The entire time that I have lived in Brooklyn I have only had one lady touch my hair and that person is Jess Stover. (And, I wouldn’t have it any other way.) While she has spent most of her time spreading joy around Williamsburg at the Beehive Salon, she has finally struck out on her own and is opening Adelaide Salon.
To celebrate there will be a little soiree on Friday (see flyer). This will give you the chance to put your name down on the soon to be very long waiting list. Man is she worth it!

For years, Zs have been making headway marrying jazz and avant garde textures. On Wednesday, they will release their latest album for the Social Registry. Awesome festivities (Grade 13, Effi Briest, Nine 11 Thesaurus) will be happening at Secret Project Robot.

Thanks everyone for coming out and making the showcase such a great success. We hope you guys had some fun.
If you can’t get enough out of the Real Estate family of musicians, Etienne is hosting a dance party at Market Hotel; it’s a part of a mini-tour with Predator Vision (Etienne and Matt of Real Estate) and Sudden Oak.

If you are too busy recovering tonight, then tomorrow you can’t miss a solo performance of Mira Billotte’s (White Magic) at Santos Party House. Miss Billotte doesn’t play every other week, so when she does, you have to make sure that you catch her! New Egypt has been one of my jams this past year–definitely worth a listen. Below is a video of a recent White Magic performance.

Before you guys come to our showcase on friday, we thought it would be only fitting that you get to know the bands we love a little more personally. First up are our boys in Real Estate.
It’s difficult to believe that before September this band didn’t exist. They have since been signed to one of the best labels right now Woodsist, been all over Pitchfork and recently finished up a tour stint with Love is All.
FW: What’s your daily routine as a band?
Martin Courtney:
We don’t really have a daily routine as a band; we don’t like live together or anything. If we lived together, it would be in the suburbs, and we would do things like jam and eat mac and cheese.
Etienne Duguay:
chill then grip;
chill, jam, party, grip

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The Sun One is a collaboration between the ambient sonic drones of John Fell Ryan as “SETH” and the psychedelic (and sometimes witch doctory) animations of Witchbeam. If you are curious about the soundtrack, it can be found on the compilation Dark Barbarians volume 1 put out by Temple of Pei.
Speaking of Excepter side projects, SSPS will be playing the Men and Women curated Northside showcase on Thursday at Cameo with Ducktails, Men and Women, and Julianna Barwick.

As previously alluded to in the Antennas of the Race post, there will be big art happenings this weekend in Bushwick.
Full details may be found here.

Continuing with the Antennas of the Race series, we were fortunate to catch up with two sets of artists who will be participating in Nurture’s first ever Bushwick Biennal which opens on Saturday, June 6th–an exhibition that commemorates young, emerging artists in perhaps the purist spirit. In addition to Nurture, the Bushwick Biennal will be on view at Pocket Utopia, English Kills, and Grace exhibitions.
Our first group of artists in conversation are Rahul Alexander and Jaclyn Conley. Alexander’s work is best characterized as multi-media paintings that utilize found imagery and patterns that suggest that use a sense of nostalgia to suggest the ideals of the future. Conley works in painting, drawing and sculpture to transform the body into complicated compositions that touch upon the collective memory of the viewer.

Jaclyn Conley, No Fingernails Left, oil on canvas, 48×60″, 2008
Q: (Alexander)
So you’re a painter, I’d like to know what drives you to work in such a classical medium.
A: (Conley)
I don’t think I choose paint because of a classical nature just as I wouldn’t choose a material because it seemed innovative. I do appreciate the history of the medium especially when I think outside of a linear progression; I look at equal amounts of new and old art. The dense history of imagery and painting resurfaces in all work, though maybe most obviously when it is the same media. For me these links are usually unintended. I like that a work can change depending on the context, particularly of time; that, in a way, art becomes a changing, rather than a static, singular object.
I hear often from my interdisciplinary artist partner that it’s so much easier to be a painter because at least when you go into the studio each day you know what you’re getting in to. And there’s some truth in that. Limiting myself generally to oil paint, there is a familiarity and it becomes a framework for thinking and acting. I was given pencils and crayons and since then I kept seeking materials that improved on the qualities I liked: versatility of color and mark, a very basic, forgiving and completely independent process and a visible history of an object’s making.

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Several years ago, I was walking to a party at college, holding a cup of grain alcohol punch. (Purchase Punch as it was called at my school.) When I walked into the door, everyone was crouched down on the floor and huddled, so that campus police couldn’t see the illegal party happening. I crouched with my fellow brethren. The cops swept passed the “G Block” of the Old Apartments in their car. The moment the coast was clear my friend Dan jeered, and everyone jumped up and started slamming into each other. I would like to imagine that is the genesis for Dan Deacon’s infamous countdowns–although I’m not sure he would ever agree.

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If you happen to make it to Secret Project Robot from now until June 6th, you will see a great show by a new multimedia artist Raymond Salvatore. While his work may appear to be abstract, they are informed by philosophy and anthropological studies as much as contemporary psychedelic abstraction:

As an experimental filmmaker his work is abstract, are accompanied by his own electronic compositions as well as those of his various collaborators. His recent works include full scale immersive video and sound environments, large format digital prints that are then hand manipulated and painted on, and live video performances.
Many of Harmon’s films contain layered subliminal content, the source of this content is often derived from occult and mystical texts. Utilizing texts such as the Gates of Light (an early work of Hebraic mysticism, kabbalah) and Aleister Crowley’s Book of Lies, Harmon’s occult based films work as advanced meditative tools for use in occult rituals and the expansion of the conscious mind.

c/o Pendu

via MySpace
I am a self-confessed Lost nerd, so it’s exciting to see that the best Lost-themed band Previously on Lost will be celebrating the season finale tonight at the Bell House. I think the photo says it all.