Hovember

2009-11-07T04:42:00.000-08:00

I'm telling myself I'm starting this blog to coerce myslf into creative action; showing people things you've done/made is a pretty good impetus to do them in the first place, but in reality it could turn into a justification to trawl the information superhighway to show other people creative things that other people have done. I don't really look at blogs, last time I heard about them they were still called weblogs, so this could be a little erratic and off-topic. Anyway, nothing good ever starts with an apology, so to summarise: I am fucking great in the same way that you are fucking great, here's things my friends or I have been doing, and some cool things I've found.

It's the kind of monotone-featureless-grey-sky day I have a hard time convincing exists to people when I'm in other countries. Give me -40oC sunshine over this any day, at least you get grannies in balaclavas at the supermarket. The fact that the majority of the plants in my front courtyard are tropical in origin is an irony not lost on me.

I'm trying to work on some hiphop tunes I'll be doing with Pete Clark (and maybe Nick) from Elektralux on vocals, but they either drift into sleazy spacey 2-step or loop forever. I'm working with Iain Atkins and Mathew Slipperz on tunes soon, which always turn out something more than the sum of their parts and is probably the only way I'll ever get tunes finished/released. Oh aye, D-16 have a new reverb out called Toraverb which should be one to get (if you can't stand all the resampling Aether, A.K.A. the best reverb ever, requires of any computer system anyone I know can afford), and like all of their stuff it has a classy, understated old hi-fi style interface. Wouldn't mind working with Duds again but that seems to be a no-go since he pulled the old ill-advised 'try to steal your best friend's little brother's job and girlfriend' combo and has since run into self-imposed obscurity. Come on guys, bros before hoes, don't do it, don't even think about it. Have a wank, slap yourself, sober up then see how appealing it seems.

Music-wise I'm also finally set up to record my first DJ mix, which'll be about an hour and a half in length and will mainly be subby, clean, imaginitive dubstep and post 2-step; think Ramadanman, Forsaken, Mount Kimbie, Joe and Pangaea. I'm looking forward to passing it around to my more indie friends who've only heard the wamp-wamp clownstep going around of late. The only thing stopping me was a broken crossfader which needed spray lube, and on bringing that home I was stopped by the fuzz at 1am with my hood up, a balaclava on my head, kevlar black gloves and the lube (which is also used by car-thieves) on a strip of road with the most car break-ins in Bath. Oh how we laughed.

Joey Chainsaw has been playing more gigs, and as well as loads of other tapes and CDRs he's got a collab with the equally excellent and lovely Bambikill out out soon on Bumtapes records. I was surprised to see something of his in a blue screenprinted case for sale in the Here shop lately, going pro Joey!
2562, Ikonika and Peverelist (can't be bothered to link all of the names now) have full-length albums out or ready to drop, and I'm toddler-getting-an-N64 style excited about all three. Ramadanman and Chef are curating and mixing the next Dubstep Allstars which is out on the 9th of December. It's nice that with this new one and Appleblim's mix they're representing the more intelligent side of this music as it evolves, they so easily could've got Rusko and Skream to poop something out and doubtless sold twice the records off the back of it.

Apart from that I've been sleeping on new music of late, had Heartsrevolution and Kap Bambino recommended to me, both of which ain't half bad, and I've been listening to old Converge, Mi and L'au, Battle of Mice, Esbjörn Svensson Trio and Edan, and when nobody's looking, Devin the Dude. I nearly forgot, get the After Dark compilation from Italians do it Better Records if you have the means. It's full of painfully wistful and cool modern disco that just slo-burns in your chest.

I've been pining for a fixed-gear bike to the expense of everything else in my life. I'm going for a Fuji Track, getting some fatter tyres and riser bars up on it, BMX black pedals and footstraps and the trick fork by an Italian company called Riding in Circles. All this has to wait until I start my new job at The Old Victoria Works, a pub my friends Dominic and Rowan Black are opening soon in Bath. They've decked it out in retro furniture (I was surprised to see a favourite old armchair of mine in there) with old cigarette adverts on the walls, a stuffed penguin or two, forest wallpaper in places and French dictionary wallpaper in others. It should blow every other Bath pub out of the water (sorry The Porter). Back to bikes, watch this guy, a fixed gear utter joke, and this is a preview of a Bristol bike vid coming soon.

Also occupying my thoughts today is the lunch I've planned for tomorrow - different types of mushroom fried in butter with onion and garlic, with brandy and red wine in soya cream, on toast topped with fresh parsley, oh baby. If I have any non-vegan friends over they're getting a poached duck's egg up on that, standard.

I spent a happy Wednesday night on the classic Bath circuit with Morgan who's down from Manchester, as well as Bisto and Caz. It's nice to meet someone who's positive right from the get-go. Morgan does a blog as well as loads of other stuff, and if you don't see his name in lights soon I'll eat out a tramp. He also makes me want me to become a rapper so I can fit 'bumps of coke off a flick-comb' into a lyric somehow, and if it wasn't for him I'd not be watching the excellent zombie treat Dead Set on 4OD.

Luna and I took her four-year old kid brother Fraser out to watch the fireworks last night which made for comedy shout-outs on his part ("this is much better than tv!") but shitty photos. The only good ones I took yesterday were of Luna drinking hot chocolate, but then I have a huge backlog of photos of her doing just that anyway. On walking home Fraser surprised us by shouting "SHOW ME YOUR GASH" in his tiny tot voice at an older woman with her two kids... I think it's time we stopped making him spout east London patois for our amusement.

Talking of photography, I've spied someone chatting about ihardlyknowher.com, a minimalist viewer for Flickr, which I'd highly recommend, the less adverts and diversions around a picture the better. Haven't seen a huge amount of great phogtography around, Leon Makepeace is doubtless doing effortlessly beautiful and esoterically captivating portraits, but being head-ill and lost in the Wiltshire hinterlands has put him out of touch of everyone I've spoken to. I'm not so big on the abandoned spaces stuff he has up here, but they're pretty nonetheless.
All I've been able to find otherwise is people taking pictures of just about anything they stumble upon with a Hassleblad and having praise heaped upon them, or technically impeccable highly post-produced set-shots which are impressive for about two seconds. Having said that Noah Kalina seems to do both of the above to a very slight degree and still produce interesting stuff. Basically though I'm finding it hard to find images like Ryan McGinley's early work or Dash Snow's photography, quick snaps of lives being lived, complete with the blur and grain which the mind lays on our own memories, so that's what I'm trying to create. Big Ted has agreed to a shoot up in Prior park next week, and I'm praying for mist and frost. I'm going to try and get him as naked and muddy as I can, in the lake if possible; screaming, bellowing and running faster than someone the size of a car safely should if not.

That's reminded me: Big Ted, my brother and I are forming a grind band, me on guitar and electronics, Brendan on drums (he's one of the best grind-jazz drummers I've heard) and Ted on vokillz. Ted likes the name Suffer The Witch and I'm warming to it, though I've yet to scour the writings of Byzantium or dark ages Scandinavia and Britain for something more cold and cryptic. On a family tip my dad is painting again which warms my heart. I'd love to get back to spraypainting again, so if anyone in Bath is up for some very early-morning scrambles let me know, the last time I went I was drunk and a high-speed train nearly made me into a surprised paste.

I've been reading a new translation of Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine De Saint-Exupery. The way he shines such a clear light on the interweaving of the everyman's everyday life and eternity is something I admire and maybe should aspire to. I'm also reading Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Suzuki for at least the tenth time. It isn't as pragmatically inspiring as something like Pema Chodron's talks but the obtusely translated Japanese flows beautifully.

My housemate just walked into my room and produced a 14th century folding knife which came out of the silt at the bottom of a river in Holland, though you'd never know it from how it looks after about 10-15 minutes of his master work on it. Really, it looked little more than a black stick half an hour ago, and here it is now.

Right I'm out for now. That's wasted a good three hours, hope I can keep it up.

TATHAGATA

Hovember