The Raveonettes Cover The Stone Roses

Past meets present, they sing a song.

A few months ago, we raved about how Doc Martens chose to celebrate their 50th anniversary — the iconic brand got 10 of today’s hottest indie artists to cover 10 classic tracks that capture the spirit of those who have worn Doc Martens over the decades. From The Noisettes covering Buzzcocks to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club taking The Pogues for a ride, the project is a beautiful homage to the past that inspired and shaped the present, culturally and creatively.

Today, we’re spotlighting the brand new video for one of our favorites from the project: The Raveonettes covering “I Wanna Be Adored,” originally recorded by cult British alt-rock band The Stone Roses in 1990. Directed by Cass Bird and Molly Schiot, the video offers just the kind of quirky yet heartwarming spunk we’ve come to expect from The Raveonettes.

“I Wanna Be Adored” comes as a free download courtesy of Doc Martens, but we also highly recommend In And Out Of Control, The Raveonettes’ absolutely fantastic latest album.

You can catch the remaining 9 videos on the Doc Martens YouTube Channel.

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Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin in the Style of The Beach Boys

An elegant finish on the unfinished, or what the Gatsby era has to do with surfer culture.

In the 1920’s, George Gershwin engendered America’s love affair with popular jazz, composing some of the most prolifically covered and memorable melodies of all time. In the 1960’s, The Beach Boys cemented the nation’s matrimony to rock music, providing a soundtrack for the era and carving their way into popular culture as “America’s band.” Spearheaded by singer-musician-composer Brian Wilson, The Beach Boys suffered a tragic demise as Wilson’s mental illness and drug abuse led him to withdraw from the band, shortly followed by the death of two of the other band members, but their legacy of summertime rock and close vocal harmonies inspired generations of musicians to come. (Wilco, The Flaming Lips and Fleet Foxes, we’re looking at you.)

Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin is both an epic comeback for the iconic Beach Boy and a beautifully executed homage to the legendary jazz composer. The album reinvents twelve of the Gershwin Brothers’ most timeless classics in the signature style of The Beach Boys, a remarkable ripple in the space-time continuum as two music culture titans converge.

The most priceless part of the album are the two rare, unfinished Gershwin pieces, which Wilson crafted into incredible collaborative compositions — The Like in I Love You and Nothing But Love. (On a marginally curmudgeonly aside, why is virtually all music about love? Don’t people have better things to do with their life of the mind? Humph.)

Other highlights include I’ve Got a Crush on You and an absolutely fantastic rendition of Summertime.

Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin is out today and an invaluable chance to own a page of tomorrow’s music history books.

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Versions: The Purpose and Repurposing of Images

Originality, recycling, and why everyone is stealing from Disney.

The evolution of remix culture is something we’re quite fascinated by — from the notion of originality in creation (how similar is too similar?) to the moral tensions of sampling and borrowing. That’s exactly what occupies artist Oliver Laric in Versions, a visual essay about the re-appropriation of images, the borrowing of intellectual property and the manipulation of visual media.

Narrated with a no doubt intentionally robotic voiceover, the essay is as much an eye-opening exposé on the unabashed visual recycling in popular culture as it is a bold defense of the importance of creatively borrowing from greats of yore. From Greco-Roman sculpture to quantum physics, the essay explores the multifaceted dialogue about visual culture and the nature of authorship.

I express unlimited thanks to all the authors that have in the past, by compiling from remarkable instances of skill, provided us with abundant materials of different kinds. Drawing from them as it were water from springs and converting them to our own purposes, we find our own powers of writing rendered more fluent and easy, and relying upon such authorities we venture to release new systems of instruction.” ~ Oliver Laric

As remix culture continues to thrive in the grey areas of art and legislature, it’s fascinating to observe how different creators grapple with its complexities and interpret its blend of opprtunities and challenges.

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Press Pause Play: The Evolving Creative Landscape

From basement art to media glory, or why ones and zeros are the new chalk.

A few months ago, we raved about a new film about the change in production, consumption and distribution of creative works.

Today, we’re taking a closer look at Press Pause Play, the ambitious effort to dissect and document the evolution of today’s creative landscape.

A new generation of global creators and artists is emerging, equipped with other points of reference and other tools. The teachers aren’t certified schools anymore — it’s web sites, discussion forums and a “learn by doing”-mentality. We see the children of a digital age, unspoiled or uneducated depending on who you ask. Collaboration over hierarchy, digital over analog — a change in the way we produce, distribute and consume creative works.

The film comes from the team behind the 2020 Shaping Ideas Project and features interviews with an incredibly wide spectrum of creative visionaries, from the pop stars to the businessmen, the basement filmmakers to the studio heads.

Set to release in ealry 2011, Press Pause Play will embody the very principles it preaches — cross-platform distribution, a high-quality viewing experience both in theaters and on the mobile screen, and an open model that makes the final film free for anyone to watch, broadcast and distribute.

Catch interviews, quotes and behind-the-scenes footage on the PressPausePlay YouTube channel and take a look at some exculive production photos on Flickr.

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