colors …
This is a Voyage into Sound
inst. of change
the players
instruments
Instrument of Change
“Bless Those”
Little Annie Bandez
1992 — w/ Adrian Sherwood (On-U Sound)
Doug Wimbish / Bernard Alexander (Skip McDonald)
Short and Sweet — Living Colour covered “Bless Those” (Little Annie’s Prayer) on its 2009 album The Chair in the Doorway. Living Colour bassist Doug Wimbish wrote the original with Annie in 1987.
((( crass )))
This girl was wearing winter underwear with a black leather coat on top of that, and she had a paper bag with a bottle of vodka in it … She was screaming about Thorazine and being in a mental hospital. It was real!”
— FRANK ZAPPA
Describing Annie onstage at Max’s Kansas City, the New York City bar, that in the 1970s was one of the most popular watering holes, home to musicians, poets, and artists of all kinds.
LEVI STRAUSS
Nobody sells denim like Levi’s sells denim, and in 2007, the giant of jeans thought Little Annie’s “Strange Love” was the perfect song to sell its product (SEX).
The Early 1980s was an explosive time for street artists, especially in NYC, and the Tri-State area (New York, New Jersey, Connecticut), on street corners, subway stops, and neighborhood parks, an artistic movement was evolving into what became known as the B-Boy Culture, and what became the Universal Hip-Hop phenomenon.
B-Boy Rising
BEAT STREET (HOLLYWOOD)
MCs (“THE MESSAGE”)
GRAFFITI WRITERS (“STYLE WARS”)
BREAK DANCERS (“WILD STYLE”)
Jean-Michel Basquiat was a Manhattan (GRAFFITI) writer of mysterious note, when a chance meeting with POP ART icon Andy Warhol, the art dealer Bruno Bischofberger, poet and critic René Ricard, and fellow artist Albert Milo, introduced Basquiat to the New York City Art World, who adored the idea of selling art produced by a poor, black, little beggar boy.
The story also follows Basquiat’s tumultuous relationship with Gina (Claire Forlani), a fellow aspiring artist he meets while she is working as a waitress at a diner he frequents with his friend Benny (Benicio del Toro). Their romance is affected by Basquiat’s affair with the so-called “Big Pink” (Courtney Love), a woman he picks up on the street, who accelerates his eventual fatal abuse of heroin.
Sugar Hill Anthems
The Original Sugar Hill Rhythm Section
Skip “Little Axe” McDonald (guitar)
Doug Wimbish (bass)
Keith LeBlanc (drums)
(((( hip-hop originals )))
Little Annie
Eventually, Basquiat finds himself isolated by his fame, the death of Warhol, and his drug use.
The film ends with a title card informing the audience that Jean-Michel Basquiat died of a heroin overdose on August 12, 1988, at the age of 27.
Artist & Chanteuse Little Annie Bandez
PAINTINGS: BRAINWASHED.COM
“Life’s too short to get jaded. It’s just one big miracle this life, it’s gorgeous. Even when it’s bad, it’s gorgeous.” – Little Annie ca. 1992
As befits a lady who once joked that her autobiography should be titled It Seemed Like A Good Idea at the Time, Little Annie always lives in the moment. As a result, her art feels both fresh and timeless, no matter where, when, or with whom she makes it.
Born Annie Bandez, she grew up in Yonkers, a New York City suburb two miles north and a world away from Manhattan. Movies and music (Sinatra and the Supremes, West Side Story, and Song of Bernadette) — stimulated her imagination and shaped her aesthetic.
At 16, Annie bid adieu to “the Sixth Borough” and dived headfirst into downtown New York’s music scene. She lived at the Chelsea Hotel and went to the opening of Studio 54. A late ’70s Suicide performance at CBGB’s blew her rapidly-expanding little mind and taught her to never settle for mediocrity.
After seeing her early outfit the Asexuals at Max’s Kansas City in the late ’70s, Frank Zappa raved about Annie to Songwriter magazine:
This girl was wearing winter underwear with a black leather coat on top of that, and she had a paper bag with a bottle of vodka in it … She was screaming about Thorazine and being in a mental hospital and it was real!”
There’s a lot more to that Zappa quote. Google it, please. That’s the great thing about Little Annie: every time you read about her, or see her one of her paintings, or listen to her sing, you discover something new.
Following a chance meeting with CRASS guitarist Steve Ignorant, Annie accepted his invitation to visit England, where two weeks became a month and eventually thirteen years. Whilst living at CRASS’ commune in Epping Forest, she cut her first single as Annie Anxiety. Created with Penny Rimbaud, Barbed Wire Halo (1981) boasts a pair of claustrophobic tape-loop collages interlaced with Annie’s unnerving vocals.
From there she entered the orbit of UK dub innovator and On-U Sound label boss Adrian Sherwood. “I kept hearing about this madman who was doing 60-hour sessions,” Annie later recalled.“Adrian and I met, and within half an hour, I was doing 60-hour sessions with him, too.” She soon moved in his converted garden shed and became “Auntie” Annie to his children.
Working with Sherwood, his wife Kishi Yamamoto, members of Tackhead, and the extended On-U Sound family, Annie crafted three remarkable albums—Soul Possession (1984), Jackamo (1987) and Short and Sweet (1992)—that stir deep reggae grooves, leftfield electronics, and Annie’s acute lyrics into post-punk’s sonic sea of possibilities. Her towering Rastafarian cohorts re-christened their diminutive colleague “Little Annie.”
In the midst of the London years, Annie signed with Atlantic Records subsidiary ATCO, a brief arrangement that yielded one underrated single; she spun across the dance floor on 1990’s “Sugarbowl,” and kept right on twirling after the label folded. A number of collaborations around this time showcased her versatile talent, including spots with Coil, the Wolfgang Press, Bim Sherman, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Missing Brazilians, and Current 93. (Alas, the rumored track she cut with Paul Oakenfold and Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie still remains unreleased.)
The streetwise chanteuse moved back to New York circa her final On-U Sound title, the 1994 EP In Dread with Little Annie (Four Pieces of Heart at 33RPM), which included her reading of the Lee Hazlewood/Nancy Sinatra classic “This Town.” Though she would record and perform with friends including Kid Congo Powers and Sisterboy in the years ahead, In Dread … was her last solo release for seven years.
Annie concentrated on other disciplines as the turn of the century approached. Her friendship with actor Bill Rice led to theatrical turns at La Mama, PS 122, and Dixon Place. A sojourn in the vibrant climes of Mexico (documented in her 2012 book Sing Don’t Cry: A Mexican Journey) inspired her to start painting. In 1997, she published her first collection of poetry, Hell Is A Place Where We Call Each Other Darling.
Following the destruction of the World Trade Center towers and weeks of volunteer work at Ground Zero, Annie’s musical output resumed at an accelerated pace. “Diamonds Made of Glass” (2001) soon led to Little Annie and the Legally Jammin’ (2003), an edgy electronic set with Khan and Christian Jendreiko that MOJO chose as the year’s #1 Dance Album.
In 2007, Annie worked with a trio of kindred spirits—Paul Wallfisch (Botanica), Joe Budenholzer (Backworld), and ANOHNI (then known as Antony of Antony & the Johnsons)—on Songs from the Coal Mine Canary. The bluesy “Strange Love,” one of her co-writes with ANOHNI, soon gained greater visibility as the soundtrack to an award-winning commercial for Levi’s.
Like Lee Wiley and Billie Holiday before her, Annie was now a full-blown “torch singer” whose insights and innovations transcended cabaret clichés. On When Good Things Happen to Bad Pianos(2007), the first of two albums with Paul Wallfisch, she breathed new life into iconic songs by U2, Tina Turner, Jacques Brel, and Frank Sinatra. Two years later, the duo returned with Genderful, an equally formidable set comprised entirely of originals. Once again MOJO raved, calling Annie “the female counterpart to the Lou Reed of 1982’s Blue Mask – a voice full of pickled New York wisdom.”
During these years Annie also toured with Marc Almond, which in turn led to working extensively with another one of Almond’s favorite support acts, Baby Dee. Annie and Dee released their full-length collaboration, State of Grace (featuring Will Oldham on the title tune), in late 2012. That same year, the long-awaited memoir You Can’t Sing the Blues While Drinking Milk: The Autobiography of Little Annie AKA Annie “Anxiety” Bandez finally appeared.
In addition to her new album, Trace, Annie’s recent career highlights include the publication of Just Like I Pictured It, a collection of poems and illustrations dedicated to the city of New York (“my fickle and arrogant muse”); guest vocals on the 2014 Swans album To Be Kind; and a 2015 appearance alongside West End legend Elaine Paige in “Piaf: A Centennial Celebration” at Joe’s Pub.
Little Annie currently resides in Miami, Florida, with her longtime companion, Sparky.
Take A Walk On The Wild Side
CHELSEA HOTEL
MAX’S KANSAS CITY
SEX PISTOLS
CRASS
“Type”
Living Colour
((( Archi )))
Stain (1993)
Basquiat
1996 — A biographical film directed by Julian Schnabel
based on the life of American postmodernist/neo expressionist artist
Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Brooklyn-born Basquiat used his graffiti roots as a foundation to create collage-style paintings on canvas.
Jeffrey Wright portrays Basquiat, and
David Bowie plays Basquiat’s friend and mentor
Andy Warhol.
Additional cast members include: Gary Oldman as a thinly disguised Schnabel.
Michael Wincott as the poet and art critic Rene Ricard Dennis Hopper as Bruno Bischofberger Parker Posey as gallery owner Mary Boone Christopher Walken as a villainous journalist, and Claire Forlani Courtney Love Tatum O’Neal, Benicio del Toro in supporting roles as “composite characters.”
The film was written by Schnabel and
Michael Holman, who was also credited for story development,
with story by Lech Majewski and John Bowe.
Holman, a former member of theatrical rock group
The Tubes first met Basquiat in 1979 and together that year they founded an experimental, industrial/electronica group called Gray.
A struggling artist, living in a cardboard box in Tompkins Square Park, Basquiat works his way into the high-flying, pretentiously small world of so-called, New York City Fine Art.
Bernard Fowler (discography)
Tack>>Head (discography)
Living Colour (discography)
Little Axe (discography)