Thumbs Up Immediately was a show I had at Spector Gallery July 2005. The title came from Justin Hawkins shouting it out live while he and his band The Darkness played their hit, ‘I Believe in a Thing Called Love’. The whole crowd raised thumbs and probably everything else raisable as well. I had just heard of the band from my friend Cory P who sent me a burned unlabeled copy of Permission To Land in the mail and told me I was gonna love it. Almost always, when people tell me I’m gonna love a record I don’t. This was different, I really couldn’t believe what I was hearing. So much so, I heard they were coming for a 4 stop American tour and drove from Philadelphia to Chicago to see them. They played at the Double Door, blew my face in, and left me with Thumbs Up Immediately all over my head. I wanted to paint them for my show at Spector but I didn’t have any pictures of them. This was before I knew how to troll the internet and find source material. I got all my references from metal magazines at flea markets or old rock books from the public library. I settled with this Guns N’ Roses drawing for the show posters and tee shirts and had a Slade painting on the postcards. I was on a monster Van Halen kick at the time more than anything. Thanks to the Darkness for lighting the fire and helping me understand the ultimate magnitude of these other bands. Thanks to Adam Wallacavage for the great photos.

Van Halen peach east corner wall

VH PENNIES

‘Sauce’ Sobolewski

Poster wall corner opposite the VH corner. That's Nola, Shelley Spector's cool daughter.

This was part of the east wall. The dots on the lower left corner are pennies in little cases.

Brothers Gibb

Chili Dogs, my old band with Trebag and Brett George. Alotta man here.

Sade on a bike saying hi to Roger Troutman in heaven.

The Cars

Ramones on a Countach

Guns N' Roses Pennies, Izzy and Slash

Twisted Sister pennies, Jay Jay, Eddie 'Fingers' and Dee

Thin Lizzy Pennies, Phil and Brian

Thin Lizzy Live and Dangerous cut outs on wood 3'x3'ish

Johnny Ramone

Sloshers. Alot of this stuff is from pictures Patrick o'dell took and I painted them. some friends some dudes I don't even know.

Madonna, Prince, Billy and Gene paintings. These were made into skateboards for Enjoi.

Rob Halford screaming for vengeance

Ram Jam

Sui Cyborg were a metal band from hilliard, Ohio featuring Todd Pulsinelli and Chuck Rockhold. Not to be confused with Fried Bacon, the youngest speed metal band in america, also from Hilliard.

Slade, Slayed?

E. Bloom and Buck Dharma of Blue Oyster Cult

Sloshers deck

journey

Lucy, Talk to the Paw. that's what all the dogs were saying back in 2005.