beyond the wall zine

Anyways...summer is finally kicking in. Just a while ago I found out about this free diy zine Beyond The Wall from the US. The zine focuses on punk and several other interesting topics such as health, bicycling, vegan issues, politics and yes...even yoga! I got in touch with the dude through his myspace account and asked if he ever considered publsihing and spreading his printed zine through a pdf downloadable file on the worldwide web. Now today, after getting from work and enjoying some sunshine , gladly found out he managed to get his zine out for everyone. If you want to read more go download his zine and have a diy punk read. There's even an interview included with a vegan bodybuilder and the band Total Chaos (damn i almost forgot about them). Check it out! More information on his website.

diy zine

beyond the wall zine pdf

post punk kitchen : veggies do it better

Lately I've been quite spending some time into reading cooking books and spending time on making my veggie diet more effective and varied , i pretty much give up that my kitchen still sucks but I'm thinking about spending less money on records and invest more money in the kitchen to be able too cook more and easily delicious veggie meals. During my search for good websites i stumbled upon a whole lot of websites. But Post Punk Kitchen is definitely the one that needs to be highlighted. Post Punk Kitchen is a Manhattan based vegan/vegetarian public airing punk cooking show. They've been putting four episodes online in which you can check out vegan Sushi and Chocolate Oange Cupcakes and a whole lot more. Their shows are cool to watch and have alot of good music and funny rants in it. Definitely a site I'll be hooked on for a long time, check out their upcoming cook book and their interesting forum. Veggies do it better!

post punk kitchen

the myth of lilith design finished

Feels always good to get a finished product into your hands after some hard labour. Yesterday I got some copies of the finished Amen Ra poster in, for the special "myth of lilith" themed show here in Gent on June 16th (that's Belgium). The lay out is somewhere inbetween the dark concept of Amen Ra and some fantasy additions around the myth of Lilith, pretty balanced. Looks awesome and only around 250 copies made on A2 size. Looks sweet for the walls.

look to the sun to raise me up to bloom

I still remember how Shelter literally changed my life and point of views in life with "mantra" in 1995. Things were pretty much hectic when I joined art school at the age of 14/15 and through the steps in the the local hardcore straight edge scene I came through straight edge into Shelter who literally turned me into a vegetarian and changed my points of view on life, ethics and spirituality. Shelter's have always been a major influence and inspiration throughout my whole life until this day. Even though "quest for certainty" is pretty much Shelter's best and classic record, personally "mantra" means the most to me and will always be considered my fave Shelter record. Just recently Shelter's latest album "eternal" came out on Goodlife Recordings, I had mixed feelings in the beginning but since a week the record has been growing on me and I definitely can appreciate Ray Cappo's message in these times of delusion and overconsumption through yoga, spirituality and the positive vibe you'll get from the album. Definitely not the best Shelter record ever, but a record that will appeal and grow to any true Shelter fan. Each time a new Shelter record came out in the past, i was eagerly to have it as fast as possible, same with this one.

fave songs : back to vrindavan, lotus-like, my chance to live, return to eden

Shelter rundown and thoughts:

"mantra" 1995
- confused straight edge turning into a vegetarian
- bought it at the local metalstore in my old hometown
- the record that means the most to me

"beyond planet earth" 1997
- too much people wrongly consider this Shelter's worst record. too bad.
- killer songs "rejuvenate", "refusal" and "eleventh day of the moon"
- bought it on vinyl and cd
- Ray Cappo turns heads with Better Than A 1000 "just one". killer youth crew.

"quest for certainty" 1997
- bought it later. classic.

"when 20 summers pass" 2000
- forced my mum to stop at the store to buy it and got her into shelter
- killer songs "song of brahma", "if there's only today" and "killer of my dreams"
- last Shelter album featuring Porcell
- entered art high school bad period. sold out. shelter got me on the righteous path.
- saw Shelter on tour, fucked up a Cappo interview

"the purpose the passion" 2001
- bought it on a sunny day biking to the record store. pink vinyl.
- personally i'd say this is still good, but not the best Shelter album ever.

"eternal" 2006
- i love the message / i love shelter being back.
- Porcell is still missing.
- hare krishna!

Closing thoughts : Better Than a 1000 "value driven" euro tour, the Belgian Ray Cappo spoken word session at my hometown, krishnacore and spirituality, saw Shelter a few times, the spoken word cd that kept me up several nights, Equal Vision used to have a European office with an interesting krishna related hardcore distro, Baby Gopal, cheesy YOT reunions ..... too much.

what are you doing to make things better?

So it's pretty over midnight and spent most of the day working on some new artwork stuff and setting up this blog. The purpose and intention of this blog is more of a way to have my own outlet on all kinds of things I'm involved with and find interest in. A way to write things down that interest and concern me, in other ways it might be a way to expose some of the stuff I'm doing. Everything from graphic design to hardcore/punk, politics, diy, records, movies, food, pictures will be added in here whenever I feel like. I don't care what you might think of it, see it more as a rather personal outlet of my interests and activities. That's all folks.