Stuart Moxham: A private listen

INVITATION TO A PRIVATE LISTEN FROM AN ORIGINAL IDEAR BY STUART MOXHAM

I was a bit past it in, even in 1980 to be a reliable rock and roll witness. I was 30 and well into jazz; rock seemed to be going the polite quiffy way it always does when the raw power of something original crashes and burns out on the horizon and somebody starts calling it showbiz again, and you know you've got a fucking long wait for anything interesting to come along. A big fluffy ball of something called New Romantics drove pink Cadillacs up to crap night clubs,

Ashley Wood Acoustic Fest: Logo for website

This looks quite good as a button graphic; it's advertising a festival in July near Tisbury in Wiltshire on Ashley Wood Farm. I was knocked out when I first went there to take part in an exhibition in November. It's a collection of stone buildings that used to be part of the original farm dotted about a huge circular gravel driveway.

Jim, who's organising the event, insists on the gig being totally acoustic; not one microphone for anyone... So, when it came to putting together a graphic device, I thought a tad predictably, "So, that will be an f-hole to cover the acoustic angle, then..." But the f-hole is quite an ungainly shape, at least I thought so. A Bodoni lower case f was used in the end; streamlined a bit and then dropped in the middle of what could be a record centre; but that was neither here nor there...

Since the farm looks down onto a lake, it seemed as good an excuse as any to trick the eye by offering a reflection of the lettering, and reflecting (but not quite) the character to produce a lovely f-hole that is simply a pure typographical bit of good fortune. Also, it seemed to me to chime  with the idea of  a festival that is to be unadorned by any amplified malarkey. It makes its own fun.