Nicole Handel's Neighbours (New Madrid at The Greenpoint Gallery)

I apologize for the lack of posts this week, but we've been busy rehearsing and writing. That's how we do it, see. Regardless, on Friday the 24th of July, we played for our friend Nicole Handel's show Neighbours at The Greenpoint Gallery. It was a blast! Check out some images.

Nicole Handel and Shawn James from The Greenpoint Gallery

Como que les gusta

Axel y algunos amigos

Ciao,
Erik Barragan

A Documentary About Queen

Axel turned me onto this Queen documentary, and I've watched it a couple of times already. Interviews with all four members and Freddie Mercury stories to boot. Enjoy!

Primera parte:



Segunda parte:



I hope you've enjoyed it.

Ciao,
Erik Barragan

Las Aventuras de Pico!

You hear the door open, then the familiar rhythm of Papi’s strut. His shoe laces dangle invitingly as his steps carry him to the bedroom. You notice as they twitch like a mouse’s tail and dart from underneath the green comfy chair. Run, paws clacketing like castañuelas on the hardwood floor. The air smells of good of surprise. Jump. Bite bite. Scratch scratch.

“Pico!” Papi says joyfully. “Mi zapato!”

For shame, Pico! That wasn’t a mouse! That was Papi’s shoe! You wiggle as he scoops you up to his chest. What a big face Papi has. Tap his nose lightly. He smells safe. He smells of today. But he doesn’t smell of you. Rub your face against his prickly beard; lick his hands and fingers. Another scent jiggles your nose. Look down. Did Lucy just zoom by Papi’s feet? Is that a mouse by Papi’s feet?

Wriggle your body, Pico. Let Papi know that your hunt must begin anew. It works; Papi lets you leap. Breathe deeply; the smell of Lucy reminds you of games. The mouse is nothing but an afterthought. Lucy is by the kitchen table! Run; the linoleum floor always feels different. You can’t decide which you like best under your paws. Lucy isn’t moving. She stiffens. Surely a game will loosen her up! Her brown fur ripples excitedly at your approach. She is much bigger than you up close. The time for games is here! Then you catch a tiny gleam in her eyes as she hisses loudly, swatting you away. Right in the kisser, Pico!

Too scary and your nose stings. Trot to a safe distance. You hear Lucy's mouth clicking ever so slightly. Her usual steady gaze seems to flicker. Lucy doesn’t want to play, Pico, better to leave her alone for now. The beige sofa looks comfortable. Go past the white stove, walk by the bookshelf. Then you detect the scent of memory. You’ve stalked from this position before. Explore a little; it smells like Lucy around here. Is Lucy next to you? She isn’t. It smells more like Papi in this corner of the room. It doesn’t smell like you that much. Fix it, Pico. Rub your fur on the Fender amp. Don’t forget that Epiphone acoustic guitar leaning carelessly against the wall. Oh no, the guitar is falling on top of you! Take cover as it crashes into cacophony like a dissonant hammer.

“Pico! Mi guitarra!” Yells Papi charging towards you.

Scary-scary, run Pico. Papi is right behind you with cross noises. Under the green comfy chair, Papi can’t see in the dark. But the green comfy chair suddenly moves to the side, exposing your coordinates. Quick, escape through the space behind the wall and the TV. Run behind the wicker chair! He will never find you behind there. But he rapidly catches and lifts you by the fold of your neck, like momma-cat used to do. Though he doesn’t do it with his mouth. Sternly, Papi takes you past the kitchen, where your empty bowl of food reminds your tummy it hasn’t eaten. Ahead of you the blue bathroom waits always with its door closed, always with its boredom. You know what happens when you misbehave, Pico. You spend time in the boring blue bathroom.

The front door opens behind, Papi. Mami is home! Go say hello. Wiggle from Papi’s grasp; let him know Mami’s home. He lets you fall lightly to the linoleum floor. The outside smell Mami brought in is exciting; it’s new. Rub your fur against her black trousers; sprawl on the floor with your tummy ready for greetings. Mami bends down and pets your belly, moving to that sweet spot underneath your chin. But her usual comfort isn’t as warm and her scent is devoid of sunniness. In her voice you can hear the stinging of a nose. Tread to Papi with no more mice by his feet, only his funny long toes. But that same sound in his voice alerts you. Then Lucy is next to you calling to Mami, her voice quivering in the air. Mami only looks at Papi. The noise gets louder and scarier. Go by the wicker chair, Pico, away from the kitchen.

Inhale and be still. It’s unusual today. Home is louder and colder. What happened to games and pets?

Your belly rumbles again, but you catch yourself before rushing to your bowl. Now, Papi’s and Mami’s voices bellow like the fallen guitar. Lucy has hidden somewhere as well. This is not the same.

Wait, is that a paper bag by Mami’s feet!? A tall, big, brown paper bag full of secrets and wonders! Investigate, Pico. Run, your whiskers sparkling with the electricity of the mystery, your eyes wide and expectant. Jump; swell your lungs with surprise; feel the air in your paws. Dive nose-first into the tall, big, brown paper bag.

“Pico! Las compras!” Mami exclaims warmly.

For shame, Pico! That bag is full of groceries. And why are you still inside the paper bag, Pico? Now, Papi and Mami are both crouched next to you giving you special pets. Suddenly, Lucy is next to you, also in need of special pets. Groom Mami’s hand with your tongue, Pico. She tastes happy again! Do it to Papi and the result is the same. Paper bags are just full of joy.

When Papi gets up, it’s to fill yours and Lucy’s plates with yummy food. It sounds like pebbles falling on a tin. Run to your plate Pico; it’s full. Mami and Papi walk by you towards their bedroom. Next to you, Lucy is eating from her plate. Her food smells like yours. She smells happy! Food is as much fun as playing! Is it time to play with Lucy? Recoil, touch the floor with your belly. Spring forward; sally forth into games. This time Lucy leaps too, and nibbles on your neck lightly. Nibble back; run after her, behind the wicker chair, underneath the beige sofa. She’s on top of the green comfy chair; jump up and rub your face against her fur. For someone so big, she is fast and bouncy. Lucy taps you in the nose with her paw; this time it doesn’t hurt. This time is friendly. She jumps down to the floor, and sits by Mami’s and Papi’s bedroom door, peering inside, seemingly unaware that you’re still on top of the green comfy chair. Mami’s voice sounds happy and excited, so does Papi’s. You yawn; lay down and close your eyes, Pico; naps are almost as fun as games.

When you open your eyes, Lucy isn’t by the door any longer. Everything is a little darker than before. Perfect hunting conditions. Where is a mouse when you need one? Land gently on the hardwood floor. Lucy is on the big bed with Mami and Papi. You can feel their warmth from where you’re standing. Sniff the air: contentment. Spring onto the bed, see if Lucy is asleep. She hisses at you in the dark. Too scary, Pico! Better to let her sleep. Papi’s eyes are open; he pets your head. Tread carefully onto Papi’s chest. He smells safe and happy. But, he doesn’t smell of you at all. This cannot be. Rub your face against his neck, lick his giant face. Close your eyes and rest, Pico. Tomorrow will be another day full of adventure.

Ciao,
Erik Barragan

New Madrid for Nicole Handel (Greenpoint Gallery Show)

On Friday, June 24th, New Madrid will be playing at The Greenpoint Gallery for our friend Nicole Handel's art exhibition. She's a very talented painter and artist extraordinaire. Read part of the press release below, and check out some of her art:

Brooklyn based artist Nicole Handel will exhibit her first solo show at Greenpoint Gallery on June 24, 2011. The show entitled, ‘Neighbors’ is a collection of people and things the artist has had a relationship with in the nine years she has been in Bedstuy.

Handel’s vibrant and effervescent work has made her an artist to watch for. Her colorful watercolor paintings juxtaposed with abstract and real life images are appealing and lust worthy to the eye. Her work is concerned with the interface between childhood fantasy and everyday reality. Her understanding of that rapport is animated by a stylistic approach to culture and urban settings that intends to represent her technical sensibilities rather than advance a singular or particular ideology. Raised in New England but residing in New York City for a decade, Nicole superimposes her inclination toward the pastoral over the spatial constraints of her current geography. She deliberately traces her watercolor images in an asymmetrical, irregular fashion to signify our impetus to impose restraint over disorder as well as to frame the artist’s struggle to embrace the organic while generating something novel.

“Nicole Handel's work makes me feel like I am walking on air” –Koko Ntuen, Ladygunn Magazine

“Nicole is one of the best new artists I have seen in awhile. The first time I saw her work I was taken aback by it’s strength and beauty.” -Koko Ntuen, Ladygunn Magazine

"Nicole was the winner of one of our recent Salon shows. Her work is a bold combination of organic and architectural elements that create a juxtaposed narrative that is both timely and culturally relevant. Honestly one of the best new artists we've exhibited." -Shawn James, Greenpoint Gallery

This show is not to be missed, ‘Neighbours’ will surely be the talk of the neighborhood for the years.
Neighbours at 390 McGuiness in Greenpoint Brooklyn on June 24th. From 7p-1am

Accompanying the show will be music by New Madrid, a unique and bilingual Brooklyn-based rock trio formed in 2009 consisting of Axel Ito (vocals, drums), Anthony Formichella (bass), and Erik Barragan (guitar). Their sound, influenced by traditional rhythms found in the South American Andes, is fused with contemporary American and British Rock/Alternative and embraces lyrics both in Spanish and English: un estilo engendrado en Latino America pero creado en Norte America. Following the headlining act will be Coins, a newly formed quartet with River Symone on vox, Ian H on guitar, Phil Driskill on drums and Jason Henry on bass guitar.

Check Nicole Handel's website at http://www.nicolehandel.com/.

Ciao,
Erik Barragan

The White Album

I placed the CD carefully in my boombox. Then...a whirring noise, a digital counter, the sound of a plane taking off: Back in the U.S.S.R..

April 1995 saw The Basketball Diaries and Friday, and Clinton hadn’t gotten into any sexual trouble yet. The Oklahoma City bombing had already become part of American history. In West New York, New Jersey, Latin culture thrived. A dense square mile of restaurants from El Salvador, Colombia, Peru were laid out in an almost chinatown arrangement along Bergenline Ave. Kids with different accents and bone structures dressed in baggy pants, ranchero hats, hippie dresses, guayaberas and polos. Kurt Cobain’s posthumous popularity hadn’t waned, but lived alongside posters for the latest bachata and merengue stars. Early Marc Anthony trumpeted from apartments and car windows. I was fifteen years old and slowly letting go of that survivor mode I’d been in since my family left an uncertain life in Venezuela back in ‘93. Punto Fijo, Venezuela: a tiny desert town, twilight of my childhood, heat like I’d never known. We came to America searching for a better life. It was a sacrifice for all of us, little food, holey shoes and cheap, extra-large clothing for a couple of years. But we were together, and we always laughed and worked and laughed and worked; by the mid-90’s, it was looking up for the Barragans.

My sophomore year was slowly coming to a close. It had turned out way better than my freshman year. As a result of joining the Memorial High School Marching Tigers, my extra-curricular life received an infusion of vitality. Football games, parades, concerts, inaugurations, if the Mayor of West New York needed some live entertainment, the Tigers were there. I played the baritone; picture a smaller, forlorn concert tuba. Its tone was melancholy like the wistfulness in the voices of Billie Holiday and Mercedes Sosa. Even if the song was happy, the sound had a tinge of blue. My father sang like that too. Our band director, Mr. P, ecstatic to finally have two baritones, went gun-happy arranging harmonies for baritone two. “Two baritones!? That hasn’t happened since the 80’s!” Mr. Passanti was a trekkie. “Live long and prosper.” He was also morbidly obese, like a heavy tear drop. He died of a heart attack a few years ago.

On Baritone One was Tommy. I think he was Ecuadorian, light complexion and light hair; he could have been from Argentina. Tommy was cool. Rock n’ roll persuasion, always in a rock t-shirt: Nirvana, Pearl Jam, lots of Rolling Stones. He was the guy who would be courteous to your parents and respectful to your friends, but would still smoke the old doobie and be a teenager. Band rehearsals were a good time because girls liked him, so there'd be a bevvy of them around during breaks. Those Memorial High School girls seemed so knowing. The voluptuousness of Latinas in first bloom; their full lips, red and smiling, dark eyes or blue or green, different shades of Latin, I felt x-rayed by them. But Tommy made it look easy.

Turned out Tommy was into The Beatles. And one day, he brought The White Album to school. He’d propped the double CD on his music stand, directly to my right. There was something loud about that mute, white cover. “The Beatles” typed in gray, off center to the far right, almost vanishing. I was vaguely familiar with the band because of my father’s diverse record collection. My concept of them, however, was limited to the Beatlemania years: girls in hysterics and mop tops. I’d watched a Hard Day's Night and hadn't found it funny. It was my parents' music, del tiempo del Rey Pepino. Not that I didn’t love oldies, but my fifteen year old absolute knowledge of music failed to see The Beatles as relevant to my heavy metal sensibilities. Happiness was shredding Enter Sandman and growling like Phil Anselmo from Pantera. Yet, there was something about that all-white cover. I’d seen solid color covers before. At least, I thought I had. Metallica’s black album was an example, but on that one there was a near invisible Metallica logo on the upper left corner and that don’t-tread-on-me snake on lower right. Spectrum: a band of colors formed when a beam of white light is broken up. I saw the choice of white as bold. “Tommy, can I see that?”

It was a double album that came with a booklet. I flipped through the pages: John Lennon, tight-shot of his face, tinted blue, looking stoned and singing to a mic; George Harrison’s face smiling, a black-and-white shot with a foggy shape blocking his right side; Ringo Starr, his eyes warm but morose, the wind sweeping his hair to the side; and Paul McCartney close up, unshaven, maybe sleepy, definitely the cute Beatle. They didn’t look like rockstars to me. They looked like artists. Whatever that word encompassed to my 1995 sensibilities, that’s what their pictures represented. I had no frame of reference for these Beatles. I’d never listened to anything between Rubber Soul and Abbey Road. I was missing a huge chunk of rock history. I was a blank slate. Perfect. “Tommy, can I borrow this?”

That night, I got home around eight from our rehearsal for the spring concert. My brother was at the downstairs neighbors' playing video games. My parents were in bed watching la novela. “Como te fue, mijo?” “Bien papi. Bien mami.” “Vaya coma, Eriksito.” “Si, mami. Gracias.” My mother always left me a plate of food, saran-wrapped in the fridge waiting for me. We had a cozy and spotless kitchen (my mom ran a tight ship), a medium, rectangular wooden table with four chairs for the four of us. When I came home after dinner time, I’d sit in my father’s chair and eat while listening to music. Tonight’s only difference was the record. I placed Disc 1 carefully in my boombox. There was a whirring noise, a digital counter, and then: The White Album.

“I don't know how you were diverted, you were perverted too.”
“Mother superior jump the gun.”
“Martha my dear, though I spend my days in conversation please remember me.”
“Half of what I say is meaningless. But I say it just to reach you, Julia.”

The songs were paintings: landscapes, abstracts, yellows, reds, brass sections, nylon string guitars. The nostalgia of While My Guitar Gently Weeps, the lethargy of I’m So Tired, the sweet sentiment of I Will, The Beatles had achieved complete self expression. There was no difference between them and Van Gogh. Or them and Andy Kaufman, since there was nonsense and humor on some of those tracks. The brief song Wild Honey Pie repeated the line “honey pie” over and over and then ended with yelps and the phrase “I love you, Honey Pie”. And that was that. I replayed that song almost involuntarily. It made me laugh. Then there was Happiness Is A Warm Gun, poly-rhythmic, genre-defying and sarcastic. What to make of Revolution 9’s sound collage or the crassness of Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey for that matter? These songs didn’t seem like the kind of material written to make money or stay popular. This was their craft and the record their exhibition. That’s what I saw with The White Album and why I loved it.

That night, I brought the boombox to bed with me. I let it play through my sleep; whenever I woke up to go to the bathroom or get water, I’d start the record again, Disc 1, Disc 2.

One week later, I returned Tommy his CD. I’d already purchased the record for myself and bought Abbey Road along with it. My head was so full of Beatles that Tommy and I would beatlespeak through band period. “Another beatleconversation, guys?” Mr. P would poke fun. “Live long and prosper, Mr. P.” We’d shoot back.

Tommy is married now; I believe he lives in North Carolina with his wife and one or two kids. I haven’t spoken to him since he graduated. But, if he happens to be reading this: Gracias chamo! Te la debo.

Ciao,
Erik Barragan

The Internet? Bah!

I found this 1995 Newsweek article on another blog last night. I loved it. You'll laugh: The Internet? Bah!

Ciao,
Erik Barragan

Puppies Need a Home

Our manager and friend, Isa Wooster has three, super-adorable, frolicking, pit-bull mix puppies that need a home:

They came from a high kill shelter in South Carolina. A pregnant mother was abandoned by her owners and was scheduled to be put down that day. I volunteered to take the mom and the puppies, and by the next day they were born.

The pups are all turning 8 weeks old on Thursday. You can imagine how full of energy they are. Their mom is very sweet and gentle. Great dog.

I'm the point of contact for anyone interested, but they have been rescued through the organization Mutts & Mitts, and they must be adopted through the organization; therefore, there is a fee involved. Anyone interested should email me directly. The puppies will all be spayed/neutered and microchipped and will have at least one round of vaccinations.

This is her e-mail isanicole@gmail.com.

Isa is keeping one of the puppies, but I included all four in the first pic. The whole gang, one last hurrah!

Ciao,
Erik Barragan

Art as a Tool for Social Change

Directly from our dear friend and awesome New Madrid supporter/dancer/crowd-hyper, Marissa A. Gutiérrez-Vicario:

Launched this year, Art and Resistance Through Education (ARTE) is For-Justice Organization that empowers traditionally disadvantaged young people with human rights literacy and life skills through volunteer hip-hop mural projects, fostering leadership opportunities to train others.

For ARTE's first project, we have connected high school students at the Advocacy Lab and a professional muralist involved with Subway Art History to help bring awareness to the human rights violation of sexual trafficking by supporting the important efforts of the Somaly Mam Foundation.

This will be accomplished by working with the youth to paint a mural in the South Bronx community - the culminating event of the students' year-long human rights campaign, which has focused on the global plight of young boys and girls who are sexually trafficked – a form of modern-day slavery – and will highlight the work of Somaly Mam, Cambodian human rights activist and trafficking survivor and the Somaly Mam Foundation.

If you are interested in helping empower young people to use art as a tool for social change and to inspire them to believe that they can make a difference in their communities and around the world, please consider donating before June 6th: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1008622957/bronx-youth-paint-mural-on-human-trafficking