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."

We admit that we've amassed an impressive collection of magazine t-shirts over the years—here a long-sleeved hooded number from Liz Tilberis-era Harper's Bazaar, there a flimsy Elle logo tee—but aside from the odd purple one with the Vanity Fair logo that we picked up on eBay, they were all freebies. Ever the shatterer of paradigms, Rolling Stone is inverting the free-tee-with-subscription concept and selling "collectors' edition t-shirts" that come with a free one-year subscription to the magazine. It's all part of a new exclusive deal with Macy's, surely the most rock n' roll of department stores, in which t-shirts featuring a selection of iconic Rolling Stone covers will sell for $36 at select Macy's stores and online.

According to Macy's vice president of men's fashion Jerry Balest, "The new collection of Rolling Stone tees appeals to today's cross-channel lifestyle," probably not referring to people who take the Eurostar on a regular basis (they tend to prefer Hanro). "Macy's is honored to be exclusively bringing back these covers in a new, wearable way." As for the covers who made the cut, there are the obvious choices—The Beatles (Issue 46, November 15, 1969) and Jimi Hendrix (Issue 809, April 1, 1999)—and then something for everyone:

Other covers featured include Metallica (Issue 617, November 14, 1991), Kid Rock (Issue 843, June 22, 2000), Jim Morrison (Issue 88, August 5, 1971), Johnny Cash (Issue 933, October 16, 2003), Ozzy Osbourne (Issue 901, July 25, 2002), Kurt Cobain (Issue 683, June 2, 1994), Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg (Issue 666 September 30, 1993), The Beastie Boys (Issue 804, January 21, 1999) and Jerry Garcia (Issue 740, August 8, 1996).

Starchitect Rafael Viñoly excels at designing performance spaces (e.g., Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts), but we had no idea that he brings a musician's eye to his work. According to Robert Hilferty's piece in today's New York Sun, when not overseeing his firm's 250 employees (scattered among offices in New York, London, Los Angeles, and soon, Dubai), Viñoly can be found playing the piano, collecting pianos (around ten at last count), and listening to others play, preferably in Carnegie Hall. But ix-nay on the obby-hay! "I never thought this was a hobby," he told the Sun. "It's not an entertainment. It's a rare combination of pleasure and suffering." For Viñoly, the "piano pavilion" that he built on his property in Water Mill, New York, is "better than a swimming pool, better than a tennis court." Meanwhile, at the age of 63, he has recently started taking piano lessons again with the hope of polishing up his Mozart.

"'You want to play Mozart?'" he said, quoting his teacher. "'This is like walking naked on Fifth Avenue, so you have to be in good shape. Because you can't hide anything.'" He's also learning Chopin's G minor Ballade; Beethoven's Piano Sonata in A Major, Op. 101; Six Little Piano Pieces by Schoenberg, and Schumann's "Kreisleriana," which he says is "one of the most difficult pieces on the face of the earth."

Graphic artist Alton Kelley, best known for the trippy concert posters and album covers he designed with creative partner Stanley "Mouse" Miller for bands such as the Grateful Dead, died on Sunday at the age of 67 (although The Washington Post insists he was 68). "Kelley had the unique ability to translate the music being played into amazing images that capture the spirit of who we were and what the music was all about," noted the Grateful Dead's Mickey Hart in a statement released this week.

With influences ranging from the Zig-Zag rolling papers logo to The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Kelley and Mouse created such memorable rock imagery as the Dead's skull and roses motif (and oodles of album covers, posters, book covers, and stickers) and iconic posters for concerts at San Francisco's Avalon Ballroom and Fillmore Auditorium. For more on Kelley, we point you to San Francisco Chronicle music critic Joel Selvin's well-composed obit, in which he points out Kelley's fondness for painting pinstripes on motorcycle gas tanks and habit of getting kicked out of the public library when on inspiration-seeking trips there with Mouse.

"Stanley and I had no idea what we were doing," Mr. Kelley told The Chronicle last year. "But we went ahead and looked at American Indian stuff, Chinese stuff, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Modern, Bauhaus, whatever. We were stunned by what we found and what we were able to do. We had free rein to just go graphically crazy. Where before that, all advertising was pretty much just typeset with a photograph of something."

Crack that whip. Give the past a slip. Brooklyn is whipping it, whipping it good, thanks to a new group show of "art, adventure, and music" inspired by everyone's favorite red ziggurat-hatted New Wave pop sensation: DEVO. On view through June 1 at Williamsburg's 3rd Ward Gallery, "The Super Thing: NYC goes DEVO" features 20 "Postcard Diaries" prints by DEVO co-founder and multi-tasking musician extraordinaire Mark Mothersbaugh, who began illustrating postcards to send to friends and family while first touring with the group. Another room is given over to DEVO-inspired (or at least DEVO-compatible) interactive art, including Mike Dee's layered music videos, Michael Robinson's ingenious stealthy logos, and Yuliya Lanina's indecent robotic mechanical dolls. Want to see photos of the work from the opening on Saturday? Go forward, move ahead, and check out Maro's shots over at The Village Voice. (After the jump, we couldn't resist this opportunity to post the "Whip It" video.)

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Interesting piece over at the Guardian, "The Dying Art of Record Sleeve Design," wherein they largely focus on Brian Cannon, who designed a lot of the covers for albums by the Verve and Oasis and how the field is drying up, thanks to digital distribution and some bands' lack of interest in combining their music with something visually appealing. What makes it particularly interesting is seeing the process change through the eyes of one designer and one band, such as with the Verve:

Even by the time the Verve's multi-million selling Urban Hymns came out the sleeve was past its glory days. Where once Brian managed to persuade them to have their picture taken playing chess next to an exploding car (for the gatefold of their debut A Storm in Heaven), by the time of Urban Hymns [Richard Ashcroft] had decided he wanted fans to "just listen to the fucking record". So the cover is a boring picture of the band watching deer in Richmond Park.

For further reading, PSFK had a great, related post up the other day called "The Future of Album Art," which is certainly a far less bleak outlook than the Guardian piece above, should you fans of album design need a little pick-me-up. But then we could also choose to bring you right back down again, should you want to read up on what became of Brian Cannon years after designing all those famous albums.

What do you get when you combine a couple of MIT grads, robot-controlled instruments, and an unlimited supply of Absolut vodka? A giant kinetic sculpture that composes music based on input from website visitors. Known as the Absolut Quartet, the musical machine is the creation of engineer-designers Dan Paluska and Jeff Lieberman and is part of Absolut Machines, a global technology project sponsored by the spirits company that asks, "In an Absolut world, would machines be creative?"

Paluska explained his creation to us when we stopped in to see the Absolut Quartet in New York City, where it has just opened for public viewing at a ground-level space on Orchard Street. "Essentially, you go to this website, sign up in the queue, and then play a little melody," he said, sidling up to a laptop and tapping out a few notes on a virtual piano keyboard that appeared on the screen. "The machine will take that melody and use it in a composition." Walking over to the sculpture itself, which would fit inside a spacious walk-in closet, Paluska pointed to the speaker that plays user-created melodies for the machine to interpret and explained the set-up: nine percussion elements mounted at the front, a 32-key marimba activated by rubber balls shot from a robotic cannon, and a row of spinning wine glasses played by robotic fingers. As for the fourth member of the quartet, that's the human player of the virtual piano.

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