Return of the Solja

What up! It's been a while I know... I can't believe my last post was in April, and here it is the beginning of August. So much has happened this summer, I've been painting, going to Timbers games, making dope swag, and working at a world wide sports apparel leader. Also I built a new apparel brand that's going to release pretty soon (Finally) and my Timbers Army design partner Camm "Maple Syrup" Murray and I are freelancing logos and collateral media. On top of that, it's been a great last two months for punk shows... So lets get into it.

This years TA swag was off the hook and a ton of work. If you want to peak at it you can go to the tumblr page . For the rest of the year we have some pleasant surprises, a couple good shirts of the month including this design that starts in August,

I have had this design in the pipeline since 2010 preparing for the first MLS season. I always thought it was a great take on the Descendents album "Milo Goes to College". Finally I get to see this get made. Pongs happy too, as he has known about this shirt since I created it. Every couple 3 months are so I get a text from him asking when we are going to make the shirt... The TA hats over the past year have really hit a stride, they continue to sell out and we get lots of good compliments... To reward the merch diehards and congratulate ourselves (TA merch team loves to celebrate things) we are going to come out with a special colorway of all the style of hats we made, 4 styles total (two fitteds two snap backs). I put the colorways together the other day, and they look super slick and have a unique logo to separate these hats from their predecessors. I would throw a teaser out but it would give everything away. Speaking of special editions, we (TA merch team) are going to run a special heritage line of gear out as well. At our last meeting Camm "Maple Syrup" Murray brought up the point that we really need to celebrate the history of soccer in Portland, starting at the beginning. Which is super fun for me because none of those late 1800's and early 1900's teams don't have any logos, so I get to research and inject my design style into these. So look for those, we have no specific information on release, how many, or what kinda of product. I mean we have a really good idea of what we're doing, but nothing that I can state as "Official." I am still not even close to finishing on all the special editions, and new swag that's going to be coming out over the next 6 months... I am really excited. But want to move on and keep the suspense. So there is a Poster show coming up this Saturday that I am participating in. "Maple Syrup" and I collaborated (under the name Soda Pop Productions) on a poster. The Saturday events that is open to the public has information on http://arttakeoverportland.com/ it also has information on when you can purchase the poster and what other artists are participating. Literally ever good poster artist in Portland submitted and the prints look great... There's 50 prints of each design and 30 artist. All proceeds go to Harper's Playground (you can scroll down to one of my first couple 3 posts and see how important this cause is to me), which makes this all the more special... Here's a tease at our poster.

This summer has had probably some of the best line up of punk shows that I've had in PDX in a while, and if you throw in the whole year of 2012 (adds NOFX, Dead to Me, Off w/ their Heads, and Poison Idea, ha), but this summer in the last month I've seen Strung Out (played Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues and Twisted by Design in their entirety), Teenage Bottle Rocket, Cobra Skulls, Swinging Utters, and next Sunday I'm super excited to see Dear Landlord (probably my new favorite band I've been listening to). Shit, you can probably call it a Fat month because 4 of the 5 bands I've seen are on Fat Wreck Chords... Openers worth noting, Such Gold (NY post-hardcore) opened for Strung Out and where really really good. They had such good breakdowns and dynamic vocals. Also the band Elway (from Ft Collins, CO), who opened up for Teenage Bottle Rocket was so good I had to go home and buy their album on iTunes that night. Really clever lyrics, great classic midwest punk rock guitars, and a touch of heartbreak... I love it when a punk band has just a touch of country in them, Elway was great, even their on stage banter was hilarious and witty. Still really looking forward to Dear Landlord this weekend, I"m basically gonna have to bike my ass off there right after the Timbers game, but this band is really good. Their lyrics are probably the most enlightening and sad I've heard is some time. Their onstage dynamic is great with 3 guys that could all be lead singers belting and doing that weird punk harmony that sounds so cool. Here's a video of them dressed up like Jugalos from The Fest. Anyways I'm out, I'll be back soon to promote some of the new TA gear and tout my apparel company as soon as we can get a business liscense and get our name registered... We are pretty lazy for guys that are constantly busy... Wait what? Listening to: Dear Landlord, album Dream Homes - seriously buy this album Elway song Passing Days