Free Music Thursday!!

Damn it feels good to be in Brooklyn during the hot and sticky dog days of summer! Check out this amazing lineup of FREE live music going down in Brooklyn today!!

Zap Mama @ BAM Rhythm & Blues Festival
MetroTech Commons
Noon-2PM
Zap Mama is the Grammy-award winning group founded and fronted by Marie Daulne. Since the early 1990’s, Marie has spent her life crossing continents and winning the hearts of thousands of fans, while introducing her Afropean musical heritage to the world.

Purple Rain Sing-a-Long with Escort @ Celebrate Brooklyn
Prospect Park West
7:30PM
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of one of history’s greatest pop albums, and the extravagantly, hilariously whacky and over the top film it inspired (the apotheosis of both the purple one’s genius and self caricature), we invite you to don something lacey and ruffled and come get your Prince on. We'll have lyric subtitles, but you know the words already. Joy Dragland of Brooklyn's live disco orchestra Escort certainly does; Purple Rain was the first cassette she ever owned. Dragland and others from Escort will lead the sing-along, after the band puts everyone in the mood with an opening set. (Note: The film is Rated R and admission of anyone under 17 will require an accompanying parent or guardian. The whole evening will feature scenes of extreme sexiness throughout.)

Hall & Oates @ Seaside Summer Concerts
Asser Levy in Coney Island
7:30PM
Daryl Hall and John Oates are the NUMBER-ONE SELLING DUO in music history! Starting out as two devoted disciples of earlier soul greats, Daryl Hall & John Oates are soul survivors in their own right. Daryl Hall & John Oates recently released the DVD/CD Live at the Troubadour. The release marks the 35 year anniversary of their first gig in LA!

Mr. TasTees takes a crazy trip through his hometown Chicago and introduces us to some of the folks in the Chi who are keeping the music scene fresh!

Featured Artists include:
Flosstradamus
Facebook
VYLE
ST!ZO
BBU
Kid Static
Hood Internet
He Say She Say
Clayton Hauck
Mike Terror

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Based on the children’s book by Roald Dahl, Fantastic Mr. Fox is a new stop motion animation film directed by Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums, Bottle Rocket). The movie will feature the voices of George Clooney, Meryl Streep and Bill Murray. Fantastic Mr. Fox will first be screened at the London Film Festival and released in the U.S. on November 13. Thanks Swipelife!

Little Dragon's Twice

Puppet Shadows, crying birds, textile rain and yukimi nagano's voice. what could be more beautiful?

Tim Burton @ MoMA

Whoa!! Tim Burton is having a major career retrospective at MoMA in November!
Following the current of his visual imagination from his earliest childhood drawing through his mature work, the exhibition presents artwork generated during the conception and production of his films, and highlights a number of unrealized projects and never-before-seen pieces, as well as student art, his earliest non-professional films, and examples of his work as a storyteller and graphic artist for non-film projects. For more info, check out the MoMA website or click here. (Thanks Theme!)

Annie Leibovitz is Broke

I read this crazy article in the Sunday Times Magazine yesterday and was not only surprised by it but kind of outraged by how irresponsible she must have been to get into her current financial situation. I think this is a really great lesson for artists of all kinds to take in and really learn from.

By Allen Salkin
If money and fame are the yardsticks, Annie Leibovitz is one of the most successful photographers of all time. She has a seven-figure salary from Vanity Fair and commands tens of thousands of dollars a day from commercial clients like Louis Vuitton. Her latest book, “At Work,” made best-seller lists, and an exhibition of her classic images — Demi Moore naked and pregnant, Mikhail Baryshnikov on the beach — has been touring the world for over two years.

So as the news has spread in recent months that Ms. Leibovitz is facing extraordinary financial troubles, with the possibility of losing her Civil War-era town houses in Greenwich Village, a home in upstate New York and the rights to decades of her work, many have formulated the same questions: How is this possible? How could an artist of her standing be in such financial straits? If Annie Leibovitz can’t make it in New York, who can?

On July 29, Ms. Leibovitz was sued in State Supreme Court for nonpayment by a company that had lent her $24 million, and which demanded access to her homes so it could begin the process of selling them to satisfy her debt. Ms. Leibovitz had taken out the loan last year, pledging as collateral properties in Greenwich Village and in Rhinebeck, N.Y., her negatives and the rights to her photographs. The lender, Art Capital Group, claims Ms. Leibovitz is behind on hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid fees associated with the loans. Read the full NYTimes Magazine article here.

Ninjasonik x Major Lazer: Hold the Line

Directed by my man, Lazlo Jefferson. Don't sleep.

RIP Baatin

35-year-old Baatin, co-founder of the game-changing hip hop group Slum Village with his high school friend J. Dilla (RIP), died yesterday in Detroit. After their sophomore album, Trinity, Baatin left the group only to rejoin for their upcoming September release, Villa Manifesto. Our thoughts are with his family and the community in Detroit. Rest in Power Baatin!