The word is officially out on a triumvirate of businesses to hit downtown St. Paul towards the end of the summer! Amsterdam Bar and Hall will be a music venue run by the owners of 331 club, and flanking Amsterdam on either side will be the resurrected Eclipse Records and a new poster-art studio called Big Table Studio.

We’re particularly excited here at Spunk because our very own JJ and our good friend Peet Fetsch have joined forces to create Big Table Studio, a dynamic poster studio where designers will create, display, and sell some pretty rad posters.

Read more here. We’ll let you know when it’s officially open!

(Photo credit: Greg Benz Photography)

Process: Woodgrain Bike Frames from Etsy on Vimeo.

Check out the latest Etsy film that showcases Rob Pollack using his lifetime of auto body experience to woodgrain a bike frame. The idea came from his son Aaron, good friend to Spunk (he designed the Spunk logo way back when). We’ve had both Rob and Aaron in the canoes here in Minneapolis. The video is great and Rob’s finished product is gorgeous!

You want? Buy one right here!

Yep, that’s Jeff Johnson right there, captain of the Spunk Design Machine. He took a little jaunt up to Duluth this past weekend to do a design workshop for a group of 4H kids. We hear that not only was it a perfectly beautiful day in Duluth, but also it was a great time had by all.

Well, maybe you didn’t have a reason to shoot down to Iowa this summer, but now you do! Tank Goodness Des Moines now offers the Tankwich, a made-from-scratch ice cream sandwich featuring the famous Tank Goodness cookies and Jersey Freeze softserve. And as if that wasn’t enough, the Tankwich is offered in two different flavors: chocolate chip and snickerdoodle. Check out the Tank Goodness Des Moines facebook page for more info on how to get your hands on a Tankwich!

And thanks to Dennis for rockin’ that I (beer) NE t-shirt!

Hey ya’ll, the girly I (cherry) MPLS t-shirts are in! Keep an eye out for them on the Spunk web store next week! The I (beer) NE shirts are also back in stock. Cheers!

Spunk homeboys Ben Pagel and Justin Martinez’s band Artifact Shore, in collaboration with Alexa Horochowski, the Burnet Gallery, and Le Méridien Chambers Minneapolis have developed an original four-part music and video experience entitled Living Cloud Cave inspired by Alexa’s Cloud Cave exhibit.  “Living Cloud Cave” will take place June 4th-5th at the Burnet Gallery at Le Méridien Chambers Minneapolis as part of the Northern Spark Fest. The live performaces will be at 11pm, 1am, 3am, 5am. Admission is free so come on down and freak out with us at this all-nighter!

Alexa Horochowski’s Cloud Cave

Frank 151

Star Tribune

Local Artist

MNartist

Well, yeah. Why ever else would we consume a couple pots a day here at the Spunk studio? It’s a truly magical beverage.

But now the men of the Spunk studio (which is 85% of us) — and men everywhere! — can feel even better about downing the drip, because, according to the Harvard School of Public Health, they’re proactively reducing their risk for prostrate cancer. So drink up, friends! Or should you be in the neighborhood, we’ll gladly pour you a mug of our finest.

Get the full story here!

Poster Offensive’s reach is international, and boy is that music to our ears! La Tempestad, a magazine headquartered in Mexico City, has included a review of PO5 in their upcoming issue. Yea!

Svnthsin has started a campaign on Kickstarter aimed at inspiring creativity and exploration in people of all ages. It’s called the BESPIN project, a Low Orbit weather balloon space photography experiment. Pretty cool, right?

FIVE TIMES this summer they plan to launch weather balloons and time-lapse cameras into space to capture the beauty of our planet from above – and they need your help! Pledge as little as one dollar and you’ll get some sweet swag.

Check out Sevnthsin’s Kickstarter site to find out more and join the campaign!