Tom Hart with Moon Hooch - Train O' Thots
Art and music inspired by the New York City subway.
About the Gralbum
Ever sit across from a stranger on the subway and find yourself imagining a theoretical backstory for their lives? Who is this person? What are they thinking? Where did they come from, and where are they going? This has happened to artist Tom Hart a lot over the years. The result of these musings is his Train O’ Thots series of annotated illustrations, drawn live and in real-time during his subway commutes around New York City. These portraits, incorporating hypothetical biographical text -- names changed to protect the peculiar -- now burst forth in interactive Gralbum format. Experience their stories as the train rolls on and the characters come alive, with a brassy soundtrack by Moon Hooch setting the tone for the first example of this series.
Headphones On …
Run time: 3:52
Download Size: 102 MB
Produced and published by The Gralbum Collective
Released: April 2014
Includes:
1 song - "Number 9" (3:52)
Over 40 original drawings and urban sonnets
Ability to export song to iTunes for listening and sharing
Credits:
Art and Words: Tom Hart
Music: Moon Hooch
Video and Animation: Jacob McCoy and Leah Coloff
Trailer
Bio: Tom Hart
He was an artist, a dinosaur in these computer times - electronic miscommunications. He made things by hand - utilizin’ a fountain pen, a brush, cut paper-collage style. People need to create. He drew from life by drawing himself. Life draws you in. Feed your soul with art …
NYC squeezes, squishes, pushes, persuades, pollutes and pressures lives. It’s Darwinism to the power NYC, resulting in industrial-strength personalities and life in its most highly concentrated form. The train is the mother lode of Earth’s most interesting people. The mosh pit of life’s concert. Mecca moving for anyone infatuated with the side effects of evolution. These are truly one-of-a-kind characters. It’s my job to capture and preserve them here in Thomas Hart's Train O’ Thots. I ride the rails every day with my sketch pad - I hope you enjoy the ride.
Moon Hooch consists of saxophonists Mike Wilbur and Wenzl McGowen, and drummer James Muschler. As students at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City, they found in each other a similar drive to work hard, practice, and create new, unusual sounds with their instruments. The culmination of their efforts is what they refer to as “cave music”: like house music, but more primitive and jagged and raw. There are no DJs or manufactured beats here — just one drum kit and two saxophones. By organifying electronic music, by producing synthetic sounds with acoustic musical machines, Moon Hooch hopes to inspire others to share their belief that anything synthetic can be replaced with something organic.