geld

Digital - 2018

Late 2017 Cormy (GELD guitarist) asked me to do t-shirt artwork for their 2018 tour of the USA.

In 2014 I went to Japan for the first time to try and see Axewield play. I didn’t have any punk connections in Japan and I only had a few punk friends in Melbourne, at the time I never went out to shows and just stay in my room all the time. I did some Google research on how to find punk stuff in Japan I came across Cormy’s Kromosom tour diary. I jotted down names of venues and record stores and it served as a very useful punk roadmap. Without I wouldn’t have visited Vortex in Mie which ultimately lead to meeting Masuda from Effigy/Axewield/Ulcer and becoming very good friends with a delightful human named Jun.

I didn’t know Cormy during the course of my Japan trip, actually I hadn’t even heard of him until reading the tour diary, I don’t think I even knew who Kromosom were (I really never left my room during that stage of my life). But after my first Japan visit, I held him in high esteem. Later that same year (2014) my housemate Manny held a barbeque\cook up and invited Cormy along. I didn’t say one word to him. I was too introverted and shy (and coming down from partying) to say anything beyond hello. A few years later I rambled to Cormy about how the tour diary really helped me and meant a lot and all that.

Back to late 2017! Cormy asked me do draw a GELD t-shirt, at the time I essentially had no idea GELD existed. Cormy sent me the tracks for their upcoming Perfect Texture LP. Upon hearing I was instantly a fan. I have no understanding of how to make music, but if I did, I’d be making some psychedelic punk in the same vein as GELD and Paranoid’s Satyagraha but with a bit more Effigy styling. Anyways I was instantly inspired to start drawing.

The original idea was a menacing fellow holding a knife in a spiraling psychedelic corridor of knives, Saul Bass was a primary influence. This idea ended up slowly being abandoned for just psychedelic knives. I tried drawing the knifey dude but my ability to draw the human figure as a whole is novice at best, and it wasn’t working\feeling right for me simply due to my lack of a skill. Moving on! The band loved the artwork and ended up using a design with the knives staggered under the band logo for the t-shirt and used the spiraling knives (shown above) as the cover for their 7inch reissue for their demo! I was mighty chuffed!

Also during this period (early 2018) my former pooch Buddy was dying of multiple cancers. Anyone who has ever spoken to me for more than a few minutes knows how much Buddy meant to me. A lot of my friends had never met the snuggle monster that I had ceaselessly talked about, so I put out a call on social media for anyone wanting to visit Buddy to swing by and meet him. The only person who came around to meet Buddy was Cormy. And after Buddy passed Cormy reached out trying to get me to come over for a visit. The man gets a lot of respect from me and I’m more than happy to have been able to contribute something to GELD,

The shirt and 7inch turned out great and the whole experience was smooth and fun, and I found a new great band to listen to and formed some bonds with a new friend.