Tidelands

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Moondoggies "Empress of the North" from Tidelands (out this week on Hardly Art). Video by Pacific Standard favorite Drew Christie – see much more of Drew's work at his blog Democracy for the Cartoons.

The Great Seattle Fire: June 6, 1889

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Fire Fire I Heard The Cry from Drew Christie on Vimeo.

Paper of Record

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Tomorrow is RECORD STORE DAY 2010. If you have a chance, you might consider heading down to your favorite local purveyor(s) of analog audio goodness to pick up releases produced exclusively for the event. Hit up recordstoreday.com for participating stores.

This year for RSD, Light In The Attic is releasing a special Rodriguez gatefold 7" (which I designed). You can't tell from the image but the type and the frame around the photo are silver foil-stamped.

We also did issue No.2 of the Light In The Attic zine. It's 7" square with a cover illustration of Kris Kristofferson by Drew Christie. The page-count is a little lower than issue No. 1, but it's jam-packed with useful info:

Emily interviews Betty Davis about her modeling career and status as a fashion icon (more about that in a later post).

Charles Peterson talks to Jini Dellacio about her photographs of legendary Northwest garage bands such as The Sonics and The Wailers.

Andy Beta interviews Miss Jane B. about her time with Serge Gainsbourg and what that was like. Light In The Attic has a couple Jane Birkin projects coming up that I'm way psyched about.

Kris Kristofferson and Charlie Louvin have a quick convo about old-time country and being, you know, legends.

There's also an excerpt from Andria Lisle's liner notes for the forthcoming Jim Sullivan release, and articles on or by Lou Bond, Gabor Szabo, Rodriguez, Kearney Barton, and more.

So: look out for that at your local record store tomorrow, and enjoy your weekend.

Image of the Day

. Artwork by Drew Christie, part of a series of paintings inspired by photographs from the now-defunct Gourmet Magazine. Every time I visit Drew's blog I become a bigger and bigger fan of his work.

In kindred news, former Gourmet columnists Jane and Michael Stern – who I mentioned previously in a post about their 1975 book Trucker – were on KUOW this morning talking about their favorite road foods. In case you don't have time to listen, I will hereby share with you the top three bits of Northwest-related information I gathered therein:

1. I was reminded that 13 Coins has great hashbrowns. Emily and I are on a never-ending search for good hashbrowns; they're almost impossible to get in New York (hashbrown wedges at Barn being one exception), so we're making up for lost time.

2. The producer of the show recommends beef jerky from Owen's Meats in Cle Elum.

3. Coeur d'Alene, the Sterns say, has one of the best burger joints in the country: Hudson's Hamburgers, which has been there since 1907. Maybe next time we go to Idaho we will swing up North and see if a Huddy Burger can top the best burger ever.

Keeping Kirkland Weird

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Artwork by Drew Christie from False Proof

Remember Drew Christie? Well, it has come to my attention that he has a show up in Kirkland, which is a town across Lake Washington where I lived for the first nine months of my life. Back then my dad was teaching art and shop at Finn Hill Junior High School and Kirkland was a semi-weird little hamlet, and not only because I was a dumbass baby that didn't know anything about the world (...or did I). Now it's full-on suburbs, the nouveau riche have taken over, and it's crawling with fuzz. Apparently, though, everything is not exactly as it seems in Kirkland; weird enclaves do still exist.

Samantha Scherer Did You Hear That? (i),
watercolor & gouache, 15 x 22 inches

To wit: the Kirkland Art Center is currently hosting False Proof, a group show curated by Cable Griffith, featuring Drew Christie and several other artists "creating work that exploits the bubbles we preserve between knowing and not knowing." Gonna have to go check it out. Might stop at Burgermaster on the way back.

False Proof is up through October 3rd. Get more info and directions at kirklandartscenter.org, and check out Drew's blog, Democracy for the Cartoons, for more images.

For the Record

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For the past several months I've been working with Seattle's Light in the Attic Records on a bunch of different projects (including a forthcoming re-design of their website). One of the most fun things I've had the pleasure of designing for the label is this zine, a free promo produced for International Record Store Day, which is tomorrow. The zine is 7.25" square, like a 45 record jacket, and b&w newsprint with a color cover. Inside there are a variety of features on artists that Light in the Attic works with, such as Serge Gainsbourg, Betty Davis, Karen Dalton, Monks, Rodriguez, Doug Randle, Stephen John Kalinich, The Mighty Pope, Kearney Barton and all the artists involved in Wheedle's Groove, the Seattle funk & soul compilations. There are interviews with the label heads and KEXP's Greg Vandy wrote a great piece about re-issues and radio. The cover, above, was illustrated by the very talented Drew Christie. Here are some of the inside spreads:

Karen Dalton (with an article by Lenny Kaye)

Monks (with an article faxed in by Jello Biafra).

Wheedle's Groove (Seattle funk and soul)

Serge Gainsbourg. Actually the bottom two spreads, of Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin during the making of Histoire de Melody Nelson, which Light in the Attic just re-issued, didn't make it into the final zine because of rights issues…oh well.

Rodriguez. I love those photos of him hanging out with kids in Detroit.

Betty Davis, with an article by Jeff Chang. That bottom photo looks like it could be by Scavullo but I'm not sure who took it. I'm also working on two upcoming Betty Davis releases – one with artwork by the famous fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez. More on that later.

TOC/masthead featuring Betty Davis

The back cover features Drew's illustration of Light in the Attic world HQ, which is in an old hotel on Seattle's beautiful/infamous Aurora Avenue. Label founder Matt Sullivan even has a pool and jacuzzi attached to his office through a sliding door – it's pretty fly.

Anyway, there it is – visit your favorite local record store tomorrow and snap it up.

Fine Print

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Drew Christie: Seattle City Hall 1882

I've been working on a fun project recently with Light in the Attic Records, and Seattle-based artist Drew Christie did a bunch of illustrations for it. I'll reveal that whole thing pretty soon, but in the mean time I wanted to post up some of Drew's other work – these are all linoleum cuts printed on old book pages.

Rahm Emanuel's War Chest

Mending Torn Net (from a series of images of old time Ballard)

The Birth of the KGB

Klezmer!

I really like the one above in particular: A Dispute Arises at the Thunderbird Logging Camp. You can feel tension in the stances of the two men and the way the front guy is clenching his fists. The guy in the back looks like he's more hesitant to get into it with whoever the wrongdoer is, but he's gonna back up the front guy regardless.

Go check out Drew Christie's blog, Democracy for the Cartoons, for much more.