illustration – Seb Palmer

27 October 20238 February 2024

ART/ILLUSTRATiON: The Rainbow Goblins, Ul de Rico (1978)

I first drafted this post in September or October, 2022. But I’ve only now finally gone back to and finished it!

If I’m honest this isn’t my normal mug o’ Java. But I’ve been softened up for it by Masayoshi Takanaka’s wonderful double-album of the same name, that’s both based on the story, and uses Ul de Rico’s art on’t the packaging.

Sometimes getting an entry into something this way – so, the fabulous Takanaka album predisposes me to being more receptive to the artwork/story that inspired it – widens one’s aesthetics. If I’d only seen the book, I might’ve rejected it out of hand.

Some of the artworks, such as the one that adorns Masayoshi’s album cover, or the one directly above this paragraph, really do draw me in, and seduce me. Others, like the one directly below, I’ve grown to love.

And this in turn leads me to dig stuff like this:

And in the end I’m won over, and full of admiration for the simple charms of the story, and the intensity of the artworks. How about this for endpapers:

Flowers melt into a marbled ink pattern.

Ul de Rico did a follow up, called The White Goblin. And Masayoshi Takanaka followed suit! I’m listening to the latter right now. I’m not as immediately smitten by it as I was by his Rainbow Goblins project. It’s a bit more mainstream rock/pop.

But, truth be told, I feel myself being sucked in and won over. Seduced ever further from my own usual aesthetics. In the end, it feels to me as if I’m relaxing and letting Ul de Rico and Masayoshi Takanaka take me, one by each hand, into their visual and sonic worlds.

And I think that’s a good thing…

5 January 20235 January 2023

MUSiC: Iron Maiden Go Postal!

Iron Maiden didn’t trouble my recent top five post. But back in my mid-teens I was listening to them a lot. And I still do, occasionally. Power Slave was my favourite album back then, with Piece of Mind coming next. I’m not so keen on their pre Nicko/Dickinson stuff, and I haven’t followed their later releases. By which I mean everything after Live After Death!

Still, though I’m not their biggest fan, it’s nice to see them being honoured by the Royal Mail. They have their beers as well. So they’ve really gotten into the bloodstream of the nation, and now the postal service as well!

Well done fellas! You’ve earned it. Read more about this here.

PS – Not that I give a sh*t for anything to do with royalty/monarchy. Butt… shouldn’t it be Charles’ head in profile on stamps now?

4 January 20234 January 2023

ArT: More Gene Deitch…

The Cat… Gene’s buff, a speccy nerd obsessed with jazz!

How I feel sometimes when transcribing drum parts!

The neighbours disapprove of The Cat’s listening habits.

Non Jazz stuff…

Not sure what he’s up to here. But look at all that fab gear!

Myeah… back to his primary love, good ol’ Jazz Music!

I love this pic; bassist looks after his bull fiddle in the rain.

Ok, so I’m featuring this one *again*… but I just love it!

If anyone’s interested, I found this, a page with an interesting selection of record changer magazines for sale, featuring the cover art of Deitch and others.

2 January 20232 January 2023

MEDiA: Gene Deitch, RIP

What has come to be known more recently as ‘crate digging’.

Oh no! I just posted about cataloguing my CD collection on FB. I thought I’d illustrate that post with an image by Gene Deitch, whose character The Cat was an avid record collecting jazz buff.

Deitch did some amusingly prophetic cartoons.

In finding an apt image, I discovered that Gene passed, aged 95, in 2020. I have a nice book, Cat On A Hot Thin Groove, about his illustrations for Record Changer magazine.

He also created characters like Nudnik, as well as animating such famous cartoons as Tom and Jerry and Popeye, and doing all sorts of other artistic/illustrative work. I’ve peppered this post with a few images by him I either love for their visual artistry, or their comic wit, or, frequently, both.

I got the image at the top of this post from an excellent obit’ from the NY Times, which you can read in full here.

Deitch in his Prague home/studio, in later life.

I pinched this for an Xmas card one year.

Bold abstraction meets jazzy figuration.

His *Record Changer* covers alone would be a great legacy.

I’ve not watched Munro (1960) – see below – yet, but as soon as time allows, I’ll be doing so (tomorrow, perhaps?*) * aka later today!

I find Deitch’s art, by which I’m mainly referring to his Record Changer and jazz related cartoons, design and illustration work, really inspiring. His mainstream animation stuff I’m much less familiar with or aware of.

But, rather madly, I’ve discovered that Deitch was also involved with one of the earliest screen adaptations of Tolkien’s writings. I love Tolkien, and I was really quite surprised to find yet another point of connection here with Gene Deitch!

As with Munro, I’ve yet to watch this Hobbit based animation. I glanced at a minute or so of it, whilst drafting this post. It seems quite a loose adaptation! But I look forward to watching it in full.

20 November 202231 December 2022

MiSC: Joe Hill

Thanks to a FB pal’s post I learned of Joe Hill today. Not heard of him before.

An itinerant worker of Swedish ancestry, Hill was a ‘Wobblie’, or member of the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World), rising to prominence in that organisation as a songwriter and cartoonist, as well as for his vocal activism.

Hill was executed, aged just 36, in 1915. Allegedly for a robbery in which two men, father and son (the elder an ex-policemen), were killed. I know next to nothing about all this. So I’ll be looking into it. It’s pretty fascinating!

Tom Morello of RATM credits a whole lineage of protest music to Joe Hill’s leading example, which is interesting. As a musician and artist I’m immediately drawn to Hill, not just because I share his politics to some extent (to what extent I don’t know as yet!), but because art and music are my ‘bag’.

Rather strikingly, Hill’s will, reproduced below (along with a post-mortem photo showing his corpse, complete with the execution bullet holes!), is in verse. A poet to the last!

The popular perception on the left is that Hill is a martyr, a scapegoat, a ‘pesky agitator’ silenced by the boss class. Hill refused to exonerate himself entirely, claiming he was innocent. But unwilling to name a lady for love of whom he had, he said, been shot by a another man!

The gunshot wound, which he presented to a doctor on the same day as the fatal double shooting of which he was eventually accused, was, it seems, what got him the death penalty.

A tantalising tale! I must find out more.

One of Hill’s cartoon. I’m assuming the pianist is a self-portrait?

* Quite a striking/good looking dude! Could’ve been played by a young Willem Defoe, perhaps?

8 October 202231 December 2022

MEDiA: Hong Kong Phooey, 1974

A sudden wave of nostalgia swept over me, recently, in the guise of the theme song from Hanna Barbera’s Hong Kong Phooey theme song.

Recently, well, today, to be precise, we watched almost all of the episodes whilst child-minding for my sister. I actually dozed off for a considerable portion. And then I had to help cook the evening meal. So I didn’t actually see as much as I’d hoped to.

Now, back home, I’m watching from the start again. And it’s really silly! Not amazing, but just kind of fun, especially as a dose of nostalgia.

Scatman Crothers’ voice is perfect for Phooey, somehow approximating in vibe to his half-closed eyes when in Penry mode: mellow, relaxed, and winningly self-confident, despite his hopeless incompetence. Blissfully unaware that his triumphs are all accidental, or brought about by Spot, the cat, or other helpful characters.

Sgt Flint is endearing, as a gruff, dim and bear-like flat footed-copper. And Rosemary? I loved Rosemary way back when. And I find I still love her now! ‘Your lovable lady fuzz’!? Delicious!

The stories are ridiculous. Never was a ‘McGuffin’ less relevant to the enjoyment of a show! It’s all just an excuse to have Phooey (and frequently Spot) goofing about in crazy situations. The charmingly doofus Phooey, with his correspondence course book of Kung Fu up his sleeve, is undoubtedly where the charm lays.

For a cartoon with such a short run, it seemed to hit some kind of nerve, such that it’s remained on screens ever since it was made, way back in ‘74. And I find, that whilst I’m now far older, I still have a soft-spot for this mild mannered janitor/superhero, and his sidekicks, Spot, Flint, and very definitely, Rosemary!

5 September 202218 December 2022

MUSiC/Tech/Art: Polygondwanaland with AI, KG&TLW

Well, this is intriguing!

AI generated – I think? – by the lyrics of the ‘Polygondwanaland trilogy’, by King Gizzard & The Wizard Lizard.

I was all set to not even watch this. Then to dislike it… and now I’m bemused, as I really rather like a lot of aspects of the resulting ‘art’. And I’m intrigued as to how it’s done.