Paper Planes

Also in upcoming events: I will be a guest stunt drawer along with comics super-friend Billis Helg at the next Landlord’s Daughter concert. The event poster (above) features some of my artwork with design by Landlord’s Daughter frontman Sean Michael Robinson. The concert is Friday night (October 28th) at Cafe Racer in the University District, so stop by if you’re in the neighborhood. I will draw you something nice while you listen.

My pals, the Sundance Kids, are about to go on tour. Here’s the album art I did for their latest, Trippy Rippers. They have a tumblr here.

Gaga - why not?

There’s a Landlord’s Daughter/Old Bottle Black concert coming up on April 23rd at Cafe Racer in the University District. Fellow artist/friend Kaia Chessen and I will be accompanying the music with live stunt drawing for the evening. Pictures start at 8 and sound at 9 - hope to see you there!

Beyond Rainbows: Radiohead Portrait. Colored Pencil, Digital. 2011.

About two years ago, on a cold Minneapolis night, my friend Brandon asks me, “Hey Carl, do you like Radiohead?”

“What? No! What the the hell is a Radiohead? Is that like The Facebook?”

So Brandon goes over to his computer and starts playing In Rainbows, track seven.

“Wow,” I say. “This woman has a beautiful voice.”

“Uh, actually it’s Thom Yorke’s voice. He’s the lead singer and he’s a guy.”

“Oh.” I say. “Well he has a very beautiful voice. And yes: I guess I do like The Radiohead.”

Anyway, Radiohead released a new album today. As a strange coincidence, I finished this portrait of Radiohead earlier this week.

I just completed work on an eight-page short story for an as-of-yet untitled anthology my friends are putting together. The story is called “A circle before we all go under”, and you can read the whole thing online here. I’ll have more details on the print edition as it gets closer to materializing (probably sometime next month).

Also, interested parties can now purchase a copy of “No One’s Looking”, the Landlord’s Daughter album featuring my artwork, by going here. For eight bucks, it’s a steal.

All the best.

-C

There are now high quality versions of my “No One’s Looking” album art available for viewing over at my Flickr photostream. Also related: If you’re looking for a fun way to kick off the weekend, Landlord’s Daughter is playing at The Blue Moon over in the University District at 10:00 pm tonight, and then tomorrow at The Comet around 9:00 pm. I went to the album kickoff last month, so I can testify that these guys give a great live show.

Ladies and Gentlemen, please mark your calendars: On the evening of Thursday, February 18th, at the famed Comet Tavern on Seattle’s storied Capitol Hill, my pal Sean Robinson’s band Landlord’s Daughter will debut their third studio album, entitled No One’s Looking, at 9 o’clock PM. I hold the tangential distinction of having produced the album’s artwork (some of which you can see in the last two posts) and I’d like to encourage folks to come to the concert and/or buy the album since it’s one of the coolest projects with which I’ve been associated.

Landlord’s Daughter has been carefully preparing this little sonic gem (you can hear four of the tracks online here) for about a year now, and it’s a nuanced listening pleasure. The album barrels out of the gates with the frantically manic “Srebrenitza of the Wolves”, but it’s not long before the flirtatious exuberance has slipped off, and the soundscapes of the later songs become much darker. There are moments of tenderness, humor, and joy throughout No One’s Looking, but nothing is as it seems and none of the thirteen tracks are far removed from a dreamlike sense of uncertainty. Landlord’s Daughter has some serious musical chops, (The better to eat you with, my dear!) and it’s alarming when you realize just how easily they’ve used these skills to charm you into the album’s more threatening material. It’s your childhood friend again with his dangerous schemes and ideas which somehow all became yours when it turned out that someone was watching – perhaps the album’s title is alluding to his dubious promise? And perhaps I’m making No One’s Looking sound overly devious, (make no mistake, it’s full of deception, threats, and sadistic twists) but like that childhood friend, it’s also fully capable of remorse, intimate confidence, and moments of unprompted compassion. Sometimes funny, sometimes wistful, on occasion cruel, No One’s Looking never forgets to include you in its schemes, and you’ll find yourself missing your accomplice when it’s all over.

Anyway, you should take a listen, attend the concert opening if you can, or maybe even buy the album when it becomes available (I’ll post). It’s terrific stuff.

More info is forthcoming …