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.

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.

Springtime Wardrobe Alert

I've designed some t-shirts for James Yorkston. They have a cat on them. James is just heading off on a mega-carpet-sale three-piece-suite tour with The Pictish Trail and Seamus Fogarty, so head along to one of these dates if you'd like to snag one (I imagine they'll also be available at Gnomegame).

Here's Seamus here modeling the navy blue version. I should say, Seamus has some new t-shirts of his own as well, which are also pretty good. They have cows on them. And Pictish has some depicting the eastern seaboard of his face (do not feed the gulls). So. There are the main facts as they currently stand. That is all. Good luck with the springtime and any fashion plans you may have for the season.

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

Hanging on for a Heron

I did this last-minute poster for a James Yorkston/Pictish Trail gig at the Queens Hall in Edinburgh this month. The heron is collaged from pages of Yorkston's highly recommended collection of tour reminscences, It's Lovely To Be Here. The pages cut up real nice.

Originally there was a cowboy Jesus (?) as part of the heron's beak, but it looked better without it. There is a weird painting of a donkey in there somewhere though.

The background elements are all taken from a Facebook gallery chronicling the custom-build of James' new guitar. But it probably just looks like I got some photographs of some chipboard and some scrunched up Quality Street wrappers, I know.