Andy Uprock is an all-round creative guy from Sydney who has invented a crazy thing he calls “Cuprocking”. Essentially this involves him taking plastic cups to mesh wire fences to create gigantic, unique, floating pieces of art. As much as we know you’d like us to spend a bit more time trying to describe what this looks like, it’s really much more of a visual thing and the pictures really do a much better job. Along with MOOKS, we recently threw an exhibition of Andy’s work and took photos of him doing his thing which you can see on our Photo Blog.
Archive for March, 2008
SYDNEY - VICE & MOOKS PRESENT ANDY UPROCK “CUPROCKING” EXHIBITION
NEW YORK - AN OPEN LETTER TO THE OCEAN
For the last time, can you please stop grossing us out with all the messed up lifeforms you’re constantly spitting up? Not to get all Kid from Brooklyn here, but didn’t you like sea monsters a lot better when they were things like dragons and giant turtles that ate boats—back before we had to coin the term "globster" because "monster" wasn’t ugly enough to cut it on its own.
NEW YORK - ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE
Tonight Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. is playing at the Mercury Lounge, which is admittedly a really shitty venue but what are you going to do? For those of you unfamiliar with AMT and their contributions to the world of Japanese trip music, there might be enough time for you to make it through founding guitarist and speed guru Kawabata Makoto’s 80-question FAQ before showtime. If not, you can at least enjoy this video of Kawabata and AMT’s regular bassist playing in San Francisco a couple years ago with the yodeling drummer from Ruins as Acid Mothers Temple SWR, which is a show we would have officiallly “gone ape” for.
MELBOURNE - AMERICAN APPAREL ARRIVES
Yay! American Apparel have opened a store in Melbourne and (almost) a store in Sydney, which means the end of postage and handling and the beginning of affordable everything. Go to our Photo Blog to see photos from the welcome party we threw.
NEW YORK - THE END OF THE SHEMPS
This weekend, per the enormous capitalized note on the flyer that we posted here but didn’t really pay attention to, the Shemps played their final show. It was a fairly somber affair characterized by a general air of hushed reverance and only minor amounts of transvestitism. Check out the Vice Photo Blog for pics.
DEAR VICE - PORTUGUESE DOLPHINS OF DEATH
Every time I walk on the shore with my dogs in a 3km run between the two piers, located in a still, savage area, I see a dead dolphin somewhere in the way. It has been very clear to me that this happens more and more recently. Every two or three weeks there exists a new dead body on the sand of the seashore. These journeys make me understand that the real reason for dolphins’ mass or individual suicides is the degradation of the ocean’s water quality caused by man. We can think of dolphin suicides as a pure manifestation against the human race.
SEAGULL
Portugal
LITERARY - TWO NEW WORD THINGS
New York Tyrant Issue 3
Ed. Giancarlo DiTrapano
Hey. This is the exact lit journal I have been pining for ever since McSweeney’s bit the boredom bullet. It’s perfect in-between book and magazine size, and the cover of the last issue was a painting of James Spader from Pretty In Pink that caused literally every girl I’m friends with to buy a copy on spec. Then when you open it and read the pages, it’s a bunch of stories by young folks like Rachel Sherman and older folks like Robert Gluck and dead folks like Breece D’J Pancake and they’re all weirdly written, but really dark instead of precious and cloying. There’s even a Jonathan Ames one that didn’t make my throat clench shut in rage (I think because it’s only about two paragraphs long).
FUCKED UP - SXSW DIARY
Fucked Up sent us a diary of their escapades at the recent SXSW music festival in Austin, Texas. As you’ll see, it wasn’t all impromptu gig riots and celebrity pool parties. They also chronicled the behind-the-scenes moments they shared at shitty Mexican restaurants, as well as the special bond that blossomed between themselves and Vampire Weekend.
NEW YORK - SUNDAY NIGHT FART PARTY
Comic nerds! This Sunday, 3/23, at 7pm, go to the KGB Bar to see a bunch of drunk, nervous cartoonists try to interact with humans! Or, more likely, they’ll be projecting some comics on a wall and then reading them aloud with their backs turned to you. Should be a spectacle! And a pleasant way to meet some otherwise antisocial creatures of the night. Participants include Tom Hart, Jason Little, Liz Baillie, Sam Henderson (woo!) and Julia “Fart Party” Wertz (woo woo!). What a fun Sunday your Sunday will be.
NEW YORK - THE SHEMPS, LIVEFASTDIE, AND BRUTAL KNIGHTS, AND OTHERS
The Harrowing of Hell gets nowhere near its due as a holiday, but this year at least a couple bands have decided to take proper advantage of the occasion. Tomorrow night, Livefastdie is opening for Brutal Knights who’s opening for beloved Celebrity Murders’ sideproject the Shemps at Trash Bar in Brooklyn. There are a couple of other bands in the mix, but unless you’re a high school kid who comes into the city to hang out on St. Mark’s on the weekend you probably have not heard of them. Show starts at 8, we’re guessing LFD’ll go on around 11 or 12. Oh, also, the Shemps are going on a monthlong tour with Jewdriver starting next week. Wait a minute, scratch that—it was back in 2006. Update your blog, dickheads.
NEW YORK - ARE WE HIGH OR SOMETHING?
So for some reason last night I was trying to remember the name of that "Money money money… MONEY" song and fell face-first into one of the thickest and most tangly internet conundrums I have yet encountered. Go to this guy’s profile. I’ll admit that he’s set low-res Google pictures to an impressive array of mediocre songs, but how the hell does that warrant the nearly 400 subscribers? Did the laziest, most boring segment of the country’s population just discover computers or is this some youtube thing that came and went when I had the flu back in September like the "leave Britney alone" kid? (Incidentally, that video illustrates the same principle at work in these gems where it no longer matters whether or not the person who made it is "serious" or not, since coming up with the idea as a joke essentially requires a genius-level grasp of funniness.) Anyhows, here are a few of the best things that actual human beings who exist wrote in the money one’s comments…
LONDON - MICACHU
Micachu makes pop music using ukeleles, vacuum cleaners, decks and cellos. When we met the wispy 21-year-old East Londoner she was wrapped in a Burberry scarf and sipping hot water with nothing in it. She looked tired, but she’s been really busy lately, having written and produced a 33-track mixtape with people like Toddla T and Man Like Me. She’s also started an avant-garde music collective called I Love S’n'M, who are performing at the Old Blue Last on Sunday night.
