It’s Better When We’re Together

Hey Coo Kids,

I’ve done quite a few solo gigs in my time. Some have been great, a recent one was not so good where I lost confidence as someone asked the staff to ask me to turn it down and I clammed up, couldn’t speak between songs, was desperately trying to sing everything quietly, questioning and doubting myself continually.

Added to that I had to carry mountain-loads of gear up 5 flights of stairs afterwards and my positivity was at a particular low.

But I don’t do everything alone. I sing in two bands and recently have been practicing with my friend Ian as a duo to very exciting and rewarding effect.

I spend a lot of my time working solitarily on music but there’s nothing quite like being with one or more musicians.

First of all, you’re not alone! Obvious to say it, but any fears, doubts, worries, heavy-lifting, can be shared.

Also, the good bits too, the laughs, the little looks when something goes right, the camaraderie of being the only ones sharing this specific experience together. It’s special and precious.

Second, there’s more power with more than one musician. You can create a bigger, more elaborate soundscape, harmonies, you can realise something musically and do it organically without as much reliance on trickery, pedals, backing tracks, etc.

Another special experience for me was recording with Outlandish and Nick Scott recently at the Anvil pub. The downstairs was adorned with a lot of rock imagery but we spent about 6 hours blasting out folk music and it just felt amazing, living life to the very best of my ability. A large part of that was not doing it on my own but sharing a special musical experience with others.

At some point, in the hopefully not too distant future, Coosticks may be becoming a band again. How very exciting, I’ll keep you posted.

And finally, a lot of the friendships and acquaintances I have made over the years have been through music. So I wanted to share the music, to make sure we were connected as musical people.

So below is a list of some musicians. They are all very talented. Like me, they must all spend an obscene amount of time working on recording, practicing, honing, gigging, publicising and marketing what they do, and I would imagine it’s often because, again like me, they are driven to do it, obsessed by the love of just filling your life with music. Dip in to the list, choose one or maybe more at random if you like, give them some love, and you’ll discover something somewhere that you love, I guarantee it.

You can make music on your own, and you can make it successful, and it can be really special.

But it’s better when we’re together.

Check out these musicians:

https://www.facebook.com/leeRasdallDovemusician

https://soundcloud.com/baldy-music

https://soundcloud.com/katie-waygood

https://www.facebook.com/kezhintonmusic

https://soundcloud.com/hope-and-the-new-flower-generation

https://www.facebook.com/BecomingBranches

https://www.facebook.com/marcodigaetano.music

https://soundcloud.com/wendymorrow

https://www.facebook.com/etherealandtheelevated

https://www.facebook.com/MajestikBreaks

https://soundcloud.com/g-p-kendrick

https://soundcloud.com/annie_winter

https://soundcloud.com/christopher-lloyd-quinton

https://www.facebook.com/richbaxtermusic

https://www.facebook.com/TheSamuraisBand

https://www.facebook.com/thetroubledhearts

https://www.facebook.com/Dorsetphil

https://www.facebook.com/hannahlouisemusic

https://www.facebook.com/tuneboxmusic

https://www.facebook.com/MissMillieWatson

https://www.facebook.com/groups/brothersgrimmernews

https://soundcloud.com/user-757530652

https://www.facebook.com/Route66Dorset

https://soundcloud.com/oonbeams

https://soundcloud.com/becafludgate

https://rubberbus.bandcamp.com/album/vra-live

https://soundcloud.com/lostsignaltunes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXRcJ-49KG4

https://soundcloud.com/alexhallmusic

https://soundcloud.com/shannon-white-13

https://soundcloud.com/user-676526012

https://soundcloud.com/user-219578714-853225675

https://www.facebook.com/groups/441552027506437

https://www.facebook.com/charlie.cole.982845

https://soundcloud.com/taffmorse

https://soundcloud.com/midnight-alliance

https://www.facebook.com/RachelAnnStroud

A Brief History of Coo Cards in 12ish Images (part 4 of 4)

Hey Coo Kids,

A fairly important part of playing live, for me anyway, is doing a poster for the gig I'm going to play

I decided quite a while ago (not entirely independently, I'll admit) to start doing gig posters (or 'live notices' as I file them as, or 'Coo Cards' as they are popularly known) and decided to do one for every gig

I've currently done about 393 of them, so it's been an undertaking!! But it's also been an immense pleasure as it's a creative side I can let out with very minimal worry about pleasing anyone else or worrying what people think

To explain and do justice to them in 12 images is fairly insane due to how many there are but as the title says, it's a brief history and if you require further investigation you can see all of them, the good, the bad, and the ugly on the Coosticks website's gallery.

So here we are with the last batch coming up to date:

Again, some honorable mentions:

I like the silliness of 00440 - just a load of chat with the date of the gig in the middle!

00447 was done in Illustrator and Procreate and is quite pleasing to me (love a ruff)

00450 is Photoshop overload but I'm really pleased with it, partly because of the weird perspective of a wall that is much smaller than you think. The part you see is about the height of two heads, not a full body, and, believe it or not, the goldfish weren't there.

00465 - such a lot of work!! A Coosticks word search! Sometimes I don't give myself an easy time!!!

00446/00449/00457/00458a

Maps!

Four of them.

The first one at Chaplin's, then a live Facebook stream, then a quiz night for my friend Rich Baxter, then outdoor shenanigans with my Outlandish band-mates.

I thought a map was a good thing to emulate for a poster, but then I decided to make one big map and cut it into four and when the pieces are put together... not sure if anyone realised!!

00456

Some of my Coo Cards get used and then the night doesn't happen or the card doesn't seem right for the venue. This one kept getting used then not used, time and time again. When another Green Room Live appeared on the horizon, I was determined to be there and to use this card for it as it had been semi-shelved but it was also one of my favourite images.

The Green Room Live nights are wonderful, lovely sound, an amazing room to play in and Forest Arts Centre in New Milton is a great place for art and music. I didn't feel confident this night, made a mistake or two, but got very warm and positive feedback

The card may look straightforward - it wasn't. It's another one that took a long time to do, to get the shapes and the feel right. I had long wanted to save it for playing at the Green Man in Wimborne for obvious reasons but they never matched up unfortunately.

Very pleased with this, it feels out of place here as I must have originally drawn it about 4 years previously, and I like the little detail of the rogue leaf.

A few more notable cards to mention:

00467 - so pleased with how 'Operation-Coo' turned out00468 - just love how it all turned out, one of my very favourites, might have to revisit this in the future

00480/00481/00482/00483 - a linocut image I did and used for my second time at Ventnor Fringe, which felt, at times, kind of triumphant

00486 - just love this image so much - someone commented, 'are you transitioning?'

00487 - love this cheeky guy too

00472

I had done card 00471 for a visit to the Isle of Wight playing at Quay Arts Centre which is another place I have craved playing for a while.

I had been in touch with the organiser, Chris, and I met him on the night and he was amazing, friendly and so welcoming and it was such a pleasure to play there. After the music, Chris asked me how long I was on the Island for. I told him I was there for the week and he invited me to an open mic that he runs. I went along and had the most fantastic night.

The place was rammed, Polish sailors were dancing to the music, everyone was singing along, it was so joyous.

But I didn't have a Coo Card!

Usually these days I make sure one is done before the gig, well before if I can but here I was stumped. I had no access to computers and nothing with me but a sketchbook and pencils. So that's what I used and this is one of the rare Coo Cards of today that has different boxes on it (because I hand-drew them) and it might be the single only Coo Card that doesn't have the Coosticks logo on it which makes it a one-of-a-kind.



I hope you've enjoyed this brief visit through my creative madness. As I say, if you want the whole overload, they are pretty much all up on the website (except 00103 and one I haven't finished yet for someone's wedding a few years ago based on a Coke can, I'll get back to it, promise!)


Take care now x

A Brief History of Coo Cards in 12ish Images (part 3 of 4)

Hey Coo Kids,

A fairly important part of playing live, for me anyway, is doing a poster for the gig I'm going to play.

I decided quite a while ago (not entirely independently, I'll admit) to start doing gig posters (or 'live notices' as I file them as, or 'Coo Cards' as they are popularly known) and decided to do one for every gig

I've currently done about 393 of them, so it's been an undertaking!! But it's also been an immense pleasure as it's a creative side I can let out with very minimal worry about pleasing anyone else or worrying what people think

To explain and do justice to them in 12 images is fairly insane due to how many there are but as the title says, it's a brief history and if you require further investigation you can see all of them, the good, the bad, and the ugly on the Coosticks website's gallery.

So, without further ado, here's a continuation of the history of Coo Cards, and for this next one, we start in 2015:

00276

My friend Graham Paul Kendrick has, in the past, organised house gigs with his friend Mark and one of them was an evening supporting Tom Robinson. It was quite weird walking in the house and past him sitting outside. He was wonderful, charming, funny, entertaining, and a great performer. He liked what I did too which was very nice to hear.

The Coo Card was obviously important to me and took aaaaaaaaaagggeeeessssss (ages)! I cut out everything you see there from shiny card and hung it all as you see there from the ceiling and took shots of it and... the photos looked terrible!

So, in Photoshop, I cut out everything you see there from the background, placed them in the right place, took a photo of the bare wall, and photoshopped the threads and shadows and then played with the reflections on some of the letters. Yes, it took a loooong time, but I think it was worth it. Very pleased with it and a great memory of a great evening.

00351

Another Coo Card that took a while was this one, done for V-Dub Island 2017. I think Katie Waygood (more about her in a future blog entry) was hosting the stage this year.

I hand drew the astronaut, traced the head and guitar from photos (it's my guitar) and digitally drew the planet. I'm very very fond of this one, love the look, colours, type, feeling of the guitar floating.

Quite a lot of favourites in 2018 and 2019:

00358 (another work-time endeavour in part)

00360 - took a while as I had to hand move each letter around the lens

00365 - get it?

00382 - cows, cows, cows

00383 - hand-drawn forest, turned out nicely

00388 - placed the leaves, then half of them blew away, then placed them again, then half of them blew away, repeat for about 20 minutes until I finally got a good shot of them behaving

00391 - seemed very popular, this one.

00394 - hand stamped, then Photoshopped, very time-consuming

00397 - my friend Fabia, looking very cool

00408 - tin foil over ice cube tray letters, then Photoshop-composited together, another very time-consuming one

00416 - another very special wedding

00419 - my friend Ellie, also looking very cool

00421 - a wacky looking king

00432 - Becoming Branches Acoustic Showcase night (see what I did there?)

00401

I think I wanted this one to be 00400 but the numbers didn't work out.

This was at Vinilo Record Store in Southampton, a cool but fairly tiny place that I would sometimes frequent in my lunch hours while I was working in Southampton. There were, I think, 3 other artists playing and I was third. Some friends came over from the Isle of Wight to watch which was a surprise and a delight, and the atmosphere was amazing, like the best Ringwood Unplugged nights, everyone was laser-tuned in to what we were doing, which made it intense and intimate but wonderful. I'd like to play there again sometime.

And the card, well, I think it speaks for itself. What I would say is it's very hard to find suitable reference material for some Lego pieces and it's also very hard to draw Lego convincingly and get the angles and the feel right. I was going to put the effect of this being a folded page on there but when I tried it, it felt like it had enough power as an image on its own without adding anything more, so I didn't. There isn't (currently) a Lego torso with the Coosticks logo on.


Until the next time, dear reader x

A Brief History of Coo Cards in 12(ish) Images - Part 2 of 4

Hey Coo Kids,

A fairly important part of playing live, for me anyway, is doing a poster for the gig I'm going to play.

I decided quite a while ago (not entirely independently, I'll admit) to start doing gig posters (or 'live notices' as I file them as, or 'Coo Cards' as they are popularly known) and decided to do one for every gig.

I've currently done about 393 of them, so it's been an undertaking!! But it's also been an immense pleasure as it's a creative side I can let out with very minimal worry about pleasing anyone else or worrying what people think.

To explain and do justice to them in 12 images is fairly insane due to how many there are but as the title says, it's a brief history and if you require further investigation you can see all of them, the good, the bad, and the ugly on the Coosticks website's gallery.

So, without further ado, here's a continuation of the history of Coo Cards, this time from 2012 on:

I felt that I started to find my visual mojo in 2012. I did a couple of cards (00126 and 00127) with an image of me on the side of buildings and I was delighted with them. I started to play more with the image of me and what I could do with it, how I could distort it, and came up with a more individual style more often. See also 00159 (check out the 'tashe) 00160, and 00161 which I'm very pleased with!

00139

Visually, this Coo Card was a breakthrough for me. I used a photo of my body, in a suit, which I had used previously for some other Coo-related artwork, probably for the website at the time. Then I took a photo of my eye looking through a fairy light decoration, a material cube with a hole in it, and used some strange alchemy to put the two together. I absolutely love the halftone dots, especially where they bunch up and get denser around the edges of the cube and I love the type and where it's placed. With my slightly more critical eye of today, I feel the Coosticks logo is strangely positioned over the upper body, makes it a bit difficult to read but quirky, so I'm going with this one!

This was at Chaplin's, one of, if not the, best music venue in this area, very bohemian, original music most nights of the week, fantastic place. I vaguely, but not necessarily correctly, remember this as an open mic, and one that I didn't enjoy or feel entirely comfortable at for some reason. Rest assured, I've had many lovely nights there since. This was also part of 'September Sing' as you will see on the card. This was my attempt to play as many nights in September as I could. I managed 22, which I don't think is too shabby at all!!

There were some wild and wacky images in 2014. 00191 is cool, I don't know where the building is but it's obviously near water. 00193 is my son's teddie. 00194 is (I think) somewhere in Winchester but messed with. 00195 is an old postcard. 00202 was a favourite Coo Card for a terrible gig where everyone left the minute I started playing as they had all been there for the previous act, so I played for a guy behind the bar and a dog!! The guy on the door liked it though. 00212 is me with tentacles!!

00238

Of all the cards from 2014 00238 is an image that worked really nicely and was a very special occasion as well. I loved what I managed to do with the shots. I really like the muted CMYK overlaps of colour. They were taken (I think) after I had played so the card would also have been done after. I was visiting someone at Bournemouth Hospital and had been asked to go and play for them in their room. I played for maybe 40 minutes and I know some of the staff were listening and enjoying it from outside the room.

More notable mentions:

00263 - loved the concept.

00268 and 00271 - two of my faves of all time. The Elvis one took a lot of time and Photoshopping and just kept growing into something truly strange and wonderful.

00249/00366

I've never enjoyed working in an office and kind of don't do it anymore, it took 30+ years and a pand3mic to work up the courage to do something about it. But there were good things that came out of it. Like these two Coo Cards as I drew them both in work hours and it was a delight. I eventually got made redundant and perhaps it was partly because they saw me drawing instead of working? Hope so, hahaha!!

I think 00249 is probably a more dynamic image but I have a fondness for 00366 as it took so damn long to draw and then colour digitally. I drew my wife on the far right sitting below the tower and I love the sprawling tree on the left.

This was for Ringwood Unplugged, a totally unplugged acoustic event, hosted by my very good friends, Kez and Elaine. The atmosphere at some of these nights was electrifying (ironically, for an acoustic night) and I miss how special, fragile, beautiful, the atmosphere could sometimes be.