Every spring in in Harrowden, when the chimneys belch blacker than usual, they come… nothing is official, like. No fliers, no town notice. But folk know. They always know, when it is, it comes with a hush leading up to it that settles over Harrowden like damp fog.

Just as we think we’ve made it through winter’s grip… just as the days stretch long… then comes the Blackheart Friday Parade…

Some say it was rooted in the strikes, others claim it goes back to when the moors were worshipped and the bogs were sacred.

Ain’t like no parade you’d boast or clap for. Figures cloaked in rags rubbed black with mill ash, faces covered with masks stitched from sackcloth, burnt lace, cracked doll-heads. Lanterns made from bones and rusted old tin cans swing from chains. The gloamrats and other young’uns march ahead, wearing paper crowns too damp to hold shape. There’s no music as such, the soundtrack is these strange droning booming sound systems pulled on carts, singing industrial noise like frantic ghosts remembering the factories of old.

It’s a protest, some say. A warning, say others. But the older people reckon it’s an old pact kept barely alive. An appeasement for what sleeps down by Gallows Bog, for what happened… Either way, folk shutter early. The Velvet Toad closes up, pretending it never existed, the rich, landlords and mill owners nowhere to be found.

What sets most uneasy ain’t what walks, it’s what floats. Look up, and there they are: the Varnlings. Massive, drifting’ shapes gliding through the sky like oily smears on the clouds, dripping thick black as if the sky itself were weeping soot. They make no sound, but their presence hangs like a held breath. No one knows if they follow the parade or if they are in fact leading it. But they always come, drifting like rot in the wind.

Some folk reckon they first showed when them from Frostmere drifted in, salt in their lungs and secrets in their eyes, but don’t pay too much attention to that there’s always been a strange chill between Harrowden and Frostmere folk. A sense that they don’t quite belong, no matter how long they’ve been here.

And so it goes, every year. The Blackheart Friday Parade comes, a strange and twisted ritual woven into the very fabric of Harrowden’s dark heart. It’s something talked about, yet no one dares understand fully. Perhaps it’s better left as it is, a reminder of the town’s restless past, of old divisions and things better left unspoken.

It’s throwback time, and this week I’m revisiting a project close to my heart: The Product by Black Light Mutants, originally released in 2017.

I’ve shared bits from this one before, but thought I’d dig a little deeper and show some of the promo artwork—done in that dystopian digital photo-composite style I was really into at the time. Think fractured cityscapes, industrial decay, warped perspective and a whole lot of texture. Chaos, but intentional.

Back in 2017, I co-created this release with the anarchopunk/electronic band Black Light Mutants, writing music, lyrics, vocals, and also handling all the artwork and promotional design. This was The Product.

The whole aesthetic was built to feel like a fever-dream of industrial collapse—survivors trudging through the wreckage of a broken system, a city feeding on itself. The music and visuals were our way of responding to everything we felt was rotting from the inside out: politics, media, commodification, control.

Produced in Manchester, it was glitch-heavy noise meets punk grit—plus all the weird genre hybrids we were experimenting with at the time. The cover art? That was a visual extension of the same rage. Poisoned skies. Collapsing structures. Wires like veins. Everything on the brink.

This was a total DIY production—raw, honest, and snarling.
Here’s to remembering that energy.

Listen here: blacklightmutants.bandcamp.com

So… am I too late for this whole doll trend that’s been circling social media like a moth round a strip light?

Probably.

’Cause I raided my mum’s cupboards and went full Blue Peter, didn’t I!

Knocked up my own “Cut Out & Dress Up” vintage-style paper doll with cardboard, sticky back plastic, and a good dose of Harrowden weirdness.

She’s none other than Lenore Blackwell, the moody lass from your soot-smeared dreams, complete with walkman, tape, dog collar, safety pin and her DIY denim jacket.

She’s joined by two of the red-eyed Harrowden cats, creeping out the corners like they know too much (because they probably do).

Might make a few more. We’ll see. 🖤

Download Print At Home Worksheet

Oops, I’m a day late with my throwback post this week, apologies for breaking the usual schedule! After a long day at work yesterday, I was so wiped out I ended up crashing completely and taking a much-needed nap 😴

But now we’re back, and today, I’m taking you all the way back to 2002, to share a piece titled The Sentinel. This mixed media painting is a surreal landscape created using Dada automatist techniques, with a bit of an influence from Max Ernst.

It was part of a series of landscapes where I used paint smears, frottage, and allowed accidents, randomness, and texture rubbing to guide the process. The unpredictability of it was really exciting to me. I loved the idea of surrendering control—letting the subconscious take over, letting the process unfold in a way I couldn’t predict. The random layers of marks, textures, and materials became a way to draw out ideas from the subconscious, to create something new from the chaos and disorder that usually hides beneath the surface.

This was a time when I was fascinated by the idea of making art that didn’t follow any clear, rigid structure. It was about diving into the unknown and trusting that new ideas would emerge from the messiness. Sometimes, it’s through that very chaos that the most unexpected and powerful concepts surface.

I still rely on this approach today now and again, not just in visual art, but in songwriting as well using cut and paste techniques. Using Dada techniques to create something from randomness and free-form expression has been an invaluable process for me in both worlds. There’s a freedom in letting go of control, allowing your mind to wander, free from constraints, to see where it takes you. Whether it’s in a painting or a track, you never quite know what might emerge, but you trust that something new, something unexpected, will show up!

I hope you enjoy this blast from the past!

• Next stop: East Harrowden.
• Time of arrival’s uncertain.
• Make sure you’ve got all yer personal realities with yer before stepping over t’other side of t’gap.
• This is the end of the line.

“See summat? Say nowt. Stay quiet.”

Back in 2018, I created the piece “Richey Warhol”, a screen print inspired by Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe print series. But instead of the Hollywood glitz, I wanted something rawer, Richey Edwards of Manic Street Preachers. A figure who was both defiant and fragile, burning bright and fading away all at once.

The Manics meant everything to me growing up. That mix of punk attitude, intellect, and rage, the idea of being glamorous in a run-down mining town, felt real. It wasn’t just about rebellion; it was about wanting more, knowing there was something bigger out there, and refusing to let the grey, grinding world tell you who to be.

That contradiction, beauty and decay side by side, hit home. As a punk teen on a council estate, making glam/punk clothes to express my art, I understood it completely. There’s something powerful in taking what’s bleak and making it electric, in finding defiance in style, in words, in art.

In this piece, the print itself fades as it goes, mirroring Richey’s disappearance…

Latest in my pubs of england series!

Digging through the archives always brings up some interesting memories, but this one stands out as a proper defining moment in my DIY journey. Back in 2013, I had the chance to exhibit my work at Strummercamp Punk Festival, a raw, independent celebration of punk spirit inspired by the ethos of Joe Strummer. This was not just any exhibition, it were the first time visual art had been featured at the festival, and it were about as far from a pristine gallery space as you could get (Hurrah!). Thanks to  Paul Aitch Art (seriously, go and check out his work if you have not already), I had the opportunity to be part of something truly special. The exhibition space? A makeshift tent with art hung on some fishing nets my friend borrowed us, right in the thick of the festival, surrounded by noise, chaos, and the relentless energy of punk. And just to make things even more memorable, the whole thing happened in the middle of a proper torrential rainstorm, thunder and lightning cracking across the sky on the saturday night nearly blowing the whole tent down. Stressful maybe at the time, but the perfect backdrop really looking back!

Apocalypse, Mutants, and DIY Survival

The work I was showing at the time were from a project imagining an apocalyptic Manchester, a visual project that sat alongside the music we produced in our anarchopunk band Black Light Mutants –  a place where the old world had crumbled, leaving behind a wasteland where mutants roamed the ruins and punks danced defiantly in the face of oblivion. It was all about rebellion, survival, and finding beauty in the aftermath of the collapse. A fitting theme for a punk festival, do you not think?

There were no white walls, no hushed conversations about “meaning.” Just soaked canvases, dirt under our boots, and folk engaging with the art in the most honest way possible. I think art should be for everyone, not just for those who can afford to sip wine in a gallery (gross!). That is what DIY is all about, taking up space, creating on your own terms, and bringing art back to the people who live and breathe it.

Punk, Lightning, and the Spirit of DIY

The weekend were a blur of bands, getting drunk with some polish lads, after party nudity and chaos, wonderful conversations, and that electric feeling of being part of something you get only from a punk fest!  With the main stage blasting punk anthems nearby, the exhibition space became its own kind of gathering point, artists sharing ideas, handing out my free political prints and zines, punks swapping stories, and the ever-present risk of another downpour keeping us all on edge then eventually surrendering to a space in the pub on the Sunday afternoon!

Looking back, it is moments like this that remind me why I do what I do. Punk and DIY art are about resilience, about creating in the margins, about rejecting the idea that you need permission to make something meaningful, make something happen. Whether it is music, painting, zines, or a pop-up show in a muddy field, this is where the real culture lives.

“Scrawlin’ t’Brassmind,” Gloamrats muttered, “red eyes watchin’ like boggart. Or back ward d0g.”