Just a heads up over a great review for The Art Of The Bizarre Vinyl Sleeve in the brand new issue of Record Collector magazine (Dec 2023 issue 551). We all think it’s a great book obviously but if you want to get an unbiased opinion, you can check it out on our site. As I think we already pointed out, pre-orders for this upcoming title (due later this month) can now be placed at our shop with an early-bird discount.

The Art Of The Bizarre Vinyl Sleeve is starting to get noticed ahead of publication (the book can be pre-ordered now via our shop).  Part of this has been due to the news of Stewart Lee doing a foreword for the book.  We asked Stewart as he is [a] our favourite comedian, [b] a clever writer and [c] a vinyl collector, so we were very chuffed when he agreed (we did also try and contact Dolly Parton but has no luck there!).  You will have to read his piece in the book; suffice it to say we had tears rolling down our faces.

The Williamson Museum and Gallery are throwing themselves into the spirit with an exhibition of Steve’s sleeves starting on November 17th (check their site for opening times), and on Friday 15th December they are throwing a Worst Records Christmas Party! 6-8pm, Entrance is free but only by ticket, available through Linktree.  Steve has put together a party mix of some of the strangest music from his collection.

Steve has also been on BBC Radio Leeds chatting with the breakfast presenter there Rima Ahmed.  It is available on BBC Sounds in full (24th oct), but Steve’s piece is on his Instagram page.  https://www.instagram.com/p/CyxuVQ1Rnxv/

If you haven’t yet seen it, we thought you would like to know about our new video which aims to promote the latest title The Art Of The Bizarre Vinyl Sleeve. Hit the Video link on our home page and go to our YouTube channel.  The video gives an overview of the content along with images and previews and some mad music chosen by Steve Goldman from two of his albums.  Our designer spent a couple of days putting this together and assures us he will never be able to get the cheesy tunes out of his head!  Maybe we can persuade a CD label to put together a compilation for us?

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAuhF1WT2yV5c5AWDkgd40A

With the layout finished, The Art of The Bizarre Vinyl Sleeve is now into final proof reading stage.  This takes the form of a b/w laser print out, as we all spot things better on paper!  Prior to this, Steve came over to the Easy On The Eye office so we could sit and talk through changes as well as swop a few sleeves about and discuss other odds and ends.  It’s always easier to do this in person so you can look at the layouts on screen in real time.

For example the Vietnam Chain album on the desk in the photo here is one I had not even scanned first time around, yet Steve explained it was almost always in the top ten of people’s choice of worst sleeve at his exhibitions, so we needed to make room for that.  Happily talking to the printers, we found we had an extra 4 pages to play with so did not have to part with any of our other particular favourites!

On the monitor here is one such, the amazing World of Joseph Cooper sleeve, which, with all the dead leaves on top of his piano, we always feel looks like Joseph has been embalmed and placed in the garden as a memento mori…  and for those too young to know, wait until you read about his famous dummy keyboard.

Read more about the project on the forthcoming page.

It doesn’t take much to turn me back into a fan-boy and getting a lovely endorsement from guitarist Tony McPhee for the book of Brian Smith’s Blues Photos last year (after sending him a PDF proof) certainly did the trick. He was of course enthralled by the music of the musicians featured in the book and became so well versed in their records that his group The Groundhogs were often booked to back them on UK tours. They needed little rehearsal, they already knew the songs backwards. Here the band were caught by Brian outside their tour van with Jimmy Reed. I recognised some of the group (Tony is second from the left) but Tony kindly filled us in on the exact details. I’m a generation down from Brian, and The Groundhogs were the first live group I ever saw, setting me off on a love of their material and in particular his remarkable guitar work, which remains to this day. He will be very much missed here.

If all goes well and I can stay awake, I am chatting about record sleeves with other guests on BBC Radio 5’s Colin Murray show, May 29th midnight to 1.00 am (but playable on Sounds later). They wanted someone to chat about the Bizarre Record Sleeve book we’re publishing later this year. I will post a link afterwards if it goes OK. If I gabble too much I won’t!

Just a reminder that you can subscribe to mailing lists for titles which are getting closer to publication time. This way you will get news updates, page previews and pre-order information before it appears anywhere else.

Due to a screw up (we’re not sure who is to blame yet! Brexit?) the subscription button for our ART OF THE BIZARRE VINYL SLEEVE title failed to register anyone who tried to subscribe. So if you did just that anytime before the date of this post, please resubmit your request!

This and BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM – The Blues Photos of Brian Smith are scheduled to be our next two titles.

Details can be found on the links to the relevant pages. One of our other upcoming titles THE ART OF THE MEXICAN LOBBY CARD has also now got a subscription button for getting future news. It is part of our planned LANDSCAPE larger format series.