Basement Jaxx at Roundhouse, London 29/04/09

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As Basement Jaxx stormed into Where’s Your Head At? during their finale at the Roundhouse last night, dancers in monkey suits bounded on stage and sent the crowd to fever pitch.

It was a high-octane performance from the masters of house music, and the rammed Roundhouse hummed with the heavy basslines from hits such asRendez-Vu, Do your Thing, Bingo Bango and Oh My Gosh. They even dropped in a couple of tracks from the forth coming album, and an odd several minute Scandanavian death metal meandering from the lead guitarist.

Before they appeared on stage, a lengthy intro boomed out from the speakers, accompanied by some fantastic hypnotic graphics on a huge screen. When the duo – Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe – finally appeared, they did not disappoint.

I was almost overwhelmed by the many costume changes by the trio of female singers (probably somewhere between 15 in all – I stopped counting after 10!), and the lively stage presence of more than 10 people. Basement Jaxx may be a duo, but every live show feeds off the energy provided by their musicians, singers and dancers, including a Brazillian dancer in full carnival dress for the finale.

Crowd-pleaser Jump ’n’ Shout and an interesting take on Three Times a Lady were served up as everyone enjoyed a group who deliver what their fans crave. A meander into Kings of Leon's Sex on fire was a huge sing-a-long crowd pleaser too.

Thanks to Yorick for the tix and Sue for some of her flickr pics.

Death of graffiti photographer Ian Talty

Ian Talty (click on image to enlarge)

I was saddened this morning to hear of the death of Ian Talty, a photographer known for documenting graffiti in and around Minnesota, USA.

Abandoned (click on image to enlarge)

Ian was killed while taking photos in a drainage tunnel underneath the Marshall Avenue bridge. The tunnel suddenly became flooded when a thunderstorm broke over the city. Tragically, Ian drowned as his body was swept into the Mississippi River.

Abandoned (click on image to enlarge)

He was an prolific photographer, with a humble spirit, and every Twin Cities writer and street artist who knew about his Flickr checked it religiously, hoping that he would choose their work for his next subject.

Artists and photographers venturing out to photograph or put up work - and drowning in tunnels and storm drains because of flash flooding - is apparently not as rare as it may seem.

This is the comment on one of his mid April flickr pics:
"Where else would I be on a Sunday? I'll tell you where: In a drain if the river wasn't so goddamn high"

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Do check out his "The joy of the mundane" flickr site. He has about 3,000 pics up on line in various places, but this flickr address is probably the best and shows a lot of his excellent detail and texture shots too.

OOF 3321: from portfolio set (click on image to enlarge)

Decay, ruin & rust set (click on image to enlarge)

Or unlock: from signs set (click on image to enlarge)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mundane_joy/sets/

Diego Gravinese process

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A talented painter who goes by the name of Nekomomix, but is also known as Diego Gravinese from Buenos Aires, Argentina. This is a photo essay documenting his process using tracing from projection, under-painting in acrylic and over-painting in oils. Enjoy.

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New Diego Gravinese exhibition

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Daego Gravinese is an artist I started getting into a few years ago. His super-photo-realistic paintings are wonderful. He used to work over the top of them, and juxtapose images together (see No. 20 at the end of this post), but now has moved back to his original style of straight up
photo realism. I have posted these images up from his latest exhibition showing his process.

His website is currently under construction, but you can see more of his work (and his lovely girlfriend Panda on his flickr site:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/godiex/

Diego Gravinese - No. 20 (click image to enlarge)

Troy Lovegate from Canada

Other - Hobo in a bottle detail (click image to enlarge)

Other - Hobo in a bottle detail (click image to enlarge)

Other - Hobo in a bottle (click image to enlarge)

I've been following a very talented (and somewhat humorous) Canadian artist for a while now. His name is Troy Lovegate, and he creates under the name 'Other'. This is from a series he did a little while ago called "Hobo in a bottle". He works in a number of medium, from lino print over photos to painting with wooden spoons (yep - weird I know), and he used to live in an abandoned train yard apparently. Some of his street art is awesome, predominantly B&W portraiture.

He has recently returned from a 4 month sponsored art scholarship in Melbourne. I look forward with eager anticipation to seeing how this trip will effect his style.

Check out more of Troy's work here...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/other/sets

Tribus: An ambitious European public art project

Sweden (click image to enlarge)

Mass produced in Sweden (click image to enlarge)

Amsterdam (click image to enlarge)

Oslo (click image to enlarge)

Application at City Hall (click image to enlarge)

On location City Hall (click image to enlarge)

Mass production of Tribus (click image to enlarge)

Came across this over the weekend. Very interesting project. Not sure where the finance for an ambitious project like this comes from, but I think it's great. It's based in Norway, but now spreading through Oslo and Amsterdam.

Tribus is a sculptural tag, a mass-produced object for the street. It is a work with such a strong and direct shape and color language that a signature is unnecessary. The expression is the signature and the link between the art pieces. The ambition is to get a direct contact with the viewer. Tribus wants the viewer to experience its intervention in the public space as something positive.

Using sculpture in this context overcomes some of the obstacles that Graffiti/Street art meets where the viewer classifies the artworks as sabotage even before the visual contact. Getting people sympathetic to this project teases them to like something illegal, Something they normally would condemn. Tribus take its right without having the power. This project strives not to answer any questions, but want people to ask them.

Who owns the city?
Who owns art?

http://www.tribus.se/

Mephisto Jones in Melbourne

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Further to my earlier post about trans-tasman rivalry, it appears that my old mate Otis has been over in Melbourne again recently, with a slew of new characters. Looks like he's going back to his dark-side characters again. Thanks for the pic Blacklodge!!

Belfast bike

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Came across this image on the Woostercollective site the other day, and it reminded me of the Welly crew circa '03, especially you Otis (you low rider you...), Anyway, nice piece - not sure who the artist is tho.

New Eine in Hackney, London

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Moving a little away from his usual style super-size single letters on garage doors around London, and onto pos/neg masks. I've seen this done before (blacking out elements to create a word or numbers, but never as well as this.

Some bits & bobs from Auckland city

Nice 3-D Bug

Anyone remember Piggy Muldoon from the 80's? Component does!

Running wildlife

This one's for you Kava - put the knives on...

Love this humour!

Special thanks to Rizzla for flicking me over some recent snaps from around Ak city. Nice to see some good things going on there, and some good old Kiwi humour creeping in there too...

Trans-Tasman exchange programme

My pic from Taranaki St, Wellington (about 4-5 years ago)

Blacklodge!!'s pic from Melbourne (this week)

Saw a piece I recognised on blacklodge!!'s flickr this morning. Thought: I recognize that! Looked thru the photos I shot in Wellington about 4 or more years ago, and sure enough...

Interesting how many of our/their artists cross the ditch to make their mark, especially to Melbourne 'cause it's so inspirational. Blacklodge!! shot some of Otis's (Mephisto Jones) in Melbourne last week too. It's up on his flickr site now, check it:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thebadseed/sets