antigob: Paint

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Thursday, 22 October 2009

Calexico LIVE Poster

One of the things I hate about MP3s and the Internet is they robs the mystique of music a little. All that information on your favourite bands is now so readily to hand and because we often listen to most of our tunes on iPods, there's no album art to scour over for any precious details. A picture on a display is not the same.

One of my favourite sites is archive.org. with its massive library of free live recordings that most of the acts have allowed to be posted. There's alot of shite, but among the turgid files are some real gems, such as Calexico's show at the China Theatre in Stockholm. I'd never heard their music before, but some friends are fans and this was a great way of finding out about not just Calexico, but a whole load of other acts from Tuscon, such as Giant Sand. It seemed the city has a pretty vibrant music scene (although I've learnt it's not what it once was).

The first time I heard this set was late one Saturday night in mid-summer. I'd just been djing a friend's party and was riding from Mile End back to Brixton at around three in the morning. I don't know if it was the hot night, or the full moon, but the cycling was pretty spooky. The kind of night you could see a UFO flying behind a cloud. And so to tie the two ideas loosely together, I thought, 'this set needs a poster', so I ended up drawing Calvin Parker with weird silver eyes. No, don't know why, I just liked the way it looked.

It's not as slick as the Sasquatch one, but I was never happy with the photoshopped text. Too perfect. This is a bit more textural, it had inconsistencies and it was fun to do. What more do you want from a hobby?

A4 size

Monday, 10 August 2009

UC Records

I had a go at running a record label a few years back, just as record labels were starting to lose loads of money and before Boomkat started stocking MP3 releases. UC Records never got further than an enthusiastic CR-R electronica label ran out of my horrible little flat in Bath, but there you go. It was fun and I got to make like a sleeve designer, which is probably the main reason most people start labels in the first place.

From left to right:
We Sailed A Raft Across The Forty Foot
This was a UC Records sampler we dished out for one of our Prism nights. We liked giving things away, probably because we were so needy - stickers, CDs and even one night, Martin's entire record collection. People really liked the cover of this mix, but not the mix itself, even though it featured a Yo La Tengo and Optimo track. Not because we had some incredible licensing deal, but because I liked the music and just stuck it on. Luckily they never found out.

Monstatruk: Lincolnshire is for Lovers
My final, but unreleased EP (unless you download it down there). I like to pretend I never put it out because I wanted it be one of those great lost records. Not true, my PC, with the CD burner (yes, all the CDs were hand burned), crashed at my last ever gig. Again, I like to think this all happened for a reason and it was just my time to stop, man. Nope, the PC got really hot and had beer spilled all over it. Oh, and this gig wasn't in some dingy club, but a big old chapel in Bath in front of a load of bemused indie fans.

Prism poster
Once a month, we'd DJ at Doolallys, a tiny little place in Bath now long gone. It was great, there was beer and cake, and an owner who'd let us drink for free before handing over fifty quid each time, regardless of how many people turned up. It usually wasn't many and most of them were friends. But we gave away free things, played the records we wanted to play and occasionally these records were really bad. It was fun and that's what it's all about. Interestingly, the owner suddenly announced he'd sold the business and was moving to New Zealand to run their Olympic selection squad. As you do. Anyway, we called the night Prism for some reason, probably because we all liked the Boards of Canada. We used green because no one ever used green on DJ fliers. They don't for good reason, because punters think you're pushing fertilizers or something and not a club night they can dance at, which because Doolallys was a cafe, they couldn't.

Our best cover was done by this guy who also wrote all the music. It was for our best release: Evil Twin, Twinage Kicks.