The Heavenly States was formed from lesser bands in a lab outside of Silicon Valley. They just had a new album drop not too long ago called Delayer. The CD case artwork is rather unique. It is made up of semi-transparent paper with the lyrics and song titles from the page underneath showing through giving it a layered look, hence - Delayer. Check out the interview and check out their myspace.

A couple of months ago, or maybe a year ago, my girlfriend purchased a couple of literary items from mcsweenys.net.  I really enjoyed these items, especially the packaging and design*, remarkable really.

So, recently I was visiting mcsweeneys.net, to see what was happening and I stumbled across a new publication, a publication right up my alley.  It’s a quarterly DVD magazine called Whophin.  Each issue includes short films, documentaries and animations, work that doesn’t have the blessed fortune of hitting your local Cineplex Odeon.

So being the impulse buyer I am, I decided to purchase an issue.  Picking an issue wasn’t a problem. I was going with issue No. 5.  The reason being it included a short film called House Hunting** that was adapted from a short story by Micheal Chabon, author of the first-rate novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.  As it turned out though, this wouldn’t be my favorite in the issue.

To be truthful, I’ve only made it half way through, but so far I’m enjoying everything my first issue of Wholpin.  The standout so far is the opening short Death to the Tinman, a tragic tale of limbs and love lost.  Not only is it well written and visually stunning, I also found out, upon further research, that it was written as a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, detailing how the famed Tinman came to be heartless and well, made of tin.

Now Wholpin is not only an animal born from the result of a dolphin and whale mating, it’s a terrific source for unseen films delivered to your home.

Check it out: http://www.wholphindvd.com/

Regards,
H

* I’m a nerd.
** Directed by Amy Lippman, the co-creator of the life-altering series Party of Five.

The other day I was sitting around bored and I started thinking about what I used to do back in the day to fill up my  hours of boredom… I soon realized that all used to do when I was younger was watch t.v. (which I still do) listen to music (which I still do) and play videogames (which I stopped doing a few years ago).

I was trying to figure out why I stopped obsessing over video games which I remember used to take up  hours and hours of my time. Then I relaized that all these new fangled sytems and game consoles are bogus and every time I try and get involved with a new game it gets way to time consuming.

So I stopped buying into the hype and broke out my orginal 8 bit Nintendo (NES) and 16 bit Super Nintendo (SNES). I started playing thorugh all my old games and soon became obssesed once again with Contra III: The Alien Wars (SNES). After totally dominating the game several times, my thirst for some Contra action was still not quenched. However Contra III was the only game in the series that I owned (pathetic I know). So I went about trying to track down Contra (NES) and Super C (NES). I soon discoverd that since 1987 and 88 that both games have become rather coveted and rare to find.

I finally found some used copies on www.amazon.com . Contra was $20.00 and Super C was $13.00 which seemed kinda pricey for a couple of busted ass used NES games but I was obssesed so I forked out the $33.00 and waited patiently for a week for them to arrive.

Once they arrived. I broke em out, started playing and soon realized that these games are way to hard to play without using the old school cheat codes (Contra: U,U,D,D,L,R,L,R,B,A, Start = 30 lives & Super C: R,L,D,U,A.B,Start = 10 Lives). Once I used the cheat codes I started tearing through levels and conquering both games left and right. All with out spending days and weeks trying to beat the games (average Contra beat down 35 to 45 minutes). 

So long story short, brush off all the hootin’ and hollerin’ going on with with all the new flashy souless video games. Get vintage with your NES, SNES and some bad ass Contra games. Goodtimes!!

Jon

When you have been riding as long as Fuzzy has, you learn pretty much everything you need to know about the industry. Having kids, he now has to make that call whether to push his kids into the sport or let them choose it on their own. If you’ve ever met Fuzzy, you know he is not the type of guy to push anyone into anything. Luckily for him, his son is into BMX and it’s something they can enjoy together. Now watch the video.

Make sure to click through to Fuzzy’s BMX store.

http://www.5050bmx.com/

First off, let me state that this will not be filed under “Bands You Need to Know”, this should be “Bands You Should Already Know”.  With that being said, I’ve been a fan of The Walkmen since 2004 when I purchased their album Bows and Arrows.  Like most music nerds I enjoy compiling a year-end “Best Of” mix.  Well back in 2004, my song of the year was The Rat by The Walkmen.  To this day, it’s a song that can be played on repeat for hours and I would enjoy it more and more with each listen.

Let’s fast forward to 2008* and a few albums later,  The Walkmen have released their latest effort, You & Me.  Being a fan of all their albums, I might be a little biased and enjoy everything they put out, but it’s becoming an album that is in heavy rotation on my Zune**.

Here’s the good news about their latest release:  It’s only $5 dollars to purchase a high-quality mp3 download of the album and ALL of the proceeds go to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in honor of Luca Vassallo, who is a seven month old boy battling leukemia

You can learn more about Luca here, www.loveforluca.com.

Regards,
H

*Fast forwarding and rewinding have become a common occurrence in my LEB blog posts… I’m so nostalgic.

**Kidding of course, I don’t own a f—king Zune,