Musical Friends
Fosforo is a self-described "punky reggae jungle" band led by Rafi Benjamin in LA. Rafi's done a good deal of collaboration with ART HURTS (including producing Beston's pop album On & Up). In turn, Beston has designed the album covers for Rafi's label Raya Records.
Micky Farkas is a kid's musician and songwriter based out of Montreal. Both Beston Barnett and Rafi Banjamin have collaborated extensively on Micky's many CDs, and they really are paragons of the genre - delicious and fun.
Led by "Schwee" Michael Schwartz, the Critical Brass is a rockin' New Orleans-style brass band based in LA. Beston plays cowbell (no mean feat!) on their CD Sustain the Chain, and in turn "Schwee" has played on a number of ART HURTS projects, most notably the exquisite soprano sax in the Beston Barnett Quartet's Curious Melodies from the Lost Travel Diaries of Sir Albus Manchild.
Chad plays percussion, guitar, or glockenspiel in half of the best bands in San Diego. His career and his label Superunloader Records form a striking parallel to Beston's and ART HURTS'. There's been a little bit of collaboration: he played some doumbek on the Zzymzzy Quartet's Zzwing! and helped out on the Faba Loba project. Catch Chad with such great local bands as Superunloader, Jangada, Old Man Hands, and the Jalopy Street Orchestra.
Israel is a force in San Diego's Latin, Brazilian, and reggae music scenes.
A beloved local multi-instrumentalist, Chloe played tenor sax on the Zzymzzy Quartet's Zzwing! CD. At any traditional jazz or dixieland gig in town, chances are you'll see Chloe on the bandstand.
Gianni is a multi-instrumentalist who played a bit on Juju Duarte's Da Rua Dos Ossos CD and also helped found Bolga Zohdoomah. Primarily a Hammond organ player, he now leads 7 Come 11, an organ trio out of Santa Cruz.
Amadou Fall and Ibrahim Ba are half of Faba Loba, but they are also the traditional duo Sene Africa, playing sweet Senegalese music with guitar, kora, and voice here in San Diego and on tour.
The Flimz is a sexy "Mom-Power" singer-songwriter duo that Beston plays upright bass with in San Diego.
Music Media
The Troubadour is the monthly local rag on all things folk and roots. As ART HURTS occasionally falls into this category, they've done some nice write-ups and reviews for us in the past.
Afropop Worldwide is a long-running nationally syndicated radio program and a great web resource for all things relating to the musical African Diaspora. On the radio and online, co-producer Banning Eyre has been very supportive of ART HURTS' sonic forays into Ghana and Brazil.
A gargantuan archive of jazz reviews online, All About Jazz published two positive reviews of the Beston Barnett Quartet.
Benn loxo du taccu ("one hand can't clap") is a blog about hip music from anywhere, but the focus is definitely Africa.
The Beat is a national African, roots, and reggae magazine, which has reviewed ART HURTS' artists Roadmaster & Agyemang and Juju Duarte favorably.
Music Business
Stern's is the largest distributor of African and world music: ART HURTS' CDs The Old Highlife, Bolga Zohdoomah, and Da Rua Dos Ossos are all distributed internationally by Stern's.
Tyler Bacon at Position Music represents Beston Barnett's catalog for TV, movie, and ad placement.
The Orchard is a large digital distributor; they distribute all ART HURTS catalog on mp3 to online and mobile retailers line iTunes, Napster, Rhapsody, and hundreds more.
Other Interests
Dean is as near as we have to an official ART HURTS photographer: he took a large number of the photos on this website.
This is a fan site with a brief bio and a catalogue of the great Victorian eccentric's compositions. The Beston Barnett Quartet recorded hardbop interpretations of Manchild's late work in Curious Melodies from the Lost Travel Diaries of Sir Albus Manchild.
ART HURTS participated in Los Obamaleros, a group which produced the song "Cumbia de Obama" in an attempt to influence the Texas primary in 2008.
Meeshi is a very active teacher and promoter in the swing dance scene in San Diego - he's also been a great supporter of the Zzymzzy Quartet.
Rafi Benjamin, frequent collaborator with ART HURTS and leader of the LA-based band Fosforo, created this amazing piece of fan love for the Nickelodeon show "Avatar the Last Airbender" which uses solely clips from the shows soundtracks to produce asian-inflected trance-hop, dub step, and techno-electro-madness.