Showing posts with label latitude. Show all posts
Showing posts with label latitude. Show all posts

Monday, 15 December 2008

Deathray Exposure


Deathray Trebuchay are a Ska/Punk/Surf band from East London, and their performance was without doubt one of my highlights from this year's Latitude Festival. Llewelyn from the band got in touch and has asked if they can use my photo as the main image on their MySpace site. Check them out - they're boss!

Thanks for the exposure guys.

Thursday, 24 July 2008

...and longitude.


Slap wrists VapourTrail - it's been a few weeks since my last post! 

Lots has happened, though I bet I will forget to mention quite a lot - some weaves and turns, ducks and dives, frights and reliefs, surprises and predictability etc. My Dad and Jaygo had birthdays so very 'appy days to them. Seen lots of friends - Heather, Chris M, Amelia, Giles. C and I got out in the sunshine for long walks int'nature and had lots of chill time, carpet picnics etc. Saw a few films - Hancock was pretty easy viewing and good fun. Started a great new book - The Pump House Gang by Tom Wolfe - fantastic and can't wait to read more of his stuff (thanks Sam). Was reading Piers Morgan's memoirs - got bored, not my scene at all. Some great new music - Another top album from Rod y Gab - Le Foc. Also Songs in A&E from the amazing Spritualized - superb and lovely listening.

My Flickr collection of stuff has been swelling nicely as well. Enjoying making the mini-movie clips and have got lots of ideas for new ones. Need to work on the image quality whilst keeping the file sizes down though - probably can't have one with the other, but I will investigate. Have sold a few more images and had requests for others to adorn walls of family and friends. There's even been a touch of freelance work come to light from a friend/past client which is a welcome thingy wotsit.

Main thing worthy of bloggage was Latitude last weekend - Been looking forward to it for ages. Situated just outside Southwold - A beautiful part of the world for a beautiful festie. We went with old friends Chris and Marianne from that there Yorkshire. This was a great event - highly eclectic in it's design, offerings and the demographic it is aimed at. There were loads of families with kids (of all ages) which gave the place a great vibe, plus people from all backgrounds and interests. There was the music stages, theatre, comedy, poetry, cabaret, performance art, installations, happenings - there was nothing left out. Even the food was organic, wildly varied and top-notch - result. A great size too - only 25,000 people and quite a small site. The whole weekend just flew which is always a sign of a good time and the weather was generally good. Can't recommend this festival highly enough, especially if you have kids but also want to option to party until sunrise. 

Could waffle on for ages, but here are the greatest hits of the festival from my point of view: The Burlesque Caberet Tent (that was bizarrely full of toddlers as well as adults most of the time); Ross Noble's impromptu 3,000 people strong conga train through the grounds who then proceeded ask every Vegan stall for sausage rolls for the rest of the festival; Bill Bailey's set; The Go-Team; Sea Sick Steve; Sigur Ros (that part I remember anyway); Elbow; Franz Ferdinand; Blondie (she was fan-bloody-tastic); Deathray Trebuchey (these guys were simply amazing - trippy brass based post modern ska madness); The pink sheep grazing by the lake; the floating orb flutist and light show; the Caribbean curried goat and dumplings; the lack of idiots and beer monsters; The Sunshine Stage high in the woods; Stewart Lee's comedy set; The mushroom risotto; having a blow up mattress to sleep on for the first time; 

Back to the daily grind now, but in lovely summer heat - makes even the crapest day seem bearable. I had a wee epiphany whilst at Latitude and this plus other events of the past few weeks have reaffirmed to me how precious our lives and consciousness are, and most importantly how these should be treasured and not treated flippantly. Life is not a rehearsal.

I promise not to leave it so long next time.

Sunday, 6 April 2008

Pure as the driven...

A big thank you to the equine hero Comply or Die and jockey Timmy Murphy - a spread £10 bet that I could barely afford nicely netted me a smidgen over a ton. It has made my weekend - cheers guys!

What the chuff is going on with the weather? 18 degrees on Friday, zero degrees and 3 inches of snow on Sunday! I'm not complaining mind - it's always an amazing feeling to wake up and be hit by the white light of a freshly laid snowy landscape. We drove to Mickleham in Surrey on Saturday to stay with friends Heather, Kent and their little man Noah. This morning was the first time he had ever played in snow properly and it was amazing to watch his reaction. He wasn't sure at first, so I made a huge snowball and dropped it on my head...much to his amusement, and it triggered an association that will last for a lifetime...Snow is fun! Great to watch him pottering around, fascinated by his footprints, the coldness and texture of the snow, the silence of it falling and the near blinding whiteness. A great night on Saturday - drinks, chats, nosh (good old Dominos - ah the memories...check this link out for related madness) and that shaky hand late night fav. Jenga. Kent has bought a StormTrooper helmet which Noah has developed a penchase to as well. A generally chill weekend all in all though - needed a 'doing very little' one to recharge. During the week I have to be dragged out of bed, but I always wake up really early at weekends, keen not to waste my free days and go do stuff, but was happy to splat for this one. Did achieve quite a bit though - very nearly finished my promo website, span the turning wheels a bit more etc. Went for a great Sunday lunch and few pints at The Nightingale with C, Darby and Duncan today - could well become our regular boozer. A real local's traditional sort pub, with good nosh and bitter.

Work...well it's Schmerk to be quite honest. Won't waste much more finger energy on it than that this time but...Going to put my noodle in turbo this week and try to keep my head above water. Some good projects on the go at the moment, but there are some important parts of my job I am not even scratching the surface of due to other commitments. It's rapidly dawning on me that in times of strife in 'this company' you just have to think of yourself, because when you play the helpful considerate team player you just get used and taken advantage of. Selfishness isn't a natural way of thinking for me, though self preservation is and because no one else is going to look out for me at the moment maybe that's card I have to play. A sorry state of affairs so it is. Schmerk aside there's lots to look forward to - a meeting about a photography gig, starting an illustration commission/present, drinks and meets with some old muckers. 

The festival ticket sales have started - it's like a gold rush these days. When I started going to festies in 1989 (those halcyon days) it was all so simple...pop down to Jumbo Records in Leeds a few weeks before the event and hand over your hard saved £45 for a guaranteed 4 days of good tunes, scrumpy, pot noodles and laughs. These days you have to play a lottery with your ISP to see if you even get on to an already crashing website and then there's no guarantee you'll even get an (overpriced) ticket. Anyway, we managed to get tickets for Latitude in Southwold, Suffolk - heard great things about it. We went to Electric Picnic in Ireland a few years ago (the best festy I've ever been to by a long shot), and Latitude is said to be a similar sort of do and has the same vibe - can't wait. On a slight bummer - The tickets I ordered for My Bloody Valentine at The Roundhouse in June have gone astray, as have my confirmation and any record of the order (but I know I booked them). Slightly upsetting as I REALLY want to see them again. A lifeline is in the pipeline apparently.

A big thanks to PaintMonkey for his generous offer this week - looking forward to seeing your amazing work dude. 

Plodding through Mind Eye still - it's all getting a bit samey and tedious, but will persevere. 
Tunes of the week: Never loose that feeling by Club AC30: A load of old school shoegaze covers by NuGazers. Not as bad as it sounds!

Nye for bow.