Music / Bill Callahan
When I first heard the Bill Callahan — aka Smog — song, Rock Bottom Riser, I didn’t know whether I loved it or hated it. Loved it because it stuck in my head for a good hour and twelve minutes afterwards (not that I was counting); hated it because … well, that’s an awful long time to have one tune spinning around your inner ear iPod. In the end, I gave myself over to it completely; to its organic beauty; its sense of imperfect pleading; it’s purity and sentimental hopelessness. It’s a major chord lament with minor chord persuasions. Listen to it under the warm sway of a glass of Australian red and it’ll sit inside your heart like every childhood dream you never had.
Listen to Smog’s Rock Bottom Riser and watch the illustrated clip to the song.
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New Zealand-born, New York-based artist and designer BEMODERN has updated his site with some work showcasing his new interest in the vernacular of digital distortion, creating pixelated static motion with a cut up montage from Google earth’s crude renderings. There is also a selection of new commercial work with motion boards for various broadcast and advertising clients. Read more
Fernanda Cohen’s New York portfolio class
The brilliant New York illustrator, Fernanda Cohen — who just happens to live down the road from me in Brooklyn — is teaching a portfolio class at Third Ward starting this coming Tuesday. The course, Illustration Portfolio, ‘helps students build a professional portfolio strong enough for them to feel confident to show it to art directors in the illustration field, including editorial and advertising’. She will lead the class in discussions about ‘what goes into a portfolio, and how to choose your best work, and talk about art directors, who they are, and what they expect from illustrators they are looking to hire’. Visit the Third Ward website for more details.
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Though most know Max Bode as an art director over at the ubiquitous New Yorker, he is in fact quite an illustrator. Creating bright, clean illustrations, in a style at times reminiscent of old video games and cartoons, Bode work is a real treat, especially when stumbling across one of his illustrations in the New Yorker.
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Lost At E Minor: Music, illustration, art, photography and more » Bill Callahan Woke on a Whaleheart said | 18 June, 2008
[...] Bill Callahan’s Woke on a Whaleheart is a little trip I take myself on every now and then when I’m looking to really sink myself into a piece of music. The album is packed full of sweet turns of melody, rich narrative - one of the most distinctive baritone voices around today - and a quirky, but highly original, quality that can be hard to find amongst singer/songwriters at the moment. If pressed you could pitch him somewhere in the massive spectrum between Jens Lekman and William Whitmore, both other-worldly yet very organic, as if his mind has been weathered by a few storms but still retains an edge of sharpness. It’s certainly interesting stuff, suited to those boozy evenings of introspection: a good experience, but not one you’d want every day. time savedtime saved [...]