On Music

A friend has asked for musical recommendations, what I've found/discovered/uncovered/dug out of some greasy bedsit in cold hard suburbia. I was all set to do some sort of listy thing but then, on reflection, it got me thinking of where I am on music these days...

Buggered if I know.

The utter fantasticalness of the net is that I can, on a whim, listen to anydamnthing I want to at a moments notice. However, this has its downsides- for one, there's just so much bloody stuff to listen to. I have eschewed  mainstream music in its entirety, and this includes many acts that would usually be classified as 'alternative' - a label I long ago considered irrelevant - a label that has become so comodified that it includes virtually everything even remotely left of field - I cannot say when was the last time I listened to music radio station, on the odd time I've had to endure such my suspicions have largely been confirmed. Total 100% regurgitated facile elevator music. I sometimes wonder if I have turned into that generation who, as a lad, would condemn my music as unmitigated bollocks - but I don't think so, Max Bygraves remains a long way from my playlist.

So, in the quest for musical genius - and yes, it is still out there, I do not, and will not subscribe to the stupified  'All the good stuff has been done, maaan' mindset that many 'musos' subscribe to as they plunk out yet another crusty cover. I have resources, and I shall reveal a few.

First up the NBT radio show is an indispensable source of new, groundbreaking  acts. Martin intersperses each show/stream of largely undiscovered gems with good solid oldies - not your 'Oh here we go again ' yawners, but carefully selected to underscore and enhance the newer stuff. Be it rock, folk, electronic or just plain eclectic, it all gets a whirl and is a damned good launch pad for missions of further exploration.

There are several podcasts that I constantly return to Phantom Circuit is one, featuring a goodly chunk of experimental, electronic and just plain odd music with interviews with featured artists.

Belbury Radio is another favourite of mine, presented by the chap behind  a band called - Belbury Polly, again oddly experimental stuff, a smattering of unusual classics and choral pieces. Very much in the Hauntology vein of music that I have grown to admire this year- haunting stuff that invokes odd memories drenched in reverb.

One of my favourite artists in the Hauntology vein is The Caretaker.
An aside, Hauntology is not to be confused with Witch House, Witch House is Trip Hop pt2 or sometimes lets-slow-house/ebm-down-to-16rpm-and-call-it-a-genre..

Author/writer Warren Ellis does a superb podcast thingy on occasion, the most recent one, Spektrmodule2, can be found  here.

Of sites I frequent/subscribe to regarding music:  Dying For Bad Music is a must, for music at its most eclectic, some of it can be, er, really 'bad', as in spotty yoof in bedsit wif casioplayer, spoons and a tape recorder - though out of such, greatness comes on occasion.

It was on DFBM that I discovered my favourite band of the year - Motorama.

I have had two definite directions that my musical preferences have gone over the last 18 months, one is folk and folk rock. In my misspent yoof, I developed quite a liking for bands such as Steeleye Span and they've always lurked in the background, their albums finding their way onto the turntable. My predilection for all things gloomy, embeded in Joy Division and Echo and the Bunnymen did sort of sidestep around the obvious Goth-by-numbers of Sisters/Rosetta etc and found a home in the dark folk of Current 93 and Death in June, which, then guided me back to folk in its rawest form, rediscovering the Wickerman soundtrack this year put me on a whole new quest. Blogs like Wheel of the Year have helped with some absolutely fantastic folk/dark folk/psychfolk compilations -as well as some pretty awesome almost classical album links.

My other musical direction is into Drone. Drone covers a wider expance of music than one would think, from the Doom metal of Sun (((O))), through electronica and ambient soundscapes (Drone does actually feature as an element in a lot of Folk music- so there is a link there). Outstanding examples can be found at Droning Earth with again, some well put together compilations available.

 Greats for me in the Drone arena are artists like Anji Cheung, A Death Cinematic and Good Weather For An Airstrike -all available on Bandcamp, another site that I've found indispensable, with many acts offering their work for free or for a small fee (or for what you feel the music's worth). An interesting wee thing I discovered is that Good Weather For an Airstrike started out as a project aimed at nullifying the effects of tinnitus, a condition I have that is slowly worsening (a hereditary condition I've been told ) from the prolonged ear ringing I suffered after many a club night or gig to inability to bloody follow conversations in a crowded venue to a constant buzz that worsens with fatigue/illness. And oddly, I find some drone to do just that-cancel it out.

Outstanding albums/artists over the last year, new and old, a list:

Motorama-Alps, also look up their earlier ep's all available on their site.
Anji Cheung-Ghost of Dead Lords and Ritual
The Wickerman Soundtrack
Vor Der Flut -(Hommage An Einen Wasserspeicher) various artists featured in a water reservoir emptied for renovation- the best natural reverb ever.
Tim Hecker-Rave Death
William Basinski-92982
Good Weather for an Airstrike-As we're Both Just Standing Still
Pye Corner Audio Transcription Services-Black Mill tapes Vol 1
The Caretaker-An Empty Bliss Beyond This World
Forseti-Erde
Little Kid - Logic Songs
Birdengine-The Crooked Mile
Eyes Like Mirrors - Crusades
A Death Cinematic-Preternatural
Kemper Norton-Libraries Act

Under Pressure

Buggrit, my last post on here reflected my frustration at trying to find balance...I then went and spent near 2 months chasing the elusive dollar, getting up at 6, hitting the net, chasing freelance projects etc etc. To say its been a waste of time would be wrong, but dammit the return aint been great and then smacked with a string of expenses I didn't need.
 Apart from a few dalliances with some Crawlspace stuff, I've done absolutely nothing on my drawing projects: Boys With the Filters and Karroo Rats, both that I'd had high hopes to do large things with by the year end.

Balance....

OK, time out, its time to bask in the holiday glow for a bit...

Sunday kick back or at least , try to.

The one thing I just can't seem to regulate, now I'm freelancing again, is the balance between work/play/relaxation.

The one reason I gave up the day job was the hours spent doing buggerall and dwelling on the fact that I could be doing something- anything. Now I have the opportunity, I do just that - except, it rolls over into the time I usually spent out-of-work. It's winding me down and wearing me out. Whether I'm designing something (a mug, a badge, a showstand),

here's a mug I baked earlier

manipulating an image (for a tile order or such), drawing another page of the script I'm working on - sketch/ink/colour/letter/repeat, silkscreening or just doing domestic stuff like cleaning/decorating, I cannot seem to get myself to relax - if there is something, anything that needs to be done/fixed/sorted...phew!

Toofy Thaibo

This wee bugger has the right idea, mooches over to the desk and lies all over the place. This is Thaibo (or Tai-bo - never quite got the right one). I should take a few tips from his lordship.

I've cleaned out the jacuzzi and I'm filling it, I'll force myself to sit in it with a beer,  the heater doesn't work (needs fixing....) so the solar geyser comes nicely to the fore! Dammit, I just realised that the bubble thing won't bubble because the damn prepaid meter the council installed does not work and the jacuzzi is on that circuit...perhaps if I run a cable/splice this to that...

David Bowie...

My first introduction to Bowie was the Aladin Sane album, or at least, my first conscious introduction. Someone has brought the album to school and was flashing it about. I'd heard the music before, I think I recall having liked Space Oddity but wasn't really aware of  'Bowie' until I saw the cover of Aladin Sane.
I recently picked up an old biography of David Bowie at the charity shop a week or so ago - by one Chris Charlesworth. Written in 1981, it was amusing to read, 30 years later, a persons account of the rise of Bowie and his, in 1981, almost retirement after his mercurial rise to fame in the early 70's.
The Seventies - perhaps its then because I transformed from a pre-teen kid to an angsty young man within that decade that I see it as an incredible period of change - and growth. It was, my time of appreciating and discovering life and, almost as a parallel, music transformed from besuited mop-tops, through rock, glam, pop and by the end of the decade, punk and post-punk. I had it all! I don't believe we've seen the like since.
David Bowie epitomises the Seventies in my mind.  The beginning of the decade saw him a whistful, naive figure who by 1974 was a rock phenominon, sparking glam, soul, punk and new romantic. What artist today has the ability to totally transform themselves, as Bowie did from the idol Ziggy Stardust to the crooning Young American and then on to the bleak dystopian vision that was 'Low ' over a period of a couple of years? But, I think, it was helped by his outlook, he eschewed fame and was not willing to compromise, not willing to create fodder for his audience. Reading the (short) biography, fame very nearly did kill him, but he was able to rise above it - or rather, skim beneath it.
So, consequently I've been listening to loads of David Bowie this week...My favourite album remains Hunky Dory, followed closely by Low, Ziggy Stardust and more recently Heathen. I wasn't keen the soul period of Young Americans, though I now thoroughly appreciate his mindset behind it  . Apart from, I think, one really miff album in the Eighties - Tonight, Bowie's albums have all been good.

Good night.

That Seventies Show

Way back then, pocket money didn't go far and even when the paychecks started rolling in R150 didn't go that far either (though, at 35c a beer at The Swan and the NME at 25c it weren't all bad). Still, shelling out for a record album was not something to be sniffed at (haha still isn't) and of course, it was the imported stuff that counted, local pressing were well crap most of the time. I still managed to spend a goodly chunk of the paypacket on music.  There was a popular photographic/electronic chain, Etkinds, around back then and at some stage they had come up with the idea of having a stand of vinyl deletions in their stores at around a Rand a platter, loads of crap but with a bit of diligence I would afford myself the prize of finding something off my usual beaten musical track. My first introduction to the likes of Rick Wakeman (Six Wives of Henry VIII), Can, Amon Duul and Faust (I distinctly remember passing up a copy of the untitled Faust album on clear vinyl through not having just a few cents more...) and others was afforded me by these racks of gems.
Some of the finds I gleaned back then have fallen by the wayside, either 'borrowed', lent out (then forgotten) or swept away by other misfortune.

I stumbled over this blog site - Orexis of Death recently (a Russian site?) and have been able to relocate some of  those lost slabs of sound, and found that these were not stand alone albums, damn, I love rediscovering seams of  music...Swiss band Toad up there one of 'em (about 5 other albums available!). Trolling through Orexis' pages I am reminded of how much bloody great music has been produced (yes, yes, crap stuff even more so) swept aside by what is deemed 'popular' by the music moguls of time past and present. Actually, as with Toad its criminal how many acts were ignored because they were not within the British/American axis. In so many cases stuff coming out of Spain, France, Italy, Japan, Argentina etc etc etc was in many ways so much better, if only through innovation and without the entrenched sound of UK/USA swamping out the music. Production may have been more polished, more professional , though I deem overproduction to be a heinous crime and in so many cases merely glosses over stuff with a lets-make-it-sound-like sheen suitable for the masses...

Rock on!!

Untitled

It has come to my notice that I can't post photos from my cell any more. Don't know whether this is a Posterous thing or a G-mail thing...?!?!

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Mugs

So, as I've explained, I've left the dreary world of retail display, a field that, by and large, has devolved into a position of jumped up shelf packer, the object being - to get as much stock on the floor as possible, without piling it too high that customers will knock it over...

I've done some silkscreening before and intend to get back into that, perhaps stretching my abilities to more experimental pieces as opposed to simple t-shirt designs, playing around with half tones etc.
In the meantime, I've invested in some equipment that takes printing on objects one step further. The one thing I can now print on to is a mug! A bit of design and manipulation on the computer and my cartoons can appear on drinking utensils of various size.

I can bung photos, slogans and my own illustrations on the mugs and I see me having a lot of fun with this - everyone wants a personalised coffee mug- don't they? Well, if they don't, I'm gonna have an awful lot of mugs in the kitchen cupboard..hahahha! The finished product is really quite splendid, good, strong colours and totally dishwasher safe - years of drinking pleasure!

Initially, I'm working on ideas based around dogs/cats as Candi is running her puppy/dog classes from home so I see a bit of a captive market there. I want to look at limited runs of 'arty' mugs, perhaps featuring local artists' work and I want to explore small runs of souvenier type stuff as well. I'm thinking a few (local) band related ideas could come to mind as well.

Damn Cats

Don't get me wrong, I think I prefer cats to dogs, somewhat independent (except when I'm typing /reading/eating/sleeping), cool and calculating.

Tubby, is my old lady, around 14 years old, she's had me since she was a kitten. She was an only child and had ample teat to sustain her and hence , got a little rotund (her longer fur added to the effect) and my daughter christened her Tubby. She's survived dogs, rampant strays and a house burning down.

She grew to be a slip of a thing, eats like a gannet but doesn't gain weight. Recently I noticed her swearing profusely whilst tucking into a bowl of nosh, in some instances getting so upset she'd not eat! So, off to the vet, and as I suspected, Tubby's got a rotten tooth, inflamed gums being a result. Now, a cat of Tubby's vintage can't just go have the thing out, nope, the anesthetic could kill her. One full dose of anti-biotics to start with.Blood tests show that her thyroids dicky and her kidneys are wonky, so they have to be stabilised before any extraction can take place (the vet says the damn thing might just fall out anyway.)

So now Tubby's (understandably) a picky eater, what with the tablets ground into the food and then laced with anti-biotics its essential she eats. So now we have a cat who won't eat what I put in front of her - she will  (and always has) steal scraps wherever she may find them - even the sink, so I fool her by putting her bowl in the sink. This worked for a while till she got wise to this.

Now my mornings are spent trying to trick the beast into eating. Tubby'll moan and wake me up for breakfast but now the games afoot. Special treats, gravy, marmite etc etc etc are all utilised in the quest to get cat to eat. Bowls placed in various location, food left in the cat tin (she loves to scoop the food out with a paw), different bowls (so it looks like, obviously superior, human food) - everything.
Eventually she does - and then wants more.

Damn cats!

Back in the saddle

Next week sees me launch of on my own steam again after a fruitless (somewhat involuntary) return to retail display. The lack of posting here is probable evidence of my state of mind as of late, trolling into the airport everyday in order to either pack/repack shelves, install/repair crappy shopfitting or cater to the unsubstantial whim of someone higher up the chain, blah.

Anyway, bygones, as from next week I'm dusting down and resurrecting my silk-screening and in addition to that I've invested in equipment to print on other things like mugs, plates, puzzles etc and a badge making set-up...

The mind boggles at what I can put images on - and from that, what I can create to suit each medium. Essentially I'll be creating stuff to supplement Candi's puppy training operation and then grow from there as I familiarise myself with the mediums.

All in all I see more time on hand to continue my cartooning/illustration aspirations. First up, get cracking on Marc Latilla's script!

Dawn-Again

I can't help but get up early on the weekend - well, basically the same time as during the week - I'm not a lie-in kind of person, even if I try, I tried, but my one bedroom window looks West, and I can't help but go grab the camera :

Dawn

Red sky at dawn, shepherd be warned...

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Audio Doodles

Fiddling around again with found sounds, odd ideas and loads reverb.

These doodles end up at my Soundcloud page under my Crawlspace moniker..

 Opium by Crawlspace

http://soundcloud.comCrawlspace

Wicked!

Totally un-pc, totally supervilous, totally COOL!

Melville, Cafe Mexicho, Saturday arvie.

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G'mornin'

Good morning, pondscum. Tis that time of the year when I'm treated to
a redirected sunrise treat, courtesy of the SABC. Its a wonder they
don't charge for it!!

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Autumn

Cold miserable day as the first of many cold snaps envelops Johannesburg. Cold miserable mood, tetchy with sinusitis and generally pissed off with the world at large.

A bit of shopping in after a visit to the doc, the doc only visited really because as it being a Monday the place-of-enslavement requires a doctors note and as the aforementioned Siberian salt mine is playing silly buggers with my medical aid, an expensive visit at that.

I digress, the picture is of the pin-oaks outside Campus Square mall,in a month these'll be stark, bare and miserable looking.

What?
You came here for cheerful diversion?

Tough!

Here, go here for some whimsy

2 a.m.Sunday morning, - sleeplessness for the 3rd night in a row , stomach/flu/sinus ache, 3rd trip to the kitchen for a glass of water. Ooh look, the cloud cover that has pissed down rain for the last 36 hours has parted and the full moon shines down... Clickety-Click.

Good morning

Try as I may, tripod or no, I couldn't get a good shake free shot this
morning. I'm wondering if there is some kind of remote gadget to take
the shot without touching the camera. I had such with my old film
cameras...

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Rainy Melville Grey

Pissing with rain here, still, nice to chill at the local before
heading home with apt soundtrack and 3 seasons of Little Britain to
cheer us up. A pint or so of mulled cider is on the cards as well...

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Rainy day Monday

Monday, pissing with rain, feeling rotten - persistent nagging headache/gutache/dizzyness - blaaaah. Drove the bakkie into work this morning, wasn't going to risk the bike - too damn wet, too many idiots on the road (watched gawd knows how many drivers nipping through red traffic-lights - in the pissing rain - I mean wtf?!?!?!?)

The view from my haven this morning whilst I force hot caffeinated substance into my physical form - lovely...

Cleared out and partially got the 'new fixture room' into some sort of order - clear out because staff seem to think any old crap falls under the label of 'fixture' - umpteen pairs of old shoes later...Cannot finish the job as there is , as yet no shelving to house fixturing..g-aaah...This means unpack and repack at some later date (and throw out another pile of shoes, probably)

Claimed some wood offcuts for meself and stacked them in the bakkie - handy it rained, eh readers? Saw this puddle on the floor of the parkade...ha ha!

Afreaka!

The dominant species

Pfffft, who's really in control

Xandria, experiencing all the troubles in the world at Xai-Xai in Melville on a Saturday afternoon....

It's a dog's life,I tell ya...

Wolf.

Valentines eve: Melon on 7th...

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Walk Across My Swimming Pool Fini

With bells and whistles-

'walk across my swimming pool...'

Sometimes, inspiration floods in, like a religious experience. I'll
ink and finish this later...

"When a thing becomes it's most extreme, the seeds of its opposite are
planted" - Sabina Murray.

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Window on Africa

Stuff what i do...

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Pottery

I drive past Lieberman's Pottery place every day, but, I suppose this is why I've not actually stopped and gone in. Housed in a building at the old gasworks that, for a time, was home of the Fridge Nightclub (never went there either!), I eventually took the plunge and went for a snoop.

Great place, I'd wandered around there years ago (pre-pottery, pre-club) as the old gasworks is a fascinating building and now its only made more glorious with piles upon piles of dusty pottery and Chinese ceramics (good stuff, not sweat-shop knock-offs).

Come month end, I'm in there pot-shopping!

Right at the back I slipped into an abandoned part of the factory that housed an intriguing selection of sculptures....

Chris Moon

Chris Moon: "I connected Blogger to my http://flavors.me page - http://flavors.me/manikmoon"