Sleeveface was an internet phenomenon wherein one or more persons obscured or augmented body parts with images on record sleeves or album covers, causing an illusion. [1] [2] [3] [4] Sleeveface became popular on social networking sites in the late 2000s. [2] [5]
The precise origin of the concept is unknown. A collection of photographs was posted online at Waxidermy.com in early 2006, [6] though earlier examples of 'sleevefacing' include a Mad Magazine cover [7] and a sketch on The Adam and Joe Show with Gary Numan holding a record sleeve to his face. Other cases include John Hiatt's 1979 Slug Line album on which he is holding a sleeve (showing his face) in front of his face and the back of the 1982 album Picture This by Huey Lewis and the News, where Huey is holding the front side of the album (showing his face) in front of his face. The artwork for J Rocc's 12" single 'Play This (One)' features men holding various LP sleeves over their faces. [8]
The term 'sleeveface' was coined in April 2007 by Cardiff resident Carl Morris after pictures were taken of him and his friends holding record sleeves to their faces whilst DJing in a Cardiff bar. His friend John Rostron posted them on the internet and created a group on the nascent Facebook social networking site. [9] From this point, the craze started to become more widely known.
Sleeveface contributors regularly held sleeveface parties across the world, [9] and contributors have helped organise sleeveface workshops for children. One such workshop took place at the National Museum Cardiff in November 2008 as part of the city's annual Sŵn Festival. [10]
Guto Dafydd Pryce is a Welsh musician best known as bass guitar player and songwriter in the band Super Furry Animals. With them he has recorded nine UK Albums Chart Top 25 studio albums, plus numerous singles, EPs, compilations and collaborations. Pryce also records and performs with several other musical acts including his band Gulp. He is part of the era of Welsh music prominence known as Cool Cymru.
Sir Peter Thomas Blake is an English pop artist. He co-created the sleeve design for the Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. His other works include the covers for two of The Who's albums, the cover of the Band Aid single "Do They Know It's Christmas?", and the Live Aid concert poster. Blake also designed the 2012 Brit Award statuette.
Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake is the third studio album, and only concept album by the English rock band Small Faces. Released on 24 May 1968, the LP peaked at number one on the UK Album Charts on 29 June, where it remained for six weeks. It became the group's final studio album during their original incarnation. The album title and distinctive packaging design was a parody of Ogden's Nut-brown Flake, a brand of tinned tobacco that was produced in Liverpool from 1899 by Thomas Ogden.
Huw Meredydd Stephens is a Welsh radio and television presenter, currently broadcasting on BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru and BBC Radio 6 Music.
The Automatic were a Welsh rock band. The band's last-known lineup was composed of Robin Hawkins on vocals, bass and synthesisers, James Frost on guitar, synthesisers, backing vocals and occasional bass, Iwan Griffiths on drums and Paul Mullen on vocals, guitar and synthesiser. Mullen joined after the departure of Alex Pennie, who provided synthesiser, percussion and vocals.
Tigertailz are a Welsh glam metal band from Cardiff. Their 1990 album Bezerk made the Top 40 on the UK Albums Chart and contained the hit singles "Love Bomb Baby" and "Heaven". The band reformed in 2005.
The music of Cardiff has been dominated mainly by rock music since the early 1990s with later trends developing towards more extreme styles of the genre such as heavy metal and metalcore music. It, along with the nearby music scene in Newport, has brought a number of musicians to perform or begin their careers in South Wales.
Kids in Glass Houses are a Welsh pop rock band from Cardiff. The band achieved success on the strength of the singles "Give Me What I Want" and "Saturday" from their debut album Smart Casual in 2008. The band released their second album Dirt in early 2010, releasing four singles, most notably "Matters at All". The band's third album, In Gold Blood, was released on 15 August 2011. Their fourth album, Peace, was released on 30 September 2013. The band announced their split in January 2014 and played their final show at Cardiff's Great Hall on 31 October 2014.
The Victorian English Gentlemens Club were a four-piece experimental art rock band based in Cardiff, Wales.
"Girl U Want" is a 1980 single by American new wave band Devo. It was the first single released from their third studio album, Freedom of Choice (1980).
Cardiff has many cultural sites varying from the historical Cardiff Castle and out of town Castell Coch to the more modern Wales Millennium Centre and Cardiff Bay. Cardiff was a finalist in the European Capital of Culture 2008.
Al Lewis is a Welsh singer and songwriter. He became known in the Welsh language media after his song came second in the Cân i Gymru contest in 2007.
We're No Heroes are a three-piece band from Cardiff, Wales, composed of Tom Collins, Michael Owen, and Luke Llewellyn. They first formed in the summer of 2009 at a downtown South Side recording studio in Chicago, US.
Siôn Russell Jones is a Welsh singer and songwriter.Jones was born in Cardiff, Wales, he started playing the guitar at the age of 7 and later studied music at the University of Glamorgan. His father, Terry Dyddgen-Jones was an executive producer of globally televised British soap operas, namely Coronation Street and EastEnders.
Shy and The Fight were a seven-piece Welsh acoustic folk / indie rock band from Llangollen, Wales and Chester, England. The band included Tom Hyndman, Carrie Anderson, Christopher Done, Michael Deponeo, Tom Wootton (drums), Samuel Williams (drums) and Jackson Almond.
The Memory Palace is a monthly historical podcast hosted by Nate DiMeo that debuted in 2008. The program features historical narratives concerning such subjects as the Cardiff Giant and the CIA project Acoustic Kitty. It is currently distributed online by Radiotopia.
Scarfolk is a fictional northwestern English town created by writer and designer Richard Littler, who is sometimes identified as the town mayor, L. Ritter. It is trapped in a time loop set in the 1970s, and its culture, parodying that of Britain at the time, features elements of the absurd and the macabre. It was first released as a blog of fake historical documents parodying British public information posters of the 1970s, and a collected book was published in 2014, and the Scarfolk Annual was released in 2019. Scarfolk is depicted as a bleak, post-industrial landscape through unsettling images of urban life; Littler's output belongs to the genres of hauntology and dystopian satire; his psychologically disturbing form of humour has been likened to the writings of George Orwell and J. G. Ballard.
The Welsh Music Prize is an annual music prize awarded for the best album from Wales, as voted for by members of the music industry. It was founded by music promoter John Rostron and radio presenter Huw Stephens in 2011. It was originally scheduled to take place alongside Sŵn music festival in Cardiff but now takes place later in the year.
Adwaith (transl. Reaction) are a Welsh language indie rock group from Carmarthen in West Wales, formed in 2015. The group consists of Hollie Singer, Gwenllian Anthony and Heledd Owen (drums). Signed to Libertino Records, they released their first album Melyn in 2018. Both Melyn and its follow-up Bato Mato (2022) won Welsh Music Prize awarded for the best album from Wales, making Adwaith the first act to receive the award twice.