The Stencil: May 2011 Archives

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May 23, 2011

Dream Weaverz

Recently my friend Lauren came down to visit specifically to go to the textile artist Sheila Hicks show at the ICA. I can't even begin to tell you how awesome it was, her color usage, texture and blocking is amazing. And the scale! Little tiny woven squares to enormous room filling sculptures. She had this one work the was just walls of fabric and thread of different thicknesses piled tightly, the color became so dense when you looked at the side it was like black hole. I cannot stress that if you have a chance to come down to Philly before the show ends in August, COME.

Sheila Hicks: 50 Years
March 24 to August 7, 2011
http://www.icaphila.org/exhibitions/hicks.php

In other WEAVING news, two of my favorite bloggers, Alex Segreti (Weird Friends) and Kelly Rakowski (Nothing is New) have started a new project New Friends where they make little woven projects together.

Check them out
New Friends

Posted by Finny at 06:37 PM | Comments (0)

May 20, 2011

BOUILLABAISSE

Finally uploaded!

CAPS & JONES: BOUILLABAISSE

Recorded by me and Pandemonium Jones at 64 Amherst Street, Buffalo, New York on a July weekend in 2003.

This was the first mix me and PJ ever did together. He came through to Buffalo and we went straight to the old Record Theaters on Main -- both of them, the one downtown and the one near UB. I can't remember if we hit up New Style, too, but we got to work and had a productive couple days up in the old firehouse. We were pretty happy with how it turned out.

Once we were both back in New York that fall, we thought maybe we should try to sell it. Crafty ol' Jones cooked up the idea of spraypainting the discs and cutting up handmade CD holders from old records, each with a special stencilled mark. We hauled a good 100 or so blank cds out onto the corner of 2nd and C with a couple of cans of spraypaint on a fall night and did it up. I wonder where they all are now, if any of them made it out of the 2000s into the 2010s.

Woody reviewed it for Turntable Lab:

This is already one of my favorite mix CDs all year, no question. Who are these guys? Aside from doing a house party in Brooklyn with one of them (was it the Illegible DJ Caps or was it Pandemonium Jones?) a year ago, I've never seen or heard anything from them, and one day they drop off this mix at the store. Judging from the sleevework alone, these guys have put in serious work (each CD is individually spraypainted, every cover is a cutout from a different record cover, some are gatefold, etc). The working philosophy of this mix is "Let's put everything we like onto one tape," which 90% of the time is disastrous (see any tape by any college student just discovering mash-up), but in this case connects in all the right ways. The Bouillabaisse mixers got records (all densely melted down into 9 tracks in an hour), and know that in order to make a good tape in the wake of the events of Hollertronix, DJs need to step up their games, but they also still need to have fun and play what they like. In terms of mixing creativity, I give these guys 5 gold stars. Extended blends, drops, minimal filter tweaks, and oh what the hell, a few mash-ups just to corner the market. I'm not saying all of it works (Ugh Postal Service), but you'd be hard pressed not to enjoy Dipset gradually pitched up 40 BPMs (repeat: 40 BPMs), or want to get your glide on to Freeway vs U2 vs Berlin, or Outkast vs the YYYs. I don't want to give too much away, but I will say that it's more mixtape than party CD, and that's why I'll be listening to it long after I sell my 2 Many DJs CDs on eBay. -the woodman

We'd both been reading Lab reviews for a good couple years, so to see ourselves on the site was a dream come true -- let alone with a good goddamn review. So happy.

I'm still real proud of this mix. I hope you check it out.

CAPS & JONES: BOUILLABAISSE

I'm slowly gathering all our/my mixes up, save the 4-tracked ones I made in high school. Turns out I have 19, so lots more old mixes coming soon. Watch this space!