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Music

Watch Lance Bangs’ Tribute to LCD Soundsystem and New York City

By Judy Berman on

For the past decade, no band has been more closely associated with the spirit of New York City — or Williamsburg, at the very least — than LCD Soundsystem. From late-night debauchery to portraits of aging-scenester pathos to “New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down,” James Murphy captured the highs and lows of post-9/11 hipster life so perfectly that when he announced the band was calling it quits, an era ended on the spot. In his five-minute film “LCD Soundsystem + NYC,” music video director Lance Bangs pays tribute to the symbiotic relationship between the band and the city, interviewing folks like Reggie Watts and Nick Kroll and interspersing their words with performance footage. The video is the first in a series of four shorts that accompany the upcoming release of Shut Up and Play the Hits, Dylan Southern and William Lovelace’s feature documentary about LCD, Murphy, and the group’s already legendary 2011 farewell show at Madison Square Garden. Watch “LCD Soundsystem + NYC” after the jump. … Read More

Web

What’s On at Flavorpill: The Links That Made the Rounds in Our Office

By Alison Nastasi on

Today at Flavorpill, we loved this collaboration between Japanese beatboxer Hikakin and Cali-based dancer Nonstop. We read the inevitable barrage of Tweets about moving to Canada because of ObamaCare. We got teary over Tom Hanks’ tribute to Nora Ephron. We said happy birthday to Mel Brooks. We learned… Read More

Photography

Fun, Lively Photos from a 1960s Brooklyn Bar

By Alison Nastasi on

Duke University’s Rubenstein Library is home to an incredible archive of rare books and manuscripts, but the institution’s 5,000-item collection of American photographer William Gedney’s work is what recently caught our attention, thanks to Retronaut. The Gedney collection spans the 1940s through 1989, and his photos from O’Rourke’s Bar in Brooklyn circa 1960 are quite memorable amongst the library’s massive holdings. “Gedney recorded the lives of others with remarkable clarity and poignancy. These photographs, along with his notebooks and writings, illuminate the vision of an intensely private man who, as a writer and photographer, revealed the lives of others with striking sensitivity.” O’Rourke’s rollicking neighborhood atmosphere and its characters are center stage at the New York nightspot. Grab your tiara and head past the break for a look at Gedney’s Brooklyn bar bash. … Read More

Photography

Gorgeous Black and White Photos of NYC in the ’30s

By Caroline Stanley on

That Berenice Abbott really had an incredible eye for the way light and shadow can transform a building. A photographer working in the early 20th century, Abbott got her start as a darkroom assistant at her pal Man Ray’s portrait studio in Montparnasse, and would later make a name for herself with her stunning images of New York City’s architecture — in many cases capturing shots of older buildings that would later be destroyed. It was this passion that would ultimately lead to Changing New York, her government-funded documentary project which we spotted thanks to a post on Retronaut. Venture back in time with some of our favorite shots from the series. … Read More

Music

Awesome Infographic: NYC Rapper Map

By Caroline Stanley on

Did you realize that Puff Daddy and Biz Markie grew up just blocks apart in Manhattan? Or that Foxy Brown and Talib Kweli were practically neighbors? We had no idea before Boing Boing tipped us off to this fantastic new infographic mapping New York City rappers’ origins from Very Small Array. Click … Read More

Art

Poignant Photos of Missing Persons Posters

By Alison Nastasi on

Graham MacIndoe‘s photographs of missing persons posters, which we first saw on PetaPixel, document the sad and desperate public pleas to locate lost love ones. The images are spare, quiet, and isolated, despite the artist primarily focusing on posters in bustling urban areas like New York City. MacIndoe is interested in the way each poster slowly disintegrates with time, covered up and vanishing with weathered age, becoming symbolic of the people that have disappeared.

“I never saw anybody ever really looking at them,” he recently told the New York Times. “People just run past them. They slowly deteriorate in the weather and elements. I became very aware of them. They’re often handmade with these pleading requests, and the pictures they select to put on them — graduation pictures, smiley happy pictures, pictures of betters times — that’s what really drew me to them.”

MacIndoe shared his work with us past the break. Click through for a closer look at his poignant photo series. … Read More

Art

Chuck Close to Create Art for New York’s Second Avenue Subway Line

By Judy Berman on

New Yorkers don’t hear much news about progress on the MTA’s Second Avenue Subway (SAS), which has only been in the works for 75 years and was most recently resumed in 2007 — although we hear it’s no fun living east of Third Ave. on the Upper East Side these days. But there have been… Read More

Web

What’s On at Flavorpill: The Links That Made the Rounds In Our Office

By Alison Nastasi on

Today at Flavorpill, we accepted the dance photography and Instagram challenge. We watched a trailer for a documentary about basketball in New York City. We looked back on the “bed-hoppingest” characters on TV. We pondered the Fig Newtons name change. We couldn’t get enough of Ayn Randers’… Read More

Books

Rare Items from Private NYC Bookshop, Fulton Ryder

By Alison Nastasi on

Enigmatic New York publisher and private bookshop Fulton Ryder — founded by artist Richard Prince — has been captivating us with their Tumblr snapshots of rare and fascinating cultural fragments. We wanted to take a closer look at their collection of books, manuscripts, and counterculture collectibles, and they were kind enough to allow us a peek.

Past the break, Fulton Ryder has curated a unique gallery of works including an early conceptual piece from Yoko Ono — inspired by John Cage’s Experimental Music Composition class at the New School for Social Research in New York, where Ono’s then husband (musician Ichiyanagi Toshi) attended. It’s composed of “event scores,” or simple instructional actions and ideas that are reinterpreted through a performance art lens. There’s also a book from artist Danny Lyon, created after he became a member of the Chicago Outlaw Motorcycle Club in the 1960s, adopted the gang’s lifestyle, and photographed the midwestern motorcyclists. Wallace Berman also makes an appearance, with reference to his legendary 1957 Ferus Gallery exhibition where the artist was arrested on obscenity charges.

Check out the collection below, and keep your eyes peeled for Fulton Ryder at the Printed Matter and EAB book fairs this fall (they’ll be publishing a book on San Francisco Artaudian group the Diggers in June, however), as well as at site-specific events around New York City. … Read More

Film

Watch a Poignant Video Love Letter to Coney Island

By Judy Berman on

New York’s beloved Coney Island has been in a complicated place for years now, as nearly century-old attractions like the Cyclone and the Wonder Wheel share space with newer, more controversial development projects, and modern vaudeville and burlesque stars add a contemporary twist to the district’s colorful past. What’s remarkable about this short video tribute by Robert Kolodny of Land of Nod, Inc. is the way it captures the collage of traditions, characters, and time periods that make Coney Island the vital (if also perennially imperiled) place it is now. In the “love letter” below, we see romantic shots of iconic sites, meet contemporary street performers, and — perhaps most poignantly — even zoom in to catch the decades’ worth of lovers’ hearts carved into the boardwalk. … Read More