Trevor : What Went Wrong #1

Like millions and millions of other middle class white kids who grew up in the eighties, I was in a band. We recorded a few times, committing about 15 or so songs to tape and I have boxes full of cassettes I recorded alone on a four track. I am pretty proud of some songs we did and at least not embarrassed by any of the songs I wrote. We never managed to rise above being extremely marginal in the Montreal music scene of the early nineties. I've been looking into digitizing some old cassettes of music I/ we made before they are lost to the sands of time and it got me thinking about my foray into music making. I thought that being well over ten years removed from it all it might be interesting to write a sort of post-mortem on what I'll call (with great reservation and frantic air-quoting) my music career. 

Our band was called Trevor, which is neither a great name nor a terrible name. Much like, let's say Pavement, it falls well into that blurry zone between brilliant and stupid. If Pavement sucked it would be a pretty stupid band name. They ended up being a very good band so no one really gives the name a seconds thought. It just is. The other day I was talking to my wife about Nirvana, and being younger and Japanese, she wasn't really aware of them. She asked" Is that from Buddhism?" I said yes. She said " That's a stupid name for a band." And she's right.

So in no real order here are some key things that made it so we had absolutely no success, rather than the very minute success we deserved.

The Voice

I am not a very good singer. There are quite a few bands fronted by guys who could be described as "not good singers" but the difference is that they found what was good about their voice and just F***ed the rest. I often sang the wrong notes and could be a bit hard to listen to for the more delicate audience members but I feel confident saying that I had an "interesting" voice. By that I mean a voice with a good tone that conveyed emotion in an engaging and idiosyncratic way. When I had the confidence to let my voice out in the way I thought I should, it was sometimes, at the very least, not dull. Arguably, people may have left in disgust but never out of boredom. I have met many people who have been blessed with good singing voices and the ability to hit the right notes who were not gifted with an idea of how to deliver those notes in an engaging way. They never rose above competent or pleasant. I was not blessed with this ability and even on the best night out rarely did I sing "well", I never rose to the level of competence nor pleasantness. I did have an idea of how to deliver a song, however. I think my shortcomings as a singer (honestly some shows I was just tone deaf and must have been torture to listen too) turned off a lot of spectators.

The biggest problems about my voice arose when we recorded. Whoever was in charge of the the session would always point out which notes went wrong and get me to redo them, punch me in, and ultimately lose the whole feel of the performance. My confidence was easily shaken and the final result would be my usual barely on key singing but with the added downside of a very nervous and tentative performance. The best vocal recordings I ever did were either done in one take straight through or at most cut in half and done in two consecutive takes. I remember my friend Dan sat in on a session once and, after our bass player who was engineering the recording had made me stop and redo a few times, said "That's how he sings! Let him do it. It's what's good about the song." Confidence back, I tore through in one take and it came out quite well.

I'm not sure why I was the singer. My older brother, Mike, and I started the band. He played drums and I played guitar. I wrote the songs which included lyrics and melody. No one else was around and I obviously knew how the songs were supposed to go so… That makes sense but how I remained the singer is another question. I'm pretty sure I always thought that a stand alone singer (who doesn't play an instrument) was not cool, and what kind of person does that anyway? But getting another guitarist/ singer would mean that someone else would surely be writing songs which would cut into my songs and that person would slowly take over the creative direction of the band. Performing my own songs was why I wanted to be in a band (I still don't particularly enjoy playing guitar. It's a means to an end.) so I wasn't interested in sharing. That's probably why we stayed a three piece for most of our existence, even a second guitarist was too much of a threat to grab the reigns. 

I was in a band a few years earlier where I played bass (poorly). It was my first real band and my first major undertaking after moving to the big city. I had formed it (along with Mike) with the idea that I would write the songs. I found a guitarist who didn't have any song writing ambitions. Then we found a singer. The singer brought in a guitarist who started bringing in his songs (which were fucking awful). My brother left the band, a new drummer came in. Next thing I know, it's not my band anymore. I missed a recording session (don't remember why, most likely alcohol related) and got booted from the band. I never forgot. I switched to guitar because bass players can't be band leaders and I swore that would never happen again.

Looking Through

I don't even want to think about the amount of time I spend sitting at a desk, staring at a computer two feet from my face. But once in a while, my eyes beg to focus on something more than an arms length away. I often walk over to a window in the hall just outside the teachers' office and stare off into the distance. There's a hill with a new neighbourhood of houses all built in the last 5 years or so that are just behind where I used to live. The other day I seemed to notice for the first time how many different things I was looking through to look at this far of hillside. There must be five or six "layers" of varying distances that I have to look beyond to enjoy the view. I remember seeing a TV show when I was a kid (that Sunday night Disney show, whatever it was called) and they showed how they made the old Disney cartoons by painting the various parts of a scene on glass plates, arranging them according to location in space and filming through them, thus creating the illusion of depth. Everything I look at here is behind so many layers. It's so different from back home where things are spaced out and often stand alone and are not stacked one on top of the other.


Most of the looking I do in Nagasaki is through, beyond, over, and past something else. There are fences, buildings, trees and most of all electrical wires (which are not buried anywhere in Japan, for some unknown reason). I remember being surprised when I looked at some pictures I took on a trip to Kyoto. I hadn't noticed when I was standing looking at some historic temples that they were hidden behind jumbles of electrical wires. It wasn't until I got the photos developed that I saw every scene was marred with black lines. It's something that's been coming out in my paintings these days. First, rather accidentally but I've been more conscious of it recently.

(standard)INTERVIEW

There is a blog called (standard)INTERVIEW which I like to read from time to time. The blogger always asks the same set of questions. They are simple questions but strike me as what a painter would ask a fellow painter. All the artists chosen are abstract painters of varying degrees of renown. The answers are generally straight forward and stick to practical concerns. I especially like to hear about how other painters spend their time in their studio. Reading how many of them work around full time jobs and still produce good stuff is encouraging as well.

As I am completely unworthy of being selected as an interview subject but am dying to answer the questions, I thought I'd (standard) interview myself. Hey me, go easy on me.

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I make abstract paintings and drawings pulled from my everyday surroundings and put through a long digestive process. I mostly use acrylic paint on canvas but I've been doing a lot of watercolor paintings and ink drawings in the last year. I've also been combining paintings on paper with computer generated images printed using my home inkjet printer.

What drives you to make work?

I would say there are two main things that compel me to create. Since I was a child, I've always felt the need to externalize my reactions to my surroundings. I've found that visual art is the best and most satisfying way to express what I need to express. Also, the control it gives me is something I don't get in any other aspect of my life. In my studio, I am not only able to decide what the solutions should be I am also the one who decides what problems need solving.

Can you tell me something of your day-to-day working practices?

I teach full time so I am relegated to working nights and weekends. I try to go to my studio at least four times a week, mental and physical health permitting. I like to jump back and forth between works that are slower and necessitate pauses, reflection, and a lot of looking and (usually) smaller works that are more spontaneous and immediate so I can turn my brain off and just go. I have quite a bit of down time at my job so I spend time looking at, reading about, and sometimes writing about art via the internet. I live in a small city in Japan and am physically far removed from the contemporary art world so the internet is a viyal link for me. I find after spending all day think about what I'm going to do once I get into my studio it's best to get a few things out of my system as quickly as possible. Sometimes they end up being good works but often it's just a way to get some bad ideas out of the way.

How long have you been working in that way?

Since leaving school and having a workspace of my own. I have always tried to balance the more primal, intuitive work and the more contemplative work. Although, I must admit the results are often better when I don't think too much during the actual making. Maybe I should rethink my approach.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

I've always admired the playfulness of Paul Klee. Although it's hard to see in my work Ellswoth Kelly is an important influence on the way I think about turning mundane observations into deeper abstract meaning. I had a teacher when I first became interested in art named Michael Smith. He was a huge influence on the way I approach painting and still is. I think we share a lot of natural tendencies toward making art. I was very lucky to have had him as my first painting teacher.

What, outside of visual art, informs your practice?

The three main things, outside of visual art, that occupy my waking thoughts are music, clothes, and sports (boxing, hockey) in that order. They all come to bear on my work. Oh and sex, but that goes without saying, right?

How would you like people to engage with your work?

I would like them to recognize something familiar; something from their personal experience expressed in a surprising way. And to give me money.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

I went to Art Fair Tokyo and saw almost nothing memorable. Then I went to the Yamatane museum and saw drawings on paper of cherry trees in bloom by Hayami Gyoshu done in the 1920's. Stunning!

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

 I am going to Florida in May with my wife.

Hot Dog / Cold Dog

Hot Dog

Pheobe Unwin

I've been digging through the internet for sites devoted to contemporary painting. Seeing as I live somewhere with no art galleries, have no friends involved with or interested in art, and that all major art magazines (including my former favorite "Modern Painters") don't cover painting in any serious way, the internet has become my only outlet/ input. Like with everything on the internet, patience is key to wading through the mountains of garbage. In my searches I have come across a few artist that I was previously unaware of that I strongly identify with.

One of these artist who I keep coming back to is Pheobe Unwin. As in my approach to music, I care very little about the biographical details of the creators of whatever art I enjoy.They rarely add anything to my appreciation and very often detract from it. Art they relies on an artist's back story for it's appeal is rarely the art that interests me. All I know about her is that she is British and depressingly young. The level of success she has achieved at such a young age would normally leave me torn, debating wether to hate her or just hate myself. That is if the attention she has received was not completely warranted (which is almost never the case).

After spending last weekend at Art Fair Tokyo, I was struck by how many young, and not so young, artists seem to be devoted to finding their "thing"; be it an impressive trick, a semi-clever take, or a broad, familiar and popular subject (such as pop culture, consumer culture, or in the case of Japan, endless artists inspired by manga and anime). Ms.Unwin seems less concerned with establishing a brand and a business model, so how she has found such success is intriguing.

What I like the most about her work is the impression I get that she has no preconceived destination when she begins a painting. She truly seems to let each one work itself out in whatever way seems best without trying to adhere to a style, theme, or point of view. She is not being purposefully eclectic, either, trying on different styles in a superficially showy way. She definitely has a clear voice but that voice is allowed to come out in each painting in in an unlaboured and natural way. A few motifs come up in multiple paintings but nothing ever seems forced or contrived. Some paintings are beautiful and some are not. Her application and approach to paint varies widely within each painting as wells from one to another. She seems completely open to the possibilities of each panting and willing to pursue them without hesitation.

I guess what draws me to this willingness to explore a painting to a sometimes unexpected end is that it is what I struggle with the most in my work. The tyranny of expectations, the overwhelming desire for consistency, and the tension I feel when a painting starts straying to far from what I thought it's original intent should be, are the things that hold me and my work back the most. She seems to have freed herself from, or never had, these pressures. I've gotten better, especially in drawings and smaller works, but the chance that a painting could fail (whatever that means) or worse that I will somehow make something that doesn't represent the artistic face that I think I want to present to the public is still my greatest fear. To be comfortable enough to make what I make and have the conviction to stand by it is something I'm striving for. In that pursuit, Pheobe Unwin is an inspiration.

Cold Dog

Serious Discussions of Pop Culture

This may just go to show that I spend too much time on the internet or listening to podcasts, but the trend of treating pop culture with an unwarranted seriousness has been getting to me recently. 

What do I mean? Well, talking about the latest Batman movie like it is a complex work of art of such significance that it can, and must, be dissected over hundreds of articles so that we can appreciate it's full glory. Or, Star Wars being talked about with the same respect that was previously reserved for classics of western civilization like The Odyssey.

Look, I know it's fun to talk with your friends about movies or TV  with a seriousness that is completely out of proportion with the work itself. It's what sports fans do. Assigning a life or death importance to a game is fun because you can experience that tension while deep down knowing that really there are absolutely no real world consequences. That's whole reason sports exist. 

I have a particular weakness for reading books about the music I love written with a depth and thoughtfulness that does not match that of the music itself. We all get a thrill from overly investing in something that, in the end, matters very little. Attachment without consequence. And that's fine. That's what "nerds" do.

My problem is when that's all you do. When you start to believe that Star Wars is a timeless classic that stands as a pillar of western culture because you have never actually read or are unaware of any actual works of serious merit which really are the basis for our culture. You can discuss Lost in a deep way all you want but when you actually start to believe that it is a deep work of art, it's time to hit the library to check out the dusty books in the back.

Hey, I'm no scholar. I don't sit around reading Paradise Lost, either. But I am not afraid to admit the deeply unpopular fact that there is a hierarchy of artistic creation out there. Popular culture surely has a wide reaching effect and that is not to be overlooked and I am not saying that it is all insignificant trash but I am suggesting that are many dedicated, serious-minded, brilliant creative thinkers creating powerful works of art and none of them are JJ Abrams.

So, reign it in a bit, please.