Happy Halloween

pumpkinzI know it’s a bit late but I wanted to share these two pumpkins I carved for the kids’ party.

Got back from Bristol Solid Steel where DK and I played with Hexstatic, King Cannibal, DJ Cheeba and Moneyshot as well as D.O.P. of course. The others all rocked it but we fell foul of some technical problems and just plain sloppy mixing in the middle of the set. We’d spent a week making up quite a complex video piece that we’d never tried before and it was a seat of our pants execution.

Saturday night was the Big Chill House alongside Cheebs again (who rocked it amazingly both nights) and Altern8 who sounded excellent up until I left. The city was full of freaks and ghouls, zombies being the big favourite it seems.

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More King Cannibal downloads

Adding to the post below and, on the eve of Dylan ‘King Cannibal’ Richards‘ first full length release:

Both Dylan and I were pretty gutted when Ninja said they weren’t going to do a last 12″ single from the album (not a physical one anyway) as we wouldn’t see the cover image any bigger than CD sized. All that effort and work, lost on a format little bigger than a coaster! I’ve taken the step to have them available as a series of desktops and a high quality jpeg of the cover, twice the size of an LP sleeve, at a resolution that you could make a poster from on the Downloads page.

Let The Night Roar is out now on Ninja Tune

King Cannibal LetNightRoar LP

Synth Porn

I’ve been having a reacquainted love affair this year with all things analogue, seventies and sci-fi. It seems to happen every few years and all I want to look at are curved edges, computer fonts, muted tones and airbrushed images from the days before computers made everything virtual. I’ve been doing a T- shirt design based on the Moog and whilst doing some research I stumbled upon this site.

Someone has scanned several issues of a synth mag from the mid seventies called Synapse. It contains interviews with people like Eno, Zappa, Kraftwerk, Herbie Hancock, George Duke, Bob Moog, Pat Gleeson and a whole lot more. In amongst all this are reviews, how-to’s and loads of ads for what are now vintage synths.

synapse0

The Kraftwerk interview is great, at one point they talk about a comic they’ve made where small plug-in systems try try to make contact with all these inputs and outputs, coming together to make a group. They talk about doing a book where they present more of their work to people in ways it can’t be shown on record. Shame it didn’t materialise.

What has materialised at long last though is the fabled reissues of their albums from 1974 -2003 – known to fans as ‘the catalogue’ – and originally meant for release in 2004. Some promo copies even slipped out but then nothing, now they are finally available via Mute in the UK. Now that’s one set of remasters I’ve been looking forward to whilst everyone else bangs on about the other Fab Four.

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Warp 20

Just arrived at the door, what a lovely package, congratulations to all involved and Happy 20th Warp. My only gripe is that I could have been part of the package as they asked me to do the mix last year but I simply didn’t have the time so I passed them on to Osymyso. Looking forward to digesting it all.

Posted in Books, Design, Music, Records. | No Comments |

Food For Mahfood

Just received a bumper package from my man Jim Mahfood aka Food One in LA. We did a swap of goodies and he really outdid me with the contents of his box. Aside from the comic books, T-shirt, stickers, cards and mix CD he also signed the inner covers of all 3 Mixtape collections AND included the limited edition Paul’s Boutique comic he did about the Beastie Boys’ classic album. Yep, I’m gloating here…

[singlepic id=1982 w=650 h=400 float=left][singlepic id=1986 w=650 h=400 float=left]

Posted in Art, Books, Comics, DJ Food. | No Comments |

17

17-200x200I just finished Bill Drummond‘s book 17 at the weekend, it affected me quite a bit and opened up a can of worms I think will be a running theme for some time. The third DJ Food EP – ‘Finyl : The Death of Vinyl’ – was already going to deal with some of these thoughts but I feel it will become much bigger than that.

Posted in Books. | 12 Comments |

The Shape Of Things That Hum

Shape EP poster

This will be the next DJ Food EP in the trilogy, released Dec 7th as a 12″ with poster cover and download with 3 bonus remixes.

Side A
1. Sentinel (Shadow Guard) – DJ Food & DK, mixed by King Cannibal
2. extract from Stolen Moments too – variations on a theme
3. Brother John – featuring the voice of John Rydgren,  a tribute of sorts
Side B
1. GIANT (instrumental) This is a cover of the The The classic, there will be a vocal version on the album next year by Matt Johnson himself
2. Sentinel (Lunar Defence) – a reprise / reversion of the main track

8 track Download + pdf booklet
All Covered In Darkness (Mr P remix suite) 3 remixes by PC totalling 13 minutes.

Artwork is again by Henry Flint on the inks and me on the colours, here’s the main cover / poster image.

Rinky Dink

My friends Sarah and Leigh at Factory Road sent some lovely custom 45 adapters down the other week. After years of buying up old stocks from US factories they’ve made their own, improved from existing versions and de-bossed with their logo. They also offer a custom service with your own name or wording on the dinks if you need something special or want some for promo. Contact Leigh at [email protected] if you want more info – they also make records, prints and T-shirts and are lovely people.

dinks-pack

Here’s one I made earlier

We’ve been having a clear out of the kid’s things and I’m sad to say that these have to be consigned to the bin (although my wife is probably very relieved). Built from toilet rolls, pizza bases, cereal packets and lots of gaffa tape, they form the near pinnacle of my model making with the boys. I say near pinnacle because there’s still a giant robot in mid-construction…

The Millenium Falcon has seen better days, having been flown (read: thrown) around the house on many occasions. likewise the AT-AT has had several falls as Duplo Snow-Speeders ensnare it’s legs.

falcon-frontfalcon-backat-at

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Votel vs Vannier

Got sent these the other day by Sean Vinylement who also works for Finder’s Keepers Records. On the left is a rather fine mix of Jean-Claude Vannier compositions by Andy Votel – limited to 69 copies apparently. Alongside it is Sean’s new album ‘Symbiosis’ by his alter ego Demdike Stare, a very deep electronic record that reminds me of Basic Channel and Murcof simultaneously but with something far darker lurking under the surface.

stare

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Bestival

Took the bus, train, cab, ferry and bus down to Bestival on Saturday morning, left at 11am, was on site by 3.30. The weather was fantastic and one of the first things I saw on arrival was Lily Allen backstage, looking stunning in an open-backed  Barbarella-esque outfit with glitter across her eyes. She looked like the kind of girl the word ‘minx’ was created for. I stopped dribbling and got my wristband.

The theme this year was outer space and this is one festival that exists for fancy dress. Every, and I mean every, permutation of space character, hero or villain, minor or major was represented. From the usual Darth’s, Stormtroopers, Boba’s, Leia’s and even a Millenium Falcon to Daleks, Thunderbirds, Trekkies and Transformers. People had gone to town and there was enough silver and baking foil to make a thousand spaceships. Amongst the less obvious characters were the Yip Yip aliens from Sesame Street, the Black Oblisk and Hal from 2001, the 3-eyed aliens from Toy Story, Clangers aplenty and quite a few Flash Gordon’s (the 80’s version though*).

I was playing in the Bollywood tent, sandwiched between Ross Allen and Appleblim. When I arrived Ross has a posse of Stormtroopers getting down but the crowd were a difficult one and it was mid afternoon with the sun blazing outside. I went for a walk and immediately got pushed aside as a parade of costumed space cadets marched through the site. My favourties were a guy and his girlfriend dressed as a Scout Walker and Princess Leia respectively, some girls on amazing space bikes in the parade and a couple dressed as Roland TB-303’s made from foam – definitely the most original and creative I saw.

Back in the tent for my set I decided to throw the usual one out the window and start with some funky bits before quickly winding into some stompy 4/4 electro/techno. Then into dubstep and breaks and finally a touch of drum n bass for the last 20 minutes. After a slow start with people standing and watching it worked a treat and I was surprised to see Diplo pop his head around the booth to say hello at one point.

After a quick drink and chat with Ross it was back on the bus, ferry, cab, train and bus to London, arriving home at midnight. I’m currently in the middle of Bill Drummond’s book ’17’ which is gripping me with his mania like all his books do. I can relate to some of what he says – the main jist of the book is that music has run  it’s course – but that’s a blog for another day.

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*I have a particular affection for this version of Flash Gordon, my dad was bought up on the original and I was 10 when they did the remake so he took me to see it and I loved it. The soundtrack (on cassette) was the first album I ever bought with my own money, definitely seduced by the film connection and the great logo on the cover rather than any love of Queen. I liked some of their music but could only get into the faster guitar-driven tracks rather than the incidental, slow-paced stuff, although I’ve come to appreciate these over time.

What I also liked was that there was loads of dialogue from the film mixed into the music and the record ran in sequence with the events in the film. Freddie Mercury was sporting a Flash T-shirt on the inside cover and I wanted one so badly for years but those sort of merchandise spin-offs were the things of promo only back in those days. Years later I watched it round a mate’s house with the sound down and some terrible Mike Oldfield album as the soundtrack whilst coming down off acid. At one point some bagpipes kicked in and it ruined the whole thing, I had to get him to change the record.

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Spiderman / Venom custom

I have to hand it to one of my sons, Alex, he’s already caught the toy customising bug. He and his brother have a Spiderman figure each but Alex likes Venom more and this morning he announced he wanted to paint his Spiderman black so he resembled Venom more. So out came the acrylic paint and brushes and 5 minutes later he had a customised Spidey / Venom (I made sure the eyes stayed white).

venom-custom

Alex is nearly 4 – that’s my boy. :)

Posted in Toys. | 1 Comment |