Now this right here is some perfect late night reading… Vice sat down for a ridiculously long and comprehensive interview with Penny Rimbaud and Steve Ignorant of Anarcho Punk legends, Crass. If you’re either a former Crust Punk or are for whatever reason scratching your head going “What’s a Crass?” this is an absolute must read for both of you… especially the latter.

If you pick up some crap book about the history of punk rock, chances are there will be about 90 pages dedicated to Joe Strummer’s jackets but only two sentences about Crass. This is despite them selling millions of records, singlehandedly creating the DIY punk blueprint, and maintaining their hard-line libertarian and anarchy principles even as they reach their mid-60s today.

A lot of you reading this will be aware of their logo and the fact that they were a punk band, but not a lot of people know their actual story. Because it’s so inspirational and so “anti-music” (in the sense that it was a total revolt against the established music industry of the time) we feel that everybody with even a passing interest in punk rock should hear it.

And so we interviewed founding members Penny Rimbaud and Steve Ignorant for a brief history of the group and to procure their ideas surrounding this issue’s theme. During the talks between myself and Penny that preceded this interview I discovered that the unthinkable has happened and that Crass, the most anti-authoritarian, anarchy-endorsing free spirits in the history of punk music, are on the verge of going to Crown Court to ask lawyers and judges to intervene in a huge row over some remastered CDs.

The interview covers the long history, members and ideology behind what have become one of the most influential Punk bands ever. A history that includes seemingly going against their own ideals and lawyering up for a court battle over the control of their back catalog of music. Really interesting stuff and a great read.

I know Crass’ logo is one of the most recognizable punk icons out there and become just as ubiquitous symbol for whatever “Punk” is supposed to mean these days as the Crimson Ghost. But how many of you are really familiar with what that icon and the band truly symbolized and fought for? No excuses, if you own a Crass tee, pin, patch or record I want you to read this… And remember, this is coming from a bunch of dudes who tried (and succeeded) in selling a $45 Anarcho New Era.

Read Anarchy and Peace, Litigated: A Brief History of the Idealistic Punk Icons Crass, and Why in 2010 They Are Going to Court Over Some Total Bullshit by Vice Magazine

I like that over in England Streetwear sites/blogs have classy names like The Daily Street. Now doesn’t that sound like one fine and respectable publication?A really trustworthy news source for the low down on everything Street(wear). Picture it…

“Ay chap did you here about those diamond encrusted Diamond Co. New Balances!?”

“You’re pulling my leg there!”

“No way bloke, I read it in The Daily Street.”

“Ohhhh”

See? C-L-A-S-S-Y. You can’t do that with say SlamxHype or something.

Anyway… While I stayed in NY to invoke thee witch, Greg was recently over in England for some meetings and our big sample sale. While out there he linked up with Grizzlee of The Daily Street for an informal sit down interview over a “cool beverage.” I’m just going to go ahead and pretend that it was actually over a spot of tea and suggest you do the same while you read the whole interview.

P.S. My name is Mikhail not Michael…pronounced the same though. ;)

Your’s Truly has been putting out some really excellent content lately.New to their site is this mini documentary on Gary, Indiana rapper Freddie Gibbs .Watch Freddie take the crew back to the streets he grew up on for five days and discuss his upbringing, hunger to succeed.  This is really great piece.

A large part of what makes Freddie Gibbs so special is his unique ability to uproot the listener and drop them right into his reality. To force your eyes open wider, even when what you see would make a grown man squirm. In this revealing mini-documentary, Freddie takes YT back to the decaying avenues of Gary, back in time to when he chose crime over a 9-5, down the rabbit hole into darkness and up to his decision to rap his way out of Gary for good.

If you’re still unfamiliar with Gibbs’ name, you won’t be for long. Dude’s been bringing back something nice and gully back to Hip Hop and it’s a breath of fresh air. Those of you in New York, Freddie Gibbs is playing S.O.B.s along with Black Milk tonite.

Well Hello there Bloglin. It’s been a minute since we talked. I went off and caught the fucking nerd flu at Comicon and now here I am, written back to life.

Would that I could share tales of plunder and lootpacking with you, but alas!—forsooth!—something much more interesting has come up, and as such, I will probably share those tales with you….tomorrow. Or Wednesday.

Speaking of Wednesday. If you’re in the Southern California area this Wednesday (August 4th) and you are at all into the same kind of art that I am into, you should do yourself a favor and swing by the Hurley Space to see James Marshall/Dalek’s new mural/installation: “Chaos On The Edge of Reason”. The above is a video/interview that Arrested Motion did with him and, well, I am blown away.

I was an absolute huge fan of Dalek throughout his Space Monkey years, but have to admit that I have lost track of him since he entered is ‘uber-tight, OMG-that-looks-so-technically-demanding-it-hurts patterns’ phase, but boy—oh boy!—do I like what I see in this video.

And, as a project manager/producer by trade, I can’t help but really admire the super-duper skill that it (must) take to orchestrate that many interns running all over your cheese at once. Seriously. I know other folks who have done large installation murals like that and strange things can definitely take-foot at the Circle K when the ground is covered in wet-painted tape, ladders, and burrito foil. SO there. I tip my hat to you Mr. Marshall. I would absolutely LOVE to go down there and pick a nice 3×3 square off the wall, but—sad—I’ll be trapped up here, in my cage, on back-to-black conference calls.

ABC News’ has weekly segment called Amplified (which rose from the ashes of their “New Music Monday” segments) where reporter Dan Harris sits down new bands  he feels are deserving aof a wider audience.

This week he sat and spoke with Nathan Walliams, Billy Hayes and Stephen Pope of… Wavves! It’s a short but pretty candid interview about the rise of the unexpected rise of the band, their very public meltdown’s last year and of course their triumphant new album, King of the Beach. Oh yeah, Nathan and Billy are also decked out in Мишка during the whole thing.

I have to say, lame as it may sound it’s pretty fucking thrilling to see the brand now so regularly featured in the press of what is a truly fantastic album.

Custom by Buff Monster

Heads up, los Los Angelenos. Your chance to catch a pre-Comicon peek at the pre-eminent prime minister of pink is upon you. That’s right! Hateball favorite Buff Monster has taken some time off from devastating the international art scene to curate a custom toy show at Giant Robot 2 in Los Angeles. And you all just happen to be invited.

I’ll go ahead and get it out of the way: I have a pretty deep personal affection for The Man with No Name, but this is no shill, friends. I think his artwork is just totally stunning, and I am consistently blown away by his paintings, toys, and printmaking technique: the guy is a drafting table soldier.

Credited (by my wife) as ‘That Asshole Who Got You Into Those Japan Toys’ (not really: she loves him, but the joke was there), Buff’s undying love for japanese vinyl rubbed off onto me a few years ago, and the rest is, well, thoroughly documented. His own toys, in various shapes, sizes, and incarnations, enjoy a high degree of success in a wide range of toy ‘scenes’: so much so that he decided to pass a few around to other artists who he admires, respects, and knows, to see what they came up with.

To commemorate this thoroughly non-heinous (or is it heinous in B & T-ese? Whichever is the ‘good’ one) event, I kicked a you, me and dupreemail back and forth with the man, the myth, The Monster and he answered a few of my dumb questions.

If you’re in LA this Saturday, July 10th, and you’re even SLIGHTLY interested in toys or art, you should definitely check out the opening. Details below.

Custom by Alex Pardee

If you had a gun to your head, what ‘style’ would you group your art into? There is obviously your street art roots, but I’ve heard it referenced to as ‘flat’ or ‘superflat’…what do YOU call it?
I guess it fits into all of those categories people like to come up with. I don’t consider myself any particular type of artist; I’m an artist.

You’ve been making these Buff Monster toys for a while now…what about right now made you want to get a bunch of artists to do their thing with it?
I actually don’t know why I’m doing this show now. I guess it just made sense. I had a bunch of my toys on hand, and I had been talking to some people about doing this show, and Giant Robot said they’d do it with me, and the show was born.

Custom by Paul Kaiju

How did you feel about the response you got from artists in the community? Did you find that you responded MORE to customs that modified the sculpt of the toy, or customs that tried to completely re-imagine the toy?
The customs that have some sort of additional sculpting might be my favorite. I rarely change the sculpt of a figure, so I appreciate it when someone does. Either way, I’m really happy with the pieces in the show; there are so many good ones!

What are your favorite toys to customize?
I’m quite fond of customizing my own toys just because the finished piece gets to be 100% Buff Monster. But I also really like customizing Kaiju toys, especially my favorite brands like Gargamel and Blobpus.

What is a toy that you’ve never had the chance to customize, but would be most excited to try?
I’d love to customize some Kaws toys. I’ve thought about buying some just for me to paint on, but I haven’t done it yet.

Custom by Brian Ewing

Comicon is coming up…what are you most excited to check out? Anybody releasing anything new and exciting that you’ve been waiting for?
I have no idea who is releasing what. No clue whatsoever. Its always more fun to see it in person for the first time. All I know is that I’m releasing my first plush figure there. It’s small and cute.

Custom by Buff Monster

I know that you and I share a deep and demanding love for the blobPus. If you were hunting any toy in any colorway, what would it be and why?
I have a few super awesome blobpus toys and I’m pretty happy with what I have. I don’t even know what all he’s released in a while, but you, sir, certainly have some amazing Dokugans.

Thanks Buff! Hope the show goes great. Now back to re-organizing my collection of vintage gay/lesbian dopefiend paperback cover scans. Until next time.

So we got two separate interviews for you today with myself. First one is for Agenda’s blog over at Transworld. Agenda for those of you who are unfamiliar, run Tradeshows in both California and New York for the who’s who of street and skate wear. They sat down with me to talk about how the brand started, inspiration, our future goals and global conquest. Blah, blah, blah…

Our second interview is with a new online fashion magazine called Vevant. Last week they sent a crew down to Brooklyn to do a little interview with me about Мишка. They called me the designer during the interview which is not entirely true. I like to get my input into the designs, but the real heroes are crack team of designers of Mike Jones, J.P. Elliott, Erik Ratensperger and Mikhail Bortnik.

Both Vevant and Agenda took some great shots and they’re both a quick read. I also let slip that we’ll be working with Mike Sutfin in the future  (Vevant Interview) as well as some tidbits of advice for young streetwear entrepreneurs (both interviews). Enjoy!

Damian’s been going on about his morbid fascination with Brokencyde via Twitter and even IM for a little while now, so I knew that Damian he was going to be interviewing for Canadian website Exclaim. What I didn’t know is that he’d fall head over heels in love for them and that Brokencyde are more DIY than Fucked Up.

It’s a little hard to hear the dudes from Brokencyde but Damian is his usual charismatic self and just begs the question why he doesn’t have his own weekly web show?

Can you tell I really like this new Wavves album? No? You’re not around the Bloglin often enough then. Last week there’s was a short video from Pete Ohs, This week Yours Truly get on board the King of the Beach hype train with their own video.

The Band talks more about the differences between their new album and old ones, and performs “King of the Beach” and “Green Eyes” live at Origami Vinyl in Echo Park. Here’s a little “behind the music” for y’all. That performance was originally supposed to take place at our Echo Park shop, but, yeah.. it didn’t. Oh well!

The band is actually in New York tonight for a show at the Knitting Factory, but it’s sold out. Bummer! King of the Beach however comes out August 3rd on Fat Possum Records though. Go pre-order a copy!

Go Read “Always Grustling: Das Racist Interview”

I’ll be honest, I’m not to sure who Mixpack Records are* but I do know and love Das Racist. These dudes are  are a breath of fresh air when it come to Hip Hop and we’re glad to count them amongst our family and Mopster army.

Anyway, Mixpak sat down with Hima and Victor AKA Kool A.D. on a great interview that’s as much of a showcase for their humor and intelligence just as much as their tunes. These dudes a re a national treasure and if you still don’t “get it” well I feel bad for ya.

And if you haven’t done so yet, please go do yourself a fuckin’ favor and download Shut Up, Stupid. Mixtape or album, whatever you want to call it, shit’s straight-up a top ten Hip Hop release for 2010.

*Mixpak, I’m sorry for not knowing your blog! But unless it’s a site covering Witch House Zombie Ghost Shoegaze Goth, I’m out of the loop.