Over the past year or so, we’ve been collabing with, interviewing, jamming with, etc. some fantastic producers and musicians and we figured it’s only logical to start featuring some of their unreleased work. As many Fridays as we can manage, for as much of the rest of the year as we feel like it, we’ll be hosting some unreleased tracks of the best unheard and underrepresented musical talent we come across and then  feature.

This week we’ve got a dope submission from our man in Austin, TX, Eversive with a track called Technocratic.

Just right click that there picture below and save!

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Eversive is a producer hailing from Corpus Christi, TX and now resides in Austin, TX. He is currently working on a full length album titled “Void Magick”. Founder of the Sole Glow Collective, a community and network of like minded artists across the globe who support each other’s endeavors and work together to build an awareness of each other’s music in their sphere of influence. Sole Glow Collective will be dropping a beat compilation on May 25th. The compilation will include contributions from Ta-ku, Roughsoul, Melodiesinfonie, Lo Phi, JayLotus, and a whole slew of other heatmakers from across the globe.

The entire concept was developed by Kris (aka Frenemy Life) around a paper-mache monster mask he put together. After he had created a character of sorts, he began taking his creation to the streets. Eventually, the concept of the monster becoming an artist inspired Kris to pursue the idea of showcasing a monster drawing himself a self-portrait after a day of getting to know himself through a variety of shenanigans.

The video was entirely shot at Kris’s home and studio space in Austin, Texas. Shot and edited at the beginning of this year, the majority of the time was spent in developing a track by JOINTHESTUDIO’s co-founder and baby daddy Sam Rolfes aka Shardstyle. The track featured in the video, titled Awash in Her (Extended Version),  is an extended mix of a song that will be on Shardstyle’s forthcoming EP, set to drop sometime this summer.

Kristopher Kotcher
Website
Twitter
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Sam Rolfes
Soundcloud
Behance

Karan Sethi
Portfolio
Twitter 

Our first piece is by Chicago comedian and writer Adam Lawson.

If there is one thing that everybody wants, it’s for Taylor Swift to stop making music. If there is a second thing that is collectively desired by everyone, it is their own special moment in time, a moment when they become the sun and the rest of creation is but the dark, spinning universe. These moments, for most people, are sparse. And for others, like myself, there moments in time are consuming and divine. That’s a Kerouacian way of saying I’m an attention starved man-child who makes a habit of yelling into microphones. I am a stand-up comedian, and my special moments in time are at night. When the sun goes down and the sky gets washed over in black, and the city is forced to light itself up. It’s in these dark nights, under stage lights and in front of strangers that I become the sun for around 5 minutes.

But that was all very meta, and maybe a little hard to follow. Let me get down to the bones of this stand up comedy thing:

Stand-up Comedy is a form of therapy. And for those of you who have therapist, it’s naïve to think that your shrink doesn’t laugh at you when you explain to him how your phobia of escalators springs from watching an old man Indian Jones boulder roll down a flight of stairs at the Mall of America when you were 11. Our problems are funny, and now we shouldn’t always laugh at the problems of others, but we should always realize that in every anxiety there is at least a hint of funny. I’ve been doing stand-up for 3 years now, and if I had to estimate the number of times I’ve held a microphone in my hands I’d say about 200. I’ve been told it takes repeating an activity 30 times to make it a habit, so given that information I should be able to hypothesize that repeating an activity over 100 times can make it an addiction. I’m addicted to performing, I’m in love with the attention and the sound of my voice through the amplifiers. I love the laughs and the sound of a spirited ovation.

(I say spirited, but that may be an incorrect word, in stand up there are 4 types of claps:

1. The standard applause; You did an alright job, but nothing too memorable. Over all it was commendable.

2. The Pity clap; You took the risk, stood in front of the firing squad, and got completely demolished. I can’t hate you for trying.

3. The cut above the rest cheer; This clap usually includes phonation. This is what I mean when I say spirited ovation. The comedian did a really great job, hearty handshakes are in order.

4. The fourth type of clap is gonorrhea. While I have never experienced this type before, I can verify its presence in the comedy scene. A drunk woman at a gig once screamed at something in regards to my genitalia and her rectum. I’m almost positive she is the fast track to the fourth kind of comedy clap.)

But I digress, it’s in these nights that I meet the most reckless of people. From the old angry comedian whose jokes border complete racism. To the nebbish and shy first timer who brings along his entire dorm for support. The women comedians who dress sexy but antiquated. The comedy rock stars and the underdogs. The scene has a pulse. In doing comedy I’ve gained best friends and bitter rivals. (Up until this point I’ve managed to get into a fist fight and a verbal altercation that got me a months banishment from a bar in Lakeview.) But performing is only half the reason I love stand-up. The other is the adventure out unto these most treacherous and supremely random Chicago nights. I brave the weather and red line in search of clubs and bars to perform my craft. The people I have met in these bars and on these rattling train rides are all the reasons why I do stand up, to communicate with the wild masses of world. To inform and entertain and enlighten. (Although in my earlier years of stand-up I did a lot less of those 3 and exponentially more offending and confusing.)

Sometimes in this field it’s not always so funny. I once watched a man talk very candidly into a microphone about how his girlfriend was leaving him, during this very intimate diatribe his words were periodically muted, like a cell phone signal dying out, by the sound of spatula scraping onions off a grill. The downside about the open mic level of comedy is that many times the people you are performing for don’t necessarily care about. We perform in grills and while people eat and commiserate. It’s hard to wrangle attention some nights, its even harder to keep it.

When we perform in what ever avenue, be it music or dance of theater, we become a different version of ourselves, an omega version. It’s like a scripted life, without the negative connotations scripted life may hold. It’s a life, a moment in life rather, in which everything has been rehearsed, in which you are completely in control. All the words planed and perfected. It’s like living a day once in its typical random fashion.

Then it’s replaying that day, knowing the bus will be late, knowing the eggs will be runny, knowing you’ll run into your ex, knowing everything and acting accordingly.

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Adam Lawson is a 5 year creative writing student at Columbia College.

He fancies himself the black Van Wilder but is more so the lazy David Foster Wallace.

Check out his blog over here and watch him rub chocolate sauce on his face right over here.

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First off, JTS Co Founder Sam “Shardstyle” Rolfes hit us with some particularly awesome news last week and we just had to share:

We have proof!

Yep yep, son got a cool little feature on the legendary SF art and culture site Fecal Face, an online mag/blog that’s been close to our hearts for some time now.Cue the happy music and run the nostalgic montage:

Ever since back when the founders of JTS were all still in high school (like, even-before-we-had-licenses-and-drinking-problems-high-school), we would spend hours pouring over Fecal Face’s awesome content before running out late at night and catching wheatpastes and stencil bombs around the streets of Dallas. Fecal Face was a huge inspiration for the formation of JTS online and shaped our individual aesthetics and artistic values and it’s thoroughly, thoroughly rockin’ to see our man Sam up on its hallowed page featuring some of the work he labored over for his showing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s BFA graduation exhibition.

Exhibitchin‘ amirite? What? That’s a terrible joke? Alright movin on then…

Our favorite shot from the JTS Spectratone Show #2

NEW FACEYSPACE PAGE!

We’re moving over from the old page to the shiny new one linked above  so be sure to “like” us for advance updates on JTS events in Chicago, Austin and around the world, JTS news, and featured art and music stuff! It’s easy, just scroll up to the link…there you go…no, over to the left…yeah, and hit “like” on the page. Thanks!

We’ve got photos up from the second Join The Studio SPECTRATONE SHOW, underground experimental shows JTS sponsors in Austin, and photos from our hawt photoshoot with model Daniela Montoya wearing JTS apparel!

Speaking of The Spectratone Show and other photos, we’ll be hosting those on the main site soon so yall can check em out more easily. We’re also workin on editing together a recap vid, moving to a larger venue, and throwing all that newness up for you guys.

Keep it locked with JTS Crew! Much more comin’, thanks yall.

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It takes intense meditation to hold those up with your mind

ADR: Alright, so just first thing all we need is a short introduction- your name, what you do…

Okay. I’m Kelsey Anne Heimerman. I’m an oil painter, mostly, currently sutdying at UNT. I came from a family of artist: My mother is a glassblower, my father is a carpenter, and then I have a sister who livers abroad who’s a printmaker, and then another sister who’s a photographer. So, I’ve always been encouraged to paint and I’ve been painting since I was a kid, so now I’m studying it in school

–Looking through all the work that I’ve seen, there obviously a large amount of abstraction and seems like patterning, consistent even with kinda the earlier paintings I saw on your website. What drew you to this, or, rather, how did you discover your appreciation for that method of abstraction?

I made my first abstract painting when I was 20 years-old- before that I did more surrealist/ invented kind of landscapes or scenes with figures in them. It’s kind of funny, I made my first abstract painting as a joke because people in my class were turning in these paintings, and I just didn’t get it. They were showing stuff that I thought looked too easy, or I really didn’t understand the paint application, so, I was like, “I’m going to make a huge joke painting about abstract paintings!” And I got this banner that I found in the trash, it was a seven-foot piece of vinyl paper. So I started painting on that my first abstract painting, and I spent forty hours on it, and then I just, after the forty hours, I just had this vision of what it could be. And I spent probably another sixty hours on it, and that painting got into the 500X Gallery. [which is really prostegious in Dallas]And that just really pushed me to keep going with the abstraction and all my professors encouraged it. So that’s the direction that I’m working with now.

–Cool! Weren’t really expecting a joke to go that far?

Hah, yeah.

Currently exhibiting in the 52th Annual Voertman's Exhibition

–Do you approach each painting with a concept before-hand, or you kind of “feel it out”, letting like a sense of self-expression complete the imagery?

Mostly I’ll work intuitively, from one brush stroke to the next. Normally I’ll work on a painting for a few weeks at a time, so that’s were you get all the overlappings of, maybe a really tightly-painted pattern or maybe something more painterly- those are kind of showing different days that I’m painting different moods that I’m in. Sometimes I’m feeling really analytical, so I want to paint something really precise and small or pattern-oriented. Or sometimes I’m feeling more painterly, so that’s when you get these other styles kind of intermingling. When I do commissions and stuff, obviously I have to work from imagery. But I feel like whenever I work from imagery I’ll do a drawing or a sketch and I flesh out the drawing and then I feel like the image is finished as a drawing. So I feel working intuitively is a more genuine approach to the painting.

–Right on. Continuing on,how much do you plan your paintings? Obviously, not- or do you?

Uh,no, not really- most of them are pretty intuitive. The more time I spend with them, the more they develop. But, mostly my sketchbook is writings or watercolors or me just wanting to draw and not having a canvas in front of me. So it’s not really full of ideas, and then I take the book and paint the idea. It’s just kind of another outlet for me

–It’s just saying what you can. Like, “this one going to be larger!”And that kinda goes into this next question: I also saw on your website a variety of mediums- the watercolors, inks, mixed media. Besides maybe being for a class, is there a mental hierarchy to each composition? You kinda answered that to your sketch leading to a study, so I guess it would be you just do whatever you can. Right?

Yeah, I would say I probably take oil painting the most seriously. Not to say that I can’t take the other mediums seriously- probably the one next to that would be a pen-and-ink drawing. But I have such an affinity for the oil painting, and I feel it’s something that I’ve studied for so long that to not take it seriously at this point would be silly.

–So, it’s more like the other mediums- watercolor, inks- they’re things that are fun to do when you want to express yourself, but when it comes to serious business, you just rely on oils to really say, “this is what I mean”?

Yeah, I guess you could say that. I always envisioned, with all my other stuff, that I would do larger installations. ‘Cause I don’t do large drawings or large collages or watercolors- I mostly just do large oil paintings. So I’ve always envisioned just putting all them together in a large installation to create a larger piece. They’re also good to make to sell [laugh] because people can afford them.

–Yeah, I have a commission right now- it’s a friend of a friend thing. They wanted a four-foot by six-foot painting of Bob Marley. My first quote was “$500!”. “We don’t have that money!” $300 if you give me unlimited time!” And they still don’t have the money. So, if you’re college kids, do you really expect to have enough money to pay for something like that? Yeah, that’s definitely smart. Last question: What do you plan on doing after graduating? ‘Cause saw on your site that you expect to graduate next semester.

Well, actually, I have one year left. I’ll probably apply to grad school- I’m exactly not sure where. I’m thinking maybe Maine or somewhere close to New York but not actually New York ’cause I feel like I would suffocate in that city. Or, possibly somewhere abroad. But I’ll probably just take out a giant, giant loan [laugh] and keep going to school. I’m 21 right now, so I’ll graduate my undergrad when I’m 22, and then I plan to have my master’s by the time I’m 25. And, from there, I just want to try and build networks with people and get into the galleries. I remember when I first had Jim Burton as my teacher in my first Intermediate Painting class, the first meeting that I had with him, I was like, “I want to be a painter. I want people to read my names in books and I want people to study me, and I want to be famous!” And he just looked at me with these eyes that was like, “That’s really hard to do, Kelsey.” “I will die trying it!” I just want to live off my paintings. And if I can’t do that, then… I don’t know.

 Hope it works out! Also, is there anything you want to promote- any events coming up that you want to talk about real quick?

Not right now. I just finished a show yesterday- the Bolivar Arts Collective, a collective I’m a part of. And earlier in the month I did a fundraiser for “Hug It Forward”. But, right now, I’m just trying to finish up the semester. And then probably more Bolivar Art Collective shows will come throughout the summer. But, yeah, that’s all.

–Cool. Alright! Thank you for your time!

Yeah, thank you!

Make sure to check out more of Kelsey’s work on her website! It’ll be good for you, I promise.

Over the past year or so, we’ve been collabing with, interviewing, jamming with, etc. some fantastic producers and musicians and we figured it’s only logical to start featuring some of their unreleased work. As many Fridays as we can manage, for as much of the rest of the year as we feel like it (although by the looks of Sam’s face in that picture, he might not be with us much longer, damn you nanobots! Damn you!!), we’ll be hosting some unreleased tracks of the best unheard and underrepresented musical talent we come across and subsequently  feature.

Well that said there were a few scheduling issues this week with all  the madness of putting on the 2nd JoinTheStudio SPECTRATONE SHOW and we found ourselves with a Friday with no Free Track! Luckily Shard happened to export a new track a few nights ago and agreed to throw it up here for yall.

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Interested less in creating a beat-structured instrumental track, Shardstyle composes more classically inspired arpeggios and timbres that oscillate, collapse, and fold outwards with Glare Pieces; fracturing sonically and structurally with a nod to minimalist/pattern-based classical composers such as Glass, and then resolves into a flowing and shifting beat peppered with equally fragmented skratches.

Shard mentioned that his perpetually-delayed EP is finally beginning to resolve and will likely include collaborations with Chicago MC legend Sharkula, and a possible collab track with H-town grime-rapper B L A C K I E, in addition to others, so be on the lookout for that!

▽JTS CREW▽

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-So what was your and Darrin’s impetus for starting this project? 

We were very interested in the notion of a self-initiated project. Unlike artists, many designers are not free to simply work on whatever they want; we are consistently in this client-designer relationship, whether through a 9-to-5 job or freelancing. We wanted to explore what happens when designers do take on the role as sole director of their work, and do this by investigating the projects of a group of talented people here in Chicago- many of which, until now, we’ve only seen glimpses of via the web. In doing so, our other goal was to showcase the range of work and skill we have here in our own city, which is important considering the increasingly globalized nature of many design publications and blogs.

-The “offline” nature of the zine was particularly interesting, what about that drew your attention and how do you think that physical, non-commercial publications like this function in today’s web-centric environment?

We had both seen and have been aware of the work being produced here in Chicago via a myriad of sites like Dribbble, Twitter, Behance, and Tumblr, but felt that due to the transitory nature of the web, it was too easy to bookmark/follow/favorite somebody yet have them get lost in the rest of your bookmarks/follows/favorites. We wanted to present our content physically so as to become more tangible and collectible, yet not so overly precious. Besides, although books and other printed matter are more costly and less efficient to produce, their physicality forces you to spend more time with them as opposed to pixels on a screen.

Hey look, it's us!!

-What are you both endeavoring to accomplish with OFFLINE? Do yall happen to have any particular goals or plans for the zine?

It would be nice to become a resource for others to look to in order to see what or who is up-and-coming right now, and to be able to appreciate the process behind the maker. As awesome as it is for us to meet these people, we want to additionally benefit them by getting their work out there before people who might not have seen it.

- What is your impression of the design world thus far when it comes to building relationships and collaborating with others? Feel free to talk shit and make grandiose statements about things designers and those working within that world can and should do better.

Ah, no! I don’t have anything shitty to say about designers here. In fact, we’ve both found the design community here in Chicago to actually be extremely welcoming, humble, and so down-to-earth. I was surprised that many of the designers and makers we approached for this issue were totally open and excited to talk to us, and it felt like so much more of a peer-to-peer dynamic as opposed to a typical student/professional dynamic. In design, because it is so career-focused, it’s easy to feel a little intimidating talking to your influences, but here it simply wasn’t the case.

-Is there any advice you could give others on starting up their own zine?

Well, think about the end product, the physical thing (if it is such). There are costs associated, and time must be budgeted around busy schedules. It’s a good idea to have a set system in place of when you going to meet (if it’s a collaboration) and/or do production work. Also, being clear in your concept and purpose is essential to differentiate yourself creatively and provide a valid “elevator pitch” to others.

-Any advice for aspiring designers?

Know your community. Engage yourself in the diversity of design related events, conferences, jams, and just hanging-out; but don’t forget to have fun with the entire creative and urban community as a whole. There’s a lot of great stuff out there on the Internet, but sometimes it just doesn’t beat going out and seeing amazing work right before your eyes.  Never limit where you seek inspiration. Don’t get stuck into the art-school assignment rut; as we try to show, sometimes it’s incredibly fulfilling and to your advantage to do your own thing on the side.

Also, in the big scheme of things: lie to yourself. Take jobs you are not ready for. Make yourself uncomfortable- this is how you learn.

-Any future plans/events/sites/sexy photoshoots you wanna promote?

We should be coming out with a second issue in June that will hopefully be distributed at some awesome places here in town. We’re going to be interviewing some super sexy people, so hold tight! Other than that, Darrin got a cool job at Simple.Honest.Work, is graduating art school in a few weeks, and entering the Real World. I am still in school, designing and working with a bunch of wonderful people/organizations here in the city and always looking to work with more (hit me up!).

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Hit up OFFLINE at chicago.offline(at)gmail.com!

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Over the past year or so, we’ve been collabing with, interviewing, jamming with, etc. some fantastic producers and musicians and we figured it’s only logical to start featuring some of their unreleased work. As many Fridays as we can manage (or Saturday in this case), for as much of the rest of the year as we feel like it (assuming Shard or Karan aren’t abducted by NERV to pilot biomorphic robots in defense of humanity), we’ll be hosting some unreleased tracks of the best unheard and underrepresented musical talent we come across and subsequently  feature. 

This week we’ve got a really dope track from a young Chicago producer relatively new to the scene but definitely coming up strong who goes by Born Down and was cool enough to send us a mint new track he just completed called Kuwabara. 

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Just right-click it! Then save the damn thing!

 Born Down- “Kuwabara”

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  It’s got awesomely syncopated drum delays, bass, and fuzz. What more could you want? Oh right, it not costing anything. How convenient for you!

Our friends over at Chicago’s Pawn Works gallery  were cool enough to send some photos over last Friday of their latest awesome project at the space,  ‘While Supplies Last’.  The space looks totally different (and totally sweet) but you might remember Pawn Works from our past interviews there with Stussy-linked collage artist James Gallagher and the Brainfeeder beat-kid Shlohmo, and they just keep bringing the newness with this latest install.

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While Supplies Last is a concept store supported by Gestalten books and desgned with the help of NYC artist 5003 and Agent Gallery here in Chicago.

As you can readily tell, there’s some really nicely made and well curated stuff for sale representative of the Chicago and NYC sticker/zine/street art scenes (and some Left Hand Wave plush’s in the corner I see, ha!).

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This time around they’ve got  gear supplied by NYC culture brand Scumbags and Superstars as well as hats from Chicago’s,  The Joneses.

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Looks like they’ve got some new zines from 5003, The Old New York (series of 3 limited to 10 each with some Chicago flavor.), Pest/131, SNACKI and more…and I’m told they’ll also be releasing new titles exclusively throughout the entire 8 week run of the store from Kosbe, a sticker pack from The Old New York, and more to come. Right on!

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We’re told that the majority of the product was produced in limited quantity exclusively for the release through ‘While Supplies Last‘ so if you’re interested you’d better roll through the gallery quick-like and grab one up before they’re gone!

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The Old New York

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131/Pest

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The Old New York

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It all looks pretty dope right? I thought you’d like it.

If you can’t hit the gallery for some inexcusable reason (not living in Chicago, wild hyenas literally eating your limbs as you read this, etc.) then all is not lost! Bandage up those hyena wounds and head over to Pawn Works’ online shop and grab one up why don’tcha? They’ve got some pieces for sale from the past shows with Gallagher and Teebs that are particularly sweet so if you’ve got some extra change you might as well pick up an original too.

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Photos by Brock Brake 

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Make sure to check out their links after you watch the video. (I didn’t spend all of that time editing for nothing, damnit!) They have a 10″ coming out soon, so watch out for that, too!

http://www.facebook.com/twoknights|
http://twoknights.bandcamp.com/
The record label that they were recently signed to, Count Your Lucky Stars 

That’s all from me. Go enjoy Two Knights -adr