The 50th Grammy Run Down. Complete with pics.

If you didn't watch last night's GRAMMY awards, you missed an amazing production, rare performances and moving tributes. Basically, you screwed up.



A lot of people probably tuned in to see Amy Winehouse and Kanye (given their being nominated in several categories as well as the recent press surrounding her 'problems' and his 'loss') and stayed to see what was an incredible evening of music, legends, and basically, history in the making.

With more greats from various music genres (from Motown to the Beatles to opera) than have ever before sung under one roof ..... coupled with impressive set designs, special pyrotechnics, choreography and material, it was a night to feel the hair stand up on the back of your neck and send chills down your spine more than once. More than twice, even.

It wasn't all perfection of course...
there were some bad outfits, some mumbling lyrics, some bizarre duos, and some repetitive rap, but overall, a three and a half hour music extravaganza.

To see a Beatles Tribute accompanied by an aerialist with the trippy artistry of Cirque du Soliel, Kanye's personal and moving performance to his "mama", powerhouses like Tina Turner, Aretha, Alicia Keys, Beyoncé, being matched by skinny white women who can belt it out like Winehouse, Fergie, and Underwood, AND a tear-jerking tribute to Luciano Pavarotti in one show is pretty unusual. Not to mention the trio of Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and John Fogarty sharing the stage.

Amy Winehouse won five awards, including Record Of The Year and Song Of The Year for her now-prophetic "Rehab," while Kanye West took home four, including the Best Rap Album award for Graduation, though Album Of The Year eluded him for the third time.

I've compiled a bit of a rundown for you, complete with pics from the AP.


Above: Herbie Hancock, longtime jazz great, takes home the Album of the Year award for his tribute to Joni Mitchell, River: The Joni Letters.


Above: Amy Winehouse didn't get her Visa in time to be in the states for the GRAMMY AWARDS so she performed live from London in all her fabulous white trash glory. She performed "You Know I'm No Good," and followed it up with the megahit "Rehab" in her inimitable style. It was not a disappointment.


Above: Ex American Idol Carrie Underwood sluttin' it up with her GRAMMY-winning hit, "Before He Cheats," with the balls-out delivery for which she has become known.


Above: A blast from the 1980's past, Morris Day and The Time (a Prince protégé from long ago) joined with hip-hop diva Rihanna, who sang her smash hit "Umbrella". The Time brought up the rear, reprising "Jungle Love" as energetically as they had decades ago.


Above and below: Surreal, trippy and frankly, verging on scary, Cirque du Soleil's performance to the Beatles' classic "A Day In The Life" was a very different type of show for the GRAMMY awards, but was captivating. Where else does one see an aerialist interpreting a song by the Fab Four?


Above: The freaky deaky dance troupe performed over the Liverpudlian's original track, followed by an equally stunning version of "Let It Be," by Timothy T. Mitchum and Carol Woods.


Above: Kanye West and German techno twins Daft Punk delivered with a techno-hop rendition of "Stronger." As flames blasted behind him, West donned some high tech glowing glasses and clothes.

And how cool was that DJ scratching? (I couldn't find a pic!)
Daft Punk scratched video screens (worthy of an entire post on the technology) while Kanyé changed his outfit for a 'toned down' tribute to his 'Mama.'



Above: West sang "Hey Mama," accompanied by a huge string section. Singing with obvious emotion, his performance left most viewers and audience members welling up.


Above: John Legend, together with the Black Eyed Peas' Fergie, performed her ballad, "Finally" in a very likable chanteuse, torchy singer sort of way. Some critics were disappointed she didn't sing one of her five hit solos or that Legend didn't sing with her.

Cher was there, surgically taut as ever, and she introduced none other than the fabulous Miss Tina Turner.


Above: Looking friggen amazing, Turner belted out "What's Love Got To Do With It." Beyoncé then paired up with Tina for the Creedence Clearwater Revival classic, "Proud Mary."Beyoncé and Turner kept the audience rockingwith their tight bodies, voices and moves.


Above: the Foo Fighters, backed by the GRAMMY Philharmonic Orchestra (led by Led Zeppelin's bassist John Paul Jones) performed "The Pretender" on an outdoor stage. Dave Grohl was in fine form- even if he does desperately need a haircut.


Above: Country singer Brad Paisley gave us "Ticks". A bizarre but catchy song about checking your woman for lyme disease. The blinking neon ticks that bounced around behind him on the set had to be an industry first.

Moving into the spiritual, Ludacris introduced Aretha and BeBe Winans as a "holy rolling [and] soul sanctifying" special gospel performance.


Above: Aretha Franklin and BeBe Winans sang "Never Gonna Break My Faith," accompanied by a light beaming from a glowing cross overhead. The million trombone band Madison Bumble Bees joined on "You Brought The Sunshine," followed by the Clark Sisters and Trin-I-Tee 5:7. Then, Israel & New Breed summoned the spiritual forces with the soaring "With Long Life." To wind it up, Franklin and the whole gospel cast united to sing "Old Landmark."


Above: Big-band singer Keely Smith joined with Kid Rock and GRAMMY-nominated Dave Koz to perform "That Old Black Magic."

Stevie Wonder introduced the President's Merit Award to Motown founder Berry Gordy, and then sang his own little accoustic intro from Alicia Keys "No One" prior to introducing her own performance of the song.


Above: Playing a second keyboard near the stage's edge, Keys continued to raise the temperature before giving way to John Mayer and his frenetic, melodic guitar solo.

Lang Lang and Herbie Hancock joined forces for George Gershwin's masterpiece "Rhapsody In Blue." Accompanied by a full orchestra, the pianists took turns stating the song's melodic themes. The song's majestic middle section included brief solos from various orchestra members before the focus returned to Lang Lang and Hancock.


Above: After an In Memoriam segment that paid honor to musicians we lost in 2007, Andrea Bocelli and Josh Groban (remember him from Ally Mc Beal??) appeared on stage to honor the memory of Luciano Pavarotti with Bocelli's signature "The Prayer". Outstanding.


Above: John Fogerty, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard shared the stage as the evening was winding down. Beginning with a new Fogerty composition, "Comin' Down The Road," these three Rock Legends performed with the spotlight on Lewis, singing his classic boogie-woogie blowout, "Great Balls Of Fire." (I did worry for a second that he might forget the lyrics). Not to be outdone, Little Richard, launched into the instantly recognizable falsetto vocals of "Good Golly Miss Molly." The audience clearly loved it.


Above: Ringo Starr, the only one of the two living fab four members, was there looking every bit his groovy self and got giggles from the audience when he introduced himself (as if we don't know who he is).


Above: Feist, the singer that Mac built, performed an accoustic version of "1234" the song made famous by an ipod commercial. It was a refreshing indie peformance, lacking all the crazy LED lighting and sensory overload that accompanied much of the rock performances.

See an entire list of the nominees and winners in each of the 101 categories here.


Buy the 2008 Grammy Nominees album here.

ODA & Argington Give Birth To New Children's Furniture

ODA (the Office of Design and Architecture) and Argington (a modern children's furniture manufacturer) have collaborated on some new children’s furniture- an easel and bassinet- which debuted at the New York Gift Fair earlier this month.

The collection utilizes natural earth friendly building materials in a simple clean and elegant form. Solid wood veneer in maple or walnut and stainless steel, these pieces are so pretty and clean and functional, I wish they made them in adult sizes!

Hagia Bassinet:



Dimensions: 33”L x 25”W x 55”H

Albert Art Easel

Dimensions: 30”L x 26”W x 45”H

Rocker:

I don't know the name or the dimensions of the above 'rocker'. Sorry.

Manufacturer:
Argington Furniture:
Email: info@argington.com
Phone: 800-482-0522
Designers:
Eran Chen
Christian Bailey
Charles Brill
Learn more about ODA here
See Argington's other beautiful furniture here

Jun Aoki's Eternity Wedding Chapel

I recently featured a small, modern and unusual chapel in Mexico and here's yet another lovely example of minimalist architecture for a holy house. Slightly larger than the Chapel of La Estancia (this one has seating), but is almost as minimalist and modern. This one is actually a part of the Hyatt Regency Inn Wedding Collection in Osaka. It is named the Eternity Chapel.



Michael Webb writes about it in this excerpt from The Architectural Review:
From the hotel lobby it resembles a gleaming, sharp-prowed yacht, moored in the water garden and about to sail away. Delicate steel columns support an angled canopy high above the entrance, and a bridge plays the role of gangplank. Screen walls of 1500 interlocking steel rings diffuse light (much like the mesh facades of Aoki's stores), and shut out the intimidating mass of the high-rise hotel. Low-set expanses of clear glass frame greenery. The architect calls his creation the White Chapel, but Hyatt have christened the hexagonal space Eternity--an optimistic prediction for the unions it consummates--and the gauzy white interior with its floor of marble tesserae does suggest a movie set for the after-life. The cross is an optional prop, along with a heavenly choir, but Aoki has achieved an ideal balance of Zen purity and Western spirituality. Dramatic by day, it appears even more ethereal by night, its shimmering image mirrored in the dark water.

In the existing site of Hyatt Regency Osaka, the new wedding chapel was completed in April of 2006. As described by the architect, Jun Aoki, "A truncated regular tetrahedron is unique geometrical feature. It can fill up space without interspaces. 4 circles inscribed in regular octagonal planes become a unit of rings connected at points. The units of rings load the chapel as a part of main structure. This is the initial work using this system after we created."


Above: Architect Jun Aoki, who also designed the Louis Vuitton store in Tokyo

Sounds awfully mathematical, no?
Who cares, just look at it:






Just may be worth a trip to japan to get married.

How Many Candy Hearts Does It Take To Fill The Love Tub?

Guess correctly and you could win this $20,000.00 spa from Dimension One.
(I just had to follow up a post about a wedding chapel with one about a cheesy romantic hot tub)



Feeling Lucky Lover?
Win yourself a Luv Tub by guessing how many candy hearts it takes to fill it.

The Love Tub is a limited-edition, candy apple-red, $20,000, state-of-the-art Amoré Bay hot tub from Dimension One Spas.

The Southern California-based hot tub company is manufacturing only 100 of these "Walker Signature Series" Amoré Bay spas, created by the company's award-winning designer, Vic Walker.

Contestants can enter online between now and February 29, 2008, at www.d1spas.com to try and win the sexy, candy apple-red backyard retreat.

The Los Angeles Times Ought To Have Called Me.

After reading the Los Angeles Times article "Rug art turns floor into canvas"; in the home section on feb. 7th by Janet Eastman, I simply had to show but a few of the truly amazing carpets and rugs that really are 'art for your floor'.

While the article was correct in calling this a 'trend', they certainly did not do it justice. Although Janet Eastman pointed out the fabulous Ekvoll rugs and singled out one of my favorites, Dan Golden, as well as a few fabulous others...the article left out so very many worth mentioning.

The amount of artful designer hand-tufted, carved, shaped, signed and pricey wool rugs out there have been growing exponentially over the past few years.

Below are only 18 of the over 80 rugs I have pointed out on thisnext.com. They include fabulous carpets by the likes of Roy Lichtenstein, Ronen and Erwan Bouroullec, Karim Rashid, Kiki Smith, Adrien Rovero, Kyle Hunting, Reuber Henning, nani marquina, Artware Editions, Amazed carpets, J. Milo and more.

Click on each picture above to see more images and links to purchase.

See my over 80 picks (and links to purchase) Fancy Friggen Flooring & Radical Rugs here.

Gucci Loves NY: Show Them How You Do Too & Enter To Win a Purse

Gucci NY opened a new flagship store at 9 am this morning. In conjunction with the opening, they are having a Gucci Loves NY photo sweepstakes where the winner receives a limited edition Gucci (hearts) NY purse!

Submit a photo of you, with a Gucci accessory, at your favorite NY location and tell them why it's special. You'll be entered to win this limited edition Gucci bag - and to have your spot featured on www.guccilovesny.com.


The new flagship store is at 5th avenue and 56th.

To salute the city it loves, 100% of the proceeds from the limited edition Gucci Loves NY bag will benefit the Playground Partners of the Central Park Conservancy. This donation will go towards the maintenance and operation of the 21 children's playgrounds in Central Park. For more information on the Conservancy, visit www.centralparknyc.org. To purchase the bag, please visit our new Flagship store at 725 Fifth Avenue.

Go here to enter.

PS. Madonna's I Love New York, accompanies the site and she was at the Gucci opening last night, of course.

Outside Art is More 'In' Than Ever. Banksy & Bonhams.

Below is an article I found about graffiti art from the UK Sunday Times by Lindsay Baker. I've followed it with an update on the results from auction house Bonham's first ever auction devoted to Street Art, as well as with images and captions.

How Banksy made graffiti popular with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt

Banksy's works now fetch six-figure sums - how did graffiti art get so mainstream?



It has that elusive cred factor, is endorsed by the likes of Brangelina, and fetches dizzying prices – there’s no mistaking the frenzy surrounding graffiti art. Still, a few eyebrows were no doubt raised at Bonhams auctioneers when it decided to host a sale of the phenomenon known as urban art. After all, this kind of work in its purest form (on the street rather than on canvas) is illegal.

Some examples of Banky's Street Art:

However, Gareth Williams, a senior specialist in urban art at Bonhams, says its outsider status – with many of its practitioners, such as Banksy, anonymous – only adds kudos, and value. “Everyone loves a rebel, and their mystique only adds to the attraction.”

Above: Angelina Jolie purchased Banksy's white bust with a bleeding bullet hole in the forehead, at a cost of £40,000 last September.

The sale includes work by the graffiti-art pioneer Keith Haring, as well as recent artists such as Paul Insect and Faile. “Their work is more accessible than some conceptual art,” says Williams. “And these artists share a political edge and a wry sense of humour, which appeals to a new generation of collectors.”

Above: a painting by Keith Haring

Darius Grant, the collector and Wall Street hedge-funder who owns work by the 1980s New York legend Jean-Michel Basquiat, has noticed a growing interest in urban art among his peers. “If you work in this world, you probably like taking risks, but you’re still part of the Establishment – it’s quite conservative. You can’t rebel at work, but you can buy rebellious art that’s shocking or subversive.”



Above: Two examples of Banksy's "Indoor Art"

This is good news for the artists – and not just in terms of sales. Those with suitable street cred are increasingly in demand in commercial spheres. Take Inkie, who made his name on the innovative Bristol scene, along with Banksy, 3D and Nick Walker.

Above: Moona Lisa by Nick Walker

Besides his private commissions, Inkie is now head of graphics at the computer-games company Sega. He also has his own T-shirt label, Flying Eyeball. At 37, Inkie, like many on the scene, has had run-ins with the law over the years, but these days, he is based in London and no longer does anything “naughty”, as he puts it: “I’m too old, and I’ve got a job and a kid now.”

Is there a danger that commercial interest will force compromises? “It’s become a lot bigger than I imagined it would,” Inkie admits. “It does make me laugh when design agencies say they want ‘Banksy-style’ graphics.”

The urban-art ethos has always been about “reclaiming” public space, or “taking what’s ours”, as Inkie puts it – and you could argue that that’s exactly what these artists are doing now.

The Urban Art sale at Bonhams is on Tuesday; www.bonhams.co.uk

and now, some links to some cool graffitti artists:

BANKSY The king of the urban art scene and master of the guerrilla stunt. Find his work on the streets of London, Bristol and other cities around the world, most recently, Bethlehem. A Banksy-daubed wall has sold for £208,000 on eBay, with the proviso that the purchaser remove it.

PAUL INSECT A recent solo show had to be cancelled after Damien Hirst bought the lot.

FAILE New York collective – highly collectible.

ADAM NEATE Subverted the genre by painting on cardboard and canvas and hanging these in public spaces.

TAKASHI MURAKAMI Japanese artist who fuses pop and manga imagery.

3D Aka Robert del Naja of Massive Attack, represented by the same management as Banksy (www.lazinc.com).

NICK WALKER Spray painting and stencils. His Moona Lisa is in the Bonhams sale.

INKIE Early innovator and creator of wild style art nouveau, much in demand
( www.flying-eyeball.com).

BLEK LE RAT The veteran French artist has inspired Banksy, among others. His works are in the Bonhams sale.

DAN BALDWIN Prints, paintings and ceramics

And How Did The Auction Go?

Above: One of Banksy's many versions of "Laugh Now", a 20 foot one of which sold for $410, 000.00 USD at tuesday's auction.

Here's the latest news from the auction:
First auction of 'street art' kicks off in London Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2pm

LONDON (AFP) — Auction house Bonhams on Tuesday organised the first sale dedicated solely to "street art", with works by American artist Keith Haring, and Banksy, who anonymously paints on London's walls, on sale. "Laugh Now", a 2002 painting by Banksy that stretches about six metres (19.7 feet) in length featuring monkeys wearing sandwich boards which read "Laugh now, but one day we'll be in charge", sold for 228,000 pounds (280,000 euros, 410,000 dollars), above its pre-sale estimate of up to 200,000 pounds. Another highlight of the auction was "Kate Moss", a portrait by Banksy of the British supermodel in the style of Andy Warhol's famous Marilyn Monroe paintings, which sold on Tuesday for 96,000 pounds, more than three times expectations.


Above: A series of Kate Moss paintings in the style of Andy Warhol were sold at a Sotheby's art auction for a record £50,400 in October of 2006

"Banksy has arrived in Bond Street," a spokesman for Bonhams told AFP, referring to the posh road where London's auction houses are based, adding that the artist's work had gone into the mainstream. "The result is very satisfying," he said. Bonhams is planning more auctions of urban art in the future, he added. Last month, a wall painted on by Banksy, depicting a classical-looking artist in mostly-grey garb, sold on Internet auction website eBay for 208,100 pounds. Banksy, originally from Bristol, western England, has attracted a global following with his graffiti paintings on the walls of London buildings, and his work has been bought by actress Angelina Jolie and singer Christina Aguilera, among others.

Banksy's work is really fabulous, especially his street art. Check out his site here.