Friday, March 11, 2005

John Lurie website developments

Well, here's some news. John Lurie, erstwhile leader of the Lounge Lizards and soprano sax player, has removed the "tour" section from his rather infrequently updated website, Strange and Beautiful, and replaced it with an "art" section. For the last five years, anyone visiting his site has seen an announcement that "John will be taking a hiatus from music while he works on a book," supposedly entitled What do you Know about Music, you're not a Lawyer. The "live archive" only stood as a reminder of how long it had been since Lurie and co. had performed -- not since 1999. Over the last few years, while dealing with (apparently) a period of illness and deep disillusionment with the music business, and whilst doing some work acting -- on the series Oz, I hear, for one, tho' I've never seen any of his work there -- Lurie has been busy reinventing himself as a painter. Don van Vliet he's not, but his paintings are still rather pleasing, and make for amusing temporary desktops. I still am fondest of the "One Bird Wants to Fuck Two Snakes; Snakes are Appalled" painting that graced the cover of the Lounge Lizards final (?) recordings, Queen of All Ears, but it's fun perusing Mr. Lurie's art. Pardon me if I don't try to say anything particularly articulate about it.

By the way, the story goes that when Lurie was founding Strange and Beautiful as a label, he considered naming his company "I'm naked," so his employees, when answering the phone, would have to say "Hello, I'm naked." Haw.

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