Photo credit: Ross Latin-Monagle
Tuc Krueger
Back on March 15, Tuc Krueger’s band Juniper Tar was scheduled to play a rare show, the Et Tu Brute? A Benefit for HiFi Café. That was the weekend everything changed, and the event was canceled.
Krueger has since channeled his creativity to The Sketchbook Project, a crowd-sourced library that features 36,154 artists' books contributed by creative people from over 135 countries. The Sketchbook Project collection is on view to the public at Brooklyn Art Library in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York.
How has the lockdown affected your creativity?
I recently tested negative, but am I still beating COVID-19? Maybe I've beaten COVID for now, but not the drums... since March.
It's very infrequent that I do play anyways, but without a proper band, drumming alone kind of sucks.
Do you have a routine or schedule for staying in practice or working on new material?
Taking on the Sketchbook Project was my girlfriend’s idea and it was one hell of a suggestion! We all need stuff like this, and I highly recommend it. It gives you an assignment, a deadline, and purpose. You write your own story, so make it as personal and weird as you can!
It’s important to figure yourself out and be your own person. The reoccurring question for myself has been “what do I want?” To answer that I try and ground myself through any kind of art that sticks, and it’s not my traditional drumming, or career-driven graphic design right now. It's important to ask yourself always, “if money wasn't an issue, what would you really want to do?”
I re-discovered X-Acto art, and it always reminds me of old punk rock flyers. I love the medium of cutting out with a blade and making it take shape, to have composition and meaning without the use of a computer, more or less. I had people tell me that what I do, like write stuff on envelopes or Post-It notes to strangers, was unique.
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I compiled a lot of that saved material and just threw it together. That sounds easy, but in reality, it takes time to 'throw it together' and make it look like it makes sense. Because it was my own material, I was able to manage it efficiently and have fun with it. “Wow, it was fun to do this! I'm alive and like doing art again!”
The approach for my sketchbook project was completely self-centered. In short, it really is just a conversation with me.
Are you making plans for when you can resume playing in front of people again?
I really do need to play drums again eventually. Drumeo.com has been very inspirational, featuring short videos of really personable and diverse drummers. I also look at lots of drum shops online, paying attention to independent drum shops based in the Midwest.
To read more stories of Milwaukee musicians dealing with lockdowns, sheltering in place and more, click here.
To read more stories by Blaine Schultz, click here.
