Noel – Silent Morning

Company B – Fascinated (Live)

Stacy Q – Two of Hearts

TKA – X-Ray Visions

Pretty Poison – Catch Me I’m Falling

Fox New’s has asked Damian Abraham, lead singer of Fucked Up to be a regular commentator for the news channel. As odd of a marriage as this may seem, Damian makes for an interesting and excellent talking head that goes well against Fox’s usual conservative grain.

Check him out during his most recent appearance on Fox’s early morning show Red Eye (Click Here).

Congrats to Damian on being offered the opportunity and if you accept I look forward to seeing you in NYC more often! For more about Damian check out his Five Questions with us.

If you’re reading this, there is probably no need to introduce Diplo. I would call any Bloglin reader a straight-up liar if they told me they weren’t familiar with Diplo. As his collaborative project Major Lazer nears release, Diplo took time out to answer a few questions for us. Here’s what he had to say about lazers, dreadlocks & sissies…

5 Questions With Diplo

1) I’ll start this off with something major… What’s up with this Major Lazer jam? We know it’s you & Switch & a whole cast of characters (including Andy Milonakis) getting wild in the studio on some twerked out reggae shit, but can you drop a little knowledge about the project that all the blog nerds DON’T YET know about?

Its basically a reggae album that me and Switch had concieved from about a year and a half ago (I voiced the first track 2 years ago) and since then its finally came to be finished. As its two white producer doods… we created this hero – Major Lazer to be the artist and hes like a terminator soundboy vampire killer guy and it represents the whole immediate madness, ragga sound and crazy apocalyptic ragga we made for the album.

2) Mad Decent & Mishka have worked together on a variety of graphics and events, but it’s not well known that you and Greg knew each other in college. According to Greg, you rode to Philadelphia on a bus he chartered to protest the incarceration of Mumia Abu-Jamal, but ended up spending the day skating around Philly. What influenced your move to Philly & will you ever grow dreads again?

I’ve been trying to grow back my dread for the last 10 years but its hard to really go out and not get a few unkind words… back when me and Greg were tryin’ to free Mumia, I never thought I would end up takin’ Greg to eat cheesesteaks at the racist Pats king of steaks 10 yrs later.. but yes, Greg’s home “the hippy hole” was a good place to get alternative news about animal slaughters and make custom punk band buttons which I would wear proudly. I really can’t believe how much crew from Florida high school, middle school and college have gone on to do shit later. For me Philly was just mad cheap and i was attracted to its more challenging aspects; true it took time to really get any attention here but what we developed was very home grown.

3) Although a lot of fans may only know you as a DJ, you are involved with a wide range of projects. Grammy nominated producer, label owner, philanthropist… you’re definitely not just playing parties. Can you offer a little insight to the future of Mad Decent, as well as what direction you see yourself going as an artist?

Well as a label, I hope that people like the progressive stuff we put out.. from Bonde do Rolê to MIA and Santigold mixtapes… to bands like POPO and a dubstep full length from Rusko. We definitely are tying to do things other people arent up to do and we do it pretty good. We hope that its more than just the music and parties culture ’cause we represent a punk aesthetic as far as a do-it-yourself attitude and saying that nothing is off limits to try. The only common thread is that everyone is excited about music 100 percent in the bulding. On the philanthropy side, yes, I think that doing something beyond music is important too, like what we do for Heaps Decent. Our first one in Australia, which consists of workshops for aboriginal children all the way up to collabs in London and Rio with Red Bull to reach out to kids and music is important, and it makes websites like Hipster Runoff and Pitchfork have a harder time making fun of me and my label.

4) Anyone that follows you on Twitter or keeps up with the Mad Decent blog knows that you are constantly touring & traveling the world. Do you have any particular stories from the road that stand out as more than memorable (some real preview of the Matrix 12 shit)?

I’m in New Orleans right now filmin’ a pilot for TV about traveling and music. We spent a day with sissy bounce rappers, Sissy Nobby and Big Fredia, and this is really whats poppin’ in New Orleans’ music. You really cant have a party here in the city without one of these girls (gay men bounce rappers) hosting. It just doesn’t pop-off. Its kinda mad… This is what I did yesterday. Now I’m on the way to ATl to play with my girl Muffy (a new rapper on Bangladesh music label) so everyday is something more mad that we are trying to give some light to at Mad Decent. I can write for days on weird shit. Thats why I got Twitter in the first place.

 

5) You’ve been working with Lil’ Jon lately, and Mad Decent is promoting Rusko as he tours the U.S. What impact do you see dubstep having in regards to U.S. hip-hop in the upcoming years? Will UK producers begin to make waves in the commercial rap scene or will American producers simply interpolate the dubstep sound into their own style?

I doubt about UK rappers ’cause it just doesn’t work that way, but with Rusko… like we are workin’ on getting Gucci Mane to finish voicing a beat for him and getting Lil’ Jon to do dubstep, someone established to really take a chance. Thats what works and thats where we are at in music right now. Kids really need to have something that stands out to get attention, even if you’re a superstar. Everything has been done to pieces in hip-hop and thats when people call us up. Even as dubstep is gonna be a blanket term that groups a lot of sounds and kids together, we promote Rusko… as well as Benga and Skream because for us they are bigger than dubstep. They are gonna be around for a long time to come making music that is BIG and more importantly having ideas that change the game.

Damien Walters is a Hollywood stuntman who just wrapped up work on Matthew Vaughan’s Kick Ass, adapted from the Mark Millar comic-book. Damien thinks he’s hot shit with all his muscles and reality-bending gymnastics so he put together this showreel.

I’m just bitter. If I could do one of the moves in the above video, I’d quit my job and fight crime (and probably be drowning in vagina). Homeboy is on some Matrix shit!

Lamour’s iPhone. I want a fancy phone. My thing takes like five seconds to respond every time I press a button. Apparently I was causing chaos. You can’t cause chaos, you just draw it to you, like when Storm makes it rain. The elements are there. They just gotta precipitate. Actually there was not much chaos. I ate some hot dogs and said inappropriate shit to people.

“Yayyyyyy!”

Mike Jones is AZN.

Here’s a picture of the last time I was at the East River Bar. Performing with my ex girlfriend as MC Darth Gazin Versus Megamom for the first time. This was 2004 I think.

Blank Dogs – Under & Under (2009) [In the Red] // Grade: A-

Mike Sniper is one busy dude. In the last 2 years he’s churned out EP after EP, compilations  and now comes Under & Under comes his second Blank Dogs full length. If you’ve followed the band for anytime you’ll have surely noticed that their self proclaimed brand of “Shitgaze” has grown more and more accessible with each release. However accessible is a relative term when Shitgaze can be summed up as a mix between Lo-Fi Garage and Synth-Punk.

Under & Under is easily the Dogs most cohesive and satisfying release. In the past 2 years Sniper has gone out of his way in establishing an unmistakable sound within loosely contained songs that were more delivery method than anything else. And while as fun and enjoyable as Sniper made that, Under & Under finally harnesses that sound and fleshes it out into an album’s worth of fully realized songs… infectious, weird and well, great songs. Sure they’re buried under so much fuzz that they sound like Alien transmissions coming in, but that’s part of their charm… Having that fuzzy buffer distances each song from the basic Pop structure it’s built on, re-imagining the mundane as exotic.

It’s a bit of a grower but with very listen (and I’ve had quite a few) you take back something new and equally as charming from this album. Get on the Blank Dog’s wave now while they’re still on the ground floor of the Hype machine!

This isn’t going to be your usual obscure Rewind, it’s just of a flick I had never seen before and a quick poll around the office confirmed my suspicions that this wasn’t one of Scorsese’s better known flicks.

If you grew up as a child in the 80s I’m certain you probably saw the above image on the shelf of your local video store. Based on that cover graphic I always assumed After Hours was one of countless 80′s wild sexual romps like Bachelor Party or The Night Before. I had no clue that this was a Martin Scorsese film until it popped up on my Netflix Watch Instantly queue.

After Hours is Scorsese’s stab at a Black Comedy that is unbelievably dry and tense. Paul (Griffin Dunne) plays a hapless word processor who lucks into an ultra-cute Rosanna Arquette’s at a coffee shop and scores her digits. Later that night he places a call to where she’s staying and get an enthusiastic invitation to “come over” for what would eventually turn into a pretty wild night… but not in a good way. Paul finds himself broke and stuck in Soho at a variety of 80s downtown locales, meeting an incestuous cast of head cases  (that include Cheech & Chong, Terri Garr, Linda Fiorentino, John Heard, Catherine O’Hara among countless others) on an evening that just won’t end no matter how much he want’s it to!

While I have seen my share of Scorsese films, I’m by no means an authority on the man and his work. I didn’t know he had ever done another Black Comedy outside of Goodfellas.

After Hours It’s set in mid 80s in that perfectly captures the grit and grime of the old NY everyone loves to romanticize about. The artsy underbelly of 80s NY is captured exactly how we’d like to remember it through a thick screen of filth.

To be honest had I known better, I never would have guessed this was a Scorsese film because it sort of plays kind of like if David Lynch decided to take a stab at an R rated comedy. There’s this constant sense of anxiety that something really disturbing may happen throughout the film… like you’re waiting for those Lynch style “What the fuck?” moments but instead get “Oh Man, this guy just can”t catch a break!” mature situations. If you’re a fan of old movies that capture NY at it’s grimiest AND 80′s comedies then this is totally one you need to add to your list.

P.S. I’m pretty sure that the Big Black Naked Cowboy who slaps Al Pacino in the face during the Crusing interrogation scene is also holding Griffin Dunne down during the mohawk shaving scene at the Punk club. Bonus points!

Bloke bloke bloke ! So my official BDay will be at Sutra and that’s the flyer above this. Definitely stopping by Happy Endings after to check the homies A.L.I.E.N and Ninjasonik. (more…)

I got this bad boy I am guessing almost 10 years ago at the FX Show in Orlando, Florida. I am not sure if this show is still going on (let me google dat!) but it was the highlight every year for me growing up in Florida.

FX show was the largest toy show in Florida and one of the biggest in the country. Wall to wall dealers of vintage toys and comics. This was also before (or just around the time of) ebay so there was a ton of stuff that was marked at top prices.

I saw this little guy sitting on small table with a few other things. I wasn’t going to even ask the guy how much because I knew it was going to be over my budget, but I was like What the Hell (WTH?!). I asked the guy and he said, $20!

Not only was the toy a super rad vinyl wind-up. When you put a key and wind him up he starts to shake around, it also had this amazing original box! I had no idea what it was except for some sort of Spanish Frankenstein.

Years later I am still in shock, amazement and bewilderment that I found this toy. I have never seen one like it since. Due to the magic of IMDB I now know that this show was a TV show in Spain from 1977. OK DAMN!

Of course I do a google search and this comes up on Youtube! I still don’t understand what this show was but it looks like it was some sort of game show!?

Either way this is one of my favorite most oddest toys that I own!

Mishka Summer ’09 Available Online & In-Store!

Summer is finally peeking through the din of Winter and we’re also proud to present the Mishka 2009 Summer Lookbook. Shot by our friend Marley Kate which features Dan Felton & friends in an homage to summer’s in New York City past and present. As the sweltering heat sets in and takes hold of us for the next few months you can find respite in the lighter gear offered this season. A selection of cut & sew shorts, polo shirts and button-ups keep pace with Mishka standards like our tees, snapbacks and New Eras.

It’s not all Summer-y bliss and light fare though; The “Swamp Rot” tee by Arik Roper (High on Fire, Sleep) keeps things appropriately dirty and the UK’s dark art’s master French brings us three offerings; “Sludge Mop”, “Pusrot” as well as “Destined to Fester”. L’Amour Supreme’s equally gnarly Swamp Thing meets the Bear Mop  “Swamp Mop” rounds out the collection in classic Mishka fashion. The entire collection is available now for order online or at any of our retailers worldwide.

Мишка
350 Broadway
Brooklyn, NY

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