Fear of Punk//Fear of Art in Hamilton

Fear of Punk//Fear of Art at Hammer City Records came down yesterday!  Huge thanks to Craig, Leah and Brett at the shop for hosting the show.  We had a great time, and are thrilled with the awesome feedback and enthusiasm about the show we received.  Merch (stuff above) by Matthew McGarry, Weird Luke, Dustin McChesney and myself will be available at the shop until the end of this week, after this Friday's Art Crawl.  Christmas gift alert!

We want to mount this show again at least once more in Canada.  If you're interested in Fear of Punk coming to your town or gallery, get in touch!

Fear of Punk//Fear of Art in Hamilton

Show #2:  We are excited to announce that Fear of Punk//Fear of Art will have a second installment in Hamilton, Ontario at Hammer City Records.  This exhibition will open during November's James Street Art Crawl on November 8th, beginning at 7 pm.

Tell the world you wouldn't miss it here:  https://www.facebook.com/events/1399765893594543

Hamiltonians:  For a taste of what the exhibition is all about, check out this great little piece written by Alison Lang of Broken Pencil that discusses the exhibition's premise and a few of the participating artists:  http://www.brokenpencil.com/news/fear-of-punkfear-of-art-at-zine-dream-6

Art Crawl Night: 

FEAR OF PUNK // FEAR OF ART 

Adam Kindred (Halifax)

Alex Ratcharge (France)

Alexander Heir (NYC)

Dustin McChesney (Minneapolis)

Emma Maatman (LA)

Erick Lyle (NYC)

Heather Benjamin (NYC)

Jill Pucciarelli (Olympia)

Leah Wishnia (NYC)

Matthew McGarry (Rochester)

Nathan Gattis (Chicago)

Paul D’Elia (LA)

Sam Ryser (NYC)

Shiva Addanki (NYC)  

Spoiler (Montreal)

Tara Bursey (Hamilton)

Weird Luke (NYC)

Yecatl Peña (Mexico City)

Curated by Ben Needham and Tara Bursey

Punk is everywhere.  From malls to museums, the influence and imagery of punk’s past has largely been absorbed into mass culture. Despite this, contemporary DIY punk rock sits firmly outside of the mainstream, and at both regional and global levels is stronger than ever. The visual culture that surrounds it is variably dark, threatening, chaotic, smart, funny, mysterious and questioning.

Fear of Punk / Fear of Art highlights the creative output of current punk artists, bringing their work out of its usual context while exploring intersections between punk rock, art and print culture. The purpose of the exhibition is to celebrate contemporary punk art while sharing it with a broader audience. The exhibition includes drawing, sculpture and printed matter that draws inspiration from horror, the occult, sex, despair, popular culture, art history and urban life.

FEAR OF PUNK / FEAR OF ART runs November 6-December 10

at Hammer City Records

228 James Street North (Basement at Rear)

Hamilton, Ontario

On Art Crawl Nights you can enter via bcontemporary gallery direct from James St North, or the usual entrance off the Robert Street alley located between Granny’s Place and the Classic Cafe Patio.

More Punk Art

Setting in to my new digs in Hamilton has been a trip!  Work contracts, back-n-forth travel to TO, (unsuccessful) job hunting and moving has more or less put a halt to art-making endeavors except for some punk rock-related bits and pieces.  This kinda makes sense considering the very last things I did before leaving TO were putting on the Fear of Punk show and popping of a quick LP cover for a friend's band.

A few weeks ago, I was asked for an interview for an incredible NYC-based comics anthology called Happiness, published and edited by the talented Leah Wishnia.  The interview will also include contributions from two of the four School Jerks-- I've done the art for all of their recorded output, and the interview is mostly about the work I've done for them.  Doing this interview gave me a rare opportunity to talk about my other "art-half" (the one that does art for punk bands) and reflect on how I started doing this this type of work.   I've included some of the interview text here (it's only a small portion of the entire interview):

Doing show flyers and album artwork grew out of my work making zines.  I remember being 17 or 18 thinking that it would be a really great job to be a freelance illustrator, doing art for bands both in and outside of punk that was not unlike the work I did for the zines I had been making for years.  This was before I realized how hard it was to get paid by bands that see you as a friend or acquaintance doing the band a favour!  When I was 18, I dropped out of art school and had a string of crappy jobs.  Doing flyers for neighbourhood bands and the odd flyer for performers and punk bands was less a way of making money than a way I kept an art practice going and got to know people while I just floated around aimlessly working retail, socializing, and trying to make an adult life for myself.

My first real job doing an album cover that was widely distributed was for the LP of a Toronto band called Action in 2003 or so.  They were pretty young and got signed to the label Punkcore from New York and were really excited about the prospect of touring and being on the same label as some of their favourite bands growing up.  The drummer Greg was my best friend at the time.  I was really happy to be a part of it because they were all friends of mine, we were all from the same suburb of Toronto, and it was such a big deal for all of us to feel like we were “making it” on some level-- they were under 20, and I was a couple years older.  I ended up doing their pin designs, t-shirt designs and the front cover, back cover and insert art for their LP.  This was my first taste of having a hand in shaping the entire visual identity of a band and at the time it was really rewarding and exciting for all of us to be doing something we knew a ton of people would see and hear. 

To be honest, ten years later, punk rock isn’t as much a part of my daily life as it used to be when I was 20, or even 25.  I have a pretty broad art practice that involves making art for punk bands but also sculpture/installation, publications and curating among other things.  I listen to way more 60s psych and hard rock than punk these days.  I am lucky to have developed my drawing skills at a really young age (I went to an arts high school where most students wanted to be animators for Disney!), so now I have this skill that I can basically pull out of my back pocket when I need to.  Most of the time it’s to draw a dripping skull or something grim for some punk dude, which is fine when I have the time.

(...)

I think Ben said it best in another interview when he said that while art has always taken a backseat in punk, it plays a huge part in how punk is understood by itself and the world.  Also, within punk, art (lyrics too) can be an introduction or passage to social and political issues that would be more difficult to understand through a textbook or a news source, especially for young people.  For example, when I was a teenager, the art of Gee Vaucher and Winston Smith (for Crass and the Dead Kennedys respectively) was a way for me to begin to explore radical politics. Punk art can be frightening, stimulating, exciting, thought provoking and (gasp) even beautiful.  Over the years, I’ve learned a lot from it, too.

Collage by Gee Vaucher

The Fear of Punk//Fear of Art show has been a great way to expand on the work for bands and connect with people who are serious about doing art work in and around punk rock.  Along these lines, I was also asked recently to do contribute a page to a screenprinted zine of fake comic book covers by punk artists, organized by another awesome artist, Yecatl Pena in Mexico.  My recent fixation on post-apocalyptic films produced this silly but fun comic cover based on the cover old comic book of mine, inspired by the record cover I did for Absolut at the end of the summer-- in progress!

Patti Smith and Beat Nation

Patti Smith, from her exhibition Camera Solo 

Last week was a luxurious one in that I managed to find the time to take in two art shows in two days.  I went to the preview of Patti Smith's photography exhibition, Camera Solo, at the AGO.  The next day, I braved the snow and embarked on a rather hellish walk to Harbourfront to check out Beat Nation at the Power Plant.  Boy, was it ever nice to spend a few hours outside of my own head (which is constantly consumed by thesis work), looking at the work of other artists.

The Patti Smith show was an interesting one for a few reasons.  The exhibition was gorgeously installed-- a clean and uniform installation of small photographs with nice touches like ephemera placed sparingly on weathered wood tables, persian rugs, church pews facing a video projection, and a huge Italian fishing net in the middle of the main gallery. Despite the exhibition's pitch-perfect style, a telling moment for me was when I took in a photograph taken by Robert Mapplethorpe of Patti-- not the iconic one of her on the cover of Horses, but another one of her looking long-limbed and awkwardly confrontational...in other words, it was pure Patti.  After drinking in this photograph for several minutes, it became obvious just how artless Smith's photographs were in comparison.  The exhibition reminded me of my ambivalence towards Patti Smith's work, whose artistic career has been (in my humble opinion) rather uneven.  The thing is, you'd never guess it from all the attention she has been showered with.

Jordan Bennett, Turning Tables (2012)

Continuing the theme of intersections of art and music, Beat Nation: Hip Hop as Indigenous Culture at the Power Plant was worth the walk.  I especially loved Jordan Bennett's Turning Tables (pictured above), which plays Bennett's voice learning his native tongue, Mi'kmaq.  Also really stirring were two of the exhibition's video works-- 10 by Dana Claxton and Nicholas Galanin's Tsu Heidei Shugaxtutaan Part 1 and 2.  Recommended!

School Jerks LP on Art 4 Punks

Big huge thanks to the very cool Paul D'Elia for posting about the School Jerks LP art on his blog, Art 4 Punks. Having a blog focus on the art and design of contemporary punk and hardcore is a noble pursuit that I cannot endorse enough.  Nice to feel appreciated, to say the least!  Also, thanks to anyone who has spoken up online and in person (locally, all two of you...ha, ha...) about how much they dig the art for this record and the previous EPs.

Also, I recently made the jump from Wordpress to Tumblr as a platform for an archive of the punk/rock/music related art I've done.  Check it out here, and dig deep for some seriously moldy oldies that will prove that I'm not as young and fresh as I look.

Hamilton Supercrawl 2012 Report

Tons of fun was had last weekend at what may have been my last summer hurrah before a deluge of autumn work at the Hamilton Supercrawl.  I went as a special assistant to pals Becky and Kalpna whose fabulous project, the Toronto Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef, was (and still is) installed at indie accessory and vintage shop White Elephant for the duration of weekend.

Becky and I rolled into Hamilton late on the first night of the Supercrawl.  Armed with a mickey of bourbon, we took to the streets and spotted some great stuff, among it DIY street haircutting, ornate steel quilts, a samosa vendor that had 10+ tantalizing varieties including vegetarian South African samosas, and the above collage work by art collective Group of Seven Billion, which in many cases reminded me of the punk art of Winston Smith and Crass artist Gee Vaucher.  The next night, I came away with three fabulous pieces for a whopping $12-- thanks guys!

After a night's rest, we pitched a tent and made some impromptu hyperbolic coral models and answered questions from passersby about the installation and the fine art of hyperbolic crochet.  Visitors to the tent marveled at Kalpna (whose hands are in the foreground) and her hybrid crochet-knitting overhand swoosh technique as well as Becky (gal with yellow tights) and her anus-themed pseudosphere...!  We also answered the question of the day exactly eleven million times: "How much are you selling these afghans for?"  Answer:  "They are not for sale-- they are only for decoration. Sorry."

My Saturday was spent slowly making what ended up being a rather wimpy crocheted pseudosphere.  I also got to see the fabulous Hamilton-born and bred proto-punk band Simply Saucer on an outdoor stage.  Later that day, we took down the tent, ate dinner, drank a few pints at The Brain, and caught the end of Owen Pallett's set before hunkering down for the night.

I'm ready to move to Hamilton!

This Week

Began one mammoth project...

...and finished another.  Perhaps rock'n'roll cross-stitch is my calling...?

New Zines

Eat to the Beat: A Rock'n'Roll Cookzine

"Food and music are two of the most primal pleasures on earth! It’s a wonder that their paths don’t cross more often than they do-- exceptions being pasta sauce made by ex-Ramones, punk sommeliers and the song titles of bubblegum pop bands, of course…and that guy behind the desk at the record store with the pizza sauce dripping down his chin…

Community recipe collections in the form of cookbooks are not new. I embarked on this project because so many of my friends in “rock”-- whether they be musicians, DJs, record store clerks, recording engineers or record collectors-- are also total foodies. The premise for this zine is simple-- to bring rock and food together in one tasty package, as well as to pay tribute to my community of talented, creative and fun rocker pals and the songs and artists that inspire them."

Eat to the Beat is a collaborative rock'n'roll-themed cookzine featuring contributions by Alycia Wahn, Alexandra Gutnik, Andy "Dictator" Shernoff, Ben Needham, Bev Coneybeare, Casey Johnson, Christina Wozniak, DJ Nico, Elaine Banks, Mark Kingdon, Mary Ann Guiao, Matt Hitch and myself. Zine includes a super special "Food Fight" Risograph pin-up insert illustrated by the fabulous Elaine Banks.

42 pages, 8.5" X 5.25"
Xerography with Risograph insert
2012

Rusty's Dusty:  

A solemn short story in mini-zine form about a man who works in a boatyard in Etobicoke. Inspired by a real-life encounter I had in the early 1990s. Zine comes in a little origami boat.  Recommended for people experiencing post-industrial anxiety.

Zine measures 4.25" X 2.25"

Xerography, origami paper

2012

Buy them here.

Summer Project

Cross-stitch of an iconic album cover.  Lots more to go!

Toronto Life

Two-colour Risograph prints on archival cardstock made in collaboration with JP King of Paper Pusher Print Works. These drawings will be on the upcoming School Jerks 12", due out in a matter of weeks.

1) Thanks, JP!  

2) Prints can be purchased here.

Thursday

Lots happening this Thursday!  First off, as I mentioned in a previous post, I'll be taking part in the exhibition Under 30 at 30 at the Japanese Paper Place's warehouse space on Brock Avenue.  All day Thursday, the JPP will be celebrating their 30th Anniversary with an open house, exhibition, paper sale and heaps more.  The exhibition opens in the evening...come out and support this singular Toronto institution in the process.

Japanese Paper Place - 30th Anniversary Celebration
Thursday, June 7, 2:30-9:30pm
77 Brock Avenue, Toronto
http://www.japanesepaperplace.com

Later that night, there will be a legal fee benefit event for my good friend, fibre artist Lizz Aston at The Piston, on Bloor Street West.  Lizz was falsely accused of assault when someone ID'ed her to the police using Facebook, resulting in her unlawful arrest...!  Unbelievable!  I am donating the piece pictured above, A Breast, for the event's art auction.  The night should be a blast, with dancing, crafty art and live music by psych/pop locals The Whirly Birds, The Persian Rugs and Hollow Earth, who I've been meaning to check out for ages.

For more info on the event, look here.

City of Craft Spring

There's lots of fantastic stuff on the horizon for this Spring, and this is certainly one of them.  City of Craft now has a large spring show along similar lines as the trunk shows that happen every few months at The Workroom in Parkdale.  I am proud to be DJ-ing this inaugural event at Trinity St. Paul Church on April 21st! The show is 7 hours long-- unfortunately I don't quite have it in me to do 7 hours of vinyl spinning, but I will be DJ-ing live for at least three hours during peak hours.  The rest of the time will be filled with fantastic tunes I've chosen.  Here's the little bluurb prepared about what to expect:

Tara has been DJ-ing around town for 7 years, and has done numerous guest sets on radio.  Past monthly nights included Out of Vogue (2005-06) and Girls Go Crazy! (2010-11) and her new monthly night Strange Notes will begin at the Embassy in Kensington Market in March of 2012, and will continue on the first Wednesday of every month.  For City of Craft's spring show, Tara will be ringing in the sunshine with some sweet pop, rock, bubblegum and psychedelia from the 1960s.  There will be three live sets over the course of the day on glorious vinyl!  Think Beach Boys, Girl Groups, fun pop hits that you know and cool lost nuggets that you don't know!  Rave on!  

Needless to say there will be a ton of fantastic vendors of craft and rummage at this show-- among them  my pals Sweetie Pie Press, Old Weston, Krystal Speck and tons more.   Don't miss it.

City of Craft Spring
Trinity St. Paul Church
427 Bloor St. West
Toronto
April 21st, 2012
11am - 6pm
$1 Admission

Miscellaneous News

Promotional Image for Everything Under the Moon (2012)

I've have so, so, so much to catch up on here, seeing as I've been completely and utterly loaded down with school work for the past month at least.  Boy, am I looking forward to the summer, when I'll have the chance (hopefully) to blog more, make some new work, and have time to think about (or should I say linger on...) the things I see and do.

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to see Everything Under the Moon at the Enwave Theatre performed by Shary Boyle and Christine Fellows.  A nostalgic combination of theatre, song, overhead projections and shadowplay, the performance was rooted in a playful yet melancholy story about a honeybee and a bat and their fight against extinction.  The music was perfect for the fable-- Christine Fellows' brand of rootsy-folk accompanied by cello and percussion was part Feist and part Fred Penner (well, that may be a stretch, actually...!).  While the narrative at the root of the performance was picked on a bit in a review or two terms of it being a little sketchy and underdeveloped, I liked the fact that it was quirky and had an oddball, almost surreal quality to it that at times contained a surprising mix of humor and sadness.  I feel like all of my favourite things in the world walk this fine line, come to think of it...

For me, the highlight of the performance was hands-down Boyle's magical use of the overhead projector.  During a part of the performance, Fellows sang a verse about the first encounter between the story's protagonists, Idared the honeybee and Limbertwig the bat while Boyle slowly peeled away about five layers of transparencies that featured head-on illustrations of the anthropomorphic little critters.  As the layers were peeled away, the two characters became more and more human-- hard to describe and do justice, but it was visually moving to the point that I was reduced to tears.  There were other points in the performance where the projections were particularly poignant, too-- I can't help but connect this poignancy to the use of a "lost" or obsolete technology animating a narrative about the loss of living things through extinction.  Pretty amazing.

Lots of other news to report as well, but maybe I'll save it for other posts.  On the topic of obsolescence and old-ish technologies, I thought I'd post this poster (0% Photoshop, might I add...) I made for my new solo DJ night at The Embassy Bar in Kensington Market.  I usually try to compartmentalize my various lives and try not to talk about music geek stuff too much on this blog, but this poster is definitely inspired by the projected light shows of the hippie era that Boyle is referencing at least a wee bit in her work.  Part of this new night is that the music will be accompanied by new projections every month.  Last Wednesday, I projected the Monkees' movie, Head on the wall next to the DJ set up.  Next month, who knows.  Gothic horror?  Primitive, early animation?  I'm still thinking about it.

School Jerks EP on Art 4 Punks Blog

Not much to report these days-- is it possible that I'm experiencing the dog days of summer in May? I've felt oddly bored and paralyzed lately, as though I've been hit by some form of post-school narcosis.

A few weeks ago the School Jerks EP got a nice mention on a blog that I follow out of LA called Art 4 Punks. Thanks for the props, Paul! Take a look at A4P for a peek at some of the more interesting examples of punk and hardcore record art from this side of 1981.

Here is a funny peek at the process of making the record covers. Ben spent two nights hand stamping 1000 covers in our living room as I (for the most part) watched on in amusement/amazement. While part of me isn't as happy with the overall result of this record over the previous one, it's still pretty awesome and there's been some nice feedback about it.

Three Towers

These are three pin designs I drew two days ago for my pals, the Modern Superstitions. Text will be added which will also be hand-drawn, and it looks like we'll only be using the bottom two after all-- the water tower and the hydro tower.

Modern Superstitions are the easiest band to do artwork for-- it is always a huge pleasure. The main reason for this is that both their lyrics and music are so damn evocative. The idea of bell towers and clock towers immediately came to mind when I first listened to the songs on their last EP. We ended up going with a stained glass motif as a slight variation on those ideas, but I was able to work with towers in this pin project, which I'm grateful for. These towers are definitely less majestic and more mundane and "local" feeling, which matches some of their songs and lyrics this time around-- Hometown, Loveless Town, etc.

The hydro tower is an ode to my own hometown, Scarborough (incidentally, also a loveless town!). The water tower is an icon associated with more rural hometowns. The idea is that the hydro tower pin be silver, and the water tower be a bronzy gold...we'll see if everything works out as planned!

Psychedelic Album Art

I once joked that I can tell how awesome an album is going to be based on how illegible the album's title is on it's cover. If this sounds weird, it's because most of the albums I consume are from the psychedelic era. Here are some examples of records from my collection with totally over-the-top cover art and creative (if completely unreadable) examples of typography. This post is probably inspired by my recent review of the work of Marian Bantjes, who has admitted to being influenced by the art and design of the late 60s.

From the top:
The Incredible String Band, The Five Hundred Spirits or The Layers of the Purple Onion (Elektra, 1967)
SRC, Self-titled (Capitol, 1968)
Elyse, Self-titled (Tetragrammaton, 1968)
Pisces, A Lovely Sight (Reissue on Numero Group, 2009)
The Tiffany Shade, Self-titled (Mainstream, 1968)

School Jerks 3rd 7"

This glorious recorded artifact of the hardcore punk persuasion came out about a month ago, and the cover drawing is by yours truly. I hand-stamped the logo on about 200 of the 1000 copies that were made, too.

School Jerks' myspace can be found here.

Joni Mitchell Draws on the CBC, 1967

Joni talks negative and positive space with the hosts, and does a pretty groovy drawing. This is one of many very fun CBC RetroBites, scooped off of the CBC's Youtube channel.

Soft Rock

My mind was totally blown when I came across these LP pillows while doing an Exile on Main Street image search. The person/people who make them do commissions, and above are some photos of some of my favourites. It is not entirely clear who makes them online, but they can be purchased through New Zealand-based Etsy shop, Toggle.

If you could commission one cushion, what would it be? It's a tough question, but the New York Dolls debut came to mind on account of it's iconic centre label.