The first time I saw the band I Need Sleep was in a Halloween-themed basement show. I can't remember the year exactly, but October of 2002 sounds close. I was an immediate fan, and as the ever-changing cast of members rotated, eventually they invited me to play with them. We played some terrible shows, we played some incredible shows, we made a studio album, and we went on tour, we won a battle of the bands. I left the band sometime in 2005 or 2006 (I can't remember exactly anymore), and although I've got a whole heap of memories and stories from playing in the band, I was a disappointed that there seemed to be so little video of the band performing. People frequently had video cameras at the shows, and there were rumors that some totally awesome tape was going around, but they never seemed to surface.

Then, about a week ago, a friend of the band named Paul from DeKalb uploaded some videos of an old show to YouTube. The clips are incomplete, and the audio is terrible, but it still embodies the spirit of what those shows were like. I realized that I had a few videos on my computer that I had never bothered to upload, and that maybe if I added to Paul's videos, perhaps others would make their private collections available as well. Since I feel it's so important to preserve this stuff for posterity, this post will hopefully serve as the ultimate I Need Sleep video repository. So, here they are:

• I Need Sleep on October 4th, 2003 - This was my first time ever playing on a stage (aside from being in the school orchestra). I was asked to stand in because Justin Powers and Dan Huff couldn't make the show. You can see how low-key the band was in those early days.


• I Need Sleep at the Fat Bean on February 6th, 2004 - The Fat Bean was a coffee house that served as the petri dish in which early I Need Sleep was allowed to grow. The band was still relatively calm at this point. I had planned a series of mini-documentary videos like this, but it became hard since I was more frequently playing with the band than watching them. Notice Dan Nagy playing drums and synth bass simultaneously, and don't miss Dan Huff's words of wisdom at the end.


• I Need Sleep at 602 North part 1, part 2, part 3, & part 4 - You can see the beginnings of the bat-shit-insane I Need Sleep in these videos. Dan Huff is gone at this point, but Brian and I have become official members. Justin wasn't at this show, and I don't generally regard this as a very good performance, but it was the beginning of a seriously fun stage in the band's history.


• I Need Sleep at Huskies Bar & Grill in Dekalb part 1, part 2, & part 3 - The audio on these videos does the actual show no justice, but the energy is there. Here we have the band's lineup as it was represented on the album: DL, Justin Powers, Dan Nagy, Brian Shebake, and myself. This was one of the first shows in which we passed out things for the audience to bang on, which made the whole room our rhythm section. Talk about audience participation.


• I Need Sleep at the Shape Shop in Chicago - There's a big chunk of time missing between this video and the last one. This video is after Brian Shebake, Dan Nagy, and I had left. This is even after Kevin Kozak, who was one of my favorite members, had come and gone. You can see that the choice of instrumentation had been pared down to the basics here, but the structure of the songs was starting to get more complex.

This is not a complete video list. I know for a fact that there is at least one more video I have on a tape hidden somewhere at my parent's house, and with any luck I will find that. Also, I'm sure there are people out there with videos who have not put them online yet. Please send an email to davemakes@gmail.com if this is the case, and if you need help putting it on the internet, I will lend you a hand.

Another thing is that I Need Sleep is still around making great music, albeit in Tennessee and with an almost completely fresh lineup, but hopefully as they play shows in the future, people will be more vigilant about recording and sharing them.

Thanks to the people who have uploaded their videos. I hope to see a many more in the future.

Labels: bloggy, link, music, video

YouTube | Vimeo | MP3 (demo version)

This was taped back in June of 2006 at some kind of art space in Chicago, back when I dyed my hair, my glasses weren't quite as goofy, and I felt compelled to open my mouth as wide as it would go when I sang.

"Someone Else Tonight" is a song by my good friend Dan Huff.

Labels: music, video

YouTube | Vimeo

I forgot my friend Jim's birthday the other day, and it reminded me of this little ukulele ditty I wrote a while back as a blanket apology for all the forgotten birthdays. It's meant to be played with a big goofy smile on your face to really make the apology work. So, Jim, this one's for you.

These youtube videos are a lot of fun to make, and I've worked out how to keep the audio from being all blown out like on the blah blah blah recording, so you can expect plenty more in the future.

Labels: music, video

At the request of my friend micayetoca on Metafilter, I recorded a cover of Poison Ivy League by Elvis Presley. This one was really fun because I decided to make it sound completely unrecognizable as an Elvis song. You can listen to the original to see what I mean.

Labels: music

YouTube | Vimeo | MP3 (original banjo version)

Here is my debut play-a-song-in-front-of-a-camera-and-put-it-on-youtube video. Everybody's doing it, apparently, and I had no choice but to jump on the bandwagon.

Labels: music, video

Just a quickie drawing from the sketchbook.

Labels: illustration

Here are some drawings I did after class today thanks to tae-ko and her lovely pictures I found on the flickr explore page today. Flickr seems like a great way to find interesting subjects to draw, and I hope there will be more like these.

Labels: illustration

This commercial was done for school. It's just a rough animatic, since I didn't have the time to fully animate it, but you can use your vivid imagination while watching it to see what I had in mind. The audio was the funnest part. I sat down in front of the mic and just read off the lines in as many different voices as I could come up with. After that, I just cut together all the takes that made me laugh the hardest, and threw in some sound effects and music by Need New Body.

I was a little embarrassed to show this is class, since I went all-out on the goofiness, but they seemed to enjoy it.

Labels: illustration, video

Here is my bestest friend Justin Powers playing Cobaki Creek while standing in a bathtub full of water.



I'm not sure why he had to be standing in a bathtub full of water, but I theorize that it was so he would properly conduct rocktricity. That would explain why he has also played into a clothes dryer. You know, to gather static rocktricity. He's taken that video off YouTube for now. It should resurface later.

Linking to MySpace isn't really my thing, but that's where Justin keeps recordings of his killer original songs, and I highly recommend listening to them.

Labels: link

Here's a quick and dirty cover of Jonathan Richman's song I'm a little Airplane. My dad got me a new microphone for my birthday yesterday, and I decided to break it in a little bit. I didn't have the levels set quite right since I was just messing around, so it's recorded kind of hot, but it's still fun.

Labels: music

You know when you stop by your childhood friend's facebook page to tell him you found a copy of an obscure Sega Genesis game, and then it turns out that he's received a $25,000 grant to travel the world researching the free software movement and he's writing a blog about it called Without a Traceroute?

Maybe not. Well, it's a little surprising, and pretty awesome, so I thought I'd give him a little link love. Brendan McCollam, everybody!

Labels: bloggy, link

I just read this article about Barack Obama's response to an 8-year-old's letter, and I liked this quote so much I threw together this wallpaper.

There is also a 1280x800 version, which is the one I'm using on my macbook.


"Look out for other people, even when it does not directly benefit you; strive to make a difference everywhere you go; and get back up every time you are knocked down."

Labels: design

I just posted a little musical composition on Metafilter Music called Pull Out My Teeth. Check it out!

Labels: music

In drawing class this morning, I did a bunch of quick 10 minute portraits with my Prismacolor markers. The last one was part of a series of 5 minute poses, which was a lot of fun.

Labels: illustration

Here are some chunky little Dave Makes logos I've been playing with recently. I think they're kind of cool in an ugly way.

Labels: design

These icons were done as part of a "photosymplification" project for school. The idea was to create two examples that could easily be part of a series. I chose musical instruments as a theme, envisioning signage or labeling in a music store as the application for these designs.

Labels: design, illustration

Since I have tickets to Obama's big election day party at Grant Park in Chicago, I feel that it is my duty to tell the world everything that happens in real time via Twitter. If you're interested in how it's going down, I hope my little feed helps.

UPDATE: It looks like Ted Stevens was too busy going to jail to make sure the tubes were unclogged, so all my tweets came in to Twitter pretty much randomly. Looking through the sent messages folder on my phone, I will re-post them here in the correct order (along with a few that apparently didn't make it to the internet at all).

• 7:32pm - Some very enthusiastic Obama fans are providing ample entertainment on the train. Lots of cheering



• 8:09pm - Hit my head on a street sign. Nice start to the evening



• 8:31pm - I hope this massive crowd knows which way to go



• 8:51pm - Oops, I snuck in a pocketknife. A make warranty voider



• 8:56pm - Gimme an H! Gimme a U! What's wrong?



• 9:00pm - I wonder how often people actually cheer at CNN



• 9:09pm - Look at all the blue on that chart! Nobody's even come out on stage and CNN is already practically calling it



• 9:13pm - Nice. They're cutting the commercials in favor of sweet soul music over the Obama logo



• 9:28pm - Sighted at Obama party: one flask of booze



• 9:29pm - Mic check!



• 9:42pm - Senators? Pfft. I don't know who these people are. Gimme Obama!



• 9:49pm - Holograms?! This is the future



• 9:53pm - Tina needs a periscope. Paging Bre Pettis!



• 10:04pm - Obama wins!



• 10:13pm - Sound check for the next president of the united states. Most coveted roadie job ever.



• 11:21pm - It's over! It's literally an uphill battle to get out of here



• 11:28pm - I see now the advantage of cops on segways over horses is that they don't shit all over the place



• 12:31am - The honking of car horns and cries of victory fade into the distance, and the familiar sounds of chicago re-emerge



• 12:33am - But there is a glow of optimism. It feels better to be in america.



• 7:07am - Woke up this morning completely buzzed on caffeine and HOPE. It's like reverse Christmas, it's so exciting that you can't sleep afterwards!

So, that's my little slice of the experience. Photos and video will come when I have a moment to upload them.

It's exciting to be alive.

Photos and videos to be added below:



My friend Justin ran after this marching jazz band making their way through the crowds. A lot of people are saying the atmosphere last night was "like a concert, but without the music." They are incorrect.

Labels: bloggy

This is an assignment for school in which I had to make a self-portrait entirely from type that has been sized, rotated, or flipped, but not stretched or distorted. The foreground is mostly sans-serif fonts, while the background texture is comprised of a jumble of serif fonts.

I have a bit of an advantage on these self-portrait projects since anything with big square glasses and a beard looks like me.

Labels: design, illustration

This week I had the great pleasure of meeting John Hodgman at a signing of his excellent new book More Information Than You Require. You may also know him as the minor television personality who plays the PC on the Mac and PC ads. Above you can see a picture of myself trying to ask a question about audiobooks while John makes me laugh. It was a wonderful book signing, I have never witnessed so much swearing and drinking of strange liquors in such close proximity to the children's section of Borders. Thank you for stopping by, Mr. Hodgman.



THAT IS ALL.

Labels: link