Exploded Hipster

Community project about the independent music scene. With collaborators from the Yuxtapongo crew.

At the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, as part of *Area 919*. Sculpture by Casey Cook in the foreground.

Exploded Hipster is comprised of well-loved articles of clothing generously contributed by the broader music community of Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and Carrboro. It’s both a celebratory portrait of the scene and a critical gesture, talking back to the too-easy dismissal of everything associated with the pejorative framing around the hipster subculture/lifestyle. It confronts and exploits the trope, while gracefully subverting expectations and revealing an expressive archive of one-of-a-kind, narrative-rich materials that mark an informal history of cultural creation in our specific community.

Original installation of *Exploded Hipster* in the background as Thee Oh Sees perform at Hopscotch.

The project was originally created and installed at CAM Raleigh for the Hopscotch Music Festival in 2012. In 2015 it was included in Area 919 at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, the museum’s first exhibition of contemporary work by local artists, curated by Trevor Schoonmaker and Marshall Price. The project was created in collaboration with Yuxtapongo. Yuxtapongo founder Neill Prewitt and I talk about the project here:

Here’s a selected annotation of some of the pieces included at the Nasher:

Les Savy Fav shirt from drummer (and Area 919 artist) Harrison Haynes
Girls Rock North Carolina is a Triangle-based organization intent on empowering girls and women to participate in the music community through summer Rock Camps, after-school programs and women’s Rock Retreats. Artist and musician Meg Stein contributed this shirt — she’s also in an all-female Danzig cover band with one of the Girls Rock co-founders (there’s a Janzig shirt up there somewhere, too)
My Pavement tee from the Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain show at the Cat’s Cradle in 1994
CAN shirt from musician and banjo-maker Zeke Graves. CAN were an experimental rock group from 1970s Germany who widely influenced the sound of independent rock here (in bands such as Zeke’s Cold Sides)
T-shirt from artist and Yuxtapongo collaborator Mollie Earls, featuring a portrait of the artist as a young woman
Shirt frequently seen on Paul Siler (Birds of Avalon, The Cherry Valence, Trucker, co-owner of Raleigh venue Kings) — Paul performing with the late, great Cherry Valence in 2003
Bill and Barbara from Tannis Root/Kung Fu contributed several test prints to the project, including this shirt for Sonic Youth, whose merch they produced for decades
Photographer and designer Julianna Thomas wore this gold cape during a performance at Neptune’s with Polyorchard for Sun Ra’s 100th birthday in 2014.
“Super-Concentrated Bitch” shirt worn by musician and artist Claire Ashby (Angels of Epistemology) during bartending nights at the Rockford in Raleigh
Artist and musician Ron Liberti (Pipe, Cold Cream) contributed a suitcase full of amazing relics including this piece of a mid-90s Mind Sirens shirt
Pipe shirt worn regularly by musician, photographer, Yuxtapongo contributor Ben Spiker (Erie Choir, Audubon Park)
Weavexx baseball cap worn by Yuxtapongo artist Neill Prewitt (Weavexx was an amusingly-named apparel company whose brand was co-opted for a 1990s improvisational music project piloted by some of the artists who’d go on to form Yuxtapongo)
Polyester race car shirt worn at countless shows by musician and DJ Nick Speaks (Strange, Rocket Cottage), co-founder of the SUGO Radio podcast with Vince Carmody. Listen online.
Bandway: Bo plays guitar and sometimes sings along. Brooks plays drums on tape and there he is onstage, doing a dance, and singing a song. Here they are at the grand re-opening of Kings in 2010.
Orange County Social Club, second home to many Chapel Hill and Carrboro musicians
Meg Stein (see also #2) gave us this Invisible shirt. Invisible is based in Greensboro but performs here from time to time using homemade mechanical instrumental contraptions. Here’s a performance of theirs from Moogfest 2012.
Music fan and art advisor Chloe Seymore gave us this her favorite hoodie
Shirts featuring illustrations by musician and artist Brian Walsby (Davidians, Double Negative, Polvo, many more)
Picasso Trigger was one of three NC bands picked up by Alias Records the early 90s
Claire Ashby (see also #9) gave us several pieces including this shirt from Wayne Taylor’s 1993 mayoral run. Wayne Taylor helped pioneer Raleigh hardcore in No Labels, played in WWAX with Brian Walsby and Mac McCaughan from Superchunk, and in Orifice with Greg Elkins, in addition to co-founding Raleigh institutions Barefoot Press and Lilly’s Pizza.
This mysterious shirt was in a batch of stuff contributed by Scott Craddock and Skip Elsheimer (see #25 and #31), and we learned only recently that the Bill on the shirt is actually Bill Thelen (Area 919 artist and co-owner of Lump)
My Archers of Loaf baseball tee from 1995
Nightlight was formerly the Skylight Exchange bookstore and cafe. It’s now is a bar/club owned and operated by Charlie and Ethan from All Day Records
These green jeans were worn by Yuxtapongo artist and graphic designer Robin Vuchnich
This Grand Pricks shirt was part of an amazing collection of Wifflefist and Pine Haus-related ephemera (see also #21, #31, and throughout) contributed by musician Scott Craddock and archivist Skip Elsheimer (of AV Geeks)
Derek Torres is wearing this shirt on the cover of TL;DR, the 2014 LP by his musical project T0W3RS
Early Merge Records shirt from the mid-1990s
Cy Rawls loved music, especially music made by his friends. We went to high school together. This shirt was from a 5K we ran to raise money for him when he was fighting cancer
Missy Thangs (Heads on Sticks, Birds of Avalon, the Love Language, et. al.) gave us a pair of Carrboro’s own Ha Ha shoes and some signature giant hoop earrings, as well as an original Love Language tee and a sparkly red shirt also included elsewhere in the piece
Ron Liberti’s ink-splattered shoe. That’s ink from countless local show posters and t-shirts
Pine Haus was the Wifflefist HQ and Skip’s old abode (see #25). The N&O recently re-published a 1999 story on Skip and the Haus

The artists are extremely grateful to everyone who contributed to the project, including All Day Records, Claire Ashby, Amanda Saxe Barr, Birds Of Avalon, John Bowman, Bull City Records, Lauren Carter, Vince Carmody, Kevin Clark, Scott Craddock, Skip Elsheimer, Katrina Lamberto Elsheimer, Sarah Fuller, The Future Kings of Nowhere, Zeke Graves, Johnny Gray, Olivia Griego, Harrison Haynes, Charlie Hearon, Barbara Herring, Andy Heymann, Bryan Hoffman, Liz Johnson, Cheetie Kumar, Ron Liberti, Drew Martin, Alexis Mastromichalis, Bill Mooney, David Mueller, Neptune’s, Sara Phoenix, Molly Renda, Eric Roehrig, Tannis Root Productions, Schoolkids Records, Ken Rumble, Jenny Schneider, Chloe Seymore, Paul Siler, Chad Smith, Nick Speaks, Ben Spiker, Meg Stein, Nicole & Les Stewart, Sarah Tector, Teddy, Michelle Temple, Missy Thangs, Julianna Thomas, Jolee Todd, Derek Torres, Ginger Wagg, Bob Witchger, Napoleon Wright.