Just a quick update for the Ghostly 10 Year Anniversary Show coming up March 6th. Fellow San Franciscan Christopher Willits has just been added to the bill (see updated flyer above). In case you don’t know, Willits makes all sorts of dreamy, shoe-gazey, guitar electronica and also drops audio science all over the placein the form of his “What You Talkin’ ‘Bout Willits” series for XLR8R TV. The tickets are selling out fast so get yours now!
Full Details
Presale $15
At the Door $20
I talked about the new Junior Boys a little bit here last week and now a couple days later they have shared a few tracks from their forthcoming album Begone Dull Care. Seems like a very promising LP, hopefully some remixes and limited vinyl pop up soon after the album drops.
Tracklist:
1 Parallel Lines
2 Work
3 Bits and Pieces
4 Dull to Pause
5 Hazel
6 Sneak a Picture
7 The Animator
8 What It’s For
Anytime I start hating on living in Brooklyn it totally redeems itself within days. The other night I was searching for music to listen to and stumbled upon a post that said Beirut free show in Brooklyn and I looked at the clock and just grabbed a taxi and got there right on time for the first song. Beirut live is worth $30+ in my mind, the man has my full support, his voice was exactly what I wanted to hear after listening to a ton of instrumentals all day long.
I got into Sun Ra probably later than most people, every time someone tells me a story about him playing live its always really absurd which is great to hear.
Mike Dykehouse had an LP that come out a few years back that he attempted to make shoegaze via only using his computer and a guitar plugged into it. The LP came with a couple of these short interludes all the way thru that I really loved, maybe one day he’ll revisit them and make epic longer versions? I can only hope. The artwork for the Midrange LP was done by Deanne Cheuk which many of you may already know.
I saw Keith Kenniff play live a few months back as Goldmund hoping he’d maybe sneak in some of his Helios work in as well but there was no need, he did all these slower piano pieces that I really enjoyed. This track Evelyn off his new LP The Malady of Elegance I recommend as a nice introduction into his work.
[audio:concubine.mp3] [audio:saga.mp3] [audio:dyke.mp3] [audio:evelyn.mp3]
Wired has an interesting article about the new F1 rules and the resultant car designs (McLaren MP4-24 pictured above). It details how new rules for the sport — which many expected to create a significant design challenge — have actually served to beautified the new models. These things are starting to look like they can fly and if it weren’t for the fact that your work would be ruined by about 800 ads, designing the paint for one would be a lot of fun. Check out the Wired article here.
As some of you maybe already know, Charlie Cooper — one half of Telefon Tel Aviv) — passed away last week. We just wanted to pass on our sincere condolences to his close friends and family. Charlie, your genius will be missed.
Eley Kishimoto make some very well designed fabrics and wallpapers. Self-described “surface decorators”, the London based firm has been designing textiles since the early ’90’s. More info at their site and their blog.
The top two are meant to be wallpapers and while they’re incredible to look at, I’m not sure I could handle that pattern going on all day. Maybe one small wall in the studio?
Todd Hido’s photography grabbed me right from the first image I saw, it first reminded me of Nadav Kander and also Gregory Crewdson who shot that Yo La Tengo cover awhile back.
I stumbled across this incredible piece by Michael Paul Young today. Young — the man behind Designgraphik and co-founder of We Work For Them — created this image for the band Omega Code. More info on Young and this piece can be found here. Always nice to see such incredible print work still being produced; sometimes I feel like the only good stuff is decades behind us and then something like this pops up.
I feel like i’ve used up all the adjectives that describe dreamy post rock already in this blog so its really hard to explain how beautiful this song is without using the same old ones. Can you just imagine being back in the mid 80s and just watching VHS’s of Cocteau Twins live shows in poor quality and driving around listening to this on cassette and sharing it for the first time with friends? so so good.
This has become my favorite Deerhunter song after going thru their catalog over and over. Listening to all the parts that make up the song, i’d be even content with just the hand claps and the pitched up synthesized voices that go thru the whole song.
I don’t think Ariel Pink gets your attention right from the beginning if you put in one of his records. It’s a sound that grows on you, this song has this early 90’s local cable recording quality to it and how he sings the chorus is addictive to listen to.
The Sundays at times ride this thin line of something you wouldn’t play for friends but you just can’t deny the songwriting and musicianship here, if I heard this live and at this quality i’d think they’d be one of the best band around.
[audio:hiccup.mp3] [audio:drglass.mp3] [audio:forkate.mp3] [audio:goodbyes.mp3]
A while back Computer Arts magazine asked me to write an illustration tutorial for an issue which focused on textures. The idea was to revisit the classic Bob Dylan Blowin’ In The Wind / Mister Tambourine Man poster. I really enjoyed the project and ended up using the resulting image as the basis for my Progress Austin concert poster. Computer Arts has made the entire article available on their site as a PDF which you can download here. They’ve even made the original source files available so you can follow along with the tutorial. If you have any questions feel free to post in the comments and I’ll try and fill in any blanks.
Here’s an excerpt from the introduction:
“Creating eye-catching imagery for print can be a balancing act between the two distinct worlds of computer-based design. Scott Hansen shows you how to get explosive results in Photoshop…
The strengths and weaknesses of vector and raster graphics have long been apparent: vector is known for its clean lines and resolution-independent scalability whereas raster has a more photographic nature. Although vector graphics are particularly suited to print work thanks to their scalability, there are some things you can’t do without bringing rasters into the picture.
In this tutorial we show you how to bring together both vector and raster elements to create a seamless piece that sits well in both worlds. The concepts we explore will lend a timeless, weathered feel to what would otherwise be a rather stark design. Relying on Photoshop’s powerful raster tools and quite adequate stable of vector tools, we can tap the strengths of both without leaving the familiar realm of Adobe’s most powerful graphics app. We can unite two styles of design by employing Photoshop’s powerful blending mode options along with advanced gradient masking techniques to produce an illustration style that is truly unique.”