Mahjongg
by Though most people in the West think of mahjong as a mysterious game old Chinese people play, it’s actually gets quite rowdy when people get together to play it. Rowdy is certainly a good adjective for Mahjongg, the exquisitely danceable electro-whatever outfit from Chicago who draw as much from Afrobeat as they do vocoder-laden sleaze rock from the 70s.
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Tagged: Chicago bands, Mahjongg
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These heady times call for heady music, something spaced-out, trance-y, weird, and devilishly ecstatic to distract us from reality. Chicago’s Cave heeds this call for musical escapism, channeling Hawkwind, Kraftwerk, funk, and tribal frenzy into their mothership-beaconing groove.
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Chicago’s Cheer Accident started as a post-no-wave weirdo band typical of the Skin Graft roster, but of late, they’ve been doing some unrestrained pop and rock. They even have harmonized vocals and an occasional horn. This isn’t to say they’re commercializing – their songs are just as complex as ever, and there’s still a hint of discordance beneath the shimmering new sound.
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Also by GERRY MAK
I had to put up with some seriously obnoxious jocks and drunken highschool kids at a recent show featuring flavor-of-the-moment acts that did the whole ecstatic, 80s electro thing that’s so popular these days. Lots of fluorescent colors. I had to blast some death freaking metal when I got home, and Hooded Menace fit the bill perfectly with their doom-leaning, aural assault. Nothing pisses me off more than tepid, uninspired music, and nothing makes me feel more alive than real, gut-wrenching, skull-pounding, giddily sinister heavy metal.
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The bad boy persona in the art world is still alive and well in Australian-born painter and installation artist Anthony Lister. Posing for most photos slumped below his work, cigarette dangling from his lips, Lister is the latest in a long line of somewhat deviant figures in the art world. His work, which generally features superheroes — ‘misguided role models,’ as Lister puts it — has a jerky geometry to them, yet simultaneously a gestural quality reminiscent of 80s art deco, fitting with Lister’s ‘impulsive genius’ image and suggesting a bit of a nod to the cocaine-dusted, heroin-soaked downtown New York scene of 30 years ago. Read more
Heeb magazine founder Jennifer Bleyer recently interviewed me for an article about young creative types on food stamps. The editors at Salon.com decided that I am a hipster. I don’t really know what that means. Judging by the comments that the article generated, I’m some sort of lazy bum who can’t give up my artisinal chevre. I don’t need to go into detail defending my food choices, but all I’d like to say is that I try to buy healthy foods at the lowest prices. I never eat out. I love to cook, and I really need to control what goes into my food, so I cook every meal for myself. I often share with friends. I want to be healthy and I want my friends to be healthy because none of us have health care. Read more
YOU'RE SAYING (1)
HAVE YOUR SAY
Zeke Clough’s obsessively detailed drawings harken back to the mind-expanding glory days of Zap Comix. His oeuvre oozes a sense of dread, with lines snaking across the page like coiled intestines and the crosshatching of shadows growing like mold on dead flesh. Read more
The eagerly anticipated collaboration between Spanish footwear label Camper and Bernhard Willhelm debuted on the catwalk for the designer’s Spring 09 collection. Camper Together fuses the references and inspirations from Willhelm latest collection with Campers’ quality production techniques. Most popular is sure to be Willhelms’ take on the gladiator, with sandals constructed of ribbons and piping.
I’m enjoying the writing on the recently launched The Epi-Cure blog, which discusses the ‘latest scientific studies on health and nutrition’, and features interviews with ‘expert scientists, dieticians, and nutritionists’. The site’s founder and editor, Michelle Grey, also runs tasty, healthy recipes from New York chef Benjamin Towill, including today’s installment: Stuffed Zucchini Flowers [above]. Hmmm hmm. Read more
I’ve been a big fan of Babak Radboy’s designs for a while now. I love how complex and time consuming some of his pieces look and how fresh and original they are.
Kirk brings Molly to meet his family for a pool party but she doesn’t have her swim suit. Kirk, an average Joe, can’t believe his luck when gorgeous babe Molly falls for him even though he’s the first to admit She’s Out of My League. In cinemas April 1.
A Dutch insurance company recently launched a pretty creative ad campaign that was put on the backs of buses in Amsterdam, making them look like they were actually moving backwards.
Several years after they disbanded, one of indie rock’s brightest sparks — Ambulance Ltd — are back. Read more
WE'RE RESPECTING
WE'RE POSTING / SOME OF THE BEST
Forget battery powered vehicles. Cars made from ice are the future of transportation: no pollution, no honking horns, no painful rap music blasting out of souped up stereos. And if they melt, they melt. You just swim the rest of the way down the slipstream.
Dennis Pomales is a man after my own heart, creating impulsive yet detailed, tribal-influenced monsters and aliens using watercolors and ink. Read more
Check out Mike Stimpson’s Lego reinterpretations of classic photographs. Stimpson’s version of Malcolm Browne’s iconic 1963 photograph of the self-immolation of Thich Quang Duc is particularly twisted. Read more
French installation artist Baptiste Debombourg made this mural of Icarus using 35,000 staples as a comment on American power. Read more
Yu Xiao was born in Zi Bo, Shandong, China. She received her M.A. in Photography from China Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2009. In this work, Never Grow Up, Yu Xiao digitally created child versions of herself as a commentary on China’s one child rule and the intense focus on childhood that results. Read more
In Wish Upon a Star, this giclee print on archival paper, Yuta Onoda gives us his take on the Mario Bros for the fourth installment of the I Am 8-bit exhibition. This print comes in a limited edition run of just 30. Read more
The new Runaways movie looks at the formation of the seminal girls’ group which spawned Joan Jett’s career. We have a Runaways prize pack to give away, including Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway, the Joan Jett and the Blackhearts Greatest Hits CD, the film’s soundtrack, and Joan Jett’s photobook with Todd Oldham. To enter, just leave the name of the city you live in! Read more
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Polaris Kyo said | 14 March, 2009
Awesome! O_o