Event

Frankie’s ‘Two Tribes’ 30 years old today

Frankie Goes To Hollywood‘s ‘Two Tribes’ – one of the greatest pop singles of the 80’s and certainly one of the greatest 12″ mixes of all time – was released 30 years ago today. June 4th saw a 7″ and 12″ finally burst the bubble of expectation that ‘Relax’ had inflated after its 5 week run at the no.1 spot despite a BBC ban.

Six days later on June 10th ‘Two Tribes’ was also sitting at no.1 and would remain bedded in for another nine weeks with ‘Relax’ returning to the no.2 spot for a couple of those too. The 7″ and 12″ would be joined by three further 12″s, all sporting remixes of the title track or its B side, a cover of Edwin Starr‘s ‘War’, as well as 7″ and 12″ picture discs and a cassette compiling excerpts from all.

Add to that the phenomenon of the ‘Frankie Say’ T-shirts that swept the nation that summer and you had a roller coaster of pop product that no one could have predicted. Over on my ArtofZTT blog I’ve been adding sleeves, posters, adverts and picture discs daily to celebrate along with various quotes and info about the releases.

The ‘Inside The Pleasuredome’ box set I helped design is looking good at 83% funded over on Pledge Music and I’m waiting on the go ahead to post more photos from it. Over on his Failed Muso blog Rob Puricelli has written a great piece about the anniversary of ‘Two Tribes‘ and how it impacted on him as a teen in the 80’s, so much of it rings true to my experience too but he puts it so much better.

Posted in Design, Event, Music. | 1 Comment | Tags: , , , ,

shortly after Thursday Afternoon…

Went to an event at Brian Eno‘s studio last Thursday evening and on the way I found this Pop Annual from 1974 in the local book exchange with 4 pages about the man himself. Thinking that this was an Eno-esque bit of chance and how funny it would be to show it to him 40 years after the fact, I bought it. Managed to get him to sign it whilst chatting about his comedy turn interviewing himself in the guise of Dick Flash in an old promo video. I have now officially met God and obtained his autograph.

 

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Dust & Grooves book launch in London this Friday

Friday May 23rd, Dust and Grooves along with Wah Wah 45s, Ninja Tune, MixCloud, Dewar’s + Classic Album Sundays celebrates the release of  their book (released today!) at the Proud Archivist in East London.

DJ’s include: myself, Ollie Teeba, Colleen “Cosmo” Murphy, Jonny Trunk, Kid Dyno, Dom Servini, and Sheila B. They’ve just held parties in Amsterdam and Paris but now it’s our turn – more info here.

Also for those who can’t make it there will be a gathering up at the Vinyl Library in Islington on Sunday 25th from 3-9pm – info here.

Posted in Books, DJ Food, Event. | No Comments |

Kid Acne ‘The Return’ exhibition Galo Art Gallery, Turin

Kid Acne‘s ‘The Return’ solo exhibition just opened last weekend in Turin, Italy. Here are some photos from the opening and a film of him at work. The show runs until July 5th and is held at the Galo Art Gallery.

The entire exhibition focuses on his Stabby Women characters – adding new paintings, illustrations and prints to the ongoing body of work, which continues to explore the travels, rituals and mythology of these enigmatic female warriors.

KID ACNE from Tom Sykes on Vimeo.

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Hellboy 20th art show @ the Hero Complex Gallery

Seeing as it’s Free Comic Book Day tomorrow I’ll be posting a little more than usual about related events over the coming week. Another exhibition that just opened is this celebration of 20 Years of Hellboy by artists both professional and amateur.
It’s on at the Hero Complex Gallery in LA from today and you can see more examples of art here plus everything goes up for sale tomorrow .



Posted in Art, Comics, Event. | No Comments |

Dust & Grooves UK Book Launch, London May 23rd

It’s London’s turn to host Eilon Paz for the launch of the Dust & Grooves book in the UK with an exhibition, signing and guest DJs playing all vinyl sets on May 23rd. After the successful US launch on Record Store Day, April 19th we get the release in Europe a month later on May 20th.

Check out Ollie Teeba, Jonny Trunk, Dom Servini, Coleen Murphy, Kid Dyno and Sheila B spinning for free and enter a raffle to win a copy of the book at The Proud Archivist gallery in Hackney from 6pm. Unfortunately, due to a prior booking of the ‘3-Way Mix’ down in Southampton, I can’t be there otherwise I’d be joining that line up in a second.

There’s more info here and I’m currently working on editing an interview I did with cover star Mr Scruff that didn’t make the book deadline to appear on the D&G website for the launch. See a film of the launch party in Brooklyn below to get a taste of what will be happening and don’t forget to put aside a few hours to visit the Dust & Grooves website.


Posted in Books, Event, Records. | 3 Comments |

Dust & Grooves limited edition book – a look inside

The Dust and Grooves Limited Edition Book from Dust & Grooves on Vimeo.

LIMITED EDITION. Signed and numbered edition of 400. Includes:
* Signed and numbered copy. Edition of 400.
* Slipcase cover with blind de-boss and red foil stamping.
* Original 8.5×11 inch print, printed on matt archival photo paper.
* The Dust & Grooves photo mosaic poster.
Hard Cover, 416 pages, matt art paper.
Only available on the Dust & Grooves online store.

Posted in Books, Event, Records. | No Comments |

Trevor Jackson’s new exhibition in Paris


Trevor Jackson has a new exhibition opening today in Paris called ‘yesterday, today, tomorrow, forever’. It focuses on microscopic photography of some of his favourite records, zooming into the grooves and then blowing the images up to a huge scale.

This project has been gestating for years now, I remember it being featured in the Japanese +81 magazine over 5 years back. He’s finally found a home for it though at 12 Mail in Paris and has produced a soundtrack made from the records he’s photographed. There is a 500 copy 12″ and poster available at the show and it runs until the middle of May.

Posted in Event, Records. | No Comments |

A Future Past – Kraftwerk Uncovered

I went for a rather unique night out at the Science Museum on Friday, with fellow ‘music enthusiast’ Mark ‘Osymyso’ Nicholson no less. We were there to hear J. Peter Schwalm‘s reinterpretations of Kraftwerk numbers with the group Icebreaker in the IMAX theatre. Being a fan, and also a collector of cover versions of the band, it was a perfect evening out.

Kicking things off was a talk by David Toop, certainly one of my favourite authors where anything musical is concerned, his ‘Ocean of Sound’ is one of the best books I’ve ever read on electronic music. He didn’t dwell on the obvious, and pointed out that so much has already been said about the band that it was pointless to reiterate the carbon copy CV that the music press routinely trot out. Instead he attempted to recontextualise them by asserting that their roots were that of an R&B band. Citing The Isley Brothers as a parallel outfit in a clever, if somewhat unconvincing, set of examples he also made a sonic connection with the earliest incarnation of the band (and their pre-Kraftwerk ensemble, Organisation) and the electric era of Miles Davis‘ career. There were certainly similarities that I’d not considered before with this latter example but I wasn’t totally convinced with the former.

Thinking about it later I deduced that a better pairing might be Frank Zappa with Ralf & Florian – think about this for a moment:

Frank was influenced by classical composers like Boulez as much as the psychedelic rock underground but was never too keen to toe the line and be a part of a movement.
Zappa’s Mother’s of Invention were a rag bag jam band with a rotating line up of players with expert musical chops.
Zappa was a control freak who loved experimenting with the latest technology, quickly manouvering himself into a position with his label where he had full control. His early freak out experiments slowly streamlined into various concept records and, eventually, he went on to have commercial success too.
During the CD boom he went back to old master tapes and re-recorded new versions and parts of old songs with new inventions like drum machines and the Synclavier, replacing the original versions with new ones that he deemed superior (much to his fans’ dismay).
He largely left his past players behind but became a cult figurehead from a musical movement that stretched out to influence new generations after him.

All the above could be applied to Kraftwerk at one time or another – for instance, just substitute Boulez for Stockhausen in the first example and we’re off, but I digress…

In one of the main halls we filtered amongst the exhibits to hear The Balanescu Quartet play some of their versions of the band’s repertoire beneath a hanging bi-plane. As one of the first bands to release a record that heavily played on the fact that they had covered Kraftwerk it was fitting that they were on the bill, playing pitch-perfect versions of The Model, Autobahn and The Robots in a unique setting.

Then it was in to the IMAX theatre for the main event – Icebreaker – a 13 piece with two keyboard players flanking Schwalm in the center. Not as polished as Balanescu but more in keeping with the spirit of the works they were interpreting. They’d chosen an interesting set of pieces, some recognisable, some just reminiscent of – or influenced by – the Kraftwerk originals. It was a treat to hear mostly early to mid 70’s tracks, the sole 80’s inclusion being ‘Home Computer’ at the start. ‘Megahertz’, ‘Tanzmusik’, ‘Hall of Mirrors’ and a beautiful ‘Morgenspaziergang’ from the B side of ‘Autobahn’ were tackled, ending with a ‘driving’ (pun intended) version of the motorway classic which had me lulled into a semi-sleep before kicking in for a motorik finish.

We both really liked it and the performance was heightened by the split screen, black and white films of Sophie Clements and Toby Cornish that accompanied them. My only criticism was that it seemed too short but, altogether, it was a satisfying night out in a different venue, hearing old favourites in new contexts. The band are on tour in the UK in February and I’d recommend checking them out if you have a chance. More info here.

 

Posted in Event, Kraftwerk. | 1 Comment |

‘Raiding the 20th Century’ is 10 years old

It’s been bought to my attention that the original version of my ‘Raiding The 20th Century’ mix is now 10 years old. Originally a 40 minute guest mix on Eddy Temple-Morris‘ XFM radio show, The Remix, it was my attempt to construct a rough history of ‘cut up’ music in the midst of the mashup up/bastard pop craze. Taking in Music Concrete, avant garde tape composition, radiophonic tape experiments, megamixes, edit kings, scratching, early sampling and of course mash ups, it was one of the most densely mixed and edited things I’ve ever done. When it debuted it was put up on the Ninja Tune site at the time and quickly went a bit viral, causing the server to melt down and the site to grind to a halt by the next morning. More info here and here.

Posted in DJ Food, Event, Mixes/Solid Steel. | 9 Comments |

A Goodly Company: Ethel Le Rossignol exhibition

I don’t know anything about Ethel Le Rossignol but just saw this on Twitter, posted by Dan Hayhurst of Sculpture. From the Horse Hospital site:

“Between 1920 and 1933 spirit medium Ethel Le Rossignol created a series of 44 paintings, 21 of which belong to The College of Psychic Studies and will be on display with accompanying texts describing what she refers to as the Sphere of Spirit.

Radiant, psychedelic and ecstatic, her vision of the spirit world is consistent, coherent and stunningly beautiful, depicting a luminous realm of kaleidoscopic colour, inhabited by elegant sylphs, bejewelled apes and astral tigers.

Ethel’s channeled paintings reveal a world of pure light, colour and energy. Incorporating aspects of Art Deco, popular playbills, Eastern mysticism, mandalas and miniatures, they radiate an ecstatic joy, and are prescient of the psychedelic art that would emerge several decades later.

As a medium Ethel took no credit for the actual work, identifying a spirit known only as J.P.F. as the real artist. J.P.F himself claimed to be channeling another group of spirits, who wanted to impart the secrets of the soul to those of us still on the physical plane.

At present very little is known about Ethel Le Rossignol’s life, though we hope that this exhibition might prompt new discoveries. There are clues in her writing that she lost a friend, perhaps relatives, in World War One, and that this encouraged her interests in afterlife communications, which boomed in the inter-war years. Certainly she had a great interest in mediumistic spiritualism, attending lectures and demonstrations on the subject in London.

Ethel died in 1970 and her paintings, and copies of her privately printed book, A Goodly Company, were donated to the College of Psychic Studies in South Kensington. The paintings have been on display in rooms at the College for many years but, as far as we know, this is both the first time that they have ever been exhibited outside the College, and the first time that they have all been seen together in one space.

Encountering the whole Goodly Company assembled in one gallery promises to be a powerful exposure to the astral light and the love that she and her spirit friends so wanted to convey.”

The Horse Hospital, Colonnade, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 1JD
PRIVATE VIEW: Friday 21st February 2014 7pm. EXHIBITION: Sat 22nd Feb – Sat 22nd Mar, Mon – Sat, 12 – 6pm

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Abbey Road studios yesterday

Abbey Road Studios yesterday with Matt Johnson (right), engineer Alex Wharton (left) and the Neumann VMS 82 DMM cutting lathe (far left), the only operational one of its kind left in the country.

Oh! Gear porn! Big, clunky machines with real knobs and buttons that scream, ‘ANALOGUE!’. But what were we doing there? Cooking up something for Record Store Day but that’s all I’m allowed to say. You’re welcome to make an educated guess though…

Posted in DJ Food, Event. | 3 Comments |

‘Relax’ – and suddenly there came a ban!

On January 11st, 1984, Radio 1 DJ, Mike Read took Frankie Goes To Hollywood‘s debut single, ‘Relax’, off the deck, mid-song whilst live on air, reportedly calling it ‘obscene’ and stating that he wasn’t going to play it anymore. Despite the BBC having played it over 100 times, the band appearing in two sessions, having played Top Of The Pops the previous week and the single then residing at no.6 in the charts, the corporation officially ‘banned’ it from their playlist two days later.

This had the effect of generating enough publicity to push it up to the No.1 spot less than two weeks later on 22nd January and the band and their record company, Zang Tuum Tumb, claimed their first hit single. With a video that was already not deemed fit for TV broadcast, promo photos of the group in S&M gear and two of the band being were openly gay, it was all the press needed to have a field day.

In a stroke of good luck, the band’s producer, Trevor Horn, had remixed the song for a 3rd 12″ that was released just before it hit the No.1 spot. Multiple mixes being a novelty at the time, this version replaced the original ‘Sex Mix’ with a more club-friendly ‘New York Night Mix’, inspiration for which was taken when Horn visited the Paradise Garage club the previous Autumn. ZTT were quick to fan the flames of the ‘ban’ (it was only banned on BBC channels but freely played by other commercial stations) and adverts and posters appeared, flaunting the band’s outlaw status. I vividly remember seeing a huge fly poster proclaiming ‘Big, Banned & Beautiful!’ pasted up in the little town of Reigate where I grew up. In fact, I tried several times, unsuccessfully, to steal it but posters being what they are I just ended up ripping it.

I was fortunate enough to track down the original photographer of the poster’s image – Steve Rumney – for my Art of ZTT blog last year and he’s promised me access to a whole raft of exclusive, unseen/unpublished images that he took back stage at the band’s Camden Palace performance the previous November.

Stephen Rumney: “I used to take photos at the Camden Palace in the mid 80s and I was there the night that Frankie did their first ever performance of ‘Relax’… I think it was the actual release party and as far as I remember I was the only photographer to have back stage and dressing room access. …the pics are pretty wild as they were all drinking champagne and very high spirited as you can imagine… I was right in the thick of it and clicking away madly… there was something in the air that night and you could really tell this was the start of something big…

The photo was not posed … I just caught them before they went on stage… or just after… I may have asked them for a group shot but it was not ‘staged’ as in ‘let’s do a photo shoot’… its why it has that edgy spontaneity… Holly already the gun as he was carrying it around for his performance.

The story is that shortly after the gig I dropped a print off with the Island press office thinking they may like to use it for press… They had commissioned me to do a couple of photo shoots when I was still at college as they had seen my portfolio featured in ‘Blitz’ magazine so I dropped the Frankie photo off with them when I delivered prints for the other photo shoot they commissioned… a week or so later I saw my photo being used all round town on the giant street posters!!!”

‘Relax’ was a pretty big deal for me personally, one of those records that connected on first listen and had to have repeat plays, much to my parents’ annoyance. A song I never tire of and that, with the follow-up, ‘Two Tribes’, probably ranks as one of my top 10 singles of all time. I didn’t hear the ban as we rarely listened to Radio 1 in our house, instead hearing it on Capital Radio who didn’t hold quite such draconian ideals as the BBC. I taped it and would have to play it at least four times in succession after school for weeks on end.

In fact, some of my first pause button tape ‘remixes’ were of the song, made from the various different mixes floating around. It was this too that was one my first exposures to ‘the Remix’ on multiple formats and, coupled with the cryptic sleeve notes and images, it made for a very exciting package to a 13 year old. It was the beginning of a love affair with both the band’s music and their label, ZTT, that has stayed with me to this day. Nothing was more exciting to me in 1984 that Frankie and the other artists on ZTT’s roster – Art of Noise and Propaganda.

‘Big, Banned & Beautiful’ poster design: XLZTT photography: © Stephen Rumney 1983 The photo was taken 24th November ’83 by Steve Romney backstage at a promo gig for the single at the Camden Palace in London. The ‘girls’ in the photo were Ange and Juicy Lucy (the latter actually a man in drag), friends of the band who featured in the original video for ‘Relax’.

You can also read my interview with Anne Yvonne Gilbert – the illustrator of the iconic image on the cover of ‘Relax’ – on ArtofZTT.com

February 14th sees the release of yet another 12″ of the single for the 30th anniversary, this time with a recently discovered remix from ’84 which was lost in the vaults. More info HERE.

Posted in Event, Music, Poster / flyer. | No Comments |