Vispo/Art/Children Of Alice/The Seeds

Where have I been? Nowhere much.
What have I been doing?
This....

...and that...

...you can see some artworks of mine over here

Meanwhile, in the world of music, how about that supergroup of James Cargill, Roj Stevens (Broadcast) and Julian House? Supergroup? What am I talking about? There's not a double-neck guitar or permed hairdo in sight, as far as I know. Still it's a 'super' group, isn't it? Maybe not. Anyway, the pooled talents of Children Of Alice in theory should make a great album...and to my surprise, have. I say 'great', although the common tropes (admittedly mostly created by House) of the haunty thing are well-worn by now. That said, Children Of Alice is still a charming trip down the rabbit hole of magical absurdities that's skillfully stitched together and skips around the toy shop of sounds designed to evoke funfair horror and frolics.

In the Oxfam shop this morning, browsing through the 50p CDs, I thought 'There must be something here' - there had to be something...I wanted some new music...come on (flick-flick)...so much music I cannot bring myself to pay even 50p for...it seemed ridiculous, but there it was, proof that of all the hours of recorded sound packaged up and presented (having been rejected) before me it was all useless...nothing but a parade of has-beens, never-beens and never-should-have-beens...not even albums I once owned but lost enthusiasm for....and there are plenty of those. Anyway, here are The Seeds...

These classical punks: Vienna 1908-1914

Good find in the charity shop today, Vienna 1908-1914 for £1.99. I should know the art used on the cover because I recognise it but can't name it...what the hell it makes a fine sleeve. As you know, record labels were fond of using modern art for their 'modernist' classical releases. It remains a mystery, though, as to why they're relatively scarce in charity shops compared to the big guns like Beethoven, Bach etc. perhaps it's simply a matter of less people buying them in the first place resulting in less in circulation today. The music's fantastic, of course. Comparing the two, Dorati does a much better job of creating the drama of the Schoenberg pieces than Simon Rattle. I only know because I just compared them. Speaking of their music, Schoenberg extolled the virtues of 'extreme expressiveness' and 'extraordinary brevity' - amen to that. In such brevity (as opposed to lengthy, Romantic grandeur) this music still packs a punch akin to that landed by The Ramones in a time of long-winded Prog Rock awfulness.

Crouch End cafe...

Clash City Rocker Photographed & Scarred For Life

                               circa 1980........(no, that's not my car)..............................

                                                                                     the night I met the photographer

                                                                                     was a violent one. I was given a 

                                                                                     black eye & a cut lip.................

                                                                                     ..............it all kicked off when a

                                                                                     mob from London got nasty at a

                                                                                     gig in the sticks but before that a

                                                                                     young photographer said he'd like

                                                                                     to feature me in a photo shoot so

                                                                                     of course I said yes & we swapped

                                                                                     numbers......then the aggro started

                                                                                     & I saw my girlfriend, a nurse, out

                                                                                     the front of the building trying to

                                                                                     stem the flow of blood on the face

                                                                                     of a guy who had been glassed &

                                                                                     as I walked out someone to my left 

                                                                                     said something to get my attention,

                                                                                     I turned to see a large fist homing in

                                                                                     on my face then...slowly....fell back,

                                                                                     momentarily unconscious, during which

                                                                                     time, I was later told, he also kicked

                                                                                     me in the head.................................

                                                                                     later, two coppers by my hospital bed

                                                                                     asking if I wanted to press charges.....

                                                                                     but I didn't know what planet I was on

                                                                                     ....weeks later, the photo shoot in which,

                                                                                     it is clear, I was wearing a kind of post-

                                                                                     Clash City Rocker(billy) look, complete

                                                                                     with quiff & pleated trousers so the 

                                                                                     snapper thought I'd suit the vintage car...

                                all that remains are the contact sheets.........and a small scar above my lip....

                                                                                     

Nice: We Did Wanna A Holiday In The Sun!

Nice, France, it's not just nice, it's fantastic - everyone's been, including us (that's me and the artist LJ) and by 'everyone' I mean everyone I've mentioned it to since coming back, which includes the woman behind the counter in a Crouch End charity shop who hasn't been since she was a child, therefore expressing surprise that there was a tram which runs top to bottom of the city, or even bottom to top if you want to go that way. And the woman next door, who said she loved Nice. Of course she does, you can't help but love it. It's got a tram. It's next to the sea. It featured in one of the greatest French films ever made, Jacques Demy's La baie des anges (Bay of Angels), in which Jeanne Moreau finally cashed her chips at the casino. Here's the bay photographed by me... 

...despite being filled with rollerskaters and joggers, these days, it retains its majesty, partly because more people still prefer Shanks's pony as a method of transport, which is only right because The Bay was made for parading along at a leisurely pace with the milky-blue-turning-deep Med on one side, the rush of traffic and plush hotels on the other. Here's the Old Town snapped from the roof of Le Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain, my favourite art museum in the world...

...an obligatory beach shot...

...that's not Nice...it's Beaulieu-sur-Mer, where we swam a few times before walking along St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat to the little town where a dove wouldn't stop pestering us, desperate for a peck of the savoury nibbles that accompanied the best Martini blanc possible because it had added orange peel. The law states that Martini blancs must be drunk when in France...in our kingdom anyway...and you'd be mad to flout it. I'm not usually negative...

...Nice is famous for it's architecture, especially from The Belle Époque era, but close to where we were staying we couldn't help noticing this modernist masterpiece by Guillaume Tronchet from the early 30s...

...so that was Nice...hard to believe we were there not long ago and now back in chilly Britain. Was it all a dream? 

Photos, Hey Ladies!

.........hello, sorry, I'm in a hurry...got meatballs to cook...isn't that fascinating? Photo ^ 'Man At Work' - ha! People post photos of themselves all the time nowadays, don't they? Seems weird to me, my generation being one which hardly photographed itself, although as I was saying to LJ the other day, it would be brilliant if I had photos of myself in a Budgie jacket...starry jumper...or earlier, boots 'n' braces...! But it wasn't to be. I took the photo above on the way back from The Rose & Crown, which I'm happy to publicise because it's a good place...unpretentious but, you know, a bit...'funky', as they say. Here's a photo I took in the pub...

...which I can't help looking at recently without thinking of this...Hey Ladies, by The Beastie Boys...and the video in which The Bump is executed...that's an old dance we did before cameras were invented...

Composition With Len Deighton's The Ipcress File

Taken this morning outside a Bloomsbury Street cafe. Deighton describes seedy Soho of the early 60s brilliantly. I've had the book on the shelf for ages but only just got 'round to reading it. I use a notebook, not a Smith & Wesson - ha-ha.

Disco Fever

Went to Margate's Dreamland the other week and found this Saturday Night Fever slot machine...

Who Is The Shadow That Walks Beside You?

The third mind at work?

Pierre Henry - Choix D'oeuvres: 1950 - 1985 (Vinyl On Demand)

On the vinyl consumer kicksometer it's off the scale. This morning I read Bob Stanley's piece in The Guardian about the vinyl revival, came home and found this waiting for me...

...oooh, what could be inside, kids?

I'm the right age to be a '50-quid man', but not the type. I don't have the money they do for starters. Plus they've gone full circle from vinyl to CDs, MP3s and back again whilst I've always bought vinyl, intermittently, mostly old second-hand albums. This is a luxury purchase (I suppose it would be to most) because rather than being able to casually spend loads on vinyl I'm impulsive and, yes, the burn holes in all my trouser pockets tell the tale of what money does to them.

Well wrapped, isn't it?

Bubble wrap peep show...

...I splashed out for two good reasons; one being the fact that I haven't heard some of the material, the other being the focus I know vinyl brings as opposed to files which, due to their abundance and ease of play, frequently get played and not listened to properly.

Look...tasty photos on the sleeves...

...you handsome bastard!

Better unwrap the albums. I haven't been so excited since Chelsea won the Champion League. Perhaps I'll write it on the calendar...'Pierre Henry's Choix D'oeuvres: 1950 - 1985 arrived'. Nah, that would be stupid. Hold on, I'm distracted by Microphone Bien Tempéré...Dimanche Noir...are those church bells? What are those sounds? Yes, the beautiful mystery of musique concrète....now Bach's being wound fast-forward - brilliant! It's the early-50s and Pierre Henry is playing with the Classical tradition like a true iconoclast, like a crazy man, like someone enthralled with what new machines can do to old sounds.

So I'm unwrapping the first disc...

...shiny vinyl thrill...feel the resistance of vinyl against paper the first time it's liberated...

...the ceremonial placing of album on a turntable that it hasn't met before. "Turntable, this is Pierre Henry. Pierre, this is my turntable. I'm sure you'll get on fine."

My hand is shaking...perhaps it's my age, but I suspect it's excitement...it must be, I'm not that old...

...lift off! No, not lift off, touch down...

...doesn't it sound great coming out of this? Robby The Robot likes it, I can tell...the tape future concrète meets the electronic (Forbidden) planet of sound...

...I wonder if J.G.Ballard ever listened to Pierre Henry? Something about the way Henry and Schaeffer crashed sounds together might have appealed. Hold on, distracted by horse whinnying and dog barking on Astrologie (1953)...or Ballard's literary hero, William Burroughs...cut words, cut music...music as cut-up...

Running 'round the room in excitement? No, just an accidental snap...ha-ha.

Sound of needle lifting off the vinyl...though I'm not a purist that very sound seems right for this music...and yes I've enjoyed most Pierre Henry tracks on files up until now...but now, that sound, it makes an instant connection with the times the early pieces were made, reuniting them across time. Old technology as a medium for what were once new ways of composing, which sound totally alive today; impervious to the ageing process. In these pieces we hear not just predictions of things to come, but parallel events, as valid now as they ever were, proving their worth as contemporaries rather than ancient precedents. For all their efforts it feels as if modern music makers in awe of Pierre Henry are still only trying to catch up. I suspect they'll only ever be looking at his heels...

  

Miri Berlin Photography

Drowning in visual images as we are these days it takes something special to not only catch the eye but hold it's attention; Miri Pelzman's work achieved that when I first saw it. Crafting beautiful geometric shapes from judicious cropping and seeing the potential in spaces and places, Miri illuminates them for us. The work is often bathed in seemingly eternal sunshine; her camera eye looks to the skies and captures the poetry of space. Since so few of us take the time to stand and really look, we should be grateful that Miri does.

To see more of Miri's work and buy prints, visit her site.

Thank you for travelling with Deutsche Bahn, Berlin 2011 © Miri Berlin Photography

Untitled, Berlin 2013 © Miri Berlin Photography

Untitled, Lisbon 2012 © Miri Berlin Photography

Untitled, Rügen/Germany 2012 © Miri Berlin Photography

Panorama I, Tel Aviv 2011 © Miri Berlin Photography

Subjective fotografie: Otto Steinerts Schuler in Saarbrucken 1948-1959 (Ludwig Galerie, 2002)

(I told you (yes, you) that if you were good I'd scan some of this so I have, although I've no proof that you've been good, I'm just making a generous assumption)

....................another to add to my Art books in German......(the Heartfield, Höch and others, which you're welcome to come 'round and look at any time, just call first; don't turn up unexpected and find me in my slippers and the flat strewn with copies of Hello, The Sun and How To Be A Successful Blogger).........

....Lady Luck was good to me the other day.........I found this for £8 and fantastic it is too...............(1st scan isn't mine since my scanner wouldn't do the job (too small)................

Meggy, Edith Buch, 1953

Portrait of Leiter, Monika Dietz, 1951

Paar zu dritt, Otto Steinert, 1957

Face of a Dancer, Otto Steinert, 1952

Strict Ballet, Otto Steinert, 1949/50

o.T. II, Helga Schmidt, 1954

Material recording material structure, Helga Merfels, 1950