music

(Photos: Journal of Popular Noise)

The Journal of Popular Noise, the audio magazine founded and edited by graphic designer Byron Kalet, is a treat for the senses, from its expertly curated musical selections (distributed as a twice-yearly trio of seven-inch vinyl records) to its letterpress-printed, hand-folded packaging. Just in time to impress the design-savvy music fan on your holiday shopping list comes JPN's fall/winter edition (above), which will feature the music of Seattle band Foscil. We interviewed Brooklyn-based Kalet before he got too tired from hand-folding all of the new issues, which ship next month. Read on for the tale of JPN's origins, how frugality was the mother of great design, and why he thinks of Foscil as "the Dick Avedon to my Alexey Brodovitch."

How did the Journal of Popular Noise come about?
There were a couple distinctly different signs that all pointed in the same direction for me. I had been doing some research and had long been interested in the intersection of music and design. As a musician and designer, I always felt very strongly that the same set of rules and functions were at work in the decision-making process when creating in either medium. Rhythm, contrast, tone, are among many of the words that are commonly used by both designers and musicians to describe what they're up to. I wanted to try and very directly apply the basic compositional conventions of pop music to the composition of a magazine, as it seemed to me they were already almost one and the same. I was particularly attracted to magazines, as they seemed to have not only a close formal relationship to music composition but also an almost symbiotic relationship with pop music. Maybe blogs have that role now, but imagine what pop music would be like without Rolling Stone in the 70's, Maximum RocknRoll in the 80's, Riot Grrrl zines in the 90's, and then, well...blogs.

How did you decide upon the three-records-tucked-in-a-lovely-package format?
Early in 2007, magazines were still flourishing—as the record industry was floundering trying to navigate the new business of ringtones and digital downloads. Magazines are great because they offer an experience that one could never get from the internets, which is why I chose the most tactile and physically impressive production techniques. So with all that on my mind, it seemed obvious that this was the way to do it. There's a long tradition of record clubs, serial composition, and music magazines, from Aspen to Flexidiscs. I don't think I'm really doing anything new, I'm just doing it my way for what's happening right now.

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The Detroit Institute of Arts holds a special place in our hearts (we're not just saying that because it rhymes), and while there's trouble in Motor City, the DIA is moving ahead. In the wake of widespread cost cutting that included laying off 20 percent of its staff, the museum has just appointed a new chief curator (Kenneth J. Myers, the former curator of American art and head of the American art department), recently reinstalled its permanent galleries, and opened a new education wing. Now the DIA is really getting down to business (and just plain getting down) with a funk karaoke contest.

This Saturday night, between screenings of Jeffrey Levy-Hinte's documentary Soul Power (the story of the three-day music festival that accompanied the "Rumble in the Jungle" back in 1974), the museum will host the Soul Power Funk-Karaoke Contest. "Contestants are asked to perform soul or funk songs for a chance to win a season pass for two to the Detroit Film Theatre's fall season," notes the website, which also promises a Soul Power poster giveaway. We call dibs on the whole of George Clinton's T.A.P.O.A.F.O.M. album—either that or this (ahem) timeless masterpiece by DJ Kool...

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Inject some old-school grit (vinyl records) and glamour (letterpress packaging) into your iTunes greatest hits library with the Journal of Popular Noise, an "audio magazine inspired by the traditions of pop music, printed periodicals, and the delight of a finely crafted artifact." Founded by graphic designer Byron Kalet, the twice-yearly publication takes the form of a limited-edition trio of 7" vinyl records tucked inside a letterpress-printed holder that folds out to reveal a poster of information about the journal, the musicians, and the compositional process. "By standardizing the presentation, and even going so far as to homogenize the song structures, the Journal of Popular Noise provides an alternative context through which one can enjoy a record," notes the just-released spring/summer 2009 edition (issues 13-15), which features works by Andrew W.K., Ian Svenonius, and Walker & Cantrell. "Here the content presented to the listener is not defined as much by an artist's self-wrought context as it is their approval of an association with previous contributors, the aesthetic presentation, and of the physical and compositional restraints."

Lucida Sky with Diamonds. Bauhaus (in the Middle of Our Street). Rock the Caslon. I Wanna Bold Your Sans. Nope, this isn't the set list from designer/rock star Chip Kidd's latest Artbreak gig, they're fontsongs, a Twitter thread (#fontsongs) that challenges pun-loving design types to insert typeface names into popular song titles. Call it Textual Healing. The typographical phenomenon is going strong with recent gems such as Goudy My Dreams, Get into my Car and Garamond (My Wayward Son), but don't delay in tweeting a fontsong of your own today, before the trend changes cultural course. One Twitter user is advocating a switch to fontfilms. First on the list? Back to the Futura.

Sonic Youth ("My Friend Goo"), Madonna ("Borderline"), Leonard Cohen ("Suzanne"), and Lady GaGa ("Poker Face"), among others. At least according to the signed and loaded orange iPod nano that Jacobs has donated to the media and shopping site Tonic, "The place where good lives—good news, good style, and good deeds," to benefit Music Rising, a campaign to revive the musical culture of the Gulf Coast. Tonic's latest crop of iPod auctions feature those of designers: Jacobs, Donna Karan, Alice Temperley, and Marc Ecko, who we wouldn't have pegged for an "Eleanor Rigby" fan. You have until Thursday to place your bids, and don't be stingy: yesterday Tonic raised an impressive $5,101 for an iPod signed and customized by Ellen Degeneres, while that of Britney Spears sold for $851. Click "continued..." to see the iPod playlists of Jacobs and Karan.

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Self-taught artist Phil Hansen is all about the process. He has used a tricycle to paint a giant portrait of Lance Armstrong and parted with a quart of his own blood to depict the grinning visage of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il on a canvas of 6,000 plywood-backed Band-Aids. Last summer, he painstakingly rendered the likeness of Jimi Hendrix in matchsticks, before lighting the piece on fire in a nod to Hendrix's fondness for guitar burning. And so when the Grammys came calling, Hansen was ready. Using tools such as microphones and guitar picks as paintbrushes, he created the official artwork for February's 51st annual Grammy Awards program book, telecast tickets, and promotional poster. And in keeping with Hansen's focus on process, he also created this time-lapse video to document the making of the twelve-foot-tall 3-D poster (pictured at left):

Click "continued..." for a video of the making of "A Moment," a 2007 work for which Hansen posted his phone number online and asked people to call and tell him a moment that changed their lives. Over the course of 136 consecutive hours, he wrote the responses on a giant circular canvas. Click to see the sum of those pivotal moments.

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When he's not making music, blogging, turning buildings into musical instruments, and judging bike rack design competitions, former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne is at work on a "disco musical" about the life of Imelda Marcos (at right), wife of the late Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos. With Fatboy Slim. In an interview that appears in this month's issue of Interview, Glenn O'Brien gets the full scoop on the project and can't resist the obvious question: "Do you have any songs about shoes?"

Well, the shoes...I was wary of them because I thought that's all she's known for, and it turns out that they weren't really discovered until she fled. They all fled the palace, and the mobs rushed in and saw all these shoes and gasped. But, for me, the story is over when they leave the palace. So I never get to the shoes, and I also never get to...There's other stuff that was discovered. They discovered a house on the palace grounds, and when they opened it up, the entire house—every room—was filled to the top with boxes of Heinz Sandwich Spread. One book described this as her "Rosebud." I guess Imelda's family didn't have much money when she was growing up, so she longed for those kinds of trappings. And when she could get things like that, she just hoarded them.

(Photos: UnBeige)

Artbreaker Chip Kidd isn't the only design star who can fill Joe's Pub. At one of his two recent shows at the cozy Manhattan venue, multi-talented fashion designer and "masstige" pioneer Isaac Mizrahi and his trusty band, The Ben Waltzer Quintet, charmed the crowd with a mix of cabaret classics, anecdotes, and gifts. Shod in silvery Belgian Shoes and fueled by a light beer summoned from the bar (only two points on Weight Watchers, he pointed out), Mizrahi kicked off his set with Marlene Dietrich's 1931 hit "Johnny, Wenn Du Geburtstag Hast," made all the more impressive by his confession that he neither speaks nor understands German. "I could be saying anything. I wouldn't know," he cautioned the sell-out crowd, which included model Veronica Webb, his boyfriend Arnold, the debonair Korey Provencher, and other dedicated Mizrahi fans and friends.

Between songs, we learned that Artforum publisher Knight Landesman is handy with a tarot card deck ("Under those colorful clothes lurks the heart of a gypsywoman," said Mizrahi), and that in a past life, Mizrahi and his adorable dog, Harry, were a couple of nuns in 18th-century Spain. Appropos of the Betty Comden and Adolph Green-penned "Dance Only with Me," Mizrahi told of once finding himself seated next to Comden at a dinner party, where she praised him and his work. "I wanted to say, 'Are you sure you're talking about me? You might have me confused with Issey Miyake.'" She assured him she had the right designer, but when, months later, Mizrahi spied Comden and Green entering a restaurant where he was dining and went to greet her, she mistook him for the maitre d'.

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The wait is almost over. Artbreak, the music project destined to make Chip Kidd a rock star as well as a graphic design star, is breaking out with its live full-set debut at Joe's Pub in New York City on Monday, August 4. Backed by Artbreakers Mars Trillion, Paul Schellack, and Dylan Wissing, Kidd will croon such New Wavey original hits-to-be as the positively infectious "Filigree" (we're considering getting the "Know it all / SuperBall / It's no use..." lyric tastefully tatooed on our lower extremities) and debut the Gary Nadeau-directed video for "Asymmetrical Girl." We've got our tickets (buy yours here), but they're sure to go fast as today's New York Post reminded readers of the origins of the band's name: "our Aug. 27, 2006, headline, 'Artbreaking'—about famed quadriplegic artist Chuck Close's battle with a condo project threatening to block his studio's sunlight." And speaking of sunlight, if you're in San Diego at Comic-Con, visit Kidd at the Pantheon booth, where he's promoting his imminent Bat-Manga! book, or at the DC booth, where he's signing copies of his Final Crisis and Trinity logo designs. And tell him UnBeige sent you!

We'd always pegged pop warbler Christina Aguilera as a Mel Ramos fan (at least after photographer David LaChapelle reportedly soured on her), but it turns out that she is joining the likes of Martini & Rossi, Gap, and perfume company Bond no. 9 in taking inspiration from Andy Warhol. In the August issue of Glamour, Aguilera tells writer Laurie Sandell that in her next album, which she has just started and which will be "all about fun," she'll "be referencing Pop Art, Andy Warhol's art. So it will [sound] fun and fast-paced, and visually, it will be full of color, which is how it's going to tie in with my new fragrance, Inspire." Aguilera declined to elaborate on the Warhol reference, except to say that the album will also have "a modern element to it that comes from [her] love of Tokyo."