If like me you love old obscure record cover Artwork, then you can not go wrong by having a look at Space Age Pop a Go - GO. Above is just a selection of some of the wonderful covers collected by Christopher Evens on this site. If Albums with titles like Hi Fi Fo Fum, Astro Sounds from Beyond the Year 2000, Bachelors Guide to the Galaxy, Hawaii goes a go - go, Mmm Nice! and Mallet Mischief are your thing, then you can't go wrong with this site. There does seem to be a lot of Pop - up - windows on this site, so make sure you have them pop ups blocked.
Test Transmission Archive Reel 5 now on Mixcloud. This time round we have Sisters Of Transistors, Current 93, Carya Amara, The Seekers, Belbury Poly , Klaus Sultze and much much more.
A quick documentary on Peter Zinovieff founder of EMS Studios and inventor of the VCS3 Synth, Synthi 100 and Synthi A. I do not have one of these Synths, but I know a man who did.
In 1996 my friend Jack Packer and I were asked to produce an 18 minute piece of music to accompany a film produced by students at Plymouth University. The film was called Hydropera. Film Students from Plymouth University had recently been to the Red sea to do some underwater filming. They decided that the film needed some weird old sounds so approached myself and Mr Packer to supply this sound/music. At the time Mr Packer and I were working together as Blister Sound Workshop. Which was us basically making lots of weird and odd sounds in our studio for other people.
We recorded Hydropera in one take on our trusted old Fostex Reel to Reel. We were sent the finished film spent a week or so getting the sounds that we wanted and then one Saturday afternoon we started recording. Just over 18 mins later we had finished. There was no over dubs everything was recorded live onto tape and then mixed. The cranky old equipment used was Yamaha CS-60, Sy-1 Synths. One set of Ring Spanners all hanging from a boom mike stand going through a Melos DE-1 echo unit. Roland R-5 Drum Machine, Roland S-10 Sampler, Yamaha SG 1000 and a couple of Yamaha SPX-90s.
So after rediscovering this piece of work, we have decided to make it available for all you out there. Please feel free to click on the Soundcloud link and download a copy of Hydropera for yourself. Thank you. Its FREE.
Popping into Brighton on September 24th for Splitting the Atom IV at the Green Door Store. My good Friend Mr Jez (Shndg) Stevens is playing that day and invited me along to help out carrying some of his strange old equipment. So a day out at the seaside for me.
I recently found a few photos of myself in an old photo album at my Sister's house. I noticed that in a lot of these photo's I looked fed up, grumpy or bored
All these photos as far as I can make out were dated between 1970 and 1975.
Later on in the same week Between the Channels put up a new post. The post was a lovely book called Let's Make Puppets. One of the comments on this post was by Bollops who asked
"Was there a rule back then that said kids must look bored and miserable in photos?" I've noticed it in so many other "How To..." books of the period.
This struck a chord with me. realising that I looked bored and miserable in quite a few of the old family photos. So with that I have decided to bow to pressure and put a few on my blog. The rest you can find at flckr. As Fearlono said "I've shown you mine, now you show me yours"
After the climbing frame from Hell I now wanted to go home. I did not want to be photographed.
As you can see having spent months building this 30in Frigate. I was over the moon now it was finished.
The Ruins of Detroit. Ruins are the visible symbols and landmarks of our societies
and their changes, small pieces of history in suspension. The state of ruin is essentially a temporary situation that happens at some point, the volatile result of change of era and the fall of empires. This fragility, the time elapsed but even so running fast, lead us to watch them one very
last time : being dismayed, or admire, making us wondering about the permanence of things. Photography appeared to us as a modest way to keep a little bit of this ephemeral state.
A friend of mine recently got a copy of The Ruins of Detroit. Derelict Theatres, Police Stations, Houses, Offices. They are all here. In fact the quality and style of the images is quite staggering. This book is amazing.
SED Published by Taschen 1990 by Georg C. Bertsch & Ernst Hedler. If you can get hold of a copy definitely worth it. Full of wonderful East German Design.
"Our workers are just rushing out to buy the tasteful, and yet favourably priced goods, which our industry has long since been producing"
Up to last week I had never heard of Origamibiro, then Adam Daly sent me a YouTube link to this wonderful track called Quad Time. Love the use of the old Imperial Typewriter. The text here is from their YouTube post.
Imagine music and video playing a game together. And telling stories at the same time. That's what it's like to experience a performance by audio-visual collective Origamibiro.
The collaborative trio merge found objects, unorthodox contraptions, multi instrumentalism and persistence of vision to create an atmosphere both nostalgic and otherworldly.Together, musicians and producers Tom Hill and Andy Tytherleigh and video artist The Joy of Box make connections between seemingly unrelated elements and create a world that plays the scale of human emotions.With atmosphere oozing from their fingertips, it's no wonder the Dublin Fringe Festival described Origamibiro as "undoubtedly the most original offering of the fringe calendar"This promo marks the first of a new series of av works to come out of the new Origamibiro stable- The BiroBox Workshops. Originally a Nottingham based audio-visual night run by Origamibiro, the Workshops has expanded to become a working space where biro can develop new ideas, experiments and working methods to play live.New album also coming soon...
Well yet again I have been asked to play some cranky old records at The King Street Tavern in Southsea Portsmouth. You can expect hear some Funk some Dub a few old Soundtracks some interesting Library Music some Radiophonics and Electronics and some Krautrock. Also expect all other sorts of audio oddities. It all starts at 7.30pm so best I make an effort.
I would just like to say that I have a session on Phantom Circuit 78. The session tracks are Not Just a Holiday, The Adventures of Mr Charles Fathom and Cold War Claims. All three tunes are new and not on my album Consistently Mediocre and Daydreams.
Due out on August 8th and available to download from iTunes and Amazon is this fine album by my good friend Mr Heartfield. The inspiration for this album is the Len Deighton novel Bomber I recently played the track Schrage Musik from the album on my last cloudcast, and I must say that all the rest of the tracks are of the same high standard. I should also point out that the fine artwork for the album was done by me. We both liked it.
Next up is the new album by Carya Amara.
Now this is all a bit of a mystery. The Phantom Circuit sent me a link to The new album by Carya Amara, I did not know what to expect.....but I was not disappointed. This album is full of lovely synths electronics pulses and drones and is FREE to download. Or £6.00 for the CD. For more info on Carya Amara go hereWhat are you all waiting for.
From 1929 to 1932, Man Ray and Lee Miller -- two giants of the European Surrealism movement -- lived together in Paris, first as teacher and student, and later as lovers. Their mercurial relationship resulted in some of the most powerful work of each artist's career, and helped shape the course of modern art and photography. Combining rare vintage photographs, paintings, sculpture and drawings, this exhibition tells the story of the artists' brief but intense association and reveals the nature of their creative partnership.
Got these wonderful 1970s Dynatron Headphones for my birthday from my friend Mr Foot. These were found in a Charity shop. They not only look good, but they sound good as well.
What can I say about The Ipcress File that probably has not been said already?? I first saw this film when I was 12 years old. I have to admit, I was never a great fan of James Bond (apart from Live and Let Die, which I love, its the Voodoo) but I loved Author Len Deighton's Harry Palmer character, played by Michael Caine. Of course in Deighton's books Harry Palmer was not his name, in fact we are never told his name, he just has a string of aliases which he adopts depending on his assignment. In the book, when the main character is approached by someone who says "Hello Harry" he later says "Now my name isn't Harry, but in this business it's hard to remember whether it ever had been."My affinity with Palmer was just that he was a sad loner, plodding about in the often very dull world of espionage and deceit. This is also the reason why in the 70s I liked the series Callan, who definitely had much more in common with Palmer than with the super spy Mr Bond. The book does differ quite a bit from the film, but all the main elements are there.
John Barry's haunting and very sombre soundtrack blends so well with the pace of the film, perhaps best shown and heard in the telphone box fight scene.
Sidney J. Furie's direction is superb. He shot scenes through pains of glass in phone boxes, over the shoulder, Point of View in fact he shot scenes at any odd angle he could (he did say later in life that he did that to liven the film up as the screenplay was just to slow and dull) But whatever the reason it worked for me. Unlike the follow up Funeral in Berlin. The 3rd film in this series The Billion Dollar Brain, which was Directed by Ken Russell is in my opinion a much underrated classic. With an amazing 60s intro. Have a quick look.
Well here I am very excited today, because I have just found the fickr Photostreams of Brighton based Design Studio Delicious Industries. One of the Photostreams is solely devoted to old copies of The Consumers' Association magazine - Which?
The covers were all contributed by Delicious Industries and Sell! Sell! The covers were all designed by Banks & Miles (Colin Banks and John Miles) and really are amazing. So do not waste time pop over to Delicious Industries flickr photostream for a look.
Here for your enjoyment is the intro and BBC promo to the 1969 series Take Three Girls. The series ran until 1971 and 11 years later a 4 part follow up called Take Three Women was produced for BBC2. The intro music is Light Flight by Pentangle.
In the late 50s and 60s Graphic Designer and Photographer Reid Miles (1927 - 1993) designed some of the most iconic album covers on the Blue Note Record label. Here are a few of my own personal favorites, nothing more, nothing less.
At long last Archive Reel 4 is ready. This time round we have music from Andew Loog Oldham, Renaldo and the Loaf, Ken Woodman and his Piccadilly Brass, Moondog, Simon Heartfield, Pye Corner Audio and much much more.
In 1986 I was living at home with my Dad. I got in one evening and my Dad told me that someone called Martin had called. He had heard the band I was in (Psylons) on John Peel and could I give him a call. I asked my Dad if this Martin had a surname and he informed me it was Rushent. Of course I knew who Martin Rushent was, I had a number of albums that he had produced so I was well aware of his work. But this could not have been him calling me. I phoned the number that was left and was informed by the person at the other end that it was in fact Martin who had called. He wanted to meet up with us at Genetic to discuss recording us, and could we pop up next week. I said yes, of course, trying not to sound like an over excited 10 year old. The following week the rest of the band and I jumped into my little green Fiat 127 and set of for Genetic. On arrival we were met by Neil O'Conner who informed us that Martin was a tad busy that day but that he (Neil) would show us around and then take us out to lunch. At the local Pub Neil told us that Martin had liked our Peel Session and wanted to record us and then some sort of licensing deal would be sorted out later, and the finer points would be thrashed out with or Manager. Neil said that he would be in touch in a few weeks. So many hours later we said goodbye to Neil and headed of home. Weeks went by and we had not heard from Neil at Genetic. Months went by and nothing. Then one day I got a call from Neil O'Conner. He phoned to say sorry but the recordings were not going to happen. Things had gone on at Genetic which made it not possible. We did not realise at the time that Genetic was in a lot of financial trouble. After what was quite a long call we said goodbye to each other and that was that. We never really got to meet Martin Rushent. But as we were being shown around Genetic that day, we saw him in the distance and he gave us a wave and said "All right". R.I.P.
These make me smile. Its as simple as that. Play Mobile Joy Division, Eddie Izzard Death Star canteen and the truly excellent Markets of Britain by Robert Popper and Peter Serafinowicz.
When I was about 6 my Mum and Dad took myself and my Sister to see the film 2001. To this day I do not know why they took a 6 year old to see this film????? but they did. A few hours later we all left the cinema looking very very confused. I was not just confused, I did not have a clue what the film was about. But I thought the Space Station, The Space Suits and The Main Space Craft (Discovery) look really good. Some years later when I was about 12 a friend of mine had just read the book of 2001. I said to him that I had seen the film but could not remember or understand what it was about. My friend suggested I should try to read the book. So I plodded of to the Library and found a copy. I ended up reading it 3 times before taking it back and then became quite obsessed about the story. I went out and got the paperback version then Arther C Clarkes The Lost Worlds of 2001 then The making of 2001 then picked up the soundtrack and The Marvel Comics Treasury Special (I still have the Cassette Soundtrack and the Marvel Treasury Special) As time went by I got all the other books 2010, 2061, 3001. But have to admit they did not have the same impact on me as 2001. When finally the year 2001 came I was a tad disappointed but then I was also disappointed in 1999. I do remember something about when I first saw the film when I was 6. At the beginning of the film I wondered why the big front door was in the desert with all the monkeys.
Now do not forget, If you live within 900 miles of Southsea/Portsmouth and are thinking of going to Shndg 6 then I am pleased to say that tickets for this event are now on sale. And can be got from here. The tickets are £5.00
If you like minimal sounds, Synth Drones and very early Tangerine Dream/Klaus Shultze (Zeit, Atem, Alpha Centauri, Black Dance Timewind) then you can do no wrong by checking out C-DEK. C-DEK Is the work of Photograhper/Designer Andy Bell.
To be honest I was not aware of Andy's work until it was pointed out to me by a mutual friend of ours (thanks Mrs D)
So far there are 5 volumes in the Resonance series by C-DEK. All 5 Volumes are Hauntingly beautiful filled with melancholy Drones and Synth sweeps. All of which are available from Band Camp. I do intend to include C-DEK in one of my Test Transmission Archive Reels later in the year.
