August 6th 2011.
We return to Scotland for only the second time in 2 years. Our trip to London four days earlier had provided few opportunities for any meaningful or significant photography, predominantly due to the lack of any discernible landmarks and the ever-present embankments up each side of the M1. The fleeting glimpses through the bushes and across the land to a point of interest are so rare that once you realise the opportunity has presented itself, the moment had already passed a quarter of a mile ago. So you wait in eager anticipation, camera at the ready, for the next moment which never comes, until you finally fall back into a calm state of relax, unconcerned by the monotonous green of the trees and metallic stripe of safety barriers, occasionally interjected by an off-ramp or a service station.
Failure might be too strong a word but it was certainly a reminder that nothing is quite as fascinating when you have seen it numerous times. This point in itself may further reinforce the opposing feelings when travelling to Edinburgh. That’s not to say the entire journey proved captivating but certainly as you pass the most northerly of the recognisable English settlements and beyond the border you see some quite spectacular and humbling sights. The ‘A’ roads make for better driving, reducing the separation between your own place on them and the surroundings. The hills rise magnificently to the left while the sea laps gently at the coast on the right.
And while it rained all weekend, beginning and ending at Newcastle as we passed it in both directions, the news told us we would be flooded. Edinburgh was drowning while London burned. The sky was an infinite sheet of white, interjected with blemishes of grey which presumably would be where one cloud ended and another began, the windows held the raindrops for miles before they slid off the edge of the window pane to make way for the next downpour and all of this was observed to the soundtrack of Brian Eno which inadvertently emphasised the importance of the seemingly irrelevant detail.
A point which brings us roundly back to where we began, observing the irrelevant. Acknowledging the journey above the shows and places we visited.
LW
my soundtrack to the weekend:
Brian Eno
Ambient 1: music for airports
1/1
the four doors to the karaoke rooms of the electric circus
August 2011
For the seemingly infinite number of times we have ventured out from our northern homestead to any number of destinations around the UK to make our musical offering to the Gods of small music venues*, it has struck me how little attention we have paid to the journey which gets us there.
As with last months video tribute to our brief but memorable Serbian odyssey I will attempt to create some sort of narrative as a document of this weeks adventures… and as with Serbia i expect there to be more than a few glaring omissions brought on by the inevitable distractions of the day.
This mini-project // way of passing time as we drive drive drive // potentially infinitely-dull series of overcast-sky imagery may yet turn out to be immensely unremarkable…
…but then the aim is to document the journey not romanticise it, so should the end product become a collective blur of the least emotive images in the history of recorded time and space so be it (and i promise to do better next time). Equally too, should the final images win plaudits for their originality, perspective and general importance in the history of art then i shall declare myself invincible** and live out my remaining days as editor of National Geographic.
The third outcome is that the images are internationally recognised as offensive to human eyes and i am given 24 hours to destroy myself in an oversized, unsupervised pool of molten metal***
And after all this i just hope i don’t forget the camera!
Posts will be going up throughout the week…
LW
* ‘the Gods of small music venues’ are a small but organised heavenly organisation who determine the fate of young (and not-so-young) individuals who aspire to successfully captivate their audience for the evening. Folklaw tells of a band who will come and conquer music (it is also written that they will amalgamate all music so seamlessly that Reggae is 14th century lute ballads and bone-crushing death metal all at once). The emergence of the chosen band signals the end of the age of the ‘Gods of small music venues’ and the beginning of 1000 years of bagpipe-infused European electro pop courtesy of ‘the Gods of Eurovision’.
** See Goldeneye (1995)
*** See Terminator 2 (1991) & Alien 3 (1992).
Get A Load A Geo: Hey Sholay
Sheffield based band, Hey Sholay have been making waves in the local scene as well as winning a poll with the NME to win a gig slot at this years EXIT fest in Serbia. I’m a big fan of their music with their galloping drum beats and distorted guitars and catchy melodies. Listening to their…
Live performance from Tramlines 2011 of Devil at the BackDoor. great quality recording from our first show of the weekend on the New Music Stage. Quite possibly the best 3 shows in a row we have ever strung together.
So…now to paint a vivid picture in the mind’s eye of those unfortunate enough to have missed the shows, and fortunate enough to have missed the rest….and by the rest i mean the temperamental synths which required the occasional, and some would say highly skilled, tap to get them to pay attention and make some sounds & the keyboard which was revived from a cyber-death by a power supply masterfully bent into position by Laurie and held in place just long enough for us to complete the weekend with all the instruments we arrived with (at this point you would be correct in assuming i will be spending the majority of this week getting my instruments serviced)…should you watch the above video to the end you will also see another undoing of Hey Sholay, this time being the appearance of a publicity-hungry wasp with a thirst for human blood.
Aside from the forces of nature and poorly maintained electrical equipment however, the weekend went off without a hitch. Particular highlights would be the number of firsts (i think?!) we encountered. First clap-alongs, first sing-alongs, first “where the fuck did our singer go? oh he just stage dived and was carried away”, first “oh, he’s back, perfect timing actually”.
So that was Tramlines 2011, another festival in the bag, another piece of my equipment begging to be sold to an ageing jazz musician with arthritis who will treat it with the dignity and respect it longs for… and now onwards to our next trips, the southern delights of London and the heady highland flings of Edinburgh.
LW
A short film of assorted footage from our trip to Novi Sad, Serbia, July 8th to 11th 2011.
The disjointed narrative documents our arrival, travel, first impressions, accommodation, exploration of the city, the petrovaradin fortress, the danube, the extremely specific rules regarding what can and cannot be brought into the festival, the ever cloudless skies of Serbia, EXIT festival, a wrong-handed clock, live performance & finally our departure.
96 hours summed up in 1:42s
a notable absentee from the story was our colourful encounters with the European baggage handling community. Be it lost luggage, ripped handles, bent zips, scuffed cases or inside out cymbals these guys can truly deliver on a connecting-flight airport stereotype. However, if Zurich has one redeeming factor it would be this…
picture yourself in a long queue of people, all of them passport-in-hand-bag-over-shoulder-ticket-in-other-hand type people, you know the sort. now do a slightly exaggerated double take to your right at the familiar looking, smooth-headed, tattooed gentleman. If you are in doubt that he is who you think he is then simply perform these basic checks:
1. have a friend shout his name and walk away quite quickly
2. ensure he throws the most convincing devil horns back in your direction only to have them intercepted by, say, your bass player.
3. perform a google search to confirm he is Rob Halford.
LW
A slick black spinning plate of minute glossy trenches and spiralled reflective ditches lies in a singular marked and numbered envelope, as Hey Sholay’s first assisted release sits before you.
True to the nature of previous outings, the Double A side at 45rpm is in strictly limited numbers. The songs ‘Dreamboat’ and ‘The Bears The Clocks The Bees’ both whir simultaneously from the same lathe – though two separate sides to a moon entirely.
250 are kept in the cupboards and draws of Fierce Panda and Rough Trade shops – whilst 250 lie in possession of Hey Sholay, to be toyed with childishly before release. Each single directly from either a show or this page will feature an individual envelope, all hand painted by the extremities of the collective. It will also contain a printed art card, numbered, so you can keep track of how early or late you were to the postman’s satchel.
the view across Exit Festival. 4 days in Serbia July 2011. it is a closely guarded secret that Serbia is one of only 5 nations around the globe where 2 suns and the moon are all visible in one instance.
(Source: heysholay)
the hands on this clock at the petrovaradin fortress in Novi Sad, Serbia are intentionally opposite as time means nothing at sea. the passing mariners travelling the length of the Danube only needed to see the larger hour hand.
(Source: heysholay)
Debut AA-side single available on itunes
From over-brimming colourful minds and shaking hands comes this limited print with a spattering of influence that wraps your half-hourly wage trade-off. The clockwork printers of S1 art gallery have groaned and whirred with anticipation as each limited envelope is readied for each positive mistake to lay individuality to every single one. Then the paintbrush is raised. Two paralleled separate moments lay etched into the grooved valleys of ebony compound cellulose nitrate before you. Both looking identical in colour and texture, and being born of the same hands. Though arriving in the same void-black distortion of your on looking figure, the restless journey of each inch or so of sound could not differ more… The first, an affirmed beating of skin and stoking of twisted wires – sourced from the echo and concrete of an old steel works. A single day in germination before it’s committal to the lathe. A gentle finger taps on the sound console as Dave Sanderson places the second Chromosome just in the right spot to trigger a new beginning. The twinned ‘A’ side – being nourished from the same umbilical chord, and growing whilst cradled under the same warm glow of the same room of music. Though on this occasion, the sunflowers and megaphones face towards the south to document the sounds of the wind. Recorded amongst the peacocks, and nurtured by Ian Davenport – the nature defies the sum of the parts being the same. Two distinct alchemies limited to only 500 copies – will never be used or released upon public ears again. So grace that needle firmly on the outer-shores of the already-spinning black island, and breathe soft as waves of lost sighs and storytimes Lap at your heels before disappearing to the whisper of that final vulturous circling rotation…and click.
