Tuesday

So, a wet grey Tuesday morning here and I'm sat in a Cafe Nero in
central London, with a load of estate agents. Following a gas leak.
Not only that, I'm drinking Starbuck's coffee. Sounds like a dream
huh? *Arnie voice* "IT ISN'T"

Daily Mail

Adoption Nazis? There's a sitcom in there somewhere... I'm thinking something like that late 80s wonder 'My Two Dads' (starring Greg Evigan and the guy who played slimy corporate retainer Burke in Aliens) except in this the two adoptive parents are nazis living with their charge in an ex-local authority maisonette in Dalston. Not only that but they're gay. Comic hi-jinks ensue, etc etc.

A la Manc

Pegasus

I'm having a flutter on the gee gees today, on the Grand National. First time I've I'm ever placed a bet, though I'm not much of a gambler generally, apart from those little insta-rubbish lottery scratchies ("Oh, I've won a quid, I'll buy another one, oh, I've lost")...

Flash forward ten years. Me, in a betting shop in Hull. I've put on some weight – a roll of fat wobbling over my waistband like a sea-lion lurching from a bath. My jeans are shiny. My face graven with worry and excess. If Sherlock Holmes were here now he could point to any one of a dozen things about my demeanour, carriage, attire, that speak of a life on the brink, unpaid bills, bailiffs hammering on the door, kids crying, wife screaming...

As my horse 'Time and Relative Dimensions in Space' rolls in last with all the urgency of the Camberwell Tube extension, I tear asunder the betting slip, I destroy it, this creaky bridge to far off dreams, as I have burnt so many bridges, as the destitute farmer in Colorado sets ablaze his failing ranch.

Simultaneously, I wheel about, head for the door, already parlaying this minor footnote of failure into a grander scheme of entropy, as I head for my local boozer 'The Likely Lad', there to prop up the bar until closing time or forcible ejection (whichever comes first) and dream of the days you could smoke indoors...

Ahem. Hope that doesn't happen.

MyRail

I just regretfully deleted a nice, free little application from my phone called Myrail Lite. It was really handy. It would locate stations closest to you, and filter the timetable to give you a handy list of destinations, and arrival and departure times. It was very useful, especially when you out and about or on the go. And indeed, even if you did have access to the internet, as I've never found the National Rail Enquiries website that much of a joy to use, much like the trains themselves, to be honest.

Well, when trying use it last night, I discovered that it, like many people these days, had been forced to stop working, when National Rail didn't renew their license to publish a live feed of train times.

And hey, w-what's this, National Rail have just created an application of their own, reportedly inferior, for £4.99. That's £4.99, for information on a public service, who already charge some of the most expensive fares in Europe, for conveyance in their grotty overcrowded carriages. Greedy. Why not make it free, National Rail? or charge 50p, but £5? For shame.

Still, why am I surprised that the rail infrastructure in this country is continuing to pursue their tried and tested policy of making things less efficient and more expensive, even in this minor aspect.

*adjusts monocle, lights pipe, harumphs etc.*

I'm getting bored of this poster now.

Thanks to Sigh 9 for kindly pointing me in the direction of this Flickr pool which contains numerous examples of that poster I was whingeing about. I can probably put this sucker to bed now.

This is my favourite, I think.

Grizzly Man

This evening I watched the Werner Herzog documentary 'Grizzly Man' about the reclusive guy who fed himself and his girlfriend to bears in 2003, Timothy Treadwell.

There's something incredibly eerie about it, as it largely mostly consists of footage self-filmed by Treadwell whilst out in the Alaskan wilderness, consisting of him delivering enthusiastic bulletins about his ursine friends, when you in fact know what the grisly outcome of this obsession was

And he was definitely an 'unusual' guy, with something of a chequered past, who discovered bears like other people discover Jesus. In fact, there is an messianic zeal about some of his straight-to-camera monologues, which veer from sweet (if somewhat naive) hymns to the giant beasts he loves so much, to expletive strewn rants against human society, against the bleakly beautiful backdrop of some mountain vista – usually with a skip-sized brown bear swaying in the middle distance.

In contrast to which, Herzog's measured, considered voiceover seems incredibly compelling. He is clearly fascinated by this man and the legacy of his extant footage, though while the I got the impression he views him kindly (and some people interviewed for the programme clearly saw him as a crank who got his comeuppance) he is as at odds with the spiritual significance that Treadwell projected on to the lumbering beasts who were his companions as anyone. One quote which we actually had to rewind and re-listen to it was so solemn and aphoristic was (and I paraphrase) "The common denominator in the universe is chaos, hostility and murder".

Ultimately, this is quite a sad, affecting portrayal of a man who paid the ultimate price for his love of bears (great tagline, huh?). What stays with me as much as anything however is the incredible gravitas that the archived documents that survive Treadwell possess, the breathtakingly stark beauty of an Alaskan wilderness, mostly indifferent to human motives, set against the emotional crusade of a single man, and as well as being a documentary it's a tragedy, if not also a strange sort of love story.

I also enjoyed Little Dieter Wants to fly by Herzog, too. Next time, I think I'll try and catch one of his actual 'movies'.

Keep Calm

There's that phonemenon, largely subjective I suspect, but often ascribed to synchronicity, where something you were previously unaware of – such as a word, or phrase – suddenly becomes apparently ubiquitous, and you start hearing it on a near daily basis. (Such a thing happened last year, when everyone started saying "über" rather too much).

It is possible that this is largely due to the brain's subconscious yearning to identify patterns, but also, on occasion can arise simply from a popular trend, or something that cleaves to the public imagination, at any given moment (Myleene Klasse, for instance).

Into the latter category would I place that poster, the wartime public broadcast "Keep Calm and Carry on" (you must, by now, know the one).

Now, I realise that this is an artifact of some antiquity, dating from the Second World War, but prior to the end of last year, I was cheerfully unaware of its existence. Then, one day I saw it, and suddenly it seemed to be EVERYWHERE. I see it on a near weekly basis now, peering at me from the corner of an interiors photoshoot in the the pages of a broadsheet weekend magazine; gurning at me from a web browser, or acting as a kind of serving suggestion in the window of a local framers.

More disconcerting still is the wacky meme of appropriating said, rather staid wartime propaganda, and 'subverting' its message. In fact, I think I might start a niche museum dedicated to archiving permutations of this specific visual macro-trend.

The theatre of Advertising relies on cliches, which act as a kind of shorthand – effectively conveying a set of associations with relative economy, by setting the context. You want to imply that your brand is 'for the people?' (ie: cheap) simply effect a poster campaign aping those Soviet-era propaganda posters you went and saw at the Tate the other year. Y'know, flip the 'R's around, lots of red, raised fists, that sort of thing. Simple.

Almost too simple. Simple to the point of being hackneyed, in fact. But I suppose it takes time for what are by now slightly weary tropes to worm their way into the visual vernacular. What I do find a fascinating enigma, is the notional tipping point at which something like this attains critical mass, and becomes recognisably iconic – to the extent that it's no longer simply a rather simple bit of typography, than a meme, or trope. What precipitated this little bit of design's inauguration into the national Consciousness's golden hall of design fame, alongside The Routemaster?

God knows. But what I suspect from experience is we're probably going to see a lot more of this rather unassuming poster in the future in some form, be it parody or pastiche. The latest example I've secured for my rogues gallery of such examples I spotted on the Peckham Road the other night, which I present for your appraisal here.



I can't help but think that the designer here has aped the typographical layout of the original to the detriment of the poster's actual message... quite aside from the phrasal emphasis feeling slightly wonky – "ANYTHING YOU SAY MAY (be taken down) AND USED AS EVIDENCE" – the poster felt to me like some kind of wagging finger aimed at prospective criminals, when actually the two little lines of copy at the bottom reveal that the poster's purported message is about a police pledge to use confidential informant's testimony as evidence in court.

Still, I suppose it does at least stylistically fitting in the context of a message originating from the state, even if it does look a bit 'V for Vendetta'. We live in an incredibly pluralistic, visual culture (someone quoted "alter modern" at me the other day) where entire historical visual languages are there to be cherry-picked, just a Google search away. In such an age 'appropriateness' is perhaps the best a designer can aspire to, when there is no single master 'design narrative'.

PS: has anyone else spotted any other hacks of this bit of iconic design? I'd be interested in seeing them.

Closer @ Hidden

On Friday night I went to a night called Closer, at a club called Hidden in Vauxhall which was, appropriately, tucked away on a little side street just next to the South Bank.

It's a pretty compact venue, with two shoebox-like dancefloors, one with a kind of mezzanine bar above it. There's also an astro-turfed smokers bit outside. Pretty unpreposessing really, but the music itself – some of the banging-est techno I've heard in a while – was a refreshingly cathartic opportunity to dance like a thing possessed, for most of the wee hours.

In spite of the yellow and black industrial stylings of the flyer, (which owe a rather obvious debt to The Hacienda and Peter Saville) and the fact that legendarily tough-as-titanium-nails producer The Surgeon was headlining, the music was on a surprisingly groovy Detroit flex (still well hard though).

Highlights for me included someone playing Game One by Infiniti (a Juan Atkins pseudonym) and 'The Surge' dropping Didgeridoo by the Aphex Twin at about five in the morning, though by that time I was somewhat weary, and in fact popped out about halfway through the tune to down a shot of vodka and ice at the bar.

Following this, Saturday was almost entirely couch based. I stayed in, ate Chinese and watched Gosford Park. Today I went for a mooch round Hampstead Heath with Will, Sam, their bairn Zac and Helen and Renee. On our way back home we passed George Orwell's old gaff on Parliament Road. Most relaxing.

Here's that Infiniti track. Enjoy. Or don't, if you hate Techno.

That Watchmen review

Who Watches the Watchmen? well me, last Friday at the iMax, and I actually sat down and penned quite a long review about it too, before thinking, hmm, about eight squillion people have already chucked their two penneth in the jar, so you can probably google "Watchmen review" and get an idea whether you think it's going to suck or not without recourse to my ramblings. Here's an extract from my epic:

"It's been said quite often that a serialised TV show would be a far better format for translation of this project, and I have to agree. Watchmen was, as a comic and latterly a graphic novel, intrinsically episodic, and its frequent forays into the medium of other media (e.g. Newspaper clippings and magazine articles) from the alternate late 20th century Moore dreams up for us, are intrinsically problematic to channel onto a cinema screen."

Eh, I do get carried away sometimes (I start going on about Marshall Mcluhan, too). I think that's enough for now. To paraphrase my weighty, considered review:

"Watchmen: It's not as bad as it could have been"

In fact, it's not bad at all. No, it's not the novel, never could be, never was going to be, so get over it. It's pretty (if that's the word) and if you liked Dave Gibbons' artwork, you'll probably just be mesmerised by seeing that translated into moving images for two-and-a-half hours. That's me as a fan speaking though. Lord alone knows what people who hadn't read the comic thought – they were probably utterly bemused by it all.

What I would say is, if you haven't already (and can be bothered) read the book first. It's very good, and doesn't even really bear comparison to the film in terms of its breadth.

Now, for a bit of fun, here's Watchmen author and all-round arch beard Alan Moore commenting on and reading from the book (if you stick around to the end). He fucking hated the film on principle. Fair enough. I like his assertion that Batman, as a archetype is essentially a vigilante psychopath.



What tickled me more was the similarity between Moore (no pun) and Garth Marenghi in Channel Four's wonderful Horror spoof Darkplayce. It made me chuckle, anyway.

Just William

So, this afternoon Prince William popped into The St Giles' Trust on Camberwell Church Street. Immediately prior, I was scarfing down a bowl of noodles from my flat over the road, gazing absently out of the window and wondering what all the police and – even more rare for Camberwell – photographers were doing there.

Me and my housemate, whom I alerted to all this, assumed it was probably some MP or something, and it was only when the tall grinning one emerged from a silver people carrier with his entourage, that we realised what all the fuss was about.

After that, we pulled up seats, waiting for him to emerge again. It felt a bit like being on a police stakeout (though quite entertaining) as we watched a rogues' gallery of Camberwell's eccentrics tramp past, up and down the street, looking bemused at the gaggle of reporters camped outside of the Castle pub downstairs. I managed to get a cactus needle stuck in my thumb, from the withered specimen on the windowsill, which I spent most of the time trying to tease forth with a fair of tweasers. One of the guys from the trust popped out for a ciggy three times, which suggests he either really likes the coffin nails, or was just quite nervous (or both).

Eventually, a blunt looking 4x4 (containing two slightly twitchy looking bodyguards) and the silver people-carrier reappeared, signaling his reemergence, though it was another twenty minutes or so before he stepped out the door. In the meanwhile, one of the waiters from House gallery next door emptied a bucket of suds into the drain under the SUV of the two secret service types, nearly causing a security incident in the process. Word had got around by now, and the African guys from Merrygold's Barbers were were out on the pavement gawking (along with the girls from Hairshack afro-hair salon next door).

Eventually, Wills stepped smiling out front, to be greeted by flash bulbs and cheers, before stepping into his carriage and being spirited away 'up West'. The Castle Pub was looking especially busy when I walked past just now, presumably full of St Giles' employees, talking excitedly about their day.

Annoyingly, my photos are 'crazy shit'. But there you go.

Moodymann at Need to Soul

So last night I trooped up to Cargo for Need2Soul with Al, where the enigmatic Moodymann was headlining alongside Benji B, who recently interviewed that other Detroit legend Juan Atkins for his BB6 Deviation radio show.

It's hard to know what to expect from such a individual, who is, as a personality, almost as cryptic as his mystically obtuse deep house jams. In an era of vapid celebrity, there does seem something almost heroic about Moodymann's celebrated reclusiveness (he's like an Alan Moore who writes house rather than comics) which falls into the same 'faceless' vein of fellow camera-shy Detroit reclusives Underground Resistance, and whom like the latter is often outspoken in a scene perhaps perceived as apolitical in the supposed inclusiveness of the dancefloor. This is perhaps epitomised best by his infamous 'whiteboy-baiting' liner notes on a Silent Introduction which could perhaps be interpreted as a topical sideswipe at producer Moby's liberal ransacking of the Lomax brother's field recordings of deep south blues singers on the album Play, (tracks from which later on ended up gracing a host of commercials, somewhat tarring the Go producing vegan's credentials in the process).

And Moodyman – or Kenny Dixon Junior's – rants on the proprietary nature of all things black seem to extend to recorded media itself, for he is a champion of the vinyl, as the 2000 release, Forevernevermore testifies - the rambling passages of mumbling, ambient clattering and near silence that interrupt tracks otherwise pristine on the LP release seeming less his evocation of musique concrete than a sly dig at those who chose to fork out for the shiny little coasters (that was my take, anyway).

Which was ultimately borne out last night, when he played a vinyl-only set from the DJ booth at the side of the room. We got in just in time to witness the beginning of his set, and hear him doing his laconic paper-comb-voice-mumble bit, waving a 12 inch aloft and affectionately referring to the crowd as "all y'all motherfuckers out there" (for which they seemed exceptionally delighted). In spite of his unshowiness, the man is clearly a showman of sorts.

As for the music. Well, anyone expecting anything too beardy was probably in for a letdown, as he played a surprisingly accessible two hours. The set opener was The Door's Riders on the Storm, segueing into The Family Stand's Ghetto Heaven, which acted as a bridge to mostly well-loved soul and disco numbers, such as Skyy's First Time Around and the Light of the World's funk-ta-fied cover of I Shot the Sheriff*.

Later on, having popped out for a drink and a roll-up, we retuned to find he'd upped the tempo somewhat, and was playing such proto-house electro-disco numbers as Telex's chugging Moskow Diskow and the prowling electronic whine of the sinister Sharivari by early Eighties Detroit act A Number of Names, followed some more straight-up house numbers.

After that it was up to Benji B to take the reigns, which he did with a Latin-inflected set, detouring into house later on, which I thought was good, if not exceptional. By this stage I was up on the stage for the second time, having been moved off once with everyone else by one of the bouncers.

After that I departed South to Camberwell, though ultimately ended up walking to Elephant and Castle, as all the buses were so stuffed to the gills with merrymakers. Even this though, failed to detract from what was an extremely enjoyable night out, if not quite the array of obscure delights I anticipated.

Based on my two excursions there so far, this is a really good night. Soulful, danceable music over a range of styles, without being particularly faddish. The venue's not bad either – I like the outside smoker's oasis, and the soundsystem bumps. I'll be back, soon enough.

*This track, incidentally, I identified with the Shazam application on my phone, which appears to 'know its shit'. I had rather assumed it would only be able make identifications of the order of whether something was Lily Allen or not, but the music database seems to be surprisingly good.

TDR RIP

I read today, via a link from the man like Ade,(and as reported by Creative Review) that Sheffield based exponents of all things vector The Designer's Republic offically went bump, sometime in mid-January of this year (shows how up-to-date I am).

It sounds like they encountered a 'perfect storm' of mishaps, such as the loss of a couple of accounts and non-payment by another large, as-yet-unnamed company, which combined to render the good ship DR financially non-viable as an ongoing concern.

The web is already seeing an outpouring of dismay from assorted designers across the board, tinted largely with a flush of roseate nostalgia for TDR's heyday of the 90s, which is, I suspect, part of the problem. Sad as it is, I can't say I'm incredibly surprised TDR went under, as though it's maybe heretical to say it, every dog has its day, and theirs was around 10 years ago.

The Designer's republic, to me, always had a fairly strong 'house style'. They were your go-to designers for a certain icon-rich, vector-y cool, that was, to be sure, oft imitated – the most obvious exponents of this type of design that come to mind now, being Japan's Power Graphixx (which is sort of an irony in itself, given how much TDR 'borrowed' Japanese pop iconography, at least in their early days).

It was undeniably, pretty dammned cool. The kind of stuff that launched a thousand design consultancies, and inspired tens of thousands of students to pick up pen and mouse.

Unfortunately, that which is radical today is often the cliche of tomorrow. The last couple of visits I paid to their erstwhile website (admittedly years ago) it was starting to look a little tired and perhaps even slightly irritating in its ADHD flickery-ness. Harsh? I hope not. TDR were the dogs bollocks, for long enough, but their aforementioned trademark style did leave them open to the vagaries of changing trends and fashion. They were very good at what they did, but the world moved on – and for me, The Designer's Republic connoted the 90s stylistic zeitgeist as much as Mo Wax records and combat pants.

For the problem with cool, is that all too often it gets co-opted by large quote-unquote EVIL corporations (eg: the makers of a certain ubiquitous brown, fizzy drink) and broadcasted back to fast moving consumer groups (FMCGs). The problem here being that these people are so fast-moving, that the product (or rather the wrapper itself, in this case) has a shortened shelf life.

Nowadays of course, it's all about artsy Non Format style art direction, all neo-modernist/brutalist typefaces with the kind of florid augmentation last seen on Herb Lubalin's blotter pad in the 70s, in New York, and to be honest, even this is starting to look a little faded. (If I seen another fancy-nancy type treatment with swirly stuff wibbling out of gothic typefaces with all the holes filled in and a ten point stroke on them, so help me god, my brain will probably shut down to save my sanity.) I wonder what's next?

But as Creative review reports, founder Ian Anderson intends to reboot his baby, and take it back-to-basics with the original ethos he set out with in the mid-eighties, as opposed to the more identifiably 'formal' agency it reportedly became. Let's hope that if TDR does return, it'll be with a spirit of reinvention.

For now though, my personal footnote?

TDR: It was fun while it lasted.

Pro-Keds!

Been hunting for some of these 'for a minute'... my last pair are wearing through at the heels.

Bus route flashback

Ever wonder what London's bus routes looked like in 1933?

I know I have.

Well wonder no longer, friends.

All is revealed,

here...

LOL

Square to be hip

An interesting article on the hipster 'phonemenon' which the author cites as evidence of 'The Dead End of Western Civilisation'.

The guy who wrote it gets lambasted a bit in the comments for being a crusty old timer, deriding the kids for having fun, but I think he's got some valid points – in effect, that 'the cool' comb through subcultures of the past and appropriate cultural signifiers, effectively robbing them of meaning and rendering them as banal, disposable fashion. (though maybe I'm saying that cause I'm a crusty old timer now? entirely possible).

I'm not entirely sure it's not part of a wider malaise though. A lot of design, art and fashion is unbelievably lazy in its gnawing at the bones of the past (here! here's an old image I found on google! I'll distress it and stick it on a t-shirt! yawn, etc. etc), or its sheer incestuous 'me-tooness', in the everlasting quest to remain 'on trend' – the imperative scouting for anything that appears even vaguely new, its appropriation, repackaging, and regurgitation onto the high street, for us to consume at cost.

Still, perhaps it was ever thus? Answers on a postcard please to the usual address...

Deviation

Went to Benji B's Deviation night at Gramophone on Commercial Street in Shoreditch, for my mate Al's birthday last night.

I really like this night. I've been once before, for the birthday shindig, when you couldn't really move, or dance particularly. This time it was a bit less packed, but still fairly lively.

The guest DJ was Kode9, who was dropping dubstep stuff, which I caught a bit of. I like some Dubstep, some tracks I've heard by Martyn especially, but often find it can retard actual dancing somewhat, the music seeming to be lacking a kick drum somewhere, to anchor you in the goove – the Dubstep room at the last night I went to at Corsica studios was a mass of unsyncopated flailing limbs, like octopi drifting in space.

Benji B's sets seem to be reliably good, though I'd be hard pressed to pigeonhole his sound, apart from the fact that it seems to represent the new generation of producers who eschew predominantly sampled motifs in favour of a new, more electronic flavour of beatmaking – more specifically the kind of glitchy laptop aesthetic that dudes such as Flying Lotus create (and some of whose tracks off the excellent Los Angeles got an airing last night).

There was also some heavy rotation of tracks by the late hip hop pioneer Jay Dee, his having passed away almost exactly two years ago on the tenth of February. And in truth, echoes of his warm, slightly off-kilter sound could be heard in a lot of the newer music being played. The bouncy, James Brown sampling I don't Know and lolloping uptempo drums of Fuck the Police eliciting excited whoops from the crowd.

In general, the beats are loose limbed staccato funk. The vibe excited, friendly, warm; the crowd a mix of all shapes, sizes, etc. And though there was the usual contingent of cool kids, looking all nonchalant as they danced, there was a distinct lack of attitude in the sense of moodiness and general sub-gangster (or actual gangster) posturing I recall from jungle nights way back last decade.

Indeed, as the old guard of hip hop and drum and bass producers continue to lick their wounds and dream of those halcyon dog days of the mid-90s, it's heartening to go somewhere like this and bear witness to forward thinking (if not quite avant guard) music of (whispers it) black origin with a left-of-field lean. I'll be going back soon I think – I'm just gutted I missed the lesser-spotted Moodymann, whom the webbernets tells me played there in December last year. Dayum.

Every roleplaying character I've ever played, er, 4?

Part four in this increasingly infrequent series is an elf I played in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game run by Matt Hyde, some of whose online creations for Chaosium's Elric! system – set in Moorcock's Young Kingdoms – can be found here and here, if anyone's interested. But I digress.

WFRP was a pretty interesting gaming system, really. The world, which was developed when Games Workshop weren't soley predicated to the merchandising of tabletop wargames (I said soley) was a gritty one, reminiscent of our own Europe circa the 1700s (The Old World), except with the addition of marauding beastmen, trolls, orcs and the like. Principally set in a Germanic Empire, one of the things which helped set the slightly mordant gothic tone (aside from the political intrigue, and incursions of a mutative sorcerous blight known as Chaos, from the wastelands of the north) was the game system itself – which based character progression around a series of career paths – and the combat rules therein, which were realistically perilous, and came complete with a gruesome 'critical hit table' to determine injuries if a foe landed a particularly telling blow.

So to cut it short (literally), this chap here had his right leg lopped off after being on the receiving end of one such injury, probably at the hand/claw/tentacle of one the ubiquitous beastmen, I think, whilst on a boat. Having sorcerously healed the wound, he set about carving himself a peg leg, scrimshaw style, from some Ivory that happened to be lying about. This was probably highly impractical, given that Ivory is probably softer, more expensive, and more attractive to your average passing vagabond than wood, but what the hell.

He later got a magic sword, and a magical amulet thingy that Matt informed me had been stolen between gaming sessions. Matt! no fair!

His name was Tanis, also the name of the half-elven guy out of Dragonlance, but shucks, I didn't know that then.

It's like Narnia out there...