Creative Genius in Chicago

Steven Husby is one of the most talented and innovative new artists working today. Working from his small studio on the north side of Chicago, he creates uniquely inspiring, exciting and venturesome paintings using acrylic on canvas, art board and paper. The unique blend of artistic style and vision gives each viewer his or her own personal view of Steven Husby's geometric ocean depths, mathematical landscapes and etherealogical, unreal realities. Despite the seemingly heady and intangible nature of Stephen's work, his paintings never fail to communicate a distinct sense of unpretentious feeling and familiarity.

Steven's work has been on display at galleries throughout Chicago and also at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Catch his next opening on 23-Feb-08 at the Lisa Boyle Gallery - 1821 W. Hubbard St. (773) 665-5475

Open your ears; open your mind.

In honour of his birthday (tomorrow), I'd like to pay homage to one of the most promising and talented electronic music artists of this millennium-- Chicago's very own PHONAUT!

Phonaut is a downtempo, ambient, ethnotronic DJ and producer with experience spanning more than a decade. The Phonaut's performances on Chicago radio station WNUR 89.3 FM (Streetbeat, Radioaktivities, Semutamusic) and affiliations with Atmoworks Records have built a solid foundation for his emergence as a truly innovative and cutting-edge artist.

Also known around Chicago and the World as no@h, Semutanine and DJ WideScreeen, he is highly-regarded for his work as the official webmaster for Tetsu Inoue (FAX, Instinct Records, Tzadik, Daisy World, Rather Interesting, Caipirinha) as well as numerous art-installations and field recordings everywhere. He is bound to change the face of electronic music forever, so I recommend getting yourself ready for the future by acquainting yourself with his unique soundstylings now. Logon to www.phonaut.com to subscribe to his Podcast and read up on what he's been doing.

Kakewerk

My fiancée Rinko and I have embarked upon an exciting new adventure-- we're starting our own business! We're fusing together my life-long love of baking and dessert-making with Rinko's artistic talents and new-found marketing skills in order to get into the foodservice industry! We're called "The Sweet Samurai," and we're launching our company as a by-order bakery and sweet-table catering business.

Right now we're working on getting our business plan together, registering with the state government as an official business partnership, and looking for some commercial kitchen space to rent! I am also working to perfect my cake-decorating skills while Rinko works to create our company logo which will be used on our business cards and product-packaging.

We'll start by offering our specialties-- Kuri-chan's Luscious Lemon Bars and our Triple-Chocolate Brownies along with a wide variety of pies, cakes, cookies, breads and seasonal treats. Look for us to launch officially sometime this spring!

My kool new gadget...

This is my cool new Domokun 2GB mimobot flash drive from mimoco! He comes with his own hoodie keychain and is pre-loaded with a bunch of graphics, screensavers, sounds, videos and icons. Kool, huh? :-)

I'm hatin' it!

WTF McDonald's!? Can you please shut the hell up?

I recently saw this McDonald's advertisement, and it seemed absolutely absurd. I decided to check out the company website to see if I could find out what their angle is. Once I got there, I found something else that I found much more irritating. I went to a part of the website called "havin fun." Immediately, two links caught my attention-- one that said "365 Black" and another that said, "I am asian." "What is this, now?" I thought. The "I am asian" link took me to a view of a small apartment that was decorated with lots of "asian" decor with different mouse-over actions for different parts of the room. Origami cranes, a neon light fashioned to look like bubble tea, a chinese paper lantern, an XBOX controller and of course a McDonald's take-out bag sitting on the coffee table. The coup de grâce is a keyboard that plays different music when you click different parts of the keys. What does it play? Variations of the McDonald's theme song with "asian" instruments and rhythms of course! Is this what it means to be Asian? Hmmm? What the fuck? Others like the "365 Black" link advertise how McDonald's is "deeply rooted in the community" and the "MeEncanta" ("I'm lovin' it" in spanish) link that features a costumed mexican wrestler and a pair of fuzzy dice for your car, talking about "mi lado latino."

What a bunch a dumbass shit! What is McDonald's trying to do here, exactly?? Are we to infer that minorities love McDonald's, that McDonald's is down with the hood, that McDonald's shares the centuries-old bonds of culture with Asian people everywhere because they have link that says 2007 is the year of the pig? OK so February is Black History Month and is also the start of the lunar new year-- AND?? What the hell? Jesus Christ, people, wake up! Isn't it enough that this company builds their damned food holes and pushes their marketing on the local populations in every country all over the planet? Apparently not, huh?

Finally, the reason I went to this shitty company's website in the first place-- the advertisement above. What!? Are you SERIOUS? Honestly, this is just some stupid advertising. Not only that, but believe me, if I wanted to have sex with a hamburger, I certainly wouldn't choose a nasty, slutty, disease-ridden sandwich from McDonald's!!! Fuck you, McDonald's! You suck!

Koolest new choonz

OK! ok. So this is not exactly new. I admit it. Still, however, I can't seem to stop listening to this music, nor can I seem to say enough about it! I'm talking about the anonymous South London master of post-Jungle breakbeat Dubstep, Burial! After signing with Kode9's Hyperdub records, he gave our ears their first taste of his unique and innovative sounds back in March of 2005 with the ground-breaking South London Boroughs EP.

A year later, he released the melancholy, self-titled full-length, 'Burial,' thus making an important, lasting change to the face of the world's soundscape. In my humble opinion 'Burial' is, in some ways, the crowning glory of the whole breakbeat movement that started back in the early 90s.

After giving us more brilliant releases like the "Distant Lights" and "Ghost Hardware" EPs, Burial came back to us again this past November with another full-length called 'Untrue,' this time delivering a fresh, new, bittersweet and eerily-soulful dubstep sound that once again pushes the limits of innovation and creativity, challenging the very fabric of his genre.

Seriously I cannot get enough of this music and there is little else in the way of new releases that has a sound like this. Do your ears a favour an check this out! There are two tracks available for public download-- get 'em right here!

Blackdown “Crackle Blues (Burial remix)"
Bloc Party - Where is Home? (Burial remix)

My new obsession - Death Note

Death Note is currently my absolute favourite Manga and Anime story. It's an amazing, compelling and addictive story written by Tsugumi Obha and published by Shonen Jump. It's the story of what happens when the world of the living collides with the gods of death, bestowing great power onto a teenage genius. The anime is currently being aired during Cartoon Network's Saturday Night lineup at 22:30 Central Time.

The self-hating American

Damnit! Sometimes I totally hate this country.

'Ello...what's all this, then?

OK, so we already have 50,000,000+ weBlogs in the world today, so say the Technorati. What can a new Blogger offer that would make reading anything more than a waste of one's valuable time? Well, maybe nothing! I guess I have no good answer for that at his moment-- I'll have to just see how this thing plays out.

One thing's for sure-- this blog is bound to entertain and enlighten, but is also sure enough going to piss you off at some point and that might be reason enough to come back to see what's new. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

What's this Blog all about, then? LOTS OF shit! Music, art, culture, politics, food, and other things. Hopefully lots of kool stuph.