Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Picasso At The Mall: A Touch of Mullet



Although their meteoric rise and fall in the late summer of 1986 left Picasso at the Mall in tatters, they soon realized that they were better off torturing each other than being boring and morose alone. MothB0t had started a moderately successful Tupperware business, with a stable of three sales people below him. He was paying the bills, but no amount of leftovers kept fresh in the refrigerators of his customers could fill the creative void in his heart.

Meanwhile, Dekx lost his life savings "playing the stock market," which was actually one of those oversized slot machines that takes silver dollars you see near the exit of a lot of casinos. While $73.56 may not have seemed like a lot of money to most people, the loss was catastrophic for Dekx's psyche. He began gently but steadily banging his head with a 2 x 4 he found in an empty lot, just to feel something other than self-hatred.

In 1988 they ran into each other in an Amway recruitment meeting. They immediately fell into a kerfuffle, breakdance battling until both of them had sustained multiple self-inflicted injuries and could no longer continue. At the emergency room they mended both their torn ligaments and their relationship. They immediately started writing new music.

Their reunion gave PatM a new energy which was captured perfectly in their second album, A Touch of Mullet. Eschewing their previous eclectic sound, A Touch of Mullet was raw bravado, cool guy persona, and lazers. Dekx, still hearkening back to his roots while keeping up with current trends, got a Shumway Death Ray model AK-eytar, but MothB0t moved from melodica to synth drums, having crafted a unique style bopping on various sizes of Tupperware in his free time.

Using MothB0t's Tupperware network, PatM played a string of house parties in the Reno/Sparks, NV area, quickly garnering a reputation for mediocre talent and even mediocrer stage presence. What would have been their first single if they had ever received any radio time, Rising Sun Headband, did get somebody to dance for a few seconds. In what may have been his saddest moment, MothB0t made out with a woman to his own love song, Roundhouse to The Heart.

Their most popular song was a deep cut from A Touch of Mullet - between Lambo Libido and Sex Ninja, Love Shuriken - called Corpse Fucker. A soaring, inspirational, Transformers: The Motion Picture Soundtrack-inspired song, Corpse Fucker immediately became popular with the 15 or 20 people who heard it. Because of the heavily robot-augmented vocals, listeners were unaware that they were championing a necrophilia anthem for the ages. This led to PatM making the national news. It also led to them going into hiding. In their VH1: Behind The Music episode, they revealed that  "going into hiding" mainly just entailed them staying home and playing a fuckload of Super Mario Bros. 3.

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

New Basement Jaxx Video!

New Video from Basement Jaxx, Featuring a delightful Twerk-Bot designed to save a world which has forgotten how to dance!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0eS3zC3Jco

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Chakakhanistani Horoscopy

RLZ Note: This is part 1 in a 11 part series by guest blogger and long-time friend, Gaelvin (check out his Deviant Art page here.). It may behoove you to check out our post on Chakakhanistan's conversion to metric time prior to reading this.

The Scientific Pseudo-Art of Horoscopy As practiced in the Sovereign Religio-State of Chakakhanistan

Let us begin by defining a few useful terms.

Horoscopy is the study of Constellations and Heavenly Bodies, and their influences on the lives (and deaths) of human beings and other sentient life-forms. Someone who practices Horoscopy is known as an Astrologizer, and when they give a reading they are said to Astrologize.

A Constellation is a grouping of stars which portrays a person, creature or object from Chakakhanistani folk history. As the only nation which has embraced Metric Time, Chakakhanistani Horoscopy recognizes ten Zodetric Signs.

The Zodetre is the array of ten Deadly Constellations, individually known as Zodetric Signs, or Death Signs. The ten Death Signs are: Zombie; Robot; Running With Scissors; Radioactive Dinosaur; Flipped-out Ninja; Surly Pirate; Gaucho; DeLorean; Sharktopus; and Giant Shark.

The Heavenly Bodies are the ten Planets of Doom, or Doomworlds, and Uber-Hawt Chicks. While Uber-Hawt Chicks are random variables, and thus unknowable, the ten Doomworlds are known to be the following: the Moon; Mars; Neptune; Pluto; Antichthon, or the Counter-Earth; Monstrator; Elvera; Nemesis; Planet X; and Xena. In proper Horoscopic parlance, a Heavenly Body is said to be in your Death Sign's Hiz-ous.

It is well known to Chakakhanistanis that the Horoscopic circumstances on the date of one's death are far more important than those of one's birth. The date on which one will die has a profound influence on one's entire previous life, and can even define one's former personality.
Accordingly, each Zodetric Sign possesses a list of personality traits attributed to those whose deaths will fall under it. In combination with the influence of the Heavenly Bodies, a Horoscopic Reading may be utilized to determine important events in one's life which will lead inexorably to one's ultimate, and deserved demise.

When first confronted with Horoscopy as practiced in Chakakhanistan, most foreigners have a number of similar questions.
Q: How do I learn my Zodetric Sign if I don't know when I'm going to die?
A: There are two ways to determine the sign under which your death will occur. First you can consult an Astrologizer who has been trained and certified by the Chakakhanistani Institute of Religio-Sciences, and have a proper reading. But in a pinch, you can consult a Decahedral Randomizer and the following Zodetric Table:

1: Zombie
2: Robot
3: Running With Scissors
4: Radioactive Dinosaur
5: Flipped-out Ninja
6: Surly Pirate
7: Gaucho
8: DeLorean
9: Sharktopus
10: Giant Shark


Here are displayed the Constellations of the Chakakhanistani Zodetre. Can you name them all?

Q: What do the different Zodetric Signs represent?
A: The simple answer is that they represent ten ways, and the only ten ways, in which all sentient life-forms will meet their demise. The more complex answer involves the personality traits associated with the individual Signs; a list too lengthy for the present discussion. However, the CIR-S will soon publish a complete guide to Chakakhanistani Horoscopy which will list these important details.

Q: In what way does the presence of a Heavenly Body in my Sign's Hiz-ous effect my Horoscopic Reading?
A: As has been said before, Uber-Hawt Chicks are far too random to predict. All that is known for certain is that their presence in the Hiz-ous serves to hasten one's ultimate demise.
The Planets, on the other hand, have the clear and predictable effect of modifying the related Zodetric Sign in accordance with the Planet's nature. The following is a list of the Planets acknowledged by the CIR-S to have Horoscopic effects and their corresponding natures. For convenience, they are also listed with numbers so that a Decahedral Randomizer may be consulted by the lazy or miserly.

1: The Moon (Insane/Crazy or Were-)
2: Mars (Martian)
3: Neptune (Aquatic/SCUBA)
4: Pluto (Cartoon)
5: Antichthon, or the Counter-Earth (Invisible)
6: Monstrator (Giant)
7: Elvera (Tiny/Fun-Size)
8: Nemesis (Evil Twin)
9: Planet X (Explosive/Exploding)
10: Xena (Amazon/Femenazi)

Q: How do I describe my Horoscopic Reading?
A: A basic Horoscopic Reading consists of your Zodetric Sign accompanied by the modifier(s) corresponding to the Planet(s) in the Hiz-ous.

For instance, one might say that they will die under the Sign of the Surly Cartoon Pirate, or the Evil Twin Running With Scissors.

It is also possible to have multiple Planets in the Hiz-ous, sometimes referred to as a House Party. For instance, the Invisible Giant Shark's Evil Twin, or the Martian Amazon Gaucho.

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Picasso at the Mall

Picasso at the Mall's self-titled first album.

Picasso at the Mall were a synthpop band formed in Reno, NV in May of 1986. They were one of the most successful bands in the region, citing diverse influences like Kajagoogoo, UB40, Grace Jones and Winger. Picasso at the Mall's lineup consisted of MothB0t on lead melodica and lead vocals, and Dekx on lead keyboards and lead vocals.

MothB0t's tenacious, syncopated, freestyle scale- and music theory-ignoring blitzkrieg melodica playing instantly drew attention to the group's debut performance at the Organ Trail keyboard and organ store in the upper level of the Olde Town Mall, where the duo worked as salesmen. However it was Dekx's unique 13 keyboard setup and blistering Bossa Nova Demo Mode rotation which kept passersby enthralled for minutes at a time.

In August of 1986 Picasso at the Mall outgrew the narrow confines of organ sales-based roots synth. They
began what would have been a three-coffee shop tour of the Reno/Sparks area. Their first and last gig on that tour was cut drastically short when PatM found out that ten minutes was allotted to each act, not each person. The ensuing altercation with the guy who ran the open mic at Coffee 'n' Things resulted in substantial damage to 12 of Dekx's 13 keyboards and MothB0t's real nice rayon shirt.

Realizing that the band was at its zenith, Picasso at the Mall chose to part ways in September of 1986. MothB0t would go on to become a session musician playing the melodica with some of the biggest acts of the 90s including Semisonic, Matchbox 20, Snow, and whoever the fuck did Roll to Me.

Dekx got a Vegetable Science degree at Dar'yll and Moon's Vegetable Science Academy somewhere in the Balkan Peninsula, where he still works doing vegetable science. Mostly on vegetables.

In April of 2014 Picasso at the Mall started making headlines again due to a legal altercation with fart-rock band, Nickleback. So-called vocalist Chad Kroeger, in a March 22nd interview cited Picasso at the Mall as his number one musical influence. PatM's lawyers sprang into action, immediately suing Kroeger for slander, libel and defamation of character. The court case rapidly devolved into a shouting match when Picasso at the Mall realized that they only got ten minutes for the entire defense team and not ten minutes per defendant.

Monday, March 17, 2014

In Space, No one can hear you...


"Don't get me wrong. I love Ortiz's Alien poster, but am I the only one who sees goatse?"
Nope You're not the only one. We see it too.
Original: Randy Ortiz
Goatse Remix: Sour

Good night and sleep tight.

Monday, July 29, 2013

Daft Punk Re-Mixes

Some Daft Punk remixes I felt I had to do. There are more ideas than there are minutes to Photoshop.