OFF! x RVCA

as i'm sure many of you have already heard by now, Keath Morris is singing in a new hardcore super group called OFF! (it's a bug spray too, get it!?!?). they have a few EP's out / coming out and i will be talking about those on this site soon enough, but first i wanted to post up this shirt i found, which was resently produced in limited quantity by RVCA featuring art by Raymond Pettibon....

so far, Raymond Pettibon has been the man putting the official creative stamp on everything related to this band (record art, t-shirts, live painting at their shows, he's in their music video on youtube...), and since i am a huge fan of his art, i for one am stoked! as much as his art might seem like a bit of an easy answer in this case given the ex-members involved with the band, you have to admit that it's pretty awesome to see his work being used in the punk and hardcore world again after so many years without it. more on this coming soon....

Knife Fight - Isolated 7"

in other Socal news, it's 2010 and Knife Fight recently released a new 7" on Painkiller Records titled "isolated". Jordan Darby created the artwork for this release and i'm always a big fan of his illustrations. for this record, the cover sleeve unfolds to be a huge 15" x 22.5" double sided poster, which is beautifully offset printed and overall awesome. unfortunately, when the poster is folded up and acting as the cover, it doesn't make for very strong or memorable cover art. all the impact of Jordan's black and white illustration hiding inside the colorful plant rendering gets lost in the abstraction of the folds. here is a shot of the front cover...

same goes for the back cover.... i feel like both panels could have used a little more attention to detail to really pull you into the design.

here is a shot of the cover fully unfolded... great illustration, and i really like the idea behind the poster layout, i just wish the concept had been refined a little further.

flip the big poster over and the entire back side is a huge lyric sheet, and man is this thing fucking sweet!?! this layout has an elegant balance of contrasting typography and illustration, not to mention what might be the cleanest example of copyfitting on a punk record that i've ever seen. this lyric sheet could have easily felt very dense and heavy with all that type, but keeping the type size small and opening up the leading really lets the whole thing breathe....

A and B labels are standard issue...

get this from Painkiller directly before it's gone!

Rough Kids 2nd 7"

this past year i started playing bass in another band here in LA called Rough Kids, and our 2nd 7" just came out this past week. to keep consistent with our 1st ep, we had Robbie Simon create the art for this release as well. what can i say, the man has some nice personal style to his work, and for this record he put together a "fresh off the photocopier" design that's loaded with all the hand-done finishing touches that i always love so much....

these covers were offset printed and then hand glued by our singer (who co-released this on his own label Rough Records with the help of Margin Mouth Records). great use of cut and paste typewriter elements going on here...

off-white A and B labels are where it's at for me....

you can pick this up from Rough Records directly....

STRRRIKE TWO Art Show...

i recently made these three new collage pieces for another upcoming art show that i am in. the RRR Project (an international collection of artists committed to making new art from the scraps of their old projects) is about to release its second printed book, and there will be an art show in honor of the new book in New York City featuring new work by many of the artists involved. check out the pics of my pieces and if you are in the NYC area be sure to make your way out to the show! more info below.....

these are 11" x 14" matted collage pieces in 16" x 20" frames, and they were made from original scraps of drawings and screen print test sheets from my studio.

StRRRike Two

December 2nd - January 6th

@ The Simple Space

24 W. 57th Suite #601

New York, NY 10019

Artists:

Alex Weinstein, Anthony Zinonos, Andrew Holder, Chad Kouri, Greg Lamarche, Will Bryant,

Masato Nakada, Laura Bernstein, Peter Skvara, Michael Coleman, Mike Perry, Ryan Tatar,

Ed Fladung, Mark Kane, Steph Walker, Stephanie Hosmer, Peter Kaplan, Kassia Meador,

Paul D'Elia, Brookes Reeder, Scott Massey, Bijan Berahimi, Jason Murray, Chris Burnett,

Jonathan Sandridge, Mike Afsa, John Esguerra, Steven Harrington & Justin Krietemeyer.

NOMAG

while wondering around LA research shopping for work yesterday, i can across an issue of the LA punk magazine NOMAG from 1981 that was in excellent condition! this was the first issue of NOMAG that i've ever seen in person, so naturally i had to pick it up. it's an 11" x 17" full color offset printed zine on newsprint, and i have to say that content wise, this ranks pretty high on the coolness chart. NOMAG offered a perfect 3-way split of art, photography, and punk gossip/journalism. i really wish something like this existed today.... here are some pics of my favorite pages.

Arts Lp...

Youth Attack released this insanely packaged ARTS lp a few months back. i've actually been really excited to get this record up on the blog, but have also been totally putting it off due to the amount of effort / photography required of me to properly document this beast. what can i say, sometimes laziness gets the best of me.... also, i had to use my crappy point and shoot on this since i was recharging the battery for my real camera, so my apologies in advance if you find the photos not being quite up to snuff.

i have to say upfront that this is one of the most highly detailed and extraordinary examples of modern record packaging that i have ever seen. for the outer jacket, ARTS went with a rather unconventional design. instead of having one side open to slide the record into, this jacket unfolds into a five panel sheet. this is offset printed black ink on a 100lb coated cover stock and then die cut. here is a shot of the front cover, do you think it's supposed to be a vagina? ok....

a shot of the back cover folded up. beautifully crafted typography and lots of negative space.... perfect.

unfold the back panel to get to the record, here is a shot of the jacket opened up with the record inside....

yes, of course there is something printed on the inside of the jacket! i guess this guy is the gatekeeper?

the record comes housed inside a double sided printed dust sleeve. this feels more like an 80lb uncoated paper, and it was printed black on the inside. the artwork on this sleeve has a similar ornate feeling that we saw used in the ARTS lettering on the back panel of the jacket. i kind of like this idea of mirroring the same design on both sides of the sleeve and then slightly changing up the content. interesting....

the lyric sheet is hands down my favorite part of this record layout. this is a 8.5" x 11" sheet offset printed black and folded. this image on cover panel fucking slays me... what a beautiful hand drawn symbol framed out with some simple pencil lines. so perfect...

the back panel comes in as a close second. love this naive monogram they came up with, and the pencil line execution makes it a total crusher....

unfold this panel for the lyric sheet, in a blackletter font of course. it's actually a really nicely balanced lyric sheet.... the songs are clearly organized, it has a good mix-up of hand drawn elements through out the layout, and then also some random stuff happening on the bottom right corner to keep it interesting.

A side label is basically the back cover of the jacket, but hey, it works...

B label is blank. pick this up at Youth Attack while you still can, or find it on ebay later.

Cola Freaks- Mig Mig Mig Ep...

it's 2010 and Cola Freaks FINALLY have another piece of vinyl out! available now on Rob's House Records, this 3 song banger has some pretty wild cover art. illustration work credited to Elias Bender (who i couldn't find anything out about unfortunately)..... i fucking love this cover! what the fuck is that thing!?!?! who cares, it's awesome! and check out all the personality happening in those hand made type faces....

this is a 2 color spot print job done offset with metallic silver and black ink on a thinner and more delicate paper than you would expect for a record cover. back cover has another fucking awesome illustration of some sort of pig monster and overall just a really cool and informal back panel layout. very unique use of space with just about a quarter of the space left negative. it kinda looks like it was straight scanned from a sketchbook and just sent of to print! really love all the hand made type, can't stress that enough....

A and B labels are a snooze, but whatever... here is a shot of one of them.

Masshysteri - S/T Lp...

Sweden's Masshysteri did it again.... another top notch LP both musically as well as visually! this record came out earlier this year and i have been meaning to take pics for quite a while now, but hey, better late than never....

similar to their first lp, masshysteri went photo-real with their cover art, except this time it's a single image instead of a collage. i really like the consistency of their 3 releases in that regard.... it's always nice to see bands thinking about the look of their catalog as a whole when coming up with new art. all that aside, this is a pretty iconic photograph and makes for some classic looking record art. these jacket were beautifully printed on a thick uncoated chipboard stock and are cut / glued sleeves....

the back cover has a really nice feel to it, it almost reminds me on an X record in tone. so you've got a rad little hand drawn pattern as a background, layer on a band photo and then some hand written song titles over top, frame the whole image inside a thick black line.... instant composition! it actually has a level of personality that almost comes across as a page from an artist journal....

pull out the vinyl to find a full color printed dust sleeve with rounded corners. on one side you have a nicely layered full spread photo collage, which adds to the journalistic feel of the back cover art. most of these images look like they were ripped right out of the pages of their tour diary, but there are also a few live shots worked into the layout as well....

flip it over for a full lyric sheet of typewriter set lyrics assembled just haphazardly enough to look rad yet still retain their function. lots of great inconsistencies and mistakes in there, i always love that in a lyric sheet....

classy A and B labels seal the deal... check out that off-black / off-white color combo!

you can get this from Feral Ward directly...