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.
Earlier this year I headed to Village Underground to experience Radioland‘s Radio-Activity Revisited gig, accompanied by Matt Johnson. The trio of Matthew Bourne, Franck Vigroux and visual artist Antoine Schmitt were reinterpreting Kraftwerk‘s classic album in a mix of stark analogue electronics and monochrome graphics. From the previews I’d seen online I was really looking forward to it and, drinks in hand, we congregated near the front of the crowd awaiting the performance.
The sound that greeted us was so loud that after one number I suggested to an equally uncomfortable Matt that maybe we should move further back. By the end of the second number we were right at the back of the room and bumped in Leaf label boss Tony Morley who had seen them perform the night before and cleverly invested in some ear plugs for the occasion. As the volume seemed to increase with each track we decided to make an early exit which is why I’m relieved to see that Leaf are now releasing an album of the rework so that I can finally hear the full thing in the comfort of my own home with the volume level set to ‘wuss’.
Available on LP, CD in 20pg hardback book or DL, with sleeve notes by David Stubbs, no earplugs needed.
I’ve been after one of these for a while and a copy turned up earlier this month in a South London market. The sleeve to the Psychedelic Furs’ Dumb Waiters single had what’s known as a ‘Polish Postcard’ cover. I’ll be covering these in a forthcoming post but It’s a slight cheat as the grooves aren’t stamped in the cardboard, it’s more a clear disc stuck on top of the card sleeve with the all-important spindle hole through the centre. The cover contains a sampler of their then current album, Talk Talk Talk and the back of the sleeve states: “Watch for the new album TALK TALK TALK (CBS 84892) and hear it on this sleeve at 33 r.p.m.”. 
I was lucky enough to find time for a bookstore binge last weekend in Plymouth at the excellent Book Cupboard shop which yielded some Richard Powers and vintage Josh Kirby covers (ie: pre-Pratchett) and more.
Above: Richard M. Powers / Josh Kirby (bottom row only). Some of these were part of another batch of books that Stuart McLean aka Frenchbloke sourced for me from his local bookstore in Scotland. He very kindly went through multiple boxes and photographed a ton for me to pick through and reserve at The Book Shop, Wigtown. Massive thanks to Stuart who’s just completed his annual 48 hr radio marathon, The Dark Outside. Check out similar treats in his Stolen Library project too for free books and records.
I’m not exactly sure who the artists are on the books below except for The Cosmic Eye cover which is by Mike Hinge, but thought they looked interesting. If anyone has similar book stores in their town then please let me know so I can hit them up if and when I visit please.
Simon James (Black Channels/The Simonsound) will be performing Two Knocks For Yes at Saint Andrews Church, Waterloo St. Brighton (UK) on the 23rd of October. Shrouded in secrecy, Two Knocks For Yes will incorporate talks, music, theatre and photography. Get tickets here.
You may remember me posting the Two Knocks For Yes mix last Halloween, now the “Radiophonic investigation into the poltergeist phenomenon gets a limited cassette release on Castles in Space, just in time for Halloween. The Buchla 200e Electric Music Box is used to haunting effect providing otherworldly tones, presences and vibrations. The B side features instrumental incidentals for ghost stories. Available mid October. Pre-order here.”
I don’t need this
I can’t really afford this
The price of shipping nearly doubles the cost of this
But my god it’s a lovely object. Buy one here and make me jealous.
My last album cover (The Search Engine, 4-panel vinyl edition) that I collaborated on with Henry Flint is the first cover you see in an exhibition of record sleeves by comic artists entitled PHONO+GRAPHIC, curated by artist Sean Phillips.
This is a bit of a dream come true for me, to be one of 60 sleeves displayed alongside artists like Brian Bolland, Dave Gibbons, Brett Ewins, Hunt Emerson and Moebius!
It opens next week at the Kendal Museum and will be on until the 20th October, including the weekend of the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. Many thanks to Sean for selecting the cover completely unbeknownst to me until he’d announced the exhibit and framing it so nicely.
Photos taken from Sean’s blog and here’s more info
As if I’ve not been banging on about Divine Styler and Gamma Proforma enough this year, here’s another reason but this time I’m involved in the release. I was asked to remix a track from his last album, Def Mask and chose ‘Pandorum’ which will sit alongside other guests like EVAC (Touchin Bass), Mophono (Liquid Amber), GFQ, Audiosyncracy, Monkphat, Co-Pilot, Auxilary Phoenix, Third Shock & Methodblack. It’s due out Jan 2016 but you can pre-order it here and comes with a Will Barras cover and print. Here’s a preview
Another upcoming Gamma event sounds very promising, this was tweeted today…
“10th Dec 2015, London. Rammellzee – Cosmic Flush Exhibition Ft. Futura, Doze Green, Delta, Ian Kuali’i and more.” Make a note in the diary.
Also don’t forget the 4th part of the 7-release Rammellzee Cosmic Flush album is available to order here featuring a Doze Green cover and a remix from Edan.
Starts this Thursday, another great poster and video from Andy Votel.
Kid Acne delves into his archives for a week-long exhibition at Unit 26 of the Boxpark in Shoreditch this week. For opening times please check the BOXPARK website + join them on October 1st from 6 – 9pm for #FirstThursdays + beer, music, animation and art.
Also out now is a Ltd. Edition 10″ six track EP from Mongrels (Kid Acne & Benjamin). The sleeve is screen-printed by Edna and all 300 copies have been signed, stamped and numbered on the back plus each record comes with a vinyl sticker and lithograph insert. BUY IT here and see the sleeve being made below:
The veil of secrecy has been lifted and The Empire defeated. Lots of great photos are appearing on the Secret Cinema Facebook page from their Star Wars event now that its run is over. Above is Mike Massaro‘s amazing photo of a life-size X-Wing Fighter, complete with pilot, zooming down the trench to obliterate the Death Star. This recreation of the end of the original Star Wars takes place before the film screening, perfectly setting everyone up for viewing The Empire Strikes Back.
I played around 15 shows for them this summer, from party sets in the main Death Star room (pictured above) to electro funk mixes in the Mess Hall clad in full, film-accurate Stormtrooper gear to African-flavoured selections in the Cantina bar dressed as a Rebel pilot.
After ‘leaving Earth’ and landing on Tatooine guests are guided through Mos Eisley‘s spaceport, complete with houses, market traders, rogue Jawas, Stormtroopers and a Cantina bar. Boba Fett roams around as do many of the characters from the film, all playing out scenes from Episode IV (an excellent recreation of ‘these are not the droids you’re looking for’ was re-enacted complete with full scale Landspeeder).
Rebels are then smuggled ‘off world’ in a shuttle which is captured, sucked into the Death Star by tractor beam and boarded by Stormtroopers. Those who manage to escape can visit the Mess Hall bar area, explore various rooms and corridors and experience recreations of keys scenes from A New Hope before the big climax mentioned above.
After the film people congregate back at the Cantina, drinking Jawa Juice or trying a Termal Detonator cocktail, dance with aliens or wander the spaceport and explore. Photos above are mostly taken from the official Secret Cinema archive, taken by Hanson Leatherby (Luke in X-Wing), Will Cooper (blue Stormtrooper), Paul Cochrane (Cantina), Mike Massaro (X-Wing, Imperial Commander on shuttle).
It was one of the most exciting and memorable events I’ve ever been invited to be a part of. Everyone involved should be congratulated as the attention to detail was second to none, it was like being in the film at times. I attended with friends and family twice as a punter and each time was different, we experienced so many things at each one that they could have been alternate universes. Equally I heard tales from friends that went who interacted with characters I never knew were even part of it despite exploring the site many times.
DJ Moneyshot has posted one of his mixes from the Mess Hall area here, a superb blend of electro & digital funk.
Something to get you in the mood for the 45 Live gig this Saturday at Factory in Plymouth.
All 7″s, no track list yet, bonus point for those that get the title reference without googling it.
After a drought I’m overflowing with mixes at the moment and there’s more to come…
This week it’s a triple flexi shoot out with Coldcut‘s Jon More returning to add a gem from his collection to the selection and it’s taken a fair bit of research to piece together some of the info here. Two of the discs are adverts for party nights around the capital highlighting a particular trend for distributing information about underground or illegal dance music in the 80s and early 90s. All are unintentional comedy gold in part as well.
We’ll start in chronological order with Jon’s contribution: ‘Discoland’ by The Baby Sham $ Boys (the name says it all) for a party in Blackfriars, London from 1986 from what I can tell by tracing the date and by the clubs, DJs and artists mentioned. Jon remembers, “I may have got this when I worked at Reckless (secondhand record store in Soho) – I have a vague memory of someone dropping a pile off… I did not go – a decision that was easy to make after listening to the “advert”….”
Terribly sung and narrated over The Floaters‘ ‘Float On’ we have sex, drugs, geezers, innuendo and the worst French accent you ever heard. Narrator Robert introduces organiser Mark and DJs Chris, Little James and Simon (Pew?) in a line up that just screams 80s, mercifully there’s no B side.
A recent discovery of mine in an East London record emporium – where the (young) cashier looked at it exclaiming, “what is it?” – was this party invite on a flexi. Simply entitled ‘Party’ this 1-sided disc, complete with London Records logo, is a comparatively slick production featuring rapper E-Mix giving details for a jam on Saturday 12th Sept, 1987 over Public Enemy‘s ‘Timebomb’ instrumental.
It seems to be for an illegal party featuring DJs Jazzie B, Ratchet, Mark Moore, Ben Jones, Little John, Milton Checkley (sp?) and Roots (the same one as featured on early Ninja Tune records maybe?). There’s a CT logo above the London one, was this the party name or venue? E Mix calls out, “CT getting busy now” at the start and the venue is quoted as “next door to Bill Sticker, not the big route ‘cos it is too suspicious” and “be there dead at 11, don’t make a queue, remember, this is an illegal do”. Again tracing the date back it seems that this comes from 1987 which would make sense with the names and the Public Enemy backing track.
The final flexi has literally no info on the clear disc itself aside from ‘Orlake’ (this will be the pressing plant it was made at) and ‘Sturflexi’ (the catalogue number) scratched into the run out. I got this many years ago, thrown in as part of a trade with another collector and, through the magic of Discogs, managed to find out what this gem was. Apparently it came free with an issue of UK magazine Generator and was worth the punt as it’s certainly unique.
Two sides of adverts for compilations with side A featuring two ads for The Sonic Experience – Def Til’ Dawn (1993) on Strictly Underground Records. This contains recordings of people and police from raves in between tracks, sounds professionally made and I’m pretty sure I heard some of these on Colin Dale and Colin Favor‘s KISS FM shows in the early 90s.
The B side contains three ads for compilations on Strictly Hardcore, (a subsidiary of Strictly Underground) Illegal Rave (1992), Illegal Rave II (1993) and Illegal Pirate Radio (1993). In comparison to the flip these ads are just two geezers (presumably label owner Mark Ryder and someone called John or Kev) waxing lyrical about the records, flipping through the tracks as friends would in bedrooms around the nation. The fact that the words ‘strictly’ and ‘kev’ were included was not lost on me and I cut this up at the start of a Hardcore mix I made around 2004.
Never one to pass up an opportunity to advertise their wares, the advert for Illegal Rave was included at the end of the Illegal Rave II compilation, another was featured at the end of the later Illegal Pirate Radio II comp and The Sonic Experience featured the ad for Illegal Pirate Radio.
Apparently there was a sleeve for it which may have helped me put together some of this info a bit quicker, this post hast taken up far too much time!
Love this poster for 1972 film ZPG (Zero Population Growth), sort of a visual mix of Logan’s Run and Yellow Submarine. The film looks awful though…
A spotlight on ads designed by Barney Bubbles taken from various issues of Sounds or the NME between 1977-81. No doubt there were many more but I don’t have complete collections. I’m fairly certain that these are done by Barney’s hand as all bear his style and he designed the sleeves for these releases so you would assume he would have done the ads too. I could be wrong though and no doubt Paul Gorman who runs the excellent Reasons To Be Cheerful blog dedicated to Barney’s work could provide 100% confirmation.
What is The Dark Outside?
24 Hours of Music nobody has heard before in a place where nobody might be listening.
Who is taking part?
There are quite a lot of contributors, you’d best scroll down the list here.
I’ve contributed an unreleased remix but it’s hidden in the line up.
When?
Sept 26th-27th, 2015
Where?
Murrays Monument, Talnotry, The Galloway Forest Dark Skies Park, Scotland. More explicit directions are here
What’s the catch?
You need travel to one of the darkest places in the UK and bring a radio.
Can anyone contribute?
Yes! Send material to [email protected]
Where can I find more info?
http://www.darkoutside.co.uk/
What’s this?
The location that The Dark Outside will be broadcasting from (in the day of course)
PS. What is the Stolen Library?
Ah, that is something possibly even more wonderful
I saw this recently and, although dated technically, it has some fantastic sets, shots and soundtrack moments. A tale of the world’s first AI supercomputer who decides man is a danger to himself and holds the world to ransom. The film was based on a novel by D.F. Jones from two years previous and there were two sequels although none apparently live up to the original. Highly recommended and sporting some great poster and book cover design from the late 60s.
I can’t say enough good things about the new anthology comic Island. Put together by Brandon Graham and Emma Rios it’s a collection of stories by all manner of artists working in the field from the well known, the lesser known to first timers. There’s no over-arching themes although visions of future societies do feature largely but these aren’t super hero, big brawl shoot ’em up comics, they’re about ideas, relationships and a bigger picture. Some strips are self-contained and some continue in the next issue, some even continue several issues later and the hit rate per issue is high.
Issue 3 just came out – worth it for the Faryl Dalrymple cover alone (above) – you can see previews over on the comic’s tumblr and order digital versions from Image if print copies are hard to find. What’s also refreshing is that it contains no ads whatsoever and all the usual publisher guff is kept to the smallest possible point size in the most inconspicuous place so you get the maximum amount of comics and the minimum amount of distraction. There’s no standard Island logo either so each issue looks different but you can tell it from other standard comics as it’s larger and has a perfect bound spine rather than staples.
Great post over on Scarfolk this week…
