Hello Rewind will take your old T-Shirts and turn them into laptop sleeves. Hipsters take note: This is an entirely new medium with which to be ironic. What are you waiting for?
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Hello Rewind will take your old T-Shirts and turn them into laptop sleeves. Hipsters take note: This is an entirely new medium with which to be ironic. What are you waiting for?
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Illustration by Michael BollsTo furrow is to, generally in a pained manner, wrinkle one’s forehead. This expression is so pronounced that the bunched skin resembles the parallel farming trenches, from which, the verb derives: furrows. While digesting the lyrics presented in Furrows’ self-titled debut, you imagine that Cody Cox, lead singer and songwriter, has heard that description before. It isn’t hard to suppose that, after living some of the experiences described here, the topography of one’s brow would be altered. It is a credit to the songwriting that these experiences are felt, with the mind, just as acutely as the physical expression would be noticed by the eyes.
The album is dense with well-written imagery and emotion, and starts out with Sweet Anesthesia, a twangy tale of the relief that can only come in forgetting. Cox sings, over a punchy swing rhythm, “I'll buy you a drink if you whisper in my ear. Just promise me that I won't wake up 'til sometime next year.” The initial impression is one of a strong familiar tie to the rootsy leanings of Cox’s former band, Goodman County, where he was also joined by Furrows’ bassist Barry Shannon and drummer Tony Abercrombe. But where Goodman County was more of a freewheeling amalgam of garage, punk and country, Furrows is more evolved and polished, showing a wider variety of influences.
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Botanical Bakery has completed an incredible rebrand with the help of DBD International. They've slyly used the implied lips from the logo to playfully give the product title a sense of action, each in their own colorful voice bubble. The design is whimsically bohemian, mixing vibrant hand drawn art elements with sophisticated typography. But the real brilliance is that the design is fully dependent upon you seeing and interpreting their new logo. And when you are re-branding, any additional looks at the logo are like coins in the meter of the customer's mind.
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When I arrived in Jackson years ago, there was this really loud, fast punk/garange band that played a lot at Martin's and Don's called The Overnight Lows. They were composed of Jackson's Marsh and Daphne Nabors, a husband-wife duo that just so happened to rock pretty hard. Their ripsaw guitars and thunderous, rock-god beats filled those tiny bars with a wall of sound that could deafen those with lesser hearts. Many moons later, this band is finally making the national splash it deserves, signing with Memphis' Goner Records and releasing their first full-length, City of Rotten Eyes. Blending bits of influence from 70's NYC garage, amped up punk, a little whimsy of The Vasolines, and the audacity of Goner alumni Jay Reatard, the band waves their party flag high.
Standout tracks include the driving title track, Shut Up Looking at Me, Lipstick Burn, and Picked Apart (Left to Rot.) It's a very quick listen, with no song lasting over three minutes, and most substantially less. With such a longer playtime, the lack of variety in tone and pace might wear on you. But this album is in and out so quickly that you might very well listen to it twice before you realize it. Punk has always been a dish best served in small portions. This album may well make you want seconds.
Their LP release gig is Saturday, March 6th @ Ole Tavern on George Street.
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photo by tom beck
February 7, 2010
Prior to 2009, the most interesting thing I'd ever heard about The King Edward Hotel was as follows: “One time, I threw a toilet off of the roof." A friend of mine had chuckled this statement while bellied up to the bar at Hal & Mal's, as we discussed some apparent construction going on at the Jackson landmark. It seemed everyone had some story about playing around in the bones of the old man... tales of the clandestine feats of bored youth, possibly illegal activities, and the lifestyles of the destitute. And through the laughs about stumbling upon homeless enclaves or dead animals, there was always an underlying sadness. Held aloft miraculously by the condemnable structure underneath, the rusty letterforms of the name ironically proclaimed a regal past. I imagined standing on top of the building, as would one of those letters, surveying the ragged edifices of Capital and Farish below. It seemed, to me, a kingdom of blight. Here stands Edward, master of all he surveyed.
from gizmodo.com
Let me start by being perfectly clear: When the iPad hits streets in April, I will probably buy one. Because I am weak and need the comfort of sexy technology to fill the emptiness of this modern life. But existential crisis aside, the device disappoints on a few fundamental levels, particularly for the creative mind.
Aside from the crushing lack of Flash, removable memory, or even a freakin' USB port, the biggest failing is that this device has been crafted into one of pure media consumption. Not creation. Granted, we have desktops and high-end laptops for creation purposes, what I had hoped for was a device that would allow for some on-the-spot creative generation and sharing opportunities. A device that would allow me to use the tablet as a journal, to send the goodness that I've gathered with the device out to others in a collaborative environment. Such endeavors seem wholly impossible on the iPad. But I realize that this desire is unfair to the little tablet from Apple. It's because my expectations for what i wanted it to be had already been fulfilled by another, the Microsoft Courier. And I was yearning for Apple to rise to the challenge and create something even better. But what we got was a big iPhone.
In and of itself, this isn't evil. Hell, it's sexy. And I still want one. But if I can only buy one computer product this year, my choice has been made already. Courier wins. EASILY. Check out the attached videos below to see what the future of creative collaboration looks like. It looks like a win sandwich, with pickles and a side of hell yeah.
Microsoft's Courier is rumored to release mid-2010 at about the same price point as the iPad.
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LogoLounge.com has posted and interesting article regarding trends in logo designs for 2009. A very cool read, and you will almost certainly come out inspired.
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photographer unknown - contact me and you'll be creditedMusicians are a bit like objects in space. Give them a particular orbit with which to hang around, and eventually they bounce off of each other. Sometimes, these cosmic particles stick together, drawn by gravity into bands. And sometimes, these bands bump into other bands, giving way to an all new creation...bound together by the magic ties of the universe: the "supergroup." Horse Trailer is such a collaboration, formed with members of some of Jackson's most talented groups. And like any supergroup, they succeed most when they are not just individual artists taking turns at the mike, but when common purpose and love...that gravity... slings them forward on the same course like a comet streaking across the sky. Composed of many pieces, but greater than the sum of its parts...able to let those individual parts shine brightly, but never more brightly than the whole.
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I feel that perhaps "Awesome Sauce" is used, by me, too often in this blog. You could argue that to delve into hyperbole too often is to cheapen the effect of words like "awesome". Well, fuck that. Here is perhaps the most awesome thing I've ever posted in the category. An all-star send-off to Conan in the form of a wild rompus. Free bird, mofos. Recognize anyone in particular in this clip? Perhaps Ben Harper on the steel guitar? Is that ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons? That wouldn't be Beck, would it? Will Ferrell on lead vocals doing his best Van Zandt? Cowbell? Yes, they're all there with the Max Weinberg Band, and a vicious solo by Coco himself. Do not delay. Watch it now.
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