THINGS
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ART + GRAPHIC DESIGN EQUALS is proud to present their new T-shirt.

It reads PUT YOUR FOOT DOWN PAUL SIMON on the front, THE RHYTHM OF THE SAINTS 3-6-4-7-8-1-2-9-5-10 on the back. What does this mean?

I never really got Paul Simon. I liked a few of his songs but mostly I regarded him as a joke and a charlatan. It was my friend, the American Nathan Dilworth, who opened my eyes and showed me how to appreciate the depth, craft, wit and beauty that runs throughout Simon’s entire body of work. And now barely a day goes by when I don’t listen to Paul Simon. Thanks Nathan!

Paul Simon released The Rhythm of the Saints in 1990. It should have been his masterpiece. Following the plaintive Hearts and Bones (1983) and joyous Graceland (1986), Simon was in a state of critical, commercial and personal grace which happily facilitated some of his most assured and sophisticated songwriting. But The Rhythm of the Saints was no masterpiece. Something was wrong. I found myself haunted and confounded when I listened – how could an album with songs like ‘The Obvious Child’, ‘Born at the Right Time’, ‘The Cool, Cool River’ (some of Simon’s very best) make for such a dissatisfying listen? The effortless flow and coherence of all his work, before and since, was missing. Why?

One day, last year, Nathan and I were reading about Paul Simon together on the Internet and we discovered that the album’s original tracklisting had been switched around by – you guessed it – the record label. A story as old as time itself. Shocked and intrigued, Nathan and I burned new copies of the album with Simon’s intended running order. The results were too good to be true. Everything that had been wrong, clunky and graceless about the album was gone. It had a subtlety, a quiet intensity and sense of pacing which must have gone right over the heads of the animals at Warner Brothers. I mean, those idiots had put ‘The Obvious Child’ as track one! What were they thinking? Everything made sense with Paul’s vision – it worked – and Nathan and I realised The Rhythm of the Saints was…is a masterpiece. This is where the idea for the T-shirt arose.

It’s a protest shirt. With it we hope to begin a campaign to restore The Rhythm of the Saints to its intended glory. We want to spread the word – to fans, to Warner Brothers, to Paul Simon himself – that enough is enough. We aren’t willing to live with this butchered, three-star facsimile of The Rhythm of the Saints a second longer. By wearing this shirt, we will spread the word, the truth, and in doing so fight capitalist ignorance and artistic exploitation.

ART + GRAPHIC DESIGN EQUALS is a collaborative enterprise between myself (an artist) and Sam de Groot (a graphic designer). Our first project was a T-shirt of an ABRACADABRA amulet, to protect against sickness and bad fortune. This T-shirt is a hand-printed run of 20. They’re available in men’s and ladies’ models.

Paul Haworth

Amsterdam, September 2008

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THINGS

OUT NOW!

 

Occasionally, intermittently and irregularly I make radio shows.

At university I made PAM Sounds with my friend Alex Brenchley.  In Amsterdam I have made Love Paul for Radio Patapoe and Radio Rietveld.

UK £7.50
Europe 12 euros
USA $15
prices including postage and packaging

To listen to excerpts, see photos and find out more 
check out the Dirty Talk MySpace

I also made a bootleg CD of a full episode of Love Paul.  Love Paul Live From the Stedelijk Museum.  OUT NOW!

I enjoy the way radio happens, there and then, it truly is live and I think you can do something special with this.  Today we document, archive and record everything but I think we should cherish the present - for what it is and with all we've got!

Well I’m accustomed to a smoother ride
Maybe I’m a dog that's lost his bite
I don't expect to be treated like a fool no more
I don’t expect to sleep the night
Some people say a lie is just a lie
But I say the cross is in the ballpark
Why deny the obvious child?

 by Paul Haworth

ART TALKS