“GRAB your guitar and let’s make colours that only the over 80- year-olds can see. Break your socks.”
This was the text message that inspired the name of Jamie Dobison’s and Jonathan Robertson’s unique night.
“It was a really random text message and didn’t make any sense, but I thought it was really funny,” says Jamie.
“I had a house party I called Break Your Socks first and the name just stuck. It reminds me of dancing until your socks break, but it doesn’t really have any meaning.”
Taking place at Kind, Break Your Socks incorporates music and art. The event, on July 1, will see scratch DJs performing, designers creating screen prints on customers’ clothing, burlesque dancing and live art installations unfolding.
“The first time we put on a Break Your Socks night we did it to raise money for our end-of-year show at university,” says Jamie, who has just completed a design course at university.
“We wanted to put on a night where we could show the sort of thing we had learned on the course.
“We were interested in graphic design and illustration and different creative processes.
“After the first night, we were asked to do it again.”
Screen printing is a technique that uses a woven mesh to support an ink-blocking stencil to create an image. On July 1, a variety of designers will be at the night printing specific designs onto items of clothing.
“At first we asked the designers to come up with a design based around the Break Your Socks theme,” says Jamie.
“More recently, the designers have been doing lots of different designs. People come and bring T-shirts to have the design of the night printed on or they have it printed on their jackets and other clothing.”
On the night there will be two large writing boards in the upstairs of Kind.
“People can draw on these boards all night,” says Jamie. “Usually the pen is passed around and people get involved.”
An artist called The Blak Nite will be performing at Break Your Socks.
“He’s going to play a live electro set,” says Jamie. “He is pretty unknown at the moment, but he is going to release some stuff over the summer custom socks