Andy Friedman during 2022 Art Basel/Miami Art Week.
Andy Friedman signs 2022 Topps x Spotlight70II at the SCOPE Gallery during 2022 Art Basel/Miami Art Week.
New York Post, Page Six (8/26/22)
Meet the eclectic Brooklyn artist behind Yankees GM Boone’s custom cleats
Jun 20, 2022, 7:44pmUpdated on Jun 21, 2022
By: News 12 Staff
Andy paints 1/1 “Boone Family Portrait” Custom Cleats for New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone. (6/15/22)
1. Rex's Blues (Townes Van Zandt)
2. I Couldn't Say It To Your Face (Arther Russell)
3. Alone (Weedeater)
4. AIn't Nobody's Business (Earl Johnson)
5. All My Life (Evan Dando)
6. Jizzlobber (Faith No More)
7. Public Domain (Jerry Jeff Walker)
8. You Are Too Beautiful (John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman)
9. Leaving My Love (Langhorne Slim)
10. Strawberry Wine (Ryan Adams)
11. Probably Shouldn't Call (Andy Friedman)
12. I Will Wait (Bombadil)
13. Forever and Ever, Amen (Randy Travis)
14. Ocean Front Property (George Strait)
Andy Friedman, World Cafe Live. Philadelphia, PA, 2013.
Photo: Chris Sikich
“Unforgettable songs.”
—nodepression.com
“Friedman’s songs demand that you sit down and listen to them, which is why he is such a hot live act.”
—NPR
“Friedman’s songs draw on the deepest traditions of American music and evoke an affecting sense of loss and longing.”
—The New Yorker
‘Laserbeams and dreams,’ Andy's third album of original songs.
(2011, City Salvage Records)
“Andy Friedman works a weird, potent strain of art-damaged, ragged-but-right country pathology.”
—LA weekly
Andy Friedman, The Mint. Los Angeles, CA, 2011
Photo: Ehall Films
“anyone who can leap nimbly from referencing songwriter Danny O'Keefe of ‘Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues’ fame to painter Georgia O'Keeffe within a single line will never be lacking for a fresh perspective.”
— James Allen, allmusic
Andy Friedman and David "Goody" Goodrich, City Winery. NYC, 2011.
Photo: Peter Cunningham
"A writer of rare ability.”
—kyle peterson, columbia free times (columbia, SC)
“Friedman’s music is a work of art unto itself.”
—steve wildsmith, knoxville daily times
“Friedman’s serendipitous stories, anchored by a rock-steady Brooklyn-blues backup band, offer an almost clinical examination of the insides of an artist’s skull.”
—utne reader
“Most everything about Andy Friedman's career has been unexpected. But the critical raves for his first two albums — "Taken Man" and "Weary Things" — and the welcome response from audiences on the road tell the 34-year-old that he's on the right path.”
—maria longley, GO! THIS WEEK, the news-leader (staunton, va)
click here to listen to andy’s daytrotter.com session
Illustration by Johnny Cluney for Daytrotter, 2012.
“Friedman can write a lyric, and deliver it. He is not to be overlooked.”
—Stephen Wine, The Associated Press
Click here to listen to andy friedman & the other failures on npr’s mountain stage
andy friedman & the other failures on Npr’s mountain stage, 2009.
Photo: Brian Blauser
‘Weary Things,’ Andy's sophomore album of original songs.
(2009, City Salvage Records)
“For Brooklyn's Andy Friedman, his other projects — New Yorker cartoons and the tours with a slide projector — are just gravy. Friedman's songwriting and the way he puts his songs across, with or without his band The Other Failures, are the mashed potatoes. And they're top-shelf spuds, too, garlicky, with bits of skin in the mix, like the ones they blue-plate at the Nighthawk Diner.”
—rick cornell, independent weekly (chapel hill, nc)
Andy Friedman, Freddy's bar. Brooklyn, NY, 2009.
Photo: Matt Dellinger
“People have remarked at how odd it is that such rural music could come from someone who has spent most of his life in New York City. But the music is equally urban. It is as evocative of Brooklyn melancholy as it is of Mississippi blues.”
—steve penhollow, fort wayne journal-gazette
Andy Friedman, Hotel Utah Saloon. San Francisco, CA, 2008.
Photo: Ian Fry
“It's either brilliant booking or humorous happenstance that honky-tonk journeyman (and cartoonist) Andy Friedman is playing at Club Passim, at least after the shout-out he gives the venerable folk venue in a new song. ‘Speaking of New England/There's a club called Passim/I thought I'd be a hit there/But I guess it ain't my scene,’ he sings on ‘Locked Out of the Building,’ from his lean and mean new album, ‘Weary Things.’”
—James Reed, The Boston Globe
“Friedman’s voice is emotionally honest, somehow simultaneously raw and delicate.”
—NoDepression.com
Andy Friedman performs "Road Trippin' Daddy" from 2009's Weary Things at WNRN in Charlottesville, Virginia. January 23, 2009.
Guitar accompaniment: Paul Curreri
“‘Weary Things’ portrays the message that though seemingly disparate bastions of Americana may be cut from different cloth, they share common hopes and dreams. . .There's hope at the end of the road if we endure the ride.”
—M.T.H. Weitzman, Elmore Magazine
Andy Friedman & The Other Failures, Southpaw. Brooklyn, NY, 2009.
Photo: H.H. Mendheim
“Andy Friedman has been described as the ‘hillbilly Leonard Cohen,’ but that's not quite right. True, Friedman's music is slow, lugubrious, smart and dipped in country heartache, but Friedman — who is also a cartoonist for The New Yorker — has probably more in common with Kris Kristofferson, Tom Waits and even Shane MacGowan of the Pogues, just in terms of a shale-voiced and poetic take of spiritual decrepitude.”
—John Adamian, Hartford Advocate
“A dusty, paint-splattered Americana sage.”
—Rochester democrat & Chronicle
“Country beat poetry.”
—jewly hight, performing songwriter
“Andy Friedman is a folk legend—at least in Columbia, South Carolina.”
—otis taylor, the state
Andy Friedman with country music legend Charlie Louvin (right). Charlottle, NC, 2009.
Photo: Joe Kuhlmann
“Friedman’s songs are tear-in-your-Scotch dusty country-politan sorts done by an urban cowboy. How urban? ‘My name is Andy Friedman/ I'm from Brooklyn City/ I just learned guitar/ And my voice ain't pretty’ goes the live rendition of ‘The Friedman Holler.’"
—A.D. Amorosi, Philadelphia City Paper
“With a voice that sounds like sleep is the enemy and experience is king, Friedman reaches down to drag up big and small truths, drops them inside the deep fryer and out pop real songs, the kind that move you because reality lives within them.”
—sonicboomers.com
Taken Man, Andy's debut album of original songs.
(2006, City Salvage Records)
"‘Taken Man’ is a collection of clever songs that take the arty and urbane elements that one might expect from a New Yorker cartoonist, and mix them with a raw roadhouse sound that one might not.”
—Andy Mulkerin, Pittsburgh City Paper
Andy Friedman with The Defibulators, the hideout. chicago, il, 2007.
“Friedman’s songs are for those who wash down life's knuckle sandwiches with ice-cold despair.”
—time out new york
“old school country so worn down even the ruts have ruts”
—Creative Loafing (Charlotte, NC)
“Can you imagine a New Yorker cartoonist growling and singing? Even if you can, Andy Friedman will transcend your imaginings. . .Song titles such as ‘I Don't Want To Die Like Andy Kaufman’ and ‘Guys Like Me Don't Get Grants’ should tell you all you need to know.”
—Birmingham weekly
Live at the Bowery Poetry Club, andy’s debut album of experimental spoken word backed by his band, the other failures
(City Salvage Records, 2006)
“There is no easy shorthand for friedman’s mix of monologue, projection, music, and the occasional arm-wrestling context with a heckler.”
—the onion, a.v. club
“What is this? Some kind of performance art? No, but it’s a question Friedman gets all the time. ‘It’s like Hank Williams,’ he explains, ‘but with visuals.’”
—rafer guzman, newsday
Photo: Jori Klein for Newsday
“Better known as the ‘Slideshow Poet,’ he’s also been called the ‘Johnny Cash of painting.’ Whatever the fuck he is, friedman puts on a hell of an exhibition.”
—the portland phoenix (portland, me)
“While most artists are content to slap their work on a white wall, then rush out the door in order to avoid eye contact with people and small animals, artist, and poet Andy Friedman prefers to make his art a sensory experience.”
—christopher muther, boston globe
Andy performs “slideshow poetry” at Hank's Saloon. Brooklyn, NY, 2005
Photo: Matt Dellinger
“Friedman is a kind of everyman artist eschewing the calcified barriers between high and low art. Instead of galleries and museums, he chooses to show his work in bars, nightclubs, and coffeehouses.”
—john stoer, savannah morning news
“Friedman has neologized the terms painting, record, and songs, and now he can pretty much do whatever he damn well pleases with them.”
—jim reed, connect savannah
“Friedman is pushing the envelope, doing something different. We like that.”
—Melissa Bearns, Eugene Weekly (Eugene, OR)
Future Blues, andy’s second book of art and poetry
(City Salvage Records, 2004)
“Friedman is all about getting his art to the people.”
—Boston Globe
“Friedman has no guitar, doesn’t claim to be a musician, yet he insists, ‘A performer needs only a true and heartfelt light to rock a crowd.’”
—Mike Corrigan, The Pacific northwest inlander
“The toughest thing about taking his act on the road, Andy Friedman says, is when club owners bill it as an ‘art/slide-show presentation.’ ‘Who wants to go to that?’ asks Friedman incredulously. ‘I wouldn’t want to go to that.’”
—Dan LeRoy, Charleston Daily Mail (Charleston, WV)
andy as “slideshow poet,” evening muse. (charlotte, nc, 2004)
Photo: Daniel Coston
“Friedman his been winning over audiences with his slide-show for two solid years.”
—San Francisco Weekly
“For the past two years, Brooklyn-based artist and would-be musician Andy Friedman has been touring the country with an art-poetry performance that elevates the genre to a level it rarely sees.”
—natalie haddad, real detroit weekly
“You could call him an artist: he was trained as a painter, though lately he’s been working in pencil and Polaroid. You could call him a poet, though when he recites the word, he might be quoting a country bluesman or talking off the top of his head, and while he’s doing it, he’ll be showing his work via slide projector.”
—boston phoenix
“Postmodernism would love nothing more than to drag visual art out of its gated museums and expensive galleries and make it as accessible as film or music. How delightfully egalitarian it would be to toss out the terminology and just let everyone check out some art. Postmodernism itself actually has a little trouble crusading for this sort of change since it is but a theory. But Andy Friedman is a real, live person and he is taking up the cause as his own.”
—portland phoenix (portland, me)
Drawings & Other Failures, andy’s debut book of art and poetry
(City Salvage Records, 2001)
“Andy Friedman was determined to put out a record, and he wouldn’t let a little thing like the fact that he doesn’t sing, play an instrument, or write songs stand in his way.”
—sam adams, philadelphia city paper
Andy Friedman and Paul Curreri, 2003
Photo: Alex Johnston
“No one embodies the adjective ‘multimedia’ like Andy Friedman. The 27-year-old artist is touring along with blues guitarist Paul Curreri to promote ‘Drawings & Other Failures,’ his debut book of poetry, pencil drawings, and paintings, for which Friedman has developed a live show. According to Friedman, the double-bill seeks to explore “a new relationship between artist, art, and viewer and a new way of tapping into the country-blues.”
—Lauren Howard, Louisville Eccentric Observer
“Andy Friedman can draw like an angel. Or, as he says, ‘like Ingres, if he listened to Skip James and drank Thunderbird.’”
—Stephen Boykewich, The Hook (Charlottesville, VA)
"Believe I'll Settle Down"
Pencil, 6 1/4" x 6"
from Drawings & Other Failures
Chicago Reader (3/6/02)
“Friedman’s Polaroids and sketches speak to the persistant tension between the need to move forward and the desire to look back.”
—Cara hopkins, colorado daily
“Friedman’s performance breaks the mold for visual artists.”
—Creative loafing (charlotte, nc)
Andy Friedman, Campbell's Music Hall (Chester, SC) 2002
Photo: Gus Powell