This Simon Clover graphic hasn’t even been out for a week yet and it’s already tattooed on someone’s shoulder! The shoulder in question belongs to Terry K. of Lynnfield, MA.

I’m not sure who did the work but it’s ridiculously faithful to Glamnation’s illustration from our Fall 09 Release Party. I know he’s going to be pretty flattered once he sees this.

Updated (8/27, 7:30pm)

We were just sent over another Simon tattoo. Rudy C. from Stockton, CA endured the pain of getting Simon on their ring finger!

So I’m going to do a few more Fall 2009 previews this week focusing on New Eras. Today we’ve got two styles with our beloved Simon.

The Bad Luck New Era utilizes the Simon clover that’s been all over our Fall 2009 branding. Simple and clean, the hats are available in Black & Hunter Green on a nice thick flannel cotton.

Next is the Superstitious New Era, with a top hatted Simon as the centerpiece of a very traditional rockabilly style graphic.

Available in Burgundy and Charcoal, both hats are made of a rich melton wool perfect for Fall’s frost. Stay tuned tomorrow for two more New Eras from our Fall-1 drop!

The Sky Drops - Bourgeois Beat (2009) [Fridabear] // Grade: B

Despite what the unfortunate album cover may imply, The Sky Drops are not White Stripes wannabees.  The Delaware duo are another in a growing list of bands helping making 2009 the year Shoegaze re-broke.

Much like with the Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s debut, I don’t think The Sky Drops are interested in using Shoegaze/Dream-Pop as a jumping off point to some new musical frontier as they are in recapturing their love for bygone sound. Standout tracks like “Swimming with Fishes”, “Long Way”, “Truth Is” & title track “Bourgeois Beat” downright made me think I hit some long forgotten pocket of 90s CDs I had ripped.

If you’re over the 90s and the gazer rock rebirth of the past few years then this sort of pitch-perfect revivalism isn’t going to win you over. However, for those screaming “More, more, more!” for the sorts of sugary male/female harmonies over luscious guitar swoons will find Bourgeois Beat a soundly executed nostalgic trip back to a time when The Sky Drops would have probably been sharing a bill with Catherine Wheel & The Boo Radley’s.

Photo by John Kim

Here goes Max again. 5-0 to fakie rockin the Pusrot T-shirt by French. If you haven’t checked it out yet French’s show at 350 is entering it’s last days, so make sure you stop by before all these dope drawings head back over the pond.

And, in more skate related news I just got some footy from the homeboy Tommy Noble, or as I call him Tom Bolts. This kid has incredible style, it’s everything that’s great about skateboarding. He looks totally lackadaisical until the moment he pops the trick, and then it’s all-business-caught-clean-stomped-out-smoothness. Apparently this is all the discards from his recent filming, and with discards like this I’m psyched to see what he’s holding back.

You know we love Ninjasonik. So it?s only fitting that on the heels of the Darth Baño party and mix, that we handed over the keys to the Brooklyn trio for Keep Watch Volume 11. In fine fair, this mix is straight-up get-drunk-and-high-bathroom-fucking music. And If a ramped up mix wasn?t enough, Mishka and Ninjasonik are hosting a release party on Friday August 28 at Webster Hall.

Ninjasonik is a musical collaboration started by New York based artists Reverend McFly (MC and DJ – a.k.a. Jah Jah Brown) and Teenwolf (Producer and DJ – a.k.a. k.ross), later fortified by the addition of Telli “Bathroom Sexxx” Federline on the motormouth. The varied backgrounds combine to coin a totally newfangled club punk rap sound. Regularly covering seminal punk bands like Bad Brains and Minor Threat and remixing some of their favorite bands like The Death Set, Matt & Kim, and Team Robespierre has propelled Ninjasonik into a league of their own. Ninjasonik began to record original songs in 2007, and have played and recorded with a long list of amazing artists, such as Japanther, Spankrock, Dan Deacon, The Cool Kids, Matt & Kim, Ponytail, Fiasco, the Homosexuals, Vivian Girls, Best Fwends, and many more and in summer of 2008 they released their first EP on Chief Records.

Keep Watch Vol. XI: Ninjasonik by Мишка Bloglin

Amen Dunes – Dia (2009) [Locust] // Grade: A+

Dia is the classic story of musician self-imposes exile into the wide open wilderness to record an album raw with human emotion. It’s a tale that’s been woven before to different measures of success, but none nearly as authentic and inspired as the sounds created by Amen Dunes (Damen McMahon) when he left the city behind for a shack in the Catskill Mountains to record the gritty, lo-fi psych Dia.

Albums created in relative solitude can often sound overly introspective and lose the edge of the creator’s music, but such is not the case with Dia, an album that leads by example. McMahon channels his self-reflection deep inside, past the place of awareness and loneliness, to that buried spot where dreams and the psyche merge. The result isn’t clarity, or music that necessarily makes sense, but that’s the point. McMahon visits a place inside himself as remote as the the terrain that surrounds him. Sometimes his sounds loop endlessly, droning in a drugged-up stupor and other times he rumbles and pounds to the tune of a noisy guitar and indiscernible moans and wails. Stylistically, Dia is all over the place, but this stream of consciousness approach works startlingly well, allowing the listener to put themselves in McMahon’s shoes, close their eyes and disappear into the reverb. Dia is not an album that entirely lacks melody, inserting an acoustic, folk-kissed hook at just the right moment to break the cycle of gently lulling weirdness.

Listing the standout tracks of Dia is a pointless endeavor. It is an album rooted in context, a true musical project that challenges the listener to examine who they are and the world they call home. Dark, offbeat, mysterious and tear your heart out raw, Dia is the essence of outsider Americana and an easy contender for one of the year’s best releases.

Pharoahe Monch - The Light

Busta Rhymes - Gimme Some More

Mobb Deep feat. Lil’ Kim - Quiet Storm Remix

MF Doom - Dead Bent

Company Flow - 8 Steps to Perfection

Its been fun! Tonight is the final Jetlag. Won’t you join us?!

Tonight and Every Wednesday Night in June, July and August!

Resident DJS:
Andy Rourke (The Smiths)
and
Olé Koretsky

Bring you Jetlag @ Beauty Bar. Spinning rock, electro, indie, hacienda, new wave, post punk, etc…

Drink specials all night long! Text ‘JETLAG‘ to 50500 for weekly drink specials and guest DJs.

Beauty Bar
231 East 14th St. (btwn 2nd & 3rd)
2 for 1 Vodka – 11pm – 12am!
Free!

New York is full of three things: people, places, and things. I’ve been here three years soaking them up, categorizing, classifying, collecting, rating, searching, finding, tasting, et cetera. Am I the atypical New York City scout? No. Am I a curious dude with good taste trying to get my fill (pause)? Yes. With that said, “Places I go in New York,” is how I share the results with all of you. As a disclaimer, I spend very little time above 14th Street, so most of my spots are downtown.

McNally Jackson is by all means a treasure. It’s located at 52 Prince Street, between Lafayette and Mulberry. It’s close to the Spring Street stop on the 6, Broadway Lafayette on the FV, and the Prince Street stop on the RW. It’s one of SoHo’s redeeming establishments. It’s not flashy, it’s not fleeting, and you don’t have to be a baller to spend money here.

I think Strand is a pretty common stop for folks visiting New York, and in a lot of ways it’s a great bookstore. But, when I go spend money at Strand it’s equivocal to spending money at Wal-Mart. However, when I have to buy a book I always feel good about spending my money at McNally Jackson. Why? Because it’s a thoroughly considered, carefully curated, and crisply designed space. When they profit from me I know my money is going towards an aesthetic that I’d like to see proliferate. The window displays and employee picks are always plentiful, and constantly changing. The magazine section doesn’t have every magazine, but it has every one that I would have any interest in buying. In fact, McNally Jackson is where I found out about Uovo (no link, sorry).

In addition to the books, they also have a cafe, which is held down by one of my favorite people in New York. The cafe has all kinds of bottled beverages–not alcoholic ones though–great loose leaf tea, coffee, sanwiches, salads, and a nice selection of local baked goods. The cafe area is small with only about twenty or twenty-five seats. For the most part it’s a pretty quiet space, which makes it a nice escape from the sense-straining surroundings of SoHo.

McNally Jackson also has a jam-packed calendar of events that draws luminary figures as stellar as Werner Herzog. So, don’t sleep on the events if that’s your thing. Last, but not least, the staff is awesome–lots of smiles, and great dispositions ensure that you will always feel invited.

Tomorrow night there’s going to be a party in Toronto playing rap all night long. Oh shit.