Rapper Aesop Rock and illustrator Jeremy Fish have collaborated on a new limited-edition book aimed at adults but crafted as an old-school children's book, complete with a seven-inch record that tells the reader when to turn the page with the beat. Entitled The Next Best Thing, the Upper Playground release deals with the "creative block" that all artists go through. Fish's artwork is amazing - check out (http://www.sillypinkbunnies.com) - and catch his work on tour this summer and fall in art galleries in Los Angeles, Dallas, and Philadelphia.
A new benefit CD is worth putting your money where your heart is, created when the Wavelab recording studio in Tucson, Arizona, wanted to reach out across the desert and aid Habitat For Humanity's Musician's Village project in New Orleans. Graciously: A Gulf Relief Compilation features a dozen exclusive new tracks from artists who've recorded albums at the studio, including Robyn Hitchcock, Devotchka, John Doe, Howie Gleb, Friends of Dean Martinez, and Calexico. Look for it next week on store shelves from the Funzalo Records label.
Two terrific new "rockumentary" DVDs were released earlier this week, aimed at the heart of Baby Boomer punks who formed their political ideology under the passion of The Clash and mixed it up to the hyper, free-thinking, free-jazz scramble of punk's 90-second jam band, The Minutemen. Image Entertainment offers up Let's Rock Again!, a loving portrait of Clash frontman Joe Strummer in his final year and a half, touring with his band The Mescaleros before his death in 2002. Far too mentally spry and sly to be called grandfatherly, Strummer was newly humble and motivated, stepping out from a self-described "11-year layoff" and climbing up again from the bottom, even cheerfully resorting to handing out advertisements on Atlantic City's boardwalk. Filmed on stage and off by personal friend Dick Rude, Strummer muses on how going from "a hero to zero is good for your soul," and shares an earnest goal of breaking even on his new record.
Following up on a collection of kids' music that won't drive adults bonkers, the manufacturer of exceptional children's bedroom furniture, The Land of Nod, has released a second CD to entertain the little one in all of us. For the XTC fan, the 14-track disc features two lost songs by Andy Partridge, "Don't Let Us Bug Ya" and "Everything'll Be Alright," originally written in 1996 when he thought he had sealed the gig to score the film adaptation of James & the Giant Peach. Other tickles for your ears come from Cake, which turns in a zippy take on the classic ditty "Mahna Mahna" (sound it out; you'll recognize it!) and the Mr. T Experience, getting its learn on with "Unpack Your Adjectives."
