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!