Jason and Jim at Tribal Gathering

Steve Cook put these photos up last week on his Secret Oranges blog. Above is Jim Murray and below, Jason Brashill, taken at Tribal Gathering in ’97. Both were then working for 2000ad on various projects, with Jim eventually finishing off vol.2 of the Batman/Judge Dredd team-up ‘Die Laughing’ after Glenn Fabry couldn’t commit to it. He then went off to work in the computer games industry but has just put out a gorgeous book with Robbie Morrison called ‘Drowntown’ which is the first of several apparently. Jason followed a similar path but not before he’d painted one of my favourite sleeves for The Herbaliser in the shape of ‘Wall Crawling Giant Insect Breaks’, which I commissioned from him after seeing his work with graffiti artists She One and Req 1 as part of their Brighton crew, The Dusty Knights.

Posted in 2000ad, Art, Comics, Design, Ninja Tune. | No Comments |

The Devil’s In The Details

Friends on my Facebook page recently will have seen a new photo album called ‘The Devil’s In The Details’ where I’ve been posting design finds that I’ve photographed whilst going through a load of records recently. All these details are hidden on the backs of sleeves or on the actual labels, another example of something that’s disappearing with the digital age.


I’ve been having a clear out recently, I’ve not properly weeded out my record collection for years apart from going through the Hip Hop last year and it’s always fascinating to realise what you have and what’s contained within the artwork as well as the grooves. Speaking of Facebook, I now have a dedicated DJ Food Official page for gig news and official releases.

Posted in Design, Records. | No Comments |

Pacific Rim – the verdict

I should have written about Pacific Rim over last weekend but didn’t find time, but I’m happy to report that it was excellent for a big summer sci-fi blockbuster.  Whilst not perfect, it certainly lived up to the promise all those posters I’ve been putting up. As far as giant robots fighting giant monsters goes, it will take some beating (no pun intended). The Jaegers (the bots) looked incredible, with each one having its own distinct visual personality to tell them apart and they had weight when they moved even if the science behind them was shot through with holes. In fact, don’t even try to start picking apart that side of things as the film would just fall down immediately. The Kaiju (the monsters) are also not your run of the mill brainless city-destroying cannon fodder, they have a few tricks up their sleeves that you don’t see coming along with a reason why they’re there in the first place.

Character-wise it was full of stereotypes with some seriously clunky dialogue at times, my main gripe being that we didn’t need two kooky scientists, one straight man to play against the oddball would have been more effective. Sometimes I wanted it played a little more seriously than it was, Ron Perlman hammed it up for all he’s worth which, along with the aforementioned scientists, made it seem a lot less terrifying in light of what was happening. Idris Elba was very good though as the first in command with a couple of great lines.

The 3D was decent 99% of the time, not forced like the Star Trek: Into Darkness trailer I saw some months back where it was so unnatural as to be virtually unwatchable. Compared to it’s nearest rival – Michael Bay’s Transformers trilogy – it beats all three with a rocket-powered punch, and that’s just in the first 20 minutes. This is how to do big budget mech movies, less of a hasty, blurry washing machine battle, Del Toro brings something more visually coherent. It’s been said that this could start a new franchise as there’s enough scope before and after the storyline here, let’s hope he’s on board if they do continue (and that he somehow slips in Hellboy 3 along the way).

Not much of a deconstructive critique I know, but I got exactly what I was expecting and loved it although I did feel a little shell shocked as the credits rolled in the IMAX, watching it at that size is really the way to do it. Next films I’m looking forward to are the sci-fi epic Elysium, then Gravity which I’m told has some of the most ground-breaking sequences and cgi ever seen (and this comes from someone who worked on it at the Framestore).

Posted in Film. | 1 Comment |

Cyriak does Bloc Party’s new video


The ever-brilliant Cyriak takes his Photoshop scalpel to Bloc Party for his latest piece, combining footage from two existing videos apparently. As with all his work, he just keeps going, long after most people would have stopped and repeated an earlier clip again, he takes it another step further. Incredible.

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Solid Steel line up T-shirt 2004

Just found this, the special T-shirt we made after the first year of the Solid Steel night at Ruby Lo to thank everyone who played. Ruby Lo (short for Ruby Lounge) was a basement bar in London’s West End near Bond Street, down a side street by Selfridges. DK and I were the residents each month, the night was only £3 but we didn’t announce who was playing, you had to trust that we’d get decent guests. We really wanted to do a residency at a place where it was intimate, had seating and a DJ booth on the floor rather than a stage. As it turned out, the booth was in the middle of everything with a dancefloor on one side and seating directly behind so we were virtually in the round.

What a line up, 2005 was just as good, I need to find that list too. It would fill up with after work drinkers early on but they would clear out by about 9pm and our crowd would come down to see the set list pinned to the wall with who would be playing. I’m pretty sure this was Diplo‘s first ever London DJ appearance, he was playing Fabric the next night and we only got him because he wasn’t announced. For Luke Vibert‘s appearance he bought Aphex with him and for the December resident set DK and I gave away every record we played after we’d finished with it (pre-Serato days).

Posted in DJ Food, Gigs, Solid Steel. | 4 Comments |

More postcard records from Postmanlove

These two 5″ postcard records have been available for some time now but I missed them the first time round. The first is by 2econd Class Citizen (above) and the second by Glen Porter (below). Artwork on these is by Toobz and the music is exclusive.

They are the first in a new series by the Postmanslove label, from the people behind Vinyl Postcards in Austria. Now up to no.5, they come in an editon of 200 with 50 in an even more limited edition with a personalised stamp.

Grab one from their online shop.

Posted in Music, Records. | 1 Comment |

Henry Flint at the San Diego Comic Convention 2013

News hot off the press concerning 2000ad’s line up for SDCC 2013 – the biggest comic book convention in the world: “We are pleased to announce that our very special guest for the event will be Judge Dredd artist Henry Flint, who is drawing the hotly-anticipated comic book sequel to last year’s DREDD movie. He will be signing and sketching at the booth throughout the weekend.

Earthlets should visit Booth #2806 for exclusive limited edition comic art posters by Flint, as well as limited-edition Judge Dredd and Zenith T-shirts!”

Now, that’s good news, Henry finally making a star appearance overseas and being confirmed as the artist on the Dredd sequel comic too! Also check out his stunning cover to one of the stories of the year in 2012 – ‘Trifecta’. The triple-plot whammy that unveiled without warning last year in the pages of 2000ad to massive acclaim. It’s finally collected into one volume with this great *EDIT -LENTICULAR* cover. (Animated gif, stolen from the Everything Comes Back To 2000ad site – check them out, well recommended)


Posted in 2000ad, Comics. | No Comments |