29/10/2008

big city, bright lights, cool people

the results of one day of nice weather in brighton, england:








yeah, there is a lot of Fern, but with such a photogenic person around it seemed churlish not to take advantage. the last one of the rock is badly out of focus, a result of not using my glasses when focusing. i still kinda like the way it came out, so i'm still using it for my flyer project in college, but if i could retake it i would.

currently bangin' on about:
Spacemen 3 - "Big City"
a cast of cool people who are easy to be around
Nathan Fake bootlegs
the raddest vintage shops on Earth being in Brighton
Charlie Brooker's Dead Set on E4
Liars - Drum's Not Dead
Pink, the novel by Gus Van Sant
always travelling but never moving (the time i've spent sitting completely still on a mode of public transport the past two months is incalculable)
Lovvers
- THINK
Burn After Reading
Animal Collective Merriweather Post Pavillion bootlegs

02/10/2008

totally wired

there hasn't been any updates in weeks for legitimate reasons, though justifying to someone else why there hasn't been an update for a blog that no one reads is something i'm struggling to justify to myself. all paradoxical dilemmas aside, i haven't updated in an age cuz of one big fat hairy reason: studying photography @ college. it's on four days a week and it being in Edinburgh means i leave at 7am and i'm back at 7pm at the earliest - not a lot of time to listen, watch or read, let alone blog about any of them.
the first course i've attended that has an engaging subject to study and isn't completely full of plebs is something to consume oneself in, and i've done so up until this day. it's been a bit of a slow one this week. there's no deadlines until the middle of october, and i rarely do my best work unless i'm under pressure, so i've been copping it sweet - until i'm at breaking point, naked in a pungent bath of dev, stop and fix going up to my shins, hours before an evaluation. i'll be posting some of my work in coming updates.
other developments (lol) include me DJ'ing at the Cameo cinema/bar in Edinburgh soon, for a night exclusively centered around post-punk. the wildly varying forms that post-punk and its revivalists take on means i can legitimately put Bauhaus (pictured) then Altered Images one after the other without anyone batting an eyelid. if anyone tries to tell me one is actually goth punk and the other's actually new wave, i'll fucking glass them. i'll post a minimix of some the tracks from the night on here, so everyone can get totally wirrred. i'll post the date later on when i get a definite date - at the moment it's looking like 12th of November. keep yr calenders free.

by the end of the week hopefully, i'll have a post full of bands i've been obsessed with the past couple of weeks, packed to the gills with MP3s for previewing-purposes-only or some other disclaimer chutney. in other news, i just saw the Soulwax documentary, Part of the Weekend Never Dies. from what i've heard (i've never had the pleasure of seeing them), it doesn't fully capture the essence of the band as a kickin' live act and full-on remixing machine, but it certainly does try. the movie itself feels like a remix of previously existing footage, constantly splicing scenes, songs and interviews on top of one another to the extent where one would need to be on the same drugs as the crowd at Fabric to keep up with all of it. including interviews with the Dewaele brothers themselves - and other dudes from the disco-dance-punk scene, with hefty contributions from James Murphy ("what's wrong with the word "scene"?!" begs Murphy in one... scene), Erol Alkan, and Tiga - it tries to paint a portrait of a band who, in one of their many forms, have been on the road non-stop since 2005. their first incarnation as a pretty-fucking-good-actually dance'y alternative rock band is barely touched upon, all you get is the dullest member of Klaxons mentioning that Any Minute Now is one of the best albums he's ever heard, then it quickly cuts to someone gurnin' and gulpin' overly-expensive bottled water while "Funkytown" gets mashed up with "NY Excuse".
this problem aside, it's actually a pretty accurate representation of the 2006/07 dance explosion. which is a pretty hard thing to achieve these days, given the speed with which it grew from something to be ashamed of and try your darnest to keep off yr last.fm account, to the most hip, incestual and sickeningly in-yr-face scene on the planet. with each band, club, DJ, and minor MySpace celebrity remixing each other and blogging each other at such a furious pace, The Guardian didn't even have time to write an misspelled, ill-informed, and overwrought article about Londons flowering dance artists for their Sunday supplements. for this reason, it is necessary viewing if you have found yourself in a club at any point over the past couple of years, wondering if you should keep dancing during that middle section on the Erol remix of "Waters of Nazareth", just before the beat DROPS and you get yr groove back. you know what i'm talking about.