Put you in my house…

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Brian Smith’s book of fabulous Sixties blues photographs Boom Boom Boom Boom is finally shipping. It’s a big deal for us moving the title from ‘forthcoming’ to ‘out now’ on the site! We spent most of last week dealing with pre-orders, moving stock up from the printers (three trips so as not to ruin the suspension on the old Honda), nipping back and forth to the post offices (plural, we like to support our local businesses so used all three of our closest outlets) as Ann got copies packed and labelled, as well as getting a pallet loaded to go down to the warehouse so bookshops will be able to order from next week. Early indications are that the book is being well received (and we are certainly chuffed with how it looks) but we will catch up on people’s comments another day. A huge thank you to everyone who has supported this project at any stage of production and for the patience of customers, especially this past few weeks while we dealt with final production niggles. It’s now on to the promotion side of things to get the word out and we will keep people updated on that as things happen.

Read about the book / Order the book + discount + free bookmark

Buddy Guy, Manchester Twisted Wheel. Photograph Brian Smith

Festival event

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Excellent to find comedian Stewart Lee indulging in a bit of crate digging at The Big Difference venue in Leicester on the 14th, as he dropped by to look and chuckle at Steve’s worst album covers which are currently decorating the place for the duration of the Leicester Comedy Festival. Stewart was playing that evening at the De Montfort Hall so it was really good of him to spare the time, and after a few words from Steve the collector, Stewart read aloud from his book introduction and had invited guests chuckling away. Always great to be chatting with vinyl fans and thanks to Fern who organised this for us. There is still time to catch author Simon’s illustrated talk on the worst album covers which will be at lunchtime on Saturday 22nd February but while this is free you MUST book a seat in advance through the Leicester Comedy Festival website as numbers are restricted.

Our book The Art Of The Bizarre Vinyl Sleeve can be found on the site.

Rod The Mod

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Nice article here from The Manchester Evening News a few years ago, where readers discussed Rod Stewart appearing at The Twisted Wheel. Brian Smith responded with a couple of his prints. He got more of a response than we have trying to get them to mention the new book… they’ve not even bothered to reply!

Updating

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All subscribers to the Boom Boom book newsletter were sent Newsletter 7 on Jan 16th. Do check your spam folder as sometimes these mail-outs do end up being sent there by your email system!

In the meantime the photo above shows the full colour digital proof of the book which was checked and signed off last week. At this stage these proofs are for checking that each page is correctly orientated for each folio which as you can see can be a little confusing!

There is still plenty of time to place a pre-release order to ensure you get the book before anyone else has stock.

Opening page

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This new spread shows the contents page with Chuck Berry snapped by Brian backstage, and a page from the biography which opens the book and tells the story of his photography.

Thanks to everyone who has placed a pre-order on Boom Boom / The Blues Photographs of Brian Smith. There is still time to do so and we will be sending another newsletter out about this to everyone next week, but wanted to wish everyone who looks in on this site all the best for the New Year. We managed to put some time in on another upcoming title in between eating home made mince pies and watching Wallace & Gromit, and the fruits of that work will figure here shortly. Right now it’s time to get the snow shovel out; the printer has some proofs for me to look at and it’s a steep drive!

Pre-orders now live

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We are very pleased to be able to announce that after a long wait, Pre-Orders for Boom Boom Boom Boom – The Blues Photographs of Brian Smith have now opened. The book is currently with the printers and it is planned to ship in January 2025. Pre-ordered copies will be mailed in the order in which we get them and you will get them ahead of any other supplier (including you know who). There is a discount for pre-orders on our official shop as well, the link below goes direct to the order page.

Boom Boom Boom Boom – The Blues Photographs / Pre Order Here

PDF copies have been going out to book reviewers and one of the first to cover it was Bob Bell at the excellent 78 Crazy website he runs. Bob knew Brian and Roger Eagle back in the day, and writes movingly about the scene back then and memories prompted by the photographs. The link below takes you direct to the review but do also take some time to explore other aspects of his website once you have read it!

https://www.78crazy.com/post/the-unseen-r-b-scene-rare-photos-of-the-60s-blues-boom-in-the-uk

If anyone has problems ordering through our shop, then two recommended UK online retailers who support indie publishers and shops are Hive.co.uk and uk.Bookshop.org. Just quote our ISBN and they will be able to take an order. We use them for our own book buying when we cannot get to town. Do feel free to hassle Waterstones who can also order our titles but refuse to carry them in store!

Here’s another spread from the book, Chuck Berry in animated conversation with one of Brian’s friends backstage and later larking about in his mate’s car before they all went out for dinner. The other page shows The Chants, one of whom later founded The Real Thing.

Dynamic duo

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A couple more snazzy pages from our upcoming book of rare Blues photographs. We will be sending another newsletter out to everyone who subscribed for details of this project, you can still do so on the Forthcoming page under The Blues Photographs of Brian Smith. The pages here show Bo Diddley on stage (we use the word stage very loosely!) at the Jigsaw Club in Manchester. Brian got squeezed up against the drum kit but he did get a nice shot of Clifton James as a result. On the other page is Buddy Guy enjoying the vibes from his backing band at The Twisted Wheel. Amazingly they turned up late to replace his regular band (who got lost!), discussed the set list and then went on with NO rehearsal for what Brian calls a storming set. His proper band finally arrived in time to do the second set. This accounts for the intense looks of the band as they keep tabs on Buddy for their cues.

Having fun

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Couple of new spreads from the as yet still unscheduled Go Home On A Postcard book. The pages above show a pair of young women, likely sisters, enjoying themselves in Great Yarmouth in the Fifties, along with three young women on a break in Blackpool actually during World War Two. The trendy white rimmed sunglasses influenced by Hollywood publicity photos give this quite a spooky look. Below is a spread of these commercial street portraits taken in and around Skegness in the 1950s, family groups – up to eight people in one shot – heading for the beach judging by the tin buckets visible in most of the shots!

With our next title (Boom Boom) heading for the printers any day, this book has now become a priority, especially with an exhibition in the offing. However frustratingly the software has gone and corrupted all the image links in the artwork, so I have first got to relink all 350+ scans before moving on to final production work! This seems to be something to do with me having updated the InDesign software a couple of times since starting the project, and there seem to be no easy work rounds, so I best get on with it… You can sign up for a newsletter using the link above to get the latest news.

More page spreads on the site.

Sonic Boom

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VINTAGE ROCK magazine have done Brian and his archive proud with a five page feature in their current October 2024 cover dated issue (71). I can normally buy this in a couple of outlets here in Sheffield but they have both sold out this time (who knew The Stray Cats – the cover stars – were so popular?!), so in the end we ordered it off the magazine’s own online shop. The focus here is very much on the photographs and Brian’s own story, and it’s nice to see him getting this recognition. We anticipate physical copies of his amazing blues photo book Boom Boom Boom Boom will be available during November.

For posterity

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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.