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This past weekend was a great one...played a gig in the Buckhead area, drank some good wine, caught up with an old friend, and made some new ones. Above is a pic of me on the way to the show. How was your weekend?

Nujabes (Jun Seba) RIP

Saturday Night Style

Little Walter

Having lived in Mississippi for a few years and the co-author of this blog being from there...the blues has always run deep through our veins. I woke up this morning to some black coffee and some gritty 50's blues (my favorite era of blues). Guys like Muddy Waters, Little Walter and Howlin' Wolf speak to me on a level I can really understand now being 30.

These guys had a story to tell and they told it through their music. I can still remember those long hot sweaty summers in Mississippi and the time I heard real Delta Blues coming from a BBQ restaurant in the distant...It was the sound of heartache, hard-drinking, hard-living and repression, it was the sound of the blues...and I liked it.

Little Walter, My Babe (Single Version 1955)

Song & Music by Aimad Ezzahid / myspace.com/​rimedmusic
Mastered by Arthur Beja
Directed & Edited by Ben Brillante / benbrillante.info

Sounds from abroad: My good friend Aimad from Paris, France on vocals and guitar..

LONDON - fashion week via FACEHUNTER

Self-interview by Mickey Rourke for Homeboy (1988)

Albert Watson - Lisa Kauffmann, Italian Vogue, Carlo Tivoli, Paris, 1986 via (JouJou Loves You)

I had a major brain storming session today for a new marketing project I'm working on...Pulled out the Brian Wilson to see if I could channel some of his creative genius...

Getting closer to spring and I've been listening to a lot of Bossa Nova. Took out my bongos after a late night last week...the neighbors were not impressed. Think it might be time for lessons...

"I was not planning to become a singer or composer when I was 18 and listening to Miles Davis, and Thelonious Monk, and Joao Gilberto, and Gil Evans, and Chet Baker. I loved it, I used to like to sing songs, but I wanted to study philosophy and make movies. So there you are, movies and philosophy. Pop music, movies, and philosophy."
-Caetano Veloso


Caetano Veloso - Billie Jean/Elanor Rigby

No bra with that blouse is so necessary
No panties in jeans that's so necessary
Now why you frontin on me is that necessary

Jay-Z - Change Clothes

Line Art

Picasso

I've always been a fan of Picasso's line art for its simplicity. I have been doing a lot of sketching lately and decided to try some line art myself below.


My line art, Alfie

I am just a new boy
Stranger in this town
Where are all the good times?
Who's gonna show this stranger around?

Ooooo I need a dirty woman
Ooooo I need a dirty girl

Will some woman in this desert land
Make me feel like a real man?
Take this rock n roll refugee
Ooo Babe, set me free

Ooooo I need a dirty woman
Ooooo I need a dirty girl

Ooooo I need a dirty woman
Ooooo I need a dirty girl

-Pink Floyd, "Young Lust"

I got these Kenneth Cole boots a few years back and they finally are broken in. I've been wearing them everyday lately..Need to get some taps put on them.

“Do not fear mistakes. There are none.” -Miles Davis

Happy Valentine's Day!

Jacks Coffee via (The Selby)

This series was shot by The Selby for Cole Haan about NYC entreprenuars. I really dig the style of the branding, interior and vibe as a whole. Indie-coffee shops, especially in NYC are really the best in the US and the Fair Trade coffee sounds damn good too. This is exactly the kind of coffee shop I would open if I was in the industry. I want to bring my laptop or a good book and hang out at this place..

Altuzarra Fall 2011 via (The Sartorialist)

Finally a break in this winter weather. Today is like an early spring, beautifully bright and brisk...not to rub it in for those still experiencing Mother Nature's dark side. This Saturday I'll be gearing up for a show in Atlantic Station. The week before we played a kick-ass show at the Phipps Plaza area. The audience had been relatively conservative till we broke into "What's Going On"..

For me the bass work by James Jamerson on this song doesn't get any better than this. If you're not familiar with Jamerson, he was the bassist for most of the Motown sound and one of the most influential bass players in modern music history. From The Temptations "My Girl", to Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On", Jamerson's bass lines will live on forever..Enjoy!


James Jamerson playing his Fender Precision bass dubbed "The Funk Machine."

"You treat the air as a canvas and the paint is the chords that come through your fingers, out of the keyboard."
-Pharrell Williams

LIU WEN - The first woman of East Asian descent to walk the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.

Lately I've been writing a few new songs that require a little more soul to the vocals. One artist that came to mind while writing was, Remy Shand. Shand's album just came out when I moved to Atlanta and from the first track I heard "Take A Message" I was instantly hooked.

Shand played all the instruments, wrote all the songs and produced his first album. He achieved some success and then fell of the radar. Well, Remy we need your music back brother, still waiting for that secound album...

Saw another early 80's Porsche 911 the other day in the dark brownish/black color above. As a kid I always preferred the 911 in the obvious colors such as black and red but I'm really feelin' the dark brown color. Very understated and classic.

Trying to outrun your fear
Running to lose
Heart on your sleeve and your soul in your shoes
Take a left,
A sharp left
And another left, meet me on the corner
And we'll start, again.

-Badly Drawn Boy, Once Around the Block

James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931 – September 30, 1955)

Asteroid Galaxy Tour

Cool Heineken commercial featuring Astroid Galaxy Tour, a Danish Funk/Rock band. I first saw AGT at SXSW last year, they bring the same energy live as they do on this commercial. And YES the lead singer is sexy and even sexier in person.

"I'm me and i'm different; my music is just another level of funk. I love Tina Turner, but we are two totally different people. The same with Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, Larry Graham and Stevie Wonder. We all make your fingers pop, but for different reasons....so don't compare me"
—Betty Davis

Via The Selby

Rad motorcycle shop in LA called, CHOKE shot awesomely as usual by Todd Selby.

"It's just that a lot of songs that are popular right now, they don't have any meaning." —Elliott Smith

"I saw Rebel Without A Cause quite by accident when I was about 6. I was entirely enveloped. I did research about him and it was like unearthing Tutankhamun's tomb. His entire life seemed so magnificently perfect.

What he did on film didn't stir me that much but as a person he was immensely valuable. Everything from his birth in a farming town to coming to New York, breaking into film and finding he didn't really want it when he had enormous success.

At school it was an absolute drawback because nobody really cared about him. If they did, it was only in a synthetic rock and roll way. Nobody had a passion for him as I did - for that constant uneasiness with life.

Even though he was making enormous strides with his craft, he was still incredibly miserable and obviously doomed. Which is exactly the quality Oscar Wilde had. That kind of mystical knowledge that there is something incredibly black around the corner. People who feel this are quite special and always end up in quite a mangled mess."
—Morrissey

It's cold, wet and grey outside this morning. Perfect time for a cup of black coffee and Chet Baker on the record player..