Drawings from the Chicago Zine Fest 2015

Hello, again! Early last month Lemon o Books attended the annual meeting of the Midwest chapter of the International Tree Killers Union. Just kidding! It was the sixth annual Chicago Zine Fest, but the event was held in a beautiful, old union hall this year.

I've been lucky enough to have exhibited at this fabulous event every year, and I love the experience. You can read a comprehensive write-up of Saturday's exhibition from Broken Pencil Magazine at this link (featuring my smirking face). Thanks to all the organizers, exhibitors and attendees who make the Chicago Zine Fest possible.

Here's some fantastic drawings that some kind folks created for The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music project:


This handsome gentleman is wearing a regal cape reminiscent of Madonna's hair. The drawing was done by the incredible Trevor Grabill of Flat Mountain Press. A gentle piece of advice: Give Trevor all your money, cover your walls with his prints and fill your bookshelves with his zines.


This is Madonna's childhood cat who is rarely credited for inspiring the Material Girl's earliest popular hairdo. Drawing by Rebecca Dols.




Two sad men kindly drawn by a visitor to the fest. 💔
❤


And finally, here's a drawing by Liz Mason of Caboose zine and Quimby's Bookstore who has been telling me for years that she doesn't draw. This lovely rendition of Glenn Danzig suggests otherwise! Heartfelt thanks go out to Liz and all the other drawers for these wonderful post cards. You all truly make The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music possible.

Anyone interested in acquiring Lemon o Books' sundry paper souvenirs can see our catalog here and read ordering instructions here. Have a wonderful summer, Internet!

Drawings From the Milwaukee Zine Fest, 2014

On November 8th, The Milwaukee Zine Fest celebrated its sixth year at the Polish Falcon in the Riverwest neighborhood, a bright, balmy bulwark of self-published weirdness against the oncoming gray of Midwestern winter. Already the days are getting longer again. Let's remember a great weekend in November.

Here's some great drawings that folks made for me that day. Thanks to them. Thanks to the organizers, all attendees, all the exhibitors. Thanks!

The Wolfman Meets The Bride of Frankenstein

The Wolfman Meets The Bride of Frankenstein
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From Lemon o Books, publisher and instigator of The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music project, this is our newest publication. Follow this link for more images and information on obtaining a copy.

Thanks for looking!

Famous Hairdos of Popular Music: Volume Eight

The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music
Volume Eight: Elvis Presley
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Since 2008, The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music project has collected drawings from hundreds of individuals-- friends and strangers, children and adults, with the simple idea of celebrating the creativity of average people inscribing their personal visions on icons of celebrity culture.

Followers of this blog know that almost all of these incredible submissions can be found right here, but many of these drawings are also collected into small booklets. I strive to make these books as beautiful as possible, and I think this newest publication, dedicated to drawings inspired by Elvis Presley, is the most beautiful yet. This is the eighth collection of drawings, disguised as a celebration of Elvis’s hair, but this book, and every volume before it, is about the many people who drew.

More images and information, including how to obtain a copy, can be found here. Thanks for looking, and thanks as always to the many drawers who have made this project a reality.

Flowers Every Day

New from Lemon o Books!

A small zine commemorating everyday flowers. Much more information, lots of images, and info on obtaining a copy of this new book here.

Chairs of the Uppper Midwest

The latest project from Lemon o Books, Chairs of the Upper Midwest. Visit lemonobooks.com for photos and info on obtaining a copy. This is a fun one!

Real Fake Clouds

Real Fake Clouds
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The third title in Lemon o Books' Field Guide series!  Real Fake Clouds is a short booklet and two track CD. The project abstractly examines clouds, those ever-morphing agglomerations of suspended water and chemicals that travel through the sky. We tried and (by design) failed to pin down these transitory atmospheric phenomena in print and sound.

The CD features the work of Milwaukee noise duo Druome and Portland's Daniel Menche. The former offer an instrumental recreation of weather, progressing from tranquil to stormy, and the latter submitted what sounds like a lengthy field recording following a similar trajectory. Together with the accompanying booklet, these works represent different approaches to the quixotic task of representing (in ink or audio) inherently ephemeral and changeable clouds. Thanks to both Druome and Daniel Menche for their contributions.

Anyone interested in obtaining a copy of Real Fake Clouds can mail $5 well concealed cash to:

Lemon o Books
P.O. Box 11872
Milwaukee, WI 53211

Shipping costs are included in the price for anyone living in the contiguous United States. International friends should email for more information.

More photos are available at lemonobooks.com. Thanks for looking!

Famous Hairdos of Popular Music: Volume Seven

The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music
Volume Seven: Loretta Lynn
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It's been over a year since Volume Six, but it's been a busy year. I made a couple books that had nothing to do with hair (they were all about bird song and the moon), and now I've returned to The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music project a better book designer. The last volume contained 28 great drawings, but that record just got shattered. This book has 35. And this project is all about the drawings.

Since 2008, The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music project has collected drawings by hundreds of individuals- friends and strangers alike- based on the iconic hairdos of famous musicians. This is the seventh collection of drawings, disguised as a celebration of Loretta Lynn’s hair, but this book, and every volume before it, is about the many people who drew. Volume Seven features 35 great drawings spread over 32 pages in a numbered edition of 80 books. Drawings by kids and drawings by adults, the images range from silly to respectful to abstract. Each copy is mailed with four postcards for you to cherish or, better yet, draw on, mail back and keep this project going.

$3 postage paid in the contiguous US

P.O. Box 11872, Milwaukee, WI 5321

Thanks for looking! Check out more images here: lemonobooks.com

Our Moon

New from Lemon o Books!

With one week until the third annual Chicago Zine Fest on March 10, Lemon o Books is pleased to announce its newest publication, a short booklet and CD entitled Our Moon.

Following hot on the heels of Actual Bird Song last October, Our Moon is the second in a series of art booklets masquerading as field guides. It once again comes packaged with a CD focused on the same theme. Actual Bird Song dealt with all things avian, but for Our Moon we've turned our gaze even further skyward to contemplate the moon.

The CD features four tracks, the first of which is a heartbreaking, fifteen-minute piece by Adam Krause and Marielle Allschwang featuring guitar, violin and crackly snatches of ham radio conversation intercepted by walkie talkie. This might be the song that was in Michael Collins' head on the far side of the moon. The remaining tracks on the CD were recorded by Gen Ken Montgomery in New York City. His suite of three tracks commences with collaged audio from the Appollo 11 mission and ends, twenty minutes later, with a joyful section that reminds me of The Residents at their most beautiful. It's a great listening experience, and, really, the whole cross-country collaboration hangs together beautifully. I'm proud to have played a part in it.

Below are photos of the project. Anyone interested in obtaining a copy of Our Moon can mail $5 well-concealed cash to:

Lemon o Books
P.O. Box 11872
Milwaukee, WI 53211

Shipping costs are included in the price for anyone living in the contiguous United States. International friends should email for more information. Update: This title is sold out.

Upcoming Events: Chicago Zine Fest 2012 and Moon Ragas in NYC

Above: Fine dining, outside our hotel room, Chicago Zine Fest 2011

Except for the fantastic drawings received in the mail last month, it probably seems like a quiet start to 2012 here at The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music/Lemon o Books. However, a lot of work and planning have been going on behind the scenes.

First off, in a little less than a month Lemon o Books will be in Chicago for the third annual Chicago Zine Fest on March 10th. I've tabled at this event the last two years, and despite the bitter weather that a Midwestern March all but promises, it has always been a blast. The Chicago Zine Fest is housed in a beautiful space at Columbia College, and last year it took two floors to accommodate all of the talented exhibitors. It always draws a large, diverse crowd, and the organizers seem to pull off a better show every year. I'm definitely jazzed to make the trip again.

Here's the full schedule of events for the weekend:

Friday March 9, 2012:
1 - 3pm Gender, Race & Sexuality, a Discussion with Women in Self-Publishing at Columbia College
6 - 9pm Zine Readings at 826CHI
9:30pm - 12am Zine Olympics at Quimby's Bookstore

Saturday March 10:
11am - 6pm Zine Exhibition at Columbia College

Our Moon and "Moon Ragas"


Above: A stack of tape loops
(Tape loops and photo by Adam Krause)

In other news, the follow-up to Actual Bird Song is quickly taking form, and much like its predecessor, that form will be book and CD shaped. Where Actual Bird Song was a quasi-field guide and audio companion inspired by birds and notable for its lack of both fields and guidance, this next project takes its inspiration from the moon, Earth's satellite and cosmic dance partner. It will be called Our Moon and should be finsished just in time for the aforementioned Chicago Zine Fest. If everything goes to plan in the next month, Our Moon will be just as beautiful, weird and scientifically useless as Actual Bird Song was last fall.

Actual Bird Song began as a collaboration between myself (in charge of book-making) and Neil Gravander (aka Lucky Bone, sound-making). The project soon expanded when Neil invited fellow Milwaukee sound-maker Slow Owls to create his own avian-inspired audio.

In a similar way, this new project began as a collaboration between myself (once again handling the visual half of the audio-visual equation) and writer, musician, carpenter Adam Krause but expanded when he invited sound artist Ken Montgomery to contribute to the audio portion of the project.

This weekend, the collaboration gets even more collaborative when Adam travels to New York City to play a show at The Stone (Avenue C and 2nd street) with Montgomery. The event will be recorded and the results should find their way into the final version of Our Moon. If you're in New York on February 19th, consider attending this event.

Meanwhile, I'll be here in Milwaukee putting the finishing touches on the booklet for Our Moon. I'll post all the details right here as soon as the project is ready to share with the world. Thanks for looking and reading. Here's to an active and exciting spring!

Actual Bird Song Previews

Thanks to Neil "Lucky Bone" Gravander, you can now listen to previews of both tracks from Actual Bird Song, the booklet and CD released last October, from the comfort of your computer chair. Give 'em a try.

Lucky Bone - actual bird song (excerpt) by ursa--major

Slow Owls - actual bird song (excerpt) by ursa--major

Copies of this project are still available. Interested parties can send five dollars well-concealed cash to P.O. Box 11872 Milwaukee, WI 53211. Update: This title is now sold out.

Happy New Year

Above: 2011, the year in haircuts

I started 2012 the way I ended 2011-- with a whopping cold. So here, almost seven days and one bottle of Multi-symptom Cold and Flu Nighttime Relief Liquid into the new year, is a belated wish for a happy new year for you and yours from Lemon o Books and The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music.

Before talking about what 2012 has in store around these parts, let's take a quick look back at last year. It was a good one. The Chicago Zine Fest, the Madison Zine Fest, and, just last month, the stellar Milwaukee Zine Fest were great experiences. Taking myself, my projects and books out of the house and into the world is always a surprising, heartening, and illuminating endeavor.

And the books made in 2011 stand out for me as the best I've made so far. Last winter, The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music Volume Six cataloged drawings made by dozens of individuals (out of the total hundreds of drawings received so far) who contributed their work to The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music project. I am forever grateful to everyone who has made this silly idea of mine into a real and growing thing, and I hope it continues. While the drawers are the soul of this project, I think this book has my best design and craft yet for this series.



This fall saw the release of Actual Bird Song, the first non-hairdo project from Lemon o Books. This project was a collaboration between myself and two Milwaukee musicians, Lucky Bone and Slow Owls, who each contributed a track to a CD packaged inside a short booklet.



Now, with the highlights of 2011 lovingly packed away like so many Christmas lights, let's talk about some of my most anticipated projects of 2012. I'm still so excited by Actual Bird Song that my next project will continue in a similar vein. Two musicians are already on board to create sounds for a compact disc while I'm working on an accompanying book. I'm going to keep my lips sealed about the subject matter and the collaborators until things really start to take shape, but I guarantee that no one will be as disappointed as me if this project isn't just as good as last year's foray into audio-visual collaboration.

Also, the long-rumored seventh volume of The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music will become a real thing that you can hold in your hands. This will definitely happen before the project turns four years old in July.

Thanks for reading, everybody. Here's to another great year!

Actual Bird Song

The newest publication from Lemon o Books is the first to be totally unrelated to the ongoing Famous Hairdos of Popular Music project. I am incredibly proud of this one.

A "field guide and audio companion," Actual Bird Song is a short visual zine and a two track, 30 minute compact disc. I designed and produced the book, while Milwaukee musicians Lucky Bone and Slow Owls each contributed a track. These three parts were created in isolation but, I think, complement each other in interesting ways. Together they comprise an open-ended meditation on bird song and humanity’s relationship to the natural world. They are waiting for readers and listeners to join the conversation.

Below are some more images, a brief explanation, and information for obtaining a copy through the mail.








Writing here as the book designer, I can only explain my own motivations for the visual component of the project. Despite the title’s implication of scientific rigor and accuracy, Actual Bird Song is an exercise in pseudo-science-- book design and illustration as a vehicle for abstractly considering our relationship to nature as outside observers, our frequent inability to contain and grasp the wildness from which we have secluded ourselves and for which many simultaneously yearn. I tried to avoid using birds as a ready metaphor for human desires and ended up doing just that anyway. Taking the idea of a “field guide” literally, Actual Bird Song is an attempt to visually depict the sensation of standing in a field surrounded by the sounds of avian activity using the language of textbook illustration.

The books and CDs were produced in an edition of 100. The covers and endpapers are beautiful French Paper products, milled in the Midwest with hydroelectric power. The fore-edge corners are rounded to resemble the pocket field guides on my nightstand that never seem to make the trip to actual fields. The printing was done at Milwaukee’s own Clark Graphics, where their professionalism is matched only by their patience. Thanks to them and to Lucky Bone and Slow Owls for making this project real.
Anyone who wants a copy should mail $5.00 well-concealed cash to:

P.O. Box 11872
Milwaukee, WI 53211

Shipping costs are included in the price for anyone living in the contiguous United States. International friends should email for more information. Update: This title is sold out.

Fleeting Pages

I was approached about a month ago regarding an interesting project going on right now in Pittsburgh. In a recently shuttered Borders bookstore (a two-story, 24,000 sq foot behemoth), some enterprising folks have set out to fill that space with an expo for small press books for one month only. They're calling it Fleeting Pages. In their own words:

Taking over (taking back?) a space, left empty by a failed big box bookstore, for one month, starting MAY 7th, and filling it with independent & self-published work of all kinds, book arts, workshops, and events. All revolving around written self-expression.

I sent them five copies of the latest volume of The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music to sell. So if you live in Pennsylvania, you should make a trip down. But even if you can't support this rad project in person, they are also selling stuff online, on the Internet! Here's the link to their page, and here is the listing for my book. Check it out!

Volume Six at Quimby's

Here is some wonderful news. The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music Volume Six, just like the five previous volumes, is for sale at Quimby's in Chicago! What's more, you can order it directly from them on this very Internet.

If you want to get your hands on this book, you can always order it directly from me ($3.00 postage paid to the lower 48 states, P.O. Box 11872 Milwaukee, WI 53211), but if you also want to support a rad store that has been supporting rad art for 20 years, by all means, follow the following link.

What's extra amazing is the write up on their website, written by one E.F. Here it is (I'm so flattered, that I will make it a block quote):

I gotta whole lotta love for this drawing zine. Using famous hair as the template for some physical graffiti, 30-odd artists complete pages and pages of Pages. -EF

Thanks!

Famous Hairdos of Popular Music: Volume Six

The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music
Volume Six: Jimmy Page

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Volume Six features 28 drawings (twelve more than the last volume!) spread over 32 pages. Drawings by kids and drawings by adults, friends and strangers alike, and every drawing is inspired by Jimmy Page’s flowing locks. The books are photocopied, folded and staple-bound in a numbered edition of 80 books. The covers are printed on heavy, “Blu Raspberry” French Paper, made (despite the name) here in the Midwest. Each copy is mailed with four postcards for you to cherish or, better yet, draw on, mail back and keep this project going. Thanks for looking!

The price remains the same:

$3 postage paid in the contiguous US

P.O. Box 11872, Milwaukee, WI 53211

Update Nov 26, 2012: This title is now sold out! Thanks for looking.

Volume Six Coming Soon

Volume six of The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music is mostly laid out for print, and this one is going to be packed. So many stellar drawings have arrived in the last year that this book will contain more drawings than any previous volume. This will be a jam-packed, attractive zine for you to hold in your hands. I am really excited to put this one out.

But if even more drawings were to arrive before publication, it wouldn't take much to convince me to add even more drawings. This volume will be dedicated to drawings based on Jimmy Page's hairdo, so if you want to contribute to the project, please consider making a rendering of Mr. Page on the template above. For inspiration, check out this great portrait sent in just last week or any of the other hundreds of drawings that have been showcased here over the last couple years.

I love this project and want to see more people have fun with it, too. If you want to join in, just click on the image above, then click to view the picture at full size and print off a copy. Fill it out and send it back to the address at the bottom. You will likely see your work on this website and maybe featured in the forthcoming book.

Thanks as always to all past and future drawers!

Free Zine Contest

In celebration of the still-new fifth volume of The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music and the upcoming Madison Zine Fest on Saturday, October 2nd (where we shall be sitting behind a table), it was hastily decided while taking the dog for a brisk walk that a contest is in order. The contents of The Famous Hairdos, for those not in the know, is entirely generated by generous friends and strangers. The often anonymous drawings are based on black and white images of famous musicians’ hairdos, printed on sheets of paper or postcards with the exhortation “Complete the drawing.” It is an admittedly silly project, yet also one that I am still very excited about. The project is a celebration of the creativity of so-called average people making sometimes silly, sometimes beautiful, and sometimes profane drawings as gentle graffiti on top of artifacts of celebrity culture. As such, the project becomes more fun the more people contribute. Remember: despite their similarities, Sparks was a far, far superior band to Rush, because Sparks knew that they were silly. Mull that over, and then read the details of the contest below.

THE CONTEST:

The rules of the contest are simple. The blank hairdo templates can be found at the Hairdo Templates link at the top right of this page. Simply view the image of your choosing at full size and print off a copy. Follow the directions and complete the drawing. Find an envelope and a stamp, and take the whole parcel to your mailbox or local post office. The fifth drawing (in honor of the fifth volume) to appear in The Famous Hairdos P.O. Box from the lower 48 states between today (September 21, 2010) and the Friday before the Madison Zine Fest (October 1, 2010) will receive a complimentary copy of the newest book in the mail. As always, the drawings will be showcased here and the winner will be announced as well. Good luck to all.

In other news, if contests are not your thing but you live in Madison, please stop by the College Library on the 2nd and say hello. We are the Andrew W.K. of partying. It promises to be fun.

The Children Are Our Future

Tons of great drawings by local middle school students. Check them out, and then stick around to read a message to these cool kids and their teacher, Tom, who has been a big supporter of the Famous Hairdos of Popular Music from the start. Thanks for looking.



































These drawings (and many that have appeared here before) were facilitated by my friend Tom. In addition to being a super stand-up guy, he is an art teacher in the Milwaukee area and is thus afforded a captive audience with No. 2 pencils who are supposed to listen to his instructions. And sometimes he instructs his students to fill out these sheets after a lesson. From time to time, I meet Tom for a pot of tea and leave with a fresh stack of drawings done by his students. He has been deservedly thanked in every volume of The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music to date, and now I want to thank him here as well. Thanks, Tom, and congratulations on your recent engagement.

All of the above drawings were done by summer school students at Wisconsin Hills Middle School in Brookfield, Wisconsin. Biggest thanks go out to them and all the other kids who have drawn in the past.

In this batch, there is one drawing of Jimmy Page's hair devouring Pac-Man and in another drawing a figure sporting Loretta Lynn's hair as a massive moustache comments that his "mustach (sic) way's (sic) a ton," an apparent reference to Public Enemy's 1987 "Miuzi (sic) Weighs a Ton." What I want to know is how middle school students in 2010 are so hip to 1980s popular culture? Furthermore, anyone who ever finds him or herself compelled to utter any portentous proclamations about "kids these days" can take solace in the evidence here: that kids today are clever, funny, and are pretty into animals and fire-breathing monsters. This seems about right to me. And at least one kid thinks that road kill is as funny a punch line as I once did, so if anyone thinks that this might show an alarmingly morbid sense of humor, there is also the possibility that this student might end up a vegan who hates to drive cars. Sometimes humor is the best way to show empathy.

I hope you enjoy these drawings as much as I do.

In other news, the fifth volume of The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music can now be ordered online from Quimby's Bookstore in Chicago, which has sold all five volumes on consignment. If you want to get your hands on a copy and support this project and support an awesome bookstore in the process, this might be the most efficient way to go. Check the listing out right here and browse some of their other wares in the process.