Wild Street Store began as a result of videos I shot years ago, videos that saw more response to the still images than the video itself. This resulted in a demand for more of this type of photographic art that one might compare to a cross between Burning Man and Andrew Blake, who is known for his very artistic approach to hard core erotica. I was a drummer at many of the Burning Man festivals held here in Texas. These were held on Memorial Day as opposed to the ones held in Black Rock Desert in Nevada, which were usually held on Labor Day, thus, the festival in Texas was called “Flipside”. This group meshed with the pagan community of Central Texas. The Council of Magickal Arts held festivals twice a year. Samhain in the Fall and Beltane in Spring. These festivals also had music and drumming and the main event, the huge revel fire held every night, where the drums often pounded till sunrise and visions of fully nude and half-naked women, gyrating around the fire to the hypnotic beats, is something that will stay burned into your mind for years to come. Likewise, the sight of that huge wooden structure, shaped like a man, with fireworks shooting from its frame as the fire climbed to the top and burned it down to ashes, is something you will not soon forget. It was during this time, while all the drums were pounding, that I met a man who introduced me to the erotic film industry. I hired a couple of his models and filmed my first erotic art film, “Damiana”, which incorporated that feel of the Andrew Blake style erotica and the Texas Hill Country. It’s about a young woman who lives alone on several heavily wooded acres. She spends her day smoking pot and wandering through her house and the surrounding woods, completely nude. Her friends come to visit and soon they too are naked and wandering the woods, posing with guns and rifles, kissing each other passionately and eventually, spinning fire and flaming hula hoops as the drums pound and the bonfire rages at night. It became an almost psychedelic film the way it was edited and the music that I created used a bass guitar and those African drums, along with sounds produced with a midi keyboard and Absynth software, connected to Pro Tools on a G4 Powerbook computer. That was 2001. By 2006, one of the models turned photographer and I collaborated on a film titled “Voices of the Dead”, about a young woman who moves to Texas from Seattle and finds herself in the middle of the Hill Country, where she encounters witches, outlaw bikers and the ghosts that still haunt that area from the days when the Comanche were roaming the hills and white settlers and emancipated slaves arrived from states to the east.
The city of Austin has changed since then. It’s become a lot tamer but there are still those of us who refuse to be tamed.
This is the main theme of the Wild Street Store. The art and clothing here have the soul and flavor of the real Texas Hill Country and those of us who still go to places like Hotel Vegas on the east side of town to hear shoegazer, psychedelic and punk rock musicians perform or the real country music that plays around the corner at the White Horse Saloon. We still would rather drive pickup trucks and Harley Davidson motorcycles than sedans and SUVs.
What you’ll find here are posters featuring beautiful nude women sitting on motorcycles or holding AR-15s and lever action rifles, wearing nothing but boots and gunslinger hats. You’ll see a witch standing in the hills at sunset. You’ll see a young woman walking the graffiti-lined streets of the east side of town. You’ll see nude women spinning fire and flaming hula hoops. You’ll see a young woman, standing there in a crop top, wearing boots and holding an AR-15 rifle, while smoking a hemp cigarette.
You’ll find skulls and crossed bones, a skeleton riding a flaming motorcycle, a ghostly woman with blank eyes, pointing her accusing finger from an empty room.
This is just the beginning.
More to come. #burningman #flipside #eroticart #hardcoreerotica #andrewblake #firedancer #firespinning #firespinner #nudewoman #nudeart #psychedelic #psychedelicart #psychedelicmusic #shoegazemusic #punkrock #africandrums #drums #outlawbiker #motorcycle #ghosts #ghoststories #horrorjunkie #posterart #poster #texas #texashillcountry #texasphotographer #austin #protools #absynth #bassguitar.