Fall is fast approaching as we roll out our autumn basics including the Upper Playground Label Beanie.   Choose from four colors in Black, Olive, Navy and Burgundy or check out the rest of our beanie collection for other styles and colors here.

 

 

Upper Playground is proud to announce the release of a new design by Artist, Josh Ellingson, now available online at www.upperplayground.com.

Josh Ellingson creates unique designs and illustrations for brands, publications, and galleries worldwide. His artwork is often described as graphic and bold, drawing inspiration from world of pop-art, technology, and the absurd. He releases this week, The Burger Walrus design along with a few questions we threw his way:

1) Is there a story, special message, or feeling your are trying to convey with your tee design?

I was trying to find the hidden pathway between terror and hunger. Can something be both majestic and absurd simultaneously? Also, I like hamburgers and walruses.

2) What was your all time favorite tee shirt you ever owned?

I’ve had a lot of great tshirts. I think my favorite was from San Francisco Polka/Punk icons “Polkacide”. It was a skull and cross-sausages. I wore it ragged and then bought another one. It’s totally destroyed now too.

3) What do the words Upper Playground mean to you?

When I first heard about “Upper Playground”, I thought it must be a skate park or a record store. There were just these giant photocopies pasted up around town with a walrus on it. It was mysterious. Then, when the store opened on Fillmore I was like, “Oh, these are some nice sweatshirts!”. So, the art comes and goes, but I was really struck by the quality of the clothing. So, when I think about Upper Playground my first thought is that it’s going to be warm and it’s going to be mysterious.

Upper Playground, as I’ve come to understand it, is now a well curated gallery cleverly disguised as a clothing store. Instead of canvases, the spotlight is on hoodies and tshirts. They’re taking the art world to the cleaners, literally.

Upper Playground artist David Choe who mysteriously, “paused” his popular DVDASA health podcast, has now resurfaced as part of a new performance art/punk band called ‘MANGCHI’. Manchi which means ‘hammer’ in Korean is now slowly taking shape before us as visual clues about mangchi and strange videos are found to be leaking into the interweb:

PRESS RELEASE: “A fart from a child born without a butthole” , is what MANGCHI sounds like said 1 of the 2 people who were let into a room to hear this new sound. The second person, John Cusack , actor/comedian/artist from such films as  “SAY ANYTHING” and “ROADSIDE PROPHETS” described the music as “If korn, depeche mode and the beastie boys were forced in a bus together to tour north korea, and all their lead singers quit in the middle of the tour, and the band picked up the korean versions of Debbie Gibson, Stacey-Q, and buddy Holly to replace the singers who just happened to be hitchhiking on The north korean countryside road, and then they all got in a tour bus accident and all got whiplash and broken bones, but Kim JONG UN made them play a show anyways with broken necks right on the side of road using the broken car parts as instruments over the non-existent ambulance sirens, that’s the closest I can get to describing the MANGCHI sound…. So basically listening to GOD’s voice as he’s hitting puberty… so basically Art.”

The Mangchi band consists of many moving parts and many easily replaceable members. Some people don’t even consider mangchi a band and more of a gang. Since joining mangchi certain family members wont even talk to them anymore. Current and founding members are

MONEY MARK aka $ aka MARK

IGLOO HONG aka david chow aka david chioughx aka dave choe

STEEBEE WEEBEE aka the funnier oil brother aka Quangou

Similar to 90’s super group NKOTB aka new kids on the block , everyone in MANGCHI sings and play all the instruments and switch off on different songs, wether they know how to sing or play is irrelevant. Zero point zero emphasis is put on technique and 113% percent of emphasis is put on heart and soul.

It is not a strange occurrence to see members of the band crying while eating or while recording their own songs, because they are so moved by their own words.

 

 

This is the story and sound of MANGCHI, this is how it all begins. A tale of sordid plastic sex off the dirty streets of Hollywood blvd. Failed comedian auctioneer ,STEEBEE WEEBEE and Failed cult Leader and motivational speaker , met one day at a sex shop on Hollywood blvd. while waiting in line to buy essential sensual oils they desperately needed for sex toys they had both shoplifted previous.

They got to talking, while waiting for the gentleman in front of them making a huge purchase of cockrings. Both had a burning desire to spread the message of love and joy, one through the platform of comedy and the other through religion, and both had lost. They had the right message but found the wrong vessel to be delivered ,with a renewed interest in spreading love to the world they dropped their oils right there and with a newfound spring in their step , they followed the cockring purchaser , and all 3 started to walk out onto Hollywood blvd. at the same time as like an episode of 3 stooges all three got stuck walking out at the same time as a rainbow of cockrings scattered all over the famous stars on the blvd. they looked up to see none other than ,jedi MASTER MONEY MARK, the 2 young men fell to their knees as they started to kiss the feet of their master. It was fate it was serendipity. The two young men had grown up inspired and heavily influenced by the money mark sound from beastie boys “check your head “era . Money mark had written more hit songs that they loved and cherished more than anyone, completely ignoring the fact that, why would one person need so many cock rings.  They discovered that,  Money mark had toured with the beastie boys for over 2 decades, with the passing of MCA rip, the beastie boys had disbanded and now money mark had gone into a deep depression but was now ready to create a new sound ,a new hope with a message of love that would explode and deafen the world with  the joyous sounds of wonder and delight.

Now that the boys all met and put their hands together in a triple high five and a promise to each other to try harder and work harder, mangchi has officially been a band for two weeks, now (one week of working out one week to make the album  -not joking) years and years of repressed feelings and emotions coupled with a shared vast musical eclectic influence amongst the three men, the music just came pouring out as if they were possessed. The first album was done in 5 days the remix album took 1 on the 7^th day they rested and now they are hard at work on the second and third album, even before the first one has even been released.

Once again like the three stooges, they eat, shit, read , fuck, fight, sleep and do everything together from the hidden MANGCHI compound in NORTH KOREA TOWN.

Currently they are testing the music out at keroke bars, bringing their own instrumental tracks in on laser disc and at jews for jesus bar mitzvahs and senior citizen Quinceañera’s . if you don’t want to wait for your grandmothers 15 year old party, you can see MANgCHI perform every night with the house band at the Mexican bar on 8^th and western in SOUTH KOREA TOWN. they also recently pooled their resources together to purchase an AV/BIZDEV/roadie/publicist/web designer who is working tirelessly night and day to try to capture the mangchi sound on his cellphone to upload it to a website MANGCHI.COM

Why are they called mangchi?

Because it means hammer and because it’s fucking time.

 

If you’re in Rio de Janeiro between now and October 5th, be sure to seek out this year’s Street Art Um Panorama Urbano  presented by Caixa Cultural. The show which opened August 2nd has an impressive roster of artists including Banksy, Herbert Baglione, HowNosm, Jef Aerosol, Nunca, Vhils, Pixel Pancho, MaisMenos, Rero and Stenlex.  Herbert Baglione completed an indoor and an outdoor installation and he sends us the latest photos for a closer look:

  

 

Outdoor Installation:

Upper Playground artist Herbert Baglione released photos of his latest work in Rio de Janeiro while exhibiting at this year’s Street Art Um Panorama Urbano 2014 presented by Caixa Cultural. Still working within his on going theme of ‘1000 Shadows’, its signature movements of shadowy figures cascaded through buildings and streets of Rio.

 

Photos via his IG: @hbaglione