March 11, 2009

Mud Stomping Time.

Part Six in a semi-chronological compendium of my artistic works assembled for musical accompaniment. Welcome to the anti-punk, punk stylings of Austin's own Negative Step!
My friend August is a steadfast, but strange individual. Once he sinks his teeth into an idea, for good or ill, he will not be denied or dissuaded, like some great, hairy, stubborn hyena with a taste for human blood.

For instance, when he was in Negative Step, he had this whole minimalism thing going on. He wanted all of the band's releases to look sparse (success!), and maybe kind of crappy. I had zero luck in trying to talk him out of some of his choices. So there's that. He's a very consistent fellow.

Also, he had a grim reapers killing punks thing. He's the only person I know who would start a (good) hardcore punk band, just to rail against hardcore punks.

All of Negative Step's (3) releases have simple, two color covers. There is the single that I did. There is a split single with Redrum, which I don't have a link for, but its cover is also a simple black and white drawing (of a grim reaper type holding a punk rocker's spiky head). And then there is this, which I have seen heralded (in the blogs) as one of the most inept album covers in all of punkdom. It just looks unfinished. Geordie is a good artist, even. I'm pretty sure it was all August's doing. Whenever I asked him "Hey, what's up with that cover?" he would just start laughing, and then never answer me.

The above was a drawing that I made for fun. When August saw it, he immediately wanted to use it for Negative Step's next release, somehow. Since Geordie had already done the covers, he decided it would be the insert. I agreed, and history was made (again).

Here you go. You need this, today. It is tuff and good. Well produced too! Enjoy that shit!

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