New artwork for High Above The Storm

Just finished some graphic work for London-based band High Above The Storm. Former Rothko, Geiger Counter and Foe bassist Crawford Blair got in touch a while back about doing some artwork for a band he is now in called The Slow Life which led to a thoroughly enjoyable project based around the mystery of Number Stations and an album sleeve for them (not to mention a lot of research photos of deer). That one is here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sumlin/2566887811/

When Crawford's other band High Above The Storm needed an album sleeve they kindly asked me to have a go. They provided me with a photo by Hugo Poon and some examples of the type of minimal-but-yet-not-dull graphic design work that they thought would suit their music - things like Arvo Part, The God Machine, some Fabric compilations and more. It's been a while since I've done a purely layout and text based project (with no illustrations) but it was a lot of fun. Here's the end results as they head off for print this week:





If you click them, you can see them larger sized...

Upcoming: NLF3 / Das Boton

Nearly forgot these. 2 new posters for upcoming Damn You! shows in Nottingham. Bit of recycling going on too...

Inevitable pre-gig activity

Transcript of text message conversation between myself and friend prior to last Friday's Stage Blood gig in The London:

14.14
Rachel: "Do you know what time you're playing later?"

14.15
Me: "I think we are second so half nine I would guess? Its all a bit vague though we are absolutely ready to rock so do come along"

14.16
Rachel: "I'm trying to, promised to do 2 other things already so sorting out order to do them in"

19.26
Rachel: "Any update on time? Trying to work out if it's worth me doing my "before" thing."

19.26
Me (by now stuck deep in London traffic in the van): "Not there yet. Of course its worth it. We've driven from scotland!"

19.27
Rachel: "I meant the pre-gig thing. What's the door tax?"

19.30
Me: "No idea I am afraid. Not much of a clue about anything apart from our rockness"

20.13
Rachel: "Any news on times?"

20.13
Me: "We are on at 9.30"

20.20
Rachel: "Oh Crap. Is there a chance of running late? We always put folk on at least quarter of an hour after we say we will, so hoping other people are the same..."

20.31
Me: "A little bit late yes. It's 4 quid. Now stop texting me and get ready to go out. Get andy to drive!"

20.33
Rachel: "Andy's gone out somewhere else and i'd have to leave the house 10 ins ago to get there on time"

20.33
Me: "Get on with it then!"

20.35
Rachel: "Think I may have to crap out"

20.42
Rachel: "Balls. Tried anyway. Just missed bus. It's 12 mins to the next one and an hour once I'm on it so i should arrive just as you're finishing. Therefore I shall fuck off to the work thing I was planning to blow off. Very sorry. I'm sure you rule."

20.50
Me: "After all that... If you'd spent as much time getting ready as you did texting me..."

20.51
Rachel: "Well you know, i'm a twat, what can i say?"


To conclude: if you feel like repeating any aspect of this text message nightmare with me (or in fact anyone, anywhere, in any band in a van stressing to get to any gig on time) then here is the default answer:

"I don't know when we're on. It starts at 8.30 like most gigs and it's not more than £6."

Ouch! (Stage Blood gigs this week)

For the last 2 years (since developing the problem when in Barcelona on holiday) I've had this weird thing with my right eye where, when I wake up, any movement in the eyeball results in a severe (and I mean severe) concentrated pain in the centre of my eyeball.
My doctor referred me to Eye Casualty who said it was an abrasion of the Cornea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corneal_abrasion) and gave me some ointment and drops.
It carried on. My doctor told me to take an eye test. They told me there was nothing wrong and I had perfect vision.
Every day for the last week I've been woken up by the problem and it's been getting worse. Another trip to Eye Casualty finally got to the bottom of the problem: the damage to the Cornea hasn't healed properly and going to sleep has the same effect as a sink plunger on the Cornea - it creates a vacuum-like state where any subsequent movement 'pops' the healed tissue away from the Cornea leaving a wound and causing pant-pissing agony.
A nice gent at Eye Casualty then proceeded to use a small pair of tweezers with sharpened knife-like tips to cut away the tissue on my eye to 'start again' and let my eye repair itself properly. His advice that 'for the next 2 days, this is going to be excruciatingly painful' is pretty much on the money so far.

Unfortunately, I have to take a train journey tomorrow to sunny Glasgow in time for Wednesday's Stage Blood gig at The Captain's Rest. I think the ordeals I'm going through to get to this gig should be enough to convince anyone within a 200 mile radius to attend. We have 3 gigs this week which almost constitutes a tour:

Weds March 25 Glasgow Captain's Rest

Fri March 27 London Brixton Windmill

Sat March 28 Nottingham Arts Org

I'm the one with the bright red eye, playing everything wrong because he can't read his cheat sheets.

I HATE CARS

After spending the last month or 2 defending my re-ignited interest in the automobile (more of that at some other time), my bad luck continued today in car-form as though to taunt me.

On the way back from dropping off broken PC number 2 (see previous post), my car suddenly developed a nasty clunking noise. This grew into a juddering, mechanical grind within minutes and a brief hoist onto the ramp at the garage confirmed that not only were my brake discs about to go, my exhaust was on it's way out too.

I tend to think of amounts of money in terms of the things I could buy with them. This little trip to the computer repair store has just cost me a 1970s Marshall JMP Super Bass.

They say things come in threes though so let's hope that's it now.

I HATE COMPUTERS

For the last god-knows-how-many-years, I have been running a business and pretty much my whole life off a computer set-up that Barney Rubble would dismiss for being old fashioned. I have one PC in the downstairs dining room connected to the internet and then another upstairs that I run graphics programmes on that never goes online to safeguard against viruses and also because it runs Windows ME and is powered by a hamster on a treadmill inside it. But, my scanner and printer were high-end when I bought them (in about 1999) and they work with it fine and I've managed to do several years worth of design work on this set-up without too much struggle.
Recently, the downstairs PC started turning itself off. A quick trip to the menders identified the problem as a busted power supply and faulty fan and it came back fixed today. In the meantime, the upstairs PC got a wireless connection and went online for the first time in about 5 years. Literally as soon as I switched the repaired machine on, the upstairs machine died. And it looks permanent. It can't locate it's own hard drive and will not boot up as a result. Luckily most of my work was backed up so I lost maybe a fortnight's worth of one particular project.
So, I'm down to the one PC which is struggling under the weight, doesn't run Photoshop well at all and insists I re-install the scanner software every time I switch it on.

Can some kind soul please advise me of a funding body in the UK who can help me with a grant to get a new computer? Or, better still, can someone just give me one? Please...

Holga

Katy bought me a Holga 120 GCFN medium-format camera for my birthday last year. Here it is:


If you want to know why it's gaffa-taped up then read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holga#Modifications_and_variants

I need to get on with some more customisation and give it a new paint job so at least people will stop asking me what's wrong with it. Something like this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cherryvega/2301369924/

Anyway, I've had a bash with both normal medium format film and also slide film and I'm enjoying the results and the random elements involved. Mine has a glass lens which means it leaks a little less light than the plastic lens versions so I may reduce the amount of tape on the cracks to let a little more light in. Both films I've done so far have had one frame where I forgot to take the lens cap off. Seems I'm not the only one: http://www.flickr.com/groups/dontforgettotakethelenscapoff/

Here are some scans of prints so far:











I'm slowly building a set here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sumlin/sets/72157614224224605/

New Artwork for Low Point Records

The long-suffering, oft-overheating, clogged-with-dust, crippled-by-the-weight-of-"art" on the hard drive PC that sits in the dining room of my shared house finally bit the dust last week. This has good points and bad points. The bad is that I have to use my graphics PC to access the internet and as it's running Windows 1927 or something, it means I can't view most websites. It also means I can't connect or transfer files from my digital camera which is a pain.
The old PC is in for diagnosis so hopefully it can be saved and the pile of record reviews I had done can be posted. If only for my own sanity.
The plus side is I've been getting on with some work. Shock horror. The first completed project is the sleeve for my housemate's latest release on his label Low Point. It's for an album of his own material remixed by the likes of Strategy and Machinefabriek among others and it's entitled "Aversions":





It's taken quite a while and as with the Strategy "Electric Soup" 12" on the label, both myself and Gareth wanted to move the artwork away from ambient cliches for want of a better term and into something simultaneously calm but also positive looking. We ended up at leaves. As usual, the artwork is firstly hand drawn in black ink and then split into individual layers of colour in Photoshop and effectively re-drawn using the hand drawing as a template. It's all done with a mouse too - this is a graphic tablet free zone... (and my arm hurts).

Kogumaza

With geography putting the brakes on Lords' gigging and music-making (we play 2 gigs next week: Fri Feb 20 in London and Sat Feb 21 in Nottingham which will most likely be our last for the foreseeable future at least, unless we shoot up from 91st place in the ATP Vs The Fans list), the itch to make new music has resulted in a new band called Kogumaza.

A desire to avoid rockist tendencies whilst still rocking means smaller amps, in fact smaller everything. There's a fine line between cosmic foliage and stoner rock and we'll be straddling it, intentionally or not.

We are playing live where you can watch us wrestle with a world of sonic conundrums and be defeated by them all:

March 3 Leeds Packhorse with Zomes and Bilge Pump

March 7 Nottingham Arts Org with Zomes and The Horse Loom

March 8 Liverpool Royal Standard Gallery with Zomes and Deep Sea Dumpling

April 17 Birmingham Hare & Hounds with Earth

We are planning a record (most likely a 7"), provisionally entitled Balance for the Low Point label where densely-packed song fragments are mixed twice in wildly different ways in mono and then split across the stereo hearing range giving the listener control of the mix themselves by simply adjusting their stereo's balance control. It's all getting a little Kevin Shields in the brain room I'm afraid. It's a big fuck you to listening to things on an iPod. Here's to audience participation in the recorded medium again.

Elvis vs Sheep

Elvis' Irish paradise under threat by trio of disobedient, trespassing, board-trampling sheep.

Roadrunner Once

No other song is guaranteed to bring about the instant destruction of someone's front room than this. Last night DJ Guts spun this, leading to a tissue paper lampshade globe suddenly turning into a beachball and as if by magic, it was no longer the middle of winter. Awesome Super 8 film too...

SMITH KEVIN! SMITH KEVIN!

Me: "Apparently in Ethiopia you have to be sure to iron your clothes because of flies laying eggs in them"
Kevin: "Hey?"
Ross: "Yep, flies lay eggs in your pants"
Kevin: "What?"
Ross: "Leading to boils and sores on your penis and testicles"
Kevin: "Oh fucking hell....
...I hate ironing"

Everyone's second favourite small, hairy drummer Kevin "Smith" Smith is moving to the wild lands of Ethiopia on Saturday for at least a year in order to teach English as part of the VSO Voluntary Teaching programme. He recently attended a seminar entitled How To Not Get AIDS in preparation and informs us that he will be eating "mainly spaghetti" whilst there. If anyone can pull this mighty leap off then it's Smith Kevin.
You can support him in this venture by heading over to the Blaklava Myspage page and buying their recent CDR as all the proceeds go to VSO. It's good too, which helps.

In the meantime, enjoy The Greatest Hits Of Kevin Smith in visual-cake form.

STG BLD

More photos and video from Katy, this time of the first gig by Stage Blood at Stereo in Glasgow on December 12th last year. Plans are afoot to do some recording for a single in the near future. The video might not work if you're not on Facebook, I can't fathom it.

Katy's Band Photos

My ladyfriend Katy has a special talent for taking posed pictures (usually Polaroids) of bands. However, despite buying her a 'Pro' Flickr account for Christmas, she hasn't managed to gather them all in the same place (internet or otherwise) yet. So why not go to her Flickr page and hassle her until she does? In the meantime here are some highlights:



DIRTY THREE



KING BUZZO



DALE CROVER



SM/JICKS



PUTTIN ON THE RITZ



EARTH



JOE PRESTON (and Lisa)



THE NEW YEAR meet SNEINTON

Calling All Video Experts

Can someone who knows what they're doing make a looped version of this video for David Wm Sims? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4JV507F8d8

Mixtape

I did a mixtape for the Egoeccentric Blog last year and it's available as a single download file: http://egoeccentric.blogspot.com/2008/10/lords-pick-egoeccentic-hangover-mixtape.html
When it gets to Pressure Drop by The Maytals, listen to the version from the video posted below though, not sure where they got the one on the mix from...

Corporate Stooge

Recognise this guy? Surely not...

You Are The One I Pick

Nearly a year since we started it, the Felix album is done and ready for mastering. It's called You Are The One I Pick and it has 11 songs on it. Lucy, Elvis and me played it. Ian Scanlon and Gareth Hardwick recorded it. Hopefully someone will release it. Will keep you posted on that.
Recording songs so minimal but intricate was a challenge. We made it hard for ourselves. I'm very happy with the results. I felt at times like I was in the middle of Project Mersh, making decisions in music I normally wouldn't consider but we all ended up enjoying our turns at being a 'producer', in the oldest sense of the music-industry term.
When things got tough we just turned to the coconut. My Mum was in Hawaii and when looking for a present, thought to herself: "I think my son may struggle to articulate his thoughts about guitar seperation and increasing the resonant frequency of a floor tom head at some point in the next year. I think I will buy him a coconut". It worked. Thanks Mum.
There are 3 unmastered songs from the record at the obligatory Myspace page: www.myspace.com/mybeautifulfelix

Art Criticism

Amazing. Turner Prize comments board at Tate Britain.
Also featuring "This exhibition is like AIDS", "£6.90 wasted", "The one with the checkouts WAS WELL SHIT" and the simple but yet confusing "I came".

Summertime 24/7/365

It is a Saturday. The weekend is here. No one told the weather. It's fucking freezing. Cheap rent in shitty houses is fine until winter comes around. I'm wearing 4 layers.
But it's OK because sometime in 1969 The Maytals recorded the song Pressure Drop and sometime last year this gentlemen made a video of himself dancing to it in the Farmer's Market in Hamilton, Ontario when it was minus 15 outside.
Instant summer in a can!