User:Tonisant/Artwork

I have very rarely spoken or written about the years I spent with Artwork, the band I co-founded with Mike Harrison, Fernand Grima and Mark Attard in 1985. I left the band in 1987.

On Saturday 25 March 2006 I released the 16th podcast in the Mużika Mod Ieħor series. Someone calling himself cyberdigger [1] left a comment on my blog post associated with the podcast [2], asking the following:

How come Artwork are never featured in these podcasts? By the way, in percentage terms, what chances are there of Artwork doing a Rifffs and reforming?

I responded:

"I only ever recorded three songs in a studio with Artwork. Two of those made up the band's only single: Girls Will Be Girls and It's All Over Now. I only have those recordings on a 45rpm record...but nothing to play it on and/or dub for a podcast.

The other recording is of a song I wrote in 1986 called Rigi. We played it live a couple of times, but it was mostly a promotional piece - I wouldn't call it a real song: it's not about anything in particular and has a guitar riff lifted almost note for note from a Cat Stevens tune but no one noticed. It played on TVM every week for several months because it was the closing tune for an educational programme. I can't find the cassette for that...but I may actually have it somewhere. Channel 22 probably has copies of the TV show on VHS in their archives. Each episode of the programme opened with a video of me singing an acoustic version of the song with a bunch of primary school children.

Aside from these songs there's a very small number of live recordings by Artwork too. I have one on cassette, but it's not appropriate for public consumption because the technical quality of the recording is too poor. Artwork was mostly a gigging band. Lots of live gigs...but very few recordings.

Does that answer your question?

I doubt Artwork would ever do a reunion with me. I'm certainly not interested in such an event. This doesn't mean there may not be an Artwork reunion without me. The band went on for another year or so after I quit and they even produced a cassette EP, which consisted mostly of my reworked songs...along with a reproduction of the two sides of the 45rpm single. Still, I wouldn't mind playing in a band with a couple of people from Artwork...but not as Artwork, mostly because I'm not big on nostalgia. I was 19 when I quit Artwork. So I'll give the chance of a reunion 19% - how's that?"

cyberdigger wasn't convinced and retorted with the following comment:

Well, if Pink Floyd can overcome their differences and the Palestinians can sit down with the Israelis, then maybe there is hope for Artwork. 19 seems so young, although Johnny Rotten was not much older than that when the Sex Pistols broke up. I suppose it is a very small part of your life really, although for some people you will always be associated with it.

I was quite intrigued that someone I only knew through a blogger's pseudonym engage me in this conversation about Artwork, so I replied again.

"There are no irreconcilable differences between me and any of the people who played in Artwork. At least none like the ones you mentioned as ones that no one expected would ever be reconciled...mostly because the stakes in our case are hardly as high as those in a multi-millionaire band or warring tribes.

For me, getting back to playing with any group of musicians that calls itself Artwork is akin to getting together for a play-date with one of my childhood friends whom I haven't seen in decades. It scores very high on nostalgia but very low on any other meaning in my current life. (Have I mentioned I'm not big on nostalgia?) Besides, all the other guys in Artwork have moved on with their lives and although a couple of them are still professionally involved in music I seriously doubt they care much about the kind of pop rock embraced by Artwork.

You're right about the unfortunate fact that some people will always associate me with Artwork, of course. Fortunately I'm sure that there are fewer than 19% who fall in this category. Artwork may have been the most popular band I ever played in, but it was one of the least I enjoyed being in, aside from the first year or so. Then again, I was only 16 or 17 years old at that time and there's hardly anything from that time in my life I'd really like to relive."