New music Thursday feat. Lissy Trullie

Lissy Trullie is a native of Washington, DC. In high school she and her mother moved to New York. A kid of divorced parents, she spent the mornings sifting through her dad’s large record collection as he schooled her in the ways of Motown, Surf Rock, Folk, Soul, and Classical. In the evening is was her Mother's copy of Tommy that got all of her attention.

Later, she was an art school graduate who dabbled in music, but still hadn't found the confidence to really immerse herself in exploring her own musical talent.

Finally, with the support of friends & anyone who heard her play, she went for it, writing & making her own original tunes.

Her first release was with an indie label out of Brooklyn called American Myth. This label allowed the band to expand & control their own way artistically.

Self-Taught Learner came out February 17, 2009 & Lissy & her band continue to play out & tour all over the US.

Go check her out!

Myspace

Blog

Website

Website Wednesday feat. Coopstuff.com

Do you know who Ed "Big Daddy" Roth is? Do you like motorcycles, tattoos, roller derby, hot rods, pin-up girls, punk subculture, Psychobilly, Rockabilly, Mod Subculture, surf culture, Pop Art, Surrealism, Kustom Kulture, or DIY? I've got an art site for you then. Posters, paintings, books, clothes & more.

If you said "YES!" to any of these, then here is a website for you! http://www.coopstuff.com/Coop

There is an excellent selection of things to buy on this site. From art work to t-shirts, belt buckles to zippos, if you like this style of art, you are sure to find something you want.

Ed "Big Daddy" Roth's art was an influence on me when I was very little. My brother had picked up a "Rat Fink" car model & I was fascinated by the art on the box as well as the model itself. I really loved the bright colors he always used that made the stuff seem to really pop. Coop does the same thing.

Coop is a hot rod artist working from Los Angeles. He was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1968, and describes his occupation as "Insensitive Artiste". His work consists primarily of barely clothed Bettie Page-style 1950s soft pornography and/or B-movie monsters, with the female characters often taking the role of "Devil-Women". The artwork up top is Coop's.

Go check out the site!

Art Tuesday feat. Jasonchanart.com

Happy Tuesday to you. I stumbled across a cool artist I like while browsing around on ConceptArt.org. Jason Chan. His Star Wars art for Wizards of the Coast really caught my eye, but his other stuff is really wonderful. There is an abundance of fantasy based artwork. Beautiful stuff. Go check him out. He has a blogspot blog & a page on ConceptArt.org.

Jason's Blog

Movie Review Monday Feat. Breakin' & Breakin' 2

That's right, this Monday I'm going old school with the movie review. Somehow, all through the 80's, 90's & 00's I managed to never have the privileged to enjoy the films "Breakin'" & "Breakin'2: Electric Boogaloo". Both movies were released in 1984 by Cannon Films. Both films incorporate street dancing & the emergence of rap music. Ice-T appears in both films. I absolutely loved these movies. I'll be honest, it's easy for me to love anything that I feel really captures the feel of the 80's & I really feel like both of these movies did. That feeling that dance or music or art could bring the world together & community centers & love could get people off the streets, set them on the right path, & change the world for the better always reel me in. Definitely feel good movies. The street dancing is really cool to see. I was quite the break dancer myself in 5th & 6th grade. The films are a pretty average 80's formula. Rich dancer girl unhappy with where she is at meets cool urban street dancer. She is pulled into a world of dance she never knew existed, where people feel what they dance & are real, unlike her fake greedy money hungry world. Confused by her feelings & feeling like a bit of an outsider she returns to her fancy dance school where her dance instructor forces himself on her. She pushes him away & runs back to the street dancers. They form a group, TKO, which stands for a combination of their street names, Turbo, Special K, & Ozone.

I want a cool street dancer name.

Anyhoo, the movie then becomes about trying to get the uppity dance companies & show producers to recognize street dance as a legit art form. It is also about looking past stereotypes & what our parents have told us about the "bad" side of town. We are all people with dreams, wants & desires.

Seriously...I absolutely loved this film. If you love Flashdance and/or Xanadu, you will probably LOVE it as well. If you do not like either one of those movies, then I don't recommend Breakin' or Breakin 2 to you. You just aren't the kind to sit back & enjoy a fun movie. I guarantee, you will not be able to sit still. Before you get to the end of the film you will find yourself getting up off the couch & breakin' yourself.



The second film was just as good & went with the community center threatened by rich white people who don't get it plot. For as cheesy as it is, funny how this plot is still true & happening all the time. I've always wanted to save a place by dancing & getting the whole neighborhood to dance the bulldozers away. It would be so cool to pull off in real life.

So, if this summer, you find yourself bored & in the mood for some cool 80's dance & feel good vibes, don't hesitate to pick these two films up. I bought them for about $6.00 a piece at my local retailer.

Action Figure Friday feat. Universal Monsters

New from Diamond Select, Old school Universal monster figures. These figures stand 8-inches tall with over 14 points of articulation and cool full cloth outfits. They very much resemble the old MEGO figures of the 70's & 80's. Very cool.

The first set of figures in the series include the lumbering Frankenstein Monster and the ravenous Wolfman!

You can Pre-order them from Entertainment Earth right now, or you can wait & see if your local comic shop or retailer can order them for you.

music Thursday Feat. Lena

Lena Potapova is from Russia. If you know me, you know I love Russia & Russians. I don't know why, other than Russia is so very old & lots of crazy & cool things have gone on there & the people are survivors. They don't seem spoiled or lazy. Now, to be honest, I've never been there. I have no idea how it really is. All I have to go on is the few Russians I've met & stories from my friends that have experienced Russia.

Lena is the perfect example of a survivor. She has been beat up, charged as a Russian spy & locked up, managed a restaurant in Tibet, almost been sold into a brothel in China, and finally managed to make it to the good old USA. You'd think things would get better, right? Nope. The USA just treated her the same way as the rest of the world. She has been stigmatized for being an immigrant, abused & even raped. All of this has not stopped her.

She writes & sings music, blogs, and has a column with Shankbone. She is very opinionated about sex & has a very unique perspective. Go check all of it out. I really like some of her stuff.

I think for me, she's one of those people that I look at & think, wow! she is living her dream despite everything that has happened to her. I really have no excuses.

Website Wednesday

IRIS. It's a cool little earthquake tracker. It shows you were things are shaking up & when. I look at it daily. I tell ya, Chili has yet to stop shaking. They have had close to a 5 or bigger every day since the big one. Why wasn't Chili as big a deal as Haiti? Where is all the American aid? Curious.

IRIS

Art Tuesday

Here's something I am working on. I drew a whole slew of weird aliens one night after watching a thing on concept art for character development. I wondered if I could come up with some cool looking aliens. I just started sketching and this is one that I created. It was just a pencil sketch, but i scanned it in & have been playing around in CS3 with it. So far I like it. I really want to get some texture going on the skin though.

I think I'll name him Ceros of the race Metapenas.

Movie Review Monday

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Terry Gilliam. Terry Gilliam is one of those people that I absolutely love, but think should not write screenplays. His imagination is amazing. The ideas & visuals he comes up with fantastic! His plots & stories are thin & sporadic. I can't say I didn't like this movie. I can say I wasn't satisfied with it. There were so many directions & plot lines to follow. What I wanted to see never manifested itself. All the actors were great & again, the visuals were awesome, even inspirational to a painter like myself, but overall, I once again had to question why Gilliam never seems to really dig deeper & follow through. Sure it had a main plot, but just like in his previous films, sometimes the main plot isn't the most interesting plot. It's not the one, as the viewer, you really want to explore. If you like Gilliam, then you'll like this movie. If you don't, then skip it. If you aren't big on plot & don't mind plot holes & multiple plots all running at the same time, have at it. I really think this could be a fanfic writers dream. There are so many things you could take & run with in this story. I'd give it a C. Not wonderful, not terrible, visually pretty, & inspiring story ideas.

What a great weekend!

Wow. I feel like I had a weekend. A REAL weekend. T & I had been so busy that the house looked like a hoarder's house. There were piles of laundry in various places, dishes piled to the ceiling & trash on the kitchen counters, so Saturday we woke up,, went & hunted down our FREE comics on FREE comic day, went to Tarahumara's for lunch, shared a Pina Colada with our meal, headed home, put on some tunes, dug in & started cleaning. Good thing, too. Later on in the day our friends called with a brilliant idea. To come hang out at our place! Hooray! We hung out on the patio, had some drinks, talked about life & lit the fire pit. It was a beautiful evening & night.

Sunday found us sleeping in until 1:30ish. Even Leela slept in. As soon as we were up & around it was off to Hideaway for some delicious pizza. Once our bellies were again stuffed, we came home & walked the dog for over an hour. She's such a good little dog. She was quite happy. It was then time for a supply run. Off to Target we went. I found a clearance hammock to replace my old torn up one! Score!

We did manage to miss getting Leela's food at Petsmart. They were closed by the time we got there at 6:04pm. I always forget they close so early. So she had to try some Newman's Organic Beef. OMG it smelled horrific, the texture was gross (think hot dog before it is shaped into a hot dog), but she ate it up.

T decided she loved the vanilla pudding we made (not-instant) that she wanted to make chocolate & butterscotch this time & make them into pies with organic home-made whipped cream on top. Well, who am I to argue with that?

Sunday came to an end the same way we always end Sundays, piled on the couch watching British comedies on PBS.

A wonderful happy weekend.

I hope everyone has a great week this week! Oh, and remember, May 4th is Star Wars day. May the 4TH be with you!