Crazyredbeard Productions

Phish heads, Phish heads, rolly polly Phish heads…new art from April and May as well as some new Phish related posters

05/27/09: I can’t believe it. Can you believe it? In FOUR days, I’ll be planted in a boxseat at Fenway Park with my buddy Monk.

Seeing Phish.

My first tour since 2000 and this time, I’m a bit older, less foolish and more armed with art.

So, for this momentous occasion, I’ve created another poster for the first leg of tour, with the promise of two more coming. You see, I managed to get my Friday ticket to Hampton by promising to paint a setlist painting of each night of the VA shows back in March. I’ve recently completed the first night and have started the second. In the meantime, with the success of the Hampton posters, I decided to get a run of 300 setlist posters. The final size will be 14 x 20, the image size will be 12.6 x 19 and the paper is 4/0 100# gloss text. Posters will be signed by me, the artist.

If you’d like to pre-order this work, please send a Paypal payment to crazyredbeard@crazyredbeard.com. Pre-orders are $15+ $8 shipping/handling/Paypal fee. Checks made out to Jon Blake and for $22 ($15 + $7 shipping/handling/insurance) can be sent to:

CRB Productions, c/o Jon Blake

1843 Ivywest lane

Charlottesville, VA 22901

The finalized image will be a bit more complete than this and the colors will be more vibrant, the image more clear. The painting itself contains a visual reference to every song that Phish played on their historic return and reunion at Hampton, VA on 03/06/09.

Set I: Fluffhead, The Divided Sky, Chalkdust Torture, Sample in a Jar, Stash, I Didn’t Know, The Oh Kee Pa Ceremony, Suzy Greenberg, Farmhouse, NICU, Horn, Rift, Train Song, Water in the Sky, The Squirming Coil, David Bowie

Set II: Backwards Down The Number Line, Tweezer, Taste, Possum, Theme from the Bottom, First Tube, Harry Hood, Waste, You Enjoy Myself

Encore: Grind, Bouncing Around the Room, Loving Cup

Check out this little video as well made by Michael Babb!

What else to say, what else to say. You’ll be able to see me carting paintings around at the following shows:

Fenway->JB1->JB2->JB3->Great Woods->Camden, Knoxville, Starlake, Red Rocks and the Gorge. Speaking of Red Rocks, I’m participating in the Mock Show: art and poster convention! After the BPCIII: Phamily Reunion at Hampton, it seemed a no brainer to return to another convention. I’ll have posters from Hampton and the setlist posters there as well as MANY live paintings.

For more information, please check out their site: http://www.amockshow.com/

After a banner month in March, April proved to be very slow art wise. I took some time to actually just go to shows, rather than paint them. However, post Grateful Dead in Charlottesville, I did get to swing over to the Is venue and paint to Particle with Michael Kang. At the end of the show Steve Molitz asked if he could fingerpaint on it. I, of course, had no problem with this.

I then told him about how the last time I’d painted for them in Earl’s Backyard in Tabernacle, NJ (see story about GoTV), they’d aborted Elevator because the police showed up, right at the rising part of the jam. A few years later when I saw Phil and Friends at Vibes ‘08, Molitz was playing keys and I distinctly recall walking in on the band ROCKING an Elevator. It was a full circle moment for me. At Tabernacle, Steve had said to me, “You know, it doesn’t matter where you are. Whether it’s in a diner in Texas or driving down a long road in California, when the Dead comes on, it just…feels…right.”

So I remember hearing this running through my head as the Elevator kept going up, finishing that Tabernacle version, at least in my mind. And I relayed this to Steve and said, “Thanks for participating in a cosmic full circle thing for me.”

And he kept painting and thanked me for doing what I do. He then took some pictures for his phone. I was honored.

I later kept working on this piece, which is 30 x 40, to Future Rock and the Bandaloop Doctors at the same venue. It’s sigend on the front (worked in) by Particle.

I think it’s still a work in progress.

Beyond that, I hit up Some Kind of Jam 4 in Kempton, PA and had a great time. Didn’t manage to sell anything, but came away with these two, the second of which I just took to get captured, so prints are available.

This was created to Doctor Ketchup…late April at SKOJ4SKOJ4andFutureRock2.jpg picture by crazyredbeard Painted live over the course of SKOJ4…continued to Future Rock in VA later in May.

Skoj’s Future: Painted at Some kind of Jam 4 and finished to Future Rock, 2009