Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, the patron saints of plaintive masculinity, are currently releasing remastered versions of some of their most acclaimed and seminal 90s’s albums. The most recent additions to the Collector’s Edition reissues are The Boatman’s Call, Let Love In, No More Shall We Part, and Murder Ballads. Cave’s 80′s output got the remaster treatment back in 2009. These reissues have caused a flurry of rare video releases from the albums as well, most recently for some of the songs found on No More Shall We Part.

We’d embedd them but sadly there is no way to so you’re just going to have to clink link for each one. Here’s the first one, for the casually-tragic “As I Sat Sadly By Her Side.” This one’s going to be an especially big treat for the more fanatical of those among Cave’s audience: Most of the visuals are reflections and duplications of the man himself, giving the illusion that there are plenty of Nick Cave clones to go around. Actually, that would be awesome – can you imagine the harmonies they’d sing together?

The video for “Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow” is unmistakably reminiscent of The Knife’s video for “Pass This On” – they both find their subjects performing in dingy, foreign-looking recreation centers for an audience that most likely isn’t part of their regular demographic (think old ladies and used car salesman-lookin’ guys). The only difference between the two is that Cave’s not a lip-synching drag queen like The Knife’s leading lady, although that could be a fun new direction for him to take if he ever gets tired of releasing gorgeous, mournful albums with the Bad Seeds or his grittier stuff with Grinderman, his more garage-rock-inspired band.

“Love Letter” gets the coolest video treatment, which is appropriate because it’s one of the best songs in the band’s catalog. Like the heartbreaking track it accompanies, the video is simple and lovely. It takes place in empty rooms and open landscapes, allowing the music to fill all that visual space in a nice little bit of synaesthesia.

If all these videos inspired you to get all nostalgic for early ’00s-era Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds (and who could blame you?), the reissues are available now through Amazon.

There are hundreds of drug documentaries circling around the internet and being shown in independent theatres everywhere. You’ve most likely seen one about weed, cocaine, or LSD while flipping through cable television. For with all this exposure filmmakers still have not dared to craft an informative official documentary that tackles the subject of opium farming and the world’s heroin market. Opium, as a means of getting high, is not as blatantly represented as some of it’s more socially acceptable kin, yet it deserves a fair shot at an accurate narrative within the media machine

Synthetic forms of opium have permeated the prescription drug market from coast to coast. From a soft powder to a cooked down liquid and even a solid pill, opium is a chameleon that begins its existence as a flower, the poppy, a gift from Mother Nature not unlike other mood and mind-altering substances.

Raw Opium is about to hit the streets bringing with it an enlightening look at the commodification and distribution of the drug as well as it’s healing and destructive powers presented through face-to-face interviews with junkies and medical professionals alike. It’s about time that a fearless, educated, and unbiased presentation of the drug’s ability to feed and clothe workers in an opium plant as well as impoverish millions of addicts each day.

Many a war have been fought over control of the crop, civil wars in Afghanistan, domestic struggles with DEA officials and dealers/smugglers, as well as avaricious doctors who give it away like candy to the highest bidder through low-hungry clinics, solidifying its place in the pantheon of profitable harvested goods. The documentary reminds us that the prevalence of heroin, morphine, and other opioids in American culture has endured the test of time as it is still held in “high” regard in the medical field for it’s painkilling properties.

The marginalization and misconception of opiates by popular culture has made it a virtually untouchable topic of investigation….until now. Canadian director, Peter Findlay, asks us to see opium for what it is, an economic force with the capacity to drastically change lives for better or worse. Heroin is hip again, now get jive to it.

How can your interest not be piqued when you’re presented with remixes of music from Twin Peaks and a deep Ennio Morricone cut? They were waiting suggestively in our mailbox today courtesy of The Tleilaxu Music Machine and they’re both witchy, twitchy, and pretty goddamned cool overall. Together, they’d serve well as the soundtrack for a spooktacular party at a haunted house, if you’re into that kind of thing.

The first track, “I Saw Her Die,” uses the framework of Ennio Morricone’s score for an obscure Italian film from 1972 and answers the question of its title. The intro is deceptively innocuous, but then the droning beats and sludging-up of the children’s chorus warps the track into more sinister territory. Based on a single scene in Twin Peaks in which Audrey Horne cuts a rug, “Audrey’s Trance” is slower and maintains a certain sensuality despite its propensity to freak listeners out. Blame it on Sherilynn Fenn, the actress who plays Audrey, whose voice makes a seductive cameo in the track.

The Tleilaxu Music Machine – i saw her die (rmx ov chi l’ha vista morire by ennio morricone) by ttmm

The Tleilaxu Music Machine +++ Audrey’s Trance by ttmm

It’s hard to make music that’s simultaneously eerie and danceable, but The Tleilaxu Music Machine makes it happen with these remixes. The Tleilaxu Music Machine is a personal project of D. Bene Tleilax, also of the band RoMak & the Space Pirates. In most of his independent work, his musical sensibilities are about as grim as you would expect given the fact that he’s tweaking music from a David Lynch series as well as a bugged-out hymn sung by children. I mean, aren’t both spooky enough to give somebody goosebumps in their original incarnations?

You can download The Tleilaxu Music Machine’s newest album, Diamond Eyed Coyote, on his Bandcamp page for free. You’ll probably want to go tell all your friends about these tracks right away, but you should consider working on your pronunciation of “Tleilaxu” first (t’lye-lacks-oo, according to Myspace).

Well-loved conceptual monster-pop trio The Tempers need your help, and they’re asking really nicely. They’ve set up a Kickstarter fund, complete with the above video, with the goal of releasing The Tempers, Vol. 2, their new EP. If you’re into the idea of a campy, bizarro power trio that skews toward the witchy and ritualistic side of things, you’d do well to check it out. This Seattle family band doesn’t mess around – they’ve got both the spark and the fire to back it up, and their mix of disco-rock ‘n’ roll-pop madness is likely to burn your house down. It doesn’t hurt that they’ve got some pretty great stage costumes – the video is worth watching for the amount and quality of the outfit changes alone.

If you choose to donate, they’re offering a slew of thank-you gifts in return, including customized cloth dolls wearing the SNL-esque cone hats seen in the video. If you’ve got anything in common with the cauldron-happy band, you’ll most likely use them as voodoo dolls.

The marriage of melting synth sounds and pounding bass lines is what makes the thoroughly black and yellow Butterz, first a well-respected blog and now a brand-new label, one of the up-and-coming powerhouses of grime music worldwide. Butterz is the brainchild of iconic Rinse.FM DJs Elijah & Skilliam, have been hand-picking the best in forward-thinking grime, then turning it loose on the public every Thursday night for a long time running. Based on that experience and knowledge alone, they’re definitely qualified to take over the grime scene.

The main objective of Butterz is to produce singles with intensely-structured grime riddims that don’t necessarily require a vocal to launch them into hit status. For years, the grime scene was founded on simple but heavy white-label productions that lent themselves to the lyrical stylings of such MCs as Wiley, Kano, Dizzee Rascal, and JME, which in turn paved the way for artists like P-Money and Tempa T. Butterz looks to both work with talented MCs, but also create successful grime tracks that are able to stand alone in the world of electronic music.

One of their best recent releases is what will definitely become a summer two-step anthem, a fast-paced P-Money and Blacks track called “Boo You.” It features production by Butterz soldier TRC. He, Swindle, S-X, and Royal-T are the main players in the Butterz grime takeover.

You can hear them in the process of creating their empire in one of their generously-offered free monthly Butterz zips, which each contain a slew of fresh, innovative grime tunes for your listening pleasure.

If you don’t want to have to wait a month, this track will help to whet your appetite. Street fighter D Double E adds vocals to S-X’s “Wooo Riddim,” transforming it into a banger called “Bad To The Bone.”

Part of what makes Butterz so good is the ability of its artists to understand, appreciate and rework one another’s music, creating a slightly-incestuous but nonetheless brilliant grime collective.

Last but not least, when Royal-T squeezes some “Orangeade” onto vinyl, you have to be careful…your head might explode after hearing this crazy track! The tempo is switched up at unexpected intervals as the song progresses. It’s also studded with wild, percussive beats that make it hard not to move to.

Based on these few things that they’ve released so far, it seems obvious that Butterz is poised to start a new revolution in grime. Make sure to keep checking in with this amazing new label as they chart their course to grime domination!

Keep Watch Painter Cap ($30.00)

When I was little I used to paint on the side of my crib with my poop. My daddy, Glenn, bought me a Lion-o action figure in exchange for me knocking it off and I think I held up my end of bargain pretty well. There are new Thundercats toys being made now and I think that if I want to get a new Lion-O from my dad I probably have to begin my practice of painting on walls with shit again.

The thing is that I’m an adult now so I think I have to step up my game. You know those huge ugly tags that people do using those paint hoses that attach to giant tanks of paint? I am going to get one of those and fill it up with human shit and then spray the words “BUY ME A LION-O OR I WILL KEEP DOING THIS” all over Brooklyn. I’ll be wearing a Keep Watch Painter cap while I do it.

The Keep Watch Painter Cap is available in Black and White and features a huge Keep Watch Eyeball on top of the noggin’. These are fitted with some stretch and come in sizes S/M for thos eof you with pin-to-normal size domes and M/L for those of you with an egghead craniums.

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

Ready to kill a few hours of your afternoon? Meet work productivity’s worst enemy: Alexandra Mackenzie‘s art is so hyper-detailed, it’s difficult to keep track of all the different elements in even one, let alone all, of them. Seriously, we should show these to children in place of Where’s Waldo, asking them instead to find wolves, fungi, and human skulls in Mackenzie’s drawings. In addition to keeping them far more occupied than that striped-sweatered beanpole ever could, there’s the added bonus that by the time they mature enough to experiment with drugs, they won’t even want to, having already gotten all the fun LSD could have provided in these pieces in their youths.

Mackenzie typically uses a mix of pencil, acrylic paint, and pencil crayon to create these incredibly elaborate and large works, although sometimes she simplifies – although not by much – in creating her much smaller collages, screenprints, books and zines, which I’m also all about. Here are a few of the collages:

The usage of patterns is highly varied and skillful and contrasts nicely with incomplete human and animal forms, cultural motifs, and truncated words and sentences. The faceless woman sitting among slipknots and origami patterns is a prime example of how her style of collage is less complex than her drawings, but still wholly impressive.

Her artwork is beyond inspired, cramming tons of different concepts into singular, fully-realized pieces. She often incorporates imagery based in history, biology, nature, and sci-fi beside one another in one work, mastering overwhelming whirlwinds of color and detail in almost everything she creates. Most artists can’t even nail pieces with one of those concepts in them, but Mackenzie does it all.

Other mediums that she uses can lend themselves to more interpretive works, as with these screenprints. They’re awash in light and color and are reminiscent of stills from a poorly-kept Super 8 home movie from the ’60s – that is, if some family decided to take a particular interest in melted wax on skulls and translucent geometric shapes. Whatever, I’m not here to judge.

Mackenzie makes lurid books out of these screenprints, along with her collages and other artwork. She then takes it a step further by tile-screenprinting and cutting up bedsheets to use as cloth covers for them, essentially tucking her books in, which is beyond adorable. I bet if you did something kind of similar and bought one to keep on your nightstand, any guest who happened by it at night would be fairly impressed.

Truly, though, the really unique pieces are definitely still her drawings, no matter how cool her screenprints, collage, and bedtime books may be. The insertion of color in small amounts highlights the detail and nuance of her personal style. I’d be interested to know how long an individual one takes – posts on her blog chronicle them sporadically, but they always seem to be incomplete time lines. If she can make more than one or two of these types of works in a year, I’d consider her really prolific.

At just 23 years old, Mackenzie’s youth reflects in the freshness of her artwork, which often has titles like “Pepto Bismol,” which is where the detail shots that the first images in this post come from (you can see the whole thing here), and “Untitled – ftw,” which is the one directly above this paragraph. If this is her work at such a young age, I can’t wait to see what she’ll be doing in ten years. I’m imagining wall murals so stuffed full of life and intricately depicted that they show microbes at their actual size. Now that would keep those kiddos busy for sure…

Decades ago, TV movies used to be a big deal. They were regularly produced by basic cable stations, had decent budgets, and weren’t just reserved for the melodramatic-loving Lifetime audience. Not to knock Lifetime Original Movies – that one where Ricki Lake plays the stalker fat chick is awesome (Big Girls Don’t Cry). In October 1973, ABC premiered Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, a creepy creature feature starring Kim Darby (Mattie from the OG True Grit). I first saw it a couple years ago thanks to Cinemageddon and I thought it was genuinely eerie and had a pretty sick ending.

This August the remake is coming out, starring Katie Holmes and Guy Pearce. The two big differences evident in the trailer is that now the couple has a daughter who’s victim of the little nasties’ relentless whispering. And the second is that said little nasties don’t look like depressed turnips (below). It’s being directed by comic artist turned director Troy Nixey. It’s his first film, but if he has Guillermo Del Toro’s blessing I’m sure he has his shit together. Judging from the trailer it looks like a really good time.

Most of our readers do not strike me as your average American Idol fans, so perhaps you missed our loud mouthed celebrity apprentice mopster, Lil Jon on the show during the season finale. The episode featured our valiant bass soldier performing “Come Get Some” in order to hype up the crowd for TLC (R.I.P. Left Eye) who went on to perform a medley of “Scrubs” and “Waterfalls.”

I definitely had that album and i would be lying if I said that “Creep” and “Red Light Special” off of CrazySexyCool weren’t supreme boner jams for me… but going by this I take it the Bloglin as a whole have a huge boner for the ladies and songs of TLC.

So whay am I talking about American Idol? Because Lil’ Jon was strutting his stuff on the red carpet and stage wearing our Famous Stars and Straps collaboration Kill’em All jacket and cap. I think Randy Jackson even said “Yo Dog! I dig your crazy swag!” to him. Lil’ Jon’s been a crazy primetime ambassador for us the past few months.

We still have some of these bad boys available so don’t sleep on your WWII swag!