Cool Hunting
By now Slick Rick's "Children's Story" is a frat party standard and KRS-One's elementary style is a page in hip-hop history. With The Next Best Thing, a Jeremy Fish-illustrated picture book and read-along 7-inch by Aesop Rock, the duo are reinventing hip-hop storytelling for a new generation. A monologue on creative frustrations ("To my heart of gold medics with aesthetics on a string you will forever by employed by the next best thing."), Fish represents the main character as a skull-headed everyman who travels through a surreal world populated with symbolic bunnies, turtles and lightbulbs. Like the '70s-era kids books it takes its inspiration from, "you will know it is time to turn the page when you hear the chimes." Buy it for $25 from Upper Playground.
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by Julie Wolfson Already on a roll with their t-shirts that raise money for good causes, Yellow Bird Project's recently-launched whimsical Indie Rock Coloring Book offers kids, and the music fans that care for them, many pages of fun and games. From the psychedelic cover of a hand drawing an explosion of instruments and swirls topped with a bird head to the 31 pages...
After the success of last year's Insound 20, the indie music retailer hits us again with another run of exclusive band designs. While the former collection envisioned new designs for contemporary groups, Insound 10 Classic features 10 seminal punk, new wave or indie bands, all active between 1977 and 1997 and many of which are now defunct. This year's designer is Mike Perry, who...
Ever the fashion pundits, the French have extended their obsession for what is très chic by asking design legend and man behind the house of Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld, to design the 2009 issue of "Le Petit Larousse Illustrè." Translated in English as "Larousse Small Illustrated Dictionary," besides lending his artistic talents, Lagerfeld himself is included in the book's encyclopedia of proper names along with the...
Like the concept itself, Gorillaz: Rise of the Ogre is a part fictional, part real account of the band's rise to fame. Faux interviews and Jamie Hewlett's illustrations, as well as a few real photos, make up the hardcover book, bringing out both imagined and true-to-life details. Highlights include track-by-track "making of" stories, British humor and, overall, behind-the-scenes insight into one of the most...
Leni the Pug: The Comet Christmas Caper is a new illustrated holiday 'tail' chronicling the adventures of Leni (a female Pug), who leads a pack of pooches to help Santa find Comet the reindeer and deliver his Christmas presents after the magic sleigh crashes in a Central Park dog run. Written by Keith Fiore, Illustrated by Alex Sacui, and self-published by Keith and his...
After two years in the making, the collaboration between Grammy-nominated artists Cee-Lo and Dangermouse (aka Gnarls Barkley), St. Elsewhere debuted this week in the UK and comes out 9 May 2006 stateside. Already breaking records, Dangermouse blends diverse genres including soul, gospel, funk, and post-punk, with Cee-Lo's impressive vocals that hint at seminal crooners like Stevie Wonder. The upshot falls somewhere in between Sly...
