TIME WAS ON OUR SIDE (YES IT WAS)

With St. Valentine whispering in our ears, the Bagavagabonds set new personal bests (NPB’s) at the TIME Art Explosion! in downtown Los Angeles on February 12th. Glowing with pride and purpose, the BV Crew would like to extend the most heartfelt and gracious THANK YOU to all of our faithful followers, newcomers and sponsors who attended, submitted and that have truly bought into our humble movement of shared creativity.

For this fifth installment of the AE! series, BV tightened the bolts and greased the Explosion gears with love by getting in cahoots with our charitable friends at ROOM 13 LA—raising $2,000 (a NPB) for them through the silent art auction of the 191 original TIME themed creations (another NPB), including a highlighted showpiece by Dave Eggers.

The 650-plus Angelenos—and beyond—that made it to our new den downtown (at the Dietch Arts Continuum) were treated to delicious FREE drinks all night by PBR, Maker’s Mark, Tito’s Vodka, Prometheus Springs and Red Bull—making sure everyone felt all warm, fizzy and fuzzy inside. And to soak up all them libations, our neighbors from the Blue Star Restaurant served up some hot links and mac & cheese to comfort the soul.

BV’s famous 5 for 50 Films found themselves flickering in a freshly built film tent filled with fluffy seats, setting the festive mood to feast eyes on a few of the 18 submitted flicks. (F-yeah, another NPB!)

The Time Out Corner offered up four “Time” cover songs (from TEEN, Hi Ho Silver Oh, Jounce and Sasha Grey’s band ATelecine) and one Little Wings “Time” original as party-goers put on their dunce caps to listen and record their thoughts.

K-Swiss put the ping to the pong and offered some “courtly” love competition throughout the night, while also making sure all the BV’s were styling in fresh new sneaks.

Matt Sharp of The Rentals/Weezer supervised the public debuts of a few of the “Time”-themed short films from his ambitious “Songs About Time” Rentals project, which welcomed Explosioners into the soiree and set the mood perfectly.

In the middle of all the revelry was the BV printing outpost: Our 1940's era Brandtjen and Kluge letterpress hummed away at the skilled hands of BV's own master printer Chris Holmes, whipping off a limited edition series of TIME AE! commemorative posters, while, as always, BV's silkscreen crew hooked partygoers up with fresh tees and totes.

And to put the proverbial icing on the red-velvet valentine cupcake, six bands (Sonication, Burial at Sea, Time Triage, the Crooners, The Lonely Wild and the Drakes) strummed, bellowed, and sang their little hearts out on stage while DJ Just MATTER made sure all those in attendance shimmied and shook their smiling sweaty selves on the dance floor.

So be sure to come out for the next one and set your own New Personal Best, whether as an artist, a dancer, a giver, or just as a friend. Say it with us, Kobe-at-the-free-throw-line-in-the-Staples-Center-style: "N-P-B! N-P-B! N-P-B!”

*Props to our cohorts at: Scion, K-Swiss & PBR and for the love from The Brooklyn Circus & The Hive Gallery.