Their BMX bikes are more louder than yers…

While the trend of fixed gear cycling explodes around the globe, a distinctly louder single geared biking phenomenon has been quietly evolving in the unlikeliest of places: the suburban backyards of Queens, NY. Fueled by a passionate and tight-knit group of Trinidadian teenagers who squeeze every spare cent into the $4,000+ soundsystems ingeniously integrated into their BMX bikes, the resulting Frankenstein-ian contraptions have become a deafening mobile spectacle in the borough on weekends when members roll out their thundering soundsystems in processions through the streets that can literally be heard for miles around. “MADE IN QUEENS” is a new short film directed by NICOLAS RANDALL and JOE STEVENS chronicling the group, led by teenage master builder NICHOLAS RAGBIR in their quest to build the ultimate bitchin’ mobile ghetto blaster. Explains Stevens, “In this age of obsessive video sharing and social networking nearly every action is designed and packaged for public consumption. Especially with young people. The immediate charm of Nick and his crew is that they’re the exact opposite of all that. There is nothing calculated or self-conscious about who they are. They’re just a group of friends doing something to challenge themselves and have some laughs. It’s a story which would have never come from kids who were born here.” HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »

In Iraq on his first “fact finding mission” on the campaign trail, BARACK “Bad Boy” OBAMA hits up a military basketball court to drop one in the bucket from the three-point line on the first try without even breaking a sweat. Nothin but net. Is it the shoes? Kobe for VP? Barack to replace Lamar Odom in ‘09?..

For the past year Supertouch’s own EVERLAST, aka: Mr White, has been holed up recording his forthcoming solo album “Love, War, and the Ghost of Whitey Ford” featuring his countrified Hip-Hop take on the classic JOHNNY CASH lament “Folsom Prison Blues.” To commemorate the single’s release, Mr White decided to debut it live as a duet with the Man in Black himself on the JOHNNY CASH SHOW, where he was joined by fellow musicians DJ MUGGS and keyboard whiz KEEFUS. Luckily, our boy MAZIK was on hand to film the madness. Johnny lives…

Hirst goes for the gold…

YBA founding father, Diamond Skull mastermind, “highest paid living artist” record holder, and all-around art gangster DAMIEN HIRST has decided to forgo the formal gallery world and sell his new body of work via auction. Sidestepping longtime gallery rep LARRY GAGOSIAN for London’s SOTHEBY’S auction house, the 43-year-old Turner prizewinning artist intends to open his work up to set some new sales records when he puts enough new art to constitute two gallery shows on the block in a two-day auction in London on September 15 and 16. The centerpiece of this sale, titled “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever,” is his new masterwork, “The Golden Calf,” a monumental sculpture of a bull submerged in formaldehyde inside a gold-plated stainless steel and glass box. The animal’s head is crowned by a solid gold disc, its hooves and horns are cast in gold, and the piece is expected to fetch at least £12 million. When asked why he decided to open his new art to an international auction market, Hirst stated simply, “the world’s changing.” Larry Gagosian has already declared that he’ll be front-and-center at the sale bidding among the faithful. It’s Damien’s world, we just live in it…

Hirst & the bull that laid the golden cage…

The sound of the future. Two speakers are officially deader than an Ed Hardy T-shirt…

Yeah, MP3s and their bastard half-brother & sister formats sound like shite compared to the full stereo image vinyl provides, but with the new stunningly beautiful PHONOFONE iPOD SPEAKER (that’s right, “speaker” as in one) at least no one will be paying attention to the actual sound coming out of the speaker. Created individually by hand in Toronto by innovative concept lab SCIENCE AND SONS, each signed and numbered miniature gramophone amplifies iPod sound without external power or batteries by exploiting the virtues of horn acoustics to boost the audio output of standard earphones to up to 55 decibels (roughly the maximum volume of laptop speakers). Crazy as it may sound, upon connecting active earphones to the Phonofone base their trebly buzzing is instantly and profoundly transformed into a warm, rich sound that totally eclipses the low-fi source file. Impossible as it may seem this tiny porcelain unit sounds nearly as loud and rich as a premium iPod dock and only after playing with this little beauty for the better part of an hour during which we fed it a wide variety of input from the Bad Brains to Debussy did we believe it for ourselves. At $850 USD this little beauty is a connoisseur’s plaything, but the looks on the stunned faces of your audiophile buddies at your next party will make it worth every cent. Until it shatters on the floor after said drunk audiophile buddy bumps into it, that is. HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »

And… FIRE! France’s JR takes aim at the Tate Modern’s finest…

Unlike a host of unmentionable urban art institutions that turn a blind eye to the burgeoning art movements erupting just outside their museum doors, London’s TATE MODERN is paying homage this month to the city’s most colorful and volatile movement through their inventively-named “Street Art” exhibition. With an eye for international talent, the museum has invited six artists with roots in graffiti including Brasil’s OS GEMEOS and NUNCA, France’s JR, Italy’s BLU, NYC’s FAILE, and Barcelona’s SIXEART to embellish the building’s massive facade and partake in a group exhibition that will remain on display until August 25th. Of course, the most obvious omission in this list is the town’s resident street art kingpin BANKSY, but we suspect the Golden Child is above such institutional fare. And just when it seemed like London would have to build more city walls to support the nonstop barrage of wheatpaste posters and graffiti besieging it, the show has inspired a legion of artists to step up their wallpapering efforts turning the surrounding neighborhoods into an outdoor museum. It seems that Street Art is the British Invasion of the ‘00s (or at the very least, the new black). HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »

By air…

…and by sea.

Thanx MP.