photos by Chris La Putt

Spike Jonze @ MoMA

Just got back from NYC. I made a special trip up to the Big Apple to check out "An Evening of Skate Videos" - an event held by Poprally in support of the Moma's exhibit honoring the work of Spike Jonze, co-owner of Girl Skateboards and director of "Video Days" (the epic Blind Skateboards video), and director of "Where the Wild Things Are." The panel included a who's who of the skateboarding world, they included Spike Jonze, Patrick O'Dell (MC for the evening), Mark Gonzales, Lance Mountain, Jake Phelps, Tobin Yelland, Ty Evans, Greg Hunt, and Ed Templeton. Some other notable's that showed up included Giovanni Reda, Steve Rodriguez, Steve Olson, Jason Dill, Mike O'Meally, and Pitcrew Local Tyler Tufty. It was a great night of some classic skate videos and a great chance to get some great comments by those that were involved with them. Following the event, the band No Age put on a kick-ass show while the Colt 45 flowed.

Good Times! [Eastern Imagery]

After playing LPR on Wednesday, Oct. 14th, No Age's next stop on their four-show NYC run last week was at MoMA, where the band appeared with Spike Jonze and friends. After the skate-video clips and well-attended panel, No Age played in the lobby. It was No Age's first of two consecutive museum shows, though the second, the band's performance at the New Museum on Friday, October 16th, wasn't a regular set, but a live score to the 1989 Jean-Jacques Annaud film The Bear.

No Age @ MoMA

Village Voice: Does it seem uncanny for you guys, within a week's span, to be playing at the MoMA and then at Todd P.'s venue, then at the New Museum?

Randy Randall from No Age: No, it's not strange at all. For us, it's something we've always wanted to do. We come from a world of Todd P. auto-part store shows, yet we've always been fans of going to museums and galleries as patrons. We've always played places like Death By Audio, a venue with totally fun energy in the room. But sometimes, the rooms are too small and not everyone can get in. So we have to play (le) Poisson Rouge, a place with a bar, where your feet won't get stepped on, and money is paid to security guards and whatnot. That's more strange to us. The museum events we're playing are going to be fun and we've been fortunate now to get booked in places like that. It's hard to book those yourselves.

More pictures from MoMA are below...

Continue reading "No Age played with 'The Bear' @ The New Museum, and w/ Spike Jonze & skaters @ a MoMa PopRally event (pics)"

The cross-cultural collaboration of N.A.S.A.'s debut album The Spirit of Apollo has been carried over to the album artwork. Each album will contain artwork for five interchangeable covers by popular artists from varied backgrounds and cultures.

Contributing artists (as seen above) are Mark Gonzalez (the skater) (top left) Shepard Fairey (top right), Marcel Dzama (bottom left), The Date Farmers (bottom right), and Sage Vaughn (below). "All of the cover artists have contributed to The Spirit of Apollo's animated music video project, which pairs these artists with animators to create music videos for songs on the record. The first such video, featuring the art of Shepard Fairey, was released digitally in late 2008." You can watch that video below.

Shepard Fairey is also about to release a Bad Brains poster.

N.A.S.A. play Le Poisson Rouge in NYC tonight for free (1/29). When I first started hearing about tonight's show, I thought "yeah,I covered that already" and "that came up fast". Only now am I realizing that tonight's show is a newly added record release party which is not to be confused with the group's show at the same venue scheduled for March (which is on sale).

All dates, more art, and that video below...

Continue reading "Shepard Fairey, Sage Vaughn, Marcel Dzama, Mark Gonzales & others create art for N.A.S.A. (who are in NYC) "