Dystopia 2

Obviously speeding on an enormous chocolate egg high, the denizens of Clapham descended en masse on Lost Society this Easter Sunday. Fortunately, the combined forces of Expairofmentalists and Mindlobster were sufficient to keep them in check. EPM managed to give us some lush sonic landscapes, despite being crippled by excessive high jinks from a mate, resulting in a 3 hour visit to casualty the day before. Mindlobster must have been boiled lobster after 45 minutes inside the hardest working helmet in showbiz, but he too wielded his magic power block with great elan. The crowd were hungry for more and Lo, we didst give it to them, at least until we were rudely hoofed off by the owner who wanted to lay down some cheese in celebration of aging or some other bollocks. While this was extremely tedious we must not despair as there's always May the 13th and our Highpointlowlife extravaganza, huzzah!

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Children and dogs

Apparently you should never work with them. You can take pictures of 'em, just don't work with them.

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Saltbreaker

Haahaahahaaha, screw you 100 Club, not only did I take a picture of the band, I also took a picture of your stupid sign, hahahaahahaa, I am anarchy incarnate!

Anyhoo, Laura Veirs eh? First of all this is not my musical genre of choice, not even sure what to call it, Indie chick folk rock perhaps. The crowd at the 100 Club look like a panel from Ghost World come to life, lots of earnest bespectacled boys clutching journals and er, strong women, bristling with equality. Laura herself has the old Speccy Seattle Kook Thing(TM) going for her and she wears it well. Her atonal angst-lite voice washes over us like the waves she constantly references in her songs and apart from the odd idiot demanding 'the single', her acolytes are generally a passive lot. The occasional 'whoo' cuts out from the front row as Loz strums an old favourite, and I am shushed by my companion She-Jay, for mock whooing in response. She-Jay speaks fluent Indie and eats kookflakes for breakfast, so is able to guide me through the intricacies of each plaintive cry. The Saltbreakers themselves are sporting curiously embroidered jackets and effectively re-produce the unobtrusive noise that floats behind Loz on the new album. Sometimes though, as I jerked back into reality from one of a number of micro sleeps, I wished they would let loose a bit more. Bless though, this was their first gig of the tour and I'm sure they'll be burning their geetars and playing piano with their feet by the end.

Note to Stephen Merchant (who is no doubt reading this blog and taking notes) your quest for a she-jay for your podcast has ended. As you can vaguely discern from the pointillist picture above, my She-Jay has all the rock chick attitood and Indie nous you could possibly want, and she's tall, call me now Stephen, call me!

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We've got five years, my brain hurts a lot

The canny among you will have recognized my supremely appropriate subject line, care of old Ziggy - and how apt it is. I was going to go for the 'I kiss you, you're beautiful' line, but this seemed slightly more relevant. Congrats to the Groove King and Queen for sharing a dance floor together for the last 1825 days, I wish you thousands more to follow. GQ looked fabulous in a dress she hadn't worn for 10 years. 10 years! Christ on a bike, if I tried to get into 10 year old trousers I'd castrate myself. GK bounced back from his nasty lurgy to lay down some smooth moves and GR was the host with the most as ever, congrats to you too Sir. Sorry I didn't capture the two of you terribly well, it got a touch hazy towards the end. The creepy, bunny eared Mini-Si also scares the sheisenhousen out of me so I thort I'd share it with y'all to.

Don't forget those of you who are here over Easter, that's our next gig. I'll put up a proper flier n' all soon, so very soon.

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Weird Weekend Part 2

Yes yes, these images make perfect sense, why wouldn't they? Steady on, explanation to follow.

Rather than simply get into a cab and go home, I decided to stay in Bethnal Green and accompany Tortured Artist and new Italian girlflesh, Bella Roma, to Jumpers in the Park's house (these code names are getting confusing) for an after big band drinkie winkie. JITP seems to have acquired herself some new boyflesh too. A man of great intensity who I will not describe in any way, other than to say, he has the sort of mother who will knit for him on request a long stemmed cigarette holder, complete with smouldering ciggie - 'nuff said. We manage to extricate ourselves from this mental torture and head back to TA's lofty garrick for some shuteye. I use the term shuteye loosely, as TA has built a shed on the roof next to were his flat resides, and stuck me in there to sleep. This 'shed' is made from random bits of mdf and planking he secured from various tips and creaks and groans like a bad horror movie at the slightest suggestion of a breeze. The fact that it pissed with rain and blew with cyclonic ferocity on Saturday night is neither here nor there.

Rousing ourselves with the noon, we headed off to Brick Lane and our official 'Day of Culture.' Cheshire St off Brick Lane is the ideal place to put together a large oppressive installation encapsulating the frailty of the human condition in the face of the relentless juggernaut of technical advancement/obsolescence. Instead we went to 'Simply Botiful' the new work from Swiss junk yard collector and artiste Christof Buchel. After crawling up, down and around this claustrophobic nightmare of immigrant sweatshops and the pokey holes they crawl into when their torturous days are done, we went for brekkie. Why the copies of 'Mien Kampf' translated into Arabic, anonymously arranged next to a pile of festering white goods? Why not? - Fuck off pleb, I'm an artist and I'm Swiss, your puny mind cannot begin to comprehend my genius, fuck off back to art-in-the-park.

Having trawled from Brick Lane to Shoreditch and taken in a number of new spaces and budding works of merit(TM) we ended up at Parasol Unit. This is the kind of super cool white cube that makes you feel stupid before you've even made it through the door (how was I to know you had to pull then push?) Momentary Momentum is a collection of animated drawings by terribly famous people, only one of whom I actually recognized. The rooms are divided into gloomy tombs, allowing you to sit reverentially as Images of Great Meaning(TM) pass jerkily before your very eyes. OK, it wasn't that wanky, but I was all cultured out by this stage and in desperate need of a larf and a pint. The David Shrigley was fun and the Kentridge brilliant and depressing as only Kentridge can be, but I could have done with a bit more humour myself. A couple of glasses of nice chianti later and I was fired with enthusiasm. I shall give it all up, cash in my chips with TA and start London's greatest gallery, we will feature TAs from around the world and arsy white cubes everywhere will wade through a mile of our faeces just to feature one of our works ( most probably our debut work - 'a mile of Faeces') Then I went home and passed out in front of 'Dancing on Ice.'

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Weird weekend Part 1

Lurking down a back road off the Bethnal Green high St is the Bethnal Green Working Men's Club. This curious venue has quietly carved out a niche for itself as the place to go to when you want to slip on your spats and your zoot suit and cut a rug to some big band sounds (well you might!) They host a random confection of burlesque evenings, Mexican wrestle-mania and lindy hops and have a fascist door regime, so don't even think about coming in jeans. Ahem, having changed out of my jeans into a pair of borrowed white trousers, then back into my jeans again after the trousers barely made it past my knees, I entered the fray. Hep cats and cool chicks were frantically twirling each other around to my Father's record collection and even Tortured Artist appeared to have dressed for er, some sort of occasion. Admittedly, a white cable knit sweater complete with leaping carp motif artfully plashing across the back, worn together with Rupert the Bear trousers spattered in paint, probably comes from an era time has gratefully forgotten.

Beside the rather ordinary bar was a groovy cocktail lounge and instant tattoo parlor (hence the clawed throat) First act of the night was the fabulous Puppini Sisters a trio of doo wop dollies doing it (or wopping it) in a forties Andrew Sisters stylee, right down to the auburn, brunette and blonde hair. They belted out a number of standards before doing their own re-interpretation of Beyonce's 'crazy in love' - a bit of a thing of theirs it seems, having turned a number of heads with their woozy bluesy version of Wuthering Heights. Although they (unfortunately) don't strip, there's a burlesque air to the performance, those outfits are so Dita Von Teese I was kinda hoping for a costume change and an encore, just to see what they'd wear next. Hell they could have changed right there, nooo problem. While King groovy and the Hornstars swung it good, there was no replacing the lovely sisters in our hearts and we left shortly after. The rest of the night was spent entertaining a man on the edge and trying to sleep in the hull of the Mary Celeste while it rounded The Cape of Storms, but I shall elaborate further in my next post.

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Idiot alert

I posted the comment below on the blog of Steph - a lady of great opinion and little sense. Sadly, she sought fit to remove my comment, forcing me to re-create it here. Please feel free to visit Steph and voice your opinions, so she can remove them too.

It's nice to see you're not letting your astounding ignorance of the situation in Zimbabwe, get in the way of a good sound byte, bravo. Not sure where to begin with your fatuous diatribe, so let's start from the top shall we? That well known running dog imperialist lackey the BBC does actually have representatives of its organization in Zimbabwe. Brave, independent journalists who suffered beatings themselves to get the story of what happened on Sunday out to the rest of the world. They were not just aimlessly spouting 'MDC propaganda' they were being whipped with sjamboks and beaten with iron bars, by a 'Police' presence identified by eye witnesses as sporting the infamous green bombers of ZANU PF's youth militia.

'The Herald's version is pro-Mugabe and pro-police but at least they were there.' Anyone who has actually read one line of the Herald in the last ten years would know the utter stupidity of this statement.

'You don't think crippling sanctions, civil war and British meddling played more of a role than the incompetence of black farmers?' Er, no actually, in 1997, some seventeen years after Independence, Zimbabwe was one of the fastest growing economies in Africa. As a direct result of Robert Mugabe's land repatriation program, over a million highly trained and dedicated black farm workers were displaced from their homes and sent into the country side to fend for themselves, purely because they did not support ZANU PF. Are these the people you claim Mugabe has 'Far more support' from? Or is it the 3 million odd suffering from starvation and HIV, while the Government withholds UNICEF supplied grain from those daring to wave the red hand of the MDC?

Zimbabweans have utterly no reason to be 'anti-British' other than because of Britain's patent LACK of meddling in the affairs of Zimbabwe. Zimbabweans care about working, feeding themselves and their children and not dying of AIDS - Mugabe's anti-colonial rants fall on deaf ears. Your crass generalizations about a people you know nothing about only serve to highlight your ignorance.

'Morgan Tsvangirai is a Western sponsored "terrorist' Never mind the fact that charges for this ridiculous trumped up accusation were dropped by the Zimbabwe govt after it was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, the entire farce was a sting operation set-up by them to discredit Tsvangirai. If the MDC leader can be accused of anything it's naivety, and desperation for funding; another clear indication of the singular lack of 'Western' financial assistance the MDC is actually receiving.

You don't strike me as a stupid person Steph, you have bold opinions and aren't afraid to voice them. Surely though, a degree of fact finding wouldn't go amiss, before unleashing your 'insights' upon the world. Or is that too much like hard work?

More Dystopia

Er, OK, these wild staring eyes are merely to inform you that I'M WATCHING YOU hahahahaa! Also, that there are more pics from Sunday's gig here.

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Last stop Dystopia

So the inaugural gathering of Dr.Dystopia's cabinet of electrickal curiosities went off with a bang, and indeed, a crash and the odd smash. Hats off to strcprstskrzkrk for easing us into the night and Con Brio (see pic) for kicking it up a notch with some superbly fractured beats. Special thanks go out to the Glaswegian morons who decided to glass some unsuspecting punter in the middle of one of my finest tunes. Cheers lads for shutting down the entire evening just when we were reaching dance nirvana, you stupid pricks. Thanks also to those who made it down to Lost Society to see us do our thing - Finan, Edwardo, Au Savage, Rusty, Mr.Incredible and the Bigpip - lotta love, lotta love. Despite the unwelcome descent into anarchy, the evening was a grand success and we look forward to really going big on Easter Sunday, see you there!

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Filthy tedious

The gaping orifice suspended above me, gazes down in horror as I shuffle from foot to foot, desperate not to be noticed as that shameful pariah of the dance floor, the lone clubber. 'See you at 10.30' they said, 'Few drinks beforehand but we'll definitely be there' they said. Knowing better I got there at 11.30, mildly perturbed by the empty club yet still naively hopeful. Two and a half hours later, one beer and a number of increasingly embarrassed circuits of the entire building, I called it a night. Thanks to the couple who took my picture and gave me a sympathetic pat, you guys were great. As for the stag party erm, party, damn you all ta HELL!

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Take stock

The old Stock Exchange in Barcelona has been converted into a conference and party venue, and makes for a particularly Gothic setting. This brooding atmosphere was sadly blown out the water by the hearty/ghastly latino sounds of Buena Vista Social Club, the crazed gobos strafing the ceiling with the Blackberry logo and giant vid screens in every corner, banging on about the joys of email on your phone. Email on your PC is bad enough, having it follow you everywhere you go is a thort too hideous to contemplate. Still, cool building, may the Gods of Architecture forgive the mobile telecomms industry its hubris.

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Corndles

Ah yes, corny I know but at least the colours are nice. The Sugar club down by the port was the venue for the symba party and the scene of general depredation by 3GSM party scavengers. Yours truly had to bounce a few people from the door and it's not something I'd like to do on a regular basis. 3GSM brings out a sordid desperation in people, all frantically trying to blag their way into parties they failed to score tickets for. These parties are usually shite, and full of the same dull suits you've been trying to avoid during the day. Norman Jay was playing at ours and despite developing gastro on the plane over from a gig in Moscow, still managed to crawl onto the decks and lay it down for an appreciative few.

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Burnox

Events queen gets too close to the camera and coruscates top layer of flesh. I like overexposed images like this, they warp the face to such an extent they leave the barest suggestion of the original visage but create an all new face in the process. Some would say this is a good thing (yes Spencer, you would say this) but no doubt EQ will squeal in horror when she sees this. Fear not EQ, there are many others to choose from.

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Barcaned

Barcelona took its toll on mind, body and spirit, but I managed to get out of the country with the tattered shreds of my consciousness marginally intact, tho dribbling out my ears. A quiet weekend would have sorted me out but noooooo, we had to kick it till the room was full of homeward bound bovines. Sad to witness the passing of a fine piece of equipment, I do hope you'll be able you resurrect yon amp dear Sonje. If not, let it be said that it did us proud on many an occasion and its passing will be dutifully mourned (until the arrival of its replacement) To those who bothered to follow my Barca escapades via this link no doubt you thrilled to my adventures in the technological futopia which was 3GSM. According to my stats however, only two people followed the link I posted below so cheers friends cheers. I will begin the arduous task of wading through a gig's worth of photies and adorn this space accordingly.

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This blog is coming like a ghost blog

Incontrovertible evidence that mojitos make your husband's eyes bulge (or something) Much joy to you Pamos, on achieving another year without actually aging in any discernible way (apart from that weird additional appendage sprouting from your shoulder.)

Hopefully Benjamo, that thyroid problem has eased up now too. Despite some idiot dragging us off to the wrong venue, we eventually managed to arrive at the right place in time for mojito madness. Good to see the Eurocrew in full effect, as well as the return of the wild New Zealand Girl and the Brixton Hill babes. Apologies for the singular lack of posting in the last few weeks, I must have been watching youtube and lost track of time. Congratulations to HelWill for furthering the species and to MeLinds for making honest people out of each other. Off to Barca on Friday where I will be blogging madly from my phone to this place. At least it'll be more prolific than this site.

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PS These pictures are a lot funnier side by side, damn you Blogger and your crappy new layout!

Phantom of the Operette

Another night in the company of Mr.Incredible is always a treat and a good swing from the chandeliers never goes amiss. How we larffed and quaffed. A good thing Christmas provided some back-up malt liqueur as Mr.I's superdrinkingpower(TM) appeared to be set to 11. Thank you most kindly for the book, it will be cherished.

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I don't think you're ready for this...

Herewith, a picture of my brain on holiday. I haven't had the heart to inform my brain that it isn't still lounging on a beach somewhere, but is in fact rotting on one of the lower tiers of hell. Sadly, even my brain knows something is up, what with all the screams and lamentation emanating from various meeting rooms across the way. Soon the proverbial penny will clang and dear old brain will return to full cognizance, blinking owlishly up at the tungsten lights and flinching at the desolate wails of other brains around it. Crying out with hunger, crying out in pain, at least the dirt will wash off, when it starts to rain. Shame.

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Go fish

The Bartlett Gallery hosts some piscene portraiture at the moment, seen here hanging off the shoulders of artist Tommy's niece. Tortured Artist's gallery is soon to be demolished and replaced with student flats apparently. This is a blow indeed, especially considering the stickerthing crew were contemplating doing an exhibition there in the Summer. We will have to regroup and find a new venue for our borrowed art outpourings. Tom has also done a number of moody landscapes which I think are superb, if you happen to be in th Bethnal Green area, check it out. Niece not included.

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Sundowner

There's no justification for this sort of picture really. It's a sunset, and a Cape sunset at that, it reeks of cliche, fair stinks of it. I took it with my phone which is its only saving grace and I've posted it to remind me that there is a sun out there and one day it'll come back. I also needed to post something to introduce the affable meanderings and amiable dementia of tomismyonlyfriend, which you may have noticed has now appeared on the left. There, I've done the introductions, I'll leave it to the Happy Harlequin to do the rest. I'm deeply fatigued, I stop.

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Risk

I did. It was fine.

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Stanford stitch

Hurrah, stitching rocks. Now if only I'd actually taken something interesting with it. Ah well, Stanford, woohoo!

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Man trips light fantastically

Happy happy, and indeed, joy joy. So it is that we wake up into the new born year and, in the inimitable words of Jon Bon Jovi 'French kiss the morning.' This line has horrified me for years, not just for the fact that it's been sung by nob rocka JBV, but also for the hideous image it conjures up of John rolling over in bed after a night on the tiles and ramming his JD and marlboro coated tongue into the orifice of my morning.

New Year's eve was jolly fun and much thanks must be extended to Au Savage for the opportunity to blow his speakers and jump up and down on his wooden floors. Bad boy Sigh9 didst lay down some fresh tunage, hot off the Ableton press and the crowds gathered from far and wide (Brighton) to be bathed in psychedelic glory on the dance floor.

My office has three people in today, very tempting to make it two. No point in overdoing it, we've got all year for that.

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The art of self parody is not lost

The Luchador's mask is his alternative face, the second skin he inhabits in the ring and the very embodiment of his wrestling persona. The masks are there to enhance the perception in both opponent and crowd, of a blank emotionless Harbinger of Doom, descending from on high to crush all in their path. That's the kinda look I'm going for here. I'm thinking of sporting this ensemble at my next Michael Flately retrospective, do hope you can make it.

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Tenacious Defence

Metal. For some time now it has been but a concept, a way of thinking, a genre encapsulating all that is loud and guitar driven. Trust Tenacious D to summon up a physical manifestation of this abstraction, then kick it in the ball...er...goons. Here we see JB and KG laying it down with 'Metal' at the Hammersmith Apollo last night. Hard rocking was the order of the day- cock push-ups, rising at the crack of noon, the random consumption of magic mushrooms - all these things were required before the D was done with us. Having nuked themselves into Hell via some spilt beer and a faulty electrical point, our heroes do the logical thing and form a band with Colonel Sanders on drums (he killed a lot of chickens), Charlie Chaplin on bass and the anti-christ on lead guitar. They duck and dive between the first album and newer tracks and finally have to dual with Satan himself to return to earth, because Kyle forged JD's signature on the contract which got them to hell in the first place. JD is a one man monsoon of sweat by the end of it, and one can only hope a highly efficient roadie washes that one t-shirt Black has been seen in both on stage and on TV for the last two months.

For anyone who tires of the festive season, there's nothing quite like a rock n' roll panto to get those cockles roasting. We larfed, we sang, we rocked. Merry Christmas one and all!

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The roof is vibrayding

When you fire a pistol, without wearing earmuffs to prevent your brain from liquidizing from the sonic boom, not only are you utterly deafened for days afterwards, you also experience fiendishly aggravated tinnitus. To obtain the same affect over a slightly more prolonged period of time, have a Flat Festival . Invite Testcard to play at your Flat Festival. Stand in front of massive JBL's in said flat while said Testcard sings at you from point blank range. Cry.










Muchos gracias to Sckrtch for the use of the 'Pool hall, t'was a very fine festival indeed. Respect to the Testcard lads, Corporate Athlete and all who managed to make music follow one track after another, in a row. Next time we take that clicker up to 3 figures. (or at least 20)

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Twin of Chucky

This is also mine, though more on a share basis you know. The v.colourful one belongs to the Loved one, where it will go, nobody knows, possibly not the bedroom, it radiates like a supernova.


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Everything you know is not enough

The top image is called 'Where's the remote' - it is mine, oh yes. (just need to pay for it, hmmm)

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Blockhead

Soon he will be residing in the front entrance to the Nelson Mandela Children's hospital, just the sort of jaunty doorman you'd want to be greeted by were you an ailing child (i'd hope, they may run screaming) This is Blockhead, one of the sculptures featured in M.o.m.cy's recent exhibition, created by renowned sculptor and significant other Sybraman. The exhibition was fab and I'll be posting more pics from that shortly, I just have to muster up the energy.

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Fiendishly clever disguise

'Hide in plain sight' I think the term is. Dr.Evil has obviously fallen on hard times and re-located to Lower Main St in Obs. No doubt a state-of-the-art security system lurks behind this unassuming grey door, but I was unable to test this theory as there was a large wrought iron fence in the way.

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Africar

There were another two of these on the boot above the tail-lights. Such pride in one's Continent, that one would deface a Mercedes Benz with this nice shiny hood ornament. Seems logical to me, but surely if you were go to all this bother, you'd point it the other way? Guess there's no accounting for logic in downtown Observatory.

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Baljaar

Water leaching down from the mountains through the fynbos, develops this curious weak tea colour as soon as it gathers in river form. Chuckie called it the coca-cola river and took to it like the proverbial poisson. This joyful abandon looked to me like it needed a watercolour wash to edge it over into hyper-reality. Just the merest hint y'know. Loved one and I preferred a bit of long distance parenting, sitting at the restaurant overlooking the river with a cold Savanna and the odd encouraging wave. The Milkwood serves an excellent seafood platter and Chuck was moved to announce his new favourite food was moules in wine. Where he gets such lofty tastes from I know not, pass the crayfish cracker there's a good boy, burp.

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Come back, I was joking!

Loved one disappears into a champagne pink horizon as the hapless photographer looks on (probably after I made the rondivoll gag one too many times) This was the bridge leading to an infinite beach, a mere stone's throw away from our aforementioned fab rondavel (Muchos gracias to Nige, a brilliant getaway place make no mistake) Obviously there's going to be no logic as to how I load up images of our jolly jaunt, It's utterly dependent on whether I've run an image through touch-up or not ( No Spencer, not that sort of touch-up). Those wishing to see graffiti related pics taken in and around Cape Town, would do to check out Stickerthing linked on the left. Hell, you should be going there anyway you cretins. This bridge can be found at Fisherhaven, a secluded timeshare just outside Hermanus. I would have callled it by it's official name Flamingo Lake, but as the environmental protection people saw fit to bulldoze a giant hole in the dunes to drain off excess water, there are now no flamingos and no lake. Still, t'was farging gorgeous.

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Home again, home again, jiggedy jig

Yes well, the whole blogging from the phone thing was a lie. Mostly because I changed phones to an N93, (ta Fox, Silkies in the mail, etc) and didn't have time to load blog software on. As you can see by this image, the new camera on the new phone seems to function quite well, even if the subject matter wasn't exactly ecstatic about being immortalised. Still, he did manage to keep still long enough to be captured here, and frolicking in the coca cola river and various other places. (images and explanations to follow) I'm still wading through a thousand work mails, so haven't really the time to wax lyrical about the last three weeks in the glorious Cape. I will endeavour to make up for my tardiness and will shortly take you through a step-by-step guide to drinking and eating your way to an early grave.

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