Another New Favorite Band

I have a really great friend, Mary Kay Braun, here in Waconia.  One of Mary Kay's sons is Travis Braun.  He is an artists.  One of my friends, Jenna Forbush Norwood, met Travis while at BYU and bought one of his prints for her cousin as a birthday present. Jenna also worked at Brighton Girl's Camp with the sister and wife of two of the Fictionist members.  Small world. 

Here is part of an e-mail Travis sent to his friends and family on March 31, 2011:

Hey Everyone,

So there is this local rock band from Salt Lake named Fictionist. I recently went to one of their shows, introduced myself and hung out with them on their tour bus (no joke) I was so impressed with how cool & down to earth they all are so I decided to create some artwork for them. I attached 2 pieces I did to this email (see below) And they actually really liked one of my pieces so much that they contacted me and said they would love to make some t-shirts out of my design!!! I am SO stoked, cause these guys are SUPER talented and on the verge of becoming very famous!

Currently they are in a competition to be on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine. They would be the FIRST unsigned (meaning they have NO record deal) band in history to make the cover of RS! That is HUGE, Rolling Stone is the biggest music magazine in the world. They made it past the first round of 16 bands and are now one of 8 bands left in the running.

SO... what I would LOVE for you to do is, visit the following link and where it says "Rate this artist" click on 5 STARS (the stars have no color until you scroll over them then they turn yellow, then once you click on the stars they should turn red and stay red, that is how you know that your vote counted)
HERE IS THE LINK TO RATE THEM http://www.fictionist.com/rollingstone/ZPR

And if that isn't enough, I am also trying to get them to come play at the school I teach at, the principal has oked it, the lead singer of Fictionist said "yeah man that would be rad, we would love that", now the only thing is that he (the lead singer, Stu) has to check their schedule and try to make it work.... so I am waiting to hear back from them, there is a very good chance this could happen!

Trav

PS - The piece with the hand was inspired by Fictionist's first album "Invisible Hand" and is the piece they want to use to make t-shirts. This one was just a sketch, I am currently recreating this piece with better craftsmanship, higher resolution, and playing with colors & fonts.

The other piece was inspired by their song "Noisy Birds" the lyrics to the song are as follows,

Noisy birds singing at the break of dawn

How dare they wake such a miserable man with their singing and their carrying on

Where'd they get the idea they could be so fancy and free?

These noisy birds got it all wrong, they got to hang their head like me