A New Direction

So I haven't made any posts in almost a month. I'd like to say I've been too busy, but more just unmotivated. My portfolio website is still a large undertaking, and isn't really as far along as I'd like. I've been trying to not spend as much time in front of a computer all day. Either way, I was thinking of expanding the coverage of my blog to other things I'm interested in such as art and toys ("urban" designer vinyl more specifically). So to kick things off here's art / toys / hardcore stuff that relates to me.

I currently have a painting hanging at Brave New World Comics in Philadelphia as part of the "Joker's Wild" show that the Autumn Society put together. The Autumn Society of Philadelphia is a collective and blog site (click to view my posts), and this was our first show. I'm working on a piece for our next show entitled "Heart/Earth," which will open next month at Mugshots Coffee. I've been doing a lot of custom toys lately as well. There is a show of Bax Bear customs coming up at The Artist's Eye in Smithville, NJ next month which I will be submitting my piece. I'm also working on a custom Gwin for the October Toys forum's Gwin trade. Here's a quick custom I did recently. It started out as a Koolby & Friends panda character, which I made much cooler by turning him into Jason Voorhees:


As for my bands, Wormeaters have a 7" that came out a few months ago. We have the next one written, and will be recording soon. It will be on Inkblot Records and will have PJ singing, who if you've seen us live over the past year has been singing for us. We'll be doing a weekend tour w/ Devour in May. SPG have a 7" that should be out literally any day now. I did the design and layout of that record, which will be available from American Waste Records. I also recently did the design/layout on the I Hate This 7" re-press entitled "Trimming the Fat," though I am no longer playing bass for them. I also started a new band recently w/ some friends in which I sing. Tentatively called Bloodtype, but all the members are straight edge and it kinda sounds like early New York Hardcore: Abused, Antidote, Urban Waste mixed w/ the early Rev type stuff. The Poison Planet 7" and comp tracks that I played on are out as well. I went out to Chicago last month for the record release show, which was honestly one of the most fun shows I've been at in a while.

For those that just check here to see record reviews, don't worry that will still be done, but as I'm on somewhat of a budget, they won't be as frequent. I've got a sizable stack building, and I'll be doing one soon.

You can also follow me on Twitter, though for the life of me I wouldn't know why.

Birthday Blog '08

Well, it's that time again... Here's what's been going on with my life the past year. Had some ups and some downs, luckily the downs seem to be far behind me. Over the past year I left a horrible full time job, and freelanced for the summer. Got rough at times, but I've been working at a job I like since October. I'm doing pre-press and production work at a cool design studio in PA. I did a pretty big freelance project recently, designing environmentalist t-shirt designs. Ten designs were completed, and I'm really proud of how everything came out.

My bands have been more productive this year also. Wormeaters finished recording our "In God We Thrust" 7", which will be out on Hardware Records in a month or so. The mastered version should be coming this week, and I need to finish the artwork. SPG just finished our demo last night, and have our (2nd) first show tomorrow. We're going to re-mix it, but we'll have some limited "shit mix" demo tapes at the show. The Wormeaters boys also have an alter ego, which we've been calling Video Nasty. The name may change, but we sound like late 70's/early 80's California styled punk (Germs, Adolescents, Sin 34). We've got like 8 songs, so we'll probably be recording soon also. I've been booking shows still, but I'd like to be more selective since it's a real headache to organize.

Today my family went to Famous Dave's Bar-B-Que for my birthday dinner, and had this:

Yea, it's served on a garbage can lid...

So pretty much more of the same; work, punk bands and general complaints. Thanks for stopping by.

My claim to fame

Back in 2002, I won a design contest to do a t-shirt for a horror movie website. I got some free shirts, but that's about it. The site was cool enought to put my contact info on the page for the shirt. Occasionally I'll get fan mail from people who were just really into the design.


A few years ago my old band, SNAKEBiTE, played with another local band called Scream Hello. I was looking at their merch at the show, and saw a sticker with some familiar artwork. I guess they saw the shirt design online and liked it. As an artist and a punk, I've stolen tons of movie images for flyers; it's pretty flattering to have the punk scene steal my art.


When I went down to Richmond for No Way Fest a few months ago, and I ran into someone with the same art tattoo'd on their arm. I was shocked and excited that someone thought it cool enough to get permanently inked on their body.

This weekend I was at the Monster Mania convention, and saw a vendor selling that same shirt design. I guess it's cool to create something of quality that is still being produced. It would've been nice to get a cut of that, but it's just cool to have been a part of something like that.

Friday the 13th

Despite its bad rep, my Friday the 13th turned out pretty good. My Thursday the 12th wasn't as good, since I got a speeding ticket. Friday was really busy with work, a job interview and a show I set up. I cut out of work an hour and a half early since the job was over an hour away, but I still wound up being late from my interview due to traffic. Interview was good, seems like it'd be an awesome job opportunity, but at this point I know not to get my hopes up too early. After that I had to go back north to New Brunswick, which took another hour. I wound up getting there @ 6, and helped clean up the basement. everything went well, despite me stressing about time. I'm glad everyone seemed to have a good time, and there were no problems. I wish there was an extra half hour, so all the bands could've played longer. Thanks again to Katy for letting me do this. All the bands were super nice, and nobody gave me crap about asking for cash.

BrainDead- Really good modern hardcore. Saw them in FL, and found out they were from NJ/Philly. Thought they'd jive well w/ Ruiner and Hostages. They played really really well tonite too.

Hostages- Not too shabby, I'd never heard them proir to this but their sound was along that same line. A lot of parts seemed to ring out too long and drag, but not bad. I designed one of their shirts also, check it out here.

Disnihil- Not bad, first time seeing/hearing them. They had a His Hero is Gone vibe, maybe Celebrity Murders mixed with Tragedy. It was heavy and fast, but nothing stood out too much.


the Horror- Loved them when I saw them the first time they came to America back in 2003. They were even better tonite, a lot of the new songs have a heavier rock vibe, but still undoubtably hardcore. I felt bad I had to cut their set short, the last block of songs were all off the first 10".


Ruiner- Basically had 15 minutes and did their entire set w/o any breaks. They're probably one of the best, and hardest working current hardcore bands. Black Flag cover was awesome, especially since I've seen Ruiner at least 7 times, and it's only the second time they've done a cover.

thanks again, that was probably my best show so far. I've got another one next weekend on Sat @ Southwest Burrito in NB, NJ, and another one on April 29th @ Rancho Relaxo. Saturday, Wormeaters recorded all the music for our demo. I think like 7 songs, but we still need to do some mixing and record vocals. This week I'm seeing the Vicious Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Good times!

*I've been taking a ton of pictures lately, but I'm gonna wait to upload them all at once*

Birthday Blog '07

So here it is again, you may remember that I made a blog post on my birthday last year. Here's what's going on currently, if you don't already know.

I've been working at the same place for the past year, and it is absolutely terrible. I'd say that the majority of the time I was there I had nothing to do, and had to make up little projects for myself to keep me busy. The internet, while fun for slacking off, really doesn't hold my interest for 8 hours. When I was hired, I knew my salary was really low, but figured after a few months they'd see that I know what I'm doing and I'd be getting paid what I should be. Over as year later, and despite many efforts, no raise is in sight. Recently I told them I wouldn't design anymore, since I'm not being paid for it, and you'd think they'd fire me right? NOPE. I've been interviewing a lot lately; I had one yesterday that went OK I guess. At this point I'd take basically anything, but ideally a design firm located somewhat near Philly.

Aside from work, I've got 2 bands to occupy my time. SPG (stands for Special Patrol Group) has been together since July, but for one reason or another averages one practice per month. I wish it was more frequent, but the practices always rule, and I'm sure once we record it'll sound great. I'm crossing my fingers for a 4 or 5 song demo tape by the end of March. SPG started by me posting on some message boards that I wanted to do a band, and I was surprised to find 3 like-minded people. Our sound is similar to bands like Deathreat, old hardcore w/ Japanese thrash influences.
My other band, Wormeaters recorded a practice song a few weeks ago, and I'm hoping we can get a demo done before the April 13th show (see below). I also just found out that we got to play with the Inmates on June 2 in Baltimore. Hoping we have a 7" done by then. The music's prety cool,it sounds like older HC bands like Agnostic Front, Negative Approach, YDI, Mental Abuse.... Our singer's got a real gruff voice, like the singer from GISM or something, so it sounds real different.

To "celebrate," I'm going to a show tonite (big surprise), I gave myself a shitty mohawk, and I bought myself a sweet Project X longsleeve. Good times, I'm gonna see if root beer 40oz's exist because I want one...

NO more SPEC work!

I came across No ! Spec yesterday, after talking about some of my recent client troubles at work. In the graphic design industry it seems pretty common that people will try to get you to do work for them without paying you. Speculative work would be a scenario where if you do this one thing, they'll pay you for the next thing. There is no contract or guarantee that more work or payment will come at all. Contests are also this way, in that it cheapens professional designers by having people spend their valuable time working on something with no compensation. As a professional designer, I can potentially be spending my time working on paid client work, or improving my portfolio. By wasting time on jobs with no benefits, it really serves no purpose from my standpoint.
The past few potential gigs I've lost due to artists who will lowball their rates to a ridiculous proportion. I don't think my rates are high at all, and I make them up based on the client, but it seems like clients themselves aren't willing to spend money for quality. I recently got in contact with someone who had wanted me to do an illustration for a t-shirt. We had a few back and forth e-mails, and then he told me that he had no budget to pay me but would give me free shirts and promised more work in the future. This job was also advertised on Craigslist as a "job," if it was advertised as "do stuff for me for free" I doubt anybody would have responded to it.
Clients: If you want quality work done, you're going to have to pay proportionally for it.
Designers: Don't sell yourself short, you cheapen all of us by bowing to the whim of these people. Clients should have to sell themselves to you just as much as you have to sell yourself to them.

EducationMasturbation

So lately with all the graduation speeches on the news, and my own mother finally graduating college; I've been thinking about the impact and importance we seem to place on education. Myself being a college graduate with an and Associates Degree and a Bachelors Degree in Graphic Design. After graduating college, it took me about 2 and a half years to find a full time job in my field. In a way it leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth in regard to my educational experience.

Could I have gotten a job in my field with just a high school degree? NO, my high school guidance counselor even gave me grief for taking "too many art classes, and no honors classes." While to the average student, I suppose honors level classes look nice on a transcript, however for an artist, obviously your portfolio is graded higher than your academic scores. It seems like the high schools are more concerned with making your learning experience hard, so that college seems easy. I was a B/C/D student in high school, then when I went to college, I miraculously became a A/B student. WHY? What's the point in scaring students into thinking "if high school was this hard, college must be horrible." Maybe if my high school was a little easier, I would have had better grades and more confidence to apply to a 4 year college, rather than the local county college. Plus, the arts departments were ether being demolished to make way for a new cafeteria, or were given PC with no design programs on them. The only function they ever filled was to type out text in MS Word to print and glue on to projects.

Could I have gotten a job in my field with just my Associates Degree? Maybe, but nothing that I would enjoy doing. The teachers at the school were way too old to be teaching graphic design, which is a field which forces you to stay on top of things. By teaching us the extreme basics, and filling our head with pointless outdated knowledge, I feel like I was wasting time. And it turned out I kind of did, since when I transferred, I wound up losing about a year worth of classes. What is the point of tenure for teachers, sure job security is nice, but if you're essentially training a workforce for the job field, then you should be forced to keep on top of things, just like any professional. Now my father is a teacher also, but he's taken classes in graduate study, and goes to seminars to keep up with things, and teaches a basic level class.

Could I have gotten a job in my field with my Bachelors Degree? Potentially yes, however I didn't. I certainly learned a lot about design, but I had little experience and no clue how to search for a job. The experience was by my own initiative to get an internship, and do freelance work, but the average graduate had no experience what so ever. After graduation, my school did nothing to help with the job finding process. I had a nice portfolio, and a resume but no real leads on a job. By the time I actually found a job, my portfolio was outdated, and I barely showed any student work.

Do I regret going to college? No because I learned many skills on the way to my degree, which helped me in the long run. However, a lot of what I learned on my own is what made me have the skill level I have now. I was able to take things further, and am able to adapt to various diverse jobs. I'm still not at my dream point in work, ideally I'd want something that was well organized, busy and allowed me to utilize my skills to their fullest.

Is college necessarily for everyone? Definitely not, I know plenty of people who didn't go to school who make a lot more money than me. Plus they don't have as many student loan bills to worry about, and have been working professionally longer than me. If you're willing to dedicate yourself to get the skills you need without college, you will find that you are judged more on your skills, dedication and abilities in the long run. The stigma that you need to have a degree to so somewhere in life is ignorant, and doesn't apply to everyone's career goals.

spreading the reality

You may notice the links on the side are all related to me. It's my blog, I can do whatever I want. Anyway, so when I first got my site I was kind of against posting art on other places. Over time I've come to realize that my artwork can be viewed on more specific mediums. Recently I've uploaded all my video work on YouTube.com a few months ago, and within that time my videos got 3365 views. That's pretty rediculous! I also just posted my first font on daFont.com on Friday, and as of writing this so far 607 people have downloaded it. I guess spreading myself out into more specific mediums is a good thing, even if it doesn't get me more jobs, at least more people can appreciate my hard work.