How have you passed the night?

Not sure if they stopped having shows at the Underground or I just got busy being middle aged, but I didn't go for a long time. Then I went back years later and saw Wild Nothing and DIIV play together, when they were touring for their albums "Nocturne" and "Oshin," respectively. That was one of the best shows I've ever seen, and those are two of my favorite albums of all time. It was really strange being back in that venue after so long. I felt like I was in a dream or something, or like I was living out a memory in real time. P.S.—Not sure who made the flyer, so I can't give credit sorry :(

CD page from Lifted. Matt Maginn (of Cursive) did all the layout for the CD and LP… he worked for Saddle Creek at the time. He let me back seat drive during layout, because I didn't know how to use Quark (and didn't have the graphic design skills). Robb Nansel had let me do that too, in the earlier days. I'm sure I was annoying so that was really nice of them. I'm glad Quark doesn't exist anymore, what an absolutely terrible program. Edit: I just googled Quark and I guess it does still exist. How is that possible.

Tim Kasher (of Cursive) is awesome. He's got a great sense of humor and always had really weird ideas. For this t-shirt design (2009 I think), he said something like "Can you have a guy in a red speedo who is using a giant's identical—but huge—speedo as a hammock. The giant is looking at him and is not happy that his speedo is being used as a hammock." So that's why this exists. This is a mockup from my original drawing, felt-tip pen on paper.

Color mockup of a long sleeve shirt design from 2007 (sold by Saddle Creek). Original drawing was pen and ink.

Same as the No Beginning to the Story EP diorama that preceded this one, the base is crumpled up newspaper with chicken wire over top, covered with dyed joint compound that I textured with my fingers. The background twigs are real, I just jabbed them into the base before it dried. The backdrop is blue and black kids tempera finger paint smeared on a poster board. I made the people and animals by wrapping cotton batting around bent wire armatures, and then sewing the coverings and details onto those.

A screenshot of a Bright Eyes article from January 2001. Published by Seventeen magazine, on a very typical looking website for that time period. Brings me back to the old dial-up days, where the web was slow and ugly but still way better than it is now.

Mockup of the partially-made cover diorama, before I poured concrete for the step and installed the lighting in the base, etc.

Test photo I took in my basement to test out the LED lights under the dice. I took the picture with my crappy phone, but it was enough to make me think the idea could work in the final cover image.

For the new record, Conor wanted a scene in an alley where people would throw dice for this game his friend from So So Glos told him about. I built an alley diorama with poured concrete base and a concrete step, wooden fake door, and pipes made from PVC. I drilled holes in the base and ran LEDs into the holes so the dice light up from below. I made the alley this way so that Rob Walters (long time friend and great photographer) could control the lighting to get exactly what we wanted as far as mood, camera angle, framing of elements, shadows, etc. This photo shows the original asphalt-style base surface, but we didn't use that one in the final cover image. This was taken in Rob's garage when he was shooting the actual photos with his Hasselblad.

Hi, so sorry for the late reply! I haven't been logging in. I only have one copy left for myself, unfortunately. The original was just 20 or 30 copies xeroxed on cardstock with a plastic binding from Kinko's. It was literally just a fancy zine :) I thought about maybe cleaning up the original artwork and doing some kind of reissue of it, but it's really short and I don't know if it's worth it for the 5 or 6 people who would want one haha. If I ever get around to it, I will post about it on here. Thank you for reaching out! Best, Zack

I wrote out all of the lyrics and liner notes for I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning. I wanted as much done by hand as possible. To my horror, I realized a few years later that it looked like Comic Sans in the final product. God help me.

Yellow bird closeup from Wide Awake.

Separate tapestry for the “Lua” single (a night version of the Wide Awake artwork). I made this one before Wide Awake, and it’s my favorite.

Interior tapestry from Wide Awake (with the yellow bird from Poison Oak). 

Conor and I are usually really in sync with ideas. It can be effortless. But occasionally it takes some more work. This time, I missed the mark a couple of times with my initial ideas. I was starting to feel like a failure, but then we talked on the phone and the brainstorming went really well. On that call, it suddenly sounded like we were talking about the exact same thing. We then sent each other the sketches we’d previously created, and both knew immediately that we were on the right path.

One of the photos I took for the cover of the Persona Non Grata 7″. I photoshopped out the wires like I did for the album art, and laid a couple of images on top of each other in Photoshop. I raided my kid’s play-doh to make bases to stick the wires in so each figure would stand up on its own. It’s fine—I used up all of the colors she hated, and she’s graduated to Model Magic anyway.