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9 years ago
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https://vimeo.com/124416402
As we arrive at the conclusion of another school year, Art for Progress arts ed programs are developing and evolving in new ways. The music program at Humanities Prep has been flourishing, and we recently held a student and faculty talent show, showcasing the wealth of talent that has been incubating within the school. Performances spanned a wide range of instrumentation and repertoire, and even included some original pieces and songs written by the performers. AFP's Young Adult Enrichment Program has now spawned three bands, which are now gigging around NYC. Statik Vosion, the core project of the program, also recently played alongside my own band, Bad Faces at the AFP live music series “We Deliver” at The Bowery Electric on Manhattan's storied Lower East Side. Other projects are in the works for the summer, including a recording project to produce an EP release for Statik Vision and a music enrichment program in partnership with the Upper West Side JCC which will provide music instruction for under-served elementary school students. I taught the classes last year and if was a blast!
At Humanities Prep, in Chelsea, I have been teaching music to high school students for the past three years. Some of the talent that has been emerging from the program is truly unbelievable. I have seen a number of students who had never played an instrument before become capable, and even inspired players, while others have come to me with some experience and s[...]
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9 years ago
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Mable by Spraynard
When: July 10th
Spraynard was started in 2008 by high school friends Pat Graham, Mark Dickinson, and Patrick Ware. The group released several splits as well as 2011’s amazing Funtitled, which earned them a strong and rather devote following. However, just as the anticipation seemed to be building to critical mass, the band announced a hiatus in 2012. Fans were left with a compilation album, The Mark, Tom, and Patrick Show, put out by Asian Man records in 2014. The record would ultimately serve as an impetus for Spraynard to eventually reformed, but this time with Jake Guralnik replacing Dickinson on bass. With their new line-up, the band signed to Jade Tree Records where they now plan to release their newest record, Mable. The tracks “Everywhere”, “Applebee’s Bar” and “Bench” can already be heard throughout the internet. From these first listens, it seems that the new record will have all the clever, introspective, punk goodness of the old Spraynard and it will be as if the band never left.
Nina Revisited: A Tribute to Nina Simone by Various Artists
When: July 10th
The recent release of Liz Garbus’s What Happened, Miss Simone?, a biopic on Nina Simone, has sparked a renewed interest in the legendary singer. The film, which was made available via Netflix on June 26th, joins a bumper crop of Simone-centered pictures slated for release this year. 2015 should also see the release of the documentary The Amazing Nina Simone as well as the Cynthia Mort mo[...]
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9 years ago
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Damian Marcano’s debut feature, God Loves the Fighter, is a raw, highly stylized film about life in the rough Laventille neighborhood of Trinidad and Tobago’s capital, Port of Spain. Replete with a cast of colorful characters (played by an all-Trinidadian cast), eye-popping visuals, and a strong soundtrack of music by Q Major and Freetown Collective, God Loves the Fighter is a loose, impressionistic film that makes up in grit and atmosphere what it lacks in cohesion. It’s also a rare depiction of the struggling inhabitants of a city that has one of the highest crime rates in the Caribbean.
The film is largely narrated by King Curtis (Lou Lyons, half of reggae/spoken word duo Freetown Collective), a charismatic street poet and vagrant who describes Port of Spain’s poor east side as “a dirty, nasty concrete jungle of fallen leaves.” Curtis introduces us to a variety of characters, filling us in on their often-bleak back stories. These include main protagonist Charlie (Muhammad Muwakil, Freetown Collective's other half), who is trying to find legitimate work; Dinah (Jamie Lee Phillips), a young prostitute who finds solace in a local church; Moses (Simon Junior John), a middle-aged taxi driver who runs drugs in order to make ends meet; and Putao Singh (Darren Cheewah), a sinister thug who spouts bad ethnic jokes as he commandeers a combination bar/brothel/cocaine ring that controls just about everyone in the film. These characters (there’s also a young boy and his grieving, ab[...]
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9 years ago
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New Jersey's pop punkers Man Overboard released their newest album Heavy Love today. The record is the follow-up to their 2013 release Heart Attack. The band has been steadily putting out music since their founding in 2008, beginning with the self-released Hung Up on Nothing. Not long after their EP came out, the band signed to Run for Cover Records and released another EP Dahlia. The following year, the band released Real Talk and signed to Rise Records. While the group has cycled through a few drummers and shifted its formation to some extent during this process, they’ve also largely stayed the same. Band members and childhood friends Nik Bruzzese (vocals, bass) and Wayne Wildrick (guitar) formed the group, recruiting Zac Eisenstein (guitar, vocals, piano) and then-drummer Justin Mondschein to join soon after. There was some reshuffling of the line-up in those early years and a period where Wildrik briefly left Man Overboard, but band’s current iteration seems to be sticking. The newer members guitarist Justin Collier and drummer Joe Talarico fit seamlessly into the band's sound, creating no disruption for this new record, which in it's nature is full-blown pop punk.
You can hear the famed inflection in Heavy Love’s opening track “Now That You’re Home”. Bruzzese nails that almost nasal-y tone without sounding whiny and lets listeners know within the first three minutes of the record that Man Overboard is committed to the genre. As if naming their group after a Blink-182 [...]
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10 years ago
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UkrX_ikRUY
Sunday, May 24th at The Bowery Electric
Memorial Day Weekend we're kicking off the season properly with an incredible line-up of some of NYC's best bands, performers and DJ's on two levels.
ROCK, FUNK, HIP HOP, ELECTRONICA, AMERICANA
DOWNSTAIRS: Live Music: $9 Advance Tickets, $10 at the door
XNY, Soul Khan, Blythe Sword, Bad Faces, Digital Diaspora, Statik Vision
UPSTAIRS: Live Music until 10pm, DJ's til late: NO COVER
MAP ROOM: Graham Norwood and Amy Miles
DJ's: Sameer & Gatto - 10pm til late
Hosted by Art for Progress, Doors: 7pm, Music: 7:30pm
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10 years ago
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Radio has made a strange sort-of come back. Streaming services, apps, iTunes and the seemingly endless potential of the internet has helped radio transition rather gracefully into the digital age. You can still turn on a radio, flip to a certain channel and find stations, but it's the ability or perhaps the willingness to adapt that has helped bring the other older model radio shows into the future. They have been joined by countless podcast and live streams all of which are as accessible as wifi.
One thing hasn't changed. Whether a show is being beamed to you through your car stereo or through your phone via your Stitcher account, there's still one common factor: sound. Radio is still something you just listen to. It hasn't added another sense or dimension. You just listen. The same way you just listen to an album. It's a simple interaction, but can leave such an impression. A good song can make you cry, laugh or turn off your iPod. The same goes for radio. Here are a couple good shows worth a listen:
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Hosts of NPR’s All Songs Considered Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton also record smaller segments, the most recent being about Record Store Day. They two covered what releases to keep an eye out for. Their longest, more regular series All Songs Considered is also worth checking out. It's a good resource when trying to sort of the week's essential listens.
The Mike Herrera Hour
Idobi Radio airs a segment of MXPX’s Mike Herrera podcast, The Mike Herrera Podcast, on F[...]
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10 years ago
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Barcelona-born Brooklynite, pianist Eva Novoa has produced two cds, her debut Trio (with Masa Kamaguchi on bass and Marc Lohr on drums), and Quartet (with Ernesto Aurignac on alto saxophone, Masa Kamaguchi on bass and André Sumelius on drums), both released on the label Fresh Sound New Talent. Before moving to Brooklyn, she lived many years The Hague, Netherlands, studying, and eventually teaching at Koninklijk Conservatorium.
It was in Holland, that she not only learned Dutch curse words, she also how to live in shitty weather: "It's much worse than New York. It may rain 6 days out of 7, she says while chatting in her kitchen, over espresso and Spanish shortbread cookies. "Wherever you go, you're soaked, shoes are dripping water."
Find out about her beloved fashion accessories after the jump, and learn more about this gifted musician at EvaNovoa.com.
Jacqueline Colette Prosper, @yummicoco
Floral Infinity Scarf
I found this floral scarf on my way to work at a musical theatre in Holland. In a country where there's so much wind, and you're on your bike, your scarf eventually flies away.
So you just do this [EVA MAKES A DOUBLE LOOP WITH THE CLOSED-LOOPED FABRIC], and you don't lose it. It's really warm! In Holland, you always have to wear a scarf. even in the summer. The weather sucks, and you have to wear something [warm], or else you'll get sick.
Vintage Little Black Dress From Grandma
For the anniversary of the mus[...]
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10 years ago
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NYC non-profit Art for Progress hosts this special event Wednesday, April 22nd at The Bowery Electric to celebrate Earth Day and to raise awareness. The night will feature an outstanding line up of artists with local pop rockers Wyland headlining the night. The amazing Blythe Gruda will open the show and feature some very special guests followed by a one woman psychedelic rock performance from Brooklyn's Idgy Dean. Indie rockers Polyvox will close out the night with a set of synth driven beats. Tickets are $10 and include the chance to win amazing door prizes from Gibson Guitars and tickets to The Museum of Natural History.
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10 years ago
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Teaching beat making and digital music production is always as much of a learning experience for me as it is an opportunity to share my techniques and skills with my students. This semester at the James Baldwin School, I have been working with a great group of kids with a very eclectic set of sensibilities. Some already have experience using Fruity Loops, FL Studio, Ableton or other production software on their laptops and tablets at home to make beats or tracks. Some are completely new to the process music making. Still others have experience playing traditional analog instruments, and are interested in expanding their musical palettes. The key guiding principle for me as I work to guide each student toward their own personal music making goals is to instill in them an ethic of making music from intention. By this I don't mean that that they need to decide in advance what their music means, or what experience the end listener will eventually have; although that is another, very interesting conversation. I simply mean that I encourage them to develop the skill of hearing the music in their heads, and having a vision of the ultimate result before setting ideas down. This is especially challenging at the present moment, because many production tools, and especially software based production methods enable us to bypass that step by using pre-existing loops and samples, and automatically time syncing them. Some even put them in tune with one another. While this allows for a n[...]
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10 years ago
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https://vimeo.com/124425796
I am sometimes asked to describe my music teaching methodology. Having done this frequently, I have distilled my basic philosophy to a few key themes, which accentuate the contrast between how I approach music education with Art for Progress, and how music is traditionally taught in public schools. There are clear differences in goals, in repertoire, and in what information is considered important to convey.
First, the goals are different at their essence. Traditional music instruction involves learning the mechanics of an instrument and the written language of music notation in order to reproduce pieces of music that have earned their place in the vocabulary of music educators, often, though not always, centuries or decades ago. There is little explanation of the relationships between the elements of music, or consideration of building skills toward creating original music. Traditionally trained players are often discouraged from improvising, and develop an aversion to it and even a fear of hitting wrong notes if they dare explore uncharted territory.
On the other hand, many untrained musicians, often referred to as self-taught, are undeterred by the pitfalls of exploration because they know it to be the path toward discovery. These include many folk, blues, rock, reggae, indie, pop and hip-hop musicians. Rather than learning music note for note from transcriptions, they develop a modular understanding of chords, scales, and riffs, which [...]
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10 years ago
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It’s tempting to wonder what Kurt Cobain would have thought about Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, the much buzzed-about new documentary by Brett Morgen. On the one hand, he probably would have appreciated the unorthodox visuals, much of it dark, unsettling animation that builds on the musician’s own drawings. He would probably have been OK with Morgen’s use of Cobain himself as the main narrator, through interviews, home movies and notebook entries. But being an easily humiliated soul (one of the film’s revelations) who both craved attention and hated fame, Kurt might have had a hard time digesting such a raw, unflinching portrayal of himself, or really, any portrayal of himself. As the film shows again and again, Cobain was tormented by his own contradictory nature – he both wanted and despised normalcy, success, maybe life itself.
Like Morgen’s The Kid Stays in the Picture (adapted from producer Robert Evans’s autobiography), this is far from a conventional documentary. With its elaborate animation sequences and chaotic audio and video montages culled from films, ads and other sources including Cobain himself, it’s almost an art film – which makes sense given Morgen’s attempt to portray the inside of his subject’s head. It’s not a pretty place.
Montage of Heck (the title comes from one of Kurt’s own audio creations) is the first documentary about the Nirvana frontman that is “fully authorized” by his family. (Daughter Frances Bean Cobain is an executive producer; Ku[...]
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10 years ago
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Premiers aren't just for Hollywood theaters anymore. Now movies and entire TV series can materialize on Netflix or on some other streaming service sans the red carpet party and garner just as much success. This is due partially to the raise of the internet. While box office sales are still important, the web has an increasingly important role in a film's pre and post release existence. You can follow films from funding to box set all via Twitter feeds and emails.
For new movies, the internet has somewhat infinite potential when it comes building hype. Think of how many times Netflix tried to get you to watch Blackfin or YouTube showed you yet another trailer for The Great Gatsby. In this day and age, you don't have to go to a theatre to see a trailer anymore. You can watching a clip on infinite loop until the film premiers and then long after.
Here are some recent music documentaries/bio-dramas that have utilized it in different ways. Some used the web purely as a promotional tool, one used it to crowdsource the filming and another used it as its release platform. The main tread that ties them all together is that they have been popping up in forum discussions, some for years now, and the have the internet talking.
Straight Outta Compton
“Our art is a reflection of our reality”
Due out August 13th, this film follows the rise of rap group NWA. Raised in Compton, California, the group's members Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren and DJ Yella translated their experie[...]
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