I took a break from the playlist last week. Not because I didn't have anything ready, or because I didn't want to do it. But because a had a few other things that I wanted to share but didn't quite know what to do with. I thought about sending out three newsletters, but that seemed overkill. I already send out two a week and you're gracious enough to accept them. I thought it best not to overstay my welcome.
But I'm glad to be back at it again this week.
take the picture
"Batman" - Front Bottoms
Introversion is an understatement when it comes to my ways of being in the world and living. There are only a few places outside of home that you'll find me, and those places will always involve books, coffee, or records.
I visit my favorite local record store every other week. A schedule coincidentally aligns with payday. Strange, isn't it? I like to drag my daughter along because as her father I believe it is my parental imperative to instill in her a love of vinyl. Given how thrilled she looks, we'll have to keep working on it.
Like visiting a good used bookstore, you don't go to this record store to find something you're looking for. You go in to find something that's been looking for you. This record by The Front Bottoms found me, and I've loved every minute of it. And look how gorgeous it is.
give me some
"Nothing" - A
There are a minimum of three things I can always count on
for: being an incredible person, being an amazing writer, and sending me great music. She sent this one to me, and like all the music she shares, it's excellent.The difficult thing about being a collageist is that, if you're not careful, the process can produce a lot of detritus. I try to have a zero-waste workflow and I also try to be a minimalist. Sometimes those goals are conflicting. I'm always looking for creative ways to utilize the caste off bits rather than putting them in the garbage. It's leftover pieces that compromise this.
never be
"Taxi" - The Maine
The Maine is one of those bands that Spotify has been throwing at me for a while. I've liked everything, and yet they haven't managed to make it into a playlist. My sincere apologies to The Maine. I hope this piece makes up for it.
The piece itself is another attempt to do something reminiscent of Tom Hodgkinson. I've tried it before, but I'm still not quite getting it.
say what you want
"Yellowbelly" - Teenage Wrist
I don't have much to say about this song. It came up on my Discover Weekly playlist while I was at the gym. I made a note to come back to it.
Sometimes I think I make collages only as an excuse to play with typography. Destroying text is the part of the process I have the most fun doing, and this was an especially fun experiment.
I typed up a phrase a couple different ways in word. Printed it off. Dirtied it with pencil, whiteout, and tape. Xeroxed it. Put the copy back in the printer tray. Enlarged it by 200%. Xeroxed it again. Cut out the section I thought was the most interesting. Scanned it. Brought it into Affinity Photo. Made a few tweaks. Added some imagery and the rest, as they say, is history. If only I had taken more process pictures. I still suck at that. Sorry.
one more chance
"One Little Victory" - Rush
There was a special request made in the last Collage Paper playlist.
suggested a few songs by George Micheal. It was fun to listen to and work from something different. This week, I'm excited to say, there was another special request. challenged me to listen to the entirety of Rush's Vapor Trails album to see what I could make from it.I used to listen to Rush more often when I was an aspiring guitar player. Alex Lifeson's tones, riffs, and arpeggiated layers are all inspiring. But I haven't listened to them in a long time, and it was great to revisit.
It seems lazy to make a collage based off the first track of the album. My plan was to pull a deeper cut. But as I looked over my notes of possible phrases to design around, I liked the ideas I had for this song the most.
I did a few 'sketches" (that hardly seems like the accurate word for what I do). Did a rough type layout. printed it. Distressed it. Ran it through the copier a few times, a few different ways. And then scanned it into Affinity Photo.
This time I gave myself the challenge of using the same images I used in the previous piece but zooming in on different aspects to create something with a totally different feeling. I think it worked out better than I expected, but perhaps I'm just trying to congratulate my own laziness.
That’s it for this week’s Playlist. I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to comment with a request and I’ll see if make something for it.
Wonderful! You do these pieces of music justice with your art and extend them out to us!
Would you accept a song in a different language? 🤨