Bad Rock Stars

Once at Floyd's we were all playing Rock Band. Twas a horrid and dull-colored experience, for the sun did not shine upon our souls that day.

Connect tha Dots

We finally got to meet Peanut Butter Wolf at BK Studio last month. We didn't realize that PBW had this whole throwback-video, mixed-media set til we got to the party. HavMax snapped some shots of the video screen, capturing the exceedingly fun moment. The halftone-pattern effect is a just a plus-up for visuals... the videos to go along with em make the moment real again.

method man, M.E.T.H.O.D. Man

cameo, shake your pants

earth, wind & fire, september

crystal waters, gypsy woman

metallica, enter sandman

The purple one

??? video?

From Boutiques to Lolla

Have you caught the infection? Or should we say affection for Kink Not? We know it's gone a lil quiet over here at PopLife, but Kink Not is still live and in effect... slowly infecting the Chicago scene with shows & appearances like an ill virus. So if we're not present here, trust that our presence is being felt elsewhere, beyond the computer.

2008 Fiesta Puertoriccanea in Humboldt Park, Chi

Chivas hitting that hot spot

People are sofa-king glued to their computers...why did this one college-kid-couple we know spend hours during our photo shoot "caking" in front of a computer like that's the new way to watch TV?... that's a whole nother blog, but the point is: at some point you gotta get out & connect with the world. For us, It's those personal connections that go a long way. We're always excited to meet someone new who can vibe to our music–– from the nite-lifers, crate diggers & taste-makers to the trunk rattlers, potheads & tini-boppers.

Lela always reps Kuuma Lynx but today she was all about Kink Not

It never gets old seeing the reaction of a first-timer who, when dragged out to one of our shows on one offbeat nite, finds something fresh and completely iller than what they had expected. Those little crack-nugget moments keep Kink Not jonesing to find more "Kink Not Heads". We love nothing more than putting on shows for those who support and respect the Chicago music revolution.




The new growing trend is music events & shows in random spots: Galleries, Festivals, Boutiques, Hair Salons, Ball Rooms, Lounges...you name it, Kinky Notti's rocked it! The energy is always super dope so we decided to kick off our own series of "rocking shows in arbitrary places type events" we call The Beat Boutique.

Kinky Notti at the Building on This Block Gallery

The first installment of Beat Boutique at Silver Room was a win-win situation for ourselves, who walked away with "used to be lost but now I'm found fans"... and Eric the owner, came up just by keeping the store open for a few extra hours for shits-&-giggles. So if you find yourself taking a stroll up Milwaukee Ave in Chicago, be on the look-out for our "Beat Boutique" posters so you can come see us get live :D

Banging flyer courtesy of Kinky Notti's own, HavMax

Speaking of getting live, let's talk about the Lollapalooza contest! After our photo shoot at Una Mae's Freak Boutique we really felt like we were onto something big. The next day we were all like, "so what now?" then we thought,"Damn if two million people are gonna be reading about Kinky Notti this July, we better get our asses up and finish this album we've been working on all year!!"

Originally we had planned on dropping a full-length album. That was before we got six-songs deep into the project and found our chips going down fast... so we decided to go with an EP release instead. Sounded great in theory, but we also knew that without a decent way to promote our new project, we would need something to help swing a bit of synergy our way.

That's when the Lollapalooza "Last Band Standing" contest appeared before our eyes in the form of an email from Sonicbids. We jumped right on the opportunity with an inkling that if we could just make it to the final round and perform at Double Door, the contest would be had.

Round one was a madhouse with thousands of bands all scrambling to collect email votes all at once like some sort of digital egg hunt. We chilled and remained confident in our strategy to calmly qualify for round two... We had read that the winners of round one would be selected by celebrity judges, who would have to funnel 100 qualifying bands down to just 20. Simple math showed that if we just depended on family members and friends from our personal email accounts, we would rank in the top 100. We figured all we'd need after that was for the celebrity judges to hear our music, because once they did we'd be chosen for round two without a doubt. It's not like we're really that arrogant, but we just stand behind our work like a muffoccur.

Even though we felt pretty confident at the time, we almost wet our pants when we found out we were on of the top 20 chosen bands for the next round–– we're talking about thousands of bands worldwide who participated in this contest and here we were, standing that much closer to the Lolla stage! Soon all that excitement turned serious... right away round three proved to be more beastly than the other two. We needed to collect votes again, but this time only five bands with the top votes could move on to the next round. ((That's when shit started getting crazy wild!))

Can you believe someone had the f*cking balls to send us this email?


First of all, that's the oldest trick in the book: trying to psych out the offenders...so obviously this email came from another band in the Lolla competition. But didn't they know that Kinky Notti has deep connects? Contrary to popular belief, Chicago actually does support its artists. All we had to do at that point was let the dogs out... our special promoter friends that is. A total of 75,000 emails went out all over the city in three days! Quickly we saw our votes push us from 14th place up to 9th place. The rest is history, or shall we say present time?

All we wanna do is express musically and do shows–– that's it! That's what we love to do, but even more than that we love the people who help create a music scene that's open to bands like us & who want us to bring fresh & memorable experiences to people all over the world. It's a damn shame that some people have a hate for our mission and don't support it. But contest or no contest, please believe we already won... BUT OF COURSE WE WANNA WIN THIS LOLLAPALOOZA CONTEST LIKE A MUFF-OCCUR!! Somehow this very situation feels like one of those R.L. Stine books from back in the day that allowed the reader to decide the fate of the characters ((for Kinky Notti to win & give their all at Lollapalooza, turn to page 128, lol))

Bottom line: we need your vote. IT'S A VOTING COMPETITION! To further entice you to vote, we now leave you with this vision ((Please click on the image or go to sonicbids.com/lollapalooza08 to VOTE NOW!))

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Happy Voting :)

Una Mae's Photoshoot

This time we had a "for real, for real" photo shoot with muff-occurs flying all the way in from NY to take pictures of us! Sometimes opportunities knock & remind us that we're kind of a big deal. We felt honored that the out-of-town-crew wanted to create a direct mail piece and send it out to a list of millions, featuring Kinky Notti & the legendary Big Daddy Kane ((Common's favorite emcee))!!

We literally shut down Una Mae's Freak Boutique ((Kink Not's fav vintage & rare-find-boutique in Chicago)). Usually they close at 8pm everyday, but they agreed to accommodate our photo shoot schedule from six pm til one am one Friday night. The owner Nancy, & Nick are the shit for their support! xoxox



First we met up with Agga B. the stylist ((architect in fashion...the girl's truly on the come up)). She took us shopping and helped us piece together our fits as a group. The crazy thing is that we were originally assigned to another stylist but she came down with strep at the last minute before the shoot. So when Agga became our stylist it felt like a ten-minute shopping spree trying to find our entire wardrobe with only one day to shop.

We had to work our regular jobs on photo shoot day...so when we left work, we felt like Superman (& woman) changing out of our gig-wear into Kinky Notti wardrobe. HaveMax's hair had been double-strand twisted prior to the shoot, so it needed to be separated on set...a task that was misguestimated by hours. The crew had to rush our hair & makeup session in order to stay on schedule. Luckily we had the talented Alfred Lester ((makeup artist for Alicia Keys, Heidi Klum & Fergie just to name a few)) to quickly whip us up into shape!

A few crew candids...

Dave = head producer by day... Draw Tippy by nite

So once we were all dazzled and frazzled... we took our first shots on the green couch. We worked with Matt Salacuse ((this photographer does it all...rock, rap, celebs, mag covers, ads, documentaries, you name it!))...he was loads of fun & beyond awesome. Every once in a while, he gave us wild suggestions like "Hey HaveMax- you should act like you're grabbing Chivas' tie" (it was silk-screened onto his shirt)...or "Have- I like that one evil face you made, gimme some more of that"...then he told Chae to sit on the arm of the couch, which was super skinny so it completely cut up her ass...but hey- beauty is pain :D

Couch shot before Matt Salacuse

Couch shot after Matt Salacuse...Kink Not??

When Matt shoots, anything goes...
he had us all standing on the couch for the keeper

It was dope checking out all the shots right away on the computer screen. Between shots, Agga and Alfred would jump in to tighten up shirts, fix stray hairs & touch-up makeup...their grooming went a long way to help us get those hot shots for the piece.

Una Mae's is such an amazing place. Since we already shop there on the regular, it felt like we were playing dress up, pulling clothes right off the rack for most of the shots. We'd be like "ooh lemme see that belt buckle... or "yep, these pants are gonna bang with this fit!" We even got to keep all the gear from the shoot in the end :D

Street traffic kept stopping & staring inside at the spectacle. We spent part of the photo shoot taping the video-interview portion of the piece. In all actuality, we don't know whether the piece will be used for the web, or as an included DVD with the direct-mail piece, or both...but we'll keep you posted on where you can find it. Anyway, the video-interviews were tight...we took turns spitting our piece about music, life, & random shit we give a fuck about.


During the final shot, things got a little more Kinky & Notti...the Tellian had us warmed us up by then! We asked Nick & Nancy to blast some of our music through the store speakers as Matt clicked away from the floor. We started getting wilder with our poses, sprawling ourselves across the display table & lip sinking "Beneath the Deck" for the camera. By the end, we were totally performing for the entire crew!

So, long story short (too late) in July-O-eight you might just open your mailbox and find us inside...Kink Not?

Kinky Notti Mail = way better than bills anyday :D

HaveMax B-Day Special

As of late, we've been kinda floating around, falling into different spots- just drawing inspiration from every corner and crevice we can find. We spotted the Velvet Lounge one nite and decided to stop in for a drink. It was such a dope & unexpected treat to find live jazz in the hood!! We chilled at the bar for a min to feel the vibe.

Clap your hands for my band Sexual Chocolate

First Part- HaveMax's b-day weekend. Saturday nite, she wanted to go somewhere off-beat & not really deal with the obnoxious club scene. Liam of The Life Askew invited us to their exclusive fashion event called "The Focus" which turned out to be just the type of event that HaveMax could adore. It was at 773Event ((dope spot where they basically turned a work space into a raw tri-level house party)). The grungy basement had a bar, then the main level's walls were all covered in graffiti by the hands of Joe Suta ((Choke of the Chicago graffiti movement...might've seen his work at Akira)). We all hung out upstairs in the "impromtu VIP section" which was the perfect spot for smoking out.

why was this dude over seven feet tall in real life?

All we needed was an airbrushed Mercedes Benz behind us & wed've had the perfect
"oh-so-hood" take-home souvenir-pic, complete with the black, matte take-home frame

Instead of a fashion show, they did an interactive photo shoot, where they projected tons of dope shots right onto the wall. It was cool how the same models blown up on the wall were gallivanting around us in the same outfits as in the shots. It was such a dope concept... plus it took up a lot less space than putting a biggass runway down the middle of the floor.

HaveMax kicked it hardcore with Chiv & her sister Brit that nite which was a nice treat because Brit's got a new baby- so naturally she's working overtime with lil Jabber Jaws. Chae was M.I.A. that nite, which turned out to be hilarious because muff-occurs actually thought that Kinky Notti had replaced its third member...but Brit can't really hold a note, so Chae doesn't have to worry about that one happening!

The old skool photo booth in the spot was a hot touch.
Now we'll always have our little keepsake from that nite.

Part II - Sunday nite... We kicked it at Crimson Lounge ((basically the downstairs lounge of Saks hotel)). We were fashionably late and had to politic our way through the door because it was a marketing event & they had already pulled the list before we arrived. But once we got inside, the party was already juking with tons of muff-occurs on the dance floor. To loosen up a bit we went to go sip the flask in the bathroom.

The bathroom waiting area was kinda dope & somehow inspired us. It was something about the decor with its velvety-blue walls & caramel-colored leather couch across the hallway...either that or the booze was woorrrkiiing. Or maybe after such a fashion-driven experience the nite before, we just felt like striking a few drunken poses ((this has now become one of our favorite hobbies)). So the next thing we knew we were all into our "mini shoot"- not even caring about the people entering & leaving the bathrooms around us. We'd just wait until they got out of our shots and then *click click*

Hey you- don't be a shithead & steal our pics!
Hit us up first at kinkynotti@gmail.com
((then it'll be OK for you to use some of our lame pics :D ))

.....Peace to the Babies.....