Categories: With Music, Horror Trax, Mixes, Only Music
2008 in review
This year we:
- got well into spinning around on bikes - going to Brighton, Box Hill, Brasted, between Seville and Cordoba, 47.5 mph down Titsey Hill and through London at night (occasionally without lights or a full complement of contact lens – neither recommended)
- got sonically sliced and reassembled by a blistering Autechre and .snd gig in Hearn street car park. Had to leave early, but could still hear the beats a good five minutes walk away
- started a dangerous habit of European city breaks, and had a series of glorious meals in Paris, broken only by some serious dancing in the original Favela Chic
- tried to keep rock climbing, semi-successfully
- left one career; got another job after visiting the pub
- saw (and loved) my first Chagall at From Russia, an exhibition teeming with quality, exhilarating to see Kandinsky’s and Malevich in the flesh
- marvelled at Richard Serra’s malleable steel playground
- shook out some demons at various dread sound systems at my first Notting Hill carnival
- grasped and gasped my way round Roger Hiorn’s Seizure
- tasted madelines (metaphorically) at a Mogwai gig
- cried at a Rod Stewart song
- probably reached the crux of hipsterdom seeing a poet do a reading along to Gang Gang Dance in Hoxton. Whilst wearing jeans that were probably on the skinny side.
- got even more hipsterish when watching some free jazz in Dalston, including a man playing a bin bag filled with gas. It was a furious, exhilarating concert though
- politely clapped to a man prancing around on a JCB
- spontaneously combusted to Herbie Hancock encoring with a Keytar
- pestled my own pesto
- visited Riverside for some World Championship darts, discovered that it’s really not my sport
- still haven’t used the mango destined for that fish curry
- sat on cushions in the Tate's turbine hall and got assaulted by some early computer animation, it was well techno
- completed Crysis on a 32" LCD
- saw Public Enemy at Brixton Academy; Alva Noto at the ICA; 808 State, Arthur Baker and IF at Jacks; Squarepusher and LFO at the Astoria; Loefah and Hijak, Mala and Skream at Black Sheep Bar
- Stuart Lee at the Hen & Chickens and at the Soho Theatre
- Richard Herring, Phil Nichol, Josie Long, Bridget Christie, Will Adamsdale, Pappy's Fun Club and Dave Goreman with free bangers at Battersea Arts Centre
- Steve Coogan at Apollo
- Elizabeth and Rayleigh at Croydon Library Theatre
- lots of Bug at the BFI with Adam Buxton
- Sean Locke at Hammersmith Apollo
- Mighty Boosh at the O2
- Frank McGuiness' Oedipus with Ralph Fiennes at NT
- lost my father
- felt like I was having a heart attack from grief and fury at 3am
- played a lot of Mass Effect
- bought an iPhone
- got a massive boil on the right eyebrow which had to be surgically removed
- moved offices and employer without changing jobs
- properly got into podcasts (Collings and Herrin, Dream Chimney, TwiT, The Tone Generation)
- got Miró, Calder, Giacometti and Braque in some perspective at the Royal Academy
- worked as a teaching assistant
- in the same 6-hour period: attended York Museum of Popular Culture, dressed like a hippy and swore at numerous children despite it being my jobsworth and met Tom Baker while eating a penguin
- had the drummer from the Housemartins and the Beautiful South give a workshop for da kids
Bolt it
Trackles:
Theo Parrish – Electric Alleyway
Unique Three – The Theme (Autechre remix)
Skepta – Stageshow Riddim
Hollertronix - Jiggle It Riddim #1 (Kenny Meeze Federation Sound Blend)
The Soul Destroyers – Armadillo
Oscar Sulley & The Uhuru Dance Band - Bukom Mashiedisco
Connie Case – Get Down
Cabaret Voltaire – Big Funk
The Zebras - Paradise Garage
Alan Braxe – Together
Manix – Feeel Reel Good
Artwork - Red
Burial – Ghost Hardware
mikal - slow take two
You Can't Werk
The only track on the compilation not produced by Junior Vasquez or Arthur Baker... and it was crying out for an edit.
Werk - You Can't Stop Me (from Rough House Vol. 1)
Con, then front
You know what I mean? It’s like when you’re waiting for a train and you see some mad bloke come up to you, all of a twitch, with that desperation for eye-contact that clinically sane people don’t radiate. He’s glaring at you, edging his way from the periphery of your vision. And then you recap - the past five minutes are far from clear. You were in some kind of reverie, tuned in to the headspace after the “we” of the office. Were you throwing your arms in absent –minded punctuation marks to the beats lodged in your ear? Were you chanting the tasks waiting to be tackled that evening, as you mentally wiped out one to-do list and replaced it with another? Perhaps that guy was just pulling the face everyone pulls when they’ve met some mad bloke on the platform.
Tales from the fringes of the K-T Boundary
65 million years ago, on a small greenish blue planet, several giant lizards were discussing last night's television.
"I love that Can't Hunt Won't Hunt," said the first one.
"I’m not a fan of reality TV," said the next.
"I know what you mean," agreed his friend.
The last of the great beasts considered this and said: "Shit! What’s that?"
At that moment a meteor of gargantuan proportions screamed overhead.
This was the last conversation any dinosaur ever had. Makes you think, eh?
mr huggotron's myspaz here
Did you know?
- it is illegal to refuse the offer of a beer in Australia. As punishment, the president is entitled to his choice of any item from the perp's next barbecue.
- It is considered bad form to smoke outdoors in Holland as it is feared that the regular plumes of smoke may attract warring Native American Indians.
- An egg contains 90% of the recommended daily amount of yellow for an adult male. Three eggs could kill a child.
- Elephants and horses have the ability to communicate to one another in a language impenetrable to both other horses and other elephants. And mankind.
- Before DVDs were invented, people amused themselves by watching the flickering shadows of burning computers cast against the walls of abandoned cinemas by piles of melting betamax VCRs.
isan - Lent Et Douloureux from Trois Gymnopedies EP
What connects turkey and pistols?
Break For It
Orchestra Harlow - Horsin' Up (from Nu Yorica Roots)
Overheard (two from school, two from songs)
You spend the first five years trying to get with the plan
KEN: you hear they’ve started bringing in form assemblies?
CLIVE: like, an assembly where your form would be up front, orchestrating the readings, role-playing the inherent coolness but latent sinfulness of smoking - where the main element of the role play was that you were allowed to untuck your shirt - and what-knot?
KEN: nah, like grouping the school by forms so you get 7 Manning, 8 Manning, 9 Manning, 10 Manning and 11 Manning all together. It’s to promote some form of intra-form harmony, at least that’s what I’ve been told.
CLIVE: your mole on the inside.
KEN: yeah…mole.
CLIVE: won’t it just breed divisiveness?
KEN: I think that’s the sub-text. Already you’re meant to be able to see the results. Allen’s for the boffins, Wiseman has all the lithe sporting ambassadors.
CLIVE: breeding for the future…
KEN: I don’t think they gone as far to introduce breeding, they still think the rather primitive sex education, fusty atmosphere and stern looks will serve as the most effective prophylactic.
She likes to strew poppies as she wanders in your mind, so you can’t tell she’s been there.
Ike Yard - Loss (from New York Noise, Volume Three or 1980-82 Collected)
Dating
I tried aging my friend recently. Getting the sample for the carbon dating was a bit intrusive, so I settled for lopping off one of his limbs and counting the rings (damn those fortunate species can measure the passage of time without simultaneously and abruptly halting it). Like wines and cheeses, we pick up flavours from our environment, brewing up a heady concoction for connoisseurs to appreciate. Unlike those products, we have no handy shrink-wrapped label detailing our provenance and maturing conditions, nor guides to our nose and bouquet. Here’s to constant ripening instead…
Sleeparchive - Bleep 03 (from Radio Transmission EP)
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