Robert Syrett, my friend and co-conspirator, has an art show at Roll Up Gallery, (at Public Works club), 161 Erie Street, near Mission and 14th Streets, in San Francisco, which opens Friday, April 8, with a party there from 7 to 10 p.m.
I had met the curator Betty Bigas (from Barcelona) at the Noise Pop Saturday day-time event there that featured a drawing session led by Kid Koala, who was also spinning. I recommended Robert for her “characters” show. Robert has created artwork for a variety of my posters and initiatives, and has also been a resource to the Palo Alto Public Arts Commission.
In music circles, Robert is known for having created the album cover artwork for the electronic music group Matmos, on Matador and Cantaloupe labels. A propos of my radio panel for KZSU a couple years back, featuring Josh “Socalled” Dolgin and David Krakauer, regarding Olivier Messiaen, Robert taught me how to say “ondes Martenot” (OWN martin OWE), and also made a trading card drawing of OM which we gave to Dolgin.
The club/gallery is notable for having a Banksy on its wall, visible from Mission Street; even Leah Garchik knew this! Robert’s works are quite collectible if you, dear reader / art collector, have a sense of whimsy; you can OWN a Syrett piece but not OWE and therefore have money left in your budget for a scrumptious nearby burrito and or cappucino galore.
Robert and I met when I asked to place a poster in the window of Accent Arts on Cali Ave here and before I left I ended up commissioning him to do a version of his famous “Bark Bite” series as a free poster for the City of Palo Alto Twilight Series concert at Bol Park featuring Vienna Teng (the chipmunk) and Austin Willacy (the wolf), which looks like this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cryptoclassic/859881476/
But check out his “Characters”, and others by Duser and deRoberts at Roll Up in the Mission, while supply lasts! The show has a short run so “gulp air and ride” as they say.
Gallery link:
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 
If I am reading this properly, Robert Syrett has more than 1,655 of his works posted on flickr!
Here is an Amazon link to Matmos So Percussion, artwork by ROBERT SYRETT
http://www.amazon.com/Treasure-State-So-Percussion/dp/B003R4JAOS/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302892346&sr=1-1-fkmr1
and “Supreme Balloon” by Matmos on Matador:
http://www.amazon.com/Supreme-Balloon-Matmos/dp/B00166QJUM/ref=sr_1_5?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1302892445&sr=1-5
this link has some Matmos music and comments by Drew Daniels praising Rob’s artwork:
http://lepoissonrouge.com/events/artist/1339
I was a little frustrated this a.m. in that the Chron’s Kim Chun had a blurb about Public Works juxtaposed by some Matmos news but no mention of this show!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ondes_Martenot
Chollima is Korean flying horse eerily (but not Erie-ly) similar to the story Dana Beard told me about, what I heard as “cheeto molly” or “horse head 1,000” meaning “go for it” or, as above “gulp air and ride”. Dana, who I met at Daily Dartmouth, was selling high tech by phone from Palo Alto to China and was stumped by an idiomatic phrase that her customer used to say “It’s a deal” or “go for it.” When she related, even inaccurately, her story to me, and I repeated it to Stanford grad and then William Morris agent Jim Haljun, apropos of a new name for the rock band fragments American Sensei and Oranger –I was suggesting “Cheeto” –like the snack food — “Molly” like the girls’ name — it was suggested to me that I be an early adapter and buyer and promoter of, Ozomatli.
Because he (and the hot chocolate) inspired or informed or flavored this, here is Eric San pka Kid Koala doing four minutes of what he does best, and not to take away from DJ Kate Scratch Fever (Katy Malone) who spun furiously yet with a lady-like deft touch at Robert’s art opening:
I am hoping to introduce Rob Syrett’s characters into Carla Kihlstedt’s bestiary:
weiss quoted in metro by todd inoue about vienna teng at former varsity then borders
http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/05.26.04/teng-0422.html