My good friends THE EGG BABIES ORCHESTRA are up to their old tricks again with their latest MOVIE SHOW IV on MARCH 17 (St. Paddy’s Day) at The OTTOBAR (more details on the Facebook event page)! Don’t miss as they’ll be performing hit singles from classic & not-so-classic movies that we all know & love. When you hear this music, it is literally going to transport you back to your 1st date at a movie theater–including that awkward attempt to make out with your 1st crush, and bring back that rush of excitement you got from sneaking your 1st R-Rated VHS rental at Erol’s past your parents, then popping it into your VCR player for all your friends at the sleepover, and hearing some serious unadulterated foul language–YEAH!
We’re up to 3 Movie Trailers now that I’ve made with the EGG BABIES… this latest one has some of the most intense action & drama of them all, so hold on to your office chair lumbar support cushions! Special thanks goes to Michael J. Walls who helped shoot & record sound throughout the whole production, and of course: big thanks to the EGG BABIES writing & creative team of Chris Laun, Mike Ward & Chris Myers. AND, check out these other trailers we’ve done in the past too:
FRIENDS! If you missed the last one, this is your chance to make it up to yourself… and if you made the last one, than this is an opportunity to give yourself a much-needed present for being such a good boy or girl this year! The band that I think of as my mega Thanksgiving-size extended family, WHITE LODGE… well we’re bringing back the TOM WAITS tribute night as part of Russell (& WindUp Space’s) annual celebration of Mr. Waits’ birthday! We’ll be churning our some new (to us) WAITS tunes like fresh hand-churned butter; we’ll be indoctrinating new members the way a doctor indoctrinates us during a physical; and we’ll be doing some other new/old stuff like turning lights on & off, telling bad jokes, enthusiastically popping balloons to a beat, guzzling whiskey from a jug, banging on pots & pans, & inhaling large amounts of confetti–all for your listening pleasure. So, STEP RIGHT UP!
In case you weren’t aware, WHITE LODGE is members of Out Of Your Head, Egg Babies, Soul Cannon, Quartet Offensive, Jerseyband, ellen cherry & more! For this show, we’ll be cramming on-stage: Adam Hopkins on bass, George French on guitar & vocals, Brent Madsen on trumpet & vocals, myself on guitar & vocals, ellen cherry on vocals, Eric Trudel on reeds & vocals, John Dierker on reeds, Jon Birkholz on keyboards, Nathan Ellman-Bell on drums, Mike Ross on drums, & maybe some surprise guests too! Hope you can make it.
Just back in July, Soul Cannon had their official CD release show for their latest most-awesomest album: The Mixed Ape. Having created the artwork for this album, I was especially excited to design a couple t-shirts for the band as well. One of the shirts I did is featured in the photos below: it’s a 1-color design featuring the skull-man illustration from the album cover, limited edition & hand-printed on white American Apparel shirts, with an exclusive low-low price of just $10! And the kicker is: it’s designed for you, the wearer, to color-it-in yourself – just some fabric markers, a little low-heat ironing & you’re all set!
Overall, the show was a blast: the band rocked out some sweet new tunes (& some classics too) AND the fans had a great time coloring in their own t-shirts! Here’s some photo highlights (see the full set here on my Flickr site). I still have a few sizes left of the exclusive 1-color shirts in S, M & L – contact me if you want to buy one & I’ll get you outfitted just right. It’s truly the most fun you will ever have coloring on your clothes!
Or, if you like your shirts pre-colored, consider buying one of the fun 3-color shirts I designed featuring a variation on the skull-lady illustration from the album (pictured above, modeled by super-fan Lauren) – expertly printed by Chris Fredericks of Fall Press, you can buy these directly from the band – just email them: info@soulcannon.com, or catch them at one of their upcoming shows… check out their website, facebook or twitter for their schedule.
Oh yeah & if you did a shirt – send me a pic of you rockin’ your own sweet original colors & I’ll add it to the set!
Friends, you’re not going to want to miss this one! WHITE LODGE (members of Out of Your Head, Quartet Offensive & featuring the lovely & talented ellen cherry & a whole bunch of SPECIAL guests) takes on the one & only Tom Waits! That’s right, we’ve selected an evening’s worth of tunes, some of your favorites we hope, & we’ll be channeling the gruffest, deepest voices we can muster to pay tribute to everyone’s favorite singer, song writer, actor & hero, Tom Waits. Details below, hope to see you there!
WHITE LODGE does WAITS Tom Waits Tribute Show & Happy 30th Birthday Adam Hopkins! Sunday July 10, Doors 7:30pm, Show @ 8pm
at WINDUP SPACE12 W. North Ave. Baltimore (map)
Just $5.00! ONE NIGHT ONLY!
This Thursday June 9 – join me in hosting the 1st ever FUN HOUSE MOVIE NIGHT at
Mr. Rain’s Fun House in the American Visionary Art Museum!
I’ve had the pleasure of selecting some amazing original films by some of my favorite indie filmmakers of all time: Tanner Almon, Kristen Anchor & Justin Plakas. I will also be screening one of my short films – not telling which one, you’ll just have to show up to find out. It’s a FREE screening that starts at 9pm on the outdoor patio. Mr. Rain’s is famous for their crazy delicious appetizers, entrees & one-of-a-kind cocktails – so come devour some delicious food, drinks & films!
Details:
Fun House Movie Night
Thursday June 9 | 9pm | FREE
at Mr. Rain’s Fun House @ the AVAM (800 Key Hwy Baltimore) mrrainsfunhouse.com | avam.org
Soul Cannon: The Mixed Ape, 2011, album art/design by Nick Prevas
SOUL CANNON is hands-down one of Baltimore’s most original & innovative bands. Their sound is defiantly their own; mixing hip-hop, free jazz, rock, improvisation, and just sheer awesomeness. They’re the City Paper’s Best Live Band of 2010, and truthfully that’s an understatement. That’s why it was truly an honor to be asked to create the album art for their latest record, The Mixed Ape.
It was really a lot of fun working with Eze, Matt, Jon & Nathan on an original concept for the artwork – they ended up really liking a sketch I had done of the skeleton man featured above, so I went with the concept of a slightly twisted airline safety pamphlet: “No need to panic, the captain has just finished his martini and is leveling the plane now.” One part of the process that was really exciting was making elements by hand – all of the text was cut paper that I glued, scanned & re-assembled just as the watercolor clouds & splatters were done by hand as well. I hope you get a chance to get your hands on a physical copy, because the rest of the panels turned out really cool too!
The album just hit iTunes this week, and physical copies of the CD will be on sale really soon! Stay tuned to Soul Cannon’s website / facebook for a CD release show announcement, because of course we’ll have T-Shirts & lots of other fun stuff too. Oh! and keep your eyes peeled here too cause I’ll be posting some iPhone wallpapers featuring the artwork from the album. Hope you enjoy!
A few weeks ago I shot a little lo-fi music video for my good buddy Chris Myers & his motley crew – they call themselves Warning Track Power. Their newest mega-hit “Oh Oh Orioles” just dropped on the world-wide web, and mark my words friends – it’s gonna blow up like that alien spaceship at the end of Independence Day! Welcome to earth. These guys are so incredible, they recorded all the parts in Chris’s basement, but is sounds like a million-dollar studio. I’m really hoping the Orioles get a chance to see how creative their fans are, so do your best to spread the word – we want to hear this song at Camden Yards all season long!
Okay, now get yourselves over to howboutdemos.bandcamp.com to download “Oh Oh Orioles” & their other great hits too! Enjoy the video.
Dear Reince (can I call you Reincey, or the Reincester?)
Hey, how’re you doing? I wanted to write you a letter since you keep sending ones to me in the mail that I’m supposed to fill out and mail back to you with a check or something? Anyways, I didn’t want to be rude – but I’m not a Republican, and I don’t agree with you that Obama should be executed (in fact I voted for him and I’m not for executing our elected officials, clip)… and also I’m a hard-working guy and I don’t have any money to send to the Republican National Committee cause of this whole inflation thing. Rudolph the red-nosed Reince-deer, did you know that it now costs me almost $40 to fill up my little Mazda? One of the other reasons why I’m so broke is because I just recently had to purchase a baby name book – no, I’m not planning on having a baby anytime soon, but I needed to try to find some name suggestions to give you and they don’t make adult name books (at least not that I could find). Please read on…
Reince, Wash, Repeat
See, I know this might sound inconvenient, but I need to ask you to please change your last name. It sounds too close to mine & I have noticed a lot of people thinking we’re related since Priebus is very close in pronunciation to my last name, Prevas – we’re not related, I keep telling people that we’re not related & they say, “boy, he should change his name then,” and frankly I agree. You can keep the Reince, I kind of like that because it sounds sort of daring, like a character Tom Cruise might play in an action movie – Reince Hunt, or maybe just the name he would give an adopted baby from China… Reince Cruise… has a nice ring to it. Keep the Reince, lose the Priebus.
Alas, the baby name book I bought has no suggestions for last names… SO, I’m going to open up the COMMENTS section of this post to suggestions for new last names for Mr. Reince “P.” (we’ll just call you “P.” until we find a better last name for you) – please readers: leave a COMMENT on this post with some suggestions for a new last name for my old buddy Reincey. Some ideas to start you off friends:
Reince Aroni (the San Francisco treat!) Reince Toyota-Prius (you could tell people your Dad was Mr. Toyota & your Mom’s last name inspired the awesome Prius!) Reince Free-Bus (everyone loves free public transportation!) Reince Twice-Three-Times-A-Lady (might be a bit long for your name tag, but a great song nonetheless!) Reince Pants-Less (I don’t know your preference for pants, but you look like a guy who could take ‘em or leave ‘em!)
That’s all I got for now – who can help me out please, let’s get old P-man a new name, and pronto!
The Chairman formerly known as Reince Priebus
Thanks for understanding Reince – you’re a swell guy and even though I didn’t vote for you, I think you’re going to do a great job banging that big hammer!
UPDATE!
3/18/11: Friends! We’ve successfully created a twitter hashtag for you to suggest new names for RNC Chairman Reince Priebus. Search for #ReincePriebusNames on Twitter, & add that hashtag to your own tweets with new name ideas for old Reincey boy. I’m counting on you! Let’s rename this guy- Yes You Can!
Friends: many of you know about my good friends Out Of Your Head, an improvised music collective that performs weekly at The Windup Space. They’ve been named “Best Band” in Baltimore’s City Paper, featured on WYPR’s The Signal, and are at the top of everyone’s lists for the coolest things going on around Baltimore on a weekly basis that’s FREE! Oh yeah, and I along with my good friend Joseph Faura designed their website (outofyourhead.org) which hopefully you’ve enjoyed, and which also features an amazing logo drawn by one of my favorite artists Matt Bovie!
So, now that you know why Out Of Your Head is vital to keeping Baltimore’s music scene fresh & exciting – please join me in pledging a couple bucks on kickstarter.com to their Guest Artist Series fundraiser. Sure you might say, “But Nick, they’ve already raised more than their modest goal of $550,” and to that I say NONSENSE! Give them a couple more bucks cause it’ll make just a little more difference in getting their Guest Artists here to Baltimore to perform with members of OOYH, and you get to reap the benefits, as always, for FREE! So go make a contribution and feel good that you’re supporting Baltimore musicians in doing what they do best: rockin’ out some really sweet live shows! And tip your bartender please.
Just a quick update for all those interested or kind-of-sort-of interested in updates. NEW header & footer design are now LIVE for this site (hope you like it). Also, NEW illustrations (& some old ones too) can now now be found in my Portfolio: more to come soon I hope!
A quick geeky-tech-tidbit for the extra geeky-web-nerds (like myself): I just experimented with using one of the Google Web Fonts for my site: its called Vollkorn, and I’m using it in both the Post titles & the Navigation Bar. I think it looks pretty awesome & fits well with Georgia (the standard font I use throughout the site). Its exciting to have this directory of FREE fonts available to use on sites I design now: I really think its going to open up more creative options for the work I make and I can’t wait to see what new fonts they’ll be making available, let alone what other super-talented designers (like yourselves) come up with.
