Jack and Meg Lomography Cameras (whitestripes.com, $180) Long champions of all things analog and outdated, the White Stripes are a natural fit for Lomography, the fetishistic old-school camera maker. The company has custom-made a pair of limited-edition White Stripes cameras: the “Meg” Diana + Multi Function All-Plastic Camera and the “Jack” Holga Flash Camera Starter Kit. Both promise unique, lo-fi images…true to their namesakes.
Photograph: Paulina Holmgren
DeVillain Guitar Co. Centerfold electric guitar (devillain.com, $3,370) Tired of being hassled for bringing his ax aboard airplanes, Swedish pilot Fredrik Johansson founded DeVillain to develop a guitar that folds in half and tucks neatly into a small, comfortable backpack. Screw down the neck, tighten the strings and amazingly, this guitar manages to hold its tension even during those Pete Townshend power chords. Pricey, but novel and solidly built.
FM3 Buddha Machine (aquariusrecords.org, $26) These transistor-radio-size fetish objects came and went quickly a couple of years ago—Brian Eno bought eight of them!—so don’t snooze on this second run. (You may find some in stock at Mondo Kim’s or Other Music in Manhattan.) Each Buddha Machine produces a set of nine meditative drones, accessed with just one toggle switch; the line out can connect to your stereo. So blissful is this sound box that German indie label Staubgold released a compilation of Buddha music.
Born in the Bronx: A Visual Record of the Early Days of Hip Hop (Rizzoli, $45) Plenty of books have been written about hip-hop and there will be many more. But it’s tough to imagine any of them getting this up close and personal with the Boogie Down birth of America’s other homegrown music. Combine the vivid, you-are-there photography of Joe Conzo with Buddy Esquire’s show flyers and a select handful of essays and interviews, and you’ve got an instant old-school diploma.
Sentences: The Life of M.F. Grimm (Vertigo/DC Comics, $19.99) Percy Carey has found work as a child actor on
Sesame Street, a drug dealer and, as M.F. Grimm, a rapper. With
Sentences, the New Yorker adds graphic-novel author to his résumé. It’s a fascinating, at times tragic autobiography that includes brushes with hip-hop greats as well as time spent in prison and the hospital, where Grimm ended up after being shot and left paralyzed from the waist down.
Photgraph: Paul La Raia
Dirt Farmer Package (levonhelm.com, $300) The new CD from ex–Band sticksman Levon Helm,
Dirt Farmer, is itself manna for any roots-music fan. But this deluxe edition sweetens the deal considerably, throwing in an autographed CD, a T-shirt and two tickets to one of Helm’s awesomely intimate Midnight Rambles, the concerts he hosts in his Woodstock barn studio.
