There’s obviously something about the word, ‘groove’ that ticks several boxes for me. My favourite record fair of the year is this Saturday, The Groovy Record Fayre at the Mildmay Club on Newington Green. The record fair is in the day until about 5-6pm then a pub quiz after 7pm followed by a party until 1am – all FREE!
Then on November 19th it’s the UK launch of the Dust & Grooves vol.2 at the BBE Store in Hackney – could this be the line up of the year? Also FREE but you have to RSVP here
Here’s a look at the artwork I made for As One‘s new album, ‘Requiem’ (I think this is the third album I’ve designed for them now). As One is now Kirk Degiorgio and Catherine Siofra Prendergast and the duo have created eight new tracks for this album which you can pre-order and preview here. The vinyl comes in the usual black and coloured variants and is out on December 6th.
Listen at ROVR radio, Friday Oct 25th at 2pm wherever you are in the world. Download the app to get archive access. APPLE or ANDROID
Show #8 Oct 2024
DJ Food – Electrik Collage #3
Paul Cousins – Floating Arithmetic
Pete Sasqwax Beat Cult – Initiation Ritual – Part 14
Beautify Junkyards – Raridade de Contrastes
Calibro 35 – Nautilus
Lo Five – Unbecoming You
Listening Center – The Death Of Group D Meter
Paul Cousins – Dismantling The Millieu
DJ Food – Electrik Collage #37
LL Cool J – Murdergram Deux (feat. Eminem)
The Gaslamp Killer with Jason Wool – Hiccups
Listening Center – Cold Panorama
Elestre – Oiseau Tempête
Pete Sasqwax Beat Cult – Initiation Ritual Part 05
Nídia & Valentina – Andiamo
Dave Lombardo – Initiatory Madness
DJ Food – Electrik Collage #2
LL Cool J – Praise Him (feat. Nas)
Move 78 – The Emperor’s New Jazz
Roland Shaw & His Orchestra – Peter Gunn
Beautify Junkyards – Black Cape
Floating Points – Afflecks Palace
Healing Force Project – Mechanical Concept in the Mental Fluid
Pittsburgh Track Authority – Allegheny Acid 01
Mach – Disco Brake
Various – Fear Medley
DJ Food – Electrik Collage #19
Dave Lombardo – Maunder in Liminality
Nídia & Valentina – Nasty
Jem Stone – Serendipity Blues
John Lennon – Seed (Mind Games Meditation Mix)
Elestre – L Abysse
Communication Arts, 1966
I think this is the back cover of Morals ’68
A book of experimental music scores, essays and notations – view it on the Internet Archive
Print magazine, US, 1961
Robert Lockhart has nearly a hundred Discogs entries for his design work and could turn his hand to many different styles. Above is his interior gatefold for Gene Harris of the Three Sounds LP from 1971 which displays a fine grasp of the airbrush as well as collage. Below, his Bloodrock sleeve mixes S. Clay Wilson with Milton Glaser and comes up with something in the middle.
Above’s Bob Seger LP back cover displays more affection for the Milton Glaser style that was so popular back in the early 70s and below Lockhart whips up a fine collage for the front and back of Quintet’s ‘Future Tense’ LP, then channeling Michael English/Richard Hamilton for the cover of Steely Dan’s ‘Can’t Buy A Thrill’.
I’ve shown this before; Ravi Shankar goes psychedelic (for the cover at least) and below that an oddity of the Pablo Light Show providing visuals for a ‘Heavy Organ’ recital of Bach in San Francisco with cover illustrations very reminiscent of Victor Moscoso.
Whilst looking for Gene Harris records I came upon this series of Blue Note sleeves by designer, Bob Cato. I’d seen a few of these over the years but didn’t realise how many of them there were. Cato was an art director, designer, painter and photographer for many major US labels who designed over 550 sleeves, with many of them becoming classics. These torn collage close-ups of halftone prints are more punk than jazz but originated in the mid seventies, the oversaturated colours bring to mind Pop Art rather than the classic Reid Miles era of the label.
I was in TenPinRecords in Purley the other day and the owner, Lisa, had this beautiful 13th Floor Elevators 7″ on the counter which I had to take a photo of. It’s a bootleg from 1978 of ‘You Really Got Me’ and don’t all jump at once, that £1.50 price sticker was the original, it’s nearer £50 these days. In a bid to find out more about it, including the cover artist (Michael Beal) I went down the Discogs rabbit hole and found a few more nice 13th Floor sleeve designs, not least this great 7″ picture sleeve for ‘You’re Gonna Miss Me’ (front and back shown below).
On the reissue front there’s this book cover from the Sign of the 3 Eyed Men compilation, not sure the designer here
Today is release day for my good friend Eilon Paz‘s monster of a book Dust & Grooves vol.2!
A decade after the first volume and after over two years of tireless work and globetrotting, he presents this follow up tome, clocking in at 650 pages. It charts the world of record collecting in all its myriad forms through Eilon’s incredible photography (this man cannot take a bad photo).
I’m yet to see the finished book but being asked to contribute and come along on some of his adventures was the stuff of dreams. From interviewing Alex Paterson about the contents of his live DJ boxes to navigating the tidal wave of Andy Votel‘s collection to picking Kid Koala‘s brains about his methods to visiting Peel Acres and hearing vinyl hoarding stories you wouldn’t believe from Tom Ravenscroft.
The latter three are all in the book and the Alex Paterson interview is on the Dust & Grooves website in full. Still to come: long-form interviews with Zoe Luckycat Baxter, DJ Format and Trevor Jackson – see some behind the scenes photos here.
You can buy the book right now as well as a revamped volume 1 and there’s still the companion Portable turntables book to come!
Congratulations Eilon – hardest working photographer I know, what an incredible thing you’ve created.
The monthly round up: Mostly new music here, the centre image is the new Gaslamp Killer LP, to it’s left is the new Paul Cousins album ‘Oxide Manifesto’ on Castles In Space and below it, Benedict Drew‘s new one on Thanet Tape Centre, ‘Tone Works (for film and video)’. Dave Lombardo‘s ‘Rites of Percussion’ is a killer drum album from the Slayer/Fantomas legend that actually came out over a year ago but I only just discovered and it’s always nice to see a new Space Oddities collection, this time focussing on Bernard Fevre aka Black Devil Disco Club. Not pictured here (because they’re not on Bandcamp) but well worth tracking down are Beautify Junkyards‘ ‘Nova’ on Ghost Box and LL Cool J‘s amazing return on ‘The Force’, produced by Q-Tip. Also check out Skylab International‘s cover of Hot Chocolate‘s ‘Emma’ from the list below, it’s a treat. It’s also Bandcamp Friday at the end of this week, so fill your baskets in readiness…
My latest ROVR radio show featuring some of these was aired on Friday Sept 27th and should be available to listen back to now via the ROVR live app APPLE or ANDROID
Unbelievable work on this new video for Sculpture‘s ‘Cross Processor’ by Reuben Sutherland. High resolution needed and even then the detail in this is mind boggling. One of the album’s of the year packaging wise, ‘Max Ax’ comes as 2x 10″ zoetrope picture discs in a gatefold sleeve. Find a copy here
Also this month I’ve been bowled over by the new LL Cool J album, ‘The Force’, produced entirely by Q-Tip, that wasn’t something I’d expected to happen in 2024. There’s so much great music coming out at the moment including several releases that I couldn’t fit in here or didn’t arrive through the letterbox in time for inclusion, there’s always next month though.
Listen at ROVR radio, Friday Sept 27th at 2pm wherever you are in the world. Download the app to get archive access. APPLE or ANDROID
Show #7 Sept 2024
DJ Food – Electrik Collage #9
LL Cool J – Black Code Suite (feat. Sona Jobarteh)
Bugseed – ash
Elestre – Cosmogramme
Dr Rubberfunk – Shadows Lengthen Into Darkness
Pete Sasqwax Beat Cult – Initiation Ritual Part 02
Lo Five – Unbecoming You
The New Library Sound – Coastal Area
Paul Cousins – Blueprint
DJ Food – Electrik Collage #30
LL Cool J – Basquiat Energy
Elestre – Whizz & Fuzz
Dr Rubberfunk – Slowly, Surely
The New Library Sound – Shipwreck pt.2
Larry Manteca – Securing the Scene
Sculpture – Wave Scroll
AK + MF + UR – E2 E4 303
DJ Food – Electrik Collage #14
The Gaslamp Killer & Jason Wool – Chaos in the Brain
Floating Points – Ocotillo
Healing Force Project – Point Of Oscillation
A’Bear – Glammy Racket
Twilight Sequence – Birds in General- and the Rook
Loula Yorke – Anecdoche
The Soundcarriers – Already Over
DJ Food – Electrik Collage #38
James Adrian Brown – Limbic System
Stone Anthem – In The Forest
Field Lines Cartographer – Enceladus Shine
Jo Johnson – It just is the love it feels
Here’s the new Robert Leiner album I designed for De:tuned which also happens to be their 50th release!
Up for pre-order now and released on Nov 8th on black or bottle green vinyl.
Here’s an audio preview of the whole album
OK, so here’s a little story I’d like to tell as it’s led to some frustration over recent months.
*UPDATE – if you read this before, scroll to the bottom
Readers of this blog will be very familiar with my weekly Mixcloud Select posts each Friday where I digitally encoded a cassette from my archive of old Solid Steel radio shows. This lockdown project ended up lasting four years and led to over 200 sets being posted online for a monthly subscription, ending earlier this year when the cassettes, DATs and CDRs were at last exhausted. My mix archive was digitized at last, hooray! There are some of them above, the red stickers denote ‘done’.
But what to do with the old media filling up my drawers? I put the word out that if anyone wanted to make me an offer for the original tapes or discs then I’d rather they go to a fan than landfill. The first person to ask was Greg from Germany, we struck a deal for 55 cassettes and I duly boxed them up and off they went this summer via courier to Germany. There they are below, two layers tucked into a well- packed and sealed box.
A few weeks later and Greg still hadn’t received the package, tracking was consulted and it seems it never made it to DPD’s processing centre after it was picked up from my doorstep by the courier, Transglobal Express, who acted as a broker in the process. Never even made it out of the UK. After contacting them and a lot of back and forth for a few weeks they agreed that they had lost the package and reimbursed me for the amount Greg had paid me as the value of the contents. I in turn repaid Greg so we were quits, I’d lost some money on postage costs and I had no tapes – not the end of the world but annoying. I should add, I’ve used TE for years and this has never happened and I’ve never had a problem with them.
Fast forward to last Friday when someone contacted me via Facebook asking for info on this tape that he’d found pictured on my blog
I told him the tale above and he replied, “I buy from an auction site that deals with lost parcels and returns” adding that, “They are mixed up in a lot with some other rare dvd’s that I wanted but this seems important to you so I’ll just send you the link”.
Well, that’s where the parcel went then, no disputing that those are my tapes. After a further bit of chat the informant agree they wouldn’t stand in the way of me trying to get my tapes back so wouldn’t bid on the lot. Weirdly Facebook would then not let me message them anymore and a look at his profile reveals only two photos and no posts – maybe they’d blocked me or something? Weird, anyway…
I contacted the auction house, bearing in mind that this is a Friday night and their office hours are Mon to Fri and the auction ends Sunday, saying that this was my property, offering proof, dates, photos etc. No reply of course, I’ll be ringing them Monday.
So, against my better judgement, I put in a cursory bid for the lot on Sunday but was outbid and it eventually went for £60. This would have incurred a further 50% buyers premium, VAT and delivery charges, at least £90 to get my own property back, fuck that.
Here’s the final lot URL, not sure how long it’ll be up but I can’t see or message the winner in any way. Who are these John Pye Auctions? How did they get my parcel? A parcel I should add with a return address on it. Isn’t it illegal to sell other people’s post? Apparently not it seems. Lost or not, it’s certainly illegal to open someone else’s post without consent. A look at the rest of the auctions reveals all sorts of items including a lot of electrical goods and even some brand new vinyl (box loads of Taylor Swift albums anyone?). This all looks dodgy as hell so I’m not expecting much comeback but how is this legal?
I’m putting this out there in the hope that whoever got them will do some research, see this and contact me so I can get my stolen property back. If anyone sees these tapes for sale elsewhere can they please get in touch because this is bullshit.
UPDATE:
So, what’s happend since I posted this? Sunday I lost the auction to someone else, Monday I rang John Pye Auctions and explained my predicament to a very helpful member of staff who advised me to put a paper trail together proving I was the original owner. She also stopped any further movement on the auction, and I submitted my evidence the same afternoon. Shortly after I’d posted my story I was also contacted by a very helpful gent named James who was also in the auction business and offered to speak to John Pye personally to outline the case. Within two days and a couple more phone calls from the auction house I was informed that they would be sending the tapes back and paying postage. And here they are, I have to say a big thanks to James, John Pye (who were very professional in all of this) and everyone who messaged or commented. Now I just need to find a reputable courier to send them to Greg in Germany…
PS: If you’re new here and wondering about the contents of all these, it’s all on my Mixcloud – 200 uploads, all tracklisted and notated, 4 years of work, you just need to subscribe for access
https://www.mixcloud.com/strictlykev/
1968 poster for the Robert Markham aka Kingsley Amis’ novel ‘Colonel Sun’
Worlds Fair for Youth poster, 1969, art by Kim Whitesides
Poster for Raymond Bertrand‘s Studio 69 book – image also used on the cover of Suck magazine issue #1.
LSD poster, 1969, artist unknown – originally from Acid covers
Nam June Paik exhibition poster, 1965
Martin Sharp – Art For Mart’s Sake gallery show invite, 1966 (upscaled)
The Velvet Underground at the Retinal Circus poster, 1968.
I wrote a huge piece for Dust & Grooves about joining Alex Paterson of the Orb to go through a couple of old DJ boxes he used to use in live sets. This took place two years ago to the day it’s been published and we’ve just finished it off as it didn’t make the forthcoming book in time for publication, mainly due to space. But on the web you can have all the space you want and space is most definitely the place for this feature. If you ever wanted to know where that sample was from or what record was used where then this feature goes some way to pulling back the curtain.
D&G creator and photographer, Eilon Paz beautifully captured the results of the momentous occasion which was situated first at the Book & Record Bar in West Norwood and later at Alex’s home nearby. I’m proud of all my work with Dust & Grooves (and there’s a fair bit more to come) but this was quite the fanboy’s dream as I’d probably first seen the Orb close to thirty years before. You can read the full piece here. The huge 650 page Dust & Grooves 2 arrives in a month’s time and can be ordered here along with its sister publication, Portables, all about, you guessed it – portable turntables. Enjoy…
WIth Dust and Grooves ramping up the pressure over the next 5 weeks when Vol.2 and the Portables books are released, today sees the launch of their online newsletter You Dig? A guest-curated monthly round up of all things vinyl associated with the people connected with the book (and believe me, there are a LOT in the new volume) It sports a cover collage by Morgan Jesse Lappin of Brooklyn Collage Collective (spot my cameo) and curation by Rich Headland of Record Shop Stories fame. You can read the first issue and subscribe here and pre-order both new books plus a refreshed vol.1 if you missed it a decade ago here.
Continuing the D&G love, I was the subject of their From Me To You feature recently where they looked by over my original interview on the site a decade ago and cherry-picked some vinyl highlights. You can read it here, with cover collage again from Morgan Jesse Lappin and if you want the full deep dive interview (probably the best one done yet) including an exclusive influences mix then you can read that here.
I’ve been doing this every month for two years now and the flood of great music never falters. Beats galore from the Pete Sasqwax Beat Cult, Markey Funk and Cheeba Cheeba Records, a new library music series from the 2 Headed Deer label plus a library re-edit from Tom Central. Lush electronica from Jo Johnson, summer psych from the Soundcarriers and a new acid cranker from Posthuman among others.
My new ROVR radio show featuring some of these was aired yesterday, Friday Aug 30th and should be available to listen back to now via the ROVR live app APPLE or ANDROID
Listen at ROVR radio, download the app to get archive access. APPLE or ANDROID
Show #6 Aug 2024 2
DJ Food – Electrik Collage #6
Beastie Boys – Jimmy James (Bsidewinsagain remix)
Jem Stone – Everyone’s Hugging The Horse
Larry Manteca – Bank´s Layout Reconnaissance
Myrth – Myrthiolate (edit)
Bob Dorough – Little TwelveToes (AI instrumental)
Jem Stone – Island Of The Snake People
DJ Food – Electrik Collage #46
The New Library Sound – Diving in Deep Sea pt. 1
Prefuse 73 – Raja
Markey Funk – Chronoscope
Pete Sasqwax Beat Cult – Initiation Ritual Part 11
Pete Sasqwax Beat Cult – Initiation Ritual Part 18
Handyman – The Clapping Song (DJ Food Re-Edit)
DJ Food – Electrik Collage #16
Ruby My Dear – PnT2
Sculpture – Max Ax
akufen – U
Sculpture – Cross Processor
Fluctuosa – Cobwebby
Pete Sasqwax Beat Cult – Initiation Ritual Part 04
Santaka – Burning Head
DJ Food – Electrik Collage #26
Broadcast – I Want To Be Fine
The New Library Sound – Seagrass
Group Modular – Lonely Pylon
The New Library Sound – Underwater Lounge
The South Coast Synth Ensemble – Electronic Counterpoint III
Felbm – Cycli Infini (excerpt)
Jo Johnson – It just is the love it feels
Sean Ono Lennon – Asterisms
I found a copy of this at the local carboot at the weekend (with Martin Sharp cover illustration) and had been collecting up other psychedelic book covers around the web, coincidentally most with a Tim Leary connection.
I’ll chuck in this one as it’s in the style of too although not from the 60s or 70s.
Gotta give it up for Jason Galea – just churning out work for King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard constantly. Record sleeves, videos, merch and posters like these, almost for every gig they do. Results vary of course but here’s the pick of the bunch from about the last year.
He’s also put together a book of all his work, due out this Winter with over a decade’s worth of designs and other material. You can order it here.
