Heroes

 

Whooooops! I completely forgot to tell you about the new exhibition my friend Philip Paquet is having. Oh, boy, he’s going to be soooo crossed with me….

Well, you can forget about going to the opening. That was yesterday. But the work will be on display ‘till the 7the of August, so that gives you plenty of time to visit.

 

 

The works on display are portraits from some of his favorite musical heroes. Yes Jazzmen, of course, but also people like Bowie and Lou Reed, Flea and Frank Zappa. The man has an exquisite taste, what can I say…

Half of the pieces are “normal” drawings, but the other half are these strange multi-layered semi-transparent paintings made out of some see-through emulsion. I don’t know how all that works exactly, but he’s been experimenting with this technique since his previous show, and he’s getting better and better at it. If you are anyway near Antwerp, do stop by and check it out.

One more thing…

Paquet’s show is held at Tune Up, which is a record store. And I do mean a “record” store. The first floor shop is filled with nothing but actual vinyl records. No flimsy CD’s whatsoever. Nothing but big assed sleeves with analog information carriers.

It’s been ages since I have been to a place like that and man, it was awesome! All these beautiful designed sleeves, many of which I’ve only seen either as an online reproduction or resized for a CD-case. Here they were as it was intended: big and square and impressive.

One particular LP caught my eye: The soundtrack for the James Bond movie Thunderball. You can see a picture of it below but that’s of course not doing any justice to the experience I had.

Imagine holding this image in your hands, record-sleeve-sized, printed on sturdy cardboard. You can clearly make out all the details of the action scene. You can even see the brushwork of the illustration  (by Frank McCarthy). You vaguely remember the theme song (big Tom Jones voice holding that last note: “Thunnnnnnnn… Der Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalll”. You remember nothing of the movie, you actually start wondering whether you’ve ever seen it and promise yourself to see it (again?) soon.

And you don’t buy the record.

You don’t even own a record player. Money is tight. It would be silly!

You leave the big, beautiful, square record sleeve in the store.

 

But maybe, just maybe, you’ll go back tomorrow and get it anyway…