San Franciscans, tonight you are in for a special treat. Mer is performing with the Ragwater Revue at The Stork Club! If you have never seen Mer perform, let me tell you: it’s an experience. I’ve seen her twice, so far. One time, she played violin with The Dresden Dolls, and the other time, it was at our launch party, rockin’ the theremin. And let me tell you people – people faint when she plays. She’s that good.

So imaginging Mer with the Ragwater Revue – “a lethal concoction of booze-fueled swamp lust” – makes me want to hop on a plane to the Bay Area right now. Ragwater Revue combines elements of swampy blues, rockabilly and 1960s garage rock with lyrics that invoke alligator babies, glass eyes and cemeteries.  “Imagine an old seedy bar in the 1930s where women adorned in puffy mink shawls smoke using long Cruella DeVille-like cigarette extenders and dark-haired men in suits slowly tap their feet to some jazzy blues,” writes Artsweek California. “Ragwater Revue would be the band on the stage.” As an added bonus, tonight’s show also debuts Coilhouse’s own star commenter Gooby Herms on bass! This show is not to be missed.

21:00 at Stork Club: Death Rock Dive Bar!
2330 Telegraph Ave, Oakland, California 94612. Cost: TBA.

Tastee sammich fixinz by Aaron Muszalski.

Yep… definitely had a severe case of the Mondays today. Also, I think I may have suffered a mild stroke. Is it possible for an entire group of people to simultaneously suffer a stroke? Because there really isn’t any other rational explanation for DRGBLZ.com. (Or that phantom smell of burning hot dogs I can’t seem to shake.)

Propaganda by Ariana Osborne.

Tweeting a random, extremely stupid idea born from a typo is, it would seem, the internet equivalent of not covering your mouth as you cough Avian Bird Flu directly into someone’s face. Or in this case, Blimp Macro Flu. (I can haz?)

Seriously, we all temporarily lost our friggin’ minds. We’re talking spontaneous collaborative lollercaust. Our sudden, inexplicable obsession (and regression) would no doubt make for a fascinating study in the viral progression of online memes for some MIT graduate student. Or not.

Hello…

Wrought by Candice Cardasis. Inspired by Dan Curtis Johnson.

I’m sorry, world. I’m so sorry. We’ve put our disease in you, and now you’ll never be free.

If you haz… er, I mean have, DRGBLZ or baLOLoon macros you’d like to submit, please email theremina [at] gmail [dot] com. Kthxbai.

Gala Lumière Darling:

I believe in being enthusiastic & passionate, & thinking big. I believe in turning the music up loud. I believe in celebrating every day, & getting dressed up for the occasion. I love life. I’m a candy-haired gangster with big plans.

We love Gala Darling. She’s a go-getting, effervescent font of optimism, practicality, wisdom and whimsy all in one stunning package. Gala’s been a supportive friend of our venture from day one, sending over one of our first (and biggest) bursts of readers when the blog launched back in October of 2007. We three lucky ladies are honored and tickled oh-so-very pink to have been interviewed by the fuchsia-tinted juggernaut about our Big Coilhouse Adventure thus far. Read it here.

Gala, dahling. We could just drown you in kisses and cupcakes. Thank you again.

Art from Dame Darcy’s new book, Gasoline

That’s right my dearest squidlings, if you’re in San Francisco tonight, it’s your chance to see our own Meredith Yayanos perform a special set with the only living mermaid herself, Dame Darcy. Held at Isotope Comics, APE Aftermath is the one party you don’t want to miss, sure to thrill and inspire.

Comics legend, artist, author, doll-maker, celebrity, musician. Is there nothing the amazing Dame Darcy can’t do? The Isotope will be celebrating the launch of Darcy’s new book Gasoline and she will be enthralling the masses with a massive live pickin’ show on the Isotope’s world’s highest stage.

See it all for yourselves at 326 Fell Street, at Gough. The show is to begin at 7pm, so don’t delay!

In the non-limited, non-vaggy version of Coilhouse that’s available in stores, we replaced the offending material with a mini-editorial about piercing. The shoot was a big collaboration: Mildred was the evil genius behind this shoot’s concept (from the preliminary sketches right down to crafting that fan, along with Scar’s phallic flower-skewers in the other photo), I took the photos, Melanie Manson did the makeup, Holly Jones did the hair, and Pia Kaamos was the lovely model in the image above. Alongside the images, there’s an interview with Jenn Rose, the prosthetics artist who made this gory magic happen.

We certainly wouldn’t discourage anyone from wanting to own both versions, but those of you who happen to spot Coilhouse at a store but aren’t buying, could you do us a huge favor? Move it where people can see it, so that someone new can discover it. My parents found it on the very top shelf in the somewhat messy Art section of the Deptford Barnes & Noble and moved it, snapping the picture below. Lo and behold, the next time they visited the store two days later, one copy from the stack was gone.

Just don’t put them in those stand-alone special display cases – magazines pay a lot of money to be there. Just find a nice, prominent spot for it, ideally without displacing anything good. It would help us out a lot, and hopefully bring interesting new people to this blog. Thank you!

Coilhouse Magazine, Issue 01 is finally here!

Get ready for 96 glossy, full-color pages of art, photography, music, fashion and literature. In this issue, the stark android beauty created by Andy Julia for our cover is counterbalanced inside by his elegant portfolio of vintage-style nudes. Our biggest feature in Issue 01 is an exclusive 10-page showcase and interview with the incredible taxidermy sculptress Jessica Joslin. Also in Issue 01, Coilhouse travels to Ljubljana, Slovenia (literally! we actually went!) to interview Laibach, while singer Jarboe tells war tales from her career post-Swans. Photographer Eugenio Recuenco contributes a lush 10-page portfolio and interview, while Clayton James Cubitt delivers a poignant, visceral spread (again, literally) on the topic of genital origami. Renowned science fiction author Samuel R. Delany shares an exclusive excerpt from his forthcoming novel, “From the Valley of the Nest of Spiders,” while our first installment of “All Yesterday’s Parties” digs up forgotten party photos from eras long gone, starting with London’s Slimelight circa ’95. Fans of WZW and Z!ST will love Zo’s fashion pictorial, in which she reconstructs a Galliano outfit on a budget. Pop-surrealist Travis Louie gives us a glimpse of his inner monster, and cult painter Saturno Butto has some medical fun at the expense of Catholics everywhere. All this, and much more – including supervillain how-to’s, Coilhouse paper dolls, interviews, fashion and art await. Get it now!

Readers of the blog, we have another treat just for you: the fact that the version of the magazine that you are buying here today will not be available in stores. Coilhouse will be in stores this fall, but it won’t be the unique version that’s available here. On this site, and on this site only, you can get the uncensored edition. This version includes a powerful piece that was too risqué for stores to accept without problems due to the graphic (and in our opinion, beautiful) images involved. Only 1000 copies of this very limited version exist – a mere fraction of the entire print run. And that version is only available here, on this site. When we run out, we’ll start selling the censored version that will also be available in stores – so get the limited edition copy that we call the “true version of the magazine” while we still have them!

• $15.00 plus S/H
• We ship internationally
• We ship immediately
• We accept credit cards and PayPal
• You do not need to have a PayPal Account to use a credit card

We’ll keep this post short, because otherwise it’ll turn giddy. We just want to ask all our readers, everywhere in the world, to visit this site tomorrow (Wednesday) and be part of the biggest day on this blog since it first launched: the unveiling of Coilhouse Magazine, Issue 01. You’ll know what’s inside, and you’ll be able to get your own copy, right here on the site – no matter where you live in the world.

For those just tuning in, the magazine is a print incarnation of the blog: a glossy, 96-page distillation of all the weirdness that we’ve obsessed over together with you in the past 10 months. But it’s not a rehash of the blog. Far from it! Self-quote: experiencing the web version of Coilhouse is like munching on an endless supply of assorted Halloween candy, and reading the print version will be like savoring a richly-decorated French dessert that took hours to prepare.

Okay, so it took almost a year to prepare. It’s a good dessert. There were many, many ingredients. And tomorrow, you’ll get to sample them all.

East Coasters, are you sad that you missed Mer’s theremin performance at the launch party? New York, Chicago, Indianapolis, Lousiville, Nashville, Atlanta, Columbia, Knoxville and Baltimore, you’re in luck: Faun Fables is coming through, and Mer is performing with them. Click here for the tour dates.

You know the drill: we’ll be light on Mer-posts for the next couple of weeks, but when she returns, there’ll be wonders to show! When the tour went through Europe, Mer revealed the the most depressing towel rack ever made, found at the Tyrolean Folk Museum in Austria. When she toured the midwest, Mer uncovered The Tarnished Beauties of Blackwell, Oklahoma – a poignant post that inspired both my mom’s first-ever Coilhouse comment and a heartfelt comment from Shirley Love, a 72-year-old native of Blackwell. What will Mer discover on her East Coast adventure? Stay tuned.

Your hosts: Zo, Nadya & Mer by Andrew Yoon

That’s us up there, around 2am on Sunday morning, jaws stiff from smiling all night. We have you to thank, really – we couldn’t have expected a better turnout. An estimated 300+ people showed up throughout the evening. Familiar faces mixed with new ones, we welcomed several Issue 01 contributors and were delighted to finally meet some of you, as well.

Of course the night wasn’t without its challenges. Mer’s theremin got possessed during setup, Zoetica lost some skin executing parkour moves while jumping 12 feet from her roof onto a balcony during a lock jam emergency, Nadya’s hair interfered with the wireless connection, briefly. No matter, it was all ultimately worth it. The lemonade flowed electric, theremin music filled the air, the strawberries and meringues were sweet, the guests were plenty.

As promised, one of the chief attractions was our photo booth. Filled with Zo and Mer’s prized instruments, toys and inexplicable objects, it attracted a steady stream of thrill-seekers. Light-master Drew and soul-portraitist Lou, our esteemed photo-agents, put forth a herculean effort, the abundant results of which are on display on Flickr for your viewing pleasure.

A sampling of Lou’s gorgeous Polaroids:

• Click here to be taken to Lou O’Bedlam‘s Polaroid set.
• Click here to see Lou’s First Ever digital set
• Click here for Andrew Yoon‘s photobooth set
• Additional photos by Bill Cunningham & Vivacious G
• Short clip of Mer playing the theremin
• LastNightsParty.com: Images 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 (the rest are not from the party & NSFW)

If your picture’s up here, feel free to identify yourself in the comments! Likewise, if you took or know of any other images from the evening, do share. Beyond the jump, just a few of our favorite portraits.

Zoetica’s solo art show (and birthday! woo!) takes place in Toronto this Thursday. The event unveils a new series of gorgeous monochrome ink and digital drawings, which began with our jetpacked Coilhouse poster girl and spiraled off into a new mythology. The subjects of the series – a team of “off-world cloud hunters” – posses high-altitude breathing devices, candy-shaped gravity-defying hairstyles and futuristic clothing that’s remeniscent of Plastik Wrap, the host of the gallery event. Adriana from Plastik Wrap and Zoetica previously collaborated on several fashion shoots, my favorite one taking place at the Bradbury Building in Downtown LA (most famously captured as J.F. Sebastian’s apartment building in Blade Runner). More information about this event can be found on Zo’s personal blog.

Just in case you can’t make it, here’s a cloud hunter – and three more after the jump.

Up here we breathe what we can.