Peter Saville for Supreme

The austere impression of Peter Saville sleeve designs determine, for many people, their image of Factory Records. Here James Nice questions Saville on the influences, motives and restrictions that have shaped and also compromised, his work.

Any fan of bands such as Joy Division, New Order, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark and Ultravox will also be familiar with the work of Peter Saville. Since 1978 he's become one of the best known, and probably best respected, record sleeve designers available.

JN: Why in the early days with Factory did you decide to work in the style of constructivism with bands such as Joy Division, Section 25, OMD and New Order?

PS: Well that's a rather wooly question. The first work I ever did for Factory was a poster (FAC 1) on which the Factory Sample was also based. It was certainly constructivist in style, though the sleeve for OMD's Electricity was more neo-classical. I was twenty two and in my last week's at college, and becoming aware of the great tradition of Twentieth century graphics, as well as certain schools such as the Russian constructivists, the Bauhaus and De Stijl. I was really into Jan Tschichold and Die Neue Typographie of the 1930s, which was exclusively typography and graphics and reflected the mood of the time. Thus my first studies were reflected in the sleeves of my first records.

JN: Did this relate directly to their/Factory's music, or were you working to a set brief?

PS: I was desperate for work other than college things, and was jealous of Malcolm Garrett working on Buzzcocks' covers. I approached Tony Wilson on hearing of the Factory club in Manchester and showed him my Tschichold book. He liked the idea. I hadn't heard any of the tracks on A Factory Sample before I did the cover, and the only one that really moved me was Digital by Joy Division. I was working to convey not the music but the mood, the sense of a new movement. The first Factory record I liked was Electricity, because of OMD's name and because I'd always liked Kraftwerk. For Unknown Pleasures, I was given an image by Joy Division, but on hearing the first thirty seconds I was stunned. It was obviously a very important record.

JN: How important is it for Factory to have very elaborate sleeves, and why should they? In the past Tony Wilson has simplified it to a penchant for 'nice sleeves' surely not true?

PS: To give the customer something different, with no concern for expense or selling the music on the strength of it.

JN: Why are you doing fewer sleeves for them now?

PS: I'm doing less for everyone, as I don't like doing record sleeves anymore. My original intention was to set up a design company proper, but Tony would ask for a design and give no brief or deadline, and it would lie on the shelf for months until we had a row about it. Basically we fell out. I still work with New Order as I'm close to them, and if Tony wants something special I'll do it.

JN: You said in a recent interview that your brief is usually wide open - are your designs ever rejected and for what reasons?

PS: Sometimes but it never reaches the design stage, just an idea. There's a lot of discussion beforehand, though my work is hard in relation to 'pop groups' as they have ideas but cannot technically articulate them - that's when I get out the books. In the old days, I should have turned more things down but it was like a compliment being ask to work. Even a really naff project is still a compliment. Now I turn most sleeve offers down.

JN: On what grounds would you turn a client down? Ultravox are surely 'bad art' in this respect, so is your continued association purely a financial one?

PS: Ultravox originally came to me with one song, Vienna, which I really liked and for two years they were a good vehicle for pretentious Peter Saville Associates ideas which wouldn't suit New Order or OMD. They never interfered, and if the budget ever went over the odds, they'd always pay when necessary. The stage set for the Quartet tour cost a fortune, and for a mainstream group to finance that is great. I don't like their music though, and they began to get fussy. I don't work for them now.

JN: Be honest how much do you charge?

PS: It differs. I obviously don't charge Section 25 as much as Wham!, but it's usually well over GBP 2,000. Wham! are good customers to have.

JN: Do you always try to relate a sleeve to the specific band or record? For example, Closer for Joy Division was very fitting, whereas the sleeve for The Strange Boutique by the Monochrome Set not so.

PS: In a way. Of the two you cite, Ian Curtis decided that the sleeve was the one for Closer, and it obviously, catches the whole thing. The Monochrome Set presented me with an image and I worked around it; though the music means nothing to me.

JN: Sleeves such as Power, Corruption and Lies, From The Hip and the newer OMD sleeves (i.e. the computer graphics) are all designs far removed from your previous styles and of different genres: how do you react to the accusations of dillettante-like hopping from style to style?

PS: They're absolutely true! but for me it's an educational process. Times change. There is, I think a stylistic similarity in their simplicity, arrangement and presentation. The colour codes simply look good, though they result in pretty hilarious attempts to de-code them. I see things and adapt them, but I hate to see this when no proper attempt at design is made - it means nothing, has no pattern.

JN: You said recently that you always credit other designers when using their ideas. Yet, sleeves such as Movement and Procession are directly taken from others but bear no credit bar your own. In effect, you're being paid for the work of others... defend!

PS: I'd not heard either of the two records at all, and New Order had no ideas, so they choose then straight from the book. I wanted to credit the artist, but they refused, so I just added the Graphica Industria moniker as a token gesture towards the Italian Futurists. Obviously I've not stuck to one style. But I can have sleeves from Roxy Music, New Order, Ultravox and OMD all released and in the shops at the same time, and yet all look different, whereas - say - Neville Brody couldn't. The Face as a magazine is absolutely him for example.

JN: Are you restricted by the economics involved in a lavish sleeve, especially given the present climate? Not everyone can afford something as grand as Section 25's Always Now.

PS: I don't really do over the top designs now anyway, it's not the right time for aesthetic reasons. When I first worked for Din Disc/Virgin after Factory it came as an immense shock that sleeves couldn't cost more than 40p. One design I had was for a black and white outer with a colour inner which was turned down immediately, as it would only be seen after the buyer took it home.

JN: Are designs ruined by 'outside agencies' in between leaving you and arriving or the racks?

PS: Sometimes, but a printer's problems are different. If you visit the factory for a half-hour then they're being careful, but as soon as you leave they're back to printing record sleeves again. I have to make a real nuisance of myself over Wham! and I'm actually banned from most major labels: ABC wanted me, but "I'm too much money and too much bloody trouble."

JN: Would you like your work to be seen as 'record sleeves' only, or as good designs in their own right, free of associations which might cheapen them?

PS: Well, I'm just not a rock n roll person anyway, though most people in the business love it. My sleeves are received better outside the business itself, such as OMD's Architecture & Morality. A great thing is that through association I can give ideas to kids: on OMD's Architecture & Morality tour I put together an archectural slide show, and to see 5,000 people stop, watch and applaud, was quite something.

JN: Does the 'art establishment' recognise you as it might, and see your present medium as a legitimate/serious art form?

PS: It seems to. If I give talks in art colleges, I expect to be given a hard time by tutors who really know their stuff, but in fact they appreciate the fact that I've turned people on to Tschichold, etc. I've also designed new interiors for galleries such as Fruitmarket in Edinburgh and the Whitechapel.

JN: Was the recent Riverside Studio exhibition (via Factory) the first of its kind for you?

PS: Some time ago there was an exhibition called 'Cover Versions' which was myself and about five others, and which went abroad. Riverside wasn't an exhibition as such - Tony just stole my 'new brutalism' quote for the publicity. All I did was four banners, displayed with The Durutti Column.

JN: Who are Peter Saville Associates exactly?

PS: Myself, obviously. Early on there was Martin Atkins, Ben Kelly, and then Brett Wickens. Also Trevor Key, plus Martha Ladly has helped on little bits (Martha Ladly of Martha And The Muffins, latterly The Associates). There's no-one at the moment as I don't want a company, as I originally did.

JN: You say you're now too old, and want to move away from musical areas...

PS: Well, I'm twenty nine and I just can't see the point any longer. If I ran PSA as a company I'd cease to be an artist, but would be surrounded by people cranking out things. I did think I'd like to work on corporate identity, i.e. advertising and packaging, but it isn't sufficiently motivating, I want to cause a stir and produce designs that match the times. But, those areas are only selling goods and not my statements. I now have to find an area for personal expression but one that I can also earn a living from! I'd like an institution, but you have to fight for these things. Graphics are not on a par with art, photography or fashion, but are more a service industry instead of direct purchase. What I'm doing, and want to do, just isn't a good idea at the moment!

James Nice, November 1984.

All contents Copyright © 1984 by James Nice/Glasgow University Magazine GUM

__________________________________________

Alfie's London

Vienna,2007

Mary Woronov on Edward Hopper and New York:

Of course, our reaction is to say that was New York in the past - and it is true, New York now is not so stark. It is covered with lights and advertisements, wearing boutiques and restaurants like the garish make-up of an old woman trying to look sixteen. I remember Soho when it was a produce market, a workingman's place. Some buildings were empty and some artist had moved in. Now it looks like the insides of a giant maul that some unknown force had gutted and splattered all over the city. Hopper's paintings pull us in and suddenly we are all filled with longing for a time when things were more black and white, for a more solid time, when loneliness wasn't something you ran away from.

The following is from an interview of Andy Warhol superstar, Mary Woronov, by Donald Lyons that appeared in the May 1973 issue of Interview magazine:

Mary Woronov: I danced with Lou Reed. Gerard Malanga and I did a nice bunch of boot-licking and whip things with the Exploding Plastic Inevitable. I was tough, hard.

Donald Lyons: Chelsea Girls was your first film?

Mary Woronov: No I did Hedy Lamarr and something with Tiger Morse and something with Mario Montez.

Donald Lyons: Then you did a lot of Theater of the Ridiculous, right?

Mary Woronov: I loved it. It's like a game. For that, you have to be a personality more than an actor - a personality who can be fantastic...

Donald Lyons: What kind of roles did you play?

Mary Woronov: In Nightclub I was a man; in Conquest Of The Universe I was sexless; in Kitchenette I was a fag hag. I was always strong.

Donald Lyons: Then you married Ted (Gershuny) and you made movies for him?

Mary Woronov: Yeah, the first one we made in Italy; it's called Kenek; it's about mind-fucking; I'm the girlfriend of the evil-er man. The producer died of cancer and now it all belongs to his grandmother or aunt. Then back in New York, we made Silent Night Bloody Night. It's a small-town horror movie. At the end I'm the only survivor; it's my only victim part. It's a really gory movie. Candy Darling does a tango and gets ripped apart. It's going to be in New York in a month or so.

Donald Lyons: Then came Sugar Cookies... and after that anything?

Mary Woronov: I did something in Canada called Queen Of Evil. I play a victim again. I'm a high-class model. her mind goes and all that's left of her is her body, and she does much better on that.

Donald Lyons: And that's your latest?

Mary Woronov: No, then I did a comedy-western in Atlanta, Georgia. God, six weeks on Buford Highway. Troy Donahue is in it. I play a saloon-keeper, the female lead - I almost said male. Listen, you gotta mention the producer, Michael Thevis. He was fantastic. I hear MGM may take it...

Donald Lyons: Did you ever study acting?

Mary Woronov: No, no, never. Anything I've studied I've hated. I studied art for years in Cornell and I can't walk in a museum now. You can't go to school to be in the movies... You're better off going to Max's and practicing there.

Donald Lyons: Let's talk about Sugar Cookies. You picked that song Sally Go Round The Roses for the scene where you seduce the girl, right?

Mary Woronov: Yeah, I love that song. And it works good for two girls.

Donald Lyons: You like the movie?

Mary Woronov: Oh, yeah. It's about sex and murder; sex and violence. I love that. Movies like Dracula I love. I like scaring people. Another thing - I like sex and repression. I hope repression comes back... The fifties - I like the fifties. The sixties, ugh; when the flower children hit, forget it. All this Bob and Sam and Jim and Alice - all so open and honest - it's so boring...

Donald Lyons: What superstars do you like?

Mary Woronov: Marlene Dietrich, man. And Ava Gardner, I like her. And Rita what's-her-name. I sort of like the Wasp girls, like Grace... Dietrich is the best...

Donald Lyons: Any men?

Mary Woronov: I don't know. Dustin Hoffman is very good, but I'd rather watch Clint Eastwood...

Donald Lyons: In Sugar Cookies, you're a lesbian. Does that work for your image?

Mary Woronov: In a strange way, yes... Really straight men come up and tell me how great it was. They want in on it... And also, it turns chicks on too... The frightening thing about that movie is her lack of affection - that scares people.

Donald Lyons: What's on your griddle next?

Mary Woronov: Ted's going to do a detective movie about a cop who's very violent. I play his wife. She likes him because of that violence.

Donald Lyons: Any theater?

Mary Woronov: Yeah, I'm playing the Queen of the Amazons in this play The Two Noble Kinsmen that's supposed to be half by Shakespeare. It's at the Mercer in March. Then maybe Kitchenette down there. It's a good place. You get reviewed there.

Donald Lyons: So you're gonna be a star?

Mary Woronov: Of course I am, my dear.

Mary Woronov with Steve Rubell
at The Factory 1968
(photo: Billy Name)

NIGHT, the world's most avant-garde/sophisticated/provocative periodical. NIGHT, the ultimate scripture. NIGHT, the supreme oracle of current and future trends in art/fashion/literature/nightlife. NIGHT, the original nightlife magazine. NIGHT history lesson. NIGHT born in 1978. During the disco-nightclub era of Studio 54, Xenon, Club A, Regines, The Continental, Hurrah's, Danceteria, Pravda, etc., NIGHT was there.

Two issues of NIGHT mag were left with our receptionist today. This is my first exposure to the mag, but suffice to say it is printed in a HUGE format and the particular issues i have in front of me (#'s 54 and 55) feature some legendary figures: Taylor Mead, Anthony Hayden-Guest, Isabella Rossellini, Hubert Selby Jr,etc. I am psyched.

www.Nightmag.com

Berlin, May 2009

Cigarette tins, Berlin May 2009

Leech, predacious or parasitic annelid worm of the class Hirudinea, characterized by a cylindrical or slightly flattened body with suckers at either end for attaching to prey. The leech, like other annelids, is segmented, but its numerous surface folds obscure the internal segments. In many forms the mouth has three small jaws equipped with sharp teeth.

Monocle Magazine have announced their annual index of most liveable cities. Zurich comes in top place mainly for its vast investment in transport; Copenhagen is second for its mix of metropolitan life, great healthcare, low crime rates and a relaxed vibe; at 3, Monocle describes Tokyo as the world’s most livable megapolis and praises the city’s commitment to plant 1 million trees; 4th is Munich which blends history and innovation with ease and is generally a good place to do business; and Helsinki comes 5th partly because it has no Starbucks. Here’s the full list:

1. Zurich
2. Copenhagen
3. Tokyo
4. Munich
5. Helsinki
6. Stockholm
7. Vienna
8. Paris
9. Melbourne
10. Berlin
11. Honolulu
12. Madrid
13. Sydney
14. Vancouver
15. Barcelona
16. Fukuoka
17. Oslo
18. Singapore
19. Montreal
20. Aukland
21. Amsterdam
22. Kyoto
23. Hamburg
24. Geneva
25. Lisbon

Alain De Botton is a philosopher/writer/all around on point gentleman/ my intellectual hero. His new book (pictured above) is required reading for anyone who is wondering where to chip away some happiness from the modern workplace. Here is Alain on "The City As A Knowledge Centre" -

De Botton sees cities as centres of knowledge. That is why people want to meet each other there. Cities are, as it were, enormous libraries filled not with books but with people. Despite this, large numbers of people are moving out to the suburbs, in part because of the possibilities provided by cars, the internet and other mass media. So does this mean that cities are becoming redundant? De Botton does not think so. “Cities are not for everybody. But internet, the telephone and ordinary mail can’t replace the city, because these channels can only do certain things. Meeting people face-to-face is, and will remain, important.”

“There are conflicts between, for example, commerce and other functions such as art and culture,” he admits. “Because cities are centres for artistic exchanges. But if cities become too successful, they become so expensive that important groups such as artists and students disappear. We have to find a way of curing cities of their excessive success. We are facing the issue of how to make economically prosperous cities cheaper when cities becoming cheaper is generally a sign of decline.”



http://www.monocle.com/sections/culture/Web-Articles/Alain-de-Botton/

The youth took to wearing gardening gloves to illustrate the idea that the idealism of the virile can penetrate even the thorniest paths.
- Czech, 1987

... a love-letter to London, to the wet neon flicker of late-night pavements, electric with endless possibility, and the soft dishevelled beauty of the city’s dawn... to the overheard stories and unexplored histories, the facts and the fictions, the accidental poetry and fugitive art of graffiti-slashed suburban stations and rain-splashed shopfronts... the out-of-shot lives half-glimpsed from a train window, or from a phone number scrawled on the back of a Travelcard, dropped on the night-bus stairs...

http://home.btconnect.com/smoke/index.htm

Ms. Don Knotts, Monaco 1962.

Club Minotaur, Spanish Harlem 1976.

Jenny Talia was an Austrian born Librarian turned Private Detective who was hired by then NYC Mayor Don Knotts to find "The Hottest Nightclubs in the Metro Area" by fledgling publication Time Out New York in 1974. After 6 years of faithful service Jenny was caught smuggling illegal cheese products into the Northern areas of Queens and was thought of from that point on as a "flashlight without a button to turn it on". Current whereabouts unknown.

e

Apoxy, the new sainthood, democratization of filth, modern heroes,use it. You are just like me. What's not to like.

The capture of Lustermord Castle, 1673. Origin: Serbia.

Franz Kline is a Black Metal influenced painter living in Northern Lumeria. He has described his work as an attempt to try and understand the complexities of spinal damage suffered during automobile accidents and the modern notion of romance.

I stopped reading Wallpaper* some years ago because I felt that it's hyper consumerism glorification did not mirror my own lifestyle and belief system. They still get it right sometimes.

Their filthy new sex issue is fantastic and the Peter Saville content makes it something that will be on my coffee table (a flea market, mid century scandinavian effort) until Fall 09 at least.

Check out the trailer below:


http://www.wallpaper.com/video/fashion/making-of-peter-savillenick-knight-shoot/25901905001

One of the greats, live, soundboard recording. August 28th 1985, 1st Avenue, Minneapolis.


http://rapidshare.com/files/70736707/MIB.rar

There is alot of available seating where I live.

Life is alot like this sometimes.

A poem for Anthony H Wilson

Saint Anthony
Saint Anthony
Please come round
Something is lost that can't be found




Talk to me of Albion Anderton
Albrecht and art
The Arndale
Alan Turin
Acid House
Alexandra Park

Bez the Buzzcocks bouncing bombs
The beautiful Busby Babes
Curtis
Cancer Christies Catholicism
Crack and Curt Cocaine

Talk to me of all these things and one thing is for certain
I'll see the face I'll hear the voice of Anthony H Wilson

Dance Design Devotto Durrutti
Development of an industrial dirty Northern City
De La Salle
Dignity
And how in the end you hated the pity

Elvis Engels ecstasy
A girl called Emmeline
The hours I spent watching you on my black and white TV.
From So It Goes To Sunday Roast
Enchanting
Endearing
Extreme
Elephants washed by dwarves on 1970's TV


Factory fame financial fuck ups
Poetic Form
The Fall
4 June 1976 at the Lesser Free Trade Hall

Talk to me
Talk to me
Of Gretton God Granada
Hooky and Hannett
And how the fighting just got harder

Hamlet Ibsen The IRA
Jesus Mary and Keith Joseph
Joy Division
Judaism
The importance of the moment


Liam
London
Lust for Life
Louis Louis
Linnaeus Banks
Manchester
Music
Marijuana
Majesty
And Karl Marx


Night Clubs new bands New Order Oppenheimer
Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark
Topical Late night intellectual chat shows like
The other side of midnight and After Dark

Talk to me of all these things and one thing is for certain
I'll hear the Salford Cambridge TONES of Anthony H Wilson

Talk to me of Peterloo of praxis police and pride
Talk to me of Pontius Pilot of Power Corruption and lies
The Queen the queers the quiet ones all shy and self and effacing
Like Morrissey but not Mark E Smith or Shaun Ryder when he's been free basing

Johnny Rotten
Regeneration
Richard and Judy
Vinny Reilly
That stupid yellow circular face now known simply as "a smiley"
Righteous rebellious red ridiculous
Rochdale and Regent road
I want to hear the sound of the Salford soft boy moan and moan

Tony Talk to me in the sacristy of a Salfords De La Salle
Of preachers and poets, professors and philosophers
Tony talk to me I'm feeling sad

Of Saville
Shaw the Smiths Stone Roses
That smile so smug the swagger

I want to hear it from the mouth of an honest hardworking Blagger

Talk to me of Sex pistols Substance
The streets the sounds
The sniffed and snorted stolen swigged multi million pounds

Tony talk to me of the greatest ever Man United team
Was it
Greg
Burns
Jones
Taylor
Robson
Roy Keane
Best
Law
Charlton
Stiles
Eric Cantona
Unknown Pleasures of the doubles and the Treble
Incantation from the stars

Talk to me half pissed
Talk to me half stoned
Talk to me as a boy when I'm sat in my Fallowfield council home

Talk to me on the telly
Talk to me on the radio
Talk to me at the opening of some arty Farty show

Talk of vision virgin victory and violence
Don't leave me sat in the Hidden Gem listening to the buzz of silence

Talk to me of Warsaw
Drug wars and trendy flats within warehouses
But when it comes to footy Tony - don't talk to me about the scousers

X Ray Spex
X Ray tests
X Ray therapy
X wife chats on XFM
The best youth worker I've ever seen

Yin and Yang
Your master plan of an independent North scene

Yoric
Yonkers
Youth club banter
Yeats – come and talk to me
Tony Talk to Me

Zeitgeist talks to me
Wilson talk to me
Tony come and talk to me

Mike Garry, Manchester

Locomotive 8, Southern Crescent...hear the bells ring again.

http://www.monocle.com/sections/affairs/Web-Articles/Prime-Minister-Andrus-Ansip/