When Skyler and Sam asked for some art for the CD they were putting out, I didn’t think twice. I’ve listened to both of these guys play with dozens of different bands over the years and it’s almost always worth it. If either is on the bill you should go. Mute Duo is quiet and kind of spacey/atmospheric but it isn’t easy-listening. This isn’t that wallpaper kind of instrumental pap. The slow build of their sound makes me think of places. Like I’m about to arrive somewhere, or just glimpse it in the distance. I could see this stuff being used in movies.

When we got together at the coffee shop to talk about which drawings to use, it quickly became obvious I should just do the whole design. The front and back are parts of the Excavation series of drawings I did in the garage in back of Bernice’s last year. They had been up at Rainbo in the spring, so Skyler, who works there, got to look at them for a month and liked them enough to want them on his CD. The inside is from a sketch I did of them playing one Saturday at the Empty Bottle. The text was typed on my Smith-Corona and the track “titles” are just altered fragments of drawings. They didn’t want word names for them and I’d remembered that the Butthole Surfers had used drawings for names on Hairway to Steven. So that’s where that came from.  

Mute Duo will have their record-release this Friday at Elastic. They only made a hundred copies of the CD and they’ll be on sale that night. If there are any left after Friday, they’ll be available here.

As a special “bonus”, I’ll be reading a few pages from the bar book I’ve been wrestling with lately. Sam, Skyler, and I have all worked in bars, and the bars I’m writing about are ones we all know, so hopefully it’s sort of relevant. I don’t do many readings these days but when Skyler asked I didn’t wanna say no. We’ll see how it goes.

p.s. I wrote about the centennial exhibition of Nicolas Carone’s paintings and drawings for the Reader. Good show.