2ND EDITION | DEC. 2011
CONTRIBUTORS 3 BANDXCITY 5-6 JACK QUACK 7-10 LAB ART 11-14 WUJI 15-21 TWO HEADS PHOTOGRAPHY 23-31 @FARA1 33-37 DD$ 39-44 NOLA 45-46 TWIST OF FATE 49-52 FIRST LADY OF PUZL 53-54 Cover Photo: Shaun Mader ©2011 PUZL™ All rights reserved.
EDITOR’S LETTER November 2011 Alex Slater and I kicked around the same spots—city, campus—for a few years before we connected and it pains/delights me to say that we finally did so, I believe, through Twitter. Mutual friends had steered us toward one another for some time but, as any self-obsessed creative would, I largely ignored this until Slater’s site and its dope 2012 summer lookbook slapped me in the face. PUZL’s vision of uniting designers and artists of all ilk is an ideal that is rarely accomplished so respectfully and earnestly. And that, I suppose, is what’s so attractive about it. Appreciation for differing aesthetics and media is absolutely essential to the kind of collective being built and that appreciation is also rare. Even for those of us who are entrenched in creative worlds it can be difficult to exit one’s own box and actually experience—not see, or just visit—art that defies our own preferences. The range of artists: musical, visual, curatorial, experiential, public, barricaded, documentary, and absurd, in this issue showcases the stab he and I took at compiling an art and music issue. As it grew we began to discuss the next issue and realized that this isn’t a one-off or an annual event: this is what we’ll want to look like for good. It took no debate, no coercion, it came naturally. What’s in here exemplifies the PUZL philosophy as Slater outlined it three years ago: a call to action, to create, to experience art, to set trends rather than follow them, and most importantly to provide pieces of life’s puzzle, not to solve it. Sarah Whitmore Co-Editor-In-Chief
CONTRIBUTORS
BRYAN CRAWFORD is a music enthusiast, jack of all trades, and selfproclaimed Spotify nerd operating out of Los Angeles; catch up with him @BANDxCITY ALEXANDER DAVIS is an indefatigable photographer and videographer of fashion, music, and fabulousness out of Culver City making up one half of Two Heads Photography. BENJAMIN DEL GUERCIO is Two Heads’ other head; he’s a filmmaker and photographer who can’t be caught without a camera and a subject; catch the duo at fb.com/twoheadsphoto JULIE KUTNER is PUZL’s First Lady, an aesthetic and public relations maven coming at you from LA’s Westside and East Van on the daily at ooohisee.tumblr.com & @jewliek SHAUN MADER is a portrait and fashion photographer out of New York City, though you can catch his India series at shaunmaderstudio.com or if you’re lucky spot him around town shooting for Patrick McMullan Company. ROB NOIR is a handsome son of a bitch, a lover of life, and a recent transplant to New Orleans. MR. PUZL the company’s founder and driving force. He knows a little about a lot, but not a lot about a little. SARAH WHITMORE is a global citizen and an independent creative with her hand in all kinds of baskets. Catch her on misswhitmore.wordpress. com or @srwpp but don’t catch her on camera. PUZL MAINTAINS A STRICT CONFIDENTIALITY POLICY REGARDING THE IDENTITY OF ALL CONTRIBUTORS WHO CHOOSE TO OPERATE UNDER NOMS DE PLUME.
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ART STATION PRESENTS: MIZ METRO
SOUND ART & PERFORMANCE Tour Dates 2012: MARCH 8: ARMORY SHOW, NYC APRIL 21: ART RIDE, NYC MAY 4: FRIEZE ART FAIR, NYC
mizmetro.com artstationnyc.com
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BANDXCITY Interview by Mr. PUZL
I connected with BANDxCITY co-founder Bryan Crawford on his new online music project – ahem – don’t call it a blog. What is BANDxCITY? For music tastemakers, lovers, and those who want knowledgeable info on emerging music in many cities, BANDxCITY is an all-in-one source for contributions from reporters in each city, focused on each unique scene. Outside of the music, each city has selected partners, record stores, a local concert calendar, radio station, to further help that new music discovery. How does THAT work? BxC is driven by its people on the ground. BxC Barons are a mix of journalists, scenesters, social experts, musicians, and music aficionados who know where the great music is in their city. They have eclectic tastes, and a penchant for getting the good word out about where their city’s sound is headed. Our badass Barons get to work with bands, build business relationships, get access to shows as media members, and become a voice for emerging musicians across the globe and the portal into new music in their respective cities. Each Baron contributes about 9 bands they’re feeling each month, and we feature a song of theirs on the site which you can listen to as a single or through our radio player (on the site too). Outside of that, there are featured interviews, links to each band’s other sites – Facebook, Bandcamp, their Youtube channel – so you can dive deeper if you like their stuff.
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What’s the big idea? Here’s our vision: highlight bands growing both in popularity and as musicians. They could be part of a yet-to-be-unearthed scene within the city, but we don’t want obscurity simply for the sake of obscurity. We’re not as much trying to “break bands” as we are just trying to highlight what’s already breaking - what’s great and growing within the city - to help others discover it. If all that vague language doesn’t help, go see the site. We’re going to be in nine cities within the month, and sixteen including three internationally within six months. On down the road we’d like to do promoted shows, band collabs, blog interviews, BANDxCITY merchandise, and more, but for now we’re just focusing on delivering value. So when does BxC become Pitchfork? Never. Sure, we’re looking to expand, but not editorially. What we want is a BxC Baron in every city where there’s great new music. We want writers in Singapore, Paris and Stockholm, just for starters. What we’ve always been about is simply empowering people to find great new music, not deciding for everyone whether it’s shit or not. We want people to make those assessments on their own. And we believe they will. In the meantime, we’ll continue to seek out new music and the people that love it, in-the-know writers and photographers who already regularly attend concerts, and are in touch with the scene of their city.
READ LESS. LISTEN MORE. DISCOVER EMERGING MUSIC GLOBALLY ON ONE SITE. BANDxCITY.COM | EXPLORE@BANDxCITY.COM
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Pan Degan Jack Quack
Vulture
Jack Quack
Long Neck Grendigo Jack Quack
Caterpillar Eyebrows Her caterpillar eyebrows crawled into her ears the sun got in her eyes and she couldn’t hear. Three months later swallowtails flew out of her head tickled her as they climbed in their brow bed.
Black Hole Sun Jack Quack
For portfolio of illustrations and/or writings please email Jack Quack at
Hendrix674@yahoo.com
She wears them with pride, says she’s better this way but she does eat flowers, at least one a day.
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LAB ART
Interview by Mr. PUZL
In the heart of the La Brea gallery row, lies a sleeping giant: LAB ART. Open for six months they’ve already been host to an amazing array of street artists such as Alec Monopoly, Smear, Thank You X, Chad Muska, Septerhed and CYRCLE.
WANTED: For Xtertior Motives Photo: Birdman
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How was LAB ART conceived? LAB ART was conceived when we came to notice that there was a lack of an actual “home” for street art. Most contemporary art galleries usually exhibit one or two street artists- no one was specialized only in street art- especially at LAB ART’s scale. We want to give street art the place it deserves in art history.
Is there a story behind the name “LAB ART”? There is a story behind the name “LAB ART”- LAB for ‘laboratory’- we wanted street artists to experiment with what they had in the streets and transfer or interpret it onto canvas or wood panel- it is usually “buffed” or painted over in the streets-we wanted to immortalize it.
What’s the brother/sister dynamic like? Have you worked together on other projects before this? This is the first venture together of Rachel and Iskander. The brother/sister dynamic works in that we feed off of each other’s ideas and creativity. We have the ability to visualize and conceptualize with the same vision in mind.
You’ve worked with some incredible artists to produce some very exciting shows. If money was no object which artist(s) would you want to exhibit? If money was no object, the artists we would want to exhibit would be ROA, Swoon, Blek Le Rat and Invader, among others.
Bringing street art into a gallery setting takes the work out of context slightly. What does LAB ART do in its exhibits to maintain the “street” element? The street artists’ fine art which is exhibited and sold at LAB ART is a direct derivative of what street artists have in the streets- but on canvas or wood panel- or installation- or it can be something completely differentmade especially to be in a gallery setting.
Putting together a show can be strenuous, what part of the process is the most rewarding for you? The part of the process most rewarding to Rachel and I after putting together a show is having people enjoy their experience at LAB ARThaving been a part of the street art movement.
Coming soon to LAB ART: DD$ solo show - EVERYTHING POPULAR IS WRONG December 8th - January 8th
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Gregory Siff
Lab Art Gallery, LA
Photo: Ben Del Guercio
WUJI
by Sarah Whitmore
It’s all downhill from “yin and yang.1” Some of the greatest artists of the last century— Federico Fellini, Pablo Picasso, Lady Gaga, Aaron Sorkin—have scatted on about how important artifice is to art. Let’s be real. How important lying is to art.2 The interior tumult of the art world and the endless infighting it harbors are usually attributed to passion, intellectual property rights disputes, and the temperament.3 When an artist admits with as much poignancy and real humor as Laura O’Reilly/Miz Metro does on one of her tracks, “I’m emotionally unstable,” and backs that up with a Tenenbaum-worthy history of family, home, and economic mutability ultimately claiming that “art is [her] anchor,” it’s hard to not think that some of that externally generated drama is kind of glamorous and important, essential, to propel a work or an artist to greatness.4 The conflicts one doesn’t see, which fall outside of creative artifice, it seems are what actually propel history of art. Derrick B. Harden, aliases Couture Ink and Dear Derrick, and Laura O’Reilly, aliases Miz Metro and Laura O, spent the greater part of 2011 collaborating as curators and recording artists on a tripartite show having to do with Christmas. The impression is a lot more “fire and fury” than “yin and yang.” Harden cut his teeth in Brownsville running a boost crew (read: Lo-Lifes), coming up straight under the dudes who were running rackets for which his neighborhood has become iconic over the last quarter-century. His 15
entrée to the art world came on gradually. The book of Polo pieces he’d amassed served as his ticket into a design position at H&M. Stints in Europe brought him back to NYC, and the hustle took him to private clubs and hotels, the Chelsea Museum and finally to Michael Lyons Wier’s eponymous gallery. All the while, Harden maintained a connection to hiphop that developed into a thirst for other creative media; models in tow he produced his first film, Hollywood Murder, in 2009, to coincide with the single “Ghost Town.” By Harden’s opinion, the two were each coming hard off of musical success and their collaboration was the product of that magical equation right place x right time.
Because downtown, a young woman with a very different sort of background was coming up on the scene, albeit from another direction. Laura O’Reilly/Miz Metro’s legendary Urban Gypsy Circus parties bought the young lady who’d grown up in the entertainment industry an entirely unique image. She was born and raised on the Upper East Side— something she says it took a long time to admit—but spent her days in Harlem or Central Park shedding the associations that might bring, and life there was indeed unconventional: her grandfather managed the building her family lived in. 17
In the midst of the parties and publicity Miz Metro and UGC garnered, O’Reilly got her degree in new media and contemporary art. Then it all came together with an urban real estate legend: that a number of young artists had tagged a wall at Edit deAk’s flat at 151 Wooster in the ‘80’s, and maybe some of them may have gone on to become rather famous. During a renovation procedure in 2007, O’Reilly recounts, Mark Namer (the developer’s son) and friend Isaac Aden took ice picks to the eighth floor and uncovered the mural, indeed tagged by Fab 5 Freddy, Francesco Clemente, ERO, Futura 2000, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, among others. From the discovery developer Michael Namer grew Gallery 151, of which O’Reilly was the director while her moonlight, Miz Metro, continued to blow up on the downtown NYC landscape. At 151 she dropped show after show, giving more attention to new artists than is typical of SoHo. Prodded about her style and poise—she’s totally fucking fierce plus she recently got the bold-type nod from Vogue5 —and whether she’s feeling any particular mojo being so atypical of the cliché gallerina and so wildly popular, she references very clearly those 151 days: I’m about showing everybody respect. I always have been. I try to go out of my way to give time to others… power going out of its way to give time to the community is what put me here authentically. I did a lot of artists’ first shows [at 151 with Namer]… a different breed of gallery appeals to me, focused on the artist. My mojo and power stay right there. I have a very sought-after seat. I am grateful for that, and my life, every day. That sought after seat is her Associate Directorship at The Hole gallery in NYC, Jeffrey Deitch protégé Kathy Grayson’s new project on the Bowery. O’Reilly transferred from 151 in June 2011 after curating “Grassroots: Through the WU-mb” with Harden and Oli “Power” Grant to great success. It was for Grayson that she and Harden began their recording collaboration, too: the duo released an exclusive-edition album to accompany Grayson’s works in a pop-up at Cappellini, entitled Christmas In the Summer. O’Reilly produces tracks using a looping pedal and her own voice, with some exceptions. 18
The use of sounds other than her own is a part of O’Reilly’s philosophy regarding public art. Notably, one of the tracks features a guitar riff she recorded in Naples, atop a villa and surrounded by her own private language barrier: “I don’t speak Italian—and we couldn’t make conversation, so we made music.” She’s made similar recordings traveling in Berlin, the South of France, and Madrid. She intends to incorporate them in her future work, intersecting cultural anthropology with public art. Intrigued by street art, and despite its massive cultural popularity especially in hip-hop, O’Reilly doesn’t see it as the art world’s future. She’s attracted by the lack of a barrier of privilege in street art. She’d like to see it back on the streets and intends to put it there. “That’s the point,” she says, “public art in public spaces.” She’s quite clear about the distinctions between fine and public arts. Specifically, that they have a dialogue rather than a shared world. That it’s reductive to lump one with 19
the other. That changing what people see isn’t the objective of separating the two, but changing how people see. She points out astutely that the art world moves in its own direction based on the opinions of its tastemakers using Matthew Stone, the artist exhibiting in The Hole at the time of our interview and shoot, as the primary example. “His shapes, angles, colors, style are Baroque. In the world of fine art, that’s what’s fresh, that’s what’s next.”
She transitions fluidly into conversation about other intentions of art following this thought. Backstory: your author, photographer, subject, and a number of mutual acquaintances attended a performance piece by Matthew Stone held in the basement of The Hole a few nights prior to accompany the works exhibited. The performance consisted of low droning tones accompanied by a digital projection of perpetual movement through an enclosed space, and ended with O’Reilly’s operatic performance of broken notes at the artist’s request.6 The vast majority of the audience left very conspicuously during the 40-minute experience following the boy-band type clamor to beat out other attendees for a spot downstairs. Asked whether art is to be enjoyed, or whether it should sometimes confuse, irritate, humiliate, or in some other way disgust 20
the viewer, O’Reilly offers an equally developed opinion that there is no “should” in art. That it is cheap to solicit a specific reaction. She saw the piece as trancelike, ambient, intrusive, and successful. She muses that art teaches viewers their own human limitations in this way and that is neither relevant to nor indicative of a value system. It’s not moral. “Should” is logically ejected from the artistic process. O’Reilly, now that collaboration with Harden has dissolved, will re-debut as Miz Metro in early 2012 with gigs at The Armory Show, The Frieze Art Fair, and Art Station’s Art Ride in NYC and public sound art installations to be released concurrently. Reflecting on where she’s been and where she’s going is O’Reilly’s new game. She intends for this alter ego, moving forward, to blur the lines between reality and fantasy using multi-sensory immersive experiences… getting that goodie artifice back. You’ll still be able to find her buzzing around The Hole Tuesdays through Saturdays, where Matthew Stone’s exhibition will remain until 10 December 2011 and if you’re lucky you’ll catch Kathy Grayson rocking a a prismy coiffure. Laura appears in the custom-dyed vintage furs of Roxie Darling which can be found at The Holey Bookstore, one door down from the gallery, or privately commissioned.
With three interviews in one week and each of the subjects unsolicitedly describing a part of their working philosophy as “yin and yang,” I henceforth resolve to “pull a Tyson,” that is to abruptly depart with a modicum of explanation, any time anyone brings this up again whether professionally or in conversation. This is the Rule of Liminal.
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Sorkin, the juiciest bite, re: Zuck & TSN in Mark Harris’ 2010 NYMag article: “What is the big deal about accuracy purely for accuracy’s sake, and can we not have the true be the enemy of the good?”
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Known to the public as mental illness. Known to GOP candidates as “wishy-washy.”
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Or really, even, mediocrity.
Also notable: attracting Yeezy, Kid Cudi, Sway, and a barrage of other glamorous guests to an opening she curated with Harden and Oli “Power” Grant at 151.
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In the author’s experience, this piece generated a great debate among those attending as to whether we were witnessing a colonic, a blocked artery, movement through caves, or a screensaver.
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twoheads www.facebook.com/twoheadsphoto
Monkey Man (Two Heads Photography) Muscle Beach - Santa Monica, LA
Rock You (Two Heads Photography) LES, NYC
Smokin Antoinette (Two Heads Photography) RAW Fashion Final - Downtown, LA
Dueling Axes (Two Heads Photography) Vas Defrans - Viper Room, LA
“It’s what gives my life meaning!” (Two Heads Photography) (Kane Ritchotte) Bedrock Studios, CA
Mangelic (Two Heads Photography) Bryan Baker - Viper Room, LA
@fara1
Interview by Sarah Whitmore
An ethically bankrupt economic system’s got our country--especially creative professionals--by the balls and rejuvenation is in the ideology of an erstwhile degenerate rebel who claims never to have read a book until college. Thank your lucky stars for Chris Faraone. Eight years into his tenure in Boston, Chris Faraone’s seizing the opportunity to jump out of hip-hop’s grungy glistening basement and join the other other 99%. Of course it would be slack to ignore the attention Faraone’s given to social and political issues during his career at Boston’s Phoenix but he’s undeniably rooted in boom bap criticism, culture, aesthetic, and lifestyle. It’s obvious that to Faraone these things are inextricably intertwined. When I ask him a question about the cultural correspondences between what Occupy is addressing and what hip-hop’s been rapping about for 30+ years, he’s fleetingly taken aback, a bit impressed, and I’m predictably offended. It’s flattering and attractive though, the offense, because it’s having been Faraoned--like scrutinized and acknowledged to have prevailed in some way, because that fleeting expression has an undertone of confusion. Which of course means--him being confused/ impressed--that he obviously had some other interpersonal opinions that wouldn’t have merited this inquiry and then I--object of impress--am left wondering whether this question is even worthy of praise and Faraone is a god of journalism in that way: he’s clearly holding most of the power in conversation. Always. He is perfectly shameless. His blithely aggressive refute of any opinion that isn’t his own is his existential trump card. 33
Which is why his response to that question about correspondences between Occupy and rap is a little shocking: “Someone said, and I can’t remember exactly who, ‘We all have in common that we are all oppressed.’” Puddle-jumping around the Fenway between Joanna Marinova-Jones’ exhibit “Anonymous Boston,” the milkshake shop down the street, and the ghetto of Phoenix’s cubicle shantytown--it’s abandoned and full of (unused) condoms--Faraone doesn’t come off oppressed at all. He kind of has this Robin Hood vibe about him actually. So I’d like to interject that I think to call him a degenerate rebel would flatter him. But imagining him carrying the standard of Gen Y in the Occupy tumult isn’t actually too far from the truth: ultimately, he points out, hip-hop has been a protest throwing the things Americans wants to ignore straight in their faces since its beginning. Occupy’s a new protest movement. They both take a no-holds- barred stance re: criticizing the way American society works and they’re strictly real. As is Faraone. He’s a writer, so perhaps it’s naïve to be surprised by the facile conversation he motors. But he’s very, very good at it and we cover everything from my debilitating sense of expectation re: my impending rap “career” to his walnut allergy and his bedroom. Which, by the way, he describes as “every 16-year-old boy’s wet dream,” and his claim that any so-aged boy would literally kill to live there for one week prompts me to ask if we could give that away as a prize in a charity fundraiser. Immediately: “Yes. Wait, no. I would get into a lot of trouble.” As stated, he speaks freely and effortlessly but he never dances around the point. And the conversation about Occupy meshes well with conversation about hip-hop; at the bottom line, Faraone sees the enemy in both protests as corporations and the thriving beauty in small, geographically relevant institutions. He’s been researching and following the Occupy movement for the previous two months and is days away from departure to see what’s really good in Oakland, Seattle, Portland, and LA, fueling articles for the Phoenix and fodder for the book he’ll drop in February, 99 Nights with the 99 Percent. He’s got perhaps the clearest vision I’ve heard anyone express of the Occupy movements and what could realistically be accomplished by them: “what would work is some kind of new [Works Progress Administration].” Shrinking business and empowering extant small business, by Faraone’s opinion, will make our economy more 35
manageable. He uses the Phoenix’s status as a cultural icon to illustrate that the way things work currently, even this paper which has been an institution for three decades loses people like [a young, motivated, powerful, and former employee whom we know in common]. In much the same way, he sees one version of hip-hop overpowering the other: the label-churned schlock tamping down the raw reality of underground hiphop. (N.B. we’ve both chosen to use this word “underground” without meaning really “underground” but actually “independent” and I think we verbalize this to one another at some point but “underground” sticks.) “If you want to find the best shit out there,” he tells me like I’ve alerted him to my unslakable lust for hip-hop’s essence, “you need to go to some underground clubs in Germany or somewhere like that. Something experimental and real and right now.” He sees, globally, underground hip hop as eclectic and aggressively progressive and points out that it’s what’s happening right now and not what’s happened eight months ago and having had to be proven profitable for mass dissemination. (I, on the other hand, probably listened to Queen Bey on my trip from NYC to his office.) Still, he admits (a) that big-label beat is what got him into hip-hop and (b) the potential for an artist’s reach to expand exponentially overnight is facilitated by the power those labels have. It’s just rarely never done right. Socially conscious hip-hop and MC culture pulled him away from the label-whore product but by now he’s moved on to the grittier pastures of Necro, Ill Bill, Coka Nostra, Jedi Mind Tricks, and the like. He cites Ghostface Killah as the all-time favorite. I’m not politically correct, and some people may criticize the words in this music as criminal, but I’m saying that if someone’s rapping about cutting someone’s head off or whatever then they aren’t out doing it. No one selling albums is out being a serious criminal, because they’re making albums in a studio.
This is a point which has been driven home by every rapper, producer, hip-hop insider, hustler, booster, or criminal I’ve ever broached the subject of “who’s real” with. It’s so overemphasized by all of them that it’s hard to pinpoint whether they want others to see the separation because it exists or want others to believe the separation exists for purpose of misdirection and invariably everyone has a different set of artists they believe were/are “real” and invariably this list is preceded by the utterance 36
“off the record” or a directive to keep it on the low in less formal settings. Clearly no one is “real,” but who that no one is awaits definition. He weaves this political interest into a conversation about Occupy seamlessly, this time with an analogy: that more young people could provide up-to-the-moment details about Kim Kardashian’s life than know Occupy is even happening. He’s simply pointing out how easy it is to ignore the truth for the flash. It’s refreshing to encounter someone interested in an object’s essential truth regardless of the object. Unfortunately the analogy is crippled when he tries to push it further, as he can’t deny having a “thing” for Kardashian on which he refuses to comment further. He regains momentum choosing an avatar, asking me to imagine and insisting it’s true that most young people in this country know as little about Occupy as the average Lower East Sider (we’ve discussed NYC so there’s an in-reference to the expats, Rivington Rebels, fake-gays, and fake-fake-gays who populate Gaga’s Erstwhile Downtown Dominion) knows about Kardashian. In both cases--that of glamorized violent crime in rap vs. most rappers’ studio, bowling, and CostCo daily lives and that of the grossly overpaid nincompoop’s success and business acumen vs. the amelioration of cultural intellect via the oppression of, well, the 99% and veneration of, well, the 1%--he’s unfortunately largely correct. It won’t be a shock to find out what else Faraone believes would benefit from shrinkage: local media. He’s keenly interested in music technology and specifically recommendation sites for this reason. Without DJs spinning the locally grown, and with journalists either hacking their cities’ own artists (citing NYC’s music media as particularly deplorable in this regard) to pieces or emptily ass-patting them out the door to make way for a story about Drake’s next roll through town, our culture is losing its tastemakers. We’re losing all of the grey area to a [Conservative] blackand-white mentality. That’s an old tune, but Faraone’s throwing a new track on top of it. Like the protests he’s dedicated to chronicling, he’s in your face about what’s wrong with society and how American life works, and he’s real. Look for Faraone’s articles at thephoenix.com & like the forthcoming publication at fb.com/OccupyBook
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DD$ Most of DD$ first series of artworks has been lost, stolen, or, most likely -- sold for drugs. This is their second series.
Photos: Ben Del Guercio
NOLA
by Rob Noir
If I tell you to think of music in New Orleans, the first thing to pop in your head likely will be jazz. You wouldn’t be wrong. Just about everywhere you go you’re being serenaded with the stylings of Miles, Dizzy or any of the other greats. In my time here though, I’ve learned this city, while keeping up with its traditions, tends to give you more than you expect. It’s more than just listening to music even though rock, rap and everything in between flood the ears of those in the city. For example, hip-hop has long been a major contributor to New Orleans’ personality and culture which makes it not surprising that there are those who go to great lengths to preserve the memories and accomplishments of all musicians of varying success that came out of the city. The most complete collection is found on Where They At, a website featuring interviews with those who helped develop the hip-hop and bounce music scene in New Orleans. Covering the hotspots, big timers and bit players, the site is considered the Wikipedia of New Orleans hip-hop. While southern hip-hop still shines brightest with Lil Wayne making hit after hit, the city offers more than bass heavy beats and methodical lyricism. Rock is a strong contributor to the overall scene in the south and groups are making it easier to increase awareness of the trends in NOLA. The New Orleans Indie Rock (NOIR, no affiliation) collective is the jump-off for all NOLA based bands that want to improve their visibility. Listing over 70 bands and 20 plus venues, it’s the first stop for aspiring artists and 45 13
managers to find the best talent in the area. Learning about the history and growing trends in New Orleans is all well and good, but when it comes down to it, you still have to listen and most importantly enjoy the music. Fortunately, NOLA has talented musicians in spades, with cross genre stars in the making such as G-Eazy (50’s bebop/hip-hop) and MyNameIsJohnMichael (indie rock/R&B). Filming for the popular HBO show Treme, which has a sharp focus on music in the area, and the ever-popular Jazzfest highlight New Orleans’ past and keeps NOLA in the music spotlight.
INTERNATIONAL MAN OF LEISURE Wherever he’s at he’s got a new name: you may know him as the Black Captain Kirk, the Nomad Scientist of the Underworld, Black Kielbasa, Black Braveheart, or Batman depending on where you met. Turnover in the rap game comes with the quickness and Jeru the Damaja knows this: he’s kept his head above water three decades since a childhood in East New York and has a moment to catch up with Bruce Wayne on a 36-hour layover between Poland and Hawai’i to lay down some wisdom over a bottle of vodka. Some of our mutual friends have strong feelings on the subject... your thoughts on corporate rap? I have no animosity about it--what they do keeps hip-hop the music of the people, literally popular, and that frees me to do what I want to do. I don’t get a slice, I just be cheffin’ shit up, bakin’ my own pie. How do you keep it sane with this nomadic lifestyle? It’s all about adapting. I’m water--I take shape. I be the people and that’s what life is about. I know when to nerd on ‘em, throw ‘em off, and wherever I am it’s just like “I’m from Brooklyn, son, this is Switzerland. I got this.” I know my limits and think limitlessly Who’s real? You call yourself righteous, and that’s a problem right there. What’s real? The advice I got from my mom every day when we left for school: pay attention and be alert. Also, remembering that proverb: when you meet a swordsman you don’t recite poetry, you draw your sword. Stay tuned for more worldwide dispatches in coming issues.
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A TWIST OF FATE Interview by Bryan Crawford
Vo, is an East Coast LA transplant who – by a twist of fate – has arrived in LA to work on his newest musical passion project, Perfect. What are you working on now? Right now I’m teaming up with a few of my homies and we’re working on a project called Perfect. When I came to LA I didn’t have a ton of studio resources. But the creativity was still spilling out of me. I remembered something that somebody had said to me awhile back and that was 75% today is better than 100% tomorrow. So I took everything that I had and started being creative with no excuses. And I actually found a real love for the sound and texture of recording my tracks on my iPhone. I would literally record, stem by stem, my verses on the iPhone and mix ‘em in Garage Band. I got this one verse actually that kinda is the breakdown of all of that: I’ma just do me no matter what cuz that’s what I’m on Couldn’t find a studio, I do it on my iPhone Mix it in Garage Band success is not a private party It’s a state of mind and shawty I don’t need no arm band
It’s kind of like a breakdown of my transition to LA and utilizing whatever resources I have to make this album happen. And the reason why I call it perfect is because nothing is supposed to be some certain way, everything is what it is. What brought you to LA? Initially my trip to LA was more of a vacation. I had had some success before but the past few years but I wasn’t in a happy place. I’ve always strived for success and had control of what was possible in my life but I lost control and got sidetracked. I was at the lowest low ever in my life, which was seeming more like an era. 49 13
I came out to LA to rediscover those possibilities. I had a one way ticket, had nothing to lose. I was like, fuck it let’s figure this shit out. I don’t know now if it was a vacation so much as it was an escape from the situation I was in. I needed to change something from my day-to-day routine so that I could in effect my life could change What has been your most memorable moment in music? I tell all my people this – Jay-Z for me is one of my major influences – I think every great artist has a connection with another great artist and Jay is that for me. And my last week on Freestyle Fridays on 106 & Park was one of the most important shows for me musically because Jay-Z was retiring. And you can only go for a maximum of 7 weeks on 106 & Park and then they bring a new artist in – I had already made a lot of strides, labels were calling and stuff, it was really cool, and then in my final week, it just so happened Jay’s Black Album was coming out and he was retiring – my idol – like a year and a half ago me and my homie Rio were at the concert holding up posters we had drawn. And I’m not ashamed of that – cuz we were such big fans of music – I can only hope to have such support. So seeing Jay-Z standing across from me at 106 & Park on the day his Black Album was going to be released - it’s my final week, and he’s five feet from me watching my reel of all my battles. Diddy was there, Pharrell was there, big extravaganza, and we shared that on stage. The whole fam was quiet and they played my montage and they all watched me do what I do. It was insane, a year and a half after his concert – I just wanted this cat to know that I existed – and a year and a half later we’re at BET, on set, watching my montage of me just destroying mutherfuckers. Jay said, “You know what fam, you know it’s Black Album day, I’m just going to bow out I don’t want to steal your thunder, it’s my man’s day.” Where did you get your start? This is gonna sound super funny but I wrote my very first verse to Montell Jordan’s “This is How We Do It” but I had always been a hip-hop and music fan in general – you know what I take that back – I think I was first introduced to music when I first started playing the guitar and back then 50
it was really great music, Nirvana, Pearl Jam. I was really young; my mom brought me a guitar when I was like 11. I heard and played all these songs I loved on the radio and got more serious about it around 12 and was in a jazz band in middle school. But I had always loved hip-hop. It was a melody of what was going on in my life at the time and hearing the music that was around me. People evolve and change. I mean I used to skate – so I think it was a skate tape where I heard Method Man. I had always heard hip-hop but I didn’t pay attention. It didn’t crossover into my life. At that point it all began to make sense and it came closer to me. After that I started listening to all hiphop. It was all Wu-Tang, all underground stuff, Company Flow, you name it. There was times when I went back to the old school stuff – Big Daddy Kane – all those guys and just reach back and get more of that history, get in touch with that stuff. So when I wrote my first verse to Montell Jordan, kinda funny but – no disrespect to Montell Jordan, it’s just not my lane, definitely not one of my major influences – but it was more of one of those situations where I needed an instrumental. I was young, I couldn’t buy CD’s and my mom had the CD in the house, I went through all her CD’s and it was the only one where I could find the instrumental – the single had the instrumental on it – and I wrote my first verse there What makes your project different? Well it’s me – I think that’s what makes it different. In my projects I don’t necessarily aim to be unique – I definitely don’t knock anybody for trying to be unique – I just really do me. And what I hope to do is just play a bigger game. I want to ignite some inspiration in people to get people to be creative or do whatever it is they’re trying to do today, right now in the moment, as opposed to setting their happiness on future events that may or may not even take place. So that’s what I’m trying to do, and even then, maybe that is unique. But honestly, I couldn’t tell you, I think that’s something that we have to leave up to the people on the ground level to really critique that.
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What do you hope to come from your efforts? I hope that my power influence grows and that I can use that influence to spread a message or ideas – for example – I want to use the proceeds of my single “Legendary” to help with the water crisis in Africa. Of course too, education – creative education, arts, visual arts, music or whatever, not only in the states or whatever – I really just hope that my efforts can help fuel those efforts. Even more personally, I hope that I can express myself fully and grow as an artist through my music. There’s so much more than that though, I mean I want to be successful as well, and that means that the business needs to work because as a creative person, resources and creativity can put together things for the future and ignite possibility in such a different way. We can then take those things to another level, bigger and better, and put that music out in a new profound way and grow as a team and have the resources to be here for years to come.
I want to ignite some inspiration in people to get people to be creative... FACEBOOK | TWITTER | YOUTUBE
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FIRST LADY OF PUZL If Julie Kutner’s penchant for style and public relations skills were translated to kung fu you’d be calling her Pai Mei. And now (as long as you know who wrote “Blue in Green” and what Yasiin Bey’s former moniker was) you’ll know her Achilles Heel… at least her loves/wants/ needs: Movie? 8 1/2 Song? “Blue in Green” Television series? Workaholics Time to be irresponsible? As often as possible. Color? Grey Phone? iPhone Sport? Basketball Website to procrastinate with? ooohisee.tumblr.com <3 Flower? Ranunculus or peonies. Exercise? Sex. My single speed. World location? Venice/Best Coast City? Haifa, Israel Beach? Venice Museum? LACMA, The Gugg Neighborhood? WestSide Coffee shop? Venice Grind LA restaurant? Gjelina on Abbot Kinney Hotel? Ace Hotel, Palm Springs Gallery? Royal/T in Culver City Boutique? Canvas Thrift shop? The Closet on Main St. Nightclub? My Bedroom Epicenter of debauchery? See nightclub. Snack? Mast Brothers Chocolate Terrible-for-your-bod snack? See above. Form of caffeine? Red Eye Meal? Dessert Fruit? Banana Vegetable? Asparagus Cocktail? Old Fashioned
Contemporary artist? Mark Whalen Photographer? Two Heads Pro athlete? That hot one with the muscles. Pro X-athlete? Jason Lee Writer? Dostoevsky Poet? Bukowski Rapper? Yasiin Bey Superhero? My Dad (fuck you). James Bond? The hot one. LA scene band? Avi Buffalo Lingerie? Anything Agent P. Heel? 4”, stacked or wedge. Better for running in. Carry-all-my-shit bag? J. Crew Brompton Hobo Sneaker? Black leather Y-3 Hi-Tops Useless accessory? Underwear Shades? Mosley Tribes Piece of jewelry? Chunky sterling silver ring from Union Square holiday market 3 years ago. Lipstick? Gloss. Lots of it. Stickier, the better. M.A.C. Pro Longwear Gloss. Nail color? Anything Grey-esque. Essie Mink Muffs as a reference. Perfume? Le Labo Toothpaste? Sometimes Hair color? Mostly Brown Sunscreen? La Roche-Posay Mantra? “That’s not a good look.”
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