Carolina Still - Color Of Rust Test Pressings

Damn right, the test pressings are finally in. The vinyl manufacturing industry is going through a huge upswing and all the folks we are a bit behind on production. Hang tight with us folks as things are moving quickly now and these Carolina Still records will be shipping out as soon as we can get them all finished up with our friends over at Musicol in Columbus, OH.

Buy your copy of Carolina Still's - The Color Of Rust on vinyl

Preview of how the vinyl is being manufactured for Carolina Still

Carolina Still - Color Of Rust Test Pressings

Rusty Knuckles Stealth Belt Loops

Our belt loops have become a great seller, but one question we kept getting asked was about attaching keys directly to the loop without a carabiner or larger key ring. Instead of using the crappy snap hooks that are available everywhere, we resourced some heavy duty hooks that are aircraft grade. These snap hooks will ultimately outlast the user and will be the best damn belt loop you could ever use.

Shop our store on Etsy

Buy your belt loop from our main store

Rusty Knuckles brand new stye of Stealth Belt Loops with heavy duty snap clip

Fifth On The Floor Release New Video, January In Louisiana

Fifth On The Floor have just released their brand new video, entitled "January In Lousiana." The song has a huge vibe and the cinematic aspect to the video allows for this song to grow into something far bigger.

Find out about all that is Fifth On The Floor

Hellbound Glory, Featured Artist On CountryPalooza Festival

Hellbound Glory will be invading Jackson, MI on June 23rd for the Country Palooza festival. Going to be in that area and need tickets, hop on over to Local Acts and get yours now.

Hellbound Glory is one of the headliners of Country Palooza in Jackson Michigan

Hellbound Glory Launches The Feud Through Itunes

Hellbound Glory releases their brand new single through Itunes on June 4th. Link over and click the pre-sale button and it will be delivered directly to your inbox.

Hellbound Glory releases their brand new single through Itunes on June 4th

Antiseen Dixie Dynamite Tour 2013

Antiseen recently completed their quick lap through the south east on tour with Hellstomper. Check out some of the damage from these flicks and even more on the Antiseen facebook page.

Antiseen inspired tattoo - Death Train Coming

Jeff Clayton of Antiseen commanding the stage

Mike Williams of EyeHateGod presenting his version of Eat More Possum

Bloody forehead and sing along choruses, this is how every Antiseen show goes down!

Attacking the washboard, the one and only Jeff Clayton

Barry Hannibal laying down the groove to ruin your good time

Mike Williams of EyeHateGod and Jeff Clayton of Antiseen

Clint of the Flat Tires, Hellstomper and Jeff Clayton of Antiseen

Carolina Still Feature Review On Saving Country Music

Buy your copy of The Color Of Rust

Link to review on Saving Country Music

"If you gave me only one word to describe this album, it would be “Yes!” There’s no shortage of these juggy, stompy country bands these days looking for attention. And when I say “juggy,” I don’t mean the descriptive word Mr. Nightlife might write beside a girl’s name in his little black book. I’m talking about the kind of primitive, old-school country bands that get your elbows swaying to a fro and your legs kicking in a down home good time. So many new bands with the term “still” or “whiskey” in their name have popped up, I can barely keep up with them all. Hell, there’s even a Whiskey Still, but it’s three old dudes from Dublin, so we’ll give them a pass.

The problem is many of these bands try to overcompensate for their lack of basic music skills with shrill vocals and sheer speed, while their “albums” are hampered by excessive recording flubs and cliché’s so bad they make you physically wince. Carolina Still bucks this trend by putting out a great-sounding, patient, and professional album through Rusty Knuckles Records called The Color of Rust, spiking old music with a new energy. Self proclaimed “old-time moonshier stomp,” they bring the primal enjoyment a jug-like band can evoke, without any of the grab ass garbage that can come from half efforts.

The Color of Rust will downright wear your country ass out. The first three songs will get your foot stomping so hard, you’ll piss off the downstairs neighbors irrevocably. That’s right, no more borrowed cups of brown sugar for you. “Devil’s Stomp” is especially prone to causing involuntary leg movements of the heavy stomping persuasion, and then once Carolina Still has you squared up, they hit you right between the eyes and completely off guard with the really slow and soulful “Black Lung, WV,” showing off an ear for composition.

The songs of The Color of Rust find that nice warm place where the themes are familiar, but not quite clichè. They may have “still” in their name, but there’s not an excess of moonshine-running, falling down drunk ballads in their repertoire. Instead you get cool songs like the really thoughful “Grandpa’s Guitar.” They pull out all the stops for “Old Black Crow” on the album, using chains and caws to enhance what would otherwise be a simple song. The band gets downright silly with songs like “In the Barn” and “Chicken Pie,” but never to the point where you feel stupid for listening. The Color of Rust is a really fun listen from cover to cover.

Carolina Still are not necessarily superpickers, and if they were, it might take away from the spirit of their music. Instead they rely on good ears to craft catchy elements to reel you in, like the guitar and banjo rhythm on “Grandpa’s Guitar” and the walking down bass line of “Chicken Pie.” What I’d like to hear more of with this band is the depth they touch on in “Black Lung, WV.” It’s difficult to delve too far into this direction when you’re perceived as a lively party band. Old Crow Medicine Show has struck this balance over the years, putting out fun songs right beside ones that try to say something, and elevating their stature as songwriters amongst their peers."

Good album, produced by JB Beverley and Buck Thrailkill.

1 3/4 of 2 guns up."

BMW Concept 90 With Design Cues By Roland Sands

There are so many great bikes being built, but the ones that are more purpose driven always seem to attract our attention. Choppers are great, but I dig speed and performance with great lines. Good design trumps bolt together assemblage from a catalog of parts. After seeing this new BMW styled street fighter mixed with a cafe racer styling cues, the ol' heart skipped a beat. Damn I would dig riding this bike.

Find out more info at Gizmag.com

Roland Sands going over styling cues on the new BMW Concept 90

New RSD parts going onto the BMW Concept 90

Rear view of the BMW Concept 90

Roland Sands working the BMW Concept 90 through its paces

BMW Concept 90 computer rendering

New Hand Tooled Leather Items

New leather tool bags shipping now

Our brand new belt loop style with X stitching

J.B. Beverley Jamming With Carolina Still

Last week at Carolina Still's cd release party, J.B. Beverley and Jake Cox opened the show up. Have a listen to how great J.B. sounds with Carolina Still backing him up. His new album will be released with us in September and is entitled "Stripped To The Root."

Carolina Still Featured On Drifter Country

Americana and Country music are incredibly popular genres over in Europe and we are stoked to see when one of the albums released by us pops up for reviews. Thanks to the folks over at Drifter Country for posting up on Carolina Still.

"Earlier this year I reported that Carolina Still has signed to the label Rusty Knuckles. The four-piece band from Washington, NC delivers with the Color of Rust their second album. Carolina Still describes their style as follows: ". A distinctive new sound young and an old-time feel 'a description where I can find myself in the music of this band has influences from different times and styles. The Color of Rust is produced by JB Beverley who will report on Rusty Knuckles. A new album in September 2013 But more on that later. The album contains twelve songs and Carolina Still a great album with a raw edge. Uncomplicated music with lyrics about gun ownership, moonshine and murder. For readers with Spotify you can listen to the new album below."

Link to post on DrifterCountry.com

Buy the new Carolina Still ablum

Carolina Still featured on Drifter Country

Kara Clark Raven Shirt Process Photos

In early July the brand new Kara Clark album will be hitting store shelves world wide and damn are we proud of this release. Huge soaring vocals, deep southern anecdotal story telling and one femme fatale steering the ship through it all. If this is the first you are hearing of Kara Clark, dive on in. If you are already a fan, the pre-sale is about to go up and will be posting that later today.

Brand new Kara Clark shirt design - Deep Southern Anecdotes

Kara Clark shirt design - Deep Southern Anecdotes pt. 1

Kara Clark shirt design - Deep Southern Anecdotes pt.2

Kara Clark shirt design - Deep Southern Anecdotes pt.3

Kara Clark shirt design - Deep Southern Anecdotes pt.4

Skateboarding And The Green Lady Killers Are A Match Made In Heaven

"A weekend with skateboarders Ben Raybourn and Riley Stevens as they ride backyard bowls, pools and skateparks around Surf City USA, Santa Cruz, Calif."

Watch video on ESPN Skateboarding

The Green Lady Killers are featured in new skate clip on ESPN Skateboarding

Makers Row And What Is Made In USA All About

During this year long process of creating unique tool rolls for your vehicle or for your music gear, we have had to do an incredible amount of sourcing. From seeking out fabric manufacturers, to upholstery companies and onto marketing, it is a huge endeavor and one that isn't for those just dabbling with an idea.

After a good while of exhaustive research we stumbled onto what is called Makers Row. It is a website that provides state by state listings for manufacturing facilities and also by what is their specialty. Luckily for us, we were able to find our new manufacturer for the tool rolls set to go into production and now passing along this information to anyone deems it valuable.

Find out more on Makers Row

Link to article on NPR.org 

The Wrench N' Roll starts production as of June 1st 2013 - Rusty Knuckles © 2013

The String N' Roll starts production as of June 1st 2013 - Rusty Knuckles © 2013

"Hundreds of people died when a garment factory collapsed last month in Bangladesh. The tragedy is a reminder of the unsafe working conditions in overseas factories that produce so much of the clothing we buy.

Some people want more clothing to be made in the United States. A new website is connecting American designers and American manufacturers who want to produce high-quality fashion.

There's a scene in the movie Batman Begins where Bruce Wayne has to order 10,000 Batman masks from a company in China — but they all come back with defects.


This is actually a common problem with outsourcing fashion. And if you're not a billionaire crime fighter — if you're just a small businessman in Brooklyn like Matthew Burnett — you can't write off 10,000 defects.

A few years ago, Burnett was making fancy designers wristwatches. He thought the only way to manufacturer them was to use foreign companies. It turned out to be a nightmare.

"There were the language barriers," Burnett says. "There was the time zone differences. So I would be waiting up at 1, 2 o'clock in the morning to respond to emails."


Matthew Burnett co-founded Maker's Row after deciding it was too difficult to find information about U.S. clothing factories.

For his next company, a clothing line, he wanted everything to be "Made in the USA." The orders could be smaller. If there were problems, he could easily call up the factories. But he had no idea how to find factories in the United States. At one point, he went to local trade show and looked through a print catalog. For a guy raised on the Internet, a printed page can be frustrating.

"You have about a 2-inch-by-2-inch square to describe your specialty — and that's ridiculous," Burnett says.

So he and his business partners created a website where people who design things can find people who make things. The site is called Maker's Row. It's like a combination of The Yellow Pages and Match.com.

American manufacturers can put up a listing and even a video introduction. So let's say you want to find someone who prints T-shirts. You might turn to Neil Breslau, one of the owners and president of First2Print, which is featured on the website. Or if you're a belt designer, you might check out Universal Elliot Corp., a family-run business in New York City.



For designers, this is pretty exciting. Erica Murphy, a recent college grad, spent six frustrating months trying to start a line of children's clothes. "It's very difficult as a new entrant into this community to get information and to find contacts," she says.

Then she learned about Maker's Row. She went on the site and quickly found a company in South Carolina that makes elastics. "I contacted them and they got back to me, and they told me about their product and they gave me information about it," Murphy says.



Nicole Levy is one manufacturer who likes the new website. Her small factory, Baikal, makes fashionable handbags in Manhattan. She got a lot of calls from designers who saw her video online. She even had to hire more workers to keep up with demand.

"It could revolutionize the industry domestically because it could create a lot of labor for domestic factories and keep them around," Levy says.

Also, a "Made in the USA" label could be a good selling point for American consumers who want to avoid ethical questions about overseas manufacturing. But there are still some kinks to work out.

Some new designers don't quite understand how domestic manufacturing works. Their rookie mistakes and naïve questions can be irritating to an old-timer like Terry Schwartz. His company, Sherry Accessories, has been in New York's Garment District for decades.

"The ones I can't handle are the ones who are making a product, who want to know why I can't make it for the same price as the Dominican Republic," Schwartz says.

He did take a few jobs from these new designers, and he's impressed with their creativity.

"I do have some things that are very unique," Schwartz says. "I honestly never saw things like this before, and I'm trying to create these for these people, to make them work."

And the Maker's Row site is still evolving, trying to be a better matchmaker. In less than six months, it has enlisted 1,700 manufacturers from across the country. Each factory is getting about 30 calls a month from potential clients."

Tank Moto, A Brand New Motorcycle Magazine From Down Under

Looking for a new motorcycle magazine amongst the rest of the pack? The fine folks down at Fuel Magazine in Australia have created an amazing new anecdote for ya. Tank Moto looks to be of really high quality photos and articles leaving many in their dust, creating motorcycle porn in their wake.

Find out more about Tank Moto

Tank Moto magazine looks to add and expand upon Fuel Magaine's footprint

Superb layout and photos will be a defining point for Tank Moto Magazine

The Five Most Insane Bands To See Live Right Now

Wild stage shows are a defining point for some bands. Their antics on the stage could help to build their audience, while also becoming part of their musical output. There are quite a few bands that I don't particularly listen to all too often, but when they are set to play live, I will be there without fail. Punk and Hardcore bring the energy to the masses but quite a few of these acts also up the ante and make others pale in comparison.

Below is a great article we read, written for the Houston Press. Let's add to their listing of insane live bands with a few noted below in video.

Converge, photo by Nathan Smith

"I don't know about most people, but my favorite thing about seeing a band live is the energy. I just can't get enough of the frenetic intensity that pervades shows and runs back and forth between the manic audience and the performer, even if the actual playing is off because of it.

When a performer is bored or listless, even if they get all the notes right, it kills me. I guess that's why I like seeing punk rock bands more than folk artists.

Sometimes it can be hard to find that ultimate bit of pure magic, though. There's plenty of bands that bring the right vibe to the table, but it's a lot harder to find the kind of band I like the most: a group that are like cracked out acrobats playing heavy, fast music. I have, fortunately, found a few that I follow devotedly every time they play in Texas, and here are five who do that best.




5. Touche Amore
 
One of the best post-hardcore bands to come out in years, and one of the most energetic bands out there today, Touche Amore perfectly employs the classic sounds of "emo" (before it turned into pop-punk) and hardcore to make incredible two-minute bursts of lightning in musical form.

Their live shows are absolutely awesome and feature groups of hundreds of kids chanting every single word, the band going nuts, and lots of crowd surfing and stage diving. In other words, Touche Amore in 2013 is everything that was great about live punk shows in the '80s. They were one of the best bands at last year's Free Press Summer Fest, and hopefully they'll be back in Houston soon enough.



4. Trash Talk
 
When it comes to Trash Talk, the band loses it, the audience loses it, everyone loses it. No one is left standing still and those that are often get knocked out. Literally. I've seen it happen.

If you can handle the inherent danger in being in the audience for a Trash Talk show though, it's one of the most fun live experiences out there. And much credit to front man Lee Spielman, who gives every single show his all, even when he has a broken leg like at their highlight of SXSW show this year.



3. Converge

Converge aren't quite the acrobats onstage, but their intensity and passion is almost unrivaled. Front man Jacob Bannon's connection with fans is unparalleled, and the emotion that pours through in each and every performance he gives is overwhelming. Take this performance in Paris, for instance where Bannon can hardly keep himself together during "Jane Doe.

With music as crushing and affecting as Converge's, it would seem hard to sustain such unbridled enthusiasm. One would think the misery would eventually give way to boredom, but as outlined in my review of Converge's Houston show in 2012, they have not lost a step over the years.

2. B L A C K I E (All Caps With Spaces)
 
B L A C K I E's shows will be the kind parents will tell their kids about in twenty years. They're the kind of thing that might not last forever, but will live in infamy long after he decides to stop doing all this crazy shit. And luckily for us, we don't have to go far or wait very long to see them since B L A C K I E is Houston born and bred.

The intensity he brings defies naming, genre, or explanation. Most bands are lucky to have one show on a tour that matches this kind of insanity, but B L A C K I E brings it every single time he performs. Of course, in Houston it's a lot more fun because we get it.

The show in France seen above looks awesome, but the crowd clearly has never seen B L A C K I E before and has no idea how to react. Par for the course with something this bizarre and yet altogether amazing.


 
1. The Dillinger Escape Plan
 
The scene: Revolver Golden God Awards 2013. The band: The Dillinger Escape Plan. Just as they launched into "When I Lost My Bet," their latest single from their new album One of Us is the Killer, front man Greg Puciato, bloody-faced and stalking the stage, shouted at the audience, "this is real shit, motherfuckers!"

For an award show, it's a profound statement, and one exemplified in their music. Where Revolver has essentially taken an underground form of music built around brutality and built a cheesy award show around it, Dillinger showed up to completely tear the house down with "real shit."

This band is made up of some of the most talented, accomplished instrumentalists in rock music today, but what makes their live shows so insane is that they mix their particular form of already intense music with some of the craziest, most intense showmanship in the business today. On top of it all, they never miss a beat despite the intricate complexities of their music.

By the end of the show, Dillinger finished their "statement" by breathing fire and destroying every single thing in sight, all the while still playing a ridiculously heavy breakdown. All this after finishing a cover of Depeche Mode's ""Behind the Wheel." This is just one shining example of the band's style onstage, and is the latest proof that they are not to be missed when they hit Houston July 27 on the Summer Slaughter tour."

OkCupid Deemed That Juggalos Also Need Love

Truth is far above and beyond stranger than fiction. When it comes to clown makeup, Faygo soda and rhyming about the magic surrounding magnets, the Juggalo's are in a league all their own. I have always been a fan of black metal, not so much for the love of a dark lord, but the music pushes boundaries sonically and psychologically. Black metal is the equal and or opposite of all that is supposedly good and moral. But where does that leave a group such as the Juggalos in the bigger picture, who just so happen to also paint their faces in a similar manner? Are they the hip hop spawn of black metal or just lost souls, who hide their need to be loved behind face paint? Well folks, OkCupid is here to help. Have a glance through some amazing profile pictures. Send positive vibes out to these juggalo's and juggalettes that just wanna be inspired by amazing things such as magnets.

Check out more of the Juggalo Nation that needs to be loved