Our good friend and Sights drummer Mike Trombley is hosting a great new weekly party at The Eagle in Detroit every Sunday. (Yes, that Eagle. As always, chaps suggested but not required.)

"Think Death Disco meets Ready, Steady, Go meets Soul Train meets The New Dance Show...

Where: The Eagle - 1501 Holden, off of Trumbull between I-94 and Grand Blvd near Wayne State. It's an amazing space with
two floors, two bars, pool table, an outdoor patio, secured parking, a great dance floor, and the best part of all - $1.50 ALL
BOTTLED BEER ALL NIGHT ALL DOMESTIC AND IMPORTED.

When: This will be a weekly event every Sunday starting August 29th.

Who: Mike and various guest DJs from Detroit's freak and geek elite.

Why: Cause you know you want to get your dance on and because it'll be awesome and because if you don't go you'll just have to hear about how awesome it was from all your friends and then you'll have to wait an entire week to experience the awesomeness yourself... Oh! And because it's the cheapest place to drink on Sunday nights!!"

Now that's the kind of party Detroit needs more of. Near future guest DJs include Sam Samules of Tamion 12 Inch, your's truly and many more.

Evidence from the second edition of New York vs. Detroit is now up at Dorkwave.com

It's been a while since I've seen Lit that packed on a weeknight. Huge thanks to Gibby, Dave Elliott, Cowboy Mark and Lisa Hsu for having us out, and extra thanks to all the expats and dear friends who got 'lit' on a school night, danced like crazy people and took no notice that we were train-wrecking our favorite songs from the word 'go'. Lit remains my favorite bar in the whole world. I'm sure one (or five or six) of our other editors would be better suited to post about Saturday evening's Untitled NYC preview party. My head is still swimming. I will say Marc Houle's live set was incredible, and Servito and Plaslaiko played records like it was the last party on earth. Unfortantely the dancefloor was too small for Cowboy Mark and I to get a proper pit going during Alter Ego's Rocker. Too many Burnlabbers in one room is always trouble. Twice in a week is double trouble. Cheers!

All new iMac G5 introduced in Paris today.

Kindly maniac Ryan Elliott sends our lovely readers his August top 10:

1. Jesper Dahlback/ Machine Dance/ DK
2. The Vanisher/ Toothpaste/ Spectral
3. Popnebo/ Monsters make love to(k)night/ Traum
4. DJ Koze/ Brutalga Square/ Kompakt Extra
5. Dominik Eulberg/ Basstolpel (Wruhme rmx.)/ Raum
6. Einmusik/ Full Moon/ Italic
7. Melchior Productions/ Its Coming/ Playhouse
8. Geoff White/ Nintendisco/ Spectral
9. Graziano Avitabile/Platzhirsch Ltd.(A1)/Platzhirsch
10. Monne Automne/ Automne/ LoFi

And once again Ryan provides us with the essential minimal soundtrack for summer's end with his brand new mix, 40 from 4am via ThreeOneThree.com.

3060900506

Opening: September 10, 2004 5:30PM
Running: September 10-30
U of M TCAUP Gallery
Room 2216
Ann Arbor, MI

306090 is a non-profit arts stewardship organization founded by architecture students in 2001 to publish, exhibit, and promote the work of students and young professionals in the fields of architecture and design. 306090, Architecture Journal, is published twice yearly by 306090 and distributed internationally by the Princeton Architectural Press.

This exhibit includes selected works from 306090 issues 05: Teaching + Building and 06: Shifting Infrastructures, published in 2003 and 2004, respectively. These issues focus on young designers and their methods of practice, often involving new technology and looking at how it can inform practice.

PDF flyer

[thanks Neil Meredith]

Beautiful new website for Yamaha Design.

[via Core77]

Yesterday's protest march in New York City was one of the best experiences I've had in my whole time there. I haven't felt so good about being an American and a New Yorker (at heart these days) in a long, long time. The atmosphere was incredibly friendly, and the expected tension between police and protesters was very low. Some of the guys in blue were even joking around with the marchers. It would be fair to guess that most cops in New York like George Bush just about as much as the protesters do. Big thanks to G.W. for giving the whole city a reason to band together! The most entertaining and witty organization on hand Sunday was Billionaires For Bush, decked out like Mr. Peanut's posse.

A more detailed New York report to come soon. For now, enjoy the wealth of information and great links at Beverly Tang's blog, including articles on a cockroach controlled robot, transparent aluminum (Star Trek III, anyone?) and, uh, titanium breast implants.

The Bush welcome wagon is underway.

Burnlab NYC Takeover, report #1:

Ouch

Pics will be up um... somebody took pics, right?

Taskforce Detroit is off to NYC Wednesday afternoon.

The schedule of events:

Team Dorkwave (Jon O, Servito and myself) go head to head with Gibby, Dave Elliott and Cowboy Mark at Lit Wednesday night. Details at Make Out Club. Discuss here and here.

Expect the antics to continue Thursday night at Darkwave BBQ (a.k.a. Dorkweave BBQ, a.k.a. Sporkrave BBQ) with your hosts Plexus and Heartthrob at Cash Checking in Williamsburg.

Friday is penciled in for a relaxing afternoon on the Hudson River Valley.

Saturday night is the much overdue Untitled NYC preview: "Potentially Dangerous" and the combined birthday party for Sara Spratt, Regina Kim, Molly Ozias and our own Mr. Mike Servito at Happy Ending in Chinatown. Details and discussion here. This will be the debut live performance by Run Stop Restore's Marc Houle, and it's totally free! Check out the kind words by a certain "LH" in Flavorpill.

After a quick shower (god willing), we're off to welcome the Republican National Convention to New York City Sunday morning with around one million of our closest friends. Patriotic citizens are encouraged to gather north of 14th street between 10 and 11am, and walk north along 7th avenue past Madison Square Garden and on the Central Park (despite the mayor's intentions to the contrary.) It should be noted that of 8 million NYC residents, only 500 thousand are registered Republicans. You do the math and try to figure out why on earth they would choose to convene in the one city that openly despises the Bush administration more than any other... outside of Iraq, France, and just about everywhere else in the world of course. Be sure to watch the news on Sunday afternoon.

Rubber Metal

Twist it, stretch it double, fry it to 200�C, douse it with jet fuel... the stuff survives. After the torment, it snaps like rubber back to its original shape, all the while conducting electricity like solid metal.

More at Protein OS.

Settling into the land of large beer steins, I've finally had time to do a little of exploring. I've moved out of the hotel and into an apartment outfitted exclusively from the IKEA catalog (shades of FIght Club).
Favorite Munich nightspot so far is the downtempo Funky Kitchen, which has taken over the cafeteria of a former government building. Elsewhere in the same complex is Die Registratur, where the former registration office seems to be a regular stop for Kompact artists along with Harry Klein in the Optimol, possibly the only experimental audio/video venue with it's own beer garden. Daytime, the museum district's Pinakotek der Moderne has an impressive permanent design collection. And there's always more beer gardens to bicycle between.
Caught Matthew Dear spinning to a packed house in London's Fabric, a nest of rooms in a vaulted basement in the meatpacking district. The sound and space really impressed, until I went to Frankfurt to and heard Matt spin again at Sven Vath's new Cocoon Club. A lot (including a giant club and two resteraunts) went into making Coccoon unique, and the suprising interior details range from innovative uses of plastic rods to devide space in the Micro resteraunt to the brilliant and stylish vending machine wall (sorry, no photos allowed).
September 4th is the opening of the Shrinking Cities exhibit in Berlin, so more to come...

Limber up those fingers and fine tune your power stance, for next week is the Air Guitar World Championships in Oulu, Finland.

+ Check out reigning world champion C-Diddy from the good old US of A.

Look out, New York.

Burnlab and Blackbx are sending a formidable taskforce to the the Big Apple next week. It's a much belated homecoming of sorts for Dorkwave at Lit, a birthday celebration for three of our favorite people in the whole world, and a taste of things to come this fall. Expect a full week of motor city madness in greatest city on earth.



+




The Potentially Dangerous flyer is available as a desktop here:
1024x768 | 1280x854

RETINA is an exploration of aesthetic archetypes of cyberpunk that culminates in a choreographed, mechanical ballet of man and machine, by Suk & Koch.

Just in case you haven't heard... Troy Pierce: master of slack.

Download. Print. Post. Repeat.

The BBC has uploaded a rare interview with Mies van der Rohe from 1959. [via Archinect]

While you're there, also peruse the long list of interviews with the likes of William S. Burroughs, Roald Dahl, Andy Warhol and Mohandas Gandhi.

Design [does not equal] Art, a new exhibition, featuring functional objects from some of the most significant visual artists of the past fifty years, opens at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum September 10th.

Photos from Friday's Les Infants Terribles.

Ladies and gentlemen, we may have a new leader in the Bush spoofing category.

re. previous post: Tony's Baltic Diaries.
I'm so jealous.

Greetings from Krakow. We are leaving tonight for Lithuania, then on to Latvia, Estonia, and finally a week in Berlin. If anyone know anyone along the way, let me know.

This Friday! Tell all your friends!

The New York crew has arrived in Detroit safe and sound, and is ready to live up to the night's name tomorrow night. One line-up change to note: Dave Elliott was not able to make it out to the Motor City, but Marcos Cabral (Trapez) will be taking his place on the bill. Team Dorkwave will be showing our guests around town this evening - definitely look out at the Magic Stick later on tonight.

Our Princeton corespondent Israel Kandarian is in Tokyo for the month. See his Tokyolog at Archinect.

It ain't 101, but I'll be anxiously checking my mailbox for this DVD.

It's all about the Ramones anyways.

Just when I thought I had become well numb to the catastrophe that is American politics, this actually turned my stomach.

On a brighter note...

Doris and I are bound for NYC to join in the upcoming invasion madness (I'm talking LIT and the Servito, Regina, Molly b-day party), not this.

But a funny thing happened while researching my travel dates. I swear, at first glance you'd think it's a Kerry website.

Thought Bush was a paranoid nutcase? This is almost unbelievable.

[Tennessee Republican congerssional candidate James L. Hart,] 60, vows if elected to work toward keeping "less favored races" from reproducing or immigrating to the United States. In campaign literature, Hart contends that "poverty genes" threaten to turn the United States into "one big Detroit."

[thanks to Motor City Rocks for the link]

M.Mayer has a hot new homepage showing off his new career advances.

Wow - how did I manage to miss this?

Parties on recently reclaimed floors of derelict buildings and in sweaty clubs are all well and good. But the overnight hours of the 24-hour Day of Music at Detroit's Max M. Fisher Music Center, guided by the knowing hand of our own Blackbx, provided a refreshing, inspiring surprise -- and a damn fine night out. Only stayed until 3 a.m., but Derrick May was still going strong in the Max's atrium, which was transformed from its already stunning self with a huge sound system, bars in the coat checks and a few dozen yards of black fabric for good measure. Fine music in the Music Box recital hall as well, a great crowd and greasy snacks to boot. A few pictures should follow shortly.

Arnold Steiner launches the AS1 Product Arsenal.

The Mrs. and I are off to Lake Michigan for a much needed vacation this weekend, but those sticking around the Detroit area have a wealth of elektrotabulous events to choose from:

Tonight our good friend Traxx will be performing with his band The Dirty Criminals (Gigolo Records) at Oslo on Woodward Ave. Info at Soft Curls.

Saturday night is a double feast. First off is the triumphant homecoming for road-weary but charged-up Ghostly International at The Magic Stick. Performing live will be Matthew Dear, Dabrye and Midwest Product, with SV4 manning the turntables. $12, 18+, doors at 9PM. Plus there will be art and video from Michael Segal, Julie Meitz (spinning girl) and more.

Also Saturday is the Day of Music at The Max (AKA Orchestra Hall). Free, all ages, 24-hours, cash bar with proper ID. The overnight segment (starting at midnight) features Derrick May in the Atrium and a special electronic section programmed by our own Liz Copeland in the Music Box: featuring Perspects, DJ Minx, Strand, Ryan Elliot, Liz herself and a special yoga set from Clark Warner. Info and schedule here. We hear there will be breakfast too! NOT to be missed.

You know I would definitely be at both.

A British defense contractor has developed a stealth wallpaper which prevents Wi-Fi signals from escaping a building without blocking mobile phone signals.

[via Core77]

[For me at least] the two most over-rated things in the whole wide world are Radiohead and Flash animation. Despite making my teeth itch at points, this is really kind of interesting and worth a watch.

[via Cameron at Archinect.]

Why does London have all the good pranksters? Space Hijackers

Considered by many as the wittiest graffiti artist in London, and by some as the most relevant visual artist of the moment, Banksy is stirring up a three and a half ton fuss with his latest work, a 20' bronze statue of justice dressed as a hooker. The statue was cemented into place in a London green early Wednesday morning (without permission, of course.) "It's the most honest depiction of British justice currently on display in the capital," Banksy said. "I hope it stays there for good."

NewSuperpitcher video out for the song "Happiness", featuring Axsel himself, Bonnie Raitt's daughter doing performance dance, and a wolf.

New short piece up on Uber by myself. The first in a series of my investigative reports into the avant-garden.

Burnlab: The We're Best

The Sonic Youth show was superb last night. The noise jam session with all three acts for a second encore was pricelss. No other band has remained so "revelant"* over the past 20 years. (*quote thanks to Jon O.)

Wet From Birth, the new LP from The Faint is slated for a September 14th release. US tour dates haven't even been announced on their website yet, but I already snatched up some tickets for the Saturday, October 9th show at The Majestic. Even if you're not as huge of a Faint fan as I am, opening act TV on the Radio is more than reason enough to go. Double whammy.

more awesomeness coming up at The Majestic Theater in Detroit:
Sonic Youth and Wolf Eyes TONIGHT
An Evening with Siouxsie, Friday, September 3
Laibach, Friday, November 12

(check band sites for other tour dates)

mike, the ever diligent host, somehow caught a post which i published and then seconds later deleted, due to the fact that my parents did and still do not know that...i quit my job last week and am officially on extended vacation, first a month in barcelona, then a month in the states (new york, pittsburg, detroit, phoenix), then hopefully a few months in south america or south-east asia before returning to bcn in search of a boss-less, beaurocratic-free existence (a dream, i know but i must give it a shot)...anyone interested welcome