Year-End Random Thoughts: December 31st, 2011

I make my resolutions public so it stings all the more when I fail. That's how I roll.

2012 RESOLUTIONS

1. Self-explanatory. I plan to bring my exercise total up to "some" from "virtually nil".
2. I became way too intimate with my overdraft limit this year. I hope to dead that issue in the twenty dozen. On the business front, I was a participant in the Art of Managing Your Career course, so I now have the tools to be my own boss. Time to make it happen.
3. Draw every day, or at least every other day. Why not? I have no excuses, especially with resources like this around.
4. Organized, in every way. Lessen the clutter. A place for everything, and every thing in its place. We'll see how long this attitude lasts.
5. One of the best things about having your own workspace is putting up stuff on the walls. I put up three awesome things this year, and I need to put up more. Cool stuff on my walls makes me want to create. Needless to say, this is really good.

MY 2011 MUSIC LIST (no, it's not another top 10)

Stuff I Loved The Most:

• Danny Brown's XXX
• Birdapres' Catch An L
• Blueprint's Adventures in Counter-Culture
• Tom Waits' Bad As Me
• Army Girls' Close to the Bone
• The Roots' Undun

XXX is so good, I can't believe it's free. Brown goes from hedonistic superhero to ghetto rubble storyteller to vulnerable dude in the course of 19 breezy tracks. I found this shit enthralling from day one.

I can say the same about Catch An L. The immediacy of dusty breaks combined with Bird's brainy flow made this a winner for me. Take a listen to "Show No Flair" (with John Smith blazing the second verse), and you'll be taken back to '89 with your feet still planted firmly in this day and time. Grab it from Marathon of Dope, and don't forget to donate.

Blueprint's Adventures was a fine display of an emcee attempting to spread his wings musically, and I think he showed a lot of growth here. The gem of this album? The passionate "Radio-Inactive".

It's clichéd to say so, but there are people that are Tom Waits fans, and there are those that are not, sometimes vehemently so. I don't know where I'm going with this. Bad As Me is just really good. So there.

I have Michael Elves to thank for introducing me to Army Girls via his blog. I love me a two person rock 'n' roll combo. They remind me of a punchier Inbreds, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Yo, I could go on and on about how amazing and smooth Undun is, but all I really want to talk about is the open ?uestlove drums on "The OtherSide" and "Tip the Scale". I could listen to those ALL DAY. LOOPED. Them shits do amazing things to my brain.

Stuff I Need to Spend More Time With:

• The Black Keys' El Camino
• Phonte's Charity Begins At Home
• This Hisses' "Surf Noir"
• Pip Skid's People Are the Worst
• Tim Hoover's More Napkins (Hey, did I mention that I have this release on cassette?)
• The Cool Kids' When Fish Ride Bicycles
• Mayer Hawthorne's How Do You Do 

...and why the hell didn't I buy that Charles Bradley album?

MY FAVORITE POSTERS & ART PRINTS OF 2011

Posters:

• Alamo Drafthouse Dracula poster by Vania Zouravliov and Aaron Horkey: http://omgposters.com/2011/01/12/dracula-poster-by-vania-zouravliov-and-aaron-horkey-onsale-info/
• Circa Survive poster by The Silent Giants: http://www.gigposters.com/poster/137472_Circa_Survive.html
• Lucero Poster Set by Chris Huth: http://omgposters.com/2011/02/11/lucero-poster-set-by-chris-huth/
• Deerhoof poster by Shawn K. Knight: http://www.gigposters.com/poster/139057_Deerhoof.html
• Saucy Yoda tour poster by Rory Phillips: http://www.flickr.com/photos/24327290@N02/5467820584/
• Kevin Tong's Appleseed Cast poster: http://omgposters.com/2011/03/29/kevin-tongs-poster-for-the-appleseed-cast-plus-art-print/
• Rich Kelly's The Hold Steady poster: http://www.gigposters.com/poster/141825_Hold_Steady.html
• Landland's Black Keys poster: http://www.gigposters.com/poster/143471_Black_Keys.html
• Phish poster by Rich Kelly: http://www.gigposters.com/poster/144500_Phish.html
• Majesty poster by DX: http://www.gigposters.com/poster/139656_Majesty.html
• 2 Hum posters by Jay Ryan: http://www.gigposters.com/poster/147174_Hum.html and http://www.gigposters.com/poster/147175_Hum.html
• Valdez poster by C. Gomez: http://www.gigposters.com/poster/147182_Valdez.html
• X poster by Lil' Tuffy: http://www.gigposters.com/poster/148166_X.html
• Portugal, The Man's poster by BlackYard http://www.blackyard.ch/?p=2054
• Andrew Bird poster by Hero Design http://heroandsound.com/?p=4113
• Good Old War poster by T-Bone and Aljaxx: http://www.gigposters.com/poster/148631_Good_Old_War.html

 Art Prints:

• "Glory Is Forever" art print by Hero Design Studio: http://heroandsound.com/?p=3479
• Weapons of Mass Creation (red bomb version) art print by Justin Kamerer: http://www.angryblue.com/index.php?pcat=1&item=902
• Nunavut art print by Jay Ryan and Aaron Horkey: http://thebirdmachine.com/detail.php?uid=DD4865

...and one poster I should've added last year, but I was sadly unaware of it – Brett Stenson's Built to Spill poster: http://www.gigposters.com/poster/132661_Built_To_Spill.html

Well, I think that's all the stuff I've got in my head, spilled out before you via ones and zeros. I hope 2011 treated you well, and that 2012 treats you even better. Personally, I'd rather forget 2011 existed, but I'm not gonna harp on that any longer. It's time to kick some ass!
G'night, folks!

Ten Years of Me and GP

Posters everywhere! They were the oasis in my corporate world. Photo taken Dec. 8th, 2006. 

For me, one good thing came out of the week that 9/11 happened: I became a member of gigposters.com. I'm still unsure, but I do believe I found GP through a link at the Tijuana Bibles (R.I.P.) site. In addition to half-assing my graphic design assignments at RRC, I spent many a late hour "surfing the web" (shit, does anyone say that anymore? It was still appropriate back then) in the Mac lab, looking for all kinds of stuff online, and GP became part of my regular routine.

I can't say this enough: GP changed my life and put me on my current path. Seeing the exciting work coming in from all over the world, and bending the ears of people I admire in the forums truly augmented my book learnin'.

Gotta give many thanks and props to Clay Hayes, the site's mastermind/head honcho/caretaker. Dude, I can't thank you enough.

Al's Favorite Posters/Art Prints/Whatever of 2010

Posters: (headliner | designer/illustrator - where applicable)
The Soft Pack - Jay Ryan
Circa Survive - Kevin Tong
Lucero - James Flames
Man...Or Astroman? - Jay Ryan
Golden Rule Poster - Studio On Fire
The National - Guy Burwell
Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Jake Kelly
Cap'n Jazz - Landland
Black Keys - Tyler Stout
Aziz Ansari (the burger one) - Invisible Creature
Flight of the Conchords - Little Friends of Printmaking
The Hold Steady - Guy Burwell
Justin Townes Earle - Guy Burwell
Carolina Chocolate Drops - Jake Kelly
Ultra°off - Bomboland
A Wilhelm Scream - Derek Deal
Mondo Generator - David "DWITT" Witt
Snoop Dogg - Tricia Kleinot Make Do And Mend - Justin Santora
Squeeze - Scrojo
Bottomless Pit - Jay Ryan
Joe Pug - Modern Anthem
Mountain Goats - Rich Kelly
Del the Funky Homosapien - David "DWITT" Witt
Gene Ween - T-Bone & Aljaxx
Pavement - Lil' Tuffy
Kings of Leon - Invisible Creature
RPM Vintage Toys - Rockin' Jelly Bean
Justin Townes Earle - Guy Burwell
Isis/Baroness - Aaron Horkey
La Roux - Spike Press
Wonder Years - James Heimer
Joe Pernice - Guy Burwell

Art Prints:
The second Jay Ryan/Aaron Horkey print
The Jay Ryan/Dan McCarthy Screens n' Spokes print
"Midwestern Heart" by Aaron Horkey
"Street Ministry (RIP Guru) by Dave Kinsey
"Typographic Sins" by Jim Godfrey
The first Jay Ryan/Aaron Horkey print
"Pink Moon" by Dan McCarthy
"Treehousewarming" by Meg Hunt
"The Final Battle" by Eric Tan

Whatever:
The Richard Buckner concert ticket by The Half and Half
Jessie & Tyler's wedding stuff (click through the slide show, it's all good)

Al'z Gigposters.com Faves

I really can't believe I haven't done this before!

1st row: Spike Press, Ryan Duggan, Alan Hynes
2nd row: Nate Duval, Tom Stack
3rd row: Rob Jones, Todd Stewart, Johnny Thief
4th row: Standard Design, Art Chantry

All of this here thumbnail action will take you to each poster's page on GP. If you want to see the rest of my faves, this is where you'll find them. Posters that I actually have? Those are here.

Give Gigposters.com Your Money!

A book you need in your home as soon as possible.

Sometime back in 2001, I was visiting the Tijuana Bibles site (sadly, the band and the site are no longer around. Their MySpace page, inexplicably, survives) and found a link to this lil' ol' site from Calgary called gigposters.com. Back then, it looked something like this. I became transfixed by the amazing work and the lively conversation, so I became a member a few days after 9/11 and never really looked back.

Gigposters.com (and its helpful denizens) reinforced and augmented my college booklearnin', and it also helped me suss out my life mission and motto: I just want to make cool shit. For all of that, I am eternally grateful to the site, and the man behind it, Clay Hayes. Now, the site and the man could use a little help from you and me (don't front...you fucking love posters).

So yeah, go buy some merch, which will not only help the site, but it'll also enrich your flaccid life. What, you think I'm joking? Dig this...you live in a cold climate, right? You need a knitted cap (or "toque" as us Canucks say)! And if you don't live where it gets "nipple-y", I guess you'll just have to settle with looking bad-ass in one. Don't need a cap? GP's got three different decks of playing cards for your gamblin' ass. These are easily the sexiest cards since the ones you stole from your dad, and these ones you can actually play with in mixed company, you pervert. Need proof? Here's a big ass picture of the deck I'm involved with.

All kidding aside, this site is dope, and it's a great resource for postermakerlovers both young and old. Do my man a solid and pick something up, or drop a lil' loot into the bucket via the "Donate" button at the homepage if this site has brought you any measure of joy over the years.

A-ight? Good.

Died Young, Stayed Pretty

Local poster nerds: Died Young, Stayed Pretty, Eileen Yaghoobian's documentary about gigposters and the people that make 'em will be screening at Cinematheque tomorrow at 9. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to this. Here's the trailer:

Clay does it again.

In addition to the widget thing, the man behind GP has now attached HTML and BB Codes to each poster on the site, making it easier to share the goodness, clickable-thumbnail style. For example, I will now post some thumbs from my faves page:

Word 'em up. You rule, Clay!

The Latest Controversy at GigPosters.com

This poster by Paul Gardner of Minneapolis aka "Florafauna".
The issue here, is that the geometric landmass comes from a piece by Andrew Holder.
Mountain Town
The unwritten rule of re-appropriation, it seems, is that cribbing the work of your contemporaries isn't looked upon favorably. Even if it's re-contextualized...y'know, a collage.
The whole thing's a sticky wicket, needless to say. Wow, what an antiquated term.
Anyway...I remember when something similar happened four years ago. I joined in on the web-based flogging, and for my trouble, the said insecure "artist" decided to post racist comments on this blog, posing as someone else several times. He also faked his death. On the internet.

Now, other than this post, I'm staying far away from the whole fracas. Why? Because nothing I say will solve a fucking thing, and I won't be adding anything new. And while I love the site and owe Clay big time for starting it, the arguments tend to upset me. That, and other stuff, but there's no need to elaborate on the "other stuff". Life's too short, for fuck's sake. As I type this, there are 565 672 comments on that poster, and that may jump by 200 before the week is through.

I gotta say, I hate copyright/re-appropriation/re-contextualization arguments. It's like, where do you draw the fucking line? What's safe to use, what's verboten? It gives me a headache. As mentioned, the fact that part of the image was borrowed from someone of the same era is the issue. I was gonna make mention of the awesome work that Girl Talk does, doing the same thing with music, but I seem to have lost the plot. Great. I started this post at like, 2 AM and now I'm finishing it during my lunch break.

At any rate, I'd like to hear what you might have to say about this, so leave comments.

2 more posters...

View large.


View large.

The stories behind each can be found here and here. I was gonna post a bunch of photos on Flickr, but I'm suddenly feeling quite crappy. Maybe in the morning.