Well we’ve hit our final Fall-1 T-shirt design… Secret Weapon!

I love Military nose art, I think it’s one of the first widely accepted examples of art re-apropriation or what’s most commonly referred to as a “flip” in streewear. There was a strong penchant for Warner & Universal cartoon characters whose archetypes conveyed perfectly well the cavalier attitudes of the pilots. The art was usually crude and the characters demeanors ranged from confrontational to overtly sexual, quite the sordid little contrast from their cartoon film persona!

Being that the Skyway Trippers were pilots i wanted to do a design around some pretty traditional nose art. Woody Woodpecker and his thumbing his nose at authority attitude was a pretty popular choice amongst pilots to represent them on the side of their plane. And while Woody appeared in countless nose art renderings, the most classic one to me is of him popping out of the bomb asking you to “keep a secret”. It’s a pretty classic image (at last to me) ripe to be played with! And while unfortunate, it’s no surprise that it was also used as the basis of a design by another artist/label around the same time. While keeping mostly true to the original nose art graphic we did re-draw it to fit our theme and just Mishka more by making Woody into a cyclops ala Simon and then adding our own Simon skull & crossbones to our secret weapon!

We’re hitting the home stretch of our Fall-1 T-Shirt preview here. But fear not because Fall-2 is just right around the corner! Next up is… Space Knight!

The whole concept behind this one is a bit out there so stay with me! I always envisioned the Skyway Trippers as this Heavy Metal Magazine type of story. And when I think of Heavy Metal Magazine I always think of some kick ass Stoner & Power Metal. Like I could see myself as a kid reading about the Skyway Trippers and inventing theme music for them in my head! Theme music that would undoubtedly sound like Deep Purple meets Savatge waxing poetic about space knights fighting archaic evil and making love to big breasted girls! This graphic is the tribute to the Skyway Trippers non-existent stoner metal classic theme song… Space Knight!

Since Road Bikes are trendy, mountain bikes must be underground… Looks like these girls are about to blow up that scene too!

Friday August 29th
Trouble & Bass
w/ Guests:South Rakkas Crew (Mad Decent)
Dre Skull (Vicious Pop)

Shark’s Birthday Celebration

Get Advanced Tickets HERE
$10 Before Midnight, $15 After

21+
@
LOVE
179 MacDougal St.
New York, NY

After riding an aluminum frame for a while, I decided to switch back to steel. So I picked up a 4130 Surly Steamroller. These bikes are one of the beefiest “street” fixed gears. They’re meant to take a beating and that’s exactly what I did to it. As a temporary solution to a trick bike while my Brooklyn Machine Works Gangsta track is getting finished, I never anticipated breaking it.

Yesterday, like most days, I got off work and headed to the Peel Sessions spot to mess around on my bike for an hour or so. After landing a few 180s something didn’t feel right. Then I landed a pretty big 180 and felt a pop in my bike. Thinking either my cones were loose in my wheel, or my pedal had cracked I got off and examined the bike. I didn’t see anything wrong with it so I hopped back on. The next combo I noticed that the bike was handling very limp. After the next 180 I felt the big sag a bit. Again I got off, looked it over. Nothing. Then I stepped on the pedal to get back on it and SNAP.

My down tube had separated from my head tube. The weakest spot on a bike. My theory is that the Brooklyn Machine Works fork was so strong that it transferred the stress to the weakest adjacent connection. After countless 180s, 360s, stair gaps and other serious riding, my frame decided to retire. It was 6 months old.

At least it didn’t snap when I was bombing traffic or the bridge!

So, as you have probably guessed, I’m a big fan of Black Metal. Only recently have I warmed up to a few non-Norwegian bands of this genre. I used to think that any Black Metal band that wasn’t in Norway or Sweden or some other cold and depressing landscape was just fake. Like an essential ingredient was missing in the recipe for cranial vibrating blast beats and over distorted vocals.

Krallice is both a NYC based Black Metal band who is not only really good, but they’re also opening for Book of Black Earth, which is T.J. from Actual Pain’s band. The show’s on October 8th at the Knitting Factory in NYC. I’m going and I hope to be on the guest list… *cough cough*. I’ll be most likely wearing the Actual Pain New Era as well!

Oh and speaking of Metal. On September 13th, “Metal” Thom is throwing the 2nd Annual METAL RACE! If the first year’s points race wasn’t enough, this year it’s going to be filled with even more metal mayhem!

Red cameras are some of the most sought-after videography equipment in the film industry to date. They shoot at an awe-inducing 120 fps. That’s slow…

Check out this video shot in Red, 120 fps. Make sure to watch the video on the Vimeo page, so you can see it in HD.

skate - shot on red - 120 fps from opus magnum prod. on Vimeo.

I apologize for yesterday’s diversion, but come on, the Mishka x Actual Pain New Era Cap was worth the small change in plans! But anyway now back to your regularly scheduled tee a day preview with… Head In the Clouds.

Keeping with the whole space adventurer theme we dug into the whole NASA patch aesthetic. The Head In the Clouds graphic is our attempt to recreate one of those graphics that hearkens back to those vintage Apollo shuttle mission patches you’d pick up on a family vacation at the Kennedy Space Center. We really wanted to keep true to the design formula utilized on those while still adding our own twist that related to the whole Skyway Trippers theme. Instead of an image of a shuttle or satellite we chose a Mazinger style robot head propelling over Earth. An air guardian with it’s head truly in the clouds. The rest of the text we tried to keep true to military company mottos choosing “Learning To Fly” and “Be Free ‘n Easy” as ones that not only helped convey the brands general mindset but also fit into the whole Skyway Trippers adventurer theme we were going for!

When evil collides…

Presenting… The Actual Pain x Mishka New Era Cap!

We got together with one of our favorite peers, Actual Pain to do a New Era, actually it’s Actual Pain’s FIRST EVER NEW ERA CAP! Done in mostly tonal black embroidery on black wool the cap features an over-sized & gloriously macabre Actual Pain logo across the front, a Cyco Simon skull on it’s left side and an Actual Pain grinning death mask on it’s back. The cap also features a blood red sandwich brim & new era logo for some color along with an over-sized Cyco Simon underbrim embroidery! This cap is like a streetwear version of a Monsters of Rock tour!

The cap is limited to 144 pieces with 100 of them going to Actual Pain and the remaining 44 arriving right here, right now!

Act fast because these won’t last… Whoa there went 4 as I was typing this!

We also have a handful of Actual Pain Sketchbook Collection Tees left on our webstores in random sizes! Why not get all Actual Pained out!?

Like with the Guts Mop, we want to give the people what they might and that’s more of the Bear Mop and new ways to present it. And so we present you part 6 of our Fall-1 T-Shirt preview, The Cosmo Mop. The Cosmo Mop not only fits in well with the whole space adventurer theme of Fall 08, but it’s a hell of Bear Mop if I do say so myself.

We had to find the right space image to fill within the confines of the Bear Mop. Just the right amount of stars, planets and a dash of space matter to make it really pop! The Bear Mop isn’t the easiest thing to just shoot any fill into and call it a day. While has a good over-all coverage of space, the logo itself is mostly composed of thin bars and a good deal of the space is really just the negative space between lines. So not everything really looks good and depending on placement not everything looks identifiable within the Bear Mop’s confines or in sometimes masks the Bear Mop’s distinct features. Luckily after some time we got our desired effect with this one!

Phew! How’s that for a long winded description of what’s basically our logo with a space background, hahaha!

The shirt is done with a gorgeous sublimated print that rests lightly on the tee and brings out every little detail of the space scene.

Ahhh the first album I ever worked on! hahaha well not really. I had zero to do with As the World Burns outside of doing photo re-touching for the CD booklet and some promotional images and ads while intening at Matador Records, but that’s close enough right!? Anyway now that my personal association with album is out of the way lets get to why it’s up here.

By 1999 when As the World Burns dropped The Arsonists had been whittled down from a once mighty 13 members to just D-Stroy, Q-Unique, Swell Boogie, Jise One & Freestyle. Having put out a few great 12″ on Fondle ‘Em records and watching how far Rawkus had gone as an indie Hip-Hop label it wasn’t that much of a surprise that Matador decided to try their hand at Hip Hop. I’m not reallys ure what made them think that a label best known for Belle & Sebastian, Liz Phair, Blues Explosion Pavement & Yo La Tengo could seriously try and push Hip Hop. And it wasn’t like the Arsonists came out of nowhere and lacked cred , they had tons of it. I really don’t know how it all collapsed other than it probably wasn’t the right move for the label and the acts. Matador at least made a good go at by signing great acts like the Arsonists & Non-Phixion before abandoning Hip Hop altogether.

The term “Backpacker” or “Backpack Rap” has gotten lots of negative connotations over the years mostly (and rightfully so) I feel due to the Anticon movement. But there was a time when it was more closely associated with a vibrant underground late 90s Hip Hop scene in NYC and on the Westcoast. The Arsonists, Non Phixion, M.F. Doom, Siah & Yeshua DapoED, Thirstin Howl, Co Flow & most if not all of the Rawkus Records roster. As the World Burns was/is one of the great records of that time that unfortunately came out not only when the entire scene was losing steam or rather changing over into something completely different. But on top of that the album was hampered by being released on a label not really known for Hip Hop. I’m positive had this album had a Rawkus Razor gracing it’s back instead of the Matador flag this album wouldn’t have had as much trouble getting wider spread attention or just being taken more seriously by anyone who hadn’t heard of the Arsonists prior to this release.

This is a great albums and definitely one of my favorites. Amazing production, rhymes and flow through-out. Truly one of those rare Hip Hop Albums you not only should but you want to listen to from start to finish NEVER skipping any tracks which is pretty unbelievable considering there are 21 tracks on it. Plus how many people can make a B-52’s sample work and sound menacing? The Arsonists can!

On a side note As the World Turns is one of my favorite album covers. I don’t know why. The 3D rendering meets black book style usually does not age very well but something about this cover just really works and perfectly captures the time & sound. Like you could look at this and just know what to expect without ever hearing it, at least I always thought so.

Arsonists - As the World Burns

Jubilee, Alan Astor and Valissa Yoe are having a triple treat birthday at Public Assembly (formerly Galapagos). Come come come!

SIDEBOOB
Alan Astor (live!)
JD Samson (of Le Tigre, MEN, U.N.I.T.Y.
)
Lauren Flax (IHEARTCOMIX, U.N.I.T.Y.
)
Jubilee (Nightshifters, Trashmenagerie)
w/ special guest djs and Burlesque by Mademoiselle Lena

Hosted by Ro-Bla-Bla and Mad Marietta, plus jello shots by Valissa and Hot Shots NYC, Burlesque by Mademoiselle Lena, and an international selection of ice cream by the Heartschallenger Ice Cream truck!

$5 or FREE with sideboob (dudes included!)

Saturday August 23
Public Assembly (formerly Galapagos)

70 N. 6th between Wythe and Kent

I don’t think it would come as any great surprise (or at least it shouldn’t) that Hook-Ups was a huge influence on me and in turn Mishka. I used to buy and wear their T-shirts religiously growing up. The amazing color palette, the cartoon/comic based graphics & of course the sexual innuendo, questionable virtue & controversial content of most of those graphics are all things you can safely say rubbed off on us as a brand and in our graphic identity. The very timely use of Anime, the overtly sexual, yet strong female characters their graphics portrayed was so enticing and taboo, it was like a T-shirt graphic version of Heavy Metal magazine re-imagined for the 90s. Which brings us to our next tee preview… Overfiend!

Overfiend is very much our homage to those over the top Hook-Ups graphics of the 1990s. Like those designs of yesteryear we stuck with an anime theme, some sexual innuendo, a dash of nudity and of course some heroic and harrowing characters (a Psionic Overfiend & a Sexy Galactic Guardian) from some non-existing moment out of some non-existing tale, which was something I always loved about Hook-Ups graphics. Even though most tees were just stand alone designs with characters only ever appearing on that one t-shirts, they were so well executed that you totally could (and would) start developing some sort of back-story or mythology (albeit in all likelihood a pretty perverted one) from that one image! That’s what we tried to do here with the Overfiend Tee. What’s going on!? Well it’s really up to you to place this frame/panel within the context of whatever story you choose to build around it!

We’re gong to take a break from Fall-1 2008 T-Shirt previews over the weekend. We’ll be back with our regularly scheduled post of Part 6 come Monday!

Matthew Sweet - Girlfriend

Sonic Youth - Sugar Kane

Babes in Toyland - Won’t Tell

The Muffs - Lucky Guy

That Dog. - Never Say Never

Hahaha, some of these videos are so dated!

I know you’ve put out a bunch of beyond crappy albums over the last decade but I had some hope here. First Kirk grows his hair back long, then you go back to your old logo, the new album’s cover art is pretty fucking wicked and then you go and get Rick Rubin to produce the whole damn thing and THIS is what you’ve got show for it!? WTF!? This sounds like Silverchair with a crappy Metallica cover band solo at the end!

So I’ll be honest, this one here doesn’t really have some deep meaning or any lofty concept. This graphic is a classic example of something we like to play at Mishka. Make a cool graphic by cramming as many unrelated references we like as possible! Which brings us to the tee in question!

While I think we’ve at times gotten this game up to 8 references in one image, but we kept it pretty conservative here and stuck with only 3! One should be pretty obvious and that’s James Caan’s 1975 sci-fi/action classic Rollerball (Not the awful 2005 remake)! I’ve been obsessed with Rollerball ever since I saw a band soundtrack the entire opening sequence as the film played!

The second is within the type which was based on the first-person shooter Doom’s classic logo. Nothing like mixing evil mega-corporations, sports and some nasty ass demons from hell showing up on Mars! Who the fuck even knew Mars had a hell!? Man that right there could have been the sequel to Rollerball!

And the third… Wait… Not so fast! We’ll keep one reference to ourselves. But if one of you can figure it out we’ll send you a free Warzone Tee! Hell I’ll even give you three hints… The Face, Bill Cartwright & Night Court!

The shirt is only available in black, but it does come as an awesome pull-over hoodie with a front pocket print, sleeve print and large back print!