release your potential

Top 5 For Friday

2011-11-26T20:48:00.000-08:00

We have been listening to allot of NEW music this past week and have compiled the tracks that have received the most plays on our list. This list does not reflect the most up-to-date releases but merely what we find ourselves gravitating to whenever music is part of our atmosphere.

Take a look at our recommendations below.

Shine A Light by The C90s
We Trust by Time
No Mans Land by Psychobuildings
Lose Your Soul by Dead Mans Bones
Parentheses by The Antlers

Bonus Track

Find A Way by Joakim

Top 5 For Friday

2011-11-18T06:59:00.000-08:00

Take a look at our recommendations below.

All Night by Voltage

End Of The Night by The Smith Westerns
Heaven by Kasper Bjorke
How Come You Never Go There by Feist

Piscine by Francoise and The Atlas Mountains

Bonus Track

Rise by Herb Alpert

Top 5 For Friday

2011-11-11T08:09:00.000-08:00

Take a look at our recommendations below.

Manila by Seelenluft
Late At Night by Seelenluft
Church by The 2 Bears
The Lunatics by The 2 Bears
Brow Beaten by The Silver Columns

Bonus Track:

Synchronize by Solid Gold

Top 5 For Friday

2011-11-05T09:54:00.000-07:00

Take a look at our recommendations below.

Someone Like You (Adele Cover) by Hobbie Stuart
Unchained Melody (Righteous Brothers Cover) by Lykke Li
Follow You Into The Dark (Death Cab Cover) by Unknown

Please Please Please (The Smiths Cover) by Adrian Watkins

Addicted to Love (Robert Palmer Cover) by Florence And The Machine

Spotlight on Rap: It's Just A Ghetto Thing

2011-10-29T06:24:00.000-07:00

Hip hop is a musical genre which developed alongside Hip Hop culture, defined by key stylistic elements such as rapping, DJing, sampling, scratching and beatboxing. Hip hop began in the South Bronx in the 1970s. The term rap is often used synonymously with hip hop, but hip hop denotes the practices of an entire subculture.

Rapping, also referred to as MCing or emceeing, is a vocal style in which the artist speaks lyrically, in rhyme and verse, generally to an instrumental or synthesized beat. Beats, almost always in 4/4 time signature, can be created by looping portions of other songs, usually by a DJ, or sampled from portions of other songs by a producer. Modern beats incorporate synthesizers, drum machines, and live bands. Rappers may write, memorize, or improvise their lyrics and perform their works a cappella or to a beat.

Creation of the term hip hop is often credited to Keith Cowboy, rapper with Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. However, Lovebug Starski, Keith Cowboy, and DJ Hollywood used the term when the music was still known as disco rap. It is believed that Cowboy created the term while teasing a friend who had just joined the U.S. Army, by scat singing the words "hip/hop/hip/hop" in a way that mimicked the rhythmic cadence of marching soldiers. Cowboy later worked the "hip hop" cadence into a part of his stage performance, which was quickly used by other artists such as The Sugarhill Gang in "Rapper's Delight".

Zulu Nation member Afrika Bambaataa is credited with first using the term to describe the subculture in which the music belonged; although it is also suggested that it was a derogatory term to describe the type of music. The first use of the term in print was in The Village Voice, by Steven Hager, later author of a 1984 history of hip hop.

click any track below to listen

Top 5 For Friday

2011-10-28T07:21:00.000-07:00

Take a look at our recommendations below.

You Are A Tourist by Death Cab For Cutie
Funk Of 40,000 Years by Michael Jackson
Trouble by Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs
Close To Everything by Mickey Moonlight
Alors On Danse by Stromae

Top 5 For Friday

2011-10-22T10:09:00.000-07:00

Take a look at our recommendations below.

Night Time by Tracey Thorn
Know How by Kings of Convenience
Finnbikkjen by Casiokids
Midnight Ciry by M83
Always On by Silver Columns

Chromeo: The Remixes

2011-10-19T10:31:00.003-07:00

Synth pop revisionist duo Chromeo formed in Montreal in the early 21st century, a project of Audio Research honchos Dave One and Pee Thug (news flash: not their given names). Dave handled the electronics; Pee was the frequently processed vocalist. From the beginning, Chromeo made it clear that artful detachment, cheesy electro-funk breakdowns, and gleaming plastic beats -- not serious intent or aggressive musical regime change -- were the name of their well-dressed game.

This summer, the party-starting, festival-happy Montreal plastic-funk duo Chromeo returns. On August 17, they'll release Business Casual, their third album and the follow-up to the 2007 breakthrough Fancy Footwork, via Atlantic.

click any track to listen

Top 5 For Friday

2011-10-14T07:51:00.000-07:00

Take a look at our recommendations below.

Righteous Hit by Polographia
Last Words by Clubfeet
Everything Goes My Way by Metronomy
Down by Vindahl
It's A Bubble by Beni

Top 5 For Friday

2011-10-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

Take a look at our recommendations below.

Glad I Met You by DGookin

Power Everything by Tanlines
The Automatic Process by Home Video
Vision Of Love by Bertrand Burgalat
Berimbau by Astrud Gilberto

Top 5 for Friday

2011-09-30T12:54:00.000-07:00

Take a look at our recommendations below.

Mercy by Edit Murphy
Nightcall by Kavinsky
Here In The Dark by Schoolcraft
Rain Tears by Get People

Flowers by Teeth

Top 5 for Friday

2011-09-10T22:23:00.000-07:00

Take a look at our recommendations below.

It's Been an Hour by Sorcerer
Here Come The People by New Musik
Swimming Pool by Marie Madeleine
Criticize by Alexander O'Neil
Disco Rough by Mathematiques Modernes

Seattle Vacation

2011-09-07T07:11:00.001-07:00

I wish this was the echeck-list for my upcoming trip, but unfortunately it is not.

I will be heading to Seattle, Washingtom for the next two weeks
so please visit the archive for your enlightenment.

Seattle is the northernmost major city in the continental United States, and the largest city in the Pacific Northwest and in the state of Washington. A seaport situated on an isthmus between Puget Sound (an arm of the Pacific Ocean) and Lake Washington, about 100 miles (160 km) south of the Canada – United States border, it is named after Chief Seattle, of the Duwamish and Suquamish native tribes. Seattle is the center of the Seattle–Tacoma–Bellevue metropolitan statistical area, the 15th largest in the United States, and the largest in the northwestern United States. Seattle is the county seat of King County and is the major economic, cultural and educational center in the region. As of April 2009, the city's population was approximately 617,000 within a metropolitan area of 4,158,000. The Port of Seattle and Seattle–Tacoma International Airport are major gateways to Asia, Alaska, and the rest of the world.

Seattle is on the I-5 corridor, about 170 miles (270 km) north of Portland, Oregon/Vancouver, Washington and 140 miles (230 km) south of Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada. The city of Victoria, British Columbia's capital, is about 110 miles (180 km) to the northwest (about 90 miles (140 km) by passenger ferry) while the eastern Washington hub city of Spokane lies 280 miles (450 km) to the east.

The Seattle area has been inhabited for at least 4,000 years, but white settlement began only in the mid-19th century. The first permanent European-descended settlers, Arthur A. Denny and those subsequently known as the Denny Party, arrived November 13, 1851. Early settlements in the area were called "New York-Alki" ("Alki" meaning "by and by" in Chinook Jargon) and "Duwamps". In 1853, Doc Maynard suggested that the main settlement be renamed "Seattle", an anglicized rendition of the name of Sealth, the chief of the two local tribes. From 1869 until 1982, Seattle was known as the "Queen City". Seattle's current official nickname is the "Emerald City", the result of a contest held in 1981; the reference is to the lush evergreen forests of the area. Seattle is also referred to informally as the "Gateway to Alaska", "Rain City", and "Jet City", the last from the local influence of Boeing. Seattle residents are known as Seattleites.

Seattle is the birthplace of rock legend Jimi Hendrix and the rock music style known as "grunge," which was made famous by local groups Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and Pearl Jam. Bruce Lee and his son Brandon are both buried at Lakeview cemetery.

Seattle has a reputation for heavy coffee consumption; coffee companies founded or based in Seattle include Starbucks, Seattle's Best Coffee, and Tully's. There are also many successful independent artisanal espresso roasters and cafes.

Neon Indian: Hex Girlfriend

2011-09-04T19:49:00.001-07:00

Washed Out moved beyond “chillwave” to something sturdier on Within And Without. Toro Y Moi did the same via his Underneath The Pine. Now it’s time to see if Alan Palomo can build upon the success of 2009′s Psychic Chasms and escape pigeonholes on new album Era Extraña.

Dine Alone Records is set to release 'Era Extraña', the sophomore album from Texas-based hazy psych-rock group Neon Indian on September 13th, 2011.

Hex Girlfriend
Fallout
Sleep Paralysis

Deadbeat Summer

Polish Girl

Top 5 For Friday

2011-09-02T20:02:00.000-07:00

Take a look at our recommendations below.

Banana Ripple by Junior Boys
Crush On You by Nero
Sunset Driver by Michael Jackson
Somebody That I Use To Know by Gotye
When The Night Falls by Chromeo

Focus On Music: LCD Soundsystem

2011-08-29T07:41:00.000-07:00

I never was a huge fan of LCD Soundsystem until I had the opportunity to see them live prior to disbanding earlier in the year. James Murphy and his charasmatic performance led me to check out the band a little further. I was suprised at some of the things I had heard. I had unknowingly placed the band in the heap reserved for fraternities. In my research, I found a subtle sensitivity to their otherwise brut catalog. I have included these subtle suprises below.

Someone Great

I Can Change
Home

Focus On Dance: Waacking

2011-08-28T20:38:00.000-07:00

The Waacking style of street dance traces its roots back to gay and nightclub cultures. In the United States, at gay nightclubs, male performers dressed as women and performed to female songs on stage. Movements of the performers were so creative that it was only a matter of time before Waacking made its way into mainstream nightclubs as a way of the dancefloor, and earned its approval amongst other sexualities, especially in the straight community. Waacking evolved prior to house music's popularity and is considered a house dance since it was popular amongst nightclubs (also known as houses).

Disco music was the perfect vehicle for Waacking, with its driving rhythms and hard beats.

In the early 1970s in Los Angeles, dancer Lamont Peterson was one of the first to start using his arms and body to the music. Dancers such as Mickey Lord, Tyrone Proctor and Blinky fine tuned the arms movements, by making the arms and hands go fast to the driving disco beat. During the mid 1970s club dancers Tinker, Arthur, Andrew, Lonnie Carbajal, Michael Angelo, Billy Starr, Billy Goodson, and Danny Logo took center stage with other dancers, perfecting those synchronized syncopated movements.

At the time Waacking was primarily a gay Black and Latino dance. Many people mistakenly believe that “Waacking” came from “Locking” because some of the movements are very similar. The gay and transvestite community largely contributed to the oldskool waacking forms. Waacking and Locking do have some similarities but they are different dances. Punkin' is the original name of the dance. Waacking is a name set forth by the non-gay community that mixed in movements from locking. Some Locking style dance instructors eventually started to teach Punkin' and newskool Waacking classes also. Many new dancers assumed that it was part of the Locking style.

The name “Waacking “originated from The Soul Train Dancer Tyrone Proctor and Jeffrey Daniel's of the Outrageous Waack Dancer's in 1972 themselves (Because of the thrusting of the arms). “Garbo” is another name given to the dance by Andrew because of the posing he did (like the pictures of the glamour women of the 40’s) Arthur, Andrew and Tinker danced sometime on Soul Train. While working with Toni Basil, (An Original Locker). Andrew, Arthur, Tinker, Lonnie, and Billy landed the Diana Ross show in Las Vegas.

The difference between “Waacking” and “Voguing” is “Waacking” became popular in the early 70’s on the West Coast. “Waacking” is mostly done to Disco Music. “Voguing” became popular in the late 70’s on the East Coast.”Voguing” is done to mostly House Music.

Over 35 years “Waacking” is still going strong with the help of dancers like Tyrone “The Bone” Proctor, Adolfo “Shabbadoo” Quninones, Jody Watley, Anna “Lollipop” Sanchez, Brian “Footwork”Green, Angel and Tyrone's Son Aus Spottedeagle aka Aus "Ninja" Omni, and Samara Lockerooo just to name a few. When the Gay Community moved on from “Waacking” these were some of the people who help keep this Dance form alive for more than 35 years.

Waacking and Glowsticking are the fundamental dance styles of which Tecktonik is based off. Tecktonik and Waacking are often ridiculed pejoratively by sexualists as being a gay dance, despite being danced by and having evolved amongst a vast variety of sexualities.

Focus On Music: The Chromatics

2011-08-27T08:47:00.000-07:00

While The Chromatics might not be warm, their music does feel intimate, like a 3 a.m. ride home, where you're not alone but exhaustion and intake have made talking impossible, the city is silent, and the traffic patterns are as comforting and regimented as a drum machine click track. One of those moments when you should be crying, but you'll be damned if you let it show.

We have been on that drive for over 3 years and suggest you join us after dark.

In The City
Hands In The Dark
I Want Your Love
Healer

Focus On Music: Glass Candy

2011-08-27T08:37:00.000-07:00

This no wave threesome from Portland, OR, is fronted by the strange and exquisite waif Ida No, whose crazy caterwauls recall the frantic singing of the Swans' Jarboe, David Bowie, and the shifty rhythms of James Chance. John David V provides disco beats, while a changing cast of drummers has included Avalon Kalin and Jimi Hey. While the band’s early work blended noise rock with electropop, their later work incorporates Italo disco. The band is known for evolving through the years since their original collaboration, and experimenting with various musical genres.

Beatific
Life After Sundown
Computer Love
Rolling Down The Hills

Stars and Houses

Top 5 For Friday

2011-08-26T08:18:00.000-07:00

Take a look at our recommendations below.

New Beat by Toro Y Moi
Pumped Up Kicks by Foster The People
Calrissian by Millionyoung
Round and Round by Ariel Pinks Haunted Graffiti
Worse for Wear by InFlagranti

Focus On Music: Hunx and his Punx

2011-08-25T09:08:00.000-07:00

We have been listening to Hunx and His Punx for a couple years now and feel the time appropriate to unleash them to the public. The band might be the first ever "girl group" fronted by a flamboyant gay male whose dream in life is to sound like a girl. They have created a unique new sound they refer to as "Young Oldies", a mixture of 50s teenage rock n roll, 60s girl groups and bubblegum pop. If John Waters were to re-make his cult film Cry-Baby, Hunx would be the perfect match for a soundtrack score.

Dream On (Little Dreamer)
Lovers Lane
When You Find Out

MGMT: The Singles

2011-08-19T09:32:00.001-07:00

American rock band MGMT have only been a blip on our radar. We never found their full-length releases to be consistent enough to warrant constant play. This is true for allot of bands in the digital age primarily known for their "singles". In the case of MGMT, we find their stripped-down remixes do better justice to their psychedelic sound than the over-produced studio version that is usually released to the public.

We have compiled a few of our favorites below.

Siberian Breaks
Congratulations
Electric Feel
Kids

Time To Pretend

Top 5 For Friday

2011-08-19T07:38:00.000-07:00

Take a look at our recommendations below.

Don't Call by Desire
Watch The Glow by Museum Of Bellas Artes
Family Of Love by DOM
Polis Girl by Neon Indian

6 More Weeks by Erika Spring

Neon Indian: Era Extraña

2011-08-18T11:27:00.000-07:00

Fallout
Sleep Paralysis

Deadbeat Summer

Polish Girl

DOM: Family Of Love

2011-08-17T21:03:00.000-07:00

While many bands suffer with identity crises, Worcester, Massachusetts four-piece Dom has their priorities straight. The buzzed-about twisted-pop rockers slammed into conciousness with warped vocals, fuzzy low-fi distortion, and broken Casio keyboard lines. Dom filters a DIY aesthetic through the upbeat, sunny rhythms of pop music.

Their songs feel like they’re held together by sonic duct tape and at any minute they could break apart, but they don’t.

Telephone
Family Of Love
Jesus

The Radio Department: The Singles

2011-08-16T22:12:00.000-07:00

There has been a void in the atmospheric indie rock arena ever since the release of Badlands by The Jesus and Mary Chain. In 2003, The Radio Dept. started filling that void with their first release and have been fairly consistent since. Earlier this year, the band released it's compilation Passive Aggressive: Singles 2002 – 2010 which is definitely worth picking up.

You'll find it as your "go-to" for creating a dark and brooding atmosphere full of sonic tendencies.

The Video Department
Pulling Our Weight
Against The Tide
Memory Loss

Little Dragon: Ritual Union

2011-08-15T20:31:00.000-07:00

Little Dragon is full of subtle touches capturing emotions and Pop flourishes, drifting percussion and electronic dynamics. Little Dragon is something special, and if you're a fan of Yukimi Nagano, you will certainly enjoy it. Her vocals remind me of more of a traditional electronica vocalist, while still maintaining her unique flowing & sensual vocal style heard on earlier collaborations.

Their latest full-length Ritual Union available at amazon.com for the incredible introductory price of $5.99.

Ritual Union
Never Never
Runabout

Nightlight

Pacific: Reveries

2011-08-13T13:29:00.000-07:00

Pacific! is a band from Göteborg, Sweden. Childhood friends Björn Synneby and Daniel Hogberg reunited in the early 2000s to collaborate on a set of indie pop recordings that incorporate styles of electronic pop, summery and balearic liken to sounds of Air, The Beach Boys, and Daft Punk.

Reviews from the Swedish press have been reported to describe the music produced by the duo, “as if a pair of flying shoes got a recording contract” and “as if Brian Wilson sang on the tram to Saltholmen to the tunes of Air”.

Sunset Boulevard
Hot Lips
Runaway To Elsewhere

Joe Goddard: Gabriel

2011-08-13T10:20:00.000-07:00

Joe Goddard has been a somewhat inescapable figure of the past few years. As vocalist, percussionist and synth wizard in Hot Chip, he’s seduced listeners over the course of three albums, melding live instrumentation and electronics with an irresistibly twee aesthetic.

Joe has recently release his latest ep Gabriel featuring the standout "All I Know".

All I know
Lemon and Lime
Take It In

Junior Boys: It's All True

2011-08-13T09:34:00.000-07:00

From the word "go," It's All True has a spring in its step as opening track "Itchy Fingers" features lofty bpms in a range never explored on record by the group before and then, just as suddenly, the band shift gears to the sparse, brooding "Playtime." From the confident stomp of "You'll Improve Me" and the sophisticated pop of "A Truly Happy Ending" to the epic album closer of "Banana Ripple," It's All True is by far the Junior Boys most accomplished album to date.

Most Of All
Parallel Lines
Dull To Pause
FM
Banana Ripple

Feist: Metals

2011-08-13T08:58:00.000-07:00

Feist has finally premiered the first track from her highly anticipated new album, Metals, due out later this fall. The new song is called “How Come You Never Go There” and it sounds like it was well worth the wait.

The track is more pensive and jazzier than the singles that fueled The Reminder’s and Feist’s popularity.

How Come You Never Go There
The Limit To Your Love
Inside and Out

One Evening

Lo-Fi-Fnk: The Last Summer

2011-08-13T08:19:00.000-07:00

Lo-Fi-Fnk finally reveal the full tracklisting of their upcoming new album, “The Last Summer”, as showing the back cover of the release. The duo’s latest single “Boom” is out now on iTunes and the album hits the stores on August 17.

A review of the tracklisting leaves us a bit dissapointed knowing that four of the eleven tracks have allready been released and one included is from their debut "Boylife".

Last Summer Boom Sleepless
Want U

Shut The World Out

Focus On Music: Krafwerk

2011-06-27T14:40:00.000-07:00

Kraftwerk (“power plant” in English) is an electronic band founded in 1970 in Düsseldorf, Germany. They pioneered electronic music in the 70s and are considered one of the most important and influential bands of their genre, often described as “the godfathers of electronic music”. Kraftwerk’ sound is minimalistic and strictly electronic; it combines driving, repetitive rhythms with catchy melodies and vocals usually sung through a vocoder. The current line-up consists of Ralf Hütter (the only original member), Fritz Hilpert, Henning Schmitz and Stefan Pfaffe. The other founding member Florian Schneider left the band in 2008.

select any track below to listen

Focus On Music: O.M.D.

2011-06-22T08:10:00.000-07:00

Featuring the core members Paul Humphreys and Andy McCluskey, the Liverpudlian synth pop group Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark formed in the late '70s. Humphreys and McCluskey began performing together in school, playing in the bands VCL XI, Hitlerz Underpantz, and the Id. After the Id split in 1978, McCluskey was with Dalek I Love You for a brief time. Once he left Dalek, he joined with Humphreys and Paul Collister to form Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. The group released its first single, "Electricity," on Factory Records; the record led to a contract with the Virgin subsidiary DinDisc. Using their record advance, McCluskey and Humphreys built a studio, which allowed them to replace their four-track, and recorded with drummer Malcolm Holmes (formerly of the Id) and Dave Hughes (formerly of Dalek I Love You).

In 1980, the group released its self-titled debut album. Organisation appeared the same year, which featured the U.K. Top Ten single "Enola Gay"; Hughes was replaced by Martin Cooper after its release. The band's next few albums -- Architecture & Morality (1981), Dazzle Ships (1983), and Junk Culture (1984) -- found the band experimenting with its sound, resulting in several U.K. hit singles. Recorded with two new members, Graham and Neil Weir, Crush, their most pop-oriented album, found more success in America than in Britain as the single "So in Love" hit number 26 on the charts. "If You Leave," taken from the Pretty in Pink soundtrack, was their biggest American hit, climbing to number four in 1986. The Pacific Age was released the same year, yet America was the only country where it was popular. Shortly after its release, the Weir brothers left the band, followed by Holmes, Cooper, and Humphreys. McCluskey continued with the band, releasing Sugar Tax in 1991; in the meantime, Humphreys formed the Listening Pool.

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark returned with Liberator in 1993. It was followed three years later with Universal, which saw Humphreys return for some co-writing credits. By the late '90s, McCluskey had moved into artist management, while Humphreys revived the OMD name for occasional shows.

A full-blown reunion came in 2006, including both McCluskey and Humphreys plus Holmes and Cooper. Initially, the band toured around a full-album performance of Architecture & Morality, and released one of their performances as Live: Architecture & Morality and More. Finally, in 2010, the new album History of Modern appeared on the 100% label.

click any track below to listen

Top 25 Songs and Albums

2011-06-09T17:21:00.000-07:00

Here we have put together our Top 25 Playlists we have posted since we started our blog.

Visit this post for periodically for updates on what we are and/or will be listening to

in the upcoming seasons.

Album Artst Cover Art

2011-06-01T11:10:00.000-07:00

Riding the Metro, I noticed most people lack great graphic cover art for their favorite artists in their itunes library. I compiled some of my favorites below.

Scroll over an image for the artist name and remember that the music you listen to is an extension of your personality so get creative with your art.

The Style Of Music

2011-06-01T09:25:00.000-07:00

A reader recently introduced me to Moxy Creative House. A hip firm that creates original prints based upon iconic characters and events. My favorite is the Ensemble series, featuring the stylish dress of some pretty iconic musicians.

Carte Blanche – With You (feat. Alexis Taylor)

2011-05-31T14:06:00.000-07:00

Alexis Taylor, primary vocalist for ever loveable U.K. electro pop outfit Hot Chip, can now be heard in an entirely new manner, as the frontman for About Group, his side project featuring members of Spiritualized and This Heat. The band's new album, Start and Complete is out on April 26, 2011.

Start and Complete, the side-project's second effort, finds Taylor's ethereal coo backed by an organic, even rockin' array of sounds, and was recorded at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in a single day. It was a big shift for Taylor, who makes music with Hot Chip over long periods of time, and rarely in a proper studio.

"We love the sounds of those Beatles records, and the way the people that work there know what they're doing," Taylor tells SPIN. "They have a great tradition of engineering the recording, setting up the mics in just the right way. You feel like if you're going to record in a day, you might as well do it somewhere like that."

About Group sprung from mutual admiration among the members -- Taylor, Charles Hayward (This Heat), John Coxon (Spring Heel Jack, Spiritualized), and Pat Thomas -- and Taylor's need for an outlet for a number of cuts he'd written that never found the light of day.

"It felt like it would be interesting to record them with this group because I liked the idea of no one really being that familiar with the material so that they can bring their improvisational approach to a batch of songs," Taylor explains.

click any track below to listen

Focus On Music: Moby

2011-04-12T20:46:00.000-07:00

Moby is an American electronic musician and is also the name of his live band. Born Richard Melville Hall on September 11, 1965 in Harlem, New York. Moved to Darien, Connecticut at the age of two.

He has also released music under the names Voodoo Child, Barracuda, U.H.F., The Brotherhood, DJ Cake, Lopez, On the Rim of the Wheel a Nail, and Brainstorm/Mindstorm.

Moby plays keyboards, guitar and bass guitar, and expresses mild irritation at the assumption that everything on his newer albums are samples. He took his performing name from the novel Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, who is his great-great-granduncle.

On his upcoming effort Destroyed, Moby constructs synthetic symphonies out of sounds coaxed from broken-down gear during dead-of-night sessions in hotel rooms.

It’s an insomniac artist’s way of making sense of the world during a time when the music industry, and everything else, seems to be falling into chaos.

Destroyed, arriving May 16 in an arty deluxe package complete with a book of Moby’s photography, capably chronicles that dissonance in disembodied electronic music filled with human concerns like love and hope.

click any track below to listen

Focus On Music: Post Punk

2011-03-22T10:05:00.000-07:00

ESG (Emerald, Sapphire and Gold) are a band from the South Bronx, New York, U.S.. The band originally consisted of the Scroggins sisters Maria (congas, vocals), Renee (vocals), and Valerie (drums), and friends David Miles (guitar) and Leroy Glover (bass). A later incarnation of the band consisted of Deborah, Maria (congas, vocals), Renee (guitar, vocals), and Valerie Scroggins (drums). ESG have been influential across a wide range of musical genres, including hip hop, post punk, disco, and dance-punk.

ESG's music is centered around complex polyrhythms, a funky bass and pop-flavored guitar. During their first incarnation, the group signed with 99 Records and issued a debut self-titled EP in 1981 that featured three live (recorded at Hurrah) and three studio songs, the latter produced by English post-punk producer Martin Hannett (Joy Division, etc.). 1982's ESG Says Dance to the Beat of the Moody EP continued in a similar vein, as did their first full-length album, 1983's Come Away with ESG. ESG disbanded shortly thereafter, but re-formed in the early '90s, heralding their comeback with a self-titled 1991 compilation of previously released material. The group's work had become popular among hip-hop artists searching for samples, with such acts as TLC, the Wu-Tang Clan, the Beastie Boys, Big Daddy Kane, Gang Starr, Tricky, Jay-Dee (J-Dilla) on his Donuts album, and indie rockers like Unrest and Liars. The group addressed this issue on the 1992 12" EP Sample Credits Don't Pay Our Bills. The album, ESG Live!, was released in 1995 and featured both old and new material.

The band played their final show on Friday, September 21, 2007 at Chicago's Abbey Pub, during the Estrojam festival.

The band announced that they reformed and will be playing their first returning show at NYC's Santos House Party on September 13. They also claim that both more shows and new music will emerge in the future.

Instead of focusing on the music of ESL, we decided to focus on their influence of bands like

Ariel Pink's Haunted Grafitti, Millionyoung and Toro Y Moi.

click any track below to listen

Focus On Music: Metronomy

2011-03-03T08:41:00.000-08:00

Named after the musical term for the measurement of time by an instrument, Metronomy are the dance-meets-rock project of London-based multi-instrumentalist and producer Joseph Mount. The live version of Metronomy also include keyboardist/saxophonist Oscar Cash and keyboardist/bassist Gabriel Stebbing. Prior to Metronomy, Mount and Stebbing played together in bands such as the Upsides, a pop group the pair described as "The Original Busted," and "The Customers", with whom they played in university. Using an old computer that his father gave him, Mount started Metronomy in 2002 as a side project to the other bands he played with. When his cousin Cash joined Metronomy, it became the trio's main project. With a sound inspired by everyone from Devo and David Bowie to N.E.R.D. and Pavement, Metronomy earned buzz for their engaging live show as well as official and unoffical remixes of tracks by Gorillaz, Architecture in Helsinki, Sebastien Tellier, Kate Nash, U2, and Britney Spears.

Metronomy's latest The English Riviera is due out April 11, 2011 and features the songs The Look and The Bay.

click any track below to listen

Focus On Life: Give Blood

2011-02-23T08:35:00.001-08:00

Be the difference between life or death by visiting your local blood bank and giving a pint.

Find out who's type you are today.

Focus On: Circus Freak Show

2011-02-23T08:26:00.000-08:00

A freak show is an exhibition of rarities, "freaks of nature" — such as unusually tall or short humans, and people with both male and female secondary sexual characteristics or other extraordinary diseases and conditions — and performances that are expected to be shocking to the viewers. Heavily tattooed or pierced people have sometimes been seen in freak shows, as have fire-eating and sword-swallowing acts.

Freak shows were popular in the United States from around 1840 to the 1970s, and were often, but not always, associated with circuses and carnivals. Some shows also exhibited deformed animals (such as two-headed cows, one-eyed pigs, and four-horned goats) and famous hoaxes, or simply "science gone wrong" exhibits (such as deformed babies).

Changes in popular culture and entertainment led to the decline of the freak show as a form of entertainment. As previously mysterious anomalies were scientifically explained as genetic mutations or diseases, freaks became the objects of sympathy rather than fear or disdain.

Focus On Art: Retablos

2011-01-15T08:38:00.000-08:00

Retablo (or lamina) is a term for a Latin American devotional painting, especially a small popular or folk art one using iconography derived from traditional Catholic church art. This is a different meaning from the original one in Spanish, which still applies in Spain, and is equivalent to reredos in English or retable in French: a painting, sculpture or combination of the two, rising behind the altar of a church. The Latin etymology of this Spanish word means "board behind".

Spanish retablos of the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance grew extremely large and elaborate, typically using carved and gilded wood, and rising as high as 40 feet or more. The tradition of making them was taken to the new Spanish Empire in America. There, by the late 18th century at least, the word became used for much smaller popular religious paintings, both conventional devotional images and ex-votos (paintings giving thanks for protection through a specific episode).

purchase your retablos and other outsider folk art HERE

Focus On Style: The Anatomy Of Design

2011-01-12T19:31:00.000-08:00

While botanical and zoological drawings and prints have long been celebrated as elegant and often attainable artworks, these days trendsetters are getting to the heart of the matter—literally. Designers are hanging medical charts in well-turned-out spaces and discerning shopkeepers are elevating anatomical models to objets d’art.

purchase Medical Objects HERE

Focus On Design: Charles and Ray Eaes

2010-12-28T08:59:00.000-08:00

The story of modern design has been a very sombre one. Charles and Ray Eames added a touch of whimsy, lightness and delicacy, which expanded into their museum installations and films. They could easily get away with it because of their combined characteristics and superlative technical knowledge coupled with a sharp discerning eye for color and form.

Charles Eames was already working as an architect when he met Eliel Saarinen, head of the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. In 1938 Eliel Saarinen offered Charles Eames a scholarship to Cranbrook Academy to study design and architecture. Charles Eames became a teacher of design at Cranbrook in 1939 and, in 1940, head of the industrial design department there. Charles Eames's friendship with Eliel Saarinen's son Eero was also of paramount importance for his subsequent career. Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen collaborated on designs to be submitted to the "Organic Design in Home Furnishings" competition hosted by the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1940. Their main design, an armchair with the seat and back formed three dimensionally of a single piece of molded plywood received an award at the MOMA competition but proved unsuitable for mass production. Other designers who collaborated with Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen on the designs submitted to the MOMA competition included Harry Bertoia, Don Albinson, who would later play an important role in Eames's office, and Ray Kaiser, whom Charles Eames married in 1941. The couple moved to Los Angeles, where they continued in their flat to experiment on developing an efficient and cost-effective method of molding plywood in three dimensions, using a press they dubbed "Kazam! Machine".

In 1942 Charles and Ray Eames founded the Plyformed Wood Company and made splints and stretchers of molded plywood for the US Navy. Financial straits forced them to sell the business to the Evans Product Company, where Charles Eames became head of the research and development division. Eames's office produced more prototype plywood furniture, which MOMA exhibited in 1946 at the one-man show "New Furniture by Charles Eames". The Eames designs shown included the "Lounge Chair, Metal" featuring a tubular steel framework and the "Lounge Chair, Wood", based on a 1940 design and made of bentwood elements. Further developed with armrests, this Eames chair became the prototype of the celebrated and sophisticated 1956 "No. 670" lounge chair with the "No. 671" footstool. Ray and Charles Eames also experimented with fiber glass in the late 1950s, producing the revolutionary "Plastic Shell Group", that included the "La Chaise" chair (1948), the "Dining Armchair Rod" and the "Rocking Armchair Rod" (1948-1950). The "Aluminium Group" dates from 1958. Furniture designed by Charles and Ray Eames is produced mainly by Herman Miller and Vitra.

Focus On Art: Jonathan Borofsky

2010-12-27T11:09:00.000-08:00

Jonathan Borofsky's oversized sculptures are a prominent feature of many European cities, but the American artist came to wider attention in his native country only with a well-received temporary installation at New York City's Rockefeller Center in the fall of 2004. His immense Walking to the Sky , a steel pole featuring a series of life-like figures striding up it, was viewed by some as an unofficial tribute to the victims of 9/11. It was part of a series that had been replicated elsewhere, and while Borofsky was heartened by the response, he asserted that he simply wanted the piece to represent all human-kind. "These are human beings around the world; they represent all kinds of humanity, " he explained to Carol Vogel in the New York Times. "They are not New Yorkers, not Americans. This piece can stand anywhere—Africa, India, Hawaii."

Focus On Art: Banksy

2010-12-26T20:37:00.000-08:00

Banksy is a graffiti artist from Bristol, UK, whose artwork has appeared throughout London and other locations around the world. Despite this he carefully manages to keep his real name from the mainstream media. However, many newspapers assert that his real name is Robert or Robin Banks.

Banksy, despite not calling himself an artist, has been considered by some as talented in that respect; he uses his original street art form, often in combination with a distinctive stencilling technique, to promote alternative aspects of politics from those promoted by the mainstream media.

Some believe that his stencilled graffiti provides a voice for those living in urban environments that could not otherwise express themselves, and that his work is also something which improves the aesthetic quality of urban surroundings; many others disagree, asserting that his work is simple vandalism (a claim made by at least Peter Gibson, spokesperson for Keep Britain Tidy), or that his (apparently left wing) beliefs are not shared by the majority of the inhabitants of the environments that he graffitis. This political purpose behind his vandalism is reminiscent of the Ad Jammers or subvertising movement, who deface corporate advertising to change the intended message and hijack the advert.

Focus On Music: New Order

2010-12-26T10:40:00.001-08:00

New Order arose from the ashes of Joy Division, one of the most influencial bands in the alternative music scene in the late 70's and early 80's. Joy Division were Ian Curtis, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, and Stephen Morris, four young men from Manchester, England. Joy Division drew attention to themselves with the release of their first full-length album, Unknown Pleasures, in 1979. The music they played was a sign of the times: angst-ridden, moody, enchanting, haunting.

New Order was known as the quitessential singles band of the 80's, releasing songs that weren't on any albums, or at least remixing them from the albums. In 1987, these singles (many of them long out of print and difficult to find) were collected on the double-album "Substance". Many of these songs topped the 5 and 6 minute mark, with a few going beyond that. It was with the release of "Substance" that New Order gained even greater worldwide recognition. Many argue that New Order could have been bigger if only they did things differently. They didn't splash their faces all over their album covers, they rarely even put their own names on their record sleeves. In fact, all of the designing of their record sleeves, from their days as Joy Division up to the present, has been left up to Peter Saville, a graphic designer who has sometimes been referred to as the fifth band member.

New Order identified themselves as New Order, not as Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook and Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert. No one personality stood out from the others. They were the type of people who could walk out onto the floor after playing a concert and would barely be recognized. Also, remaining on an independent record label, Factory Communications, Ltd., probably didn't help either.

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Focus On Music: Indie Pop

2010-12-26T10:36:00.000-08:00

In popular music, independent music, often shortened to indie music or "indie", is a term used to describe independence from major commercial record labels and an autonomous, Do-It-Yourself approach to recording and publishing.

Independent labels have been known to strive for minimal influence on the artist they represent, avoiding the artist-cultivating behavior of many major labels.

Focus On Art: Mr. Brainwash

2010-12-26T09:45:00.000-08:00

The relationship of street art to the commercial art world has always been a tricky one. In the past few years, as street art has exploded from variations on fat- lettered graffiti to sophisticated murals and stencils, works by its top practitioners have sold at auction for hundreds of thousands of dollars: a far cry from such art’s usually subversive origins. But whereas many street artists now create work expressly for galleries, starting out—and, often, continuing—in the trenches of “outside” art is what gives them credibility and, ironic as it is, market legitimacy.

Which is why one of the most famous street artists is also one of the most controversial. Thierry Guetta, aka “Mr Brainwash” or “MBW”, got his start by befriending and filming some of the world’s top street artists, including Banksy, an elusive Brit famous for hanging spoof paintings at the Tate Britain and painting whimsical scenes on Israel’s West Bank separation wall. At some point Banksy suggested Mr Guetta do some graffiti of his own. As chronicled in “Exit Through the Gift Shop”, a documentary that Banksy subsequently made about Mr Guetta (using some of Mr Guetta’s own footage), the French artist moved quickly from pasting up stencils on walls to paying a large team of elves to churn out pop art en masse. The film is now on the longlist to be nominated for an Oscar.

Debating the merits of his work is easy, and somewhat sterile. Explaining his motives is more complex. Mobbed by enthusiastic visitors to the show—some of them other artists—Mr Guetta revelled in not taking his work seriously, chuckled at people who were intensely scrutinising an array of upended buckets that he had created to serve as seats and tables, and took sheer delight at a child riding a bicycle over one of his exhibits. One of his mottoes is “art for the people”, and while quoting a healthy six-figure price to an inquiring collector, he seemed to care about the money chiefly as a symbol of his success at upstaging the conventions of the art establishment. “I believe my art will be worth millions of dollars.

Focus On Music: Depeche Mode

2010-12-17T10:54:00.001-08:00

Originally a product of Britain's new romantic movement, Depeche Mode went on to become the quintessential electro-pop band of the 1980s. One of the first acts to establish a musical identity based completely around the use of synthesizers, they began their existence as a bouncy dance-pop outfit but gradually developed a darker, more dramatic sound that ultimately positioned them as one of the most successful alternative bands of their era.

Depeche Mode influenced many of today's popular recording artists, in part due to their recording techniques and innovative use of sampling. For example, Pet Shop Boys cited Violator (and "Enjoy the Silence" in particular) as one of the main sources of inspiration during recording of their critically acclaimed album Behaviour. Neil Tennant says, “We were listening to Violator by Depeche Mode, which was a very good album and we were deeply jealous of it.” Bandmate Chris Lowe agrees, “They had raised the stakes.”

Techno pioneers Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson and Juan Atkins regularly cited Depeche Mode as an influence on the development of techno music during the Detroit Techno explosion in the mid 1980s. Appreciation of Depeche Mode within today's electronic music scene is shown by the numerous Depeche Mode remixes by contemporary DJs such as Ricardo Villalobos' remix of "The Sinner in Me" or Kruder & Dorfmeister's remix of "Useless".

According to Matt Smith, the former music director of the modern-rock radio station KROQ, "The Killers, The Bravery, Franz Ferdinand — that whole wave of music owes a tremendous amount to Depeche Mode."

In an accompanying interview for his piece in The New Yorker evaluating the impact of British acts on the US market, Sasha Frere-Jones claims that "probably the last serious English influence was Depeche Mode, who seem more and more significant as time passes."

click any teack below to listen

Focus On Art: William Eggleston

2010-12-17T10:47:00.000-08:00

William Eggleston assumes a neutral gaze and creates his art from commonplace subjects: a farmer's muddy Ford truck, a red ceiling in a friend's house, the contents of his own refrigerator.

In his work, Eggleston photographs "democratically"--literally photographing the world around him. His large-format prints monumentalize everyday subjects, everything is equally important; every detail deserves attention.

A native Southerner raised on a cotton plantation in the Mississippi Delta, Eggleston has created a singular portrait of his native South since the late 1960s. After discovering photography in the early 1960s, he abandoned a traditional education and instead learned from photographically illustrated books by Walker Evans, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Robert Frank. Although he began his career making black-and-white images, he soon abandoned them to experiment with color technology to record experiences in more sensual and accurate terms at a time when color photography was largely confined to commercial advertising. In 1976 with the support of John Szarkowski, the influential photography historian, critic, and curator, Eggleston mounted "Color Photographs" a now famous exhibition of his work at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. William Eggleston's Guide , in which Szarkowski called Eggleston's photographs "perfect," accompanied this groundbreaking one-person show that established his reputation as a pioneer of color photography. His subjects were mundane, everyday, often trivial, so that the real subject was seen to be color itself. These images helped establish Eggleston as one of the first non-commercial photographers working in color and inspired a new generation of photographers, as well as filmmakers.

Eggleston has published his work extensively. He continues to live and work in Memphis, and travels considerably for photographic projects.

Focus On Music: Cover Songs

2010-12-16T17:09:00.001-08:00

The term 'cover version', coined in 1966, originally described a rival version of a tune recorded to compete with the recently reeased original version, e.g. Paul Williams' 1949 hit tune "The Hucklebuck" or Hank Williams' 1952 song "Jambalaya (On the Bayou)", both crossed over to the popular Hit Parade and had numerous hit versions. Prior to the mid-20th century the notion of an original version of a popular tune would, of course, have seemed slightly odd — the production of musical entertainment being seen essentially as a live event, even if one that was reproduced at home via a copy of the sheet music, learned by heart, or captured on a shellac recording disc. Popular musicians (and especially modern listeners) have now begun to use the word "cover" to refer to any remake of a previously recorded tune.

In previous generations, some artists made very successful careers out of presenting revivals or reworkings of once popular tunes, even out of doing contemporary cover versions of current hits. Musicians now play what they call "cover versions" (e.g. the reworking, updating or interpretation) of songs as a tribute to the original performer or group. Using familiar material (e.g. evergreen hits, standard tunes or classic recordings) is an important method in learning various styles of music. Most albums, or long playing records, up until the mid-1960s usually contained a large number of evergreens or standards to present a fuller range of the artist's abilities and style. Artists might also perform interpretations ("covers") of a favorite artist's hit tunes for the simple pleasure of playing a familiar song or collection of tunes. A cover band plays such "cover versions" exclusively.

In the contemporary world, there are broadly three types of entertainers who depend upon cover versions for their principal repertoire.

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Focus On Art: Tyeb Mehta

2010-12-16T16:45:00.000-08:00

Tyeb Mehta was a well known Indian artist, who was known all over the world for his brilliant painting. A multifaceted personality, he also dabbled in filmmaker and made a mark there. He held the record for the highest price for which an Indian painting has ever been sold, in a public auction. It was his triptych painting Celebration that, on being sold for 15 million Indian rupees ($300,000 USD), gave him this honor.

Tyeb Mehta was born on July 26, 1925 in Kapadvanj, Gujarat. He initially worked as a film editor in a cinema laboratory. However, his interest in painting took him to Sir J.J. School of Art, Bombay, where he studied painting from 1947 to 1952. There, Mehta also came in contact with Akbar Padamsee and became a close associate of the painters in the Progressive Artists' Group.

In 1954, Tyeb Mehta visited London and Paris for four months, following which he returned to India to concentrate on painting and sculpture. He took part in numerous group exhibitions and organized his first solo exhibition of drawings, paintings and sculptures at the Jehangir Art Gallery, Bombay, in 1959. He lived and worked in London from 1959 to 1965.

Tyeb Mehta returned to India in 1965 and lived in Delhi till 1968. In 1968, he visited United States, on a Rockefeller Fellowship. Around this time, he also dabbled in films. His film 'Koodal' won the Film fare Critic's Award in 1970. In the 1980s, he worked as an Artist in Residence in Shantiniketan. He was also awarded the Kalidas Samman by the Madhya Pradesh Government in 1988.

In his lifetime, Tyeb Mehta participated in several international shows, like Ten Contemporary Indian Painters at Trenton in the U.S. - 1965; Deuxieme Biennial Internationale de Menton - 1974; Festival Intemationale de la Peinture, Cagnes-Sur-Mer, France - 1974; Modem Indian Paintings at Hirschhom Museum; Washington - 1982; and Seven Indian Painters at Gallerie Le Monde de U art, Paris - 1994.

On 2nd July 2009, Tyeb Mehta left for the holy abode, following a heart attack. He is survived by his wife - Sakina, a son and a daughter. Tyeb Mehta's large body of work, spanning over six decades, established him as one of the greatest names in the field of Modern Indian Art. His paintings raised numerous questions about the human condition, some of which remain unanswered till date.

Focus On Art: Francis Newton Souza

2010-12-15T08:32:00.001-08:00

"I seek Beauty more than knowledge. In fact, knowledge can be ugly."
-Francis Newton Souza

Francis Newton Souza was an Indian painter and writer, active in Britain and the USA. After a difficult upbringing, he joined the Sir Jamshetjee Jeejebhoy School of Art, Bombay, in 1940 but was expelled in 1943. For a short period afterwards he was a member of the Communist Party of India and painted in a Social Realist idiom. In 1946-7 he initiated the Progressive Artists' Group in Bombay, which promoted modernism in Indian art. By this time he had abandoned Social Realism and was influenced by European Expressionism. His work became known and in 1947 he won the award of the Bombay Art Society. In 1948 his work was represented in an exhibition of Indian art at Burlington House, London. The following year, after his paintings were removed from the Bombay Art Society and his flat was raided by the police to seize 'obscene' works, he decided to move to London, where he supported himself by painting and writing.

Through Krishna Menon, the Indian High Commissioner to Britain, he received a commission to work on a series of murals in the Indian Students' Bureau in London (since destr.); Menon also arranged an exhibition of his work at India House. In 1954 he had an exhibition in Paris and in 1955 at Gallery One in London.

These exhibitions brought his work to the attention of the public and, with recognition, further exhibitions and sales followed. In 1957 he won the John Moore's Prize and in 1960 visited Italy on an Italian Government scholarship. From Italy he travelled to India for his first visit since 1949, but soon returned to London.

His paintings, executed in a forceful, expressionist manner, included Christian themes (inspired by his Roman Catholic upbringing), caricatures of social types, women, erotic scenes, still-lifes, landscapes and such paintings of cities as Las Ramblas, Barcelona (oil on canvas, 0.85*1.29 m, 1961; New Delhi, N.G. Mod. A.). He was influenced by the works of Georges Rouault, Cha?m Soutine and Pablo Picasso, and also by Mexican artists such as Diego Rivera and Orozco. An articulate writer, he disseminated his sometimes controversial views on art in catalogues, articles and essays. His works are in numerous private and public collections including the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, the Museum and Picture Gallery, Vadodara, and the Tate Gallery, London.

Focus On Art: Farhad Hussein

2010-12-12T13:00:00.000-08:00

Farhad Hussain, born in Calcutta in 1975, is among those young artists who have been contributing with panache to the current renewal of contemporary Indian art. Paintings by Farhad Hussain have the direct, fresh gaiety of a Matisse cutout, and the nuclear family his iconographic focus. These paintings could be family photos taken by a Walt Disney in the throes of a psychedelic episode. The illusion of happiness is omnipresent, the ecstatic atmosphere redolent of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” family-style.

Focus On Art: Christine Berrie Illustrations

2010-12-11T09:02:00.000-08:00

Originally from Glasgow, Christine Berrie gained a 1st Class BA from Glasgow School of Art before heading to the Royal College of Art in London where she graduated with an MA in Communication Art & Design in 2002.

Currently, everyday scenarios and objects are her favoured subject matter and she has long had an interest in creating colourful, detailed imagery with a hand-rendered approach.

Christine is particularly fond of drawing architecture, old cars, cameras, machines, retro objects, mechanical contraptions, signage & lettering, london scenes and scooters, to name a few!

Her drawings have appeared in several publications including Communication Arts, Design Week, Creative Review and Varoom. Christine has also worked on Hand to Eye and The Picture Book, both published by Laurence King.

Clients include: The Guardian, Microsoft, The New York Times, New Scientist, Howies, Time Out, Wallpaper, Soho House, Dwell, The Independent, Esquire, GQ.

purchase her artwork HERE

Focus On Music: Tracey Thorn

2010-12-10T08:44:00.000-08:00

One of the most enduring English singer/songwriters since the early '80s, Tracey Thorn began making music with the all-female quartet Marine Girls, a minimalist pop group that released a pair of albums. She also recorded A Distant Shore, a relatively moody, if similarly skeletal solo album, for Cherry Red in 1983. Around that time she met Ben Watt -- who was also signed to Cherry Red -- and formed a partnership as Everything But the Girl. From 1984 through 1999, Thorn and Watt released ten albums that shifted from indie pop to slick sophisti-pop to downtempo club music.

Shortly after having twin daughters together, they put EBTG on ice. After several years of inactivity, Thorn began writing again and recorded her second solo album, Out of the Woods, which was released in early 2007. Throughout the years, she has guested on songs by a number of groups, including the Style Council, the Go-Betweens, Massive Attack, and Tiefschwarz.

Tracey Thorn's third solo album, Love And Its Opposite, is out May 17, and capitalises on the critical acclaim of her 2007 release, Out Of The Woods, a mixture of hard-edged dance music and folk fare which bridged the gap between the acoustic and the electric.

Love & Its Opposite finds Tracey and producer Ewan Pearson stripping things back to more organic essentials, embracing a retro sound that references the type of music she would have grown up listening to. Thorn is in pensive mood for much of the album, which is as much about her own experiences as a forty-something trying to make sense of her life as it is about the relationships of others, resulting in a mature and often cynically humorous set of songs that’s sure to be embraced by her stalwart fans.

Click on any track to start listening.

World AIDS Day

2010-12-01T06:56:00.001-08:00

Ways AIDS are contracted::
- blood transfusions (not common)
- being born with it.
- having unprotected .
- getting infected blood into yours.

In 2006 UNAIDS estimated that there were 5.6 million people living with HIV in India, which indicated that there were more people with HIV in India than in any other country in the world. However, NACO disputed this estimate, and claimed that the actual figure was lower. In 2007, using a more effective surveillance system, UNAIDS and NACO agreed on a new estimate – between 2 million and 3.6 million people living with HIV. This puts India behind South Africa and Nigeria in numbers living with HIV.

In terms of AIDS cases, the most recent estimate comes from August 2006, at which stage the total number of AIDS cases reported to NACO was 124,995. Of this number, 29% were women, and 36% were under the age of 30. These figures are not accurate reflections of the actual situation though, as large numbers of AIDS cases go unreported.

Overall, around 0.36% of India’s population is living with HIV. While this may seem a low rate, India’s population is vast, so the actual number of people living with HIV is remarkably high. There are so many people living in India that a mere 0.1% increase in HIV prevalence would increase the estimated number of people living with HIV by over half a million.

The national HIV prevalence rose dramatically in the early years of the epidemic, but a study released at the beginning of 2006 suggests that the HIV infection rate has recently fallen in southern India, the region that has been hit hardest by AIDS. In addition, NACO has released figures suggesting that the overall rate of new HIV infections in the country is slowing. Researchers claim that this decline is the result of successful prevention campaigns, which have led to an increase in condom use.

Some AIDS activists are doubtful of the suggestion that the situation is improving, though:

“It is the reverse. All the NGOs I know have recorded increases in the number of people accepting help because of HIV. I am really worried that we are just burying our head in the sand over this.”
-Anjali Gopalan, the Naz Foundation, Delhi

Focus On Travel: Seattle Vacation

2010-11-30T09:12:00.000-08:00

I wish this was the echeck-list for my upcoming trip, but unfortunately it is not.

I will be heading to a place that is damp, cold and bitter this time of year.

I will be heading to Seattle, Washingtom for the next two weeks
so please visit the archive for your enlightenment.

Focus On Art: Despicable Portraits

2010-11-30T08:57:00.000-08:00

RGB Art Studios Comes to us from CT/NYC. These abstract art portraits come to us from the imagination of R. Barbera. We find them to have great whimsy and character. These pieces are very affordable at $6.00-$20.00 and suggest pairing in a group of 6 or more for great impact.

Pick them up HERE

Focus On: Robots

2010-11-30T08:18:00.000-08:00

A robot is a virtual or mechanical artificial agent. In practice, it is usually an electro-mechanical machine which is guided by computer or electronic programming, and is thus able to do tasks on its own. Another common characteristic is that by its appearance or movements, a robot often conveys a sense that it has intent or agency of its own.

Focus On: Shriners

2010-11-30T08:10:00.000-08:00

The Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, commonly known as Shriners and abbreviated A.A.O.N.M.S., established in 1870 is an appendant body to Freemasonry, based in the United States. The organization is best-known for the Shriners Hospitals for Children they administer and the red fezzes that members wear.

Focus On Music: Serge Gainsbourg

2010-11-27T11:25:00.001-08:00

Serge Gainsbourg (April 2, 1928 – March 2, 1991) was a french poet-songwriter, singer, actor, novelist, painter and director. Gainsbourg’s varied style and individuality made him difficult to categorize. Although famous in France for many years, he did not achieve his first No. 1 album until 1979, when he released Aux Armes et caetera more than twenty years after his music career had begun. But since the 1980s, his legacy has been firmly established.

He was born in Paris, France the son of Jewish Russian parents. He had one daughter, Charlotte Gainsbourg, from his marriage to Jane Birkin.

His early songs were influenced by Boris Vian. However, Gainsbourg wanted to break free from old-fashioned chanson and explore new musical grounds, influenced by British and American pop. During his career, he wrote the soundtracks for more than 40 movies.

His most famous song, Je t'aime ... moi non plus, was vocally very erotic. Originally recorded with Brigitte Bardot, it was released with a different female singer, future wife Jane Birkin, when Bardot backed out. Considered too "hot", the song was censored in various countries and in France even the toned-down version was suppressed.

In 1978 he recorded a reggae version of "La Marseillaise", "Aux Armes et cetera", with Bob Marley's band in Jamaica, which resulted in him getting death threats from right wing veterans of the Algerian War of Independence.

Serge Gainsbourg died on March 2, 1991 and was buried in the Cimetière du Montparnasse, in Paris.

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Flesh And Ink: The Tattoo

2010-11-27T10:31:00.000-08:00

A tattoo is a marking made by inserting indelible ink into the dermis layer of the skin to change the pigment for decorative or other reasons. Tattoos on humans are a type of decorative body modification, while tattoos on animals are most commonly used for identification or branding. The first written reference to the word, "tattoo" (or Samoan "Tatau") appears in the journal of Joseph Banks, the naturalist aboard Cook's ship "The Endeavour", in 1769: "I shall now mention the way they mark themselves indelibly, each of them is so marked by their humor or disposition".

Tattooing has been practiced for centuries worldwide. The Ainu, the indigenous people of Japan, traditionally wore facial tattoos. Today one can find Berbers of Tamazgha (North Africa), Māori of New Zealand, Arabic people in East-Turkey and Atayal of Taiwan with facial tattoos. Tattooing was widespread among Polynesian peoples and among certain tribal groups in the Taiwan, Philippines, Borneo, Mentawai Islands, Africa, North America, South America, Mesoamerica, Europe, Japan, Cambodia, New Zealand and Micronesia. Despite some taboos surrounding tattooing, the art continues to be popular in many parts of the world.

Focus On: The Pin-Up Model

2010-11-27T10:11:00.000-08:00

A pin-up girl or pin-up model is a model whose mass-produced pictures see wide appeal as pop culture. Pin-ups are intended for informal display. Pin-up girls are glamour models, fashion models, and actresses.

Many pin ups were photographs of celebrities who were considered sex symbols. One of the most popular early pin-up girls was Betty Grable. Her poster was ubiquitous in the lockers of G.I.s during World War II. Other pin-ups were artwork, often depicting idealized versions of what some thought a particularly beautiful or attractive woman should look like. An early example of the latter type was the Gibson girl, drawn by Charles Dana Gibson. The genre also gave rise to several well-known artists specializing in the field, including Alberto Vargas and George Petty, and numerous lesser artists such as Art Frahm.

Self Depricating Humor

2010-11-27T09:47:00.000-08:00

Self-deprecating humor is humor which relies on the observation of something negative about the person delivering it. Many comedians use self-deprecating humor to avoid seeming arrogant or pompous, and to help the audience identify with them. In this way, its use could be seen as an application of the rhetorical concept of ethos. Rodney Dangerfield was best known for his self-deprecating humor in his stand up acts, with his famous line "I get no respect."

Focus On Music: Phoenix

2010-11-26T10:33:00.000-08:00

The French group Phoenix draw elements from their eclectic '80s upbringing to arrive at a satisfying synthesis of rock and synthesizers. Vocalist Thomas Mars, bassist Deck d'Arcy, and guitarist Christian Mazzalai were a garage band based out of Mars' house in the suburbs of Paris. Mazzalai's older brother Branco joined the band on guitar when his band Darlin' disbanded in 1995.

The group got its touring start on the French bar circuit doing Hank Williams and Prince covers to drunken audiences. Two years later the band took on the name Phoenix and pressed 500 copies of a single on its own label, Ghettoblaster. The A-side was a punk rock song and the other a chugging Krautrocker, hinting at their eclectic tastes. Shortly after, they were signed to the Paris-based Source Records. Phoenix became well acquainted with labelmates Air when they acted as their backing band on several U.K. TV appearances. The result of the electronic exposure was a single called "Heatwave," which was very similar in approach to '70s disco.

United, the group's debut album, appeared in 2000 on Astralwerks and was recorded over two months. The album featured guest appearances from friends and family, including Thomas Bangalter (Daft Punk), Philippe Zdar (Cassius), and d'Arcy's mother's choral society on the track "Funky Squaredance." From that point, they issued Alphabetical (2004), It's Never Been Like That (2006), and their mainstream breakthrough, the critically adored Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (2009). Part of the extended break between the third and fourth albums was due to Mars becoming a father (with his partner, director Sofia Coppola, Rovi).

click on any track below to listen

Focus On Art: Damien Weighill

2010-11-26T08:33:00.000-08:00

Damien was abandoned at birth, deep in the idyllic woodlands of the North East of England where he was adopted by a local clan of bigfoot. His youth was spent making brief and indistinct appearances on campers’ home videos and learning a rudimentary form of communication which the bigfoot called drawing.

After difficult teenage years where he was teased for his lack of body hair and found it difficult to buy stylish footwear for his cursedly proportional feet, Damien headed South for the the bright lights of the circus.

Rejected by the Circus Master because the size of his feet were wholly unremarkable in this unfamiliar human world, Damien was forced to get by on his only other talent. To this day he can be found peddling crackpot drawings from his luxury penthouse cave in the East of London.

Damien is represented in the UK by Jelly

Focus On Music: The Remix

2010-11-22T22:18:00.000-08:00

Today, remixing involves "repositioning" an old hit to suit the present-day musical tastes amidst digital drums, synths, rap sequences, and so on. Nothing is blasphemous in a remix, with diverse musical styles and languages making for an unorthodox concoction. "Remixes are new arrangements and textures based on a primary, full-length theme. New lead instruments may be used, instruments may be pulled out of the mix, or entirely new melodies may be added," goes one definition of remix music.

This takes us to a realm beyond our judgment about the banality of remixes, to the cultural context in which they emerge. Remixes, clearly, emerge at the point of interaction between two worlds — a hallowed musical tradition and the New Age hip-hop. Remixes, perhaps, reflect a yearning or an anxiety to be "cool" even while not letting go what one chooses to identify as one's "heritage". It is significant that Bally Sagoo, who could well be called the guru of the genre, is described as a "guy of a new attitude for a new age, an artiste at home with various cultures, yet very rooted".

Talking about the many layers of "appropriation and cultural exchange" one sees in Hindi remixes and what they signify to the Indian-American youth, Peter Kvetko, a scholar, writes: "The playful re-appropriation of the past is also a yearning for more immediate connections to a time that may seem better, more meaningful, more genuine... The effect is to allow the listener to reclaim the past for the purpose of the present, not simply to imagine what it was "then" but to participate in the "then" by actually performing it... Diasporic cultural production takes place at the intersection of multiple social, historical, and technological fields." This, perhaps, can be extended to a multiple-rooted generation within India that is keen on an Indian beat that leads on to an international sound.

click and track below to listen

Focus On Art: Ellen Lohse

2010-11-22T11:36:00.000-08:00

Ellen Lohse graduated from Rhode Island School of Design on scholarship but is self taught in what she has been doing since then. Ellen worked for a spell as a book designer while she waited for her drem job of working for National Geographic photographing the highest mountaintops and Jane Goodall with the chimpanzees.

Ellen likes to travel by plane, train, automobile, subway, on foot, or most of the time by sketchbook and pencil.

Here we focus on a mesmerizing collection from her kitschy, interpretation of pop culture icons. Her endless array of work, acrylic paintings, brought us instantly back to some of my fondest childhood memories and the TV shows, movies and characters that were a part of it.

purchase her work HERE

Focus On Festivals: Holi

2010-11-22T10:23:00.001-08:00

Holi, also called the Festival of Colors, is a popular Hindu spring festival observed in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Srilanka, and countries with large Hindu diaspora populations, such as Suriname, Guyana, South Africa, Trinidad, the UK, USA, Mauritius, and Fiji. In West Bengal of India and Bangladesh it is known as Dolyatra (Doul Jatra) or Basanta-Utsab ("spring festival"). The most celebrated Holi is that of the Braj region, in locations connected to the god Krishna: Mathura, Vrindavan, Nandagaon, and Barsana. These places have become tourist destinations during the festive season of Holi, which lasts here to up to sixteen days.

Focus On Festivals: Dia De Los Muertos

2010-11-22T10:02:00.000-08:00

More than 500 years ago, when the Spanish Conquistadors landed in what is now Mexico, they encountered natives practicing a ritual that seemed to mock death.

It was a ritual the indigenous people had been practicing at least 3,000 years. A ritual the Spaniards would try unsuccessfully to eradicate. A ritual known today as Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. The ritual is celebrated in Mexico and certain parts of the United States, including the Valley.

Unlike the Spaniards, who viewed death as the end of life, the natives viewed it as the continuation of life. Instead of fearing death, they embraced it. To them, life was a dream and only in death did they become truly awake.

In rural Mexico, people visit the cemetery where their loved ones are buried. They decorate gravesites with marigold flowers and candles. They bring toys for dead children and bottles of tequila to adults. They sit on picnic blankets next to gravesites and eat the favorite food of their loved ones.

"We disguise with faces painted as a skeleton, because on this day age, race, title, name brands or gender doesn't matter. We are all the same, on this day strangers share the pain and joy that connects us all. Yes, we are all the same, the difference is the memories we create for our loved ones to share when we are fiscally gone."

- Deisy Marquez-Zavodny

Focus On Food: Indian Cuisine

2010-11-22T07:18:00.001-08:00

Indian food is as diverse collection of cuisines of many ethnic and cultural groups in India. Tradition, ethnicity, geographic location, religion and individual preference

Street Fare
With its huge migrant population, Mumbai is the city for a slew of sidewalk snacks, dished out in fresh and generous platefuls. Aficionados swear by Chowpatty beach, but almost any street stall will do, if the chef is an experienced hand at this fine art. Of course, if you're a stickler for hygiene, sanitized versions can be found in most up market restaurants, properly served on bone china and followed up with finger bowls to wash away the grease from your hands. But most citizens agree that street food is just not the same without a free helping of, well, harmless germs.

Puri
The most popular is bhelpuri : crispy crunchy semolina, puffed rice, onion and potato garnished with an assortment of spicy chutneys, coriander and a squeeze of lime. Variations include sev puri, -- bhel served canap style - and dahi puri, doused in sweet yogurt.

Bhaji
Don't take their word for it, however, unless you have a tried and tested constitution. Or better still opt for the relatively safer cooked snacks like pao bhaji and vada pao.

Pao
Actually, pao bhaji is more than a snack; it's a staple. The bhaji is essentially a runny vegetable stew accompanied by soft bread buns or pao liberally soaked in sinful amounts of melted butter. The dish is prepared in the open air on a huge iron griddle: chopped vegetables, spices and slabs of butter cook quickly on the hot surface and are poured bubbling into plates accompanied by generous helpings of buttered bread. Certainly not for the calorie conscious, but for the common man its generally cheap, fresh and perfectly safe when served piping hot.

Poor Mans Snack
The other favourite of the hungry Mumbaiwallah is vada pao, a spicy, deep fried potato dumpling sandwiched between the cheeks of a soft fat pao and slathered with spicy chutney. This is the quintessential poor man's snack, popular amongst migrant labourers and impoverished urchins.
One piece for breakfast generally costs Rs 4.00 which is less than the price of a bus ticket and will see you through until late afternoon.

Kulfi
Yet another Chowpatty special, Kulfi is hand churned ice-cream made with condensed milk and oriental flavourings such as nutmeg and cardamom. The most popular is the pale green pistachio kulfi but the plain "malai" or cream variety is as much in demand.

Idlis and Dosas
This is South Indian fast food at its best. Idlis are steaming hot rice cakes served with a curry called sambar and some subtly spiced coconut chutney. Dosas are huge crepes with a pungent potato filling, also served with sambar and chutney. Both these are meals by themselves, and serve as the standard lunch for thousands of office goers.

Chinese
In Mumbai, streetside Chinese food is humorously called Chindian: mostly noodles or chow fan soaked in pungent curries laced with green chilies. Despite the cultural mishmash this is surprisingly tasty stuff but can take its toll on a sensitive stomach.

Focus On Travel: India Part Deux

2010-11-22T07:14:00.001-08:00

Australian designer Megan Park escapes the hectic pace and crowds of Delhi, her home away from home for three months a year, at the enchanting Neemrana Fort Palace in nearby (two hours by car) Alwar. "Stay in the shish mahal, or room of mirrors," she advises. "The couple who restored the fort also installed a good ayurvedic spa, with traditional massage and steam body treatments." More information available at Neemrana Fort Palace. http://www.neemranahotels.com/.

The silk bed coverings and 22-karat-gold jewelry that Alayne Patrick sources in India have made her Brooklyn shop Layla, left, a destination for New York shoppers. On her supply runs to Delhi, the stylist and boutique owner hits Andraab Treasures in Hauz Khas Village (a warren of twisting medieval alleys lined with merchants), where finds include high-quality pashminas, spice, saris and sandals. Layla, 86 Hoyt St., Brooklyn, (718) 222-1933; Andraab Treasures, Hauz Khas Village, Delhi; Village Bistro, Hauz Khas Village, Delhi, 011-91-11-2685-3857

Trust Anuj Desai, the India-born former editor in chief of BlackBook Magazine, to be able to name not one, but two boutique hotels in Delhi, a city most people will tell you has none. The 224-room Park is conveniently located in the Connaught Place shopping center, but Desai recommends the Manor, left. Situated in Friends Colony, a former suburb now absorbed by the growing megalopolis, it may be less central, but that's its charm. With only ten rooms, it's a veritable oasis in this bustling city of 13.8 million. More information available at the Park, www.theparkhotels.com, and the Manor. http://www.themanordelhi.com/.

Vikram Chatwal, the New York-based hotelier whose upcoming wedding to Priya Sachdev will be a seven-day, three-city affair complete with a masked ball at the island palace of Jag Mandir, loves India for its contrasts. "You can be anything you want," he says. "You can be decadent, spiritual, a backpacker. The country contains so many different worlds." That's why you might find him dining on tandoori delicacies with friend Chelsea Clinton at Bukhara in Delhi one night, and getting cozy with tigers the next at Aman-i-Khás, a wild but luxe tented resort on the edge of Ranthambhore National Park. http://www.amanresorts.com/
.

When London-based illustrator Tanya Ling returns to Calcutta she stays at the 125-year-old Oberoi Grand. Its neoclassical façade houses a host of modern luxuries, including a beautiful full-size pool. Colonial flourishes are evident throughout, from the ballroom to the tennis courts. "It feels very Raj-y," says Ling. "You can still feel the days gone by there." More information available at the Oberoi Grand, www.oberoikolata.com, and the Saturday Club. http://www.saturday-club.com/.

Focus On Music: Thieves Like Us

2010-11-21T06:05:00.000-08:00

The darkly stylish electronic/post-punk threesome Thieves Like Us are named for the 1984 New Order song (as opposed to the 1974 Robert Altman film), and they take more than just their moniker from Manchester's darkly stylish electronic/post-punk pioneers. Their timely, '80s-indebted approach has garnered comparisons to numerous dance-pop acts of the late 2000s, including Hot Chip and Crystal Castles, but their mix of gloom and glitter may be most closely aesthetically aligned with the seedy electro-disco revisionists of the Italians Do It Better axis (Glass Candy, the Chromatics), groups who employ the tools and techniques of dance music but seem more interested in evoking hazily decadent atmospheres than inspiring actual dancing. Swedes Pontus Berghe (drums) and Björn Berglund (keyboards) met the American Andy Grier (vocals) in Berlin's Mauer Park in 2002, and the trio began hitting the nightlife together, a gang of unregistered expats struggling with the language and culture of a foreign metropolis. Uninspired by the city's techno-oriented club scene, they took matters into their own hands by DJing together, and eventually starting to produce their own electronic music.

Somewhat ironically, considering that their tastes tended toward the Teutonic -- including vintage Krautrock and David Bowie and Iggy Pop (particularly, one imagines, the arty glam-punk of their Berlin periods), in addition to hip-hop, Factory Records post-punk, and French touch house -- they failed to find favor with German clubgoers, and they eventually relocated to New York City. Their first recording, the ambivalently hedonistic, Daft Punk-influenced filter-disco calling card "Drugs in My Body," made the rounds for several years, seeing 12" releases on two Swedish labels in 2005 and 2006 before cropping up on Paris' tastemaking Kitsuné Music in 2007. That same year the trio self-issued an ambient/instrumental album, recorded in Berlin and titled Berlin, Alex, but it wasn't until late 2008 that their proper debut full-length, the moody Play Music, appeared on Austria's Seayou Records, with a North American release on Shelflife in April 2009. The delay was due in part to the bandmembers living in different international cities for different periods of time, but by 2009 they had all landed together in Paris.

click any track from the releases
"Again and Again" and "Play Music" below to listen

Text courtesy: K. Ross Hoffman, All Music Guide

Focus On Travel: India

2010-11-21T05:46:00.001-08:00

No trip to the northwestern state of Rajasthan is complete without a night at Delwara village's Devi Garh hotel. The Delhi-based Poddar family renovated this eighteenth-century palace-fortress over a ten-year period, and their painstaking attention to detail is evident in 39 sparsely decorated but unmistakably posh suites, boasting floors inlaid with semiprecious stones and walls painted with miniature Krishnas. Liz Hurley threw a 40th-birthday bash for consort Arun Nayar here, and when PR executive Vanessa von Bismarck, who recommends the presidential suite, checked in over the holidays, she spied Paris Vogue's Carine Roitfeld. More information available at Devi Garh, http://www.deviresorts.com/.

French jeweler Marie-Hélène de Taillac spends six months of the year in the Pink City of Jaipur sourcing stones and designing her collection. That's a long time to go without a fashion fix, which is why she partnered with Munnu Kasliwal of Gem Palace—the city's, nay India's, premier jeweler—to open Hot Pink, an airy boutique that stocks local labels like Manish Arora and Neeru Kumar. Hot Pink, Narain Niwas Palace, Jaipur, 011-91-141-510-8932

When Gillian Conroy and Danica Wilcox, alums of French and Japanese Vogue and partners in a new jewelry company, visit Jaipur (where their matte gold necklaces, cabochon labradorite earrings, and tourmaline rings are made), they invariably end up inside the Old City, searching for treasures at the Johari Bazaar. "It's colorful and chaotic, great for shopping for friends at home," says Conroy. "But be prepared to bargain hard." All that haggling can make a girl parched, so the duo quench their thirst at the nearby L.M.B. Hotel. Once refreshed, it's time for more shopping. Satayam, outside the City Palace gate, is their preferred tailor for made-to-measure clothes. More information available at Conroy & Wilcox, info@conroywilcox.com; Satayam, Laxman Dawra Road, Jaipur, 011-91-141-260-0555; L.M.B. Hotel, Johari Bazaar, Jaipur, 011-91-141-256-5844, info@lmbsweets.com.

New Yorkers hungry for a taste of home eat at Véda, the Delhi restaurant opened by the chefs at popular Manhattan Indian joint Dévi. But it isn't just Suvir Saran and Hemant Mathur's famous Gobi Manchurian that keeps the Jaislamer-marble tables packed. Rohit Bal, a fashion designer who's been called the Versace of India, has decorated the brick-walled space in spicy orange hues and plenty of mirrors—the better to spy the well-dressed locals.
Véda, H 27, Outer Circle, Connaught Place, Delhi, 011-91-11-5151-3940

For something wild, Deep Kailey recommends a trip to Madhya Pradesh, the "heart of India." The London-based stylist and managing director of Kim Jones' label stayed at a guest house in Kahna National Park, where "getting out really early in the morning meant seeing tigers." Hampi, left, is up next for this adventurer. The onetime capital of the large, rich Vijayanagara empire, it was destroyed in 1565 by marauding Moguls. The ruins are now a World Heritage Center—and a destination for today's time travelers. More information available at Kahna National Park, http://www.kanhanationalpark.com/.

Franco-Indian relations are cheery, thanks in part to Jean-François Lesage, the expatriate son of François Lesage, the famous haute couture embroiderer. While la mode occupies the elder Lesage (Chanel bought the family business in 2003), the son, a former art auctioneer, focuses on interiors. "We do not do fashion," he asserts. Instead, his company, Vastrakala Exports, has been supplying embroideries made in a converted house in Madras to museums, as well as the likes of Queen Elizabeth II, Catherine Deneuve, and Steven Spielberg. Visitors to the balmy city can call ahead to tour the workshop. More information available at Jean-François Lesage, Paris, 011-33-1-4450-0101.

Dries Van Noten turned to Japan for inspiration for his spring show, but India is a recurring motif for the Belgian designer. Among the saris he's collected, two stand out: a vintage style printed with images of Indian Ambassador cars and another in fuchsia emblazoned with gold brocade. Van Noten's favorite sources are the Calcutta markets, including the old (it opened in 1874) New Market, housed in a red-brick Victorian Gothic building with a clock tower. New Market, 19 Lindsay St., Calcutta

Focus On Sport: Bodybuilding

2010-11-20T10:02:00.000-08:00

A peek into Indian history suggest that the land has nurtured body building since time immemorial when kings encouraged it as a sport with strongest awarded prestigious position in their courts. Body building was a national passion across India by 1500s and today’s modern bodybuilding techniques have their origins when the colonials copied the Indian techniques during their visits to India and later propagated them in the west.

Focus On Architecture: India

2010-11-20T09:10:00.000-08:00

The art of practicing architecture in India today is dominated by the desire to invent authenticity.

-Romi Khosla

Mughal art and architecture, a characteristic Indo-Islamic-Persian style that flourished on the Indian subcontinent during the Mughal empire.

This new style combined elements to India during the Delhi Sultanate (1192–1398) and had produced great monuments such as the Qutb Minar, with features of Persian art and architecture.

Mughal monuments are found chiefly in North India, but many remain in Pakistan.

In architecture the first great Mughal monument was the mausoleum to Humayun, erected during the reign of Akbar (1556–1605).

The tomb, which was built in the 1560s, was designed by a Persian architect Mirak Mirza Ghiyas. It has an intricate ground plan with central octagonal chambers, joined by an archway with an elegant facade and surmounted by cupolas, kiosks, and pinnacles.

Akbar went on to build the entire city of Fatehpur Sikri (City of Victory) in which extensive use was made of the low arches and bulbous domes that characterize the Mughal style.

Built in 1571 the choice of the site of Sikri reflected Akbar's gratitude to a Muslim saint at Sikri for the birth of his son. Courtiers soon followed suit and built homes surrounding the palace and mosque.

It was Shah Jahan (1628–58) who perfected Mughal architecture and erected at Agra its most noble and famous building, the tomb of his favorite wife, which is known as the Taj Mahal.

A huge white marble building of simple, symmetrical plan, it is inlaid with colorful semiprecious materials and is set in an equally beautiful and symmetrical garden. The Taj Mahal continues the tradition of Mughal garden tombs, of which Humayun's tomb was the first.

Focus On Fashion: Indian Flair

2010-11-19T09:18:00.001-08:00

Western culture is developing a grand love affair with the distinctive fashion style that is India. Along with Indian music and spirituality, Indian Clothing is having a huge impact on the mainstream identities of western style and culture. The latest designer shows from Armani, Fendi, and Miyake all draw on elements from the exotic Indian culture.Dries Van Noten, one of the new fashion leaders, recently presented a collection of layered chiffon wraps, dresses, saree, and kurta look-alikes.

The color palette these western designers are drawing from is as vibrant as a Rajasthan desert at sundown,using rich golds, reds, and greens.

Indian designers like Sunita Shankar, Vandanna Roy, Ritu Beri, Monisha Jaising, Ravi Bajaj and Krishna Mehta are leading the way in redefining Indian fashion. Rohit Bal presented his latest collection, Sanskrit, at a New York benefit gala organized by Children's Hope,and stunned the audiencewith exquisite embroidery, beadwork, and tie-dye fashions, with a decidedly Indian flair.

Fashion Street has been aptly described as common man's celebrated 'shopping arcade' It is haunted by youngsters and college going girls, who throng to the bazaar. The street is close to the famous Metro Cinema and Dhobi Talao.In fact, it is a huddle of little shops on Mahatma Gandhi Road.

Readymade garments are one of Mumbai's chief exportsand the surplus lands up at Fashion Street.They cost only a fraction of the priceand are grabbed by fashion conscious collegians fresh off the rack.Bargaining, of course is half the fun of buying. Begin at half the quoted price and work your way gradually upwards,then follow though with a thorough appraisal of the goods: much of the stuff hereis rejected by quality conscious importersand likely to have a missing button or crooked collar. But by and large the clothes are of good quality, trendy,and probably the cheapest anywhere in the world.So walk into Fashion Street and shop for your wardrobe.

Focus On Art: Jackson Pollock

2010-11-19T08:34:00.001-08:00

Jackson Pollock (1912-56)

The commanding figure of the Abstract Expressionist movement.
This manner of Action painting had in common with Surrealist theories of automatism
that it was supposed by artists and critics alike
to result in a direct expression or revelation.

Create your own work of art inspired by the great master, Jackson Pollock.
Click and drag your cursor across the canvas below to create a masterpiece.

Clicking your mouse button changes colors
and pressing the space bar erases your paining.

Jackson Pollock by Miltos Manetasgreat free widgetsWidgetboxMore info

Focus On Film: Parsis

2010-11-18T10:08:00.000-08:00

Here are some short films about the dying religion and sect known as Zoroastrians.

Focus On Religion: Zoroastrianism

2010-11-18T09:02:00.001-08:00

Parsis, a very unique, distinct religious minority in India with numbers less than 60,000, a community which is likely to be wiped out in less than a hundred years at its present decent.A third of the Parsis remain unmarried, a third marry outside the community, a third marry very late in life(30-35 years, coupled with high divorce rates), and a large percentage of them in ages over 50, lead to a sharp decline in growth. By the year 2020, India will have achieved the distinction of being the most populated country on earth with 1200 million people. The population trend of the Parsis in Indiamimic that of the western world.

The Parsis have made an monumental impact on modern India whether it is in science, industry, medicine or politics. Today in the 21st century, we their belief to be playinga major role in their existence and survival. Whether they will embrace the 21st century, disregard their promise made to the ruler of Gujarat about taking converts and preaching their beliefs, identify leaders, and take the Parsi Panchayat to task by rooting out the old blood and getting leaders and visionaries in them, all lay within the palm of their hands. Their mantra should not be " Oh! how great we were", but instead " How much more can we achieve, and nothing will stop us".

According to the last census (1991), there are 76,342 Parsis in India with current numbers less than 70,000. The largest population (around 56,000) resides in Mumbai. The city registers 300 births and 900 deaths per year for them. At some point, the Parsis, will cease to be termed a community and will be labelled a 'tribe'. Such gestures may seem enormous to some, but when one asks a Parsi in India about the assistance and leadership provided by the Parsi Panchayat the story is very different.

The Bombay Parsi Panchayat with its immense wealth accumulated through the generous donations of the Parsis of yesteryears, hands out meager assistance to financially handicapped, aging or displaced Parsis.

Many newlywed Parsis wanting to start families of their own cannot locate decent housing within the city limits. Their attempts to acquire flats through the Panchayat never materialise, years afer the initial application. Instead, stories of affluent families occuping the same residences come to light and their only error being they did not know the murky process of selection. Stories of corruption and insider bribing abound.

A good beginning would be making cheap affordable housing to all newlywed Parsis to start families with. The Parsi Panchayat with its large parcels of land in and around Mumbai should jumpstart their rather slow corrupt process of housing for Parsis. Also the community as a whole should start accepting converts from families where one of the parents is a Zorastrian, provide education and financial assistance to all Zorastrians, educate young Parsis about their glorious past while giving them a concrete vision for their future.

The very race that migrated from Persia, holding to their belief in their prophet Zarathustra, arriving in a foreign land surviving for a 1000 years, impacting their host motherland, growing to adapt and prosper, now face their greatest challenge of "survival".

I am energized from the fact that my community is noted. The big financial houses like the Tata's, Godrej's, Pallonji's, Wadias etc, should assume some leadership roles and provide direction for both, the youth and the elderly. This has to be a collective effort from every single Zorastrian, from all the four corners of the world. For its non-discriminatory charity to all. It’s love, compassion understanding, and tolerance towards all religions.

read about my experience as a Parsi HERE

Focus On Art: Keith Haring

2010-11-18T07:41:00.001-08:00

Keith Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990)

Keith was an artist and social activist whose work
responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s.

He achieved his first public attention
with chalk drawings in the subways of New York.

Focus On Style: Fashion Eyeglasses

2010-11-17T21:49:00.000-08:00

I remember when I first learned I needed eyeglasses. I was in first grade and couldn't read the chalkboard our teacher had up. We were learning cursive and my penmanship was suffering.

Back then, those obnoxious lenses in front of your eyes were still a death wish. Popularity suicide. I xan still gear halls echoing, “Hey, four-eyes!”.

But nowadays, glasses have a whole new side to them. While, of course, there are still the “grandpa lenses” — which take up half your face and can only be pulled off by crazy celebrities like Gwen Stefani and Kanye West — eyeglasses serve a whole new purpose. Eyeglasses are to people now what sunglasses were 10 years ago: a stylish accessory. Notice all the brand name frames now from: Chanel, D&G and Juicy Couture.

People who don’t even need eyeglasses (and a big swarm of those who do but have gotten by avoiding them for so many years) are rushing to the doctor or their nearest designer retailer to grab a pair off the rack in order to avoid a bif drop in their cool quotient.

I hope this tends sticks around a while longer. Otherwise, I just might not see what is around the corner in terms of trends.