Melody Nelson

Artnet Auctions announces the sale of nine rare and beautiful works by photographer Tony Frank (French, b.1945) to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the legendary album, Histoire de Melody Nelson, by iconic French singer and artist Serge Gainsbourg. This photographic sale includes the memorable album cover, which contributed to Melody Nelson’s stature in French culture, and will only be on artnet Auctions until November 16, 2011.

Mummy, I’m scarrred!

Japan electro-pop sensation Trippple Nippple will perform

Tokyo – Art Gig 2 – with the theme Mummy, I'm Scarrred, by curator Shai Ohayon:  "The ghosts themed art happening will be presented at an abandoned hospital in Hatsudai, Shibuya ward, Tokyo. The hospital, which has been abandoned now for a few years, is still intact with the original furniture, equipment and fixtures and is usually let to film crews to shoot on location. We are intending to use the basement of the hospital which consists of a large furnished room in the center of the basement for performances, while the interconnected rundown rooms and corridors will be used as exhibition spaces. We intend for the exhibition rooms and the corridors to be left pitch-black and visitors will be instructed to bring torches (flashlights) to negotiate through the space. The venue is truly creepy and surreal. We aim to present some 15 local and international artists along with music and performance art pieces and transform the entire venue into an improvised art gallery. Artworks will include pieces of many disciplines and site-specific installations, using the walls, the hospital beds, old equipment, decaying tatami rooms, old kitchen and morgue. Artists are asked to present works that reflect their practice and that deals directly with their notion or understanding of the theme. Attendance to the event is free-of-charge to the public and visitors will be encouraged to explore the space, engage with the artworks and to enjoy the array of performances that will be featured as part of the event. As we did in the last event, we will have at the end of the night also a raffle with gifts from a variety of art and culture related organisations and businesses. In addition, with the proximity of the event to Halloween we will also host a costume competition in collaboration with Impossible Project." On view this Sunday, October 30.  www.artgigtokyo.com

Rock n' Roll Photography

Rock & Roll music provided the soundtrack to American culture and shifting social dynamics in the late 20th century. While the genre has undergone many shifts since its origination mid-century, Rock & Roll and its outgrowths have continued to define and shape the social relations and culture of future generations.  Drawn from the largest private collection of photographs of rock musicians in the United States, Backstage Pass: Rock & Roll Photography now on view at the Currin Museum of Art in New Hampshire, captures the intimate relationship between photographer and musician. Featuring 175 photographs—many rarely seen by the public—this exhibition provides a portal into the musical and cultural history of Rock & Roll, from its development in the 1950s to its influence on the sounds and styles of future generations. Photographs will be on view of artists as disparate as Kurt Cobain to Chet Baker. Backstage Pass: Rock & Roll Photography will be on view until January 7, 2012. 

[BOOKS] WHITE RIOT

White Riot: Punk Rock And The Politics Of Race, a new anthology edited by NYU professor Stephen Duncombe and New School Ph.D. student and Maximumrocknroll writer Maxwell Tremblay, intersperses essays with primary documents like zines, interviews, song lyrics, and letters to tell the complicated story of punk rock and its relationship with race over the decades. Through the words of Norman Mailer, James Baldwin, Patti Smith, Lester Bangs, Greil Marcus, The Clash, Black Flag, and Tasha Fierce, the story moves from punk’s early articulation of whiteness in the U.S. and U.K. to Afro-Punk and faraway shores where punk has morphed into new, culture-specific forms. You can purchase the book here.

[BOOKS] Françoise Hardy by Jean-Marie Périer

I couldn't think of a cooler friend to have than Françoise Hardy. Since the 1960s photographer Jean-Marie Périer has taken over 200 photographs of the French pop icon – which are now presented in a new book, entitled Françoise Hardy par Jean-Marie Périer (Editions Du Chêne). On October 29th an exhibition with the same title will open at Galerie PHOTO12 in Paris: "For the very first time in Paris, an entire exhibition is dedicated to the iconic French singer of the sixties: Françoise Hardy. Through the eye of the famous photographer and long-time friend Jean-Marie Périer. The exhibition shows famous beautiful portraits of the star but also unpublished confidential photographs." 

[Coming Soon] Dukes of Chutney on Vinyl

Photograph of Dustin Lynn in Milan by Iris Humm.

Big ups to Dustin Lynn whose new brazilian dubplate, which is a collaboration with John Paul Jones (Tom Croose, Worst Friends), who together create brilliant musical masterpieces under the musical moniker Dukes of Chutney, is being pressed by Resista Records, a new imprint "dedicated to highly limited vinyl-only pressings of interesting edits & remixes from across the genre spectrum." Listen to Tom Croose - Cho Chua (Dukes Dub) here.

Sidi Touré First Ever U.S. Tour

Sidi Touré made his first guitar as a child, constructing it from his wooden writing slate in the ancient town of Gao, Mali. Once the heart of the Songhaï empire and burial place of its Askia kings, the town rests between the Niger and the encroaching ocean of sand known as the Sahara Desert. The Songhai empire was the last of the great empires of the Sahel, reaching its zenith under Soni Alibert (Sunni Ali) in the mid 400’s. Sidi Touré was born here in 1959, but to be born a Touré, a noble family who trace their lineage directly from the Askia kings, carried a significance and onus of a past that reaches directly into the present. Like another Malian noble turned singer, Salif Keita, Sidi Touré faced a conflict between the inexorable pull of music and the expectations of family and society. Touré’s family had been sung about, and sung to, by traditional griots for centuries, but until a small boy challenged the rules, the Touré’s did not sing! Sidi Touré is currently on his first ever US tour in support of his 2011 release, Sahel Folk, via Thrill Jockey Records.