Music

Bardas de Baile: Mexican Wall Painting

Bardas de Baile is a fascinating documentation of the ubiquitous painted walls found in Mexico. At first glance the images appear to be graffiti but closer inspection reveals that they are actually advertisements produced to promote local music events. The origin of these colourful pronouncements lies in the 1960s and this book documents their contemporary […]

6 Oct 2013

Jamaican Dancehall Signs by Maxine Walters

Gabriel Heatwave sent me a treat of a link to this article about a new book and exhibition celebrating the hand-painted signs used to advertise dancehall events in Jamaica. A copy of the book is on order and will be reviewed at a later date. (Order yours here.) These signs are amazing and come from […]

6 Oct 2012

The Swear: ‘Ghost Signs’

My web crawlers sometimes throw up completely unexpected references to ghostsigns, this one being a song by gothic rockers, The Swear.  I contacted singer/songwriter Elizabeth Elkins to ask if there was any connection to Ghostsigns of the painted form and sure enough there was… “Ghost Signs takes the idea of physical ghost signs and turns […]

5 Mar 2012

49 New Signs

Since handing over day-to-day responsibility for the archive to the History of Advertising Trust there has been a steady influx of new material. 49 new signs have been uploaded to the online galleries and this means that c.750 are now documented through the collective efforts of photographers across the country. I’ve listed the codes for […]

5 Aug 2011

Lambeth Council

Following the recent painting over of the Clapham North ‘Music Rolls‘ sign, Ocky got in touch with Kate Hoey, MP for Vauxhall to ask her what Lambeth Council are doing to preserve this signs. The response from Michael Copeman, via Councillor Peck, was as follows: Dear Kate   Keith put exactly the same enquiry about […]

4 Oct 2007

Blooms Pianos

I photographed this fantastic sign today after going past it so many times on the bus. It’s just by the Geoffrey Museum in Shoreditch and is covered at this time of year by a big tree.   I had to do a bit of monkey-style climbing to get onto the roof underneath, hence the odd angle. […]

19 Jun 2007