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April 30, 2007
April 27, 2007
Curry
The animation on this...from 2001...well it's absolutely appalling isn't it! This was before I knew anything about 3D animation, or even that there was such a discipline as character animation, I just went for it with clunky results. That said I like the design very much (I'm quite fond of 3D modeling which isn't seamless, in which the polygons jut out a bit) and I also like the stilted atmosphere, abetted by the Daphne Oram music I used. I think perhaps three or four people have ever seen this, maybe that's too many already!
April 26, 2007
The Verucca Boy
I wrote the script for this in a tiny village in Morocco at the edge of the Sahara in 1991. Shot on Super 8 and hand-edited I even recorded the sound on to the tiny magnetic strip running along the celluloid with my projector. Again, slick it ain't. This was made while I was at University where I won something called the McTaggart prize to make it. I had a lot of fun showing it on the street at the Edinburgh Festival (Guerilla cinema style- I was very fired up with the idea of seizing the modes of distribution...)
April 25, 2007
Black Dog: Distant Lands Promo
This teeters between the endearing daft and the unintentionally hilarious, its absolute nadir being the 3D animation. Oof/Eek. As if to prove there is (some) life beyond vapid slickness. Thanks to Ken for letting me loose on it back in the day; What a great track!
April 24, 2007
Road
Sort of like a pop video for an Esquivel track. This is a bit of fun.
April 23, 2007
Echo
Me without the CRT monitor on my head.
I'm uploading some old films of mine this week. There will be seven going up in total. If you were looking for a single word to describe this body of work it would probably be "crap". However, I couldn't pretend that each and every one didn't mean the world to me. They may be the very height of youthful amateurishness but I hope they are, at the very least, spirited and full of ideas.
This first one, Echo, is probably the best. I've written plenty about it here so I won't bore you again. Three and a half years ago I wasn't able to have it streaming and the only people who got to see it did so on DVDs I sent them. This time it's nice to be able to show it properly.
April 16, 2007
Ghost Box Mix
Sure, the LP is out. But don't miss this mix which is being hosted by the Barcelona-based Online Radio site Musicvictem. There's some just wonderful stuff in there, unreleased Ghost Box things, Ray Cathode's amazing "Waltz in Orbit" (a legendary BBC Radiophonic single by Beatles producer George Martin), the likes of Caravan, Bill Fay and Harmonia which all throw different lights on the Ghost Box catalogue.
There's even a selection from Lubos Fiser's Soundtrack to "Valerie and her Week of Wonders". In refuge from the rain at The Green Man festival I saw this projected in a dark and musty marquee. This movie is bananas, utterly dream-like. The soundtrack has just been reissued by Andy Votel's Finders Keepers label, and I suspect they probably masterminded that projection off some Czechoslovakian Betamax cassette.
April 14, 2007
12"s of Steel
I picked up the reissue of P.I.L's "Second Edition" from, fittingly enough, the Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street when it came out in 1987. I think it was Loop who turned me on to the LP. I was listening to their brilliant "Heavens End" repeatedly; I must have seen them live about 5 times.
But until the other day I've never had a copy of, you know, the beast, Metal Box. I've come across it from time to time, and passed. That's the thing when you get older isn't it, you have a bit more money, and you finally pick up the things you wanted when you were younger. Apparently that's what has happened all down the 'nuum too, fans reaching back five years and picking up the legendary records they never had the funds to collect when they were teenagers.
It's a shame that the record doesn't have an edition number, like The White Album, because you can't start a thread on a forum entitled: "What's the serial number of your Metal Box?" The critics say the low-end on it packs a punch, and they're not lying. Wobble's bass is like an oil tanker. The deck upon which the band is playing. There are lovely things about the format of the three tinned twelve inches*. Possibly the nicest is the end of "Death Disco".
On the twelve inch this is a very long track, but on Metal Box it cuts at the lines "Words Can Not Express" and then that section loops. The bass does this funky little Nile Rodgers-esque run and repeats four times. In tandem the synth trills cheaply like off a Freeze single. It's the only remotely Disco-like bit in the whole song, which is widely-known to be about the death of John Lydon's mother.
However the clincher is that straight after this craftily constructed, almost humorous coda, comes another loop. This time however it's as blank-eyed and bleak as it could possibly be. Cutting perpendicularly across the track's rhythm and even mocking the frivolity of the preceding cycle, it's built using the run-out groove of the vinyl itself. All one hears is Lydon going "aaahess", no sense at all, and the needle stuttering in the groove. Genius, and one of the great run-out grooves of all time, up there with "A Day in the Life" and "Madonna, Sean and Me". Needless to say this doesn't make it to "Second Edition" or the CD reissue. Listen to it here.
When I got home, I scratched my head, and realised with satisfaction that I also had a couple of other early Metal Box-era P.I.L twelve inches. I paid nothing whatsoever for these slabs of noise. It was nice to put them in a little pile together and kind of fondle them all. The first, the "Death Disco" twelve inch, is the full-length studio version of the track that's cropped mid-way on the LP. The b-side called "Megga Mix" is a re-working of "Fodderstompf" from the first LP. Apparently the whole first LP was re-worked this way, but this is the only track that ever saw the light of day. That's sort of intriguing.
The other Metal Box-era twelve inch is "Memories", again with exquisitely bleak artwork made up of photos taken of Lydon and Jeanette Lee by Dennis Morris. "Memories" is a stronger mix than the version that appears on Metal Box, the b-side a version of "Graveyard" with vocals on, which to my mind is inferior to the instrumental.
*There's a bad thing too. It's bloody difficult to get the records out of the tin.
April 08, 2007
The Good The Bad and The Queen
Even though I suppose I could have claimed some edge on the hipsterati, what with liking Gorillaz "Demon Dayz", I completely failed to get The Good The Bad and The Queen. I was turned off by the Dadrock PR around the group. The legends of rock super-group thing is, on paper at least, a yawn. I listened to the record at a post at the Rough Trade shop and didn't hear what Barney Hoskyns and Simon Reynolds were raving about. Persistent I downloaded it off Soulseek but failed to get past the second track. However driving up to Glasgow in my van tout-seul, the songs on a loop, a full ten hours on the road and it really sunk in.
I first listened to it before Birmingham right after The Cosmic Joker's "Galactic Supermarket" and that record's clangorous, echoaic, seemingly illogic cacophony worked perfectly as an intro to TGTBATQ. Albarn and his crew have made a very Krautrock-ish sort of record. The LP's quite remarkable highlight "Herculaneum" for instance sounds like a cut off Harmonia's "Deluxe", the choir even sounding like a tape-loop on one of Klaus Schulze's Mellotrons. There's so much begging to be said about this track. As its towering production engulfs Albarn, his voice reduced to a sonar pulse flickering from its depths, one is presented at once with a metaphor for London as Atlantis (the LP is littered with with references to the Thames, tidal waves, submarines etc) and a picture of Damon, Dennis Wilson-style, trying to drown his ego. I suppose that's quite a self-important parrallel to make, between the fate of the world and one-self, but he doesn't seem to present it in a way that's arrogant, merely as the matter-of-fact reflection of the global in the personal.
There's been this same tension in the Gorillaz work, with Damon sinking himself further and further into the mix, taking an unassuming third place to Jamie Hewlett's drawings and Dangermouse's beats, but regardless his personality rises spectrally above that project. In contrast, Nick Cave's ensemble, the gruesomely unattractive Grinderman thing (eugh, lose the moustache Nick), seems like a calculated move. What I keep wondering is how Albarn ended up so seeming so unhappy, even, perhaps by meriting of whining like a curr, sounding like Thom Yorke on "The Bunting". I've seen him up close in recent years too and that bore out my impression that he's, well, slightly sad. Maybe there are personal reasons, but equally perhaps he just feels publicly stigmatised. After all, in spite of the Gorillaz success, he's been widely loathed and ridiculed; that's bound to affect a person. I do think it is ironic that with TGTBATQ he's created just the sort of LP that Noel Gallagher would give his right arm to have made.
Tony Allens' is a very interesting presence on the record. You'd think his Afro-Beat chops would have been used to propel the band, that they'd sit squarely at the back of the band, but not at all. His contributions are almost always textural, and are positioned right at the centre of the gigantic ensemble sound, perhaps even more central than Damon. On a track like "Kingdom of Doom" he's all but inaudible. I don't think this is just a case of the band failing to get behind him, it's a very interesting production choice.
I just loved this record. Yes it was nice to flash on things I've enjoyed in the past in a renewed, but more complex way, records like (crucially) Madness's "Rise and Fall", which we caned as kids, and Big Audio Dynamite's first LP but also hip stuff like Vivienne Goldman's "Lauderette" (the key "messed-up" London text) and Patrick Fitzgerald. But mainly it's just such a delicious sonic feast, I can't wait till I get my greasy mitts on the vinyl. I saw this funny thing on The Antiques Roadshow the other night, some Glaswegian dude playing his collection of Singing Bowls in the Kelvingrove art gallery. When he starts to scrape, you just hear this rusty scraping sound, but in a minute or so this great pulsating cloud of harmonics starts to hover, almost menacingly in the air. TGTBATQ is like that, by the end your head is ringing.
Don Bolles in trouble
Former Germs drummer and legendary Avant-Garde Record Collector Don Bolles is in trouble. Read on:
This past Wednesday night Don Bolles suffered a bizarre and unfortunate interception with the Newport Police Department. He was stopped for a broken tail light. We believe his unconventional looks and old army green van made him the victim of police profiling in this very affluent, quiet town. They searched his van. The only thing they found was a bottle of Dr Bronner's soap. If you are a good friend of Don's, you know this is the only cleaning agent he uses for every thing from tooth paste to laundry detergent. The police ran a drug field test on the soap and it came up positive. Dr. Bronner's is made with hemp seed oil. Maybe this is the reason behind the arresting officer's error. I spoke with someone who is familiar with forensic drug tests. They said the field test is not absolutely accurate. There are two other drug tests that need to be conducted on the soap. Also, the drug they are ascertaining that Don is in possession of is unusable in a soap base. He is being charged with a felony. His bail is $25,000. He could get up to 20 years in prison. This is very serious. Through a bail bonds company it is 2,500 dollars. Currently we have roughly 1,000 dollars. He is now being held at the Orange County jail. This is not a safe place for Don.
With all my heart I do believe Don is innocent. I talked to the Police yesterday at the holding facility. Their attitude was harsh. This is truly a horrible and sad incident. I spoke with Don a number of times. He is in utter disbelief that this is happening to him. We are asking friends if they could make a contribution of 10-20 dollars or more to help get him out of jail as soon as possible so he can seek legal assistance. Please make contributions to the paypal account below. Also, if anyone knows of a lawyer that can donate their services, please contact me as soon as possible. I spoke with criminal lawyers yesterday and their fees are unbelievably high. Please repost this on your bulletin if your network of friends can help. - Nora
Paypal and contact email:deernora@yahoo.com