How local graphic designer and poster artist Jason Malmberg came up through the ranks
If you look at a Jason Malmberg poster and you’re unsure at first of what you’re looking at, if you need a minute to stare and process, if things seem off balance, if for a moment you feel like you are looking at a worksheet out of a German school book—don’t be alarmed. This is just the effect the local graphic designer is going for.
In the ‘70s, even public service announcement posters were psychedelic, Malmberg remembers, including one he’ll never forget. It was of a sobbing child throwing his arms over his head in horror, except his arms were 13 or 14 snakes. The poster read, “Why you shouldn’t take LSD” and went on to list what happens in the first 15 minutes, and in the second.
Take a look at the poster Malmberg made for the Foals show at Ace of Spades last month, and in the midst of colliding geometric shapes, you’ll see two intersecting male arms, each turning into the head of a snake from the elbow up.
Malmberg sampled two to four hands, arms and snakes to put together that image alone. “I don’t like hacking on other images,” he explains over the phone from his home office. “I want it to be more my own.”
So he salvages bits and pieces from historical images and online library archives public libraries, sometimes drawing on top of them, to recreate entirely new concepts, often with a ‘60s and ‘70s feel. Then he’ll lay out some type—and as a self-proclaimed typography nerd, this is key.
For the last 13 years, Malmberg has designed posters for just under 100 shows, including mainstream acts like Mos Def and the Violent Femmes as well as indie rock band Foals and former underground pop band Luna. Next month, he will showcase some of his pieces in his second-ever poster art show, Modern Lehzure, at Cuffs in Midtown.
Visit Decabet.com and you will get a taste of Malmberg’s work. Yes, decabet, as in Dan Aykroyd’s 10-letter alphabet on Saturday Night Live.
Poster design is Malmberg’s ultimate outlet. What he hasn’t been able to get away with in his day job, he has gotten away with in poster art.
Within the last year Malmberg landed a job with a branding agency in Washington, D.C, where he is now developing his Web skills. Before that, he worked in print, as an art director for a handful of local publications, like Sacramento News & Review, Sactown Magazine and MGW.
While he was with Sactown Magazine, one of his designs popped up on T-shirts at Nordstrom sometime in 2007. You’d never know it, he says, and that’s probably all for the best. Unfortunately, his unique filigree design somehow became a part of the douche bag national uniform, he discloses.
Regardless, life wasn’t always peachy for Malmberg. If anyone has earned the seat they are sitting in now, he certainly has. It took a lengthy series of events to get him here.
To put it bluntly, “I’ve worked every shitty, low-paying job you could imagine,” he says.
This includes working fast food joints, at an eyeglass factory, in furniture assembly and smoothing down edges of windshields for eight hours a day.
Malmberg’s beginnings took place in Omaha, Neb. His teen years preceded Saddle Creek Records.
“It’s still not really cool to be from Omaha, but more than it was when I was there,” he says. “Now Omaha is sort of like a mini Athens kind of city—not Greek obviously—with their hipster cred. I was there in 1999, when it was a terrible wasteland and our claim to fame at the time, which everyone is still trying to live down, is 311.”
He studied under a “hands-off” kind of art teacher in the Omaha suburb of Bellevue, who provided Malmberg with just the right amount of guidance that made him successful. He had gallery shows before graduating from high school and went on to study at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Unfortunately, along with admittance into one of the best art schools in the country came unlimited pretentiousness.
He was surrounded by art students. To his dismay many of them were kids desperately attempting to fit social roles and convince the world they were someone other than themselves.
He quickly came to this realization: “I love people who make art, but I hate artists.”
He also realized that the Art Institute was not for him.
“I was making less art than when I was just a bum working at Taco Bell,” he remembers.
So, a year into it, Malmberg did what many students who find themselves in similar situations don’t have the courage to do—he left.
He returned to Omaha at 19 and began designing T-shirts for his friend’s skateboard gig. It seemed like a good idea at the time he said, but it didn’t last long. Then he took on the factory jobs. After that he spent three years as a rave promoter in Omaha. The last rave he threw was in 1997. It was going to be a huge party, outside. Tons of people were going to be there. This was the one that was going to lift him out of poverty, he thought.
Not quite. But it did result in him getting work laying out classified ads for a small local publication called The Reader. It started out as work to repay a debt. Up to that point he had never used a computer to design.
“I had no idea what I was doing,” he confesses.
The bus only ran twice daily between his place and the office, so rather than go home he would stay all night at the office and teach himself how to design. Eventually he was bumped up to art director.
Within about 18 months he redesigned the publication, drawing national accolades. Sacramento News & Review took notice and offered him a position as art director. He took it, and moved to Sacramento in 1999.
In 2006, he connected with the editors of Sactown Magazine when the publication was in its infancy. He became their art director, and helped create the look of the publication from its inception in 2006 until last year.
It was only a matter of time before he ran into local promoter and legend Brian McKenna in the early ‘00s. Next thing you know, Malmberg was designing posters for local shows on the side.
As his designs have improved he has become more selective about which shows he designs for. If he’s designing a poster for a show, it’s because he’s a fan of the band on the ticket. He doesn’t get paid much, if anything, for his work. He designed the Foals poster out-of-pocket. Hearing back from the band, however, is excellent compensation.
When Malmberg designed a poster for Luna’s show at Harlow’s in 2005, the band liked the design so much they asked to repurpose it as a limited edition sale item for their final show in New York. By the third show they sold out of 250 posters. The following year they used the design again for the DVD cover of their farewell tour.
Regardless of who he designs for, he makes it a point to represent the band properly through his design. For each band poster he designs, he’ll listen to the albums to come up with a theme. Each poster should have its own feel.
“You don’t want to be one of those guys who’s basically just churning out art prints and tacking band names on them, because that’s not cool,” he says. “If the bands don’t sound the same, the posters shouldn’t look the same.
“I don’t try to be literal or narrative,” he says.
That’s how he ends up with posters that look like German ice cream bar wrappers from the ‘70s, like the one he made for the Naked and Famous show. Both fun and grotesque, what looks like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup wags its tongue beneath the noses of two interlinked revolvers.
Malmberg explains the look on his website.
“With the band’s bright candy-colored-yet-tasteful aesthetic in mind, I had the idea to try to make something a little European and a lot of odd,” he says. “I started out wanting to make something bizarre in the Polish movie poster vein but ended up with something a bit more like a German ice cream bar wrapper from the ‘70s. A little pop-art, a little glam, a lot of odd.”
Check out Jason Malmberg’s Modern Lehzure at Cuffs in Midtown (2523 J Street, Sacramento) on May 11, 2013. The event is part of Second Saturday. You can learn more about Malmberg at Decabet.com. While you’re online checking out his rad designs, why not check out Cuffs’ home on the Web at Shopcuffs.com?
Dum Dum Girls, Crocodiles
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Blue Lamp – Sacramento
Words & Photo Vincent Girimonte
Dum Dum Girls maestro Dee Dee stands tall over an attentive Blue Lamp crowd eager for the “buzz show of the summer” last Tuesday, hammering away on distortion and crooning about whatever people were crooning about in 1960s Western Europe–in the movies, that is.
Niche doesn’t begin to describe this band’s appeal; the Sub Pop girls in frayed lace, leggings, and sporting beautifully chopped bangs have that production-line mannequin sound that reeks of art-school irony, but continues to resonate nonetheless.
One can’t help but wonder what shape Dum Dum Girls, who headlined Brian McKenna’s bill after local act Chelsea Wolfe and San Diego’s Crocodiles, would have taken if Dee Dee’s original bedroom project were to explore something other than the four hot-chick dynamic, and whether it would have proven more interesting.
Last Tuesday’s Blue Lamp incarnation was scintillating for its lustiness–legs, thighs, lipstick; they all nailed it–and Sandra Vu beat on drums like some steamy Amazonian coxswain. The sound, however, while pulling heavily from ‘60s pop, also seemed to play on our current infatuation with the washed-out and feminine. Lines were sometimes blurred with Vivian Girls and former HoZac Record mates The Girls at Dawn–regardless of who was there first (and despite their leggings), Dum Dum Girls is drawing from a familiar well.
This gripe doesn’t necessarily speak to Dee Dee’s (aka Kristin Gundred) ability, however. She blew a few big notes in a sort of Pat Benatar homage, shimmying just a little to the rhythm with a menacing scowl. Her vocals meshed nicely atop the pervasive lo-fi guitars with bassist Bambi and fellow guitarist Jules, both statuesque in the literal sense, playing foils to Dee Dee’s subtle charm. In short, there was nothing wrong with the snappy set, but nothing terribly distinguishing about it either.
I Will Be, Dum Dum Girls’ 2010 release, was co-produced by Richard Gottehrer, a pop veteran who wrote such classics as “My Boyfriend’s Back” and “I Want Candy.” An old-school catchiness permeates through I Will Be, re-imagining and alluding to a time when crisp numbers reigned with Wall of Sound production. Not everyone was buying it at the Blue Lamp, though, or maybe we’ve just become tired of it for the second time around.
Patrons spilled out of the venue on Alhambra and N for fresh air between sets–Blue Lamp regulars claim it as Sacramento’s muggiest venue, which of course is amplified by June-coming-on-July heat. Ordinarily, such a spot deems tight leather jackets a nuisance not worth the classic motif, but strutting and strapped in to his Italian diaper was Crocodiles singer Brandon Welchez, quite committed to the whole “I’m fucking awesome” thing, propped up by the fact that he sounded pretty fucking awesome. New single “Sleep Forever” is a soaring hip-thruster, and tracks from their decidedly average 2009 Summer of Hate album seemed well suited for all 10 cubic feet (roughly) of the Blue Lamp. And even if you weren’t buying it, with the Crocs or the Dum Dums, you had to admit: they were selling it pretty hard.
Local Promoter Brian McKenna Prepares for His 40th Birthday and his 20th Anniversary Booking Shows in Sacramento
Twenty years ago, Brian McKenna was a record store clerk, dropping flyers to his shows at the Cattle Club in every bag of records out the door. Now, McKenna is 20 years of promotional work deep. He’s booked every band you love, gathered two lifetimes’ worth of stories and still makes time for shows he doesn’t book. McKenna is a grown man looking at 40 years of life and still spends his days digging for new music that will blow his mind.
McKenna books everything. He’s seen the coming and going of trends like they were cars viewed from the side of a freeway. According to his promotional company’s Myspace page, Abstract Entertainment has booked every variety of band falling between Ani DiFranco and White Zombie. In his younger days, he was booking more than 100 shows a year. With no signs of letting up, McKenna lives in venues. His weekly regimen might range from nights at the Blue Lamp with Lyrics Born to awkward looks from hipsters at The Hub.
In the early ’90s, he brought Mudhoney, Pearl Jam (when it was still known as Mookie Blaylock) and Nirvana to Sacramento before the term “grunge” was coined. He heard songs from acclaimed records like Ten and Nevermind live in dingy low-ceiling holes, before they became platinum records. “Most folks don’t think Nirvana ever played Sacramento,” he says. “They played here three times. But, it was before Nevermind. The best shows you’re going to see from a band, arguably, are when they’re young and hungry and haven’t had a hit yet.”
His show obsession is unquenchable. “I’m at the shows I book, but on my nights off I’m typically at another show,” McKenna says. “When I go to another city, I’m grabbing all the weeklies to see who’s in town. I could be on vacation, whatever; there might be somebody great.”
Once, on a brief vacation in Prague, he did resist the temptation to drag a girlfriend to see a band he’d previously worked with. If it was a band he loved, he asserts, they would have gone. “I don’t date people who aren’t into shows,” he says. “They will quickly realize I will sacrifice quite a bit to go see a good show.” If he ever lost that willingness to sacrifice he’d get a straight job, McKenna concedes—but it’s a knee-jerk response. He wears his loyalty to independent music as casually as his jeans and flannel.
As an independent business man, McKenna’s never taken a corporate sponsorship, preferring to be the provider of his own means. Though he had offers along the way to join the suits, he stayed local in hopes the Sacramento scene would blow up. “I really didn’t want to be punching the clock and putting on a suit and a tie,” he says. “I’m probably better off making my own hours, my own schedule and not answering to anybody.”
McKenna decided to become his own boss after Spirit Records in Rancho Cordova closed. He started Abstract Entertainment in 1994. He might not have pulled a Jim Brewer-style “who’s coming with me?” speech, but he did coax two former Spirit employees to join him, one to be his box office manager and the other to be his production manager. “I worked with those two guys until 2000,” he says.
McKenna’s weathered his share of storms and has elected to see the current economic crisis’ effect on the scene as just another challenge to endure. “The people who are going out to small club [and bar] shows are a really finite number,” he says. “It’s affected by the night of the week, what’s on TV. Even with TiVo, you’re still competing.”
It does not help that Sacramento is a city with its back to the youth, the people who go to shows the most. He’s far past the twilight of his youth, but the memories of being shut out from the venue hosting his favorite band lingers. McKenna laments the loss of all-ages venues, like his first employer, The Cattle Club, and the El Dorado Saloon.
“Unfortunately, the powers that be in our government town are not open to the idea of an all-ages venue,” he says. “They don’t look at it as a chance to keep kids off the streets and out of trouble. They look at is as ‘there’s kids out here listening to music I don’t understand, so it can’t be a good thing.’ Why not have a safe place for them to go?”
McKenna admits his own hesitation to jump into the all-ages movement. Sacramento’s 18-and-up venues are the exceptionally large Empire club and a collection of small pizza parlors and coffeehouses holding a maximum of 100 people.
“A lot of the bands I [book], it’s just too small for them,” he says. “I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for the ideal venue that holds 500 kids of all ages and allows 21-and-up to drink to open in Sacramento proper.”
After a return from Burning Man over the summer, McKenna is now preparing for his End of My 30s tour. His birthday week plans include a road trip from San Diego back to Sacramento, following Jesus Lizard, Butthole Surfers and the Melvins through California. The tour concludes with his 20×40 show, an event celebrating 20 years of promotion on his 40th birthday.
“I put Harlow’s on hold a year ago,” he says. “The idea was I wanted to take some of the bands I started with 20 years ago and all bands I truly love and travel to see if they are playing within a 100 miles to commemorate the anniversary.”
He is bringing in Canadian punks No Means No, who made Sacramento its anchor date; mid-’90s local band Kai KlN; and new blood Triclops. With a little luck, he was even able to steal Mike Watt away from Iggy Pop for the night.
“He’s a friend and the first time I set foot in Cattle Club, it was to see him in Firehose,” McKenna says. “I sent an invitation to him, but understood that if Iggy says the Stooges need to be in Germany, Mike Watt will be in Germany. Time went by and he called me up, asking if it was too late to get on the bill. I had the show booked, but I couldn’t tell Mike Watt he’s too late.”
