Music
They’ve done it again. Had to post this, it’s just so good, especially the end bit with the crowd of people and the duck. Enjoy
With speakers from AKQA, Superfad and Proud Creative, this Thursday you’d be a mug not to get in on Outside In, an event right in the middle of Shoreditch, all proceeds of which (£5 a pop) go towards the Ravensbourne College degree students.
Also worthy of note is the video they made for the first of these talks (though you can’t fault anything set to The XX in my eyes).
On Saturday night ShellsuitZombie were kindly given three tickets to what would turn out to be one of the more surreal evenings of our social calendar so far this year. Mercy, the same Liverpool and London based agency that creates 12 Angry Zines, held the sixth of its incredibly successful (and oversubscribed) nights with Liverpool-based pop experimentals The Wave Machines at Shoreditch Church - ‘Wave if you’re really there’.
This one, entitled Baptism, featured a host of talent in the fields of spoken word, music and performance, with brilliant (and hilarious) vocal performances from Nathan Jones, Ross Sutherland, Salena Godden and David J, Music from Eugene Mcguinness and the Lizards and of course The Wave Machines and some bizarre performance art from a troupe, one of whom kept putting her head in the font (church, not typographic). Everything combined (as well as a BYOB policy resulting in excessive wine consumption) to create a great atmosphere, helped of course by the Medieval/Palladian style architecture of the church itself (yep damn right, wikifuckingpedia).
Moment of the night had to go to Dave O’Dowda from Table on piano accompanied by a choir which popped up out of nowhere (like in Love actually). All in all a memorable night, please for gods sake go to the next one.
(The two good photos are © Tamsin Isaacs, the grainy ones are © Ellies crappy iPhone camera.)
On the first of March a rowdy group of two-score Stockportians and four of SSZ met up in a pub in Kings Cross to start a revolution. An evening of beer, chat, strange celebrity endorsements, quickfire questions and yet more nob gags ensued.
The loose structure of the night meant that we didn’t finish until half 11, by which time most peoples eyes weren’t going in the same directions, but we managed to fit in an initial chat/ramble by us, a complex challenge involving celebrities and their endorsements and a final Q&A. We also gave everyone a dead nice screenprinted poster and managed to fill our ‘book of awesome’ with some strange scribblings.
Things we learned:
1. The students of Stockport college are an inventive lot.
2. James should never be allowed on stage after 4 pints.
3. Just because you call a book ‘The Book Of Awesome’, that doesn’t mean it will be treated with any more respect.
4. Bono could feasibly have a tie-in with Vagisil. (Ooh Bono, Aah Vagisil)
Thanks to all the students and Tutors who came along and made the night what it was, a reet laff. See all the photos on our facebook page and get your very own screenprinted A2 Radio Rebelde poster (see below) from our shop.
Some of our long-term readers may remember us covering the 2009 World Beard and Moustache Championships. Well this is entirely different to that. The London Word Festival is upon us and we here at Zombie Towers are excited as hell about it. With linguistic stylists from all over the world gracing the stage as well as other events ranging from screen-printing to crime-comic- jazz interpretations, this one has it all. You’ve already missed Alex Horne, Robin Ince and various other semi-celebs but there’s literally mounds of steaming culture left to see before the whole shebang ends on the 1st of April.
Impress your mates. Go to a poetry recital.
That guy is Noel. He was at VS. We think he enjoyed it.
On Tuesday the 16th of February, a day that will live in infamy, We, ShellsuitZombie, hosted a silly evening. Braving wind rain and puddles, a krunkload of people came along to enjoy what we had promised would be a night of competition, intrigue, industry and graduates. And against all odds, we think we just about pulled it off…
With creatives from agencies like AMVBBDO, Fallon, W+K, Profero, BCL etc, designers from beautiful boutique agencies like A+B, The Plant, Morph, Magpie and DRY as well as some lush prizes on offer, a couple of cracking bands, beats by DJ and Designer David Rudnick and a lovely bunch o’ students and grads, that made for a fun-ass time. (and the longest sentence in the world. care.)
The Point
We believe that your first contact with industry shouldn’t be in the reception of a design agency, nervously clutching your portfolio. Job interviews are so forced and you have such a short time to get your personality across, yet personality is a vital part of teamwork and the creative process. Fortunately, the majority of design professionals are joke-loving booze-hounds and somehow they seem a lot less daunting with a beer in their paw. Our intention was to create a social atmosphere where grads and pros meet not as potential colleagues, but as co-humans; connecting through humorous anecdotes, not relevant work experience; flipping beermats, not pages of the (immaculately formatted) CV.
The Competition
We really wanted to avoid a school disco situation with grads on one side and pros on the other, nervously eyeing each other, dreading that first dance. So we came up with a strategy to skip the small talk and escalate to full-on flirting. The theme of the night was VS, and so a competitive spirit was encouraged throughout the night. Guests were instructed to pick mini-duels with each other in whatever form they deemed appropriate. These nano-challenges could be anything from drawing the best willy, to a dance-off, to the best magic trick. The winners of the most impressive micro-tasks won some awesome geek-out prizes kindly donated by our friends - including mugs by A+B Studio, t-shirts and posters from Magpie Studio and the limited edition Firetrap gnome from DRY (thank you all for donating these prizes). Most importantly everyone got involved, the air was thick with challenges, and these led to real dialogues between new acquaintances.
Meanwhile we had music from the awesome Keston Cobblers Club and the smooth sounds of Harrison Hope. Later on designer and DJ Dave Rudnick laid down his eclectic beats (So Solid anyone?) and the boozy chat continued.
The Future
More of the same innit? We love organising events like this and will keep on doing more. If you have suggestions for themes or locations, definitely get in touch. Check out our flickr and Facebook pages for more pics and make sure you come along to the next one!
Peace out playerz. One Love.
We like Beardyman here at SSZ Towers, in fact I once drunkenly asked for his autograph literally right when he was having an argument with his girlfriend (He remained polite - A gentleman first, beatboxer second) but frankly the sight of six* of his disembodied heads whining and spinning due to some star-trek science shit made me want to cry. Nevertheless big props to the aforementioned science, this video is really clever.
re. Beardyman - youtube him, you won’t regret it.
*EDIT: I have become aware that there are in fact seven. SHUT UP YEAH.
If this doesn’t make you want to hug a friend/pet/inanimate object then you’re literally dead.*
(via yourstru.ly)
*That’s not a threat [we do our threats predominantly via email], we just mean dead inside, a bit like Paris Hilton.
Having listened to/watched this for the eighth time today, I felt the desire to share.
Please if at all possible watch in HD full screen with your PC speakers turned to 11 and enjoy my nomination for track of 2009.
My god that drop.
And something a bit more ‘down with the kids’ - a great video and a great tune from Yeasayer. Check out them and all their pals on Neon Gold records, the guys that knew about such bands as Passion Pit when we were just twinkles in our respective Milkmens eyes.
The URL for this site is ‘http://jblyth.com/blog.html‘, the implication of course being that it leads to a blog. It sort of is, but pared down to one element - piccies. Piccies of boobs and bikes, design and illustration, arty/wanky photos and a few more boobs (the clue was in the title). It’s refreshing though to not have to wade through a pile of some guy yapping - no, the irony is not lost on me - to get to the eye-candy (by which of course I mean nice photos, not boobs…)
It is the work of Justin Blythe (Designer, Art Director etc of some renown as well as owner of the domain, duh.) He doesn’t link to it though, so shhh, mums the word (that means keep it a secret, yanks). Or don’t, whatever.
Martin deserved a shout for this video months ago - and really we should have been the ones to do it first as it was a joint decision between us at ShellsuitZombie and Adrian Shaugnessy to award him Best in New Blood for it in July. However, as often happens, it got lost in the mist of time so here it is now.
Yes it’s 14 minutes long, but yes, it is also interesting and rocks an epic beat. Worth a watch.
