Fozzy to enter Star Tribune Cutest Dog Contest

We can enter one picture of Fozzy in the contest.
Which one should it be?!

The voting begins on Monday, December 29 and you can actually vote once every hour.

Help Fozzy win so he can start earning his keep around this joint!

Best Music of 2008!

It's been a pretty good year for new music I thought...some folks are complaining about it but I think they're a bunch of whiners.
This is an incomplete list because I'm sure there are some outstanding albums that I just didn't hear. In no particular order here's
some winning moments from 2008:


Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
Less pretentious than Radiohead, much more creative than Coldplay...This one won the coveted Mercury Prize in England this year.
This is the first Elbow I've heard though good things have been said for almost everything they've done. The production is awesome
on this, not too compressed and lots of subtle richness to the sound. This album has my vote for the best song of the year...it got
played daily, loudly, for the weeks after the election - track 10 'One Day Like This'.



Black Keys - Attack and Release
The White Stripes should be this good. Great voice, great -and odd- drumming, production by Danger Mouse is incredible with lots
of unexpected and subtle sounds and instrumentation. This is just an album that I feel like putting on a lot, don't get sick of at all,
and sounds good turned up loud or sitting in the background.

Atmosphere - When Life Gives You Lemons You Paint That Shit Gold
This gets tons of play in our house and car...a fave of both me and Emily which is no small feat. There's a heavy 80's sound to this album
...we're talkin' Grandmaster Flash synths and Sister Sledge grooves. Thick. The raps and stories flow but stay real, smart, and poignant
(one almost makes me cry even...). Plus he's local guy done good - support Slug and buy this. Oh, and again, awesome production (ala'
Ant) - great headphone album.



Antony & the Johnsons - Another World ep
He could sing about skunks pooping and he'd make my list. When Antony chooses to sing about rebirth, love, loss, and absolute transformation,
well...he had me at pooping. This is a gorgeous lil' 45 rpm album. 5 songs that are a teaser for the full length due in January. The sound
production is exquisite - gorgeous piano from Antony, sparse but perfect instrument accompaniment. Their last awesome album, I Am a Bird
Now, won the Mercury Prize two years ago (which Elbow won this year).
Plus, it's got friggin' Kazuo Ohno on the cover (the Butoh dancer).
Really a gem of an album.


Deerhunter - Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.
I love Spacemen 3. Deerhunter is making the music of an adolescent Spacemen 3. Shoegazing punk that's bored, pissed off, and kinda
confused and awkward about who the hell they are. I'm glad that Bradford Cox (Deerhunter dude) is friends with Jay Reatard...they're
both putting out some super fun, poppy-as-hell-but-you-need-to-give-it-a-good-listen-to-hear-it kinda' music.
Plus, I got to see them at the Triple Rock a few weeks ago (thanks for going Maggie!). A really good show that fleshes out my enjoyment
of the album even more.


Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
Lovely stuff. This is the kind of music that should have been made ages ago...so many people in the world making things - someone should
have come up with just the right combination of a few guitar strums and some words that would make this album redundant but Bon Iver
hit it just right and, yes, this is lovely stuff.

Watch 'til the 3:10+ minute mark and see if you don't get a little shiver...



Shearwater - Rook
Jonathan Meiburg not only has an awesome name, he's got a voice the likes of we don't get to hear very often. Think Jeff Buckley or the underrated
Mark Hollis (from Talk Talk)...almost a croon that has an unholy range and is able to make the space around the notes mean as much as the sound.
I tend to think Shearwater sound a bit like Midlake and they both share a lyrical penchant for Falconers, flocks of birds over winter fields, and other
rusticnesses. It's a quiet listen that can feel too slow but if sat with, it's a great album that surpasses most anything else over the past couple years.



Josephine Foster - This Coming Gladness
This album, along with her Born Heller release, scares the hell out of me. Her voice - she's an opera singer drop-out, the guitar - psychedelic as fuck
and just 'off' sometimes but mostly gentle and restrained. It's the unexpectedness of how fucked up her music is that is so great and so disconcerting.
All the components, esp. her voice, lead you to forgotten 70's folkies or maybe lost Germanic 78rpm recordings from the 1920's. Listen to 'Indelible
Rainbows', late night, with a glass of scotch and headphones, and see what doesn't get exorcised.

The Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride
One of the best songwriters ever. Really, his name should be mentioned alongside Neil Young and Joni Mitchell more often. This album finally feels like
John Darnielle is back in form. I haven't spent enough time with this one yet to Love it but I think I will. Mountain Goat songs are weird 'cause they don't
feel addictive or overly poppy, they're even a bit annoying...but the good ones get deep under your skin and come up often and unexpectedly - over and
over. There are some gorgeous female vocals on this one too which is a nice contrast to his nasally voice. I've made more art based on lines from Mtn. Goat
songs than any other music. I think this album's got a few paintings in it too.


Honorable Mentions:

Jay Reatard - Matador Singles
Hammer, I Miss You is one of the best songs of the year.
Probably should just be on the list...great songs but not all top notch.

Ray LaMontagne - Gossip In the Grain
very nice album...not as strong as his last one imo ('Til the Sun Turns Black).

Wire - Object 47
I don't have this one yet but if I did, it'd probably make the list. I love Wire (see my post
last month) and saw them at First Ave. a few months ago. Great show!

No Age - Nouns
not as strong as last years Weirdo Rippers...saw them at Triple Rock this year, good show.

WovenHand - Ten Stones
pretty good but not great...have to be in the mood for this heavy bastard.

Black Mountain - In the Future
I like that one of the women in the band said,"we don't try to totally rock out, we like to kinda'
rock". A good album that has that prog/Black Sabbath/folk rock sound that I like.

Hicksmade iPhone cozies

Variations on the Black theme
Originally uploaded by Hicksmade

So, I'm needing protection for my phone...it's cold in MN and I'm clumsy so it needs, what else, a cozy. I really dig the classiness of the Vaja cases but they're pretty spendy and they seem, well...a bit much, all around...am I that guy? ('course they're leather and extremely customizable as far as styles and colors).

Other end of the spectrum, there are these lovely lil' handmade felt jobbies that Leigh Hicks makes. I'm pretty partial to these but don't wear patchouli anymore, soooo...


'Course there are more generic options which are probably the practical and fiscally responsible way to go but they're kinda boring. I'm in the middle of deciding so if anyone has an opinion...

Halloween...Vegas-Style

Emily doing the Thriller dance at the Vegas Lounge






So Emily and I joined a bunch of friends and
acquaintances for a Halloween shindig...we
ended up with, quite possibly, the lamest costumes
at the party (Em as a Freudian Slip - great idea
but execution was ummm, well... And I was Elmer Fudd
- looked like I do everyday except for the
foamcore gun). But it was a good time and props
to the Vegas Lounge for bringing a bit of 'up north'
to the city. And props to Nicole and Heather for
throwing a party that did not include
stripping ex's this year but was a super-blast.










Nik and Heather throwin' down their own Vegas act

O marks the spot

a little painting
housepaint, oil, graphite on cut-out wood

What's Up Minutemen vs. Wire?..........(the first of a 'What's Up _________vs._________?' -series of obscure compare/contrasts).

So, I've been listening to a lot of Minutemen. 'Double Nickles On the Dime' is one of my favorite albums. Ever. And I just watched 'We Jam Econo'...an excellent documentary of the band. So, they're three guys from San Pedro, CA who hit the burgeoning LA punk scene ala' SST records (Black Flag, Sonic Youth, Meat Puppets, Saccharine Trust, and the original label for Husker Du...) upside the head in the early 80's. I came upon them in '85 or so - the year after Double Nickles came out (which they named, off the cuff, in response to the Sammy Hagar tune).
I've also been spinnin' a lot of Wire. 'Pink Flag' and 'Chairs Missing' is what I've got...plus - my intro. to the band - a homemade cassette tape of early Wire stuff that my painting prof. gave to me as a driving cross-country gift. He said to fast forward past anything that had synths. I did for awhile but have slowed down and found that some of those songs are actually ok.

What's up Minutemen vs. Wire?

Well, they were both three piece punk bands from the early 80's. Both with high tuned, angular guitar. Both with massive bass guitar that almost played as lead. Both totally political. Both totally unlike so much else that was around them at the time.

Both have had bottles and spit flung on them by hardcore punkers who thought they were too artsy and weren't rockin' it hard enough.

Both have been more known for their influence on others than their own discographies. Both integrated their philosophical/political ideology into their actual music-making... brilliantly.
Is the only reason they aren't the same band the "British" thing? Sure, Wire is from London while Minutemen are from San Pedro, CA. There's more though...

(I'm working on Pt. II of this exciting lil' essay on obscurity that no one is reading...but if you are - and your numbers will be growing - hold tight 'cuz more is coming. Plus, I think a lil' rage about politics is festering - though I'm feeling cautiously hopeful 'cause it's just hard to believe that the dumb people can keep winning when Everything is against them.....plus, they're dumb.)




Couple shots of a really excellent
show - Friday night, Oct. 17, 2008
Wire @ 1st Ave. Mpls.





















http://www.pinkflag.com/assets/mp3/One-Of-Us_from_Object-47_by_Wire.mp3
....'fraid you have to copy and paste to listen but it's an easy Quicktime link and a great song...if you know how to embed this, post a comment and tell me how. thanks.

Couple new paintings

'Migrations' oil, etching transfer print, collage on wood and tar paper
























'Rain' oil, thread, gold leaf, acrylic transfer cheese cloth, wood and metal







detail shot of 'Rain'

New Art from Jonathan

A couple more shots of some boat paintings I've done lately...waiting for a bunch of stuff that I had shot this summer by a much better photographer than me.











this is a detail of 'Three Ships' and is actually 3" high x 44" long.

Breaking News - Sara Palin steps down as McCain running mate!

As both Republican and Democratic insiders have been hinting, embattled V.P. hopeful, Sara Palin, has stepped down in her bid for President of the United States
(assuming, of course, that John McCain does not make it through a first term that is increasingly looking like a huge stretch anyways). Republicans have gathered,
somewhat embarrassedly, around the new running mate that they are calling, "pretty short", and "a vast improvement over the last pick". At least he has been
practicing some interview responses that are clearly more intelligent and appropriate than what the other one had to offer. Good luck new V.P. hopeful, Gary Coleman.

Robert Wyatt - when I'm 64...if I can rock it like this...

Robert Wyatt was the drummer, vocalist, and songwriter for the Soft Machine in the mid-60's thru 1973ish. He suffered an accident then which left him wheelchair-bound
but still filled with some of the greatest songs that were to come out of the progressive rock canon from then until now (his 'ComicOpera' came out in 2007 and is one of the best
releases of the millenium)...it also got him ushered out of the lugubrious folds of the Soft Machine, who then floundered on in saxa-maphone-hell for many years with Elton Dean
and different line-ups but never regained the funky groove of the Wyatt years.

I went, a couple times, to the Boyle Family exhibit in Edinburgh, Scotland in 2003. They invented the practice of showing colored-oil projections behind bands in the mid-60's.
They were the exclusive lighting artists behind the Soft Machine and introduced moving oil projections along with all sorts of light and other video tweekings as adjunct hallucinatory
experiences into the psychedelic rock world. They really made the rock concert a multi-sensory psychedelic experience like noone else...

J's Art - some work-in-progress and a done one

Mast (oil,chalk, cyanotype print on paper)


Sheep (2 detail shots...workin' on these still...oil, oil stick, sign paint enamel on panel)

Massive cooking/rainy day

Dill Pickles

Tomato-Basil Focaccia

Baba Gannoush




Yogurt-Feta Bean Dip


Roasted stuffed peppers












A rainy autumnal day with our friend Joanna...eating, cooking, and spinnin' lots of 70's vinyl. We had bags
of veggies from the CSA to deal with so we made all this, canned the pickles, and ate copiously. Good Times.

Matt Damon gets down on Sara Palin (not Silverman this time...)

pretty concise response and fear...she'd be a monsterous error, huh?

Emily visits the Golden State

80 silk-screened t-shirts later...

Making the shirts for ArtShare's Rivalry project

ArtShare brings rivalry to NE Lutheran Church

ArtShare had the first day of our Rivalry project this past weekend.
I'll post some more on it and throw up some pics in the next day or so...
this'll just have to serve as an enticing, titillating lil' blip until then.


"I've never felt more depressed after a church service..."

~ NELC congregation member




check out more of this project --- http://artsharene.blogspot.com/

my new helmet!

exciting...esp. since I've been riding bucket-less for the last week or two.
Emily got in on the bike commute this summer too...we're looking forward to
autumn biking - hopefully a trip to Stillwater will still make the list and the
Mpls. Bike Tour in a few weeks.

Expunging vermin

This weekend, we're celebrating the exodus of thousands of rats from the twin cities. The plague was shortlived - though they'll surely
continue to spread disease and skittering sounds of no consequence as they drag their wet, pink tails across the land. If you see any of
them, have pity...they may look disgusting but just try to ignore them and seek the high ground and the light...they can't follow you there.

Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet (Sept. 15 @ the Guthrie!)

+=====Jay Reatard=====+

...for your inner snot-nosed brat...

Shots from my exhibit - May '06

in lieu of wings (detail)

flickr .................................................>

in lieu of wings (detail)
Originally uploaded by jon a than

random recent work

rough shots of some new drawings

Set up test

let's see...
I live in NE Minneapolis with my lovely wife Emily and our dog Fozzy. We're busy savoring corn, basil, and tomatoes these days before the coming months of winter. I spend a lot of time in my studio making stuff and listening to music... uhyeah ...