02.13.06
LMNOP – The Cubicle Gallery
Last week, NYC resident and Chicago expat Brendan deVallance held the Grand Opening of his new gallery, LMNOP…located in his cubicle at work.
I remember Brendan from the late ’80s when was an extremely active performance artist (more than 200 performances over about 10 years). And from my perch as tech director at Club Lower Links, where we hosted lots of performance art (among other things), he was definitely one of the very best in town — right up there with Julie Laffin, Cheryl Trykv, and a few others. He had a totally off-kilter, surreal, homemade, and usually side-splittingly funny aesthetic that often reminded me of a hyperactive kid in some small midwest town huffing spray paint, putting on shows in the back yard, and occasionally entering brief fugue states. Brilliant stuff.
Sadly for us Chicagoans, Brendan moved to NYC ca. 1994 and soon after that abandoned performance art. He did continue to keep busy though, producing some fine visual art and posters, starting a new band (Dead Gwynne), publishing Scraping Chunks from the Roof of My Skull (a magazine in trading card format), collecting discarded vacuum cleaners and now beginning his career as hip gallery owner.
One of my cherished possessions is a copy of a live recording by his group Misery Love Company from the second Battle of the Bad Bands at Lower Links, of which they were the reigning champions (tho I think that time they lost to Jerry and The Loogs). Memorable songs include “Stupid I Go,” “If My Brain Could Take It All In,” and the best version of Fleetwood Mac’s “Tusk” ever performed. Seriously.
(Man, what a great evening that Battle of the Bad Bands was. The emcee was the [thankfully] inimmitable DJ Lebowitz, a lunatic pianist who regaled us with “I Don’t Wanna Go to Bed Yet, Mommy,” a 20 minute version of his hit “Smoke, Suffer, and Die,” and a lovely rendition of “Holiday in Cambodia.” The whole show culminated with everyone chanting “Less! Less!” and piling all of the furniture in the club onto the tiny stage. Good times, good times…)
Brendan deVallance said,
December 14, 2006 at 2:31 pm
I am trying to drum up interest for the X-mas songs my band has posted.
Dead Gwynne
http://www.sledbag.com/dg_holiday_2006/index.html
—Brendan deVallance
http://11vsx.blogspot.com/