A frequent visitor to 350 Broadway popped in for his weekly rounds not too long ago… However, this time he came by with a little surprise. Aaron-Joshua AKA A-Rock is a Brooklyn local and a heavy duty mopster. I’m sure you’ve probably spotted him at most of our events at 350 Broadway or the recaps of them online.

We’ve know ’round these parts for a while now that Aaron was down with the bear, but it wasn’t until this visit that we realized he was down for the bear for life!

On this particular visit A-Rock had to show off some handy work that his buddy had been working on… on Aaron. You see Aaron’s pal is  an aspiring tattoo artist and Aaron graciously offered up his forearm as a guinea pig. Aaron’s gt some balls there for his maiden tattoo voyage!

When asked “what would you like on your arm?” “Engineered to Destroy” popped into Aaron’s head. We’re flattered to know our tagline has such staying power! This of course reminded us of a few other fellas with who have really taken to our motto. Both Eddie and Jay previously got inked up with “Engineered to Destroy” tattoos and I’m sure that they’ll welcome Aaron to the club with open arms.

But wait he wasn’t done yet! Aaron was particularly proud of this Death Adders pendant that he fashioned together with the use of some household products and one of our patches. Since we tend to only drop jewelry that will eat into your rent, I must say kudos for to Aaron for economic ingenuity.

By the way, If you are looking for someone new and cool to follow hit up Aaron’s Twitter.

Мишка
350 Broadway
Brooklyn, NY
718-388-1725

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

With Lost over and Happy Town devolving into an unwatchable turd, we’ve decided to re-up the funniest and most tragic show on television: Party Down.

When I was in college and living on campus, the “theater kids” were a bizarre group. They didn’t really fuck with anyone outside of the theater, and no one wanted to fuck with them anyway. They talked loud and dramatically to each other in the hallways. They traveled in packs of 30. Now I live with one. My roommate Bobby is an ex-theater kid and currently wrecking shit in local productions. So that changed my whole perspective on theater kids. But last night’s Party Down nailed the theater culture, in my opinion. At the same time the show parodied itself, as Kyle put it so brilliantly at the end: “All of these little misunderstandings added up to this tragic ending.”

I’m really not familiar with Shakespeare (Caffeine Powered might be able to provide more input on lit. studies), but I do understand that comedy has always been related to tragedy. “Not on Your Wife” had me thinking about the tragic elements of Party Down. No one, especially Ron (New New Ron), ends up with a happy ending here. Well, except maybe Roman. In the theater, the “writer is god,” and Roman got the proper Dionysian treatment he’s had coming to him for a while. The one writer amongst the failed/struggling actors got his shoulders nibbled and wine poured down his throat. Magnicifent!

Back to the tragedy. Ron catches Lydia staring at his frosted ass and takes it as a pass. It ends with one of the longest macings ever filmed. I really dig Lydia – way more than that bitch who left for Glee. (By the way, fuck Glee. It started strong and edgy but now simply caters to its retarded audience. As Guttenberg says: “No risk, no reward.”) I think everyone knows someone as out-of-touch with youth as Lydia. She’s a great flawed-elder figure for the young PD crew; a reminder of what they don’t want to end up like. Like the janitor at my work. He’s an awesome guy, but he also acts as a constant reminder why I should stop watching “redneck stunts” on YouTube and focus on my goals.

Casey and Henry can’t keep their paws off each other, but being Party Down this will probably end poorly for them, in a barqua. Kyle got to use his powers of seduction for good tonight, although on the wrong girl. Lydia attracts bears. Fucking Kyle costs $50.

The worst news ever just came in. After battling prostate cancer, Dennis Hopper has passed away. It’s impossible to put into words how important Hopper is to American cinema. His work and life are an incredible inspiration and will continue to be until the end of time. He was born a simple farm boy from Dodge City, Kansas, but he leaves this world a fucking icon.

Below is a clip of Hopper at the end; receiving his star on the Walk of Fame. The strength, soul, and humor he possessed till the end shine through.

Thank you, Dennis.

I’ve been pretty lucky to meet some of my childhood heroes over the years. Back in college it was Warwick Davis, and a few years ago at New York Comic Con it was Gary Coleman.

I remember that I was almost on my way out when I saw a sign that had a list of all the special guests that were signing autographs and Gary was one of them. When I walked up to the area with all of the guests I saw Gary sitting there with his wife and ratty leather suitcase with a series of instructions:

“$5 for a digital photo with Gary
$20 for signed photo
$25 for signed photo with popular TV slogan”

I opted to pay $5 to take a digital photo with Gary. He threw the bill into his suitcase and proceeded to tell my friend Henke (skinnydigital) how to take the photo. That’s why he looks all mean and like he is jerking me off. Little man couldn’t even look at the camera. How sad.

Oh well, at least I have the photo and the memory. You will be missed Gary. I guess.

If you still have never seen this, a Saturday afternoon is as good a time as any!

Tip of the Day: If you just so happen to cheat on your significant other and give them herpes, here’s a solution for you! BLAME IT ON THE FISH IN THE ECHO PARK LAKE!

Assuming he/she hasn’t noticed a little flare down there yet, come home soaking wet bitching about getting pushed into the lake by some asshole jealous of all your dope Мишка gear, than a few days later casually “come across” this news article in front of your girl and act horrified of the possibilities.

*Note: this is all under the presumption that your lover is a complete fucking idiot and doesn’t know that fish and human herpes aren’t communicable.

In honor of their first ever show in New York, Toby from Blessure Grave was gracious enough to put together a great mix of Post-Punk and Death Rock goodness to get everyone in the mood. Total Void is 40+ minute journey straight into the abyss that will envelop you in blackness…but you know what? you’ll quickly realize that really isn’t so bad at all. It’s chock full of my faves from the late 70s and 80s, so as you can imagine I’ve had this mix on repeat for the past few days. Look after the break for a complete tracklist for Total Void.

Those of you in New York, don’t forget that this Tuesday Blessure Grave will be performing for the first time ever in New York Cit for our official release part for the Мишка x Feral House: The Process Church of the Final Judgment Collection.

We’ve pulled all the stops for this party and it’s going to be a wild and sinister time! Tickets are now on sale and we recommend getting them in advance.
In addition to Blessure Grave, we’ve brought in Genesis Breyer P-Orridge to host the evening and gotten the amazing Sabbath Assembly to perform some of the rites and music of the Process Church to get you all crazy for a full evening of “Grave Wavers” like Passions and White Ring. This is one event you don’t want to miss!

Blessure Grave – Total Void by Мишка Bloglin

Tuesday June 1st, 9pm
Santos Party House
100 Lafayette St.
New York City
$10 cover

—–

(more…)

For all of you who can’t make it to New York for our Dark Disco with MJ Cole event this Sunday, or if you just want a double dose of Ikonika…. Make sure you hit up this all girl lineup in Philidelphia this Saturday. The Subdivision crew is at it again, guns blazing with their elite team of destruction divas! Should be a serious blast!

Saturday May 29th  10pm
M Room
15 W Girard
Free before 11pm, $5 after
21+ to enter

Melvins – The Bride Screamed Murder (2010) [Ipecac] // Grade: B+

The Melvins are one of those bands that mark significant moments in your life with album releases. Like your own taste in music, they always seem to experiment with varying sounds while sticking to the roots. Since the 90′s they’ve been on the tips of everyone’s tongue in the alternative music scene (remember when it was called that?). From their earliest work, to the most abstract experiments, the Melvins have been on top of the game, releasing albums just about once every three years. Something that’s matched by none of their counterparts from the era. Expectations are the achilles heel for the Melvins; some of their fan base wants one thing and others, another. What makes the Melvins such a dynamic band is that they surprise all of their fans and defy expectations.

The Bride Screamed Murder is just that; a defiance of expectations. While it’s no Honky, it’s certainly the Melvins, in the flesh. The same heavy-as-shit, wacky group that pissed your parents off growing up is back to tickle your nostalgia in your 30′s. One thing I will say about The Bride Screamed Murder is that you can’t simply pick it up as your first Melvins experience. You have to spend time listening to moments from their entire catalog. Houdini, Stoner Witch, Stag and Hostile Ambient Takeover are just to name a few albums whose overtones are carried over to The Bride Screamed Murder. I had to even revisit them to fully appreciate the album because the first track threw me a curve ball.

“The Water Glass” starts off heavy and slow, akin to the sound the guys helped curate for over a decade. From there, it turns into a military-esque bootcamp chant. I think in literary terms, that’s called foreshadowing because it may just be my interpretation, but there’s a lot of war symbolism in The Bride Screamed Murder. “Evil New War God” brings out the Buzz that we’ve all come to love. His signature sneering and precise voice is legendary at this point. You can’t go wrong with this track. It’s pure, unbridled rock. From here, we’re brought into the “Pig House”, a track filled with more of Dale Crover’s heavy-handed percussion orchestration. There’s so much classic rock whoreship going on here. Riffs and jams straight out of Zeppelin and the like. From the classics to the heavily-demented comes “I’ll Finish You Off”, a blackened-rock with an evil and demented tint. This was the Melvins I came to love. Back when Buzz would cameo with Tool and the name of the game was quasi-series Satanic overtones.

The Bride Screamed Murder is filled with a ton of instant-classics. Take “Electric Flower” and “Inhumanity and Death”, two powerhouses of the album. For fans of the slow and heavy, there’s “My Generation” and for fans of just the slow there’s the album ender, “P.G. x 3″. For those of you who have been long-time fans of the Melvins, The Bride Screamed Murder is a must-have for your collection. For me, it spawned a revival in my music rotation. It’s time to bring out some of the classics and revisit the band that I grew up loving and hiding from my parents!

This is somewhat of an aberration from the typical subject matter on Foa12P, but I think it applies and definitely worth mentioning!

Linda Stone:

Continuous partial attention describes how many of us use our attention today. It is different from multi-tasking. The two are differentiated by the impulse that motivates them. When we multi-task, we are motivated by a desire to be more productive and more efficient. We’re often doing things that are automatic, that require very little cognitive processing. We give the same priority to much of what we do when we multi-task — we file and copy papers, talk on the phone, eat lunch — we get as many things done at one time as we possibly can in order to make more time for ourselves and in order to be more efficient and more productive. To pay continuous partial attention is to pay partial attention — CONTINUOUSLY. It is motivated by a desire to be a LIVE node on the network. Another way of saying this is that we want to connect and be connected. We want to effectively scan for opportunity and optimize for the best opportunities, activities, and contacts, in any given moment. To be busy, to be connected, is to be alive, to be recognized, and to matter

(more…)