Devo: "The First 50 Years" Exhibition in Los Angeles; tour dates

One day only: an exhibition in Los Angeles about Devo, the highly influential satirical art-punk band, who used the term "devolution" to explain that humanity was no longer moving forward, but backward. On April 24 from 6-10pm at founder member Mark Motherbaugh opens his MutMuz Gallery for a collection of photos and memorabilia will tell the tale, well sort of, about a bunch of guys who did not play by the rules and whose unique conceptualist take on music somehow made some inroads into the charts.

They baffed record buyers and the suits at their record company who could never keep up with their shape shifting approach and piss-takes at rampant commercialism.

John Cale: "Antarctica Starts Here" for "Haunts" VR experience in Cardiff

John Cale's Cale's Antarctica Starts Here is part of the soundtrack for Haunts, a "single user VR experience" at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff, that runs from March 1 until April 12. The exhibition looks back at the Welsh party scene in 2006.

The year is 2006, Tony Blair is Prime Minister, Twitter has just been launched, and young people are quickly getting used to a world where social media and technology are beginning to take hold. 16-year-old Morgan, voiced by Callum Scott Howells (It’s a Sin), is searching to understand where he belongs, his journey set against the backdrop of a community in Llanberis - a small town at the foot of Snowdon in Wales.

» John Cale on Facebook
» fearisamansbestfriend.nl

Nick Cave: "Stranger Than Kindness" virtual exhibition

In March 2020 the Nick Cave exhibition Stranger Than Kindness in Copenhagen was opened and pretty much shut down immediately because of the COVID pandemic. Although it was shown in Montreal in 2022, very few people have been able to see it, so a virtual tour might remedy that a bit.

Cave himself acts as your audio guide, in conversation with the exposition's curator Christina Back. Plus he wrote some soundscapes with Warren Ellis as a further enhancement of the experience

» thenickcaveexhibition.com

The Velvet Underground & Nico: Scepter Studio Sessions @ The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh

The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh will be playing a resurfaced reel-to-reel ¼” mono tape of the recording sessions of The Velvet Underground at Scepter Studio in New York in 1966 during an exhibition that opens on May 12. An acetate was used for the 45th anniversatry box the of The Velvet Underground & Nico, but this one is supposed to sound a lot better:

The Velvet Underground & Nico: Scepter Studio Sessions highlights the Velvet Underground and the music from their first recording sessions in April 1966 at Scepter Studios in New York City. Recently identified while processing Andy Warhol’s archive at The Warhol, the nine initial tracks recorded by the band were the bedrock of their debut album The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967, Verve Records), which became one of the most jarring and influential albums in rock music. These monophonic reel-to-reel ¼” tapes feature alternate versions and mixes of songs later issued on the 1967 release, which was produced by Warhol, and often referred to as the “banana album”, as it featured a peel-away banana on the cover designed by Warhol.

Krautrock Posters exhibition in Berlin

The Bröhan-Museum in Berlin has an exhibition of Krautrock Posters, promoting shows by bands like Can and Kraftwerk:

Under the term “Krautrock” the music of the West German subculture of the 1970s rose to international popularity. In the exhibition at the Bröhan-Museum, around 80 concert posters stemming from a private collection paint a vivid picture of the music scene of this turbulent decade.

“Krauts” was a common swearword for Germans during World War II. By the beginning of the 1970s, the record industry used “Krautrock” as a catchword for its advertising campaigns. The events of 1968 had also helped German music to take off in a new direction – everything was called into question, everything was to become new and different. Musicians and bands refused to accept standardized ways of living. The dissociation from established forms and a joyful kind of self-realization led to anarchic sound experiments. Some bands would look for direct confrontation with the political system.

Nick Cave: "Stranger Than Kindness" Exhibition in Montreal

The Nick Cave exhibition Stranger Than Kindness, first shown in Copenhagen in 2020, has travelled to Montreal. It will be open for the public @ Galerie de la Maison du Festival from April 8 until August 7.

Stranger Than Kindness: The Nick Cave Exhibition is an unprecedented look into the creative world of Nick Cave. With more than 300 objects collected or created by Nick Cave through six decades of his creative and private life brought together in large-scale installations, the exhibition is an artwork in itself. Created for The Black Diamond of The Royal Danish Library in Copenhagen, and with Cave as a co-curator and co-designer, the exhibition is an unorthodox fusion of biography, autobiography and fiction, asking what shapes our lives and makes us who we are.

Nick Cave: "Stranger Than Kindness" Exhibition in Copenhagen

Nick Cave artifacts will be on display @ The Black Diamond in Copenhagen, Denmark. Stranger Than Kindness: The Nick Cave Exhibition opens at The Black Diamond, Copenhagen on 23 March and runs until 3 October 2020:

Stranger Than Kindness is a journey into the creative world of musician and storyteller Nick Cave.

The exhibition brings together large scale installations and original atmospheric soundscapes with more than 300 objects from Cave’s own collection, the Nick Cave archive at Arts Centre Melbourne, the collections of Royal Danish Library and a number of private lenders.

John Cale: Q&A @ The Velvet Underground Experience in NYC

The Velvet Underground - New York Extravaganza opens on October 10 at 718 Broadway. John Cale wil be doing a Q&A on October 11. From BrooklynVegan:

The Velvet Underground Experience opens week in NYC and they’ve been lining up special events for opening week. One of those is with actual VU member John Cale who will participate in a Q&A on October 11 at 5 PM. That event is first-come, first-served and is included with admission to the exhibitions.

» velvetunderground-experience.com
» John Cale tour dates

The Velvet Underground Experience in NYC: October 10 - December 30

Two years after The Velvet Underground - New York Extravaganza exhibition in Paris, the artefacts, sounds and movies get another outing in the band's hometown New York. Renamed The Velvet Underground Experience it opens on October 10 at 718 Broadway. Caveat: the official website contains a truly awful I'm Waiting For The Man (64Kbps MP3 or something like that).

» velvetunderground-experience.com

My Name is Prince Exhibition comes to Amsterdam

My Name is Prince - The Official Exhibition comes to Amsterdam @ Beurs van Berlage (March 8 - June 8, 2018). Paisley Park’s Director of Archives Angie Marchese.

At Paisley Park, Prince constructed and inhabited a creative reality that was wholly unique, allowing him to fluidly develop music and artistic works spontaneously and without limitation. He envisioned Paisley Park as one day being opened to the public. Through this exhibition, we are expanding his dream to share with a wider audience, and allow visitors to experience all his greatness through the artefacts direct from his Paisley Park Archive.

For The Record: 60s Pop Through The Lens

The photo exhibition For The Record: 60s Pop Through The Lens opens on June 3rd in London. Polish photographer Stanley Bielecki was on hand to capture the Stones, Bod Dylan, the Beatles, the Yardbirds, Françoise Hardy, Chuck Berry and many more:

For The Record: 60s Pop Through The Lens celebrates some of the most iconic faces of 60s music captured by photographer Stanley Bielecki.

From Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and Ginger Baker through to The Zombies and The Supremes, the exhibition offers a fascinating insight into the groundbreaking 60s pop boom. Come into the studio for rehearsals of Ready Steady Go or join the audience for Top of the Pops and witness candid images of music legends at the very beginning of their careers.

Never exhibited before, and some never published, these images offer a reminder of a pivotal moment in music history, when the white heat of cultural change was setting passions alight across England and the rest of the world.

Ramones exhibition in NYC: "Hey! Ho! Let’s Go: Ramones and the Birth of Punk"

1-2-3-4! In 1976 the self-titled debut album by NYC's finest punk rock band The Ramones hit the shops. To commemorate its release the Queens Museum will host the "Hey! Ho! Let’s Go: Ramones and the Birth of Punk" exhibition. All four original members grew up in Forest Hills, Queens. Their high energy short songs were revelation. They never changed their style and built a huge catalog of memorable songs that still resonate in today's garage rock circles.

On display are a wealth of posters, cartoon drawings, T-shirts and other memorabilia. The exhibition opens on April 10.

Handel & Hendrix in London

photo: Barrie Wentzell

The upstairs flat in 23 Brook Street in London is the sole recognised Jimi Hendrix residence in the world. It will open for the public on February 10.

The fabled composer George Frideric Handel lived at no 25. Tickets to visit both sites can be booked online here. They are not quit done yet redecorating Jimi's apartment. Follow the Hendrix At Home blog for the latest updates.

The Pink Floyd Exhibition – Their Mortal Remains

A huge Pink Floyd exposition will be open to the public in Milan (September 19 – October 19:

Fran Tomasi, Pink Floyd’s Italian promoter, has announced plans for ‘The Pink Floyd Exhibition – Their Mortal Remains’ which will open in Milan’s La Fabbrica Del Vapore on 19 September 2014. This vast and innovative exhibition will take the visitor on a surreal, multi-sensory journey through Pink Floyd’s extraordinary worlds, chronicling the music and art of Pink Floyd, from their debut album ‘The Piper At The Gates of Dawn’ to the present. The Pink Floyd Exhibition is the first international retrospective of one of the world’s most pioneering and influential bands and the active involvement and collaboration of the three band members in all planning aspects has been crucial to the execution of it.

» pinkfloydexhibition.com

Rutherford Chang: "We Buy White Albums" expo in NYC

Music collectors can be pretty obsessive. Meet Rutherford Chang. He only collects first pressings - in any condition - of The White Album. An exhibition of his 693 copies of The Beatles fabled 1968 double LP is being held at Recess, a NYC art gallery in Soho, 41 Grand Street.

(Thru: Dust & Grooves)

The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl at the Miami Art Museum

The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl at the Miami Art Museum. Vinyl as an art form and cultural icon.

The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl, organized by the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, is the first museum exhibition to explore the culture of vinyl records within the history of contemporary art. Bringing together artists from around the world who have worked with records as their subject or medium, this groundbreaking exhibition examines the record's transformative power from the 1960s to the present.

Through sculpture, installation, drawing, painting, photography, sound work, video and performance, The Record combines contemporary art with outsider art, audio with visual, and fine art with popular culture.

The exhibition features 99 works by 41 artists, including rising stars in the contemporary art world (William Cordova, Robin Rhode, Dario Robleto), outsider artists (Mingering Mike), well-established artists (Ed Ruscha, Carrie Mae Weems) and artists whose work will be shown in a U.S. museum for the

» miamiartmuseum.org

Adam Ritchie: Velvet Underground and Pink Floyd photos from 1965/66 at Artisan, London

Adam Ritchie has an exhibition at Artisan in London, showing his photos of The Velvet Underground and Pink Floyd.

The photographs capture the energy and colour of their legendary earliest appearances in New York and London. Some have been shown at the Tate, the V&A, the Whitney and are in the Andy Warhol and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Collections. Signed and numbered prints on archive paper available at reasonable prices.

The show runs from Friday 9th March to Saturday 24th March 2012 and will be at 80 Harlesden Road, London NW10 2BE – see artisan80.com for more details.

» adam-ritchie-photography.co.uk

Kraftwerk–Retrospective 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 at MoMa, NYC

Man Machine. Courtesy of Sprueth Magers, Berlin and London. © Kraftwerk

German avant-garde electronic music pioneers Kraftwerk will perform all eight album at The Museum of Modern Art in New York during the Kraftwerk–Retrospective 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. The German quartet is a major influence on modern day dance music. They were at the forefront using visuals during their live concerts.

The Museum of Modern Art presents its first time-based artist retrospective with Kraftwerk–Retrospective 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8, performed live on eight consecutive evenings from April 10 through 17, by Kraftwerk, the avant-garde electronic music pioneers. Each evening will consist of a live performance, in the Museum’s Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium, of works from one of the group’s eight albums, created over four decades, followed by a selection of original compositions from their catalogue adapted specifically for this exhibition’s format, to showcase both Kraftwerk’s historical contributions and contemporary influences on sound and image culture.

Kraftwerk–Retrospective 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 is organized by Klaus Biesenbach, Chief Curator at Large at MoMA and Director of MoMA PS1, with the assistance of Eliza Ryan, Curatorial Assistant, MoMA PS1. The elaborate staging of the performances will combine sound and 3D images to present more than 40 years of musical and technological innovation, with new improvisations and 3D projections. The albums will be performed in chronological order: Autobahn (1974), Radio-Activity (1975), Trans Europe Express (1977), The Man-Machine (1978), Computer World (1981), Techno Pop (1986), The Mix (1991), and Tour de France (2003).

TDF. Courtesy of Sprueth Magers, Berlin and London. © Kraftwerk

The Museum also hosts a presentation of Kraftwerk’s historical audio and visual material will be on view in the new MoMA PS1 Performance Dome at MoMA PS1, from April 10-May 14, 2012.

Performance Schedule:

• 04/10 08:30 p.m. Autobahn (1974)
• 04/11 08:30 p.m. Radio-Activity (1975)
• 04/12 08:30 p.m. Trans Europe Express (1977)
• 04/13 10:00 p.m. The Man-Machine (1978)
• 04/14 08:30 p.m. Computer World (1981)
• 04/15 08:30 p.m. Techno Pop (1986)
• 04/16 08:30 p.m. The Mix (1991)
• 04/17 10:00 p.m. Tour de France (2003)

Tickets go on sale on February 22.

» kraftwerk.com
» moma.org

John Cale turns 70: special tribute website

John Cale turns 70 on March 9. A group of fans is currently working on a special tribute website. A (closed) Facebook group is working on cover versions of his songs, art and more. Anybody can join the group ...

» johncaletribute.com

David Greenwald: Rawkshots exhibition in L.A.

L.A. writer/photographer David Greenwald is showing his Rawkshots Origami Vinyl. Opens June 4. Free beer while supplies last.

Pals, I’m very pleased to announce my first-ever photo exhibition at the venerable Origami Vinyl next month. We’re kicking things off with an opening night party on Friday, June 4, at 7 p.m., and as Travis Morrison once said, you are invited. Rawkblog favorites Death Kit and LA Font will be playing live sets, limited-edition prints of my work will be on display (and for sale, signed and numbered by yrs truly) and we’ll have free beer until we run out of PBR. Come! You can RSVP on Facebook or walk right in.