We’re a bit late in posting this, but didn’t want to forget to mention the end of an era – Kon Karne’s Butcher Shop with The Bear. Our very own DJ Kon Karne, and our friend and co-conspirator Butcher Bear from Insect Records decided it was time to lay their monthly at Rio Rita to rest after 3 years. Every month, they would craft a podcast previewing what they would be playing (sometimes with guests, sometimes on their own) and every month we’d also put together a poster and a podcast cover.

The posters proved to be one of the most challenging design pursuits we’ve ever embarked on – as the decision was made at the beginning to have each poster bleed into the next one, creating one long poster, comprised of 37 different posters over the 3 years. It’s impossible to really explain, but you can see them all in a row here, or below, we’ve cut out a section of them to give you an idea of the enormity of the endeavor!

The most interesting thing about approaching the posters this way is that it is a direct example of how we’ve grown in our design abilities over the past three years. The first one is cringe inducing! You’ve come a long way, baby.

On the final night we had the pleasure of Reaganometry playing a short live set, Katy from Katy Cupcake providing cupcakes, and we partied like it was the end times. We also created a mock grave to really kill the night off, just for fun. Thanks to all of you who have come out and supported our monthly over the past three years, and don’t worry – this isn’t really the end – just the catalyst for something new.

Your Handsome Hosts

We put up all of the posters across the walls.

Love you, IRS!

Represent.

R.I.P

Past Kon Karne and The Bear related posts:

• The Burning Hellfire of the Texas Sun
• A Two Year Launch
• Take Me Away – Mixed by The Cosmic Orphan
• Sex Harvestin’

Whew! SXSW is over, and now that the dust has settled we can take a little look back on one crazy, crazy week. Definitely one of the best parts of it for us was getting to do the projections for Pitchfork‘s Show No Mercy day party at ND – with Pallbearer, Pilgrim, Black Tusk, The Atlas Moth and much much more. It was amazing, and heavy, and everything you would expect from a show put together by Show No Mercy. It was definitely the best metal showcase we’d ever been to!

Here’s a write-up for the show, with photos by Will Deitz. We even got a little mention. Yeah!

Austin artist Laurel Barickman of Recspec offered visuals tailored specifically to each group, projecting images of snake charmers, explosions, whirlpools, Japanese theatre, swirling heads and limbs, and half-remembered B-movies onto a huge screen.

Here’s a few photos from the set that catch a bit of our projections:

There’s a video too with an interview and some footage of Pallbearer around the 6:00 mark, and you can see our projections for a couple of seconds! Pallbearer’s set was definitely the highlight of the show for us and the footage of them playing is rad.

Thanks to Brandon from Pitchfork for asking us to do projections, and here’s hoping we get to do it all over again next year.

SXSW is imminent, and we’re getting to work hard and play hard. For those of you who will be in town during the fest, here is where we will be doing projections around town.

First: this Saturday for our friends and awesome local band Fresh Millions who are playing with The Octopus Project at the Swan Dive. You can RSVP for FREE here. Then, on Monday, its the annual Yeast By Sweet Beast festival of abstract and experimental music. This will be the third year we’ve done projections for it – and it never, ever disappoints. Tuesday, local heavyweights Eagle Claw are playing at Emo’s East with High on Fire. Holy shit, we can’t wait for that. Wednesday, March 14th is Pitchfork’s SHOW NO MERCY unofficial day party, and man, is it going to slay. Oh yeah, all that metal awesomeness is FREE. Definitely not to be missed. Then, closing out the week is the final day of the new Wardenclyffe Gallery’s SXSW weekend.

Whew, exciting! We can’t wait. Hope to see you at one of these great events! Or roaming the streets of Austin like some sort of SXSW zombie. Trust us, it happens.

Recently we’ve had the very distinct pleasure of being able to work with two incredibly lovely ladies on their websites, who share a wonderful space on the East side of Austin called Maison D’Etoile. The location is also home to a salon, & with Charm School Vintage and Coco Coquette is a one-stop shop for vintage clothing, wigs, makeup, jewelry, and general beautification.

First, we completed Shari of Charm School Vintage‘s new site, powered by WordPress. Many of her posts consist of Instagram shots, so the idea of having a grid format worked very well for her content, while the site also creates a clean and minimal backdrop for her gorgeous image saturated lookbooks.

Then, it was on to Allyson of Coco Coquette‘s site, converting it from Blogspot to WordPress and giving it a fancy updated feel. Allyson puts on the most fantastic events and we wanted to be able to showcase the photos from them prominently by using a slider on the front page. We’ve also set up a shop for her gorgeous custom wigs, which you can expect to see more of soon!

Maison D’Etoile is also teaming up with Kevchino for a huge SXSW day party at their space, which we also designed the poster for. You can check out the full details of the event at their Facebook Event. And if you’re in town for the festival, or are a local in need of some sparkle, be sure to stop by Maison D’Etoile at 2109 E. Cesar Chavez.

Happy Valentines day to all of you lovers and haters-of-love out there. Here’s a special little mix we made a couple of years ago just for this occasion, aptly called “The Mouth is for to Fuck”. Clicky clicky the lovely ladies below to download the mix, and printable PDF valentines we made just for you. Any man or lady or plant or animal will be sure to swoon:

Also, this Saturday (February 18th) at Cheer Up Charlie’s, we’ll be teaming up with Leisure Tourniquet for a special post-valentines day variety show of music, dance and et ceteras. We’ll be DJing, Little Stolen Moments will be performing, Willow House (some members of My Education and friends) will be playing covers of the best break up love songs, plus much much more.

Recspec loves you long time. Don’t ever forget that.

Xoxo,
Lau and Dave

It’s that time of the year again — when we don our ridiculously ugly holiday sweaters and play the smooth hits of the 70′s and 80′s… Its the Recspec Annual Christmas Sweater Champagne Jam at Beauty Bar! This is actually our fifth year of doing this party in Austin, and its always super ridiculous fun. We’ve also been doing it longer than anyone in town, so don’t accept any substitutions!

(Click to go to Facebook Event)

When: Friday, December 16th.
Where: Beauty Bar Austin
How much: 2$ for Party People in Christmas Attire / 5$ for Bah-Humbugs

This year our friends from Zorch are going to do some Live Improve Holiday Karaoke, so come ready to sing your favorite holiday  jams with them. Our very own DJs: Kon Karne, Lee Roi, and Butcher Bear will be playing the smooth hits and hot jams before and after karaoke, there will be champagne, and a FREE photobooth from the lovely Devaki at Fun Loving Photos. She’ll also be taking and selling beautiful black and white polaroids for only 5$ each so you can immortalize your ugly sweaters forever!

Here’s a few of our favorite photos from the past four years. Hope to see all of you local Austin folks there!

Just adorable. Photo by Devaki Knowles.

Eagle Claw! Photo by Devaki Knowles.

‘Tis the Season, after all. Photo by Alison Narro.

Its a Recspec Snowstorm! Photo by Alison Narro.

Luther lovin’ some Milk + Cookies! Photo by Alison Narro.

This past Sunday was the Fall seasonal KSE show, Melting into The Movement with ST 37, Unmoor, R. Lee Dockery and Bill Shute, Smokey Emery and Book of Shadows. It was an amazing evening of experimental and psychedelic music, that we were so pleased that we could be a part of. We did projections throughout the night for all of the acts, ranging from scenes from Judex to classic psychedelic oil footage.

Doing projections for experimental and abstract nights like this is always a treat because we can use strange and odd footage that wouldn’t work for anything else. Some photos from the night are below (more can be seen here):

Thanks so much to Bill Shute, all of the performers, ND, and Kendra Steiner Editions for such a wonderful event.

For over 3 years, we have worked with the fine folks at one of Austin’s premier music venues, ND Austin, to create all of their branding – from their logo and website to signage and event posters. Recently, we’ve even opened our first food venture, Tamale Molly, within their doors and in partnership with them. So it came as no surprise that when they decided to open their new, sister bar to ND, that they approached us to do the branding and design for it as well. This project went further than just pixels on the computer, however. We built furniture, picked paint colors, and generally massaged every inch of the space into a cohesive entity. It was, without a doubt, our biggest undertaking yet!

Welcome to The North Door.

It was also incredibly fun to work with the owners of the space to take their ideas and make them a reality. The objective was this: make the sort of bar that undercover spies would stop to have a cocktail at while plotting their next feat of espionage. The bar itself is off the beaten path, down an alley on the side of a building, so we starting coming up with ideas based on the need to make our presence and location obvious while also subconscious, the kind of thing that sticks with you over time, without even realizing it. This is where the big red X comes into play, and the tagline of “x marks the spot”. Secret maps passed between agents, the red X always leading the way…

The inside is nothing but slate gray, deep blacks, and reds. Spy ephemera and posters are on the walls — all pulling the viewer in with little bits of information and details: we wanted to let the patrons the bar leave with a little more information than they had when they came in. Spy intel, for the taking, if its wanted.

As mentioned above, we even helped construct some of the furniture in the space, the bench below being one of the main pieces, and tables with spy plans inlaid in them.

One of the most fun parts of the project, however, laid in the details. Secret messages left for people to find, if they want to. The image directly below is of a Dukane Fliptop Filmstrip Projector that our good friend and Recspec ally Seth found for free on the street, which we cleaned up and made a custom transparency for. It is definitely one of our favorite parts of the space.

The space is still evolving and changing, which makes it even more exciting. The spy posters will change often with new spies and information, a mural is about to go up, and we’re constantly on the look out for as much intriguing spy paraphernalia as we can find (which, you’ve got to admit, is a pretty great job requirement). We’ll continue to post updates on the space as we continue working on it, so keep an eye out.

A few more shots can be seen over at our flickr, and you can visit The North Door online at TheNorthDoor.com. Thanks for reading! And don’t forget, if you ever lose your way – X marks the spot.

We’re super pleased to announce our next collaborative event with Kendra Steiner Editions: MELTING INTO THE MOVEMENT - KSE Fall 2011 Psychedelic Disaster Whirl, coming up on Sunday, October 16th.

Bill Shute runs and operates Kendra Steiner Editions out of San Antonio, and releases a wide array of wonderful poetry chapbooks and original CDRs from artists both local and on the other side of the world. We were asked to do projections for his last KSE event in Austin held at the Salvage Vangaurd Theatre and celebrating the 5th anniversary of the label, and we’ve worked with Bill to put together this upcoming fall show with our friends at the ND.

kendra steiner editions presents

MELTING INTO THE MOVEMENT:
KSE FALL 2011 PSYCHEDELIC DISASTER WHIRL

with
ST 37 / UNMOOR / R. LEE DOCKERY & BILL SHUTE / SMOKEY EMERY / BOOK OF SHADOWS

Poster and visuals by Laurel Barickman of Recspec.

SUNDAY 16 OCTOBER
doors 7:15, show 8:00
admission $7

ND at 501 Studios: 501 N- IH-35—Corner of East 5th and Brushy Street (Austin, TX)
Facebook Event Page

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Hope to see you local Austin people there! Here’s a video from the last KSE show, with us doing projections for our good friend R. Lee Dockery. Can’t wait for the next one!

We’ve been awfully silent lately, but there’s a reason for that — we’ve undertaken one of our biggest projects yet — the opening of a restaurant! We’ve teamed up with our good friends at ND Austin (whom we have designed logos, websites, and other goodness for) to create Tamale Molly, a new eatery that will be serving food into the new smaller bar attached to ND, The North Door!

Here’s a poster we’ve created for our big Grand Opening party happening on Wednesday August 31st, so if you’re in the Austin area, please do come by! It’ll be free, have lots of surprises, and really really fun.

Naturally, we are also designing all of the collateral for our brand, opting for a vintage Mexican pin-up feel, but also bringing in the bright CMYK colours to balance the black and white out. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for updates, and check out our menu on our website:Tamalemollyatx.com!

We’ll be posting a breakdown of all of the design elements for the brand soon, so keep an eye out and stay tuned.