I was hoping that my sizzling anger from the rather traumatic experience I endured at Global Gathering in Melbourne last weekend would subside over a few days.

But... No.

My anger only intensifies every time I open a 3D World and Brag and see ads splashed across the page. The reason I get mad is because I feel really sorry for all the people who have tickets for the festival on Sunday in Sydney.

The line-up for Global Gathering is not too shabby. There are some really cool acts from all genre's including Trance, Electro (which occupied a rather empty FanKlub stage), Progressive House and a whole bunch more to satisfy a few tastes.

To give you an idea of what a day at Global Gathering is like I will run you through what my day was like from beginning to end on Saturday in Melbourne.

I walk up to the front gates of the Sidney Myre Music Bowl to be confronted by a tiny entourage of guards who casually looked at my ID and ushered me through without even a second glance of my ticket.

What I saw when I got there was a complete ghost town of a festival. And it wasn't even that early. So despite this, I thougtht I might catch Miami Horror live as I didn't get a chance to catch him at Parklife. I get to the Fanklub stage and there is a guard standing in the middle of the space who told me "All acts on this stage are canceled till 3:30 due to wet weather". I was thinking... Are you fucking serious?? This is an outdoor festival!

What he should have told me was "sorry, we didn't sell enough tickets because we are incompetent and can only have one or two stages going out of the five till more people come".

Forgive me if you are into commercial house music as I have to say... that all the house acts (deep house, tech house, shit house etc) that played at Global Gathering simply didn't suit an Australian audience. What's pretty big in some circles is Trance (which is why the Gods Kitchen Stage was pumping) and the majority of Aussies like their dirty electro (boys noize, proxy, switch, justice, blah blah blah you get my point).

Now I didn't really get to hear a lot of that except for maybe Gameboy/Gamegirl, La Riots and Felix Da House Cat. I really rate La Riots and they played well but the poor bloke (I know there are supposed to be two blokes in this dj group but obviously the set wasn't important enough to have both of them enduring the embarrassing experience of playing in front of 15 people at a festival stage that should have hundreds or thousands) was freezing his ass off and obviously not enjoying himself.

Now at this stage I am kinda cold but a little buzzed about seeing the legendary Kraftwerk do their stuff so I hang around the main stages and bop along to some of the tunes Mark Ronson pumped out (mind you, Mark Ronson was the best set of the day).

Eventually, Melbourne's famous Agent 86 gets onto the stage as a lead up to Kraftwerk. The next 45 minutes was pure agony. He mixed not too badly but his song choice was so disgustingly boring it made me wanna go up there and knock him out.

But I was worried about doing so as a dj who continues to play to an audience of thousands who are not moving or dancing, just nervously looking at their watch for him to get the fuck off must be mentally challenged (I'm not exagerating here... he sucked so bad I was scared I was going to pass out from boredom).

It was now way past the 8:30 mark and Kraftwerk were supposed to have started then. But on comes the MC of Mark Ronson together with one of the members of Kraftwerk to announce that one of the members of Kraftwerk had a heart attack backstage. FAIR ENUF! They can't play from hospital so I can't be angry at them.

They announced that the Gorillaz would now play on the main stage and my pretty low spirits I had lifted a little as I was planning to catch half of the Gorillaz anyway. So on stage comes this bald dude who djed for about 15min - half an hour whilst they got the stage set up...

On comes the Gorillaz!

No visuals working (just a projector menu written in German)

The sound was terrible!

No microphones working properly...

Poor lighting...

The thing was just a big fucking mess.

By this stage I grabbed my girlfriend by the hand and led her through the crowd and exited the festival grounds in search of a taxi whilst I was mumbling profanities under my breath.

Apparently the visuals eventually got working about 15 minutes before the show was to end but my GOD, too little, too fucking late.

The lesson I learnt from this experience: very disappointing on Future Entertainment. They really need to pick up their game. They may have sold out festivals in the past when festivals were all the rage and all you needed was a sexy headliner like Chemical Brothers but people WILL wisen up and stop going to poor organised events.

Now I'm sure there were a whole bunch of people who had a good time coz they were high but I'm sure if I put them in a room to watch paint dry they would still have had an equally good experience.

If you are planning on going to Global Gathering (which is organised by Future Entertainment), do yourself a favour and do not have high expectation, as it can result in having a complete dissapointing day.

And I have one thing to say to Future Entertainment...

Hmmm...

My trip to Melbourne wasn't a total loss though. Mindgutter got to play its first interstate gig @ Eurotrash which was pretty off the hook. It wasn't jam packed due to the poor weather but we had the downstairs bar pumping till close which was really good fun.

I got to hang out and get blind with Melbourne electronic band Bipolar Badwise who were really fun and ended up drunk and spewing back at our place which was rather entertaining.

I have a really fun surprise for the Kids of Trashbags!

After I Am Scumbag made a really rad logo of TrashbagsKids, suggested that he design some crazy and zany TrashbagsKids cards featuring the main hustlers and players of Trashbags.

First up check out the djs he immortalised in drawing!






I sent an interview to I Am Scumbag. The responses are HUGE but really insightful. Read below!

Your drawings are pretty fucking amazing. How long have you been designing and what got you started?

i've been drawing pictures for as far back as I can remember. I think it was preschool and some kid drew a picture of a Ninja Turtle, and I was in AWE… up until that point I just figured cartoons magically existed somewhere, but when I saw some kid draw it, I realized that I TOO could draw and create creatures. So I went home and sat down with these crayons and pencils and drew on my “art” table (now my coffee table 18 years later). So I sat there and tried drawing ninja turtles and failed. The mini failures didn’t stop me. The more I attempted to draw things that were “Supposed” to look like whatever it was I was trying to portray, the more frustrated I got. So then I just started letting the pencil explore the paper to see what popped out… and what happened became control and understanding of how a twitch of my wrist holding a pencil could create visual worlds.

Art has been in my family for a while; my grandfather was a Turkish war hero who moved to the beach when my grandmother passed. Every summer we’d go to his condo in Pensacola Florida and we’d chill out on the balcony and he’d paint the ocean, and various scenic paintings. One thing that stood out was my mom kept bitching about how he always adds this dead tree in the painting and she hated them. I asked him about it and he said that the dead tree is his signature in remembrance of his passed wife. My mom really pissed him off once because he painted us these plates for our kitchen to hang on the wall, a series of 5 dead trees in various settings, to represent his wife’s passing, and 5 for his 5 children… my mom got some acrylic paint and ADDED leaves to the damn dead trees… he was devastated, I remember a lot of yelling that thanksgiving. He taught me not to worry about trying to make things LOOK like whatever you’re going for… because if you do that you simply become a tool, a craftsman… a true artist isn’t one who can mimic images, but add his touch of life to the painting. Take the image and DESTROY THE WORLD with it. Since then it’s been E’s in art in elementary school, then A’s in art throughout high school, and Just like that kid with the damn ninja turtle, I’ll see artists and be like… well damnit, if THEY can do something that badass… so can I.

One of your first major works was for Culture Prophet, what was your inspiration behind the iconic logo you designed for them?

Wow, thinking back it started from the first time I met the damn bastard Michael Barksdale. And to give a QUICK answer, the logo is what I think of that rat asshole! lol. He’s more of a mouse asshole hee hee. Actually it was the 2nd time I went downtown to the Clothing Warehouse to spend my weekly earnings on vintage badass outfits. The girl Kelly who worked there would hold RIDICULOUS items that came in for me and at the end of the week I’d go in and buy whatever for their discounts. Well, it was at a time where I was really into the Gorillaz and I drew EVERYONE in my top 20 (back before myspace let you customize your friends)in their style. There I was, with EVERYONE having a changed default that I coded myself. I hate rules, and I hate society TELLING us what we have to do and what’s appropriate… if that was the case of our existence, and that was the way the world is SUPPOSED to work, then there’d be no Aqua Teen Hunger Force, or anything on Cartoon Network for that matter. So Michael and I talk about sunglasses and he thought I was a flaming homo because I apparently spent 5 hours looking for the perfect pair of sunglasses. (little did he know I was engaged to a beautiful girl in California at the time) Like I said I hated rules and I hated conformity… however I loved the idea to conforming to a cause that countered whatever was already the norm, and would screw with some of my “nonconformist friends” saying that they were all conformists conforming to nonconformity.” So the VERY FIRST PICTURE OF CULTURE PROPHET I drew was of them… and it was 8 bit. After a while of trial and error… I was scared. Nothing I drew made sense, nothing I drew was what Michael was looking for. So one day im doodling, (which I showed no one) and when Michael caught a glimpse of it he’s like… DUDE! WHERE THE HELL DID THAT COME FROM?! It was the infamous mouth logo (the sketch is still hanging on his wall) so I scanned it up, colored it, and vola… we had dirty grindy slut magic! My art was one thing at the time, very “Accepted” very “Understood” that is what COLLEGE does to you, it molds you into a damn TOOL. So you can get some bullshit job somewhere making 15 an hour pencil pushing designs and getting NO rights to your work…. EFF THAT. It was then when I realized… bright colors, rainbows, did NOT have to mean homosexual. It meant AWESOME. And whomever rocks bright colors just has some damn confidence. Be you gay or straight, that’s something we all can agree on. ROCK THE RAINBOW! It was then followed by the study I took to make the gross… awesome… which was inspired by some oldschool Garbage Pail kids cards, Ren and Stimpy, Aaaah Real Monsters, and the effin Rugrats…. The ORIGIONAL… not this dog turd “ALL GROWN UP” shit. What worked was Old-school early 90s, and late 80s cartoons. With worms and slime!

I understand that you have been designing for a few other artists. Who are they and what have you made for them?

I’ve done quite a few, lets see… Heartache (www. myspace. com/hisheartache) was probably one of the first to commission me after the Here Comes Nasty Poster was dropped. And since then I’ve had Heretik System from god knows where in Europe, Fckn Crew, The Noiziest, Tv Death Squad, I got projects with Figure, Satan’s Circus Records, a few local bands, and many more. To show a variation in style I did the poster and cd work for the Din of Thieves (www. myspace. com/dinofthieves) and they do freakin Gypsy Pirate music… I have nearly 200 gigs filled up of nothing but music lol. now because of this zombie outbreak lol. That’s probably the one thing I love most, is getting a chance to be a part of something millions all love and making the magic become real. It makes or breaks your reputation to have a shitty logo. UNLESS that’s what your GOING for. As a kid I remembered the feeling of being excited to see something, a new movie, a video game… that magic slowly dies when you’re an adult, and that’s what im pushing to bring back… the feeling that there really still is something mystical about this pathetic world. And yes pathetic… we live in a world where pepsi changed Mountain Dew to MTN DEW… sigh… but if we can figure out how to break back to the time when the world had EVERYTHING FIGURED OUT (70s 80s early 90s…) Then rock it out with your glock out. BANG BANG!

I see on your myspace that you have a collection of sexy t-shirt designs brewing. Where do you see this part of your business in 5 years time?

The Tshirts are mainly what im pushing towards… seeing as how im in the process of searching for a solid screen printer and a reliable one, I decided to jump on the zazzle wagon and go ahead and give my fans something to wear for now. THE SECOND I threw on the Culture Prophet shirt it got voted “Top design of the day” which I got a laugh at. Just because I believe Michael Barksdale is the Antichrist, and needs to be stopped. Lol. The shirts are great quality there and use Thermal Transfers to print on the dark tees, so I’ve been rocking out simple designs that work with them. The funny thing is that licensing images is where the money is at, so selling shirts isn’t really all that money oriented, but its nice to see people sportin a damn “ITS EVERYWHERE” shirt or the CP shirt that ourboys at DesignLabs printed for us. My boy Rob Fuckin Dixon is getting his accounting degree and we’re talking about starting SPLUDGE products (like in an essence to bring back GAK and Ooze toys) so most of my designs are Alluding to this BIGGER picture... A ZOMBIE OUTBREAK. But obviously that’s further down the road… and if Mccain was voted president….. im sure a real outbreak would occur seeing as how he IS a zombie. And they’d have to quarantine America. Which would suck, Because then me and you wouldn’t be able to hang out … yeah McCain fans… I WENT THERE! That man scared me! But in all seriousness, the thing about the shirts is, most of the artists are just like you and me, starting out, getting off the ground, the economy is at a shit hole stand no thanks to our amazing president mr. W. so its tough to afford designs, so as long as u need something and cant afford it… I’ll sell it on a tshirt and make money off of THAT while u gather the rights to pay for full rights… see how it works? I loves it, and the fans of the artists get to rock out a shirt, so what the hell, win win.

Besides making kickass logos and t-shirts, I understand you are interested in starting a comic. Tell us more about this.

Well every week im dropping ONE top banner Comic that features god knows what. Im thinking of calling them “The Forgotten Panels” basically that ONE panel that just didn’t quite make into an actual comic book. Either because it didn’t make any sense… or the characters are just too weird. Im pushing new styles by doing this but at the same time keeping it very 80s. its just something fun to give people a reason to keep coming back to my profile. And giving them a quick… “what the hell?” laugh.
Im also sketching up ideas for a “Peter Pan” graphic novel… think back to Hook. With Robin Williams… except think weirder... like strange almost... im writing the story on it now about HOW peter REALLY became Pan with the whole war in England, where the actual story was set and what-not and how his mom abandoned him; WHY she actually abandoned him, what if she didn’t MEAN to leave him… what if she got killed? How awesome would it be if the army soldiers and general that killed her escapes to neverland and becomes Hook and the damn pirates?! If u look at all the adaptions to Peter Pan, Hook and the Darling Family Father is played by the SAME GUY… so this leads you to wonder… who the hell Hook REALLY IS… and if he looks like the father… what if he’s RELATED to him… what if the darling family father was his distant cousin? And he had hatred towards his family because he’s all hard core nazi or whoever the army was. The original play left a LOT open as far as back story elements, and of course Disney butchered it, and I’ve always been a fan of the sword fighting, so im just completely reimagining the world… and how awesome would it be if Rufio actually HATED Pan and they fought each other, a war of lost boys. I’d pay to see that shit. Rufio was the MAN, and had WAY too much going on for him to be killed off like that in the movie! The assholes! I mean think about it… how pissed off would you be if you’re trying to play basket ball with Pan and he keeps flying to dunk the ball… Pan is a DICK! And as I see it, with good reason… And that shit needs to be brought to light. But before I can start drawing that up I have to finish some of my other projects, so I’ll put it on the backburner. It would make SO MUCH sense to close these loose ends and make people realize… you ARE allowed to take something incomplete and pick it up where it left off.
Another Project I’ll shed some light on is my Zombie Outbreak Cartoon Pitch for Adult Swim. … aaah maybe some other time :D

If I was a dj or producer and wanted to work with you on a design, what would be the step-by-step process behind getting a finished product.

Lol I seriously hate this question because it REALLY varies. I don’t think I’ve ever done a job where it went down exactly like the one before… sometimes its as simple as someone going “Dude I want you to draw me with a crazy smirk and hat, with my head poped off and worms are crawling out of my SKULL!!” and I draw it, and they go “COLOR IT! YES!” click ka ching, close deal, and that’s literally a 2 day process. Ask ANYONE, when I say something’s gonna be done in x amount of days, damnit its gonna be done! Another example would be “we got a budget price of 300 dollars… can you give us something simple in design? Like the detail shit is slick but we need something chilled down” and its 3 drawings till I get what they are looking for…
So for future reference, this is what NEEDS to go down:
1. Set a price budget: 200 bucks, 1500 bucks, whatever. The more u pay the more detail and chaos u get. Once a Min and a MAX is set, we start pumping. U go on to tell me what u want, and it has to be as detailed as possible
2. I draw what u tell me to draw: usually my favorite ones are when I get a CD or something to be “inspired” by. That shit goes over well. But once the price is set, and half of the max is put in my paypal we begin… sometimes I wait till the end but I find that its safer to get half up front, then taunt them with a photograph of the finished product until they pay up lol. I’ve had people steal work before, but they were really cool about it, and didn’t mean to, they just liked it a lot and thought it was ok to go ahead and print… copyrights are EVERYHTING in this business and if u have me do anything lower than 700 I keep co rights with permission for you to print and sell.
3. Finalizing the project: Once that’s all set in, and we chat and discuss our options, we finish the product, you receive a HIGH RESOLUTION JPG with white background (*for use later) a PNG File with the image, and a 2 dimensional flat illustrator file (so people can’t rip the layers apart and ruin my work, it gives me a bad rep for people to THINK I did something that you changed, especially if it sucks) if you really want FULL RIGHTS, pay out for the full image and or images, and you get ALL the layers and you can tweak till your heart’s content. But generally that’s never the case. I try to over give in designs… especially if its going on a shirt… because theres NO WAY in hell I’d ever design something I wouldn’t personally ROCK the hell out of myself. So feel good that you can get away with cheap designs, as long as you get me more work, or give me x amounts of shirts YOU PRINT. Lol. EVERYTHING IS NEGOTIABLE, sometimes it’s as simple as growing balls and going… “here’s the honest truth… we need this but can’t offer SHIT right now.” We can STILL work something out.

You've drawn a collection of Trashbags Kids including yours truly. What inspired you to do this?

When I was in California last summer before I got married, I ended up designing for a LOT of people, and meeting a lot of great individuals. Checked out some SLICK dj sets… which ironically had Culture Prophet tracks in them in freakin LA of all places. Well my boy needed a logo for his Documentary movie production team. Once I posted it, my friend Heath suggested I take a class in Typography… well obviously everything I do in school, I intend on making money off of, because I feel why the HELL take a class that I PAY for if I can’t SELL this shit. So every project was pushed for a grand cause… and I did a few freebies because nothings more fun than getting online and seeing 30 bagillion bulletins going “OMG THE SCUMBAG DREW ME SOMETHING OUT OF NOWHERE!!!” It puts a damn fine smile on my face and breathes some magic into the world. And like I said, one side is business, but if you’ve DONE business with me in the past, I generally make friends and hook friends up. But only when I have food on my table is when I relax like that lol. But yeah, I’ve been going 80s vintage movie CRAzY lately, and like the 1980s THE BLOB made me cry with happiness. Then I heard in a blog that they had a Garbage pail kids movie and im like… OMG!!! I downloaded it, watched it, cried myself to sleep in happiness… so school project comes along and im thinking… the garbage pail kids, and I thought it’d be fun as hell to do a commercial ad in an editorial magazine to be of the Garbage Pail Kids... soooo I figured… why not just rock out the text “ Trashbags Kids” with something slick… its original as far as my college goes, but at the same time can be used to make people’s panties wet with excitement. Like yours for example… and yes I will go on record for referencing your wet panties. MID SENTENCE! Lol.

And finally, some of your designs are downright dirty. What is the filthiest thing you've put in your mouth?

Lol Dirty… the correct term is NASTY! Actually looking back at all the work I’ve done, it’s taking something as simple as “PUT IT IN YOUR MOM’S HAIR” and making it NOT a sexual reference. Why can’t we simply take slime and throw that at our mom, and get sent to time out?! The love I have for the world is taking something GROSS and making it fun. Its super fun to imply extremely obscene things rather than to flat out say it… if you think about it, that’s one thing Disney did RIGHT, during the Animators strike back in the day… they hid SUPER SEXUAL references in ALL their movies. It’s because they were being treated like shit, for AMAZING work and talent, so they fought back at a society that was all flowers and singing birds. It’s taking the ordinary and making it extraordinary. And I don’t think I’ve ever really put anything filthy in my mouth… old chewed up straws when I don’t have any gum cause I like to chew on shit, but its usually the words and ideas that comes OUT of my mouth that get the title of being the FILTHIEST!

Well that's it for tooooooday!

Hope you enjoyed some of the cool drawings! Be sure to check out I Am Scumbag on myspace and show him some love (please feel free to throw slime at him. He loves that shit!!!).

Much Love,

Mindgutter

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