art

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard started out as a ā€œjokeā€ band. As guitarist/songwriter Joey Walker says with a grin, ā€œNow the jokeā€™s on us.ā€

Photo by Maclay Heriot

With their 26th release, Flight b741, the prog-rockers make it hard but highly rewarding for fans to keep up. Behind that drive lies a wealth of joy, camaraderie, and unwavering commitment to their art.

Thereā€™s a dangerous, pernicious myth, seemingly spread in perpetuity among fledgling artists and music fans alike, that when youā€™re a musician, inspirationā€”and therefore productivityā€”comes naturally. Making art is the opposite of work, and, conversely, we know what happens to Jack when thereā€™s all work and no play. But what happens when the dimensions of work and play fuse together like time and space? What happens to Jack then? Well, behind such an instance of metaphysical reaction, undoubtedly, would be King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard.

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Duke Ellington, Elvis, Chuck Berry, the Beatles, the Stones, Miles Davis, Prince, Zeppelin ā€¦ all the music John Bohlinger loves was born from the trailblazing jazz and blues of Bessie Smith (above) and Satchmo.

While watching the Ken Burns documentary Jazz, I realized all the music I love was born from the jazz and blues of Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong.

Ancient Egyptian paintings and sculptures all look like they were created by a sixth grader. They are stiff, flat profiles with feet, nose, and chin pointing in the same direction: no depth, no realism. All art was this primitive until the 5th century, when Greeks took a giant step forward ā€¦ literally. They developed contrapposto, where a standing human figure is posed with their weight resting on one leg. The weight shift brought organic movement, bringing the paintings and sculptures to life. (Check out the 5th century Kritios Boy, which is the earliest known Greek statue to use contrapposto.)

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It includes an F-bomb or two, but the screen legend's speech to college graduates highlights the inevitability of rejection and how you've got to keep working.

"Time goes on. So whatever you're going to do, do it. Do it now. Don't wait." ā€”Robert De Niro

Here's a true music industry story that's stuck with me for 15 years. I'm keeping this anonymous because the story involves some transgressions by formerly powerful people, and although I like the idea of karma in action, I'm no snitch. As a rule, I avoid saying negative things about anybody, whether it's deserved or not.

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