First Ever Live Show – TONIGHT 2/19!

Broken Bells has confirmed the details of its first ever live date. The band will perform TONIGHT (February 19) at the Fold In Bootleg Theater in Los Angeles located at 2220 Beverly Boulevard just west of Alvarado (Across the street from Brooklyn Bagel).

Doors are at 8 pm. Free parking available on Roselake Ave. directly behind The Praise Christian Church. A LIMITED number of tickets are available now via http://www.inticketing.com/evlist.php?events=search&v=6117

2 ticket limit.

For anyone who is unaware of the project, Broken Bells is the new collaborative effort between DJ/super-producer, Brian “Dangermouse“ Burton and James Mercer of The Shins.  If you live in the Los Angeles area and act fast, tonight could be your opportunity to see if it it lives up to all of the hype. (more…)

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David Lynch is best known as an Emmy, Academy Award, and Golden Globe nominated Writer/Director/Producer.  He is the creator of such films as The Elephant Man, Dune, Eraserhead, Blue Velvet , Wild At Heart, and Mulholland Dr., as well as of the television series Twin Peaks.  With such a prolific and influential career in film making, it’s easy to understand why any of his outside ventures may be over shadowed.  Last year Lynch made one such venture with Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse, in which the director provided vocal contributions to the Dark Night of the Soul album, as well as accompanying photographs for the project.  A subsequent gallery show of the photographs took place at Los Angeles‘ Michael Kohn gallery from May 30 – July 29 of 2009.

With the hype surrounding EMI‘s refusal to release the music for DNOTS, we posted an extensive two-piece article about the project.  Unfortunately however, we entirely overlooked the fact that Lynch had a completely unrelated gallery show  later in the year.  “David Lynch : New Paintings“, was held from at the William Griffin gallery in Santa Monica from Sept. 12th – Dec. 12th, 2009.  Although Lynch was actually a painter, prior to ever beginning his film career, this collection represents the first of Lynch‘s original paintings to be displayed in the United States in more than a decade.

Due to our past coverage of Lynch‘s art, we were contacted and offered the opportunity to premiere the following footage by DFL.TV (The David Lynch Foundation).  The video not only contains exclusive coverage of the gallery opening, but celebrity interviews as well.  Among those interviewed are actress, Laura Dern, award-winning film-maker, Roger Corman, and even Lynch himself. (more…)

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Banksy has stepped up his game by setting up shop in NY and taking his artistic vision into even more 3-dimensional and interactive areas.  When I find out about something this amazing I have an urge to post something about it immediately.  When it deals with the work of an artist that I already have a large amount of respect for I feel like jumping right in the middle of the subject even more.  The issue with this is that, to achieve the accessibility for everyone that we want on Monster Fresh, no one should have to jump into a swirling article or topic like a game of double dutch.  There is always that moment that we first find out about something new and I want to be able to help introduce new forms of expression and artists instead of just featuring the latest release or project so, before providing the latest update, let’s first tackle a little of the back story behind Banksy and his work.

Banksy is one of the most influential and forward thinking graffiti artists of the last 20 years. He is well known for his stenciled bombing which he honed in the Bristol area of the United Kingdon.  In his book “Banksy: Wall and Piece” (2005) he states that he decided to start doing his tagging with a stenciling format after being caught and running from the cops at the age of 18.  He claims that, while hiding, he “spent over an hour under a dumpster truck with engine oil leaking all over (him)“.   He looked up at a stencil on the fuel tank and realized that he had found his answer to cutting his painting time down to a fraction of what they currently took.

I highly recommend “Wall and Piece” because it is, not only an impressive composition of his collected work, but also full of quotes and passages that display the artist’s distinct vision and philosophies.  What makes Banksy’s work consistently relevant isn’t his ability to draw or paint, or even his cunning vandalism, but his voice.  I’m not going to claim that all graffiti is vital and has something to say beyond simple territorial pissings or blind destruction, because much of it is done ignorantly, but I will openly argue with anyone that claims that Banksy’s work isn’t absolute art in its purist form.  His graffiti work evokes thought, inspires hope, and contains strong social commentaries about capitalism, politics, and, most of all, humanity.  Like artist Ron English, Banksy’s hopeful, yet “illegal“, art pieces are often created in response to the corporate advertisements and “legal” oppressive imaging that we are bombarded with on a daily basis. (more…)

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