FRANKRADIO, ihiphop and Rostrum Records Present:
Wiz Khalifa, Deal or No Deal Release Party
w/Live In Performance by:
Wiz Khalifa
Ninjasonik
Trouble Andrew
and DJs Jasmine Solano and Schoolboy

Tuesday November 24th
The Highline Ballroom
431 W. 16th St. (Btw 9th and 10th Aves)
New York, NY
$15 (Click to buy tix)

DJ Vivian Host, aka Star Eyes of Brooklyn’s Trouble & Bass crew has forevre been part of our extended family.  She was recently the subject of a mini-doc series that Thirteen PBS is producing, called New York on the Clock. It’s a bi-weekly, short form interview with different New Yorkers about their lives on the job.

Known as Star Eyes, Vivian Host has been a DJ for over 15 years. After moving from California five years ago she joined up with like-minded DJs to form Brooklyn’s Trouble & Bass crew. Fans and practitioners of the D.I.Y. aesthetic, she and Trouble & Bass work to keep some of the rave chaos in New York City’s nightlife.

Congrats to Vivian on this little feature! If you already haven’t, get familiar with Star Eyes, one of my favorite DJs in the world. Check out 7H3 H4X0R M1X that she did for us last year. A seriously amazing Industrial/EBM mix.

This has been making the rounds for the past few weeks, but I figured it’s just rad enough to re-post here. Just a couple of regular dudes talking about work, art, lawyers, and the absurdity of life.

I first stumbled on this via Buff Monster and his fantastic and otherworldly twitter page. In addition to posting bulletins from Buff Monster Land, he tends to broadcast links to random and gratuitous weirdness in the afternoons…if you’re sitting around looking to be distracted by a rib smoker shaped like a gun, or an outtake photo of slave leia sunning herself beside her body-double, maybe you should follow him and let the good times roll.

Click image to enlarge.

As promised, more details on this week’s Black Friday Weekend sale. In addition to the 35-50% off for the entire weekend on selected product. Once we open on Friday, November 27th, every hour we will be slashing prices in-store on our brand new holiday collection for all of you early birds. See the schedule below for details and remember that the shop will open at 6am on Friday Nov. 27th. It will follow our regular weekend hours on Saturday the 28th and Sunday the 29th.

November 27th Sales Schedule
6am – 50% off Holiday items
7am – 40% off Holiday items
8am – 30% off Holiday items
9am – 20% off Holiday items
10am – 10% off Holiday items
11am – Holiday at full price (but free gift with any purchase of a Holiday item, deal ends at noon)

**In addition to the discounts on Holiday from 6-11am, all other apparel in-store will also be marked down 35-50%**

Those who can’t make it into the shop before noon on Friday, the 27th fear not because there will still be loads of savings to be had. You’ll not only still get your first chance at our Holiday 09 collection but almost everything else in-store will still be 35-50% off for the entire weekend.

The first 30 customers to the shop that morning will also walk away with a FREE limited edition Black Friday T-Shirt and we’ll be slipping in gifts all weekend long for any purchases over $150.

Online customers will be receiving a different set of perks for Black Friday than our In-Store customers. For details on that please make sure you’re signed up for our newsletter and are following us on Twitter.

Like we said, it’s going to be heavy. Come bright and early!!!

Мишка
350 Broadway
Brooklyn, NY

J/M/Z to Marcy Ave.
G to Broadway
L to Lorimer

This past Saturday Trouble & Bass (The Captain & AC Slater pictured above) brought Joker, Nomad, Bok Bok & L-Vis 1990 to throwdown some epic Bass Mosh at Santos Party House.

Ms. Carrie Wilds, our own Shark and Bok Bok.

Two of NY’s best and loveliest DJs, Star Eyes & Jubilee. I think Shark is doing the Bushwhacker dance in the background.

Bok Bok & L-Vis 1990 together form the mighty Night Slugs who got the crowd (and the Captain) going as always.

Joker and Nomad had ‘em seeing trailssssssss

Make sure you head over to HiFi Cartel and check out the entire gallery of pics from the night. Good Times!

Through the usual weekend rush and the Winter winds starting to blow in, we were pleasantly surprised when one of our loyal customers Scott Serota dropped in to with a little gift for us at the Мишка store. Scottie was in town for the T&B x Joker bash at Santos this weekend and before getting his party on later that night he made sure to drop off this dope Keep Watch-esque balloon that he stumbled upon earlier. Here at 350 Broadway we always appreciate any tokens of appreciation so we made sure to send Scott off with a couple of trinkets to enjoy on his way back home to Delaware. Thanks again Scott!

Мишка
350 Broadway
Brooklyn, NY

J/M/Z to Marcy Ave.
G to Broadway
L to Lorimer

Real Estate – S/T (2009) [Woodist] // Grade: C

In the wake of the year’s lo-fi explosion, fans of melodic indie rock might not be quite ready to cross over into the often raw, subtle territory that is the genre’s common ground. That is, until New Jersey lo-fi surf rock outfit Real Estate appeared to seamlessly transition Grizzly Bear and Fleet Foxes fans aboard the lo-fi wave.

Real Estate’s debut release takes elements of less approachable acts like Woods and Ducktails (of which guitarist Matthew Mondanile is also a member), and pretties them via of a love of indie rock. As the simple, descriptive track titles suggest (“Pool Swimmers”, “Black Lake”, “Green River”), this is an album of moody floating atmospheric washes of sound. Real Estate draw clear inspiration from indie mainstays Yo La Tengo and space rock veterans Spacemen 3, with sparse vocals and droning instrumentals. The vocal-less compositions, like “Let’s Rock The Beach” bear a strong likeness to Ducktails’ material, minimal, repetitive and fading out into a horizon of nothingness.

While Real Estate’s instrumental compositions are enjoyable, they desperately need an overlay of the right match of unique, dreamy vocals to avoid detour into the land of boring and flat. Unfortunately, vocalist Martin Courtney’s nondescript offerings barely, if ever stand out, and fail to highlight the strengths of Real Estate’s debut. Courtney’s lazy meanderings re-route the band’s gently wafting surf melodies dangerously close to the label of “jam band”

For all the initial buzz that’s surrounded Real Estate and this album, I expected not to like it, but to love it. Instead, I was just bored.

How terrible is that album cover? Would you ever randomly just buy any album with a  cover like that? it looks like something that a middle school science teacher with a crappy bar band would do for their $5 demo debut CD-R. I however did buy this album for a whopping 99¢ almost ten years ago when i stumbled upon it. But truth be told I recognized the band’s name, had I not I would have never bought this album, even for a measly 99¢ based on the cover alone.

pragVEC were one of countless London based post-punk bands in the late 70s. They’re best known for housing one-time member Jim Thrilwell who played keyboards and did some vocals on their only album No Cowboys. Thrilwell would shortly thereafter go on to for Industrial giant Foetus. That isn’t pragVEC’s only connection with the industrial and EBM world as their drummer Nick Cash would eventually join Frank Tovey in Fad Gadget.

Despite all of these industrial connections, pragVEC themselves were a pretty traditional sounding post-punk band from the time. They wrote excellent songs and had a great frontwoman in Susan Gogan. I’d liken them to an artier X-Ray Spex or a more accessible Malaria!… less confrontational but more apt to experiment especially with synths which shouldn’t be a surprise considering who was playing keyboard for them). It’s a shame they’ve been mostly forgotten over time.

I’m not really sure when this CD compilation was put out or by whom. Judging by the bubble-jet printed disc art sticker I’d think it was perhaps homemade or a promo for something that never released. The CD oddly takes the first track from their 1979 S/T 12″ and placed it first before going into the entire 1980 No Cowboys album before ending with the rest of their S/T 12″. I’ve re-sequenced everything back to how it was on the original releases and between the two this is the entire recorded output by pragVEC before disbanding in 1982. One interesting side note: When originally released, all of the tracks on No Cowboys were credited to different bands, as if it were a compilation album. Their name on the cover was only added for this CD comp.

pragVEC – No Cowboys & S/T 12″

In case you were too busy making your checklist for the zombie apocalypse, here’s a look back at the week in Bloglin. Party on.

• The release of the Winter ’09 line is drawing near, and with that comes more previews to drool over. Set your creepy peepers on the new jackets, hats, and denim and pants (oh my!). Be the first to get your paws on some of the new line during Black Friday Sale Weekend!

• The Carter Documentary is (somehow) still available online. The sizzurp comes out around the 7:00 mark.

• Glamnation dropped some Cone Pizza knowledge on us, which looks awesome to me. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve been picturing what the food I eat looks like inside my stomach as it’s doing the digestive thing; think of how it’s going to make me feel in the near future and I approach with caution. These pizza cones, however, would be worth the pain and shame.

• EaseDaMan, aka “Tweetus Christ,” details the moral-psychological traits of his issues with Twitter. Emotions addressed in his post see-saw between instinctive kindness, sympathy, and pity on the one hand and, on the other, a proud and idealistic egoism that has become perverted into a contemptuous disdain for the submissive herd. BLOKE BLOKE BLOKE.

• San Francisco artist Nancy Peach painted one of Ellen Stagg‘s erotic photographs of three sexxxy, naked women.

• The Lamour Supreme Nike Zoom Force 1 snowboard boots are out and they are fucking ridiculous. Click here for a detailed look at Lamour’s concept sketch. Bravo, mon ami.

• Dr. Dinosaur gave us some insight on Left 4 Dead 2 and the joy of melee weapons. I’ve never played video games with him, but in college I remember Doc Dino finagled a single room and he played a lot of Halo in there. I think I went in there once to see if he had a condom I could have, but he just shrugged and said he didn’t use them. Maybe that wasn’t him. Love ya, Doc!

• Toilet Cobra wrote a love letter for game designer/writer Tim Schafer and the classic Lucasarts graphic adventure games. Two words: Maniac Mansion. Don’t forget to put the radiation suit on before putting the meteor in the trunk of the car!

• The madness continues with the second episode of Kill With Video: Pon de Rollins!!!

• Only a few records got ratings of B+ and above this week, and they are Introducing by Brilliant Colors, Sculpted Beef from White Shit, S/T from Shrinebuilder.

To be honest, I haven’t been looking forward to Old Dogs quite as much as I had been for Wild Hogs. I know, I know, blasphemy!!! But now with the trailer fully revamped with a Tim Heidecker penned proto-industrial anthem, I’m ready… Oh how I’m ready!

Original video mix… Travolta. Williams. Old dogs shit in your mouth!