Jocko Weyland is a fucking dude. Beginning publishing skate-punk zines as a 15 year-old in the 1980s, the Colorado-born writer/artist/skater still has a lingering preoccupation with the handmade. Photocopy paper, fresh Biro ink, magazine clippings. Speed metal, new wave, Middle Eastern psych. Needless to say, Weyland’s format of choice is two compact spools and a reel of magnetic tape. The soundtrack to my misspent youth occupied that very same format and as a consequence Jocko’s latest exhibition – at San Francisco gallery Ever Gold – is one deeply close to my 15 year-old heart.
‘Cassette Tapes, their Wrappings and Listings, 1980-2005’ notes the strap-line for Crackle, Hiss, and Scrawl, and it’s practically all you need know: some 200 cassette tapes randomly playing over and over on a 1990s Sony boom box, their accompanying covers – largely handmade, of course – forming a free-for-all of Xerox and Biro porn for your eyeballs to soak in as the caustic soundtrack washes gleefully around your lugholes. Running through 15 November, Weyland’s anatomy of youthful misadventure is a beautiful, haphazard chronicle of the last non-digital generation. All I need now is a cider and black.
All images courtesy the artist
and Ever Gold Gallery
