The Art of Raving: Junior Tomlin Interview

Junior Tomlin discusses his Velocity Press monograph and how science fiction, surrealism and dub shaped his rave flyers and record covers

Junior Tomlin: Flyer & Cover Art offers a series of friendly flashbacks or Proustian deep dives for the rave generation in book form. With the mere turning of a page, readers may find themselves unexpectedly transported back to a flyer-covered bedroom of their youth, the visual trigger as powerful as the music it represents. For Junior Tomlin’s heady mix of science fiction and surrealism in his art really seemed to capture what was happening in and around the music. His flyers and record covers are distinct markers of the rave era that can now endure with this, the first collection of his work.

The Terminator crops up a number of times in your work, so I’m going to start there. That dystopian future always seemed so far away, but has reality now overtaken fiction?

Yes it has. Everything that we grew up to believe is being challenged and everything you read or hear about tells you that things like justice, caring, empathy, looking after your fellow man/woman is not what the people who make the laws care about. To the ruling classes you are a piggy bank to be exploited as when they have a bright idea we the public, otherwise known as the economy, has to foot the bill. The dystopia is the continuation of failed government who divide us by choice. The people have to take care of themselves as they have always done. At one point the iPad was the epitome of the future, now nearly everyone is plugged into something. I feel there is hope when I see someone reading a book.

Does the fact that certain SF tropes have been assimilated into everyday life affect your work in any way? What visions of the future do you look to nowadays for inspiration? 

In a way, I often quote from old and new sci-fi films and TV sometimes in conversations for fun or to make a point relating to the future we are heading towards. On occasion, it spurs a different kind of thinking where ideas about future gadgets and technology comes about. Some are in the realms of possibility, some a flight of fancy and others are super sci-fi where the idea sound so vast most people can’t grasp the concept. In a way the music does inspire me, and keep my mind in that future zone. The vision is the future that I’m looking forward to, is where it resembles the films and TV we watch.

The creative industries are under serious threat at the moment, with the government prepared to cast them aside. What can be done at a grassroots level to ensure that there’s a culture/nightlife still around at the end of all this?

Now this one would be pure invention. Someone will redesign the entire concept of raving incorporating modern technology and advances in broadcasting to the masses simultaneously. One option, put on an event where those attending who has no trace of the virus have to apply to go to the event with a certificate of health which means that you are clear from the virus, so events can be planned 1 month in advance and on arrival if running a temperature and/or showing symptoms they will be refunded and a medical team will be standing by to get them home and encourage them to self isolate. One of many possibilities.

Do you think dance music will have to go back underground to survive? 

I think that it’s highly possible it will go underground. At the moment there is nowhere else for it to go, it’s the social distancing that’s making it hard to put on any form of event, that and the mere fact that venues have become the casualties of Covid.

Dance music will always survive no matter what as they say necessity is the mother of invention, the people will listen to the music online, and it is there it will grow and change. Perhaps you will have DJs delivering their sets to a massive zoom audience, where no more than six people are included in the company of their own homes.

Junior Tomlin: Flyer & Cover Art is a celebration of different times. It’s been great to see rave culture getting the attention it deserves in recent years and your book adds to that. Do you feel as if the scene is finally getting its due? Has the perception of rave shifted over the years? 

Yes. It’s getting the recognition all the time the older vanguards of the scene are still with us and it is to the children of the former ravers that will keep it alive, and owing to their tech-savvyness they can build on the culture that was, it’s an evolution thing. People like to go out and listen to music, dance and mingle with other people, it’s hot-wired into us.

Could you talk about how the book came about and how Velocity Press got involved? 

It happened one day when I received an email from Colin (the last day of July 2019) from Velocity Press, as he put in the message he is a big fan of my record covers and rave flyer art, and he noticed that there hasn’t been a book solely dedicated to my art and he would like to publish it. He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, and that’s how it started.

What’s it like being part of the Velocity Press family?

It feels absolutely awesome. I feel honoured and humbled. 30 years of art in one book.

It’s a lavish book that retains the spirit of the rave frontier. The graphic design in some ways feels like an artefact from those days, which means it balances with the art it presents. How important was the presentation of your work and how involved were you with the design? 

The presentation was most important. I was asked if I wanted to design the whole book, I said no at the time it was too huge in my mind, plus I had to collate all my art, but did put together my vision of the book in Adobe InDesign and when finished sent it to Colin. I thought of doing a book years ago, I wanted to design it in a way that it wrote itself, so I put a message out on social media looking for past ravers to write a few words on their favourite piece of artwork I had done for either record or flyer. So I got over sixty responses, but unfortunately they couldn’t be used because the book became text heavy and their recollections had to be left out because the art was more important.

Putting this volume together must’ve been quite a task! Was it difficult choosing what would appear in the book? Is there anything that didn’t make the cut that you wish could have got in there? Back in the day, some of your originals were never returned – I imagine that was a problem.

Putting the book together was really hard work. I had to gather all my original art together plus all the record sleeves and rave flyers. I went out and bought a digital camera with the sole purpose to take all the photographs of all the work. Where I didn’t have the original flyer but had the art I would have to go online and using the image as a reference recreate the flyer with all text for the book. Some art was never returned and I had to settle for a hi-res photo of the flyer. Another challenge was getting in touch with all the people that gave me commissions over the years to add a comment. The book also contains some of the production art, they had to be found in various sketchbooks. So you can see it was a mammoth undertaking. I lost track of a few flyers that didn’t make it into the book but made it into the second print run.

Did revisiting your flyers and record covers bring back any particular memories or feelings? Was it strange seeing the narrative shape of your life in art laid out like that? 

It was really interesting revisiting my art. Every piece has its unique history, the story behind the finished art. Interesting thing is that the art was crisscrossing the scenes, one fuelled the other, music and dance. I know the stories and the links. I laid the book out in two sections – record covers, the rave flyers – starting in the order I worked with the company. One of the ideas that stayed in the book was the logos of all the recording companies I worked for. As a thing, the designer kept this design idea.

Could you talk about the twin influences of science fiction and surrealism in your work?

My influences in the realms of sci-fi films, 2001: A Space Odyssey, This Island Earth, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Lost in Space, The Outer Limits, where sci-fi meets surrealism. Through art school I learnt about the surrealists and the Dada movements – one film that springs to mind was by Alfred Hitchcock, Spellbound. Star Wars was something else, unrestrained and unfettered by the sci-fi tropes of the 60s, 70s and 80s, no lumbering cardboard silver sprayed robots. My art encapsulates sci-fi fantasy and surrealism with slices of Afrofuturism.

You used to sneak out to blues parties with your sisters when you were quite young. What impact did those events and the music have on you?

I remember those days, me and my two sisters sneaked out of the house on several occasions when my parents went to bed. We got changed and got into bed just in case they woke up. We didn’t have a front door key, I can’t remember if we put the door on the latch or we used a sixpence piece to open the door. We went to the Crypt club where they played reggae music. I was the timekeeper, I had the watch and I continually reminded my older sister it was time to leave and go home. I didn’t realise the idea of being caught by our parents waiting for us. I enjoyed listening to reggae but I got smitten with dub music.

Your visuals are synonymous with various aspects of rave culture, and I know you attended a number of the events, but how much do you think you put your stamp on the rave scene and how much did it influence you? 

Interestingly enough it was the music that inspired me and took my thoughts to the future. There is a lot of new-age sounds in dance music, sci-fi film soundtracks. When I listen to the radio the number of sci-fi snippets was quite a few.

I enjoyed reading about you getting armfuls of free records when you visited labels! How much did those records shape your art? Do you have any favourites from those days? 

The music to me is a constant reminder of where we are going, into the future on a daily basis. When I create art I would play my playlist that I made in YouTube. One of my favourite freebies is Renegade Soundwave In Dub and a lot of records from Kickin’ Records.

There’s an interesting quote from you that links soundsystems to subsequent strains of bass music in SF terms: “When you’ve got things like jungle, drum & bass and dubstep, I always find that it’s like a science-fiction type of dub.” It would be great if you could talk some more about it. 

The music itself is new age and futuristic in its sound and composition, beats and bass arrangements I’ve never heard before. To me drum & bass is futuristic dub with splashes of science fiction thrown in to take you to places of wonder or menace. I am sure that the record creators watch the shows and films I do. Parallel listening.

Later on, your work moved in Afrofuturist directions. What does Afrofuturism mean to you and what has it opened up in your art?

Afrofuturism to me is a escape into possible futures and to solidify my identity as being of African decent, my first foray into it was doing work with Sting from Club Telepathy. Those pieces was very Afrocentric in nature concept and feel, which was a departure from doing Eurocentric art. I’m going back to my roots so to speak.

What music is on the Junior Tomlin stereo at the moment? 

Hyper on Experience – “Disturbance” (the Tango mix) is on the turntable at the moment.

Buy Junior Tomlin: Flyer & Cover Art direct from Velocity Press (by making a purchase through this link Concrete Islands would receive a small commission)