Hey look, another update

I'm back, like I said I'd be back.

First things first, this blog post has a soundtrack. I doubt it'll take you an hour to read it, like, but go with the idea. This is my Tongue & Groove mixtape.



Look, the dog is singing and playing the piano. You can download it if you want, click on the, err, download button.

So Everything Ever was shown at the Spring Open show at the Egg, like I said last time. Here's a picture that James took of me looking awkward next to it. I don't know why it looks like I've got no eyes.

Very self conscious there, being forced to pose on the far side of a table from him. Another thing I mentioned last time was that my painting Venus Fly Traps has been included in the first edition of my friend Sian's zine Pushing Too Many Pencils. It's really great and if you click on those words it'll take you to her Facebook page, which you should like. I don't think I've ever posted it here anyway, so here it is.

It's actually a watercolour, which isn't something I've much experience of. Weeell, it's technically a watercolour. I actually drew the outline part of it in pen on paper like I usually do, then put the drawing beneath another piece of paper and painted over it. I deliberately kept it quite rough and used too much water because I like the saturated effect it gives. Anyway, once that was dry I scanned both in and composited them in Photoshop. So now you know. Here's what the zine looks like sat on my coffee table.

Pretty nice, right? That photo doesn't really do it justice but check out my coffee table eh. My grandad made that, it's my pride and joy. If you want a copy I've still got a few left. Drop me a line. Not on here, I never check the comments on this thing, but you can email me andyandyandy_vine@hotmail.com or tweet me if you're so inclined @DeadPheasant.

This City Is Ours is back with a new venue. They have moved to Wahlbar in Fallowfield, it's only just opened opposite Sainsburys and it's on the 16th of June. Phil told me he liked the flyer I did for the last one, the kaleidoscope cityscape thing (I'll get around to doing a how-to blog post about that at some point coz it's a nice technique and those things are amazing linkbait) so I came up with something similar. Here is the original photo I began with, it's by Kelly Ward and it was taken as part of a college project using a technique called tilt shift. Give it a google, it's well cool.

Well I started with that and made a right old mess of it, glitching it up and adding some words. Turns out they like this as well and want to run with the ruined pictures of the city as a bit of a theme so I'm going to steal more pictures off Kel and she's going to send them some photos to use in the visuals on the night hopefully. Lovely job.

I think that's about it. Some good stuff in the pipeline but I can't tell you about that here just yet for fear of looking like an idiot, so this will do for now.

Be safe x

This City Is Ours vs Broken Bubble

Alright mate, here's the latest.

Phil This City Is Ours asked me to do a flyer for the next night. It's a Broken Bubble special, and if you click on their name right there, you'll be able to see their Bandcamp. You'll probably notice that they're WELL into kaleidoscopes, and who isn't, right? So I thought I'd do something like that, but with a cityscape (coz This City Is Ours, innit). I found this photo of Manchester courtesy of Hayley Flynn who writes the excellent Skyliner blog. If you thought you knew everything worth seeing in Manchester, you were wrong. She can prove it.

So anyway, it started like this:

And then I got my grubby mits on it and it ended up like this:

I'll probably do a how-to post soon but I'm not in the mood now. Come along though, it's at Centro a week on Saturday and it's free. Be good to see you there!


OH and while I remember, I've got this new mixtape thing. Give it a spin if you've got a spare hour, or even if you haven't you can download it and play it in the background can't you.

Andy Vine has some things to share.

A label for Mr Phil's Dutch Rudder. I did this quite a while ago now but have only just realised I haven't posted it here so, ta-dah! Dutch Rudder is much nicer than Wizard's Sleeve, FYI.

A poster for a book called The Paris of the North, by Christian Lloyd. I didn't design the cover, so I didn't have a massive amount of flexibility, so I just tried to work with the colour scheme I already had. It was published in the Copenhagen Post, which is nice. It's a good read as well, so go and buy it. I recommend reading it on the train on your way home from work, but not on the way there, just read the paper and listen to music on the way there. This is what I do.

If I Was A Bhangra DJ I Would Call Myself Bombay Mix(tape) by Autoflag

This is a new mixtape I made. I actually made it in the hope that I could play it between bands when I put a gig on (which I was meant to be doing) but it fell through for one reason or another (the venue closed down). Anyway, if you've got a spare 80 mins and you want to find out how I mixed Shapes into James Blake (answer: excellently) then push the down arrow on the player and you'll be able to download it for free. It's the best mixtape I've made, I think, and I'm going to make them more often from now on.

As well as these things, I have been doing some serious work on my film. I've completely written the treatment for it to a standard that I'm pretty happy with, which means that after a meeting in the pub with some red pens which will probably end with me doing a final draft, I'll be getting to work on a script fairly soon. I will need many an extra. Volunteers should apply within. Must not be afraid of wearing heavy makeup, including fake blood.