Whoops!Dimensional slippage!

On Music

2011-12-14T01:55:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-14T00:33:00.000-08:00

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.

2011-10-16T03:43:00.000-07:00

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...

2011-09-28T23:24:00.000-07:00

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

2011-09-18T00:11:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-23T23:28:00.001-07:00

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

2011-08-21T04:07:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-20T01:10:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-18T22:08:00.000-07:00

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

2011-05-27T22:29:00.000-07:00

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

2011-05-15T22:25:00.001-07:00

Red sky at dawn, shepherd be warned...

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Audio Doodles

2011-05-15T10:39:00.000-07:00

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!

2011-05-14T06:23:00.001-07:00

Totally un-pc, totally supervilous, totally COOL!

Melville, Cafe Mexicho, Saturday arvie.

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G'mornin'

2011-04-27T22:09:00.001-07:00

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

2011-04-18T09:26:00.000-07:00

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

2011-04-17T01:51:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-30T21:20:00.001-07:00

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

2011-03-19T07:09:00.001-07:00

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

2011-03-14T12:00:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-05T20:50:00.001-08:00

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.

2011-02-14T08:56:00.001-08:00

Valentines eve: Melon on 7th...

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Walk Across My Swimming Pool Fini

2011-02-10T09:41:00.000-08:00

With bells and whistles-

'walk across my swimming pool...'

2011-02-08T05:56:00.001-08:00

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

2011-01-28T00:02:00.001-08:00

Stuff what i do...

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Pottery

2011-01-20T07:09:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-02T00:08:00.000-08:00

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

Mist

2010-12-27T09:14:00.001-08:00

Why I love the Midlands...

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

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Boxing day

2010-12-26T06:09:00.001-08:00

Boxing Day Beers at Günther's Sausages. :-)

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Cars

2010-12-22T22:42:00.001-08:00

Years ago, when I lived out West, Johannesburg central was the 'big-night-out'. Years ago,the roadhouse was the pit-stop. There was two iconic roadhouses on the Krugersdorp/Joburg Ontdekkers night drive, Wagonwheels in Horizon and the Americano on the Delaray/Newlands border. Both (as most roadhouses are) gone now, though the premises (and signage) of the Americano still exists - its now a car dealer, and perhaps, in memory of its previous status, it stocks classic cars.
I must apologise, It occurred to me to pack my camera but thought 'Naaah, I'm on my way to collect my bike, ...' so I've only cellie pics. I must make take another trip there with a proper camera, methinks!

Studebaker Hawk - droolworthy indeed!

A bloody great big black Ford:

Two more Fords- Fairlaine 500s - niiiiice

A gem of a '39 Chevy, rodded in authentic mat black stealth-style, I want this one!

A beautiful '68 Jaguar, straight out of some classic British copper tv series...

Out in the yard were a few 'need-a-little-work' models:

I love old cars, I don't think there's much on the road these days that matches the styling, anything post '75 is some generic computer streamlined carbon copy of something else...

Pink drinks

2010-12-18T08:49:00.001-08:00

Pink drinks - Xai-Xai - obscure covers slurred. Somewhere, one of
those revolving emergency lights have kicked in - and nobody notices .
. .

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The Justice League

2010-11-30T11:20:00.000-08:00

I did this for a wee challenge on the Whitechapel site

The idea was to come up with a movie poster of the Justice League designed by Malcom McLaren...

The Weakly Natter

2010-11-28T00:29:00.000-08:00

Gardening:Mowed the lawn for the third time this summer.Not bad, considering that by September it looked like one of those landscape pics from the Mars Rover. Started on the bit I hope to turn into a wee veggy patch - a section not utilised by the puppy training classes given by the missus. Seedlings in, at this stage a colourful variety of chard, a gemsquash, some mustard greens and a few marigold.

The green thing there is the 'pet loo', I bought it from the 'Saints' charity stall, and is reputed to turn all your dog shyte into compost, judging by the seedlings I put around it initially, its working, so I've started the patch from that point...

At the start of spring I stared an (experimental) container planting system in the back yard, sort of a semi-hydroponic thing. It's no great shakes. I think I have the soil too rich at this point or something, the veggies are growing, but sloooowly, at this stage I expected masses of product and a market garden stall on the pavement - perhaps I'm just impatient and should be happy with the half dozen beans I've got from it. Of course,the fact that a couple of the dogs, particularly Faolin the Border Collie, has taken a liking to squash leaves hasn't helped at all.

I have been practising a spot of guerrilla gardening in my own garden by planting vegetable odds and sods in odd areas, this has proved more successful than the bloody carefully tended parts - go figure!

I'm at present well into working on Marc Latilla's graphic novel, about 9 pages in, 6 inked, 5 lettered the rest still in various stages of completion. Here's page one:

Stuff that's come into my dimension this week: Northlanders No.5, the conclusion of the 'Metal' storyline. I've been following Brian Wood's stuff since I picked up a trade of DMZ, a series I thoroughly recommend. Northlanders is based in Viking Lore and is equally as unputdownable as DMZ.
Zola Jesus' latest release, Stridulum 2, a great album indeed.
The Scott Walker documentary '30th Century Man', I haven't watched it yet, its on the menu for this evening. I've been a fan of Scott Walker's music for years, from his early stuff with the Walker Brothers to what he's doing these days - the utterly fantastic 'The Drift', nothing like his early stuff at all but the same incredible voice.

Check out the video for Jesse by Scott Walker

Ghosts

2010-11-23T02:47:00.000-08:00

The logical side of me doesn't believe in ghosts, I keep telling myself that. However, I was 'haunted' as a kid growing up in London...

I grew up in a classic old London terrace in Kennington Road, Lambeth, SE 11, there it is today, above, courtesy Google Maps. It was an old place (typically) and I'd always been told it went up in the 1700's, so was creaky, drafty but solid as a rock. I confirmed the dates just this morning, on a whim, the net's become a wonderful place for this. Built in 1790, on the edge of an 8 acre field called White Hart Field, previously known as Coney Warren. The terrace was then named Chester Place, a name that fell out of use in the late 1800's. Research has shown me that our place,261, was at that time number 16 and the next door neighbors were folk like one 'Jonathan Duncan, the younger, a currency reformer, son of a governor of Bombay' and '(Sir) Thomas Edlyne Tomlins, legal writer. He was called to the bar in 1783, and was for some years editor of the St. James's Chronicle. He held the post of parliamentary counsel to the chancellor of the exchequer for Ireland. He was knighted in 1814. He published several legal works, including Statutes at Large, 41 to 49, George III'

An odd link I found was this one:and I wonder if it is in any way linked to one of my favourite authors, Micheal Moorcock in any way. Powyes (here a place, a vilage in Wales) is a character in the Jerry Cornelius chronicles, as is the 'Cure for Cancer'- the title of the first book in the series...Dr Powell, mentioned in the article, lived at (then) number 30...

I used to have nightmares that saw me paralysed on my bed, gaze riveted at a space on the wall over my bed. I'd wake up at night and a voice would be demanding me to roll over and look at the wall, at a face that appeared on the wall, it looked a lot like this picture...

Whether I had seen a picture of this apparition in a book or something I cannot remember, i was around 5 or 6, I used to devour books and had a grand old set of encyclopedias that engrossed me, so perhaps I saw it there. The wind used to moan down the chimney and perhaps that was the voice. My mother says that she would come in and find me pale, wide-eyed, stiff as a board and transfixed at the spot on the wall, taking no cognisance of her presence. This carried on until I was about 8 or so, until one night I refused to roll over, a couple of nights of that and it took the hint...

One day the old lady next door died, she was ancient and wheel-chair bound.I'd never met her as she was always inside and I was somehow scared of her as she peered through the lace curtains at us. For three nights after her death her silhouette appeared on my bedroom door, lit up by the street light over in Denny Way... oh yes it did, on her wheelchair at that!

My mother's sensitive to these things, its her 'witchy' side (mwahahahaha) and she swears she felt two 'presences' in the house, one evil and malevolent but this was kept in check by a stronger 'good' force. If we were alone in the house, at night, dad was out working or away, the sound of footsteps would be heard walking up from the ground floor, up the stairwell and past up to the attic, where our bedrooms were. Of course there was no-one there, but a sense of well-being and calm would envelop us - this was the good one, coming up the stairs to look after us...

I was terrified of the basement in that house, I had nightmares whereby I was going through the basement to the backyard and I'd get grabbed, my feet churning through tar to get away. The basement was used for, predictably junk and had the coal cellars. Our geyser was coal fired until I was about 8 I think, so coal was an all year round necessity. One door in the basement led down further, I have no idea what was down here as at some stage someone had filled this space with coal, so the stairs disappeared in solid sooty blackness.I remember sitting down there,on the pile of coal - I must've gotten over the fear then, or was challenging it, with a only a box of matches for light. What was down there, why was there a stairwell leading down, where did it go? What existed on Coney Warren before Chester Place was built? I'd love to find out now.

Stamp collections!

2010-10-25T12:01:00.001-07:00

Did that get yer attention?

Where's yer anorak?

No picture today, mere verbiage..

Tonight I attended the opening of a stamp collection!

http://www.joburg.org.za/culture/calendar/view/3708/54

It was totally unintentional, the last time I saw stamps was when some relative of elderly female persuasion gave me an 'album' and a 'starter pack' of stamps when I was knee-high to the letter box, but the missus works at the museum and had a hand in putting a few things together for this and I had to pick her up at work, sooooo...

However, this JH Curle collection got me thinking, and got me despondent on local 'culture' and modern 'lifestyle' all over again... Here is a collection of stuff, totally bloody unique, a collection of stamps from the beginnings of the Transvaal Republic, things I wouldn't look twice at, but the one fella who worked to put this together introduced it, was damnably passionate about it. Some fella came all the way from the U.K. to say a bit - to all of 15 folk that was there. 15....most of them connected to the museum in some way, how may folk would attend such an exhibition in the first world?

I was more interested in the occasional stuff around the stamps..photos, a post stone, a map of the Transvaal from 1877...detailed down the the tiniest hill, Johannesburg wasn't on it! The detailed map of Pretoria involved, perhaps 7X 9 blocks.... These stamps connected people before Johannesburg was even a thought. it was farms and sparkling tumbling streams...

In the introduction, the chap told how, in 'those' days, sending a letter involved a huge amount of effort. Finding out the postage, where and when and how..crikey, today we send an e-mail and think nothing of it...nothing! People went the extra mile to stay in touch, keep informed and inform others, something we take so much for granted now.I think I read gawdknows how many news stories, articles, blogs and numerous blather on Facebook and Twitter today, something that would have involved weeks and months back then. The chap who collected these stamps-JH Curle, would take a round trip of near two months to sail SA/ England to get one stamp.....

I think the exhibition could've had a lot more in it, could've had better lighting, more stuff related to the main subject (its all there, sealed away in storerooms), a better setting than some partitioned off back area of the museum. I'm damnably sure a professional collector would cringe at the presentation of, what are purportedly very rare items, stuck up on boards underneath tacky plastic sheets. But that's all we can do, in Africa's biggest city, in its major museum - no budget, one or two curators yet sitting on a wealth of artifacts and documents that no-one will ever see..or really wants to.....

I don't know, stuff like this gets me thinking. It puts where we are now in such sharp perspective, we take it for granted and we abuse it in so many ways.

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Pint o' the day - again!

2010-10-20T11:08:00.001-07:00

I had forgotten about Drayman's, a micro-brewer based in Pretoria
(www.draymans.com). They do a nice range, Goblin's Bitter, a very
passable India Pale Ale, a weisbier and a draught. Unfortunately it's
bottled in plastic but caught fresh enough the plastic doesn't come
through.
A bit hard to find, I've found only two bottlestores, so far, Joburg
side, that stock the range.

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And today's pint is...

2010-10-17T09:12:00.001-07:00

Found a batch of these and others that need sampling down Beyers Naude
on Saturday. I thought best to keep this for the Sunday sun downer -
cheers, bombs /chocks away!

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Jacaranda2

2010-10-17T04:23:00.000-07:00

Linden 17 10 10

Can't beat this time of year for seeing Johannesburg in all its purple splendor.... to think that the jacaranda is now listed as an 'invasive' species, not to be planted anywhere, preferably destroyed ...phegh bloody 'eco-minded' bureaucrats!

Jacaranda time

2010-10-15T11:18:00.001-07:00

Melville, 15/10/2010........

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Thai-bo

2010-10-13T15:09:00.001-07:00

Bloody breath-stealer, perched on chest and purring like a gravel
crusher on speed...
Thai-bo, menace cat!

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New work..

2010-10-07T21:35:00.000-07:00

A while back Marc Latilla asked me if I would be keen on collabating on a graphic novel. More recently we've got our act together and I'm several pages into it already..here's an example or two

The Sunday Pint

2010-09-19T06:30:00.001-07:00

Post roofwork, post housework, post lawnwork, post Interpol appreciation, the well earned pint...

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Sprung

2010-09-08T01:33:00.001-07:00

As it has, yes, willows trees in full spring regalia, south of
Johannesburg just off Kliprivier Drive. Bottomless coffee, Mug n Bean,
bakkie full of galvanised buckets and trays on my way for a company
sponsored shopping spree for antique props for one of the airport
stores that we are 'redoing'...

Hell, I s'pose I should've posted this on my display blog I've kicked
into play - Window Punk...

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I Am The One

2010-08-24T11:19:00.001-07:00

I've had enough of living
I've had enough of dying
Why should I care
Can you see the real me
Love reign o'er me
Can you see the real me???

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Coffee break

2010-08-23T01:29:00.001-07:00

So, here I sit, atthe airport, again...
Career-wise busted back to where I was 10 years ago, a sobering thought indeed, its a bugger being good at what one does,eh! Well, retail hasn't done well at all the last couple of years...

Anyway, plenty of time for reflection and as one of those is that I gave up the notion of 'career' years ago (about the time of the first retrenchment) I aint too badly off and as long as I can wield a pencil I'm one up already.

Bring it on...!

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Web site

2010-08-22T00:10:00.000-07:00

So, I've been told that additional web exposure will aid me in what (I feel) I do best - that's doodle stuff for folk (for a small fee...)
Consequently I have a 'web-page' up on Yola.
I'll progressively bung stuff on there as I rediscover it in files either digital or on the old fashioned paper-made-from-minced-trees.

A musical interlude

2010-08-15T02:41:00.000-07:00

One of my weekly haunts is Bountyhunters charity shop in Melville, a place to indulge in any retail therapy I need and as that therapy usually involves music, the sight of a new box o' vinyl always gets the pulse racing.

This week was a box of stuff, that in the past, I would've cast aside, but, as I seem to find myself on a journey (back) through a lot of folk and folk-rock, discs full of traditional Scottish and Irish ballads, albeit by the sort of artist I'd generally avoid like the plague it seemed worthwhile to invest in a few - at a buck apiece, what the hell.

So, I grabbed a couple o' items by the like o' th' Alexander Brothers (och aye, I didn't take 'em all!!), The Second Festival of Welsh Mixed Voices (I like a good choir) and others, also some British Music Hall stuff including some George Formby. All the discs were in almost new condition, obviously stashed since gawd knows when.

Anyway, the gem of the lot is a disc by Jean Redpath, "Laddie Lie Near Me", an absolute spine chilling voice on songs either solo or with acoustic guitar. Jean is the kind of artist that I'll now hunt down and find more of (and there seems to be a bit aboot). I like good passionate female vocals be it Diamanda Galas, Catherine Ribiero or Siouxie Sioux.

A wee choon onna Youtube

So, the afternoon went from Jean Redpath through the likes of Maddy Prior and June Tabor on their 'Silly Sisters' album (had it for years, since my first wave of folk appreciation way back when)- its all in the voices, see, that clear high soprano, does it for me every time.

And then on to Rose Kemp 's "Unholy Majesty" that I picked up earlier this year and fell totally in love with, especially when I discovered that Rose is the daughter of Maddy Prior and Rick Kemp of Steeleye Span fame. Anyway, got hold of Rose's first album 'Full of Hurricanes' this morning and I'm certainly determined to get hold of Maddy Prior's 'Bib & Tuck' which is an acapella rendition of traditional folk featuring amongst others, her daughter, Rose.

Rose Kemp in full tilt -->

The President Street Pigeon Posse

2010-08-13T08:17:00.000-07:00

I notice I didn't 'blog' this but posted it elsewhere.
I think its worthy of blogation, so:

Early morning, eastern end of President street, you look up, the buildings have a fuzzy edge, they seethe, they coo, careful, you’re in pigeon country.

Suddenly, on cue the walls erupt as thousands of bodies hurl themselves down into President Street. Maybe someone opened a window, rattled a seed bag, murdered their spouse...The mass flicks south on Mooi Street, rising as it turns east into Market, big, small, young, old, black, grey and brown struggling to keep up. Midway down the block, a break in the decayed wall of what used to be architecture, up over through the gap, transverse the block and down again into President. Depending on the weather, the feathered tide goes the other way around. I think of the canyon race in one of those newer Star Wars movies, sometimes on the tarmac is found a flattened pile of blood and feathers, one wing rising defiantly.

Occasionally, whilst on my way to work, my ride will bisect this surge, wingtips flicking past my helmet, I have to resist the urge to raise my arms and leap off my saddle to join the fray. I can do anything after that....

Goodnight

2010-08-05T23:01:00.001-07:00

Sundowners on the deck at Dros, Campus Square, Auckland Park, Johannesburg, during this past week.

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warmth

2010-07-23T09:16:00.001-07:00

Yes, so, something that we started, or conjoined, or something a few weeks ago and then got lost in the static.

The theme - warmth - the duvet pic is by Hilla , the cat ( starring Flotsam!!!) is by me,,,

Don't you feel warmer already?

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Day in the life of a window dresser

2010-07-09T02:59:00.001-07:00

Or, as I am told these days, a 'visual merchandiser', window dresser being an archaic term. Well I suppose as we do everything from (basic, these days) decor to unpacking stock on to the sheves. Ah, those heady days of studios and backdrops, props and pins, the correct way to fold a shirt or pad a shoulder, or even focusing a spotlight just so.

Anyway, the picture is what I'm looking at at the mo', I'm waiting for the stock to arrive, its here, but at the way back of a stockroom underneath a months worth of deliveries.

In my codienne haze (I fell off the garage roof last Sunday,fortunately nothing but bad sprains and bruises, but thats enough, thankyou) trying to put together a workable display of objects ranging from crockery and hand turned pottery thru jewellery items and carved wooden fish...

This has, of course, all been dropped on us at the last moment.

I have constructed some 'stands' from some pillaged glass shelving on which to array the stuff, this is my inbuilt McGuyver streak coming to the fore, something that is essential in this line of work.

I'll post an after pic if the whole thing stays together...

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Wallah!

Monday and all that.

2010-06-28T01:33:00.001-07:00

So yesterday I spent a good part of the morning up on the garage roof, stripping off metal strip tiling that has, over time, slipped. This has caused the wooden battens underneath to rot, causing the tiles to slip furthur..etc,etc. Nowt wrong with the original corrugated roof underneath other than nail holes and suspect timbering from the leaks let in by the strip tiles above... Such are the trails of buying a big old fixer-upper. The holes can wait till next week, my back started protesting so the idea of crawling around the roof patching them dulled somewhat, we get no rain this time of year anyway (normally!). The pic, why the sun streaming through the holes...

Of course, a morning up on the roof, shirt off, cool winter breeze, sees me feeling more than a little rough this morning...*sniffle*

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Joburg

2010-06-27T01:19:00.000-07:00

Busy bloody week , all the World Cup's fault. Heading home from the airport every night, I've been blessed with some amazing sunsets and forced to pull off the highway in order to capture some small part of them. We have pretty spectacular sunsets, the winter tending to add to the palette with a hefty dose of smoke from veld-fire, factory and hearth.....

After the intense chill of last week, it's a lot warmer (well, -1 as opposed to -10) so I'm back on the bike - far easier to stop n click...

Friday!

2010-06-25T00:11:00.001-07:00

At last, 'tis been a long week, not helped by bouts of insomnia. Anyway, all made better by a glorious Highveld winter morning, fresh and clear, the blue sky going on forever and ever - nicely contrasted by the yellow brick of the telephone exchange building opposite our house. Took some magnificent shots of the setting sun during the week, these are on my real camera ( as opposed to the cellie one used here) so I'll post those over the weekend.

Happy Friday!

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Lets Dance

2010-06-23T07:48:00.001-07:00

Traditional song/dance routines by the Lean On Dance Theatre
group...Note I said traditional, not a vuvusela in action, despite the
soccer theme of most of the routines...

Frenetic fun and festivity here at O.R.Tambo.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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All That Jazz

2010-06-23T00:20:00.001-07:00

Nope, I'm not a jazz fan, not at all, however I really appreciate music played for the sheer joy of playing it. Here we are, 8 in the morning, 3 cats laying down a spontanious jam at the Gautrain entrance at O.R.Tambo. No audience, 'cept a few sleepy security gaurds, and these guys are tootling away, smiling, vibing, hell, my morning mood disapates on a melody...

Back downstairs, the sound of the trumpet resonates beautifully through the concourse, usually made nigh unbearable by bloody vuvuselas at the moment.

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Good morning

2010-06-21T02:57:00.001-07:00

Planescape - O.R.Tambo, somewhat warmer than it has been, at -1 this morning it was positively tropical in comparison to last week, so I took the bike in...

Supposedly the coldest World Cup in history, ah well, this is Africa, always unpredictable.

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Draw 1 all.

2010-06-11T09:38:00.001-07:00

Melville...RSA 1, Mexico 1 ...

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The Thursday team photo event thingy!!

2010-06-10T09:42:00.000-07:00

From meself and Hilla

OK,so mine's not an actual swimming pool, tis the backyard jacuzzi all drained and empty 'cos its winter, and the heating element doesn't work (a thing I want to replace by something solar anyway..)

Dunno where Phill's is, but then, do they have swimming pools in Belgium ;-p

Footie fans

2010-06-09T01:31:00.001-07:00

Despite my general uninterest in sport and my disdain for the Fifa creature, I can't help feeling the excitement of the fans as they start flooding through the airport...

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Good morning worms...

2010-06-04T22:57:00.001-07:00

Saturday morning, early, frosty...I get to sit in a warm Tata whilst the missus indulges in dog training...mwahahaha...only thing missing is a flask of coffee.

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Just bumped into Hulk Hogan at the airport!

2010-06-04T00:12:00.001-07:00

Or should that be - bounced off!

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Team up Thursday

2010-06-03T06:16:00.001-07:00

Team up Thursday with LadyRaven and
Sidiot (who seems to have gone AWOL, so will add his pic later)

*Other bloggers also doing Team Up Thursday's ARE:*

Berta and Corey

Andrea and Claire

Megan and Melody

Joanne and Rose

Cat and Shayne

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Breakfast...

2010-06-02T22:25:00.001-07:00

Whereby there be a tag team thing going around a theme - this week - brekkies
...

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vinyl daze

2010-06-02T10:19:00.001-07:00

Hauls are hard to come by these days with far too many vinyl junkies in the fray,many there for profit alone.....
But, now and then I get find the gems (well in my mind anyway)
Rosebank fleamarket on Sunday got me two Sensational Alex Harvey Band albums, SAHB Stories and Next (an album I've bought twice before but had snatched from me by misfortune). 'Next' has the legendary 'The Faith Healer' and one of my favourite covers of Brel's 'Next'.
Today I did the Melville rummage and scored the rest, Jethro Tull's A 'Passion Play' - my favourite Tull album- I loved the eclecticism of it whilst everyone else was chugging along to 'Locomotive Breath'; Traffic's 'A Low Spark of High Heeled Boys' never a Traffic fan as such I've always liked the quirky album cover shape ..and the title..and I'm appreciating the music much more these days....; also here is Hot Legs, the precursor to 10cc, this album 'Thinks, School Stinks' has the single Neanderthal Man that later pressings didn't include...; Beatles 'White Album' the album I grew up with basically, I have it already, but this copy still has the original photographic prints and poster!!!
As I was leaving the shop I noticed a pile of classical under the counter and found the Satie double and the Schostakowitsch - my favourite classical composer..so I grabbed those quick like...

A good ending to day started down right rotten by some twit wrecking the Enfield Electra first thing this morning...

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Monday 's child is fair of face.

2010-05-31T01:50:00.001-07:00

Not this'un though, but then, I'm way past the blithe optomism of youth to view Mondays other than, well, another bloody day, really.
Cold and grey today as winter eventually crawls onto the Highveld, well ok, grey, it aint cold yet. Cold is something I'll begin to feel whilst bombing along on the freeway to the airport in the morning and it aint there yet. That icy thin atmospheric chill that the Witwatersrand is famous for come June. The chill that nothing short of sub-arctic wear will keep out and that thousands of tropically dressed football fans will shortly experiencec - mwahahahaha! Fine for getting the blood circulating as you survey the lands from your stoep, hands wrapped around a pitcher of moer-koffie whilst the hounds crackle over the frost encrusted lawn. Not fine for my biking to the airport stint... Or hanging around a Joburg city street where the cold concrete edifices channel and shape that wind into a frigid scalpel.
Ah well, what doesn't kill ya...
I've a sneaking suspicion that that stiff icy breeze through the sinuses in the morning keeps all kinds of ailment at bay, you know, those nasty little viruses swapped around the coffee machines in overheated offices across the land.

Two months left here at O.Tambo...

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Friday night's too good....

2010-05-28T09:08:00.001-07:00

Well, the evening's plans of (slight debauchery curtailed by dreaded lurgy- gonna be an evening home with old vinyl (lifted from charity shop earlier - even a 7" of Walker Bros 'Archangel'), comics and booze... >:-)

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Friday night's too good...

2010-05-28T08:51:00.001-07:00

Well, evenings plans of (slight) debauchery curtailed by lurgy - gonna
be an evening at home with old vinyl and booze...

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Coffee break

2010-05-26T02:35:00.001-07:00

O. Tambo airport, power out, again, delightfully quiet without the roar of aircon, relaxing even. Time for a caffeine input...(purchased just before the lights went out).

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In Bruges

2010-05-25T04:14:00.001-07:00

How they snatch kids in Bruges - inspired by a FB thread earlier...scribbled on me cellie.

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Sundown, Melville

2010-05-23T07:55:00.001-07:00

Melon on 7th, Melville, niiiiice!

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53 - good morning world

2010-05-22T22:28:00.001-07:00

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Saturday morning

2010-05-22T00:54:00.001-07:00

Dog training - McKaynines in Honeydew. Forced relaxation and fresh air
for me to the sounds of excitable canines and peeved humans. They
really should install a pub here - make a fortune it would.

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Breakfast..

2010-05-21T02:28:00.001-07:00

And the start of yet another crazy day...

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Windows

2010-05-20T11:24:00.001-07:00

View from 6th floor of warehouse, Joburg CBD east, looking due east up
towards Troyeville.

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Cosmic Ydnac

2010-05-19T05:32:00.001-07:00

Sitting here at Oliver Tambo Airport- Joburg International to the
locals, not going anywhere, just working. I have time on my hands, my
5530 and a twitchy stylus. Signed up for Posterous and am in the
process of linking it to anything of mine that moves, or rather
nets...

Have also installed a wee sketch ap on the cell which l shall now
attempt to use in some way constructive.

All I need now on this thing is a music composer and I'll be set for
the next 3 months.

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Test

2010-05-19T04:53:00.001-07:00

Test

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2010-05-17T06:43:00.001-07:00

What the hell, seems I've spent so much time resding other folks blogs I've forgotten my own - what would my hoard of admiring fan think of me?

I'll use tge excuse of 'been busy', well I have been working (almost) full time since my last, er, blog. Now I'm officially 'full-time' (for the next three months anyway), I suddenly have time on my hands again - theres's a moral in there somewhere...

But! This bit o' free time is tarnished by several handicapping factors: no free coffee - and coffee here at the airport requires a deposit and a bjdget payment plan! No 'puter access to exploit is a tad restrictive - no doodling with drawing or music proggies, one finger, er, stylus typing on the cellie to Twit or tweet or tap out diatribe here...

Groan

Planes come and go, off to the exotic, or banal, ( or in some cases neither!) , this place has a frizzon not unlike a mall at xmas time, that scent of eagerness and expectancy. Annoying at times.

Ah well, so it goes...

blink

2009-08-23T01:06:00.000-07:00

Erm, how tardy of me, nearly a year since my last blog, blame it on overload, ban me from cyberspace. Blegh, i've trouble enough thinking up a witty byline for Facebook..and then something equally chin-strokingly mind-bending for Twatter. I barely give Myspace a glance these days and even there some kind of bon-motte is required accompanied with an aptly matching smily-face.

Working full-time again now, two jobs on the go and lets not mention all the other bits n bobs that filter my way after hours. The near two years of 'self-employed' bliss has gone by the wayside, on one hand spurred by a dwindling savings account on on the other by the temptation of doing something fun. It is fun, of course, there's the bloody paperwork that comes with any kind of job. But, I get to meet interesting people, handle lovely merchandise and spend loads of other peoples money!

Oh, what am I doing : well, I have a 3-day a week job as African art buyer, handling books and music as well; the remaining two days I'm plying the old trade of visual-merchandising again. Whilst, any time left over, scribbling and doodling away at illustrations and cartoons.

Phew!

It's good to be out amongst people again!

I also get to read some damn fine literature, I've become a bit of a fan of travelogues, whether its Ewen McGregor slogging through Russia on a motorbike or Dana Snyman wandering around mostly Southern Africa chasing down elusive tales.

Which brings me to the ranty bit o' the blog. We have it too easy, this internet thing and all, we, at a flick of a mouse button can visit, research, query anything we want. We don't ever actually see it or experience it and yet, can hold ourselves expert at whatever it is...'cos we read it on the net. Digital philosophers, I guess, able at an instant to pull some meaningful quote (often completely out of context btw) or some fact and figure (also out of context) to back an idea, a thought, an ideal drawn out of the back of the swivel chair. Few and far between are the folk who go out, grip the information along with the dirt of the road. Few are the people who are making tales and adventures instead of piggybacking someone else's - which, more often than not are piggybacked in the first place. Its so terribly easy to slag a person, a people, an ideal off when sitting in the comfort of your swivel chair, looking at it from one side, your side, the side that 's been carefully built up with endless half truths, skewed perception and unbalanced fact, from the net, the net that's never wrong.

Blah, anyway, aint that what I'm doing now...?

As you were....

Bullets From The Belfry Zorch Factory Special

2008-10-13T00:53:00.000-07:00

So, anyway, trawling around my list of links, e-mails subscriptions and Blog reader whatsits I come across a lone line advertising a free download of a French band Camp Z's 6 track ep. Whoaw...free, I gasp.."This last release mixes electronic backgrounds along with dark feelings, raw guitars and post punk energy!" says the blurb...colour me interested - I've sort of rediscovered the whole French/Euro coldwave genre of the 80's as of late and have subsequently kicked myself at being so damnably Anglo-centric in my musical gleanings in those bad old days - ok, there was no internet, and the genre was largely ignored by the (Brit/USA) press of the day any mention of which was probably quickly passed by by the likes of I (not being able to see anything in the flesh as it were, also didn't help), I mean, I thought Plastic Bertrand was all there was!! So, consequently I devote the latest Bullets From the Belfry (and this blog) to Zorch!

Subsequent investigation led me to Zorch Factory Records and their eclectic stable of artistes from Europe (and other parts of the globe) in the dark indie/goth/deathrock/postpunk/coldwave/electronica field of things that i generally immerse myself in. Headed up by Manu, member of aforementioned CampZ, his dream to present a forum, a home, a promotional tool for some of the many truly independent artists forging out into the interwastes trying to elevate themselves to better things. All the material is published under Creative Common License free to download. His aim to create a fanbase for the bands so that interest is tweaked, demands made and the music industry swings their way, whether interest by some established label or enough interest is created to make music sales of future product viable. Manu's dream is based on love, not profit, the artists free to move on to greener pastures when their boat comes in!

After hastily glomming the CampZ goodies : a dark buzzsaw caterwaul of postpunk excess- with strong leanings back to coldwave, overlaid with Manu's harsh, angry vocals - no fake Brit/Amerikan tones here....without meaning to sound condescending, the French accent is perfect for this music! I went for the rest with glee.

Joy Disaster, also from France have a recent live concert recorded in Italy up for grabs. I suppose any band described as postpunk and having 'Joy' in their name is going to be compared with, ah, Joy Division...well yes, the comparisons are there, perhaps an early JD, maybe even Warsaw rather, harsh, brash, angry (I entertain the notion that if Warsaw formed today and listened to Interpol a lot...) Cyclic, all music is cyclic but in doing so it does not have to imitate, re-invention is part of the game, re-interpretation, it does not have to cater to some fixed audience to 'fill a dance floor' ( She Wants Revenge....pheeggh!!!). I take emotion over polish any fucking day - I see big things for Joy Disaster.

Mmmmmm, Mexican goth/punk/deathrock, I love it, ever since I frightened folk off the dancefloor with the likes of Los Meurtes Vivientes and the Ultrasonicas! The Acid Bats have a couple of releases on Zorch Factory, an 8 track ep, 'Exhumacion' and a earlier demo recording...fabulous stuff, can't wait to ever be invited back into a dj booth with this in my must play box!! (If I promise to play at least one She Whines Revenge track, can I ? Can I???)

The more eclectic Crimson Muddle do a wonderful cover of Joy Divisions 'Means To an End' on their ep, their sound veering into almost steampunk territory, but still with that endearing coldwave feel.Lamentations Psychotiques and Nuit d'Octobre round off the ep in a darkly whimsical manner.

On and on, it's like stumbling into a sweet shop of delights, Les Modules Estranges evoke the spirit of Siouxsie Sioux on tracks like Crash, Cocteau twins on say Am I Blind. lovely vocals, fragile guitar, veering toeards but not drowning in shoegazer territory. More tracks including remixes are available here.

From Spain come the enigmatically titled Red Crayon Aristocratic Club, think Yeah Yeah Yeahs meets Ladytron whilst picking up The Cranes on the way... A splendid cover of The Clash's 'Stay Free' is a gem on the cd.

Germany's Monozid have 2 ep's available on the Zorch Factory site, think postpunk, think Chameleons, early Psychedelic Furs, Wire here.

Rounding off the podcast this week- The Trespass, perhaps the most traditional goth/deathrock band on Zorch,' traditional' being a misnomer really in that their roots are solid postpunk, a bit of Echo and the Bunnymen lilting through their epically sweeping songs.

All in all, a valuable cause to support..and download, and hopefully, eventually, lay hard cash down for! Zorch Factory Records, Bullets From the Belfry salutes you!!

g'night and g'd d'loading!

Some Funnies etc

2008-10-03T05:26:00.000-07:00

So, I'm working with one Mr Chislett on some writings that he has put to paper..I've turned one of em...so far, into a webcomic.....read it here: The Chizz..

Meanwhile, here are some humorous asides:

The wee jet there was snapped by an old friend of mine at a recent airshow in Scotland... the Suffragette pic I nicked off the web somewhere, I saw it and it begged dialog....

Bullets From the Belfry

2008-07-09T06:48:00.000-07:00

I have to use this thing more-it has value...

Henceforth those that read it will be regaled by my doings on the podcast I host.
That's Bullets From the Belfry, by the way. We're up to episode 8, after a wee break due to technical problems on the German side.....

This cast has only 4 artists, but good ones indeed..First up on the show is a band called Apteka, from Chicago...not to be confused with a Polish group a few years ago with the same name. This Apteka describes themselves as psychedelic rock, I would compare them with Serena Maneesh on one side, perhaps a more spikey early My Bloody Valentine on the other. excellent tunage ranging from the rocky The Sheet to a more winsome If You Were Here (both featured on the podcast and downloadable from their site). They have a furious touring schedule and this polish shows on their tunage. Oddly enough they haven't an album out yet....get a move on lads!!

Next up on Bullets 8 is a young chap from Pretoria, AnDroidgeny is his projects name and as the name suggests, expect a sleazily robotic techno-fused sound. There's a lot of ebm/idm/techno originating in Pretoria at the moment, projects like Cyvergence and Nul for example, are certainly a help getting me over my disdain for most things 4x4 beat driven and dance-floor orientated. Bullets 8 features two tracks from AnDroidGeny, Little Girls Are Evil and Blood Addiction , both designed around a Pied Piper call to the kind of sweaty hedonism The Henkie (AnDroidGeny) likes to create in his club events.

The Funeral and The Twilight are more my style, infusing a post-punk sound with heavy dollops of American Gothic, the vocals snaking through the songs, snarling and shrieking in places, telling tales of despair, society..well, life really. The vocals bring to mind the late Jeffrey Lee Pierce of Gun Club fame and Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds as does the music, a howling swampy brew best served with the moonshine of your choice. The two tracks on Bullets 8 are the rocking Down By the Sea and the (deceptably- till the howling starts ;-p) mellower I Have Returned To You. Again, nothing relaesed as yet but all their songs are downloadable from their Myspace site.

Last up on Bullets From the Belfry 8 is an industrial project from Switzerland, Blue Screams of Death. Now I have a beef with 'industrial', or rather what passes for the genre today (dance floor fodder-blah). Blue Screams revives my interest in industrial by making it experimental, innovative, thinking music as opposed to lets-get-the-kids-on-the-floor with monotonous beats and gutteral German lyrics (ooh, sooo daaaangerous!). Blue Screams of Death use found objects, drones, musical intruments (in interesting ways) and voice to build soundscapes dark and massive, brooding and moody.Involved in the project is one Martin Jacklin, poet, singer and writer. Martin is involved in several musical projects, some of which I hope to feature on future episodes of Bullets. I've included The Great Machine is Dead and Farewell to Your Arms as a mere sample of what Blue Screams of Death is about.

fishcakes

2008-06-09T05:42:00.000-07:00

Well, after successfully deleting the comment i was working on!!

anyway, as you were, or I was, rather...

I said, time flies, working on the Bullets From the Belfry thang (where loadsa good music's going down, btw)amongst other things. Getting the old comic/cartoon muscle going with redrawing Mr C Visser's Hunters storyline..here's page 2 for your perusal: see right....................

Otherwise, I'm sitting, sulking, nursing a soggy case of bronchitis..moan, moan

remake remodel

2008-03-05T01:04:00.000-08:00

or something.....
Seems i'm missing out by not utilizing the blogsphere!! Everyone's doing it (and it's good for you!!) - even me?!?!? er, here,
which goes hand in hand with my podcast (whhooo, more netsploitation): and even newer but something that will develop with vim and bile ...
Do I hate music? No, I love it, but I despise the shallow bog it has mutated into...

Sorry, back to here..seems I can , as others, put up my measly artistic endevours that spew from my pencil from time to time - as I am currently, as it were, contractless, I am not in the habit of the diligent scribble, but who knows, perhaps by bunging stuff here it may inflame the fitful spark of creativity to workable heights and I can get in an extra six-pack on occasion..

Here for example, a friend posted a link on a forum I subscribe to and I thought of a local connotation for the situation....

I'll do some more when the wind blows in the right direction....or I'll dig through the debris on my desk and find some previous situational malarkey...

Er, oh look, I have a blog...

2007-12-16T03:47:00.000-08:00

When did I sign on for this-says here January 2007!!
Good grief, the things I do in a daze!
Now, what should I do with this????
*ponders*
I could do music, 'cept there are huuuundreds of other, already established ones.....that I riffle through endlessly and all updated furiously - do these people have a life??? I'm glad they don't - gets me more really obscure music to frighten visitors with....

OK, here are some pictures I took at the Pavement Special Magazine launch at the Boho last Thursday...Mathew Fink, the guitarist/accordionist/performance artist of the excellent Jim Neversink - my favourite South African band..

Then over here we have the One Night Stands - a tad newer to the scene than Jim but I've got me eye on 'em....nice!! Sooooo glad they're playing their own songs now!!

Whoops!Dimensional slippage!

On Music

Under Pressure

Sunday kick back or at least , try to.

That Seventies Show

Untitled

Mugs

Damn Cats

Back in the saddle

Dawn-Again

Dawn

Audio Doodles

Wicked!

G'mornin'

Autumn

Good morning

Rainy Melville Grey

Rainy day Monday

The dominant species

Wolf.

Walk Across My Swimming Pool Fini

'walk across my swimming pool...'

Window on Africa

Pottery

Chris Moon

Mist

Boxing day

Cars

Pink drinks

The Justice League

The Weakly Natter

Ghosts

Stamp collections!

Pint o' the day - again!

And today's pint is...

Jacaranda2

Jacaranda time

Thai-bo

New work..

The Sunday Pint

Sprung

I Am The One

Coffee break

Web site

A musical interlude

The President Street Pigeon Posse

Goodnight

warmth

Day in the life of a window dresser

Monday and all that.

Joburg

Friday!

Lets Dance

All That Jazz

Good morning

Draw 1 all.

The Thursday team photo event thingy!!

Footie fans

Good morning worms...

Just bumped into Hulk Hogan at the airport!

Team up Thursday

Breakfast...

vinyl daze

Monday 's child is fair of face.

Friday night's too good....

Friday night's too good...

Coffee break

In Bruges

Sundown, Melville

53 - good morning world

Saturday morning

Breakfast..

Windows

Cosmic Ydnac

Test

*blink*

Bullets From The Belfry Zorch Factory Special

Some Funnies etc

Bullets From the Belfry

fishcakes

blink