A creative new project has been launched, one combining the music of the Ultimate Power Duo (UPD), and a graphic novel, ‘Space Joe: Ad Astra’ based upon the music.
UPD’s newest record Space Joe: Ad Astra is a 20-track concept album coupled with a 90-page graphic novel. Twelve different artists created two to five page stories based on each track of the album creating a multifaceted, multi-medium experience.
“Sonically Space Joe: Ad Astra demonstrates UPD’s diversity of songwriters and musicians expanding the repertoire of ‘Demolition Rock’ while remaining true to their old-school live show. In the day of digitally purchased singles and pop focused careers, Ultimate Power Duo has reclaimed the art of true album making,” notes the band’s bio.
While the project is emerging out of Saskatoon, there is a Yorkton connection as former Yorkton Regional High School music teacher Brennan Risling is a long-time member of the UPD.
“I was living and working in Yorkton for the last four-years working at the Yorkton Regional High School being heavily involved in the music and drama department,” he explained.
The Riz taught the Grade 9 -12 drama classes, 9-12 choir classes, Pre AP ELA 903, Creative writing, ELA A 30, assisted with the marching program, directed the musical Footloose, as well as directing the extra-curricular drama productions both of which won the Saskatchewan Drama Festival Region IV competition last year.
“In my spare time, I co-directed the Yorkton Adult Concert Band, was a member of the Yorkton Adult Jazz Band, and was a member / guest conductor for the Yorkton Adult Concert Choir,” added The Riz.
“A large majority of my time in Yorkton was spent in the Regional Performing Arts Wing.”
In terms of the new multi-media project is exciting for the band.
“It is super exciting to have our concept album / graphic novel finally completed,” said The Riz, known in the UPD world simply as ‘The Riz’. “We are extremely happy with how everything turned out.”
But which came first, the book, or the music.
“I actually started with a song,” said The Riz. “The initial idea for the album came from a song we wrote called ‘Joe Goes to Space’ in the early 90s with our first Saskatoon-based band “bent”.
“Fast forward a decade, and Scottrp (bandmate Scott Pilling), and I write a song which is the prequel to the Space Joe song. We took the two songs and put them together as one song in two parts. This song developed the idea of creating a Space Joe concept album.
“As we discussed the idea of making a concept album, we wanted to make an album that was a double record with a comic on the inside of the record sleeve like the read along superhero records in the late 70’s and early 80’s. I have an amazing Batman record with a read along story that was the inspiration for this idea! The cost was too great, however, changing the idea to a cd with a graphic novel. Before we started recording the cd, we planned to make the graphic novel.
“Both works grew out each other.”
The Riz said the two sides of the project began to develop on parallel paths.
“The story line for the CD was prepared and outlined before the songs or lyrics were completed,” said The Riz. “I had a definite storyline in which to sequence the songs, create the lyrics and interpret / tell the story I wanted to tell. After the initial Space Joe song was written, I had ideas for a couple more.
“From there, I outlined the story before writing the songs to know what I had to create lyrically to fit with the story.”
Creating songs which have to fit into a GN storyline did create a unique writing atmosphere for the project.
“Yes and no, to be specifically vague,” said The Riz.
“Lyrically, I had to make sure I covered all the points of the story, so I wasn’t able to write about subjects that were not album related.
“Or if I had another idea for a song about a different subject I just had to make a note of it to go back to later.
“That being said, the narrow focus of the story line reduced the amount of ‘what should I write about today’ conundrum. Once I knew how the storyline would work with the music, it came together quite well.”
But there were other challenges too.
“The sequencing of the songs was more difficult as I knew that certain songs were about certain subjects and had to happen in the correct order,” said The Riz. “For example, the song were Joe flies to the moon for the first time, ‘Space Joe: Ad Astra’, I wanted to have happen right after the song where he is looking at the night sky reflecting on his place in the world and the mysteries of space, ‘My Memory’. What made the sequencing tricky was that the album had to have a good sequential flow melodically and stylistically while making chronological sense in the story. The album had to be a good listen song wise while fitting a concise story line.”
Over time the world of the project have in ways taken over The Riz as a writer.
“What I find funny now is that I have lived in the Space Joe universe for so long, now everything I write ends up being a Space Joe influenced song,” he said. “Probably a good thing being as the follow up album is going songs about the secondary characters of this album that readers don’t know much about! Duophenia: Space Joe II is already in the early recording stages with six songs already demoed.I definitely want to keep these characters and stories continuing.”
Then came find the artists to interpret The Riz’s word into a graphic novel/
“Scottrp went onto the online Joel Shuster awards page and looked up as many Canadian artists as he could find with a focus on Saskatchewan artists,” said The Riz. “We then sent email invitations to the ones that we wanted to work with and see who was available. The artists who came on board were all fantastic.”
The process was then making the collaborations work.
“I can touch a little bit about interpreting the music / lyrics,” said The Riz. “Every artist received detailed notes regarding the over-all story, character descriptions, scenery, themes, costuming and any other points I thought would help in creating the Space Joe universe. Each artist also received a copy of the lyrics and a synopsis of the story they were illustrating, as well as anything else I thought would be helpful.
“From there, the artists were allowed to interpret the story how they seemed fit. Some did the entire story and lettering themselves, some did the artwork with the lettering for us to fill in later, and some asked for a specific script to be written for them to illustrate.
“In the script cases, I wrote the scripts as per requested by the artists. I also taught myself how to do lettering to help letter two of the stories in the book.”
The overall project took literally years to come to fruition.
“From initial conception to completion, the project took about a decade,” said The Riz. “When we decided to begin developing the idea, we would write a riff and say, ‘save it for the space album’.
“Over the years we amassed some songs to be the key points of the record to develop the story around.
“In 2010, we decided to focus and on working on the Space Joe record and started recording in December. We had to put the record on hold, though, to ‘train’ for out five shows at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics including opening for Marianna’s Trench at the Richmond O-Zone Centre.
“According to my lyric sheets, we completed recording in May of 2011, then began the art work process.”
Then came finding the funds for a dual project, a challenge in itself.
“Anytime you try to fund money for an art project it can be tricky,” said Scottrp. “Luckily we put together some pretty convincing applications for grants, and received some monies through the Saskatchewan Arts Board, Creative Sask and Sask Music, and between the album, the graphic novel and the artists it didn’t take too long to make it through the available funds, so then we sold some add space in the book itself to offset the last bit of costs.
“Thankfully if we were to pay for this out of pocket it would have really broke the band, so it’s great these institutions are available to help process art initiatives.”
Having both a CD and graphic novel does open some marketing doors though.
“We have more venues to distribute our product,” offered The Riz. “Right now, we have our graphic novels in the major book sellers and comic stores in Saskatoon, but haven’t contacted the music stores yet. Our graphic novel is in stores now that our stand alone CDs have not been in the past because we have a wider marketing audience.”
The Riz said he also sees some unique niches the multi-media product might be ideal for.
“I also envisioned using the Space Joe graphic novel as part of the Saskatchewan English Language Arts curriculum for ELA A 10. Many teachers mention it is difficu lt to find music to incorporate into curriculum, particularly with any type of Sci-Fi material,” he said. “Here we have a graphic novel which comes with its own custom written soundtrack. I am currently creating a study unit for Space Joe if any teachers out there want to take it on.”
Scottrp said they are looking at other avenues as well.
“We also signed with a new label Blackstream Records out of Calgary, our old label Saved by Vinyl folded just as Blackstream came into our lives, and they are distributed through Universal, so all of this should be available worldwide in the next few months,” he said. “It’s exciting to have a single be released in Japan, but the realistic side of me wonder if this will actually take to the air, but it will be available worldwide with a focus on UK and the US.”
So far reaction by listeners has been positive.
“Our review through ‘Omnicity.com’ called this album our ‘masterpiece’ so I would say the reaction has been great,” said The Riz. “Listeners will hear many different musical sides to us that we have not explored or recorded before. Compared to our last projects, this is our most musically diverse project to date. We pulled out all the stops to include all the elements we would want in a space concept album.
“I have this record envisioned as a musical, so we will see if that will happen on day.”
And readers too seem on-side.
“Response from readers has been extremely enthusiastic,” said The Riz. “Many of our favourite artists were part of the project including some who are not necessarily known for doing sequential art, or artists who are so busy with other creative projects they do less sequential artwork now. Across the board readers have expressed sheer delight with the graphic novel and how it aesthetically came together with all the differing art styles.”
And bandmates, The Riz and Scottrp, who make up the UPD along with Amber Kraft aka AK Double AK, are also pleased with the result of all their effort.
“I am beyond satisfied with our finished project,” he said. “So much time and creativity went into this project that to see it to fruition with such amazing results is the most satisfying feeling an artist can have.”
It was a sentiment echoed by Scottrp.
“This was a huge task for us to pull off, so the fact that we actually had some an ambitious idea come into existence is really something to be proud of plus with the help of the grants and working with artist we wouldn’t normally go to has opened up some different opportunities,” he said. “If this is the last thing we do it is really something to be proud off. Sasktel on Demand is currently putting together a film project based on the album and book, and it went from a small five minute segments to a full on album version similar to the old film Heavy Metal. It sound like it will be pretty cool, so we will have to see how this all turns out.”
