Archive for the ‘Community’ Category

  • Hard Times and Good at the 11th NAMA show.

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    Kings of New England

    Kings of New England playing a show in a local garage

    Twas a big night for BSB clients and friends at last night’s 11th Annual NAMAs (Northwest Arkansas Music Awards). The Kings of New England walked away with a Best Album of the Year and Best “Plugged” Album. Which all goes to show that if you break up, your chances of winning awards increase greatly.

    Wooden Stares also gave a great performance at the show, didn’t win anything, unfortunately. They have not broken up yet and are actually going quite strong.

    Moreover, Kelly Mulhollan was up for Best Male Singer/Songwriter and his amazing Never Ending Conversation was nominated for best “unplugged” album. He was denied both awards, indicating an overall decline in justice in the world.

    Kings of New England coverKelly Mulhollan's Never Ending Conversation

    Block, Street & Building had the extreme pleasure of creating the album art for all three of these great acts. And for that we’d like to thank God for pulling us through the hard times, our parents who never gave up on us and encouraged us to follow our dreams, even during hard times. To our Apple computers for remaining faithful even when we asked more than we should of them during hard times. To our friends who have always been there for us in hard times. Firewire for being so fast in hard times. Our vision for remaining something resembling 20/20 even in the hard times. And lastly rock and roll like Tel Aviv, old-timey music like Violet Hensley and underground hip-hop labels like Bru Records. And our producers. The NAMA limo driver. And fondue.

    Woodenstares.com

    As soon as they become available, I plan on posting some of the photographs that were taken at the show. Twas a great evening.

  • Singing the Praises of Art Amiss

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    Looking at photosI’ve been wanting to rave in detail about Art Amiss here for a while now. And now that Miss Haley Duke (one of the Art Amiss organizers) has graciously posted a boat load of pictures, I can more easily and thoroughly rave on.

    Art Amiss was started a few years ago as a one-night-only event to showcase the scads of little-known Arkansas painters, writers, fashion designers, photographers, and musicians. The event quickly blossomed into an annual gathering and then into a website, which now promulgates 131 artists and 643 pieces of art, then a bi-annual show. Thus far, each event – four shows and two benefits – has been hosted at the Dickson Street Theater in Fayetteville (excluding the benefit shows which have been held at both JR’s Lightbulb Club and Teatro Scarpino,) which seems to be an ideal location for such a space-sensitive event.

    There are many places across Arkansas to get your work in front of people and more than a handful of them are in Fayetteville. The significant bonus of showing your work at Art Amiss is their devotion to betraying those who have not had work shown in those places or have not been published to any significant degree elsewhere. The benefit of this being that one who attends the show is guaranteed fresh, original work, most often for sale. I have picked up on a “first dibs” friendly competition at times when one certain piece is particularly favored.

    Every event so far has also featured several Arkansas bands and performers and each show is genre specific. Art Amiss 4 featured Little Rock’s 607 and Conduit Family and Big Jake with Lucio and Rasmey of Fayetteville. Art Amiss 3 was an all instrumental show. And so on. And then there are the chapbooks and compilation cd’s.

    The next Art Amiss, I believe, is scheduled for sometime this next fall and may or may not be a two night event this time. For more information about Art Amiss check out their website at ArtAmiss.org.

    Or you may email the folks at Art Amiss if you wish to ask a question or talk about all things concerning art in Arkansas.[tag]art, art amiss, arkansas, music, gallery, painting, sculpture, photography, Fayetteville, Little Rock, hip-hop[/tag]