Besides the Show No Mercy day party, the other highlight of our SXSW was getting to see Chelsea Wolfe and her band perform live. Her music is a mix of haunting folk, deep doom, and delicate electronics, which all come together to produce some incredibly dark and beautiful music. SXSW is a strange time for those of us who live in Austin, where suddenly our town is overrun with more amazing musicians than we could ever possibly see – so I was really really glad I was able to catch her set at the Beauty Ballroom in between work and other commitments. Seeing her songs performed live gave them a new power and beauty that cut straight to the bone, and the only thing I wished was that she had been able to play longer.

If you aren’t familiar with Chelsea’s music, you can stream her latest album, Apokalypsis straight from her website here. We’ve also embedded the video for the song Mer, below.

Photos by Laurel Barickman for Recspec.

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.

 

I don’t think we’ve ever written about it here, but one of the best and most fun events in Austin right now is Exquisite Corpse, a monthly party for witches, held on the First Thursday of every month at the Swan Dive. The inner goths in all of us get to come out and be spooky and I know there is a great many of us who needed that sort of thing here in Austin. Recspec handles the video projections, DJ Pasht is the amazing DJ, and its all brought together by the divine Angeliska. If you live in Austin, you should come sometime — even if you aren’t darkly-inclined, there’s great people watching, delicious drinks, and delightful dancing to be had!

Here’s some photos that Angel took at the last one with our camera. The theme was Vote for The Goat — a celebration for the Capricorns out there + Angel’s own birthday.

Be sure to also check out the amazing photos by Devaki Knowles (Recspec’s photographer bad-ass of choice) for the photobooth, here! She does the photobooth every month and its always perfect.

Angel + Frannie, Horned Beauties

Gorgeous Amelia

Our stunning gate-keeper, Norah

 

Make sure not to miss the next Exquisite Corpse on Thursday, February 2nd – the theme is AS THE WORLD FALLS DOWN: A Labyrinthine Masquerade Ball and its definitely going to be full of gorgeously costumed beauties and decadent sights. Hope to see you there!

Happy 2012, everyone! We followed our yearly tradition and stocked up over the holidays on fireworks for the rest of the year (or at least until the 4th of July!). One of the main things I love about fireworks are the classic packages, the weird typography and illustrations, and the bright colored cardboard sleeves. Here’s a few of our favorites from the last batch, part of our collection of the inspiring designs of Every Day Things.

The design of this one isn’t that cool (haha, get it?), but my goodness is that tag line hilarious. How could you not buy it?!

Let’s start the New Year off with a bang, shall we? Keep an eye out over the next couple days as we’ll be updating our website with our first (!!) official Recspec t-shirt design, and some other treats. Thanks for reading!

Merry Happy Holiday Christmases, everyone! We’re about to depart on a journey to East Texas (also known as the land of no internet) for a few days, but wanted to share these AWESOME photos by Devaki of Fun Loving Photos from our Christmas Sweater Champagne Jam last week. Here they are! The above polaroid was taken by her as well, and is our impromptu sort of Christmas card this year.

Here’s a few of our favorites from the night:

Xander and Jackie

Yearly Eagle Claw photo!

The beautiful Devaki

JT and Diamond

Zorch + Lindsay, our awesome Improv Experimental Karaoke Masters

And our wonderful (and handsome!) hosts, Lee Roi and Kon Karne

Be safe and have fun this holiday season, everyone. We’ve got some exciting stuff to share with you in the new year, but until then, have a cookie, won’t you?

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.

Our good friends Zorch (who we’ve blogged about before) have a tendency to (sometimes drunkenly) make up fake bands with various friends and musicians in the Austin area. These fake bands, it seemed, all just existed as jokes, nothing that would ever amount to anything — until they started actually making them all become reality. Thus, Raw as Fuck was born, a website dedicated to their side projects and experimentations (like, for example, their Rod Stewart cover band: Raw Stewart).

One of the many band of lore is called Edgar Allan Slow, comprising of a near super-group set of musicians. Recspec’s own David Milner as the front man, R. Lee Dockery plays bass, Henna Chou on guitar and gong and soundscapes, Zac Traeger on keys and soundscapes, and Sam Chown on drums. The concept is simple, yet brilliant: Doom metal with set to Edgar Allan Poe lyrics.

The band was actually formed once the Austin HQ of The Onion asked Zorch to play their Halloween Party at Club de Ville. Zorch suggested Edgar Allan Slow to play instead, and so it came to be!

Here’s some photos from the night, and a video that you can’t see much in, but can hear at least a bit of the performance. The whole set was recorded, so hopefully we’ll be able to post it soon as well. My favourite part was the Tell-Tale Heart, which was ferocious and awesome in its epicness. More to come soon! And you never know, this fake band could end up being a real band after all (or at least every Halloween, or perhaps even, once upon a fortnight)…

“‎It was night, and the rain fell; and falling, it was rain, but, having fallen, it was blood.”
Happy Halloween to all you ghosts and ghoulies out there.

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 a couple of days late, obviously, but wanted to put a little note in this space saying goodbye to the beautiful Elizabeth Taylor. We’re both avid classic film fans, and she must be one of the most stunning and powerful women to ever grace the silver screen. Uncompromising, unapologetic, and completely herself, up until the end.

Goodnight, Liz.

Last night was a double celebration, both for the 2 year anniversary of Kon Karne’s Butcher Shop with The Bear – a monthly DJ night that we put on with Insect Records – and for the launch of our new website. Insect Records have long been a part of the Recspec family, we designed their website, make their posters, work on album covers for them, and generally love everything that they do. We also love the Rio Rita, which has become our little home every month, offering the best damned bloody mary’s in the universe, and wonderful friends + fun.

We were also lucky enough to have our friend Katy, aka Katy Cupcake, make 100 cupcakes for us for the night, which only heightened our excitement with sugar and love. Thank you, Katy, they were delicious.

As a present to Insect Records founder and mastermind, Ben Webster, we also constructed and made a custom wheatpaste for the night: a huge cake with a big 2 candle and decoration of steaks (Kon Karne) and bears (Butcher Bear), which will now reside at Insect Records HQ. Happy birthday, Kon Karne, Butcher Bear, and Rio Rita! We love you! The spacemen represent our website launch, which is now sent off into the stratosphere at the speed of light. Zoooom.

Photographic evidence, more of which can be seen here.

Mr. Kon Karne and the faceless Bear.