When I did the post about the connection between visual art and music (see: TokyoPlastic – An Ear for Visual Art), one of the other artists to pop into my mind was Mike Davis ( aka Mike the 2600 King): DJ, graphic designer, and accomplished screen printer; this St. Louis native came to the Twin Cities by way of a creative art collective known as Burlesque of North America. These design and screen printing pros have really made quite a splash with their screen printed concert posters displaying such talent as Diplo, Doomtree, Lyrics born, and many others.

While visual art is a career in itself for Mike, he puts a lot of his energy into music with DJing and remixing. You can often hear Mike spinning the freshest cuts in funk, soul, and hip-hop around town, on mixtapes, local radio, and on the Burlesque of North America Podcast. He has also lent both his talents to the debut 12″ music release from BONA Do It To It and was kind enough to take the time to answer some questions about that and more! So read on and make sure to check out Mike the 2600 King w/ Dave Nada, Bird Peterson, Star Eyes, Bitch Azz Darius, Jimmy 2 Times & Plain ole Bill, Soviet Panda, and the Moon Goons at the Minneapolis Do It To It 12″ release party at First Avenue Nightclub.

 

Above the Fold: To start, let’s get some background on Burlesque North America. How did this creative collective become the official business that it is today?

Mike the 2600 King: Burlesque began as a loose collective of graphic designers and illustrators who all used to work together on Life Sucks Die, a Minneapolis-based graffiti magazine. As we realized that the magazine was going to require our full daily attention, which we couldn’t afford, we decided to take what we learned while doing the magazine and apply it to something a bit more fruitful. We began working together doing graphic design for the
friends and fam we’d met during LSD’s heyday – record labels, local concert venues, etc. It was the screenprinted concert posters that really began to take off for us, so that’s been our bread and butter work. Lately we’ve been branching out from there, using what we’ve learned doing screenprinting and event promotion to start releasing records featuring music from DJs and artists we love with artwork designed and screenprinted inhouse.

 

 

ATF: How has the local Minneapolis arts scene helped to push your work as a designer?

Mike: The art and music scenes here have been incredibly supportive of everything we love to do, from doing design work for Rhymesayers, First Avenue, The Current, Treehouse Records, Modern Radio Records, collaborating with Fifth Element, Familia, Robot Love, and Head to Toe on different projects, to having our art gallery, First Amendment Arts, win Best Art Gallery in the Twin Cities in City Pages’ Best of 2008 issue. We couldn’t do what we love to do without the support of our friends here in town and they are one of the biggest reasons we keep pushing ourselves to do bigger and better projects all the time.

 

ATF: As Mike the 2600 King, how have you combined your talent for art and music?

Mike: Well, I think the main thing is that I’ve designed all of my CD covers and a lot of my flyers, posters, and other promotional art. It’s been great to be able to tie it all together with the newer projects Burlesque has been doing like with our new podcast and the Do it To it 12″.

 

ATF: In regards to “Do it to It”, how did the decision to do a vinyl music release come
about?

Mike: This being our second to put on music events at SXSW, we wanted to make something special
to help promote our opening night. We’d seen some parties do limited edition t-shirts,
but we figured since we have all these great DJs playing who make all these great tracks,
why not put out a record?

 

ATF: What was the process of selecting artists and tracks for the limited release vinyl?

Mike: We invited each DJ spinning that night to send us a remix they had done which has never appeared on vinyl. Some people sent in a couple fo different tracks, and, with the help of Bird Peterson, one of the DJs featured on the record, we helped narrow down the final tracklisting. Everyone sent in really dope material and we were beyond happy with the final result.

 

ATF: Would you like to give us some background on the album artwork (for Do it To it)?

Mike: Hahaha, I started by completely ganking a Barry Miles LP cover that Milton Glaser
designed and then just ran in my own direction from there.

 

ATF: Your art, both music and visual, is well rooted here in the twin-cities. What other cities are we likely to see the art & music of M26K, Mike Davis, and Burlesque?

Mike: I’ll be DJing in Chicago the last weekend of May, Milwaukee on June 14th, and in Raleigh NC on June 28th, I’m trying to iron out some DJ gigs and an art show in Japan later this year, the Burlesque crew will be slangin’ posters at the Flatstock events at both the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago in July and at Bumbershoot in Seattle over Labor Day weekend, so check for us there if you’ll be around!

ATF: Quite a line up you had for the “Do It To It” SXSW event, how did the idea for this event come about? (and) how did it turn out?

Mike: We had been selling posters at SXSW for several years and figured we had enough connections to make a showcase pop off. By chance, our friend Minh Chau had just moved to Austin from St. Paul and told us that the sushi restaurant where she was working was hoping to host some SXSW parties. We jumped on this and started hitting up some of our DJ friends who would be in town. In 2007 we had Smalltown DJs, Morse Code, DJ Day, Bitch Ass Darius, The Rub, Tactic, DJ Mel, and King Most come spin. This year we had even more folks play – Dave Nada, Cosmo from The Rub, DJ Mel, Prince Klassen, Smalltown DJs, myself, Willy Joy, DJ Zebo, Million Dollar Mano, DJ Huggs, Co-Op & Hunnicutt, DJ Donna Summer, and Paper Tiger all playing over the course of three nights. It was nuts. The first night was ridiculous. It kind of turned into the spot for everyone to come hang out at while Cosmo and Dave Nada were just murdering it on four turntables. Easily the best DJ set I saw all weekend.

 

ATF: Was the success of your SXSW event the inspiration for your May 23 “release party” at
First Avenue?

Mike: Absolutely. We’ve loved seeing Sovietpanda’s Too Much Love party, Moon Goons’ Honeymoon,
and Plain Ole Bill & Jimmy 2 Times’ Get Cryphy parties all jump off with such huge success, so we thought it would be fun to combine all of those parties and add in some of our favorite DJs from out of town. Also, we never got to have a local release party for the EP, so this will be it!

 

ATF: In St. Louis you were a DJ for a local college radio station correct? Any plans to
return to radio in the future?

Mike: I do guest spots once every 2 months or so on Rhymesayers’ RSE Radio show on KFAI and
would love to spin on any other local shows who support good music!

 

ATF: Can we expect to see future music releases from Burlesque of North America?

Mike: Absolutely. Plans for Do it To it Vol. 2 are already in the works but I can’t give out any info on it just yet! We’re stoked on how well-received the first record was and are excited to keep working on more projects like this.

So thanks to Mike the 2600 King for taking the time, and be sure to check out the Do It To It Minneapolis release party on May 23, 2008 in the First Avenue main room featuring Dave Nada, Bird Peterson, Star Eyes, Mike the 2600 King, Bitch Azz Dairus, Jimmy 2 Times & Plain Ole Bill, Soviet Panda, and the Moon Goons!

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Check out a few tracks:

MP3: Mike the 2600 King – Club Action Metal Man (Remix)

Mike the 2600 King – Don’t You Evah (Mike 2600 Party Version)