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Rob Zombie is back with Hellbilly Deluxe 2!

Posted by: AlStatic in Untagged  on


The theatrical horror-inspired hard rocker, Rob Zombie, has moved to Roadrunner Records and just released the much anticipated second chapter to Hellbilly Deluxe. Not to brag, but as his number one Fanatic, as determine on the MTV show “Fanatic” back in the late 90’s I could not wait for the album. I heard the single, “Sick Bubblegum” about two months ago which was inspired by a comment made by the infamous Johnny Ramone… and thought well this is definitely not the same sound of Hellbilly Deluxe but it was still Zombie and sounded more like his newer releases much like of, Educated Horses.

I was sent a copy of the whole album last week and to kno surprise every song starts with a line from a classic horror film as Zombie is known to do. This album proves that Zombie is still in his own genre of music and there is nothing or no-one to really compare him too and Hellbilly Deluxe 2. The album is yet another great addition to my Zombie collection although I could have done with out the 2 minute or so drum solo in the middle of the album.

In short, I recommend picking Hellbilly Deluxe 2 if your a Zombie fan old or new.. and if you're not a fan of Rob Zombie… then I suggest you start.

Enjoy!

~AlStatic


AIRBRUSH ACTION MUSIC - STAFF PICK | TAKING DAWN

Posted by: AlStatic in Untagged  on

AIRBRUSH ACTION MUSIC
**** STAFF PICK / REVIEW ***

 

Taking Dawn

Artist: Taking Dawn
Album: Time to Burn

4.5 of 5 stars
Label: Road Runner Records
Review By: Allen - Digital Media

Sin City based rockers, Taking Dawn unleashes their brand new album, Time to Burn and picking up this new release would be no Sin in my book.  You can easily pickup on the 80’s glam rock inspiration to this band and I love how the band covers  Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain."  Vocalist/Guitarist Chris Babbitt explains they want the band to sound like a mix of Randy Rhoads meets Marty Friedman, merging the classic rock and modern metal sounds into their own unique blend. I have been waiting for a band and album like this and I can finally say that Taking Dawn has delivered.  www.myspace.com/takingdawn

For  fans of Bullet for my Valentine, Trivium & All That Remains.
  ** A lot of  Motley Crue inspiration **

 


Airbrush Action Classic Videos Now on I-Tunes Podcast

Posted by: AlStatic in Untagged  on

Have an I-Phone, I-POD or Just I-Tunes ? Now you can watch  Classic Airbrush Videos Now on I-Tunes Airbrush Action Podcast. We will be putting up the whole collection of the Airbrush Action Classic videos in the coming weeks all for FREE!

 PODCAST LINK: Airbrush Action

 

Enjoy!

~Airbrush Action 


Kustom Kulture Lounge Feed

Posted by: AlStatic in Untagged  on


Taste of Chaos - 2008 - Asbury Park, NJ

Posted by: AlStatic in Untagged  on


BFMV - (c) 2009 AMG

Saturday March 15, 2008 was not your typical day at the scenic Jersey-shore;
instead tour bus after tour bus and big rig trucks were rolling in to the infamous conventional hall of Asbury Park. The shore-town was setting up for yet another year of presenting the Taste of Chaos Tour. Now in the 4th year of this metal tour package the producers have proven themselves once again and have put on another great year leaving us to only look forward to the Chaos that next year will deliver.

The line-up was nothing short of amazing and to add an even bigger twist into the mix the first three acts are hard rock bands hailing from Japan. At first, with the not so amazing and very echoey acoustics of Convention Hall, I could not figure out if the bands were singing in Japanese or in English, considering that I did see fans in the pit singing along with some tracks. Turns out after popping an ear plug out and listening a little closer they were singing in Japanese, yet still talking to the crowd in English which made it so much better.

The music from all three bands, MCUU, D'espairsray, and The Underneath was damn good, even though I had no idea of what they were singing. Then again it's much like listening to bands like Rammstein, it's still amazing music and now I can speak broken German but only in the form of a Rammstein song. If you are looking for something new and exciting I do recommend checking these foreign bands out. They offer some new, different and overall great music, yet the CDs since they are imported are relatively expensive and you might be better off finding them on a source like i-tunes which will save you some cash.

The great thing about this year's show was the time in between each set. We as concert goers expect to have breakdown between bands for at least 30 minutes but the tour producers built a second stage next to the main stage and only about 5 minutes later the other band started to perform! All though I loved the idea of not having to wait I wish the lighting rigs were a bit better for the second stage and considering they had video screens I would hanging from both sides of the stage even a single camera would have been nice to have shooting the show. However, the second stage setup really kept the show moving quickly, on-time and kept me damn busy taking pictures to accompany this article. This second-stage idea was used through-out the night up until Avenged Sevenfold who performed on the same stage as the preceding so-cal based, Atreyu. One thirty-minute breakdown for the whole night was not a problem for me at all.

Other acts on this tour included Bellingham, WA's metal-duo, IdiotPilot. The band is beyond unique and I have been a fan of their music for some time and it was nice to finally see them but I don't think I ever realized it was only just the two of them. Just recently releasing their fourth album this band is one that if you have not already heard then you should pick up or download some of their music...of course I mean purchasing downloads.

Following the IdiotPilot duo was Phoenix spawned Christian-oriented screamo band, BlessTheFall. This band is another great choice for the Chaos line-up this year and the band's latest and first label release, His Last Walk, proves to be yet another great album from the Science / records collection. The band had a huge stage presence for a relatively young line-up of musicians and the fan participation was over-the-top. The only other act that might have been a good choice if they didn't make it would have been HasteTheDay. But, the boys of BlessTheFall stood their ground and put on a superb show!

Likely Page Break
Yet another amazing band that I waited so long to release another album and that has successfully crossed our borders is Bridgend, South Wales's, Bullet For My Valentine. Ever since I received one of the bands first U.S. promotional samplers from locally based and the bands U.S. label, Trustkill Records, I was hooked. I couldn't get enough of the album, The Poison, and since its release I have wanted more and in the beginning of the year the release, Hand of Blood, finally hit the shelves. Now, thankfully I also have seen the band live and let me say they put on a great show, worked the crowd and sounded almost dead-on to the album. All I can say is what a great band and I can't wait to see them again and this time I'll wear my BFMV hoodie.

The oh-so SO-Cal stereotypical pretty boys of Atreyu, one of my favorite bands, took over the stage next. Starting the set with one of their new tracks from their latest effort, Lead Sails and Paper Anchors, was a kick to the chest. Wait..I was kicked in the chest? No, I was next to the gigantic subwoofer and when the song started I merely felt like I was kicked. No worries...I'm okay. My first time seeing Atreyu proved to be fantastic and I hope it's not my last. The band put on such a great stage show with blinding lighting and even better audience interaction. They mixed up the set and performed tracks from almost all of their albums, all though unfortunately they didn't perform Bleeding Mascara which my sister was a little bummed about. But, it was Atreyu!! They rock no matter what songs the play.

Finally, with a quick live clip on the video screens the presence was made known that M. Shadows and his crew, Avenged Sevenfold, were in the building and ready to take stage. The projection screens had a countdown of 15 minutes until they took the stage and the crowd chanted A7X . 3...2...1... the curtain dropped and Avenged Sevenfold took to the stage with, Shadows on the piano and the low-lying smoke rolling off the stage leading to one truly amazing, very theatrical and another blinding stage show.

It's my second time seeing this band and despite what many say on how the band may be considered sell-outs, both times they have proven to at least me to be amazing. So what that everyone knows almost all of the new songs...that's what you want if you're in a band. Formed in 1999 in Huntington Beach, CA the band just recently released their fifth album which is self-titled. The previous release, City of Evil, I think had to be one of the bands greatest accomplishment proving to have great singles time and time again from the album, but the new self-titled album is sure do the same in taking over the airwaves now too. You can never have enough A7X!

All in all the Taste of Chaos tour this year was amazing and the producers, crew and bands all did an amazing job. I personally can't wait to see what is in store for next year...but perhaps next year I will see the show at a more audio friendly venue. Camden is always fun too!

Until next time, keep rockin' and Enjoy!

Allen Michael

~Al$T@T!(C)

Hello from France

Posted by: AlStatic in Untagged  on

 
Hello from France.
 
Alex ALFONSI aka "Fat Finger"
 
 
Alex
 
Airbrush France

 

 

Get to the grind

We unlock the power of web design with a breakthrough Photoshop plug-in.

By: Allen M. Gottfried

 

Designing and programming websites has always been in my blood. I remember learning HTML techniques back in my technology classes in high school and learning the simple coding to make text blink. Well, we have come a long way from just blinking text and now with faster connection speeds and more users, the internet is the place to be.

 

Having a website is almost required these days if you want to promote yourself or sell products to the masses without spending tons on traditional advertising. The idea of designing a site in a program like Photoshop is pretty simple since many artists already use it and are familiar with the program. If you have no idea what you want your new site to look like you can simply logon to some of your favorite sites and get a basic idea of what your site should look like. One that is visually pleasing, easy to use and navigate but still informative is what you want.

 

Originally, the task of building a website was very time intensive requiring lines of programming code and individual photos and artwork to build the final site. Thankfully more and more web-coding and layout design integration software is becoming available, easier to use and relatively inexpensive. However, I still do recommend getting a basic book on HTML programming to know some of the basics.

For a very long time I used Microsoft Frontpage, which was a simple to use interface yet advanced program that built damn good sites...and still does. However, in 2004 Microsoft stopped further developing the software and they moved on to other more advance software and web-coding programs. I started to see a lot of Macromedia supported sites with flash and I picked up a book a did some basic training in both Flash and Dreamweaver, but DW for what I was designing was way too advanced and complicated and I still ended up using my old edition of FrontPage.

 

After researching new methods for designing high-end graphical websites, I found that many sites were being built right in Adobe's Photoshop and Imageready and then outputted to programs like Dreamweaver for final programming. I gave this approach a try and I did design some great sites, but like clockwork I would run into some sort of problem with the sites. Most of the time it was alignment issues with different browsers and me not having enough Dreamweaver programming expertise it always turned into a grueling task of trying to fix the problem.

 

Now, I was desperately searching for new, and relatively simple methods of designing and delivering high-end websites. My latest issue of Photoshop Magazine seemed to promise just that. I saw an advertisement for a plug-in for Photoshop called, Sitegrinder by Medialab. The ad stated that you can build fully functional websites right in Photoshop with little or no programming at all! I had to check this out for myself and see how true it actually was.  I searched a few review sites and kept reading amazing reviews...now I really had to try it!

 

I installed the Demo version of the program, downloaded the online tutorial, and was quickly on my way. The company offers two versions, standard and professional. The pro version allows you to add media integration like flash video and more. Honestly for the little difference in price, you may as well order the pro version. Following the step by step tutorial, I quickly learned how the program operated and how to name the different layers in Photoshop so the program would correctly recognize and auto program them to work in my website.

 

My task was to take an existing name that we own, www.airbrushgetaway.com , that has been just sitting dormant and design a basic website that people could visit and learn more about our world renowned airbrushing workshops.

 

I simply reviewed a few other websites and template sites that I liked and felt were all user-friendly and easy to navigate. Eventually I chose a design I wanted to base our new site on. I built everything right in Photoshop and named the layers correctly and was able to easily build a preview of the website while I was laying it all out. When the first preview finished rendering all I could say was; wow! Everything was going smoothly until, I questioned how I would make the website grow when more content was added or subtracted. After reading the technical information I gave it a shot and started to encounter a lot of problems getting this to work. After numerous questions back and forth between, the very helpful and quick to respond, technical support I was able to make it do what I wanted. This is not something that is totally necessary and would all depend on your site requirements, but if you do need a growing content site just take your time read the directions and you will eventually get it to work as well.

 

I was able to build the new site using many of the program features but there are so many hints, (the term used to name and program the layers). I was able to give most of them a try to test the functionality, but just did not need it on the final site. The hints offer easy was to program embedded media, slideshows, contact forms and more.. all in Photoshop! Keep in mind, after programming and laying some content out, the Photoshop file looks kind of weird and has a lot going on. This is not how it will build in Site Grinder.

 

Making a few final changes to the website, I attempted to use some other programming features of the pro-version. I tried out their slideshow hint but didn't really like the way it operated, it was good but not what I wanted. So, I did some research and decided I would embed my slideshow content from my Flickr account. A lot of websites have tutorials how to do this and the slideshow player they offer is great! I programmed it into my new layout, in Photoshop, and now I had a professional looking slideshow on my site. I did the same with the Getaway promotional and testimonial videos and I easily embedded the video using html tags provided from our friends at Youtube. Hosting our videos on sites like Youtube save us some big time bandwidth and allows us not to worry about having to build a custom video player. Site Grinder also has a unique programming feature allowing text within the site to stay searchable text and not become just an image. This will allow search engines and crawlers to find the information on your site and help to possibly bump up your rating on searches. Keep in mind,  some items are better off as images and also might help if you have any browser alignment issues which you can change with a simple hint command.

 

Now that my site is laid out and I am happy how everything is programmed, I was ready to do the final build-to-folder in Sitegrinder. Their build interface is very self- explanatory, although, I do recommend reading the instructions. Following the instructions, I was able to easily link the pages together, setup up e-mail information, and more. The program also evaluates the webpage and checks to make sure no errors occur before final output. Once everything is linked and ready to go you can either  preview it again or build to folder.

 

You might have to go back and tweak a few things to make it work for certain browsers. When I built the final site, except for a few of my own stupid mistakes, my site was finished, looked great, and was ready for upload.

 

Site Grinder does offer features to upload to your hosting company, but I just used my Freeware ftp program, Filezilla to upload the content. Voila! My new site is live, looks great and was pretty easy to do! In addition I do recommend that you download a basic HTML editor too. I use either an old version of Frontpage or I really like the freeware software, HTML-Kit.


In closing, Sitegrinder is a fantastic tool and I highly recommend it, if you are looking for a relatively simple way to build a professional website and are already comfortable using and own copy of Photoshop it's the way to go! You can learn more, download the demo, see site samples and purchase the full version at www.medialab.com

 

Take a look at the site I built with SG, www.airbrushgetaway.com , the site is easy to navigate, graphically pleasing and only showcases a fraction of what Sitegrinder is capable of! This is absolutely on piece of amazing software!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Save Streaming Media to your PC with Ease. **REVIEW**

Posted by: AlStatic in Untagged  on

Save Streaming Media to Your PC With Ease.
By: Allen M. Gottfried, Digital Media & Video
Airbrush Action Magazine

 

In the ever-emerging online content world we sometimes find a great resource of information and would like to save it on the computer for future viewing purposes. Perhaps, you don’t want to save links to a video site or maybe you just want the ability to save, convert and watch files that can be played back on a system that doesn’t have an internet connection, for example in your garage, workshop or on the road.

 

This all sound great but in order to capture these secure streaming media files you need to have the training of a network engineer. That said, it is relatively hard for the average computer using Joe to figure out how to find and download these protect video streams. Thankfully, I have done some research and as always I’m here to help. After some research and testing many demo programs that would allow me to locate and save streaming media files, both audio and video, and later convert them to other playable media formats, I came across one of the best pieces of software to date and by far one of the easiest to use.

 

The software company Alex Inc., has developed a series of easy-to-use programs that will locate, download and capture the hard to find media streams. Both WMRecorder and WMConverter showed its competition no remorse and did exactly what it said it would do.  I have not encountered any problems recording the streaming media that I wanted to download and playback looks perfect. Of course, keep in mind that this program should only be used for legal downloads and the media you obtain should only be used for personal use and reference.

 

In a statement from Alex, Inc. they exclaim that WMRecorder is the easiest and most advanced way to record video and audio from the Internet. Just open the recorder play the video or audio from your Internet Explorer browser or your favorite media player and the content will automatically be recorded. And, I have to agree with them fully on that statement.

 

Once the file is downloaded you can use WMConverter to convert to and from some of the most popular video and audio formats including WMV, MP4, FLV, MPEG, AVI, MP3, AAC, WAV, iPod, Zune, mobile. I have downloaded numerous media files and have converted some to the various formats listed above. I was able to put some of the training videos and tutorials right on my Ipod and I was able to watch it when I was performing the work where I had no internet connection.  What a great, simple-to-use and sophisticated product and l allowing yet another way to learn and entertain yourself from anywhere in the world on a variety of media platforms.

 

When you first open the software it does not initially come across graphically as a highly sophisticated piece of software but once you start to use the program and see how well it performs and all it is capable of you will be far from disappointed. The company offers a few different software options as the programs are sold separately or can be purchased as a bundle to save you some money.  If you are looking to take your favorite internet video and streaming media files on the road or just be able to access that media at anytime, then I highly recommend that you visit http://www.wmrecorder.com to download a demo or order the full version.  

 

                                        WMRecorder

 

 


PHOTO RESCUE ***OFFICIAL REVIEW***

Posted by: AlStatic in Untagged  on

PhotoRescue
 
DATARescue - PhotoRescue
(IMAGE RECOVERY SOFTWARE)

Review By: Allen M. Gottfried
Airbrush Action Magaizne - Digital Media & Video
 

In the ever-emerging world of digital photography we have come to acknowledge the fact that we no longer have a physical piece of celluloid film to record and archive our images. Instead, we use various forms of media storage including Secure Digital, XD, Memory-Stick, Compact Flash and others. While this is a great way to store an infinite amount of photos there’s always the possibility and risk of media failure.

 

Recently, we encountered some major data errors on one of our larger Compact Flash cards (8GB) and we found ourselves in what could have been a disastrous situation and outcome.We needed the photos on the media for an upcoming article and it was an event that could not be re-scheduled. Having some experience with basic data-recovery, I did some research and found a few recovery programs that focused directly on digital photography media. I found some great reviews of the software, Photorescue, but I was still a bit wary of how good it would actually work. Thankfully, you can download a demo-version of the software and I did just that. It ran for sometime but when it was finished I saw that it recovered all the problem files, which ended up being way more files than I expected.

 

That said, I was convinced that this program was going to do the trick. It gave me a purchase option of $39.95 and I was sold. The price was good and this software was going to save our asses. . The article ran, the picture looked great and now we no longer have to fear a faulty or problematic memory-card.

 

I highly recommend this program if you have encountered errors and/or corrupt files with your digital camera memory cards. For more information and the free demo-download visit, www.datarecovery.com

 

 

 

 


Alienskin - ImageDoctor 2 - OFFICIAL REVIEW

Posted by: AlStatic in Untagged  on

 

IMDCTR2
REVIEW

 By: Allen M. Gottfried
Airbrush Action, Digital Media

ALIEN SKIN – IMAGE DOCTOR2

 

Here in the Airbrush Action Digital Media and Production departments we are constantly seeking new innovative, easy to use and affordable software or plug-ins to use to make our lives easier and that of our fellow artists.

Our friends at Alien Skin Software recently let us demo their new release of Image Doctor 2, a Photoshop Plug-in that makes photo manipulation and retouching a breeze.  

Now some of the plug-ins and filter I have used pose no real need to purchase them or even use them to perform a few basic tricks. This package however is indeed worthy of the purchase price. If you are an artist working a variety of photos, old, new ones that are good but have a minor mistake or artifact that is making you not want to use it, then Image Doctor 2 is for you.

I went online to see what the program was capable of and I was impressed but as always I had to try it for myself. I loaded up a few pictures from our stock photo library including ones with people, structures and landscapes to try a plethora of different types of images.

The plug-in gives your five main tools to work with. Blemish Concealer, Dust and Scratch Remover, JPEG Repair, Skin Softener and Smart Fill. If you are working to restore old photos this package would be a wise investment without a doubt with the advanced controls to cover up many problematic artifacts. JPEG repair is a great tool too for anyone that is working with jagged images that might need some help. The coolest feature of this package had to be Smart Fill. This plug-in examines your photo and you can make selection much like the Photoshop clone/stamp tool but this thing is amazing. It analyzes the surrounding pixels and determines how to cover up those evil mistakes.  I was able to take cables out pictures, removed a duck from a pond picture completely and had some fun manipulating some friend’s photos too.

How can this program work for the airbrush artist? Well, if you scan or photograph your work this could be a great tool to aide in making some easy or sophisticated adjustment to make the picture better, cleaner and present a sellable final product. Say, if you have a bad background, a scratch on the scan, or any other blemish you need to cover up. The program is really made for the digital artist but thinking outside the box any artists that uses Photoshop to correct art, pictures or more can benefit from this program.

Alien Skin offers a demo of this product and I highly recommend that you check it out! www.alienskin.com

 

 

b4after

This sample is nothing spectacular but it took
only seconds to finish and it was done with a preset.
If you take time and use all the correct settings
you can work some real magic...and save time too!


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