Cultures? Children? Waves?

Listen up!

Ego in pencil.

Concept doodle for a story I'm workin' on.


Lots of stuff is going on. Spikedriver Arts Collective is going to host galleries in Biddeford, ME and Somerville, MA some time in the Spring, so there'll be neat things of all shapes and sizes there.
There's other stuff going on, but none of it will get done now because I just discovered that there's three seasons of Courage the Cowardly Dog hosted on Cartoon Network's website.

"See you next week! Stay angry!"

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Tik Tok - Lo-Tek Rides Again

Download: http://www.mediafire.com/?2vlljypfym1zu2i
Tags: ragtime, klezmer, jazz

"Neo-Futurist Ragtime and Toyota Klezmer played by human beings working for robots."

Saw 'em play at the Jalopy Theater in Red Hook, Brooklyn. God damn, these guys sure do get into it. If you're ever presented the opportunity to catch a live set from Tik Tok, don't pass it up!

Jazz hands.

Here's a sketch of what will soon be a painting which will soon be a part of a series. Oh, Duke Ellington. You sure can play those keys.
More will come.

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The Goddamn Rattlesnake - Get Comfortable

Download: http://www.mediafire.com/?33gou623gt219gn
Tags: blues, country, punk

And in a completely inappropriate relation to this post, here's an album of "lonesome, uplifting country ballads and shanty songs". Think Fake Problems when they were all twangy folk and whatnot.
Thank Thunderbolt Jackson for this one, rest that powerful soul.

Paths to Abstraction

While in Sydney, I went to an awesome exhibit at the Art Gallery of New South Wales that chronicled the history and development of abstraction in Modern art around the turn of the 20th century. It put me on a kick of distorted doodles for a week or so. Here's a few.

Gah, I kind of liberally use the phrase" swamped" when it comes to the amount of work I'm doing, but this time, I mean it! I'm working on a children's book, doing a bunch for school, hunting down art modeling jobs and collaborating/organizing in an inspiring art collective. It's all so time-consuming but invigorating! I think a lot of cool work will come from it, so maybe I'll have some things to put up here. I can't feed off of my summer sketchbook forever, afterall.

Oh, and Wood Spider's booking their winter tour too. Who knows cool spaces above Massachussetts in New England?!

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Hail Seizures - For the Ruin

Download: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=GK0C385F
Tags: folk punk, punk

Uploaded per request. New Hail Seizures! Be excited!

Excerpts of summer.

Some potted plants in the studio of Rumple Farm in Petaluma, CA.

A morning watercolor in East LA.

Birthed on a plane over the mighty Pacific.

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Pale Robin - Birth Rights Versus

Download: http://www.mediafire.com/?226rqm62i212eco
Tags: anarcho-folk, acoustic punk

A new project featuring Mars and CPN of Blackbird Raum fame. Give it a listen.

Earth Day acknowledges scavengers.

I wanted to get better at drawing vultures. So I went to the Museum of Natural History to do so. Here are two pencil drawings of white-backed vultures.

The top one is a white-back. The bottom is a lappet-faced vulture. Both are drawn with a Micron. Oooooh!

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The Devil Makes Three - The Devil Makes Three

Download: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=M6KOHCKH
Tags: folk, bluegrass, americana, country

THANKS, FANNY.

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In celebration of Earth Day, here's me giving an exhausted, shirtless, informal lecture about the Irish Potato Famine to a crowd of people.

(My blog just got awful.)

Fodder.

A Museum of Natural History study of America's favorite family, Cervidae! (Clockwise from top-left: white-tail doe, white-tail buck, mule buck, wapiti doe).

The Ramble in Central Park houses some really charming stumps.

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The Blue Vipers of Brooklyn - Forty Days and Forty Nights

Download: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=DAQPP641
Last.fm tags: early jazz, swing, blues

Speaking of Central Park, I saw these guys there last year around this time. Good Lord, do they make swell springtime music. There's a whole lot of awesome vocal harmonies and makeshift percussion in it. You guys love both of those things!

Bide.

The Lovers

Bide may have been a terrible move in Pokemon, but it's a good thing to do while I finish up my work.
More on its way.

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Mallory - Strange Homes

Download - http://malloryband.org/mallory_strange_homes.zip
Last.fm tags - folk, folk punk, punk

Oh, man. Oh, man. New album.
That there's a direct download link from the band's website. The first comment on their Last.fm page is "folk punk at its lyrical finest". I feel like there's not much more I can contribute to that description.
(Their first album is on their website, too.)

Also Mallory is comprised of wonderfully nice people. And nice people make good music. That's the rule, right?

So I heard you like filler...

This blog is a ravenous monster and I feel compelled to feed it. So here's some crap:

Artwork for the band, New Year's Revolution. I have no idea what they're going to do with it. Kevin said he liked elephants, so I gave him one.

For my Concepts & Application class, my assignment is to paint the likeness of a recognizable figure. I chose Bill Watterson of Calvin & Hobbes fame. Unfortunately, everyone in my class is absolute dirt and doesn't know who Bill Watterson is. What kind of illustration majors are they?
Regardless, that's the sketch.

A study of the bestest cat in the world in preparation for a painting (or something) of the bestest cat in the world.

I swear that I'm doing more than what I'm showing! I swear!

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New Year's Revolution - Demo!!

Download - http://www.megaupload.com/?d=2A3UUCER

Last.fm tags - folk, punk, folk punk

Figured I should put up this, seeing as it works with the rest of the post and whatnot.
Good job on the tags this time, Last.fm community. Nice to know you can get an easy one.

"Would you kiss me if my lips were numb and bloody?"

Tree of Torsos (14" x 17")

A more finished version of that sketch I did a couple of months back. T'was done with pencil and washes of ink and ground-up charcoal.

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Julian Koster - The Singing Saw at Christmastime

Megaupload - http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VMBEDIKD
Not last.fm tags - Christmas as hell

Look, guys. I'm in the spirit. An album that everyone should keep in their library purely for the sake of novelty.

Dragons and N'Orleans.

Hey.

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Sketches of an Amorous Window - The Palmetto Boudoir

Download - http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JXCUYBVH
last.fm tags - murder ballads, old country, early jazz, folk

A kindly, anonymous stranger happened to send this music my way. I'm not excessively confident in the tracklist, but hey! It's music. You love music!
From the same folk who've brought you Why Are We Building Such a Big Ship? Give it a listen! They cover Sally's Song, for those of you who have a soft spot for the Nightmare Before Christmas.

(Also, that ain't the album art. I'm scum, I know.)

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...

And because this is my blog and I can do whatever I want:

More friction.

You're looking at the blog of one terrible blogger.

"I really like greyhounds! They're like little dinosaurs!"

This "bison" follows the "giraffe" in my previous post. I'm kind of going for a lazy "Surrealist Menagerie" series. Or something...

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Brown Bird - The Devil Dancing

Download - http://www.mediafire.com/?mykm4nomybj
last.fm tags - folk, singer-songwriter, mellow, acid folk

Recommended by/stolen from Maxwell.
Maybe one day, tags on last.fm won't be so silly.

Friction.

As of late, I've been giving my pencils a lot of love.

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The Dutchess and the Duke - Sunset / Sunrise
Megaupload - http://www.megaupload.com/?d=IVV0GQS9
Last.fm tags - folk, indie folk, americana

An album that I cared about the release of? Unheard of! I'll throw their first album on here at some point, too. It's also good.

One unsettling post.

I am an illustration major, if my subject matter doesn't make it grossly apparent.

This doodle sort of inspired the former.

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Comus - First Utterance

download - http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=ea85ef9c099eb16d4c17ca8801618ef75c6af85c4be57c95ea4ac78345cbe4ce

last.fm tags - progressive rock, psychedelic folk, experimental

The album that sort of inspired the doodle that sort of inspired the former.

"We don't know where this animal is going."

Here's some things.

I was at SUNY Purchase for a chunk of this weekend. They have some really handsome trees there.

I made this flier for a show going down in Boston. Both current acts are quality stuff so if it's within your ability, you should go! C'mon, it's free music.

The Disappointment

More stuff to come...

The greatest place on Earth...

I love the Museum of Natural History.

(Please take note of my handwriting at its downright worst).

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Hurray for the Riff Raff - It Don't Mean I Don't Love You

Mediafire - http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=ea85ef9c099eb16d4c17ca8801618ef7bbe785ec26483552b16e5c9d3b204475

last.fm tags - folk, hobo revival, country, blues, female vocalists

More of this "hobo revival" crap. This album must be listened to on the floor at eight in the morning, while eating a fruit. If you don't, you're not listening to it correctly.

The Mad Dogs of Summer

Oh, my. I sure am a piece of crap for not staying on top of this blog business.
With work, doing a bunch of Wood Spider stuff, and other miscellaneous summer activities, it's hard for me to sit down and art it up. Though, I have been having a great time doin' the things I've been doin'.

As mentioned, last week, I was roughin' it up at Lake George with a bunch of old and new friends. Essentially, it was six days of island sloth and Tom Waits references. It was the most fun I had in a long while. And I actually managed to draw a bit in between my sessions of lazily maintaining the fire and clubbing stuff.
Some excerpts:

Pfft, way to get the month wrong, Alex.

I also took a few rolls of film with my Holga, but I'm reluctant to develop them...because then I will discover that they're all awful and I wasted a buttload of money.

My schedule continues to be busy as hell. There may be a house show Wood Spider is playing in Manhattan tomorrow, but right now that's pretty tentative (If you're interested at all, get a hold of me somehow). Aside from that, there's a lot of recording and whatnot to do before we go on tour in mid-August.
I also have a couple of letters to write to people.

Gotta run! I've got this show to play.