Old Gold 6

I shot these slides for my MFA applications but I can't remember if they made the cut.

This beautiful machine has a vespa 150 super engine on an old cut up frame, with a p200 front fort and a fuji rabbit fender. It didn't get out much because it was scary to drive and extremely illegal but it was fun.

Old Gold 5

well, maybe not that "gold" but definitely old.

Car Crash 11

1989

20"x45"

paints

After undergrad I'd destroyed pretty much all my art work because I was going to law school! So, when I got around to dropping out of law school and applying to MFA programs I had to create some "art" for my packets. Car Crash 11 is one of those pieces. It was painted with left over paint (from the garage I was living in) on a canvas I found and I'm pretty sure it was in the trash not too long after completion.

Album of the Week 4 - A Christmas Miracle

I've had this album for about 20 years.

I remember buying it in grad school just because it was "Shell presents." I can't quite pass up something that merges oil with vinyl. It's survived 10 moves and several purges (one where my collection went down to about 100 records). The amazing thing is I never played it. What did I find when I finally did? - A Christmas Miracle!

it has the wrong vinyl, it has the vinyl from this album.

The production is creepy, everything is really slow and a little out of tune. If Quenton Tarantino ever does a Christmas movie this should be the sound track. Especially Oh, Come all Ye Faithful by Schulmerich "Carillon Americana" which sounds a bit like an Ennio Morricone tune, full of forboding and dread. And just when your completely depressed you get a coked up version of Jingle Bells by the Four Aces.

The best part is this album has been played into the ground. The vinyl is thrashed and full of scratches, pops and hisses. I just imagine a family having to listen to it every year over and over and over again. Until finally someone gets up the nerve to put it into the wrong sleeve and hide it away.

Merry Christmas!

Manual Haiku 4

Rotation of Tires

In such cases the

tire will be unevenly worn

and have a short life

Album of the Week 3

Merry Christmas Baby Jesus

the second coming 1

1994

Sympathy for the Record Industry

(Although the first volume looks better, I went with the second coming because of the El Vez track and the white vinyl)

This came out tens years after A Midnight Christmas Mess but suffers with the same problem. Like a vast majority of compilation albums (and group shows for that matter) most of the work is just okay, but the gems make up for it. It’s kind of sad in this mp3 era that kids can buy single songs and don’t have to buy entire albums just to wade through the crap so they can get to the one song they like. Actually it’s not that sad, but they do miss out on a song growing on you.

El Vez’s Feliz Navi-nada is the stand out. A really wonderful mash up of Feliz Navidad and Public Image. The Supersuckers “We’ll Call it Christmas” and the Muffs “Nothing for me” make me nostalgic for that grungy ironic angst. The surf bands (Man or Astroman, Bomboras and Go Nuts)hold things together and put in really strong efforts, with the Go Nuts Snackin’ Santa being the weirdest and best.

Group Show 2

Manual Poetry 3

When Beginning to Use New Datsun

You are now in the most important stage

in the life of your car

the "Breaking-in" period

The DATSUN

elaborately assembled

completes its breaking-in

during this period,

which will determine

the amount of pleasure

and advantages

you can have with your car

Album of the Week 2

A Midnight Christmas Mess - 1984

I was excited when I came across this album. I played it during the holidays back in college. The cover, by R.K. Sloane, got me hoping it would hold up over time.

The A side is painfully earnest and almost got the album put back on the shelf. Justin Love with “Here’s what I want on Christmas Day” and Johnny Rabb with a couple 80s rockabilly songs saved it.

The B side is where the “mess” begins and it’s pretty great. The Cheepskates start off with a nice surf tune and after that’s its sloppy garage. Yard Trauma’s “Christmas Tyme (baby)” is pretty listenable along with Nadroj & the Wolrats and Suburban Nightmares. The Tryfles top off the garage section with a good rendition of Gloria. After that there’s Screamin’ Jay Hawkins “It’s Christmas” which is worth the price of the LP.

Drawn to Television 3

Mythbusters and a general preholiday catatonic stupor

inspiration - Truckin' trading cards

I found this stuck in a book.

A Show I'm in - The Record

The Record

Contemporary Art and Vinyl

Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University

September 2, 2010 - February 6, 2011

Body and Soul

2002

Burnt Out Sun

2003

Old Gold 4

part of my Creatures of the Night series

My Heart Cries for You

2003

scraped album cover with permanent marker

Drawn to Television 2

The News Hour, a bit of the Daily Show and then an old Saturday Night Live.

Manual Haiku 2

from one of my Land Cruiser manuals

Clutch Slip

When the clutch begins

to slip, the amount of slip

is so small at first

A Show I'm in

Right now I'm in a show about bicycles curated by Tyler Stallings at the UC Riverside Sweeny Art Gallery, it's called Re:Cycle and it's up through December 31.

Brakes, Cranks, Shifters

acrylic on scrap wood

2010

I've been trying to figure out the purpose of this blog. Much of it is to examine my practice and where I get my inspiration. Here's a drawing I did over breakfast.

Old Gold 3

Here’s another slide from my thesis show. It looks like I used an actual typewriter to make the label and I love that I put the month on it. In the first room, hanging creatures were lit by tv tubes. I’d extended the wiring, so the electronics were up near the ceiling and the tubes hung down like light bulbs.

inspiration -gasoline storage shrine

There was a period in the 80s when gas in the US was around $2.30 a gallon and gas in Mexico was about 20 cents a gallon. My dad would go down to Mexico and fill the 100+ gallon reserve tank on the giant blue truck (I wish I had a picture) and then transfer it into dozens of gas cans. Of course the Mexican gas wasn’t the greatest and then when you store it outide a bit of water would get into it. Which meant that at a young age I learned how to change fuel filters.

This is a picture of the “shelf” today,

it really doesn’t do it justice...

back in the 80s it looked a bit more like this..

I keep wanting to do a piece about it – a shrine to gasoline.

Group Show

I have an ongoing project called Group Show, where I've been documenting my work and life in the form of album covers. I hope to create a record store data base at some point.

Here's one of the pieces from the Mod show, Aalto Pill Party. It was a look at knock off furniture and knock off drugs.

Old Gold 2

In 2000 I did a solo show at the Irvine Fine Arts Center. Technically, the entire thing was called Three Solo Shows. Carl Berg, the director at the time, divided the space between Jason Rogenes, Slater Bradley and me. It was a pretty amazing.

My part was Mod. It was a response to the 70s ski lodge modernist design of the space and a look at the cyclical nature of mods, modernist design and modern art.

Drawn to Television

Lately, I've been trying to get my drawing hand back. When I was in school I'd basically draw for four or five hours a day. I don't really take notes, I draw. Here are my notes from a recent conference.

So, to get my hand back, I've been drawing while watching TV. Last night it was Strangers with Candy and Reno 911. It will be interesting to see if things improve over time.

Album of the Week

The Ventures Christmas Album

Sure The Ventures are a bit like the Christmas toy that doesn’t live up to the commercials. With this Lp’s awesome cover and great theme, the music is fine but it didn’t meet expectations.

The first track Sleigh Ride is pretty great and everything you expect a surf/christmas track to be. After that everything is a mash up of popular tunes and Christmas songs. I don’t mind mash ups and I do feel the Ventures were a bit ahead of their time but it does get annoying. You spend all your time trying to figure out which songs they’re blending. If it was 1965 it might be easier but today your reaching pretty deep it the past to make the connections

Snow Flakes is this odd mash up of Spooky and What Child is This. Santa Claus is Coming to Town is mashed up with Wooly Booly. Frosty the Snowman/Tequila and so on. There are some Rolling Stones, Beatles and I want to say Muddy Waters but I’m not sure.

The best tune on the album is Blue Christmas. I’m sure it’s a mash up of some sort but it has a good crunchy sound and is actually a bit different. Oh and a small thumbs up should be given to Silver Bells for it's Framptonesque guitar vocalizations.

The oddest is Scrooge – a Halloween song in the guise of a Christmas song....mashed up with Apache (?) . owch.

On a sad note - I seem to have lost my copy of The Ventures - Underground Fire. I’m sure it wound up in a piece somewhere but I miss it.

Old Gold 1

I've been meaning to organize and scan my slides, maybe this blog can help. So, at least once a week I'll bring you Old Gold! todays slide

Leaping Deer – 1992

This was part of my thesis show at UC Irvine and I believe has found a home at a local landfill. It was part of a room of stuffed animal/ electric kitchen appliance hybrids hanging from their tethers.

Manual Haiku 1

Datsun 410-U

If not, the choke wire

may be disconnected from

the carburetor

Welcome!

Welcome!

I’ve decide to start another blog. It seems like such a bad idea I have to do it.

So, Deep Cuts will be about music, cars, my art, other peoples art, things and stuff. Let’s get started.

Right now I’m revisting my Creatures of the Night series from “Greatest Hits; Volume II” way back in 2003. We’ll see how it goes.