tuning up

here's one i made earlier
got a call last night from alan - he'd noticed the myspace i'd put for him had gone awry... i blame flickr meself... lots of the images i'd linked to were "unavailable".
so i went through the html on the site and re-loaded all the addresses that i'd linked with.
in the interim, i also experimented with an animated gif. about 10 years after everyone else had been using them.
who says i can't embrace technology?
while working on the webpage, it occurred to me that i was also listening to a radio caroline rockabilly show on satellite, and that alan famously performed/recorded image which was used as a radio caroline theme tune for many years(amongst other uses!).

alan of course, played on hundreds of other musical projects, notably being john barry's organist of choice for all his big 60's film themes, as well as releasing plenty of his own material(i have a tidy little stash of his albums...).

the future is unwritten

granada - spain 2008
Originally uploaded by ☆eightbaII is offline until late october☆

i was watching said film this evening(a biog by julien temple about joe strummer), and as they covered the period where joe goes to granada after breaking up the clash...

we climbed it alright... all the way through the gipsy sector and up the steepest path in the world... it was worth it though ten times over!
on the way back it started raining - so we ducked into a flamenco bar built into the caves and had a nice lunch with free drinks!

they had this very view(including the tree in the background), during a voice-over.
this was a hill above granada in the al baicin, where we climbed up to see some cave houses.
yours sincerely - gobsmacked.

international jet set

The businessmen are having fun are they on a different plane to me
I've lost touch with reality, they all seem so absurd to me
Like well dressed chimpanzees

Spend and spend and spend and spend
Will the muzak never end?

poor buggers... we spent an hour taking the piss out of these people, at the next table, in some generic coffee shop in barcelona's brand new airport wing(no pun intended), all super shiny floors, and over-priced generic coffee shops selling pastries well above the mark.
i was reminded of this following a tweet by that there david quantick about travel-taverns, and my own experience of meeting sales-reps over the years... i've stayed in a few travel-lodges over the years, strange familiar looking places, all brown and orange with oatmeal coloured carpets.
many years ago - i went for a job interview with a courier firm, and i was going to be working with the interviewer, a portly older-looking bloke, who had slept on a cot in his office for three months, trying to catch up on the work... the job was going to be 10 pm till 6 am... and despite them being keen to have me start right away, i got a better daytime offer, thankfully.

back to barcelona though... we'd just escaped the cultural madness that is BCN to find ourselves with an hour to kill in the departure lounge, and of course took to the well worn travel routine of taking the michael out of our fellow journeymen, for shits and giggles.
the businessmen in the photo were tucking germanically into beers and pastries at six in the morning... all dressed up with somewhere to go, still playing their arrogant office politic games with the airport people around them... and were slightly perturbed to find themselves being sniggered at by two tattooed scruff hillbillies(this is not the percieved wisdom of the cultural pecking order - mentally i suppose they were having us demoted to the postroom for six months... although i have worked in a postroom and it's not that bad a place to be...).
i kept having the specials song(see above) go around in my head... it reminded me of not long after i'd first heard the song, and i'd seen some businessmen in a restuarant, all walking timidly in single file, no one daring to take the step of breaking rank.
they did give us a few glances, and once they'd sussed out their powers weren't going to work on us went back to talking about mortgages, and projected business options, or some such guff(do tired businessmen dream of electric sleep?), and even we got bored and amused ourselves by taking photos of the napkin dispencer, as we concluded the character on it looked like a badly dressed transvestite.

autumn is the finest time of all

i was reminded of this fine tune(whilst browsing a forum i haunt), and it took me back to my 80's days in scotland, when i was living in kilmarnock or aberdeen....
walking around in oversized coats, with those fingerless gloves that fishermen wear, spending a lot of time getting back to nature in various woods, hanging around with new people(the taste of dandelion coffee springs to mind as a signifier of the new era... we were re-inventing our world), there was a feeling that the old world order had changed, and that something new was dawning, although to be honest it did feel more like a nuclear winter than autumn.
i was exploring new places and meeting the sort of people i wanted to hang out with, as opposed to those that fate had thrown my way.

one of those periods in life, when you throw off the shackles of who you used to be at school(or more likely - who you were told you should be), as i was starting to find myself... a scruffy indie-kid with a rockabilly hair-do, listening to winsome indie music, post punk hybrids and the polecats...

it really did feel like one long wintertime, that carried on forever.
bonfires in the woods, walking along deserted beaches, taking shortcuts across industrial wastelands, finding the abandoned cricket pitch in kilmarnock with it's 1940's buildings still intact but unused in decades, parents well out of the scene - as they busied themselves with being old and boring(i was working now, so no longer depended on the past to support me), reading futurist manifestoes, looking at european art and wishing i could be as savvy as modern french illustrators, punks from sink estates tearing it up whilst drunk on cider, rattling old buses with no heating and steamy windows, riding around on my bike in impractical clothing, wondering why all my friends were disapearing one after another into some strange nether world called "beyond the town".
i was a mobile urban dodger(as i-D called us), wearing 50's clothing, raincoats, avoiding anything remotely fusty, listening to new music... working as a graphic designer for the local council, always staying one step ahead of responsibility, always on the lookout for joy.

Days of speed and slow time Mondays -
Pissing down with rain on a boring Wednesday -
Watching the news and not eating your tea -
A freezing cold flat and damp on the walls - that's entertainment!

funny how wearing second hand clothes can seem like the future.

searching for the young soul rebels

Sir Galahad by Lord Alfred Tennyson

My good blade carves the casques of men,
My tough lance thrusteth sure,
My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure.
The shattering trumpet shrilleth high,
The hard brands shiver on the steel,
The splinter'd spear-shafts crack and fly,
The horse and rider reel:
They reel, they roll in clanging lists,
And when the tide of combat stands,
Perfume and flowers fall in showers,
That lightly rain from ladies' hands.

How sweet are looks that ladies bend
On whom their favours fall !
For them I battle till the end,
To save from shame and thrall:
But all my heart is drawn above,
My knees are bow'd in crypt and shrine:
I never felt the kiss of love,
Nor maiden's hand in mine.
More bounteous aspects on me beam,
Me mightier transports move and thrill;
So keep I fair thro' faith and prayer
A virgin heart in work and will.

When down the stormy crescent goes,
A light before me swims,
Between dark stems the forest glows,
I hear a noise of hymns:
Then by some secret shrine I ride;
I hear a voice but none are there;
The stalls are void, the doors are wide,
The tapers burning fair.
Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth,
The silver vessels sparkle clean,
The shrill bell rings, the censer swings,
And solemn chaunts resound between.

Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres
I find a magic bark;
I leap on board: no helmsman steers:
I float till all is dark.
A gentle sound, an awful light !
Three arngels bear the holy Grail:
With folded feet, in stoles of white,
On sleeping wings they sail.
Ah, blessed vision! blood of God!
My spirit beats her mortal bars,
As down dark tides the glory slides,
And star-like mingles with the stars.

When on my goodly charger borne
Thro' dreaming towns I go,
The cock crows ere the Christmas morn,
The streets are dumb with snow.
The tempest crackles on the leads,
And, ringing, springs from brand and mail;
But o'er the dark a glory spreads,
And gilds the driving hail.
I leave the plain, I climb the height;
No branchy thicket shelter yields;
But blessed forms in whistling storms
Fly o'er waste fens and windy fields.

A maiden knight--to me is given
Such hope, I know not fear;
I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven
That often meet me here.
I muse on joy that will not cease,
Pure spaces clothed in living beams,
Pure lilies of eternal peace,
Whose odours haunt my dreams;
And, stricken by an angel's hand,
This mortal armour that I wear,
This weight and size, this heart and eyes,
Are touch'd, are turn'd to finest air.

The clouds are broken in the sky,
And thro' the mountain-walls
A rolling organ-harmony
Swells up, and shakes and falls.
Then move the trees, the copses nod,
Wings flutter, voices hover clear:
'O just and faithful knight of God!
Ride on ! the prize is near.'
So pass I hostel, hall, and grange;
By bridge and ford, by park and pale,
All-arm'd I ride, whate'er betide,
Until I find the holy Grail.

my aim is true

thinking ahead here(ha! visual pun...)
i bought a hat, a real one.
been after one of these for a while now... keep seeing similar ones around that never quite reach teh target, this will do me just right(with a leather jacket for that cliched joe strummer look i enjoy...), get a hat, get ahead!
but i digress...
house move in motion soon, so i'm using that as a milestone of sorts, to put a few things to bed and strengthen other ideas i have been working on...
i'm plotting a book of photography - some of my best shots in one handy compendium, all sorted out, just have to sit down and work out which images to use, and in which order then send it off to the printer.
i'll be selling it around like a pimp, so keep 'em peeled.
i may invest in a printer to run off individual shots, this should be good as i get to see stuff on walls - there is a digital photography magazine which is campaigning for photographers to get back into printing again(as they say - we put the stuff up on the web, and stick it on cd's but never experience them in a frame... which is exactly what i'm guilty of...).
i plan to visit some dramatic locations next year - if there is time and such this year, i may fit in a weekend to some old seaside towns though...
the music is going to take a back seat to photography, i'm selling off old synths and guitars like nobody's business, although i will continue with the helvatones and record an album of bluesy stuff(working title memphis stew), featuring mainly hammond and bass/drums but precious little of my inept attempts at guitar(which i have been trying to learn all year....).
i will be stepping up the podcasts, with a good mix of rockabilly/blues/post-punk/dub-influenced sounds... this should be at least once or twice a month... i have a lot to say about music and some great material that deserves to be enthused about(i'm in an ian dury mood at the moment).
so the move, is a good point at which to finish/start ideas.
now about that hat...

this year's model

we are moving house.
i'll be offline at some point possibly for a few weeks, but this explains why i was keen(for once) to spend the afternoon in a housewares emporium(let's call it... ikea, fr'instance...), as well as the reason for a lot of creative downsizing in the last couple of weeks, as i gear up for this momentous up-heaval.
it was disorientating enough that we found ourselves in coventry - which makes you feel like you've wandered onto the set of here we go round the mullberry bush, but to visit this store is like stepping back into the 80's(of course, what would you expect).

i used to pour over a copy of the habitat catalogue that i had back in the early 80's... living in my parent's 70's decor was not good for a young man, i needed something modern to aspire to(even if that modern was tinged with a love of atomic fifties iconography), - all that ordered symmetry and red door handles was like manna from heaven amongst the late 60's furniture and council estate style of my home... habitat was all so thematic, unlike the mish-mash decade-blending(thank you douglas coupland) that my parents unwittingly indulged in - our next door neighbour's house was worse, with their tacky mock-baronial fireplace, replete with brass heraldic shields/swords and abigail's party furniture(the former i got into trouble dueling with and the latter which my mother trashed when she fell over at a party, one evening).
this house also had those staple 70's item: the yellow corner peice sofa, and cylindrical opaque orange standing lamps so beloved of play for today.
but, all that measured order and calmness in the habitat catalogue engaged me(this was when the conran empire was seen as something tastefull, not like today where they sting you £45 for some cardboard boxes with handles on them, etc...), and it was almost warhol-esque, the bright primary colours and stack 'em up, sell 'em off that spoke of happiness and bountiful supply(which was the general idea, to encourage you to buy lots).
admittedly, the only people i knew that owned this stuff were social workers, who wore green cords and had haircuts like mike reid, but we can all dream of our shangri la at least.
this particular shangri la in coventry however, smelled of burnt toast as we entered it's vast front door(on the way there i remarked how the building seemed to be sucking the life out of the nearby area), and the huge elevators were immediately off-putting, like the ones they have in some underground stations, and seemed to have no directions or info about them, it was merely a case of jump onboard.
upon arrival on the sixth floor, we were meeted&greeted by a smiling blonde girl who was handing out oversize shopping sacks(there's that illusion of choice, again), and it was only after i'd walked past, that i noticed she had very, very small arms, totally out-of-context with her body-size.
now this threw both of us out of sync for a bit, so slightly dazed we orienteered our way to the wardrobe section, following the handy map we were given(with it's shortcuts included for brevity)(now is it just me, or does it seem a little bit odd that you should need a map to get around a shop?), and i noticed a few times that there is a direction you have to walk round in... we'd invariably go against the tide, like salmon swimming upstream, only to be met with slightly surprised and almost offended little dry coughs(the english thing that english people do, to express annoyance and indignation)... i also noted the look on (mainly) men's faces, forced to walk round as their other-half's nesting instincts enthused to them about furniture you sit on or sleep on - but the menfolk sported a look that spoke of life slowly draining away from a tortured soul, or of a tired mind that wanted to be down the pub where all his mates were probably.
also interesting was also the amount of tattooes people had - even if they were mainly of the celtic-ibiza beckham-inspired tosh that says nothing about the person other than the fact that they have spent a bit of money on the tatt... designed to look good in the beer-garden in a sleeveless t-shirt... but not something i'd expect to see in this doyen of conformity.
the other half found all the little vignettes quite depressing(the pieces where they would have a whole room laid out like sets in a TV studio), they did have some sort of marie-celeste quality about them... although to me, it just brought back memories of the 80's habitat catalogue(see above), and it was quite easy to lose yourself in them, like wandering in and out of people's homes, through mysterious walls, like a ghost.
cutomers got quite avoricious though, and occasionally they would get a leather-jacket swinging accidentally in their direction if they got too close to where i was standing... there was certainly an air of desperation involved - although i was enjoying it all, finding the atmosphere quite entertaining(i don't think that was the idea though...), a bit like a contemporary museum, or more like stepping back into the 80's...
i found some of the ideas very tastefull, there's definately a 50's aesthetic to a lot of the furniture(despite the industrial 80's wire mesh and big red clocks)... i saw a few chairs that recalled Eero Saarinen, Charles and Ray Eames, Arne Jacobsen and Harry Bertoia... all very stylish and understated.
my favourite was the round dining tables with the moulded swivel chairs(that ITRW would last about a month), and plenty of low slung, close to the ground lounge furniture that was similarily inspired, although i never made it over to the moulded plastic orange coloured chairs that would have matched our 50's dining table.
we were however, only indulging in speculative consumption(to purchase that stuff from the website), so only bought a 50's inpsired throw for the sofa, but all-in-all not a bad concept for a day out(despite being amused at the caretaker nation aspects of the way people were co-erced into moving around the store).
not exactly relaxing though and the canteen was crap.
like a motorway self-service restaurant.
shame on you.