A. WOLF & HER CLAWS - CD/LP and Promo Design - Apr. 2012

This is the album artwork I did for my girlfriend of six years, Aby Wolf. She asked me to conceive of a cover and promo material for her sublime "A. Wolf & Her Claws" LP. For this music project she collaborates with home-made synth maker, Jesse Whitney. His synth (pictured here) is a thing of beauty what with its dazzling array of twiddle knobs and patch cables. With the aesthetic qualities of the synth module and the equally appealing nature of Aby's lovely mug, the only left to incorporate was a s#!t-ton of gorgeous vegetables and elegant handwriting (Emily Snyder of Queen Quills) to bring it home.

Available on LP and CD 

This poster crowded out an Electric Fetus window. 

"WORKING TITLE"- Art Show @ CO Exhibitions-Jan & Feb 2012

*lifted from the CO Exhibitions Website*

For the entire run of WORKING TITLE, dozens of pieces of art will be passed around, communally embellished, tinkered with, and re-worked in CO's Northeast Minneapolis gallery space, as well as in the artists’ own studios. Each week for four weeks, a new opening reception will occur, and each week the artwork will change--fluctuating not only in style, concept, and number of contributors, but also in price, scale, and media. Pieces sold at any given opening will not be worked on further, remaining on display as they were at the time of purchase. Additionally, at each opening, surprise musical acts featuring artists known for their cooperative nature will provide live entertainment.

WORKING TITLE is a grand art experiment rooted in collaboration, concepted by partners and gallery co-owners Burlesque and Permanent, who founded the aptly titled "CO" Exhibitions in 2010 as an ever-evolving project space and artist incubator.

Featuring: Burlesque of North America Permanent Art & Design Group Michael Cina Rudy Fig Josh Journey-Heinz Aaron Bickner Jennifer Davis Carly Schoen Playatta Sara Syverhus Land Land Special Guests TBA throughout the installation

Added this chainmail organism to a Landland poster.

Added some cous cous and little piggies to this collaboration with Ben Lafond and Jen Davis

Jen Davis and I team up on this one

This creature appeared on a Mike Cina painting only to be later enhanced by Playatta.

RODD KEITH "MY PIPE YELLOW DREAM" LP - Oct. 2011

Rodd Keith and his music were a product of the depraved and druggy Hollywood music scene of the late 60's and early 70's. A classically trained session musician, he largely made his living by writing and recording what the music industry referred to as song poems. He and others like him would take out ads in the back of trade journals and other publications that offered up, for a fee, the ability to craft a song to go with "your poem." The recordings would then be pressed to a 45 in a small edition and be sent to radio stations that by and large ignored them. In the wake of Dylan's pushing of pop music towards literacy this somewhat hubris-driven cottage industry took off. The result may not have been a huge financial reward for people like Rodd, but it did leave an enormous volume of strange work for the rest of us, of which this LP documents a small sliver. A P.C.P. induced fall from an L.A. overpass killed him in December, 1974, and since then cultish record collectors have scoured the planet for his recordings. The intrepid James Lindbloom, of Roaratorio Records is one such person.

CHILDREN of EULER/TERRACIDE - SPLIT LP - Nov. 2011

Front

Back

LP Cover - 12.25"x12.25"

Screenprinted by Landland

Edition of 500

Minneapolis bands Children of Euler and Terracide both share a love of science fiction and jaw droppingly acrobatic and blazing metal. When asked to do a cover for their split LP I knew I had a chance to tell a story that fit in the mode of the illustrations that would appear every 40 pages or so in science fiction novels from the 40's, 50's and 60's. I love those. The front and back covers of this LP tells a loose narrative, and I'll leave it to you to determine what happened.

GRANDPA VERN-Sept 2011

India Ink on Parchment - 10"x12.5"

Portrait of my recently passed Grandfather

Used for service pamphlets

"GUTTURAL VISIONS" - Art Show @ Black Dog Cafe - Feb. 2011

 "Guttural Visions" was a Metal-themed three-person art show that featured Dan Wieken, Sharyn Morrow and myself.  For this show I chose eight personally inspiring icons of metal music for which to render portraits. Drawing influence from the notorious "famous author" portraits featured on Barnes & Noble book bags I wanted to treat these subjects with a similar, classic, clean rendering style. Clad in long hair and peddling the profane, these subjects would normally be considered dirtballs by mainstream society. This was my attempt to inject some dignity into the obscene.

Kilmister

Lombardo

Lynott

Roth

Preston

Bench

Downing & Tipton

Some choice photos of the opening here

(aborted?) SLAPPING PURSES-LP artwork

 

Asked to do album artwork for the Slapping Purses record long ago. 

I'd love to see this album come out, with or without this as the cover art. 

Regardless, this is a rare instance of album art being ready before the music. 

"SMELL THE GLOVE" LP (Censored) Cover Art - June 2010

Mixed Media - 24"x24"
My take on what the Spinal Tap "Smell the Glove" LP would/should have looked like had it not been "censored." This was featured along with many other artists in a group show at CO Exhibitions. Curated by buddy Michael Gaughan, this show also featured a well attended art opening where one could sign up to sing a Spinal Tap song, karaoke style, with a live backing band. I ended up bashing the skins for the cover band, and I'm glad to report thus far that morbid fates only seem to befall the ACTUAL drummers of Spinal Tap. A factor about which I was only slightly worried.

BASKETBALL DRUMS - June 2010

In creative conjunction with world-class rapper, Ice Rod, here are some basketball bounce activated drum pads I built. Above is a precious moment in my dining room where Ice Rod first does his basketball related rap to the beat. Yeah boy. We eventually performed this at Soundset a few days later, in front of hip hop royalty.

TIME & TEMPERATURE - European tour poster - June 2010

 Screenprinted Poster - 34" by 21"- Edition of 100

 In the spring of 2010 I was asked to illustrate and screenprint a tour poster for Columbus, Ohio, musician, Val, who performs as Time & Temperature. A legit African-American down-home finger-pickin' blues artist, she was headed to Europe and needed posters to promote her shows there. In our chat about the content of the poster she asked that I work around the idea of angels doing something reprehensible to the devil so as to complicate the traditional notions of good and evil. This idea would marry well with her blues based lyrical content that deals in old gospel themes. I thought that was a terrific direction to head, so I got to work. I sent her a mock-up (much milder than the one seen above) that had the two angels on the sides holding the devil steady as the center angel was poised to stab him in his heart with a dagger. Upon seeing the rough, Val said, "No, no, no. They need to be doing something WAY WORSE than that. Make it like, REALLY GORY. Maybe you could draw the one angel on the side SODOMIZING HIM WITH A MACHETE.?" I was saucer eyed. In my mind I was all like "Oh my stars. I think maybe you've got the wrong artist." We eventually arrived at the somewhat gory compromise you see here, but not after me being scarred forever.