Songs With Abstract Titles - Today’s selection, Ummer from Zach Hill’s Astrological Straits.

Zach Hill Ummer

Saturday morning and Nuno Canavarro.

Nuno Canavarro Wask

Nuno Canavarro [Untitled]

Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal.
This man was a huge inspiration for me growing up. I hope he gets well.

Gang Starr Execution of a Chump

Gang Starr Ex Girl to Next Girl

Gang Starr Mostly TThe Voice

The Clientele/Vetiver show last night was great, lots of compliments on the posters from possibly the two nicest bands I’ve met.

If you happen to be one of the people who emailed me asking to buy these posters online - and I failed to respond to you due to my administrative inefficiencies - I’ve temporarily thrown a few posters up on a little Etsy store for you to order from until I can finally wrap up the store that will live on this site (and take some better photos than the blown out ones you see).

Purchase posters here.

There’s no other way to keep it real in the field, than to have your trusty Field Notes on hand… as noted by an apparent Coudal Partner’s spy that was lurking at that Cat last night.

I made this poster for the Junior League Band’s show at the Rock N’ Roll Hotel in March. It will be printed on 19″x25″ Madero Beach Speckletone French paper, and have 3 colors - metallic gold/olive on the bottom, orange in the middle, and a deep brown on the top screen.

There are things about the poster that I like a lot (bird guy), and others that I’m still not sure about (everything else in the layout)… but overall I am pretty happy with it, and I think it reflects the band’s sound pretty well - just listen to the track below - picture my bird-man rockin’ out on that banjo solo that you hear 3/4 of the way through the track…

They’ll be $10 at the show.

Junior League Band We’re The Fools

… of all time?

I think maybe.

This poster, for the Wild Beasts‘ show at the Black Cat next month, went out this weekend. I did it in 2 colorways, one on Starch Rain Speckletone, and one on Chocolate Speckletone, both 25″ x 19″ with editions of 50 for each. I’ll post photos when I get them back from Grand Palace.

The show should be great… I feel like the Wild Beasts are a bit slept on. Their last album, Two Dancers, is in my irrelevant opinion, one of the better albums that came out last year. It’s kind of dancy and accessible, but still manages to have some dark and weird qualities that make it unique. I’m not sure why they haven’t become really popular… or maybe they have, and I just need to get out more. Either way, I’m really excited to see them live… you should come too, and buy a poster.

Wild Beasts Fun Powder Plot

Wild Beasts This Is Our Lot

Sent these two Posters down to Murfreesboro, Tennessee this week for the old squeegee treatment. They are mostly inspired by The Clientele’s song “Harvest Time” (below), and the “Bonfires on the Heath” album artwork.

I can’t wait to see how that Tangy Orange, “Harvest by Night” version turns out. I’ll post flicks when I get them back.

Editions of 75, $10 at the show.

The Clientele Harvest Time

My friends at All Our Noise have redesigned.

Really beautiful work found on one of my favorite sites of recent. FPO.

A nice collection of Swiss Posters archived here.

Found here.

While I think it’s bad to give away all the secrets, it’s still fun as shit to watch… oh but he labeled Ultramagnetic MC’s as UMC’s, they were definitely different groups.

Found here.

With all of the “best of the 2000’s” lists that have been going around these days, I find it hard to believe how few have mentioned Cannibal Ox’s 2001 classic, The Cold Vein. I am not at all interested in attempting the absurd task of listing my favorites, there were so many… but the more I think about it, The Cold Vein stands out as one that affected me more than any others I can think of.

El-P’s dusty, dystopian production, leveraged dissonance and discord in a way that I hadn’t really ever heard… it was loose and wild, but still maintained the controlled precision that a Hip-Hop beat needs. With eclectic samples from artists like early Philip Glass and Giorgio Moroder, the beats set the stage for a dark, Post-Apocolyptic scene like something from Blade Runner.

The album pushed envelopes lyrically as well. Vordul Megallah’s, Raekwon-esq, stream-of-conciousness verses, were like rapid-fire, atonal, rhythmic assaults - you can hear this clearly on his two minute verse at the end of “Pigeon”, or the second verse of album opener, “Iron Galaxy”. On the flip side of the album opener, Vast Aire delivered clever puns with a cool, calm flow:

“(and if there’s Crack in the basement), Crackheads stand adjacent. Anger displacement from food stamp arrangements. You were a stillborn baby, Mother didn’t want you, but you were still born. Boy meets world, of course his Pops is gone. What you figure, that chalky outline on the ground is a father figure?”

I’m not at all saying that this is the best album of the decade, or necessarily my favorite, but if I had to pick one, I think it may be the record that sticks the most for me. I honestly can’t think of any album that came out in the past ten years, that changed my point of view, or opened up my mind more that The Cold Vein.

Cannibal Ox - Iron Galaxy

Cannibal Ox - A B-Boy’s Alpha

Cannibal Ox - F-Word

Cannibal Ox - Pigeon

FaceOut Books (nice name) has an interview with John Gall on the process and thought behind his beautiful Kobo Abe covers.

MoMA has an incredible online archive of it’s collection of works. I’ve stumbled across it before, but never really took the time to dig deep, there are literally days of inspiration to browse through in an enjoyable, intuitive interface. You have to register with the site to take advantage of the “sets” and “collections” features that allow you to save images that you like… it’s well worth it though, even the registration process is smart and easy.

I don’t recommend searching 1960’s and 1970’s Architecture and Design if you are currently working on posters of your own… it may make you question everything that you are working on… so much inspiration I think my head is going to explode.

I’ve got a few things on the horizon for the new year so far, like a couple of show posters for Wild Beasts and The Clientele (both really amazing bands) in February, an almost completed, online-store (that will be called Bodega Arcade), and a new album of music for Brownstone Megaphone that is under way (this is a slow-going process, but going nonetheless). Updates on said items soon.

Happy New Year and Congratulations to my good friend, the talented and newly engaged, Dave Glanz.

Oh, I also have a new rubber stamp… it kinda looks like a hamburger… oh well, I needed something quick for the last round of posters.

Wild Beasts - Two Dancers (ii)

The Clientele - Jennifer & Julia

Often regarded as the precursor to Classical Minimalism and Ambient music, I think it is fair to go a step further, and say that Erik Satie was making repetitive, loop based music, similar to what’s often heard in modern, electronic music (even hip hop), before electronic music existed. Just listen to his Furniture Music compositions, notably Part 3: Phonic Tiles (2nd track below). You can almost hear the GZA’s voice over those menacing, looping strings from 1917. Sure, many hip-hop beats have sampled similar string sections, and that may be why this sounds familiar… but what’s notable with Furniture Music, unlike most other Classical music of it’s time, is that the pieces start, and end, with that would-be sample. Satie intended the phrases to be short, the compositions to be repetitive, and the overall piece to sit in the background of the room like a piece of Furniture.

Erik Satie’s - Furniture Music, Part 2: Tapestry of Wrought Iron

Erik Satie’s - Furniture Music, Part 3: Phonic Tiles

Erik Satie’s - Sports And Diversions - Le Yachting

Erik Satie’s - Gnossiennes #1 - Lent

Westvaco, a paper manufecture. Promotion guide in 1956-61.

What an amazing combination of styles this catalog is… and it all works so well.
Found on The Silver Lining blog.

Neil Kellerhouse is one of my favorite working Graphic Designers. From the beautiful Criterion Collection packaging that always stops me in my tracks (and has me purchasing films just for the boxes), to the classic film posters he’s done, he is one of the best working in Graphic Design for Film.

I don’t know how Ti West’s The House of the Devil flew under my radar, but it did. I love classic late 70s/80s slasher-horror, and I love well done throwbacks to the genre. That is what this looks like. And to make things more exciting, Kellerhouse has done a series of posters(check them all out in the linked slideshow) for the film that are chock-full of references. From the ITC Serif Gothic tag lines and bloody, slasher titling, to the iconic collage treatments, I see references to Rosemary’s Baby, Boogey Man, Halloween, and so many others in these great posters. Really well done.

“Talk on the phone. Finish your homework. Watch TV. Die.”

So classic. I can’t wait to see it.

Black Dice - Kokomo