On the Cover: Descendents (and Filter Magazine) Turn 50
For Filter’s 50th issue cover story, I had the privilege of moderating interviews between LA punk legends Mike Watt and Descendents, plus the band’s long-time artist Chris Shary. Singer Milo Aukerman just turned 50, which is baffling, especially if you have memories of singing along to his adolescent snarls and jokes and emotive punk crooning about teenage isolation. Most fascinating was hearing thoughtful reflection on notions of aging and the passage of time from a group that so famously never wanted to grow up.
MILO: I’m thinking about that in the context of being together now: We take these long breaks and it doesn’t always make a lot of sense, but people still want to come see us and not only want to come sees us but really want to come see us play these big shows. And we’re just enjoying it while it’s here. Part of it is also that people have this desire to connect with this past that we share—obviously, with [Watt]—this past of early LA punk rock, which was this magical period for all of us.
WATT: It wasn’t like Fonzie and Potsie and shit like that. It was a small scene, kind of beat down. It was special. I would not be who I am without it.
BILL: It was all I had. These guys were my family. The first time I went to [historic Hollywood punk club] The Masque it was life-changing. It was one of those shows where it was like Go-Gos, Germs, Weirdos, Slugs. Every band was playing and it was five dollars or whatever. And when I walked out of that place four hours later, I was a different person.
KARL: The whole world was smaller back then.
STEPHEN: But punk reached its tentacles out to us as far as Salt Lake City. We were a bunch of people experimenting wildly because no one knew what they were after.
BILL: I still don’t. But here we are.
You can read the whole thing at Filter, where you’ll find great original art by Shary and band/tour photos from over the years.
8:47 am • 31 January 2013
Overhead and clean. (at Huntington Cliffs)
1:34 pm • 30 December 2012
Vimeo Names ‘Moving Takahashi’ to Top 12 Shorts of 2012
This is absolutely surreal. Vimeo named our little short film, Moving Takahashi, to its list of the Top 12 Shorts of 2012.
Josh Soskin’s decision to shoot his second short on 35mm was daring and smart. Shot by Rob Hauer and released in time for Valentine’s Day, this bad-boy romance stars Kristin Malko as a petulant rich girl whose problems aren’t easy to see, and Boyd Holbrook as a moving man who isn’t as he appears. You know what is exactly as it appears? The gorgeous 35mm cinematography.
The other films in this list—especially Solipsist and The Eagleman Stag, and, well, all of them—are just incredible. So grateful to have worked alongside such talented people, and so humbled by the selection.
10:19 am • 19 December 2012 • 1 note
Tonight at a party I met a dog that resembles Bonnie Prince Billy.
10:08 pm • 15 December 2012
Love Wendy Faust’s Ikea monkey painting, via her blog, meaniepies:
Heartthrob
Yeah, I guess I’m on a bandwagon but I can’t help it if I’m smitten. This is what I worked on last night. It’s not complete, but it’s the first thing I’ve painted in over a year.
12:07 pm • 15 December 2012 • 91,850 notes
Bench art. (at Devereux Beach)
8:24 am • 24 November 2012
![The entire project calls into question our priorities about food and spending, but on a broader aesthetic level, it also calls into question the notion of standards of beauty, by artfully depicting things that are fairly revolting. “At the time, I was shooting a lot of restaurants trying to make [their food] look appetizing, so I wanted to photograph these spoiled items with the same care that goes into shooting normal food,” he says. “People go through such an effort to make things look delicious and beautiful, even to the point of spraying all sorts of chemicals on them, so it was also fun to play with those conventions of food photography.”
I talked to the photographer Joe Buglewicz about his series “Rotten” for Co.Exist.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdw7osG5Ks1qhepo9o1_500.jpg)
The entire project calls into question our priorities about food and spending, but on a broader aesthetic level, it also calls into question the notion of standards of beauty, by artfully depicting things that are fairly revolting. “At the time, I was shooting a lot of restaurants trying to make [their food] look appetizing, so I wanted to photograph these spoiled items with the same care that goes into shooting normal food,” he says. “People go through such an effort to make things look delicious and beautiful, even to the point of spraying all sorts of chemicals on them, so it was also fun to play with those conventions of food photography.”
I talked to the photographer Joe Buglewicz about his series “Rotten” for Co.Exist.
6:17 am • 22 November 2012
