Guggenheim First Fridays – Art After Dark

Last evening I went to the First Friday’s party at the Gugg. An evening gig starting around 6 and ending near 12 or 1 am. The last few times I’ve been there were great djs, musicians, to accompany the excellent exhibit. This evening everything fell flat. There was a significant line as usual with typically slow staff in front getting people in. What was more deceiving about this evening, they were still setting up the exhibit, the Shapes of Space, which wasn’t even extended to the last two floors of the hall.

Nouvelle Vague was the Live music at the Guggenheim this evening. I wasn’t too impressed but the acoustics for live bands in the hall are atrocious. Ricocheting up and down the Gugg making for terrible sound unless you’re right up front. I didn’t get much from my vid (behind the stage) but supmag did here:


Billy Idol

Dead Kennedys

More Pictures of the event:

And last a video of one of the more interesting parts of the exhibit, the sound synced lighted dancefloor (from the Guggenheim site: “Piotr UklaÅ„ski’s adaptable wall-to-wall installation Untitled (Dance Floor) (1996) transforms the institutional space of the museum or gallery into a sound-synchronized, light-flashing disco, subverting the normal use of the site and encouraging visitors to dance, mingle, and otherwise interact with one another.”

Doughnut holes are made of the same thing as the hole in your toilet seat, but nobody ever publicizes that. Megan Coughlin

Roadtrip to SLO

Let’s do an update on A-ber shall we? Sure. Well just about two weeks ago I set up with my boys Nick and Navin to roll to hometown college town of San Luis Obispo… First stop was DTzie! The Stones for a Tri-Tip and a Firestone brew. If you haven’t had a good tri-tip then head to the central coast. The fries, tip, self serve drinks, big screen TVs, the basty and all the charm of dumb college Sophomores. What more do you need?

Met up with some friends still hitting the 7 yr plan and proceeded to binge drink my former college self into a good time downtown that evening. Hitting most of the typical “hot” spots or whatever you can call them in SLO… Frog’s (Frog & Peach ~ a wanna be Irish pub) for a Guinness and to check out the local reggea band…on to Mission grill, formerly Mango’s but a good place to meet the spoiled meets Kid Rock types (yeah I met a chick who’s boyfriend calls himself Kid Rock). Didn’t dare venture into either Bulls or Fratasons (Madison?s ~ although I hear since the remodel it hasn’t kept it’s typical frat atmosphere). However, no trip to SLO with out the local spot at McCarthy’s. If anyone is happiest here it’s Jerry, cuz he stands at the door all day gawking at all the SLO ass…and at his age it’s all good – Don’t be fooled by the reality of it though.

I actually convinced my friends to head over to the old Z club, I mean Ra, well now it’s The Realm. Still owning after a few years… Still coming out of there sick from all the free drinks… I’ve got to abstain next time… Just something about that place makes you want to drink… it couldn’t be the women though…???

Ended up crashing at the no infamous Rock where I got worked at foose. Shit an I used to have a table too.

After some meandering around we headed south to SB. Ahh the land of sun….and….a college…and…what does SB have to offer. I’m not completely sure. I do know that it’s a kick ass party town, well that’s for those in Isla Vista, pizza and beer is a staple, lots of shopping on State St. and of course the beach. We chilled with a friend in the ghetto… She conveniently pointed out all the spots were people were jumped, stabbed, found passed out drunk or just areas not to go. Nice. I love IV.

After shopping, and a few drinks at 634 during the day we met a nice man that let me know I was responsible (my people) for keeping him down. I’ll remember that when my job takes out more money for his Social security and he makes a more money than me (tax free) pestering shoppers on the street. We had a camera but who knows if I’ll ever get copies of the prints and scan em….

That evening we hit two spots. Club 634 again and an old gem turned new hot spot: WildCats (15 W Ortega St.) 634 had the top 40/house/hip hop music/crowd going on. I found myself on stage a few times showing the peeps how to dance and I found I got along rather well with the locals. Spotted a Bart Simpson look-a-like. We cruzed down the street to Wildcats where earlier I had heard some underground beats and sure enough…underground. While in line I met the owner and he instructed us to go around the back. I guess they had reached capacity in the front but were able to let peeps back in on the DL. The place used to be called Club Arson until someone took it literally and burned it down. Now remodled in some gothic meets retro attire… the place is phat. Drinks good. Friendly ladies and good djs (finally). Read Mangazam’s School for the Santa Barbara DJ to get a picture of the crap I had to endure going by most of the other clubs: DJ School

On the way back up the coast we stopped by San Simeon to check out Hearst’s ridiculous representation of wealth…the Castle We lagged on making reservations and ended up on the last tour of the Garden To top it off it was raining and our tour lady sucked. “Ok over here is that big pool with some Greek statues… I think that one is supposed to be Neptune….and over here are some flowers n stuff…”

Over all a good time out from the bay…

Finally I’ll Leave you with this fitting mantra HERE Gotta have sound though…