My Secret 7 sleeve

I just got a lovely email from Secret 7" saying that all 700 sleeves have now been sold (the ones that don't sell on the day go up on eBay) and this reminded me that I haven't posted my sleeve.

So here it is, in all it's bad-pun glory, my design for St Vincent's Digital Witness. See what I did there?

(Alternative title - Something is Amish!)

I also never got round to posting these pictures of my favourite sleeves from this year's exhibition.

Some of these I know the artists, some I'm still not sure about, but you can now check them all out, including artists and track details on the Secret 7" website.

Felt Mistress, if I'm not mistaken

 How rude!

The wonderful Jonathan Edwards

 Love this one!

 Modern Toss?

One of my illustration heroes, Pete Fowler. 

 The very distinct style of Isabel Greenberg

 ...and the equally distinctive Jean Jullien.

 Love this little fella.

Mick!

Shhhhhhhh

I am delighted, nay properly chuffed, to have another record sleeve in this year's Secret 7" exhibition.

I had a good look at the sleeves on display at the private view last night and there's some terrific work  there.

This year's Secret 7" is at Somerset House and is open to the public from 10 April to 3 May. Then all 700 sleeves go on sale on 4 May for £50 a pop, all proceeds to music therapy charity Nordoff Robbins. You'll only get to see whether your suspicions about artist and record are correct once the sleeve is in your hands.

All the details are over at http://secret-7.com and you can see a gallery of all the designs at http://secret-7.com/2015/gallery.php

Obviously I can't show you my sleeve for this year (yet!) but here's my artwork for last year, which was Glam surrealist masterpiece, Virginia Plain by Roxy Music.

What's her name?...

I can finally reveal my sleeve design for this year's Secret 7" show. (In fact I could a few weeks ago but I've only just got round to writing this.)

My sleeve is a comic strip interpretation of Roxy Music's surrealist corker Virginia Plain.

My story draws inspiration from the song's strange lyrics (General E Lee, blue casino floors, pale horizons, a studebaker) and contains a big nod to  the Big Train sketch in which Chairman Mao (played by the legendary Kevin Eldon) revives from his deathbed to give a spot-on imitation of Bryan Ferry on Top of the Tops. 

I was delighted to be included in this year's Secret 7" and even more delighted when I popped in on Record Store Day to see that my sleeve had been sold. You can see lots of the customers posing with their purchases here, including the chap who bought mine.

In the last few days Secret 7" have announced that they raised £41,500 this year for War Child!

Cover me, I'm going in!

I popped down to the Secret 7” exhibition, Downstairs at Mother in Shoreditch. 700 one-off record sleeves interpreting 7 songs by 7 bands/musicians. The twist is you don’t know who the artist is or which song it is until you’ve bought the sleeve.

All the sleeves go on sale on Record Store Day next Saturday 19th, first come first served, £45 each, with all the money going to the brilliant charity War Child. At that point you’ll find out which artist made 

These are some of my favourites (my contribution not included!) but you can see the whole lot on the Secret 7” website.

Think I know who painted this one…

And I have my suspicions about these two…

 

Secret 7"

I'm very excited to be part of this year's Secret 7" exhibition, and I'd like to share my design with you.

I'd like to, but that would defeat the object of the project!

My love for visual art is equalled only by my love for its sonic cousin, music (see also my comic Hitsville UK) and Secret 7" is an ingenious way of combining both and raising funds for charity.

The organisers have got 7 artists or bands to release new 7" versions of their songs, and invited artists (a mixture of famous bods and open submissions) to design the record covers. They then print 700 one-off covers (100 for each record) and sell each record for £45 on Record Store Day.

The twist is that the artwork on each cover doesn't explicitly tell you which record it is or who the artist is, so you only find out once you've bought the record.

You can browse all the designs on the Secret 7" website, and peruse them all in person on April 12th and 13th Downstairs at Mother, 10 Redchurch St, London, E2 7DD.

See anything you like? Recognise anyone's style? Mine's up there but I can't tell you which!

You can part with your hard-earned cash on Record Store Day, April 19th and it all goes to the brilliant charity Warchild.