Kings of Concert Posters: Uncle Charlie

Clowns, spaceships and Pop Art collide in artist's colorful creations
By Peter Lindblad

Pantera White Zombie
1996 Original Silkscreen
Concert Poster Uncle
Charlie S/N

Flying machines have always fascinated Houston artist Charlie Hardwick, better known by his pseudonym Uncle Charlie.

The son of a Navy man who, for a time, was said to have piloted blimps and dabbled in oil painting, Uncle Charlie has always pushed the boundaries of Pop Art. Dreaming up explosively colorful scenes of insane absurdity, with bright, psychedelic scenes that harken back to the '60s, Uncle Charlie is fond of incorporating spaceships and other types of aircraft, along with his beloved cartoon images, in incredibly vivid and vibrant works.

Renowned for a style featuring striking outlines and surreal fractal landscapes, Uncle Charlie has gained a reputation as a uniquely talented concert poster artist. Major music acts such as U2, The Who, Metallica and Radiohead, to name just a few, have sought him out to produce artwork promoting gigs in venues around Houston and Austin.

Today, some of his handbills can go for as low as $5 to $13, while prices for many of his gig posters may range from $40 to $80, although some will fetch around $130 to $150 and others might push beyond $200 or more. Here's a gallery of some of his finest work for purchase: http://stores.ebay.com/Rock-On-Collectibles/Uncle-Charlie-Posters-/_i.html?_fsub=3340828&_sid=70220124&_trksid=p4634.c0.m322

Known for being humble and soft-spoken, Uncle Charlie, has persevered despite serious vision problems. Legally blind since 2003, Uncle Charlie continued to produce mind-blowing artwork long after, building off his acclaimed work in concert posters and commercial packaging designs.

Love & Rockets 1996 Original
Silkscreen Concert Poster
Uncle Charlie Art S/N

Born and bred in Houston, Hardwick started out playing in bands such as Blunt and local hardcore heroes Dresden 45 in the mid-1980s. While attending the University of Houston, he made a crucial decision not to waste his time with introductory design classes, instead switching to the Art Institute of Houston.

With the help of a musician friend, he found work at a design firm, where he stayed for 15 years as a senior designer. His commercial art graced products by Coke Food, Imperial Sugar and Minute Maid, but corporate downsizing in 2008 left him without a job. That led him to do more work with bands, although today Hardwick has immersed himself in doing more fine art.

On the side, for years, Hardwick had been moonlighting doing art for bands. In the late 1980s, he met the legendary concert poster artist Frank Kozik. Serving as Hardwick's mentor, it was Kozik who taught him a few tricks and encouraged the man who gained fame as Uncle Charlie to follow in his footsteps.

A few years later, in the early '90s, Hardwick was hired through a Cleveland gig poster broker to do a Smashing Pumpkins piece for a Houston-area concert promoter, Pace Concerts, that has long been one of his favorites. There's also a beautiful abstract piece he did for The Cure that so impressed the band that they asked for additional copies. Before that, he did fliers for all kinds of acts, but eventually, he settled on doing poster art, and the results speak for themselves. Below are works representative of Uncle Charlie's art.

The Who 1997 Original
Silkscreen Concert Poster
Uncle Charlie Art S/N

Weird Al Yankovic
2000 Original Concert
Promo Handbill Houston
Uncle Charlie Art

Foo Fighters 1995 Original
Silkscreen Concert Promo
Poster Uncle Charlie Art S/N

U2 PJ Harvey 2001 Original
Promo Concert Poster
Uncle Charlie Art Var 2

Movie Review: Sound City

Movie Review: Sound City

Director: Dave Grohl

Roswell Films

All Access Review: A

Sound City - Dave Grohl 2013

The inner sanctum of Sound City never appeared in Better Homes & Gardens. Interiors with walls covered in brown shag carpeting and beat-up furniture that even a college fraternity would leave out on the curb would certainly offend the delicate sensibilities of its readership. From the outside, the place looked like a dump. Inside, it was even worse. But if you were a musician stepping into the studio for the first time, those record awards hanging in the hallways certainly made you overlook the shabby accommodations.

Such was the case for Dave Grohl, who made the trip down to Los Angeles in the early ‘90s with his Nirvana band mates, Kurt Cobain and Krist Novaselic, to bring their vision for Nevermind to life in the same studio where Fleetwood Mac had recorded Rumours. Understandably, Grohl has a soft spot in his heart for Sound City, and so do the numerous artists who did some of their best work there. It’s gone now, but not forgotten, having closed as a commercial studio in May 2011, and Grohl is making sure everybody understands what a special place it was with his wonderfully nostalgic tribute “Sound City.”

In his directorial debut, Grohl, in his own inimitably casual and yet excitable manner, does the next-to-impossible, making a dirty, run-down recording studio that had never seen better days seem magical. And it was. How else do you explain the existence of a room that produced absolutely perfect drum sound, even though it had none of the characteristics that drummers want in such a facility? In fact, by all rights, it should have yielded terrible drum tracks, as the producers, engineers and drummers interviewed by Grohl are only too happy to tell you. And then there’s that custom-made Neve 8028 board, the one Grohl saved when Sound City went under for good. There were only four like it in the world, and the care that went into building one helped sound men become studio legends – like Butch Vig, who produced Nevermind. 

Even going so far as to interview the maker of that very board, Grohl – playfully playing dumb while listening to Rupert Neve explain in great detail how it works – practically creates another character for his movie with that console, its wires and buttons having played such a huge role in committing some of the greatest studio performances in rock history to tape. If only that board could talk. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Metallica, Rage Against the Machine, Fear, Dio, Barry Manilow, Rick Springfield, Neil Young – all of them made records at Sound City, and in the right hands, that Neve board did God’s work. In the end, Grohl rescues it and puts it back to work, as he and the rest of the Foo Fighters record tracks with a number of artists, including Paul McCartney and Springfield, who as it so happens, provides the most poignant moment of the film.

While most the movie is a parade of warm memories and funny anecdotes – Fear’s Lee Ving providing some of the comic relief, while others talk glowingly about recording albums the old way – there’s a clearly emotional Springfield, openly expressing regret over treating Sound City owner Joe Gottfried, a man who’d dealt with him as if he were his own son, badly after he’d made it big. Gottfried’s kindness is remembered by many in the movie, as are the risks he and fellow owner Tom Skeeter took while running the studio and waiting for that big break that would rescue it from certain ruin.

As much as “Sound City” is a lively and enthusiastic study of the creative process and a not-too geeky exploration of music’s “digital vs. analog” debate, it’s also sheds light on the invaluable contributions of those behind the scenes who gave Sound City its family atmosphere. And that’s the charm of “Sound City,” an unstructured, freewheeling film that’s more of an Irish wake than a somber eulogy, where Grohl interviews practically everybody who ever set foot in Sound City and they all toast its shambolic charms with unguarded commentary, speaking of it as they would a long-lost friend. And Grohl’s preternatural skill as a filmmaker – who knew he had it in him? – shines through, as he collects all the engaging elements of this tale and pieces them together, somewhat chronologically, in a way that makes sense, even though perhaps it shouldn’t. Just like the best rock ‘n’ roll.

-        –    Peter Lindblad

CD Review: Bad Religion – True North

CD Review: Bad Religion – True North

Epitaph

All Access Review: B+

Bad Religion - True North 2013

Outraged about so many things these days, from the Citizens United ruling to corporate avarice, the regressive fascism of Tea Party politics and – their favorite target – close-minded religious zealotry, punk stalwarts Bad Religion air their latest laundry list of grievances on True North. 

Still feisty after all these years, as evidenced by the inclusion of a fiery expression of inarticulate rage titled “Fuck You,” Greg Graffin, Brett Gurewitz and company are just as intensely intellectual and righteously angry as they were when they came of age in Ronald Reagan’s America in the early 1980s.

PhD. In hand, Graffin goes off in search of justice and reason in an age devoid of both, as Bad Religion – a model of precision and control, with a multitude of guitars blazing away – packs short, punchy bursts of incendiary, yet irresistibly melodic, punk rock with rhetorical gunpowder into True North, as “Land of Endless Greed,” “In Their Hearts is Right,” “My Head is Full of Ghosts,” “Nothing to Dismay” and “The Island” go off like small grenades full of barbed hooks. Dashing to the finish line in record time is 1:01 “Vanity,” the fastest song Bad Religion has ever recorded, and the title track jumps out of the speakers like a panther.

Some machines are just more finely tuned than others. Built for speed, Bad Religion’s engine is running at peak efficiency, with little wasted motion, taut rhythms and those great backing vocals harmonies that serve as Bad Religion’s secret weapon. These rapid-fire songs are tense and indestructible, although Bad Religion loosens the nuts a little on the metallic, rumble “Dharma and the Bomb” – which somehow sounds like The Clash’s “Brand New Cadillac” filtered through a rush of the Foo Fighters’ adrenalized pop – and the gasping, slow-burn “Hello Cruel World,” which lacks the cardiovascular strength of the rest of True North.  

Speaking up for downtrodden, “Dept. of False Hope” is not exactly a ray of sunshine for economically beaten up blue-collar heroes, but it does fight for their dignity and exhorts communities to do what they can to lift up the less fortunate. Bad Religion has always been idealistic, and age hasn’t turned them into cynics. What they are is punk and hardcore’s version of AC/DC or Motorhead, churning out the same albums decade after decade and still managing to duck criticism for doing so. Though there is some diversity on True North, these old dogs don’t want to learn any new tricks, and after a while, some of these songs tend to run together. In the end, Bad Religion just wants to sharpen and streamline their guitar-driven attack to the point where it serves as a perfectly designed missile delivery system for warheads of the truth – at least as Graffin sees it. With True North, Bad Religion is pointed in the right direction, and spoiling for a fight. (www.epitaph.com)

-        –  Peter Lindblad

CD Review: Foo Fighters - Wasting Light

CD Review: Foo Fighters - Wasting Light
RCA Records
All Access Review: A-

Aside from the bizarrely theatrical exorcism Nicki Minaj’s performed in debuting the song “Roman Holiday” to a quizzical national TV audience that still hasn’t quite figured out what in the world it was watching, the 2012 Grammys were memorable for three things: Adele, Paul McCartney’s extravagant closing number, and the Foo Fighters’ total and complete dominance in any category that had anything to do with rock music. And wouldn’t you know it? For once, the Grammys … well, they got it right.

Released almost a year ago, Wasting Light, the Fighters’ triumphant seventh studio album, finds Dave Grohl and company perfecting their tried-and-true formula of balancing big-hearted emotions with crashing, screaming, hook-filled hard rock that’s as therapeutic as burning an ex-lover’s mementos in a blazing bonfire. But, why is now the right time to reassess an album that’s been dissected and probed thousands of times by now? Four Grammys – that’s why. Well, that and perhaps it’s time to see if Wasting Light can provide any clues as to just where the Foo Fighters go from here and whether they now deserve a place at the table with rock’s greatest luminaries.  

As for the back story to Wasting Light, it was purported to be a throwback, an analog answer to today’s more artificial musical output, hatched with Pro Tools and other digital cleansers. And in many ways, Wasting Light does turn back the clock. Recorded in Grohl’s Encino, California garage using nothing but analog equipment Wasting Light was produced by none other than Butch Vig, who, of course, shepherded Nirvana’s legendary Nevermind album to immortality. One of Grohl’s old bandmates Krist Novoselic also showed up during the Wasting Light sessions to help out – playing bass and accordion – on “I Should Have Known,” and for the dramatically wistful “Dear Rosemary,” Grohl enlisted the assistance of punk hero Bob Mould to bomb away on guitar and lend his grizzled voice to a powerful duet. With the exception of Vig’s propensity for clean production and mushrooming volume and the grizzled character Mould’s vocals add to “Dear Rosemary,” none of that really mattered. In the end, it was the Fighters’ insistence on a return to a warts-and-all recording approach that favors furious energy and primal band chemistry above antiseptic, bloodless production that brought Wasting Light to a rolling boil. Of course, Grohl has had a lot to say lately about how the recording industry’s emphasis on digitally washing every song to a gleaming, spotless shine is killing music, and he’s probably spot-on about that.

Though there’s nothing on Wasting Light that approaches the awe-inspiring majesty of the gathering storm that is “Everlong,” without a doubt the most artfully arranged and affecting song in the Foo Fighters’ catalog, tracks like “Arlandria” – with its building tension and a chorus full of tricky little hooks – and the angular hit “Rope” – its aggressive stop-start dynamics taking full advantage of the band’s three-guitar attack as Chris Shiflet’s careening leads almost plow through the guard rail – speak to the album’s delicate balancing act of riding barreling grooves, torrential riffs and crashing drums roughshod over, around and through tough, indestructible melodies that refuse to be overwhelmed by any of it. As with “Arlandria,” “A Matter of Time” and “Back & Forth” surge with amplified power and roiling emotions, only to ebb slightly and reveal those gripping melodies that grab hold of your throat and don’t let go. But, as Stephen Thomas Erlewine notes in his review of Wasting Light for AllMusic.com, it’s about time that Grohl embraced the hot-wired pace and haunted desert weirdness of Josh Homme and Queens of the Stone Age – who worked with Grohl on their modern classic LP Songs for the Deaf – and he brings all of it to bear in “White Limo” and “Bridge Burning,” two songs full of horsepower that seethe with rage and practically froth at the mouth.

Top to bottom, Wasting Light is the Foo Fighters’ most consistent album. Whereas previous efforts boasted a number of memorable hits and a maddening amount of filler that fluctuated greatly from record to record, Wasting Light is surprisingly free of waste. And if the intention was to capture more of a “live” sound, which it seems like almost every band talks about doing when they’ve hit a plateau somewhere along the way, the Foo Fighters nailed it and in the process, they’ve unleashed an album that can actually be called a “classic.” It’s the record we’ve been waiting for since that eponymous debut way back in 1994 that introduced us to Grohl the songwriter and front man, roles few thought he was capable of playing. Not at all content with growing old gracefully, the Foo Fighters have proven they have plenty of life left in them, provided they focus on bringing intensity and passion to the studio and are not seduced by the siren song of Pro Tools.

What holds them back from being considered among the true giants of rock and roll is a tendency to put blinders on and charge straight ahead into the fray, while also indulging in somewhat predictable quiet-loud-and-then-louder means of song construction. Wasting Light finds the Fighters deviating ever so slightly off the beaten path – the vocals are occasionally a little more dream-like, the dynamics a little more interesting and acrobatic. Having Pat Smear’s bold and loud rhythm guitar back in the fold can’t hurt either. In all likelihood, more of the same is going to come from the Foo Fighters. They’re too far along in their career to drastically change their personality, with Grohl, Shiflet and Smear all coming from a fairly puritanical punk background. Still, if they can find different ways to experiment with tempos and make their sound as thick and intense as possible, while never losing their melodic sensibilities, the Fighters will keep be the band that couldn’t be killed. If they simply fall back on old habits, eventually the world will tire of them.

- Peter Lindblad 

Do you collect Foo Fighters memorabilia? Check out these Foo Fighters posters on eBay!