Tuesday 6 January 2015

SciFi Pagan

Did anyone who reads this blog ever buy the Goddamnit Redux thing to celebrate 10 years of Alkaline Trio's (let's be honest) perfect debut? One thing that I loved about that so much was reading what Brendan Kelly from the Lawrence Arms had to say about the record. He knew who Kathleen was, he knew who Clavicle was written for. He remembers the LP's being delivered to the house, and a bunch of other great little stories. However, he adds that a record like Goddamnit gives every listener a few great memories. 
Whilst that LP definitely does it for me, I'm here to talk today about my favourite local release from my favourite local band, and the little footnotes that come along with it. 


Skinny Dolphins - Meow - Life Puzzler HQ 
Pressing information gets a little weird, so we will get into that a bit later. 


Skinny Dolphins - Meow - Life Puzzler HQ - Blue Cover - 12/32

As the blue cover was the first copy I owned, I'll be talking about that. The back is hand numbered, but is blank other than that so it seemed a little pointless photographing it up close. 
All of the covers are hand screened and the CD's are hand stamped. These were only available through the band's Bandcamp page (I'll post links at the bottom). 
As there were 32 made in total across 4 colours, that means that each sleeve is limited /8 from this press. 
All the screening was done by Bradley Shemmell (vocalist, guitarist and Skinny Dolphins mastermind) and all the art was handled by Laura Fitton (we'll get on to her in a short while). 


Back Cover (s) 

This is to show how the CD slots in to the sleeve. More importantly though, you'll see that my Blue copy is the only numbered copy out of the 4 that I own. 
Story time folks!

Long story short, I play in a band called Bedbound By Summer (link below) with Liam Marsh who also plays drums in Skinny Dolphins. My band played a gig at my practice space (which now acts as a local DIY spot for shows and stuff) and I pestered Skinny Dolphins to come out of retirement to play too (which was great news for me, so far this band have played 3 shows and I've been to all of 'em. Their gig at Harfest is one of my fondest memories. Harry Rylott plays bass in Skinny Dolphins and organises Harfest. See where this is all tying in nicely?). Brad made up some more (8 copies, 2 of each colour I think) CD's of Meow to give away at the gig that weren't numbered. Sadly I intercepted this and grabbed the colours I was missing, meaning only 5 were given away on the night and maybe some left over of the numbered copies. Hence why one is numbered and the other are not. 
Moving on! 


Insert. 

Lyrics to the first 2 tracks, some cat illustrations and some band portraits courtesy of Laura Fitton. Laura is a cool character, she also delivered backing vocals on some tracks for Meow and plays in a band with Brad called The oracle. Their new EP is insane, it's not out yet but it should be. She also plays in her own band called Strange Lipsticks; she covered a song from the Twin Peaks soundtrack and it's perfect. 
Brad's thank you's are on this side of the insert. Daftkunt is a real thing, I'll leave you to figure out that one for yourself.

Liam is definitely The Invisible Man, he also posted no thanks here. 
Harry definitely wants to be Morrissey.
Brad is Bjork, I'm pretty sure that's actually a fact. 


Other side of the insert. 

Track 4 is a cover of Runaway by Kanye West, it's pretty out there but I love it more than I probably should. 
More cats and lyrics. 
Harry also gets his section of thank-you's here; the 1st person he thanks is Morrissey. No surprise there at all. 
After that is credits, but I've already talked about most of what is in there already. 


Money shot. 

Just like Brendan Kelly has memories of Goddamnit, I have great memories of this EP. 
I know who the song Meow was written about. 
I hang around in the living round where this EP was recorded. 
The stamp that adorns all the CD's was bought from the National Portrait Gallery. 
I am very proud to call the 3 minds behind this wonderful creation close friends. 

They have a new EP coming out soon. It was recorded in my practice space and I was there every spare second I could give; helping out where I could. I can't wait for you all to hear it. 
This is a little snapshot into the weird little local scene we have. It's everyone jumping on everyone's train, and everyone falling in love with everything that everyone else is up to. 

So, here is the bandcamp parade: 
  • Skinny Dolphins: skinnydolphins.bandcamp.com/album/meow-ep
  • Bedbound By Summer (myself and Liam from Skinny Dolphins): bedboundbysummer.bandcamp.com
  • Strange Lipsticks (Laura Fitton, illustrator and Oracle): strangelipsticks.bandcamp.com/
  • soundcloud.com/harryviolet Provides a snapshot into the complex inner workings of Harry Rylott // Violet // Riot // Harrissey.
  • Liam has more songs than he knows what to do with, and none of them are on the internet. 
A fair bunch of this is for free or name your price I would guess, and I'm sure everyone involved would much rather you download it and share it along. Don't feel bad for taking it for free, at the moment my band owe Bandcamp money because people decided to pay for the LP. It's a real small sum, but I get indignant about these things. 







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