Author: Chris (Page 22 of 31)

Supersonic, Screamin’ and more…

Leaving New York city
seems I’ve left it too long between updates, I’ve just uploaded a bunch of photos from the last couple of months, Photos from the 2007 Screamin’ Festival in Calella, a few of holiday pics from New York City in June and most recently some pictures from the 2007 Supersonic Festival here in Birmingham.

I must put in a mention of the Ray Collins’ Hot-Club who were definitely a highlight at this years Screamin Festival, I never thought a Swing band could be so much fun. Caroline Casey was great too, with a funny line in on stage banter and some great songs to back it up, I believe she was recording her first solo record while she was performing at the festival for El Toro Records which I’ll be looking out for.

Last weekend was the Supersonic Festival, All I can say is that I’m sorry that other events and conflicts have kept me from making the first four. A fantastic weekend of music and performance. Highlights for me was the, clears throat, ‘METAL – A symposium to celebrate and explore the West Midlands musical heritage‘ which kicked the whole thing off, four genuinely interesting talks from people all very passionate about music, I felt it did struggle to pull everything back to the midlands at some points but it was really entertaining and informative, and I’m not just saying that because of the free wine and nibbles. Friday night at the Custard factory was kind of busy, I guess because of the weather as much as anything, but the space at The kitchen was just too small for all the people so I can’t say I really saw enough of anyones set in there. The number did thin toward then end so I did get to see Otto Von Schirach in the Medicine bar which I’d certainly class as interesting, and, it was kind of fun too.

Saturday opened with a bit of sunshine and a band called Shit & Shine, well, if you can call six drummers and a couple of guitarists a band. Have to say though it was a bloody fantastic noise they made, hard to describe so I’m glad I was there to see it. As this is turning into an essay let me quickly list Pharaoh Overlord and Miasma and the Carousel of Headless Horses as my other highlights. All in all a fantastic couple of days entertainment and only just up the road as well. Next year I think I’ll be organising things around the festival rather than the other way around.

Supersonic Festival

looking forward to making my very first Supersonic Festival this year.

Supersonic Festival Flyer

capsule.org.uk

The Red Knob

just completed, a series of promotional cards for The Red Knob sexual health fanzine.

Take heed of Private Dick’s Valentines message…

Private Dick Valentines Postcard Illustration

New artwork

Extra Width

I’ve just added three more new images to the gallery pages, rotating some older images off the site.

I’m also going to be adding general links of interest, of interest to me anyway, to this page as time goes on. I did debate adding a links page to the site, but I don’t want to send the few visitors I do get shooting off elsewhere as soon as they arrive.

Site update

finally shelled out for some ‘proper’ hosting space for this site, something I’ve been meaning to do for the last four or five years. Oh well, got there in the end. Bye bye freeserve, thanks for all the page views.

I chose names.co.uk* as I’ve used them on and off for various clients and found them to be reliable, helpful and competent – they really do what they say they will, in fact the largest problem I had was getting them on the phone to give them my money. Lets hope now I’ve written this it doesn’t all go wrong…

*Update: I stayed with Namesco for about another six years, unfortunately as the business grew the customer service and reliability fell away and the cost continued to rise far above average. I don’t mind paying over the odds for a better service, but not for a worse one, hosting moved again in 2014.

Ask The Parrot

Richard Stark/Donald Westlake
it seems the latest Richard Stark ‘Parker’ book has gotten a big UK release. At least it the first one I’ve ever been able to walk into my local small town bookshop and buy off the shelf (they had three!).

Along with the big distribution and promotional price comes a cover quote from a booker prize winning author and a uniformly bland cover, Heres a copy of the new book next to one of the  ‘bullet hole’ 60s ‘cheap’ paperback editions – I know which I prefer].

I don’t know what it is with modern book jacket design, I’m sure just as much effort and time is spent on them as always was but its always the same result, generic stock photo cover with bold authors name/title. And I’m not just bitter because theres less illustrator gigs for book covers, but looking back at some of the older book jacket designs (theres often a batch on display over at the great DataJunky Blog) – they just looked that much more interesting…

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All images and artwork copyright ©1998 - 2025 chris hathway, illustrator& Hathway/Creative