Get a load of this straight epic spiked out Keep Watch hat found in Japan. This little number looks like something Rob Halford would wear if he were into fitted hats. Imagine we brought this into production, how many of you would buy it? More importantly would you wear it? It looks like it might be a bit heavy on the ol’ noggin as I counted roughly 50 spikes.

The silver brim is a nice touch to the whole metal theme as this hat looks pretty much nothing like the original. The best name I have for this is the Judas Priest x Silver Surfer, but I’m sure someone can think of something better than that.

Our pal Amanda of Is Mental tipped us off to this find. Here’s the original Japanese blog where it was spotted. So if anyone want’s to translate what it says and let us know more about it, we’d be grateful.

We are proud to announce that we are now an official retailer of the collaboration wallet and belt buckle series by Repop Mfg. Repop are based out of San Diego, California, and are known for their handcrafted leather and metal goods, all made in the USA.

The first collaboration is with FUCT. Streetwear legends and purveyors of the American outlaw lifestyle, this first collaboration was a perfect match! The wallet and belt buckle are both limited to only 200 pieces each. These are vailable in our online store as well as 350 Broadway.

Мишка
350 Broadway
Brooklyn, NY
718-388-1725

So about a month ago, Crook tipped me off about a post from fellow Bloglin contributor, Fokkawolfe which revealed a hidden portal into an EXCESSIVE collection of early 90′s rave mixtapes. Now we’re talking serious mixtapes from the 90′s, not redone attempts to capture the generation’s magic and atmosphere. The dude behind this madness calls himself Baztheacidman – who is obviously a proper collector and purveyor of all things rave.

Now it’s taken me a long while to even make a dent in this ‘rave archive’ – the sheer quantity of this collection is impressive enough (6630 files, to be exact). But what really makes this smorgasbord a true gem is the quality of the selections… Rare live recordings of some of the truly innovative artists whom defined the scenes as a whole: a select number of sets from one of the Acid House innovators – DJ Pierre, Digweed during his breakout, early Nightmares on Wax sets (and even some work under his initial moniker of DJ EASE), Simon “Bassline” Smith’s victorious D&B days, several sets from Old Skool-er Phantasy, and a plethora of legendary sets from both Carl Cox and Grooverider… below I’ve posted a video featuring shortened sets from both during a show thrown by the infamous Amnesia House family back in ’92 – oh and you can find these sets within the archive.

With these artifacts as readily available resources, it becomes more and more apparent that anyone can now browse through nearly three decades of dance music. Yes, it’s organization is somewhat boggling – but there is a search tool available and it can be utilized for extensive finds. Regardless of this minor obstacle, it is truly an enlightening collection that features some of the more timeless artists whom continue to influence the direction of electronic music of today.

This collection holds an incredible number of sets from prolific players in the emergence of the electronic genres. For instance, LTJ Bukem, The Shamen, The Prodigy, and an entire folder of the premeir Acid House-ers, 808 State. Simply put, this archive is the ultimate time capsule of electronic dance music. From the rave scene’s humble beginnings to its global explosion, these shared files hold the key to its power.

My listing above really does no justice to the collection’s diversity. The entire catalogue features mixes from as early as 1982 (with a set from NYC’s now legendary Larry Levan) all the way up to present day – as I have checked this library daily, the host still routinely adds mixes. Some selector’s involved are beyond underground, most likely known only to those who were an active part of the scene – however, all spectrums of the rave culture are properly represented: from acid house, electro, drum and bass, hardcore, and breaks, to name a few.

Aside from providing an incredible smorgasbord of mixes, this collection proves its worth within the insights that can be made of the creativity and passion exhibited by the music of each generation. Mind you, the majority of these audio files are featuring artists who hadn’t yet received any collective support or accolades for their work. There was no internet or global following for the acts. They were simply playing music they loved to people who were at the right place at the right time, never concerning themselves with people dissecting their work on YouTube boards or immediately promoting them via Twitter.

As a whole, I see this rare abundance of relics as a representation of a bygone era – untainted by the internet and blessed with ignorance while recklessly pleasure-seeking within it’s naive development. Raves nowadays are missing a vital component which is plainly highlighted by this collection – many of these initial partygoers were about the music… why else would they be holding on so tightly to all these mixes?

Centuries from now, music historians and audio anthropologists will be turning to this shining archive of rave mixtapes to fully encompass the bygone 90′s dance music scene. The collection, while not in the best state of organization, provides a plethora of live sets, radio rips, and mixes from artists who reigned the dancefloors for the majority of the era. So really what I’m saying is: it’s time to call your troop, pick your ‘kandi’ habit back up, resurrect your whistle, find some grooves within this rave vault, and reach for the god damn lasers.. PLUR forever, y’all.

Radiohead – The King of Limbs (2011) [TBD/XL] // Grade: B

Last Friday in anticipation of their eight studio album, Radiohead posted the video for the album’s lead single “Lotus Flower” to their official blog. Directed by Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s Garth Jennings, Thom Yorke wiggles against a sparse black & white set, looking like a cross between a droog and Charlie Chaplin. Yorke is both awkward and beautiful, his body connected to the rolling beat, his falsetto voice loose and natural. Later that day, Radiohead released The King of Limbs. The album had been announced just five days prior. Perhaps the best summary of the album, lies in the visuals of the “Lotus Flower” video. The King of Limbs is a free-flowing, low-key effort. It is sensual, organic and ultimately, abstract.

Ambient electronics form the backbone of an album that sits in closest company with their work of a decade ago. The King of Limbs explores quietness as a theme, the subdued and often minimal instrumentation tumbling off Yorke’s gloomy voice. There’s an Arthur Russell-ness to the package that makes it so appealing; experimental jazz tones and a reclusive sadness mark the album.

Starting off heavy with “Bloom”, the first several tracks are the album’s bleakest. Yorke’s voice moves slowly, weighty with doom and met by uneasy instrumentation. “Little By Little” turns to desperation as Yorke’s voice wobbles and mumbles in a wimpy pile. These first tracks make for a weak start. There is little to latch onto amongst the suffocating melancholy.

But The King of Limbs never sits still for long, a restless beast seeking new territory. The most experimental of the tracks, the ambient “Feral” ripples with vocal effects, and echoes in paleness. “Codex” offers a sprawling piano ballad to the mix. Nearly every track finds Yorke using his voice in a different manner, and in “Codex” it is clear, calm and radiant. With little electronic manipulation, “Codex” still manages to sound every bit as ambient as “Feral” and the two tracks together illustrate just how effectively Radiohead are able to express the same mood through vastly different sounds without sacrificing identity.

Announced and released in a week, and their shortest release to date at under 40 minutes, The King of Limbs leaves you fidgety. Loose in sound and execution, it feels like an aside to their catalog and not the next big Radiohead album. You can’t help but wonder, is there another, bigger surprise to come later this year?

Get Radiohead’s The King of Limbs (Click Here)

The recent goth resurgence or (if you must) cold wave explosion, is an interesting one. While it is a new musical movement, it’s also entirely based on something that has already happened. So, it has a tendency, more than others, to come off as unfortunately imitative. But John Sharkey III isn’t new to the game. His band Clockcleaner was exploring a fuzzy post-hardcore on the verge of gothic sound long before twitter even existed. So, his new band Puerto Rico Flowers is refreshingly original, practiced, and confident in it’s execution.

Because he’s essentially old hat, he’s more comfortable blazing new trails rather than rehashing old ones. Puerto Rico Flowers owes just as much to Sharkey’s own personal style as it does to any sort of goth blueprint. Full of woozy synths and stomping melody, Puerto Rico Flowers takes an old sound and makes it sound fresh. Avoiding obsessive darkenss, Puerto Rico Flowers has a tried and true pop sensibility that I really enjoy.

Much of this comes from Sharkey’s voice, an instrument that plays as big a part as any. While at first you may be tempted to write it off as a take on the Peter Murphy baritone, it’s actually far more emotive than most cold wave singers could pull off, let alone attempt. One of things that really sets PRF apart is that it forgoes the whole done-to-death, deadpan delivery usually associated with cold wave and minimal synth. Sharkey’s vocals actually verge, and refreshingly so, on 90′s alternative crooning. Think Keith Caputo of Life of Agony or even Layne Staley. Sharkey’s voice is incredibly emotive and by keeping the arrangements relatively spare, the songs simple, the often repeated lyrics are treated to inventive and aurally pleasing twists and turns that feel more like a chant than a dirge.

Their first single off upcoming record 7 is called “3 Sisters”, and it’s quite the pop epic. Sharkey’s croons are buoyed up and up by aching synths and a propulsive bass line. More than anything, it sounds like a veteran showing the kids how it’s done. Their debut album will be out on Fan Death Records within the next few months.

Another in-store has come and gone and I bet you missed it (again). We try switching it up with the artists and yet you still won’t come. What you missed a few weeks ago was the Hussle Club solo with electric support. Fuggin Grave Wave to make your cranium crack in your favorite store no less and you missed it!

Fear not as we did record it so we can make fun of you for skipping out as well as show the world what fun things they miss out on at the flagship store. If you haven’t already, pick up a copy of the 7″inch and put that record player of yours to work.

It’s always a good ass time enjoying live good music in the confides of our store and whats better is that it’s free. So we will make it a point to make the coming ones better than the last and hope more people realize they are sleeping hard by skipping out.

All of the video from Hussle Club’s performance was shot by Matthew Caron, who also directed the “Loose Tights” video and you can catch the entire 40+ minute set over on our Vimeo channel. You can actually catch ALL of our in-store performances over there if you already haven’t.

28 days later… I am now a Cage zombie I suppose. No longer do I even think about watching the movies. At some point during the day, I’ll just naturally end up putting one on, regardless of what else I probably should be doing. It’s funny, I have no real schedule for it. Sometimes I watch them right before bed, other times right when I wake up, and pretty much anywhere in between.

So far it’s afforded me some great conversations with others, whether adversarial or out of camaraderie. I’ve even had a few people ask me whether I mind if they do the same thing, as if I’ve somehow copyrighted the ability to watch every Nic Cage movie. On the contrary, I encourage others to do it. To see 66 Days Of Cage enlighten others would make me proud yo. So let’s review.

Day 22: Guarding Tess (1994) – Dir. Hugh Wilson

This dramedy features Cage playing a secret service agent assigned to protect a former first lady (Shirley MacLaine). Y’know what? It’s actually pretty good. It starts off as a lighter comedy about them butting heads, but flirts nicely with serious drama towards the end (though her eventual kidnapping smacks of CSI. But I guess CSI didn’t exist yet so…nevermind). I think this is the first of many times Cage plays some sort of “agent” and it fits him well. He really captures the feeling of someone who is bound by a sense of duty, even if the task at hand is less than agreeable. He also interrogates a guy by shooting his toes off one by one.

Day 23: It Could Happen To You (1994) – Dir. Andrew Bergman

Another Andrew Bergman team-up (after Honeymoon In Vegas) that yields similarly fluffy yet entirely enjoyable results. I actually might even like this one a little bit more, because Bridget Fonda is infinitely better than Sarah-Jessica Parker. Cage plays an honor bound (as usual) NYPD officer who offers half of the potential winnings of a lottery ticket as tip to a waitress. It’s the movies folks! Cage and Fonda have good chemistry, and Rosie Perez is really great as Cage’s greedy wife. It’s a thankless role, but she makes the evil most of it. A sweet movie to be sure, and Cage continues to prove himself as a viable romantic interest despite his unconventional looks.

Day 24: Trapped In Paradise (1994) – Dir. George Gallo

Funny shit! I had totally forgot about this movie, but what’s better than a three stooges-esque Christmas caper comedy featuring Cage, Jon Lovitz, and Dana Carvey? Well, a few things, but this is still good. They’re a funny team. I assume Cage was originally supposed to be the straight man, but he goes kind of gonzo with it and Lovitz ends up reeling the other two in. Cage wears these amazing orange sunglasses whilst robbing a bank, which is good. They also steal a retarded kid’s horse at one point, which was weirdly dark. It’s also got Donald Moffat (Garry from The Thing), which is always a treat.

Day 25: Kiss Of Death (1995) – Dir. Barbet Schroeder

This movie is highly mediocre, but it has one stand out scene that’s actually one of my favorite Cage moments ever. I wish I could find a YouTube clip of it. It was first shown to me by my friend Joe (from Buckwheat Groats) a few years ago, and I still watch it all the time, mesmerized. So in this scene, David Caruso’s character has showed up to fill in for a drunk Mack truck driver as a favor to his cousin (Michael Rappaport). They’re smuggling cars for loose cannon Little Junior Brown (Cage). Cage shows up, and is angry that they haven’t left yet or whatever. Rappaport tries to explain that the driver was wasted, or “zonked” as he says, and opens the car door to reveal him passed out in the front seat.

Now, this 18-wheeler is parallel with another one that’s about 12 feet away. Cage takes a hit off an inhaler, grabs the passed out driver by the collar, and throws him out of the truck. But Cage at this point is so jacked and into the role, that he obviously throws the stuntman way too far and hard. The guys face smashes into the hubcap of the other truck after flying like 10 feet, and he is obviously really hurt. You can tell, because Caruso is clearly looking to someone off camera with a face like “shouldn’t we cut?” and Rappaport straight just walks offscreen. What does Cage do? He kicks the dude in the chest. Wowzers yo.

Day 26: Leaving Las Vegas (1995) – Dir. Mike Figgis

Fuck me this movie is tough to watch. This officially made Cage one of the youngest Oscar winners ever, and for many is his definitive performance. And what a performance it is, accompanied by an almost equally stunning one from Elisabeth Shue. Cage’s portrayal of Ben Sanderson completely surpasses and sublimates any stereotype attached to the stock character of “vicious drunk”. After losing his job, Sanderson moves to Vegas to drink himself to death. I could pile superlatives on this performance for a while. I’ve long appreciated how much of himself Cage gives over to a role, and it’s to such a large degree here that it’s painful to see.

I have a feeling Cage was doing a whole lot of real destructive drinking on set, because his DT’s in the movie are so damn real, his face and body so ragged, like a death mask. He’s funny, scary, charming, smart, tragic, and plain heartbreaking from moment to moment. The love story is extremely unique and believable. When Ben tells Sera that if they are to be together she can never ask him to stop drinking, the addiction in his eyes is… it’s fucking pure art yo.

Day 27: The Rock (1996) – Dir. Michael Bay

All of a sudden, Nic Cage is the biggest movie star in the world. Seriously. Awesome. With The Rock, he finally becomes the top of the top. What a great action movie, one of the best of the ’90s to be sure. Definitely Michael Bay’s best work (sliding just past Bad Boys). Goodspeed is one of Cage’s most quotable roles, and his banter with Connery is top notch. “I’d take pleasure in guttin’ you, boy” is one of my faves. Epic action scenes, melting faces, bathroom shootout, green flares, crushing the poison ball in that dudes mouth, “the rocket man, it’s you”, fucking the prom queen, gigantic needle, JFK conspiracies, get ‘em!

Day 28: Con Air (1997) – Dir. Simon West

Say it with me now: “Put the bunny back in the box.” Everyone likes this movie. Everyone. Cameron Poe is a great character. Everyone awesome is in this movie. Every actor you like? They’re in Con Air. It’s a law of the universe. This movie came out on my birthday. Awesome gift. Great soundtrack/score, amazing Cage hair, so fucking quotable, AZZKICKR, Garland Greene, Malkovich eating up scenery like it ain’t no thing. Why would Cage choose to be so southern? Why the hell not?! This and The Rock is the best 1-2 punch of any action star in the 90′s. Especially since Goodspeed and Poe are extremely different yet equally awesome characters. Sorry Keanu, you should’ve avoided Johnny Mnemonic. For two years, Nicolas Cage had the whole world. In his hands.

So, another week passes. I’ll be hitting halfway partway through next week, which is both exciting and slightly disheartening. I’ve pretty much passed the section containing movies I hadn’t seen before, but that’s okay. Face/Off and Bringing Out The Dead are imminent, so that rules pretty hard. See you in 7 days fellow Cage-heads!

All Posts: Intro, Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6, Week 7, Week 8, Week 9, Week 10.

The Pendu posse recently took their talents over to the left coast for an awesome party in support of Chelsea Wolfe‘s recent LP release. Celebrating Chelsea’s The Grime and the Glow (check our review here), out now on Pendu Records, the performance featured her and a host of other artists and DJ’s. Judging by these photos, it was quite a time.

Chelsea Wolfe and her her gauzy head apparel seem to be in full effect, and she got some serious support from King Dude, The Present Moment, and DJ sets from WhITCH, Robert Disaro, and Todd Pendu himself. Be on the lookout for any party that these guys throw, they’re pretty much a guaranteed great time, and check out some more pictures below.

Hey everybody,

Humans call me by Nick Gazin but most of you Mishka Mutants know me as the Toilet Cobra. I recently made a Mix CD for Impose Magazine’s Valentines Day Mix CD roundup because I am an influential young taste maker. I make the tastes and you taste the tastes I make. Johnny from the Death Set said he’d teach me how to make blended mixes with Ableton but until then I’m just making classic mixes, one song after the next with a dividing wall of silence separating each track. Other mix CDs were made by Matt “Vidiot” Caron, the girls of Prince Rama, Popjew, one of the guys in Liturgy and other hip bandfolks and blogcreatures.  Check them all out here.

This thirty song mix CD is meant to feel like the trajectory of most of my relationships but it also kind of feels like the last ten years of my life are summed up in this mix. It starts off fun with high energy and goofy punk shit, gets more hardcore, turns goth and lowdown, gets kinda psychedelic, there’s some weirdness and it ends with you and me being friends.

New mixtape from Rye Rye and DJ Sega coming atcha. I guess this actually dropped last week, suppose my living under a rock swag was in full effect or some shit, but regardless I felt like posting it. Cause I roll like that. I saw M.I.A. in concert like 2-3 years ago and totally had my face rocked by Rye Rye, who fully blew her out of the water. The style, the dancing, the baltimore booty busting: shit was fucking awesome.

Her new mixtape Ryeot PowRR is chock-full of her flips on pop hits. So now you can listen to all those guilty pleasure ass top 40 songs without compromising your musical integrity. You know this to be true. Come to think of it, I sort of wish every pop hit would just get filtered through Rye Rye before it hits the radio. PS, damn that girl has such serious dance steez and endless energy.

Download Rye Rye’s RYEot PowRR (Mixed by DJ Sega)