Very pleased to log on and see that the Frankie Goes To Hollywood ‘Inside The Pleasuredome’ box set I designed has tipped over the 100% mark to become fully funded :). Rob Puricelli has put together a great overview of the project on his Failed Muso blog.
I’ve been waiting for this to drop for over a year now, Spencer from Death Waltz hinted at it a long time ago and has since confirmed it here and there online. I saw him a few weeks back and he was saying September and he’s been true to his word as it popped up for pre-order out of the blue yesterday. A synth and organ-heavy score to the ‘lost 80’s movie’ by Black Mountain member Jeremy Schmidt, it has all the slow moving menace of the film and the sleeve is just as beautiful.
There are two versions : one for Europe on clear vinyl with red smoke effect via Death Waltz and one on clear vinyl via Jagjaguwar for N. America who are also doing a bundle with a DVD of the film.
This fall DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist will embark on the ‘Renegades of Rhythm Tour’ celebrating the legacy of Hip-Hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa.
Shadow & Cut pulled from Bambaataa’s beautifully tattered 40,000 strong vinyl collection to bring you not just Soul and Rap, but also Soca, Calypso, Dub, Salsa and more.
As Bambaataa puts it himself, “DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist are going to blow your funky mind.”
US dates only at the moment but as soon as this comes to the UK, I’m there…
More info on the ROR tour at http://bit.ly/RORTour
Ticket info at http://on.fb.me/1qVjBO6
7″ BBC Sound Effect records from the collection of my father-in-law. Notice they are billed as Long Playing and are cut at 33 rpm.
This is an interesting use of vinyl to promote a new artist. This arrived a while back now but I’ve only just got round to putting it up here. This LP arrived in the post unannounced, no clue as to where it came from (although I have a possible lead). It’s a used album (Peters & Lee in this case) with ‘CC’ 07.04.14 screen printed over the front with another black square covering most of the back.
The record inside is unplayable due to two large paper square’s being stuck over the grooves, one blank but for a ‘cc.’ in the centre and the other with message and illustration. “Want a tune for today? Well here’s two. Take a listen, you might just smile, Count Counsellor www.viewsource.cc“
I think this is first time I’ve seen vinyl used a the carrier for a web link and it’s a clever way to get the attention in an age of digital promos. The image of the head viewed from the back suggests that the Count isn’t ready to fully reveal himself yet although I see a few music blogs have picked up one track last month. If you visit the site at the link above you will be able to hear two tracks with very little other information aside from a few ‘coming soon…’ messages. A curio for sure but an innovative attempt to engage the attention by customising a music format to carry a message rather than a sound.
Death Waltz Recording Company releases for Record Store Day 2014 (only 2 of the 4). Each album has a splattered colour vinyl disc, a huge 36″x36″ poster, a 12″x12″ card print of the poster plus sleeve notes, a housebag that’s both embossed and debossed and a paper wraparound with release details.
These retail at an average of £20 each – incredible when you see the prices of other releases only offering half that. Plus Spencer Hickman, the label owner, is a straight up dude, one of the soundest people I’ve come across in the music industry. 
I visited the MoWax 21 / Urban Archaeology exhibition that opened at the Southbank Centre in London, currently home to the James Lavelle-curated Meltdown season.it was stuffed with everything you could want from a visual label retrospective with memorabilia and artwork from across the label’s history and beyond into post MW UNKLE releases.
For those familiar with the label there us much here to wallow in but plenty of behind the scenes stuff too. A letter from Mike D about a planned MoWax / Grand Royal ‘Battle of the Beats’ record, working drawings and model for Futura Pointmen toys and plenty of original art that graced many a sleeve. There are toys in every kind of colourway, some still at prototype stage, flyers reaching back to the early 90’s to when MoWax was more of a Talking Loud wannabe than the trip hop and electronica powerhouse of its heyday.
It’s free but only open until June 22nd so you only have this week to catch it before it’s gone. But if you don’t manage to make it down then there is an extensive book now available with even more info and photos. Initially funded via Kickstarter, I received a copy last week and it’s beautiful to behold, a perfect visual encapsulation of the label.
Labels from part of a set of Nursery Course 7″ records from the early 70’s (except no.1 which looks like a reissue from ’86) plus a ‘wallet’ to hold them in.
DJ Shadow has started a tumblr to showcase pieces from his collection called D.N.A.P., short for ‘Does Not Affect Play’ – a term record buyers will recognise as a description on some used discs when marks are visible on the wax. It’s a collector’s wet dream with not only records but also promo photos, badges, 8-Track tapes, flyers, customised covers and even James Brown cookies. Check it out here.
So sad to hear that Rik Mayall passed away today, so many of his characters kept me and my mates laughing through school in the 80’s. Mayall and the Comic Strip were our equivalent of the Pythons with episodes replayed on video and recounted word for word in the playground the next day.
Many of his lines are still used around our house to this day (‘hands up who likes me?’ ‘answer that and stay fashionable’, ‘get down and groove, we dance all day in this house’) and characters like Rick – the People’s Poet, Colin Grigson (in Bad News) and Lord Flashheart (in Blackadder) are timeless.
Bad News Tour and More Bad News are two of my all time favourite musical comedies so I’ve dug out their records in his honour, scanned some sleeves and will be listening and watching tonight.
Nice to run across a little plug for The The’s ‘GIANT’ 12″ I share billing with in the latest issue of Classic Pop magazine (issue 11, Kate Bush cover). For all those who remember Smash Hits from back in the day and yearn to break free of the endless rehashing of the Beatles/Stones/Who/Dylan/Zeppelin pop/rock mafia in the other music monthlies – this is the mag for you. Not as lightweight as Smash Hits but not as nerdy as Record Collector, it finds a fine balance between in-depth interviews, retrospective pieces, current reviews and where are they now and what have they been up to news.
In other The The news (try saying that when pissed) it’s only 3 weeks until I get to quiz Matt Johnson about the making of ‘Soul Mining’ over at Rough Trade East on June 30th. The same day sees the release of the 30th anniversary edition of the album of the same name. You can find out more info here.
These Serato controller discs just arrived from 12inchSkinz in the US. They are clear 12″ discs with custom-made graphic pictures on the underside and a label over the top.
They are sanctioned by Serato but only playable on one side because of the image underneath. Expensive but well worth it as they are objects of beauty.
12inchSkinz also do stickers for your laptop and mixer and I highly recommend them as I’ve got stickers for both of those as well and they’re very high quality.
Friday at the Dust & Grooves book launch – so many lovely people, shame I had to jet early for another gig, will make up for it later today at the Vinyl Library get together. 
I’ll be playing from 6pm – all vinyl – alongside Ollie Teeba, Jonny Trunk, Colleen ‘Cosmo’ Murphy, Dom Servini, Kid Dyno and Sheila B. It’s FREE and takes place at the Proud Archivist gallery in East London – more details here.
This is what the last post was all about, a project I’ve been working on for the last few months but feels like I’ve been working towards for over a decade. 10 years ago I actively started contacting and interviewing the people involved in the creation of the ZTT label’s artwork, starting with Paul Morley who I collaborated with on ‘Raiding the 20th Century’. Through the years after I met designers, illustrators and photographers who had all had hands in the late 80’s output of the label whilst collecting promo posters, magazine ads and in some cases original artwork and photos.
After starting my ArtofZTT site early last year and having been in contact with Ian Peel, responsible for the ongoing reissue series at the label, I was asked to collaborate with resident designer Philip Marshall on what would become the 30th anniversary of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s ‘Welcome To The Pleasuredome’.
Now re-titled ‘Inside The Pleasuredome’ this deluxe box set is available to pre-order via Pledge Music and will be released on the anniversary later this year at the end of October. The set will contain:
Re-mastered and redesigned original LP,
3 x 10″s of remixes, demos and alt. takes
a hardback Art of FGTH book with sleeve art, adverts, ultra rare promo posters, LP prelims and making of interviews
a cassette of multiple ‘Relax’ remixes with new artwork inside a card slipcase
a DVD with videos plus 5.1 audio from various singles and album tracks
3 x Prints of the original Lo Cole album artwork (with uncensored back cover image)
a digital only EP of instrumentals
a Pleasuredome TV ad flick book
a Tumbometer (fans will know what this is)
6 x cards with download codes for the remastered LP, the 3 10″s, the cassette and the digital EP
I’ll be sharing photos here during the pledge period of 65 days, I’d love to post it all now but there will be a slow roll out as items are unveiled to people who pre-order . Once the order / pledge period is up no more orders will be taken and once /if the target it reached that will be the extent of the number of sets made. Of the 10 ‘elements’ contained inside the box, half of them will be exclusive including the art book and 10″ featuring ‘Slave…’ It has already made a quarter of the target less than a day after going online but there’s still a way to go. You can pre-order here but once that window is closed that will be your only chance, the box set won’t be sold in shops.
The new Blondie album is out today and it has fantastic cover art by J.H. Williams III the current artist on Sandman. 
To mark the release of The The‘s newly boxed and remastered ‘Soul Mining’ album on June 30th I will be quizzing Matt Johnson about its history and making at Rough Trade East at 7pm.
As with last year’s Free Comic Book Day I’ve put together another collection of record sleeves that use artists from or reference comics in some way. Above is a Boo-Yaa Tribe 12″ which I THINK is drawn by Bob Camp who also did the Bambaataa ‘Renegades of Funk’ and Newcleus sleeves from the previous post. The only credit is ‘designed by Island Art’ on the back and the German 12″ says ‘illustration: Marvel Comics’ (!) This version features two remixes by Coldcut incidentally.
A classic back and front sleeve by (*update!) Dave Little for Bomb The Bass‘ first LP – the connection started when BTB adapted Dave Gibbons‘ Watchman smiley face with blood splat on their first 12″ cover for ‘Beat Dis’ – thus helping bring the smiley into the then current Acid House craze as its motif. Dave Little – as Steve Cook helpfully pointed out below in the comments – was Rhythm King‘s in-house designer, responsible for S’Express, Renegade Soundwave and more.
Next up – the master – Moebius, drawing Hendrix, as he would do several times in his career but this is the only album cover I know of. This is a ‘twofer’, two albums in one package for the French market on the Barclay label with a gorgeous gatefold. I love the way Hendrix is on the back instead of the front.
More Moebius, I’ve posted this before but it’s so good I’m going to do it again.
Staying with the French artists here’s Philippe Druillet with another Hendrix gatefold and another similar record that I can’t identify the artist on – both released on Barclay. Anyone know the second artist? Update: several people have pointed the finger at Richard Corben on this one and I can see the similarity for sure plus it would fit in with the series of artists featured in Metal Hurlant at the time.
This is the back cover of an Impulse Jazz compilation with a weird contraption by lesser-known Underground Comix artist Dave Sheridan (RIP) – odd to see this on a jazz record but then again Robert Crumb was no stranger to the genre.
Last but not least we have Jim Fitzpatrick who did many sleeves for Thin Lizzy in the 70’s through to the early 80’s. Not really a comic artist as such, more in the Celtic Fantasy range as an illustrator but you can see the comic book influence in his style with the psychedelic lettering on the early releases looking like Robert Williams‘ work or even Hawkwind-era Barney Bubbles.
Love this die-cut cover showing through the inside sleeve.
This Greatest Hits release was advertised with a comic strip-like page in an issue of Sounds, riffing off a cowboy theme. 
Not quite sure if this is Jim Fitzpatrick as the line work is a bit spikier and Steve Cook again pointed out that it could be Martin Asbury – probably best known for drawing Garth and the style certainly looks similar.
It’s London’s turn to host Eilon Paz for the launch of the Dust & Grooves book in the UK with an exhibition, signing and guest DJs playing all vinyl sets on May 23rd. After the successful US launch on Record Store Day, April 19th we get the release in Europe a month later on May 20th.
Check out Ollie Teeba, Jonny Trunk, Dom Servini, Coleen Murphy, Kid Dyno and Sheila B spinning for free and enter a raffle to win a copy of the book at The Proud Archivist gallery in Hackney from 6pm. Unfortunately, due to a prior booking of the ‘3-Way Mix’ down in Southampton, I can’t be there otherwise I’d be joining that line up in a second.
There’s more info here and I’m currently working on editing an interview I did with cover star Mr Scruff that didn’t make the book deadline to appear on the D&G website for the launch. See a film of the launch party in Brooklyn below to get a taste of what will be happening and don’t forget to put aside a few hours to visit the Dust & Grooves website.
