ULTRAPHALLUS

Ultraphallus.



"Sowberry Hagan" out soon. Mastered by James Plotkin, apparently.

GROUNDHOGS: "THANK CHRIST FOR THE BOMB" (1970)

Title track of what's probably my favourite Groundhogs' LP. The guitar really kicks off around 4:25-ish, but I like the whole piece, the fact it's sectioned off into discrete parts. The second part sounds curiously Proto-New Wave / Post Punk in its starkness. Tony McPhee is such a hugely underrated guitarist; tragically neglected, almost a lost figure in UK music.



I've mentioned on this blog before about Groundhogs' influence on The Fall - as well as the couple covers they've done, there are all sorts of sidereal linkages and lyrical / musical steals goin' on...

Was talking to Matt Woebot about Groundhogs a few weeks ago - he digs this LP too. The CD reissue comes with some bonus early 70's live tracks. I'm not a fan of CDs - especially extended ones which distort the shape of classic LPs, but there's so little in the way early-70's Live Groundhogs performances around - and they were such a ferocious (and inventive) band during that period - that I can forgive it in this instance. Can't beat the vinyl, though.

McPhee was due to play in Yeovil about a year or so ago and I was v. excited by the prospect of seeing him play live, but he cancelled due to illnesss in the end.

EKOPLEKZ: "STALAG ZERO / DISTENDED DUB"

(Ekoplekz debut twelve on Punch Drunk drops Nov 15th.)

On "Stalag Zero" flanged data riddimsquirts navigate a snakelike flightpath through a cavernous maze of tunnels, accompanied by flashing-light blips that remind me - in the way they behave, not the way they sound - of Bit from Tron or those fretfully out-of-sorts microsaucers from Close Encounters. Oddly, though, the track creates a curious trick soundworld that's somehow both spacious and claustrophobic at the same time.

The music reminds me of the time I visited the underground WW2 field-hospital on Jersey that was built by Nazi slave-labour: mile-long corridors that disappeared into the dark; dusty, makeshift chambers that were intended to serve as 'wards' for the wartime wounded; flickering overhead lighting, slow-dripping water and trick perspectives: an oppressive labyrinth that acted as an accidental sound-carrier (you could pick up hushed conversations 50m away that made you think you were hearing voices; imaging things) and which induced a sort of self-oppositional tension within me - a mixture of intense, semi-addictive fascination ("where does this tunnel lead...? I need to know...") and a feeling of barely-submerged panic ("let me out of here!")...

Although my sad ol' reptile-brain is probably riffing on the title as much as the music, this also summons up a similar sense of labyrinthine abandonment, of navigating thru some twisted maze of archaic technology - a technology not much older than the rusting 40s pipework and surgical tools in Jersey, but one still very much alive, still ticking-over, still cycling through its unfathomable processes - an abandoned future-past - and not necessarily an alien one either; I'm picking up a sense of sad human servitude embedded in the mysterious-sounding blips, pulses and smears of sound, an afterecho of some long-forgotten intent. The exact details aren't important, but the 'feel' that I'm getting is - it's like a form of musical psychometry.

I like music that gives me a strong visual impression - it's one of my things - where the processes used to create it seem to give rise to imaginary structures that [themselves] seem to be creating the sounds heard by the listener. It's a sort of creative Moebius-loop - one that never fails to fascinate me - and Nick has managed to achieve that. Repeated listens continue to reward and open up new detail. Another plus-point is that the music is definitely 'Off-Grid' - I'm not hearing / seeing a Vst or Fruity grid of repeating beats or loops - the cyclical events created by Nick's kit are not subjected to the tyranny of quantising, a subliminal clicktrack / clinical braingrid; the flange and echo adds new curves, bends, micro-cycles and false rhythms to the piece (hence the sense of navigation and exploration invoked in the listener); it opens it up, adds quasi-fractal detail, rubs the edges off the underlying repetition, takes it Off-Grid.

Uhhh, reductive thumbnail description to leave you with: Forbidden Planet ost if it had been recorded by Cabaret Voltaire in '76-ish before they released their first EP, or maybe the soundtrack of some lost, early 70's Soviet or East German SF film.



"Distended Dub" deserves a more evocative name, I think, but it's kinda fun that it doesn't have one; it's more ominous, more overtly linear, is more of a, uh, 'tune'...

Think: The Future / early Human League but stripped right back to the bone - everything coated in a graphite 'fur'...ferrous microswarf condensing out of the air to coat the music...iron filings on a magnet...the air thickening around you - clammy, cold and metalic - darkening as the track progresses.

Music as aural cinema, a superconductor.

A single electronic-drum...an e-hammer beating out time. A countdown, a heartbeat, the factory-clock. Lives ticking away in never-ending repetition. Magnets, mag-levs, tape-drives...mindless tape-transports endlessly unspooling...ticker-tape, punchtape...swarf from a grinder...vast, endless, pointless, thankless, never-ending zombie industry...

"The uneasiness which keeps the never-resting clock of metaphysics in motion..."

Work as metaphor.

Work.

STEVE AYLETT STANDS UP

S. AYLETT STAND-UP:

On Oct 29 2010 at Roxy Arts House, Edinburgh, SF/satire author Steve Aylett reads stuff from his books, and demonstrates the many powerful elements of Jeff Lint's 'effortless incitement'. Includes readings from The Inflatable Volunteer, Toxicology, LINT and Smithereens, and probably an appearance from the unsettling Lord Pin.

Books on sale (and Caterer comics), including The Complete Accomplice and new book Smithereens.

Starts 7.30 on Oct 29, Roxy Arts House, Edinburgh. Part of their Death Weekend (for Halloween).

"the most original voice on the literary scene" (Michael Moorcock)

"the coolest writer alive today" (Starburst)

"utterly original" (SFX)

THE RETURN OF DOM ZERO

My old pal Dom Zero is back blogging again after a period in the wilderness being tempted by Satan, etc.

He 'fessed up that he'd been lurking on Facebook for a while. "You get more comments there," he explained. But I think he's finally come to the conclusion that facebook's a bit shit. Sometimes I think I'm the only person in the world who's not on Facebook. I think I kinda like that.

So go and leave some comments on his blog.

Nice ones, otherwise he'll hunt you down and kill you. Slowly.

(Sorry, I meant he'd kill you slowly, not hunt you down slowly. That would be a bit...no, actually, that's probably what he would do. He'd smoke a lot and think about what he was going to do when he found you. You can't hurry some things...)

Anyway, I think he hung Stewart Lee. With a noose or an old coathanger, I'm not sure which.

Actually, I've no idea who Stewart Lee is. Presumably, he's famous or something.

COTLEY FLASHBACK

Ye Gods, has it been a week since Cotley already?

Been busy polishing-up a script, trying to fend off a virus, that kinda thing. Anyway, we missed the really bad weather by just a few hours and the sun even came out to play, along with some old friends who it was really great to see. Plus: there was cider.


(Heh. We got off lightly with the "Fart" graf. The cast-iron sign-post pointing to the village got pulled down the week before the exhibition. Bloody thing weighed a ton, but someone chained it to a pick-up, uprooted it and dragged it down through Chard High-Street before ditching it. I don't think Jonny Mugwump quite believed me when I said it was like the Wild West around here. 25 years ago you would've been lynched for putting on an exhibition.)

There was a great turn out for the talks n stuff, despite the dodgy weather and the obscure rural location. A really nice mixture of people, ages, etc. I thought the talks were great - quietly inspirational and heartfelt, not at all dry.

Very interesting Hacker Farm show...quite different to anything we've done before. Actually, they've all been different; different contexts, emphases...

This started out kinda drift-y, ambient-ish; almost (unsurprisingly) a live installation - well, you don't wanna do anything harsh or full-on when families and kids're wandering around chatting, checking stuff out. Anyway, after a while, it started to build...but then my kids arrived, along with Farmer Glitch's, and - before we knew it - all those noise-making toys were just too much of a temptation and we started threading the kids' sounds through the mix...Hacker Farm Junior or V 2.0, as Farmer Glitch described it later.

Then all hell broke loose lol.

I think a handful of adults had just been dying to tinker with some of the Farmer's squelchboxes and so forth, so fingers of all sizes started pressing buttons and folks stared to 'have a go'...'cos, like, well, the kids are doing it....

S'funny, innit, when adults sheepishly use children as a cover for doing something they think that maybe they shouldn't be doing, heh. Anyway, a kind of random ambient jam broke out. We knocked the beats / pulses out of the mix - to minimise potential cacophony and leave space for people to join in, but then a woman told FG to play some beats 'cos she "wanted to dance" lol.

In an art- gallery???...well, whatever next! There'll be letters in The Times about this, I'm sure.

Anyway, I think we probably ticked all the 'inclusiveness / interactive' boxes in our mission-statement with this one. There was no real physical barrier between audience and 'performers', apart from the tables that our gear was sat on.

In the end, we just kinda stepped back and let them get on with it. Ha!

Hopefully, everyone enjoyed the entire afternoon's activities. I def. liked the whole easy-goin' sociability thing that was going on. We got to meet lots of cool new people.

We also got ambushed into doing a talk ourselves, which I think Bren - *eeek* video'd, damn his black west-of-Crewekerne hillbilly soul! I'm expecting blackmail demands from him any second now.


(O-Mon Glitch triggers some very disturbing TG-like synth patches (a chip off the ol' block!), while Kid Kid Kid Shirt calls the Transport & General Workers Union out on strike)


(Despite her somewhat startled expression (that's normal!), here she is doing what can only be described as some uncannily accurate early-70's Gilli Smythe 'space-whisper' impersonations.)

Since the exhibition has now been dismantled, here's a couple of badly-photographed glimpses of work by Liz, Gary and Natalie (who were all, it has to be said, extremely lovely / friendly people. It was a pleasure and an honour to share the space with them and I hope our paths cross again in the future).

POLLUTO #7

Issue #7 of Polluto magazine arrives in a blood-smeared ballgown and seaweed tiara, kicks down the door, yelling "Fuckrrrrrs!" as it sprays the room with cartridges of No. 6 magnesium buckshot. Debutantes cough blood onto their dance-cards; malignant-looking shrimp-like creatures emerge from the sherry-trifle and scuttle across the buffet-table, nipping at random body-parts.

"Let that be a lesson to you," sneers Polluto, slamming fresh cartridges into the breech of its puntgun.

Its favourite lipstick is Iced Moocha by CharlieGirl tm.


As foretold on page 476 of the Zann-Matt MoHokey, Ish7 contains my short-story "The Making of True Confessional #7".

Yes.

Soon as I get a comp. copy I'll post the cover in its full ultralurid glory.

Apparently, this issue contains: "...bone-crushing lovers; a cross-dressing hitman; the night-soil man of the gods and sex conditioning on squids; the dangerous desires of the diabolically large and the seductively small; body-swapping, gender-swapping, exploration, transcendence and re-incarnation; machines that are gods and machines that are cats..."

Come on, alt.lit.lover, you know you wanna...

COTLEY PHOTOS

A kinda Before n After type deal.

First up, some pics I took of the barn a few weeks back, when we did our first site-visit...



















Our original plan had been to make some speakers from abandoned tractor-wheels and oil-drums, but this line o'thought got derailed and we ended up focusing in on the Medieval Cinema and "The Moovie", a rebuild of the Octagon Sound Installation and the Atari Punk Bucket.

Here's a few 'After' photos taken last week, incl. part of the set-up for the live performance. (Farmer Glitch excelled himself in constructing a scavenged sound-system from an old Leslie rotating speaker, a Yamaha mid-range and a quartet of old, 70's vintage Celestion Hi-Fi speakers. The plan was to build a sort of surround-sound / quasi-Quad speaker array for the live show. The barn's natural in-built reverb gave the sound-system a really nice n spacious church-like feel.)

I've not included too many detailed pics of the other artists' wonderful work, just vague tasters for now, cos - well - you really should come n see them in the flesh, so to speak, just as the artists intended you to. It wouldn't be fair of me to turn this into a remote-control digital-gallery of someone else's efforts. The big pieces really do make you go 'wow' when you walk into the main room, and some photos would diminish that impact. The Real World beats the fucking Internet hands-down every time.













An, er, artist-in-residence ("Still Life (With Lunch)"):

HACKER FARM @ COTLEY BARN (FLIER)

A flier for sunday's event, courtesy of Natalie P (who says: "It's official! Tithe barns are IN!"):


Liz, Natalie and Gary have all done some really amazing work at the barn over the last 2 or 3 weeks. And the venue is pretty damn awesome too. You should see the vaulted roof. I've been to smaller churches.

The barn is open FREE to the public friday (tomorrow), saturday and sunday, but sunday's event'll def. be super-special.

I'll post some taster photos soon as I get a moment - maybe later tonight or tomorrow.

Actually, Loki, Jack-the-Treacle-Eater - the 'place' near Barwick / Yeovil Showground, not the, er, 'person' - turns up in my story "Tullis Immortalis"...

PAUL LAFFOLEY

A brief cross-section thru the visionary diagrammatic-artist / skewed ideas.engine that is Paul Laffoley.

CARLY PTAK, ETC

Also: Carly Ptak. (hypnotist, artist, food-gatherer-and-preparer, circuit-bender, forager, Radionics-ist)

An old interview.

Nautical Almanac, obviously:

TWIG HARPER

Twig Harper: damaged post-acoustmatic / music of the wonky, lava lamp-like spheres.

Also here.

"I am [...] returning to recording new material for the end of time. Noore dual hobbit bleack poles for all. Recharged revamped and everything is all ways into its proper place..."

FAT WORM OF ERROR

KEMPER NORTON: "LOWENDER" EP

While I was away on saturday, old Kid Shirt pal and musical ally Kemper Norton mailed to say he / they had a new free-to-ether EP - "Lowender" - available for download.

And rather wonderful it is too. I'm particularly smitten by "Allantide".

The found-voices that appear on parts of the EP sound like a distant (but far more melodic) Cornish cousin of some of the drifting ghost-voices we caught on tape at car-boot sales and incorporated into our non-gig installation work.

Nice work, Kemper!

SUN ARAW: "MA HOLO"

Pretty-much near-pitch-perfect Fifth World Musics.

19F3 FLOPPIES

MPA: "ON THE SUNNY SIDE OF THE SKULL"

Bummerism, or: the Internet-Only Release of "On The Sunny Side of The Skull" - one of a handful of lost 'mythological' albums (this one from 2006), by Medroxy Progesterone Acetate, one of my favouritest recording artists in the world.

This one was flummox'd / side-swiped by assorted labels-that-sunk-without-trace and a rip-off merchant who sold the master-tape on eBay as a "special edition of one". We have a Brit swearword specially designed for twats like that.

It's kinda quasi-tragic to me that this never came out on a 'proper' label. I woulda put it out (says the man who's taken two years to not put out a comp and is struggling to find 5 mins to put various other musical projects to bed, yet still finds time to blog instead of getting on with urgent work. Methinks me doth protest too much. *sigh*).

Anyway, here it is. You might not like it, but I certainly do.

On The Sunny Side Of The Skull by m*p*a

PS: Listen on headphones - it's awesome.

HACKER FARM @ "OUT OF CONTEXT" EXHIBITION, COTLEY BARN, NR. CHARD

Somerset Art Weeks 2010 Special Event

Out of Context: Artists Talk & Live Performance
Event Date: Sunday 3rd October, 2010
Time: 2pm to 5pm
Venue: Cotley Barn, near Chard
Exhibition: 18 September to 4 October, open 11am to 6pm (Thur to Sun).

On Sunday October 3rd, the artist group, Hacker Farm will give a live performance at Cotley Barn between 2pm and 5pm, using hand-soldered electronics, circuit-bent toys and reclaimed local materials. During the event, Hacker Farm and artists Liz Fathers, Gary Dickins and Natalie Parsley will talk about their work in the ’Out of Context’ exhibition, most of them in response to the rural setting of Cotley Barn.

For the Out of Context exhibition at Cotley Barn, Hacker Farm have created a series of pieces designed to enhance and comment on the environment in which they are housed. The rear room has been converted into a makeshift medieval cinema showing modified footage of cows and milk-production - a post-modernist version of a tithe. In the main room, a “farm-yard sound-system” housed in rusting milk-churns and salvaged agricultural scrap plays extracts from Music For Imaginary Milking-Parlours, an audio-piece constructed from field-recordings made in local dairies and cow-sheds. The sounds were digitally ‘distressed’ until they became ghost-like and impressionistic, suggesting a spectral, sometimes unsettling post-rural landscape.

Elsewhere, an Atari Punk Console - a homemade noise-generator that emulates the sounds of a vintage 1980’s games-console - has been embedded in an old farm bucket, enabling visitors to create their own hands-on, site-specific soundtrack.

Liz Fathers creates two installations in response to the history and surroundings of Cotley Barn, including a cider apple spiral and 200 balloons. Gary Dickins will create new work using found objects from the abandoned farm yard. Natalie Parsley’s farm tools painting is inspired by her visit to her grandfather’s farm. By displaying her work, she gives the everyday object a new life.

For more information about the exhibition and artists taking part, please visit here.

About Out of Context...

Out of Context is an exhibition/project bringing together artists in Somerset to create new work in response to the environment, architecture and cultural background of a medieval tithe barn. Organised by Somerset Art Works (SAW), an organisation aiming to develop opportunities for Somerset artists, Out of Context aims to promote interesting contemporary art that is relevant to the wider public. Out of Context is part of Somerset Art Weeks 2010, a county wide visual art event featuring more than 300 artists in over 200 venues/studios across Somerset.

For more information about Out of Context and Somerset Art Weeks 2010, please email: artweeks [at] somersetartworks.org.uk

Somerset Art Works (SAW) is a non-profit making organisation promoting the Visual Arts and creating opportunities for Visual Artists in Somerset through advocacy, promotion and development.

I'm looking for a publisher for my micro-novella "Tullis Immortallis" which - at 15k - is a bit of a bugger to find a home for. It's too long for a short-story antho and is too short to publish as a novella.

Stlylistically, it doesn't fit with my other 15k+ micronovellas (which could be categorised as 'hyperfiction' or something), so it doesn't feel right bundling it up with them and self-publishing or something.

This is a sort of West Country New Wyrd type thing, I guess. Very, er, 'English', I suppose. A bit quirky, but also fairly commercial too. Maybe I could try Weird Tales, but I doubt they'd bite. At this point an agent would be very handy, but I really don't have the sort of profile to attract one or the juice to reel in a mid-league editor / publisher.

If anyone is interested in putting it out, then mail me on my dumpmail address kekw10cc [AT] googlemail [DOOT] com. Some money would be nice, btw. You don't write something that long over a lunchtime, so would be cool to get some renumeration for my efforts.

Basically, the story follows the main protagonist thru 400+ years of life on the run from a secret cabal - maybe real / maybe imagined - who want to dissect him in order to learn the secret or eternal life. It's a mixture of dark pseudo-occult fantasy and psychological spy-thriller.

Here's a brief excerpt - a section set in (you guessed it!):

It was 1973 and they were tripping on acid down in John’s basement flat. John was playing something by Yes on the B&O deck and speakers he’d bought for thirty quid from the junk-shop on the corner. His pinched, weasel-like face was rigid with tension, lips protruding out in a half-pout as he air-guitar mimed a Steve Howe solo: breeanng-brakka-brak…pyoww! “Fucking ace, this bit!” he yelled, “Listen!”

Scott looked up from the electric bar-fire. He had been counting the glowing spiral ridges in the heating-element. It was like a tube of solid DNA or something. But a chord progression in the track had caught his attention. There it went again: a tricky, Baroque-sounding arpeggio that underpinned Howe’s fretwankery: m.1-I, m.2-V^6, m.3-vi&V^7/V, m.4-V…

Scott recognized it instantly. “I wrote that,” he said.

“Fuck off, Tully, you spaz…" John wind-milled his left arm, as if playing some monolithic, never-ending Pete Townsend chord. He made a strange, strangulated noise; a half-laugh that sounded like some new language. “You couldn’t have possibly written this. It was written by…written by…” He scanned the gatefold sleeve for clues. “Wakeman, Howe and - fucking hell! What the fuck’s that?” He dropped the sleeve and recoiled in horror from some invisible threat.

Brummie Dave grinned up at him from beneath the table. “You’re messing with forces beyond your comprehension, John,” he said, ominously.

John studied him suspiciously. “Don’t say things like that. You’re freaking me out.” He bit his thumb nail and laughed nervously. “You’re like a fucking elf sat down there in your cave.”

“Elf? I’m bloody Sauron, you wally. I have pure evil running through my veins…”

“1687,” said Scott, resisting the urge to touch the bar-fire. “Blackfriars. That’s where I wrote it. It popped into my head. Just like that - ” He snapped his fingers and recalled the moment as if it were five minutes ago. The scene stretched out in front of him like a painting. He could even smell the horse-dung and the human excrement that littered the road. A Scratch ‘n’ Sniff landscape. Imagine that hanging in the National Gallery, he thought. “Now some fucking Prog band’s ripped me off….”

“I know you’re a mature student, Tully, but that’s just bloody ridiculous,” snorted Brummie Dave from under his “special table”. He looked like a pterodactyl now or the bloke on the back on that Amon Duul II album.

John put his hands over his ears. “Stop it, stop it - stop it! You’re sending me over the edge…”

“Watch out, John!" cackled Brummie Dave, brandishing a Yes album-cover. "You’re…Close To The Edge!” He laughed and the room turned itself inside-out.

POST-PREVIOUS POST STOP PRESS:

Yesterday's radio interview was a LOT of fun to do. Simon Parkin - the breakfast-show host - was a really nice fella. We were chatting a bit off-air, before / after, during weather-updates, etc and he seemed genuinely interested in what we were up to.

I suggested to him that I might take an iPlayer stream of the interview (I'm told it's about 1hr 42 mins in - thanks, Nick!), mulch/mash it up and turn it into a track...and this is now definitely on my To-Do List.

In the end, we didn't play live, but we did demonstrate the Atari Punk Bucket (and use it as an amp to play a severely atonal John Cale-esque bowed-eukele skreeeeach). Simon also gamely re-played a slivver of our recent live performance on Jonny Mugwump's Resonance FM show. Which was exceptionally cool of him, considering his breakfast-time demographic.

Thanks to those of you who tuned in.

Afterwards, we went out to Cotley to do some work / prep on our installation and hold the fort while visitors wandered round the barn. Some much-delayed info on this later, soon as I get the kids to bed...

PREVIOUS POST STOP PRESS:

We might even be playing live in the BBC studio in Taunton - maybe using a cut-back version of our live gear - or possibly demo-ing some of our toys / sounds.

On a breakfast show!

Crikey. What's the world coming to?

HACKER FARM ON BBC RADIO SOMERSET

So, it appears that we - "we" being Hacker Farm - will be appearing on BBC Radio Somerset tomorrow morning, some time around 8:45-onwards apparently, talking about, er, whatever it is we do.

Is there actually a BBC Radio Somerset, or did I just make that up?

*Googles*

Nope, here it is.

I'll be honest with you - I've absolutely no idea who're we're talking to, where we're going or what the deal is lol. Suppose I'd better find out pronto; this cavalier fly-by-seat-of-pants attitude to life will only ever get you as far as the local corner-shop if you're not careful.

*Hands fly across keyboard* like...like, um The Flash checking out internet porn.

Crikey, can we really be on Saturday Breakfast with Simon Parkin? Nah. Shurely sum mishtake.

No, I'm up for that.

Farmer Glitch has packed his thermos, apparently.

It's a long way to Taunton. May have to take me waders.

THE ATARI PUNK BUCKET

Courtesy of the ever-industrious Farmer Glitch. I give yooooou:

The Atari Punk Bucket. Taaaa-daaaa!

Totally gutted - and I mean TOTALLY GUTTED - that I can't make the Dolphins into the Future / Ducktails / Woodtripper show at The Cube, Bristol, tomorrow. I think it could potentially be The Show of The Year. And at my favourite venue too.

Gutted.

But there's just too much goin' on around me right now, home- and work-wise, so unless I grow another body or three or bleb off my consciousness, like some weird bloated mutant paramecium-thing I'm jus' gonna have to let that one go.

As longterm readers'll be aware, I've been a big fan and supporter of Lieven Martens for ages now. I've waited, like, three years or more to see him play live. I nearly got to meet him in at Kraak in Brussels last year - he wasn't playing - but he'd vacated his stall in the main venue and had disappeared off half-an-hour earlier, so I hung around for a while and bought a few things - this was gone midnight by now (shopping for cassettes and old records at 12:15 at night - bliss!!), but he vanished. Prob. saw me coming or something. Leiven is a true one-off, an originator. I just love his whole schtick; his restless imagination. He's an honoury cetacean.

Ah, well, maybe another day.

But, ah...well, see: he let me interview him a few months ago - one of many, many things I've not got round to posting, that I really must sort (Incl. a big Hellvete interview) - so, in Lieven's honour I'll post the interview here soon.

I love being a total fanboy where certain acts are concerned; it's just soooo yeaaahhhhct. Heh.

But I've been thinking about this stuff the last couple days; maybe it's time I stopped living so, um, vicariously. I keep thinking: fuck, this is gonna be the Show of the Year and I'm gonna miss it. But then the mighty Farmer Glitch started talking about some of the things he's got planned for our forthcoming Hacker Farm super-show next weekend and I started thinking: hmmmm...you know, I like where he's coming from with this...we've got a nice bit of space for once, some room where we can stretch out our legs and go a bit crazy with our live set-up and our amplification gear...maybe we can get some tables and junk and weird furniture in, go a bit mental.

So, I'm thinking: nah: fuck it, let's make our gig the Show of The Year!

And if we don't quite get there, then maybe the next one instead, or the one after that.

Time to step up, I think.

Yeah.

Today, however, I have mainly been sick.

"Complaining is a coward's drug." - D. Poeira.

A slow week blog-wise - for which I apologise - but v. mucho going-on house rebuild-wise, plus catching-up-on-sleep from London Resonance Trip last wkend and then slowly ramping-up involvement in next Hacker Farm Installation-Project / Show (this will get increasingly hectic over the next few days, climaxing (ooo-er, missus) at the end of the month-ish).

I'll post on this fairly soon. For now, all you need to know is that Farmer Glitch is building an Atari Punk Bucket.

Mostly been trying to nail the last part of an episode break-down for a new comic-book project - the sort of thing that a Proper Comic-Book Pro would probably put-to-bed in the course of a quick 5-minute fag-break. This eluded me for a couple days, but then - as is usually the case - suddenly resolved itself, unbidden, in a rapid ideas-rush that I don't even remember typing.

A Synopsis Black-Out.

Open eyes, press SEND.

This afternoon I hung out with Shaky Kane (under the guise of looking-after-the-kids-while-wife-is-at-work) which is always an extremely agreeable way to spend a few hours.

LIL B: "IM HEEM"

SAXANA

70's Czech Teenage-Witch Comedy Movies via Breakfast in the Ruins.

Best. Haircut. On. A. Girl. Ever.

PS: Was pleased - yet, um, oddly unsurprised - that the Biba Look has recently re-emerged on fashion catwalks.

NAT WEST BANK, SEATON