Huggable Pillow Covers

I love finding stuff that makes me stop and consider my own reality. Finding something I consider so niche that it makes the brain go into overdrive imagining the kind of person who can seriously own such an item.

I give you the huggable pillow case:

What it does for $92.99 I'm not sure, but what I do know is that this concept is awesome. Having said that, I could never buy one. Why? There's a part of my brain that just wouldn't allow me to click 'proceed to checkout' even if I had this much disposable cash and added it to my cart on a gin soaked whim.

Any ideas on the kind of people pre-ordering this item are welcome, its a dot.com site these were found on but the magazine (where I think the image came from) and characters are Japanese. I'm happy to see this stuff has a market in the west, I'm just not sure who that market is.

To summarize: awesome yet confusing.

Get yours here! Choose from 3 designs!

Justtherightbullets

Witty article title pending....

I sat on 'iTouch my Shuffle' for about ten minutes before I realised how fuck-awful it was. Being as this feature itself is incredibly soulless, I thought I'd better ponder the title for a bit longer. Whatever it gets called, here is the first of many posts with which I regale you with tales of how wondrous the shuffle function on my MP3 player is and what gems it has pulled up lately. So, In the famous words of Jesse: This week, I have been mainly listening to:



Say what you will about Mr. West. Go on. I do, rather loudly, and on a regular basis. He's an egotistical wanker who seems to think that the constant dropping of the term 'sonic art' and name-checking of Damien Hirst, somehow qualifies him as a 'true' artist. God knows what that even means, but he seems pre-occupied with it. Kanye was and still is, better than your average rapper and whilst I'd love to say that his new foray into synth-pop was a failure, it clearly isn't. The album as a whole is heartfelt and genuine and he manages to retain a fine layer of masculinity throughout, his over-use of the auto-tune making him seem robotic and disconnected from his outpouring of emotion. He's a smart guy and Paranoid is the stand-out track from 808's and Heartbreaks. No proper video, sorry.



What Do I Get? has pretty much always been my favourite Buzzcocks song. I first heard it on the Ghost World soundtrack and have loved it ever since. It's one of many perfect examples of poppy British Punk. They should put this in a time capsule just so they can see what we were capable of. I wish I had found this when I was 14. *sigh*



It's no secret that I love DEVO. The idea, the band, the image. They are the most infinitely interesting band to me. I remember when I discovered that Mark Mothersbaugh did the music for Rugrats. I nearly shit myself when it dawned on me that their unique sound had been with me my entire life, when I heard Devo for real, it was like part of my subconscious was re-awakened. Be Stiff! Well, go on!



What?! Who the fuck are The Coool Kids!? C'mon gramps. You got your finger up your ass and not on the pulse! Sorry. These kids are hipper than the name suggests and awesome with it. The bass makes my skull rattle on early morning bus rides, combined with my nuka-coffee to make the ultimate wake up mix. I'm Mikey.

That's it for now. Sorry for some of the shit videos. But alot of these weren't singles. Just enjoy the music and stay tuned for more coherent future posts with what's sure to be an awesome title. Word.

The Faux Bot

Staying edgy in the 21st century.

If I were a hardcore Sex Pistols fan, this week I would have been raising the barrel to my temple and weeping uncontrollably while watching John Lydon advertising Country Life butter on TV. After carving a reputation as a punk icon I can only imagine how he justified this to himself. Times must be hard.

Justtherightbullets

AWOL no more

Rather than just posting as normal, I thought I'd better make a small announcement regarding my whereabouts over the last 4 weeks. Then I thought about it some more and decided, no, fuck you, mind your own fucking business. All anyone needs to know was that it was a particularly difficult time for me that has left me more bitter and angry than ever at a world that consistently gives me the shit end of the stick. Fuck you world, technically I won this round- I can still walk. Just about. Nooch.

I'm back.

Justtherightbullets

A serving of Post-Punk

New Wave, Post Punk, Art Punk, Darkwave. Call it what you will, but I've always been a sucker for pulsing basslines, danceable rhythms and angular guitars. Much thanks goes to Jon for the tip on the Birthday Party. Without him, I would never have been spurred into posting this. So, if it all sounds shit, not really my fault.

I couldn't make you all a mixtape, so a thorough pillaging of Youtube will have to suffice. Let's begin the proceedings with The Fall and Big New Prinz.



Next up, let's have some of that aforementioned Birthday Party with Release The Bats.



What celebration of post-punk with be complete without some Gang Of Four? Well, a shit one presumably.



A Certain Ratio are sadly underrated band. To be fair though, if you believe Michael Winterbottom's 24 Hour Party People, then they were being stacked up against Joy Division. Hardly fair really. Still, Shack Up.



ESG are the coolest ladies in the world. You can melt that fact and It'll freeze solid again. Why? Because it STOOONE COLLLLDDD! Sorry. They were the first band to make me dance, and my dancing is a gift to the world at large. Thank these fine ladies. Here they are, in 2006, still looking fly, with Moody.



The sound has been updated, modified and downright bastardised several times. Very few get it right, but to finish off, I thought a bit of a wild card was in order. Something more contemporary and one of the few current bands to get it right, !!! (Chk, Chk, Chk) with Heart of Hearts.



The Faux Bot

Arnie Metal

Arnie is a pop culture icon. He is fucking awesome. A good impression of him is always funny. I personally feel that him spawning a Metal sub-genre was simply a matter of time. With no further stalling for time, I present to you Austrian Death Machine with their hit record 'Get to the Choppa!'



The Faux Bot

The on/off genius of Pharrell Williams, Kaws and Family Guy

Take a look at this picture of one-time musical genius Pharrell Williams.

Other than him sporting a very fashionable 'fixed gear' bike, what else do you notice? Is it the fucking awesome custom Family Guy Painting by Kaws? Or is it the tears behind his eyes as he further tries to define himself through his possessions? Probably the painting, right?

Since I've been aware of it, I've always been fascinated by postmodernism, particularly the movement's fascination with recontextualising icons and existing facets of popular culture. In layman's terms; I always felt that all the good ideas had already been done and I admired postmodernism's honesty, admitting to reworking past ideas to try and makes something at least half-new.

Kaws is easily my favourite contemporary artist, for many reasons. He paints with bold block colour, has a Graffiti background and could be considered as the very embodiment of this sort of postmodernism. His trademark crossed eyes have reworked icons as distinctive as The Simpsons and Mickey Mouse, and more recently helped to cement Spongebob Squarepants' rightful place in pop culture history.

The Family Guy painting as modelled by Mr. P has struck a particularlarly negative chord with me though. I refuse to believe that Family Guy and its characters can be considered to be truly iconic, after all, the last 3 series' were utter shit and have no long-standing place in pop culture and more importantly, how can a show that is a collage of The Honeymooners, The Simpsons and The Flintstones be reworked when so few of its elements are its own?

Perhaps Kaws identifies with Family Guy because they both rely on recontextualising the past in order to make something new. Maybe Kaws is commenting upon his own character with this painting, in which case, it is the best thing he has ever done. Fascinating how I have these debates with myself, isn't it? God, someone please talk to me about this. What do you think?

I'd like to believe that Kaws truly understands Family Guy and is using it to reflect upon himself, but I still have the underlying feeling that Pharrell gave him $50,000 just to 'do the Griffins'. Whichever way, I feel better for sounding off. Please excuse the erratic nature of my writing and just enjoy some of Kaws' finer works:



Please note that despite my negative tone, I thought that the last N*E*R*D album was amazing, it's just that the Neptunes' production has gone a little off the boil lately, and Pharrell seems far too concerned with 'owning shit' like most rap wankers. Also, if you're curious, check Wikipedia for the Fixed Gear trend. It escapes me, just know that it is synonymous with New York hipsters.


The Faux Bot