Art of Punk: Arturo Vega and The Ramones

Arturo Vega was a Mexican-born graphic designer, art director and artist, most famously known for having created the logo for The Ramones. He had such a close relationship with the band that he was commonly known as ‘the fifth Ramone’ – plus he went to all but two of their shows within their 22 year career! As a huge fan of The Ramones, Colin insisted that I make Arturo my next Art of Punk subject – to be honest, he wasn’t sure why he hadn’t thought to suggest it before. Sadly Arturo Vega passed away in 2013 at age 65 but legendary imagery that he left behind will never be forgotten.

Let’s start with The Ramones logo. It was created as a sort of parody of the US presidential seal but featuring an apple tree branch (instead of an olive branch) and a baseball bat –  a reference to the song Beat On The Brat from the band’s first album. Instead of saying ‘Seal of the President of the United States’, The Ramones logo, of course, famously states the (original) members of the band’s names – Johnny, Joey, Dee Dee and Tommy. A few years before he died, Arturo had the logo tattooed on his back – interestingly he swapped out Tommy for ‘Arty’, which I can only assume is himself.

The logo is one of the most famous in the history of music, let alone punk rock. It is also probably one of the most iconic logos that has been appropriated for other uses, including other bands borrowing its design – Colin has a Masked Intruder t-shirt that comes to mind. I also came across this Pokémon logo that I found rather amusing.

Arturo is credited with pretty much creating the idea of a band t-shirt – I know, wow! Even before he’d created the famous logo, he printed some shirts with just ‘RAMONES’ on them. The band themselves were skeptical about whether anyone would buy them – especially as they were an unknown act at the time. But music fans did buy them. And when the presidential seal logo was designed and printed onto t-shirts they bought even more. Demand was so high, even in the early days, that Arturo had to outsource the printing of the shirts to other companies.

This quote taken from Hampton Arts Hub sums up how the use of the logo exploded:

‘Soon that deal grew into something much larger as he made licensing deals around the world for everything from sneakers and socks, to shorts, jackets, wallets, skate boards, baby clothes, hats and stickers – all bearing the logo. They were, and still are, sold in stores globally and online. They sold more T-shirts than records and probably they sold more T-shirts than tickets.’

As well as t-shirts, Arturo produced many of the images for The Ramones’ record sleeves. This was long before people were designing album artwork on computers and Arturo’s early designs for the band were created using photos taken in a photobooth. And for their live performances, he hand-painted huge banners! I dread to think how much time and patience that must have taken to get it looking just perfect.

This art of punk post has taken me an unusually long time to put together. This is partly because I’m super busy but also because I keep getting sidetracked reading articles and listening to podcasts about Arturo and The Ramones. I also spent a fair amount of time flicking through Colin’s copy of On The Road with The Ramones, a book written by Monte A Melnick, the band’s close friend and tour manager – a must have for any punk fan.

At some point this year we'd like to go to Berlin and visit the Ramones Museum, so if / when that happens I imagine I will get to see a whole load more of Arturo Vega's work. Maybe I'll share some photographs in a blog post…

On a side note:

You may or may not have noticed that Art of Punk posts have become very infrequent over the past couple of months. This is partly, as I mentioned before, because I am super busy in life in general but also because I've been dedicating more of my time to writing album reviews. There’s just so much great stuff in punk rock at the moment that I, and the rest of the CPRW team, want to write about, so Art of Punk is going to be taking a bit of a backseat for a while.

There will still be Art of Punk posts as and when I write them although they will no longer be posted specifically on Tuesdays – in fact, more often than not they will be posted on Fridays. If anyone has any ideas of suggestions for future posts then let me know! (Tweet me, etc.) Until then…

This post was written by Emma Prew.

Art of Punk: Jose Prieto

Jose Prieto is the singer and guitarist of MakeWar, a band that I saw live for the first time last week. During their set, Jose made a reference to going to art school (I can’t remember what exactly it was he said) and it reminded me that he would be perfect to feature on Art of Punk – something that for whatever reason I haven’t done yet, despite knowing about his design work… sorry! He’s worked in various graphic design and art direction roles over the past ten years for commercial clients but, of course, it is his involvement with design for music that I’m going to focus on here.

In 2013, Jose set up a separate design company and Facebook page specifically for gig posters and other designs for bands and record labels called Ilovemisery (ever the cheery chap is Jose). The Facebook page hasn’t really been updated over the last couple of years as I imagine it can be difficult to juggle design work and playing in a touring band – a band that has recently signed to Red Scare Industries at that. Even so, the posters that he produced up until 2013 are wonderful.

Jose has a fairly straightforward yet effective design style that runs throughout these poster designs. There are always themes of melancholy and heartbreak but then his previous musical endeavour was called Sad And French – and some of the posters I like most are for said band. The use of few colours, simple graphic elements and clean typography is great and, I think, far from what most gig posters in punk rock look like. And besides, it is always nice to see something different. They remind me of book covers rather than gig posters and as a bookworm this appeals to me.

 

 

MakeWar’s self-titled album artwork is, of course, also the creation of Jose Prieto and is just as slick as his gig poster designs. The buffalo skull with an arrow through it, although faded in the sense of how it has been printed, is a bold image. When Colin first tried to get me to listen to MakeWar, it was the skull image that stood out to me. I don’t know how much Jose was involved in the design for their new album, Developing A Theory Of Integrity, but the artwork certainly hasn’t stuck in my head like the self-titled album.

Fingers crossed that Jose hasn’t completely given up his graphic design in place of music as I’d love to see more of his work.

Art of Punk: SINC and Hot Water Music

Scott Sinclair, or simply SINC as he is better known, is a painter, illustrator and video game artist (not to be confused with the British footballer). You’ve probably seen his work, even if you didn’t know who the artist behind it was.

He’s recently (relatively speaking) worked as an artist on the Guitar Hero games and as an art director for Bioshock. Since then he has been involved in the formation of The Molasses Flood – a video game company whose first game, titled The Flame In The Flood, features incredible art of SINC’s creation (he was asked “How would you like to make a game that looks like your personal work come to life?” by the game’s designer) and a soundtrack by Chuck Ragan. I’ve not played the game but it does look awesome judging by the trailer.

The fact that Chuck Ragan is responsible for the video game’s soundtrack is actually no surprise as he and SINC have a long history of working together. After completing his degree in illustration at Ringling School of Art and Design in Florida, SINC became involved with the then blossoming Gainesville punk scene. He painted artwork for the likes of Less Than Jake and Radon as well as other Gainesville bands, but it is his paintings for Hot Water Music that he is most famous for.

The style used for classic HWM albums such as Caution, A Flight And A Crash and No Division is very distinct and I’ve always thought that it is unlike anything else you ever see on punk record sleeves. The artwork makes me think of Picasso – which is definitely not something you’d say about much in the world of punk rock – as SINC uses a sort of cubism in his depiction of character’s faces. The art of Hot Water Music, aside from their last album Exister (designed by Horsebites), simply is Scott Sinclair. I love how they clearly let him do whatever he wanted or use whichever piece he had already created, as they obviously admired and appreciated his artwork. I’m sharing a couple of paintings without the album titles on them but even with ‘Hot Water Music’ and the relevant album title in place, it doesn’t detract from the amazing art. Look how small the text is on No Division (below) – the band was willing to let the artwork speak for itself.

I unfortunately don’t own any Hot Water Music albums on vinyl – mostly because I’m never sure which to buy first (I know that All Ages in Camden has a couple in stock) – but if I did, I think I’d happily have them framed as a series on my wall. They’re great individually but also look awesome together.

I didn’t realise until I started to do a little further research that SINC is also responsible for the design of the classic Hot Water Music logo – I mean, it makes sense really. He’s a very talented man and I hope that if or when HWM decide to make another album that they will work with SINC again – if he’s not too busy making video games anyway!

Art of Punk: Bryan Kienlen

Forgive me if I’m pointing out the obvious here but… Bryan Kienlen is the bassist of The Bouncing Souls. He has also been the man behind all of their artwork (nearly 30 years!), from the band’s early DIY gig flyers and first EP covers to their latest album, Simplicity, Bryan has designed them all – which is pretty good going for one man if you ask me!

After finishing high school, Bryan was all set to go off to art school but that would have meant giving up The Bouncing Souls who were just beginning to pick up momentum… so he didn’t go to art school and, as they say, the rest was history. Of course, he’s never given up creating visual art in place of musical art as the two work hand-in-hand. Plus, he also works as a tattooist, at Neptune Tattooville in New Jersey, when the band isn’t on tour as well.

The Bouncing Souls’ latest album features the iconic ‘face’ in the middle of its artwork. The same face that appears on almost all of their previous releases, not to mention on hundreds and hundreds of posters, t-shirts and other band merchandise for years. The ‘Ball Guy’ has acted as a sort of a mascot for the band, although it shouldn’t really be considered their logo as the classic crossbones heart probably serves that purpose better. I read somewhere that the ‘Ball Guy’ was a representation of Bryan himself – at least that’s what someone else in the band said, I think!

Something I like about Bryan’s art, and the artwork throughout The Bouncing Souls’ career in particular, is that it is so varied. The band’s album covers, for example, are so varied in visual style – Anchors Aweigh is an oil painting! – but the ‘Ball Guy’ has found his way into the majority of them. I do, however, like how it isn’t always so obvious – see Anchors Aweigh again, plus Ghosts On The Boardwalk.

I recently watched the 2004 Bouncing Souls documentary, Do You Remember?. The tagline for the documentary is ‘Fifteen years of The Bouncing Souls’ so obviously it is a little bit dated now, but it was great to hear the band talk about how they formed and see lots of footage from all those years ago. It was also particularly interesting for me to see Bryan creating art for the band, which included hand illustrating mail cards and CD artwork, plus spray painting designs onto fan’s own t-shirts – very DIY. You can watch the whole thing here on YouTube, but if you need persuading I’ve included some screenshots.

You can also check out a wide variety of Bryan’s designs, both for The Bouncing Souls and other bands, on his website. If you’re a tattoo fan then I recommend following Bryan on Instagram as well as his photos are mostly of his tattoo art.

Art of Punk: Devan Power

I bought my first proper full-sized, screen printed gig poster at a Chuck Ragan show last year. I bought it because the design and colours really caught my eye. So, when I got home and got it all framed up for my bedroom wall, I took to Google and Tineye (reverse image search) in an attempt to find out who the designer of the poster was. The Internet wasn’t very helpful in giving me names so in the end I just tweeted Chuck Ragan and asked. If I remember rightly, he replied pretty promptly and soon I had my answer – Devan Power, a graphic designer based in Ontario, Canada.

I’ve been keeping an eye on Devan’s design portfolio – and Instagram account – since then and, although he does a lot of work for more Americana or folk-based musicians (Jason Isbell and Ivan Rivers), I was pleasantly surprised he’s recently done some designs for The Menzingers as well.

The Menzingers, if you didn’t know, are one of my absolute favourite punk bands. Devan’s T-shirt designs for the band were produced for their North American tour this year – here’s hoping they’ll be available for the UK tour this month as well. I particularly like the hourglass T-shirt but the grim reaper Milo tribute is just brilliant – not sure if it was for a T-shirt as his website doesn’t show it as such.

Devan also plays in a punk band himself, called No Hands, and works a tour manager therefore he has a certain insight into the world of bands and artists he designs for – always good to understand your clients. His designs have a very North American feel to them which is reflected in the typography and imagery – bringing to mind national park decals and tattoo art. This style of design is right up my street and I would happily wear all of these T-shirts (I like the artists too).