We've seen these flyers lurking about the Tin Angel and been a bit mystified, but it's becoming clear.... A Thing About Machines is an audio/visual arts festival in dear old Coventry, happening from the 19th to the 21st September.
Artists include Andy Votel, Frog Pocket, film heroes 7inch cinema (who are running an all-day event in honour of electronic music pioneer Delia Derbyshire), Talking Birds, Modulate and more, all playing and arting about in some unusual venues, including The Crypt of St Mary's Guild Hall.
Tickets are £12 for the 7inch cinema/Sonic Boom events, get them over 'ere.
I went to see a load of art by the Chapman brothers a few years ago, the upshot being that it ended up annoying me quite a lot. However, I was definitely nowhere near that warehouse when it went up.
Jake Chapman has now partially redeemed himself in my eyes (yes, I imagine it will be quite a weight off his mind) with the video for You Lie You Cheat by Spiritualized. It seems to combine the attempted suicide from A Clockwork Orange with that Polanski film The Tenant. It also calls to mind that sketch in Jam about the man jumping out of a low window repeatedly rather than throwing himself from the top of the building - in case he changed his mind halfway through.
Whatever the antecedence of this camera-abusing short film, I really like it. See what you think. Great song too.
Yes, I mean it. Stop watching Big Brother. Put your Facebook habit on hold. Stop going to work. Stop eating. Don’t sleep. Don’t wash and don’t even think about go to the toilet unless you are taking a copy of this marvellous book with you. After that - do what you like.
Nick braved a nasty hangover and the Leamington masses to watch the surprisingly good animation from Disney/Pixar. We all thought long and hard about the meaningful implications of the plot a process facilitated by lots of lager and stylish pool playing.
SFA/Notting Hill offshoot The Peth are out on tour, notably at the Hoxton Bar and Grill on Friday 10th and The Greenman Festival in August. London types who like catchy, stomping, glam-rock noisiness should act accordingly. I am once again logistically incapacitated and thoroughly fucked off about it.
This should of course be in the bit on the right-hand side of this web site - but if it was I couldn't bung the strange video for the excellent Shoot On Sight just down here. All together now: "WE HAVE FOUND THE INSURGENTS".
Festival goers will be banned from taking alcohol into the three-day event. Any booze found on people entering the site will be confiscated by security guards and disposed of in large skips.
Eek. Seems they weren't joking when they said don't bring your own alcohol to this weekend's Godiva Festival in Coventry.
After last years' violence and general bad atmosphere it's not surprising that action has been taken, but it's difficult to see how they can police this absolutely, there's lots of ways into the Memorial Park. But there's more...
Drink will be available to buy at high-street prices in designated areas of the park but must be consumed in restricted areas. Anyone drinking alcohol outside of the areas face an on-the-spot fine of £50.
I wasn't planning on going this year, but I'd be interested to see how this all turns out, and if this is a workable solution.
To the Rainbow in Digbeth for 7 Inch Cinema’s five year birthday bash, animation and film shorts and music and cake, and got there just as Telly Savalas Looks At Birmingham finished up - luckily I can watch the rest over at Birmingham’s Not Shit.
VJ Hooker/FilmFicciones was really good fun as ever, pulling out some daft shorts including Jim Henson’s ace “Time Piece”, unfortunately stripped off YouTube by boring bastards, but this is kind-of related:
Mike in Mono popped up, unfortunately no playing live this time round, so we couldn’t go nuts to his version of “Male Stripper” like we wanted, but instead he battered everyone’s eardrums with some of his ZX Spectrum generated videos: here’s “Red Square”, utterly brutal when played through a massive PA:
Mike had also done a new soundtrack for Norman Mclaren's "Neighbours" animation short from 1952- here's the original on YouTube, stick with it kids, it really is extremely violent.
And we finished up with Juneau Projects, two men wielding strap-on woodland creatures fashioned into guitar triggers for their indie-ish electronics. Not my thing, but their art stuff looks more entertaining.
So far the whole gambling thing has been going reasonably well, I've won now and again and even seem to be a few quid up.
Its all a bit dull though really so to liven things up I am going to use different techniques to guess the results of the knockout rounds. To this end I have procured an 18-month old child, lets call her "Maya" - I am hoping that this little girl is going to make me rich beyond my wildest dreams Mwa haaa haaa haaaa etc.
As she wouldn't stop crying about something or other yesterday I couldn't get a result out of her for the Germany-Portugal game. However now I've turned the music down and slipped her a couple of gins she has picked out the following treble for the other quarter finals:
Turkey to beat Croatia (Hmmm, I know she isn't 2 yet but even so this seems naive)
Holland to beat Russia
Italy to beat Spain
In Ladbrokes they asked what the gurgling and crying noises were coming out of my bag, I explained it away as a new trend in executive ringtones and bunged £5 on the whole lot coming in. It will be £97 if they all come in, so pints/rusks all round, or I'm going to trade the kid in for a pack of Tarot cards.
Hello there. This is where we write (from our silver-foil lined bunker in the middle of the UK) about films and music and drink and going out and all that other stuff that demands attention from our tiny but fertile minds. Find out some more about those tiny minds...
Gigs // Friday 29th August // Leamington Assembly // Jim
Scary, scary Henry Rollins is doing his spoken word thing at the opening night of Leam’s new venue. Not much else booked in there yet to get excited about, well unless the thought of Wheatus (unplugged) gets you all hot under the collar.
The usual dead relaxed electronic music thing at the Island Bar, and everyone should go ‘cos Mike In Mono is playing. He’s really got to do his cover of “Male Stripper” again otherwise we won’t be happy. Plus the intriguingly monikered Girljoy are playing too. £3 in if you’re not dressed as a robot or dinosaur.
Man On Wire
Film // From 1st August // Electric Cinema // Jim
Film about the French high wire artist who sauntered across between the twin towers of the world trade centre in 1974. Showing at the lovely art-deco film womb of the electric cinema in Brum for a couple of weeks.
Lawyer Steve Masur on the Guns 'n Rose MP3 leak lawsuit: "I just think it's pathetic... it's embarrassing -- that we would go after a pathetic uploader... and not just see that is promotion," he said. "If that's what we're basing our future on, we are pathetic."
"Hitman Chev Chelios launches himself on an electrifying chase through Los Angeles in pursuit of the Chinese mobster who has stolen his nearly indestructible heart and replaced it with a battery-powered heart that requires regular jolts of electricity to keep working." Ridiculous, genius?
I'm interested in the Accordia housing project, being high-density but not high-rise. Trying to search Flickr for photos only brings up pictures of accordions, which makes sense I suppose.
From the Department of No-Bleedin-Surprise: "The troops have repaired 54 km of Soviet-built tracks....south of the Abkhaz capital Sukhumi... The scene in Abkhazia is all set for major military action." Article date is 31st July 2008. (via dissensus)
"But today Georgians only want heroes. And we will never be able to rely on the United States or NATO. We are too far from Europe, too close to Russia. NATO will not drop bombs for ten weeks to save Georgians... Yet we still look toward Europe." From 2000
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