Frances' Mother, Who Has No Tastebuds

Frances' Mother, Who Has No Tastebuds is the name of the new track by our very own Autoflag. It sounds like this:



At least I hope that worked, I've mentioned before that my browser is unsupported by Soundcloud nowadays which makes life a bit difficult.

This was made as a sort-of Valentines present. She loves the Great British Bake Off which is why it's jam packed with samples. I wasn't about to start singing, OK. We've got some plans for Autoflag as it goes, in an effort to clear the decks as it were we're planning on releasing an album of older tracks. Stuff that's I'm happy with but want to draw a line under. Mainly stuff from before the old hard drive on my laptop failed really, so it's stuff that only really exists now as mp3s and not the original files with the individual multitracks and stuff. This track won't be on it and neither will Ryan Goshawk, and everything will still be available on Soundcloud (for now at least) but we want something proper, with a Tracklisting and a Name and Artwork, not to mention something physical. Here at Dead Pheasant we like physical products, so we're brainstorming at the moment to come up with a decent idea. Whatever it is, the record will be available as a download as well. We're getting there anyway, I've got a name and a running order figured out so that's a starter isn't it, and now I've written it here I feel something of an obligation to make it happen. Wish me luck.

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.

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

Many many things

*Cough cough* bit dusty around here isn't it? Has it really been four months? Is anyone still here? Hello? Is this thing on?

Sorry blog. I know, I know, I'm always pretty bad at updating but I've got some totally legit excuses this time. I won't list them here but if you know me well enough to know what they are then I hope you;ll forgive me. And as much as I love reading dramablogz (I like staring at a car crash as much as the next man), that isn't, never has been and never will be what this blog is all about. Suffice it to say that a lot of changes have been made, life is very exciting and new and I have moved house from Stalybridge to Chorlton.

You'll be pleased to hear (read?) that despite my blog radio silence I have not been slacking on the creative front. Brace yrself.

First things first. Everything Ever has been accepted into the Spring Open show at the Egg in Liverpool. The open night is the 18th of May, I will be there and I hope you will to. Bambi was also accepted, one of his pics is even being used for the flyer coz they proper badly love him there. My, erm, impression of a watercolour painting Venus Fly Traps is going to in a zine made by my friend Sian called Pushing Too Many Pencils along with a comic thing by Greg and a recipe thing by Helen so that's very nice, a little Moreton Lodge Clan reunion. It looks amazing, it's quite limited but I should be receiving 20 copies in the post at the beginnig of next week so if you'd like one let me know. I'm keeping one and one or two have already been bagsied so don't be tardy.

New stuff then. Lego from Akoustik Anarkhy emailed me the other week to let me know about Northern Quarter Stories, an aptly named website dedicated to collecting stories about the Northern Quarter. It's a great idea, Hayley from Skyliner has been interviewed for it already and says some nice things about pubs and mysterious public artwork which you should listen to. I designed a beermat and a badge for it. For technical reasons the badge isn't being made and, interestingly, the badge design is now being used for the coaster but that's fine by me because I preferred my badge design to my beermat. Here they are anyway.

This first one is the badge design which, as I say, has now been printed onto beermats. Hayley tells me they're in the Castle pub on Oldham St. I intend to go down there tomorrow and steal a couple (I hope they don't read this).

This is the design I did for the beermat which isn't being used but that's fine because the other one's better anyway.

Next up was a last minute job so I had to do some recycling. Phil from This City Is Ours / From The Kites Of San Quentin emailed me about a charity gig he was asked to play and sort of ended up co-organising and promoting. They needed a flyer for it so I cannibalised a drawing I did of a human cannonball which I did for a band a few years ago but they didn't use. I always thought it was a bit of a shame because I really like it so it's good that it's getting a proper use. I might do something else with it at some point anyway.

As you can see, it's on the 9th of May (this Wednesday) at the Roadhouse, it's a great cause, a great lineup and a great price so see you there.

Another one for TCIO next. Last Monday they released their first album, I Live To Die And I Die To Live by Depakote as a pay-what-you-like download and fair play, it's excellent. As such I am proud to say I've designed the cover based on a photo they sent me and the image sent out with the promo emails  which is quite nice so I'll show you that as well while you're here.

So this is the cover. I was sent a photo that they wanted to use which is great and pretty much just added the text. The font that I used for the artist name is something I designed a while ago, again for some badges for a band that never got made so I'm glad that it finally got used. I had to edit the letter P slightly as the curved bit (I don't know if these things have proper names, I'm sure they do) was a bit small but with a bit of Photoshop trickery it ended up much nicer.

This is the image I came up with for the promos. I thought I'd share it as I think it works quite well and not many people would see it otherwise. Very simple, just a picture of Depakote inside the This City Is Ours text, but I've not tried anything like this before. Turns out it's dead easy.

So yeah, I told you I'd not been doing nothing! I've done a mixtape as well but I can't upload it yet as Soundcloud has taken issue with the fact that it recognised the first track. You'd think they'd be more flexible with mixtapes but never mind, rules are rules and I will just have to find a way around them. Ha ha. To close, some dates for your diary.

Tomorrow, Sunday the 6th of May, Sounds From The Other City festival takes place at various venues in Salford. TCIO are co-curating a stage, I am hoping there will still be some tickets left on the day so that I can go after I've been for a cheeky one in the Castle because the lineup is excellent and I know that lots of lovely people will be there.

Wednesday the 9th of May is the gig from the poster up there at the Roadhouse with Kites and friends.

Friday the 11th of May me, Kelly and Bambi are off on an adventure. We're going to Brighton for The Great Escape festival, or more specifically the Akoustik Anarkhy stage. Over the course of the weekend the Longcut, Plank and Driver Drive Faster amongst others will be playing and therer will be DJs until the wee small hours so it's funtimes guaranteed. We're even staying at a hostel just around the corner from the aA folks. On the Saturday we're heading to London to go to the David Shrigley show at the Hayward Gallery and seeing Greg, hooray. It's going to be the Best Weekend Ever.

Friday the 18th of May is the open evening for the Spring Open show at the Egg to coincide with Light Night which is a Liverpool-wide arts festival thing I believe. Should be good anyway, me and Bambi will be there along with a crowd of people I hope to drag along with me.

Busy busy busy. After all that there's only like a week and a half left of May. It's going to be amazing. It's going to be the Perfect May, like that song Perfect Day, but with an M instead of a D. The next update will not be far off, I promise you. I know I always promise you but this time I mean it. Let's never fight again, blog x

Andy V's Sketchbook Project 2012

Right, I don't think I mentioned it at the time but I am taking part in this years Sketchbook Project. Basically, you get sent a sketchbook, you fill it, you send it off, and then it gets taken on tour around the world (including a yet-to-be-confirmed date in London) followed by being kept on permanent display at Brooklyn Art Library in New York. Pretty sweet. Bambi's done it as well, and his entry kind of illustrates the best thing about the project: the variety. His entry is very much fine art; it's a collections of paintings fitted into the book. Mine, erm, isn't. The category I chose was The Worst Story Ever Told, so that's exactly what I've done. I was aiming for a lo-fi, stream of consciousness style surrealist humour. When I showed it to Jo, she laughed in all the right places, so I guess I've done OK. Anyway, it goes kind of like this.

The Worst Story Ever Told

or;

How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Fourth Wall

(A Documented Minor Breakdown)

There we go. Might do some prints of some of the pages, might get it printed as a zine or summat, I dunno. Let me know what you think of it though!