I don't usually post fan mail here, but this one is a keeper:

"i love your site. if i could marry it i would.
at night i wake up from dreams of humping your website.
never change for anyone."
-kimyookyung

Staring contest
C'mon... this was so '01.

Narancic Grafika: hot hot hot 2D design and illustration.

For our European readers: Adult. on tour in August.

Just a quick note: my blog is not dead. I'm just having technical difficulties and the admin of the server is being a bit too casual in attending to these problems. So I'll post here momentarily:

For those who grew up in the Detroit area, the name Bill Bonds most likely brings laughter or a shudder of disgust (or both). For those unfamiliar with Billy, he was a local newscaster on local ABC affiliate WXYZ television. His antics include many DUIs, million dollar contracts, diamond studded airbrushed jean jackets, bad toupees and challenging then mayor Coleman Young to a fist fight on the air. He was most likely the inspiration for Simpsons news anchor Kent Brockman. I found this link with a transcript of a Bill Bonds blooper, complete with muddled real video. It's only a small portion of a man whose legacy is far under documented and celebrated.

Mike, us oldsters might want to use this as reference.

The Hipster Shuffle.
Whatever.

This is mostly relevant for anyone who has to be in a car with me: After two months on almost constant repeat, Charles Manier's At the Bottle (from Idol Tryouts) has been dethroned by T. Raumschmiere's The Game is not Over, featuring Miss Kittin, as favorite new track / thickest synths on the block. Interestingly enough, the Monster Truck Driver EP features an excellent remix by Mr. Manier's distant cousin Dabrye.

T.Raumschmiere is the alias of 27 year-old Berliner, Marco Haas. Gnarled bass-lines, known in German as 'Gnarzigkeit' have become his stylistic device. His brand of 'minimalism' is to achieve the 'maximum' with as few means as possible � with a decidedly punk ethos: why go for sterile minimalism when you can rock out? This bluntness informs the T.Raumschmiere sound: bass sequencing with scratched up, brushed down beats and no unnecessary breaks in the sound. He steers this huge menacing vehicle of a tune with an agility and snotty-nosed impertinence that gets under your fingernails like city grime. T.Raumschmiere cuts a dash as a full-body tattooed, oil stained techno-punk.

Amen.

Radar Magazine: perfect bathroom reading material for LA.

Silas and Maria is the well executed kooky site of the UK hipster store which also has branches in Tokyo. It captures the energy and general wackyness of navigating the streets of Shibuya and Harajuku with its unending seas of urban trendoids, fashion boys, hyper-cute schoolgirls clad in anime-animal graphics and your garden variety uber cool tokyo kids. It's a fun detour, check it out.

Nissan is trying really hard.
Hmm.

Streaming music returns to WDET FM today... mostly.
Read more here. Tune in here.

Speaking of, Liz Copeland and Clark Warner present their monthly residency Stylus at Buddha Lounge in Detroit tonight.

Fiendster.com
(thanks to Steve, our official white-boy-afro Hipster Bingo chip, for the link.)

Bay area readers will recall that Brian and Phoenix of Memory Systems/Form Records ran Synth - SF's most forward thinking and high quality electronic music and multimedia events before their exodus to New York. After a year of ramping up, they are making up for the lapse with three events planned for Gotham City:

Pill : new sonic and visual electronics for covert operators.

Condition : electronic dub and other silicon politics in the sun...

Prescription : Live experimental video for the new millenium with boom boom boom and blip blip bleep.

--

PILL #1
Wednesday July 30th 10PM � 4AM FREE!
W/ Resident DJs
Brian (form8, Memory Systems)
Bad Bunny (form8, Memory Systems)
+ Special Guests
W/ Resident Video Artists
Phoenix (reline.net)
C-TRL +- AH (c-trl.com)
+ Special Guests

PILL #2 : Wednesday August 27th : guests TBA

PILL at Open Air, 121 ST. MARK'S PLACE AT AVENUE A, NYC | 212-979-1459

--

Condition � Starting in August � Details TBA

Prescription � Starting in September � Details TBA

The same day the U.S. House voted to block FCC rules easing media ownership restrictions, NPR's Fresh Air had a fine show on consolidation in the radio business and Clear Channel's role in the music industry. Listen to it here.

When asked about the perception that musicians now must deal with the company, its live venues and its concert promotion arm SFX or face not hearing their songs on the radio, Clear Channel Radio CEO John Hogan said: "There is absolutely, unequivocally no connection between what gets played on the radio and what concert tours or venues are chosen."

Get your nerd goggles on. Ready? Okay.

New 12k/Line releases are right around the corner. Also, there some new Tiln releases that have been making the rounds at our office, as well as Tu'm summer catalog, which has mp3s from Christopher Willits, Ghostly artists Twine and electronic music pioneer Kim Cascone and many, many more. Check the archive for a who's who of nerdcore laptop microglitch werp love.

Lastly, check out Matt Tobey's city of floating blogs. He's actually really really funny. Especially when ripping on Ben Aflac

Happy Monday! Okay not really--- but get your glitch on with these loops (flash required). Fun fun fun!

Burnlab favorite Tom Muller launched his new portfolio site last week, and there's brand new work from DUOlog partner Stoav.

Allen, Allen... I'll let the nipple thing slide. How about a link for Icarus Line though?

Design competition winners have been announced by Friends of the High Line. The City of New York has committed $15.75 million to revitalizing the elevated train line on the west side of Manhattan for public use. Design submissions are on view at Grand Central Terminal through July 26th.

Schnack is the only late night spot to get *ahem* artisan sausages, cheap imported beer you've never heard of and tasty little teeny burgers, all within shouting distance of Burnlab HQ. As of July 20th, Schnack will be open until 2am (kitchen until 1am.) Another reason to stray from Smith Street and enjoy our strange little corner of Brooklyn called Red Hook. I don't know which is cooler/geekier: that they have a billboard print of a Black Label ad or that they have a blog.

Speaking of Brooklyn, long time DUMBO cultural institution (largely responsible for the neighborhood's revival) Gale Gates et al. will be closing for good at the end of the month. It will leave a vacuum in the avant garde theatre community for certain.

These are pretty darn sharp: clear CDs.

Mr. Will Calcutt of drunken photos fame has launched a portfolio of his professional photography and illustration. Very nice. (Having photogenic friends like Magda and Matt Dear makes it hard to go wrong though.)

Hailing from Burnlab's original basecamp of Royal Oak MI, please welcome Allen Goodman to the editorial team, and check out some his his twisted music at Feed the Machine. Hopefully he and the other conspirators can pick up some of the slack as Kritzman and I will be working away in LA the next few weeks.
Timely plug for some of our Los Angeles friends:
Univac
Archinect
The Galactica
Drowning in Culture
AUDC
VOLSOC

This is linked up on Radio Burnlab, but worthy of a reminder: The Daniel Miller Hour on Radio Eins. So good for your ears. T. Raumschmiere, Motor, Anthony Rother, Zeigenbock Koph, Cabaret Voltaire, Non, Bolz Bolz, Nitzer Ebb, Matthew Dear...
Just kill me now.

For even more streaming music, Paxahau has archived Speedy J's live set from his first ever Detroit show (thanks again to Paxahau and Blackbx for making that happen), as well as Derek Plaslaiko's recent four hour birthday set from UNTITLED. Nice.

Bryan Black of Haloblack and H3LLB3NT has been a long-time collaborator with the likes of Prince and Chemlab. It should be no wonder that he is the first 'industrial' producer to craft a truly spot-on sexy and fresh sounding electropunk crossover. His latest project, XLover has released a small handful of 7"s and 12"s, including a remix of Daniel Diamond's Champu and a remake of Prince's Controversy on City Rockers Records - home of Felix Da Houscat and Tiga+Zyntherius. Watch for the Trash Me EP in early September. Also in the works is a new Haloblack LP titled Throb, described by the band as "deep, hard and bleepy".

On an unrelated note, as all things in the fickle New York City nightlife scene do, electroclash mogul Larry Tee's Berliniamsburg night at Luxx will be coming to an end this month. Many an entertaining Saturday night was spent there, where I've seen some of the best and some of the worst live electro acts ever. Ta ta.

Special thanks to all of those who supported Carl/Planet E through the years. This has been one heck of a win.

___________________________________

For Immediate Release

Detroit-

Carl Craig vs. Carol Marvin and Pop Culture Media
Judge: Robert L. Ziolkowski
Court: State of Michigan Wayne County Circuit Court Today eight jurors awarded recording artist/Detroit Electronic Music Festival founder Carl Craig victory in a contract dispute against Pop Culture Media and Carol Marvin.

The law suit was filed in May 2001. With the trial starting July 7, 2003 and ending July 10, 2003

Craig was awarded damages that equal the remainder of his contracted fee in 2001 and all unpaid expenses incurred directly from the 2000 DEMF. These expenses included artist hotel expenses, artist flights, and artist equipment rental fees.

Craig entered into an agreement With Pop Culture Media as Creative Director in 2000.

Since the law suit was filed in 2001 Carol Marvin changed attorneys four (4) different times in a suspected attempt to delay proceedings.

"I'm happy this is over. This is a weight that is lifted from my shoulders and now I can continue to pursue my musical and business endeavors" says Craig

I'd like to introduce you to my new friend, Bubb Rubb and his friend Lil' Sis.

You may have already seen this... maybe not.
Interpol's video for 'Obstacle 1'

What a great clip for a great song. Almost makes me want to grow a shag and get an attitude about drum machines....


Nah.

Form:ULA updates yet again.

Here's a real gem found on the Detroit Luv discussion boards, to support all our raving the past few days (no pun intended): An archive of Magda's and Richie Hawtin's set at PS1 in New York. Yeah! This is a four+ hour 57.7MB mp3 file. Safari + broadband strongly suggested. Also two short video clips here and here. Remember, this is at an art museum and it was about 100 degrees out.

Reference or rip-off?
The oft-praised Honda Cog ad is coming under fire, according to UK magazine Creative Review, by two Swiss artists, Peter Fischli and David Weiss (you may have seen their recent film, B�si (Kitty) at LA's MOCA). In fact, they've recently instructed their lawyer to send a letter to Honda to complain about alleged similarities between the Cog ad and their experimental 1987 art film, Der Lauf Der Dinge which takes place in a similar artists-studio setting, and documents a series of found objects setting off a complex chain reaction. Weiden + Kennedy London Creative Director Tony Davidson, who was responsible for the Cog ad does not deny seeing Der Lauf Der Dinge, but insists that "there is a difference between copying and being inspired by".

nice idea with the map, mike...good timing for me because in two short days i�ll be able to mark my location from thailand, where i�ll be for at least three weeks. if anyone has been there and has any recommendations give me a shout please! chris_daniels_@hotmail.com

New at Burnlab: we now have a guest map. This is a free app... not nearly as slick as the custom one at Computerlove, but we'll give it a try. Post a message from your global position for our lovely readers and dedicated conspirators. Scroll to the bottom of this page or click here to view. Enjoy!

If you're attending this year's Macworld CreativePro Conference taking place at New York City's Javits Center you can listen to Warren Fischer, Casey Spooner and other collaborators describe how the use of Apple technology has enhanced Fischerspooner's music and video creation. Fischerspooner's feature presentation will take place on Thursday, July 17 at 12:30 p.m.

Nancy Blum: breathtaking patterns.

INFINITRANSFORMATION is the home of Arnold Steiner - mastermind behind Schematic Records' most twistedly brilliant album covers.

panOptic: kicking ass and taking names.

I'm posting between parts one and two of Minus' 2x2x2 events: PS1 was hot as hell, both figuratively and literally. Clark Warner's set at Arc will be from 3am to 8am, so the early-to-bed/early-to-rise readers in New York can still pop down and enjoy some Clark.



[Magda and Rich in Detroit July 3/03, courtesy of John Brandon]

More details on Mr. Hawtin's new album: Closer will be released in October on Minus/NovaMute and will mark the return of the Plastikman moniker. 80 minutes of all new material. Get ready for some very pleasant surprises.

...and happy birthday to conspirator Josh Glazer today!

This is totally last minute, but all you fine people (well, most of you) are invited to the Lab to drink beer and watch stuff blow up tonight. The Macy's 4th of July fireworks will take place south of the Brooklyn Bridge - a short distance from our roof at 9:45pm. E-mail: mike@burnlab.net for directions and details.

The Galactica is an LA-based online magazine for music, art and erotica; designed by our good friend Benny Campa. Get all shoe-gazey and check out featured bands like Univac, Helen Stellar and Benny's own band Israel & Icicle.

Buck 65 is an odd hip-hop act (er, "hotwired dump-truck funk" as Buck himself says) with a great hand-drawn website. Thanks to Fred at Computerlove for finding this one.

And, Will Calcutt now has around 30,000 photos of drunk friends at hardac.com. Thanks buddy.

more and more, grafitti is becoming an artform. barcelona�s building walls are becoming home to a variety of international grafitti artists. ranging from england�s politically charged banksy to france�s sweetly strange miss van, grafitti is where it�s at...i hope to do a more in depth report of the scene in barcelona in the coming months

just back from the glastonbury festival...craziness. over one hundred thousand people confined to the same space for more than three days.a topic more than worthy of a shit tv series than big brother.... for the official report check q magazine. for the unofficial american report check back here in the next few days for my side of the story

to wind down from the festivities i just finished watching what should have been made into matrix 2: the animatrix. a dvd featuring short animations in some cases explaining the time before matrix 1 and in some cases being more worthy of a chapter from "the wind-up bird chronicles" from haruki murakami (part seven) (thanks to co-conspirator tony saracino for leaving that book after a visit to espa?a)..there�s even an try at being a new version of the final sequence from 2001 (final part)...infinitely more intellectual and challenging than the actual matrix 2, especially from the side of mixing traditional animation with cgi

Dave Pinter got a photo of the new courtyard installation under construction at PS1 before being yelled at by the guards. Full photo here. This year's installation was designed by Coop Himmelblau collaborator and Emergent founder Tom Wiscombe. More on the Young Architects program from the Times.