Constructivism and Punk
Thursday, March 13 2008
Posted by brockito

So I have been embroiled in school for the last six months, which is one of my excuses for not-so-frequent blogging during that time. Among other things, I have been studying Russian Constructivism as it pertains to graphic design, and this term I have been attempting to hybridize that style with the North American Punk aesthetic.

Last night was my final portfolio class of the term and I and my fellow student designers were asked to give a presentation of our work. As I scrambled to get everything finished, mounted, documented, etc., I was struggling through moments of feeling very ill with some kind of flu-type thing. Fortunately I had been given some kind of medicine—I don't know what it was but it seemed to work. I wasn't really able to eat so well though so by the time I got to school (late again) I was pretty light-headed and a little shaky.

While driving earlier this week, I had had the idea that the best way for anyone to get a feel for the look I was going for was to just play some music from that era while showing the images on the projector. So I brought some speakers from home and when it was my turn, I just played an excerpt of Naum Gabo reading the Realist Manifesto and then played Something I learned Today from Zen Arcade, followed by Black Flag My War.

Unfortunately I forgot to include some key images from my roughs when combining PDFs earlier so I got through most of what I had to show before Henry Rollins was going off with his, "You're one of them, Them, THEM !" so i had to skip to that part and then took the cover off of my mounted print. I guess I didn't feel like talking so much, so I just let the music and the images do the talking. At one point i looked up at some of the faces and I'm not really sure how to gauge the reaction. I think at least one of my two instructors was less-than-impressed. I guess in that sense it was a success, in that maybe some didn't get it, or felt alienated by it, or pissed off by it, or at least had some sort of reaction provoked out of them. I dunno. It sure felt better than trying to explain in a BCIT classroom what is punk about ANYTHING.

Here's one of my comps, trying to figure out how to let the Exclaim! type hang off the edge of the page size with some sketch marks...

Mike Conley Dead
Sunday, March 2 2008
Posted by brockito

I just checked my webmail a few minutes ago to see if my latest portfolio assignment was graded, yeah I know, I'm in school again—and along with "Just Added: Bold Spicy Flavour" from Sonicbids spam, there was a message from John K. I don't hear from John that often unless he is in town or something bad happenned, and unfortunately, this time he is not in town.

He was messaging to relay the news that yet another person we knew from the heydey of touring in a van with the Doughboys has met an untimely end. We first met Mike Conley in Sumter, South Carolina at a gig in some VFW hall or something. We were travelling down the east coast towards Florida at the time and were due to meet up with MIA and the Descendents for a bunch of gigs. Sumter was our first gig with MIA.

Now being from Montreal, this was my first encounter with California boys, and I think had we played just the one gig with MIA, I might have laughed at them and found their styley clothes and hair product kinda ridiculous.

Living in a van, I was quite amazed at how much attention went into the right shoes and clothes and so on. Drumming for them at the time was Chris Moon, whom we eventually just referred to as Moon. Last I heard he was married and selling vacuum cleaners or real estate in Vegas. There's a wild guess, vacuum cleaners OR real estate. Anyway, what I am trying to get at was these guys were all characters. Playing guitar was Mark Arnold, whom we eventually referred to as Santa, and on bass was Frank Daly. Frank and Mark went on to form Big Drill Car after this incarnation of MIA broke up, which was right after this tour if I remember correctly.

Anyways, Mike Conley was the ringleader, the lead singer and main songwriter. He and John K took to each other in a flash and their friendship lasted until yesterday when Mike was found dead in a Chicago parking lot. I don't really want to say much more right now but the link John forwarded me is here. Have a listen to Boredom is the Reason and think of him.

Goodbye Mike.