A few months ago I received an email from a young man in the UK, asking permission to use a photo he found on my flickr for the cover art for his band’s new single (Cockatoo). I said sure and please keep in touch. And he did.
“The vinyl version of the single’s out now and is doing really well. The photo has certainly done it’s job and intrigued people. We’ve had lots of national airplay from the BBC and lots of new opportunities have been popping up all the time which is obviously very exciting.
We did a single launch in this big DIY arts space called The Arts Organisation in Nottingham. There was talk of doing a Steve Mays photo reel featuring a whole raft of the photo’s to be projected on walls and stuff but we didn’t have enough time in the end and felt that we’d be taking the piss a bit in terms of permission to use them.
Here’s 23 seconds of that show that somebody took on a phone (I’m the short guy wearing the black jacket and white T-shirt btw):
We’d love to send you some copies of the single in the post if you’d like. Posterity and all that. Let me know where to send them and we will. That said we certainly wouldn’t be offended if you’d rather we didn’t. Once again thanks for everything.”
James and all of Fists
Ah, to have my life become the backdrop for an edgy British pub band…
I’ve added the Fists blog to the sidebar for wonderful passages like this:
“…if you want to go on a slightly wrong night out then you should go to Wildside which is this once monthly cock/sleaze/glam rock revivalist night at Junktion 7 in Nottingham. It’s mostly filled wall-to-wall with dysfunctional hard rockers who get crazy drunk whilst getting emotional about it not being 1986 before dropping to their knees for an Eddie Van Halen solo and then disappearing into the toilets to have sex and drink Jack Daniel’s and fall out with each other due to fringe scene claustrophobia. It’s like going to a special zoo that houses dying musical sub-cultures and is one of my favourite nights out.”
Okay, but I like to be home no later than ten p.m.
Update from James/Fists:
“Without a doubt the cover alone did us a massive favour in getting us heard. In those huge piles of promo’s that promoters, radio stations, booking agents and music bloggers receive daily the gorilla masked boxer and dog guy supping his beer in the chair definitely caught the right eyes. We got to play on the BBC stage of one of the worlds biggest music festivals (Glastonbury) as well as really good national airplay for the single on lots of radio stations. We also got a place on Rough Trade’s (famous independent record label/shop) prestigious best of 2009 independent music compilation which we’re really excited about (due out in February 2010, there will be a little thumbnail of the cover in the accompanying booklet for the CD).”