interview | ChinaShop

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Featured interview Music The Deftones’ Chino and Far’s Shaun Lopez Form CROSSES

August 8, 2011 - 5:23 pm

For the past few months, if you tried to dig up any information on Crosses — Chino Moreno’s latest project with Far guitarist Shaun Lopez and a mysterious Clint Eastwood-type guitar-slinger named Chuck – you’d find next to nothing. There might be a reason for that: Crosses isn’t Deftones-ish at all. And it ain’t really even remotely Far-esque. It’s an unorthodox but heady mix of trip-hop, jazz, and some touches of that Northern California brand of hard rock they helped pioneer.

But days ago Chino dropped five free downloads of the Crosses project onto his Facebook page. Here’s an interview we got with the guys last month, when the album was still being mixed in Red Bull Studios.

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interview The Word Made Flesh: Literary Tattoos

by Rich Thomas

January 21, 2011 - 8:14 am

Two years ago, Eva Talmadge and Justin Taylor were commiserating over burritos about the sorry state of the global economy, when they decided it would probably be best to shift the topic to something a bit less depressing. As fate would have it, their respective roommates had both come home with snippets of prose from Mark Twain, William Faulkner and Herman Melville tattooed on their bodies. One year later, Talmadge and Taylor are the proud parents of a beautiful, 192-page book full of literary tattoos and the equally colorful stories behind how they came about. Entitled The Word Made Flesh: Literary Tattoos From Bookworms Worldwide, the book documents what they viewed as a growing trend in body art: a natural progression from text on the page to text on the body. (Check out a trailer for the book here, then pick up your own copy at Amazon.) We had a digital sit-down with Eva to talk about some of her favorite pieces, as well as get the inside scoop on her next book, which you could very well be a part of.

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Featured interview Setting Sail with the Captains of Industry

by Rich Thomas

December 24, 2010 - 11:09 am

The two gentlemen you see before you are Graham Funke and StoneRokk. Like Mixmaster and Long Haul (of the infamous Constructicons posse), they are strong and capable individuals known to shake the floor and break ground. And like their transforming robot counterparts, they form a devastating mix of talent and dexterity when joined together. They are The Captains of Industry, silver-tongued mixologists whose reverence for party rocking and true school DJ skills may only be matched by their love of irony, eyewear and well groomed facial hair. In 2010, they brought you some of the illest DJ mixes on the planet: Ditch Fridays and Trabajo, both of which can be downloaded here. In 2011, they will bless you with a whole lot more.

The venerable Captains took some time out of their busy yule-logging and egg-nogging schedules to chat with us about Money Shots, $6,000 coats, and what it takes to put fickle Vegas and LA crowds in the palm of your hand. Read on, my friends. Read on.

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interview Stip Strip Hooray Interview with Dita Von Teese

by Shop Keeper

December 15, 2010 - 11:17 am

This week, the queen of the striptease becomes queen of The Sunset Strip, when burlesque icon Dita Von Teese shimmies into a three night stint at The Roxy Theatre. Starlet and pin-up come to life, Ms. Von Teese has become known around the world for her traditional meets modern style of burlesque that draws inspiration from the glamour of classic Hollywood. Earlier this week, the iconic beauty took a break from rehearsals to speak with The Roxy Theatre about what stirs her martini and what gets her tassels twirling. Here’s what she had to say…

To view the whole interview with Ms. Von Teese go to TheRoxyOnSunset.com

interview Head to Head with Demolicious, LA Derby Dolls Co-Founder

by Shop Keeper

December 14, 2010 - 11:48 am

Rebecca Ninburg – better known as “Demolicious” – is the amazing co-founder of the Los Angeles Derby Dolls. She’s been a pioneer in the sport of roller derby since 2003, and today there are more than 400 women’s roller derby leagues across the country. On the eve of the Red Bull Banked Jam in Chicago against the Windy City Rollers, Ninburg (pictured above) sat down with us to share her thoughts on today’s derby and the upcoming game.

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Gallery interview Explosive Furniture Blows Ikea Out of the Water

by Nicole Pajer

December 3, 2010 - 11:43 am

In a society saturated with IKEA, Target, and cookie-cutter retailers, finding that perfect piece of furniture that makes your home stand out can be difficult. Sure you could spend time digging through thrift stores and private boutiques, but who has the time or the energy for that?

What if you could sleep on a bed made from naval mine shells with a base constructed of woven nylon mesh that stands on mine fuses?

Have you ever thought of upgrading your home office to include a desk built from pieces of an actual naval mine with drawers on guide rails, a granite desktop, and top shelves?

Did you know you could take your daily bath in a stainless steel tub, which sits on mine fuses and features an outer shell made of naval mines?

Last but not least, wouldn’t a naval mine toilet with doors that open outwards and a toilet seat made of real wood complete the look of your bathroom?

If furniture flaire is what you seek, look no further than Marinemine, a line from Estonian scultpor Mati Karmin. Mati put down his blow torch to walk me through his world of explosive home accessories and to explain how when he looks at marine mines, he sees armchairs, fireplaces, and tables instead of deadly weapons of mass destruction.

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Featured interview Music The Bouncing Souls Give Tough Love at the Troubadour

by Jeff Nau and Dustin Downing

November 30, 2010 - 12:54 pm

If any of you reading this have ever partaken in a mosh pit, you either did it of your own free will, or were dragged in against it. So when legendary east coast punks Bouncing Souls played the legendary Troubadour — once a regular home to misfits like Jim Morrison and George Carlin — there was likely going to be inevitable, irreparable damage to both venue and attendees alike. (Especially seeing as how tonight was the last show of their 20th anniversary tour, and the boys were going to go all out to kick our suntanned-and-spoiled west coast asses.)

And sure enough, looking down from the club’s balcony, I saw that the vortex was slowly starting to swirl — so I rushed down to join the fun.

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interview Music RJD2: The Solution to Your Music Snobbery

by Jeff Nau

October 21, 2010 - 10:24 am

This may be a somewhat hastily-conceived notion, but DJ RJD2 might be the best thing to happen to the ever-expanding genre in years. He may be even the way to bridge that widening gap between the terminally unhip and old-fashioned instrument players (read: music snobs), and the countless DJs also slaving at their craft and bringing their own variety of musical influences into it all. Ramble (as people call him) is no exception.

The man is truly a diverse musician who explores nearly every conceivable musical classification — from jazz to trip-hop, from 80′s synth tinkery to film scores and soundtracks, from country licks to stand-up comic bits, he always manages to make it all blend together perfectly. And RJ’s worked hard to get this far, beginning nearly 20 years ago, steadily climbing his way to the top of that mountainous pile. From the jazzed-out funk of soul of “Here and Now” to the Kill Bill-worthy, exploitation film-soundtrack reverberations of “Take the Picture Off”, should you talk to anyone worth their weight in music criticism, you’ll hear nothing but the best about the guy.

Clever, diverse, and lending that certain undefinable, sprawling epic-ness to his mish-mashes, RJD2 is ahead of the game. Recently Ramble sat down and chatted with ChinaShop about his history, his influences, and how he’s gotten so far.

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Gallery interview Couture Cakes to Crave

by Nicole Pajer and Sidney Bensimon

August 17, 2010 - 9:45 am

“Everyone loves dessert. You could be the worst cook ever but if you pull through with dessert, you will always be popular,” states Claire Thomas, food stylist, personal chef, food photographer, blogger for The Kitchy Kitchen, and couture dolly cake baker. “I grew up always having these super wacky cakes around just because my mom is sort of an eccentric baker, as is my aunt – with both of them together, every birthday was crazy,” explains Claire Thomas as she escorts me into her kitchen at her family’s home in Brentwood. Once we arrive, sitting on the table is a China Shop inspired dolly cake – a blonde Barbie doll with frosted blue hair wearing a ball gown that is in the process of being decorated with pieces of broken white chocolate tiles in a blue and white broken china motif. Claire’s mother soon passed through the kitchen to which Claire affectionately exclaimed, “She’s the one who started this whole mess.”

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interview Fitz (and The Tantrums) Talks About His Organ

by Nicole Pajer, Sidney Bensimon, and Dustin Downing

June 28, 2010 - 3:38 pm

Fitz & The Tantrums have such an enchanting story…where ex-lovers become sources of inspiration, living rooms turn into cutting-edge recording studios, and tattoo artists become heroes. I got to hear it first-hand on Thursday as I sat in the hallway of the Dangerbird Records headquarters with Fitz himself for a quick interview before he had to run off to take the stage at Silver Lake’s “Hipster Haven” aka Spaceland. It was a delightful little interview. We were offered ice cream mid-conversation and at one point Fitz was even asked to serve as an interim security guard in the absence of the guest list girl.

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