Musical Interlude

Here is a video of the best beats from J Dilla's amazing 'donuts' album. If you pay attention to hip hop you will notice a HELL of a lot of hype for J Dilla. Its all true. Everything he put his touch to has been amazing. RIP DILLA!

New Work: Ruby Blue Relaunch Party

Here is a poster i have designed for my dear friend and Ruby Blue Vintage owner Damian. He is having a shuffle of his shop, adding some beautiful new clothes and a range of homewear products and to celebrate, he is throwing a relaunching party (champagne reception my friends!) at the shop on the 7th of August. Ruby Blue is a hidden gem in Carlisle and everyone should go along and look at what treats he has to offer. Heres some stuff he wrote about the shop on the facebook fan page:

Ruby Blue is an exciting new retail development for the city of Carlisle, housing unique vintage fashion and gifts in a highly stylish and elegant manner, boasting an extravagant boutique style interior.

Strictly speaking, vintage fashion is clothing that is at least 20-25 years old. Just a few years ago, this wasn’t a fashion slant you leant towards unless preparing for a fancy-dress party. ‘Vintage’ was simply another word for second hand. Today, the sartorial ethos couldn’t be more different as vintage fashion is coveted the world over. Wearing vintage provides an opportunity to sport beautifully made clothes that are individual and a unique piece of fashion history.

8 Treasury Court (off Fisher Street)

Carlisle

CA3 8RF

open tuesday - saturday: 10am - 5pm

Judging books by their covers

Bookcase is probably my favourite shop in Carlisle. It is incredible. It is a gigantic second hand book shop housed in an old townhouse which i assume used to be a hotel or something due to its epicness. Seriously, you can get lost in this place. Thousands upon thousands of second hand books (antiques to modern publications) on pretty much every topic you can imagine. In the basement houses an obscene collection of classical (and a little bit of jazz and showtunes) LPs which makes me a little emotional when i go down there. It's like a nuclear bunker of awesome. I estimate there is upwards of 30,000 records in there. Anyway, i spent a fair chunk of today just hanging out there and going through books and seeing what i could find, and heres a small selection. Expect follow up posts! Apologies for the rubbish cameraphone pictures.

Bit of modernism married to an old etching of someone being executed. nice.

Something that makes Bookcase extra special is that its not just a huge pile of random second hand crap. A lot of love and care has gone into the collection (on four floors i might add) and often you will find whole series and collections (that goes for the records too which really blows my mind, seriously i could rave all day about the vinyl basement). Also, this looks exactly like the cover of 'in rainbows' by Radiohead.

This book was genuinly incredible in that it was 80s style and design concentrated into one design manual. Ferraris outside of bedsits in bookform.

I thought this was funny. I might actually go back tomorrow and buy this one.

I really liked these collection of stories by D H Lawrence. Ironically 'lady chatterly's lover' is my least favourite novel of all time hands down. There was another version with a slightly different pastel colour way.

......amazing.

I urger everyone in Carlisle (infact, all of Cumbria) to go check the shop out because honestly its amazing, even if you're not interested in reading (or looking at pictures) or records or old things. I think ill take a slightly better camera down soon and do a proper post about it (ESPECIALLY THE BASEMENT)

New work: Bad For Lazarus

Poster i've just done for the fine people at The Brickyard for upcoming big for 'violent pop'-sters Bad For Lazarus. Should be a rockin' night! And yes, i did spell 'gauge' wrong on the poster, walter pointed it out and i fixed it before i sent it off, oh and also i got rid of the hyphenation of the word 'vintage'  (just couldn't be bothered to change my flickr). Anyway, let me know what you think!

Saturday 25th July 2009
BAD FOR LAZARUS
PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS
Who are Bad For Lazarus? In the band’s own words: "We like heavy, nasty pop with guitars; so that is what we do. We all play / played in other bands : The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster / UNKLE / The James Cleaver Quintet / With Scissors, but this doesn’t sound much like any of that..."
Times: 8pm until 2am
Admission: £4.00 advance. All shows at The Brickyard are 18+ unless otherwise stated.
Tickets: Buy tickets online, call Ticketweb on 08700 600 100 or pop into Ruby Blue (Carlisle)

Albums to photoshop to No. 2

New Work: Friday

Friday is a new alternative night at The Brickyard, every friday. A new poster is going to be done every month so this will be a series over the next coming months. Keep your eyes peeled for badges too if youre lucky. Maybe.

Anyway, should be a lot of fun and hopefully a bit different to what else is going on around Carlisle at the moment.

FRIDAY
A new Friday night alternative with DJ's playing the best in old and new musics accompanied by projections. From Friendly Fires to Fugazi, Beastie Boys to Pet Shop Boys, BRMC to MGMT, Ziggy, Jimi, Iggy, Dizzee and everything else inbetween! 
Times: 10pm until 3am
Admission: £2.00. All shows at The Brickyard are 18+ unless otherwise stated.

Musical interlude

lovely indie pop from 2009 'it band', the slightly ridiculously named The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, who i think sound a lot like a cross between Ride and The Smiths. Song is titled 'young adult friction' and i dont care if it makes me a sissy girl, i love it. Really cool video too.

New Work: Happy Birthday Kevin Bacon (and Middy!)

New poster for The Brickyard for a night titled: "Happy Birthday Kevin Bacon, Pauline Quirke, Ferdinand Von Zeppelin, Will Smith's Kid and Middy!" which is pretty much just a birthday party for our pal Middy disguised as a celebration of the life and times of all singing all dancing mushed face evil douchebag Kevin Bacon. The poster features some but not all of the people featured in the name. You would (wouldn't) be surprised how difficult it is to source a good picture of Pauline Quirke. Anyway the idea was that Kevin Bacon, an evil voodoo witch is trying to hypnotize you. Resistance is futile, you will obey Bacon. You will party.

Should be a good night:

Saturday 11th July 2009
HAPPY BIRTHDAY...KEVIN BACON, PAULINE QUIRKE, FERDINAND VON ZEPPELIN, WILL SMITH'S KID AND MIDDY!
A night of DJ's playing an eclectic mix of styles/genres accompanied by projections to celebrate the birthdays of true legends born on the 8th of July. Featuring sets from David 'Middy' Middlemiss, Chris Emmerson, Mark Howlette, Lee Gowland, Dan Atkinson and Tim Forrester.
Times: 10pm until 3am
Admission: £2.00. All shows at The Brickyard are 18+ unless otherwise stated.

Albums to photoshop to No. 1

Do you like vampires?

and do you like sunglasses?

YEAH YOU DO!