On first glance these photos looks like some warped take on a Jamel Shabazz photo. Boom boxes become shoe shine stands, Kangol hats balaclavas. And I guess that V sign is just universal first, second and third world over.
The pics (Shabazz aside) are from a series called Lustrabotas by photographer Phil Clarke-Hill, whose current exhibition documents the hundreds of shoe shine boys who work and live on the streets of La Paz, Bolivia.
Apparently they don't wear the balaclavas to intimidate people, they're more about keeping anonymous. It's not just street kids who shoe-shine- a lot of lower middle class boys do it too help fund them through college, but don't want to be spotted 'working the streets'
Aswell as shining shoes, many of the boys sell and produce Big Issue style newspaper. Pretty mental stuff that I wouldn't know about if I hadn't seen these pics. Last chance to see them in the flesh this week at Viewfinder Gallery in Greenwich.
http://www.viewfinder.org.uk/
http://www.photomonth.org/
Squarelips make good videos for good music, just check their youtube comments as testimony...
Nakedtrampwarrior: This song is so gangster
Panaliar: Lovely
Hannahkido: :) fabbi doo xx
BBC Rapping Lowdown Part 1
What's this Rap thing everyones doing? A simply amazing piece of YOOF TV gold from the BBC. MC's take note, the rules have been written into British folklore via the Beeb so up your game. The states have DJ Kool Herc or Grandmaster Flash to remind us of rap history but we have MC Sonix with his incredibly insightful monologue in a London slur as to why rap is so popular in Britain in '88. "..it's catchy, it gives as much information as the news and it's easy to understand"
enjoy!
The Seen by James Fitton, 1948
Celebrating over 100 years of poster art on the tube this exhibition looks sick. It's crazy these posters designed by leading graphic designers of their time lined tube walls like Admiral Insurance, West End theatre productions and International Money Transfer posters do now. They first started being commisioned when there wasn't enough paid adverts for the allotted slots. Some of the older ones have a really sinister quality that pretty much sums up the early days of underground travel. I dunno about you but i would rather have my art on the underground for all to see than any gallery you can name in the world.
http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/136.aspx
Advanced Style
Pictures of trendy little things in trendy city hotspots has got to be the most annoying formulas in magazines and blogs so it's nice when someone does it a little different because style isn't just the preserve of youth.
The Back2Life Blogosphere is the biggest champion of elderly person steez (The Fly Files features regularly on the site) so big up Ari Cohen who runs a blog called Advanced Style. Its got loads of pictures of old ladies pounding the streets of New York in the usual "street spotter" format with plenty of swagger without a hipster in sight.
All you "street photography" fashion bloggers take note, stop hanging round Brick Lane/Carnaby Street with your camera taking pictures of young people who look just like you and get your untalented asses into the PR job you deserve now and leave style spotting to people with an eye and imagination for it.
Watch out for some UK old man steez, The Fly Files style that will be uploaded in the next couple of days here on the Back2Life blog.
http://advancedstyle.blogspot.com/
Is this the best bedspread you've ever seen or what? As the winter nights encroach I want this to keep me warm. This quilt is made from ten thousand pieces and is the labour of love of Siggi Eggerston, a London based designer who hails from Iceland, who grew up on a steady diet of lego and basketball.
http://www.vanillusaft.com/
Norwegian photographer Sølve Sundsbø is best known for his fashion photographs, which are always supremely slick (he's done YSL, Harpers Bazaar, Hermes, you name it) , but they're occasionally mad colourific and intense too (see old dazed shot above). In a new commission from the good people at Show Studio, Sundsbø has gone 'Back 2 Life', indulging his interest in the natural avian steez. PARROQUET is a series of shorts and photographic stills of a type of long tailed parrot. Check it here: http://www.showstudio.com/project/perroquet
London Snog by Dick Jewell
Kinky Gerlinky by Dick Jewell
This ain't really new information and I'm probably the last guy up on him but Dick Jewell is amazing. He makes these cool films (including the trailer above) that have the sickest use of basic fonts i've ever seen and feature some amazing moments in British style history and the website is full of nice photos found and taken as well as some sick collages.
Go check him out and add him on myspace as dude has only got 36 buddies right now
www.myspace.com/dick_jewell
http://www.dickjewell.dsl.pipex.com/
The Salvation Army Crew a.k.a The Sally Army
A Couple of Sally Army gang affiliates on road
Tim & Barry TV gold
Things are getting crazy hype on the grime vine with news that Universal has just signed one of the capitals grimiest, road toughened, ghetto, crews around. Grime MC's all over the capital are at home practicing their screw faces and frantically scribbling down bars for radio phone ins in an angry response to being overlooked for the million pound record deal. It's set to be the clash of all clashes with some of the biggest names in Grime set to call out individual members of the newly signed crew with all mans maneuvering to establish themselves as the most representative of the "street".
Founded in the east end in 1865 the newly signed crew rolls like a military unit and hangs with the poor, destitute and hungry. Yo, they lurk in the darkest quarters. The crew is vast, their click is a million strong with man dem spanning the globe. This lot don't fuck about, there ain't no false swag in their swagger. Gang members can be recognised through their military style uniform or trademark red and white shield tag. They have free parties all the time where they play live on road and use (very) low end restaurants as their official fronts. This lot epitomise hard hustle and discipline.
They started making music when dealing with unruly crowds as they roamed the streets of London town, the founding music members where originally hired as "bodyguards" who then started playing music to battle and distract angry mobs. As a soundsystem they have an intimidating record of success.
Boasts of shanks and Staffs ain't gonna cut it no more in the who's more man-on-road scene of raves and pirate radio now that the Salvation Army A.K.A The Sally Army have stepped in and raised the bar in what is truly "street".
Its set to be the biggest music beef London has ever seen with one crew taking on an entire musical genre for the right to call themselves the most representative of road.
As Universal Music signs them on the South Bank with a million pound record deal and a Hovis Bread theme tune single on its way in November the rest of us can rest easy amidst all this beefing in the knowledge that Tim & Barry are smashing it online with the unsigned glitterati of Grime in E7 doing what they do best on their 100% live, NO miming, NO concept, Just GOOD music Online TV channel.
Jay-Z and Nas, eat your heart out.
http://www.youtube.com/user/timandbarrytv
http://www2.salvationarmy.org.uk
French film 'The Class' (Entre Les Murs) is killing at the Box Office in it's native country as it goes head to head with another another home-grown flick 'Faubourg 36'.
'The Class' depicts a year in the life of secondary school class in the suburbs of Paris. Director Laurent Cantet embraces cinema verite techniques to create the 'slice of life' storytelling which won the film the Palme d'or award at Cannes earlier this year. The film is based on the original script by former teacher Francois Begaudeau who plays himself in the film, alongside a team of non professional actors. I haven't seen it yet, can't tell a word they're saying, but know I want to see more.
Shot on HD for £1.9m, a fraction of the price of 'Faubourg 36'(£22m) if the rave reviews are anything to go by 'The Class' is proof that bigger budget doesn't always mean bigger box office bucks. See it for yourself (with subtitles!) as part of the BFI Film Festival on Saturday October 18th at the Odeon West End.
www.bfi.org.uk/lff/
The Birthplace 1520 Sedgwick Avenue
DJ Kool Herc Rec Room Flyer 1973
Future (unlikely) UK Blue Plaquers
The good people at 21st Century Maroon Colony (www.21maroons.com) just sent some Stateside News. 1520 Sedgwick Avenue is a pretty unremarkable looking block in the South Bronx which has a truly remarkable history in contemporary culture but the good people of the NY State Court have just passed a ruling to sell to the highest bidder from the city's Mitchell-Lama Moderate Housing Program after several lawsuits and appeals by the residents failed.
This probably sounds like normal civil fare and it is but what makes this different is that this building is the birthplace of Hip Hop. It holds the Rec Room at the front of the building that the legendary DJ Kool Herc first learned how to DJ with two turntables and invented the basis for what we all know now as Hip Hop.
A building with such historical resonance should be in the eyes of anybody with a little common sense and compassion a protected landmark but not in this case. It's got me thinking about similar future circumstances here in the UK. So I've put together some potential blue plaquers who could qualify in the future for having their homes protected under law although I'm not holding my breath. In the US you gotta be Elvis to protect your property and in the UK you gotta be a Beatle or a Bee Gee and you gotta have a house in a desirable place, there ain't no protection or celebration of past dwelling happening in the projects or estates regardless of their past inhabitants social impact.
check out www.21marrons.com for more detail and posts of interest
Shutting Up Shop is a photographic homage to the traditional small shop, seen through the lens of John Londei. Londei (big surname!) started the project back in the late 70's, and spent fifteen years recording the independent stores of this kind, which are now a dying breed in London Town. Of the Sixty shops Londei Photographed, only one seven were still trading in 2004. I'd like to say hundreds of nu-skool home grown equivalents have popped up in their places, but that might be wishful thinking. According to a recent House Of Commons Report, 'if the steady demise of independent shops continues at its current rate, the majority of Britain's 26,800 independent retailers would be out of business by 2015'.
An exhibition of selected images from the book'Shutting Up Shop' opens today at The Museum of London.
Tv on the Radio - Golden Age
Teddy Ruxpin
Watching this video i couldn't help but think Mr Ruxpin would come flying through the frame in his shabby little blimp with his slightly sinister old man buddy and set up shop on a third mountain and out-dance these hipsters.
If TV on the Radio were a cartoon character they would definitely be Teddy Ruxpin, jamming in their ghetto blimp hunting down the Treasure of Grundo via misadventures with the Monsters and Villains Organisation. Ruxpin was a little less polished of a production than his peers shambling around a mysterious world with a ramshackle crew out maneuvering dickhead Trolls. He was wholesome and pop but did his thing in a chaotic and charming way in a lost era of great cartoon soundtracks.
Watch out for animatronic versions of TVOTR where u stick a cassette in their backs and watch their eyes and mouths move to amazingly shabby pop records. They are everything Bloc Party didn't deliver and more and are frontrunners in a rare breed of indie bands with real soul.
Check out Nash Money's latest collaboration with Mishka for New Era.
Yet again bringing something truly different.
http://www.myspace.com/nashatyourmumshouse
http://www.nashmoney.blogspot.com/
I Stand Corrected
Yesterday I came across a photographer after blogtanians own heart. This shot was taken Major Deegan, a New York based snapper who captures NY street life in all its glory, many shots including the citys proud pooches. Big ups.
See the world through his eyes here...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/major1deegan
British Isles 3-D Puzzle
JME's Kypton Factor
The ultimate brain show that tests your mental agility and physical prowess is coming back. Tipped to test a new generation of competitors in 3-D puzzles, reflex's, general knowledge, flight simulation and assault course endurance.
JME's been conditioning his body and brain since it left our screens in an attempt to capture the title. New tests in this new generation version that aim to appeal to British youths could include: Ghetto lacing your Max 90's in under 2 minutes, downloading a Soldier Boy song and setting it as your ringtone, a physical test of running up steps to the top floor of your block of flats, tube driver simulation test and rolling a blunt one handed whilst supping on champs (Moet).
Hopefully the new show will feature contestants that say stuff when they successfully complete tasks like JME in his Kryton Factor version "I'm a fucking badman still"
Jamie (16), College Green, Bristol. Photo by Nick Hand
Josh (15), Harrogate, Photo by Ricky Adam
Brand-zines are fucking me off. The usual shit applies. A load of marketing men and twitty yah-yah pr girls disguising their messages in a magazine or newspaper format so that their trendy little target audience might pick it up and breath in the brand they are flogging in the same way these little trendies digest the usual "what's hot and what's not" content usually found within these mediums.
A day in the west end and i've come across four. Nike, profiling flamboyantly clothed urban yoots, who say stuff along the lines of "Nike is down with us kids". Vans with their "Vanzine" featuring their up coming collaboration with an old skateboarder who draws comics (yes it's that obvious), size?, who consistently disguise advert after advert after advert as some sort of newspaper without any news and Howies who have actually done something surprisingly good and possibly deserve not to be grouped in this as a brand-zine due to their lack of branding and positivity of message.
Its on real nice paper and has some really good photos and it's themed around something they call "13up" which is all about being a teenager. Its full of great little quotes from teens from all over blighty and some more focused documentary shoots that form a really nice collection of teenage spirit. Their website has loads more stuff on it and is well worth a look, just ignore the shit clothes.
Hopefully other brands will take a leaf out of Howies zine and start delivering publications that aren't full of product hype and are more about the actual audiences that they are trying desperately hard to communicate with. So Brands if you ain't gonna do it right, go make an advert or a poster or an event and buy some media space to shove it in. Leave zines alone and stop pretending your something u ain't.
check http://www.13up.howies.co.uk/ for more on Howies good project
Bjork - Wanderlust
Cool Kids - Delivery Man
As Always, two for ya money today. You got Bjork on a Never Ending Story tip for you sat at homers and The Cool Kids cotching out in the sun with some taxidermy.
It's your "what to do on a Saturday?" decision, visualised.
Taken from possibly the best British music show ever, that pisses all over any current floppy haired, phone company sponsored, ironic TV presenter led offering, Dance Energy also gave us great insight into the lives of it's TV audience
I just wonder if louise got what she wanted? Answers on a postcard
The Making of House of Cards
How TV Works
So Mo posted the House of Cards video a little while ago and to follow that up here's a short film about how these clever bastards did it followed by a short film about how TV works. Basically it's fucking baffling how they made the Radiohead video but essentially they don't use any cameras and instead use this smart little machine that does some measuring and records depth instead of light.
Now I'm not sure i see the point in making a video without a camera because they work pretty well, it kind of screams unnecessary but Hey the end product looks different and fits with the narrative of the song and once like Radiohead you've made about a million solid videos what you gonna do next?
