Music Musings

I attended a local festival several weeks ago in Chicago and thoroughly enjoyed looking at the merchandise from all of the artists selling gig posters. Im no expert, but it seems like Chicago is a hotbed for this sort of thing. Lots of talented people here and it blows my mind on a regular basis. I actually ended up buying a Josh Ritter/Joe Pug poster from Dan MacAdam at Crosshair even though I have nowhere to put it, he seemed like a good guy.

Here are some of our favorite gig poster designers in Chicago and beyond. I encourage you to peruse their sites and get inspired to do a little redecorating. (FYI, the artist’s poster is BENEATH their name. Oh and by the way, there are even more that I would have liked to name but tried to keep this list somewhat digestable).

Dan MacAdam – Crosshair (Chicago, IL)

Aesthetic Apparatus (Minneapolis, MN)

Daniel Danger – Tiny Media Empire (New England)

Jay Ryan – The Bird Machine (Chicago, IL)

Cricket Press (Lexington, KY)

Burlesque Design (America)

Delicious Design League (Chicago, IL)

Lil Tuffy (San Francisco, CA)

Spike Press (Chicago, IL)

Diana Sudyka (Chicago, IL)

And hopefully none of the designers mind us spreading the word and showing off some of your work. Please let us know if you’d like us to remove the image.

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Uncomfortable male touching. It’s as old as time. We’ve all experienced it. The accidental butt brush to the back of your head as someone is trying to get out from a table behind you. The knee touch on an airplane that takes several minutes to sink in before you realize what’s happened (1000 times worse if you’re both wearing shorts. 1,000,000 times worse if you’re both wearing jorts). And, of course, the sidler at the outdoor rock show whose sweaty arm, dripping with dirty hipster juice continuously rubs against yours, infecting you with homelessness.

Well, I feel the same away about another man touching my iPod at my own party. It’s one thing if your playlist has ended or there’s no music playing. And there are definitely people I trust at the iPod helm, but otherwise, it’s just uncalled for.

It’s the type of guy that takes it upon himself to talk into the wedding band’s microphone while they’re taking a break. They usually want to turn your soiree into a hip-hop dance party or play what they think are ironic 80′s songs (when everyone knows that the 90′s are the new 80′s). After finding the song of choice and pressing play, they turn to the rest of the party with an upraised fist and a big smile on their face as if to say, “It’s my party now, female dogs.” And they usually follow that move up by simultaneously putting a girl in a headlock and chugging straight out of a bottle of wine.

Hey, it happens. I get it. But it doesn’t mean I have to like it.

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