Well folks, today seems to be a great day. We were back ordered on a few items as things have been selling like hotcakes and we are now restocked on most of them. Also, arriving today are a few new items to the store, check'em out.
Since we were asked to design two new shirts to go on the new Discovery HD's show called Cafe Racer TV, we now have those shirts for sale on their site as well as our store.
Another great item arrived today which is the Repackaged and Remastered version of Hellbound Glory's "Old Highs & New Lows". This album has been named in numerous best of lists for 2010 so get your copy today.
For all the Antiseen fans, we will printing the newest shirt "Primal Roar" this weekend and will be ready for the Charlotte and Lenoir shows next weekend. Also on deck will be back patches and patches with the Primal Roar design. We are stoked and always glad to be working with the fellas in Antiseen.
We have a brand new column starting here on our blog and would like to thank Brian L. Mullen III for coming on board. With his candid storytelling and pointed views we know it will be a welcome addition. Brian Mullen is a tattoo artist from Providence, RI and has played in a plethora of bands in the North East such as She Rides, Crippler Cross Face, Tabernackle, Unsung and Bullet Eater. His preference in music ranges from classical to black metal, finds beauty in vintage Matchless motorcycles and is a solid visual communicator.
Needless to say you will be hearing more from Brian and we will be posting a link to his blog and work quite soon. In the interim, check out his first post below as he hits the nail on the head.
Art, Contradiction, and the Asshole Who Says What He Wants By Brian L Mullen III
Free speech. Lets talk about this for a little bit here. Free speech is one of the certain inalienable right that was declared with our independence and clearly stated in the constitution. It is what makes America as good as it is (along with a few other things). Free speech is the soap box under foot and also that thorn in the sides of everyone that has a cause, or wants to defend or fight for something. As an example i recently read a few people posting about getting a page dedicated to legalizing dog fighting removed from facebook. I do not condone dog fighting (cock fights are way funnier) but I do believe that this person has the right to say they support this cause. I know it drives people crazy as it sometimes does to me but if we remove this persons right to say what he thinks those that oppose us could make it so we don't have the right to say what we believe.
This is not a rant about dog fighting which I think is a cruel and inhumane practice.
I want to write about several things that have happened to me in the last few weeks that make me feel, besides hurt, annoyed that my friends would want to censor what someone else has to say. Now I have had a few comments deleted by friends recently because they might stir controversy. I do have a habit of writing wise-ass comments to people, but in doing so I have been either joking to make light of a serious situation, or trying to show people that their statement might be a shared one but not from the same point of view. One of these happened out of ease. My friend who normally would have laughed at my comments and known that I was making light of a bad situation removed said comments to make his home life easier. His significant others family are much less likely to understand my jokes and would not ask me about what I meant by said comments. Although offended, I do understand that he did this not out of disregard for my opinion, but out of not wanting to have a very uncomfortable conversation over the thanksgiving day dinner table.
I had someone remove a comment for reasons I do not clearly understand. I have a few guesses as to why someone who is very opinionated would want to deprive someone else of their opinion, especially since mine contradicts theirs. I tried to make it in such a way that it was understood to be a minor difference of opinion and let her know that her comments were as offensive to me as some might find mine. I ended it with what I thought to be a funny comment to really enforce the "we disagree but, oh well, it doesn't matter" attitude that I try to keep. That attitude I can only guess was not shared. No explanation was offered, no comments made back, just remove the contrary opinion so it looks like no one argues with what was stated. There might be other issues that led to the removal of the comment but if that was the case maybe something could have been said about it. I continue on with this last comment on these actions. If you don't want to hear what what people have to say in response to your posts or photos, don't post them. Make your settings private so that these things that upset your delicate sensibilities off of a public forum.
Now my main reason for writing this is based in the tattoo world and the very weak link that connects that world to the fine art world. That statement might piss some people off but that is my opinion, if you have a contrary one please feel free to share it, as I will not delete it no matter how offensive I may or may not find it. I am not of the opinion that all tattoo artists are fine artists, likewise I don't think that all artists would make good tattoo artists. In fact I would go so far as to say I think most artists who think they would be awesome tattoo artists are mistaken and the opposite is even more accurate. But if we are to accept art with open arms regardless of merit or qualifications, then we have to accept it across the board. I am not saying that I want to agree with this, I am horribly judgmental when it comes to art. I am opinionated and pigheaded and I love way less than I hate and I like maybe as much as I dislike, but I will defend anyone's right to do what they want in the art realm. I however also reserve the right to voice my opinion on said art be it positive or negative.
I was asked to take part in a group show which had an open invite. I at first declined and then when inspiration struck I did a painting, framed it, and then called to check and make sure that it was still within a time frame that it could be submitted to the show. It was approved time wise so I dropped off the painting knowing that it would not be making everyone happy. I did not do a painting to make friends, nor did I do it to kiss anyone's ass, nor did I even do it to try and fit in with some imagined in-crowd. I did a painting that i thought would have good flow, be funny, and would state something that I could stand behind. Now maybe people think that common ground make friends, I do not. I do not base my friendships on a share thing, I base them on a feeling and enjoyment of someones company. I am friends with some people that tattoo, but I'm not friends with them because they tattoo nor am I friends with everyone who tattoos. I don't troll facebook looking for other tattoo artist to become friends with. I don't need to sit there and blow smoke up someones ass about their tattoos so they will do the same to me. Now if you are someone who does that, good for you. Sorry I sound so offensive when I talk about it but I find it incredibly shallow and most of the time very pathetic. I do know some people who belong to forums and talk to other artist about work related things and that I think is great and wanting to expand your knowledge is awesome. The superficial, "shake your hand stab you in the back" mentality of tattooing and the art that surrounds that world is crap. Stating that in a painting should not be so offensive if you have strength of character and confidence in your actions. Now my painting that people found offensive simply states that I don't base my friendships on something so superficial as a profession. I am not my job nor is my job what defines my character.
What I personally find very offensive is that stating a fact is considered insulting but putting swastikas in paintings is considered risque, or funny. It's not. If it is done in a political statement or for a specific reason (see the works of Manuel Ocampo) then fine but when done for simple shock value it is pure stupidity. Just to really remind any tattoo artist who may get to read this, almost 6 million Jews were killed about 70 million people in general were killed during WWII, so doing a swastika in a painting or in a flash sheet isn't really funny. if you want to make jokes between you and a friend go nuts, but to put something down for posterity, to leave your work for the foreseeable future with swastikas in it is a political statement and sadly one that most of you don't realize you're making. So in the end my main point on free speech is feel free to do what you want but remember that free speech also entitles others to make whatever statement they would like to make. And just as you would judge what someone else does, they might judge what you do to be equally as offensive. I apologize if I have gotten off course with this, I have been known to ramble when I write, but hopefully the points are all there and easy enough to understand. Thanks for your time.
The first time I got to see Bad Religion was in September of 1993 with Green Day and Seaweed opening up at Graffiti in Pittsburgh. How I can so easily recollect that rough date is by the fact that I still have the ticket stub and that life was changin' in many ways. I had just started college and met up with a soon to be great group of friends. I was all about the hardcore and thrash metal and my buddy Todd was a punk stalwart. He introduced me to so many great new bands that I still thank him for it. Bad Religion was one of those bands in which I had always heard of them but never really checked'em out. As soon as I started listening to Against The Grain, I was absolutely hooked. Besides the killer vibe the lyrics are a powerful force and one in which each song feels like a chapter in the book. Every album has been this way and puts Bad Religion into a whole other sphere of influence.
Take for example this free sample of recordings. Each artist on here gives the song a different feel and my personal fave is William Elliot Whitmore's version of "Don't Pray On Me". Thanks to all involved for making a cool project happen. Download the songs now before they are gone. Download the songs here
We have a major short film in the works over here within Rusty Knuckles Music and its about time we introduce yall to Mike Ashcraft. Through his film company Thumbin' Sleazoid Cinema he is producing films that exploit the southern vibe with a trashy punk rock underbelly. With his bare knuckle approach to cinematography we know that the short film about to be produced is going to cause quite a stir. More details will be arriving soon and we can leave ya guessing on which band it will be. Watch "Cyclone" and see what Thumbin Sleazoid Cinema is all about.
Leave it up to the folks over at Farce The Music dot com to be a great blog posting about the state of the music industry and current albums. They write up quality reviews and just happen to be a huge fan of Hellbound Glory, what can we say, that is great news to us. The repackaged and remastered album "should" be arriving by thursday of this week and will be shipping on Friday. Thanks for all the interest in the band as they truly deserve it! Check out Hellbound Glory on facebook
Been cranking on this illustration for quite a while and about to start scanning it in to prepare it for press. Need to add in the ANTiSEEN logo and create some distinct text for "primal roar" but its just about there.
Well, October is finally here! My favorite time of year and the home for my favorite holiday..Halloween! Now I know a lot of you have yer holiday traditions and such and also that many of you out there are horror movies geeks like I was at one time in my life. There is a series of films that I'm STILL a geek for and that is those made by the English film company HAMMER. Most of Hammer's horror films were period pieces set way back in the 1800's and early 1900's. They were shot in brilliant color and showed lots of blood.....and BOOBS! Hammer had a stable of some of the most beautiful actress in the world and weren't afraid to show them off. I can just imagine what all those low cut blouses and protruding cleavage shots did to young men when they went to see these on the big screen!!!
Ingrid Pitt
But boobs & blood aside, the sets, scripts (most of em), the scores and the acting were top of the line. The company's biggest stars hands down was Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Together, these guys made the greatest series of Dracula / Van Helsing films in movie history...IMHO.
Peter Cushing as Van Helsing
I'm gonna write about this company up until the end of the month to give those who might be interested time to Netflix, Blockbuster, or Ebay any of these films in time for Halloween. Since I mentioned the Dracula series I'll go ahead and start there. In 1958...yeah, 58, Hammer released HORROR OF DRACULA. This film was loosely based on the old novel by Bram Stoker and the story most people know of Jonathan Harker visiting the Castle in Transylvania.In this adaptation Harker, comes to take the job as Count Dracula's Librarian. All relation to the novel ends there pretty much.
The highlights of this are of coarse, Lee's portrayal of the main character. A smooth and sophisticated, if not somewhat peculiar host and then to a feral, snarling, fang bearing creature of the undead! The final battle...(.final? yeah right) between Dracula and Van Helsing is pure a cinematic classic! watch the damned trailer.
The next installment in the series is DRACULA : PRINCE OF DARKNESS from 1966. Cushing did a non LEE Dracula film called BRIDES OF DRACULA which I will cover in the next installment when we discuss Hammer's various vampire films.Cushing would drop out of the seires after BRIDES and resurface later on in the role of Van Helsing's kinfolk. Apparently in POD , Lee felt he wasn’t getting paid enough to reprise the role so as a FU to the powers that be, he refused to learn any lines so therefore has NO spoken dialogue in the whole damned movie!!! That's bad ass if ya ask me! STICK IT TO 'EM CHRIS! Anyway, he still pulls the role off with lots of great hissing and stink eye shots. Dracula's demise in this one is a bit different, A monk shoots the ice around the Counts feet as he stands on a frozen river, which has running water under the ice. Maybe not the goriest of endings but there's plenty of the red stuff (and great cleavage) in the rest of the film.
The next film is my favorite of the series...1968's DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE. Lee makes Dracula a hellbent for vengeance bad ass in this flick. The Count is thawed from the ice by the blood of a priest's brow and all hell breaks loose when he finds a giant cross blocking his entry to his own castle. Since the Count needs a place to sleep he makes his priest servant (Ewan Hooper) dig up a grave and dump the corpse out in a kinda gruesome scene that RULES in my book! One of the most ass kickin' scenes is when slave priest boy insists that after Paul (Barry Andrews) plunges a wooden stake into the Count's heart, he prays to make sure the extermination is blessed by the lord therefore permanent. Well, being an atheist , Paul assures slave priest that his prayers wont be considered valid by the almighty so while they argue this point, Drac pulls the bloody stake out of his own chest and then throws it at the bastards!! CLASSIC!!!!!
Next came TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA in 1970. IMHO this was the weakest of the bunch. I'll still take it over the current crop of teeny bopper computer graphic block busters any day. Basically a kind of Hellfire Club type of group (bunch of rich dudes going out once a month to indulge in all sorts of debauchery) and want to resurrect the Count for kicks.......Watch
1970 also saw SCARS OF DRACULA....maybe this was the weakest link....still really good. I mean, ya cant go wrong with an entire village's population of women being eaten by giant rubber bats can you?
1972 gave us DRACULA AD 1972. Now the shit starts kicking again. For one reason, Cushing is back as a descendant of Van Helsing in modern London....imagine Austin Powers mixed with a classic Hammer vampire film and you got a good idea of what your in for. Now I don’t mean that as an insult, this movie is bad-fucking-ass and has a GREAT soundtrack that was composed by one of the dudes in Manfred Mann. Its almost has a real Blaxploitation feel to it. The cast also features super foxy Stephanie Beacham & Caroline Munro! Meow!!!!
Anyway....there is a scene at the opening where a group of crazy hippies and swinging Londoners crash a society party and rock group Stoneground plays a couple tunes while the kids wreak havoc on all the uptight suits. Rumor has it that Rod Stewart and the Faces were supposed to be the band in the film but for some reason or another that didn’t happen.....that would have been BAD ASS!!!!!
and just to confirm how bad ass it would have been to have the Faces....
1973 rolled right along with THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA. Still set in modern London, this time the Count is so god damned pissed off that he wants to wipe out the entire human race by unleashing the Black Plague on the earth!!!!! Well, a lot of other good shit happens before all that goes down. Cushing returns as Van Helsing and this will be Lee's last time in the role of Dracula....seems he was getting tired of being typecast and all. Hmmm. Well, anyway this movie has a pretty innovative way to dispose of the Lord of the Undead, he gets tangled in a patch of thorns, the type used in Christ's crown of thorns, and then falls into a pit of stakes. God damn, that’s some good ass shit!!!!!!!
Cushing would play Van Helsing one last time in 1974's LEGEND OF THE 7 GOLDEN VAMPIRES. This shit was right up my alley....Hammer Horror mixed with Kung Fu!!!! I ain’t shittin' ya either! Filmed on location in Hong Kong with The Shaw Brothers (Martial Arts film legends)Dracula takes the form a Chinese monk gone bad and travels to China to fuck shit up on a new continent. With the help of the 7 Golden vampires he does just that. ...even though he only appears in the whole film for a total of about 10 minutes. Dracula is played by John Forbes-Robinson....all I can say is, ole John had some awful big shoes to fill replacing Lee and fell short by about a mile. Other than that, there’s all kinds of great stuff going on, zombies, dismemberment, boiling blood baths, kung fu, naked Chinese chicks, golden vampires getting pissed off about there golden bat getting stolen and even more kung fu! Say what you will, but I LOVE this goddamned movie.
Well, I hope this blog entry will give y’all some good ideas for your Halloween viewing. Next time Ill talk about Hammer's werewolf , Frankenstein , and various vampire films. OK this wouldn’t be BEHIND THE BARBED WIRE unless I did a little shameless advertising...We are doing two FREE...yeah I said FREE....(damn, FREE?) shows for Halloween.
First ... Friday October, 29th at The THIRSTY BEAVER in Charlotte, NC. We'll be strumming the strings about 11 o'clock. This place is s m a l l....could be a really fun night!!! Come on out!
The next night we will be playing on the front porch of REPO DEPOT RECORDS in beautiful Lenoir, NC. Repo Depot is owned and operated by ANTiSEEN's own Mighty Joe Young. The noise will begin at 8pm. Hope to see every damned one of ya's there!
With the new show called "Cafe Racer" premiering this week on Discovery HD, what better timing could it be Dime City Cycles to have another featured build on BikeExif. This particular site is proving to be one of the best resources for cafe racers, race bikes, vintage and custom motorcycles as a whole. The clean photography and simple style of the site ensures that the bikes get all the glory they deserve. All we can say is hells yeah for the fellas over at Dime City Cycles! View the article on BikeExif dot com Cafe Racer TV dot com
Say what you will about the Orange County Choppers folks as they are truly just an aspect of our current pop culture, but this electric bike will move!The electrical revolution is on its way...
Life is just damn amazing sometimes and especially when I drive downtown and see the amount of donks that are cruising around these days. They have to ride like crap with the little amount of air in those tires and the shit suspension, but that is not even nearly the point. Folks will say what they will, but damn they look sorta rad rollin' down the road. They are truly the bastard child of hip hop and monster trucks if that is possible.
