Art
and Music
by Harley R (Biog) Updated
5th September 2006
News Music -
New
Pestrepeller CD, Isle of Dark Magick, is out.
Mystery Dick gigs to be announced shortly. Art - I contributed several drawings of Mark E
Smith to The Fall: Paintwork, a show at the Praxis
Hagen gallery in Berlin back in May.
Music
I'm a member of the improvising groups Mystery Dick
and Pestrepeller. See www.mysterydick.com
for more info.
Also, read some very old news about my other musical activities
below.
Writing
I write about music for The Sound Projector magazine
and run the Sound Projector
website. I am occasional guest presenter on the Sound
Projecting show on London's art radio station, Resonance 104.4
FM.
Sketchbooks
15 galleries and counting, featuring studies from life, comics, newspapers,
books and magazines of dubious standing and the imagination.
Gallery(Updated rarely)
A small selection of cartoons and paintings.
Comics
I was involved in the UK small press comics scene in the late 80s/early
90s and published Ugly Mug comic. Who knows if I
will cartoon again?
Sites
by friends and associates
The
Sound Projector
Excerpts, info and incredible colour pics from and about Ed Pinsent's
influential music magazine.
The
Critic Speaks
The world put to rights, courtesy arch-critic Nick Gammons. He's quick
to berate but slow to update - the site hasn't changed for over three
years!
Biography
(Courtesy Altavista translation
software)
Harley R is a musician and an artist, who live in London. Member
the noise-improving volume "Mystery thick" and "Attack Wave Pestrepeller". Former
Cartoonist and during the late 80's takes part in different publications. "ugly
the Mug Comic" (4 expenditures 1988-1990) gave change, disk reviews and illustrations
for "The sound projector" (1996 until today) wrote and was also responsible
person of the Website of the magazine.
The eager "male painter" began to paint for 4 years. A promising
in former times start than Cartoonist in his late rodent years led to the creative
block. Follower of a fruitless Trip after "Cyprus School OF Art" in the year
1992 showed it that the way will be connected forward with many intensive studies.
It painted like a crazy person photographies of the masters (e.g. Gil Elvgren)
and its "my sketchbook website" is the only point of the iceberg. the 20 century
infected it with archie Comics, pinup kind, 60s of girlies mags, Tim Quinn &
Dickie Howett, as consciousness-extending turned out the current heroes Robert
Crumb, Savage Pencil, Odd Pinsent, John Bagnall, Chris Reynolds, Coop and Mark
of E. Smith.
Links
Music
Baggage
Reclaim
Richard Sanderson's monthly London-based showcase for experimental music (now
sadly defuct), had, in its previous guises as 'The Club Room' and 'Departure
Lounge', been home to a Pestrepeller/Mystery Dick gig or two. The catholic tastes
of 'the Sand' means audiences are guaranteed an evening of unexpected thrills
in an intimate setting, running the gamut from off-kilter pop to brain-shredding
noise and challenging improv, topped off with musical appearances from the man
himself... check it out!
The Artwork
of Robert McGuinness
Tribute to the prolific American commercial artist perhaps best known for painting
the Breakfast at Tiffany movie poster. His bread and butter during the 60's
and 70's was painting covers for crime and western paperbacks (Murder Wears
a Mantilla, The Turqouise Lament, Never Kill a Client etc),
his hallmark being slinky females in darkened rooms portrayed using alternately
muted and garish colours. This site features a biography and extensive gallery
of his work.
Pin-up Art
Thomas W's fine tribute to 20th Century girlie 'good girl' drawings, including
some exclusive Elgren studies by my good self (in the Künstler section).
Ed Pinsent
Sound Projector mainman and genius avant-garde cartoonist Ed now has a site
features weird collages and incredible colourised versions of his unpublished
comic strips.
3rd July 2001 - Mystery Dick gig details and CD release
We're playing an oh-too-rare gig in London on 9th July. Full details
below or you can print off a flyer.
There is also now a fledgling Mystery Dick
website, although as yet it won't tell you much you don't already know.
Having given up on finding a patron to subsidise us, we now are producing our
own CD releases. One Note Mind is the first of these, a 38 minute
feedback and organ drone from 1997. It's a corker! Copies will be available
at the gig and shortly thereafter via this website.
Mystery
Dick play live
Date = Monday 9th July 2001
Venue = Bonnington Centre, 11 Vauxhall Grove, Vauxhall, London SW8
Also playing = John Russell / Tom Chant / Howard Jacques + Rob Lawson
Start = 8pm, running order to be decided on the night
For more info = 01932 571 323
14th May 2001
Mystery Dick summer gig / Pestrepeller RIP
Mystery Dick (that's Ed Pinsent and me) will be playing at the Bonnington
in Vauxhall on 9th July. Full address and other details to follow. Email me
to be put on our e-mailing list if you want to know more.
Attack Wave Pestrepeller are no more. However, shortly before we packed
it in we recorded about 3 hours worth of material at a studio in Brixton which
will be edited, compiled and released posthumously sometime over the next year
or so.
5th June 2000
Pseudo-Mystery Dick gig at the Queen Elizabeth Hall (foyer)
Mystery Dicker Ed Pinsent was invited to play a short lobby set at the last
night of the the LMC Festival. His task for the evening was to entertain the
punters during a fifteen-minute gap between main acts. Ed played his mini-keyboard
over a Pestrepeller rehearsal tape and Harley found himself on mixing duties
30 seconds before the audience arrived (well, that's one way to avoid pre-gig
nerves). A drunken family who had taken up residence in the bar asked if we
were going to play any music and enquired as to its nature as they were fearful
it might cause them to leave... we didn't give them the rock'n'roll they asked
for but they stuck around anyway. Gig-wise, that's all you get for the immediate
future - Pestrepeller are in hibernation and 'the Dick' are hard at work in
the studio preparing a release for later in the year.
News - 15th April 2000
Sonic Boom discusses the making of Pestrepeller
Well, not news exactly, but new to me. Check out this 1999 interview
with Mr Kember on the Pansie Cola
Park website which includes a brief discussion of his work on the Pestrepeller
CD. For the uninitiated, this was a EAR aural extravaganza built using our
first CD as a sound source.
Fans of the Sound Projector can now join our mailing list to find out when new issues hit the stands and to keep informed of updates to the website.
Gallery
I've finally put up a gallery of my pictures. Just a few images for the time being - keep checking the site as I have a backlog of many hundreds of pics to scan in and post.
Previous News
Sound Projector Six and new pics
The website now features an expanded gallery with new pictures from Ed, John Bagnall, Niall Richardson, Ian Middleton and myself. Still to come: an A-Z of Krautrock reviews from the mag. The new mag is out and in the shops; see the web site for full contents and ordering info.
The Dick has risen!
Hot from their recent contribution to the ICA's Dead Duck Live, Mystery Dick stood erect and proud throughout their first full-length gig at the first Departure Lounge on 6th October, an event which provided at least twelve inches of intuito-music satisfaction to all in attendance. (Up and coming Publicity Agents observe and take note, the only change I have made in turning the preview of this gig into a review is the switching of the future tense to the past tense). Despite some flutters and meandering on our part it seemed to go down well with the audience, and fitted very neatly with the other excellent acts on the bill, saxaphone honker Tony Bevan and Noisegate house band Brown Sierra.
Keep your eyes on this website for news of upcoming appearances at the Departure Lounge by Pestrepeller and our as-yet untitled song-based band. Departure Lounge showcases new electronic music and starts 8.30pm sharp every Wednesday at The Queens Arms, Penton St, London N1 (0181 463 0490), nearest tube is Angel.
Sound Projector Six and pics
The new Sound Projector is out and in the shops; see the web site for full contents and ordering info. Coming shortly to the website: new pictures from Ed, John Bagnall, Niall Richardson, Ian Middleton and myself, plus an A-Z of Krautrock reviews from the mag.
Experimental Audio Research remake Pestrepeller
Rush to your nearest record shop now to buy E.A.R.'s radical treatment of our first CD, Rodent and Insect Eliminator, available on CD or tasty but unplayable red and silver glitter vinyl.
Sonic Boom describes how the 'Pestrepeller' album came about in the new Sound Projector. And should you be inclined to hear the original material from which Mr Boom's built his masterpiece, Rodent and Insect Eliminator (SFTRI 443) is still available from Sympathy for the Record Industry or direct in limited number from me. Likened by some listeners to the sound of a smoke alarm, by others to the relaxing sounds of the English countryside, it's a sixty-one minute treat! Warning though to the faint hearted - during the final ten minutes all instruments were played by ghosts!
Attack Wave Pestrepeller at the Spitz
On Wednesday April 21st we returned to the scene of our first gig, to support New York improv veterans Borbetomagus. This was our weirdest and loudest set yet, veering wildly between coherence and abstraction throughout, and leaving all three of us unsettled for several days. Afterwards members of the audience would claim to have sighted the gloomy figure of Nosferatu the Vampyre towering above us. Unfortunately he didn't bring along his plague of a thousand rats like what he promised.
Borbetomagus saw off some members of the audience when the first twenty solid minutes of feedback proved just a little too featureless, but these folks missed out as the set just got funnier and spookier as it went on. And the Borbetos' blowing-beer-through-saxaphone routine proved once-and-for-all that improv and showmanship aren't mutually exclusive. They even blew up an amp, giving the night some kind of spurious rock'n'roll credence useful for the NME reporters not present. We were just glad the amp in question wasn't the one lent to them by us.
Dead Duck Live at the ICA
On Saturday April 3rd the ICA marked the release of launch of EMI's Songbook CDs series with the dubiously-named 'Apocalypse Culture', a day of music and chat by Songbook artists such as Robert Crumb, Gilbert Shelton, Ivor Cutler and our very own Savage Pencil.
Sav gathered together a gang of friends and luminaries for a once-in-a-lifetime performance of 'The Anti-Quack'. Highlights of this event included a bongo/raygun duet, Dead Duck readings by gravel-throated voiceover artist Rob Brown and a birdsong/sax impro by Sav and ex-Kray Cherub Pat Naylor. Mystery Dick were joined by Gary Ramon of Sundial for a Psychedelic Jam and by Billy Chainsaw for the finale, a cover of the Bonzo Dog Band's scary 'Slush'. Casualties of the night were Ed who ended up covered in part of Ralph Steadman's oil painting and the Citroen driver whose car was written off by our over-sized van.
The Songbook Series is available in discerning record shops everywhere (except America it seems). Check out Sav's CD in particular for beautiful, frightening art and a fascinating selection of rare gems picked from his record collection.
Madrigal Dick are a Dumb Angel
Mystery Dick are currently looking for a label to release Single Angel, their collaboration with the Chelsea Madrigal Group. A single to Angel Islington please!
Contact me: harley@supergraphics.demon.co.uk
