Obey: The Art Of Shepard Fairey

Just wanted to recommend the "Supply and Demand" show by Shepard Fairey at the ICA in Boston. Great stuff! Pick up the catalog too. Go before the show comes down at the end of the summer. I know he's well known for the Obama poster and the Andre The Giant stickers, but he goes a whole lot deeper than that. Check it out. Love the mix of politics, dark humor, and music. Suitable for kids. This little gallery you see below, gleaned from the web, only scratches the surface. Fairey's art is viral and based in pop art, graff, and propaganda, so I feel justified in "stealing" imagery and posting it here. I must obey my instincts so here goes... - DJ Bongohead

The Superpowers have a new album!

Check it out - great band - kind of like Nomo - instrumental afrobeat, jazz & afro-funk inspired orchestra based in Boston, MA. Have not heard the new one, but make sure you listen to them on the web or better yet, go see them live. Great band for dancing. A track by them is on the upcoming release, The Rough Guide to Afrobeat Revival, put together by DJ Andujar  & DJ Bongohead. I had the pleasure of playing chekere with the band once in concert and I was very impressed.

If you are in Boston this weekend, this is the show to catch:



From the MySpace:

Internationally recognized afrobeat group THE SUPERPOWERS have been hailed by critics as a "poly-rhythmic juggernaut."

Originally formed as the Boston Afrobeat Society, having won the 2007 Phoenix Best Music Poll and 2006 Boston Music Award for Best World Music Act, this 21st-Century Dance Band has been blasting off in the Northeast. They have since relocated to Brooklyn where they have nurtured a monthly residency at Zebulon, one of Brooklyn's most well-respected music venues, for 2 years! They have played packed houses throughout the Eastern U.S. and shared the stage with internationally renowned artists including Sierra Leone's Refugee All-Stars, John Browns Body, Aphrodesia, and NOMO.

In the past year they have played nearly 100 shows at festivals, bars, clubs, farms, and community events, rallying to end the violence in Darfur, raising money for development projects in Zambia's Meheba refugee settlement and supporting Fair Trade in South America. THE SUPERPOWERS also toured for 2 years using a WVO (Waste-Vegetable-Oil) powered School Bus, dubbed "the Green Monster." Members of the Superpowers can also be seen around the Northeast performing with Baye Kouyate, Amayo's Fu-Arkestra, The Mobius Band, Cuddle Magic, Rubblebucket Orchestra, BQEZ, and Dead Cat Bounce. They are currently working on their second full-length record entitled Trance-for-Nation featuring Claude and Rudy Gomis (Orchestra Baobab). It is expected to be out by the end of 2008. Their first record, Revival Time is available on iTunes.



BTW, their first album was designed by Nate Duval, a friend who does excellent art and graphic design - check out his posters, illustrations, and designs on line at nateduval.com. You can check him out at the various alternative craft fairs around the country as well - his silkscreens are great. His partner, Jen Skelley, is a very talented designer and artist too - I have several of her silkscreen prints and they are KILLER!
Nate's cover:

Two Collectors Choose Some Of Their Favorite Album Covers

OK, so I asked two guys I respect a lot, musician and music store owner Josh Burkett and musician/writer/disk jockey Brendon Rule (a.k.a. DJ Andujar of WMUA fame), if they could pull a few albums, from their vast collections, that had cool covers. I got the impression that for Andujar, at first this whole 'cover art thing' was kinda new, but that now he was getting into it. He had done some posters and 'zines, and was of course used to flipping through a lot of records due to his activities as a DJ, collector, and seller of vinyl. But the covers never really grabbed him until I asked him to take a second look. Then, after careful consideration, he proved to have a great eye for wacky & cool cover art. Josh, on the other hand, is a natural connoisseur of cover art, being visual artist as well as a collector, seller, & of course, maker of music, and there is even one cover here that he made himself (Vermonster) & the really beautiful album he commissioned, with a front & back that have no text but are really colorful and quirky. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this little gallery from their collection. You can visit Josh at his store in Amherst, Mass., Mystery Train Records, and you can check out Andujar's radio show, "clandestino' on WMUA. So, without further ado, here are the covers...