The sexiest guy in rock 'n roll. Ever.

©2006 orangemercury.com

Madge. Via Live 8 via Photoshop.

The first music video. Officially.
(As if you didn't know.)

Live Aid had Freddie. Live 8 had Robbie.

Queen: Live Aid 1985

Considered the greatest live rock performance ever, Freddie Mercury and Queen at Live Aid 1985 drew a blistering performance widely heralded as the standout performance of the day bar none.

I figured out how to extract the performance from the Live Aid DVD.
iFinally have it as an .mp3 file for the iPod and the Xterra.

Art Expo Exhibitors 2006

Gotta hand it to Madge.
If she's going to raid the history of photography for imagery,
she does a damn good job.


© Horst B. Horst, Mainbocher Corset

W.
Aren't you overdue for a vacation?
How about quail hunting with Dickey-boy?

FUCK YOU, GEORGE!

Note to Dick:
You took the wrong person quail hunting.

W: Take a hint.
If Dave + Annie can conceive something brilliant about peace,
what can you do about peace?

ARE YOU LISTENING GEORGE?

Note to that guy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue:

Yo, stupid.
In case you forgot.
What are you waiting for? 3,000?

This war became personal for me when someone entered my classroom.
Do your job. Be a man.
I do mine.

CAVEAT EMPTOR!

Carrying on without mercurial star
BY HOWARD COHEN
hcohen@MiamiHerald.com
Want to start an argument with a classic rock fan?

Come down one way or the other on whether Queen should have reformed with Bad Company vocalist Paul Rodgers in the frontman role once occupied by the late Freddie Mercury.

Of course, many rock bands have replaced lead singers -- INXS, Van Halen, Journey, Foreigner, Fleetwood Mac, the Doors, Styx, to name some -- but few have engendered such passion after doing so.

Imagine the Rolling Stones without Mick Jagger.

Impossible.

And so it would seem with Queen sans Mercury whose pliable voice could handle heavy metal, pop, rockabilly, vaudeville, Tin Pan Alley, opera, disco, funk and Arabian music -- all in the space of one album. Add his flamboyant image and he came to define rock showmanship.

Rodgers, by comparison, is the straight, no-frills, blues-rock belter behind such '70s testosterone staples as Feel Like Makin' Love, Can't Get Enough and Free's All Right Now. Can you picture him in tights prancing across a stage, singing Killer Queen?

Some can't.

In a feature on dead rock stars in the March issue of Blender magazine, a writer opines that the new Queen + Paul Rodgers, as the act bills itself, ''diminishes Queen's brand value'' but enhances the personal reputation of Mercury, who died in 1991 of complications from AIDS. ''Rodgers is unfit to wear his predecessor's crown, metaphoric or otherwise'' they write. That's one view.

Meantime, when I merely suggested in a recent column -- without commenting at all on the musical merits of the new band -- that charging $200 for top seats for Friday's U.S. opening concert date at Miami's AmericanAirlines Arena was outrageous for a Queen concert without Freddie Mercury my in box sagged with missives from peeved Rodgers fans.

Dave, Martin + Andrew:

Enjoy the silence?

WTF?

I read on your site this morning, after hearing ruminations for some time, that on April 25 (in the USA) you will be releasing REMASTERS of your back catalog.

BOYS! WTF?

I mean, it's not like I didn't purchase the six-volume box set. It's not like I didn't purchase the two-volume, three-CD set of THE SINGLES. It's not like I didn't purchase the ltd ed of THE REMIXES. And it's not like I never bid on the coveted Japanese X1 and X2 box set which has fetched in excess of $300. Boys, I've even purchased the orange vinyl German release of NEVER LET ME DOWN AGAIN.

You guys have seriously let me down, again.

I've seen several of your shows, several times. I have a number of your DVD releases (legal, not bootlegs). I've even given some of your stuff as gifts to the less fortunate who have been living under their special rocks.

But what-the-fuck is with all these releases, re-releases, and re-masterings?

Note to group: keep busy with the new stuff, keep writing, and make the X1 and X2 commercially-available. ENOUGH WITH THE REMASTERINGS.

The likelihood of my purchasing any of the remasters when they are released in time for my 46th birthday?
Nope.

I think I'll "enjoy the silence."

Buy this book!
BUY YOUR COPY NOW!
David Vance's newest, out soon!
ISBN: 3861879840

©Rene Magritte

The view from inside.
Yeah. It looks just like this.

Barry Bonds in drag?

Freddie Mercury Moment v_003
Freddie © Mick Rock.

Show me a person who hasn't been here,
and I will show you a person who hasn't lived.

Damned if you do.
Damned if you do.
Damned.
You have to see this movie.
Damn.

I subbed for a sociology class yesterday.
I showed this movie, which was made for $218 on an iMac.

My greatest creation(s) is/are the class(es) I teach.
And the students in them.
Godspeed to all of them.

OK, so it ain't Madison Square Garden. Come on!
It's fucking Depeche Mode!

My latest eBay acquisition.

I'd been seeing this edition of STERN every now and then on the Web for a few hundred dollars. Tonight's research finds copies at $125+. I think I did pretty well considering I came in pretty well below this figure.

Oh. And I must add that I think BW is highly overrated. With George Platt-Lynes and F. Holland Day before him, he's really lower-case. What I know about BW (taken from countless stories from my Miami days), he's predatory (ok, which photographer amongst us isn't?) and somewhat frightening. I think he is terribly Fascistic with his singular vision of a perfect species of male. Vacuity seems to be a hallmark of his models' eyes. What's this thing about him being married to Nan? Bruce: do the honorable thing and come out, once and for all. The man who single-handedly put cotton next to cock and put the results on display in Times Square? What about all the prep school boys? The athletes? The soldiers? All the kids wearing A+F, Calvins...or not.

Hell, you gotta love a guy with dogs. Especially when he photographs them.


© 1999 Hollywood FL (photographer unknown)

I'm kinda glad Grace was only photographed with me.


SILP: (someone specific) I've like (to) photograph.
SILK: (someone) ...

© Bruce Weber

I know exactly what I think of when I see this. And it hurts. For several reasons.

There's stuff I can post, and stuff I can't.
This, I can post.
For what I can't post.

Freddie Mercury Moment. v002.
Image courtesy Queenzone.com

Who knew my favorite DM tune would be on orange vinyl?
eBay. File under "I shouldn't have..." and then hit up "Buy It Now!" as well.

©1980


©2006


©2006


Black History Month 2006

Here is my contribution. This truly was the last frame on the negative. And I dropped the strip on the floor in a darkroom in Watertown and walked on it, hence the scratches in prints from later years. I ran it through the most popular imaging software and somehow, Milton Avery was on my mind. And Picasso.
At one point, anyway.

Carrie Mae Weems. Brilliant photographer.
I saw this piece at the Wadsworth Atheneum today.
I met CMW years ago at the (then) Center for the Fine Arts, Miami.
Now it's called the Miami Art Museum.

I don't know why I was so "star-struck" but it really made my day when I answered the phone and spoke with Dovima years ago.
Chance favors the prepared mind. And those who answer the phone!