Episode 171 - Jay Ryan

Third Gear Scratch

Artist and musician Jay Ryan remembers the moment that he began to create the animal-based characters that inhabit his hand-printed concert and event posters that have become ubiquitous in the rock world; he was just out of college at U of I in Champaign and was bogging down and unable to finish a painting because of undiagnosed ADHD, so he began to draw his living room automan, over and over from different angles. At a certain point he just added a pair of wide-set eyes that instantly imbued the automan with life for him. Since then, in his shop called The Bird Machine in Skokie IL, using his fatigue of seeing the usual rock posters using skulls and evil imagery, Jay has created a world in his posters involving squirrels, toasters, teddy bears, bicycles, rhinocerous in a kaleidascope of colors, all with his trademark wide-set eyes that is at once mystically sweet and ethereal. His band from Champaign called Dianogah became a huge outlet for him in other mediums and they went on to release 5 full-length albums on Southern Records with John McEntire (Tortoise) and Steve Albini as producer before calling it quits in 2009. They continue to play occasionally today and give this inspiring creator another avenue to spread his unique vision of the world.