"COMMERCIAL"

This is a commercial we shot for Millennium Blonde. We shot it in Bushwick at Nathan's apartment. We were both extremely hung over and went searching for a cake in the morning. Eventually we found a mexican bakery and we asked for an old cake. The woman presented us this cake and said it was quite delicious- we told her we weren't going to eat it. We got back and pushed the dust bunnies to the side and set up the tripod. A pack of cigarettes later we were done. Enjoy.

Some Concept Notes

This is the first installment of what will hopefully be an new series of posts, offering a series of exciting new concepts for film and music, few of which will ever be realized. Every post in this series is open source; we encourage all who read to feel free to challenge the world by bringing these dreams to fruition. Follow on, if you might be so inclined.


A MUSICAL JOURNEY THROUGH CHAIRS

As much as music has often been discussed as a social art form, a performance medium that exists, especially in popular genres, as a kind of barometer for the movement of societies and cultures, I have to say that there has been another, perhaps less romantic fact apparent about the use music in this century. A fact more derived from anecdotal evidence than anything else, but still one I cannot imagine many people contending. Which is that most people listen to music, recorded or performed, while sitting in chairs.

Think about it. When is the last time you decided to listen to music in some fashion, and ended up hearing it while not sitting in a chair? A chair at a concert, your computer chair, the seats on the subway or your car, an arm chair, even the living room couch, which functions as a surrogate chair in many families all over the American nation. I am listening to music while I write this post, and although I am technically sitting on an ottoman, I happen to be sitting on the ottoman almost exactly as one would otherwise sit on a chair.

In light of this, I have found myself wondering, often several times in the course of one day, if it would be possible to record an album in tribute to this fact, a kind of musical journey through the chairs of our life time.

While there are several notable contributions to the literature of chair-centric pop music, I believe the scope of this album would very much need to go further. What if, for example, the music for each song would be made to resemble the chair being honored? This could be done via Matmos like sampling techniques, or through more abstract gestures. In the case of chairs that date to very specific historical periods, or those that suggest very specific social/cultural tendencies, the music could reflect these very particular tendencies within the chair itself. A Bauhaus style chair might reference the classical music of early 1930s Germany , the 1980s goth band Bauhaus, or merely reflect the experience of the chair in a more pragmatic fashion. Every single disposable item at Ikea would have its own musical identity; every one who has ever spent considerable time in a car can find significance in the feel of its cushions.

Even looking past the possibilities in terms of installation art and licensed advertising, the performance possibilities opened up by this project are considerable. Imagine an enormous theatrical performance, the history of civilization as seen through its chairs, every chair scored with the perfect composition, accompanied by the actual chair itself, which the performers would proudly sit upon. Perhaps some lucky audience members would be able to sit in these chairs alongside the performers; the chairs would be paraded through the crowd for a victory lap following their musical selection. Just think of it, the way the music would tumble through your mind as you sit on the subway going home, as you sit on the toilet before going to bed, as you sit at your computer and e-mail your friends about the experience. Just think!

So, those of you sitting down right now could take this as a challenge. Are there any chairs you think particularly deserving of the musical treatment? Anyone writing a short piece of music inspired by this post will certainly have their efforts featured proudly on this blog.

FutureGlamour AD

Dance/Film

This video is from a friend and co worker of mine, Peter Shapiro. Peter is an video artist based in NYC and he often works with dancers. In this video he is working with ThinkDance headed by Jill Segman. Peter also worked on a project with Jill Segman at the Empac Center in Troy, New York. I saw some of the footage and it looked like an incredible piece.

Our Lady Of Detritus from ps on Vimeo.

I have found that many experimental film makers work with dancers and I believe that the two mediums lend themselves to collaboration. Below is a video from a dance performance that I did with choreographer/dancer Christina Daly, Nico Li, and Dana Drag from SUNY Purchase. The music for the piece was composed by Zach De Sorbo and he manipulated the audio live which created a very beautiful yet haunting effect. The piece is entitled "Time is Broken". I was asked to create a background projection for the video and somehow ended up being in the piece as well, I am the man in the business suit who falls to the floor and stays there for the entire show.



The video of the performance is a little rough. Below is just the background projection that I created for the piece.

SAW : An Overly Long Consideration of a Pop Fad Gone By

Alright, I'm going to ask you all to listen, and listen closely.



What you hear? That's the noise that a sound makes when it's dying. The song may not be familiar, at least to our conscious brain, but the component parts, so naked and exposed that there is hardly a need to elaborate what they are, have been rattling around in the most visible puddles of pop music for the last two decades, without rest.

In the 1980s, the trio of Stock, Aiken and Waterman performed what for all intents and purposes turned into a complete domination of British pop radio, ratcheting up something close to a dozen number one chart hits in half a decade. In the process they managed to engineer chart success for any number of acts that we can more or less consider successful: Rick Astley , Bananarama, Kylie Minogue, the WWF Superstars, and Dead or Alive, whose song "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" was covered by Jessica Simpson, which seems very deeply appropriate. The video up top, from Boy Krazy, is basically the last single they achieved significant success with; you can hear the thinness in it, and it's kind of fascinating, like a Pop Flying Dutchman, steering itself through cursed memory alone.

If the history of factory made hit records starts (for the sake of argument) with Barry Gordy and Motown, and grows until it blossoms into the fully formed behemoth that is Disney right now, then SAW occupy a very crucial turning point. They famously sought to control every aspect of their artist's careers, designing them with airtight visual sheen; it's easy to forget that Kylie Minogue was originally a faintly promising actress languishing in the dire tv sitcom "Neighbours" (not to the length of building television shows around its bands, but we can't all be Disney can we?).

The fascinating thing about the SAW sound remains how in touch it was with the first stirrings of British club culture. Their unfortunate struggle with M/A/R/R/S over a single sample in the great "Pump up the Volume" notwithstanding, they had what seems to current eyes like a strikingly vital push and pull between their successes and the underground culture; it's hard to imagine Madchester blowing up the way it did without their priming the population, and there are things like this late '80s Momus track:



We hear about '80s revival all the time these days, and people are talking about a '90s revival coming soon, so I suppose we should brace ourselves for that. But what I'm wondering is, if all the kids of today are tuning into Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus, then where are the artists grappling with their influence the same way that someone like Momus did on his album "Don't Stop the Night"? Is it simply to daunting a prospect, or is there really such little water in that puddle that the blog successes of today have had to run, cringing, into the comforting arms of Rick Astley, and his warm glow of quality, the kind that time will never take away?

Justin Bieber

I have heard of Justin Bieber before, but have never really listened to his stuff. Today I heard his track "Baby" featuring Ludacris. I am glad Justin is going more pop with his music and not just playing his acoustic guitar.



Do you ever feel like the pre-teen culture is a step ahead? They are so savvy. Posting video responses and all that. I have a film degree and I can't compete with these kids for YouTube hits.

Demo

Hey everyone. At our last practice we recorded a take of our new songs. This demo has two songs "A.S.T.R.O" and "Such a Stupid World" and they blend together with electronic breakdowns in between. This will kind of give you an idea what to expect at Astro Club Blonde's upcoming show at Arlene's Grocery on February 25th.

Free Beats

(spoiler alert! giving away free beats!)

I want to create a world wide musical community/ musical workshop. I will be posting a free beat every week so that you, and everyone around you, can download it, rap over it, cut it up, remix it, use it in a movie, or do whatever you want to it, and post it back up online so that everyone can hear your artistic expression. The only rule is once you have finished you're work on the piece; please find some way to host what you've done online. You can host it on your blog, on your website, on your Myspace, on YouTube, or wherever. When you've uploaded your musical creation please link back to this blog so that we can keep this community of artists growing. If you are unable to post your musical piece, you can email it to me at beats(@)millenniumblonde.com, and I will post it on this blog. Remember, "music isn't music until it is shared with the world."

So, here is the first free beat.

Talk Like This

Download

Suggestions for this beat...

This is a very poppy beat. I would love to hear some Britney Spears style singing over it. A Kanye West style flow would be very suitable as well, like the verse he did on "American Boy" by Estelle. A different way to go would be to do a Lil Wayne sorta rhyme, like on "Drop The World". I can't wait to hear what you do, have fun! It's a FREE BEAT!

Teen_Pop

I showed this Cobra Starship video to a friend of mine and he commented, "It's strange how it's become popular to intentionally portray yourself as a huge asshole." With that said, I think this video for Cobra Starship's "Good Girls Go Bad" is awesome.