Authors: Bruce Bauman
Broken Sleep (60 page)
RELEASE DATES
1993–1994 (single in ’93; CD in ’94)
More (Is Never Enough)
(CD and song)
• “Chicks and Money” (’93)
• “Face Time Is the Right Time”
• “Licentious to Kill”
• “I Wanna Be Seen (at the Scene)”
• “Futurific”
1996
The Insatiables Get Large
(CD)
• “Get Large”
• “Papa’s Gun”
• “Eight Is Just Enuf” (sung by Absurda Nightingale & Alchemy)
• “Saturnalia on My Lap”
• “Black Holes and Bum Fucks”
• “Loverrs”
1998
Blues for the Common Man
(CD and song)
• “No Destiny”
• “Invisible Party”
• “The Ruling Class”
• “E Pluribus Unum Wampum/(Money, That’s What I Want)”
• “The Sleep of Faith”
2000
Multiple Coming
(CD and song)
• “Six Times Tonight”
• “No Master, No Messiah”
• “Adam and Lilith”
• “Zim Zum Blues”
• “Eve of Deconstruction”
Recorded in 2000, 2001; released in 2003
The Noncommittal Nihilists for Nuthin’
(CD)
• “La Pantera Rosa (Falstaffa Nights/Martian Days)”
• “Friendsy for You”
• “Fuck Like a Woman” (sung by Absurda Nightingale)
• “You Coulda Been but You Ain’t”
• “The Nihilist’s Prayer”
• “Outrage … Big Deal”
• “Mystic Fool” (added after Absurda’s death)
U.S. Tour 2003–2004
Euro Tour 2005–2006
2006
Dieseasee
(Alchemy, Silky, and Lux; Mindswallow on about half the tracks)
• “Dieseasee”
• “Knot My Neck”
• “The Meth House Around the Corner”
• “Viagral Newmoanya”
• “Mysteries and Enemies”
2008
The Great Awakening
(their last studio record)
• “Saturnalia Gone Down”
• “Exile’s Revenge”
• “Shake, Shimmy, and Shibboleth”
• “Hungrier, Harder, Sadder”
• “Too Free to Be Free”
• “A Theist Falls”
2012, recorded in 2010
More or Less, Alive
(Mindswallow rejoins; Laluna joins)
• “Live at the Grand Canyon”
• “Beat Attitudines”
2016
Oeuvre and Out
(boxed set)
Two new songs:
• “The Harmony of Doing Nothing”
• “Savant Sensation Bluz”
OTHER PROJECTS
1970
Fast Enough
(the Baddists)
1975
Chain Saw Disco Massacre
(the Baddists)
1989
The Slo Learners
(Absurda and Alchemy’s first band)
1991
I’m Your Black Doorman
(cowritten by Alchemy; recorded by the Hip Replacements)
1997
Puttin’ the PFunk in FPunk
(Lux Deluxe solo album)
Down on Me
(the Come Queens, guerrilla-girl band with Absurda, Silky Trespass, Dress Shields)
1999
Mah Dude Was a Slut from Tulsa (and He Made a Slut Outta Me)
(recorded by Tammy “No Win” Flynn aka Absurda, and Jimmy “Bad Breath” Davis aka Alchemy; written by Alchemy)
2007
Songs for Pedestrian Tastes
(CD of cover songs done by Mindswallow)
Alchemy, American Style
(Alchemy solo; ltd. edition vinyl EP)
“Goin’ Down with George” (single released in ’04; backed with “Between Iraq” and “My Heart Place”)
“Dyin’ to Be Your Hero”
“Zombie” (cover of Fela)
“I Ain’t a Marchin’ Anymore” (cover of Phil Ochs)
“Fixin’ to Die Blues” (cover/mashup of Bukka White and Country Joe tunes)
“Whitey on the Moon” (cover of Gil Scott-Heron)
“Once I Was a Soldier” (cover of Tim Buckley)
“American Ruse” (cover of MC5)
2009, 2013–2015
Ferricide
(Mindswallow’s heavy metal band)
Smeltdown
(2009, CD)
Pedd-o-file
(Performance-Enhanced Death Drugs) (2013, CD)
Ferricoshus
(2015, CD) (with Alchemy uncredited on “Irony’s Maiden”)
2015–2016
Chansons
(Alchemy and Laluna) (only as download; no vinyl or CD)
• “Liquid Love”
• “Mirror Me”
• “Dreaming Double/Nightmaring Alone”
• “The Harmony of Being One as Two”
2009–2018
33 Visitations
(recorded but never released by Alchemy)
REBIRTHDAY
September 21, 1966
EDUCATION
Ph.D. in Mystagogy
Advanced degrees in Sanity—Collier Layne Institute of Mental Depravation, various dates
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1965
ARTillery
. Street Side Gallery, New York
1966
Art Is Dead
. Central Park/Murray Gibbon Gallery, New York
1969
Do Not Disturb
. Murray Gibbon Gallery, New York
1971
This Is Not a Pipedream. Dream and Listen
. Video; Gibbon/Documenta
1976
Flowers, Feminism, and Fornication
. Murray Gibbon Gallery, New York
1982
Women of the Scourge (and One Day Myth of Fine Arts)
. Murray Gibbon Gallery, New York
1985
The Berlin Wall Burning
. Performance/sculpture; West Berlin
1995
My Head IS Different
. Lily Fairmont, Los Angeles
1998
The Beauty of My Weapons
. Gibbon-Passant, New York; Lily Fairmont, Los Angeles
2008
Pillzapoppin’
and
Electroshock Ladyland
installations
Baddist Boy
collages. Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
2011
Electronic Fire
. Special installation; Art Basel Miami
2013
Remembrance of Things Past and Future
. Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
2020
Myths and Mystagogues
. Whitney Museum, New York (she does not attend)
1
:
that week I was dying too
.
Grace Paley, “Living” (1974)
2
:
a man got to have a code
.
Omar Little,
The Wire
(2006)
3
:
The sleeper is the proprietor of an unknown land
.
Djuna Barnes,
Nightwood
(1937)
4
:
foul dust
“Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it was what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald,
The Great Gatsby
(1925)
5
:
a new screaming comes across the sky
.
Thomas Pynchon,
Gravity’s Rainbow
(1973), first sentence
6
:
the little pleasures of life
Wassily Kandinsky (1913)
7
:
Don’t mess with the Wongs
Richard Price,
The Wanderers
(1974)
8
:
have mercy on the man who doubts what he’s sure of
Bruce Springsteen, “Brilliant Disguise,”
Tunnel of Love
(1987)
9
:
his bloodless aged lips
He suddenly approached the old man in silence and softly kissed him on his bloodless aged lips. That was all his answer.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky,
The Brothers Karamazov
(1880)
10
:
Someday you will ache like I ache
Courtney Love, “Doll Parts,”
Live Through This
(1994)
11
:
the ceremony of innocence is drowned
William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming” (1919)
12
:
You don’t own me
John Madara and David White, “You Don’t Own Me,” recorded by Lesley Gore (1963)
13
:
to the time with you to keep me awake and alive
I get so tired of working so hard for our survival
I look to the time with you to keep me awake and alive
Peter Gabriel, “In Your Eyes,”
So
(1986)
14
:
The impossible is the least that one can demand
.
But in our time, as in every time, the impossible is the least one can demand—and one is, after all, emboldened by the spectacle of human history in general and American Negro history in particular, for it testifies to nothing less than the perpetual achievement of the impossible.
James Baldwin,
The Fire Next Time
(1963)
15
:
imminent peril threatening you and all the faithful
It is the imminent peril threatening you and all the faithful which has brought us hither. From the confines of Jerusalem and the city of Constantinople a horrible tale has gone forth.
Pope Urban II, speech at Council of Clermont on the capture of the Holy Lands by the Seljuk Turks (1095)
16
:
One can look back a thousand years easier than forward fifty
.
Edward Bellamy,
Looking Backward
(1888)
17
:
And don’t be late. Don’t be late
.
If I don’t meet you no more in this world then
I’ll meet you in the next one
And don’t be late
Don’t be late
Jimi Hendrix, “Voodoo Child,”
Electric Ladyland
(1968)
Over the many years that this book came to life, I depended upon the critical insight and support of so many friends. I am grateful to them all. There are many more—and they know who they are—who have my unending gratitude.
Raj Bahadur, Corinna Barsan, Michelle Berne, Mike Brander, Peter Bricken, Christine Byers, Mike Cahill, Christine Cassidy, Edward Cohn, Nathan Currier, Heather Dadamo, Dennis Danziger, Ken Deifek, Samantha Dunn, Hope Edelman, Leslie Fiedler, Peter Frank, Amy Friedman, Seth Greenland, John Harlow, Hal Hinson, the late Dr. Al Hudder, Tony Jacobs, Mickey Kiernan, Michael Korie, the late Paul Kozlowski, David Martino, George Melrod, Heather Miles, Dr. Jeffrey Miller, Tom Martinelli, Dwayne Moser, Stephen O’Connor, the Oliva Family, Allen Peacock, Craig Pleasants, Sheila Pleasants, Marie-Pierre Poulain, Steve Rand, Dr. A.J. Rellim, Rachel Resnick, Steve Rockwell, Alison Rowe, Britt Salvesen, the late Imogene Sanders, David Schulps, Kathy Seale, Michael Small, Jon Wagner, Dr. Kathleen Walker, and Nancy Wender.
My agent, Jennifer Lyons, for her sanity-saving phone calls.
The 18th Street Arts Center, The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, The Durfee Foundation, and The Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs (COLA division).
Everyone on the great staff at Other Press. Especially Judith Gurewich and Anjali Singh, for their ceaseless efforts to make this book better. And an extra special thanks to the remarkable Terrie Akers.
To all of my cousins, who often think I’ve descended from another planet, but who always support and love me.
Most importantly, my mom, who passed away this past spring, my dad and my wife, Suzan.
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