ANDIE LOU

New album cover for Andie Lou. Check out her fantastic EP, produced by Joe Pisapia, at andielou.bandcamp.com. 

THE PISAPIA LOVE-IN

Nashville music lovers: The Pisapia Love-In continues each Thursday in March at the 5 Spot. Featuring the music of Joe Pisapia and Joe, Marc's Brother. In addition to providing the poster art, I'll be playing some percussion and singing in the Pisapia band which features some of the town's finest musicians. As part of the residency, Joe will release his new solo record "Nightvision" on Thursday March 19th (see the link for more on the album and its artwork). Come on out and feel the love vibration.

LEVON & SUGAR MAN

Two new prints that I made for last night's Spectacular Poster Printacular are now available to pick up  here in my shop: Portraits of two musical heroes: Rodriguez and Levon Helm. Both are 18x24" screenprints made in Nashville at Kangaroo Press. SUGAR MAN is a one-color edition of 50 on slate grey French paper; LEVON is a four-color edition of 50 on black French paper. Each is $40 or you can get them both for $60. 

New BEFORE SUNRISE and BEFORE SUNSET prints are still in the shop as well.

Thanks to Bryce McCloud, Isle of Printing and the Nashville Print Revival for putting on a great show, one we hope to make a regular tradition in Nashville!

I've tried to forget the night that we lived

This is the best song I've heard in a long time



or at least since this one

POGO

Pogo is the alias of a 21 year old electronic music artist from Perth, Australia who composes tracks using sampled sounds and music from childrens films. I'm firmly of the mind that stuff like this should be on view at the Museum of Modern Art in this day and age; YouTube has blown open the walls that we have always used to define video art and experimental film, forcing us to consider anything and everything uploaded by any user as a piece of recorded art. People like Pogo are proving that postmodern art is alive and well, full of audiovisual possibilities and creative potential. Pogo adds his own beats and basslines here and there, but the videos of his I like best rely on the samples for the hooks and movements, like "Alice." I love how his sound editing results in nonsensical verbal hooks as in "Alice;" our minds try to make sense of these non-words and form our own gestalt sentences out of them. (here: "there is still always...")

Speaking of vocal hooks, Pogo's best might be in this Mary Poppins-based track "Expialidocious." Here you see that Pogo's videos have their own visual appeal as he intercuts film scenes along with the sampled music. The dancing cartoon penguins and the hotness of Julie Andrews don't hurt either.

A track based on "Candy Man" from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? Here you go.

If you know me, you know that a 100% ambient track based on sounds from The Secret Garden is gonna be one of my favorites:

I'm not crazy about the drum-and-bass action going on in this one, but any Harry Potter fan needs to see this, and I love the Richard Harris Dumbledore bridge of "Four hundred and seventy two second place / 'nother year / second" and the section that follows. Also a nice incorporation of the original film score.

When Pixar was preparing to release UP, Pogo became the latest in a long history of independent artists adopted by industry; Pixar commissioned Pogo to create an official promotional video for UP, and the result, "Upular" is below. Love the use of Michael Giacchino's score and the amped-up vocal editing. Great stuff.

And celebrating tonight's release of Toy Story 3, Pixar returned to Pogo for a new remix featuring Woody, Buzz and the rest of the Toy Story gang. Pogo's latest:

Follow the YouTube yellow brick road to learn more about Pogo, and stay tuned more many more internet postmodernists who I'd like to see in a gallery at MoMA.

BENJAMIN A. HARPER'S FANTOME

The second of three new EPs from The Comfies is now up for download. I've been a rotating member of The Comfies for over five years, and Benjamin A. Harper, the man behind The Comfies, is one of my favorite songwriters and singers in the world. Needless to say, I highly recommend you check it out and give it a download. This is a 100% independent release, with a limited-edition CD on the way for collectors. I created the artwork for these EPs, the covers of which will connect in a panoramic landscape. I also played piano on one of the tracks, "Christmas Eve Eve." I'm always happy and proud to be involved with anything Ben Harper and The Comfies put out, and to help spread the word about his music. Enjoy!

Download The Comfies present Benjamin A. Harper's Fantome at Bandcamp.