That’s my kind of house, plucked from the ever-random King Megatrip blog.
Oddities
Things that don’t quite fit
Last night I saw Kid Koala‘s new show ‘Space Cadet’ and it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen with a DJ at the helm before. Part gig, part story, part stand up comedy and a lot of audience participation, it was not your usual gig. I took my family and there was a moment when we thought the kids wouldn’t get in even though we went to the 7pm show but it was fine. Everyone sat down and there was no PA – only headphones for everyone.
Eric sat down for most of the show and chatted as much as he played, featuring musical excerpts from his new book and CD – ‘Space Cadet’, the forthcoming blues album on Ninja Tune, his Yo Gabba Gabba routine (where he donned his Koala suit) and the always awesome ‘Moon River’ routine. Members of the audience were invited to play bells, music boxes and Asteroids (destroying pre-photographed faces of themselves),whirl tubes to the music and thumb wrestle!
As well as this there was a collection of original art and a table full of 3D plants featured in the book, games, space echo and turntable recorder to play with and cookies to decorate. Go and ‘experience’ it if you can, you’ll not see anything like it for a long time again.
Ever seen one of these? Nope, me neither, a digger named Nigel Smith mailed me these pictures wondering what it was he’d found many moons ago.
I said: “I’m presuming it’s an original promo / test pressing of Zen1?”
Jon More replied: “that is the original zen brakes”
Matt Black said: “its the test pressing. this is what I meant by the ORIGINAL original Ninja which I drew!”
Peter Quicke commented: “ha yes, first white label run, fond, vague memories 
although before my time of course”.
Nice find Nigel
[vimeo width=”640″ height=”360″]http://vimeo.com/24504225[/vimeo]
Just amazing. Melvin the Machine.com
I recently came across a couple of new postcard records, people are suddenly reviving old vinyl pressing techniques the likes of which I never thought I’d see again. The first one was by The Stepkids, a massive favourite of mine after only one album, on the excellent Stones Throw label, and came free with online orders of the new record. It’s a short exclusive track called ‘Bitter Bug’ and the grooves are cut right into the cardboard so the sound quality is not far short of dirt (but that’s not the point, it looks great).
The second one I chanced upon on Facebook and is the creation of Markus Oberndorfer as part of an art project called Lenscape#02 for which he created 33 copies. I was lucky enough to secure the last copy and the difference between this and the Stepkids one is that the grooves are cut into a transparent slice of plastic and the postcard is fixed to this.
I have several records like these and most get filed along with the flexi discs I collect as they are usually 5 or 7 inches in size and square. These postcards are, well, postcard sized and have the space to write a name and address on the back.
It was my boys’ birthday last week and Friday saw fourteen 6 year olds descend on a bouncy castle in 23 degree heat. To combat that I had made lollies from an adapted Star Wars ice maker, three flavours, orange, apple and lemon. They tasted even better than they looked.
Sent by my good friend David Vallade.
I just played a packed and sweaty gig in Seignosse, France at the Safari Beach Club. The drive was 90 minutes from Bordeaux so I amused myself with various iPhone apps.
There
Back
I could listen to this for ages, a simple yet fascinating idea, personalised for a number of North American cities, like a real time rolling KLF chill out piece.
Nice graphics on a French Border Control leaflet I picked up recently
Spotted a graffiti-covered car park on the way to the hotel, I had time explore so I tried out some more photo apps, Leme Leme, Classic INSTA and Autostitch.
Filling a train and car journey with more app experiments, Leme Leme and Tiny World. Kid Koala rocks the house at the Au Foin de la Rue Festival, France at the end.
Messing about with the Leme Leme app on the bus from Camberwell to Waterloo
The man…
via the Crack 2 blog, more here, utterly beautiful!
“These structures were commissioned by former Yugoslavian president Josip Broz Tito in the 1960s and 70s to commemorate sites where WWII battles took place (like Tjentište, Kozara and Kadinjača), or where concentration camps stood (like Jasenovac and Niš). They were designed by different sculptors (Dušan Džamonja, Vojin Bakić, Miodrag Živković, Jordan and Iskra Grabul, to name a few) and architects (Bogdan Bogdanović, Gradimir Medaković…), conveying powerful visual impact to show the confidence and strength of the Socialist Republic. In the 1980s, these monuments attracted millions of visitors per year, especially young pioneers for their “patriotic education.” After the Republic dissolved in early 1990s, they were completely abandoned, and their symbolic meanings were forever lost.
From 2006 to 2009, Jan Kempenaers toured around the ex-Yugoslavia region (now Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, etc.) with the help of a 1975 map of memorials, bringing before our eyes a series of melancholy yet striking images. His photos raise a question: can these former monuments continue to exist as pure sculptures? On one hand, their physical dilapidated condition and institutional neglect reflect a more general social historical fracturing. And on the other hand, they are still of stunning beauty without any symbolic significances.”
Much more detail on Kempenaers‘ book of these stunning monuments here and you can buy his book of the photographs on Amazon
Lots of my friends seem to be turning 40 this year, this is for them, illustrated by Richard Williams from ‘The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin‘.
