As Spring rolls onward, we’ve re-upped on many of our heavily requested and previously out of stock denim styles which have become staples in our collections season after season. On top of this we’ve also managed to produce a couple of new styles and washes, while making slight tweaks and improvements to our old standards.

Currently, we’re offering four different denim styles site-wide with our most recent addition being the Boris Skinny Jeans. With both a black and white colorway available as well as a vintage indigo washed denim, these 100% cotton shell skinny jeans are sure to become your new favorites, if you dare got go this slim.

Also new this Spring is a raw dark indigo version of our Sergei Low-Rise. Already a favorite with many of you, these raw denim jeans have a classic comfortable fit and no stitching contrast as our previous versions did. They are also available in a rich grey wash, also with tonal stitching.

There’s much more on the site, so come on in and check it out as we’ve also just recieved a new shipment of previously out of stock Spring items. So check it out as sizes and stock may be limited.

The Alexei Japanese Selvage Raw is a 5-pocket Vintage Straight Leg Shrink-to-Fit Cut available in Indigo, Black & Slate. Unlike with low rise denim the waist size here is exactly the waist size! So a size 32″ waist actually measures exactly 32″ around in the waist (unlike low rise jeans which usually add 2 or so inches to the marked waist size). We recommend sizing up on them because of the vintage cut, but hey it’s your fit so you do you! These will stretch with wear and they will shrink with a wash. All jeans come with a 34″ inseam so you can hem or cuff them as you see fit!

The Alexei uses some of the highest quality 14.5 oz Japanese Selvage denim you can get your hands on! Seriously we’re not exaggerating here, you’d be floored to know who else uses this same stuff! It is woven on the same vintage shuttle looms used until the 1960s for most U.S. produced denim. Our primary goal when creating these jeans was to replicate the durable unwashed denim of yesteryear, which had been unfortunately abandoned to make way for more economical lower grade denim. While more time consuming and less economical, using these vintage shuttle looms creates a tighter weave that results in a heavier, more durable and overall higher quality denim.

Introducing our new Boris Skinny Jeans in Vintage Indigo, Black & White. Form-fitting 100% cotton shell with aged-indigo denim wash. These soft straight-legged jeans will become the industry standard. Wash cold (or handwash) and hang dry, it’s not recommended you wash them too much though.

While these are skinny jeans that fit tight they will loosen up with wear but not too much so take that into consideration when purchasing.

The Sergei available in Indigo and Charcoal is a 5-pocket Low Rise Straight Leg Jean, Classic & Comfortable! Jeans come in a 34″ length so you can cuff or hem them to your height. These run true to size so go with your usual waist size. These are not selvage, but are raw!

When I heard that the pilot for Caprica, the BSG prequel series, would be released on DVD almost a year before the actual series started its run, my first thought was that this is an obvious cash grab by Sci Fi Channel (sorry, Syfy {hock-ptoo}). BSG ended just a month ago and the media jerked off all over the finale (UN Conference, anyone?), so why not release the new series pilot on DVD while the fans are still in mourning and telling all their friends unfamiliar with the show to wise up? Whether this was their scheme or not, I didn’t give a shit anymore after watching Caprica.

The pilot takes place “58 years before the fall” and successfully retains the tone of BSG while stripping the sci-fi elements down to a minimum. The series explores the deeper themes that ran through BSG: racism, family dynamics, religious fanaticism, and, most prominently, hubris. The pilot clearly establishes the promise of creator Ron Moore that Caprica will be more grounded in human drama. Can the series accomplish this without teetering into the melodramatic realm of a soap-opera? Ron fucking Moore is at the helm, of course it can, turkey.

Eric Stoltz is phenomenal as the grief-driven scientist Daniel Graystone who opens up the Cylon Pandora’s Box through his desire to revive his daughter Zoe (Alessandra Torresani, who I am now in love with). Esai Morales also delivers as Joseph Adama, a Tauron-born lawyer with connections to a criminal organization. He’s also the neglectful father of our beloved BIll Adama, who we see glimpses of as a boy in the pilot. Seems patriarchal issues run deep in the Adama family, as does weeping. Jeffrey Reiner, my favorite Friday Night Lights director, delivered downright hypnotizing visuals to the pilot and he’ll hopefully continue to work for the show. The pilot DVD is advertised as “extended” and it’s obvious that will they’ll cut for air is the millions of boobs shown in the first five minutes.

Will BSG diehards be into Caprica? I have a feeling stalwart fans watched BSG more for the drama than the action anyways, so the shift to Caprica’s “grounded” motif should be painless. But we have to wait a year until Ron and Co. can officially prove themselves all over again. Fucking great.

Camera Obscura – My Maudlin Career (2009) [4AD] // Grade: B

In the past I would try to listen to Camera Obscura albums and just think “You know what? Let me put on Belle & Sebastian instead”. But around Let’s Get Out of This Country the band really started coming into their own, crafting the sort of perfectly irresistible Twee Pop that made their aforementioned active influence such darlings. If you can’t fall for “French Navy” or “Honey In the Sun” within a few seconds of them starting, then you my friend have no sense for sentimentality or romance.

Truthfully on the surface, camera Obscura’s sound hasn’t changed form their debut, just their confidence in executing it. My Maudlin Career furthers the bands transformation from 2nd rate Belle & Sebastian to simply masters of Twee Pop in their own right.

Anytime in this past month where I’ve felt down or felt anxious for it to feel like Spring already, I’d throw on My Maudlin Career. And sure enough, for the next 45 minutes or so it felt like Spring and that everything was going to be alright.

This is maybe my favourite video on the youtube right now, and even though his honesty is somewhat endearing: “I have a six inch penis… You’re probably not hot enough to get it up, so you can fuck other guys…” I have a feeling he’s not that far off of pulling some Hikkikomori type shit. Oh but there’s more.

I just finished watching a leak of the new Mike Tyson documentary and I must admit it was a bit overwhelming. The level of hilarity that is woven together by a documentary executively produced and narrated by Mike Tyson is not something you can fully absorb in one viewing.

To begin with, it was absurdly biased (as you would only expect) and only gave a little insight into Tyson’s boxing career and famous exploits. What the movie did pay lots of attention to however, was illustrating in graphic detail many of Iron Mike’s sexual fantasies. I actually had a pen ready when I watched this flick, fully anticipating amazing quotables. Here is Mike’s idea of a perfect woman word for word:

“I like a strong woman like a CEO of a company. I want a strong woman and then I want to dominate her sexually… like a tiger that watches their prey after they wound it.”

From here Mike starts talking about his attitude towards partners during sex:

“I love saying no all the time when I’m making love. When they ask for something it’s no.”

The best part of these segments is that they are all done with voice over footage of fat Nu-Tyson walking down a beach during a sunset edited beside a picture of his face in deep thought. I couldn’t begin to make this shit up even if I tried. Some other highlights of the movie include listening to Tyson murder the English language, recite poetry and cry.

Our good friends and collaborators MCA of Evil Design and Magmo The Destroyer are having a gallery show in Boston this weekend!

MCA sent me a sneak peek of some exclusive shots of some of the work in the show!

Other pics here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wzrdcrew/sets/72157616978956486

Show info:
Friday, April 24, 2009
6:00pm – 8:00pm
SPACE 242
242 E. Berkeley Street, 2nd floor
Boston, MA
http://www.space242.com

I love when stores do stuff like this! Un|Steady decided to tie in the release of the SS09 Mishka Womens Collection with a good ol fashioned slumber party, AT THE STORE!

Here is the info from the Un|Steady Blog:

Got vagina?
Get ready for our first annual Mishka X un|steady All Girls Slumber Party being held at un|steady and hosted by Miranda and Chrisite. Save the date, Saturday APRIL 25th-26th. $10 RSVP reserves your spot and gets you a limited edition collaboration shirt from Mishka and un|steady to sleep in, popcorn, beer and alcohol, pizza, and a breakfast on un|steady at the restaurant the next morning, plus more. We will be watching a double feature of Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead, there will also be games and prizes. So wax that vagina and mark your calendars…

I might need to crash this!

Wolves In The Throne Room – Black Cascade (2009) [Southern Lord] // Grade: B+

Just like early hardcore and punk, Black Metal’s roots are embedded in its shitty, lo-fi recordings. Overly-produced metal and punk just doesn’t do it for me. Something about polishing something born in a dark and decrepit wasteland just seems sacrilegious! Wolves in the Throne Room’s newest release Black Cascade was recorded using two-inch tape. Randall Dunn, the producer then mixed it on a 1973 Neve console, resulting in the typically flat sound familiar to Black Metal.

The resulting sound makes Black Cascade ambiguously situated within the Black Metal time-line. Mixing spiritualistic and eco-friendly lyrics with organic melodies and brisk collapsing breaks, this album would cater to the post-rock and post-metal crowds as well as the die-hard Black Metal crowd. There are no blast beats and no peaking moments of brutality, just somber and melodic Black Metal laced over 4 tracks, each about 10 minutes in length.

What do you expect? The album’s name is an homage to the Cascade Mountains where the band was born!

Has this ever happened to you? You doze off for about a second and wake up to find you can’t move any of your limbs or speak, but are completely lucid and able to look around the room. As hard as you try you can’t snap out of it. Then shit gets really fucked. You feel an ominous presence in the room and eventually a figure appears. Sometimes it’s at the foot of the bed, sometimes it’s on the bed, and, worst of all, sometimes it’s on your chest.

What could potentially be a five-star wet dream is actually sleep paralysis accompanied with hypnagogic hallucinations. I’ve been getting them since about 2004 and they’re the fucking pits. The first time it happened I saw someone at the foot of the bed. It lasted for about two minutes until I managed to wake up my girlfriend with my gasps and she throttled me into awareness. I’ve also had a child-size thing sitting on the foot of the bed and the opening and closing of my bedroom door. Seriously terrifying at the time.

I don’t really put any weight into the spiritual/supernatural explanations (getting raped by the Devil), but folklore provides some unique and awesome causes. From Wikipedia:

In Homng culture, sleep paralysis describes an experience called “dab tsog” or “crushing demon.” Often the sufferer claims to be able to see a tiny figure, no larger than a child, sitting on his or her chest. What is alarming is that a vast number of American Hmong have died in their sleep, prompting the Centers for Disease Control to create the term “Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome.” (wasn’t this one of the inspirations for Nightmare on Elm Street?)

In Malay of Malay Peninsula, sleep paralysis is known as ‘kena tindih’, which means “being pressed”. Incidents are commonly considered to be the work of a malign agency; occurring in what are explained as blind spots in the field of vision, they are reported as demonic figures.

There’s a ton more related legends on the Wiki page and some creepo testimonials scattered throughout the monster web. If tonight I become a victim of Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome, it was nice knowin’ ya.

The Stooges – Funhouse (1970)

Vs.

Nirvana – In Utero (1993)

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…