This song commemorates Fiesta 2008 in San Antonio,TX. Fiesta is a very laid back version of Mardi Gras. Instead of beads, boobs and assholes you have Mexican food, beer, and floating river parades. You lose one good thing and one bad thing and get the mild buzz that is Fiesta. Don’t knock a mild buzz though. It works.

This song is named after the decorated eggs you smash over people’s heads during Fiesta.  The shells are full of confetti so it isn’t that bad. Cascarones, tamales, beer, fireworks, bull riding, and barbeque are all covered here. Here is a snapshot of Texan fun from 2008 to get you ready for Fiesta 2009 which starts this weekend… Ohh yeah this is a song by The Fadge.

Here is a tune where Allen tells us about The Chocolate Wolf. If you see this Chocolate Wolfman ladies you better run. You can either run away from him or towards him. Either decision would be the right one.

Allen displays an excellent Scoobie Doo impersonation here.

This is a song from Skurj’s “Gops and Gooblins” CD. It is all about an 80’s flashback in New Jersey that ends with a post-modern, surreal guitar solo. Ohh yeah Barry White is the hook. The “Gops and Gooblins” cover is below. It is an illustration I did of a Motley Crue of monsters. No reason.

If you are a Barry White fan then I bet you are confused by this post. Sorry.

The above picture is a CD cover I designed a few years ago. It was inspired by Skurj’s “Left Coast” contact: The Amazing Mike Timpson. Mike moved to LA from Baltimore to pursue his ambitions in the world of comedy. He has since become one of Skurj’s biggest heroes (next to George Clinton).

He won the WWE’s biggest fan contest a few years ago and a $25,000 check. He went to the Playboy Mansion and macked on the ladies successfully. He has worked with Doogie Howser, and he has even met Stacey Keech! Every year he does something that makes me envious.

whatabouttimpson

Through his journey Timpson has turned to Allen and I to help him out with theme songs for his skits at the Fake comedy club on Melrose Ave. I have included one of those songs at the bottom of this post.

I captured the main image I used at the Fake. I manipulated it and pieced together some images from an old book of 18th century woodcuts I had found at a thrift store. I decided to make it black and white to save on printing costs. I had done a color version, but I then decided to be thrifty. I have a better pic of the cover somewhere in my files. If you are reading this I am still searching for it. If you an 18th century woodcutter, sue me.

Timpson got the body suit from someone in LA who had worked on some 80’s monster movie about a huge man sized rat. The hat was his addition. When he walked on stage he stood 7 feet tall and then proceeded to make the room laugh till it hurt. I was lucky to have it together enough to snap this pic. It also helped that I was in LA with a camera.

The track included here is “Swamp Ass”. It is about a guy who always sweats through his shorts when he is playing basketball. (Sorry, I have no pics from this skit.) I really like the guitar work I did for this track. It is a cross between Stevie Ray Vaughn and Southern Culture on the Skids. It is a sound I really need to work into less sarcastic songs. Allen supplied the lyrics of course.

There is another more popular tune from a Timpson skit I will post later…Skurj fans and fans of Steve the Thrill Hill know what I am talking about.

Here is a song where Skurj gets political. Like most people we didn’t care much for Bush, and one afternoon this song developed. What is most interesting about this song is not the political commentary, but the word “Kamage”. Dan makes this word up here and I always love trying to figure out what it means. Is it a technicolor camouflage that is always changing color. Is it one of the lesser known members of the 80’s pop group Debarge?

Most likely Dan couldn’t get the word camouflage out while he was freestyling. Whatever the reason, the word “Kamage” is here now and I encourage everyone to try to use it this week. Let me know if you discover other meanings or definitions. Kamage!

Ruddnick had been helping us try to get gigs around Baltimore at the time. We appreciated the help, but Mike had gotten us a gig on Superbowl Sunday at the Ottobar. It was great, but it was Superbowl Sunday. Superbowl Sunday is a holy day for Skurj. It is the one time of year we get together and we do not make music. No one wanted to do it. Who would come see us on Superbowl Sunday?Mike heard this and automatically blamed me. He called and left this incredible answering machine message. After getting over my initial anger, I sat down and put some music to the message. Later that year we did play an Ottobar gig that Mike got us. That night is a story in itself. Imagine Skurj in an episode of “The Wire”.

Anyway, all of the stuff in the intro of the track was actually on my answering machine. Some weird Indian guy had been mistakenly calling my number and leaving messages that week. Dan, Malcolm and my Mom even makes a cameos…

The above picture is from a gig Ruddnick did not get us. I have no idea who the bald guy is. Thanks to Melinda for finding this pic.

Hey Mike my head is not up my ass.

IC-Grey and the MAACP take it down a knotch with this tune.

Do you wanna kick it? I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it much…Dan and Malcolm always kick it.

I seem to be the only guy in the art department when these things come in…This is an intro animation for a segment where our sports guy Larry Ramirez goes to Sea World and asks different animals who will win the big high school football game. The animals don’t really pick. Larry just hides food inside the helmet of the team he wants to win and lets nature take its course.

I automatically thought about Brian Fellows on this assignment, and I there was no other way to go…You know, Brian Fellows from Safari Planet.

I broke out my digital camera and shot Larry against our green screen. For the animal photos, I had to go online to the free stock photo sites and pray there were some marine animals that would work. I built the first two scenes in After Effects and the last one in Cinema 4d. I didn’t realize it until afterwards, but the music I used is the same music they use on the Girls Gone Wild commercials. Just another layer cheese on an already cheesy animation. I like cheese though and I think Brian Fellows does too.

After I finished the design I realized it was really a perfect design for a child’s t-shirt or a girl’s t-shirt. It got decent reviews and votes, but not enough. I pretty much alienated the guy vote on this one with the high cute factor. I may try designing another shirt in the future if I have a good hipster idea. Maybe I’ll start a baby t-shirt company.

In the end the traffic ones didn’t make it. The SAPD thought it wasn’t in their interests to appear to be promoting a specific news outlet or promoting the fame of 2 of its officers. The GMSA anchor one did make it, and it sat above the highways around town for a few months. In retrospect I should have taken a photo of the actual billboards just for fun. Let’s just say it is weird to see something you did printed up so huge.

Working the high resolution files for this was a painful task. Everything I did in photoshop was tedious. Just opening the file took 5-10 minutes. Also since we were spending so much money I had all of the bosses staring over my shoulder. I am glad I got to do this at least once though.

We were never a big deal and we never even tried to be. All of us just loved trying make the other guy laugh. So the music reflects that. We never took ourselves too seriously, and that is why Skurj still exists after more than 10 years. The fact that we respected the humor and we couldn’t wait to hear what was next kept us going. Get us in a room with some party favors and hit record. We will give you an album with at least one good song.

When I first started playing with Skurj, I approached the situation from the perspective of being a big fan of Ween, Beck and Sebadoh. I was way into the whole 90’s D.I.Y. recording thing. Skurj was just the right situation to actually do that. I started out recording on a 4 track and graduated up to a Roland VS-880EX. Technically it was a huge pain in the ass by current standards, but I captured the sound. Now Allen has a roided-out PC with numerous recording programs and I only record on my computer. Anyway, that means there is a bunch of SKURJ sitting around on tape. We did our first 2 years analog, and none of that is online….Watchout!

Well here is a classic that captures our late 90’s early 00’s sound. I guess this was recorded eight years ago? I can’t really remember. I’m sure Dan or Allen might. I miss those guys on Sunday afternoons.

This is only my first Skurj post. In the future I will be posting rare tracks from the past.

www.myspace.com/skurj

Here is a song by my band The Fadge. We wrote and recorded this in April 2008. It was inspired by my talkative and sometimes nosey neighbor Janet who was moving out at the time. I couldn’t walk out of my apartment without hearing, “Hey Kurt.” This would be followed by at least a half hour of Janet talking at me about whatever was bugging her that day. She was a nice lady, but man could she talk. She showed up one afternoon while the Fadge was relaxing and barbequing on the back porch. I think she hung out until 10pm talking about nursing and rodent problems etc.. She made a big impression on the other guys, and we had to write a song about her.

Here is a picture of Juan Croucier (Billy) during the six hour Janet Fest. He came up with the first guitar chords the next day. Enjoy.

Since it is that time again I thought I would dust off these animations. In 2004 I art directed these vote animations at News in Motion. Some of the modeling was done by my coworkers. We did these over a period of a week I guess. The pacing feels a bit slow now, but for web explanation videos they work. The voice over you hear is a dummy track we sent with our feeds. Pete Daniels is not voice over talent. He does play the hell out of a blues fiddle though. Catch him at The Zoo Bar in D.C. sometime. Violin blues riffs work.

Remember Puffy Daddy with his “Vote or Die!” slogan. Boy that worked didn’t it.

At my current job I don’t get to do much explaining with my graphics. At my last job that is all I did. This assignment let me delve back into some of those skills. These graphics were created for a spec website my station is currently trying to find a sponsor for. San Antonio has one of the highest rates of diabetes in the country, and my station thought a website where we tell people about diabetes would be a good idea. I agree.

In retrospect I spent more time on these than I should have, but after spending 4 years at Knight Ridder/ Tribune ,sitting next to guys who do these kinds of graphics so well, the bar in my mind was set pretty high. I was given some graphics from other medical sites as references. I’m not bragging, but I think these came out better visually. I did all of the modeling for these except for the torso skeleton and the heart further down the page. I turned these out in about 4 KSAT days. At a job a where this was my only assignment, it would have been 2 days or less.

Whenever I do medical graphics I think about Peter Kohama. He was the guy in my old department who always did excellent medical animations. He actually read medical journals and could probably operate on someone if he had to.  I always wonder, “Would Dr. Kohama approve?” I guess he was my Yoda for medical graphics.

One more. Like I said, I did not model the heart. Someday maybe I’ll model a heart, but if you have a great one in your model library there isn’t any reason to. This assignment let me make a kidney, a stomach, a pancreas, and some blood vessels. Those I didn’t have. Look on turbosquid.com in the near future. I’m selling these guys.

Here is a compilation graphic from my old website. Twing Liddy is still a moniker I use for some projects, but like Puff Daddy I felt like I needed a new one. So this year I am Electric Hombre.

This graphic has a number of CD and poster designs from when I was living in the D.C./Baltimore area. Most of these designs were for my band Skurj. I plan on posting some Skurj songs soon. So don’t worry. You can go to www.purevolume.com/skurj to hear and download if you can’t wait.

I also did some posters for The Fake comedy club in LA. If you are ever in LA and want to get your laugh on, go down to Melrose and check out a show at The Fake. Maybe it’s not as famous as the other clubs, but it’s more than worth your time. It’s the underground comedy club where the real laughs are made. At least that is what Mike Timpson told me. I have another poster I did for them. I’m hunting around for it. Maybe I’ll post it later.

ARMANDO MONTELONGO LOGO

Well this past week I finally got the Armando Montelongo logo finalized. My friend Brian Ramirez over at www.irezproductions.com has recently started working with local entrepreneur and cable TV celebrity Armando Montelongo. If you have ever seen “Flip This House” on A&E you probably know who he is. Anyway, Brain asked if I could come up with a logo for his new boss. The odyssey began…

The first version, at the bottom of the image above, went over well. I even animated it for a quick open. Home run! Well, as time went on Armando thought it was too much like his brother’s logo with the house concept. So the redesign process started. I would put together a logo sheet with some options and send them over to Brian. Armando is a busy guy, so it took some time hear back as to what worked etc. The circular logo above on the 2nd round was the winner mid-summer. Armando wanted something that looked like the Chris Angel logo from Mindfreak and he also liked Anthony Robbins logo. So the M in the circle was that concept. Well then someone in Armando’s office said the M in the circle looked asian or chinese. So back to the drawing board.

This time I was told “Money” and given some references to more traditional designs. So I started thinking east coast, traditional, classic and “What the hell does this guy want.” Then late at night I saw Armando on an infomercial. As I watched the guy I tried to imagine, “What says Armando”. Through this entire process I hadn’t talked directly to the client. All of the feedback was coming through Brian. So luckily Armando shows up on my TV at 1am. This is very helpful when you are at the end of your rope and you are trying to read your client’s mind. I always like to talk to the person I am designing for. You can really pick up on where they are coming from, and what could work. At least now I had “Money” and a vague impression from an infomercial. Better than nothing. Onward!  (I still didn’t know what I was going to do.)

So the next day I went with a traditional crest design. I had been thumbing through Esquire and realized what says “Money” is a crest logo. I couldn’t find any fonts that worked when I stacked the letters, so I built the AM from scratch. Next I tried to make the leaves on the side of the crest feel more modern in their flow. Finally I built a 3D model of the design. I even gave the shield a nice curve. I sent the 2d version and a 3d render to help sell the concept. It went over well , and now I think we have a logo Armando is happy with. It was one of those “I’ll know what I want when I see it” kind of things. I can respect that. It could also be the fact that 3D renders look “Money.”

Here is the current version of my reel as of September 2008. This includes a number of projects from the time I have been working at KSAT-12 in San Antonio, Texas. Everything was conceptualized and animated by me in KSAT’s quick turnaround atmosphere.

Expect a newer reel soon. I just got my new Mac Pro and it should make the editing process better, stronger, faster. I think I’ll call it Lee Majors since it cost so much.