It’s time to surf through the flotsam and jetsam of the interwebs, so don’t miss this wave…

I love the Muppets and in particular Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem!  Illustrator Michael De Pippo clearly does too!

And if you liked that, then you’ll love these fake band t-shirts designed for history’s greatest minds.  Long live the Monsters of Grok!

Frizbee is a big fan of Harry Potter, so he sent me this link to some classic rock album covers reimagined with various characters from the Potter films.

He also sent me this great link to some really clever pictogram music posters.  So thanks Friz!

Unable to explain your band’s design aesthetic?  Thanks to Flavorpill we now have “A Field Guide to Musical Typography”.

This article gives “Shake Your Moneymaker” a whole new meaning!

And lest you think Canada has never produced a good fake band for TV or movies – think again!  My personal fave?  Rod Torfulson’s Armada Featuring Herman Menderchuk!

Do you love Graphic Design and Creative of all kinds?  Then make sure you check out Creattica.

I enjoyed this article on how cassettes mobilized music and thought you might too.

And speaking of old school, CBS Sunday Morning did this great piece on that once ubiquitous cassette player/radio the “Boombox” and photographer Lyle Orweto’s new book “The Boombox Project”.

LargeheartedBoy alerted me to this great article from West Coast Sound on The Five Worst Ironic Indie Rock Band Names, Besides Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.

I still find it hard to believe that I saw this band 21 years ago at the Off Ramp in Seattle when they were still known as Mookie Blaylock.

And last but certainly not least, leave it to The Flaming Lips to come up with a most novel way to package their latest recording!

The bookmarks have been piling up, so it’s time to clean em’ out!  Here we go!

Band names have their genesis in many forms, but this band’s name is literally a joke!

frizbee liked this so much he sent it to us not once, but twice!  Way to be thorough friz!

Frizbee also sent us this link to great album covers on Abduzeedo.

Toadmaster sent us this great NPR post on “The Best Album Covers of 2010″.

When Dave Van Vliet, better known as Captain Beefheart, died late last year we lost a true musical explorer and eccentric sage.  Thankfully he left his fellow musicians with some great advice, so heed the Captain!

The harcore punk band Fucked Up recently released their long awaited “punk opera” album “David Comes To Life”, but prior to the album’s release on June 7th they also released a compilation album of songs from all of the fake bands from the fake town in which the fake story is set.  Got all that?  Good now go check out the cool site they created for the album.

Musicians are always finding new ways to make music, behold the music of EXE files!

How iconic is a musician’s hair?  Comb over this infographic to find out!

The ultimate mood music station!

Jamie McKelvie, the comic book artist who we first introduced you to in our interview with Kieron Gillen, recently designed the artwork for the new Art Brut album.  Check it out!

Every year we lose more record stores, a sad fact that is the subject of this Buzzfeed pictorial post.

At Figment we’re devoted fans of rock posters, so we were excited to hear about the release of “American Artifact.” If you love documentaries on rock posters you should also check out our interview with Eileen Yaghoobian about her film “Died Young Stayed Pretty”.

Interested in the sometimes murky world of “fair use”?  Then you should be reading Waxy.org, a blog by tech entrepreneur Andy Baio.

Want to actually play air guitar?  You may soon be able to since this project just got funded on Kickstarter!

Now this is some great fake album artwork!

Do you like some album cover artwork so much you could eat it up?  Well now you can!

That’s it for now.  Until next time…

While scouring the web for all things fake band related, I often stumble across great design sites, interesting music articles and even some great internet ephemera.  So what do I do with it all?  I bookmark it and eventually when things are a little slow I share them with you.  So without further adieu here is the latest installment of “Cleaning Out The Bookmarks”:

If you don’t listen to All Songs Considered on NPR you should, but regardless you should check out their Top 10 Album Covers of 2010.

Ever heard of The Masked Marauders?  Nor had I until I read this interesting article on Aquarium Drunkard!

I just finished reading Keith Richard’s memoir “Life”, and it was a great read that I highly recommend.  Needless to say it put me in a all things Keith mood and led me to this classic Hunter Thompson interview with Keith Richards.

Now if you read “Life” you’ll know that Richards blasts Mick Jagger throughout the book for a variety of things, but mostly for having what he refers to as LVS (Lead Vocalist Syndrome).  Jagger supposedly fired back in this letter which is a fascinating read in it’s own right.

frizbee sent us this great blog post on 50 Years of Typography in Album Covers.   And speaking of great typography check this out!

frizbee also sent me this incredible portfolio site for Icelandic designer JÓNAS VALTÝSSON.

And speaking of album covers he also sent me this!

If you haven’t already seen this incredible marketing piece for the latest Arcade Fire album then you’re in for a treat - watch it!

Larry turned me on to this guy Craig Robinson’s incredible site FlipFlopFlyBall.  If you like baseball, and infographics, you’ll love this site, but I particularly loved this infographic of REALLY fantasy baseball.

These progressive metal drawings by Justin Bartlett are pretty cool too.

For you metal heads I thought you’d like to check out this new distortion pedal from Tone Box.

And this is why the ZT Lunchbox amplifier makes so much sense!

If you like movie posters this is a pretty cool post on vintage takes on modern movies.

And speaking of posters…Larry sent this post from the staff at Consequence of Sound.

This guy might be homeless, but that never stopped him from living out his metal dreams!

And this blogger not only creates fake metal bands he’s been breathing life into them by releasing a steady stream of albums from them.

Whiskey has inspired me to do a lot of things…nothing this creative however!

Like your comic book heros?  Like 80′s album covers?  Why not combine the two!

You gotta love this Sleeveface post!

But my favorite has to be this Noise Addicts post on some photos from the Life Magazine Archives.  Ever wonder what the house Frank Zappa grew up in looks like?  Wonder no more!

If you’ve run across something you’d like to share send it to us using the feedback link at the bottom of every page on Figment.

Until next time…

Well it seems I’m not the only one who is a fan of internet ephemera, our own frizbee keeps track of it too!  In fact, he sent over 3 of the links I’m sharing with you today.  In return for his link “largesse” we thought it only fair that we dedicate this very special episode of Cleaning Out The Bookmarks to him!

In Vol 1. of this feature we introduced you to Pitchfork’s great “Take Cover” column.  The latest installment features Stanley Donwood who has designed all of Radiohead’s covers.  He has a new exhibit that is currently showing at San Franciso’s FIFTY24SF through October 27, 2010.

I stumbled across this treasure trove of Jazz album covers that were released on Columbia Records when I visited the Birka Jazz Archive.

And speaking of album covers, frizbee hipped me to AlbumArtExchange.com an online repository of high quality album artwork.

He also sent me this link to SoundofDesign’s minimalist take on 19 classic rock album covers.  It’s awesome.

And in keeping with his minimalist streak, frizbee sent me this link to some minimalist rock posters done by Federico Mancosu.

I ran across this trailer for a UK indie documentary about the last vinyl record shop in Teesside, England.  The film is called “Sound It Out” (after the name of the shop) and at the time of this post they’ve only raised $265 of the funding they need to for the film’s post-production, so scrape some nickels together and help out a struggling artist by donating what you can.  She’ll send you some great freebies depending on how much you donate.  I went for a simple $10 thank you!

Having a kick ass logo is nowhere more important than in the world of metal – here are a few I happened across on a Russian design site that should get your creative juices headbanging!  If you scroll down there’s some pretty good album cover designs as well.

And speaking of metal, Invisible Oranges asked a classically trained voice teacher to give her thoughts on 5 of metal’s most well known singers.

Ran across this great blog post about how someone’s fake band “Bible Party” got big by word-of-mouth.  Go figure.

Cover Arts is another great album cover design site to check out.

Rock stars love tattoos right?  The problem is that they don’t always make the best tattoos themselves do they?  Think Before You Ink proves it!

And while we’re on the subject of rock n’ roll anatomy why not check out Flavorwire’s 10 Most Iconic Bare Torsos in Music!

Everybody knows rock n’ roll is an incestuous business, but this woman actually mapped it out!

And last but not least, I love wildlife, so I was thrilled to see this photograph of the elusive Heavy Metal Tiger!

Time for the latest installment of “Cleaning out the Bookmark List”, so let’s get to it!

• Stumbled on this incredible blog post on FontFeed while reading another of my favorite blogs – HardFormat.org – it’s a rundown of the album art on some of the newest releases with special attention paid to the font and typefaces used.  I know this something that Will Schaff pointed out as being very important in his selections for the 2010 Album Cover Design Contest, so give it a read.

• HardFormat also had a link to this incredible new documentary “Taken By Storm” that is being made about the legendary album cover designer Storm Thorgerson and Hipgnosis, the team that designed famous covers for Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Bad Company, Yes, Scorpions, Peter Gabriel and many more.  Check out the trailer, it looks fantastic, or visit Storm’s site.

• If you like Def Leppard you’ll love this set of blog posts by Andie Airfix, the designer behind all of their album covers since Pyromania.  Check out the original designs, etc.  It’s going to be part of a show at the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame opening in December of 2010 and running through 2012.  Speaking of Def Leppard, Hipgnosis designed their “High N’ Dry” album cover.

• Love Black Sabbath?  Then you’ll love this!

• While not technically what we’d call a fake band (since they actually recorded & released music) Sex Bob-Omb does have some famous members (no pun intended).

Hey it’s that time again, time to clear out ye olde bookmark list and share some cool odds and sods with you!  So here we go -

• How important is a band name?  The NY Times ran an article on this subject, and how even classical groups are getting creative with their names.

• If you want to check out a really cool graphic design project, check out Michael Deal’s exploration of The Beatle’s work through infographics.  It’s fascinating.

• Don’t believe that you can get people to believe in a fake bands, albums or concerts?  Guess again! Even the art community is getting involved – whether it’s creating fake bands or record stores!  So imagine it and they will come!

• Sleeveface rocks…it simply rocks.  I dare you not to agree.

• Change the Thought is a great design blog, but I particularly liked this article on gig posters.

• 7 Deadly Sinners are 7 artists who among other things seem to like to create gig posters for fake bands!

• Nylvi’s Best Vinyl Cover Art of 2009 is worth a look!

• Cool video about the packaging design for MGMTs new album “Congratulations”.

• frizbee pointed this Wired article out to me.  A must read for Lost fans.  BTW frizbee I’m still working on getting a hold of them…I’ll keep you posted.

• Congratulations to our good friend John Coulthart (last year’s guest Album Cover Design Contest judge) for winning the 2010 Spinetingler Best Book Cover Award.

• Michele Catalano wrote a great post for her Sound System column on True/Slant.  She writes about “Albums I Forgot I Loved” and talks about how she created a fake band, Pond Scum, with her sister and a few friends.  Unfortunately the band broke up over their fake direction, but it goes to show you how many people create fake bands based on their love for a real group.

That’s it for now.  Until next time…

With our Figment Concert Poster Contest in full swing I thought I’d clean out the ole bookmark list and give you some relevant links to check out.  So here it goes -

1.  Having trouble figuring out how to create an authentic rock poster?  Here’s a tutorial.

2.  Minneapolis truly is a rock poster design mecca with Lonny Unitus, Aesthetic Apparatus, FLORAFAUNA and Chuck Ungemach among others calling it home.

3.  It’s also great to read about a band like Os Tornados, a six-piece 50′s & 60′s inspired rock band out of Porto, Portugal, whose keyboardist prefers to draw or paint the band’s posters as a way of translating the band’s analog esthetic. While you’re at it check out their music, it’s great.

4.  And speaking of other great rock poster design mecca’s Portland, OR is no slouch either!

Well that’s it for now.  We have some great interviews coming up, so stay tuned.  In the meantime, if you have an article, site or other piece of interweb flotsam jetsam that you’d like to share let us know about it by posting it as a comment.  Until next time!

I’m an internet pack rat, scouring the interwebs for stuff I think will interest, inspire, and entertain all of my Figment brethren.  The only problem is that I often fail to bring this great stuff to your attention!  So today I’m cleaning up my list of bookmarked internet flotsam and jetsam, and posting links to some stuff I think you’ll really find interesting.  So check them all out when you get a chance.

Pitchfork has a great new featured called “Take Cover” that looks at album cover design by talking with the designers themselves.  In the first installment, they interviewed William O’Brien about his design for Grizzly Bear’s newest album “Veckatimest.”  Check it out.

In the “Do Not Try This At Home” file I found this beauty of a story!

I’ve always gotten a kick out of parodies, especially song parodies and this one by Cody Johnston of Cracked.com is a terrific send-up of The Decemberists.  So give “Hampshirefields” a listen.

And in the “We Are Not Alone” file I found this great Guardian.co.uk column by Michael Hann on…you guessed it “Imaginary Bands.”

I first read about Arik Roper’s new exhibit at Fuse Gallery in NYC on Arthur.com, but I found even cooler stuff on his blog.  Looking forward to seeing the gallery show.

Love feedback infused rock n’ roll?  Well then pray at the altar of Blue Cheer!

Well that’s it for now, but if you’ve got something you stumbled across that you think would be a good fit – let us know and we’ll work with you to get it up on the blog.