High Tech Soul

Here's another reason why the internet is so great, I'm interested in Detroit techno and if you know anything about this kind of music, then you know there's a whole load of mystique built around it. But, a quick search on Google and I am watching a documentary about it. Here it is.



Detroit techno is not only the story of a particular blend of dance music, but it's also about the fabric of the city itself. The 'motorcity' at one point was home to four million, but the population has since dropped to a quarter of that - partly because of the collapse of the American motor industry and the GI Bill, which encouraged soldiers returning from the war to settle with their families in the suburbs. The city become home to a mostly black blue collar workforce for Ford and General Motors. These people would tell their kids about working with robots on the assembly line. Robots, comic books, a city that looked like the background of a science fiction film, it was all grist to the mill for some growing up in Detroit.

In their teens, Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson independently find local music shops flooded with analogue synths, TR909 and 808 drum machines – instruments rejected by most regular musicians for sounding 'too artificial'. And after listening to Kraftwerk (also from an equally industrial city: Düsseldorf), some soul, gospel, George Clinton and the local radio DJ, The Electrifying Mojo, they make the leap to create their own spiritual uplifting 'high tech soul'.

Reading books about music to write a book about music

Writing about music is hard. Whether you’re describing or reviewing, you inevitably fall into the trap of coupling disparate adjectives together to get the sounds from inside your head into others. And why bother when we live in a world of Spotify and lastFM. What can the world learn from your descriptions? Nothing really, especially if you talk to the musicians – who broadly fall into two camps: those who’d rather ‘let the music do the talking’ (boring), and those who can’t shut up about it.

In the book I’m writing The Hunt For The Tigerfen, the two main characters form a band that enjoys great critical and commercial success in a relatively short time. This happens because I’m really interested in writing not about music, but egos and how they bend people into wankers. And why, despite their behaviour, wankers still have friends.

But ‘music’ was always lurking around in the background when I was planning the book. Unless my characters formed a completely vacuous pop band, I would definitely have to talk about the music and the scene it exists in. I might have to even describe some of it. Jesus, who’d want to read that?

These two books were a great help. They both talk about a specific time and type of music without actually mentioning the music very much. With Please Kill Me, it’s all about the wankers of punk - of which there are many. And reading Our Band Can Be Your Life, it helps to know and like eighties American alternative music, but really both books are about how certain forward-thinking bands in the States helped create the structure of the ‘underground scene’ that would eventually propel Nirvana, Green Day to great success and the heady heights of being crudely rendered in Guitar Hero.

But then I felt, as I was writing about a band, I should read a few books just about bands. That was interesting, sort of. Aside from The Dirt (which, I’ve not read, but I’m assured is one of the best music books ever written), books about bands are a pretty dry read. Sure, Hammer of the Gods is spiced with gruesome tales from the road, but it’s also full of endless descriptions of set lists the band played. I definitely don’t want to write about my band like that or even describe the music. But I think I know how I’m going to write the last part of Tigerfen, but we’ll see when I get to that bit in a couple of months.

In the meantime, if you want to know who’s unfortunate mouth Lou Reed wanted to defecate into, along with a whole load of stuff about MC5, the Stooges, Television and how the Lower East Side became the birthplace for a particular brand of angular (here we go with the descriptions) punk, then Please Kill Me is your book.

And if you’ve read Get In The Van, but want to know what the rest of Black Flag thought of Henry Rollins and why nobody heard of Mission of Burma before Graham Coxon started banging on about them, then Our Band Could Be Your Life is the book for you.

I will post more Tigerfen soon.

Idaho Transfer

Odd little sci-fi movie via archive.org Directed by Peter Fonda, man. Click to see the whole picture and even download it to your ipod/touch/phone/PSP if you really like it.

Can Pacino box?

For the rest follow the links

Film posters from Poland

This is the Smokey and the Bandit Film Poster from Poland. You can find more here. Just how cool is this? It's not apparently clear why these posters were used instead of the Hollywood ones. In the comments section of the website, someone claims it's because posters were not subject to official censorship, allowing artists to hide political commentary.

Hmmm, not quite convinced by that arguement. But what's interesting is what the artists have added. Suddenly Smokey and the Bandit looks like a Peter Sellers satire.

Steve Guttenberg sci-fi Saturday afternoon stalwart, Short Circuit 2 could be a futurist CCCP propaganda feature. And apparently Critters isn't some lame Gremlins rip off. It's an art house film. My favourite is the simple sexual frisson of the Fatal Attraction image.

Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy

There are loads of people who reckon the TV series was a load of old rubbish. Yes, the effects let it down. Yes, the humor is glib. And yes, Zaphod's makeup makes him look like he's got AIDS. But it's partly nostalgia. I grew up on bad BBC sci-fi effects - Blake's 7, Dr Who, The Adventure Game and Tripods (which really was awful). But HHGTG was my favourite. Especially the 'cutting edge' computer graffix! Gosh, I'm such a geek.

Here's the first show. The rest of the series is upon YouTube and pretty easy to find.









And yes, the radio show was much better.

Riddley Walker

I'm re-reading this again. It's a great book.

However, as it's set in Kent two thousand years after a nuclear war and written in a decayed phonetic English, it's a tricky read.

Trubba not, read the first few pages out loud in a West Country accent and everything gels together. Oh, and this website helps too.

Apparently, Russell Hoban found his ability to spell nose dived after he finished the book. TRUFAX!

Stuff from the Decode days

Created by the lovely Rubberductions. Potatoes was also lovingly donated to feature on the first Decode Cd-Rom. Which I edited - the CD Rom that is not the magazine that was the lovely Gabriel Solomans. Here he is:

David Foster Wallace Dead

Still a bit odd to hear about DFW's death. And because it's a suicide, there's a whole load of extra intrigue as well. I suppose the one question (and one that will never be answered) is why?

He is a difficult read. But a rewarding one. At first glance, the long sentences and the footnotes make you think 'why is this man making it so hard?'. But you need to give it time. You need to be somewhere quiet. And you will need to reread bits.

For me, I loved his macro level of description - be it the operation of a cruise liner, the interactions of a focus group or what David Lynch is really like. For David Foster Wallace, difficult was worth doing.

I was reading on the Tube this morning the introduction to Riddley Walker by Will Self - another difficult book to read. He made a very interesting point: 'The idea that what I say to you will be immediately and lucidly comprehended is one of the most prosaic delusions of the neurotic age. Everyone wants to be understood as if the world were in a position to provide unconditional love. This is balls.'

Read something difficult today, it'll be worth your while. 'A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again', is a good start, or 'McCain's Promise: Aboard the Straight Talk Express with John McCain and a Whole Bunch of Actual Reporters, Thinking About Hope'. But if you're feeling brave you can dive into 'Infinite Jest'.

I heart Speechification

This site has been doing the rounds, usually appearing in the 'my favourite website' columns and for good reason, it's a great idea, well executed. Speechification collects the best of English speech radio with an MP3 link, so you can download and listen when you want and where you want.

A lot of the content is from BBC Radio. In fact, the site describes itself as a blog of Radio 4. So why not download directly from the BBC Radio site? Well some content is available, but only for a limited period and some isn't - presumably in the case of music documentaries, because of licensing issues.

The breadth of shows and subjects covered is amazing. The documentary on the 1977 New York black out is really a study of what went wrong with the city in the seventies. The BBC 3 feature on RAND fuses the idealism of Beach Boys harmonies and Californian sunshine with the chilling subject of planning for the apocalypse. And where else are you going to find a show on cunning except public radio?

I skated - badly

But when I did, I imagined I looked like the guys in the slow motion bits of this video. Until I hit a tiny pebble, which would pitch me on to my arse.



I like the comparisons to the Masai warriors


















But for a real blast from the past, check out these old skate mags.

Good clean fun: Children’s Film Foundation

The scripts were awful, the acting terrible and occasionally, if you were really unlucky, you’d watch the one with a young Keith Chegwin in it. But we’d run home from school on a Friday to watch these films on the BBC.

Here’s Hitch in Time



Hilarity ensues in the Johnstown Monster



And my favourite: The Glitterball

I am not Bruce Robinson

Bruce wrote The Killing Fields and directed Withnail and I. You can find more about him on his Wiki. Or better still, buy ‘Smoking in Bed: Conversations with Bruce Robinson'. The title is awful, but the book is great. The author rightly decided to just pitch up and let Bruce talk.

What I like about Bruce is despite all his success, he’s quite open to talk about things when they go wrong.

For Bruce, this means his scripts and films . When you write anything for Hollywood, everyone from the head of the studio on down will submit 'notes' on how to improve your work. And If you do anything creative for a living you can expect the same thing to happen because:

• When people spend money, or more importantly, other people's money, they play safe. Hollywood, advertising, television, it doesn't matter, safe sells. Safe is easy to understand, easy to enjoy and easy to forget if it doesn't work. Every film, TV show and advert has a thousand lives relying on its success. Three guys and two girls in a New York flat bellowing 'oh my gawd' is an easier sell than a sitcom about two losers who share a flat and hate each other*
• People are inherently suspicious of paying money for something creative. It's the old 'I can write, draw better than that,why am I paying this idiot?' argument. And the scary thing is sometimes they're right.
• Often what you think is shit hot, is actually rubbish. It's ill-thought out, boring or derivative, which is a big word for boring. The world is full of shit books, films and telly that every one of their authors thought was 'great'.

But criticism and failure are good things. You learn from your mistakes and you learn to defend your work from points one and two and how to watch out for three. The interesting stuff usually makes no money, unless you're lucky, willing to wait or end up being dead (in the case of art).

To find out more, click on the new 'I'm not...' It's Alex Cox, a film maker who certainly put with more than his fair share of people saying 'no, do it again'.

This would be Peep Show, so proof that the cream rises to the top, eventually

Chariots of the Gods

God was an astronaut, Jesus an alien and Man the product of genetic manipulation. It's a load of old hokum. Even the author of Chariots of the Gods? (love the Ron Burgundy question mark) Enrich von Daniken has since admitted that bits of his evidence don't stand up to scrutiny.

But in the seventies, the book sold by the truck load. And yes, they even made a film about it. Stating how ridiculous the film is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel. You've only got to watch two minutes to see for yourself. But I like it the wild eyed optimisim and eagerness to ask 'what if?'. We don't seem to question anymore. We look it up online and know everything.

Boring school night, 1993.

Usually after dinner I’d go to my room, draw and listen to either John Peel or ‘Jive Alive’ (a more easy listening John Peel) on Hereward Radio. But not tonight. Tonight I watched ‘No Nirvana’.








Next day everybody had two questions:

When is the Rage Against The Machine album out?
What’s up with Perry Farrell’s mouth?

The following happened in my school:
The RATM album would be worn thin on the Common Room tape deck
More people would jump on the Pearl Jam bandwagon
Girls with cracked nail varnish and DMs started wearing over-sized sunglasses
I tried to get those Tommy Morrello sounds out of my guitar. My Dad told me to turn it down. I briefly wore my Tele high and flirted with the idea of going by the name Tommy, briefly.

Billy Corgan's jumper. Good Lord

Remember the future?

Another great Jonathan Meades show.

What’s the matter with this place?

For when I’m asked ‘where are you from then?’



I grew up about a couple of miles away from most of the opening shots. And I sailed acrss the South Forty Foot on a potato pallet when I was 14.



I have line danced too. Well, I was made to, that's my excuse.



There are also here collectors of Morris Marinas, double decker buses and a man who made a private railway in his own garden.

Solaris & Stalker

The original 1972 Solaris is a slow film. Even when compared, which it often is, to 2001. But there is something quite beautiful about the way it’s shot. I like the opening scene in the forest and the rather peculiar ‘road’ scene that goes on, and on, and on.






The director Tarkovsky considered the film a failure and preferred his 1979 Stalker.

Pierre Huyghe

When I'm asked 'who's your favourite artist', the first person who springs to mind is Pierre Huyghe. In 2007 a retrospective of his work was held at the Tate Modern. As soon as I walked through the (moving) front doors I was interested. But if I'm honest some of the work (which you can see in the video) was a bit 'meh'. I understand the idea and concept of ownership; it was just a bit impersonal and dry.

But then I saw his video work, in particular ‘Streamside Day’ and something just clicked. Inventing a carnival for a new housing development is more than just telling stories and exploring the concept of ownership (there’s that word again). There's warmth and a human quality to it.

You'll find little about Pierre on the Internet. Have a look at his Wikipedia page, read about his journey to find an albino penguin and if you have a chance to go to a gallery and look at his work, go. You won’t regret it.

High Scores

High scores is the story of Bill Carlton, an Oregon man who attempts to smash the high score record held for the Missile Command coin op. So how high is that score? Pretty high: 80 million points. He had to play non-stop for two days. Sounds boring right? Ah but you’re overlooking this everyman’s determination and the sheer despair he experiences when his coin op crashes a day in, simply because it’s too old. Does he make it? Find out. don't know how, it's not on Amazon, but keep an eye out.