This coming Saturday, February 27th, we are proud to host “Soft Targets,” an art show starring Landland, in our First Amendment gallery. Landland has really been doing their thingthing for several years and we have been fans since day one. To make sure everyone knows the deal, we walked down the hall, knocked on their door, and asked Dan Black and Jes Seamans a few questions about their work, their studio, and Saturday’s show!

BRLSQ: Tell the readers a little bit about Landland.

DAN BLACK: Landland started in 2007…it was me and Matt Zaun and kind of Jes Seamans (even though she was living in San Francisco at the time). Matt and I had been following each other from job to job for the last seven or so years, and the whole time kinda messing around with screenprinting in different basements and wherever we could set up shop. After moving all of our stuff around a few times, it got old and we set out to find a more permanent space. I knew Wes from around town and at some point asked him if he knew of any spaces that were opening up…that was how we ended up in you guyses’ building. I think we got the room that someone was using to store sculpture stuff in…there was nothing built in there at all, so we got to work building all the stuff we’d always complained about not having in our cramped basements and weird garage situations. We spent the first summer just building, and a few months after we’d pretty much moved in, Matt died of a heart attack. I was talking to Jes about it shortly after, and she offered to come back to Minneapolis to help out with things, which is pretty much one of the most amazing things that anyone’s ever done for me. So now it’s me and Jes, and we’re making things all the time and trying to spend as much time in there as we can without pissing off {1101 Stinson-mate and graphic designer Michael} Cina too badly with all of our noisy equipment and me singing along to stuff I listened to in high school.

BRLSQ: How did you end up moving in down the hall from us?

DB: I guess I covered that in the last answer…we really couldn’t have ended up with a better setup. The building is great, and it’s rad to be next to you guys all the time. Also, with the karate studio upstairs and the armor shop at the other end of the hall, I think it’s probably one of the more fortified spots in Minneapolis, so we’ve got that going for us too.

BRLSQ: Who are your favorite poster artists these days?

DB: I think I’m kinda partial to the weirdos lately, and I mean that really affectionately…Sonnenzimmer, Scott Campbell, my roommates Dan (DNML) Luedke and Casey Deming are turning out some amazing stuff. I have really been loving what Jay Ryan has been doing lately…it seems like something snapped in there in a really good way. Ryan Duggan, Nate Duval, people like that. I’m really trying to refrain from saying anything about you guys, because I talk you up a lot when I’m, you know, not talking to you. There’s like a million other people that I’m all about. If you want me to keep going, I can.

 
BRLSQ: What can people expect when they come to this art show on Saturday?

DB: Every single thing that we’ve made since moving in, including some new art prints and a bunch of work we’ve done for out-of-town shows, which is a relatively new thing for us. We’re releasing a record on Saturday…it’s a split 12″ with the incredible Nate Denver’s Neck on one side, and Jes’ band Best Friends Forever on the other. It’s the first release on a kinda separate thing we’re doing called “Landland Is Not A Record Label,” which seems a little like a record label, but it’s not, because I don’t have the patience or the time to actually do the all the ugly work of real record labels. We just want to put things out periodically…records, books, whatever. So it’s all that stuff, I guess. 

BRLSQ: Isn’t Jodi awesome?

DB: Yeah, Jodi’s pretty awesome. If I could make a list of five people that I would want to let me into our studio after I’ve locked myself out, she’d be at least four of them. I have a feeling she also has to deal with me singing along to stuff she probably hates, and she’s never once mentioned it, so she’s a good person for that too.

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Don’t miss Landland’s “Soft Targets” show, opening Saturday February 27th
7-10pm at First Amendment Arts (1101 Stinson Blvd at Broadway in NE Minneapolis).
Live music from Best Friends Forever
Free admission / all ages

RSVP on Facebook

Find out more about Landland right here: http://landland.net

ill try keep this short and to the point, altho there are a few points so ill just do my best…

Grace From Falling is a project that myself and Shingo (the eyes and ears of BRLSQ in Japan) have started as a vehicle to make handfuls of odd ideas into actual physical objects that you can buy and love for the rest of your life! sound good? yup, you are right, it IS good.

first thing out the gates is this Poster i designed for our friend Fuko who because of her modeling has become a bit of an icon in Japan and soon to be the world.

if you already get the BRLSQ news letter (if not, see above and get you some), you know all the details, but just to be safe, here’s everything you need to know…

Going on sale this weekend ONLY IN JAPAN is Todd Bratrud’s art print commissioned for Japanese model and mega-celebrity FUKO. The first in Grace From Falling’s “Idol x Art” project, the posters were printed here at Burlesque and signed both by Bratrud and by Fuko herself.

5 color print on French Parchtone Relic Gold paper.
63 x 45.8cm
¥6,800 + ¥840 shipping in Japan (¥2,500 international)

For purchase information, visit gracefromfalling.com

Our buddies and down-the-hall neighbors YouWorkForThem have just put up a brand new Profile interview with me (Mike). Ever wonder what my favorite color is? Guilty pleasures? Now’s your chance to find out!

While you’re there, be sure to download YWFT’s FREE, yes, FREE font, Skute! It’s a beaut!

Our buddies at WACTAC (Walker Art Center Teen Arts Council) just posted a great interview with our dude Ewok. You can read all about his graffiti, world travels, inspirations, and see some of his new awesome poodle paintings right HERE.

Oh and stay tuned for news about yet another upcoming collaboration between Burlesque and WACTAC coming very very soon!

The crew over at Manifest Clothing just asked me 11 questions and I did my best to answer them truthfully and interestingly. You be the judge.

Preliminary sketch for The Blinding Light’s forthcoming full length album, Junebug, to be released via INIT Records spring 2009. Expect an art print…

As Bjorn mentioned earlier in our blog, we just wrapped production on a new poster for Chicago’s great music archaeology record label, The Numero Group. Over the past several years, Numero has hunted and gathered some of the world’s most overlooked soul, folk, psychedelic, and disco music from days of yore, repackaging and re-releasing CDs and LPs complete with thoroughly informative liner notes.

Numero knows the importance of having great art to go along with great music and we have had the fortune to work with them for several projects, namely the Wayfaring Strangers compilation and the Brotherman soundtrack.

One of Numero’s best-known series of releases is “Eccentric Soul,” collections of songs from specific record labels or producers. Here’s Ken Shipley from Numero Group with more information on the series and how it led them to put on a concert:

“Eccentric Soul is a series of compilations that take a long and thorough look at the secret life of soul. Motown, Stax, Chess… their stories have been told ad infinitum, but for every Berry Gordy there were 100 Ed McCoy’s, and that’s just in Detroit. We’ve covered scenes in Columbus, OH, Miami, FL, St. Louis, MO, Atlanta, GA, Detroit, MI, and Phoenix, AZ, but some of our best work has been done in our backyard: Chicago, IL. Twinight [Records] was one of those projects that couldn’t have been done by any label outside of this city, at least properly anyhow. We pounded the pavement for two and half years, and even after the CD was in stores we kept turning up more information. The one constant thing was how many of their artists still performed or still wanted to perform. We had talked about a Live Revue before, but had always been inhibited by the expense of bringing everyone here. Twinight being here made it a lot easier.”

To help promote the concert, Numero once again enlisted the help of Burlesque of North America and asked us to design and screenprint a poster for the concert in the vein of traditional ’60s soul posters.This is a design universe that has always fascinated and inspired me, but I had never before attempted to design anything in this style before.

So why make a poster in 2008 that looks like it’s from 1958? Here’s Ken once again with his take on it:

“Everything about the Eccentric Soul Revue has been inspired by the great revues of the past, from the outfits to the backing band to the MC to the room. We want the experience to be as authentic as possible. That includes the poster. When I contacted Mike Davis I gave him the direction to make the poster feel like it could have been hanging on a wall 40 years ago.”

I started looking at those classic and iconic ’50s and ’60s posters to get a feel for layout, colors, and the general visual language.

A couple of years ago, this Chuck Berry poster sold for $35,000. Wow. It’s argued that it’s the first poster to use the phrase “Rock & Roll,” making it perhaps the first ever rock poster?

Of course I had Hatch Show Print on the brain too.

Sooooooo here’s what I came up with!

These will be available for sale at the Park West Theater on April 4th and right here on our website afterwards!

Wanna go see the show? Click here to purchase tickets. Still not convinced? Check out this Grade A footage of the fantastic Syl Johnson performing “Any Way the Wind Blows” back in 1975.

just like the title of this post says, Todd Bratrud interview on King Shit. Check the interview and then you should snoop around on the site, its a good one!

(click image or link below image to see/read interview)

KING SHIT.COM

Obama Art Report interview

We did an interview for Obama Art Report recently. We talk about a whole bunch of stuff including how we got involved with Upper Playground to do the Obama print series this year. That series led to this year’s grand finale of a print with David Choe, “Exodus From the Land of Play.” We mentioned it goes on sale at 2pm Thursday Dec 18th, right?