Medium

A Sampling of Pete Neonakis’s Work

Along with the wealth of musicians in Austin there is just as many graphic artists that are working to build a look and feel of Austin graphic design. With so many musicians it seems that just about every graphic artist has musician friends or is a musician himself giving many artists the opportunity to not only build up a band but build up brands that can bring in a new audience. For me it is much easier to take a new group that much more serious if their merchandise or promotional items are designed nicely, after all, sharpied CD-Rs can only take you so far. One of Austin based graphic artist whose work caught my eye recently is Pete Neonakis of Sidian Agency. Pete has worked with one of Austin’s biggest groups, Grupo Fantasma, on many of their projects, giving Grupo Fantasma a look and feel that grabs you before you even hear that first note. Pete talked  with me a bit about his music and his art, including his work with DC based Eighteenth Street Lounge.

How did you get started doing music related artwork?
I moved to Austin back in ‘97 from New Jersey and began playing in various groups and making great friends connections in the vibrant musical scene there. At that time I was also studying Graphic Design at Texas State San Marcos. So I began designing gig posters, stickers, tees, etc. for my musical projects and eventually other groups started asking me to help them with posters, cds. etc. Over the years I’ve worked on projects for Grupo Fantasma, Ghostland Observatory, Friends of Dean Martinez, Split Kick, Antibalas, Ocote Soul Sounds, Echo Base Soundsystem, Ghandaia, Low Line Caller, Supercontinent, Hairy Apes BMX, Skies Falling, the now defunct Seedknowledge Records and many others that don’t immediatley come to mind.

What was your first music related design?
Like most young designers, I worked on a lot of personal stuff for bands I liked or dream-projects. That was a very important period for me. Exploring the world of design for fun and becoming acquianted with programs, colors, fonts and finding a graphic voice.

The first music related project that is worth mentioning would be the packaging for Echo Base Soundsystem’s self-titled first album. It was the one with the bleeding heart, the birds and the crown. We were all very happy with the design. It was super simple, but really striking. What I found interesting most about that design was how many different interpretations people came up with, everyone had a different story. This is what I love about the combination of symbols that everyone has their own definitions and a different configurations will evoke different interpretations.

Looking at Grupo’s backcatalog, I see Adrian Quesada did the layouts on their first couple releases. How did you link up with Adrian and get into doing artwork for them.
I’ve known Adrian since around 1999. At the time his fledgling band, Grupo Fantasma, and my dub-influenced post rock outfit Echo Base Soundsystem shared the stage many times, mainly at the legendary Empanada Parlour. Our group members all became good friends and have collaborated and participated on many musical projects over the years.

The first projects for Grupo were the gig/tour posters, the ubiquitous tees with blocky Goonies-esque font and onto the ‘Comes Alive’ and ‘Sonidos Gold’ albums (both of which are some of the finest albums to come out of Austin in the past few years! Definitely give them a listen!)

I think we clicked aesthetically over old record covers and the wear and tear that comes from a record’s years of shuffling around between crates. After a while, the scratches and ring-wear become a part of the design. I love the look and feel of old shit. On the 2 Grupo releases I’ve worked on, we’ve tried to incorporate a little grime. I like it when your not sure if an album came out in 1978 or 2008.

Tell me a bit about the icons used on the the Sonidos Gold layout.

As I mention about the Echo Base album, I love combining symbols and letting people interpret them in their own ways. I am very influenced graphically by old Alchemical drawings and etchings. There are always numbers and symbols and archetypes that are very symbolic and specific to alchemy, cosmology and astrology.

The title ‘Sonidos Gold’ brought to mind the vibrations that are the fabric of the universe and the ancient search to transmutate things of a base nature into a higher nature. Grupo definitely takes vibrations and turns them into something magical or gold in the form of timeless music.

Triangles are one of the simplest geometric shapes and represent fire or the Holy Trinity.

Stars (namely the Pentagram) are a symbol of magical and mystical importance and have been omens, good or bad, of events to come. They are also the eyes in the sky and travelers have used them to guide the way since the beginning of time.

Roman Numerals are used as a nod to Numerology, which as a pseudo-science tries to find the mystical relationship between numbers and physical things. In every culture numbers have specific importance, but the meaning of 9 in China is very different from 9 in Mayan numerology.

Skulls usually represent death and mortality, but like numbers, have many different meanings. Some regard it as a vessel of the soul and a repository of wisdom. Others as the relics of ancestors and used in mystic rituals…

Roses often represent love, passion or desire. Alternately, the rose has been used as a sign of silence and secrecy. When secret societies met in medieval times, a rose was hung from the ceiling at a meeting indicating a demand for discretion. I find that terribly interesting.

My choices of symbolic configuration for the album are less specific to alchemy, but equally as meaningful. I could give you my meaning, but I’m more interested in others interpretations of my work.

Tell me a bit about Adrian’s other project with Ocote Soul Sounds and Eighteenth Street Lounge collaborations.
Ocote Soul Sounds is Adrian’s collaboration with Martin Perna, founder of Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra. Having so much in common, I feel that Ocote is the truest representation of what the two are capable of and how deep and tasty their influences are. Where as Antibalas stays true to the Afrofunk torch and Grupo to the Latin and funk, Ocote explores all the music regions in between. At one moment you feel like your smoking a spliff on a lonely beach in the Carribean watching an amazing sunset and the next your in a sweaty dancehall in Spanish Harlem circa 1974. An extremely dope project!

As far as your designs, what really stand out to me is the textures and layers that are visible. Tell me a bit about it.
As I mentioned before, I love the look and feel of old shit. What I try to do is mimic the aging process in a realistic way. I’ll go to flea markets and find old things to scan and incorporate them into my designs. I try to keep the flourishes subtle. On Grupo’s ‘Comes Alive’ album, we added the ring-wear on the front and people were asking for new copies! They thought the CD packaging had gotten beaten up in transit, that to me is the highest complement!

As for layers, I dig when you look a a picture several times and notice something different every time. I love how surrealist and psychedelic art use shapes and forms to create other forms and hide images within images.

On the several releases I did for Friends of Dean Martinez, I had a great opportunity to explore this dreamy use of layers. Since their sound is very psychedelic and cinematic, I had a fantastic time working with them. The concept for ‘Live at Club 2′ was finding the fantastic in the ordinary. Bill Elm, the founder of Friends of Dean Martinez, had some old woodcut images he wanted to work with and when he showed them to me, I fell in love with the brown paper envelope they came in! So we used the brown paper and turned it into a desert landscape. The design for ‘Lost Horizon‘ explored idea of a soundtrack to a film that was never made. So I combined a very surreal landscape and a film reel that was disintegrating. I was really pleased with both those albums.

What are a few of your influences, inspirations, maybe you can tell me a bit about your process?
I’m influenced by everything around me! As with any creative person, I often get inspiration from the oddest places. It’s just how you perceive and process the normal everyday stimuli. This past year in Asia has been an amazing time to absorb new influences and reflect on all the influences I took away from my 11 years in Austin. I feel very fortunate to have always been surrounded by creative people who have fueled my creativity and vice versa.

The city where I live now in South Korea, Busan, is a city of 5 million that has all the trappings of hyper modern urban culture you’d expect from massive city. But since Korea has just recently become an economic tiger, it still has many vestiges of the old world. You have elderly people pulling around carts and hawking fish on the street, incredible Buddhist temples in bamboo forests and relics of the old world strewn among the towering skyscrapers. I find this juxtaposition very alluring. I think this is slowly finding it’s way into my creative output, check back with me in a year.

As for process, one of my favorite parts of the design process is the research that proceeds putting the pen to paper. I love pouring through old books, surfing the internet, looking through old photos, etc. This is a magical time when you begin to connect dots that don’t necessarily exist. You’re only as original as your influences are obscure, so the deeper you dig and the more obscure the dots, the greater the chances of designing something really unique. From there is the brainstorming phase and going through many different designs until you reach the one design you know is the strongest.

Sidian Agency itself is a bit of a collaboration between artists, how did you link up with Anthony and begin work at Sidian? Any other cool design projects in the tubes at Sidian?
Sidian is the merger of Anthony Mauzy and Alexander Meyer’s Big A Design and my old shop, Heliographik. We’ve been friends for quite some time and decided to join forces and work together. Anthony and Alex are highly skilled at all things web and I’m the graphic designer. Everyone has their specialties, we are all very easy going and have a deep love for design, so we function well as a team. I couldn’t ask for better partners! We’ve got some exciting new projects coming down the pipe, but don’t want to let them out of the bag just yet. Stayed tuned!

You yourself are a musician, I caught one of your Supercontinent sets about a year and a half ago, where you mixed up video and music. What other projects are you working on currently?
Supercontinent was a really dope project between me and my good friend, the ultra-talented Chris Jackson. It was a great time where I learned a lot about sampling, editing, compostion & performing electronic music and taking the live show to the next level with synchronized visuals. We were fortunate enough to have played the Austin Fuzion events at Waterloo Park alongside Cut Chemist, RJD2 and DJ Spooky. All those cats have the VJ thing down pat, especially Spooky, and it was great to show Austin what we had been crafting for a few years on huge 45 foot screens and a banging sound system! Big up to Tim League and the Alamo Drafthouse!

Split Kick is my new electro project with Andrew Corbin from Shad’s (Canadian hip hop phenom) band. In the past, my projects have always been a littlle left of center. Echo Base and Alpha Rhythm were instrumental, cinematic post-rock kind of projects. Supercontinent was more IDM glitch and trip hop. Split Kick is straight electro-pop that designed to move your ass. It’s doesn’t try to be too intellectual or technical. It’s all about sex and love and the dancefloor. Some of my favorite music from the 80’s is straight ridiculous with lyrics like ‘Your pants are tight and it’s alright tonight’. I love that shit and that’s what were going for!

You can peep some of the new tracks at www.myspace.com/splitkickass.

Links
Sidian Agency
Split Kick

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