It has recently come to my attention that I’m not gonna be young forever. Someday, I’m gonna have to actually act like an adult. When i turned 25, i decided that i needed to come up with some decent Five Year Plans so’s i wouldn’t wind up a no-account, good for nothing, scoundrel, drunkard, scumbag man-child by the time i hit 30. somewhere on that list - between “millionaire” and “town mayor” - i decided i was going to become a tattoo artist. Steady work, good pay, lots of travel, fulfillment of art school dreams…
Well, its been a little over a year since, and I have my full rig set up and I’ve been steadily working on grapefruit, pigskin, and willing friends alike, as well as moonlighting as shop assistant at my friend Nate’s new tattoo shop, Thicker Than Water.
I can’t say i’m any closer to being the actual adult i aspire to be, but damn it, I’m gonna be a tattoo artist one of these days. Here’s what I’ve gotten done in the past few weeks. Click the pictures for larger images.
I’ve also got a ton of music/band/tour updates, but I’ll get to those later.
Thom Smith, one of my best friends and the drummer for my band Haunted Castle, taught me how to carve linoleum blocks and how to hand pull prints from them on high quality paper. the top image, “Deth King” is a print from my first block. 3×4″ on RFK creme paper. email me at Danbones@danbones.com if you’d like a print, i’ve got a bunch just sitting around.
HasiBGB’s - Dick Jones
Next up is the second collaborative piece between myself and Nick James, better known as Dick Jones. This was the flier artwork for a house party at my apartment (now known best as HasiBGB’s), where I did the linework and Nick did the watercolor work. Nick is one of my favorite artists currently active right now. He also moved to SLC and i miss the hell out of him.
Eastern Goldfinch Wedding
The third image here are the the Eastern Goldfinches with the absurdly floral patterned background. i love love love this piece, and i’m really glad i committed to completing it. This was a wedding present for my step brother Gary, and the Goldfinches are the state bird of New Jersey to represent the best the state has to offer, and the pink peonies are a blessing for a long and happy marriage. I was pretty happy with how this one came out.
Flying Death
Not to dwell on Thom Smith or anything, but the last image is my submission for Thom’s zine, Submit To Satan. This is for the first issue, which has 17 artists from all around the world contributing all sorts of metal themed artwork. I’m really stoked I got to be a part of it, and I’m dying to see the ‘zine when its finished.
Ok, now I’ll dwell on Thom. The dude is one of my best friends in New York and he’s moving to Japan in a week. This means my band Haunted Castle is breaking up, but it also means that two of my closest friends have moved out of the city in the past year. Its not that I’m hard up on friends or nothin’, I’m just awful at travelling to visit friends and keeping in touch in general.
So, we’re having our farewell show at my house (HasiBGB’s) this saturday, 1/09/10 as Thom’s going away party and one last boozed up thrash fest for a band that finally got its shit together and doesn’t suck. so come on over!
I AM BAD AT HOSTING A BLOG. I HAVE WRITTEN NOTHING IN OVER TWO MONTHS.
this ain’t the first time, neither. what am i gonna do with you, blog? how do i explain what i been up to? let’s start from the top:
i’m now in two bands and easily spend half my week playing music, I got hired as an animator for a small project in May for Ride5 Media group in Hoboken, NJ, and have since completed my first professional animation project for “The Edge with Jake Sasseville”, i got the HELL out of new york and went to Berlin and Prague for a week, i started getting into block printing and have since pulled some sweet looking prints, and about fiiiive hundred other things that are keeping me as busy as ever.
i’ll start with music, that’s easiest.
Haunted Castle has been playing shows like nuts. we’re getting louder, angrier, better at playing our instruments, and finally coming into our own as a legit thrash band.
i’ll elaborate on everything else later. I’ve been drawing every day still, and i have some rad stuff in the works for the future. sorry i ain’t been updatin’ you, blog. but you’ll live. more fun stuff to come.
Man, I ain’t posted nothin’ in over a month! I’ve been busy. Also, i get about six to eight spam comments on this thing per day lately, and its a total buzzkill. Anyway, lemme recap the past few weeks:
Haunted Castle is playing a Burlesque Show.
We played a house party with Japanther.
And we’ve got new artwork in progress.
In other news, I got a postcard in the mail from Dave Kloc, who is an amazing illustrator in LA. He and I are doing an art trade, and this is what i got from him.
I’d post up my end of the bargain, but I’m a terrible person and haven’t mailed it yet. it came out pretty rad though. Hopefully its worth the wait.
Also, I’m an animator now! I’ve been hired by a company called Ride5 Media in Hoboken to be their animator on a project they’ve got in the works. I started last week, and I’ve been doing a ton of character design and workin’ fairly furiously over in NJ. They’re treating me super well, and I should have some awesome work to add to my demo reel down the road…
So, I’ve got a few commissions i desperately need to finish up in the near future, new artwork i’ve been crankin’ out pretty regularly I’ll post soon, new Haunted Castle shows in the near future, and I’m goin’ to Berlin in June! I’m goin’ to visit my friend Kat for a week, draw a ton of stuff, drink a ton of beer and I’m even gonna Czech out Prague while i’m there. …sorry.
Kat rules, and I’m pretty thrilled to get the helllll outta new york for a hot minute.
So, I’ve got five different drawings i wanna get done within the next week, and I sorta fell into a rut where I’m getting NONE of them done. I’ve also spent the entire week completely out of it. I’ve been in sleepwalk mode for like five days straight now. Total suck. I got this done though.
However! Its been a fairly eventful week anyway, especially when it comes to rockin’ out. First off, Thom ‘n I went to see Converge last friday night. I’ve been trying to see this band for SEVEN YEARS now, and i finally did. Completely blew me away. Say what you want about this band, but this was one of the best live sets I’ve ever seen. They played “The Saddest Day”, they played new stuff, and they covered “Wolverine Blues” by Entombed! Entombed!!! Oh, and Thom ‘n I were in total Booze Tornado mode. Trouble/adventures everywhere.
Monday night, Haunted Castle finished writing our 4th song, sans Doug and vocals.
Haunted Castle - “G.F.T.D. (A.G.T.H.)” rough practice - 033009 from Dan Bones on Vimeo.
We’ve got a pretty solid setlist right now, and I’m extremely amped for our next show, which is in two weeks at the Charleston.
We’re playing with Nanda Devi from Portland, who are super heavy doom metal, and We Are All Savages, who are good friends of ours, and tear stuff up pretty hard. Do me a favor and repost this damned flyer.
WAAS also played Fontana’s in the Lower East Side on Wednesday night, and I took a ton of photos.
They also did an amazing His Hero is Gone cover.
As if that wasn’t enough of these dudes, Jack Crank also interviewed singer/guitarist Junior for No Gods No Vegetables
Aaaaand to round out things nicely, THE SLEEPIES ARE PLAYING TOMORROW NIGHT!
Stupid jerk lovable bastards. It’s Josh’s birthday soon, so come out tomorrow night and throw beer cans at these guys extra hard. Circle Pits everywhere!
Here’s a little of what I’ve been workin’ on these days.
I am super happy with this piece, and I got a call yesterday afternoon from my mom saying it arrived safe ‘n sound in the mail. AWESOME.
This is the half finished version I started in photoshop, scrapped, and have since redone entirely in watercolor.
What do these two pieces have in common? They’re both birthday presents! I’ll post up the Watercolor version of this as soon as i get a decent photo of it. too big to scan properly…
One more;
This was a piece i had initially started for the Rat Pack Hustle sprint series i throw in the Fall. I’ve since changed focus and i’m really really excited to see this one when its done.
Anyway, I’ve got a bunch of things in the works at the moment, so I should have steady updates for at least the next month. Also, I’ve been regularly updating my Chainsaw Portraits, which never gets old for me.
I’ve had this weird fascination with the way chainsaws are inherently linked to fantasy violence well before they’re linked to utility. Its a social norm that we inherently opt for a macabre form over function. Maybe its because we know more crappy slasher films than we know people who own chainsaws, but the chainsaw will always have this stigma of being a romanticized instrument of death than a simple motorized tool.
I dunno, they are pretty vicious looking.
Point being, I bought this kickass Yardmaster (no, i do not keep it gassed up, no it does not work), and I’ve got a couple ideas kickin’ around my head for different projects exploring modern society’s relationship with the chainsaw. First and foremost are portraits. Get in touch if you wanna come over and have your picture taken wielding the Yardmaster.
I’ve got new artwork, fun anecdotes and new Haunted Castle songs to post up here, but I’ll get to it later. I got better things to do than sit around all day bloggin’ about stuff. …that would make me a blogger.
So, Haunted Castle played our second show last night at the Charleston with our new friends Hibagon and a few prog metal style bands on tour from CT and NJ.
Fun facts about last night’s show:
-Doug is in LA, thus we only played as a 3 piece.
-Jack had been stuck in an Atlanta airport for a day ‘n a half because of blizzard conditions, and came straight to the venue from the airport EXTREMELY agitated.
-Thom lost one of the pins in his wrist over the weekend. From his surgery in the fall. It broke the skin, and then just fell out. Oh my god. What the hell.
-I’m sick as hell! I caught a gnarly headcold as soon as my stomach healed up from my bacterial infection, so i spent the night pounding water, vitamin C and Dayquil.
After all that, our set came out something like this.
Anyway, Hibagon went on after us and killed it, yet again, and it turns out that I’m probably going to be filling in as their bass player starting in April. Alex is going off to LA for a reality TV show about how awesome he is, thus bassist wanted. Two bands! yeah!
So, we’re writing new songs, lining up more shows, and aside from that, I’m just trying to get over being constantly sick. Between this week’s batch of death throes, however i managed to finish up the Blog Header for Jack’s No Gods No Vegetables.
click the picture for the larger version.
more fun stuff on the horizon, and more friend updates too!
so, i’ve spent the better part of this week in bed unable to hold down even the tiniest bit of food. turns out i finagled a bacterial infection in my guts at some point over the weekend, and it put my body in meltdown mode sunday afternoon. After spending most of tuesday in Bellevue hospital, I’m slowly gettin’ back to normal and once again eating food. god, i love food. i’m starving. i would kill for the ability to eat ten burgers right now. TEN.
however, before i caught roaring hell, we managed to throw a phenomenal party, and Haunted Castle played a damned fine first show.
We played with The Sleepies, who put on their best set to date if you ask me, and Thomas got a couple pictures of us that he posted to the Up The Drunx podcast he does with Josh.
Well, we’re supposed to be playing our second show this Sunday at Death By Audio in Brooklyn, but since Doug is gonna be in LA, I’ve barely been able to walk all week, and Thom was in the hospital himself since his previously broken wrist has been acting up, the odds are kind of against us.
I’m workin’ on a comic for my friend Jesse, since it was her birthday last week. I’m halfway through coloring it and adding backgrounds at the moment, and I’ll post the final version when it’s done.
Even though I started this piece two weeks ago, it is REALLY difficult to feel accomplished after Nick James put out Body Modifications this week. Dude just won’t stop raisin’ the bar over here.
Anyway, whatcha doin’ this weekend? Come party with me.
five bucks at the door, cash bar, lotsa bands playing, John K Tel is DJing, and my band might even play! ridiculous!
