SLIDE SHOW POET VISITS PORTLAND
By Criag Giammona

Andy Friedman gets his inspiration from rock music. He's not a songwriter and doesn't play an instrument, but says he wants to do for painting what Bob Dylan did for songwriting.

"I've always been shy to say it," Friedman said, "but I want to do for painting what Bob Dylan did for songwriting. He showed people what a song could be."

Friedman is a painter, though his medium is difficult to pin down. A club owner once dubbed him a "slide show poet," and Friedman said this a decent way to sum up in two words what he does on stage.

"I get up on stage with projections of my paintings, drawings, and photos," Friedman said. "I sit at a small table with a row of drinks and a microphone and accompany them with an hour-long series of poetic rambles."

Friedman said that he realized some time ago that he wasn't going to be satisfied with merely hanging his paintings in an art gallery for people to look at. That, he said, would be like Paul Simon exhibiting his sheet music. In fact, Friedman thinks of his work in terms of song - the pictures he projects and the words he speaks playing off each other like the inseparable music and lyrics off a good rock song.

"I'm just up there dealing with everyday life in my work," Friedman said. "I'm talking about life in an emotionally accessible way, that hopefully at the same time is intellectual and compelling. It's the same as rock music in that way. You don't have to know anything about art to be there."

Friedman, who works out of a walk-in closet that doubles as a studio in Brooklyn, has been touring steadily for two years. He plays about 100 shows a year, at small clubs and dive bars. He has never set foot in Maine but will do so Wednesday, April 21, when he visits Space in Portland.

Friedman's unconventional performance style has evolved over the course of several years. Friedman said that while his artistic influence comes from growing up listening to rock 'n' roll music, his "chops" are in painting and this forced him to figure out how to bring the two together.

"My ax is my paintbrush," Friedman said. "I'm just a painter trying to figure out a way to rock a club. I'm not making any artistic or theoretical arguments up there. I'm not making claims about how to use the color red, I just need a way to unfold in real time."

Andy Friedman, slide show poet, will perform in Portland on Wednesday, April 21, at Space, 538 Congress St. at 7:30p.m. Friedman also runs City Salvage Records, which he founded in the fall of 2001 as a publishing house.

"Nobody knew what to make of my first book," Friedman said, "so I started the label."

The label now has seven musicians and Friedman on its roster. For more information, visit www.CitySalvageRecords.com.