#ur art is so perfect for the nostalgia feel

[junk-whunk-punk]

Just want to tell you that I'm obsessed with your blog. Your passion for Talion and Celebrimbor is ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️🥺 I treasure Talion. He could easily be a canonical Tolkien hero imo. And I like badass Celebrimbor better than cinnamon roll Celebrimbor haha Their dynamic in SoM is perfect and you always draw them so pretty!! Your blog brings me happiness and a feeling of nostalgia. It's like reliving the emotions when I first played the game. I love you for that.

eegehegehege texts like that are de reason im keeping my thing🥹 so hella inspiring and encouraging and heartwarming and and ANDDDD ohmingott thanqu so nachos😭❤️‍🩹💕💕💕

GRAH RAH rahhhh yes YEMSHHHHHH Talion is an ULTIMATE PUPPY the UNLIMATEST PUPPIEST THING EVER dude he's a character worthy of his own Tolkien draft storybook (but he got two games instead. fair? pretty much yes) and i'm so grateful for Monolith for creating such a babyman🥺 call be weirdo as much as u want but he's the🐕‍🦺good boy🐕‍🦺 of this whole world. as i said,

This world didn't deserve Talion but Talion deserves the whole world

and i mean it☝ and about Brimber: fuckyeah he's a grumpy sassy cat-coded person, wiggling his ass while doing his 🙄💅 thing. it doesn't matter if u hc him a cinnamon roll or a bastard, but in som/sow universe he will always be that cat stuff. pfft dude i'm so into them i can't stop making hcs about them🤭

RAAAH IM SO HAPPY U LIKE MY FILTHINGS!!!! IT INSPIRES ME ASF!!!!! making people feel good things and letting them remember their best times and return there again and again is my main duty here😌 and me happy i can do it right😚 enjoy my blog as much as u want and feel free to say or do anything here💋✨

(btw i must say... ur art is yummy and i'd smear ur pics over bread and eat this delicious thing every morning OKAY IM RUNNING AWAY)

[justafellr]

Let's talk about our lovey dovey lil romantic, Amore

Amore was an interesting emotion to work on. While I don't think Love is a traditional emotion since it's so complex of a topic that it transcends the very concept of emotion at times and making a character representing all of Love would be hell to write, I feel a Love like emotion would be a very neat addition, but representing a very specific kind of love, that sense of liking towards something/someone, the lovey dovey, affectionate and butterflies in ur stomach kind of feeling. Amore is an Italian term that means a specific kind of love, that of affection, passion and appreciation. It can be towards a person, a thing, an animal (like ur pet) but it can also have a romantic aspect to it if used towards a lover. Amore is very affectionate, tender and a romantic. They adore everyone and everything and is never shy to express their adoration, worship and appreciation towards the things and people they love, representing my extremely an inhumanly loving and affectionate aspect of myself. They have aspects of sensuality in their behavior but is very subtle about it and never truly acts on it. They always compliment and glaze the others, wanting them to feel appreciated and love. They love everyone equally, but give Envy the most attention since they know how dissatisfied with themselves they are and wants them to feel appreciated, and has a pretty close bond with emotions like Shame, Joy, Sadness and Nostalgia. They like to tease Embarrassment since they find their shyness and bashfulness adorable Amore is very much inspired by the concept art of Love, very bean like in shape and has a lot of warm colors. Tho I was struggling of what colors I should go for them. I didn't want to go for pink since that would be too similar to Embarrassment, and the magenta and orange felt a little to clashing imo. But I eventually settled on various oranges, salmons and peaches. Felt it really encapsulates that warm, tender feeling that they are meant to represent. Their look is very much inspired by renaissance paintings, specifically that of the Greek variety. All of their works usually consists of that of warm and soft colors and possessed minimal clothing that usually consists of a cloth that I felt was perfect for the kind of design I was shooting for ///WARNING/// NUDITY

[dykeyote]

i think sometimes abt my old passions and ive realized i look back on junoverse penumbra more fondly as a work of fiction despite its flaws than i do other scripted fiction podcasts, despite me objectively thinking other examples are better written? and ive been trying to think abt why and i think its just because it had such a distinct Thing it was going for, yknow? it wanted to be a queer sci-fi detective story that riffs on the genre and has ideas about how space society wld work that the writers clearly were excited abt more than it wanted to be a Queer Fiction Podcast and when the latter has grown to have such a distinct Feel and Vibe that makes it endlessly tropey like idk i just respect having a specific vision thats not what Queer Kids On Tumblr like . when i step back from my fandomy nostalgia the era of it i look back on the most fondly in an artistic sense is By Far the second season and i think a large part of that feeling is because the love interest Isnt Fucking There!! its a being fucked up after ur breakup story!! so it doesnt have to be an emotionally frought gay romance story like every other goddamn ficpod but instead tell a distinctly Scifi Detective Story that has some genuinely cool themes and ideas . which then makes the romance shit More Interesting like the weirdly erotic trauma dream scene is by far the moment of the main romance i remember most often despite the fact that one of the members isnt even there bc its Doing Something Weird And Unique And Interesting that isnt just what ficpods Do . obviously this is largely because early junoverse was coming out before a lot of those trends were so solidified by tma's boom in popularity, and id definitely not say its this insanely perfect work of art and on a technical level other pods r most certainly better written that show has got some Jank, im just sort of musing on my nostalgic emotions abt it and why whenever i look back at the podcasts i used to obsess over i consistently look at penumbra as being by far the most interesting as a piece of media

[bobabee-sships]

Hii Beee!!! Idk if ur still doing these so if you aren’t pls don’t worry abt this one but

🌙

Hope ur doing well!!! <333

EZRA!!!!!! :D

MY SCIENCE BUDDYYYYY u are literally SOOOO nice and genuinely someone I wish I knew IRL, I feel like you'd be an excellent study buddy or someone I could complain to in a class I hate hahaaa but also you are So talented. I adore your traditional art and color techniques, like I wish I knew how to use alcohol markers half as well as you do

My favorite ship of yours is definitely w Data. Data has always been sorta like. Comfort character adjacent? My dad is a huge fan of Star Trek and Next Gen is his favorite so any characters from that and DS9 instantly strike such a soft and fuzzy feeling of nostalgia. You two are perfect for each other and it makes me so happy to see y'all!! I love the idea of them meeting bc your self insert is a veterinarian, and I mean Spot's gotta be taken care of somehow haha!

@selfindulgentfandomstuff

[smollstuff-art]

hi there, thanks for stopping by! ❣ u can use the tags on this post for quick navigation! or read on for my full about, tag info, and other social links! ^.^

TUMBLR ARTISTS!! if u would like me to tag my reblogs of ur art in a specific way PLEASE let me know via ask or dm! ♡

[last updated 3/25/25]

about me:

u can call me smoll! :3 i'm nearly 30, i go by they/them, and i have a wonderful spouse, a darling boyfriend, & a couple sweet pets you'll hear about from time to time. i'm very openly queer (bi & genderfluid) along with being very open about my disability & living with chronic mental illness. tbh i'm open about p much everything else as well, so if u ever have any questions about me feel free to drop me an ask! if it's smth i don't wanna answer i'll just say so. :)

some of my fav things include stuffies, heart-shaped things, Godzilla (& other kaiju), Sanrio (esp Hello Kitty & Friends!), stuffies, wrasslin, Sailor Moon, The Elder Scrolls, the color pink, Y2K-era nostalgia, my precious lil family, Minecraft, Peppa Pig, stuffies, Dragon Ball, my local parks & libraries, thrift stores, Star Wars, art galleries, shoujo anime, and of couse, stuffies. ♡

about my art:

my art style is pretty straightforward for the most part. i enjoy making cute, simplistic drawings of bright, fun subjects, or using that style of images to create collages with more serious undertones. i also like to experiment a bit with more abstract, sometimes "geometrical" style ideas. i don't have a very strong spatial mind, so all my work falls far away from realism. i've used this to my advantage, working to make more basic shapes, lines, & colors into expressive doodles and even some more complex drawings.

leaning into my love for 2000's nostalgia has led me to crafting a lot of the stuff u would bring home from summer camp! :) i really enjoy these types of projects, mostly bc i'm someone who enjoys a nice repetitive task, but also bc i love the idea of sharing something bright and cutesy with someone that i made myself. any time a craft (or drawing!) of mine makes someone smile, it's more than worth the effort to me! ^.^

I wrote a lot of poetry as a kid/teen but writing new stuff is a rarity for me atm. I'm hoping to get back into writing more regularly again, but it might take some time.

about my blog:

i originally intended for this blog to showcase all my finished projects, works-in-progress, my thoughts on certain things as i work on them, and plans for running a shop in the future. however, i've realized this is also the perfect spot to gather all the different types of arts & crafts that i love to look at, or that otherwise resonate with me. my art interests vary wildly from what i make myself a lot of the time.

along with work from other artists and curated art from other bloggers here on tumblr, my blog will have a lot of "aesthetic" posts, including posts i make myself (typically png moodboards or palettes pulled from photos.) i'm currently working on a very thorough tag list masterpost which u can find here. since it's still being written and i'm still recategorizing older posts, there are currently no working links! if u want to see posts under a specific tag you will have to search it manually.

i don't have a super specific dni, just know i block bigots & porn blogs on sight. i don't plan to post or share anything "inappropriate" so i don't mind minors following. however, i may wander into more adult discussions or subject matter at any point, so i ask minors to filter the tag "#minors dni" please & thanks! :)

tags for my posts:

op - all of my original posts in one spot!

diary - personal/simple text posts

smollstuff - all completed works (including aesthetic posts)

arts - all my visual art posts, including wips & practice works

crafts - all my crafts, same as above

writings - all my writing, same as above

aesthetics - all my moodboards, palettes, and similar posts

pix -standalone pics, typically for personal or aesthetic posts

asks - my askbox is always open! ^.^

anons - anonymous asks are always on! <3

selfrb - reblogging from myself, feel free to filter this if u don't want to see my original posts over n over!

other socials:

Ko-Fi & BlueSky are currently the only other social media platforms i use. i may make a TikTok in the future, but i wil not be making Instagram or Twitter profiles.

[sneezefiction]

meet the family

Tsukishima x Reader - Scenario

request: “hii gracie🥺 i've kinda been obsessed with ur stuff recently and just wanted to a scenario with tsuki having a s/o (fem reader but idrc honestly) who has really protective brothers and has to like try and "earn" their respect idkkk but yea im totaallyyy not requesting this cause i have really protective brothers.... :/ anyways again i love ir stuff hope u have a good day:) -🕊”

a/n: ahhh i enjoyed writing this so much !! it really helped me tap into Tsukki’s personality a bit more. thank you so much for the request <3

warnings: anxiety, low self-esteem

wc: 1050

---

“They’re gonna hate me.” 

“No, they won’t.”

“They’ll think I’m lame.” He counters.

“But you’re not.” 

“How long do we have to stay for?”

“It’s just dinner, Tsukki, you’ll be fine.” Your reassuring voice helping calm his nerves, even if just by a little bit.

The questions and statements are scattered throughout the length of the car ride. Tsukki’s fingers lightly drumming on his thigh. Trickling down the window, the tapping of gentle raindrops doing their best to soothe the passengers inside. You delicately place your free hand onto his, the other carefully gripped around the steering wheel.

You glance over.

He cleaned up so nicely for tonight, knowing how important it was for him to meet your family. You helped him pick up a pair of skinny, dark jeans and a dressier top. The colors in the shirt made his beautiful, honey-brown eyes pop. 

And you love those eyes… but right now they’re anxious.

It took many months of dating and several brutally honest, late-night conversations, but you eventually learned just how severely Tsukki struggles with self-confidence.

Your heart sinks, knowing the internal dialogue going on inside him. The one that’s at war with his more logical side. Tsukishima has learned how to stand up against the darker demons, but that doesn’t mean he’s not ferociously battling to find his worth.

However, tonight is especially rough because there’s one tiny detail he can’t seem to get over.

Your brothers.

From how you described them, he was pretty sure they’d want nothing to do with him. That he’d be regarded as a piece of trash, in need of throwing out. 

Because Tsukishima isn’t exactly a sweet guy.

He’s also not fazed by others disliking him. He already dislikes himself enough as it is. So confidence doesn’t affect how he lives his day to day life… but it definitely affects how close he is willing to get to a person. 

In all honesty, Tsukki showcases his worst traits so that only those who really want to be near him, will stick around in the end.

But somehow, even with his rudest comments and his standoffish demeanor, you gravitated toward him. You made it clear that this wasn’t a short term interest. You aren’t some shooting star, acting as a wish giver, getting his hopes up only to sail right past him.

He doesn’t deserve you.

He’s sure your brothers will realize this and make it known to you.

But, for now, you actually want him.

And you make him feel wanted.

So here he is, one year into the relationship, mentally preparing for his demise. All for you.

You pull up in the bumpy, gravel driveway, your palm still warming up the top of his hand. Car doors click open and shoes crunch around on the pebbly ground.

You make your way up the steps of your old, familiar home, a heavy wave of nostalgia washing over you.

Tsukki follows right up, meeting you at your side and gently grasps a couple of your fingers. It’s his way of saying, “I’ll be okay.” You let out a breath you hadn’t even realized you’d been holding in.

A couple knocks on the door and you’re welcomed swiftly by warm, enthusiastic faces. Your two brothers bring you into a group hug of sorts as you reconnect for the first time many months. 

Their gazes then wander over to Tsukishima, eyes looking up and down, sizing him up, identifying their sister’s first longterm boyfriend.

Tsukki holds his stoic face for a moment and then lets a friendly smile shine through. He has perfected the art of squashing his nerves in front of normal human eyes. Only you can tell he’s grappling with his mind in this moment.

“Boys, meet Tsukishima. Tsukishima these are my brothers!” You introduce calmly, signaling your brothers to greet him with the same energy they gave you.

“Hey, Tsukishima, how goes it?” One of the two speaks up.

“Nice to meet you both. It’s going fine, the drive was really pleasant.” Tsukki responds cordially.

“Oh, I’m sure it was. Both of you come on inside.” The other replies, leading you indoors.

You make yourself at home, kicking off shoes and hanging up your jacket.

You turn around only to realize that your boyfriend is suddenly missing along with the other two boys.

Poor fella, I hope they don’t do anything strange, you hope to yourself.

---

Ah, of course. Confrontation, my favorite, Tsukki mentally remarks. Apparently, even under stress, he still manages to drip in sarcasm.

Your brothers have quietly pulled him aside in the short time you took your eyes off him.

Oh, what he would give to be back at home, lying down and listening to music with your arms wrapped around him.

But the thought is short-lived. He’s eye to eye with your family and needs to take whatever shit he needs to take to get through tonight. 

“Look,” The taller one of your brothers starts, “clearly y/n likes you a lot.”

Not exactly the most intimidating way to start an interrogation, Tsukki muses.

“And we want her to be happy…” continues the other.

Tsukki nods slowly, waiting for the “but.”

“So are you willing to do that for us?” They finish, one of them setting a firm, trusting hand on his shoulder.

“Because we want to like you, but first we have to like how you treat our y/n.”

Tsukishima’s eyes widen only by a fraction, but he’s sincerely confused. He was expecting something… tougher? Scarier? Hell, he’d anticipated being roughed up at least a little bit.

But it was nothing like what he’d imagined. It was short and to the point. They just needed to know that he would be there for you, since they can’t always be by your side, fending of your enemies and fears.

Their question isn’t a difficult one to answer.

He wants what’s best for you because he loves you. He would do anything to make sure you were secure and cherished.

The words come easily to Tsukishima’s lips.

“...Yes. You can trust me with y/n.” Tsukki nods thoughtfully. 

“I won’t ever hurt her or let anyone touch her.” He promises them. It’s simple, but honest.

He was overthinking it the entire time. Your brothers didn’t want him out of your life… they just wanted you protected. Safe and cared for. Treated with respect and integrity.

They don’t hate him.

They don’t think he’s lame.

But it’s definitely not “just dinner.”

No, this is just the beginning of Tsukishima’s proving himself to you. Proving himself to your family, that he can love you well.

That he can defend you.

Fight for you.

So he reconvenes with you for dinner with a newfound conviction, thanks to your brothers.

He now knows he has to be confident. Confident in himself and in his choices.

If not for him, at least for you.

[coolmarriagerecords]

Johan Kugelberg's Top 100 DIY Singles

From Ugly Things via http://www.hyped2death.com/Kugelberg100.html

1. The Desperate Bicycles -The Medium Was Tedium (Refill Records, 1977 UK) The Desperate Bicycles are the yardstick for this obscurist sub genre. No one did it as easy or as cheap as them. Of the slew of unfathomable brilliant pop 45's, The Medium Was Tedium is the apex: The enthusiasm, anger and joy de vivre that oozes from the tracks contained within has me reaching for Village Green-Kinks and first album Cramps to describe the passion. For drunken, leftist dorm-room intellectuals to describe the faith and for Dez/Chavo-era Black Flag to describe the power ? notwithstanding that the recordings themselves are of 4-track bedroom shut-in lo-fi jangle. Too bad the band don't want the material re-released but a good thing indeed that the records barely rate at all in the collector scum price guide pantheon.

2. Beyond The Implode -Last Thoughts EP (Diverse Records UK 1979) Barrett/early-Floyd psych as good (or better) than any Soft Boys, obscurist strum & drang way more passionate than any Flying Nun band I've heard and Inflammable vocals of the purest Oxbridge confusion. The Spacemen 3 never did anything to match this record. [Messthetics #6]

3. V/A -Weird Noise EP (Fuck Off Records UK 1980) The legend doesn't start here, but at least this isn't a cassette-only release in an edition of 50 copies or so like the majority of the Fuck Off Records oeuvre. This lines up the finest advocates of tuneless bashing within the UK late 70's underground: The 012, Danny and the Dressmakers, the Instant Automatons, The Door and the Window and finally the Sell Outs who seem to be Danny and the Dressmakers under a different moniker. The cut "Please Don't Make Another Bass Guitar Mr. Rickenbacker" showcases one of the odder qualities popular music can have: The ability to disorientate the listener. "Simply the very best in bad music" indeed! [Danny...Messthetics Greatest Hits]

4. Desperate Bicycles ? New Cross, New Cross (Refill Records, UK 1978) The godlike power of "I Make The Product" or "Advice On Arrest" (two of the songs on this six song EP) deliver a little salvation of sorts ? the Desperate Bicycles make you believe, make you feel a sense of belonging. Music does that when it is this good. 5.Slugfuckers ? Three Feet Behind Glass EP (No label Australia 1979) Invoke the god Nyarlathotep they do, cover Manson-songs w/o ever having heard him they do, shmear on the middle class art school elitism thick they do. This is an extreme record; noisier and more abrasive than most first generation industrial stuff, a hell of a lot more punk than, say, the Lewd and intelligent in a scary, vicious bullying kind of way. A blazing, hard record at the same time as everything is slightly out of tune, kind of inept and sorta shoddy sounding.

6. Popes -Knup In Your Eye (Vatican Records. UK 1980) This appeared on the worldwide punk list a few issues ago, and educated guesses can be made for this appearing on any other lists I might do in the future. Not only is the record the cats pajamas as far as relentless art school mirth goes (Derek & Clive go through puberty, again!) but the throb and spark of the band makes for repeated play. And then we have to tag on the swollen nostalgia of my friend buying the only copy at the Rough trade shop in 1980 leaving me with none until Bill Forsyth digs one up for me in his back room, oh yeah, and one for Geoffrey too.

7. The Flak -EP (Northern Records UK 1980 (?)) Starts with a depressed "why am I here" poem and moves straight along into "Knocking on Heaven's Door" done dorm-angst-diy-style. This is followed by what sounds like the band attempting a Joy Division-style song the first time they pick up musical instruments. Completely inept, utterly charming and brilliant indeed. Top shelf genre defining DIY.

8. Fatal Microbes -Beautiful Pictures (Small Wonder, UK 1979) Certainly the best record with Honey Bane on it. Charming, relentless punk-crazed homemade guitar crunch. The window of opportunity of the UK underground musicscene in the late 70's is clearly demonstrated here: I doubt the Fatal Microbes stupendous teen energy could have been nurtured in the world of merchandising deals and first-look demo A&R we live in today.

9. The Silver -Do You Wanna Dance (Black Label Finland 1980) The Silver -No More Grease (Black Label Finland 1979) A riddle wrapped inside an enigma etc. The band appears to be around 12 ? 13 years old. They hail from Finland where the trail grew cold a long long time ago. Maybe upon the release of the record. Pussy Galore without post-modern baggage. "Love Theme from the Snails" as performed by SPK. 12 year olds virtually destroying a recording studio captured on tape, not once but four times.

10. Instant Automatons -Peter Paints His Fence EP (Deleted Records UK 1980) More Fuck Off/Street Level-related sublime nonsense. The battle call is the track "People Laugh At Me Cuz I Like Weird Music" which states: "I was at a pub the other night, when a bunch of mods came in, they eyed me up, then they asked me: Hey man what's your scene? Are you a hippie a mod or a punk? Got a scooter or a motorbike? I can't understand why they burst out laughing when I told them the music I like, because: People Laugh At Me Cuz I Like Weird Music People just don't understand Why pay six pounds for an album when you can, listen to a weird noise band for free I had a girlfriend named Josephine, she liked Abba and the Bee Gees. She thought music was about lawyers and accountants, percentages and legal fees. Just the other night we stayed up late, playing records til half past ten, then I played the Danny and the Dressmakers tape and I never saw Josephine again, because: People Laugh At Me Cuz I Like Weird Music People just don't understand Why pay six pounds for an album when you can, listen to a weird noise band for free" The gospel, folks. From God's mouth to your ear via the Instant Automatons. [Instant Automatons 'Another Wasted Sunday Afternon' CD]

11. Sir Alick and the Phraser -In Search of the Perfect Baby (Black Noise UK 1980) As Chuck Warner put it: They wrote beautiful pop songs then destroyed them. More Homosexuals pseudonymous mystique. The intelligent reader who followed our previous musings on this band and their universe know how much we love them and how much they perpetually pull our collective leg. No straight-ahead answers in this lifetime which is fine ? fine as far as record collecting is concerned, fine as far as lifemanship is concerned.[The Homosexuals -Astral Glamour 3CD]

12. The Four Plugs -Biking Girl (Disposable Records UK 1979) The subtle charm of marginal culture: Truly marginal culture where 1000 singles were pressed more than 22 years ago. How many got lost? How many are never being played? How many are stored in a box in the attic? How many are being played repeatedly on turntables that cost ten times as much as the recording and pressing of this given 45? "She used to be my biking partner ? she used to be my biking girl. We used to go for rides in the country side". A true punk rock/diy statement issued by the Damaged Goods people, who knew their Chesterton and Thomas Browne.

13. The Evening Outs -Channel (Refill Records UK 1980) Super-fierce skronk from a pissed-off pseudonymous Desperate Bicycles. Puts that no wave stuff to shame, really.

14. Puritan Guitars -100 Pounds in 15 Minutes (Riverside Records UK 1980) How much it cost to make the record and how long it took. Genius sturm und sturm und sturm und drang clank from a seriously inspired one chord wonder.[Messthetics Greatest Hits and Messthetics #104]

15. The Flying Brix -EP (Modello Records UK 1980) So subtle it can barely be heard: A band consisting of Wally's and Erberts, with the odd dead-end yob or two. This record could've been released by Illegal, Fuck Off or fit in on Carry On Oi. It could also have been performed on an episode of Noddy or by Flanagan & Allen. Ur-English music, this.[Messthetics #104]

16. Shrinking Men/Beevers -Hazards in the Home EP (Pop Records UK 1981) The Beevers present a Guthrie-esque talking blues here, except that it isn't a blues, but a charming DIY-shuffle, and that Woody Guthrie as far as I know never sang about the plight and blight of the office boy. The Shrinking Men in turn showcase an angry, loutish anti-army rant that Phil Ochs would've been pretty proud of I think. And there you have it: The folk music connection rears its uncombed head. [Beevers -Messthetics #6]

17. Handgrenades -Demo To London (Phonographics (?) USA 1980 (?)) Coulda fooled me ? Excellent primitive punk/chug/diy from Noo Yak City! Who woulda thunk? Somewhere between "Pink Flag" and Fuck Off Records.

18. Homosexuals -You Are Not Moving The Way You Are Supposed To (Black Noise UK 1980 (?)) An untouchable band, and the lack of a retrospective isn't much of a crime in this house (I have lots of their records snicker snicker snicker) but in other people's houses it sure is. As if Gang of Four would've been any good, as if Wire would've immersed themselves in dub, as if indeed. Parallel universe chart toppers indeed. We all know that there is at least one world out there in the ultra-cosmos where the proverbial kids are kicking these jams daily. A truly inspired and inspiring record..[The Homosexuals -Astral Glamour 3CD]

19. Cindy and the Barbi Dolls -Press The Shutter EP (A Not Major Production UK 1980) Dorm angst at its very best. Dark, brooding overtly romantic without gothing it up, these jams have the same lurking power as the pre-Joy Division Warsaw EP or the spookier first line up Soft Boys tracks. A possible sister band to Beyond the Implode in the sense that they play a curiously British form of psychedelic music in the midst of the DIY lack of musical chops. This Cornwall band were seemingly very hip to musical peers, thanking the Desperate Bicycles, the Mekons and Ralph and the Ponytails on the sleeve. There are musical (and one lyrical) nod to the Kinks "Village Green Preservation Society" as well. A very good thing. [Messthetics #7]

20. Versatile Newts -Newtrition (Shanghai Records UK 1980) If this record hadn't existed we would've had to invent it: The marriage/blend of the Swell Maps, This Heat and the TV Personalities. In equal chunks with no lumps. Gadzooks! [Messthetics #103]

21. Pink Dirt -Hey Sir (No label Norway 1979) As far as inept, crazed joi de vivre goes ? Here's the acme. I've written this one up before and will do it again. While this is obviously a straight-ahead angry punk rock band, the abandon and enthusiasm of this record could raise the dead. An angry rant against organized religion ("I have this to say tonight ? never, never get involved with christianity!") howled in a barely English Johnny Rotten-imitation by some Norwegian genius backed by shitrock more primitive than the first Endless Boogie rehearsal. There is no sleeve, no labels, just the legend "Pink Dirt Hey Sir/Hooker" scrawled in magic marker. Who were these gods and why did they walk among us? Please email me if you know anything about the people behind this stunning art experience.

22. Scrotum Poles -Revelation EP (One Tone Records Scotland 1980) Helicopter Honeymoon is going to be played at least three record collector funerals I know of, not including mine. The mighty, mighty Scrotum Poles, proudly proclaiming "DIY! We love the TV Personalities" on the shoddy, xeroxed sleeve. Their website (http://home.switchboard.com/hornstreet) is highly recommended, though we're hesitant to vouch for its complete veracity. Here's how they tell it: "'Pick the Cats Eyes Out' featured lyrics found on the back of a set list by one of the first Dundee punk bands, Bread Poultice and the Running Sores..." [Somebody please send us a demo tape!] "Helicopter Honeymoon," meanwhile, came from a headline "in the Sunday Post." What we should add for American fans is that "cats eyes" are what Brits (and Scots) call those little orange reflectors embedded in highway pavement: "Cats Eyes Out Ahead" used to be a common roadside sign. [Messthetics Greatest Hits and Messthetics #105]

23. File Under Pop -Corrugate (Rough Trade UK 1979 (?)) Godlike DIY power. Primitive grunting, out of tune skeletal instrumentation and noises recorded at Heathrow. I know a guy with an extra copy who'll swap it for Butchy Butch and the Butch Butchers.

24. Nancy Sesay and the Melodaires -C'est Fab (It's War Boys UK 1981 (?)) Un-musical, un-punk and possibly unpleasant music hall-esque skronk/DIY by the godlike Homosexuals using one of their myriad of pseudonyms. And whence you can't imagine the doofus art wank getting any more unlistenable, they spin on a dime and throw in a beautiful chorus sitting on top of a backwardsy funky drummer beat. I am, as per usual, in awe. Shall I hook some enterprising young bootlegger up with a CDR of all their stuff?

25. Performing Ferret Band -Brow-Beaten (Dead Hippy Records UK 1981) Deeply moving primitive musical fumble from this rare 45 by the masters behind the in my mind most seminal LP to come out of DIY. The eponymous Performing Ferret Band LP, which features jaw-droppers such as "Plastic Macho Man", "Fizzly Drinks" or "Great Duos Of Our Time". Fantastic over-enthusiastic juvenilia of an almost supernatural beauty. The Performing Ferrets - no one told us CD (Messthetics #216)

26. Different Eyes/Royston - Shish EP (Tuzmadoner Records UK 1979) One of the two masterpieces released on the Tuzmadoner label (the other being a 12" comp entitled, uh, "folk music" bringing up more parallels to skiffle that we should probably choose to ignore). Royston are like Flanagan & Allen fronting the world's greatest shit rock band. Different Eyes sound more lethargic than anyone else I've heard I think, and I used to work for Pavement's label. Simon Gilham from either Royston or the 'Eyes later played in Colin Newman's solo band. [Royston -Messthetics Greatest Hits and #1; Different I's -Messthetics #101 (plus their even better track from Folk Music)]

27. Homosexuals -Hearts In Exile (Black Noise UK 1978) Words fail me. As far as beauty goes, this is like Mozart or Shirley Collins. Probably their greatest moment. Somewhere along the lines of Brill Building and traditional UK folk and the Upsetters and ESP Records all at once in perfect harmony. A milestone, I think, and a record that I'd place in a timecapsule of 20th century folk art.[The Homosexuals -Astral Glamour 3CD]

28. Andrew Klimek -Felt Hammer (Mustard Records USA 1979) The guitar break alone sends this one soaring over the sky scrapers. Has that patented and most beautiful basement 4-track sound down pat even though I get more and more convinced that all those legendary Cleveland bands all were record collector rock of the umpteenth degree. Extraordinarily self-aware, sly and with meticulously thought out records, this one being no exception. The pompous liner notes on the sleeve of the 45 proves me right. You got to be some kind of Apples in Stereo-type shmuck to brag on a record sleeve that you put the bass guitar through a ring modulator.

29. Mekons -Never Been In A Riot (Fast Records UK 1978) Way before they became icky hippy-punk icons for aging counter culture types across the world they released a couple of singles of gorgeous nihilist slop. This is the first, and the funniest and the noisiest.

30. Jelly Babies -De Nada EP (No label name UK 1981) Simply heaven. A clumsy speed-chug with lyrics about a day of roller-skating and lovely pre-pubescent boozy backing vocals. Genius. Extra-tinny sound, extra passionate execution. I've quoted this portion of the notes on the (shoddy xerox, natch) sleeve: "Recorded at Dirt Cheap Studios, the best studios in the whole wide world by Grant Showbiz, the most silly person in the whole wide world, who steals your food and has a nice red guitar with a super tremelo arm which somebody gave him." Like Blake, the words transcend space, time and mortality. You need this record. Crunchy granola collectors should also note that I have personally seen at least five different (shoddy xerox) picture sleeves for this record where the priority can be determined with relative accuracy using the carbon 14 method. [one from the EP is coming on London v.III: another song from the EP demos appears on Messthetics Greatest HISS (Messthetics #110)

31. Thin Yoghurts -Girl On the Bus (Lowther Street Runner Records UK 1980) More sing-a-longa-slop-charm. You can take the limey out of the music hall but you can't Cute, touching and romantic lyrics about lusting over some tasty lassie on the bus to the kippers factory. They did this record as well as a cassette, which is a hundred bucks in your sweaty palm, if you send it to me. [Messthetics Greatest Hits]

32. Lucky Pierre -This Could Be The Night (No label USA 1984 (?)) Scuzzy, phenomenal art-rant by some Ohio Bowie-boy who'd re-record these musical chairs of Chain Gang, Klaus Nomi and cocaine freebase ten years later for Trent Reznor's label adding a "industrial dance beat" to the mess and changing the band name to Prick. Supposedly (some record-log-pincher told me) there were only 50 copies pressed for Lucky Pierre to use as record deal bait (also the reason that the lyrics are etched on the flip together with a ten second excerpt of the song). Well, I guess it worked. I seem to recall seeing a video for the re-recorded version on MTV during ol' Pierre's 15 seconds in the spotlight. The awe-inspiring power of this record remains tho'.

33. Skabb -78 EP (Mistlur Sweden 1978) Track 2 side one is jaw-dropping Opus-style DIY-crunch punk with Kriminella Gitarrer-guitar breaks. I can't believe this isn't a hotly pursued record by herd-following punk rock turd-swallowers round the globe. Fantastic slop-o-rama-lama-fa-fa-fa production too.

34. V/A -Angst In My Pants double EP (Street Level UK 1979) Imagine how good the previous 33 records on this list are, as I guarantee by risk of punishment of rock writer hyperbole, that this is doubtlessly one of the finest records I've ever heard, and the second greatest compilation in the history of rock! How can I say this wonders Rutger the Punk from his bedroom in Krakow ? Well the proof is in the pudding: Not only does the record include some of the finest recorded moments by the legendary Instant Automatons (who unknowingly channel the Monks!), 012 and the Door and the Window, but furthermore a rare vinyl appearance by the Digital Dinosaurs, heralded by me, Mario and Geoffrey in that most smug sort of way as unheralded gods of music! If that ain't enough you get some fine TVP-related spurts from the Missing Persons and extremely do it yourself DIY frenzy from the Midnight Circus. Who in "Silicone Baby" and "Hedonist Jive" have out-poignanted a tow-truck full of Aimee Mann's and Michelle Shocked's edgy humanity and funny as shit to boot. [Digital Dinsaurs and Instant Automatons are on Messthetics Greatest Hits: Midnight Circus have their own CD...And there's more on Deleted/Street Level at the Instant Automatons website]

35. Pleemobielz -Dagenlang Balen (Kamikaze Records Holland 1981) More sociological sloganeering a la Midnight Circus here: Dagenlang Balen which needlessly translates as "fuck all day" roars through the speakers with all the might of a bunch of over-testosteroned 16 year old virgins singing about what they think it'll be like to have sex some day. Tinniest sound in history. When a copy finally showed up on my doorstep after the fucking (literally!) record had spent a solid 10 years on my want list my expectations were quite low since anyone I had talked to who had heard the record all stated that it was weak/a waste of time etc. Well: It being a want list staple has more to do with the scarcity of the disc than it being a desirable punk rock record. However: It is an extremely desirable record if frenzied DIY bliss is your chosen poison.

36. Just Urbain -Guns & Guitars (No label Australia 1979) Another amazing DIY record from Australia, this one definitely sports a spiritual kinship with SPK, the Slugfuckers, the first Thought Criminals record, and those Systematics and Tactics records I need to find. Very dark, scuzzy art-damaged DIY that (a la Cabaret Voltaire or early SPK) is well aware of the fine krautrock musics coming out of Germany on Ohr or Sky a few years previously. The proto punk of say Neu or Cosmic Jokers is here handled with poisonous skronky passion.

37. The Gags -Sex Ist Schau (Leg Auf Records Germany 1981) And then one has to simply wonder if the belly laughs generated by this piece of vinyl have racist connotations: How much are we allowed to laugh at the Germans? This might be the stiffest record I've heard. The vocals lyrical bark manages to reanimate Basil Fawlty's classic performance in the "Germans" episode as well as the Sprockets. The jams are crazed. Stiff, yes, but crazed.

38. Desperate Bicycles -Smokescreen (Refill Records UK 1977) Their debut, more aggressive than a lot of the other classics and maybe it was the year. This is the 45 that launched hundreds of others: Two songs on one side to save mastering costs, the cheapest packaging, music that had to be documented, and it didn't matter if it was done in the cheapest and easiest way imaginable. [Messthetics #8]

39. Butter Utter -Jävlarnas Jul (Leonid Breznjev Records Swe 1977) Took me ages to find this one. Extremely inept, Shaggs-like fumble with a certain Je Ne Sais Qui of punk rock aggression. A lot of Killed by Death-types paid a lot of moola for this one, that some guy hyped to the moon in a Boston straight-edge fanzine back in the 80's. Only truly "punk" in the musical disaster sense of the word.

40. Cut-Outs -DIY (EMI UK 1979) Great novelty pop monster complete with carpentry noises. Possibly not a DIY record at all, but since the genre is made up by people like me this is a DIY record cuz I sez so. [NOT on Messthetics #7]

41. Massmedia ? EP (Massproduktion Swe 1979) Debut sloppiness from future KBD mainstays. There is no discernable musical ability to be found on this record and yet they play and play and play. The energy level is however awe-inspiring.

42. Dagens Ungdom -EP (Mistlur Swe 1980) Having an art school wank with Dagens Ungdom. Brilliant faux-DIY released on one of the major noo wave era indie labels of Sweden, home of Ebba Gron. All songs have titles nabbed from Kafka books, lyrics are more adjective heavy than a tub full o' Morrisey and the music is flawless DIY stumble n' fumble.

43. The Discounts -Selling Records (Original Records UK 1980) Blank 1000-yard stare DIY novelty straight out of High Fidelity. The lyric is a monologue as by a bored-to-tears record store clerk. The jams are sub-sub-sub-Blockheads DIY stumble. Extremely amusing.

44. Grinder Wickford's So Boring -EP (Wax Records UK 1979) Forget punk rock, bring in hick-rock! The aliases of the band read: "Dav-Id, Si-Kic, Terry-Ball, Stu-Pid and Holy-Grail"!. Three band members have moustaches! The singer is wearing a Rocky Horror t-shirt! The a-side is a "humorous" ditty about the acne problem of Spiderman, reflecting the sleeve front depicting some fool in a Spiderman costume driving a tractor, The b-side is an anti-fuzzy dice song. Genius. It is obvious to me that Wickford wasn't boring at all as long as you hung out with the bold gents of Grinder. The songs range from primitive clunky riff-rock to DIY jangle of the highest order. Messthetics #101

45. Psykik Volts -Totally Useless (Ellie Jay Records UK 1979) More Music Hall-punk DIY genius. The spirit of Vivian Stanshall is looming large; as is the empty pint glasses littering the room as this 45 is stuck on repeat. All together now: "It's to-tal-ly useless"!! The sleeve bears the legend: "Side A: recorded in a sock, Side B: recorded in a morgue. May god bless vocalist and songwriter Victor Vendetta. Now pardon me while I go to the corner and cry.

46. Raisinets -More Fun To Play Than To Listen To (Fun-Ethic Records USA 1979) Fantastic record-collector hippie-punk a la Gizmos/Afrika Korps/Half Japanese. Primitive guitar duets complete with questionable production values and mucho muchacho helpings of pure static. Great post-arrest pre-OD lyrics making fun of Sid too.

47. Dag Vag -Dimma (Ball Records Swe 1978) Two years after this record was released, Dag Vag were playing new wave-scented white-boy reggae to sell-out crowds all over Sweden. This, however, is a one-man band bedroom project by a Träd Gräs & Stenar roadie who had discovered punk rock and the DIY scene. Beautiful dark/sinister home studio atmospherics, killer fuzz guitar and demented lyrics about psychiatric care and drug experiences. A great record. And by all means: Don't buy any other Dag Vag records after you've obtained this one.

48. I Jog & the Tracksuits - Redbox (Tyger Label UK 1978) More lost artform unique stumble-rumble from the UK. Sounds like it was recorded under water this one. A petty miracle of a pop tune with a sublime lyric about waiting for the bus. Gotta bless em for the stamina it takes to get a record out: Recording, Mixing, Mastering, Designing, Printing, Approving, Distributing, Balancing. All to get a little song about missing the bus heard by me 22 years later.

49. Injections -Prison Walls (Radioactive Records USA 1980) This has always been an extremely desired and expensive record in KBD/Japanese Tasty/Moustache circles, and it doubtlessly deserves its inflated price tag even though we aren't talking chainsaw-buzz punk rock per se here.

50. Devils Hole Gang -Free The People (Slow Burning Fuse Records UK 1979) Huge moustaches, huge choruses, and a record that sounds like it was recorded inside one of those Moroccan hotel showers that basically consist of a huge tube of aluminum siding. My pretentious nature is such that I feel forced to unleash the folk art metaphor for this again. If your friendly neighborhood rare record dealer charges you a couple of C-notes for this and you feel like your being had for big G's by the sleaze, then remember that you are investing in art, not buying a record!!

51. Funboy Five -Life After Death (Cool-Cat Daddy-O Records UK 1980) A pure pop record indeed, but where pricey production values would've turned this into a memorable Stiff Records 45, the band's lack of bucks and resulting throwaway/enthusiasm production and energy has created a masterpiece. Both sides are stalwarts for a neighborhood sing-song or a rousing music hall chorus. Punk rock music hall: A genre waiting to happen again! [Messthetics #101]

52. How To Get Rich In Rotterdam - Dapper Dan (Vormgeving Rotterdam Records Netherlands 1981) Brilliant, plodding art-slop that reeks of inside jokedom. This record is a reason unto itself to pay ebay prices for vintage drum machines.

53. Come -Come Sunday (Come Organization UK 1979) Before William Bennett became the Benny Hill of industrial noise, his band Whitehouse were called Come and released a single and an album which both are quite lovely homemade art-dirge crankiness, a friendly psychedelic kind of crankiness indeed.

54. The Riotous Brothers -Vicki's Dancing (Riotous Records 1980) How all these disparate bands came up with a sound this cohesive is a mystery to me. Any of the hints handed to us through fanzines and interviews only mess things up further: Yes, anyone could form a band, make a record, start a record label indeed. Where it gets weird is why so many of them harbor a similar tinny guitar sound, cardboard-y drums, messy synths, inept recording techniques, smart-assed lefty lyrics and nasal singing tone. This was not a movement. It was just a bunch of stuff that happened. That's all. This record has the beautiful simplicity of a Shaker chair or a Maine seafood soup. The swanky speedpunk of "Operation Zero" or the plink-a plunk-a guitar solo on "Emotional Cripple" will some day have their own wing at the Victoria and Albert museum. Make my art primitive!

55. Partizans -Goods (A-Noyz Records UK 1980) Chain Gang's retarded English cousins. Ace!!

56. Amor Fati -Economics 100 (Yuck/Flesh Records USA 1984 (?) Very angry anti-r&r/anti-big-business slightly tongue in cheek rant that shows spiritual kinship to "Rat City" by the Art Attacks. Vertical Slit/V-3. The odd blend of wanting in, wanting to play the game and wanting to stay the fuck away that is symptomatic for a lot of Ohio underground musicians (Shepard, Hummel, House etc.)

57. Desperate Bicycles -Skill (Refill Records UK 1978) Blazing DIY-shuffle and unmistakenly Bicycles. More pro production which has this one slip further down the list. Still godlike though.

58. Sarah Coffman -Titta Jag Ar Död (Konkurrenz Rekårdz Sweden 1980) Excellent primitive shit-rock by band from my hometown!

59. Hornsey At War -Deadbeat Revival EP (War Product UK 1979) Extremely amusing ultra-sloppy DIY. No discernable production values, sound-as-filtered-through-ground-beef, emotionally charged out-of-tune vocals, crackly guitar (broken cable?) and a true aura of dead end yobs (and jobs) instead of the more common middle class art school vibe as prevailing on most DIY records. Hornsey At War are complaining about English radio too: "They won't play this record on the radio because it poses a threat!" Here tis again: That charming blend of hubris and defeatist that seems to penetrate the psyches of most people involved in underground music and/or collectors of it.

60. Take It -How It Is (Fresh Hold UK 1979) Stunning out of control DIY/noise not unlike a more frenzied Soft Boys, a more good Gang of Four or a less psychotic SPK. Igor and Simon seem like a couple of gents with some hardcore political and intellectual pursuits, and like the Desperate Bicycles before them I sense that the choice of releasing a noisy cheaply recorded 45 with a xerox cover was an act of some sort of political defiance, back in the day where such an act was not co-opted from the ground up by extreme sports and Wall Mart hair dye. [Messthetics Greatest Hits and Messthetics #2]

61. Rough Cuts EP (Z-Block Records UK 1980) Inspired sampler of four bands (The Boywonders, The Ghoulies, The Czechs and the Decadent Few) two of which tell us their age on the cover (The Boywonders are all 16, The Czechs are all 17). Humbling thought that such musical spirit could be mustered at such a tender age. Great variety of flavors too: The Boywonders great inept, spooky DIY strut where the band might think that a reggae influence is prevailing, us knowing that the stumbleblock shuffle bears more resemblance to ancient Celtic airs, the unbearable beauty of the Czechs utter disregard of tone, meter and signatures or the Ghoulies oddly Booker T-esque chug n' scrape. The business, all and all. [Boywonders and Czechs on Messthetics #104: The Z-Block Story is here]

62. The Petticoats -Normal (Bla-Bla-Bla Records UK 1980) Ripping good-kind-feminist anti-normalcy rant. Spiritually uplifting in a way not dissimilar to first-hand experience of medieval church architecture, I shit you not. Recorded at Street Level which means that this record is Fuck Off Records related.

63. Reducers -We Are Normal (Vibes Product UK 1978) The sub genre Geoff Weiss-punk is hereby coined to describe this record. High-energy ineptitude. There is a strange kinship to the Pink Fairies/Deviants axis on this record ? A similarity in energy and attack, notwithstanding that the Reducers really don't know how to play their instruments very well. [Messthetics #1]

64. Il Ya Volkswagens - Kill Myself (Mechanical Reproductions UK 1981) One more year in the rehearsal space for these guys and I wouldn't be writing this. Discernable elements of gothrock and Bauhaus influence can be noticed as a faint vapor in this aural air to speak it in goth-speak, the crunch of the slightly sour guitar, the plodd of the (genius) bass line and the all-in slouch of the lethargic vocalist and the cracked-everyday electronics elevates this dirge into an 18 carat DIY-cruncher.

65. Quite Ridiculous Nonsense -Identity Crisis (No Label USA 1984) Most ace industrial wank of that rare late 70's variety. Wildly entertaining experiments in four track flatulence and transistor radio static.

66. Pervers/Deutscher Abschaum split 7" (Suff Productions Germany 1984) The Godhead. Reminds me of Teddy and the Fratgirls or the Foams in the sense that one gets the notion that these must have been fun gals to hang out with or date. The timeless splendor of the arty urban misfit girl: Her goofy charm and no-holds-barred enthusiasm for all that she found weird, interesting or sexually appetizing. A toast to the art school weirdo outcast girls of the world: May they forever paint their room black or read Hermann Hesse to you in bed! The music is wild, out of control amateuristic slop goes from Electric Eels fuzzed out haterock to drumkits thrown down the stairs to minimal teen-angst and then back. Beautiful stuff. Got this in trade from Thurston Snore for some boring free jazz records back in the day. What a chump!

67. The Prats -Disco Pope (Rough Trade UK 1979) 15-year old Scottish schoolboy punks seething with rage over the demon disco. Early Downliners Sect-style one chord R&B shuffle complete with the drum breaks that made God decide not to spare humanity. Don't miss it!

68. Plast -EP (Stranded Rekords Swe 1979) Four song EP of the finest in teenage punks attempting to embrace the confusion in their head from listening to TG, Cabaret Voltaire and Pere Ubu. An ungodly racket where the hostility of the chosen sounds meets the cozy ineptitude of the random noises. Plenty of short-wave noises and the crappiest of synths. Utterly charming.

9. Raincoats -Fairytale in the Supermarket (Rough Trade UK 1979) All enthusiasm/zero chops Ubu-esque DIY-charm from these stunning ladies. This is the best of their many records. Some kinda CD anthology that I can't find right now was released in the USA on the basis of Kurt Cobain being a big fan.

70. Tone Deaf and the Idiots -Why Does Politics Turn Men Into Toads? (Blue Angel UK 1979) Tone Deaf and the Idiots how do I love thee. This flexi is taken from their debut album Catastrophe Rock which still stands alongside the Damian & the Criterions "Avant Garde", Alvaro's Drinking My Own Sperm and Kräldjursanstalten's Voodoo Boogie as peerless monuments of original thought as far as late 70's underground albums are concerned. Catastrophe rock indeed. This is what "Music from the Big Pink" would've sounded like if it had been performed by the Portsmouth Sinfonia.

71. Desperate Bicycles -Grief Is Very Private (Refill UK 1980) One of the mighty Bicycles more introspective and subtle moments. Their entire recorded output is well worth hearing, and the range of emotions they paint from their palate quite astounding.

72. Door and the Window -I Like the Sound (NB Records UK 1979) One of many brilliant anti-music art school rants by the grand old daddies of the very genre. They like sound, they don't like the Pop Group, they like noise (um yeah!), they don't like butter The list goes on and I can't say that I reached any enlightenment as such by the end of this demented scratchy noise-fumble. But the journey sure was great.

73. Slugfuckers -Instant Classic (PRS Australia 1979) Homosexuals-y whiteguy funk/noise fracture that Liquid Liquid would've been pretty stoked about. Screeching scrape and dumb jokey asides. Who could ask for anything more?

74. Happy Cadavers -Nothing New (Undefined Records UK 1982) Punk/wave slop from the Midwest ? kind of aims for the Stranglers but hits Small Wonder Records. Charming stuff. Give me a fake English accent any day.

75. The Reflections - 4 Countries (Cherry Red UK 1981) Coulda been by the Desperate Bicycles this: stop/start gurgling plodding slop with most excellent Mark P. whining on top. Patented Karl Blake crumble-o-rific drumming not to mention the ambience added by the illustrious Nag of Door and the Window celebrity status. The Reflections album is well worthy of your grease as well as it is more of the same DIY-gunk but with a more contempo Recommended Records-type sound. [Messthetics #1]

76. Reacta -Stop the World (Battery Operated Records UK 1979) Another one that demands the Desperate Bicycles as cultural cookie cutter ? A beautiful ramble with the edgy guitars of Hilton Bomber-Thought Criminals.[Messthetics Greatest Hits]

77. Crash Action Winners - Hurricane Fighter Plane (Sonic International UK 1979) Somewhere in this mess of static and filtered mud are the chord-change(s) of "Hurricane Fighter Plane". The sleeve hints at the band being American, the sounds point straight in the direction of an English middle class art school, and the record cover furthermore defines them as a bunch of record collectors to boot. Not only is a Roky Erickson tune given the same crap-o-riffic sonic treatment, but the shoddy crumb-bum picture sleeve showcases record covers by the Seeds, the 13th Floor Elevators, Russ Meyer and Question Mark and the Mysterians displayed in tasteful collage form. Messthetics #104

78. The Plastic Mechanical Pig -Book Brains (IX Recording Company Japan 1981) Tricky one here, Ricky and Paul, the two guys on the cover of the PMP 45, look like a couple of student teachers and the record sounds like a couple of student teachers recorded a Raisinets/Half Japanese hybrid on a primitive 4 track. Charming record this, with two folky DIY-punk cuts, but why on earth was it released in Japan?

79. V/A - Mell Square Musick EP (Yaw Records UK 1979) I've listened to this record a good dozen times or so, and my jaw still drops. Frenzied homemade punk where the energy could light up a medium-size town. Similar to the Tandstickorshocks, Seems Twice or Red Cross "Born Innocent" LP in its instinctive disregard for notes, chords and melody, the Accused or the 021 are more than deserving of particularly exquisite golden wings in the halls of the Valhalla of Amateurism. I bow my head. [Cracked Actor Messthetics #7; Accused and 021 - Messthetics #103]

80. Tandstickorshocks - Allan Vogalan (King Kong Records Holland 1980) The Dutch Puritan Guitars right here, it is almost spooky how similar the sound of the two bands is. Spinning these 45's makes me wonder if this music somehow managed to sidestep rock & roll and the black music tradition as a core influence. There is something about the Tandstickorshocks which at the same time manages to remind me of Schoenberg, microtonal composers and Irish tin-whistle folk music. This is, needless to say, evidence that I should get out more often, but also that these slices of true-life counterculture juvenilia are not isolated from a cultural context, but embracers of it. Even if it did take a couple of decades for these records to be collected in some kind of organized manner. The kids in Tandstickorshocls must have been aware of Wire and the Young Marble Giants, but the minimal primitive music they create is original in the same manner as the artists on Pat Conte's "Secret Museum of Mankind" compilations.

81. Foams - Paint Me (Pet Me Quick Records USA 1981) A classic of sorts. Frenzied, inept live recordings by this all-girl Austin Texas punk band. The only way that I can explain the similarities to the Slits or the Raincoats are that gals sure have a different way of looking at things, or at least playing drums. Great smutty lyrics and barky art-school vox too.

82. SST -Clutch On the Ward (Tidal Wave Records USA 1977) Super-inept hippie punk/DIY from California with lotsa early punk scenesters name-checked on the sleeve. Ted Falconi pre-Flipper on guitar.

83. The Simple Approach to Newtown Products EP (NTP Records UK 1980) My approach was to pay the inflated price the dealer was asking and happily walk home with this great record. 4 songs, four bands: Crimedesk are toilet-recorded DIY-slop, Basic Unit must be the most amateuristic goth band I've ever heard, Beat Necessity showcase only the finest in tuneless death-dirge with off-key howling and Story So Far is an awesome Joy Division/Factory Records attempt, but with no discernable musical talent. Needless to say, the whole EP is as charming as the day is long.

84. Hörförståelse -Förläst Jävel (CTR Sweden 1980) Demented art skronk of drums, bass and crap keyboards featuring out of tune vocals regurgitating about someone being an over-educated bastard. Perfect, really. A must for fans of primitive shit music.

85. What To Wear - Casual But Smart EP (Basic and Typical Records UK 1980 (?)) Inspired stumble as an attempt to play dub, The Homosexuals can do it ? These guys can't. I don't know if this given failure brought about something new, but this record is a very listenable stab at atmosphere by a DIY band with limited budget and equipment. The flip also contains a couple of amazing speed-pop DIY-rambles. [ Messthetics #104]

86. Contact -Future (Object Music UK 1979) An avantfied klutz by a band who probably wanted to be Tubeway Army one thinks as one gazes upon the sleeve. They move from sloppy pro-rock attempts to full-on art-noise to excellent DIY jingle and jangle. One of many excellent items on the Object label. [ Messthetics #106 and Messthetics #7]

87. Good Missionaries -Deranged in Hastings (Unnormality Records UK 1979) A great stop/start hiccup with the patented GM/ATV tinny guitars and peripheral production. What makes this stand out is that barely concealed aggression, like a slow fuse or something.

88. The Potent Human EP (L'Aventure Records UK 1980) I maintain, and not only because of my middle class lifestyle, that the Bathroom Renovations is the greatest band name in the history of rock. This EP is a four out of four winner. Brilliant DIY fumble from The Mekon (no relation), The Liggers , The Spurtz and the ultra-wah-wah power of the Bathroom Renovations. Let me type that again: Bathroom Renovations. [Liggers: Messthetics #106]

89. Disco Zombies -Here Comes the Buts (Dining Out Records UK 1980) This is my favorite of their three spectacular singles. Thw thuick brogue of an accent blends in a most interesting way with the crappy guitar and dull throb of the melody line or the voluptous Steve Severin-style bass line.

90. Record Players -Double C Side EP (Wreckord Records UK 1978) The Record Players came from Kent, which mustered a bit of a mod scene a couple years later, but otherwise wasn't much of a factor in the punk (or DIY) world. Here they've mustered up an anti-MOR rant with a chorus that comes off kind of, eh, MOR-sounding. Imagine the classic DIY trashing, bashing and gnashing, but with one big ol' chorus, and the most obvious bridge you'll ever hear. "Ignore Us" on the flip is self-defeatist art that'll piss all over any Magnetic Fields as far as smug self-hatred goes. "It's just one thing you gotta do if you want to move along, ignore the music and ignore this song ? Ignore us and we might go away". How about that. [Messthetics #1]

91. Boys and Girls Come Out and Play EP (Boys and Girls Records UK 1980) Might be a grade school project this one, and not an art school project. Bands like the Human Cabbages, The Profile and The Famous Five are very young sounding. The fragile beauty of these tunes remind me of the UK Voice of the People anthologies of field recordings of folk songs. The purity, private nature of the songs and homemade-ness makes for a truly intimate, moving listening experience. The people on this record should be proud of this slice of juvenalia 20-odd years later.[Profile -Messthetics #103 -also a Human Cabbages song]

92. False Idols -Ego Wino (Old Knew Wave Records UK 1980) Paul Morotta's unknown English nephews. This could be a Poli Styrene Jass Band outtake. Great, spazzy DIY with jazzy chording and great, supressed aggression.

93. Bandage -Republik (Bandage Records Sweden 1978) Seems as if the average age of the band members is 16 or so, and that the mere existence of this record points to the purest and most blissfully unaware state of do it yourself: Some kids in a suburb of Stockholm getting turned on by punk rock and the notion of releasing their own record. The four songs are all fuzzed out riff rock, not unlike say, the Crucified EP, but the poor quality of recording, sound separation, levels and what have you is why the record is mentioned on this list. Not that any of that was done on purpose, mind you, for any DIY-ethic of sorts. Necessity and gratification and all that good stuff.

94. 49 Americans -Big Value (NB Records UK 1979) Another hidden Fuck Off Records release? The 49 Americans certainly moved in the same circles, and furthermore share plenty of aesthetic choices with Danny and the Dressmakers or the Instant Automatons. This record consists of 14 short blasts of fuzz punk meets art wank and is absolutely brilliant.

95. Gods Gift -925 (New Market Records UK 1979) Three tuneless tunes of the finest in fuzzed-out death-dirge DIY-slop. Kilslug jamming with the Door and the Window.[Messthetics #106]

96. Mud Hutters -Declaration EP (Defensive Records UK 1979) Mud Hutters ? Information EP (Dead Good Records UK 1979) Truly original band this. Somewhere in a Heartwork Records/Rock In Opposition neighborhood, but with a real Safe As Milk-crunch. There are psych elements on both these records, moments of blistering punk rock, and a generous infusion of the Desperate Bicycles (or Thought Criminals) ethics and esthetics. Fantastic records, and mandatory listening for any fan of the underground music of the late 70's era. Unfortunately, their subsequent album isn't great. By that time the band got Gang of Four damage.[ Messthetics #106: a track from their first EP is on Messthetics Greatest Hits]

97. Horrible Nurds -Consuming Passion (Half Wombat Records UK 1980) Oddly enough, this record sounds a hell of a lot like early Problem (Sweden) on the a-side, with the b-side being Tim Rose backed by ATV in a fantastic art-rock/DIY howler In that lost art form kind of way.

98. Reptile Ranch -Animal Noises EP (Z Block Records UK 1980) Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 (one of the most under-rated bands of the last 15 years says I and ponder an upcoming UT article) are here channeled way before they even were formed by some UK art school kids. Fantastic Beefheart-y R.I.O-hybrid DIY. Passionate, crude and obnoxious, sending this record to the top shelf of any record room! [Messthetics Greatest Hits]

99. Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle - EP (Zick Zack Records Germany 1980) Ace generic DIY/punk that could've been at home on an early Rough Trade 45.

100. The Rutto - Ei Paluuta (Ikbals Records Finland 1983) Figured I'd seal the circle with this one: A record as stupendous as "Medium Was Tedium" and as prominently throwing all the weight of the DIY-aesthetic on us, the listeners. The Rutto seem to be your 1983 run-of-the-mill small town punk rockers, and this 45 is generic, frantic buzzsaw guitar 2-chord punk. The magic with this one, however, is that in between the choca-blocks of teen nihilism is a noticeable sense of wonder and joi de vivre oozing thru' the grooves, or maybe I am just getting old and sentimental. Thanks for reading.

[veganmikehanlon]

10 and 25 for hanbrough if you please! otherwise any pairing will do ♥

you know that thing where u can’t even search ur own blog for something you /literally/ tagged? this was something like…idk something but it reminded me of something i already wrote so i Really have no reason for not posting it sooner other than procrastination being my middle name so anyways, this:

Mike doesn’t mean to start writing a sex scene while sitting in a Starbucks, but he’d tried writing at home, well it’s just his parents house now, and his mom kept walking in trying to talk to him. So he left the old farmhouse and drove into his newly modernized hometown of good ol’ Derry, Maine.

It’d started with a piece of his story inspiring a memory from his own sex life. Something he’d done forever ago with an ex. Secretly, in a tent. Surrounded by friends. Not their most shining moment but it was hot and applicable to his current story.

He’s in the middle of writing about tongues sliding together when his eyes are drawn to the sound of the shop door opening. He almost chokes when he sees who it is walking in. Well, daydream about sex with your ex and he shall appear. Mike ducks behind his things to hide because he’s panicking.

Mike watches Bill walk to the counter, he observes the broad lines of his shoulders move under familiar flannel; and how the end of his short blond french braid, mostly held together by multi-colored bobby-pins, brushes the collar in a physical reminder of how long it’s been since they’ve seen each other.

He walks through the room with the same gentle confidence that he always had, and it still draws the same admiring gazes from those around him. Mike’s eyes flicker between Bill and his computer screen, the incriminating words screaming at him, and then he catches sight of Bills’ smile and the perfect adjective pops into his head.

Just like that he’s writing again, more caught up in his story than he’s been in the last 30 minutes. Words stream from his fingertips and a scene unfolds, bits and pieces of Mike’s past slipping through, and just as he’s writing a description of how exciting it is to make someone moan as loud as you can make them laugh, he’s interrupted.

“Hi,” a soft voice calls, startling Mike from his head making him jump and hit his knees against the table, a move that almost sends his coffee toppling, but two pairs of hands shoot out to catch the wobbling cup. Bills’ hand settles warmly over Mike’s before he draws it back with an awkward chuckle.

A shiver runs through Mike as Bill’s fingers brush over his knuckles, and he looks up at the man before him with wide eyes. “Hi,” he squeaks, this entire situation sending him careening out of his comfort zone. Bill clears his throat before speaking (an old habit) “sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” he says with a wince.

Mike chuckles nervously, his voice coming out a bit high and strained, “it’s okay I was just, um, writing.” This might be the most uncomfortable he’s ever been in his life. But Bill looks excited and he falls into the chair opposite Mike, setting his coffee and a notebook down on the open space.

“You’re writing?” He asks, a smile spreading across his face, and Mike has to smile back because oh yeah, they’d once shared everything with each other and Bill knows all about Mikes’ commitment-phobia to writing.

Mike quickly switches programs, an attempt at putting the niggling guilt in his chest away. “Yeah, just this story for this thing,” he answers vaguely, and they pause for an awkward second before Bill starts to ramble. “I’ve been working on drawing (a sentence that makes Mike proud too), I’m in a portrait class right now at school, and I came here to people watch and I saw you, and I was wondering if you’d mind if I practiced drawing you?”

Mike gasps softly in surprise at the request, “uh, what? You want to draw me?” The words fall from his mouth without his input, any functional part of his brain currently caught in a dumpster fire, set by this stupid story that is making an already uncomfortable situation of running into an ex just that much worse!

And then Bill is talking again, “well my art style has changed and I thought it’d be cool to get a comparison, you  know, a then and now? It’s cool if you don’t want me to, no biggie, just thought I’d ask, but actually? Never mind,” he starts gathering his things into his arms, “sorry for bothering you, it was nice seeing you, bye!”

He starts to get up but stops when Mike bursts out laughing, his cheeks reddening, and he stays frozen uncomfortably. And Mike doesn’t mean to, but seeing Bill so obviously out of his comfort zone has him cracking up, the situation making him feel hysterical, and he can’t quite stop the laughter bubbling out.

Mike manages enough words to get Bill to settle back down. “Hey man it’s cool, it’s good seeing you too, you know me, I love to help.” Bill settles back into the seat and flips his sketchbook open with an eye roll. Mike can’t help but tease him, he starts shifting through different dramatic poses, making Bill laugh loudly. A hand behind his head, his bicep bulging, Thinking Man pose, his smile barely suppressed-

And Mike ends his display by lewdly flicking his tongue between his fingers. “Jesus Mike!” Bill sputters out between laughs and Mike raises his hands in an innocent gesture, his own laughs ringing out through the space between them. “Sorry, I’m done!” He surrenders with an amused snort.

Bill sticks his tongue out childishly at him and flips the pages of his notebook to a blank page, “just go back to what you were doing weirdo,” he says softly and Mike lets out another laugh before following his directions. Well, not exactly since he’d literally been writing about his and Bill’s sex life. Oops.

He fucks around on his computer for a bit, opening and closing a few homework assignments (yeah right like he’d be able to concentrate right now), editing bits and pieces in other stories, he even plays a couple rounds of solitaire. But his attention is scattered after three lattes (that’s 2…4…6 espresso shots) and the adrenaline rushing through him from Bill sitting across from him drawing him which requires Bill to look at him with his blue as fuck eyes-

“Hey you wanna go somewhere?” The question bursts from Mike and he cringes at the abruptness. “Wait, you’re drawing, never mind,” Mike amends with a shake of his head. But Bill just flips his book closed with a simple “yep,” and starts chugging the last bit of his coffee.

Mike packs up quickly and, swinging his backpack over his shoulders, follows Bill out of the shop.

“Holy shit, is that Silver?” Mike exclaims incredulously when they walk outside. Bill laughs and leads the way to the old bike where it’s locked up by the building. “Yeah, Georgie didn’t wanna give up the car, so I’m stuck with her.” Bill explains. Mike runs a hand over the handlebars with a small smile, “seems smaller than she used to,” he comments, nostalgia rushing through him. Bill hums in agreement, “easier to handle too,” he comments steadily belaying the nervous shake in his next words, “and still big e-e-enough to ruh-ride double.”

Mike grins excitedly, “why Mr. Denbrough, are you going to show me a good time around town?” Bill’s face lights up with a wide grin and giggling, he unlocks his bike quickly, “it’d be my puh-pleasure, Mr. Hanlon.” They drop their things in Mike’s truck before racing recklessly out of the parking lot, Bill pedaling frantically and Mike hanging on tight to his waist, praying he doesn’t go flying off the back of the bike.

It’s weird spending all day with an ex, but they’d been best friends for just as long as they dated, and it’s as easy as it’s always been. They ride through the streets of Derry just like when they were kids, taking turns too fast and speeding over bumps. Mike’s teeth click together but it barely registers over the barrage of other sensations. The softness of Bill’s waist under his hands, the warmth between his back and Mike’s chest, the soft blond hairs flying into his face where they come loose from the braid and bobby pins.

It’s a lot of old and new sensations that has Mike’s head spinning.

They ride until Bill complains of shin splints, his face red and a little sweaty. Mike totally doesn’t think of licking the sweat from his brow because that would be weird. They ride back to Starbucks and load Silver into Mike’s truck. They sit in the cab, unsure where to go from here. They decide to live out the nostalgia further, and head to the barrens.

“Can you help me get all these out?” Bill asks gesturing to the many bobby-pins in his hair. Mike pats the spot on the truck bed next to him and Bill sighs a “thank you” as he sits with his back turned to him. Mike begins to gently pull the clips from his hair, doing his best not to pull knowing full well Bill is tender-headed.

He brushes the hair out with his fingers as it’s freed in sections until all the pins are out and Bill’s hair is a wild mane framing his face. Bill had shifted to face him when Mike got to the sections held back in the front, and Mike watches his face carefully. His eyes are closed and his face is relaxed in contentment. He’s always liked having his hair played with, no doubt part of the inspiration to grow it out.

Mike finds himself fiddling with the ends of his hair, carefully brushing it back from his face. He’s too distracted watching the soft strands fall through his fingers to notice Bills’ eyes have opened to watch him.

They used to lay in bed together, Bill on Mike’s chest, while Mike would drag a hand through Bill’s hair while they cooled down. Sometimes they would talk and other times they would lay in silence, just letting themselves feel the moment.

Lost in his thoughts Mike doesn’t notice Bill moving his face slowly closer, or how his hand has ceased it’s ministrations running through soft blond hair to rest gently on his cheek, he doesn’t realize he’s guiding Bill’s lips to his own until they’re barely a breath apart. And then soft lips land on his and awareness comes crashing over him.

They both freeze for a second, they’re mouths held stiff against the other, and then Mike opens his mouth slightly to pull Bills’ bottom lip in between his. And with that Bill is pushing forward and Mike unfolds his legs so he can slot in-between his knees. They kiss desperately, mouths moving together hot and slick. Mike moans softly at the feeling.

And then he’s pushing away because holy shit, “did you-“ he pants and Bill moves to kiss his neck at the interruption, unwilling to stop whatever this is. Mike is totally okay with that but, “you didn’t eat meat today did you?”

Bill stops his traveling lips, body going stiff in the not fun way. It may have been something they used to argue about when they were dating, Mike thought it was gross to kiss Bill after he’d eaten meat, and Bill didn’t get what the big deal was. Mike thinks maybe he ruined the moment but then Bill is grinding his hips down into him and he drag his lips up Mike’s neck to his ear, making him keen at the sensations, his own hips stuttering to meet the boy’s above him.

“Not yet,” Bill whispers grinding down into the v of Mike’s hips harshly, drawing a groan from the man that quickly turns into laughter. Throwing his head back Mike giggles loud and uncontrollably. “Seriously?” He laughs breathlessly, Bill sucking a mark on his neck. He pulls back to look into Mike’s eyes. “Seriously. Your nagging finally got through my thick skull.” Bill says with an eye roll followed by a wink.

“Wow, fuck, that was such a fucking turn on.” Mike says drawing Bill closer with a hand on the back of his neck and kisses him passionately.

[teenytinyapprentice]

... thoughts on ranlay? (Also I LOVE Ur art it's perfect the Layton fandom couldn't ask for a better artist)

first off that’s literally one of the kindest things to say thank you so much TT__TT <3 And about ranlay - I like it, to an extent?(tw: mention of homophobia)  I think they had something between them as teenagers but I think they never really talked about it (Randall was certainly Hershel’s first kiss) I think they had undeniable chemistry with one another but it all kinda stopped when Randall started seeing Angela - I think Randall cared for both of them but considering his overcritical father I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that a relationship with a boy would have been seen as /a problem/. As adults I think overall, it would take some time to fully rekindle their friendship and get to know each other again. I personally wouldn’t see them in a romantic relationship. Some lingering feelings and nostalgia? Yes. But I think the opportunity kind of passed them by. They’re just happy to have each other in their lives again, they’re best friends after all! And hell knows they could both use a friend after all the shit they’ve gone thru (And just in general don’t see Hershel seeking romantic relationships anymore, so…)

[charmtale]

*glues nostalgia goggles to my face* i miss love live... like it’s still around obviously but i miss. the original love live. when it was just muse. that anime made me cry, and i’m not one to cry over media. and i miss the old sif. Back In My Day the way the scouting screen looked... and no SSRs just SRs and URs and also no SR guaranteed so fuck you and they gave out gems way less too. now they don’t even make SRs in sif it’s just URs which i know is probably because people like the full-art cards more but idk SRs had a charm to me. some of my favorite cards are SRs and i don’t think they’d be improved by being URs. and the rustiness of some of the old art i genuinely think looks nicer in some ways than the perfect shininess of the billion limited URs they do nowadays. i like the softer coloring and the thinness of the lines and if the expressions are janky that’s honestly just endearing to me... and sorry but yes i am a hater and a boomer i don’t care about any of the new girls. i’m sure i would like them if i gave them a chance, but idk i feel like muse had something special that even aqours couldn’t quite replicate or maybe it’s just that i was 11 and deeply lonely and i latched onto the muse girls in a way i couldn’t latch onto these ones if i tried. look at initial nozomi

[antiquatedfuture]

Antiquated Future Records Newsletter

The Washboard Abs "Lowlight Visions" Lowlight Visions, the third full-length from The Washboard Abs, shows a band at the height of its powers. It's indie-pop steeped in art-rock and jazz influences that confronts the declining health of a partner and the possibility of loss. Just up today for preorder on cassette and digital formats and out in mid-August, we couldn't be more excited for this epic, brilliant, and heartbreaking album.

And while you're preordering that, you can also download last year's Recurring Chasms and 2016's Have U Scanned Ur Club Card? for free/name your price to get caught up on their already impressive back catalog.

Midwife "Prayer Hands" Midwife is the drone-pop project of Madeline Johnston from Sister Grotto, in collaboration with Tucker Theodore. Their debut last year on Whited Sepulchre Records, Like Author, Like Daughter, took our breath away and we're so honored to be releasing their follow-up EP, Prayer Hands. Up for preorder on cassette and digital formats and out at the end of this month, Prayer Hands is both dreamy and devastating. Our kind of summer jam.

New Distro Tapes + LPs + CDs As always, we're keeping busy on the distro side of things, picking up releases on our favorite small labels and from our favorite artists.

ABSV- Champion of the Sun (Fukdup Records)- A tribute to Sun Ra by Portland electronic artist and percussionist J Morales, also known as ABSV. Eight pulsing tracks of experimental Afro-house, interweaving live and electronic percussion, synths, bass, and piano into an instant basement dance party. (Cassette + Digital Download) ($8)

Brianna Kelly & Sympathy Pain- Split Tape (Whited Sepulchre Records)- Cincinnati artist Brianna Kelly (of Soften) make gorgeous and haunting ambient-pop pieces. A perfect fit for fans of Grouper, Sister Grotto, and Julianna Barwick. Sympathy Pain's airy post-rock makes for the perfect flip side. (Cassette + Digital Download) ($7) Dump Him- Venus in Retrograde (Reflective Tapes)- Live garage-rocky pop-punk from Western Massachusetts' Dump Him. (Cassette) ($5) Hedia- Wool (Unknown Tone Records)- Sparse and slight, but also sprawling and generous, Hedia's ambient chamber pieces are gifts, through and through. The side project of Bryce Hample of Reighnbeau. (Cassette) ($8) Kyle Bobby Dunn & Wayne Robert Thomas- KBD/WRT (Whited Sepulchre Records)- A split between Montreal-based composer Kyle Bobby Dunn and Indianapolis-based guitarist Wayne Robert Thomas. One side of swirling modern classical drone, a drunk orchestra, distant trumpets like migrating birds. And one side of cinematic builds, layers of strings, crests and breaks. (LP) ($18) Orange Daydream: A Tribute To Orange Cake Mix (Why the Tapes Play Records)- A split between long-running lo-fi heavyweight Orange Cake Mix and some of the artists that love him. (CD) ($10) Phoxii- Life Eating Death Feeding (Fukdup Records)- The latest album of forward-thinking electronics from Phoxii. Life Eating Death Feeding's broken and reconstructed tracks further asserts Phoxii as living in a musical universe that's entirely her own. (Cassette + Digital Download) ($8)

Reighnbeau- Blood- Blood is Reighbeau at its most lush, most epic. Skittering claps and snaps, pops and clicks, against a cut-up synth symphony. With guest vocals from Colleen Johnson (Flying Circles), Madeline Johnston (Sister Grotto, Midwife), and many others. (Cassette) ($7) 

Reighnbeau- Fingertips- The latest from Reighbeau, Fingertips is an underwater affair—futuristic nostalgia, cheap earplugs at the rave, worn-out cassettes playing recordings of church organs over a pulsing kick drum. (Cassette) ($7) 

Reighnbeau- Hide- Hide is, like its title implies, obscured, secretive, maybe a little shy. Its melodies below the surface, beats pulsing alongside pitch-shifted layers, dozens of distant voices calling out. Guest vocals throughout by Madeline Johnston of Sister Grotto. ($7) 

Reighnbeau & BK Beats- Sleep- Sleep is the soundtrack to a dream party—feel-good but off-kilter, shiny and hazy, containing only slight resemblances to reality. (Cassette) ($6)

[mariabblackyr2]

The Story So Far//Provocations Lecture

Who Watches the Watchmen? - Power, Discourse, The Other

Ever Tried. Ever Failed - Failure, Resilience, Sustainability

Teddy Boys and Haul Girls - Subcultures, Resistance, Commodification

Utopia and Dystopia - world-building, social justice

Nothing is original and that’s ok - The Copy, Remix Cultures, Bricolage

Hauntology and Nostalgia - Political Nostalgia, Subversion, 

Telling Stories - Narrative Theory, Narratives in practice, storytelling

Who Watches the Watchmen?

Themes: power, sex/gender, the gaze, feminism, the panopticon and surveillance

Theorists included: Foucault, Judith Butler, Mulvey and John Berger

The sources of power - history is the product of power, defined by institutions of power

The power of looking

The Panopticon:Used by Foucault to analyse systems of power and the self regulating society

Butler - the power of subversion, power structure, the structure of power is Patriarchal, gender theory

Ever tried Ever Failed:

Themes: trying and failing at art, the process, resilience, experimentation, sustainability, social justice, capitalism

Artists included: Beckett, Smithson, Ono SIgner, Banksy, Wei wei

Failure: 

1. Lack of success.

2. The neglect or omission of expected or required action.

3. The action or state of not functioning.

Oxford living dictionaries

Guerilla Design: Chapitre Zero (2013) - repurposing unwanted furniture, creating urban public furniture to social spaces in Paris , urban design, furniture designers - Duccio Maria Gambi and Mattia Paco 

Sustaining Culture - Justin Gignac, New York Garbage (2001), started as a bet that he could sell anything if it was packaged right, goes to show how far aesthetic goes, set out to make a statement about consumerism, is this work contributing to cultural sustainability? Sustainability key to art work

Teddy Boys and Haul Girls:

Themes: Subcultures, consumerism, bricolage, punk, utopia/dystopia, subversion, youth culture, culture jamming, dominant and deviant culture

Theorists and artists: Hendige, Leckey, Banksy, Warhol

A dominant culture - what makes us feel on the ‘inside’ - through political and economic value to impose values, language and ways of behaving on others can be achieved through legal or political suppression

Subcultures - smaller groups within larger groups but slightly different - share much in common 

Youth is a social construct 

Feminist Critique - the role of women is largely ignored, the experience of youth is gendered, wider gender politics can be investigated through the study of youth subcultures

Haul Girls - how it relates to conspicuous consumption (which is something that has been around for a long time), can be described as influencers, what would a feminist critique of haul girls look like?

Conspicuous Consumption has links to tableau photography - subject of fine art

Utopia and Dystopia

Themes : World building, social justice, critiques of culture, arts and crisis, transformative design

Theorists: Thomas Moore, Philip J,Dick, Ernst Bloch

Utopia : A utopia (/juːˈtoʊpiə/ yoo-TOH-pee-ə) is an imagined community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its citizens. The opposite of a utopia is a dystopia.

Sir Thomas More 1477-1535 - 

 First person to write about Utopia - a perfect imaginary world Greek - Ou-topos - No place, or Nowhere ou-topos- A good place

Can a perfect place ever be realised? 

Utopia is the opposite of dystopia - interesting in itself? - is it possible for it to exists

‘Utopia means nowhere or no place. It has often been taken to mean good place, through confusion of its first syllable with the Greek eu as in euphemism or eulogy. As a result of this mix up, another word, dystopia, has been invented, to mean bad place. But, strictly speaking, imaginary good places and imaginary bad places are all utopias, or nowheres.’  - John Carey

Utopias and Dystopias within films and visual images: Blade Runner, Truman Show, This is England

Nothing Is Original - and that's OK!

Themes: the remix, appropriation, the copy, sampling, hauntology, nostalgia 

Theorists: David Lynch, Kenneth Goldsmith, Simon Reynolds, Mark Fisher

What is originality? 

How would you define originality?

Should we try and pursue originality?

Does originality exist?

If so, what does it look like?  

The basic elements of creativity 

Everything is a remix 3 - you don’t have to be the first, you just have to be the best - Part 3: https://vimeo.com/25380454Full film:  https://vimeo.com/139094998

Hauntology and Nostalgia 

Themes: Nostalgia, Politicisation, commodification, reflective, restorative, hauntology, style and aesthetic

Theorists: Svetlana Boym, Mark Fisher, Jacques Derrida

Nostalgia as dominant mode:

 How do explain the large number of works based on pre-existing work?

Why do you think that adaptations are the dominant product in today’s media market?

Two types of nostalgia:

Restorative:  “puts emphasis on nostos (returning home) and proposes to rebuild the lost home and patch up the memory gaps.” (Boym)

Reflective: “Reflective nostalgia, on the other hand, “dwells in algia (aching), in longing and loss, the imperfect process of remembrance.”

How does it manifest within your discipline? What is the value of nostalgia in your practice? Is it holding us back or driving us forward

“Personal nostalgia can be used therapeutically to help individuals move beyond trauma” (Batcho, 2017)

‘Hauntology :Hauntology is a philosophical concept referring to the return or persistence of elements from the past, as in the manner of a ghost. The term was coined by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1993 book Spectres of Marx.’

‘Broadly speaking, the notion that the present is haunted by lost futures’

Can't understand the future without a sense of what the future is

Telling Stories:

Themes: The Mainstream, Narrative , Provocation/Disruption, Street Art,The Spectacle

Theorists: Kruger, Banksy, Warner, Anderson, de Certeau, Georges Perec, 

Texts’ that could hold narrative e.g. novels, comics, films, tv series, plays, films, children's books, animation, etc.

The Fibonacci sequence - how pictures convey a narrative

The culture industry - how might film be seen as an ideological tool?

There is narrative within design within VM - the shop window - digitally rendered images for shop windows

Crafting narrative -  how makers and designers tell stories through their work

All Ur Viral Phenomena R Belong 2 Us:

Themes: Networks, Collective Understanding, Viral Phenomena, Populism, Digital Culture , User Content, Memes, Satire

Theorists: Grayson Perry, Donald Glover, Richard Dawkins, Donna Haraway

‘Viral phenomena are objects or patterns that are able to replicate themselves or convert other objects into copies of themselves when these objects are exposed to them. They get their name from the way that viruses propagate’

Breaking the internet: narratives in viral media - is it accidental?

Why do things go viral? FOMO

Reliability, Empathy, Irony / irreverence, Political meaning, Humour, ‘Smarts’

The role of visual media: ‘The word meme was coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene as an attempt to explain the way cultural information spreads; such as beliefs, fashions, stories, and phrases’

Has the value of words been taken over by the value of images or do they work cohesively now 

Are viral things out of our public domain?

The Research Project:

Assessment task 1: essay - 2,000 to 2,500 words - develop an essay questions based on learning within the module

Assessment task 2 : a reflective journal/blog - response to every lecture

What do you want to explore? - theme/idea, artist/designer, object/image

Brainstorm a list of questions

These questions should guide our research,what information are you lacking and where do you need to get it?

TItle/question - be concise and explicit - this is a working title/question

Keywords -  Include here any words you think will help you identify the research you want to undertake.

Introduction/questions -  Use this section to introduce the questions and any issues that are central to your research.

Background - 

What are the key texts and approaches in the field? How does your proposal  extend our understanding of particular questions or topics? You need to set out your research questions as clearly as possible, explain problems that you want to explore and say why it is important to do so. In other words, think about how to situate your project in the context of your discipline.

[anonymous-scapegoat]

14, 21, 28, 29, 41, 49, 51, 55, 58, 60, 66, 81, 86, 91

this got rly long ^^”

14. if you were to live with your best friend in an old flat in a big city, what would it look like?

i like this question a lot it makes me happy ^^ it’d be warm and a little messy, as many windows as we could get, lots of plants just all over the place i think, and books everywhere ^^” not pretty necessarily, but it’d feel like home - instruments and art supplies somewhere or everywhere or something in between, lotsa blankets, i feel like there wld be a lot of granola bars lol. i’m not sure what city it’d be in ! wherever we ended up ^_^ 

21. talk about your favorite bag, the one that’s been to hell and back with you and that you love to pieces

ngl i have a super rough track record with bags - they break or they get to be too small or what have u… but my first xc bag i’ve had for 4 yrs now and i love the thing - its falling apart and stained and fraying but it’s been through a lot so i understand ^^ its really big and perfect

28. sunrise or sunset?

sunset!! there’s more going on there i think ^_^

29. what’s something really cute that one of your friends does and is totally endearing?

ahhh this is fun i’m gonna talk for y e a r s anyway ur getting more than one friend - simona gets really excited abt things and i love the way she types, like when she texts its just very “!!!!” and i lov it, alex calls everyone “kiddo” which i think is such a neat lil thing, gabs calls people “nuggets” a lot which is !! and also the way they get so excited for other ppl is way *heart eyes*, isabelle used 2 carry around a blow-up alien in her car and ik she doesn’t anymore but she still owns it and i just always found that, i mean funny obvs, but also just?? a cute lil isabelle thing, kristen gets so !!!! abt hockey its so fun to watch i lov her, faith has this little dance move thing that she does w her fingers that idk how 2 describe but its so !!!!, and tori always says “ily” like phonetically which is a Her Thing that i’ve picked up on and i love, morgan has this tone of voice she uses when we’re doing Stuff We Shouldn’t Be and im p sure it’ll b the way my conscience sounds inside my head for the rest of forever, and the way kelly talks is my fav thing in the World like her intonation and her word choice and??? idk how 2 explain Why but i love it i love her, n lydia has So Many Quirks and her genuine excitement abt like,,,,, Everything, is just !!!, and gabby takes pictures of all of us and of everything like All the time and i Love, and ANYWAY this got SUPER LONG it is NOT MY FAULT that i’m a LITTLE BIT IN LOVE WITH ALL OF MY FRIENDS SORRY

41. what’s the last book you remember really, really loving?

right now i’m reading dragonwatch? and i’m just cryin there’s so much Nostalgia™ and i’m so excited i love

49. do you like buying CDs and records? what was the last one you bought?

i don’t buy CDs so much for a couple reasons, 1 being that i don’t rly have a reason to and 2 being that i do buy a lot of records!! and my player has a converter so i can make CDs out of whatever records i buy ^^ the last record i got was !! sometimes i sit and think and sometimes i just sit by courtney barnett ^_^ 

51. think of a person. what song do you associate with them?

gabby, “i wear glasses” by mating ritual and “without you” by oh wonder ^_^

55. what’s the most dramatic thing you’ve ever done to prove a point?

i wish i were a more dramatic person tbh, the only thing i can think of rn is that i wore hats like Nonstop after getting my hair cut short bc my mom told me i wouldn’t look good in hats if i cut it ^^” 

58. who’s the wine mom and who’s the vodka aunt in your group of friends? why? 

i don’t know why i would assign wine mom to morgan but i feel like i should, it’s just a //vibe// idk idk - and as far as vodka aunt, who knows man

60. do you like poetry? what are some of your faves?

love !!! most things by clementine von radics and rhiannon mcgavin, specifically “art class” by rhiannon mcgavin (it makes me cry i’m so), i like imagism a lot bc i like 2 be able 2 taste my poetry, almost anything by gabs and simona… words are so good!!!

66. what would your ideal flower crown look like?

this is so cute um… i love orchids a lot but idk if they?? ok i googled it there are flower crowns with orchids in them and they’re beautiful1!!!! those 100% ^_^ but w/e it is, smth mellow and minimal, i’m not abt anything super Busy

81. describe one of your friend’s eyes using the most abstract imagery you can think of

a deep breath in the middle of your favorite hiking trail, the dead of summer. humid, earthy, each breath cuts through the air like pine needles do, yknow? staring into the flat clear surface of the lake your family has fished in for years, sunnies darting out from under the rocks, grass prickling between your fingertips as you lean forward for a better look, knowing that if you dipped a finger in the water it would be warm, too. springy like the grass you find at the farms a couple miles out, springy like the way a fishing pole feels when you’ve got a bite, springy like bare feet in fresh mud the first time it’s been warm enough to take your shoes off all season. anywho ! 

86. do you like concept albums? which ones?

ngl i think the only concept album i’ve ever listened to has been crybaby by melanie martinez, which i liked and i own ^^ other than that?? idk? i mean gabs n i r writing a concept album so i feel obligated to like them lolol

91. where do you plan on traveling this year?

ireland and london on a school trip ^_^ and yknow anywhere else i get the opportunity 2 go ! 

tysm for asking!!!

[baereaved]

All of the odd-numbered OC asks!! >:3c

u devil~ thank u for all the asks omg

send me some oc questions~

1. Your first OC ever?

kairos. i think. probably.well in all honesty i had plenty of self-inserts before him OTL OTL OTL but i think  he was the first proper oc i madei might just think he was first bc he was the first one i hallucinated, but eh. he’s been around a good while

3. Have you ever adopted a character or gotten a character from someone else?

i haven’t omgstraight up didn’t know that was even, like, a thingsomeone let me adopt ur child

5. If you could make only one of your OCs popular/known, who would it be?

screamsmorgan, probablyi mean u can’t rlly know morgan w/o knowing the other dozen ppl in his universe anyways sOplus he’s adorable and important to me, so who better, reallyi feel like he’d be the one i’d write about if i was gonna, like, make a book or webcomic or smth

7. Are your OCs part of any story or stories?

in the sense that i’ve made them up, then yesand in the sense that some of them are ocs for other actual stories, then also yesin the sense that i’ve ever written anything for them, absolutely noti’m way too lazy to write OTL OTL OTL

9. Would you ever be willing to give any of your OCs to someone else?

i mean someone can take catboy if they really want them like they were a Mistakebut for the most part i quite like having them all to myself lolololol

11. Is there any OC of yours you could describe as a “sunshine”?

jesúswhich makes sense, considering his namesakein my mind when i made him i was like “if ur gonna name him jesus u can’t be givin him all the perfect traits like he still needs flaws and things” and then that just. didn’t happenhe is sweet and gentle and quiet and kindand also he’s traumatized and terrified of acting out and he screams in his sleepbc i’m a terrible person and i love to torment my smol kids

13. Do you have any troublemaker OCs?

god, all of themcielle, notably, since she will fuck u up and also. winters. she’s literally my dgm oc whose general is winters and they get along terrifyingly well, so. yes.also katrina and benji and dessa and hendrik and reese and rien and nyla and listen, i could go on

15. Do you like to talk about your OCs with other people?

yes, absolutelyi also enjoy it when ppl tell me abt their ocs, mostly so i can grill them for oc info lololol

17. Any OC OTPs?

jesús and luc, dessa and shiv, olivia and ekundayo, rien and the sweet embrace of deathi rlly need more couples so, like, subject to change

the rest are under the cut~

19. Introduce an OC that means a lot to you (and explain why)

i don’t think i even could pick oneumi haven’t mentioned enlil yet, i suppose, and i mean? he’s not very developed, but he brings me an indescribable amount of peace when i talk/think about him, soi’m not actually sure if it’s okay for me to use that name, but eh. if not people can yell at me and i’ll change it. names are hard sometimesbut anyways i don’t have much of anything on him? he’s deaf. generally pretty calm and relaxed. like shiv, except actually a good personidk what it is abt him, he just?? puts me at peace? makes me feel good? like i only made him last year but he’s like, the personification of what nostalgia feels likeso he’s really important to me just bc of how comforting he is. like just thinking abt him could probably get me out of an anxiety attack

21. Your most artistic OC

santa is my nameless oc (as in, the game. he clearly has a name) so 1. he is art and 2. he is an artist himself lol, mostly a painterhelena is pretty artistic too, and is a sculptor

23. Introduce OC that has changed from your first idea concerning what the character would be like?

already answered~

25. The OC that resembles you the most (same hobby, height, shared like/dislike for something etc?)

listen okay all of them started out as self-inserts. all of them. they’re all at least partially based off me.i’ve been thinkin abt this for an hour and i still can’t come up with anything OTL i’m p similar in different ways to all of them, so i’ll have to leave it at that lol

27. Any OCs that were inspired by a certain song?

already answered~

29. Which one of your OCs would go investigate an abandoned house at night without telling anyone they’re going?

nyla, for fun, and benji, bc he’s Cool and Edgy and mr. survivalist who would probably be an actual detective if he wasn’t, like, 14

31. Pick one OC of yours and explain what their tumblr blog would be like (what they reblog, layout, anything really)

i was gonna talk abt my bae rosaire here but he’d be a youtuber, somona is my edgy 13 yr old bab who would probably have a blog full of anarchist shit and different alternative rock lyric postsalso, she’d be part of that shoplifting side of tumblr

33. Your shyest OC?

rosetta nicoletteshe’s the softest and purest and everyone needs to protect her

35. Any sibling characters?

pollux and isabela……i think that’s it. i need more siblings asap

37. Introduce an OC who is not quite human

santa’s a doll. dessa and shiv are a demon and angel, respectively. i have a couple other angel charas too that don’t have names yet but are gorgeous, so |D also all my space charas aren’t human. opluxx is an ogre. i think. catboy is self-explanatory.

39. Introduce any character you want

ekundayo is my beautiful bab and also olivia’s long-distance gfi haven’t done a ton of development on her but i love her bc listen they’re one of those relationships where olivia is literally the most stoic intense fucker around who will kill u and ekundayo is the purest and softest around everyone but then u see them together and olivia’s obviously happy and totally whipped by her sweet but also unexpectedly dom gf and i love them, okay

41. Has anyone drawn fanart of your OCs? If yes, maybe show a picture or two here (remember sources & permissions!)

well. yes, but we had a falling out since then, so i feel it’d be wrong to post it herei’d love to see some more fanart of my ocs~ i should commission smth from someome sometime

43. Do you have any certain type when you create your OCs? Do you tend to favour some certain traits or looks? It’s time to confess

already answered~

45. A character you no longer use?

o'malley johnson, valentia, kiriko and akumukiriko and akumu were my old bleach ocs, o'malley johnson was just a kickass dude, and valentia was my stereotypical yandere childsimce i don’t care for bleach anymore and i don’t have universes for valentia or o'malley johnson, i haven’t done much w/ them, but i still like the last two

47. Has anyone ever (friendly) claimed any of your OCs as their child?

i don’t think so? maybe. hmu

49. Which one of your OCs would most likely enjoy memes

god, rienrien would be the worst anti-sjw shitty memelord and i ha te