Messiah J & The Expert

A flyer from 2006 for Messiah J & The Expert. They're a hiphop duo from Dublin. Despite the fact that they've played quite a lot in Dublin and that I've even done work for a good number of they're gigs and that I've bought all their albums and liked them a lot, I have not seen them live since 2002 (before they released anything)... until last Friday night in Dublin's Twisted Pepper. What a brilliant gig! Excellent.

Jungle Brothers

Here's an old, from 2004. It's for The Jungle Brothers doing a live show in CrawDaddy shortly after it opened. Nice simple job, looks decent.

4 for 2009

I got my blog orders to make some sort of "Fav Albums of 2009" post. So here goes.

Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix : Phoenix

I love this band and what they do. I'm a sucker for weedy vocals and big melodies. I still prefer their previous album but this'll do like.

Daniel Johnston : Is And Always Was

Really enjoyable album. This was produced by Jason Falkner and can sometimes sound like a Daniel covers album, but with Daniel singing. Still though, 'High Horse' and 'I Had Lost My Mind' are just amazing.

Weezer : Raditude

Damn the begrudgers, this is another fine weezer album. Everyone's talking about a change of direction but that's rubbish it's just change of producer. I would have preferred if the production was turned down a few notches but what can you do? Oh and all 5 songs on the bonus version are great.

They Might Be Giants : Here Comes Science

This just may be the best of the lot yet I haven't seen it on any other "best of" lists so far. There are songs on this album that are so good it hurts. Seriously, I almost keeled over when I heard 'Roy G Biv' for the first time.

There are a load of albums I didn't get around to this year (for example I've only heard the Baroness album once so far and thought it was absolutely amazing.) But then again this was my first full year of listening to The Best Show on WFMU so there wasn't much time for anything else!

Attack of the lists. Going to do a Decade post at some stage. More frivolous rock music.

Masters Of Groove

Masters Of Groove from 2004. I'm just drawn to post these posters using Dinn. Can't get enough of it. I also love that shade of blue, so this is a winner. Let down by the colour photo just stuck in there. What was I thinking?

Napalm Death

Another BIG LOGO poster. This time for Napalm Death playing Dublin in 2002. Notice Large Mound opened this gig. I think some people enjoyed us.

New Young Pony Club

New Young Pony Club poster from 2007. Another example of BIG LOGO.

Naughty By Nature & Glassjaw

I think sometimes when doing a poster it is completely appropiate to just stick a BIG LOGO on it. Here's a couple of 2 colour posters where it was right to do that. Both from 2008 it's Naughty By Nature and Glassjaw. I'll dedicate the next couple of posts to this theme.

Seasick Steve (2)

Seasick Steve's second visit to Ireland. Just four months after the CrawDaddy show. This time he's in the Spiegeltent which is a temporary venue set up every year for the Dublin Fringe Festival (hence the magenta section of the poster and the use of American Typewriter Bold).

Blanche

Poster from 2007 for Detroit band Blanche. They have an album called "If we can't trust the doctors..." which is a cool title. I thought this blog was in need of a bit of colour.

Seeing as though I'm a regular music related blogger I'm obliged to do an albums of '09 post. I've been giving it some thought. (ha! as if anyone gives a shit)

Gary Numan

Gary Numan playing Dublin tomorrow night. Here's the 2 colour billboard version of the poster. Enjoy this Numanoids!

Jeff Mills

Poster for DJ Jeff Mills doing a Tripod gig earlier in September '09. The quality of the photo is terrible but in this case it's fine. I sort of regret the transparency on the "Jeff Mills" header, should have just left it flat.

Since around Sept I've been using the same font for all the dance music small print. It's a really crisp alternative to (beloved) Helvetica. Look at the numbers, they're excellent! I'm not going to say what it is, gotta keep something quiet.

Courtney Pine

Another 1 colour billboard poster. This one is for Courtney Pine doing it in Cork in 2008. My fav fonts come together on this one, Dinn and Clarendon.

Seasick Steve

Seasick Steve poster from 2007. At the time I was "Seasick who?". Four visits to Ireland later in 18 months and he was in a venue 10 times* the size of CrawDaddy. So expect a few more Seasick posters on this blog. So anyway, this is the 1 colour billboard version which accounts for the BIG text. These things need to be read from a passing vehicle.

* total guess

Flying Eyes (again)

Here's the second poster I'm posting for excellent (but split up) Canadian band Flying Eyes. This was actually for their last gig before their drummer (my brother) left town for a year. I decided to post this because, yea, it's a cool poster but also because I just noticed that the same vulture image is used on the cover of Them Crooked Vultures' new album. They went down the ol' animal-head-on-human route though.

The Long Blondes

Here's a poster from 2005 for a gig that didn't even happen. I seem to remember working on things way in advance and putting them in the bank. So this poster for The Long Blondes was on the way to being finished. Then, the gig was off, and so it was forgotten about. I can see at least three things that would have gotten more attention. Oh well. The Long Blondes split up in 2008.

Liam Ó'Maonlaí

Here's a poster I did for a stint Liam Ó'Maonlaí was doing in Dublin in 2008. Are the Hothouse Flowers still going? The thing about doing posters for Liam, I always have to double and triple check the fadas. 'For Liam', what am I like? It's not I've met him or anything. Saw the Hothouse Flowers in concert once, he always seemed like a good dude.

Yusuf

I'm not making any design claims on this one as it adheres very strictly to the agent's template. Anyway the gig happened last night and was pretty controversial... if you're an idiot hole.

Gemma Hayes

4.45 pm on a Friday: "Shit, we need a Gemma Hayes poster right away! Sorry". A quick rummage through the photos on her myspace site and a look at a load of old Blue Note album covers for inspiration and job done. I think it looks good considering, although I fully expect there to be changes. Snuck my second favourite font in there, Clarendon. I'm really going for Univers Condensed a lot at moment too. The tracking on this poster could do with tweaking pretty much everywhere. But it was a quick one.

Omelette

A deep cut! This is from 2001. Omelette is/was (who knows?) Ian Lawton's band. At the time I was playing drums. I think this was the only headline gig we did. Check out the guests, Ross from Joan of Arse doing a solo set and Richie Egan before he started using the name Jape. The photo is from Ian's street set he took back in 2000.

I stopped playing drums in Omo shortly after this and the lads recorded an album called Off By Heart. Pretty obscure but worth tracking down. Try Road Records, if they don't have it in stock just email Ian. I'm sure he'll send you a copy!

Monotonix (revised)

I posted this yesterday as Monotonix twofer. Well there was a slight communication breakdown and a new brief meant that a redesign was in order. Luckily Monotonix made stuff like this pretty easy.

Mr. Thing

This is from 2006. DJ Mr. Thing doing a gig in Rí-Rá in Dublin. I heard that at this gig Mr. Thing commented on how much he liked the poster. Sure it's simple and it looks good but I can hardly take the credit for that seeing as how I got the cool photo from his own website. I used my number one favourite font in this one, Dinn. I try not to use it very often.

Monotonix twofer

Nutters from Isreal, Monotonix, played Dublin in July 2009 and are back for the second time this year later this month. The first poster is ultra simple. I love that Levi looks like Heaven & Hell era Sabbath. Not one member but all four of them in one. Their album has been released since then and so November's poster is a pretty standard album based one. No complaints, I think it's a cool cover.

Brian Jonestown Massacre

2006 Brian Jonestown Massacre playing Vicar Street, Dublin. Here's the poster used for it. This was around the time the film DIG was released which is why the poster is based on the film artwork. I had another version based on their circular logo before I got the Dig brief. On a related note, last year I did a poster for The Dandy Warhols. I doubt I'll be posting that here, it wasn't such a great poster (not that this is a work of art).

Aimee Mann

As old as the hills this one. Aimee Mann print advert from 2001. This appeared in Irish music mag Hot Press. Just look at the ugly placing of the logos, ugh. Seemingly Damien Rice asked for the support. I had a chance to right some of the wrongs made here with another Aimee Mann show in 2008 which I might post someday.

Yo La Tengo (again)

Yo La Tengo gig in Dublin last night was fantastic. A real joy. The place was packed and the crowed just loved them. Their set was long and relaxed but also extremely well planned and executed. Instruments being swapped without any interruption. Ira even tuning and swapping his guitar during songs. Anyway, above is a photo of them onstage. After the gig some dude pulled down one of the billboard posters I had done and was getting James to sign it. I thought this would make a cool addition to the blog. Afterwards I had a brief chat with James, what did we talk about? The Best Show.

The Fall (Part 3)

Third The Fall post. This one is from 2004. Their most recent release at the time was the fantastically named "50,000 Fall Fans Can't Be Wrong" best of compilation. Let's see, how many more Fall posts will there be? I think two more. I wish I'd gone to more of these gigs. I've only seen The Fall live once.

Village People!

From 2008, a poster for Village People doing a show in Dublin. I had a look at their website and decided to go a little bit photoshop crazy on this one. Some of the tricks used in this poster would usually be totally out of bounds but if anyone can get away with it.... Anyway it's fun to do every now and again.

Yo La Tengo (tomorrow!)

A few days ago I posted a Yo La Tengo poster. Here is the 2 colour billboard version photographed in Dublin. Posting this version because the gig is TOMORROW NIGHT. Should be a good one.

Cassius

Poster from way back for French dj type Cassius. This was one of the first proper dance music jobs I had done so I have a soft spot for it. Dance music is not an area of my expertise and I've tended to over think dance work. I think it's only recently that I've nailed it.

Duke Special

Duke Special poster from back in the day. This was 2006. Here he is playing The Sugar Club in Dublin. He got more popular after this playing much bigger venues. Not sure what he's doing now, probably working on a new album.

George Clinton

Here's the first of four different George Clinton shows I've done over the years. I think this was 2003, his Irish debut. This is a 2 colour poster, full colour posters weren't being done back then. Inspired to dig this out because my friend and I were digging through records the other day and I found a GC album and put it on... go to say it didn't last too long. Erm, the kids didn't like it. More George Clinton posts later.