I saw a mention of a forthcoming Peter Doig exhibition in the Grauniad last year, and now finally it’s been announced – August 3 to November 3 at the Scottish National Gallery. I’m a huge fan and will certainly be visiting Edinburgh to see the show, so I’m wondering whether any RRers will be going too, and whether we can get a Social organised. Indicate your interest in the comments!
Never one to do things by halves (nor to ignore an opportunity to paint), I ended up doing three paintings of shoe-like objects for Parkinson’s Awareness Week and the “In My Shoes” theme. They are not, as it happens, all mine (I have Young Onset Parkinson’s, so the theme is apt). The wellies belong to my son, and were both easier to get hold off and muddier than mine, which I only wear if I really have to (not because I have Parkinson’s. I don’t like wellies because I have the wrong shape feet for wellies). Wellies really ought to be muddy. My cheapo lightweight walking boots, or trail boots, are also appropriately muddy.
And they are all on eBay in the hope that someone (hopefully lots of someones, so they bid the price up …) will buy one or more, and Parkinson’s UK will get a modest, painting-sized chunk of money.
And the ‘Spill gets more hits than my solo blogs, so I am shamelessly exploiting it because of the charity angle.
Charity singles are a bit of a hit and miss affair. They may hit the charts, but they frequently miss the spot. I’m having difficulty thinking of a truly great one, although I can’t help but recall that the first record I ever bought was Ferry Aid’s “Let It Be”, an ensemble affair in aid of the Zeebrugge Disaster of 1987.
(I had convinced myself that my first single purchase was the Pet Shop Boys’ “It’s A Sin”, but the dates defy this recollection by a couple of months.)
While I was contemplating this post on one of my other blogs, I kept coming up with songs I wanted to soundtrack it with.
The post was an exercise in increasing awareness for Parkinson’s, as requested by the charity Parkinson’s UK. So I thought it might be appropriate to spread the word on other platforms, and the best place that I know of for playlists is the ‘Spill.
The painting is for sale, by auction, for charity. Click on the picture…
Now, how does this new-fangled play list thingumajig work?
Now you’ve gone and left me and there’s nothing here,
But a tenner in my pocket and a fridge full of beer,
There’s an aRRmy around the country, we’re all stuck in our rooms
It takes a lot of preparation to make a move.
1 Foot Soldiers (Star-Spangled Funky) Funkadelic
2 A Brighter Beat Malcolm Middleton
3 On My Shoulders The Dø
4 Brave Tin Soldiers Sarah Nixey
5 The Happiest Place on Earth Desaparecidos
6 Soldier’s Grin Wolf Parade
Tokyo all female three-piece TOQUIWA release their hi-energy J-punk in the UK on October the 22nd, 2012. Scopitones announced TOQUIWA’s self-titled debut on digital release and limited edition tour CD.
They begin touring the UK on 26/10 in Bournemouth – I’m going to be there (in a home made bright orange TOQUIWA T-shirt) – I also made a T-shirt using the ticket from a live Wedding Presents Ukrainian Sessions gig. But I can’t wear both.
This is the track listing and below the review are Smash Hits style questions sportingly answered by the band.
(I want to post this today – so I will have to ask Sakura to advise if I’ve got anything in the wrong places)
Photograph of the band used with permission – all designs created by arTEEsane are not for profit – please don’t use.
illustrative track from Music Ripple recorded as Pinky Piglets
The self titled album by Toquiwa on the Wedding Presents Scopitones label, should almost be called go out and get ‘em girl – such is the frantic pace that they erupt with perfect pop rock. The first 13 seconds set up the album (you heard right – 13 seconds sets out their manifesto) – Fantasticly playing the many influences and condensing them into a tight Toquiwa package.
Strangely managing to be extremely talented musicians yet still exuding that punk ethic of innocence and naivety.
The tracks have so many astonishingly catchy segments and hooks, you wonder how the pace can be kept up, but keep up they do, building and building, twisting styles and era’s together as if timelines were squeezed, squashed and smashed into their musical brains. Until in comes out sounding as though these things should always have sat together (superbly) in each 3 minute track.
Not only that, they know how to sequence an album – just as your head might explode keeping up – (ten second bar room blues, into superfly 70′s style, into a quiet millisecond break – roaring back into .. you get the drift – I’m loath to compare because it all sounds so Toquiwa – but as reference you could detect The Animals merging with a Curtis Mayfield track with hints of Kirsty MacColl’s weariness and wonder, while a Status Quo repetitive rock riff underpins a track – and quiteloudquiet indie rock aesthetics jostle in) they take a breather with a ballad – and then we are invited to party hard once again, ending with an enthusiastic Wedding Present adaption to thrill and inspire while closing the album out.
It’s fantastic fun – superbly performed and feverishly played. Total enjoyment.
Would they be happy to answer my frivolous questions linking to each song on the album?:
I think I got the inaugural RR Player shirt? It arrived today (unannounced, with no fanfare) and was a wonderful surprise. It totally exceeded my expectations.
Shane had emailed me a list of my A listers to check which took me a few hours as I hadn’t got a clue and had to look some of them up in The Marconium. He has listed these as you can see on the design.
I requested a long sleeve ladies style in a faded-out looking black or gray colour. The fabric is great. Here’s a picture of everything except the neck (which is round).
This is going to be my Thursday shirt from now on.
The ‘Spill is full of weird and wonderful things, characters and artists. Let us all gape in awe at the skills of Mr Saneshane aka arteesane whose fabulous and subtle creation is sported by moi in the photo. This, my friends, is the pertest perk of being temporary guru. Now I know that it’s not a great fit, but I’m hoping to grow into it…
Wearing Influences On Our Sleeve-Less T-shirts – Electric President
I’ll be at Chatsworth Road Market, Hackney – I believe that’s in London (in the Rushmore Primary School playground) on Sunday between 11 and 4 o’clock if anyone wants to come along and say Hi – I’ll be the one with bright orange t-shirts and Brainasaurus books to sell.
Hopefully, Sunday night I’ll be back to add some phone songs – until then, have fun everyone.
**************************************** Continue reading →
Somewhere on another post this week there was some discussion about cars, new blokes I suspect since the last time I mentioned this subject there was mostly silence. So I’ll take the opportunity to try something I’ve been wondering about lately; how hard is it to do a slideshow on WordPress? Turns out to be very simple though I haven’t figured out yet how to vary the speed of the slides nor the size; of course I’d like ‘em to fill the screen and to stay on for a long time. My interest in cars goes back literally 60 odd years and you can see that the ones I favor mostly come from that era though there’s a lot more from the ’30′s. I’ve chosen just a few from my Italian file, I think that the Italians have produced the most beautifully designed and engineered cars in the world; if I were buying a car today I’d rather have any of these 60 year old relics than anything on today’s market. We don’t need music to distract us with these images but I thought this might be appropriate, it’s from a recording of the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in 1958; I don’t follow Formula 1 any more but I do enjoy going to Laguna Seca for the vintage races, the cars that race there often look a lot like the ones in these photos. These are just a few of my car photos, I have many more in files for most European countries if anyone’s interested.
Further to Amy’s “art” post last week. I have always wanted to share my love for my good friend Raymund Rogers’ talent. And I’d been leaving it ’cause, as you know, there’s always time for these things. Well, carpe diem my friends, seems that time’s been doing an awful lot of catching up on us recently. Ray died a couple of weeks ago and I never got round to it. I have no idea how good Ray was as an artist. Pretty good, I reckon, but I’m not qualified to say. As a person: the best. Always willing to forgive my pathetic attempts to keep in touch and at the ready with a bed and hospitality in his charming little cottage in Boscastle. The only true childhood friend who made it into middle age still as a friend. It’s hard to reconcile his death from cancer of the colon with his lifestyle – Ray was a vegetarian, clean living, generous spirit who put a lot more into this world than he took away with him. I’ll miss him. Here are a few of his paintings. Rest in peace, my friend.
It’s getting awfully toasty here in the northeast USA. One antidote for me is to look at the cool colors in the works of one of my favorite American landscape painters – Neil Welliver (1929 -2005) who painted the Maine landscape near his home. He gets it right, this is just what Maine looks like. Continue reading →
So GF wants some non-musical culture posts. Well, i don’t cook or see many movies these days, so i guess the art and photography beat falls to me, since it’s about all i know. (Hopefully i’ll be joined by the likes of Messrs. Maki, GF, and Mitch).
George Shaw is a relatively new to me painter, first heard about him a few months ago in the G, and it was love at first sight. So i was delighted to find out today that he made the shortlist for the Turner prize. I’ve never seen any of his paintings in the flesh, which is a shame because he paints in enamels, not oils. A British vernacular painter, Continue reading →
I wanted you to see this wonderful example of the Little Nemo In Slumberland comic strip – if you click on it you can get it big enough to read the words in the speech bubbles. Unfortunately they’re in Dutch (where are you, TonNL?) but I had an enjoyable time on a translation website finding out what they said.
There’s a Wikipedia page about Winsor McCay (that’s where I found the picture) and also one about Little Nemo. So if you like it you can find out more yourself! I’m so glad I was a bit bored at work the other day and started to investigate where the style of the Runnin’ Down A Dream video (see previous post for Day 17) had come from. You can see it’s the same bed, at the end. Now that I’ve seen this picture, though, I’m sorry they didn’t do the video in colour.
Been meaning to post a few of these pictures for weeks now. The top end of Portobello Road has been host to the biggest collection of LP’s I’ve ever seen. Big as in six feet high and representing some of the musical connections of the area. I’ve probably put links to Tom Vague’s music and psychogeography writings about Ladbroke Grove here before but if you want to dig deeper here’s a shovel. And if you want to get seriously nerdy and see how many you own, you can click through the pictures to see larger versions or find the full set here. I’m good for thirty or so so far but keep spotting more.
4ad is 30, for three quarters of my life I’ve looked out for it’s distinctive sleeves, and unique take on music. 23 Envelope/V23, Ivo Watts-Russell, Vaughan Oliver, Nigel Grierson, Simon Larbalestier are part of my life as much as the bands that began their musical lives on the arty label.
I’m not going to do a history of 4AD – (just read it on their site) but I challenged myself to find a track from each year in my record collection to illustrate the beauty and blinkered individuality involved in their history. (I tried my best to stick with the release dates in my catalogues and their timeline on the 4AD site – so stuff you i-tunes, sometimes you are wrong – so there.)
I also could have just loaded it with double ups and entirely obvious choices.. but tried to avoid that too… I’m also really gutted, missing some class tunes and bands (there could be a follow up Label Day post!)
With Bands like Bauhaus, Matt Johnson (The The), The Birthday Party, even ‘sloppy heart’ by Frazier Chorus, originally being released on 4ad, Peelie fav’s Cocteau Twins and three of my all time best in The Wolfgang Press, Pixies and the Mountain Goats…
Have you got an all time top 4AD Song, Band or Cover design?
Enjoy the tunes: Continue reading →
I don’t know if band logos are more less important these days, but this guy has quite a collection, with room for discussion. Cheers former RRer @dnatkinson for the tweet.
Did you see that razor blade? I didn’t first time round! This is a photo by the Spanish photgrapher Chema Madoz, who has a curious way with the lens. A multifaceted artist, he combines photography with sculpture, drawing and downright idiosyncrasy to come up with shots that make you look twice. I’ve just been introduced to his work by Quique during an extremely pleasant and leisurely lunch down at Noveccento. I’m going to link to his site rather than post loads of his stuff here, ’cause there’s so much good stuff that I think it’s just better that anyone who’s interested has a good browse there. Oops, no!! – can’t resist putting this one in… look how the knot in the wood imitates the flame! There’s an arch made of books, which would be the keystone for you? A book giving birth to a novella. Take a look, please, this guy’s imagination knows no bounds!
We had a lot of fun in Noveccento this lunchtime, listening to festive ‘spill picks: Some Misunderstanding, No Cigarettes, Sleepless and of course the list you all so kindly put together for Quique whilst he was recovering from his operation (Debbym, Brassbanda are firm favourites here in Aluche, btw). He surprised me with this. Who’s singing? I’d never have guessed! This is a sampler but the album sounds like it may have a bit to offer! (Credit to Tincanman who got the artist right almost immediately – it’s Cyndi Lauper)
I’ve been reading a great book about Spencer and his contemporaries at the Slade School…what a good idea for a book! But I already knew that Spencer used to wander around his home town, Cookham, imagining Biblical scenes taking place, and here it’s the Last Trump and all the dead Cookham folk are coming up out of their graves.
