Andy Friedman
By Amy Martin

Falling in love with a musician is easy. Who doesn't want someone around playing and singing about your private nuances and secret moments? It's just as easy to fall in love with a painter for similar reasons. And what if this painter was also a musician who used both forums to express your intimate knowings? Well, you'd be rushing to the Justice of the Peace in a throbbing heartbeat.

Andy Friedman is sure to win you over with his guitar and art slideshow. Better known as a "slideshow poet," he's also been called "The Johnny Cash of Painting." Whatever the fuck he is, he puts on a hell of an exhibition.

In regards to his artistic development, Friedman says the mix tape was his earliest inspiration: "Here was the way I could tell a particular someone about what and how I was feeling without having to open my mouth. It was only a matter of time before I saw that my paintings and drawings could be mix tapes of their own."

His visual mix tape is presented to bar audiences with songs and images that simultaneously compliment and activate the sounds and colors of on another. He's a painter who breathes life into his work in ways that make a gallery seem like a graveyard.

You may sit in silent awe of Friedman's show, but there will be plenty to talk about on your way home. This year, at SPACE, he is backed by The Other Failures. Joining the 8:30pm show are Death Vessel, an old-timey sounding band, and the Wood Brothers, which are Chris Wood (of Modeski, Martin and Wood) and his brother, Oliver.