Rubin Recommends

(Part of The Weekly Check In series)

Sophie Curtis is a very talented young photographer based out of England. She has what feels like 100′s of websites that she contributes to, one of my favorites is titled Samesies, and she always continues to inspire me. I hope someday I can take a photos as magical as hers.

Name: Sophie Curtis
Location: South-east England
Age: 20
Occupation: Trying to work out how to accomplish everything I want to and enjoy everything too
Websites: http://flickr.com/sophiecurtis http://pus-eye.com
http://outhereoverthere.blogspot.com http://cashmereclubhouse.com

Rubin: What are you currently working on or just finished that you’re excited about?

Curtis: I was recently asked by a small record label to take a few series’ for them to use as promos and so on, I am really excited about that! The label releases pretty experimental music so I am enjoying the brainstorming part of the project, its made me consider taking photos that would have taken alot longer to come to me otherwise. And I’m trying to move away from what I almost feel like is my “safety zone” and its actually more fun than scary so that’s gooood.

Rubin: Where have you traveled this month or recently?

Curtis: I have spent a fair amount to time on trains and buses since the start of January, because when I’m not working I like to go see friends who are dotted about in England studying at various universities. The nicest trip I’ve taken this month was to the Cotswolds, I was there for a week and we got 10 inches or so of snow and everything looked really lovely. I’ve been trying to see lots of different people recently so I can get used to taking photos of people properly again, I don’t show faces enough in my photos!

Rubin: What’s your favorite music right now?

Curtis: I don’t know if it’s because I have someone back in my life from when I was 13, or because I have felt a bit weird about suddenly no longer being classed as a teenager, but I’ve really reverted to music I loved when I was younger, like 60s rock and roll. I will always always always love is Joanna Newsom, Cat Power and BJM. I like anything really, especially if it makes me feel strange or unreal or lifted (unfortunately this sometimes makes me like really crap music.)

Rubin: Best food you’ve had in your neighborhood lately or while you were traveling?

Curtis: Spiced chai tea milkshake on a train. And the enchiladas my mum made for my birthday.

Rubin: Anything else you want to mention?

Curtis: The person I like to photograph the most is Rianna Cox, she wears lovely sparkly things that I can’t help snapping. She doesn’t post all over the place like I do but I think everyone should know about her because her photos are magical and wonderful! Her Flickr is http://www.flickr.com/effluo and I want to mention another really good friend Dan Price because I always want him to put more photos online and this might get him to do it haha – his Flickr is http://www.flickr.com/annemariefrank. And and and people should look at Alex Howard and Simon Nunn and Hannah Davis and Dave Geeting and Bobby Doherty. There are more but I’m just being ridiculous! Thanks!

I love this camera. I finally broke down and bought the Sony A850 one of their 24.6 megapixel, full frame 35mm DSLRs. For me, this is the first DSLR I’ve used where it just felt amazing to shoot with it and felt like shooting a film camera. From the solid build of the camera itself…  amazing image quality, features like SteadyShot  Inside™ (in-camera image stabilization – works with
every lens) the beautiful huge bright pentaprism viewfinder, the sound of the shutter, 35mm Exmor™ CMOS sensor w/dual BIONZ processors delivers the best color around, a 3″ Xtra Fine LCD, and other components. For the lens, I’m using the Sony 28-75mm (with dreams of the Zeiss lenses they have someday.)

I would recommend this to anyone who wanted a full frame camera but couldn’t spend as much as some of the comparable cameras cost. I’m still learning a lot about Sony cameras but I think you’ll be very impressed. It doesn’t shoot video but that’s something that didn’t bother me for now. Also, there are A LOT of cameras out there. This is the one I decided on, I hope it’ll interest you in Sony’s newer cameras and how much awesome stuff they’re doing.

I’ve taken some photos with it over on my Flickr, they’re tagged with Sony A850.
Read about it at over at Sonystyle.com.
Get it at Amazon.

Here at Rubin Recommends we’re launching a new mixtape feature called “Have You Heard?”. The idea is to have friends and compatriots curate mixes of tunes that might otherwise have gone unnoticed (or are just generally KILLER). Themes will be obvious or obscure, songs will be loud or soft, downloads will be fast or slow.

To start things off we have a mix called “Music That Happens After Something Happens“. It will greatly aid you in partying forever. It’s about, well, music that happens after something happens.

Gang Gang Dance ‘House Jam’
The Yummy Fur ‘Policeman‘
Micachu ‘Golden Phone’
The Bug ‘Poison Dart’
The Knife ‘Pass This On’
Patrick Cleandenim ‘Stage Fright‘
Hercules and Love Affair ‘Hercules Theme’
The Phenomenal Handclap Band ’15 to 20′
Cold Cave ‘Life Magazine’
Fever Ray ‘Triangle Walks’
Giorgio Moroder ‘Underdog‘
Red Dragon Band ‘Let Me Be Your Radio’
The xx ‘Crystalised’
Telepathe ‘So Fine’
Blond Redhead ‘Elephant Woman’

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Download the mix.

(If they have a STAR by them, it means I’ve heard it and I like it. Album title links go to Amazon. If I miss any good releases, please add them in the comments.)

For all your MP3 needs purchase from iTunes or Amazon.

Listen to Beach House: Zebra:

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Animal Collective: Campfire Songs (reissue)
Beach House: Teen Dream (vinyl) *****
Capybara: One Too Many Mornings Soundtrack
Charlotte Gainsbourg: IRM (2-LP vinyl)
Citay: Dream Get Together (vinyl)
Four Tet: There Is Love in You (2-LP vinyl) *
Fucked Up: Couple Tracks: Singles 2002 – 2008 (vinyl)
Harvey Milk: Harvey Milk
The Henry Clay People: For Cheap or for Free
Joan of Arc: Joan of Arc Presents: Don’t Mind Control (vinyl)
Los Campesinos!: Romance is Boring (vinyl)
Magnetic Fields: Realism
Moonface: Dreamland EP: Marimba and Shit-Drums (vinyl)
Oh No Ono: Eggs
Pit Er Pat: The Flexible Entertainer (vinyl)
Scout Niblett: Calcination of Scout Niblett (vinyl)
Tindersticks: Falling Down a Mountain
Volcano, I’m Still Excited: Volcano, I’m Still Excited (vinyl reissue) *

(Part of The Weekly Check In series)

I’ve been trying to watch everything comedian/actor Paul Scheer has done since I saw him on his show Human Giant. He’s been doing so much since then with the most recent thing (which I thought was amazing) being The League (with Nick Kroll and Mark Duplass.) If you haven’t seen it, check it out on Hulu now. You should follow his Twitter and his blog. He posts some amazing stuff.

Rubin: What are you currently working on or just finished that you’re excited about?

Scheer: Just did an episode of PARTY DOWN, where I play Martin Starr’s nemesis. I got to be a huge Hollywood douchebag, dress like a wannabe JT, and do blow in a nightclub bathroom. It’s the role I’ve been preparing for my entire life.

Rubin: Where have you traveled this month or recently?

Scheer: Joshua Tree, CA – which this year has an equal number of Joshua Trees and Meth Heads.

Rubin: What’s your favorite music right now?

Scheer: Cymbals Eat Guitars and Girls.

Rubin: Best food you’ve had in your neighborhood lately or while you were traveling?

Scheer: Jitlada- The Best Thai food outside of Thailand.

Rubin: Anything else you want to mention?

Scheer: Donate to Haiti, even if it’s a little bit and always carries a stake in your car in case you are attacked by Vampires

@paulscheer on Twitter and http://paulscheer.com

One of my favorite photographers Shane Lavalette is releasing the next edition of Lay Flat 02: Meta which is being released in February that you can pre order it now. The last one, also being the first one, was beautiful and I can’t wait to get my copy.

Here’s the meta:

“Edited by Shane Lavalette and Michael Bühler-Rose.

Lay Flat 02: Meta brings together the works of contemporary photographers whose images are conceptually engaged with the history, process and conventions of the medium itself. Photographs by Claudia Angelmaier, Semâ Bekirovic, Charles Benton, Walead Beshty, Lucas Blalock, Talia Chetrit, Anne Collier, Natalie Czech, Jessica Eaton, Roe Ethridge, Stephen Gill, Daniel Gordon, David Haxton, Matt Keegan, Elad Lassry, Katja Mater, Laurel Nakadate, Lisa Oppenheim, Torbjørn Rødland, Noel Rodo-Vankeulen, Joachim Schmid, Penelope Umbrico, Useful Photography, Charlie White, Ann Woo and Mark Wyse are accompanied by the textual contributions of Adam Bell (Co-editor, The Education of a Photographer), Lesley A. Martin (Publisher/Editor, Aperture Foundation), Alex Klein (Editor, Words Without Pictures), artists Noel Rodo-Vankeulen and Arthur Ou, as well as an interview with James Welling by Lyle Rexer (Author, The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Photography).”

http://www.layflat.org

(If they have a STAR by them, it means I’ve heard it and I like it. Album title links go to Amazon. If I miss any good releases, please add them in the comments.)

For all your MP3 needs purchase from iTunes or Amazon.

Music:
Aziz Ansari: Intimate Moments For A Sensual Evening
Bob Log III: School Bus (reissue)
Cold War Kids: Behave Yourself (vinyl)
Dawn Landes: Sweet Heart Rodeo
Editors: In this Light and On This Evening
EELS: End Times (vinyl)
Fela Kuti: Music Is The Weapon (dvd)
Motion City Soundtrack: My Dinosaur Life (vinyl)
Spoon: Transference (vinyl)
Surfer Blood: Astro Coast
Tape Deck Mountain: Ghost
These New Puritans: Hidden

DVDS:
Aziz Ansari: Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening
Boogie Nights [Blu-ray]
Dallas: Seasons 1-12
Fela Kuti: Music Is The Weapon
Weeds: Season Five

The new single off of the forthcoming jj noº 3, “Let Go” was released on to the internet today. I’m very excited about this record since I’m still VERY excited about their most recent record noº 2.

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MP3 >> jj – Let Go

jj nº 3 will be released on March 9th in on Secretly Canadian. Their upcoming tour dates are posted here.

(Part of The Weekly Check In series)

Kevin Morby is a guitar/bass playing extraordinaire from Kansas City who now shreds locally in Brooklyn. In addition, he’s pretty much universally recognized as the “Nicest Person Alive”. He’s full-time bassman with Woods (Family Creeps) (obvious patriarchs of the Woodist family empire) and co-singer/guitar in The Babies. Both bands are great and definitely worth your undivided attention. Did I mention that Kevin is the Nicest Person Alive?

Lane: What are you currently working on or just finished that you’re excited about?

Morby: The Babies are recording next week, Woods (Family Creeps) is teaming up with our buddy Pete Noland from Magik Markers for a two hour set at Monkey Town on January 19th (two days before the venue closes down forever) and I just played some percussion on the new Vivian Girls record. I was in Spain last month and it’s inspired my new kick/twenty-ten resolution of learning some Spanish. Slowly but surely, I’ve got a few phrases up the sleeve at this point.

The Babies just played a FaderBowl Party with Real Estate at Brooklyn Bowl in Williamsburg. It was the most fun I have had in a long time.

Lane: Where have you traveled this month or recently?

Morby: As far as this month goes, only from mom and dad’s in KC to here in Brooklyn – and thank god.

The last 6 months of ’09 I did a life time’s worth of traveling, mainly on tour with Woods. We did 6 weeks in America, 3 weeks in England, Scotland, and Ireland, a week in Spain and even played a show in Moscow. Now I’m back in NY ’til March when we tour down to Austin, so the only traveling I plan on doing is from my bed to the corner store, heh.

Lane: What’s your favorite music right now?

Morby: The Mantles from San Francisco have a new record out on Siltbreeze and that’s gotta be my favorite jam right now.

Also been rockin’ Sonny and the Sunsets (thanks Kelly, thanks Mike), Lee Hazlewood Cowboy in Sweden, Animal Collective Fall Be Kind, Kurt Vile Childish Prodigy and Ducktails Backyard.

On our last tour I got really into Golden Dawn Power Plant and The Witch Lazy Bones. Find and download those! They are such gems!

Lane: Best food you’ve had in your neighborhood lately or while you were traveling?

Morby: I love this question! I recently had the best Pho ever at this new Vietnamese restaurant on Bedford and North 9th in Williamsburg. I am so bad, and don’t remember what the spot was called but it was so good! I had some outstanding mashed potatoes at Diner in Williamsburg, I eat a Chipotle Chicken Torta from Jesse’s Cafe (Bushwick and Montrose) close to 4 times a week, and the Fish Tacos from the Endless Summer truck on Bedford are a pretty safe bet. I also highly recommend the Caracas Arepas Bar.

When I was in Spain I ate the most romantic and exotic food of my short 21 years. I had octopus, fried baby squid, razor clams, mussels, anchovies, whole fish, red pepper stuffed with tuna, chorizo, sausage lentil soup, so many good cheeses, and torrone.

Lane: Anything else you want to mention?

Morby: Absolutely. There is 60-something-year-old woman who lives below me named Evette. She is a grandmother and a cancer survivor, and lives with her husband and grandson. She never minds when Woods plays music or whenever we have parties/BBQs in the yard during the summer. In fact, whenever we throw big parties she comes out and smokes cigarettes and introduces herself to our friends and tells us stories of when she was our age and living in Puerto Rico, going to the beach with some sort of pink alcohol in plastic cups and telling everyone that it was only milkshakes.

Once, sometime ago, on a chilly October night I was sitting in our courtyard eating oatmeal for dinner when she came out, saw what I was eating, waved her finger in my face, said “uh-uh!” and disappeared back into her house with my oatmeal. Moments later she came back out with my bowl overflowing with chicken and rice.

A few weeks after that, when it had gotten real cold, Woods was playing music and being loud way after dark, which we always get nervous about because in a perfect world we would want to respect our neighbors as much as possible, but sometimes once we get rolling we just can’t seem to stop. Anyway, as we were playing there was a small knock at the door and we all knew who it was: Evette. We had finally done it. We had finally broke her and she was coming to yell at us and tell us to cut it out. But of course, when we opened the door, she stood on the other side, holding Tupperware full of that night’s leftovers, probably scared to death that all we could afford was oatmeal.

Every time I return home from tour and run into her in the yard she is standing up, leaning against a wall smoking her Newports, and when she sees me her eyes light up and she says: “I been asking everyone, where’s my guys?!”

God bless you Evette!

I shot this film (that was then edited by Chris Sollars) of artist Brion Nuda Rosch that was shown at his latest gallery opening at Baer Ridgway Gallery in San Francisco. Little Paper Planes is publishing his book in the upcoming months (that I was lucky enough to shoot photos for) that turned out beautiful, so be on the lookout for that. You can see a video from his show here.