I am so crap at this

I'm sorry, I know every time I say I WILL UPDATE MORE OFTEN and then just don't but you're just going to have to stop relying on me updating aren't you?

What have I done since last time? Well there was the March This City Is Ours, which looked like this:

This City Is Ours and Mind On Fire put on Paul White at Kraak. I did two posters for this, one with loads of words on and a more practical, streamlined version. I don't know who did the picture of the little fella, sorry, I believe it's from one of Paul White's records though.

And then the April This City Is Ours, which served as the album launch for Cogi's Time O'Clock, which is a dead good record, kind of ambient electronica but not totally, and you can get it by clicking on these words here. The artwork here is from the Cogi album sleeve, it's by Paul Hallows who is dead good.

In the meantime I've been doing some stuff for the next Kites EP (a sticker and a poster) and I'll upload those here as soon as they're finished and stuff. That's it for now. See, it hasn't even taken me long to do this, I don't know why I don't bother. OH WELL

Early spring clean

Yeah, hi, sorry.

Erm, I've not posted since October. There's really no reason for that, other than becoming a bit disillusioned with blogging. I don't really have a better way of keeping a record of what's going on though, and I have been busy, not so much with new stuff but exciting things happening nonetheless.

The Sketchbook Project thing in London was a lovely little setup, like a library within a library. When I got there I couldn't check my sketchbook out immediately as someone else already had it, which was a pleasant surprise. Here I am when I finally found it anyway:

Ridiculous amount of hair and beard. I found Bambi's as well, it looked like this:

I can't believe my last post was looking forward to the Carefully Planned festival, it seems like ages ago now. Well, it was ages ago... Anyway, the exhibition that Amy and I organised as part of it was a great success as was the entire festival. Here's some pictures from that then.

Great weekend. Looks like I needed a haircut then as well, scruffy git. Coming into this year now (happy new year!!), we went to see the David Shrigley exhibition at the Cornerhouse. I loved it, obviously, what with being a superfan and all. 

Not sure why I look so frightened in that last one, to be perfectly honest. After that, it was the Skyliner Streetview exhibition which has been a long time coming but completely worth the wait. It was packed out, really busy and really impressive in terms of the number of submissions and the quality. Hayley did a cracking job, she can be really proud of herself. I know she's got a couple of ideas for events later in the year which are very much in the early stages yet but sound very exciting.

Most of these photos have been craftily stolen from Kelly's Instagram account, by the way. I should credit her, so consider this a credit. That reminds me, now I've got a phone that's not a complete shed I've got an Instagram account as well. Naturally my username is DeadPheasant so chuck us a follow will yer? Cheers.

OK, what else? The poster thing I did for This City Is Ours has been updated to include their new residents and the Wahlbar logo and I've done another couple of posters for them as well. Unfortunately these events have been and gone by now of course, but here they are anyway. I think the latest one is my favourite so far actually.

Last but by no means least, this past week has been the most successful for me music-wise everrrr. I've done a remix of 200x by Johnny Foreigner which I can't share yet but Junior from the band emailed me to say he was "tripping out" listening to it. It's a seven minute psychadelic thing and I'm pretty pleased with it so hopefully they'll like it enough to include it in the batch of remixes they're putting together of Johnny Foreigner vs Everything for release very soon. Exciting stuff. ALSO one of my tunes Frankenstein's Monster Destroys Wigan Pier has been featured on the second monthly edition of Drowned in Sound Community Podcast Radio which you can listen to right here:

To be honest you should listen to the previous one as well because the standard is very high and I'm really pleased to have been featured alongside such good stuff. All my tracks are still available to download for free from my Soundcloud account still but I have to warn you, Superman vs Freddie Mercury is nearly at its download limit so if you want it, get it now. Although I'll probably just re-up it when it does anyway.

Right, anyway, I think that's everything. Now I've got all this out of the way I'm going to get back into doing this on a regular basis again. Promise.

Pay attention, this is important and I'm tired.

This weekend the Sketchbook Project finally rolls into London. It's there for a few days so me and Kelly are going down to see the sketchbooks that me and Bambi did for it a whoooole year ago. Dead Phez fest. Shame Bam can't make it but we're planing on mega fun nonetheless. It's been a while since they were posted so if you click on these words here you will see my sketchbook and if you click on these words here you will see Bambi's.

THEN

Next weekend the second Carefully Planned festival takes over Manchester. Six venues, including 2022NQ, where an exhibtion will be simultaneously taking place which I have been helping out to curate. The brains behind the outfit is the lovely Amy Tidmarsh who has done all the posters and stuff for Carefully Planned. She's got mad skillz so it's going to be great. Like really, really great. Come along.

I've also done a drawing for Hayley Flynn of Skyliner fame for a theatre company called Northern Spirit's project A Wondrous Place. It's a pretty nice idea about creating a theatre show based around contributions from bloggers from northern cities, namely Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield and Tyne and Wear. Keep your eyes peeled for my small contribution anyway, this week is her week to take over their website. Hopefully very soon we can announce some more exciting stuff to do with them too.

And last but by no means least, the back cover for the Haiku Salut/Hopeless Local Marching Band split single on Wild Combination Recordings is done and looks like this:

It comes out on the 2nd of November and they're having a party in Nottingham for it. Top one.

Oh, and I know this post is basically just a load of links but there's not one here that doesn't warrant clicking on, not one.

This City Is Ours end of year stuffs

I feel awful today, I've got gastric flu or something so I've spent the day blowing my nose, drinking tea and trying not to be sick. Gross. Now I feel the most like a person I have all day so I've decided to upload all my design stuff to my Facebook and write this blog post thing. Here we go.

This is a bit mental. This City Is Ours have declared the year over in terms of flyer designing at least. They've done a bit of a combo thing for the last three months so that they can get the student denizens of sunny Fallowfield in the know. Makes perfect sense, but it does mean they're already talking about new years eve. Like I said, mental.

The first two are going to be a double sided flyer, the last one is a poster for the venue. The photos are by Kelly as ever. We actually went around the city taking lots of photos to use for flyers and that, as well as so that I could learn how to use her cameras, but we didn't get them developed in time for freshers week so these pics are (believe it or not) from her phone. Skillz. Anyway, the photos from that day will be posted soon, for now, farewell 2012, you've been wonderful. As far as TCIO flyers are concerned, anyway, this certainly isn't all I'm going to have to show for the year.

While I'm here actually, I've done a drawing for Skyliner, it was for a Streetview competition thing and hopefully there'll be an exhibition to go with it. This is A View From Corporation St.

Kind of. If you went to Corporation St, you wouldn't see that. But I don't think that's important because when I sent it to Hayley she said it was gnarly. Ha.

New Hips: Love Hz/Split Milk [Baptists & Bootleggers]

Here's something that's happening. New Hips are releasing Love Hz and Split Milk as a double A-side single on the rather good Baptists & Bootleggers label. Now I'll be honest with you, I'd not heard of the band until Baptists & Bootleggers announced it but it turns out they're dead good. If you haven't heard of the label, they released the self-titled Vei EP along with a lovely package of stuff that I would very much like to get my hands on (hint hint) but doesn't seem to be available any more. Sadface.

Anyway yeah, this New Hips thing is really good. Right up my street, it starts out like an electro Dartz and carries on in that widdly, complicated, tangled up guitar lines way that is guaranteed to make me do my Ian Curtis receiving electric shock therapy dance around my bedroom. Come to the release party on Friday if you don't know what that is, they're giving the record away (giving it away!) and Tribal Fighters are playing as well. Speaking of Tribal Fighters, they've got a free EP on their Bandcamp page. So much free stuff. If you get the CD on Friday it's got some remixes with it, if you get the 7" (yes please) it's packaged in a 12” re-seal able polythene record sleeve and includes a 36” x12” poster, an A6 insert and and A3 wrap around sleeve for the record. All the art work is by Zia Chan and is hand screen printed. Ridiculous. Limited though, only 100 7"s and 250 CDs. Fair play I guess.

New Hips Promo Video from Baptists and Bootleggers on Vimeo.

Hold on, I'm going to play it again. Can't put my finger on who the vocals remind me of. Someone good. This review is crap, sorry. Just come along and get some free shit and have a bit of fun. There's this video thing above that gives you a bit of an idea of what the song's like backwards. Nice video, I like it. Having done my own research too like a pro I've found this video of them playing Love Hz so make your own mind up.

Love Hz from New Hips on Vimeo.

Robert Smith from the Cure, that's who the vocals remind me of. Hows about that then.

TCIO, Wild Combination, baby tshirts (?!)

Alright pals. Have a look at this then eh.

Here's the latest flyer for This City Is Ours. It's on the 15th of September as you can see, you should come, it won't be as good without you.

I don't know if I've mentioned it before but I've been working on the cover of the first release on Wild Combination Recordings. It's a split single between Haiku Salut and Hopeless Local Marching Band. The label's run by the lovely Jordan Dowling. I did the drawings and text and stuff, Jordan added a couple of bits in the background like the road and clouds and stuff. Here it is.

Not sure when it's out yet but I'm told it will include more than 25 mins of tunage for just £2, which is frankly ludicrous. Can't wait to hear it. Need to do the back cover now mind you.

In other news, two little babies have arrived in my life. Nowt to do with me, mate, my friends' kids like. Anyway, I made a tshirt for Phil and Sarah's baby George. This is the front.

This is the back.

Here's some pictures of me holding it and trying to do the same face.

Unfortunately there are no pictures of George wearing it yet because he's only wee. At least he'll grow into it though and it'll last him longer. James and Hayley are waiting, no doubt with baited breath, to see what present little Harry gets. They're all so lucky to know me, I know. Seriously though, congratulations to the four of them I LOVE YOU ALL EQUALLY x

Right, that's enough of that now. See you at TCIO yeah? Oh and while I'm at it, you should really really buy tickets for the Carefully Planned Festival, I'll tell you why soon enough. Peace and love x

Tungsten in LDN

Let me set a little scene here. I have just spent nearly 3 hours assembling my brand new bed. On my own. With no power tools. I am aching. I am tired. I feel accomplished. Now it's finally assembled and I've got covers on I've allowed myself a little time with my laptop. Naturally the first thing to do is check out my CD from the LomoLab. And now I am grinning away. My aches and pains are magically gone because nothing cheers me more than seeing that my photos have come out alright. In fact not just alright. I'm going to go ahead and say these are possibly my new favourite roll of shots I've ever taken.

I won't delay any longer. Just look at them.

HOW FLIPPING AMAZING IS TUNGSTEN FILM?!

I bought some of the Lomography X Tungsten 64 ages ago and had been saving it. Now it's out of production it seems extra important not to waste the rolls. This is the first of the 3 pack I bought. And I think it's simply brilliant. I'm so happy with how the shots came out. I was using the LC-A+ with the ISO set to 100 as that's the lowest it'll go. Those famed Tungsten tones have come out pretty beautifully if I say so myself. All round I'm mega pleased that I used my first roll of Tungsten in London. Totally worth the wait.

The full album is here is you wanna nosey.

What do you guys think?

Laters, P x