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Ode To Natty Brooker, Artist For Spacemen 3 And Spiritualized

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Without making this the longer post I’m planning on Peter Kember and Jason Pierce, guiding lights, respectively, behind Spectrum and Spiritualized, and jointly behind my beloved Spacemen 3, it saddens me to read this about one of their artistic collaborators:

British artist Natty Brooker is debuting his life?

Posted by Bradley Novicoff
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09.10.2009
07:29 pm
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The Spectrum: Psychedelic funhouse designed by Damon Albarn’s Father

 

Witness “The Spectrum” a fantastically psychedelic carnival fun house designed by Keith Albarn (father of Damon Albarn, a man considered a musical god in this household). Sadly this British Pathe film short is probably the only thing that remains of it and there is little to no information about it anywhere on the Internet. I’d have loved a chance to see this in person!

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Watching this I got to thinking about a different druggy funhouse on this side of the pond—also no longer standing—the infamous Palladium night club of New York City. Once the fabled Palladium Ballroom, where Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Frank Zappa, Patti Smith, The Clash and Lou Reed all played, the Palladium reopened in 1985 owned by former jailbirds Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, who had previously run Studio 54. Artists like Francesco Clemente, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, Laurie Anderson and Arata Isozaki were all commissioned to build installations.

The staircase was amazing (especially if you were super high!) and the Basquiat mural behind the upstairs bar was nothing short of astonishing (and really huge). A house would crash from the ceiling onto the dance floor like the one that killed the Wicked Witch of the West. It was a fantastically decadent place to spend one’s youth. Now it’s an NYU dorm with a Trader Joe’s grocery store downstairs! (I wonder if they were able to preserve the Basquiat? It was painted on the wall and probably as valuable as the real estate itself).

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Posted by Richard Metzger
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07.16.2009
05:00 pm
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