A boy named Charlie Brown

For a kids' show Charlie Brown was oddly schadenfreude, guy could hardly catch a break.

Graphik Muzik

Still really obessed with Michael Allred's work. His older, darker stuff espescially. There's everything in the world to be said for impressive, bold colouring but I'm not entirely sure if anything can trump a nice b&w.
The writing here is immense too, its the contrast between the pulpy narative, the emotive dialogue from the girl in the mask and the shlocky Adam West stylings of the Cheetah character that get me the most excited about this page in particular.

Woah, mixtapes!

Three years ago, I made some "mixes" and uploaded them on to the internet and forgot about them, now I'm on my old desktop and I found the old links to them!

They weren't mixes in the ultra hip dj sense of the word, more like a mix tape of the various bands and artists I was in to back then. All I really did was place the tracks next to each other in some program and try and fade them in to one another.

There were about four of them I made before I lost interest or whatever but, listening back to them now, they weren't so bad. Its interesting to look back on these and see the sort of music I was in to when I was 17. To be honest though, being 17 doesn't seem that long ago, and when you think about it, it isn't really. Seems the older I get, the shorter the years seem to last.

I still listen to most of these bands now I think, and listening back to it I get a lot of reminders of what was on my mind at the time. Fun! Have a listen.


Here's one I named grass tunnel, I think there was a lot of poppy electronic stuff on here. It had múm, thom yorke and some other bands on it:

Here's another, I think this was more post rock based. It starts off with an excerpt from a godspeed you black emperor song:

These two were the best I think, I'm listening to another one now and it has a klaxons remix on it, I don't wanna embarrass myself by posting that. If anyone actually listens to these, it'd be nice to know what people think!

i'm singing. i'm hollering. i'm singing.

Cap n Jazz are a great band to come back and listen to. Youthfully bold, whimsically abstract and most of all summery! It feels good to sit out the sun and listen to Analphabetapolothology for the first time in what seems like quite a while. An energetic way to wind down my evening.

Such good song titles too, all so cute like they were part of a little kid's first real sentence. The songs can get poignant at time but its never insincere, I like that.

I think I like this song best, but I can't be sure. They're all so rad.

http://www.mediafire.com/?hyvyxm0miml - download the album here and lemme know what your favorite is

Felt - Primative Painters

Heh, y'know its true what they say about you learning something new everyday! Whilst I was looking for the two Felt videos I just posted on Youtube, I found this little gem by a band from the 80s with the same name.

Recognize the female vocals at all? Its Elizabeth Fraser from The Cocteau Twins, god I love her voice. Ethereal as anything but it has some real soul to it at points. Must be where bands like Celebration get their inspiration from, and I can say without a doubt that Dave Sitek takes a great deal of influence from The Cocteau Twins production and composition style.

Oh! music was so exciting twenty years ago! I guess it still is!

Felt - Protagonists

I swear to god some of the music I was listening to back in year 11 was so much better than some of the stuff I've been listening to of late. Point in case (or is that case in point?) is Felt. I used to listen to Tribute to Lisa Bonet during lunch times in the library.

Felt is a collaboration between Slug from Atmosphere and MURS from Living Legends. Murs was the guy rapping on that Busy P track, serve and entertain or whatever it was called.
Felt had two pretty good albums called Tribute to Christina Ricci and Tribute to Lisa Bonet. Lisa Bonet was the daughter from the Cosby Show.

Anyway, I was on twitter today and it turns out they've got a third album coming out called Tribute to Sarah Palin, or at least that's what MF DOOM says.

Here's a track from it. Protagonists It's pretty good, quite drum heavy, not really saying much on the sampling front. I dunno, it doesn't strike me as anything special, I just remember the production on the other albums being a lot less polished and just a little funkier.

This was one of my favourite tracks off of Lisa Bonet.

Here's another.

I hope you can see what I mean. This stuff is just a lot more soulful and chilled out. Perfect for a summer's day. Actually I definitely remember listening to this during the summer.

Speaking of which,its fucking hot here so I'm sat at home in my boxers, nice.

Winsor McCay - Rob Liefeld

Interestingly enough, these strips were produced in the early 1900's. I find that surprising some how, especially in the second image. Something about its style and humor just seem so contemporary. Both strips are incredibly striking, the dream like nature of the first is almost frightening - the way that elephant gets closer and closer in those last six panels. Incredible sequencing and use of space within the panels, not to mention the elephant just looks balls out insane.

Alan Moore paid homage to McCay and his "Little Nemo..." strip in a series he did a while back called Promethea, I've never checked it out. I should do, its apparently very esoteric. I'm not sure if I think this is a good or a bad thing when it comes to comics.

Hmm, can't wait till I start work, got so much stuff to buy!

Little Nemo in Slumberland - 1905 to 1914

Little Sammy Sneeze - 1904 to 1906

Promethea 1999 - 2005

Also...



This guy is Rob Liefeld, (he created the character Deadpool who recently showed up in the Wolverine Origins flick) he's considered by a lot of people now days, myself included, to be one of the worst artists in the modern comic books industry, but in a lot of ways he's definitely a large part of comic book history. He shot to fame in the 90s and was one of the catalysts of the boom the comics industry experienced over the course of the decade, the source of a lot of controversy and the recipient of a lot of criticism and out right abuse. It's all a bit boring to go in to really, but the crux of it all is that his art and writing are pretty terrible and he helped popularize the gritty, angsty, hyper violent, hyper visceral, hyper sexual style that became extremely popular in the 90s.

Its his absolute lack knowledge regarding the human anatomy that gained him the majority of his criticism.

All of that said, one reason I can never really fault the guy is that you can just tell all he absolutely loves the medium. The way his eyes light up when the interviewer starts name dropping Daredevil and the Silver Surfer, you can tell that he's just a big goof who loves that he's able to write for the company whose output he grew up reading. I think its that level of devotion to it that got him his big break and that keeps him somewhat popular to this day.

Here's a video of him and Todd McFarlane (creator of Spawn) goofing around with Stan Lee. I just couldn't stop laughing at this. I can't tell if Stan's making fun of them or not.

Baby

I think this is the first single off of Ghostface Killah's forthcoming album "The Wizard of poetry."

I've only listened to a couple of the guy's tracks before this, but never the less, I'm immediately impressed by this. I definitely need to check out more stuff like this. Apparently its his last album on Def Jam Records and its gonna have a couple guest shots from R&B starlets like John Legend, Estelle and others I'm far too suburban to have heard of.

Recently my music library has been kind of stale, mainly because I don't have a proper internet connection where I'm living at the moment, I really need something new to obsess over. Perhaps this album could be it.

Before I moved out I was really interested in an American duo The Drums; they're two guys currently working together in New York and they've got a slightly convoluted musical history - but don't all the best bands?




Once upon a time there was a band called Elkland who were sort of like 80s power pop revival, think Chesney Hawks or Limahl, but slightly cooler and a little more camp. Anyway, that band were making waves for a while over in the states and were even on Columbia Records for a while. They even supported Erasure apparently.



Apart, I think this was the only single off of their 2005 debut "Golden", it's not an especially great release.

Well, when they disbanded, lead singer Jon Pierce went on to form Goat Explosion with multi - instrumentalist and childhood friend Jacob Graham. GE had a similar sound to the aformentioned Elkland but with much more organic synths and considerably less produced, lo fi sound...but it was still pretty camp. I discovered Goat Explosion by accident a while ago but by that time they'd disbanded (I heard rumors about an argument between the two involving some girl) and Jacob had gone on to form a bunch of new wave style bands - namely flashlight party (who I loved) and later on Horse Shoes. Both of these were pretty similar to New Order, Orchestral manouveurs in the dark and other groups of that ilk. Layered synthesizers, ghostly vocals and a whole lot of wintery meloncholy. Generally my kinda jam.



Here's a link to their last ep, Wreaths_

Anyway, later on down the line, two old friends reunited and have now formed The Drums, and they seem to be whipping up quite a storm. They've got a nice stripped down kinda sound that wears its post punk influences on its sleave, they come complete with holow basslines, wirey guitars and a few synth stabs wherever needed. Its Jon's vocals and the lyrical content that add the most unique and intriguing layer to their sound - Songs about surfing, roller coasters and young love in the summer time delivered in a soothing and innocent croon almost make me feel like I'm watching Stand by me or watching The Wonder Years. Not to mention, there's slightly less than consipicuous Phil Spector influence on the production front! Are we looking at the first post punk / doo wop / teen idol cross over band, and if so, do what do we call it?! Post Idol? Punk Wop? New Doo?


Oh and did I mention how handsome they all were? Its like Abercrombie and Fitch meets Domino Records!

Let's Go Surfing is their current single and its making waves (HAHA!) in the blogosphere and the real world alike. I think I heard in an interview that their ep is being released in the UK by Moshi Moshi records.
Here's their myspace - www.myspace.com/thedrumsforever - listen to "I Felt Stupid" and download the Lets Go Surfing maxi single for free.

Boffo!

Oh! Check out my friend Johanna's blog, I can't read french so it makes absolutely no sense to me, but there's loads of cute pictures of her and her ludicrously chic looking friends. Aside from that, I can't really vouch for the written portion of the content. But hey, its nice to look at pictures right? I sure think so.

http://wersindsie.blogspot.com/

Look what I did!

More of my pictures from Paris.








There was such a long period of time between me taking these and then actually scanning them in to my computer. I quite like all of these photos, they remind me of the fun time I had. I must have used about 4 rolls of film that week I was in Paris but there were two problems that arose:

I don't know shit about how to a camera correctly, much less a camera that didn't come with instructions and another that didn't really have a correct way to be used. I had a real hard time winding up the rolls when I finished with them and ended up scratching and exposing at least half of two rolls of films. I also had no idea who to use the focus or whatever properly so there were a lot of pictures that looked as though I had just smeared Vaseline over the lenses.

The second problem was that I spent about two or three days taking pictures with a camera that had no film in it at all, I just assumed I'd put some in there before I'd left London and it wasn't until about I was about done checking one of the galleries near the Eiffel that I finally realized my mistake.

Ha, what an unlucky pup!

Anyway, that was my first real experience using a camera (film or otherwise) as anything more than a means of taking pictures of myself, and to be frank, I was quite impressed with the outcome. I have about three film cameras in my possession and I'm going to try and make a point to use them more.

It's always nice to document all that fun I'm supposed to be having.

I changed the layout and look of the blog and deleted a lot of posts, I'm going to try and actually post things of interest on it as opposed to just whining about things.

Lets see how that goes!

try a little tenderness

John Hughes died the other day.

I'm not espescially mournful, because I never really understood how people could genuinely mourn the death of a celebrity (i just don't think they're "real people"), but I've got to say that most of the films this man had an involvment with - from Pretty in Pink and Breakfast Club to Uncle Buck and Home Alone - have had an effect on me in one way or another. From my undying, sometimes self destructive infatuation with all things red headed, to the music I listen to and to my preoccupation with nostalgic iconography.

The guy really captured an era at its best and because of that there's really no way I, or many people really can look at the 80s without some sense of glittery eyed nostalgia. There's a lot to be said for that.

Teen films now days really don't come close in regards to encapsulating an era like Hughes did, I don't think anyone is going to look back at films like American Pie or Road Trip or whatever as great signifiers of a generation, everything about the majority of teen rom coms made within the last ten or so years has already aged so poorly and just seems dated, fashionless and uncool.


Our children will not be talking about how beautiful Mellisa Joan Hart was in You Drive Me Crazy, nor will they be trawling vintage shops of the future looking for a pair of baggy canary yellow khakis just like the ones that Freddy Prinz Jnr wore in She's All That.

Hughes had a real timeless quality to his film making, something thats hard to find in mainstream film these days. Few films made for mass consumption are able to recreate the kind of charm and sincerity his films brimmed with.

Having said all that bullshit, the guy wrote Maid in Manhattan, Behtoven's Third, Home Alone 3 and Drillbit Taylor (he did that under a different name actually) so much like goo'sd ol' Wacko Jacko its best if you pretend he already died five or six years ago.

here's hoping that bill murray, michael j fox, joe dante, prince or hot chip don't die any time soon.

Meurgghhhhhhhhh

woodsman, raise your axe