All The Young Dudes

This year's holiday season will again include a post-xmas gathering of Clash fans and punk rockers alike at Buffalo, New York's Mohawk Place for the 9th Annual Joe Strummer Tribute night.  Commemorating the anniversary of the death of one of rock's greatest icons (and a personal hero of mine)- the late, great Joe Strummer- many of Buffalo's finest musicians will be playing Clash & Strummer and inspired sets.  Again I will be DJing sets of punk rock, ska, rock steady, dub & reggae music between bands.  It is a lot of fun and not too be missed. Lip up fatty!!!

We design the annual poster for this event here at OtherWisz headquarters. This year's poster has proven to be a popular one as they are disappearing off light posts, coffee shop windows and the walls of rock clubs around town.  Keeping it punk, with some distressed graphics, a bit-mapped Joe and a red and black color scheme, the poster is the ninth in a series of OtherWisz Creative reinterpreting the same theme.

Proceeds from the event again go to benefit Strummerville.  This charity started in the wake of Joe's untimely death helps young bands in England keep it going. Check out their website to find out more about these guys.

The event takes place Sunday, the 26th of December at Buffalo's famed Mohawk Place. DJ music starts around 8:00 PM or so with the first of several bands starting at 9PM-ish.

Here is a link to all nine Strummer posters for the Buffalo event.

Don't Call Me Scarface!

The latest installment of OtherWisz posterdom is for the upcoming Punky Reggae Party 2 at the Mohawk Place. This event features some great local punk bands (Wolf Tickets, Chosen Ones, Rockas) with a ska/reggae bent all wrapped up with WBNY's DJ Universal.

This poster is probably one of the more colorful pieces I have created in a while drawing on the red, green and gold of traditional reggae graphics. The client wanted something including, and I quote, "punk rockers, dreads, and speakers speakers speakers!!!"... so did I listen to the client..? Not exactly. Instead I used Don Letts! I figured since Don was using one of my posters in his movie, I would put Don on one of my posters (read post below). Seemed fair enough.

The Formula- how it was made....
I "found" a cool photo of Don and blew him out, bit-mapped him and started to build up around the event title. I have no idea why I am so drawn to this western-circus font, the Rosewood Standard, or why it even works here, but for some reason it does. I think because the font has that old-timey poster feel to it, juggle the individual letterforms around and it lends itself well to a party atmosphere. The rest of the text was set in one of my favorite chunky rock font, Poplar Standard Black. I don't know, maybe I need to start using some different typefaces..? You tell me.

I was dying to use the 2-Tone guy and by balancing him with the Circle Jerks dude-- we had both the "punky" and the "reggae." I then added the ska checker board at the top and bottom to frame it. But I wasn't ready to call it day and something felt like it was missing.... I wanted to get some of the aggression and violence that the rastas, punks and ska dude rallied against when the Punky Reggae movement was born in 70's London. So a spray-painted, bloody splat seemed to work just right. By layering it behind and on top of the corner pieces of art, I got some messy depth.

Some fine tuning at this point included pulling an ornament from the typeface and offseting it on top of the jumbled characters. I took the same ornament and placed it over our main man's glasses to add to his 'death stare' with an implied set of daggers. I gave him a golden yellow halo, and we we were just about finished. As per usual, with any OtherWisz rock poster, I had to add a few stars. I started to "over-star it," and the client asked me to pull back a bit on the stars... I think it was a good piece of advice.

BONUS BEATS- the above snapshot was snatched from a photo taken at the Mohawk Place last week and it shows my poster hanging in it's natural environment. Rock on!

Party at Ground Zero

ROCK POSTER claim to fame- OtherWisz work included in movie about Strummerville.

I was contacted by the production staff of a movie being made about "Strummerville," the charity foundation created following the death of Joe Strummer to continue his charitable work. They wanted to use one of my rock posters (click now) in the movie!

The film is by Don Letts, the famed English filmmaker with strong ties to the Clash. His list of accomplishments is amazing: he was one of the first club DJs in England to play dub, reggae and ska, he was in Big Audio Dynamite with Clash-man Mick Jones, he is an author and he has directed numerous videos including "Pass The Dutchie" by Musical Youth and "Back on The Chain Gang" by The Pretenders. In 2003, filmmaker Letts won a Grammy for his Clash documentary "Westway to The World." Good bio link here on BBC radio.

His new movie is about Strummerville and the work they do, the bands associated with it, the yearly concerts, benefits and their continuing devotion to helping youths obtain their musical dreams themselves, as DIY-man Strummer would have liked! The charity is described on their website as "aiming to create new opportunities for aspiring musicians. Set up by the friends and family of Joe Strummer in the year after his death, the charity seeks to reflect Joe's unique contribution to the music world by offering support, resources and performance opportunities to artists who would not normally have access to them."

The production company, Brassneck TV describes the movie, debuting this weekend (March 12-21, 2010) at the SWSX music festival in Texas as:

STRUMMERVILLE- Joe Strummer's untimely death in 2002 sent shockwaves around the music world and beyond, yet Joe's friends and family were determined that his spirit would live on. In this documentary, Grammy award-winning filmmaker Don Letts demonstrates how Joe's DIY attitude is manifesting itself through a charity which helps aspiring musicians - Strummerville. The film features performance footage and interviews with Strummerville artists, supporters and founders including Billy Bragg and Damien Hirst, plus previously unseen footage of Strummer himself.

Locally, Wolf Tickets rocker Chris Malachowski has been carrying the flag of Joe Strummer since his death in Dec. 2002 and OtherWisz Creative been designing the posters for each tribute show (as well as DJing them). Chris has kept strong ties to Strummerville, as our local event has donated proceeds from each show to the charity.

It was cool to get the call, and it is an honor to have some of my work featured in a movie about such a great organization that is associated with the memory of one of my heros, Joe Strummer. So if anyone will be at SWSX this weekend, look for the film and the brief glimpse of an OtherWisz-designed poster.

LINKS:

• Here is PR of the movie on the Strummerville website: click here
  
  
• Here is the movie production company's site Brassneck TV, click here.
  
  
• Here is the link to ALL the of posters I have created for the local tribute shows in Buffalo- here click now
  
  
• More info on Strummerville- here ya go