We know, we know. So many self-referencing posts in one week. We promise to make up for it with lots of juicy blog posts in the weeks to come. For now, three quick notes:

• There are only 2 hoodies left, both in Size L. Seems that this was a popular item. Duly noted, and we’ll try to make more.
• There are only 27 sets of the deluxe Issue 04-themed porcelain candy dishes left. Please note that this limited edition will never be recreated – once these are gone, they’re gone. We may do other pieces of a Coilhouse tea set in the future, but these plates will be gone forever.
• The deadline for reserving your ad in Coilhouse Issue 05 is at midnight tonight. Click here for our media kit, as well as some exciting notes about Issue 05’s distribution. To reserve a spot, please contact Sam.

And finally, a note from Gretta, our lovely Mistress of Shipping: “As always upon an initial release of Coilhouse goodies, due to heavy order volume, it may take up to 3 business days to be shipped. If you absolutely must have it shipped within 24 hours of placing an order, please make a note with your order or email [email protected] with the subject “RUSH ORDER” and your name and transaction id number in the body. This is no guarantee it will get to there any faster due to I have no power of the post office’s speed of labor, but I will brings yours to them sooner. Once again, kindly make sure the shipping address is correct and up to date. Thanks!”

And so another week comes to an end. Time to wrap up those last few loose ends in your in-box and head home for crazy a weekend of amphetamine-fueled debauchery. I mean, it’s Mother’s Day this weekend and all… No? Well, maybe just a weekend of yard work and staid outdoor activities like barbecue and bocce. Pro Tip: a few uppers could enhance said activities. Just sayin’. What? Don’t give me that look. You think you’re better than me? I will cut you! God, why is it so hot in here.

Whew, ok, let’s all just take a deep breath and try to discuss today’s FAM while ignoring the sounds of grinding teeth. Today’s film, no doubt soon to be yanked from YouTube, is Dark Days the documentary by British filmmaker Marc Singer from 2000. It follows a group of homeless people who make their homes in the abandoned subway tunnels beneath New York City, specifically The Freedom Tunnel under Riverside Park. His first film, Singer made Dark Days after moving to New York and making friends with number of the people who made up the Freedom Tunnel community.

For my part I found Dark Days by way of journalist Jennifer Toth — another British immigrant, coincidentally — whose book The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City Mr. Singer may have read as well. Published in 1993, it is perhaps the best known book on the subject, and also happens to feature residents of The Freedom Tunnel. It’s an engrossing read and has perhaps done the most to fuel the urban myths of organized, underground tribes of homeless. This is no doubt due to the sensationalistic nature of Toth’s account, much of it relying on unverifiable claims. Her credibility was not helped by what turned out to be a laundry list of geographical inaccuracies relating to almost every location she describes.

Surely then, Singer’s film does a better job of showing the reality of the situation. Despite the hip-hop aspirations that coat every surface — from the preoccupation with graffiti to the DJ Shadow soundtrack — the focus is decidedly on the individuals who make up this small community; shot in stark, grainy black and white that perfectly suits the subject matter. It’s a story simultaneously bleak and heartwarming. Such is the nature of all stories that are true.

I had posted previously that I retain from my childhood the visualization of my body in metaphorical terms, especially during times of illness. The accompanying video was one which evoked those thoughts but was still realistic enough to be incongruous with the visuals conjured up by my imagination. In contrast, Henning M. Lederer’s short animation, Der Mensch als Industriepalast (Man As Industrial Palace) — based on the 1927 Fritz Kahn illustration of the same name, previously posted by the lovely Miss Lev in these very pages — is an almost perfect representation of the imagery in my mind. Here the various functions of the body are represented in lucid, mechanical terms; a network of pistons, pumps, pulleys, and tubes manned by an industrious, miniature workforce. It’s simply fantastic. Definitely one to watch in full screen mode.

via Dark Roasted Blend

Just a quick li’l internugget of ZOMGWTFBBQ for ya:

Via Medina, via Gooby, who says, “the first time I saw [Pleaseeausaur] live I didn’t know what I was getting into, and I gave myself an intestinal disorder from laughing so hard.”

As of an hour ago, I knew next to nothing about JP Hasson, but the first 12 seconds of this clip just earned JP a lifetime fan in me. Further research indicates that Hasson’s been hugely influenced by the Dead Milkmen and is a croney of Neil Hamburger‘s, Tim & Eric‘s, and Rob Crow‘s. I’m basically having multiple instantaneous nerdgasms over here. Wouldn’t you love to see this guy collaborate with Liam Lynch (of Sifl & Olly fame), or maybe Cal Worthington and his dog Spot?!

We’re proud to present the latest round of Coilhouse Merch, available to purchase immediately in our online shop.

• Unisex hoodies. These feature our battle-cry of “INFORM INSPIRE INFECT”, emblazoned in black on a black, incredibly soft, long-sleeved hooded top. $34.99.
• Tank dresses. Super-soft, relaxed-fit summer dresses featuring our postergirl, the Stratosphere Messenger. An over-sized screen print on heather gray. $34.99.
• Miniature Porcelain Plates Set. A set of three creme-tone 3″ porcelain coupe plates featuring the Issue 04 section dividers, drawn by Zoetica. The plates come encased in a semi-gloss black box stamped with an elegant tarnished-silver I/I/I inscription designed by Courtney Riot. Hang them on your wall, use them as candy dishes, or to store your keepsakes – the choice is yours, comrade! $44.99.
• Issue 01. We are selling 25 copies of the coveted, limited-edition Neogender version of Issue 01, for a discounted price (they were originally $15). If you haven’t been reading Coilhouse long enough to remember why we did two different versions of Issue 01, there’s a NSFW explanation here. These copies are returns – meaning they got shipped to the wrong address (this happened a lot less after we put up a little warning in PayPal). They might have small defects from being in transit, so they’re not in mint condition – hence the lower price. $12.99. This issue is now completely SOLD OUT. Thank you!
  
• Last but not least, there are only 65 copies of Issue 03 left. Issue 03 took longer to sell out than our other issues because we had a larger quantity of it in stock, but it’s almost gone. Which is awesome, because we need to make room for Issue 05.

Many, many more detailed product images, after the cut.

All images by Jonas Lara.

Jonas Lara is a celebrated artist and photographer who “has made a career tilting his camera toward the unconventional terrain of urban landscapes. He first developed his unique visual approach capturing high school friends’ nighttime antics in skateboarding and graffiti. Lara strongly believes he shares a visual language with architects, engineers, painters and other artists who challenge the conventionality of gravity and space.”

Last February, Lara was arrested while documenting graffiti artists painting a mural in Los Angeles. The photographs he took that night were intended to be part of a series Lara’s been developing for years– a “body of work [that] involves documenting artists both in their lives and in the process of their artwork.” This series focuses on a wide range of artists, not only graffiti writers.

Lara was “apprehended” along with the two graffiti artists by the LAPD, and charged with felony vandalism. His camera and equipment (lenses, memory cards, batteries) were all taken as evidence, and have yet to be returned to him, in spite of his dependence on them to make a living. Lara’s charges were later lowered to a misdemeanor, then changed to “aiding and abetting”, which carries the same sentence as the crime of graffiti-painting. Lara says:

“I have gone through the several stages of this case and my next step is the Jury Trial. If I lose my case, I can face up to a year in jail and have my license suspended. I need your help raising money to cover costs to hire a private attorney and related legal expenses…  Part of the artist portrait series was featured in an exhibition put together by the Cultural Affairs Department of Los Angeles.”

According to a PNDPulse article about Lara’s arrest, the artist appealed for help with the case to rights organization like the ACLU, but was told him they do not get involved in criminal cases. “If convicted, the Art Center College of Design graduate and former US Marine would be unable to enter the MFA program at the School of Visual Arts, into which he was recently accepted, in September.”

Does something about this irrational, bullying, trumped up, effed up charge rub you the wrong way? If so, donate to the Jonas Lara defense fund. You know how it goes, comrades. A dollar here, a 5-spot there… it adds up so quickly. Let’s make sure this artist gets a fighting chance.

Intrepid early adopters of the Small Business ad format, Issue 03.

The final call for placing an ad in Issue 05 is here. The deadline is this Friday. For those just tuning in, it’s possible for small businesses to advertise in Coilhouse for as low as $99 per issue. Please see our Advertising FAQ for more details. For the media kit, which outlines our circulation, distribution, demographics, rates and other stats, click here. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again ’til we’re blue in the face: we’d much rather survive with the help of small independent businesses than large corporate sponsors.

Issue 05 is probably the best issue to start advertising in: we’ll be in three times as many Barnes & Noble stores as we were before, the magazines are going to appear in B&N’s most prominent display cases where everyone can see them, and we got picked up by the revered alt distributor Last Gasp. More details on this expansion available here.

If you’re interested in grabbing a spot in this upcoming issue, please get in touch with us by this Friday, May 7th. After Friday, we cannot accept any more ads. You don’t have to have the artwork ready by this Friday, but if you want to reserve a spot in this issue, getting in touch with us by the end of this week is crucial. For those who have already placed an ad, you’ll be receiving your proofs shortly. For those who bought a 4-issue package starting with Issue 03, we’ll be reaching out to you shortly as well.

One more thing: we’ll be doing a huge “Support Our Advertisers” blog post in conjunction with Issue 05’s release, similar to this post that we did when Issue 01 came out.

Click here to get in touch with our brilliant Ad Manager, Samantha, to reserve your spot in Issue 05!

Achtung! Tomorrow, we will be updating the Coilhouse shop with several new merch items, some of which we’ve been working on since January. In addition to a new, snug unisex hoodie and a relaxed-fit eco-heather summer dress, we’re also issuing our first “luxury” item: a boxed set of three small porcelain plates, encased in a silver-stamped black box bearing a custom Coilhouse inscription.

In addition to the new round of merch, we will be offering a very small number of copies of an out-of-print issue of Coilhouse at a reduced price. Which issue? Check back tomorrow to find out!

This is a super-limited merch run. There are 50 hoodies, 50 dresses, 50 boxes of plates (3 plates in each box), and 25 copies of the mystery issue. Because of the small quantities, we anticipate that this round of merch will sell out fast. Stay tuned for the full reveal.

If internet historians like the ladies and gentlemen at Everything is Terrible have demonstrated anything it is the supposition that commercials are only annoying at the time of their original airing. It is only when one of these terrifying mishmashes of imagery and catchphrases interrupts an episode of Dick Wolf’s newest fetish that we turn to our DVR to save us. Only years later will their genius truly be appreciated. Such is the reasoning behind posting this, over nine glorious minutes of commercials from the Fort Worth/ Dallas are, circa 1990. Come for Westway Ford and Trophy Nissan; stay for Channel 21 KTXA’s prime time lineup.

Last weekend, I ventured to a fundraising bash at the gargantuan, labyrinthine Vulcan complex in industrial Oakland. Coilhouse correspondent Neil Girling has aptly described the bohemian warehouse collective as “something of a dollhouse mixed with a rabbit warren.” Magical place. The folks over there literally just finished building out their new Vulcan Theater wing. Tons of gonzo musical acts and DJs came out to help them raise some cash and celebrate: Thee Hobo Gobbelins, David Satori of Beats Antique, Totter, Sour Mash Hug, various Vau de Vire Society performers, Sisters of Honk, Gooferman, Barry Syska, and a band I’d never heard of before, Tornado Rider:

via

From the back of the crowded room, I watched the butch-yet-elfin trio set up their gear and line check. Warming up, drummer Scott Manke and bassist Graham Terry displayed precise and prodigious punk/metal chops and sported broad, welcoming smiles. Bad asses, both. They were soon joined by singer/cellist Rushad Eggleston, who wore a Robin Hood cap with hot pink lightning bolts adhered to it, a matching pair of exercise shorts, lime green tights, sneakers, and little else.

Two words sum up Eggleston’s persona succinctly: delightfully implausible. His countenance and physique are a bit like Frodo Baggins’… that is, if Frodo was hella manic, worked out a lot and washed down his lembas bread with entire crates of Volt High Performance Energy Drinks.

via

Eggleston plugged his axe (lav mic’d, plastered with day-glo stickers, guitar strapped) into a batch of effects pedals and let loose with a string of arpeggiations that could leave no doubt: this fella had been classically schooled out the wazoo, but long since abandoned baroque, powdered wig fare for PURE UNTRAMMELED RAWKNESS.

Tornado Rider launched fists first into a blazing 40 minute set that peaked with a song called “I’m a Falcon”.  Manke and Terry provided thunderous vamping as Eggelston leaped from the stage, scaled the wall with his cello slung over his shoulder and perched, teetering, on the balcony railing to rock out, howling “I’M A FALCON. I’M A FALCON. YEAH… THE FASTEST BIRD ALIVE. THE MASTER OF THE SKY. YEEAAHHYUH!” Here’s a clip of that same song performed at the Magnolia Festival a while ago. Eggleston took the madness a step further, launching into a tuneful, shredding solo while hanging upside down from the ceiling:

Eggleston’s jaw-dropping climb begins about 4 minutes in.

Guys, you really need to see this shit live. It’s raw, joyful, silly, gorgeous virtuosity. Go. Seriously. GO. Dance. Get your asses rocked and grin until your faces hurt. You won’t regret it, I promise. Tornado Rider is touring all over the States this year, with more dates in the works for Europe at some point down the line. Deep southerners, a heads up to you especially– they’ll be playing the fuck of Florida this week and next. GO. GO. GO. GO. And a very good morning to you all.

Tons more T.R. clips after the jump.