Sending love from Devonté Hynes to Julius Eastman

March 17, 2022

Let the poise of the piano encompass all of the occupied seats that will lend an ear to Devonté Hynes' tribute to Julius Eastman. From one talented figure to another, the ensemble to be remembered and cherished like ripe fruit from the garden— and your mother's laughter.

Following a two-night tribute to Julius Eastman in the fall of 2021, the Bourse de Commerce - Pinault Collection and the publishing house Éditions 1989 invite English composer Devonté Hynes to perform several pieces by Julius Eastman. He is accompanied on stage by pianist Adam Tendler, percussionist Jonathan Hepfer, and seven-string players. Can you hear the applause yet? The standing ovations and the breaths taken from unforgettable sounds? Let us open the doors of the dictionary and find Julius Eastman quickly. Eastman is a well-known figure of the New York musical Avante-Garde who bolded his legacy as a composer, a pianist, and a singer. His phenomenal work of the Gay Guerilla is a resource for those needing assertion to be themselves today.

Text by JoliAmour DuBose-Morris
Photo Courtesy of Dalya Benor

Hynes who lends himself as a producer, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and vocalist who produced the scoring and soundtracks for your favorite films and created songs from your favorite albums. Having Hynes nod his head at Eastman is the wonder bread we all need. A thank you for Julius Eastman's contributions to art, especially black art. The art of the othered. To have a moment like this allows us to see a bright future ahead, glowing like the sun after daylight savings ends.

Devonté Hynes performs pieces by Julius Eastman that have already been performed on the Auditorium stage in the fall of 2021, under the artistic direction of Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc and Jean-Christophe Marti. With this renewed gesture, he amplifies this highlighting of the abundant musical creation of the 1970s in New York. This program that celebrates Eastman— brought about from Hynes because of the new release: Gay Guerilla: L'Histoire de Julius Eastman (Editions 1989, 2022) was the first book dedicated to Eastman that includes his foreword.

Forwarding into the future, prepare yourselves to be amazed on the 29th and 30th of March.

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On Tour With Primal Rat Screw and Efron Danzig

December 23, 2024

When Will McGoran decided that he didn’t want to wait for someone else to create the thing that he wanted to see in the world, he started Primal Rat Screw. Since the Philadelphia-based band’s inception in 2021, McGoran has credited the band’s unique sound to their sources of inspiration, whether it be Playboi Carti’s new music or his bandmate Kade’s Primus tattoo.

office favorite and Issue 20 cover star Efron Danzig grew up playing music with the band – who’s current line-up consists of Gabriel Garcia-Leeds (guitar), Kade Holt (bass), Matt Morrin (drums), and Will McGoran (vocals & songwriting). Danzig, who lived with McGoran and Holt at the time of the band’s creation, returned to her roots this November, accompanying and photographing them on their November tour.

Photography and Interview by Efron Danzig

Efron: Hey, Gabe. What’s up?

Gabe: Not much. I'm working on a flyer for a show I've got on Friday with my other project.

Oh cool, Where's the show at?

G: It's at this, like, yoga studio in West Philly, but it's cool because I just got a magician and, this, Slavic women's choir in Philly, and they're gonna play it too now.

Will: I've been, like, so tired since I got back from tour. I'm actually going to go to Atlanta on Monday to practice With Sword(2). I think I had a fever. I got, like, really sick. I was just sweating through my sheets and had a really crazy headache and

shit at the end.

The last day, when I woke up in your bed and I looked over at you and then you just smiled at me and then farted.

W: That was insane. Yeah.

Favorite food on tour?

W: My favorite food on tour? Fucking, uh, Boscoff.

Boscoff?

W: Yeah.

What's Boscoff?

W: It's, like, the… it's, like, the cookies they give you when you fly to, like, England.

Oh, a Biscoff?

W: A Biscoff?

Yeah. Is it Biscoff? Yeah. I love those on the plane.

W: Yeah, yeah, I, I buy them a lot. They're good.

Dip them in your coffee.

I already know but for the readers out there, how long have you been playing music?

G: I started playing guitar when I was 7 because I wanted to be like Hannah Montana.

W: I've been in bands for like 11 years and been touring in bands for 9 years. I feel like I've played music with these guys for so long, other bands, I've known them since I was a younger teenager. And every time we tour, or kind of any time that we do anything altogether, it's always validating, of the kind of relationships that we have with each other. I write all the songs on all the instruments. Although, Kade writes a lot of the bass lines. But everyone always adds their own style to it.

Do you have a rose, bud, and a thorn from the tour?

W: What does that even mean?

Matt: My thorn was heavy traffic coming from Boston to New York and being late to sound check. Oh, yeah, that day was pissing in bottles and you threw up.

I forgot that I threw up. Multiple rounds of projectile vomit out the window.

M: Yeah, and I saved you. I got the window open.

Yeah, you did thankfully

W: We are working on an album right now, I’m pretty excited about that.

Taco Bell or McDonald's?

W: Uh, Taco Bell.

Why?

W: Uh, McDonald's feels like I'm eating like a scab of a burger.

I like fillets o fish

W: Eww

It’s good. It tastes like chemicals.

W: Everybody loves it I just refuse to eat fish from McDonald’s.