new band to watch

as you may know from a previous posting, i met school of seven bells at a glam ghostly records party over the summer. well...their full length album release is now slated for october 28th and they will be touring between now and well after that date.

their sound is reminiscent of M83, miranda sex garden [though i may be the only person who bought their CDs], and enya [i know it's fun to hate on enya, but "orinoco flow" is an enigmatic pop classic]. SVIIB's singers are twins so i can't help but get images of the peanuts in my head [their classic koi no fugue is a karaoke standard in japan and taiwain to this day though americans know them from the 1960s mothra vs. godzilla movies]. i find SVIIB's alpinisms to be especially transportative [is that a word? if not, i just made it. feel free to use] when riding my bicycle – it brings me totally into my head and i don't notice my leg muscles at all – making for an effortless ride.

i hope this makes it interesting enough for you all to run out [or go to itunes] to buy the album when it comes out. update: available now on itunes!

they came to my studio last week to chat about the album, life, crazy people, fall allergies, as well as getting some snazzy nooka watches.

their myspace page is here.

the design entepreneur by steven heller and lita talarico

breaking news: steven heller's new book launches next month, but you can tell people you read about it here first, and i'm interviewed in it [page 230-231].

the book profiles graphic designers who made the jump to product design. i'm in some great company!

steven heller is a new york based creative powerhouse. his website is here.

metallics

well, i'm gonna write about how excited i am with the new metallic zubs, but since this is a blog i'll first list what i did this weekend so far: frank and i went to eat at the new BBQ place in town called hill country on west 26th street. it was very tasty but kinda expensive for the type of food. i had the very same meal in texas for literally 1/3 the price. i'm very turned off when i see $6 cup cakes in a self-service restaurant. we then went for a bike ride in central park [always gorgeous] before checking out new stuff at nike town [why do all the sneakers i want to buy there have hard soles and cleats?]. we then went to see margaret cho at radio city music hall [i don't know what i was thinking when i agreed to buy 2 tickets off my friend tony]. she's got a potty mouth and is kinda funny, but the material was all re-hashed and we were bored [hire a new writer beautiful missy cho, there are tons of them in LA and NYC]. of course, being inside radio city music hall is always a pleasure – one of the most beautiful stages in the world.

now onto my metallics: gorgeous. silver, bronze, and a spacey gold finish on the zub 20 with a zoo face. these are produced from a new mold with recessed buttons for a sleeker silhouette. here you can see the bronze one modeled by sexy frank as he wears a BKc green T-shirt and a silver one on sexy me wearing my new sweatshirt from one of my favorite stores in tokyo, sounds good, the sportswear themed select shop by united arrows. the metallic zubs will soon be in stores, but if you can't wait, get em here!

gitd [glow in the dark] and metallic zubs

gitd [glow in the dark] and metallic zubs are finally IN!!!
thank you so much for your patience. all web orders from the us.nooka online store will ship to you by the end of this week. this means it will leave our studio...look for an email with a tracking number to find out when it will land in your actual hands. i will post fotos of the finalized models here soon.

update: orders received before october 1 shipped last week. orders after will ship around october 10th. after october 10th, we should be back to normal!

buy yours here.

chris brown rocking a nooka

chris brown rocking a nooka watch on the set of t pains video featuring him as a guest. and it's a 5th door collab nooka to boot! the youngsters in the office tell me he's mega-famous. i love his perfect teeth [teeth are one of my many odd fixations, maybe not too odd now that i think about it]. thankyou kwasi for sending carrie the foto!

the watch he is wearing, the afro punk collab, can be purchased here.

nooka sightings: go! team at lollapalooza 2008

first, a huge hug out to todd owyoung, the i shoot shows photographer for always being so proactive sending me fotos of artists wearing nooka when he spots them. gice his site lots of hits, send him money and gifts, hire him to be your official photographer.

anyway, last week he sent great shots of lil wayne which i will post/add to the lil wayme postings, AND pics of GO!Team, a brighton uk [i like to refer to it as "hove"– makes it sound further away for me as we have a brighton here in nyc] based base that defies classification. i really like their music and their website which looks like i designed it my senior year in high school [their music sounds like what i listened to in high school as well, with a new twist of course]. that is not a dig, i was a good designer even back then.

check out todd's other lolla day 1 photos here.

mark landwehr of coarse toys

mark stopped by the studio yesterday, his first trip to NYC. i was sad to hear he wasn't enjoying the city, but i do know how difficult NYC can be on the first visit [overpriced crap hotels, restaurants can be quite bad if you don't know where to go...]. hong kong, where he lives, is definitely more manageable and has newer infrastructure. i made him promise to give me more notice his next trip so i can show him around proper.