Tag Archive - Joseph Keckler

Gwarlingo Artists in the News: André Gregory & Cindy Kleine, Sam Green & Jem Cohen, & Joseph Keckler’s “I Am An Opera”

 

Joseph Keckler

Singer, writer, and performance artist Joseph Keckler (Photo by Gerry Visco courtesy of Joseph Keckler)

 

Few things are as fulfilling as seeing a large, creative project finally reach completion. For many artists, finishing can be as difficult as starting. Artists often toil away for months, even years on a project with no reassurance that the work will find an audience or receive any critical attention.

That’s why I was thrilled to see a number of artists who have been featured on Gwarlingo receive some well-deserved attention from the mainstream press this past week. I remember when these projects were nothing more than an idea, and most of these films and performances were years in the making. (Perseverance is an often overlooked element in the creative process.)

No. Not all deserving artists receive the attention they deserve. But creative projects can’t stay in “the draft” stage forever. They need audiences and feedback in order to have any hope of making an impact.

Here are just a few of the Gwarlingo artists who have been in the news recently and who currently have new work on view in New York and other cities….

 

Joseph Keckler will perform his new work I Am An Opera at Dixon Place in New York during the month of April. (Photo by Gerry Visco)

Joseph Keckler will perform his new work I Am An Opera at Dixon Place in New York during the month of April. (Photo by Gerry Visco courtesy of Joseph Keckler)

 

Performance Artist Joseph Keckler

When I first saw Joseph Keckler perform two years ago, I was immediately convinced that he was going places. It was not a matter of “if,” but “when.”

Keckler’s new show I Am An Opera, which can be seen in New York City through April 27th, recently received press from both Interview! and the New York Times.

Joseph’s new song and video “The Ride” has just been released and will be performed as part of I Am An Opera. (The video is a collaboration with filmmaker Laura Terruso, musician Dan Bartfield, and performer Edgar Oliver, a favorite on The Moth).

In his interview with Gerry Visco in Interview!, Joseph humorously describes the evolution of the song and video:

I envisioned the driver as an almost Charon-like figure. We called Edgar Oliver and asked him if he might want to play the part. He replied in his extraordinary bass-baritone voice, which is simultaneously soothing and foreboding, “Oh yes, I love the idea… but I only have a learner’s permit. Can I take you across the river Styx on a… learner’s permit?” [laughs] I was trying to think about purgatory, in between states. For some reason, this song came out of that. I was making work in between forms and I was trying to make work that was about being in between worlds…

 

I wrote it over the course of a couple weeks in the La Mama ETC Theater rehearsal studio on Great Jones Street. I didn’t know how to sing it; I was approaching it with a big lounge-singer baritone. Eventually I tried it in my falsetto voice, which I’m using more and more of for “pop” songs.

 

Joseph Keckler will perform his new work I Am An Opera at Dixon Place in New York during the month of April. (Photo by Gian Maria Annovi courtesy the artist)

Joseph Keckler will perform his new work I Am An Opera at Dixon Place in New York during the month of April. (Photo by Gian Maria Annovi courtesy the artist)

 

 

Joseph Keckler (Photo by Gerry Visco courtesy of Joseph Keckler)

Joseph Keckler in his new show I Am An Opera (Photo by Gerry Visco courtesy of Joseph Keckler)

Joseph’s work may be difficult to categorize, as the Times acknowledges, but for my taste, this is what makes it so unique and unforgettable. A fascinating blend of actor, pianist, opera and blues singer, performer, cabaret act, and storyteller, you can get a taste of Keckler’s unusual style in these video segments featured on Gwarlingo back in 2011.

As the Times article explains, I Am an Opera is largely autobiographical and a mix of song, text, and video. According to the Times, the piece “has been nearly two years in the making and has garnered no small amount of buzz along the way.”

You can watch “The Ride” here and reserve tickets to the Dixon Place performance online. I’m looking forward to seeing this show myself on April 26th!

 

Writer, performance artist, and actor Edgar Oliver in Joseph Keckler's "The Ride" (Video still courtesy of Joseph Keckler)

Writer, performance artist, and actor Edgar Oliver in Joseph Keckler’s video for “The Ride” (Video still courtesy of Joseph Keckler)

 

 

 

 

 

Filmmaker Jem Cohen

Filmmaker Jem Cohen


 

Filmmakers Jem Cohen and Sam Green

Two of my favorite filmmakers, Sam Green and Jem Cohen, were also featured in the New York Times last week in an article about the revival of live cinema titled “Movies that Spill Beyond the Screen.”

Jem Cohen’s new project, We Have an Anchor, is now at the top of my “Must-See” list for the fall:

For the filmmaker Jem Cohen, who has long straddled the film and music worlds, live cinema has the potential to induce “a kind of primitive enchantment,” he said in a recent e-mail. While most movies are too predictably scored, and while projections at concerts tend to double as “moving wallpaper,” as Mr. Cohen put it, live cinema permits “a more equitable balance or dialectic between sound and image.”

Mr. Cohen’s new live project, “We Have an Anchor,” which will be at the Brooklyn Academy of Music next fall, combines multiscreen projections of Nova Scotia landscapes with live accompaniment by musicians from Fugazi, the Dirty Three and Godspeed You! Black Emperor.

“As an environmental portrait I wanted to make something fully immersive,” Mr. Cohen said.

 
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Thank You Gwarlingo Readers

A studio visit with MacArthur recipient Anna Schuleit kicked off Gwarlingo's "Creative Spaces" series in June. A feature on Kim Uchiyama's Tribecca studio is currently in the works. (Photo: "Bloom" by Anna Schuleit)

This Thanksgiving holiday I want to thank all of the friends and readers who have supported me this year during the launch of Gwarlingo. What a year it’s been.

Since the official launch of the site in June, the number of Gwarlingo subscribers and visitors has grown dramatically. I’ve had the excitement of watching a few articles go viral. (The most popular articles so far have been on Japanese manhole cover designs, rare color photographs taken by Farm Security Administration photographers, Slinkachu’s street photographs, the moving letter from Sol LeWitt to artist Eva Hesse, my feature on artist residencies, and Bridget Lowe’s Sunday Poem).

Bridget Lowe's poem "In the Study of My Hysteria" has been one of the most popular Sunday Poems since the series began five months ago. Since July, eighteen Sunday Poets have been featured on Gwarlingo.

Artists and poets who never knew each other have connected for the first time as a result of Gwarlingo, and last week I had the privilege of meeting Jean Marie Casbarian–an artist and Gwarlingo reader who won tickets to see Joseph Keckler’s show at La MaMa in New York. None of this could have happened without the support of readers like yourself.

Because of you, Gwarlingo is gradually turning into the online community I envisioned when I first launched the site six months ago.

I created Gwarlingo because I was fed-up with seeing the same movies, music, shows, and books covered in the mainstream press again and again. (A press release can only endure so many facelifts before it loses its allure). There are a lot of fabulous alternatives out there, but the trouble is knowing where to look.

My idea was to create a place where art lovers and artists of all disciplines could discover compelling work. I wanted to go deeper than the average blog–to have real conversations with real artists about ideas and process. To break down the barriers of genre, geography, and age, but to also have a little fun along the way. In spite of the impression given by many arts and literary publications, you don’t have to be overly earnest or annoyingly hipster to have an impact.

The letters and emails I’ve received from readers lead me to believe that I’m on the right track. Here’s a small sample…

 

“Because of Gwarlingo, I’m continually gifted with these amazing gems from you and other artists–everything big-hearted and highly creative. So thank you for all your work on it–I know it must take a lot of time and energy–and it’s very much appreciated.”

 

“Your subjects are so genuinely interesting, and your approach to them is refreshingly thoughtful and insightful, particularly these days in which mindless chatter abounds. It’s also wonderful to see your photos–they not only illustrate your text but give it further depth. You’ve managed to capture the spirit of creative imagination and provide some smart, much needed nourishment in the notably sere world of blogspheres. Congratulations and thank you!”

 

“Excellent! I keep seeing…[Slinkachu's] images pop up places but I didn’t really have an overall view of his work and who he is. Which is exactly the problem with the common way of sharing on the internet, and why I enjoy your blog so much.”

 

In spite of this encouraging feedback, I know Gwarlingo is still in its youth. I have so many new ideas for expanding the site–for increasing coverage of the arts, while also giving artists a much-needed platform for sharing their work with a smart, interested community of peers. There is a lot of work to be done in the days and months ahead–work that requires both time and money.

 

Performer and singer Joseph Keckler and Michelle Aldredge in New York City last week. Gwarlingo reader Jean Marie Casbarian was the lucky winner of two tickets to see Keckler's performance at La MaMa. This was Gwarlingo's first contest and ticket give-away, and hopefully not the last.

When I was in New York last week, a number of people asked me how they could help support Gwarlingo. These conversations made me realize that I haven’t been very explicit about answering this question in the past. So if you would like to support this new venture, here are a few specific ways you can help:

 

1. “Like” Gwarlingo on Facebook. I post arts-related articles and events on the Gwarlingo Facebook page on a regular basis–many are links to topics I haven’t covered on the site. It’s an easy way to stay in the loop.

 

2. Follow Gwarlingo on Twitter. Ditto for Twitter. I share links on Twitter that appear nowhere else.

 

3. Subscribe to Gwarlingo by email. With a free email subscription, each new Gwarlingo article is delivered to your email inbox. This way you don’t have to remember to check the site for new content. I use this option for many of my favorite blogs. My morning is always better when I find Ta-Nehisi Coates waiting in my inbox!

 

4. If you are going to buy from Amazon or iTunes, make your purchases through Gwarlingo. Honestly, I have mixed feelings about this one. I’m a big supporter of local businesses, bookstores in particular, so if you have a great independent bookstore, by all means, support it. But if you don’t, and you plan to buy anything through Amazon or iTunes, you can support Gwarlingo by using this site as your Amazon or iTunes portal. Gwarlingo earns a small percentage of each purchase you make.

I have some of my favorite books, films, and music listed on the site and in the Gwarlingo Store (there are some great gift ideas there), but you don’t have to purchase these specific items for Gwarlingo to benefit. If you click on a link for Brian Selznick’s book Wonderstruck, for instance, but then decide you have a pressing need for tube socks, Gwarlingo earns a small percentage of profits from your sock purchase! So if you’re going to buy from “the big guys,” you can do it through Gwarlingo and help “a little guy” in the process. How cool is that?

 

5. Donate to Gwarlingo. You can make a donation (large or small) by credit card via Pay Pal. Gwarlingo is not a nonprofit, so unfortunately, your donation isn’t tax deductible. But I do acknowledge every donation personally and use the money for essentials like web hosting, travel, and coffee. The more money I can raise, the less I have to rely on advertising, which is always a good thing.

 

6. Spread the word about Gwarlingo. It’s simple, free, and makes a big difference. There are a lot of ways to do this–”like” a post on Facebook, retweet an article, email a piece to a friend, or give a general plug on Facebook or Google.

 

Those are six simple ways you can help. I want to thank all of the writers, artists, poets, composers, filmmakers, art lovers, and performers who have visited the site regularly, shared their work, passed on links to friends, added money to the tip jar, written comments, followed Gwarlingo on Facebook and Twitter, become subscribers, and sent letters and emails of support. It’s been a wild adventure. I can’t wait to see what’s next.

Happy holidays!

 

Congratulations to Jean Marie Casbarian

Congratulations to Gwarlingo reader Jean Marie Casbarian. She’s the lucky winner of two tickets to see Joseph Keckler perform at La Mama on Saturday night in New York City.

Connecting with new readers is one of the things I enjoy most about Gwarlingo. Some people I know, but many are strangers, and some are as far away as Japan, China, Russia, and Italy. Jean Marie and I have never met, but because of Gwarlingo I’ve discovered her fabulous photographs and installations and will now have a chance to connect with her in person.

Jean Marie incorporates photography, film and video projections, sound, sculpture and performance into her artworks. I’ve included stills from her 2010 video project “Bury Me At Sea” so you can get a glimpse of her work. You can visit her website if you’d like to view her installations and see more of her photographs.

Thanks to all of the readers who put their names in the hat for the free tickets to the performance. Joseph puts on a great show, so even if you didn’t win, please consider joining us anyway. The performance runs from November 18th-20th at La Mama in New York City. You can purchase tickets here.

I’ll be sharing art news from New York in the coming week. You can stay in touch by connecting with me on TwitterFacebook, or the Gwarlingo Facebook page. You can also subscribe to Gwarlingo by email.

Congratulations Jean Marie! I’ll see you in the city.

 

Win Two Free Tickets to See Joseph Keckler in New York City

Joseph Keckler will be performing at La Mama in New York City November 18th-20th (Photo by Michael Sharkey)

I’m heading to New York next week and have two tickets to Joseph Keckler’s performance at La Mama to give away to some lucky Gwarlingo reader.

“An Evening with Joseph Keckler” runs from November 18th-20th at La Mama (74A East 4th Street between Bowery & 2nd Ave). I’ll be at the 10:00 p.m. show on Saturday night the 19th and have two additional tickets to share. If you’re in New York that evening and can attend, throw your name into the hat!

There are two ways to enter the contest…

1. Click here and leave a comment at the bottom of this post. Be sure to include your name and email.

2. Or send an email with your full name to michelle (at) gwarlingo (dot) com requesting to be entered in the contest.

Once you’ve officially entered your name into the drawing by emailing me or leaving a comment here, you can enter multiple times by doing one or all of the following…

1. Sign up to receive Gwarlingo by email

2. “Like” Gwarlingo on Facebook

3. Follow Gwarlingo on Twitter

4. Share this article about the Joseph Keckler ticket give-away on Twitter or Facebook

A few important details…

1. You must be able to attend the performance at La MaMa at 10 p.m. on Saturday, November 19th.

2. You must leave your comment or email me before 1 p.m. EST on Monday, November 14th.

3. The winner will be announced on Monday night. The winner needs to respond within 24 hours or I’ll draw an alternate winner from the hat.

 

 

If you haven’t seen Keckler’s work, you owe it to yourself to see him perform live. The artist is quickly making a name for himself. He’s been featured on NPR and The Sundance Channel and written about in The New York TimesThe GuardianSPINThe Observer, and Time Out New York. He has performed at The New Museum, SF MOMA, Joe’s Pub, and SXSW.
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Joseph Keckler: More Than a Voice

In March of this year I had the opportunity to see the musician, writer, and artist Joseph Keckler perform to a packed house at MacDowell Downtown, The MacDowell Colony’s free series of artist presentations and performances in downtown Peterborough, New Hampshire. The buzz in the room was palatable, and yet no one knew what to expect from a performer who has been described by The Village Voice as “David Sedaris meets Diamanda Galas.” As one member of the audience said to me before the show began, “This is either going to be one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen, or the most incredible performance ever.”

Joseph Keckler’s work resists definitions; it doesn’t fit into a neat category or boil down to a catchy blurb. This fact alone can make new audiences uncomfortable. But once the lights come up and Keckler begins his performance, all doubts dissipate. Keckler’s stage presence is palatable. He is many artists in one–a unique combination of actor, pianist, opera and blues singer, performer, cabaret act, and storyteller. Within minutes, Keckler had us on the edge of our seats. We were captivated by his haunting, elastic voice, his disarming humor and ease, his down-to-earth banter with the audience, his ability to inhabit the lives of women, old men, fantastical creatures, and talking animals.

Joseph Keckler (Photo by Adam Gardiner)

Keckler admits that he is fascinated with banality. “I resent stories that have things happening,” he told New York Press. It is this mixture of the absurd and the everyday, of the operatic and the vernacular, of compassion and comedy that makes Keckler’s work unique. He is equally at home in an art museum, on stage at Joe’s Pub in New York City, at the SXSW festival in Austin, or in the rural, New England town of Peterborough. It is Keckler’s wit and empathy that allow him to move between these worlds with such ease. One minute he is singing an Italian aria, the next he is telling you a compelling story about his childhood in Michigan.

In this interview with Matthu Placek, Keckler defines a successful performance as one in which he is “half in control and half out of control” (“to echo Marina Abramovic echoing Maria Callas”). He also admits that he has grown tired of “phrases such as ‘genre-busting,’ ‘boundary-crossing,’ and ‘risk-taking.’ But I’d like to see if a non-profit theater will present me taking some risks such as texting while driving, mixing cleaning products, and leaving my front door unlocked,” he jokes.

With such enormous talent, it would be easy for Keckler’s work to be marred by self-indulgence, but so far, he has managed to avoid this trap. In his daily life he is a self-described “hurrier,” but he is also polite, charming, and unassuming and gives the impression of being wise beyond his years. Keckler tells Placek that he likes “defiance, absurdity, a keen wit, a beastly intellect, high standards, celebration of pleasure, openness, and intensity” but is turned off by “moral seriousness” and “open discrimination against anyone.”

Keckler grew up near Kalamazoo, Michigan and earned a painting degree from the University of Michigan. As a boy he loved the music of Cab Calloway and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. Originally, he wanted to be a blues singer, but Keckler veered off this path when he began training as an operatic bass-baritone under the instruction of American tenor George Shirley. His classical training has served him well. He now has a three to four-octave range, but uses his versatile voice to create original, classically infused songs, instead of sticking with traditional fare. His love for the blues is still apparent, as when he launches into classics like “I Put a Spell on You” or dark, humorous songs he has written about fantastical creatures.

This quote from New York Press beautifully describes my own impressions of Keckler: He “commands the stage with erotic bravado, launches into dramatic monologues and embodies so many different personae that you can’t help but wonder whether he’s possessed by spirits or if his body cannot help but channel all of the voices in his head. Sensual, cathartic, overwrought and deeply philosophical, his psychotic twists and turns can bring his audience either to tears (from laughter) or to a numbed silence.”

Keckler is quickly making a name for himself. He has been featured on NPR and The Sundance Channel and written about in The New York TimesThe GuardianSPINThe Observer, and Time Out New York. He has performed at The New Museum, SF MOMA, Joe’s Pub, La MaMa, and SXSW. In 2010, Keckler came out with an EP, Featured Creatures, released in Italy with Transeuropa, paired with a book by contemporary experimental poet Gian Maria Annovi. The songs have be described as dark, theatrical, and eccentric.

Joseph Keckler (Photo by Gian Maria Annovi)

On September first, Keckler will be performing a new show called “A Voice and Nothing More” in Amsterdam. He will open the festival with new work, as well as older pieces that have been re-vamped for the occasion. Keckler will take this new show on the road after its Amsterdam premiere.

While critical praise has been plentiful for Keckler, he is just beginning to find wider financial support for his work. This past year, he had residencies at Yaddo and MacDowell, and the organization Fractured Atlas is now sponsoring him. For his upcoming show in Amsterdam, Keckler needs to raise $4000 to pay for audio recording and mixing, equipment rental, video editing, rehearsal space, and the cost of hiring two musicians and flying them overseas.

If you would like to donate, Keckler has set up a campaign on Indiegogo. Fractured Atlas’ sponsorship means that all donations made to Keckler’s project are tax deductible. There are only a few days left for his fundraising campaign, so please give if you can. And if you can’t, you can also help by spreading the word on Facebook, Twitter, etc. You can track the progress of the campaign here.

If you have an opportunity to see Keckler perform, take it. Until then, you can get a taste of Keckler’s work from these videos. But be forewarned, it is impossible to fully appreciate Keckler’s talent through video and sound recordings, etc. Nothing I have seen on the web matches the power of seeing his live performance. It is the impact of his stage performance as a whole that is most memorable. (If you are reading this post in an email, click here to view the videos and to preview Keckler’s music).

This first video contains one of my favorite Keckler monologues about one of his early day jobs at a classical music publishing company. Keckler finds the “culture of emergency” at “Bumble and Maw” publishers tiresome and amusing. While on the job, he is plagued by annoying coworkers, irritating messages on his voice mail, and a coworker’s pesky parrot, who sings “Queen of the Night.” (Any artist who has suffered frustration and humiliation in a terrible day job will love this piece.)

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