Greetings from Vinylandia...


Mr. Chadwick here with a new blogspot chronicling  finds and fascinations that lie just beyond the above pictured door. Uncovering those hidden treats that flow through the vast sea of vinyl platitudes that Amoeba Hollywood attracts, as well as many of my own personal treasures.  As things progress I hope to bring you more in-depth histories of the odd and curious private press and small label houses that the City of Angels has produced, but for now we'll start with some simple entertainment... found artwork.... Specifically artwork that was spontaneously created under the "influence" of the very object within which the said art piece was unearthed...

First up a nice trio of interpretations of very famous photos of a very famous UK pop group...

Here we have a very inspired George and Paul, outlined from a white album photo...

    


By far the most effective of the trio, a very different Ringo than we are used to... John got lost somewhere along the line...or maybe his being left out was some sort of message from the artist...

This boggles my mind. The art of George Vlosich III is something astounding, something baffling; I don’t understand why he’s chosen this medium! The artist Paul Klee was once asked about how he draws. He said he simply takes a line for a walk. The line George Vlosich takes for a walk goes on one insanely long nutty jaunt. And when you consider that all it takes is a single inadvertent bump for his art to be toast …

Vlosich uses an Etch-A-Sketch, and yes, it’s the same exact rectangular, red plastic framed model toy many of us had as kids. Each Vlosich Etch-A-Sketch piece takes considerable pre-planning and will typically take between 40 to 60 hours of patience, focus and attention-to-detail to complete. Remember, to draw with an Etch-A-Sketch, there is one line and only one line all the time. There’s little room for error, you can’t erase a mistake.

Probably the best thing I ever drew on one of those things was some pathetically lopsided cat. Vlosich produces refined images and precise portraiture and has since he was a kid. He started drawing when he was about ten years old. By the age of 18 he was being commissioned by the Topps Trading Card Company to produce a series of Etch-A-Sketch drawings as special inserts for their 1998 Topps Baseball trading card collection. He continues working today, still using the Etch-A-Sketch and it’s 5 x 7 screen, but Vlosich has also expanded his art to include painting and illustration, and has set up a design company specializing in advertising and logo design, sports memorabilia and apparel. Plus, he has a line of greeting cards. So next year for Christmas … someone send me one. I’d be damned pleased!

This was supposed to be a quiet, peaceful morning - a relaxing respite from the 21st century’s annoying concoction of curs, vipers, vermin, polecats, mongrels and insects that whore of the will of the people. Maybe its just my brain demonstrating its independence. Maybe I’ve finally reached curmudgeon enlightenment years ahead of schedule. Maybe it’s just the goddamn news, but I attempt to start the day with a renewed sense of calm. I don’t read the paper. I don’t turn on the radio. I don’t turn on the TV. I don’t read my emails. It’s a blather free morning.

But while I sit at my desk wondering what I should write about next, the sound of jack hammers suddenly emanates from the house directly behind us. My neighbor is actually tearing up his entire cemented backyard and plans on putting in a garden! There you have it: gentrification!

Anyway, here is one last look at some of the art work on our boxes of used 7 inch records. I wish I had done some of this artwork myself but, like the jackhammers, my only true talents are more in the nature of noise: the ability to make those kind of sounds 5 year olds forge and the aptitude to blather - like the venerable curmudgeon chain smoking at a bus stop in Hollywood, nursing a cup of coffee from 7-11, jawing about the flotsam and jetsam that has decimated some of the finer gutters in Los Angeles. “Strength through blather! Strength through blather!”

But back to the subject at hand—art. Enjoy.

 

Charles Saatchi, with his brother, founded the international advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, but Charles' greater fame is as an art collector who has dominated the contemporary art market in Britain since the early 1980s. In fact, the the 1999 retrospective, “Young British Artists: The Saatchi Decade,” uses his name to define an entire contemporary art scene. Yeah, it would be cool to convince him to “invest” in our arty 7 inch record boxes and help us poor old ‘45 Room’ employees with our kid’s college funds, but word on the boulevard is he’s a recluse. In my book that’s just a fancy word for record geek. And that is a compliment.