(Sneak peek of the Nike/UNDFTD billboard on La Brea and 1st St. Design by Keith Scharwath)
On Friday August 29th, Beautiful Losers makes it’s Los Angeles premiere at Landmark’s Nuart Theater. To date, the response to our little film has been overwhelmingly positive and audiences have eagerly embraced our message of inspiration and creativity with open arms. With no major film distribution company behind us, we’ve been fortunate enough to have gained the support and good will from audiences who have seen the film and have continued to spread the good word amongst friends, family, and something called the “internets”. Hopefully this grass roots approach can continue to bring our film to more and more cities as we have just added Boston to our tour which already includes San Francisco, Portland, and Chicago.
The 7:30 and 10pm shows on opening night will feature Q&A sessions with myself, Aaron Rose, and Money Mark. Tickets for the L.A. premiere and theatrical run are now on sale and can be purchased at Landmark’s website here(Make sure you’re purchasing tickets for the correct shows. Dates are listed in the pull down menu above the showtimes!)
Fresh from Tokyo, Japan after our official theatrical world premiere (much more on the Japan trip coming soon), Beautiful Losers makes it’s homecoming with the U.S. theatrical premiere on August 8th at the IFC Center in New York city. This release has been a long while coming as we’ve been on the festival road for over a year now, even capturing a documentary jury prize along the way. Select showings of this weekend’s special release will feature Q&A sessions with several artists from the film. The lineup goes as follows:
Friday, Aug.8th @ 8:20 - Aaron Rose, Steve Powers (ESPO), Chris Johanson, and Cheryl Dunn
Tickets can be bought right here. (Make sure you’re purchasing tickets for the correct shows. Dates are listed in the pull down menu above the showtimes!)
The New York theatrical release at the IFC Center will run from August 8th through the 28th before shifting to the West Coast with runs in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and finally end in Chicago (the film may have a longer run depending on the success of this initial roll out).
In addition to the the film’s U.S. launch, Nike Sportswear has partnered with us to give back to the people. “Make Something!!” is a series of D.I.Y. creative art-based workshops taught by some of today’s best creators aimed at inspiring and educating young people. The first set starts in New York and runs from August 8th through the 22nd and then moves to Los Angeles and goes from August 29th through September 8th. The workshops range from sign painting, photography, skateboard graphic design, toy design, filmmaking, tattoo art, footwear design and zine making. Classes will be taught by the likes of Aaron Rose, KAWS, Todd James, Tobin Yelland, Cheryl Dunn, Mike Mills, Ed Templeton, Money Mark, and yours truly to name a few. Come by my class August 30th where I’ll be teaching kids the dark arts of film editing! More on the workshops to come as they happen.
The paint is still drying and the time is almost upon us. The highly anticipated show will open tomorrow night at the Laforet Museum at 6pm! Like the sign says…
ESPO vs. Valentino? Find out what it’s about in a few days!
Steve Powers, a.k.a. ESPO, has long been one of my favorite artists for both his sarcastic signs and clean lines. Along with the rest of the artists putting together the show, the studio gangster is currently holed up in the exhibition space cooking up punchline after punchline. When he’s not perusing the aisles of Tokyo Hands of course. Here’s the hand made myth himself along with Jo Jackson, Aaron Rose, and Yours Truly.
Like artist designed shoes? How about a mean espresso? Maybe you’re into motorcycles, mopeds, and vintage motorized bikes? If you answered a ‘yes’ to any of these then come down to Choke in Silver Lake this Thursday, July 17th for a DC Shoes release party for Aaron Rose’s new practical ortho-cools. Last year when we were still editing Beautiful Losers in the Manzanita house, Keith Scharwath would periodically stop by to work with Aaron on the extras (zine, fabric, and shoebox design) for this shoe project . What they came up with was a sharp looking package that’s as classy as it is creative. Come by and enjoy a cup of joe at this unique bike shop and check out the finished goods for yourself!
From A.Rose:
Hey Everyone,
This is kind of a strange invite, but for the last three years I’ve been working with my friend Damon designing a shoe for his company DC Shoes. Well they’re finally done so we’re gonna have a little party Thursday night at Choke Motorcycle Shop. If you’ve never been to Choke, it’s seriously one of my favorite places in the world. If you don’t care about some weird pair of shoes I designed (I know a party for a shoe is a weird concept), then come to see the place cause it’s awesome!
Thursday, July 17th, 7-9PM
Choke Motorcycle Shop
4157 Normal Ave (at Virgil)
Los Angeles
This Friday night, July 11th, at the Hollywood Car Wash on Sunset come get clean. Squeak E. Clean that is. One of LA’s finest party starters brings us another evening of Sudsy fun with ass-shaking, skating by the Girl Skateboards team, live screenprinting, more ass-shaking, and art and video installations created by Aaron Rose and edited by yours truly.
(click image to see more photos of The Sads silent show)
Last Saturday June 14th, The Sads played a “silent show” at the Westwood Art Forum. I had heard their previous foray into the silent show business went exceedingly well when they recently performed in New York. This time they were bringing along artist/designer/director Mike Mills along with them. I was definitely intrigued.
Upon entering the upstairs venue, I was greeted with a bit of laughter coming from one of the 3 television sets facing the sitting audience who were positioned in a circle around the room. The 3 video installations, which were created specifically for this show by Mr. Mills, were loops of iconic film clips featuring laughter, crying, and people saying “I love you”. The televisions continued to play through the band’s performance thus evoking a variety of emotions depending on where you were sitting. The one I sat closest too was laughter:
Also positioned in front of the audience were 50 headphones connected to amplifiers which in turn were hooked up to the bands instruments. When the lights dimmed it was time for the audience to put on their headphones. I had seen the band play once before and was impressed with how far they had come, but it was even more impressive to see how much further they have jelled since then. What I was listening to in that dark little room while watching James Dean continually laugh at me was something I hadn’t heard from them yet. It was again, something different that I welcomed and thoroughly enjoyed. With Dan Monick leaving the band to pursue other pursuits, The Sads have brought in a new drummer with more of a beat driven style and the pairing seems to have taken them to a new place as well as a new pace.
The band went on to perform their 25 minute tour de force while the Mills videos continued to sway your feelings one way or the other all while the attentive audience sat peacefully quiet enjoying the sadness of The Sads. I had to leave in a hurry, but I left smiling knowing that the band was progressing and affecting people differently. Or maybe it was the repeated image of the straggly haired Gary Sinise from Forrest Gump snickering out of the side of his mouth that put a smile on my face? It was definitely both.
Check out what the band had to say prior to their Saturday performance on KCRW here: The Sads on Weekend America
Slowly, softly, stylistically, and now silently, The Sads have been working their way into the heart of L.A. with their off-kilter songs of loves lost and sentimental hopes. Since their last public outing at agnes b. (which is covered right here), the quartet of Aaron Rose, Aska Matsumiya, Dan Monick, and David Scott Stone have been preparing a silent show for the rest of us romantics. What’s a silent show you ask? Please allow Mr. Rose elaborate:
‘Please join us this Saturday night for a very special silent performance by The Sads. If your wondering what a silent performance consists of, the concept is this: essentially we play all electronic instruments and sing directly into a board which then feeds out to multiple sets of individual headphones for the audience. When the headphones are off, the room is quiet…when you put them on, they’re full of loud, wonderful live music. Hence, a “silent” show. We’re working on a brand new composition for the performance, so we hope you can come share this with us. We did it in New York last year and it was an amazing experience!! Also, this year, filmmaker Mike Mills has created a special video installation for the performance which will play on multiple monitors throughout the performance. It’s seriously worth coming just for that!’
And for those of you unfamiliar with the work of Mike Mills, he’s responsible for some of your Sonic Youth, Beastie Boys, and Air album artwork, and skateboard and t-shirt graphics. He’s also reminded us it’s ok to suck our thumbs by directing Thumbsucker as well as many other creative music videos, commercials, and graphic design endeavors.
