I’m playing in Russia this weekend with Mr Armtone, Lynch Club in Yekaterinburg and Zvezda in Samara – check the poster for the 2nd gig – beautiful.
Red Snapper have made a video, directed by Danielle Callesen, to the radio edit of my remix of ‘Mambety’. Check it out above and buy the EP here.
I like how this ad for Hive laid the info out, incrementally bigger bites of info depending on how much time you have but referencing the site it was posted at (a train station). You probably can’t read it but you get the jist from the headings. (Click image for larger version)
Here’s a short film of what went on at the Sarm Studios playback event of ‘Welcome To The Pleasuredome’.
For people who didn’t get a copy of the box set or were restricted by territory (N. America and Japan were excluded because of licensing laws) you can now order it through Am*z*n and elsewhere (although beware, some places are taking the p*ss with prices).
Another great op-art .gif by Bill Tavis.
A year to the day that we presented our Solid Steel 25th gig in conjunction with The Hydra, a huge line up of Ninja Tune‘s current roster play at Studio Spaces in E1. Tickets on sale here.
It’s almost that time again, you know the one, if you’re organised and on top of things then these will not be left by the time the 25th rolls around. Sarah and Leigh at Factory Road have now added glow in the dark dinks (GIDD?) to their 45 adaptor arsenal (great stocking filler) and have updated their Xmas card range featuring different coloured dinks.
They are also hosting a spoken word poetry performance by Buddy Wakefield in Leicester on Dec 1st at the Silver Arcade. £10 entry gets you in the door, a free cup of hot cocoa and a £5 voucher to spend in the arcade.
You can now pre-order the new album from The Advisory Circle over on the Ghost Box shop and download 2 posters designed by Julian House on the label’s Belbury Parish Magazine blog. Also, just to be advised, the CD has 3 extra tracks.
Another great op-art .gif by Bill Tavis.
Ashley Wood‘s toy company, 3A, make an annual set for members who pay a fee for a special toy, access to buy all figures at a 15% discount and other perks throughout the year. You order in January and get 12 months of these specials, in the meantime you wait for the exclusive set to appear and this year buyers waited 11 months! It was actually worth it for the figure they produced in the end – spacegirl Lasstronaut from the Popbot universe – a pantie-less cosmonaut of unspecified origins but a pivotal role in Ash’s fictional world.
Inside the huge, obi-stripped box buyers find an embroidered patch, a print on heavy textured card, a protective print on tracing paper, a 12″x12″ book of Lasstronaut drawings and paintings, a t-shirt, membership card and the figure itself. The design and attention to detail throughout is top notch and the fully poseable figure has a new rubber ‘skin’ on the legs that covers any joints for a smoother design.
I’m doing a mix for the Dust & Grooves: Adventures in Record Collecting website to accompany a big profile on my record collection that they’re going to run soon. The mix is based around records that aren’t necessarily rare but that made a big impression on me when I first heard them and influenced my career etc.
I’ve made the selection, I just have to mix it – what I want to know is how well you think you know my tastes?
Which artists will feature? That might be pretty easy for some of you…
Which tracks from those artists might feature though? Bit trickier.
These will be artists and songs that blew my mind on first hearing and changed the way I thought about music.
Whoever guesses the most correct artists / tracks featured gets a mystery bag of records, comics and other bits and pieces I want to influence you with.
Put your answers in the comments below and I’ll pick the person with the most correct guesses after Nov 21st when the piece will be published. You can guess as many times as you want. You might have an unfair advantage if you know me personally but there will be no favouritism 
Also, if you’re waiting on the 2nd edition of the Dust & Grooves book it’s almost here and they have a nice little boxed set of 48 postcards available to pre-order (which I’m also featured in, see if you can spot the photo in the video). They’d probably make excellent Xmas cards.
Imaginary film sequel art show opening at iam8bit Gallery in LA next week. More info and images here on the Entertainment Weekly site.
‘How Psychedelia infected Hollywood Sci-Fi’ last night at the BFI was another head trip along the lines of the Julian House / Ghost Box event earlier this year. The program ran: Yantra (1957) by James Whitney, Momentum (1968) and Samadhi (1967) by Jordan Belson, Catlog (1961) by John Whitney, Solar Express (1969) by Augie Cinquegrana, OffOn (1967) and Moon (1969) by Scott Bartlett and Cibernetik 5.3 (1965-69) by John Stehura.
Whitney’s ‘Yantra’ was incredible, being that it took him 10 years to complete by hand-drawing the animations onto small filing cards and the name Pat O’Neill was new to me, someone I’ll have to investigate further. The Sci-Fi season at the BFI is really turning up some great treasures at the moment.
‘Duck Rock’ fans – this is very well done indeed.
A guy called Daniel Haaksman has put together a ‘sonic essay’ on Malcolm McLaren‘s ‘Duck Rock’ album with interviews, original sources, remixes and World’s Famous Supreme Team show snippets.
Only a BIT miffed because I’d been collecting material with DK to do exactly the same thing for several years and he’s beat us to it.
Well worth hearing and buying – more details here.
This opens on Thursday at The Print House in Stratford and stays up for a month. I was drawn to it be Nick Stewart Hoyle‘s inclusion but all the other artists’ work looks amazing too. I’ll be checking it out – more details here.
I did a remix for Red Snapper earlier this year which is just seeing the light of day now. Following on from their ‘Hyena’ album it’s the title track of their ‘Mambety EP’ and sits alongside a remix by Moist and album track ‘Dock Running’.
Out today on LO RECORDINGS you can get it here. Whilst you’re there check out the new Grasscut single too, a precursor to their next album that Lo are releasing next year. I saw them live a few weeks back and they were excellent.
At long last, after 8 months of work (off and on) the Frankie Goes To Hollywood box set ‘Inside The Pleasuredome’ was released on Wednesday 29th – 30 years to the day from its original debut. Back in November 2013 I was asked if I’d be part of the team that would put together the 30th anniversary set of Frankie’s ‘Welcome To The Pleasuredome’ album, for release in Autumn 2014 and this is what writer Ian Peel, designer Philip Marshall and myself came up with.
To put this is context, this was a big deal, a very big deal indeed. Frankie and by extension Zang Tuum Tumb records were a massive formative influence on me in my early to mid teens. The band and label created a phenomena in 1984 which I’ve still not seen the likes of again and, alongside Trevor Horn and his team, the group made some of my favourite pop songs ever.
The album was the most eagerly anticipated of the year and, while being uneven, contains possibly the greatest side A of music ever issued in the 17 minute long title track. The design of the label greatly influenced my own aesthetic for record sleeve graphics although I didn’t realise this until years later and I started the Art of ZTT website as an online archive of the old material which I feel has been neglected in the history of music design.
This set is officially sold out now as it was a Pledgemusic production but I’m told a quantity have been kept back of the 2000 made (never to be repressed) and will be available from some distributors to those who couldn’t pledge due to the restrictions of licensing territories.
Another great op-art .gif by Bill Tavis.
Definitely going to see this next April, looks like it will inject the sci-fi quota that I wanted more of in ‘Under The Skin’.
Not your usual ‘mix’ from Black Channels (that features the talents of Simon James aka The Simonsound). Very scary poltergeist-themed collage of eerie electronics and recordings of supernatural sightings. Listen until the end for the title reference.