Tumbleweeds

Updates of my daily doings have been somewhat neglected here in Bloggsville lately due to me preparing for an exhibition I'm having up in Sheffield in April, which I'll post details of very soon.

Anyway, here're a couple of gig posters I did a couple of weeks back that I'd better whack up here before I forget about them. There's another Speedballer with a vinyl twist due to it being a DJ night and all that, and a young rebel on a TV set that I provided for Dead Young Record's Young Rebel Set poster.

All Big Letters But It Isn't No Acronym

DOOM!.. I bought tickets that I couldn't really afford for The Super Villain's first UK appearance as soon as they hit the virtual shop, and when no official gig poster emerged for the show I set about bothering the event organizers Sonar, and eventually DOOM's label Lex to see if I could produce something for them. The nice folk at Lex said that if I knocked something up and sent it to them, they would forward it on to DOOM's people and perhaps His people would contact my people (me) and that maybe it might end up being used in some way, but not to be offended if it didn't as there's a lot of industry red tape to snip through in matters like these.

Anyway, I haven't heard anything yet but I thought I'd post this currently un-official poster for the 'Taste of Sonar' event, where I'll be head-nodding to the sounds of Daniel Dumile's alter ego (or his stunt double!) next week.. Click it up big and see if you can pick out all the nerdy references to all His characters and projects that I snook into the patterns on the mask.

After pestering Metal-Face, I was actually invited to do this poster for the awesome home-made instrument tinkerer, Thomas Truax.. or at least a bit of it anyway. Designer Alex Warren has been producing a nice series of images for Dead Young's shows at Oporto in Leeds, with simple layouts, bold colours and one main central image. Dead Young asked me to provide the image for this one that I dropped into Alex's template and colour scheme, and I think it came out looking pretty fancy, with more than a nod to Charles Burns and a shiny-quiffed, zombified Truax shouting into his 'Hornicator' that twists round and turns out to be him.. Infinity and snakes eating their tails n' all that jazz, yeah?

Oh, and my old pals The Heebie Jeebies are on the bill too.. sweet!

'When the East is in the house'.. My mate's band The Great Eastern are gonna play a few shows at The Grapes in Sheffield, so here's the first of a series of posters that I'll be doing for them. They'll be different colours and will each feature a different animal wearing a hat in the steam cloud. I've got a few posters going on where I switch the colour schemes around at the moment, and as well as being a handy corner to cut for a time saving technique, I do generally have an urge to see the same image in a different set of colours.. I think this stems from the later releases of Street Fighter II where small sparks of joy were often attained from simply seeing a character in a different coloured set of pee-jays.

..and here's another one I did recently for Dead Young Records, who've got their Blues buddies Mojo 57 to host a monthly shindig at The Angel's Share in Chapel Allerton.

New Balls Please

I just finished another poster for my mate Glover's 'Speedball' night which takes place up in Sheffield at B-B-Bungalows & Bears. We're building up a nice little series of these now with each month's ball getting coloured in and tweaked to suit the different bands that swing by. This one's got a wee ghosty flying out of it's nose hole in honor of the 'proper good' Golden Ghost, a band which features the equally good musical stylings of a chap called Viking Moses. Click up the links to check out their MySpizzle pages and see where you can catch them while they're over here in the U of K.

Decades

Here's a poster design I did for a New Year's Eve party that, because of an unforeseen problem with the venue, I don't think ever actually ended up happening.. The whole thing was pretty last minute. I was contacted by some people from Dazed & Confused who were organizing the shindig to say they needed a quick turnaround on a promotional image, and I ended up drawing most of it sat in St. Pancras station waiting to get my train back home for christmas. Anyway, I'll probably be producing something for them for a future event at some time in the near future, but this unused 'Death of the Naughties' poster was my final piece of work from that ridiculously named decade..

I dread to think what the media's deemed fit to call this next set o'ten yizzles, but whatever they're going by, I'm kickin' 'em off with a picture I did for my French friend's new band Jimi Was Gain .. It's for their debut CD, which I'll post more about when I get my hands on a finished copy..

..In other news, which I'll go into more detail about in upcoming Blog posts, I've been proper busy painting a big 'Murial' in a place called The Chimney House in Sheffield, and the Archipelago gallery (also up in Sheffield) have just knocked up some f-fr-fresh new prints of mine, which will be available to buy off their website soon I think.. Happy Twenty-Tenty!

Bish, Bash, Bosh

Here's a new poster that I just drew for Dead Young Records. It's for a gig headlined by a couple of reel-to-reel based bands, so I knocked up this 'reeler than real-deal Holyfield' reel-to-reel machine with a frickin' face 'n that..

..and here's another 'un what I done did for Sp-Sp-Speeedball (!) who're putting on this band Django Django. They've got a wicked Krautrock vibe and I'm really into their song 'Storm' that you can hear on their Myspace page here..

Oh, and here's a sneaky peek at an image that I've just finished for an exhibition in Sheffield at the end of the month. It's gonna be screen-printed up along with some stuff by some other artists and it'll be for sale and all that, but I'll post all the details about it when it all kicks off. I just figured out how to do this screen-grab thing so I strategically positioned my iTunes behind the Photoshop file to show that I've been listening to Madlib's 'Beat Konducta' series... Serious dweeb antics I know, but those are some seriously good records tha knows..

This n' That

Apologies if you're a frequent visitor to this here Blog (if such a creature exists) and you've been eagerly awaiting a new post for the past week or so, but I've been busy with one thing or another...

..Here's one thing..

..and here's another..

..O.K, so their not strictly new drawings, but I have been busy with some other stuff that I'll be posting about soon, and I found this photo the other day of the skulls that I decorated for John Richmond's new Paris store.

Real Genuine Ball Skin

On a lighter, more successful note from the last post, this drawing I did for a friend's new musical venture was able to hurtle through cyber-space and arrive at its intended destination without any unforeseen hiccups, and (I imagine) it will achieve its visual destiny by promoting the good, solid name of Speedball.

The Space In Between..

.. I'm currently squeezing in as much work as I can in between working weekends at an art shop in Shoreditch.

Dazed contacted me yesterday and I'm gonna start work on a new Mixtape illustration for them in a few minutes, but before then I just wanna bring the Blog up to date and post the stuff that I did last week..

This is a logo that I drew for Lulu that she's gonna use to promote her new bunting business venture. Lulu is Charles (from Slow Club)'s sister, and she contacted me with the tornado concept that her and Charles had come up with to see if I'd be up for translating it to paper.. I was, so I did and she's gonna screen print it onto some fabric soon to hang behind her bunting stall that's gonna be set up at some Northern vintage clothes markets in the coming months. I'll post a photo or two of the banner up here soon, and I also want to fully endorse 'Lulu Bunting' as thee premier bunting stall catering for all your bunting needs..

Last week also saw me mark the occasion of producing posters for Dead Young Records' gigs at The Angel's Share in Leeds for a whole year, by producing a poster for the sequel to their Halloween event 'The Witches Brew', which was the first proper poster that I did for them a year ago. 'The Witches Brew II' is billed as 'The Mummy of All Sequels' so I drew the Witch characters from last year's poster shooting off on their broomsticks and using their magical brew to awaken a big ol' Mummy head which (conveniently) has all the details of the gig displayed on its bandages. You can see last year's poster by clicking on this link.. if you want.

Finally, for last week's round-up I'll quickly mention that I did a little interview for an upcoming free Liverpool magazine that I don't know too much about yet. They're gonna print a bit of my comic and a few of my gig posters and plug the 'fact' that my comic's for sale up there in FACT. I also used the opportunity to give a shout-out to my friends at The Kazimier and all of my Scouse family, so I'll post more about that when it comes out.. Oh, and The Heebie Jeebies swung by Clapton Pond on a quick break from their tour supporting Slow Club the other day and gave me a real-life, f-fr-fresh t-shirt featuring the 'JeebieBurger' that I designed for them t'other week!.. The first proper printed t-shirt with one of my doodles all up on it.

Here's a photo of me (with the Ultimate Warrior's face Photoshopped onto mine) wearing the sweet-T..

Giggity, Giggity, Giggity

More gig posters fresh out the box. Dead Young Records hit me up with a Wizard of Oz theme so I knocked up a picture of Dorothy and Co. for them.. Then there's a second poster for Everything on Toast's student shindig 'Fear of Sleep' with a slightly more Country tinged colour scheme to match the line-up, and there's a slight alteration to the first F.o.S poster that I posted on here a while back, as Ten Bears have had to step in to replace Poppy and the Jezebels who all have the runs or something.

Magic Johnston

Big thanks to Jonny Strangeways for giving me the chance to produce this poster for the upcoming Daniel Johnston gig in Leeds. Tickets had already sold out before this poster was able to kick out any kind of promotional action, but there will be some pretty sweet screen prints available at the gig that'll probably be signed n' all that type of crazy stuff.

Stuff n' That

Ok, here are a few gig posters that I've just done for various musical shindigs that are coming up. I've also just done a couple of illustrations for Dazed & Confused magazine, but I'm gonna keep them under wraps for a bit!..

No Sleep 'Til..

This is a poster I just finished for Everything on Toast's upcoming student mash-up 'FEAR OF SLEEP' at King's College Londonshire. Should be a good 'un what with all the NUS debauchery, Hot Club De Paris, Poppy and the Jezebels, and none other than The Fantabulous Heebie Jeebies bringing up the rear. (Fnar-Fnar!)

New Post/New Poster

Here's the latest poster that I've done for Dead Young Record's monthly night at The Angel's Share in Leeds. It looks a bit like a lightbulb. I've been doing stuff for them for almost a year now and it's been a really good opportunity to build up a nice back catalogue of work. You can see most of the posters that I've made for them and other people on my new GigPosters.com page which is here.

Broken Stones and Beatle Bones

I just knocked up this wee poster, which a quarter of is dedicated to spreading the word of a night of Disc Jockeying and occasional live music playing that me and the Everything on Toast crew are involved with called 'Broken Stones and Beatle Bones'. It's on the fourth Friday of every month at The Old Dairy pub in Finsbury Park. The name comes from me misremembering a Beefheart tune (which there's a good cover of by The Fall here) of a similar name, and if you pop down you'll find me scratching some Rock 'n' Roll records up and trying to play as much Biggie Smalls as I can get away with.. 'cos you know the streets is a short stop. Either you slingin' crack rock or you got a wicked jump shot'.. I don't do either but this'll do for now. 

My Slow Flow's Remarkable..

I just drew this for my friends Slow Club, who also happen to be an awesome band set for mega stardom. They're launching their new single 'It Doesn't Have To Be Beautiful' with a special gig at the ICA where some signed prints of this are gonna be on sale. Perhaps these prints are destined to become prime ebay fodder, or they might even look quite nice on your wall.

Also, it's a little known and incredibly dull fact that I helped Charles from the band draw the hand which appears on the single cover... Fo Shizzle! 

The Blog of Eternal Stench.

Breathe it in.. my first post!

There's a few things happening with my artwork and stuff at the moment and, as I don't have a chuffin' clue how to update my website, I'm gonna be posting said happenings up on this here Blog so I can blow my metaphorical trumpet and y'all can listen.

Speaking of not having a chuffin' clue how to update my website, I'll take this Bloggortunity to thank the mighty Matty Matt Matt for putting tomjnewell.com  together. He is a pal and computer boffin of the highest calibre, and when he's not punching tickets at Sheffield's Showroom Cinema, he'll be riding the twisted musical airwaves on his Jumpers Session radio show or generally doing other nice things.

I drew him this picture to advertise the show a few months ago..

..and he's been beavering away on the ol' dot com in return.. and now this Blog is linked to the website, the website will soon be linked to this Blog, and everything will be in perfect harmony.

Right, that's it. First post posted. It's Blog, Blog, it's better than bad, it's good.