Monorex were invited to take part in the Heineken funded Green Room Sessions - a music and art event infusing some creativity into Sweden's nightlife. Due to a logistics problem and some "interesting" planning we didn't get access to the 30 m2 cube wall until late Tuesday night. With 17 hours to go until the deadline even the Monorex management had to get involved in the painting..!? As always we smashed it anyway! S.I.C, Pontus and Dan worked through the night, morning and afternoon - Big Up!
A great night followed. The über trendy music geeks at Discobelle really know how to throw a party!
Thanks to Discobelle, Jung, Smuts, Heineken, Babel, Oscar, Grandin's Flying Circus and everyone else involved.
Secret Wars was invited by Nissan Cube to battle on HUGE walls down at the Truman Brewery for the exciting launch of the Cube car!
Hicks and Discoteck went head to head and the video below was their thoughts before the show.
Official statement
To celebrate the forthcoming launch of Japanese design icon, Cube, Nissan is unveiling a unique creative destination in East London: Cube Store in collaboration with Colette, Paris.
Cube Store will include the UK’s first ever pop-up shop from celebrated Parisian design emporium, Colette, Just in time for Christmas shopping , Colette has handpicked an eclectic range of Japanese inspired lifestyle products from renowned international designers to feature in Cube Store. The centrepiece of the retail exhibition will be the iconic Nissan Cube vehicle which will be showcased at the venue for a limited time only.
The conceptual space of Cube Store will also act as a creative forum playing host to a series of avant-garde music, fashion, design & art inspired evening experiences for the most inquisitive, inspirational and creative minds in the capital.
For me this is very special as we first saw the car 7 odd years ago in Tokyo, Japan... It blew my mind when such an odd, funny but innovative car past by... We saw lots of pimped out versions as well and I really knew from that point that these alien vehicles were going to be BIG (Not only in Japan but Europe) one day!
So fast forward into time and here we are... We are very proud to be associated with such a car and hope to be driving one in the very near future ;)
Reeps 1 in action at Nissan Cube launch
" There are some things the Japanese are just better at than us, but there are other things we just don't get. Tentacle porn, for one. The Nissan Cube was one design that never really took off outside the land of the rising sun, but at the Geneva International Motor Show we've seen a rounder, softer, less cube-like Cube for the European market.
This third generation of Cube will launch in Europe in 2010. It'll be powered by 1.5-litre diesel or 1.6-litre petrol engines over here. Car Craver Rory 'Ruler of the Road' Reid met the eco-friendly Denki Cube at the British Motor Show last summer, and an electric version of the new Cube is reportedly in the pipeline.
Showing a level of whimsy not usually found in PR nonsense, the Cube's press release suggests that the car mixes "the charm of Godzilla and the wit of Mothra". We don't remember Godzilla being that charming when he was stomping Tokyo, or Mothra zinging around too many bon mots, but we get the idea: it's wacky, it's quirky, it's -- yes -- zany.
The idea of the cube shape is that the wheels are placed as far into the corners as possible. This creates more space inside, and gives the car a long 2.5m wheelbase. The rear window has an odd asymmetrical shape, wrapping around the back corner of the car to give the left-hand driver an unobstructed view. Judging by some of the mock-ups, a right-hand drive version will also be available." Source - CRAVE NET
Peter Jenkinson OBE bigging up Secret Wars!
Jack Whitehall sounding very drunk but funny!
Matt Horne getting the facts straight More videos like this on www.t5m.com
If you wanna go see the car with your own eyes, then past by the Boiler room @ Truman Brewery, as the pop up store is open for 5 weeks or so!
They are also selling Collette Paris goodies in there aswell - bring some serious cash for this tho.
Met Rich Roat in Dublin @ The Offset festival last month, he is the main man behind House Industries - which if you don't know is a super sick design house, they specialise in type design and limited edition product collabs....
Anyway once we met, Rich checked our site and saw that we painted the Umbro wall earlier this year - strangely House Industries were the guys that made that script text for an agency in NYC.
Small World, but proud to have worked alongside them in a very distant sense...
So things are starting to warm up nicely for next years Warriors team series. All the cities are slowly pulling the best of the best together, and building monster teams!
London and Glasgow dropped their first heats on Friday to search for fresh faces, six artists came down and jammed in front of vibing crowd.
All the artists came with a different plan and approach, with Dr Rock stealing the show with a very intricate approach to Secret Wars.
On the night no one goes through as we are planning heat 2 to give even more artists a chance to shine - once this next event is out of the way, we will then decide who the best 3 artists were over the 2 heats... They will then join up with the pre selected 3 artists (Alfa, Mr K and DiscoTeck) forming TEAM LONDON!
DR Rock in action
Hey is that me? ;)
Some portrait shots from the Monorex / Jaysus booth!
Jimi Crayon
Suffoca and friend
Jo and Gabs
Dr Rock
Mr Gauky in his natural pose!
The legend Stika
See you all at Heat 2 on the 18th December @ The Book Club!
The pump celebrated its 20th Birthday in serious style at the Reebok Lounge. There were parties in every major city to help celebrate the bench mark shoe.
We were invited thanks to a number of successful collabs that we've worked on in the past. We were still haggered from a hectic week and had a special Secret Wars celebration the night before, which resulted in lots of drink, a few bare testicles, some strippers and at the end of it a bit of sick on the roof terrace. So Reebok had a lot to live up to.
The alcohol was flowing, the celebs were out in force and the A/C was knackered. Making this one HOT partaaaay! We caught up with Mr Hudson as well as Kelly Brook and Jade Jagger.
Any new artists who want to get involved in our Warriors series next year and be part of Team London, then get down to The Book Club this Friday with your sketch books as we are looking for 3 artists to join our 3 preselected artists - Forming a formidable Team London!
If chosen you will travel Europe and battle as a team over an 10 month period, the winning team will get BIG prizes! Trust us on this....
Monorex and edding UK were shortlisted for 3 of the 8 awards this year, which is an unheard of achievement - we walked away on the night with one of those 3 awards "The Lloyds Innovation" prize... Congratulations to everyone who has helped make Secret Wars what it is today, from the artists battling to my guys back stage who make sure lights are on and walls are fresh white!
“Increasingly, innovation is seen as a key tool for the advancement of both the business and the cultural sectors. Arts & Business encourages and supports new partnerships that strive for innovation, establishing examples for other companies to follow.” Colin Tweedy, Chief Executive, Arts & Business
“The successful partnerships that have been recognised demonstrate the importance of a cross-sector collaborative approach. They also confirm innovation as a key factor to achieve wider strategic objectives.” Richard Ward, Chief Executive, Lloyd'
A special thanks to Andy from edding for making this all happen, as he was the man who filled in that crazy 32 page doc to apply at the start ;) well done sir!
Terry and Jay from Monorex / Secret Wars
Mr Arts and Business, Terry from Monorex/Secret Wars and Andy from edding
The award was hand carved in Afghanistan (Kabul) by a charity foundation called the Turquoise mountain.
A few eyebrows were raised when we won the award, as we were the underdog on the night - going up against people like BP and the Royal Opera House...
After losing the first two awards silently (in pain), a lot of passion was shown when Kate Mosse read out our name as winners for the final award - we all jumped up with huge screams of YES, C,mon...etc and started cuddling each other (man passion :).
To eat cost £200 each but as you can from the starters, it was well worth it!
Gabriella from Redbull added some much needed beauty to a table of lads..
Afterwards Classic FM and The Guardian interviewed us and we were congratulated by many random people, a great night and I hope we can apply again with the School Wars concept.
If you wanna be part of the Bristol team for the Euro champs next year - then get down and show us your work, or even better bring a CD/DVD that we can keep to check out!
SECRET WARS IS RE FORMATTING AND ROLLING INTO 2010 WITH A DIFFERENT KIND OF CHALLENGE
After 3 and a half years of single battle series locally in over 20 countries, we have decided to try something different and potentially more exciting for 2010... Introducing the European Warriors series!
"When we started Secret Wars 3 years ago, it was influenced heavily by various things from the Marvel comic, to Warriors and Fight Club. After experiencing the team battles around the World and seeing the benefits of this compared to the singles battles, we decided on trying it as a complete 6-8 month series!"
"I have noticed the crowds are more vocal and patriotic towards team battles - there seems to be more at stake and I love watching the artists free-styling alongside each other.... You never know what will come out the other end!"Terry Guy (Founder of Monorex and Secret Wars)
The rules are the same but the structure of the competition and dynamics of the battle are slightly different - see below for details.
How the competition will work & when
There will be 8-10 teams/cities involved in next years competition, and each city will select 6 artists to part of a squad. Each team will select 2-3 wildcard entries consisting of previous champs and general bad boys! The remaining members will be picked at the local qualifiers.
City selection events - November / December 09 (Check Secret Wars website for dates)
Each city will call out and actively invite people down to jam and show off their skills
Draw will take place to decide what team is which group (A or B)
1st Round - Group league qualifiers
Two groups of 4-5 teams with the top two teams qualifying
Rather than a knockout cup comp, we have decided to make this a little more interesting and maybe fairer - Each game will be a league match with each judge vote and crowd vote worth a point!
Each team will play home and away against the others in their group
Semi finals
With the top two teams going through from each group, we will be left with 4 teams.
The winner of GROUP A will play the 2nd place of GROUP B and the winner of GROUP B will play the runners up of GROUP A.
GROUP A WINNER vs. GROUP B RUNNER UP
GROUP B WINNER vs. GROUP A RUNNER UP
These will also be home and away ties - with the winning team decided on total points earned over the two games. If the points are level than it will be decided by the team who gets the most away points.
GRAND FINAL
This will be hosted at a neutral venue, TBC nearer the time
More info to be announced! watch this space
Apply now if you are interested in being part of a team - you can apply to as many cities as you like.
