Life In A Bungalo

“Lonely Heart: The Art of Tara McPherson” has been pushed back a couple weeks, but should be in stores and on sale by Sept. 20.

Life In A Bungalo just received an e-mail from the folks at the Daily Show with a look at the Dunny they customized for the upcoming Kid Robot Paintball event. The artists, William Joseph Dunn and Dave Blog, posted a photolog of the customizing process on his Flickr site. Proceeds from the show are going to a Save the Children benefit, and the show will be held on Sept. 7 in New York at a yet-to-be-named location. Dunn and Blog filled us in on what it took to make a custom 20″ Dunny. Read more »

Obey “Supply & Demand” The Art of Shepard Fairey
Ginko Press

One might argue that an artist who is most famous for making stickers is hardly in need of a tome as massive as “Supply & Demand,” but after thumbing through the 330 plus pages in this monster hardcover coffee table edition it’s hard not to notice just how big of an impression Shep Fairey has made to the urban art world. Read more »

New York Dolls at South Street Sea Port, New York, NY—August, 18, 2006

Seeing a band on a giant pier, next to a pirate ship, in the shadow of skyscrapers is a pretty awesome experience. Seeing legendary proto-punks The New York Dolls play their greatest hits on said pier was just surreal.

The band opened with “Just Looking For A Kiss” to the joy of the few hundred aging punkers that surrounded the stage. Original members Syl Sylvian and David Johansen took center stage flanked by hired guns that looked just like the dead bandmates they replaced. The Dolls tore through a good portion of their back catalog, including “Trash” and their cover of Bo Diddley’s “Pills.” Johansen, looking both emaciated and sexy never waivered, sounding just as good as he did back in the day. Sylvian, on the other hand, was a train wreck–missing notes, breaking guitars, and just plain rocking out as best as he could. Luckily, the younger guys backing him more than made up for his mistakes. Read more »

Deadsy
“Phantasmagore”
Immortal

Deadsy–More like dead on arrival. Many years ago, Korn created a label that released strange electronic bands that didn’t really get much notoriety. The only band that had any real success was Orgy, and that was mostly for their cover of New Order’s “Blue Monday.” The other band on the roster was Deadsy, an electro-clash hodgepodge that sounds like a cross between Marilyn Manson and The Faint.

Looks like the band has returned to stake a claim in the agro-rock scene, too bad the scene hasn’t so much as sputtered since System of the Down turned artsy and Limp Bizkit took a dive into the dollar bin. Nearly every song on “Phantasmagore” starts out cool enough. Tons of aggressive guitar work dressing some over processed vocals. But about halfway through every song, the music just starts to get boring–what’s bad is the songs are like three minutes long. The singer also tries way too hard to sound like Orgy’s frontman, which doesn’t really say much for the band creatively.

Salvation is found in their cover of The Stone’s “Paint It Black,” but only a fingerless guitar player could botch that up. Too bad the song cries, “Ooooh, look at us. We’re goth. We are covering the most obvious dark and depressing song ever.” Luckily, band’s like Deadsy are no longer a dime a dozen, so feel free to enjoy this record–Nobody else will have a clue who they are and you’ll seem rather hip.

Doesn’t Rock l Kinda Rocks l Rocks l Really Rocks

Plaseebo Custom is a shop dedicated to creating unique, one of a kind collectable figures and designing original figures for limited soft vinyl production. We pestered lead designer Bob Conge to fill us in on what separates Plaseebo from the rest of the run-of-the-mill customizers. Read more »

Call her the queen of poster pop, call her a lowbrow goddess, call her the female Frank Kozik–To outsider art fans Tara McPherson is a master (or is it mistress) of cartoon imagery and is single handedly making it cool to like sad girls with missing hearts and super-hot space cadets. Life in A Bungalo got the chance to chat with Tara about the resurgence of poster art, her recent dabbling in vinyl toys, and her upcoming book from Dark Horse Comics, “Lonely Heart: The Art of Tara McPherson.” Read more »

GitoGito Hustler
“Love & Roll”
Gearhead Records

They are hot, Japanese, and sound like Puffy Ami Yumi on methamphetamines—In other words, Gito is awesome.

I can’t make out if any of their lyrics are in English, but it’s doubtful. The guitars sound like a buzz saw tearing through sheet metal (picture a female Guitar Wolf, but with way more spunk). The music is vintage Cramps meets the Ramones, but with a surf style groove that licks the balls off most modern punk rawk bands. Read more »