Random Rules Jay Ryan

The shuffler: Jay Ryan, the Chicago poster artist (and Dianogah bassist) who’s arguably ground zero for the screenprinted rock-poster renaissance of the past decade. He’s designed, drawn, and printed amazing art for the likes of Andrew Bird, Fugazi, Shellac, Guided By Voices, and dozens more. His first book of collected posters, 100 Posters/134 Squirrels, was just reissued by Akashic, and now includes essays by Steve Albini, Art Chantry, and Greg Kot. Ryan’s art is often populated by weird little animals that are up to no good—and that says something about his personality, too. Ask anybody who’s met him, and they’ll tell you he’s one of the nicest guys around. Ryan shuffled up his iTunes for us, and chatted about some music. He’ll make two Chicago-area appearances this weekend: Friday, Dec. 10 at 7 p.m. at Quimby’s on North Ave., and Saturday, Dec. 11 at 1 p.m. at Comix Revolution in Evanston.

New Order, “Age Of Consent”

Jay Ryan: I think this is a Peel Session version. I’ve got a special weakness for New Order from my high school days and my early college days. Peter Hook’s bass playing certainly had an influence on my bass playing. And they were perfect for the teenage-angst phase I went through happily in the late ’80s. Dianogah at one point tried to cover “Age Of Consent,” but it never really came together.

The A.V. Club: I love that song. There was probably a time in my life where if you asked me what my favorite song was, it would have been that song.

JR: Wow. This is a pretty rough recording. It sounds like they had just written the song, because the guitar comes in totally in the wrong key, completely on the wrong chord.

AVC: You didn’t go to the Peter Hook show last night, presumably. 

JR: No, that would involve going out and doing social stuff, which apparently I’m not capable of doing anymore. Was he DJ-ing?

AVC: He’s touring “Peter Hook presents Unknown Pleasures” and it’s him doing the entire record with him singing.

JR: Fuck! No! Really? It would have been sad and weird, but I also haven’t seen New Order play since like 1989. Where was it?

AVC: Double Door.

JR: I probably would have liked to have been aware of that, but I wasn’t. I missed it. I find out about a lot of good shows the day after they happened.

Fugazi, “Returning The Screw” 

JR: From In On The Kill Taker. However, it’s not actually… This is oddly… I don’t know if I should admit to having this stuff.

AVC: I know what you’re going to say. Is it the Steve Albini-recorded demos?

JR: Yes.

AVC: Well, this is good, because I was hoping that you would get one band that you’ve done posters for.

JR: I don’t know if I have anything to say in particular about the song, but Fugazi is a band that I love a lot. What have I done, three posters for them? There was one with some dogs on it. That was fun and sort of appropriate, but not for any specific reason. Then I made one that was a big grid of folding chairs, and that sort of touched on the imagery that was inside Steady Diet Of Nothing. I think it’s in the book. It looks like an abandoned schoolhouse or something like that. Also potentially, I guess, there was the idea of the “waiting room” and just sitting around.

AVC: Since we’re talking about the Albini demos, you could also touch on the many, many Shellac posters you’ve done.

JR: They’re one of my more constant customers. They’re another band that—from an aesthetic standpoint, from a business standpoint—stands on similar ground as Fugazi, and is someone I really enjoy working with. Shellac as a band has a great sense of humor, so I like doing stuff for them. I’ve probably done a dozen posters for them throughout the years.

AVC: And Steve’s studio, Electrical Audio, is like a shrine to your posters.

JR: I think at some point Steve’s ladyfriend, Heather, decided it was time to decorate, and did some one-stop shopping, which is really nice and really makes my head swell a little bit when I go over there. It’s a fun place, Electrical Audio. There’s a lot going on there, and it’s different all the time. In trying to get my shop [The Bird Machine] established as a business, and get this building that we’re in and get set up as a business as opposed to just making posters… At this point, 15 years in, I have to treat this as a corporation. I learned a lot from Steve as far as how to run a business at this level. He’s more successful than I am, and I appreciate a lot of the input that he shared with me.

Bon Iver, “Blindsided”

AVC: Is that the real quiet one? That was kind of a joke.

JR: Yeah, it’s the quiet one with guitars and hum-y notes. The last couple of years, Bon Iver has been in pretty constant rotation. I got to see them play a couple times over at ATP in England and saw them at Lollapalooza in Chicago last year. I really like the two records they put out. My dog passed away a couple weeks ago, and I just stuck with those albums for a couple of days. That was the mood I was in. There’s a whole mythology about how they’re made, but you could know nothing about this band, and they’re just a really beautiful bunch of songs.

Fleet Foxes, “Your Protector”

JR: I’m not convinced that these guys are actually making music in the late 2000s or whatever this decade has been. There’s something really sort of 1968 about their whole thing. I don’t know. I really like this album. We’re getting all of these sort of awkward songs that I don’t have anything specific to say about.

The Sea And Cake, “Left Side Clouded”

JR: Off of One Bedroom. The Sea And Cake is just like a really nice, very consistent embodiment of Sam Prekop’s voice. I feel like the whole Sea And Cake is a perfect musical embodiment of his visual work. It’s also one of the few bands that I’ve actually sat down and learned to play somebody else’s basslines. I saw them maybe about a year ago at the Empty Bottle. It had been a couple years since I’d seen them, and I was just really happy about how good they were.

AVC: “Consistent” is always a sort of backhanded compliment for The Sea And Cake. “Hey, that’s another Sea And Cake record!”

JR: Well, they certainly sound a lot alike. A lot of the songs sound very similar. As you’d say about a couple of other bands, they’ve got only one song, but it’s a really good song. It’s a band that’s put out a whole pile of records over the last 16, 17 years, or something like that. I think I’ve got them all.

Helms, “Robots Are Great, But Are We Ready For Them To Dance On Their Own?”

JR: Helms is a really great band from Boston. The drummer is a poster maker named Dan McCarthy, who’s one of my poster-making heroes. His brother Sean is the guitar player/singer, and Sean’s wife, Tina, is the bass player. Dianogah has played a bunch of shows with them over the years. I think they’d be happy to be lumped into the Shipping News/Rodan family of bands, sound-wise.

The Hold Steady, “Constructive Summer”

JR: The first song off of Stay Positive. I really didn’t like this band for a long time, and then I finally got old enough. I was never really that into them, and then I got taken to one of their shows in Chicago and suddenly the light went on, and I really enjoy them now. There’s certainly a look of the type of people who like this band, and unfortunately that look is sort of like me, but more goatees. Very few young kids. Anyway, they do this song, “Constructive Summer”—“We’re gonna build something this summer, we’re gonna climb up the water tower.” It’s hard to listen to the song and try to quote lines from it at the same time. Craig Finn is really good at cultural references, but not in an awkward way. He’s basically good at recounting history whether it’s real or made up, sort of a history of, or stories of, growing up. Craig is a little bit older than me, I’ve met him a couple times. He has more interesting stories, but the history of what he’s gone through and getting into music is pretty similar to what my friends and I went through in high school and college.

AVC: What particularly? Sniffing glue under the bridge or something?

JR: Not so much glue, but just the idea of being at the all-ages hardcore matinee shows. My friend Geoff Peveto, I think he makes all of the Hold Steady posters and record covers, and that’s fine because Jeff’s company, Decoder Ring, does a great job of that. He just got his wisdom teeth out today, or yesterday.

AVC: Do all the poster dudes know each other and hang out online together? 

JR: Generally, yeah. Geoff is one of my closest friends. And there are other people I just know and see a couple times a year at poster shows, but not people I necessarily talk to all the time. A lot of us nerd-out together. Actually Geoff is the one who got me into The Hold Steady. He came up to Chicago so he could go to Hot Doug’s and then took me out to see The Hold Steady at the Riviera. We trade off. I think I got him into Hum.