We tend to forget how the underground rockers of the early '90s often embraced the ugly and obnoxious. Here, in a forgotten TV commercial for Nirvana's third album In Utero, the trio gets weird with comic "Bobcat" Goldthwait. It's a slightly disturbing relic of an influential era. We're doubtful that it was ever broadcast.
By the end of the 1970s, after about a decade of releasing music, Syl Johnson hadn't had much commercial success. A few years later, after he had left the music industry and started a chain of seafood restaurants, he discovered that his soul records were the source of a huge number of uncleared samples on early 1990s hip-hop records. While Johnson eventually made a living from licensing fees, he still has roughly 85 pending lawsuits against labels, rappers, and producers for uncleared samples.
Filmmakers Robert Hatch-Miller, Puloma Basu, and Michael Slaboch just launched a Kickstarter campaign to finish a new documentary about Syl Johnson's odd trajectory from music to seafood and back featuring awesome archival performance footage from his appearances on Soul Train, interviews with Ken Shipley from Johnson's new label Numero Group, and Syl's family and former bandmates.
Nothing Major Editor John Dugan emailed co-producer of the doc Michael Slaboch for more intel.
For those not familiar, who is Syl Johnson? Where would we know his music from?
Syl's biggest hit was in 1975 when he went to #7 on the R&B chart with "Take Me To The River." But as of late you've probably heard his music being sampled by artists such as Jay-Z and Kanye West, Wu-Tang Clan, Kid Rock, and hundreds of other artists.
What inspired you and Rob to make the doc and how long has it taken?
I've been working/collaborating with Syl since 2008 due to my affiliation with The Numero Group. We started shooting footage here in Chicago leading up to the very first Eccentric Soul Revue we produced in April 2009 at the Park West in Chicago. The rehearsals for that particular show where we made Syl learn all of these tunes he had never performed on stage before was when I first really noticed how fun, charming, and crazy Syl is in person and on camera. Since the show was such a success we took it on the road later that year, and I invited Rob to join Syl and I as we did a interviews at WFMU and WNYC. It was Rob that really planted the proverbial seed with Syl about making a film about him and his remarkable life, and we've been shooting on and off ever since.
What kind of footage are you getting?
We've got about 50 hours of verité-style footage of everything from Syl gardening, to him talking to The New York Times, to life on the road, to just hanging out and being Syl.
Do you have much vintage period stuff to work with? Was that hard to find?
There's not much, unfortunately. We had to pay for the Soul Train footage, and he was on another episode as well which they can't seem to find in their archive. Beyond that, there's some amazing footage from 1975 and a few other odds and ends. But all in all, not much was filmed.
How does gardening figure in to the Syl Johnson story?
Syl has an amazing garden and he really seems to enjoy gardening all day in the summer. He shares organic vegetables with everyone in the neighborhood and really takes care of himself by eating healthy, juicing, and staying fit at 77 years old!
Where do you see this documentary going? Being viewed?
Our goal is to get into film festivals next year and hopefully get some distribution for theatrical, VOD, streaming, downloads, etc.
The editing can be the really tough part of a doc, making a compelling story out of ton of material and having to cut out detours that don't contribute to the central themes. Has that been tough to do? Or has it come naturally?
A huge portion of this Kickstarter is going towards hiring an editor who can put this all into a compelling story. The elements are there for the most part, we need to shoot some more interviews, but for the most part the bulk of it has been done and some fresh eyes and ears will really bring it together. That's been the hardest part. Rob has done most of the editing and we've had a couple of other people and awesome volunteers log all of the footage so that we can pass it off in the most professional way possible to whomever ends up editing this amazing story.
Check out the Syl Johnson: Any Way The Wind Blows trailer below, and back the project for a digital download of the film, admission to a private rough-cut screening, or a T-shirt designed by Jess Rotter at the bottom of the post.
Food Huggers were designed to be the simplest way to store leftover produce. The silicone caps seal the open end of the fruit or vegetable, while the natural skin keeps the rest fresh. If used correctly there's less food spoilage, no wasted plastic bag, and more fridge space. After the campaign reached its Kickstarter goal a few times over, the designers announced a stretch goal to fund the Avocado Hugger, a modified Food Hugger with a moveable center to account for an avocado's pit. [photos via Designboom]
Perhaps you're a big fan of Dennis the Fox? No. Maybe more of a Frederick Michael St. Jude enthusiast, hmm?
You might not know these music acts from days gone by but that doesn't mean their records don't exist. They were the ambitious dreamers and wannabes who, record label be damned, pressed up their own albums in the '60s and '70s. Their records are what collectors call private press, they were released by the musicians themselves in very limited quantites rather than by a functioning long-term record label. Recently, we told you about Enjoy the Experience, Homemade Records 1958-1992, a new coffee table book about private press records covering the amazing homespun and often hilarious artwork for such oddball albums.
This month, if you're swinging through NYC, you can see them for yourself. Co-editor of the book and collector Johan Kugelberg is showing years selections from his collection, many of them featured in the book Enjoy the Experience, at Milk Gallery through July 24. You'd be a fool not to stop in to see an original Kaplan Brothers, wouldn't you?
Curious to hear the tunes from this rare vinyl collection? You can listen to some samples online.
Pitchfork has a longer form interview with Kugelberg in Paper Trail.
Photos by Yewon Kim
One couldn't help but notice that the Milwaukee Avenue Arts Festival was a cool affair—and we're not just talking about the mild temperatures. With design outfit Sonnenzimmer and poster maker Drug Factory Press well represented, Parson's and the Owl serving cocktails in a parking lot, bites from Chicago Diner, Longman & Eagle and the like and live sets from Football, Cave, Dam-Funk, Basic Cable, and many more plus an exotic animals petting zoo, it had an air of unforced, leisurely good times. Nothing Major was there, too with our Nothing Belongs to Ebbets Field caps and other festival-exclusive offerings in our pop-up shop. We were jazzed to meet so many NoMa fans in realtime. If you've forgotten what it was like, or missed it altogether, never fear, we took pictures.
Keep an eye on our journal for announcements regarding an upcoming pop-up.
Television writers and designers think there's still more gold to be mined from dating in New York. Timothy Goodman and Jessica Walsh (design superstar at Sagmeister and Walsh) recently announced a new project called "Forty Days of Dating." In a number of kooky teaser videos, the pair make us curious about a new experiment in dating, intended to break a cycle of despair in their Big Apple social lives. Goodman usually plays the field and Walsh is a hopeless romantic. Together, they decided to try going out for 40 days to see if they could break their old habits. The couple breaks down the rules (three days a week, couples counseling, a weekend trip, a daily questionnaire, etc.) in a Bob Dylan-style sign video. But one wonders if risking their friendship is worth it or where they end up after the intense and intensively documentive experience.
Here's the set-up via the 40 Days Vimeo: It’s been said that it takes 40 days to change a bad habit. In an attempt to explore and hopefully overcome their fears and inadequacies, Tim and Jessica will go through the motions of a relationship for the next 40 days: the commitment, time, companionship, joys, and frustrations. Can they help each other, or will they fall into their same habits? Will they damage their friendship? What if they fall in love?
The videos features the two in chairs, being crawled on by rats, having their chairs sawed from under them, covered in white stuff and pink feathers, and Walsh tossed like a doll by a sumo wrestler, while the behind-the-scenes clip has lots of giggling.
Follow the story day-by-day, launching July 10 at fortydaysofdating.com
The Dating Rules from 40 Days of Dating on Vimeo.
Behind The Scenes from 40 Days of Dating on Vimeo.
40 Days of Dating – Rats from 40 Days of Dating on Vimeo.
40 Days of Dating – Feathers from 40 Days of Dating on Vimeo.
Seville-based graphic designer Jesús Prudencio makes the car the star in his poster series "Cars and Films," which commemorates iconic vehicles in Ghostbusters, Roman Holiday, and Deathproof among other films.
The posters are just €21 from his online shop.
French designer José Lévy wants to make the exotic comfortable and familiar, and gosh darn it, he's excited about it. He's even given his collection, Morocco!, a not-so-French exclamation point.
Morocco!, an eclectic and minimal range of tables, seating, ceiling tiles, and mirrors, picks up elements from 1950s Moroccan design and combines them with a Parisian outlook and a little bit of luxurious fantasy. We love how Lévy has married the East with the West, building a tension between modern design and beldi, the Moroccan embrace of skilled trades and craft in everyday objects. His Beldi rug, fittingly, is hand-tufted in Casablanca. The patterns and textures evoke Morocco's love for the decorative arts, but here the pieces are meant to function in various interior settings far from North Africa.
Find out more at José Lévy.
The two upcoming Steve Jobs biopics and the incredible auction price for an original Apple 1 computer ($671,400) should be proof enough that the cult of Apple has grown considerably since the company shipped its first garage-built computers. While the films will probably focus on more dramatic details of Apple's history, illustrator Aakash Doshi's work distills the company's design history into a series of minimal illustrations. While the project sticks to desktop computers, in a few years an iPod or iPhone centric series would be in order. [via Defringe]
Somehow, after managing to finish Yeezus hours before the deadline, Kanye West also found some time to design a small line for French label A.P.C. According to The Fader, his mini-collection includes only a pair of jeans, a hoodie, and T-shirt, and will be released on July 14. In keeping with his new no-promo strategy, no images of the clothes will be released before the 14th, save for the photo at the top of the post, showing what seems to be detail on the denim.