DJs I Know: TRAV at MaxBar

On Thursday, August 28, 2008, my friend TRAV played a DJ set at MaxBar, 2247 North Lincoln Avenue in Chicago.  The place looks like a futuristic ski chalet, and TRAV's selection was perfectly in tune with the ski trip vibe of the crowd--it was like the last night to party before the last night to party on earth.

Click here to download a live recording of TRAV in the mix.

TRAV's set list, MaxBar, Thursday, August 28, 2008:

One More Time To Pretend (Immuzikation Remix)- MGMT vs. Daft Punk
Pro Nails/ Cool Feeling (Them Jeans Blend)- Kid Sister vs. The Outrunners
Dangerous (Night Facilities Remix)- Busta Rhymes
Drop The Pressure- Mylo
Street Justice- MSTRKRFT
Paris Is Burning (Cut Copy Mix)- Ladyhawke
Put Your Hands Up For Detroit- Fedde Le Grant
2 Hearts (The Twelves Mix)- Kylie Minogue
Day And Night (Crookers Mix)- Kid Cudi
Bossy ft. Too Short (Alan Braxe & Fred Falke Remix)- Kelis
Bossy (Alan Braxe &Fred Falke Erth Out Remix)- Kelis
As Above, So Below (Justice Remix)- The Klaxons
Holiday (The Lazers 2008 Remix)- Madonna
P.Y.T. (Marquis Remix)- Michael Jackson
Flash Gordon (JamieFanatic Bootleg)- Queen
Beeper (A-Trak Fixed)- Count & Sinden
Baile On Me- Flosstradamus
Blond Skinny Robot (Shokkaboy Remix)- Turntablehoshies
American Boy (LAZRtag Remix)- Estelle ft. Kanye West
Lights And Music (Boys Noize Mix)- Cut Copy
Paramount (Rogerseventytwo Remix)- DJ DLG
Shadows- Midnight Juggernauts
Poison (Million $ Mano Remix)- Bell Biv Devoe
Your Bmore (DJ Rocktakon)- Outfield
Mr. Postman- DJ Techniques
Hold On (DJ Nature Remix)- Sam & Dave

Five days later, me and TRAV and TGIK of Best Day Ever!!! were chilling on Washington Island, at the very tip of Wisconsin's Door County, on a real ski trip of sorts.  That's me on the ferryboat up there, with a bitchin' picture of TRAV to follow as soon as I get in touch with Teej.

Artists I Know: Theodore Boggs and Garrett Munski

Theodore Boggs with An Ode To Don Cornelius, Summer 2008

Last Saturday night, August 9, 2008, I attended the second of two interesting art openings that weekend. It was Open Studio at 212 N Sangamon, 2 blocks west of the intersection of Lake and Halsted in Chicago. Garrett Munski and Theodore Boggs--I call him Teddy Ballgame--have had this regal loft space for their studio this summer, so they set aside eight hours that night to show first the patrons and then the party people what they are working on.

Teddy is sitting in front of the piece with my favorite detail of the night, An Ode To Don Cornelius. Those trucks are Mexican Junk Trucks, as I call them, the pickups with built-up sides that are used by independent men and women who zoom up and down the alleys of Chicago as far north as Evanston, picking up any valuable trash that doesn't belong in the garbage.

Garrett Munski made this framed photograph, which I would call a collage for greater specificity. If I were a collector, I would be very excited to plan and paint a room in my house around it. My walls are Sweden Grey, and even as I type this I can see how great it would look above my flat TV and Robert The Rubber Tree in his silver reliquary. I see the cornrows playing off the stripes and the joinery and I think about everything African American culture has to teach the American aesthete about decoration, embellishment, general graphical neatening of one's person and surroundings.

Casta Indomitable by Theodore Boggs, Summer 2008

Undoubtedly from later in the night, this is a picture of another cartoon by Theodore Boggs, Casta Indomitable. Ted, I'm calling it a cartoon because that's where I think it fits in the tradition of drawing, painting, printing and collage. It is a cartoon in the sense of Michaelangelo's cartoons--a rather large-scale work on paper that uses drawing and coloring techniques in various media to rehearse ideas for even larger works.

Casta Indomitable is the second of Ted's recent works to picture the entire globe. I just paid a visit to Ted's amazing blog, SYNTHESIZER, to look for a photograph of the other one to show you, but I think I will wait and use it lead off my upcoming in-depth interview with the man called Theodore Boggs. On second thought, here it is; I can't deprive you of at least a taste of my favorite memory of Summer 2008, which was seeing Okonkwo Poiccard by Theodore Boggs at Art Partly 3 in July:

Okonkwo Poiccard by Theodore Boggs, Summer 2008

P.S. Big up Panthrow Nobody, pictured at the lower left of Casta Indomitable, one half of the talented production duo Best Day Ever!, www.myspace.com/yourbestdayever.