It’s that time of year where we get ready to pack up and drive down to Austin for an extended weekend of rock rap, posters, friends, barbeque, and NO SNOW. We’re super excited to spend time at SXSW and want to give everyone a head’s up about all of the cool shit we’ll be gettin’ into…

FLATSTOCK 24
Thursday March 18, 1 – 6pm
Friday March 19 & Saturday March 20, 11am – 6pm
Austin Convention Center, ground floor, Exhibit Hall 1
more info here

Along with dozens of our postermaking peers, we will be exhibiting our art prints, rock posters, t-shirts, sticker packs, and more. We’ll have everything from the common to the rare, from the old to the brand-spanking new. Bring a little money, come say hello, and take home some new art for your home, your office, or for your friend!

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NEO OBSOLETE POST NASAL SURREALISTIC CARNAGE
Thursday March 18, 7-10pm
Obsolete Industries (1700 East 12th St, Austin TX 78702)

From the warped mind of Haze XXL, the same man who brought you NON-CONSENSUAL POST DADA CONSTRUCTIVIST CEREBRAL WARTS, comes another destructive combination of art and music. Check out art on display from a slew of Minneapolitans: Burlesque, Broken Crow, Haze XXL, and Grant Hart from Husker Dü. Hart will also be performing music, as will Gay Witch Abortion. This all goes down at East Austin’s Obsolete Indutries screenprint studio.

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DO IT TO IT 3
Thursday March 18, 8pm – 2am
Silhouette (718 Congress Ave)
21 up / Free with RSVP here: burlesquedesign.com/doittoit

What would SXSW be for us without a party at Silhouette? Our favorite sushi and karaoke duplex is once again letting us take over and fill the room with BASS. Here’s the lineup of DJs for this year’s festivities:

8:00 – Jimmy 2 Times (Get Cryphy / MPLS)
8:45 – DJs Pump & Hedspin (Eh! Team DJs / Calgary, Vancouver)
9:30 – DJ Mel (Rock the Casbah / Nasty’s / Austin)
10:15 – Mike 2600 (Burlesque / Crossfaded Bacon / MPLS)
11:00 – Prince Klassen (Fully Fitted, Austin)
11:45 – Smalltown Romeo (Hai Karate / Plant Music / Calgary)
12:30 – Cubic Zirconia (live performance / Don’t Cry / NYC)
1:15 – Bird Peterson (Undocumented / BP Americo / CA via TX)

At the party, we will be releasing DO IT TO IT VOL. III, the third (duh) in our series of Do it To it musical releases. This CD features brand new and exclusive tracks and remixes from Do it To it veterans Bird Peterson, Mike 2600, Smalltown DJs, and Prince Klassen as well as BK-One, Nick Catchdubs, DJ Ayres, and many more! Stay tuned to the BRLSQ blog and newsletter for a sneak peek at the full CD packaging.

Have a listen to all of the tracks right here:

Do it To it Volume III preview by Mike 2600

OK that’s it for now. More TX news as we get even closer to the festival!

Will you be in San Francisco this Friday? Stop by Lower Haters store / gallery (597 Haight St). We’ll be decking the walls with screenprinted posters new and old and celebrating the new show with an opening party from 7-11pm. I’ll be in the building and will be spinning some music for a bit alongside my Bay Area disc jockey brethren King Most, Enki, and Platurn. It’s free to get in, so come say what up and pick up some prints!

The following night, I’ll be DJing at Triple Crown with Trouble & Bass recording artist Jinder. In town all the way from Stockholm, Jinder will be performing live, so don’t miss out! Locals Sticky K, Shane King, and the Goldsweat DJs will also be throwing down, so come celebrate 2010 for the bass odyssey that it is! Last time I was in town, I DJed at a Goldsweat event and it was nuts! These guys know how to throw a party!

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!!!

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’!

A new book has been released which chronicles the multitude of Obama posters created by artists ready for something different. We were heavily involved in the creation of a number of posters featured in the book and it’s an honor to have been a part of helping our 44th president get elected. You can order the book directly from its publisher, Zenith Press.

Thanks to everyone who came to our booth at the Walker Art Center’s PosterMart last night. We met some cool folks and saw some fresh work from our friend Flora Fauna and others. It’s so great to live in a city with some much poster design talent. Here’s Wezz at our table:

Our Factory Sale starts TODAY!!! Check out the sneak preview photo below for an idea of what’s waiting at our studio. So many deals! Had your eye on one of our $20 or $30 posters but been waiting for the price to come down? Now’s the time! This is it!

Can’t make it? Get in touch with a friend and have them pick up some posters for you. We don’t do these kinds of deals that often, so this is the perfect chance to get your hands on some inexpensive fine art made right here in Minneapolis!

3-8pm Friday
12-5pm Saturday
Free admission, all ages welcome

1101 Stinson Blvd NE, Minneapolis MN 55413
(612) 379-4151

The new issue of Vita.mn featuring cover artwork by BRLSQ’s Mike Davis is on Twin Cities newsstands now! Go grab a copy!

The feature article is about Sound Unseen, the annual festival of music-based films. Tonight, the rock poster documentary “Died Young, Stayed Pretty” will be screening at the Walker Art Center at 7pm. Yes, there is a feature-length documentary film about screenprinted rock posters!!! Not only is Burlesque featured in the film, but we will be setting up shop in the Walker lobby displaying and selling some of our posters from 5-7pm and also immediately after the movie has finished.

The event is FREE so you have no excuse to miss it!
More info can be found on the Walker website.

WE’RE SLASHING PRICES! Time to clear off our shelves to make room for the 2010 models. We’re holding a HUGE sale where you’ll have the chance to take home rare and classic Burlesque of North America posters, t-shirts, stickers, CDs, vinyl, and more!

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Take 10 – 75% off on most items!

Scratch & Dent posters!

One-of-a-kind test prints!

T-shirts, magazines, and CDs we haven’t even put up for sale on our website!

Refreshments and snacks!

Music from the BRLSQOTHEQUE DJs!

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FRIDAY OCTOBER 2, 3-8PM

SATURDAY OCTOBER 3, 12-5PM

1101 Stinson Blvd NE, Minneapolis

Our Flatstock crew has returned to our desks and our presses after a fun filled weekend at Bumbershoot. Many thanks to everyone who stopped by the booth, shared drinks and laughs with us, the wonderful Larsen family for putting up with our posse, Sarah Silverman!, the folks at API for putting together another great Flatstock event, and all the great musicians we saw at Bumbershoot. Here’s a small photo gallery of our time in Seattle…more can be found at Ben’s Flickr site…

See ya next year!

We are honored to be featured in two brand new books which are available NOW at your favorite local art book seller.

First up is JUXTAPOZ POSTER ART, curated and assembled, of course, by the fine folks over at Juxtapoz Magazine. This book features some of the best poster artists in the world and highlights their best work from the last few years. We’re pleased to have our posters shown alongside our talented friends such as Aesthetic Apparatus, Jesse LeDoux, Jeff Kleinsmith, The Decoder Ring Design Concern, Bird Machine, and many many others.

You can purchase a copy directly from Juxtapoz’s online store. Here’s a quick look inside:

The second book, THE REST IS UP TO YOU, is one we’ve been waiting on for quite some time now. About two years ago, our friend Aye Jay(!) came to visit us and help install an art show in our First Amendment Arts gallery. The show featured collaborative watercolor paintings between his son Cohen (who was 6 at the time) and a host of artists including Chris Ware, Mark Ryden, Shepard Fairey, and the list goes on and on.

Aye Jay and Cohen teamed up with Chronicle Books to put all of these great paintings into a gorgeous book. Burlesque’s own Aaron Horkey, Todd Bratrud, Mike Davis, and Ben LaFond all had the chance to collaborate with Cohen and Bennie was even asked to write the book’s preface where he speaks on his own experiences collaborating with other artists through the craft of screenprinting.

Most of the paintings include commentary from Cohen, which really show his innocence and creative spirit. It makes us truly miss being a child artist, unaffected by trends, critics, and naysayers. Cohen has a bright future ahead of him and we wish him and the whole Morano family (including the new baby girl who’ll be showing up any day now) all the best!

You can pick up a copy directly from Chronicle Books’ website! Have a look: