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Archive for the ‘Music’ Category

watch this video in HD on YouTube

Hip-hop artist Cut Chemist, known among other things for his collaborations with the likes of DJ Shadow and Jurassic 5, was in town a little over a week ago on tour with the Red Bull Music Academy.

I synced up w/ Justin Aswell & Ill-use of local group Mr. Invisible to do an interview. We took him to Wax Museum on Monroe Rd to go crate digging, and pick his brain about his latest work.

Photos of the interview, courtesy, Kevin Womack, are embedded below and available on Flickr.

On July 20, 2010, The Arts & Science Council presented its next vision for a for Mecklenburg County. You can read all the details on their website.

Present were community leaders like Mayor Anthony Foxx, Mary Lou Babb, ASC Immediate Past Present Board Chair, and Marc Manly from Duke Energy, ASC Board Chair. Each spoke of the need for a vibrant and diverse community, engaged in arts and culture.

This year’s priorities

ASC laid out three priorities for the upcoming years:

• Restore education funding
• Develop a new cultural action plan
• Address the future of funding through innovation

Future Initiatives

ASC President Scott Provancher laid out ASC’s vision for the future — the Cultural Action Plan.   Provancher highlighted previous plans that included public art, cultural facilitates, educational programs, and tourism efforts.  He also gave us a peek into the future by announcing the silent launch of the planning process for the upcoming Cultural Action Plan that will tackle the “new normal” of the economy and new, innovative giving models eluding to a possible “cultural marketplace” or a Match.com of sorts; matching donors to specific projects.

2010-2011 Cultural & Community Investments

ASC’s first round of investments total $8,213,100, with museums, science centers, and historic sites receiving over $4M, performing arts receiving $3.3M, and education and community & diversity projects receiving the remainder.

ASC by the numbers:

• 4700 full time jobs in the arts, cultural, science, and history sector
• $157.96 million in local economic activity
• 93.3% of respondents think arts, science and history organizations make a positive contribution to the quality of life in Charlotte-Mecklenburg
• 79.8% of Mecklenburg residents support county funding for programs (UNC Charlotte Urban Institute Report)
• young people who are invoked in cultural programs are 4 times more likely to be recognized for academic achievements
• Charlotte Culture Guide included over 60,000 cultural events in 2009.

watch this video in HD on YouTube

Through a sponsorship with electronic-music-equipment-maker Native Instruments, Charlotte-based hip-hop group Mr. Invisible flew to LA last month to play Low End Theory, ride some roller coasters, and ultimately shoot two new music videos in Hollywood.

The video above features Justin Aswell doing his usual rapid-fire live beat manipulation, first popularized through a series (1, 2) of earlier and remarkably popular YouTube videos, and of course, through their live performances around the Charlotte area.

The other video released features the group together, performing a new, unreleased track called “Don’t Bury Us Yet”:

watch this video in HD on YouTube

Mr. Invisible will be performing these and more at two upcoming shows in Charlotte: July 24th at Tremont with Alpha Theory, and July 28th w/ Mr. Dibbs at the Milestone.

You can find music downloads and video on their new website, and follow them on Facebook and as @MrInvisible on Twitter.

So, we CLTBlog.com folk volunteer for a lot of stuff around town if you haven’t guessed already. One thing we’re regularly involved with is Pecha Kucha (@PKNCLT) and tonight is one event we really encourage everyone in Charlotte’s creative class to attend. Tonight we’ve got presenters speaking on a wide range of topics from physics to art and design.

Point8 Forum, the organization that brought Pecha Kucha to Charlotte, gives it’s presenters, who are an eclectic, evolving hodgepodge of Charlotte’s great creative talent, the following guidelines (which I am including to help explain this very unique event):

The only restriction is the number of images (20) – and the time you have for each slide (20 seconds each). So you are limited to 6 minutes 40 seconds.

But beyond that there aren’t that many restrictions. No subject is off limits, all points of view [are] allowed. It will be you, your subject, and the audience. So, you can come to vent, promote, posture, or proselytize… (Some of the things allowed include… talking, singing, hopping around on one leg, remaining silent, looking kinda intense, letting your puppet do the talking… not that we expect you to do all/any of that. Just reminding you that these options are out there…)

The hashtag for tonight is #pknclt6. Here’s the list of speakers from the Point8 Forum website:

Natalie Bork
Crista Cammaroto
Ana Jofre
Jason Kierce
Robert Kosara
Jack Ossa
Carlos Salum
Cathy Sheafor
Wolly Vinyl
Mike Wirth
Douglas Welton will be back as our MC for Volume 6.

DHARMA Lounge, 1440 South Tryon, Ste. 105, Charlotte, NC.
FRIDAY July 16, 7:30 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. Doors open at 7:00.
Admission is $5 at the door. Cash bar. The Common Market will be selling light food & snacks.

For those of you who were too late to register to attend TEDxCharlotte, this is your chance to come see a nice cross section of people who will also be presenting in September! If you’re interested in which speakers will also be presenting at TEDxCharlotte, here’s the link to their speakers list.

We hope to see you there and feel free to come say hi! I’ll be manning the Pecha Kucha newsletter sign-up table handing out buttons (don’t forget to pick one up, they’re different every time), Matt Tyndall is running the presentation visuals and local celeb/photographer James Willamor will be on hand snapping photos (He’s the official photographer)!

What does that even mean?

Well, refer to the Bohemian Index (PDF link).

Richard Florida, author of The Creative Class works with the Martin Prosperity Institute in Toronto. In his words:

“The index charts the concentration of working artists, musicians, writers, designers, and entertainers across metropolitan areas. We measure it as a location quotient, which basically compares regional employment to the national norm, based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau and StatsCan.”

What are your thoughts?

Thx to @jritch for the tip.

What does that even mean?

Well, refer to the Bohemian Index (PDF link).

Richard Florida, author of The Creative Class works with the Martin Prosperity Institute in Toronto. In his words:

“The index charts the concentration of working artists, musicians, writers, designers, and entertainers across metropolitan areas. We measure it as a location quotient, which basically compares regional employment to the national norm, based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau and StatsCan.”

What are your thoughts?

Thx to @jritch for the tip.