Honey Is Funny

Shield Yr Eyes / I'm Being Good / Grey Hairs - Jan 20 2012

2012-01-04T00:36:00.002Z

Damn You! & Gringo Records present a true winter warmer to kick off 2012 with

SHIELD YR EYES

With a tireless workrate that sees albums flying out seemingly by the week and constant touring, SYE have built up a deserved reputation as one of the UK's most remarkable bands. Centred around the dizzying interplay between the scattershot rhythms of drummer Henri and the bizarre, unique guitar style of Stef the results are truly impossible to classify. Yeah, their rhythms are crazy and yeah this is hard to play but it's never math rock. Underneath the complexities beats a heart of genuine beauty that infuses the urgency and clatter with a sense of epic-ness (in the original sense of the world) that recalls Neil Young.
True story - first time I saw these guys was at The Chameleon. I went down the front figuring I'd last a few mins, it'd be OK but it'd probably not be my thing. They blew my mind. Afterwards I pestered Stef to tell me how he did certain tricks on his guitar like a nervous kid. I've never seen anything like it before or since. I have every confidence they'll blow you away the same way too.

http://functionrecords.bandcamp.com/album/volume-4

I'M BEING GOOD

A welcome return to Nottingham for Brighton's premier noise rock outfit, now celebrating their 408th year in the business. IBG are most frequently compared to contemporaries like Trumans Water or Polvo but recent LP Mountain Language (Gringo) sees them draw out their addictive riffing and make time elastic. If you dig it when Harvey Milk tease out the greatest songs at glacial pace then you'll dig I'm Being Good in their current 2 guitar and drums formation. Not just heavy but HEAVY. Man.

http://imbeinggood.bandcamp.com/album/mountain-language

GREY HAIRS

Ex-members of Pissy Leg, Skulltanker, Harvey Half Devoured, Nerve Bomb and Reynolds (and Fists, Cult Of Dom Keller, Fonda 500, Lords) play slightly-too-loud, slightly-too-fuzzy rock music that steals riffs from Skull Kontrol, Nirvana and Status Quo. They should probably know better.

http://vimeo.com/31950012

All this starts usual time on a Friday at Chameleon so we're looking at 8pm for doors, maybe 8.40 for first band? You know the drill. It's a mere £5 on the door. Get there early.

Grey Hairs' First Gig

2011-11-25T17:13:00.002Z

2 songs from the first Grey Hairs gig on Nov 18 2011, kindly filmed by Nick from Hello Thor Records. No titles yet.

For Sale - 70s Lawsuit Set Neck Les Paul Custom

2011-11-24T17:32:00.004Z

Financial ruin means I'm selling this CMI Les Paul. I bought it in a bit of a state and have invested a lot of time and effort getting it right but last-in/first-out is always the way and it's got to go. Click the photos to head to Flickr where you can read the relevant info. If you're interested drop me a line at honeyisfunny(AT)fastmail(DOT)fm

Pics:

Grey Hairs

2011-11-16T22:32:00.003Z

Just started doing a new band with some local types. It might be a mid-life crisis. I'm not sure and my hearing is kind of iffy so I can't hear what anyone says to me about it anyway.
Making a demo seemed a bit like hard work so we asked our friend Andy (aka brandnewbadidea) to bring his budget video camera down to where we practise (in a cave) and film a couple of "songs". Here they are:

Not content with making a video before we play a gig, we did an interview too which is largely gibberish: HERE

Then we thought it might be an idea to play live so here's our first 2 gigs:

NOVEMBER
FRIDAY 18: SPANKY VAN DYKES, NOTTINGHAM w/ULYSSES STORM, 8MM ORCHESTRA
WEDNESDAY 23: RESCUE ROOMS, NOTTINGHAM: VICE LAUNCH PARTY w/BEATY HEART, PEACE, CANTALOUPE (FREE ENTRY, FREE BOOZE: INFO)

Lords - Live 2005

2011-11-16T22:30:00.001Z

Whole show by Lords at The Freebutt in Brighton, April 2 2005 (Red Monkey, The Sticks and Designer Babies were also on the bill) filmed by Dusty Bible. Goes in and out of synch a bit but then so did we.

Enablers Footage

2011-11-16T22:26:00.001Z

Had the great pleasure of a few days in the company of Enablers recently and I had the presence of mind to take my camera. Here's Tundra from Nottingham Chameleon and New Moon from The Hope in Brighton.

On My Walls

2011-11-16T22:25:00.000Z

Damn You! Christmas Covers Party 2011

2011-11-16T22:14:00.003Z

It's that time of year again when bands in Nottingham scurry to secret practise rooms to heatedly discuss which pop classics they're going to murder in front of a paying audience in the name of good tidings. Yep, the 10th Annual Damn You! Christmas Covers Party is happening at The Bodega in Nottingham on December 17th.
If you socially network you can read all about it here:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=153536504743034
And if you don't then the local paper The Evening Post grilled me about it last year here:
http://findarticles.com/p/news-articles/nottingham-evening-post/mi_8158/is_20101217/gig-damn-christmas-covers-party/ai_n56509476/
All proceeds from this year's event go to Nottinghamshire Hospice as if all the tomfoolery wasn't reason enough to attend. See you there...

And if you're too young to understand why Santa is eating a piece of salmon from his beard then catch up here:

Recent Poster Work

2011-11-16T22:11:00.001Z

No updates for a while so here are a few recent poster designs:

Sack The Headline Writer

2011-10-12T19:07:00.001+01:00

Spiritual Unity - Vimeo

2011-10-10T17:08:00.003+01:00

Back in November 2006 I saw Marc Ribot's tribute to Albert Ayler Spiritual Unity play in one of the rooms at the Royal Festival Hall in London. Due to a traffic jam, I got there 10 mins after doors to find the doors closed and had to pretty much beg the stewards to get let in. When they finally relented I found my front row seat taken by someone else and the band whipping up a euphoric storm already. No matter, I perched at the side of the stage and left my crappy little Minolta camera running as well, so here's the 3 snippets it captured. Doesn't capture the volume but it'll do.

Comets On Fire - Vimeo

2011-10-10T13:11:00.002+01:00

Jaybird and Holy Teeth from 7th October 2006 at Nottingham Boat Club

Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sumlin/sets/72157594318810090/

The Monorchid - Vimeo

2011-10-10T12:19:00.003+01:00

Back in September 2006 a few of us from Nottingham made a last-minute decision to go to Chicago for the Touch & Go 25th Anniversary. It was great fun, it looked a bit like this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sumlin/sets/72157594314716448/with/261746806/

The last band to get added was The Monorchid. I'm a fan. I got asked to write something for Careless Talk Costs Lives magazine a few years ago. The plan was to interview vocalist Chris Thomson about the various bands he's been involved in but with an eye on deflating the whole revivalist/reunion culture that was on the rise at the time and now seems to have killed music stone dead. To quote Chris from another interview:

"It’s not that this music existed in some vacuum. We toured, we played out, and we did our best to make the performances accessible. So, if you’re upset you never got to see Monorchid or Lupus, I really don’t give a shit, there were plenty of opportunities"

It would have been good. Seems like every band the guy is in gets progressively less interested in referencing the past. If anyone can stick a banana in the exhaust pipe of the whole Michael Azzerad, Our Band Could Be Your Life, re-assessment of gut-instinct-events-as-carefully-planned-socio-political-plans then I figured it'd be Thomson.

The editor thought it was a shit idea. Oh well.

On the Friday, after the first day of the festival, they played a warm-up for their Sunday slot at The Note. Here's 2 poorly-lit, horrific-quality snippets of X Marks The Spot Something Dull Happened Here and The Warmers.

Woke up on Saturday morning with a bad head and about $2 in my pocket together with this covered in what looks like dogshit:

Here's how Sunday went:

Felix - Vimeo

2011-10-10T12:05:00.006+01:00

A few bits of Felix footage uploaded to Vimeo:

"Oh Holy Molar" from The Betsy Trotwood in London, April 21st 2011

"What I Learned From TV" from Cardiff Arts Centre, January 24th 2010

"Death To Everyone But Us" from Cambridge St Paul's Church, February 12th 2010

"Bernard St" from Liverpool Wolstenholme Projects, January 22nd 2010

Nathan Bell - Vimeo

2011-10-10T12:01:00.003+01:00

Nathan Bell, Bristol Cube Cinema, May 7th 2011

Vimeo

2011-10-10T11:55:00.004+01:00

Right. My external hard drive is collapsing in on itself like anti-matter under the weight of hundreds of snippets of footage I have taken on digital cameras of varying qualities (usually of the "not that good" quality) of gigs over the last 5 years or so.
I posted a lot to You Tube a while ago but there's something about having to select "Do Not Allow Users To Add Comments" each time I upload that reminds me about how the world's going to end so I'm going to reassemble them all in Vimeo.
Most of the footage isn't that great quality but I'm an excited gig-goer with a beer not a cameraman.
The whole list (being added to weekly) is here: http://www.vimeo.com/user2333244/videos

Kogumaza Interview

2011-09-21T22:33:00.002+01:00

Jack Chuter at ATTN: Magazine interviewed Katy and myself in advance of this year's Supersonic Festival.

Read it here: http://www.attnmagazine.co.uk/feature/4313

Photo is by the lovely Mark Rietveld in Antwerp.

Next up: photos from our May tour with Zomes.

New Design Work - September 2011

2011-09-21T22:06:00.007+01:00

First up is this poster for the Gunpowder Treason & Pot! night of spoken word, lyricism and poetry that Nottingham Culture magazine Left Lion is putting on with Dealmaker Records. They wanted something bold and iconic to catch the eye in print and in poster form and get people interested in what is a pretty unusual event. You can read more about it here:
http://www.thedealmakerlabel.com/2011/11/gunpowder-treason-pot-a-scribal-gathering-of-poetical-dissent/

Second is this "Moonpack" CD digipack for Diamonds & Hearts by singer-songwriter James Deane. I'd previously worked on some album graphics for James' band Clearfield and he asked me to work on his first solo album too. James wanted to combine a feeling of Americana with more English feeling touches with reference to Victorian sheet music illustration and lettering. As before, James was a pleasure to work with and had clear ideas about how to bring everything together and hopefully the results speak for themselves. More images from the package here at Flickr.

Finally, back in June, Sustrans commissioned me to design this artwork for their Carnival Of Cycling at the Nottingham Trent Uni. It had to be bright and summery and above all it had to quickly communicate what the Carnival was about to anyone viewing it. This type of poster can often present problems in striking a balance between necessary information, fulfilling corporate obligations (logos etc) and making the thing look appealing and uncluttered. I think the end result does the job nicely though. And what typeface says "transport" better than Gill Sans? Eric Gill saves the day again...

Nathan Bell - 26 Oct

2011-09-21T20:10:00.001+01:00

DAMN YOU! PROUDLY PRESENTS; FROM BALTIMORE MD:

NATHAN BELL

Nathan Scott Bell is a banjo player hailing from Baltimore, Maryland via Brazil.

You may have seen Nathan play in Nottingham before as ½ of Human Bell with Bonnie Prince Billy sidekick (and now Arboreteum frontman) Dave Heumann, who we had the pleasure of putting on a few years back.

We tried to put him on last year but UK border control weren't so keen though they did enjoy his impromptu gig in the holding cell at Heathrow.
Now he's back at the invitation of Capsule for the Supersonic Festival and we've asked him back to Nottingham.

Nathan is perhaps best known for his bass playing in legendary Dischord Records band Lungfish. He manned the low-end from 1996 to 2003, meaning when you put on Artificial Horizon or The Unanimous Hour and find yourself transported to alien, subquatic lands where your balance has been flipped upside down and you get the feeling of “I-should-probably-just-lay-back-down-here-that’s-better” it’s this man you should be thanking.

That this ability to alter perception should continue will come as no surprise if you’ve heard the music Nathan makes on his own and as part of the Brassa Bell ensemble.
Those same transformative qualities are richly abundant but now, instead of the bass, Nathan uses the banjo.
Whereas former Lungfish bandmate Daniel Higgs uses his own banjo as a grounding point for his vocals or as a raga-like instrument that always insists upon the moment, Nathan uses it’s spectral tones to explore melodic possibilities that hang in the air and bury into the brain.
Whether picked, bowed, sung into, scraped or drummed-on, he uses the banjo to somehow dislocate you from the present.
But this is no flashback or nostalgia trip. He might use tools from a past century but it’s the future you’ll be hearing.
Don’t be afraid.

http://www.myspace.com/osmodiusbell
http://nathanscottbell.bandcamp.com/

THE HORSE LOOM

Where to start to describe The Horse Loom?
The best acoustic guitar player in the country? Maybe.
The most unique marriage between British folk music, avant garde guitar playing and punk rock spirit? Certainly.
Wonderful? Definitely.
Under-rated?
You’ll have to ask him about that.

Northumbrian guitarist and singer Steve Malley would doubtless be extremely embarrassed to read any of these things. That says a lot. Steve played guitar in Crane in the early 90s, whose post-Husker Du take on The Byrds-meets-DC hardcore earned them a deserving reputation as one of the UK's finest live bands. He would go on to play in Kodiak, Four Frame and then most notably The Unit Ama.
The Unit Ama existed in direct contrast to their (musical) peers from America. Whereas a cold and cool approach was favoured by the bands from across the pond, The Ama dropped any of this façade and opened themselves and their music to possibilities of accident and misfortune creating a live experience that was truly inspiring. I say with total sincerity that they changed a lot of people’s musical outlook forever.

The Horse Loom sees Steve take this approach and apply it to his love of folk music. Combining folk structures and melodies with his incredible guitar playing has made The Horse Loom something truly unique. Getting Steve (a fireman by day) to play gigs these days is next to impossible so don’t miss this rare adventure to Nottingham.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWUcdN-2-MI

BLACK OCTAGON

Black Octagon brings together musicians from the same bubbling underground music world in Liverpool that brought you bands like Mugstar and Kling Klang. Take that sense of unravelling psychedelia and export it to the wilds of the countryside and you might start to imagine what sounds would occur. 2 guitars intertwine over bobbing drum patterns recalling something somewhere between the Neil Young “Dead Man” soundtrackisms of later Earth and the beautiful, layered melodies of Aerial M. But always sounding distinctly British and distinctly rural.

http://blackoctagon.bandcamp.com/

This is all happening at Lee Rosy’s Tea Room. We’ll open at 8pm and kick it off at 8.30 and try and bring things to a close at 11. Lee Rosy’s will be serving teas, coffees and the usual waistband-disaster that is their cake display. There will be a full Lancashire & Somerset record stall with limited vinyl releases, books and artwork: http://www.lancashireandsomerset.co.uk/

It’s a fiver.

Enablers - Oct 13

2011-09-14T00:20:00.003+01:00

DAMN YOU! AND GRINGO RECORDS VERY PROUDLY PRESENTS; FROM SAN FRANCISCO:

ENABLERS

ENABLERS are from San Fransisco, CA and are without doubt one of the most powerful and amazing live bands on the planet right now and one of only a tiny handful of bands that we all agree on as being truly something special.
They combine a sinister tautness (somewhat akin to Slint maybe - and by that I mean dark, heavy, dry, bare, economical and not the dreaded "post rock" tag) with a love of heaviosity and weird riffery that sits them somewhere between the ritualistic displays of the mighty Lungfish and the more cathartic explosions of Nottingham's own Bob Tilton .
They employ a 2 guitars and drums set up to maximum effect whilst vocalist Pete Simonelli delivers spoken-word beat monologues and moods that either whisper below the surface or fight hard to be heard over the band's righteous racket.
The addition of drummer Doug Scharin (Codeine, June Of 44, HiM etc) and an increase in activity culminating in the new LP "Blown Realms And Stalled Explosions" (on Exile On Mainstream/Lancashire & Somerset) and a genuinely triumphant final-night set at the Pavement-curated ATP has seen Enablers hone and perfect their already considerable skills to the point where they are truly unstoppable.

http://enablers.bandcamp.com/

KOGUMAZA

Kogumaza formed in Nottingham in 2009. They use primitive rhythms, patterns and riffs to create dense and mesmeric song-cycles. The band’s live sound is manipulated through dub delays and echoes, allowing what is basically a heavy rock trio to expand and willingly lose control of the sound they make as they make it.

The resulting music marries fuzzed-out psychedelia to an ambient aesthetic, placing the band somewhere between the infinite repetition of Moondog and the thick gloop of Master Of Reality-era Sabbath.
They have recently released their first LP on the Low Point label and toured Europe with Zomes. A split 7" with Hookworms is in the pipeline and October sees shows with Nathan Bell, Enablers and an appearance at the Supersonic Festival.

“At times Kogumaza sounds like the future or the strange murmurings of the universe; at others, the cyclical pounding of drums conjures ghosts of ancient rituals, as if drawn from the very centre of the earth” Fluid Radio

http://kogumaza.bandcamp.com/

WITHOUT MAPS

"Without Maps hail from Nottingham, they consist of four people who sing, play guitars and drum. They came about through a desire to create music that was as direct as it was engaging. Initial practices began in late 2010 with three mutual friends mapping out their first creations. A decision was made after these first sessions that these songs needed to sound as big as possible and a fourth member was subsequently added. Late January this year saw the band making their first trip to the studio to record their first audio offering “The Cellar Tapes EP” and February marked the bands first live appearances. In the coming months the band hope to see themselves playing many more shows and write and record as much as possible whilst holding down low paid jobs"

http://withoutmaps.bandcamp.com/

All this excellence starts with the doors to Chameleon opening at 8.00 and the first band on at 8.30.

£5 ADVANCE FROM : http://www.wegottickets.com/event/132541

£6 DOOR. Buy a ticket as this will be busy...

DO NOT MISS!

Abandoned House

2011-08-19T00:17:00.002+01:00

Now showing on Flickr

Coffin Pricks

2011-08-19T00:08:00.003+01:00

Wouldn't mind being in Chicago tomorrow night for the first show by new band Coffin Pricks. Former Bob Tilton guitarist Chay Lawrence is manning the low end and Monorchid/Skull Kontrol/Red Eyed Legends/Circus Lupus man Chris Thomson does the vocals. Sounds about right to me. To be listened to back-to-back with the Eddy Current Suppression Ring song in the previous post. Then "Stranded" by The Saints maybe? You can make your own comp, I'm rubbish at them.

Group Home Haircut by impastah-rasta

Which Way To Go

2011-08-19T00:01:00.001+01:00

Can someone do the right thing and import/release/re-release the Eddy Current Suppression Ring albums on vinyl in the UK so I don't have to sell a ball to pay for the postage?

Kogumaza Upcoming

2011-08-18T23:45:00.006+01:00

Apologies for lack of updates if anyone cares. Been doing lots of music-related things. More of which to follow but here's a load of upcoming shows for KGMZ:

AUGUST
19 OXFORD WHEATSHEAF w/Dive Dive, Richard Walters, Seabuckthorn

OCTOBER
13 NOTTINGHAM CHAMELEON w/Enablers
14 BIRMINGHAM HARE & HOUNDS w/Enablers, Backwards
15 LONDON POWER LUNCHES w/TBC
16 BRIGHTON HOPE w/Enablers, Sweet Williams
22 SUPERSONIC FESTIVAL at The Custard Factory, Birmingham w/Turbonegro, Bardo Pond, Tony Conrad, Nathan Bell, Part Chimp, Skull Defekts and more

Here's an interview on the Supersonic website: http://www.supersonicfestival.com/news/kogumaza-qa/2011/

There are tentative plans for a split single in the pipeline with Leeds friends Hookworms as well.

Picore Posters

2011-08-18T21:49:00.006+01:00

2 new posters for shows in Derby and Nottingham for the mighty Picore from Zaragoza.
Both are of the very slight in-joke variety but hopefully still look nice to those of you who haven't seen this Spanish gas commercial and who also know Michael Cross and those of you unfamiliar with this review of Picore's last show in Nottingham that makes particular reference to some of their facial foliage...

Go to both!

Kogumaza vs Dot To Dot

2011-06-21T18:10:00.000+01:00

Kogumaza - Nottm Trent University 29.05.11 from neil johnson on Vimeo.

EBay Frustration

2011-06-21T18:03:00.001+01:00

I'm selling a cheap and cheerful guitar on EBay at the moment to raise some funds. Here's a genuine message exchange I've just had:

Hi...
Funny how time shows how the now legendary Japanese consistency of quality is really a very recent phenomenon.
I too had experience of the Sumbro brand in the early seventies (mainly SG copies) and while I have seen some nice examples subsequently, the dozen, or so I handled were assembled using what were without doubt the cheapest, nastiest, hardware fitted to any guitar at the time... The chrome on the pickup covers flamed off as they left he shop, the machine heads rattled when unstrung and the plywood bodies were as lively as concrete posts.
- b**dicus27

Dear b**dicus27,

Erm... thanks...
I would suggest not bidding then and perhaps making better use of your time? Write a novel perhaps? Break the elusive code in the Taman Shud case from Australia in the 1940s (Google it: well worth a read)?
Or better still, learn some manners maybe? Let me know if you ever put your house on the market and I'll pop over and point out faults in other people's guttering I have seen.
Regards,
Chris

Dear chris_summerlin,

Firstly, youll have to forgive the grammer and spelling, as this device has its own, strange predictive text system.

If you'd bothered to read my last message properly, you will see that I was remarking on the inconsistency regarding the quality of early 1970s Japanese manufacturing, while making it absolutely clear that the Sumbro guitars I came across after that dismally poor batch of a dozen, or so I had to sell were not of such a poor standard.

if youre going to spend your time exalting the quality of a marque in order to raise its standing in the eyes of those who know no better and may be about to give you money, and you actually care one jot about courtesy and manners, you should be prepared to be corrected and accept an equal amount of valid criticism when you perceive it instead of throwing a tantrum.

As for what I do with my time.... Not that it has anything to do with you...... If you believe it's wrong for me to point it out when someone makes blanket statements without giving a balanced view, then your opinion of what is and what isn't good manners requires serious adjustment.

My state of health means that I do indeed have too much time on my hands. I probably do spend too much time reading some of the drivel people write in heir listings and if you think that an Ill considered tirade from someone not even capable of reading a statement properly is likely to bother me more than an untreatable illness, your intellectual faculties are dismally lacking.

The only reason I took the time to read your listing is that I would have liked to have another 70s Gibson copy to go with my others, but I can honestly say that after your arrogant response to my previous message, I wouldn't buy a Gold plated Sheraton off you if it was advertised for free.

Don't bother replying, as I will delete any further communication from you without even reading it.
- b**dicus27

Dear b**dicus27,

Look pal - you messaged *me*. I answered. The listing says clearly what the pros and cons of the instrument are. Check my other sales of guitars - all positive feedback, all happy people, all fair prices. Hence this is 90 quid start, no reserve as opposed to the 250 quid or more that Sumbros, Mayas, CSLs, Kimbaras etc etc often get.
I *did* read your message carefully, it was speculating on the variable quality of these instruments. No question about the item, just a statement that somehow implies that I am being misleading in my description so excuse me if I failed to pick up on your interest. Fact is, I don't care about the variable quality of the instruments, I care about the quality of *this* particular instrument because that's the one I am selling. I'm not selling all of them ever made. I have described the quality more than adequately in the listing as opposed to "exalting" it. Warts and all with pictures to show them.
What you do with your time has everything to do with me if you spend it writing to me. Sorry to hear about your health but if you think that gives you carte blanche to be snooty about a listing for a 90 quid guitar, then I'd still recommend writing that novel I suggested - we all need to spend our time more wisely on this planet. Unfortunately, the internet is a handy distraction to that.

Sincere best wishes,
Chris

Auction is here if you want to critique my description too...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290577836668&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

Zomes & Kogumaza European Tour May 2011

2011-05-07T00:48:00.003+01:00

ZOMES & KOGUMAZA in Europe, May 2011

WEDNESDAY MAY 11 PARIS ESPACE B

THURSDAY MAY 12 BORDEAUX LE NOVO LOCALE

FRIDAY MAY 13 ZARAGOZA ARREBATO

SATURDAY MAY 14 MADRID ROCK & POP

SUNDAY MAY 15 BARCELONA MOOG

MONDAY MAY 16 TBC

TUESDAY MAY 17 BOLOGNA LAZZARETTO

WEDNESDAY MAY 18 VIENNA RHIZ

THURSDAY MAY 19 PRAGUE A STUDIO RUBIN also w/DANIEL HIGGS

FRIDAY MAY 20 LEIPZIG KAFIC

SATURDAY MAY 21 ANTWERP SCHELD'APEN

SUNDAY MAY 22 LONDON FIRE STATION COMMUNITY NURSERY

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE LP "EARTH GRIDS" BY ZOMES.
(You should, it's fantastic)

Come along, say hi.

(Tour poster by David Hand)

Kogumaza LP Out Today

2011-05-07T00:47:00.000+01:00

Available now on clear vinyl and download (download free with the vinyl or purchasable separately).

http://lowpoint.bandcamp.com/album/kogumaza

Kogumaza S/T LP

2011-05-04T00:33:00.002+01:00

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://lowpoint.bandcamp.com/album/kogumaza"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Kogumaza by Low Point&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Released May 9th 2011 on clear vinyl LP: www.low-point.com

"Lawsuit" Gibson SG For Sale

2011-04-15T12:36:00.006+01:00

Just got a bill for finally repairing my Fender Twin Reverb after years of gigging and tour-rentals to Erase Errata and Gang Gang Dance and a million more. It's hefty so I have to clear out some stuff... I'm selling my spare "lawsuit" SG (right). I bought it as a back-up for my Antoria SG (left) not long ago. It uses the same body and neck type but differs in the hardware. It has a fixed bridge and tailpiece and the bridge itself is a level bar type not a Tun-o-matic copy. It intonates very nicely though. The strap peg on the back is on the neck heel as opposed to the body. The tuners have been swapped out for 6-a-side ones which means the top 3 wind the wrong way. If I can find the set off the Antoria (I swapped them for some Grovers I had lying around) then I'll include them in the sale if you want to put it back to stock. The pickups appear to have both been changed. The neck looks like a normal period-correct Super 70 type but the pickguard has been cut along the top edge suggesting it's been installed later. The bridge one is a mystery. Looks a bit like a Univox but it isn't. It's dead as a dodo though. A quick glance under the pickguard suggests a home installation by someone about as skilled as I am. I suspect this is what confined this guitar to the cupboard of the previous owner. In any case I am confident a re-wire would get this mysterious pickup firing again.

Other stuff: there are stress cracks at the neck heel like just about every other guitar of this era with a bolt-on neck. Nothing to sweat about. It's missing about an inch of binding on the treble side of the neck too. Another common problem. At least the inlays on the fretboard haven't dropped out. So there you go. It's cheap so msg me if you want it.

More pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sumlin/

Remix

2011-04-10T20:07:00.006+01:00

Just did this remix for friends and pub companions Medium Death Kick. The original song was a perfectly-proportioned sketch-like nugget on their album but it seemed ripe for expanding and messing with. Ended up being a bit more Kevin Shields than expected but I hope that's a positive. All done very lo-tech as well, just on the Way-Out Is The Way Out studio gear which means lining up the vocals and manually pressing play when you hope they should come in. Plenty of trial and error, like it should be. Andy from the band made this awesome montage-style video for it. Love the bit with the dog and the body on the beach.

Anyway - WILL REMIX FOR RED STRIPE AND/OR MONSTER MUNCH. Hit me up...

Epiphone ET270 For Sale

2011-04-08T14:36:00.002+01:00

My esteemed bandmate Philip John Welding is selling this piece of total rock history. Get in early and beat the Hard Rock Cafe. It's a 1970s Epiphone ET270 as used by Kurt Cobain (not this one), Justin Trosper (not this one), LCD Soundsystem (the bass version), Trans Am (this exact guitar) and erm...Lords. Some nice touches like the E pickguard (which Phil's other 270 doesn't have) and a pearl inlay logo (ditto). The pickup surrounds have crumbled to dust and it's got chips and dings as well as vintage replacement Schaller tuners but this is a bad-ass guitar for sure. He's also selling a 1970s Maya fretless P-bass with changed hardware and perhaps a changed body as it's a thick, heavy, possibly mahogany lump of wood that makes this thing sound enormous. Message me if you're interested in either. If you're near Nottingham feel free to suggest trying them out.

Wedding Invite

2011-04-08T01:02:00.004+01:00

Another wedding invite, this time for one of my best and oldest friends who finally found a lady willing to put up with him and for that we should all feel suitably warmed. I normally run a mile from the words "soft", "pencil" and "portrait" but I'm willing to give anything a go when it's for someone who has helped me out of many tight spots, usually involving pouring me into the back seat of a car and getting me home from some gig or another in our teens. I guess I lucked out on this one as it turned out very nicely, if I say so myself. I suspect the wedding party concerned might not end as softly or as tastefully...

Posters For Daniel Higgs Tour

2011-04-08T00:32:00.006+01:00

2 new posters for shows on the upcoming Daniel Higgs Tour. The top one is for Nottingham on April 27th (solo performance) and the bottom one for Cardiff (Trio performance). The Cardiff poster recycles and re-jigs an old illustration I did for Plan B Magazine for a playlist chosen by Tony Sylvester (Aurora Borealis). I did it with the "I vomited up a blinking eye" Lungfish lyric in mind. It's somehow supposed to represent how the important details can be so subtle as to pass you by, or at least not be the first thing you notice. If you catch my drift. It goes without saying that I'm an enormous fan of Higgs' art and music. There are some photos from the opening of his solo show at the 96 Gillespie Gallery a few years ago here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sumlin/sets/72157602758905434/with/1773774989/ The temptation was to go for something ancient, or pseudo-mystical in terms of imagery. But Higgs isn't really that much older than I am. He's just got a better beard. So I drew a Cosmonaut for the Nottingham poster. Hope you like it.

New Red-Eyed & Blue Poster

2011-03-21T23:52:00.004Z

Another one for The Brute Chorus. This one absolutely broke my brain (not entirely the fault of the poster, more the timing of it's desired completion date!) but luckily it all turned out nice in the end. Some Gris-Gris style Day Of The Dead witchdoctor shit. In yer breakfast...

Hhymn - "In The Depths" CD Artwork

2011-03-21T23:31:00.004Z

Pete Fletcher at First Love Studios really saved our collective hides recently with some very generous studio time to complete the Kogumaza LP. Nice to return the favour and be asked to put together this sleeve for the first release on Pete's label Denizen Recordings by Nottingham's own Hhymn.
They supplied the wonderful Ian Chatburn underwater photos and some design direction. Maybe my hungover brain was operating on half power but it was a real struggle to find space and colours to make text work well over such detailed and high-contrast images without ruining the images or making the text illegible. I thought about resorting to boxes or worse still, shrinking the pictures and putting the text underneath. Some Monster Munch and a lie-down later and I went mental with the crop tool and cut the images to quite extreme levels in an attempt to place the divers contained within them on the periphery of the image, making it somehow a little spooky and taking the emphasis away from the human involvement in the images (and isn't that always the best music too: made by humans but with as little trace of their grubby paws as possible, like something in nature just laid it right?).
Some blue and red tints later and I'm very happy with the results. I think Peter Saville was on my mind or at least a low-rent version of him.
Out soon. In the meantime watch Hhymn's video here: http://vimeo.com/21108423 and marvel at the lovely blue Fender Jaguar contained within...

Here's some more images of the sleeve, click them to be magically transported to a world where they're bigger.

Kogumaza LP Artwork

2011-03-15T00:00:00.002Z

Forthcoming on Low Point on clear vinyl. Katharine Eira Brown took the cover image (of the coast at Aberdyfi) on Kodachrome slide film and I added the minimal graphic elements.

Recent Artwork

2011-03-13T22:15:00.002Z

2 new pieces of work from the last month. At the top is a significantly scaled-down version of a one-off piece done as a commission by my friends Matt and Kerry who wanted something for their living room wall and liked what I'd done for the band The Slow Life. The actual piece is framed and measures something like 3 feet across.

Below that is a gig-poster-as-wedding-invitation for Anna Storakers and Per Winroth. Anna has commissioned me to do lots of gig posters in the past and she really wanted something for her wedding that was funny. And has Basset Grifon dogs on it...

Kogumaza LP

2011-03-13T22:05:00.004Z

Kogumaza LP preview. Out May 9 2011 on Low Point on clear vinyl and download. You can hear a full track over at the Low Point Sound Cloud Page.
We open for Deerhunter in Leeds on March 29 (get there early). And then you can buy a copy of the LP early at shows in Nottingham at Chameleon on May 5 (with Ex Easter Island Head and Apalusa) and Bristol at the Cube Cinema on May 7 (with Nathan Bell and more).
We're then off to mainland Europe with Zomes from May 11 to the 22, more details to follow.

Manic St Preachers

2011-01-26T20:01:00.002Z

Something has always bothered me and I am hoping a fan of the band can help clarify things. Is it Manic Street Preachers as in "Preachers on a road called Manic Street"? Or is it Manic Street Preachers as in "Street-preachers who are manic"? Is it Manic Street Preachers? Or Manic Street Preachers?

Scans Of Bands

2011-01-23T13:34:00.004Z

Throughout the 1990s and early 00s I never went anywhere without my trusty Olympus Super Zoom AZ300. I have boxes and boxes of photos of gigs, most of them pretty awful. Ignoring this, I decided to scan them a few weeks ago and chuck them up on Flickr. They are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sumlin/sets/72157625712202359/with/5360811013/ And here are some of my favourites: Fugazi; Nottingham Marcus Garvey Ballroom Bob Tilton; Nottingham Dubble Bubble Deerhoof; Nottingham Maze Fugazi; Nottingham Rock City Godspeed You! Black Emperor; Manchester Amigo's Cafe (first ever European show) Jamie from Scarfo (now from The Kills) enjoys Ligament's last gig (it wasn't); London Upstairs At The Garage Mogwai secret show opening for Ligament; London Upstairs At The Garage Shellac; Camber Sands Sweep The Leg Johnny; Birmingham Jug Of Ale Sonic Youth; Shepherd's Bush Empire The Make-Up; Notting Hill Arts Cafe Trail Of Dead; Nottingham Social

Wedding Invitation Design

2011-01-23T13:32:00.002Z

My friends Jenny & Kate wanted a humorous and memorable Save The Date card to send out prior to the invitations for their wedding.
A little bit of jiggery-pokery with a playing card and some penmanship later and here we are.
Printed on glossy card at playing card size too.

Nottingham Critical Pedagogy Logo

2011-01-23T13:21:00.002Z

Logo design for the Nottingham Critical Pedagogy student group, commissioned by David Bell and completed at the end of last year. We spoke a little about trying to convey an idea of there being power in critical thinking and David expressed that he wanted something lively to offset what is seemingly a very dry subject matter. From this we somehow got onto emblem design from the Soviet space programme and we ended up with this bear and pencil design. They have it in a variety of different configurations to use in any application they like, including in a circle so they can get it embroidered onto their space suits when they get them. Which they should.

COTD 3: Ferrari 365 GT4 2+2 / 400 / 412

2011-01-12T17:16:00.006Z

It had to happen. I picked 2 esoteric choices for the first Car of the Day entries and so now I have to pick a Ferrari.
Sorry.
I’ve been nuts about Italian cars since I was a kid. Blame my parents. Blame Magnum PI or Miami Vice. Blame Beverley Hills Cop II. Blame Cannonball Run (One and Two, but mainly One).
However: in keeping with the spirit of these vehicular outbursts, I’m going to select one of the most unpopular cars to ever leave the Maranello factory gates – the 365 GT4 2+2/400/412 series.
Even at the height of the car boom of the late 1980s, these front-engined four seaters were tricky to shift. And this was at a time that people were paying over list-price for anything with a prancing horse on the bonnet and it was possible to sell a brand new car for a huge profit just by taking delivery of it.

You can trace the disinterest in the series through the history of 2+2s that the company have made (2+2 meaning “2-in-the-front/2-in-the-back”, or “not quite a 4-seater really, unless you’re really short or you don’t have legs”).
The wonderful 250GTE was the first mass-production car that Ferrari produced. An elegant but muscular saloon powered by the same V12 as the more sporty and desirable models but able to take the kids and the luggage to the summer house (at exceptional speed). It had the poise of a street rod but the simple and beautiful design details of it’s more valuable (now) siblings like the 250 GT SWB. Crucially, it’s a subtle car.
It’s easily in my Top 10 Ferraris, maybe even my Top 5. As someone who can name over a thousand minor variations in the marque and who wrote several thousand words (for no real reason) on the great “0846 debate”, this is high praise indeed. I really think about these things. I really am that much of a loser.
However, take a quick look online and you’ll see the majority of these lovely cars have been scrapped, with the mechanical aspects cruelly stripped out and used to build either replicas of more valuable models like the GTO or kept as spares for the real thing by wealthy vintage car racers. Recently an absolutely perfect condition GTE showed up on EBay minus its engine after it was bought at auction solely for items which were to be used as spares for a more financially valuable car. At least someone has the chance to salvage something from this one, elsewhere GTE body shells lie in coachbuilders’ backyards acting as accidental flowerbeds:

It’s heart breaking.

The 400 series (I’ll call it that for shorthand) has a similar story. Brought out in the early 1970s as a replacement for the 365 “Queen Mary” it roughly echoes the equivalent changes to Ferrari design of the period in that the curves and open lights of the older models were replaced with slightly more angular styling and sleeker, pop-up lights (see the 275 GTB to Daytona, or the Dino to 308GTB later on).
Today, it’s possible to pick one of these up for less than a Nissan Micra but the hideous costs of maintaining a 30-something year old, V12 engined Italian car mean few people are wealthy (or brave) enough to take the risk. Specialist breakers’ yards (such as http://www.eurospares.co.uk/) are full of these things. In fact, take a look at this widely circulated photo of the recovered wreckage from the tragic Lockerbie bombing:

That’s right; in the foreground is the remains of a Ferrari 400.

I can’t remember the last time I saw one of these things on the road, moving.
That is a pity, as that’s where they are in their element. Modern cars are designed with the photographic image in mind. Most people will see their first glimpse of a new supercar in print, not in the flesh. So you end up with cars like the Ferrari F50: it looks like a bazooka battleship on a glossy page but it just sits wrong on the road, ending up looking like the outpourings of a just-pubescent male in the back of his maths book.
The 70s period for design house Pininfarina acts as a textbook example of how to design a car that looks great on the road.

Recently I saw a first series Ferrari Mondial (a car similarly maligned in Ferrari aficionado circles) on the road and it looked fabulous. Squat, hunched forward, clearly defined and unfussy in detail compared to modern Ferraris. The 400 perfectly illustrates this line of thinking, though you can see why it isn’t universally considered a design classic.

In photos it’s hard to determine its “face”. Its curious bi-level nose is the culprit – making it hard to define the crucial eyes and mouth recognition that makes a car appealing to us weird human types. That face recognition is why we see the Morgan Aeromax as cross-eyed, the Citroen DS as “Shark-like” and the Fiat 500 as unthreatening. The 400 is just confusing – from standing eye-level at least. It looks like it should solely have pop ups like a Bitter Coupe or BMW 8 Series; or a more defined and stepped up nose like the latter Pininfarina concept car the Ferrari Pinin, or other equally luscious Farina creations like the Lancia Gamma Coupe or the Fiat 130 Coupe. The Aston Martin Lagonda suffers from the same styling problem (among many others – though it too looks incredible on the road). Plus, the need for 4 seats makes it all look a little stretched and poorly balanced. In photos it’s only the rear ¾ view that appeals.

Put it on the road next to the cars of the time (or now) though or crouch down and look at one from a seated perspective and it looks fantastic. I remember going to the coast in Norfolk with my parents and seeing a black 400GT heading towards us on the other side of the road with its lights up. It stuck in my mind like a photo. The car’s width and poise make it look perfectly aggressive whilst still being strangely subtle (for an enormous V12 supercar). It is the absolute antithesis of the F50 and I am willing to stake money that it will age significantly better than either the current 599 or its direct descendant the 612 Scaglietti, both of which are too big, too ostentatious and too sloppy looking to really work. The 612 in particular looks like the early stages of an omelette. The angular, sweeping 400 is confident and bold in comparison and represents the perfect gentleman (or woman) express.

It’s also the only Ferrari I have ever been in. My late Granddad called me up to say I should pay him a visit with my Dad when I was about 13 or so. He took me to see a mechanic neighbour of his who had borrowed a late 70s 400GT from his work to offer rides to kids at a garden fete. I think it was registered APG 58T. It was £55,000 back then. You could get one for a tenth of that now. It was in a perfectly 70s metallic silver blue/green with tan leather inside. I went for a ride in it and it felt like it was taking off on the road between Northborough and Peakirk. I remember looking at the speedo and it saying 130 mph. Judging from Ferrari’s optimistic speedos it was probably closer to 100 but that’s still plenty on an A road in a car that weighs the same as a bungalow. It was a carburetted model too so the noise was deafening – even though this was supposed to be a more civilized Ferrari. It left quite a mark on me. The registration doesn’t show on the DVLA database as being taxed anymore. I wonder where the car is - probably languishing in a parts yard somewhere or, worse still, re-born as several hundred Coke cans.

So why is it so unpopular? I’d guess it’s because people who want a Ferrari tend to lust after one for years and it signifies that they have somehow “made it” when they own one. So they inevitably buy a red one and want it to be as striking looking as possible so the neighbours get the message. The 400 just doesn’t fit with that. For one, it looks terrible in red (a lot of Ferraris do, oddly) and despite its gargantuan power train and enormous grunt it’s hardly a sports car. It’s aimed more at the discreet Mafia boss than the freshly-famous pop star or footballer.
Its cheapness tempts owners new to the marque who then find they don’t have the pit of funds required to maintain it as it should be maintained so lots of these cars are in a serious state of disrepair now and with the values so low they’re more liable to be broken for spares than they are restored as working on a V12 Ferrari costs the same amount regardless of whether that car is worth 10 thousand pounds or 10 million. Which is a shame.

I went to a Ferrari car show recently and in amongst the sea of red wedges - all with their owners in red polo shirts with red golfing umbrellas - was a solitary 412GT in a deep bronze colour. It was driven by an elderly gentleman who rolled up – not in an explosion of exhaust noise and tyre screech but in relative calm – and sat reading the paper in it before donning his panama and leaving as quietly as he had arrived.

That is why the 365GT2+2/400/412 deserves a re-evaluation – it’s a car with real class.

Value now: you can get a good one for £20,000

Pub quiz trivia fact: Jeremy Clarkson might have called it "awful in every way" and relegated it to an entry in the Top Gear Crap Cars book but Daft Punk didn't agree with him and made a black 412GT the star of their film Electroma in 2007:

Links:
Wikipedia
Online Forum
Octane Article
Registry

Stratocaster

2011-01-05T18:08:00.002Z

The Strat project (http://honeyisfunny.blogspot.com/2010/10/stratocastish.html) is done.

Luthier extraordinaire Andy Farrell chucked the horrible Fotoflame body in a vat of Nitromors for about a week until it finally peeled off. He then sanded it smooth and shot it with a single coat of black over a grey undercoat. It was then oiled and smoothed out leaving all the original dings and dents that had penetrated the Fotoflame in place. Not quite a relic job, more a refinish without covering up the guitar's history and a bit of a nod to this Strat: http://www.flickr.com/photos/doctor_noe/4462005451/

I did the electrics myself with lots of help from Neil:

and set it up with skinny top/heavy bottom strings (10 on top, 52 on bottom) and took a crash course in trem design in order to get the trem to float and balance right for me.
It got road tested with Felix in November and it sounds sweet, lots of sustain and tons of bass and the neck feels perfect for my weird micro-hands. Might upgrade the pickups eventually but I kind of like it as it is, slightly underpowered compared to my other guitars.
I like it so much I've given it a name: Ron. Why? Duh: http://brella.org/sandpebbles/stooges-1.jpg

More Car Photos

2011-01-05T17:32:00.004Z

Just added a whole bundle of photos from May 2010's Auto Italia show at Brooklands to my Flickr here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sumlin/sets/72157625622606229/with/5324285955/
by way of attempting to start clearing a backlog of pics from last year that are just sitting on my hard drive.

As you can see, I finally got to see a De Tomaso Mangusta as well. Maybe I need to write an entry about how I've never seen a million pounds in non-consecutive notes sitting on a pallet wrapped in clingfilm and then I'll stumble across one of those in a car park too? It looked just as good as I thought it would:

LOVE OVER GOLD

2010-12-18T11:29:00.002Z

I was sad, my head hung down I felt really bad
Now I'm glad, glad about the good times that we've had

"I'm A Locksmith"

2010-11-29T23:37:00.000Z

Felix / Poppy Seed - Nov 18

2010-11-12T17:27:00.003Z

"Come and enjoy a rare show in the old gallery space upstairs at The Hand and Heart pub, which will be transformed into a haven of comfort and entertainment.

FELIX
Sharp pianist and cellist Lucinda Chua leads a star ensemble through playful and brooding musical fantasies on dancing, heartbreak and rebellion.
Playing songs from the Kranky release "You Are the One I Pick" and more...

http://doublesixclub.tv/session/13/felix
http://www.brainwashed.com/kranky/
http://www.myspace.com/mybeautifulfelix

POPPY SEED
"Gone electric"
Hold on to your pants and hold on to your wives. 2-piece now 5-piece band from Nottingham with influences from Chris Isaak to Etta James.

http://poppyseed.bandcamp.com/

Thursday 18th November
Hand & Heart Gallery, Derby Rd, Nottingham
£4 on the door"

Kogumaza / Gareth Hardwick - Nov 11

2010-11-04T00:24:00.002Z

Originally planned to be NATHAN BELL (of Lungfish) with Kogumaza and Dusty Bible, we found out this morning that Nathan was refused entry to the UK at immigration and sent home.
This is something of a colossal downer.

Let us not wallow in this bad news though. Kogumaza will be unrestricted by a 30 min opening slot for the first time ever for their last Nottingham show before hibernating to make an LP, Low Point's Gareth Hardwick has been coaxed out of gig hiatus, Dusty Bible got through immigration about 15 years ago, Chameleon is booked, the door price is lowered, Nick's got a load of booze in from Lidl and we demand your attendance.

Here's the blurb:

DAMN YOU! in association with RAMMEL CLUB presents...

► KOGUMAZA
Kogumaza is people from Bob Tilton, Lords, Wolves Of Greece and more making thick, shimmering riff cycles pitched somewhere between a budget Black Sabbath and Spacemen 3 on half speed playing forever. Frequencies are shifted, drums are echoed to infinity and beautiful patterns emerge from the fuzz and stay trapped in your brain for weeks.
http://www.myspace.com/oogamaza
http://www.honeyisfunny.com/kogumaza/

► GARETH HARDWICK
Low Point Records (Machinefabriek, Strategy etc) owner Gareth Hardwick returns to the live arena at long last. "While many experimental artists tend to shy away from intimacy...the cliched presumption of instrumental music being incapable of dealing with private issues in a specific way was effectively disproved by suggestive soundscapes which burned with joy, pain, elation and desire – even if they hardly ever rose above a whisper"
www.low-point.com

► DUSTY BIBLE
Hoarse blues with a whiff of sulphur and three day oldbooze.

THURSDAY 11th NOVEMBER
The CHAMELEON Arts Cafe, Nottingham
(Old Market sq / alleyway next to the Bell Inn, above Clinton Cards)
8pm doors
£3 on the door

We'll send the proceeds onto to Nathan Bell to help pay for a little of the wasted airfare so be sure to come down.

Pete Simonelli - Nov 21

2010-11-03T01:30:00.002Z

Goddamn it! We said NO MORE GIGS.
We said it loads. We basked in the glorious glow of just turning up to other people's shows, paying the money to get in, drinking 3 or 4 continental lagers and then just going home again feeling good.
But sometime earlier this year, the-former-team-Damn-You had the immense good fortune to witness San Francisco (via Brooklyn) band ENABLERS absolutely amaze a crowd of people at the Pavement ATP like few bands we've ever seen before. Seriously, it was almost religious.
We felt re-energised. Afterwards, bonds were forged over continental lagers and we decided that we would always put a show on for any of these men should they ever pass through our fair town.
It was like the Goonies but everyone was way, way older.

When vocalist Pete Simonelli said he was planning a spoken-word tour we couldn't resist. Pete's unique vocal delivery (part spoken, part shouted, always utterly compelling) and winding tales of the noir-ish underbelly of the city and it's characters make Enablers so special and we're as intrigued and excited as you should be that he's doing this short spoken word tour and that it's coming to everyone's favourite tea shop. Here's the blurb for you:

"In addition to being the vocalist and co-founder of the San Francisco-based band, Enablers, Simonelli is a published poet, writer, and playwright. A native Californian, Simonelli spent eighteen formative years in San Francisco, documenting, observing, drinking, reading, loving, betraying, working, and writing--- attributes and setbacks that, over the years, have led to many a Second Chance, for which he is very grateful. And call it birthright, boon, or bane, but as one who too often veered in westerly directions (much to the amusement of his friends and bandmates), Simonelli moved east in 2008 and now makes his home in Brooklyn, New York. These shows will see Pete reading from his new book 'One Brittle Nerve' and he will also have a new record that will be a 3 way split between pete / McWatt and Black Octagon."

www.myspace.com/enablers
http://www.myspace.com/petesimonelli
www.lancashireandsomerset.co.uk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHBG0IrcDZY

In addition to Pete (and continuing our totally-acoustic-with-no-PA evening) we have one of our favourite bands: MCWATT.
You may have seen them at Lee Rosys before or witnessed their beautiful set supporting A Hawk & A Hacksaw at the Malt Cross a few years back.
We once saw the playing in a crypt a few feet from an entombed corpse. That was a fun night.
Here's what they say about themselves:

"We are a duo. We play double bass, flute and several accordions. We are D.I.Y., and we love playing gigs. We smell good and are polite, even when drunk. Whenever the size of the room and the raucousness of the audience allows, we prefer to play completely acoustically, i.e. not even through the p.a. We like Debussy, Satie, Sea Shanties, British folk music, Charlie Haden, Arvo Part, things of that ilk. People say our songs are really sad, but we do not think so. Maybe we are really depressed"

http://www.myspace.com/mcwattband

In addition we have Nottingham's own NICK JONAH DAVIS playing solo guitar. Nick's guitar skills are incredible but unlike some of his peers he never lets them get in the way of the music he writes and performs. While the rest of the fingerpicking brigade disappear into a folk vortex parallel to the speed competitions of 1980s post-Eddie Van Halen excess, Nick just gets on with it. We dig that. You will too.

http://www.myspace.com/nickdavisguitar
http://www.tompkinssquare.com/

This is happening on SUNDAY NOVEMBER 21 and we're opening the doors to Lee Rosys at the thoroughly sensible 7.30pm, giving you 30 mins to buy cake before the entertainment starts and it's all done with at a last-bus friendly 10.30
All this for £4 too.

Stratocastish

2010-10-07T00:27:00.003+01:00

Part 1 of a forthcoming series of photos.

Feb 25 1967

2010-10-07T00:20:00.001+01:00

Chelmsford, Essex.

Happy Birthday Joe Mask

2010-10-07T00:16:00.003+01:00

Heather got me to do this for Joe's birthday in September. To address the balance for Emlyn's Mum's cat ending up as the star of this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sumlin/2280986291/

Flag For Nottingham

2010-10-07T00:03:00.003+01:00

Nottingham magazine Left Lion asked me and some more local artist-types to come up with a new flag for the city and some words to explain it.

Here's mine:

"I propose not just a flag, but a whole new secret society for the people of Nottingham, inspired by the Toynbee Tiles, the Freemasons (minus the George W Bush shit) and, of course, the words of Donovan Whycliffe Bromwell.
Nottingham has long celebrated the underdog and applauded the glorious failure. Our cultural exports all fall short due to don't-give-a-shit modesty or they break down in the rush hour traffic at 6.10 somewhere on the A453 on the way to a gig in London, where they were supposed to arrive at 7pm.
It's a curse, but I say we should celebrate this. It's what makes us Nottinghamers, not Robin Hood or "two girls for every boy".
Next time you suspect a stranger is from our fair city, just slip this into the conversation: "Can I sing you a song?".
Use it as a greeting maybe, like the Masonic handshake. Or write it on a wall somewhere without explanation. Trest positive responders kindly and cut them favours.
We've got to stick together"

I should add this flag is very much pro the subject matter. Donovan (aka Whycliffe) has been about since I first moved to the city over 10 years ago. I've had plenty of run-ins with him. The day after I submitted this to Al from the magazine, he sprung up from behind a plant at a pub in town and sat down next to me. The first thing he said was "YOU LIKE MY FACE YEAH?". It freaked me out a little. That's not his problem though.
His story is a sad one ultimately but it's an ongoing one, it's not a fable despite how people might treat it that way and the guy's no cartoon character despite me almost making him one here. I put him on the flag with the utmost sincerity and I hope it's taken that way.

*UPDATE
I have been reliably informed the man himself loves the flag and plans are afoot to get a real one made for him by the team at the magazine.

Sundae Overdrive

2010-10-04T19:24:00.003+01:00

Just completed this FX pedal fascia design for new company Concord LLC from the US (link to follow once it gets set up). Daed from the company wanted something different to the 2 standardised ways of decorating a stomp-box (very much hand painted a la Z-Vex or super graphic-y like Electro Harmonix: both very nice too I should add, esp. the old EH Black Finger which has always been my favourite pedal design).
So we opted to use a high-gloss full colour sticker on the top of the metal casing. Some slight repositioning later and the Sundae Overdrive had a suitably creamy visual presence with the neat touch of a red LED literally as the cherry on the cake...erm...ice cream.
Production pictures when I get them...

Part Chimp 7" Sleeve

2010-09-06T17:50:00.001+01:00

Do I want to design a screenprinted sleeve for the forthcoming Part Chimp 7" on Gringo Records? Does the Pope shit in the woods?

"Undercover User Experience" Book Illustrations

2010-08-12T01:36:00.003+01:00

My lack of updates, especially those of an illustration and artwork nature, is down to two people: Cennydd Bowles and James Box. They've just written a book entitled Undercover User Experience that's about to be published by Peachpit and they asked me to do the chapter illustrations.
This is the first "set" of illustrations I've been commissioned to do from scratch and it was a fairly sizeable job made much easier by clear instruction and good ideas from the authors who were a lot of fun to work with. The book sets out to be deliberately free of jargon and offer new angles to approach things from and Cennydd and James felt a slightly abstract and funny set of illustrations would best serve their intentions and steer the final results away from cliches like light bulbs above people's heads.
We ran through several loose ideas for each chapter before settling on a central character who would face different (and slightly bizarre) trials in each illustration, relating in some way to the content of the chapter in question.
Mr Joe O'Sullivan (central character) and Mr Daniel Robert Chapman ("Boss" character) kindly loaned me themselves for an afternoon and I made several hundred photographs of them in increasingly silly poses in Joe's garden to form the basis for the drawings (Sadly, I have sworn to them that I will delete the photos from my hard drive once the book goes to press).

The set of 7 illustrations are shown above, give them a click to see them larger and for more info.

Sir Richard Bishop Plays The Beatles

2010-08-09T22:08:00.000+01:00

The Brute Chorus Poster

2010-08-09T17:44:00.002+01:00

New one for Red Eyed & Blue who are starting up again with this show in September at The Luminaire in London.

PAN-CAKE!

2010-08-05T16:01:00.001+01:00

The Ex & Brass Unbound

2010-08-05T13:06:00.002+01:00

Now showing over at Flickr and some videos at You Tube.

Kogumaza Activity

2010-08-05T12:44:00.003+01:00

(Chinchillafest, May 7 2010)

The L&S014 7" has it's own ordering page at the L&S website here: http://lancashireandsomerset.co.uk/index2.html
Head to the Bands link for info on other L&S artists like Enablers, Nathan Bell, Mugstar and more...

Some recent linkage:
http://www.leftlion.co.uk/articles.cfm/id/2821
http://www.textura.org/reviews/kogumaza.htm
http://still-single.tumblr.com/post/557520858/kogumaza-sevens-b-w-mara-7-low-point
http://www.leftlion.co.uk/articles.cfm/id/3047

Upcoming:
September 4: Hired Geeks all-dayer at The Victoria in London
Truly mindmelting line-up with Part Chimp, That Fucking Tank, Please and a load more including us.
October 24: Nottingham Rescue Rooms with The Ex
Getting to support one of our favourite bands. What's more our friends Bellini are playing Nottingham the night before (fingers crossed).

An LP is in the works as well.

Felix Activity

2010-08-05T12:39:00.004+01:00

No posts for a while. Post-World Cup comedown and an enormous illustration job (more of which soon) have taken up my time so some catching up is in order.
Firstly, Felix are playing the Sunday of the Green Man Festival (Aug 20-22) on the Pub Stage at some lunch-style hour I believe. Here's the blurb: http://www.greenman.net/artist2010/felix/2793
It'll see the debut of The Kevin Smith on drums, fresh from 18 months in Ethiopia and standing in for Elvis while he teaches kids to surf.
To entice festival goers away from a bacon sandwich on the Sunday lunchtime, here is some film of a new song from the last gig on the tour at the start of the year in Cambridge:

There is also a tour diary set of photos from back in Jan/Feb over at Flickr

Open Letter To ITV

2010-06-13T17:15:00.004+01:00

To: viewerservices@itv.com

To Whom It May Concern

I have now been alive for 9 World Cup Finals. 1978 and 1982 somewhat passed me by but I have vivid memories of the 1986 event and every subsequent competition since. What fun some of them have been with great ups and downs and wonderful shocks and surprises.

Yet, if there is one sure-fire dependable constant throughout it all (alongside England's expectation/achievement levels going further and further in opposite directions) it will be that your coverage of matches will be so uniformly numbskulled that, across the country, remote controllers will be hurled TV-ward in their millions. In some strange way it is almost comforting that, no matter how much cash you throw at your coverage, there will be several hundred moments in every game where I feel compelled to swallow my own tongue to put an end to the televisual experience being inflicted on me. You are always reliable. Like death, for example.

This year though, you really have outdone yourselves. Your coverage so far, especially the England v USA game, has far undercut even my own very, very slender expectations for your company's ability to organise the proverbial handjob in a knocking shop.

Firstly, the picture on standard ITV is a pixelated, shimmering whirlpool of confusion. I presume you're getting the pictures from local TV teams in the same way as the BBC? So why does ITV's coverage look like I am watching it on You Tube? On a phone. Behind frosted glass. With cataracts. I can only presume it's a cynical attempt to get us all to move onto your HD coverage instead.
It certainly worked here at any rate as myself and friends settled down with beers and crisps to watch England v USA on Saturday night on the HD channel. We are all hardened ITV watchers by now and know the subtle tricks needed to endure the 2 hours or so at the mercy of you hopeless goons.
Scientists would have a very good example of the theory of evolution in action if they just studied the relationship between the ear and brain of modern football fans in the UK. We have all developed a gland in the frontal region of our brains that allows us to filter out the sound of Clive Tyldesley and Andy Townsend and replace them with a gentle buzz. It used to be that we could just mute their inane chatter and listen to Radio 5 instead but digital TV's minor delay has put paid to that. So we struggle through.
Would it really be too much to ask for ITV to employ someone to commentate or comment on football who just does precisely that? Call me old-fashioned but my concept of a commentator is to give me an audio overview of proceedings with occasional tactical observations I myself would not have noticed or been knowledgable enough to pick up upon. I really don't need them to poetically set a scene for me or to stir my heart to action. I do not need wistful quips. I do not need musings on life delivered by a cretin. I just want to know, in as transparent manner as possible, what is happening on the pitch and, if possible, why.
This is especially crucial when the footage concentrates more on endless, very, very slow-motion replays of minor events than it does on what is actually happening in the now. I understand (or hope for you guys) that you have no control over the pictures as mentioned already. When the local producer chooses to give us a truly bizarre 30 second clip of David Beckham on the bench looking confused (more of an art film really than coverage of a football match), how about the commentary team do their job and let us, the confused people not present at the game like they are, know what is happening? I think that would be nice.
The quality of punditry and commentary on BBC is hardly perfect. Alan Hansen is the human embodiment of a very tighly clenched sphincter and Mark Lawrenson looks and acts like he's been poured into his seat like a Salvador Dali drooping clock with the demeanour of a sulky teenager but at least they offer some insight that is thankfully devoid of bullshittery.
And talking of the BBC, can you please point the ITV graphic design team in the direction of the BBC's visual presentation please? It seems like if there is an opportunity for over-design and over-complication where easy-to-read simplicity would do then ITV will grab it with both hands. The studio set resembles the results of someone shooting the contents of an abbatoir and a fireworks factory at the inside of a Portakabin with a cannon. Easy on the eyes it is not. Even the on-screen score looks like someone smeared a fly across the glass.
The pre-match build up: an hour and fifteen minutes of pure crud before the USA game. An hour and fifteen minutes. 75 minutes. 75 minutes of fluff and ad breaks. 75 minutes that make The Sun newspaper's football coverage look intelligent and insightful. And all of it looking like it was put together for GCSE Art & Design.
Of course I understand that the BBC have the advantage of not having to show adverts to pay for everything and the build-up gives you more ad break time. But do you have to cram quite so many into the programme? My urinary tract is trained to only tell the brain of impending flow issues when the little advert break thing flashes in the top corner. If I watch the full build-up and the match I'm taking a piss every 20 seconds. Perhaps says more about my age than anything but come on, help me out here. I fully expect you to have worked out a way of advertising mid-game by the time the next World Cup comes round. I look forward to it. In fact, it seems like you're already doing it but I'll get to that in good time.
I'm not even going to delve into the "James Corden Presents A Tribute To TFI Friday" programme where footballers, ex-footballers and popstars sat in the middle of a truly squirm-inducing hire-a-party staring vacantly into the middle distance, perhaps looking for their last shred of dignity as it disappeared over the horizon. Or perhaps their agent so they could dispense a swift and justified ass-kicking.

Anyway, I am sure you get my drift. My point is that we expect nothing less than a total joy vacuum from ITV's coverage. We expect it so much that we have developed ways of dealing with it that make it just about bearable. We have no option to watch it elsewhere so we are forced to watch it on ITV and like going to the dentist, or being bummed as payment for an unpaid debt to a loan shark, we can endure it for the greater good just as long as you give us the one thing crucial to watching live football: footage of the match as it happens. But no.
Minutes into the HD coverage of the England v USA game, ITV suddenly exceeded all known parameters of incompetency by switching to an ad break for Hyundai mid-match. The game eventually comes back on and England have scored in the meantime.
What is the meaning of this cruel joke? Was I part of a collective hallucination?
It appears not. I found myself surrounded by grown men in a state of confusion and hurt. A hurt swiftly replaced by anger, vows to never buy a Hyundai (as if it were their fault) and some very unsavoury statements about Mr Tyldesley's personal life that I am not proud of but endorse fully, even in the cold and calm light of day. And to make matters worse, we had to watch the rest of the game in standard jerky definition as the HD seemed to bite the dust with the unplanned ad break.

We can put up with the truly awful and unhelpful commentary; we can let the endless waffling pre-match build-up and punditry wash over us zen-like as though a cool untroubling breeze; we can take a slash in the ad breaks and maybe go to the fridge but for the love of God if you get one thing right just make sure it's showing the match. Please. I beg of you. The 2010 World Cup is now forever tarnished by my missing our country's opening goal. Like stepping in a dog egg on the way to a dinner date. No matter how good the dinner is and how well you clean yourself up, you always think in the back of your mind that you can still smell poo.

So, what I am suggesting is as follows: as penance for this heinous foul-up you do the right thing and hand over all broadcasting to the BBC.
Canvassing the football-watching public I doubt you would find one single person who would disagree with the inherent wiseness of this plan. It would have the added bonus of warming the public's collective heart towards ITV and perhaps you can bounce back from this and make some decent non-football-based televisual matter in the future.

I seriously fucking doubt it but, you know, you could.

I expect this to be implemented with immediate effect and look forward to your agreement on this important matter.

Yours Sincerely,
Christopher Summerlin.

That Brass Band At England Games

2010-05-30T20:24:00.005+01:00

My unbridled optimism going into the 2010 World Cup has surprised even me. As a matter of record, before the tournament starts, here's my prediction:
England are going to win the 2010 World Cup.
What's more, we're not going to deserve to. Not really anyway. We're going to witness a vast outpouring of years and years of accumulated good luck and we are going to take the trophy in the spawniest manner ever witnessed. It is going to be excellent.
I can't see anything getting in the way of this except for one ever-present beacon of shitness that ruins every single international game for me, sitting at home watching the TV with a Red Stripe. And I don't mean ITV broadcasting the game (though it frequently makes me want to eat my own ears).
No, I mean that FUCKING BRASS BAND.
A quick search of the net reveals them to be The Wednesday Band. So annoying that their own club (Sheffield Weds) had to take a poll to decide whether to ban them from their own games.
Perhaps if they learned the rest of The Self Preservation Society it might be tolerable. Or a harmony part to their new "hit" The A-Team Theme. But just repeating the same 4 or 5 note phrases over leaden drumbeats only serves as a reminder of how uncolourful and flairless our national side can frequently be and how Mum-and-Dad-with-a-packed-lunch the travelling support always appears.
So, I beg of you brass band, leave the instruments in England for this World Cup. Or, if you're the poor bastards who have re-mortgaged their house to be in S.Africa and you get sat next to them then do the decent thing and pass on the news that the whole of the country's genuine football fanbase wishes they would shut the fuck up and stop making us all look like retarded xenophobic hand-clapping monkeys. It's our surefire way to winning this thing.
COME ON ENGLAND!

Fender Jazzmaster For Sale

2010-05-21T16:15:00.002+01:00

I'm selling this peach of a Fender Jazzmaster on behalf of a friend who has too many of them. It's a 1990s Crafted In Japan model. Originally sunburst, the first owner damaged the body putting a surface split along one of the joins in the 3-piece body. It was professionally repared at a cost in excess of the value of the guitar and refinished in this rather fetching cross between Sherwood Green and Lake Placid Blue making it look a little like a LPB that's faded and "greened" over time. It keeps it's original far-too-bright Japanese scratchplate and looks good for it. Set up for heavy strings, it's currently strung with flatwounds and has been used as a studio tool only since my friend switched to a modern black Jazzmaster. It has it's usual share of dings and scrapes from gigs, a small cigarette-burn on the rear of the neck and visible checking along the wood joins on the body (though not the same crack from the original repair strangely - this is something that these CIJ Fenders seem to suffer from as my friend Neil's similar guitar split along it's join for no reason - this is nowhere near as bad).
He is looking for somewhere around £475 for what is a fantastic and very unique Jazzmaster so let me know if you fancy it.

Only In America

2010-05-20T10:49:00.001+01:00

Kogumaza L&S014 7"

2010-05-07T13:20:00.002+01:00

Kogumaza Rowan Maeve b/w Phantom Itch, limited to 300 copies on Lancashire & Somerset Records on transparent yellow vinyl in a foil-embossed sleeve. Out now: www.lancashireandsomerset.co.uk (just use the contact email to get ordering details)
Or you can buy them from us at any of these upcoming gigs:

MAY
7 CHINCHILLAFEST at LEEDS BRUDENELL SOCIAL CLUB w/Marvin, Cowtown, Cissy, Spectrals
8 NOTTINGHAM CHAMELEON w/Marvin, Grande Duke
9 DERBY VINES w/Marvin, Grande Duke
13 LIVERPOOL LEAF CAFE w/Enablers, White Foal, Sugar Life

JUNE
2 MANCHESTER RETRO BAR w/Remember Remember, David Thomas Broughton
3 NOTTINGHAM SPANKY VAN DYKES w/Scout Niblett

2009 8th Annual Damn You! Christmas Covers Party

2010-04-16T13:31:00.004+01:00

The annual Christmas Covers Party is a chance for bands in Nottingham to murder some classic songs whilst boozing without care for dignity or coolness and in the process make a massive pile of cash for Cancer Research.
Simmo put together this Database Project on Facebook to assist the memories of those who have taken part or whose ears have suffered over the years.
It's taken me ages but my photos from the 2009 event are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sumlin/sets/72157623714141387/

COTD 2 - Saab 900

2010-04-15T15:26:00.012+01:00

Car Of The Day for today is the "classic" 78-93 Saab 900 series and more specifically, it's "Sven" - my 1986 Saab 900i Automatic.
I owned Sven between early 2004 and sometime around late 2005/early 2006. Registered D21 XJF, Sven was the 3rd and final 900 I looked at one Saturday afternoon. The first was a minty fresh 3-door 90 GL in grey but it looked like shifting out of my price range as the owner had it on EBay and wouldn't end the auction early. I remember he showed me a complete set of spare fuses in a Saab carry case that came with the car.
The second was a 900 Turbo in 2-tone black and grey. It looked amazing but just as I was about to lay the money down, the owner began nervously detailing worrying faults with the car until he bizarrely talked me out of the sale. Finally I went to see a metallic blue 5-door 900i Auto in Leicestershire somewhere and after a short test drive I walked away with the keys.
I'd wanted a 900 for ages. They're stereotypically architects' and Guardian readers' cars and I don't mind that. My Grandad had an absolutely killer 99 Turbo in black with the checkered alloys and a deep orange velour interior (registered "6 GOA" which is now on a Fiesta according to http://www.mycarcheck.com/). My friend Alex swore by them too and the band I was in borrowed his 900i one evening to shift some equipment and were won over by it's size, grunt and lovely velvety heated seats. When the head gasket blew on my shitty Citroen AX there was only one car that I wanted to replace it.

The honeymoon period lasted precisely 25 minutes. "The fuel gauge must be fucked" thought I, watching the needle visibly plummet as I sunk my right foot into the shagpile on the way home. Nope: 21 mpg if you're lucky. This thing weighed the same as a tank, was an automatic and probably wasn't in factory-fresh condition under the hood. No problems, I thought, what I saved in buying an older car could be used to fuel it. I remained optmistic. My friends and girlfriend all loved it too and christened it "Sven" on account of it's Swedish heritage.
The Sunday after buying it I took my housemates out to a car boot sale in it. The sun was shining, the electric sunroof worked nicely (as did everything electrical unlike my current Peugeot which electrically shits the bed almost weekly) and it felt like driving a beautifully engineered and very, very rapid tank. The automatic box took a bit of getting used to (Alex's was a manual though it was identical in every other way) but at least it meant I could pick my nose and drive in complete safety. And the illuminated floor-mounted ignition was the coolest thing imaginable.
Other drivers nodded and waved, we got to Calverton in what seemed like three minutes and went and bought some tat and a dirty burger. But come home time and Sven was dead. I may as well have put my key up my arse and turned it. Lucky for me that I am not more mechanically minded as my answer to this was to sit and try the ignition again and again for about 15 mins. Eventually (and as if nothing amiss had gone on), the engine fired and we were off.
Suspecting something hideous was occurring, I took Sven to the lovely folks over at Volsaab in Derby (I don't think they exist anymore). They couldn't find anything wrong with it and so started the biggest problem with Sven. Periodically, the ignition would be dead - nothing. Then give it a few minutes and it'd be fine. This is not so bad on a Sunday afternoon but when you're late for work it's agony. And when you give your car a persona and a name you can't help but feel "he" is just fucking with you on purpose.
I finally got to the bottom of the ignition problem after a drunken friend of a friend overheard me discussing it and declared he could fix it "in 5 mins". Which he did. Something to do with the starter motor.
But by then, Sven had all manner of other problems in the engine department that were slowly turning him from an excellent vintage car into a nice extension to my lounge in that he was very comfortable to sit in but didn't go anywhere.
I finally relented and put him on EBay where I received the princely sum of £31 from a mechanic and his Dad from Wales. The EBay listing fee was £22. I treated myself to a takeaway with the proceeds and bought an Astra Estate with blacked out Barry windows that smelled of cum from an "adult entertainer" I went to school with.
The last I saw of my Saab 900 was on Pullman Rd in Sneinton, where I lived and where I left the aforementioned mechanic trying to get it started to take it away. I didn't look round, I just gave him the keys, took the money and walked away. It was a sad moment. It wasn't there the next day so he must have got it moving. A quick registration check shows it's not around anymore though, unless someone with a sense of humour put a personal plate on it.
This has been my only (so far) foray into classic car ownership and it dented my wallet and my heart severely.
However, despite it being the oldest car I've owned, it was also the fastest as I found out when I nudged 120 on the A1 before looking at the speedo. Prior to that I thought to myself "Wow, the Saab's feeling nice today". It felt better and smoother the faster it went. Pottering over Nottingham's speedbumps seemed to be slowly killing it, but wind it up on a straight stretch of road and it barely wobbled. I slept in it's cavernous boot on several occasions (Simon Feirn once managed to fit a mattress in there for a good night's sleep in Norwich) and I'd never tire of it's gadgets or it's front-hinging bonnet. It's also the only car I've ever owned that drew admiring glances from strangers. I was once at a party and people were talking about how rubbish modern cars were. A young lady piped up that the only car she liked was "the blue Saab on Pullman Rd". I nearly choked on my Red Stripe.

So there you have it, COTD 2 is the Saab 900. I see a young chap driving a red one in Nottingham from time to time and a sharp stab of jealousy hits me as I notice him grinning in traffic. I don't think I'd ever ask him to loan me a fiver though. Or give me a ride anywhere important.

Value now: In 2006 it was £31.00 evidently. You can get a near-perfect one now for less than £2000 though.

Pub Quiz Trivia Fact: A 1989 Saab 900 SPG owned by Peter Gilbert of Wisconsin, was driven over a million miles, before being donated to The Wisconsin Automotive Museum.

Links:
Wikipedia
Saab Central
Saab Museum
Classic 900 Group on Flickr
For Sale in the UK
You Tube

Car Of The Day explained

Who Thinks Of This Shit?

2010-04-14T21:28:00.001+01:00

"As part of a wider event called ‘Unknown Pleasures, which celebrates the life of Ian Curtis on the 30th anniversary if his death, Un-Convention have teamed up with the creators of iconic indie-rock footwear, Converse, to search for 300 of the UK’s most promising creative minds to attend a once in a lifetime event.
If you’re in a band, make cool videos, design amazing things or run a cutting edge blog, we want to hear from you..."

Plantagenet 3 Artwork

2010-04-13T18:07:00.002+01:00

Back when I started doing graphic design freelance work, I did some sleeves for the then-just-starting-out label Jitter, run by then-Moonkat guitarist Richard Lanyon. Richard got in touch recently to say he was starting the label up again and (in his own words):
"I could just burn some £10 notes but it doesn't quite have the same appeal".
The first release is a seven inch by Plantagenet 3. Richard was very specific about the sleeve art and how he wanted it to combine a vintage surf aesthetic with heraldry and the traditions and rules about creating heraldic crests. (I should point out now that I find "heraldic" and "plantagenet" the two hardest words in the English language to type so forgive any spelling errors).
The artwork on the band's Myspace page was a purposefully jarring collage of the two subject matters so we went with redrawing and modifying this and combining the results with Richard's love for Ralph Bakshi's animation and the way he used weird textures to mess with depth perception. It all came out nicely and was lots of fun to boot.

COTD 1 - De Tomaso Mangusta

2010-04-01T11:41:00.012+01:00

It'd be easy for the first Car Of The Day to pick something like the Lamborghini Miura SV or the Ferrari 250 GT SWB and don't worry, I'll probably be getting to both. But in the true spirit of the underdog I'm going for this awesome creation: the De Tomaso Mangusta.

De Tomaso are better known for the successor to the Mangusta; the Pantera (yes, that is where Anselmo and pals got their bandname). Fortunately, the Mangusta wasn't around long enough to sprout the bulges, skirts, wings and general penis-pump paraphernalia of the Pantera and let's be thankful. According to Wikipedia, around 400 of these cars were built, so these are rarer than the proverbial rocking horse shit. In fact, even after years of trailing car shows as a pre-pubescent, I am fairly sure I have never seen one in the flesh*

Named after the Mongoose (the only animal able to eat a Cobra - no coincidence), this prime example of short-gestation-from-designer's-cigarette-packet-to-production-car was designed by the splendid Giorgetto Giugiaro and made between 1967 and 1971. It seems to have been a bit of an influence on the AMC AMX/3 and the Delorean that came after it (the latter also designed by Giugiaro and sharing the gullwing-door design). Not to mention the Monteverdi Hai and the Maserati Bora.

It had a Ford V8 in the middle and it went how it looked: like a jet plane... in the sense that anything over 3 figures on the speedo and you'd need take-off lights due to it's almost 70/30 weight distribution rear to front. Like the Lamborghini Miura, it might have looked bad-ass but it really didn't get along with wind or corners very well.

Like it matters. Look at the thing. Like the Ford GT40 (and to a lesser degree the Lamborghini Espada), it manages to straddle a perfect line between the futuristic Italian designs of the time and the aggressive brutishness of American muscle cars. The gullwing boot doors are insane. I know for a fact that Giugiaro was 28 when he penned the Mangusta but I prefer to think instead of him as being around the age of 12 when he came up with the design and that the board meeting presentation went something like this:

Giorgetto (small child): "The engine is in the back under this huge glass window. So you can see it"

Suit (approx 45 yrs old) : "Why?"

Giorgetto: "Because it looks cool"

Suit: "How does the boot open?"

Giorgetto: "Like this..." (demonstrates glass gullwing-hinged boot doors on a model)

Suit: "Erm... how do you actually get access to the engine with the hinge for the doors running across it?"

Giorgetto: "Shut up"

Suit: "Also, it appears to only be 40 inches high. How will we build this and give the occupants enough head room?"

Giorgetto: "Shut up"

And so on.

It's barely higher than the height of the tyres, the rear wheels seem to intrude on the design making it look it's crouching as do the double lamps on the front (changed on some later US models to pop-ups unfortunately), partially hidden under the bonnet lip to give it the look of being permanently hunched forward like it's moving at speed even when it's stationary. Put simply, it's very, very cool. It's not aged so badly either.

According to the excellent Mangusta International website (run by the very definition of the word "enthusiast") under half of the production run still exist. The rest presumably ended up buried in a tree or under several hundred gallons of firehose water at the side of the freeway while the owner (imagine him in mirrored RayBans, smoking) phones his insurance company. Which is what supercars should be about: lunacy.

Value now: $100,000 ish

Pub quiz trivia fact: Kylie Minogue is driving a Mangusta in the video to Can't Get You Out Of My Head. It's also featured in the movie Kill Bill.

Links:

Wikipedia

Mangusta International (includes registry)

Registry at qv500.com

Guide at qv500.com

Mangusta on Auto Week TV show

(Click the pictures to go to the source)

Car Of The Day explained

*UPDATE: http://honeyisfunny.blogspot.com/2011/01/more-car-photos.html

Car Of The Day - Intro

2010-04-01T10:48:00.012+01:00

I've written about cars on this Blog before so I'll save the confession/explanation about being a massive petrolhead. Put simply, I love car design - specifically between the mid 1960s and the early 1980s. Modern supercar/sports car design is all about either technical excellence or extreme ostentatiousness but there was a period where car design represented an almost pure and maybe even naive striving for true creativity. Unhampered by safety constraints, fuel consumption worries and little details like practicality, car designers of the 60s/70s were let loose with a brief no bigger than creating something wonderful that people would want to drive and hope to own. I like that optimism.
Now it seems we'll never see cars like this again. Sure, there seems to be another hypercar released every week that costs a million dollars but they're all hideous and 90% of the time are just driven around as gigantic visual bank statements by their owners and say more about the unfair division of wealth in the world than the creativity of the designer or the individuality of the owner. Seriously - how can anywhere be in recession when someone can spend a million dollars on a car?
Plus, the car is the enemy despite the fact most people have one and lots of people have more than one. Much as it pains me to admit it, Clarkson and the Top Gear folks have at least got something right when they rail against "eco mentalists". I'm anti-some-cars. I'm anti people using them when they don't need to. I'm anti people doing the school run in a Range Rover or buying a BMW that does 190mph and 12mpg and driving themselves, on their own, to work in it everyday. But make a car that is beautiful to look at, fun to drive and with a sense of occasion and people will do everything they can to keep it running. It might do 8 miles per gallon but the owner might only do 2000 miles a year in it. What's worse: someone doing 100,000 miles a year in a Prius that they scrapped their old car to buy and was made on several different continents using components shipped/flown to the factories that themselves churn out pollution OR someone buying, say, an Aston Martin from the 1980s that was handbuilt (and all the parts are still available) and only doing 5000 miles a year. It's crazy.
So: owning an exotic car back in the 60s or the 70s was very different to now. Not just politically. The cars were frequently hard to drive, unreliable and poorly supported in terms of after-sales care so driving and maintaining something like a Ferrari or a Maserati was a labour of love, even into the 1980s. The idea of a car as an investment was laughable also and cars that are now worth several million dollars were used for blasting around country roads for fun and repaired with a hammer by devoted owners who were deemed crazy for buying them.
Modern cars (with a few notable exceptions) are too big, too garish and too over engineered in comparison to appeal to me. You really shouldn't be able to potter to Waitrose in a Lamborghini. Not without it catching fire anyway.
Since I was about 12 years old I've thumbed the For Sale ads in classic car magazines and mentally selected my ideal money-no-object purchases from those available. I still do it now.
So, I'm taking a further stand for the automobile with Car Of The Day: a random and not completely regular look at cars that always make my fantasy garage when flicking through Classic & Sportscar on the bog. I have no mechanical knowledge, save for the experience of what has gone wrong on my own cars, so this is based mainly on sights and sounds.
If you own one of the cars featured, be sure to get in touch. Likewise if the photos used belong to you: I'll try and credit where I know who took the photo but that's not always possible.
I would like to point out that I drive a 1999 Peugeot 306 HDI Meridian Estate in metallic red. It is called "The Pig". I think this actually makes me more qualified to talk about dream cars, seeings I have ten per cent of fuck-all chance of actually owning any of them. Enjoy.

#1: De Tomaso Mangusta
#2: Saab 900
#3: Ferrari 400

Tender Trap Artwork

2010-03-31T14:08:00.007+01:00

I've just finished this artwork for the band Tender Trap and their forthcoming album and single on the Fortuna Pop and Slumberland record labels.
In terms of formats and details it's the biggest job I've ever done. The band were super helpful all along the process, giving me clear concepts to work with. The album is called Dansette Dansette, in reference to the portable record player brand. The band explained that they wanted to get across a feeling of happy naivety - of girls dancing to music in their rooms on their own or with friends and the world that music and records in particular can allow someone to escape in.
I thought that was a great idea and I wanted to produce a sleeve (especially on LP) that people would want to look at when listening to the music on the record within it; where if it was the only information anyone had about the band, then it would be enough for them.
They were very keen on some of the drawings I'd done of outdated technical objects, like tape machines or audio equipment so it seemed obvious to use an actual Dansette on the cover. Luckily two of my friends have very nice examples in their houses so I took a series of photos to make the front cover images for the LP and the accompanying 7" from. I also based a lot of the other elements (like the fake sticker on the front and the choice of fonts throughout) on Dansette's own labelling and advertising from the time.
I liked the idea of people dancing around the Dansette so this formed the basis for both of the back covers, using silhouettes to keep the ages and eras of the dancers purposefully vague and timeless.
I'm a great believer in the band photo on a record sleeve for certain bands and I thought Tender Trap should definitely have one. They got their friend, the awesome photographer Alison Wonderland, to shoot them with a Dansette, in suitably bright colours and then I made a drawing from the photo for the inner sleeve.
Even with the CD we wanted to get across the idea of it being a record in the old sense of the word, so the CD face is designed to look like an LP and the CD tray image shows the turntable from the Dansette.
Anyway - it's out soon and it's probably my favourite sleeve that I've done so thanks to them for asking me and to Sean and Mike at the labels for their help. Follow the various links above to hear stuff from it and to eventually buy it. And needless to say, feel free to enquire about my freelance rates.
Click on the images to be magically transported over to Flickr where you can see them all blown up in detail...

Kogumaza Live Bootleg

2010-03-29T11:58:00.003+01:00

We (Kogumaza) played the British Wildlide Festival on Saturday and it was recorded here: http://edirolling.blogspot.com/2010/03/kogumaza.html

Plenty of stuff not-yet-recorded and plenty of reverb courtesy of Dr Spivoluminous. So go download it. It's free, take it, it's yours.

Tons of good bands played on our day and tons of nice people met as well. Ox Scapula, Shield Your Eyes, That Fucking Tank, Quack Quack, Blacklisters, Human Hair and Max Tundra all conspired to make us buy more drinks and stay all day making the breakdown of the Koguskoda and eventual return home at 4.30am a harsh return to reality. And if you have any idea what the man with the clip folder who bit Matt Gringo's hand was all about then do share it with us.

Silver Mt Zion + Kogumaza on Weds

2010-03-22T10:39:00.003Z

Katy did this beauty...
Doors 7.30, KGMZ 8pm at a guess. Except it's 24th March not 24th February.
www.rescuerooms.com

Chucklesome

2010-03-15T22:42:00.002Z

http://www.self-titledmag.com/home/2010/03/08/primer-harvey-milk-tear-their-discography-apart-from-the-shitty-blues-rock-of-the-pleaser-to-the-total-creative-bankruptcy-of-their-latest-album/

Kogumaza 7" Released Today

2010-03-15T11:48:00.002Z

The first of two Kogumaza 7 inches is released today by the lovely Low Point label. It has two songs on it, you can listen to both here: http://www.low-point.com/LP032.html
It's limited to 300 copies and comes on transparent red vinyl in a yellow paper sleeve. Why not buy one when we play this: http://www.rescuerooms.com/index.php?option=com_dhpevents&Itemid=71&eventid=347 ?

Live: Peter Green & Friends, Nottingham, March 12

2010-03-13T14:36:00.004Z

The back story. All anyone seems to care about is the back story when it comes to music. Record sales decline to miniscule levels but yet music fans still buy magazines by the million and those Behind The Music documentaries still get made. It's because even the most level headed, genuine music fan can't help but be titilated by the idea of stepping behind the curtain and seeing the stuff you're not supposed to see.
It used to be that press officers were paid to keep this kind of info to a minimum. Now, it's a part of their job to give away enough information to somehow validate the product. So a band like Joy Division - a good band, maybe even a great band - get elevated to the status of deities because the back story of their existence validates the product they made. Or take In Utero by Nirvana, an album that sounds incredible but is split between a handful of genuinely forward-thinking, wonderful songs matched to some pretty average tunes left off of Nevermind. But because he topped himself after it's release, the suicidal act is seen as validation for the record and it removes the doubt that what you're listening to might not actually be as good as you want it to be.
Now we're in a situation where any self-respecting singer songwriter has to have had a nervous breakdown (and talked about it in a 4 page spread in MOJO) in order that their new product is seen as being genuine or worthy of attention.
One night this week I stumbled across a treasure trove of photos of Jimi Hendrix taken by fans in the crowd on their cheap cameras. I am too young to have shared the planet with Hendrix so I can't say for sure but there's something very real in those photos to my eyes. You can imagine the man in 3 dimensions: young, spotty, awkward. The smaller venues he played in then look like the venues I go to now, the photos are blurred but lively and they could have been taken yesterday. They brought him to life better than any live DVD or pro photo shoot could have done. And in seeing this you realise he's just a bloke like Ian Curtis or Kurt Cobain was. They fucked up, they made mistakes, they weren't sure of themselves and any act of genius on their part was only recognised and labelled as such by other people not themselves. We, as fans of music and readers of the rock biography, create these things ourselves. That's why the sales of MOJO probably aren't going to downturn to the same level as the sales of albums anytime soon while they keep rediscovering and rewriting the life stories of ordinary people who made some records and hopefully had some bad fortune too to make it a bit more interesting.
After tonight's Peter Green show at the Rescue Rooms, I was taking a piss at the urinal and a man next to me asked me what I thought of the gig. In a rare moment of lucidity I replied:
"It was beautiful"
He replied something along the lines of it being good considering what had happened to Green. In fact, I think he said
"A lot of stuff went down in the 60s"
And there we are at the back story again. Because Greeny, alongside people like Syd Barrett, is one of rock's great lost heroes. A man whose mental illness has been romanticised to sickening levels by a rock press who don't have to tie his shoelaces, show him how to use an oven, cut his fingernails, tell him to take a bath or work out why he keeps cheese in his hair.
So everyone in the room knows the outline of what happened to him. Of how he rejected making money from music, wore a Jesus smock on TV, fried his mind on acid and disappeared from public view before being "found" again and coaxed out to play. Eavesdropping on people's conversations in the crowd is like listening to 20 episodes of VH1's Behind The Music playing at the same time. People love this shit.
But here's the flipside: they still want him to play in the way he used to, to play songs of the era in the same way now and to reignite something within them. This is a shitty road to go down because what the fans of this man are saying is they want him to be a liar.
They want him to sing these beautiful songs like Man Of The World, or songs of genuine horror and defiance like The Green Manalishi (he doesn't play either) and for him to mean them now like they mean something to them. But he meant them so much in the first place that they made him the way he is now.
Take someone like Eric Clapton who sings about the blues, plays the songs of Robert Johnson but yet collects vintage Ferraris and wears Armani. I'm not saying doing the latter is bad, it's just he has somehow managed to keep it just the right side of "real". Real enough to be able to divorce yourself from the original sentiment of the music you play long enough to actually play it and to earn from it.
Green not only doesn't seem to think like that, he actively sought to give the finger to it. At the time when all his contemporaries were bringing in the cash by the bucket, Greeny was giving his away and writing songs like the aforementioned Green Manalishi which, for all it's ominous talk of monsters is about nothing more supernatural than the lure of the dollar and his fear and distaste for it.
Midway through the set tonight the band play Oh Well and Albatross in a little medley. It's unbelievable for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I imagined that the voice of Peter Green singing
"Don't ask me what I think of you, I might not give the answer that you want me to"
might be akin to the clouds parting and the giant finger of God pointing down upon the crowd and making us cower in awe. Even now, croaky and quiet (despite the giant PA here the band is noticeably timid in volume to allow Green's voice to be heard), he is in possession of one of the great voices in music history. It's sonorous, human and beautiful. It speaks of sadness but it has tenderness and compassion. Seriously, listen to those early Mac records and it's all about his voice. Something tells me Billy Gibbons might agree too.
At the very least I hoped everyone would shut the fuck up anyway. In actual fact, everyone sings along and claps. It's weird. Not as weird as Albatross though. People talk through it. People talk about it while it's happening. I had a vantage point now where I could actually see Peter Green, sitting stage right on a stool, lightly fingering a pretty cheap looking guitar. He fixed his gaze somewhere above the crowd at a spot on the roof. Even when the bar staff chose to empty the bottle bank midway through he just gave a little grin. At that point something clicked within me and, like the photos of Jimi Hendrix, for a split second I could see him as a real man, 3 dimensional and there in front of me like a total hero. I shit you not.
The rest of the set was throwaway Commitments-style R&B delivered with (too much) taste by a fairly able band. Completely devoid of grit, dirt or passion for the most part. The guitarist (and from what I understand band leader) whooped it up, sang a few songs in a pub style and generally looked and played out of his depth. Green sang a few and picked his spots to add perfectly judged guitar solos that glide and bend like a weird hybrid of Scotty Moore and Albert King. But it never ever looked like becoming emotionally involving, especially not for Green.
But that one second in Albatross, you could see in his face that it meant something and more importantly that he almost didn't want it to. That sort of emotional plumbing is not on the agenda anymore for him or for the music he performs. I figure if music had caused you to suffer such real and human suffering, suffering that goes beyond a magazine article or a documentary, then you'd be very wary of revisiting it again too. It's just too real. But his music and his personality is so powerful and radiant that it's hard to escape these tiny moments where the "old" Peter Green shines through despite absolutely everything - band, crowd, venue etc - being stacked up against this happening.
That's why the show was beautiful. You have a crowd of rock historians, re-bleeting the same old shit from magazines they've read. They want the best of both worlds, they want their rock stars so real it hurts, they want them to speak of their inner turmoil. But they want it on tap. Peter Green was so emotional and so open when he wrote the music they want to hear, that it properly fucked him up. It upset him. He broke his own heart. So he can't sit up there and churn it out but he still wants to play so we get 90 mins of jazz blues and R&B, some good solos and a lot of appreciative pondering on the crowd's part. At the end they'll pat him on the head like a retarded child and say he played well, "despite his problems" and express disappointment in private that he doesn't play like he used to and then they'll read the next issue of MOJO about Dennis Wilson, or Harry Nilsson, or Sly Stone and so on and so on.
Meanwhile, Peter Green has to carry on being Peter Green. It can't be easy. I'd love him to make an album of improvised guitar with Jim White on drums, or front a back-to-basics blues band heavy on volume and low on good taste. Ultimately though, he can do what he wants, it's not my business. When he opens his mouth and sings or lets himself drift away in the moment on his guitar that's good enough for me, no matter how infrequently he feels comfortable enough to do it.
In the meantime watch this and love it:

Felix On Double Six TV

2010-03-04T14:07:00.001Z

Bernard Street, Oh Thee 73 and Where Is My Dragon? filmed in Cardiff in January 2010.

"No Peeping" Sketchbook

2010-03-03T09:04:00.005Z

A few years ago I started trying to draw portraits of people in a small sketchbook. It started at work and then at the ATP Festival when I was manning the merch stand. I didn't want people to sit for the portrait or know I was doing it so I held the sketchbook under the table and drew the person as fast as I could without looking. It gives some pretty peculiar results and sometimes you end up with a strangely accurate likeness that's completely wrong but somehow captures the person. If that makes sense. I really liked the process and the results so started doing more of them, using magazines to draw from as well.
I've used a few of the drawings in posters over the last few years. In those cases I usually work the drawing up with a bit more detail after I've done the initial "blind" sketch. Anyway, I scanned some of them in here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sumlin/sets/72157623540992708/

A few for your eyes...

Prince (circa 1978)

Néman Herman Düne (Herman Dune)

Tom Coogan (Hirameka Hi-Fi)

Miles Seaton (Akron Family)

D.I.V.O.R.C.E Poster

2010-03-02T16:11:00.000Z

Going to hell...

You Tube Dismay Pt 3

2010-02-26T11:01:00.003Z

The 3rd in a series of ongoing pieces of research into the despair-inducing phenomenon of You Tube comments by the public. Eventually, the governments of the world are going to take away the democratic vote and the evidence they will give to prove that people are not responsible enough to make informed and intelligent decisions will be the comments found on You Tube. Mark my words.
Anyhow, here is Harvey Milk's lumbering, wonderful, strangely touching but extremely heavy song I Do Not Know How To Live My Life as audio only on the 'Tube:

And, like a morning on the toilet follows any truly excellent night out, here are some choice comments:

cyurisich (2 days ago)
damn, this is some seriously bad music

daltondeuce (1 month ago)
Yup..this sucks...

PunkOutProductions (1 year ago)
Creston Spiers is my best friend's dad her name is Audrey Spiers!

fraublucher (1 year ago)
Their music is fucking PHENOMENAL but the mush-mouth vocals get on my nerves after awhile. I like the guttural screaming it's just that he sounds like he has a speech impediment like Elmer Fudd sometimes.

GlowStormLion (1 year ago)
translating 'getting stoned' into sounds.... blasted!!

orangespear (10 months ago)
harvey milk are the best band that has ever existed period since The Smiths.

easeone2 (7 months ago)
The Smiths are just gay.

stjreid (5 months ago)
not sure how the smiths and harvey milk got compared to one another... the smiths was a europop band that was great during the eighties and Harvey Milk is a current awesome sludge band out of athens georgia... that's like comparing Depeche Mode to Crowbar or something...

Oh well. Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoYhwHu3mDk and remind yourself why You Tube can be good.

1.47

2010-02-18T11:34:00.001Z

Get yourself to 1 minute and 47 seconds.

Elvis Print

2010-02-16T17:21:00.005Z

I did this for my Mum for Xmas. It's Elvis doing Guitar Man with Al Casey's red Hagstrom Viking on the 1968 Comeback Special. I have a handful of test prints of this if anyone would like to buy one. They are a little bigger than A3 in size (approx 31 x 44 cm) and are litho printed onto heavyweight matt-finish paper. They are a little more expensive than my normal gig posters and can be signed if you so desire.

Brokaw / Farina Poster

2010-02-16T17:19:00.000Z

Kogumaza 7" Artwork

2010-02-11T13:47:00.003Z

Mock-up of the forthcoming Kogumaza 7" on Low Point for the purposes of checking how the colours fit together. It's transparent red vinyl with (deliberately off-centre so it looks wobbly when it plays) blue labels and it comes in a golden yellow vintage 7" sleeve that we're getting in bulk from the US. Songs are "Sevens" and "Mara" and it'll be out as soon as it all comes back from the manufacturers.
Both songs have just been put up here to listen to as well: www.myspace.com/oogamaza

Felix LP

2010-02-11T01:47:00.003Z

I keep meaning to post a link to this:

Out now. Buy one whydontyou? Photo-diary of our recent UK tour to follow...

Italian Car Photos

2010-02-11T01:39:00.002Z

Now showing at Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sumlin/sets/72157623398758364/

Limited Edition "Tiger" Screenprint

2010-02-04T16:35:00.002Z

My first ever limited edition print is available on pre-order now from I Dress Myself by signing up to their mailing list which will give you first dibs on all their other marvellous print-based goodies. It goes on sale to everyone else on February 11th. It's a seven colour print on 270gsm paper measuring B2 size (50 x 70 cm) and thanks to Pete's patience and skills it looks lovely. The illustration was originally done for a poster for the Get Hustle back in 2007. Here's my page over at the IDM website: http://www.idressmyself.co.uk/shop/artist/chris-summerlin
There are plans afoot for a t-shirt design that will be the ultimate addition to any Fender Jaguar/Jazzmaster fan's wardrobe too. Watch this space...

New Energimolla Posters

2010-01-26T22:53:00.004Z

Latest set of posters for the Energimolla venue in Kongsberg, Norway. This time we opted to make a virtue out of the press photos that agents send promoters for their acts. I reduced the press shots to high contrast black and white and then added a single bold colour to give the set a uniform feel and make them stand out among the countless gig posters that use a promo photo of the band concerned. That's the plan anyway.

Savoy Grand Tour Poster

2010-01-19T15:49:00.002Z

A2 sized poster for the upcoming Savoy Grand European dates. They're listed here: http://www.myspace.com/savoygrand
Savoy Grand are in the midst of what rock biographers will retrospectively call their "Pig Period": Glitterhouse Records.

NO SHAME!

2010-01-14T20:20:00.003Z

Ladies and Gents, my "No-Shame-1990s-Indie-Rock-You-Tube-Playlist":

Remember, no shame. No Smashing Pumpkins either, you've got to have standards.

Artwork for Fire Chief 5 CD

2010-01-13T19:03:00.002Z

Some new illustration and layout work I've just completed for the band Fire Chief 5. They gave me a brief to come up with something that had the feel of the future, albeit 30 years ago. They sent me a series of images to give an indication of feel that included some early computer ads, the old BBC2 logo and some road sign fonts. Somehow this translated as a loose tribute to the awesome Russian packaging design of the 1960s and 1970s. The camera images are ink drawings converted to single colours and they broke my brain but I think the final thing hangs together very nicely. If I say so myself.

Baker Street

2010-01-12T11:16:00.003Z

Christmas Covers 2009 was splendid fun all round. When I get chance I'll upload many videos to You Tube but in the meantime here's something to mist your eyes:

O HAI

2010-01-12T11:13:00.000Z

"I TOOKD A MESSUG FOR U"

Don't Trust Brainwashed

2010-01-12T11:06:00.003Z

Brainwashed's End Of Year Poll results are in here: Clickety-click

Not only does the this-is-pretty-good-but-I-really-wish-it-was-better-I-mean-how-hard-can-it-be? Om record God Is Good make it to number 4 in the Top 10 Albums Of 2009 but Brainwashed reader Anthony D'Amico has this to say about Bellini's The Precious Prize Of Gravity:

"All I remember about this album is that I put it on for a couple minutes, shrugged, and turned it off."

Thanks for that Anthony.