Au Revoir Poindexter – Great Blogging

23/05/2009

It comes from hellopoindexter.info which is the blog of Heather D’Angelo from super-awesome band Au Revoir Simone.

It’s simply a photo poem saying farewell to the recording studio. I don’t know why I liked it so much, it just made me smile on the inside.

Here’s 2 tiny bits of it:

hello, poindexter! » 1/19/9 OUR LAST DAY IN THE STUDIO :(

and:

hello, poindexter! » 1/19/9 OUR LAST DAY IN THE STUDIO :(

Go here to see the full thing.

And this video of them in the studio recording with Aeroplane (my favourite remixers / producers of the last year) made me green. The studio looks mega bad-ass and it the remix of Shadows by Au Revoir Simone they’re mucking about with sounds incredible.

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Adverts Restored My Faith in The Internet

22/05/2009

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I’ve been a bit down on the internet since I got back from holiday. It’s been as if someone deleted all the good stuff ;-)

Then I accidentally stumbled on this site through a Google image search. It’s one of those sites that’s just bloody fantastic. It’s got archives of adverts, magazines, packaging and loads more beginning at 1900. If you’ve been touched by Mad Men it’s a great spot to check out some of the real deal from that era too.

Visit the Ad Art Gallery

There’s 15,000 magazine covers, 10,000 movie posters, 8,000 transport ads, 4,000 soda ads, 3,000 beer ads and countless other gems.

Just a snapshot of the random brilliance…

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An absolutely amazing resource for designers, advertisng folk, and anyone with an interest in things – check it out.

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Lolfatcats (and MPs)

21/05/2009

lolfatcats

It’s just a thing: lolfatcats.com

Turns out not everyone in the world knows what a fatcat is. And not everyone knows what a lolcat is either. If you’re one of them you won’t get it. If you’re not you still might not get it.

lolfatcat

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The Beautiful Sad Sick Genius of Blue Jam

19/05/2009

BLUE JAM/CHRIS MORRIS

I listened to almost every single episode of Chris Morris’ genius-like radio show Blue Jam when I was on holiday.

It can put you in a very strange place. But it is absolutely amazing. Some of the writing is incredible. Yes it’s undoubtedly in odd taste (I’m sure some people would say incredibly bad taste), but it stands alone in my mind as a kind of fucked-up mutoid love-child of Derek and Clive, Monty Python, the set from an early 90s chill out room, and a warped psycho-therapist.

Here’s a kind of montage of a bunch of bits from YouTube. The video isn’t supposed to move, it’s a radio show :-)

From a DJing perspective the musical selection is fantastic too. That’s the thing you don’t pick up from these isolated clips, you don’t get a sense of the sonic journey.

These YouTubed snippets don’t really do it justice. You need to get transported into the whole 60 minute experience for it to really seep into your brain like is needs to.

If you think you might be a fan there’s an excellent comedy forum with a strong Chris Morris bent over at Cook’d and Bomb’d.

In fact there’s a complete episode guide as well as download links to the whole first series – yay!: http://chilled.cream.org/boards/index.php?page=bluejam#series_1

The only thing that I think you can legitimately get hold of is the Blue Jam CD that they put out on Warp. Which is good. But marginally less good than the stuff that was on Radio 1 IMHO.

Oh and you can still get hold of the DVD of the Show JAM which was the telly version of the show. But again this isn’t as good as the radio stuff IMHO. The pictures reveal a bit too much and some of the oddness is knocked off. Plus I loved the interplay between the music and the words that a 1hr radio show gave them the space to play with.

There’s lots of snippets from Jam around on YouTube if you want to check it out. And in spite of having just said that it’s not as good as the radio there are undoubtedly moments of genius…

And it still does have that strange sense of melancholy that I love so dearly…

The sense that you’re not quite sure whether to laugh, cry or peel off your skin with a rusty penknife.

And don’t get me started on The Day Today, Brass Eye or Nathan Barley or we’ll be here forever…

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Warp 20

19/05/2009

Warp20 (Vote)

I should have posted this a while ago.

http://www.warp20.net/

It’s a great bit of activity for Warp Records who are about to hit their 20th Anniversary – so they’re creating a user-generated compilation that’s going to feature the most popular tracks from the last 20 years.

The whole thing has been built in a really smart way with loads of neat social hooks and it’s exactly the kind of content that will flick the buttons of their fan base. The site is really neat and allows you to explore, comment, rate and generally wallow in the back catalogue of one of the most important electronic music companies ever.

Here’s some of my choices for the album:

Content, marketing, product, interaction, blah blah blah…

Nice work Warp, and happy birthday!

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The Most Exciting Blog Post That I’ve Not Managed to Understand in the Slightest

30/04/2009

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I think it’s stuff that can be done in processing in 140 characters. Which is really cool. But there’s something about this post that makes me feel really tiny and stupid. Which I am. Obviously.

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A Work of Brilliance

30/04/2009

Nigel Long unframed

Dear Andy Whitlock,

I love what you have done with these photographs from Campaign. I wish I had done this.

You describe your work like this:

Lots of ad-folk look very serious in their profile pictures in magazines like Campaign. I thought I’d provide a glimpse beyond the borders of the photographs to suggest a different side to them.

I describe it like this. Very funny.

Superb.

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Is This Wabi-Sabi?

27/04/2009

I’ve been moderately obsessed by the concept of Wabi-Sabi after seeing a documentary about it the other night. It’s far too complicated for me to understand or explain. In fact it seems to complicated for almost everyong to understand.

Richard R. Powell summarizes by saying “It (wabi-sabi) nurtures all that is authentic by acknowledging three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect.

And:

The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete” (according to Leonard Koren in his book Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers).

Which sounds a bit like the slightly fucked-up decoration in parts of our house.

It’s just about to be painted over. But I’ve started to like it’s shoddyness and now I think it might be an example of wabi-sabi I’m starting to feel guilty.

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Easter 09 – Another One of Those Mixes

27/04/2009

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Sorry it’s been a while.

This was done at the weekend when it was nice and sunny outside. Instead of trying to milk a goat, catch a leprechaun, make friends with my neighbours, learn the flute or anything else so exciting. Instead I popped open the skylights and the first fresh air of the year entered the loft…

I’m not sure exactly where this mix fits in the world. I’d like to think I could pull off a morning slot on a sunny terrace somewhere, but I think they’re becoming increasingly the kind of mixes that only elderly folk will like ;-)

Tracklist:

  1. Midtown 120 Intro – DJ Sprinkes
  2. Mystery of Nazereth – Marco Bernardi
  3. Twighlight (Layo and Bushwacka mix) – Unkle
  4. Light Through The Veins (Ewan Pearsons Downtown Lights Mix) – Jon Hopkins
  5. Poisson Pilote – Rone
  6. Amish Kid (Sasse Remix) – Phonogenic
  7. Lovelee Dae (Tanner Ross & KiloWatts Remix) – Blaze
  8. Inner 8 (Dexters DXR Mix) – Alton Miller
  9. Roman – Trickski
  10. Ellelli (Kalabrese Remix) – Madioko N Rafika
  11. Guinea Pig (DJ Kozes Vocal Variation Remix) – Ben Watt
  12. Song for Marie and Elise (Aeroplane Remix) – Lullabies in the Dark
  13. Who Are You? (Ft Heidi Happy) – Zwicker
  14. Interlude in the Bed – Rone
  15. Swarm (Telefon Tel Aviv Remix) – Art of Trance

You can download the mix from here.

And you should be able to get it through the iTunes Podcast here (once the iTunes machine gets round to updating things).

If anyone fancies booking me to play at the awesomest party in the world ever drop me a line I’m sure it can be arranged.

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Reactable / ImTable Performance

26/04/2009

This has been around for a while but to my mind it’s one of the better ‘table’ performances I’ve seen. Again it’s all a bit cheesy and Jarre-like – but given the Tron suit he’s wearing I’m not sure he’d be offended by that…

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