Abbey Road Studios yesterday with Matt Johnson (right), engineer Alex Wharton (left) and the Neumann VMS 82 DMM cutting lathe (far left), the only operational one of its kind left in the country.
Oh! Gear porn! Big, clunky machines with real knobs and buttons that scream, ‘ANALOGUE!’. But what were we doing there? Cooking up something for Record Store Day but that’s all I’m allowed to say. You’re welcome to make an educated guess though…
This wonderful piece of design is Lasstranaut, part of the Popbot Universe created by Ashley Wood and his company 3A. She’s a much talked about but seldom seen character in a world that seems to live largely in Ash’s head rather than on the printed page these days. Rumour is that she created the world of Popbot but I could have that wrong, there’s some info here and yes, she’s not wearing any pants. She’s currently up for sale on Bambaland for $200 which will also net you a book, T-shirt, poster and other goodies plus access to exclusive figures and money off all 3A products for the whole of 2014.
This blurry beast below is called Mars, a 24 inch take on the Shogun Warriors of old for a new line called World’s Best Robots. It’s modeled by a friend of mine from Ash’s designs and I’m eager to see the final paint job, just take my money why don’t you?
Following on from the post the other day and just for the hell of it. 
The Electric Hoax Pt.2 by Pete Milligan and Brendan McCarthy. This strip appeared in the weekly UK music paper, Sounds, in 24 parts sometime between mid ’78 and ’79. Click image for larger version
On January 11st, 1984, Radio 1 DJ, Mike Read took Frankie Goes To Hollywood‘s debut single, ‘Relax’, off the deck, mid-song whilst live on air, reportedly calling it ‘obscene’ and stating that he wasn’t going to play it anymore. Despite the BBC having played it over 100 times, the band appearing in two sessions, having played Top Of The Pops the previous week and the single then residing at no.6 in the charts, the corporation officially ‘banned’ it from their playlist two days later.
This had the effect of generating enough publicity to push it up to the No.1 spot less than two weeks later on 22nd January and the band and their record company, Zang Tuum Tumb, claimed their first hit single. With a video that was already not deemed fit for TV broadcast, promo photos of the group in S&M gear and two of the band being were openly gay, it was all the press needed to have a field day.
In a stroke of good luck, the band’s producer, Trevor Horn, had remixed the song for a 3rd 12″ that was released just before it hit the No.1 spot. Multiple mixes being a novelty at the time, this version replaced the original ‘Sex Mix’ with a more club-friendly ‘New York Night Mix’, inspiration for which was taken when Horn visited the Paradise Garage club the previous Autumn. ZTT were quick to fan the flames of the ‘ban’ (it was only banned on BBC channels but freely played by other commercial stations) and adverts and posters appeared, flaunting the band’s outlaw status. I vividly remember seeing a huge fly poster proclaiming ‘Big, Banned & Beautiful!’ pasted up in the little town of Reigate where I grew up. In fact, I tried several times, unsuccessfully, to steal it but posters being what they are I just ended up ripping it.
I was fortunate enough to track down the original photographer of the poster’s image – Steve Rumney – for my Art of ZTT blog last year and he’s promised me access to a whole raft of exclusive, unseen/unpublished images that he took back stage at the band’s Camden Palace performance the previous November.
Stephen Rumney: “I used to take photos at the Camden Palace in the mid 80s and I was there the night that Frankie did their first ever performance of ‘Relax’… I think it was the actual release party and as far as I remember I was the only photographer to have back stage and dressing room access. …the pics are pretty wild as they were all drinking champagne and very high spirited as you can imagine… I was right in the thick of it and clicking away madly… there was something in the air that night and you could really tell this was the start of something big…
The photo was not posed … I just caught them before they went on stage… or just after… I may have asked them for a group shot but it was not ‘staged’ as in ‘let’s do a photo shoot’… its why it has that edgy spontaneity… Holly already the gun as he was carrying it around for his performance.
The story is that shortly after the gig I dropped a print off with the Island press office thinking they may like to use it for press… They had commissioned me to do a couple of photo shoots when I was still at college as they had seen my portfolio featured in ‘Blitz’ magazine so I dropped the Frankie photo off with them when I delivered prints for the other photo shoot they commissioned… a week or so later I saw my photo being used all round town on the giant street posters!!!”
‘Relax’ was a pretty big deal for me personally, one of those records that connected on first listen and had to have repeat plays, much to my parents’ annoyance. A song I never tire of and that, with the follow-up, ‘Two Tribes’, probably ranks as one of my top 10 singles of all time. I didn’t hear the ban as we rarely listened to Radio 1 in our house, instead hearing it on Capital Radio who didn’t hold quite such draconian ideals as the BBC. I taped it and would have to play it at least four times in succession after school for weeks on end.
In fact, some of my first pause button tape ‘remixes’ were of the song, made from the various different mixes floating around. It was this too that was one my first exposures to ‘the Remix’ on multiple formats and, coupled with the cryptic sleeve notes and images, it made for a very exciting package to a 13 year old. It was the beginning of a love affair with both the band’s music and their label, ZTT, that has stayed with me to this day. Nothing was more exciting to me in 1984 that Frankie and the other artists on ZTT’s roster – Art of Noise and Propaganda.
‘Big, Banned & Beautiful’ poster design: XLZTT photography: © Stephen Rumney 1983 The photo was taken 24th November ’83 by Steve Romney backstage at a promo gig for the single at the Camden Palace in London. The ‘girls’ in the photo were Ange and Juicy Lucy (the latter actually a man in drag), friends of the band who featured in the original video for ‘Relax’.
You can also read my interview with Anne Yvonne Gilbert – the illustrator of the iconic image on the cover of ‘Relax’ – on ArtofZTT.com
February 14th sees the release of yet another 12″ of the single for the 30th anniversary, this time with a recently discovered remix from ’84 which was lost in the vaults. More info HERE.
Robin Barnard makes comics, he draws them, writes them, then copies, folds and staples them before distributing them amongst various people he knows. At a quick glance they look like comics that you might have seen before but closer inspection reveals…
Let’s start again; Robin Barnard REmakes comics, he REdraws them, REwrites them, then copies, folds and staples them… You HAVE seen these before, but you’ve not read them like this before. His ‘What Men’ facsimile takes sections of Moore & Gibbons‘ classic ‘Watchmen’ and rewrites it into a critique of the spin-off ‘Before Watchmen’ franchise and the people responsible – Gibbons included.
Barnard redrew each panel in Gibbons’ style and you’d be hard-pressed to spot that it wasn’t just a scanned copy of the original with new lettering. The book is structured in the most incomprehensible way too, it took me a few goes before I cottoned on that you could read it in four different directions. Starting from the back, front or center pages, various pages read in or out of the book, all in landscape format, it’s a bit hard to describe in writing.
In his own words, “What Men is (just) Chapter V of Watchmen: Fearful Symmetry, which is both completely symmetrical and full of mirrored images. I purposely took all the mirrored images and put them all opposite each other and then also put in mirrored dialogue with references to the opposite page as well. What was in my mind was to take those previously seen mirrors rearrange them into an infinite mirror maze and use them to reflect on the Before Watchmen thing.”
There are levels of meaning here and he makes probably the nearest thing to a readable comics mash up that I think I’ve seen and you can find out more on his Images Degrading Forever site. There’s plenty more food for thought concerning ‘What Men’ in the post about reflections on the same site. These are comics ABOUT COMICS or at least indirectly about the comics industry, Barnard is using the medium to comment on the medium rather than write a blog about it.
Another one of his projects takes the Marvel comics Preview Catalogue and lampoons the never ending solicitations of forthcoming series’, character cross-overs and final, FINAL, F-I-N-A-L issues with self-referencing in-jokes that fold in on themselves as ‘The Point’ of it all is sought. It doesn’t all make immediate sense if you don’t have a keen interest or knowledge of certain areas of the comics world and its internal politics, which sometimes read like a superhero cross-over series in themselves.
His newest is a comics mash-up proper: ‘Super Spidey Man’ or ‘Star Jaws’ (I’m not sure which) is a mixture of Spiderman, Star Wars, Sesame Street and Dr Doom among others (I won’t spoil where Jaws gets into the mix). This is part 1 of a 4 issue series which may or may not be available from Orbital Comics in London. I don’t know where he’s going with this one but it’ll be interesting to see how it unfolds as the mysterious packages arrive in the post. He does make some physical copies but these are very low runs (‘What Men’ was 10 copies I believe) – but all this material is available to view online at his site, Images Degrading Forever.
Very pleased to have commissioned this mix from Chop for the latest installment of Solid Steel and it’s something slightly different from him too. Here’s what he said about it;
“I’ve been listening to quite a lot of French, Japanese and electronic library music of late. This mix for me has been about discovering and re-discovering some fantastic artists/music from around the globe. Whether its the eccentric French sounds of Marc Moulin‘s – Telex, mutations from YMO genius Haruomi Hosono or the influential proto-electronica of Manuel Gottsching I think there’s something here for everyone from diggers to digesters of great music.”
His last album, ‘Illuminate’, came out in August 2013 on Now Again and is available here
You know me, I love music and I love Lego. Well, a guy called Harry Heaton has started making classic (and not so classic) LP covers out of Lego. He has a tumblr full of them and is taking requests.
They’re made using Lego Digital Designer apparently which is the Lego equivalent of CAD so they’re not actually physically real but that would take a long time, a lot of money and I don’t think Lego actually make that many shades of beige. Anyway, kudos to Harry for marrying music design and Lego.
Also kudos to Harry for making a version of Bonobo’s ‘The North Borders’ LP sleeve! 
EDIT: I think I worked out how to do it 😉
Back in 2009 I wrote a song with Natural Self that I titled, ‘The Illectrik Hoax’, the inspiration for which came from the comic strip by Pete Milligan and Brendan McCarthy – ‘The Electric Hoax’. This was one of the first (if not THE first) creative collaborations by the pair who (with Brett Ewins) went on to create some of my favourite comics of the 80’s and 90’s – Freakwave, Paradax, Rogan Gosh, Strange Days, Skin, Hewligan’s Haircut, Bad Company, Artoons, Sooner Or Later, various episodes of Judge Dredd and more.
The strip appeared in the weekly UK music paper, Sounds, in 24 parts sometime between mid ’78 and ’79. Each one a half page telling a vaguely coherent, if disjointed, story that seemed to throw up new characters with each episode. It’s a fascinating glimpse into a team’s earliest work and you can see them becoming more confident as the story progresses. McCarthy’s art improves, initially starting out with a lot of collage, and you can see him gain confidence with his figures and many different memes that would reoccur in his work surface for the first time. There are in-jokes and plugs for characters in 2000ad dotted amongst the numerous notes seen floating around in many of the episodes and personalities like Patrick McGoohan and John Lydon make appearances.
The Electric Hoax Pt.1 – click image for larger version
There’s a definite sense of post-punk Britain in the strip, both in the artwork and the tone, a crumbling state gripped by strikes and pre-1984 paranoia. Interestingly, some of the character designs already mirror that of the Mad Max films that McCarthy was later influenced by, even though this pre-dates the opening of the first film by a good 6 months. In a lot of ways his Thought Police could be described as cyber-punks before the phrase was invented, a clear mash up of the then-current punk fashion and the dystopian sci-fi setting of the strip.
Last year saw the publication of ‘The Best of Milligan & McCarthy’ hardback which reprinted selections from many of the titles listed above but not the full run of ‘The Hoax’. After years of searching for back issues of Sounds for episodes and the few instances where they crop up on the web, I lucked out when an eBayer put the complete run up for sale, all neatly clipped from the various issues they originally appeared in. I intend to share these, week by week, here on the blog but I urge you to check out the excellent Dark Horse -published ‘best of’ mentioned above which can be bought HERE.
Both creators went on to bigger things with Milligan writing for everyone from Marvel to DC, Vertigo to Dark Horse – his run on Shade The Changing Man reinventing the character. Since then he’s written just about all the greats: Batman, Hellblazer, Animal Man, Justice League, X-Men (in all sorts of varieties), Spiderman, The Punisher, Thor… you get the idea, he’s a big deal in comics writing. McCarthy went to Hollywood to design and storyboard film and TV concepts for films like Highlander, Coneheads, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Lost In Space and the first cgi TV show, ReBoot. He was also asked by director George Miller to design and co-write the fourth installment of the Mad Max saga, ‘Fury Road’ which has finally made it out of development hell to be released in 2015. Now working back in comics as well with his excellent ‘visual autobiography’, ‘Swimini Purpose’, new episodes and covers for Dredd, a Spiderman / Dr Strange crossover and the psychedelic ‘The Zaucer of Zilk’ all carrying on his unique take on the medium.
NB: My different spelling of ‘electric’ was intentional and the lyrics of the track in question have nothing to do with the strip itself, it was my coded nod to two of my favourite comic creators.
2013 has been an odd year – I wouldn’t go as far as to highlight the ’13’ as one to be wary of but it was full of ups and downs for me personally. 2012 was always going to be a hard year to beat but this one has been like a yo-yo, full of more uncertainty, doubt, procrastination and frustration than ever before.
There have been plenty of highs, not least with my family, of which my children are a constant source of wonder and pride. I do feel as if something has been holding me back but haven’t been able to pin down any one reason, more a general series of events that just didn’t let me get on with the things I need to do.
The proportion of great music being released has definitely gone up this year on previous ones, I read more comics than ever before, didn’t see half the films I wanted to and had more memorable nights out than I have in a long while. Experiences playing in clubs and with promoters seriously challenged me as to whether I actually wanted to continue DJing at times though. I’ve written more than ever before this year, having several articles published and conducted several interviews under my own steam with subjects whom I wanted to quiz on specific subjects. There are things bubbling for 2014 already, some of them very exciting for me but I need to make some more music and art as that’s been pretty barren this year.
Highs of 2014 (in no particular order)
• Moments:
Editing the Coldcut meets the Orb 2 sessions and then fine-tuning them with Matt Black
Seeing Kraftwerk in Dusseldorf then making a pilgrimage to their old studio.
Taking part in the Image Duplicator show at Orbital Comics and selling my piece on the opening night.
Being featured in a Judge Dredd strip as part of a Mega City One cult called ‘Strictly Kevs’.
Meeting and interviewing photographers Tony Barratt and John Stoddart and chatting about their time photographing bands for the ZTT label.
Being photographed for the Dust & Grooves book and then conducting an interview with Kieran Hebden aka Four Tet for it.
Releasing the quadruple ‘Search Engine’ package for Record Store Day with 10 random inserts.
Being asked to remix The Amorphous Androgynous
More large-scale art pieces in my local neighborhood than ever
Remixing, rehearsing and performing with Cheeba and Moneyshot as part of the ‘3-Way Mix’ show – also signing on as part of the Elastic Artists agency with Ben Coghill.
Interviewing Gary Langan about the making of ‘Duck Rock’
• Music:
Boards of Canada ‘Tomorrow’s Harvest’ (Warp)
Spacedog & Belbury Poly – ‘Study Series 10’ (Ghost Box)
Melt Yourself Down – S/T LP (Leaf)
Lone – ‘Airglow Fires’ (R&S)
Mark Pritchard ‘Lock Off’ EP (Warp)
David Bowie ‘The Next Day’ LP
Sinoia Caves ‘The Enchanter Persuaded’
Black Moth Super Rainbow – ‘Dandelion Gum’ LP
John Carpenter & Alan Howarth – ‘Halloween 3’ (Death Waltz)
David Bowie ‘Love Is Lost’ (James Murphy Hello Steve Reich remix)
Boy George – ‘Coming Home’ (Psychemagik remix)
Chop – ‘Illuminate’ LP (Now Again)
Black Swan – ‘Alone Again With the Dawn Coming Up’
Tame Impala – ‘Be Above It’ (Erol Alkan remix)
rediscovering my love of Gary Numan and The Human League
• Books / Comics:
John Higgs – The KLF: Chaos, Magic & the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds
Julian Cope – Copendium
Moebius – Chaos & Chroniques Metalliques
Mike Mignola – Hellboy in Hell
The Judge Dredd Megazine
Brandon Graham – Prophet
B.P.R.D Hell On Earth
Brandon Graham – Multiple Warheads
The Best of Milligan & McCarthy
Jim Mahfood – Visual Funk
Ed Piskor – Hip Hop Family Tree
Batman Black & White no.3
The Wake
Robbie Morrison & Jim Murray – Drowntown
Brandon Graham – King City
Sledgehammer 44
• Films:
Gravity
Pacific Rim
Elysium
Despicable Me 2
Bonobo’s ‘Cirrus’ video
Trance
Melt Yourself Down’s ‘Fix My Life’ video
• Gigs:
Solid Steel 25th party at Fire, London,
19: Eighties concert at the QEH, London
playing my first gig with my kids in the audience at Big Fish Little Fish, London
DJing between Coldcut and DJ Shadow in Bristol at the In:Motion night
Kosmic Krash at the Herstmonceux Observatory
A Few Old Tunes, London
Adam Ant at the Roundhouse, London
• Firsts:
Finally reading Jodorowsky and Moebius‘ ‘The Incal’ and Milligan and McCarthy‘s ‘The Electric Hoax’ in full.
Making my first solo video mix for Solid Steel
Giving my first talk on graphic design in Madrid
Giving blood
Designing a zoetrope 12″ picture disc for Bonobo from Cyriak image sequences.
Having a piece published on The Quietus about Solid Steel and another about Kraftwerk for Clash Magazine
Launching my Art of ZTT website and having a feature on it published in Classic Pop magazine
• Artists / Designers:
Ian McQue / Augustine Kofie / Luke Insect / Giorgio Comolo / Peeta / Khomatech / Julian House / Jonathan Edwards / Andy Votel
• Mixes:
United States of Audio – How High’s The Water Mama?
Doug Shipton – All Will Be Set Right
Hexstatic – Clink Mix
DJ Moneyshot – Solid Steel & The Hour of Chaos
Coldcut meets The Orb – The Return Trip
• Exhibitions:
David Bowie (The V&A)
Mark Bodé (London West Bank Gallery)
Ralph Steadman @77 (The Cartoon Museum)
Pop Art (The Barbican)
• Labels:
Deathwaltz (undisputed label of the year), Trunk, Ghost Box, Themes For Great Cities, Civil Music
• Sleeve / Packaging design:
Dark Seed ‘Nocturnes’ 12″ (Ohmega)
Various ‘A Psyche For Sore Eyes’ 7″ comp (Sonic Cathedral)
The Simonsound – ‘The Beam’ 10″ (Pilot Pack) (Project Blue Book)
Broadcast – ‘Berberian Sound Studio’ (Warp)
Clone – ‘Hallowe’en 1976’ cassette (Finders Keepers)
Machinedrum ‘Vapor City’ LP (Ninja Tune)
Christine ‘Death On Wheels’ 12″
DJ Format & Phill Most Chill ‘The Foremost’ LP (Project Blue Book)
Various ‘Classroom Projects’ (Trunk)
Various ‘Cosmic Machine’ comp
Kid Acne ‘Council Pop’ 10th anniversary edition
The Focus Group ‘Elektrik Karousel’ (Ghost Box)
Madlib ‘Pill Jar’ LP (Rappcats)
John Carpenter – ‘Assault On Precinct 13’ (Death Waltz)
Drums of Death ‘Waves Series Remixes’ (Civil Music)
Serato ‘Thre3style’ 10″ controller series
• Lows:
Being taken for a ride over payment by the promoter who booked me to give my first talk on graphic design in Madrid
More cancelled gigs and promoters messing me about than ever before
My laptop failing the night before a gig, necessitating a repair session until 3am
More people expecting me to do something for nothing than ever before, time to make a stand against this culture of people expecting people to work for ‘promotion’ in 2014.
‘The Persistence of Vision’ – a great documentary marred by sound and vision quality so bad it was virtually unwatchable.
• RIP:
Martin Sharp, Nelson Mandela, George Duke, Storm Thorgerson, Carmine Infantino, Claude Nobs, Dome Club Mk.1, Equinox Records.
• Things to look forward to in 2014:
Ghost Box night at the ICA in Jan
3-Way mix tour in Australia in Feb
Dirk Wears White Sox at the Apollo in April
The Dust & Grooves book released in April
A Very special Record Store Day release I can’t talk about yet in April
another big graphic project that I should be involved with for Autumn 2014 that I also can’t talk about yet
This is a new poster for Transport for London, drawn by Thibaud Herem as part of the 150 years of the London Underground birthday. TFL now have an official Tumblr that they will be filling with images for the anniversary. Talking of posters on the Underground, there is a great series running currently, drawn by French illustrator, McBess. They are general safety warnings with poetry written by members of the public and are all over the place in various sizes. I think we’re in a new golden age of design for the London Underground.
The artist Black Swan has (re)posted a tribute album he made based on The KLF‘s ‘Chill Out’ album back in 2001 when we went under the moniker, Apparition. It’s downloadable for free from his site and is a dark, ambient nod to the KLF meisterwerk rather than a straight cover. Here’s the suitably sedate cover art to go with it.
I did a mix for Big Fish Little Fish – the party for parents and kids with a more discerning taste in music.
It’s straight up club classics with no messing about pretending to be cutting edge, classic Hip Hop, Rave and Disco all features plus there’s also a healthy dose of humour in there too.
Bestival have hosted it on their Bestimix site as well as part of their online advent calendar. I can’t embed it unfortunately but you can listen HERE.
Out on Feb 14th, 2014 – 30 years after the record was banned by the BBC and still sitting at No.1 in the charts – yet another version of Frankie Goes To Hollywood‘s notorious ‘Relax’.
This time it’s ‘The Sex Mix’ (Edition 3) – formerly known as ‘Sex Mix Edit’, a hitherto undiscovered mix that first surfaced on a Japanese compilation called ‘Return To The Pleasuredome’ a few years ago. The original ‘Sex Mix Edit’ (or Edition 2) is a little known 8 minute odd edit of the original 16 minute ‘Sex Mix’ that came and went (pun intended) in late ’83 before being replaced by a 7.20 minute ‘US Remix / New York Night mix’ which many consider as the definitive 12″ of ‘Relax’.
This new mix (Edition 3) had been created by Trevor Horn session man and renown percussionist Luis Jardim in December ’84 – who knows what for? It was then filed away, forgotten, later mislabeled and then extracted over 25 years later to end up on a compilation on the other side of the world. Hardcore fans from The Alternate ZTT Board soon spotted the difference and this sent the reissue curator, Ian Peel, back into the ZTT archives to search for more info and tapes that would lead to this previously unheard remix being given a proper vinyl release nearly 30 years after it was created.
Confused? This isn’t even half the ‘Relax’ mix story but I’ll save that for another time. Here, the original XLZTT artwork and Anne Yvonne Gilbert illustration have been tweaked by Element Series designer Philip Marshall to mirror the colour scheme for the 2012 Frankie rarities compilation, ‘Sex Mix’. The tracklist is: A. Relax ‘Sex Mix’ (Edition 3) B1. Ferry Cross the Mersey B2. Relax ‘The Instrumental’. You can pre-order it from Amazon here
A page from a new book, ‘Brian Eno – Visual Music’, by Christopher Scoates.
Check out the not too subtle Spiderman riff by Henry Flint for net year’s Free Comic Book Day edition of the comic.
Also check this kids version of Joey Dredd by artist redbaz.
I’m very pleased to announce that I am now represented by Ben Coghill at Elastic Artists who is also responsible for booking the ‘3-Way’ mix shows I’m doing with DJ Cheeba and DJ Moneyshot next year.There’s a shiny new DJ Food page up on the Elastic Artists website with a handy ‘BOOK NOW’ button, should you be that way inclined.
If you want to book either myself solo or the Paul’s Boutique reconstruction show then Ben is the man to go to. I’ve known him for years under his other pseudonym, Boom Monk Ben, and he provided many a great Solid Steel mix back in the day before moving into promoting and agency work full time. Very excited to see what 2014 brings…
Hellboy goes to Mexico to get married (!?) Should be a good one, especially as it’s been illustrated by British comic legend Mike McMahon. Check his excellent blog – tugging your coat – for more. Also out today the 5th issue of Hellboy in Hell by Mignola and, errrr … Mignola.
DK and I have created a set on Soundcloud where you can directly access all my Solid Steel mixes with one click. With the archive on Soundcloud now several years deep and also being that it is part of the overall Ninja Tune account, it’s increasingly hard to find things easily. Now you can with one click. If I’ve had a mix on the show it should be here, whether a solo mix, part of a collaboration or sharing an hour with another DJ.
So, if you wanted to check the Beastie Boys ‘Paul’s Boutique’ reconstruction I did with Cheeba and Moneyshot, it’s here. Likewise the ‘Free Comic Book Day’ mix, ‘O Is For Orange’ or ‘In:Motion’ mixes and many more. I give most of my mixes titles, one day I should go through and make an inventory of the lot…
Such a beautiful graphic, found on skipratmedia‘s site, tickets still on sale.