Brand new mix from Friend-of-Burlesque DJ Morse Code. Spaced-out indie dance nuevo disco party time music. I designed the cover artwork for this one.

Have a listen right here.

Tune in to the BRLSQ online store this Thursday at 2pm (Central time) for the release of two braaaaaaaand new items!

1) COLD HEART HOODIE
designed by Todd Bratrud. 4 color print on super extra ultra comfortable American Apparel hoodies.
$40 + shipping

2) YEAR OF THE DRAGON PRINT
celebrate the Year of the Tiger with Mike Davis’ new art print celebrating the Year of the Dragon!
$20 + shipping

Wanna be the first to find out about new prints, shirts, art shows and more? Subscribe to our newsletter now!

In a total coincidence, two of Minneapolis’ best DJ-based dance parties celebrate their two year anniversaries this week. Last night, hundreds of muisc-hungry party people packed the Triple Rock Social Club for the two year anniversary of our weekly Triple Double party.

This coming Friday, DJs Plain Ole Bill and Jimmy 2 Times will host the two year anniversary party for Get Cryphy, a monthly party crammed into First Avenue’s VIP Room focusing on rap-related dance music. For two years, these fellas have been spinning everything from E-40 to Disco D to Blaqstarr to 2 Live Crew to Paul Wall to Missy Elliot and have featured guest sets from DJ Sega, Low B, Emynd, Prince Klassen, and Burlesque’s own Mike 2600 and WZZWNSHP. The result is a big, sweaty, bass-filled mess with one of the most diverse crowds in town. We rides hard for Billy and Jimmy and support everything they put their energy behind, so expect to see many more collaborations between Burlesque and Get Cryphy!

photo by Dennis Jeong Plaster

Burlesque has been responsible for the design of 23 of the 24 Get Cryphy flyers and also a brand new t-shirt which will be debuting this Friday! Catch a sneak preview below.

Get more info and RSVP on Facebook!

One of our favorite local radio stations, 89.3 The Current, just hit their five year anniversary. Part of Minnesota Public Radio, The Current has been supporting great local music and artists since the beginning. We’ve had a chance to design a handful of posters, t-shirts, and CD packages for the station and were thrilled to design the poster commemorating five years of music being broadcast through the air of Minnesota.

Wes and I collaborated on the design, passing bits of Illustrator and Photoshop files back and forth until it was just right:

The posters debuted yesterday at the Rock The Cradle event and, if there are any copies left, will be available at The Current’s SOLD OUT anniversary concert in the First Avenue mainroom featuring P.O.S, Solid Gold, Lookbook, and more.

If you didn’t get tickets to that show but want a poster, The Current will have them available on their website and we will likely be selling a few copies on ours as well.

If you want another chance to catch Solid Gold performing live (they’re all the rage right now), they will be co-headlining First Avenue’s Gimme Shelter concert on February 6th. Organized by the folks at City Pages, proceeds from the concert will go to the Red Cross’ relief efforts in Haiti. Mike 2600 (me) and Jimmy 2 Times will be DJing inbetween acts and I also designed the flyer.

RSVP on Facebook

JUST ADDED – our friends over at Rhymesayers have put together a monster of a concert to benefit relief efforts in Haiti. Check the flyer below for the lineup and meet us at First Ave!

What happened this year? I thought about doing some top 5 lists but nobody wants to read those and people always want to question them and get all judgmental. Does anyone who looks at this blog care if I loved Inglorious Basterds or can’t think of any good albums that came out this year off the top of my head? Here is a multimedia chronological look back at some of my memories from 2009.

First, I traveled to our nation’s capital with my good homie Joe (A.K.A. Bitch Ass Darius) to try to look at the inauguration. This is about how close we got:

Joe and I returned home and got real serious with our glockenspiel band, New Kids On The Glock:

As a gigantic icicle melted outside our building, our office flooded the week before Dre Day!

Ain’t no punk ass icicle gonna stop us!

Survived yet another brutal winter in Hoth Minneapolis:

We rang in another SXSW with our second DO IT TO IT vinyl record, release party, and promo video:

Eric Inkala, John Grider, Isaac Arvold, and Keiko Yagishita rocked our First Amendment Arts gallery with their Almost Homeless show.

Syl Johnson put on an incredible performance at Numero Group’s Eccentric Soul Revue in Chicago:

I got to design the poster for the show as well:

Traveled to Vancouver BC for a DJ gig and was floored at how gorgeous the city is.

My Kidrobot Alphabet keychain series was finally released and I couldn’t have been more excited:

As part of Walker Art Center’s “Don’t Sleep On It” 24 hour art-making marathon, we led a roomful of high schoolers on a 3-6am adventure filled with building a wall of giant speakerboxes, overlapping video and slide projections, and plenty of BASS!

Went to Sedona Arizona for my brother’s wedding, stayed for the crystal healing sessions, wizard potions, and magnetic spiritual vortexes… brah.

Added another Bonnaroo poster to our repertoire:

One week after Michael Jackson died, I was in New York and ended up at an MJ tribute night hosted by the great DJ Spinna. It was one of the best all-Michael DJ sets I’ve ever heard and one of the most intense experiences I’ve ever had while listening to a DJ spin. I’m talking like… religious experience level shit here, people.

Had to switch gears from Michael to Prince to DJ at the Purple Rain 25th Anniversary dance party at First Avenue. We were honored to have Minneapolis’ Mayor R.T. Rybak attend, share his thoughts on Minneapolis’ rich musical history, and then hand First Avenue a custom-made key to the city!

I spent a year staring at international postage stamps and used all that inspiration to design the packaging for my buddy BK-One’s new CD “Radio do Canibal.”

Autumn kicked into gear and things like this happened:

The whole BRLSQ team helped put together a crazy art installation at SOO Visual Arts Center for the super cool “Non-Consensual Constructivist Post-Dada Cerebral Warts” show with Haze XXL and Aesthetic Apparatus:

King Otto and I rocked the crowd at 7th Street Entry for another Halloween night all-oldies Monster Mash dance party!

The art school at Illinois Wesleyan University hosted Wes and I for the weekend as we installed and opened our largest gallery show yet, simply titled The Screenprinted Work of Burlesque of North America.

My dude Emynd released a digital EP of my music on his Crossfaded Bacon label. “Ready to Rock” is my first ever solo EP and I made a video to promote one of the choons:

We cut our teeth in the craft fair scene at the No Coast Craftorama. Expect to see us at many more arts & crafts-related events in the near future! We bout that craft, son!

2009 was a year of big changes both good and bad for myself, Burlesque, and my friends. I’m looking forward to a clean slate in 2010 to see what great things will come for everyone. LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Thanks to everyone who visited our booth at No Coast Craftorama this weekend. We had a great time meeting local arts supporters and eating all the crazy good food in the Midtown Global Market (we’re lookin’ at you, West Indies Soul Food).

Here’s our booth – the smallest merch table we’ve ever had! Sardine steez.

Petey and Bennie holdin’ down fort and slangin’ shirts and posters.

Our hottest shirt was this brand new design by our own Peter Bekke A.K.A. Petey Wheatstraw! All those napkin doodles during Burlesque meetings finally paid off with this stylized tribute to all the things that make us proud to call Minnesota home. We’ll be printing more of these shirts in different color schemes and will have them up on our online store this week. Sign up for our mailing list to keep up with all of our new shirts, posters, and events!

We also reissued this classic shirt from back in the Life Sucks Die era! Go gophers!

These shirts and all the designs in the following blog entry coming to our online store THIS WEEK!

We’re getting excited for this weekend’s No Coast Craftorama, a pop-up market of Twin Cities’ finest independent crafters, designers, and artists all showcasing their best arts, crafts, gifts, and more!

Looking for something unique for your friends and family this holiday season? We’ve got a ton of screenprinted art prints, rock and hip hop concert posters, kids clothing, zines, sticker packs, even boxcutters and beer coozies all packed up and ready to put on display!

NEW STUFF FROM BURLESQUE? PROVE IT!

Okay, here are some photos of our brand new t-shirts we’ll be debuting!

SOUNDS AWESOME! WHERE AND WHEN IS IT?

The Midtown Global Exchange Building
Lake Street @ 10th Avenue in Midtown Minneapolis

Friday Dec 4th, 3-8PM
Saturday Dec 5th, 9AM – 5PM

Admission: FREE!

IS THERE A WEBSITE WITH EVEN MORE INFO?!?!

You bet yer sweet little tush there is! It’s right here —> nocoastcraft.com

Burlesque is hosting our very first coloring contest! Kids of all ages (even adult-aged kids) are invited to download our Winter holiday-themed artwork (right-click the image above to save to your computer, then print on standard 8.5 x 11″ paper) and color it in any way you want. Bring your colored artwork in to our studio or mail it to us at

Burlesque of North America
1101 Stinson Blvd #12
Minneapolis MN 55413

We will hang all of the entries up in our gallery at our Holiday Bonanza art show and winter party on Saturday December 12th from 7-10pm at First Amendment Gallery (same address as above). Partygoers can vote for their favorite entry and the winning artist will receive a pack of posters from Burlesque!

Wezz and I have been in Bloomington-Normal IL for the past few days getting ready for the grand opening of The Screen Printed Work of Burlesque of North America, our largest gallery installation to date. With the indispensable help of the student workers, we’ve been installing almost 150 posters in the Merwin Gallery at Illinois-Wesleyan University.

Are you in the Central Illinois area? We’ll be giving a lecture Tuesday November 10th upstairs from the gallery from 4-5pm, followed by a reception in the gallery until 6pm. Where that afterparty at? Bloomington-Normal, come show us a good time! Let’s get it crackin’!

Tonight is the kick-off of four consecutive nights of art, music, film, and mayhem at the old Hi-Pointe Printmaking Center (just next to SOO-Visual Art Center on S. Lyndale). We’ve got some craaaayzaaaaay things going on, so come check it out for yourself! See soovac.org for more info.