
The Middle East
Don’t be fooled: The Middle East actually hail from Queensland, Australia, where their mini-album, The Recordings Of The Middle East, was originally self released 2008 before the always hip record label Spunk re-issued it with new packaging and a new tracklisting in 2009. Next up for the band are their first shows ever on American soil at this year’s SXSW Music Festival in Austin in March.
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Tagged: acoustic music, Australian bands, Queensland, The Middle East, The Recordings Of The Middle East
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Firekites, from small town Australia (Newcastle to be exact), are my new musical obsession, and have been since early yesterday when their song Autumn Story randomly burst into my headphones and latched itself deep into my inner ear iPod. I wish they’d been around when I last lived in Sydney; it would have been well worth the two hour drive north to see them play. The whole album (The Bowery) is beautiful, but this song especially rings out with poignancy. I love the subtle sound of the fingers sliding across the guitar frets, the gently whispered vocals, which hint at secrets and cheeky serenades, and the sense of soulful introspection that tangles itself elegantly amongst its minor chord tapestry.
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Australian singer-songwriter Ben Lee recently contributed some posts to Lost At E Minor on some of his favourite cultural things and people. We checked in with him to see what sort of head-space he’s been in the time since the release of his latest album, Ripe. Read more
Video for the Regurgitator single: No Show
Our latest video offering is No Show from our album, Superhappyfuntimesfriends. When I found out this old Japanese monster movie was in the public domain, I just had to fuck with it. Even though it’s trimmed down from 90 minutes to three, I don’t think the continuity of the film is that effected. The plot may in fact make more sense to certain people with this particular edit.
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FAIL! Man wears crack jacket to drug trafficking court date
From the ‘what were you thinking’ file comes this news report of a man in Fort Lauderdale accused of drug trafficking who turned up to court for his trial wearing a jacket with a cartoon recipe for cooking crack cocaine. Yes, smart indeed.

New Banksy artwork angers the Catholic Church
Banksy has struck again, this time offending the Catholic Church with a bold artwork that critiques their stance on ongoing child abuse scandals. Banksy has taken a replica of a bust of an eighteenth century member of the Catholic hierarchy and added multi-coloured tiles to the face — pixelating it — as a comment on what he considers to be the Church’s cover-up. ‘I’m never sure who deserves to be put on a pedestal or crushed under one’, Banksy noted. And who are we to disagree? Read more

Tattoo artist sued by ex-girlfriend for obscene design
Oh boy, this is so bizarre it could only be true. Apparently a Dayton, Ohio, tattoo artist has been slapped with a $100,000 lawsuit by his ex-girlfriend for tattooing an image of, erm, excrement with flies on her back rather than the scene from Narnia that she had requested. The reason? He’d recently found out that she had been cheating on him with one of his buddies. Damn! And here we were thinking this was the hot new look for trailer park trash crowd.
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In a very serendipitous moment the other day, I walked into the cafe, Picnic, the latest arrival in my Fort Greene, Brooklyn neighborhood. Not only do they serve some of the best coffee I have ever tasted, but the store is a virtual paean to Brooklyn illustrator Claudia Pearson. I can’t wait to snap up her Tribal Alphabet book. A copy for a friend’s kid and, um, a copy for me. Read more
UK-based designer Daniel J Diggle has some beautifully obsessive illustrative work on his site, with nice photos of the beginning sketches and process. Read more
I ran a series of 80s nights in New York last year — showing cult 80s movies and playing classic cuts from that era of kitsch and spice — purely so I could spin After The Fire’s Der Kommissar over and over. Yessir, this was the future of music in 1983. Pity no one was listening.
Mexican architect Michel Rojkind was asked to design new spaces for the Nestle chocolate factory outside Paseo Tollocan. Read more
Chatroulette is a website that matches random strangers for webcam-based conversations. Our friends over at This Blog Rules have compiled an hilarious collection of Chat Roulette screen-shots capturing ‘some of the funny but awkward’ interactions that the site encourages. Read more
There’s no shortage of bands channeling the surf rock and psych of the 1960s, but the Super Vacations’ sloppy vocals, drunken guitar riffs, and blown out production give them a knowing swagger that has as much in common with Beat Happening and Thee Headcoats as with the Pyramids. They seem to take pride in how bad they are live, but their debut record shows a lot of potential.
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Keep it simple stupid. That’s the idea behind this design. Fashion label Eleventh Commandment wanted to created something that was as far away from the Ed Hardy ‘cram as much shit onto one shirt’ approach as possible. Voila. This singlet is 100 percent premium 150gsm combed cotton and is made in Australia.
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Baltimore Mural by Josh Van Horne
My friend Josh Van Horne, a local Baltimore artist, did this amazing mural in our neighborhood that depicts the history of this warehouse-laden area.

Francoise Nielly’s Yellow series
Parisian visual artist Francoise Nielly brings technicolour to the forefront in her latest series, Yellow. Featuring thick impasto palette knife strokes and trippy neon hues, Nielly captures the vulnerable expressions of her muses to a tee. Read more

Matthew Dear’s Black City album totem
Our friends at Ghostly International are releasing Matthew Dear’s Black City album as a limited edition ‘totem’. A what? A totem – a limited edition metal bar used to access a private music chamber. Cool! Read more

Pitched as ‘Ulterior Motives in Contemporary Art’, Disorder Disorder is running until November 14 at Penrith Regional Gallery. It’ll be well worth the trip out west of Sydney: the Australian, Japanese, American and European cast reads like a warriors of street art roundup and includes Mike Giant, Ed Templeton, Anthony Lister [artwork above], Ozzie Wright, and Jonathan Zawada. Read more

Nerd-attack! Man, this TARDIS zipper robe is so much cooler than any Star Wars crap people are hawking this days. This is for the true gangsta nerd.
In 2008, graphic designer Becky Edgington and illustrator Sarah Beetson created two limited-edition packs of playing cards featuring images from Beetson’s exhibition, 50 Bucks: Bring On The Sluts. The images were selected from almost 500 small artworks created on moleskine paper, inspired by vintage pornography and a trip to Japan. Read more
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