A trusted colleague…a cohort…a confidant of mine sent me this today under the subject line of ‘Just for You’. And now it’s just for you.

Seriously. What would Tiger Uppercut look like? Hundred Hand Slap? Sonic Booooooooooooom?

Pretty sure we could also categorize this under Bear Porn, too. Just sayin.

Press Start! The only weekly gaming column guaranteed to rot your brain. Every week I take the top five things that I came across in gaming and vomit them up into a senseless list. They can stem from obvious Big Announcements to quirky creations from gaming fans. Feel free to disagree, and share the gaming shite you’re feeling from the past week in the comments section.

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#1: Fan creates ultimate NES homage to LOST
I had just finished crying for the nineteenth time over the ending to LOST like the bitch I am when I came across these images. I have no idea who this fan is, but the fact that he went so far as to mimic a dated old shitty NES box – remember how they fucking fell apart?, and cartridge is amazing. He didn’t stop there, he even created a screen from the game. Seriously dude, you’re amazing. Or dudes. Or dudettes. Whatever. The amount of effort that had to be put into this shit is remarkable.

As a LOST dork still reeling, this was the coolest thing I came across all week.

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#2: Insomniac Games Goes Multiplatform? Wait, Wut?!
Console fanboys measure their e-cocks through the exclusive titles that their system of choice pimps. Well, PS3 d-bags are going to have to find a new binky. Insomniac Games, the dudes behind the Ratchet and Clank, Resistance, and yes, calm down, Spyro franchises are taking their act on the road. Or more specifically, the 360. After years of being Sony-exclusive, dudes are trying out console polygamy. Interesting. Last month Bungie jumped the Microsoft ship when they signed with Activision. This month, EA gobbles up Insomniac. Shit is intriguing. In the end, there’s just going to be EA and Activision warring with one another, having consumed and absorbed every other American developer into their monolith.

I’ve almost exclusively used my PS3 for the Insomniac titles that could only be found there, and the Naughty Dog titles. Well, they’ve only done the Uncharted series so far on the PS3, but still, I keep holding out hope they’ll throw me another Jak game. So with Insomniac games going multi-platform, the line of exclusives on both systems gets thinner and thinner.

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#3: In the new franchise department, Enslaved Looks Fucking Righteous
The gaming world is like the world of movies at this point. Filled with super high-budget sequels. I ain’t complaining, though. I dig on the Call of Duty, or the Uncharted-type games of the world. But when a new franchise comes along that actually looks interesting? It gets me a bit geeked out. Enslaved is filling that role. Now, now, I understand, it isn’t some $5 indie game. It’s got a lot riding on it. But still, it’s a new IP. It’s being developed by Ninja Theory, the team behind Heavenly Sword. And rather excitingly, the story is being penned by Alex Garland, the writer behind Sunshine and 28 Days Later. Fucking awesome.

The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic world. And while this setting seems to be the New Black of the gaming universe, the twist is that instead of a wasteland, the entire place is a verdant orgasm. It’s more of the world Tyler Durden envisioned, and less that of The Road. I’m sold. You rock out as a dude named Monkey, yeah, Monkey. And the gameplay is a shitload of acrobatic running, jumping, leaping, and hopping. I get a major chubby for platforming, so I’ll take exploring the ruins of a New York City overrun with greenery and killer robots. As well, feeling a bit Ico-esque, you have to help out some chick named Trip, the two of you having escape some sort of slave ship. So it’s uh, Ico meets Fight Club meets The Matrix meets Prince of Persia?

Sold.

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ICP has always had long ties to professional wrestling. They grew up watching it from a very young age and even did backyard wrestling shows when they were in grade school. Fast forward to when they started making a little money, they promptly went out and bought a pro ring and set it up in the Psychopathic Records warehouse. This ring provided free wrestling shows for fan club members, friends, and family for years.

During the mid-nineties, around the time ICP released their album, The Riddlebox, they also released Stranglemania!. It was a highly popular video of Japanese deathmatches that they dubbed over with their own voices and commentary, hilarious commentary I might add.

In 1997 ICP scored a spot on the now defunct ECW’s 2nd Pay-Per-View event, Hardcore Heaven ’97. Shortly after they then moved on to working in the WWF(E) with the group the Oddities, for whom and even wrote the music for their entrance! They also worked in WCW, XPW, and countless other major and independent wrestling circuits over the years and continue to do so.

Well in 1999 ICP formed their own wrestling company, JCW, Juggalo Championshit Wrestling (yes, that’s not a typo). They ran shows, did small tours, and it became a staple event at the Gathering of the Juggalos festival. Now that you have a brief history of ICP’s wrestling history, I’m bringing you the RETURN of Slam! TV!

Slam! TV is JCW’s internet-based wrestling show aimed at keeping jJuggalos up to date on the happenings of the JCW. They’d air news along with matches and even vignettes on the JCW wrestlers. They upped these shows straight to Youtube and would also collect them for DVD release. Now that JCW is back in action on ICP’s latest tour, the show is back up and running. The wrestling in JCW is never really very good, so the commentary by J and Shaggy is the only redeeming factor, sadly their commentary is also absent on these new episodes. I say watch the old ones and get a copy of Stranglemania (the video below is a good sample) to really get a feel for it.

So crank the ac, make a faygo slushy, and enjoy your Memorial Day weekend…. Wicked clown style!

The Fall – Your Future Our Clutter (2010) [Domino] // Grade: A

Not everyone does this—in fact, so few musicians can: pound away for 30+ years without stumbling into some major misstep, a real run-of-the-mill idea, that renders them irrelevant. Don’t get me wrong, The Fall’s storied past isn’t without hiccup—a couple of those releases are pretty bland, you know—but they’ve never done much to tarnish Mark E. Smith’s legend. He’s an anomaly. Untarnishable. Bratty, tenacious and fucking pissed off—those are the only real constants, aside from one of his wives turning up to play keyboards—but varied enough that even when The Fall goes under the radar, they’re not totally under the radar. Someone, somewhere, is completely in love with whichever weirdo sidetracked album so many others ignored.

This one? Not so ignorable. Another thing few musicians do: make one of their best records neck-deep in a career hinged on the brilliance of way early releases, and yet here we are—28 albums acquainted with Smith and what amounts to his ever-changing backing band, and this thing is, like, Rough Trade-era incredible. Your Future Our Clutter (or, as Smith speak-sings later, “Our clutter! Your future!”) is a steady chug of an album, wickedly exuberant, with creaky, clotted synths and the heaviest guitars. Oh, and Daft Punk samples. And biting little production jokes, like most of “Bury Pts 1-3″ being hazed out in a puddle of tape-dubbed, lo-fi noise. And “Mexico Wax Solvent” laying bare what really spawned The Pixies. And Smith’s cut-to-the-quick wit, and melodies like perfectly detuned accidents, and, and, and…everything. YFOC is the first recent Fall record to feel like the first Fall records: excited, anxious, desperate to expel the mania of fresh concept. It’s impossible to turn off for wistful reasons alone.

But don’t mistake it for a throwback—or, worse, a modern pandering. So much of YFOC is filtered through Smith’s distinctly now POV, from the crystal gorgeous production (which, combined with “Bury Pts 1-3″, feels like a comment on our current obsession with all things muddy) to wry lyrics about medicinal struggles and our latest me, me, me culture. Smith’s is a common disdain, but it’s always refreshed; not an old man rehashing the tactics that marked him as a genius in the first place but a strong and constant voice pushing forward to find language that matters this year. This month. This second. Talk about relevance.

Nic Cage’s next opus is The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and of course I’m going to see it. If they released a two hour movie of Nic Cage asleep on his couch, I’d pay to see it.

I’ve heard Cage say weird shit in interviews before and I’m 100 percent positive that he really likes to fuck with people (or is an alien). In the behind-the-scenes feature on the Rumble Fish DVD, Cage says he pulled inspiration for his character Smokey from the ponds of ancient Japan. In the brief video above, Cage says playing a wizard in Sorcerer was the easiest role to prepare for because he used to pretend to be a submarine captain when he was a kid. He also says his father built him a castle. All of this he states in a raspy whisper. Because he can.

To quote Terence from Bad Lieutenant, “I love it. I just love it.”

Björk - Big Time Sensuality

Björk - Venus as a Boy

Björk - Possibly Maybe

Björk - Hyperballad

Björk – Hunter

I wish American magazines were as stoked as Japanese print. Seriously, how rad is that? Mishka’s Harajuku store was featured in Loop Magazine‘s newest issue. Repping the brand with bikes is Toku and Marco, two of Japan’s most serious rippers. I know you wanna see that image at a higher res, so I scanned it and uploaded it to my Flickr. Check it out right here!

The Мишка Memorial Day Sale is Coming! 30-50% Off!

That’s right buckos! From Friday May 28th through Monday, May 31st we’ll be having a H-U-G-E Memorial Day weekend sale where you can enjoy 30-50% off in-store (NY & LA) and online. This will probably be the last time you’ll be able to get your hands on many pieces from our Spring collection so take advantage of this generous discount.

But that’s not all… On Friday May 28th we’ll also be debuting our Summer 2010 Collection* in our Brooklyn store and online! Our sister store in Echo Park will also have some select product on the 28th, but will be doing their own full release the following weekend.

*Summer 2010 product is excluded from the sale.

Мишка
350 Broadway
Brooklyn, NY
718-388-1725
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Мишка LA
1547 Echo Park Ave
Los Angeles, CA
213-536-4234

While many of us here at  Мишка either live and/or play in Brooklyn, Brooklyn a a whole is pretty gigantic spot full of all sorts of interesting nooks and crannies. Everyone who has spent any prolonged time in the greatest of boroughs has their own special spots, neighborhoods, stores, restaurants, their own Brooklyn.

Bacardi’s B-Live project recently got together with our good friend * cue Michael Buffet voice* and Heavy Bass Champion of the World himself… Drop The Lime to take you, and really all of us on a tour of his Brooklyn.

I have a feeling Tomcats Barber Shop will get a lot more business soon. Who knows… maybe we’ll be seeing more DTL clones running around Webster Hall and other NYC clubs this Summer now that the secret to Luca’s do is out.

As an added bonus, B-Live got DTL together with Thunderheist for a remix and video for their song “Drive In.” The video captures the artists  living, working and playing here in Brooklyn on a cold winter day. You can download both the original and Drop the Lime’s remix of “Drive In”  below.

Thunderheist – “Drive-In” (B-Live Original)
Thunderheist – “Drive-In” (Drop the Lime B-Live Mix)

Guilty Simpson – OJ Simpson (2010) [Stones Throw] // Grade: B-

I must confess I turned on this record expecting not to really enjoy it. I’ve never understood the hype surrounding Guilty Simpson’s linear and all around uninteresting flow. He isn’t a brainy math rapper but he isn’t hood either which is a pretty boring place to land. It sometimes feels as though Stones Throw has too much allegiance to putting on family as opposed to focussing more on new talent. “But Doc! Guilty knew J Dilla cause they both lived in Detroit and J Dilla is real hip hop!” Sorry, but I’m not buying it. Just because Dilla liked the dude does not make him good *cough* Frank n Dank *cough*. Dilla was the sickest but he wasn’t fucking King Midas.

Past all that however, I did find a bunch of tracks on this album that I did enjoy. This was due to Madlib’s production over Guilty’s lyrical prowess though. I truly do love when Madlib focuses his production enough for someone to spit over it. He’s the master of loose spun anthems. “New Heights” really was the standout track in my eyes with a seriously thumping pace. A close second goes to the haunted house joint “Coroner’s Music”. I really do appreciate a tightly produced Madlib track because I’m well aware of all the zany interludes and audio fuckery that one usually has to endure in order to navigate through one of his albums.

I mean, back in 2004 when I was smoking weed every day and listening to Madvillainy on repeat all the bleeps, blorps and vintage black comic samples made sense. Now, six years later and I don’t smoke weed no mo, all of the in-between song antics feel like the days of sobering up after the blunt surrounded by all the food and garbage consumed: over indulgent and tired.