Halfstack Fall Issue Sneak Peek: Off to Grammy Camp

Halfstack Fall Issue Sneak Peek: Off to Grammy Camp

Written by: Cora Vasseur as featured in Halfstack's Fall Issue.

Chicago is rich in music history and prowess across the genres. It was no surprise when several Chicagoland high school students were selected for the GRAMMY Foundation’s prestigious GRAMMY Camp. In their 10th year of existence, there will be 173 high school students total from across the country and the globe. Some students will be flying in from Japan, China, and England to learn what it takes to make it in today’s music industry.


The GRAMMY Foundation was established in 1988 to foster the betterment of American recorded music through programs and events that involve music industry professionals with different communities.

“We always wanted to have another vehicle for those high school students who wanted more in-depth information and instruction about the various careers in the business of music,” says David R. Sears, Executive Education Director. “It’s day long music industry career day.”

"The GRAMMY Foundation's GRAMMY Camp has become our signature program that provides young people with an extraordinarily in-depth experience, giving them a genuine sense of what it's like to have a career in the music industry," said Neil Portnow, President/CEO of The Recording Academy and the GRAMMY Foundation. "Each and every GRAMMY Camper benefits from this program and takes with them valuable lessons learned as they continue their music journeys."

Candidates apply online for one or more of the eight career tracks, which include instrumental performance, vocal performance, audio engineering, music journalism, music business, video production and motion graphics, songwriting and electronic music production. Campers are selected on many factors, but especially two key elements.

-For the full article, check back Wednesday Sept. 17, 2014 to read the complete story in Halfstack’s Fall 2014 Issue. You can download the latest copy of the magazine at: www.issuu.com/halfstackmag

Halfstack Fall Issue Sneak Peek: Macy's Glamorama

Halfstack Fall Issue Sneak Peek: Macy's Glamorama

Written by: Perry Fish as featured in Halfstack's Fall Issue.

If I were throwing a party, of course I would invite Jason Derulo.  There would be live music, a fashion show, male models in Diesel briefs, confetti falling from the ceiling, a red carpet; hey, a girl can dream. The best part?  It would all be for an amazing cause! 

On Friday, August 8th, at Millennium Park’s Harris Theatre, Macy’s put on my ideal party, the party of all parties, Glamorama!  This year’s theme, Fashion Rocks, brought style, music, and the people of Chicago together for one special evening. 

The event also aimed to raise funds and awareness for the Children’s Cancer Research Fund in Minneapolis and Ronald McDonald House Charities of Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana.  Within the past 5 years, nearly $1 million has been raised for Ronald McDonald House Charities, which has funded the ability for families to stay close while their children are treated. 

To kick off the event, Macy’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Terry Lundgren and RMHC-CNI Ambassador Child, Samantha Roberson, introduced the evening and riled up the crowed for a mesmerizing display of fall fashion!

The evening’s fashion lineup included, Tommy Hilfiger, Weekend MaxMara, Men In Suites, I.N.C International Concepts, Macy’s Impulse, Hello Kitty, Denim Nation, Calvin Klein, and Diesel.   While all of the shows were brilliant, especially Diesels display of more than 20 men in boxer briefs, moving about the stage to Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, Calvin Klein’s execution was nothing short of breathtaking.  The chic display of chunky knits and tailored jackets in shades of blush and charcoal had me wishing for a pumpkin spice latte.

For the full article, check back Wednesday Sept. 17, 2014 to read the complete story in Halfstack’s Fall 2014 Issue. You can download the latest copy of the magazine at: www.issuu.com/halfstackmag

Peter Max, Positive Surrealist

Peter Max, Positive Surrealist

The first thing you notice about PeterMax's art is the colors themselves. That sentence may be expected when one looks at the work of a painter, but there's more going on, something hard to pin down. Whether he works in oils, watercolors, or something else, there's a pastel-but-not-pastel color scheme. It's as if he had taken a hardware store paint mixing machine's primary colors, baked them in an oven, and lightly applied them to the canvas. I say that because the colors have a softness to them, but the saturation has been turned way up. From style to style, the heightened reality of the colors transfers – it's the through-line of his work. It livens everything, significantly warming the pieces, especially when married to the often surreal depictions of images familiar to most Americans.

That familiarity is important to Max's work. He has pieces depicting the sports of Chicago, those teams beloved by the people in Northbrook, where his latest gallery showed last week. A basketball gets doused in layers of paint. A football gets the same treatment, but it's almost psychedelic. A Chicago Bears helmet remains a Chicago Bears helmet, but with some alterations, namely, flowers and other new age-y imagery to juxtapose the inherent violence of the game of football.

But Max doesn't seem to be much of a cultural critic in his painting. He acknowledges the oddness of requiring a heavy helmet to play a game, sure, but he doesn't want that game to go away.

This is most noticeable in his line of work on the Statue of Liberty. Running through the half dozen or so pieces is a patriotism that connects with me. It's a recognition of the sheer oddness of our culture's touchstones, strength through beauty and symbolism over substance. He does this by utilizing that famous Beatles-esquemulticolor negative exposure look and using colors that don't necessarily appear in the sky or in the New York city of reality. It's a surrealist's idea of what America is, but it's not a critique. Max's art says that we should praise the praiseworthy while admitting it's a little weird. It makes us think about how unlikely the American experiment is, from its mistaken-for-India beginnings to its surprising independence win to its rise to the world's superpower while housing the oddballs of all cultures. It doesn't say we don't have problems in this country, but the unusual arc of history that led us to this point should be celebrated.

Strong figures pop up regularly in Max's art, as does the idea that multiple iterations of anything can lead to greater understanding. The famous facade of Vincent Van Gogh pops up in several canvases, making his influence on Max both stylistic and textual. His “Audio DNA” piece features a psychedelic family tree starting with Elvis, flowing down to Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Frank Zappa, and other hugely influential members of the rock pantheon. Those artists began with the basic blues and country structures of early rock 'n' roll and, through copious experimentation, created music that is of the same family but can often sound alien when played one after the other.

Likewise, his “Heart Series” paintings take that idea and make it literal. Each piece in the set features a loose cartoon heart with a primary color box surrounding it and the rest of the canvas filled with whatever filled Max's head at the time. This is the same structure repeated many times and, be it a different mood, circumstances, or what have you, each piece feels wholly its own and imbues unique feelings among those who view them individually.

There's beauty in repetition and there's beauty in the things a culture holds dear. There's beauty everywhere, but sometimes you have to mess with it and make it weird to bring that out. This is what Peter Max does. I only wish I had thousands of dollars to spare to share Max's art with my friends and family.