HACKER FARM @ COTLEY BARN (FLIER)

A flier for sunday's event, courtesy of Natalie P (who says: "It's official! Tithe barns are IN!"):


Liz, Natalie and Gary have all done some really amazing work at the barn over the last 2 or 3 weeks. And the venue is pretty damn awesome too. You should see the vaulted roof. I've been to smaller churches.

The barn is open FREE to the public friday (tomorrow), saturday and sunday, but sunday's event'll def. be super-special.

I'll post some taster photos soon as I get a moment - maybe later tonight or tomorrow.

Actually, Loki, Jack-the-Treacle-Eater - the 'place' near Barwick / Yeovil Showground, not the, er, 'person' - turns up in my story "Tullis Immortalis"...

PAUL LAFFOLEY

A brief cross-section thru the visionary diagrammatic-artist / skewed ideas.engine that is Paul Laffoley.

CARLY PTAK, ETC

Also: Carly Ptak. (hypnotist, artist, food-gatherer-and-preparer, circuit-bender, forager, Radionics-ist)

An old interview.

Nautical Almanac, obviously:

TWIG HARPER

Twig Harper: damaged post-acoustmatic / music of the wonky, lava lamp-like spheres.

Also here.

"I am [...] returning to recording new material for the end of time. Noore dual hobbit bleack poles for all. Recharged revamped and everything is all ways into its proper place..."

FAT WORM OF ERROR

KEMPER NORTON: "LOWENDER" EP

While I was away on saturday, old Kid Shirt pal and musical ally Kemper Norton mailed to say he / they had a new free-to-ether EP - "Lowender" - available for download.

And rather wonderful it is too. I'm particularly smitten by "Allantide".

The found-voices that appear on parts of the EP sound like a distant (but far more melodic) Cornish cousin of some of the drifting ghost-voices we caught on tape at car-boot sales and incorporated into our non-gig installation work.

Nice work, Kemper!

SUN ARAW: "MA HOLO"

Pretty-much near-pitch-perfect Fifth World Musics.

19F3 FLOPPIES

MPA: "ON THE SUNNY SIDE OF THE SKULL"

Bummerism, or: the Internet-Only Release of "On The Sunny Side of The Skull" - one of a handful of lost 'mythological' albums (this one from 2006), by Medroxy Progesterone Acetate, one of my favouritest recording artists in the world.

This one was flummox'd / side-swiped by assorted labels-that-sunk-without-trace and a rip-off merchant who sold the master-tape on eBay as a "special edition of one". We have a Brit swearword specially designed for twats like that.

It's kinda quasi-tragic to me that this never came out on a 'proper' label. I woulda put it out (says the man who's taken two years to not put out a comp and is struggling to find 5 mins to put various other musical projects to bed, yet still finds time to blog instead of getting on with urgent work. Methinks me doth protest too much. *sigh*).

Anyway, here it is. You might not like it, but I certainly do.

On The Sunny Side Of The Skull by m*p*a

PS: Listen on headphones - it's awesome.

HACKER FARM @ "OUT OF CONTEXT" EXHIBITION, COTLEY BARN, NR. CHARD

Somerset Art Weeks 2010 Special Event

Out of Context: Artists Talk & Live Performance
Event Date: Sunday 3rd October, 2010
Time: 2pm to 5pm
Venue: Cotley Barn, near Chard
Exhibition: 18 September to 4 October, open 11am to 6pm (Thur to Sun).

On Sunday October 3rd, the artist group, Hacker Farm will give a live performance at Cotley Barn between 2pm and 5pm, using hand-soldered electronics, circuit-bent toys and reclaimed local materials. During the event, Hacker Farm and artists Liz Fathers, Gary Dickins and Natalie Parsley will talk about their work in the ’Out of Context’ exhibition, most of them in response to the rural setting of Cotley Barn.

For the Out of Context exhibition at Cotley Barn, Hacker Farm have created a series of pieces designed to enhance and comment on the environment in which they are housed. The rear room has been converted into a makeshift medieval cinema showing modified footage of cows and milk-production - a post-modernist version of a tithe. In the main room, a “farm-yard sound-system” housed in rusting milk-churns and salvaged agricultural scrap plays extracts from Music For Imaginary Milking-Parlours, an audio-piece constructed from field-recordings made in local dairies and cow-sheds. The sounds were digitally ‘distressed’ until they became ghost-like and impressionistic, suggesting a spectral, sometimes unsettling post-rural landscape.

Elsewhere, an Atari Punk Console - a homemade noise-generator that emulates the sounds of a vintage 1980’s games-console - has been embedded in an old farm bucket, enabling visitors to create their own hands-on, site-specific soundtrack.

Liz Fathers creates two installations in response to the history and surroundings of Cotley Barn, including a cider apple spiral and 200 balloons. Gary Dickins will create new work using found objects from the abandoned farm yard. Natalie Parsley’s farm tools painting is inspired by her visit to her grandfather’s farm. By displaying her work, she gives the everyday object a new life.

For more information about the exhibition and artists taking part, please visit here.

About Out of Context...

Out of Context is an exhibition/project bringing together artists in Somerset to create new work in response to the environment, architecture and cultural background of a medieval tithe barn. Organised by Somerset Art Works (SAW), an organisation aiming to develop opportunities for Somerset artists, Out of Context aims to promote interesting contemporary art that is relevant to the wider public. Out of Context is part of Somerset Art Weeks 2010, a county wide visual art event featuring more than 300 artists in over 200 venues/studios across Somerset.

For more information about Out of Context and Somerset Art Weeks 2010, please email: artweeks [at] somersetartworks.org.uk

Somerset Art Works (SAW) is a non-profit making organisation promoting the Visual Arts and creating opportunities for Visual Artists in Somerset through advocacy, promotion and development.

I'm looking for a publisher for my micro-novella "Tullis Immortallis" which - at 15k - is a bit of a bugger to find a home for. It's too long for a short-story antho and is too short to publish as a novella.

Stlylistically, it doesn't fit with my other 15k+ micronovellas (which could be categorised as 'hyperfiction' or something), so it doesn't feel right bundling it up with them and self-publishing or something.

This is a sort of West Country New Wyrd type thing, I guess. Very, er, 'English', I suppose. A bit quirky, but also fairly commercial too. Maybe I could try Weird Tales, but I doubt they'd bite. At this point an agent would be very handy, but I really don't have the sort of profile to attract one or the juice to reel in a mid-league editor / publisher.

If anyone is interested in putting it out, then mail me on my dumpmail address kekw10cc [AT] googlemail [DOOT] com. Some money would be nice, btw. You don't write something that long over a lunchtime, so would be cool to get some renumeration for my efforts.

Basically, the story follows the main protagonist thru 400+ years of life on the run from a secret cabal - maybe real / maybe imagined - who want to dissect him in order to learn the secret or eternal life. It's a mixture of dark pseudo-occult fantasy and psychological spy-thriller.

Here's a brief excerpt - a section set in (you guessed it!):

It was 1973 and they were tripping on acid down in John’s basement flat. John was playing something by Yes on the B&O deck and speakers he’d bought for thirty quid from the junk-shop on the corner. His pinched, weasel-like face was rigid with tension, lips protruding out in a half-pout as he air-guitar mimed a Steve Howe solo: breeanng-brakka-brak…pyoww! “Fucking ace, this bit!” he yelled, “Listen!”

Scott looked up from the electric bar-fire. He had been counting the glowing spiral ridges in the heating-element. It was like a tube of solid DNA or something. But a chord progression in the track had caught his attention. There it went again: a tricky, Baroque-sounding arpeggio that underpinned Howe’s fretwankery: m.1-I, m.2-V^6, m.3-vi&V^7/V, m.4-V…

Scott recognized it instantly. “I wrote that,” he said.

“Fuck off, Tully, you spaz…" John wind-milled his left arm, as if playing some monolithic, never-ending Pete Townsend chord. He made a strange, strangulated noise; a half-laugh that sounded like some new language. “You couldn’t have possibly written this. It was written by…written by…” He scanned the gatefold sleeve for clues. “Wakeman, Howe and - fucking hell! What the fuck’s that?” He dropped the sleeve and recoiled in horror from some invisible threat.

Brummie Dave grinned up at him from beneath the table. “You’re messing with forces beyond your comprehension, John,” he said, ominously.

John studied him suspiciously. “Don’t say things like that. You’re freaking me out.” He bit his thumb nail and laughed nervously. “You’re like a fucking elf sat down there in your cave.”

“Elf? I’m bloody Sauron, you wally. I have pure evil running through my veins…”

“1687,” said Scott, resisting the urge to touch the bar-fire. “Blackfriars. That’s where I wrote it. It popped into my head. Just like that - ” He snapped his fingers and recalled the moment as if it were five minutes ago. The scene stretched out in front of him like a painting. He could even smell the horse-dung and the human excrement that littered the road. A Scratch ‘n’ Sniff landscape. Imagine that hanging in the National Gallery, he thought. “Now some fucking Prog band’s ripped me off….”

“I know you’re a mature student, Tully, but that’s just bloody ridiculous,” snorted Brummie Dave from under his “special table”. He looked like a pterodactyl now or the bloke on the back on that Amon Duul II album.

John put his hands over his ears. “Stop it, stop it - stop it! You’re sending me over the edge…”

“Watch out, John!" cackled Brummie Dave, brandishing a Yes album-cover. "You’re…Close To The Edge!” He laughed and the room turned itself inside-out.

POST-PREVIOUS POST STOP PRESS:

Yesterday's radio interview was a LOT of fun to do. Simon Parkin - the breakfast-show host - was a really nice fella. We were chatting a bit off-air, before / after, during weather-updates, etc and he seemed genuinely interested in what we were up to.

I suggested to him that I might take an iPlayer stream of the interview (I'm told it's about 1hr 42 mins in - thanks, Nick!), mulch/mash it up and turn it into a track...and this is now definitely on my To-Do List.

In the end, we didn't play live, but we did demonstrate the Atari Punk Bucket (and use it as an amp to play a severely atonal John Cale-esque bowed-eukele skreeeeach). Simon also gamely re-played a slivver of our recent live performance on Jonny Mugwump's Resonance FM show. Which was exceptionally cool of him, considering his breakfast-time demographic.

Thanks to those of you who tuned in.

Afterwards, we went out to Cotley to do some work / prep on our installation and hold the fort while visitors wandered round the barn. Some much-delayed info on this later, soon as I get the kids to bed...

PREVIOUS POST STOP PRESS:

We might even be playing live in the BBC studio in Taunton - maybe using a cut-back version of our live gear - or possibly demo-ing some of our toys / sounds.

On a breakfast show!

Crikey. What's the world coming to?

HACKER FARM ON BBC RADIO SOMERSET

So, it appears that we - "we" being Hacker Farm - will be appearing on BBC Radio Somerset tomorrow morning, some time around 8:45-onwards apparently, talking about, er, whatever it is we do.

Is there actually a BBC Radio Somerset, or did I just make that up?

*Googles*

Nope, here it is.

I'll be honest with you - I've absolutely no idea who're we're talking to, where we're going or what the deal is lol. Suppose I'd better find out pronto; this cavalier fly-by-seat-of-pants attitude to life will only ever get you as far as the local corner-shop if you're not careful.

*Hands fly across keyboard* like...like, um The Flash checking out internet porn.

Crikey, can we really be on Saturday Breakfast with Simon Parkin? Nah. Shurely sum mishtake.

No, I'm up for that.

Farmer Glitch has packed his thermos, apparently.

It's a long way to Taunton. May have to take me waders.

THE ATARI PUNK BUCKET

Courtesy of the ever-industrious Farmer Glitch. I give yooooou:

The Atari Punk Bucket. Taaaa-daaaa!

Totally gutted - and I mean TOTALLY GUTTED - that I can't make the Dolphins into the Future / Ducktails / Woodtripper show at The Cube, Bristol, tomorrow. I think it could potentially be The Show of The Year. And at my favourite venue too.

Gutted.

But there's just too much goin' on around me right now, home- and work-wise, so unless I grow another body or three or bleb off my consciousness, like some weird bloated mutant paramecium-thing I'm jus' gonna have to let that one go.

As longterm readers'll be aware, I've been a big fan and supporter of Lieven Martens for ages now. I've waited, like, three years or more to see him play live. I nearly got to meet him in at Kraak in Brussels last year - he wasn't playing - but he'd vacated his stall in the main venue and had disappeared off half-an-hour earlier, so I hung around for a while and bought a few things - this was gone midnight by now (shopping for cassettes and old records at 12:15 at night - bliss!!), but he vanished. Prob. saw me coming or something. Leiven is a true one-off, an originator. I just love his whole schtick; his restless imagination. He's an honoury cetacean.

Ah, well, maybe another day.

But, ah...well, see: he let me interview him a few months ago - one of many, many things I've not got round to posting, that I really must sort (Incl. a big Hellvete interview) - so, in Lieven's honour I'll post the interview here soon.

I love being a total fanboy where certain acts are concerned; it's just soooo yeaaahhhhct. Heh.

But I've been thinking about this stuff the last couple days; maybe it's time I stopped living so, um, vicariously. I keep thinking: fuck, this is gonna be the Show of the Year and I'm gonna miss it. But then the mighty Farmer Glitch started talking about some of the things he's got planned for our forthcoming Hacker Farm super-show next weekend and I started thinking: hmmmm...you know, I like where he's coming from with this...we've got a nice bit of space for once, some room where we can stretch out our legs and go a bit crazy with our live set-up and our amplification gear...maybe we can get some tables and junk and weird furniture in, go a bit mental.

So, I'm thinking: nah: fuck it, let's make our gig the Show of The Year!

And if we don't quite get there, then maybe the next one instead, or the one after that.

Time to step up, I think.

Yeah.

Today, however, I have mainly been sick.

"Complaining is a coward's drug." - D. Poeira.

A slow week blog-wise - for which I apologise - but v. mucho going-on house rebuild-wise, plus catching-up-on-sleep from London Resonance Trip last wkend and then slowly ramping-up involvement in next Hacker Farm Installation-Project / Show (this will get increasingly hectic over the next few days, climaxing (ooo-er, missus) at the end of the month-ish).

I'll post on this fairly soon. For now, all you need to know is that Farmer Glitch is building an Atari Punk Bucket.

Mostly been trying to nail the last part of an episode break-down for a new comic-book project - the sort of thing that a Proper Comic-Book Pro would probably put-to-bed in the course of a quick 5-minute fag-break. This eluded me for a couple days, but then - as is usually the case - suddenly resolved itself, unbidden, in a rapid ideas-rush that I don't even remember typing.

A Synopsis Black-Out.

Open eyes, press SEND.

This afternoon I hung out with Shaky Kane (under the guise of looking-after-the-kids-while-wife-is-at-work) which is always an extremely agreeable way to spend a few hours.

LIL B: "IM HEEM"

SAXANA

70's Czech Teenage-Witch Comedy Movies via Breakfast in the Ruins.

Best. Haircut. On. A. Girl. Ever.

PS: Was pleased - yet, um, oddly unsurprised - that the Biba Look has recently re-emerged on fashion catwalks.

NAT WEST BANK, SEATON

HIGH FIDELITY SOMERSET

PAINTING WITH LIGHT

Via Mister Warren Ellis and BERG:

Some rather wonderful iPad Light-Paintings:

Making Future Magic: iPad light painting from Dentsu London on Vimeo.

INNA SESSION

Saturday: Ye Ancient Guild O'Blogs (Sou' West Chapter) meets Blog:net South:East; it was like some classic JLA / JSA Earth-1 / Earth-2 Team-up. Or vice-versa.

Roll-call:

Jonny Mugwump.

Loki from Idiot's Guide to Dreaming.

John from Uncarved.

Bob from West Norwood Cassette Library.

Matt from Woebot / Hollow Earth / Cybore.

2ND Fade.

Nick aka Gutterbreakz / Ekoplekz.

Farmer Glitch.

Time Attendant.

And, duuhr, myself.

Many thanks to Jonny M and Paul TA for their wonderful hospitality and kindness. They were terrific hosts and I had a really great time. These guys are broadcasting week-in / week-out - sending consistently great shit out into the airwaves and digital substrata. This is a big personal committment. Support them.

The South-West crew are all good friends of mine - Matt's a lovely fella, but I hadn't seen him for about 3 years or so, so it was great to catch up. John, Bob, Jonny and Paul I'd never actually met before, but were terrific company, great fun and really easy to hang with. The grins in the photos say it all.

I've got nothing but love and respect for all those guys. Our individual niche.tastes are irrelevent; what really shines though is their enthusiasm and passion - not just for music, but for all the cool and righteous shit they're into. When you get a group of people like that together in the same room, the energy levels go off the map.

We're just nodes in a network, see? There's dozens - hundreds - of other similar-minded folks out there. Some are on my link-list, some not. When people connect, they become empowered; they get stronger.

Hats off to you all - whoever you are - wherever you are.

It sounds corny, but: Make yourself known. Hook up.

I thought Nick's set was really great: some sort of skeletal Dub thing going on there - imagine if a sort of minimalish proto-Dubstep vibe was applied to early Cabaret Voltaire drum-box patterns, along with echoes of Old School Industrial and 60's / 70's boffintronica. Yes.

We all had slight tech.hitches: Nick's guitar didn't wanna play; I couldn't coax any loops out of my box until the final jam and The Farmer's FX-buttons were playing at silly buggers, but the session vibe was sooo relaxed that it didn't seem to matter. We all just surfed the moment and got to where we needed to get to.

Audio Stream / download here.

ROAD-TRIP

Packing ready to fuck off to London: spare pants, ear-plugs, rechargeable Marks n Spencers eco-batteries, plastic toy kettle.



To get to the Big City, Steve and I will have to negotiate several small unhappy dukedoms, pay tolls, trade beads, trinkets and hostages, show signed-and-sealed Royal Rights of Passage, climb a small mountain, barter our souls with Lord Vwi'vvuv'iii of Trowbridge, fight bandits, were-bears, monkey-men, trolls, etc, etc.

Apparently you have electricity in the houses there.

We've heard stories about the lights...thousands of them, millions. And horseless carriages too.

This is like...like magic to me. If we survive, then - oh! - the tales we will tell when we return.

SCRUMPY & WESTERN

Via the mighty Dubversion:

Scrumpy & Western. A one-stop shop for West Country Music. Includes The Wurzels, Acker Bilk, Surfin Turnips and a few others that pop up on this blog from time to time.

The Cornish Wurzells (!!???) are a new one on me, though.

I like to think that maybe Hacker Farm are also part of the Cidernuum in some skewed way.

WE FEAR SILENCE: PEVERELIST / GUIDO / HYETAL / SURGEON

After the J Mugwump Resonance Show on saturday, it appears there are plans afoot to go to this:




Main Room: Shed - Live, Surgeon, A Made up Sound, Bleep43 DJs.

Bar: Punch Drunk Records: Peverelist, Guido, Hyetal, Deadly Rhythm Soundsystem.

Well, it's just up the road @ CABLE, near London Bridge, so it would be rude not to cheer on our West Country pals in the Punch Drunk crew and buy them a few beers, eh?

We were supposed to be playing in Wells, Somerset, tonight - in a theatre, as part of the opening of Somerset Arts Week. But it's been cancelled.

There were some concerns about noise-levels, apparently. But - hey! - we can do quiet.

I meant to wish Nick well for his set at Dubloaded, but I've been snowed in with various stuff and was also semi-labouring under the miscomprehension that he was playing tonight. Gah! Sorry.

Anyway, hope you knocked 'em dead, Nick.



Think I've got that Small Stone FX-box. Also got a Danelectro FAB somewhere, but a different one to those two. Mine's a darker red, though it might be the light in that photo. Can't even remember what it does lol. Maybe it was a flanger.

HOT CHOCOLATE: "EMMA"

GALA DROP

A couple years ago I wrote about an awesome Portuguese band called Gala Drop.

The link seems to have long-since disappeared from the FACT site - pah! but fear not: I will reprint the article here on this site in a few days and it'll almost certainly appear in an augmented / expanded version in Skullfood - my (eventually) forthcoming book of articles / interviews w/ assorted sub-underground artists (you're supposed to cheer at this point! Yes, yes, of course you're going to buy it; fill up my comments-box with drooling fanboy miasma, etc, etc).

To cut a long story short, I thought their debut LP was wonderful. It ticked a whole bunch of Fifth World Music boxes that I felt needed ticking at the time - and still do - (interesting to hear the 5W term getting picked up a couple times on the internet; and did I see it in Wire too? It's kind of an obvious n slightly cheesy term, but - well - sorry, but I got dibs on it.)

Well, anyway...they have a new 12" EP out very soon...Nelson from G D has just sent me some mixes of the new tracks and IT IS FUCKING FABULOUS!

No, really: it is seriously good.

"OVERCOAT HEAT" is less overtly, errm, Can-ish, but keeps that beautifully spacious, dubbed-out flavour G D perfected on their first wave of recordings. Fluid, light-fingered, skipping drum-work and liquid bass grooves; oodles of percussion and gtr arpeggios: like some weird fusion of Post-Punk dance and Latin/4th World Rock. With echo-boxes.

"IZOD" is just...woahhh! It starts off kinda Kraftwerk-with-a-swing meets Cosmic Disco: ooooh and when the percussion n drums come in: hairs sit up on my arms. Patrick Crowley goes off-road, deep down into the Amazon rain-forest. Gently pumping synthbass; just beautiful. I can't wait to play this out; I just know people'll be going: "What is...this...?"

"RAUZE" has some weird / vague afterecho of Cluster/Harmonia synthlines sitting behind / beneath it, but with acres of rattling / tinkling percussion and echobounced drums; it zigzags / transports itself through a series of percussive vignettes / episodes. Wailing vocals drop in and out, meshing with the keys.

"UNTITLED" starts with mutant bird-call sounds and a loping bass-gtr / drum-bounce, wooden percussion, layered keys and an intermeshed gtr-line...it kinda shimmers and glimmers. More forest.funk. Sunlight, a canopy of trees; log-drums, drum-synthesisers. The last minute or so sounds like, I dunno, like bits of it could've been recorded simultaneously in both the 70s and early 80s...

The band stretch out more on this release; they sound more confident, more assured...I hope they can continue to hold their nerve, keep ploughing on, growing.

There's a lightness, an airiness to most of the production. Like Eli / Gentleforce's recent album - which is miles away in terms of style - there's an honesty of intent about Gala Drop's music. They're just doing their thing and. most importantly, I believe them.

I'm not kidding, you really can't fake this kind of thing. I hear things, year in / year out, that - if you believed their accompanying PR-blurbs - purport to be this kinda music - some fantastic fusion of this n that. But when you listen it's always hollow and kinda shit.

Sure, I know I get kinda carried away and over-hyperbolic sometimes, but I can't help what I like. And I like this.

I like being a fan of stuff. And I make no apologies for that.

Anyway, I was v. chuffed for the band when Nelson told me: "We are going to play two shows in New York; one on September 10th in Chinatown, at a No Ordinary Monkey party organized by Golf Channel’s mentor Phil South; and then on September 11th at The Beach Concerts in Governors Island, invited by Panda Bear."

So, if you're in NY on the 10th / 11th of this month, then please go check 'em out.

The EP drops on Golf Channel Recordings in the States and on the band's own Gala Drop Records elsewhere.

Then - coincidentally or maybe not - the mighty Jon Galkin from DFA Records mails me last night about Gala Drop and says: "Remember 2 years ago u gave me their CD? Well..." He mentions the Panda Bear show and then says - and I guess I'm allowed to say this out loud - that they'll be putting out a dance twelve from Tiago (one of Gala Drop)...

Seriously, I'm soooo damn pleased that this band is starting to get the attention they deserve.

Somethings are just, you know, organic.

CATE LE BON

Cate from "The French Quarter of Cardiff" (apparently). Has connections w/ Gorkys and Super Furry A; nice fuzz gtr; great video.

AIDAN BAKER, ETC

Meditative textured ambidrone from Aidan Baker, who also plays in Post-Metal/Doom/Gruegaze outfit Nadja (or, as they call it, "violent make-out music").

HACKER FARM BUNKER SESSION #2

So, yeah...Farmer Glitch n I decamped last night to John's Bunker to make some noise. We recorded about 70 mins of audio - and it's sounding pretty damn good - all sorts of sounds spewing forth in a contiguous one-take electronic vomstorm, from nasty-sounding horror-film atmospherics to abstract robo-rhythms and psychedelicised noise.

I was particularly impressed by the Farmer's latest batch of homebuilt kit. I was so knackered yesterday that I forgot to take some photos of the sesh, but here's a pic of his workbench to give you a flava:



The Farmer was making some v. tasty sounds, I can tell ya. He sent me a brief slice thru the session. This bit sounds like, I dunno, some kinda glacially-slow Electro-Industrial Concrete-Dub.

Play Loud.

HACKER FARM: "BRANTANO / BABYLON HILL" by kekw

Hmmm: just finally upgraded from - *ahem* - IE6 to Firefox 3.6. Didn't realise how shit the blog-header looked in Firefox.

Actually, didn't realise how shit the blog was - full-stop.

Seemed okay on an older version of Firefox on the ASUS. Apologies to any foxy Firefox readers.

Anyway, I think I've now fixed the header and a couple other structural things that looked a bit crumbly. May tweak it a bit more over coming days.

I expect it now looks shit in Internet Explorer.

Tough.

Ironing my daughters' school shirts.

Heh. An underground noise.artiste's work is never done.

NOCHEXXX: "RITALIN LOVE"

Nochexxx on Ramp Recordings.

FARON YOUNG: "IT'S FOUR IN THE MORNING"

Sadly, I'm old enough to remember when this song originally came out. I think it was briefly in the charts in the UK.

I've always liked it on some level, but not entirely sure why.



Prefab Sprout referenced it on one of their hits.

Kid Kid Kid Shirt: "The first human being was...was...

Kid Kid Shirt: "A caveman?"

Kid Kid Kid Shirt: "...was Jack Wilson."

HACKER FARM LIVE ON RESONANCE FM

Hey! Hail, hail to the mighty Jonny Mugwump for hosting us Hacker Farm / Junkcrunch backwoodsnoisemen on his Exotic Pylon show on Resonance FM.

Yep, that's next saturday evening between, uh, 9:30 and 11:00....we'll be playing a live set and our good friend and West Country blog.colleague Nick Edwards aka Ekoplekz will also be throwing down a live soundmulch. The three of us may even be playing a joint set together too, but we'll just have to see how the evening unfolds.

Jonny's archives are here. You should dig on in and have a listen.

Prior to JM's show, you can catch a broadcast by crate-digger n librarysmith extraordinaire Jonny Trunk.

You can catch all this stuff on an old-fashioned wireless if you live in the Greater London area or else stream it direct via the good ol' steamenginenet if you live in the late 1830's like we do.

There's also talk of a South-West / Cockney blogger meet n drink-up - a Convergence of Myth.Spheres of Near-Moorcockian proportions - possibly in the Kings Arms, Borough at some point in the evening. Sarf-East meets Sou' west.

"Proper job".

KID KID SHIRT SELF-PORTRAIT

Gah. Fried the circuit-board! Was gonna mod this and use it in next week's shows...

FLURB #10 GO-LIVE

FLURB #10 crash-lands into your puny human planet like an enormous alien conflarct made from tiny writhing black glyphs. It will rewire yr heads, mammalmeat.

Best. Goddamn. SF/Lit. Mag. On. Net. (??? Discuss)

"We're changing the world, one word at a time." - R. Rucker Snr.

Read it.

Oh yes.

Bruce Sterling, John Shirley, Ian Watson, Rudy Rucker...

If this was a paperback, you would bloody well buy it, wouldn't you?

I am extremely excited and proud to be part of this.

I have to just tell one quick story about Ian Watson...when I was a teenager the mobile library used to park up outside my mum's during the school / college holidays and I'd load up with SF novels. I can remember reading Ian Watson's The Jonah Kit in hardback not long after it came out and thinking: who is this guy? New hot writer on the block and a Brit too...

Zoom forward 35 years. That teenager still lives inside my head and he can't believe I've got a story in the same magazine as Ian Watson.

And on a weird television thing that lets you type words and talk to people in other countries.

s'SF, innit.