July | 2009 | ChinaShop

page 8 of 8 ←first … ←previous 6 7 8

Film Filmmakers New Breed: Jennifer Lynch

July 6, 2009 - 10:31 am

Prepare to meet a new breed of filmmakers – artists who defy hype and cliché. These bold new voices are unleashing their movies to audiences who hunger for something beyond the fast-food films they’ve been served at the multiplex. These filmmakers not only make their own rules, they break them as well.

Jennifer Lynch would make great conversation if she just described what it’s like to watch her father cook. That’s because her dad is legendary filmmaker David Lynch. She speaks as fondly about her father as she does about her passion for film. Jennifer has a film career of her own having directed her first feature at the age of 22. Boxing Helena came out in 1993 clouded by a storm of controversy. The film not only caused a stir because of the disturbing story about a man who keeps a limbless woman in a box, but a lawsuit that dragged on for years and almost derailed her career.

Read the full story →

Music Kid 606

by Shop Keeper

July 2, 2009 - 9:55 am

KID606 is dedicated to bringing his uniquely reckless fucked up and beautiful music to our fucked up and beautiful world. Insipired by the best of electronica, punk, jungle, hip-hop, bass, dancehall and techno, Kid606 Fuses it all together with a love of pop culture that Andy Warhol would approve of. Apart from running the labels Tigerbeat6, Shockout, and Tigerbass, Kid606 has performed all around the world many times over, and released records on highly regarded labels such as Ipecac, Wichita, Mille Plateaux, Fatcat, Souljazz, and Carpark. His highly original productions helped spearhead and define the edgy and confrontational glitch and mashup styles that are now common in modern music production. His album “Down with the scene” (2000) was a landmark release for the burgeoning international electronic music scene, with everything from hardcore ragga jungle and serene ambient to abstract IDM and the dubby soul classic “Secrets 4 Sale” with Mike Patton. Things only got more exciting as Kid606 delved deep into the seedy overworld of mainstream music with critically acclaimed unofficial remixes that many people wanted to hear yet no one else was willing to make. All the while releasing his own original and diverse productions as well as official remixes for Amon Tobin, the Rapture, the Locust, Foetus, Depeche Mode, The Bug, Peaches, Dälek, Ellen Allien, Saul Williams, Super Furry Animals, and countless others.

Kid 606 – Samhain California Leonard de Leonard Remix

Kid 606 -Be Monophobic With Me Dolby Anol Remix

Kid 606 – Be Monophobic With Me Genuine Guy Remix

Los Angeles Mike the Poet Revives Los Angeles One Step at a Time

by Christine Spehar

July 2, 2009 - 9:50 am

What does it mean to live in Los Angeles? Is it fake tans, celebrities and lattes on Sunset Blvd? Is it bumper-to-bumper traffic and smog on the 405 freeway? Is it urban sprawl and high rises and population density? Sure, it’s all of those things, but to Mike Sonksen, AKA Mike the Poet, it’s so much more. Mike loves LA. He loves it so much, in fact, that his recently published collection of poems and his debut spoken-word album both bear the title, I Am Alive in Los Angeles. And as he guides me through downtown LA on one of his urban walking tours, spitting rhymes filled with little-known tidbits and historical anecdotes about our fair city, I realize there’s a big difference between living in LA and being alive in LA, in all of its hot, crowded, gritty glory.

Read the full story →

Music THE MOOG – A Gogol Bordello for the Hip, Spiffy Set

by Geo Hagan

July 2, 2009 - 9:40 am

No, this Budapest-hailing band wasn’t named after the synth keyboards of the same name (admit it China Shoppers, you know that’s the first thing you thought after reading the title). Rather, this indie, dance-rock quintet was named after a small club in Barcelona where one of the members got super-inebriated and had a very “memorable” night.

Yes, their sophomore LP titled Razzmatazz Orfeum is a delicious, exquisitely-produced slice of synth-infused, glam-alicious, danceable, rock tunes featuring slick riffs, precise drums, catchy melodies and addictive lyricism. It was recorded entirely in Seattle, Washington under the aegis of Geoff Ott (Queens of the Stone Age, Twisted Radio, Verve Pipe), and the first single “You Raised A Vampire” is an absolute scorcher.

Read the full story →

Music Soft Black

by Shop Keeper

July 1, 2009 - 8:00 am

The Earth is Black, Soft Black’s second LP, was recorded to analog tape over an eight month period. Vincent Cacchione, the bands principle songwriter, began tracking in the New Jersey basement of a dear friend, Nick Coleman, on modest 8 track home recording gear. Most of the basics carved out in just a few takes, the duo of Cacchione and Coleman meticulously crafted each track, orchestrating the album with bursts of noise and melody.

Informing the album’s cover art and setting the tone for it’s descent into the nocturnal, The Earth is Black, marries the tale of a narrator awakened to a world of blood-filled clouds and bloodless bodies with a propulsive and primitive rhythm. A long time live favorite, often complete with audiences merrily singing along with lyrics about blood raining from above, the song concludes with the refrain, “the awful sky is dripping on me.” “The Flesh of The Sky” petitions the heavens with a tribe of percussion performing a primitive rain dance.

Soft Black – I Am An Animal

Soft Black – The Lions

TOUR DATES

07.02 San Diego, CA @ The Casbah
07.12 Brooklyn, NY @ Cameo

Fashion Gallery Trading Up

by Zoetica Ebb

July 1, 2009 - 7:47 am

Thrift shopping in LA is always an adventure. With prop houses practically on every corner, this town’s flea markets are packed with oddities not found anywhere else. You never know what piece of movie memorabilia grandma’s attic might hold or what’s in the basement of that eccentric neighbors crumbling mansion. The Melrose Trading Post takes place from 9am to 5pm every Sunday on the corner of Melrose Avenue and Fairfax. Entry is just $2 and well-worth what awaits inside. Handmade jewelry and clothes from contemporary local designers share the Fairfax High School parking lot with antique vendors. Last Sunday, in addition to rows and rows of beautiful junk, there was an excellent live band, a Steampunk-as-fuck grill and a cavalcade of fellow treasure hunters as colorful as the treasure itself. Also spotted: a van piled to the roof with vintage leather, a tent filled with books and enough vintage cameras and 80s fashion atrocities throughout the market to atract at least half of LA’s hipster population.

You can learn more on the Melrose Trading Posts’s official website: http://www.melrosetradingpost.org/

Words and photos by Zoetica Ebb

Read the full story →

page 8 of 8 ←first … ←previous 6 7 8