“Primordial Punk,” reads their mission statement, “represents what’s been missing from the cultural dialogue of beauty. It calls upon the talents of professional artists to challenge, confront, rearrange, and revisualize the standard against which AFRICAN-AMERICAN beauty is measure.” What better way to celebrate a new aesthetic for beauty than with some funky pictures and a party?

The Pictures: The 1st-ever BLACK PUNK PIN-UP CALENDAR 2 Primo Pin-Ups, Tamar-kali, Imani Coppola, Sylvia Gordon, MilitiA, DJ Reborn, dj.shErOck, Ife Mora, Nneka Bennett, ninja.bot.body.rock, Josiane, Lesley J, and Bailey Davis. Each model was styled after song lyrics written by a Black rock artist or band. The Calendar ships out in October with proceeds benefiting the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls and the Black Rock Coalition. But until then, we can satiate our punk pin-up cravings by sinking our teeth into…

The Party: Primordial Punk’s 1st Annual Debutante Ball runs in conjunction with the 4th Annual Afro-Punk Fest in Brooklyn. The event will feature 4 hot numbers by our loves, Brown Girls Burlesque with live accompaniment by Mackie Riverside & the Street Pushers, live sets by Apollo Heights, Betty Black, Chewing Pics and Sweetie, DJ Tjade on decks, and live painting by Fly Lady Di. Information will be on-hand to pre-order the Black Punk Pin-Up Calendar for $10.

Debutante Ball Launch Party
Friday, July 11th
Galapagos @ 10PM
70 North 6th Street in Williamsburg
FREE and open to the public

Thursday, July 10, 7:30pm
Solas Bar (232 E. 9^th Street btw 3^rd and 2^nd Aves)
St. Mark’s Reading Series featuring Ed Park and Leni Zumas

More Ed Park (Editor of Believer Magazine and New-York Ghost, and now author of Personal Days), along with Leni Zumas (Farewell Navigator: Stories).

Friday, July 11, 7:00pm
McNally Robinson (52 Prince St. between Lafayette and Mulberry)
David Browne & Thurston Moore

It’s Sonic Youth night on Friday at McNally Robinson as founding member Thurston Moore and writer David Browne (Goodbye 20^th Century: A Biography of Sonic Youth) come together to discuss the New York underground scene in the 70s and 80s as well as the band. The website says there might be audio and video. Moore is the author of several books, most recently No Wave: Post-Punk. Underground. New York 1976-1980. and the eponymous and brief moment in music in New York. Browne is a journalist and author, and his book gives the history of Sonic Youth and its influence on the scene.

 
Monday, June 30, 7:00pm
Housing Works Used Bookstore & Café (126 Crosby Street, South of Houston)
BOMB Magazine presents: Victoria Redel and Honor Moore

BOMB Magazine presents BOMBLive from time to time, and this Monday there will be a talk between Victoria Redel (The Border of Truth) and Honor Moore (The Bishop’s Daughter) “about fathers and daughters, fiction and memory.” With a Q+A and signing. Should be interesting.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008
McNally Robinson (52 Prince St. between Lafayette and Mulberry)
Marcus Reeves & Alec Forge on Hip Hop and Radio

In case you missed the last Marcus Reeves’s (Somebody Scream!: Rap Music’s Rise to Prominence in the Aftershock of Black Power) event that I mentioned, here’s another, equally interesting. He will be talking with Alec Foege, author of Right of the Dial: The Rise of Clear Channel and the Fall of Commercial Radio, about hip-hop and commercial radio on Wednesday.

Here’s one for all you DIY photogs, lomos and designers out there: the Lomographic Society International is partnering with the tee-shirt company Threadless on a contest to design some gear inspired by Lomo’s 10 Golden Rules of Photography.

Rule 1: Take your camera everywhere you go
Rule 2: Use it any time — day or night
Rule 3: Lomography is not an interference in your life but part of it
Rule 4: Try the shot from the hip
Rule 5: Approach the objects of your lomographic desire as close as possible
Rule 6: Don’t think
Rule 7: Be fast
Rule 8: You don’t have to know beforehand what you captured on film
Rule 9: Afterwards either
Rule 10: Don’t worry about any rules

Known for supplying the recent resurgence in plastic, “toy” cameras like the Diana, the Holga and the Lomo — cheap-bodied, high-saturated, medium-format relics of the American 50s to 70s, Soviet Russia and good Commuists worldwide — the Lomographic Society was founded in Vienna in the early 90s by a couple of guys who accidentally rediscovered the magic aesthetic of these cameras. The society’s guerrilla style and rules of irreverence quickly outgrowing its supply, Lomo expanded to Berlin a few years later and held simultaneous inaugural exhibitions in New York and Moscow.

Watch out of your design wins! Besides the 2,000 Dollars in prize cash, you could also gain a heap of Lomo camera tricks. With those in your pocket, you’ll soon find yourself in a vast global network of street photogs and creatives who will nod knowingly every time you snap off a little plastic shot.

More on Lomographic here and on the contest here.

Stephanie’s got soul. So much soul that it moves through her lyrics, erupts uncontrollably with the unique alto in her voice, and leaves a deep resonance in the minds of listeners. Her soul is fresh and according to her, marks a “reincarnation for the new generation.”

This Bronx-born native makes no mistake when it comes to producing lasting music. With influences from greats such as Betty Wright, Lyn Collins, Margie Joseph, Roberta Flack, Candi Staton and Mavis Staples, it’s only expected that the rasp-jazz songstress bring music back to its feel-good roots.

July 21st marks the expedition back home, with the release of her forthcoming album Tell It Like It Is. When asked about the hiatus between this album and her 2003 self-titled debut, Stephanie McKay responded with a quote from Q-Tip: “Record company people are shady.”

Fortunately, she’s worked through the industry struggles to put forth a solid album. With its distinct title, Tell It Like It Is speaks to the people on their own level. Her latest single “Jackson Avenue” is a hip revival of the classic ‘day on my block’ theme and brings listeners on a journey of what she says focuses “good times, good friends, and Sergio Valente’s.” Stephanie describes this album as “more organic, less electronic” than her debut.

With inspiration stemming from family, life and love Stephanie indulges in the art of storytelling, and she’s had the opportunity to work with some of our times most acclaimed storytellers — Mos Def and Talib Kweli. She describes the two as “poets and masters of their craft. Dedicated to the betterment of their community and proud of their culture. These are things I aspire to do as an artist.”

With her ability to grasp an audience with her music, Stephanie has set herself in the right path to achieve this goal, and been marked her as an artist to be reckoned with.

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.
Blu may be one of my favorite street artists working today. His work, as instantly identifiable by style as it is by sheer scale, has also been humming a high current through the world art net recently, culminatingin an invitation to do a piece on the side of the Tate Modern in London and a solo show at the Galleria Patricia Armocida in Milan, which opened last week.

Like a global graphic novel, Blu’s tenuously allegorical grotesques and often mythological figures appear on building-sized panels dispersed from Saõ Paulo to Berlin and from Nigeria to Palestine. There isn’t a narrative that binds them to be “read” together — at least not one I see — but each sketch is also a skit, a scene acted out in the borderlands of comedy and drama. A little bit of surreal life sliced out of a dreaming child’s acidic nightmare by a sure, clever surgeon.

The life that Blu gives his creations is what sets him apart most and nowhere is that life more evident than in the epic stop-animation above that he made last winter.

More Blu here.

Blu (June 18 - July 25, 2008)

Galleria Patricia Amocida

via Bazzini n°17, Milano

Wednesday, June 25, 8:00pm
Happy Ending Reading Series (Happy Ending Lounge, 302 Broome Street)

Amanda Stern’s Happy Ending Reading Series ends out Wednesday with readings from Marisa Silver (The God of War), Nicholas Dawidoff (The Crowd Sounds Happy), and Sloane Crosley (I Was Told There’d Be Cake) and music by Nina Katchadourian. Each author is asked to do one risky thing, and the musician to play one cover. Always a fun, smart time.

Thursday, June 26, 7:30pm
St. Mark’s Reading Series @ Solas Bar (232 E. 9th Street btw. 2nd and 3rd Aves)
Continuum 33 1/3rd Reading

Three authors from Continuum’s 33 1/3^rd series will read at Solas on Thursday: LD Beghtol (Magnetic Field’s 69 Love Songs), Franklin Bruno (Elvis Costello’s Armed Forces) and Elizabeth Vincentelli (Abba Gold).

BabyStone – the soulful mash-up of Ms. Novena Carmel and Itai- croon the stage with a gathering of beautiful eccentricity. The sound captures a Jazz, Afro-Funk, Caribbean sensation that caters to cultural enthusiasts. Marcus Brock had the chance to sit down with lead singer, Ms. Novena Carmel. This retro-fitted chanteuse is no stranger to the grittiness of the soul and funk being that her father is Sly, of the revered band Sly and the Family Stone. But, even without the distinction she’s a show stopper! BabyStone’s syncopated rhythms and intuitive - yet fun- lyrical dynamics need be positioned on anyone’s playlist.

If you’re in the Los Angeles area, don’t forget to check out the Record Release Show at Temple Bar tonight. For more info, click here

Trace: How did you and Itai start working together?

Novena Carmel: Itai and I started working together a couple of years ago. He had a track he was producing and when I sang for him, we vibed. Eventually, we had enough material for a show. We didn’t even have a band yet, but I was like – let’s book a date! We then got a band together, booked a date, and rehearsed about five times before our first show.

T: Was the use of live musicians in your band on purpose or a routed intention?

NC: The band was on purpose because we like a BIG sound. I like a real sound, there’s a lot of “fake jewelry” out there so to speak, but BabyStone won’t turn your neck green! We are influenced by funk, soul, and Afro-Beat. So, the use of live sounds and music is very important to us. We are now looking to performing an acoustic set as well in future shows and albums. Itai loves Brazilian music and I have family there so we want to incorporate more of those sounds into our music, like in “Can I Be.”

Me, personally, my vocals will always be soulful but I have a yearning to do some wild, electronic beats. Our live album is many live instruments, similar to a live show but I also want to perform to synthetic sounds like keyboards and talk boxes. Just weirdness, not only sincere heart-to-heart beats. Our next recording will probably have those types of sounds, not completely out there, but different.

T: Some artists try and shy away from their parents’ music – does some of that sound/feel resonate in your music? How has that inspired BabyStone?

NC: As an artist I’m inspired by a lot of modern artists and those that have come before me. One of my favorite genres is the funk/soul of the time period when Sly & the Family Stone was writing their biggest hits. The sound is so influential and amazing to me that there’s no way I could shy away from it. It’s funky, it’s in your face and it’s timeless. That’s a lot of what BabyStone is or at least hopes to be.

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With the UK music scene growing tired of the same old indie bands, KOJO seems destined to fill the void for those looking about in search of something new. The band’s unique blend of funk, rock, soul and electro conjures up a cocktail of influences from Sly and the Family Stone to Prince and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, all encapsulated in a slick set full of energy and instantly memorable melodies.

Formed and based in West London, the band’s music is a mix of all their influences, cultivated in a rehearsal studio off Portobello Road. Lyrics cover everything from getting out of London’s rat race in “ Let’s Go,” to the superb reflection on their 80s childhood name-dropping Thundercats and Super Mario with some original computer samples in “8 Years old.”

KOJO is currently working with Grammy Award winning producer Simon Gogerly (U2, Gwen Stefani) whilst finishing the writing on their debut album. Mates Duffy, Estelle and DJ Yoda regularly come to see them play and you can check out their video blogs on Nokia’s Royal Artist Club.

Catch KOJO at their Summer Party this Friday June 20 at DEX, where they’ll be laying on a fantastic set as well as DJ’s all night, a BBQ and hot tub action.

For more info and a sample of KOJO’s tracks, click here

DEX

476 Brixton Road

London SW9

Doors 7pm to 4am £5 Before 9pm £10 after

What do you get when you cross a French filmmaker and a closet jammed with shoes and books? The neat freaks and green-thinking among us, relax- for Mr. Brainwash, better known as MBW, it is only fodder for his art.

MBW has spent the last nine years attempting to make the ultimate documentary about graffiti art. While filming, MBW began putting his camera aside and making art of his own, displaying a Banksy-esque predilection for coloring on the walls. Graduating from a few hand drawn stickers to giant billboard sized paste-ups, MBW has become one of the most prolific street artists in California.

MBW’s first exhibition, “Life is Beautiful,” opens in Los Angeles this week, running four days in a former Hollywood studio complex. The exhibit features more than 300 paintings, sculptures and prints, alongside installations made from 100,000 of the aforementioned shoes and a life-size recreation of Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks.” MBW also does his own take on graffiti, Andy Warhol and icons of American pop culture- neither Marilyn Manson, Michael Jackson nor anyone in-between, are spared his aerosol treatment.

For more information on Mr. Brainwash’s show, click here

Also, be sure to check out the opening reception, Wednesday, June 18, 7P-11P: the first 200 people walk away with a hand finished limited edition print by MBW himself.

Life is Beautiful
June 19 - 22

CBS Studios
6121 Sunset Blvd

Los Angeles, CA