Instagram has sort of become a way of life on tour, almost anything beautiful or funny we see outside the tour van we yell out “take the shot!”. Since i’ve jumped on Instagram i’ve looked for musicians that post on there since soo many get to travel, here’s just a few that I follow that I post about that make it in our ISO50 playlists.
@peakinglights ( Peaking Lights )
@mattmondanile ( Real Estate / Ducktails )
@benjamincurtis ( School Of Seven Bells / Secret Machines )
@dam_funk ( DaM FunK )
@nosajthing (Nosaj Thing)
@muxmool ( Mux Mool )
@sunglitters ( Sun Glitters )
@geejairmo ( Prefuse 73 )
@starslingeruk ( Star Slinger )
@poolside ( Poolside )
@foxesinfiction ( Foxes In Fiction )
@bisradio ( Tim Sweeney of DFA )
@willits ( Christopher Willits )
@ryanpitchfork ( Ryan @ Pitchfork )
@laurenflax ( Creep )
@__shigeto ( Shigeto )
@studioirisarri ( Rafael Anton Irisarri / The Sight Below )
@j_gossett ( 1/2 of Beacon )
@tm_iii ( 1/2 of Beacon )
@iso50 ( Tycho )
@nitemoves ( Rory O’Connor – Tycho’s Drummer / Com Truise )
@zryder ( Zac Brown – Tycho’s Bassist / Dusty Brown )
@heathered_pearls ( Jakub )
Somewhere between Toronto and Montreal. Really pretty, wide open spaces up there.
So I’m on the road for the first leg of the US Tycho tour and it’s been pretty intense; haven’t had a chance to post here in a while. Jakub is along tour managing and things have been going well. We’ve seen a lot of really beautiful landscapes along the way; so far we’ve driven from Chicago, up through Toronto and Montreal, and all the way from Buffalo down to Orlando where I’m currently holed up in a Travelodge taking a much needed night off from playing. We play Orlando tomorrow night, then on to Tampa and Miami, and then back north for a string of dates ending in Brooklyn. Beacon is along doing support, definitely check them out, really beautiful stuff.
Jakub took this one somewhere outside of Pontiac, MI
I can’t explain what a moving experience it has been to get out and meet so many people and share the work with them. I spent the last year locked in my basement working on the album so it’s been really refreshing to be out here performing it for people. I want to sincerely thank all of you who made it out so far and to all of you who have supported this project in other ways; it means the world to me and I feel fortunate every day to be able to work as an artist.
Gratuitous tour shot including the band, Jakub, and Brian Wenner who is our stage manager
I’ve been dreaming of having a proper visuals rig for a while now — we had been renting equipment — but this time out we finally have our own setup consisting of a 5K Lumen Christie LX45 projector, and Da-Lite Fast-Fold 16:9 screen, and a brand new custom rigging system (pictured below). It’s a great feeling to know that wherever we play, the show will be consistently presented. Thanks to everyone who helped out in Montreal getting this thing built, and to Darren from Home Depot in Watertown, NY for helping build the mounting plate.
Speaking of visuals, I’ve been getting a lot of work done on the new stuff. I’ve been working with Charles Bergquist on a new visuals set and things have been going great. Charles has been shooting beautiful HD footage and I have been arranging / effecting it using VDMX. It’s still a work in progress but we have been showing some previews here and there during the live show. I’m hoping to get that all wrapped up during our post Europe tour break.
As for upcoming stuff, we have a lot planned for the year: Europe, a full US tour, along with some festivals and no less than seven SXSW showcases. Hope to see you out there!
Happened upon this set of satellite program photos. Unfortunately there’s not much information to them, but I did find that there are a couple of gems like this to be seen here, and check out the rest of this set here
POLER CAMPING STUFF makes sleeping bags, tents, bags, and accessories that are simple, good looking, well designed gear for people that are travelers, couch surfers, regular surfers, skateboarders, snowboarders, bicyclists, parents, kids, car campers and anyone else looking for something that looks good, is a good value and is all about having fun on road trips and in the outdoors.
Be sure to check out the Adventures section on their website.
And dont forget to give them a follow on Instagram as well. @polerstuff
It’s finally happening, we’re happy to announce the first proper Tycho A/V tour with the band, here are the string of dates below, let us know if we’re missing anything or you have any suggestions, looking to also relax a few days after Antwerp.
Feb 16th Amsterdam, Holland @ Paradiso
Feb 17th Luxembourg, Luxembourg @ Exit07
Feb 18th Berlin, Germany @ Gretchen
Feb 19th Copenhagen, Denmark @ Loppen
Feb 22nd Milan, Italy @ Magnolia
Feb 24th Paris, France @ Batofar
Feb 25th London, UK @ Cargo
Feb 26th Antwerp, Belgium @ Trix
Beautiful halftone heavy poster work by Scott Campbell. Scott is a graphic designer & illustrator based in New Orleans. Check out more of his work here
Continuing my new year’s resolution, I wanted to share my experience working on a rebranding project for school. This project was completed over the course of Spring 2011, and the assignment was to choose a dying or defunct brand and breathe new life into it. Throughout the semester we developed a logo, letterhead, visual identity, and brand extensions for the revamped company, and the final deliverable was a brand guidelines book. Alex described his process working with Playboy, and I highly recommend you check them out if you haven’t yet.
I had a lot of fun designing the deck of playing cards for Beast in a Neon Cage, so I thought it would be interesting to work with a playing card company. Once I chose my industry, I looked at brands like Kem and Copag and ended up choosing Hoyle. Hoyle is part of the United States Playing Card Company, which also owns the Bicycle and Bee playing card lines.
Todd “are you kidding me!??” Terje literally just sits down and makes hits for this blog I swear, I know I post a lot of his tracks but its worth it, I mean listen to that! If it was 2001 i’d add a music player to this blog and this song would just automatically play right when you loaded the site. #synthmansion < holds a crystal in the air after song is over, head down, takes a knee >
Jonny from The Drums collabing with Matthew Dear makes soo much sense after you hear this song slowly merging with its own end. I haven’t heard a male duo this good in “electronic” in years.
Teen Daze goes French Disco on us, straight forward and high energy with a swirling synth line which will give you vertigo, he pretty much made something that could have come out on Roule in 1998.
Machinedrum rekindling and refreshing classic sounds that I invite with open arms, its like he dropped Detroit into the UK and stomped it into a pulp and gargled it and spit it at all the half ass house thats been made after minimal house died.
I’ve been taking pictures with my iPhone for about a year and half now and I’m continually surprised at the things I’m learning and new techniques I’m discovering.
I barely used to crop at all, especially when editing my DSLR photos. I was always (overly) concerned with resolution and making sure I didn’t lose any.
Enter lower resolution iPhone with a fixed focal length…
As I always have my iPhone on me this is how I take most of my photos these days. I often find my self on the other side of a river, across a huge field or just a little too far away from a mountain. This has literally forced me to crop in closer to get the photo I want. Because apps like Instagram publish quite a small image I don’t care as much about resolution anymore (although this can be frustrating later).
Having this “freedom” of no longer caring so much about resolution has encouraged me to crop more and often I find myself revisiting photos that I had written off, only to discover post crop a new favourite photo. Where I was concerned about resolution before I’m now concerned about the final composition. Now I just need a 50mp camera thats fits in my pocket!
Original
Cropped
Original
Cropped
Original
Cropped
Original
Cropped
Original
Cropped
All images taken and edited on the iPhone and posted on Instagram by Seth Hardie.
Trust me on this one, this Tanlines track is worth your time. They started where they left off with a hooky melodic caribbean pop touch, once the track fills out you can’t deny its better than all that Vampire Weekend bullshit.
I’m on a Keep Shelly In Athens roll and that means hunting down even guest appearances. The new Solar Bears single has KSIA front and center on a 70s drenched swirling am-gold jam that could be one of the best songs either groups have done.
I’ve only heard one other Dirty Three song intentionally, it was with Cat Power and I don’t even listen to Cat Power but all I remember was being speechless after and I don’t like songs with singing. This new cut is amazing, reminds me of Broken Social Scene and The Books just playing together freely.
I’m sure some of you will be surprised with the sound of the new Bullion, its definitely a lot less hip hop and more like if Osborne or Luke Vibert did a song with Washed Out.
The Tycho band hits the road with their A/V performance, check the dates, we hope to see you, we’ll definitely have stock of the Dive vinyl, some classic posters back in stock, and a new Tycho shirt which i’m in love with.
01.12 Chicago, IL @ LINCOLN HALL * w/ Active Child
01.13 Pontiac, MI @ CROFOOT BALLROOM
01.14 Toronto, ON @ WRONG BAR
01.16 Montreal, QC @ IL MOTORE
01.18 Buffalo, NY @ MOHAWK PLACE
01.19 Pittsburgh, PA @ SHADOW LOUNGE
01.20 Charlottesville, VA @ THE SOUTHERN
01.21 Wilmington, NC @ THE SOAPBOX
01.23 Saint Augustine, FL @ THE ORIGINAL CAFE 11
01.24 Gainesville, FL @ DOUBLE DOWN LIVE
01.26 Orlando, FL @ THE SOCIAL
01.27 Tampa, FL @ CROWBAR
01.28 Miami, FL @ BARDOT MIAMI
01.30 Athens, GA @ GEORGIA THEATRE
01.31 Atlanta, GA @ MASQUERADE (HELL STAGE)
02.01 Carrboro, NC @ CATS CRADLE
02.02 Washington, DC @ ROCK AND ROLL HOTEL
02.03 Philadelphia, PA @ THE ROTUNDA
02.04 Brooklyn, NY @ MUSIC HALL OF WILLIAMSBURG * w/ Oneothrix Point Never
Support slot: Beacon
We are excited to also announce the opening spot each night will feature Beacon, below is an exclusive preview of their cover of Portishead’sThe Rip.
Scott and the rest of the ISO50 blog family are really excited to announce 2 new contributors this week: Seth Hardie and Luca Venter, we’re really looking forward to reading and seeing what they post since both guys are insane Instagramers and we feel like they fit in perfectly.
Seth Hardie designs websites at Lift Interactive. He is an avid photographer and spends as much time as possible in the forests of Alberta.
Luca Venter is a 16 year old photographer based in Denver, CO. I met him at the Denver Tycho show after we featured his Instagram photo on the blog. I definitely noticed right after researching everything he does that he has a solid vision and he probably has the best eyeglasses and shoes in all of Colorado. If you get a chance check out his website, he has great band photos which seem to be his cup of tea.
Here are 3 trustee Instagramers, Taro who’s been featured on the blog for other things like album art, his stream is a great type base one which I always like but this city view had me save it quickly and I keep coming back to look at it. As for ns0n, he goes a little overboard with the hashtags in a uncomfortable level but makes up for in quality. I found b3po thru Tavish(who’s been featured in this series), loving the color control from him, keen eye and careful selection.
Scott Hansen – @iso50
Jakub Alexander – @heathered_pearls
Space Dog Books is an interactive book publishing company that aims to introduce readers to new worlds through the use of touch-sensitive devices. Last month they released their first book app, Treasure Island – A Space Dog Book, and I was blown away by the experience.
I had the opportunity to speak with Tymn Armstrong, Art Director at Space Dog Books, and he was kind enough to share his thoughts on the project and give a behind the scenes look at the process of “creating universes in a digital world.”
Jon: Thanks for sharing with us. Congratulations on the launch of Treasure Island. When you set out to create content for these devices what led you to children’s books?
Tymn: First off, thanks! It was a lot of work. Over a year of production went into making it and it feels so great to see it completed.
I think we’re starting with children’s books because they present more challenges than adult books. There is this misconception that children’s publishing is easy because it’s for kids but it’s actually quite the opposite. It’s an extremely competitive industry with some of the most talented people in the world of books. That said, we do have plans for books that are not necessarily children’s books. We don’t ever want to limit ourselves.
Symmetry just put out a 35+ track album that will completely fulfill your post Drive(the Ryan Gosling movie) music needs, I grabbed Over The Edge because it had that confident bad guy feel, that walking tempo that will catch up to you no matter how fast you run, I love the stripped down break in the center too.
18 Carat Affair makes my brain and ears sigh, this interlude takes me back, I can’t believe the world will never graced with this kind of music for the public again, makes me dislike the worlds aesthetics right now soo much.
My friend Miguel turned me onto Maya Jane Coles, I guess I missed the boat, this dub is amazing, reminds me of what I thought Border Community might have matured into.
Poliça bothers me a bit, you named yourself the Polish word for The Police and you took the dub route like The Police… *sigh* sooooo whats going on creatively here? this project needs some formal tweaks because the music is soo promising and doesn’t need gimmicks.
