Andy Friedman & The Other Failures July 7, 2005

Andy Friedman & The Other Failures will cap off their seven-week run at The Bowery Poetry Club on Thursday, July 7 at 8PM.

Dubbed "The Johnny Cash of Painting" by Connect Savannah's Jim Reed, Andy Friedman's songs, paintings, drawings, and photographs about devotion and wanderlust come together onstage with with the aid of a slide-projector and music from his seven-piece country-blues band, The Other Failures.

Friedman, the maverick Brooklyn-based visual artist, has been relentlessly touring the nation?s bars, music clubs and colleges since leaving his post in the Editorial Department at The New Yorker magazine in 2002. Friedman, 30, has been widely credited with introducing a new role for the visual artist with his pioneering performance.

Whether he is working his slide-projector remote, playing guitar, or arm-wrestling hecklers, "don't mistake this wanderlust traveler for your typical seen-it-before coffeehouse poet," says Bellingham Weekly (Bellingham, WA). "A show for all the disenchanted weekend mad-cappers and one-night-stand romantics; Friedman befriends the lost soul."

Odd Todd, creator of Oddtodd.com, will open the evening with a screening of Odd Todd short films. Other opening guests on this run have included Novelist and New York mag sex columnist Amy Sohn, Newsweek?s David Gates, How To Kick People?s Todd Levin, Novelist and Happy Ending Reading Series? Creator Amanda Stern and The Rejection Show?s Jon Friedman with New Yorker cartoonist and co-host Matt Diffee.

When: Thursday, July 7 at 8PM, $10
Where: Bowery Poetry Club (NYC): 308 Bowery @ Bleecker right across from CBGB's, F to 2nd Ave/6 to Bleecker, 212-614-0505

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?For the past few years, [Andy Friedman] has been traveling the country, confusing promoters (they don't know how to label his shows) and winning over audiences.? --THE NEW YORKER

?An accomplished folk interpreter in the style of Dave Van Ronk or Ry Cooder, albeit with a twist. . .garnering a good deal of critical acclaim.? --NASHVILLE SCENE

"Wearing a trucker cap and dirty jeans. . .Friedman also sounds like a good ol' boy, strumming an acoustic guitar and singing about small-town bar brawls." --NEWSDAY
?Whatever the fuck [genre] it is, Friedman puts on a hell of an exhibition.? --PORTLAND PHOENIX

?Sort of like cabaret for erudite rednecks from blue states.? --BOSTON GLOBE

?It?s a new something. A rock-n-roll-country-blues-cabaret-spoken-song.? --NEW YORK MAGAZINE

?Friedman has built a following, mostly in bars and music clubs rather than galleries, through his idiosyncratic hybrid performance.? --CHICAGO READER

"Seriously winning over audiences." --SF WEEKLY

"Caustic, funny and as unstoppable as an avalanche roaring down a mountain. . .alternative papers across the country have dubbed Andy Friedman the next big thing.? --EUGENE WEEKLY (Eugene, OR)

?A traveling troubadour. . .a deeply American identity.? --THE HOOK

?Andy Friedman breaks the mold. . .Pretty damn cool.? --CREATIVE LOAFING

"You have to understand that Andy Friedman is something of a maverick -- an iconoclast who is quietly (and radically) changing what it means to be a visual artist in this day and age." --CONNECT SAVANNAH