Available Feb 13th from 3A
Wish I could afford this, currently on sale on eBay – going at $1,525.00 with 1 day left. Nice story behind it from the seller too:
“My mother used to work for King Features in New York, and as a young child I would often accompany her to work. Many times to keep me entertained I would be seated in a screening room and shown Yellow Submarine, as I was a huge Beatles fan. One day, I found a large selection of Yellow Sub production material on the floor by the freight elevator in the process of being thrown out. Needless to say, I grabbed a lot of it (wish I’d grabbed it all!). I had a rather large collection of cels, backgrounds and production drawings. Eventually, I decided to part with them, and over the years I’ve sold them all, both on eBay and at auction through the It’s Only Rock and Roll auction house in NYC. Recently, however, I found that I still had this piece left.
Although it is about 45 years old and certainly shows its age, it is unique and lovely. Please feel free to ask any questions. If you bid, please remember that this is a one of a kind piece that has not been stored in a fancy vault somewhere…I was about 12 when I acquired the Yellow Sub pieces, and a plastic bag was my idea of storage. It is in far from perfect condition, but is also historical, unique, and from one of the most wonderful and classic animated films ever made.”
Love the idea behind this, not played it yet but will definitely be trying it out. Please watch this 75 second video to find out how playing this can help scientists beat Cancer sooner. More info here.
DJ Cheeba, DJ Moneyshot & DJ Food – ‘3-Way Mix’ trailer from Solid Steel on Vimeo.
Here’s a little short I just edited to promote the ‘3-Way Mix’ tour DJ’s Cheeba, Moneyshot and I are doing at the moment. It was shot by Jim Alexander at Solid Steel‘s 25th anniversary party at Fire in London last December. We’re still taking bookings so, if you want to see this in your town or city then check the details at the end.
The second volume of Ed Piskor‘s ‘Hip Hop Family Tree‘ – a history of rap music in comic book form – is out this summer. It features another round of guest artist pin ups and a few of these have leaked on the web in the past week or so. There will also be a free issue, drawing from both volumes and sporting a new cover, out for Free Comic Book Day this May.
La Boca have designed this lovely box set for the new Bombay Bicycle Club LP, ‘So Long’, which comes with a CD, a gatefold LP, an exclusive 7″, story & song book and a working Phenakistoscope (similar to a zoetrope). Find one at their site or see the beautiful fly posters of the artwork around town.
I’ve shamelessly stolen this from Steve Cook‘s Secret Oranges site. This version of Black Widow may not be pleasing the purists online but, as a Scarlett fan, all I can say is, ‘Damn!’.
Looks like they seriously upped the budget on this one too after the success of The Avengers.
After seven years and nearly 100 events, I Love Acid is set to finish this April as they concentrate on different things. Luke Vibert headlines with Plaid, Mark Archer, Affie Yusef, Placid and, of course, Posthuman. I’ve played for them a few times over the years and it’s always good fun with a top set of people and an up for it crowd. Sad to say I can’t be there as I’m already booked elsewhere but nice to see my name in the thank you list they put up. More info and tickets can be found here and there will be a very special acid-themed Solid Steel the week before the final gig.
BELOW IS NOT A FLYER LINE UP – THIS IS A THANK YOU LIST! (I think they are regretting not making that more explicit going by some online comments)
I edited this little promo together for Soundsci‘s forthcoming EP, ‘Expo 2014’, from Darrell Krum‘s excellent artwork files last week. It’s a 10″ sampler of 4 tracks + Bonus Beats for 2014’s releases on their World Expo label. For those who don’t know, Soundsci are a UK/US Hip Hop super group consisting of Jonny Cuba (ex-Dynamic Syncopation) and Ollie Teeba (The Herbaliser) who form the production team The Process from the UK.
From the US comes Audessey (ex-Mass Influence), U George and Oxygen (Sputnik Brown, Spox PHD). They have a busy year ahead with Soundsci releases, Ollie Teeba’s solo album and a U George solo LP and the 10″ showcases a track from each. Available on Feb 21st, go here for more info.
Fantastic work here by Alexandre ‘Zedig’ diboine – tons more over on his tumblr too.
The Electric Hoax Pt.5 by Pete Milligan and Brendan McCarthy. This strip appeared in the weekly UK music paper, Sounds, in 24 parts sometime between mid ’78 and ’79. Click image for larger version
I found these international posters for Berberian Sound Studio on the web – some lovely versions, especially these Tane Williams variants below from a film festival in New Zealand.
I went for a rather unique night out at the Science Museum on Friday, with fellow ‘music enthusiast’ Mark ‘Osymyso’ Nicholson no less. We were there to hear J. Peter Schwalm‘s reinterpretations of Kraftwerk numbers with the group Icebreaker in the IMAX theatre. Being a fan, and also a collector of cover versions of the band, it was a perfect evening out.
Kicking things off was a talk by David Toop, certainly one of my favourite authors where anything musical is concerned, his ‘Ocean of Sound’ is one of the best books I’ve ever read on electronic music. He didn’t dwell on the obvious, and pointed out that so much has already been said about the band that it was pointless to reiterate the carbon copy CV that the music press routinely trot out. Instead he attempted to recontextualise them by asserting that their roots were that of an R&B band. Citing The Isley Brothers as a parallel outfit in a clever, if somewhat unconvincing, set of examples he also made a sonic connection with the earliest incarnation of the band (and their pre-Kraftwerk ensemble, Organisation) and the electric era of Miles Davis‘ career. There were certainly similarities that I’d not considered before with this latter example but I wasn’t totally convinced with the former.
Thinking about it later I deduced that a better pairing might be Frank Zappa with Ralf & Florian – think about this for a moment:
Frank was influenced by classical composers like Boulez as much as the psychedelic rock underground but was never too keen to toe the line and be a part of a movement.
Zappa’s Mother’s of Invention were a rag bag jam band with a rotating line up of players with expert musical chops.
Zappa was a control freak who loved experimenting with the latest technology, quickly manouvering himself into a position with his label where he had full control. His early freak out experiments slowly streamlined into various concept records and, eventually, he went on to have commercial success too.
During the CD boom he went back to old master tapes and re-recorded new versions and parts of old songs with new inventions like drum machines and the Synclavier, replacing the original versions with new ones that he deemed superior (much to his fans’ dismay).
He largely left his past players behind but became a cult figurehead from a musical movement that stretched out to influence new generations after him.
All the above could be applied to Kraftwerk at one time or another – for instance, just substitute Boulez for Stockhausen in the first example and we’re off, but I digress…
In one of the main halls we filtered amongst the exhibits to hear The Balanescu Quartet play some of their versions of the band’s repertoire beneath a hanging bi-plane. As one of the first bands to release a record that heavily played on the fact that they had covered Kraftwerk it was fitting that they were on the bill, playing pitch-perfect versions of The Model, Autobahn and The Robots in a unique setting.
Then it was in to the IMAX theatre for the main event – Icebreaker – a 13 piece with two keyboard players flanking Schwalm in the center. Not as polished as Balanescu but more in keeping with the spirit of the works they were interpreting. They’d chosen an interesting set of pieces, some recognisable, some just reminiscent of – or influenced by – the Kraftwerk originals. It was a treat to hear mostly early to mid 70’s tracks, the sole 80’s inclusion being ‘Home Computer’ at the start. ‘Megahertz’, ‘Tanzmusik’, ‘Hall of Mirrors’ and a beautiful ‘Morgenspaziergang’ from the B side of ‘Autobahn’ were tackled, ending with a ‘driving’ (pun intended) version of the motorway classic which had me lulled into a semi-sleep before kicking in for a motorik finish.
We both really liked it and the performance was heightened by the split screen, black and white films of Sophie Clements and Toby Cornish that accompanied them. My only criticism was that it seemed too short but, altogether, it was a satisfying night out in a different venue, hearing old favourites in new contexts. The band are on tour in the UK in February and I’d recommend checking them out if you have a chance. More info here.
Now available – a new release by Sculpture on a 7″ picture disc with zoetropic tendancies – BUY HERE NOW – View with strobe 25 flashes per second or video camera 25fps, very high shutter speed, progressive.
Includes immediate download of 2-track album in the high-quality format of your choice (MP3, FLAC, and more), plus unlimited mobile access using the free Bandcamp listening app. It’s their best yet and the video below shows just how detailed and beautiful the disc can be when filmed spinning.
The Electric Hoax Pt.4 by Pete Milligan and Brendan McCarthy. This strip appeared in the weekly UK music paper, Sounds, in 24 parts sometime between mid ’78 and ’79. Click image for larger version.
Also – just in stores – a new strip by McCarthy, ‘The Deleted’, just debuted in Dark Horse Presents no.32.
One of the recent trends in comics has been the over-sized deluxe ‘original art’ edition of a book or artist’s work. These are reproductions of the original pages, sans colour, with all the pencil marks, printer mark up and notes, reproduced at the original size – usually ‘half up’ from the final printed size. Usually expensive (around the £100 mark) these beautiful tombs are fascinating artifacts and show how much detail is lost in the print process.
If there’s one issue that needs collecting in this way it’s Jon Totleben‘s work on issue 60 of Alan Moore‘s run on Swamp Thing from 1987. This self-contained story is a standalone in that it’s all collage rather than a straighter pen and ink style and features a sci-fi plot where Swampy is basically raped in space by an alien entity with the horn (I think).
Anyway, the terrible reproduction and flat colours flattened all the subtleties out of the art as these scans of some of the original art from the Cool Lines Artwork website reveal (where you can actually still buy some of the art if you have deep pockets).
Some of it has objects like metal chains and watch innards attached to it but it’s doubtful if this could ever be collected as the art is now scattered to different owners after Steve from Cool Lines bought the majority of it it from the artist. Maybe DC has decent quality scans of it with all the separations somewhere and will see an opportunity milk some more of the Moore cash cow at some stage.
It’s been bought to my attention that the original version of my ‘Raiding The 20th Century’ mix is now 10 years old. Originally a 40 minute guest mix on Eddy Temple-Morris‘ XFM radio show, The Remix, it was my attempt to construct a rough history of ‘cut up’ music in the midst of the mashup up/bastard pop craze. Taking in Music Concrete, avant garde tape composition, radiophonic tape experiments, megamixes, edit kings, scratching, early sampling and of course mash ups, it was one of the most densely mixed and edited things I’ve ever done. When it debuted it was put up on the Ninja Tune site at the time and quickly went a bit viral, causing the server to melt down and the site to grind to a halt by the next morning. More info here and here.
So tempted to get the ‘how-to’ build book for this version of Kaneda‘s bike from Akira made from Lego. It’s been made by The Arvo Brothers and is only available direct from them – more info over at Crunchyroll.
