Stone Me *

02Jul09

Fifteen minutes in the small Norfolk market town of Swaffham whilst the lady of the house visited her dental practitioner.

In the horrible sickly heat of the afternoon I decided to sit down and watch the world go about it’s business (although to be honest much of the world was absent from the town and if you’re looking to do business then Swaffham probably wouldn’t be your first port of call).

I then get up and find this small, wildly unassuming plaque on the wall next to it. A remarkable find on a wholly unremarkable day.

[* “Stone Me” for some of the youngsters amongst you refers to him]

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A Picture Speaks A Thousand Words

29Jun09

If you pass by here from time to time you’ll perhaps already know that I’m a big fan of Pixelh8 – so I was intrigued by this piece of art that he’s been involved with.

In essence the background behind it is like one of those children’s books where the pages are cut into strips so you can turn an individual strip from the page but leave the remaining strips in place – does that make sense ?

Anyway I’ll let Pixelh8 explain the piece much better than me : “The project was created by taking a image and splicing it into five separate images, giving only one part to each of the narrators, they were simply asked to describe what they saw.”

Simple eh ? And once edited together it’s such an effective and intriguing piece. As ever though don’t take my word for it, go and have a look for yourself here.

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Tags: Pixelh8, Tadek Kurpaski

A Good Walk Spoiled

28Jun09

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Tags: 1, 2, 5, 8, Flags, Golf

“It’s The Place That I Love The Best”

24Jun09

You can blame Rhodri for this.

He’s been wandering down memory lane and I’ve decided to join him for a while (different lane mind but you get my drift).

Many years ago I “worked” for a band, a band called (in fact still called) Magoo – I say “worked” because I had no idea what I was doing and rather sweetly Magoo didn’t seem to mind. They’d been playing and recording together for a while and had released a track on a local CD compilation (which I’ll not speak of any further as a) it wasn’t very good and b) I’m a confirmed revisionist) and a rather better debut single, The Mudshark ep (on orange vinyl – although strangely with no paper labels, hence the fact that we had to write the track details with marker pen directly onto the vinyl centres – I say we, I think it would not be wholly unfair to suggest that I wrote on around four hundred and seventy seven copies with the various members of the band at the time writing on the rest – that’s about twenty three). However with all the work surrounding what we were doing none of it really dropped into place for me until we released ‘our’ second single Robot Carnival, four tracks of treble induced guitar shenanigans pressed onto translucent midnight blue vinyl – you can listen to the lead track here. At the time I thought it was tremendous – in fact I still do, but that’s not my point, I also thought that as a result it was destined for great things including, possibly, significant sales and at the very least extensive radio-play (I tried to instigate this radio-play by hand delivering copies all over London town and remarkably bumped into John Peel outside BBC Radio 1, who commended me on my Bill Shankly t –shirt (boy was I trying hard) and promised to listen to the record that very evening – whether he did or not remains unclear however he played the all the tracks from the record over the next few weeks and remained a fan / friend of the band up until his death in 2004 – in fact Magoo were one of the very last bands who recorded a session for him).

You‘ll perhaps be unsurprised that in fact the sales were less than significant – we did sell out of the initial pressing of five hundred however given that we didn’t consider repressing on some equally odd coloured vinyl perhaps indicates that there wasn’t exactly a clamour for them in the independent record shops of the United Kingdom. Simon Williams in the NME did say nice things about it, “In short, a thoroughly commendable crash-course in artrock without the self-concious wankery. Brilliant.”, but reviews were few and far between. And radio-play ? Well as I said dearest old Mr Peel played all of the tracks on the record and booked the band for their second Peel Session (I played on the first one !), however other than some student radio stations and a couple of shows on local BBC stations (and a somewhat surprising play on BBC Radio 3 – thanks to Robert Sandall) the recorded was wildly ignored. (Looking back at Close Continental DNA (which was a compilation CD of early singles) Andrew R (Magoo Kingpin, singer, songwriter and much much more) wrote about Robot Carnival in the sleeve notes, “Back to The Swamp for the second single, getting to grips with the studio better, although after it came out some people phoned to ask if it was really meant to sound like it does.”.)

And and and ?  I know, get to the point – what’s interesting about all this (well it is to me – you may have wandered off already) is the hopelessly blind optimism we had at the time. We just knew that this record would sound great on day time radio, we just knew this record would receive rave reviews, we just knew this record to quote Eddie Argos was one that we were going to play “Eight weeks in a row on Top of the Pops”. But hey – listening back to it now it’s perhaps not a huge surprise that these things didn’t happen – it is a great record, I’d argue that point with anyone, a wonderful cacophony of noise holding down and beating the tune that’s buried beneath to within an inch of it’s life – however can you image it being broadcast across the nation’s airwaves ?

Be honest – it’s a no isn’t it ?

So what’s my point – well, that overlong, awkwardly sentimental set up is all to allow me to stand on my soapbox (I know I know my reference points need updating but as I say I am traversing memory lane), and say how much I miss that level of optimism and that as a result I’m considering an attempt to reclaim it  – anyone want to join me ?

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Tags: BBC Radio 1, BBc Radio 3, Bill Shankly, Close Continental DNA, Eddie Argos, John Peel, Magoo, NME, Rhodri Marsden, Robert Sandall, Robot Carnival, Simon Williams, The Mudshark ep

A Secret Garden

21Jun09

A day in Norwich – a fine city. For a variety of reasons including a desire to visit the Plantation Garden – a little known Victorian garden hidden away near the Catholic cathedral.

Apparently it seems that in 1856, a prosperous upholsterer and cabinet maker living in Norwich, took a long lease on an industrial site just outside the old City walls. His name was Henry Trevor and he went on to spend considerable sums of money and much effort transforming a chalk quarry into a rather lovely garden.

After the second world war the garden became virtually abandoned, however the majority of the structure survived and since then it’s been gradually restored by the The Plantation Garden Preservation Trust.

So if you’re in Norwich and have an hour or two to spare wander along, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

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Tags: Henry Trevor, Norwich, Plantation Garden

Eye Of The Tiger

18Jun09

Everyday
I think about dying.
About disease, starvation,
violence, terrorism, war,
the end of the world.

It helps
keep my mind off things.

Survivor by Roger McGough from Blazing Fruit (Selected Poems 1967-1987)

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Tags: Roger McGough

Still Interesting

17Jun09

Fabulous news ! I managed to secure a couple of tickets for Interesting 2009 earlier today – when the first batch of one hundred went on sale today.

Interesting 2008 was one of the highlights of last year so I wouldn’t have missed the chance to get to this year’s event for the world. There were so many great speakers at Conway Hall that it’s difficult to pick out which were the best although Jim Le Fevre and his zoetrope turntable was amazing – The Guardian are still hosting some film of his talk here – go have a look and then plan how you’re going to make it along to Interesting 2009.

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Tags: Conway Hall, Interesting, Interesting2008, Interesting2009, Jim Le Fevre, The Guardian, zoetrope

Pretty In Pink

14Jun09

A day in the garden.

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“How Sweet To Be A Cloud” *

14Jun09

I spent most of yesterday at a football tournament out in the flatlands of Cambridgeshire. As ever there was a lot of waiting around (and Charlie Watt’s thinks he’s had it bad) however that did leave an awful lot of time for cloud watching – an activity I recommend to you.

For the keen amongst you why not join me, and many many others, at the Cloud Appreciation Society.

* Borrowed from AA Milne.

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Tags: Charlie Watts, Cloud Appreciation Society, Clouds

Postman’s Park (contd.)

12Jun09

I mentioned (thanks to Anne I Like) the special ‘Celebration of Postman’s Park’ being presented by the Watts Gallery and it’s now slowly filtered through to the papers. This piece in The Times talks of the event and of the newly unveiled memorial to Mr Leigh Pitt.

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Tags: I Like, Leigh Pitt, Postman's Park, Watts Gallery