The Red, White and Blue

So we here at id-iom didn’t really do anything related to the BLM movement when it jumped to the forefront of popular consciousness after the death of George Floyd. We weren’t really sure of our place in the narrative. 

Anyway, it just so happened that at the time I was going down the rabbit hole that is the Youtube sidebar and to my surprise a song by Body Count came on. Body Count is an American heavy metal band formed in LA and fronted by rapper Ice-T. In my youth, I listened to a lot of Body Count but hadn’t come across them in years. The song that I came upon was ‘Body Count’ and whilst listening realised the parallels between what Ice T was angrily rapping about in 1992 and what is going on in America right now. 

This whole saga has been going on for years. Let’s just hope we can get the message through to the next generation…

Cheers

id-iom

Advertisement

Underwater Love

What are you meant to do when you wake up with an earworm already running riot in your drowsy and somewhat discombobulated brain? In this instance the words ‘After the rain come sun, after the sun comes rain again’ were on a constant loop. It took me a good while to place the lyrics as coming from Smoke City’s eventual hit ‘Underwater Love’ (it was released in 1994 but rose to prominence when it was used in a Levi’s advert). 

In an attempt to exorcise my earworm I thought perhaps turning it into an artwork would help. It did. Thankfully the earworm no longer lives with me. Perhaps I’ve passed the earworm to you. I can only hope…

Created using the magic of spraypaint, stencils and and imagination on classy A2 Bockingford paper. Get in touch if you’d like to give her a new home… 

Cheers

id-iom

Celebrity Quote – Chris Martin

It’s been a long while since we’ve delved into the murky world of celebrity quotes. Today we’ve got Coldplay front man Chris Martin with, what I think we can all agree, is a pretty odd quote. 

It  both shows his awareness of his popularity with a certain segment of the population whilst simultaneously showing disdain for the other part of the population that would like to shake him by the hand – assumably for bringing his music to the world rather than because they have a taser concealed in their palm. Gloves or helmet? What a modern dilemma. Who knows? If I were you Chris I’d go belt and braces and wear them both…

Love

id-iom

Queen of Clubs

We offer today’s post with something of a heavy heart as it’s the first memorial piece we’ve done. It was created to mark the passing of a good friend who sadly leaves behind her a husband and two young kids. Our love goes out to them.

If you knew Ali then you knew that the most important thing to her was her family but also that she loved playing her role within the music industry. To that end we’ve created a kind of playing card design to signify her ‘Queen of Clubs’ status (obviously) featuring the Plug logo and references to her husband and kids. She was a fun loving mother, wife and daughter who was taken at far too young an age. I could try and say more but words seem to fail me.

The piece is lasercut on wood and then handpainted with the small extra heart and star elements stuck on for the final touch.

Much love

id-iom

Phil Collins – No Context Required

With Phil Collins regularly invading my thoughts for no fathomable reason I thought the best way to exorcise the demon, so to speak, was to let the genie out of the bottle and give some Phil inspired designs a go. It turns out some of his quotes, when taken out of context, have led to a bit of a design goldmine and today’s piece is my initial effort.

Phil is well aware he’s a caricature but what he doesn’t know is that he’s been lasercut on wood and then hand coloured and now stands proud at 53 x 36cm. Drop us a line if you’re interested. I think it’s safe to say that you can expect more in the same vein in the days to come. They get a bit weirder…

As a bonus for the eagle eyed viewers out there – how many of my out of context band references that I’ve shoehorned into the picture can you find?

Cheers

id-iom

This is the story all about how…

Well, guess who’s got themselves a Dymo? I hadn’t seen one for years and had presumed they’d gone all digital but no, it’s a good old-fashioned one like they had at school and it’s just perfect for small scale street interventions and, ideally, little earworms like this. Having printed the first couple of lines from the theme song from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air (which are surely ideal breeding ground for an earworm) I just had to find somewhere good to put them. Where better than a bin that does get turned upside down on a weekly basis? Granted it’s probably in the highest traffic spot in the world but it’s all about placement and if it achieves it’s aim just once then it’s fit for purpose. I just have to remember to take it out with me next time…

Cheers

id-iom

And the Nikes on my feet…

I found this print while I was clearing up a little and immediately thought of Bablu. If you’ve ever been in the Shoreditch area then you’ve probably been no more than 20 metres away from him at some point. He’s easily identified by his love of street art, his shifty but somewhat amiable character and his white Nike Air Force One’s. My thoughts were along the lines of ‘saw this and thought of you’ so  thought I’d better get it in the post to him pronto before I forgot what I was doing and moved on to something else.

A couple of stencils and some hand finishing later and it was ready to go. The text in the background reads ‘And the Nikes on my feet keep my cypher complete’ and the QR code takes you to a mystery related link. Give it a try…

Cheers

id-iom

 

Full Intention – America (found record redesign)

 

Found record redesign – AFTER

So this is the second of my cover redesigns for some 12″ records I found abandoned. I just had to give them a good home. At least temporarily before I repainted them and placed them back on the streets. With this one it originally looked something like this:

Found record redesign – BEFORE

But now has some extra 3D effect linework in there. My skills are so seamless that my girlfriend thought that my update was the original cover. Until i put the ‘red’, ‘white’ and ‘blue’ lettering on there. The ‘white’ lets me down somewhat although I think the overall effect still works nicely. Anyway best of luck in finding it but we’ll update when they’re all out and about…

Also, if you don’t know the song and want to hear it you can do here:

Cheers

id-iom

Mother – I’m all funked up (found record re-design)

You want serendipity? I’ll give you serendipity. Although you may need a little background before it seems all that serendipitous. I’ve always loved records and have collected them on and off since I was about 16. I’ve also always been a womble and will pick up interesting things in my travels and take them home (usually to paint on). So what was I meant to do when I rounded a corner near my house and came across an armful of abandoned 12″ records lying by a bin. It was like seeing a load of forsaken kittens lying in the street. I had no choice but to scoop them up and head on my way feeling ever so slightly smug about the whole thing. While I was having a quick check through them (which revealed that they were largely mid 90’s dance) I thought I’d perhaps re-design the covers and then put them back out on the street.

So here’s the first of my redesigns. It was initially this:

But is now the marvel you see at the top. I’ve taken it quite literally and used a stencil of my own mum. Ha! That will hopefully fox someone when it gets back out on the street…

If you want to know which record I’m on about you can find out here:

Cheers

id-iom

Gravitas – Back to the Future mixtape project

Gravitas mixtapge slate – ‘let the beat see the street’

Gravitas mixtape slate – front

Gravitas mixtape slate – back

As we found ourselves in sunny Southsea on the weekend and knew we’d be hanging with the king of free art drops, MyDogSighs, we thought we’d best take a little something down to distribute. What better than a new instalment of our ‘Back to the Future’ mixtape project which sees us combine our two of our loves – music and street art. Our initial plan was to get some new mixes together, burn them on CD and then put them out on the street with some exclusive slate cover art. This will soon be followed by mixes from a (hopefully) eclectic range of other Djs.

Along with the legend ‘Gravitas’ (meaning seriousness or dignity) we have a couple of curious cats who have managed to make an appearance and peek interestedly round the slate. I haven’t really got a more in depth explanation than that currently… As were strolling down the promenade the pier came into view and we had a natural photo opportunity! After much fussing with placement and lying full stretch on the beach in order to get a good snap we had another piece live on street. I wonder what will happen to this one?

Free art beach drop (cheers to Korp for the photo!)

There’s some contact details on the back and we’re hoping that we’ll get a reply/critique/abuse via email from whoever found it and then hopefully they’ll upload it to the web and share it around for further praise/ridicule. So, if you see one of these suckers on the street feel free to take it home and then lambast us via email on our shoddy skills and poor tune selection.

We are also now open to submissions – so if you dj at all and fancy taking part just get in touch and if we like your mix then you’re in! You can find more information on our facebook page here.

Cheers

id-iom

Related articles

• I came to the festival for love (thisisidiom.wordpress.com)
• I’m a C Unit (thisisidiom.wordpress.com)
• Ready or not, here i come! (thisisidiom.wordpress.com)