Hey. Hope your New Year has gotten off to the start you all wished for.

Outward silence from me whilst indulging – recording and mixing – finding rooms, peeling back distractions whilst delving into the night lives of North London. ‘Tis a period of shadowy experimentation, the results of which will be with you at some point soon(ish).

If you already haven’t, here’s the material that I released last year, still available as download and physical -

• LUNACY (plus 3 b-sides)
• CHASING DRAGONS (plus 3 alternative versions)
• THE FIRE BRIGADE (single download)
• WAITING FOR THE POST-MAN (11 track album – download and limited CD’s)

Much thanks for all your support during 2011. Top of this post is one of my latest paintings ‘Festival Of Light’ which is currently being exhibited in Rochester’s Nucleus Art Shop, alongside some other pieces of mine and a whole host of other artists work. Worth a trip in you’re in the Kent area, if not head over to www.brokenarts.co.uk to see my work – new stuff to be  uploaded soon.

Lastly, though I’d share some photographs taken by Ian Rook, who’s worked with a whole host of interesting artists in the past – and is official photographer to Buzzcocks. I met Ian in Hull late last year, and before my gig we took a trip out into the old town. Many thanks to him for allowing use of these photos. Here’s a few from that shoot ….

… and whilst on the subject of photographers, you’ll notice a few changes around the site, one of which is the back ground – a live shot taken by Phil Dillon last year at The Slaughtered Lamb in London. Many thanks to him for letting me have use of it.

So … until next time, keep well and in touch.

Crook.

xxx

Been a busy few months, playing and painting and general crookedness, during which the pages of these days have turned over to welcome Winter. Strangely I feel glad for the dark light, am ready to bed down in a nest of noise, hibernation and total focus on new material.

However, before I shut my eyes to the world, there is still a fair bit still going on …

A Free Downloadable Album is now available to coincide with the LIVE TRANSMISSION event, my last Medway performance of the year. Over 3 days, a fine selection of Medway’s best bands will grace the beautiful stage at Royal Function Rooms. I’m very pleased to be playing alongside The Flowing, Stuart Turner and The Flat Earth Society and The Singing Loins, on Sunday 27th – that’s next weekend, a line-up not to be missed!

ARTROCKER have been showing their support and run a piece on the album and gig, so if you want to find out more and get the free download album, head over HERE.

Over to Broken Arts, and following the SCHISM exhibition at Bardens Boudoir last month, my first solo exhibition is now also up and running in Medway … 16 pieces, including many previously unseen, are hanging at the Deaf Cat Gallery in Rochester. The Gallery Cafe is open from 10am – 5pm everyday, and the exhibition runs until Sunday 27th – where then I’ll be hot-footing it over play Royal Function Rooms.

If any of you can, I’d love you to come along and check my work out. Seeing these Broken Artworks in the flesh is how they are meant to be seen, and I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback.

xxx

Crook.

Tomorrow morning I head to Bardens Boudoir in Stoke Newington, to meet, greet and set up shop with some other great artists from London. The exhibition entitled SCHISM showcases work by Ella Guru, Joni Deehan, Teresa Ferreira, Joe Whitney and myself.

You are all invited to attend the ’Private View’ which takes place this Thursday 20th October from 7pm. Performances from Marnie Scarlet and music by Duncan DeMorgan should make it an interesting evening all round.

The exhibition will be on for 4 weeks.

After that I’ll be taking some of this down to Medway’s DEAF CAT. There it will hang for 2 weeks as part of my first solo exhibition, which closes on the evening I perform alongside The Singing Loins, Stuart Turner and The Flat Earth Society, and The Flowing at Royal Function Rooms, Rochester on the 27th November.

Hope to see you soon. xx Crook.

PS - Here’s some photos taken today of new pieces I’ve been working on. Apologies for the dire quality of the photos – my hands are covered in oil paint, house is a complete disaster zone, I’ve lost the cat, perhaps my mind, and everything smells of white spirit and fag-ash. Oh well.

A few years back, the man I now know as Hg eerily walked towards me and threw words over tongue in the way of conversation. One of the many things we discussed was my artwork. What Hg suggested was a website to showcase this work, and though I nodded in agreement, we were soon distracted by other crooked items of interest. Nevertheless, the idea continued to linger and in the first few months of this year the time finally felt right to make good that intention.

For the last few months Hg has been building blocks out of binary codes, creating a spider web fit for this job. Meanwhile, I’ve been gathering the real-life evidence. I’m excited to say that www.brokenarts.co.uk is now live!

I think Hg has done a sweet job, so a massive thanks to him, and I really do hope you all enjoy the artwork on show. Let me know your thoughts and feelings in the website’s GUESTBOOK, I’d love to hear from you! Information regarding every piece of art can be found at the bottom of each image. All work is for sale unless otherwise stated, so if you are interested in a particular piece, or want to commission me for something else you have in mind, please get in contact and I’m sure we can work something out.

x

All the best, your curious pest, Lupen Crook.

Before music took over my life I spent some time in January messing around with oils and other stuff. Here are the 3 I like best. x Lupen Crook

A call to all those Medway folk, or anyone passing through the towns this month … head over to Chatham’s Brook Theatre, or as Wolf Howard re-correctly calls it, The Town Hall, to witness the fine arts of Medway based artist Daisy Parris. I’ve mentioned Daisy as few times in the past, last being when Tom Murderbird commissioned her to prey paint upon his Double Bass. This time however, the attention of your eyes would be well served if they were to fall through the doors of Chatham’s old Town Hall and peer into a little room on the left. In this room you’ll find a selection of Daisy Parris’ work, which is currently being exhibited alongside original images by Medway Eyes protaganist and photographer, Phil Dillon.

After checking out the exhibition myself, I played a short set of new material at The Nags Head last Friday, as part of Daisy and Phil’s opening night celebrations. T’was a cracking night.

Now, I’m not up on my art lingo, and don’t particulary care for it either. I know little of the categories or namesakes that grey minded men have placed upon the free wonders of artists over the years. I merely look with my eyes and decide whether their expression makes an impression on me, and so this is what my eyes made of Daisy’s work …

The spark of true talent is all too often a rare sight, and this is why I was so excited about the debut exhibition of Daisy’s work. Over the last few years, via Flickr and Myspace, many have been witness to Daisy’s artwork and its steady progression, through rough cut sketches of local musicans, notebook collages and experiments in photography. Those who’ve seen will attest to the fact that her work has always shone a little different from most. There has, however, been a dramatic transformation over the last year.

At 17, its quite an achievement to have an exhibition in the first place, yet the quality of her work proves the attention is deserved, and her age merely an interesting footnote, for the work itself could and shall no doubt stand alongside work of painters thrice her age and experience. Her work is full of the type of carefree rawness and gorgeous freeform that so many artists seek – that ability to lose control, live the image, and simply enjoy the process of creation. Now, that could be fairly typical of most seventeen year olds who find themselves handy with a brush and a pot of acrylic paint. However, as well as that, there something else is happening, amongst the lustful brush strokes and wild paint splattered portraits of her familiars. This ‘thing’ is a very ‘not seventeen year old’ characteristic, in fact, its a rare find in any artist, whatever their age. This ‘thing’, that I get from her work, is a sense that she has both control over her subject whilst admiration enough to let ‘them’ live outside the frame, and a keen appreciation of her tools, the paint, the canvas, and what it all means in regards to the final composition. As far as I’m concerned, she succeeds in both capturing the personality and mood of her subjects, whilst also producing paintings that are totally her own, and thats a real accomplishment for anyone. Whats more, its also clear just from looking at her work that she’ thoroughly enjoys each minute spent brush in hand, striking the canvas with colour, that these paintings have had very natural births. The result feels very ‘real’ indeed.

So, I think she’s pretty fucking good, obviously. You should make your own mind up, and get your lazy arse’s down to the Brook Theatre aka Chatham Town Hall as soon as. The exhibition runs until Saturday 26th February, 10am to 9pm everyday except Sundays, for on this day, apparantly eyes should rest.

PS – Here’s a interview with Daisy about her work, give it a read … ONE SIDE OF A COIN: AN INTERVIEW WITH DAISY PARRIS

‘The Pros and Cons….‘ has been out for a month now, and so I’ve gathered up some of the different front cover designs that were considered. From 30 second sketches, a result of immediate brain dumping, to more considered examples that eventually led Tom, Antje and myself to the final and finished artwork. I could think of no reason to keep them locked away…

…. If there was one thing that I wanted more than anything in regards to the artwork for this album, it was the presence of colour, and lots of it. Iscariot the Ladder had been a troubled and bleak period in our history, and so the artwork had naturally reflected this. We set about making this album with far more enthusiasm and drive, a do or die agreement between myself and the Langridge brothers. We had gained our independence, and capturing the personalities of our friendships was as important as anything else. Self funded with what each of us could scrape together, we recorded when we could manage the cost, and each session was taken to its natural conclusion without restraint. It stands as both a document of my personal frame of mind, but perhaps more importantly, an album conceived through a shared desire to capture the fury and fond frustrations that had bubbled between us for some time. Unlike previous albums, the artwork for this record was only undertaken after the albums completion.

Click on the Thumbnails to see complete image. Enjoy or destroy as you see fit. CroOK. xxx

Above are some intial ideas, very rough brain dumps, and below are a set of photographs by Sara Norling. I met Sara in Medway during the early part of this year, and whilst discussing far grander plans, we wandered through Medway, brain storming, ceasing random opportunities and taking shots along the way. Always playing with idea of ‘eating out’, down the scum ridden alleys of Chatham Town, squatting the backyards of the resturants along the Dirty Mile, to one memorable occasion where I found myself half naked in the Medway river, stuggling to keep ever so slightly afloat whilst balancing puzzle pieces on my eyelids. A beautiful set of photographs, some kept natural as they were seen by her eye, others I’ve bastardised with crude computer effects.

Below are collaborations with Jenny Hardcore, whose  ‘tarred and feathered’ photograph was thrown into the mix, and a very rough design where I abused her originals – incorporating magazine cut outs, paint, puzzle pieces and all sorts else. Seperate to this, during the summer, having been ‘inspired’ by the title and themes of ‘The Pros and Cons of Eating Out’, Jenny also presented a set of beautiful photographs taken at her studio in Camden, which I then incorporated into front cover potentials.

My first mock up of the broken Heart design is below, which after a suggestion by Hg, led Lucy Langridge and I to replace the standard cutlery with something ‘Crooked’. The Crooked Cutlery came to feature part of the final exterior cover and also the focus of the boxsets. Other variations I played around with are also shown.

Very late in the day, two things occured. I’ve always thought that when you feel close to getting the right design, it’s never a bad idea to create something that opposes it completely, something entirely different, less any of the tricks or characteristics that have attached to your vision during the course. It pits your wits against each other, and the stronger image, or more relevant design will normally reveal itself. These two designs came from that train of thought. I created a very rough mock up of something I may still explore more seriously in the future. It’s a take on Rene Magritte’s ‘The Lovers’, plastic shopping bags replace the rich disguise of the original individuals. I actually wanted my daughter Matilda and Bob’s son Levy to sport these plastic shopping bags whilst engaging in love’s first kiss, for I felt it would be a more potent image, however that idea posed certain problems, potential issues, reasons which are obvious. What is shown here is as far as I’ve taken the idea – for now at least (evil cackle). Secondly, during yet another change of address, I discovered an unfinished painting by The MRS, which I took to my own conclusion, and which stands, perhaps, as the last collaboration deserving of the moniker MRS CROOK.

When Tom and I finally decided that the painting ‘Medway STD’, which was exhibited in 2009 alongside other works by myself and The MRS, was the right image to form the inner front cover of this album, Tom and I played around with many experimental alternatives just to make damn sure we were on the right track. Two of these are shown below. Aside from these experiments, one other cover does exist, a photograph that very nearly made an appearence on the inner CD digi pack. In the nick of time I was informed that it couldn’t and shouldn’t be used, neither can it be shown here – seems that it falls slightly outside of the law, and a certain someone could likely lose their job.

Anyway, just thought I’d share a little bit of the creative processes that have been chewed over during the past 6 or so months prior to the album’s release.

Weird and wonderful conversations that spark out of nowhere, chewed, pursued, sometimes left glued in the past for tomorrow to discover. First it was gonna be my Funeral Boots, however, as life and luck would have it, Medway based artist Daisy Parris took hold of Tom’s Upright Double Bass instead – far more exciting a project than painting some beaten leather I’ve kicked 6 Souls out of anyway. Having been fans of Daisy’s work for sometime (most recent work being especiallycool), it was great to receive these happy snaps of her progress so far, with a message from the lady herself  . . .

“The bass had met with paint twice before this final layer, each time the subject matter had been changed, each time nothing I was satisfied with was produced.
And then I realised I needed to work with a subject matter that I was really familiar with. So I scratched off some of the paint and painted it all white. This final painting is actually based on a photo of my Grandmother. And finally, it clicked.
So this is just the beginning of it all. Still got to complete the front, paint the sides and paint the back…“

Since last weeks storm of newsprint and PVA glue, things have come along. My front room has been momentarily freed from chaos. Two and half days – solid sticking down of the weeks headlines yet I’m none the wiser about what’s actually going on in the world. Rather than get caught up in the worry, I turned to red acyrlic and black spray paint, which has replaced any anxiety in my mind with a fine layer of fumes. However, having perhaps learnt a lesson from ‘The Lost Belongings’ limited editions, this time I took to spray painting with a make shift mask. Don’t think these old man lungs can handle another thick and sticky gloss coating, and for sure a lack of vocals with which to call out and complain with made this particular man a true psychotic misery. On this occasion, history doesn’t have to repeat itself.

Anyway, plan to today is to record a set of new songs so’s those murderous little fuckers have something to get their teeth into. After that, the next stage in my wonky plan will be to fill these little chests with crooked treasures, so keep in touch, and be sure, I’ll let you know how it’s all going down. xxx CroOK.

Beautiful Daze marked the end of The Crooked Family’s Festival Season 2010. Other news, completed album and artwork, as I speak, is now on route to the manufacturer – no thanks to the fucking French who were too pussy to print the artwork due to ‘blah blah blah’ content – what a load of bollocks, but we’ve dealt with that anyway, for after a moment of profound panic someone over this way, with a pair of balls big enough, agreed to take the job on, so all is well in hell and right on target for the 4th October release. Anyhow, my attention has now turned to making a limited amount of special edition boxsets . . . phase one: the material blag.

Wednesday morning Matilda and I fleeced Mornington Cresent station of its last remaining copies of The Metro newspaper. By 9am we were lurking around the recycling bins just outside Sainsbury and managed to pick off a few old dears, relieving them of their soon-to-be-dispensed-with outdated daily rags. Next mission was striking a deal with a ‘not to be named’ takeaway place up Camden High Street. Once done, we dragged our hoard back home, stuck on some Johnny Cash, and made a start on prepping the materials.  Come yesterday morning and the real work began. As you can see from these happy snaps taken only moments ago, everything we plundered is being put to good use, though admittedly it looks like a bloody mess at this particular moment. Hopefully, with a bit of luck and hard graft, my front room turned art factory will slowly begin to make more sense. I’ll keep you updated as I go . . .

However, this means that the Market Stall is not gonna be appearing in Camden today. Sorry for anyone who was planning a trip, but I’ll be getting it together for next Friday, I promise – just that I really need to make a aggressive start on these broken arts before their darkened crafts have their wicked way with my daft sod brain.

xxx

Yours SINcerely

CroOK