7 Years Ago I TEE'd These Up

Nothing like a little time travel...

Also Available in XL

Another Tee Shirt design I saw today.


http://rumplo.com/tees/tee/4477-self-pity




And a girl on a lion. Cause that happens every day...
Have a good weekend.

XL Meaning

I need a new ironic tee shirt
Something quirky and hip
Bold and dripping with wit
By an artist so obscure
It is assured
Of him you have never heard
It needs a political message
Some social commentary
So pithy and surprising
With Xtra Large meaning
That it hits you where you live
Changes all your preconceptions
Poignant, sharp-tongued optimism
With boots in the street
And no embarrassing corporate connections
That’s what I need
A mighty new black tee shirt
To change the world
To fully express the irony
That is me
In an organic fair trade tee

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Credits: Poetry, Collage and Credits by Jay Larsen

Heads Will Roll Video

The Thunder Echo Ensemble has been back in the studio.
Good things are brewing and there is talk about a new album although there are no schedules yet. Just good jams.

Here is a sneak peak for my 23 loyal fans.
It's a story about hitting the road and seeing what you might find.
A short video of a poem that made its debut right here on the blog, complete with some TEE magic to add to the atmosphere:


Here is a link for those who can't see the embedded video above: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4EidGRA69U

Remember, you can listen to TEE's previous albums at WhatDoWeKnow.com
As always, let us know what you think.
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Credits: Words by Jay Larsen
Music by The Thunder Echo Ensemble
Collages by Jay Larsen

Thunder Echo Ensemble – WTF?

A guy at work asked me the other day, “Thunder Echo Ensemble, what the f@#% is that?” I was wearing a TEE Shirt with the cover of the new CD on it.
(The new Thunder Echo Ensemble CD, Just Now, is available FREE by the way, so go download it.)
So I said, “Thunder Echo is a band that I am in.”
That was a good enough answer for this particular guy, but I knew that it went much deeper than that. So here is my attempt to answer that question in a more genuine way (even though you didn’t ask).

As a young man and a young artist I tried really hard to be original. But I found that my artwork was always directly or indirectly derivative. And the more I studied other artists’ work the more I realized that nobody was doing original work, nobody. That got me interested in collage and other methods of directly exploring how artists create new combinations of elements instead of creating new elements.

Take the cover of the new CD for example. Now this illustration would traditionally be called an original work of art. I sat down with a blank canvas and drew things on it. But as the artist I can tell you that there is very little originality in this piece. I have been exposed to a wide variety of art and artistic techniques in the past. I have looked at thousands of paintings and thousands of comics. I did not invent the concepts of Eskimos or shamans or ceremonial masks. I took all these things and put them together at a specific time and place. And the results are rather pleasing (if I do say so myself). It is a drawing. It is art. And that is okay. But it is not original (Everybody is a critic).

I also do a lot of visual collage work, where I literally take other peoples’ images, cut them up and reconstruct them into new configurations. And I think collage is just as legitimate as that CD cover illustration. It is just a little easier for others to see and trace the influences and components of a collage.

When I make music I do the same thing. I collect influences and actual bits of music created by others. I use computer programs to help me sequence these bits into interesting new configurations. I add a few bits of my own: vocals, keyboard parts, etc.. I am basically a musical collage artist as well.

So when I wanted to share my music with other people I did not think it was entirely fair to say, this is my Original Music. I feel there are very few lightning flashes of true originality in music (or anything else). Most of us are lucky if we can get close to the thunder from those flashes once in a while. And with my musical talent (or lack there of), I figured I was lucky if I could capture a few distant echoes of the thunder. That is how I came up with the name, Thunder Echo. I thought about calling it the Thunder Echo Assembly, because of the collage aspect, but I settle on the Thunder Echo Ensemble because it sounds more musical.

That is my theory and why I call my music and my blog Thunder Echo. And you can take that, chop it up and rearrange it if you can manage to create something interesting out of it.

Snap! Crackle! Pop Music!