Home Grown is a great spot with good food – lots of vegetarian options and well worth checking out, especially with the weather getting warmer.   And if you’re planning on heading down to Newark for the debut show of my new band, The Lift Up (Friday May 11th), it’s a good spot to grab dinner and drinks before hand (hint hint). 126 East Main Street, Newark, DE.

I just wanted to quickly thank Bob K for inviting me to be a member and contributor – to be listed among so many other talented artist and skateboarders (including more than a few childhood heroes) was and is truly an honor.  And through my involvement in the site, I’ve met a lot of really cool people and have had a few great opportunities come my way (like working with Science Skateboards on a board graphic.) So, yeah, I feel very grateful to have been a part of this. Hopefully I will get to collaborate with everyone again somewhere down the road.  Onward and forward as always.

Special thanks as well to Amber B for carrying the torch over the past year.

And the site will stay up in an archival form, for those who want to take a look through.

Mixed media on paper

15″ x 20″

Jan 2012.

Prints are available over at society6.com.

MTV provided a specific reference photo for the illustration, as well as the EMA logo, a style guide and three specific colors that needed to be used (the pink, purple and dark purple that you see in the poster, which, as you might imagine, proved a little difficult to work with.)  After a few rounds of back and forth, what you see to your left is what we came up with.

Internally the folks at MTV Design dug it, but higher-ups in the company decided to go a totally different direction, preferring to use a photo of the soon-to-be-announced host instead.  A bummer for sure but what can you do.

So, instead of leaving this to languish in some digital graveyard, I decided to post it here for your enjoyment.  Like Kurtis Blow said, these are the breaks.

I was honored to be asked to design the record sleeve, which features the collage, In Adhesion on the cover. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that it’s much more satisfying working on a 12 inch record, rather than a rinky-dinky CD jacket so I personally can’t wait to see the finished product. I’ve heard both sides, and they’re really good – you can check them out for yourself down below – but be sure to pick up a copy of the record as well, since these guys put a lot of blood, sweat, tears and money into this thing. Honestly, I was first approached about doing the artwork around this time last year, so these guys have been working on this for a few years now. As always, support good music.

Also playing that night are Troubled Hips (who I keep hearing nothing but great things about) and Easy Pyramids, so it should be a good night. The show started at 8:30 pm and is $7 at the door. Friday, August 19th at the World Cafe Live at the Queen, 500 N. Market Street, Wilmington, DE.

Copies of the EP will be avialable on this site shortly as well, once we get the new store up and running. Stay tuned true believers.

And on a side note, some of you might remember the Atlas track, Blue Lakes, from mighty joe castro podcast #2, Something to be proud of.

All proceeds from the sale of these shirts will go toward pouring new concrete obstacles for the park.  You can pick one up at either Kinetic or Switch skate shops or, if you’re from out of town, you can now order them online as well. Thanks for the support.

And for all the cinephiles who will undoubtly cry out “…but Castro, it wasn’t Teddy Duchamp who said that line in the movie, it was the fat kid Vern. You’ve got it all wrong!” – well, yeah, I took a little artistic license here because it made a cooler shirt.  Plus you can never go wrong with one of the Cory’s, bro.

Anyway, PhillyBroadcaster.com recently posted a nice little piece on last weekend’s opening at Fringe – click here for the collection of words and additional visual documentation.

And below’s a very cool video interview with former Stone Roses guitarist turned artist, John Squire, where he talks watercolor and describes some of his techiniques for creating art.  I’ve always loved this art and it just seems to keep progrssing.