shardcore

Sirens cover.

Vapour.

I still have the first booklet I was given at a gig – a band called ‘The Sirens’ at the Exeter Arts Centre. I don’t remember being particularly moved by their jangly pop indieness, but the idea that you could provide more than just music and performance to a gig intrigued me. The desire to ‘take something away with you’ at the end of a gig is the reason most touring bands make more from selling t-shirts than they do from ticket sales. But this was something different, putting aside the twee content, it struck me that this supporting artifact would far outlast the memory of the music. And indeed it has.

A gig crowd represents an interesting opportunity for the aspiring art terrorist. You have a captive audience of more or less like-minded individuals. Giving them something interesting to look at in between bands can be fun. Even better if the stuff is given to you by the band, as much of the stuff you see here was.

Long before I discovered the joys of Photoshop, I was making cut and splice creations, and appropriating any photocopier I could find for the purposes of cheap mass production.

Most of the pieces in this section were handed out for free at gigs, or sent across the globe as postcards to the marginal fringe dwellers that made up the core demographic.

Everything tagged ‘print’ is available here.