New York (Top40 Charts/ American Museum Of
Natural History) - The American Museum of
Natural History kicks off the third season of the highly anticipated series, One Step Beyond, presented with The Fader Magazine on Friday, October 9, 2009 from 9 PM - 1 AM. Named the 'Best Museum Party' by New York Magazine, One Step Beyond launches into the stratosphere with a headline beatdown from one of the illest MCs on the scene,
Amanda Blank and holding down the perimeter are DJ darlings
Devlin & Darko. Tickets are $25, which includes cosmic visuals by Fuevoz (with VJs SeeJ and Benton-C), entry to the Museum's breathtaking
Journey to the Stars Hayden Planetarium Show, and a pass for one future Museum visit. Advance tickets are recommended and available at www.amnh.org/osb. The entrance to the event is located on Central Park West at West 79th Street.
Amanda Blank (Downtown)
There's a small list of artists that can sing, rap, write sophisticated pop songs and perform them with irresistible charisma. The list of female performers that can do all of that is even smaller, and Amanda Blank is skyrocketing to the top of it. Amanda Blank is a woman making listeners take notice of her unique voice, using genres and styles as merely vehicles toward unhindered self-expression.
Philadelphia born and bred, Amanda quickly learned the value of individuality and the need for outspokenness. A quick glimpse at her interests conveys the dynamic nature of Amanda's character: from her tastes in music (My Bloody Valentine, Man Man, Santigold, Antony and the Johnsons) to visual art (Jayson Musson, Aubrey Beardsley) to fashion (Ny Chorm), she gravitates from the sensual and shocking to the fun and absurdist.
Blank is part of a loose collective of musicians that include Spank Rock, Santigold, and Diplo. She takes influences as diverse as 90's R&B, 80's dance, indie, new wave and brit pop and mixes them into her own type of double-dutch, defiantly taking the rope out of the hands of haters and using it against them. Whether set against a pastiche of club beats or with her stadium rock group Sweatheart, her voice is undeniably her own.
Amanda took the world by storm with her contribution to the track 'Bump' from Spank Rock's 2006 breakout album YoYoYoYoYo. She's just as at home collaborating with Ghostface Killah and M.I.A. as she is with Britney Spears on Eli Escobar and Doug Grayson's remix of hit single 'Gimmie More'. Her songs have also appeared on the HBO series' Life Support and Entourage as well as CBS televisions' CSI:NY. Blank signed to Downtown Records in 2008 and is released her debut, I Love You, on July 14, 2009.
For more information, please see www.myspace.com/amandablank
Devlin & Darko
Baltimore DJ duo, Chris Devlin and Ronnie Darko (aka Rockswell and Lord Darkie) met back in 1998, after discovering their mutual obsession for 1980s hip hop and scratch DJs. Both successful local DJs at the time, Devlin and Darko decided somewhere in 2002, to combine mixing forces and start playing gigs together. Best known for being members of the amazing live act Spankrock, they have also dj-ed with the likes of Beck, KRS 1 and Gnarls Barkley, as well as finding time to start the successful monthly parties, 'Baltimore Bass Connection' in Baltimore, and 'Fully Fitted' in NYC and put out highly popular mix tapes with XXXchange (spank rock producer).
The DJs behind the genre-crossing party rap phenomenon of Spank Rock, Devlin & Darko have deep crates and they know how to use them. They mix everything from classic hip hop to Italo disco to French electro into a dance party that's populist without being strictly pop. They're adept mixers, inventive selectors, and genial hosts. Expect them to keep things bouncing until the very moment the lights go on and the sound guy pulls the plug. - Eric Grandy (THE STRANGER). For more information, please see www.myspace.com/baltimorebassconnection
The Rose Center for Earth and Space is one of the most engaging and beautiful public spaces in the world. Inside One Step Beyond, attendees can check out complimentary screenings of the Whoopi Goldberg-narrated Journey to the Stars, explore the Cullman Hall of the Universe, view a re-creation of the Big Bang, and see artifacts of space and science, while the DJs and live acts provide suitably otherworldly experiences.
A spectacular new Space Show, Journey to the Stars, narrated by Academy Award-winning actress Whoopi Goldberg, premiered on Saturday, July 4, 2009, in the Hayden Planetarium at the Frederick Phineas and Sandra Priest Rose Center for Earth and Space.
Featuring extraordinary images from telescopes on the ground and in space and stunning, never-before-seen visualizations of physics-based simulations, the dazzling new Journey to the Stars launches visitors through space and time to experience the life and death of the stars in our night sky, including our own nurturing Sun. Tour familiar stellar formations, explore new celestial mysteries, and discover the fascinating, unfolding story that connects us all to the stars. Those who come along for the journey may never see the night sky in the same way again.
Journey to the Stars is an engrossing, immersive theater experience created by the Museum's astrophysicists, scientific visualization, and media production experts with the cooperation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and more than 40 leading scientists from the United States and abroad.
One Step Beyond continues orbiting our City on November 13 with DJ/rupture headlining and Matt Shadetek feat. Blakkamoore, Maluca and Sondio Martines bringing it up the back. The series continues on January 8, February 12, March 12, April 9, May 14 and June 11, 2010.
About the American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History is one of the world's preeminent scientific, educational, and cultural institutions. Since its founding in 1869, the Museum has advanced its global mission to explore and interpret human cultures and the natural world through a wide-reaching program of scientific research, education, and exhibitions. The Museum accomplishes this ambitious goal through its extensive facilities and resources. The institution houses 46 permanent exhibition halls, state-of-the-art research laboratories, one of the largest natural-history libraries in the western hemisphere, and a permanent collection of more than 30 million specimens and cultural artifacts. With a scientific staff of more than 200, the Museum supports research divisions in Anthropology, Paleontology, Invertebrate and Vertebrate Zoology, and the Physical Sciences. The Museum shares its treasures and discoveries with approximately four million onsite visitors from around the world each year. AMNH-produced exhibitions and Space Shows can currently be seen in venues on five continents, reaching an audience of millions. In addition, the Museum's website, www.amnh.org, extends its collections, exhibitions, and educational programs to millions more beyond the Museum's walls.
