Wanda Jackson: Hard-Headed Woman

Thursday, November 11, 2010 | |


Wanda Jackson is the Queen of Rock -- she pioneered the sound and was on the forefront of the rockabilly movement as early as the '50s. Jackson still tours today and is working on a new album with Jack White, slated to drop early next year.

Huey P. Newton

Wednesday, November 10, 2010 | |


Whip My Hair: Cockatoo Remix

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Willow Smith's, "Whip My Hair" is all the rage amongst 9 year olds and cockatoos. Club Banger! Thanks Julian!!!

Seu Jorge + Almaz "The Model"

Tuesday, November 09, 2010 | |

Check out the homies from What Matters Most -- amazing work guys!!

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Now-Again Records and What Matters Most present a short film duo entiled “The Model,” inspired by the recently released Seu Jorge and Almaz album by Brazilian singer and actor Seu Jorge.

The first part "Chapter 1: Marcello in Limbo" is a one-take affair that follows Jorge as he weaves through a cliff-side mansion in the Hollywood Hills. The film showcases three cover songs from the album (Roy Ayers’ “Everybody Loves The Sunshine,” Martinho da Vila and João de Aquino's “Cirandar” and Kraftwerk’s “The Model”) and features the members of his band Almaz, as well as the producer Mario C and keyboardist Money Mark.

The first chapter acts as an introduction to the second part of the short film "Oshun and The Dream," which will be released in the next couple of weeks.

Seu Jorge and Almaz - The Model (Chapter One) from Now-Again on Vimeo.

CREATURE :: Kim Ann Foxman + Andy Butler

Monday, November 08, 2010 | |

KIM ANN FOXMAN "CREATURE" [mr.intl records] from KIM ANN FOXMAN on Vimeo.

Phenomenal Video for Kim Ann Foxman on a beat by Andy Butler. Gorgeous styling and art direction with cameos from Shane (hood by air) and Tigga Calore. This feels like the new New York. Check out mixes from Shane and some of his partners from the Ghe20 Gothik party here!! Thanks Sai!!
GHE20 GOTHIK PRESENTS TRIBUTE 2 $HAYNE BY PHYSICAL THERAPY by GHE2O GOTHIK MIX SERIES

Skating Shanghai

Friday, November 05, 2010 | |


Filmmaker Charles Lanceplaine created Shanghai Five, a documentary about the burgeoning skateboard scene in Shanghai and released as an online feature. This trailer is pretty badass -- cant wait for it to come out! Check out his skateboarding blog here. Below is another short film he did on surfing the "Silver Dragon" in Hangzhou.

The Dog Days are Over

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Thank God for Florence and the Machine!

WNYC x Just Food

Tuesday, November 02, 2010 | |


Hosted at WNYC's Jerome L Greene space, check out this three-part series on Local Food and sustainability. Buy tickets here!

NY Art Book Fair

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Of course all my favorite things in life are bulky and heavy. Books being on the top of my list. This weekend is a great opportunity to add to my ever expanding collection at the fifth annual NY Art Book Fair. Sponsored by Printed Matter, the fair is FREE! hosts over 200 international presses, booksellers, antiquarian dealers, artists and publishers from twenty countries, offering the best in contemporary art book publishing. Check it out at PS1 starting Friday and take a stroll around the corner to grab some buffet Indian eats at Five Star. Not bad for a day's work!

Signs and Voices

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SIGNS AND VOICES MAIA RUTH LEE / PETER SUTHERLAND photo workshop in NEPAL from peter sutherland on Vimeo.

Video from Peter Sutherland and Maia Ruth Lee's amazing photo workshop for deaf and streetkids outside of Kathmandu. You can buy the book, Signs and Voices, at Dashwood Books and Creatures of Comfort. Published by Peter Chung aka Cool Calm Pete on his awesome imprint, Book Club.

VOTE VOTE VOTE or die!

Monday, November 01, 2010 | |

Please vote tomorrow!! A lovely reminder from my friend Peter is below. Thanks Matt Damon!

Hello friends and family in NY --

Tomorrow is election day, and I'm excited. Prospects may look dim nationally, but here in New York, we have an opportunity to win a huge progressive victory. We have the Working Families Party.

Tomorrow, I'm going to vote for my all favorite candidates, including Eric Schneiderman for Attorney General, on the Working Families Party line. I hope you will join me. If you don't know where to vote, find out here: http://gis.nyc.gov/vote/ps/index.htm

Voting on the WFP line (row E on the ballot) counts just as much as voting on the Democratic line. But it has the extra benefit of sending a powerful message to Albany -- that I stand with working people, not party bosses. That I support the WFP's fight for a cleaner environment, for raising wages, for clean energy jobs, for education funding, and all the other good progressive policies they champion. I know the folks at the WFP pretty well, and they say that to pass critical legislation next year, they need every vote they can get tomorrow.

If you don't believe me, ask Matt Damon. Yep, the actor Matt Damon. He recorded this (pretty frickin' funny) video for the WFP:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24m1PZ9iZoY

Basically, no matter what happens nationally, here in New York you can't afford to stay home and not vote. Don't get last-minute-lazy, don't pretend your vote doesn't matter, and don't give up your democratic rights. Trust me, I know how easy it is to get distracted and overwhelmed. But millions of Americans fought -- and some died -- for the right to vote. Don't take it for granted.

Plus, if you don't vote, everyone will know. By law, anyone can get a copy of the NYS voter file and look you up. (They can't tell how you voted, just if you voted.) It would be embarrassing for your friends to know you shirked your civic duty, right? :)

SO GO VOTE!!

Love,
Peter

Chinese Dancers

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Chinese people rule. This dance is performed by a group of deaf dancers and is absolutely amazing.

Monster Mash

Sunday, October 31, 2010 | |


Happy Halloween!

Keep x Animal Collective

Thursday, October 28, 2010 | |

The groovy folks from Animal Collective have partnered up with California sneaker brand Keep to release a limited run of collaborative sneakers to benefit the Socorro Island Conservation fund, a non-profit working to preserve the unique biosphere of the Revillagigedo Archipelago off Baja California. Each sneaker ships with a 4-track cassette tape featuring a previously unreleased solo track from each member of the band. I love the embroidery work and deep sea style of Deakin's Guerra Hi-top above. Check out all the other styles here and pre-order your pair HERE today!

Richard Mosse, Infra Series

Wednesday, October 27, 2010 | |


Photographer Richard Mosse documented the conflict and soldier camps in the Eastern Congo using Kodak Infrared Film. His work is arresting and the vivid and unearthly colors in the film make a startling political statement. Check out more of his work here.



PogoBooks

Tuesday, October 26, 2010 | |


PogoBooks is an independent publisher of limited edition art books and zines based in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 2010, PogoBooks' focus is on publishing Photography. Our goal is to make original art accessible to everyone. We create books and zines that start dialog and conversation, with a high priority placed on quality and content. We publish art-books and limited edition zines. All our books and zines are monographs.

Love their recent monograph from Seoul-based photographer Hasisi Park!! Check out the work above and below!


DARK†YOUTH in Moscow

Monday, October 25, 2010 | |


Ive been doing some digging for young photographers and came across some badass kids in Moscow documenting youth in revolt. Check out their zine, Prawdazine here. If I head out there, I wanna party with Dark Youth and his grandma!



20 Years Young :: Stretch x Bobbito

Friday, October 22, 2010 | |

Stretch and Bobbito reunited last night at WKCR (Columbia U. radio station and one of the oldest FM radio stations in the country) to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their hip-hop show. One of the most important hip-hop radio shows in the 90s, they introduced countless NYC artists to the world. Download the full four-hour broadcast here and listen to the shenanigans of stretch, bob, lord sear, sucio, soul, and others!

Jayelle Hudson

Wednesday, October 20, 2010 | |


Sao Paulo-based Jayelle Hudson's photographic b+w kaleidoscopes are beautiful and serene, surreal nature-scapes that blur reality and fiction.

Bilal x Bob Marley

Friday, October 15, 2010 | |

The Sounds of VTech / bilal_isthislove_web


Beautiful cover of Bob Marley's "Is This Love" by Bilal and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson.

Banksy x Simpsons

Wednesday, October 13, 2010 | |

Ray Charles + Willie Nelson + Bill Cosby +++

Monday, October 11, 2010 | |

The latest film on the legendary Ray Charles will air Tuesday, October 12 on A&E's bio channel at 8 PM. The two-hour special, narrated by David Duchovny, commemorates the 80th anniversary of Ray Charles’ birth and explores the life and music of the man behind such hit songs as “What’d I Say,” “Georgia On My Mind,” “Hit The Road Jack,” “America, the Beautiful” and “I’ve Got A Woman.”

A unique partnership between the Grammy-nominated producers of the BIO documentary “Johnny Cash’s America,” and The Ray Charles Foundation, the film features unprecedented access to the Ray Charles archives including a wealth of rare and never-before-seen footage and photos and more than 25 of Charles’ recordings.

The special includes: A yet to be released recording of “It Hurts to Be In Love;” a never-before seen interview at his studio not long before his passing; live video from his recording sessions for “Genius Loves Company” including his duet with Willie Nelson for “It Was a Very Good Year” and his duet with Elton John for “Sorry Seems to Be The Hardest Word; an amazing performance of “Ring of Fire” on the Johnny Cash Show; and a tour of his private recording studio in LA including his wardrobe, chessboard and personal Braille address book and magazines. The many interviewees in the program include Willie Nelson, Clint Eastwood, Bill Cosby, Fran Drescher, Elton John, James Taylor, Quincy Jones, Ben Harper, Common, Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, B.B. King, Taylor Hackford, Glen Campbell, Tom Waits and Norman Lear.

Director Alexis Manya Spraic seeks out provocative and challenging subject matter. Last year, her documentary Shadow Billionaire examined DHL founder Larry Hillblom's mysterious disappearance off the coast of Micronesia (and subsequent estate battle among his many children with bar girls across all of Asia).

Farm School NYC

Wednesday, October 06, 2010 | |


Just Food and an alliance of local horticultural and food justice organizations are pleased to announce the official launch of Farm School NYC: The New York City School of Urban Agriculture. The school will offer a unique, community-based certificate program with enrollment beginning in January 2011. The mission of the school is to provide comprehensive professional training in urban agriculture, while spurring positive local action on issues of food access and social, economic and racial justice. AWESOMEEEEEEE!!!!

Fred Tomaselli @ Brooklyn Museum

Tuesday, October 05, 2010 | |

I love Fred Tomaselli. His psychedelic collages remind me of the infinite nature of the universe and how all things are interconnected. The Brooklyn Museum is opening a mid-career survey of his work (1990-present) this Friday and I am psyched. Besides two newly created works specific for this show (see Night Music for Raptors above), there are 12 works on paper making their US debut. These new works have transformed the front page of The New York Times into a backdrop for his work.

Brooklyn Museum
October 8 - January 2

Tomaselli’s artwork draws upon a wide range of sources from both popular culture and art history, and from his own hobbies of gardening, kayaking, and bird-watching. Growing up near the desert in southern California, Tomaselli felt the influence of nearby theme parks, with their manufactured reality, and the music and drug counterculture of Los Angles in the 1970s and 1980s. His distinctive melding of these influences coalesces into a folk-driven, utopian vision of the mythic American West and of lush gardens as sites of contemplation, loss, and possible redemption. One of the pioneering artists who moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in the 1980s, Tomaselli continues to live and work in the borough.


Duck Sauce, "Barbra Streisand"

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Armand van Helden and A-Trak's collaboration on Fool's Gold is heavy on the club banger tip but this video by So-Me is amazing. The Babs impersonator is awesome and so New York. The art direction is great and he really captures the energy and vibrance of NYC. Even the cameo's by Kanye, Pharell, Ryan Leslie, Buckshot, Smif-n-Wessun, DJ Premier, Diplo, ?uestlove, and Santigold are fun and natural. A great antidote to Chris Cunningham's downer of a video for Gil Scott-Heron...yeah, im still thinking about it.

The HUMP @ subMercer

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Its no secret that the subMercer has become a NYC-nightlife destination dedicated to that rare combination of great music, beautiful people, and DANCING. Join me this Wednesday as I host first subMercer edition of The HUMP, DJ Lindsey and DJ Myles' amazing throwback dance party playing your favorite old skool jams from 88-98. Get your fade tight, pull out your high-waisted pants, and dust off your dancing shoes...it's going DOWWWWNNNNN!!! Check out Gabby's rundown of the history of the party. Shes one of the founders of the jam!!

El Guincho, "Bombay"

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Spanish artist El Guincho dropped his 3rd full length album last month on Rough Trade. His eclectic mix of tropicalia, dub, afrobeat, rock and electronic makes his music sound like its from the future...Not to mention his amazing art projects that are his music videos. Check out the video for Bombay below. Warning...there are boobies involved.

Pop Negro's production is based on hi-fi aesthetics from the golden-era of recordings. I did some research on radio hits/big selling singles in North and South America, England and Spain in the late 70's, 80's and early 90's. I found out that a massive percentage of these hits were engineered (sometimes also produced) by just around 40/ 50 different guys. The ones I've chosen here became a big influence on Pop Negro...

EL GUINCHO | Bombay from MGdM | Marc Gómez del Moral on Vimeo.

EcoArk

Friday, October 01, 2010 | |


A cutting-edge engineering project has turned 1.5 million used plastic bottles into the world’s first large-scale recycled-plastic building.

From a distance, the building looks like a smart new addition to Taipei’s skyline—an angular, approximately nine-story-tall silver and white structure on Zhongshan North Road, not far from Taipei’s landmark Grand Hotel. Close up, it is a surprise for first-time visitors, as it is constructed with plastic bottles—1.5 million of them to be exact.

Since the building, known as the EcoArk, has taken shape, it has received much attention not only from local media, but international media including the BBC, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, and Bloomberg news services. National Geographic also has been filming it for the last half year for the TV channel’s MegaStructures program to air in early January.

The Taiwanese company that built it, Miniwiz Sustainable Energy Development Co. Ltd., a relatively young company started by a Taiwanese overseas returnee in his 30s, has also garnered a lot of attention. That is because the EcoArk is the world’s first fully functional, large-scale plastic building made from recycled plastic bottles. Taiwan is one of the biggest consumers of plastic bottles in the world, with the island’s 23 million residents using up to 4.6 billion polyethylene terephthalate or PET bottles each year. It took the company only a couple of weeks to gather enough used bottles to make the building, which it did by collecting them from department stores belonging to the Far Eastern Group, the project sponsor and one of Taiwan’s biggest conglomerates.

Read the full article here!

Gil Scott Heron's New York is Killing Me

Thursday, September 30, 2010 | |

Heres the actual video for Gil Scott-Heron's New York is Killing Me, directed by Chris Cunningham that premiered on Sunday at MoMA. Although I thought the video was beautiful, I wish it was directed by an actual NY-based director. Some of the shots seemed a little cliche (subway, bridges, back alleys) and I felt like the video took away from the haunting poetry of the song itself. Check out the previous post here.

Every Little Step

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I DIE!!! this is amazing.