The OutsideIn Festival in Sydney
Contributor
OutsideIn, a boutique electronic music festival, was held at Sydney’s Factory Theatre last week. The inaugural event featured the likes of Oliver Tank, HTRK, FISHING, Flume and Jesse Boykins III in what was a day of smoke, lasers and a lot of bass. As I walked through the gates into the courtyard, the bass was [...]
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Time-lapse video of Chicago cityscape
Reader Find
There is something incredibly familiar and also utterly unique about the flood of timelapse videos we currently see, a complex network of actions all forming an intricate visual ballet. I vote for a channel dedicated to streaming the best of these 24/7, a throwback to the backdrops we used to see on CNN. Like having [...]
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Cityscape Chicago: a time-lapse video by Eric Hines
Contributor
Eric Hines, a photographer/time-lapse cinematographer from Indiana, has recently completed a personal time-lapse piece consisting of over 30,000 still photos shot incrementally between July and October this year around downtown Chicago. The Windy City has always been on my list of cities to visit since I can remember, and this video has shown me again [...]
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My Love, Our Time is Now: new music by Hemmingbirds
Reader Find
Riding on the success of their debut record, Death Wave (2010), Chicago’s Hemmingbirds began working on its follow-up early in 2012. Departing from the original solo writing process of Death Wave (attributed to band leader Yoo Soo Kim), Hemmingbirds worked on their sophomore effort, The Vines of Age, collectively. As a result, the album marks [...]
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Furious Frank music video created by TinyMarkers
Reader Find
Chicago’s Furious Frank delightfully blends a big brassy sound and poignant lyrics into their carnival romp, Lament. Told from the perspective of God, the band cleverly pokes fun at the human condition. The corresponding video adds even more to the imagery with witty illustrations and a surprise twist that Furious Frank is, in fact, the [...]
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Billy Corgan wants to serve you tea in a boutique teahouse
Contributor
Well, SPIN Magazine’s headline pretty much summed it up: ‘Billy Corgan Opens a Tea Room, Gives Chicago the Gift of Culture’. It’s true, the Smashing Pumpkins frontman with many interests (including pro wrestling and poetry spinning) is opening a tea shop dubbed the Madame Zuzu’s Tea House in Illinois this week. Corgan says the 1930s Chinese-style teahouse will be ‘a more casual hang, a place where you could come see a guru or a rabbi talk’. Hmmm, wonder whether we’ll find any mayonnaise in our tea.
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New music by Oklahoma’s JD McPherson
Reader Find
Somewhere in between Little Richard, Bo Diddley and Jackie Wilson is Oklahoma’s JD McPherson. Delightfully less gimmicky than most of the ‘retro soul’ artists these days, McPherson’s album, Signs and Signifiers, (recorded in Chicago) sounds like pure late 50s rhythm and blues. You have to give him credit for doing his homework and for having [...]
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New music by Cole DeGenova
Reader Find
Born in Chicago and raised in a family of musicians and artists, Cole DeGenova began playing piano at age four. By age 15 he was playing professionally in jazz and blues clubs on Chicago’s South Side. His prodigious talents led him to study at Berklee College of Music in 2005 where he trained with jazz [...]
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Now you can suck on the planets as lollipops
Contributor
For a quick exercise in ruling the universe, just shop at Chicago-based Etsy store Vintage Confections, where they offer a 10-piece lollipop set of solar system planets in two flavours: cotton candy and strawberry. Black-flecked at the back with silver edible glitter that pass off as stars, the ten planets in the set are: the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.
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Anamorphic memento mori tattoo
Contributor
Chicago-based artist and designer Pablo Garcia has taken the anamorphic skull right out of Hans Holbein’s 1533 painting The Ambassadors (yes, anamorphic art existed way back in the 16th century) and tattooed it on the underside of his index finger.
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New mixed media art by Shannon Favia
Reader Find
One night last year, I happened to catch some of Shannon Favia’s artwork on display at Chicago restaurant/venue, Uncommon Ground, just down the street from Wrigley Field. It really caught my eye, so I made sure to find her work online when I got home that evening. Using materials that include spray paint, cutout strips of denim, buttons, guitar picks and a wide variety of specialty papers, she creates pieces that immediately draw you in. Birds seem to be a favorite subject and her work often features them pasted on or stenciled text that make interesting comments on various aspects of the human condition. Or would that be the bird condition?
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The Weight: by Wilco, Mavis Staples, and Nick Lowe
Reader Find
In this rare footage, Wilco, Mavis Staples, and Nick Lowe rehearse the classic tune, The Weight, backstage at the Civic Opera House in Chicago. Yes, Wilco and Mavis Staples are rare talents, but this video feels more like a group of friends jamming in mom’s basement. And they sound phenomenal. This video is a treasure; [...]
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New music by Chicago’s The Sometimes Family
Reader Find
What sets Chicago’s The Sometimes Family apart from other groups in this new soul era is their aim to bring back the vocally driven tune: the collaborative, harmonic group sound. Drawing inspiration from a variety of sources, including the Fifth Dimension, the Staples Singers, the Jackson 5, and the Friends of Distinction, The Sometimes Family [...]
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Yearbook: eclectic repurposed designs in Chicago
Reader Find
It’s Sunday. You’re fifteen minutes west of downtown Chicago. And you’ve realized your life is a hollow, empty shell that can only be made right with a desk-top anvil, a sculling oar, and some Foolish Crow Habanero Hot Sauce. Fortunately, you’re also in River Forest, and the newly opened Yearbook has everything you need.
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Head Vases: pop art portraiture by Lisa Predko
Reader Find
Chicago photographer Lisa Predko’s work has a vibrant style that is unmistakable. Her series, Head Vases, is simple in its idea but exhibits a new type of pop art portraiture arousing energy and emotion, not only from the subjects themselves, but also in their composition and colouring.
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