Tom Gastall

12/30/08 – Tuesday We walk into Burbank airport as the PA system plays “The Power of Love”. I’m in a fog from last night’s sleeping pill, which is actually good, because I’m too hazy to have a meltdown over travel chaos. 8:00AM – We’re in flight, and the women two rows behind us won’t shut [...]

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The Suicide Girls have been around for over seven years. Originally their success was due to a combination of a DIY work ethic with an alt-rock aesthetic. Nowadays alt-softcore is getting mashed up with burlesque and other ideas, and we get to enjoy the results. Case in point: Club Suicide. The Club night is held [...]

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The Wrestler is the story of Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Mickey Rourke), a professional wrestler twenty years past his prime. After a heart attack and bypass surgery he tries to reconnect with his daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) and start a relationship with a stripper (Marisa Tomei), but the ring eventually pulls him back home. Stylistically [...]

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The first time I went to a show, I had no idea what I was getting into: Sonic Youth at the Living Room in Providence. I walked in and stood right in the middle of the audience, with a perfect view of the stage. The moment they broke into “Mary Christ”, the crowd erupted, and [...]

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My favorite music scene has always been industrial, because like punk, there was not only a community behind the music, but an intersection with philosophy and methodology. To be specific, I’m interested in the deconstruction and reorganization of found elements in order to produce a new meaning, or the "cut-up ". This informed not only [...]

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I have a tendency to collect crap – or stuff, as George Carlin put it. My house is the big pile of stuff with a cover on it that Carlin was talking about in his routine. Stuff collected from the past ten years that I intended to do something with at some point. A lot [...]

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