After five years of unrequited Coachella love, I finally made it down to the festival this year, courtesy of Mean Magazine. It was an amazingly fun and excruciatingly hot weekend, full of schwag, celebrity sightings, and deliciously overpriced food. Since I had a press pass, I was lucky enough to take pictures right up front, between the audience and the stage. Here’s the first batch of shots, including pictures of Jens Lekman, Santogold, Vampire Weekend, Dan Deacon and Goldfrapp. Check back on Thursday for the rest of ‘em, plus a crazy sexy cool Coachella mix!

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Imagine a world of decaying summer camp cabins and foggy Icelandic canyons, where long-haired metal dudes fraternize at Renaissance Faires and gnomish road warriors in handmade robes attend their sisters’ Satanic school plays. Space aliens and homesick hobos litter post-apocalyptic burlesque houses where Slayer-loving ladies of the night dance with zebras and sport Cthulhu tattoos. This is Matthew Lock‘s world– a dark daydream empire where Atreyu may have ended up in his teenage years, sick of peaceful flights on Falkor’s back, searching for something a little more dark, lonely, or nostalgic– a place both hilarious and unnerving.

It was his LiveJournal, Koalas in Love, that first sucked me in. Casually littered with some of the most mind-blowingly bizarre and quietly romantic found photography I’ve ever seen, Koalas in Love tells two stories. First, in his written words, Lock’s personal observations tell the story of a young man who’s mad as hell with the status quo, and overwhelmed by the nauseating widespread side effects of American capitalism. Second, through his found images as well as his own artwork, Lock spins a tale of what could be, using his keen aesthetic sensibilities to project his societal frustration into something altogether transcendent.

Lock’s brilliant notebook-style drawings and vividly saturated paintings have been hung on gallery walls from Portland to Sweden, printed on record covers, and bound into zines for uber-cool art book publishers Nieves and Cederteg. A handful of his illustrations are currently on display at the Junc Gallery in Silver Lake for the “Chimera Fronteria” show, which continues through May 11th. The artist was kind enough to answer a bevy of inane questions about irony, Homer Simpson and the apocalypse.

Hobos and Homer Simpson seem to pop up frequently in your work. What fascinates you about homeless vagabonds and Matt Groening’s lethargic father figure? I find hobos to be great drawing subjects because they can be such interesting and comical characters. I think that they represent finding pleasure in many of the simpler things or perhaps represent living outside the system. Of course, in real life, this often isn’t true– but that classic hobo with the bag on the stick slung over his shoulder, wandering throughout the country without any ties… it’s nice to fantasize about. Homer Simpson is the quintessential American person in many ways. He is almost passionately ignorant, lazy, totally out of shape, and dependent on Duff’s and bad entertainment to keep his tiny mind busy. I sometimes feel surrounded by Homer Simpsons. I also think he looks funny. Your work is at times instilled with a sense of social frustration that’s mirrored in your writings. What annoys you most in the world? Well, I am frustrated with so much that I’m not even going to attempt to make even the most basic list. I think our world is fucked. I think our Western society is in decay, all religion is an illusion, our planet is dying and people are morons who don’t read books. That’s probably a good “fiery” short statement. I just don’t see how the current average human being can really rise above the filth to repair what’s left of our planet. Therefore, it’s frustrating to me. While I can make personal modifications in my own life, it doesn’t really impact or change anything. It’s also staggering how many truths are really lies. The average person might buy a 99-cent jug of “orange juice” at the store and think they are being healthy. Of course, it’s only 10% juice and there’s high-fructose corn syrup in it, among other unnatural things. The most frustrating thing is that people think we live in some enlightened age and are on the threshold of greatness. If only that were true… Describe your ideal post-apocalyptic scenario. Unfortunately, it often seems that within my lifetime the world will witness some kind of horrible event. Ideally, I would like to be a traveling bard/warrior, riding an armored horse (with makeshift scrap armor). I would battle mutated survivors, religious cults and all elite bastards… infiltrating their underground bunker mansions and stealing their gold/water. Describe your perfect woman. Hmm… my perfect woman. I guess she would have to be fairly skinny, allergic to religion, not into making kids and intelligent. It would also be cool if she rode a motorcycle and had a bachelor’s degree in space science. Maybe if she could also like Judas Priest and be from another country (I could get citizenship!). Oh yeah… she can’t be clingy either. I went to a Dimmu Borgir show in the O.C. recently (with about 500 teenagers), and it was possibly the worst live music experience of my life. I’m not entirely opposed to metal, in spite of my ordinarily soft-tempered musical inclinations– the aesthetic of vintage metal, for instance, is highly alluring. What aspects of metal do you identify with, and is there anything about it that you dislike? Well for starters, Dimmy Borgir are like a bastardized WWE version of extreme metal, so I can only imagine how horrible it was to sit through their set. The crowd probably had the collective intelligence of a skunk, but I realize that they are kids… it’s slightly understandable. Metal, to me, is more than music. It’s a spirit of rebellion and defiance, pride in self, connection to nature, questioning what you are told and general escapism. Perhaps you are empowered by beauty in life and “soft-tempered musical inclinations,” as you put it… so be it. If that’s what gives you an escape from reality and sense of personal strength, then listen away. I am pretty much a loner type of guy. I spend a lot of time alone and metal really gives me a sense of confidence and self-empowerment. Metal also helps me to escape from reality and confront thoughts on death, the cosmos, the future of humanity and many topics pop music fails to address. I guess my main problem with metal is people’s false perception of it. Equating it with stupidity, “cheesiness” and immaturity. I dislike a lot of the uber-elitism that plagues metal. In certain cases it’s called for, but it can tend to be annoying. I mainly listen to a lot of old metal for the most part. Who are your favorite artists and illustrators, and how has their work impacted your own aesthetic? I like looking at art by Mark Delong, Ben Schumacher, Frederic Fleury, Justin B. Williams, Mehdi Hercberg and Jason McLean, to name a few. These particular artists that I have mentioned have really influenced me in becoming more loose, free and spur-of-the-moment in my drawing/painting. For such a long time, I was very restrained and so particular about even the smallest mistake. Over time I mentally overcame this problem, thanks in part to discovering some of these artists. I like how “fun” and imaginative these artists are. I also like some old dead people such as Pieter Bruegel and the American folk artist Mary Ann Willson. What role does irony play in your work? I think my work is ironic in the sense that it’s seemingly an escape from reality– by creating odd looking characters and situations– but at the same time, it embodies so much of our actual world and its many problems. I might draw some aliens at a bar, and this is not the least bit realistic. At the same time there might be cameras in the bar, a depressed hobo in the corner, trash all over the floor and peeling wallpaper. You see? Are you working on any big projects at the moment? What can you tell us about the graphic novel you mentioned on your blog? I’m always just working on little projects here and there. The one big thing I am going to be starting in the near future is a snowboard design for Monument Snowboards. The graphic novel is merely one of my wild dreams/on-and-off projects that may not ever see the light of day. I can’t really work on it in just any mood, and I often have other projects that have deadlines and stuff.

British videomaker Nima Nourizadeh is happy to shatter your suspension of disbelief. Distorting music video conventions, Nourizadeh frames his colorfully compelling clips with a playful sense of self-awareness. “I’m interested in how videos are made— what’s outside the frame,” he says. “I find there’s something quite nice about letting people in on what’s really going on.” In a post-Laguna Beach world, where fortunes are made by manipulating audiences to believe that what’s fake is “reality,” Nourizadeh’s videos throw a spotlight on the cracks and crevices of MTV’s counterfeit glamour. Whether it’s revealing a disinterested film crew standing just outside the frame of a heartfelt ballad (Lily Allen’s “Littlest Things”) or deconstructing the illusory enchantment of green screen technology (Hot Chip’s “Over and Over”), Nourizadeh is fascinated with the filters of artifice that irrevocably separate a music video’s performance from its audience. “I don’t want to hide anything,” he says. “I’m very much into people connecting with me, and showing them the rougher side of the video.”

His clip for “A Cause Des Garcons” by Yelle—who gained immense popularity on MySpace—feels like a professional production of a silly childhood musical fantasy. Revealing a soundstage decked out in cartoony ‘80s set-design flair, the video shows Yelle’s hairdryer and moisturizer springing to life to show off their impressive dance moves and prepare the unassuming star for a fashion magazine cover shoot. It plays like something Yelle might have dreamed up while singing into a hairbrush before the Internet catapulted her into international superstardom.

It was a trifecta of tremendous videos that first clued me in on Nourizadeh’s brilliance: Chromeo’s retro-CGI polygon orgy, “Bonafide Lovin’,” Hot Chip’s schizofrenetic Bat-dance homage, “Ready for the Floor,” and finally, the unsettling Jodorowsky-inspired spectacle of Santogold’s “L.E.S. Artistes.” When I realized all three of these stunning videos were directed by someone who doesn’t (yet) have his own “Director’s Label” DVD, I had to find out more about him. I was lucky enough to catch Nourizadeh while he was in L.A. on one leg of a whirlwind transcontinental video-shooting tour, working on a Flight of the Concords video (“For the band, not the TV show,” he clarifies). He graciously took the time to explain how he ended up where he is.

“I actually studied fine arts,” says the director, of his academic roots at Central St. Martins. “So it was quite far away from what I’m doing now. I always sort of lent more towards a commercial style, and I remember my teachers telling me, ‘You’ll do really well in the commercial world,’ which was intended as a bit of a diss— but I remember thinking, ‘Cool. Brilliant.’”

Nourizadeh fell into the music video racket when his brother, a house music producer, asked him to cut together some footage he’d shot to match one of his tracks. “Doing music videos wasn’t ever what I intended to do,” he says, “but I felt like I could get some clues to directing. I could learn the craft a bit.” Establishing a video collective dubbed “The Imaginary Tennis Club” with two close friends, Nourizadeh got the ball rolling by approaching up-and-coming bands at their gigs to propose collaborations. “These days I find bands coming to me that share my aesthetic,” he says. “It’s a nice change of pace.”

After going solo in 2005 with the Tennis Club’s amicable disbanding, the director hit it big with the lovingly satirical green screen-themed clip for “Over and Over.” Like a magician who can’t resist explaining his tricks, Nourizadeh uses the video to demonstrate how easy it is to manipulate the viewer with simple special effects, rendering the cold reality of a blindingly green room both lyrical and hilarious— without dismissing the excitement and energy in Hot Chip’s tune. “Boasting great performances and tons of little jokes for the taking, this video is nearly as infectious as the song itself,” noted one not-easily-impressed Pitchfork writer when the clip was included in their “Top 25 Music Videos of 2006” list.

One of Nourizadeh’s greatest strengths as a filmmaker is his ability to translate personal concepts and preoccupations across a wide gamut of styles in videos created for a smorgasbord of incongruous artists, without ever distracting his audience from their music or veering into obnoxiously heavy-handed territory. He never falls out of sync with the artist’s style or their song, even when he’s busy juggling Jodorowsky homages with explorations into squib mechanics, using a legion of horrified hipsters expelling neon orange blood from their chests.

An avid collector of art books that reference film, fine art, and even computer-generated imagery, Nourizadeh garners much of his filmic inspiration from still photography. “Because it’s a pure moment that’s been captured—it’s just a still—you can really examine everything in it. I can look at why it’s been composed in that way, I can really consider the lighting. It gives you something that watching a film, or other videos, doesn’t.” Pressed to list some of his favorite photographers, however, the director explained that he tries not to become overly attached to the work of any individual artist. “I just look through random reference books,” he says, “and in some ways, I prefer not even knowing whose work it is—’cause that effects how I perceive their work. I can’t think of where exactly I get ideas from— I know it’s a combination of all these things that have accumulated over the years, on a completely subconscious level.”

For Chromeo’s “Bonafide Lovin’,” however, the video’s point of reference was crystal clear: “Dave 1 [Chromeo’s vocalist] was really into anything from the 80’s or early ‘90s— so we started going through a bunch of videos we liked from that time, and Dire Straits’ ‘Money for Nothing’ came up. And we both just suddenly went, ‘Fuck, that’s a really good video!’” Astonished by the visual similarities between the Laurel & Hardy-inspired CG characters in Dire Straits’ seminal video and the real-life appearances of Chromeo’s Dave 1 and P-Thugg, Nourizadeh quickly realized it was a match made in heaven, and set to work incorporating the song’s lyrics into his concept.

“For the actual animation of it, the hardest part was making sure the animators were really thinking that we don’t have today’s technology. Everything had to be made from a series of block shapes. If you wanted something that had a curve in it, it was about stepping blocks so it would appear to have a curve, rather than actually giving anything that rounded shape. In today’s standards, people are trying to make everything so photo-realistic. Everything’s gotta have a polish on it—but you don’t have to do it that way.”

I’d noticed a link between two of Nourizadeh’s videos and couldn’t resist inquiring about the deeper meaning of it all: “Ready for the Floor” and “L.E.S. Artistes” both feature the startling image of people being doused with buckets of paint thrown at them from off-camera. The director set the record straight on this strange coincidence: “With the Hot Chip one, it was a specific effect I was going for, and it turned out great,” he says. “With the Santogold video, it worked as well, because it fit with the concept of making a really gruesome scene. Dumping red paint over someone not only looks good, but it also looks quite graphic. And I knew I was going to get really great reactions from the girls, cause it was freezing that day. It was pretty authentic, I think, I how horrified they were.”

Mystery solved—just a jazzy visual effect coupled with a pinch of everyday cruelty. “I was actually thinking of doing it again, in the Concords video,” he says, laughing. “I thought, ‘That’d be pretty cool, if I had a signature bucket shot in every video.’ It’s good to be aware of what is good eye candy—what we actually enjoy looking at. And that’s one thing, copious liquids—people enjoy watching that. I’m just finding those things, over time… I’ve got one, so I’ve got to find a few more.”

With any luck, Nourizadeh will be able to pull out some of that eye candy in an aesthetically indulgent feature-length project sometime in the near future. “Doing videos is great, because it’s short, but it’s so intense. The amount you have to do is really such good preparation for making anything else,” says the filmmaker. “It’d be great if by the time I’m 35—I’ll give myself another five years—I’d have made a feature.” Let’s just hope Nourizadeh never stops coloring outside the lines.

Last night I went to the Blood is the New Black party/pop-up store/makeshift art gallery at a warehouse in Silver Lake. Mainly planning to check out the artwork by my friend Jesse, I stayed for the performance by Abe Vigoda, and ended up going home with the t-shirt pictured above.

Like Geoff McFetridge, Nikolay Saveliev is a graphic designer who plays in the astral sandbox of 1970s homage. But while McFetridge is content to revel in goofy California vibes inspired by high-school sketches and new-age children’s books, Saveliev’s work feels more like the woefully forgotten output of an unsettlingly avant-garde Ivy League minimalist with a soft-spot for the thinly-veiled formalism of sociopathic corporate art. And somehow, that’s incredibly fun. Saveliev is like Paul Rand‘s misunderstood child prodigy, huddled over drafting paper until the wee hours of the morning, trying to add an enigmatic touch of hysterical beauty to a pamphlet about genital herpes.

His “Pop Matters” project, for instance, rehauls pop record sleeves from T.I., “Lil” Jon, Jessica Simpson, and a dozen others with the type of abstract precision you might expect from a text about Heidegger or Nuclear Physics. There’s something both hilarious and sublime about the gulf that Saveliev creates between the glitz and glamour of Kanye West and the scholarly sobriety of his restrained treatments. 140 copies of these faux-record sleeves were quietly slipped into various new and used record stores last year, in an art-prank that packed more punch than Banksy’s sorta-obvious and over-hyped Paris Hilton publicity stunt in 2006.

Just glancing at his stunningly beautiful RISD yearbook, or his program notes for a Michael Haneke retrospective film fest, you get the gut feeling that Saveliev actually cares about his audience. In the latter case, the designer circumvented the humdrum conventions of festival catalogues, forgoing the generic Kinko’s-stapled pamphlet. Instead, he crafted a set of separately sealed (spoiler alert!) pamphlets for each film in the program, lovingly presented inside a customized manila envelope. Relying entirely on his clever grasp of typeface and Haneke‘s own striking images, Saveliev provided a unique, reverent supplement that no self-respecting cinéaste would leave under his or her seat at the end of a screening. That’s dedication.

Saveliev, who’s been garnering a lot of buzz on the internets lately, was gracious enough to answer a few questions. Read on to learn more about growing up in the shadow of a crumbling empire, the myths behind RISD, and the endless pleasures of Powerpoint-chic:

How long have you been designing, and what got you interested in the field?
My first paid design job was when I was 14, making computer game packaging for a small firm in Colorado; then I did some album covers, made piles of nice websites for things I liked, and created lots of kickdrum logos and band t-shirts. Nine years later, I’m still doing the same thing, but I get to work on a German fashion mag or a world bank in between kickdrums.

I’ve always had a lot of obscure interests, and doing design in service of those interests seemed like a good way to contribute and preach the gospel without directly partaking; it’s a sort of diplomacy, no? Essentially, I like to inform my friends about funny things.

Did you go to design school? What did you like or dislike about your educational experience?
I went to RISD–the heavy emphasis on history, making meaningful decisions in service of content, an inherent skepticism of style, and encouragement of authorship were huge plusses for me. The myth plays RISD out as a sort of “great artist factory,” which it definitely isn’t, but there are always a few kids that do great things, and they usually feed off each other in the best ways possible.

What has the response been to your planted record sleeves for the “Pop Matters” project? Did anyone find the records and try to contact you?
Pop Matters was sort of a one-off that a friend of mine who worked at a local radio station saw; we brought it to his boss, and they gave us a little bit of money to seed them all over the Ocean State. The station got a few calls, which was great, but I never really got to find out exactly how much people liked them until they started getting blogged all over the place. I’m going to make another run of Pop Matters this year, but take all of the promotional content out and rewrite the insert; I’ll offer them up on my website for people to place in their own record collections.

What are your strongest sources of inspiration? Most unusual?
Well, I was born in Leningrad, Russia, and got a lot of my early childhood pop culture through a weird filter–the crumbling Iron Curtain. So I ended up thinking a lot of weird things were cool that would’ve probably never come to my attention had I had a regular All-American upbringing. But since I got to learn the English language from books, and culture from magazines, tapes, and records, & the Internet in this sort of immigrant-naïve way, I ended up with a pretty specific toolbox of tastes. I love folk-traditional culture and art, italo, industrial, new-wave, post-punk, and other 80s music flotsam, religious theories and sects, magical theories, hackers, bad cyberpunk novels, historical secrets, conspiracy theories, cold war geopolitics, and all sorts of other funny things. But on the other side, I just like pop music, being metal, and hanging out with my girlfriend. Regular populism mixed with serious obscurity works for me.

I like the idea of a consolidated aesthetic totality; what you make looks like what you listen to, sounds like what you wear, and speaks like what you believe in. In simpler terms, my girlfriend might look like she’s in a band I’d listen to, my haircut looks like it belongs in the chair I’m sitting in, and the work I’m designing might be written about in a book that I would read. Even my cat has to figure in there somehow. It’s a meticulous thing to maintain, but probably comes from the fact that I’ve discovered mostly everything through music, whether it’s ideologies, writers, artists, designers, cultures, subcultures, or other music. So it’s easy to tie things back into your work, as long as you keep your eyes and ears open, and maintain a healthy dose of critical thought.

I love what I can see of your zine, “The Dramatic Arc, Vol. I.” What’s the idea behind it, and are you planning future installments?
I’m putting a bunch of copies of Dramatic Arc together right now, so it should be up for grabs soon; it’s another case of me wanting to talk about things I love in a sort of obfuscated context. I took the lyrics from some of my favorite new-wave and post-punk staples, and holistically diagrammed them in this sort of ascetic Powerpoint-chic. The entire zine is filled with inside references to these bands and lyrics, which I hope some people might pick up on; ideally it’ll end up as an impetus for research–people might look up the lyrics, band histories, or simply listen to the songs. Hopefully, it’ll get a few people interested in some of this stuff, just because it’s in a new context; people who might have picked it up because, well, “hey, rad zine,” but ended up with a lot of hidden information and lots and lots of levels of content.

In Dramatic Arc Vol I., most of the songs’ content follows a classic dramatic arc. Future editions of the zine will play with other themes, but all will have a tie-in back into narrative structures. I’ll definitely never make a zine that’s just full of cool drawings; it’s gotta have a huge idealistic payload behind it.

Outside of straight graphic design, you’ve worked with photography, illustration, and even fashion. What direction do you see your work moving towards? Which mediums you would like to continue exploring?
I used to make music, which pretty much stopped getting finished while I was in college; I’m starting that up again with some friends, so hopefully I can get drunk and fall off a stage near you sometime soon again. Otherwise, I love working with other artforms, whether it’s writing or fashion or music; it’s a great way to see how other people sort of manifest their influences. Hopefully I can just keep making good work with people that I like, and keep learning while I’m doing it. I feel like I’ve just started.