Blurt TV: New Joseph Arthur Videos ( + Tour!)

Workaholic artist also drops 4^th EP and new album while prepping new project.

By Fred Mills

Head over to our video section and glom onto a pair of just-released Joseph Arthur vids, “Second Sight and “She Paints Me Gold,” from his latest EP (one of four EPs due in 2008) Vagabond Skies, issued by Arthur’s own Lonely Astronaut label.

Regarding the two videos, the Arthur camp advises us that ”in the wee small hours, the blank 5-story billboard overlooking the stark New York City street corner of Lafayette and Grand was taken over guerrilla style by Joseph Arthur and director Gabriel Judet-Weinshel as they ominously projected a performance of ‘Second Sight’ from Joseph’s latest EP, Vagabond Skies. The ‘Second Sight’ hijack video is coupled with the transcendental, soaring ‘She Paints Me Gold,’ inspired by a collection of still photographs by Cerise Leang on New Year’s Eve 2007, documenting one of Joseph’s all night paintings.”

Vagabond Skies follows the previously released EPs Crazy Rain and Could We Survive — read a BLURT review of the latter here — and it in turn will be followed on July 8 by Foreign Girls. Of his decision to issue four EPs, Arthur noted, in a statement, “It’s almost like the 50s again when it was all about singles.” He essentially arranged a double album of solo material into four installments and added, “Now that more artists are independent, we’re going to see more creative ways of releasing music.”

To that end, Arthur will be turning his attentions to Bag Is Hot, which he intriguingly describes as “liquid and ongoing – a form onto itself. Brand new music is composed and recorded strictly for this album – really beautiful, unearthly, fully realized music – that interacts with images and artwork to form a living, breathing record. Bag Is Hot is free, open-ended, has no rules and is being modernized. [It is] like fresh popcorn for all the kids to grab. Digital hands eating the digital popcorn. This project is fun and doesn’t have to be precious, but it’s hard not to take it seriously and really work on it.  It’s not, ‘Bag is getting a little lukewarm - Bag is hot!’ It’s gonna be slang soon!” Lonely Astronaut Records could be releasing the first installment of Bag Is Hot sometime before 2009.

Meanwhile September 16 marks the release of Temporary People, the 2nd LP by Joseph Arthur & the Lonely Astronauts, recorded deep in the Catskill mountains and in the vaults for a year or so.

Oh, and there’s a tour coming up shortly too….


Joseph Arthur Tour Dates:

July 9            Boston, MA            Paradise
July 10            Philadelphia, PA      World Café Live
July 11            New York, NY            Bowery Ballroom (JA & the Lonely Astronauts)
July 12            Hoboken, NJ            Maxwell’s (solo)
July 15            Los Angeles, CA      Troubadour
July 16            San Diego, CA            Anthology
July 18            San Francisco, CA      Great American Music Hall
July 21            Portland, OR            Doug Fir
July 20            Eugene, OR            WOW Hall
July 22            Seattle, WA            Triple Door
July 24            Vancouver, BC      The Media Club
July 26            Guelph, ON            Hillside Festival

[Photo Credit: Danny Clinch]