Exhibition : The Stick Up #1

It’s been a bit quiet on the blog for a while – lots going on – but the main deal has been this crazy gigposter trail that we’re curating as part of the UK’s biggest music business event : The Great Escape Festival…

Saddle up kids, we’ve got posters from all over the UK plus some from the US and Germany – all hand-printed, limited edition, official concert memorabilia and all for sale – click the pic – do it!

Participants, many of whom will be in attendance, include Luke Drozd, das Posterkrauts, We Three Club, Lil’ Tuffy, Screenadelica’s Horse and a good number more.

Its all here – thestickup.co.uk

we’ll post pics and reviews later – plus a whole load of other goings on that we’ve been just too busy to post about…

Gigposter : The Datsuns

OK, so here’s another typographical poster in similar colours to the last… don’t worry critter fans, Petting Zoo Prints & Collectables have not abandoned the faunatic theme, there are new animal prints yet to be blogged – we just thought we’d get a recent show poster up for your delectation.

The Datsuns, gigposter, The Haunt, Brighton – Screenprint, 3colours – A2, from an edition of just 50

The Datsuns are, as we’re sure you know, a riff rattling rock and roll outfit from Sweden via New Zealand (or visa versa)… The Death Rattle Boogie LP that they’ve been touting on the road is a Sabbathy bombshell that your ears need to experience. The typeface they chose for the cover of that same release is a cool kinda 60s/70s art deco kinda styled jam and that was the element we chose to ramp up for this sci-fi/pinball esque design – so, we played with Trochut’s incredible Neo Deco typeface and some comic-book styled Xtra-zoom lines to get the fuzz you see here, just in time for their electric Haunt show here in Brighton… hope you dig!

Do get in touch (pzprints@gmail.com) if you’d like to get your mitts on one – we have only a handful of these left …£20 each or £28 for one autographed by the band (very few of those knocking around).

Gigposter : AC Newman

Zookeeper’s can only take so much “cute” …chipmunks and raccoons are very endearing to most folk it is true, unless you end up being around them all the time and have to continually change their sawdust, deworm them and wipe eye-bogeys when they get conjunctivated* etc

So here’s a typographic poster for a change, no fur, no feathers, no snotty, chirping, dirty little vermin – just clean typographical abstraction – ahhhhh

Set up by San Fran’s agents of ink and venom, Secret Serpents, this was part of a U.S. tour series and got posted out to San Diego…
If you’re not familiar with the talented ginger-nut that is A. C. Newman (undoubtedly a bigger name over the Atlantic), he’s the frontman and ringleader (alongside Neko Case) of The New Pornographers – and if you don’t know them, well get diggin on ze googlez and school yourselves.

A.C. Newman gigposter, Casbah, San Diego – Screenprint, 3colours – A2 from an edition of 100

If pushed, we’d compartmentalise AC’s sound somewhere between The Fruitbats’ and Brendan Benson’s …but that would be a needless, quick and lampooning exercise to try and introduce new people to his work so they’d get hooked and then come back and buy this poster (for just £15 +postage)… so please – don’t push us.

Also, forgive us for our tardy blogging, or don’t, we are quite possibly never gonna catch up – deal with it – xo

*Zooillogical term

Exhibition : Flyposting 2

The fantastic Tony Baker of Leeds City College has kindly included Petting Zoo Prints & Collectables again in his magnificent Flyposting venture.

Flyposting 2 has grown since last year and as well as filling the walls of The Gallery at Flannels, it has spread to some cool boutiques and hotspots around the vibrant city centre of Leeds – The Wardrobe, The Juju Shop, The North Bar, The Reliance and Colours May Vary are all decked out with handprinted concert posters from all over the world… go on, get yourself along to Leeds for a butcher’s – its on now till May the 11th.

A poster about posters… Thanks Tony for asking Petting Zoo to participate.

Expect another post about this soon with a full list of exhibiting artists (its a cracking line-up – peak here if you can’t wait).

Gigposter : Alabama Shakes

Ok so, last year we got to do this poster to commemorate the Alabama Shakes’ 2 sell-out shows in London on their autumn / fall tour…

Alabama Shakes gigposter, Coronet and Forum – Screenprint, 5colours – A2, from an edition of 120

Unless you’d been hiding under a rock for 2012, you’d be considered a bit “off the heat” pop-culture wise if you’d not heard of these hot potatoes – they have been splashed all over the music press and squeezed through the airwaves a whole lot since being picked by Jack White to support him on an extensive tour… they are sizzling!

The story of how we landed the gig is quite long, and we’ve not quite got back into the flow with the blogthing yet – so excuse us if we just bullet-point the key stages:

1. go to Brighton’s late license watering hole, The Green Door Store, expecting nothing but a couple of pints, a nod and hello from one or two of the usual suspect night-owls and maybe a foot-tapping tune …receive from bar manager a backstage pass to End Of The Road Festival (on at that very moment, that very weekend) wow!

2. wake slightly hungover, rediscover pass, snake it onto the wrist and stagger to the train station…

2a. get to Salisbury, buy ginger beer, catch a country bus, pick a thistle buttonhole and stroll the last 2 miles on foot

3. arrive, see good friends Nick “The Switch” Rhodes and Kai, bop about to Graham Coxon and then (with a touch of Dutch courage) try out the backstage pass at the Big Top stage.

4. make it backstage, watch Deer Tick from the wings, try to locate backstage hospitality bar – strut straight into Alabama Shakes dressing room like a total intruding fool!

5. brainfizz! red cheeks and optimistic opportunism! chat to tour manager hurriedly about postermaking, swap emails, retreat sheepishly and apologetically.

6. enjoy 3 sets of varying power and intimacy by the Shakes – oh and hang out briefly with Patrick Watson at the Piano Stage (amazing fun) …do other stuff till festival close – go home.

7. See the Shakes again (same week) at Bestival then again at Brighton’s Concorde 2 – at this latter show we have brought our portfolio of prints, once to the soundcheck (no good – band going for lunch) and once again at the close of the show (no good – band going out for beers)

8. amble a little disappointed, but still kinda buzzy from the gig, to The Green Door Store again, this time bumping into a rather drunk, good-for-little friend “Scottish Rob” on the way.

9. have a drink and laugh for a bit (the place is empty) till bizarrely, yup, the Alabama Shakes and tour manager stroll in!

10. Show the band the portfolio finally and get the go ahead, all the while amused but somewhat anxious about Scottish Rob swinging singer Brittany about dangerously on the cobblestone dancefloor (he really was hammered).

So there you go – that’s what it takes sometimes, a bizarre chain of stupid drunken coincidences and some barefaced cheek!

Anyhow – do email us (pzprints@gmail.com) if you’d like to pick one of these up – just £20 each until we get down to our last few (+p&p).

Gigposter : Bat For Lashes

sorry, not feeling very bloggy… so here it is plain and simple, hope you like.

Bat For Lashes, Rolliing Stone Weekender – Screenprint, 3colours, 45cmx64cm – from an edition of 100

Art Print : The Foundry

Ok … there has been a staring match going on, yours truly, the Zoo studio blog slave and the cold white panel of the empty edit-box of the blog on the screen.

Gotta be honest – the white panel was easily winning right through January, its blank expanse mocking any weak attempt by cold and uncomfortable fingers to fill it with words… its rare that the carriage return would even strike off a paragraph before “the draft” was abandoned and the computer shut down.

So here it is – it had to come – it might be not be witty, it might be brief, but it’s here… the thaw, the crack in the icy silence. The first entry of 2013. Phew!

Lets hope it will get easier to get the huge backlog of updates posted… we have got lots to tell.

“The Foundry” – Screenprint, 3colours, 33cmx27cm approx – edition of 50

Down to business then, here’s a print commission we produced at the close of last year for the lovely people at The Foundry pub here in Brighton… It was to commemorate the boozer’s 5th anniversary and was distributed to the staff and regulars by landlord Ian – what a nice chap.

(said it was going to be brief!)