Oddities: Desktop Image dump

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Wheeling around the internet (as I do) you pick up all sorts of interesting things, here are some that have been cluttering up the desktop with nowhere to go this month. Above is a promo badge – or button as they call them in the States – for the opening of The Kaleidoscope club in 1967, apparently the Grateful Dead played – taken from a RockPosters.com post.

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The cover of the Sexedelic LP, most of which became one half of the Vampyros Lesbos Psychedelic Dance Party compilation on Crippled Dick Hot Wax. Despite owning said comp since the 90s I’d never seen this cover.

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International Times newsagents poster, sent to me by Drew Mulholland

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Robert Williams illustrated header card for a bag of weed! Not sure the year but looks 70s.

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Gorgeous box design for a Philips projector lens.

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Original art for an Alex Nino spread from Star Reach magazine no.6 from Heritage Auctions

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Beautiful Odyssey computer box design plus computer inside, look at those huge chips! Seen on Facebook Marketplace.

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New Warrington Runcorn New Town Development Plan LP cover – possibly by Nick Taylor? Out next week…

Random images from the desktop

Michael David Brown
I’ve had these images cluttering up the desktop for too long, seen whilst browsing the web, downloaded and researched later, let’s have a tidy up. Above is something I saw just the other day, an amazing illustrator, Michael David Brown, an American artist who I wasn’t familiar with at all. There’s not too much of his stuff on the web but it’s all good.

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Above is a sleeve from the Italo group Easy Going from the late 70s, I love it with the Shatter typeface and the star in the middle placed just so. The track ‘Fear’ is excellent too if you like a bit of electronics with your disco. The original cover is embossed too apparently.

Franz Altschuler CoverSpread

Monster Tales CoverSpread
The two covers above were by Franz Altschuler, a German artist who emigrated to America, these seem to be the only examples of this kind of style within his work, very 70s Heinz Edelmann.

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The only info I can find on the above is that it appears in an exhibition catalogue, ‘Revolution et Cinema’ and is by the Cuban artist Antonio Fernandez Reboiro, seen in the 70s Sci-Fi Art group on Tumblr. ‘Siempre es 26’ translates as ‘It’s always 26’.

The six images below were created by an artist using AI and I stupidly didn’t retain who it was so if anyone recognises them then please leave a comment. They’ve nailed the collage aspect of the medium which is difficult from experience.
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Oddities: John McColl’s ‘Klapa II’ mural, Glasgow, 1974

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I discovered this mural by Scottish artist John McColl in a book – Painting The Town by Cooper & Sargant – last week. Researching John and any more of his work reveals scant info, he appears to have been part of the Glasgow League of Artists co-operative in the 70s and this image is possibly enlarged from a canvas. It was part of four works commissioned by the Scottish Arts Council for the Gables End Mural scheme in the city, the others being ‘Hex’ by Stanley Bell, ‘Celtic Knot’ by James Torrance and ‘Boy on Dog Back’ by John Byrne.
‘Klapa II’ though is something else, I’d love to see the original and any more work from this period by McColl but there’s nothing out there it seems. Anyone with any more info please let me know.

Klapa II Cultural Devolution Art in Britain in the late 20th century
A black and white version of the bottom image, taken from the book, ‘Cultural Devolution – Art in Britain in the late 20th century’

Klapa II Eric Watt Coming Into View book
The mural featured in Eric Watt‘s ‘Coming Into View’ book of photos of Glasgow.

Klapa II John McColl

A few images of Stanley Bell’s ‘Hex’ (two versions it seems) are here
and more info on UK murals at the amazing For Wall With Tongues website.

Oddities: Louis Armstrong tape box collages Pt.2

LA22Thanks to universalcollage for alerting me to these amazing tape reel boxes, once belonging to Louis Armstrong, now archived in an online museum on his website. There are hundreds of these plus even more pieces of ephemera to see, it looks like someone has gone through every piece of music-related item he ever owned and photographed it with notes for the site.

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Oddities: Louis Armstrong tape box collages Pt.1

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Thanks to universalcollage for alerting me to these amazing tape reel boxes, once belonging to Louis Armstrong, now archived in an online museum on his website. There are hundreds of these plus even more pieces of ephemera to see, it looks like someone has gone through every piece of music-related item he ever owned and photographed it with notes for the site. Any one of these could be a record cover, sometimes both sides of the boxes are collaged and the ageing sellotape just adds to their appeal for me.
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Oddities: Camberwell manhole covers

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A set of 9 decorative ‘manhole covers’ found in Camberwell, these are all set into the pavements around the lower part of Denmark Hill, SE5*. I think only one of them is an actual coal hole, the rest seem to be area-specific art installations. If anyone has any info please leave a comment

*Actually I think the Match Girls one is from around Brick Lane

#streetart #lookdown #manholecovers #SE5 #camberwell

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Oddities: Mystery Xen illustrations

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‘Xensation’
Wading through a load of CDRs for something else I found these five images, not sure who did them or how I even came to be in possession of them but I really like them. I’m guessing they date from around 2000 or later as they include the ‘x’ as ‘z’ in titles. Although i’m not sure they totally fit the Ninja style, if they ever did a set of greeting cards these would be the illustrations.xencounter group
‘Xencounter’

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‘Xendeleyev’

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“Xenvy’
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‘Xensual’

Solid Egg 2018

SolEggTinsAs is customary at this time of year, the 2018 edition of Inkymole‘s Solid Egg arrived last week, in two hefty packages which you can see unwrapped in an almost ‘unboxing’ type set of photos. They’ve outdone themselves again this year with bespoke illustrations on the tins to carry the chocolate, wrapped in screen printed tea towels and containing a foldout ‘how to crack the egg’ poster.

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Over 1lb in weight, 2500+ calories and available in white, dairy milk, vegan dark, vegan dark praline and vegan ‘milk’ praline this year, there’s still time to get them before Easter from shop.inkymole.com   Accept no substitutes.

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Oddities: What lies beneath

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The reason there haven’t been as many posts here recently is because my time has been taken up with renovating a new home that I’ll be moving into soon. The whole place is in need of modernising and I’ve been peeling back layers upon layers of paper and paint, revealing some quite beautiful reminders of yesteryear. I’ve taken to documenting the best bits before it’s all gone forever, there’s lots of wallpaper hidden behind plug sockets and trunking plus the hidden spaces behind radiators and an extremely faded carpet.

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Further goes to Spiritland

With great pride and a lot of effort Pete Williams and I played one of our Further sets last Sunday evening at Spiritland, complete with multiple projections. Thanks to everyone who came by despite the bad weather. We had a great time and are in talks to bring it back there. You can hear our 4 hour set below and sample some of the projections we discreetly added to the sumptuous surroundings.

The next Further excursion is in 9 days at the SYNthesis festival in South Norwood, we’ll be playing either side of The Heliocentrics at Stanley Halls preceded by an afternoon of street art painting, food stalls and a talk by designer, Swifty at 6pm.
Tickets here

(Video nicked from Spiritland’s Instagram, photos © Martin LeSanto-Smith)

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Spacemen and women

Spacemenx9Some quick snaps taken around the studio and house, I think I have a thing about spacemen (and women).

Top left: The Alien vault book / Lasstronaut by Ashley Wood from 3A toys / Space Qee from Toy2R / Robot Spacetroop postcard by unknown / Spaceman print by Christian Ward / String Diver figure by Ashley Wood from 3A toys / original cosmonaut drawing from The Search Engine by Henry Flint / Orb: Mission ’92 poster by tDR / Birthday drawing by David Vallade

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Brix System by Love Hulten

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The Brix System is a series of handcrafted wooden electronic devices inspired by LEGO by Swedish designer Love Hulten. Each of these (and more) work as objects ranging from computer games, phones or music-making devices. Visually taken from the classic Space Lego series of the early 80s and scaled up but still able to be assembled like real pieces, they have sockets at the reverse and can be plugged together to work in tandem too.

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Rammellzee ‘Gothic Futurism’ interview for Mo’ Wax from 1995


Enlightening interview with Rammellzee from 1995, great story about a bet he had with Jean-Michel Basquiat. It was available on a 12″ at the Mo Wax exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery late last year but was way too expensive (like everything there). The original post was from the excellent MoWaxplease.com where there’s more background info from Ed Gill who made the interview plus a full transcript.

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Zonatape box

I found this lovely little Zonatape box at Spitalfields market last Thursday, great colours and design. It housed, not a reel of tape but some home made date calculators with odd painted patterns on the back. Later the same day I found this op-art plate in a charity shop, I like the way the turntable poster from the Beastie Boys’ Grand Royal magazine looks like it’s exploding out from it.

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