Kanye, Leos, And Contempt For the Middle Class (W/ Bimbo Ubermensch and Ilydivna)

A week before the opening of her exhibition the Pond Society in Shanghai, artist Emma Stern discusses her work, porn, ABBA and the creation of avatars.

Matthew Denicola is the new producer and co-host of SOS by SP. We thank Will Samson for his two years of work

Soundtrack
Y$ "Back to Me"
Controlled Bleeding "Fat Bird Curd" 
Blue Cheer "Out of Focus" 
Omni Trio "Mainline" 
Abba "Take a Chance on Me"  

LINKS:
Follow Emma on Instagram
Follow Emma on Twitter
"Eulogy for the Male Gaze" 

• Conceptual artist, musician, and founding member of iconic NYC power electronics group Final Solution, Edward Giles, joins the Safety Propaganda network. The primary topic is the reissue of Edward's industrial project Helltown Inc on former guest Max Julian Eastman's label. The release not only comes with hours of music, art inserts and otherwise, but a memoir of sorts in which Edward recounts the underground culture of New York of the '80s. Edward and Max discuss the release of Helltown Inc and Edward discusses his history in art, losing his friends and bandmates from Final Solution, and his overall viewpoints about the modern world.
  
  FULL EPISODE
  
  SOUNDTRACK Helltown Inc. "Guard of Life" Suicide "Speedway" Final Solution "69"Cro-Mags "Show no Mercy"Pierre Henry "1952 Musique Aans Titre Fete Foraine"Max Julian Eastman "Jesus Love" Helltown Inc, "Oh the Sweet" 2pac "Trading War Stories" 
  
  LINKS: Helltown Inc, This Too Shall Pass at Tribe Tapes Read This Too Shall Pass memoir
  
  

Regularly referred to as "The most famous Nordic Artist since Edvard Munch," painter, sculptor, filmmaker and installation artist Bjarne Megaard joins the audiocast to dish on decades in the art world.


Topics covered: Bjarne's new film Barney Does it All based on his time as a whore in Sydney, his interview with porno actress Rae Lil Black in the new issue of Richardson Mag, the perpetual antagonism between him at the art world and the cowardice of curators, his former financial backers who fucked him out of millions, drug addiction, ketamine therapy, fashion, anabolic steroids and being asked to be Mr. Miami, hanging out and working with the stars of Norwegian black metal, and much more...


FULL EPISODE HERE

Bjarne's new film and exhibition opens at Faurschou Gallery in NY on Feb 7


SOUNDTRACK: Darkthrone "In the Shadow of the Horns" Larm "Chemical Suicide" Thorns "Stellar Master Elite" Miss Kittin and the Hacker "Homme a La Mode" Pure "Nigredo" Eric's Trip "Follow" 



LINKS: Bjarne at Instagram: @bjarnemelgaard Bjarne at Thaddeus Ropac Faurschou Gallery Richardson Magazine A11

Yorgos Lanthimos has not been a preferred filmmaker of the Safety Propaganda universe. Too self-consciously "weird". Too Letterboxd. His new film Poor Things, starring Emma Stone in a virtuosic performance as a young woman with the brain of an infant, is a comic masterpiece. Based on a story by surrealist Scottish author Alsadair Gray, 'Poor Things' is an absolute delight to watch. Riotously funny. A must-see.


Joining us to discuss this massive leap in Lanthimos' artistry, as well as other new films (The Iron Claw, The Zone of Interest etc,) is our friend Zane. A true HEAD if there ever was one.

PATREON LINK


Soundtrack: Vaurien "Enfant du Neant" Instant Automaton "Catacomb" Bloody Cumshot "You're Disgusting" Axemen "The Dream" Venom "Don't Burn the Witch"


LINKS: Follow Zane at X Yorgos Lanthimos and Ari Aster The cast of Poor Things 

Kanye is trying to release a new record, Vultures, with Ty Dolla $ign, and his enemies are refusing to get its samples cleared, leaving the record unreleased. Kanye, of course, isn't staying quiet about what's happening behind the scenes, and treated the world to a 15 minute rant against his many enemies, ranging from LVMH CEO Bernard Arnaut, the Rothschilds, Jay-Z, and Drake among them, as well as the abandonment of the family that has left him adrift. It's powerful stuff, and of course he isn't exactly taking it easy on Zionists either.


The controversy and aura around a Kanye release is what makes him the most important artist alive. He is perhaps the only living CONTEMPORARY artist, one who channels the multitudes and contradictions and informational channels crossing over of digital culture. He is the richest and most powerful artist of our lifetimes, one who has made billions not just for himself but for others, but he still manages to embody the rebel spirit of industrial music culture or dada. He's Artaud, Bowie, Michael Jackson, and William Benett at once.


With all of us excited about Vultures coming out, we brought out another Kanye head — the photographer Matthew Denicola — to discuss the man.


PATREON LINK


SOUNDTRACK:
Kanye West "The Blame Game"
Kanye "Love Lockdown" 
Kanye "I'm in It" 
Aphex Twin "Avril 14"
Kanye "Famous"
Sombre Chemin "Hiems"
Children of the Corn "Call You Bitch"
Kanye West and Ty Dolla Sign "Vultures"


LINKS:
Kanye West Rant
Kanye West Twitter
Matthew Denicola at Twitter
Matthew Denicola Website
Lou Reed Worshops Yeezus 

At the end of November, friends of SP Newton Gallery hosted an exhibition of paintings and cartoons by American artist Stephen Tunney. Many of those in attendance likely had no idea that these disorienting, vivid, and fantastical images were made by the same Stephen Tunney behind the indie rock solo project Dogbowl. When Stephen plugged his guitar in to perform some of those songs, the image completed itself.

Indeed, Tunney has had a long and fascinating career, from playing guitar with cult band King Missile, recording with godhead of New York weird music Kramer, writing what has been called one of the "most disturbing novels ever written in" with a novel called Flan, to writing and playing songs as Dogbowl, it's a career that a two hour conversation couldn't possibly do justice to. 

Nevertheless, Adam here is going to try...

FULL EPISODE


 LINKS Stephen Tunney Newton Gallery  

Boul God records is a Philadelphia-based bizarre music label that traffics in all manner of surreal and mind-bending contemporary styles of music. From the cavernous, early Death in June influenced post-punk/neofolk of Gorseddd FM, to the disorienting blend of head fucked techno and garbled BM vocals of Grail Wizard, to the brutal and frightening electronics of Incluse, to the dadaist, Kiwi-influenced fucked guitar pop of Flying Mausoleum , Boul God is less concerned with genre than it is the cultivation of an AESTHETIC and an atmosphere. You see, underground labels function best when they are approached as conceptual art projects. The best underground labels — Siltbreeze, Harbinger, Bunker Records, Darker than Black, Hospital Productions — understand this, and when we think of them we think of a certain aesthetic. Boul God is establishing itself upon that list.

The anonymous curator/owner/auteur of Boul God joins us here to discuss the label, his own personal taste, covering the Grateful Dead, and the decline of the music scene in his home city of Philly.

PATREON LINK

SOUNDTRACK: Flying Mausoleum "Wiking in Scotch Ghetto"  Grail Wizard "The Werewolf Call"  Incluse "Thousands of Intelligent Reliable..."  Gorseddd FM "The Promise of Rot"  Bizarre Carnival "Ketamine Death" 

LINKS: Boul God at Bandcamp Boul God at Big Cartel Dirk Kolk at Youtube 

Artist, musician, academic, and member of legacy American experimental band ONO Conor Tomaka joins the show once more, but with a specific purpose this time around. John Frusciante is already a God-level figure in the oeuvre of Safety Propaganda, but this time we are going back to the virtuoso guitarist of the Chili Peppers and experimental solo artist's infamous and masterful first two albums: Niandra Lades and Usually just a T-Shirt and Smile from the Streets you Hold.

Both of these albums were recorded on a 4-track tape recorded in the early '90s when Frusciante was closing in on death due to intensely high and daily usages of heroin and crack cocaine. Video documents of the artist at his home show the once handsome and vivacious punk rock LA kid as a death shadow of his former self: cheeks sank all the way into his jaw, teeth falling out, ghastly white and pallid, anything resembling muscle tone vanished. He was disintegrated, and these albums are gorgeous-avant pop ballads disintegrating into the abyss.

Niandra was partly recorded in Frusciante's bedroom at the mansion where he and the Chi-Peps recoded Blood Sugar Sex Magick at night time, and the second more ambient and abstract side was recorded after he'd left the band and plunged into addiction. Smile was recorded during similar sessions, he says, and includes vocals by the ghost of the late movie star and brother to the current greatest American actor Joaquin – River Phoenix. While both albums are masterpieces in differing ways, channeling Frusciante's enthusiasm for Beefheart, Zappa, Syd Barrett, and other weirdo troubadours, it is only Niandra that is still reissued and available for purchase. Frusciante has let Smile fall into obscurity – perhaps it is just too painful for him to listen to.

Hail Frusciante.

PATREON LINK

OST (All songs by Frusciante)
"The Big Takeover"
"Smile is a Rifle"
"Your Pussy is Glued to a Building on Fire"
"Blood on my Neck from Success"
"Height Down" (featuring River Phoenix)
"The Ni**er Song"
"The Poppy Man"

LINKS:
Follow Conor on Instagram
Buy John Frusciante's Niandra
Infamous John Frusciante Heroin doc
John Frusciante live at All Tomorrows Parties, 2005 

Montana's most avant-garde good ol' boy and the editor of the magazine American Vulgaria, Ryan Simón, joins the show to discuss him and Adam's adventures in Los Angeles, Terry Richardson, art history as a history of cooming, and the circumstances and horniness that led to the creation of his magazine.


SOUNDTRACK: Home Blitz "Home" Christ Agony "Inceremonial" Aphex Twin "Xtal"  Lungfish "Samuel"  Charley Patton "Tom Rushen Blues" Duffy Power "Love's Gonna Go"


LINKS: American Vulgaria Magazine Follow Ryan Simón on X: @ryandsimon Follow American Vulgaria on Instagram: @americanvulgaria Ryan interviews Adam for American Vulgaria