by Stacy Zimmer
Welcome to the fourth installment of Frequent Flyers, where we highlight, document and preserve the art behind music. This week, we feature artist Kyle Harvey.
"I think cool flyers are just as important as ever. I kind of think of it as the 'analog' Facebook," Harvey says.
Harvey got his start as a poster designer while bartending at Benson's Barley Street Tavern. He noticed few bands were using posters and flyers to promote their shows, so he put his love for visual arts to wok and started doing it for them. He's working to carve a path to freelance full-time for bands, designing tour posters, CDs, T-shirts and anything else that comes his way. He enjoys creating promo items from the ground up to help bands put gas in their tanks.
Harvey's also a versatile, accomplished musician. He plays with It's True and performs and records solo, under his own name. He's now working on his fifth solo album, and he's putting together a collaborative album featuring 10-15 artists for his indie label Slo-Fidelity Records. It's a "small, bedroom record label releasing homemade records with handmade packaging and artwork," according to its Facebook page. The label has put out albums by It's True, Cat Island, Matt Whipkey, John Klemmensen and the Party, Ben Sief, Little Black Stereo and others. Proceeds from the album will help Harvey build the Slo-Fidelity's website. Harvey also works as an agent for Midwest Dilemma frontman Justin Lamoureux's Wagons West Booking.
On his poster design, Harvey says his inspiration comes from, well, what he finds.
"I guess I am just 'borrowing' old movie, propagandha and expo posters. I manipulate them slightly by adding text or altering them a bit. I really can't take too much credit for the actual artwork within each poster," he says, "it's kind of the Andy Warhol approach."
To see more of Kyle Harvey's design work, visit Barley Street Tavern's Facebook page or go inside, analog style, and look at their north wall. To hear some of Harvey's music, click here.
Email your suggestions for our next Frequent Flyer artist to Stacy Zimmer at stlyzimmer@gmail.com.