Check it all out now on my Tumblr:
http://dorianwood.tumblr.com
Love,
D.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Monday, July 5, 2010
XXVII. Bloody Wood
How can this world? I fear it can.
In the interim: an opera.
Killsonic, the 30+ piece orchestral fingerbang, has been commissioned by the Roy and Edna Disney/Cal Arts Theater (REDCAT) to present an excerpt from our epic long in the making, Tongues Bloody Tongues. The Moobiest of Moobaus, Joseph Tepperman, has penned this bizarre encounter between history and post-history, love and post-love, Iraq and post-Babylon.
In addition to wailing several words in the opera (I portray Kinahan Cornwallis, colleague and once-love of Gertrude Bell), I am also the art director. It is a loving labor. I have a crew of genius friends helping me: Eddika Organista, Rafael Esparza and Jason Savvy. As we enter our second week of production, I feel immense delight and gargantuan stress. I am perusing through various internet pages dealing with stress management, right as I type this. Upward, and free of anchoring worry!
Here is a wee peek at what we've done: a 30-foot wall...
Photo: Jason Savvy
Tongues Bloody Tongues will run for a limited engagement this month: July 22-24. For all manner of gooey information, including for the purchasing of tickets, please visit the official Tongues Bloody Tongues website.
Coming up:
A new performance installation at Perform! Now! in Chinatown; and
Brutus.
Love,
Dorian
In the interim: an opera.
Killsonic, the 30+ piece orchestral fingerbang, has been commissioned by the Roy and Edna Disney/Cal Arts Theater (REDCAT) to present an excerpt from our epic long in the making, Tongues Bloody Tongues. The Moobiest of Moobaus, Joseph Tepperman, has penned this bizarre encounter between history and post-history, love and post-love, Iraq and post-Babylon.
In addition to wailing several words in the opera (I portray Kinahan Cornwallis, colleague and once-love of Gertrude Bell), I am also the art director. It is a loving labor. I have a crew of genius friends helping me: Eddika Organista, Rafael Esparza and Jason Savvy. As we enter our second week of production, I feel immense delight and gargantuan stress. I am perusing through various internet pages dealing with stress management, right as I type this. Upward, and free of anchoring worry!
Here is a wee peek at what we've done: a 30-foot wall...
Tongues Bloody Tongues will run for a limited engagement this month: July 22-24. For all manner of gooey information, including for the purchasing of tickets, please visit the official Tongues Bloody Tongues website.
Coming up:
A new performance installation at Perform! Now! in Chinatown; and
Brutus.
Love,
Dorian
Friday, June 4, 2010
XXVI. New album
To be called...Brutus.
Brutus was recorded at St. Giles-in-the-Fields in London, during my recent European tour.
Brutus arrives before Rattle Rattle.
It will all make sense.
Love,
Dorian
Brutus was recorded at St. Giles-in-the-Fields in London, during my recent European tour.
Brutus arrives before Rattle Rattle.
It will all make sense.
Love,
Dorian
Friday, May 21, 2010
XXV. Free Download: "Kletka ot Sniag" Live in Berlin
The light was low, so there are no photos. The coziest stage in the world, and everyone I wanted to put into my mouth, as chocolates.
Just me and piano.
Click here to download for free.
Love,
Dorian
P.S.: New album coming soon.
Monday, March 1, 2010
XXIV. An Open Letter to Roman Polanski
Dear Mr. Polanski:
You must be busier than ever these days, so I will be totes brief.
This past weekend, more than 50 of my dearest friends and I gathered at a loft space in Downtown L.A. We drank, we gabbed, we drank some more. And for 3 hours, about 20 of us performed for each other visual and audio works based on your films, including "Chinatown", "The Tenant", "Fearless Vampire Killers", "The Pianist", "Repulsion" and "Rosemary's Baby". Sounds, music and footage from these films were freely incorporated in our works. We asked everyone who attended to donate $10 each. At the end of the evening, the money from the door was counted, and it totaled $300! Huzzah! Naturally, we were immediately tempted to go spend it all on coke and sex with underage whores. However, we had already promoted the event as a fundraiser for RAINN (Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network), and rather than risk the lynching of a lifetime from all manner of feminists and angry fags, we instead stuck to our promise to donate these funds to an organization that commits to supporting victims of sexual assault and bringing their attackers to justice. We all slept much better that night, I'm sure.
So...to sum it up: we made money off your films to help rape victims.
Keep the hits coming, Mr. Polanski. We'll be waiting.
Respectfully yours,
Dorian Wood
You must be busier than ever these days, so I will be totes brief.
This past weekend, more than 50 of my dearest friends and I gathered at a loft space in Downtown L.A. We drank, we gabbed, we drank some more. And for 3 hours, about 20 of us performed for each other visual and audio works based on your films, including "Chinatown", "The Tenant", "Fearless Vampire Killers", "The Pianist", "Repulsion" and "Rosemary's Baby". Sounds, music and footage from these films were freely incorporated in our works. We asked everyone who attended to donate $10 each. At the end of the evening, the money from the door was counted, and it totaled $300! Huzzah! Naturally, we were immediately tempted to go spend it all on coke and sex with underage whores. However, we had already promoted the event as a fundraiser for RAINN (Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network), and rather than risk the lynching of a lifetime from all manner of feminists and angry fags, we instead stuck to our promise to donate these funds to an organization that commits to supporting victims of sexual assault and bringing their attackers to justice. We all slept much better that night, I'm sure.
So...to sum it up: we made money off your films to help rape victims.
Keep the hits coming, Mr. Polanski. We'll be waiting.
Respectfully yours,
Dorian Wood
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
XXIII. Untitled
On February 20, 2010, the beautiful Dino Dinco curated GUTTED, a performance-focused event for Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE). Over 20 artists and 70 collaborators presented work on this evening. I, along with 9 collaborators, presented a 5-hour piece, "Untitled".
For the duration of the piece, I sat on a throne, naked, drinking lots of water and pissing into 8 decorated bottles. Each bottle was then hung up on its corresponding rope, 8 strands dangling from the center of the room. Buckets--lined with pie tins--were then placed under each bottle. It is important to note that 7 beautiful, elegantly-dressed women handled these bottles and provided me with water throughout the evening.
We closed the evening with a music performance. Two horns filled the room with a demented fanfare. I rose from my throne, and the ladies lined up in front of me. One of the ladies then proceeded to release the piss from each bottle into the buckets by yanking on dangling pieces of red string attached to each nozzle. The ladies sang along to the collective sound of piss hitting tin. A call-and-response performance piece that culminated in a cacophonous orgy of horns, voices and stray dripping.
Photos by Jason Savvy:
"Untitled" collaborators:
Alissa Kueker
Arianna Joelle
Daddy Harmon
Demonika Darkly
Dick Whitman
Lenora Claire
Leora Saul
Bryan Diaz
Michael Anthony Ibarra
Love,
Dorian
For the duration of the piece, I sat on a throne, naked, drinking lots of water and pissing into 8 decorated bottles. Each bottle was then hung up on its corresponding rope, 8 strands dangling from the center of the room. Buckets--lined with pie tins--were then placed under each bottle. It is important to note that 7 beautiful, elegantly-dressed women handled these bottles and provided me with water throughout the evening.
We closed the evening with a music performance. Two horns filled the room with a demented fanfare. I rose from my throne, and the ladies lined up in front of me. One of the ladies then proceeded to release the piss from each bottle into the buckets by yanking on dangling pieces of red string attached to each nozzle. The ladies sang along to the collective sound of piss hitting tin. A call-and-response performance piece that culminated in a cacophonous orgy of horns, voices and stray dripping.
Photos by Jason Savvy:
"Untitled" collaborators:
Alissa Kueker
Arianna Joelle
Daddy Harmon
Demonika Darkly
Dick Whitman
Lenora Claire
Leora Saul
Bryan Diaz
Michael Anthony Ibarra
Love,
Dorian
Friday, January 15, 2010
XXII. A Better Sweater
I had a little breakdown in Leesburg, VA. My friend and my love were there to help peel off the leeches I kept taping to my flesh. As I mentioned in my previous entry, I cried and cried, and it eventually grew on me. I never stopped drawing, never stopped humming new songs in my head. I never just shut down. It was all done through walls of tears and dog hair. And shakes. Poor hygiene. Ridiculous highs. Love all around me like pampering snow. And it fell overnight. And I freaked. Got back to L.A. Freaked out some more.
I became a memory of a friend. I stayed home, still drawing. And drawing. Cans of gingered ale erecting templed walls of comfort. My love, my special, special one, warm by my side: such an unbelievable mind controlled by a God-powered heart. Who would want to leave? Who would want to prance around in the sun? This was a moment to capture and rub against the gums, fast brutally fast, like masturbating myself to bits. Weeks and weeks of mid-change. Blankets to roll around in. Flannel sheets. More gingered ale. More love. More pens. But what about music? No music. I enjoyed being a tourist, casually strolling and occasionally raising an eyebrow to bolkas and black pigs, all the while emptying my bowels of a slimy, dead child who no longer looked like me. This was the spa treatment/Burning Man I could never afford/never wanted to afford. I splurged, I purged, amen.
Whew.
February, O February...you are my January! It's unreal how mighty wonderful February is going to be. Wanna see what I mean? I hope you do. :-)
1. ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S BIG GAY VALENTINE BASH @ HIGHWAYS PERFORMANCE SPACE on SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13: The beautiful peeps at Highways deserve all manner of riches. For decades, they have nurtured and presented works with heart, guts and fluids. I am forever grateful to artistic director Leo Garcia and his army of fearless creators for giving me my first shots at avant-garde. On this special evening (a benefit for Highways), I will be performing a piece entitled "In Heaven". A sonic fondling, if you will. If you are interested in being fondled, and you live in Los Angeles, click here for more information.
2. GUTTED: LACE'S ANNUAL WINTER BENEFIT @ LACE on SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 20: This one is being curated by my dear friend Dino Dinco. I met Dino eons ago at a bar. Maybe 2 bars. I don't remember. I knew he was some sort of artist, and I think he suspected the same of me. Several times, he'd be on one side of the bar, in a knitted panda mask (before all the hipstards were wearing them), and I'd be drunkenly gabba-gabba with my friends on the other side, and we would constantly be aware of each other, like two hot gargoyles. Years later, he curated a wonderful show in which I did Killsonic's "Black Pig" with Ryan Heffington's dancers. Then he directed a gorgeous video for "Pianos and Bricks". And now he has asked me to perform at a fundraiser for Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions. I can't say much about my performance, except that it involves many pretty ladies. Click here for more information.
3. REDWOOD BAR with MARK GROWDEN on WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 24: SF-based music mastermind Mark Growden is quite a presence on stage. Sweat and enormous talent flow through and from him like plumes of heavenly smoke. He's a lovely man, and he has invited me to share the evening with him as part of his month-long residency. Songs of new and old. I'll be accompanied by friends. Click here for more information.
4. REPULSIONS: CELEBRATING 55 YEARS OF CINEMA @ GALLERY 2023 on SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 27: This is my first voyage into curatorial waters, in that I will only be curating this event, and not performing. But please, take note: there will be 14 extremely gifted artists presenting new, multimedia works based on the films of a true Hollywood legend. Which one? Who could it be? Shall I lay out a red carpet of delicious hints? I will do no such thing. You see, all funds received at the door will go to RAINN (Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network), and frankly, if I tell you who we're honoring on this evening, well...some fucktard in Hollywood will run and tell his cigar-sucking henchmen to shut us down and make sure that RAINN don't get a single cent for all the wonderful services they provide to survivors of rape, abuse and incest. You wanna be nice? Wanna experience an evening like no other? Click here for more information.
HOLY MOTHERFUCK, what a long blog entry! Sorry.
Tour-wise, there's also a chunk happening. This spring: New York, San Francisco, Paris, London, Stockholm, Berlin and Barcelona. More dates to be announced on my website. Take a peek whenever you feel like it. I'll also be introducing a new Art section on my website very very soon, where you will be able to purchase reasonably-priced original art created by my little brown fingers.
Oh yeah...and regarding Rattle Rattle: still moving forward! I'm working on arrangements. The songs are written. I performed several of them in '09. More will be performed in the following months. And yes yes YES...the whole fucking bitch will be released this year. However, the search for funds to get it off the ground is ongoing. If you want a taste of what Rattle Rattle will be like, check out Black Pig Suite. It's only $5, and you can download it almost immediately right here. You'll be helping massively with the funds needed to make Rattle Rattle possible, and you can get your scream on in the last song on the EP, "Pigfeed Blues". Crank it up and scream yourself into a stupor. FTW. :-)
So yeah...between the radical performances and non-stop drawing, I still have my head and heart, right where they belong. Thanks a bunch, God. Fo sho.
Totes love, my friends.
XOXOXOXOXO
Dorian
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