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.

Your Weekly Mr. Littlejeans

[doing what he does best]

Chipped Type

Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with SprintSpeed

Western Eyes

Robert Adams: Clearcut, Humbug Mountain, Clatsop County, Oregon, 1999–2001

Astoria, Oregon-based photographer Robert Adams has been awarded the 2009 Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography, being cited by the foundation as "one of the most important and influential photographers of the last forty years."

Robert Adams: Colorado Springs, Colorado, 1968

Past winners include fellow Northwest natives Lee Friedlander and Jeff Wall, Nan Goldin, Bernd & Hilla Becher, William Eggleston, Malick Sidibé, Robert Frank, Richard Avedon, Henri Cartier-Bresson – the list is long and varied and includes almost as many photographers I don't know as ones I do, but judging by the company they're in, I'm looking forward to researching them.

Robert Adams: Untitled, from What We Bought: The New World, 1974

More Robert Adams at PBS and Matthew Marks Gallery.

Capitol Radio One

Capitol Hill – the pleasant little district I call home – donated the most money during KEXP's recent fund drive, and as a reward, the station is broadcasting live from Café Vita tomorrow. There will be in-coffeehouse performances all day:

7:30am Beads
9:30am The Moondoggies (Changing mp3)
11:30am Say Hi (Northwestern Girls mp3)
1:30pm Mates of State
3:30pm Black Kids
5:30pm The Maldives (Whidbey Island Blues mp3)

I'm guessing there won't be a whole lot of lighters in the air at the 7:30am show but I'll definitely wake up with the Moondoggies at 9:30, and come back later for Say Hi and Mates of State (who played our vmagazine.com re-launch party a few years back in NYC). There are also a bunch of evening events, including shows by the Quiet Ones, Grand Hallway, Tacocat, and many more – click the flyer above for listings and get ready to rock out with your... grandé triple 2% extra foam latté... out.

[More info can also be found at KEXP.org]

Cuckoo Cuckoo

via TBTL.

BBBBound

[click to enlarge]

You can't own no loops

Running through my head lately for no particular reason…



I love the subtle bassline – it seems like maybe it was an unexpected outcome when he hooked up the sample, but then, being Premier, he capitalized on it.

Night Vision

When I was very small, The Cat at Night by Dahlov Ipcar was one of my favorite books. It's a disarmingly simple story about about a farm cat on his nightly walkabout, with illustrations by the author that show first what we humans see at night...

...and then what the cat sees.

I was a night owl even then, and there was something about the way the mysterious dark silhouettes turned to technicolor with the flick of a page that seemed like magic to me. Click to enlarge selected spreads below:








The Cat at Night was sadly long out of print; I poached my copy back while visiting my parents in Idaho a few years ago. But – just in time for those long spring and summer evenings – Islandport Press re-released the book last month, which is great news for kids (and kids at heart) everywhere. The book can be purchased here, and more information about Ipcar can be found at the website set up by the author/artist's son, Bob. Happy travels.