Dan Tulk, Untitled, 2011

The news came Wednesday night via e-mail: Dan Tulk had been killed in a car accident. It’s understandable if his name doesn’t ring a bell. Local arts coverage tends to shine brightest on a select few, and Tulk was an emerging artist, just stepping into the faint edge of the light.

The missive was from Dan’s wife, Erin—sent to Jeffry Cudlin, Sam Scharf,  and me—requesting help to install a couple of his works for a memorial celebration on Saturday. We had all met Dan this summer during the installation and exhibition of "Planning Process" at Arlington Arts Center. Cudlin was the Director of Exhibitions at AAC at the time; Scharf, Tulk, and I had all been juried into the exhibition by Helen Allen. Given the timeline, we barely knew him. But because of his friendly and genuine nature, we all looked forward to getting to know him over the coming years.

Typical of many Gen Xers, Dan kind of poked around throughout most of his 20s: waiting tables, doing odd jobs, hiking, and rooting for home teams. It changed when he met his wife-to-be, who was finishing a law degree. As their relationship got serious, Dan decided to go back to school at George Mason University, where he eventually caught the art bug in a sculpture class taught by Peter Winant. He graduated with an art degree, but took time off to be a stay-at-home dad after his first child was born. Eventually he worked in IT. Then, in 2009, as if a switch flipped, he began making art again.

Dan Tulk, Are You With Me, 2011

Though we met and chatted over an exchange of tools during the installation of "Planning Process," we didn't really talk until the opening. There was something about his work that I recognized, but I couldn’t place it. "Planning Process" was his second show, and first in the area.

Later that summer I stopped into DCAC’s annual “Wall Mountables,” a show where artists pay a pittance for a square foot of wall. It’s a meat market of mostly bad work and clutter. Even good works by serious artists can look trampy next to some stoner’s mushroom doodle. But there are always artists who make it work. In my City Lights pick of the show, I found a few artists I liked. Stepping in for a closer view of my favorite pieces, I laughed: I should have known they belonged to Tulk.

In August, writing a piece about the Post’s reboot of Real Art DC, I referenced an earlier article I had written about the first installment. For that first edition, I had selected 10 artists whom I thought deserved attention. First on my list was an artist who used the handle dant2. It was Dan Tulk. After he returned to art, Real Art was the first time he submitted his artwork to any kind of show or review process. He did it without expectations. His work stood apart from many of the submissions because they were clearly ephemeral commonplace objects, organized for a brief period of time, only to be repurposed for another piece later. I not only liked the work, I liked the methodology.

Given his Mason background, it makes sense that Tulk was a minimalist. I’ve taught there. All students in the art program eventually read Lawrence Weschler’s Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees, a book about conceptual artist Robert Irwin. Not all of the students buy into it, but some do. It's possible Tulk found beauty in common objects before Mason, but his penchant for it was evident in his work. Among some of his works installed at Arlington Arts Center was a grid of nails, with string woven throughout. Yeah, in a way it borrowed from one of the cliches of minimalism: “string art.” But minimalism done well is anything but minimal in its execution, and his grid of 22 nails across and down—as well as his weaving—indicated he was not involved in some frivolous relationship with a movement. He was committed to an idea of letting commonplace objects and events transcend their material nature. His artwork was invested in the sublime.

Some of Tulk’s recent shows were of the come-one-come-all variety: "Wall Mountables," the WPA's "Flat File" at (e)merge, "Artomatic" in Frederick. But that didn’t mean people didn't notice. Monday. he learned his work had been accepted to an exhibition in New York, juried by Margot Norton, assistant curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Considering his drive and the attention he was getting, Tulkwanted to make documentation of the work appear more professional. Going by the images on his website, it was evident that he worked out of his garage—an unfinished space with unpainted drywall and bags of dirt and mulch piled up in a corner. Though the wall adds to the deliberate rawness of his work, messy drywall can be distracting to a picky juror. Tulk wanted to paint his garage white, and was on an errand to get paint Tuesday, when his vehicle was struck head-on by a dump truck on U.S. 29. The artist, much like his work, was with us for only a brief time. And then, he was gone.

Dan is survived by his wife and three children.

A memorial for Tulk will take place 12:15 p.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at The Mason Inn Conference Center & Hotel's Grand Ballroom in Fairfax. Several of his works will be on view. Other pieces are on exhibit in the group show “Utopias” at John A. Cade Center for Fine Arts Gallery at Anne Arundel Community College to Dec. 9.

On Saturday, latter-day Marquees vocalist and manager Gayle James called in to WPFW-FM and announced that Palmer had passed away Thursday, Oct. 27.  He was 73.

Palmer had also sung with the Legendary Orioles. Beverly Lindsay-Johnson, who worked with James in planning the benefit, told Arts Desk that the funeral will be Friday, Nov. 4 at 11 a.m. at Mentronone Baptist Church, 5126 B St. SE. There will be no viewing, his remains will be cremated. Lindsay-Johnson also said that a “Celebration of Life” with singers who had performed with Palmer is tentatively scheduled for Nov. 20 at a still-to-be-determined location.

Early Sunday morning, Washington D.C. lost one of go-go’s pioneering musicians, Anthony “Little Benny” Harley, who at age 46, according to published sources, died in his sleep, after having performed with Chuck Brown the night before at the Capitol Heights Ballroom in Capitol Heights, MD on a bill with EU, Bela Dona, and Da Mixx Band. Little Benny joined Rare Essence as a teenager in the 1970s, playing trumpet, adding distinctive  husky-voiced vocals, and leading their choreographed dance steps.  In the mid-80s he formed his own group, Little Benny & the Masters, best known for the catchy “Cat in the Hat,” and this always busy musician later performed with Proper Utensils, the Legends of Go-go, a reunited old-school Rare Essence, and Chuck Brown.  Harley recently had back surgery and was walking with a cane.  An autopsy is going to be performed.  Mayor Fenty issued a statement, The Washington Post noted his death this morning, and WUSA channel 9 news did so last night.  Fans have been paying tribute to his one-of-a-kind skills  on WPGC’s website and the Facebook sites of the P.A. Palace  and EU’s Sugar Bear, to name a few.  Funeral information or an address for charitable donations has not yet been provided.  Chuck Brown, Kip Lornell, Tom Goldfogle,  and Soldierette offer their thoughts to the City Paper below. 

George Washington University professor, and co-author of “The Beat: Go-Go’s Fusion of Funk and Hip-hop,”  Kip Lornell  recalled, “The first time I met Benny was about 12 years ago when I went to his home to interview  him for "The Beat".   Benny was most gracious and opened up his home.  He patiently answered my questions and it was clear how important go-go was to him and, by extension his family and his peers.  Benny was always a solid trumpet player since his days at Ballou High School but it was his singing and warm presence on stage that placed him near the top of the "most asked to come up on stage" list around town.  In addition to his days with Rare Essence and, later with Little Benny and the Masters,  Mr. Harley often appeared with the Godfather.  There seemed to be a special warmth between Chuck and Benny.  Whenever Benny came on stage, Chuck seemed to feel utterly at ease knowing that everything would be kicking just fine when he turned the stage over to Benny who was always exuberant, exciting, and professional. Because he was so enthusiastic Benny could hype a crowd without even trying, it was just his way.”  

Rene Dickerson, better known as Soldierette, a longtime DC blogger who also managed Benny’s group “The Legends of Go-go,” said “Benny was my friend and confidant. I've seen Benny perform thousands of times; the first time being with the Masters. I was his personal manager and promoter during the heyday of "The Legends of Go-Go" so I've seen him perform in tiny basements to great halls to nightclubs to little shacks in the hills of Virginia to huge coliseums.  My last time seeing him perform was the night that I left DC for Illinois. We had the most fun we'd had in years and he wanted me to make sure I took pictures of not just him, but of everyone that wanted to be in a picture with him.”  She added, “One of my fondest memories of Benny is him calling me every morning, for years, at around 4am, just to talk until it was time to get his kids up and take them to school. I would be dead asleep, but would get up and put some coffee on and keep his company after a night of performing.  He had great plans for the rest of his life, and even greater plans for the kids in his life. His love of children is something most didn't even know about him. He dreamed of a children's music school that taught kids how to read music, play an instrument, and especially carry on the history of go-go music. He would perform anywhere for free when it involved little kids. He left behind a 5 month old baby who would never get to know how special he was.” 

Regarding Benny’s place in the DC go-go scene she concluded, “Benny was important to the industry because he always kept it competitive. He was always looking to be different from the rest. He'd start a new band when no one thought he could. He would show up on someone's cd out of the blue. He would come back when everybody was saying he had lost his voice, or was on drugs, or was doing whatever the popular rumor was; he always came back. He just loved music and would study it as part of his life; part of his being. He was fascinated by Miles Davis and John Coltrane. He wanted more for go-go and he wanted to be the one who took it to that level. Other talkers and musicians looked up to him as the one to strive to be like, or to pass on the circuit…He always made his band members stronger players, and that is what will live on past his life with us.”

Tom Goldfogle, Chuck Brown's manager, stated  "I can only tell you that Benny is sewn into the fabric of this community and its culture and he brought so much joy to so many.  The energy he brought to the stage everynight was unparalleled.  He lived life to the fullest and loved to perform. "   Chuck Brown said, "I am heartbroken at the loss of my dear friend Lil Benny.  I used to go to some of the Rare Essence rehearsals in the early days and watch them.  I was honored to produce their first record, Body Moves.  One day when I was not feeling well and my voice was giving out  I asked Benny if he would come to the show  and help me out. That was sixteen years ago, and he’s been with us on stage ever since. There is nobody like him.  No one can replace him.  He was such a crowd pleaser, a motivator, always had a positive outlook.  He was a true pioneer, a music legend.  He performed the songs we all grew up on and loved. He took it to another level – every night. Words cannot express how much he will be missed."

* Photo from Soldierette's website

First: Howard Zinn, influential leftist historian, and Louis Auchincloss, literary chronicler of the Upper East Side elite, died. Yes, I almost forgot, too! Because J.D. Salinger, the highest common divisor of American letters, is dead. My colleague Ted Scheinman collected some of the Web's more interesting tributes. One that he mentioned that I'll single out is former CP staffer Mike Riggs' account of driving to Cornish, N.H., and eventually finding his way onto Salinger's property:

The rest of the pilgrimage was spent smoking pot, listening to good tunes, and playing a game we created called the Salinger Hypothetical, which one of us would start when the others were feeling like the trip was a waste of time. Working off the trivia we knew about Salinger—the pee-drinking, the refusal to evacuate his home during a massive fire, the regular visits to Friendly's for ice cream, the obsession with young women, the interest in homeopathic medicine—we psyched ourselves out by creating even stranger Salingers. Every sentence began with "What if Salinger" and ended in an absurd theory: What if Salinger hasn't cut his fingernails in 50 years? What if Salinger's home is staffed by Southeast Asian slave labor? What if Salinger answers the door in a dress? What if Salinger has been dead for years, and his wife too, and no one knows because he's a recluse? What if Salinger answers the door in a Marilyn Monroe wig? What if Salinger is a huge pothead? What is Salinger answers the door naked? What if Salinger doesn't remember having been a famous writer?

The indispensable Click Opera—which is ending soon! A topic for another day!—looks at how Salinger (and then Philip Larkin) introduced swearing to Anglo-American literature, which Salinger also assaulted by calling out Dickens in the first sentence of The Catcher in the Rye:

You can read lives and obituaries of Salinger and all that Wikipedia crap elsewhere; I'm interested in the word "crap". It sits like a sprung trap right there in the first sentence of The Catcher in the Rye, the first word that really establishes the tone, the snare that catches our attention. If, in the glib formula, Salinger really did "invent the teenager", it's that surly, dismissive, deliberately anti-literary use of "crap" which starts the process. Like Prometheus making a man out of mud, Salinger creates the teenager from "crap".

But "literary" and and "street" have since reached an accord, Click Opera blogger Momus writes: "In a world in which informal has become the new formal, jeans and rock are the universal signifiers of normative respectability, couture kowtows to pret and the street is the new salon, the 'subversive' thing to do is to resurrect and re-invent the maligned category of 'the literary.' "

Oh, and: Miramax shut down! The film studio founded by Harvey and  Bob Weinstein that won four best-picture Oscars and distributed the epochal indie aped by a generation of film students, was shuttered yesterday by its parent company, Disney.

Also in the breeze:

- !!!: In March, Slumberland Records will release an anthology of the influential D.C. indie-pop outfit Black Tambourine that sports 16 songs—that would be six (count 'em!) more tracks than the Complete Recordings release from 1999. Included therein: Four newly recorded (!?) versions of songs the band played back in the day, including covers of Buddy Holly and Suicide. Here's one of the group's best originals, "For Ex-Lovers Only":

- Christie's says the art market will bounce back this year. Sorry billionaires, no more Lucian Freuds at bargain-basement prices!

- Yesterday I learned the true meaning of "captive audience."

- Brightest Young Things premieres a song from the Four Horsemen, a new project featuring members of U.S. Royalty and Matthew Hemerlein. It is lovely! Some commenters in this crazy-ass post probably won't like it! My only gripe? The song's use of the phrase "from whence." This is not correct! Saying "from whence" is essentially saying "from from where"—which is, y'know, just whack. Last year, Emmy the Great made the same mistake. Take a listen!

See? Plaintive folk song falls victim to poor grammatical choices! Kids, don't let this happen to you! Have a great weekend!

I started following @DidItLeak my first month at City Paper as City Lights editor. I was terrible at keeping up with release calendars, and Carton's simple feed—no jokes, no politics, no nonsense—was like a release calendar that maintained itself. Fast-forward a year: I received Brand New's Daisy five weeks before its release date, along with a very stern (but ambiguous) warning about the consequences of leaking (immolation? banishment from the promo list? a spanking?). And even though my feelings about Brand New frontman Jesse Lacey are such that I have never wanted his stuff to leak—in fact, I wanted no one to hear the album until we could all hear it at the same time—I knew that Daisy would leak. The big ones always leak. Always, always, always.

So, as the weeks leading to Daisy's release elapsed, I began to follow Carton's feed with increasing anxiety. When will it leak? Oh God, oh God, When will it leak? What will people say? Oh God, oh God. On Aug. 24, Carton published a short post in the same format I'd seen hundreds of times: "Brand New – Daisy leaked, due out September 22nd."

Like a good, objective music critic, I freaked. Cursed the name of whichever writer leaked the album, then spent the rest of the day trolling the message boards at AbsolutePunk.net, looking for haters to school on the merits of the new Brand New.

Carton posted that the album had leaked on a Saturday. The following Monday, a publicist for Brand New called the City Paper and accused me of leaking the album.

After a heated back-and-forth, during which I explained that I had listened to the digital promo over 100 times because I genuinely loved Brand New, not because I had shared my username and password with all my emo buddies, the publicist backed off. A truce in place, I asked her how she learned the album was out in the wild.

"Twitter," she said.

"Did It Leak?" I asked.

"Yeah," she said. "We watch it like hawks."

Kudos to you, Alan Carton, for making us all take notice.

UPDATE: In the Red Records owner Larry Hardy said Reatard was found this morning by his roommate, Jeffrey Novak of the band Cheap Time, who immediately called paramedics. Hardy said Reatard was pronounced dead on the scene.

In the Red released Reatard's 2006 album Blood Visions and a pair of singles compilations. "I'm in shock. He just phoned me yesterday," Hardy said, adding that Reatard stayed with him every time he visited Los Angeles, where the label is based. "That's the saddest thing about this—his career was taking off, he was having all this success, he signed to Matador. It seems like a really horrible waste."

According to the Commercial Appeal, Reatard's friends said the singer had been complaining of flulike symptoms recently.

Original post below.

Jay Reatard, a garage rocker recognized increasingly in recent years both for his prolific recorded output and a series of controversies involving other musicians, was found dead early this morning in his Memphis home, the Commerical Appeal is reporting. Two record labels that have released Reatard's work, Goner Records and Matador Records, have confirmed the death. Reatard, born Jimmy Lee Lindsey Jr., was 29. No cause of death has been reported.

More news as it comes in.

When played at the Black Cat in July, his songs "landed like a punch to the face," wrote City Paper's Christine Ernest. "Reatard’s set was a 45-minute assault on the ears: It was loud and frantic..."

The Village Voice shares some stories of Reatard's antics from bombastic garage rocker King Khan:

Or here's the best Jay story. When he was 17, he played at a mechanic's garage. This guy that was a fan of the Reatards [Jay's former band] set up a show in some garage. So while the show was going on, Jay was getting really crazy. While he was playing, he got naked and he opened up a can of motor oil and dumped it all over his head and was slipping and sliding everywhere. And then some smart-ass in the audience just rolled up a can of something on stage–it was all dirty, so he didn't know what it was. Jay grabbed it and opened it up and sprayed it on his dick. Within 10 seconds he started screaming in agony on the floor in the fetal position–"Ahhhhh!"–while covered in oil. Then he grabbed the can and scrapped the dirt off from it–it was EASY-OFF oven cleaner.

UPDATE – 7:42 p.m.: Chesnutt has died, the New York Times reports.

UPDATE – 11:38 a.m.: Reports of Chesnutt's death were false. He is in a coma. Original post below.

Singer-songwriter Vic Chesnutt has died. Earlier today, Chesnutt slipped into a coma after an apparent suicide attempt. Chesnutt spent much of his life in a wheelchair following a car accident. He survived years of drug abuse; in an interview, he admitted to attempting suicide several times. The Athens, Ga., singer amassed a wide following for his brutal, adventurous songs, and biting, often hilarious lyrics. I interviewed Michael Stipe in the early '90s—the entire subject of the discussion was his adoration for Chesnutt. Stipe produced two of his albums. This past year, he released an album featuring musicians from Thee Silver Mt. Zion, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Witchies, and Guy Picciotto. From the outpouring of grief via Twitter and Facebook, it's clear Chesnutt had devoted fans and great friendships. He was 45.

Philadelphia-based acoustic guitarist Jack Rose died Sunday morning of a heart attack. He was 38 years old.

Rose was a traditional musician with a flare for the experimental. A Virginia native, he got his start during the mid-'90s performing with the Richmond-based avant-folk group Pelt. A few years later, Rose went solo. Inspired by American primitive guitarists like John Fahey and Robbie Basho, he began crafting dexterous finger-style compositions that merged traditional blues and ragtime with elements of drone and Indian-classical music. Rose would go on to release numerous EPs and LPs throughout the decade, both under his own name and as Dr. Ragtime. He was among the artists featured on Devendra Banhart's popular Golden Apples of the Sun compilation, alongside Six Organs of Admittance, Joanna Newsom, and Espers.

In concert, though, Rose was truly something else. Although he was apparently self-taught, I'm hard pressed to think of any other living acoustic guitarist who could play with Rose's vigor and imagination. Whether he was performing on the slightly dingy stage at Velvet Lounge or the even dingier confines of the living room at 611 Florida Avenue, Jack Rose brought it. If there's a Mount Olympus for American guitarists, surely that's where he is now.

Rose is quoted in Dave Dunlap's 2006 City Paper story about the Takoma Records. Read it here.

Update: Clavius Productions founder Scott Verrastro booked almost every show Jack Rose ever played at D.C. (Save for one gig at Rock & Roll Hotel, supporting OM). He shares his thoughts on Rose after the jump:

Jack was there when I first started booking shows at my house (611 Florida) in 2003. He played one of the very first shows that I ever booked (with Landing), and played my house six times total–including my 28th birthday in 2005 (with Glenn Jones, PG Six and Harris Newman). I probably booked Jack more than anybody else, as I thought him to be the best acoustic guitarist on earth, and I'm saying that without hyperbole. Watching Jack's fingers pick and fret was like watching two of the most gracious dancers in motion. It was that stunning. The level of dexterity he possessed was truly perplexing and awe-inspiring.

RIP, Jack. You certainly touched my soul and affected many others. Thanks for making me laugh and for talking about the brilliance of Chrome and Robbie Basho and why most indie-rock is totally boring bullshit. You will be missed.

When I suggested "Higher" to my guitar instructor, he scoffed. Our arrangement was that I could pick a song to learn (as opposed to having one assigned), only if it supplemented the sight-reading, theory, or scalar focus of our lessons. Radio rock, with the exception of Metallica (pre-Black) and the Foo Fighters (anything from The Colour and the Shape), was verboten.

But when my instructor saw the pull-off in the opening hook for "Higher," he changed his mind. At first, he didn't believe that guitarist Mark Tremonti was playing it as transcribed: It required the guitarist to simultaneously make a bar chord at the 7th fret using the first finger (drop-D tuning) while completing a pull-off (on the notoriously fickle G string) that stretched all the way to the 12th fret and required the pinkie and ring fingers. If this makes no sense to you, just imagine having to stretch your fingers much farther apart than feels natural, and doing something elegant with them like that.

In essence, this one musical line changed my instructor's opinion about Creed, a tough sell considering that very few technically proficient guitarists have anything nice to say about contemporary radio rock. But for many, many people, no convincing was or is necessary. I played "Higher" at parties through college, and the response was always one of warm recognition.

Human Clay is a platinum album, which explains why most people recognize–like, even–the riff from "Higher." Millions of people bought the album, from which we can extrapolate that many, many people like the album. Is an encomium for a widely purchased album that defined an era of radio rock necessary?

No. Based on sales, longevity, and concert attendance, Creed is actually an overrated band, it's just not rated by the select tribe of paid music critics whose job is to play taste police.

In Chronic City, the new novel by Jonathan Lethem, the character Perkus Tooth observes that "[r]ock critics gather for purposes of mutual consolation, though they'd never call it that. They believe they're experts."

One music writer telling his colleagues that Creed is better than we realize, or, as Ron Rosenbaum argued in January, that Billy Joel is not as good as the millions of people who buy his albums think he is, appears at first glance to be a deviation from the consoling we do so frequently: Talking up indie acts, poorly selling albums, and obscure deep cuts, and bemoaning the bad taste of the masses while railing against the labels that keep them fed and stupid. Yet defending Creed isn't a break from that; it's condescension disguised as counter-intuition, and in its own way, a mirror that reflects the impotence of the average music critic: Creed didn't need Slate in its corner 10 years ago, and it doesn't need Slate now.

Ironically, Weiner's piece has been widely reviled by his target audience: people who consider themselves experts. In fact, it's spawned its own twitter meme. Bloggers with "great taste" have dismissed Weiner's argument wholesale, and have sworn to hate Creed even more now that one of their own has dared to save the band from their very tiny, very dull pitchforks.

And that, people, is destined to be the exercise's only value: It reveals the massive divide between what the idiots want and what the smarties want, and the utter futility of suggesting to the latter group that the former is ever correct.

On Thursday August 6, longtime D.C. soul singer Eddie Daye passed away at age 78.  Back in 2002, I wrote a feature  piece on him for the Washington City Paper.  I had  heard that he had been ill recently and was in the hospital but  have not yet been able to get any other specifics on the cause of death, or his funeral, that is scheduled for Wednesday.  I had last seen Eddie in the audience at the Bluebird Blues and Soul Festival  at Prince Georges Community College last September.  As I will be out of town for most of the next two weeks beginning tomorrow, I am posting this now.

As detailed in my article, I first saw Eddie, who had been vocalizing in DC since the late 1940s and had his own record label, perform in the 1980s at the now defunct Gold Room  in Northeast DC.  Subsequently I saw Eddie and his late wife, Denise,  perform together numerous times at Gee's 4400 Club, then located in Brentwood, Md., off of Rhode Island Avenue just near the DC line, and at Chuck & Billy's Lounge on Georgia Avenue NW.  This dapper gentleman (usually in a suit although not in the photo from an outdoor show above) and his wife were always so friendly to everyone (and they always wanted to make sure that me and my friends, their youngest and uh palest fans, felt comfortable).  In more recent years Eddie’s song “Sexy Senior Citizen (I’m not a dirty old man, I’m just a)” got some airplay on WPFW’s Saturday programming, though some DC residents and a handful of British and European record collectors on Ebay know him best for his vocals with the Four Bars in the ‘50s and ‘60s.  While those online and crate-digging fans may cherish copies of his obscure singles (some of which have been reissued on cd), I will just keep my memories of those fun late nights out seeing him sing bluesy soul and my conversations with him about his musical career and his take on 50 plus years of r’n’b history.  While there were frequently  special guest vocalists joining he and his wife onstage in the ‘80s and ‘90s, this  pleasant guy with the deep voice was always the star of the show. 

* The photo is by Ron Weinstock of the In a Blue Mood blog (many of his photos are on Flickr).