…over brute force and cynicism.”

Slim just linked to this (apparently unaired) Craig Ferguson/Dr. Who clip with the comment “my new manifesto!” WORD.

It’s Nadya’s birthday today! Wheeeee:

On a recent intercontinental Skype call, overwhelmed by a dozen disparate tasks and simultaneous preparations for conducting her most high profile Coilhouse interview to date with a certain world-famous filmmaker, Nadya expressed some anxiety and uncertainty to Mer. Mer’s reply, paraphrased: “Nadya, you may look like some fragile, doe-eyed forest creature, but everyone knows you’re an iron fist cast in velvet. You’re gonna nail it all to the floor. Baby, you’re the Bambinator.”

And so it was that a new nickname was born. Definitely fits, right?

Artist’s rendering of Nadya Lev! (Actually, no, it’s Lisa Black taxidermy. But still.) COME WITH ME IF YOU WANT TO BLOG.

Nadya did indeed nail that interview to the floor. Can’t tell you anything more about it quite yet, but it’s guaranteed to be one of our most fascinating and high-profile features to date, you’ll see! It’s been great to share Nadya’s joy and excitement over this particular success, perhaps because we recognize that a lot of the work that she does for Coilhouse has traditionally been the least glamorous and the most thankless, most time-consuming and wallet-robbing. Behind-the-scenes stuff.

This year especially, she’s really gone down into the trenches for us, managing the majority of the Coilhouse empire’s recent growing pains: advertising, financing, digital mag formatting training, merchandise and content development, staff restructuring and expansion, publisher and distributor re-negotiations. Additionally, our girl’s kept up her usual globe-trotting antics for that other full-time job of hers, and even found time to help build a huge-ass interactive kinetic sculpture in her nonexistent spare time.

We are so proud of our wee Bambinator. We can’t wait to see what the future holds for her, and for Coilhouse.

As always, love on ya, Lev.

Experimental musical duo The Books are highly thoughtful and empathic scavengers and re-interpreters who’ve been surprising and delighting audiences for over a decade now. Paul de Jong and Nick Zammuto’s songs –a strange melange of acoustic melodies (cello, guitar, banjo, etc.) spliced together with an ever-expanding library of “found sounds”– are dense with samples lifted from home recording cassettes plundered from thrift stores, as well as bootlegged video tapes. They also cut and paste sounds recorded from children’s toys and random non-musical objects to create looping percussive beds. The resulting music is off-kilter yet tightly controlled, and often unexpectedly danceable.

This chaos-wrangling, ephemera-pillaging style is well-represented visually by the music video for “Cold Freezin’ Night”, a weird 80s schoolyard disco taunt off their latest album, The Way Out:

via Dustykins once again. (Girl, you really gotta start blogging for us!)

Good morning, comrades. Know what goes great with coffee? Tunes. Know what else? Toonses:

McQueen-sized awesomeness.

Oh, hey, know what makes Holy Fuck‘s adorable-yet-badass music video even more enjoyable? The fact that their music’s actually comparably rad! The Toronto-based band’s Red Lights EP has become yours truly’s favorite drive-to-work soundtrack lately, number one with a Bullitt, baby.

But just in case those kittehs didn’t get you smiling/shakin’ ya ass awake, here’s a classic canine electro chaser, of Pleix and Vitalic:

Best school revue ballerina EVAR:

En pointe moonwalking’s simply not something you see every day.
What’s not to love? Girl’s got wicked mad chops,  and she doesn’t take herself too seriously.

But take a moment to ask yourself… is that really what you want?

via DJ Dead Billy… again.

Your needs are important, too. Don’t repress them. It’s entirely okay to say “no, actually, I don’t EVER want to open my refrigerator to find a leering, moustachoied Italo disco maniac turned leather couturier crouched inside with a bottle of prosecco.” No one’s going to judge you for that.

Neck not supporting head? Eyes won’t focus? Daily grind? Sausage grind? Welcome, sons and daughters. Welcome to the machine. Specifically, the infamous Bagger 288:

0:47 = tragically accurate visual metaphor for the author’s current state.

Yep. An internet classic. When in doubt (or too sleep deprived to think straight), Joel Veitch to the rescue!

Beloveds Rachel Brice, Mardi Love and Zoe Jakes –known collectively as The Indigo Belly Dance Company– are back on tour with their phenomenally lovely, lively, singularly delightful show Le Serpent Rouge. “The Indigo has created and defined a new style of belly dance, embracing the roots of middle eastern dance while incorporating an aesthetic reminiscent of early twentieth century cabarets and world’s fairs.”

They’ve got the fantabulous Crow Quill Night Owls with them again, as well as those rambunctious Gallus Brothers. (Several video clips of all the players are embedded in the playlist below.)

(With apologies to our Northwesternmost US readers) the tour actually kicked off yesterday in Seattle, but several more Le Serpent Rouge shows will be happening across the country this month. If you like timeless beauty, raucous laughter, joy and dance and song, this outfit ain’t to be missed.

More information via Bricey’s site after the jump.

Alas, most of us are too old to go door-to-door demanding Halloween candy. (Unless we’re chaperoning/living vicariously through wee ones, that is.) And not everyone who yearns to will get the opportunity walk in a big, fancy, life-affirming Dia de los Muertos parade like this one, or this one. But fear not. There are still plenty of holiday treats to be had.

photo by Tim Piotrowski

Firstly, Dark Dark Dark’s got two tracks available for FREE download (the original version and remix of their song “Daydreaming”) via NYLON. Nona Marie’s voice is tremulously lovely– the perfect entity to kick up autumn leaves and sip cider with.

Secondly, Beats Antique just threw a kooky, kitschy Halloween/AllSaints/AllSoul’s EP up on their Bandcamp page, also free! And you can watch the most recent installment of their ridiculously entertaining tour diary video above, as well as all of the previous chapters.

Thirdly, as a way of saying thank-you to their devoted fans, and to celebrate their 10th “Bandiversary“, the Dresden Dolls are offering their entire full-length album of live material and outtakes, A Is For Accident, for free download. Donations encouraged and appreciated, but not required. (Psst: there’s some violin you might recognize on the track above, titled “Will”.)

Setting the scene: it’s a balmy late afternoon in downtown Los Angeles, summer of 2010. An amazing feature opportunity has suddenly presented itself, bringing Zoetica and I together for an impromptu interview/photo shoot at the Standard Hotel— a populuxe wet-dream of a place with Jenny Holzer art and an imitation Calder mobile in its lobby. Our esteemed subject has agreed to meet us for a drink at the Googiegasmic 24/7 Restaurant on the ground floor.

Photo by Zoetica Ebb.

Later in the evening, he’ll ride an elevator up to the swanky retro Rooftop Bar to DJ a killer set of “hyper lounge” for the likes of Sasha Grey, Mildred Von, the director of Lip Service, Miyu Decay, Andy Ristaino, Courtney Riot, and a slew of soused software convention-goers. But for now, he’s holding court at our corner table, and he’s got Zo and me doubled over in helpless fits of laughter. As our cackling reaches a crescendo, fellow patrons look up from their $20 cheeseburgers in confusion. Perhaps this pale, slim, soft spoken and immaculately dressed Englishman with the barest hint of a smile on his face isn’t the instigator they expected. One thing’s for sure: David J Haskins surprised the hell out of us! Delightfully so.

David J in the lobby of the downtown LA Standard Hotel. Photo by Zoetica Ebb.

As Zo sets up her next shot, I sip my coffee and ask the man who wrote the lyrics for Bauhaus‘ seminal song, “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” if vampirism is, in fact, the secret to his youthful appearance. “I’m actually very wrinkled from the waist down,” he says. Hastily, I wipe up my spit take. “Don’t print that.” Zo insists that we should print that. “Oh, all right. You can print that.” A few minutes later, he launches into an anecdote about “the infamous pan-flute monkey” from Love and Rockets’ music video for ‘No New Tale to Tell’: “The handler put peanuts down all of the pipe shafts.” The idea being that the monkey would try to tip them out to eat and appear to be playing the flute. “Worked out pretty well. But when the little bugger wasn’t trying to get at the peanuts,” (David J’s voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper) “he was wanking. Endlessly. For hours. Hours and hours. And staring at us.” Zo does her best to keep the camera steady. “It was quite impressive, actually! And a little terrifying. No one wanted to go near the filthy thing.”

Giggle fits notwithstanding, professionalism prevails. Zo gets some great shots, and in of spite being uncharacteristically twitterpated (can’t be helped; I smoked my very first clove while listening to “Who Killed Mister Moonlight“), I’m able to nab an in-depth, thoughtful interview from a most multifaceted and influential progenitor of post-punk alternative culture.

David J, making mischief at the Standard Hotel’s 24/7 Restaurant. Photo by Zoetica Ebb.

It’s hard to know where to begin with you! The range and diversity of the creative projects you’ve been involved with for over the course of your career is astounding. In addition to being a musician and a lyricist, you’re a visual artist, playwright … and more recently, you’ve even gotten into screenwriting?
Just in the last year, yes. I embarked on that with a partner, Don C. Tyler, and we have a fantastic chemistry.  So far it’s going very well, it’s picking up. We have a couple of different scripts in the works. I am actually contracted not to talk about the subject matter of either of them, sorry, but I can tell you they’re tangentially connected. And yes, I’ve written some plays. I was going to say I just finished my second play, but really it’s the third, because initially, I got into writing for the stage after creating this 12-minute play about punk rock called Anarchy In The Gold Street Wimpy. It had never occurred me to write one before, but my publicist, Versa Manos, was friends with this theatre company in Atlanta, Georgia, called Dad’s Garage. They were looking for submissions for a theatrical presentation of short 12-minute plays based on the idea of punk rock. She suggested I should have a go at it, and so I did. I thought, well, I was there, after all. Going to shows in 1976, when punk rock was full-on.