SPINNING COIN * KEEL HER * ROCKY LORELEI

Quick poster for a gig I'm hosting next month. Amazing line-up!

Glasgow's league-topping indie five-asiders, Spinning Coin (Geographic), bring us Permo! Support comes in the form of an ultra-rare appearance from London-based lo-fi legend Keel Her (Critical Heights, O Genesis) and her band, plus a full-band set from Glasgow's best-kept secret Rocky Lorelei.

Henry's Cellar Bar, Edinburgh
Saturday 18th November
7pm-10pm-ish
£7/£5

https://www.facebook.com/events/717597228430134/

Christmas but-not-Christmas Cards

A mysterious and generous benefactor has kindly let me use some of their complimentary greetings card printing order. It was a short notice thing, so I whipped up some designs based on posters I did for Braw Gigs and The Gentle Invasion.

I've decided to try to sell 'em, with all proceeds going to Re-Act Refugee Action. I don't have a huge amount, and it's stupidly near Christmas, so I'll be selling them in person this weekend, like a gorilla in the mist - I'll be at Kid Canaveral's Christmas Baubles in Pilrig Church tomorrow night (Saturday 19th), and the all-ages Re-Act Rumpus fundraiser at Leith Dockers Club on Sunday 20th. And, quite possibly, at the Song, By Toad xmas gig at Henry's after that (if I'm still standing).

If I can infiltrate a merch desk/cake table/quoits arena at any of these events I will, otherwise, sorta assuming that anyone that's in Edinburgh and reads this will know what I look like? Come and give me a festive prod. Unless I'm DJing. Which by the way I am, at the Rumpus on the Sunday. Please be warned that as it's an all-ages thing, I'll be playing Fraggle Rock records exclusively - please see Uncle Travelling Matt postcard-shaped 7" photo example below.

Okay. Oh, and if you want some of these and won't see me this weekend, I'm sure we can sort something out... just drop me an email... perhaps they'd make good Easter cards?

These Winds Are In My Heart

Things have been a bit quiet at Peanut Snake this year, but don't worry, I've just been working and reading a lot of books. And last week I drew this poster (plus upsy-downsy variant) for the Lau Nau gig at Summerhall in Edinburgh next month, a joint promotion between Braw Gigs and the Nothing Ever Happens Here series.

I haven't seen Lau Nau play live since the Homefires festival ten years ago (!), but that was a wonderful set, so I'm really looking forward to the gig. She seems to have moved towards the audio-visual in the intervening years, with her new album for Fonal an instrumental soundtrack, so not really sure what to expect, which is fine by me!

About the same time as I finished this poster, I started reading The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany, which I'm really enjoying, and includes a couple of scenes, with a tumbling troll, and a drifting princess, which were weirdly synchronous with my poster image.

"And at that moment a wind came out of the northwest, and entered the woods and bared the golden branches, and danced on over the downs, and led a company of scarlet and golden leaves, that had dreaded this day but danced now it had come; and away with a riot of dancing and glory of colour, high in the light of the sun that had set from the sight of the fields, went wind and leaves together. With them went Lirazel."




https://www.facebook.com/events/569326229884005/

Braw As A(n octopus's) Craw

So, it seems that Record Store Day is once more just around the corner. And I'd just like to suggest that you might wish to add James Yorkston's "The Demonstrations of the Craws" to your panic-list.
I know exactly what you're thinking: "But Pual, you know I can't even begin to think about buying that, or anything else, not even the "Shirley Inspired" Shirley Collins tribute album, not when all of my mental energy for this next month will be expended purely on worry over how I will get my hands on a copy of the original Graeme Miller & Steve Shill "Moomins" theme music on 7" from Finders Keepers with fuzzy felt cover."

And I understand, completely. But this JY 12" contains demo versions of songs from one of last year's best albums, and I did the artwork, and it has a sort-of Shaking Stevens octopus on it, and there are only 500 copies being pressed, so just take a deep breath and scratch it onto your list, as I'm sure it will only bring you relief once you've done so.

And if you find you're still hyperventilating, perhaps trying watching a few episodes of the original Moomins animation on this wonderful archival site; should calm you down in no time.

Grey Waves ~ Faith/Void

I contributed some one-off hand-drawn sleeves for the limited artist version of a really nice 7" put out by People In A Position To Know. Two killer tunes from Grey Waves (Jesse Hughey and Eric Judy of Modest Mouse)! You can see the mixed results of my doodlings below. All ink on pastel. Do not rub on your face (only joking, I fixed them with some ancient, foul-smelling spray I found in a chest in the attic*).

One or two of these will have gone to other contributing artists, but PIAPTK have three of them for sale here, and the band are also selling through their bandcamp - perhaps they got one too? I dunno, but you could ask them...

Big thanks to Mike at PIAPTK for organising such a great project! I think there was an exhibition of the sleeves in Seattle too - top stuff.





* But perhaps don't rub them on your face anyway, just to be on the safe side.

Indie-Pup Invaders

Ride with us on the bone-UFO to the Cocktail Planet, where an out-of-this-world line-up of indie-pop songmanauts (?) awaits, care of restless intersonic promoter/explorers The Gentle Invasion!

Face Books event: https://www.facebook.com/events/273928772810916/

(No spirits allowed on premises, right of admittance for dogs reserved.)

Tilbage Til Havet

I designed a sleeve for a new Goodiepal cassette for Reckno, called Tilbage Til Havet. It's number 36 in his Audio Svar series, and is really quite amazing. The sleeve is a three-panel fold-out, you can see some pictures of it here, and check out the other new releases by AyGeeTee and Biographs too.

I had a lot of fun with this, what with the plasma ferns, and the crystallised pineapple drive, and the flaming teapot etc. I did a quick little Reckno/Havet logo for it too, which you can see bigger below.

= = = = = = = = = U P D A T E = = = = = = = = =This has now sold out from Reckno, but you might still find a copy over at Boomkat.

= = = = = = = = = H U O M ! ! ! = = = = = = = = = On the tape, the Goodiepal mentions Snappidagg GaruNDz 2953... which it seems does not yet exist. However, he did send through some materials to Reckno, for possible use with this release. I included some of this on the sleeve - the text inside the spaceship, a photo of him appearing on DR2. For the spine, I used part of a score where he mentions Tilbage Til Havet, although I think only to point out that this score is not part of Audio Svar 36. However, this does actually seem like it might be the score which he is referring to when discussing the Snappidagg, and I think he does also refer to something in another of the scores which he sent, earlier in the tape, so I'm going to upload them here, and hope I don't get in trouble. I edited these together from six separate images (and also "EQed" them a bit), so there is some fuzziness around the joins.

Flower-Corsano Duo

Here's a poster I gone and done for Braw Gigs' upcoming show with Flower-Corsano Duo, Ashley Paul, and Acrid Lactations in Edinburgh - really looking forward to this one!

Some of the colours seem to be a bit too hot for the internet to handle, despite some tweaking in that respect. Maybe I need to recalibrate my monitor, or my eyes; probably both.

Here are all the event details on Facebook... http://www.facebook.com/events/1454452968105844/

Braw Pigs

Here's a quick poster I did for a recent Braw Gigs show. Pigs.

Trekstock Spanish Ants Tee

Youth cancer charity Trekstock have made a lush t-shirt of my logo design for James Yorkston's Spanish Ants single. I think they made them to sell at the Field Day festival, alongside designs by the likes of Django Django, Animal Collective and Purity Ring, but you can buy one NOW from their site!!!

It was the Scottish Fisheries Museum's annual open day last weekend, so I paged my official photographer, Vicky Brown, and headed over for an impromptu photoshoot. (The amazing life-sized inflatable sea beasties were made by a chap called Andy Peters, you can have a look at his website here.)

The t-shirts come up quite big, size-wise - US sizes, perhaps? I'm wearing the large, which is nicely billowy and voluminous. The colours have come up really great (although I suspect a few new mines may have needed to be sunk to source the rare minerals required to render the lurid colour scheme).

Buy a JY Trekstock t-shirt here, and help young people with cancer whilst looking really really fashionable looking at the same time!!

Spanish Ants in your Dancing Pants

Here's some artwork I did for the digital release of James Yorkston's Spanish Ants EP on Domino. It's an earlier version of what eventually became the t-shirt logo a few posts below. Check out the EP here! As well as the excellent title tune, it includes remixes by The Pictish Trail, OnTheFly and James himself - it's killer material; all bangers, no mash. Disco sausage.

It Takes Tea

Kettle-keen Edinburgh tune-brewers Randolph's Leap have got into the mug game, and they got me to design it! So, for just £6, plus postage, you can own one of these ceramic beauties, as well as getting an immediate download of an excellent new Leap tune, "News", taken from their forthcoming album!

You can order one now from here, or why not head along to their Edinburgh Queen's Hall megagig this coming Saturday, and pick one up there? The Leap will be joined onstage by Jo Mango and Snowgoose; in such a fancy venue, it promises be a special event indeed!

Here's a close-up pic of the bad-arse rap baboon featured in the headline story (on the mug)..

Wild Things

Just did this poster for a tasty triple-decker sandwich of acts at the Queen's Hall in February. It's a sort of Hitchcock-meets-some-old-blue-and-orange-Pumas design, with inconclusive jaunty beasties. There should be copies of the poster for sale at the gig, you can find all the gig info here..

Wobbly Dog

I've just done a poster for The Pictish Trail's upcoming tour with Eagleowl. Johnny Pictish has been hugely supportive of my vague efforts to draw more pictures this year, and gave me free reign with this design, a tragic lapse in judgement which has led to this heartbreaking image of a wobbly dog, lost, with inconclusive packed lunch, in Volcano Bacon National Park. Let's hope he gets out of there okay, and that this doesn't mark the end of my association with Fence. Anyway, a pleasure to draw something totally free range, so thank you Johnny! Go and check out the tour, it is going everywhere, it's a big bus and you cannot miss it.


Michael Rocket by The Pictish Trail

Eagleowl - Eagleowl vs Woodpigeon (Live in Pittenweem) by RadioMagnetic

CHRISTMAS MEGABAUBLES

 

Well, incredibly, another year has apparently passed and it's already time for the third installment of Kid Canaveral's Christmas Baubles (narwhal-themed poster stuck together by the Peanut Snake elves above), another festive all-dayer featuring a rich, fruity musical mixture topped with comedy marzipan and DJ icing..

FRUITCAKE = Malcolm Middleton, King Creosote vs. FOUND, Meursault, Randolph's Leap, RM Hubbert, OnTheFly (rare live set!);

MARZIPAN = Josie Long, Elaine Malcolmson, Eleanor Morton;

ICING = Papi Falso family DJs, DJ The Pictish Trail.

Oh, and what's that gleaming coin-shaped chunk of metal you've just shattered a tooth on? Why, it could only be festive heroes Kid Canaveral themselves, feverishly unwrapping songs from their staggeringly good soon-to-be-released second album!  

There might still be a few tickets here if you move fast, so get along, it's sure to be a CHRISTMAS CRACKER! Of a gig.

https://www.facebook.com/events/221198618009172/?ref=ts&fref=ts

2012 Winter Collection

Now the cold winter nights are drawing in, why not "hermitically" seal yourself up with one of these fabulous Randolph's Leap t-shirts? Hand screen-printed by the good folk at Jetpace, from my design for the Hermit EP launch, this fancy garment is sure to add a blast of summer blue to your winter hibernation wardrobe.

You can also buy it as a part of a package deal, which includes the fantastic Hermit 7", as well as a pair of tickets to their Queens Hall gig in a few months. But have a look around innit. Snazzy.

http://randolphsleap.limitedrun.com/products/505787-hermit-t-shirts

Beach Bum

Just did this poster for an upcoming Randolph's Leap gig in Glasgow.

The gig is to launch their new single, the Hermit E.P., being released on 7" by Fence Records as part of their Buff Tracks subscription series - full info here. I've had a sneaky listen and it's really flipping good!

Easily Fed

I seem to keep seeing news stories about how we'll all be subsisting on fried jellyfish and Kelloggs cockroach flakes in thirty years time, so it seemed apt to have a cat licking tentatively at an ant on this poster for celebrity vegan James Yorkston's upcoming Edinburgh show with Kathryn Williams. I'm a huge fan of James's music, so it was a total pleasure to put this poster together.

The gig is in support of James's new album, I Was a Cat From a Book, and I think I must have listened to it about twelve or thirteen times in the last week.

On the first couple of listens, I wasn't sure if it sounded quite as cohesive as a collection of songs as some of his previous albums. But I was wrong - it turns out that it is simply that each song is so incredibly good that it demands your complete unswerving attention, like a series of intense but captivating one-to-one conversations with different people in a crowded room, your mind always vaguely conscious of the surrounding social clamour whirling around you, but everyone else nonetheless briefly fading to nonexistence. Some of the songs are so heart-breaking that they can't help but stand out in the room. But it's an all together relaxed gathering, exquisitely coordinated - and the finger food is smashing. And, by the end, everyone is dancing and it's an evening no one is likely to forget.

http://www.dominorecordco.com/uk/albums/09-05-12/i-was-a-cat-from-a-book


Bonkers Border Song video by Blair Young/Forest of Black

Sports Criminals

I put my back out last week, so have been confined to the sofa, getting lots of doodles done, and watching lots of TV, even some of this Olympics stuff. So, here is my tribute to everyone's favourite athletic characters, the sports criminals, with their shady-but-loveable illegal moves and dodgy time-trial-based schemes.*

Before my back went, I was also hard at work building a new much-improved Peanut Snake website, which has reminded me of my vow (from about four years ago) to take over the world with GIFs, so I've uploaded a little test one to the Snake tumblr here. I've started off slowly, but they will get sickeningly, nauseatingly faster.

* Legal disclaimer - any resemblance to any actual athletic persons is entirely unintentional/accidental - seriously, I only really watched the tennis for about thirty minutes, and I don't actually know what any of the other ones look like.

OLO Wigs

OLO Worms have been asking different artists to "remix" their website, ahead of the release of their long-awaited new album Yard Is Open. My one is up today, just for a day or two, after which it will be archived on the site, along with a host of other remixes. Have a lookee!

My remix samples the album track Barbershop, plus a little bit of Sphinx. I also trashed all the vocals and replaced them with light pink lines.

The Worms have managed to enlist some amazing artists for this project, so it's a total honour to have been selected - thank you Worms!




Check out the video for the OLO's new song Strays, from Yard Is Open, above.

You can also listen to the excellent Image EP here.

Okay? Excellent, excellent.

#YISO #CORN