Too Much Fun Club: The Skinny Showcase
The Too Much Fun Club (The TMFC) is a Visual Art Collective based in Edinburgh with connections worldwide.
They're a special breed of art collective – best known for their live art and mural work, they regularly complement that with other multimedia projects and events. Essentially operating as a creative network and art agency, they also however work with musicians, festivals, venues and promoters all year round to put on unique happenings based around art and music.
Officially formed in 2009 by a group of five friends, some of the club have been collaborating since 2002 and now their numbers have grown to more than 20. With members coming from a wide variety of backgrounds and disciplines they muster a large diversity of skills and styles. The artwork of the TMFC covers many areas of visual art including (but not limited to) murals, illustration, live art, installations and exhibitions, design, festival décor, photography, animation, projection mapping, digital art, branding, concept art, live visuals, doodles, signwriting…
Evolving as they work, they say they’re happy changing up mediums and aesthetics, often from project to project. The collective is still growing steadily, finding the right people and situations and building on those relationships, so they are always open to collaboration with other creatives. The music side of things is smaller and newer but just as exciting – several TMFC artists are producers and DJs who are developing audio-visual projects along with a whole host of musician friends.
In the last month they’ve created a 12 foot long mural at the Scottish Learning Festival for Creative Scotland, followed closely by a 44 foot mural to celebrate our 10th Birthday here at The Skinny. With several events coming up in November and an exhibition on currently at The Outhouse on Broughton Street Lane, the group keeps itself busy. Over winter they will be working on a new animated music video, as well as planning some inner city murals, comic strips and pretty soon starting on next summer’s festival projects!
Art Showcase:
The still-life photography of Stewart Honeyman
Darren Cullen "loves to make work about things he hates"
For a large part of the summer they are lucky enough to have the amazing grounds of Kelburn Castle and Country Estate as a playground for their ideas, creating décor for nearly all of the events run by Kelburn Productions. On top of the décor there The TMFC run several of the music sessions, as well having their own music stage deep in the woods of the glen. Their ongoing working relationships for creating décor and murals with Kelburn and a series of other festivals – including Knockengorroch, Eden, Boomtown and Audio Soup – keeps them busy throughout the festival season.
The next TMFC audio-visual show will be a humorous hip-hop game show called Sketch the Rhyme on 8 November at Studio 24. A highly entertaining live show combining freestyle hip-hop, live art and audience participation, it consists of games in which artists draw pictures that are projected live onto a screen on the stage, from which emcees have to freestyle lyrics while trying to decypher the solution, conclusion or narrative.
It also includes game show-style contests judged by audience response and even live animation narrated by the emcees. Started by Big Village, a team of artists and musicians from Sydney, Australia, Sketch the Rhyme came to Scotland on a world tour in August 2011. After doing the art for its premier in the Edinburgh Festival that year, The TMFC became the only crew outside of the originators permitted to use the format and name to recreate the show.
On the Friday night of the following weekend, under the designation of The Too Much Funk Club, they are hosting a special event at Edinburgh's Electric Circus for the launch of OneTzu's new EP Life In The Grease Trap. OneTzu is without a doubt one of Edinburgh's brightest, most talented and prolific hip hop lyricists, performing here with his crew ESP and a whole host of special guest MCs and DJ talent in support, including Gasp, Delighted Peoples frontman TH!NK, El Ritmo Latino’s Surfin Bear, Messenger’s Brother Most Righteous and more.
The TMFC Annual Outhouse Exhibition, until the end of November
Sketch the Rhyme at the DJ Format & Abdominal Reunion Tour – Edinburgh Show, Studio 24, Sun 8 Nov, 10pm
The Too Much Funk Club Presents OneTzu's Life In The Grease Trap EP Launch, Electric Circus, Fri 13 Nov, 11pm-3am