Jim Guthrie: Who Needs What
Q2 2015
In the spring of 2015, Andrew Hood's book Jim Guthrie: Who Needs What was published by Invisible Publishing. The book features artwork by staff at Superbrothers HQ.
If you enjoy Jim's music and you'd like to know a little more about the man and the mystery including his folk hero origin story, the creation of his remarkable records, as well as his more recent adventures in videogames, then you ought to step on over to Invisible Publishing's website for the relevant information and links.
- Jim Guthrie: Who Needs What - book by Andrew Hood
The book's author Andrew Hood created an epic Jim Guthrie mixtape to go along with the book, it's worth a listen.
- Documenting Perks 2 - Jim Guthrie mixtape by Andrew Hood
A high quality print from Superbrothers titled "Jim Guthrie & His Litter" is available from Chicago's VGA Gallery. This artwork was originally created for a Jim Guthrie gig in April 2010, during the production of Sword & Sworcery. A similar scene appears in Sword & Sworcery late in Session III.
- Jim Guthrie & His Litter - high quality print by Superbrothers via VGA Gallery
For a limited time this print can be purchased with a 15% discount, use the offer code 'GUTHRIE'.
. . .
Here are a few hastily typed words from Superbrothers staff:
I had intended to get a post up around the book's launch, so here we are.
I've had Andrew's manuscript on-hand for a little while, but with a demanding as-yet-unnannounced new videogame project on-the-go and a ten month old baby in the house my available reading time has been at an all-time low... so let me shame-facedly admit that I started in on the book this morning.
Boy, it's genuinely great so far.
Jim's a fascinating guy, that much I knew, but it turns out Andrew's a mighty fine writer.
I've always been curious about the mythic 'home rock' days in Guelph in the 90s, young Jim's origin story, the early days of Royal City and Three Gut Records. It's pretty interesting to hear about the warmth, generosity and DIY spirit that has flowed around and through Jim all these years.
Here's a little tidbit from early on in Andrew's book that I love:
"...whatever punk was and continues to be is essentially an ongoing granting of permission - a constant reminder that what's being done inside a pre-existing system can just as easily be done outside of it."
I'll read the book through over the next few days and revisit this post, but for now I'd just like to say that Jim has loomed large over the whole Superbrothers thing. Jim and Jim's music have been a reliable source of inspiration to me for years, his strange made-on-Playstation instrumental music stirred my Superbrothers pixels to life, first in the pixel films starting in 2005 and later in videogames from 2009.
It was a dream come true to create Sword & Sworcery together with Jim and Capy, Jim's music was a primary inspiration for me throughout, and it has been a profound thrill for me personally that the project helped deliver Jim's particular musical spirit to a broad audience of videogame-playing people.
I've had the Superbrothers pixels in cold storage for a little while now, but it was an honor to warm them up long enough to decorate Jim and Andrew's book.
Artwork by Superbrothers created for a Jim Guthrie concert poster in April 2010, now available as a print.