Your Own Personal Grammys

Are your favorite performing artists underrepresented for their work? Does the mainstream “best of” not reflect your tastes? Then make your own awards. This is my blog, with my completely biased opinions – The Grammys, this is not. That said, thersmithing.com music awards for the past year go to…

Best Video: Melodysheep, Happy Little Clouds

I interview the mastermind behind Melodysheep, and all-round cool dude, John Boswell, here.

Best Concert: Beats Antique, Cat’s Cradle, May 4, 2012

I recount how I discovered Beats Antique here and document another of their gigs here.

Best New Artist: How To Destroy Angels

It’s atmospheric Nine Inch Nails with a female voice. Totally works.

Best Comeback: Quicksand

The band’s breakthrough album, Slip, is a certified classic.

Best Shoutout to Me: Garbage

One of my favorite bands featured my artwork in a promo video. Full story here.

Album of The Year: Deftones, Koi No Yokan

The Deftones‘ enduring talent surges ever forward.

Best Electronica: Photek, KU:PALM

Photek came back after many years with a sparse-yet-rich new record.

Best Topical Humor: CollegeHumor, Look at This Instagram

Thanks to Sarah Khanna, food blogger at butteredup.com, for turning me on to this. I think.

What do you think? What were your best musical moments of the past year? What other categories would you include? Let us hear from you in the comments.

Related articles

• Photek’s KU: PALM Embraces Past, Present, Future (rsmithing.com)
• Deftones December Wrap Up (cgiovanniwrites.wordpress.com)
• Melodysheep: ‘The Face of Creation’ – Higgs Remix (VIDEO) (blippitt.com)
• Who is Skrillex and Why Did He Win Three Grammys? (…What is Dubstep Anyways?!?!) (CA Music Industry Summit)
• Abum Review: Photek – KU:PALM (Five Fist Reviews)

Belief in the One True Power: Foto Fridays

Belief in the One True Power
Click for full-size at 500px

Here’s a photomontage I did recently using my iPhone and some choice apps. I was visiting the Grove Arcade in Asheville, NC a few weeks ago and noticed the sunlight looking interesting around this stairwell, so I snapped a black & white with Hipstamatic. Later in the week a gnarled tree trunk in my neighborhood caught my attention, so I snapped that.

Click to see the ingredients at Flickr

I knew I wanted to do something with the tree and the stairwell, but it looked incomplete when editing just those in Photoforge2, so I snapped a candle that happened to be burning when I was working on this. Finally, I added some texture with the TtV Photo Studio app, then some magic from the universe… and there we go.

But What Does it Mean?

The title of this image is from a lyric in a song by one of my favorite bands, The Deftones, titled, “Pink Cellphone.” It’s an airy, dark, and experimental-sounding track – qualities also applicable to this image, so I thought it was an appropriate fit. It’s not my intent to promote any belief an any kind of power whatsoever. I just like the sound of the song and the pairing with the image.

If there is any one true power as far as this kind of thing goes, it’s the brilliant photomontage work of Jerry Uelsmann. If you like my humble creation here, definitely check out his stuff. This piece in particular reflects my appreciation for his art.

Thanks to Mitzi Rice, who suggested this image for blog fodder over at Instagram. Check out her blog, Mit Lear Moments.

What do you think? Ever made a photomontage? Do you see a connection between visual art and music? Let us hear from you in the comments.

Related articles

• Seeing Past The World View (mitlearmoments.wordpress.com)
• Up With The Sun: a MobileArtistry Feature (rsmithing.com)
• Your true power (drbillwooten.com)
• Overcoming apathy and giving our creativity true direction and power(sixtyandsingleagain.wordpress.com)
• Friday’s Foto Fun (scottiechronicles.com)
• Foto Friday – Afternoon Walk in the Park (ericbrown.com)
• Freemason Writes Fiction Based on Secret Fraternity (prweb.com)