Da' Show!

This past weekend marked the opening of Studio 23's Mixtape Art Exhibition, of which T-15 was a humble, yet kick ass contributor.

The location of the exhibit is at in an industrial section adjacent to downtown richmond in an old converted warehouse call plant zero. It's a pretty cool setup as they have parsed the warehouse into a number of 50 or so smaller private studios for local artists. Our stop was at Studio #23 (as if you couldn't have guessed that already).

There were a handful of folks taking in the exhibit which included 34 entries, one of which was an actual mixtape (as opposed to the 33 other mix CDs). I am pretty sure the entry instructions called for a digital format, so I was shocked that an artist failed to conform to the requirements.

Artists!

The entries were as varied as their creators, but mine was clearly the best (not that I am biased or anything). I really wanted to execute against a concept that was more than just a bunch of songs I like and some artwork. That would be too easy and boring. So after kicking some idea's around with trick tickla, the Nobody loves Billie Jean concept came to be.

1 Song done 10 different ways and in a somewhat logical progression (i.e. starting with the original R&B, followed by a New Jack Swing version, followed by a Hip Hop version, followed by a Dance club version, followed by an electronica version, followed by a dub/reggae version, followed by a jazz version, followed by an alternative version, followed by a bluegrass version, followed by folk version).

The artwork mimic the replication/progression theme by tiling the original cover art from the single and progressively applying color filters.

And finally, the basic idea itself, of there being so many different versions of that song is pretty provocative in its own right.

Despite my leanings towards my own work, there were some pretty cool submission not born of t-15's creative loins.

My personal favorite was an album called "Dang! Songs Drunk White People Love." I will list the tracks in another post, but I bet if you are white, you like music, getting drunk and getting drunk & listening to music you could probably guess what all is on that list. The cover art had a bunch of whitey's dancing and was very fitting.

There was also a CD full of songs about pirates, scallywags and seagoing tales. Pirates = automatic win.

Another noteworthy entry featured acoustic versions of a number of songs. Great idea. I would have liked to seen them dig in the crates a bit deeper beyond Foo Fighter's Everlong (acoustic mix) though.

NET net was that it was a good time and I'm looking forward to next year's exhibit already.