Archive for March, 2010

Working simultaneously on coloring a print I’ll be debuting at First Friday in May (more on that soon) and finishing next week’s Utopian page.

Back to work. Yep.

It’s been a while since the last stop on this tour looking back at my not-quite career in music-making, so if you need to catch up, I suggest you check out Part One (The Beginning), Part Two (BAUG) and Part Three (Rahne) before reading further.

We’re going to backtrack a bit to before the break-up of Rahne to discuss the sort-of untold chapter between the chapters. By early 1996, various factions in the Las Vegas-area darkwave/goth/industrial/noise scene had been whispering for months about joining forces to help cross-promote bands and grow the scene. In March, Morgana Athena, Rahne, Rosemary’s Baby, Sackcloth, Someone, Necropsis de la Musique, Wail of Sumer (Jason Feinberg’s band) and surely other acts I’ve long forgotten assembled at Enigma Garden Cafe in downtown Vegas to form an alliance. We took the name of the group from Morgana Athena’s long-time self-publishing label, Still Hour Productions, and with some ground rules set, a new collective was born. Officers were elected, meetings were scheduled, and we were off to the clove-smoke-filled races.

It worked pretty well for a while. With the exception of the colder months when we met at the apartment Jason and I shared, the group met weekly at the UNLV Alumni Amphitheater, which was appropriate, seeing as how most of the venues we played were around, and a number of the Still Hour members lived near, Maryland Parkway. Jason and I took care of group funds and our monthly newsletter, which we distributed to coffee shops and bars as a sort-of self-promotional zine. It introduced people to our artists, promoted shows and provided reading fodder for bored cafe haunters. The group grew in size as interested parties caught on to what we were doing, bringing in poets, artists and even more pop-oriented groups such as Melancholics. Jason hosted a radio show under the name “Still Hour,” plans were underway to release a compilation album (on vinyl!), and even more significantly, we decided to put on a concert festival.

After much discussion at our weekly meetings, we decided to produce a day-long charity concert benefiting AID for Aids of Nevada. We figured an event this large would be great promotion for the Still Hour bands, and obviously also a great fundraiser for AFAN. However, we were mostly a group of twentysomething social misfits taking on a task that may have been a bit too much to chew. Of course, that didn’t stop us.

Somehow, David Taylor (who played guitar in Wail of Sumer with Jason) and I became the point men for the festival, which was dubbed “Music for Time.” Either we both had a little more business savvy and experience than the rest of the crew, or we were both blowhards enough to take charge of things without anyone questioning. Whatever the case, planning for the festival became so time-intensive that I actually took a leave of absence from (and eventually plain ol’ quit) my day job to work on both “Music For Time” and Rahne full-time (ah, to be 20 again).

Our days were spent tracking down sponsors, scouting potential venues, meeting with AFAN, faxing press releases and formulating plans. Back then (and maybe now), it wasn’t as easy as you’d think to secure a large, outdoor venue for a music festival. We were targeting families, but featuring some pretty dark bands. Either way, neither the county nor the city would host a “rock” festival, and eventually we settled on the Rainbow Library Amphitheater, which could accommodate about 1200 people, and that was only after whitewashing the musical line-up for the powers-that-be with a cassette sampler featuring the softest of our proposed bands (bear in mind the schedule included a duo whose act included simulated heroin shooting).

Eventually, we secured services in-kind, including sound and lighting, concessions, advertising, giveaways and more. I designed all the advertising, collateral and tickets (getting really familiar with Adobe’s suite of products), as well as writing up (from notes collected at planning committee meetings) a 12-page document outlining the scheduling, rules of conduct and technical specs for the festival. We had radio spots and half-page ads running, tickets distributed and selling in various retail locations, and even non-Still Hour bands such as 12-Volt Sex (or was it Attaboy Skip? One of ‘em!) booked to bring in a more diverse crowd. I had picked up a new part-time job at Kinko’s as my money ran out, but all was on target for our Nov. 2 production. And then …

KABLOMP (that’s the sound of the bottom falling out)

Dave called me a week before the festival to let me know the sound/lighting company dropped out of the show, and he therefore made the decision to cancel the event. To be honest, it’s been 14 years and my memory is questionable, so I don’t know exactly how it went down, I just know there was no meeting of the collective or even the committee, just a decision made to shut down the whole thing.

As you might imagine, this was a mortal wound to a lot of relationships in the scene, and directed a lot of animosity and frustration toward both me and Dave (him getting the worse of it). I pulled Rahne out of Still Hour, forging ahead in a less dark direction. The collective struggled forward but barely made it past the end of 1996. In the end, it was just another blip on the Vegas cultural radar, but looking back, the short-lived era of the Still Hour collective represented something that, in my best estimate, no other group of musicians has been able to replicate here. It was a rare show of solidarity and fortitude you might otherwise never expect from a motley crew of goths, punks, rivet-heads, chronic depressives and otherwise socially outcast creative types.

Next up: Return to the goth side with Morgana Athena!

I’m back. Didja miss me?

Of course you didn’t. I’m sure between Twitter and Facebook and whatever else you kids use to do the cyberstalking these days, it feels like you can’t get rid of me. It’s OK, I understand the feeling. I can’t get rid of me either.

So Emerald City Comicon. It was fun. For the most part. I didn’t sell nearly as much as I’d have liked to — mainly, the goal was to push the first issue of the new anthology series I’m publishing, Omega Comics Presents. But people at the show seemed much more interested in having their stacks of comics signed by Big Name Creator X, or buying Wow That’s Neat-O art, not investing $3.50 into an unknown comic anthology by unknown creators from an unknown publisher.

But once I got over the depression of that on the first day of the convention, I simply learned to enjoy the time in Seattle, both at the show and outside of it, meeting new and old friends, walking around a beautiful city in gorgeous weather, and doing the working vacation thing. I could spill more, but that’s all I have the energy (or time) to say about it. For some reason, I’ve been kinda drained since getting back to Vegas, part of which I think is the kick-off of the annual Trees and Plants Assault Pj’s Sinus Cavities event, which has already caused my eyes to puff, my throat to clench and my body to go limp.

While I was up in the Pacific Northwest, two new reviews of Omega Comics Presents #1 hit the interwebs. The first is from a weird little horror-themed website that may or may not be called “Count Gore De Vol’s Tomb of Dark Delights.” It’s focused mostly on John Dimes’ tale in the debut issue, as John has one foot firmly in the horror fiction world, but overall, the, er, Count calls the comic “an entertaining first entry in what promises to be a very satisfying series.” Works for me!

More visibly was our review on Comic Book Resources’ “Comics Should be Good” blog. It’s a thorough, and I think fair, dissection of the issue. While the writer, Greg Burgas, doesn’t love everything (and in an anthology, I guess that’s the point), he does admit “there’s room for improvement,” and that “the fun of comics comes through rather well.” On the subject of my specific contribution, the first chapter of espionage-action serial “OMEGA,” Greg is critical but objective, and more importantly, the story was set up well “enough to be intriguing,” and I’m OK with that. I know the art’s not great, nor even my best, but so long as the story is told well, that’s all that really matters to me. But he did write that I have “talent, certainly, but [need] work on fluidity and nuance.” Which is all true. And kind of him to say. It would have been easy enough to outright say “the story’s OK, the art sucks,” but he didn’t, and the thing is, this is a starting point, and the only way to go is up. And believe me, the second issue of OCP – from cover to cover — is gonna rock peoples’ worlds. Or so I TELL YOU.

Anyway, the next week or so will be spent trying to get back into the swing of things, despite questionable physical and mental discombobulation. I need to get back to work on a number of projects, back to the gym, back to housework (bleh) and just, um, back. Like the Beatles.

It’s Tuesday afternoon. And I’m freaking out just a little. Because in four days, I’m flying up to Seattle for Emerald City Comicon. The reason I’m freaking out (just a little) is not because of the travel (which I love) or the city (which I love) or the convention (which should be awesome), but because even though I’ve attended many comic book shows before, this is the first major one at which I’m actually holding down a table. Pretty much by myself. For two days.

Actually, I’m excited. I know a lot of people who will be up there, though most of them I’ve only dealt with over the internet, including Denis Caron, Stephen Downer, Sven Straatveit and Jason Copland, who will be joining me at our little Pop! Goes the Icon table in Artist Alley on Saturday to hang out, sign stuff and help give away two pages of his original art from the first issue of Omega Comics Presents.

But the only show I’ve tabled thus far was the Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival, which is relatively small (1200 attendees), and was only five hours. I decided to forego bigger shows such as San Diego Comic-Con this year in lieu of more intimate (or at least, not four-day blowouts) venues such as ECCC and Long Beach Comic-Con. But still, ECCC is pretty huge, and I’ll have to be all cheery and approachable behind a table for two full days, something I haven’t done since I worked in retail — and that was a long time ago.

And as I’ll be in Artist Alley, people might expect, I dunno, sketches or something. And I’ve already had requests from folks attending for sketches. I gives me performance anxiety. And I would just pull the “I’m a writer” card, but everyone knows I also draw the comics I write, so I can’t really fairly do that. And sitting next to Jason, who’s a for-real artist, well, it has me a bit antsy.

But the main reason for my mini-freak-out, aside from still not having all my materials prepared and dreading how many supplies I’ll have to load into the luggage I don’t own yet, is whether or not I’ll sell enough comics to justify the huge expense of flying both Sara and I to Seattle, staying in a downtown hotel for three nights, and paying hundreds of dollars for space and power at the convention. Due to distribution fuck-ups with the first issue of OCP, I HAVE to count on convention sales to turn a profit on this thing and get my creators paid. So I’m being optimistic and bringing a bunch more copies than I think I’ll sell. But what if over the course of two days I don’t sell diddly? Is it because I’m a bad salesperson? Or because the product quality isn’t there? See why my nerves are a little wracked?

Of course, I’m sure things will go smoothly. And I’ll have a good time meeting new people, seeing old friends and generally hanging out in one of my favorite U.S. cities. But still: nervous.

If you live in Seattle or plan to attend the show, PLEASE come visit me at Artist Alley booth M-12. In addition to the first issue of the well-reviewed OCP #1, I’ll also have bargains on The Utopian #s 1 and 2, as well as free swag. And I’ll draw you a sketch if you ask nicely. So long as it’s not a car.

One of the cool things about writing for Vegas Seven (aside from the buffet of hookers and blow they offer freelancers) is getting to write about art for a weekly paper again. One of the primary reasons I started writing for Examiner.com was because while I was off running a magazine into the ground, other writers locked down the art beats for the other papers in Las Vegas. It allowed me to fulfill my love for preaching the arts and sort-of get paid still.

Of course, since Seven started up, I’ve self-removed myself from the local music beat for the Weekly and had to put Examiner stuff to the side (going from less than an article a month to none at all, sadly). But the result is talking to awesome artists such as Laurenn McCubbin and Gilbert Hernandez, and this week, spending a whole page discussing the differences between San Francisco and Vegas art scenes with Dray while exposing some outsider art at the Fallout Gallery.

I’ll probably be missing somewhat from Seven‘s pages for the next few weeks as I prep for, and attend, Emerald City ComiCon in Seattle (more on this soon), but keep your eyes peeled for new articles in the near future.

Oh, and if you haven’t donated to sponsor my team in this year’s AIDS Walk Las Vegas, you have more than a month. So hop to it!

As you fine people may know, I like to try to spread around my boundless wealth to as many good causes as possible, mainly because I’m far too busy ascending toward global domination to actually shovel food for the homeless or read to burn victims or whatever.

One of the charities I’ve very visibly supported for longer than I can even remember is Aid for AIDS of Nevada, a Las Vegas-based nonprofit whose mission is to provide “support and advocacy for adults and children living with and affected by HIV/AIDS in Southern Nevada.” How does AFAN do this? By working to reduce HIV infection through prevention education, providing services to those affected by the disease such as housing, transportation, food, nutritional counseling and legal assistance.

Every year around tax time, AFAN holds AIDS Walk Las Vegas, which serves both to bring awareness to the community and to raise beaucoup fundage for the organization. This year’s walk — the 20th annual — is being held on April 25, and as always, your pal Pj will be walking. It’s more like a big block party than a boring old charity walk — there’s live entertainment, vendors, colorful characters, food and drinks, and, of course, thousands of energized, awesome people ready to take to the streets of downtown Las Vegas.

I kindly request (and slightly urge) you to help the cause by either a) sponsoring me as a walker or b) joining our team and walking with us. I’d prefer “b,” but will definitely take “a!” This year, I’m walking on the Harrah’s Entertainment/Penn & Teller team, which means that for every dollar you guys donate on my behalf, Harrah’s will match that donation! Isn’t that cool? IT IS.

So I hope to either see you at 8 a.m. on April 25 at the World Market Center, or see your name pop up in my donation page “Honor Roll.” Thanks! In the meantime, enjoy a slideshow of photos from the 2008 AIDS Walk: