It’s only a practice recording, and a first one at that, but with “El Hongo,” Portland, Oregon’s Pushy made an opening statement that stands them out from both the bulk of West Coast heavy rock that seems to drive toward a skater-ized ideal of gnarly and much of international ’70s ritualizing, which is bent either on analog-worship or cult-minded vagaries. There’s no telling in listening to “El Hongo” where Pushy will necessarily end up — they might decide sometime between now and their first record that they really, really like Satan — but at least from the rough take we get from their rehearsal space, the four-piece seem to have more in common with a nascent movement of upbeat, positive-vibing classic heavy rock than with downtrodden grit or whiskey-soaked dudely caricature.

The band is an amalgam of Portland scene-dwellers — your scene hasn’t arrived until things start getting incestuous — including Crag Dweller‘s Travis Clow, Adam Burke of Fellwoods, Hosmanek‘s Ron Wesley and Bison Bison‘s Dylan Reilly, and what the conglomeration get down to on “El Hongo” (“the fungus”) marks itself out as classic ’70s boogie right from the first strike of the cowbell. Fitting to the band’s name, there’s not much subtle about it, and while the recording is raw the groove is smooth, the swagger so deep you can almost smell it and there’s enough there to give an impression of a good time not so disparate from that which Brooklyn’s The Golden Grass have on offer with their 2014 self-titled outing, serving a lighthearted reminder that the reason a bunch of friends might get together to write songs in the first place is because they think it’s fun.

Obviously it wouldn’t be fair to judge the band’s ultimate mission by what they do with their first public recording, but even the fact that they basically tossed off a rehearsal-space jam and put it out there for name-your-price download speaks to a laid back approach, and for these kinds of grooves, that’s just the way you want to take it. Nice and easy.

Pushy, “El Hongo” demo (2014)

Pushy on Thee Facebooks

Pushy on Bandcamp

This whole thing came about because I mentioned a few months back that it was a personal dream of mine to have Belgian-born “lord of the logos” Christophe Szpajdel do a logo for this site. I’ve dug Szpajdel‘s work since I first saw it editing a feature about him in Metal Maniacs, in what I like to think of now as “the before time.” Well, Kiffin Rogers of Napalm Christ/Rwake was kind enough to put me in touch and Szpajdel, instead of pointing to the nearest cliff and asking me in so many words to leap from it, was on board with designing a logo for The Obelisk. This was most certainly exciting news.

Now, I like the Skillit header currently on this site. Fucking love it, in fact, and I plan on keeping it in use along with the new design. In its every detail, it excellently encapsulates a lot of the vibe that I enjoy most about this site. However, to ask Skillit‘s work to mesh with Szpajdel — who’s more known for his associations on the extreme end of black and death metal than anything resembling desert rock — would be unfair to both artists. Adam Burke (interview here), however, seemed like a perfect fit, with his watercolor style, deep tones and fantasy influence.

A phrase I actually used in my email to Burke talking about what I had in mind for the header piece: “A land-octopus off to one side or the other’s always welcome by me.” Rules to live by, people.

Obviously, when the finished product came in, I was flabbergasted. Here’s a look at the details of both the header art and the logo. Click any to enlarge.

Header Art by Adam Burke

You ever have a picture in your mind of what you want and then what you wind up with not only is that thing, but is that thing better? Yeah, that’s kind of how it went with this one. The land-octopus, the sunscape, the crags on the left side, Burke absolutely nailed it. I damn near wept when I opened the file.

Logo by Christophe Szpajdel

This is the original hand-drawn version of the logo. You can see the marker marks and the lighter spaces where his stroke lifted. So fucking cool. If you do or don’t know Szpajdel‘s work, he’s an absolute master. It was an honor to email with him, let alone actually have him send this as an attachment.

I, on the other hand, am not at all a master when it comes to graphic design, and though I tried for an embarrassingly long time, I couldn’t get the logo either completely black or onto a transparent background. Outside help was enlisted, and this emerged as the finished version (turned white for posting here — also maybe for t-shirts):

When I put them together — that I could do — this is how it wound up:

The Finished Product

I don’t think I could be any happier with how it all came out in the end of I tried. Huge thanks to Christophe Szpajdel and Adam Burke for their attention and hard work. Please check out their sites/portfolios and support underground art by giving them money and telling other people how much ass they kick.

Christophe Szpajdel on Flickr

Lord of the Logos book on Amazon

Adam Burke on Thee Facebooks

Fellwoods on Bandcamp

You’ve probably seen some of Adam Burke‘s art. Maybe it was an Ice Dragon album cover, or a show poster for any number of bands out of the Portland area and Pacific Northwest — in addition to playing in Fellwoods, Burke has worked with Diesto, Ancient Warlocks, Danava, Crag Dweller, Hobosexual, Sons of Huns, Mystery Ship and many others — and as the poster that went up with the Oberon and Grel tour dates yesterday proves, his reach is beyond regional. Drawing on a visual style influenced by classic fantasy artists like Frank Frazetta and other old pulp sci-fi paperbacks, Burke has come to create works that immediately stand out and are easily identifiable as his own.

Raised Baptist, as he notes, Burke began like a lot of artists to draw early, and discovered music later. The two seem to have become intertwined, however, and more and more parties are taking his works for their own, whether it’s The Golden Grass from Brooklyn asking him to design their logo or the podcast The Soggy Bog of Doom using one of his paintings for its banner. Colors are rich and deep throughout most of Burke‘s watercolors and acrylics, and whether it’s a stark, foreboding landscape or a rainbow-shooting eyeball with a fetus in a teardrop, what seems at first like a familiar stylistic ideal is given a fresh perspective.

Fellwoods released their debut album, Wulfram in 2011 (discussed here), then working under the moniker The Moss, and signed with Svart Records to issue the follow-up Gyromancer EP, initially streaming it early in 2013 before taking  it down ahead of the still-to-come Svart version. In the interview that follows, Burke gives the latest on that as well as some background on the development of his style, his influences as an artist and some of the processes that go into making his pieces, working with bands in and around Portland and some of the differences between creating a visual work and writing songs with Fellwoods.

Complete Q&A and a sampling of Burke‘s art follows the jump. Click any image to enlarge it and please enjoy:

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