A little future pop, a little afro punk.   Most notable is that she is an original standing out from the crowd.     Janelle Monae 's album METROPOLIS is out now.     Janelle makes you focus on the talent first, the style follows, and it's her experimentation with fashion, conceptual imagery and visual fantasy makes her one to watch.
  I love that she is a mixture of glam, pop, rockabilly and future pop.   It is so nice to see originality in a genre so watered down with bottle blonds, boy bands and girls that show toooo much skin.  Next year at this time I'm sure she will have a few magazine covers under her belt.   Check her out.

Janelle Monae site
Janelle Monáe, Girl from Another Planet

Open your minds, earthlings, and prepare to be launched headfirst into an alternate universe. A place where robots fall in love with humans. Where your tour guide into this alternate realm is a demure lil thang with a bold set of pipes. "I'm an alien from outer space," declares Janelle Monáe on the first song of her debut album, Metropolis: The Chase Suite (Special Edition). Yes, Toto, we are no longer in Kansas anymore. Or even planet Earth.   Janelle images from her website, last paragraph from her website.

Rapper, "clothing designer",  and Hermes bag- toting rock star extraordinaire Pharrell WIlliams is ready for his new role.    Contemporary art collector.     Thank god Pharrell is setting an example for his peers.   Much like Jay Z and other blue chip rappers like Nas, Pharrell (arrogant as he may be) has just elevated the game.    He has great style, he's hot, can actually sing, make block rockin beats..... and has good taste in art.
Thats all it really boils down to.   GOOD TASTE- and yes, hard to get and impossible to buy.  You are usually born with it, or in the case of most celebrities, you just pay a stylist to have it for you..

Pharrell's collection has a long way to go, he's not the Eli Broad of rap-YET- but he's off to a good start with anchor pieces by Keith Haring and ubiquitous street artist KAWS.    I have another post about KAWS in my blog from a few months ago if you want to follow up.   Aside from the fact that art is beautiful and inspiring to have around, it's also valuable stuff.    In today's economy art is more valuable than most stocks.   As witnessed here, the new status symbol.  Art is in.
I hope more musicians go to MOSS for one of a kind design pieces, Regen and other great  galleries to spend their windfalls instead of JACOB the Jeweler.    Bling does't age quite as well as the Baldessari or KOONS.    .

FYI: if you are interested in starting to collect contemporary art,  the top galleries are listed in our links on this site to firmiliarize yourself with the artists.    There are also tons of great galleries on the lower east side and Chelsea in NYC and Chung King Road,  Silverlake, Bergamont Station and Venice in LA etc. where you can buy great affordable pieces.    Collect art and support the arts-it's a great way to support creativity.

Images of  Pharrell by Alasdair McLellan      layout courtesy of Fashion rocks.

One of my favorite rappers after Biggie is Jay Z.    Jay has just proven over and over again that he is a lyrical genious.     He is a savvy business man,  and maintains his street prowess and elegance simultaneously.    Mr. Z keeps elevating the genre.   The bling is still there, but it works- you have to have a little flash right?   He made 3 piece bespoke suits cool again.    He's private and doesn't hang out with groupies in clubs. 
  He runs his business like a tight ship.     Here's to you.
  (photos in magazine by Mark Seliger, Cover of Jay Z by Michel Compte)

Not so horrifying in person.

The amazingly talented Kembra Pfahler is gorgeous sans her costumes.     With a long art and performance career that has spanned 18 years. Ms. Pfahler has cracked eggs on her crotch in concert (see video below), sewn up her vagina  to make a statement about gender, and been an artist and downtown fixture on the scene for almost two decades.    I was lucky enough to photograph her band for Details years ago and have been a huge fan ever since.   Kembra's new album, Actresstocracy is out this fall.   Kembra performed at ART BASEL Miami last year and the 2008 Whitney Biennial.   I'm so excited that she is getting the recognition she deserves.   An incredible artist and performer.


Image above from Kembra's album cover.   The songs on the first album are hard rockin with driving quitars set to hilarious lyrics.     Honky Tonk Biscuit Queen and Born to Bake are funny as shit.
Here is a bio from the Whitney biennial.  Image a still from her performance "Actresstocracy" on Independent Film Channel. (VFAIR)


Kembra Pfahler is the woman behind The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, a theatrical rock group that links a hideous monster aesthetic to a dark, hysterical feminine archetype. Named in honor of cult horror film heroine Karen Black, Pfahler's band performs heavy-bottomed punk-metal songs amid elaborate hand-constructed sets where she engages an animalistic, fetishistic practice of acting out transgressive physical feats. Pfahler's stage persona has been described as a dominant "lady devil" who relishes destroying notions of female beauty rooted in purity and innocence. Wearing a teased black bouffant wig with blacked-out teeth, black stiletto boots, and black underwear, her nude body painted blue, pink, or yellow, Pfahler heads a team of ladies appointed in similar campy glamour while male band members including her ex-husband, Samoa, maintain masculine rockabilly stylings. Pfahler and Samoa formed The Voluptuous Horror in 1990 after ten years of making Super 8 horror films and visual and performance art that they felt would benefit from a musical soundtrack, looking to Viennese Actionists Hermann Nitsch, Otto Mühl, and Rudolf Schwarzkogler as original influences. Rebelling against a degraded, polluted world, Pfahler developed an "anti-naturalism" platform on which to promote VHOKB reflecting their desire to reveal the attraction of repulsion.

The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black fashion their props and sets from low-tech, readily accessible materials under the rubric of Pfahler's theory of Availablism, creating structural items and costumes such as ladybug and flower head uniforms as visual accompaniments to their songs. For Chopsley (1996), an oversize animal trap controlled by a female band member snaps open and shut on Pfahler as she sings about a "rabid bikini model." In a 2006 performance at New York's Deitch Projects, The Sound of Magic, band members danced with Mylar-covered boards shaped like giant razor blades and shark heads before a backdrop of starkly striped paintings. Members Pfahler, Samoa, Adam Cardone, Magal, Adam Pfahler, Dave Weston, and Karen Black Girls Bijoux Altamirano, Alice Moy, Anne Hanavan, Jackie Rivera, Laure Leber, and Armen Ra writhe and jump throughout these ritualized ceremonies-cum-rock shows.

Recently Pfahler has directed her interests in bodily transformation to curatorial practice. In Womanizer (2007), also at Deitch Projects, she co-curated a show that demonstrated an "evolution beyond gender" by showing works by women seeking to explode the dualism inherent to male/female opposition. Pfahler exhibited a suite of photographs in which, dressed only in thigh-high lace-up boots and blue body paint, she mimes fornicating with a skeleton symbolizing her recently deceased boyfriend. Conflating horror, death, and female sexuality, Pfahler and VHOKB tantalize the viewer by exemplifying an abhorrent sublime, terrible as it is irresistible. TRINIE DALTON

Those moody words to Love will tear us apart were the soundtrack to anyone who came of age in the late 1970's early 80's.   Joy Division, Echo and the Bunnymen, Bauhaus, The Fall.    IT was all so creative, dark and sophisticated that period in music.The brilliant photographer Anton Corbijn made this movie last year to tell the story of the amazing, talented, tragic musician Ian Curtis of the groundbreaking post punk band Joy Division.      It was a very rich period in music history.    Makes you realize what inspired him to write the songs that were sung by that generation of young  people wearing black.    She's lost Control is about an epileptic woman Ian knew in his state social worker job.   He was also an epileptic who suffered from depression and bi polar disorder.
RIght after the Sex Pistols, Joy Division was the first band to come out of the post punk movement.   More moody, insular and melancholy Other bands like the Buzzcocks, Gang of Four, and the Fall were also part of the group.    Many of these bands were in the Manchester seen.    The fashion was paired down on a blue collar tip.  Black, distraught, volatile and fractured.   Non of the flashy splash of punk style.  These post punk bands were way more musical and intellectual than their punk rock forefathers.Control website  Samantha Morton and new comer Sam Riley are spectacular.   You will cry.





































The director Anton Corbijn Corbijn site has been a celebrated photographer for 20 years.   He shot almost all U2's imagery, has directed music videos and collaborated with many cool musicians and artists.     The film's cinematography is flawless.     Impeccable.   Please rent it.  

The Boneyards launch party was Friday night in LA.   The clothing and stores collaboration launched June 21.   Punk rock music, smoke machines, hot dog stands and carnival prizes accompanied the launch to showcase the sneakers.     The exhibition-installation upped the ante for product launch parties.    Much of the inspiration for the installation came from 80's NYC art legend and underground conceptual sculpturer Cady Noland.   (more about Cady later)    In New York, Kids were waiting in line overnight to see the new line.   A mixture of biker, flannel, motorcycle high and low art, tattoos and San Pedro chic .    I am proud to say I worked on some of the images in the Boneyards newspaper launch.    Location images were shot by art director Rob Abeyta, then converted to analog slides that I projected over the models like tattoo artist, John Hall.    Pretty cool.   Here are some pics.    Official Boneyards site

Danielle Decker and Undefeated's Jupiter, FUCT's Erik Brunetti and myself, Rob and Christina Abeyta with daughter Engracia, a carnival worker from the launch and Skate photographer and Tokyo pal Rip Zinger.

Beautiful bikes, CAA and grunge.   Well it all goes together like a 360 deal.    CAA sponsored the 100th anniversary of the legendary Harley-Davidson with a fancy cocktail shindig and Alice in Chains doing an awesome acoustic set.    Jerry Cantrell sounded amazing.    The new lead singer (William DuVall) sounds just like Layne.    It was a lot of fun in a beautiful setting.

If you like bikes, Harley wrote the book.
100 years of Harley-Davidson published by Bulfinchpress
available at bulfinchpress.com In attendance were lovely actress Jennifer Jimenez, author Mary Fossberg, and funnyman Steve-0. Duff, Susan Holms, and David Spade also attended.

Kanye West, Rihanna, NERD, Lupe Fiasco at Staples June 7.

Bigger than any rapper, Kanye West is a pop star, conceptual creator, artistic collaborator (LV and Murakami) and male fashion icon.     I have been lucky enough to see Kanye perform many times this last year.    Last nights show definitely upped the ante in terms of production value.    A set was built to resemble the surface of a fictitious planet.    With fire shooting and smoke billowing thru the floor to increase effects. Video ran throughout the show with planets, asteroids and general space visuals interacting with "Jane" his computer guide on his spaceship. 
 

When he performed Goldigger a giant goldfinger painted avatar of what looked like the perfect porn-star appeared about 7 feet tall and he sang and danced to it's image.    The performance was all Kanye with a back up singer and orchestra shoved below the stage with no lights.   I could see them as silhouettes.  (This was the only really bizarre thing of the show)   Is there a pop star without a huge ego?   Also in attendance were Brian Grazer, Fergie, Tobey Maquire, Fatima and Jeremy Scott. Rihanna rocked the house in a very  Thierry Mugler ensemble.   She is just one of the most beautiful otherworldly creatures I have ever seen.   Black skin tight leather pants strutted back and forth in her also futuristic set.   

Light sabers worked the stage during the upbeat numbers.

NERD performed with the coolest kids on stage.   Their set was the most musical and rock driven.    Lots of band members, grinding guitars and Pharrell's sexy swagger.   There were a lot of skinny jeans, high top Dunks and boxer short butts rocking out.    

It was one of the youngest crowds ever.     Several extremes.    Very cool, chic kids mixed with really badly dressed hoochie coochie styles.     Lots of unnecessary skin flashing when it should not have been.   Note:  You can only pull off leggings and a short shirt if you look like Rihanna.   Yes 5.10" at 130 pounds can do it, otherwise steer clear.

Other trends worth mentioning: 80's hip hop skat8r boi -
Headbands, sweatbands on heads and wrists, shade sunglasses, skinny jeans, all pants low low to the butt, ankle cuffs on boots, tube socks, hot pants with neon tights, army fatique shirts, M65 jackets, Neon t shirts,  printed hoodies, jeans that are way too long and low, 80's pumps, and members only style jackets.   NEON and Colorful sunglasses were everywhere. I would say it was a hybrid of a dogtown Zboy, and a Jamel Shabazz photo of NYC hip hoppers in Big Daddy Kane's era.

There comes a time when your child starts liking her own music.    Hence, the boy band and other tween sensations like Hannah Montana.   Did I mention that Miley's tour was one of the most successful in the last decade, $50 million in ticket sales and 1 billion projected for the fiscal year this year.   It's RIDIC.     Thank god she's not a drug addict and wears panties out of the house.  In the press lately for her Vanity Fair mix up where pushy legend photog Annie Liebowitz "forced" her to pose in a sultry manner.

Kids have always had their own music- much of it manufactured by the Disney channel and  Svengali's like Simon Fuller that produce boy bands.  I had to sit through High School Musical one and two about 60 times, and listen to every spin off star's solo record.  Frankly it all sucks, but as parents we are force fed.     When I was a kid, Duran Duran was the boy band.   They weren't that bad, in hindsight, they rocked.

If you are conservative, give them the Jonas Brothers.    If Silverlake produced a boy band, this would be it.  They are well styled and have punk-pop catchy G-rated hits.  This band, produced by Disney,  also has  a movie , CAMP ROCK (yes, I will be forced to see it) coming out this year, along with merchandising and all those other things 360 deals involve.    They earned 12 million last year.



If you like metal, Tokio Hotel is one of the biggest pop bands in Europe and they are starting to get airplay in the US.    Mark my words, this band will be huge.   They give new meaning to the idea of a hair band.    They are twins and they think, "the Olsen twins are cute".    aahhhhh.  how cute.
 

Luckily, my daughter has discovered Joan Jett, and we watch her on YouTUBE singing, I LOVE ROCK N ROLL.    "It just sounds so much better from a girl Mommy". (and guess what, she writes her own music and lyrics)    Amen to that.

If you are visiting NYC  the Meatpacking district rocks.  It's not much of a secret anymore, but I thought I would mention it.    The meatpacking has become somewhat of a design district.  

Yes, it was a decrepid armpit about 10 years ago and even better when I would lurk home from Mars about 15 years ago after a night of boogie fever.   Hookers, hells angels, pimps and the west side transients would congregate after dark.     Trudging past drag queens on my way into a cab.   Ahh, the early nineties.

What has now emerged is a slick fabulous fashionista and art neighborhood that many top fashion photographers call home.    Steven Klein, Dah Len and Christian Witken all have their studios near Gaansevoort.   One of my favorite studios to shoot in, MILK studios is on 15th st where Peter Lindberg and Michel Compte create magic when they are in town. 
 

The Hotel Gaansevoort and Soho house are here.    The Maritime hotel is a 2 block walk.
meatpacking design site

The clothes are overpriced and so are the antiques, but the neighborhood still has a lot of charm, cool bars and fun hotels.  I can't wait until the high line is finished in like 20 years.  Check it out.