I was recently asked to write an article for Urban Velo, a grassroots bike magazine, on the evolution of the fixed gear, or fixed wheel bike. They wanted me to focus on the evolution of the riding and to attempt to project into its evolution.

Well, it’s out now and you can look at the full issue on their site and the article here.

To top it off, here’s Tom bunnyhopping a jersey barrier on a fixed gear and DART rider Tony Fast doing a double barspin rollout.

and finally a quick video of me doing a 540 cab

Sean from Format  store out in queens put me onto these kids. Not only do they go hard on copping and rocking Mishka, but they also go by “Team Mishka”. Sean sent me over a lotta frucking pics. Keep reppin’ and thanks for the support! Word to mami!

I think you can safely judge by my previous “Best of’” and “Most disappointing” lists that I listen to a lot of music. It’s how I pass my free time when I’m not doing anything related to Mishka. I actually listen to so much music that it’s kind of hard doing a “best of list”. After a certain point you need to stop and just work with what you’ve already heard, which is hard for me because I’m constantly acquiring and listening! Below are 6 albums that I didn’t include in my top 40 list but I should have have.  I just had not heard them in time or just really given a good listen before compiling my top 40. These are in no particular order outside the fact that they all deserve a listen!

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1) Nobunny - Love Visions (Bubbledump)

Fellow blogger Glamnation got me onto this album. I really wish he had done so sooner because I haven’t stopped listening to it ever since. A great mix of 70s Power Pop & Ramones style Punk. It’s a raw, fun, garage punk recorded in some dude’s living room… the way it should be!

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2) Sex Vid - Communal Living (Dom America)

People have been telling me to check out Sex Vid for a little while now and I just hadn’t. I finally have and am a better for it! This is straight old school Hardcore at it’s best. Plus the band has one of the greatest names ever, seriously… like ever! This is their first full-length release but they also have a ton of great 7″ put out between last year and this year. Nice to see a great new band out of Olympia, WA.

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3) Ponytail - Ice Cream Spiritual (We Are Free)

Amidst all the nonsensical yelps Ponytail really reminds me of older Deerhoof. Weird/Avante over more traditional indie rock sensibilities. It sucks it took me most of the year to discover this!

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4) Team Robespierre - Everything’s Perfect (Impose)

Team Robespierre’s Everything’s Perfect is the ultimate 20 minute party. You need some instant psyching up for something? Go right here! It never outstays it’s welcome and always makes you want to come back for a little more.

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5) Mind Eraser - Conscious Unconscious (Clean Plate)

This is a two track, 20 minute mini epic of Hardcore and Doom Metal having hate sex, and the demon baby it spawns. I wish I could cradle this album and coo at it while it snarled and hissed back at me. It sucks that I didn’t accompany Greg to their show!

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6) The Hold Steady - Stay Positive (Rough Trade)

I spent most of their career dismissing them as generic bar rock. The kind that you can find at any watering hole’s open mic night. Stay Positive wasn’t any sort of departure from their previous albums, I just finally really listened to The Hold Steady. I now totally get what everyone else has enjoyed for a few years now. Its basically Hüsker Dü doing Tom Petty & Springsteen tunes. I’m so down for that!

Ok, I think I’m done writing about music for 2008!

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Top 40 Albums of 2008:

• For albums 5-1 on the list click here!

• For albums 10-6 on the list click here!

• For albums 15-11 on the list click here!

• For albums 20-16 on the list click here!

• For albums 25-21 on the list click here!

• For albums 30-26 on the list click here!

• For albums 35-31 on the list click here!

• For albums 40-36 on the list click here!

Most Disappointing Albums of 2008:

• For albums 5-1 on the list click here!

• For albums 10-6 on the list click here!

I am an eBay junkie, and it’s a buyers market, so I have been very busy this year.

In no particular order, here is my top 10 eBay purchases of 2008! All titles have been left  (SIC) as they were originally posted on eBay. Don’t even ask how I found some of this stuff, I just do random searches and I get lucky. A few were found from some of my weekly eBay searches. You may be able to figure out a couple of them from the titles of the auctions!

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1) VINTAGE YUK-MAN GOO SLIME DEVIL MAN HEAD MONSTER & BOX

Ok, screw it. This is my #1 purchase on eBay this year.  Super rare bizarre slime toy from the 80s. I guess his head was filled with slime (at this point all the slime has evaporated) and the basic idea was that you took the slime out and then dropped it on his head. Totally pointless. I love it!

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2) VINTAGE RARE 1988 GIGGLEE EYES MONSTER PLUSH TOY DOLL

I was floored when I got this is the mail. It’s some weird 80s My Pet Monster style doll. No one in the office remembers this at all. But it’s super rad and the eyes are giggley!

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3) VINTAGE MADBALLS RATTLE MONSTER PLASTIC ARGENTINA RARE

I got obsessed with looking up Mad Balls on eBay this year, especially bootleg ones. This is a weird toxic plastic rattler is a mixture of a Mad Ball and Killer Tomato, which I have realized this year is sort of kind of like a Mad Ball.

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4) Vintage Halloween Face Mask Monster Ghoul Rubber Latex

I had one of these guys in college. I found it at a flea market and thought that it was the most bizarre toy that I have ever seen! The face is one of those weird rubber finger puppet faces that you could put your fingers in the back and move the face around ( I know you had one as a kid, I think we all did!) but this has these little mechanical arms that move the face around, while it moves back and forth, and plays a midi version of “When The Saints Go Marching In”. Yes, this is the most bizarre toy I have ever seen! I actually never owned this toy with the box. Now I do!

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5) THE MUMMY?S CURSE Vintage Glow in Dark Toy MOC

This toy is actually pretty stupid, but the packaging is rad! I also love the fact that it’s the Mummy’s Curse that you are playing with and not necessarily the mummy itself. How conceptual!

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6) RELIC GERMAN DEATH HEAD SILVER RING FROM STALINGRAD!!!

I love rings! The one on the bottom right was the one that I won. Unfortunately, I misplaced this ring the other day. :(

It was either stolen, fell in the trash (and thrown away), or somewhere on the messy floor of my office or tucked away somewhere. It probably has to do something with karma.

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7) MUMMiFiED MONKEY’S PAW BLiSTER TRiCK HALLOWEEN

My friend sent me this auction and of course I had to have it! I remember Mike Jones was with me when I opened this and we couldn’t stop cracking up! This thing is so twisted and gross! The basic trick is that you tell people you found a cursed monkey paw and then someone is supposed to put a match to one of the fingers and all of sudden the Magician gets a blister on the finger the match was put to. Yea it makes no sense at all, but the hand is pretty damn cool, sort of.

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8) 4 ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES VINYL ACTION FIGURES

I hardly remember the ‘Attack of the Killer Tomatoes’ Cartoon let alone the toys that they spawned. These things are so fun and squishy. Also, they look like they were made in the 80s even though they are from the mid 90s!

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9) 1980s vintage monster football Madballs knockoff Taiwan

One of my favorite bootleg Mad Balls! This thing is just too special. Does anyone else see how special this is?!?

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10) E.T. THE EXTRA TERRESTRIAL non licensed! RARE! 1982

Last, but certainly not least, Space Friend! I have a few of these bootleg E.T dolls, but not in the packaging like this! Around 10 years ago my friend Chris found this little creep at a Flea Market in Orlando. We were so amazed (excited, confused, in shock?!?) of the packaging. No country of origin, no manufacture name, no nothing, just SPACE FRIEND. How amazing is this?! I had never seen another in the package until a month or two ago on eBay. Finally, my very own space friend. I love you space friend.

Extra Butter Presents Brainscan Movie Night T-Shirt

Illustrated by our friend Lamour Supreme, this exclusive shirt was created specifically for Extra Butter’s movie night which we here at Mishka hosted earlier this December.

Showcasing one of our favorite B-horror Movie’s Brainscan, Joel let his mind run wild creating a very appropriate shirt for what turned out to be an amazing night, thanks to the Extra Butter dudes.

Limited quantities available! These shirts run a bit smaller than our usual ones!

Photo courtesy of the EastWest Blog

I wonder what Mike Jones had Andrew W.K. write on his shirt? There’s a whole paragraph on there!

No, I didn’t buy. Yes, I kind of wish I did. Fuck, I don’t want to get old!

Besides taking the periodic commercial interruption to plug Mishka on the Blog, we tend to keep the Bloglin streetwear free! But it’s the end of the year and I obviously love making lists.

There were lots of things I really liked in 2008, but I had to eventually cap things somewhere and I thought 13 was a good place because I always tend to gravitate towards designs that aren’t “hyped”. An unlucky 13! Obviously that isn’t the case with everything but I’m trying to make 13 selections make sense outside the whole “top ten” formula.

The articles of clothing below are things that I absolutely loved from 2008. Things I absolutely need in my personal wardrobe. Yes some are obviously from us, while others are from an assortment of other brands who consistently do their thing and do it well. So here we go in no particular order!

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1) Mishka - Keep Watch Corduroy Coaches Jacket

A coach’s jacket is a timeless piece that works all year-round. If it’s cold, layer with it; if it’s warmer out, just throw it over a tee. The soft corduroy makes it perfect for those brisker evenings. The color scheme is a total throwback to the 1980s NJ Devils colors. A total vanity piece for me.

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2) Actual Pain - Mutant Youth T-Shirt

I absolutely love T.J.’s illustrations. His whole Sketchbook Collection was a slam dunk, in my opinion. But this guy was my absolute favorite.  Actual Pain does mutants right!

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3) Mishka - Nuts & Bolts Jacket

This is my perfect work jacket. Most are baggy, ill-fitting and worst of all… boxy! The Nuts & Bolts was made not only to be functional, but stylish. Made of heavy duty cotton twill and plaid flannel lining, with an assortment of useful stash pockets and a slimmer cut. Plus this jacket is perfect for personalizing with some pins and/or patches.

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4) Flying Coffin - Tarot T-Shirt

I think this tee sums up the Flying Coffin aesthetic perfectly, in one neat little package. Creepy and excellently designed!

P.S. Jason, send me one!

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5) King Stampede - The Shape of Things to Come T-Shirt

No one does stoner like KS.  We try, but they totally own us on that end. I love the old school Heavy Metal Magazine feel to the graphic. This is the kind of tee that will be in my wardrobe until it falls apart.

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6) Mishka - Dead-Eye Dick/Green River Plaid Flannel Shirts

So I’ll be honest. These two styles are the same shirt, just in a different assortment of colors split among two seasons. I don’t think I need to tell you how popular plaid flannels are these days, but they’re also a staple of menswear that never goes out of fashion. Doing a flannel shirt was the first item of cut & sew I wanted to do back in ‘04, but we didn’t have the resources or contacts to make it happen. I love knowing that I can now make any goddamn plaid pattern in whatever colors I want. I’m slowly creating my own dream closet of flannel shirts. Plus I’m a big fan of the western cut… something very blue collar dress-up about it that I have always gravitated towards.

Side Note: It drives me crazy how many people refer to any plaid shirt as a flannel. Flannel is a type of cotton; it has nothing to do with the pattern on it! OK rant over.

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7) Perks & Mini - Donut Dog Crewneck

PAM always manages to pull off some of the most amazingly creative graphics every season. And as much of a vast wealth of reference knowledge that I think I possess, PAM is just on another level. I even needed to be schooled to the fact that this was a Cat Stevens reference (I’m sure my girlfriend is frowning somewhere). PAM’s crewnecks also have a great fit!

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8) Mishka - Dmitri Slim-Straight Snow Washed Japanese Selvage Denim

Perfect cut, killer wash and some of the best quality denim you could get your hands on (and your butt in). Yes I’m very partial, but I’m also super particular about my denim’s quality and its cut. The Dmitri were actually a happy accident that happened along the way to our Boris Skinny cut to debut in Spring ‘09.

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9) Mighty Healthy - Brooklyn Diner T-Shirt

Despite popular opinion, I don’t hate Hip Hop. I’m just not into Hip Hop-referenced design. Mainly because it’s usually really poorly executed. This shirt, however, is like a ’90s Primo beat and just impossible to resist. T-Bone Steak, Cheese, Eggs, Welch’s Grape! Mmmm, Mighty Healthy and Mike Jones!

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10) Schott x Stussy - Onestar Jacket

I wish I thought of combining an MC Jacket with a Varsity jacket! This thing is just amazing! Such a simple and obvious amalgamation of two classics. And knowing Schott & Stussy, I’m sure the craftsmanship is out of this world.

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11) Mishka - Cosmic Truth T-Shirt

We made a lot of tees this year that I really loved, but this is my absolute favorite. My favorites usually end up being some of our less popular designs, but whatever. The graphic is so subversive yet totally innocent. Glamnation did an amazing job following my vision for the perfect Pettibon graphic.

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12) Supreme - Mountain Parka

I love how Supreme always manages to make that one thing you always wish you could stumble upon while in a vintage clothing store, but never do. (And if you do manage to find one, it always fits like a burlap sack and never comes in a great color combo like this.)

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13) Vans - White Suede Half Cabs

It took me 28 years, but I finally really got into white sneakers, especially white suede. Pair that with a classic like the Half Cab, and I’m in heaven. I love that these just get better looking with more wear and dirt. Plus the black mid-sole really sets them off, making them look like a pair of white creepers.

I played a lot of games this year, including some real bottom of the barrel shit like Haze (beat it), Too Human (beat it twice) and Golden Axe: Beast Rider (man, fuck this game and SEGA while we’re at it). But I was also lucky enough to play some top shelf offerings. And even though some of the higher profile releases like Fable II, LittleBigPlanet and Gears of War 2 didn’t suck me in, there was more than enough top tenners to enjoy in 2008.

The top 5 of the top 10 videogames of 2008 are below. Flame on!

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5) Street Fighter IV (Arcade)
Developer: Capcom - Dimps

Capcom did it. They finally fucking made it to Street Fighter IV after more than a decade on from getting Street Fighter III out the door and with a mountain of expectations so high that, to do anything beyond what they delivered with IV would be a failure on multiple fronts. And they did it with Dimps, one of the most unjustly reviled devs in the fighting scene.

In what is really a sequel to Street Fighter II, Capcom brings back every classic World Warrior, tossing in a few new contenders, including the French brawler Abel and the lightning quick Mexican Wrestler El Fuerte. The console versions promise to be even better, but the arcade iteration, admittedly bare-bones, is exactly what the series needed.

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4) No More Heroes (Wii)
Developer: Grasshopper Manufacture

You are Travis Touchdown, an otaku with a beam katana (read: lightsaber). As Mr. Touchdown, you must kill, typically by gruesome, blood fountain-filled decapitation, the world’s top assassins in order to get more money for video games and professional wrestling videos. This is No More Heroes, another brilliantly bizarre game from Goichi Suda of Grasshopper Manufacture and one of the Wii’s best games of the year.

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3) Fallout 3 (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
Developer: Bethesda Softworks

If you’re gaming on a budget or working your way through a nasty break up, the kind that only long stretches of time will heal, there’s no better value (or coma-like fantasy bubble) than Fallout 3. Did you like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion? Do you prefer to pick and choose which limbs or body parts you’d like to liquefy with gunfire, instead of relying on twitch reflexes? Would you like to spend dozens, if not hundreds of hours roaming a decimated, radioactive Washington DC? Fallout 3 is a sprawling, choose your own adventure romp and a very worthy successor to the decade old Fallout 2.

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2) Braid (Xbox 360)
Developer: Number None Games

Perfect for your next EMOnday, Jonathan Blow’s Braid was one of the few titles (outside of the brilliant Cursor*10) to floor me with its gameplay mechanics, so much so that the Xbox Live Arcade game felt much shorter than it should have. It’s a painful but catchy ballad of a game, one with keen allusions to Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros. What looks like a simple platformer in screen shots is one of the most deviously, ingeniously crafted puzzle games of the year. Surprisingly fun to peel away at with a group.

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1) Left 4 Dead (PC, Xbox 360)
Developer: Valve - Turtle Rock

Like Counter-Strike of the Dead, Valve’s post zombie apocalyptic shooter Left 4 Dead is a game that lives and dies on its multiplayer alone, an almost infinitely replayable shooter that does fast zombies right. I’ve still yet to beat any campaign on “expert” but dashing through each co-op level is still a thrill, even if not as thrilling as pitting four survivors versus four infected in online multiplayer.

Packed with solid level design, brilliant dialogue and ambient storytelling, as well as some of the best dynamic sound of any horror game of the past decade, Left 4 Dead does so many small things right alongside its tight gameplay mechanics, that I can’t wait to see how the developer builds upon this foundation.

Depeche Mode - Violator (1990)

Vs.

The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead (1986) 

The Game is simple… if only one could exist which would it be?  What’s more important… personal relevance, cultural significance, or simply being the better album all other things aside? Choice is yours…

Yep. I’m one of those douchebags who’s biggest beef with Black Metal is that the sound is shitty. When I go to a restaurant and order food, I need that food to be better-or-somehow-different from whatever I could just throw together at home. I NEED my periodicals to be free of typos and possess the slightest inkling of relevance and, well, good grammar. Call me a snob, this is who I am.

Essence, Atmosphere, Nostalgia…all these things count. But only so much. So. With those things in mind, here goes the sacrilege (maybe, for some of you, or not):

Tranformers: The Movie (1986) is fucking unwatchable.

You go into it thinking “YES! Finally, I get to re-watch that awesome movie of the Transformers they put out when I was a kid…the one where motherfuckers ACTUALLY DIE! and it’s all violent and shit…”

And then you watch it, and you realize that it is literally as if the geniuses at Hasbro strung 3 episodes together, threw in a few new characters (ripe for the toy-making, natch) and called it a movie. Ugh.

I don’t know if it’s out of some sort of self-hate that I made myself sit through the whole thing, but I did. I also—for some reason—bumped GI JOE: The Movie up to the top of my Netflix Queue so I can get that over with. I hope it’s not quite as bad (granted, it was Awesome when I was a kid) as TF is, but I fear the worst. I think I saw a photo of one of Greg’s shelves with Golobulus on it, so maybe he can steel me.

This does, however, always get me laughing. Only because it could very easily be the *real* recording session for the TF Movie soundtrack. YEAH!

Andrew W.K. - I Get Wet (2001)

Bombin’ Magazine Bloodsport T-Shirt (2007)

“Mishka Bites Bombin”… O’RLY?

Come on dudes of course we noticed. We troll your blog for inspiration on a daily basis! Let me know when you feel stupid for making that post and I’ll take this one down! Party hard!

2008 may have been the industry’s best year ever, piling the billions onto the billions it usually makes, but how was it for the little guy spending his money on all this escapism? 2007 was a hard year to follow and, a decade on from the best year in gaming ever, 2008 had a lot to live up to. Amid all the big, blockbuster releases like Gears of War 2 and Fallout 3, there were some amazing hidden gems.

And, unfortunately, some fantastic games, like Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, The World Ends With You, Mirror’s Edge and World of Goo, didn’t quite get the attention games like GTA IV did. And there’s only so much room on our top ten list.

Enough trying to be inclusive… let’s do this top videogames of 2008 list!

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10) Dead Space (Xbox 360, PS3)
Developer: EA Redwood Shores

Survival horror done right by a bunch of American guys? It is possible. It may be derivative and loaded with corpse-stomping, fetch missions and cheap (but effective) scares, but EA Redwood Shores’ technically original stab at space-bound horror is a brilliant first effort. Extremely gory, brutal and tightly paced, Dead Space puts you in the space armor of Isaac Clarke as he dismembers hordes of space zombies. Oh, it’s set in space alright.

Dead Space also has some of the best sound (and absence of sound) of any game in recent memory. Best played with the lights off and the volume up!

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9) Soulcalibur IV (Xbox 360, PS3)
Developer: Namco Bandai - Project Soul

Soulcalibur IV’s character creator will appeal to the undersexed virtual dress up doll enthusiast in you, if you’re anything like me. It’s also a fighting game! Now with a ridiculous 30 strong character roster, Soulcalibur IV looks brilliant, thanks to current gen hardware and offers tons of replay value thanks to online battles, trinkets to obsessively collect and a deep character customization editor. For fans of creating demonic Japanese schoolgirls and goth S&M freaks, then making them fight.

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8) PixelJunk Eden (PS3)
Developer: Q-Games

A brilliant follow up to Q-Games other strong 2008 PixelJunk release, Monsters, Eden is a much harder sell. It’s an abstract, organic co-op platformer, a vertically scaled Super Mario Bros. with a trippy soundtrack and visual style courtesy of Japanese artist Tomohisa Kuramitsu, aka Baiyon. A simple control scheme blends with unique mechanics for a totally cohesive style. Best played in groups of two or three, it’s both mellow and maddening in its difficulty, but totally satisfying. Beautiful stuff.

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7) Metal Gear Solid 4 (PS3)
Developer: Konami - Kojima Productions

The best looking PlayStation 3 game of 2008, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots wraps up Solid Snake’s almost insurmountably confusing storyline with a gorgeous action game that’s as captivating to watch as it is to play. And, yes, you’ll be watching a lot — the cinematics outstay their welcome, as do the constant loading screens.

The storytelling is as melodramatic and over-layered as any Metal Gear game, but it’s a strange ride that really shows off that four hundred dollar PS3 and addresses my own personal complaints with the stealth genre.

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6) Grand Theft Auto IV (Xbox 360, PS3)
Developer: Rockstar North

GTA may be best known for its hooker-beating, cop-killing and general bad behavior, but Rockstar North focused on the storytelling in Grand Theft Auto IV rather than trying to feature match Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. That was a riskier gamble than it gets credit for and ultimately resulted in some grumbling from fans wounded by succumbing to hype.

Fortunately, the story, as well as the improved controls and city, teeming with life, was solid. Typically, I’m pretty emotionally detached from games — Shadow of the Colossus aside — but Rockstar effectively made the player care about these characters, many of them the kind of low-life you’d rather not associate with. The fun, over-the-top violence and killing sprees are still intact, thankfully, and the multiplayer options keep the murderous fun going long after Niko Bellic has his revenge.

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Stay tuned for part 2! And bring your torches next round!

I Don’t Care - Fall Out Boy

Panic! at the Disco - I Write Sins, Not Tragedies

Taking Back Sunday - What’s It Feel Like To Be A Ghost (Live)

The Kooks - Sway

The Stills - Still in Love Song

hmmmmm…

I’ve been rooting for the NY Jets since the Ken O’Brien days. Believe you me, the Jets are not an easy team to be a fan of. No matter what they do, how close they get or who they bring in they not only get treated like perpetual underdogs in NY but it’s forced them into always acting like ones.

For the two seasons I really haven’t been able to stomach rooting for the team. Not for their 4-12 record last year nor their monumental collapse this year. I’ve sat through cheering many a hapless Jets seasosn.  It all boils down to how classless the organization has been run (Yes I’m one of those people who not roots for the team on the field but cares about how they’re managed… win, lose or draw).

It started with them marginalizing Jonatahn Vilma, then demonizing Pete Kendall and finally trying to strong-arm Darrell Revis out of a standard rookie contract. I put up with all of this, but when the management decided to make a scapegoat out of Chad Pennington for their horrid season, and then dumped him like so much discarded trash when at the start of this seasons was the final straw for me. was the final straw for me. Pennington had been nothing short of probably the best quaterback the organization ever had after Joe Namath. And unlike most of NY I didn’t want Brett Favre. The Jets have had their share of ancient quarterbacks past their prime. He throws lots of costly interceptions and he created a horrible mess of his own doing in Green Bay with his retirement/un-retirement. Plus he’s never had to play under the kind of media scrutiny you’re exposed toin NY.

I wanted Pennington to have the other chance, he had more than earned over his career! Pennington may not have had his big numbers or big arm, but he was strategic, precise and an excellent field general. So much so that I know truly believe the Jets magical 10-6 2006 season wasn’t due to Mangini’s coaching genius, but more of a neophyte coach relying heavily on his veteran quarterback to lead the team. Watching Pennington thrive and transform the Dolphins this season and guide them into the post-season at the Jet’s expense not only happy for one of my favorite players, but really angry at my favorite team for their continual poor choices.

As a Jets fan, not only am I really happy that Chad Pennington is back in the post-season where he belongs but ecstatic at the regime change no doubt coming to Gang Green!

Go Jets!

The Star Wars Extended Universe (EU) encompasses everything beyond the movies including comics, video games, cartoons, and novels. Every year more and more media is shoveled on to the EU landfill but it’s rare when the content actually feels fresh and worth our hard-earned scratch. As huge as the SW Universe is, Lucasfilm always seem to find ways to rehash the same old played out plot lines, boring fans and wasting time we could spend drinking. They’re finally stretching their creativity and taking aim at the horror genre with the stand-alone novel Deathtroopers. An uninspired title, yes, but they brought on board horror novelist Joe Schreiber (Chasing the Dead, Eat the Dark) to add some of that spooky shit to SW. On his blog, Schreiber described the book as Alien and The Shining meets William Gibson in the SW Universe. Say no more. I’ll pull an all nighter for this one. Thing is, it doesn’t come out until November 2009. That’s plenty of time to drink.

Unlike Greg or Ron, I was never a huge fan of Screamo or Powerviolence growing up. I did have a few bands that I really liked but as a whole it wasn’t my thing. The past few weeks I’ve been re-listening to some of those bands I liked and re-discovering others I cast a deaf ear to way back when. Philly’s Ink & Dagger was however one of those bands I always really liked. This shouldn’t come as any big surprise considering they dressed up like Vampires and had some pretty theatrical/goth lyrics.

Born from the ashes of Crud is a Cult & Frail, Sean Patrick McCabe & Don Devore went to form Ink & Dagger along with an ever changing line-up of musicians. Which at one point even included Eric Wareheim of the Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! (Yet another reason for me to like Ink & Dagger). I’d only ever get to see Ink & Dagger once in the late 90s but I became an instant fan. The show was a sweatbox of Romulan hair, flailing limbs, yelps and runny make-up. At the time it wasn’t really like anything I was into but so much like everything I wanted out of a band. Ink & Dagger really knew how to stir a crowd up, get them against the band and then win them back over.

Drive This Seven Inch Wooden Stake Through My Philadelphia Heart is a compilation of an Ink & Dagger 7″ by the same name & their first 7″ Love is Dead. This CD was put out by the now defunct Initial Records who also put out their first studio album The Fine Art of Original Sin. Both have been out of print now for a few years since the label’s demise.

As Ink & Dagger progressed as a band they got more and more complex in their sound. Adding more of the stage show theatrics into the sound and at times getting downright experimental. I always felt they had a strong kinship to Christian Death, where they sounded like whatever you wanted them to sound like.

This unfortunately all came to halt though when in 2000 at the age of 27 Sean Patrick McCabe was found dead in an Indiana hotel room of an apparent alcohol overdose. His death came on the eve of what would be their final album, the self-titled Ink & Dagger which was not only lush and experimental but was also bold departure from the sound of Drive This Seven Inch Wooden Stake Through My Philadelphia Heart. Ink & Dagger always pushed onward in a new direction with every release and seemed like the band was one album or studio influence away from really breaking big. It’s a shame they never got the chance.

Ink & Dagger - Drive This Seven Inch Wooden Stake Through My Philadelphia Heart

While Notorious P.I.G. gave us a truly excellent list of the best in horror for 2008 (a list I wholeheartedly agree with that contained some of the year’s best), it was devoid of a single English language film. The list was almost entirely comprised of French films, save for one.

Let’s face it, the French are the new Italians when it comes to Horror, taking the genre to terrifying new heights! But that isn’t to say that there weren’t some good to downright great U.S.-made horror films put out in 2008. And no, I’m not talking about Saw V… Now, while I don’t feel any of these (save one) are in the class of such films like Inside, Frontiere(s) & Let the Right One In, these were some well-made flicks it’d be an injustice not to acknowledge–the kind of flicks that would give any veteran gorehound a good thrill…especially if you happened upon them at midnight!

So here we go… 2008 Best of Horror: The U.S. Edition

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5) The Ruins
Director: Carter Smith

A small group of friends sets out to find a remote Mayan ruin. Once there, they are attacked by a local tribe, who kills one of the group and then traps the rest on the ruins, using threats of violence to prevent any of their further attempts to leave. Stuck on top of this long overgrown Mayan temple, the group awaits rescue, learning the truth about why they cannot leave, and slowly succumbing to the ruins’ botanical horror!

This film isn’t anything that hasn’t been done before, but aside from some bad CGI, is actually a very well done horror movie.  It has good directing, is well acted, and never tries to be anything more than what it is… a quick adrenaline rush. I can always appreciate that! For a mainstream U.S. release, this film was surprisingly gory, with most of the “horror” centered around some cringe-inducing body mutilation.

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4) Doomsday
Director: Neil Marshall

In 2007, the United Kingdom is struck with an incurable plague. To combat it, the government blocks off a large part of the British isles, attempting to quarantine its inhabitants in order to kill off the virus. Flash forward 30 years and the virus has resurfaced in the un-quarantined parts of the UK. The government decides to send a team back into the quarantined areas in the hopes of finding survivors who may be carrying antibodies against the Doomsday virus. They of course find more than they bargain for!

Neil Marshall is actually British, but this film debuted in the United States. For a while now Marshall has been someone to watch when it comes to Horror. He’s responsible for the terrific Dog Soldiers and The Descent, and now can add another excellent film to his resume with Doomsday! Doomsday isn’t so much horror as an exercise in throwing everything and the kitchen sink into making a Horror/Action/Fantasy adrenaline rush. Part 28 Days Later, part Mad Max, part Land of the Dead, part Transporter, part Lord of the Rings–now I know this sounds like there is NO WAY that it could be good! But Neil Marshall pulls it off by keeping everything very tongue-in-cheek, proving why he’s one of the world’s most talented directors.

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3) The Strangers
Director: Bryan Bertino

A couple returns late at night to an isolated vacation home after one spurns the other’s marriage proposal. Amidst the tension over how to proceed with their relationship, a strange knock at the door leads to terrifying struggle against three masked and unprovoked assailants.

The Strangers is basically a re-imagining of 2006’s Them. Truthfully, I found The Strangers infinitely more tense and thrilling than Them. Bertino takes his time in building the tension between Kristen and James (played excellently by Liv Tyler & Scott Speedman) that he then transfers seamlessly from between them to between them and their attackers. To its credit, the atmosphere this film creates is absolutely chilling and tense to the point that you’re uncomfortable and a bit nervous. And while I do love Horror where things just happen with no explanation, this film’s only flaw is that it suffers from fumbling a golden opportunity for plot and character development! The tension between James and Kristen was so well done that it was a silly move to drop any innuendo that James may have been behind the attacks. Sticking with the ambiguity around the violence would have added another level to this film and really upped its impact. But regardless, this is a terrifically directed & acted film.

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2) Cloverfield
Director: Matt Reeves

A gigantic creature rises from the depths of the Atlantic and goes about his business demolishing NYC. A group of friends sets out to escape the devastation while recording the evening’s horrific events on a camcorder.

I know this was a pretty divisive film, about which some people complained that they hated the characters, others that the way it was shot was very hard to follow. But this film had nothing to do with its characters; it was about the moment and the characters were completely ancillary. The shaky camcorder documentary style not only added to an already nerve racking escape from NYC, but really amped up those moments of suspense when the “monster” would flash across the screen. I was on the edge of my seat for most of this film, and that NEVER happens with me. The last time a movie got my heart racing like this was this film’s obvious influence, The Blair Witch Project. This is probably the best and most realistic “Godzilla” movie ever made, and will be really hard to top, in my opinion. But hey, trying is part of the fun!

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1) Teeth
Director: Mitchell Lichtenstien

While he was making his list, when he asked my opinion on it and if I thought it belonged on a Best of Horror list for 2008, I mistakenly told Notorious P.I.G. that Teeth came out in 2007. While it did premiere at a few festivals in ‘07, it wasn’t until ‘08 that this film actually hit theaters. So my apologies to P.I.G., but I got the sense you weren’t that into this film anyway! I, on the other hand, absolutely loved it, and thought it could go toe to toe with your top 5 selections.

As a lifelong Horror fan, I had always wondered why no director had ever worked with the concept of Vagina Dentata as the basis for a horror film. But in my head, any such movie would have undoubtedly been a slap-sticky exploitation film full of shock & gore. Thankfully, Teeth isn’t remotely similar to that, and goes a different route. Using puberty as metaphor/catalyst in a horror movie for some sort of terrifying change is nothing new, but Teeth cleverly infuses a believable and well-crafted teen melodrama into a revenge horror fantasy (a la I Spit on Your Grave), with some comedic touches.

While the movie is light on gore, director Mitchell Lichtenstein (son of Roy) does an amazing job of making you hold your own junk and squirm in fear during the handful of “kill scenes”. But the best part of the movie is its star, Dawn, played by Jess Weixler, who is not only great eye candy, but perfect in her role. If you’re a fan of horror movies like May or Ginger Snaps, rent this!