includes a very early Travis Bruce Black and two works from my Selfie Series.

Sweet Dreams (Are Made in These): a New Painting /  by Tim Lane

I do not work with red very often. Pinks, peach, purples, lilac but not much red. For some reason I needed to see Pyrrole Red. I don’t often do physical color studies before painting either, but I took a look at a good handful of combinations and glazes before starting this one.

I hope you enjoy where this new series is going. I’m still preoccupied with the same thoughts and ideas that were fueling The Sublime series. I think that I am just articulating them in a slightly different way now.

#worksonpaper #paintingsonpaper #contemporaryart #spaceart #quantumphysics #innerspace #acrylic #gouache #watercolorpencils #micronpens #contemporarypaintings #reality #dreams #physics #philosophy #time #artwork #drawing #artoninstagram #timlane #artonpaper #newpainting #newartwork #stencils #yoursilentface #yoursilentfacetimlane #lovelansing #artoftheday

Sweet Dreams (Are Made in These), in harsh light.

Sweet Dreams (Are Made in These), in soft light.

Pyrrole Red liquid acrylic/Green Gold

Pyrrole Red gouache/Green Gold

Naphthol Red Light/Green Gold

Pyrrole Red liquid acrylic/Primary Yellow

Pyrrole Red gouache/Primary Yellow

Naphthol Red Light/Primary Yellow

Steve Reich's "Come Out" and the Harlem Six /  by Tim Lane

On Saturday, January 22nd, 2022, I left the house around eleven in the morning to take some books to Robin Books. I had been listening to American composer Steve Reich on Spotify, Works 1965-1995. When I got home about an hour later, I discovered that the music was still playing in the kitchen on the Google speakers. But I didn’t recognize the piece—I wasn’t even sure if it was still Steve Reich. It turns out that it was one of Reich’s earliest tape compositions, Come Out. I was intrigued so I googled it and read a Pitchfork article about it while I replayed the music. I had no idea this moment was to become a powerful educational minute about a horrible episode in American History perpetrated upon a group of young black men who became known as the Harlem Six. As I read the Pitchfork article, written in 2016 by Andy Beta—”Blood and Echoes: The Story of Come Out, Steve Reich’s Civil Rights Era Masterpiece“—I was riveted. I felt some powerful emotions in that moment of reading the article and listening to Come Out for the second time. Had I learned about the Harlem Six? Not really. Had I heard of the Harlem Six? Yes. Did I have a basic understanding of the police brutality enacted upon the young black men? Vague details from secondary news stories and from conversations. Had I heard of Wallace Baker and Daniel Hamm and what became known as The Little Fruit Stand Riot? No. Not at all. I leave below a link to Steve Reich’s Come Out. Andy Beta’s article in Pitchfork can be found here. It should be read. Read it while you listen to Come Out. I dare say a reading of the article combined with a listening of the composition will cement the details of this terrible episode of our nation’s past in your mind and soul. Injustice and horrific acts do not need to be depicted in art before they become memorable, though. But art can help make it resonate forever. So others can learn and atrocities are not forgotten. I didn’t know, but now I know. Pitchfork article: ”Blood and Echoes: The Story of Come Out, Steve Reich’s Civil Rights Era Masterpiece,” written in 2016 by Andy Beta.

#theharlemsix #stevereich

#readallthebooks /  by Tim Lane

Your Silent Face is an 80s coming-of-age novel set in Flint, Michigan, that explores themes of class, family, violence, fitting in, fractured Native American identity and the transition to adulthood. The main character is a first gen college student who is obsessed with 80s New Wave and post punk music and struggles to decide if he should return to school after summer vacation or settle back into the East Side of Flint.

“The reader will likely be reminded of Nick Hornby’s 1995 novel High Fidelity or possibly Richard Linklater’s 1993 film Dazed and Confused….” KIRKUS REVIEWS.

You can find the full review here. Other reviews can be found on Amazon here.

“What lies ahead that doesn’t suck? Summer break forces Stuart Page to return home and wrestle with his fraying ties to the East Side of Flint, his memory an archive of cassettes he would like to erase. His freshman year of college was lame. More early Cure than Spandau Ballet, he might be overheard saying. More Gary Numan than Falco.

Flustered by visits from a stoic viking, fueled by an endless supply of beer, Stu picks apart an obsession with the lead singer of Joy Division and chugs the sour dregs of insecurity as he drunkenly veers through Flint’s blue collar fight culture, summer hook ups, the aftereffects of Old School Catholicism and Reaganomics in Your Silent Face.”
— Your Silent Face back cover blurb

Lila heartily endorses Your Silent Face.

#readallthebooks #readabook #readandreview #selfpromotion #selfpromosaturday #80s #GenX #NewWave #postpunk #comingofage #classstruggle #firstgencollege #nativeamerican #Flint #midwest #rustbelt #graffiti #clubbing #clubkids #joydivision #iancurtis #bluecollar #bluecollarlife #fiction #fictionbooks #fictionwriting #fictionwriters #lovelansing

Where the Streets Have No Names, 2022: A New Painting /  by Tim Lane

While I post this new painting, my son is at the Whitney working his way to the Jasper Johns retrospective. I am very happy for him, and I am very happy that a member of the family is actually getting to this exhibition. Whenever anybody asks, “Whose your favorite painter?” I usually answer, “Jasper Johns.” His work has had a profound influence upon my work—there’s no denying it. The hope, of course, is that by this stage of the game, you cannot really see any or many of the influences in my work, right?

I have to say that I really enjoyed making this new piece.

#worksonpaper #contemporaryart #contemporarypainting #coloredpencil #carandache #acrylicpainting #spraypaint #gouache #stencils #crayon #spaceart #quantumphysics #reality #philosophy #physics #artwork #lovelansing #yoursilentface #drawing #artoftheday #artonpaper #timlane #newpainting #newwork #U2 #jasperjohns #thewhitney #artoninstagram

Realities Project, 2022: A New Painting /  by Tim Lane

This is the second painting of what could be the beginning of a new series. The first painting was small, almost a study or an exercise. This one is bigger, back to 30”x22”. I do not have a whole lot to say about this shift at the moment—it has been mostly intuitive.

#worksonpaper #contemporaryart #contemporarypainting #coloredpencil #carandache #acrylicpainting #spraypaint #stencils #spaceart #quantumphysics #reality #philosophy #physics #artwork #lovelansing #yoursilentface #drawing #artoftheday #artonpaper #timlane #newpainting #newwork

Sends Me an Angel, 2022

acrylic, spray paint, pencil & crayon on paper

30”x22”

Doubling Back: My Renewed Interest in Black Flag /  by Tim Lane

I am currently reading Henry Rollins’ Black Flag memoir, Get In the Van. I really like his diaristic approach. I have kept a journal for a long time—we’re talking decades.

Flint had a fairly strong underground punk rock alternative bands scene (among other musics) in the 80s when I was a teen and would have been delving into punk rock (a bit of which is captured in my 80s coming-of-age novel, Your Silent Face), but truth-be-told, I did not get into punk rock a whole lot. Just a bit. I went to some local shows but never saw a big traveling band like Black Flag. I liked BF, though, and Naked Raygun, from Chicago, the Angry Samoans, Dead Kennedys and The Crucifucks, from Lansing. A few others. I was more into New Wave.

I was a skinny dude who always knew he would get hurt in the mosh pit. I had some angry energy that needed to be exercised, but I always seemed to exercise it on myself, and never actually dared to attempt some stage diving. There was a bit of slam dancing at safe, organized dances, where me and some of my friends were the most punk rock thing in the house, but there are no photos of me deep in the mosh pit or diving off the stage at a punk show in Flint or anywhere else. When I did get to a show, I hung back in the wings and observed.

I have probably listened to more Black Flag lately than I did in my whole adolescence. Why the renewed interest? I am not sure, but part of it definitely arises from reading about it. So why am I reading Get In the Van now? I’m not entirely sure about that either, but I think that part of me is drawn to it because I have become a D.I.Y kind of artist/writer as an older adult, and that was something that BF totally stood for. I was surrounded by some musician’s and creatives in my last year of college at the house I was living in (Bleak House) who were totally immersed in the D.Y.I. culture, but I still had ideas of being “discovered.” When I look back, I do wish that I had been rocking a zine in college, or arranging poetry readings, or trying to sell art postcards, or whatever. However, I did get there. I am here. I make my own art, and I push it myself, as well, because there is no longer any time to wait on being discovered. So I have doubled back to read about some of the 80s pioneers of this aesthetic, I guess.

I totally recommend Get In the Van from a historical and sociological sense and because of its easily digestible, note-booking prose. I like how Rollins wrote this memoir.

To be sure, that were factions and aspects of punk rock that terrified me, and still do, but I did try to keep my ear and mind open when it was happening in the 80s. I remember spiking my hair with Vasoline one Halloween and putting on a sleeveless surfer shirt. In hindsight, the Vasoline was a bad idea.

I was never a punk rocker, though.

Rollins perspective of society is interesting. Five out of five stars.

#blackflag #flint #punkrock #getinthevan #henryrollins #80s #80smusic #doityourself #DIY #DIYaesthetic #postpunk #newwave #yoursilentface #contemporaryartist #contemporaryart #diary #memoir #blog #blogging #bleakhouse #MSU #lovelansing #thecrucifucks