This charming Americana band sing harmonies and recall the Avett brothers. Look for them in your area.
Isaac and the Awkward Situations
Comics, Vaudeville, Art Education, and Music
Category Archives: illustration
Red Elvises
They call themselves, “your favorite band.” They have been called “LA’s best party band” and the highest paid wedding band in the Irkutsk peninsula.
It’s Igor and the Red Elvises! My brother and I listened to their music as children, watched the movie” six string samurai” and played Red Elvises albums on KSUA college radio.
The live show did not disappoint. “Bacon” and “Drinking with Jesus” were humorous new songs to me. Igor sang many old hits, including ” I wanna see you belly dance,” “Rocketman” and “Boogie on the Beach.” “Surfing in Siberia,” is the coolest arrangement of Miserlou I’ve ever heard. The girls Dregas and Dejah sang lead on several songs. I was excited to hear the April March hit, “Chick Habit.” Jasmin hits the drums hard and can fluidly switch between the surf rock beat and the disco rhythm.
The show was delightful, hilarious, and full of so much energy, sweat and animal print! Look at their website here.
Shilpa Ray and Man Man
Shilpa writes haunting songs and plays them on the harmonium. She was generous and said she liked my drawing though it looked “like the Caucasian version of me.” Oops, sorry.
Man Man plays haunting crazy atonal, arhythmic, dissonant music… Then sometimes they turn around 180 degrees and play pop music but with a gravelly voice like Tom Waits. Good live show if you like madness. Crazy band. The sound effects, Danny Elfman/Esquivelesque mallet instruments, trumpet and sax are a nice addition. They are never metal or distorted. What a busy multi-instrumentalist band, definitely an ensemble, couldn’t be the same without every one of those fellas. Some review compared them to Oingo Boingo, the muppets and Tom Waits. They are perhaps the weirdest band who can fill a large room. Are they continuing the traditions of Dada in the 2000s?
Thank you Adam, Bryan, Chris and Ryan… Oops, I mean Pow Pow, Honus, Brown Sugar and Shono.
this drawing is very different than most of my drawings, it was made at the corner of the stage. I was right behind the drummer and this was my perspective of the show- semi to scale and in proper perspective.
Comedians, Mariah Bamford, Amy Miller, Brandy Posey, Tess Barker, Seth Milstein, Melody Gore Dodd, Max Brockman and more
Some old drawings, recently inked and colored. Just for fun. 
These two host a podcast called “lady to lady.” Listen to it here. Barbara Grey was not present at this show.
These are comedians from the ” bleepin funny” show at Sam bonds.
These are improv actors in Fairbanks, Alaska at summer fine arts festival.
These are performers at a portland open mic. The host was very rude and booted me off stage. She scared off some other performers who might have performed if she hadn’t been such a bitch. 😀 Jesse was very talented, I would like to hear him play in a band.
R and R Reggae, Saucy Yoda, Termination Dust at Trapper Creek Music and Arts festival 2015.
These gentlemen played authentic reggae and were SOOO excited about my drawings. They just laughed and laughed and were thrilled. They played some cool covers and mixed in just enough originals. I especially liked Lorde’s “Royals” as a reggae with three piece harmonies. And what a blast from the pat to hear Sugar Ray’s ” fly.”
“Nobodies Gal” was a solo banjo player who kept apologizing that her songs were so dark. I enjoyed it though.
This note on the left, while I was drawing, was said by somebody about my portraits. I thought it was cute and mused it could be a future album title.
Jay bird and Steffi from Pretty Birds have a new dream pop project called ” Termination Dust.” It also has Jacob from Duchess. Fun show. You can hear their music here.
It wouldn’t be trapper creek without some madness from Saucy Yoda. she played a short set with dancers on stage with her and a live drummer playing along to her backing tracks. Of course ” wanton” ” I just want to party every day” and other classics got the crowd excited.
The Stumblebums played again, ( their third time here) and I didn’t bother to draw as It was so late and so dark. They played a new free jazzesque song in tribute to a dog who has passed away. All the lyrics were ” woof woof,” but delivered in a wide variety of inflections.”
Here’s a few more photos of this crazy party, the closest Alaska has to a burning man.
Portraits at Trapper Creek
In addition to drawing bands, I also drew some portraits of audience members. I chose people who were dressed interestingly or served me coffee. One person suggested I draw a self portrait, so I did.
New cartoons.
I wanted to make some secular humanist/ atheist cartoons. How do you draw God? I could look at the classic Sistine Chapel style God with a long flowing beard… But I remember seeing God as a white faced blank slate guy in a throne who was HUGE in some Chick tracts.
Here is my first draft of gods infinite angel production machine
And here is large and in color.
Then of course, we are going to get wierd. Here is Cthulhu in his first draft
Awkward to translate a landscape style composition into a short portrait style book. I took away cthulu’s wings and made his mouth tentacles less pointy so he would have some semblance of “friendliness.” To achieve some level of darkness and messiness I splattered black paint and drew over darks with neon pastels.
Then of course, let’s see some other depictions of God, and what do they need?
Well, I hope it will make sense to you at a live show!thanks for looking!
World Music and Dance Concert at Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival.
I thought I’d show my pencils, in case that’s interesting for any of you.
Black Water Railroad Co.
Alaska’s hottest acoustic band played the Blue Loon.
They take some unexpected songs and give them the bluegrass country treatment. Catch them in anchorage, homer and beyond.
Nick Jaina at Cardboard Castle
Nick is from Portland, Oregon. He played guitar into looping pedals and read to us from his book.
It was a small, intimate show. My favorite piece was about “How to write a song.”
His work and tour dates are at nickJaina.com
And his book is available here.
Isaac and the Awkward Situations 