While rummaging in the dusty Beans archives for material to put in the 2024 calendar, I found a load of photos we took during the making of the Papples’ second album, Masterpiece, back in 2010. (I also found pictures from 2011, when we were making Pop Squared, but I’m saving those for next month because you have to keep those post totals up.)
There are 149 pictures in the set, so you’ll be relieved to hear I whittled them down to 80 before adding them to a new photo gallery in the usual place.
The photos start out in my old flat in Streatham, where we can be seen doing a bit of recording and editing, but then quickly turn to a day trip we took to Kent. I think we spent the day touring around various seaside towns, messing about, taking photos for the album cover and possibly sending postcards to Kev. I’m fairly sure the photos include visits to the Isle of Sheppey, Westgate, Whitstable, Sandwich and Samphire Hoe, though there may be other places too.
In Westgate we refused to get out of the car, and instead spent our time getting into stupid positions (in the boot, legs out of the window) and using the headrests to pretend to be walruses.
Along the way we learn a number of things.
Ian enjoyed taking a self-portrait. Selfies hadn’t been invented in 2010, but if they had, he’d be the king of them. Among the 69 pictures I discarded were lots of alternative shots of Ian’s face that he took himself. There are still loads in here.
I thought it was funny to be completely expressionless and vacant in pictures, and did this almost every time a camera was pointed at me. Most of these are irritating and don’t work, but I will admit that the picture of me outside a pub called “The Smack” still makes me laugh.
We also learn that Kent is full of places with stupid names, and we photographed most of them. Pictures of daft streets, towns and businesses litter this album. It’s a masterpiece of silliness. Enjoy.
9 comments on “A slice of 2010”
I don’t even remember ‘The Blazing Donkey’. Was it the eleventh member of Blazin’ Squad?
This is a veritable treasure trove of treasure. Can you imagine how miffed our future family members would be without these in their greasy hands?
I remembered a few of these – the tiny microphone was a classic, of course, and I have happy memories of not leaving the car in Westgate on Sea. But the Blazing Donkey was completely new to me, as were a lot of the pictures messing about by the seaside. I particularly enjoy you giving the thumbs up as you enjoy a view of a wall.
(I do miss that t-shirt too)
It’s all so very silly and serious at the same time. What a classic album cover too. Weren’t we going to use the photo of us on the bench at one point or am I making that up?
Yes, I think we were. I think a few of these were potential album covers, we were very much treating the whole day out as a photo shoot. It’s weird how the one we actually used for the album cover looks much plainer and less dramatic in full colour.
Eyes’ll do that to you. Think you’re looking at the good stuff? Bam! You’re wrong, sucker.
(what?)
Lying eyes. I’m pretty sure there’s a Hall and Oates song about that. There’s a Hall and Oates song about most things if you go deep enough into their back catalogue.
Is there a song about musty dusters?
I think so. It was a B-side for Private Eyes.