BLK JKS

A Pleasant Sound to Hear:


FADER TV: Open Bar With BLK JKS from The FADER on Vimeo.

Not too loud, not too soft. Very mellow and just down to Earth. What you just heard and saw was BLK JKS (Black Jacks). BLK JKS is a group from South Africa. They have a mix of Afro-Jazz, tribal rhythms and beats as well as what they call “funk rock. They were on The Fader #52: Africa Issue. They stopped by and did and acoustic set of “Molalatladi” in The Fader Open Bar episode and new series filmed at the Heathers in East Village. To get more information and/or to listen to more of BLK JKS check out their blog and their myspace.

Here are some pictures of BLK JKS, one includes a picture with Neptunes and N.E.R.D member Pharell Williams. The picture was taken at the Levis'/Fader fort where a N.E.R.D performance as well as a BLK JKS peformance had tooken place.
Just think, if these two were to collaborate on a couple of tracks..that would be sooo DOPE!!!

Pharcyde Reunion after 10 years!

On a blog post on the fader, it speaks on the reunion of the Pharcyde after 10 years! If some of you are not familiar with the Pharcyde here’s a little history:

The Pharcyde are a hip-hop/rap/new wave group with a twist. Or how others call it “alternative”. They have history that started to get public notice in 1991. The group hails from South Central Los Angeles and included artists Imani, Slimkid3, Bootie Brown, and Fatlip. Their first DJ was DJ Mark Luv and their producer was legendary J-Swift later known as J Dillar formerly known as Jay Dee.
Their first album “Bizarre Ride II: The Pharcyde” was released during the Gangsta rap era where critics considered “refreshing” due to its humor and jazzy production. Songs included “Passin’ Me By” and “Otha Fish”. “Bizarre Ride II: The Pharcyde” is an arguable one of the best albums out in hip-hop. But based off drug problems, members wanting to go solo, creative differences, and many disagreements each member slowly started to drift away.
In recent years Imani and Bootie Brown began performing again still as Pharcyde. Nearly 10 years later the original group, are finally coming back together on this summer’s Rock the Bells tour.
Here’s a link of an interview done by Evan Shamoon in The Fader website.

Reflecting Writing Assignments:

1. Getting Started: In the beginning, I knew off the back the multi-media project was going to be a challenge for me since I was sick and missed a lot of class time. But after going to office hours and speaking to the professor on what I needed to do to catch up had helped me a lot.
Some of the things that I expected with this project was to grow a better knowledge of multi-media because that was my main focus for this semester. I wanted to learn how to make a webpage, blog, do audio, video and get familiar with the Adobe family (Photoshop, Dreamweaver, InDesign).
I feel that accomplishing these expectations will help me a lot especially since this is a field that I want to go onto when I finish school. Working with the online media is always something that I’ve wanted to do and be a part of but I didn’t know too much about it. I know by taking one class that I wont make me a genius at webpage designing but it will get me started. It will help get an idea that I can run with, practice and use it in other classes to help me grow a better understanding of it and become more knowledgable.
This project is a lot different from doing the in-class lab projects because I’m doing it at 9 in the morning where I am half awake and would rather be in bed than reading blogs. Also, I’m the kind of person that is not very well on being creative with doing things on the spot. I’m more of a spure of the moment person and like to do projects similar to what we do in class on my own time. Plus, I’m easily distracted so I do better on things when I’m alone and its just me, my music, and the computer. Which is another reason why I decided to work on this project alone instead of teaming up. I like to do things on my own pace, and I feel that I can for sure get things done if I work on projects like this by myself.

ART WORK CONTROVERSY

NEWS: CRYSTAL CASTLES CAUGHT UP IN ARTWORK CONTROVERSY

WHEN YOU LOOK AT THE PICTURE ABOVE, WHAT DO YOU SEE? DON’T THINK, BUT GIVE ME YOUR FIRST INITIAL REACTION TO IT. IS IT SOMETHING POSITIVE OR SOMETHING NEGATIVE?

NOW READ THE ARTICLE BY CLICKING THE FOLLOWING LINK:CLICK


SO BASICALLY THE CONTROVERSY OF THIS PAINTING HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH A BATTERED WOMAN AKA MADONNA WITH A BLACK EYE. THE MAIN CONTROVERSY HAS TO DO WITH THE FACT THAT CRYSTAL CASTLE HAS BEEN USING THIS ART PIECE DURING THE SHOW AS A BACKDROP, T-SHIRTS & OTHER TYPES OF MERCHANDISE WITHOUT PERMISSION. IN THE BEGINNING, WHEN THEY FIRST CAME OUT CRYSTAL CASTLE WHICH INCLUDES ALICE GLASS AND ETAN KATH THEY FOUND THIS ART PIECE ONLINE AND THOUGHT IT WAS INTERESTING SO THEY DECIDED TO PUT IT ON THEIR T-SHIRTS. THEY DID THIS IN HOPES OF FINDING OUT WHO THE ARTIST IS. THEY HOPED THAT THE ARTIST WOULD CONTACT THEM AND THEY CAN GET IN CONTACT OF WORKING TOGETHER IN MORE PROJECTS. BUT INSTEAD, TREVOR BROWN TOOK LEGAL ACTIONS. HE CLAIMS IN WHICH CRYSTAL CASTLE ADMITS THAT THEY DIDN’T GET PERMISSION TO USE THE ART PIECE BUT ALSO HE WAS ALSO PROMISED A REMUNERATION (SALARY) WHICH HE HASN’T RECEIVED. CRYSTAL CASTLE CLAIMS THAT AFTER FINDING OUT WHO THE ARTIST WAS THEY TRIED CONTACTING HIM NUMEROUS TIMES BUT NO RESPONSE.

SO IT’S A BUNCH OF HE SAID/SHE SAID MUMBO JUMBO. NOTHING IS FREE ANYMORE. AND YOU BASICALLY HAVE TO BE CAREFUL NOW A DAYS ON WHAT YOU USE, PRINT, DISTRIBUTE, PRODUCE, QUOTE FROM, ETC. NOW A DAYS CAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW THERE WILL BE SOMEONE OUT THERE YOU MIGHT ANGER. AND IF YOU DO KNOW THAT WHAT YOU USE, IS SOMETHING ORIGINAL, GET PERMISSION AND GET IT IN WRITING WITH A COPY IN HAND. PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS FIND A WAY TO SUE SOMEONE, A LOT OF TIMES ITS JUST BECAUSE OR THEY CAN, PUBLICITY REASONS OR FOR THE MONEY, WHICH ALWAYS CAUSES NEGATIVE HOSTILITY WITH PEOPLE. CRYSTAL CASTLE CLAIMS ALSO THAT TREVOR BROWN IS MAKING IT PUBLIC ON WHAT HAPPEN BECAUSE OF PUBLICITY REASONS, WHETHER OR NOT ITS TRUE OR NOT, WHO KNOWS, CRYSTAL CASTLE SHOULD OF GOT PERMISSION. AND IF THEY WERENT SURE HOW TO FIND THE ARTISTS, THERES MANY DIFFERENT WAYS TO DO IT THEN PRINT IT OUT ON EVERYTHING THEY PROMOTE AND MAKE PROFIT OFF IT.

AND BY THEY WAY…HOW DOES MADONNA FEEL ABOUT THIS? I WOULD BE PISSED IF MY FACE WITH A BLACK EYE WAS PLASTERED EVERYWHERE AND HAD NO IDEA ABOUT IT.

Permission To Use Music

In Pitchfork:Today, I came across "John, Yoko, Ben Stein, Killers: Creationist Controversy". It speaks upon a documentary called "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" is about the cause of intelligent design, that proposed "alternate" theory to Darwin's whole evolution deal-- and a theory which, to many, is just "fancy speak" for Creationism. This documentary will hit theatres April 17th and will be narrated by Ben Stein the biggest mano-toned person in America or pretty much the face of this Earth (clear eyes...woooow.)


The controversary comes in their choices of music pieces they use in the documentary. Throughout the documentary you hear John Lennon's "Imagine" repetively and The Killers "All These Things I've Done". Expelled had received permission from The Killers and the label to use their song but the Expelled filmmakers had admitted that they did not receive permission to use "Imagine " for their film. But they also stated the use was "momentary" and thus protected under the First Amendment.

Media sources are questioning The Killers motives in wanting to use their song in the movie as well as Yoko Ono "selling out".In response, Ono's lawyer said that she wanted to "explore" other options with the copyright infringement.

In my opinion, music is music. Music is like breathing air or drinking water. It's something that shouldn't be worth any value. Or actually any materialistic value. But speaking in business terms, people need to make their money. No matter what people say, you need to find your way to survive in this world. Especially in the economy now, which is raising soo much.
And I feel if The Killers want to give permission to have their song plalyed in this documentary, that's their decision. And whatever Yoko Ono wants to do, let her do it. "Imagine" is as I call it "a precious song" and it should be handled properly. When others use it in theor work but use in an incorrect format which takes away the meaning of the original artist, yes; it can make people angry. But hey, its America..what else can I say? People will raise that First Ammendment flag as high as they can until someone shuts up.

I WANT MY..Pitchfork?

In Pitchfork: Today, it discusses how MTV isn't what it use to be. When it was first created in New York, August 1st, 1981 its main purpose was to broadcast music videos in todays' pop culture that catered to young adults. But now MTV or Music Television is full of reality television shows. Because of that, the indie music scene as well as other underground music genres suffer in finding a venue to broadcast their art to the public. And because of that, underground music based websites are creating their own "MTV" to bring back what MTV was and should still be.
They created Pitchfork TV which launched this week and is streaming a variety of music videos and concerts directed at Pitchfork’s discerning online audience. Theres plenty of videos to fit your every need and is claimed to not be found anywhere else.

Going back on what Pitchfork was discussing briefly on MTV not being about the music anymore, had me thinking on how growing up I would always tune into MTV to watch the latest music videos. You would always know what was hot if you had tuned into MTV. If there was a hot new song out on the radio, it wasn't too long that MTV had a video out for it. MTV also had TRL which is known as Total Request Live.It was a 2 hour live broadcast until about 2002 when they started pre-tapping where it had the top 10 countdown of the "it" videos. Throughout the day, there was always music videos playing and little reality tv shows and cartoons. Yes, I said cartoons. Hopefully you guys remember Daria, Beavis & Butthead, Celebrity Deathmatch, etc. The only reality tv shows I remembered were Real World, Road Rules (the unscripted ones), The Tom Green Show, Undressed & FANatic.

Now all you see is reality shows on MTV. It should be called RTV (reality television) instead of MTV. The channel is not even sticking to its original roots by providing entertaining our audiences with the latest music. Now its more about what they feel is entertaining, which is seeing people get drunk, have sex, argue & fight. That's what gives ratings and that's what MTV has realized what audiences want to see. Which is very understandable. Even though they may have lost their audience members who were truly about the music videos, they have gained a whole new generation of audiences that are into the things MTV broadcast.
Audiences now a days, buy into what they broadcast, and believe that this is "reality". Business wise, MTV is doing everything right, by figuring out who and what are their key audiences are to keep their channel running, but sticking to their roots and their name they have failed.

Random fact: Carson Daly was not the original host of Total Request (not a typo) which was actually known as MTV Live until 1998. The original host was British VJ Toby Amies. In 1998, it was then changed to Total Request Live. Wanting to add more a closure and entertaining aspect to it by MTV introduced young audiences to the studio during the countdown. Which made Carson Daly the original host of Total Request Live.

Video Project

In my Mcom 63 class our professor assigned us to make a 2-3 minute video on anything and edit it through iMovie. This is something that seemed very exciting to me because I always wanted to make my own mini movie.I remember working in iMovie briefly in high school so I knew a little on what to expect, but I didn't realize how stressful it could be.

The idea I had for my video project was to film myself doing my radio show and also the guest djs I had on my show as well. In the beginning was Jaypee spinning some House music, then me make some announcements then closing out the show. But......that didn't turn out the way I expected it to be. When it came down to the editing, I was having so much difficulties. I had forgot how to crop out some parts that I didn't want in my video which included pauses or parts that seemed unnecessary. There's a part where a dj came and was just talking very loudly which was very obvious and distracted me from video tapping and the dj from spinning.

After an hour of trying to figure out what to do and asking random people in the computer on how to use iMovie, I finally came across a How-To-iMovie tutorial, which helped a lot. I was started to get a hang of the editing and all I needed to do was edit the distractions in the first 2 minutes, add in the transition, possibly a couple of text to introduce my video and end it. But.... yes there's another but. I had to go to my 6pm class so i had to save what I had done already. Since I only had a 1G usb drive it was quit difficult to save it, so when finally figuring out how to save it, I compressed it and saved it under iMovie. DONT EVER DO THIS IF YOU ARE NOT DONE EDITING!! I say that because since I made that mistake, not only was it saved under Quicktime, I wasnt able to go back into iMovie and edit the rest of my video which was very depressing.

But this is my first "video" so of course there will be mistakes and all I have to do is just learn from it.




CLICK THE PICTURE TO CHECK OUT THE VIDEO!

Parsing The Future

At first I was a little confused on what exactly I was suppose to be looking for. But then I started just browsing around to try find something that might catch my attention for longer than 30 seconds. So after 30 minutes or so, I came across an article in the City Room Section called "Cleanliness Is Next to Greek-Design Godliness"

It talks about how the Metropolitan Transportation Authority put out and anti-litter poster which had someone throwing away a coffee cop in the trash can with the words "Be Part of the Solution Not the Pollution". The coffee cup was a little blurry since whoever took the picture had it in a certain setting to where it had the movement a bit unclear. I don't know too much about taking pictures, I just know that one someone takes a picture with movement a lot of times it comes out a little blurry.
The reason why I'm talking about it so much is because in the article they talk about how they wondered if it was a Starbucks coffee cup or a Dunkin Donuts coffee cup. They even contacted the spokesperson for the authority and in which he states that he doesn't want to blame a certain establishment of customers for the problem of leaving spilled coffee cups on the subway. Which I agree upon because littering doesn't have a brand name.
They then go on about the coffee cups and how in recent years coffee cups or actually whats contained in the cup is going up in prices. How we pay $3 for a cup whose value should only be $0.50. Then they quote saying "Perhaps the M.T.A is suggesting that upscale coffee drinkers liter more than the diner customers?"

And to be honest, I feel this article is way over analyzed. I understand the meaning and the analyzation of ads. But the purpose of having the poster up to begin with was to tell people "TO NOT LITTER!" You catch a lot of people, not just in the subways and not just coffee cups, anywhere and anything, who are too lazy to put their trash away in the garbage. Its one of the many problems we go through in this society and the M.T.A was just speaking out on this issue.

IN DESIGN LAB

ANOTHER PHOTOSHOP PICTURE!

in this mini project of mine i have learned the art of cloning.as you can tell the first picture had a pair of puma tennis shoes & the other one doesnt.i learned how to pick a spot near the area that i dont want there anymore, clone it and then patch over what i dont want there anymore.after i did that, i clicked on the blur tool to blend it in a bit so it wouldnt look too "cheesy" or too obvious that i did something to it.

BEFORE:


AFTER:

AND MORE: