From killer tomatoes to a vagina with teeth, horror directors have a special gift for turning average, nonthreatening, and even lovable objects into vicious abominations with undying cravings for living flesh and blood. Ryan Lightbourn’s short film Roid Rage is a perfect example of this less than tasteful inventiveness. Well, its not about steroids ladies and gents, so let’s see if you can guess what the real topic of this fine piece of cinema is.

Thats absolutely right. It’s based around a giant, mutated hemorrhoid that kills hookers and other curious folk who get too close to one man’s heinous anus. The comedic influence is more than clear after watching the hi-def trailer and hearing the film’s tagline. How could a film about ferocious anal abscesses take itself completely seriously. Apparently the producers have plans to re-release the flick in 3D and I’m all for that. Ass pimples coming within inches of your face might actually keep an audience.

Watch for Roid Rage at your local film festival or chinese theater and don’t forget the Preparation H. In the hallowed words of the movie’s slogan, “This is one salad you don’t wanna toss”.

Last month, radio host and experimental music icon Mary Anne Hobbs stopped by Dubspot (where I work) to host a DJ workshop. She later sat down with Lord of Darkness Badawi for part of his new artist interview series, called “Wireless.” It was extremely fun to film, edit and produce this video.

Mary talks about her work at BBC Radio 1, her experiences DJing while on her US “Road Warrior” tour and how to stay motivated as a forward-thinking beat maker. Mary Anne Hobbs has always inspired me to keep pushing the boundaries as an artist and never settle for music mediocrity, so it was exciting to finally get to hear her speak.

Allyson Mellberg-Taylor is an artist living and working in Charlottesville, Virginia who creates her own nontoxic and ecologically-responsible ink to use in her work. Despite coming from such natural and responsible stock, her subjects often have mutations or are otherwise malformed, especially facially. She attributes this to the impact of harmful cosmetics on women’s faces over time, and I attribute it to me getting nervous about my mascara.

Mellberg-Taylor is wholly committed to environmentalism. Along with her husband Jeremy, she tries to better the earth in every way she can, from teaching students how to create art sustainably to rescuing injured and neglected birds and finding homes for them.

She’s basically the Mother Teresa of the art world, as evidenced by the blog she runs with her husband, in which they chronicle their adventures in organic gardening and share their letters to their congresspeople. Lucky for us (but maybe not for the birds of Virginia), Mellberg-Taylor takes breaks from all her good Samaritan-ing to make artwork that is decidedly less chaste than her daily activities, creating an interesting balance in between natural wellness and imagined disease in her life and work.

Her art is also strongly influenced by sci-fi movies and television, of which she is an enormous fan. Her most recent show was titled An Unearthly Child, which is the name of the first episode of Dr. Who and also refers to the children depicted in her work, who, based on their conditions and disfigurements, probably aren’t as responsible as she is in terms of their health.

Book of Black Earth - The Cold Testament (2011) [Prosthetic] //Grade: A

I was beginning to wonder about Book of Black Earth. Especially with frontman TJ Cowgill’s new found love for Satanic Folk and Actual Pain’s success as a clothing label. But we all know that metal is eternal and the newest album from Book of Black Earth, The Cold Testament is living proof. The band is back with its fast-paced and brutal approach to metal. It’s not exactly black, death or power metal and yet it speaks clearly to fans across all genres.

With religious overtones (LOL at the name of the album), BOBE delivers one ass-kicking, beer chugging, throw shit around, good time. If you’ve ever seen the band live, you know what I’m talking about. The powerhouse amps up with “Weight of the World”, and at a first glance, you might mistake it for some emotionally-charged, woe-as-me ballad. Trust me, it’s anything but that. Bestial blast-beats and TJ’s vocals rip open a can of kick ass and for over 5-minutes, we’re all sucked in!

Next up is “Cross Contamination”. At this point, we’re about 6-minutes into the album and I’m hooked like a bass on a lure. Trememlo picking and blast beats are only overpowered by the vocals. That’s always been my favorite part of BOBE’s performance: the brutal as fuck vocals! To keep it nice and frosty, “Antarctica” comes in with a percussion-heavy intro. Imagine if Baroness was even more pissed off and cold! That’s what I’m picturing anyway. This one’s a sing-along fest and is my favorite track on the album.

As the song titles get even more ridiculous, we’re approached with a “Irritating Spectre”. Seriously? A track worth of a few dirty boots stomping around is the balls-to-the-wall cut “Termination”. This shit is making demons weep and Book of Black Earth just won’t let up. How about some dis-beat? “Research and Destroy” kicks it up a notch with some fucking awesome d-beat, a la Discharge and Dishammer. In fact, all this song needed was an incorporation of “dis” before the name. How about “Research and Dis-troy”? As the d-beat drops out, the tribal-like drums continue to compliment TJ’s fierce vocals.

All good things must come to an end and with two tracks remaining, The Cold Testament ensures that no living things will be left with “Road Dogs From Hell”. Fucking crowd chants! WE ARE ROAD DOGS FROM HELL! WE’RE SHIT OUT OF LUCK AND WE DON’T GIVE A FUCK. THIS IS THE LIFE WE CHOSE! Hell yes. As history had proven, no metal album is complete with some down-time. Enter “I See Demons”, the least audiably-assaulting track on The Cold Testament. Soon the intro wears down into a full-on blackened thrash fest. Just as the track began, it ends, somber and quietly. Book of Black Earth did it again. The The Cold Testament is another ass-kicking good time. Highly suggested and don’t miss their live show you clowns!

I can’t tell if I’m furious at this commercial and the people who made it, or if I want to supplicate myself at their genius. What is this commercial even for? Just… cheese? The cheese lobbyists I suppose. “Big Cheese”, if you will. Several thoughts here. It definitely seems as if the biker guy could not pronounce the second cheese, and was almost certainly dubbed over by some poor intern in post. However he makes up for it with the “put a burger under it” motion. I mean, that’s not even what you do.

You put cheese on top of the burger. You ever see someone just throw some fucking cheese on a flat top and plop a patty on top of it? What’s going on here?? But then there’s the last guy. Oh Trevor Zhou, you lovable/hateworthy buffoon/next-Brando. It appears other parts of the internet are just as enamored with your delivery of “maybe I’ll have both” as we are.

And we know that once you see Trevor and rewind his part, like 10 times you’ll be wondering “Where can I get more Trevor. I NEED more Trevor!” well thankfully dude’s got his own commercial reel and YouTube channel (what up Law & Order SVU cameo w/ a hookah!) And boy “Mr. downtown hipster artisté with the thrift store shirt” deliver. It’s absurd. I’m gonna go make a grilled cheese. With Kraft Singles. Fuck y’all.

Big thanks to A Silent Flute for cluing us in.

Good Wood Death Adder Head Necklace ($68.00)

A cool wooden necklace is hard to find, unless you know where to look. We recently made the search a lot easier by working with the amazing Good Wood NYC to bring their craftsmanship to classic Мишка styles, luckily for those of you with an empty space in your…wherever you put your necklaces (mine are in an old cigar box, so I’m not about to make assumptions).

Now you can choose between our classic Death Adders and Keep Watch designs. Each are meticulously detailed, come in two vibrant colors, and are engraved on the back side.

Good Wood Keep Watch Necklace ($68.00)

You can get the Death Adders version in Classic Sea-Foam or Grey, while the Keep Watch design is available in Classic Red or Cyan. At first glance, they appear to be flowery love beads or possibly a rosary, but then you realize they’re adorned with a bear with a snake’s tongue or a veiny eyeball — who else but Мишка could come up with a next-level hybrid of styles like that? It looks like I’m going to have to find a little extra room in that cigar box of mine for one (or both) of these, and I suggest you do the same.

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It’s hard for me to believe that beings from another planet would look favorably upon the human race and not just zap us to instantaneous ash with high-powered ray guns or force families to perform sex acts on one another as social experiments. Yes, aliens are supposed to be ruthless interplanetary warriors whose only motives are to destroy Earth as we know it. I’ve had conversations during which a self-proclaimed ‘optimist’ would try to convince me it is more likely that cosmic visitors are merely curious creatures with a friendly demeanor unless provoked. Well I say save that shit for Spielberg or the workhorses at Disney because I have here a list of undoubted cinematic proof that aliens are vicious, drool-dripping, slimeballs that want nothing more to see the collapse of the human race and to infest the Earth with pulsating larvae.

Hateball, one of the veteran bloggers here at the Мишка Bloglin, used to deliver you his Top 5 lists without fail and then a baby happened. With much respect to him and his fresh spawn, we will be resurrecting the top 5 countdown and tweaking the formula a wee bit as a regular Bloglin feature. Some weeks they’ll be my top 5, other weeks I may do an office poll and construct a list around that. I’ll be sure to mention which it is. And hopefullly once Hateball gets settled into his new role as a father he can return and the Bloglin can have two regular Top 5 lists.

these lists are generally gone be pretty eclectic but for the first installment of the The High Five, I went and created a countdown of some of my most revolting extra-terrestrial encounters of the 80′s you may or may not have seen seen before… but absolutely should. These works of mondo garbaggio will make Predator look like a well-trained sewer rat. So without further ado head after the jump and enjoy The High Five.

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Lady Gaga – Born This Way (2011) [Interscope] // Grade: B-

Lady Gaga’s Born This Way is winking, lurid camp music that knows exactly what it is and achieves exactly what it’s intended to. With this in mind, I feel that even though I really hate it and think that listening to it is akin to to taking a cheese grater to my eardrums, it’s hard to give the album a negative review.

Audiences who are looking for feel-good hits to play at parades about diversity will not be disappointed by this new collection of songs. In addition to the eponymous hit, there are plenty of other songs which celebrate multiculturalism, mostly by means of exaggerated, Minaj-y accents and brief forays into different languages, as on “Americano” and “Scheiße.” Similarly, songs about personal strength are all over the album, like “Black Jesus + Amen Fashion,” which chronicles her own rise to fame at “just nineteen” in New York City and exhorts listeners to “style your passion.” All of the back-patting gets old quickly. I get it, I’m special and you’re even more so, Gaga. Moving on.

Lady Gaga has an excellent voice, no matter what she chooses to do with it. The highlight of the album is “Bloody Mary” because the occasionally-quirky music allows for it to shine. Even though it’s still heavy on the twisted, groaning techno that scores most of the album, more understated elements like gaunt backing vocals and warped percussion make the track a standout.

I’m sure that the people who were excited for this album are going to be thrilled with the results, and that’s fine. As for me, I’ll wait for the rest of the videos – I love them as long as I have access to a mute button.

I don’t know if you guys are ready for this one but Yung Jake is killin it on the internet makin’ GIFs! “I’m with 2 bitches… now I’m not”

Frank Ocean is probably the coolest person in Pop/RnB right now. Check his new video for “Acura Integurl” for proof. The song is the first track off his recent The Lonny Breaux Collection, a 64-song compilation of Ocean’s early and shelved major label work and demos. The Duran Duran vibes are heavy — this video, directed by Dave Wilson, could have easily been scored with “The Chauffeur,” although that car-and-pussy-centric video is a gem in and of itself. Instead, the hypnotic twilight shots of an NSX winding through mountains are interspersed with ones of Ocean singing what is probably his most vocally melodic track.

While the video is chopped and screwed, with crazy reversed, duplicated, and otherwise-fucked-with shots, the song is a fluid and gorgeous modern romance. The video and track come together in a tasteful update on the ’80s cheese-glam aesthetic, and it all takes place in under two minutes. If you love Ocean’s album, Nostalgia, Ultra, as much as we at the Мишка offices do, you’ll definitely want to check out this leftover song…and why not do it while looking at a beautiful car?

Nostalgia, Ultra is available for free download on Ocean’s tumblr.