EPIC LONG DAY 2

HAPPY PANCAKE DAY EVERYONE!
I hope you all had your delicious (proper) thick pancakes. My favourite are strawberry, coconut, chocolate chip with mandatory maple syrup!

The second marathon working day Emilia and I had interims with Val and Paulus.
Val gave us suggestions who to contact, and told us to make it very personal, whereas Paulus thought it should be some sort of political statement. They both wanted us to really challenge ourselves and make the publication something extraordinary and unexpected. Paulus recommended seeing how far we could take it, even try to get sponsors involved, etc. I don't feel I really articulated our idea/concept very well when presenting to Paulus based on the feedback I received. I sometimes struggle when other people interject and have a hard time communicating key points.

We had a bit of a discussion following the feedback and agreed we would let the content determine what the outcome shall be. After Paulus' notion of making a political statement of sorts, our response was that what we really wanted to convey with our publication is quite simply how precious gig culture is to the spectrum of those involved.

Next we had lined up a tour at the Royal Albert Hall, where you are unable to take photos because they are copyrighted (lame) and finally Wilton's Music Hall. We saw Broadcast 2000 play there, and it's such a gorgeous rustic venue. The tour guide told us about one patron who had died there in a bar fight back in the 1870s? I think anyway, I have to check the date!

Because Emilia posted such an attractive photo of me on her blog..

BEST PROJECT EVER!!

I am currently working on a collaborative project with the lovely miss Buggins. The brief we have created for ourselves is:
to investigate the music communities within gig culture and produce a publication that celebrates it.

We are have been contacting venues, fans as well as musicians/bands as a part of our research and conducting as many interviews/tours that opportunity allows.

*The beginning content was written last Friday, we've been so manic in working on this project that I've barely had time to do my daily tasks...

Wow! What an experience today was.
It was legendary. Andy and everyone at the Luminaire were so incredible and treated us like VIP. I have never met a venue owner who makes even the most miniscule person on the rock chain feel at home and very welcome. Ridiculously hospitable!

Our time there began with a warm greeting and a cracked out lady sneaking in behind the band. ‘I’m sorry we’re not open, you can’t come in right now’ Andy politely told the woman who was quite obviously unable to be reached. She stared at me intently as she entered and again, longer when she exited. I don’t know what she tried to communicate but it was something slurred and incoherent. I imagine she was attempting to voice her displeasure at being turned away.

Everything that happened once inside those doors eradicated all the previous events of the day.

Some highlights of the day were: the guy in the background dancing with the candle on the opposite side of the stage, devirginizing a wall with chalk while leaving an illustration of the stage while everyone else used the allocated wall, Andy kindly offering us drinks on the house (and his white suit jacket and skinny blue tie, dressed for his wake).

We received a really sweet email from him following our visit. We’ve met so many fantastic people through this venture. It’s hard to believe we’ve managed to pack in tours/interviews with Troxy, Union Chapel, the Luminaire, Royal Albert Hall, Wilton’s Music Hall and XOYO, and spoken to Lulu and the Lampshades, Peggy Sue, Catherine O’Kada, Deadly Circus Fire and a promoter whose name escapes me (bad, I know). We hit up the British Music Experience, which was disappointing aside from the ska dancing & twist videos we were able to record.

This week we have an interview with the Boxer Rebellion and email contact with the Mariners Children and Little Comets. I AM SUPER EXCITED!

This project has radically altered my attitude towards design and made me wonder what on earth I have been doing up until now. I should have been focusing on music-related projects from the get-go.

Here are some images from our experience thus far:

Troxy's afterparty room with fancy lights!

















The Union Chapel


















the Bar above the chapel


















Chapel venue space























Wall in the 'Green Room' backstage area























the ladies loo is an interesting place
(mind the photoshop tool bar, I screen capped these and didn't notice! Ooops)


















our chalk drawing at the Luminaire


















Packed during 'wake week'


















Lulu and the Lampshades


















Peggy Sue performing


















watching the Mariners Children from our exclusive box.
















Our ridiculous dancing videos from the British Music Experience at the O2.

SWEET FIND!

I found this aromatic gem at the antiques market in Greenwich today!


























There is something about this inside panel of the book jacket that I dig.







































There is nothing that brings me more joy than finding someone else's stuff inside books! Why the hieroglyphs?

CONCERTINA COMPLETE

Today I polished off the concertina book. I fixed the cover, folded it and taped it together using the worst tape in existence. I am quite fond of this book, it's something different from what I usually produce. The font is nice and clean, easy to read.

I felt like with this, I knew the steps to take and what needed to be changed. Perhaps I got a bit lost in the consideration/deliberation, but when it came down to taking action it just kind of came naturally.

BACKWARDS AND THEN FORWARD

I forgot to post these variants of the drum tab by colour coordination and presented as they are written.













































What I have just completed working on (or rather printing..) is one of the tabs as it's meant to be - a concertina book. This way you can read it all at the same time (attach it to the wall, music stand) and it's big enough to be legible at a distance.


































































Now I just need to adhere this thing together... and get on top of the other 2 projects, start the pdf presentation. Egads. Tomorrow I've taken on some work which will occupy the entire day. Must keep going....

I've been working on transcribing more text to drum tab, specifically Sylvia Plath's Ariel along with Shakespeare's A Fairy Song as well as one that I had written. I just used the first 10 lines or so for comparison.
So far I have put the words where you would find the representation of the drum piece you are meant to be hitting.

Every noun has become a snare beat, an adjective is allocated to the bass drum, verb - hi-hat, pronoun - ride cymbal, preposition - crash, conjunction - floor tom and adverb - the mid tom.

First I had each word colour coordinated with it's drum counterpart



















Then I gave each author his/her own colour.

LITTLE COMETS

Despite being a disgusting emanating ball of germs, I went to see the Little Comets play at XOYO. I shot digital for the first time in a while. It was nice to use my old 14-45 lens and not the pancake as per usual. Photographing gigs gives me such pleasure.