Two weeks ago Greg and I were flown out to Japan for some business with Mishka’s distributor, Calquinto. I’m not at liberty to say what it was about, so I’ll just say it was “for business”. They flew us out to Osaka for a day and Tokyo for two days. Having just been to Tokyo in September, I can’t say I was ready to return. It’s a long flight and for such a short amount of time, a bit of a hassle. In the end, how the hell could I complain about a free flight to Japan?

After a delayed flight out of JFK (you’da guessed?) and a transfer in Tokyo to Osaka, we arrived. Luckily I had my chaperon with me to ensure we traveled safely. Mitsuo, our Japanese connection picked us up and took us to our hotel.

Japanese business hotels are incredibly efficient. The bathrooms are full water-proof rooms and the shower’s water uses a control valve on the sink’s faucet. I won’t go into the architectural nerdiness here, but know what when you travel to Japan, and stay at one of these hotels, take a fucking pillow with you. The beds and pillows here are hard as rocks.

That night we went out to dinner with Calquinto. They took us to a korean bbq spot where they force-fed us all kinds of food, beer and beef sashimi. Eating raw beef is an interesting experience. I don’t recommend it. I didn’t have my camera with me, so we’ll pick back up the next morning. Come 10am, we were in a cab headed to Calquinto’s Osaka office to discuss business.

After a few hours, we were allowed to go play. Mitsuo and Baba took us around to some of Mishka’s stockists in Osaka. The first stop was a shop called Uprise.

There were a lot of the usual suspects at the shop. From domestic brands to Japanese brands and a lot of retro-infill as you can see here in this pic. A lot of nostalgic throwbacks to hip hop’s golden years.

Next stop was Pop Soda. Talk about nostalgic throwbacks. This shop was stuffed to the brim with NIB toys from the 80′s and 90′s as well as a ton of modern-day Kaiju.

How stoked were we to see this custom Lamour Supreme-painted KillerJSauroman?!

Next up was a shop, that for the life of me, I cannot remember. Greg’s in the same boat. So say hi to the shop-worker.

They did have some insane rings in the cash wrap.

… and a ton of brands to stuff it’s shelves. Here’s Mitsuo pondering what to buy his woman.

On our way to Mandarake, the Kaiju and comic mecca, we came across this bootleg t-shirt shop. The store was so packed, my fat ass could barely fit through the isles. One tee did catch my eye though.

Bart wearing a hoodie, a Brooklyn chewing gum hat, with a GOrilla chain and a track bike. Clever!

Mandarake is where I finally began to “get” the whole Kaiju thing. In the past, when Mishka has produced a toy, I’d pick it up to support what they, and Lamour Supreme, were doing. After spending 10 minutes in Madarake, you begin to see the vintage Kaiju’s influence on the modern Kaiku. The old monsters have found new life in the more modern brands. It all made sense.

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Verivala – Kalliolle, Kukkulalle (2009) [World Terror Committee] // Grade: B+

Finnish black metal band Verivala’s debut album brought the band some much-deserved attention. Now, 5 years later, Verivala has put out a follow up to their acclaimed debut, Voittomme, entitled Kalliolle, Kukkulalle on World Terror Committee records. As typical with most black metal, expect a very compressed sound with emphasis on the drums and ghoulish vocals. Where Kalliolle, Kukkulalle differs from their previous release is the clear death metal influence.

The tracks are a lot more focused on the mids and lows. As evident with “Tuonenkokija”, which leads into the album with a very Death-inspired cymbal line and fast-paced blast beats. It’s clearly evident what the band’s intent is; to knock you off your feet for just over 40 minutes. Like a viper’s poison, quickly your body is overtaken by Verivala’s numbing sound. “Kristus Ja Risti” hails the black metal march with an offset blast beat and once again, more distorted howls. Kalliolle, Kukkulalle stomps on, laying out track after track of pure Finnish poison. The death-metal inspiration is back with “Laulu Karsimyksen Jumalalle” and the album ends as quickly as it began with a quick and brutal thrust; a fatal dose of some wicked, razor-sharp and fast-paced riffs in “Mahapralaja”. As the longest track on the album, “Mahapralaja”slows down after the initial few minutes, resulting in some atmospheric black metal, akin to their earlier work.

Overall, it’s not highly-polished black metal. If you’re seeking Satyricon or 1349, don’t even bother. There’s no stage antics, no sold-out concerts in mega stadiums, just pure blackened death metal from a band that doesn’t even have a Myspace page. Just look at that album art. Don’t sleep on this one!

I’m holed up in frosty Minnesota with the inlaws after a last-minute escape from New York. Besides breathless accounts of Brett Favre bitching at Vikings coach Brad Childress during the Vikings loss on Sunday night, the number one sporting observation up here is the fire that scorched the Minnesota Wild’s equipment in Ottawa last Friday.

Story is that a fire mysteriously broke out in the Wild’s equipment van when it was parked in the Scotiabank Place lot the afternoon prior to a Senators-Wild game, and a truckload of Wild gear got cooked. The incinerated goalie mask up top is probably the pièce de résistance, but all the burnt stuff looks cool. Photos courtesy of Barrie Roney.

Goddamn but it must have smelled awful. My experience burning sports gear is limited, but instructive. When the Bills traded Willis McGahee to the Ravens, me and some other drunks celebrated by burning McGahee jerseys on our roof in Brooklyn. For one thing, the damn jersey didn’t just catch by itself, as one would hope. It’s not like a dollar bill or a cotton flag, where you can just stick a lighter under it and up it goes. No, you kinda gotta work for it, and lighter fluid’s pretty necessary. After a bunch of false starts, we ended up dousing the jersey on the grill, then holding it up with a stick as it burned. Afterwards, I felt like some kind of dumb American version of a jihadi – except instead of burning Israeli & American flags, I was burning #21, and instead of holding Kalashnikovs, I was holding a can of beer. Plus I couldn’t get the smell out of my nose for hours.

Anyways, although there was talk of cancelling the game, the Wild played the Senators on Friday as scheduled. Surprise: Ottawa won easy.

Inspired by the charred pads, Paul Lukas (the inimitable Uni Watch) linked to a thorough list of uniform fuck-ups he put together a few years back.

Before I get back to drinking and not looking at a computer, anybody see last night’s Giants-Skins game? Me neither – like I’m gonna watch the Redskins – but I did see this pathetic fake field goal Washington tried to pull:

Genius.

Looking for some new digs where you can interact with other creative people such as yourself ? Have you always wanted to live in trailer? Well now you can! A few enterprising young minds have moved 6 trailers  into a 6,500 square foot warehouse off the Montrose L train stop.

This spring the organizers of this alternative living space plan on moving the trailers back outside where they will be joined by an additional 20 campers. The trailers will be set up in two rows with a boardwalk running down the middle. Rent for the trailers will be around $590 a month I am guessing the price of rent will fluctuate depending on the size of the trailer?

Those who choose to ditch apartment living for the trailer life will still be able to access to a cornucopia of hipster friendly facilities such as a darkroom,  recording studio, a gym and of course a performance space for that Vivian Girls sure to eventually be played there.

If this is at all enticing to you check out the video above along with this article over on Rented Spaces.

Captain America Reborn: Who Will Wield The Shield [One Shot]
I’m not really sure what’s going on with Marvel and their handling of the return of Steve Rogers. You see, the dude hasn’t even came back in Captain America: Reborn, and he’s already running about in Invincible Iron Man, and this week sees the release of Who Will Wield the Shield. I’m not sure how this is coming out prior to the final issue of Reborn. I know that they had to add an extra issue to Brubaker’s storyline, and that’s absolutely fucking stellar in my book. Brubaker’s event has me sold, man. The whole thing is a sprawling time-warp mindfuck that has at last issue, left Steve Rogers and the Red Skull throwing haymakers at one another. In the Red Skull’s mind. Hell to the yeah. My medicine is telling me that it’s okay to like big super events these days, if they’re done right. Ed Brubaker sir, you do them excellent. But I would be a happier panda if they released them in, I don’t know, a sensible order?

Brubaker also has the ability to sell me on issues I would otherwise find to be money grabs and superfluous. Take for example Who Will Wield the Shield. Now…is there anyone who thinks that Steve Rogers isn’t going to come up brandishing the Circular Icon of Patriotism? Egg on my face if I’m wrong, but c’mon. He’s Steve fucking Rogers. The Aryan Posterchild who was the only guy strong enough to stop The Guy Championing Aryan Posterchildren.

That said, I’m pretty fucking bummed that Bucky ain’t going to be championing the mantle anymore. He was an interesting chap, to say the least. It is always entertaining to see someone else reinterpret a symbol, either modifying it for their own uses, or simply accepting what the symbol was considered before. Barnes wore the mantle as an oath to the pinnacle of American Idealism. He seemed more dedicated to maintaining the legacy of his his best friend/hero’s life than he was in upholding American ideals. They came as an accessory to the main thrust of his existence as Captain America.

Image United #2
If you grew up in the 1990′s and were a comic book nerd, you have to be the saltiest of haters to not have at least a passing interest in Image United. I mean c’mon, haters. It’s featuring artwork by six of the original Image founders, and covers by the seventh, Jim Lee. It’s got all those comic book characters you fucking fawned over when you were like twelve. I’m not going to front, I was all SPAWN FOR LIFE KID back when I was in high school. I also wear JNCO jeans and used Sun-In to dye my hair orange. Time passes and you change.

But it’s so god damn intriguing, I can’t help but read it. It also stars the original Spawn, Al Simmons, as the ultra-villain! Omega Spawn! Seriously, how can you not be excited for this, in some bizarre, time machine, train wreck sort of way? It’s like getting the band back together! Marc Silvestri, Todd McFarlane, Rob fuggin Liefeld? At the very least, it’s great for a nostalgia trip. I’ll sit there reading about it, think about how many years have passed since then, and then eventually begin to brood about how little I’ve done with my life. They’ll find me in a bathroom, covered in vomit and tears, yelling about what should have been.

On second thought, maybe I shouldn’t read this.

Green Lantern #49
I wish there was a title I was totally stoked for coming out from DC this week. I think I may be a Marvel dongstroker at this point. Alas, I’m sorry. I can’t hate on Green Lantern, though. Geoff Johns is just a solid writer. You know what you’re getting. Unless you’re adverse to tie-ins, then you should stay the hell away from this title. Blackest Night has descended upon pretty much every DC title, so if you hate zombies and Green Lanterns, this title is probably going you into an apoplectic rage. You’ll wake up and find yourself covered in feathers, blood, and regrets. This issue has John Stewart looking down sniper scopes while zombies descend upon him from behind. And he’s also facing past regrets and shit, too.

Then there’s Detective Comics #680, which I don’t read, but I should just for the artwork alone. JH Williams III draws a mighty gorgeous page, and his work on Detective doesn’t disappoint. If you’re like me, which is broke from Christmas shopping and conniving, try and talk a loved one into buying it so you can flip through it on the toilet one day. Always works for me.

For more of my nerdy blatherings about comic books and video games, check out Omega Level. Or Nana dies.

Fleetwood Mac – Rumours (1977)

Vs.

Bruce Springsteen – Born to Run (1975)

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…

Download Fever Ray’s BBC 6 Winter Solstice Mix (Click Here)

Karin Dreijer Andersson (The Knife, Fever Ray) was recently asked to compose a mix for the UK’s BBC 6. Entitled The Winter Solstice Mix, this mix is just that… an hour long celebration of the coming the frost. And aside from the BBC’s spliced in Mac voice promos, this is a pretty great and eclectic set that is both what you might and might not expect from electronic wizard. The Laurie Anderson influence on Karin Dreijer and her inclusion not once but twice I totally see, but Tomahawk, Converge? Awesome.

In this very special 6 Mix, Karin reflects on the Fever Ray project and its success as well as playing the music which soundtracks her Winter Solstice including tunes from Electrelane, Stina Nordenstam, Laurie Anderson and Charlotte Gainsbourg.

Full tracklist in the comments.

Gama Bomb – Tales From the Grave in Space (2009) [Earache] // Grade: B

If you don’t know me, you’ll figure out pretty quickly that although I come across a shit ton of music in my day to day, I really only listen to like 7 bands (specifically Weedeater, for like, 3 months straight now.  It’s maddening really.)  Amongst these bands are the staples of classic thrash, because let’s face it, shit’s the jam.  Apparently, a bunch of other people these days feel similarly about Thrash and so was born “Neo-Thrash” or “Thrash Revival” or whatever the fuck you wanna call it.  While I don’t know too many of these so called “Neo-Thrashers” I can usually tell it when I hear it, and can pick one or two names out of the crowd.

For the last couple of reviews (Alkoholizer and Aggression) I’ve dove into the unknown with bands I’ve never heard of.  For this one, I went with Gama Bomb’s Tales From the Grave in Space.  Although I didn’t know too much about them, I’d definitely heard the name around and knew that they were some sorta leaders of the revival.  I never really gave them a listen before this but did some pre-reading, found out they were a bunch of comic book, horror freaks from Ireland who listened to a fuck ton of Anthrax growing up.

Anyways, Tales From the Grave in Space is basically a solid chunk of fairly standard thrash revivalism played by stupidly skilled musicians doing pretty much nothing original but yet still seem to satisfy.  On the plus side: the riffs are solid, the playing is top notch all around, the recording is good (maybe a little too good even), and every song by itself stands pretty fucking strong.

Weak points of the album are: It suffers pretty damn hard from the curse of the 2nd half.  You know that whole “goddamnit, my stoke is fading pretty fucking fast from hearing the same shit over and over again for 30.8 minutes” problem most thrash albums suffer from?  Yeah, this one’s got it kicking in right around song 3 which is a little bit of a downer, but at least all the songs are pretty fun.  They do a pretty good job of easing the tedium by keeping songs short and upbeat but either way it’s thrash and it is what it is.

My general impression of Tales From the Grave in Space leaned pretty heavily on the, “These dudes really like Anthrax and Overkill vibe.”  It’s definitely a technical, crisp, sharp version of thrash.  You can definitely hear some Slayer/Megadeth/Sabbaty nuggets thrown in here but where they were all more balls to the wall throw it all out there no matter how gnarly or sloppy, Gama Bomb knows exactly what they’re doing and comes off more like a scalpel than a mace.  Clean high pitched vocals that you can understand, crystal clear production, razor sharp guitar tone, and a drummer who couldn’t miss a beat if he tried almost make it sound like they went to school for this shit.

I’d definitely go see these dudes live, and recommend giving this album a listen, but if anyone specifically remembers this chunk in 10 years I’ll be surprised.

To all of you internet savvy Hipsters I’m sure this is old news but Gawker launched their Hipster of the Decade poll yesterday with 10 contestants vying for this coveted honor.

1) Kari Ferrell: She is the Hipster Grifter. Discovered by Doree and metamorphosed into a star, and then a convict, and now an ex-convict, and still a star.

2) Gavin McInnes: Vice co-founder turned corporate ad man. Non-voter. Fighter. Drug-involved human.

3) Carles of Hipster Runoff: Yea, so, Carles does Hipster Runoff, and maybe some other shit?

4) Paul Sevigny: Beatrice Inn impresario. Brother of Chloe. King of the high class hipster diaspora. Savior of Atlantic City (ha).

5) Dash Snow: Downtown icon. Photographer and semen artist killed by heroin at the tender age of 27. The unintentional Basquiat of a messy subculture.

6) Dov Charney: Pervy American Apparel CEO. Stands squarely at the intersection of hipster and douchebag. Gurl U no U no who he iz.

7) The MisShapes: Leigh Lezark-led black-clad DJ trio. Pied pipers of the Blue States Lose crowd. Asymmetrical.

8) The Williamsburg Hair Man: Once known only by a crude marker drawing, he was later spotted and photographed in a Greenpoint coffee shop. His name is Chris and he seems like a nice guy. Everyone admires his verve.

9) Angel Hess, of the Purple Truck: Became a media darling for his spartan lifestyle based in a purple bread truck in Williamsburg. He was friendly, but the world was too cruel; somebody hijacked his truck, in a faraway land. There’s probably a metaphor somewhere in there.

10) The Concept of the Black Hipster: Hey, isn’t it kind of racist just to list “black hipsters” as an entire concept, rather than as a vague and near-meaningless category composed of actual individuals, many of whom are probably just as mockable as our other contestants here? Yes. Yes it is. Black hipsters are out there, if you look close!

Lets start with Gawker using an image of Telli and Jah Jah from Ninjasonik to exemplify who or what a Black Hipster may be (hahaha). You know, just in case you weren’t sure if they meant Darius Rucker or that dude from Bloc Party.

Second, where’s Mark the Cobra Snake, Steve Aoki, or even Merlin Bronques on the list? Am I missing anyone? Surely they all deserve to be on this list more than the likes of Paul Sevigny, The Hair Man of Williamsburg and Angel Hess, no? The list doesn’t specify NYC Hipster of the Decade (unless I missed that).

Finally Carles of Hipster Runoff… Ughhh I can’t wait ’til that site dies a quiet unnoticed death. It’s not funny, never was funny, and if you need further proof just follow his tweets for some of the lamest attempts at “Haha this is so lame it must be funny” gags. Has most of the population never encountered the internet personality type that is “Carles” aka the human-meme before that this seems funny and novel? These dudes are a dime a dozen and will lord over forums until that fateful when they decided to test their internet popularity in real life. It’s all downhill from there. Now that he’s attached a name with the blog’s popularity it’s only a matter of time before his ego decides it’s time to capitalize on his teh internet fame with some IRL fame. Which is when it’ll be totally failz for my bro-meme. Don’t give him the honer of being Hipster of the decade! Vote for the Hipster Grifter!

Vote for your Hipster of the Decade here! Currently Kari Ferrell is winning (as she should)!

P.S. My goal for this coming decade is to ensure Nick Gazin AKA The Toilet Cobra makes the next list.

As schools let out for the semester,  and the Holiday season began, and the temperatures dropped with wind chills that would surely lead to frost bite in the most uncomfortable of places, the Мишка Warehouse Sale roared on!

The loyalest of customers braved the cold weather and made sure to get their spots on line early. And with one of a kind, unreleased and Holiday season samples, we definitely made it worth the wait!

With racks and bins and shelves and boxes full of Мишка goodies at their disposal (and RIDICULOUS savings)  each and every customer left a happy customer.

We had mountains of tee’s! Enough tee’s for your friends & family, friends of family or even some friendly familiar fiends.

We even had our very own Ease, or should I say @EaseDaMan working the cash box. All while rocking some of the funkiest Мишка-esque specs I’ve ever seen. But if you thought that you missed out on the sale this weekend because of the snow… Never fear! We’ve  extended the Sale until Christmas Eve for all of you last minute shoppers out there. So you still have a few days left to get as much Мишка that your greedy bag filled hands can carry.

Мишка Warehouse Sale
352 Broadway
Brooklyn, NY

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