Therapy? Saturday 22 November 2003
Supported by Amplifier and White lane Motorcade
Don’t recall much about this gig at all the new record High Anxiety was finished and ready for release on May 5th in this year. Neil Cooper the new drummer has proved himself to be an exceptional new asset. Many people close to the band claim his energy and style of playing make the band sound like themselves again. After a low key 2002 the band intend to make up for lost time and spend as much of this year on the road or in the studio.
I cannot find a definitive setlist for this gig and I think I attended with my friend Scott.
I do know they played some tracks off that album which is fairly decent such as Nobody here but us, my voodoo doll, rust, Hey Satan-you rock.
As with all Therapy? gigs they play their classics too.
Frank Black and the Catholics
The Leadmill Sunday 5 October 2003
In 2003 Pixies had been name checked by Kurt Cobain and Where is my mind? included at the finale of Fight Club released in 1999.
I had started work at Sainsbury’s Archer Rd and made friends with Andrew Hague who was into live music and indie music specifically.
We went to see Frank Black and the Catholics not really knowing their material only the Pixies songs we heard which was Cactus, Caribou and Velouria.
Didn’t detract from the music and it was great to see Frank Black on such a small stage in such an intimate setting.
This was the start of a musical journey of seeing live music and this was the start of seeing live music that wasn’t primarily just rock (although it is rock orientated).
1. Cactus
2. All my ghosts
3. Massif Centrale
4. Nadine
5. My favourite kiss
6. How you went
7. Caribou
8. Hermaphroditos
9. Velvety
10. I need peace
11. Velouria
12. New house of the pope
13. When will happiness find me again?
14. Bullet
15. Southbound bevy
16. The farewell bend
17. California band
18. Robert Onion
19. Jane the queen of love
20. Horrible day
21. Manitoba
After Frank Black disbanded the pixies in 1993 he recorded two solo albums then formed Frank Black and the Catholics and recorded six albums till 2003 but to be honest they’re not impressive I have given them a listen and he was right to reform the Pixies in 2004 in my opinion.
Cadi Froehlich 7.2.2024 Transmission
Cadi Froehlich is an artist who makes artworks to live with. Each piece is a sculpture which gives the viewer confidence to interact with the form and materials of the object. Using clay, salvaged copper, cables and electrical components, her work investigates the hidden infrastructure of the interaction between the shared wisdoms, the support and the technology which sustain us. Her recent experience as a participant on The Great Pottery Throw Down is a working example of connecting with new people, places and practices as she navigates the dichotomy of working as an artist in a capitalist society. Awards include the Red Mansion Prize, promoting artistic exchange between the UK and China; the Jerwood Drawing Prize and AxisMAStars. She is a member of the democratic artists’ collective The London Group.
Cadi Froehlich is a British artist whose practice explores the physicality of exchanges between people, objects and material:
I make artworks to live with. Each piece is a sculpture which gives the viewer confidence to interact with the form and materials of the object.
Using clay, salvaged copper, cables and electrical components, my work investigates the hidden infrastructure of the interaction between the shared wisdoms, the support and the technology which sustain us.
I leave some makers traces on my work, and the plates are wall art which can be taken down and shared. The bottles are varying stages of practical, with salvaged copper connecting some components. I evoke digital communications with the used wires and imprints of electrical components.
I have an MA Fine Art from UAL Chelsea and Camberwell, BA Fine Art from Brighton. I won 2nd prize in the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2011, then was nominated as AxisWeb MAStars 2013 followed by the Red Mansion prize comprising a month residency in Beijing in 2015 and a show at Slade. As a result of that work I one the Presidents Prize at The London Group Open in 2016 and was elected a member.
I continue to show with The London Group a couple of times a year in London and beyond, including the recent 111th anniversary show at Quay arts in Newtown, on the Isle of Wight. I frequently participate in the artist talks at these shows, and have recently been invited to present to the Fine Art students at Sheffield Hallam University.
My recent experience on The Great Pottery Throw Down is a working example of connecting with new people, places and practices as I navigate the dichotomy of working as an artist in a capitalist society.
Recent exhibitions include 111 Not Out, Newport, 2024, Come Together, The Art Cohort Bath, 2021, Miniscule, Venice, In the Dark, London, PROTOCOL, The London Group at St Ives, The Mesh at Watermans in London, and Shoreham Sculpture Trail.
Work is held in public and private collections including the Chelsea College special collection, London.
Cadi Froehlich https://cadifroehlich.com/artist-biography/
Tea Table 2011 Jerwood prize (2nd)
This copper postcard went to Brisbane and back.
Every human being carries an average 40 litres of water.
Cadi describes how she lost her month during the Covid pandemic and how she was allowed only thirty guests to the funeral service and this piece represents that with thirty mugs that have been held too tight held together by copper piping.
Copper and ceramics – both malleable in their own ways, both playing a vital part in the digital technologies which connect us today.
I became fascinated with the proliferation of wires and cables during my residency in Beijing having been awarded the Red Mansion Prize. I became increasingly appreciative of the role they play in communications.
Copper is a commonly reclaimed and recycled material, whilst ceramics last for centuries. The silica which makes up the clay and the glaze is the basis for microchips. This idea that pottery will outlive current generations means I imagine I am making objects which may provide the raw materials for future Hand Made Devices.
My pots usually have holes poked in them, are stained with copper carbonate, or are left as plain burnished clay to challenge assumptions about functional vessels.
https://cadifroehlich.com/ceramic-objects/
Really lovely talk Cadi talks about motherhood, mental health and the struggle working with materials that can be bulky and unwieldy.
Strand 2
Curation in context – with TC McCormack.
This strand will take account of the ways in which exhibition making can be understood as a widened field, and well as viewing it as an extension of your practice. We will explore many of the contexts that inform curatorial practice and consider how it can support realising your own artworks in an exhibition context.
We will consider curation as an extension of an artist’s creative practice, we will look at the role and rise of the Artist-Curator and explore how this role is different to a curator, and consider how this role can be empowering and asks you to extend your enquiry into new fields, to invite all manner of possibilities; to take ownership of art’s interactions in public realm (exhibitions, etc.). Plus we shall consider the differences between project spaces, arts institutions and galleries. Your creative practice will be drawn upon to develop a project, which will involve developing a curatorial proposal. I will also invite you to change your perspective.
Curation can take many forms, here are just three examples; viewed together they offer a useful overview, to help us start to understand the curatorial perspective. ‘ Artist Curator’ a practising artist who also curates shows, runs not-for-profit spaces from which they exhibit their and other artists work, often operating outside the commercial art world, and can equally be seen to work with public arts spaces. ‘Curator’ taken from the classical tradition of museum curator, a curator who is resident within an arts institution with discreet gallery space(s).
The institution can be of any scale, although it retains a secure funding income. ‘Ausstellungsmacher’ (a German term) means; ‘one who puts on an exhibition’, this position deliberately distances itself from the Classical tradition of the Museum Curator, instead it speaks of amore functional pragmatic role. Ausstellungsmacher constituents might include; manager, administrator, diplomat, amateur, author of texts, financier, researcher, communicator, transporter and guard. Over our sessions we will discuss the contexts of curation and the wider nature of the discipline…as a form of artist practice. You will be asked to develop a curatorial proposal.
My idea for a curatorial proposal is one that is feasible and within the environment i found myself.
It would be an exhibition of my peers within a certain framework of art which is textual, mark-making, mindfulness and workshop-based.
I found myself drawn to four artists whose work I feel correspond or relate to each other in interesting ways.
I would locate the exhibition at Bloc Projects in Sheffield which I find to be the right size and intimacy for a show of four artists.
I am familiar with the dimensions of the building and previous shows etc.
The artists I have in mind have all agreed on being a part of the exhibition apart from one artist whom I haven’t had a chance to speak to.
Let’s visit those artists in person.
Aleatoric Drawing (Utilising Perec)
Timothy Hardman
Studying an MFA in Fine Art at Sheffield Hallam |
An artist who writes
https://www.instagram.com/1710.film/
Creating a line drawing by transcribing the novel over a grid constructed using the order of letters by common usage in American English Tim fastidiously and with precision scribes these lines and it’s hypnotic to watch and fascinating.
I would love Tim to be on site and use this piece in the exhibition and for the audience to hear his process which I think is vital to this exhibition.
Tim could also incorporate some spoken word from other projects as is work is based primarily on text.
Tim’s mark making and the sound that creates draws me into the process of another artist Johnsey who works within art communities and is focused on the therapeutic process and catharsis of mark-making. https://www.instagram.com/johnseyartist/
In a recent exhibition his work was a series of drawings made by automation which was quite crude and erratic but a reminder of the joy of drawing with its randomness and repetitiveness.
The sound from the machines and the scribbling made me think of the parallels of Tim’s work which was precise lines drawn by a human.
This correlation between the automated, human and precision with chaos makes these two works gel together with their juxtaposition.
I couldn’t locate any of the work as an example but believe me it will work and Johnsey is the only artist I haven’t asked yet.
There is a link to the next artist which I feel is a big part of the previous work and that is mindfulness and Jack Mackness who draws geometrical shapes using a system and a process I was privy to in a peer workshop. https://www.instagram.com/jomackness/
There is a system of drawing straight lines which reminds me of Tim’s work and those controlled lines are so different to Johnsey’s mark making but therapeutic and cathartic as well.
It would be great for Johnsey and Jack to host a workshop in the space as I feel audience participation is part of the process.
Which brings me to my final artist Yazleigh who is incredible she uses text, digital, analogue, sculpts and draws and is great with workshops which again I was involved in.
I feel that Yazleigh can adapt her work to any environment and she will be able to assimilate her environment with her work.
Yazleigh incorporates text into her work often she uses coding to get the results that she needs and her work is a mix of traditional, digital, text, images that coalesce into one whole. https://www.instagram.com/p/C27ov3NoFsiTocsGswsBGjLjJmBkLstRh01dqw0/?img_index=1
I wouldn’t be a part of this exhibition I feel my work is different to these artists and that would detract from the overall feeling and ambiance of the work and the artists.
I feel there is a cohesion to the work despite the different approaches.
I don’t have a title for the exhibition but the one I’m interested in is perspicacity: the quality of having a ready insight into things; shrewdness.
This title leaves enough ambiguity for the artist and audience to draw different conclusions from the work.
The internalisation of the work and oneself can lead to a self-awareness and create a mental wellbeing.
The acuteness of art and its mark making creates within an artist a moment of clarity which everybody can intuit and draw from the same well of creativity.
Perspicacity
is a group show in association with Bloc Projects
71 Eyre Street
Sheffield
S1 45B
Contacts:
Russell Jones (curator)
Rusty’sArtWerk (russelljonesblog.com)
07903435154
senojllessur@gmail.com
This proposal introduces an exhibition, titled “Perspicacity”,
the quality of having a ready insight into things; shrewdness.
The title leaves enough ambiguity for the artist and the audience to impart meaning and draw different conclusions from the work depending on their own personal experience.
The internalisation of the process of mark-making can lead to a state of self-awareness and create a mental wellbeing.
The acuteness of art and the process involved creates within an artist a moment of clarity and vision that everyone can intuit and draw from the same wellspring of creativity.
It involves:
-Tim Hardiman, Johnsey, Jack Mackness and Yazleigh
-works include an aleotoric drawing, drawings made by automation, geometric shapes and text based artwork.
All artists will be involved in some workshop.
Perspicacity
Perspicacity is the name of the exhibition which I have an interest in curating.
It is an exhibition of my peers working within a certain framework which is textual, mindful, concerned with mark-making and workshop based.
I recently attended a testbed exhibition at Persistence Works based in Sheffield which utilised these artists different styles and approaches that felt like they still had a link and cohesion.
Whether that is the sound of the process or the marks made by a human hand or automation or the feeling of catharsis through drawing straight lines to form geometrical shapes.
I feel the workshops and hearing and seeing the artists at work creates an inclusivity to the work and bridges the gap between artist and the audience.
This quote sums up my feeling for this exhibition:
“Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.”
Kurt Vonnegut
I believe I have selected artists who represent this quote to its fullest and their work will not only stand its ground individually but also benefit from the surrounding artists that compliment each other. As a curator I am not exhibiting my own work as I feel it would be a distraction and it would affect the ambiance of the artists material I have chosen.
Tim Hardiman
MFA student at Sheffield Hallam
An artist who writes. https://www.instagram.com/1710.film/
Tim has Created a line drawing by transcribing the novel over a grid constructed using the order of letters by common usage in American English Tim fastidiously and with precision scribes these lines and it’s hypnotic to watch and fascinating.
I would love Tim to be on site and use this piece in the exhibition and for the audience to hear his process which I think is vital to this exhibition.
Tim could also incorporate some spoken word from other projects as his work is based primarily on text.
Johnsey
MFA student at Sheffield Hallam
Tim’s mark making and the sound that creates draws me into the process of another artist Johnsey who works within art communities and is focused on the therapeutic process and catharsis of mark-making. https://www.instagram.com/johnseyartist/
In a recent exhibition his work was a series of drawings made by automation which was quite crude and erratic but a reminder of the joy of drawing with its randomness and repetitiveness.
The sound from the machines and the scribbling made me think of the parallels of Tim’s work which was precise lines drawn by a human.
This correlation between the automated, human and precision with chaos makes these two works gel together within their juxtaposition.
Jack Mackness
MFA student Sheffield Hallam
There is a link to the next artist which I feel is a big part of the previous work and that is mindfulness and Jack Mackness who draws geometrical shapes using a system and a process I was privy to in a peer workshop. https://www.instagram.com/jomackness/
There is a system of drawing straight lines which reminds me of Tim’s work and those controlled lines are so different to Johnsey’s mark making but therapeutic and cathartic as well.
It would be great for Johnsey and Jack to host a workshop in the space as I feel audience participation is part of the process.
Jack also incorporates text into his work and is fond of haikus to express how he is feeling. These texts alongside the geometric forms create a sense of serenity and thoughtfulness.
Yazleigh
MFA artist Sheffield Hallam
Which brings me to my final artist Yazleigh who is an incredible artist she uses text, digital, analogue, sculpts and draws and is great with workshops which again I was involved in.
I feel that Yazleigh can adapt her work to any environment and she will be able to assimilate her environment with her work.
Yazleigh incorporates text into her work often she uses coding to get the results that she needs and her work is a mix of traditional, digital, text, images that coalesce into one whole. https://www.instagram.com/p/C27ov3NoFsiTocsGswsBGjLjJmBkLstRh01dqw0/?img_index=1
I am less constrained with Yazleigh in what she would produce as she is highly versatile and adaptable in a space and I feel like using one set piece of work wouldn’t do her justice.
I am confident in her abilities to work within this exhibition space.
As an example I have included a picture of her text based work but please check out her Instagram for examples of her installations.
Technical Specifications
Overall the exhibition is adaptable in terms of shape of the space arrangement.
Bloc is just a small white room which should house four artists comfortably as the majority of the work will be wall based.
Johnsey’s work will take up most space and I feel his work would be more suited for the middle of the room on a table which can also be used for the workshops for all the artists.
Johnsey’s work is automated and portable and runs from its own power source which is a link of batteries.
The exhibition is not expensive to install and an assistant may be needed for advice at the reception area which can be a volunteer.
Strand 3
Painting: in relation to contextualising the city as a ‘Collage’
with Gary Simmonds & Andy Jackson
This strand will exploring contextualising the city as a ‘Collage’ in relation to Painting,
through four sessions.
You are invited to attend all four sessions
- Friday 9th February 2024: The first session will consist of a guided walk in the city of Sheffield where
Andy will identify source sites for his paintings. This will be followed by a visit to Andy’s studio to explore
methods of translating source material into a painting intended for interior or exterior exhibition. The
reading for this week will be Chapter 6 from Peter Osborne’s Anywhere or Not at All: Philosophy of
Contemporary Art which will be provided as a handout at the end of this session. - Thursday 22nd February 2024: The second session will analyse Osborne’s text in relation to the artists
mentioned in this chapter and introduce these artist’s response to the city in the form of a half hour
slide presentation. We will then take a walk in the city to look through the ‘lens’ of these artists and
make comparisons to sites in Sheffield. The session will conclude with a tour of the facilities of the HPO
to identify how the contemporary artists from the slide presentation achieve their works and think
about your own personal practice. - Thursday 7th March 2024: The third session myself and Gary will provide tutorials to think about the
piece you are working on in response to session 1 and 2. - Thursday 21st March 2024: The final session will involve the presentation of your artwork in the city.
This is your responsibility to lead us as a group to your artwork. Here we will discuss the artwork as a
seminar/crit group.
As a response to presenting my work in a public space I opted for a advert I did a screenshot during the pandemic of City Sauna prices.
The girls have been lateral flow tested which just seems insane that during a time when wearing a face mask was mandatory people could frequent this type of establishment and contact.
There are reviews left from punters who have rated the experience.
There is a paragraph written by myself to give this context of how everything is commodified and sold even the most intimate of sexual experiences.
The place I chose was a site for flyposting in the underpass next to the O2 Academy .
I didn’t feel comfortable flyposting and the content is inappropriate; however I felt the poster was small enough and high enough from the ground that only an interested adult would read which is unlikely as people walk through this space and don’t stop.
Most of my work has a poster aesthetic but it would need to be blown up to the right size and the paste wouldn’t stick.
Although me and my fellow colleague did attempt outside in the HPO courtyard.
A mock up of Vermeer the girl with the pearl ear ring now the girl with the oxygen tank.
Digital manipulation drawing onto the layer creating a painted look for the tube and then adding that layer to the photograph.
Raising awareness for Cystic Fibrosis; my friend had to wear this for years before he passed away.
Overall I enjoyed the digital mock ups then going out in public and flyposting I felt self conscious doing this in public.
Eelyn Lee Transmission 31/01/2024
Eelyn Lee is an award-winning artist and filmmaker of Hong Kong-English heritage who has shown work at Barbican, Tate Modern, Whitechapel Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Palais de Tokyo and at international film festivals. Her art practice combines collective research, performance and filmmaking to create frameworks for collaboration. With organising a key aspect of her practice, Eelyn has convened a range of dialogue projects including the Social Art Summit 2018 – an artist-led review of socially engaged arts practice, and the ESEA Artists’ Futures Town Hall 2023 – a place to imagine new landscapes for East and Southeast Asian artists in the UK and beyond. Her ongoing body of work, Performing Identities is a collective reimagining of ESEA identities through the creation of new mythical characters and their cosmologies.
There isn’t a recording available so I have took time out to look at her site.
I came across four quadrants of the sky which I happened to stumble upon at Bloc Projects https://www.eelynlee.com/item/four-quadrants-of-the-sky?category_id=19
Four Quadrants of the Sky 四大神獸 completes the second cycle of Eelyn Lee’s Performing Identities, an expansive project that reimagines diasporic East and Southeast Asian [ESEA] identities through contemporary myth-making.
Made through a year-long collaboration with a core group of UK-based Hong Kongers, Four Quadrants of the Sky 四大神獸 newly constellates diasporic identity and becoming. Sitting within the realms of a creation myth, the film explores versions of Hong Kongness through the arrival of four newly devised characters, Wok Hei, The Navigator, Lo Ting and Hybridiy. By referring to the ‘four images’—the custodians of each cardinal direction (North, South, East and West) in Chinese celestial thinking—Lee charts the new characters and their cosmologies on to an ancient system of mapping the stars.
The film expresses a collaborative articulation of embodied knowledges. Reaching beyond conscious memories or narratives and tapping into movement and sensory realms, the work asks, what else are we storing in our bodies? What do they tell us about homeland, selfhood and legacies of un-belonging?
I have included this lovely review from Emma Bolland which succinctly goes into detail regarding the nuance of the installation.
Poppy Woodeson 29 Nov 2023
Poppy Woodeson (she/her) is an artist who finds her life both interesting and rather complicated… She made her name as Ben Woodeson (he/him) a maker of “deliberately dangerous” sculptures and installations. Some were ridiculously dangerous, some just played at it. Unsurprisingly (and deliberately), these generated quite some interest. Then the work gradually started to change… And then, so, finally did “Ben”. In 2021, “Ben” finally faced up to his/her own truth and came out as trans. And the work changed again… The talk will wander gracefully across a range of topics probably including but not limited to the art made, childhood and adult traumas, dying and being resurrected, healing, residencies, identities, social attitudes and the importance of being nice to yourself and having a really good cup of tea.
https://www.woodeson.co.uk/pages/783.html
Very frank and confessional talk from Poppy and inspirational.
I am not a fan of sculpture per se but I found Poppy’s work accessible, playful and thought provoking.
I now follow Poppy on Instagram.
Anthrax and Kill 2 This June 30th 2003 The Leadmill
I was stoked to see Anthrax on my home turf in the beloved Sheffield institution that is The Leadmill.
I went with two mates Scott and Geoff. Geoff ended up twisting his ankle.
I haven’t heard of the support before. Last album I heard of Anthrax was Stomp 442 which was 1995.
Anthrax had released two albums since then Volume 8: the threat is real and We’ve come for you all.
I can’t get hold of any setlists or photos from that gig (with it being prior to internet but i fondly remember the intimacy of the gig.
2003 was an interesting year for me I had finished my stint at T.A.S.C. a placement at St Mary’s Church working in the print room helping print posters for the NHS blood Society or something like that. Folding pamphlets etc. in the other room. I also played iron Maiden Number of the beast on the stereo \m/.
The placement finished I was volunteering before for a company called nacro which was there to help reduce crime by helping young people get a chance.
I had gone back to college and got a GCSE in psychology and Film studies considering I did horrendous at school, I was immensely proud to have a foothold again in education.
I was watching movies a lot including world cinema such as City of God. I was adrift when it came to music i was nostalgic for a decade that had come and gone.
None of the bands I loved seemed relevant to me in 2003 such as Therapy?, RHCP, Pearl Jam and nu-metal and post-grunge bands like Nickelback dominated the airwaves.
I was wanting to improve myself and took driving lessons which New Deal had sorted my funding for my theory test.
In 2003 me and my friend Pablo took our CVs to Sainsbury’s and we both got jobs.
I was working on the produce department and I made friends with Andrew Hague and others despite my neurodivergent behaviour (never been diagnosed but it’s obvious really) I would quote Sylvia Plath when talking about opportunities presenting themselves.
I was obsessed with atheism and convincing myself that God doesn’t exist.
I started to have money instead of relying on a giro or pub quiz. Hanging with friends who were younger and liked to go out and discovering music again but this time round it would be the indie music revival of the mid-noughties. Apart from The Smiths I never touched indie so all that would change.
Fine Art hadn’t really come into my life despite loving comics, art etc. galleries were never really encouraged coming from a working class background. At this point in my life my only access to culture was probably watching subtitled movies.
I was really good at the film quiz at The dove and Rainbow and could retain knowledge on movies.
Anthrax have sung songs about Stephen king Novels, (The Stand, Apt Pupil) Judge Dredd and David Lynch (Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet).
David Lynch’s Dune was a favourite of mine as was Wild at heart in 1990 and ever since then I have seen all of his output. David Lynch is a musician, filmmaker and artist.
I also read Stephen King and loved 2000 A.D.
Alice Cooper and Thunder Sheffield Arena 26th November 2002
| Alice Cooper I saw Alice Cooper live at Sheffield Arena on Tues 26th November 2002 my friend worked at the box office and I got a free ticket. I only knew the singles. I remember being full of flu. Alice was very good and it was a strong setlist playing all the favourites. The show was a bit tacky but enjoyable and I got to see Alice beheaded (I love decapitation in my rock shows). My mate was at the front giving Alice the wank gesture. Not because he disliked him but this was his sense of humour. I checked the setlist on t’net and they played shitloads. Hey Stoopid (intro) 1.Sex Death and Money / Brutal Planet / Dragontown 2.Sanctuary 3.I’m Eighteen 4.Welcome to My Nightmare 5.Go to Hell 6.Billion Dollar Babies 7.Feed My Frankenstein 8.Wicked Young Man 9.Nurse Rozetta 10.Dead Babies 11.Steven 12.Ballad of Dwight Fry 13.Killer 14.I Love the Dead 15.Black Widow Jam 16.No More Mr. Nice Guy 17.Is It My Body 18.Fantasy Man 19.Trash 20.Lost in America (with ‘God Save The Queen’ Coda) 21.Only Women Bleed 22.Poison 23.Under My Wheels 24.School’s Out 25.Elected 26.Cold Ethyl 27.Department of Youth 28.Sex Death and Money (Reprise) Despite being ill and my unfamiliarity with the songs I enjoyed this gig thoroughly. |
I like Thunder they have a classic rock sound best exemplified on “Love walked in”.
1.Welcome to the party
2.Low life in high places
3.Higher ground
4.Backstreet symphony
5.Love walked in
6.Dirty love
Alice Cooper pioneered a grandly theatrical brand of hard rock that was designed to shock. Drawing equally from horror movies, vaudeville, and garage rock, the group created a stage show that featured electric chairs, guillotines, fake blood and boa constrictors. He continues to tour regularly, performing shows worldwide with the dark and horror-themed theatrics that he’s best known for.
With a schedule that includes six months each year on the road, Alice Cooper brings his own brand of rock psycho-drama to fans both old and new, enjoying it as much as the audience does. Known as the architect of shock-rock, Cooper (in both the original Alice Cooper band and as a solo artist) has rattled the cages and undermined the authority of generations of guardians of the status quo, continuing to surprise fans and exude danger at every turn, like a great horror movie, even in an era where CNN can present real life shocking images.
Cooper was born in Detroit Michigan, and moved to Phoenix with his family. The Alice Cooper band formed while they were all in high school in Phoenix, and was discovered in 1969 by Frank Zappa in Los Angeles, where he signed them to his record label. Their collaboration with young record producer Bob Ezrin led to the break-through third album “Love It to Death” which hit the charts in 1971, followed by “Killer,” “School’s Out,” ”Billion Dollar Babies,” and “Muscle of Love.” Each new album release was accompanied by a bigger and more elaborate touring stage show. 1974 saw the release of a “Greatest Hits” album, and then Cooper, in 1975, released his first solo album, “Welcome to My Nightmare” in 1975, accompanied by the legendary groundbreaking theatrical Welcome to My Nightmare concert tour.
Associated with that album and tour was the ground-breaking network TV special Alice Cooper: The Nightmare. Other film and television appearances include The Muppet Show, Mae West’s last film Sextette, Roadie, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearst Club Band and appearances on The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson and Tom Snyder’s Tomorrow Show. The original band also made an appearance in the movie Diary of a Mad Housewife in 1979, filmed the full-length feature film Good To See You Again Alice Cooper, and Alice appeared in a 1972 episode of The Snoop Sisters.
Alice’s solo career skyrocketed in the late 1970’s, with a succession of hit singles, including “You & Me,” and classic albums, including “Lace And Whiskey” and “From The Inside,” and bigger and even more elaborate concert tours.
In the ‘80’s Cooper explored different sounds, highlighted by the new wavish album “Flush The Fashion,” the heavy metal “Constrictor” and “Raise Your Fist And Yell,” and then 1989’s melodic hard rock album “Trash,” which featured the massive hit single “Poison” and became his biggest selling album and single worldwide. During this period Alice also appeared in the horror films Monster Dog and John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness, and recorded songs for the soundtracks to Roadie, Class of 1984, Friday the 13 Part VI: Jason Lives and Wes Craven’s Shocker.
Cooper’s most memorable movie appearance was as himself in Wayne’s World in 1991. He also played (fittingly) Freddy Krueger’s wicked step-father in Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, and appeared on Gene Wilder’s TV series Something Wilder as well as on That ‘70’s Show. The 90’s also saw the release of the albums “Hey Stoopid,” “The Last Temptation,” and “Fistful of Alice,” a live album. https://alicecooper.com/about/
Thunder are an English hard rock band from London.
Decided to draw this in a comic book style as Alice Cooper has had a comic drawn about himself.
I used Gelsinki ink and lowered opacity for shade but kept it simple. I really like how this came out.
‘Pretties For You’, the first album to be released under the name Alice Cooper, bares little relationship to the bands more famous works. It’s a product of it’s time (the late 60s) and a little all over the place, but it reflects what the band sounded like at this point, especially as it was basically recorded live!
The Cover
Brian Nelson, June 1995/January 1996:
“Yes, It was Ed Beardsley – no, he was not a shop teacher. The painting was something that Zappa had — there are some pictures of his home where you can see the original painting in his house. It was pre-existing – not done for the cover. Originally, they attempted to use the Dali painting “Geopoliticus’ Child” but were unable to secure the rights. There was a small brown sticker that covered the girl’s undies on some of the early copies of ‘Pretties For You’.
Back in 2003 I managed to contact Prof. Edward Beardsley about his painting and here is what he had to say:
“Yes, I am the same person who did the painting used on the Alice Cooper album, ‘Pretties for You’. Actually, that was the title of the painting, which Frank Zappa then used for the album. Frank, a friend of mine, was visiting my studio one day, bought two paintings he wanted to used for album covers, one for Alice Cooper, another for the Mothers of Invention. The two paintings purchased: ‘Pretties for You’ and ‘The Four Apostles’ both ended up in Frank’s home, ‘Pretties For You’ in the main living room, and ‘Apostles’ in the downstairs music studio. Who knows what happened to them after Frank’s death. I’m still in touch with his brother, Bobby, but not his wife or kids.
The idea behind the painting are the dreams and regrets of old men on the occasion of their death. It was inspired by the funeral of an Italian movie director who died in ’68 or ’69. There was a photo layout in Life magazine, I think it was, detailing the funeral. They had photos of the old director, and I liked his look, especially his hat. I tried to imagine his thoughts at his own funeral. Death is the fate of us all, of course, and I suppose the moment defines us as human beings… given the reality, however absurd it may seem to us, that we are born only to die.”
When the album was originally released there were issues around the fact the painting featured a woman showing off her underwear. Due to this some copies were “censored” by simply putting a brown sticker over the offending undies! Later copies reverted to the uncensored version.
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