OK, so new rule YOU GUYS: You may have noticed that I'm occassionally posting stuff on here that isn't just complaining about how everything sucks. I know, that kind of sucks in itself too, right? Maybe I'll write a post about it. Normally I'd post my "straight" writing over at my other site The Ethical Scumbag, but just between you and me, some of that stuff isn't exactly, um...funny? No, that's not what I mean. It's just, you know, regular reporting and music reviews and the like...zzzzzz
So if it's something that seems like it might be interesting to the type of weirdo that looks at this site, I'll plop it down over here too. Got it? Good. Thanks in advance, YOU GUYS. You're the best at reading and looking at things with your eyes and fingers.
Here's an interview I did with my artist friend Brad Kayal that just went up over at Street Carnage. Go read it there.
If you’ve been to the Filmore in San Francisco lately, you’ve probably seen the totally cute screen prints artist Brad Kayal has been doing for the shows there.
He’s also done a ton of cool cover art designs for bands, like these:
He’s also done a ton of cool cover art designs for bands, like these:
That second one is the cover for his old band, The Information, who were a thing for a minute.
Kayal had an exhibition of his photography a while back in San Fran and since you guys all loved the last photography post I did, I thought I’d put another nice, talented friend through the meat grinder — because I’m a dick, apparently. Be sure to let us know how much better you are at things in the comments. Oh, one more thing: He also designed this insanely addictive video game I play every single day of my life because I don’t get out much called Quadradius. It’s like chess meets poker but with spaceship lasers. See you there.
Kayal had an exhibition of his photography a while back in San Fran and since you guys all loved the last photography post I did, I thought I’d put another nice, talented friend through the meat grinder — because I’m a dick, apparently. Be sure to let us know how much better you are at things in the comments. Oh, one more thing: He also designed this insanely addictive video game I play every single day of my life because I don’t get out much called Quadradius. It’s like chess meets poker but with spaceship lasers. See you there.
SBTVC: So you’re doing all the posters at the Filmore lately? That’s pretty cool.
BRAD KAYAL: I do create posters. If it were up to me (and I woke up tomorrow independently wealthy), I’d quit working, buy a garage where I could silkscreen posters for rock bands all day, while simultaneously buying obscure cameras off eBay. Music is probably my first love and doing art about music is just a combination of love number one and love number two. Here in San Francisco I’ve recently been doing some work for The Fillmore as they hand out free posters to everyone as they’re leaving, which is pretty awesome.
You grew up outside Philly in a shitty little rust-belt town, then lived in Boston for years and now you like in San Francisco? What do you think the biggest differences are in each place in terms of photographing them?
The biggest difference in those three places is an obvious one I think and that is my hometown NEVER has tourists. Since the dawn of photography people have been bringing cameras to Boston and San Francisco and pointing them at shit and pressing the shutter. In both these cities vast amounts of architecture has even been built with future photographs in mind (be it of them or from them towards rest of the city). This means to find new and interesting things in these bigger cities becomes much more of a challenge. San Francisco in particular is definitely the toughest of the three because no matter what neighborhood you’re in, some giant bus of tourists already shot what ever it is you’re looking at.
Because of this I still gravitate to my hometown, be it lying on my back in a miniature golf course at 3 A.M. to get the stars against the course lights or some old dive bar. Maybe it’s a bit of laziness, but there are still so many things unclaimed by other people’s cameras. In a way I guess I see photography as a land grab and luckily, where I grew up, there is still a lot of space available.
That said, while living in both Boston and now San Francisco, I tend to lean on more inside photos. Dark bars are still a great place to find the corners of these cities that may of seen the least amount of point-and-shoot tourists. And they serve booze, a double win.
You do advertising or marketing stuff for work, right? Do you have to literally flip a switch in your brain to work on commercial stuff as opposed to your artisty-art?
I do work in advertising and photography IS my escape from ALL of that. It’s all mine and the only thing between what I want to capture and capturing it is my own abilities to do so (no clients, no bosses, no “target markets”). That said, I think there is a preconceived notion that working for The Man® can’t be creatively fulfilling. I don’t believe this. Although advertising is not very bohemian, I spend my days working with other designers, writers, photographers, film makers, illustrators and musicians. All of these people end up inspiring me to create more and to create better. Sure, we all complain endlessly about how our clients have skull-raped our original artistic visions, but when you get down to it, I feel like it’s ultimately a creatively rewarding environment. I see artists all the time slaving away in coffee shops for minimum wage NOT being inspired daily and NOT surrounding themselves with other artists in some attempt to keep some “artistic credibility” and I feel like that’s a bit misguided.
brought to you by
No comments:
Post a Comment