We’ve recently become friends with Jerico Woggon and paid a visit to his Downtown Los Angeles studio where we snapped several photos of his work area and the amazing view from his windows and roof. Here Jerico puts together his cocktail and blacklight art. Double click the slideshow to fullscreen!

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Jerico Woggon is a painter, installation artist and creative event producer. Jerico’s inspirations include  the art of his grandfather, Bill Woggon (creator of the 1945 Archie comic book supermodel Katy Keene) and Southern California custom car culture. He was introduced to Led Zeppelin and The Doors before learning to walk and spent his childhood eating health food, surfing and skateboarding every day.  A leftover 1960s blacklight became his teenage “light at the end of the tunnel” which inspired him to play around with blacklight paint in the mid-80s. In the year 2000, Jerico created “The Year Of The Snake” which was 138 feet of blacklight art on canvas. In 2003, Jerico expanded the piece to 400 feet which was installed at the Coachella Music Festival. Jerico has also installed art at Burning Man, and numerous other art festivals. Jerico holds the #1 spot on Google for ‘blacklight art’ and is the 2010 feature window artist at Bert Green Fine Art on 5th and Main Street in Downtown Los Angeles.

“Being inside creation, that is the driving force. I create art installations that infuse the environment with vibrant colors, fashion and dance. The work seeks to bring you an energy that is created by the moment and for the moment. I want to create a space where you can have it all: good friends and beauty all around.” Jerico Woggon.

This coming Saturday February 27, Jerico will be throwing a Downtown LA Cocktail / Art Party. Jerico’s vision is to create an atmosphere where the past meets the present, future meets the past and old meets the new. This is the second in a series of monthly art concept cocktail parties in Downtown Los Angeles for 2010. Come on down and meet the fun spirits of the New Downtown Los Angeles Renaissance Cocktail Nightlife for a Swinging Shindig full of special surprises and good times.

Jerico’s Downtown LA Cocktail Party #2:
Ode to the Lounge Lizard – A Cocktail Napkin Art Invitational

Saturday, February 27, 2010
8pm- 2am

e3rd Steakhouse Lounge
734 E. 3rd Street
Downtown Los Angles Arts District 90013
Tel: 213.680.3003

Following up on “Cocktails & Art Party #1: Ode to the Rat Pack,” Jerico Woggon presents his second monthly art event of the year “Ode to the Lounge Lizard – A Cocktail Napkin Art Invitational.” Guests are invited to create a work of art on a cocktail napkin using art materials provided by the house. Each napkin will be exhibited on the lounge wall, and each guest can trade, sell or take the art home. The mixer is designed to get artists out of their studios and into the cocktail lounge atmosphere.

Emmeric Konrad, e3rd resident artist, will be live painting to music by DJ Dan Moses and DJ Lee Joseph (former resident DJ at Bigfoot Lodge) – masters in their craft of 50’s and 60’s lounge-genre – while VJ Terry Ellsworth presents visuals inspired by the swinging 60’s burlesque. In the patio, Blacklight Artist Jerico Woggon illuminates the scene with his Minimalist modern installation.

Live Music ” The Ladies of Lounge” featuring
Alicyn Packard
Tawny Ellis
Anna Broome
Marissa Gomez

Lounge Lizard: A person who frequents relaxing retreats that provide necessary libations and entertainment. Just as lizards lay on a rock to bask in the rays, you will be musically transported to your place in the sun while soaking up the Tequila Sunrise. Put on your cocktail-night-on-the-town-best and join us in the FUN!!! Cocktail Attire Encouraged: Lounge Lizards and Lizardettes are encouraged to dress up! “Men put on a tie, ladies dawn a cocktail dress for this Art-Cocktail-Lounge-Social Event!

Admission: $10 donation. $5 with a recession story of 75-100 words, written prior or at the door.
THE RECESSION CONFESSIONAL is an easy way to save 5 bucks, step into the booth and tell us your hard luck story. Written stories will be read by the patio host throughout the course of the evening. Guests who dress up as a lizard, complete with tail and face make-up to get in for “Free.”

On May 13th, Jerico will have an installation at the Museum Of Neon Art’s “California Surf” which brings you into the curl of a wave which surfers call a “Tube Ride.”

Jerico Woggon’s website:
www.cherrymeltdown.com

Photos of Jerico’s studio by Terre Bozem and Lee Joseph, photos of Jerico’s art installations courtesy of the artist.

DICK AND JANE with bassist extraordinaire LEE JOSEPH
at THE HYPERION TAVERN in Silver Lake, CA

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25

also appearing:
Brodie Foster Hubbard
and Drunkard’s Child with Mark Miller

music starts at 9:00 – NO COVER

The Hyperion Tavern
1941 Hyperion Avenue
(across from Casita del Campo — look for the barber pole)
Silver Lake

4/17/1020 – 5/8/2010
False Idols Art Show
Curated by Scott Scheidly

Bold Hype Gallery
1844 East Winter Park Road
Orlando, FL 32803
(407) 629-2965
www.boldhype.net

Features Shag, The Pizz, Mr. Hooper, Skot Olsen, Joe Vaux, Tiki Tony, KRK Ryden, Heather Watts, Derek Yaniger, Donella Vitale, Joe Vitale, Brad (Tiki Shark) Parker, Doug Horne, Ken Ruzic, Ken Pleasant, Benzart, Sam Gambino, Thorsten Hasenkamm, Candy, Crazy Al, BigToe, Johannah O’Donnell, N! Satterfield, Wayne Coombs, Robert Connett, Lisa Petrucci, Scott Scheidly! Stay tuned or check with the Bold Hype website for previews and information about the opening reception party sponsored by The Hukilau!

Sunday, February 21 from 5:00 – 8:00 pm
DICK AND JANE
present

“THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD”
an electic early-evening cabaret/salon/hootenanny

at THE OTHER SIDE
2538 Hyperion Avenue
(just south of Griffith Park Blvd.)
Los Angeles, CA 90027  (323) 661-0618

featuring

“the best accompanist in L.A.,” pianist
Lou McMullen

hillbilly jazz from
The Dustbowl Revival

21st Century torch songs by
Jose Promis

country-infused dark pop from
Patria Jacobs

urban folk music by
Dick and Jane
w/Lee Joseph

the terpsichorean artistry of
The Sunshine Boys:
Rob Zebrecky and Derek DelGaudio

a short film by noted filmmaker
Steve Hall

and other Surprise Special Guests

Sunday, February 21 from 5:00 – 8:00 pm
(so the geezers can get home in time for their bedtime)

NO COVER
Full bar/Full restaurant menu

“I Slept With Joey Ramone” book reading and signing
Featuring Mickey Leigh, Alan Arkush, P.J. Soles, Howie Pyro and other surprise guests

Saturday, February 20, 2010, 6 – 9 pm

La Luz de Jesus Gallery
4633 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027
323-666-7667 Fax: 323-663-0243
www.laluzdejesus.com

“Blitzkrieg Bop,” “Rockaway Beach,” “I Wanna Be Sedated,” “Sheena is a Punk Rocker,” “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School.” With humor spiked lyrics, a shockingly unique delivery, and backed by the fast, frenetic music of his band, Joey Ramone gave voice to the disaffected youth of the seventies and eighties while defining punk rock in America.  I SLEPT WITH JOEY RAMONE: A Family Memoir (Touchstone, an imprint of Simon & Schuster; December 1, 2009; Hardcover/$26; 978-0-7432-5216-4) is the story of the turbulent life of one of America’s greatest rock icons, revealed for the first time by Joey Ramone’s brother, Mickey Leigh, with “Resident Punk” Legs McNeil.

Mickey tells his fascinating, though sometimes troubling, tale of growing up with a rock star with honesty, humor, and grace.  Before Joey Ramone’s signature sunglasses, face obscured by a mop of hair, and towering height became the personification of punk’s early image, he was simply Jeffry Hyman, born on May 19, 1951 in Forest Hills, New York.  Rock ‘n’ roll gave the lanky, awkward teen a sanity-saving outlet for his anti-social behaviors—which included the crippling Obsessive Compulsive Disorder that plagued him throughout his life.

In 1974 Jeff co-founded the Ramones with friends John Cummings and Douglas Colvin.  “Joey,” “Johnny,” “Tommy” and “Dee Dee Ramone” were soon regulars at CBGB’s, honing the brief, rapid-fire concert style that would soon become the stuff of legend.  The Ramones’ 1976 debut album, replete with hooky, three-chord songwriting, cheerfully dumb humor, and boundless energy, heralded the true birth of punk rock and created the blueprint that countless bands would follow to the top of the charts.

Despite their enormous musical and cultural influence, a career spanning two decades, and a handful of undisputedly classic albums, the uppermost levels of fame were always just out of reach for the Ramones.  The infighting, romantic betrayals, and addictions that tormented the band also strained personal relationships along the way.  As these pressures peaked, Mickey saw them take their toll on the kind, caring boy he once shared his bedroom with in Queens, who began to periodically display an uncharacteristically malicious persona. After forty years of extreme closeness, the two brothers engaged in a conflict that had them pushing and pulling at each other throughout much of the 1990’s, though, in the end it was Mickey who was again closest with his brother during Joey’s battle with lymphatic cancer that ultimately ended his life in 2001.

To ensure the story was balanced, complete, and told fairly, Mickey and Legs interviewed dozens of family, friends, colleagues, and industry professionals who were there as Joey’s life unfolded.  Both a tribute to the rise of punk in America and an intimate look at a journey filled with music and challenges, I SLEPT WITH JOEY RAMONE is an enduring portrait of a man who struggled to find his voice and of the brother who loved him.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

MICKEY LEIGH has been an influential player in the rock & roll world since the late seventies.  After forming Birdland with Lester Bangs in 1977 he became the lead singer/guitarist/songwriter for the Rattlers and Stop and was a contributor to the music of the Ramones.  He has written the monthly column My Guitar is Pregnant for the Lower East Side-based newspaper the New York Waste since 1996; created and published the Coney Island High Times, a monthly magazine for famed rock club Coney Island High; and written reviews for magazines including Audio Review and Time Out New York.  This is his first book.  He lives in New York City.

LEGS MCNEIL is the coauthor of Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk, a book widely hailed as the definitive work on the subject.  The cofounder of the seminal magazine that gave punk its name, he is a former editor at Spin and editor in chief of Nerve.  He divides his time between New York City and his home in Schwenksville, Pennsylvania.

Los Angeles Times review: http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-et-book28-2010jan28,0,3973540.story

I SLEPT WITH JOEY RAMONE: A Family Memoir
By Mickey Leigh with Legs McNeil
Touchstone, an imprint of Simon & Schuster
On-sale December 1, 2009
$26.00 / hardcover
ISBN 978-0-7432-5216-4

Ruby Ray
“First Wave Punk Photography“

February 19 – 28, 2010
Reception for the artist: Friday, February 19, 2010, 8pm – 11pm

La Luz de Jesus Gallery
4633 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027
323-666-7667 Fax: 323-663-0243
www.laluzdejesus.com

Friends, collectors, and strangers know Ruby Ray’s work –even when they don’t. Ruby Ray’s iconic portrait of Beat author / Punk Avatar William S. Burroughs’ vibing, serene, Interzone menace can be seen on MySpace.  Her photo of late punk rock legend Darby Crash is the cover of Darby biography Lexicon Devil. Other photos appear in magazines, on book covers, album covers, posters. Her punk rock photography pops up uncredited on fansites and music history websites. Ruby Rays’s esoteric studies and close collaboration with musicians and artists helped spawn a current that became trance music.

Photographer, artist, and journalist Ruby Ray entered the shock wave that was the punk rock underground in 1977. Ruby became a member of seminal San Francisco punk culture magazine, Search & Destroy, documenting and fostering the emergent scene.  When Ruby criss-crossed continents on a trip to London and Egypt, S&D’s in-your-face music and culture inflammation went global. Ruby ran London-based Rough Trade Records’ San Francisco store, and sheltered their traveling bands from England.  In 1980, she co-founded with v.vale the more deeply focused alter-culture publication RE/Search magazine. During this first San Francisco era, the RE/Search studio on Romolo Street in San Francisco’s North Beach became an international locus of cross-pollination, one of those places where artists feel the freedom and compulsion to redefine themselves and their genres.

An early multi-media artist, Ruby found inspiration in haunted post-industrial cityscapes, insect wings, and the golden thread of the mystic. Investigations compelled her to lie in the sarcophagus of the Great Pyramid at Gizeh…read widely…decipher hieroglyphs…work with a Gurdjieff group.  Meeting up with industrial music mavens Factrix, she added live, multi-image projections to the influential industrial band’s performances. In the first exhibition of her original anti-art, Nart, shown in 1980 at San Francisco’s Target Video, Ruby would project new work in a new medium: stereo slides. That same summer she helped create the flaming “debutante ball” summer solstice celebration, held under a freeway near the railroad tracks, and shut down by police.

In the early 80’s, Ruby Ray migrated again, becoming part of the next international art explosion –New York City’s East Village. In the East Village, she exhibited photographs and continued experiments with live, multimedia projections of her growing body of work. Joining with musical collaborators to create the group Saqqara Dogs, Ruby’s lightshows mixed her multi-image photography with collaged found materials. Investigating how altered states are evoked with colors, symbols, and sonic instigators, the Saqqara Dogs performance introduced a novel music and visual experience fans claimed generated powerful synesthesia. Saqqara Dogs combined psychedelia with Middle Eastern rhythms to produce a new music event which later morphed into rave culture.  While SDs’ hallucinogenic music and visual onslaught was presented in dives and museums across the U.S., the band gained a notorious fan. In 1987, Andy Warhol featured an interview and performance of the group on his New York-based TV series, Andy Warhol’s 15 Minutes.

After the birth of her son in 1988, Ruby took sabbatical for subtle energy and consciousness studies, learning the healing arts.  She returned to photography with a trip to the Indian ruins of New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon, and had her first solo exhibit in 2004.

For those who lived through it, for musicians and musicologists, culture critics, anthropologists and anyone who takes their inspiration with a non-sterile, extra-pointy edge, Ruby Ray is completing her photographic memoir of First Wave punk rock in California. The collection of 250 images reveals the raw, amazing California punk scene, 1977-1981. And now, new large digital photo works and a visual blog, Songs of Nart, are in progress. Ruby Ray sustains her original-issue profile:  high-functioning cultural enzyme who shows us how to keep surprising ourselves with non-virtual living.  She continues her search for mind altering images.

-Debra Xit 2008

Tiki Kiliki Productions presents…
THE HUKILAU
Experience Polynesia in America’s Vacationland
www.thehukilau.com
June 10 – 13, 2010
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida

THE SUFFERING BASTARD:
JOE SCIALOM, INTERNATIONAL BARMAN OF MYSTERY
Jeff “Beachbum” Berry, author of five books on vintage Tiki drinks and cuisine, will be giving a seminar on international mixologist, Joe Scialom, creator of one of Tiki’s most notorious drinks, The Suffering Bastard. Berry, world celebrated cocktail expert who has been profiled in LA Magazine, The LA Times and the Wall Street Journal, will reveal the untold story of how Scialom, a trained chemist who spoke eight languages and survived two revolutions, imprisonment and exile, to create some of the 1940’s most infamous drinks. Berry, who spent two years tracking down his elusive subject might even mix event goers a potent cocktail or three during the course of his tropical drink seminar at this year’s Hukilau.

Berry created the cocktail menu for the Luau in Beverly Hills, which the New York Times cited as one of the nation’s 24 “Bars on The Cutting Edge,” and co-created “Tiki+” for iPhone, a drink recipe app which Macworld magazine called “beautifully rendered and, thanks to Berry’s tireless reporting, impeccably sourced.”  Berry’s original cocktail recipes have been printed in publications around the world, most recently the 67th edition of the Mr. Boston Official Bartenders Guide; his drinks have been served at Elletaria in Manhattan, the Tabou Tiki Room in Berlin, Taboo Cove in Las Vegas, the Tiki Room in Stockholm, Pho Republique in Boston, the Palace Cafe in New Orleans, and Intoxica in Copenhagen, among others.  Jeff has appeared on Martha Stewart Living Radio and Radio Margaritaville, and has conducted tropical drink seminars and tastings across the U.S. and Europe.  He serves on the advisory board of the Museum Of The American Cocktail.

Immediately after The Hukilau, Berry will travel from Florida to Greece to start a month-long project, “Bum Berry’s & Captain Vadrna’s Faux-Tropical bar School.”  On the unspoiled Greek island of Antiparos, Berry will be teaching beachside classes on Tiki mixology, history, and barmanship.  Berry’s fellow instructor, acclaimed mixologist Stanislav Vadrna travels the world teaching and learning different drink-making disciplines and is the most passionate and dynamic spirits educator alive today.  There will be four sessions for enrollees to choose from, each session four days long. www.bartendersforlife.com/antiparos.html

click image to visit the Hukilau website

Dan Quintana, Brian Viveros “Desensitized” and Bad Otis Link “You’ll Be Sorry When I’m Dead” Closing Party with live music from The BillyBones. New art prints available.

Saturday, February 6, 2010, 6 – 10 pm
FREE!

CoproGallery
Bergamot Station
2525 Michigan Ave. T5
Santa Monica, CA 90404
310-829-2156
www.copronason.com

Dan Quintana, Brian Viveros’s “Desensitized‘ & Bad Otis Link’s “You’ll be Sorry When I’m Dead“ exhibitions end next Saturday, February 6 with a closing party from 6:00 – 10:00 PM, featuring live music from the The BillyBones and more of the same excitement from the “Desensitized” opening reception. Come have one last look at this great art exhibition and all the films that were shown on opening night. All the giclee prints and the “Desensitized” poster will also be available. For those that can’t make it, the gallery now has the prints available online while they last and some great photos from the opening: www.copronason.com

The BillyBones is a punk rock band from Los Angeles, California and features Steven Williams “Billy Bones” Fortuna, formerly of The Skulls, guitarist Alex Mack, bassist Drew Milford, and drummer Alex Gomez, formerly of U.S. Bombs, The Mau Maus, The Livingstons.) The BillyBones will be premiering new material from the upcoming “The Complexity of Stupidity” album produced by Steve Fishman (Deadbeats, Bent, The Stranglers) along with Skulls favorites.

Bad Otis Link has collaborated with Billy Bones on several projects. He directed the “Night of the Living Skulls” and The Skulls “On Target” video, and Billy acted in his award-winning film “The Sugar on Top.” Link also plays sax on the new The BillyBones record.  www.myspace.com/thebillybones

Bad Otis Link “The Hunter“

Click the links for show previews:

Miran Kim “Uncomplicated Treats“
Danni Shinya Luo “Spiritual Deficiencies”
Kim Scott “Peep Holes and Magic Windows”
Transmission Atelier “If the Shadows Could March“

Feb. 5 – 28, 2009
Artist reception: Friday, Feb. 5, 2010 ~ 8 pm – 11 pm
La Luz de Jesus Gallery
4633 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027
323-666-7667 Fax: 323-663-0243
www.laluzdejesus.com

Interview with artist Danni Shinya Luo about her show “Spiritual Deficiencies“