Friday, 12 December 2008

Amazon #23: Sleeveface: Be the Vinyl

5 stars - link.

Sleeveface has been one of the musical crazes of 2008 for some reason. Invented by DJ Carol Morris, who is widely known around south Wales for how much he likes a bit of fun in bars, and Jon Rostrum, who together extracted numerous laughs from their friends in only the way that holding something in front of your face can achieve. If the legend is correct, then the first record that sparked the craze off was by Paul McCartney - and it's certainly fair to say that Morris plays an admirable McCartney to Rostrum's Ringo.

The idea behind sleeveface is so simple that you'd have to be an idiot to not understand it without an explanation. So if you're thinking of buying it, what you have to do is take a record sleeve with someone's face on it (a Tom Waits, Cerys Matthews or Nick Cave record should do nicely), then hold the sleeve in front of your face and hold still - after several minutes when any onlookers would've recovered from their fits of laughter, try and get them to photograph the moment for posterity.

Sleeveface has gone stratospheric in recent months - they now have a website, a facebook group and a video on YouTube -none of these things are easy to achieve at the best of times, but certainly not in the current climate. Morris and Rostrum should be applauded for all their hard work and dedication to bring this phenomenon to the public - they currently have a MySpace page in production, which will hopefully be unveiled in April 2009. Personally, I can't wait to see what they'll bring out in time for Christmas next year, but I can honestly say that I have no idea how they can improve what they've already done. I certainly hope the rumours of the Steveface spin-off are true!

Five stars.

NB - Amazon sez: "Customers buy this book with Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama. Price For Both: £10.33." Okaaaaay.......

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