Bricks Are For Kids.

Over at hip-hop website Format, someone has been inspired to recreate twenty classic hip-hop album covers via the medium of Lego. Whilst I happen to think they're stretching the definition of "classic" almost to breaking point ("Stillmatic"? Common's "Be"?? Jedi Mind Tricks???), and some of the figures are, er, less than anatomically accurate, this is still a great idea. I've posted a few favourites below, but follow the above link for more of that good-good.

Guy Peellaert (1934 - 2008)

Guy Peellaert has died in Paris, aged 74.

Who hell he, you may ask? Well, if you own a copy of Bowie's "Diamond Dogs", then you've seen his work. He first came to my attention as a schoolboy, when I bought a copy of his book "Rock Dreams" in the sale at a local bookstore. It featured text by Nik Cohn alongside Belgian-born Peellaert's astoundingly vivid paintings and illustrations, images which were amongst the first to explore and examine the burgeoning mythology of rock'n'roll using a medium other than the written word.

Being barely in my teens when "Rock Dreams" came out, and having no concept that the book might be the kind of thing worth looking after and keeping in one piece, I relentlessly cannibalised my copy, decorating my bedroom walls with Peellaert's representations of the Stones, Hendrix, the Beatles and so on. The book was such a critical and commercial success that Peellaert was later commissioned to do the cover art for one of David Bowie's greatest albums,"Diamond Dogs". Controversially, Peellaert represented Bowie as half-man, half-dog, canine genitalia and all. These latter details had to be airbrushed out for the cover of the final release. Original unretouched copies are as rare as rocking-horse shit, and will doubtless become a little more sought-after now.

Peellaert's work was more far-ranging than just "Rock Dreams" and the "Diamond Dogs" sleeve, covering comics and movie posters as well as paintings and the kind of illustrations which brought him fame, but it's for these that I knew him best. RIP.

Emory Douglas.

Emory Douglas, one-time Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party, has an exhibition of his design work on show at the Urbis in Manchester until March 2009. As you might expect, the bulk of it is Panther-related; flyers, handbills, posters, copies of The Black Panther newspaper, as well as a ton of archive material such as photographs, video, audio and even something about the BPP house band, the Lumpen, who I'd never previously heard of, but who sounded a bit like the Chambers Brothers-meets-early-Sly-Stone on the evidence of the recording on offer during the exhibition.

The whole thing does a good job of contextualising not only Douglas' contribution to the BPP, but also the conditions and circumstances that led to the rise of the Panthers in the first place. It starts off pretty grim, but gradually turns into something very inspiring and uplifting, or at least I thought so. I visited it on the Saturday before America elected its first black president and proved that it can still sometimes deliver on its founding principles, so in a way the timing couldn't have been better. It's free, too, so if you happen to be in Manchester between now and next spring, you should go.

I took some photos as well. They're fairly standard camera-phone snaps, but hopefully they'll offer a flavour of it.