The teaser Tittsworth interview I posted on Kissatlanta.com is now up in entirety at URB.com! You can access it directly from the main page, or there is a direct link here. In addition to reading about Tittsworth’s nasty adventure eating habits, find out what his worst hotel experience was and what to expect from his upcoming album.

By the way…we all know our man has a sense of humor. Being the involved citizen he is, he tried to do a little research when the pope was coming through his city. Here’s a screenshot he sent me when he entered “pope” on Thesaurus.com. Blasphemy!

Many of us have been waiting with baited breath for my BPM feature article, “Behind The Blog,” to be published. I just got my copy of the magazine in the mail today - it’s issue #90, and it’s…The Hipster Issue. Ta da! I’m very happy with the piece and I even got a profile in the front of the mag :). The piece gives you all a little inside look at who is running the blogs we all know and love - Bigstereo, Missingtoof, IHEARTCOMIX!, Panda Toes, Kiss Atlanta and Palms Out Sounds. Thumbnails below, click on the images to bring up the full size page.

Tittsworth is the party jam DJ known for hot bmore mash ups of everyone from Justice to the Four Tops, making him the name on everyone’s lips and blogs in recent months. With ten years of production under his belt, industry friends like Diplo and a nod from URB’s Next 100 list last year, it finally seems like this DJ’s time to shine. Currently in Hong Kong, I spoke with Jesse Tittsworth (yes, that’s his real name) about finally being on the radar, his upcoming album, and eating moth souffle.

* This is only a sample of what will eventually be printed in URB magazine in a couple months. I’ll post a notice when the issue comes out. To make up for the tease, please enjoy the Tittsworth tunes included at the end of the post

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FatCat Films out of France sent me this film they did for The Art Pack webzine, featuring up and coming French Producers Luck on Strike (friends Bertrand and Gauthier). These guys jam, using live instrumentation along with insane synth work to create their own version of French Touch that’s a bit rockier, a bit grimier. Bonus - Pete Tong featured these guys in his weekly video as “unsigned band of the week!”

Here is a link to a three track sampler these guys put together with “In The 80s,” “Lights” and the Pete Tong selection, “The Devil In My Eyes.”

Luck On Strike Sampler (Zshare)

Over the past few months I’ve been following what has been happening with the major labels. Without forseeing how the internet was going to impact them (dummies…), the scrambling they have been doing lately is incredible. Here’s an overview of what’s been happening.

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Daft Punk’s newest film Electroma was finished last year but is just making rounds in the states, thanks largely to a partnership with Scion that has been taking screenings of the film across the country. Last night was the Chicago stop and it was a definite chore to sit through the entire film. Not because of the film itself (which was, in my opinion, incredible), but the boozed up audience that had been chugging the provided free beer and making their own MST 3000 out of the night.

Granted, Electroma is more Matthew Barney than Martin Scorsese, but come ON.At the end of the film, Peter Hurteau (who played the silver robot in Electroma) fielded some questions and then I spoke with him afterwards as well. He’s an incredibly sweet guy with an earnest demeanor who moved from LA to Portland to escape the film industry. Apparently that worked well.

By the way, I apologize about the quality of the photo. The theatre was unable to turn up any lights at the front by the screen.

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What was the cost of making the movie?

I’m not sure what the budget was…it was a non-union job and there wasn’t a very big budget. The movie started as a music video for Human After All and that’s what Mike (Gold Robot actor) and I signed up for. When the footage was reviewed, [Daft Punk] liked it, came back to shoot b-roll and expanded it to make it a full-length feature.

How does an abstract film like this appeal to the public?

Well it’s an abstract film but there’s a pretty linear storyline. Still, it’s not made for a vast audience and it’s unapproachable for most people. Actually, a lot less people left in the middle of this screening than at the previous one. I’ve seen the film three times now in a screening environment and the reaction is always vastly mixed.

What did you get out of being in an abstract film?

Being a part of the film in general was an amazing experience. I’ve never acted before and I was asked to be in the film by the producer who liked my temperament and remembered me from a previous job we were both on. He basically just gave me a call, had me come over to his place and asked how well I could fit into a leather suit…no, no shenanegans. On a personal level, it was totally bitchin’. I got to meet some wonderful people and we’ve formed some tight friendships.

Did you get to wear their actual suits?

Oh yeah, Mike and I wore their actual suits. We all wore dummy helmets, but those are the only two suits in existence and were custom made for them by I think Christian Dior. We’re close now, we’ve shared sweat.

Is there any definitive analogy in the film or is it up to us to interpret ourselves?

It’s up to you to interpret it and I guess it depends a lot on what kind of person you are. There is a lot of reference to films like THX 1138, but they weren’t out to make a statement to the world. In the end they made it for themselves.

Do you like the film?

I like the film. Of course I like it for personal reasons, but I also like the subject matter, the idea of it, the shots and camera work and the imagery.

I didn’t hear any of their music in the film?

There was none of their music in the film. I was really excited about that as well…not that their music wasn’t in it, but the creation of the soundtrack as they went. They kept talking about artists that were on their wish list, like Brian Eno, and it was cool to watch that evolution as the filming went on.

What was it like for Daft Punk to be directors?

It was different for them. They kept creating everything as they were doing it because they had the story idea but they didn’t really know what they were getting into. They had never directed a feature, but this had always been an avenue they really wanted to explore.

Did you get to drive the car at all?

For the filming I couldn’t. Legally they had to have a stunt driver, but afterwards I got to drive it. It’s an ‘83 Ferarri with all the decals taken off and it was automatic, which wasn’t nearly as much fun. After the movie, Mike, the other robot, tried to drive it home and it broke down. But hey, they got it cheap at a couple thousand, mostly because of that automatic transmission.

Is the self-destruction of the robots a signal that Daft Punk will abandon the suits?

There has been a lot of speculation about that, but then again, they’re on tour in those suits right now. I’m not sure that’s going to happen.

Are they hot?

They are EXTREMELY attractive.

Want to go to Moonshine with us after this?

I have to check with my friend Luke, I’m staying with him.

I posted a little bit ago about an event Chicago’s Front Forty Press had at designer furniture store Luminaire. I got to interview the head of Front Forty, Doug Fogelson, for a profile in URB Magazine. He’s a bit spacey, tripped out and an artist to his core - really fun and delightful to talk to. Before the interview started he talked about vacationing in Arizona and feeling ill because he was walking barefoot on grounds that eminated bad energy. That should give you an idea. Here’s a shortened version of that interview.
Enjoy!

How did Front Forty Press start?

Yeah that’s always the first question, and it’s kind of a cool story in the sense that it started off as a virtual publishing house website. I wanted to make books online at a time when there weren’t a lot of e-books and the web was just starting to get a little more dynamic in that area. The idea was to use the web as a free resource for viewing of art and reading things and listening to music and then to play off what the web could do by calling Front Forty Press a press even though it was online. Our first book project was Sonneteer, which was geared towards liberating graphic designers from their day jobs, usually a lot of advertising and corporate stuff, and then asking them to focus on the built world and utilize their skills as graphic designers in the space of the computer with supplied images and whatever else they wanted to bring into it. They were assigned chapters of subject matter like infrastructure, windows and doors, pathways, sprawl, these kinds of things. So this was all done over the Internet and when they came back with their finished files, the stuff was looking really cool and that was the first e-book we had up on the site.

So when did the leap happen from creating e-books to printed books?

Inner City Light was the first off-line project. We linked up with Inner City Light (an organization that promotes awareness of ethnic and cultural differences via digital youth media) and designer David Castillo to design a brochure pro-bono for them. It was originally intended as another e-project but it turned out so cool we thought, you know, we have to print up copies of this and give all the profits to Inner City Light to help their cause. So that was done in 2004 and then right afterwards we started working on the Graffitecture book and when we were gathering all the artists, the photographs to be drawn on and everything else, we knew we had to print up copies to put into these guys’ hands. Shortly after that was Short Stories Illustrated by Artists and when we started seeing what the artists were giving us and we saw how good it was, we decided that even if we had to print on demand, one way or another we had to create physical, tangible books to give to our artists whether they ended up in the marketplace or not. Coincidentally at the same time we were also working on another book called Matt Volla’s Unruly Drawings and so it was luck that all these projects were finished around the same time and we were able to push things out in early 2007. Because of that we were able to secure our debut at P.S.1 MoMA in the fine print/alternative media series.

How are people responding to the books so far?

We’ve been getting really good responses not only on content but on the design and production of the books. We put a lot of care into the design and production value of the books and we often get praised for it so it feels good that people recognize small things like our font work. As far as content, we’ve been rewarded by winning awards like best design 2007 for Graffitecture from the Hollywood Book Festival .

One of the interesting things about the books is that they’re not purely art books but they touch on different subcultures and ideologies making them accessible to a much wider pool of people.

People try to figure out who we are and what we’re about. If we think something is interesting enough and we want to make a book out of it and work with other artists, we wind up with something we think is cool and we feel other people will like it whether they’re in art, literature, activism…it could be anything. It’s a pretty big roll of the dice sometimes, financially and otherwise. At our core we’re about the cultivation and communication of ideas.

And along with that, the books tend to inadvertently bridge a lot of gaps.

It’s a beautiful thing to be able to do that. Take Sonneteer, which design-wise appears like a piano book, and then it’s about the built world which is urban in nature, infrastructure and all that stuff, and then it’s design, and then it relates back to the sonnet, which is a weird old type of prose. So you’ve got this amalgamation of all these things together and people have really responded to it, I’m surprised. Graffitecture on the other hand was much more a thesis – what would happen if graffiti artists were given high-end interior spaces to do their thing on and were allowed the freedom to do whatever they wanted? It was regional, it was very specific and we wanted to attack it intellectually as well with our four essayists. But Sonneteer, that was early on and I think we’re getting better at focusing in. So what though if it’s a collection of disparate elements? We dig it.

So now that Front Forty is getting some steam behind it what are the ultimate goals in terms of circulation, publishing and future topics?

Well, we are rolling hardcore. 2007 was our debut and it was really good, we learned through everything we did. We’re super excited about the next two poetry books that are coming up and we’re putting a lot of energy and investment into them. In terms of getting them out there what we were able to do this time was get a distributor under contract through the University of Chicago Press. They were our best fit as they’re non-profit, in our backyard and they’re the largest university press in the country. Distributing through them means our 2008 books are going to be marketed and distributed in a whole different way.

So will I be able to walk into a Borders and find Graffitecture?

Yes. And that was our main reason for going with the University of Chicago press. Right now you can find it by requesting it at bookstores or finding it on Amazon.com but being with the UIC press, we are now linked into the main distribution hubs in the country and it will be so much easier to find older titles and our newest ones. We’ve been able to get the books into museum stores and independent shops on our own and so we want to stay focused on the cool shit on our end. We want the books in odd places in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and in the Borders and Barnes & Noble.

What is the one thing you’re most excited about for the press?

We have a book coming out called Signs of the Apocalypse or Rapture. It’s more for the typical museum bookstore art book buyer and its split into three categories. The written side which is transcripts from all these end times interviews with scientists and religious academics. The visual is a curated selection of works from contemporary artists like Bill Viola, categorized into either apocalyptic or rapturous images. We have a sick lineup of artists. The last component of the book is an audio CD, which is also split into the two categories of apocalypse and rapture with everything from metal to recordings of end of the world rants and experimental artists like Michael Boyd. It’s about seeing a potential vision of the future. It’s a heavy book.