Salutations Readers!

Hello everyone, I am truly sorry for my long absence, I've been really busy lately on some art projects for two lovely African American ladies. One is about health in the colon and what not, it haven't been fully discussed but she have connections and will have more details on that soon and also will do art for her book and my name might get to be published and if God willing, to have some more jobs in the works! With that being said, I also am currently back in college. Yay! I've been on a good vacation learning more about myself and my elements and also hanging out with friends and chilling on the internet and actually seeking jobs. Well I am currently working on art pieces for one of my older teacher's novel called The Tower's Alchemist (The Gray Tower Trilogy) and it is really really good! It's so amazing it feels like God does have a sense of humor because last year and a bit of the year before, I was working on art pieces for some peoples' story turned "novel" about vampires we had our fall out; I guess it was somewhat my fault but the way they are is just too creepy and wasn't for me. Plus it's not all that creative, not saying it's not creative because it is a good read but compare to my teacher's novel, her's is fantastic and remarkable! It's really well thought out and well put! It's a clash between wizards and Vampire Nazi warlocks set back into the 1940s. I have been doing research and art pieces which will be posted soon both on my blogs and if I'm not mistaken on her website but I'm not too sure. I didn't want to leave my viewers and possible readers wondering where I have been! This will also assist on the projects I want to do on my own, and on top of it, I'm getting paid to do it. If I was rich (which I'm not) I would have said I can do it for free but when you're at college, when opportunity knocks, I go for it. And furthermore, I will be updating more on my collections since some items came in actually few weeks ago but I gotten lazy and didn't post them. But I will be more active as soon as I almost finish with these projects. I seriously love being an artist, it's fun to use the skills needed to make another person happy and I'm truly content because I thought the horror would never end but things are looking up and I couldn't be more happier! Oh and one more thing, I also believe I convinced my mother to go with me to a PSB concert, I got a shirt for myself and since she does like a lot of the songs I play by them, I think she wants to go, just hope they release the dates soon so I can tell her. Other than that, life is seriously grand! Thank you God!!!
If you want to check out my teacher's book, you can! :D
CLICK HERE!

and also thank you for reading my blogs, I never thought my numbers would increase! Love you guys! if you want requests for an art piece, let me know! my email is jaleen81@gmail.com
my deviantart is www.jaleen81.deviantart.com

Love, peace and hair grease,
Jaleen81

Happy 66th Birthday to Mr. David Bowie!!!

I’ve listened to David Bowie’s “Where Are We

Now?” from his new album The Next Day on the computer today, what a way begin after ten years! A friend of mine on twitter told me something quite interesting how this song and another song from the movie The Ice Storm called “I Can’t Read” have a similar if not the same mellow tone as “Where Are We Now?”  There are some intriguing references and similarities that I also noticed. One being that the cover art of The Next Day was a subvert of Heroes which was back in 1977, not only that it looks similar to Pet Shop Boys Elysium cover art, the square in the middle of the portrait.  “I Can’t Read” the video was directed by Tim Pope and Soft Cell was one of the bands he directed and if I’m not mistaken Marc Almond liked the new single as well, but was sad he didn’t see it sooner or something.  Two is that “I Can’t Read” and “Where Are We Now?”, have Bowie’s face in an oval shaped facial expression like a mask. Another thing is that both videos have to do with surrealism and expressionism art and a vintage or desolate and abandon them. Which will bring to my next similarity I’ve noticed Bowie mentioned about “walking the dead” and how Pet Shop Boys “Leaving” is a theme about a subject about being “dead and fading away” and I’ve read Clare McCreesh’s blog about the similarities between Bowie’s new single and Pet Shop Boys’ Elysium about how the two videos had a black and white footage of Berlin. And it could be a high possibility that Bowie referenced The Pet Shop Boys, in fact if that’s the case, that would be really cool and astounding because they did collaborated with them for “Hallo Spaceboy” and he is one of their inspirations. Not only that but if it was like "Leaving" and the "Where Are We Now?" on the same album, then it would be like a continuation on a journey of some sort. There’s also a photo of David Bowie on the official Pet Shop Boys site, it reminded me of the Pandemonium where Neil and Chris with the cubes for heads. I find this quite amazing!  I’m glad David Bowie is back with music, also really cool to start the New Year and his birthday! I think there's a tiny reference of "I'm With Stupid" on "Where Are We Now?" because of the heads being on some dummies body. 

SMASH HITS 1982 XMAS PARTY - Part One

One of the Pet Shop Boys fan pages had this on here. It's basically a Christmas Party with a lot of the well known musicians that are popular with the magazines. It's been said on the description that the idea  came from Neil Tennant himself, I thought that was a remarkable move on getting musicians do something briefly but hilarious and a fun-tastic piece compiled within twelve minutes. My goodness if it was an actual footage, I would have possibly died of laughter! It's just that funny. Since Christmas is rapidly approaching, I thought I shared this on here, I don't remember if they mentioned on the Smash Hits Christmas audio but it's good nonetheless. Mark Edith did the recording and producer was Taylor Dann. The following musician and bands are featured are: ABBA, ABC, Adam, Bananarama, Bucks Fizz, Captain Sensible, Culture Club, Duran Duran,  Fun Boy Three, Haircut One Hundred, Imagination, The Jam, Madness, Mari Wilson, Musical Youth, Piranhas, Police, Steve Strange, Toyah and Ultravox. Some you heard of and some you might haven't but it's still a cute little audio and it was very well thought out. I'm not sure if they do these type of things anymore, I do know about free CDs and stuff with magazines but something like a Christmas special. But anyway, it's a part 2 to this and I will link you on the bottom of this.

Oh and If you don't here from me in a few days, I will everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Smash Hits 1982 Christmas Party Part 2

My thoughts on Neil Tennant's Smash Hits Christmas on Radio 4

Couple days ago, a fan friend and I was listening to the Smash Hits radio, thankfully my internet didn't have a hiccup where it buffered or anything. I was truly shocked and impressed there was another Smash Hits audio, because the magazine itself is a fascination and fun filled. But this one was similar to the podcast last year but this time more of the staff members actually spoke in this one as well as Neil did. It was very informative and you can really tell how much they missed the atmosphere of the magazine and being part of it. Even the emotions on the voices about how music nowadays isn't all that cracked up to be, because it's really not about ideas anymore and they are right and with a magazine like Smash Hits, it was hard enough as it was to cope with the changing decade. I honestly wished this was on a podcast. I really like this one as well as the one about Neil Tennant wanting his job back. I think the link is still available to have a listen, it's only about 30 minutes in length but it's worth to have a listen! I haven't listen to the one where Neil reads a chapter of Moby Dick but I've manage to listen to other audios. The link for the Smash Hits radio is below this paragraph. Again it's really short but it's good. Really discussing like the best times and intriguing facts. The Smash Hits story is also on YouTube as well, that's another documentary that's good to understand about the magazine.

Smash Hits Radio

Update and minimal review post

Hello dear readers,

I haven't abandon my blogs, I've just been busy and having a writer's block. In spite of that, I have been reading with one Pet Shop Boys book and almost done with that, looking at videos and working on a few posts but would go through them here and there. I will; however, continue on where I left off even with the Soft Cell/ Marc Almond posts as well. And may I just say that the Philharmonic BBC Concert that the Boys, Johnny Marr, orchestra and choir did an outstanding job, I was really impressed by the song choices and everything, there were some songs I wish it wasn't on there but still it was really excellent. Who ever seen it live, was truly lucky to see all that art. Even though, Neil's voice was trembling a bit, sounds like he was nervous, but he still sounded good! I will possibly have a better review on it later on. All I can is that I truly hope they will release it like they did with Concrete. If you have not listened to it yet(which I'm sure you have), I would recommend it. As fas as the single choices, I'm not really too impressed by that but that's the choice. Out of the video, "Leaving" and "Invisible" are probably the best videos I've seen. "Winner", for me unfortunately, wasn't their best video, in fact, I would consider it to be one of their worst videos. Only because I've seen what they are capable of doing and seeing something like that, wouldn't impress a young artist like myself. The idea was good, but they needed more than what they had on there and they weren't even on the video. Even though, I'm not too fond of the art cover of "Memory of the Future", I do have hope that the music video would be better than I would think it would be. I do like the "Leaving" art covers, but I think this time, I will just get the CDs for "Memory of the Future" and not the vinyls. It's like a weird clash between David Bowie and Andy Warhol on a bad day. The B-sides so far sound very good, and I am enthuse by that which hopefully, the new B-sides will prove remarkable. I am excited about the new pet text with Neil Tennant discussing about Smash Hits again, it's like the other one he did last year, and if possible, it would also be neat if they release a demo compilation, I've heard a good amount of demos of theirs and wonder why they haven't released on yet! Anyway, expect more blog posts heading your way! 

Pet Shop Boys - Paninaro (original video)

Yes, I’m back gotten busier with the new small jobs at college I have and my art projects I’m doing. I got back into doing the video critiques. I will discuss the newer videos later on in the blog.

“Paninaro” is a video that the Pet Shop Boys themselves created while they were in Milan. It is the derivative of the word “Paninari” which means sandwich. There were some Italian youth culture that was described or depict from this segment but really were teens wearing random clothes like rolled up jeans, white trousers, Timberland shoes, etc. Almost how Chris was dressed in the video. Chris wore the same iconic Issey Miyake “Suburbia” sunglasses. I like how it was symbolic within itself because it was a like a follow up from the “Suburbia” video and Neil with the cowboy hat and shades. I think that the Boys used Super 8 films only because of the style and how it looked. Soft Cell used something quite similar for the “Memorabilia” video.  I actually really liked how they did their own video; it shows their creative side other than getting another artist’s interpretation, which isn’t bad either. Some photo shots of Chris and Neil from the video later because the cover of the Disco which oddly enough, was inspired by Soft Cell’s Non Stop Ecstatic Dancing because of a remix album. They also used two of the photos for their VHS and LaserDisc of Television .They elements of using other people in their videos, Chris dancing, stop motion with the Miyake shades and a lot of editing, and having some symbolism with the words like “Passion”, “Love” and “Art”. The 80’s were very opened for new style and trends and the Boys were taking one step at a time. There’s another key part in the song while the song plays, you hear Chris’ voice from an interview where he talks about what he didn’t like and what he like. Which is cool and rare that he does more talking than Neil, since he doesn’t like the do a lot of chit chat. If I had to choose between Pop or Art, I’d say art.

Birthday Post!

After finishing my studies, I worked on a birthday drawing for Mr. Chris Lowe for his 53rd birthday. I actually didn't have an actual idea in mind , so I saw a photo on the official site and thought the hat was extremely cool and abstract! And something click into my head and I also wanted to add the cartoon, animal version of Chris, called Kip I made up.  I know it's a bit off because I made the proportions a bit small but I think it's okay enough to post it. Basically a pencil drawing Chris out and since he loves to sleep there's some Z's there. The photo also reminded me of Eric Watson's iconic "Love Comes Quickly" photo of Chris but an updated and futuristic and almost look like a church hat too. But anyway, Happy Birthday Chris Lowe! It's crayons and markers!