Caslon Antique fetish

OK, gang, here's the last for 2012...

Among so many others, Leonard Cohen used it in 1974,

Bob Dylan used it in 1979,

The Clash in 1980,

Bauhaus used it for just one release in 1983,

Tones on Tail used it too for almost all their releases,

Rosetta Stone used it shamelessly! 

But we all know it and became associated with goth due to the heavy and succesful use it found in the hands of the Sisters and Merciful Release label. Since then all true Goths (sic!) make a connection upon its sight.

Caslon Antique was designed by Bernie Nadal in 1894 as a tribute to prominent type founder William Caslon who designed fonts around the1720s. 
Mr. Caslon was a gunsmith who used to engrave gun locks and barrels and was incouraged to create a type foundry in London in which he designed, now famous, for their legibility, fonts.

The most famous print using his font is of course the "United States Declaration of Independence" in 1776 (part of it!)
Nadal designed Caslon Antique to emulate the look observed on prints when consecutive printing, chipped and damaged metal type in the 18th century American print houses.

Other famous uses of it, include Lemony Snicket's book series "A Series of Unfortunate Events"

And the logo of the famed musical "Les Miserables"!

Have a great New Year's Eve folks!

See you next year...

Andrew's interview in Classic Rock magazine 2011

Found this Von's interview recently and thought you would find it interesting (as I presume we're probably all SOM fans!).  The man despite his (many) flaws has become a legend...
Hope you can read it. Sorry for the mediocre image quality...
Enjoy!

Surreal article on Eldritch!

SOM frontman's anti-French feelings were known even in the mid 80's...
Many made fun out of that. Mostly English fans but not only...
This one appeared in a tabloid (the Sun, I think) during the "Vision Thing" era (1990).
Now that's one hell of an article!!!  
;-)

Press material and gig ads 2

I'll start regularly posting clippings concerning gig ads and other material, from music papers of the '80s (NME, the Sounds, Melody Maker, Zig Zag e.a). It's quite interesting to see who played where and with whom before they became "big names".

OK, as promised, here's part 2. 

Stay tuned as there are many to come...

Press material and gig ads

I'll start regularly posting clippings concerning gig ads and other material, from music papers of the '80s (NME, the Sounds, Melody Maker, Zig Zag e.a). It's quite interesting to see who played where and with whom before they became "big names".
Enjoy!


1983: 

 

I'll soon upload more clippings...

80's goth bands logos pt.II (Sisters of Mercy)

During this early period, goth bands -like most respectful to themselves bands of the 70's- developed a taste for not only a logo (which includes the font for writing in a distinct way the name of the band) but also for a symbol. I think it presents a certain interest, so lets see as many cases as we can...

One of the most notorious logos of all goth history.
Recognizable, effective, successful.
Actually this is not really the band's logo but their own record 
company's  Merciful Release logo!
It also appears on the early singles labels of other bands
that had signed to M.R. like the March Violets, Salvation and 
James Ray and the Performance!
But it got associated only to the Sisters, I think mainly due 
to the success of the band and its consistent use 
in every single release, t-shirts etc.


It's roots go back to 1858 and Henry Gray's anatomical studies.
Here's the proof...

During the mid 1990's it got replaced by the following (lame) version... 

This new version also marked the downfall of the mighty Sisters.

One more thing.

We all know Eldritch and Craig were Motorhead fans.

Is it only my idea that the SOM logo got somewhat influenced by 

Lemmy's gang logo?

To be continued...