Name:
Mike Germon

Aka:
I don’t really have any nicknames, stage names, or nom de plumes. Maybe that’s something to work on.

Website(s):
ThoughtMarker.blogspot.com
ThreeBlindMikes.com
MINTGallery.org

Where are you from?
I grew up just outside of Decatur. So with the exception of school in Athens, I’ve live in the A all my life.

Who do you work for?
I work freelance as a filmmaker and designer. I hope to eventually get paid to curate and create art as well.

What are your Current Project(s)?
I’m always busy with ThoughtMarker and helping run MINT Gallery. I’m also trying to pull together a book of drawings by local artists. I’m working on art for a couple of different group shows at Aurora Coffee. I’m working with you guys on an alternate colorway for one of the Process tees. I’m editing a video for Sideshow, a multimedia improv event that goes down Friday nights at Relapse Theater. Then in December, I’m curating a show of my favorite artists of the past year that will take place at WonderRoot.

Who would you love to work with?
Dosa Kim is one local artist who has really stepped it up lately, I hope to somehow work with him soon. As for big names, I’d love to work with Faile, Wes Anderson, The Rza, or Timur Bekmambetov. Look him up, he’s a genius.

If you had to give all your sneakers away to charity except for one pair, which ones would you keep?
I’d like to say my green and orange Nike iD Dunk Lows or my Energy (bright ass orange) Adidas Dragons, but I know that the real answer is my flip flops which I will rock well into the winter.

What’s on your iPod right now?
I’ve been listening to a lot of local stuff lately. Vera Fang, Judi Chicago, Snowden, Mastodon. I also still have a lot of love for bands out of Athens like Iron Hero, The Whigs, Cinemechanica, Pegasuses - XL, A. Armada, Marriage, Pride Parade, and We Versus the Shark. As for national stuff I like The Cool Kids, LCD Soundsystem, Thrice, Bloc Party, TV on the Radio, and of course the Wu-Tang Clan.

What’s your Favorite ATL food?
El Myr, Eats, Fellini’s, La Fonda, all cheap stuff near where I live.

What’s your Favorite ATL hangout?
Beep Beep Gallery and WonderRoot are two spots where you’ll find me often, and I’m starting to really like the Highland Inn Ballroom. But more often then not, I’ll just walk over to Manuel’s Tavern for pitchers of PBR. You’ll also find me catching soccer matches at the Brewhouse.

What are your Pet Peeves?
I could take this opportunity to rip into a bunch of people that annoy me through various actions and stances, but I will not. So I guess people complaining about stuff is one of my pet peeves. 

Shout outs?
Chuck McCarthy (ideasbychuck.com) out in LA. Brett W. Thompson (the happiest person in Atlanta). MINT’s intern Phil a.k.a. Dogbite. Vik Singh down in Miami, who I believe has already gotten a few shout outs via Set It Off. Local photographer Bobb Lovett (Bobb with two B’s), who recently showed with me in Mobile, AL and Tracy Young who hooked that up. Everybody holding down the underground art scene in Atlanta: all the kids at Beep Beep, the elusive Evereman, WonderRoot, MINT (and Erica who calls all the shots), Youngblood, Rabbit Hole, Foundation One (RIP), all the art bloggers (Jeremy, Ben, Jonathan, Cinque, etc.), The Atlanta Creatives Project, FALSE Magazine, and The Harold Group (serving up the best chicken wings you’ll find at a house party/art show). Last but not least, soon to be millionaire movie producer, my girlfriend Rebecca.

Air Max 90 Flywire

One of the greatest aspects of attending the 21 Mercer store opening launch party a few weeks back was being one of the first to see Nike’s icons redesigned for the new Nike Sportswear line. I’ll focus on 2 of my favorites here, the Air Max 90 Flywire & the Flywire Windrunner.

Designers at Nike started with the original Air Max platform, but increased the interior padding and ankle molding. With newly skived edges and unexpected upper materials the new Air Max 90 Flywires are a quintessential blend of Nike’s past, present and future. A key design element here is the patented Flywire technology that allows for super-lightweight construction. You’ve already seen Flywire earlier this year in the Beijing Olympics and particularly on Kobe Bryant, in the Hyperdunk.

See more photos of the AM 90 Flywire and Flywire Windrunner after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »

This weekend, the Viva Studio crew came by our new studio for another screen-printing party. All kinds of materials came out of the woodwork as we were asked to print on blank tees, bags, and even a blazer. Check out the photoset by Josh Tuminella after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Big Boi at the Atlanta Ballet

Big Boi’s highly anticipated solo album, Sir Luscious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty is supposedly coming out on October 28th, 2008. The world has been waiting to hear this album for quite some time since the release of the track, Royal Flush, that leaked earlier this year. I’ve heard all kinds of rumors involving various Dungeon Family members being on the record along with local DJs.
Is this the new sound of ATL?

Download: Big Boi - Dubbz (Ft. Backbone)

Name:
Rachael Spiewak

Aka:
Lil Ray, Tiny Mixmaster, Wak, Big Mama Spie

Website:
www.sopobikes.org

Where are you from?
Cooper City, FL

Who do you work for?
Sopo Bicycle Cooperative, Atlanta’s nonprofit community bicycle repair shop.

What are your Current Project(s)?
For Sopo, I manage and coordinate day-to-day operations and long term projects, along with a collective of amazing volunteers. The bulk of what I do is taken up with grassroots fundraising (read: throwing fanstatic parties) and caring for the shop and the people in it. Outside of the shop, I’m the resident DJ for the Harold Group, an art collective that throws quarterly theme parties (among other things). I go by Tiny Mixmaster. Here’s a live recording of a recent set. This one’s more indie electro than usual. I usually go for electrofunk, although people go bonkers for new jack swing (Soul II Soul and Bobby Brown take parties to a magical level). I figure, becoming an internationally touring electro DJ is a pretty good way to get out of the nonprofit game when the time comes.

Who would you love to work with?
The current kids at Sopo, 10 years from now. We’re teaching them about cooperation, environmental resonsibility, DIY, and conflict resolution in an unual kind of classroom, and in a place where they choose to be. They’re already cool kids. I bet they’ll be cool adults, too. Plus, they gotta run the bike shop when we all retire and buy yachts with our fat nonprofit paychecks.

If you had to give all your sneakers away to charity except for one pair, which ones would you keep?
The guys at Rare Footage in East Atlanta hooked me up with a pair of red Authentic Vans recently. Ordinarily, I don’t do red, or primary colors really. I’m from South Florida. I like pastels and all things CMYK. Anyway, I’ve never gotten so many shoe compliments…and shoe-related assumptions about my rowdiness. Apparently, red shoes kinda mean something about the person wearing them.

What’s on your iPod right now?
Funny, I don’t have an iPod. But in heavy rotation in Torq, the DJ software I use so I can contain my entire operation inside my messenger bag, are Crystal Castles, Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, the Bloody Beetroots, Shawty Lo, Burial, and Flying Lotus. And I’ve got electrofunk for days. I love the crap out of some local bands and DJs, too. I’ve seen Noot D’Noot about 17 times this year, and at a slightly lesser frequency, I’ve been enjoying Judi Chicago, Black Dominoes, Samadha, Zano Bathroom, Chris Devoe, Batata Doce, and Rev Rebel and the Sound Supreme.

What’s your Favorite ATL food?
Soul Vegetarian’s mac and cheese.  Their yams are excellent, too. 

What’s your Favorite ATL hangout?
When I’m not at the Sopo shop, I’m probably at Aurora L5P or Wonderroot. I’ve been digging the Highland Ballroom lately.

What are your Pet Peeves?
Aggro drivers, bicycles on the sidewalk, using the word “ghetto” to negatively refer to something as low budget (as if low budget = bad anyway), using the word “retarded” to refer to something as unsatisfactory, lazy DJs, and waiting on lines.

Shout outs?
Here’s some love for the entire Sopo community, the Harold Group, Ryan James, Black Dominoes, Sammy Parker, Studio Disco, Hollypop, all of my weirdo bike touring couch surfers who remind me that bikes are about fun, Lil Andy, and DIY’ers everywhere. Big ups to all my haters.

I was just talking to Georgios about Kanye’s performance of his new track, Love Lockdown, at the MTV VMAs the other night when this track hit my inbox. I’m not sure if this is the final studio version of the song, but it is safe to say that it sounds much better than his actual singing voice (as we were brutalized with this past weekend). This can be attributed to high production value and vocoder action (corny T-Pain voicebox). Like it or not, this is surely the first in a barrage of Kanye-related action that will be imposing itself upon your friends and favorite hang-outs this Fall as his album, 808’s & Heartbreak, is slated for a December 12th release. Get ready to be “over it” in about a week.

Download: Kanye West - Love Lockdown

We met Jae and Steven from The Loots outside of the The Sofia Hotel after the first day of Agenda. A casual conversation about the clothing industry led to stories of them being in the Korean Air Force and Israeli Military. Needless to say, they’re a bit older than we are and they have a lot of experience moving units on both coasts. It was great to pick their brains for a couple days and get some quality advice and encouragement from these guys who know the ins and outs of this fickle industry. Big ups to The Loots.

I just spent the last 4 days of my life in San Diego and I have to say that some DJs out there are totally unaware of how to hold it down. Don’t get me wrong, I love reggae and what I like to call “safety hits” (ie: Jackson 5, Amy Winehouse, Kanye, and 311) but four days of that stuff will make anyone miss being in Atlanta.

Attention bogus DJs of the world: Get skills and get schooled. Playing an entire Kanye song and cross-fading to a Jay-Z song doesn’t give you the right to be on stage. Just because you have a computer doesn’t mean you can drop beats. The same rule applies to your friend who has Photoshop on said computer. He can’t design either. I just spent my evening fixing his busted-looking show flyer.

In Atlanta, when our DJs make remixes, they actually re-mix and reinterpret songs. There are a lot of pseudo-turntable chumps that should take a lesson or two from Rob Wonder’s takes on Weezy’s Lollipop and Milli… suitable for P’Tree and Ponce escapades. It’s good to be back at home in the Dirty Dirty.

Download: Lil Wayne - Lollipop (Rob Wonder Re-Edit)
Download: Lil Wayne - Milli (Rob Wonder Remix)

I wanted to show everyone some of the cool people we met at Agenda this past week. First off is Dylan from Edmond. His line is really fun. Just the logo itself makes me feel like a kid again. Edmond is a collaborative effort put forth by Dylan and his buddy Tom DeLonge (Angels & Airwaves/Blink 182) where their main intent is to do something fun to give back to a lifestyle that brought them together years ago, skateboarding. Dylan also has the credit of being the original designer behind the brand Atticus. You probably have one of his old pieces in your closet! There are so many little details that I love about the Edmond line, especially the collectible and colorful vinyl dinosaur puzzle pieces that come in the hangtags of each garment. Head over to EdmondClothing.com to see what I’m talking about. I’ll introduce more of our new friends throughout this next week. So check back later!

This one crept in under the radar for me. I heard the other day that AC/DC has recorded their first album in eight years and it’s coming out this October. The album title is Black Ice and the first single is Rock N Roll Train. I love the gang vocals on the chorus and the guitar riff. I wish Angus’ solo was a little longer, but otherwise it is a straightforward rocker which is exactly what you’d expect from the arena rockers. Expect to see this track all over Monday Night Football all season long.

Download: AC/DC - Rock N Roll Train