Stoutly refusing to record his passionate songs under anything less than his own terms (in his New Jersey home on a TASCAM MiniStudio), F.M. Cornog, under the name East River Pipe, has released seven albums since 1994 that can stand toe-to-toe with anything by your favorite indie rockers over the past 20 years. Although working full-time at the local Home Depot and raising a daughter with his wife may have curtailed Cornog’s recording time somewhat, the quality of the finished product remains unchanged. ERP’s latest, We Live In Rented Rooms (Merge), is further testimony to a man who refuses to play the rock-star game (form a band, tour, do photo shoots, etc.) and has come out the other side with a brilliant body of work—and with his soul intact. Cornog will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Q&A with him.
Cornog: Jean-Michel Basquiat was an American painter. He started out in the mid-’70s as a spray-painting graffiti artist and ended up at the top of the ’80s art world, then just as quickly he was gone. Books have been written and movies have been made about Basquiat’s turbulent personal life, but much of that stuff is just National Enquirer bullshit. Check out the paintings themselves, and you’ll be amazed. Feel the electricity coming from these great works of art. This is painting as revelation.
Video after the jump.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB8JFXWS1P0
