Remember the artist that specialized in painting iconic pop art paintings on high heels? Well, she’s back, and Boyarde Messenger has diversified her portfolio. She’s now into body painting, and is also apparently taking commissions on prospective clients who want to get their asses blasted. With paint. Check out some of the remarkable results below, and go here for more on Boyarde’s methodology.
A friend of mine recently lent me a copy of Neil Strauss‘ Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead – a collection of snippets of interviews from an amazing assortment of musicians and actors (read if you can – it’s a treat). There’s a great excerpt with David Bowie (one of my all time favourite artists and favourite interviewees). At the end of the segment, he asks Neil if he’s seen a recent exhibition of one Henry Darger at the American Institute of Folk Art.
Curious, I had to find out more.
It turns out the Chicago based Henry Darger is widely regarded as being one of the most significant self-taught artists of the 20th century. After both his parents passing away at an early age, he was raised in a Catholic mission until escaping in his teens. He went on to work as a janitor for the rest of his life until dying a day after his birthday in 1973. His most noted work is In the Realms of the Unreal, a 15,145 page long epic story he wrote over the course of 60 years. The majority of the work is called The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion and centers on the theme of child slavery. What’s amazing is Darger was a self-taught artist, and the illustrations that accompanied the work are simply breathtaking. For more on Darger, go here, and scroll down to see more of his works.
Sheila Rock is an American born photographer that was around during the birth of punk in the UK and was able to capture some pretty stunning photos of the burgeoning movement.
Nevermind those sterile museum retrospectives, First Third Books has just published Punk+, a gorgeous new coffee table monograph featuring Sheila Rock’s documentation of the formative London punk scene. Although many of the faces are familiar, the emphasis on punk as a youth culture, as a tribe, makes this a welcome departure from many other books of punk era photography. These shots are from when the participants were still really young and Rock’s intimate images haven’t lost any of their power from being overused (85 to 90% of the photographs are unseen according to her estimate).
Check out some more of her work below, and go here to buy her new book.
Former Daft Punk manager/French electro pioneer Pedro Winter (akaBusy P)’s boutique French electronic label Ed Banger Records, turns ten this year, and they’re celebrating. They’re releasing an anniversary compilation, Ed Rec Vol. X, featuring new material by Ed Banger artists including Justice, Cassius, Feadz, SebastiAn, Mr. Oizo, and Busy P himself. That’ll be out on June 11 in conjunction with Because Music.
I’m really liking this next track, released last month off Ed Banger, a re-mix courtesy of Laurent Garnier‘s Jacques In the Box. This one’s the Brodinski & Gesaffelstein Dirty Sprite Remix. It’s got a very slow, deliberate and intense build to it. Straight up dark and hypnotic dopeness.
I first came across DrDr quite by chance. I used to go this site called Mighnightxdrive. They had posted a track last year called Addicted, and I was pretty well hooked after that. It was rare to hear such a soulful voice with the perfect blend of restrained bass heavy beats. Sure there was an undeniable garage presence but there was also traces of house in there too. With a plethora of new material on the way, DrDr are not going away anytime soon, in fact 2013 may be the year they blow up large. They are certainly one to watch out for. DrDr are based in Brighton, and comprised of 2 producers , Chris Campbell and Joe Woods and vocalist Donna Cursons. Donna took time out to answer some questions from DG.
Let’s start with the obvious, how did you come up with the name?
I would love to say that our name is a reference to Robert Palmer‘s ‘I’ve got a bad case for loving you’ but unfortunately its a lot more simple than that. We had written a song and were looking for a name to call ourselves, at the same time our mates had told us a knock knock joke. And we thought could we call ourselves KnockKnock? Or maybe something a bit cooler.. DrDr.
How did you all come to meet? How long have you been playing together? Did you guys gel right away?
Me and Joe have been writing music together for many years and were in a band together before called Bassface. We then moved to the beautiful Brighton and met Chris. Through the miscommunication of our friends me and Chris ended up crashing at the same house and from the love of good music we formed DrDr. We wrote our first track ‘Wrong’ and learned how to work with each other. Its great to have found two wicked producers that are some of my closest friends to make music with, it makes the whole process a lot easier.
Are all of you from Brighton? I was there many years ago, had lots of fun at some of those seaside clubs. There seemed to be a strong art/music movement there, did that play a role in your development as artists?
None of us are actually from Brighton, but I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else (especially when the sun comes out!). Musically its brilliant, although we tend to gig a lot in London our Brighton shows are always huge and have a great atmosphere. With all the music festivals that are about and every venue having live music its a fantastic town for musicians to live in and has influenced us immensely.
I read somewhere that you got into singing because all of your other efforts disturbed your neighbors, That’s very considerate of you! Are any of you guys formally trained, or are you all self-taught musicians?
Originally I used to play Drums- I lived in the middle of nowhere so it was never a problem until we had neighbours! We all have musical backgrounds, Joe is fully qualified Bass Player and Chris is qualified Guitar player. Both studied at BIMM so gained a lot of experience throughout their courses. I however have only had maybe 2 singing lessons, I have mostly taught myself and picked up tricks along the way. Whenever I hear a vocalist that I’m inspired by I try to mimic what they are doing to expand my vocals.. Seems to have worked so far!
What are your musical inspirations?
If you looked at our Itunes playlists you might be surprised the vast genres we listen to. Anything from Ben Harper to Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Since we started DrDr our influences have been a bit more tuned into the genre we play out. Sbtrkt have been an huge inspiration, they brought something new to music and expanded our way of thinking. Burial, Jamie XX, Rustie and many more have been among the artists to influence the way we write music.
You’ve done quite a few covers and re-mixes, how did you get the original artists on board, did you contact them or vice versa?
The latest cover we did of Kissy Sell out and Machines Don’t Care ‘Ready for the world’. Was started when Kissy came to us asking for a cover, it was great to have such a renowned artist interested in us. Before our covers have always been because of an loop that sounds like the original and we have decided to run with it!! It’s great fun putting our own stamp on a track that’s already brilliant!!
What’s your methodology in composing your music, do you come with lyrics first, or a melody. How much planning goes into
developing a new track, or is it more a spontaneous/organic process?
We spend a lot of time together and because of that a lot of our tracks can be quite spontaneous. I’ve always found the more comfortable you are with your band the easier the music flows. It usually starts with one of the boys coming up with an 8 bar loop in which I find a vocal hook to go with it. After then it’s all about long nights and the boys working on the perfect bassline or beat that will make the track. Melody is always first for me.. Then come the lyrics.
You’ve been described as future bass, with a sound that incorporates elements of garage, soul and house. Is that what you’d label yourself? Do you think you’re part of a growing sound or do you just see yourselves as doing your own thing?
Like I said we’ve had some pretty big influences from some huge artists and from that different genres have crept into our music. Garage will always be a big part of it but as far as we are concerned our tracks have to compromise two things- you’ve gotta be able to dance and when we’ve done we wanna share it to anyone who will listen .
What are you guys currently planning as far as live performances? I hear your touring the UK, any plans for mainland Europe or N.America?
Our live performance has always been about bringing our live band background into dance music. We plan to bring more instruments to make the whole experience much more visual. It will all slowly come together but at the moment we use live vocals, ve20 boss delay, 2 macs, keyboard, a drum pad and an MPC. That’s enough at the moment!! We have been talking to a booking agent in America so hopefully be over there this year and will be hitting a few more cities in the UK including Manchester in June.
When is the next album coming out? Can you tell us anything about it?
The next EP will be out in the summer around July. It’s a much more dance floor EP. We have been dancing around to it the last couple of weeks and played a few tracks out at our latest gig which went down really well. It’s a bit different to No Compromise but still very DrDr. Until then we plan to gig as much as possible and will be releasing a few more collabs and covers before the next EP. So watch out!!
So today, DG turns 3 – coincidentally, this will be my 333rd post – whoa! I just wanted to take time out to thank everyone for stopping by. As of yesterday, DG is now 100% advertisement free. Usually when sites grow in popularity, owners normally solicit advertising to try and capitalize on a following, but that’s never what DG has been about. I wanted this blog as a medium to share the music, art and film I am truly excited and passionate about, and I’m keeping it that way. If you want to contribute, like us on facebook, follow me on twitter, and even better, leave a comment on an article that you dug. In the meantime, I’m still working on completing a documentary in my spare time – it’s called Sketched Out, and it’s about the history of underground music in Toronto. I’m also working on a graphic novel in the post apocalyptic/sci-fi/horror genre about pirates and ninjas. It’s called Ice Cold Nights, Dark Dark Days, and will feature the work of the very talented artist J.Rozen, here is an unfinished piece below. I am hoping it will be out by end of summer. Thanks again everyone! (photo above is licensed under wikipedia commons, and is not an advertisement for dunkin’ donuts.)
With the weather finally taking a turn for the better after a seemingly never ending cold ass winter, the timing couldn’t have been better for this video to come out. This gorgeous track from rising stars Snakehips featuring George Maple gets a sizzling hot video chalk full of psychedelic sunshine, hightops on skateboards, and some herbal refreshment on the side. It’s kind of like someone just captured the best moments of summer on video.
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