731 and Friends

01-14-10

how serious are these guys?

regardless, this is how we should dance this weekend.

01-09-10

Greetings from Interstate 95

In the spirit of Steve’s last post I decided to also give a little synopsis of my travels over break.

Setting out on New Years day (our departure was pushed forward by a day due to an impending storm) Dave and I loaded up the Cadillac and headed to his sister’s spot outside New Haven CT. As soon as we arrived we saw a family of deer on their front lawn which I thought were fake reindeer statues left over from the holidays until they started moving. It was rather late when we arrived and everyone was asleep but we were greeted by a series of wonderfully informative signs leading us down to the basement where the beer was. We drank a few, watched Chappelle show and hit the hay.

The next day we grabbed a slice of that famous New Haven coal fired apizza. Our stomachs were full and ready for all that Pennsylvania had to offer us. We arrived in Allentown around supper time and were quite surprised by the level of hospitality our hosts showed us. A homemade vegetarian sheppard’s pie for dinner, a show at a local venue called the secret art space and an impromptu historical tour of the Lehigh Valley region. Dawn and Joel were wonderful hosts and after breakfast at the Queen City Diner the next day we headed out towards all points south.

Hey looks like we crossed the mason dixon line, we’re finally in the South… ok, so when does it start getting warm? Apparently not in Richmond, the ole thermometer registered barely over 30. Luckily the warmth of our hosts Abi, Chelsea and Rosie made our visit quite enjoyable. We started with dinner at a local gastropub near the university. The place was bizarre – no menus, just a listing of entrees at the door, one sink for both bathrooms outside the actual toilet area and some bluegrass bands attracting a wealth of punk-looking loyalists. Once back at their apartment in the fan district we shared drinks, stories and played silly games to pass the time. We were sad to leave the next day, but forward progress was what we were after and warm weather was the dangling carrot.

We were now deep in the South. Although TomTom said we were 30 minutes outside Charleston there were absolutely no signs of an urban center in sight. Plantation Oaks was where we hung our hats that night. Nicole brought us to a Po-boy joint she had been looking to try on our way downtown for dinner. I, the catfish and Dave, deep friend whole quail. This was some serious southern comfort food as even on an empty stomach I wasn’t able to join the clean plates club that night. Driving around downtown we finally realized why we couldn’t see any tall buildings as we we approached city limits – there were none. Palmettos, yes ma’ams, neo classical southern mansions and a strong police presence were the language of this land. Looking around, it seemed we’d been transplanted to the post civil war, ante-bellum southern society that used to inhabit these hallowed grounds. It was time to leave, the warmth we’d been promised was still lacking and we had a long drive ahead of us the next morning.

95 is a fun road, it has a twisted sense of humor that you only get to know after driving it for days on end. Towards the end of our journey I could hear it’s Maniacal laugh that seemed to be saying “no matter how long you drive me you’ll never reach your destination. MUAHAHAHAH!” Ghosts of all the lives it had taken and speeding tickets its patron had received lingered in the air around us. The naive exuberance for being back on the road was slowly evaporating from my mind as I learned even after crossing the Florida border we still had over 7 hours to go. At least we had the car’s outside thermometer to watch as it climbed to the 80s right? Ok, that was a bit too optimistic, 70s? Fine, we’ll settle for 60s. WHAT?! we’re here and it’s barely crossed the 40 mark? Yup, record colds kept the mercury just slightly above the freezing mark the whole time we were in sunny FLA.

It’s the journey, not the destination that counts.

01-08-10

san francisco record store, via disposable camera

01-07-10

california greetings

greetings from california. the place of dank sunsets, foggy valley roads, animal style in-n-out, grateful dead new years eve balloon drops, bob weir praising bowl smoking buddhas, authentic mexican burritos, heady views, tart frozen yogurt, accusing bouncers and windy streets

12-24-09

Films to see.

After spending god knows how many hours with you guys, I’ve started to become a huge fan of tea and movies, and im not talking about that lipton and hollywood steez. I’m talking about that chocolate mate and herzog on herzog level shit. Now that movie night is no longer a possibility, I thought it’d be cool if we can all make a “top 10 films to see” list from everyone. We can then watch movies from that list, also this list has be carefully planned out, any shitty picks might get you heat from pat the bORRg.

Maybe this can escalate to a top 10 list of all sorts of things such as books, albums, & trolls.

12-21-09

This is Tony and Me

Rocking the crowd

12-21-09

Life After Accounting: An Interview

I had a conversation with Allan walking home from a night at 731 a few years back when I still lived on Boylston. I didn’t know Allan that well at the time but surprisingly we had a terrific conversation discussing school, aesthetics and our plans for the future. He was a business major at the time and spoke to me about switching majors. He said he had always liked to draw and was interested in taking art classes at Northeastern. At the time I had also recently started taking classes in the art department for the multimedia portion of my degree. Both of us coming from analytical, math driven majors, were able to relate to one another in discussing our interests in graphic design, film, and traditional fine arts. From there on out I knew allan was destined for great things… or at least would be doing something he loved.

Here now 2 years later, I’ve compiled footage from an interview I did with allan as part of an ongoing series with members of the Mission Hill community. I’m glad Allan has kept up with pursuing his dreams of creating things that are beautiful and by what I gather of this interview it doesn’t seem he has plans of stopping anytime soon.

I’m lucky to have so many friends with artistic pursuits. Allan is one such person. Coming off a recent exhibition of his work at Savant Project, Allan’s show, “Life After Accounting”, is a series of highly geometric prints done with a restricted palette of opaque watercolors.
I had a conversation with Allan walking home from a night at 731 a few years back when I still lived on Boylston. I didn’t know Allan that well at the time but surprisingly we had a terrific conversation discussing school, aesthetics and our plans for the future. He was a business major at the time and spoke to me about switching majors. He said he had always liked to draw and was interested in taking art classes at Northeastern. At the time I had also recently started taking classes in the art department for the multimedia portion of my degree. Both of us coming from analytical, math driven majors, were able to relate to one another in discussing our interests in graphic design, film, and traditional fine arts. From there on out I knew allan was destined for great things… or at least would be doing something he loved.

12-21-09

How do we charge?

So, long time issue, first time poster [about this issue]. I come for guidance guys. As all of you know, I’m a graphic designer, which means at some point between doing things for free and beer to my wishful 6 figure standard price, I’ll be faced with pricing work based on who and what the work is for. I recently ran across this which got me thinking, but not until last night did it really strike a cord. I received a request to do a gig poster for a friend of mine which I have already done once for free. This time he said he’ll pay me which I thought was great until he told me $50. That’s bologna sandwich money in graphic design. I can’t say no and too shy to ask for more. So I’m stuck in a position of neither working for free nor full, I’m basically a cheap massage-parlor tug job right now. Not even. By accepting this, I slip into a slippery slope of allowing myself to accept cheap rates with the “beggars can’t be choosers” mentality. By saying no, I don’t get $50, which is something I need right now. Do I let principal rule over necessity? Or vice-versa? We give and we give and we give and sometimes we just need to…take, just a little. AM I RIGHT 731? I know that we all work in fields that require personal pricing so whats the advice. I feel like this is something we’ll all run into sooner or later, and I know a few of you have resolved this already, so let the opinions flow.

As far as the poster goes, the request was for 5 posters with one master and 5 interchangeable templates on the master that can undergo minute changes such as dates/bands/colors/small graphics.

This is my take on it. I have posted day 1, 2 and 5, so you can get a sense of cohesiveness to the set. The band names and dates are not included. Any opinion on the work itself? Is it $50 work?

All opinions welcomed. Thanks.

12-19-09

GIMP dick

I inherited a surplus of 900 series film (the rectangular ‘large frame’ size used by law enforcement in every crime scene investigation from an 80’s police drama worth its salt) sometime over last summer. The majority of the film was painfully expired and wasn’t salvageable, but a couple of the packs still could shoot. The only problem (which is common place with aging instant packs) is that the pictures come out with a light brown-reddish haze. Something like this:

The effect can be interesting, but I got sick of it by the end of the summer. I recently put the time in to color balance them (read: instead of studying for finals).. I cannot express how great it felt to liberate them from opaque orange oppression (o.o.o) Enjoy some summer / Long live color