On September 1st, Bogus Slogan, will invite, 50 fans to a live studio recording party. Deuce|Seven Sound of Benneal, Pennsylvania will open their doors to famed Studio 11 & Bogus Slogan will set up shop in the "Big Room."
A lucky fan will pick a random set list from a prior tour stop. With professional grade microphones transfering the performance to a multi-track digital recorder, the Band will perform that show and anything else that comes to mind. Deuce|Seven Sound's top recording engineer, Ehrich "Dead Center" Littleton, has agreed to mix a 5-1 surround sound master. Each attending fan will get their own autographed, MyteeFine Super Bit™ CD as a souvenier.
Access to the Web site for entering your name can be found in the liner notes from Bogus Slogan's latest release, "A Little Heart." You did buy the album? Hey, you've got to be a fan!
Bogus Slogan Live Studio Recording Party
Bogus Slogan Poster #39 - Inside View
For New Year's Eve, Bogus Slogan always comes out to play. Even if vacations, legal proceedings, or grudges seem to prevent a possible performance, the group spends the cash to get the private jets to bring them to and fro.
When the new year turns, Bogus Slogan is rarely on stage. This tradition stems from the first new year's eve concert where drummer, Benjamin Owen's car broke down in Baker, California. The short story is that the helicopter pilot and his wife were invited to the after party at Jumbo's Clown Room. Also Tige, Bones, Cryst, Bot of the Drifting Disciples Motorcycle Club, San Pedro, CA were invited. Owen made the club about 12:20am. A new tradition.
In 2000, Bogus Slogan returned to the Sand Bar Pavilion, the original crime scene. BS on stage - 12:17am.
Pacific Trust Collection Art Lottery Winners
The Pacific Trust Collection Art Lottery within a lottery is Final!
Five pieces of art from the Ninety-Seventh American Natural Objects Competition sponsored by the Pacific Trust Collection of Laguna Beach have been given to five lucky lottery winners.
1. J. Kipper: CHILDREN AMONG RED FLOWERS (2006) Oil 28" x 16"
Karoline Karotsky Coral Prarie, Ohio
2. Rondal Garcia: CHARGING UP SAN JUAN HILL (2003) Bronze 46" x 18"
Randy Kline Chamber, Pennsylvania
3. Maggie Klein: BOWL WITH GRAPES & ORANGES (2005) Watercolour 18" x 14"
Marion Patterson Pine Needles, California
4. Presten Jamis: ADOBE AT SAN GABRIEL (2005) Acrylic 30" x 20"
Theodore Botley West Upon Kent, England
5. Tilley Frame: RR BRIDGE AT MORSEVILLE (2006) Oil 14" x 9"
Martin Fells New Fullerton, California
Drawing for the selection of the five art pieces was film star, Torsen Fleur, who will be starring in BattleRocks Films' motion picture "Broken Sand," releasing this Fall. These winners stood on special display at the CityView Gallery in the Capitol Building in downtown Laguna Beach. Stacko Record's Mellow Chord Robinson, whose new EP "Can't Hold Back the Funk," is available now by worldwide digital download, selected the new owners of the art by random draw. The winners have been invited to come and take their prizes home.
The Pacific Trust Collection of Laguna Beach and the Laguna Beach CityView Gallery thank everyone for contributing to the fun.
Bogus Slogan Poster #38 - Inside View
In the early days of Bogus Slogan, attention and interest in the band was hard to come by. Groups like the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Beach Boys... were what the record buying public knew. Not a bad thing, but if you are trying to make a fortune as a rock band, those guys are in the way.
BS guitarist, Robert Soelberg, was well known in industry circles for his production and engineering skills. And his foray into the world of performance Rock n' Roll, with Bogus Slogan was beloved in the local clubs and theaters of Southern California, but as a national or international presence, they were unknown. So to sell the group to concert promoters, 'Screamin' Benny Bob ("BB") Taylor, BS's first "manager," used Soelberg's name as "leader" of the Band on many of the promotions.
This week's poster, "Faith is Universal," is from the first national tour in support of the Band's first long player, "We Gotta Go!" The initial single, "Playing with the Kitty," was breaking big and the tour was being booked as the group was doing the first dates outside California.
Some times, violence is necessary to convert the uninitiated music lover into Bogus Slogan fans. Toshiro Mifune, actor swordsman extraordinaire, expresses this motivation superbly. 125 posters were printed for the Boulder, Colorado concert. Only three have been authenticated. If you live around Boulder, check your parent's closet. Make your own fortune.
Expressions: Complete Waste of Fame (2004)
Since watercolors are not known for their precision, Complete Waste of Fame (2004) starts with the paper washed and rewashed in a shapeless multi-color frenzy. Layer one screens a packet of lines that will later be "hidden" but currently is set out to segmentize the background.
Layers two and three increase the number of graphic elements - from which an epic battle for style is released - bringing a chaotic fullness before the viewer. Slowly, some of the fame is being absorbed into the canvas backing.
Bogus Slogan Poster #37 - Inside View
Trying to get a successful music festival off the ground is guaranteed to stress the founders. South by Southwest and Lilith Fair are incredible success stories, but Snugglefest was a fully implemented disaster. Bogus Slogan, always looking for new revenue streams, hooked into Snugglefest from the beginning. Based on the original founder's promises, Bogus Slogan had fellow band friends, The Fragging Dolls and SpiffyKick sign up as headliners for the Friday and Saturday programs. Each cut their usual appearance fee by 60% to help get the show into profitability.
The disaster began to bloom when in August, a month before the festival, legal notice from the state of Virginia was received in the management offices of all three bands, indicating that the construction, entertainment, controlled beverages and public assembly permits that were applied for had been denied. The next day, a similar letter from the city arrived. When a Federal notice of Non-Compliance came, everyone thought the gig was dead.
Phone calls to the founders became a massive double talk conspiracy. Everyone was told that "adjustments" had been made and all the permits were issued. Calls to the various government agencies to confirm typically ended with the bureaucrat saying "We don't care." And then hanging up the phone.
Bogus Slogan never got to play the Hard Chine Tavern. Six hours after the festival's "start," the founders were located at Norfolk International Airport with first class tickets to Valparaiso, Chile. After serving 3 years for fraud, the promoters disappeared into the heart of Europe.
Bogus Slogan Meet & Greet
Club, Concert & Backstage Party
Bogus Slogan, American Tour 2006, rolls through the mid-west in August. Get VIP status to meet, greet, listen and party with the Band. Arrangements have been finalized for the August Meet & Greet in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Insiders will get to meet and greet the band at the Vortex Palace Club. Cocktails, dinner and an accoustic club concert follow.
Then by limo, to the Table Mt. Stadium concert, with headliners Bogus Slogan and supporting acts "Upper 40," "the Reduced Flow" and "QuasiTension." A post concert champagne backstage party concludes the festivities. A box of Bogus Slogan swag will seal the deal. Tickets are limited for each VIP Meet & Greet. Get inside now!
Bogus Slogan Poster #36 - Inside View
The Desoto Point Arena poster's back image of a relaxed afternoon, hanging out at the general store, displays some of our bad human habits: burnable fossil fuels, cigarettes, and processed sugar soda drinks. Maybe one should be more worried about the porch's foundation, the add-on stair steps and the exposed wire lighting. Today's building codes would strip mall this picture into oblivion. And hanging out (loitering) is no longer an option unless you have paid, in advance, for permission.
KoKo Cola Commodiities Syndicate (no relation to CocaCola, Inc.) organized and promoted this concert after learning of the Netherlands Constitutional Monarchy suggesting a branding program to provide for all its citizens their own service number.
This concert's admission fee was used as a symbolic message of protest. Since we the people are the government - we must protest against our own anonymous dehumanizing polices for making legislation for the authorization of the numbering of our citizens. Bogus Slogan is a 'for our profit' rock 'n' roll group, this symbolic protest fee paid for the new playroom in the Band's recording studio.
Because, Bogus Slogan only visits the South, they bring as much music as they can. And because their's is not a native sound, they hired Kentucky's "The Joyless Future" as support for the tour's Southern turn. The Vicksburg arena show was a sellout. The concert gross was sufficient to garner 4th spot in Billboard's "Boxscore" column. BS sends a thank you to all those who attended.
SysOps Notice 2006.07.01
With an earth, comprised of eternal humans, only a few cloning cells and DNA tweaks away, I can look at my mortality, and laugh at why I ever drove 50 miles (round trip for 17 weeks), to record, off of the television speaker, the SOUNDTRACK to the British TV program The Prisoner. No coughing was allowed. The show was originally broadcasted in the late 60's and I watched it with my nose nearly on the tv's glass screen. I actually played back the audio only tapes. During the silent sections, I tried to imagine the course of action. Thank goodness the series came out on laser disc. The show is an iconic fable of a dis-associated individual being bent to society's control. Episode after episode found the main character foiling his controllers' plan, but also failing to escape his village jail. In the last two episode, No. 6, the Prisoner, does turn the tables on his captors with a hallucinatory contest of minds, where logic is ignored in favor of a Monty Python sketch. The psychedelic 60's on film.
In 1977 the show was replayed on cable tv. Limited cable, but no satellites, no internet, no napster, no bit torrent. The show was not on VHS or BETAMAX tapes. Since I did not have cable or a VCR, the weekly sojourn began.
The series always had a cult following, but that does not mean commercial sales. DVDs were unknown and many years away. Getting the show on laser disc greatly helped, but finding all the episodes was another adventure. The Prisoner DVDs are being re-released in an anniversary box set with background documentaries and alternative episodes.
Another fave, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is on the DVD horizon. There are two corporations that claim copyright ownership and are fighting over the distribution rights, but that will get resolved. It is only about money. Listening to the Soundtrack CD of the music from the series - Jerry Goldsmith's Crime Jazz Space Age Pop - bongos, flutes, percussive organ riffs galore, trumpets!!!! With Robert Drasnin, Gerald Fried, Lalo Schifrin, Richard Shores composing episode scores from the Goldsmith's U.N.C.L.E. music template. Bring on the THRUSH villains. Open channel "D."
And the first season of The Wild Wild West with Michael Dunn as "Dr. Miguelito Quixote Loveless," the master arch villain, in elegant Black and White, is available.
Killing my television might have to wait a bit. Technology has restored the fun. I think I have time to return to my childhood.
ZenithPointStudio PopWorks 4
Washes: Close at Hand (2005)
Close at Hand starts with a vertical focus. Two nine foot, "wavy," purple columns bracket the canvas. Then color shimmers are blocked in. A number of black and grey "prints" add a foreboding feeling.
They are followed by diagonal sheer lines which diffuses the viewer's focus.
Reversing mountains of "V"s center the painting. Above, a cloudy mist soften the jagged peaks.
"..as if stricken, beneath a ranistorm inside a forest of trees. Falling forward - clutching for the wet leaves, she felt nothing within the grasp of her fingers. Lost to gravity, slowly fading from..."
Bogus Slogan Poster #35 - Inside View
Our little space guy has no difficulty pointing out the great bands playing that night. Little Buddy System almost stole the show. The group had just released their first album and they were on their first record company sponsored tour. They were hyped on their own publicity. Ton o' Static and Escape for Fun were bands that routinely played through out Texas. With Summer just arriving, the Bogus Slogan's fans were dancing wall to wall from start to finish.
The Catacombs Club was a wonderful venue. Lots of energy, fun people. The club is no longer in operation, but the people of Houston, TX have no problem partying. The backdrop image, a 1950's child's view of space exploration, confirms that while space may be unknown territory, being armed and dangerous helps.
This BS Poster is a rare outside production for the Catacombs Club. 200 were printed. Fifteen are in the hands of Bogus Slogan Poster Collectors. When "No Problem Here" was last at action (9/1983), the transfer price was a staggering $4,650.00. In 2001, ZenithPointStudio transferred its three existing Artist Proofs to the Pacific Trust Collection of Laguna Beach.
Pacific Trust Collection Art Lottery Selections
The first stage of the Pacific Trust Collection Art Lottery within a lottery is done!
Five pieces of art from the Ninety-Seventh American Natural Objects Competition sponsored by the Pacific Trust Collection of Laguna Beach which will be given to five lucky lottery winners have been selected.
1. J. Kipper: CHILDREN AMONG RED FLOWERS (2006) Oil 28" x 16"
2. Rondal Garcia: CHARGING UP SAN JUAN HILL (2003) Bronze 46" x 18"
3. Maggie Klein: BOWL WITH GRAPES & ORANGES (2005) Watercolour 18" x 14"
4. Presten Jamis: ADOBE AT SAN GABRIEL (2005) Acrylic 30" x 20"
5. Tilley Frame: RR BRIDGE AT SUNSET (2006) Oil 12" x 9"
Lottery drawing for the selection of the five art pieces was June 16th. Our Celebrity Drawer was none other than film star, Torsen Fleur, the lead in "The Iceman Cometh" now in Summer Performace at the Laguna Beach's Paramount Theatre. The winners are on special display at the CityView Gallery in the Capitol Building in downtown Laguna Beach until July 15th when a second lottery drawing will be held. This year's Celebrity Drawer for the second drawing will be Stacko Record's Mellow Chord Robinson. During the week of July 15th, Mellow Chord will be performing at North Laguna's famed Acrylic & Oil Lounge. The winners will be invited to come and take their prizes home.
You can still participate. No purchase necessary. Place your name into the lottery by filling out an entry form at the CityView Gallery or sending your name and address on a piece of paper to the Pacific Trust Collection of Laguna Beach's Executive Office. Once again, good luck everybody.
Abstracts: Family Vacation (2004)
Kissed by the Trembling Summer
Laughing Children Run.
Bogus Slogan Poster #34 - Inside View
When artists set out to create a memorable image, sometimes they don't see what they create. Sometimes they try to get what they see past the censors. Sometimes everybody is in on the flow. Our concert poster backdrop is from a book cover where the self reflection asked of human kind is mixed with an image of physical exertion.
But let us return to the centering of our ego. Placing it firmly at the front of the stage at the IT Club. Bogus Slogan Time. This show's opening song was Fishbone's "It's a Wonderful life (Gonna Have a Good Time)."
Not one ballad - 115 minutes at 110+ beats per minute.
Expressions: Moral Comeback (2004)
Painting is also about hiding and suggesting. In Layer 1 below, a dramatic set of white lines are painted in the canvas center. Each successive layer begins to hide this strong element, until in the finished painting, only a suggestion is left.
Bogus Slogan Poster #33 - Inside View
In less than a century, the cult of the automobile has redirected the attention of males and a few females, to the greatness of speed and style in a moving box. The heyday has come and gone - the muscle cars of the 1960's with high octane leaded gas for $0.30 a gallon - but the design capabilities of humans thrives and today, everybody can have their own pocket rocket. Tomorrow?
ZenithPointStudio uses Chip Foose's redesign of the late 1960's Chevrolet Camaro as this Bogus Slogan poster's background. Lower to the ground, state of the art steering and suspension, 200+ more horsepower than the original - She's a beauty. Only, gas is now an investment and you share your patch of the road with lots of moving obstacles.
The gig was an end of the tour date. Always a tough show. Some want to go home, some are sad to see the tour end, most are still hungover from last night. For Bogus Slogan, the guys always take a week off before the last show. Most times they hang out together in some happy-go-lucky tourist spot. Prior to Detroit, they road the rails along the eastern and southern coastal edges of America. With their private train, they backtracked into New Orleans, then north, highballing for Detroit on the old Illinois Central mainline.
Bogus Slogan American Tour 2006
Get your money out. In fact, go on line now and purchase the Bogus Slogan IV currency drip.™
In support of their brand new release, "A Little Heart," Bogus Slogan will begin a 12 week - 50 date tour of America, June 14th, in Jamestown, Florida at the World Famous Tindley Ballroom. On September 15th the tour will close out with a weekend appearance at the Made Butler Club in Cleveland, Ohio.
Inbetween are arenas, stadiums, clubs and ballrooms galore. Advance tickets on sale now. Special VIP passes are available. Tour merchandise already shipping.
Photos: UP 5021 • Whittier, California
Shooting trains in the urban environment is a challenging task. Most great train pictures need elevation above the subject and a background that will not put the viewer into a vegetative state. Bridges solve the first problem - except in our high security world, hanging over a railing brings forth questions not artistic support. Getting a shooting angle, with good lighting, a worthy background and a train takes patience. Many a time I have watched the direct sunlight track across my camera's focus point with no train in sight. Sigh.
Union Pacific 5021 is leading its train into the Los Angeles basin. The remaining miles are primarily single track, so she is not going to slow down for her picture to get taken. I especially like the level train/tracks and the "tilt" that the electric towers make. No bridge available, so down on the ground I go. Shot with a 20mm lens, you can "see" vinnetting in the corners from the circular polarizing filter - Kodachrome 64, f5.6 at 1/250.
Photoshop makes it easy to to create a black & white print which I think can hold its own.
Bogus Slogan Poster #32 - Inside View
Early morning, the Southern Pacific Coast Daylight, is leaving Los Angeles, to run along the California coastline before turning back into the San Joaquin Valley on its trek to San Francisco. Crossing the North Broadway bridge over the L.A. River, is a 1950's era bus taking workers and shoppers into the downtown area. The elevated tracks on the right are the Union Pacific's branch line into Glendale/Pasadena. Behind the bridge is the ATSF Pasadena Division's LA River crossing. In a few seconds, the smoke from the GS-4 steam locomotive, will completely hide the train and bus as the engineer opens the throttle. The video still back drop is a composite made from the excellent documentary DAYLIGHT The Most Beautiful Train in the World.
The concert was an unsanctioned celebration of the Freedom Riders who helped liberate the South of overt segregation in the 1950's and 1960's. People left their ordinary lives to make an extraordinary change. This Bogus Slogan concert was a thank you for the sacrifices made and a reminder that life and liberty are not catchphrases.
Anothert concert for freedom is sure to come, so choose your own method of transportation, but just be sure to get there.