Lost Life on Wax: Capturing the Underground Music Scene Through Art, Music and the Road Less Traveled
Hidden gems illuminate the beauty of the art and music underground scene, and one of them is Able Thought, a multi-talented artist who has embarked on a captivating journey that blurs the lines between these two realms. Able is the sole creator of Lost Life on Wax, where he markets his documentary photos printed onto recycled vinyl records as the perfect gift of artwork for music lovers everywhere. His creative odyssey has taken him from the gritty streets of New York City to the vibrant alleys of Japan, capturing candid moments of artistic expression in a world where art and music intersect. After meeting Able at his booth in Boston on a Saturday afternoon, we met for an interview where he dove deeper into his life as an artist, and his unwavering passion for documenting the unseen through his unique approach to vinyl record art.
Nina: Where did you grow up? Where is “home” for you?
Able: I started doing artwork in Providence, but Warren, Rhode Island, is home. It’s where my family is, and where I stay a good amount of the time. I would say I split my time pretty evenly between Boston, Rhode Island and New York City. Prior to the pandemic, I went to Southern California and Arizona as well. I started pursuing my artwork pretty hardcore in New York City before I started traveling so much.
N: What subjects do you document and how do you choose them?
A: I started out as a touring musician. I didn't get on the road to do art, I got on the road to do music. My music is, for lack of a better term, kind of weird. I ended up playing concerts in basements, warehouses, in people's living rooms and dive bars. It was more gritty, more interesting. Simply taking pictures on my phone came with an impulsive need to record this [scene] because I thought it was a bit under-documented. You don't see too much photography based around this, it’s buried deep into those circuits. Street musicians became the heart and soul of Lost Life on Wax, but there are other interests I have and love to capture. It's a bit all over the place, because now I think about what would look cool on a record.
N: Your Japan and Goth collections stand out to me. Where did the inspiration to curate those collections come from?
A: The Japan collection came from the time when I was set up in Brooklyn and I had some Japanese people come by the booth. They owned a department store and were planning a show highlighting a handful of Brooklyn-based artists. It was this big event they had, in this big room, and for about two weeks, I was selling my artwork there. They own hotels, so they accommodated me, other artists and our friends that came. From there, I fell in love with Japan. It’s my number one spot to visit if anyone were to ask me, and I never thought I’d get there. At least, I wasn't actively thinking about getting there because I had a lot going on here, until I was offered a free ride. The Goth collection was inspired by a friend of mine. He and his girlfriend have this skeleton named Brando, and whenever I would walk into his house or his studio, Brando would always be doing something different, and I decided to start documenting this guy's life. It's mostly pictures of Brando doing things.
N: Who, what or where inspires you to keep creating?
A: My art is a compulsive thing I do. I would be lost without it. I think about it from time to time and I don't know what I would do if I didn't have this. I need to do it. I remember when I had a regular job years ago, when I’d come home and create at night. I was always exhausted, but then I got into making music, and it would actually energize me to the point where I just wanted to do it all the time. I wanted to live in a world where being creative is all I do. And I suppose I got there.
N: How do you see the intersection of art and music in your vinyl creations? How does each piece convey a unique connection between the visual and auditory aspects of life?
A: If I'm documenting an artist, I'm trying to capture what the feeling was when I was there. So some of the record art is a bit more somber looking, and I was looking for that moment because you only get one shot with a picture. For example, if you're watching a show live, there's many different emotions that the artist would portray, right? So in my art I’m trying to portray how I felt when I was there to document what I felt like the artist was trying to give to me. I'm sharing the feeling I felt as a spectator watching these artists and trying to potentially convey that to other people. There's also an element of specificity in my subjects. It would be very easy for me just to slap a photo of The Beatles on here and make a bunch of money, but that wouldn’t be contributing anything to music culture whatsoever. It's been done. To shine a spotlight on these artists that aren't well known that I can potentially show to a lot more people, to share and spread the word, is what’s very important.
N: If you had to choose one song as the soundtrack of your life in the scope of your business and your journey creating music and art, what song would you choose and why?
A: Wow. That's a deep one. I would choose “Happiness is a Warm Gun” by the Beatles. It’s very sequential and completely changes on and on and on. It’s a good representation of what I've gone through. There was a time when I was traveling for years, and now I'm in my studio every day and I'm not moving.
N: How long have you been a photographer, and what was your “Aha!” moment where you thought you could take it more seriously?
A: So, I never considered myself a photographer. I never did it to be a photographer. I would document these shows with no intention of ever putting them out there. I did it just to do it. But then I found myself getting interested in cameras, and I thought about getting a regular camera, a little point-and-shoot. Before I knew it, I had almost 17,000 pictures on a bunch of full SD cards that I had no idea what to do with. Then, the “Aha!” moment came where I figured that a couple had to be decent, and I thought about what I could do with them. Then, it literally just popped in my head: put them on a vinyl record.
N: The originality of your artwork is what drew me to you. I thought, this is amazing. People need to know about this.
A: Yeah. But my thinking was I've never seen anyone really doing anything with recycled records, especially at that time. I haven't seen anyone else try to do what I do, but I've seen other people do things with vinyl record art.
N: You mention that your life used to be on wheels. Where have you been, and how many years were you on the road?
A: I traveled around the country all the way up until the pandemic. Since then, everything shut down, which is when I ended up going into an artist co-op with a friend of mine. Nowadays, I'm stationary and I'm actually loving it. I was on the road for a lot of years, starting in 2013 up until the pandemic. I’d go from city to city, cross country, nonstop, a different city every single night. And that time is when I was able to figure out where I made the most money. Between 2016 and 2017, I traveled until I had ten good spots, scattered around the country. My summers were in New York and Boston, and my winters were in Southern California and Phoenix. I would bop to cities, from San Diego to Los Angeles to Phoenix and the occasional Tucson trip, those cities were always the best for me. You’ve got to follow what I do. I'm selling at markets, where you need close-to-perfect weather, and those are the places that always had it.
N: You also have talked about your vintage mobile studio. Did you build it yourself? How long did it take to perfect it?
A: I remember knowing the exact make and model of the truck I wanted: a Toyota Sunraider. Back in the ‘80s, they made pickup trucks with small campers on the back called shorties. I could go to New York City, and if I had to do some stealth camping and crash in a parking lot somewhere, I easily could. I had my notifications set up on Craigslist to ping me anywhere in the country where one came up.
N: Of all the places that you've traveled to domestically and internationally, which is your favorite?
A: Hands down, New York City. You can't look in any direction where there's not something dramatic going on. There's nothing like it. It's a stimulating city that can make you very strong because the weather is almost always terrible. It has this element to it that you don't see anywhere else.
N: Would you say NYC is your favorite place to revisit?
A: I suppose, apart from this town outside of Osaka in Japan called Shinsaibashi. It’s a fun town that feels like it's run by skateboarders, with art and music culture everywhere. Every building is graffitied. It’s an awesome Japanese city that never sleeps, nicknamed the American Village. It feels like how Brooklyn is to New York City. I'm in New York City for three months out of the year, every year. So it just feels like my home away from home.
N: When and where did you start selling your record art?
A: My first sale came from a friend of mine who had a thrift store up on the west side of Providence. I hung them in his shop where I made my first sale. I had four of them. My next memory was doing some very small local pop-up markets. It was very sporadic because it used to take so long for me to make them and I was very much learning what to do.
N: And is it just you? Or do you have anyone that help you out with your process?
A: Not with the process. I make everything on my own but I do have people that help me sell.
N: What would you say your customers value the most from you whenever you interact with them?
A: That’s a good question. I think that there's two frames of mind when people come by the booth: They're either looking for what I got, or they're not. It's either perfect for the people that are at the booth, or they're almost confused, which is good because I know I’ll have a great interaction with those people that it's perfect for. We're going to be on the same level.
N: Your digital storytelling is what truly sets you apart from other artists. Where did the idea to create those stories come from?
A: It really took off at the booths where I started pointing to photos and saying things like “Oh yeah, this is crazy. This guy thought he was going to fall through the floor because the crowd was jumping so much.” And people love that. I'm explaining a picture of something that you can see, so I thought it would be better to make videos for each one. I’ve thought about making comics about my touring life.
N: Why do you think it's important for your customers to know the stories behind your photos?
A: I'm documenting something that happened, and most of the time, there weren't a lot of people there. These moments are important, and sharing those stories with people who didn't experience them is good for music culture. These bands in these smaller DIY networks should be able to support themselves and have more eyes on them.
N: Is this your full-time job or is it something you do on the side because it brings you joy?
A: I had a regular job in 2011 and 2012. I would do my creative stuff at night, and it got to the point where I wasn't sleeping. The first year was terrible, I made very little. Once I became more confident in figuring it out as I went, I pursued it full-time. And it’s taught me that time is extremely invaluable, much more valuable than money.
N: Were there any other specific challenges or obstacles you faced in your journey as an artist? How did you overcome them?
A: When I first started, I was selling primarily in Rhode Island. And I wasn't doing it super consecutively. The same went for music. It gets to the point where everybody already has it. Everybody had been to the music shows. It’s hard making a living on music, and it’s even harder trying to convince people to come see you play every weekend. You need a paycheck, and that's when I started to realize that I needed to be in a different place every weekend. A big challenge was finding the perfect truck that I could travel in, the biggest jump being that I was going to figure out how to live in a truck now.
N: What are your future aspirations as an artist? How do you envision your art evolving over the next few years?
A: I’ve thought about potentially doing a zine. Some artists I know save a bunch of scraps from their studio from the month put them together in a book, and that's their zine. I’d like my online presence to be the primary driving force, and to be able to make art to promote the art. In 2024, I’m doing shows again until Halloween time to focus on creating longer videos for YouTube and Instagram. So many friends of mine have found success online, but it was never the avenue I put enough time or attention into since the shows were working. For people like me, it’s about creating art that actually captivates them, which takes time. That's the next big thing.
Able's ability to capture the essence of the music scene authentically and his dedication to the unconventional is not only inspiring but essential in preserving the realities of music culture still in the shadows. As Able evolves as an artist and expands his creative horizons, we can anticipate more captivating stories and innovative artworks to emerge in the future. Lost Life on Wax is a platform for the vibrant and the unexplored to take center stage.