"I can imagine something like this.....

...french kissing my brain." - Leetnad (youtube user comment)

David Lynch car commercial makes Greg Laugh. A lot.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.................................haha.......
ha........ha........snigger.......phew.

If you like music....

Listen to this.
Its a mix of german 70s and 80s music, so all sorts of electronic, pop, krautrock, weirdness and the like. Its by a fella called Riton, who makes anything from electro-house to techno to krautrock.
This mix is from another of his guises Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and was made as a bit of promotion for the album and given away for free on his website. (obviously giving away a lot of the albums influences in the process.)
Anyway. This is awesome-ness to the dizzying max. Highly recommended.

Track list.

Eroc- Zimperlein
Edgar Froese- Pinnacles
Intence- Jump On Velvet Paws
Kraftwerk- Boing Boom Tschak
Kraftwerk- Neonlicht
Tone Band- This Is Germany Calling
Toy Planet- Two Dophins Go Dancing
Faust- It's A Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl
Guru Guru- Globetrotter
Conrad Schnitzler- Das Teir
Peter Bauman- The Third State
Cluster- Caramel
Cluster- Grosses Vasses
Holger Czukay- On The Way To The Peak Of Normal
Die Grune Reise- Ich Bin
Baffo Banfi- Indian
Rheingold- Drieklangsdimensionen
Canaxis 5 -Boat Woman Song
Amon Duul II- Burning Sister
Uberfallig- Puls
Neu- Hallogallo
Eloy- Impressions
Holger Czukay- Persian Love
Tangerine Dream- Love On a Real Train

My friend Brett has talent.

This is the only completed scene from his short film. Its fucking good. He needs to finish it. If I win the lottery, I'll put money towards its completion.



I have a lot of talented friends. They all make me feel sub-par.

I hate i phone users.

This guy is all excited because he can control Abelton with his i phone. I don't get it. You pretty much have to be near your laptop for the wireless to work so why not just use the laptop? You can only control a little bit of abelton at a time with it, so why not just use the laptop and get more control?
There seems to be no point to this except that, well, its cool to use your i phone to control abelton. Or so they say. I mean, surely a midi controller would be better. What happens if your performing a gig with your i phone and someone calls you? Its just novelty value really isn't it. I'll probably eat my words when everyone in the world starts performing with i phones. Actually I'd probably just shoot myself in the face. Possibly with my i phone gun application.

Sun Ra Arkestra.

We went to see this on Sunday night after working all day on that animation below and the night after the Stockhausen gig. Gravenhurst were playing too, but due to a complete useless fuckwad of a tape operator we missed it. Dumb. Gravenhurst are cool. Still Sun Ra. That should be sweet. Well it was to start with. Many black jazz performers come out on stage in there many, mythical, 1970s ideal of what the future is, sparkly hats and capes. Sunglasses seemed fairly important too. They started off doing a cool number that had plenty of noise all over the place and that sweet, sweet way in which everybody on stage sounds like they are juuuussssssttttt out of time with each other. Like everyone plays to a different metronome. Sun Ra is good at that.
Two songs to start about space. Sweet as.
Problem is, that then they turned into a covers band. They played Jazz and blues from a whole bunch of famous people who I am sure are wicked, but when you want to see some Sun Ra it doesn't really cut it. They did a couple more Sun Ra tracks at the end, but it wasn't enough to save the boredom in the middle of what was basically a good covers band wearing space outfits. I wanted more songs about space. More organ freak outs. If only the Ra was still alive.
No 'space is the place' or 'spaceways inc' in sight.
I could have saved the night by buying a Space is the place t-shirt, but I didn' cause I was saving money. I regret that now.

stockhausen gig.

Lyndall happily (as in I was happy....she could have been really pissed about it) bought me tickets to see the London Sinfonietta play Stockhausen numbers at the Southbank centre as a present because she is awesome. It was supposed to be a celebration of his birthday (that he was gonna appear at) but having died last year they changed it into a celebration of Stockhausen. Lyn bought me tickets well early on, and as the time approached they unveiled more and more concerts until it became a full blown festival. This was kind of annoying because there were plenty of other things I would have liked to seen and if we'd known earlier we would have waited to see everything that was on.
Anywho. It was all very adult when we arrived. Lots of people wearing 1970s school teacher blazers with arm patches, and silver rimmed glasses, and salt and pepper pony tailed men. Some people had taken their kids. Small kids. I don't think small kids and Stockhausen go, but then I guess I know sweet fuck nothing about raising kids.
The first part was a track for Alto voice and Orchestra. Three songs. The conductor was huge. I don't mean huge, in a 'this guy is huge in the music business' kinda huge.....just huge. He was wearing a suit and the suit jacket was so stretched it looked like a shirt. Huge. Also really, really square. I feel like, in a live action movie of Mr Men, he could play a part. No costume. Mr Conductor.
This part kind of went from making me happy, to sad, to annoyed.....to something. I'm not a fan of ladies wailing at the best of times so it wasn't really for me. There were flurries of high pitched squeaky-ish fun here and there, and and undertone of funeral march seriousness. The thing is I find Stockhausen funny. Like Klaus Kinski funny. Seriousness meets humour. This bit wasn't funny enough for me. It was ok. Nothing to write a blog about though.
I found my mind wandering to the uniformed in black shirt and pant performers and wondering what kind of social life they have. Who are the babes of the orchestra and who were the hunks. Did the guy with the glockenspeil get beaten up in a 'your not even a real musician' fit of rage afterwards by the violinists cause he only only got to play a note once every ten minutes?
Next up was a pre-recorded electronic number. Spotlight comes on. Looks like a moon on the curtains. Stays in one place for twenty minutes while swirling, distorted noises and ladies that sound like japanese kubuki singers, ping ponging round in 3d sound space. This was way fun to start with, but after a bit I felt like I was losing myself, and having had a hard night the night before I thought I may fall off my chair, or vomit into the very serious looking fellows lap next to me. I held it together and a break came. I grabbed a beer to make me feel better....which worked, and went back in for the last part.
I liked this the most. It was more standard musical fair, but with a some funny stops....wait....wait.....wait.....wait.....start again bits, which reminded me of the up channel on my mixer.
It was fairly pleasant music. Then out of no where BAM! A guy with a tuba walks out and does some awesome bass heavy farts for a little bit and then walks off. People laughed and clapped him off. Tuba man. least work, most claps. I worked out who the hunk was.
The night wasn't entirely what I expected, but I really enjoyed it.

Fred West is a nutcase...

I think everybody who knows who he is knows that anyway really, so that is a pointless title for a post. But if you don't know look him up. He raised his children so him and his wife could beat and have sex with them. (and sometimes kill them if the whim struck them) They called this little happy family, 'The house of love'.
Sometimes he murdered women he got pregnant before they even had the baby. He also seemed to like murdering girls he loved. His wife helped too.
For some reason I have been watching documentaries on Serial killers. I'm not sure I enjoy them. They make me feel a little ill. I'm interested though. This one on youtube about Fred is a goodie............or a baddie I guess depending on which way you look at it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iGlGLscUtk
I think its in like 15 parts, so its also a long one.
Quoting Youtube:
'it as extremely controversial as it included exclusive police taped interviews with Fred West. The police tried to ban it but failed as the tapes were part of Fred West's Estate so were no longer their property, it resulted in the law being changed so in future Police Interviews would remain the property of The Home Office and would never again allowed to be sold.'

Karlheinz Stockhausen

'What has happened is - now you all have to turn your brains around - the greatest work of art there has ever been. That minds could achieve something in one act, which we in music cannot even dream of, that people rehearse like crazy for ten years, totally fanatically for one concert, and then die. This is the greatest possible work of art in the entire cosmos. Imagine what happened there. There are people who are so concentrated on one performance, and then 5000 people are chased into the Afterlife, in one moment. This I could not do. Compared to this, we are nothing as composers... Imagine this, that I could create a work of art now and you all were not only surprised, but you would fall down immediately, you would be dead and you would be reborn, because it is simply too insane. Some artists also try to cross the boundaries of what could ever be possible or imagined, to wake us up, to open another world for us.'
Karlheinz Stockhausen, Hamburg, September 2001 after the 9/11 terror attacks.

Leftroom records @ Bar Rhumba

Bar Rhumba is an old club in london (15years) that hasn't had a lot going on that I've wanted to go to. I spotted that they were doing a monthly techno night there on the interweb and decided I should go check it out. Its a small place, and reading their website I discovered they seemed to be in full support of the backlash against all the fucking cunt bags that end up in clubs in london. Trying to make their policy aimed more at people who actually know what music is going on in the club, and not letting in the stripped shirt wearing fucktards and gold shimmery dress wearing sluts who are just cruising down the street looking for anywhere to drink thats open so they can get more pissed than they are and go home and fuck each other and then vomit and then shit in the bed then laugh about it with their hugo boss jeans wearing mates later, seems like a good idea to me. Oh yeah did I mention they are aiming to be the home of techno in london? It sounded all too good to be true.
I was also pleased to see it was a Leftroom records night. I like these guys. They have been less caught up in the whole 'Berlin' sound than everybody else, well because....they aren't from Berlin. Which is good. I am slightly sick of hearing the same minimal techno sound over and over again. I also kind of think the whole scene in general is imploding in a weird way, with everybody just following a trend for a few months, then a new one pops up, and everybody follows that. Its really bad at the moment (Trumpets spring to mind...but then I like Trumpets a lot so I'll let that one fly), and the epi-centre seems to be Berlin. I guess a place gets too popular and everybody knows about it and then rapes it in the arse until it screams 'No more!' So they give it some more just to make sure. This is not the city itselfs fault. Just the knowledge spreading to idiots that its the techno capital of the world. And since techno is no longer a dirty word, this knowledge has spread to Wire reading, art magazine cocks and Djmag reading glow, stick cunts and everything in between. Come one, come all.
Berlin is still fortunate though because it still has plenty of the best Techno in the world coming out of it....I think most of the blame needs to fall on all the cunts who couldn't make music without Berlin. The people who just copy the sounds that come from there. And there are plenty of those.
Techno never used to be this way.
Still there is a real talent pool there of labels and people (including good friends of mine) who are not so caught up in the copying for popularity sake, but sometimes I wonder how long the citys number one on the podium spot can last?
Anyway, Leftroom is a tougher sound than is really popular at the moment and I like it.
Anywho. I got down there and there was a bit of a line outside. I wasn't sure that it was the right place, so I wandered up and said 'Is this the place that Matt Tolfrey is playing?' and they let me right in.
On the agenda for the night to play: Matt Tolfrey, Clive Henry and Neil Parkes.
It is a cool little dark bar/club. The PA wasn't really as good as I expected. It was really clear and sounded nice, but not enough bottom end to it. Still, there was only about 50 people in there and it was SO cool, being able to sit down and listen to cool music not surrounded by arseholes and have drinks. I LOVED IT.
Clive Henry was playing really good music too. Basically the kind of tough tough you'd expect from a leftroom night in that the sounds were sharp and clear, and there was less roll to the bassline. Not so warm and wobbley. Slightly sharp. There were warmer tracks in there but fewer than I am used to hearing out these days, at places like Fabric etc. If I had to define the sound using two labels as examples, it seemed like a perfect halfway point between cadenza and m_nus.
Anyway Matt Tolfrey came on and I had a dance , on a dance floor with PLENTY of space to move. Crazy.
He played well, and I spoke to him for a bit and he was a really nice guy.
My only thing I could say that maybe brought the night down a little was the fact that, because there were less people than in a normal club experience in London, the actual DJ'ing itself was kind of a I'll just do enough to get by kind of experience and not really a work the hell out of it type thing. I guess as the night gets a few more people (not too many though) this will change. Either way, its so nice to have a place where you can go, hang out without too much pressure, and listen to and chat about good music. Did I mention its right by my work? Did I also mention the major nights are on Fridays. It all seems a little bit too good to be true.
I'm gonna head down next month for sure.
November gigs I'm going to in the next month. Stockhaussen, (not actually him of course) Gravenhurst, Sun Ra Arkestra and Ricardo Villalobos.
Living in London is rad.