Album covers inspired by Blue Note Records.
This is the one day that all of the independently owned record stores come together with artists to celebrate the art of music. Special vinyl and CD releases and various promotional products are made exclusively for the day and hundreds of artists in the United States and in various countries across the globe make special appearances and performances.
Motley Crue occupies a peculiar space in the media landscape: Despite selling over fifty million albums, at least three members of the band are more famous on their own than all of the songs they’ve recorded as a group. It’s hard to imagine another band who could publish three bestselling books about themselves without really mentioning their music at all.
Graphic Design project observed on ye ol’ Intarweb.
The Urban Forest Project brings 185 banners created by the world’s most celebrated designers, artists, photographers and illustrators to New York’s Times Square. Each banner uses the form of the tree, or a metaphor for the tree, to make a powerful visual statement.
Tranlation: Let’s go. I lived in a house next door to a guy Russ before I bought my house in South Tacoma a couple of years back. He started a band called the Vamanos. They have a bluesy rock n’ roll sound and their songs—while fun are typically—um, how you say? …long. I’ve been recording the band in a combination of spaces lately (their basement, my basement) and they’re nearly finished with about 7 songs which they intend to release independently. They dropped a last minute show tonight at O’Malley’s on 6th Avenue. O’Malley’s is weird. I wouldn’t typically think of it as a live venue. It’s just, kind of… a bar. While it wouldn’t be altogether a bad idea to host more live shows, patrons might be better served if there were a few tables moved out of the way and there was room for people to move around.
In contrast to my last post on film shooting, these shots are digital. While they’re not entirely bad shots, I can’t help but think they’re a bit flat. Err… digital. Don’t listen to what I say, take a look for yourself and let me know what you think in comparison with the previous shots of the Boss Martians. Or not.
Made a trek up to Seattle on Thursday night to see the Boss Martians play at the Sunset Tavern in Ballard. The Hot Rollers played first, but I missed the majority of their set. The Boss Martians played a strong set of songs, some of which I was familiar with and some of the newer songs I hadn’t heard. This was the first outing I had seen them play with former Midnight Thunder Express & ex-Valentine Killer Scott (the Machine) Myrene on the bass, who seemed to easily lock it in step with newer drummer Thomas Caviezel. Playing for about an hour, they blasted through their set of pop-tinged punk rock n’ roll. It was loud & fast(how it should be, duh?). Evan Foster has been a busy man lately, writing tons of material for the Martians’ forthcoming record (demos on myspace) and evidently also co-writing songs with Iggy Pop. What a job? That does NOT suck.
As far as the photography goes, I did things a little differently than usual. Recently, I’ve decided if I was really going to learn to shoot photos, I was going to have to learn how to shoot them on film. Sure digital is easier, and I’d probably get better results, but it’s akin to recording music to tape. Neither method is without merit, but learning the way everyone else did can offer some insight into the craft. Anyway, I removed the crutch. I didn’t bring my Nikon D50. I took 2 rolls of Kodak BW400CN black and white film, a roll of Kodak Ektachrome P1600, a 50mm 1.4 lens and the Nikon N80. I figured this way, I’d have to pay more attention to what I was doing and not just let the camera do the heavy lifting.
I was kind of stoked to see the depth in some of the shots. I shot 108 frames—most of them totally sucked, but I expected that. The shot in the lede of this post is the only (of 37) from the Ektachrome roll that made the cut. Enough of my blabberin’, the frames that did not suck are online. Go on, take a looksee there, punk rocker.
“I guess the most important thing I realized is something I probably knew all along,” he said in a statement released Thursday night. “At least among artists, it is best to resolve our differences one on one. I am pleased that Mr. Rubino and I were able to do that.”
Link to the Seattle PI where you’ll see an incredibly goofy photograph.
Observed at the Spar in Old Town earlier tonight.
Bottle Up and Explode? Punk Rock.
I had run across one of these in a toy store in Portsmouth, New Hampshire years ago and passed it by. At the time I thought I was probably just being a sucker for the packaging. I didn’t pass on the domain name however, partially inspired by a book I was reading at the time. I’ve used this site mainly as a gallery/blog since then. I ran across another Spark Robot on ebay recently and caved right in. I put up some pictures on Flickr.
I was surprised to stumble on the Western State Hospital Hill Ward ruins in Fort Steilacoom Park a couple weekends ago. Judging by the graffiti, I’m probably the only one who didn’t know about it. I guess it’s been abondoned since 1972. Here’s a link to recent article from TheNewsTribune.com detailing some problems in the area, and here are some photos of the ruins.
The smell of graphic design in the morning… Bumped into a Polish poster website which contains 5000 images and descriptions of posters from Polish artists 1900-2005 via Design Observer. Great stuff here including Polish versions of American Movie posters. That’s my people…
It’s all the rage. Tacoma has been attempting to reinvent itself and prop up the downtown area as the happening city center.
Last weekend we hit the Humane Society’s Dog-A-Thon down at Forst Steilacoom park. My wife put herself (and her dog) on the task and helped to raise $500 toward the no kill shelter in Pierce County. I think overall, the event raised $151,000, up $30K from last year. This was a pretty good opportunity to shoot some photos, and that I did. There are a bunch of dog-a-thon photos up on my Flickr site.