It is too bad the song is so bad…

My hand cramps up just watching this video for Trenchcoat knowing how much work it was. How do I know? More after the jump…

The Making of “Whatchagot”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Pitchfork has dug up the crappiest album covers of 2008. I don’t know. I must admit that here are some really lazy/awful designs this year but I think the one above could be one of the BEST ALBUM COVERS OF ALL TIME!!1! OMG!!.

Here is yet another way to ruin your day’s productivity, durn it. Ted Staunton’s 78 RPM Record Labels. There are labels going all the way back to the early 1900′s and proceed up to the ’60′s. I myself would show you all the ones I like but I am trying to get some work done if that is OK with you. Sheesh.

OK. Here’s one:

Via OmieWise at Metafilter.

This is a redesign for the Music on the Halfshell concert series held annually in Roseburg, Oregon. I was responsible for the overall design, fonts and layout and all the graphics on the site As well as most of the band content and research. (I was also took the photographs in the portfolio section for the years 2006 and 2007.) The site was built using the Joomla! content management system.

Visit this site

Copyright©2007 Creative Images. All Rights Reserved.

The first post in my two post series about light is musical in origin but is just as much about light as it is sound.

Last years debut album by Battles seemed to go unnoticed by most. In fact, I nearly missed it but I am certainly glad that I didn’t. It has been one of the albums that I have been listening to quite a bit lately and I return to it regularly however it is so unique that I couldn’t find a way to include a track from their album on my yearly mix CD. I just couldn’t make it work.

The band is made up of members of the (now defunct) bands Helmet and Don Cabellero, and you can hear the influences of those bands in the music of Battles. (Video bio here.) I can anyways. You could call it Math Rock or Future Funk or whatteverthefunk you want to call it but, in my opinion, it rises above those categories.

What pushed me over the edge on these guys was the video they created for ‘Tonto’, one of the tracks off their album. They teamed up with United Visual Artists (UVA) who are know for their interactive light installations that they create for museums and galleries. (I highly recommend that you click on that last link and peruse their entire site. There are some amazing videos of their installations as well as photos on how they are are created. They are doing some very cool things.)

UVA and Battles took their ideas to a Welsh slate mine. They created a sound triggered LED light display to match the music. In filming this, Battles played for eleven hours. If you were not aware, that is a very long time to be playing the same song. But the results are beautiful and the intermittent light flashes complement the music perfectly. Near the end they use gorgeous time lapse photography that ushers in the dawn as the song slows down to a crawl (from the 4:30 mark to the end, which is about three minutes). I find it very effective.

I hope you have good speakers and I hope you enjoy it. This music isn’t for everyone but the collaborative art is.

This was the artwork that I created for a mix CD that I sent out to friends. It was SO FUN to create and I think it came out very successful. The music rocks too.

You can search by band or by the designer. They also have a place to sell posters and other music merch. I did a quick search for Modest Mouse and came up with 145 posters. Some are super cool too:

And I have this Decemberists one designed by Mike King (reminder to self: go get it framed!):

If you find any cool posters, let me know in the comments!

Design and concept for Mighty Squirrel – 2007

(Center Squirrel Art by Caridwen Irvine-Spatz)

Go buy it