International Paneling/January 2024
In this Issue: Too Much Weed? “Munich Revisited” Video by Eike Berg+Jarnoe, Coping Mechanism DIY for Girls, 3 Questions with Tom D. Rotenberg, AI’s Nightshade IssuePeter Wilde Review, The Dark Side of Collecting, Story of the Squealer, Editor’s Note
Image by Horster
That’s not Mistletoe, that’s Weed! Ho Ho Ho!
by Leo Kuelbs
Berlin
The holiday season is upon us. I was recently comparing winter holiday notes with a friend from Turkey. One thing that seems to be more common for Western Christmas-based folks is holiday blues and depression. Besides all of the family-related baggage from the past, there’s the general winter blahs and when in Berlin, there’s dealing with the brutal grayness for sometimes weeks on end.
This past year has also seen the inflation situation really explode. The reports in the news don’t do justice to the issues that the joint effects of inflation and increases in housing expenses bring about. In short, if you have been living somewhat on the edge. You might be a little or a lot closer to it this past year.
Add in the stress caused by increases in the intensity and regularity of volatility when it comes to weather, wars, digital life experience, etc. Add to it uncertainty about health insurance and, if you live in a foreign country experiencing seemingly seismic changes, and you have an outline of what is happening on the ground, here in Berlin, NYC and elsewhere. All of this stuff adds a lot of mental stress.
Not everyone is rushing to get medication for depression or other anxiety-based issues that they may not even realize they have. In many cases, people seem to have been turning to marijuana. Self-medication has been going on forever, and when systems begin to fail, it can become an even greater option. For my generation and prior, alcohol was the option of choice. But when fun becomes something greater, things can get pretty weird. And it has been happening more these days for lots of people.
But hey, you don’t want to be an alcoholic. Pot is not booze and hasn’t had quite the negative stigma. But I would not be surprised if that changes in the next ten years. Weed manipulation/breeding has been going CRAZY in the last 30 years. I have heard that weed can be up to 30+% THC content. I am not an expert, but if you get deeply into that heavy stuff, you might be messing with some serious neurons.
So, what used to be considered relatively harmless might now be as powerful as some synthetic drugs. When I was in high school, the stoners used to say, “Alcohol is made by man. Weed is made by GOD. Which one do you trust?” But now, weed is also manipulated by man, so that old chestnut is out the window.
In NYC, when you walk around, it smells like weed. In my apartment there, it smells like weed. It’s in the hallways and through the vents.
In NYC, when you walk around, it smells like weed. In my apartment there, it smells like weed. It’s in the hallways and through the vents. It’s legal-ish in NY state. And until it’s all the way legal, there are synthetic versions to suffice. Lots of it does not seem to be regulated. It’s kind of a big mess. In Berlin, it doesn’t seem to be as bad. But on these long, boring and dark winter nights, some weed might help. But then there’s another long dark night and another and another still. The concern is that too much of anything—but thinking of weed here, especially—may exponentially compound problems, and pull the user into serious states of disorder. It’s been witnessed. Being around it truly sucks. Marijuana addiction is real and getting realer. It’s everywhere. It's heavier than ever and it’s “legal,” but still a wild, disorganized mess.
So, we here at International Paneling wish you a somewhat balanced and healthy holiday time. And please check on your friends and family; and do not be afraid to reach out to those dear and trusted ones, yourself, if you need to. After all, holiday times are often not as warm as we wish them to be. Good and loving wishes are the real stuff of actual holiday cheer.
Video Shorty of the Month: Eike Berg and Jarboe’s “Munich Revisited”
Intro by Leo Kuelbs
Freising-based Eike Berg gets a lot of attention these days as the Director of the Schafhof space, which houses a residency program for European artists in the Upper Bavarian city. But, Eike has also been an important part of the European video art scene as an artist and also has a founder of “videospace,” in Budapest, which closed not long after the first election of Orban.
Eike’s straight-forward conceptual approach is a refreshing and palatable antidote to the more academic. His consideration and inclusion of technical aspects is also clean and refreshing. This work from the 2015 show “Earth Revisited” is described byt the artist, “Munich Revisited is a hypothetic retrospection from another state of mind in the future into the present. Memories are re-appearing and condensing to short scenes of Munich in 2015.”
With a soundtrack created by the amazing Jarboe, whom you may know from the Swans and other collaborations and solo endeavors, “Munich Revisited” is a means to consider time and place from a formal, yet fluid position.
Image by Horster
Coping Mechanisms are DIY Projects for Teenage Girls
by Ornella Marie Stella
Stockholm
There is a specific moment when we look behind and suddenly realize we must deal with our younger selves. To acknowledge them again and engage in conversations with them.
Those who got caught up in the moment, distracted by something or even lost somewhere, we will all, at some point, have to stop and look back. Or look around, whatever feels best. Going back where it all started. Not necessary where one belongs. There, you probably know where and when.
During my teenage years, I would write love letters from my imaginary future self to the self of that time. When I was down, I would imagine her and she would take form. I remember every detail of this adult woman quite vividly.
My future self knew exactly how to keep me calm and steady. She would tell me to be patient and how to be patient, so I would listen to her. She would keep me company, so I’d tell her all my secrets. She would tell me not to worry, so I’d trust her.
My older self used to be great at taking care of our problems. She had the power to take us out of any situation, absolutely unscarred, and prepare the best environment for us to dig our nails in. Like roots. She was the provider of moist soil and waggling worms. Air to breathe, salty like the one where we grew up, and fresh like a summer evening - the one we’d need a cardigan for.
As a teenager, I felt like everything was easy, deciding was quick, and things were either black or white. Life was not as complex as adults made it to be, and I knew exactly who I was and what my place in the world was. It felt great. Like I understood every inch of my body and every curl of my hair.
There was also this sort of revanchism. Just wait till I am old enough - kind of stuff. Teenagers learning how to deal with emotions, struggling to translate them, turning them into anger.
In any case, I feel attached to that girl. I feel affection for her ignorance. It tastes sweet.
I smirk at such a simple outlook on life. It’s funny - not necessarily bad - to think about how little I knew about the world while I was convinced I was on top of it all. Now I can’t help but feel a tad jealous. There is power in the unconsciousness of youth. It’s a glamorous space to be in, inside our ears.
In any case, I feel attached to that girl. I feel affection for her ignorance. It tastes sweet. And I did it, eventually. I started dedicating myself to keeping that promise to her.
Building a better home - or any home really - a space where we can both be. Jumping at every opportunity that would get me closer to that feeling of security. But all this fighting, sometimes I can’t take it. Actually, I might just not take it.
It’s dangerous, you know, to be that focused on yourself. You start forgetting small details. Like the name of that street. How to drive a manual car. Or that guy - what was his name again?
Here and there, I’m losing something I can’t recall. In other words, while I am running to achieve something, I might just fucking forget what I’m running for and where I’m trying to go.
So I graduated from my master’s because that was the plan. I moved to another country and everything I did I did for myself. I learned another language - quickly - found the next guy - quickly. I met this guy and told myself “he’s agreed to my terms”. Like I’m his subscription plan.
Second half of my twenties - this is where I am at. I’m backtracking, I knock on the door. Back where it started, I know she’s waiting at home.
3 Questions with Thomas D. Rotenberg
Intro by Leo Kuelbs
Tom Rotenberg is pretty popular is a special section of the video art world. His edgy gothic sci-fi vibe is authentic, and it resonates throughout his music and art videos, as well as his narrative projects. As a key behind the scenes coordinator and contributor, he has developed projects and presented work for IFP Made in NYC Media Center as well as Technical Management for the LIGHT YEAR video art projection project, both in Brooklyn. He has also worked with Rooftop Pictures and all of these experiences have made him a crucial part in developing a larger digital arts community in NYC and beyond. His roots in Wisconsin keep him from getting too weird or wild and sense of collaboration also has a pretty “nice” midwestern vibe for a guy who once curated a show titled, “Examaning Darkness.” His list of collaborators and friends is long with such names as Josh Graham, Damian Masters, Sea of Daisies, to name a few. Tom has a solo show coming up at Levels Gallery in January, as well. Let’s take a look at the questions and let Tom do the rest.
The Questions:
1. Tom, tell us about your creative roots and where you are coming from, mentally and geographically.
2. You have made a lot of great stuff. Can you describe your personal vision and also some of your influences, motivations, etc. Also, you not only lead on projects, but also seriously support others. How do you manage the balance.
3. What are you most proud of, so far, and what are you looking forward to in the coming months.
Image by Tom D. Rotenberg
Poisoning AI with Nightshade
by Mark Bailey
Minneapolis
In the last couple of years, I've used AI to generate a great many images for NFTs and blog posts. Sites like Midjourney and Night Cafe make this easy. But the AI engines powering these sites are controversial because they're trained on data scraped from the internet, including artworks that artists don't want to share with AIs. And since artists aren't being compensated for their contributions by the tech companies that own the AIs, many are looking for ways to stick it to the tech companies. Some are even developing ways to poison the AIs.
Along these lines, a program called Nightshade was recently developed by computer scientists at the University of Chicago. 'Prompt-Specific Poisoning Attacks on Text-to-Image Generative Models' is the name of the paper that describes Nightshade in detail. This program takes standard images and remixes them to sabotage any AI that includes the images in its training data. The changes to each image are barely noticeable to human observers, but they screw up the associations between art and its labels. When enough poisoned images are included in an AI, its text-to-image capabilities break. You might ask for a picture of an apple and instead be given a picture of an egg.
Personally, I disagree with the whole philosophy behind this. Yes, art is being used by computer programs without permission from the artists. And Big Tech is definitely not in the business of compensating people for their data when this data is used to train AIs. For these reasons, some artists are going so far as to label all generative art plagiarism. They don't want the products of their creativity used by Big Tech at all and they feel ripped off.
Art doesn't happen in a vacuum. One hundred percent of artists are influenced by the work of other artists.
My perspective is that they're being petty and maybe they should stop trying to ruin things for other people. Art doesn't happen in a vacuum. One hundred percent of artists are influenced by the work of other artists. If you see a Rembrandt and a Banksy and produce a new work containing elements of each, that's not plagiarism. It's derivative, sure, but you're not stealing another's work or claiming credit for it.
Everything an AI produces is likewise derivative, though it's derived from a gigantic number of influences, some of which are given more weight than others. The works of individual artists are incorporated alongside millions of other data points into finished images. Even if tech companies wanted to compensate these artists, each individual's contribution to an AI training dataset is vanishingly small, worth fractions of pennies at best. There's little point in arguing about such trivial sums.
The issue of attribution is harder to dismiss. Artists deserve credit for their work and should be credited somewhere for their contributions to AI training. I also think that people who contribute other kinds of data to AI should be credited somewhere. Unfortunately, tech companies appear unlikely to ever take the attribution issue seriously.
Underneath all of this is the larger question of the purpose of AI. This technology is revolutionary and it's evolving very quickly. Entrusting something this important to Big Tech seems unwise. At the very least, we should be demanding transparency from these companies about the data they use.
Read my Substack - https://freemindgazette.substack.com/
Peter Wilde, “Golden Hour,” 2023, Acrylic on Canvas
Artist Spotlight: The Versatile Perfectionist, Peter Wilde
by Dirk Lehr
Berlin
The German-Canadian painter Peter Wilde is the chameleon among figurative painters. He changes his style, his subject and his aesthetic so frequently that he finds himself in a constant race with his obsession with painting at such a rapid pace. While other artists try to make a style their trademark, Wilde takes the exact opposite path. He successfully escapes any labeling of his work.
However, this is not a concept or conscious alternative to painterly recognition that others work tirelessly on. It is Wilde's DNA to jump back and forth within the genre painting and make us believe that we are dealing with a multiple personality. He is not concerned with his identity, but rather with trying out and expanding painting in all directions. The remarkable thing about it is that this happens with a perfection that leaves you amazed.
Peter Wilde, “Yellow Dress,” 2023, Acrylic on Canvas
Whether hyperrealistic or photorealistic painting, fragile figurative or conceptual painting - Wilde works tirelessly on everything that painting offers. Wilde’s “fuel” is curiosity. He enjoys the game of trying things out.
In his series of works Following G. for example, he painted every photograph that a person he did not know published on their Facebook account. Wilde wanted to know whether he could get to know a person by photorealistically painting their photos and thus every private detail of their surroundings, every freckle on their face or damage to their skin, etc.
In “Installations” he portrayed celebrities in passport photo format, like Angela Merkel, Barack Obama or Madonna. The installation, consisting of up to 70 individual panels, shows the alienation of the person in different phases, from the photorealistic image to a few rough brush strokes. The amazing thing is that the person can still be recognized even when only a blurry outline can be seen.
Wilde thus brings to light how familiar we are with people we have never met, simply because their images are omnipresent. With the portraits of Angela Merkel, Wilde made it onto the Tagesschau, one of the most important news programs on German TV.
In his most recent works, Wilde presents to us monkeys. They sit between opulent bouquets of flowers, on expansive armchairs, on antique tables or on an antique knight's helmet. They wear yellow chiffon dresses or baroque pink silk skirts. Despite their opulence, they don't look like Kitsch at all. You have to smile, but you still feel uneasy. Maybe that's because of the way the monkeys look at us. They cast bright, clear looks at us, sometimes proud, sometimes shy and sometimes scared. In addition, the monkeys sometimes appear very fragile - in contrast to their opulent surroundings. These works impress with their perfection again, this raises their decorative arrangements to a higher level.
The Dark Side of Collecting and its Legacy
Text and images by Balazs Kulcsar
Brussels
If this is your living room, you probably have too many artworks in your home...
When Le Monde’s publication about artists’ houses (80 maisons dartistes pour lété, hors-série) came out in France, probably for touristic purposes, I was already in the middle of thinking something very unhallowed about this aggregious desire for accumulation.
Philoshophically speaking, a collection of artworks does not end with the unpleasant exit of the collector. It may go on into a foundation, which is tasked with making sure the money goes in the right direction; and all the archived and catalogued stuff stays forever where it is supposed to be.
But let’s be more personal. My father loves collecting books. After 40 years of battling with my mother, finally my father moved to a separate, small spot where books represent nearly 95 % of the living space. I still see, in my father’s eye, the unquestionable joy to be in place number one—his private library. However, Im not sure about the practicality of moving 200 books whenever you want to open the fridge. And we are middle class.
You might admire the desire to constantly collect unusable things. But let’s be honest: the camera you bought three years ago and used once at xmas, the drone which was harder to use than expected, and finally landed back in its case, or the all-new „smart” TV you bought to be a little bit better than the rest of the worl —are they worth the space they take up?
And is it any different when you need to rent a warehouse to store your art collection that no longer fits into your biggest house? In a way, is art collecting only an extension of constantly replacing last year’s phone with the new one?
Fondation Maeght in St Paul, only 10 km from Nice, on the hill
This past June, I saw a scene which is now burned into my retina. A breastfeeding mum casually sat in a corner of a 300 m2 salon, which was just prepared for an impending event. The mum was the daughter of a rich man, and, not surprisingly, the father had organized a committee to help save this palace and its art collection into the boredom and safety of eternity. All for the benefit of his daughter and the breastfeeding baby. The only difference between my father and that rich guy is that I could definitely not promise my father an endless maintenance of 10,000 books into eternity. I am also not game for any breastfeeding, at the moment.
Lets’ twist again. One of my greatest art experience was due to some very rich people who established a foundation. It was during a five day trip with my future wife in the fantastic French Riviera that we went to the Foundation Maeght, next to Saint Paul, close to Nice. „Oh yes!” I said after I parked the car, „if becoming rich means that I can live here, I see the point!” When it’s summer, the contrast is even more brutal. Down in the town, it’s 50 degrees celsius, and an endless crowd hovers around the ice cream stations. But on the hill, you enjoy the 30 celsius, plus nice sunshine, slow wind amongst the trees, and understand why being rich means being in a different class.
No, you cannot afford a villa. Nor can you afford a Basquiat or a Klee; and the fact that they bought the Dali collection early enough to pay only a small car’s price--you will never get close to that kind of opportunity.
But wait again! Did you read Yoyo Maeght’s book (La saga Maeght, Éditions Robert Laffont, Paris 2014)? If so, then you know that when there are more than one heir in line to inherit a collection, that they will fight to dismember it into equal parts. And most probably they do not care so much about the individual works, or even the whole collection. No, they probably just want the money
Yes, the money again. But not the purchase price, once paid to the artist (50 francs, now it is around three euros), but the auction money, with the endless zeros at the end of the number.
Last year, lots of attention was paid to the Paul Allen legacy. No one ever expected that the founder of Microsoft, owner of an NBA team, a megayacht and whatever else, finally became a true art ‘;connoisseur.’ Yet item after item melted our minds, as Paul had selected the best paintings from all over the world.
But again, what really happened? Instead of being happy owning these museum-quality works, the kids put everything up for auction, as soon as they could. Now they have the money, and we are again shown that children appreciating a family’s legacy is just an illusion.
Needless to say, sometimes this legacy of gold; is made of bronze or even sand. One of my friends told me that his father obsessionally maintained a Dacia 1310 Tx, which is a Renault 12 clone, worth about 1000 bucks. I know, the emotional feelings of attachment; but after all, he occupied the only garage of the house to keep a car which breaks down every 500 km (Dacia in the 80'ies was famous for bad quality). And even if it is a Ferrari 308 GTB, for example (around 70.000 eur now), you cannot really drive a car like this to the grocery store. No, you need a proper warm-up, special and expensive oil-changes. And you cannot really even enjoy the car because you are frightened by the rest of the cheap cars flying past on the terrible roads.
At least with artwork, no maintenance is needed, right? Guess again! If it is a very expensive painting, the insurance company will ask for a special camera-system, special locks; and one day, your house becomes a tresor, a vault, and you will live in this tresor and work to pay the insurance and security-related fees for something you may not even like. And if you do not get insurance, your life will be ruined by the fear.
I spent a crazy few days with a friend, who had inherited 64 paintings, 32 graphics and some other works. Only four or five works had real market value.
And there are no guarantees that you be happy when you inherit 50-60 paintings, anyway. I spent a crazy few days with a friend, who had inherited 64 paintings, 32 graphics and some other works. Only four or five works had real market value. They were sold inmediately, but what should be done with the others? Just put them all into the trash? Rent a warehouse space? Give it as a gift to someone? I spent two weeks trying to figure out a plan. The result? Thirty-some paintings went to the trash, as they had no artistic or market value. A quarter of the total quantity stayed as “emotional items.” While the rest could be interesting in a longer term—”if the art wind is changing.” In oanther word, trash.
Now its a perfect place to live, tomorrow your children will sell it (somewhere in France)
Why are we so emotionally attached to our worthless art pieces? Well, I know first-hand how hard it is to drop an artwork into the garbage. When I was a university student, I ordered (what a big word!) a painting from the most popular guy. He was so popular that for a week I was popular too, even just as an accessory to his life. I spent nearly all of my money for that painting, and I was so happy thinking that I just become a millionaire! One year later, the guy quit the university and started a new career as a populist politician. I was so upset that when I heard the news, I smashed the painting to bits without a moment’s hesitation. That person never came back to art, and I’m not a millionaire. My kids will only inherit my stories--a low-cost way to pass along my legacy.
Twin Cities Rock and Roll/Literary History Lesson:
Story of The Squealer
The Squealer’s first issue
by Leo Kuelbs
The Squealer, Issue one, arrived in October of 1994. But the idea started some months before when I responded to a “Drummer Wanted” ad in the City Pages. I was living in St Paul, and playing in the band 900 lbs. But the group and the situation were getting too heavy for me, so I began to search for an outlet. More musical, less aggressive, was my general goal. Hey, I loved punk and hard-core—but also the Kinks and CCR.
Paul Bernstein and his pal Adam were from California. A little foreign. But once we got over introductions and started rocking, it was clear they were pretty cool guys and had great taste in tunes. Very “Cali-verifed,” loving The Minutemen (same here) and everything else punky Cali had to offer. It seems they had come to Minneapolis to fire us rubes up with their groovy-punk ways.
While we were in the group, Paul asked me if I knew any short-cuts to making it big in the local music scene. I replied, having a venue or possibly a publication, would be a huge help. In this way, you could swap shows and interviews, etc. with like-minded bands from all over the place. This move, I learned at National Association of Campus Activities (NACA) in college. My friends Rick Fuller and Andy Grund, who were in school at Eau Claire, helped clarify the picture. And not long after my first NACA event at UW White Water, I had set up “New Music Alliance” at UW River Falls, organized a budget, got the school to invest in some gear, and was booking shows and playing around other cities.
But by 1994, I had (gratefully and finally) graduated. I was playing in 900 lbs and working at Twin Cities Leather and Boot in Hopkins and had energy to burn. Plus, I had a journalism emphasis and could write. Paul was an early adapter of the Macintosh ways and had a few bucks to invest. Thus, we decided to work together and start something new.
The band with Paul and Adam didn’t work out. I was pretty judgmental and insisted on some stupid early-20s idea of punk purity. Adam wasn’t cutting it for me—he played a Paul Reed Smith. But no one cared. Paul and Adam met lots of new people through me and on their own. Minneapolis was a pretty friendly place back then—minus all of the murders. The rocking continued, but in separate camps.
I believe it was on Paul’s front porch that the name “Squealer” was decided upon. Paul and I were drinking beer with our buddy Bridget when it happened.
A typical mid-run cover.
I believe it was on Paul’s front porch that the name “Squealer” was decided upon. Paul and I were drinking beer with our buddy Bridget when it happened. It summed up what we were doing, how we wanted to do it and the general era we were living in. Edgy, fun, smart and a little sleazy.
An office was acquired in St Paul, right off University Ave and 280. I didn’t have any money or computer skills, so Paul bought me my first Mac. Thank you, Paul for delivering the first bite of that tasty technology. It was pretty quick progress between the first and third issue. By the third issue, Paul had figured out our look and we began going into larger runs, being printed at Shakopee Valley Printing, where every paper and phone book in town was printed. First Avenue, the Electric Fetus and some other businesses took notice and things looked reasonably decent.
Paul ran the show, and I was the editor about town. I spread the word, talked to club people about ads, etc. We recruited Laura Brandenburg and Tom Hallett on the same day, I think. Julie Hill and later Steve Birmingham and Holly Day came along. Kelly Green, Paul Dickinson, Robert Fitzgerald, Dave Gatzmer, Bill Snyder, Lisa Leonard—too many names to remember—many stayed for years, some came and went. But most were fabulous and worked for free or virtually free. Paul handled a lot. Paid the bills, too. When he decided to leave town for France in about ‘95 (I think), I had to take on the bills and management. This helped inspire me to buy a duplex and move the Squealer into my living room on Logan Park in NE Minneapolis. I could put that rent towards my mortgage!
We tried for monthly, bi-monthly, and quarterly runs. Whatever we could do to pay for the thing and get it together. I think it was around the time of issue three that Paul and I decided to make a road trip and stop at as many bars, coffee shops and record stores we could think of between Minneapolis and Chicago and back. Eau Claire, Madison and Chicago were the prime stops. We made good headway at each and really connected in Chicago, where some of the Eau Claire guys (especially Rick Fuller) hooked us up with folks connected to Smashing Pumpkins, the Drovers and others. We did a band interview in bathroom at Club Metro and hung out at the Rainbow Bar and Augenblick, the Green Mill. It was brutal. But we were young and committed to the project. We did this trip another time or two later on. We got along so well in Chicago that we were able to loan a couple Liz Phair paintings from a generous fellow named Henry B. for our massive Musician’s Art Show event in NE Minneapolis. Back then, face to face contact was still crucial as the internet was only beginning to become and continue to be ever more necessary.
Thus, the circulation soared. The costs, too. Not only were we printing around 20,000 copies per issue in the hey-day, but we were also losing money on shipping. At least rent was removed when the office moved to my house. But that brough a whole other set of problems. Such as getting from the bedroom to the bathroom in the mornings, false burglar alarms, noise, etc. It was chaotic—but a fun a fertile time of creativity.
Once I had to become more responsible for the project, I really learned a lot about rejection.
Once I had to become more responsible for the project, I really learned a lot about rejection. Those days where I would drink some coffee, then hit the phones to try to sell ads, only to be shut down over and over were difficult. But after about two hours of that, other staffers would show up and quiet time was (thankfully) over.
Paul was still away when we began The Squealer compilation CD project with help from a guy named Todd Haugesaug from Electric Fetus and, Jim Nickel, the owner of Pachyderm Studios, in Cannon Falls, where Nirvana had just recorded “In Utero.” We had free studio time for bands, some money for the discs and lots of access to the Pachyderm vaults. Run Westy Run, Soul Asylum, Dr. Sphincter and many other bands of the moment were included. Laura Brandenburg and I did most of the organizing on this one, and it was a great—though very delayed success.
The Squealer cartoon by Dave Gatzmer
In the meantime, Alt-rock was exploding. Nirvana leading the way. Grunge was massive and we had two alternative rock stations and two alt news weeklies! We got the Clown Lounge of the Turf Club to open for Squealer Sundays, and the music scene loved us. Rolling Stone and Spin suddenly featured formerly local writers. We were on the map! The salad days. The Squealer even covered its costs for our Squealer A-Z issue, number 22 or 23, I think. It would be our only issue to make a profit and one of our last.
Within a couple of months after Kurt Cobain’s death, the Twin Cities Reader and Rev105, our alt rock radio station, went out of business. On the same day. Ad sales were already way down, alternative rock was tanking somehow, labels were dropping like flies. It was terribly sad and ironic. A real screw-you to those of us so invested in our opportunity to make a stamp on our creative world. It was a cut. A clear ending, and it would soon be time to give up one dream for a new one.
Things changed fast when I contacted Ed Felien from Southside Pride about starting something new to grab some of the bucks the Reader’s void might leave. Thus began “pulse of the twin cities.” I was initially a co-partner, as well as Music Editor. Soon enough, I gave up my per-issue gross money share, as it was clear this would not be any easier financially than the Squealer.
Later, I brought in Henry Hormann, Keith Harris and others. I lasted two years at pulse before taking a break and starting the irregularly published, Ye Aulde Paneling and doing other types of publications, mostly poetry books and broadsheets under the name Black Letter Press, with editing guidance from Richard Houff. Computers and the internet had been taking over, and print was clearly in trouble. First, the classifieds went. Then the whole business started taking on water. It was a terrible time to think about making any money with new print projects. And it has not changed since then.
An early editorial
Paul came back from France after the Squealer shut down. There was no stress about the money. Paul definitely got the ball rolling, but I also lost a bundle. It wasn’t a competition. It kind of sucked in that way for both of us. But it was a great experience and a great way to spend those early 20s years. Neither one of us was overly disappointed. It had run its course first for Paul, then for me, then the world. The Squealer was a very gritty, kind of smokey/drunken mess of a reflection of a time when Bukowski was still a huge influence and publications like “Modern Drunkard” and “micro mag” were also all over the place. A lot of those people are dead by now. Pushing/testing boundaries was the order of the day. As well as supporting creativity of the musicians, writers, artists and designers of our space and time. The Squealer in all its gritty grandiosity helped shape the early 90s creative scene in Minnesota and the Midwest. If you spend the time to open up those PDFs, you will find an amazing amount of real-life experiences and music info written by pretty well educated folks. And you might even need to take a shower afterwards to wash off the 1990s before you jump back online and onto TiK Tok, Youtube or X. And for that we are proud.
image by #headacheeartlaboratory
Editor’s Note: It’s been a little while since we have heard from our friend and contributor #headacheeartlaboratory in Kiev. It’s become impossible to find anything out about where he is or what is going on, at this point. He could be fighting now, we just do not know anything. We are thinking of him and his dog this holiday season and sending our love and wishes for their safety.
And our thoughts and prayers also go out to those suffering in Israel, Gaza and beyond. Hostages, civilians—it’s an awful situation with much of the worst of human nature on display. We send thoughts out for peace and long term solutions that take everyone’s need for a place to live into account.