dig your fins

“the capital city of shopping”

danielweiresq — Mon, 13 May 2013 19:58:07 +0000

Whilst sorting through box #237 of the Weir archive I came across this entertaining little booklet published by the Peterborough Development Corporation in March 1983, just over a year from when the Queensgate Shopping Centre was officially opened by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, (no I’ve no idea either).

“summer in our hearts”

danielweiresq — Sat, 04 May 2013 17:35:37 +0000

Was stuck somewhere I would rather have not been earlier in the week, the upside was that I got to catch up on some reading – including the latest issue of When Saturday Comes. Highlight of the current issue was a wonderful match report from Taylor Parkes with just the loveliest final paragraph I’ve read in a good while.

As a Norwich City fan today is probably not the best day to blog about football but it’s only a game eh?

Type Writer

danielweiresq — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 07:18:19 +0000

There doesn’t seem to have been a moment to think this week, so the arrival of this wonderful collection of work from Andy Smith was a definite highlight. Andy’s an illustrator, (originally from Norfolk (so I’m a little biased), whose work you’ll have probably already seen given his huge client list.

I originally stumbled across Andy’s work via the Newspaper Club and as a result bought one of his I Pretend To Work posters before somebody else bought one for me.

So if you ever need the services of an illustrator or just want something handsome to hang on you wall I’d heartily recommend him to you.

Out In The Country

danielweiresq — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 09:43:29 +0000

Sometimes everything seems connected.

Earlier in the week I picked up a bundle of Country Fair magazines from the 1950s – bought largely because of the wonderful cover illustrations by an artist unknown to me, namely John Hanna. Given my unfamiliarity with Mr Hanna’s work I made a note to investigate further. However before I got the chance to utilise the efforts of California’s finest in my search, the latest issue of Creative Review arrived – with an excellent piece, presumably written entirely for me, on Nick Asbury’s efforts in “filling in the gaps and rediscovering the career of Australian commercial artist John Hanna”.

Nick had arrived at the work of John Hanna in a similar way to me, through the acquisition of a number of back issues of the Country Fair magazine. Blogging about his find unearthered some further details about Hanna from other admirers of his work, but it wasnt until some time after his post that John Hanna’s son, Max, got in touch with Nick enabling him, (and in turn us), to find out more about his father’s life and work.

It’s perhaps not surprising given the intentionally temporary nature of work such as this that it passes us by so easily, however it’s enormously rewarding when it does turn up on the radar because it’s work of such significant quality.

Nick sums it up far more poetically than me : ”It would be sentimental to say that good work always gets rediscovered - no doubt much of it doesn’t. Hanna’s work spent years consigned to people’s lofts and garages, evading the algorithms of Google and instead travelling the loose real-world network of car boot sales and second hand shops. But there was always a good chance it would resurface, looking as fresh as the day it was created.”

As an aside the contents of the magazines have some socially historic interest too !

Wondering

danielweiresq — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 13:30:12 +0000

So much unpleasant news yesterday including the announcement from Iain Banks that he’s “officially very poorly“.

I’ve been a fan for many years and Espedair Street has always been one of my favourite books to the extent that I appropriated my pseudonym from it – I also seem to have committed the last half sentence from the book to memory, which I’m always reminded of when I’m “wondering if it’ll last”.

Justified And (Relatively) Ancient

danielweiresq — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 09:45:07 +0000

Unless you live within the confines of the city of Norwich you’re unlikely to come across the John Jarrold Printing Museum by accident – to begin with it’s pretty well hidden, in the depths of St James Mill a Grade 1 listed building originally built to contribute to Norwich’s textile trade in the 1830s, and in addition it’s only open Wednesday mornings between the hours of 9.30 – 12.30. That said the effort you’ll need to make in order to visit will be effort very much rewarded because it’s a fascinating place full of history and activity in equal measure.

As soon as you arrive you’ll realise it’s not the kind of museum where everything sits behind frustratingly placed red rope, which is particularly pleasing when you consider the volume of Heath Robinson inspired machinery at work. The other thing that becomes quickly apparent is the number of volunteers keen to show you around and share their accumulated knowledge of which there appears to be an abundance of.

To be honest though it’s the staggering complexity of it all that really hits you. From the, sadly dying, artistry involved in the setting of type by hand to the quite extraordinary mechanical intricacy of a Linotype machine from the 1880s – it’s difficult to take it all in.

So having taken so long to actually get to the museum I’ll be making sure that my next visit is much much sooner than later because whilst the world at large proclaims that ‘print is dead’ it’s very much alive and well in a small corner of Norfolk.

The Art Of Noise

danielweiresq — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 17:47:01 +0000

If like me you’ve missed listening to the dulcet tones of Charlotte Green over on BBC Radio 4 there was a chance to hear her make a fleeting return in the first “audio intervention” last Monday as part of the short Open Air series - featuring a number of three minute pieces, or as they’d prefer “interventions”, from artists commissioned by London-based arts organisation Artangel.

I particularly enjoyed the effort from Christian Marclay however having dipped briefly into the lower half of the internet it seems not everyone agrees with me :

“Art should be stimulating and make you want to know more – this mornings input was just noise. I thought it was another glitch at the new BBC studios, sad to find out you actually commissioned it.” RobRutland

I’ve collected the five pieces below and if you’re interested John O’Mahony has written more about them and the work of sound artists generally in The Guardian over here.

Welcome To Shapwick

danielweiresq — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 20:49:09 +0000

Another release from Clay Pipe Music, and another very fine one at that.

This time Shapwick, an LP from Jon Brooks – a record of pastoral electronica, short instrumentals and field recordings, which arrives in a, customarily for Clay Pipe Music, beautifully designed sleeve by Frances Castle.

It’s a difficult record to describe, (especially given that “talking about music is like dancing about architecture”), however Jon has written about the record over on the Clay Pipe Music website, which although not really describing the how does go some way to explain the why.

“I had been stuck in a five hour long traffic jam on a motorway in the autumn of 2011. At the end of the ordeal, we left the motorway and noticed the traffic was backing up onto local roads near Glastonbury; streams of cars, full of hot-headed motorists crawling along congested highways, the roads groaning under a volume for which they were not designed.

I searched the map for alternative routes. We had several hours of further driving ahead of us and it was already dark. One such route was through an area close to Shapwick, a small rural village. As we joined the approach to the village, we headed through several miles of unlit roads, with nothing but gnarled trees and woodland either side, the car headlights suggesting the twists and turns ahead.

I felt a certain energy around the place. The images created by the trees in the dark conjured inspiration and it struck me that an album could be based on an imaginary impression of this area. I had already recorded some pieces that were in search of a home and the idea formed within seconds.

The music I had been writing was recorded directly to a four-track cassette recorder. There were some piano recordings that I had made at my uncle and aunt’s house in Devon (where I had stayed prior to the traffic jam), along with other acoustic and electronic pieces. With the Shapwick framework in mind, I recorded much more material. Using everything from a song harp in a garden, to a modular analogue synthesizer, I set about creating textures that would place my own notion of Shapwick on some kind of map; to create a geographic narrative.

I carried forward the notion of recording on four-track cassette – a very immediate recording medium, where there is little chance to manipulate the sound after the fact. This way of working shaped the project further and the medium suggested textures by itself – I had been using very old second-hand cassette stock that had been recorded on by others; subsequently, fragments of recordings already on the tapes showed up at various points and took on their own new lives in the tapestry.

The reality of Shapwick is probably quite different to the impression in my own mind, but nonetheless I think it’s interesting to form an impression based on how a place could be, just by passing through it in the dark… and building from there.”

So a difficult record to describe and now sadly to own given this latest release, limited to just 500 hand numbered LPs, is already sold out. That said some things are worth searching out and this, and to be honest all of Clay Pipe Music’s previous releases, is well well worth searching for.

[Jon's description of the record reminded me of this wonderful piece of writing from Laura Barton which I always enjoy returning to.]

2013: A Space Odyssey

danielweiresq — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 18:24:18 +0000

A first birthday is always something worth celebrating.

In Septemer 2010 I wrote about the possible demise of our local Arts Centre :

“The council have all but closed the Guildhall of St George, (other than for external hire – and despite, rather perversely, continuing with repairs to the roof costing around £200,000), so a decision to do the same with the gallery spaces at the Arts Centre would be an unsurprising albeit depressing decision.

So if you’re local to me I recommend you a) visit the King’s Lynn Arts Centre as often as you can whilst it’s still in it’s current state and b) write to your local Councillor expressing your concern around the suggestion of downgrading the provision of support to the arts in West Norfolk, because quite frankly when it’s gone it’s gone.”

Eighteen months later later the news was a deal better :

“Thankfully I no longer need to recommend you write to your local Councillor, (although free to give them a hard time about something), however even though the threat of it’s closure has passed you really should visit as often as you can because the culture in King’s Lynn does need reinvigorating, (in fact probably just vigorating), and as such the fine people involved at the Arts Centre need your support more than ever.”

And now, well now the news is even better still, with the King’s Lynn Arts Centre Trust celebrating it’s first birthday in style with ‘Star Wars and Me‘ – an exhibition of toys, posters and associated merchandise connected with those first three Star Wars films, (don’t write in and tell me I’m getting the phraseology all wrong with this – I know I probably am but such is the nature of these things eh), and the world of science-fiction surrounding it.

The exhibition is in essence the personal collection of artist Joe Robinson and although mainly centered around the work of a certain Mr George Lucas it does stretch further into the genre with in particular some tremendous film posters from the 1970s – highlights including those advertising Futureworld, Zardoz, The Land That Time Forgot and 2001: A Space Odyssey – which said Mr Lucas describes on the poster as “the ultimate science fiction movie”.

So if you’re a fan of science fiction, or to be honest not much of a fan like myself, get along to the King’s Lynn Arts Centre for this hugely colourful and fun exhibition and help them to a successful start to their second year.

[In association with the exhibition the Arts Centre are also screening some classic films from the genre over the next few months including Them!, Forbidden Planet, Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 A.D., Starcrash, At The Earth's Core and Galaxy Quest. And they're also running a number of workshops for people considerably younger than me, (lucky blighters), on making "mosters, planets, robots and spaceships", learning about the use of "stop motion animation and green screens", making "alien masks, head-dresses and light sabres", desigining your own sci-fi movie poster and you can even "compose and record your own space soundscape". Not bad eh ?]

Edinburry

danielweiresq — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 09:52:36 +0000

For those of you who stop by here with some kind of regularity you’ll perhaps know I try to make an annual trip to the Fenland market town of Whittlesey to witness a man being paraded around the streets dressed as a straw bear. So when I found details of The Burry Man, an excellent little zine published by Cafe Royal Books featuring photographs from David Levenson, from a similar event that occurs in South Queensferry, Scotland, it didn’t take long before a copy was ordered for the Weir HQ library.

Whittlesey, Straw Bear, Straw Bear Festival, The Burry Man, Cafe Royal Books, David Levenson,South Queensferry, Scotland, David Levenson , Document Scotland,