For some years now, the droopy eyes and twisted moustaches of Yok’s black-lined characters have been staring aimlessly from Melbourne alleyways, zines and gallery walls. They seem to sleepily go about their business like everyone else, either happy or resigned to a life they didn’t choose. With his new exhibition ‘Ikko Banquet’, Yok’s characters have become spectacular, ethereal beings – no longer like us, they float around in shapeless blobs of colour, their thoughts hovering around on display.

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What first got you into drawing? Was graffiti the first thing, or did something else lead to graf?

I guess I just enjoyed drawing. Maybe MAD magazine. Graffiti came after, I was quite inspired by the medium and I guess I saw more of it as I wasn’t going to galleries to seek out art. After I left high school, I began to hang out with a crew of writers who inspired me and taught me the techniques.

You grew up in Perth. What else did you get up to over there?

Perth was great for sunshine, going to the beach and drawing on a few walls.

So you’ve been in Melbourne for a few years now. What motivated the move? How did the change in environment affect your work?

Being a bit bored in Perth and with Perth motivated me to move to Melbs. I came to Melbourne because of the art scene here and wanted to be a part of it. I found once I got here, I worked a lot harder and felt more at ease working all day on my work. I don’t know why, it seems people are more supportive and encouraging of art bums here.

The crossover between the graf scene and the gallery scene is becoming more and more blurred. How have you found it making the transition? Do you feel more comfortable in this world now, or do the two sustain each other?

I can’t really say I was ever a writer, I just painted characters and haven’t really worked with tags. So crossing into the gallery was always kind of in my mind. I guess painting is quite solitary, so I still enjoy doing graffiti as you get to do it outside in the sunshine with your pals.

Your work, especially the newer stuff with the watercolours, reminds me of Barry McGee and Mark Gonzales. Who/what are your influences? (Not necessarily artists!)

Yep Twist has been a big influence, the Gonz not so much but his creative approach to life I admire. I guess now it would be travel going to a new country with a unique culture always inspires me. Seeing places with fresh eyes is a buzz.

On the subject of newer stuff, can you explain the motivation behind the new work in ‘Ikko Banquet’? There are two very separate groups of work.

Ha, well, my studio was taken down for a rent inspection mid working and so I was painting small on my screen printing paper with these great new shellac based inks and reading about ancient religions (well not really reading they were picture books mostly). And I loved the results so I worked some of them up to bigger pieces.

Working on distinct bodies of work like this, how do you feel about breaking them up with the process of selling work? Is it easy saying goodbye? Are there any pieces you get too attached to?

Sure, some I love and want to keep but I don’t have the wall space and I keep moving around too much.

What about the blow up dudes (huge monotone inflatable characters)? That must have been an interesting process, kind of like making a toy.

Yeah have always wanted to make a figurine, so thought would be fun to make a giant one. Thanks to the giant inflatables wiz, he helped me get them together. It’s quite a process with mapping out all the shapes and sewing them together.

You edit Kingbrown magazine. Can you tell us a bit about that?

This ones a love job for sure, it’s fun working with artists from all around the world, I enjoy working with type and doing layouts so it doesn’t feel like work. I have always wanted to start my own magazine ever since I found my first copy of lodown mag.

Plans for the immediate future? Another move is on the horizon?
Travel, and get issue 4 of Kingbrown out.

Show Details:

Yo - Ikko Banquet –9th November – 1st December
Don’t Come Gallery, Lvl 2 Royal Arcade, 314 Little Collins St. Melbourne Ph 9639 2227
www.theyok.com
www.kingbrownmag.com

In celebration of sex, personality and homosexuality, BUTT magazine has released a book that features some of the best BUTT interviews from the past 5 years. Printed on their trademark faded pink A5 magazine stock, the BUTT book has some of the most entertaining interviews with people from film, music, photography and fashion such as LUTZ, Wolfgang Tillmans, Gus Van Sant, Viktor & Rolf, Bruce LaBruce, John Waters and many more. Very kindly, BUTT have supplied us with a list of their 5 most highly regarded magazines.

Andy Warhol’s Interview Magazine

(see also Interview Archive 1994-2007)

I-D Magazine

Index Magazine

The New Yorker

Straight To Hell

Captivated by his uncanny yet absorbing use of letterforms, collaged imagery, and logo designs, Steve Nishimoto’s art and graphic design has touched a global audience of skateboarders, tastemakers, art lovers, and cultural types, as he navigates them through an enigmatic exploration of mood and imagery. A native of the Windy City, Nish, discovered the rugged urban landscape of Chicago as a teenager, namely the remarkable yet somber vistas from the heights of the city skyscrapers, nurturing his interest in change, culture, and design.He established himself in New York’s Downtown scene under the tutelage of Adam Levite at Associates in Science and the founders of Zoo York Co., where he embarked upon a new sojourn: witnessing the acute transformation of the city from the perspective of a stranger. Nish’s ideas have inspired subsequent contributions to prominent and pioneering clients, including Uniqlo, subsidiaries of the Viacom network (Mtv, SpikeTv, Cmt, Nickelodeon, etc), Converse (Red), Burton, Nike, as well as Doug Aitken, And A, Shut Skateboards, FTC, 2k by Gingham, Beautiful Decay, and TheBlowup Magazine. His achievements have been profiled in the media, while his original designs have been featured in published collections. Nevertheless, Nish yearns to further refine his own subversive vision, aspiring to catch himself off-guard, while challenging his audience to transcend.

Related links //
Steve’s brand new blog

(click images to enlarge)

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TOM MCFARLANE has been a friend for a few years now, a short history that harks back to the days when he screamed incessantly with a band called LOVE LIKE… ELECTROCUTION and another called ST ALBANS KIDS. He has since then moved on to live in two different cities, another country, changed girlfriends once or twice, been under the employ of a couple important people, and in his spare time manages to keep a few projects up and running including a solo drone project BRUTAL SNAKE, a doom- sludge-drone band CEASE and a CDR record label called BROTHERS that he runs between his homes in Perth and New York. Here he takes us through his five favorite records.

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1. Les Rallizes Denudes ‘le 12 mars 1977 a Tachikawa’ Double CD Bootleg

The first time I heard this record was like the world opening up before me and I’d realised that for the past 24 years I’d had my eyes closed. Absolutely life changing and life-affirming. I heard this for the first time sitting in a Tarago, with friends who were over in Adelaide on tour, drinking beers and watching the sun set over the beach – one of those things that was completely just a bolt from the blue. I had heard absolutely nothing about them prior to that moment and still know very little now other than that they were around from the late 60s in Tokyo and played through into the 1990s. The lead singer/guitarist Mizutani was supposedly involved in a left-wing terrorist plot to hijack a plane in the 70s and is apparently still on the run from the police. There are constantly reported sightings of him in Tokyo, but it’s getting to be some kind of Lochness Monster kind-of-thing. There are so many elements to point to… the absolute mystery of the whole thing, very little information at all in Englis on the CDs, Japanese band with French name, songs that go for 1/2 hour playing the same riff over and over. Then of course there is the sound; a rather plodding Velvetsy 60’s pop-psych rhythm section with the most intense, white-hot guitar sounds, sheets and sheets of white noise overwhelm everything constantly and the live recording is patchy at best but just adds to the whole spectacle. However many years later since I first heard it this still blows my head off and provides a benchmark for whether people are talking shit or not when they describe a band as noisy extreme-psych.

2. PÄRSON SOUND ‘Discography CD’ (Subliminal Sounds)

Similar momentous occasion for these guys, first time I heard them again tore a hole in my perception of music up until that time. Driving across the middle of New South Wales, enroute from Melbourne to Brisbane, someone flipped this on the car stereo and I was hooked. Totally overdriven drone-oriented-heavy-as-fuck-psych. These guys emerged out of some scene in Stockholm in the late 60s oriented towards Terry Riley type stuff and then mixed that in with the prevailing rock musical climate, ala Velvets, Pink Floyd, Hendrix etc. This stuff goes and goes and goes and I never grow tired of it. Again, emphasis on repetitive grooves that can lock in for up to 1/2 an hour with mantric vocals and the heaviest rhythm section this side of Pentagram. These guys would travel around Scandanavia in their painted Kombies playing ‘happenings’ wherever they happened to be, IE in parks, forests etc. Having all their own custom gear and PA certainly helped. They later went on to morph into Harvester and Trad, Gras och Stenar who are still playing today, but for my money this is where it was at for these guys, before the hippy vibe started to eat away at the jams… the heaviness is unbelievable for the times, especially in such a glacial, experimental context.

3. Double Leopards ‘ Halve Maen’ CD (Eclipse)

There is a theme running through here of musical finds that completely re-oriented my perceptions as to musicality and the journey of sounds. Double Leopards are another group who opened up one of those holes for me. Now, the various members of this band are veritable superstars of the US-underground, cross-fertilising so many side projects and solo efforts that i cant even start to attempt to document it here. Suffice to say, in my humble opinion this album ranks as their finest hour. Long, slow, drawn out drone compositions, layers and layers and layers of heaviness with sounds sourcing from effects-ridden guitars, processed vocals and various primitive electronics to form a murky, swamp-ridden wasteland of epic proportions. However, the thing that separates this for me from so much of the other output of this genre is how warm and organic this manages to sound, like as if the band were performing it all in your carpeted lounge-room. Of course this kind of stuff is all the rage now, but back in 2005 this was my first exposure to something so magnificent. Again, first listened to in a car driving interstate.

4. Led Zeppelin ‘Led Zeppelin’ (Atlantic)

Don’t need to say too much here, of epic proportions to this day. If only half the supposed rock bands kicking around today would study this album a little closer the world would be a much better place. In that 60s tradition not a single member was fill, all four of them were amazing at their chosen instrument. I’ve heard it said that Robert Plant was the weakest link and they would have been much better with Ozzy singing instead… but i’ll leave that one to another day.

5. Popol Vuh ‘Aguirre, the wrath of God - OST’ (SPV)

A lot has been written about this film and its making, in particular the locational difficulties and ongoing conflicts between the director Werner Herzog and its lead actor, the iconoclastic Klaus Kinski and it all contributes to make the film compelling viewing. However, of equal merit is this wonderous soundtrack composed by german Kraut-rockers turned composers Popol Vuh, helmed by the extremely talented Florian Fricke. Taken in tandem with the film this soundtrack evokes all of the mystery and despair as lost Spanish Conquistadors contemplate their own mortality and insignificance, adrift on a raft heading down through the amazon, terrorised by a meglomaniac monster in human form. Excellent down-baked tunes and synth explorations for late night ponderings.

image: doingbird#twelve cover
(Natasha Poly // Photographed by Alasdair McLellan //Styling Kim Jones)

Malcolm Watt - doingbird // Interview

doingbird is a Sydney based fashion/culture magazine (edited by Max Doyle, Malcolm Watt) that maintains an international outlook and editorial opinion that seemingly often sidesteps local readership. Jeff Burch speaks with one-half Malcolm Watt about the drivers behind the periodical.

(more…)