But instead of the old staggering, sluggish zombies, these are speeding, raging zombies who are after those who have managed to survive. a group of survivors meet and hideout in the mall desperate to avoid contact with the living dead and figure out an escape route. the survivors come up with some of the most creative ways to get rid of their foes i've ever seen. and andy, oh andy. the highlight of the film. this movie pushed the boundaries with a few hard to watch scenes that before may have been considered almost taboo. the characters in this film were surprisingly, not stupid. there wasn't a whole lot of "why didn't they just do this?" going on, yet the movie managed to keep you chewing on your nails throughout. very 28 days later only any serious moment in this movie instantly turned into roaring laughter. it was like someone just gave you the most awful news you've ever heard, made you cry, and then delivered something of a punchline so outrageous, you were laughing so hard the tears had to be from the hysteria, not the sorrow. and it happened again, and again, and again. don't wait for this one to come out on dvd. this is definitely a theatre worthy film. Contributed by: Stacy Broce « Collapse

The Postal Service, the long-distance partnership of Benjamin Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie) and Jimmy Tamborello (Dntel) combines Gibbard's wistful and elegiac lyrics of lost and impossible love with Tamborello's dense electronic accompaniment. Despite the lyrics being Gibbard's characteristically bittersweet-to-bleak nearly everything from The Postal Service sounds impossibly cheerful thanks to very danceable beats, bleeps, and bloops. All of this was assembled over the distance of three states, mostly by mailed tapes. The full-length album, Give Up, released last February has probably spent more time in my CD player than any other album I've purchased since then. There have been two singles released from said album: Such Great Heights and The District Sleeps Alone Tonight. These aren't actually my most favorite tracks, but they're not my least favorite tracks either. Naturally each single includes the title track which is identical to the album version. Now, you didn't really buy either of these discs for those, did you? I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, but come on now. . . What you really want are the extras that elevate you from casual listener to fan. So what extras do you get? The first, and possibly best, is immediately obvious: the album art. Both singles are illustrated by our favorite husband and wife duo kozyndan. Honestly, they're better looking than the full-length. The District Sleeps Alone Tonight also includes two remixes, neither of which struck me as being all that exciting, and a cover of the Flaming Lips song Suddenly Everything Has Changed. Such Great Heights comes with a new track from the Postal Service There's Never Enough Time, and two covers from fellow Sub Pop artists The Shins and Iron & Wine. On one relatively cheap disc you get three of the best bands on Sub Pop today (and considering the increasingly quality of the label these days that is saying quite a bit). Buy them for the cover art, keep them for the excellent (relatively) cheerful pop music. « Collapse

What made you decide to start your own record label?
I Dj'd in college radio for 9 years and talked to lots of record labels, and thought that it was something I could do. It was a lot harder than I thought, but an ex-girlfriend and I had talked about doing this, and when she and I broke up I decided to do it out of spite. I talked to her recently and I told her that she was my muse in love and in hate.

I started with my boy Joey, and Action Driver Records, but when he moved away I decided to start my own thing with Bop Tart.

How hard is it?
It's been really hard, every time I think I've got it down to a science something comes up. It's good in that it keeps me occupied, but it seems like there's always something new that I have to learn.

I know you've worked hard to create a brand, and to get the BopTart name out there for people to see. Are you feeling like that is happening, after a few years of putting your heart into it?
I think the band's names are getting out there a lot more, which is most important. It's been hard to get the label name out there, because a lot of that's based on my tastes, and on the music I've selected. My tastes are really sporadic, so it's hard to push the brand over the bands.

When I tell people "Bop Tart records" they don't know what I'm talking about, but when I mention the Lights, Darcy or the Turn-ons, people have heard of them or have heard the cd.

You've also been very selective with the artists whose material you've released. Can you talk about that a little bit.
I think I've done a really good job of getting bands that kind of do their own thing, and are into promoting themselves too. For me, it's really about the quality of the music and the quality of the live show. All of the bands have worked really hard to get their name out there, whether putting out special editions to stir-up interest or being a shameless self-promoter like Darcy, they do a lot of the work.

I understand The Turn-ons have a song from Love Ruined Us on a video game soundtrack for the X-box (Project Gotham Racing 2).
I believe the song is "So Damn Queen

It was kind of a weird deal, one of those weird Seattle things. Somebody from KEXP was playing the album a lot, and Microsoft was asking KEXP for stuff, and this album just got passed around.

Is there an audio cd soundtrack?
There is, and allegedly they give Bop Tart a mention.

Do you see yourself getting any exposure due to this?
I definitely think there's some exposure- that was kind of the main thing they offered us in doing this since we didn't get paid to have the song in the game. I don't necessarily think the target audience for this game is our demographic, but I think maybe we'll get somebody turned on to it.

Two of the bands on your label have won spots playing the SxSW music festival. Of all the bands in Seattle, only two are are voted by the readers of The Stranger to go each year, so you seem to have a bit of a Midas touch. What are your thoughts on the festival, and on the live performances of these bands?
I think it has a lot to do with the gumption of the bands on the label. They both worked really hard to get votes. I think it also says a lot about the quality of the bands, they were up against some really tough competition. The Lights kind of excel live, so I think it's good for people to see them in both settings- on the album and live. They've got so much personality, and they're pretty handsome boys. I first heard them opening up for the Turn-ons and they were devastating, and then when I heard what Erik Blood did with the recording I was blown away again.

You were at South by Southwest this year with The Lights. Any "Indie Kids Gone Wild" stories you want to tell us about the festival?
My friend got me into this invitation only MSN party. The weirdest thing was I'm watching GrandMasterFlash on stage and he's playing LL Cool J's "Radio". He's ten feet away from me. Then, five feet away from me, Matt Pinfield and Deborah (Stone Cold Steve Austin's wife from the WWE) are just getting down, dancing their asses off. I thought my head was going to explode.

Also at that show, a little piece of me died. GrandMasterFlash was going into his "Hey-Ho" thing, and he'd already thanked MSN a couple times, but then he started asking the audience "When I say Hey, you say MSN"-- "hey, MSN" "hey, MSN". The crowd actually booed him, which prompted a really involved speech about how he wasn't part of the festival, and he just wanted to give props to the people that brought him there. So eventually the crowd gave in and mumbled along, what are you going to do, it's GrandMasterFlash up there. But I'm thinking "The Polyphonic Spree were there, and the Raveonettes were there, and they're not part of the festival proper, but they didn't feel the need to write any songs about MSN."

How did you get hooked up with Dame Darcy? Tell me about the recordings she sent you. Any humorous anecdotes?
I read her comic on word.com, that old website that got shut down, but I didn't have any of her Meatcake comics. My first CMJ, I was a sophomore in college, this is many years ago, and we stopped in Baltimore on the way there and I picked up a bunch of Meatcake. I was reeling from how good they were, and I decided I would try to meet her while in NYC.

When we got to the sign in, I recognized one of the members of Darcy's band, she pointed me to the girl who produced their album, who eventually gave me Darcy's address but didn't give me her phone number.

I didn't really know what to do, but I finally showed up at her building and realized I couldn't get in because there was no buzzer, so I was leaving her a note and this woman was coming home, and I asked if she would go up to Darcy's apartment and ask her to come down. She told me to just go in and go up there myself, so I did.

I was all nervous and my voice was shaking when I knocked on the door, but she was really sweet and had read my notes, so she invited me in. We had a tea party.

When I started the label, I talked to her about doing something because I know she had recorded some music before, and because I wanted to work with her.

She had an idea for the album that eventually became Greatest Hits, and she sent us all these tapes of her recordings, and some really rough notes. It was hard to decipher what she wanted for the album, and a lot of this stuff was taped back when she was a kid, as young as like 8 years old, so I have to give a big shout out to Russ Fox who sorted through all those tapes, called Darcy and played bits for her over the phone so she could identify them and ultimately took something that was recorded on various boom-boxes and tape recorders and made it sound decent. We owe a lot to Russ for that, a whole lot.

Do you plan to continue to work with The Lights?

Yeah. We're "in talks" to do the next album. I hope to continue to work with every band currently on the label again. They all totally blow me away, and I'd like to work with all of them again if at all possible. I'm so proud of all of them.

What's on deck for BopTart? Any new projects you want to discuss?

I want to continue working with Erik Blood, (producer/member of the Turn-ons and producer of The Lights album) If I'm Russel Simmons (of Bop Tart) he's my Rick Rubin. But I'm the one getting into Buddhism lately, so maybe I'm a bit more like Rubin. I promise not to grow a hideous beard though.

I'm also hoping to work with some of the bands from 555 records, I think they don't get near the credit they deserve, it's one of the best labels out there. It should be one of the biggest labels going with the quality of their bands.

Outside of BopTart releases, what are you listening to right now?
Bad Dream, Fancy Dress (and other El records bands)
Clouddead
ESG (for the past year and a half non-stop)
Ernest Tubb and Redd Foley
Ian Dury and the Blockheads
Franz Ferdinand
Keren Ann

Any Seattle bands to look out for?
IQU
Library Science
The Cripples
Erik Blood and Phil Picken's group Sloasians

As CEO of your own label, what are some of the weirdest things you've run into?
I've had some weird contacts with people looking for a job or looking to get signed. This guy who was a session guitarist for a bunch of crappy arena rock bands sent me his resume and it was just a treasure trove of hilarious broken English, really over-the-top assertions about himself and his abilities and a brilliant photo of him in purple pants, leather chaps and a cowboy hat.

Then I had this 11 year-old girl who basically told me I was going to sign her to the label and put out her albums because she was going to be this huge pop star. I asked her for a demo, out of politeness, and she didn't have one- she was convinced that her career was going to start on the strength of her will alone. I tried to let her know how the whole process of promoting yourself works, but I think she was way beyond it.

One of those moments of poetic justice- back several years ago when I was a college radio station dj, I had to deal with all these label promotions guys, and there was this one guy, Lenny LaSalandra, working for Interscope who was just on my ass all the time. He would call and demand that I play things, and he got really pushy and accused me of not playing the promos he had sent. It got to the point where I just avoided him until something I really wanted to play came out on Interscope, then I'd have to call him up and be subject to his harassment all over again. When I was down at South by Southwest recently, I was talking to a bunch of people, meeting and greeting, etc. This guy comes up to me and starts talking about how he had lost his job, and when I told him that I owned a label, he gave me his card and asked me for a job. I just took the card, but noticed later that it was Lenny LaSalandra himself who had just pandered to me for employment.

There's also been lots of crazy Seattle shit that's happened, outside of just what goes on with the label.

I went to a Mac seminar the other day. I just got this Power Book, and Mac has this program called Garage Band, and they had a free workshop set up for anyone who wants to come down and learn it from them. I show up and it's just me and a guy from the Supersuckers geeking out to this software for an hour. A guy from Soundgarden was supposed to be there too, but he never showed up.

Also on the Soundgarden tip- there's this shoe-shine guy I see in my neighborhood a lot, and the other day this girl was like- "You know who that is right? I see this guy every day, I'm pretty sure he's just the shoe-shine guy. She says, "That's the Spoonman. So, every where you go around here you just have to expect to be confronted with the "rock legends" of Seattle, there's really no avoiding it, you know, legends like Spoonman!

I know it's hard living in a town whose legacy to hip-hop is Sir-Mix-A-Lot, but do you ever see yourself doing a hip-hop release? I know you're a fan from back in the day, and though I know the label is not really headed in that direction, I still have to ask.
At some point. The label is just my taste, so I could definitely see myself getting into something like that. It's one of my biggest loves in the world.

Since you're such a TV junkie, why don't you pick your favorite current show, and tell us a little bit about it and why anyone reading should check it out.
America's Next Top Model

I haven't seen the last one, and I'm avoiding calls and not reading e-mails from certain people because I don't want to know who won. I'm rooting for Yoanna!

Ask yourself one question I haven't.
I wanted to talk about my feelings on the differences between living in West Virginia and Seattle, outside of the whole grunge thing.

Having just visited here before I moved, I was under the impression that I was coming into this city full of people who are really into hearing something different- and some of them are, but it's just as hard to find a person open to new music here as it is in WV. They are all already plugged into their various cliques and groups, and they only listen to certain really good radio stations without ever wanting to venture outside of that scene. It's very pigeonholed.

That was one of the cool things about WV and one of the things that I miss is that everybody kind of found out about things on their own, especially before it was so easy to do with the internet. Everybody brought their own thing and had their own tastes.

There's this club here called The Cha Cha and it's so funny to go there because it's these very hollow beautiful people dressed up like nerds. It's like a geeky drag show.

It's easy to diss WV, but it's just as hard to find somebody into something original here, or anywhere. I think that's important for people to know.

A brief review of the BopTart discography:

001 The Turn-ons - Love Ruined Us
Bridging the gap between the glammy 70's rock that inspired them, and the sound of the more current rock bands they call peers, this EP sums up where The Turn-ons have been and where they are going. The title track, also the first track on the disc, may prove to be the most infectious song the band will ever record. "So Damn Queen" is also a standout in terms of toe-tapping goodness, and embodies the androgynous sexiness that is the core of the band's look and feel. Love Ruined Us received some pretty intense critical praise, and helped further establish the band amidst the flock of burgeoning rock groups in the Pacific Northwest.

002 Dame Darcy - Greatest Hits
Whether you call it Victorian bluegrass or Appalachian goth-pop, there's something deliciously conflicted and strange about Darcy's music. Best known for her underground comic Meatcake, Darcy has been performing music since she was but a wee lass and Greatest Hits collects some of her finest work (a mixture of covers, original material and traditional folk pieces) from age 8 to the present. This is the very definition of "outsider music" and the sense of alienation and the utter morbidity of these works leave no doubt as to the sincerity of the performer behind them. Not that this is all weepy gloom, some of the songs on this album will force you to dance along (�Chicken" and "Grandma's Feather Bed") and others will actually lift you from the dark mountain hollow and make your heart yodel along to the blissful sound (both versions of "Ode to Joy"). Darcy even included a limited edition print which BopTart is sending out with the first couple of hundred orders, as if 74 minutes of madness distilled into music weren't enough incentive.

003 The Lights - Beautiful Bird
Perhaps the most accomplished work in the BopTart catalogue, The Lights turn out an album that is every bit as good as anything you've heard lately, and better than most of the shit you love. "Victims of the Pleasure of the Sense of Hearing" is my pick for best rock song of last year, and "Trapped Like a Trap Inside a Trap" gets the vote for most pointedly humorous. The weird pedigree of this band gives them a sound that's a little left of convention, and instead of coming off like any number of the garagey-yet-oh-so-serious-art-rock clones that are flooding the market these days, The Lights have carved out their own space entirely. Imagine a bit of vocal Southern grit, blowing like a tumbleweed through a noisy modern guitar-scape. Yeah it's not supposed to be there, but it just makes you pay that much more attention to what's going on. And when the vocals slide into a smooth and even delivery, it's the melody that jangles through like boot-spur stomps on hard clay. I am told that their live show is even more devastating. I cannot imagine such a thing.

    » BopTart Records

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On the vid you get tons of skate footage, tons of graff vids and throw-ups, tons of rawk, and most importantly, tons of bloody accidents, hilarious sketch comedy, hotel room debauchery, drunken roomates, fake commercials, burning hair, silly fights, perky boobs, and a surprise appearance from everyone's favorite skull-bashing Antarctic filth bastard named Oderus. It had everyone in the room laughing like we had Freddy Krueger, Bill Cosby, and Al Bundy fighting drunk in a cage over a moon pie. It goes on forever too, like nearly two hours of the shit, and then on top of that there's a bunch of bonus swag like prank phone calls and more. Great stuff... « Collapse

Standing a foot tall in robot mode, Prime's vehicle mode is a fairly precise 1/24 scale. If the mere sight of this ultra-detailed representation of our hero alone isn't enough to induce a pants-shitting level of excitement, just wait until you lay eyes on his accessories. You want a precision-painted replica of Prime's Ion Blaster, the rifle he used to subdue many a Decepticon threat- you got it. Remember that one time Prime was duking it out with Megatron on top of the Hoover Dam, and they decided to get Medievel on each other's asses with some hand-held weaponry? Prime whipped out a blazing orange Energon Axe and chopped up some bad guy, and you can relive every moment with the faithfully reproduced translucent orange Energon Axe accessory, which can replace Prime's right-hand. Speaking of Megatron, you also get a scale replica of Mr. Decepticon himself in gun-form for Prime to hold. Did that ever happen in the cartoon? Who cares! The Megatron replica doesn't transform, but it can be broken down into it's various components- scope, shoulder stock, extended barrel and Walther P-38 pistol just like the old Megatron toy. Prime has pop-up communicators on both forearms and a button on his back that makes his mouthplate move like he's telling you to "Roll out!" Then there's the real dope shit- Prime's chest plate opens up to reveal a removable replica of the Autobot Matrix of Leadership, a spiritual warehouse of the souls and knowledge of each leader that has come before him. His vehicle mode is every bit as cool, even if the transformation to get him there is a bit involved. Real rubber tires and smooth rolling action, plus he's scaled to pair up with the new Alternators line of ultra-detailed Transformers currently hitting shelves. All this love comes with a pretty heavy price tag. Prime retails for $79.99, and you can find him for 75+ in a lot of online outlets and in retail stores like Toys 'R Us, though the sharks are in the water and many secondary markets are charging 100+, so buyer be warned! I've added a link below to bigbadtoystore.com, who is charging a respectable $69.99. Proprietor Joel is a real nice guy, and offers a veritable shitload of cool and hard to find toys, including some vintage pieces. If you're lucky enough to find one in your local Wal-Mart, and yes they have been popping up there, you can get one for just under $65. « Collapse

Playing together since 2001, Even and Mike have love for many styles, combining beats, keys, guitars, and more into what could actually be called audio bliss. Mike plays guitar like no other man in NYC, accompanying many other accomplished musicians in the past, and Even has been cranking out mac tracks for a few years under the moniker E*vax... but now they rock as one. Good stuff. So now, with these two together you get exactly what it seems so many other bands are shooting for these days, but most of them seem to be missing, a nice rock-electronic mix. Not too hard, not too soft. Not too danceable, but not too sleepy. Not too hip-hop, but not too classical. It really is incredibly hard to describe, more so than any other album I've heard in recent months, but trust me, it is also incredibly hard to ignore. Yeah. Already another on my best-of list. « Collapse

Shane: Are you local?
Gunsho: I am inter-dimensional.

Really, where are you from, and where are you now?
I'm originally from the woods of Rhode Island, but right now I'm living in Boston.

Are you college degree'd?
No, I don't have a degree, but I do have five University of Rhode Island adult Continuing Ed. courses under my belt. I also went to art school for one semester but was forced to leave.

So you like all that evil apocalyptic stuff? Like skulls and fire?
I think that most of the imagery I use, at least lately, is a more perverted variation of the things I was obsessed with during adolescence.

It's funny, yeah, I like apocalyptic stuff. I'm pretty absorbed with the notion of "Significant Destiny." Like how regardless of how long it's existed or known of itself, it seems like every culture, population, or empire disregards a constant proof of history that every society fails, is supplanted, or disappears. So culture has an inborn anxiety and fear of collapse.

So our culture is afraid that it could lose itself at any moment to outside forces. We all know that our days are numbered and it seems like we have two options. We can hope that those end times don't come too soon, or we can hasten the inevitable and just bring it on early. In that case, we'd also make sure to kill everyone else off because we'd hate to see anyone other than us inherit control.

It's just interesting to me how those who seem to want the shit to hit the fan, like right now, are these stick-in-the-mud religious nuts who hate sex and anything else fun.

Personally, if I was one of these guys and not only did I know the end times were coming--but I was actually helping the last days to come early--I wouldn't be wasting my time washing the church on the weekends and telling gay people they shouldn't get married. I'd want to go out with a bang and do everything I'm not supposed to do, like eat lots of candy and have unsafe sex with strange women. It just seems like all that hard work to bring God's wrath upon humanity just seems pointless if you don't get much vacation time to screw off.

I don't know, that's pretty much just something that I like to think about. It's not really fatalist, living through the demise of empire is just as fun as building one up. If you've seen Caligula, the orgy scenes in particular, you'd see that it's not all fire and death. The fall of an empire is so much sexier than it's rise.

What kind of music do you like? Who are you into?
Well, the other night, my friend Richard burned me a copy of Mutantes. They are an amazing old Brazilian rock band. I like them right now. I like a lot of 70's rock stuff, metal, noise stuff, whatever. I sold all my records a few years ago so I pretty much depend on my friends for exposing me to new stuff that I might like.

Are you involved in your local music scene?
Yeah, I try to go to shows. I like to make posters mostly for the sort of noisy more eclectic network of bands that come through Boston and who live here.

Would you make a poster for a band that sounds complete shit, but looks cool?
Yeah, I would. Some bands are totally style over talent and I think that's fine. Talent will attract more student types and obsessive collectors but style will get you laid more. The visual art world is like the exact opposite. Wait a minute...no it's not. It all sucks and I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.

How have you scored your commercial work?
I guess it's pretty word-of-mouth. The only real promotion I do is to put my site address on the bottom of the rock posters I make. Most of the illustration work I do is from meeting other artists who have passed my name along and art director or something.

Do you hold down a daily? Or are you mainly freelance?
I've barely made it through the last year without having to have an outside job. It's really hard and I owe a lot of money.

What are some things that you just could not face life without? And you can't say easy stuff like water or a pencil.
I think that I couldn't face life without being able to draw. That's pretty much always been the one thing that always made feel me like I was being myself.

Do you like comics? Like in the newspaper? Like Hagar and Blondie?
Yeah, I like newspaper comics. Shoe, the old bird, always reminded me of my dad. I don't know why, maybe because it's one panel, but I always read Family Circus even though it's unbearably stupid.

What are some of your favorite new and old horror flicks?
I don't know if it's sci-fi or horror, but the movie "Cube" is my current fairly contemporary horror movie. The acting was really bad and the story wasn't really that scary but I've been having bad dreams about it ever since I saw it a year and a half ago. I guess I like zombie movies too, but I have no favorite movies. I'm not good at committing to favorites.

What is the most visually powerful movie you have ever seen?
Yellow Submarine, or maybe Traces of Death. Most visually powerful TV show is Teletubbies.

Are you a packrat, minimalist, or sittin' in the middle?
When it comes to books and toys, I'm a packrat, but other than that, I think I'm approaching minimalist. Mostly because I can't find anything if there's a lot of clutter. I wish I was a cleaner person sometimes, I know that much. I'm a dirty minimalist.

You represent several different styles in your work. Do you think that it is good to be versatile, or is it better to be signature?
For commercial stuff it goes both ways, I'd like to represent my individual style but I can't afford to shove that style down the throat of someone who might pay me. I need to pay bills and I'm better at drawing than roofing houses.

I'd like to think that there's some sort of style showing through that's mine, but I'm not really trying to cultivate it. Really, I'm just trying to improve constantly, so I expect my style to progress or devolve along with my skills. My rock posters and my comics are pretty much my own thing and I can do what I want with them.

Who are some of your influences?
Comic art is my biggest influence. I'm definitely pretty nuts about 20th-century stuff like Situationism and Actionism, you know, like that anti-social overly-intellectualized art. But I really think that my sense of visual aesthetics hit its peak during my adolescence and I'm still clinging to it.

So stuff like He-Man and Ninja Turtles and garbage like that has infected me. Skateboard art too. Rock poster art is another thing and there have been dozens of incredible and innovative artists working in that medium: Dan Grzeca, Seripop, Little Friends of Printmaking, Fort Thunder, Kozik, Art Chantry, Jay Ryan, so many people.

So, what's next at the Gunsho yo?
I'm working mostly on posters and comics right now. I have a big project called Black Rainbow that I'm working on with some other artists and it's exciting. I've got some stuff coming out in the "Art of Modern Rock" book. I'm not sure when. I've got some collaborations going on.

What have you got going on in that there shop of yours? Anything?
The shop is just a place where I can sell some of my rock posters, art prints, some t-shirts, stickers. Basically whatever I can unload out of my flat files. Like, I've been getting into sculpting little figurines, maybe they'll find their way to the shop.

If you asked yourself a question, what would it be, and how would you answer?
I'd ask why I like mass-produced art so much, and I'd answer that it's because the artist who produces it has no control over where it ends up or who gets to see it.

Alright, insert your famous last words here:
Thanks for listening.

James's website Gunsho.com is his main drag, showcasing a variety of his sketches, drawings, illustrations, posters, and just around the corner, or maybe even 3 minutes ago, a brand-spankin' new store selling tons of Viking goods like clothes and things every mead-swillin' axe-swinger can hang on his wall.

    » Gunsho.com

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Whether it be a dense green forest, a ravishing Hawaiian waterfall, or one of the wide variety of forever loved beach views, it no longer matters how much crap you haul into your place from Urban Outfitters or how much you spend at Ikea, this year the word is you suck if you don't rock a full-wall sunset. TV is so 2003, it's time to turn off the tube and stare at the wall. « Collapse

You heard me right, this here Infantile label makes their clothes just for the kiddies. They've enlisted some of the knownest of known names to design the first season of these kiddie tees, and yum-yum, do they look good. Among these designers are such wicked-fresh artists as Evan Hecox, Dave Kinsey, Tiffany Bozic, Jason Gnewikow, and Jeremy Fish, but my personal fave has got to be the bling-bling-offering from Maya Hayuk, pictured above. Just try and tell me your kid (or your lil' cousin, or your best friend's kneehigh) wouldn't look cute as a friggin' button wearing that shirt! Just try! You can't, so do the right thing today, kick Osh-Kosh to the curb and get that kid some style! « Collapse

The dolls range in price from $40 for the large size to $30 for the smaller super-deforms, depending on where you can find them. I'm not a vinyl-toy fanatic, but I can tell you upfront that given the size of the figures (around 10 inches) and the number of accessories, as well as the detail in paint and clothing, that is one hell of a deal for collectible designer vinyl-toy-art. I ordered mine from sweatyfrog.com, who sent them promptly and well-packaged to prevent any damage. The dolls have an eerie presence and there's something that just seems so delightfully wrong about them- from their fetishized lingerie-like outfits, to their anatomically correct chests, or the absolutely whacked-out accessories (raw meat anyone?) these are not your little sister's Barbies. In fact, I wouldn't even leave Barbie in the same room with these dolls. They'd probably tie her up and molest her before cannibalizing her alive. They are that bizarre. So, scare a loved one today and make a gift of one, or at least pick up one of Junko's graphic novels. You won't be disappointed, but you may be unsettled and a bit oddly aroused. « Collapse

Godard made a name for himself early in the 1960s French New Wave by turning Hollywood film conventions and cliches on their heads. Plotline manipulation was not enough for Godard, as he took to playing with the very definitions of what a film is and what is to view a film. Godard's early works offer the director's take on classic Hollywood genres and the formulas contained within. Les Carabiniers is his "war" film... though the characters are all impossibly stylish, impeccably dressed, and smoke all the time. I must now warn you that Les Carbiniers is carefully designed to be void of any pleasure for the audience. Having made some of the most amazing films in cinema history, Les Carabiniers is proof that Godard is really good at making bad movies, too. Godard felt that too often anti-war motifs were lost in captivating violence, stunning imagery, and slick editing. So in return, Godard will have none of this as his normal jump-cut, quick-paced tempo slows to a standstill, allowing the audience to really think about and meditate on what war actually is. Les Carabiniers is the story of two gung-ho lower class testosteronies, tricked into joining the army in order to, basically, travel the world raping, killing, and stealing their way to a better, brighter tomorrow. And they do just that, as we follow these two assholes on their tours of duty throughout a fictitious World War 3 setting. Godard leaves you with no real reason you should like this movie, not even for aesthetic reasons. The award-winning Raoul Coutard purposefully dumbed-down his shooting techniques in order to match authentic war newsreel footage mixed in to the piece, Ed Wood-style. There are no likable characters in this film. No poignant music, no slow-motion close-ups of earnest bravery, no gut-wrenching themes of patriotism and sacrifice, and no explosive-tip arrows or nude Marlon Brandos. Only numerous acts of unfeeling cruelty, schizophrenic pacing, dickhead characters (and I say dickhead with utmost journalistic integrity), alongside over-the-top cartoon instrumentals and goofy war sound-effects expertly placed to add emphasis to Godard's indictment of man's absurdity. This is what my older brother would call a "snobby art film"…then he’d try to punch you in the balls. I have to say, Godard did succeed in making this movie intolerable to watch. The movie itself (with the exception of the cinema scene) really is awful. Yet it is also an amazing accomplished work that stays with you long after the last frame. You have to give it up to a guy who, with all the momentum in the world behind his career, actually goes out to make a terrible movie on purpose. And not done in a Pee Wee Herman "I meant to do that" kinda way, either. I can't stop thinking about this piece. I recommend that you watch this not as a means of entertainment, but as professors say, a "think piece". Keep in mind everything that is happening on the screen and contrast how it fits in the larger overall scopes of the both the medium of film and life itself. Just keep in mind... this aint Rambo, muthafucka. « Collapse

Darnielle even rocks a little pseudo-cultural anthropology by cooking up an accompanying website that lets you wade into the album hip-deep. The website may or may not give you a more profound perspective on the songs of We Shall all be Healed, but it certainly eschews the usual run-of-the-mill album-web-content and is definitely worth seeing. As with the album- if you don’t come away converted you’ll certainly come away affected. There’s really no comparing the Mountain Goats’ sound, but when forced to make a long-winded, barely accurate and completely nonsensical association to things you might have heard, I’ve come up with this- Imagine early REM (before they were “alternative”, and were just called “college rock”) add a dash of Midnight Oil’s punchy delivery, a tablespoon of energy from the Violent Femmes, and top it off with a hint of The Folksmen performing their epic dirge The Skeletons of Quinto Mayo. Flour lightly in earnestness and season with plenty of real human tears before baking at 350 degrees of Modern Folk. Garnish with frothy dollops of near-Biblical imagery and a side dish of catchy-as-hell. Your guests will be delighted. « Collapse

THE FUN: So here's what happened... The good folks over at Graniph sent Shane several of their outstanding Tees to check out, and when I say several, I mean like 13. (They're some seriously nice folks.) Unfortunately for Shane, all of the shirts were a men's small... In other words, a perfect fit for me! I was unfamiliar with this company until Shane introduced me to them, but now that I have so many of their shirts, which by the way, are some of the best graphic tees I've ever seen, I'm all about them. Not only are the designs great, but these are some of the most comfortable shirts I've ever owned. And I've been able to sport one a day for two weeks straight. Unfortunately, (for me anyway) Graniph's website is mostly in Japanese and my Japanese, well, it doesn't exist. However, I'm confident that anyone can figure out how to order from the site as there is a little English and plenty of pictures. I can't wait to order some more. A note from Shane: The crew at Graniph is a super-nice bunch and can provide some English customer service if needed, so if you do have difficulty with the site, just drop them an e-mail and they'll take care of you! And yes, it's true, I am in fact jealous as hell. These shirts are absolutely breath-taking. Contributed by: Stacy Broce « Collapse

So now, after all these years of top-notch over-designing, House Industries has put together a big, fat retrospective book, simply titled House. You get the full roadmap House has traveled over the years, from two-man design team to an internationally recognized typeface foundry, crammed full of sketches, tips, ideas, photos, illustrations, and a ton more. Furthermore, just as House is known for super-innovative ideas delivered in super-innovative packaging, and for putting more work into an often published and mailed typeface catalog than most magazines put into a whole issue, this book is top-notch-primo-deeeeeee-luxe. Nothing says it like they do: "The linen-bound, 240-page hardcover volume employs six-color printing and spot varnish on a variety of paper stocks." Hot damnation kids, that sounds nice! Considering you get that fancy book, signed and numbered, as well as a CD with five House fonts and original music (yeah, there's a House band), I'd say that you needs to be gettin' to the order page, and fast. « Collapse

Sarah: How long have Dusk at Cubist Castle & Black Foliage been out of print?
John Fernandes: "Dusk..." and "Black Foliage" were out of print since Flydaddy filed for bankruptcy in 1999.

What did you have to go through to be able to rerelease them yourselves?
Strangely enough, we ended up paying Flydaddy $4000 for the rights to our albums, even though they hadn't paid us for 40,000 records sold in '98-'99.

There has been mention of a rarities CD coming out later this year. Any hint as to what's going to be on it?
There is tons of stuff to go through, but for sure we are going to put "Trilogy" and the full "Sky is a Harpsichord Canvas" which were left off of the albums because of time constraints. We are also going to try to bring back the Olivia Tremor Control / Black Swan Network EP, as well as a bunch of material that we recorded for an EP that we were going to put out before Black Foliage, but never finished.

Are you planning a tour sometime soon?
We don't have anything planned right now other than a show at the 40 Watt on March 20th with Sunshine Fix, and a show at Wake Forest on April 24th.

On the last tour, you performed "The Opera House," which was just a blast. Have you talked of doing any OTC songs, especially with a new crowd exposed to the music?
I hope we can get together and play some of that stuff again soon, but we don't have any plans at this time.

What is the new Circulatory System album going to be like?
The new album features a lot of the songs that we were playing on the last couple of tours. Will is writing tons of great stuff all the time, so sometimes the hardest part is whittling it down to just an album. We are sort of working on two albums at the moment.

What's it been like having your own label now & being more in control of your own releases?
It's exciting, there are tons of things we want to put out, if only I had a little more time to devote to the label. Sometimes it's hard to get everything together with the band and the label because we are all working day jobs right now, and it's hard to make everybody's schedules match. I can't wait till we can be one of those bands whose only job is to make a new album ...

From recording Dusk...to the recording of the last Circulatory System album--how have things changed? Obviously you're a different band now in that Bill Doss is doing his own music with the Sunshine Fix, but I mean technically, mentally, how has the approach changed? Shane, creator of the Crown Dozen website, envisioned the making of Dusk... like: "like were they all just living in a big house; waking up, getting some coffee, waking someone else up, sticking a mic under the fridge, record some piano?" (ah, legend!) Was it like that, and if it was, is it still?
Oh yeah, "Dusk" was put together over a month long period in Robert Schneider's studio in Denver. Those were great days, all of us sleeping on the floor of the studio - waking up, picking up instruments, and playing and recording until we went to sleep again. One of us would walk to the super market every couple of days for food, but other than that, nobody went anywhere until we were done. I guess we do have to thank Flydaddy for giving us the money that allowed us to do that, because now it's different in that it takes a lot longer because we keep running out of money while we are recording, have to save up to get what we need, and then get back to work.

Also, kind of related to that...Circulatory System seems to be, more so than OTC, almost entirely Will Hart. How much does everyone contribute, lyrically and musically?
Will writes all the songs for Circulatory System, and then we add things to them. With The Olivia Tremor Control, Will and Bill wrote most the songs, with Pete contributing "I Have Been Floated" and Eric and I contributing instrumental bits, and other sections.

You've released an album by A Hawk and a Hacksaw, & are distributing a disc by Tetsu Inoue (thank you, by the way, I really love his work). Do you have plans to release any works by other artists soon? What can we expect?
We are going to be releasing a record by Griffin Rodriguez under the name Icy Demons on May 3rd. He is a great bass player (acoustic and electric) and a brilliant producer / sound engineer. We are also expanding the Distributed Titles section of the Cloud Recordings website, to include some of our favorite hard-to-find music.

You've toured so much during the past few years and have been so many places...what places/images/experiences stand out the most? Is there anywhere you haven't been that you would like to go? (The staff of Crowndozen, located in or coming from eastern KY and WV, strongly encourage visiting our corner of Appalachia.)
On the last Circulatory System tour, the show at St. Andrews Hall in Detroit was a ton of fun. On all the Olivia Tremor Control and Circulatory System tours, we have always stayed with people everywhere we go instead of getting hotels - there are so many kind and wonderful people that it is hard to single out.

Have you thought of doing any more videos? (see the video for "Should a Cloud Replace a Compass?" on the Cloud Recordings site.)
We should definitely do some new films for the upcoming releases.

I've noticed that you haven't done many covers, or at least released many---I guess three as OTC and not any from CS...Is that something you avoid doing, prefer not to do, or just haven't gotten around to?
We've never gotten into playing covers because it seems like so much work to figure out how to play somebody else's songs, and it's a bunch easier to play our own.

John - Have you ever written and/or recorded anything of your own?
I've never done a 'solo' project, but I contributed some pieces to the Black Swan Network CD (the first three pieces), and some sections to the Olivia Tremor Control records. Eric was a master at synchronizing things we had recorded separately at home with the master 8-track tapes. He'd learn the response time of each machine, then ride the pitch wheel to keep them together. Now that I know what can be done with computers, it sort of blows my mind when I listen back to "Black Foliage" because we did that whole record completely on analog equipment. We chopped tape, synchronized machines, and all had to stand around the mixing board, with ten hands on the knobs - everybody with a certain task "...when it gets to 1 minute 37 seconds pull in track 6 and fly it over the the left speaker, back to the right, and then fade it out by the time it hits 2 minutes 10 seconds...", etc. Oh yeah, I was excited to see my name listed as "Composer" a couple of weeks ago when I did some music for a modern dance performance that my wife choreographed. Man that was such a thrill, I think I'm hooked - I definitely want to do that again.

Interview conducted by Sarah Akers who lives in North Carolina, has a rabbit nose, and crayons for fingers.

    » Order from the Olivia Tremor Control and Circulatory System
    » Art by Will Hart and Hannah Jones
    » More info about these and other Elephant6 bands

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I have since caught Kev's work rising to the top in a wide range of places, as the boy has his fingers in a lot of mighty-tasty pies. You can catch his work on his own line of Dust Highway tees, shipped out of the UK, covering boards for East Skateboards, a skate company run by the Liverpool man Mackey, and gracing album covers for Sheffield based record label Invisible Spies. Skulls, knives, birds, and snakes, it's all nice, clean, and fresh, looking good both on the street and high at sea. « Collapse

Once you digest the idea along with it's historic details, you begin to look at the bills themselves and realize the amazing attention paid to their minute details as well. The care taken to be sure that they are, well, believable. The colors are rich, the styles are unique, yet classic, and the pieces themselves so finely crafted that it makes you wish our governments had all previously employed Mr. Barnwell to create the various monies that we use daily. This is great stuff kids, don't sleep. The so-called "Dream-Dollars" are available for purchase in singles ($2), sets ($10), uncut sheets ($15), and even 11x14" prints ($15!). Hint: Send them a SASE with a nice note and they'll send you back a FREE single (and tell them I sent you). « Collapse