Come by. Conceptual & Performance Art. Improvisation. Energy yoga and martial arts for health of your body mind and spirit. Life. <3

The motivation behind Daddy, the newly formed band comprised of artists James Franco and Timothy O’Keefe, is to push beyond the sonic space of music into the surrounding ecology.  Daddy investigates the territories of film/video, installation, and performance while simultaneously exploring the connections that form between them.

While sampling has been an established and prevalent method of modern music making, Daddy’s approach moves beyond the ‘art of sampling’ into the act of appropriation.  Not just appropriating a genre of music, but the moments it inhabits, and the characters that embody it.

Like many bands before them, Franco and O’Keefe met as students in art school.  While in school, they collaborated on many projects including Franco’s 2011 Endless Idaho installation at the Gagosian Gallery in L.A. before forming Daddy in late 2011.

Drawing from the individual practices of both Franco and O’Keefe, Daddy brings together the interests and talents of these two artists.  Franco continues his exploration of identity.  Through appropriating and recontextualizing material from his work as an actor, director, and individual, he questions the existing boundaries between.  O’Keefe, the musician behind &lt;tfo&gt;, brings to Daddy his imaginative sense of sound and play, creating evocative arrangements that merge together the assumed separations between time, space, and cultures.

For more about &lt;tfo&gt;, visit soundcloud[dot]com/tfomusic

Pet Lions consists of Karl Ostby, Shuhei Yamamoto, Matt Dahl and Joseph Murphy. The band was formed in late 2008 in Chicago, and self-released its debut EP Soft Right in 2009. After garnering the attention of music fans and critics alike, Pet Lions released their debut full-length Houses in 2011 and continued to build upon their foundation of “immediately appealing indie-rock equally filled with sonic surprise and familiar melodiousness”. 

Pet Lions has toured extensively in support of Houses, landing support slots with White Rabbits, Tennis, The Black Lips, Maps & Atlases, Generationals, and Here We Go Magic. Their music has also been featured on popular television shows Vampire Diaries (The CW), Keeping Up with the Kardashians (E!), and Greek (ABC Family), as well as highlighted in publications Nylon Magazine and The Huffington Post, who tapped Houses as one of the best Chicago albums of 2011.

The band’s new single “Lightning Bolt” (August 14, 2012) sees Pet Lions continue to expand their songwriting, seamlessly weaving sonic craftsmanship and pop sensibility. As they continue writing and recording their sophomore album, Pet Lions is a band to watch.

Tim O’Keefe is a New York City based creative known for his scoring & audio art work having scored a variety of feature films, documentaries, film installations, and branded content.  Highlights include As I Lay Dying (James Franco), State of Surveillance (VICE on HBO), Raw Craft with Anthony Bourdain, Tales of Our Times (Guggenheim Museum), and Ai Weiwei Introduces “Turn It On_ China on Film”.  His agency work includes scoring spots for Ferrari, Gucci, Nike, and NARS.  Films he has scored have premiered at Cannes, Venice, Sundance, Gagosian Gallery, PACE Gallery, MoMA, and MOCA.  In addition to his scoring work, Tim has written & produced music with a diverse range of artists including electronic music pioneer Hans-Joachim Roedelius (Cluster), famed Motown music icon Smokey Robinson, and bassist Andy Rourke of the UK’s legendary band The Smiths.

Tim co-founded Freedom Beat, a social justice organization focused on the role of music in global nonviolent civil resistance movements.  He produced over 30 short form documentaries highlighting significant international music artists and the movements they are associated with.  As a producer, he would research social justice movements, artists connected to their cause, recruit local production teams & academic experts, and coordinate each film's production. His interest in nonviolent civil resistance led him to be invited to participate in the Fletcher Summer Institute for the Advanced Study of Nonviolent Conflict at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.  His films have been screened at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C., and at Sweden's Urban Voices Festival.  Bringing together his interest in politics, policy, storytelling, and audio, Tim has worked as a producer & sound designer on a variety of podasts including The United States Institute of Peace & Burning Man Project’s Culturally Attuned podcast series and Revolution 1: The Story of The Tunisian Uprising.

Tim's creative interests span many mediums including music, sound, podcast, film, and code-based interactive art.  He is particularly interested in social impact driven projects at the intersection of art, politics, and technology.  He received his MFA in Digital+Media from Rhode Island School of Design in 2012.  He was the film editor of a number of music videos that premiered in Rolling Stone, VICE, Interview Magazine, and Paper Magazine including REM's That Someone Is You which was directed by James Franco.

O'Keefe performs live with a focus on hardware-driven sets (analog synths, drum machines, and sequencers), in addition to DJing.

Alfonso Mayen / PERCUSSION 
Leo Saucedo / GUITAR/ SYNTHESIZER 
Emily Morse / VOX/ PERCUSSION


Est. 2010

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