The Stereo Series

In 2006, the Print Club of Northern Kentucky University was granted a show at the Carnegie, in Covington, Kentucky. The name of the show was "Prints in Translation". Each of the students and alumni in the show found a print or series of prints and translated them through a song.

The prints I translated were Seymour Chwast's "Brylcreem Man" series. The song was Pavement's "Stereo".

I started the project by printing 60 identical portraits of Kaiser Wilhelm, based on the lyric, "The Kaiser has a cyst. And I'm a blank one." Then I split them into 5 groups and added more screen printed graphics that visually describe different lines of the song.

During the gallery opening, we had a slide show playing, which included the songs each of us chose, as well as an image of our translated prints and photos of us working in our studios.

"Stereo"
Pavement

pigs, they tend to wiggle when they walk
the infrastructure rots
and the owners hate the jocks
with their agents and their dates

if the signatures are checked
you'll just have to wait

and we're counting up the instants
that we save
tired nation so depraved
from the cheap seats see us
wave to the camera
it took a giant ramrod
to raise the demon settlement

but high-ho silver, ride
high-ho silver, ride

take another ride to see me home
listen to me! i'm on the stereo stereo
oh my baby baby baby baby babe
gave me malaria hysteria

what about the voice of geddy lee
how did it get so high?
i wonder if he speaks like an ordinary guy?
(i know him and he does!)

and you're my fact-checkin' cuz

well focus on the quasar in the mist
the kaiser has a cyst
and i'm a blank one
list the qualms you have and if they stick
they will drown you in a creek
in the neck of a woods
that was populated by
tired nation on the fly
everybody knows advice
that was give out for free
lots of details to discern
lots of details

but high-ho silver ride
high-ho silver ride
takes another ride to make me
oh, get off the air
i'm on the stereo stereo
oh my baby baby baby baby baby babe
gave me malaria hysteria