HANGIN' TOUGH AT ROUGH TRADE RECORDS

Here's a few snaps from the weekend just passed, 12 solid hours of graft, a continuous inhalation of fake shop air, pumping techno music? not to mention the most bedazzling lighting on the market, made this install a Royal ball ache. However, that said it looks better than Dungeons & Dragons and Trap Door fused together to create a childrens TV super pilot: The Trapgeon Of Fuckin' Bossness... perhaps? Oh & all four chumps responsible for this epic shindig are L/R - Lawrence Roper, Holly Wales, Marcus Oakley & Simon Peplow. Bonafide narcissism personified. Thanks to James for assisting Lawrence with hanging duties.

TJB TOTE BAGS

We'll be handing out 125 of these useful Tote bags on the opening night of the show, courtesy of Kara at CARHARTT and Stu at LOVENSKATE. Turn up at a respectable hour to secure yourself a handy holdall (strictly 1 per person). Designs are by TILL THOMAS (shown above), Yuka Katagiri, PETRA BORNER and NATHANIEL RUSSELL, thanks for donating some of your designs guys, they make these canvas carriers something special to behold indeed.

TJB Flyers

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Flyer 1 by MARCUS OAKLEY.
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Flyer 2 by HOLLY WALES.
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Flyer 3 by SIMON PEPLOW.
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NOUS VOUS

EVAN MEISTER

EVAN MEISTER - precision lineage muskateer, hailing from Portland, Oregon. Home to Burnside Skatepark, Nike and the dearly missed musician Elliott Smith.

COLIN HENDERSON

Based from his studio in London, COLIN creates his own multi-coloured exotic culture and magic carpet informed world from across a wide range of mediums, inventor of beach football-golf he is also the co-founding father of YO!FEST.

EINSTELLUNG - Sleep Easy Mr Parker / LUCY MCLAUCHLAN Album Artwork

Above - debut album artwork created by LUCY MCLAUCHLAN of BEAT13.

We are delighted to have these up and coming earjoy makers providing the background bangins for The joyful Bewilderment Exhibitions opening night, this here's why...

From the deepest depths of the industrial heartlands of Middle England comes a small ray of light. Since late 2003 a warm glow has steadily grown into what can only be described as a fireball. From this point on let this gentle fireball be known as Einstellung.

EINSTELLUNG: a personal choice - to perceive the world through ones own eyes...Power, beauty, noise, melody, hypnosis, simplicity. Blending glorious monotonous Krautrock with melodic tones and heavy slabs of Sabbath riffage, whilst finding time to declare sonic warfare on those tinnitus victims who have passed the point of no return.

In its early years, Einstellung acted as an outlet for its four members from the day to day trawl of 9 to 5 living. A mutual appreciation of all things warm, loud and hypnotic initially lead to a 28-minute piece entitled Sleep Easy Mr Parker. The result was far too pleasing to be ignored and with a new found momentum the band moved from what was an idyllic escape, to a full steam locomotion assault. The first album, Wings of Desire is now available on Chatterbox Records. The second, as yet untitled album is part way through the writing stage.

First and foremost Einstellung enjoy each others company and through this have managed to accidentally create a little bit of sound. This little bit of sound has in turn spread and the warm glow is now seeping out of the derelict factorys of Birmingham and settling nicely in the ears of the believers. Word has spread quickly and labels and promoters from the UK, the USA and Australia have made contact with Einstellung. An encouraging sign considering every contact has been through word of mouth.

Wir sind einstellung, das das Bumsen Sie sind!

Einstellung are Steve Hough (ex-Cable Regime, Godflesh, Grover) on bass, Simon Rider (Ex Grover, Moneygods) on drums, Andrew Parker (ex-Katastrophy Wife, Sally) and Andy Smart on guitars.

JASON GORMLEY

JASON is from Adelaide, South Australia (a David Lynch-like town famous for it’s churches and weird murders).He began working life as a kitchen hand in Chief Charley’s $5-all-you-can-eat seafood restaurant. Tired of fat burns, he went looking for a cushier job and wound up writing commercials at an ad agency. It kicked off a 20 year career that’s seen him work with some of the best agencies in the world, for all sorts of clients. His most infamous invention remains the Pepperami ‘It’s a bit of an animal’ campaign. These days you’ll find him at Wolff Olins London where he’s a Creative Director. Between adverts, Jason has directed a pop video, made sympathy cards for victims of crime and held an exhibition celebrating the superhero toys of his childhood. Currently he’s collaborating on an ongoing ART PROJECT with the photographer Valerie Phillips and trying to paint.

MIKE BERTINO

RIK COOPER

Born in the North of England

Learnt to walk

Learnt how to ride a BIKE


Learnt to climb trees

Learnt to breakdance

Learnt to draw

Learnt to SKATEBOARD

Discovered the world...

Worked for LODOWN, Graphotism, Luke77 among others, and in all corners of the world.

Currently resident tinkerman at the legendary MISSIONPRINT in Birmingham.

SOPHIE KERN

I am a dead unicorn, shame my horn is floppy (that sounds terrible!) Anyway, what gets me up in the morning..? well, I guess ...I like trying to make pictures of things that no one could have possibly seen before. I'm not massively into drawing from observation. Why say 'this is a picture of my dinner', when you can say 'this is a picture of a headless lady surrounded by luminous ghosts preparing a banquet of edible pants'. That's much more exciting, I think. Does that make sense? - makes perfect sense Sophie! Anyway...hope you are well and have got over your hyper intergalactic wonderthon. Take it easy, SOPHIE x

ANNA GIERTZ

Anna Giertz completed an MA in Graphic design & Illustration at Konstfack University in 2004. She is based in Stockholm, Sweden. Where she works on a freelance basis.

MARCO VELARDI

RON REGE JR

RON REGE JR along with Rebecca Stark mastermind and make truly wonderful comics under the moniker LAVENDER DIAMOND. When they're not busy doing this, they can can be found making beautifully arranged, melodic, and all round pleasurable earjoy with Steven Gregoropoulos under the same MONIKER.


ANDREAS SAMUELSSON

ANDREAS SAMUELSSON is a Swedish illustrator from Stockholm. Working with cut paper
collage mixed with watercolor and computer graphics in sharp colors. His ideas tends
to turn into geometric forms, stilistic symbols and handwritten letters.

YUKA KATAGIRI

WOUTER VANHAELEMEESCH

VAUGHAN BAKER

"I'm from Worcester but that place sucks, so I moved to London like everyone else! I never went to College or University, instead I willed away my time SKATEBOARDING which has seen me through life so far, alongside this I've always kept sketch books and painted. My works generally influenced by moods and music." - VAUGHAN, it's like getting blood out of a fuckin' stone.

VALERIE PHILLIPS

Let's here it for VALERIE!... "I just try to keep everything I do, whether it's client work or personal stuff, as close to one another as possible. That way people or companies I work for know that it's Valerie Phillips' work." Erasing the boundary between commercial work and fine art photography is one of the reasons she is so prolific at both. She has self published four books to date, and has had another recently published titled I CAN'T BELIEVE A GIRL IS PLAYING ME METALLICA. She also runs an art project disguised as a skateboard outfit called CHERRYVALE SKATEBOARD COMPANY with her sterling partner JASON GORMLEY

Part of what makes her work so appealing to fashion clients is that she's not overly concerned with fashion or the trappings of being an in demand photographer. "I'm only interested in the pictures. Lighting, stylists, hair, make up and all the rest are integral to a shoot but I try to let them do their thing so I can concentrate on capturing the image in front of me." This laser-sighting allows her to focus on seeing those authentic moments that define her surprising, supremely natural images.

Beyond photography, Valerie loves horses and the moon and outer space pursuits and making books. When she's shooting she's usually armed with a Leica Minilux point and click camera or a digital Hasselblad. She makes her bed in New York and London but can't wait for any time she can spend in Hong Kong or Kansas. She's our kind of strong woman... inspiring us with the passion she brings to her work, her sharp eye, and her determination to do it her way.

TUUKKA KAILA

TSZ TING WAN

Hello I am TSZ (pronounced Chee), a Graphic Designer and Illustrator. I grew up in Hong Kong and now living in UK currently. My favourite food is cheese on toast so I named my website 'Tsz on Toast'. Thankyou.

TOBY SHUALL

TOBY SHUALL is a self taught practitioner, haunted by the woods of Pinner near his folks house where he grew up, and the 'Lostalots' that inhabit this ever increasingly sparse naturalistic realm. From his home in London Toby runs SUBURBAN BLISS which began in his parents home, but was conceived in Northern California. The company itself is inspired by nature, music, art, friendship, love, dreams and independence from the ever increasingly controlled world that we inhabit. The main aim of the label is to put out new imagery on to clothing and other stuff. Largely featuring Toby's work and others like NICOLA PECORARO, FERGADELIC, JETHRO HAYNES, NIK TAYLOR and SIMON PEPLOW. The images and themes are ever evolving as is the company itself.

TIM HEAD

http://ledilly.blogspot.com/

TETSUNORI TAWARAYA

TILL THOMAS

TILL THOMAS graduated from the University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg last winter, where he keeps making comics and unintentionally hitting cars with his bicycle for as long as they let him. The third installment of his mini-comic zirp has been called "okay" by a close friend.

SUPERMUNDANE

1971 - Born in the MIDLANDS of England, UK.
1978 - Join Young Ornithologist Club.
1979 - Get a CB Radio.
1980 - Mod obsession.
1981 - Hear Status Quo, become obsessed with Heavy Metal, grow mullet.
1982 - Go to High School decide to do something in Art.
1985 - Divide time between, painting, the library and bird-watching.
1988 - Discover Graphic Design go to college.
1990 - Cut off Mullet hair do. Discard Metal for Indie music.
1991 - Join HND in Graphic Design at Middlesborough.
1993 - Work at kettle factory in the Midlands. Buy a guitar.
1994 - Find word SUPERMUNDANE like a gift.
1996 - Move to the city of London.
1998 - Fill sketchbooks with Supermundane work whilst working as an award winning Graphic Designer by day.
2001 - Launch Supermundane website on an unsuspecting world.
2003 - Get plucked out of the everyday world of design agencies to work on SleazeNation.
2004 - Art Direct Good For Nothing magazine, have first major solo show of drawings.
2005 - Move to Happiness at Work Studio (converted pub).
2006 - Become Creative Director of ANORAK MAGAZINE .
2008 - Continue drawing, designing, painting and exhibiting...

SUMI INK CLUB

SIMON TRUE

SIMON TRUE IS A LEGEND! now this term is bandied about a little to often for my comfortability, but for Simon this label is deservedly justified. He doesn't have a website, because people just know, yes they just know.

SIMON PEPLOW

SIMON PEPLOW lives within a delicately constructed vortex. He spends the majority of his days downloading information from a tiny cabin situated inside the Corpus Callosum region of his noggin. Characters are a fundamental part of his work, described by some as whimsical, cute and sinister in equal measures. He just wishes they were his friends. Simon co-founded the OUTCROWD COLLECTIVE after graduating from the Birmingham Institute of Art & Design in 2004, and continues to work as a freelance illustrator in the real realm.

STUART KOLAKOVIC

Stuart is an illustrator based in the UK, and represented by Heart Agency. His clients include Reaktion Publishing, KU Press, Natural History Museum, Caught in the Crossfire, Art Bureau, Rollersnakes, Barclays Bank, The Guardian, Projekts MCR, Sony, Document Magazine and Little Otsu Boutique. Copies of my comics, prints and merchandise are also available from his online shop.