enough blabbin. look at this.

these pieces are steeped in nationalism, masculinity, phallic symboligy, and sadness. right now, for reasons i dont want to get into i will just talk a bit about the image itself and the songs that go along with it.


coxcomb)red

songs:ohia has been popping up via the shuffle tendencies of Karamozov, my ipod. i dated a red head for a while. she used to sing the star spangled banner at random.




like)a)man

as much as i would love to spend my hard earned dough on imported beers i am relegated to buying domestic most of the time. i know most imports have been skunked by the time they reach our shores, but the tastes remind me of when i was dating my now wife. the twist is in the fact that a German company now owns the USs' largest domestic brew operation. regardless, american beer makes me feel like rock and roll, but not like the spinning drunk goodness of euro-based beers do. american beer doesnt make me feel like a man.
fugazi once asked that question, of what it is to be a man.... but then ian had to go goofy on a slant six record and make me feel weird about his iconography in the post punkdom that is my enjoyment of music.




first)place

i really love it when a beer has a blurb on its can or bottle label that references some prize they won when my grandfathers (ded) were sneaking beers in between sessions of learning at the hands of Nuns. pabst has no qualms just putting a damn ribbon on the front of everything. go on girl, do it! but still to this day, even with pabst having weathered the storm a few years back .... even with major underwriting on NPR, even with the rise or both ironic hipsters drinking it and actual cool people doing the same... pabst still has that damn logo. its american as all get out.


i have started one more eagle based something or other. the shape is the same.... i should tell you now its just the Anheuser Busch eagle only retared through my hands ability to create shapes that look like the things they are referencing. the latest one is the shape and i have taken an extra step in the workability of the image. first off, in on Rives BFK. i love to beat the hell out of this stuff. so its going to be sanded and rolled and probably yelled at. 90% of what i do is on some 100# offset printing paper, so using a piece of Rives means i am investing at least $3 in the project.
second, the shapes of feathers and leg skin have been meticulously etched on the paper by yours truly. it took almost two hours for the simple shapes to fill the spaces. i could have taken longer, but this layer of work will become a discoverable gem to those that get up close and look at methods of production. i hope it turns out looking the way i want. its the only sheet of paper i am currently working horizontally, so thats one more thing to grip ahold of and shake violently until it shuts up.
theres an abuse joke in there somewhere, but i will leave it alone. its only art.....

....which brings me to warn you. some scribbled prose may make its way to your eyes via me very soon. so look out, ok?

more werkin'....

forcing myself to grab a few beers, my smokes, the ipod of my choice and some headphones never seemed to be a challenge until i tried to convince myself to do just that last week. well, ive dont just that for two nights in a row. the result? a small series about nationalism, masculinity, and being sad.

dont worry, its not as bad as it sounds, yet.

pics to follow in the next few days. i have to finish this stuff, alright?!

werkin....

no time in the studio... but some time on other things i hope pan out... and by pan i mean 49er PAN OF GOLD!!!

im looking into grants for myself to develop more clearly and quickly as an Artist. there are some in indy and there are politics involved, but aside from that i need help writing grant proposals. ive got some friends willing to help me out so in the next week or two i hope to get my shit together enough to get some real work done on the back end.

mix this with the strange desire to do a radio show for wfyi's hd station. yea... im thick enough to be spread around like that. theres a joke in there somewhere, but im not going to laugh at it. tentatively called testing the waters, its my chance to play some music i think is cool with all of the ridicule of not being open to new ideas. well, im sure someones going to have a thing or two to say about a thing or two, but trust me, itll be cool. a half hour show on HD, prolly a podcast, maybe once a month, maybe more. its getting my ears working again.

then theres the damage i do to my ears: Rooms has all of one show booked for the next weekend but with a practice from last weekend to stand on. thatll be fine. then on the 18th thin fevers has a toys for tots show at the mel (same as the rooms show) and we are old and rusty. new songs make us stronger though. they make me want to record more, but we are still sitting on a bunch of awesome box sets you neeeeeeeed to buy.

and how do i find time to kiss my wife? you know theres always time for that!


keep in touch, k?

post election high is waining....

being patriotic is fine, but nationalism is scary.
so of course, i find things like this video and i get the creeps.

god bless you america.

the junekill ward

this band, the junekill ward, was supposed to be a d-beat 80s cover band at its inception, but when you mix the hippy of jerrys vision, the off kilter fun of the shaloms, and the math of letters in english you get one band that makes little to no sense.

the only lyric i can remember clearly from this song is; if i bring a child 'nto this world/i'll teach 'im how to hate the fist.

well, the guy that wrote that line did in fact bring a child into this world and hes a pretty cool little dude that can totally ride a bike on his first try.

Nolan's first bike ride from Burd Phillips on Vimeo.

i almost wish this band was still around to clear rooms. if anything, we were good at that. brd is busy with making sure people ride bikes in cool ways, and jole is in seattle, programing the robot wars.

guess what, humans lose. they LOSE TO REFUSE!

cutest crap in the world

pups. damn cute pups.

prayers answered.

new couch = new playlist

i am almost afraid of the awesomeness of the couch in my living room right now. i love the color, i love the lines, i love the functionality of it. its pretty rad. as you can see, fin finn iron curtain loves it too. if you dont know fin, he is the younger of our two rad-cats. they get agro on the stupidest stuff but it makes andrea and i laugh for hours, if not minutes.

also, if you will, notice the new playlist jobey i discovered via my sister's blog. its pretty cool. but its a sunday night so i just went with what i knew after a fantastic Colts win over those puss booty Patriots. i guess the Colts are the "un-american" team since we beat such amazing american patriots, complete with late hits and a crappy coach. f'em, i say, in the most democratic way possible.

which brings me to the fear that i may have to stand in line Tuesday. some friends of mine tried to get their vote counted early, but the line was three hours long. they bailed and i dont blame them. hell, it helped get that awesome couch you see at the top of this post in my crappy apartment. so good job citizens. you are really showing the electorate that you care about who runs the nation for the next four to ten years. some people are afraid of Palin in 2012 - i fear 1) the end of the world according to the Aztec calendar & 2) the robot wars. singularity isnt that far off, so keep an eye out on your ipods kids. they will kill you!



in the mean time, go vote. fuckit. go vote twice if you can. that shit doesnt mean shit. show the electorate that you want who you want in office. thats the only way, really. that is unless america wises up and either goes all paper (we still know how to read, right?) or to just putting a finger print on the face of the person we want representing us to the REST OF THE WORLD. dont be a douche bag, vote obabma. everyone will like you no matter were you are from. i know what is cool so just trust me on this one.

yr protest song for the next ten years- shout me out

one of the tracks that sticks out tv on the radio's new Dear Science album is the song Shout Me Out: its incredibly simple structure wise. its got the same 'not much above the 5th' kind of base that makes for a good song until the dual guitar solos kill you with their ease of rage. here are the lyrics=

Storm, cast me out.
So I can feel it in another way.
won't talk about.
Warm passenger's high.
If I could feed it for another day.
It might run me dry.
I know the season's evolved to a freeze.
Putting hearts in the balance here.
It's up to your knees and it's shifting degrees and it's choking your atmosphere.

Storm, wind me out.
So I can feel it in another way.
They won't talk about worn masochist's sigh.
A distant figure in a photograph.
Another eye.

I know your reason is stalled.
And your freedoms dissolved.
In your passion dear, It's burning your eyes and it's.
Killing your mind.

And it's broken your atmosphere.
But should you find it. Obscene in that grey.
Old dramatics hear a young heart say.

Lord if you've got lungs.
C'mon shout me out.

I know the freeze has unthawed.
And it's putting your love into.
Action dear.
It's off in the breeze and it's shifting degrees.
And it's opened your atmosphere.
So should you decide
it's obscene in that grey.
Old dramatics hear a young heart say.

Lord if you've got lungs.
C'mon shout me out.

_________________________________
and if you have the time, for me, drop an email to one of the people that vote for you and tell them to vote for barack obama on tuesday. i only ask you, the citizen voter, because once again, your vote doesnt mean that much in the greater scheme of things and if you are lucky enough to know an electoral voter you are either cool or dont punch enough people in the gut.

i had to buy it

i had to check another site for some cool shirts that were maybe on sale. well damn, i found come cool stuff.

this one was $20...
ahhh, my namesake, benjamin.

but this one was only $10
money or man?

this shirt can really be a conversation starter if you wear it around fans of dead prez or the forever uppity dawkins. i personally believe in God and that money is in fact really screwing everything up. i like it a lot, money that is, but as much as man has screwed up religion, it can also screw up how i pay for gum. jerks.

best new tshirts i cant afford

Print Liberation makes the kind of shirts i would make in my basement.
short, crass, easy to read words.
not quite well cut letterring.
simple colors.
simple, clear message.

print lib t's are pretty cool, but until im cooler and more middle-class i will be picking up a few rags to wear.

holiday shopping made easy.

i grew up a wee bit before the advent of the internet for everyday use, ie: communications, entertainment, shopping. starting around October of every year my parents' mailbox would start to fill up with catalogs selling some of the most worthless junk, ugliest clothes, and useless toys. through my surfing-while-working i found what is surely the most accurate representation of the kind of waste of paper mailing i used to look at. yes, i understood irony at a very early age, im just not so sure these people do. Harriet Carter! useless!

john mccain speaking at ACORN

at the two minute mark he almost sounds like he believes.

Rushing (Caroline) demo _ 2008

a new Rooms song. its the demo. we will be recording at Russian in mid November.

guitar and vocals _ askren
guitar_toole
bass_greenburg
drums_traub

glad i didnt spend money @ gap.online, but i still want those pants.

trust me


im listening to Ministy's "last sucker" album and the sound of some really cool dudes down on 62nd st showing some hot chicks how loud their cool bikes can be if the just flip their wrist a little bit. i know that sounds like im goth and think motorcycles are gay, but i dont. just superficial.

i am afraid i will ruin a drawing i have been working on and off on for over a year. tomorrow i will hit the studio, maybe record a song or two, then stand in front of a drawing that i know will never be done. black ink. white ink. thats all. i should take a picture of it and see if it even has legs. its one arm with two hands almost hugging a heart. the image came to me while lost in Italy five years ago. maybe its just a t-shirt idea. i dunno.

i need to start on the Rooms cover work, but hell, we havent even recorded proper yet. so that can wait? it cant. it will require a lot of cutting, but not in a shitty, emo kind of way.

this is why i dont have a studio away from home

fantoche from blu on Vimeo.

fly159

i took this picture in the studio a few weeks ago. i like it.

stars, bras, drums, dumps.

theres a new header image. i found an old series of something that is either a drawing or a painting, i dont know. probably the cheapest materials ive ever worked with: copy paper turned black with really crappy ink and these starts cut out of 'stick-on' faux-wood linoleum. theyre cool. really.

Christian McBride is a recent discovery for me. a dude that works with me passed me his latest live cd. i was blown away, repeatedly. i still have to pick up my jaw when i hear Terron Gulley play drums - really simple fusion set, and he WAILS on a nice thin, bright 24" ride cymbal. his bass drum work is insane at times, so i had to make these two hot hot pictures.

ride
bass drum

if you're a facebook friend, you may have cocked your head off slightly to the right when i posted a few days of "im going to draw bras." i only hit two good pieces out of a few odd starts. ink, acrylic, and some 'teener-girl-sleepover' colored sharpies. my wife has good taste, i dont know if that comes out in the work.


cup
style listing


i have a picture of Caroline Kennedy holding 'lil john hanging in my studio. it has collected some splayed ink and some crinks from hitting the floor once or twice. one night i was doing blind contours and that picture hit me as being rather sad; memories, death, black & white. i and waited days in between sessions so that it could all dry - ink, watercolor, acrylics. sad caroline kennedy.


sad

yer chance to see me rock and buy cheap works

saturday the 20th of september i am playing Oranje. if you dont know its a contemporary music and arts fest that happens once a year in indy. some of the work they pick to show is pretty f'n lame, but some of it is top notch shit, and thats a good thing.

one my bands Rooms is playing on the "side stage" (which could mean many things, but as long as its a small stage, then im cool with it.)

i am making a few 'posters' for the show = some drips works with the word "rooms" on it. they will be cheap ($10?) and look cool. if i have time some t-shirts will be there for yer consumption.

thin fevers is playing a few shows at the end of the month, get this, IN OTHER CITIES!!! so if you want an early week road trip, lemme know. we need someone to work the merch table!


love to all from my literally poor ass.

its funny because its true.

just got upstairs from a pretty amazing session in the studio. no, i wasnt laying down the tightest of drum grooves. and no, i wasnt wah chicka wahing my way to deep soulness... i was listening to christian mcbride. one of my underlings at wfyi burned me a live cd, and yea, my mind has been blown. im pretty sure its the live at tonic album (disk 1) and it is outright amazing.

so piece wise, i started off with two pretty mundane washes from friday; kinda transparent yellow green just washed up with a two inch brush. i threw them up, hit them with what was left of the pallet, and let them dry. well, tonight i was wishing i could have played some drums, so one is a cymbal (ride from the vibe i was on) and the other a bass drum with a hammer headed pedal kicking in. a few reds, some orange to freak it out in places, and some illustration black lines for overdone form. finished off with some pink/white wash over the remaining flat space and ive almost got a whole drum kit painting. well, not even close to a whole kit, but im happy with the product seeing as both pieces seem totally plastic ideas of what i was feeling. richard nicholson would be proud.

then i got back to four smaller pieces, again from fridays beginnings. they all deal with memory and how the past cannot be changed through thoughts. one may decide that selective memory can help an individual keep the lessons (not) learned from past mistakes or decisions from haunting them, but there is no use. none. you remember the bad stuff and it stings. your memory, if youre messed up, reminds you of one good thing assigned to that painful memory in hopes of taking the sting away. if youve learned anything the sting is still there, only dulled by time and life and how you work now, but it still stings.
the pieces started as washy profiles of people i remembered from the late 90's ... just the most abstract of sketchy portions of the persons.... i cant even remember who they are now... probably friends from the days i casually did some drugs i cant afford now.... but people in my memory nonetheless. tonight, with the help of some late 90's bands blaring through headphones, i was able to layer on some high and low lights, much like the sing of memory i spoke of before, only with the ups too.
one can say taking the sting of a memory away is just "leaning" while i say its just making the memory more coherent.
yea, a cop came to talk to me while i was at some party, but i really remember how awesome the band he shut down was when it happened. that isnt really learning. thats just reminicense.

so ive got some paintings that deal with memory popping out of me. they still look like right now.

and one more: a twisted body piece like the ones from april, only way smaller and less worked. i still want to layer in some blacks like i had with the larger pieces. but the simplicity of the sketch, almost f. baconey in its approach, really makes me want to return hardcore to the figure.


now if only me and my wife had matching schedules.......

turkish star wars. yeah. um.....

i know that the great nation of Turkey has a long history of culture and Art.
i also know that from the 1960's on that american pop culture has had an influence on turkish pop culture.
sadly i know that many producers, actors, and companies thought that if they had a copy of an american film that they could write another movie based on what they watched but may not have understood.
or they understood and just wanted to have more fun.

confused? i hope so.
ready to get more confused?

alas! a link!

a turkish movie that may or may not be based off of the first star wars movie.

Wain-Rooms_2008_Word for Word_

one of my bands, Rooms, played up in Pendleton, IN at Word for Word. its a pretty awesome new and second had bookstore, complete with a few laser disks for sale. i snagged a copy of Chip Chip (an awesome book about chipmunks with AMAZING litho work) and a new copy of brothers karamozov (the last one was lost on a plane)....

it was a good show and the pendleton gazette had a videographer there to catch all of the action. here is us playing a new to you song called Wain. go ahead and let the next video play in the player.....the next song is one by When We Might. i dont know where theyre from or who these dudes are, but the songs were incredible. the video work? meh. but the song is really good.

women be shoppin'! OR andy talks gas prices

here is my brother, andy traub talking about gas prices being on the rise and how americans are dealing with the money aspect.



he drives a car too, so he knows what hes talking about.

ouch. that shit hurts.

well, no nice person bought any of the auction pieces, but they did buy some of this crap:







ouch. that shit hurts.
but then again, there were no measurements or paper weight listed on the bidding page. but a fucking COCK PAINTING? a fucking MARTINI PAINTING you can get a TARGET? wtf.

getting back into the studio this friday to sort out some strong stuff for a december or january show that may happen. i was lucky enough to purchase some flat files from craigslist so at least the works on paper wont be all curly cue in the future.

ok, im over it. really.

BID! three works for $100!

bid on the goods

its for public broadcasting! so if you're a commie or a centrist or a right-wing nut job, put your money into something that benefits all of us, ok?

i took a 're-do'

went through the pile.
picked one or two or three to dig into.
here you go:

leopard throw
25x19&1/2
mixed media















coward from the sun
25x19&1/2
mixed media

















fake musculature
25x19&1/2
mixed media

WFYI online auction selection!

click this link to read up on a group of my pieces that are part of WFYI's annual online auction: LINK!

and by clicking this sentence you can read more about the auction itself!

me want, bad. pt. 2

how awesome is this? well, on a scale of cool to coolest this is around michael jackson's BAD album and meeting Bill Hicks (RIP).

"Aural details that have been lost as MP3 files are compressed for storage and transmission, dramatically re-emerge through this 25 watts RMS per channel, all-tube pre-amp system. Rugged steel chassis finished in gloss piano black includes massive power transformer, and 3 multi-plate vacuum tubes protected in a removable, ventilated cage"

wow.

and its only a grand. what a deal!

your WTF friday moment.

i really dont know where to start, or really, where this could end....ever.

the true post-modernist video game/youth culture/prog rock/pro or possibly anti-religion/drug induced/16 bit graphic/your_brain_is_fucked/epileptic seizure inducing/i want my blank-y/i cant stop watching/please stop this/lets watch again/that guy is genius/who would waste their time/best short film ever HAS been made.

it is called Kings of Power 4 Billion %

careful though. your mind will be blown, and if it is not, you have a problem with your mind.

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/193565.html

the clock winds...

being hella busy getting OTHER things done requires my studio time to be cut by about 2/3. but i figured i would at least open the door for critique of some works in progress:

dark, sliding shapes - a song by Collasamite was the ignition of an untitled piece from february, and a lot of people liked it, so i am doing some more of them.




doing a little bit of dry bush color work always helps the head feel a little less murky. or does it have the opposite effect? combine some black ink and some shapes reminiscent of teeny-tiny graffiti i see around the city.




and then of course there is the early failure of a grey series i started when i was feeling all dumpy and sad. the fact that it is a failure i can see early on makes me feel like ive learned something from those things that make me feel dumpy and sad. too picture within the picture and not enough thought. i may return to these when i want to, but right now they go into the pile.




and then there are these two little cuties i made one night playing around with some artist's pastels. smaller paper, bigger shapes, better music (im pretty sure it was disc 2 of In Rainbows). if i could rock about 20 of these out i think they would look awesome stacked up salon style with 1" black frames. dunno when that'll happen though....





ive got to go look at rings now. oh, did i mention im poor? i mean, i cant even afford a private studio....

video of Rockets Red Glare, a Canadian band from the late 90's, was always very hard to find. let me clarify; was impossible to find until Gus the drummer started uploading to youtube.

these guys came through indy three times in four years on tour. two of those times they played at 25th and Broadway. the first time i was going out with someone, was in mid conversation with her on the porch, and went inside to see how loud noises from the other side of the glass looked. i was pretty blown away. the second time i saw them i had recently been broken up with, so knowing a few of the songs and knowing where to stand for premium volume levels turned into one of the most cathartic experiences of my early 20's.

they only put out a handful of recordings. a 7" and two full lengths. the first full length was one of those 'theyve been playing the same songs for two or three years so theyre perfect.' the second album was indeed rushed and not as powerful, but still rocks the shit out of 80% of what any three piece band anywhere can do.

Rockets Red Glare. you should like them.

because i love this country, this song, smashing guitars, and the roots. oh, and colbert, too.

no really, you dont have to.

Magnolia is on tv. it reminds me of a time in my life where it was the only thing i would put in my dvd player. one day i set it repeat feature, pressed play, and for about two months it was always on channel three. i would catch the whole movie in parts, adding up to watching it about 1 & 1/2 times daily. Unwound's 'leaves turn inside you' and Neutral Milk Hotel's 'aeroplane over the sea' were the three disks in my three cd changer. both albums got a listen or so a day. i had roommates and we would hang out and eat and smoke and laugh from time to time, but my room was this little den of saddened imagery and sound.

the reason i mention this is due to the flat grey color i chose to put down on some papers. it almost matches the gray from the Unwound album, and mimics the tone of much of Magnolia. some of the color can be seen in the april bodies pieces, but with this next round, instead of covering up the base, i want to incorporate it more as a mood itself, rather than a base to create from. its windy and cloudy outside, getting colder by the hour. im looking out of the window sleepily like i did back then, only this time not drunk on wiskey or fucked up on three hours of sleep. its different, but those days stick around. as well they should.

got the blues.

i caught the last ten minutes of hacking democracy and it made me pretty sad, but vilified in my previous post of my vote painting.

add this to a print that i grabbed at the Mostly Loves Clouds show back in january (i have no clue who did it, how they did it, or how to get more of them), a new office chair dumpstered from the new WFYI buildings visitors lot, and the new slip ons i bought today, and well.... its easy to say ive got some blue going on somewhere inside me.

we all know the electoral college is a joke, a scam, and that the supreme court doesnt give a flying fuck about citizens voting in a democracy.

sorry, had to get political. it kinda important.

http://www.thebulletin.org/content/doomsday-clock/timeline
something told me to give the clock a glance today.

also...

http://www.indyopera.org/Events/Productions/Pages/TheTalesofHoffmann.aspx
ive got a friend in an Opera this weekend. she has a line, and is like, kinda the point of the story, or something. its just singing words to me..... go and enjoy!

is Disintegration by the Cure the best album ever?

Defunct Indiana ______ steam of the album!

stream the defuct indiana comp!

all of those shows and records i never released finally paid off!

this is so weak.

been working a lot to ensure ive got a job in five months, so the figure work is at a slower pace. still doodling and thinking about knees and thighs and curves of muscle, just not executing the thoughts.

and, i love the swift kids...



and, dickipedia....but not this entry on david blaine, because deep down, i think he is quite unfuckwithable.

april and bodies.

getting even light at this time of day is hard. notice that nice shine of the ink....yea, not a fan.

figures, brush (dry), headphones.

i am very happy my basement has crappy cinderblock walls that have a grain to them. i did a good amount of dry brush work with a 4" chinese tool that cost about 50 cents on clearance five years ago. paint would build up and after a few handy swipes across the wall the bristles would be clean(ish) and finish the job. repeat, repeat, repeat.

i mainly worked on two pieces of structure tonight, with another two on the side for fun.
tackling the figure pieces ive started, one on two joined pieces and the other on a piece of Rives BFK, i am pulling back from what i see as being too obvious, abstracting, washing out, covering, and destroying lines. i like that i have been trained to fall in love with a line one day only to see it as potentially at risk upon the next viewing or two. what shape does it create? how does it work with the line like it over here? is it relevant to what i am feeling or listening to?

does it matter? does what i did yesterday matter? does that line, color, shape matter?

of course sometimes it does, but only for the moment that i am making it. never, while making the line or shape, do i honestly think, "this is just going to be covered by tuesday." maybe itll stay. maybe its the best thing about the piece. but its not safe to say it is, or will be.

its process. and headphones, and wine and cigarettes, and dancing and singing along.

and looking and remembering.

the mixture of medias i am working with really has little or everything to do with the work; as Professor David Morrison said countless times, "See how that comes across....there....and comes across.... there......and comes across......." what i never got while not really studying under him was the phrase and its depth; he wasnt just talking about the space where a line or shape moved or was situated. he was talking about how the viewer could see it, how it was consumed by they eye and processed in the brain. how it would 'come across' to the viewer.
for some viewers, the fact that corners and cubbies of lines meeting are cleaned up with colored pencil or layered with a smudge of a finger could very well come across as something other than a shape, could mean something to the whole, could mean something more than the object the action was made upon.

so the figure (or at least the shapes that could potentially look like one) are there, and i can see them. but where do they fit into the space of the picture? how does the curve of a calve muscle meet the curve of a cheek bone without looking that way?


practice. and work. and seeing it.

so happy ive got friday off.

friday

new thin fevers song/ return to the figure?

here is the new one from TF, a little fast and sorry for the lighting change in the middle - it was hot in there, and i dont just mean because i was there....



in works on paper news...
i got a bug in me and started with some very physical lines which turned into very people parts looking shapes which turned into a very sexual, abstract pair of works still being honed down into tighter shapes and forms. i still want to incorporate the use of "refused line choices" but when it comes to the figure you get into blood memory, muscle reactions, and stepping back and not liking it - the later makes the line work fun because of the build up of process, the history within a line (choices of erasing, destruction, weight and other formal issues.)

it seems the most tenuous part of this is just thinking about it while awake. i had it all figured out around 5 am, but i pretty comfortable with my eyes closed, dreaming of rolling down a soft hill.
pics of the process soon.

defunct indiana? done. ruled. rad execution of a sloppy set only made better with the letters cover.

do i want to burn down my local macdonalds? yes.
did i see a couple returning a movie at 2am only to see the female say, "oh, juno! lets get juno!" only about six months after its been on dvd...........my fucking sister saw juno months ago, and she lives in iowa.
fucking nerds.

speaking of nerds...
i hear drums in broad ripple.
fucking hippies. must do it for the love.
no money in drums.
but then again, i dont suffer myself to the drunk ramblings of countless douchebags and tourists at 2am on the main party strip in town. if you are drumming, and you get beat up? come up'ns. period.

like the macdonalds about to get lit ablaze for not taking my money on my walk home. . . . in a car? fine.


fuckem.

place is a shithole anyway.
fuck you consumerism and 24 hour access to those with cars.
.
in my heart of hearts i just want a business to respect the customer. thats not really capitalism, but it should be.

so thin fevers has a new ep out. i downloaded it and i forgot how incredible spending three hours mixing with brian makes a record sound better. then i remember how much money we gave to josh. thats what did it.
keep an eye out for some video of our show at big car. it was more than fun with less than enough alcohol to make it memorable. i forgot how great all ages shows in galleries can be.

started with the formative stages of another new series - two panels joined (like the first SNW series) but with a grey ground color. theyve begun with a very "old ben" gestural line via discontinued prismacolor watercorour pencils with a layer of good ole black ink applied with my good ole 1" synthetic brush. drips abound. non-overlapping waves of filling in spaces. a little bit of a brush turn here and there to show the variance of line available with a flat (thanks for that D in painting Kevin, its really paying off)...... the next layer may very well require a drunken afternoon listening to Parts & Labor, Think About Life, the new REM, and some Flying Saucer Attack. Shosticovich? possible.

hella Rooms show in the next two weeks. READ; two shows. practicing at my place next week and a few weeks after that. we arent that loud, are we? yup.

NKOTB back together, BTW. lol. whu? yea

three shows in three weeks = fantastic muscle work out!

this friday, free, and this friday.


rooms has learned a letters in english song.



replace hex with America Owns the Moon.

hope you can make it out to at least three of these shows.

working with others

as you may know, i am in a number of rock bands. Thin Fevers is one of them and we have a new cd coming out next week. if you want to come to the show or find out what all is involved with the band, our shows, or just to get to know us a little better, check out thin fevers dot com.

and for an up-close and impersonal look into the members of thin fevers you can watch these vids.


and me lady has a car now, so look for more work that will fit into a bigger trunk.

who needs a hit counter when you have friends?

My good friend matt sent me a message today - and i got happy because someone is at least looking at these:

-I'm talking here about those last 3 watercolours. This following critique didn't post on your myspace blog. After that, I decided the critique was too long-winded, not critical enough, and too much 'my perspective' to post as a comment. Anyhow, you might get a kick out of it though:

A Wrinkle in Time?

I've never been a fan of watercolor, (except maybe for that old Japanese style.) However, you took the foo-foo out and emphasized the fun!

I'm not an expert by any means, (which is why my opinion may actually be somewhat valid,) but... beyond the old masters, the watercolour medium does make me think of "flowers and barns;" it makes me think of amateurs/working-class, probably because of the relatively low cost of watercolor paint to other mediums. (As a former CPF it makes me think of mediums that you should never drymount, and mediums that fight with their substrate, as watercolor often permantly warps the paper its painted on.) Also, watercolors seem naturally more delicate, gentle, and lighter in color than mediums like oil and ink.

I see the watercolor as a dead, or irrelavant art form.

All that amateur talk aside, I like these pieces. My favorite is "Juliet," the A.M. radio piece. Beyond looking cool, (the base value of any work of art,) it incorporates my aforementioned views on the watercolor medium and uses them to good effect. It also implies Juliet from Romeo and Juliet... passionate love that dies.

From my understanding of the A.M. radio heyday national D.J.'s were in charge of the airwaves, and the songs and bands played. That's how rock and roll got popular. Not only is the A.M. format dead in terms of playing and popularizing music, but that function of the D.J. is largely dead too. More recently? Clear Channel and invested major labels control the airwaves: the playlists have already been pre-destined. Real D.J.s, who choose the music? You can find them late night often on public radio like Linn in Providence, RI. Now? perhaps digital technology is slowly resurrecting this old-style D.J. function back from the dead, (I'm thinking Left Of Center a show locally D.J.'ed by Dodge.)

Now being a passionate lover of rock and roll, of radio in my youth, and still mourning the loss of the now-dead 'Juliet' that it was to me; the work makes complete sense to me. Yet the handwork is playful; it doesn't put on airs, or take itself too seriously. That mood reminds me of one of the precursors to rock and roll, but one that took shape at the early stages of recorded music: the blues. The melodies of the blues are upbeat often in contrast with the subject matter. I'm a fan here too. (I'm a fan of the real old stuff, 1920's and 1930's: Mississippi John Hurt, Blind Willie McTell, Skip James, and even Robert Johnson.)

Aspects of all this seem to be present in this piece; it rocks genuine style. Though genuine blues is undeniably dead, the music-junkie-promoter function of the D.J. may be resurrected; like the watercolor medium seems resurrected here, both to mourn the old and celebrate the possibility of the new.

The drips are well placed too!

My only criticism: I wish that lightning bolt was bigger.

three more with wa-wa

  boxes
boxes
25x19"
watercolor on paper
2008

i smoke about a pack a day. philip morris's crest dumbed down and color corrected. this one goes along with the hops image in the other watercolors; images we see but dont see either because of the size or familiarity.



juliet
25x19
watercolor on paper
2008

i've got this great old AM radio made by the juliet company. not much to listen to on AM these days. no music. no real opinions. just dribble. the radio is made of plastic and has yellowed over time but still works and at times can catch some pretty frequencies.


response to beer
25x19"
mixed media
2008

again some of the hops imagery, this time matched with some spit and drips. alcohol is a depressive drug, but is socially relevant in getting some people to be honest, dishonest, or just laid. 

lets get wet.

i finally got back to grabbing more than just an hour or two in the studio and the results, are, well....

i flipped the paper and got started on the glossy side, spat two layers of ink and lines, then wiped them down with t-shirt cotton. repeated. what you see above is the 'good' one out of about three experiments in wiping and repeating. acting quickly between layers allows for a nice negative line to form, adding depth in a way. my buddy Rob said that the first round of works lacked visual information. he's a painter. whah.

i am happy with the potential outcome in later works, but i have yet to play with control and contrast. in the back of my head i try to think of how to pull this kind of image off with lithography. then i think about undergraduate times and get mad.

then i started playing with watercolors.










the color was the key, really. i wanted a dead looking yellow that could be both natural in nature (autumn leave) or in the body (mucus or bile)....the result was, well, your choice of the two. the image is that of hops which are most often used on beer labels. i cut the size down, increased scale and weight of the line used for illustrations and designs. the yellow layer looked undefined and not clear enough to reference to a tiny part of on-product advertising, so the black outline took the existing shape and coloring booked it. its watercolor, man. i didnt wet the paper or tape it down or use any blocking pastes or salt or shit like that. i just painted with it. i could craft show the shit out of these, but as soon as i open my mouth about the process, im done.


the hops image reminded me of wreath leaves, so one, "W" is just for a wreath that is anti-seasonal. the "F" is for a funeral wreath. honor the dead with death, i guess.


i have a few more hybrids to show off, but that will come later. K? bye.