The whole concept of file “sharing,” is a never ending paradox…as an artist you want to get your work to the greatest amount of people possible. However, if the greatest amount of people possible are receiving your work without PAYING for it, how can you as an artist be financially secure enough to create MORE art for the greatest amount of people? Advances in technology have given art to the masses…but what about the artist? Isn’t file “sharing” going to eventually lead to cannibalization?

The only true fact of the matter is that the game has changed and industries need to figure out how to play; as their current paradigm is in direct conflict with their audience.

The new incoming CEO of Pirate Bay issued a manifesto on the future of file sharing and torrent sites. You should read it.

Spread out on the floor to form interesting and creative designs?

Sure, why not. Generally I’m more of a tea man myself, but I’ve gotta give props where the are due. In light of The Rock Aroma Festival held this past July in Sydney these Aussie’s did a over sized replica of the Mona Lisa 3,604 assorted colors of coffee. Pretty dope if you ask me, which leads me to wonder… was da Vinci a coffee drinker?

Hmmm…

Municipal Waste – Massive Aggressive (2009) [Earache] // Grade: B+

For almost a decade now Municipal Waste has been the face of the old school Thrash revival and the best Crossover Thrash band since D.R.I. called it quits.  Massive Aggressive is the band’s 4th full length album and continues basically where every other album left off. It’s becoming apparent that besides the certainties of death & taxes, Municipal Waste are good for 30 minutes of beer bonging party anthems every two years. So If you’re looking for variety or a re-invention of the wheel when it comes to your Thrash, this ain’t the place to start.

While innovation may not be Municipal Waste’s calling card that shouldn’t imply that Massive Aggressive is in any way a carbon copy of their past 3 albums. Firstly, the vocal production is crisper and cleaner showing that Tony Foresta’s vocals can be just as catchy as the riffs.  And for the first time The Waste seems inclined to veer just a little more towards the Hardcore side of things in crafting this album. While slight, those subtle tweaks go a long way in making Massive Aggressive The Waste’s most satisfying collection of songs since 2005′s Hazardous Mutation.

While I love me the sort of bands who are all about growing, experimenting and challenging themselves with each new release, that just doesn’t suit every single band or even every single style of music. Municipal Waste, like AC/DC & Coca-Cola are just another example of when you’re that good at what you do, you don’t need to fuck with a winning formula.

In this episode: The Toilet Cobra and Fucked Up’s lead singer Damian “Pink Eyes” Abraham have a tender talkabout in the back of record cave, Academy Records. These two goofs flapped their gums like back in the day chums about Serbia, MTV, Fox News and baby humiliation. Watch along, won’t you, my darling?

The FuzzyTVMemories YouTube channel is a cornucopia of kitsch from the Museum of Classic Chicago Television. Go there and get lost in the flood.

Smile Gang:

Puttin’ on the Kids: Duffy Lucas lip syncs along to “Sussudio,” summoning Shub-Niggurath, “The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young.”

Arguably, the greatest of all the classic monsters is the werewolf. With this in mind it’s surprising that there aren’t more good movies about them. When I found out that Benicio Del Torro was going the play the lead in the classic Wolf Man remake I was stoked and then apprehensive and then apprehensively stoked. I had fallen for the old cool actor plays werewolf in the past and gotten burned. This time I’m not going to jump on board just yet…however, I must admit the latest trailer has me hopeful.

Since Youtube ain’t what it used to be and embedding is disabled by a simple request now the trailer can be seen here.

Yup! So as you know, this past weekend we had our Biannual Warehouse Sale. And we’d like to thank all the devoted fans who stuck it out in the blistering high noon heat just to get their first dibs on our INSANE prices and sample pieces.

We had Shark hold down the cash wrap, and here he is tallying up the first day’s estimates. lol

Deja Vu! Here we have our very own Ease DaMan posted up with……. Ease DaMan? Much love to the lovely young lady who purchased the Mishka Fall ad featuring Ease at the Sale for $50. Enjoy! And let life-sized Ease keep you warm through those lonely nights.

In Store Fall Debut

Also right next door at 350 Broadway we debuted the Born Under a Bad Sign Fall 09′ collection. Shout outs to all the lucky customers who were able to get the first crack at the latest and greatest Mishka collection before it hit the online store. Make sure you stop in to pick up your favorite piece now available in store.

Sacrarium – March To An Inviolable Death (2009) [Self-Released] // Grade: B-

French Black Metal may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but Sacrarium doesn’t seem to be phased by that. Like most Black Metal, the guitar and drum combination is somewhat overpowering, leaving the listener enveloped in a rain of blast beats. March To An Inviolable Death has blast beats, but the riffs seem to overpower the drums in most of the songs.

The opening track “A.C.R.H.” contains the typical war-like chants and vocal overlays and feeds directly into “Heartless Visions”, one of those blast beat tracks I was referring to earlier. At a staggering 7-minutes long, your initial reaction is to skip the track. What keeps me tuned in though is the lead singer’s (V.R.S.?) vocals. That and the constant onslaught of intricately-woven riffs which grow in intensity, overpowering the drummer’s work. The track peaks mid-way where synthesized noise leads you down a different path, reminiscent of Satyricon’s “Diabolical Now”.

This is why I like this album so much. It’s filled with changes and shifts in tempo, which drastically improve the album’s composition as a whole. “Demolish By Himself” picks up some of the same riffs and drums, but more so here, than before, the riffs begin to slow down towards the end of the track, where the band’s melodic side begins to show.

“Phantomatic Landscape” was the moment where I realized Sacrarium is more than likely using a drum machine. It’s fast as fuck. The track pounds you with blast beats and rapid double kicks. “Through Centuries” continues the same assault and it’s only during “Terribilis Est Locus Iste” where you pick up the melodic guitar riffs once again.

“This Is The Final Warning” is by far the best track on the album. It’s brutal, fast, and for once, you can begin to pick up on the lead singer’s lyrics. It’s almost as if he wants you to understand what he’s saying here, like it is an actual warning. With his last breath, the album dies, leaving you the “Outro”, which is mostly more apocalyptic noise.

Overall, if you’re a huge Black Metal fan and you always need to hear the new albums, it’s a good choice, it’s fast, technical and plays really well. If you’re looking for something new in the genre, you can skip it. This album is straight up French Black Metal. Sacrarium is a good band with even greater potential. I’m sure their next release will be even better.

Batman and Robin #3
Grant Morrison is one divisive motherfucker. To fanboys like me, he’s a hallucinogenic ball of absurdity. I loved his run on New X-Men, though to be fair I stopped reading comic books in the middle of it. People (like our own beloved Crook) perhaps correctly accuse him of using the characters as vehicles for his own madness, disavowing canon, continuity and history for his own intentions.

That said, Morrison and Quietly rocked the shit out of All-Star Superman, and did so by playing extremely tight with Supes’ history and still doing their own thing. How tight was it? I have a lot of friends who eviscerate Superman as a dullard and yet they cite All-Star as their favorite and only Superman story.

Morrison has been nailing Batman and Robin so far. If you haven’t been paying attention, Bruce Wayne is dead. Sort of. Wink wink. We both know he’ll be back. And DC loved killing him so much; they did it twice last year. In Batman R.I.P, they sent the Flying Rodent in the sea via an exploding helicopter. Then they politely asked Morrison to kill him again with a transgalactic-time-hopping-omega-super-bullet or something. He could last been seen stuck in the future-past-somewhere else scrawling on a wall in his own feces. No, seriously.

Batman and Robin #3 is the conclusion of Dick Grayson – formerly giddy motorcycle driving Nightwing – donning the mantle of the Batman. It’s a absurd lighthearted examination of what wearing the mantle means for someone besides Bruce Wayne. And what inheriting a symbol means, and how to operate under that symbology. No, I’m not kidding. File under awesome Alfred’s explanation in issue #2:

Try to think of your Batman not as a memorial — you and I know he’d hate that – but as a performance. Think of Batman as a great role, like a Hamlet, or Willie Loman, or James Bond. And play it to suit your strengths.

Fucking awesome. I love the comparison to James Bond. Because I love Daniel Craig! Suck it!

And say what you will about Quietly’s art. Personally, I love it. But even the hardest of haters can be amused by his use of onomatopoeia in the sound effects and extremely clean panel structure.

Batman and Robin has all of Morrison’s creativity, while keeping it reigned in and accessible to those of us who are fond of clean story telling without seventeen layers and esoteric references. Get some.

Also in DC: Uh…Yeah, stuff. The newest issue of Flash Rebirth drops. Which is by Geoff Johns and probably cool, but I haven’t checked it out. Spin-off City sees Blackest Night: Titans #1. Not buying it, enjoy the spin-off though if you’re that guy. And Supermans Pal Jimmy Olsen Special #2 which asks the question, is it really a special if it is more than a one-shot?

X-Men Forever Vol. 2 #6
Don’t buy this comic book. Why am I featuring X-Men Forever? To warn you, my good friends, to stay away from this comic book.

And why is this, Ian?

It’s simple: It’s written by Chris Claremont. I used to love Chris Claremont. Dude wrote the pinnacle of the X-Men. Days of Future Past? Inferno? Dark Phoenix Saga? Him, him, him. And then what happened? Dude rolled off the table. Shit happens. Everyone peaks at some point.

I used to forgive Claremont for the fact that he seems generally out of touch, hyper-verbose, and somewhat awful. I fell out of love with him in the late 1990’s when he came back to the X-universe after a sabbatical. He had lost his fastball, and his stories were filled with the worst of his tendencies, with none of the awesomeness. A young teenager, it was part of a painful disillusionment where one after another my heroes failed me. George Lucas and Chris Claremont broke me, perhaps for the better.

I used to float him the free pass, though. In general, I govern myself by simple rules concerning creators I adore. They will always peak, and fall into rubbish. But instead of faulting them for this, which I perceive to be simply a matter of fact for the arts, I cherish them for their past works of brilliance.

It takes a lot for me to revoke that free pass. But when Lucas butt fucked the original trilogy on DVD, he had his rescinded. Sometimes. I’m wishy-washy. Whatever. The same happened to Claremont this winter.

I was in New York for their Comicon, and I attended the X-Panel. I’m honestly not sure why I did, since I resent half the creative team, and I feel that editorial pressure prohibits dudes I think are talented like Matt Fraction from excelling. But there was Claremont on the panel as well.

I couldn’t believe how fucking full of himself this dude was. First off, he’s just as verbose in real life. I can’t believe he didn’t go into the exposition that ruined his titles near the end:

“I, Christopher Claremont, writer of the X-Titles…yadda yadda snore.”

But secondly, he shit on almost all of the X-Universe in front of their creators. When the entire panel fielded a question from Generic Mouth breathing Comic Fan X which went something like:

“Uh yeah, X-Men don’t uh kill…this is dumb, the X-titles are dumb. P.S, everyone knows Nightcrawler doesn’t eat Charleston Chews, he eats Skittles”

Claremont then said something to the extent of:

“Well, good fanboy chap who promotes static characters and rejects change in favor of the same boring slop, I have a solution for you. Buy my X-Titles; they’re…a bit different than the others. They have a different feel, we’re sort of offering an alternative to those who want something other than the current X-universe.”

Seriously, he vomited that. In essence, if you want my boring slop, which is a poor imitation of the Claremont I used to be, buy my titles. They’re not like the other guys’ works, which I clearly disdain.

Fuck Chris Claremont.

And if that tedium isn’t enough for you, check these titles you could be buying. Avengers Initiative. Dark Avengers. Dark Reign Elekrta. Dark Reign Sinister Spider-Man. Dark Wolverine. Dark X-Men Beginning. Wolverine Origins. Wolverine First Class.

Marvel is spinning into self-parody this summer. Oh well, I get to spend $3 this week.

Holy. Shit. After last week’s girly episode, we get this beast. It was like the producers had all their writers sit down and try to out batshit each other. A much welcomed change with only one cringe-worthy moment (see: Sookie’s Erik fantasy).

Sookie, Jason, and Bill return to Bon Temps to find it looking like 28 Days Later – or as Bellefleur puts it, “It’s like New York City out there.” The whole town seems to be under Mary Ann’s black-eyed hex; fucking and fighting in the street. Back over at Mary Ann’s, a giant meat-cross is being constructed as an offering to the god coming to visit. Mary Ann insists on using the good meats, like liver. She also insists on sacrificing Sam to this god. All this pomp leads me to believe we’ll finally be wrapping up Mary Ann’s story, I can’t see this demonic windbag being around another season causing this much hooplah. Oh yeah, Bill attempts to drain her and ends up puking black-goddess blood out the car window. Lolz. Sookie has a magic touch. Dumb.

Sam and Bellefleur are drawn out of hiding by Arlene, who tells them there’s an emergency at Merlotte’s. It’s a trap, doy, and the dynamic duo end up barricading themselves in the freezer. Perfect for a rescue by chainsaw-wielding Jason, who, sadly, does not use the chainsaw. It was still pretty badass when he halved that CD player. The scene that plays out next is pretty much the most ridiculous thing, even for True Blood. Jason duping all the black-eyes into believing he’s a god by wearing no shirt and a gas mask, with Bellefleur holding a branch behind his head, was amazing. I wish my abs were that persuasive. I wish I had abs. Sam turns into a fly and reappears wearing only an apron with his bum sticking out. This show…is fucking ridiculous.

BIG deal this episode was Evan Rachel Wood’s leg. Hands down. She’s going to play the Queen of Louisiana. Which is awesome because I like my women pale and red-headed (must love dogs), but also kind of sucks because I don’t want any more political hierarchy bullshit on the show. It’s boring and somewhat pointless – remember Godric?

The episode title is from the song during the closing credits, by King Britt and Sister Gurtrude Morgan. You can listen to it here. A nice quiet before the Bon Temps Storm.