Go Forward, Move Ahead
Jan 1, 2008 12:00 PM
FIELD TRIP: TRAVELING ART AND MUSIC
From art galleries to basketball courts, parties hitting the road this year are pushing the limits to educate and stimulate. And there's nothing like a good pair of shoes to get you there. With more than 1,500 vintage, limited-edition and rare runners, Sneaker Pimps have a kicks collection to covet. Showcasing hip-hop, skateboarding, basketball, fashion and photography, founder Peter Fahey started stacking shoes on display six years ago with local DJs spinning in his hometown, Sydney, Australia. Now the largest touring show of its kind, featuring heavyweight performers like Kanye West, Common, Nas and Public Enemy, as well as street artists like Tokidoki, Cartoon and Futura, it's a circus to run away with.
Meanwhile, New York's iStandard Producers are looking out for tomorrow's music. The creative mentoring and professional feedback workshops for burgeoning producers are going global with fully interactive online access to industry insiders. Now a monthly study-hard-play-hard session in New York and Philadelphia, with road stops in Chicago, L.A., Atlanta and Phoenix, music makers can get one-on-one attention they need to take their thing to the next level. Next up, after the WMC whirlwind settles, is iStandard's first-ever three-day “Beats on the Beach” in Miami this April.
Coming up in the roaming party/traveling competition realm, Montreal DJ Kid Koala's beats will resonate inside museums and galleries across Canada and the U.S. To promote his latest graphic novel (an untitled work in progress) composed entirely of photographs of Muppet-inspired 3-D miniatures on tiny intricate Dixieland movielike sets, Kid Koala will be touring his jazz-infused scratch sets for book, music and two-step lovers alike. Also, stay tuned as Koala is planning a suburban roller-skating rink tour in the future. Hell yeah!
Also clocking in air miles from the Euro city, cutting-edge fest Mutek takes on Manhattan, Mexico City, Sao Paulo and Barcelona with more experimental music and art from Japan, Latin America, Spain and Germany. Now in its ninth year, Mutek remains compact and intimate while breaking acts like Chicago's Detalles and San Fran's Pigeon Funk. With its still-strong label, Mutek_Rec — delivering the long-awaited follow-up to Montreal artist Akufen's full-length My Way this year — and its minimutations only growing in size, the fest is a testament to the flourishing techno talent colonizing this side of the Atlantic.
— Elizabeth Mitkos
NEW-MEDIA MOGULS: TRIGGERHAPPY
Seven years ago, Aahmek Richards predicted the proliferation of Internet-based media outlets. Today, as president of the two-year-old New York-based production company Triggerhappy, he and his partners are at the forefront of creating top-quality content for the digital age. “We are first and foremost a content production company,” says Richards, who worked in new media divisions at Arista and Def Jam. “I realized six or seven years ago that all forms of media were ultimately going to be served on the Internet, and the Internet was going to become this new broadcast medium that was going to sooner rather than later overpower television and theaters.” With that in mind, he and his partners, Derek Ferguson and Kareem Johnson, focused on creating content specifically for the Internet that could also be used for other formats.
“What seems to be working well online is short-form content,” he says. “People don't want to watch a 30-minute-long program.” Richards' crew shoots videos with the Panasonic HDX; edits in Apple Final Cut Pro; and completes all sound design, mixing and mastering with an Pro Tools|HD system.
Currently, Triggerhappy provides content for Pepsi DJ Division (pepsidjdivision.com) and Flow TV, an on-demand cable channel featuring hip-hop interviews and videos.
So what is Richards' prediction for the next seven years? “Everything is just going to be a digital download,” he contends. “All the traditional formats are going to go away.”
— Rhonda Baraka
This screen setting on the Universal Interface Panel prototype shows that mixing to picture while watching the picture is just one innovation of the NBOR system
THE MAGIC SCREEN: NBOR & DENNY JAEGER
With the chief designer of the breakthrough '80s workstation the Synclavier II at the helm, upstart company NBOR (No Boundaries or Rules; www.nbor.com) is looking to change audio mixing as we know it. Acclaimed composer for films and commercials, Denny Jaeger is the man who envisions a seamless fusion of the best of both the hardware and software worlds.
Still in the prototype stage, the system begins with the Universal Interface Panel, a hardware box with a display screen on top (that will likely be touch-sensitive) that can plug into any computer. Through laborious research that has spanned four countries and spawned more than 30 patents, NBOR designed custom-made, touch-sensitive faders that move across the top of the screen itself, using NBOR's Blackspace software. Made with many original parts designed from scratch, the faders have a maximum resolution of 6,000 points per inch and use unique magnetic coupling to make precise automated movements. The system also includes stand-alone knobs that can be placed anywhere on the screen (or on other surfaces as many as six knobs at a time) to control any software function with a response time of less than 1 ms. “There's nothing else on planet Earth that can do this,” Jaeger says.
NBOR's new tactile and software environment strips limitations from users. Any object down to a single pixel can be customized and moved anywhere on screen. Sessions use a context messaging system, so multiple people can contribute to the same session seamlessly and remotely with negligible delay. Blackspace sits on top of an operating system, so it's not constrained by the menus, windows, etc. of a Mac or Windows OS. “Everyone should have tools that are as creative as they want them to be,” Jaeger says. There's no news yet about a release of NBOR's products, but many developments should be popping up this year.
— Markkus Rovito
PASSING THE TORCH: ILLA J
There's no escaping Illa J's musical pedigree, but rather than live in the shadows, the Detroit-born producer embraced it. Illa J, whose given name is John Yancey, is the younger brother of the late J Dilla. After Dilla's death in 2006, Illa focused on music full-time, dropping out of college in Michigan, moving to California and setting up a recording studio, determined to carry on the Yancey legacy. Using Dilla's Yamaha Motif XS, Moog Voyager and 32-channel Digidesign ProControl board, he set about the task of recording a full-length album.
“My brother was known for hip-hop, but he could make all types of music, and he was also a great MC,” Illa J says. “I want to show that we're versatile, and this is a musical legacy to be dealt with.” An accomplished bassist, Illa compiled his own tracks with other tracks from Battlecat (which he calls “feel-good funk”), Karriem Riggins, Notz, Focus and Dilla. “When I write to my brother's tracks, there's a certain connection to it,” Illa says.
MCs Frank (from Dilla's group Frank n' Dank) and Guilty Simpson also appear on several tracks. “One thing I got from my brother is to keep it off time,” he says. “That's what makes you bob your head, where the beat is actually pulling the bass line. I try to stay away from hi-hats unless I need them. What I do is put the bass line in the right pockets to make the whole beat move. It's the little things like that that keep it funky.”
Illa is on his way to making his own name on the mic and behind the board. He proudly recalls a vocal recording session with Bishop Lamont, attended by Busta Rhymes. “Busta gave me a compliment; he said, ‘I know you make the beats, but that was hot, son.’”
— Tamara Warren
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