Short Fantasy video about the legendary Os Mutantes

Rogério Duprat goes solo on A Banda Tropicalista do Duprat

Like a Brazilian Van Dykes Park adorned in pineapple shades and a white feather boa, Rogério Duprat swept through the tropicalia movement of the late 1960s, providing radiant string and orchestral arrangements for the likes of Os Mutantes, Caetano Veloso and Tom Zé. 1968’s A Banda Tropicalista do Duprat was his sole attempt at going it alone, a kaleidoscopic hot air balloon ride through tropicalia instrumentals as well as medleys of popular songs from up north (The Beatles’ Flying and Johnny Rivers’ Summer Rain are both highlights).

Os Mutantes’ Secret Playlist

Os Mutantes were formed in Sao Paolo, Brazil, in 1966 by Sergio Dias and his brother Arnaldo, who blended their love of English rock n roll, culled from shortwave radio broadcasts, with American psychedelic in the spirit of Jimi Hendrix and traditional Brazilian music to create an entirely new sound to match an equally turbulent time in Brazilian history. The recent release of their latest album, Haih, marks the band’s first recorded material since 1974 and their first album to receive a worldwide release. We checked in with Sergio and asked him to tell us about the musical influences that inspired the new recording. He started off with the Stravinsky epic, The Firebird [listen below]: ‘It’s just so beautiful. It’s a study of how to develop a melody and pushes the envelope in all directions. It’s constantly evolving all the way through’. Read the rest of Os Mutantes’ Secret Playlist.

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Revealing photo shoot with Frances Bean Cobain

I was obsessed with Kurt Cobain when I was a teenager, and his death was a huge deal for me. My friends and I made a little shrine to him under our school’s flagpole and lowered the flag to half mast, much to the chagrin of the hippie-hating, young Republicans in our class. Cobain’s daughter, Frances Bean, who we remember in photographs as an infant clutched in the arms of her mother, Courtney Love, has managed to remain relatively out of the public view until this recent shoot she did for French fashion designer Hedi Slimane. The Cobain legend certainly continues to smolder in those eyes, which are very much like her father’s. Read more

FAIL! Man wears crack jacket to drug trafficking court date

From the ‘what were you thinking’ file comes this news report of a man in Fort Lauderdale accused of drug trafficking who turned up to court for his trial wearing a jacket with a cartoon recipe for cooking crack cocaine. Yes, smart indeed.

New Banksy artwork angers the Catholic Church

Banksy has struck again, this time offending the Catholic Church with a bold artwork that critiques their stance on ongoing child abuse scandals. Banksy has taken a replica of a bust of an eighteenth century member of the Catholic hierarchy and added multi-coloured tiles to the face — pixelating it — as a comment on what he considers to be the Church’s cover-up. ‘I’m never sure who deserves to be put on a pedestal or crushed under one’, Banksy noted. And who are we to disagree? Read more

Tattoo artist sued by ex-girlfriend for obscene design

Oh boy, this is so bizarre it could only be true. Apparently a Dayton, Ohio, tattoo artist has been slapped with a $100,000 lawsuit by his ex-girlfriend for tattooing an image of, erm, excrement with flies on her back rather than the scene from Narnia that she had requested. The reason? He’d recently found out that she had been cheating on him with one of his buddies. Damn! And here we were thinking this was the hot new look for trailer park trash crowd.