GelaSkins | What's the Skinny?

The Great Giveaway!

Howdy Children!

It's that time again where we give stuff away here at What's the Skinny. Shit yeah!

Well I've got five pairs of tickets to give away to the Toronto BOMB IT premiere (July 11th, Bloor Cinema)  as well as your choice of limited edition BOMB IT skin (either Nano 3rd Gen or Classic) and all you have to do is answer a few questions about GelaSkins- sounds easy, doesn't it?

Alright, answer these questions three and you have to get at least two of them right.

1. Which GelaSkin artist used to travel around with H.S.T?

2. What does F.S.M. stand for?

3. How much wood would a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could Chuck Norris?

annnnnnd GO!

Bomb It and Z-Trip - Welcome to Awesome!

Ok, it's official.

July 11th is going to rock harder than a million wasted mullets at a Def Leppard concert featuring Guns n' Roses, Mettalica, Iron Maiden and Skid Row playing on a giant rotating flaming stage. Yeah, I know - you just pictured how hard those mullets were rocking didn't you? It was hard, wasn't it? Well my friends, the reason that it's going to be so awesome is that GelaSkins will be screening Bomb It: The Global Graffiti Documentary that night at the Bloor Cinema to what I'm sure will be not only the delight of the legions of screaming GelaSkins fans but to graf fans from the 416 to the 905. This film chronicles the rise of graffiti to the underground as one of the four pillars of hip hop to the global artistic juggernaut it is today. We're very fortunate to be having the award winning director Jon Reiss joining us that night all the way from L.A. for an audience Q&A afterwards so be sure to stick around for that. You can find more info out here.

Ok, but it doesn't end there, oh goodness no. The madness ensues with a full on mash-up jam brought to you by the guy that basically invented the style, the one and only Z-Trip (he's from the US, so it's pronounced ZEE Trip, not ZED TRIP). Seriously, I saw him last time he rolled through town and it was easily the best party of the year - free love in the hallways, people dancing on the bars and unicorns giving free rides home. The man has an uncanny ability to cross genres all the while keeping hands in the air and smile on the faces. Dig it!! More info here.

Tickets for BOTH events can be picked up at www.ticketweb.ca, Soundscapes, Play De Record, Rotate This, Shanti Baba, Sonic Temple and Slinky Music. 

I think there's some mobile phone coming out that day or something too, but I'm sure no-one will notice.

Got Liberty?

Hey Readers - Sorry for the lack of posting this week, but the burgeoning metropolis of Madison, WI has kept me a little busier than expected. Ok, it's mostly been the deep fried cheese curds that they do oh so well here, but I digress.

I Just wanted to let you know about a gallery show going down in Toronto this weekend in Liberty Village. It's the Liberty Market Lofts Art Festival and it's happening Saturday and Sunday from noon to 5pm at 171 East Liberty street. It's showcasing the artists from the Village including GelaSkins very own Giselle Silvestri and should be a grand ol' time so check it out if you're in the area.

Until then...

Monday Madness - Free Skins and other assorted stuff

What's up folks! I trust everyone had a fun and safe weekend in what I feel was the unofficial start to summer - mostly because I was at a cottage surrounded by water, sunshine and large snakes, but also mostly because I got to see Jamie Lidell on Thursday and he's just a little bit of feel good, n'aw mean?

Last week y'all snapped those free skins so quickly I'm making the questions a little more difficult so it might require a little hunting around. I'd like to give up free skins to the first five people that can answer the following questions correctly. If you get the bonus question, you can pick 2 skins!

1. Name two out of three GelaSkins artists from Toronto.

2. Which GelaSkin artist was famously insane? (think self mutilation)

Bonus:  Name the GelaSkins artist that coined the phrase "So it Goes."

In other news, His Steveness will be taking the stage at the WWDC in less than a half hour to unleash the latest from his team of evil geniuses conjured from from deep in the bowels of Castle Cupertino. There really haven't been any rumours to speak of about what they could possibly be releasing today so your guess is as good as mine. My guess is that it's some kind of 3G Uniphonecorn, that comes equipped with GUPS (Global Uniphonecorn positioning system), hacks on how to make your Vista loaded PC into a slushy machine annnnd 16 different recipes for homemade prison wine.  I think that's pretty accurate, don't you?

In artist news - our main man Lawrence Yang opened a show on the weekend at the Lower Hater gallery in SF entitled Vinyl Apocalypse. The show is exhibiting several artists all painting on old records as the medium. Awesome! Knock 'em dead LYang!

Here's a couple examples of Lawrence's work - I know! Sick, right?

GONZO!

As you might know already, we're raging Gonzo fans here, so you might understand our excitement at the surfacing of this trailer. Apparently  it screened at Sundance this year , but no word on how it was recieved.

This short description (taken from IMDB) just makes me want to see it even more;

"Fueled by a raging libido, Wild Turkey, and superhuman doses of drugs, Thompson was a true "free lance," goring sacred cows with impunity, hilarity, and a steel-eyed conviction for writing wrongs. Focusing on the good doctor's heyday, 1965 to 1975, the film includes clips of never-before-seen (nor heard) home movies, audiotapes, and passages from unpublished manuscripts.

God bless the good Doctor and all his personal convictions.

Free The Skins!

In effort to be better, more well rounded people, we here at GelaSkins are attempting to make some changes. These include the following:

1) Try to smile at random people more.
2) Consume more ancient grains (*fact: The ease of pronunciation of grain is directly proportional to its nutritional value)
3) Enjoy a good cat in a sink.
4) Give away skins to rabid GelaSkins fans (yes, that's how we picture you - froth-mouthed skin junkies, inexorably consumed with the beauty that is GelaSkins) to keep them hooked. :)

Sooooo, here you go - the first three peeps to comment on this post with the answer to this question will win a free GelaSkin of their choice. Ok, are you ready...

Which GelaSkins artists are from the Land Down Under?

C'maaaan here people, I can't make it any easier.

The Test begins.... noooooooooow.

* - % of total truthiness to this fact is 5, with a 4.9% margin of error.  

Dave Choong Lee and MARS-1

Our boy MARS-1 and friend Dave Choong Lee have been been busy lately wrangling some awesome new pieces from the recesses of their collective minds and are on display for all to see at Bucheon Gallery in SF from now until June 21st.  Check some of the wicked shots - I love the sculpture by MARS!

Collaborative piece by Dave and MARS-1

Sculpture by MARS-1 (not something I would like to meet in a dark hallway - ok, let's face it I'd still defecate everywhere even if I ran into this in a fully lit hallway. Shut up!  I know I have a problem with spiky legged, chrome creatures with a feathered mustachios, you don't have to rub it in...)

Badass one legged dude that can hold fire - Dave Choong Lee

Link to Gallery

BLU my mind, Again...

Once again BLU has killed it with his latest stop-motion video. This particular wall animation took several months to paint, shoot and edit and leaves no doubt in my mind that this guy is a frickin genius.

The second best table you've ever seen...

Ok, so admittedly we get a little excited around here about furniture, but this table is certified bad ass. I'm talkin'  BAAAAD ASS! It's a giant f**king NES controller, that's mostly a table, but it's also mostly a f**king GIANT controller that works.

THAT WORKS!

I wish I had a giant living room and a giant TV to play it on. Then again I'd probably have a giant girlfriend nagging to stop playing my giant gaming system...Giantly.

the 45RPM CD

Ok, this has to be one of the coolest (novel) technology mash-ups I've seen in a while (steampunk is starting to bore me a little). Some guys named Aleks Kolkowski has used his record cutter to cut grooves in a CD so that it can be played like a piece of vinyl.

Yeah...I know - awesome, right?

I wonder if you can scratch with that little guy?

Via dailydiy

a little of this, a little of that...

We released some great new skins this week - this time 3 images from So Cal artist Jen Lobo. Jen, a one time student of GelaSkins own Bob Dob, has an amazing talent for anthropomorphizing the creatures she paints, but you don't need me to tell you that, just look at them!

In other artist related news, I found a cool interview with one of our Bay Area artists, surrealist MARS-1. You can read the interview here.

I'm sure you know by now if you read this blog that Radiohead are the preferred choice for praise in the music column and well, some things never change. Oxford's finest hit the road this week to start their arduous journey of melting faces and rocking souls on their first of a two part North American tour that is divided by a European section in July. I've vigorously scoured the globe You Tube to bring you the best that bootleg videos have to offer from the recent West Palm Beach and Tampa shows. Can't wait to see these glorious bastards at the Molson Amphitheater later this summer.

"Short back and sides, and a glass of Pinot please!"

All you Growth fans in the Bay Area should be happy to hear that Lawrence Yang with be heading up a solo show of his very own opening on May 16th. the jam will be going down at "MR." which according to the poster is a barbershop and wine bar. Crazy! Finally, a place I can get loaded annnnnnnnnd get a trim - although maybe they should provide some kind of fast food lidded cup so the hair doesn't get in your wine. Yeah, now that's classy!

With $3 Red Stripes and vino, there's no good excuse I can think of to miss this - unless of course you're here in Canada celebrating Queen Victoria's birthday for the long weekend, then you're paying an obscene amount for gas, but hey, who isn't these days.

Mr. Yang was kind enough to send over some sneak peeks at what we'll be seeing at the upcoming show... check it!

Nice Cans...revealed!

As predicted the Cans Festival went off this weekend like gangbusters as what will undoubtedly go down the greatest collection of stenciled street art ever assembled. While the great Banksy got a lion's share of the press, there are some incredible pieces by the rest of the field of artists, not to mention all the awesome art as part of the 'free for all' - where anyone form the public could come and paint as well. Romanyg's flickr site has a pant load wicked pictures you can find here for the known artists and here for the rest.

Banksy...

Bandit...

DOLK...

Ron English...

Fark FK and SNUB...

Blek Le Rat...

Nice Cans!

The Cans festival is set to kick off this weekend in London and promises to be a whole metric ass-tonne of awesome. This is being marketed as a street party of stencil art and has a cast of 'partyers' that are pretty impressive. Everyone from Blek le Rat to 3D and Banksy will be taking part in the festivities, but there are a few rules of engagement...

1. It's a stencil only event - no freehand lettering or characters
2. No going over other artists
3. Apparently the have a lot of security, and they will direct you to your painting area


We'll have the pics up for you early next week, so check back!

Canned goodness *UPDATED*

So much great stuff going on in the world today, where to begin...

Steven Daily, the southern Californian  artist, dropped a line this week saying thanks to all those that supported Gag Me With A Toon and he was so inspired by all the love you folks threw out their way, that he just waltzed right out and threw down some wicked graf. He was kind enough to send a few shots along to show all of you.

 

The Bay area's MARS-1 has a great new print being offered  up by the Jonathan LeVine Gallery called Aerodynamics for Psychonauts. This baby is limited to 50 and can be purchased for $350 directly from the gallery.

Shepard Fairey has released a new poster in support of the new movie BOMB IT featuring the GIANT himself along with a slew of others on the history of global graffiti and street art. Pretty sweet if you ask me, but I'm a little pissed they haven't announced a Toronto screening date.

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

* UPDATE -  Stay tuned in the coming weeks for an announcement for the Toronto screening of BOMB IT :) 

In the meantime, check out the trailer...

 

Annnnd our man behind the Bookshelf, Colin Thompson, is up for an award Down Under. The Children's Book Council of Australia  has put Colin's book Dust on a short list for Best Picture Book Of the Year. Well done Colin and good luck!

Free skin Feeevaah!

Alright kiddiewinkles, it's Friday (Hoooray!) and on Friday's 'round these parts we're going to get things jumping a little bit by giving you what you want. That's right, we're giving away some skins on this here blog and it's veeeeeerrrrry easy to win. Here's what you gotta do - email the correct answers to the questions below to this address(contact at gelaskins dot com) and the first 3 people to email in win their choice of skin. Please include your name, address (no P.O. Boxes please!) AND Telephone number (very important!)

Alright, here we go...

1. Which company makes amazing wallpaper whose patterns warps around your fixtures and frames?

2. Which kind of mammal did the worlds tallest man save?

3. Which table is the coolest table in your house?

*Hint- The answers to all these questions can be found in posts on the blog - you jus' gotta dig a little.

In artist news, Juxtapoz, low brow art mag extrordinaire has a great little interview with Amy Sol. Greg 'Craola' Simkins has designed a great new figure for street stylistas Upper Playground  based on their mascot/logo.  This little guy is called the Orange Argyle Walrus - makes me want to trick some little oysters... Speaking of Alice in Wonderland, I came across some awesome illustrations by Ralph Steadman of Lewis Carroll's magnum opus.

Well, hope you have a good weekend - see you next week!

It's another day to get a little bit of feel good.

Jamie Lidell IS the man (and also known as JIM according to his impeding release) and has released the second video from his sophomore release next week. Well, maybe sophomore isn't the most correct term in this case. For someone that's been releasing minimal techno albums for the better part of a decade, definitely not, but in his current incarnation as a funk machine churning out sexy tunes to get down to, fo' sho!

As we've come to expect from mr. Lidell at this point, his melodies are saccharine, his beats tight and funkay, and his "No way I'm this white or English" soul vocal stylings are just f***ing killer - no two ways about it.

Peep these two awesome cuts: Another Day and A Little Bit of Feel Good. What I love about these videos  is that he's decided to go a very Stanley Kubrick-esque route with video content, which has very little correlation with the lyrics or even sytle of music - awesome!  Who knew a horse could give him a little bit of feel good?

Ketner Does the 'Springs...

Our main man from the Chicagoland area, Jeremiah Ketner, had a solo show open this past weekend in the delightful dessert oasis known as Palm Springs, California. The M Modern gallery is playing host to "Another Tomorrow" over the next few weeks so please be sure to head on over if you're in the Palm Springs area.  In the meantime, Jeremiah was kind enough to send over some great pics of the work he's exhibiting - stunning as always!

In other news, both Alex Noriega and Jaime Zollars among others are taking part in a show called Menace and Charm: the Nostagia of Childhood starting this Saturday the 26th at Black Maria Gallery.

Make sure you check to see What the Skinny is on Friday as I'll be giving away some of our new PSP and DS Lite skins!

Let the Gaming Begin!

It's a big day around ol'  GSHQ as we've just unleashed the latest skins on the masses. I know what you're thinking, "WHY GelaSkins, WHY? Aren't you satisfied with just being super awesome already? Why can't you just leave well enough alone?"

Well I suppose we could, but we do have a yearly awesome quota to fill and well, releasing bunk skins would leave us a little short.

But seriously folks, all kidding aside, we do appreciate all the feedback, comments and requests we've received to date that have helped us develop this product and we just want to let you know that we know that you know we're awesome.

Kapish?

Bill's idea?

Good lord.

I thought I'd seen enough ridiculous for one day...and then there was this.

This was supposed to be an internal video for Microsoft Vista's SP1 and boy howdy, is it awesome. It's really straddling that hairy line between being "so bad, it's goddamn incredible!" and "Jesus, this is shittiest thing I've ever witnessed, someone carve out my eyes....PLEASE!"

I'll let you decide.