April 2012
87 posts
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The Black and White Project: Day 366: March 30,...
Taking a brief walk in Times Square during lunch, I came across some NYU students who were doing a project on social media — in particular Facebook. Speaking to a couple of the students, they told me that their project had to do with the public response to the kind of inappropriate, stupid, thoughtless that Facebook users regularly post on a daily basis. Most of the stuff was lifted...
March 2012
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Album Review: AVAN LAVA's Flex Fantasy EP
Avan Lava
Flex Fantasy EP
Release Date: February 21, 2012
Personnel
TC – vocals
Le Chev – synths, keyboards, production, etc.
Ian Pai – synths, keyboards, production, etc.
Live shows include:
Andrew Schneider (Wooster Group)
Drew Citron
Jo Lampert
Track Listing
Tear It Down
It’s Never Over
Pure as Love
Slow Motion
Sisters
Feels Good
Avan Lava can trace their formation to a conversation Le...
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The Black and White Project: Day 365: March 29,...
Thursday was a particularly busy day. After work I had to run a weekly errand in Union Square before going to the Jebon Sushi House on St. Mark’s Place to catch Jeanne Marie Boes play a brief set as part of their Underground Artists series. Getting off a downtown N train at Union Square and walking through the park, I encountered the folks of Occupy Wall Street — and if you...
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Album Review: Afrolicious' Pleasuretime EP
Afrolicious
Pleasuretime EP
ESL Records
Release Date: March 27, 2012
Track Listing
Pleasuretime
Revolution
Never Let No One
Bade Malou
What We Came For
Afrobeat has seen an unprecedented surge of popularity with a number of Western/American artists adopting the sound created by the unique mixture by jazz, rock, funk, soul and the sounds and traditions of Nigeria. Interestingly, Afrobeat...
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Last year, the Washington, DC-based the Funk Ark...
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Formed in the late summer of 2009, the Malmo...
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The Black and White Project: Day 364: March 28,...
March 28th was my birthday and in some way it was a bit of a bittersweet birthday. I can’t say it enough 2011 was a difficult year for me personally as it was full of sweeping sea changes. And as I turn 33, I feel weary, scarred and yet hopeful that this year will see many great things — so far, this has been a much better year than expected. Just before my birthday Google Analytics...
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WatchThe folks at the Onion’s AV Club created a video series called Undercover in which their writers and editors come up with lists of songs that would be cool to cover, and they invite bands to come into a small round room in Chicago to see the results. But once a song is covered, the song is crossed off the list. Interestingly, Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty’s duet “Stop Draggin’...
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The Black and White Project: Day 363: March 27,...
Tuesday night, I was set to cover Nigerian singer/songwriter Nneka perform at the Gramercy Theatre. Knowing that I was only a few stops away and that I had a photo pass allowed me to take a little bit more time to get down to the Flatiron District, without missing anything. After walking through Times Square, hoping that I’d come across something interesting, I stopped at the Times Square...
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Songs is the follow up to Rusko’s 2010...
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The Black and White Project: Day 362: March 26,...
Spring has sprung a bit early and as you can tell the flowers have already bloomed weeks early.
I came across this sign and it caught my attention. Shouldn’t we all perform some random act of kindness? Maybe it will make the world a much better place.
For these photos and the rest of the photos of the project, check out the Flickr set here:
...
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Shabazz Palaces has a unique hip hop sound —...
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The Dig and Ben Kweller at Irving Plaza 3/24/12
Saturday night, I got a chance to catch New York-based act The Dig, who are touring to support their forthcoming album, Midnight Flowers and Ben Kweller at Irving Plaza. I was running a bit late — I managed to get caught up on a blog post — and by the time I got into the venue, I was incredibly flustered and never got a chance to write down any notes for the show; however, I managed to...
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The Black and White Project: Day 359, Part 2 and...
I was on my way back out to my regular bar when I came across this bit of graffiti on a van. Yes, even after a day of shooting, I’ll have my trusty Canon T1i because there always could be something interesting that captures my eye. I worry about what it means to the project much later.
The same artist was back at it again, this time leaving his mark on the side of a truck.
Blue skies...
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The Black and White Project: Day 359: March 23,...
I took a brief walk through Times Square during my lunch break when I came across a fairly regular neighborhood sight. If you’ve followed my project, there have been a couple of photos of him. He spends some portion of his day, waiting for a video screen to show the goings on of the people below.
I had to run an errand near Union Square when I came across Occupy Wall Street...
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WatchConsequence of Sound premiered the video for San Francisco-based act, Still Flyin’s first single “Travelin’ Man” which will appear on their forthcoming new album, On a Bedroom Wall. Ernest Jenning Records will release the album on May 22nd.
This track reminds me of shimmering 80s electro pop. I can’t help but be reminded of Tears for Fears when I hear this one.
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“Drown” is the first (and lead) single...
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The Black and White Project: Day 358: March 22,...
Walking around after work for photos for yesterday’s Black and White Project proved to be kind of frustrating and I had to rush up to Bar East to catch Alexa Dexa and maybe another set or two of artists at the venue’s March Music Festival. And of course, when I got to the uptown 6 train platform at 59th Street and Lexington Avenue, I wound up just missing the train you see in this...
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WatchI recently got a hold of Boss China’s “Money Everyday” and it immediately brought to mind comparisons between Boss China, Eve, The Lady of Rage and Da Brat. It’s shamefully rare to have female MCs shown love but I dug the track and had to post it for y’all. So check out the raw hip hop, eh?
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Album Review: Henry Cole and the Afrobeat...
Henry Cole and the Afrobeat Collective
Roots Before Branches
Release Date: March 13, 2012
Track Listing
1. Aurea V.
2. Trabajala
3. To Believe Without Seeing
4. Año 2010
5. No Eres Tu, Soy Yo
6. Comienzo
7. Una Para Isabel
8. Solo Dos Veces
9. Uncovered Fear
10. Musica Para Sueño
11. Solo
As a genre, Afrobeat is a hard to...
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The Black and White Project: Day 357: March 21,...
Here an Elvis impersonator is being unusually shy and did everything he could possible do to avoid the camera.
A group called the Granny Peace Brigade was conducting a demonstration for peaceful negotiations with Iran. Part of their demonstration included describing the celebrations for the Farsi New Year, which generally occurs during the vernal equinox. The celebrations themselves tie...
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The Black and White Project: Day 356: March 20,...
Tuesday would have been my father’s 58th birthday. Naturally, my thoughts turned to him in some way and it put me in a bit of a weird, kind of conflicted mood about the day. Death, even of someone who has been estranged still impacts the family in profound ways. In the case of someone who’s been absent for quite some time, it makes their absence much more profound. And yet, there was a...
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Combining elements of funk, dub step, disco and...
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Creative Juices Music's Strength in Numbers...
A couple of weeks ago, Creative Juice Music hosted Strength in Numbers, I Am Many’s CD release show hosted by Hot 97’s Peter Rosenberg, featuring New Rap Order, Nems, the aforementioned I Am Many and the night’s headliner Homeboy Sandman.
I wound up concentrating a bit more on taking photos, having a good time and chatting with some of the audience but, I do have some brief...
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The Black and White Project: Day 355: March 19,...
With the weather being so unusually pleasant, I took a walk down to Bryant Park, checking out some of the world’s loveliest women and some of city’s more interesting people out and about.
Here I caught some jugglers practicing while in the park.
The park’s carousel. I had been wanting to take a photo of it for a while but I had the unfortunate luck of walking in the park...
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WatchSinger/songwriter Kelli Scarr was born and raised in Folsom, California, a town once known as a prospector’s town during the Gold Rush but more known to us as the site of Folsom State Prison. Discovering her passion for music and for singing in her local church and high school choirs, Scarr left California to head to Boston for music school, and eventually landed in Brooklyn (like a lot of...
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The Black and White Project: Days 353-354: March...
Instead of hanging around the amateurs and riffraff, I headed out to Littlefield, the art gallery and performance space in Park Slope, Brooklyn, to catch Emefe, Cyro Baptista’s Banquet of Leprechauns (a fitting name for St. Patrick’s Day is it not?) and Superhuman Happiness. More on that eventually. But as I got off a downtown R at the Union Street R, N and D station and walked down...
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The Black and White Project: Day 352: March 16,...
In life, there are different kinds of fools — the ignorant fool, the drunken, loutish fool, the foolishly in love, the crazy fool, those who are foolish with money and time, and so on — and in some way, we have a sense of empathy towards those fools. After all, we have all probably been an ignorant fool, a drunken fool, and foolishly in love at some point in our lives. Hell, I know I...
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Bermuda Bonnie, Sunglasses, and Zambri at Cameo...
Bermuda Bonnie, Sunglasses and Zambri
Cameo Art Gallery
February 10, 2012
As I’ve mentioned a few times here, I balance running this blog on a full time basis with having a full time career, and although at times it’s (understandably) difficult, and I’ve been desperately trying to catch up and keep on track whenever I can. Not that I can complain because it’s absolutely every single moment – even...
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The Black and White Project: Day 351: March 15,...
After I had completed my freshman year at NYU, I realized one very important thing — that the only thing I really wanted to do and truly cared about was writing. I desperately wanted to do something creative and made a name for myself. So when I told my mother, that I wanted to be a writer, she had several insightful words that I remember to this very day.
She told me in her infinite...
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The Black and White Project: Day 350: March 14,...
Wednesday night, I was slated to cover some local bands at the Upper East Side Music Festival at Bar East. One of them included Donner Social, the Astoria, Queens-based electronica act that I covered several weeks ago. Now, normally while I’m covering shows I’m generally multitasking — writing notes, taking photos, drinking a beer and networking but tonight, the performance...
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The Black and White Project: Day 349: March 13,...
I caught this young man in Times Square earlier today, and I had to take a photo of him because he had the most kick ass Mohawk I’ve seen in some time. Just looking at him, I was reminded of the punks and gutter punks who used to hang around St. Mark’s Place as late as 2003 or so. Even that New York was a much different place and it’s a shame that it’s gone.
For...
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The Black and White Project: Day 348: March 12,...
With the weather being unseasonably warm, I had to figure out what I was going to do during my lunch break, and it was a fairly simple solution — a nice walk in Central Park.
Here a horse carriage driver, chats on a cell phone while awaiting fares. He had turned his back to me but he was having a rather animated conversation with the person on the other line.
Here a saxophonist is...
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Album Review: Gregory Scott Slay's Horsethief...
Gregory Scott Slay
Horsethief Beats
Communicating Vessels
Release Date: November 15, 2011
Track Listing
Moony Pt. 1
Keep It Secret
Kindred Spirit
New Loop, Old Hope
Visit With a Snowman
Birds Next Door
Hidden Among the Somethings
And When She Speaks
Moony Pt. 2
On a number of occasions I’ve mentioned here that Remy Zero’s The Golden Hum was not only a shamefully underappreciated album in my...
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Midnight Magic, much like Jessica 6 consists of...