TyK was started as a project to explore modern stereotypes of women in the biking community and to raise money for a good cause. 

The response has been fantastic, with calendars reaching as far as Asia.

Now in it’s second year, TyK has already received 50% more sponsorships and has expanded to include a men’s “Superhero” calendar as well (photographed by Christopher Dilts)

Nolan describes her work on the project as possessing “a Vargas-style with a modern contemporary edge,” noting that the men’s Superhero-themed calendar has a harder edge.

Although this year, TyK had access to more resources including studio space, a set designer, a stylist and makeup artist, the models in the calendars still come from the Chicago biking community.

“That’s the cool factor,” says Nolan. “These are all real people, not models pretending to be a pinup girl or a superhero or a biker, just real people that wanted to be a part of the project.

“I always have liked that better as a photographer, because there is a new experience there for most of those people. You’re witnessing and participating in a new experience.”

Calendars will be available to purchase. Proceeds benefit the Chicago Women’s Health Center.

Design Festa Gallery is a rental gallery that houses 29 affordable exhibition areas. Artists also have the option of having a single piece exhibited in the “art piece” room, jam-packed with works from tons of different people.

There is even a kitchen space available to be used as a café to accompany artwork.

Because anyone can rent space and exhibit their art, the possibilities of what a visitor will see on any given day is endless. This month, for example, will feature “French Art of Living in Autumn,” which uses the kitchen space to serve French food, host live musicians, exhibit paintings and give a wine tasting class.

At the same time, one of the smaller spaces will show Japanese photographer Masaya Saitoh’s photo series, “Unfinished 2009.”

Entry to the gallery is free and usually has a steady flow of passer-bys walking through, attracted by the building’s unique façade.

With every outside surface covered in bright colors and designs that over the years have been continuously added to, it’s pretty hard to miss even though it’s nestled between streets filled with Harajuku’s infamously wild style.

For more information: designfestagallery.com

Second floor balcony of Design Festa Gallery West.

Outside Design Festa Gallery West.

Outside Design Festa Gallery West.

The crowded streets of Harajuku.

Gallery Spotlight, by Shelby Blitz, is a series of weekly short features on art exhibitions, and the galleries that host them, from all corners of the world.

Living Legends‘ MURS and Atmosphere’s Slug are two stylized MCs who are best known for their regular gigs. However, this third installment of Felt, a side project begun in 2002, undoubtedly is their best collaboration — and may contend with their other top releases.

Produced by Aesop Rock, Felt 3 is the duo’s third tribute to a second-rate actress.  Rosie Perez receives the titular honor this time, joined by Kevin Spacey and Paul Reubens (in song titles) and succeeding homages to Christina Ricci and Lisa Bonet.

With 21 tracks, A Tribute to Rosie Perez exemplifies the commitment that MURS and Slug have made to this project — one that could stand on its own as an A-list attraction.

Felt: “Protagonists”
Download audio file (protagonists.mp3)

Beak>: s/t (Ipecac)

Spearheaded by Portishead producer Geoff Barrow, Beak> is a new project that finds the multi-instrumentalist out of his element, working with studio bassist Billy Fuller (Fuzz Against Junk) and renaissance man Matt Williams (Team Brick) in a live-band setting.

Overdubs are eschewed on this self-titled debut, one that presents minimalist rhythm-section jams that achieve a moodiness and ambience without extra tracking. Hooky synth and bass grooves surround sampled and vocal atmospherics to create a diverse down-tempo disc.

The entire album was written over the course of a 12-hour session.  That fact is easily discernible upon hearing this, but this self-titled debut is still well worth checking out.

Beak>: “Backwell”
Beak>: \”Backwell\”

Honorable mentions:

Blockhead: The Music Scene (Ninja Tune)
Underworld vs. The Misterons: Athens (compilation, !K7)
V/A: Forge Your Own Chains / Heavy Psychedelic Ballads and Dirges, 1968-1974 (reissue, Now-Again)

Every painting student within the last forty years has been told painting is dead.  But we continue to surround ourselves with paintings, to visit museums and galleries, and to read books filled with images of paintings.  And the market still values paintings–Yue Minjun’s Execution, painted in 1985 and originally sold for $5,000 is now worth almost $6 million.

Author Tony Godfrey picks up on Art Today’s tradition, of using the prestige and magic of print, to effectively create a timeless capsule of paintings from the last forty years. His collection of paintings, arranged by theme, act as an introduction to the major movements in contemporary painting. His writing aims to pose as many questions as it does answer. A question like, “why do we surround ourselves with paintings?” is followed by brief but insightful backgrounds to the work presented. Godfrey shares Philip Guston’s history with the holocaust lending a new meaning to his cartoon characters clad in Klan masks.  He points to the literary motivations behind Cy Twombly’s paintings and their initially enigmatic scrawls of writing.

Godfrey themes deal with the obvious: figure, still life, abstraction, and landscape. But they also deal with the subtle: painting space (mental and physical space as experienced through time in a Franz Ackermann installation), and death and life (Dana Schutz’s painting of Michael Jackson’s autopsy). His writing is bold and positive, but scholastically humble and approachable. He writes in a section titled Painting Tomorrow, “we need words to help explain, enjoy and muse on painting, but we need always to keep coming back to the actual experience,” illustrating his passion for criticism but the importance of seeing a painting. Painting Today offers both.

Wang Guangyi, Great Criticism: Coca Cola, 1990-3, oil on canvas, 200 x 200 cm; Farber Collection, New YorkZhang Xiaogang, Big Family No. 1, 2001, oil on canvas, 200 x 300 cm, sold Sotheby’s 27 February 2008

Ida Applebroog, Installation at the Whitney Biennial, 1993 including Jack F: Forced to Eat His Own Excrement, 1992, oil and resin on canvas, four panels, overall 279.4 x 228.6 cm; and Kathy W: Is Told That if She Tells, Mommy Will Get Sick and Die, 1992, oil and resin on canvas, two panels, overall 279.4 x 182.9 cm

Julie Mehretu, Black City, 2005, ink and acrylic on canvas, 308.8 x 487.7 cm

Adriana Varejão, Entrance Figure III (Figura de Convite III), 2005, oil on canvas, 200 x 200 cm

Fernando Botero, Abu Ghraib 43 (Triptych), 2005, oil on canvas, three panels, each 130 x 96 cm

Sol LeWitt, Wall Drawing No. 1131, ‘Whirls and Twirls’ (Wadsworth), 2004. Acrylic on walls of museum staircase, 5.5 x 35 m (18¼ x 115 ft); Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hanford CT

Matthias Weischer, Oberlicht, 2006, oil and egg tempera on canvas, 120 x 150 cm (47¼ x 59 in)

- Chris Force

Chris Force is the founder and editor of ALARM Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter.

Cut to ten months later and Bazan has just wrapped a full band tour in support of his now released LP.

This string of shows marks the first time since the disbanding of Bazan’s former moniker Pedro the Lion and his short lived electronic project Headphones, that the performer has recruited a full cast of characters to play out his songs on stage with him.

The tour saw it’s last performances in Portland and Bazan’s hometown Seattle. Accompanying and opening for Bazan were fellow Washingtonians and Barsuk label mates Say Hi, and frontman Eric Elbogen warned the crowd at Portland’s Mississippi Studios that David Bazan and his band of bearded men might be too much to handle. Sure enough, Elbogen himself along with Andy Fitts, Blake Wescott, and Casey Foubert (all bearded) joined Bazan (also bearded) on stage as he dove right into “Hard to Be,” the opener of Curse Your Branches.

Curse Your Branches is a very confrontational album, even for Bazan, a songwriter whose made a career of saying the hard stuff on record. Although this time, the confrontations are not as imaginative as they were before.

There is no fictional story teller or metaphorical evils. This is a side of Bazan that just barely surfaced in 2007’s Fewer Moving Parts EP, when Bazan voiced real concerns held about the state of the media and the direction of the country.

This time, however, his voice is not one of a slighted nation, but of a devastated man. This is the album that will see Bazan turning away from the Christian roots he was raised on and fed with, turn away from the evangelical calls he’s lived with and believed in before. And things get personal for Bazan throughout Curse Your Branches.

At the show in Portland, Bazan plays into his set three or four songs deep, then takes a moment to ask for questions. Almost immediately the topic of his faith is brought up. “Are you still a Christian?” someone asks. “No,” says Bazan. “Why not?” comes the question. “Because it turned out not to be true.”

The presumed faithful questioner says they will pray for Bazan. To which he responds with a note of “that sounds a bit condescending to me.” He then sums up his thoughts as, “Christians and atheists, we all have similar thoughts on many things, do unto others and so on. We’re not that different.”

This simple and honest answer appears to settle the debate on it’s own, as following questions regard his family, his son Nils David Bazan was born just months ago, and his music as in “If I grabbed an acoustic guitar, would you play ‘Slow and Steady?’”

Throughout the set, in which Bazan is on bass guitar, the songs old and new come out with a force and scope that Bazan has not shown live for half a decade.

And while a definite cold has been stalking the singer for a month or so, his delivery loses none of the personable in this amped up expedition. Bazan still sounds as heartfelt and humble as ever, he’s the same man in front of 300 as he is in front of 30.

–Charlie Swanson

The 7″contains spoken word track, “That’s What The Obituary Said,” and Bloodyminded’s “Ten Suicides.” The latter, remixed by Intrinsic Action/Bloodyminded frontman Mark Solotroff (whose latest project, Anatomy of Habit played a most kickass live show last week at Chicago’s Cobra Lounge).

With original artwork by Mike IX presented in an 11″ x 17″ poster, and a pressing of only 500 copies, if you’re interested, act fast!

Rainbow Coloured Tears of a Clown

Nomad uses marker to form straight lines, showing the human need for order, along with bright colors and sketchy elements, symbolizing the chaos of life.

His pieces are self-described as being based on spontaneity, adaptation and learning to merge reality into art.

Rainbow Coloured Tears of a Clown takes this spontaneity and moves between humor, satire, emotion and tragedy through different depictions of clowns, or fools, in styles that range from street art and graphic to classical painting influenced by the Renaissance period.

– Shelby Blitz

In July, Kansas City math-groove merchants Coalesce completed an impeccable decade-long comeback. Known for combining big, killer riffs with punishing beats, vocal brutality, and tricky time signatures, the recently reunited band released its best creation, OX, while adding bits of acoustic melancholy, heavy blues, harmonized vocals, and Italian Western to its sound.

OXEP is the album’s addendum, a series of seven tracks that further incorporates some of these new elements.

A simple, driving rhythm fuels “Ox to Ore” and “Ore to Earth,” a two-part intro/outro that is split at the front and rear of the disc. “Joyless in Life” and “Absent in Death” are Western-driven concoctions, “To My Ruin” provides another dose of potent vocal harmonies, and “Through Sparrows I Rest” — in addition to being one of the band’s best songs yet — features the shrill scream of vocalist Sean Ingram’s young daughter.

If you own OX, this is a must-have accompaniment.

Omar Rodriguez Lopez: Xenophanes (Rodriguez Lopez Productions)

The creative output of Omar Rodriguez Lopez boggles minds, but more stunning than his half-dozen albums per year is his ability to make each stand out from one another.  The musical mastermind now has released five solo albums this year, and though a few were laid to tape in 2006, that tally doesn’t count releases with The Mars Volta or El Grupo Nuevo de Omar Rodriguez Lopez.

Xenophanes is another journey through Omar’s progressive soundscape, this time leaning on the scurrying piano lines of Marcel Rodriguez Lopez and Mark Aanderud.  Most notably, however, Omar takes full control of the vocals, singing entirely in Spanish and showcasing an ability that has been underutilized in his vast catalog.

Ultimately, Xenophanes is a highly accessible record that doesn’t skimp on raw musicianship.  Fans who were looking for more from The Mars Volta’s Octahedron should check this out.

(MF) Doom: Unexpected Guests (Gold Dust)

Inimitable rapper/producer Doom (who has dropped the long-adjacent “MF”) has a bevy of collaborations to his credit.  Now, thankfully, many of his favorite guest spots and behind-the-boards efforts have been collected on one disc.

It may not seem possible for an album of guest work to resemble a greatest-hits album, but Unexpected Guests comes awfully close.  Plenty of hip-hop heavy hitters play host throughout the disc, including J Dilla, Talib Kweli, Vast Aire, and much of the Wu-Tang Clan (GZA, Ghostface, Inspectah Deck, and Masta Killa).

The album even includes some previously unreleased cuts.  Pick this up.

Honorable mentions:

DJ Rupture & Matt Shadetek: Solar Life Raft (The Agriculture)
Krallice: Dimensional Bleedthrough (Profound Lore)

UCP WHEELS FOR HUMANITY, is a fantastic organization that provides wheelchairs for disadvantaged children and adults around the world. If you’re near San Francisco on December 3, head to Slim’s and check it out!

About UPC Wheels for Humanity:

“It is estimated that more than 100 million children and adults worldwide need wheelchairs and do not have them either due to lack of access, lack of money, or both. Their lack of mobility stems from accidents, birth defects, war injuries, debilitating diseases, aging, natural disasters and land mines. To address this need, UCP WHEELS FOR HUMANITY begins with volunteers collecting over 230,000 pounds of discarded wheelchairs and wheelchair parts each year from around the U.S.

Since a wheelchair in a developing country is an unimaginable luxury, Therapeutic seating specialists then deliver and individually fit the wheelchairs to disadvantaged children and adults free of charge. Since 1996, UCP WHEELS FOR HUMANITY has helped over 44,000 children and adults living in the poorest of conditions, in developing countries such as Zimbabwe, Vietnam, Ukraine, Mexico, Mongolia, and many others.”

Tickets go on sale Saturday, November 7. An online auction, featuring items from The Bouncing Souls, Chuck Ragan, and more, will be set up soon!

Entering Santos Party House, I could already hear Harlem’s guitars, even if I couldn’t see them. Their distorted vocals welcomed in the first night of CMJ.

Santos Party House is a huge new place that’s been collecting plaudits at every turn since its opening last summer. The two stages had already filled up by 9 and bands were in full swing.

On in the basement when I arrived were Dinowalrus, a strangely compelling outfit, who somehow made the clarinet solo seem pivotal to any good set. If anyone in the crowd wasn’t up for the party before they saw these guys then they certainly were afterwards. They worked their ambient sounds into awesome drops that really hit the spot.

Harlem were a little calmer with their retro sound that brings together influences from Buddy Holly, The Kinks and classic pop then adds some more folky rhythms. Very bloody catchy!

A final highlight in the basement were Flexions, it was really getting crowded and sweaty down there at the more intimate stage but their cool synths and sparse vocals really kept everyone interested.

Santos really created a festival atmosphere, not least because there were too many bands to possibly keep up with – especially with a few drinks in hand. But also because everyone involved was there purely for the music, to see these great new bands and to have a good old dance.

– James Loveday

Harlem

Flexions

Dinowalrus