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http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-1613 ... row-part-1
Dan Perkins: Yesterday and Tomorrow part 1
September 15, 10:00 PMPearl Jam ExaminerMel Duncan
Is it good to have important friends or important to have good friends? In Dan Perkins' case, both.
Perkins (aka Tom Tomorrow, his pseudonym) lost a good chunk of his income when Village Voice Media, home to a dozen papers that published his weekly political comic strip, "This Modern World," decided to stop running all syndicated cartoons.
Instead of wielding a sword, Perkins chose a pen by calling friends living in the cities with weekly alt papers affected by the cutbacks. One of the cities was Seattle, and one of those friends was Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder.
Now, in a year that Perkins no doubt figured would be the usual: writing comics, working on a book, maybe upsetting a few conservatives along the way, this relatively obscure political satirist finds himself not only commenting on the news, but becoming news himself.
Between drawing the cover and liner notes for Pearl Jam's ninth studio album Backspacer, a subsequent Spin Magazine cover, and a brand new children's book (his first foray into the genre), Perkins talks with Examiner about the trials and rewards of being an indie cartoonist, his ultimate Pearl Jam mixtape, and unexpectedly finding his art in places he'd never imagine.
Examiner: I noticed your last three books are through three different publishers. This is a lot like Pearl Jam's last three records (Sony, J, Monkeywrench)
Perkins: I've had a run of bad luck with publishers. I had such an unpleasant experience with my last publisher I ran screaming away from them. The thing that made it really a joy working with Pearl Jam, the management, everyone around them, was that everyone really gave a damn about producing a good product.
Someone like me, someone low on the totem pole, the battle I'm always fighting is just to get a book out - something people in the art department don't give a damn about - it's just a thing on their desk. Once they clear it off, they're done and onto the next thing. For me, it's this book I have to live with for the rest of my life.
My current publisher (Ig Publishing), I love them to death. I've had some different experiences with other publishers though and that's what was so rewarding about Pearl Jam, everybody just wanted to do a good job.
Examiner: Your first children's book, The Very Silly Mayor (available now), what inspired it?
Perkins: The obvious answer - having a young child. Many children's books are kind of awful. (laughs) When you have to read them over many times your eyes just glaze over from the boredom.
As someone who's been working at the intersection of words and pictures for a long time, it was just a natural thing to do.
Examiner: Do you think there is something both children and parents can take away from the story?
Perkins: I do. I definitely set out to write a book that was genuinely for children, but I also wrote it so the parents have fun reading it over and over like you have to do with kids.
Examiner: To just wake up one day and find out you'd lost a big piece of your livelihood, how did you take the news?
Perkins: It wasn't a happy day. (laughs) I had always approached my career keeping my eggs in different baskets. I never wanted a job where one person could fire me. So I syndicated my cartoon out. What I didn't figure was all my baskets merging on their own. Over time, these papers consolidated and suddenly it turned out that one chain owned most of the major cities I was in.
I still am in a lot of papers and salon.com and just had the good news that I'm back in the Village Voice. (note, the paper in NYC, not the chain)
Examiner: Since you've designed posters for Pearl Jam and you did a one off show for Primus and The Melvins, who else would you want to work with?
Perkins: If Neil Young wants to give me a call I'm eager and waiting. (laughs)
Examiner: How did the art for Backspacer come to be?
Perkins: When I lost those papers, I sent out emails to people who live in the cities where I lost the paper. Eddie is one of the them because I lost Seattle Weekly. He put an open letter on the Pearl Jam site (in my favor). In the New York Times article, one thing the writer got wrong was I didn't call Eddie asking for work. The most I've asked him for is a couple concert tickets once in a while.
Eddie called me saying 'maybe we can put some of your stuff on our site or maybe do a poster.' Then he said 'maybe you could have a shot at designing the next album cover.'
That really blew me away. It was an incredibly intense moment. So after I recovered from the shock of that (laughs), we got to talking.
The idea I tossed back at him was that (the art shouldn't be) just about the songs, but the band's memories and images that left some of psychic mark. Things that aren't widely known or dissected to death in interviews or on fan sites. For example, I didn't want to do anything about Eddie surfing or anything obvious, I wanted interesting memories or intense dreams.
The album didn't have a title at that point and Eddie, unbeknownst to me, was messing around with these typewriter keys. It all kind of came together and turning into this thing about dreams and memories and recollections.
Examiner: Can you give me a rundown as to what each panel means?
Perkins: Having the band open up and talk to me was with the understanding that what we talked about stay private. I don't mean to be coy, but it's not my place to do that.
Examiner: Fans are looking at the panels and trying to trace back their origins.
Perkins: I'm glad everyone's having fun looking for this stuff, but I would caution people they shouldn't confuse the map for the territory, as they say in semiotics. Even if you do find the photo I used for source material, it may just be a photograph. It may not mean anything at all. The reason I used it more likely has something to do with a private conversation I had with someone in the band, and that's not something you can Google.
If I had the meaning of life, I don't think I'd be hiding it in album covers. (laughs)
Examiner: Did you do the inside art as well?
Perkins: There's a couple more surprises, but I'd say you've seen about 75% of it at this point.
Examiner: What's your favorite song off the new album?
Perkins: "Speed of Sound." I think it's just a beautiful song.
Examiner: What are some of your other favorites from the Pearl Jam back catalog?
Perkins: I kind of go back and forth a lot. Let me preface this by saying I don't think artists should compete with themselves like 'this work is better than that work.'
I like "Life Wasted," a lot of songs on Vs.: "WMA," I love that bass. "Dissident." I like "Elderly Woman," "Indifference," "Red Mosquito," uh, you're kind of putting me on the spot. (laughs) "I Am Mine" and "You Are." Do you know how they got the guitar sound on that song?
Examiner: I read that the guitar was played through a sequencer or a drum machine.
Perkins: That's a cool guitar sound. Also, one of my big favorites because of the message is "Present Tense."
I kind of came a little bit later to Pearl Jam. There's a couple songs that are high up on my list, but Ten is the album I come back to the least. I love "Alive" and "Black" though.
Examiner: On your site, you show a picture of the outside of a record store with a giant panel from Backspacer, the drummer in space, and you note, 'this is all so strange.' What did you mean by that?
Perkins: Normally my relation to my work is like that of a parent's to a small child. You know what they're doing, you know where they are, you're keeping an eye on them all the time.
This is what I imagine a parent's relationship is to a grown child: they go off into the world and they do these interesting things and they come back and tell you about it, and you're totally surprised and proud, but a little bit taken aback by the whole thing.
I've had to just let (the Backspacer art) go out into the world and let it do what it will do. It's fun, it's all great, but it's very strange.
Examiner: Besides the books, the album, and the posters, what else are you working on?
Perkins: Isn't that enough? (laughs) This month is the culmination of everything I've been working on since January. Once I recover from this, then I'll figure out what the next thing is.
Special thanks to Dan Perkins and PJ's management.
Dan Perkins: Yesterday and Tomorrow part 1
September 15, 10:00 PMPearl Jam ExaminerMel Duncan
Is it good to have important friends or important to have good friends? In Dan Perkins' case, both.
Perkins (aka Tom Tomorrow, his pseudonym) lost a good chunk of his income when Village Voice Media, home to a dozen papers that published his weekly political comic strip, "This Modern World," decided to stop running all syndicated cartoons.
Instead of wielding a sword, Perkins chose a pen by calling friends living in the cities with weekly alt papers affected by the cutbacks. One of the cities was Seattle, and one of those friends was Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder.
Now, in a year that Perkins no doubt figured would be the usual: writing comics, working on a book, maybe upsetting a few conservatives along the way, this relatively obscure political satirist finds himself not only commenting on the news, but becoming news himself.
Between drawing the cover and liner notes for Pearl Jam's ninth studio album Backspacer, a subsequent Spin Magazine cover, and a brand new children's book (his first foray into the genre), Perkins talks with Examiner about the trials and rewards of being an indie cartoonist, his ultimate Pearl Jam mixtape, and unexpectedly finding his art in places he'd never imagine.
Examiner: I noticed your last three books are through three different publishers. This is a lot like Pearl Jam's last three records (Sony, J, Monkeywrench)
Perkins: I've had a run of bad luck with publishers. I had such an unpleasant experience with my last publisher I ran screaming away from them. The thing that made it really a joy working with Pearl Jam, the management, everyone around them, was that everyone really gave a damn about producing a good product.
Someone like me, someone low on the totem pole, the battle I'm always fighting is just to get a book out - something people in the art department don't give a damn about - it's just a thing on their desk. Once they clear it off, they're done and onto the next thing. For me, it's this book I have to live with for the rest of my life.
My current publisher (Ig Publishing), I love them to death. I've had some different experiences with other publishers though and that's what was so rewarding about Pearl Jam, everybody just wanted to do a good job.
Examiner: Your first children's book, The Very Silly Mayor (available now), what inspired it?
Perkins: The obvious answer - having a young child. Many children's books are kind of awful. (laughs) When you have to read them over many times your eyes just glaze over from the boredom.
As someone who's been working at the intersection of words and pictures for a long time, it was just a natural thing to do.
Examiner: Do you think there is something both children and parents can take away from the story?
Perkins: I do. I definitely set out to write a book that was genuinely for children, but I also wrote it so the parents have fun reading it over and over like you have to do with kids.
Examiner: To just wake up one day and find out you'd lost a big piece of your livelihood, how did you take the news?
Perkins: It wasn't a happy day. (laughs) I had always approached my career keeping my eggs in different baskets. I never wanted a job where one person could fire me. So I syndicated my cartoon out. What I didn't figure was all my baskets merging on their own. Over time, these papers consolidated and suddenly it turned out that one chain owned most of the major cities I was in.
I still am in a lot of papers and salon.com and just had the good news that I'm back in the Village Voice. (note, the paper in NYC, not the chain)
Examiner: Since you've designed posters for Pearl Jam and you did a one off show for Primus and The Melvins, who else would you want to work with?
Perkins: If Neil Young wants to give me a call I'm eager and waiting. (laughs)
Examiner: How did the art for Backspacer come to be?
Perkins: When I lost those papers, I sent out emails to people who live in the cities where I lost the paper. Eddie is one of the them because I lost Seattle Weekly. He put an open letter on the Pearl Jam site (in my favor). In the New York Times article, one thing the writer got wrong was I didn't call Eddie asking for work. The most I've asked him for is a couple concert tickets once in a while.
Eddie called me saying 'maybe we can put some of your stuff on our site or maybe do a poster.' Then he said 'maybe you could have a shot at designing the next album cover.'
That really blew me away. It was an incredibly intense moment. So after I recovered from the shock of that (laughs), we got to talking.
The idea I tossed back at him was that (the art shouldn't be) just about the songs, but the band's memories and images that left some of psychic mark. Things that aren't widely known or dissected to death in interviews or on fan sites. For example, I didn't want to do anything about Eddie surfing or anything obvious, I wanted interesting memories or intense dreams.
The album didn't have a title at that point and Eddie, unbeknownst to me, was messing around with these typewriter keys. It all kind of came together and turning into this thing about dreams and memories and recollections.
Examiner: Can you give me a rundown as to what each panel means?
Perkins: Having the band open up and talk to me was with the understanding that what we talked about stay private. I don't mean to be coy, but it's not my place to do that.
Examiner: Fans are looking at the panels and trying to trace back their origins.
Perkins: I'm glad everyone's having fun looking for this stuff, but I would caution people they shouldn't confuse the map for the territory, as they say in semiotics. Even if you do find the photo I used for source material, it may just be a photograph. It may not mean anything at all. The reason I used it more likely has something to do with a private conversation I had with someone in the band, and that's not something you can Google.
If I had the meaning of life, I don't think I'd be hiding it in album covers. (laughs)
Examiner: Did you do the inside art as well?
Perkins: There's a couple more surprises, but I'd say you've seen about 75% of it at this point.
Examiner: What's your favorite song off the new album?
Perkins: "Speed of Sound." I think it's just a beautiful song.
Examiner: What are some of your other favorites from the Pearl Jam back catalog?
Perkins: I kind of go back and forth a lot. Let me preface this by saying I don't think artists should compete with themselves like 'this work is better than that work.'
I like "Life Wasted," a lot of songs on Vs.: "WMA," I love that bass. "Dissident." I like "Elderly Woman," "Indifference," "Red Mosquito," uh, you're kind of putting me on the spot. (laughs) "I Am Mine" and "You Are." Do you know how they got the guitar sound on that song?
Examiner: I read that the guitar was played through a sequencer or a drum machine.
Perkins: That's a cool guitar sound. Also, one of my big favorites because of the message is "Present Tense."
I kind of came a little bit later to Pearl Jam. There's a couple songs that are high up on my list, but Ten is the album I come back to the least. I love "Alive" and "Black" though.
Examiner: On your site, you show a picture of the outside of a record store with a giant panel from Backspacer, the drummer in space, and you note, 'this is all so strange.' What did you mean by that?
Perkins: Normally my relation to my work is like that of a parent's to a small child. You know what they're doing, you know where they are, you're keeping an eye on them all the time.
This is what I imagine a parent's relationship is to a grown child: they go off into the world and they do these interesting things and they come back and tell you about it, and you're totally surprised and proud, but a little bit taken aback by the whole thing.
I've had to just let (the Backspacer art) go out into the world and let it do what it will do. It's fun, it's all great, but it's very strange.
Examiner: Besides the books, the album, and the posters, what else are you working on?
Perkins: Isn't that enough? (laughs) This month is the culmination of everything I've been working on since January. Once I recover from this, then I'll figure out what the next thing is.
Special thanks to Dan Perkins and PJ's management.
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Comments
Also, Glad to see Speed of Sound getting some love. It's also one of my favorites off the new album, but most people around here don't seem to like it.
i almost thought he was gonna reveal the source of the album panels to all the ppl trying to figure it out in that thread
2006: Camden 1&2, East Ruth 1&2
2008: BONNAROO, MSG1, MSG2, Hartford
2009: Philly 1, 2, 4
2010: Hartford, MSG1, MSG2
2012: Made in America
2013: BK1, BK2, Hartford
2015: Global Citizens
2016: MSG 2 (ISO MSG1)
EV Solo: NJPAC 2008; Tower Theatre, PA 2009; Hartford 2011
LOL, yeah...too bad! Gotta respect privacy. Some things are just not meant to be shared.
I'm just re-quoting for those who are just interested in the meaning of the artwork that Tom and the interviewer were talking about:
________________________________________________________________
Examiner: Can you give me a rundown as to what each panel means?
Perkins: Having the band open up and talk to me was with the understanding that what we talked about stay private. I don't mean to be coy, but it's not my place to do that.
Examiner: Fans are looking at the panels and trying to trace back their origins.
Perkins: I'm glad everyone's having fun looking for this stuff, but I would caution people they shouldn't confuse the map for the territory, as they say in semiotics. Even if you do find the photo I used for source material, it may just be a photograph. It may not mean anything at all. The reason I used it more likely has something to do with a private conversation I had with someone in the band, and that's not something you can Google.
If I had the meaning of life, I don't think I'd be hiding it in album covers. (laughs)
EV: It's your band.
~Q Magazine
"Kisses for the glow...kisses for the lease." - BDRII