Web Design For a Rolling Stones Project
Filed Under Web Design Projects | Leave a Comment
Stumpworld got to do a little web design for the Stones too. I don’t think the below artwork even made it to a live web site but, it was cool to work for them. We got excellent seats at a Foxwoods show in 2000.
Web Design For Roman Records
Filed Under Web Design Projects | Leave a Comment
Now this site was a dooosey. It was a web design project for Joe Perry, one of Aerosmith’s guitarist, and his new record company. I had a beautiful site design and Joe or someone said “it should be a big amp”, Yeah, then Joe should jump out and explode into cosmic bliss chunks that give orgasims to everyone within 10 feet of the computer.
This site was online with one page for about 4 years then it disappeared. The domain is still there but no site to speak of.
John Brown Body’s Website Design
Filed Under Web Design Projects | Leave a Comment
Just after 9/11, Stumpworld went belly up. The John Brown’s Body website design project saved my butt in more ways than one.
One of my best friends, Scott Palmer, had just landed the gig with JBB. What a totally perfect fit. I played with Scott Palmer for years and knew his style quite well, the first time I saw him with JBB I knew before I arrived that he acclamated to the new project… you could feel the thunder before you even walked into the club. I’d been Palmerized, his bass OWNED the club, the Paradise on Comm. ave. He had 800 watts pouring out of two SVT cabnets. The thing is, his style is laid back and can be minimalistic so no other musicians were overpowered. What an awesome band that was, IS? Haven’t seen the new incarnation yet, looking foreward to it though.
Anyways, this was my first freelance website design project post Stumpworld and it really helped me get situated to my new situation.
MMW First Official Site Design
Filed Under Web Design Projects | Leave a Comment
I remember doing site design for Medeski, Martin & Wood just after Stumpworld moved out of our house and into an actual office building.
These guys were just becoming popular and the Lizard Lounge was the place to see them in Boston.
First Official Phish Web Site Design
Filed Under Web Design Projects | Leave a Comment
Back in the 90s I worked for a start up web design and development company called Stumpworld and we were lucky enough to get some of the coolest website gigs available in those days. Aerosmith’s first site was probably our biggest production though looking back, sheesh, what newbs. Phish was another of our big clients and we ended up managing their site and “Dry Goods” commerce site for several years after.
As usual I never got to meet any of the musicians but I did get to see several shows at close range and one back stage at the most gigantic rock show I’ve ever seen. Being a web design artist does have it’s perks.
Blue Note Record’s First Website Design
Filed Under Web Design Projects | Leave a Comment
Stumpworld also got to do Blue Note Records first official website design. I remember scanning 800+ CD covers then creating large and thumbnail versions of each by hand. Actually I think we had a batch processor but it was not all that great.
Web Design for Arlen Roth
Filed Under Web Design Projects | Comments Off
Through my friends at Nimbit I got the opportunity to do web design for Arlen Roth, one of a very small group of people who have earned the title “Master of the Telecaster”, an elite force in American culture. The few, the loud, the twang of stringed fury and frolic, bliss and despair. Arlen is one of those guys.
Arlen Roth’s second web site design was made with more attention to SEO. It features his new DVD “Toolin Aroun Woodstock, featuring Levon Helm”. Lots of audio players.
Arlen’s first site was 70% Flash and there were some problems with the absolute positioning and drop down layers. It featured a great picture of Arlen sitting with one of his vintage cars.
Arlen’s daughter Lexie is fantastic as well. An smooth, luscious voice and some obvious guitar chops as well. Just a joy to listen to.
Overall, doing web design for Arlen and his manager Jon was an absolute pleasure. They are both gentlemen and treated me with the utmost respect… which astounded me. You should go out and buy everything he has created.
Stumpworld and The Accidental Web Developer
Filed Under Life As a Web Designer | Leave a Comment
I never meant to be a web developer. I was going for rock star but my band turned into a web development company.
I was a rock guitar player in Boston for 8 years, made a bunch of albums, toured, never got a deal… we couldn’t sing, bark and yell and run around like maniacs yes, sing, not really. It was more about friends and music than it was about business and selling so… Wigg, The Dinosaur, and I had a good time but never really polished the act. My last project with Hell Toupee was appropriately titled “Prehygenic Rock Slop” and was awesome.
The next band was called Squid! With non other than Squid Lips himself. One day Squidlly brought home 4 286 PCs and a bunch of other cool stuff. His job as “techie” for a medical refferal company in the early 90s paid well AND and when they upgraded he got all their old stuff. We had an Amiga in the house and it had the Disney animation software which was so cool… floating vector art was brand new, Toasters and such. But then, over night, the Squidalicousness hooked up an entire LAN network with an email server, a Linux file server and the internet. Stumpworld the house became Stumpworld Inc. the web development company.
I started with Corel Draw , 3D Studio, Photoshop 2, and TextPad. GIFTRANS!
Then they met the Dragon Lady. Naah, she was OK but I still don’t believe the Hendrix story. She had worked with The Police, U2 and some others but wanted out of music and into technology. She hooked us up with Aerosmith and we did their first web site, the Space Donut. I designed Aerosmith’s first homepage. Whoo Hoo. Never met them once. SquidButt got to hang with them several times. I talked to Tom on the phone once, he was having IRQ problems with a new game controller.
Then we did Phish, and Blue Note Records and MMW, Rolling Stones, more Aerosmith… but Squid and Zoon had other plans. Plans going back before the Dragon Lady. Zoon was making Online Merchant, a dektop app. that generated an e-commerce website.
Then I guess we got some money because we all moved out of the extra bedrooms and into an office building. Then came Ri and Buyitonline.com. Buyitonline.com was a portal to stores built with Online Merchant.
Company exploded to 60 employees. Was bought for XX million dollars by a big fish from Canada. We all got big raises, big titles, and big stock options. The next year everything crashed. Stock options became worthless, everyone got laid off. I still have a Marshall Stack, a Les Paul, a Telecaster, and a B.C.Rich Mockingbird… and a pretty good web design business too.
Stumpworld
Filed Under Life As a Web Designer | Leave a Comment
Stumpworld was a house, a rehearsal studio, a recording studio, an ongoing party then a web development company and now a web hosting company which has nothing to do with the other five things.
It began at a house in Allston, MA. Allston Street to be exact. In the 70s through the 80s, Allston, MA just 2 miles West of Boston, was the “cool” place to live for 20 somethings. Boston has more colleges per square mile than most cities so much of it, including, Cambridge, Back Bay and the surrounding areas was very young. There were MANY places to see live, local music and the town churned out some gems. Aerosmith, J Giles, The Cars, etc… in league with LA and NY as a place to start/hear/see a band.
The house on Allston St. saw many a local band. The names of most made it to the basement door… until they did the Asbestos removal anyways. Karlo Takki and Dr. Satan were probably the first, and the Scottsman too. There were others but I don’t remember that much of the early years. Takki was in Skin, Dr. Satan was with ms. Allen, I was in the early stages of Hell Toupee. We met at the house to meet with the Dr. and the Doctor was IN. 6′4″ skin head previously front man of The Arch Bishop’s Enema Fetish… he would wear a wedding dress. Mrs. Zinnman goes shopping at the mall, you know. Hell Toupee was looking for a singer but it didn’t pan out. Not sure why, in retrospect it probably would have worked quite well. I can’t even imagine what art might have flowed from a Wigg - Dr. Satan team up.
I moved in to Stumpworld in 1992. I had joined a band called Squid! whose front man, Squid Lips, and Boho the bass player live at the house. As soon as a room opened up I immediately moved in. The room was HUGE, the basement was the rehearsal space and Takki had a 16 track studio on the third floor wired to mikes in the basement. An awesome setup. Squid! made two albums here.
At some point I inquired about how the name Stumpworld came about. Turns out there was an incident with hallucinogenics and an x-rated movie involving paraplegics. The phrase “Lick My Love Stump” became a motif at the house and it was soon known as Stumpworld.
The bands, the parties, all those people eventually found other paths. Life focus takes a turn at some point and some people realize too late that some things in life are not meant to be. Long story short we were all broke and had crap jobs, the internet came along and BIZANG, we all had careers. The music lasted a while longer but eventually faded out to the sounds of BUSINESS.
Frantic typing until 4 in the morning, tons of coffee and constant incoming calls, the Stumpworld of yore was no longer. It had become a web development company and the “alternative” vibe was gone.
Eventually the company died and the house was sold. Stumpworld is officially done by 2002. No watches.
First Aerosmith Website Design
Filed Under Web Design Projects | Comments Off
In 1996, my website design and development company at the time, Stumpworld, got the Aerosmith gig and I designed and built their homepage, “The Space Donut”. I was pretty psyched to do it though I knew I was probably not the most eligible candidate for the job.
First Aerosmith Web Site
1998 New Years Eve Back Stage Pass lamanent
I continued to maintain their site for the next 4 years and got to do a few side projects as well like the 1998 Back Stage Pass lamanent for the New Years Eve show in Boston.
It was supposed to be a joke on Joey Kramer the drummer who had recently had an “incident” involving a vintage car, a gasoline station and a match…
Never met them. Hung out with some of their very weird employees. Clay was an exception, very cool.