Soundsystems on two wheels

Made in Queens is a documentary about these yong folks who build complete soundsystems on their bikes. When we were young we attached a washing peg with a playing card to our wheel so it made a sound like 'tttrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr' when you drove your bmx. These youngsters do this. Creative, we say.

Rowley Birkin, Cairo

Ok people. We just decided to make a series of posts dedicated to the one and only Rowley Birkin. For the people who never have encountered this chap, he's a sketch character from the mother of all English sketchshows, The Fast Show (Monty Python is offcourse grand mother), created by Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson.
Some explanation: Birkin always talks about his adventures in a half understandable way, and always finishes with the famous frase "i'm afwaid I was fewwy fewwy dwunk"

No comments necessary

Only one thing we want to say: R.E.S.P.E.C.T. That is for the patience that guy or girl or group shows. We would have given up at the 3d frame...

no wave / post punk / underground / new york / 1976-1980

Is the title of a new photo history book describing the collision of art and punk in that time, a rarely documented scene on which people like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Jim Jarmusch evolved. The book was created by Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore and indie rock journalist Byron Coley. See more here.

Kissing the ceiling

Nice series of photos of Canadian born photographer Fred Muram.

Here come the Germans!

This video of Jeux Sans Frontieres is just so good to watch. Not only because that laugh of the commentator kills you, but also because you can see how innocent everything was not that long ago. Who comes up with a TV show where people have to run around in penguin costumes carrying buckets of water on a huge turnig plate? Brilliant!

Hobnox Audiotool

If you are into playing with software like Propellorhead Reason or Ableton try this online thing called Hobnox. It isn't as sophisticated as te other two, but it's good fun. Just lay some cables between devices and see what kind of beats you can produce and maybe even record. Hobnox was awarded a flashforward nomination.

What the fuck happens when we die?

We think they are coming close to an answer! After the prospective scientific study of our own Dr. Pim van Lommel on near-death experiences and out-of-the-body experiences, which appeared in the world's leading medical journal 'The Lancet' in 2001, now the medical world seems to have woken up and are starting a a 3-year exploration of the biology behind "out-of-body" experiences. Since we all actually are secret science nerds @ AK, we will follow this closely and report here.

Bad tattooing

Nice collection of pictures with some really bad tattoos. But, are they really bad? Aren't they just advanced really? Because in 20 years from now they will probably end up in a book like this and then they will be looked upon as state of the art original pieces.
The one Archie has on his shoulder suits this collection pretty well actually! So that means we're pretty hip doesn't it? ;-)

Machines that almost fall over

Woulnd't you like to build just an extra room in your house for this? So you can sit and stare and do nothing more then that all day? We would. That's just perfect relaxation in our eyes.

Best track ever! Part IV: The Undertones-Teen age Kicks

I'm gonna call her on the telephone
Have her over cos i'm all alone
I need exitement oh i need it bad
And its the best, i've ever had

Just like famous BBC I dj John Peel (they played this song at his funeral) this is our ultimate favourite track. Frontman Feargal Sharkey tried do do it solo in the late 80's again (A good heart thes days is hard to find tralalalala) but never came close again to this one above.

Dance Floor Dale

If you are too sensitive for some explicit scenery, better not watch this video. It contains some heavy 'not suitable for work' material. The video is banned everywhere so it probaly will be banned from Vimeo also. If so, you always can watch it here. The track is called 'Parisian Goldfish' and was created by Flying Lotus on Warp Records. Video is directed by Eric Wareheim (Tim & Eric). We like!

Crime Scene Amsterdam

We recently bought this book called 'Crime Scene Amsterdam'. It's a book full with forensic photography from Amsterdam's Police Archive 1960-1986. The photographs are pretty disturbing and sinister, but have a mysterious beauty and are of extremely high quality. Bushes where stiffs were found, people on their knees with their head in the oven, floating bodies in the canals... It's just something you really (don't) want to see.

Daniel Eatock

Daniel Eatock does very nice projects. Alone, or together with the rest of the world. "I am interested in connections between image and language, titles, punch lines, miscommunication, subversions, open systems, contributions from others, seriality, collections, discovery and inventing". Please take some time to wander around on his webspace (click the tree)

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Hm, maybe one then...
Some research made it clear that this man is called Tommy Seebach and he's doing a cover of Apache (The Shadows). You can see it here, but we're not sure if this one is less breathtaking than the one above. You may decide.

A.D.E.

To get our old Japanese ass on the dancefloor again we went with a couple of friends to the Amsterdam Dance Event to attend the Innervisions night at the Melkweg. As you can see on the picture we had great fun finding spots on the ceiling to point at, what usually means the night was A.O.K. As you can see on this film more people where doing the same thing.

Menno van Gorp

Is the world champion breakdancing and he's from... Tilburg. That brings a small tear to our eyes. That's because our own Seacaptain Plonk E used to dance break in the streets of Tilburg the time Beat Street came out in the early eighties. Although he never even could fix the windmill, Da Plonk is ever so proud to see young Menno conquer that title.

Monome

Monome are a small company based in Philadelphia, who design and build a range of nicely designed controller/display boxes that can be interfaced to music software. Check for more info here.

Best track ever! Part III: Simple Minds - I Travel

We owe an apology. We owe an apology to Jim Kerr and his Simple Minds. That's because we hated them. We spat on them and called all Simple Minds fans stupid. Back in the days when we only had ears for The Cookie Crew and Fast Eddie. But now when we start realizing what great music they produced, I travel earns the title of Archibald Kobayashi's 'Best Track ever! Part III'!

Magnetic Movie

Fantastic movie from Semiconductor. If we understood it correctly this film is shot in NASA's Space Sciences Laboratory, where they somehow recorded inaudible electro magnetic waves to then translate them to graphical images. Reading comments below their posted video you feel people wondering: can this be true? In our opinion it doesn't really matter if its true, fake or a bit of both. Its just an amazing piece of work.

Russian criminal tattoo's

In search for a fresh new tattoo for Archibald we found this gallery with pictures from Russian Criminals with some proper old school shit on their bodies.

Go and see:

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. A documentary which follows a middle school science teacher as he battles a hot sauce mogul for the Guinness World Record on the arcade classic Donkey Kong. Prepare for some fantastic footage and unforgetable one liners from arcade hall youth. (Thanks Pikkesnijder!)

Best track ever! Part II

Forget our previous post about Zappa's Peaches and Regalia being the best track ever. This here piece Terra Aria from Italian cellist Giovanni Sollima is our new best track ever... Seeing this man perform on Dutch TV show Vrije Geluiden last sunday morning made us gaze at the screen for 6 minutes like that one emoticon with his eyes open wide...

No comments necessary

Ah well just one then..
We see a strinking resemblance between the man on the right and the Yeti from Tin Tin in Tibet. So the message goes out to Spielberg en Jackson: stop casting for that role! We found your man!

Tip: put on the Daedelus track, 3 posts below and look at this image...

Richard Pryor loaded on cocaine

It must have been the ultimate wet dream or at the same time the worst nightmare for a journalist to interview Richard Pryor in the early 80's, just when he was at his top of his career and coke addiction. Wet dream, because you know you get crazy footage. Nightmare because there was no way to handle this man.

"I'm a rich black ignorant nigger. Fuck you all". May he rest in peace.

Asger Carlsen

Wrong is the title of a bizarre series of photo's taken by talented Danish photographer Asger Carlsen.

Fair weather friends

Brilliant track by Daedelus, California based producer on Ninja Tune who likes to dress himself up in Victorian style clothing. Download his new track Hrs:Mins:Secs here for free.

Oscar & Ewan

Sleeve desing for Roots Manuva's new album Slime and Reason done by London based conceptual graphic design studio Oscar & Ewan. Pretty neat work if you ask us.

Go and see:

Primer. an independent film made in 2004 with a budget almost equal to zero. It won the Grand Jury Prize of the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. The story is about two young friends who are engineers and accidently discover how to travel through time after creating a strange device. They experiment with it and at first it seems harmless but as the story continues they use it on more dangerous aspects of life. Eventually they create complex paradoxes which will put their friendship to the test.

We thought it was a pretty confusing film, especially in the end where we had a hard time to follow the plot. But the topic and the refreshing way of filmmaking make it worth watching this weird movie. Definately if you are a fan of that modern science fiction genre. 8 out of 10!

Rammellzee - Beat bop

Rammellzee (@ 1 minute 25) is probably one of the most original hip hop artists from the New York area who introduced specific vocal styles which date back to the early 1980s. Listening to Cypress Hill and The Beastie Boys, one still can hear his influence. Also known for his, so to speak, weird performace costumes covered with toys Rammellzee was and still is one of a kind. This track, of which we bought a copy back in 1984, is featuring in the one of the first ever Hip Hop film Style Wars.

Terry Richardson

Great portfolio photographer Terry Richardson, a true Amercian original. Well known for his provocative work and pictures of celebs. Check out his portfolio here.

20 years of Chucky

Funny marketing on the release of the 20 years Chucky DVD. They put some kids in that killer puppet clothes and released them on the streets of New York. Dressed with axes they probably scared the shit out of some of the pedestrians. Reminded us of Aphex Twin's video Come to Daddy.

Update:
Check the reaction of the people down here (thanks Ingo!)

Fricative White

Everyday we recieve news in our RSS reader from Eclectro, a nice dutch blog on eclectic electronics. This day we were blown away by this track from Jesse Somfay called Fricative White. I think the guys from Eclectro descibe the track perfectly, so we're not going invent the wheel again: "Almost half an hour of epic musical violence where the metafores will crowd in your mind to define the track. Not enough words to describe, is another way of saying."

On top of it all you can download it for free, right here

The best 7 days of the year are just behind us...

It has been quite quiet at the infamous Archibald Kobayashi studios last week. That's because we were every of the 7 days at the fantastic ZXZW festival in our hometown Tilburg. What a superb vibe was hanging through town all week long! We ran from venue to venue to get pleasantly surprised by all different styles of music, art and people. Over 200 acts where perfroming so it's just too much to tell everything but here's some highlights of what we experienced: The great Sun Ra Arkestra, Shining, Goto80, Tram, Bjorn Torkse, Shari Vari, the Z-Stock poster exhibition, Seven That Spells, Disco Exota, Pelican, Hooghwater and the list goes on and on. So big ups to Frank, Joost and Vince for this. Everybody just come see for yourself next year. It was just great.

Check out pictures right here

N.B. Shari Vari's own Dølle Jølle, on whom we wrote some posts earlier, funny enough happened to stay at our place for 3 nights. We dont believe in coincidents anymore..

Make it bigger!

This is one shirt we would like to have! Assuming though that the designer refers to clients who have this particular frase as a first remark after a presentation of their newly designed website or letterhead. Sounds familiar anyway...
Found on Daninavarro.com

Go and see:

Visions of the future with dr. Michio Kaku.
Do you remember when you were young and you desperately wanted to show your friends a movie or a documentary or whatever. So you invited them all at your home on wednesday afternoons? Because you felt they just had to see that thing? Because it was the best thing ever? And your mom served you big glasses of lemonade? No? Well we were such kids. And still are actually. Because this is a something you just really have to see. Believe us on this one... In this three part docu series, leading theoretical physicist and futurist dr. Michio Kaku takes on three subjects: the quantum revolution, the intelligence revolution and the biotech revolution. In a clear and easy to understand scientific way he explaines that humankind is at a turning point in history: a period in which we will move from being passive observers of nature to its active choreographers.
Go now! Chop chop! No time to lose! And tell us what you think...

Tiny little miracles, part II

The story gets better. After expressing our hallelujah! feeling towards the ZXZW crew about them booking the Oslowegian Sharivari act (Todd Terje and Dolle Jolle), Joost ZXZW promised that everybody who will join us to the show on thursday, will be put on the guestlist. Interested? Write us an email and we will take care of it!

Mickey Tilburg - Hekla.mp3

Another piece from Mickey Tilburg himself. This track is called Hekla. We'll just keep on saying: Play it loud, goddamn!

Download:
Mickey Tilburg - Hekla.mp3

Follow Mickey on his myspace.

It's 1975 and this man is about to show you the future

Awesome series of pictures from an old IBM slideshow. The big question is: are we also going to be laughed at 30 years from now?
See the complete slideshow here.

Tiny little miracles

Somtimes things come together... Not long ago we discovered the absolute no.1 dance track of 2008: Balearic Incarnation, really just released by Dolle Jolle and remixed by his best friend Todd Terje, two guys who are the heart of the upcoming Olso disco scene. We first heard the track in the weekly podcast on Resident Advisor, mixed by Belgians Aeroplane. After playing it maybe 100 times we found their myspace. The funny thing was that we discovered ZXZW in their friends list. ZXZW is a festival for independent culture organised by some friends of ours. It's held in our little hometown Tilburg. It became clear that ZXZW asked them to come and spin their records. So if you are ready to hear the slow claps of the Norwegian nu disco, I strongly recommend you to come join us on thursday 18 September from 22:00 - 23:00 in The Batcave / 013, Tilburg. It's probaly te last time you will be able to see these guys in a little venue like this because the are taking a quick liftoff.

Search for an old japanese man standing close to the speakers... We will buy you a beer or two...

Note: they will act under the name Shari Vari on which, to make it all complete, we also wrote a blogpost.

Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip

Oasis? Just a band. Led Zeppelin? Just a band. The Beatles? Just a band. Ow Yeah! These lyrics spoken by poet Scroobius Pip in a British accent combined with the raw electronic beats by Dan le Sac are kickin' ass. These two fellows quit their jobs working in a record store to sign a record deal at Sunday Best after the track Thou shalt allways Kill (see above) became a download hit. Best record on their album we think is Angels.
If you want to join us going to the Ekko in Utrecht watch them perform on 20 november this year, just give us a call! (thanks Eighty Pur!)

Go and see:

Logo by Build

Objectified, a documentary film by Gary Hustwit. Two years after making Helvetica, the succesful film about the font and typography in general, Hustwit comes with a new piece called Objectified. This time the topic is industrial design, as you can read on its website:

It’s a look at the creativity at work behind everything from toothbrushes to tech gadgets. It’s about the people who re-examine, re-evaluate and re-invent our manufactured environment on a daily basis. It’s about personal expression, identity, consumerism, and sustainability. It’s about our relationship to mass-produced objects and, by extension, the people who design them.

Objectified will have its world premiere screening in early 2009. If you did see his first film and you liked it, you know you are not going to miss this one. If you dindn't, we highly recommend doing it anyway!

Happy Iceland

Some time ago the whole A.K. team was in Iceland for some days to visit some friends in Reykjavik. We had some time to travel inland a bit and we could stay a night in our friends' summerhouse not far from Hekla, Icelands' biggest and still active vulcano. Offcourse we also saw Geysir and the immensly powerful Gulfoss and lots of other beautiful places. But the thing that struck us most were the views from the coastlines as you can see in the pretty picture above, taken by mrs. Kobayashi. It made us realise how far away and isolated Icelanders must feel from the rest of the world. It gave us both the shivers and an uttermost relaxed feeling at the same time. We're still not sure which one had the overhand for us but according to researcher Jon Carlin from The Observer, Icelanders must be the happiest people living on this here planet, all 313.000 of them. Read his explanation right here.

Mickey Tilburg - Schneider.mp3

We at Archibald Kobayashi create stuff ourselves as well. So here is the first of hopefully many to follow of these creations. It's a piece of music called Schneider done by our own Mickey Tilburg. Expect a minmal/techno kind of track with some old school feeling to it. Play it loud, goddamn!

Download:

Mickey Tilburg - Schneider.mp3

Follow Mickey on his recently started myspace.

SJK

Big up to our friends Tim and Sander from Tilburg based Studio Jan Koek. These younsters are quickly making name in the Southern parts of this country with their poster designs for poptemple 013. Keep a close eye on them.

Sharevari

Share! Vari! Share-share-vari-vari! Woohaa! Nice clip of Detroits dance show The Scene featuring A Number of Names with the song called Sharevari. Appearing on Detroit based underground disco label Cappricio, it has been acclaimed to be the first ever techno record. Our personal favourite? The guy @ 2:00, because his hair tops everything. That's grand style y'all. (Thanks Vio!)

Evelyn McHale

This got to be the image of the most beautiful suicide. It's the picture of Evelyn McHale, a few minutes right after her jump from the Empire State Building in 1947. The elegancy of her body laying in the wrecked car, like a model laying in silk sheets, struck obviously many people. The picture appeared a couple of weeks later in Time Magazine with this caption:

On May Day, just after leaving her fiancé, 23-year-old Evelyn McHale wrote a note. 'He is much better off without me ... I wouldn't make a good wife for anybody,' ... Then she crossed it out. She went to the observation platform of the Empire State Building. Through the mist she gazed at the street, 86 floors below. Then she jumped. In her desperate determination she leaped clear of the setbacks and hit a United Nations limousine parked at the curb. Across the street photography student Robert Wiles heard an explosive crash. Just four minutes after Evelyn McHale's death Wiles got this picture of death's violence and its composure.

Years later Andy Warhol used Wiles photo to create a piece.

All City (1983)

This is a small documentary about the early days of Hip Hop which started to come above ground in the South Bronx in the early 80's. It's made by Henry Chalfant who was one of the first, next to Charlie Ahearn (Wild Style) to understand that Hip Hop was something that was going to stay around for a while. Besides making this rather unkwnown film, Herny Chalfant also co-created the more famous grafitti documentary Style Wars and the grafitti bible Subway Art. Enjoy this pure footage of the pioneers of Hip Hop and let those raw cracking beats make you go poppin' and lockin' again on your old schoolyard!

Muxtape

Update: Muxtape has just been taken down by the RIAA...

"Create & share mp3 mixtapes, the way the kids do" is what the guys at Muxtape are saying. And they are telling the truth. Using this site really gives us back the feeling of our youth. Composing 60 or 90 minutes TDK cassettes and giving them to your friends. On top of that this here website works as elegant as it looks. Composing works fluently. Not too much explaining, options or graphical mayhem. You want to listen to what other people put on their tapes? Just click around and discover. Click here for our tape. Sometimes internet can be a lovely place...

Go and see:

Paris, Texas. A brilliant movie from Wim Wenders. It won the Palm d'Or in 1984. It's one of the strongest opening scenes in filmhistory according to us. That pure soundtrack made by Ry Cooder combined with the acting of Harry Dean Stanton (he normally only plays B-roles for some reason) makes you wanna see the whole thing. Travis Henderson's dusty, unshaven Texan style is bleedin' rapid. We think Mr. Ozio agrees...

Best track ever! Part I

This is definately our best track ever: Peaches en Regalia from Frank Zappa. After disbanding the Mothers of Invention, Zappa made this famous enduring composition. The track reappeared a couple of times on later recordings.

Mugshot Art

Wow, what a way to open a blog. Its not the friendliest way we must admit, but we at Archibald Kobayashi like this image a lot. Why? We hear asking yourself. Its just perfect 'in balance' we think. Nice colors, good position and it's very intense. You tend to feel sorry for this person since the sadness and the helplessness in his eyes are beaming out. But his nose reveals that he probably didn't learn from earlier mistakes. Anyway, we like it and we will probably once blow up this image to poster size and hang it in our office.