Lejf Marcussen – Den Offentlige Rost (The Public Voice)

[youtube width=”640″ height=”480″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZWX4hMZpdg[/youtube]

Yet another late 80’s coincidence: I saw this film in late ’89 or early ’90 on UK terrestrial TV as filler between programs. I’ve wanted to see it again for over 20 years and I finally found it on YouTube. It’s an animation by Danish director Lejf Marcussen called ‘Den Offentlige Rost’ (The Public Voice, 1988) and it’s a simple idea executed fantastically. It starts out pretty simply but starts getting interesting around the 2.40 mark and it’s all done by hand, no computer graphic trickery apparently – stunning. I can only keep searching for a better copy now.

Posted in Art, Film, Oddities. | 1 Comment |

’88 was great but ’89 is mine

classicI was recently asked to play at a night called Classic Material, run by Chris Read and Nick Armitage. The idea for this is to give each month over to a year from Hip Hop’s past and only play tracks released during it. DJ Format did ’87 (entirely on 45’s!), Andy Smith – ’88 and I was given 1989. ’89 was a special year for me as it was the year I moved away from my home and parents and started studying in London, a city I’ve remained in for more than half my life now.

It was also a year rich in musical delights with the beginnings of gangster rap taking over Hip Hop and the emergence of De La Soul‘s Daisy Age with their incredible ‘3 Feet High & Rising’ album. Actually possibly my top three all-time favourite Hip Hop albums were released in ’89, the aforementioned ‘3 Feet High…’, the Beastie Boys‘Paul’s Boutique’ and the Jungle Brothers‘Done By The Forces of Nature’.

De La shirt webThe Beasties’ album was critically mauled at the time but has undergone a reappraisal since and is now hailed as the classic it is but the Jungle Brothers’ record is still only really feted by Hip Hop heads in the know. It’s their strongest record with as much inventiveness as the De La album if not quite the wackiness of Prince Paul‘s production. In it you can hear the whole blueprint for the Native Tongues movement that was beginning to emerge but also a precursor to Deee-Lite‘s ‘Groove Is In The Heart’ – which would be the anthem of 1990 – Towa Tei was even involved in aspects of the record. On the west coast the Dust Brothers were in their most high profile period with Tone Loc, Young MC and the production of the Beastie’ record. The whole NWA/Ruthless Records camp was basking in the glory of ’88’s ‘Straight Outta Compton’ and surrounding releases like the D.O.C‘s ‘No One Can Do It Better’ album.

Hip House and the general speeding up of Hip Hop was the order of the day with a lot of UK only remixes of licensed US tracks having this edge to them. Alongside this you had the Stone Roses’ debut album and the whole Maddchester scene as well as the fallout from the acid house excess of the previous year making it’s mark on both the charts and surrounding music genres. S’Express made their best records and Tim Burton‘s first Batman was the film of the summer, complete with soundtrack by Prince.

Whilst all this was going on I was doing my Foundation course in Art and Design in Reigate and used the screen printing facilities to make some custom T-shirts for myself and others featuring De La Soul surrounded by psychedelic lettering I drew. It’s with this design that I want to illustrate the mix I put together for Classic Material, done completely on vinyl – what a pain that was after using Serato for 5 years!

’88 was great but ’89 is mine by DJ Food

Elsewhere J Saul Kane was starting his own journey with the first Depth Charge releases on DC Recordings but that comes to fruition about five years down the line.

Posted in Art, Music, Records. | 2 Comments |

Avatar by Tarkovsky?

Avatar by Tarkofsky
Found this on the web whilst looking for something else, nice idea, no idea where the original picture comes from, presumably an ancient sci-fi novel. Not sure if Avatar would be quite so action packed with this director at the helm.

Posted in Art, Books, Oddities. | No Comments |

West London Graffiti join-ups from the late 80’s

Tuff Times, Non Stop, Hell Raisers – The Pit, Ladbroke Grove, London, ’80s

Funké – CazBee, under the Westway, Ladbroke Grove, London, ’80s

Non Stop Are World Destruction – Kilburn, London, 80s

Enigma 137 – Rebel, under the Westway, Ladbroke Grove, London, ’80s

JUSTICE / MUM, The Pit, Ladbroke Grove, London, ’80s

I’ve been going through stuff, more info on the individual pieces plus a few more on my Flickr (click any picture)

‘The Earth’s Edge’, Trellick Tower, London, UK, ’80s

‘It’s Time 4 War’ – All Star Kings, The Pit, Ladbroke Grove, London, ’80s

Posted in Art, Oddities. | 4 Comments |

V23 Calendars from years passed

Around this time of year some of us are thinking about getting new calendars to plan our way through the next 12 months. I’ve just sold several OLD calendars, very beautiful ones designed by Vaughn Oliver at V23. Below are some examples of various months I’ve picked out. The V23 calendars were always very obscure, you couldn’t write on them and you could hardly tell which day or month it was on some, but that wasn’t the point.

V23 July 93 1V23 July 93 2V23 May 96

V23 Mar 96V23 Feb 96V23 mar 93Summer 88

V23 posters 1&2V23 Feb 90 web

Olly Moss

Olly-Moss-Thorrr3
Further to the Star Wars fan posters post earlier I felt I should dedicate a post to Olly Moss’s work. He has such a simple angle on things, great colour sense and a clean, unfussy presentation. Able to merge different genre styles and bring a touch of the classics to everyday pop culture. For examples see his Penguin Classic book covers illustrating video games or his film poster updates via his site (click on Design > Rolling Roadshow or Videogame classics).

Posted in Art, Design, Film. | No Comments |

Tron-ization

Tron:Legacy is the big Xmas movie to see as I type and these just popped up on Deviant Art by iamclu – beautiful.

Tron-Legacy-Fan-Art-Buzz-Lightyear iamcluTron-Legacy-Fan-Art-London-Bus

Tron-Legacy-Fan-Art-Tube-Map - iamclu

Following on from the fan posters post there are a couple of lovely Tron ones by Eric Tan for the first and second film that go together beautifully. They had glow in the dark inks and were available from Sideshow Collectibles earlier this month but are now gone, maybe eBay?
Tron Eric TanTron Legacy Eric Tan

Posted in Art, Design, Film. | 1 Comment |

Star Wars fan film posters

Fan versions of film posters are nothing new but there seem to be more and more of them around with every major release these days. They can be a deviation from the norm for working artists in other practices or virtually launch careers of unknowns posting on their blogs or deviant art page (see the Tron post). Of course the most popular films will get multiple versions and inspire hitherto unseen levels of love and creativity, far outshining the original film’s posters themselves. The best example is probably the original Star Wars trilogy (I’m yet to see ANY fan posters for the second trilogy) and the recent smash and grab success of Olly Moss’ set on the Mondo site show that there is plenty of mileage in those old images as he brings a fresh look to all three films with gorgeous colour combinations.
SW Olly MossESB Olly MossROTJ Olly Moss

Earlier this year Andy Helms got into hot water with Lucasfilm after he posted his take on the trilogy on his site and offered them for sale. His reward was a cease and desist letter, which is fair enough if you don’t have permission, but a shame as the posters are excellent.

star_wars_a_new_hope_print_andy_helmsstar_wars_the_empire_strikes_back_print_andy_helmsstar_wars_return_of_the_jedi_print_andy_helms

A couple of years ago the ridiculously talented Tom Whalen did his take on Star Wars and Empire but never did one for Return of the Jedi. Wanting copies of the posters I even contacted him asking why he didn’t make a 3rd but it seems time didn’t make it a reality. Now he’s finished the trilogy to complete a beautiful set (also check out his Godzilla posters). There are many more Star Wars-themed posters out there if you google, a lot not even attempting to portray each film but taking obscure references and imagining situations or alternate versions. I’m sure these won’t be the last.

newhope tom whalenempirestrikesback tom whalenstarwars_jedi tom whalen

Posted in Art, Design, Film. | 1 Comment |

Videocrash Solid Steel AV XXmas party this Saturday

snub-hexstatic-dj-food-dk

A bit of a special one this: Videocrash and Solid Steel team up for a XXmas knees-up at the Electrowerkz in an Audio Visual rave up this Saturday. Hexstatic will be presenting a ‘Trailer Trax’ special, Cheeba will no doubt be previewing some tidy new pieces and DK and I will round out the year with a final showcase of our own Ninja Tune XX AV mix before packing it up and putting it to bed. Joining us will be Digitonal showing their new ‘Deep Space’ a/v set – an hour long set constructed around a voyage that starts with Earth. moves past the Moon and planets, and into the infinite…

Not only that but Graffiti artist, stenciller and sticker-er (?) supreme, SNUB23 from Brighton will be joining us and painting an original piece live from 11pm. This will later be auctioned off in aid of the MacMillan Cancer Support charity after being signed by all present. He might also bring some stencils for custom T shirts too (see below). It all starts at 8pm and will probably end messily at 4am, this is a final farewell to a great year for Ninja and the 20th celebrations before we break for Xmas.

SNUB-brugal-tee-001

1-Bit Symphony by Tristan Perich

1 Bit CD + mug1 Bit and jack

I’m currently listening to this amazing piece of art / packaging / engineering. There is no CD in the case, just a series of electrical components that make the music you hear when you plug your headphones into the mini-jack inserted in the spine. A battery, on/off switch, selection pad (to jump to the next track) a volume wheel and a mini headphone jack sit connected to something that chucks out the 1-bit code programmed into it. It’s basic, as the sound capabilities are obviously limited – imagine Phillip Glass played on a Nintendo – but it’s enjoyable nevertheless, also the volume seems to lose the bass as you decrease it. Beware, the last track is infinite, I sat there for a while before checking the packaging and saw a loop logo – doh!

More info at 1-bit symphony.com and you can still buy a copy although it’s not cheap, as a work of art it’s more than worth it I think. If anyone has a copy of Perich’s ‘1-Bit Music’ CD they want to sell I’d be interested.

Posted in Art, Design, Music, Oddities. | No Comments |

Ninja Tune XX in the US, Part 1: NYC

Day 1: Wednesday – NYCWFMU, Coffee Break for Heroes & Villains

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We’re flying to the States for the next leg of Ninja Tune XX anniversary gigs, by we, I mean myself, DK and Tom Bell (Toddla T). We land at New York’s JFK airport and meet Jeff Waye – head of Ninja Tune N. America – and Steve Beatty – tour manager with his assistant Tamara. First stop is the Sohotel in downtown Manhattan where, one by one, Amon Tobin, Brendan Angelides (Eskmo), Eric San (Kid Koala) and DJ Kentaro and his brother Kotaro arrive. The first night is free so some of us go to eat and catch up, well it’s free for the others, but not for me. I’ve agreed to guest on Noah Uman‘s show on WFMU – the great alternative station based over the river in New Jersey – which kicks off at midnight!  So, whilst my body is telling me to go to bed I’m getting picked up and driven to the station with Noah and friends Egor and Greg, wondering how long I’ll last over the course of the three hour show.

I’ve only known Noah for about a year, he contacted me via the web to see if I would be interested in providing a brief quote for a reissue he is working on – Marshall McLuhan‘s ‘The Medium Is The Massage’ – not the book but the record. It’s one of my favourite cut & paste / spoken word pieces and even more amazing in that it actually lives up to the book’s legend. He’d clocked that I would be in town and asked if I would guest on his show which plays predominantly Hip Hop, albeit everything but the major label kind. We hit it off immediately and he took us to the library room where he proceeded to pull a few bits before we hit the studio. I had an inkling of what the station would be like given the material they display and I wasn’t disappointed. Customised record sleeves lined the walls, a huge rack of cassettes was still present, a corridor of strange paintings of public figures like Elvira, Elvis and Sarah Palin (!) all rendered in an odd style by a fan of the station were just some of the decorations. The toilet contained a framed book cover, ‘DJ’ this is THE big one that tells you about THAT man and THOSE people – bizarre sleeves abounded and downstairs was a huge cross made from melted records – ‘the Death of Vinyl’ – again provided by a fan.
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We kicked off and Noah and I were in our element, nerding out and chatting non stop about oddities and obscurities both on and off the air whilst I played a selection of old school favourites of the lesser-known kind, cover versions, cut ups from the UK and Japan and novelty records. I’d pulled out Bobby ‘Boris’ Pickett’s 1981 single ‘Monster Rap’, essentially a rap retread of his ‘Monster Mash’ hit, and lo and behold so had Noah, only he’d found one with a picture sleeve. You know when you meet a kindred spirit, I felt at home straight away and before we knew it it was approaching 3am! Jesus, where did the time go? I got back to the hotel about 4am and bid my goodbyes, Greg was going back to LA the next day but I’d see Egor at the gig the next night. Even though I was flagging badly by now (having been awake for over 24 hours) I could hardly sleep as the room was so hot and the air con like a helicopter when turned on.

You can listen to the show and see the tracklist here

Day 2: Thursday – NYC Double Dee & Steinski, Matt Johnson and a last minute change of venue.

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Rising at 8.30am, DK and I looked for breakfast nearby, it was only on finishing and going to pay that I realised I’d lost my credit card. Great start to the tour! I quickly deduced that I’d had it in the airport and had probably forgotten to take it from a machine in my haste to board, anyway, had to cancel that with a no doubt expensive mobile call to the UK. The rest of the day was ours until a 4pm soundcheck and I’d arranged to hook up with Steinski for lunch who had texted to say that he was up at Double Dee‘s studio in Midtown. The sun was out and with 90 minutes to kill I decided to do the typical foreigner-in-town thing and walk it, checking out people, art, buildings and day to day stuff en route. I arrived at Douglas’ studio as he was finishing off cutting TV promo spots for ‘Meet The Fockers’ and we chatted for a bit before Stein and I jumped on the subway back downtown to the soundcheck.

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The venue – Santos Party House, owned by Andrew WK – had the most speakers I have ever seen in a club of its size, the stage was mounted on subs, rows lined the ceiling either side of the bar, tiny tweeters hung down in clusters above our heads and there was a huge cabinet at one side of the stage that you could have slept in quite easily. Set up was pretty painless even though we had five different performing configurations: DK and I have 4 decks and 3 mixers, Kentaro: 3 decks and 2 mixers, Koala: 3 decks, 1 mixer, Amon: 2 decks, 1 mixer and Eskmo: his own specific set up.

It was then that I realised my headphones were missing and that I’d probably left them in the radio station the night before in my jet-lagged state, second thing I’d lost in the space of a day! By this time Ghislain Poirier had joined us as well as several of the office staff from the UK, having all been given a lump sum each to go to an international gig of their choice. A huge dinner was planned shortly nearby for the staff and the distributors in NY but first I had another date.

I’d arranged to meet Matt Johnson, of The The, who was incidentally in town with his son on business, for a quick drink and chat which he would record and use on a later monthly podcast. Our cover version of his song ‘Giant’ is ongoing and we both agreed that it should be finished by the end of the year, me reworking my instrumental and him providing vocals in a new style. He was staying 2 blocks up from the party and after meeting we happened to walk by the club with soundcheck still booming out across the street. He took us to a bar he knew from his days living in the city, lamenting the closure of many of his favourite old haunts. Throughout the drinks I was getting ever increasing texts from Steinski: “were being invaded!”, “there are business people everywhere!”, “help!” so after a couple of beers I scooted off the the restaurant to find him and Double Dee literally surrounded by Ninja artists, staff and distributors, very few of whom they knew. The dinner descended into ordering mayhem with dishes arriving no one had ordered, people nicking other’s meals and a bill that seemed way over the odds.

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We crept back to the hotel to get some rest before the night began and I called Noah to see if my headphones were at the station. Whilst waiting for him to call back I got a text message from Nigel Peake (also in town on business): “I’ve just seen a squad of New York’s finest heading into the club, what have you been up to?” Thinking he was joking I texted back, “No idea but it’s going to be pretty loud in there tonight” – famous last words. Next thing my phone rang and I answer thinking it’s Noah calling back with news of my headphones, instead it’s Steve, “Come to the club right now, the police have shut down the party, we have to get the gear out, grab DK too”. Shit! Great start to the tour, credit card and headphones lost and now the first gig shut down before it’s even started. We raced down to the club, luckily there wasn’t too big a crowd yet and we managed to easily get inside without trouble and proceeded to rip down the gear as fast as we could.

Jeff, Steve and the promoter wanted a show of hands to see who was up for trying to do something elsewhere if we could find it and all were in agreement. By the time everything was packed a venue had been found on Bowery and we all jumped in cars and cabs (Egor came to my aid out of the blue) and made our way over to the new venue, Crash Mansion / BLVD to be greeted by a severely grumpy sound man. “These are my monitors, you don’t touch them unless I tell you to”, he stated, like some sort of whiny drill sergeant, fine, we were just glad of somewhere to play, we didn’t want to start messing with his speakers. He produced the most rickety tables I’ve ever seen, one of which he had to screw back together just so it could stand up and we soon realised that we would have to have a rotating pair of set ups, one act playing whilst the next one built their set-up. Just before midnight we were ready and a large crowd had got word and trekked over (the power of Twitter), forming a huge line round the block.

We’d managed to uproot the whole party in less than three hours and restart with only the loss of the video and a seriously compromised soundsystem. Downstairs was opened so that Poirier, Toddla T, Priest and M Sayeed from Anti-Pop could play but it didn’t quite work as either people didn’t realise it was on or were too captivated upstairs. I was flagging badly by this point and fell asleep backstage during Amon’s set (photo evidence by Melissa Phillips), DK and I were on last due to us having the largest set up and the gig finished at 4am. I really didn’t get very many good pictures due to low light and tiredness but the Hi-Fi Cartel site has some 150+ excellent ones. Everyone was relieved but exhausted and we hauled everything back to the hotel with only an hour until lobby call for the flight to San Francisco at 6am.

Read Part 2…

Ninja Tune XX in the US, Part 2: San Francisco

Day 3: Friday – San Francisco – White Walls Gallery, 5000 people and a pillow fight

jamie-kev-amon.jpg

Half dead with jet lag and exhaustion we pile into the van for the airport, none have eaten but suddenly Jeff appears with a big bag. “I’ve got pie!” he exclaims and we remember that Melissa Phillips (aka Aeluv from the Ninja forum), who had been taking photos the night before, is an expert baker and had bought a couple of large apple pies with her. Saved from starvation, thanks Melissa. The flight to SF was six hours so we finally got a bit of sleep until we touched down and wound the clock back another three hours to west coast time. We had a short window until sound check and I’d done some homework before I left; Augustine Kofie was having a show at the White Walls Gallery ten blocks from our hotel and I really wanted to see it ‘in the flesh’ so to speak.

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It was well worth the effort, Kofie’s work is a masterclass in collage, construction and colour balance, each piece has as much woodworking in it as painting. He uses found objects, textures and images alongside a geometric constructivist style that springs, somewhere along the way, from graffiti, framing some of the pieces with printed wooden rulers that he finds on his travels. One corner of the gallery was a recreation of a hypothetical Kofie workspace, complete with table, lamp and cutting mat, the shelves piled with rusted spray cans, clipboards and storage boxes that he had customised. On the back wall he’d painted one of his signature style pieces, skewed circles and tightly controlled detail, some of his work reminds me of Syd Mead‘s organic technology designs.

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Soundcheck saw a huge line up of decks with Amon, Kentaro, Koala, DK and I all fitting across the stage for this one. Anticipation was high as this gig was a free party, paid for by Converse who had sponsored the tour. There had been over 6000 applications for tickets and, even though the club had 4 rooms, it was doubtful that everyone would get in (5000 ended up through the door apparently). I’d hoped to meet up with Michael Bartalos – the creator of the original Ninja logo – at Kofie’s show but he couldn’t make it, luckily he made the gig and appeared at the DJ booth 5 minutes before we were due to play. It was great to finally meet the man who had been the catalyst for my own versions and fitting that it was the 20th anniversary that had marked the occasion.

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The show was a great success, marked by the introduction of a pillow fight interlude in Kid Koala’s set where he took two pillows from the hotel and asked for volunteers from the audience. Two had to have a pillow fight, holding one arm behind their back whilst a third was asked to operate a small sampler onstage filled with foley sounds á la Loony Tunes cartoons to soundtrack the fight. This was a great success and rendered all the more bizarre because Eric was playing a version of ‘In The Mood’ called ‘Classical Cluck’ where the song is recreated by clucking and squawks. Upstairs after our set Jeff’s wife had arrived with their new baby who was sound asleep even though the bass from Amon Tobin’s set downstairs was making cups literally jump off tables nearby. SF Weekly has a nice review and a few pictures too.

Read part 3…