Johan and Esau (The Very Best) with Ezra (Vampire Weekend) backstage at Le Poisson Rouge
The Very Best tore it up across America on a 4-city extravaganza that ended last night with a closing set at the Pitchfork Music festival. It started in LA where the band slayed the venerable Echoplex, garnering rave reviews and freaking out fans across the twittosphere.
Saturday night was all about New York at Le Poisson Rouge. The space was swarming -- DJ kids, cumbia heads, world music peeps and a bunch of folks that just love this band to death. When The Very Best exploded onto the stage around 130am, it was like we were in a different city. Everyone dancing. Everyone singing. Even Ezra Koenig from Vampire weekend joined the band for a moment, singing their summer anthem, Warm Heart of Africa.
New York's success was followed by last night's in Chicago. The Very Best closed down the 3-day summit with a set that had fans singing songs they hadn't heard yet and songs in a language they didn't know. Theophilus London even dropped by for an uprorious version of Warm Heart of Africa (can't wait for Theophilus and Ezra to do this one together!)
For their last song of the tour, The Very Best closed with a Free Willy refix, a fitting tribute to the king of pop that had the front-row girls in tears (literally). Now that tour is over (except for a secret show in Brooklyn this Saturday night!), stay tuned to greenowl.com; we'll be posting footage from the shows.
Sometimes it's best to just come out and say it fast and
honestly: You missed a great party last night at the Echoplex. Well,
not all of you. A few hundred souls showed up to see the Very Best,
Rainbow Arabia and Bersa
Discos bring the rhythm. The headliner, from London, consists of
production duo Radioclit and singer Esau Mwamwaya, and are known
Stateside (barely) due to the success of their free mixtape, Esau
Mwamwaya & Radioclit Are The Very
Best, which dropped online last last year to rave reviews. The mix is
a beast. The team combines African and dance rhythms with surprising and
not so surprising samples -- their riff on Vampire Weekend's "Cape Cod
Kwassa
Kwassa" single-handedly nudged us overcome our VW fears and give them
a chance -- and is, we hereby submit, one of the best antidotes for LA
traffic frustration.
If this doesn't convince you to get all disco tomorrow night, then you're probably just on some square shit (what are doing with your life?). Tomorrow, Le Poisson Rouge 158 Bleecker St. Let's put a dent in it, people!
Melted 12'' records molded into bowlsand used for whatever your heart desires
We apply the notion of recycling to many different scenarios around
these parts: remixing jams, dates, FADER magazine's rotation amongst us, AND to these dandy little dishes. We were informed that once
the records are baked, they
become all shiny and new looking; use them as candy dishes, bread
baskets, or fill them up with pharmies and
set the mood for your guest -- whatever you like! Homeboy's stand is
set up around Bedford and 5th Ave. in Williamsburg so check it! We also
copped a MJ Thriller original 12' (non-baked) for 40 bones (they're 300 dollars online)!
Thanks to today's best new music review in Pitchfork, we got hipped to this incredible youtube video for Sir Victor Uwaifo, whose sample is the basis for The Very Best's new song, Warm Heart of Africa, featuring Ezra from Vampire Weekend. Watch Uwaifo above and find out what Pitchork is raving about here. The Very Best play San Fran tonight, NY tomorrow and Chicago on Sunday.
An eclectic and largely stylish crowd packed into AK1511 in Venice Beach last night for BMP Magazine's BPMP3 Battle II. The party transformed the mini art gallery into a mini club, complete with a stage, elementary club lighting, and an open bar serving AMP and Belvedere on the rocks. The night featured crews from LA's tightest record labels, DJs, designers and promoters - there were teams representing Dim Mak, Eatskeet, From Elsewhere, DeckStar, Lovemade, the Cobrasnake, Barracuda, and Stones Throw.
The battle pitted the crews against each other two at a time. The teams traded off playing minute-long excerpts of MP3s and trying to hype the crowd as much as possible. 3 MP3s per team per battle, remixes were allowed, mashups were not.
The crews that showed up were, for the most part, pretty dope. Team Eatskeet, headed by DJ Skeet Skeet, kept a hyphy and party-inducive stage presence even when they weren't competing. The night was also complemented by Lovemade, a stylish all-girl group of designers, party planners, and DJ's who, despite being eliminated in the first round, were a noticeable and attractive presence throughout the night.
Dim Mak dropped Busta Rhymes, Eatskeet played Thriller, and the Lovemade crew all got down to Hoochie Mama, but in the end, Stones Throw won the battle. The night showcased LA's creative and cultural potential - it was a testament to what can come out of this massive city if it can find a way to coordinate and consolidate its nightlife just a little bit more. We're looking forward to it.
Tucked away in East Williamsburg/Bushwick Brooklyn is a community fostering street art the way it should be. Artist such as Cern of YMI Crew, Mama, KEO, Aplus and Knows are adding fierce color and character to the block -residents, businesses, and lonely street corners alike are giving this shit major love. Checks it and Stay Up!
According to Arriana, the Obama administration approved today the sale of timber in a roadless national forest in Alaska. Follow the Tongass National Forest on Twitter here and watch this video about our 17 million acre rainforest. God bless America?
Dave Chappelle is in good old Portland,
Oregon,
where he Twittered a last minute stand-up act last night around 1 AM.
Thousands
flocked to the City of Roses Pioneer Square and word has it, there was
magic in the
air. When he's not in Africa connecting to his roots; he's
in the whitest
city in America
getting some material.
In a city full of $5,000 shirt boutiques and P Diddy
dinners, we appreciate the simplicity of a neighborhood green
bakery. Located in the once infectious D.I.Y. area of the East Village,
Birdbath Neighborhood Green Bakerylocated on 255 1st Ave, is doing all
sorts sustainable bits and pieces. For one, their floor is made out of recycled
cork –- all varnishes and adhesives are water based and toxic free. The walls are
made out of Dakota Burl
(sunflower seed husks) and BioFiber Wheat Board. One of their main
attractions, the bakery’s table, has a bamboo
surface and 100% recycled industrial
material (mostly denim) as the base! Apparently milk paint exists and that is
what the deep red wall is all about; and
there’s a vintage cash register, light fixture and uniforms to boot.
As for what you’re putting into your body... all creams, milks
and dairy products are from a local family farm. Ingredients such as wheat
flour, chocolate, sugar cane, coffee and honey are all organic and local. All
deliveries (including their own from east location to their west location is
done via bike). Yep, something tells me
if you take your hippie/vegan/Portland girl/Brooklyn hipster-boy date to this
joint, it’s in the smelly bag that you’ll score. Stay
up people!
Finding honesty in politics is about as easy as finding true love in a brothel so it's always nice to see some guys stepping up to plate and trying to push some good policy through the thick cloud of bureaucracy that weighs on Washington like a river of molasses. (a river of molasses is of course a very heavy thing)
A few pieces from Dash Snow's Polaroid collections
Dash Snow’s art has the ability to capture the seedy, dark
and real underbelly of life. When I try to conjure up the epitome of New York fast living, I
imagine Snow’s Polaroid collection. What's fascinating about
Dash Snow’s work was how he translated the “downtown” scene into images and
objects that flirted with notions of glamour, rock and roll and straight grit and grime. Sure, maybe you
don’t think doing a line off a cock is cool or even tolerable, but the thought is there -- in our dark imagination and in the surreal experiences
of the young, free and wild. Dash Snow broadcast what some of us
thought as only a fantasy world into reality, all with the fuck you
attitude that'd make Sid Vicious tip his hat. With that, we tip ours and say so long and thank you Mr. Snow for putting a dent in the earth.
