My blog post about the daily

As many of my friends know, I'm obsessed with the latest in technology. Recently I was asked to write a short review of the new iPad publication "The Daily." Here's a link to my article:

A Newspaper for the iPad Age: The Daily Reviewed

Enjoy!

KKC Art - El Centro, CA

Dubtroit 5/25/10 featuring Hellfire Machina

Dubtroit gets bigger and bigger every month and it's always a good time. This time they are lining up Hellfire Machina. There's not much more I can say beyond that. You should come and enjoy the music.

Make sure to RSVP HERE

A-Trak's Dirty South Dance 2 Mixtape

I know I've been listening to (some would say obsessing over) a lot of dubstep lately, but every once in a while I like to poke my head out of the dark and scary place dubstep music takes me and find my happy place. This is why I was so excited that when I got that urge to listen to something more fun, A-Trak decided to release his new mixtape.

Dirty South Dance 2 is a fun electro/club banger/mashup that takes me to my happy place like very few mixes can. It's nice to find a new version of Ludacris' "How low can you go" that isn't boring and overdone.

This album proves that A-Trak is still one of the kings of club djs

Download this album and listen to it now

Exit Through the Gift Shop: The Banksy Movie not about Banksy

I know I've talked about this a lot and you'll have to excuse me for doing so, but I absolutely love the movie directed by Banksy, "Exit Through the Gift Shop" and the more I think about it the better it gets. This has nothing to do with the documentary itself per se (although the documentary was very entertaining even though it was done in a very traditional style), but it has everything to do with what this documentary represents.

If you don't know "Gift Shop" is a film shot by a Frenchman name Thierry Guetta who videotapes everything. He videotapes himself peeing, eating, sleeping, and intrudes on every portion of his life with a video camera.

When he finds out his cousin is a street artist who calls himself Invader, he decides to follow him and his friends (one of which is the world famous Andre) around and tape all of their illegal exploits. They all begin to think

that he is creating some documentary about their work and so they open up to him and allow him to meet others in the world of street art including Shepard Fairey (of Obey). He begins to not only become the documenter, but an active participant in this documentary which he's not actually creating.

After some time he meets the famous Banksy and becomes a co-conspirator in his work. When Banksy requests that he finally put the documentary together however, we find that Thierry is ill-equipped and he's been nothing but a weirdo with a video camera all along. This is when Banksy convinces Thierry to go off and create his own artwork while Banksy puts together a documentary using Thierry's hours and hours of footage. It is here however that things start to get interesting.

Thierry, inspired by Banksy's earlier art show in Los Angeles, decides to create an art show of his own. He hires people to create the art for him (which looks a lot like Banksy's and Shephard's artwork) and sells it at high prices. The surprising

(or not so surprising) thing about this is that the work is a success and sells by the thousands.

There's a lot of discussion about how the street art movement has ended and how this film is just an exclamation point on the end of that statement created by the most famous street artist in the movement. As more and more street artists move into gallery settings we start to lose the idea of street art as an art movement for the people. Now the rich can indeed own a Banksy and a commissioned work for a Kanye West album becomes the face of the movement. We've seen it throughout history as the impressionists, then the post impressionists, then dadaism all reached legitimacy.

No matter how you look at it, this film has struck a chord with the art world and it's an important enough film that I think everyone should see it. If for nothing else you should enjoy watching a lot of people buy Thierry Guetta (who now calls himself Mr Brainwash) art that has just been devalued by Banksy's film. Maybe that's the whole point of this film. To play a big prank on the entire world.

The Stylings of DJ Fashen

A while back I gave a friend at work a bunch of mixtapes. One of them was a mix by DJ Fashen. He immediately singled that one out as his favorite and kept asking me if I had any more so I looked and found this website:

DJ FASHEN

It's been a while since I've been this impressed by a club dj. Electro/Hip Hop/Pop/House/Techno/Alternative/Dubstep all seamlessly flow through this guy's playlist.

Have a listen to the mixtape titled "Something Special For You" http://itsfashen.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Fashen-Advanced-Master-192.mp3

It's especially tasty.