Starlight
Music Chronicles WELCOMES
Xristopher
Bland is a graphic designer and writer who began his career both wanting to
emulate the work of classic album designers like Roger Dean and Paul Whitehead
and play music. Performing and recording as drummer-vocalist for a variety of
rock bands, Xris soon became music columnist for TV Guide Canada, expanding
into features, promotions and freelance writing in tandem with publishing
independent music and honing something of a signature graphic-arts style.
Gathering his crafts beneath the title ABM Creative Services in 2012, Xris
works from a place of convergence, designing artwork, scripting and shooting
video, writing and loving every moment of it.
Xris’s most
recent band graphics include cover art for CD demos, track art for SoundCloud,
banner graphics and logos. His first music-video project was an album-release
promo for the Henrys, and he’s been endorsed by the Aphasia Institute for his
awareness video “Shine.” In both graphics and video, Xris is known for
layering, textural effects and camera angles that lend surreal tones both subtle
and stark.
As a
writer, Xris’s work has appeared in a wide variety of magazines, newspapers and
online media. As an independent publisher, he’s arguably best known for the
critically successful Xrisville (2010 – 2013), as much an experiment in
satire and social commentary as it was an unconventional distribution model.
Fashioned after a working rock band and chiefly distributed through supportive
fans, the magazine reached as far as Paris, Amsterdam, New York, Los Angeles,
Jamaica and Australia at its height. The magazine even toured the Netherlands,
Sweden and Estonia with Toronto noise artist Roman Pilates. (To date, Xrisville
may be the only magazine to ever go on a European rock tour.)
Xristopher
Bland is a freelance writer and graphic artist currently living in Rockwood,
Ont., with the woman he fell in love with at age 14 and a cat named Majyn
(short for “Imagine”), who likes to sprawl across the keyboard when he’s
working.
abmpublishingandcreativeservices.wordpress.com
Twitter:
twitter.com/ABM_Creative
_____________________
 |
| Xristopher Bland |
In his words:
"The trouble with
new beginnings is that you often can’t see them. Sometimes, they’re a view of
Lake Ontario so familiar as to be Lake Invisible. At least that was my view in
2013 from the offices of TV Guide, where I’d worked over 17 years as a writer
and EPG Specialist, and where I’d written volumes as a regular contributor to
Mosaic under my mother, Vi Bland, and ABM Publishing. In occupation and
self-definition, I felt secure in my future. Then it all changed.
In 2012, my mother
passed, leaving me the ABM name and no idea what to do with it. The following
year, TV Guide started closing its doors and laid me off. Moving to Rockwood,
Ont., to be closer to family, I soon realized how the media-writing landscape
was no longer just about the craftwork of words. It was equally about Adobe
Creative Suite. So in February, 2014, I began the lengthy application process
for Second Career funding. A month later, I qualified for April enrolment in
Conestoga College’s Digital Media program. At age fifty-something, I was going
back to school, and I was thrilled. My future felt back on track—and then the
brakes hit. With few qualified applicants, Conestoga cancelled its April
program and moved my acceptance to the fall program. Despondent, there was
nothing to do but linger, and within that thread-bare place, I started drawing.
I really don’t know
why I did. I’d certainly drawn here and there over the years since childhood,
but had never felt the same passion as I inexplicably did that summer of 2014.
The work just seemed to call itself forth, and as it beautifully entwined with six
months at Conestoga, I finally knew in the spring of 2015 how I wanted to honor
the ABM name. In alignment with the new service model of the media, I’d go
forward as both a writer and graphic artist newly awoken, and I couldn’t
pretend to know where it’s headed. That’s the trouble with new beginnings, and
that may be the best part."
___________________
From The Editor:
I am very pleased to OFFICIALLY welcome Xris to Starlight Music Chronicles and have already had the pleasure of reviewing his first written piece and am very excited to launch it this coming weekend!
I also welcome Xris not only as a Contributor but as an Affiliate as well and look forward to future projects with him!
Welcome to the team Xris!
CA Marshall
Editor | Starlight Music Chronicles
