Yes its true, I don’t only do things that are associated with the Heavy Metal music scene and sometimes I like to venture out to other events and affairs that I am asked to join in on. I felt that when something is on the interesting side that I would line it out in the Musings Blog for you all to enjoy and well if I am wrong here just hang around idle until I muse about something a little more Metal. One such adventure was my invitation to the Ron English art exhibit which was held at The Opera Gallery in Soho, NYC. Ron’s publicist is someone I deal with very often in the way of reviews for her client rosters CD’s and DVD’s so when I get a personal invite to something a little off my beaten path I like to see what the skinny is going to be. So after a nice Vietnamese dinner at my favorite place for the stuff down in China Town my friend and I headed over to Soho to find the Opera Gallery. For those curious diners reading the blog, I went to Nha Trang and you can read more about adventures there in my blog called “My Dinner (or Lunch) With Sonata Arctica“. It’s a restaurant that I highly recommend and so far everyone who has joined me there has agreed that its awesome.
We were among the first to arrive at the gallery which was nice since it allowed us to get better situated and enjoy all of the art that Ron was showing tonight in relative peace. If you have not recognized his name for some reason that surprises me a little since he is rather famous and of course his images are very distinguishable since they are often loaded with Pop Culture icons that we have all grown up with. He had art featuring super-heroes and cartoon characters around tonight but none of his musical icon representations. Since I am hardly the biographer, you can click this WIKIPEDIA Entry and be brought to a page which will allow you the chance to familiarize yourself with the man and his work a little better before we continue. Read on MacDuff….
Now that you know more of the important details on Ron English we can get on to the business at hand – looking at the art and absorbing its uniqueness. With the place and the event just beginning and having limited people milling about I started to take photos in order to let you readers feel as though you were with us at the gala affair. I made sure to get to every piece that was hanging up for good measure as there are more than a good number of you who did not get to attend this thing with me after all. When I began to do this I was told that I should not be doing so by one of the security folks on duty. I stopped of course, but as I walked around some more the gallery chief asked me why I was NOT taking pictures and when I told him the previous chiding I had received he told me that this why I had come in the first place and to proceed as planned. Given that gallery owner trumps security detail I chose to click away while I could do so and did it quick just in case this became some sort of Abbott & Costello routine. Our link to the Gallery is below for your viewing pleasure to please click and enjoy all of Ron’s artwork from the New York show. Of course, you may not reproduce these in any fashion.
http://www.piercingmetal.com/gallery/gallery_ronenglish_112907.htm
The event was full of Ron’s admirers and friends and with his publicist being someone who I deal with in music journalism very much, there were also some music people milling about as well. We found Cy Currin (lead singer from The Fixx) and Ricky Byrd (former guitarist of Joan Jett & The Blackhearts) and even MTV’s Alex Colletti enjoying Ron’s work and talking with everyone around them. Here’s a photo of me and the guys. True rockers all huh? It was definitely cool to joke with Cy (who I found never tires of people finding ways to fit “One Thing Leads To Another” in conversation) and to speak with Alex about the forthcoming “KISSology” DVD was awesome for me. Alex is the producer on that release and has also been involved with the hit series “Unplugged” since it began. He is also a super KISS fan so we had a lot to discuss.
I wanted to snare an image of these guys on their own as well, so here is one without me in it. Don’t worry, I shall be back, after all it’s my website so plenty of time to see me here 🙂
As mentioned I was here at the invitation of a long time associated with publicist whose name happens to be Carol Kaye. Lucky me, I caught Carol and Ron near one of his most stunning paintings – one with Marilyn Monroe. Sorry for this one being a little dark, the lighting was touch and go for me in the gallery.
Carol also happened to be working press for the recent adventures of Cy Currin who we had said was here at the event as well and having a blast. I was catching so many great side moments here that I was beginning to feel like paparazzi.
Now here is a shot of Cy and Mr. Ron English. I didn’t hear what the pair were discussing but maybe Cy was asking Ron to design the new album cover for whatever might be coming out from The Fixx. Of course, maybe not 🙂
The atmosphere of the Opera Gallery and its guests for the opening was a very friendly one to say the least. A couple of times I spoke to the young lady pictured below, and snapped a photo of her with the Rock Stars in the room. All I remember was that her name was “Chris”. Of course the chaps featured are Mr. Cy Currin and Mr. Ricky Byrd.
I was on a pattern now and after talking to these young ladies, who I learned were also artists, I snapped a photo of them and Cy. I wasn’t able to get Mr. English for them to do the same, as he was busy talking to everyone in the place. Hey, it was his event and I would have done the same thing. Life is networking after all. So here is Cy and on the left Miss Cara Christopher.
I like the art that Cara showed me via her various web pages, so look her name up. Who knows, you might just be checking into the “next big talent” in this realm. You can thank me any way you feel like of course, but we prefer money. Below we find me and the equally mysterious Chris.
It was an unsuccessful battle to get her to join me in a conventional Metal stance but I tried. Hey, I was surrounded by art people and was feeling very out of my element……I had to morph back into form at least once during the night.
While I know there were more like them present, I only caught visual of the Town and Country Magazine folks who were there to report on the event. I’ve never personally read an issue but I do know how they cater to stuff like this for their readership. I will do my part in entertaining our own readers via this blog posting. Hopefully you found it a wee bit interesting. We tried.
After the event was in full swing I managed to catch a moment with the man himself, so of course being one who is always about the moment I asked him if we could take a photograph together. He was really a nice guy, and he also had his kids along with him. You see Ron has recently released an art book called “Son Of Pop”, and this particular book features a number of paintings that have his children as their subject matter. As you brief through the pages you find images of the kids as members of the rock band KISS and various Super Heroes and cartoon characters. As a long time fan boy I particularly enjoyed any of the comic book character and KISS representations in the book. Here is a photo of me and Ron English, sadly I didn’t seem at my best Metal Media Dude best.
The rest of the night was a blur of networking, red wine, laughs and bad jokes every so often because even though this was a classy affair there is no need to be stuffy. It seemed as though all of Ron’s art was available for sale and while I liked a lot of it, I held back on purchasing for a few reasons. The first was because he didn’t have any of his KISS paintings there for me to choose from and the second was well, I really don’t have that kind of cash to play with. Readers are welcome to donate any painting that they would like us to have in the PiercingMetal.com Editorial Sanctuary should the mood strike them. I took a bunch of candids for people that I will most likely never see again in my life, but of course all of them were left with a PM.com business card. I like to think of it as my Heavy Metal mark of Zorro. One can only hope that many are among the curious and come to visit us over there on the site to see the articles and photographs. Here is a photo of myself and the gallery dude getting our best Metal face on. I admit mine was a little wine induced by this time or maybe it was because I had listened to a lot of Behemoth earlier that day.
So while this was a great time and a whole lot of fun I have to say that it did not come without a little bit of a bummer for me. You see somewhere between the gallery viewing and my travels home my Creative Zen Vision M MP3 player “walked away” from the bag that I was carrying and at times had left down unattended. A stupid move but I was positive it was in a safe spot, alas I was incorrect in that assumption. I had hoped that it fell out of my bag somewhere at the event and that someone would leave it with the staff because people return lost music players all the time right? I know, I’m insane for thinking that. So out there somewhere in the mean streets of NYC is someone who has a fully loaded to the hilt with Black and Death Metal, Progressive and Power Metal and a whole lot of Gothic stuff. Did I mention it was cursed in case you are reading this and feel like returning it? Oh well, you cant fault a guy for trying. I guess the main thing learned is that you never leave anything important unattended no matter where you are going or what you are doing. It could hold some F’d up circumstances for you if you do. While it will be fun spending money on a new device, I mourn my old one and dread re-loading the hundred or so albums that had been on there. Sigh.
Official Ron English Website: http://www.popaganda.com
Anyways, the link above makes for some interesting surfing and if you are curious about the book that I spoke of earlier, the “Son Of Pop” one, you can order a copy via this Amazon.com code which I’ve provided for you below. I really enjoyed it and found it pretty neat that it was presented as one of those Golden Books that we all used to read as kids.