Here’s the latest blast on the NOC apparel designed by the Beery. Love touch action tees blessed with the iconic NOC logo. This time around I switched up the classic logo branding the beer bottle of the C and swapped in a spilling oil drum paying homage to the South Atlantic and the BP bullshit. We love our coasts. That’s where we enjoy our fun in the sun carnage. Seriously it is an incredible force working with solid talent. Expect another explosive year…Beery Method + Skinny Buddha = 2011!

Nicki Zwiesler for Skinny Buddha

Classic NOC logo illlustrates the groups fresh flavors through letter elements. The “N” – Joint and hand sort of implying the bird though not literally. The “O” – an eye peering out surrounded by teeth: the old there is more to the inner sense and style that will hit you when the lyrical mouth lets loose and the snake eating itself (ouroboros): The Ouroboros represents self reflexivity or cyclicality, especially in the sense of something constantly re-creating itself, the eternal return of K Sos and The NOC The “C” – The lyricists best friend the pencil. A tipped bottle of booze “pour out a little liquor”! and the wave: giving homage to Florida roots.

The NOC classic

The NOC Oil Logo boasts the same classic graphics except for changing up the top element of the C. We agreed that an oil drum and monochromatic color scheme would enhance the logo for the Southern crowd. After playing with some color ways we had a vivid velvet purple and royal blue that really made the printing pop off the black garments. Below is the muted ‘oil’ color way.

NOC Oil Logo

Another stunning model, Meredith Brooke,  sporting the royal blue NOC tee. Check out www.skinnybuddha.com for the freshest gear, hot tracks, and more killer artwork by Beery Method.

Meredith Brooke sports The NOC tank for Skinny Buddha

K Sos and I began the discussion of subject matter and how the artwork would reflect his musical endeavors as well as his personal history. As someone who tours and does shows across the nation it seemed fitting to produce a kind of ‘traveler’s tattoo’. He decided it would be appropriate to reference a few great festivals that inspired Sos and his movement with The N.O.C. I believe his initial description was something like a Voodoo Doll riding an alligator on the Golden Gate Bridge. This was to become a symbology of three capital states, the festivals, and icons of the regions. The Voodoo doll represents the dirty Southern state of Louisiana and Voodoo Fest. The alligator obviously represents the South and even more specifically Florida with regards to Langerado. The trickier part of the design was including Golden Gate Bridge with indelibly speaks San Francisco and the California festival Outside Lands.

Voodood Tattoo ©2009 Nick Beery

The line work as basis for the tattoo had to be created to utilize the curve of the calf muscle and placement on the leg. Hence Golden Gate bridge at a sweeping ‘fish-eye’ lens perspective. I didn’t hold back on the details with the actual tribal mask face from Louisiana to the singular ‘shroom element on the voodoo doll’s chest. These are small but specific elements relative to the treasured place and times of K Sos’s traveling.

It is a real pleasure working on the artwork for the N.O.C. albums and collaborating with such a positive group of energy-pushers. The creative momentum seems to be a cyclical feed that allows both visual and audio artists to gain drive and the end result is nothing short of amazing. All our collaborative projects bleed bad ass dedication always. The tattoo may be just line work at the moment, but I know once K Sos gets back on the leather table it is going to be epic. Below is just the beginning phase.

Voodood Tattoo on K Sos calf muscle.

Here’s the badass color…

Color!

I’m always available for tattoo art commissions so hit me up if you need great ink!

His latest release, The Late-Nite Walrus, is no exception for our insanely syncopated symbiosis. What began as a few liner notes from K Sos turned into a deeply exciting cover to work on when it came around to the BeeryMethod Studio. His notes consisted of “a walrus (with sunglasses, a tuxedo on, tusks, and whiskers) walking forward in a desert. In the desert, he is surrounded by stacks of CDs (which appear like castles) and tons of random book shelves filled with books.” I decided to take this concept a bit further and ‘class’ it up a bit. Rather than stacks of compact discs I decided that the old vinyl was more proper. The walrus character was a depiction of a burnt-out Vegas act who had done his dues and is now out of his element yet surrounded by what he loves best, his words and music. This was a clever hint on the personality and desires of K Sos as well. We even hid a few book titles on the foreground shelf that are a few of Sos’s favorites.

The Late-Nite Walrus ©2010 BeeryMethod

Aside from the vinyl I thought the perfect compliment to this lounge-act-walrus was to add in a few other antiqued elements such as the old record player, radios, violin, and vinyl records stuck in the ground with K Sos’s other cd titles. Taking a reference from the Marvin Gaye album I Want You, I divided the top half of the cover with a simple white line and black rectangle. This also conveys the old record covers of the era and seemed like the perfect touch for the theme of this album. Along with the Vegas references I created lettering based upon the famous ‘Welcome to Las Vegas’ sign on the strip and even borrowed those neon star elements which really made the cover ‘pop’. Using our neon color trifecta which consisted of purple, green, and blue it was an easy task of strategically placing these colors and elements to keep the viewers I moving around the cover.

Last but not least I chose to utilize the crow element. The crows represent the vehicle of bringing knowledge, shape-shifting, eloquence, prophecy, boldness, skill, knowledge, cunning, and trickery as symbolism. The flock of crows is the unleashing of lyrical mayhem and fortitude K Sos brings to the mic and were worthy elements to bring intricacy to the sky and atmosphere. They float nicely in front of the moon.

When I finished the cover, after a few small revisions, K Sos sent me this message: “Do you have a portal into my brain?…is that a component of the BeeryMethod?…shit is fucking ridic!”

No strangers to stirring the pot of political roughness and kicking raw flavor that amplifies the generation XYZ, it was a duo blast of urban rawness and shotgun imagery from both sides. K Sos and Rams are on the pinnacle of exploiting their freedom of expression and Murphy’s Killer is no exception. In an attempt to squash Murphy’s Law, the facetious proposition that if something can go wrong, it will, these two members of The N.O.C put the clutch down on excelling into a new era of keeping it genuine and representing the buzz of the American street aficionados.

To do justice and reflect the messages broadcast on MK the cover had to be montaged in a seamlessly compact way. Depicted on the cover are members K Sos and Rams who have drug Murphy to his last rights. Murphy is satirized as the obese, greedy, white-bred politician who has been captured and brutalized by the N.O.C crew. A shotgun to his head, stab wounds, and all his dirty money on the pavement, Murphy (Murphy’s Law) is over with.

Murphy's Killer 2010

To complete the full effect of the chaos to ensue I broke into my bank of imagery to montage a masterpiece of mayhem. Surrounded by police squads, cops with guns drawn, tattooed chicks, screaming fans, and flames bursting in the air the focus of the cover (the slaughtering of Murphy) is pushed into the foreground. Photos used in the background came from my trips across the continental USA. The graffiti building on the left originates in the Mission District of San Francisco, the city skyline of Chicago, a water tower from Alcatraz, parking lot in Seattle, deco building and club from Italy, and characters who have been digitally painted and enhanced all come together to form a surreal environment that is reminiscent of a frame from Grand Theft Auto.

Every detail from the ghetto birds (police helicopters) blasting spotlights all the way down to the cracks in the concrete all spin from the depths of my inner beast that roars “make this solid…down to the core”. The effect is an insane composition that keeps the viewer coming back and finding more pieces of gooey visual elements that rock the soul. Here’s to putting the kibosh on Murphy’s Law and the giants of the Southeast…N.O.C. 4 Life!