Toy Machine Skateboards mainman Ed Templeton tells the Diamond Wizard story: "A few years back I asked artist Chris Johanson to do a series of board graphics for us. He came up with the whole concept called ‘Diamond Wizard’ and recorded music just for the boards. The music was dark and had great lyrics about being the overlord of a multitude of minions. We produced the music as a cassette tape and shrink-wrapped them into the boards he made. It sold like crap, but it was the best series we ever did." I have known Chris Johanson for some 12 years now. We became friends when our old bands would play and ingest drugs together, he used to be kind of a dick, but then again so was I. Now he's a very well-known artist and I'm proud to drop his name every so often. Some years ago he gave me not one, but a whole box of these Diamond Wizard tapes. It was quite some time before I got around to listening to it, but when I did.....Fuck. I would give one to anybody who happened to come over to my place and they would almost always politely decline the offer, and I would insist. Often they'd tell me later that they were pretty blown away by what they heard. I'm sorry to report that I have no more, not even one for myself, but I did have the forethought to rip this treasure to mp3 format and burn a cdr before losing it. I could find no art or song titles, sorry. Here it is in it's entirety, The Diamond Wizard tape:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=BP4T2R1F
More info on Chris Johanson's art:
http://chrisjohanson.com/
i met chris in a similar context - my old band played with his old band. we have several mutual friends and i see him when i see him. his most recent band here in NY was really good. I wish they kept playing, but he's a travellin' man. can't wait to hear this tape !
ReplyDeletei listened to this tape so many times! I remember one friend actually paying 20 dollars to buy it from another. I also remember trying to call Toy Machine and their distribution company lots of times to try to talk to someone who knew what this was to see if I could get one shipped to me. No luck! Thanks!
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