This summer my little brother Oscar asked me to print tickets letterpress for a small concert he was putting together with his band, Thomas A. Minor and the Picket Line, in Kentucky. Because Bonnie Prince Billy, our good friend and patron, would be the headliner, they were sure to sell out like lightning and he reckoned that if they were printed letterpress then counterfeiting would be highly unlikely. So I obliged him.

Funtown Ticket

It was really a bit secretive… when he gave me the wording, he didn’t even put a location on the ticket. I insisted that he needed to tell the audience what state they would be traveling to, at the very least… I mean, this wasn’t Charlie Sheen’s wedding (I did his invitations and there were all sorts of non-disclosures and I still don’t know where they got married! There wasn’t even a time on his invitations).

My other favorite part was “The Rules” on the back. I printed those on my laser so I didn’t need to dent the card twice. Since when did rules deserve such fine printing?? On the front of the ticket were the most essential restrictions. “No beer, alcohol or drugs” – only a hillbilly would not consider “beer” as a type of “alcohol”. (I can say that because I am a hillbilly.)

Anyways, those things were really not possible to fake. I put them on discontinued 100% recycled leftovers from a postcard I did for David Pajo years ago. And they had a deep clean impression with super thin type.

However, the point of this story is as follows: sometimes work one does is barely noticed at the time… maybe done for free… given with love and no expectations to family and friends. I printed the tickets and then I got to go to the show. I had to pay for my flight from Los Angeles, but I got my favorite Bonnie Prince Billy song dedicated to me and sang so lovely and then I got an amazing shout out about my work. How exciting!

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/01/05/090105fa_fact_sanneh?currentPage=all

Here’s what K. said…

“They asked Oscar’s sister Jennifer, who lives in Los Angeles, to print the tickets on a letterpress. She made three hundred, and they quickly disappeared from Louisville shops, at ten dollars apiece.”