Every year around the holidays instead of being a well adjusted human being and going outside the house and reconnecting with family and friends I hustle my arse off inside my house to make an original christmas music video to be ready by tib's eve. It's a weird thing I've decided to do and this is my 7th year doing it, if I keep at it in 5 years I'll have 12 songs which is an appropriate number for a christmas album at which point I will stop writing these things and put out a cd or something which will be my christmas gift for everyone that year I guess. This year I made a kinda smooth 80's pastiche using my sexy flu voice and the awesome saxophone stylings of Chris McGee. The video was made by filming through a boiling glass kettle and the song has the second lowest content of immediately objectionable lyrics of any of my christmas tunes. Giv'er a view and Merry Christmas ya'll!
I have the lovely honour of being including in the new issue of nationally distributed arts and culture magazine Riddle Fence! They picked three of my paintings to accompany a story by Robert Chafe. It's a beautiful issue and a real treat to be a part of, I'm very happy with the way the paintings looked on the page. Check it out on a art magazine rack near you!
So pleased to check this years Overcast's Peoples Choice Awards issue to see that I got voted 2nd Best Book Cover, 2nd Best Recording Artist Who Rarely Plays Live, 3rd Best Illustrator and (most surprising and flabbergasting) 3rd Best Visual Artist in Town behind the illustrious company of Mike Gough and Will Gill! Holy Moly! Pretty cool pretty cool. I'm gonna have to start playing more I suppose.
Made this here ridiculous poster for a big show with some of my favourite acts in town. Everybody should go.
Had the wonderful privilege of being a part of this years Cards For Sarah. My drawing of a freaky reindeer is one of 10 Christmas cards from some esteemed local artists all to support the charity of Young Adult Cancer Canada in memory of the dearly departed Sarah Turpin, a very young mother of three children under three years old. It's a great cause and it's a beautiful set of cards perfect for your festive holiday gift card activities. Buy the whole set of 10 here!
Super pleased to have a piece of mine included and lovingly silkscreened into the latest edition of A Whale and Other Disorders from Pink Eye Prints. This "zine" is an unprecedented 12 by 18 inches and every page is expertly silkscreened and handbound in such a way as to easily unbind and separate out into individual prints. So essentially you are purchasing a collection of 15 or so beautiful prints from a pile of talented local St. John's artists. Purchase it here! Perfect Christmas gift.
On November 13th I have the privilege of exhibiting some very fresh new works at Gallery 24 downtown. It'll be 8 new drawings in a follow up to my "Birds of Newfoundland" series, this time "Aquatic Invertebrates of Newfoundland" (such as the Atlantic Rock Crab above) along with a few new paintings which aren't of aquatic invertebrates but are decent to look at regardless. I'm sharing the gallery space with the fantastic artist Ying Guo who will have some beautiful distractions to see as well. The openings at Gallery 24 are always fun and lively so be sure to show up and hey, don't forget your cheque books and credit cards at home, culture ain't free! (I guess sometimes it is, but you'll want to take some of this home with you)
When I joined Instagram a few months ago I figured I should treat it like a project and try something new, so I downloaded some timelapse apps for my tablet and started carrying it around while I walk around the city, making freaky hyperlapse videos of my walk that are less than 16 seconds long. After awhile I figured I should make something with all these video bits and I figured this song off of my rpm album "Rabbit Parallel Miracles" called "One Bitter Tablet" would be the most appropriate song to pair with the seizure inducing hyperlapse videos. It took 2 or 3 months to accrue enough bits to cover a 5 and a half minute song (it takes about 30 minutes of filming to make a 10 second piece). but anyway, here it is, it turned out pretty dece I think.
There is a lovely new gallery in town down at the end of Casey Street called Gallery 24 that opened this weekend in a grand fashion. It's a really nice little spot with a great selection of local artists such as Candace Fulford, Jennah Turpin, Kathy Oke, Noah Bender and yours truly! Go on down there and check out my latest painting (shown above) plus a couple other pieces. Also you can pick up a copy of Birds of Newfoundland down there if you are so interested. It's a lovely spot. Representation! Exciting!
With my better half out on business for a couple weeks I figured it was a good time to do an annoying project in the house that I could start and finish in a few days. My latest Sad Tax album has been getting a really positive response from people so I got busy on making a Sad Tax video. This song "The sun is a horrible thing" might not be a catchy pop song but it had the right texture for what I had in mind and I like anthropomorphizing landscapes. Making the video involved quickly shooting and editing a lip-syncing video then arranging each frame of the video into a couple dozen contact sheets, then printing each of them out, then mangling and altering them, spraying them with water and carefully scanning them in and re-animating it. This is what that looks like.
My 7th consecutive RPM challenge album is out in the ether now. "Rabbit Parallel Miracles" the 4th Sad Tax album and I think it might be my best RPM album so far. It was a bit of a struggle this year, I was sicker than I have been in a long time and inspiration wasn't smacking me in the face as much as I would like. Some of the songs were hard fought slogs of lyric re-writes and a million re-mixes but I think the songs flow really well together. Give it a listen down below!
Every Year I make a Christmas song and video from scratch in the last few days before Christmas day. I've become quite taken with writing Christmas songs as the genre fits beautifully into my quest to write the saddest song in the history of the world. No other yearly event has so much built in, intense expectation for happiness and familial joy that it's impossible to examine it without coming across infinite opportunities for disappointment and sorrow. Literally any sad topic or event can be made immensely more tragic by having it take place at Christmas time. So this years song is about Alzheimers. I came up with the concept while on vacation in Hawaii making it a Christmas song that takes place in Hawaii adds an extra layer of absurdity to the mix as everything about Hawaii is absurd. The video is basically my vacation footage chopped up to a beat, nothing too fancy. The song (which you can download here) features my wonderful girlfriend Michelle singing in duet and playing piano, she shows up in a few shots in the video as well. Anyway, here it is, enjoy!
