Category archives: music

 

 

Punk rock back to basics

I am in love with this project by Mike Joyce. Inspired by his love of punk rock and Swiss Modernism, he’s gone and mixed them up. The result? Swissted, these re-imaginations of  punk rock  and indie rock shows that actually happened in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. According to Wikipedia “the Swiss Style, is a graphic design style developed in Switzerland in the 1950s that emphasizes cleanliness, readability and objectivity”. Quite a departure from the rough diy style of the original flyers. I find them unsettlingly beautiful. And I would obviously give my right arm to go to any of these. You can see them all here.



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2011: What I listened to

My 2011 playlist isn’t quite ready yet, so here’s a list of the bands I listened to the most in the past year according to lastfm.

 

And here’s one of albums released in 2011 that I enjoyed, in no specific order.

The Copyrights – North Sentinel Island

Spoonboy – The Papas

Banner Pilot – Heart Beats Pacific

Joyce Manor – s/t

WEGROWBEARDS – Gunpowder, treason and plot

Algernon Cadwallader – Parrot Flies

Great Cynics – Don’t Need Much

Laura Stevenson and the Cans – Sit resist

Pygmy Lush – Old Friends

Fucked Up – David Comes to Life

Lemuria/Cheap Girl split 7″

Snowing/1994!/Boys and Sex/Algernon Cadwallader split

 

A weekend in Bologna: The film photos

Back in May my friend Clemens and I went on an Italian adventure. Somehow I only snapped three film photos apart from the band ones. Clemens finished a roll, but it was mostly photos taken by a drunk girl that we didn’t even know. It was a weekend of great randomness. I can only hope 2012 brings us another adventure like this one. Old friends, new cities and a great band.

Bologna

 

Bologna

 

bolognafilm4

 

forgetters

 

forgetters

 

forgetters

 

The first three photos were shot on an olympus compact camera with Vivid Arrow film, which is to blame for the awesome colours (together with Bologna’s lovely light). I’m not sure about the bottom three, but I suspect they belong to a different film.

 

(a different kind of) Christmas: a playlist

 

Look Mexico

flyer look mexico

I made this flyer for Look Mexico‘s show in Barcelona next week. Sadly I won’t be able to make it (well, I’m not really that sad about it because I’m finally seeing Superchunk instead), but I’m sharing it here in case anybody’s interested. It looks really messy, but I had to finish it really quickly because my life has been taken over by John Cusack.

Things are slowly going back to normal, so expect my regular posting schedule to return soon. With new bookshop posts (remember you can contribute to those!) and a giveaway from Aramar.

 

Behind Punk Mixtape #7

My friend Vanya, who runs a music blog called Behind Punk, asked me to collaborate with him by making a CD cover for his new mixtape. He usually posts these mixtapes for free download on his blog, but this one is different. It has been posted on bandcamp instead, it can only be downloaded if you donate, and 100% of  the proceeds will go to a Russian animal shelter. Pretty rad, no?

I didn’t have the time to put together something elaborate, so I played around with a couple of photos that I took earlier this year.

This one won. The photo was taken in Amsterdam, and it’s a kindergarden’s door.

It was chosen because of its references to home and sheltering.

This one was option #2.

But on to the good stuff, here is the tracklist of the compilation. It’s full of bands I like and not unlike the playlists I usually post. You can give it a listen on Bandcamp and donate if you like it. And if you like this idea, please spread the word!

1. Iron Chic – Langoliers
2. Direct Hit! – Say Whatever
3. Timeshares – Sarah, Send Your Driver
4. Death Is Not Glamorous – A Different Vision
5. Astpai – Meanwhile, In Hell (The Flatliners Cover)
6. Buckwheat – Fine
7. Wayfarer – Arts and Warcrafts
8. Bridge and Tunnel – Drill Instructor
9. Eeva – Ego
10. The World is a Beautiful Place & I am No Longer Afraid to Die – Bread For Brett
11. Dowsing – Dinos
12. ten speed bicycle – Aw Man, I Don’t Know What I Did With My Dracula Bow Tie
13. forbirds – Wish There Are Continue In Retro Games
14. Warren Franklin – Some Form of Irony feat. Two Knights
15. Devon Kay & the Solutions – W.W.B.C.D.
16. The Front Bottoms – The Boredom Is the Reason I Started Swimming, Its Also the Reason I Started Sinking
17. Lemuria – Pleaser
18. Smile And Burn – Tootles Has Returned To London
19. Crow Bait – Callin’ Yer Bluff
20. Dividers – Me. You. Len. On A Boat. Faliraki ’09
21. Mark It Zero – Maybe We’ll Get it Someday
22. Jet Packs – Buerak
23. Junior Battles – Twenty Five
24. Hold Tight! – Wonder
25. Nona – Tipsy Topsy
26. The Arteries – Dead Sea
27. Rain Over Battle – Sleeping On 69th Street
28. Inky Skulls – My Life
29. Spoonboy – I am a Dog

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The Mountain Goats Cover Jawbreaker

 

Photoshop tutorial: How to fill type with your own photo

A tweet from Sarah praised my header and said that she had been trying to do something similar on Photoshop to no avail, so I decided to put together a little tutorial on how to fill type with your own images. I personally really like the effect it creates, it makes a really simple logo or banner stand out. I used Photoshop CS5 for this tutorial, but I guess other programs like Gimp are pretty similar, or you could download photoshop somewhere just like I did.

Please note that there are many different ways of doing this and this is just the way I did it.

 

 

The Beatles in Spain

A few weeks ago Mary-Lou and yours truly made a real effort to wake up on a Sunday morning to do cultural things rather than spend the day in bed wondering if that last beer was really necessary. We went to see an exhibition called The Beatles in Spain, and let me tell you, it was worth waking up for.

Mary-Lou, some Spanish gentlemen and the Beatles
Unlike every Beatles exhibition I’ve ever seen, this one doesn’t feature some toilet paper Ringo used when he was 15 or George Harrison’s first condom. Instead, it focuses on the cultural impact that the band had in 1960s Spain, a country that was ideologically and culturally about a century behind the rest of Europe.