Title Pages: eraserinfinitymk2 -Thom Yorke
Chapter 1, Later Never Comes: Here - Pavement
Chapter 2, Birds: Birds - Dios
Chapter 3, Laughing: Laughing - R.E.M.
Chapter 4, So Cruel: So Cruel - U2
Chapter 5, Hourglass: Hourglass - At The Drive-in
Chapter 6, Say, Fear: Fear Is A Man’s Best Friend - John Cale
Chapter 7, Arms Are Warm: Aeon - Antony & The Johnsons
Chapter 8, Blue, Blue Jeans: Blue Jeans - Blur
Chapter 9, Wolves: Wolves - Phosphorescent
Chapter 10, Water: A Coral Room - Kate Bush
End Pages: Skylab Love Scene - The Gifted Children
Archives for May, 2009
This idea also started a long time ago, in some ways, at least. During the worst class I ever took (called Cyberpower, which you’d think would be the best class, but no), I drew two hideous cherubs singing The Beatles’ “It Won’t Be Long” back and forth to each other. It was satisfying to draw the connected speech bubbles with the lyrics in them, and I think a great big “YES” was drawn next to it (if I wasn’t packing, I’d show you the page, but it’ll have to wait, I’m afraid. all my sketchbooks are in boxes). The idea developed over time into people saying the lyrics to each other in a more conversational situation. Then it developed into something much more hideously morbid. I won’t spoil the big ending of the comic for you, but I’ll just say that drawing the second half of this comic was incredibly disturbing and difficult to do.
The first four pages of It Won’t Be Long:
Ho, one of the three mini-comics this semester brought upon me.
Bob Dylan’s 115th Hat came from an idea I’ve had for a long time, that being using the hat Bob Dylan wears throughout 1975 (seen on the cover of Desire) in some sort of metaphysical adventure. Luckily (as the first ideas were a little too weird, even though those same ideas will likely sprout up in the next mini I do), I sat on the idea for a while, until I found the perfect inspiration in Mac Tonight (which, incidentally, was designed by a friend of mine, Clay Hickson’s father). Thus, combined with a child-version of the Em character that appears in (everything) It Won’t Be Long, an adventure was created.
Lo, the first three pages of Bob Dylan’s 115th Hat:
It has been awhile! For that, I am sorry, but hey, I’m packing and moving and, you know, finished college and stuff, so it’s been a busy time. Yes, in fact, I’m leaving the house i’ve been in for the last two years, the house that’s given you (and me) everything from some last minute vocals on Violence (like recording the vocals to Water III on the floor before I even had a bed, or Jesse recording the solos on Horrorvaccuine and Caesura minutes before jetting to the airport), to the new and improved Girlz EP, all of Honeybear, through to right now, beginning to write the future of Violet Mice. And what shall it be? Well, I can hint you on some song titles: Down On Crow, Life as a Man, Fruit of the Lord, Yearning for Blood, Birthed, and maybe even Wolves. Yes, some of those are old songs, but they’re getting the overhaul, the appropriation, the rewrite, the write. Whatever happens will be exciting, surely. I HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE AND IT WILL BE.
anyways, back into the past to resume what I’m supposed to be using this blog for.
This first one here comes from the whole “sea of blood” concept, this song being thought of as the first song on the album. The album would have started with the sound of running liquid, then cuts into me singing “this is blood.” Somewhere, there’s an aborted (i guess) studio version of this:
6.14.08 (this is blood)
This next one is very ambitious, an attempt to but a story into a song word for word. It works great, I think, but I totally ruined it by singing it in an English accent. UGH! it’s hard to sound convincing reading without it though. But now it’s mostly embarrassing. I’m sorry (not sorry) to whose story I nabbed for the first parts. The last bit is mine. I think it’s pretty good. And if I was going to play “soft to the touch” in a different way, it’d be like this:
6.28.08 (Soft With A Story)
The next two are little noodles, the first on ukulele, the second on a squealing electric guitar. You’d never know it, but the electric guitar song is actually the first permutation of “it’s endless.” Now, that’s evolution!!
Hey! I just uploaded an entire show (from back in february) to my youtube, here’s the playlist:
Here are a few pictures I took of the installation I had up in the Undergraduate Exhibition a month or so ago:
The images on the wall were the entire version of this comic I’ve posted before:
And on the chair were copies of Girlz, the album:
Which, as a constant reminded, you can hear Here.
1. It’s grey-green outside, and if it hasn’t started pouring, it’s about to in, like, a second.
2. “let me tell you,” this Prince video DVD I got, while certainly scant, is brilliant.
3. being so into artists who strive for nothing but the absolute BIGGEST is maybe unhealthy for my goals.
4. controversy.
5. if you sync up “What There Is” to the video of Kate Bush’s “Suspended in Gaffa,” it’s more or less perfect.
6. see directly above for what could be the greatest thing I could ever do…
Show Time: Sunday May 10, 2009 - 6:30 PM
Venue: Cafe Ballou
Address: 939 n. western ave
City: Chicago
State: Illinois
Country: US
Zip Code: 60622
Cost: 5
Description: I’ll be playing with Julia Rich, Kevin Wilson, Pool Holograph, and Jesse Carsten! It’s five dollars, but when you play, you get FREE COFFEE and DRINK SPECIALS. FAR OUT SEE YOU THERE!
Improbable experiments!
I know I promised a closer look at my new comics, but for now, a trip down memory lane. It was caused by a brief spurt of self-reflection, by which I mean “I was listening to myself.” It happens. I heard that Prince only listens to himself, but then that goes against the fact that he loves Joni Mitchell, so I don’t know.
Anyways, this post is dedicated to a very old “album” I made, called “The Sun Has Feelings Too.”
It was made in 2003, I think, which puts me as a young ol’ Sophomore in High School, still going by “The Mazz.” It was more or less made in a week, sitting down at my massive digital recording unit (which I called “The Beast”), and just making a song, no matter what came out. What happened to come out though actually happened to be pretty good. Most of them didn’t sound as though I made them up on the spot. It’s hard to go back in my head and think about what inspired these songs, but i’ll do the best i can.
1. Sinking (i was clicking the keyboard on and off at the beginning to make that sound. “The Beast” had the best reverb effects, I used them non-stop on everything)
2. Entrance (i was trying to write a sort of manifesto-kind of song. there was a song called Exit that i wrote later, which I now have no idea where it is).
3. Whales (named after the weird effect I put on it)
4. Majesty (the giant feedback at the end was a total fluke. this is probably the best performance i turned in, knowing a lot less of ‘how to play instruments’)
5. Never You Mind (i think a lot of these songs were titled first, then written. there’s some great accidental guitar parts in this one)
6. Intermission (trying to be all dark in this one, i think there’s a nine inch nails song that this accidentally sounds like.)
7. Jest (I don’t know how this song sounds so good, to me at least. i know i was listening to a lot of Eno at the time, and that had something to do with it, not that this sounds anything like Eno. it’s a shame i don’t still have the hard copies of these songs, otherwise I’d totally go back in, remove my silly vocals, and make a new song out of it)
8. Close The Door (I think I shut the door when I went in my room to make this, hence the title. my dad said of this “why is the piano playing so naive?” to which i said “it’s supposed to be that way,” but really, it’s not)
9. Friend (i hate this song. i mean, sort of. i’m just embarrassed that in my attempt to write a bowie song i ended up writing about a dwarf. and i don’t even think i’d heard The Laughing Gnome at this point!)
10. Kayla (named after my gf at the time, this long moby-lite song was a real trial to play, but i think i did a pretty good job. one time i made up fake joke lyrics for it, but i don’t remember them).
Anyways, it holds up better now, as a curiosity if nothing else. Prepare yourselves in the future for more posts about “ian’s formative high school work,” because it’s all darker and downhill from here. No more lilting instrumentals, it’s death death death (nothing’s changed, oh no).
The news is true, and now it’s news!!!
I have three new mini-comics, done, and ready for which you to see them and read them. They are now available at Quimby’s in Chicago, or from me if you ask nice (or if you ask at all, really, just don’t mug me for them, I probably haven’t got any).
Anyways, the titles are:
It Won’t Be Long
—Love & Death at first sight, as told with The Beatles!
Life in the Cyber Winter
—Responsibility and Adulthood, in the freezing cold!
Bob Dylan’s 115th Hat
—A young child’s adventure within the Moon’s magic of Space!
I’ll be posting a blog post about the individual comics soon, as well as posting higher-in-quality examples of the work inside.
OO EE!
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