Revised: DaVinci-punk Wins March Art Lottery!

***So I got a wild hair going and decided to do some extra rendering on Brett's winning description, so after a long night, here's the revised version, followed by the original blog post. Cheers! - DLJ, 03/17/13 ***

Brett Slocum won the month of March, and his idea for the daVinci-punk genre read thus:

"Think of the outlandish costumes and scenery of the planetary romance novels and movies of the 19-Teens and the 1920s as seen through the lens of daVinci's Florence. This setting is what I call daVinci-punk, and it basically asks the question, 'What if the genius of daVinci met a magical artisan equal to his talents, and then Galileo showed them his telescope?' They of course make a space ship."

So I put some mages inside the Duomo of Florence, imagined that a considerable volume of gearing would be necessary to prop up all the parts of the rocketship, and decided to send a young court-sanctioned explorer out to visit the Moon.

Hope you dig it, keep submitting new ideas - yours could be drawn next!

Regicide and the Wandering Monk: Shramana Album Cover

My good friend Reggie Herbert started a band a couple of years ago called Shramana, which is a special kind of anti-superstitious wandering monk, here in Missoula. Reggie rocks guitars and sings the songs while Levi kills and kills the drums, and they've written a killer/sick/rad album called 'Dreaming As Punishment.' They've got tight grooves and bring forth mountains of sludge and dirt from the underbelly of the Rockness Monster.

At their inception, Reggie was awesome enough to ask me to print their first round of t-shirts and patches, and we spent an awesome afternoon getting those done. Fast forward two years, and Reggie asked me to bust out the album art and a revised logo for 'Dreaming As Punishment.' Of course, sir! Would love to! They put the image on both the album and some full color pins, which was a great bonus! Here's the original art for the cover:

My god, this one was fun. All crit and feedback appreciated as per usual. You might want to check out Shramana's band page or Reggie's local music blog to get a good feel for these rad dudes. Thanks!!!!!!!!

Elephantitus of the Punks

Missoula=music=bands. Simple equivalencies aside, I have to give props to my friend Joey Running Crane - who, if more bands = more radness, would have to be a giant playground of raditudes for the number of bands he fronts or plays in around town and indeed the country.  The list:

Goddammitboyhowdy!, Gretchen, Holy Family Mission Band, Bird's Mile Home, ex-Bridgebuilder, and now King Elephant!!!!! I'm sure I missed some other bands in there, and he jams a mean one-man banjo band thingy as well. When does he sleep?

King Elephant has everyone's overalls in tight, excited twist with the rockrockrockpower they bring to both their live shows and recorded material. Also, for having been together such a short time, they've wrapped their tentacles all around the US, having already toured, recorded, gone to New York (New York City?!?!), and finished a Kickstarter project to tour again with a documentary filmmaker!!!

Here's the humble logo, expressly done black metal style at their request:

I can't wait to wear this t-shirt (hint hint, Joey). I wish them all the best of luck, the finest of gas station hot dogs, the least amount of van troubles, and the most fun out of anything ever.