Some Serious Business

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Some Serious Business

This emphasis on the complete ecology of artmaking is a model informed by artists, presenters, and audiences at the forefront of ambitious work.

The visionary four-decade legacy of Some Serious Business producing live events and providing resources for vanguard artists—many at the earliest stages of their careers—is the powerful bedrock for its reemergence as a vital artist-centered nexus that presents visionary creators and thought-leaders. The roots of SSB are a highly collaborative partnership model that supports artists throughout the

lifespan of their projects: offering resources to incubate emerging ideas, generate new work, and present those works to the public. Some Serious Business serves as both a catalyst and a sanctuary for artists to sustain their creative lives as well as propel their projects towards new and adventurous evolution, audiences, and territories. Led by a passionate commitment to put the artist’s needs first, SSB is a “space without a space” that brings together a unique network of partners and provides a synergistic ecology that extends our impact in multiple directions. Some Serious Business’ muscular strategic planning and intelligent leadership establishes a fertile environment in which experimentation, intrepid vision, risk-taking, and innovation can thrive. Helping diverse creators navigate the arts environment and access resources for growth, SSB produces events and projects that expand existing boundaries, incite unexpected passions, raise issues that advance knowledge and understanding of our world, and spark peak experiences—opening doors to the transformative power of art in contemporary society.

02/23/2026

SSBaway artist Kenny Fries is co-convening this for what promises to be an entertaining, informative, and celebration of Disability Art and Culture—

02/06/2026

SSBaway artist has a new album out! “Sunder” is out today on .

The album features the title work for solo piano and field recordings from the US/Mexico border wall, played by the outstanding . The piece explores the concept of a political border by engaging on an intimate level with the most concrete physical representation of that idea- the wall whose mammoth physicality is a reflection of the feelings of power, fear, safety, and belonging which surround its creation.
The second piece is “Lightning Field” for two cellos, featuring . This work is inspired by the Walter de Maria land work of the same name, exploring sensations of electricity, vast space, and stillness.
Listen on all platforms now! Available on bandcamp here: https://marielroberts.bandcamp.com/album/sunder

12/29/2025

We love an end of the year list, especially if we’re on it! Thank you for including SSB/ “We Started a Nightclub” on yours.

Available on our website: someseriousbusiness.org/shop

Full review: https://hyperallergic.com/the-wild-inclusive-brilliance-of-new-york-pyramid-cocktail-lounge/

12/13/2025

Looking for an original gift and want to support SSB at the same time? Visit our online shop!

“But Seriously…” Lithographs by Karen Finley, Trey Speegle, Carey Maxon and Anthony Haden-Guest. Printed by Derriere L’Etoile Studios.

“We Started a Nightclub” book about the Pyramid Cocktail Lounge by Brian Butterick, Susan Martin, and Kestutis Nakas.

Not the Same Old S**t Necklace designed by Danielle Lesniewski.

Commemorative t-shirt from a Pyramid Cocktail Lounge poster.

Have enough “stuff” but still want to do something meaningful? Donate to our Legacy Project’s GiveButter campaign! giveButter.com/legacyproject

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12/02/2025

It’s Giving Tuesday!

Wondering about our motto “The artist always comes first”? It means we trust artists to lead the way.

In these topsy-turvy times, we need to remember that artists have always been at the forefront of social and cultural activism and change. Because seventies performance was transient and experimental, the record is scant.

Here Susan tells a story about Jimmie West. Long deceased but a force to be reckoned with. His performance lasted just minutes but made a lasting impression on those who saw it. The Flaming Bowling Ball attracted the attention of the Venice Fire Department who came to examine it. All the Fire Chief could say was "It looks to me like what you have here is a flaming bowling ball." No charges were filed!

Help us shine a light on the social history of the late seventies in LA through the voices of those whose lives were forever changed by it.

To mark our 50th anniversary, Some Serious Business launched the Legacy Project to trace the footprint of SSB and examine the rise of performance and the alternative space movement in the 1970s and beyond. And to share it with the public, but we need your help!

The Legacy Project is art history and social history, recording the memories of key individuals who helped create “alternative” spaces, who lived through that period, who participated in shaping a vibrant alternative art scene, and who broke new ground.

For more information and to donate:
givebutter.com/legacyproject

Team SSB in High Performance Magazine, 1978
Interview with writer, Kristine McKenna
Artist Bob Biggs’ apology in High Performance Magazine, 1978

11/19/2025

So many pieces of LA art history in our archives, were you there? Do you have a story to tell? Let us know as we continue putting together our oral history!

SSB crossed over with many events and genres, including the early days of LA Punk. From the : Billy Zoom, an audience shot including Steve Samiof (founder/editor at Slash Magazine in the Alfred E Neumann shirt), Exene of X, The Plugz, and our always-stylish founder Susan Martin with friends.

Please support our efforts to add an oral history to our archives! www.givebutter.com/legacyproject

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11/05/2025

More bits from the SSB collection at the , including the letter and check from the NEA that helped support video and new media artists—

Video was a huge part of our programming. We did a TVTV Retrospective; we did an evening of “Talk and TV” with Bill Wegman; we helped Bob Biggs use broadcast TV to trigger an erotic video in a gallery. Tuesday Night Video showed a myriad of artists including Bill Viola, Joan Logue, Hildegarde Duane, Ilene Segalove, Chip Lord and Phil Garner’s “Chevrolet Training Film: The Remake” and so many more. We had a regular show on local cable networks called “Video Art” and we even produced the first Video Directory in Southern California for independents to scrounge up whatever they needed to do whatever they wanted to do. In 1978 the NEA caught on and gave us a grant for video and new media.
A high point was the premiere of Nam June Paik’s “Guadalcanal: A Requiem” in Tony Bill’s basement. He told us Midnight was the only time he could do it. Before the screening we met with him to find out how he’d like the space configured. We all cracked up when I asked him whether he wanted one or two monitors? “No No, MANY, MANY monitors! This not Conceptual Art you know!,” he said. We were worried about getting an audience that late, this being 70s LA after all. At 11 they started to line up; by Midnight the line to get in was around the block.
—Susan Martin

Please support our efforts to add an oral history to our archives! www.givebutter.com/legacyproject

10/28/2025

On April 8, 1978, SSB and Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art produced a full scale performance of Hermann Nitsch’s Or**es Mysteries Theatre in Peter Alexander’s old painting studio on Westminster in Venice, then owned by Tony Bill. It was a gory night, and loud. With a heavy black glove on his hand, Nitsch had trained a full scale orchestra consisting of the Punks and Co-eds to perform a deafening score that featured the shriek of police whistles as well as whatever other instrument they played, Mike Kelley was there, the Kipper Kids (at least Martin), Venice realtor Tom Sewell, punk impresario Brendan Mullen, and Michael Gira (later of Swans) were there to help.
Several times, the “passive performers” didn’t follow the script and it got menacing and out of hand. The neighbors weren’t happy nor was Nitsch: apparently he thought we were going barbeque the lamb after it was all over. It had taken us hours just to clean up the blood and guts and no one was “hungry.”
One thing that came out of SSB’s conversation with artist Linda Montano, was the concept of “accountability”. We didn’t really think about the consequences of what we produced and just plowed ahead. Nitsch was provocative and abhorrent. Feminist artist Nancy Buchanan interviewed Nitsch for High Performance (attached). In her comments she says: “And this brings up the positive contribution censorship has made to Nitsch’s reputation. …Rather than its ability to move an audience Nitsch’s theatre depends a great deal on its reputation for being shocking, and literally feeds on the controversy which surrounds it and isn’t that the secret power of pornography?”
—SSB co-founder Susan Martin

This, and so much more history of performance and art in Los Angeles is housed in SSB’s archives at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, but we need your help as we add to the oral history of this time. Please visit our fundraising campaign at: givebutter.com/legacyproject

10/21/2025

The SSB archives were acquired by the Archives of American Art in 2000, but it took another 20+ years to make the trek to Washington to take a look at what founder Elizabeth Freeman had saved from the early years—what a treasure trove!

Before faxes and computers and emails, the typed and often hand-written notes to and from SSB offer a fun insight to the performances and the artists and venues that SSB worked with at the time.

This is a very small sample including letters to/from/regarding Frank Gehry, Laurie Anderson, John Cage, Philip Glass, Bob&Bob, Jim Corcoran, and The Vanguard Gallery.

We are trying to raise funds for an oral history to be added to our collection, and we need your help! Please visit our campaign at:
givebutter.com/legacyproject

Address

Abiquiu, NM
87510

Website

http://www.someseriousbusiness.org/

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