Fuck Rock Lets Art

Are you a motherfucking art collector? I've written another book, this one is a collection of art and essays and is an EXTREMELY limited edition of 100 copies.

• The book is A5 size and the cover is grooved and folded twice to give a thickness of 600g/m²

• Full colour printing inside

• The book has an exposed spine sewn together with pink thread - not by me by a professional book making motherfucker 

• Each book will have a unique front cover based on 6 different designs - these are hand drawn by me.

• Each book is numbered and signed.

The book is a collection of high quality full colour scans of each of my paintings with an essay to go with each one

I discuss my hatred of the CIA funded Abstract Expressionism movement, I explain how to play the vacuum cleaner like a musical instrument, why I love discarded demo tapes and much, much more...

The book ships in 3 weeks.

If you choose to preorder the book you can pick which design you would like for the front cover and also have a motherfucking dedication written into the front of the book for you or a friend.

When preordering is finished the designs for the cover will be sent out at random and there will be no chance for a motherfucking dedication.

The book with a dedication, would make a great motherfucking present to someone.

Also available as a  special preorder is a smaller version of my Formed a Band painting. This completes the set of  12 x17cm sized paintings I have been making over the last few months and will only be available with the special preorder of this book.

Finally the really special editions will come with the book, the Formed a Band painting and either the original lyrics to St Pauli, Clever Clever Jazz, Ignorance Is Bliss or Sealand that I painted over the top of for my last book. 

As these are the actual lyrics from when I wrote the songs torn from my notebook there is only one of each available.

Normal Preorder is  £20 HERE

Special Formed a Band Preorder is  £35 HERE

REALLY SPECIAL LYRIC PREORDER is £70  and you can email me here

 eddie.argos.resource@gmail.com

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Sealandscapes/Abstract Expressionism

I've been making the same paintings over and over to say goodbye to them.

I wrote why HERE

Last week - well actually a little over two weeks ago - it was Wam! Bang! Pow! here they are about to go to the post office yesterday.

I've enjoyed painting the same thing over and over, as I knew I would, but I am eager to get to some new art -  although saying that I might still create some larger 'Ignorance is Bliss' paintings as I really enjoy making those guys.

So this week is the FINAL week of me saying goodbye to old paintings so I'm making two.

SEALANDSCAPE

which is based on the Art Brut song Sealand.

ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM IS FUN

which is about Abstract Expressionism being fun.

The paintings are on 5" x 7"canvas board in acrylic paint and cost fifteen pound each. They are numbered, stamped and signed.

You can buy them from my motherfucking shop which is HERE

Wam! Bang! Pow!

I'm in the middle of saying goodbye to some paintings by creating them over and over again I wrote about the process HERE

Last week it was Ignorance is Bliss

This week it is Wam! Bang! Pow!

Wam! Bang! Pow! (Lets Rock Out) is a song by my band The Lo Fi Punk Rock Motherfuckers! You can hear it/buy it HERE

And you can buy the Wam! Bang! Pow! painting (£15 each including postage in acrylic on canvas board 7" x 5")

back in the shop which is HERE

Ignorance Is Bliss - For One Week Only.

I'm in the middle of saying goodbye to various pieces of art by painting them over and over again. A process I enjoy and wrote about HERE

Last week (well a little over a week, sorry I've been busy) I was saying goodbye to Fuck Rock Lets Art

This week I'm saying goodbye to Ignorance Is Bliss.

Some people say ignorance is bliss, I disagree. I really liked smoking and I'd still be doing it if I didn't know it killed me. I wish nobody had told me.

These versions of Ignorance Is Bliss cost £15 each (including postage) are on 5" x 7"canvas board and in acrylic paint.

You can buy them in my shop which is HERE

Girl From Atlanta.

I love Boz Boorer, I think he's great. He's written the music for pretty much all of my favourite Morrissey songs and the few times I've met him I've thought 'this guys amazing I want to get drunk with him'

Sadly I've not had a chance to get drunk with him (yet). We have however written a song together, I was flattered when he asked me, delighted to say yes and even more delighted when I heard the music.

The song is called 'Girl From Atalanta' and is actually more about my favourite city in America than any actual girl from there.

The first time Art Brut played in Atlanta we had a great night and ended up at a place called The Drunken Unicorn. I got very drunk and danced on the bar, I may even have rolled around on the floor a little bit too. The second time Art Brut played Atlanta we went back to the Drunken Unicorn and this time they were handing out flyers with 'EDDIE ARGOS'S FAVOURITE CLUB NIGHT IN AMERICA' written on them. I hadn't told them it was my favourite club night - although it definitely very much was - they must have just seen the look of enjoyment on my face the previous time I was there and thought THAT MAN IS HAVING THE BEST TIME OF HIS LIFE.

I love Atlanta, not just the Drunken Unicorn but every gig and every venue I've been to there. With a special shout out to The Earl which is a great venue. When I wrote the words to Girl From Atlanta, deep down I was secretly hoping that Fabrique Records who are releasing the single would send me there to make the video. They didn't they took me to Vienna, which was still very nice and I had a great time making friends in the local market there and dancing around with the kids. Hooray.

The single is out in June on Fabrique Records who are HERE (I'll also remind you nearer the time)

Even though its not an Art Brut song the lyrics to it are in my book to buy HERE

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FORMED A BAND/DEMO TAPES

"Formed a band" was Art Brut's first single released on Rough Trade 10 Years ago!

This painting was the front cover of Art Brut's first single.

I love demo tapes of unknown bands. I used to find them in charity shops a lot when I was growing up in Poole. It was the early/mid nineties when it was fashionable for groups to have one word names. 'Kush' 'Stray' 'Circa' were all names of musical outfits in the local area.

I don't know if I ever owned any of those bands demo tapes, but everybody seemed to be in a group in the mid nineties. I vividly remember buying demo tapes from charity shops. The bands logos would be written in an exotic font and faded from being photocopied so many times and then wrapped around a cassette. Too many bands! Too many cassettes! Lots of them ending up being surplus to requirement - 'Sorry mate there are too many bands! Your tape has to go right to the second hand shop'

There was always something very exciting about these unknown demo tapes, especially when presuming it was the bands first time in the studio.

I used to enjoy imagining all the effort put into them, the money saved from gigs in local pubs, added to money from after school jobs, the fights about what songs should be recorded. Making a demo tape is a form of gambling really. They've saved up money and bet it on all the songs they can record in a short space of time. Their three or four best songs, their HITS! As well as selling these tapes at shows they are going to send them to producers and venues and record labels.. and the local paper. Crossing their fingers and hoping for a taste of success. The jiffy bags they are posting not just stuffed with tapes and flyers for shows but pregnant with possibility, full of hopes and dreams.

Perhaps I'm over romanticising the demo tapes of unsuccessful bands from the Poole area of Dorset.

I always found something to enjoy on the Demo tapes of the long forgotten bands that I'd find in charity shops - even if often the music was terrible. I was obbsessed with being in a band at the time and I think I just like the sound of other people enjoying what I could only dream of.

Of course the technology to record at home exists now and people don't really go to the studio with their best songs in the same way. Even by the time my first band (The Art Goblins) were recording even though we had to go to someones studio we didn't get handed a tape we got given a CD each. I was amazed it was so easy to make a CD. 'Why isn't everybody recording songs! You just go and do it and get given a CD' INCREDIBLE!

Nowadays of course you record it in your house and its a download it's almost like it doesn't exist at all.

I made my formed a band painting before Art Brut were even formed, definitely before I'd written the words for the song. The painting was supposed to represent the demo tapes I'd found in charity shops growing up and had nothing to do with anything else.

But as it turns out Art Brut's first ever recordings the songs we fought over deciding which would be the best to play people, that we paid for with money from gigs and topped up with money from our jobs, songs that were supposed to be our first demo ended up being our debut single on Rough Trade.

So nothing made more sense to me than making the front cover a painting of a fictional demo tape that I had imagined was in a charity shop in Poole waiting to be picked up by somebody like me.

I have made some replica's of the Formed A Band painting they are made of car spray paint and acyrlic paint and are on 16 x 18"  canvas.

They are £80 including postage. HERE

Here is one of the songs from the Art Goblins demo CD we recorded when we were 17. Lets just pretend it was a tape as they are better to look at. You might recognise some of the words.

You can hear the song Formed A Band HERE.

RETURN TO THE SHOP HERE

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Affordable Fuck Rock Lets Art

I really enjoy making the same painting over and over again. I wrote about why LAST WEEK

I've been doing it for a couple of years and I'm stopping to concentrate on some new art.

But I'm going to miss making some of them so I'm giving a select few paintings a lap of honour  by making them for one more week.

Last week was Clever Clever Jazz here is me in the middle of painting them all

This week it's Fuck Rock Lets Art it looks like this.

It's on canvas board (5" x 7") and made of acrylic paint.

It costs £15 and that is including postage to anywhere in the world. 

It's available in the shop which you can get too HERE

Affordable Art.

I came to the conclusion a while back that everybody in the world should own at least one piece of art - preferably one bought from me.

To help achieve this goal I set about making lots of affordable art 'Pocket Money Paintings' I called them. The most popular was 'Death To Everything That Is Not Guitar Music' - probably because Alex Kapranos bought one and tweeted about it. THANKS ALEX!

I really enjoy painting the same image over and over again (I ended up making 217 of the Death To Everything That Is Not Guitar Music paintings). The repetition of trying to create the same thing again and again is incredibly therapeutic and I often fall into an almost trance like state of meditation when I'm working on them. Also, as I'm actually trying to make each image identical, it is interesting for me to see the slight variations in every hand painted image - 'Why is that black line wobbly and that one not?' 'That tiny drawing of the Casio logo is much more authentic on the previous painting, what changed?' - that sort of thing.

The likely answer is probably that its my DYSPRAXIA affecting my coordination. However, I like to think what I'm doing is a form of automatic writing and that the wobbles and slight variations in each painting are a mapping of my mind during the process of creation. Maybe the line is wobbly because I had a good idea for a lyric I wanted to write down that I've now forgotten, or perhaps because I thought of something that made me happy I painted a little faster and it affected what I was attempting to do, maybe I was contemplating something sad and it put me off my painting game.

This recreation procedure for me is very clearly an elaborate way of navel gazing.

As much as I enjoy navel gazing and painting the same picture over and over and over and over  and over again, I've decided to finish up these particular paintings I've been doing for the last couple of years so I can concentrate on some new art.

I am going to miss them though and also the practice of making them so I've decided to give a few of them a lap of honour.

For the next month I'm going to put up one 'Pocket Money Painting' a week and for that week I'll make as many as people buy. Once the week is over that will be it for that particular pocket money painting and I'll never make one again - although I reserve the right to make a giant version of them at some point if I feel like it.

The first of the paintings that I'll be making for one week only is CLEVER CLEVER JAZZ in acrylic on canvas board ( 5" x 7" ) it is available in my MOTHERFUCKING shop for £13.50 as always postage is included to ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.


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