Hello, guys and ghouls. I’ve flaked on posting a Weekly Round-Up for about a month now. My apologies. The good news is, the Round-Up is back and the even better news is that Lost is over tonight. I’m going with an open mind but also with low expectations. Anyways, back to it.

• The Summer 2010 Lookbook is now online! The line itself, Too Much Too Young, will be available online in just 5 days! Fuck rent. Fuck student loan bills. Buy Мишка.

• The Мишка x Feral House collaboration, the Process Church of the Final Judgment, is seriously amazing. If you’re in the area, be sure to go to the release party on June 1 at the Santos Party House.

• I copy and pasted a bunch of old gang cards and pretended to know what I was talking about. The truth is in the comments section, where some real Chi kids let me know what’s up.

• Our favorite photographer Ellen Stagg collaborated with Living Proof Magazine on a truly unique skate deck. It features Мишка calendar girl Justine Jolie. Great job, Ellen. It came out beautiful.

• This week’s Choice Is Yours pitted M.I.A. vs Bjork. I didn’t chime in at the time, but I’m going with Bjork’s Homogenic. “Bachelorette” owns. I saw a Bjork show once at a baseball field on Coney Island. During “Human Nature” a large black woman came up and danced with me. Highlight of my life? We’ll see.

• If you like mood, synths, and romance, then check out the White Nights Mix from Baryshnikov. The duo is made up of our fearless leader Crook and DJ/Producer Mike Dextro.

• Trent Reznor’s new project, How to Destroy Angels, released their first music video. Hateball gave his two cents. I haven’t seen them in ages, but don’t they explain how to destroy angels in one of the Warlock movies?

• Caffeine Powered’s new video game column, Press Start!, is going strong. I don’t play video games and even I read it. Also, Near Mint Condition will never stop.

• Speaking of video games, Doc Dino gave us the lowdown on Steam, a new video game thingy which allows Mac users to play some rad console games.

• After some soul searching in the jungles of Peru, the Vidiot returns with a new season of your favorite show, Kill With Video.

• Some woodpusher named Eric Koston dropped into the LA store. No big deal.

• If a movie is called Kick or Die, well then it better have some sweet kicks in it. Kick or Die delivers.

• Best search term for the week: “mons pubis.”

• Top rated albums of the week: S/T from Crystal Castles, In and out and Back Again from Woven Bones, This Is Happening from LCD Soundsystem

The Echo Park shop was recently blessed by a visit from one of LA’s turntable royalty, DJ Inka One of the Beathackerz. For those not familiar with Inka’s exploits, he ran the Basmentalism Radio Show in Boulder, Colorado which then lead him to tour the U.S with The Procussions & Pigeon John from L.A Symphony.

Most notably, Inka helped found BOOMBOX LA, a monthly event in Los Angeles, Chinatown area that has hosted the likes of Diamond D, Talib Kweli, Prince Po, Pac Div, Flying Lotus and damn near every BeatJunkie DJ you can name!

Get ‘em Paul & Inka! 4.16 million & counting…be sure to peep BOOMBOX L.A on the first Saturday of the month with this upcoming June 5th show at The Grand Star.

Мишка LA
1547 Echo Park Ave
Los Angeles, CA
213-536-4234

In honor of The Stone’s remastered re-release of a deluxe edition of Exile on Main St. I thought I’d do a Digging For Fire tribute for the album featuring another artist currently getting some much deserved love with re-releases, Jon Spencer. Arguably the greatest Pigfuck band of all time covers arguably the greatest Stones album of all time in it’s entirety…a pretty awesome concept when you think about it.

Originally released in 1986 as a cassette edition of 550, this album cover was actually Pussy Galore’s first full length to the world and their first since settling in New York City from Washington DC. Why the hell did Pussy Galore decide to cover Exile on Main St.? I honestly have no clue… but the Stones are an obvious influence on Jon Spencer and it just fit the band’s whole trashy, confrontational, roots rock aesthetic. Plus it made for a pretty awesome novelty and befitting Pussy Galore’s reputation, this was a pretty controversial and bold move. I suppose some lowly, trashy noise band covering one of rock’s canonical releases will get people riled up… be it punks or rock purists.

As with all Pussy Galore releases, the tape was recorded like absolute shit! I wouldn’t be shocked if the whole thing wasn’t done live in studio with a tape-recorder at one end of the room. But if you’ve ever heard a single Pussy Galore song or album, you know that’s exactly the way it should be.

I used to make myself crazy trying to hunt down a copy of this when I was younger… well this and actually every single Pussy Galore release, and never managed to find a copy of Exile on Main St. (either on tape or some of the vinyl and CD pressings Shove eventually did for it) until the digital music age. Being that this is a song for song cover of one of the most well known albums, from one of the hugest bands of all time, I doubt we’ll ever see an official re-release it.

So rather than celebrating this classic with some newly unreleased (and recently re-recorded) tracks by Jagger and Richards, why not let some other legends like Jon Spencer, Neil Hagerty, Christina Martinez,  Julia Cafritz and Bob Bert give you there take on it? I actually forgot how many legends were in Pussy Galore, until I wrote that…wow.

Pussy Galore – Exile on Main St.

I’ve been devouring Richard Price‘s The Wanderers over the past few days, and have had old teenage street gangs (or, “clubs”) on the brain. This is back when being part of a gang didn’t necessarily mean constant rumbles, but could simply entail living on the same street or in the same neighborhood and just hanging out together. Imagine forming your entire identity from a single city block or playground.

One aspect of gang material culture I always found interesting was the use of “business cards.” They were used prominently in Chicago as a way to intimidate people, form alliances, or simply leave behind a message. Different sections of the gang would use different cards with their members’ names printed on them. While trolling the internet, I came across several galleries of old cards. There’s even one for sale on eBay. Here are some of my favorites.

I like that someone in the gang was just named “Weed.”

The Almighty Popes were huge in Chicago and rivals with the Gaylords. I’m assuming their “Insane Midgets” chapter was made up of middle school kids or their little brothers. In the top right corner is listed “Lil Larkin.” Larry Larkin was the head of the Popes in the early ’70s until his death in ’75.

More (offensive) cards after the jump! They get pretty intense.

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So today is Globby Day. There. You know about it now.

I’ve posted about Gargamel here before: they are as much of a modern institution as one can be in the not-so-wide world of japanese vinyl toys-slash-kaiju scene. Gargamel’s founder, Kiyoka, has an uncompromising eye toward sculptural perfection, and—due in part to this eye and an unstoppable freight-train of great ideas—Gargamel toys are of an otherwordly quality.

Tight tolerances. Beautiful and clever articulation. Fine-point paint jobs. It’s almost enough to make one forget that they’re all hand-assembled, hand-painted, and hand-bagged. This is not Medicom we’re talking about here. Duh.

One of the cool(er) things about Gargamel is their constant collaboration with other artists…many of them hailing from the US, and several of those many (weird) reside in sunny, lush Oregon: the land of the green and the home of the caves. (Ok, Enough. Get to the point already).

One of those Portland Artists, Bwana Spoons, has been collaborating with Gargamel for several years, and he has decided to make today—May 21st—Annual Globby Day.

Who is Globby? That part is easy: Imagine a Charlie Brown-ish body with a cute cuddly Octopus-thing for a head. Done. Globby. There.

Globby comes in two flavors: regular or pocket, and over the years, Bwana, the Grasshut Gang, and the Gargamel folks have turned out a large handful of totally awesome colorways and variants…all of which I want to own and keep forever. Precious.

The ‘Annual-Day-ness’ of it all is pretty silly—I think that’s the whole point—and consists of a makeshift giveaway and/or photo contest (which I will of course be entering), but aside from that, I am all about celebrating this radical little dude.

It’s only slightly coincidental that today marks the release of a brand-new Globby colorway, but I for one won’t hold that against the little fella. Or Bwana. Or Grasshut.

Hellish Crossfire – Bloodrust Scythe (2010) [I Hate] // Grade: B

Every week I hope to find an album like this. Something that dabbles in some old school thrash with a prominent death influence and a tinge of black metal. Hellish Crossfire’s newest release, Bloodrust Scythe is all the above. Pure and classic blackened death thrash. With vocals, speed and riffs to make your blood pump and adrenaline rush. This is the kinda album that will get you speeding tickets.

It’s not perfect though, by any means. As Hellish Crossfire’s second release, Bloodrust Scythe maintains the compressed sound of 80′s thrash without compromising the overall experience too much. There are moments that are very much like Slayer’s Hell Awaits, early Possessed and even Death. Adding a echoed effect to his vocals, Iron Tyrant creates a great sense of environment through a thick cloud of foreboding doom but it quickly becomes overshadowed by a onslaught of ill-timed riffs and breaks.

From the first track, “Night Of The Possessed” through “Into The Old And Evil”, the album’s fairly successful at cultivating the classic era of death and thrash. The intro to “Into the Old and Evil” is creepy as hell but the rest of the track seems to wither off and pull us along for a too long for comfort outro. It just never stops.

This is where the album sort of falls apart. It’s kind of a major disappointment. The songwriting is quickly redundant and it becomes formulaic. Those echoed vocals quickly become background noise without adding any layering to the already complex tracks. If they took notes from Excoriate’s latest release, they might have produced a stellar album. Mixing multiple genres in a balls-out thrash album doesn’t need to be too complicated. Bloodrust Scythe is though, there’s just too much going on and it quickly becomes background noise.

What starts out as a great blackened death thrash album quickly falls off into a mediocre release. I almost feel like an EP would have done Hellish Crossfire more justice. From their maiden release to this one, I’m convinced they were rushed somehow. The talent is there but the execution falls short. Maybe I’m being too critical but I like to not have to think about an album too much. If it’s good, it’s good and when it’s bad, it becomes a difficult process of trying to figure out why it’s bad. First impressions make Bloodrust Scythe a successful album but in the long run, it just kinda fades into background noise.

In conjunction with the release of the Мишка x Feral House: The Process Church of the Final Judgment Collection, we’re throwing an awesome release party along with Chronic Youth over in Chinatown at Santos Party House. 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.

Since this is all out celebration of the Process Church 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, White Ring and of course Blessure Grave. This is one event you don’t want to miss! Head over after the jump for more information on all of the acts performing.

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

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I have been brimming with things I want to post about this week. Which is odd, because usually I can’t think of anything to post about. Usually I convince myself that I’m much much too busy to travel to links that my lovely wife sends me. Much much too busy to watch a sixth grader sing the shit out of Lady Gaga. Much much too busy to play 10 minutes of pac-man on the google homepage without even knowing it.

But this week, I don’t know how I’m gonna get it all out there. It’s making me feel like it’s my job to blog. Which is a weird feeling. Sorta like wiggling a loose tooth…it hurts, but it hurts good.

So what do I lead with today? Something cool that someone else has done? Something cool about something else that someone else has done? No. I’m vain (I guess) and so I wanted to punch up a few random photos I dug outta the crates. In no particular order. Why? Because it requires the least amount of writing. Duh.

The above is a postcard I made for Mr. Cometdebris when I visited him in Japan. I went around sights and sites in lovely Sacramento and tokoji-rolled them. I even got some inspiration from the Mishka Hallelujah graphics…which were much much more amazing than my attempt. Postcards are fantastic…when I grow up I want to collect them.

The first time I met Greg, he had a backpack on that was full to the brim with amazing toys. I bought one from him and ever since I have been trying to capture it’s essence. Finally, I have experienced some success in this endeavor.

I was in my local Starbucks (where they have random books lying around) and when I saw this I thought two things, and two things only: 1. Oh. 2. Mars.

I didn’t even know I was looking for a mantra; a mission statement; a manifesto. And here it was. The whole time.

I didn’t even have to pause it.

If someone ever tries to convince you that soaking fresh jalapeno peppers in tequila and then lighting the whole mess on fire is a good segue into eating said peppers, don’t believe them. I’m pretty sure I’m sterile now.

More soon I hope.

Press Start!, where one gaming fanboy, who has been making his controllers sticky through various means since he was like nine years-old details the top five things that caught his eye in gaming that week. Most of the shit I find is either blatantly obvious, or completely irrelevant. But none the less, it puts my ass into frothing geek orgasms. After I blather, you hop in and drop what you’ve been digging on this week. Then we all high-five and act like assholes. Let’s do this shit!

#1: No More Heroes 2 Inspired Lingerie Makes Groins Glow
It’s not so much that any of these undies for ladies actually turn me on that has me posting about it. I just can’t believe shit like this actually exists. It’s so preposterous that I’m stoked about it. No More Heroes 2 is a quirky as fuck game, and it sort of makes sense that if any game was going to bring lingerie to the forefront, it may be this shit. Check it out here, and then wonder if you can fathom a world where you’d want to see your lady in this shit. Me? It’s too goofy to comprehend, but I tip my cap to anyone who buys this shit.

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#2: Oh fuck! A new Virtual-On Drops, Making Niche Gamers Tweak!
Oh fuck, a new Virtual-On! Virtual-On! What a mindfuck that Sega is bringing this franchise back. I remember rocking the fuck out on my Saturn back in the day, dual-sticks bought with allowance money. I was stoked when they announced they were re-releasing Virtual-On for the Xbox Live! arcade. But a whole retail release? Fucking stellar. I hope it doesn’t blow. Sega dropped a sequel to NiGHTS on the Wii, and I geeked out. A sequel to one of my favorite games ever? Fuck yes! And then like the sequels to almost anything from my childhood, it crushed my dreams.

Don’t fuck this up Sega. I’ll cut you.

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#3: Call of Duty: Black Ops Trailer Drops, Yeah. Or something.
I’m not insane for Call of Duty like some people, but it feels like every time something CoD drops, it is worth mentioning. The franchise crushes complete ass. Rakes in ridiculous amounts of dough. And even though this installment isn’t by Infinity Ward (which, I know, has fallen apart completely), and it isn’t a Modern Warfare, it’s worth mentioning. The series is such an insane phenomenon that this trailer premiere during the fucking NBA playoffs.

That’s publicity right there. And while most Call of Duty fans I’ve come across are whiny little things, I’m sure despite the eventual bemoaning, they’re all going to pick it up.

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