G. B. Jones

G. B. Jones is a Canadian artist, filmmaker, musician, and publisher of zines based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Her art work has been featured at galleries around the world,[1] and her films screened at numerous film festivals, both in Canada and abroad.[2] Her most recent musical project is Opera Arcana, founded in collaboration with Minus Smile of Kids on TV.

This article is about the person. For the book of her art, see G. B. Jones (book).

G. B. Jones
BornBowmanville, Ontario, Canada
GenresPost-punk
Occupation(s)Musician, artist, filmmaker
InstrumentsVocals, guitar, drums
Years active1980s-present
Associated actsFifth Column, Bunny and the Lakers, Opera Arcana

Career

Music

In the early 1980s Jones joined her first band, the experimental industrial electropunk group, Bunny & the Lakers. Led by songwriter Peter Morgan and including How'rd Pope among other fluctuating members, the band released one limited edition LP record called Numbers, which has since become a collector's item. The trio performed live only once in Toronto.

From the early 1980s to the late 1990s, Jones performed with the experimental post-punk band Fifth Column, playing drums, guitar and background vocals, and was one of the co-founders of the group. The band's first album, To Sir With Hate was released in 1985. It has been nominated three times for a Polaris Music Prize in the Heritage section for the 2016 Polaris Music Prize, 2017 Polaris Music Prize, and 2018 Polaris Music Prize.

The group went on to release three singles and two more albums. All-Time Queen of the World was released in 1990 and a video for the song "Like This" was produced. Their last album, 36-C, contained perhaps their best-known and most controversial song, "All Women Are Bitches". Released prior to the album as a single by K Records in 1992, "All Women Are Bitches" was reviewed by Everett True and chosen "Single of the Week" by the UK paper Melody Maker. A video for the song "Donna" was released in 1994 accompanying the release of the album 36-C. Along with the "36-C" album, the band released two more singles and also appeared on a number of compilation albums and film soundtracks. In 2002, Fifth Column's last release appeared on the Kill Rock Stars compilation album Fields and Streams. In a 1990 interview for The Advocate, Jones said about herself, "I'm the dyke from hell in this band."[3]

In October 2007, the recording Raise Your Paw to the Sky And Break The Truce by the Italian dark ambient group Mariae Nascenti was released on the Final Muzik label, with G. B. Jones appearing as a guest vocalist.

By 2010, G. B. Jones was working with Minus Smile of Kids on TV on a new musical project called Opera Arcana.[4] They appeared as guest musicians on UK artist Nick Hudson's 2016 release Ganymede In A State of War.[5] As well, they composed the soundtrack for the short film Downroad by Kelly Wyrdryk, released on CD in 2019, with a video for the song "On The Run" released in May.

Film

Jones has directed and appeared in a number of underground films. In 1990, she and Bruce LaBruce held J.D.s movie nights in London, Toronto, Montreal, Buffalo, New York and San Francisco, showing their no budget films made on Super 8 mm film. The Troublemakers premiered at this time and proved influential, although rarely screened afterwards till the mid 2000s. In 1991, she starred in the feature film No Skin Off My Ass by Bruce LaBruce, which has been noted by Gus Van Sant to have been Kurt Cobain's favorite movie.[6] To date, her own films have been made using a variety of mediums, including Super 8 mm and analog video. Her best known work from the 1990s is perhaps The Yo-Yo Gang, released in 1992, a 30-minute exploitation movie about girl gangs. The film stars a number of well-known musicians, including Fifth Column members Caroline Azar and Beverly Breckenridge. During the 1990s, Jones was also a contributor to the film zine created by Miranda July called Joanie4Jackie.

Her film The Lollipop Generation, which had been a work-in-progress for 13 years, had its premiere on 3 April 2008 at the Images Festival in Toronto. The film stars Jena von Brucker, Mark Ewert, Calvin Johnson, Joel Gibb, Jen Smith and many other musicians, performers, and artists.

Artwork and publications

G. B. Jones initially received recognition for her drawings, which were published in the queer punk fanzine J.D.s, founded by Jones and co-published with Bruce LaBruce,[3] the initials 'J.D.s' standing for juvenile delinquents. Jones said about the creation of the zine: "We thought of the magazine as just a joke...There was no gay-punk scene here. The gay clubs had no time for punk or even dykes...."[3]

Jones and LaBruce wrote an art manifesto for the punk publication Maximum Rock 'N' Roll, and at the end of the decade released a cassette tape entitled J.D.s Top Ten Tape, featuring bands from the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.

In 1991, these drawings began to be shown in galleries, first in New York City and then around the world. In 1996, Feature Inc., a gallery in New York, released a book of her drawings, posters, record covers, and other artwork, entitled G. B. Jones, with commentaries by Kevin Killian, Dodie Bellamy, Dennis Cooper and others. Although widely available in the US and Europe, copies were seized by the Canada Border Services Agency and it was officially pronounced banned in Canada.

In 1991, Jones and a rotating roster of editors, including Jena von Brücker, Rex, Johnny Noxzema, Caroline Azar and several others began releasing the often contentious zine Double Bill, frequently referred to as an 'anti-zine' or 'hatezine' (as opposed to 'fan'-zine), a new category in the self-publishing world. Five issues were produced, the last one in 2001. During publication the zine was written about in The Village Voice and the editors collectively contributed to the seminal Riot Grrrl fanzine Girl Germs.

In the early 2000s, Jones began turning her attention to other subject matter in her drawings. Her work now explored darker themes: surreal lollipops; ruined buildings; car crashes; and the religious and pagan imagery of the illustrations she produced for Hex Magazine issue 2 in 2007, issue 7 in 2010, and issue 9 in 2011; and the frontispiece she produced for the Folk Horror publication Folk Horror Revival: Field Studies in 2015.

Jones' significant contribution to artist publications was most recently acknowledged in the book, In Numbers: Serial Publications by Artists Since 1955.[7]

In 2002, Jones began a collaboration with Paul P. creating collages together. Several of these collages appeared in the book A Queer Anthology of Rage, published by Pilot Press in the UK in 2018.

Jones' work has appeared in a wide variety of media including film, fanzines, magazines, books, anthologies, posters, T-shirts, and on record, cassette and CDs, and their covers. As well, her drawings have been shown in art galleries and museums, and her films at film festivals, throughout Europe, Canada and the United States.

The Hidden Cameras

G.B. Jones first began collaborating with The Hidden Cameras in 2003, as one of the many background singers on the album The Smell of Our Own. In 2004, produced the drawing for the back cover of The Hidden Cameras' EP The Arms of His 'Ill'. She appears, dressed in black and wielding a knife, at the end of The Hidden Cameras video I Believe in the Good of Life which was released in 2005. In 2013, she created the poster of Chelsea Manning for The Hidden Cameras album Age, and in 2016 directed the video for Dark End of the Street, from the album Home On Native Land.

Exhibition history

Jones' first gallery was New York-based art gallery Feature Inc., curated by Hudson, who was the first art dealer to showcase her now famous Tom Girls series of drawings from 1991 to 1999.[8] She has also had exhibitions at Paul Petro Contemporary Art in Toronto,[9] La Centrale in Montreal,[10] Or Gallery, Mercer Union,[11] Sunday L.E.S. (now Horton Gallery), Cooper Cole, and Pink Steam[12] among others.

Filmography

Director
  • The Troublemakers, directed by G. B. Jones (1990)
  • The Yo-Yo Gang, directed by G. B. Jones (1992)
  • The Lollipop Generation, directed by G. B. Jones (2008)
  • Hot Dogs, directed by G.B. Jones (2013)
  • Dark End of the Street, video for The Hidden Cameras, directed by G.B. Jones (2016)
  • On The Run, video for Opera Arcana, directed by G. B. Jones (2019)
  • Apt., directed by G. B. Jones (2019)

Actor

See also

References
  1. "C Magazine Spring Fling 5: GB Jones". Cmagazine-sf5.blogspot.com. 14 July 2006. Archived from the original on 13 August 2011. Retrieved 19 October 2011.
  2. "Lollipop Generation – GB Jones". Jennywoolworth.ch. Retrieved 19 October 2011.
  3. Block, Adam (20 November 1990). "The Queen of 'Zine" (PDF). The Advocate. p. 75. Retrieved 12 March 2020.
  4. "OMG video premiere: Opera Arcana's 'The Raven' !!". Omgblog.com. 26 November 2009. Retrieved 19 October 2011.
  5. "Quietus Review". Quietus.com. 1 August 2016. Retrieved 15 August 2016.
  6. "Q Movie Blog, "VIP Fave Q Movie Tip". Queermovieblog.com. 9 December 2008. Retrieved 19 October 2011.
  7. "Les presses du réel". Lespressesdureel.com. Retrieved 19 October 2011.
  8. "Feature Inc. Previous Exhibitions 1991". Feature Inc. Archived from the original on 7 April 2014. Retrieved 2014-04-01.
  9. "GB Jones". Paul Petro Contemorary Art]]. Retrieved 20 June 2018.,
  10. "GB Jones". La Centrale]]. Retrieved 20 June 2018.,
  11. "Girrly Pictures". Mercer Union. 1994. Retrieved 12 March 2020.
  12. Stephanie (2004). "Pink Steam". The Well Nourished Moon. Archived from the original on 29 September 2007.

Further reading
Books
  • Philip E. Aaron and Andrew Roth, eds., In Numbers: Serial Publications by Artists Since 1955, Printed Matter, 2010 ISBN 978-3-03764-085-2
  • Jennifer Camper, ed., Juicy Mother, Soft Skull Press, 2005, ISBN 1-932360-70-0
  • Jennifer Camper and Manic D Press, eds., Juicy Mother 2: How They Met, 2007 ISBN 978-1-933149-20-2
  • Dennis Cooper, ed., Discontents, Amethyst Press, 1992, ISBN 0-927200-10-4
  • Firoza Elavia, ed., Cinematic folds: the furling and unfurling of images, Pleasure Dome, 2008, ISBN 978-0-9682115-4-0
  • Marcus Ewert and Mitchell Watkins, eds., Ruh Roh, published by Feature Inc. and Instituting Contemporary Idea, NYC, 1992
  • Robin Fisher, ed., 'What's Wrong? Explicit Graphic Interpretations Against Censorship, Arsenal Pulp Press, 2002, ISBN 1-55152-136-9
  • Andrea Juno, ed., Dangerous Drawings, Juno Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9651042-8-1
  • Selene Kapsaski (edited by Jeremy Richey), Welcome to Jonestown: Southern Ontario Gothic, Art Decades, 2015, ISBN 1511568984
  • Robert Kirby and David Kelly, eds., Boy Trouble, Boy Trouble Books, 2004, ISBN 0-9748855-0-9
  • Robert Kirby and David Kelly, eds., The Book of Boy Trouble 2: Born to Trouble, Green Candy Press, 2008 ISBN 978-1-931160-65-0
  • Nault, Curran (2018). Queercore: Queer Punk Media Subculture. Routledge. ISBN 978-1138230606.
  • Andy Paciorek and Katherine Beem, eds., Folk Horror Revival: Field Studies,, Wyrd Harvest Press, 2015, ISBN 978-1-326-37637-6
  • Leila Pourtavaf, ed., Feminismes Electrique. La Centrale, 2012, ISBN 978-2-89091-321-9
  • Spencer, Amy; DIY: The Rise Of Lo-Fi, Marion Boyars Publishers, London, England, 2005 ISBN 0-7145-3105-7
  • Scott Treleaven, The Salivation Army Black Book , Printed Matter Inc./Art Metropole, 2006, ISBN 0-89439-021-X
  • Zimmerman, Bonnie, ed. (2000). "Art: Contemporary North American: Art of the 1980s". Lesbian Histories and Cultures: An Encyclopedia. 1 (Encyclopedia of Lesbian and Gay Histories and Cultures) (1st ed.). Garland Publishing. p. 65. ISBN 0-8153-1920-7.
G. B. Jones, editor
  • Double Bill, edited by Caroline Azar, Jena von Brücker, G. B. Jones, Johnny Noxzema, Rex, Issues 1–5, 1991 to 2001
  • Hide, edited by Caroline Azar, Candy Pauker, G. B. Jones, Issues 1-5, 1981 to 1985


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