QUACK-QUACK! OOOPS!

Well, the big news setting the internet aflame today is, uh, Disney's acquisition of Marvel Entertainment. Disney-Marvel, anyone?

There's quite a head of steam being let off about this by the fanboys - but I'm not sure I really care much. Does any of this really matter in the big scheme of things? Is it any worse than DC being owned by AOL-Warner or whatever they're called this week? Can comics get any crapper, etc, etc? (You tell me). I don't think I really care any more about corporate buy-outs and suchlike; I think I probably did once; but all that anger kinda wears you down in the end and they'll still do whatever the hell they want anyway. The music and film biz's have already destroyed themselves, so - *shrugs* - whatever.

To the fanboys I'd say: if you feel so strong about the Disney buy-out then put yr money where yr mouth is: write/draw yr own comic, self-publish/self-promote it and just see how you get on. If it's good/original/innovative/entertaining then I'll be the first person to write about it.

Still, there's some lovely boardroom speak peppering the aethernet right now (tho the dubious syntax doesn't give me a great deal of confidence in the combined company's ability to clearly communicate to my own children - it's like they've got marbfles in theif moufs):

Disney believes there’s real opportunity with the Marvel catalog of characters and will work on where those opportunities are greatest and how best to leverage them across the existing Marvel and Disney infrastructure.

And, um:

Disney praised Marvel’s licensing agreements with some of the best video game producers and publishers in the business and said moving forward they will consider what’s best for each individual property as each licensing deal comes up for renewal and that there would likely be a blend of licensed and self-produced/self-distributed titles.

Oo, er:

Disney said the deal was attractive not just because they’re buying great characters, stories and brand, but about working with people who know these characters best and how best to work with them in other media.

Etc, etc. Too early to really say what this all means creatively. Probably business as usual for an ailing artform that's already hamstrung by crossover events and bigger-earning film/toy franchaises. The handful of really interesting creators who work in the mainstream will probably continue to work in the mainstream, and dreck will still be dreck.

I was gonna tell you a very dull anecdote about trying out for Disney some years ago, but it really is boring. Boring and self-indulgent. (Business as usual here, too)

Instead, I'm going to hand over to a *proper* Comic-Book Pundit: my 8-year old daughter Kid Kid Shirt, who only got into comics big-time 2 or 3 months ago (and got me back into them too!), but already has opinions the size of Ego, The Living-Planet (opinions!? wonder where she gets that from?)...

I told her at bedtime that Disney had taken over Marvel and she made a loud howling sound that deeply disturbed her younger sister two bedrooms away: "AWWWW, NOOO!!!" (followed by mock boo-hoo noises...)

Me: "What's that all about?"

KKS: "That's really bad!"

Me: "Why?"

KKS: "I HAAAATE Disney. They run Club Penguin, right? And everything's all about being a member. Once, they did these balloon-rides, but only the members could do them, which is, like, a total swizz. So if they're doing Marvel stuff now, are they gonna...AWWW, NOOO! They're not gonna change the characters, are they?"

Me: "I doubt it."

KKS: 'Cos that would be really terrible if they...y'know, made them like Disney stuff. I really like those characters and I don't want them to change them into, y'know, animals and stuff..." (pulls mock distressed face)

Me: "What, like Bat-Duck? Mickey Hulk?"

KKS: (laughs) "Yeah, that would be sooo rubbish. Rubbish and unfair. I bet that guy, you know, the one who does the Super-heroes program..."

Me: "Stan Lee."

KKS: "Yeah, Stan. I bet he's got something to say about all this! Him and the other guy - Jack (mumbled surname, possibly "Kirffy") - I bet they, well..." (look of startled horror) "The Silver Surfer: is he Marvel or DC?"

Me: "Marvel"

KKS: (shrieks) "Oh, no, Disney aren't going to do The Silver Surfer, are they?" (appalled expression; much arm waving) "Oh, that would be terrible."

(A long discussion follows about The Silver Surfer's powers, surfboard, etc)

I'm so proud of her right now. Not because she's getting into comics, but because she has dyslexia and reading isn't easy for her.

Anything that gets her reading or, rather, wanting to read is cool with me.

Don't you fucking let her down, Disney.

DOODLE

DISCHARGE 5: CHAPBOOK II

This is the second Discharge Chapbook. Edited by Doriandra. It has no name.

Contributors include:

Cocaine Jesus
Doriandra
Ruela Pinho
Lazare
Murmurists
DB Rood
DB
Jase
Robert Chrysler
Inconsequential
CHM
Undress Beton
I Am Not Kek-w
Tic Tac
Dodo Spiessert
Junior
Elliot Wisdom
Carmen Racovitza
Cachorro Rabugento Morto Em Noite Chuvosa
Aaron Held

NILSSON'S THE DADDY

Just listening to Harry Nilsson's deliriously jaunty yodelling version of "Daddy's Song" (as covered by The Monkees in/on Head).

But even this isn't the original v/sion; instead it's a sort of remixed/rejigged performance (notes say: "new vocals, guitar/piano/out of sync") from 1971's "Aerial Pandemonium Ballet" wh/ itself features retwists of material from the earlier, late-60's "Pandemonium Shadow Show" and "Aerial Ballet" LPs - hence the album's combo-title - reworked cos Nilsson thought the earlier material sounded dated. Nah, it didn't, but this later one still sounds great tho, despite the vinyl being an RCA dynaflex pressing wh/ feels like it's only about 1mm thicker than a flexi-disk.

*Phew* Glad we've got that straight, then.

THIS IS HOW I ROLL

Combat ukele.

ZZZZZT-O-GRAM

FINAL FESTFINAL E

Some pals of mine'r playing at this on saturday:



20:00 Karen Eliot
20:30 Patton
21:00 Sylvester Anfang II
21:30 True champions Ride on Speed
22:00 Picturesque
22:30 Bear Bones, Lay Low
23:00 Kiss the Anus of a Black Cat
23:30 Wixel
00:00 The Fox and the Bramble

00:30 Möse
01:00 Viktorviktor
01:30 Sheldon Siegel
02:00 Jozefaleksanderpedro
02:30 Cheresse
03:00 dj The Michael


And here's S. Anfang 2 in aktion @ Can'Art 2008. Dig it:

PICOVISION

Call it Picovision, call it "Mobile TV" or whatever (following on from one of my posts below):



It's got scope for all sorts of fun n creative mischief: back-alley gore-film festivals; light-shows; mobile art-installations; magic-shows; performances/lectures; moving grafitti; home-made puppet cinema, etc, etc.

(Tho having said that: you can't beat the wonderful visual vibe you get from an ol' fashioned 8mm projector (I must run some of my old animated films again this autumn/winter!) or a slide-projector...)

Picovision projectors: coming to a cell-phone near you very soon.

"I CAN'T DEFEAT THE TAUPE MENACE; I'M ALL OUT OF UNNIUM!"

"Unnium! I'm totally using that!": thus spoke Mr. Bauler in a comment, somewhere further dn the page: "I can't defeat The Taupe Menace, I'm all out of Unnium!"

You may laugh, little ones, but The Taupe Menace is a very real phenomenon; one that this blog was primarily created to thwart. Without constant vigilance - without commitment - The Taupe Menace can easily creep up on you. It is a creeping sickness; a psychik malaise that can afflict an entire society - or a creative genre - as easily as it can take down an individual.

I think you know where I'm coming from here.

Darren's mention of the conceptual element Unnium (Atomic Non-Weight: 23) reminded me that it's part of the same hypothetical False Metal Series as the 'elements' Kryptonite, Cavorite and Lunar Silver, with which it shares certain properties. The word has a number of co-synchronous meta-meanings, some of which are self-negating. One of its most notorious properties is its ability to induce states of synchronicity - patterns and series of self-replicating coincidences - when its meaning is invoked by something as simple as a blog posting or its name being said out loud. Inversely, some of these quantum coincidence 'states' can themselves also invoke the 'presence' of Unnium, since the element can non-exist equally at any point in linear time.

One example of this is that - approximately 24hrs before Darren 'concieved' of Unnium (or, rather, it self-invoked itself in the form of a comments-box word-verfication) - I was looking at a print-out of The Periodic Table sellotaped to a work-area wall and grooving on the names of some of the newer, more-recently discovered Super-Heavy transient elements, such as

Ununbium (112 Uub), Ununtrium (113 Uut), Ununquadium (114 Uuq), Ununpentium (115 Uup), Ununhexium (116Uuh), the as-yet undetected theoretical element Ununseptium (117 Uus) and Ununoctium (118, Uuo).

What's not to love about an element whose symbol is Uuh, huh?

I wish they'd called them Ununium, Unununium, Ununununium, etc.

Just watch out for the fucking Taupe Menace, tho, that's all I'm saying.

THE ANATOMICAL BROTHEL

HULK HOGAN VS. THE YETI, WRESTLING GIMMICKS, ETC

Wrestling mayhem:



"Warm up the bed-pan - Hogan's going to the hospital!"

Then - not sure why - but someone made a mash-up loop of The Yeti. Perhaps they were on drugs lol. It's strangely compelling and ever-so-slightly hallucinatory:



This is fantastic, tho: Ten Wrestling Gimmicks - and yes, The Yeti makes another appearance! - but man of the match must be Phantasio! I want to be Phantasio!



This is like some sort of mental fucked-up sit-com (keep watching; it gets stranger!) - my kinda TV; the swirly lo-res compressed footage only adds to the strangeness; it's like their faces have been censored:



"Until then: a-hahahahaha-ha!"

SAVAGE MESSIAH, ETC

Nice piece here in 3:AM Magazine by Richard Marshall about Savage Messiah magazine and Laura Oldfield Ford - both old familiar favourites to long-term Kid Shirt readers.

Owen H also puts in a special guest appearance on the site. Along with m'mainman - my own ever-patient publisher Wayne Groen (interviewed here by the great Tom Bradley).

It's a nice site.

STICKY LIGHT

There's been a lot of buzz/hype about AR recently ("Augmented Reality" or digital/real world overlaps/overlays), but here's another type of AR - rather than presenting the illusion of overlaying digital information onto the real world (via a phone or web-cam, for example), why not project information out into the real world via a laser and photo-scanner?

The result is "Sticky Light" - light that can detect and interact with areas of the physical world that have differences in darkness or colour. So far they can only project single-points of light, but already some interesting applications are beginning to suggest themselves:



Well, yes, games and art-installations - of course! - but straight away I can also see some sort of Sticky Light-based system or app that could potentially auto-map any environment that it finds itself in, by detecting colour/shadow boundaries. Now, just wait 'til they start building systems that can generate geometries far more complex than single point-sources.

How about: err, non- or post-physical light-'robots'?

'Intelligent'/coherent (ie can recognise sub-elements of 'self') light-forms capable of exploring/mapping various environments or terrains? (ooops, possible military uses there too!).

Inverted AR (ie projection rather than overlay) interests me in particular - I think it's more intuitive (and more startling!) in a way - I've been hearing a lot of talk of miniature (we're talking pretty small!) projection systems that can blow up high-ish res video to large-scale projected images - big enough to fill up the wall of a room, for example. It won't be long until these systems fit into a phone - they're already not far off - so, here, perhaps is yet another way of killing off TV. You and your mates can watch whatever on-demand vid or clip you want in high-quality on a wall wherever you want, rather than clustered around a TV/PC/phone/palm-screen. A garage-wall and some beer-crates becomes a cinema (plug yr phone into a sound-system) or a rave light-show...an attic-space, a cliff on the beach...whatever.

THE BRITISH EXPERIMENTAL ROCKET GROUP

Speaking of people in lab-coats and such:

BERG: The British Experimental Rocket Group.

Feel the buzz. Here and here.

NURSE WITH WOUND WITH CRICKET FLANNELS

A lunchtime email chat betwn myself, Loki and 2nd Fade that started off with the cover of "A Sucked Orange" by Nurse With Wound (don't ask!) -



- transmog'd into a suggestion by The Mischievous One that a cartoon-strip about the musical misadventures of Steven Stapleton, Colin Potter, etc was almost begging to be done: "I’m imagining Professor Branestawm-like adventures into pataphysics," said Loki. After all, wasn't Stapleton practically a sort of living cartoon in his own right, an epitomy of English Eccentricism. Okay, so maybe 'eccentric' is an unfair, connotation-preloaded word; but you get the gist.



Still, Stapleton doesn't really look much like that any more, does he? - that 'classic' NWW surrealist-undertaker-proto-goth look is long-gone, innit? No doubt, their hardcore fans (are there any other kind?) will shoot me dn like a Spitfire at this point.

When I saw them a few years back - and I have to say that they were pretty dull lol - he looked like an elderly cricket teacher; a house-captain...shuffling around the edge of the stage in greyish chinos/flannels and matching shirt...incredibly suburban-looking - in the old sense of the word - smiling nervously, looking kind of, well, lost...like a friendly/favourite uncle on the edge of alzheimers, a teacher supervising a chemistry experiment in a Late 60's Grammar School. Someone helping out on sports-day.

He'd watch the younger chaps in action - sort've checking that they were doing it correctly; but mostly stand back, looking bemused... occasionally, he'd trigger some noise-making toy, or tweak its motion, then step back again. And always that benign, bemused, slightly baffled smile. The smile of a tweed-clad gentleman boffin.

The sort that had secretly helped us win WW2 - who had probably seen some terrible things; who knew stuff - but didn't like to talk about it much.

The dullness - the unobtrustiveness of it all - seemed to suit him. He was the Anti-Gen-P-Orridge. How very unflashy - how very British it all was. A cliche, I know, but true nevertheless.

CARDIOVASCULAR ARMY

THE BLUE DWARF

From 1870, a 'Penny Blood'/'Penny Dreadful' - even tho it sold for, er, a shilling - by Percy B. St. John (that really ought to be a folk-singer's name!):



We're in Jess Nevin territory here. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if The Blue Dwarf hadn't turned up The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen somewhere or other. Everything else bloody has!

Copies go for a bit more than a shilling these days.

EARLY HELICOPTERS

Found a cool 2nd-hand book on helicopters in a charity-shop in Taunton a couple days ago. Must say, these v. early 20th century beasties make a nice change from the usual flapping-wing Da Vinci monstrositities and Moorcock ornithopters. That one at the top looks like the sort of old threshing-machine that grumpy, fingerless farmers used to use round here back in the day:



Hmmm: mostly French designs, by the look of 'em. Wonder why the French were so interested in early rotary-wing craft?

A quick Google returns some flimsy info:

"In 1784, the French inventors, Launoy and Bienvenue, created a toy with a rotary-wing that could lift and fly, and proved the principle of helicopter flight. In 1863, the French writer Ponton D'Amecourt was the first person to coin the term "helicopter" from the two words "helico" for spiral and "pter" for wings. The very first piloted helicopter was invented by Paul Cornu in 1907, however, this design was not successful."

Yep, indeed, I believe the earliest theoretical visions of helicopters were called pteropheres.

It still doesn't tell me why the French were so fascinated by the idea of helicopter-like craft - far more so that the Germans or British. Possibly because it initially spun off (sorry, accidental pun!) from the idea of adding aerial 'screws' to hot-air balloons and the French were a ballooning nation (tho obv. not all of them lol; tho that might make for an interesting scenario!)...um, okay, perhaps "balloon pioneers" might be a better phrase.

Jules Verne was inspired by D'Amecourt to write Robur le conquerant wh/ features a giant vertical-screw-lift flying-machine. Perhaps Verne possibly helped embed the idea of helicopter-like craft in French Popular Culture, but his countrymen had already been thinking about it long before then.

NEW ADVENTURES IN NEUROLOGICAL CAMOUFLAGE

BARNEY MILLER

Barney Miller. Fuck, man, I used to loove Barney Miller.

ZOMBY: DIGITAL FLORA

"Digital Flora": languid chimes; frost-encrusted flowers swaying in an ammonium breeze; purple-tinged anemonae rippling in the uncertain currents, their tiny fingers the colour of cyanates. Reminds me (ever-so-slightly) of some of B12's old records - tho this is urbanised in a different way; Dalston, not Detroit. A delicate whiff, a hint of some new form of Electronic Chamber Music; the beginnings of The Nu Baroque.


Dropping soon on Brainmath.

Some Zomby promo-tasters here.

Anyone else noticing how "Tron" has crept back onto the ol' cultural radar in the last couple years? Still looks as creepily claustrophic as ever, tho. I remember the Tron video-game they used to have in The Mermaid Hotel in Yeovil. And watching the film one night while tripping - that bit where he jumps down off a wall and smacks dn the trooper at the end of a column of guards, then takes his place. We got caught in a recursive loop watching that scene; must've played it over and over again 15, 20 times, just that 10 second sequence, rewinding the VHS-player until the gears n tape-transport ground themselves into potassium permanganate-coloured powder.

KOMPLEKSI/SONIC TEMPLE ASSASSINS

Artwork for forthcoming Sonic Temple Assassins vs. Kompleksi lathe-cut 7".

BLACKDOWN FT. DURRTY GOODZ: "CONCRETE STREETS" (ZOMBY RMX)

Forthcoming twelve on Keysound Recordings: "Concrete Streets" - Blackdown featuring Durrty Goodz - Zomby Rmx, vocal and instrumental, a mulched-up taster:

SAVAGE!

YEP, "SPOTIFY STILL SUCKS" SHOCKER, ETC

My friends are already sick to their teeth with me slagging Spotify, so I won't labour the point.

Still, this did make me laugh.

But why is everyone on the internet acting so surprised by it? - it was an open secret in the Music Biz. (Bob Dylan's already pulled out; expect a tsunami of other big acts to follow.)

What, you think the majors 'backed' it 'cos they're nice? *Lahrf!*

Or, was it - like Mulder from the X-Files - because you wanted to believe?

Interestingly, a couple friends who were early adopters mentioned ages ago that there were no canonical records by The Smiths on Spotify. Obv/ly that Morriseee bloke's not half as daft as he looks where money's concerned.

"Spotify is currently valued at $250m." LOL! Uh, why...?

Go an' buy some vinyl, you big jessies.

UM...

KEEP WORKING, YOU BASTARD!

Ooops, sorry if I startled you - no, I didn't mean you! I was just talking to myself.

BUBBLEWRAP GHOSTS

BUST DOWN THE DOOR AND EAT ALL THE CHICKENS #9

The latest ish of Bust... finally arrives, crashing through the undergrowth with your severed, half-chewed hand in its mouth.



(Includes stories by Shane Jones, Steve Aylett, D. Harlan Wilson, Christopher Higgs, Sean Casey, Ben Stein, Katy Wimhurst, and Ryan W. Bradley. Contains book reviews of Duncan Barlow's Super Cell Anemia and Jeremy C. Shipp's Sheep and Wolves.)

You should buy this. It will make you irresistible to both men and women. So irresistible that you will be constantly buried under an enormous mound of writhing bodies (just mistyped that as "biddies" lol). You will be the centre of a vast mobile orgy. A confluence of flesh. You will be extremely sore.

Eventually, you will have to be put into protective custody for various Public Health issues. But the police will want to constantly fuck you. They will stand outside your cell on heat, moaning and sighing and rubbing their crotches until their uniforms crackle with static. You will not get much sleep because of all the noise.

But you will be very popular.

THE DETROIT SPINNERS: RUBBERBAND MAN (PTS 1 AND 2)

Some kinda Stretch Armstrong Elasti-tantric Sex Thang going on at the end, there.

But what we really want to know is: who was the best - The Detroit Spinners or The Detroit Emeralds?

Votes please, people.

"DOGHEAD" BY JASE DANIELS

"Doghead": a very cool piece of film from Jase Daniels, an extremely talented artist/writer/animator whose work we dig v. much on Kid Shirt (just run a quick BloggerSearch and see if I'm lyin', bitch). This cat runs deeeep.

SLADE: "COZ I LUV YOU"

Bought a bag of old Slade seven-inchers in Glastonbury last w/end. Been mostly listening to them and, uh, Schoenberg. Never much liked Slade back in the day, tbh; Bolan and Bowie were my boys. Still, they've grown on me over the years and that's not a bad thing 'cos it means they still sound pretty damn fresh to me now 35+ years on. They aren't too over-familiar to my ears.

I finally watched "Slade in Flame" a couple years ago and it's a really terrific film; I totally recommend it, especially to any American readers as it's a window on a little piece of Pre-Thatcher England that's long gone. The band are surprisingly good actors - tho they're basically just playing themselves - and the film is quite seedy, dark and existential in places, not some glamorous celebration of the music biz. It features Diana Dor's husband Alan Lake (amongst other assorted beloved 70's Brit character actors). The soundtrack is a very underrated album and also recommended.

"Cos I Luv You" is a particular favourite of mine; the one that started a run of big hit singles for them. There's a weird echo of The Beatles running through this, I think - mostly the vocals and strings - despite the big, big glamstomp beat (a throwback to their Skinhead Moonstompin' days as Ambrose Slade). I also like the way - certainly in their early break-thru days - they still kept their long hair short on top: another Skinhead Throwback.



The lyrics are simple, but oddly touching in an unpretentious blokey kinda way. There's a wonderful atonal-but-jaunty fiddle solo that plays off the stompbeat turning it into an Almost-Jig. But my favourite bit is the slap-back whipcrack hand-claps that producer Chas Chandler brings in on the middle-section to underpin the violin (there's some great hand-claps on the second verse of "Mama Weer All Crazee Now" too. Recording good/great handclaps is an artform in itself and Chandler was clearly a master of the form. Lawrence from Denim was particularly adept at Pop Handclaps; tho he often favoured a Claptrap box rather than human skin palms). And on the outro the band all join in on some whooping wordless backing-vox that sound like a cross between stereotypical Red Indians from a 40's Hollywood Western and some drunken cossacks.

The B-Side's not bad either.

I keep meaning to buy some early (Ambrose) Slade records but they're usually overpriced whenever I do see them.

Just to confuse you, here's a video for "Look Wot You Dun" (complete with yet more big slappy whiplash sounds and rowdy outro chanting; we're on the edge of some sort of Canonical Definition here):



I wonder who "Rose" - the record's original owner - was?

When the going gets tough, the tough go to Sidmouth for the day:

KEKAZOIC

In a strange place right now - no, not Yeovil lol. But a strange place nevertheless.

"In a strange place..." Who was the last person I heard use that phrase? Oh, James V/VM. More on him in the next few days.

No, I am between a rock and a soft place right now. The soft place is the future - malleable, nebulous and mist-like; a swirl of unformed potentiae. Big Changes are on the cards - Big Changes and Conflicts - even the Womans Own horoscope agrees - but what and when?...well, no one knows. Is this the end of The Kek-w Canon? Do I become someone/something else? Well, probably not; I just like a bit of drama, innit.

I like Change. I need Change. Like James Taylor needs a sad song.

Must get those friggin' books finished and out. And a bunch o'other half-finished/half-baked projects that have been lurking around for a year or two also need polishing off and ejectin' out into the world. Clear the decks for a fresh start; a New Era. My era.

The Kekazoic.

Meanwhile, I'm off to Sidmouth for the day.

THE SWEET: LITTLE WILLY

STAIR-LIFTS #1 AND #2

I want one! It's the Poor Man's Maglev.

ICE BIRD ORIGAMI

These cool-looking origami bird inserts come courtesy of those nice folks at the Flemish label Zaag Machien:









These are part of the packaging for a soon-to-be-unveiled new Ice Bird Spiral release that the Zaagfolks are putting out. The working title is: Kraakplast 1893 (Unlive/Dead) - a sonic re-imagining of our set at Kraakfest earlier this year. No, it's not a Live Album...y'know some quickly bashed-out contract-filler like bands used to release back in the day (tho some of 'em were fun!); no, it's a --- ah, well, you'll have to buy it to find out.

I'm listening to a mix of it right now and it's sounding pretty fucking disturbing...

Earlier today I described Part Two as "a cross between some sort of Dada Happening from 1917 and a field-recording made in the suburbs of Hell." But I forgot to mention the early 60's Musique Concrete bits or the evil, squabbling Radio Children.

Part One is prob. less, er, terrifying, but equally unhinged, an interlaced piece w/ echoes of Psych, Drone, sculpted Noise, Old Skool Brit Industrial, etc running through it, w/out sounding too much like any of the above. I'm very pleased at how our sound - whatever it is - has really started coming together on recent releases like the Funeral Folk one or the forthcoming one on Scumbag Relations. (More info on this soon) I like doing these longer, multi-layer'd, more elaborate pieces - they feel more like weird kinomatic narratives than 'songs' or jams. Tho - just to contradict myself - there's also an album of 'shorter' pieces (varying from 1 to 8 minutes) in the works that's pretty schizophrenic - or rather MPD - in the ground it covers. We're also thinking about doing a DVD soon, too. Anyway, more on all this soon...

DANIEL POEIRA DEMO-REEL, ETC

Daniel Poeira is a Brazilian animator, film-maker, artist, writer, teacher and all-round dude. He was born and raised in Belo Horizonte - "the land of cachaça and Sepultura", apparently. Here's a compilation of various pieces of his work:



Dan is this week's special-guest on The Kek-w Quarterly. Be nice to him.

HOTFLUSH PODCAST #2: SIGHA / JAMIE VEXD

The second in an ongoing series of Hotflush Recordings podcasts is up, curtesy of Sigha. Hmmm: fond of his crackle, is this lad. But there's some nice push-me-pull-you mini-riddims on display at the beginning of this, stuff that almost-but-not-quite sounds more like malfunctioning pumps or industrial complexes than beats. Music For Space Stations, innit. Orbital architecture. Hissing airlocks. Weightlessness.

This doesn't quite go far enough for me, tho: I'd like to hear something that's closer to the sound of abstract machinery. Something that resembles a field-recording. Auto-mechanised music rather than machine-funk.

I do like those ratcheting wooden noises and woodpecker sounds that appear around 34 mins tho.

Hate to repeat myself, but I v. much like where Jamie Vexd is coming from right now; he's wrapped the Void Coldness of 'futuristic' mass.transit systems and near.now cityscapes up in a languidly sexy slo-mo swirl of liquid neon and flickering r.e.m.verts. His maybe-futures seem oddly plausible: they have a sonic three-dimensionality - an illusion of solidity - that suggests they're just a skewed/out-of-focus vision of 'Now' (streets seen from a different angle) rather than some Moment Still Yet To Come.

"In System Travel" could just as easily be Stokes Croft viewed from the back of a 3am cab-ride: smeary orange street-lights; tail-lights, reflections, shadows, glimpses of faces; shop-windows and signs transformed by the blurry, bleary limbo-light; a world seen underwater.

It's like listening to a lava-lamp.

MOSQUITO ORGY No.3

ABBA: I AM THE CITY

A great, very underrated piece of late-period Abba from the unreleased "Opus 10" album. Terrific chorus.



"I'm the street you walk, the language you talk
I am the city, the skyline is me and the energy
I am the city, the famous hotels
And the cocktail bars, and the funny smells
And the turmoil of cars, and the people
The air that you're breathing is me,
Yes, I am the city, you let me be."

Modernist poetry.

COLIN TUBB: HE TALK IN DUB

Colin Tubb: He Talk in Dub...

Yeah, the strip's title was a deliberate play on Beano/Viz character.ident shorthand, but it also sounds - in retrospect - like part of a Rap/Toast. We debated the title endlessly. "Like, is that too, uh, obvious?"

More sketches, this time featuring Colin's pal Vic. I think 2nd.Fade'll be running a short series of bits n pieces incl. some Non-Canonical drawings. Keep visiting. Please check out the strip when it appears in Woofah; I think you'll enjoy it.

Vic started out as a gangly raver.boy, but in more recent droodles he's slowly morphed into a sort of Camden Indie.Mod; the boy's changing, see? I think he's on the pull now - looking to inpress those college chickies and club.birds - even tho Colin's his bestest blud he needs to work off those hormones somehow. Will he ever pull? Well...

Colin always seems kinda beatific; forever in his own little private bubble of Colin-ness. I think he's content with who and what he is, but Vic's a lot more restless, twitchy, animated. He moves around enough for the two of them. What I really like about the pair is their total unpremeditated haplessness. They're too unselfconscious to be chancers. And that unspoken blood-brudder bond of theirs is pretty endearing too.

Colin only ever speaks in Dub. He's got an echo-repeat unit in his head; a synaptic miswiring. Musical Tourettes. Who knows what he's really thinking - are his thoughts encoded in some arcane analogue logic-loop, or is his DubTalk just the equivalent of a nervous teenage stutter?

Ah, but that smile speaks acres.

MOSQUITO ORGY No. 2

COLIN TUBB: THE GENESIS OF A MASS MARKETING PHENOMENON

Man Like 2nd.Fade posts the first batch of his initial design sketches for Colin Tubb - the soon-to be-legendary character n comic-strip that we created - oooh, when was it, A - last year some time?

I ought to post an excerpt from one of my rambling emails, just to prove that I actually did contribute something to this process other than sitting around in a smoking jacket and a cravat pouring myself large whiskeys lol. Bloody artists - everyone thinks they do all the hard work. But we know better, don't we, kids?

I think I mentioned before that we came at this from a post-modernist angle and did the merch first before the strip. Yep, we sold our soul to The Man before we even started. And who should buy a tee in the States but someone who turns out to be one of Mr. Bauler's friends! It's a scarily small world populated not by people, but coincidences.

The rather excellent Colin Tubb T-Shirts are still available from our friends at Highrise: you should go and buy a couple dozen and make Chris a multi-millionaire so that we can sue him.

Colin Tubb has a friend/sidekick (or is Colin his sidekick; I never quite figured it out) called...ah, but no doubt 2nd.Fade will be posting some more drawings in the coming days, so I won't spoil the fun.

The Colin Tubb strip will be making its debut in issue #4 of Woofah. Due any second now!

Buy the magazine, buy the T-Shirt, buy the chest-rub. Buy the sneakers, the compilation album and the trade graphic novel. Do not buy pirated Colin Tubb merchandise, especially those airbrushed picture-mirrors and the, uh, toothbrushes from Taiwan. They're not actually toothbrushes, if you catch my drift.

At last! British Urban Bass Music finally has the comic strip it deserves!

Meanwhile, A and I are discussing a new strip that involves *******.

No, not "fucking".

UNTITLED #4

I WENT SHOPPING

STANDFORD BATTLE AREA

Standford Battle Area.

This is up in John Effay Country.

"In 2009 a 12.5 acre village designed to replicate an Afghan village was added to the Battle Area for training of troops deployed in support of the War in Afghanistan. The site, built at a cost of £14 million, is state of the art and manned with ex-Gurkha soldiers and amputees from charity Amputees for Action, to simulate locals and wounded soldiers. The village includes houses, markets, and a mosque, and features such as a system that pumps out smells like rotten meat and sewage." Jeez.

Abandoned churches in the SBA.

LOST VILLAGES OF DORSET

Spotted this in a National Trust shop during a day-trip at the beginning of the year, then - duh! - left it in the glove-compartment 'til it got unearthed today whilst rumaging for a Lady Ga-Ga CD.



This book covers Dorset's equivalent of Western Ghost-Towns: evacuted villages, plague-spots, hamlets of the 'disappeared', many of which are now just spectral smears on the landscape; stone-mounds or wall-shadows only visible in arial photographs. One of the most famous is the old Milton Abbas:

"In 1780, Lord Milton, the first Earl of Dorchester and owner of Milton Abbey, decided that the adjacent market town, Middleton, was disturbing his vision of rural peace. He commissioned the architect Sir William Chambers and landscape gardener Capability Brown to design a new village, Milton Abbas, in a wooded valley (Luccombe Bottom) to the south of the Abbey. Most of the existing villagers were relocated here, and the previous village was demolished and the site landscaped." (fr/ wikifuckinpedia)

Yes, I'm sure Prince Charles would approve of that; it fits his own benign vision of gated showcase rural communities; local heritage-zoos populated by on-call crofters, kennelmen and withymen ready to do, uh, rural-y things for him when he's down from Town.

Tyneham also gets an honorary mention. If you've never been there, then you should; it's down by Worbarrow Bay next to the old MOD firing-ranges. This is Quatermass Country. Haunted Britain. Go out of season; winter's best.

Tyneham was evacuated in 1943 as part of the war effort and though it's been dabbled with down through the years (there's a museum there now) it's still mostly intact. The village has a strange phantom quality about it; it feels like you're walking through a set left over from some forgotten early-50's British SF movie. Even on a summer's day the air seems grainy and monochrome, as if you've wandered into a film-frame or someone's photo-album.

My own home-county of Somerset (which, for the benefit of any off-shore readers sits to the left of Dorset down in the West Country) has its own share of Ghost Villages: Sutton Bingham Reservoir - a mere 4 miles from my own front door - has, according to various wise, old pipe-smoking locals, a clump of cottages and an old church sitting deep down in the murk. Time for a Yeovil-based Dagon Cult, methinks.

And, yes: the Sutton Bingham Sunken Village Myth does indeed live on as part of a further attenuation of reality, putting in a guest cameo-appearance in one of my forthcoming Oberon Cummings stories.

DJ BONGO MAN MIX

A lovely little African-flava'd music-mix with its own internal wonk.logic from my Brussels-based pal DJ Bongo Man, via the RBDX blog...