Warhol’s Screen Tests of Lou Reed, Dennis Hopper, Nico & More

in Film, Music | April 29th, 2011

Between 1964 and 1966, Andy Warhol shot close to 500 short movies of friends, celebri­ties, mod­els, and any of the oth­er love­ly young things who passed through his stu­dio known as The Fac­to­ry. The indie-rock duet Dean and Brit­ta recent­ly com­posed songs for 13 of the videos, which they’ve been per­form­ing live as part of a mul­ti­me­dia con­cert for sev­er­al years. “13 Most Beau­ti­ful… Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests” is avail­able on DVD, CD, and of course, YouTube.

We espe­cial­ly loved “I’m Not A Young Man Any­more,” fea­tur­ing an icy cool Lou Reed, so hip and desir­able that even his Coke bot­tle looks as if it’s wear­ing sun­glass­es. There are oth­er gems as well, start­ing with the doomed Edie Sedgewick, one of The Fac­to­ry’s ear­li­est stars, who died of an over­dose in 1971.

The 5′10″ Ger­man mod­el Nico, before she began record­ing with the Vel­vet Under­ground.

The preter­nat­u­ral­ly beau­ti­ful Paul Amer­i­ca, star of Warhol’s film “My Hus­tler,” who even­tu­al­ly hired lawyers to seek pay­ment for his role in the movie that made him a reluc­tant gay icon. He died after being hit by a car in 1981.


And final­ly, the late Den­nis Hop­per, extra­or­di­nary on screen even by Fac­to­ry stan­dards. Accord­ing to Dean and Brit­ta, he was the first to buy one of Warhol’s soup can paint­ings.

On a some­what unre­lat­ed note, the Dean is of course Dean Ware­ham of Galax­ie 500 and Luna. If you’re a fan of his music, or even just nos­tal­gic for 90’s era pre-Nap­ster indie rock, you might want to check out his dry, thought­ful mem­oir, Black Post­cards: A Rock & Roll Romance.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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The Soundtrack of the Universe

in Astronomy, Music, Science, Video - Science | April 25th, 2011

We think of space as a silent movie, some­thing we see but nev­er hear. Yet space cre­ates a sound­track of sorts (even if sound waves can’t real­ly trav­el through the cos­mos), and now sci­en­tists and musi­cians want to play that sound­track for you.

Ear­li­er this year, Jan­na Levin, Pro­fes­sor of Physics and Astron­o­my at Barnard College/Columbia Uni­ver­si­ty, described how we can math­e­mat­i­cal­ly mod­el the sounds made by black holes. Fast for­ward to the 10:27 mark of her TED Talk above, and you will hear what it sounds like when a lighter black hole falls into a heav­ier black hole. The lit­tle guy bangs against space, kind of like a drumb play­ing faster and faster … which brings us to Mick­ey Hart, a for­mer drum­mer for The Grate­ful Dead.

In 2010, Hart teamed up with George Smoot, a Nobel Prize-win­ning physi­cist at the Lawrence Berke­ley Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry, to repro­duce the sound of The Big Bang and super­novas. (Berke­ley Labs post­ed this super­no­va clip above.) You can read more about the unlike­ly pair­ing and the “Rhythms of the Uni­verse” project here, then expe­ri­ence more celes­tial sounds recre­at­ed by Hart here.

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The Beatles: Live at Shea Stadium, 1965

in Music, Video - Arts & Culture | April 22nd, 2011

Here’s a Fri­day treat: The Bea­t­les’ 1965 con­cert at Shea Sta­di­um. At the time, this was the biggest rock con­cert in his­to­ry, with 12 cam­eras, a heli­copter fly­over, and 55,000 scream­ing fans. Best of all were the boys them­selves, still gid­dy enough about their own fame that they were crack­ing up on stage.

You can find a full set list for the show, and don’t miss John Lennon’s ter­rif­ic work on “Tick­et to Ride,” start­ing at minute 10:45. Just the day before, the band appeared on The Ed Sul­li­van Show for the fourth and final time, and we have the per­for­mance here in HD. Watched togeth­er, the two videos give a nice sense of how exhil­a­rat­ing Beat­le­ma­nia must have been.

The full Bea­t­les at Shea doc­u­men­tary (68 min­utes) can be watched over at Veoh.com.

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly

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Paul Simon’s Christmas Gets Animated in April

in Music | April 20th, 2011

So Beau­ti­ful or So What – Paul Simon’s 12th solo album (and his first release since 2006) hit the streets and ether last week. Crit­ics are call­ing it his best album since The Rhythm of the Saints (1990), if not Grace­land (1986). And it all starts out with “Get­ting Ready for Christ­mas Day,” a song that works well out­side the con­ven­tions of your usu­al Christ­mas song. As The Tele­graph reminds us, the song is over­whelm­ing­ly sec­u­lar, even a tad polit­i­cal:

I got a nephew in Iraq
It’s his third time back
But it’s end­ing up the way it began
With the luck of a begin­ner
He’ll be eat­ing turkey din­ner
On some moun­tain top in Pak­istan.

And it’s writ­ten by some­one out­side the Chris­t­ian faith, though that nev­er stopped Neil Dia­mond, Bar­bara Streisand or Car­ole King from knock­ing out a Christ­mas tune. If there is a spir­i­tu­al ele­ment, it per­haps comes down to this: Quite catchi­ly, the song’s cho­rus builds around excerpts from a 1941 ser­mon by the Rev. J.M. Gates, an influ­en­tial preach­er who became the most record­ed Gospel singer before World War II. Get more on Gates and his sam­pled ser­mon here.

Today, we’re offer­ing three videos that accom­pa­ny this song. First, a splen­did ani­ma­tion fea­tured above. Next, the offi­cial­ly released video. And final­ly a live per­for­mance record­ed on The Col­bert Report late last year.

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Collaborations: Spike Jonze, Yo-Yo Ma, and Lil Buck

in Music, Video - Arts & Culture | April 18th, 2011

The occa­sion: A ben­e­fit for the arts in pub­lic schools.

The musi­cian: Cel­list Yo-Yo Ma.

The dancer: LA/Memphis street dancer Lil Buck.

The cam­era: Direc­tor Spike Jonze.

The result: A per­for­mance that is also the best pos­si­ble argu­ment for the cause it sup­ports. We could say more, but again, the video speaks for itself.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ful­ly Flared: Intro to Skate­board­ing direct­ed by Spike Jonze, Ty Evans and Cory Weincheque

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly

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Photos of Famous Writers (and Rockers) with their Dogs

in Life, Literature, Music | April 12th, 2011

Cour­tesy of New York Social Diary, here is a love­ly series of pho­tographs fea­tur­ing famous authors and their dogs. If you’ve ever won­dered which breeds have served as muse to William Sty­ron, Stephen King, William F. Buck­ley, Kurt Von­negut, then this col­lec­tion is for you. But be warned: We’re still recov­er­ing from the sight of that Lhasa Apso flopped on Von­negut’s lap–we were hop­ing for a wolfhound.

For more artist-canine com­bi­na­tions, Fla­vor­wire has round­ed up a col­lec­tion of musi­cians and their dogs. Unlike the authors, these own­ers real­ly do look like their pets. (See Robert Plant.)

via @brainpicker and The Mil­lions

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Star Wars the Musical: The Force is Strong in this One

in Film, Music | April 8th, 2011

In 1996, three Cal­i­for­nia 17-year-olds (who should have known bet­ter) chan­neled all of their mon­ey and pas­sion into stag­ing a rock opera based on Star Wars IV: A New Hope. They’d only sched­uled it for a three night run, but it played to a sold-out crowd and, accord­ing to Salon’s Drew Grant, earned the two great­est hon­ors a fan can hope for: A review in The New York Times and a cease and desist let­ter from George Lucas.

The whole thing is now final­ly online. Salon has gath­ered all six parts onto one page, and you can also watch it on vimeo. We have includ­ed Part 1 above…

via Salon

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Everything Is Rhythm

in Film, Life, Music, Video - Arts & Culture | April 6th, 2011

“Foli” is the word used for rhythm by the Malinke tribe in West Africa. But Foli is not only found in Malinke music, but in all parts of their dai­ly lives. Direct­ed by Thomas Roe­bers, this short film por­trays the peo­ple of Baro, a small town in east­ern-cen­tral Guinea, and gives you a glimpse inside their cul­ture of rhythm. As the Malinke man says, “Tous les choses, c’est du rythme.” (“Every­thing is rhythm.”) What makes this film even more beau­ti­ful is the fact that it was edit­ed so as to reflect Malinke rhythms.

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.

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