The Thousands

Do you know what necromancy is? It is a form of magic in which the practitioner seeks to summon the spirit of a deceased person, either as an apparition or ghost, or to raise them bodily, for the purpose of divination. And that’s what Craig Dermody does. He has re-animated the spirits of Scott and Charlene. He has raised the shiny tracksuit from its grave. And, in his art, he brings back old paintings – awakening them with tripped-out monsters and spooky dooky witches.

This week, Craig is undertaking his largest work of demonology yet. He’s hand-painting all 200 LP covers for the limited-edition vinyl pressing of Scott & Charlene’s Wedding‘s new album Para Vista Social Club. You can see the poor man in these pictures; he’s exhausted. And look at his desk. Chaos! But, by the power of Greyskull, he’s launching this exhibition on Friday at the Old Bar.

“The idea was from a friend of mine, Kate Reid, who overheard me talking about how expensive it was to get the covers printed by the pressing plant for the record,” he says. “It’s hard to say how long it’s taken to paint the paintings – I still have a few to go and it’s all just turning into a blur of monsters and witches. I feel kind of like Martin Sheen at the end of Apocalypse Now.” Martin Sheen WISHES.