The VIP Auction was an annual fundraising event through the Johns Hopkins All Children’s Foundation. Each year, a committee voted on a theme and encouraged attendees to dress the part. In 2019 for example, my colleague Nannette created a kick-ass look for the Rock the Night event with a hair metal feel without sacrificing the ozone layer.

For 2020 the theme was Hooray for Hollywood and I was assigned as creative lead. My design married an art deco font with a Saul Bass 1960s movie poster feel. Unfortunately, the pandemic forced the cancellation of the event, which was scheduled in April of 2020. Much of the materials were already produced, including the logo, invitation, backdrop and nearly all of the signage.

I shed a serious but thankfully mild case of the Coronavirus in early April and as my physical energy returned, so too did my creative energy. But where to channel it?

I decided to re-create an homage to one of my favorite book-and-record stories from my youth.

As we all practice physical distancing – in my case it was nearly 28 days of total isolation – we seemed to embrace or re-embrace ‘comfortable’ forms of media and mediums. Maybe it’s a simple psychological reaction to our new uncertain realities. One of my comfortable mediums are the old Power Records adventures from the 1970s. My brother and I spent hours listening and listening again to stories of Spider-Man, Captain America and the Falcon, Werewolves, Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster, reading along with the comic panels while the record scratched and popped with the… erm…finest Power Records voice talent money could buy.

One of my favorite stories was Spider-Man and the Invasion of the Dragon Men. It had Spider-Man wisecracks, dragon men from space and their leader, Draco, who somehow picked up a distinct New York accent during his travels across the cosmos (Peter Pan/Power Records was based out of New Jersey). I knew I could have fun with it.

It allowed me to dip my hands again in Adobe Audition and Premiere where I could set up slates and titles and layer my audio in with sound effects I downloaded from the BBC Sound Effects archive (it’s seriously incredible). My plan was to do all the voices, but I ended up recruiting my talented cousin Abby on the female characters. My best friend Jon provided some musical cues and after about a week of editing, it was done!

Tune In Next Time

When I posted the finished video to YouTube and linked it to my social accounts, a very lovely thing happened. A few friends expressed interest in wanting to contribute if I planned to do more stories. After some coordination, six of us – myself, Jon, Abby and three other friends – did a virtual table read over Zoom to kick off the start of two more book-and-record adventures! It was more fun than I hoped it would be and I’m now even more excited to continue this little project and follow where it leads.

Need Even More Power?

• Medium ran a story about the history of Power Records, with a bit of a hip-hop bent. They were apparently a fertile ground for sampling. Who knew?
• There’s also an older blog that seems like an exhaustive repository of everything Power Records if you are looking for a rabbit hole to explore.
• Of course, many of the old Power Records stories are available to watch/listen on YouTube, uploaded by fans.

I was given a lot of leeway in terms of direction again this year. Since Bananas doesn’t really have a budget for these things, it’s essentially a pro bono gig. I’m big believer that designers should be compensated for their design. I’m also a big believer in the relationships you form with people and being in position to help out in ways that don’t always result monetary transactions. Let’s just say my vinyl copies of Depeche Mode’s Black Celebration and Simple Minds’ Sister Feelings Call have left me properly compensated. I look at it as a chance to flex my creative brain on projects outside of my job at the hospital. I’ve worked hard in recent years to build relationships that afford me the privilege to work on fun side projects like this.

There are a lot of great designs of past RSD posters and since it’s an international event, that allowed for a treasure trove of ideas to inspire what became the finished design. I liked combining the idea of the vinyl record and its grooves with the orbits of our solar system’s planets. It helped that the lineup at the store consisted of eight acts and a food truck (sorry Pluto, at least you were represented).

As with any design exploration, a lot of the fun is coming up with various concepts and then leaving it up to the client to decide which they like best because they always choose your favorite. Excuse me while I turn off my sarcasm alarm. I was really happy with my exploration on this one though and although my personal favorite is the minimalist design utilizing the banana silhouette as the arm of the record player, I was still happy with what Bananas chose.

There’s no law saying Halloween can’t be extended beyond October 31, so we’re keeping the spirit alive with an added episode which asks the question, “Why did Pete make Jon watch Halloween III?” The answer is simple: so we could do a podcast episode on it!

Halloween III gets a lot of grief because it doesn’t feature Michael Myers as the antagonist and is an outlier in the series. It’s also gained a cult status over the years as the oddity in what became an increasingly odd series. But does that mean it’s any good?

It does have America’s Treasure Tom Atkins going for it, so…

Michael Myers is back and Jamie Lee Curtis isn’t putting up with his shit in a direct sequel to John Carpenter’s classic, ‘Halloween’… also called ‘Halloween.’ Does this slasher still cut like a knife, or are we looking at death by a thousand AARP card cuts?

We’ll go in depth on this latest installment, directed by David Gordon Green and co-written by Danny McBride and featuring an A-list cast that includes Curtis, Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, Will Patton and a return cameo from the original The Shape, The Nick Castle . We also tease a discussion on the Michael Myers-less “Halloween III” which we end up saving for another episode because after a two month hiatus, we talk for a really long time.

Grab your  Shatner masks and listen in on our discussion. Let us know what you thought of the new ‘Halloween’ on Twitter.

As celebrators of earnest awfulness at the Sobadcast, there’s something about listening to an enthusiastic caller sharing their experience sharing a couple of tall ones with a mullet-sporting sasquatch on some backwoods Washington State logging trail that just sits right with us. All the better that you couldn’t tell who was nuttier, the callers or the hosts.

As an homage to those paranormal radio shows like Coast to Coast AM hosted by Art Bell, George Noory and the like, we present you some archival footage of the little-known Full Moon Radio show with host Pat Moon (and guest host Philipander Poon). Sponsored by Aqua Velva.

Have you ever wondered how certain movies just never appeared on your radar, despite having seen most other entries in the genre? So did we when we recently stumbled upon the 1981 slasher flick Final Exam. Then we watched the movie.

On this episode we study out the misguided homages to better films, the extra long scenes that don’t lead anywhere or further the plot and of course the random wedgie tug that may have been a character choice but probably wasn’t.

Stick around at the end where we shamelessly namedrop the Skip to the End podcast and hand out some grades of our own for some of the latest releases.

One thing I wanted to accomplish when I moved to St. Petersburg from D.C. was to experience a night at a local bar spinning some of the music that has shaped and influenced my life. I had no equipment, no experience and no idea if anyone in St. Pete even listened to the stuff I’d want to play.

Friends helped.

Jen and Genevieve, co-workers at local vinyl shop Bananas Records, asked me to be a part of a three-headed-DJ team and we’ve been doing a monthly Flashback Fridays gig at The Independent Bar for a few months now. We spin all vinyl and we keep it simple and fun. It’s less a dance party and more background music and that suits me fine, although random acts of dancing do occur.

It also gave me a chance to throw down some design ideas for the night’s promo posters.

For our 60s night, I took inspiration from the Quadrophenia film poster since I lean towards the British end of the 60s spectrum (plus, I practically own stock in Ben Sherman). I prefer to keep my design simple and clean, so I liked the bits of blue, red and black on the white background. The type is Helvetica Neue.

Some people love Helvetica and some loathe it. Personally, I love it. I still vividly remember it as part of the New York City Subway maps in the 70s, before I even knew what I was looking at.

I don’t know how long the dj gig will last. The way I look at it, I’ve already surpassed my dream of doing it once. The happiness bonus has been getting the opportunity to channel my love of music into the promo posters. I can’t help but smile when I see them out there in the wild.