The crew and I made the trip to Austin for SXSW this year. We lined up a couple of walls to paint murals, and I DJ’ed a party and spoke on a panel about rock poster art. It was a very busy four days. We worked on the murals all day and tried to check out music and parties at night. I was able to catch the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s, a Just Blaze DJ set, and a fantastic new band called The Skins made up of mostly multi-ethnic 18 year old Brooklyn girls. They rocked hard doing Zeppelin and Sabbath covers along with their own material that sounded kinda like the Hives but harder! I’ve often wondered “where has the primal spirit of rock and punk gone in the younger generation?”, and in The Skins I have found one of the places! I can’t wait to check out a proper album by them. We got to hang with some Texas friends while we were in town. Austin transplant Ernesto Yerena helped out on the mural along with Mack Simpson who drove from Dallas. Amanda Fairey even did some stencil cutting. The murals went pretty quickly because the subsidy helpers and usual crew of Nic, Dan, and Z all did a great job. Thanks y’all. Some cool people stopped by while we were painting including Flying Lotus, The Blitz, Amanda Palmer, Squeak E. Clean, etc… SXSW brings the hip fold around.

The portrait of Joan Jett is a collaboration with Blondie guitarist and primary songwriter Chris Stein. Chris shot Joan while she was still in the Runaways in 76 or 77 when Blondie was touring LA. I love the photo and made an illustration based on it. Joan and Chris both dig the illustration, so there will probably be a screen-print coming out soon. Stay tuned.

Thanks to Vevo and the Empire club for giving us walls to paint on!

-Shepard