Music Video: 'THC' by Brunt Of It

New England punk/ska band, Brunt Of It, has just released the video for their song 'THC' off of their album All Aboard The Cannabus which they released at the end of 2012.

Also here is a video of Brunt Of It performing the Darkbuster song 'DJ' at the Middle East Upstairs in Cambridge, MA with Lenny Lashley on vocals and Boofish on the organ. 

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Shakefist Artist Profile: Elisabeth Alba

Elisabeth Alba has been called one of the Rising Stars of 2012 by ImagineFX magazine. She has been published by Scholastic, Simon + Schuster, MTV press, Small Beer Press, and AAA Traveler magazine. Wait until you see what Elisabeth does in 2013.

Elisabeth is a freelance illustrator currently living in New York City. As a fan of Star Trek, children's books, Harry Potter and traveling, she always read a lot and imagined how great it would be to have her work in a book. Elisabeth attended the University of Florida and earned degrees in English and Art. In her final year she became certain that she wanted to be an illustrator. In 2008, Elisabeth received her MFA from the Illustration as Visual Essay program at the School of Visual Arts. 

Much of Elisabeth's inspiration comes from reading children's books (yes, she still buys them). Her favorite ones are the highly detailed, lush, fully illustrated books that involve fairy tale, historical, or fantasy elements. "I also love animated movies and fun books like the Harry Potter series, which kept me active as a fanartist for almost five years," said Elisabeth. Some artists that she is drawn to are Edmund Dulac, Rebecca Guay, Donato Giancola and NC Wyeth.

When asked about her thoughts of the New York art scene Elisabeth said, "Well I don't know much about the fine art scene, but the illustration scene is excellent. There are always gallery shows and illustration events and parties happening, and illustrators are some of the nicest people ever. It's New York City! Of course the scene here is fantastic; it's what keeps us struggling artists here even though it's ridiculously expensive (sigh)."

Elisabeth has been able to achieve her childhood dream of becoming a published illustrator. She recently completed illustrations for I Am #4: Martin Luther King Jr and is now working on I Am #7: George Lucas which are published by Scholastic. Elisabeth also illustrated a couple of books in the Breyer Stablemates easy-to-read series, also published by Scholastic. The Shadowhunter's Codex by Cassandra Clare will also feature some of Elisabeth's illustrations. Elisabeth enjoys going to conventions and is going to have her first booth at Gen Con in Indianapolis this August. She plans on exhibiting at conventions more often to sell some prints and meet great people.

You can check out more of Elisabeth Alba's illustrations at:
Portfolio: http://www.albaillustration.com/
Blog: http://www.albaillustration.com/blog/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/albaillustration

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An Interview with Emcee M.D.

Mark Miller aka Emcee M.D. is a hip hop artist from upstate NY. Emcee M.D. is a writer, performer, producer, plus he does all of his own booking and marketing. With his own label Sickboy Records, Emcee M.D. is doing what he can to do what he does best.

You are from Akron, NY. That is not an area of the country that is known for it's music scene or even being the place to find hip hop. What are thoughts on this? Believe it or not Akron NY may be a village that is small, but we have had some extremely famous musicians come out of it. Alex Wesbster of Cannibal Corpse, Jack Owen of Deicide/Cannibal Corpse, and Darrin Pfieffer of Goldfinger are some big names from there. It would be an honor to hold the notoriety as these guys, and I kind of strangely find it my duty to try and keep my little village on the map for such a thing.

I have to agree that your style is very old school. How do you think your music stacks up against other acts, local or mainstream, that are more modern and produced sounding? I kind of think of it as they do what they do, and I do what I do. That's probably the best way to put it. To me, the playing field is equal. I just try to have more fun, haha. 

What are the influences for your songs? My writing's subject matter is influenced by what I know. Hip hop, the music / entertainment industry, video games, and life in general. Some influences like the song "HAPPY BIRTHDAY", were from more serious subject matter (a song  that is about how my sister Shannon dies and her funeral was on my 16th birthday, and through it, vowing to myself I would be the best that I could be at what I want to do). Some songs are influenced in a not so serious matter, like the song "CHOP 'TIL YOU DROP", (a song about the video game Dead Rising). The way I write my music is influenced by the feels of the subject matter or what I feel like creating at that moment. I am influenced by music ranging from hip hop to black metal, to punk rock to classical. There's a lot of songs that show different feels of these influences, but definitely try and keep my roots.

Everything about you is the epitome of the DIY concept. You do it all writing, producing, marketing, booking, etc.  You even have your own label, Sickboy Records. Do you find doing it all an advantage in the game or a disadvantage? Haha, well it's not easy, but it's got a lot of great advantages. It just takes dedication and being very responsible.A major advantage is I think I make better friends and better connections with people when doing this. I do a LOT of show trades with bands and hip hop acts, where we all advance. Making these relationships is crucial. The other advantage is monetarily, you don't have to pay people to do this and that for you so you get 100% return. There's a lot of things that musicians don't realize that they can do themselves. 

Social networking plays a huge factor in the music business right now. As a DIY artist, how does it help you? I think it's helped in certain ways. If it wasn't for social media this interview wouldn't have been possible, haha. I think it's great that you have the ability to meet new people, and is also the best way to keep in touch with your fans and let them know what's going on if they "follow" and "like" you. I feel though that social media though also has it's downfalls as well. To me, the next wave of social media will mainly be through video blogs and avenues like them. I'm making an EMCEE M.D. Youtube channel. I think it's definitely something people will follow, especially if I'm showing them life on tour. People want to feel a part of something, and they want to be a part of your world, and for me, that's pretty fulfilling; especially if someone writes you a fan mail, and you get to address that. Mostly, the channel I'm creating will have videos about what I am doing musically, but there will also be more personable videos not music related at all, like I might review a video game or show them my cat or something. It shows I'm a person just like them, whether I'm on or off a stage, and I'm approachable.

You have just released your debut album, 'First Strike'. What are your thoughts about making your own album? I seriously love this album. I take a lot of pride in saying that. I have been a musician for a long long time, and I never released an album before this. Lets just say it was a LONG time coming. Music is something dedicated myself to doing, and I know that this album is just the beginning. What makes me happy about this album the most is that one song doesn't sound like the next. I loved writing the lyrics very much. My favorite song lyrically on the album is ENTER THE DRAGON. I think musically it was pretty "mind expanding" too because the program I used helped me explore creative avenues I was definitely going for. I might have a lot of old school sounds in this album, but because I have a wide background of all kinds of music, I was able to incorporate it into the music as well. The song THE CREST is a song that I definitely incorporated these ideas where I emulated 90's hardcore/metalcore styled beats, where I was even able to include a breakdown where there's "gang vocal" screams. Another song, "SAVE THE NIGHT" also showed different influences of techno/industrial, along with metal, and even adding in instruments like a nylon stringed guitar. The song though that holds the most meaning however was the most simple song to make on the album, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY". To me this album has a lot of pure energy that bursts out of it and man does it make me happy.

What are some venues and festivals that you have performed at? Who are some acts that you enjoyed performing with? I play places as big as basements, legion halls, and art spaces to big venues like Town Ballroom in Buffalo NY which holds about 900 people. To me though, a  stage is a stage. I've played 2 times now at UB's Mini-CON (a video game/anime/sci-fi/comic/etc convention), and am playing UB-CON this year on April 20th at the University Of Buffalo. .I LOVE playing CONs. Cool fests such as Jesterfest #2 in Canandaigua NY last year was definitely something awesome, as well as Burtstock for 2 years in a row as well. I've shared the stage with many great hip hop groups and bands in general, but the best was probably with Every Time I Die. That show was definitely huge. It's hard to mention everyone I love playing with,, especially all the bands in the Western NY area without writting a novel, haha. 1 of the most memorable performances however was for my buddy Dave "MOE" Potter's going away party/roast, where Dave requested me to write a "roast" song about him and performing it. I've never seen a crowd laugh that hard in a long time... such an awesome time. I've also had some incredible times on the road, like last October. I played Kingwood West Virginia where hip hop has never been. The town was like Akron NY: cows and farmland. It was one of the best shows I ever played, and the most fun I have ever seen a crowd have with me EVER. 

You can check out more about Emcee M.D. and listen to "First Strike" at: www.facebook.com/emceemd

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Shakefist Album Review: "Yeah Mar!" by Thick Voltage

By Danielle Sipple

Defecting from Massachusetts, now Brooklyn-based Thick Voltage transplanted their lives and their careers to the epicenter of where their music could be accepted for what it was, a never ending dance party stripped of all the bells and whistles. Getting back to the basics in their music took on the meaning of creating a more powerful experience for the audience. Thick Voltage knew that the stepping outside of their comfort zone forced them to where they wanted to be, and with the beauty of technology capturing sound at the very level it’s produced, the band has a brand new album that showcases these choices perfectly.

Yeah Mar! is a mere blip on the album radar, with a small listing of four tracks, yet packs a punch of a double set record spread. Each song runs stands alone as a solid sound, powerhousing the group into their efforts of casting music to the ears and feet of their fans. With an even split of live recordings and sans-audience tracking, this album was created with the intention of stripping the sterile sound of studio production from each song, cleverly done by recording in rehearsal spaces equipped with only performance based instruments. Mixing a fine blend of electronica with strained punk vocals has allowed Thick Voltage to create a danceable feast on Yeah Mar! that forces the album to stay on repeat.

Even clipped together as a single longplay, each track on Yeah Mar! captures a different element of Thick Voltage. Single driven line bass notes, paired with pedalled drum blasts carries “Keep Runnin” as a dance floor hit, while the anthem callout vocals (mixed perfectly with staged echo) on “No Control” captures the all-night dirty dance parties that Brooklyn is widely known to house. Oddly enough, “Give It Up” sprints forward with an urgency that also creates long spatial gaps of melodies riding electronic waves, not completely a diversion of the rest of Yeah Mar!, but as the only cover on the album, definitely a step outside the box.

Spreading their wings to their full desired potential may not be as large as other bands, but Thick Voltage knows how to rock their party with stamina that only other live artist’s could dream of. Whether it’s in the cold bits of Massachusetts or the smokey basements of Brooklyn, this group hits it hard with their style of passion, and challenges our feet to never stop moving.

Check out "Yeah Mar!" at: www.thickvoltage.bandcamp.com

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The Shrine, A Story by Irving A. Greenfield

This is a tribute to the Harry Winstons of the world whose numbers will never be known, or cared about.  Yet they endure.
         Everyone knows what a shrine is so there's no point to describing any particular one. Some are massive, while others occupy only small space. Each commemorates either a person or an event, and Harry though he knew certain shrines had a historical relevancy, he also knew others did not. Those that did not memorialize important people or a significant event were more numerous than those that did. The proof of this for him was the multitudinous dead who occupy their small spaces in the cemeteries of the world.
Harry didn't have any ill feeling against either dead or against large or small shrines as long as they didn't impinge on his life. He was savvy enough to have made peace with his eventual demise, and even prepaid for his cremation so his children would not have to. He wanted nothing more when he was dead than to have his ashes committed to the sea. All that would remain of Harry Winston would be the memories people had of him, and after a generation or two those too would vanish. It was a fair deal to his way of thinking. The people alive then, who were in someway connected to him, would have other things to think about, real problems he couldn't possibly imagine.
  But there was a significant problem for him: the dead, or at least some of the dead, specifically the dead in his wife's family, would not remain dead, though not because they possessed any supernatural powers; but rather because they were almost constantly brought back by his wife, Lisa, and his brother-in-law, Stuart. Both were highly intelligent, yet neither could leave their family dead dead, even resurrecting a mythological-like character from the "old country," Big Foot, who, according to the story was a beneficent giant-like man.
   Conjuring the dead, as every Voodoo priest and Shaman knows, is a dangerous and tricky business at best, and should only be attempted in extreme circumstances, a last resort kind of thing. Even then there is never a guarantee what the result might be. More often than not, the result is failure. Apparently the dead unlike the living seem to have no reason to communicate with the living.
     But Lisa and Stuart found a way to circumvent the arcane rituals practiced by those immersed in spiritualism of any kind. They "bring them back alive" by talking about them, telling the same stories about them over and over again, and adding new ones when they come up.
     For reasons unknown to Harry, other than perhaps sheer ego, his wife and brother-in-law decided their families' history was more interesting and colorful than the family history of other people. In most social situations, they were prone to bring into the conversation something about their family. Whenever the two of them were together, it was recycling time for the family history. In either situation Harry was "bored out of his gourd." He heard the stories too many times to have any other reaction.
          As families go, Lisa's family was no more interesting or colorful than most families. It had its share of rouges and good guys, of characters and just plain ordinary people trying to get through life with a minimum of "fuss and feathers." Harry's family was much the same as Lisa's, except his had a few doctors, lawyers, teachers, pimps and jailbirds. The latter two categories made it slightly more colorful than a family with Big Foot in its history.
Unlike his wife and brother-in-law, Harry  seldom trumpeted his family history, though now and then in certain social situations he'd mention his father was a diamond dealer, and sometimes a fence; never going beyond that, thereby allowing the listener to make whatever his or her imagination was capable of making of those facts.
But the real problem - - if it could be considered a problem - - was that Harry's family was long lived, and Lisa's family was not. With the exception of his youngest sister, Gail, who died at forty- two from multiple myeloma, the rest of the deceased lived well into their eighties or nineties, his mother topping out at a hundred and five. He was an octogenarian, which was probably one of the reasons why he lost patience with Lisa's obsessing over the dead of her family, all of whom, with the exception of herself and Stuart, passed on when they were in their fifties. Most were felled by heart attacks, though her father died at fifty-six from a combination of multiple sclerosis and scleroderma.
           For all of the deaths in his and Lisa's family, Winston was the middleman, who made the arrangements with the funeral home. It was a function that came to him because he could keep his head when all around him they were losing theirs, and, as important, he and Joel, the funeral directors' son, knew each other from the army, where they were in the same company.  This assured family members the price for burying a loved one would be reasonable.
                      It was not a role Harry relished. It required "a stiff upper lip." Grief somehow engenders grief, but he couldn't grieve even for his own. There was never a time for it; he was too busy with the business at hand. Besides, in those years the deaths were many with hardly any time between them. But now the pace of those dying slowed to a mere one or two every couple of years, all distant relatives whose identities were scarcely known. And Joel, who moved to Florida years ago, might himself be dead.
                  Neither a pussy cat nor a tiger, Winston hoped his remaining years would be free of strife, that he would finally be able to live life to its fullest. But he soon discovered he was mistaken. “The good ship lollypop” left without him, and he was stranded on the bleak shore of old age with its attendant aches and pains and other infirmities that curtailed his existence and eroded his quality of life. But what he still possessed was an active brain and it gave him a consciousness, and the ensuing cynical outlook on the world, on his life and particularly on shrines.
   His quarrel, if it could be called a quarrel, was not with the physical shrines that dot the earth. It was with those shrines that exist only in the minds of some people and require the evocation of the dead to make them meaningful. He firmly believed in the old saw, "Let the Dead bury the dead." But he wasn't quite sure what that meant, though he took it to mean the dead were dead period. Bringing them back was a travesty of nature. The living gave them too much room in their lives; so on the filmiest connections the circuit was complete and resurrection occurred. The stories began, and the dead, rattled, from their death-sleep took possession of the living's time and space until the storytelling stopped as a result of exhaustion or, on rare occasions the introduction of another topic.
   Harry was skilled at tuning out when Lisa and her brother evoked the dead. He had a rich interior life of his own that he cultivated to counteract his wife's family stories. The game of "What If" afforded him a vast universe into which he could escape. But there were times when escape wasn't possible, and he was held captive.  
               Being held captive was "nothing to sneeze about" in any circumstance. But being held captive by a hurricane was as close to the "fickle finger of fate" pointing directly at him that he had ever experienced, except for some situations in Korea. The hurricane barreled toward New York, where the monster storm was predicted to make landfall Its target was Manhattan, where Harry and Lisa lived. Waves of ten to twenty feet high were predicted to swamp the low lying areas of the city. To avoid the possible loss of lives, those people, like Harry and Lisa, living in the vulnerable areas were ordered to evacuate their homes.
                The hotels in the safer sections of the city were quickly filled. The only place for people to go who did not have a hotel room was to one of the city run shelters. They were not where Harry or Lisa wanted to be. Even getting to one would be a major problem. Taxi cabs were scarcer than the dinosaur bones.
       Stuart and his wife, Judy came to their rescue, and offered sanctuary in their house in Fairfield, Connecticut. Harry accepted their offer. There was no other alternative. Lisa was emotionally distraught about leaving their apartment, but after a while she accepted the reality of the situation.
                   Winston arranged for a Limo service to drive him and Lisa to her brother's house. With enough clothing for a couple of days packed in a small suitcase and a shoulder bag, they left their apartment. Both felt very much like refugees fleeing to safety.
          It was ten o'clock at night when they arrived at the house in Fairfield. Both were emotionally and physically drained though they really hadn't done anything physical. But the anxiety caused by evacuation, the packing, and the two and half hour journey was enough make them bleary eyed with fatigue.
           They were greeted warmly. Judy offered them a late night snack which they declined.
           Harry opted to go upstairs, shower and to go to sleep; while Lisa, despite her fatigue, chose to stay downstairs with her brother and sister-in-law.  
                                                    #
            The next day nothing extraordinary happened. The hurricane had been downgraded overnight from a category three storm to a category one. It rained heavily and the wind brought down many trees and parts of trees. But by late afternoon the rain became spotty and the wind substantially lessened.
   Though there was a sprinkling of dead family members in the conversation between Lisa and Stuart, it was not sufficiently intrusive to bother Harry. But that was before Stuart said, "Larry is alluded to by Alyasha Morosov, a famous Russian mathematician in his autobiography." And he disappeared into the master bedroom for a couple minutes.
               Larry, of course, was a dead brother, the family’s acknowledged genius, and quite possibly he was genius. Certainly he was brilliant. A theoretician by choice, he was the author of several important but esoteric mathematical concepts. Larry was the typical absent minded professor. His apartment was strewn with books, scientific journals, and an assortment of mechanical and electronic gadgetry - - most of it broken in one way or another, including a right-handed door from an old car he once owned. He was dedicated visitor of flea markets. His particular niche in the family shrine was illuminated not only by what he had done but also by his many eccentricities. Stories about Larry's oddities were the stuff of comedy and sometimes, in his own life, sadness.
    Harry had no choice but to wait until Stuart returned. There wasn't one avenue of escape. Resigned to endure whatever was coming, he leaned back into the couch and closed his eyes hoping sleep would take him before his brother-law returned. But Morpheus wasn’t generous that day. Stuart was back with a small book that was opened to a particular page.
      "This Morosov's autobiography," Stuart said, as he sat opposite his sister. "And though Larry isn't mentioned by name, it is clear the young man he mentions is Larry."
             Harry’s eyes popped open.
             Stuart began to read, "After my lecture, a young man came up to me and asked me several questions, all of which had to do with the material in my lecture. His questions put me in doubt of several of my own ideas. Had I more time, I would have liked to have a longer discussion with him. But his questions lead me to revise three of my equations." When he finished reading, he handed the book to Lisa.
          She already had tears in her eyes and was daubing at them with a tissue.
          Stuart looked at Harry with one of those "Well, what do you think" looks, which was a challenge.  Then he said, "Larry was at Harvard at the time, and must have been at the lecture."
          Lisa began to sniffle.

Stuart too looked as if he was about to weep and swallowed hard to contain himself.

Harry suddenly regretted being there. He glanced at his sister-in-law, who was busy at the kitchen counter, and wondered whether she was as bored as he was with the Krantz family shrine. He had never discussed it with her.

          “Could you imagine what he would have accomplished if he had lived?" Lisa questioned.
Harry had heard this many, many times in the past. It was a veiled reference to the Nobel Prize or the Field medal for Mathematics. The Nobel was prize of preference.
             Finally Stuart used words, and asked Winston what he thought about Morosov's recollection.
            "Interesting," Winston answered purposefully being vague, although he realized that Stuart had expected some kind of "Wow" response.
           "I would say remarkable," Stuart countered.
            Harry shrugged. He wasn't given to using such words as remarkable, or wonderful. His approach to language, especially those things in life that were problematical was more pedestrian. For him, Larry, in the situation described by Morosov, could have been some else, one of any number of young men who attended the lecture; or it was possible that Morosov had concocted the incident for political reasons. Politics on various levels were part of the university scene at the time the lecture took place. Why Larry, he wanted to ask. But that would have been traitorous, and might have caused problems.
   "My brother - - " Stuart began, and immediately became choked up.
              Harry uttered a huge sigh. He was bored, and thought Stuart was reaching, stretching to make something of a possible nothing.
              Lisa mournfully said, "We never realized how important he was."
              "He was a modest man," Stuart said, "And not afraid to give credit to his colleagues."
                Harry, from past experience, knew the two of them would continue the way they were going until they were emotionally exhausted. By that time Larry's niche in the family shrine would be emblazoned with mythic possibilities. The story would, like so many stories have in the past, take on a life of its own. The Krantz family shrine would shine with even more brilliance than it had, and Larry, like Big Foot, would become part of the family mythos.
       By evening the rain and the wind abated, and Harry suggested they go out for dinner. Food and drink were marvelous opiates for someone suffering from acute boredom. He hoped the conversation at diner would be more interesting, maybe even stimulating. It was a forlorn hope.

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Shakefist Special Feature: An Interview with Artist Duo Teetering Bulb

Kurt Huggins and Zelda Devon are Teetering Bulb, an illustration duo from Brooklyn, NY. They have worked together for over five years along with their cat Cypher. In that time they have worked on projects for Godiva Chocolatier, Reader's Digest, Tor.com, Gemini & Scorpio, Honest Tea, and Vertigo/DC Comics. Shakefist Magazine has the honor to present this interview.

How did you initially begin your career as an illustrator?

I intend to respond to all of your questions in the most professional and austere manner that I can muster. Our career began when we were both bitten by a radioactive pencil. Through trial and error we discovered a newfound superpower. Whenever we waved our hands around magical images would appear. Of course this only worked while holding some sort of drawing implement and we happened to be waving our hands in front of paper. We stuck our magical images online and eventually out came money, like a slot machine we feed drawings. An antique brass machine that wobbles whenever you use it and only pays once sprayed with WD40 and hit with a hammer. Next question.

How did Zelda and yourself begin working together?

We didn't, we don't, we never have, we lied, sorry. We don't even know why we say 'we'. Okay, you got us, that was a lie as well. We started working together out of a dire need to make our lives as easy as possible while making our relationship as difficult as possible. No, that's not quite right either. I think I drew a pelican and Zelda spilled her crayons on it and suddenly everyone liked the drawing. Since then it's been nothing but roses and rug burns.

What is the story behind the name Teetering Bulb?

A Teetering Bulb is a 'Certain kind of gooey lump encased in a hard protective shell mounted atop a mobile pedestal that roams the world on slightly fuzzy, jointed stilts.' This line is lifted from "Gödel, Escher, and Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" by Douglas Hofstadter.

It's also a mixed drink from Weimar era Berlin.

What are some of the inspirations behind your illustrations?

Architectural ornament, elaborate european fountains, deep sea giant isopods, twisted ancient trees, fashion details from a hundred years ago are great catalysts to get the brain humming and the pencil moving. We're huge fans of old occult lore, Japanese or Russian fairytales and dark, strange, twisted sad things. Also, Sex and death.

Some of the books on the easy-to-reach shelf are a lot of Golden Age Illustrators. Dead guys like like J.C. Leyendecker, Dean Cornwell, Mead Schaeffer and N.C. Wyeth are a constant reminder of who we want to be when we grow up. We are incessantly moved by Jeffrey Jones, Frank Brangwyn, Alphonse Mucha, Ivan Bilibin, Albert Dorne, and Austin Briggs. We like alive people, too: Claire Wendling, Mike Mignola  and Greg Manchess to name a few. There’s amazing Japanese printmakers including Kawase Hasui and Yoshida Hiroshi. Hidden artists of the animation industry, including Paul Felix, Nicolas Marlet, and Nathan Fowkes. This is a bit of the recipe from our inspiration casserole. If you steal a little from everybody, then you won't get caught as much.

What kind of educational and/or personal art training did you receive?

We both attended an overpriced art school where Spanish moss grew and the streets were cobbled with stones from the guts of ships. We spent half a decade there, but learned very little. Afterwards, we went to a small boot-camp of a design school called 'Portfolio Center', where we learned all the tricks and tips of cutting up space and squeezing type together. We assembled our books and moved to NY with a room's worth of old furniture, a cat, and big dreams to work in advertising. Having trained as designers, our work aims to bring a strong sense of design as well as storytelling. Then, after a few years in New York, we learned of a mentor who teaches classical drawing out of his small cluttered apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Besides being a teacher, he's also our guru, therapist and cookie dealer. He's like Yoda, only taller.

Please list some exhibitions and projects that are most proud to have participated in?

We got a chance to design a couple of Godiva tins. In addition to getting paid, we also got chocolate. (What a deal!) We started telling visual stories on Tor.com, and I think people liked them. We're in the middle of a full graphic novel for Vertigo/DC Comics, which should be completed by the end of this year. Personal projects always seem the most satisfying. The more personal work we do, the more we get hired for that exact type of work.

Is there anything else you would like to share with our fans?

Sure. It seems the more we do what we love, the more others love it, too. 

Check Out These Links to See More Artwork by
Teetering Bulb:

Website - www.teeteringbulb.com

Tumblr - www.teeteringbulb.tumblr.com

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Shakefist Album Review: 'Suburban Daydream' by The Radicals

By Danny Melendez

The Radicals, a punk band from the North Shore area of Massachusetts, have released their newest EP, 'Suburban Daydream'. Personally I feel this album starts off good with the track, 'What Happens To Me', but then gets better with each track until you reach a climax of awesomeness at 'Six Foot Serenade'. 'Suburban Daydream' is a perfect album that will get you super hyped in less than twenty minutes. Any more is completely unnecessary. 

The track 'My Favorite Part of the Night' perfectly describes the many nights we have where we plan on doing it better than last time, yet we still fuck it up. The best part of the night usually is that moment where you're just buzzed enough and it's not even midnight, and you feel like the night is going great. Then it doesn't. 

'Six Foot Serenade' is like the anthem for go hard until your dead. It's an attitude that is fading from the consciousness of the masses. We all fall in line to work towards an ideal we will never obtain. Why do that when you can actually live life and enjoy it.

You can listen to 'Suburban Daydream' at: http://theradicalsma.bandcamp.com/album/suburban-daydream

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