Evolving from his lo-fi photography, zine and street work comes this excellent music blog from Alex 'Tape Echo'. True to his early work, which I have followed since meeting Alex at foundation-level art education, his blog over at http://www.tape-echo.com is beautifully illuminated with Alex's trademark black and white photography and characteristically DIY design aesthetic. For the audio Tape-Echo experience, head over to his podcast here.

Alex has a remarkably sharp eye and ear for good art and music, and his creative style has always been very stripped down and idiosyncratic. I think this is why his ideas translate so fluidly between different mediums, while remaining instantly recognizable. This style is reflected equally in prints, zines, street work, poetry, mixes, DJ sets, and perhaps this is also what makes this music blog stand out. His 'Web Zine' is not just about the sounds of good music, but equally about the clandestine exchange of dubplates, the claustrophobic basement dances of the Bristol scene and the late night, coffee fuelled bedroom mixing sessions; strictly vinyl-only and played on a pair of 1210s and a mixer.

Alex's unique and eloquent perspective on dance and bass music culture is essential reading, and as such he is a name to watch in every aspect of the bass music scene, from production to photography.

The mastermind of Readers' Wives Collective, and cut and paste extraordinaire ROST ONE has just launched a blog for his personal work. Expect daily collage posts as ROST can knock out brilliant work at a million miles an hour!

Here's a taster, fly over to his blog immediately to see more.

More toys that influenced me at an early age. I really liked the way they changed between two different shapes, and at the time they looked so streamlined and futuristic. While a lot of sci-fi toys at the time were very fantastical and OTT, the way the Starcom toys referenced existing military hardware with a futuristic twist was really distinctive. I never really watched the TV series, but one of the kids at school had the full set of these and I was always bugging him to play with them!

Thinking of revisiting some of the toys you had as a kid? Go here for a MASSIVE collection of images. They have everything, from Play-Doh to G.I Joe.

While conducting some web-research for my own custom toy work, I came across this website today, an incredibly complete collection of Kinder Egg toys, owned by a man named Thore.

If you're not familiar with Kinder Surprise, they were hollow chocolate eggs with a plastic egg inside, containing a toy. You usually had to follow instructions and assemble it. The toys were of a particularly high quality, snapping together in a very satisfactory sort of a way. There were also solid figures, which, while you did not have to assemble them, and were not quite as fun, were actually hand painted!

I loved these as a child, and it honestly brought a tear to my eye as I looked through Thores collection, recognizing the very toys that had captured my imagination at age 5-7.

Here are some of the toys I remember:

...but this only scratches the surface. Check out Thore's Website for more, and I will be posting more Kinder Surprise toys I find on the web in due course :)

Here's the official teaser for my piece, which you can see at 7:00PM tonight at Yoyamart, 15 Gansevoort Street, NYC.

There is some incredible work on display at this event, so if you're in New York tonight, make sure you check it out!

Here's some research I've been doing for my current custom toy project, a Coarse Toys Paw, commissioned by Nicocato from the KR Boards.

I've been mostly looking at images of feathered dinosaurs (which by their nature are artistic imaginings), mythical feathered reptiles like the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, as well as reptilians from conspiracy theories, revisiting a theme from a previous post, the fantasy worlds created by paranoiacs and schizophrenics.

Part 7 in a series of posts of things that interest me or have influenced my artwork or custom toy work. Today, here's some of my favourite military formations.

Part 6 in a series of posts of things that interest me or have influenced my artwork or custom toy work. Today, some interesting graphical glitches.

When he died in 1964, pastor James Hampton's landlord discovered this in his garage.

It is made from broken furniture, old light bulbs and other assorted junk, meticulously wrapped in gold and silver foil. Very little is known about James Hampton, although it is known that 'The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nation's Millenium General Assembly' was intended as a learning aid to teach children about the bible. It is accompanied by volumes of encoded text that have yet to be deciphered...

As a toy customizer, I find it interesting that this amazing work was created for children. The 'gestalt' impression is very grandiose and austere, but when you explore the details some charming touches are revealed, like the foil-wrapped lightbulbs, which playfully allude to the 'light' of revelation.

(Image source)

Custom Toy Union's Battle Bracket contest, an online custom toy battle, was without doubt the best fun I had on the internet all last year. Now it's time for part 2!

This time the platform is the 2.5" Qee, and I've got to say I'm itching to get started! It was nice to see that Ian Chapman will also be competing, as he also hails from my home island of Guernsey. Represent!

For more info and to see the ever-growing artist list, check out the CTU thread here. The deadline for entries is March 1st, see you there!

Here is my entry from last time, check out some more of my customs here: