After 9 years of putting on gigs in London, Angela – the founder and overall mastermind behind the wonderful 176 Records – has decided it’s time to call it a day and move on to other things. It will be sad without the 176 shows in London but I can’t begin to imagine how much work goes into putting on gigs – and gigs with such great line-ups as hers have had – so I also understand.
The last ever 176 show is this Friday at DIY Space for London with ONSIND, Kamikaze Girls, Break Ups, MOLAR and Apartments. As of today it is sold out, so if you didn’t get a ticket then I’m sorry but you’ll definitely be missing something special.
I will be attending the final 176 show although I must admit I have only been to a handful of the many gigs that Angela has put on over the lifetime of 176 – unfortunately I only really started going to the smaller and more DIY punk shows in the last two years. Looking back at Angela’s list compiling all the shows since April 2011, I can see that I missed a lot of great ones – and that’s just the shows under the 176 name, she was putting on various London gigs before then as well.
Angela wrote a final statement on the 176 Records blog at the end of August summing up the end of 176, which I highly recommend you go and read now. I’m just going to share the last paragraph from that blog post as she talks about the design for the 176 Records posters – which, after all, is partly what this Art of Punk post is about.
Biggest thank you to Greg O’Grady who has made 176 look so much better than I ever could. When I first met Greg I was finding pictures of animals on Google and adding some text. Whilst I thought this was good enough Greg didn’t so he rudely, without me asking, designed a poster for the RVIVR show I had coming up – telling me I was no longer allowed to use the stag poster I had expertly created.
Before:
After:
As a designer myself, I can see why Greg felt the need to step in and help. (I may have done the same thing to Colin with this blog and the Facebook banner in particular…) I’m not sure if Greg has designed every single 176 Records poster but he’s certainly designed the majority of them, as well as the 176 Records logo that has been used since July 2013.
It would be wrong to say that all of Greg’s 176 posters look the same but there are definitely some similarities and themes than run through most of, if not all of, them. Flat blocks of colour and distinct patterns and shapes occur through most of the design. They also more often than not feature animals – perhaps a nod towards Angela’s original ‘posters’. The pug on the Bangers poster, above, has got to be one of my favourites. The pug also makes a reappearance on the last 176 poster – x 2!
I’ll miss seeing 176 poster designs but most of all I’ll miss going to the shows and I know I won’t be the only one. Thank you Angela and Greg.
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