Misc : October & November

This is getting daft isn’t it? I mean the gaps between blogs – the yawning inactivity of this site …well it’s not the same that can be said for THE REAL WORLD!!

Petting Zoo has been a super industrious pumping house these past couple of months – siphoning opportunities, pushing our luck and overflowing with, um… gushes of creativity? (that was a bit rubbish – apologies)

Let’s, for now,just hit you with some pics and a super brief line or two (we may or may not go into more detail at a later date with some dedicated posts)…

First up was the Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg for Flatstock – and Colored Gigs in Liepzig and then Dresden …much fun, lots of new friends made, sales were strong (thank you everyone!) and the Schwartzbier was a delight… oh we got some of our prints archived in a fancy Museum of art and trade – cool!

The Pie & Vinyl Show came down during that 15 day trip, as did the Dum-Dum Stratagem show (yep neither have been satisfactorily documented – apologies) and upon landing back in England, the priority job was a new tour poster for the mighty Jon Spencer Blues Explosion…

UK Tour Poster, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – Screenprint, 3colours (incl a blend), A2 – Edition of 100

Next up was a print for Kurt Vile for his appearance at the Concorde2 in Brighton…

Gig Poster, Kurt Vile – Screenprint, 3colours, A2 – Edition of 50

Then we nipped over to Le Guess Who? Festival in Utrecht, and stayed with good friend Joris Diks. That was great, it’s such a neat city to visit (but beware the lack of supermakets and offies – making you feel quite unsophisticated when you ask for the directions to one – it’s as though they are as rare and outmoded as old school phoneboxes). Anyhow we made two posters hurriedly for bands we didn’t exactly get clearance from – Faust who are cool with it and enthusing & Swervedriver who were/are very enigmatic and elusive …talks proceed (slowly) – but we designed these with the whole point being we could trim off the bottom if the band objected to their sale – that didn’t occur, but still, lets wait and see – we aren’t bootleggers.

Gig poster, Faust, Le Guess Who? Festival, Utrecht – Screenprint, 2colours (incl 2 blends) – A2, from an edition of 50

Gig Poster, Swervedriver, Le Guess Who? Festival, Utrecht – Screenprint, 3colours (incl 1 blend) – A2, from an edition of 50

finally we near where we are at today! in Utrecht the ZooKeeper bumped into the guys from Metz and arranged a limited edition print to commemorate their appearance at the upcoming Mutations Festival here in Brighton…

Gigposter, Metz, Mutations Festival, Brighton – Screenprint, 1 colour – A2, from an edition of 50

…and last but definitely not least, we are super chuffed to announce that we are printing this next print for the wonderful Neko Case! So excited to finally see her live and very proud to be producing this edition for sale on her merch stall not only at Mutations Festival but at The Lexington and Union Chapel too! so so cool!

Gig Poster, Neko Case, multiple venues – Screenprint, 3colours (incl a blend) – A2, from an edition of 100

Neko’s shows are promoting the launch of her “Truckdriver, Gladiator, Mule” vinyl box-set …a very nice package of work spanning her illustrious career which is available at her online store – go check it out

These and many more prints will be available to purchase on our stall at the All Saints Church in Hove this coming Saturday (part of the Mutations Festival) …and eventually elsewhere – sign up for news on that by filling out the ZOOPOO mailbox thing in the top right corner of this page.

Thanks for reading – sorry for the delay in posting

(there’s actually more to come – such as the Gatefold LP design we did for Cheatahs which has been chosen by Design Week as one of the top 50 LP covers of the year! wow! go vote for it if you really think it better than Bjorks’ !!!)

 

Exhibition : Dum-Dum Stratagem (Corridor Gallery, Brighton)

OK we’re writing this when we ought to be heading off on a train to go to the not so private view of this show… we’ve not had any lunch yet either and there are still a bonkers number of things we’ve got to do!

H to the E to the C & TIC!

Essentially we’re hoping that an earlier blogged flyer got you curious to go visit, because what with an upcoming trip around Germany, The P&V show and that 6colour Victorious fest print, we’ve really been spread too thin to give this little show the promo we’d have liked to…

A banner advertising the show on Twitter – yes the Zoo has been tweeting for a while now : @pzprints

The Corridor Gallery is a brand new not for profit co-operative venture run by an extremely dedicated team of lovely crafty friends – we could sit and sing their praises for ages but they’d possibly be a little vexed that we were stationed here at the machine right now instead of speeding toward the show! Just let us assure you that they are a wonderful bunch and have spoiled The Zoo rotten (We leapt in to put on the first show as soon as they got keys to the premises and gave it a lick of paint – apparently our grabbing of the spotlight is counts as a favour to them! wonderful!)

So yes – if you around and fancy a nose around the now complete show (we revealed prints every day in the first week, replacing big question marks designed to raise a little intrigue and provide a touch of tactical stalling time) do come along around 8… I think the little space will be heaving – but it should be a right laugh.

Signed mini prints screenprinted for the Dum-Dum Stratagem show.

 

The first print we revealed was one of the last we designed and can be seen in the photo below – we could tell you all about it but we really really need to get our skates on.

Special Reserve – Screenprint, 3colours – A2 from an edition of just 20

Gigposter : Victorious Festival 2015

A quick post just to thank the team at Victorious Fest, Jay and team at A A Design & Print (who ran the merch) and to Strong Island who are helping out with some last minute support.

Victorious was an absolute blast and boasted the mightiest of line-ups, it really did Portsmouth proud. It was great to catch up with a lot of old friends as well as meet some new ones – (one slightly sad revelation to report is that yes, Silent Disco is a dreadful as I always suspected it was – It’ll take more than a case of beer and old friends *shoutout* Mel and Leslie to persuade me to do that again – shudder)

So… Super Flaming Johnny Scream and the Magic Darkness! amazing!

and for the hoodlums there was a ripping set from Mvula Jaxx and Tiny Texas

most impressive – we’re so proud that we were given the chance to screen the official merchandise poster. Hopefully next year we’ll have the whole situation smoothed out and we’ll be able to give this some proper promotion in the lead up to the event – but hey its all worked out in the end – Strong Island have very kindly agreed to sell this poster at their Highland Road store (and we’re not getting stung by terrible commission rates so we can keep it real close to the original price – so just £22 for a 6colour print – that IS a bargain for handprinted merch, ask anyone).

Victorious Festival, Southsea Common & Castle Fields – Screenprint, 6colours incl 1blend – A2 from an edition of 100

I sincerely hope you’ll excuse the manic pace at which this is being typed out – there is so much going on at the moment that there’s barely time for spell checking… there’s another 2 blogs to get written and loads of emailing and phone calls in between (a tour of Germany with the Petting Zoo posters is being arranged currently)

…I did want to wax lyrical about how this print was designed to appeal to both the young kids of Portsmouth, the mums and dads AND the flaming lips weirdos – but that little line is going to have to do… at some stage I’ll put up some production shots too as its rare that our studio does more than 4 colours on a print …plus the little yellow to green fade on the reflected firework came out really really sweet.

anyhow – sorry – gotta dash x

Exhibition : The Pie & Vinyl Poster Show (Party)

Dear Reader,

the cold silences that you endure must surely make days like this rather joyous – days when this little blog gently beeps its little electronic apology, assures you that everything is well in the world of Petting Zoo Prints & Collectables, then finally treats you with warm and colourful pixels arranged with great care – a glimpse of recent projects – or perhaps an exciting preview of what is to come.

Today is one such day my friend, we shall be bamboozling you with 2 …maybe even 3 posts!  – I know – WOW!

So compose yourself, you poor neglected creature, steady yourself against a telegraph pole perhaps (if you are reading this on one of those clever portable devices) and let us warm up with the first announcement – Tonight is the night of the Re-View party of the Pie & Vinyl Poster Show at the Guildhall in Portsmouth.

THE PIE & VINYL POSTER SHOW Re-View – Thurs 17th September – Ports Guildhall

This is a free entry event, and the doors are open from 5.30pm so that people get a chance to pop in straight after they leave their offices – why? because the Portsmouth Cultural Trust want anyone who hasn’t yet seen the show to pop along and do so AND they’re offering a 30% discount on the remaining unsold framed posters from the show!

The night properly kicks off when JALOU play their soft and lilting slightlydelic sound at 7 and then Christopher George Whitear from Sink Or Soar takes to the stage at 8. There will be drinks and nibbles of course and hopefully lots of hobnobbing opportunities, people of opposing sexes etc.

So pretend I’ve given you loads of notice, shelve your date and other less exciting plans and come down. We’re really proud to have had the opportunity to select the work for this and very chuffed with the framing that we picked out for our buddy Chris Williams to put together – that was an extremely fun part of the project and something we hope The Zoo can repeat sometime soon down then line.

Will update with photos later… onward to our next blog now *squeal*

Exhibition : DUM-DUM STRATAGEM

No time to blog

! so so busy!

have a look at this flyer for now and we’ll follow up with a more in depth piece soon *promise!

DUM-DUM STRATAGEM Exhibition – The Corridor Gallery, Brighton – September 2015

Misc : Bank Holiday News

Well there are still plenty of things to tell you about that have happened this year but there is a little urgent matter preventing me from spending too much time blogging – Petting Zoo is off to take part in Flatstock 49 in Barcelona at the Primavera Sound Festival and what’s more, just like the LOOP piece we did last year, we’re cranking out an edition for a couple of very cool bands : Cheatahs and Unknown Mortal Orchestra!

So yeah lots of printing to be done before we board the plane on Wednesday!

What with this being a Bank Holiday Weekend however we thought it well worth your while to quickly hop on here and tell you about some cool arty things going on …firstly, between midday and 5pm this weekend there is an Open Studio at the Zoo’s shared space at North Star (Brighton) *click*

…and secondly we are very proud to announce the first (hopefully annual) Pie & Vinyl Poster Show (Portsmouth) *click*

Click to enlarge.

If you’ve not heard of Pie & Vinyl give ’em a google and read the raving reviews and applause – such a great and indeed, award-winning establishment.

Just a small selection of works in the show – Click to enlarge.

go check it out! …here’s a map to get you from the station to the Guildhall and then to Pie & Vinyl for a cuppa and some shopping perhaps.

Click to Enlarge

so you see… the Zoo really has been very busy – there’s still more to tell as well, but that’ll have to wait till we get back from Barcelona! Woop!

Gigposter : God Damn

Here’s another print we did at the close of the year – at the very excellent Drill Festival.

If you weren’t aware, this Black Country duo (a trio in fact, once a bandmate recovers from car crash injuries) who signed to the excellent One Little Indian are very, really, very, extremely, very loud!

During a God Damn gig, one cheery but mighty and lumber-limbed guy (Ash) gives you the impression that he’s probably smashed 3 drumkits to smithereens before breakfast – while the other (Thom), also upbeat and jovial, has double or triple amped his guitar and is nimbly triggering Monstergut Tremor pedals, all the while howling like some chieftain in the midst of bloody battle…

Yeah – that loud.

We needed to make a poster that expressed this simple matter of volume level in a manner as raw and simple as the band’s dangerous buzzy sound (so actually kind of in a brutish, ill-mannered manner) …here it is below – we hope you like

God Damn, Drill Festival, Brighton, UK – Screenprint, 3colours, including 2 subtle blends & metallic ink – A2, limited edition*

There were two shows in all, at Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar supporting Big Business and then at The Green Door Store (amongst many bands we personally didn’t find as visceral or exciting).

check this and imagine having to go on stage after

Do buy their album if, like me, you get a kick from hearing what dangerously buzzing valve amps can do. The link to do that is here : http://www.indian.co.uk/site/artists/god-damn

…and don’t hesitate to paypal £15 to pzprints@gmail.com if you want one of these big noisy posters to explode on the wall of your digs. Include another £5 postal if you are outside Europe – thanks.

As ever, that’s an introductory offer that will end as stocks diminish to a slim flat-file happy stack – and though I can’t recall the edition number as I type, that won’t be long.

(*edition number will be checked and updated in an edit soon)