The Art Of The Bizarre Vinyl Sleeve is now lodged in the archives of the British Library, so future mad album art researchers can peruse it at their leisure! These days publishers have to send the library six copies of each new title, the rest are then shipped on to the national libraries in Scotland, Wales and Ireland, with two more going to Cambridge University (my Mum would be proud, that’s where she went!) and the Bodleian in Oxford. It’s a clever scheme though it often takes a prompt from their legal deposit department for us to remember to do it! Sadly donating books like this does not give us any sort of a discount if we wish to use the British Library resources in turn; it’s still £31 (pre-covid prices) for them to send me one snap of an album sleeve from their collection…

So, for one of our upcoming titles we’re hoping to get over to the storage library at Boston Spa (above) and take some photos ourselves, now the dreaded cyber attack closures appear to be under control. And I am more than excited about plans to open extra facilities in Leeds at the utterly marvellous Temple Works, abandoned for decades by the thickies at the council. Let’s hope this doesn’t go under Rachel Reeves mad austerity mk 2 agenda.

As we are nearing publication we have revoiced our first promotion video about Brian Smith’s Blues Photo Book “Boom Boom Boom Boom on the Easy On The Eye Books YouTube channel. I say “we” but in fact the new voice-over was done by Nate Goodwyn, who adds an authentic feel to the piece. The video should show here on most browser but if not you can check this out using the link below. Do feel free to pass the word or share the video!

https://www.youtube.com/@EasyOnTheEyeBooks

A couple more welcome mentions of The Art Of The Bizarre Vinyl Sleeve which we have added to the growing archive on the site. From opposite ends of the media spectrum too, one being the distinctly niche and high-brow in house magazine Photographica World, the other a much less wordy page from The Sun “news” paper. Considering the circulation of the latter you might have expected a few sales off the back of it. You would be wrong. Draw your own conclusions! Both feature in full under The Art Of The Bizarre Vinyl Sleeve menu above or via the links.

While we were over at the Williamson Gallery giving an illustrated talk on the Art Of The Bizarre Vinyl Sleeve last month, Andrew Dineley who issues the excellent Art On Your Sleeve podcast episodes, collared Steve and Simon to chat about the exhibition and the book. The podcast last around half an hour, so put it on your listening list!

The page about the episode (22) with the audio link at the bottom is here.

Or you can steam in to Soundcloud direct to get the audio here.

One of Canadas most respected music sites / quarterly magazines asked The Art Of The Bizarre Vinyl Sleeve co-author Simon Robinson to do a Q & A session for them recently, which can be read on their site now. It’s a very good site to subscribe to in any case, check them out!

Just to let people know we have sent newsletter 4 about the Bizarre Vinyl Sleeves book out this week. If you subscribe and it hasn’t hit your in-tray, do check the junk folder! Lots of snippets about the book, more reviews, next exhibition, happenings etc. 

Another great review of the Art Of The Bizarre Vinyl Sleeve appearing in the Christmas issue of the always excellent Shindig music magazine. Very pleasing when people get exactly what a book is all about! You can read the review in full on our site while the magazine is on the news stands December 7th. Meanwhile here are folk enjoying themselves at the opening of Steve’s new exhibition at The Williamson Gallery on The Wirral.