“If I could say it in words, I would not need to photograph.”

Lewis Wickes Hine (b. Oshkosh, Wisconsin 1874 – d. Dobbs Ferry, New York 1940) was a teacher at the Ethical Culture School who, in an effort to open his students minds about the world around them, stumbled upon what we now know as documentary photography.  Using the medium as both an educational and political tool, Hine set to the task of photographing the plight of the American child laborer, traveling much of the country to do so.  To look at his work today – stunning as it is due in no small part to the amount of silver used at the time – is to look into an America most of us can’t even conceive.  Kids as young as eight years of age engaging in the kind of grueling manual labor most of us would deem too brutal for anyone, let alone a child.  When I see a picture of a pre-adolescent with the eyes of a world weary person twice their age, I’m heavily disturbed.  Which is what Hines wanted to capture.  Bizarrely (and certainly this is an indicator of how much more coarse we were as a nation one hundred years ago), the prevailing notion was that these pictures were not shocking enough to be of any consequence!  Hine stuck to showing a well rounded representation of the situation which, in the end, proved to be the more successful tact.

Sticking with the more political side of photography, Hine later documented the inner city proletariat and immigrant populations, exposing the hardships of inherent in their daily lives.  Not surprisingly, the public soon tired of such heavy subject matter and Hine fell out of favor.  With no financial grants coming in to subsidize his work, Hine fell upon extremely hard times and died, a sad and ironic death in abject poverty.  A concrete case of the nice guy finishing last, I’d say.

Back in 2005 Jason was hired by JWT (Isabelle Moutrey Art Director) to create the intro animation for the United States Marine Corp website.  So Jason and Spartive Interactive Solutions Jason Parker  embarked on a challenging concept: creating a 13 second, POV Flash motion video using thousands of still images – almost like a real life flipbook.  The results are, as you can see, pretty impressive considering the logistics involved!

Point being, we’ve been working in high resolution motion before the practical technological means was even available.  We’ve integrated the 5d & 7d Canon still / HD video cameras into our set up.  As such we can achieve an economical continuity between printed and moving video campaigns.

http://www.vimeo.com/9233750

Waitin’ on Vimeo to process a video that Jason made for the USMC a while back.  It’s got about another 20 minutes so, what the hell, let’s look at some funny crap.

Tax Season Is Here!  Honesty Is The Best Policy?

Turkish Airlines – Overestimating Consumer Confidence

This next one is Courtesy Photoshop Disasters

How is that staying up there?  Look close!

The Western Culture Mash Up On Cheap Crap From Abroad Keeps A’ Comin’

Courtesy FAILblog!

OH GOD, NOT AGAIN!!!

Courtesy Geekologie!

This is a series of images Jason took at the now closed Stage Door in Tucker, Ga. in March of 2009.  Although shut down due to liquor license issues, I think it also plays very neatly into the twilight of the previous centuries gay culture.  As the GLBT community becomes more integrated into ’straight’ society (however slowly) and the concept of a gay bar in general is on the decline, the subculture of the drag queen is all but extinct.  As can be clearly seen here the looks and the women being emulated (Cher, Barbara Streisand, go-go, afros etc.), not to mention the men portraying them, are from from an era going on a half century past us now.  While there will always be some element of drag in our society at large, this style of revue by ‘female impersonators’ is undoubtedly in it’s sunset.  Goodnight, sweet prince(ss).

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To see the rest, head on over to

Jason Maris.Com!

Good weekstart, fellow workforcers!  A chuckle borrowed perhaps to enmirth yon dayspring?

Which reminds me – there’s a Furry CONVENTION in town come April – we WILL document this!

Pfft!  You ain’t no M.C. Escher!

Courtesy FAILblog

Courtesy FAILbooking

And now, to erase the nightmare that was Franco Disco Star Wars

Courtesy EPICWIN / FTW!

Jason recently did some photos for our good friends Freddy & Michelle’s wedding.  Being that both were members of one of Atlanta’s most notorious noise rock acts Tweezer (later redubbed ‘Drill Team’ – Freddy on guitar and Michelle on drums), the wedding was attended by a lot of seriously colorful and interesting people.

Now that you understand where these folks are coming from, by all means…

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Is it redundant to be a 40 year old man and say that, despite having not seen the film or read the books, I can’t stand Twilight?  If you’re blessed enough to not know what the hell I’m speaking of, I envy you, be a Gallant and not a Goofus and don’t click the previous link!  You’re breathing a precious, rare air that should be preserved for as long as possible – however short that may be.

Shh, shh, shh, shhhhhh – don’t fret the loss of your ‘Twi-ginity’ (© 2010 Tony Emmons) I’m merely setting up today’s ridiculous FAIL that is only connected to the aforementioned silliness by it’s subject matter: glitter covered monsters who are too overwhelmingly powerful to have sex with teenage girls.  You know, Vampires.  Enjoy!

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Viddler video.

COURTESY YE OLDE FAILblog!

I thought it would cool if I delved into the same continuum that spawned Paul Outerbridge and take a look at Berenice Abbott (b.1898 Springfield, Ohio).  It’s pretty interesting, covering a sort of proto-hippy upbringing, quasi-radical politics and a long term lesbian relationship at a time when such a thing was certainly frowned on by ‘civilized’ society.  For those details, consult the WIKI link, we’re here for art, not tabloid fodder, right?

Her work is both a love letter to, and clarion call about, New York City’s monolithic technical march  across the mid to late 1930’s.  Many of the images are shot from the heavens (oh, sure, New Yorkers will happily tell you exactly where she was standing to achieve these images, but where’s the poetry in that?), eye to eye with these giants of concrete and steel, often threatening to subsume the old world architectural underbrush at it’s feet.  In addition to apprenticing under Man Ray, Abbott also saved a portion of photographer Eugène Atget’s library from obscurity.

Her later work for a physics schoolbook portraying the nature of motion is as stunning as it is a completely different avenue for her photographic style.

Ironically, New York just about killed her with some form of respiratory malady, necessitating a move to Maine, where she documented the rural landscape and finally passed away on December 9 in 1991.

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I remember the first time I read about the Mellotron.  It was in the mid-80’s in an interview with the popular psyche pop girl group The Bangles (known for their fuzzy cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s 1966 hit “Hazy Shade Of Winter” and 1986’s goofy #1 hit “Walk Like An Egyptian”).  They went on about this mysterious instrument – it was the greatest thing ever made, according to guitarist Vicki Peterson.  Regardless of the fact she didn’t say what it actually was,  I was intrigued, if only by the energy behind the name.

‘Mellotron’ – it’s almost a contradiction in terms, with ‘mello’ giving visions of laid back, California dreaming and ‘tron’ implying electronically powered machinery – with a hint of futurism.  As anyone who has been shocked with any significant amount of electricity can tell you – there’s nothing ‘mellow’ about it!

Being that this was the pre-internet days (well, it existed in ‘86, but it was a fairly dull prospect for your average 15 year old) and the only Google I knew of had the first name of Barney.

As was the case, I had no clue what one was.  In my minds eye I saw some kind of space age guitar, I think, with lightning bolts on it.  Though I can’t remember how, I eventually became aware that the Mellotron was actually from the 1960’s and, over that, I had heard it everyday in my youth as it was a huge component in the sound of one of my Mother’s favorite bands – the Moody Blues. And if you haven’t heard their… melodramatic 1968 hit ‘Night’s In White Satin’, you’re probably under 30.

What’s that?  You still have no clue what it is?  There’s nothing that fits the name ‘Mellotron’ sitting in the mix, blowing your mind with it’s otherness?  Ah!  Therein lies the truth of the Mellotron!

You see, contrary to my erroneous beliefs based on the downright arcanely named instrument, the Melltron wasn’t a guitar, or effect, or any thing new, visually at least – it was a keyboard.  BUT!  Beyond the the fact that it has keys that you press to make sounds come out of it, the Mellotron has nothing in common with an organ or electric piano like those of Hammond, Farfisa or Acetone.

Mellotron Mk II

There was a need, back in the days of the pop song (the type typified by Frank Sinatra and his ilk) for the standards to be played by what amounted to small orchestras.  Obviously this was impossible for most musicians to afford (not only the hiring process, but the arranging and conducting as well), so Harry Chamberlin devised his answer – The Chamberlin.  With UK financing  and engineering tweaks, Bradmatic Ltd. (later and currently operating as Streetly Electronics) transformed the Chamberlin into the Mellotron.The Chamberlin

Okay!  So what the hell is it?  Simply put, it’s the first commercially available sampler to be widely used in popular music (some sampling was being done by electronic pioneers like Pierre Schaeffer, Delia Derbyshire and Daphne Oram before this, but that’s another post entirely).  The Mellotron’s keyboard plays instruments recorded onto lengths of audio tape – the same you’d find on an old reel to reel tape deck.  Each key is assigned to it’s own tape loop with the instrument on said tape recorded at the correct correspondent pitch to that particular key.  These tapes were arranged on a movable rack so you could change out the sounds with a rack of different sounds.

Mellotron Guts

Chamberlin Insides

The standard sounds were violin, brass, flute and choir sections with things getting more esoteric from there.  Some models, as the Mk II, even had rhythm section complete with chord changes as you can see bel0w.

The Mellotron didn’t really take off until the Beatles used it on their ground breaking 1967 LP “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” - the best example would be “Strawberry Fields Forever”.

Mellotron use peaked in the 70’s during the reign of Progressive Rock, where it was used and abused by bands such as Rush, Yes, Alan Parsons Project, Frank Zappa and King Crimson (to name just a very few).

Mellotron Mk VI

After so much self indulgence, and due in large part to the newly affordable emergence of the futuristic sounds offered by analog synthesizers and string machines, in particular, the Mellotron faded from the popular soundscape.  The fact that they were notoriously unreliable and went out of tune if you looked at them wrong certainly didn’t help matters at all.

So, by and large, the Mellotron was non existent throughout the 80’s and 90’s, mostly appearing as a gimmick to evoke “The 60’s Beatles Sound” or in completely unrecognizable form such as in ambient industrial ‘dark wave’ group Mauve Sideshow’s “Dark Flowers” (1990) and “Stray Apparitions From The Mauve Sideshow” (1991).

In the past ten years or so, Mellotron has made a huge comeback.  The first album I remember to use Mellotron extensively in the modern era would be the Flaming Lips on their game changing LP, 1999’s “The Soft Bulletin”.

Since that time, the quirks and fallacies that bothered musicians in the past in their quest to get an orchestra on the cheap, have become endearing assets to today’s musicians, with everyone from Radiohead and Sigur Ros to Kanye ‘Imma Let You Finish’ West and Opeth pulling out the grandpappy of all samplers from the dustbins of time and making them sound new again.  In response to the growing demand and a depleted availability, Street Electronics has created a new century Mellotron – The Mellotron M4000.

The American / Swedish Mellotron Company have made three new entries to the Mellotron lexicon:

Mellotron Mk VI

Here’s a video of the Mk VI demoed by Avant Garde ‘It’ girl, Tara Busch!

Melltron Mk VII

the new 2010 Digital Mellotron

Though not the first, a few years back, a company called Manikin released the Memotron.

It should be noted that the prices on these instruments is not for the weak of wallet.  If you want Mellotron sounds, but are on a budget, there are a few virtual options – G-Media’s M-Tron Pro, at 150 bucks is PERFECT.

As with any successful concept there were copycats and competitors.

A straight up clone was the Novatron

An update of Mellotron concept using 8-track tape technology

The Birotron

The next step in sampling tech came from the toy department of all places.  In 1971 Mattel (home of Barbie, He-Man, Matchbox and Hot Wheels and Intellivision) released the Optigan.  The Optigan (Optical Organ, natch), took the idea used in simple pull string talky toys and applied it to a home keyboard.  Basically, you put a specially constructed floppy 12 inch disc into it and it plays a solo sound via keyboard along with a series of rhythmic / chord accompaniment on an array of buttons not unlike a reed organ.  Being cheap, the things are fragile, but also very easy to manipulate – discs can be put in upside down, two separate discs can be taped together and played simultaneously, the player can reach into the disc bay and, in effect, ’scratch’ the disc, hip hop style.

Mattel Optigan w/ Sound Sheet

The Optigan, though never intended for use by serious musicians, has become a staple nonetheless, figuring heavily into classic period Kraftwerk, Elvis Costello, DEVO, and Tom Waits to name a few.  Due to it’s success a clone sold under the name Chilton Talentmaker was sold briefly before Mattel sued them out of production.

Chilton Talentmaker

Later, the patent to the Optigan was sold to a company called Vako and a ‘pro-grade’ model was created and sold as the Orchestron.

Vako Orchestron

While you can find Optigans on ebay fairly often, if a little overpriced, the chances of getting any of the others is basically impossible.  As with the aforementioned M-Tron Pro, there’s a virtual solution – the Sampletron which, in addition to a few popular Mellotron and Chamberlin sounds, also includes Optigan and Orchestron sets among others.  At a price between 150 and 230 dollars US, that’s a deal.

If you DO happen to score an Optigan, you should know that Optigan.com majordomo Pea Hicks has begun releasing NEW sound sheets for your instrument!!!

With Female Vox done by Tara Busch – that girl is stealing my heart, folks!

Hell, maybe you just need samples?  Okay, Pea’s got your back.

Well, if I haven’t excited you about this, nothing will.  If you’re still interested, keep your peepers peeled for ‘Mellodrama: The Mellotron Documentary’.

Okay, that’s about that!  If any of you have an Optigan you want to sell / donate to Jason and my band ‘Ninja Boots‘,  PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT!

Among the more surreal, bold and initially shocking photographers of the past twenty five years is Joel Peter Witkin.  I admit that a cursory appraisal of his work would be that it is morbid and perhaps exploitative – and certainly the use of his images in popular culture (album art, primarily) for just that purpose hasn’t helped to dissuade the notion.  Youtube has come through again with this brief but illuminating interview with the artist where he – and his subjects – discuss his views and methodology.  What I found refreshing is that Witkin doesn’t attempt to justify the work or apologize for his methods (nor should he) instead, he simply explains what it means to him rather than try to make it make sense to the viewer.  Jason and I both agreed – we’d love to see Mr. Witkin do some color work before it’s all said and done.  Enjoy  - CLEARLY NSFW!

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ADULTS MADE THIS!

Have any of you discovered the epic-ness of the human condition through Google Maps Street View yet?

If not, here’s the easy description – Google added ‘Street View’ to it’s Google Maps application on May 25, 2007.  Basically, Street View is an ongoing project wherein a fleet of Chevy Cobalts equipt with a panoramic camera on their roofs (sounds wrong, but it’s right) trawl the world taking a photograph every 10-20 meters.  So, yes, they very likely have taken a picture of your house, your vehicles, the house where you grew up and, if you’re really lucky, even you!

Here’s where Jason lived here in Atlanta in 2007 – that’s his very used Ford truck.

Okay, so now that we get the concept, let’s think about it for a second.  A car rides through every nook and cranny of America taking pictures of literally everything in sight… what could possibly go wrong?

Well, quite a bit, apparently!  Google cars have plowed over blockades, witnessed crimes, and tragically, even hit a baby deer!  It’s certainly not all doom and gloom, in fact most of what gets caught is comical in nature, surprisingly enough.

As there are so many interesting things being caught, there have inevitably been some blogs perusing the results.  These are a few wholly dedicated to the process:

Street View Fun

and Google Street View Sightings

Not all about about Street View, but a great piece:

Art Fag City

Alright!  CLICK TO EXPERIENCE!!!

Oliver Vernon comes from the land of Brooklyn in the kingdom of New York born in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and seventy two.  His work is built off of the momentary random  patterns that blots of paint make upon his canvas.  He takes these chance happenings and, according to the artist himself, has no real idea of the finished piece until it’s done.  In this, Vernon’s work is not unlike imrov based music – to successfully execute, one must know when to play and when not to, a feat achieved only through the seemingly lost art of ‘listening’.

While Vernon’s work from a glance seems to be a tornadic cacophony of disciplines, the closer examination reveals that it’s anything but.  Architectural design, stencil, pop, and surrealism all work in a kind of synchronous, expanding universe lacking our gravity  but imbued with a violent sort of order easily mistaken for chaos.

If he’s having a showing near you, do yourself a favor and check it out as these snapshots can only give you a fraction of what’s going on in this tumultuous work.

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Yes, yes, you hear us blab about Krautrock (or, less crassly put, the German Kosmische Musik of the 1970’s) on here all the time.  We love it!  These bands were so far ahead of their time, it’s shocking.  You can play a Can track from their 1973 lp Ege Bamyasi and follow it up with a contemporary ‘avant-garde’ Radiohead, Flaming Lips or Portishead track and not blink an eye.

Think about what was on the charts when these bands existed and what they were doing becomes even more impressive and utterly futuristic.  The year  Ege Bamyasi was released, the top song in America was “Tie A Yellow Ribbon ‘Round The Old Oak Tree” by Tony Orlando & Dawn, Jim Croce was the king, and Soft Rock was the order of the day.  In Britain it was the Osmonds! To be fair, England also had Bowie, Soft Machine and Hawkwind to compensate.  America, on the other hand,  really had nothing all that interesting, avant rock-wise, until the Cleveland, Oh scene burned up in ‘74 and that didn’t get wide notice until the 90’s, really!

I think that this documentary gives a great overview of the era and explains the motivations of the groups fairly well.  So… in it’s entirety… the BBC’s documentary,

Krautrock: Rebirth Of Germany!

Now in luscious VIMEO video – Fullscreen  it!

Yet another NEW blog of human hilarity, sapien stupidity and all around bubbleheaded A-DUHHH, this time in the form of everyones’ favorite utter waste of time – Facebook.

Much in the tradition of FAILblog and it’s extended family, Failbooking catches what happens when people don’t pay enough attention to what they’re saying / doing / posting and let the whole world know how numb / stupid / boring / twisted they really are.  The results, like so much in our culture today, lead to big laughs at the expense of others.

Let’s take a look, shall we?  These are pretty small when just stuck on here, so I put them into a gallery.  Just

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