My mom recently pointed me to a blog by the famed John Kriscafalusi, creator of Ren and Stimpy, in which he posted some original drawings by my Grand Father, Bill Ballantine, and discussed them and some of the ideas of influence within cartooning and animation.  It was quite a pleasure to see these illustrations, and read some of the comments.  Check out the original blog post here.

Yo, in case you just found out, people who make shit rock.  Yes thats right, I have a long standing deep seeded appreciation for people who make shit.  back in the day, they used to call these folks craftsmen, or in a more p.c. era, craftspeople.  But generally, people who build things rock.  I would like to take this moment in time to share with you all out there in internetlandia some of my favorite crafty fuckers.  Now, I use the term fucker in the best sense, these are all folks who fucking rock hard with there craftiness, and I thought YOU all should know about them.  This installation of I love crafty fuckers includes some of my favorite homeade instrument makers.  Midi boxes, midi suits, crunched up audio and video, these folks rip shit. SO without further ado, here is a list of linkage of crafty fuckers that YOU need to know about. so now you know.
Ebo man-
you don't know eboman? Climb out from under your rock and check out the originator of the sample madness.  Some of the most original live video manipulation around, and he crafted his own midi suit and software to boot.

Evan Morris -
Oakland based electronic musician and box maker, makes pretty glitched out guitar music with a custom made midi controller box.  He makes his own synth software too!  Check out some video of his custom box on his youtube page here.

Preshish Moments-
this guy RIPS it.  With his very own one of a kind custom made wood burned pinewood midi controller box. So sick.  Don't say I didn't warn you!

Kitundu -
Bay area sound artist and instrument builder. Originator of the phonokoto, and other hacked turntable technology.

Ben Lewry -
Oakland based guitar maker and owner/operator of visionary instruments.  Check out his tvguitar- it is pretty darn sweet!

Moldover -
New York based audio artist and creator of the octamasher, an interactive audio controller for ableton live.  Runs the New york warper party along with dj shakey.

Evolution Control Committee -
Trademark G, the original mashup chopper.  Remember Rocked by Rape back in the Napster days?  Thats these guys.  Check out his Thimble glove controller.  Creating illegal music since 1986. 

Ian Lynams new book on the overlapping worlds of graffiti and typography is out now!  Includes interviews with Chaz Boroquez, Renos, Jens Gehlhaar, Daim, Seak, Ed Fella, Delta, Eskae (thats me!), Jonas Williamsson/Reala, Giant, handselecta, joker, pink, akira kobayashi, she one, tauba auerbach, underware, twist/ Barry McGee, Eklips AWR/MSK.

I found this note in a copy of Jethro Tulls "Aqualung".
Rock on.

I've been thinking a lot about collage recently and wanted to share some of my favorite collage artists with folks.  At dinner the other night local artist Robert Larson came up, who does breathtakingly beautiful pieces utilizing paper ephemera he rescues from the street, namely old cigarette boxes, gum wrappers and matchbooks.  Last night I was lucky enough to stumble upon the closing reception for the Gee Vaucher show at Jack Hanley Gallery in San Francisco.  Gee Vaucher did all of the artwork for the seminal punk rock group CRASS, so I was familiar with some of the work from posters and record covers from years gone.  This in no way prepared me for the beauty of the originals- much of what I had though was collage all these years had turned out in fact to be highly detailed gouache paintings.  Gee was there herself, and turned out to be one of the sweetest most humble people, a true artist who makes beautiful and thought provoking images for all for the right reasons.  One cannot talk about punk rock collage art without also mentioning the name Winston Smith, whose work I viewed side by side Gee's on punk rock record covers in the 1980's.   His most famous work was the Dead Kennedies "In god we trust" cover, with the image of Jesus Christ crucified on a dollar bill.  Both Winstons and Gees work remind of of the motion graphics of San Francisco's own Ben Stokes, a video artist who is one half of the group Tino Corp. With jack Dangers of Meat Beat Manifesto fame.  His work is like Winston Smith and Gee Vaucher had an animated collage baby- he recently did some videos for Davis local DJ Shadow.If you are at all interested in collage or protest art, all four of these artists come highly recommended.  Check them out, you will be happy that you did.