Music – A Note On a Rainy Night

Wacken Earth

I got this postcard from a supermarket in a small town in NW Germany near where the festival is held. I hope it has genuine Rammstein tears in the soil sample, or I’ll ask for my €3 back

I love using Photoshop product mockups – there’s something satisfying about creating a total lie of an object that doesn’t exist. I wanted an 8 track tape mockup, but I couldn’t find one. So I made one and you can download it.

Australian Radio Playlist

Here’s a playlist I made while I was in Melbourne of (mostly current) Australian stuff I heard played in various shops and cafes. Daytime Australian radio is where cock rock goes to die, and keeps Midnight Oil forever living off royalties, but I definitely didn’t go there with this playlist.

Record shops of Melbourne

You Get Used to an Empty Room- playlist

Everything has been grim- the world, politics, more personal matters. Here is a short playlist of a certain mood of corruscating bleakness.

I want my MTV (late 90s edition)

I was a teenager in the dark ages when you had to have lightning reflexes to tape songs you liked when they came on. I didn’t have cable or satellite at home, but I did a lot of babysitting at houses where they had the music channels. So I used to to make mix tapes of music videos. Here’s some of the stuff I remember taping.

It’s a fool who doesn’t see what I see watching trees

Here’s a playlist. There’s a certain early 80s synth pop mood, even if all the songs aren’t actually from that era. There’s some Russian stuff, there’s the Deftones covering Duran Duran (yes, really). Have a good aesthetically composed sulk on me.

Amps for Total Beginners

If you are playing an electric guitar or bass, you will need an amp. Here’s a guide to how they work, and how to find the one that will suit you.

A general update

I haven’t posted much this month because I was ill- not ill enough to need medical attention or be bedridden, but not ill enough to do anything much either. Was it the virus, or not? I have no idea because of course I wasn’t able to get tested, but the symptoms fitted, and the people in the flat next to and below me were equally ill with the same symptoms, and I live in one of the most affected parts of the UK. I also felt tired and grey for a long time after recovering- similar to after having glandular fever and shingles (not helped by doing something painful to my shoulder in the meantime). So it seems likely.

Crossing the Alps playlist

To travel in between Vienna and Graz, until the never-ending tunnel under the mountains is finished later this decade, you have to take the train over the top of the Semmering Pass, going up and down over the Alps. You get some spectacular views, and the trainline itself is a UNESCO site. It’s hard to take good photos out of the train window, so here’s my playlist for over the mountain.

Das Geht Sich Gut Aus

I’ve been in Vienna and now a tiny village on the Austro-Hungarian border for the last few weeks. Here’s what I’ve been listening to.

An Apparition or Whatever You Call It

I haven’t done a playlist on here in a long time, so here’s one. All of a certain mood and a certain era.

Lunatraktors at Halloween

I took some photos of my “broken folk” musician friends the Lunatraktors doing a Halloween performance. The setting was an art installation of a crypt of obsolete technology in a tunnel on the seafront by Sadie Hennessy. The metalwork headpieces were created by local jeweller and metalworker Billie M Vigne.

Nervy Betters poster

I designed this poster for my friend Henry, based on Ware landmark Scott’s Grotto, but forgot to post it here. It’s tomorrow if you are in the area.

Lunatraktors

Last week I went down to Pegwell Bay in between Ramsgate and Sandwich to take some press shots for my friends Carli and Clair- aka the Lunatraktors. They describe their work as “broken folk” and combine folk, ambient vocal overtone work and choreography into it (Carli is also a choreographer and clown by profession).

Oh with your eyes of blue, I want to drink rice milk with you

Today’s song- Rice Dream Girl by Casiotone for the Painfully Alone. Longing and sadness captured on nothing but a microphone and a cheap Casio keyboard.

I found the fragrance separate from the flower

Today’s song is Black Cat, by Broadcast, from Tender Buttons, one of my all-time favourite albums (I was torn between choosing this or I Found the F). I really wish I had seen Broadcast more times than I did. There seemed no hurry.

Pig- Sparklehorse

So another song- Pig by Sparklehorse. I was considering picking Tears on Fresh Fruit, which is my other favourite song by them, but this won out.

Ghost Fang

Kevin who I run Connect Nothing With Nothing with has an improv group called Ghost Fang. Each performance includes whatever musicians want to take part…

Nuns contemplating Dog

I took some press shots of “”pineal-poking punked-up psychedelic speedfreaks” Casual Nun at Dreamland when they came down to Margate to play a gig recently. While everyone’s back was turned, Iraklis won a huge toy dog from a sideshow on the first attempt.

Kleenex- Nice

So next up, Nice by Kleenex. (Who later had to rename themselves Liliput after pressure from the tissue company). Infectious early 80s Swiss post-punk.

Over the Edge- Wipers

So I thought I would pick a song I like each day, and write something about why I like it, in an attempt to make myself write more often.

Bismuth

Hello from the southern hemisphere. Here’s some new press shots of my friends’ band Bismuth I took a few weeks ago at the original UK Botany Bay…

It Came From the Merch Table

People loved the poster, so I got some merch printed up to sell at the festival, and some local friends to model it in an impromptu photo shoot…

Bloody Head

So here’s another gig I’m helping to organise and did the poster for. This time I went for a pretty simple design. Spilt blood speaks for itself…

Beige Palace & Dead Kaczynski

Here’s another gig poster I did (this time for a gig that’s already passed, because I’ve been so slack about updating this blog)…

Enter the Vortex

So here’s the posters I designed for two gigs I’m helping to put on- one in London, the other in Margate. As per the press release “Girl Sweat is the ever-changing garage-noise project fronted by the 6ft 5” beast that is ‘Sweat’” along with the fine collection of psych and drone weirdos assembled in support. My brief for the poster was “illuminati/masons cult shit”. I hope I delivered.

Very Friendly

Here’s some photographs I took of my friends’ band Very Friendly. For a while we had intended to take some promo shots with a miserable day at the beach theme, and then the beach was suddenly covered in thick snow, so this happened over a lunch break. Harry eventually got warm again. Eventually.