Classic Posters - Interview With Todd Slater by Paul Grushkin

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Concert Posters - Interview with Todd Slater by Paul Grushkin Concert Posters - Interview with ToddSlater by Paul Grushkin

Yo La Tengo by Todd Slater

Produced by Michael Erlewine([email protected])

"He caught on pretty quick." That's theword on the hot, new Texas-basedposter artist Todd Slater, coming fromcollectors, fellow artists, and even hisscreenprinter, Steve Horvath of D & L

Screenprint in Seattle. Horvath prints asmany as 20 posters a month (often in400 piece, 8-color, large-format runs) forJustin Hampton, Emek, the artist-association known as PNE (Hampton,Emek, and Jermaine Rogers), andbeginning recently for David Witt andRob Jones.

Slater's work from halfway through 2004to the present shows how a burgeoningposter talent and a master screenprintercan combine to create spellbindingconcert advertisements for majoralternative bands that have becomecollectible art pieces. Says Horvath,"Todd at first wasn't hip to all thepossibilities. But when I showed himproofs of Emek's work, and in

discussing the mechanics of buildingJustin's work, he saw how colorenhancement thru metallic inks andunusual color blends can increase therichness and depth of the final piece. Isee him really beginning to hit his stride.Now when I get a new design in fromTodd, I often think to myself, 'this isgoing to be fun.'"

I spoke over the phone with Todd at hisdesign studio in his home, two hours asthe crow flies outside of Dallas.

Paul Grushkin: So tell me, you're aTexan?

Todd Slater: I am now. I was born inPeoria, Illinois. We moved to Texaswhen I was five years old. I was inAustin for many years and then I went tocollege in east Texas and I'm stillregretting that [laughs].

Arcade Fire by Todd Slater

Paul Grushkin: Where did you go toschool in east Texas?

Todd Slater: Stephen F. Austin. Igraduated with an art degree in 2003with an emphasis in graphic design.

Paul Grushkin: What did you do post-college? Did you immediately seek workat an ad agency?

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Concert Posters - Interview with Todd Slater by Paul Grushkin Todd Slater: I looked for straight jobsand I couldn't get any. So I continuedworking in a screen printing shop(Tattoo Productions - smart guys.) doingillustrations for t-shirts. I'd done thatpart-time while I was in school and I justtook that on full-time when I got out. Ididn't do much of the printing myself, butthe elements I learned there definitelyhelped with my knowledge of theprinting process for posters.

Paul Grushkin: That meant mechanicallyyou were instructed in the proper rootsway with Rubylith.

Todd Slater: Yes, there was a LOT of

cut Rubylith [laughs].

Rev. Horton Heat by Todd Slater

Paul Grushkin: As a kid, were you ascribbler?

Taking Back Sunday by Todd Slater

Todd Slater: I always drew. I even drawwhen I'm on the phone - I make littleconcentric circles when I'm talking. I'malways drawing something. I sketchevery day. I was lucky in that myparents were always encouraging.

Paul Grushkin: The things that youpicked up in college, how were theygermane to your work today?

Todd Slater: In college, I found lookingthrough art history you discover whatyou like - you're educated as to all thathappened previously. You're taking arthistory classes, always good, and you'relearning some of the basics, which isgood and bad depending on who'sforcing what down your throat (laughs).College makes sense if it gives youperspective and focus. But it can beinsular too. You know, like living on an

island.Paul Grushkin: Were you influenced atthat time by knowledge of the Austinscene and Frank Kozik's meteoric rise inthe early 1990's?

Todd Slater: I knew the name Kozik, butI wasn't that influenced by rock & roll



Concert Posters - Interview with Todd Slater by Paul Grushkin poster artists. On the other hand, therewas this Chicago movement fromaround

1966 - 1968 called the "Hairy Who." I

think Keith Herzik mentioned it in ARTOF MODERN ROCK as havinginfluenced him too. When I tripped overit, I thought, 'this is great. This is exactlywhat I want my own stuff to feel like.' Mywork doesn't look like that, but I'm stillreally influenced by it.

Paul Grushkin: So you like 'rebelliousdeconstructivism,' something of thatnature?

Todd Slater: Yes, because you're taughtart is supposed to be 'this,' and then yousee something completely different fromyour earlier points of reference, as inseeing what Peter Saul was all about . .. and I really, really liked it. It was funny.It turned me on. I just liked everythingabout it. I liked the rebellious parts too.

Paul Grushkin: Is it in art school you'retaught to faithfully reproduce a conceptor direction, to be able to see something

and replicate it - especially in terms ofcommercial potential? Then, only whenyou have that capability down will 'they'allow you to deviate from that point. AmI right? I've never been to art school.

Todd Slater: Yes, I would agree withthat.

Paul Grushkin: Because in commercialwork you're basically asked to fulfill acampaign. If it's advertising a product,

basically it's less interpretation as it is aform of replication and enhancement.

Todd Slater: Definitely. So many peopleask me to ape styles and stuff like that. Ican't tell you how many times I hearthat!

Paul Grushkin: Which gets prettyfrustrating if you're a rock and roller whoby nature wants to break out.

Todd Slater: Oh yes [laughs], you don't

want to do that - duplicating effort overand over. You always want to do yourown thing. You want to have as littlecompromise as humanly possible.

Paul Grushkin: So did you manage toleave east Texas?

They Might Be Giants by Todd

Slater Todd Slater: Well, I'm still . . . I'm inTyler, Texas right now which is still eastTexas, but while I was working at thatscreen printing shop I foundGigposters.com. For the first time, farfrom the 'happening scene,' I was ableto put names to people's work that I'dseen before. I realized after a couple ofweeks of looking at this site that makingconcert posters was something I

absolutely wanted to do.ClassicPosters.com also has increasedmy knowledge of the overall posterscene, especially the artists of thepsychedelic period.



Concert Posters - Interview with Todd Slater by Paul Grushkin Paul Grushkin: Were you listening to alot of rock and roll all through highschool and in college?

Todd Slater: Yes. I mostly listened to a

TON of Ween. I also was listening toSonic Youth, the Pixies and the MeatPuppets. Yes, I was listening to rockand roll all through college. I wasexposed to a lot of different new musicstyles - which is part of the reason to goto college.

Paul Grushkin: Just looking at the 57pieces currently posted onGigposters.com of your work, in thebeginning you didn't have a style, or

hadn't yet found a style. I mean, youliked bright color, that was pretty clear.But you were not yet someone who'dtruly cut loose.

Todd Slater: When people first startposting on Gigposters.com their postersalways look a certain way, almostclumsy like. Then you look at whateverybody else is doing and you startseeing other posters that have more

relevance than yours. It's at thatmoment your thought process opens up.The possibilities just start to makesense, and seem endless rather thanconstricted. Maybe my first efforts wererestricted in their scope of imaginationbecause I didn't make those posters forother people to see 'outside of myneighborhood.' I made them thinking afew people will see them and that's that.But . . . when you submit something to apowerful site where hundreds if notthousands of people are watching, youbegin to realize a lot of people are goingreact to your work in relation to a wholelot of other work, and you start thinkingharder about things like typography andimage choice. Of course, given thespotlight, there's also the tendency to

over-think and get too arty! You neverwant to get too full of yourself.

They Might Be Giants by Todd Slater

Paul Grushkin: I agree, great poster artis a marriage between technique andimagination. Jeff Kleinsmith of Sub Popand Patent Pending says that the realbreakthrough comes from a betterunderstanding of typography. Thehardest task is to integrate type with anoff-the-wall idea. You want to be looseas heck, but poor type choices can trip

you up, mess with your statement, pullpower from your concept. How do youdeal with your work getting looser, butstill having the need to communicate asan advertising piece?

Todd Slater: I always think my posterscome out better when it's for a band Ihaven't yet listened to. I think thepressures off then. In fact, I think thebest way to get loose is to do a poster

for a band you don't even listen to.You're forced to work more creatively atit, to get at something meaningful thatdraws attention to their show.

Paul Grushkin: In other words when youfeel you're in uncharted territory, you'rebetter off.



Concert Posters - Interview with Todd Slater by Paul Grushkin Todd Slater: My dream job would be todo a poster for every date of a Weentour, but I think the pressure would justkill me. I think I'd be thinking . . .because I'm such a big fan of the band .. . I'd be thinking 'what would they thinkabout this?' Everything would have to beimpossibly perfect. I'm sure I'd over thinkeach piece because I know their ownwork too well. Compare that to, say,Velvet Revolver, which is not a bandthat I listen to. But I like the way theposter came out - in fact, the conceptand execution came almost easily.

Paul Grushkin: Well, then you'd have to

say one of the hardest things would tohave been the Ames Brothers andforcing yourself to reinterpret Pearl Jam200 different times.

Todd Slater: I've the utmost respect forCoby and Barry at Ames. Their work is aperfect example of loose and tight.Ames, and Patent Pending, AestheticApparatus, and Heads of State . . . for

just those reasons we've been speakingabout, these would be a few of my

favorite poster artists.

Paul Grushkin: What do you admireabout their thinking, or take from theirapproach?

Pretty Girls Make Graves by Todd Slater

Todd Slater: The best poster artists re-invent themselves. When they're on a

roll, every one of their posters iscompletely different. And talk about thepressure in which to think like that - theAmes Bros. alone are at the top of theclass. I remember reading in ART OFMODERN ROCK that sometimes theydidn't get the green light until Monday,with the finished piece due on Friday tomake a concert date. And it had toshine, had to stand out, among all thathad come before. Amazing. You can

learn from that, you know!Paul Grushkin: Very true!

Todd Slater: To be able to just bangthem out in that short amount of timeand to be able to come up withinteresting images every time, my ohmy.

Paul Grushkin: Well at Ames, they'vecreated an image bank where thingsthat they've seen, not quite from

childhood, but certainly from college onthey've thrown into various drawers,files, and folders. So this way they've arich repository to pull from and rely on toget some instant-active imagination. Butthe fact is to even create that archiveyou have to be actively watching theworld go by. Kozik's like that - he has agreat library. I'd imagine Mike King doestoo.

Todd Slater: Somehow every posterCoby and Barry do looks totally differentbut still says "Ames." It's just crazy. I'mhoping I might achieve something likethat over the course of time.

Paul Grushkin: I'm going to take notsuch a wild leap and say that with yournew Rev. Horton Heat, Taking Back



Concert Posters - Interview with Todd Slater by Paul Grushkin Sunday, Cramps, and Velvet Revolverpieces, you're beginning to hit yourstride. Something's happening here.Now, do you feel that too?

Todd Slater: Yes. I think because I'mdoing this every day now, there's not aday that goes by I don't work on aposter.

Paul Grushkin: Is it your day job?

Todd Slater: My day job is a freelancegraphic designer. I do other freelancedesign, but posters are a lot of that andit's becoming more and more of that.

Bad Religion by Todd Slater

Paul Grushkin: Are you now seekinggigs or are people coming to you?

Todd Slater: I do still seek out gigs, butmore and more people are coming tome.

Paul Grushkin: Give me an example ofpeople coming to you.

Todd Slater: I'm doing a final poster forLuna's final four shows at the BoweryBallroom. I always wanted to dosomething for a New York venue andthe Bowery Ballroom is this legendaryplace so I'm really excited about that.

Paul Grushkin: As excited about havingdone the Modest Mouse and Keaneposters for the 'new Fillmore' series?

Todd Slater: Yes, I was happy to do

those. Knowing the history of the BillGraham series and how many greatartists have been associated with it -from Rick Griffin to Chris Shaw - Iapproached Arlene Owseichik, who wasthe longtime Art Director there until veryrecently. I basically begged her to giveme that Modest Mouse poster [laughs].And she didn't want to either; she didn'tknow who the heck I was. But I'm agood persuader (laughs).

Paul Grushkin: Exposure in major citiesis a must. Even though the NewFillmore' series pays dirt cheap, the factis, now you're IN the Fillmore series. Butthe bigger picture is of course gettingwork for tour, through the merchandisingcompanies like Bravado, FEA, andSignatures Network.

Todd Slater: I do a lot for Signatures,maybe a couple jobs a month for them

now. Scott Corkins, Aimee Bruckner,Darryl Kenwood, Tania Chu are great towork with. I just finished stuff for theYeah Yeah Yeahs and I got approvalson a couple of designs for Incubus,Madonna, and Primus. Their roster iscertainly as good a mainstream rosteras there is in rock and roll. They usuallygive you about a week to do the jobs,which is fine. I like that there arebasically no laborious revisionsinvolved; they either take it or they don't.

Paul Grushkin: Now do they furtheradapt them for the purpose of addingthe type and any logo treatments etcetera?

Todd Slater: Yes, I always have to sendthem an Illustrator file and they tweak itfrom there. I've seen the finished



Concert Posters - Interview with Todd Slater by Paul Grushkin product and the printing on the shirts istop quality. No problems with theirhitting high production standards.

Misfits by Todd Slater

Paul Grushkin: Well they've one of thelegends of rock and roll working forthem - Frank Vacanti, their productioncoordinator. Have you ever spoken withFrank?

Todd Slater: No, but I've heard a lotabout him.

Paul Grushkin: Frank ran production forSignatures' predecessor, WinterlandProductions, in San Francisco and later,briefly, in Oakland. He owns the recordsfor t-shirts printed in an hour, in a day, ina week, in a month, in a year, and for atour. He supervised printing for thelargest tours on record, Grateful Dead,Springsteen, Madonna, U2, New Kids,Ozzy, you name it.

Todd Slater: I can appreciate that. Evenin the shop I worked at, there was asuper competitive level that motivatedeveryone through the complete job. Itwas always, how many shirts can weprint in a day? Can we keep that highquality all through the run? I think thatsets you up for doing quality work in

printing posters too. I mean, it's whatI've come to respect from SteveHorvath's work at D & L Screenprint; my

job is to come up with inspirationalideas, and his is to execute top qualityproduction that also makes thedeadlines. I just try not to make toomany changes by the point he begins toburn the screens!

Cramps by Todd Slater

Paul Grushkin: Now, you chose D & Lbecause of Justin Hampton?

Todd Slater: Actually, poster dealerDave Mayer at PhilaArts in Philadelphiasaid he was a good guy to print with andI went to Steve's website and saw heprinted for Emek and Hampton and thePNE team of Emek, Hampton, andJermaine Rogers. So I arranged to get aposter printed with Steve and he gaveme a really fast turn around time, andthe quality was top notch. Then, I began

doing so many posters that I wassending him the files on Monday and hewas having them printed and shipped byWednesday. This was all my stuff fromthe fourth quarter of 2004, when I wasdoing two posters a week. It was a lotfor him to print, for sure. Without Steve'sattention to detail and his teaching me



Concert Posters - Interview with Todd Slater by Paul Grushkin about metallic inks and such, I don'tthink I'd have achieved the next level inmy work so quickly.

Paul Grushkin: Todd, I'm going to say

this as best I can: You're probably thefinest new artist not to have appeared inART OF MODERN ROCK.

Pixies by Todd Slater

Todd Slater: I appreciate that verymuch, Paul.

Paul Grushkin: When Dennis King and I

first got to know you, things were still . . .well, you hadn't broken out in terms ofstyle or interpretation quite yet. Sure,that was Dennis' and my opinion, but Ithink you'd agree. In a funny way, wekind of regret the book came out when itdid, just before Christmas, because itnever had a chance to include your trulyemergent work. But that work appearedliterally just after, when the book had togo to press.

Todd Slater: I knew that my posterswere improving - and I've still got a longway to go - but knowing about the book,knowing that so many top quality artistsand designers were going to be in it, likeit was going to become the 'ultimate

yearbook' of our modern-day scene,was a form of motivation all in itself.

Paul Grushkin: When you look back atyour earliest work, which we can still

see on Gigposters.com, and comparingit to the stuff that started to come out inthe fourth quarter of 2004, how do youexplain the difference?

Slayer by Todd Slater

Todd Slater: I wish that I could take thefirst stuff off Gigposters; I really don't

want anybody seeing that anymore[laughs]. I just think that when I didthose first posters, I wasn't reallythinking about posters as much as I donow. I wasn't thinking about an efficientway to communicate whatever I wastrying to say. I just think as I kept doingposters there were less and lessintrusive elements in the posters and theconcepts kept getting tighter.

Paul Grushkin: For example, right now

you're expressing a great love affair withheadshots that are twisted and bent inyour imagination.

Todd Slater: That comes right out ofPeter Saul's influence on me. He had ashow of heads and portraits that sort oflooked liked enlarged "Garbage Pail"



Concert Posters - Interview with Todd Slater by Paul Grushkin kids or something. It just comes fromreally liking that guy, I think.

Paul Grushkin: You also had a period oftime when you fell in love with black and

red. Tell me about that because RobJones went through the same thing withpart of an earlier White Stripes series.

Todd Slater: Yes, Rob's a good friend.After I made my separations I always flipthe color. I'm able to flip the colors onthe computer digitally very quickly andsee, okay do I want it to be these threecolors or these two colors. Red andblack just became the most forceful tome. I just thought that scheme worked

best, and also financially it was cheaperto do two colors because I was printingso many posters.

Paul Grushkin: After that black and redperiod when you were teaching yourselfsimplicity in color management, thenyou went into a further reductive mode,in other words stripping out lots of thecomplex content that was in thosepieces and then concentrating on the

head shots themselves, manipulatingthe shapes of the faces and changingtheir angularity or ellipse aspects, at thatpoint it became tremendously interestingfor the person enjoying the exercise.When you're moving away from theprosaic into the deconstruct/reconstruct,suddenly you're making people abeliever in unusual shapes.

Col. Claypool by Todd Slater

Todd Slater: Actually a lot of the postersdo start off as just kinds of shapes. Likethere was a sort of diamond shape forthe Rev. Horton Heat poster, that was

just kind of interesting to me, and Ithought what other kind of shapes can Iput around this, and it's like okay, well,this is kind of turning into a face now. Alot of times the full thought processoriginates from something as basic asan interesting starting shape.

Paul Grushkin: Now, you also likethinking big and I guess that SteveHorvath is very adept at realizing thingsin big formats. With the exception of theFillmore poster, is most of the last of thestuff from 2004, 24" x 36"?

Todd Slater: It's usually been 17" x 24". Ithink that's a good poster size. I'vebought posters as a collector and whenyou're shelling out something over $25,

like $35 or $50, it's always a nice bonuswhen it's a big poster.



Concert Posters - Interview with Todd Slater by Paul Grushkin

Franz Ferdinand by Todd Slater

Paul Grushkin: What pound weight isthe paper you're using?

Todd Slater: It's 150 pound,manufactured by French.

Paul Grushkin: It's paper that is veryagreeable to silkscreen, am I correct?

Todd Slater: Yes, that's one of the waysthey advertise their product. It's reallynice paper.

Paul Grushkin: Why is that paper criticalto silkscreen? What is it about theprocess about laying ink upon thatpaper that makes that paper useful?

Todd Slater: It's not that absorbent, sothe ink doesn't soak into the paper andget it wrinkled. It doesn't bleed verymuch; it holds ink very well. They have aSpeckletone paper that I really like; ithas such a nice texture. Good paper isimportant to achieving production

deadlines, actually. With good paperthat dries well, Steve can do an editionof 150 - 200, maybe two to three colors,in a single day, even if I sent him thefilms that morning.

Wilco Fire by Todd Slater

Paul Grushkin: Are you sending himthrough an FTP site?

Todd Slater: Yes, I either FTP him or Isend them directly through e-mail. Weboth have big e-mail accounts so wecan attach big files.

Paul Grushkin: That is such a change inthe weather. Stainboy was telling mewhat he and Andy Stern at Diesel Fuelare doing now could not be achieved

otherwise.Todd Slater: Right. It makes things a loteasier. Hugely easier.

Paul Grushkin: So you say that youreditions are generally about 150 piecesnow?

Todd Slater: Yes. It was a 100 for a longwhile, but I've been moving to 150. Hey,there's a demand (laughs). Got to gowith the demand (laughs). But don't get

me wrong, I'm grateful there IS ademand.

Paul Grushkin: Your arrangement withthe club or the concert promoter and theband - are you seeking permission firstfrom the club owner or concertpromoter?



Concert Posters - Interview with Todd Slater by Paul Grushkin Todd Slater: That's usually the way I doit, I usually go through the promoter. I'mdoing Neko Case and Luna at theBowery and the arrangement I have withthem now is that I'll give 50 posters ofthe 150, they can have those formerchandise to sell that night and thenthe other 100 are mine to sell to makeup printing and design cost.

Paul Grushkin: And the Bowery ofcourse will get a portion for posting.

Todd Slater: Yes, I send 25 to them forpromo and I send a digital file too forthem to print off, if they want to use that.

Guided by Voices Fire by Todd Slater

Paul Grushkin: Do you know in factthey're using the work for promo?

Todd Slater: Yes. There's that criticism,that concern. I read that a lot comingfrom artists and collectors - do thesethings ever get hung? I know when I doposters for Dallas gigs, I hang some ofthem myself. I'm, say, two hours outsideof Dallas and I do check with the clubsand make sure that they're putting mypieces up, so people can see them. But,if you're going to do an edition of only150, then after the split to think the

whole city is going to be papered withthem, it's not going to happen. But thereare now key places where posters arealways posted, and people have learnedto expect to see them there. So I'm legit(laughs).

Paul Grushkin: On that point, one of thekey criticisms expressed since themodern rock poster scene doubled, thentripled, then quadrupled, was made byChloe Lum from Seripop - a poster isn'ta poster until it's posted in a publicspace. It can't just be a digital filepassed among friends or seen only on awebsite. Even when we were

composing ART OF MODERN ROCK,the rule was that you had to send in theactual poster. Posters are physicalworks. If it's shown to the public publicly,it qualifies, just as it did in the BelleEpoch time of Toulouse Lautrec andCheret, or Stanley Mouse and RickGriffin in late '60s San Francisco, orJohn Van Hamersveld in Los Angeles orGary Grimshaw at the same time inDetroit.

Velvet Revolver by Todd Slater

Todd Slater: Good point, not to mentionthat posted posters are promotional foryou the poster artist, as well. They're



Concert Posters - Interview with Todd Slater by Paul Grushkin like giant business cards when you hangthem up around a city. The goal has tobe, "I'm gonna be known as the Dallasposter guy."

Paul Grushkin: Are some of you'reeditions now completely gone? Are theytruly collector's items now?

Todd Slater: Oh yes, I tried to archive 10for myself at the very beginning, but it

just didn't happen. There were timeswhen I needed the money, and pretty-printed paper equalled money. Thereare a couple of posters where I mayhave only one or two left. It's trickycollecting modern rock posters in these

small editions. It's like you have tocultivate certain artists and be instantlyaware when they've issued a new piece.It's funny when pieces start at $25, andsuddenly the issue is gone. You can seewhy they'd be worth $100 or more,depending. And in ten years, or twentyyears, who can say?

Paul Grushkin: I was just at a show inSacramento and saw some of Paul

Imagine's pieces going for $200 - $300,because they were the last ones of arun. The only ones left. If you love hiswork, that's what it's legitimately worth. Ithink Emek was the first of the modernday artists to understand this. He's beenvery consistent in holding to legitimateprices based on, initially, demand andthen in due course, scarcity.

Todd Slater: Right. There's a lot to learnfrom the experience of the top artists,

and from the marketplace itself.Jermaine Rogers had a quote in ARTOF MODERN ROCK about how theworth of something is exactly equal towhat a person is prepared to pay for it. Imean, what is a great, sold out, low-runJeff Kleinsmith poster worth, these

days? Close to $500, I should think.Probably more.

Paul Grushkin: On the other hand doyou think we'll get to the point where it's

no longer a $20 poster in the beginning,but more like a $30 or $40 poster?

Todd Slater: I would say yes if you'regoing to do something like Emek isdoing, where the production budget onthe poster is much bigger, which speaksto his amazing 3D posters. I believe ifyou're going to ask that, you're going tooffer something that merits more money.

Paul Grushkin: As you look around at

the best modern rock today, did youever imagine you'd be at the top of yourgame with the top bands?

Todd Slater: No [laughs]. No, I'd neverpictured that early on, as I was justsomeone who loved alternative rock.Maybe not until recently. Not to getahead of myself here, but the point ofbeing RIGHT THERE is that the bestbands are writing the songs and doingthe gigs, and you're making the posters.

In a weird way, in these times, that'swhat you're being counted on to do. Imean the inspiration is the music itself.It's pretty much all there for listening andtaking the next steps as a graphic artist.If you don't know what to do for a band,go and listen to their music.



Concert Posters - Interview with Todd Slater by Paul Grushkin

Keane by Todd Slater

Paul Grushkin: I guess it goes like this:you pick up the CD, you go throughsome songs, you listen to what jumpsout and hopefully your drawing handtwitches.

Todd Slater: Right [laughs]. It's all inyour mind. You could hear a lyric andwhat comes to mind is maybesomething from your childhood, or whathappened a year ago just out of college,and while it might not be the same thing

Wilco's Jeff Tweedy was thinking aboutwhen he wrote the lyric, it's ok - it's yoursingular thing that you're saying there,it's your idea for them. People shouldcheck out the approach Decoder Ringhas taken in doing their new ModestMouse series, which is their - the posterdesigners - interpretation of lines fromsongs, setting up the concept for theconcert posters.

Paul Grushkin: Do you feel that you canremain in Texas and work out of yourhome or do you feel that someday you'llwant to relocate?

Todd Slater: Because of the Internet,the world is electronic. I can work out ofmy home, wherever my home is.Nevertheless, east Texas is east Texas,

and maybe living in a bigger city, evenAustin, certainly Dallas, would provideadditional stimulation. I'd love one day tolive in New York. That would be mydream for sure, to live in New York.What you miss by not living in SanFrancisco or Seattle or New York arethe things going on everywhere aroundyou. Things you can see on weekendsor nights when you're not working - thethings that don't happen in small townsor smaller cities. It's that stimulationthing. You want to keep expanding yourbrain with the weirdest thingsimaginable.

Green Day by Todd Slater

Classic Posters - Interview With Todd Slater by Paul Grushkin

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