Back at some point in the early 90s I found an odd comic called Hep in the old Gosh! comic shop when it was across the road from the British Museum. I had no idea what it was about and had never heard of the artist but the artwork was cool and it was a bizarre mix of weird and crazed nonsense so I bought it. It’s an oddity alright, full of strange turns of phrase and stream of conscious madness and I always looked for a second issue but never found one.
Now that we have the power of the internet at our fingertips I found myself googling it the other week and finding out more about the artist and author, Marc Bell, and seeing if a #2 did ever materialise. Seems it didn’t as Hep was the second of two different titles he made for Calibre Press that flopped before he moved on to doing weekly strips for Canadian free mag Exclaim. I used to pick up copies of this on tours of Canada in the mid 90s and I’m pretty sure I have some of his strips somewhere, extracted from various issues because I liked the look of them. While reading this Comics Journal interview with Bell I chanced upon this flyer for an exhibition opening featuring my good friend DJ Wig (now Ghostbeard – head of Ninja Tune North America) on the bill.
Anyway, all this to say that, during a weekend trip to Amsterdam where I had the good fortune to strike it lucky at Lambiek (post forthcoming), I happened upon a comic called Boof which looked interesting. It wasn’t until I got it home that I realised it was by the same artist and a quick internet search revealed that these two were his first ‘proper’ comics and hard to find now. No Hep #2 but something as good as.
Looks great, tickets on sale tomorrow apparently + third trailer. But where’s Luke?
“Echo’s Magical Garden is a brand of children’s clothing that aims to excite the imagination of child and parent alike. Taking its inspiration from the dreamlike wonder of folklore, myths and legends, Echo’s Magical Garden is about playfulness, adventure and fantasy.”
A new venture by Simon James (The Simonsound / Black Channels) and his wife, it aims to provide non-gender specific, affordable clothing for kids “imbued with childlike wonder; unusual, magical designs with their own stories to spark the imagination”
Illustrations are the work of Kirsten Ulve and inspiration taken from the incredible array of work collected on the Echo’s Magical Garden Pinterest board. Simon has provided music to two short stories about creatures in the garden, written by Neil Cargill and read by Graham Duff that flesh out the garden’s inhabitants.
Earlier this year Jonny Trunk sat in for Jarvis Cocker on his BBC 6 Music Sunday Service show and in amongst the sonic delights he’d pulled from his collection was this little oddity. One of many ‘product flexi discs’ that can be found in record bins the world over. A vast number of services, brands and appliances were marketed to the public via flexi’s because they were a cheap gimmick that stood out more than your average magazine ad but could be added into one with little fuss. We’ve already had Kenny Everett advertising Pepsi, psych songs selling Smiths crisps and Arp and EMS plugging their latest wares.
Now comes a double sided, double entendre-laden oddity, released in 1964 by a London-based company called Ski-Plan. The first side is a cheesy look into how the other half live with two couples comparing notes on how much their ski holiday costs, “£37 odd for the fortnight”, “crikey! we reckon our basics for travel and hotel alone will be £40”. How times change. There’s a bit of padding with a speedy accordion interlude before an oh-so-jolly description of the holiday perks and activities, punctuated with a clumsy plug for the company before a final waltz off into the run out groove. “I think you must have been mad fishing out all that lolly!”.
It’s pretty pedestrian stuff but the gold lies on the second side which is the one Jonny aired. Narrated by Fenella Fielding – a British actress known for a whole host of roles and voice work in the 50s and 60s and named ‘England’s first lady of the double entendre’. I was most interested to learn that she voiced the Blue Voice on the BBC version of The Magic Roundabout‘s ‘Dougal & The Blue Cat’ which used to scare the living daylights out of me as a child with he cooing, “Blue is beautiful, blue is best…” line. She also starred in several of the Carry On… and Doctor In…’ films and her husky tones are perfect as she gets you to limber up for your ski-ing lesson with her mind seemingly on anything but.
When I first asked Jonny to submit something for the Flexibition at the start of the year he out did himself and send a whole folder of scans for consideration. The most obvious choice was the F. C. Judd Practical Electronics disc but I didn’t want all his hard work to go to waste so here are a selection of some of the other flexi’s he pulled out for your perusal.
http://www.allvinylexperience.com/Product_Flexis_-_The_Early_Years_-_1930s-60s.html
I’ll be taking part in this this coming weekend, an afternoon of interviews on the art of curation where I’ll be talking about the thinking behind this very blog and how I go about selecting its content. The interview should be streaming live but bear in mind that the Netherlands is one hour ahead of London.
One of the extras from the new Monty Python & the Holy Grail 40th anniversary blu-ray. Get it here including a castle-shaped box set version with catapult and rubber animals.
A full page ad found in the back of Cozmic Comix #6, 1974 and the record it advertised by Robert Crumb.
By complete coincidence The Observer just published an extensive Crumb interview today too.
Back in early 1989 – aged 18 – I was going out with a girl who loved Guns n’ Roses‘ debut album with a passion. Wanting to make something personal for her as a present before her birthday I decided to paint a version of Robert Williams’ cover image from the original album cover (it was later replaced when the group blew up commercially). What I was thinking I don’t know what with the very dodgy subject matter it contained but that’s the fog of love for you.
I’d discovered Williams’ work a few years before via Zap Comix and loved this painting, despite the sexually assaulted woman (lord knows what she’d have thought of it, had it been finished). I set about copying it as accurately as possible in acrylics on a large piece of thick card, primed and gridded out to get the proportions correct. Below are a couple of in-progress shots I found from ’89 and you can see that I was enjoying painting the orange monster to start with. The chrome elements were incredibly difficult (and boring) to paint given the small reproduction I was working from (an LP cover borrowed from a friend, that I still have, sorry whoever has a sleeveless copy from back then).
I’d covered up the lower part of the image, partly to stop it getting dirty as I was generally leaning on the bottom half but mostly because I was still living with my parents and I was embarrassed about the subject matter of the assaulted woman. I wasn’t looking forward to painting that part at all if truth be told but it was integral to the original. As it turned out I never got to because she dumped me about a month before her birthday, any impetus to finish it vanished instantly and it was filed away in an old portfolio.
Over the years I’ve spotted it whilst rifling through the folder, pulled it out a few times and admired the level of dedication I must have had to go to such lengths. I recently shot details of some of the more finished bits to share here, you can see the layers of acrylic paint in parts and I was working with totally inadequate brushes, some with only a few hairs for tiny details.
One day I’ll have to finish it, just so all that work doesn’t go to waste but I’ve no desire to include the stricken woman so maybe I’ll paint something else in her place. As much as I admire Williams’ work – and copying this gave me a next level appreciation of the techniques he used – his depiction of the woman in this piece is the only thing I’m not a fan of.
Finally – for fans of horror soundtracks, library music, hauntology and dark psychedelia – Markey Funk‘s new album is up for pre-order at Bandcamp. Markey has been flying the freak flag for years in Jerusalem and has a wealth of knowledge and record collection to match where out-there music and film is concerned.
I was honoured to be asked to write the sleeve notes for this album, a classic blend of all the genres mentioned above and more, a soundtrack just waiting for a film to attach itself to. Available on LP or DL with extra mixtape or debut album bundles, here are the first images of the finished vinyl. Anyone who enjoyed the Mordy Laye & The Group Modular album, the Ghost Box catalogue or Italian horror soundtracks will love this record.
Thirteen random photos plucked from the new Will Barras book ‘Yeah Man!’, a beautifully produced 200+ page hardback of paintings, drawings and murals from Will’s career in the past 2 decades. It’s interesting to see his early styles develop and change throughout the book as he experiments with different mark making techniques, including collage at one point. I realised that there were whole eras of his work I wasn’t familiar with from the first examples I’d seen when we first met in the late 90s.
His initial comic-y style has become even more fluid and the black outlines have slowly disappeared into a darker, more painterly palette. There’s still the dynamic forced perspectives, lithe figures and futuristic vehicles, now joined by sprawling cityscapes and psychedelic colour combinations. I was delighted to get a signed copy with an original sketch too, “Thanks man!”. You can order a copy here.
Absolutely loving this new signing on the Leaf label (second mention of them this week? must be doing something right). I played ‘Neon Baby’ out in Pisa last night and it tore the place up. Definite shades of other Leaf signing Melt Yourself Down and that’s only a good thing in my book, bet they’re all over festivals next summer.
Their debut EP , ‘Prophecy’, is up for pre-order now – out next week – and they support Squarepusher alongside 808 State and Metalheadz at the Troxy in a couple of weeks as well as a solo gig at The Shacklewell Arms the day after. Who wouldn’t want to hear a trio named Danalogue The Conqueror, Betamax Killer and King Shabaka?
Mad magazine should need no introduction, its mascot, Alfred E. Newman (above: What – Me Worry?), has grinned greasily from its covers for decades now as the mag debuted in the early 1950s. They issued Specials which reprinted the best bits of the monthly mags and would contain posters, cards and sometimes sound sheets too, first on card and later on more traditional flexible plastic. Here are my collection, comprising over half the discs I’ve been able to find info on. My favourite has always been the one above with the strategically placed spindle hole where Alfred’s missing tooth is. The gags are of their time and some have dated better than others with the ‘It’s A Gas’ song probably best known among stoner or garage rock circles.
Some VERY of-its-time language on this one
‘Meet The Staff of MAD’ was the first sound sheet to be issued by the magazine, way back in 1959!
‘It’s a Gas’ was an early sound sheet, free with the magazine in the mid 1960s and also available on a regular 45 with a picture sleeves.
The Foo Fighters issued a flexi pressed onto card in 2014 that aped the layout of the MAD flexis above…
And here are some that I don’t have: The MAD Disco flexi had six songs on it – including a Disco version of ‘It’s A Gas’ – professionally played to perfectly ape the genre’s sound, unfortunately it was released in 1980, years after Disco’s peak.
‘Makin’Out’ is also late 70s, listen for the Star Wars and The Muppets references and pulsing Disco groove.
“It’s a Super-Spectacular Day” aka ‘The Mad Mystery Sound’ was included in a Summer 1980 issue of MAD magazine. The song has eight different unpleasant endings depending on where you drop the needle. You didn’t know which of the eight endings you’d hear when you played the song. MAD indeed.
We’re excited to announce a brand new radio show broadcasting live out of Los Angeles CA, on Friday 6th November, 8pm US PST (4am UK GMT) on the legendary Dublab.com featuring the entire 45 Live Crew!
‘The 45 Live Radio Show’ will be on air bi-monthly which will fall on the first and third Friday of each month. Your host will be soul, funk & gospel connoisseur DJ Greg Belson, and it’ll feature a guest on a rotational basis from the 45 Live elite (full roster here if you want to know who will be featured).
Yes, that’s what it says on the flyer above. 20 years ago today Ninja Tune held a launch party for the DJ Food album ‘A Recipe For Disaster’ at a small club called The Blue Note in a little known part of London called Shoreditch. Metalheadz hosted a club there every Sunday and a few others had done nights there at the time but such was the success of this one-off it was decided that the label should make it regular. Two months later ‘Stealth’ was born and Ninja became the second label to host a regularly monthly night at the club which, it’s no exaggeration to say, brought people to Shoreditch and spearheaded the interest and popularity of the area as we know it today.
The Space Merchants (London) run a monthly film night in East London showing classic Sci-Fi (the more out there and dystopian the better) whilst also operating an online book store and posting related items on their Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter.
The next date is October 19th where they’ll be showing the early 80s Christopher Walken-starring Brainstorm. They design a new poster for each event and sell prints at the showing or online, below are some of my favourites and give you a flavour for what they’re about.
I’ve no idea if these are official or fan-made but please Hollywood – more film poster like this please rather than those godawful over-retouched photoshop collages you seem to love.
Taken from the always excellent Live For Films site.
This weekend just gone I guested on @303OClock‘s twitter feed with a selection of my favourite Acid tracks. The twitter account posts two Acid tracks a day, at 3.03 am and pm, with weekends given over to guest curators. Couldn’t be simpler – give them a follow if you fancy some Acid, twice-daily. Here are my three picks:
DJ Food – Guest Pick 1. Paul Rutherford – ‘Get Real’ (Hardcore). A recent discovery, a 9.5 min unlabelled 3rd 12″ promo remix. Check the run out groove matrix no’s. (NB: this was produced by ABC back in 1988!)
DJ Food – Guest Pick 2. Sulphuric – The Acid Chamber. Kris Needs & Pete Smith – the B side of their only 12″ on Bandulu‘s Infonet label. Absolute killer of a tune
DJ Food – Guest Pick 3. Aphex Twin – Green Calx. Beautiful, classic Richard D James with a 303 sound that I can only describe as ‘dripping’ at the start.
… guests are also invited to choose one of their own tracks:
Georges Simenon book covers found in a Swiss chalet this summer – artist is hard to make out, gouje + amalic ?
Above: 4 Hero & Goldie (Top) / Eric B & Rakim
It’s been a while since I’ve featured Dan’s work but there’s reason to look at it again to play a bit of catch up and to point out that you will be able to see some of these in the flesh at The Universal Zulu Nation Anniversary – OPENING NIGHT in London on November 6th.
Below: Public Enemy & the S1Ws (colour & B&W) / Robert Glasper & Dilla (colour) / Biggie / Gil Scott Heron / Jay Z / Grandmixer D St. & Herbie Hancock / Ultramagnetic MCs.
UPDATE: The three images above seem to be the finished item, when I first posted these they were a work in progress (see below).
These incredible Star Wars re-imaginings have been doing the rounds on the web this weekend after a live drawing event with Kim Jung Gi. His eastern versions of the Star Wars galaxy are just mind-blowing as are his astronauts which I’ve joined together from details posted on Instagram. Check out his work, it’s all incredible.
