Alongside all the badge making at badgesagogo, I can be something of a cultural forager and delver.
It's difficult with links pages, 'cause there's so much of the web and there's so much unfiltered stuff out there that I didn't want to do a huge big "here's absolutely loads of absolutely everything"... so, the only way to do it is to put the links that as I wrote I tended to visit on a frequent(ish) basis, often whether they're likely to update or not... well, actually some of the sites are sites that I used to visit very often but don't so much now, not for any particular reason, just 'cause but the new visitor may find much there of note.
Actually, this is starting to become a bit more of a "here's bits of my life" and a general journal page. so it may soon change it's name from "links".
Also, you can have a browse of badges that I've made here.
Steve
2008
Well, it's a good while since I've written anything like this or about culture on my sites but I've just read something that genuinely movd me and as somebody said to me recently, momentum is everything, so I thought I would just turn on the computer (semi-procrastinate a bit) and then write this.
Curiously, as a not far off forty year old chap (forty!), I seem to have recently rediscovered drawing and comics... or as the "to avoid as much embarassment as you can once you're older" phrase goes, graphic novels.
Part of me feels a touch daft as a not far off forty year old chap looking through the comics/graphic novels in my local library... but what the hey and I noticed that a lot of the other folk in the library looking in this section were a similar age to me.
Y'see, after years of trying to do all my work stuff on the old computer, I seem to have picked up a pencil and pen and started drawing again... yesterday I found myself drawing while listening to The Fall's Hey! Luciani, which I seem to remember doing when my parents were out when I was about fifteen or sixteen.
It's curious how life loops around. I drew a lot when I was a kid (well, pre-discovering computers I guess) but since I've been a "grownup", well, I've tried on and off but I've tended to be hamstrung by a lack of technical know-how and worrying that I can't draw "properly"... whatever that means.
Getting told off by my art teacher in one of my first ever art classes in secondary school for drawing things with lines around them, as comics tend to have, seems to have left a lot of "well, bloody sod you then" (!?!?). Time to drop the baggage.
Anyway, so I've been a-drawing and a-digital painting (graphics tablets... I'd highly recommend them for putting a bit of soul into computer based work)... along with some photography and some of those things above merging.
And for once I think I'm trying (or at least going to try) to stick with learning a technical skill that takes longer than a couple of weeks to pick up.
The guitar/bass didn't work for me but well, when I draw, my soul feels restful and rested (when I give myself time for it to).
Anyways, what I would recommend is It's A Bird, a graphic novel/comic by Steven T. Seagle and curiousity inspiring paintings by Teddy Kristiansen.
It has Superman mixed in there but it's not a conventional superhero thing (though at the moment I wouldn't really mind if it was... as this book says "the willful use of the impossible is exactly what comic book stories are for...
...to remind us that when the real world is too much to take, there's always a place we can go...
...where man, or Superman, can escape anything set against him).
It's a rather lovely, moving, inspiring, human thing. Apparently the paintings that make it up took years to do and some of them are quite lovely.
Waves Crashing On The Shore
I recently saw an interview with Quentin Tarrantino and Robert Rodriguez where they were on a panel at a comic convention (I think)*.
One of the questions they were asked went into the overwhelmingness and competition of all this cultural stuff that's put out into the world now.
Quentin Tarrantino looked a bit frustrated and said that that stuff isn't really competition, if your stuff is really good. It's just waves crashing on the shore.
Which I thought was rather good...
...wave's crashing on the shore...
...and something to remember.
As a lecturer chap I know who's been teaching me recently said about creativity when I was talking and asking about the reasons and reasoning to keep you doing things when there is so much stuff out there now... maybe it's just that if you don't do stuff you'll feel a bit crap.
Maybe it's just in you and what you don't want be just "waves on crashing on the shore". It might be light and throwaway but still more than just those waves.
More than just another consumer product (as said by David Cronenberg about his most recent film Eastern Promises in another interview I saw recently.
I reckon it's time to just do stuff, to put that "momentum is everything" stuff into practise, to stop feeling like "why do stuff/what's the reason for doing stuff when there's all this stuff out there already".
It's pretty rare that those waves crashing on the shore overwhelm you. Generally they're just little waves on the shore, maybe just catching your boots and turn ups a bit if you don't step back out of the way quick enough or you're a bit distracted.
"You once told me..."
"...'procrastination is part of writing'. But let me tell you that the other part of writing is actually writing".
"As the pages rolled by..."
"...I bought into the crisis... believed in the danger... and at the end, though I never would have admitted it... I was emotionally invested. I wanted to turn the page and know what was going to happen next.
Which is the lesson stories can teach life.
There's always a 'next'. Always.
That's what Superman is all about. To remind us that we have hurdles...
...but as long as we keep jumping them...
...we're in the race."
Those above bits are two things from It's A Bird,
I'd recommend it.
*PS I'm not necessarily a huge fan of these two chaps, it being a bit too, hmmm, comic-y and gore-y and either a bit too self-consciously smart and mannered (Quentin Tarantino) or just not quite enough soul (Robert Rodriguez) but I am curious about them.
I thought Grindhouse was an interesting project and it was a shame that the double-bill of the two films was a split into two separate, only vaguely linked things on release over here.
Lovely graphics to and one of the few Flash based sites that actually impresses and doesn't just annoy.
You can use the Flash or not, it doesn't get in the way...
...and it's just fun.
Thanks.
Steve
4th May 2008
16 Horsepower
Well, for a good while I found
it hard to find anything to get into new and culturally.
I think it was partly splitting up with the lass I'd been seeing.
I quite often seem to cut something out from my life when I split
up with people (one time literally, shaving my hair off and dressing
down), not through choice but it just happens. This time it seemed
to be music.
Which was a bit of a shame but also in a way I didn't mind as I've
thought for a while that music's been going through a time of terrible
mediocrity. Maybe it's just me but there's been so much being released
and so little of note. Indie really has just become this conservative,
predictable, target market and PR lead thing and at a time when
there's the freedom to do whatever you like, a lack of censorship
and an ease of distributing new music and culture, the effect seems
to have been just a mass watering down of everything.
...and if I see one more Holly Oaks extra, squirelly haired pretty
little indie boy that's more or less indistinguishable from townie
chaps, from Top Shop models, from anything at all... well, I might
just scream.
Anyways, somethings that I've recently been enjoying:
16 Horsepower: a fine band. It took me three albums before I found
one that I really liked. Maybe it's a mixture of it being on vinyl
and a bit less shrill than the other two I bought but it's gothic
americana of the highest order.
So much of what gets called alt.country or americana just sounds
like a load of generic mush, yet more mildly moaning country and
western that doesn't have the tunes to be mainstream but doesn't
have the ability to creep under my skin and soul either.
16 Horsepower though, are something different. Watch the DVD that
they released As their singer, David Eugene Edwards, is singing
he looks genuinely possessed, his eyes flutter and roll back in
his head, he twitches, at one point I think he shouts "what?"
to something at the side of the stage that I don't think is there.
I can't tell if it's affected, maybe it's part of his religious
upbringing, talking in tongues and all that but it does feel like
he means it.
There's one song where he's playing live and he's bleeding from
the side of his head... another where there's just genuine darkness
in their soul and the room.
...plus a cover of a Joy Division song and they very nearly, almost
make it their own. Not an easy thing to do with their songs.
Anyway, the album that I like a lot is Folklore. There's a fair
few traditional covers on it that I'm not quite so keen on but their
own songs give you a sense of looking into more of that genuine
darkness. They're not all maudlin and depressive mind.
Another side project that I'd recommend is Lilium. This is the two
out of 16 Horsepower who aren't David Eugene Edwards (though he
sings on one sing).
I've been kind of going back and rediscovering records and bands
that we listened to when we were together, which can be a tricky
process as you're not always sure if something will hit a bit of
a raw emotional nerve but at the time I never copied the records
as, well, we were together and as were splitting up, well, I didn't
feel like it.
Also, now I feel like I can discover them as being mine.
One record I think I'm going to have to find is that Swans one that's
on double vinyl, in a black box with silver printing on it, has
a drawing of a human-rabbit like creature holding what I think is
a carrot on the cover of one of the inners. It's called something
to do with infinity and light.
Anyways, back to Lilium... my ex bought this album a couple of years
ago when we were visiting Leeds, I think partly with the view of
us/her moving up here. Some of the songs remind me of if Siouxsie
sang very slow in the deep south. Not in a yeehah way mind. It's
the album with the yellow cover I've got.
Wish it was available on vinyl to.
14/11/5
Went to see a preview of The Propostion the other week. It's the film that Nick Cave's written the script and co-written the soundtrack for.
It was rather good. Brutal but not in an unecessary way, human and touching in parts, beautiful and horrible to watch. Mr Nick Cave and the director did a talk that evening and Mr Cave was very amusing. Said it'd taken him three weeks to write the script, which annoyed some rather pompous sounding chap who said he was a scriptwriter and that his last script had taken him five years. Basically it miffed the chap that Nick Cave had been able to write it so quick... though Mr Cave handled it well by saying that it could take him a month to write a song and he was envious of people who could just sit there with a guitar and write a song in a few minutes.
He's grown a fine moustache to, always recommended. It's very similar to mine though thicker, which gives it a more Mexican bandit look.
Also, just rewatched the Best of video compilation (though watched it on DVD this time, being all modern).
It's pretty good. I think one of my faves or at least the one that sticks in my memory is the one that's a big of a piss take of boy bands, Stagger Lee, with Nick Cave in a tight skinny fit "babe" style tshirt... plus it has those classic lines about fucking through xx pile of pussies to get to one good boys ass or some such thing.
Something else I liked about it is the way that the band chat about each video before hand. It's mostly Nick Cave, with the odd bit from Mick Harvey and the Blixa chap but it's a nice touch.
Made me rediscover The Ship Song to, which kind of reminds me of Into My Arms in the sense of it being a very moving description of love and how another human being can affect you very deeply. "when I crawl into your arms, everything comes tumbling down" and "let loose your dogs upon me" say a lot to me. Actually this song makes me cry. What more do I need to say?
Also, there's the expression of sentiments that seems slightly awkward and maybe a touch too wordy or intelligent for songs but that works... "we talk about it all night long, redefine our moral ground"... reminds me of "I don't believe in an interventionist god but darling I know that you do"... or however it goes.
Plus of course there's that "I don't know if I believe in the existence of angels but looking at you I wander if that's true". 'S funny how just looking at somebody can genuinely make you think that, the curve of somebodies ear, the way they hold themself, just the way they are.
Y'see, even after another relationship crashing and burning quite badly and leaving me crashed and burned quite badly, I'm still a terrible old romantic (and a terrible old cynic to).
Final Nick Cave thing... got tickets for one of his solo shows next year (well, with him and three other Bad Seeds), which is rather exciting... and rather expensive at £40 quid but then I'd rather see him once and it be terribly good and a fine and memorable event than watch eight mediocre indie gigs.
2005
off to see these in Manchester. Looking forward to it. Saw some live footage of them in that Kill Your Idols documentary that compares, contrasts and interviews New York No Wave people from the early eighties such as Michael Gira and Lydia Lunch with New York music people from nowadays (Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the like, with the older generation coming across a lot better it has to be said).
If this gets released on DVD, I'm buying it pretty darned quick I reckons, no, I knows.
They looked v'intense and it's an interesting world they've created.
Terribly rude tshirt they've done to, that I like a lot but don't think I could wear but could hang on the wall, with the slogan "fuck globally, think locally, gypsy punk underneath".
Plus the main chap is another fine 'tache wearer.
2005
Harry Crews
just read his A Childhood biography of his early years growing up
in the agricultural deep south of forties America.
Quite simply a stunning book. At times some of the ways that people
lived and survived seem almost medieaval and highlighted the differences
that have probably always existed between the rich and the poor
in the world's wealthiest (?) country. It's a moving, thrilling
account of the times and his years and a great tribute to knowing
your roots and the need for a sense of belonging and family.
V'recommended.
I'm not normally bothered about such things but the edition I got
was an American hardback one, published in the eighties I think,
with illustrations throughout. It's a very beautiful object and
I read it with kid gloves, only a bit annoyed 'cause part of the
slip cover got creased and I wanted it to stay perfect.
It's also been collected in a best of. The earlier edition had a
photo of him on the cover, looking like he could knock you out with
one punch and a tattoo on his arm that says "how do you like
your blue eyed boy, mr death?".
Mr Crews also appears in the film "Searching for the Wrong
Eyed Jesus" that is a kind of musical documentary and journey
through the deep south nowadays, with Mr Crew walking along with
his walking stick in the forest and looking a bit frail and saying
about how he used to make up stories about the models in the Sears
and Roebuck catalogue ("this man mad 'cause this boy's messing
about with this girl, who's his daughter"... not to the exact
word but those kind of things).
It's got Mr David Eugene Edwards, 16 Horsepower, Johnny Dowd and
various other alt.country musician types on it, along with Jim White
travelling through the country and you get to see how things haven't
really changed all that much since A Childhood, in some ways. People
are still poor and life is hard and tough but there's a joy there
to.
Anyways, it's coming out on DVD soon.
Steve
14th November 2005
I recently read her Billie Morgan book. Haven't read anything of hers for a fair few years and had only read spoken word kinda stuff before.
This I'd thoroughly recommend. It gripped me from moment one. The first chapter about being an outsider in your own family and home took my breath away. If you've ever been anywhere near being that person, you'll see what I mean when you read it...
...plus the descriptions of suffering from the black dogs of depression are bloody great. Not in a maudlin way at all, it just gets to the heart of it all.
I went to sleep not wanting to stop reading it, woke up wanting to read it, finished reading it and wandered what was happening to the characters and if they were alright.
I just kept stopping and thinking "wow, she can really write".
It's kind of a crime novel but it's not at all at the same time.
Plus, as a bonus, if you follow the names of the people who've written reviews on the cover of this and Cathi Unsworth's book (see below), you'll come across some very fine reading matter.
Steve
14th November 2005
This has just been published and is a genuinely beautiful, very human dark crime thriller... it's the interactions between the characters that really got me though and there'll be a line here and there that just shot to the heart of me and well, made me feel.
It's set in the London of the early nineties and a scene that is more than a nod to a Gallon Drunk-esque (see below) world of sharply dressed rock'n'roll types, that's right up my street. It incorporates a fair old bit of her own life, I think it's fair to say and there are more than a few characters and places that I recognise from my own life.
A real page turner and one of the two books of late that have restored my faith and enjoyment in reading novels.
Actually the music of Gallon Drunk are listed as a thanks at the start. It got me from there on in.
Steve 5/9/5
...plus, it seems to have been the starting point for a discovering a big pile of noir crime or what Derek Raymond apparently called "the black novel". It's not the crime so much, though it does help that it can turn things into a right good read and a ripping yarn, it's the staring into the darkness of being human, the despair, the depths and also the lines of terribly beautiful human fragility.
Before I moved up to Leeds I had a right good clear out of my books, only saving the ones that I'd really connected with. In my flat at the mo' I've not got enough shelf space for all my stuff and so there's a lot of stuff and books hidden away in cupboards but I did make one small shelf free to put inspirational books on. I like looking at books that I really connected with, it helps my try and work out what I'm doing next in life and culture and it feels like a point of calm.
There's only 23 books on this little shelf, along with a dictionary. Of those from before I started to properly discover dark crime stuff and putting a name to it there's GB84, London Blue, The Long Firm, 1974, The Cutting Room and a pile of books on Christine Keeler/The Profumo affair. Aha, now I see that there's been some kind of interest without a name for a while.
I'd greatly recommend Cathi's article on noir fiction in issue 7 of my sis and her chap's magazine, Nude, as an inspirational piece of reading to learn more (see below).
20th November 2005
My new/old quite now very occasional club night . A fine evening full of fractured electronica, deadbeat disko, big nasty guitar ridden beats, dirty electro, glitchy songs and things we'd want to hear at a club. I used to do the night in Nottingham, when it was a more song'n'guitars based thing, the time I put it on in Leeds it was a much more electronic night.
I did it in Leeds partly as it made a damned fine change from the endless generic student nights out there, if I say so myself.
2005
My sister and her chaps genuinely independent magazine. This is the online site for the printed article. Well worth a read and a subscription. What's it about? Accessible leftfield and not so mainstream culture, quirky illustration, things they like and have a passion for. All kinds of goodies and inspiring reading matter... oh and issue 6 has got an advert by my good self and maybe something else but that'd be telling.
2005
A friend recently bought me a birthday card and he said "you're bloody difficult to buy for, finding something modern that you won't disgusting is hard". It was quite sweet and I suppose I didn't realise that I was like that. I guess it's partly that I can lend the past a sense of romanticisim and decency that's all too missing in the modern world.
Here's somebody who feels like a chap out of time. It's easiest if I just copy the email I sent to my sis about him:
"I've seen him live a couple of times and he's genuinely enchanting. The whole room full of rowdy indie kids will go quiet and just watch as a chap who seems genuinely out of time, in an old fashioned suit plays these odd kind of folk songs, intermingled with touching versions of George Formby songs played on a ukele... but it doesn't seem like he's being ironic or whacky or affected, he just seems like he's one of those people that genuinely has to do what he has to do and he makes a pleasant change from four pretty indie-boys with guitars. Terribly English but not in a cartoon-y way.
The last time I saw him the audience wouldn't let him off stage and he'd be terribly polite and say things like "well, I have one of my own songs or a song about bananas". Everybody shouted for both, so he did a ukele medeley that merged both, becoming a suggestive old-fashioned saucy postcard tune about bananas having bones.
I heard that he's actually George Formby's great grandson but I don't know if that's a local myth.
...oh, the other thing was, to get a flavour of what he's like I'd recommend the stuff at the bottom of his music page:
www.benjaminwetherill.co.uk/musicmore.htm
...particularly the video of Kissing Under Poplars, which sounds terribly sweet and fragile but if you listen to the lyrics is actually really rather dark and "I Haven't Told Her, She Hasn't Told Me", the George Formby song."
It all kind of reminds me of my grandma, who used to have a whisky or two and sing "Does The Lampost Get Bronchitis On The Corner of The Street?", "Why Don't They Make Pickled Onions Square?", "Does Your Chewing Gum Go Hard on the Bedpost Over Night" and a song about the men in France and a belly dancer called Nelly.
Steve
5th September 2005
I'm currently quite obsessed by their new album that's coming out in September, which I've managed to hear an advance copy of. Beautiful Boyz, on which Antony (& the Johnsons) sings is quite simply one of the most stunning things I've ever heard. It's like a fractured Jean Genet novel brought to life (but without the hassle of having to plough through one!).
I saw them live towards the end of last year and it was one of those rare concerts that literally took my breath away and moved me intensely and emotionally.
What are they like? Well, they're two half-sisters who've created their own world and the music involves a cracked but beautiful Billie Holiday-esque voice, a classically trained voice, a drawn on curly moustache, a grand piano, harp, children's electronic toys and samplers, backing tapes on dictaphone... oh, just lots but it's not in a wacky way. Go find and see.
Quite often their actual sight is down but you can find out more at Touch and Go Records and here.
2005
He's been an enduring feature in my life for as long as I can remember. Thankfully he's on the mend and I'm v'much looking forward to watching my new DVD of his. I recently saw him doing a guest slot with Antony and the Johnsons, one of the first live things since his accident and it was genuinely moving. Antony introduced him as somebody without whom he wouldn't be doing his creativity, Marc Almond came on and said "look at me, 25 years in this business and I'm shaking like a leaf". It was lovely.
2005
Music photography that makes you ache, a chap who was in Gallon Drunk (one of England's great lost bands) and a lovely lady who keeps bees, paints and makes fims. Much to see and hear.
I recently had a free offer to go and see James Johnston and Jim Sclavunos (who are both now also Bad Seeds) do a tag-team dj set at a rather swanky members bar in London. I didn't go 'cause the train would've been a fortune and I couldn't quite ask the person I wanted to go with if they wanted to go. I'm still a bit gutted about this. The lesson from this? Sometimes you've just got to go and do stuff and not worry so much.
Gallon Drunk were the soundtrack to a huge part of my life that's always stayed with me. They were not really like anybody else, there was something terribly attractive about them but not in a pretty-boy way, there was a darkness there and there was something about the whole thing that just summed up a life of after-hours central London drinking dens, slicked back hair, sharp suits, lost days and nights in the heart of London. I miss them.
Sometimes a band just connects with you and your life and you never fully get over them. Gallon Drunk were one of those for me.
Last year I got to put on his new band Bender (also featuring Steve and Geraldine from above) and I was excited and nervous at the thought of finally meeting Mr James Johnston but him and his travelling companions were the loveliest people.
Stood in the carpark afterwards I told him about how Gallon Drunk had been the soundtrack to a part of my life and he told me about clearing stuff out before he moved, leaving a guitar with a stage shirt in a skip, like a ready made band kit 'cause you have to let go of these things as they hold you back.
He's currently playing with Nick Cave's Bad Seeds. I saw them last year and he plays the organ with a passion that you wouldn't believe, the band looked like a besuited gang you wouldn't want to let into town near your daughters and James Johnston took a comb out half way through the set to comb his hair back. Again, it wasn't in a pretty boy way but it made me feel like swooning.
Steve
5th September 2005
I first experienced him in about 1996 on a trip to New York at this, well, kind of performance art/musical thing with a group I think was called Bloolips... and it was like nothing I've ever seen before or since. I was stunned and pinned to my seat. He's currently enjoying a much higher profile than I've known before but I still feel that he's my secret and special and v'important.
2005
This is a fine resource, community and chat area for all things Amanda Lepore. Who she? Go see.
2005
I had one of those moments at this club night where I was on the dance floor and everything just made sense and I went away and started my own club. What more can I say.
Well, actually, the more I can say is that I still like going clubbing. It's not the be all and end all of things any more but I like that occassional feeling when it feels like you've stepped into another world and everything else fades away and this is the only thing that matters. Nag Nag Nag did this for me. Another club that was kind of a sleazy but sophisticated forties cocktail style club called Blue Martini also did that for me. I once went in dressed in a custom-tailored suit based on a 30's (or was it 20's?) design that I'd seen and had made and a chap called Jake Vegas saw me and went "looking sharp there" and though it may be superficial, again the world just made sense, just for a mo'.
I guess the thing that I find lacking in modern clubbing, well, in Leeds at least, is some where that's not just full of indie kids, where there's a wider cross section of people and ages and sexualities and people are suited and booted and there's tables to sit and actually talk but also a fine dance floor to cut a rug on... I guess this is the old romantic in me, wanting to go to clubs like the Stardust in The Long Firm or the one in Our Friends Up North, somewhere where Cristine Keeler is laughing and drinking in a booth, some suave slicked back crooners play in the corner and there's a gaggle of trannies and freaks dressed up to the nines. Ah, if only.
Steve
5th September 2005
PS It closed it's doors for the last time this year.
2008
There's something that I find fascinating about this chap'n'his'quiff'n'tattoos'n'cigars and the fact that he's a renowned electro/techno dj and artist but his last album was a semi-live instrument dub and goth and garage and electro thing inspired by a Jim Dodge book. Also worth a visit is Warp's pages about him but I'll let you Google that.
2005
Thee
Billy Childish
This man is an inspiration for how
you don't have to do it their way, you can stick to what you know
and love and one day the world will come round to you.
He's got an exhibition on at the mo' at The Aquarium in London,
if you want to Google it. If they've got them for sale and you want
to buy me one, I'd v'much like one of those pin hole camera photos
of him that Wolf from the Buff Medways took.
Steve
5th September 2005
What a name for a band... and what a fine sound and attitude they have. If anybody wants to find and buy me their first hand spray painted vinyl release with a a Tommie Sunshine remix then please feel free.
2005
There's something about the world that DJ Hell has helped create that gets me every time... and they have Amanda Lepore as their logo/icon, what more could you need? I'm still mildly annoyed about missing the launch party of his last album by about two days when I was visiting Berlin a New Years Eve or two ago. There was this one flyposter, tantalisingly out of reach behind a wire fence and every time I walked past it the Gigolos typeface, Alan Vega, Billie Ray Martin guests and the like would taunt me!
2005
Quite simply very fine over-real glam photography. His work makes me want to live in the world he's created.
Sometimes it's maybe a bit too, hmmm, corporately invested (I guess giant burger props don't come cheap) but good nonetheless.
2005
This is the home of Michael Gira, a one man lesson in intensely felt music that's sometimes so beautiful it makes me feel angry but not angsty and alive and... oh, I don't know, to go out and just do stuff.
V'impressive.
For a good while now, his has been some of the only music that's genuinely touched me. There's something about the timbre of his voice that makes me feel like it's a wise, older uncle talking to me and the hairs stand up on my arms. Lovely packaging to.
Saw him in London a couple of months ago and I just stood and stared in awe, open mouthed, it's not often that things just move and grab you like that.
Mr Gira, thankyou sir.
Steve
5th September 2005
Right into the heart of London's new-electro and with a genuine passion for music that always makes me look forward to reading his dj charts.
2005
I met James Murphy once after one of their gigs a couple of years ago and chatted to him for a bit but didn't want to bother him being a fanboy but he came and found me again for a natter and he was a big, genuine bear of a chap. Recommended.
...though me being a contrary buggar, after the Movement single and the whole EMI relentless advertising campaign, I've found myself less interested but it's still fine music.
Steve
5th September 2005
'S very fashion but I love the animation'n'music things that they have... see plenty of them in their archives. I'd also recommend KCTV for London art'n'club related things.
2005
Larry Tee's site... another home of new-electro stuff and another self-created world that I love to look into.
2005
Nicola Kuperus and Adam Millers homespun "working class electronic music site". They were inspirational people to meet.
2005
Clubbing with a brain and a big pile of dance floor intelligence and a philosophy and integrity that's rare to find.
2005
There's not a lot actually at his site but I'd recommend a Google to find some of the finest graphic design that I've seen.
2005
Well, I could go on but that's a good selection of things that I like and find inspiring or that are like sticky candy that makes me want more and get that ache inside that makes me want to go out into the world and help create beauty and hopefully inspire passion.
Some other things that I like but I shall leave you to search for as that way who knows what other tangents you'll wander and find yourself: John John Jesse, Epitonic, Earl Brutus, Hiem, Kitsch Bitch, Leigh Bowery, Coil's Horse Rotorvator, Primal Scream (the last 3 albums before the I expect crap rock like one), Jonny Slut, Ellen Von Unwerth, Gallon Drunk, Man 2 Man Meet Man Parrish's Male Stripper, Zeigenbock Kopf, proper old fashioned gents hairdressers, fine moustaches and those leather caps that I think are called Muir (?) caps.
...oh and go and read David Peace's GB84, which is a fictionalised version of the hidden history of England and the miners strike in the early eighties.
What was the miner's strike of the early eighties? Well, it's been described as a civil war without guns. It was the last great set battle between the old left and the New Right/Thatcherism. It was brutal and no effort was spared to crush the miners. It's much more complicated and much less black and white than can be fit into a paragraph of course...
Anyway, GB 84 is very inspirational, a bloody good read and if you can read this and not feel angry at the injustice done to ordinary people for the sake of some twisted sense of power and greed, well, what are you still on my site for?
Steve
10th August 2005
Also, something that I've recently
come across and thought was v'beautiful and caught my mind and attention
a lot; here.
Click on the "westwood s.s 05 campaign
a" link at the bottom of the page.
It's this chap who used to do quite a lot of fetish photography
and it's Marilyn Manson and Dita Von Teese in a fashion photo shoot,
along with a rather attractive chap with tattoos and a lovely tie.
Not what you'd think...
...oh and Adam Sky's website.
Lovingly designed by Lady
Pat, who has a fine
way with raw, cut and paste sites.
Steve
6th May 2005
Mark
Well, wasn't sure where to put this but I shall put it here.
In fact I wasn't sure whether or not to put this online but I wanted to do something that honoured the chap.
This is a tribute to a friend of mine, Mark, who died recently, unexpectedly and far too young. He was a lovely chap, caring and thoughtful and with a fine passion for exploring and understanding culture. A real thinker with a subtle sense of humour and a great laugh. Well, what can I say, words aren't really enough.
Page 45: This is the shop that he and Stephen, who he worked with for over 20 years, owned and ran. Quite simply one of the best shops of any kind I've ever been in and one of the true outposts against the relentless march of generic establishments in town centres.
It was a comic shop but don't let that make you think of boy-sy, geeky places as it's always had far more style and character than those. It's a genuine labour of love and one of those places where you will always find something suprising that you have to buy or that inspires you, even if you don't like comics. Mark was a great finder of such things and like I've just said, just a lovely chap. He'll be missed a lot.
Mark at home and with Dominique, a good friend of his, who also worked at the shop.
Steve
10th August 2005
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