We give a lot of lip service to our inner voice, and given the pressure of the daily grind, it’s easy to think pragmatically instead of following those uncharted trails that lead to meaningful breakthroughs.

A year ago, I found a stereo receiver at a neighbor’s garage sale. When I saw it, I was instantly reminded of my father’s receiver from the mid-70’s. After attempting to “haggle” with its owner, I decided I could handle the steep price of $5, as long as they threw in the Hank Williams 8-track.

Well, last week the crackle and snap coming from the receiver would have made even the most dedicated analog fan cringe. The final straw was trying to listen to Dizzy Gillespie & and Charlie Christian’s BeBop to Swing album with one speaker not working, then switching to the tape player, and having the tape advance wheel screech loudly. At that moment I could hear a friend of mine saying “you’re throwing furniture in a burning house. Get rid of it”. I almost did just that. It was, as they say, one foot in the grave.

Then after sharing my story, another friend mentioned an electronics repair shop located not far from the house. “This guy can fix anything.” I figured I would at least give it a shot. I’d gone to the local landfill many times when we bought our first house and dumped rotten wall-paper & tiles. The piles and piles of wasted and dismembered equipment had a lasting effect on me, and to this day, I find it hard to throw away large items that might be salvaged. So with this in mind, I entered the repair shop and explained my situation. “Maybe you take a look and let me know if this is worth fixing,” I said to him. “I’ll call you if it’s a no-go,” said the repairman. I promptly exited the building, thinking that would be the last of it.

A week later, I got a call. “All ready. I cleaned off some mild corrosion and it sounds great. $40 even”. Really? Excellent. Sure enough, when I got over there it sounded great. Even the speakers were playing clean. Though the repairmen acknowledged that it was a basic receiver, he said this one still had plenty of go left in it.

After I got home, and got it all happily wired into the system again, I kept imaging it sitting in the dump somewhere with just a little bit of corrosion keeping it from tuning in. I also imagined my friend saying, “You paid $40 to fix that junker?”

I guess everyone has to decide for themselves whether value is purely monetary, or whether they care about emotional currency.

Ever since my grandmother (who lost her husband (my grand-dad) to a heart attack in 1976—and never remarried) asked me to record Jim Reeves’ Adios Amigo back to back on analog tape (both sides), I’ve been a fan of real country music. Despite being criticized by erudite intellectuals for being stereotypically “down-home” and “schmaltzy”, and not always without merit – real country music, for me, can be characterized as music with a lot of weight. There are moments where genuine artists of the genre tap nerves within us that conjure up promises, plans, and dreams that simply never came to fruition. Like the name that it bares, this music is a faint reminder that “country” is quite hard, obtuse, and unforgiving.

Upon receiving the completed CD from Pete Krebs, with my feelings about country music in the back of my mind, I connected with photographer Rob Delahanty about exploring environments that suit the album. These photos are the result of our collaboration into the relationship between products and people.

In December, we were contacted by the Justice conference and asked to contribute a custom t-shirt graphic / concept for the event. The theme of the conference revolved around how justice was like a network of threads in a garment, and that should a single thread come loose, it has a chain reaction that eventually degrades and disbands the whole.

Keeping this theme in mind, I spent some time thinking about how to address this concept in a way that differentiates itself from the rest of the conference materials, yet still retained a unifying look. My final tee illustration/design concept was based on a network of pulleys, that when linked together, can lift weight well beyond that of a single rope alone. This was represented by the main handle on the bottom (with text that read ‘Support’) interconnected via a vast network of pulleys, that ultimately were supporting marginalized individuals in the center; whose expressions and markings were designed to represent a lack of justice.

In short, I wanted to create a graphic that boiled down to the idea that justice takes work, and that grabbing a hold of the handle is the first step in supporting others in need.

This post contains a few of our favorite cover designs from a recent book project called Psycho USA. In each direction the goal was to convey a sense of history, since the primary focus of the book is early American killers. At the same time, non-traditional design formatting was needed to bring readers into the appropriate emotional mindset for “shockingly true horror stories” that actually happened.

One of the best parts of this project was viewing the old wood cuts (done long before photography was invented) with crude drawings of ghastly crimes too menacing for the format to convey. At the same time, there was a sense of irony in how comical some of the drawings were, and in an odd way, the lack of perspective in the characters do a fabulous job of communicating the psycho nature of the criminals. They are drawings that today send shivers up your spine, but I had to wonder, given the time in history, if they would have had the same power when that particular style was the rule of the day. Makes me think a lot about how the development of photography forced American culture to view the crimes in a much more sophisticated and chilling way.

I hope you enjoy checking out what we’ve been up to.

In the fall I worked on a historical non-fiction book called Railroaded which told the story of the transcontinental lines in America. Since there are often multiple comps we are fond of, we thought we’d put together a few to share.

Needing something good to put on in the background while you work that doesn’t sound like everything else? I recently ordered this album in the mail and have gotten pretty into it. There are layers of good sounds in there, and unlike so much overly digital sounding psych-rock, this feels rooted in classic analog tones.

Listen here if you’re at all curious.

Read the full review on Pitchfork.

MLK Day leaves me feeling humbled and inspired at the same time. How did Martin Luther King Jr. systematically take down what may be the the greatest ignorance America has ever known? Looking back on his life from 2012, he seems mythic, but not so, he was real. He had a dream, and everyone learned what it was.

Let’s face it. MLK day is short. For most of us, it’s a fleeting thought amidst the stress of the workday. But we should think about him more. America faces many new problems that, when studying Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., there is insight to be gained. If you turn on the news, there is a shared feeling among the population that America has lost its way. If you gather around the local watering hole for a cold one, you’ll likely hear people griping “America this” and “America that” for hours. I understand that it feels good to vent, it’s human nature, but what is everyone really trying to articulate?

This is where it might help to consider MLK Jr. and the legacy we all stand on. Great figureheads of the modern era, like MLK Jr., with enormous obstacles in front of them, have done more with less, and dreamed bigger. Could it be that the problem right now is that America has no dream? Why not?

This is a question that needs to be answered given that the election is right around the corner. Not that I’ll get the chance to, but if I could ask each presidential candidate one question this year, it would be this: “What is your dream?” I don’t care what party they are in, god help them if they fail to inspire me with the answer.

Pete Krebs might be the hardest working jazz guitarist and songwriter in Portland. He fronts three bands: The Stolen Sweets, Pete Krebs Trio, and now Pete Krebs and His Portland Playboys. Many also know him as a founding member of the band, Hazel – a quintessential Portland band from the early nineties who wrote the song “Everybody’s Best Friend”. This new release titled, The Early Sessions, is entirely country swing and showcases Pete at his best.

Pete talked to Wes about designing the new release after the two enjoyed some dialogue regarding early hill-billy acetate records. With that as a starting point, Wes went right to work combing his record collection to source all the right aged paper samples and materials. From the beginning of the project, both Pete and Wes loved the idea of something that included the mark of the hand. Even though it would be a compact disc, it was important that the design reminded us of the close relationship people have with a band, music, and album artwork. Subtle things like the check marks, owner signatures, and aged paper tones speak to the history of albums as an essential part of the musical experience. This design pays tribute to those who have to be close to the music, in a way that the exchange of online music will never fully satisfy.

For a full review of the album, check out the Willamette Week review online.

Join us as we celebrate the release with Pete and M.80 in Portland tonight.

After making a couple trips to the local record store searching for older relics, it occurred to me to check in with a few of my favorite bands who have been steadily releasing vinyl over the past 10 years. I put in an email to Ypsilanti Records in search of locating a few copies of some more obscure Saturday Looks Good to Me albums, and after a few weeks, heard right back.

Within the stack of fresh records, was one of Fred Thomas’s latest releases from one of his side projects called Swimsuit. If you haven’t heard of them, I recommend checking it out. I’m a sucker for lower-fi sound, and that’s not saying this isn’t well produced, it is. Maybe what I am getting at is the notion of every instrument coming together, yet staying uniquely personal and alive at the same time. With so many bands falling over themselves to record in namesake studios with the latest digital beeswax, I think it’s great to hear something with a raw seemingly analog current running through it.

This isn’t the last we’ll here from Ypsi either. Lately they’ve been releasing tapes, and nothing pleases me more than someone putting a new spin on an old format.

I found out about Chet Atkins back in the late 80’s while opening a Gibson catalog. There was this great big orange guitar featured on the poster and it was remarkable. It instantly spoke to me. A love at first sight type of reaction. I thought to myself: I had to find out whoever could hold a guitar that large and so bright.

Oddly several years went by before I picked up my first Chet Atkins album. I came across a two disc collection of Chet’s early work called the RCA years. The music was akin to opening up the windows to an old house and letting the fresh air in. In a short amount of time, the album case was broken, cd corners cracked, and notes were scrawled in pen on the sleeve citing the different guitars Chet played on each track. I had taken the album everywhere with me, even if there was no stereo where I was going. The album was like a portal I could walk into and escape from whatever my surroundings were.

In the summer of 2003-04 I came across a book called Vinyl Hayride. It was an archive of some of the great vinyl album design & photography throughout the history of country music. After opening it up and thumbing through the first few pages, I froze. On the bottom right corner of the page was a photo of Chet Atkins album- At Home. I’d seen the photo before of Chet hanging out in his basement studio chocked full of guitars, but never knew there was an in color version or that it had appeared on an album. This was something I had to track down. A few months later I did.

This 1956 album is the best example I have of a relationship with a printed package. I’m still not entirely sure if I can fully articulate what I’m processing or feeling when I see it. Whatever those emotions are, the physical object is the vehicle to far away place, a basement where somewhere, some undiscovered person is mulling around, recording, mixing, and mastering never before heard sounds. For me, the package tells the story and without it, the music in only 50% complete.