Gregory Jacobsen

DIG IT

riding the rails

This is a graphic i created from compiling a couple amtrack maps. This documents our travels stop by stop, round trip starting in Santa Barbra and ending in Santa Barbra. We got on a packed, six our delayed, ice crusted, hell ova' train from chicago last night in Milwaukee, WI. To kill some time during the delay peter and i headed to the Potawatomi Casino to give some money back to the Native American people of the upper Mississippi River region. The poor saps could have used it. The night before we dropped off peter and david at the front doors of the casino and after a few hours at the roulette table they took a taxi home.

box car racing

Me and my uncle we went riding down,
south colorado over some Texas town.

Sufjan Stevens - Illinoise

Sufjan Stevens - Chicago

I have piled into a train with my uncle. heading from union station in LA to union station in Chicago in some back water baggage car. no smoking, no quitting, no deep dish pizza.

SNIFF

These are a couple behind the scenes shots from the feature film, SNIFF, in production at KPIX studios in SF. I've been working with writer director Barry Stone for the last couple of weeks as the art director of his new comical documentary. The project started as a student film in the seventies and has developed into a heart warming, feature length comedy abiut mans best friend. The costumes were designed by Angela Thomas.

BLU - MUTO

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.
Straight from the bowels of BLU. Each time i watch this i am amazed how figures movements work with the space they are created in. It gives the characters a grounded reality instead of a forced reality, like a projected animation on a wall. time lapses allways blow my mind. What did you do the last three days...? this guy spent all waking hours painting socio-political, free speech, awesomeness all over the walls of Buenos Aires. BLU's been busy. check out his blog. most recently he spent 14 days painting a mural in Berlin. Here is a link to his BLOG

Mark Kozelek - What's Next to The Moon

Mark Kozeleck - Bad boy Boogie

This is sf based singer songwriter Mark Kozeleck's (sunkil moon, red house painters) first full length solo album. Believe it or not, all ten tracks on the album are covers of less known Bon Scott-era AC/DC songs. you wouldn't be able to tell just from listening to this album. Kozeleck has done a remarkable job interpreting the classic rock bands songs into melancholy, acoustic ballads.

SUPERJAIL

Superjail is a Flash-animated Adult Swim series airing on Sundays at 11:45 p.m. (ET, PT). The show, which was created by Christy Karacas, Stephen Warbrick and Ben Gruber, is a psychedelic, Dr. Suess on acid, orgy of the perverse and horrific. Each episode opens with a new title sequence of your a-typical scum bag, snake (from the simpson's) character named Jacknife, who is arrested and carried to superjail. The entire show is a consistent flow of surreal mayhem. the animatin style reminds me of the liquid transformations in Betty Boop cartoons and the dark sadistic attitude of Rat Fink. The cartoon is animated and produced entirely in Brooklyn at Augenblick Studios.


STEPHEN WARBRICK and CHRISTY KARACAS' first animation BARFIGHT:

BETTY BOOP - SNOW WHITE - Cab Calloway

SunnO)))/Boris - Altar

SunnO)))/Boris - Altar - Akuma No Kuma

This is one of the greatest collaborations in music history since sunny and cher. Two of the heaviest, darkest, drone metal bands in doom metal history have joined forces to melt your face off.
[Chorus:]
Yea bump it 'till you feel that shit

Charles Burns - Black Hole

Black Hole took Burns ten years (94-04) to finish. A great story and it's worth picking up just to flip through the illustrations. Black Hole aint his first rodeo.

He was first published in Art Spiegelman's comic magazine RAW.
Cover for RAW #4

Iggy Pop's Brick By Brick.
Dr. Meadows, my teacher/adviser in college had a poster of this illustration in her office. she was a hip hip lady.

Smog - Knock Knock

Smog - Knock Knock - Held

I was introduced to this artist by my friend Jeff Carter while driving back to our old home town in his beat up ford ranger. His sister had just been wed to graphic artist. A real nice guy, drove a BMW and always kept his hair short. like a good guy should, he let his girlfriend ride shotgun. i piled into the back of the cab which had no seats. trying to make the trip as comfortable as a six foot grown man crammed into a 2'x4'x5' space can i laid my body down on my back and used a shoe box for a pillow. in the front pocket of my shirt was an undeveloped roll of film with her picture on it. she sat on a 1997 Chevy corvette also known as the "C5". when describing the "C5", road testers used the word "refined", which was not how previous Corvettes were labeled. Before high performance meant a sacrifice in comfort. she could get up to 172 mph, went 0-60 in 4.72 seconds, and had cup holders.

pinball expo

you missed it, it missed you. the second annual Pacific Pinball Exposition at the Marin County Civic Center Exhibition Hall in San Rafael, CA on October 3, 4, and 5, 2008. My old pal Ed Cassel displayed "The Scuba", a painting he has been working on for the past three months and i have to say he knocked out of the park. well done ed. your hard work really paid off.


Scuba - Gottlieb 1971
Design by: Ed Krynski
Art by: Art Stenhol
Painting by: Ed Cassel
Acrylic on Canvas 109"x91"






Sky Raider - United 1958
Design by: Dale Gun
Art by: Unknown
Painting by: Dan Fontes
Acrylic on Canvas 112"x96"

Selda - Ince Ince Bir Kar Yagar

Selda - Ince Ince

Haunted Museum

Three Nights of TERROR. This is a poster i have recently finished for PLayland. They are premiering the first of many, Haunted Museum, open from 7:00 to 10:00 pm with the last guests admitted at 9:15. Tickets will also be on sale at Playland-Not-at-the-Beach starting Saturday, October 4th. Admission is $10 in advance. Call now to reserve a space at (510) 932-8966.

Volunteers Needed!

If you have ever wanted to build a chilling, thrilling haunted attraction, this is your chance. The organization is starting the planning right now. They are also looking for volunteers who will be able to host

Steve Reich - Music For 18 Musicians

Steve Reich - Music For 18 Musicians - 1. Pulses


This is a recording from Steve Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians" during 1974-1976. After The triumph of "Music for 18...", Reich's life was never quite the same again. In his own words:

"this was the crossover piece par excellence, unintended, malgre lui. When the peice was released, Bob Hurwitz said, "Why don't you play this at the Bottom Line? We'll arrange it." So I did. In the first year, 18 sold 100,000 copies. In terms of press, the fact that David Bowie went to the opening at the Bottom Line was a big deal - so yes, it was definitley the piece that changed my life."

This was also Riechs first piece of music to be labeled, minimalism. He never liked being labeled a minimalist composer and even today, twenty years later, minimalism is still used to corner his music. His most recent work falls under the label 'post-minimalism'.

Here's to David Bowie and his good taste in music. This is a recording from his 1972 album Hunky Dory titled, "Queen Bitch".

David Bowie - Queen Bitch

Figure Drawing - arya reading

I had a chance to relax and do some drawing last night. Arya is involved in a group show at the North/South Gallery of CCA showing from the 23-27 of September. The gallery is featuring a handful of artist who participated in class over the summer in Italy. This show is a culmination of the work each student did while there and it's worth checking out.

graphite on sketch paper, 24"x18"


Photoshop CS2, 200dpi, 11"x8"

The Prankster - on set

I am working as a PA in the art department of "The Prankster". The film tells the story of a group of high school intellectuals (nerds), rooted arounded the satirical comedy of playing pranks on their dean, who learn the true value of adolescence and the importance of being an individual and growing up. Basically it's the brain child of a coming of age high school drama and revenge of the nerd's 4.

Cast as the Dean of Tres Rios High is Curt Fuller. I have always loved this guy - especially in Wayne's World.


This is a behind the scenes look of Kurt being slimmed after his sexual relations with the principle are revealed to the student body at the spring dance.



Here is some really great behind the sceens slime footage from Ghostbuster's II - also starring Kurt Fuller - and the origin of SLIME. make your way through the Bill Murray mamajama and fuzzy wrap party footage (side note: the music playing in the background during the wrap party is "Johnny Come Home" by the Fine Young Cannibals - top notch) to see how people got slimed before cg. There's nothing like these old special effects. Gollum's got nothing on Slimer.




you can check out more of the production's clips on YouTube and their website.

The Knife - We Share Our Mothers Health

The Knife - We Share Our Mothers Health



The Knife is a blood sucking, ass kicking, sister-brother tag team, Olof Dreijer and Karin Dreijer Andersson. They are based in Stockholm, Sweden and have made music together since 1999. They released "Silent Shout" in 2006 on their own label Rabid Records.

The video is animated by Motomichi Nakamura. The characters have this frighting yet humorous persona. i'm not sure if i should laugh or be scared while watching this, all i know is i cant stop watching this video. you can check out more of his work on his web site.

Kinski - Semaphore

Kinski - Semaphore

Kinski is a four-piece rock band from Seattle, WA. When i first heard these guys my socks were literally rocked off. i walked around bare foot for the rest of the day.

Aaron Horky - “Detritus”

While this really isn't news to Aaron Horky fans out there, because the show is long gone and the print is sold out, it's still cool. on Thursday, September 4 my buddy John, my girl Arya, and i went to the the massive “Catalyst” group show at FIFTY24SF Gallery displaying a handful of talent. Artists Included: Aaron Turner, Josh Graham, Seldon Hunt, Stephen Kasner, Aaron Horkey, Florian Bertmer, Justin Bartlett and Dwid Hellion. Curated by Brett Aronson. It seemed like everyone was there for a limited edition print of Horkey's selling for $360. All the Horkey fanboys packed into a single file line at the top floor of Upperplayground drooling over there chance to walk away with a little piece of Minneapolis' best. My boy John waited in line for 2 hours!

Here is what Aaron had to say about the piece:

“Embellished with 5 colors - acrylics, gouache and colored pencil. Each individual piece includes it’s unique print number hand rendered in paint, cradled inside the Detritus emblem at the bottom of the print. Surrounding flourishes on each number have been added using metallic gold colored pencil, also unique to each print. 12 egg cases within the illustration have also been rendered and the print number for each print has been painted into the key face, upper right corner of the image.”

Check out Horkey and and his crew at http://www.burlesquedesign.com/

Cass McCombs - Not the Way

Cass McCombs - Not the Way

This is the title track, Not the way, of Cass McCombs debut album Not the Way. I remember when i first heard this album i was going through a transient faze in my life. I had just moved out to the bay area from Chico and was bouncing from couches in Oakland and San Francisco while trying to find a new job. I really didn't know a lot of people and for the first time in quite some time, it was difficult to find some one to go grab a beer with. i remember immediately relating to this song. Cass McCombs has since become a favorite artist of mine and there is always something uplifting and peaceful about his somewhat melancholy lyrics.

music test

I have been messing around with this mp3 player and have finally had some success getting it to work. i only destroyed my blog style sheet in the process, so things are looking kind of bleak but we have music.

Please note this is a blank audio file.

trains, planes, and automobiles

Here are a couple pics from the years past at various yards.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
English novelist (1812 - 1870)

1969 The Ohio Match Company

I came up on this vintage matchbox set over the weekend. more to come.