Tommy and the Tommies – “Kicks” and “If I Had My Drumset”

Oh, hey, here’s some more of these videos from that thing I did a long time ago.

This one is called “Kicks,” and it may or may not be about some shoes.

Too slow to load? Try the standard quality version.

And this one is called “If I Had My Drumset.” It’s another Musical Gold song and is about how I miss the drumset I used to play when I was in high school and how it sucks to live in an apartment when you want to make lots of noise.

Too slow to load? Try the standard quality version.

It’s a little cringe-worthy there at the beginning. I think I learned a valuable lesson about having the man at the controls know when to adjust the levels. I also learned a valuable lesson about expecting people to follow along to non-traditional clapping rhythms.

Have I mentioned that the audio from the “Tommy and the Tommies” album sounds monstrously better than the audio in these videos? I haven’t?! Well, it does!

The Young Musician’s Club WordPress Site

The Young Musician’s Club is a not-for-profit summer program for teenage rock musicians here in Muncie. Now in its third year, the program gets young, aspiring musicians together to socialize and start bands, all in a safe, structured environment where they can hone their craft. It’s run by the guy who owns the Launching Pad, the venue where I had my Tommies show, and is ended there each summer with a concert exhibiting all the new bands.

This is my second year working with the group. It’s been my job to maintain the club’s website, take pictures of the bands, help them develop their imagery and online persona (like, you know, MySpace), and then film the final concert and make DVDs for the kids.

I’ve been fiddling with the site for awhile now, fixing bugs and such, but just recently decided it was good enough to really show people.

The big push this year was making the whole thing run on WordPress, instead of the old school, static HTML site I made last year.

I used WordPress Naked, a minimalist, skeleton WP theme, as a starting point, then merged it with the CSS and images created for last year’s site (archived here). Plugin props to Cleaner WordPress Gallery for helping to tame the WP gallery beast.

Link: http://youngmusiciansclub.com/

Apathetic Political Bumper Stickers

Here are some bumper stickers I made up that are not for sale, simply because they would cause too many hilarious car accidents:

politics... it's all like... woah...
Ageless. Timeless. Forever contemporary.

politics? more like shmolitics! am i right, you guys? this guy knows what i'm talking about!
An old classic. A gift from our forefathers.

politics = smelly dicks. you do the math.
An updated variation of an old classic.

i voted! ...for poop from my butt!
Every. Day. Of. My. Life.

Be a dear. Stumble this!

Guy with Tie by Hills

Just experimenting with coloring quick sketches in Photoshop. It’s not quite as satisfying as breaking out the Crayolas, but it gets the job done.

Also, drawing hills is funny because sometimes it looks like butts.

Poorly Drawn Hands

Some poorly drawn hands I drew while at the laundromat a week or two ago.

Blogging is hard. It’s hot. Ugghhh.

The P! Company

Good news, everyone! This week marks the launch of the new website I made for the P! Company, a sketch comedy group from Austin, Texas.

Their previous site ran on WordPress, like this one, so I jumped at the opportunity to make a new theme for them that could meet their demands, while allowing me to expand my skills with the platform and add to my portfolio.

The top priority for their new site was the video box on the main page; they wanted their latest sketch shoved down the throat of their visitors. With some help from planetOzh’s Theme Toolkit, I put together a YouTube embed box that can be easily changed from the admin panel.

Design wise, they wanted to keep the primary color scheme from their P! logo and the old-school space background. Too much red/blue/yellow can be overwhelming, so I used different shades of gray to offset it. Then, I used pixels as stars in the background (instead of stock space images from the web’s early days) to blend in with the blocky theme and maintain the nostalgic feel they were going for, hopefully without having it look too cliche.

Here’s some one-of-a-kind original idea doodles from before I started photoshopping:

So that’s it. http://thepcompany.com/. Have a gander. Not too shabby.

Could you be my next gig?! It is entirely possible! Contact me!

Take that, Giuseppe Arcimboldo!

Oh, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, you “Italian painter best known for creating imaginative portrait heads made entirely of such objects as fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish, and books!” You really thought you could stand up against iamnotagoodartist.com?

Pshhah! Everyday, someone comes to my website instead of yours, probably looking for your content! You have got to work on your Search Engine Optimization, son!

Handsome Hansel

I made this little guy for my girlfriend over the weekend. His name is Hansel, and he is in some serious agony.

He’s a smidge under 4″ tall but would be about 6″ if he didn’t slouch so bad. Like the others, Hansel’s made out of Sculpey clay, wire, and some aluminum foil on his oven-burnt feet.

Click any of the pictures for a closer look.

Tommy and the Tommies – “Malibu Stacy”

I told some friends I’d start to upload these videos, so here goes. This was the first song in the set. It’s called “Malibu Stacy.”

Too slow to load? Try the standard quality version.

I’ll post them as I upload them, which probably won’t be very fast. Oh, and you can download the album here.

Word.

This Shit Happened on the Internet

Today’s episode of “This Shit Happened on the Internet” takes its dialogue from a forum conversation and features a guy named Michael, whom I totally didn’t trace.