Every year we get some creative Мишка inspired pumpkin creations sent in around this time of year. We posted that excellent Death Add-O-Lantern earlier this week and I thought we’d cap off the holiday with a few more Мишк-O-Lanterns, each featuring one of our various icons. The first is from Jonathan Bergeron of Montreal and it’s an incredible rendition of Cyco Simon based on our recent Rebel8 collaboration. Next we got a Kill With Power inspired Мишк-O-Lantern (like on our Halloween sale flyer) from Jordy4000. David Kolin Kraning went traditional with a Bear Mop on his and finally our own Gill carved a Keep Watch inspired Мишк-O-Lantern which is currently at our Brooklyn shop.
We hope you guys had a fun and safe weekend and enjoy your last moments of Halloween by either heading out to one last costume party, going into a candy coma or curling up on your coach about to enjoy Walking Dead. Take advantage of our Halloween sale while you still can because at midnight (PST) our prices will go back to normal. Happy Halloween and thanks again to all of you who sent in your pumpkin creations.
Yeah, yeah, I know. Cudi leaked and you’re still waiting with baited breath for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, but you now what? Put all that shit on the back-burner because this is the shit right here, is as good and as fresh as it gets in Hip Hop right now. When Odd Future got a new release, y’all better get excited. And if you still don’t know, get in the know right.fucking.now.
MellowHype is composed of crew members Left Brain and Hodgy Beats. The duo already dropped a gem earlier this year with YellowWhite, but like everyone else in the crew, they don’t sleep and we’re being treated toa whole new album. BlackenedWhite takes it up a whole level and features cameos from Tyler, Earl Sweatshirt and Mike G. Go pack a bowl and thank me later.
Oh by the way, Odd Future will be performing in New York on Monday, November 8th. Lock your doors!
Fokkawolfe is taking a hiatus this week from Sounds From the Other Side to attend to a creative endeavor. I’ll be filling in for him this week instead of doing my usual You Should be Listening to… column. Hopefully you don’t mind too much! Today being Halloween and this columns tradition of exploring darker and obscure soundscapes, I wanted to feature an artist who creeps me the fuck out, PONYBOY.
I first discovered PONYBOY when Youtube “recommended” one of his videos while I was checking out some other Witch House videos. The videos were credited to user blairshynola whose channel was titled GRIDS, which is what I initially thought was PONYBOY’s musical moniker was. I’m still actually not certain if whoever blairshynola is, is in fact the same person as PONYBOY or just someone who makes videos for his music. Some of the videos direct to other Myspace Witch House band pages, like N Tha Mofuckin’ Ghost which then have PONYBOY posting comments of that very video. It’s all very confusing, as it should be in the wicked world of Witch House.
From there I did some digging and eventually stumbled upon this blog. Once you get past the crazy videos and the creepy images, you’ll eventually hit what I think is one the blog’s weirdest elements…lots of incredibly angst ridden poetry. I have no clue if it was supposed to be taken seriously or not, but it was enthralling none the less. It was like peering into the diary of an angry 15 year old looking to shock his class with loads of references to homosexuality and AIDS. It was actually quite silly and twisted in it’s own way, here read:
NEWEST SECRETS
visor
please, no jokes
did you use me?
what’s your lifestyle?
your manliness will never die as long as you remain with me
how do you talk if you’re
on the verge
of a breakdown, time to take
some enhancers
solutions against flaccidity
genuine masculinity
renewable at any cost
your request canceled
our proposal
i will go with you
he did not need to learn more
enjoy your photos
hidden music track
receive your sleep desires
all he does is sit in the water
files for lessons
joke
—–
Family SECRET
dad died on the sofa
waiting, wasting away his stomach caved in, first date
straight through the next floor, bludgeoned to death, sculptural
i lost my sparkling plastic
jem shoe
under the sofa
eating honeycombs and watching
cartoons, glow in the dark tapedeck
watching papi die was fun
like watching writhing gymnastics, one leg there, one arm there, completely disembodied, i know nothing
scratching against the night time window, frosted maps
she never remembered to take her glasses off
stressed out
this is what we’ve come to
fallen through
shaven head
blowjobs for rent
dolls bought cheap, plastic lace wedding dress
apple pantry
he’s in prison now
i don’t remember anything
ever
—–
Hidden amongst the words were a smattering of songs. Scroll down to the bottom of this page and look for the copy “DOWNLOAD ME SERIOUSLY DOWNLOAD ME I EXIST AS THESE LINKS.” There are 10 individual tracks to download, some of which were credited to PONYBOY which is how I was eventually able to find a Myspace page associated with artist. And man what a Myspace page it is! Holy fuck is maneuvering this thing a real exercise in frustration! Go look for yourself. You’ll probably miss countless things and not realize it. I don’t even know if i caught everything on there and I’ve visited it multiple times. But here’s another download to 4 more earlier tracks.
The Live journal hasn’t been updated in I think over 6 months, but there has been a healthy dose of new videos on the blairshynola GRIDS channel. Some even directed to a PONYBOY soundcloud page with 10 new tracks to download from this mysterious artist who’s whereabouts are listed as Paris, Chicago and Atlanta.
Unlike Mater Suspiria Vision which give you shivers with it’s whole occultist slant that rie sto draw people in…his stuff is, ytes terrifying but it’s also plain bizzare. Like it’s beamed in from another dimension a la that transmission in Prince of Darkness or the Tall Man’s home world in the Phantasm series. And not only is it inaccessible in usual sense, it’s inaccessible in trying to put all the pieces together on where it comes from and how you can get it all on your iTunes. The presentation of it all looks like an asylum gave one of it’s patients access to the internet and said “express yourself.” You really have to want to listen and watch PONYBOY, there’s no casual browsing. And you know what? It works! If you like Witch House, the world and mythos he’s created is like catnip.
A digital manifestation of the esoteric coupled driven frustration and insanity, all set to beats that are reminiscent of Salem. This is quite possibly the most terrifying thing the world of Witch House has to offer. The music is sinister, the words are disturbing and whenever I watch the videos I feel lime my computer has become an evil sentient. What more could you want when it comes to Sounds From the Other Side?
It’s a Мишка party. Who could ask for more? Everybody’s coming we will party until dawn. Oingo Boingo references aside, all the Мишка mascots are partying together and smoking cheap weed. There’s the anthropomorphic nutsack, Bozak who first appeared at the Мишка $3.50 tattoo event. There’s My Pal The Crook, floating around like a devious Great Gazoo. The Lobster Roll is just rolling around with it’s one big arm and that strange rubbery skirt at the bottom of it’s body. There’s Миша, a big chubby cartoon bear just hanging out and yukking it up. Then there’s also that other guy who Mikhail said is named Dr. Takadanobaba. I don’t know who that dude is but he looks like he could either be a mad scientist or a dog catcher.
If you’re reading this then you’re in all likelihood a weird lookin’ monstah that hangs out and smokes pot with his monstrous friends. Represent what a high creep you turned into. All of the Kablooie illustrations were done by Soner Ön and the tee is available in Black, White and Lime Green.
For a dude with such a sweet sounding moniker, Babe Rainbow sure knows how to keep shit evil with these Chop & Screwed Hip Hop mixes. Seriously how much more evil (and appropriate for Halloween) can you get then slowing down raps about killing people? If you enjoyed the Vancouver based electronic artist’s last release, Screwed, you’re going to love Let Me Buy U, Anne Drank Vol. 2, the Halloween Edition. Throw this on this evening, but just don’t go all Big Lurch on your family.
On a side note, how awesome is the cover art by Rob Ondzik for this mix? Click the image to get a better look. Man I wish i could just spend Halloween with this playing through some car speakers, hotboxin’ with Jason and Freddy. I bet those dudes get some killer ass medicinals.
1) Dayton Family – Blood Bath
2) Tommy Wright III – Angry Souls
3) Eightball & MJG – Pimps In the House
4) Prophet Posse – Judgement Night (Koopsta Knicca)
5) Blac Monks – Zillion Ways to Die
6) Gravediggaz – 2 Cups of Blood
7) Playa Fly – Vampire feat. Snubnoze
8) Mobb Deep – Hell on Earth
9) Geto Boys – Mind Is Playing Tricks on Me
10) B.G. – Retaliation (feat. Juvenile, Ms. Tee, & Bun B)
11) Bone Thugs-N-Harmony – Mr. Ouija
Rejected: Hallow can you go? Rejected: All Hallow’s, No Goodbyes Rejected: Bodycrates and Hardscape (That one’s for Crook)
No biggie, right? Just halloween…only the stupidest, most not-getting-it-off-from-work un-holiday known to grown men and women everywhere, right? Just a brainless cash-in by the world’s evil candy conglomerate. Just a covert, clandestine, Illuminati-sponsored project of the world’s Apple Syndicate to simultaneously push their wares and thin the herd of gullible, OMG-I-swallowed-this-whole-razorblade-before-I realized-it-was-in-my-mouth children. Muahaha. Them. They are the ones saying muahaha. I am just telling it like it is.
No. Fuck you if you think any of that. It’s a biggie. Not even a small biggie…it’s like, a huge biggie. You know that awesome banger of a Sheryl Crow track ‘Every Day is a Winding Road’? No. She is wrong. Categorically wrong. Every day is Halloween. Halloween for Life. Well, Rough Draft AND Halloween for Life. There. I said it.
My position should be becoming relatively clear to you by now. You take the good, you take the bad, you take the rest and there you have Halloween. Everything about life can be categorized into stuff that’s LIKE halloween and stuff that is NOT LIKE Halloween. This second category can be ignored. Wholesale.
In attempting to gather photo subjects from inside my habitat for this, the All Hallow’s themed entry in Niche Fetish, I have realized that I am completely surrounded—every day of the year—by death, dismemberment, zombies, freaks, monsters, mayhem, and lovely greeting cards from my wife.
But hey. This is nothing new to you, O constant reader, who has ascertained through careful scrutiny of my personal style and massive wealth of amazing treasure that I, indeed, am the living breathing spirit of a sort of middle-aged, very calm, very sit at your desk and talk about it Halloween. I am not telling you anything new. You knew this already. So I am here today to reinforce that notion with some photos. Some sharing. SOME expression of my awesomely at once domineering yet welcoming Halloween-ness.
So here you go. My offering at the altar of this fantastically witchy wondertime. Probably mostly toys and shit like that, but maybe some other stuff too. Check after the jump for a ton of pics:
Note: Obviously, Ghost Dots are a given, but I’ve already written extensively about them before. Do yourself a favor and click the link.)
Happy Halloween my Ghouls! For today only you can take 31% off online and in-store at our Brooklyn and Los Angeles locations. Basically all Мишка product is on sale for the day! If you’re in either New York or LA, head over to our shops and browse around, try a few things on and go home with some new wears. Those of you anywhere in-between, take advantage of the sale online and trick r treat yourself today!
Sale Excludes Toys & Kaiju, Secret Base, Johnny Ryan, Trouble & Bass, Mad Decent and Actual Pain product.
I gotta be honest and admit I’m not really too up on what’s going on in Russia in terms of “good music.” My knowledge and listening of modern Russian based acts has mostly been limited to Tesla Boy and Proxy. That was until Fokkawolfe did a Sounds From the Other Side on Russian electro party starters, Stoned Boys. I really took to their sound immediately and have had their EP, Little Victory.
I recently noticed some incoming traffic to the Bloglin from a Russian lifestyle mag by the name of Guerrilla, who Stoned Boys just did a new mix for. Grooving Bones Falcon Slowflowmoving Mix is pretty a pretty fuckin’ psychedelic rager that will have you sweaty and seeing trails. Guerrilla also conducted a pretty lengthy interview with Stoned Boys as well. It’s all in Russian so I doubt many of you will be able to read it, but we get two questions asked about Мишка in it… that don’t get such flattering of response from the guys. Ha!
Regardless, if you are into Pictureplane, Balam Acab and oOoOO…and if that’s you, then you really should have these guys on your radar as well. Download their EP, download the mix, they’re free…plus your iTunes needs a Russian artist quota.
So, a few days/weeks ago, the venerable Toilet Cobra—you heard me right—got on here and started talking about tiny hats you could fit on your, um, ‘peen’.
I know this, because Tyler knows this. You know this, because you got the newsletter that had the post in it, and, well, you likely got up from your mid-morning’s work nap and ran to the computer and bought one to stock and one to rock. Just like me.
Actually, as I had no idea what a 4 1/4 NE would look like in terms of size, I bought one for baby Hateball (currently in post-product, set to air this February) and one for a big toy. At the time, I did not realize that there was a distinction between the ‘big little’ one and the ‘little’ one, but, well, it all worked out, as the keychains seem to be as few and far between as a snow-spotted ponycorn, and, well, now the big little ones are sold out, too.
What. The fuck. Are you getting at?
In celebration of receiving these genius lids (dome homes, caps, etc.) I decided to creep and crawl my native habitat for anything that looked good wearing them. I share the results below, with you, O Bloglin.
Crazy as it seems, here in sunny Sacramento, the eyeball-monster-mouth hat is still a bit novel—even for people who know and don’t hate me—and needless to say, my friends and family think I am so totally crazy (OMG, that’s so Justin!) for having a small version of my own hat ‘made’ to put on my crazy ‘plastic monsters’.
It’s come to the point where I’ve gotten a bit tired of explaining it all to them, so, well—so I don’t feel ‘wrong’ about being attributed credit for the creation of something I bought—here is my tribute to you, that fountainhead of funk, that feeds my soul hole—on the weekly, yo—with weird shit to creep my family out with.
So long—for now—and thanks for all the fish. (Please make more tiny hats.)
(While I was setting up this shot, I got a phonecall that turned out to be a conference/WebEx sort of thing. It was when I told my contact that I was ‘literally taking a photo of a shrunken head propped up onto a camera lens wearing a smaller version of the hat I was currently wearing, so like, yeah, I have time to talk’ that I realized that the word ‘literally’ has absolutely no meaning anymore. )
Seemingly crafting your own niche in a genre is something to be proud of – a feeling known all too well by Bristol wunderkind, Joker. The producer started making tunes at 14, was DJing regularly a year later, was dubstep’s great hope by 18 and has spent the last few years perfecting his own sound, aptly titled “Purple.” Joker, a.k.a. Liam Mclean, describes his spectrum of the scene as ‘gully, space boy, goon music’ – a slang ridden explanation of a style that plays on the sparseness of the beats, the pseudo-jazziness of the keys, the heaviness of the bass, and the crunchiness of the synths. He has solidified his impact on the dubstep scene by consistently kicking out a run of truly impeccable tracks, each one quirkier and funkier than the last.
The most attractive aspect of Joker’s productions are the sexiness of each jam, laden with his trademark ultra-granulated synths, which are so heavily filtered and drenched in texture that they are nearly impossible to resist. His works traditionally exhibit loud beats with hard drums, skilled synth melodies and sharp arrangements – with undertones reaching into the jazz realm.
I was first taken aback by the Bristol boy’s goon appeal when I was introduced to one of his collaborations with his Purple partner-in-grime, Ginz, entitled “Re-Up”. But Joker has been developing his own unique production style since he turned 15. Tastemakers were first cued in on his works by none other than dubstep heavyweight and Tectonic label owner, Pinch.
“His music is bold and forthcoming, bass heavy, intricately melodic, and well-structured. I would say his sound is somewhere between Roll Deep’s productions, Low Deep, the Neptunes, and Super Mario Cart! He is very obviously influenced by computer game music but he still manages to evoke a strong sense of emotion.”
Undoubtedly, Joker’s productions do have a glossed over, video-game vibe to them. His 2010 release of “Tron” clearly backs the comparisons, heavily drenched equally in both bassweight and synth-work – giving the impression of racing down a digitized track in some sort of computerized environment.
At such a young age, it’s hard to believe he has made such an impact on the scene as has. However, his influence is increasing across the entire genre, and his popularity spanning worldwide. The producer is responsible for one of the most highly anticipated releases of the year, his collaboration with Bristol drum and bass champ, TC, known as “It Ain’t Got a Name.”
Another aspect of the artist’s pull is his work’s dance-ability – standing out in a genre that traditionally is asked, “How do you dance to this shit?” Leaving other producers seeming almost flatfooted, Joker meticulously crafts a funky, grimey style that truly has no mercy on the dancefloor. Indisputably, Joker is one of the standout artists in an already over-saturated genre. His creative blend of dubstep, grime, garage, R&B, and funk is relatively unmatched. I suppose this is the basis of the creation of his personalized spectrum of the scene. I’m sure in the near future we will see several attempts to cop his ‘purple’ swag, but no one can do it like the original goony, space boy.
