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!!!

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.

We’re super excited to finally be releasing the first of a few art prints designed by our talented friend John Baizley. Some of you might know him as the frontman of the great rock group Baroness while others might know him from his incredible artwork.

This Thursday, we are releasing the green art print version of Baroness’ “Red Album” artwork.

The prints measure 18 x 20″ and are seven colors printed on French Poptone Black Licorice paper. They are a signed and numbered edition of 200.

As stated in yesterday’s newsletter, the top left corners of most of the prints have a small ding in them, caused during shipping. It’s a small bend measuring less than 1/2″ and does not affect the image area. If the print is framed, the crease will be unnoticed.

In our newsletter, we made a typographic error and stated that the bend “does” affect the image area, neglecting to include the most important word of the sentence – the word “not.” We apologize for this error and assure you these prints are gorgeous.

We will be releasing more prints from John Baizley very soon. Stay tuned to our newsletter for the onsale information of two different color versions of his “Phantom Limb” art print. In the meantime, go listen to BARONESS!!!

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!

Here’s a closeup of our latest project. What is it? The answer will soon come but for now we’ll take your best guess!

Printing is complete for Deuce Seven’s newest art print “Falling into the Black Hole Sun.” While we wait on the edges of our seats for Mr. Deuce to stop by and sign these bad boys, we wanna take a moment to familiarize all of you with his artwork. Many of you know his two art prints currently available on our online store. Those of you who have lived in NY or Minneapolis in the last few years have likely seen his arts flooding the streets, and those of you who like to go look at freight trains have more than likely seen his art roll by.

Here are some of our Deuce Seven favorites, found on Flickr.

For details on “Falling into the Black Hole Sun,” sign up for our mailing list!

Photo credits go to the original photographers. These images and over 2000 others can be found on the Deuce Seven Flickr pool.

A big thank you to everyone who rushed our site for yesterday’s big Phish poster onsale! We truly wish we had more prints available for everyone but we gotta work with what we got. We appreciate everyone’s patience and understanding – THANK YOU!

We’re back on the grind working on a bunch of new design and print projects, all of which will be available to you very soon!

1) Todd Bratrud’s new art print based on his cover art for CLOUT Magazine issue 11. Ten-color screenprint job done by Ben LaFond.

2) Mike Davis’ new poster for Fleet Foxes and Dungen’s performance tomorrow night at The Metro in Chicago. 2 colors featuring metallic gold, printed by Petey Wheatstraw. We’re gonna try to catch their Sunday night appearance at First Avenue!

3) CD and LP artwork designed by Mike Davis for BK-One’s “Radio do Canibal” album. Rhymesayers will be releasing this collection of Brazilian funk-inspired hip hop beats featuring vocals from an all-star lineup of rappers including Brother Ali, Scarface, Slug, Freeway, P.O.S, Raekwon, Black Thought, and more. Be sure to check out BK’s awesome hip hop mix on our BRLSQOTHEQUE podcast.

Today we will putting our Scratch & Dent Mystery Tubes up for sale on our online store at 2:00pm central time.

We have hundreds of slightly damaged, but otherwise gorgeous art prints and gig posters designed by Aaron Horkey, Todd Bratrud, Wes Winship, Steven O’Malley, Mike Davis, and more. So much great stuff here that we’re selling at a super duper discounted rate! What will you get in your tube? There’s only one way to find out!

Wes Winship’s brand new art print Lips & Drips is available right now in our online store! It’s a 21st century homage to The Rocky Horror Picture Show and was used as promotional art for June 2009’s BOMP party which Mr. Winship co-organizes.

Get your time warp on!