I recently completed an interview for a German music publication called Teeter Totter. Check out the interview below.
Teeter Totter – August 2022 Issue
The Ethan Jones Interview
by Udo Werner
Willkommen, unsere Freunde! We got a chance to catch up with the undeniable Ethan Jones fresh off the release of his album “Ethan Jones Believes in Nothing and Falls for Everything”. Disguised as a moody melee of guitars, synths, and otherworldly noises, the arresting follow-up to his 2020 “McMcCartney” exposes Jones as a space opera sympathizer grappling with terrors and trials, giving us plenty to think about – and maybe even more to just listen to. After all, Ethan believes in nothing, so don’t get duped (too much) by his crafty humor. A few spins in and you’ll lose yourself in deep thought from the mesmerizing sonic layers. Let’s find out what the hell this all means…
Udo: Ethan, this is the second solo album you’ve released since the COVID pandemic began, and both albums have been written and recorded at home. What was the process like and how did you stay motivated to get it done?
Ethan Jones: Well, the first album McMcCartney was never planned. At the time, I had a bunch of demos that I’d been working on (some for several years) thinking that sometime I would use them for material to play in a live band with other people. As the pandemic hit and time went on, I started to play a lot of guitar and started messing with the demos. I was helping my friend Drew Rudebusch with art for one of his album covers and I played him the demos. He urged me to finish the songs and make an album. It was a strange time, I needed a project, and had such an itch to play that I finalized all of the demos and made them into real songs. I recorded all of the instruments, did vocals, and added a bunch of textural noises, like tracks of pure feedback and sounds created on my Casio SK-1. Everything was recorded in GarageBand by micing small amps with a Shure SM57 microphone to record the whole thing. I used a bunch of different guitars and a few effects pedals, but nothing too crazy. I was very focused on guitar tone, so the sounds I got were are what you hear on the album. Very little was done to the guitar sounds during mixing. After I was finished, I sent all of the songs to Drew to mix. Each track from each song was saved as an individual AIF file. From there, Drew pulled all of the individual tracks into ProTools and mixed the album at his home studio, Bright Black Studio, in Kansas City – adding his own twist and making it sound way better than it should have.
For the new album, Ethan Jones Believes in Nothing and Falls for Everything, the recording process was very similar. I used the same low-budget gear and recorded the whole album in my basement. This time – the album was planned… so I set out to make a cohesive album that had a good flow throughout. McMcCartney was sort of a mish-mash of songs that I’d been tinkering with for several years and parts were recorded at different times… sometimes years apart. Again, Drew Rudebusch mixed the album in his home studio. This time I gave him more liberty with the mixing and let him take more of a producer role. We work really well together and I think we both kinda share a similar musical vision, so I knew whatever he did would be cool (and I kinda wanted the finished product to be surprise, so I took a hands off approach).
As far as staying motivated, I am always creating something. It’s what I do and who I am. I get really depressed if I’m not making anything(art or music). Plus, I love playing guitar as a meditative outlet, so I’m always coming up with new riffs. I start by coming up with a riff and recording it on my phone so I don’t forget it. Then, I use a Yamaha DD-8 drum machine which is very low-fi and not programmable and find a preset beat that fits with the riff. I play the riff along to whatever beat I choose on the DD-8 and build the song. Sometimes when a song is finished/written, I will write a more traditional/complicated drum part on my Alesis SR18 drum machine, which is programmable and sounds awesome. Sometimes I stick with the crappy unchanging DD-8 beat. It totally depends on the song.
I had no grand illusions about putting the albums out on a label and/or gaining any sort of traction. I haven’t even tried to put a band together to play the songs live, even though multiple friends have volunteered and urged me to do so. I just like seeing projects though, and there’s always an end in sight where I come up with a vision of how the finished album should look and sound. I love coming up with the album art and I’m really proud of both album covers, which I did myself. When the albums were finished, I just threw them up on BandCamp in case anyone wanted to give them a listen. I didn’t send them to labels for consideration or even send them off for reviews. I’m not even sure how you found out about me and my music or how you tracked me down.
Udo: You grew up in a small town in Kansas before settling in Omaha – how did your experiences translate to the new album?
Ethan Jones: I grew up in a small town called Belleville, which is in the middle of nowhere in North Central Kansas. I would say that the way of my experience growing up in a small town translates to the new album is self-reliance. I was over an hour a way from a record store. There was no music scene in my hometown, so my small group of like-minded friends and I had to create one. I was lucky and had cool parents who had a great record collection and let me drive to out-of-town shows on school nights(as long as I went to school the next day!). Even though I was hours away from any city that had cool shows, I was able to see a bunch of important bands in my formative years… like Fugazi, Nirvana, Jesus Lizard, Melvins, Nice Cave, Pegboy, Sonic Youth, plus a ton of lesser known undergrounds bands that made a huge impression on me. So, I kinda knew what was going on in the music world even though nothing was going on in my town. I formed several high-school punk bands and we set up our own shows in strange places like tractor sheds on farms, the local crop duster airplane hanger, VFW type town halls, keg parties, etc. So, I learned from the get-go that if I wanted to do something musically, I had to make it happen myself. No one was going to call and ask my band to play with them at the local rock club, because there wasn’t one. I don’t feel bad about growing up where I did, and in some ways I suppose it helped me in a DIY aspect. I have always loved music and it was huge part of my life, even back then. I just feel like I had to work a little harder for it than the city kids(who had access to venues and record stores).
Udo: Coming off of the McMcCartney release, an album led by post-punk hooks sprinkled with stardust, you’ve turned up the ethereal vibe past 10! What drove the evolution of sound for EJBINAFFE?
Ethan Jones: I think I should give full credit for the evolution in sound from the rough post-punk of McMcCartney to the ethereal vibe of EJBINAFFE to Drew Rudebusch(mixer and producer). I have come to think of him as my only real band member because he adds so much to the sound of my albums. All of the songs on EJBINAFFE were recorded the exact same way with the exact same gear in a shorter time period. They were not spread out over several years and recorded in different ways/techniques like the songs that appear on McMcCartney. I think Drew picked up on the sci-fi vibe/theme of the new album and hit it hard with sci-fi effects during mixing and production. He had his own ideas… things I would not thought of. Like, I’d send him multiple feedback layers of guitar or Casio SK-1 textures, and instead of burying them in the mix to give it a fuller sound(like I would have done), he picked up on those noise layers and in some cases put them right out in front over the guitars and made them the focal point. That is totally where the ethereal vibe comes from. While writing and recording EJBINAFFE, I immersed myself in Frank Herbert’s classic sci-fi series, Dune. I read ALL 6 of his Dune books, and around 4 of his son Brian’s Dune books. Thousands of pages that HEAVILY influenced EJBINAFFE. Several of the songs, “Infinite Space” and “Theilaxu Girlfriend” are even about Dune.
Udo: I find myself thrown back to the 1980s Chicago punk scene throughout the new record. Was that intentional? Any influence from bands you’ve played in over the years?
Ethan Jones: It is interesting to me that you mention influences from 80s Chicago punk. If those influences are there, they are unintentional. Thinking about it after hearing you mention it, that is very possible. I am a big fan of (and use) drum machines. I’m a huge Ministry(from Chicago) fan and they use drum machines, so maybe a little of their aesthetic and sound rubbed off on me without me being aware. The music of Big Black(also from Chicago) and Sisters of Mercy(not from Chicago) is also burned into my brain – and they both use drum machines, so I’ve never thought drum machines were lame or shied away from using them. Especially since I don’t know how to play the real drums… creating music entirely by myself… drum machines were essential if I wanted any sort of rhythm in my music. As far as other 80s Chicago punk, I have been a fan of Naked Raygun and Pegboy since I was a little skater kid in Kansas. I love their stripped down punk drive and melody. There’s a pop element that makes it very catchy – in a bad-ass way – without being cheesy pop-punk. Maybe(hopefully?) some of Naked Raygun and Pegboy’s sense of melody and structure rubbed off on my music. That goes for Ministry and Big Black too. They are a different type of punk than the afore mentioned, but I am sure that I am influenced by their sound, aesthetic, experimentalism and bad attitudes.
In my mind, there is zero influence in my music from the other bands I’ve played in over the years. This is my own thing without any collaboration or other members pushing their ideas of how the songs should sound or be constructed. Maybe the closest band that I’ve played in that had any sort of influence on my albums is the noise band that I’ve played in since 2004 called Church of Gravitron. We haven’t been active for years, but haven’t broken up, and I imagine we’ll do something again in the future. The influence I pull from Church of Gravitron is the noisy aspect of my music. There are a lot of layers of feedback and other noise hidden in my songs. I learned all of those tricks from playing in Church of Gravitron, which is still probably my favorite band I’ve ever played in. Man could we clear rooms. I could give a whole separate interview about some of the bizarre, crazy live shows that we’ve played over the years… like setting up in the locker room of a hockey arena, then turning off all the lights and blocking the door once the room filled up with people so they couldn’t escape the punishment we were going to give them. The best quote I ever heard about our music came from a girl after one of our performances. She said, “Your music just made me think about war and fighting with my boyfriend”. We all took that as a giant compliment.
Udo: Tell us about some of the gear you used on the album – I hear a lot of overdriven fuzz tones, on the guitars, the bass, and the synth. What created this cacophony of sound??
Ethan Jones: The new album was recorded in GarageBand on an iMac with a cheap M-Audio MobilePre preamp/inteface, using the XLR input with a Shure SM57 for all of the instruments, and a Shure SM58 for vocals. Most of the songs on the new album have 4-5 different guitar tracks on them, so I used a variety of guitars to make all of the guitar tracks sound different. The guitars used were: a 1970 Gibson SG, a 1979 Gibson “The Paul”, a cheap Epiphone Les Paul Standard that I used in open slide tuning for slide guitar, and a Japanese Stratocaster copy called a Fresher Straighter that has 3 built-in effects and takes a 9-volt battery. I used that guitar for most of the noisy guitar tracks. For amps, I used a Fender Super Champ x2 for the main guitar track for every song. That was the lead track where I really focused on tone and is usually the loudest guitar track on each song. I LOVE that amp. The Fender Super Champ was used for other guitar tracks as well, like the slide guitar and the noisy tracks where I used the Fresher Straighter with the built-in effects. Additional rhythm(fuzzed out guitar) tracks were recorded on a little battery-powered Danelectro Honeytone amp, which I kinda refer to as my secret weapon. For recording purposes, the Honeytone with all of the knobs cranked to 10 and run through a MXR EQ pedal to shape the tone is magical. That combination is what I used for all of the fuzzed-out guitar tracks. The Honeytone and the EQ pedal were used with either the Gibson SG or the Epiphone Les Paul Standard. The Danelectro Honeytone was used all over McMcCartney as well. I used it so much that I blew it up and ended up buying a 2nd Honeytone when I started recording the new album. A little 1-watt battery powered Marshall MS-4 was used in a few spots as well.
Very few effects pedals were used. A Electro-Harmonix Soul Food overdrive pedal was used most prominently on all of the lead guitar tracks. That was the only distortion pedal used… everything else is the result of tiny amps cranked to the max. The only other effects pedals used were a Boss DD-7 Delay and a Electro-Harmonix Delux Memory-Man, which only make appearances on a few tracks. I should also mention the the importance of the MXR EQ pedal, which was used on almost every track. That thing is incredible for shaping guitar sounds and I don’t know what I’d do without it. It is essential for my low-budget-one-man-band-playing multiple guitars and amps operation.
For bass, I played a Squire P-Bass through a little 25-watt Ampeg BA-108. I did not use any effects when recording bass and got my bass sound by using the natural overdrive of the amp.
I wrote the song “Cathy” on a broken air organ that was out of tune. After writing the main part of the song on the air organ, I had to “untune” the guitar and bass so they would match the tune of the air organ. I threw away the organ after I was finished recording. It was fun while it lasted.
The only synth/keyboard I used on EJBINAFFE was a Casio SK-1 that I got at a thrift store for $5. So, all the synth you hear on the new album is just the Casio SK-1 on the “brass ensemble” setting going through an overdrive pedal. I think Drew Rudebusch did quite a bit of work on the synth tracks during mixing/production. I’m not even sure what he did or used to give the Casio SK-1 tracks that crazy sci-fi sound. Whatever he did sounds great. Give it up for Drew!
Udo: You worked with Steven Rikkers again on this album. What’s that relationship like and what was his impact on the album?
Ethan Jones: Steve Rikkers is a best-friend, older-brother type figure in my life. I talk to him almost every day. Before I explain I should point out that all of the songs on EJBINAFFE were written and recorded along to the crappy Yamaha DD-8 drum machine, so the beats were repetitive throughout and unchanging. I thought that about half of the songs needed some variety in the drum department, so I reached out to Steve who lives in Madison, WI. Around the time I was finishing up the songs that would become EJBINAFFE, he was going through some serious health problems and almost died. He lived, thankfully. While he was recovering from a very major surgery, I thought it would be good physical(and mental) therapy for him to play drums on some of my songs on the new album. I sent him the files and he recorded drums in Madison, then sent the files back to me. He played along to the DD-8 beats as a sort of metronome and added his own drum parts. On a few of the tracks, we deleted the drum machine parts and used his live drum tracks, and on others, we left the drum machine parts in to accompany his live drum parts to create a double percussion thing ala Ministry. This was actually the first time Steve and I had worked together on anything like this. We were room mates for a short time years ago and we used to jam together in his basement, but we never recorded anything. We share a very similar taste in music and over the years he turned me onto lots of obscure 80s punk/new wave/hardcore that I wouldn’t otherwise have known about. I knew he would be the perfect drummer to enlist for this project because he would totally understand the vision of what I wanted the drum parts to sound like. He knocked them out of the park as far as I’m concerned. It’s also totally impressive that he recorded those drums right after a major surgery – where his body was basically cut in half. Give it up for Steve!
Udo: The release notes mention your appreciation for sci-fi novels like Dune and incorporating dark humor into your lyrics and song titles. The album title itself is provoking, and when listening to the tracks I couldn’t help but ask myself “What the hell does this all mean?”. There’s a depth to it all, enveloped by an implication of meaninglessness. What do you want listeners to take away from this album?
Ethan Jones: Like I mentioned in a question above, during the writing and recording of EJBINAFFE, I was immersed in the entire Dune universe, and new album was very much influenced by Dune. I think Dune’s subject matter, characters, and entire philosophy played a part in my album. As far as the dark humor, there are songs on the album that related to difficult things I was dealing with at the time, and maybe the dark humor was my way of processing those things and dealing with them. For example, the song “Hole to China” is about burying my dog. My late dog, Duffy, had been my friend and faithful companion throughout my wife and my entire relationship. He was an important member of our family. He was there from the beginning, through having and raising 3 children, and was there for me during both very sad and very happy times of my life. He was 17 years old and putting him down was the hardest, most brutal thing I have had to do in my adult life. “Hole to China” is about burying him and not knowing how deep to dig the hole. The lyrics were my way of processing that very difficult situation, which might come across in a humorous way… even though there was nothing funny about it.
I know about all sorts of possible diseases and conditions a person can get and I’m a bit of a hypochondriac. So, next let’s discuss “Priapism Flies My Flag”. Priapism is a condition when a male has a constant erection 24/7. The lyrics tell a story of how some people would see that condition as a blessing… being constantly ready to please… but in reality what a curse a condition like that would be. It’s all in the lyrics. “My Posse Don’t Bluetooth” is about my hatred for technology. I don’t like Bluetooth, and for some reason, it always gives me problems. I miss cables and plugging things in. Cables worked great for decades – and then for some reason, the world decided to go wireless and it totally ruined my way of life. I often tell my wife that I wish technology never would have progressed past 1997. No smart phones, no social media, no data plans, no wireless anything. It would be great. I still have a VCR and I burn CDs to listen to in my car. “Cathy” is a song about my wife. Cathy is not her name, but it’s what I call her. She’s great and an incredibly strong and intelligent woman. The song used to be longer and have lyrics. At some point, I made the decision to ditch the lyrics and cut the song in half. I feel that even after doing that, the song still displays the same effect/feeling that I was trying to get across at the time when I wrote it. There is a depth to almost every song, and I might portray subject matter as meaningless… but it all actually has meaning to me. Most subjects I write about are analogies for other things. It’s not so straight forward that a listener knows exactly what I’m taking about, or the message I’m trying to get across, but hopefully it makes them think or have a positive or negative reaction. I do have a certain amount of malaise and a bad attitude about the world in general. I could say it’s all meaningless and nothing matters because we’re all doomed, which I do feel sometimes. Like I said, my music is a way for me to process my struggles. I often look to my heroes like Kurt Vonnegut and George Orwell for inspiration and direction.
Udo: You’ve got two solo records under your belt now after working for years in different bands. Have you crossed the Event Horizon, firmly planted in making music by yourself? What’s on tap for Ethan Jones?
Ethan Jones: Anything is possible at this point. Some friends that I’ve played music with in the past just recently reached out and suggested that we get something together and play material from both of my albums live. So, that might happen. I’m certainly open to the idea and I always enjoyed playing music with those particular friends. In the meantime, I will keep doing what I’ve always been doing… noodling around on the guitar, writing riffs, making songs, and recording my ideas – until I feel that I’m at a point with enough finished material to make another album… which I will put online and do very little to promote. I make music just to make it because it feels good to me. It’s all about self gratification. If other people happen to like it and find it unique and/or interesting, that’s great too.
Udo: Thanks a lot for this interview, and for thanking me for interviewing you.
Ethan Jones: Thank you for thanking me for thanking you for this interview, Udo! Peace and Love.
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I had so much fun making my first solo album, McMcCartney, that I made a 2nd solo album called Ethan Jones Believes in Nothing and Falls for Everything. Available now on BandCamp.
Listen to it HERE.
Ethan Jones Believes in Nothing and Falls for Everything is the 2nd full-length album by Omaha, NE artist and musician, Ethan Jones.
While his first full-length, McMcCartney, was not a planned release (songs were culled from home-recorded demos that were intended as material for a live band, then were polished up and finished by Jones during the peak of the pandemic), Ethan Jones Believes in Nothing and Falls for Everything was intentional. While Covid transformed Jones into a solo artist, creating McMcCartney without input, collaboration, or performances by other musicians opened up a totally new, self-reliant way of creating music.
With the ability to play, record, program, and experiment with all instruments himself, from 2021-2022, Ethan Jones set out to make a 2nd album in his basement using the same low-budget gear he used to make McMcCartney. This time around, Jones wrote and recorded all of the songs using a Yamaha DD-8 (a very basic, non-programmable, lo-fi drum machine) as a metronome – using the steady, unchanging beats as a foundation to build the songs. After the bulk of the songs were recorded, Jones sent the recording sessions to friend Steven Rikkers in Madison, WI. Rikkers recorded live drums for 4 of the 8 songs, playing along to the DD-8 beats in the midst of recovering from a major surgery. In some cases the drum machine tracks were removed, and in other cases the drum machine was left in to accompany Rikkers’ live drum tracks for a double percussion effect.
The new album was again mixed by Drew Rudebusch at Bright Black Studio in Kansas City, but on this album Rudebusch was given free reign to produce the songs however he saw fit, with very little input from Jones. The finished collaboration between Jones writing, recording, and performing all of the songs, Rikkers adding live drums to half the songs, and Rudebusch mixing and producing the album, resulted in Ethan Jones 2nd full-length album, Ethan Jones Believes in Nothing and Falls for Everything.
While much of the album was directly inspired by Frank Herbert’s classic science-fiction series, Dune(which Jones read thousands of pages of during the duration of writing and recording the album), there is also a large vein pumping dark humor throughout the album. Jones addresses real life issues here… his hatred for technology, the loss of a beloved family dog, hypochondria, and general malaise. Ethan Jones Believes in Nothing and Falls for Everything is a daring album that doesn’t really sound like anything – which he created with a newfound confidence, discovered in isolation, that showcases his gifts as a songwriter and musician, and uses anti-social traits of his personality to a unique advantage.
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It has been a long time since I have updated this site. After the pandemic hit, I felt like all of my creativity and passion for making things had dried up. Compared to what was going on, art and music seemed trivial and I didn’t feel like doing anything. As time went on and weeks turned into months, I realized that I needed to make art and/or produce something to keep my sanity. Somewhere along the line I realized that these things were not trivial, and were core to my mental health. Still, there is that misanthropy and lack of creativity which hasn’t gone away. Forcing ideas is a waste of time in my past experience. So… I looked back at some of the half-finished art that I had been working on but put on hold over the past few years and decided to tackle all of the half-finished projects head-on. At this point in the pandemic, my sanity is still questionable, but at least I feel like doing things and I’m not curled up in a ball. I finished a lot of art and it feels really good.
The latest thing I completed is my first “solo album” called McMcCartney.
These songs started as home recordings/demos that I intended to use in a live band. The demos very slowly morphed into real songs and I learned how to program a drum machine. I finished recording the songs several months into the pandemic. Most of the material was written 2018-2020, but a few songs go way back. All instruments were performed and recorded by Ethan Jones(me) using mostly cheap gear, a very slow, out-dated iMac, and one single microphone… a trusty Shure SM57.
The mixing and effects wizardry was done by my friend, Drew Rudebusch, who made this album sound better than it should.
Mastered by Darren Keen.
Listen or don’t. It’s free. Here’s the link to the album:
https://ethanjones.bandcamp.com/album/mcmccartney
“Invasion McUSA”
Acrylic on Paper. 2020.
This was a fun one. I started this drawing a long time ago, but it sat in limbo because I didn’t know what to put in the hands of the conjoined-twin Hamburglars. Somewhere I saw the poster or DVD cover to the Chuck Norris movie, Invasion USA, where he is looking straight ahead – blasting off flaming Uzis in each hand. That was all of the inspiration I needed.
“Bootleg Space Friends”
Ink on paper. 2020.
All of these space friends started out as individual sketches and were modeled after real bootleg toys that I found photos of on eBay.
“Wes”
Acrylic on Foam Board. 2018.
My friend JJ Carol down at Choice Custom Framing and Gallery framed my “Wes” painting for me. “Wes” is one of my personal favorites and JJ did a fantastic job with the framing.
Check out Choice Custom Framing and Gallery for all of your framing needs. Support small/local businesses and JJ – because he rules.
“Endless Bummer / Who Cares?”
Ink on paper. 2020.
This illustration was originally supposed to be the album cover for a sweet band I played guitar in called Dumb Beach. Most of the time we had 2 drummers with matching drum kits, bass player, and 3 guitar players, 2 of which had matching amps. Dumb Beach was Omaha’s best symmetrical party band and the funnest band I have ever played in. We recorded most of a full-length album, but ended up pulling the plug before it was completed. While being cooped up during Covid I decided to finish the illustration. It’s pretty dumb, as intended. Maybe I’ll make some prints someday. I’m posting both color and black and white versions because I don’t know which I like better. Leaning more toward black and white.
“Untitled”.
Dryer lint, Mod Podge, and contact lenses. 2020.
This was a continuation of the “trash art” I was really into making at the time. This was the last piece before I moved on to drawing and other things. For many months, I saved dryer lint and my used contact lenses. Saving my used contacts really grossed my wife out, but I tried to reason, arguing that this piece would go a lot faster if she saved her contact lenses for me too. She was not on board. As for the dryer lint, I have 3 kids, so I do a lot of laundry. At some point I began to notice many different colors, shades, and textures of dryer lint so I started collecting it in a bag every time I did laundry. This turned out to be a really strange piece. I had no idea what all of these trash items would look like when mixed with glue or if it would be a complete failure. This piece was a challenge and unlike anything that I have done before. I am pleased with the way it turned out, but will definitely NEVER try anything like this again! It is very heavy due to the layers and layers of Mod Podge used to cover the dryer lint and contact lenses.
Here are some photos of the process:
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I finally finished this ridiculous painting that has been in the works for several years. I can’t count the number of times I have painted over parts of this composition. I’m calling it “Manibreakfast Destiny”, which is styled after the westward expansion landscape paintings from the 1800s… only with breakfast foods instead of rivers, trees, mountains, etc.
Anyway… it’s for sale in my webstore and it would look great in your breakfast nook.
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I had so much fun making my first trash art piece, “Hail, Cesar Dog Food”, that I decided to make a 2nd piece in the same style. The genesis of the new piece came right around Halloween 2019 when I started to find Halloween candy wrappers all over my house. That, and my 2 elderly little dogs continue to eat tons of Cesar Dog Food and the foil wrappers from the containers quickly accumulate. Eventually I had enough interesting trash collected to start a new piece.
The great thing about this type of art is that there isn’t any right way to do it. Each piece takes a long time to make because they are created over a long period – bit by bit, working in layers and adding different elements until I feel like it’s done. Last night, I finally felt like the new piece was complete… so I present to you “Cesar Dog Food: Halloween Edition”.
As an artist, I try a lot of different ideas…. some work, most don’t. When I find something that does work that I enjoy creating I tend to stick with it; such is the case with my red meat collages and now the dog food trash art. This new piece will be the last of its kind and it is time to move on to something completely new. Maybe future art historians will look back and refer to this time as my “Dog Food Period”.
Anyway, I have added “Cesar Dog Food: Halloween Edition” to my web store where you will find it along with some other of my creations for sale and priced to move
As far as music goes… I have been listening to a lot of The Fall. Particularly, “This Nation’s Saving Grace”, “Bend Sinister”, and “I am Kurious Orange”. I am a huge fan of the band and like most of their huge catalog, but I think my favorite period is the lineup with Brixe Smith on guitar, Steve Hanley on bass, and Paul Hanley and Karl Burns on double drums. Last year I read ex-The Fall bassist Steve Hanleys book, “Life Inside the Fall”. If you are a fan of the band, I highly recommend you read it.
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Greetings and welcome to my website.
Here you will find a portfolio of my work, current projects, and a store where you can purchase my wares.
So for now… take a look around my website, buy some art, or hit me up if you are in need of illustration, design or commissioned work.
I listen to a lot of records and I’m a huge music nerd, so I might even post about what albums I’ve been enjoying while I make art.
Flesh Eaters “A Hard Road to Follow”
Upsetter Records. 1983
I’ve been listening to this album online for months and finally tracked down a vinyl copy. There has only been one pressing of this album in 1983, so it was fairly hard to find. This is the Flesh Eaters finest album in my opinion. It is an incredible record all the way through and something I can listen to over and over without getting burned out.
Bo Diddley “Self-Titled”
Chess Records. 1957
I just bought this record a couple of years ago and listen to it constantly. It’s one of those albums where I can’t believe I was 40 years old before I heard it and truly feel my life would be different if I had owned it as a teenager. Many of the riffs sound familiar because countless artists have borrowed from Bo Diddley.