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

Next Saturday, you need to be free

Reeto, I think I've just got a pair of This City Is Ours flyers for you this time. First and foremost, this is the next one. It's really important you come because Kites, Vei and Borland are all playing actual live sets (omg) and they are all brilliant and you'll be so close you'll probably be able to play with Luke's pedal board (but you shouldn't because that's quite rude and will spoil it for everyone).

This is the flyer for last month's, it was great. We went there after going to a house party and we did some dancing.

Both of these are based around this photo that Kelly took of Manchester. I think it's amazing.

So yeah, see you on Saturday? Nice one.

From Pet Shops to Porn

Last month Andy Vine and I put our creative minds together and submitted a photograph for an exhibition at Cord called From Pet Shops to Porn. Whilst we submitted and subsequently exhibited just the one photograph we did actually shoot a few which we plan to make into a zine eventually. In the meantime though here's the complete series.

^^ The exhibition shot ^^

The general idea behind the exhibition was to represent the change of a particular area in Manchester from a place full of pet shops to a place of sex shops. Between us we had a few ideas and were originally going to submit separately. But as discussions went on I came up with an idea that would require Andy's help so we decided to collaborate. See all the cards in the shots? They're all Andy's work. Clever chap. I just took the shots then edited them afterwards.

If I'd known we could have submitted more than one shot then I would have liked to have gotten a few up in the exhibition. Can't say I was too pleased with how the exhibition itself was handled. We were told pretty last minute that we'd been accepted so didn't have long to get a print done. Not to mention that they put our rather dark piece in the darkest corner. But still, an exhibition is an exhibition and it's the first one I've been involved with which is something in itself. Here we are with our shot at the exhibition.

So there we have it. A rare bit of digital project work from myself and Andy Vine. My first ever exhibited piece. Here's hoping this is the beginning of great things to come.

As always any and all feedback is welcome and appreciated.

Laters,

P x