Falling Sky

Never say never again

2013-06-17T21:43:30+01:00

Readers (I'm assuming there's more than one of you left) who've been around here for a while might, if they've got terrifyingly good and cavernous memories, remember me once upon a time selling artwork through Etsy. It went pretty well, I sold a fair few pieces and worked a couple of commissions, and all was peachy. Then, five years ago, Etsy introduced a new set of terms & conditions, with implications for life drawings (which make up the bulk of my work) and I threw a massive strop:

How dare they? How dare they insinuate that my drawings, my paintings are nothing but cheap titillation? That the years spent learning how to accurately depict the human body on paper or canvas was done with no higher purpose than giving someone an erection? And that most puritanically fucked-up and damaging concept of all that I've always railed against when it came to life drawing, that nudity = sex?

Ah, the righteous fury of youth! (Er, I was 31). Such was my rage, I shut up shop and went elsewhere, first to Dawanda, then to Big Cartel, both of which leading to exactly zero sales. Balls. After that, I just gave up on the thought that anyone might want to buy any of my artwork.

Then, a couple of weeks back, I was flipping through a portfolio case (trying to find some seemingly AWOL drawings), looked at some of my artwork and thought, hold the bus, these are pretty good! Why are they just sitting in this folder doing chuff all? Why not see if someone might like to buy these, with the proceeds going towards the Buy Jon A Graphics Tablet For Digital Artwork Fund?

Given my abject failure elsewhere, and the realisation that selling on my own would only reach an audience in the probable tens, I decided to pop back over to Etsy for the first time in five years and see if I felt any differently since my nudity nark. Turns out I do!

To be fair, things have changed. Those terms and conditions now require that work showing (let's get technical here) the genitals need to be marked as mature, so all of the topless/back view life pieces remain 'normal'. And while I still don't think there's anything inherently filthy per se about a full-frontal, I appreciate that this isn't a universal view - not only that, I also appreciate that there's plenty of artwork/photographs on sale via Etsy of the same subject that are clearly designed to titillate. Honestly, the results of a search on Etsy for artwork under the word 'nude' can be pretty depressing and pretty much puncture my righteous indignation of yore.

So, yup, here we go again. While the churn of products on Etsy make the browse function utterly, utterly useless, hopefully anyone interested in the pictures I do will bookmark my shop and pop by now & then. If nothing else, I'll chirp up on Facebook and Twitter now and then with links to newly added pictures, at least until people start calling me Spammy McSpamSpam. Also, the Etsy app works a treat and - big improvement this = artwork can now be priced in pound sterling rather than just US dollars.

And for anyone who's actually read through all of this and might be tempted to buy some original artwork, here's something for you - a discount code to get 10% off the listed price: MATESRATES10. Go! Browse! Buy! Thank you, come again!

Lasting Effects

2013-06-11T22:02:55+01:00

Plenty has already been written about the life and work of Iain Banks, who went away the Crow Road on Sunday, and there's precious little I could add (the finest eulogies have come from his fellow writers Brookmyre, Gaiman and Gillen). That said, there's one thing with his name on that's (quite understandably) been left unmentioned when looking back over his work, which means a fair bit to me, both for sentimental reasons and for the simple fact it's pretty darn good, despite being seemingly unheard of by most. It's no novel, no short story, not even a script - it's a compilation album.

Iain Banks' Personal Effects - the title itself takes on a slightly macabre edge now that he's gone, which would probably delight the man himself. I bought it, pretty much on a whim, from Forbidden Planet in Dublin back in the late 1990's. Having popped in to get my usual order, I remember there being a few CDs in this series on sale by the counter. This was EMI's Songbook Series, which according to Wikipedia consisted of 10 different compilations curated by different writers. I wish I'd paid them all more attention - apparently Hunter S Thompson did one, and there was definitely a Robert Crumb one in there shining spotlights on the old time blues he loves so much.

Still, it was Personal Effects that caught my eyes and ears. Firstly, that artwork, by long-time cover artist for Banks, Peter Brown, including a striking version of the Forth Rail Bridge on the back (never imagining I would end up crossing said bridge on a daily basis!). Then the intriguing track listing, with some tracks I knew & loved but didn't have (especially Bowie's Heroes) and a fair few that were new to me, not to mention a couple I probably would have automatically turned my nose up at on misguided principle (Jethro Tull, mainly). Finally, the fistful of liner notes from Banks himself, writing with passion about each track and music in general. Not great screeds - it's just a few pages, all in all - but when you've a way with words you can say a lot with little (something, alas, that I have yet to work out). As musical impulse purchases go, it turned out to be one of my better calls.

I used to be a terrible music snob... - Iain Banks

There's no obvious rhyme or reason to the tracks chosen for Personal Effects, beyond the simple fact that Iain Banks liked them (and they were on the EMI/Virgin catalogues). His complete disregard for following any particular zeitgeist or trend at the time was frankly startling to one who'd grown up on the sneers of the NME, desperately trying to like the right thing and turning my back on everything else I'd previously enjoyed (oh Pet Shop Boys, oh Billy Joel, why did I forsake thee?). Banks' choices presented a disparate collection of songs as equals, challenging you to accept them as such. Having never heard him before, Warren Zevon's The Factory blew my socks off, like some full-throated air-punching mirror to the blue-collar tragedy of Springsteen's The River, whereas Ivor Cutler and Devo left me bemused but open to persuasion (Cutler I grew to enjoy, still waiting for Devo). There was some splendid reverse-Emperor's-New-Clothes shit going on here, akin to Marc Riley lining up Britney Spears' Toxic alongside Can and Cardiacs. I would never have paid the slightest attention to a once-ubiquitous track like Sleeping Satellite by Tasmin Archer or Manchild by Neneh Cherry, but their inclusion made me remove my indie nerd blinkers and appreciate them for what they are - bloody good pop songs.

The sequencing was pretty sharp too, the whole album bookended by Mike Scott/Waterboys tracks, thoroughly uncool but, damn it all, they're good songs - Love You Anyway makes a rousing closer to the whole shebang. Having made oodles of obsessively-ordered mix tapes throughout teenhood, I like the rhythm of this compilation. Halfway through, the rapid barrage of Magazine suddenly gives way to Horse's sparse, dreamy, hold-your-breath Careful. Then Echo Beach glides in, sounding so much better for not being lost amongst commercial daytime radio shit, before The Ruts kick everything over with Babylon's Burning. Works like a charm.

No doubt I'm over-selling what is, essentially, a mix tape by someone who wasn't a DJ, or a musician, or even a music writer. But I think it stands as proof that he loved music, without prejudice or pretension, and did a grand job in teaching me to do the same, that the sky wouldn't fall for confessing your love of a mid-90s number one. And if I need another reason to savour that CD, it was the discovery, during our courting days, that then-Burd now-Wifey owned it as well, when seemingly no one else had heard of it. As Bagl grows, I desperately hope he'll read and enjoy Banks' books at an earlier age than I did (The Wasp Factory would have been manna from heaven for my grumpy, confused early teens, and if only I'd read Consider Phlebas at as young an age as Gillen), but perhaps he'll also give Personal Effects a listen now and then - if only for the dizzying thrill of Richard Thompson's good-god-how-did-I-live-so-long-without-hearing-this 1952 Vincent Black Lightning bursting out of nowhere.

Bagl listens

2013-06-04T21:53:21+01:00

As I said in my previous post, Wifey has pretty much got the Bagl blogging under control, with posts on his reading, eating, clothing - but if there's one subject I wanted to get my mucky mitts all over, it's writing about the music he listens to. All sorts of music gets played to him, not least through BBC 6Music being the general soundtrack to our daily lives, but every now and then there'll be music that he really responds to, really listens to. No doubt it's just a matter of time before he becomes obsessed with music targeted exclusively at children, which we'll have to listen to over and over and over and over and over and over and over... but for now at least he's only hearing what we play.

We've never been ones for the whole "classical music makes babies smarter" idea, especially as it's been pretty much scientifically debunked. Music selection has nothing to do with future development and everything to do with exposing him to sounds and rhythms that he might enjoy - like food, we want to make sure he gets to try a whole bunch of stuff before his tastes inevitably narrow to nothing but The Goddamn Wiggles. So here's a spotlight on what I think are his favourite album and single thus far, and possibly why.

FAVOURITE ALBUM

Land Observations - Roman Roads IV-XI

If this album has the same effect on other babies as it does on Bagl, it ought to be given to every new parent by law, or at the very least advertised as a drug-free substitute for Calpol. Ever since I first played it to him on a whim, it's become a sonic godsend for calming him down, catching and holding his attention and generally taking his mind off whatever was irking him. He really, really likes it, and it's now reached a point where he makes a happy noise just from recognising the cover art on the front of the iPod (plugged into speakers, I've not got him on headphones yet!) even before the music starts. Which probably begs the question from many of you - what is it?

Roman Roads IV-XI is the debut LP from Land Observations, otherwise known as James Brooks. Essentially it's that most maligned of things, a concept album, the concept being roman roads. Imagine a more pastoral Autobahn, the Tarmac and tyres replaced with dust tracks and horseshoes. Each of the eight tracks is an instrumental that wonderfully evokes the sense of travel in an earlier time. Via Flaminia could be the soundtrack to the steps of a pilgrim Canterbury bound, while Aurelian Way gently canters on horseback, a carriage wheel clicking. Then Appian Way moves up a gear and age, smooth, faster, petrol-fuelled on freshly laid A-roads, the closest to Autobahn in spirit, if not in sound. Sewn together by guitar loops and repeating melodies, it's an excellent collection of music that manages to stay consistent and true to the concept without ever feeling repetitive or samey. The album's actual release passed me by, so it was only when it cropped up in The Quietus' best of 2012 list that I first heard of it.

“That notion of momentum but also the poetry of it, if you have a certain kind of mindset you can’t help but be swept up in the evocative quality of it. I want to try and grapple with that in some way, the melancholic introspection that travel has.” - James Brooks

So what makes this Bagl's favourite album so far? Certain tracks have the ability to put him in some kind of mild trance, at the end of which he's quite delighted, even more so when he realises there's another song coming. It's that simplicity, the use of repetition and loops without becoming overwhelmed with layer upon layer of sound that I think he responds so positively to. I've tried Bagl on Kraftwerk, and although he didn't dislike it (he seemed rather taken with Tour De France) there's not the same attraction for him, possibly because there's just too much going on sonically. Land Observations, by contrast, feels more open, as though there's space between the sounds - you quickly lock onto the beat of each track and stay with it, enjoying the journey.

FAVOURITE SONG

James Blake - Retrograde

This was unexpected. We had 6Music on one day back when James Blake's Retrograde was on the regular playlist, and in the middle of something (a meal, I think) Bagl suddenly froze as that electrifying opening began, a moment of relative silence in the usual pleasing noise of music. He stayed pretty much transfixed all the way through, then smiling and making his happy noises right at the end. After he reacted similarly upon hearing it later on, we ended up adding the track to the start of his bedtime playlist, so he now gets to hear it every day, signalling the start of sleepy time.

Despite being altogether more electronic than the guitar loops of Land Observations, James Blake's music often shares that sense of sparseness, of space between the sound. Backed by a gorgeous vocal loop that opens, closes and whirls throughout the track, Retrograde has to be one of the best singles this year has to offer. It's that vocal loop that I think has Bagl so hooked, coupled with the gentle singing and (for the most part) sparse instrumentation. Again, I reckon it's music he can get a grip on, without a wall of sound to work through. Or maybe he just thinks it sounds nice, like I do. Either way, the boy done good.

Periscope up

2013-05-30T21:38:34+01:00

Quiet, isn't it?

Without meaning to, and not for the first time in the last decade, this blog's gone into sleep mode over the last few months. I would blame being trapped in the time distortion field that surrounds babies - you know, the one where you look up and realise this isn't the month you thought it was - but Wifey's been blogging away like a star despite being caught in the same toddler temporal flux. It's reached a point where I either write a post or pull the plug. And despite the temptation (there's a post in draft called TTFN) I'm not quite ready to let the sky fall on this little corner of the net just yet. So what's been going on?

Bagl! (Time distortion field not shown)

Well. Since February I've compressed my working week into three days so I can look after Bagl every Thursday and Friday. That's right - three days at work, four days off. Now that's a work/life balance. It's a great opportunity to spend time with my son, and I know I'm damned fortunate to be in a position where I can afford not to work 5 days a week. Whatever regrets I have in the future, I'm determined to make sure that missing out on his growing up isn't one of them.

That said, it's also profoundly knackering. My 'work' work days are extra long to make up for the shortened week without reducing my contracted hours, and anyone who's cared for a baby on their own knows that brings its own special kind of exhaustion, the way you can never just sit back and relax (except for blessed, blessed naptime) and you're never alone. It's a relief when the weekend comes and we're able to share the happy burden.

Of course, daddy daycare could be prime blog fodder, if only to counteract the pervasive image of men being utterly incapable of looking after a baby on their own (I've been doing this for three months now, and he's still alive). But to be honest there's so much to fit into what very limited free time is left nowadays - and as anyone who's read this far will have noticed, I take far too long to say far too little. Besides, Wifey is doing a much better job of blogging about Bagl than I would, and I'd hate to find myself oversharing Bagl's childhood across the unforgetting Internet. I trust Chatiry to find the right balance, not myself.

Still, while last year just seemed to be utterly consumed with work, baby and what sleep there was to be had, it's now not so overwhelming. Evening time isn't spent trying to get Bagl to sleep for hours - more often than not he drops off as soon as he's in the cot - or cleaning & sterilising 6 Dr Brown bottles (my god, I do not miss those blasted things) But now that I've got this precious time, I'm spending too much of it just consuming - other people's writing (be it blog posts, Twitter, journalism or literature), other people's creativity. Even when I have blogged in the last year, more often not its ultimately been about extolling the virtues of something someone else has done, rather than an original thought of my own. Nothing wrong with that per se, but I shouldn't kid myself that such amateur criticism is a form of creativity in its own right. Surely I'm capable of more than just that?

There's an element of mortality to all this reflection. It's been so, so, so easy to let evenings vanish online, catching up on Twitter, the day's blogposts, all those articles waiting to be read on Pocket, and repeat (at least I've shaken loose of the annoying timesuck of Facebook, increasingly mirroring Myspace just before the fall). In a way it's satisfying, easy to feel that you've done something worthwhile in that time by learning/seeing/hearing something new, but I've increasingly felt that I'm just kidding myself, taking the easy way out - it's so much easier to consume than create. It's understandable - after working loooong days at the office, or looking after a teething sprog, who wants to challenge themselves further once downtime finally comes?

But again I imagine those deathbed regrets, those moments before a hopefully painless and shrapnel-free death. Whatever happens, I'm not going to wish I'd spent more time on Twitter, on blogs, on YouTube, on DVD boxsets. I know I'll rue that time, time that could have gone towards creating something new rather than churning through a never ending stream of other people's own thoughts, opinions and work without adding anything myself. I need to make more of an effort to make my own art, my own content, put whatever skills and ideas I might still have to use, rather than just lie back and enjoy (or, more likely, skim through) the fruits of someone else's labour.

So that's what's going to happen, hell, what is happening. I've a fistful of unfinished creative business from the last decade that I've never managed to forget. It's work that no one is waiting for, no one is expecting - I'm deliberately keeping shtoom about the specifics to everyone but the Missus so I can find my own pace, my own speed, and if I fail at least I'll fail in private. Of course, it doesn't change the fact that my priorities remain family first, paid work second, creative stuff a distinct third, but by getting a better grip on my time, I'm finally starting to work out how to fit them all into my life. Even if the projects I'm working on all come to absolutely nothing - a very distinct possibility - there's a thrill just in trying, in doing, dusting down parts of my brain that have laid dormant for so damn long.

The blog's not going anywhere just now, and I've a few posts waiting to be scrawled, but things are still likely to be pretty quiet until I've got something final to show. Being creative again, properly creative for the first time in years - it's scary, empty page scary, but by god it feels good to be thinking like this again. I don't intend to waste it.

Walking the Walk

2013-03-10T21:42:27+00:00

I've never been one for playing games on the touchy Spod, despite buying a fair few on recommendations. I'll buy them full of good intentions for playing en route to work, but then I find myself catching up on reading via Byline or Pocket and all of a sudden the commute is over.

Still, a few exceptions have managed to temporarily turn my head from blogposts and articles. Super Hexagon is a dizzying headrush of a game, each play lasting mere seconds rather than minutes - simple yet infuriating, it's maddeningly compulsive until the point where your eyes & brain stop cooperating and curl up into quivering balls. Even watching the trailer is likely to make your head squirm, and bear in mind this is in-game footage...

For a while I was hooked on Dark Meadow, a stunningly designed sort-of-survival-horror with the best voice acting I've heard in a game for years and a fascinating storyline unfolding as you play. Alas, the combat - of which there is plenty - got a bit repetitive after a while, and following a switch to freemium (it originally cost four quid!) it feels harder to progress without shelling out more real-world cash to buy fictional objects. That said, the good still outweighs the bad, and I enjoyed immersing myself into a strange spooky story that revealed its hand little by little. More of this sort of thing, thought I, if only with more exploring and less hack/slash/hack/slash.

Then I rather gave up on iOS gaming, apart from the odd brief hit of Super Hexagon. There they sat, games like GTA3, Dead Space, Puzzle Craft, Worms 2, The Incident, just waiting to be played - why buy any more until I've done so? So away from the App Store I stayed... until... this.

I first read about Simogo's Year Walk on TUAW a couple of weeks ago. Even though I normally wouldn't pay much attention to game reviews, my interest was grabbed first with a beautifully designed image of an old Scandinavian house in a snowy wood (right), more storybook than screenshot, then by a review which was clearly doing its best to enthuse wildly about a game while giving as little away as humanly possible:

...the whole tone of the game is serene, mysterious and vaguely creepy. Year Walk is an experiment in using the iPhone's touchscreen interface to immerse you in a feeling, in a mood [...] I'm still sort of reeling from my experience with Year Walk -- I haven't yet finished the game by a long shot, but even the little time I've spent with it so far has left me with a huge, great impression. This is a very, very artful and well-designed project [...] Definitely don't miss out, but do enter into it with an open, ready mind.

The icing on the cake was the fact they'd even produced a free companion app to the game acting as a primer to the seriously unsettling Swedish folklore that fills the story to the game (such as Mylings).

At £2.49 for both game and companion, I decided to give Year Walk a shot. Installed, I loaded it up one evening, popped some headphones on, and...

OOH.

Immediately it's clear you're getting into something special, devoid of menus, instructions or even a visible avatar for yourself (the only indication of your existence is the sound of footsteps crunching through snow as you turn and move). At first it does indeed feel more like a storybook, albeit the kind that wouldn't get read to Bagl for a fair few years yet, but through trial and error you discover the purposes behind the game as it unfolds beautifully in front of your eyes.

And Year Walk really is beautiful, in a cold, subtle, almost dreamlike way. Muted colours, sometimes almost monochromatic, create a powerful atmosphere of tense silence. There's some superb imagery in this game that wouldn't look out of place on the printed page or an animated short. Similarly, the sound design is excellent, with just the right amount and type of music to complement the story and build on the atmosphere. Aside from Dark Meadow, I've not seen anything remotely like this on the App Store before. Just look at the Games page and the onslaught of primary colours and cartoon nonsense - Year Walk stands out like a particularly fascinating sore thumb. Frankly, even if the game itself was godawful, I'd have been happy enough just to soak up the spooky visuals and sounds.

Thankfully, it is a good game. It's a game of exploration and puzzles, the kind where you'll want a notepad and pen to hand, the kind where you'll often find yourself on the verge of popping on to the internet to find the solution until, just before you do, it clicks - and, oh, the satisfaction when it does. Little details count, but aren't handed to you on a platter - this is a game that rewards attention, and gives no quarter to those expecting a quick snappy fix of fun. Don't load this up for a quick 10 minute game - make time for it and let yourself be drawn into this increasingly unsettling world. I did try playing it while commuting, but literally found myself continuing to play once off the train and walking to my destination (miraculously not walking into lampposts/falling down manholes in the process, but it felt ridiculous all the same).

To say anything more runs the risk of spoilers - and the less you know about Year Walk before going into it, the better it is. The only proviso to that is reading the companion app, which gave context to the increasingly bizarre imagery (that horse in a river, for example) which doesn't spoil things in the least. Indeed, I'd say it's actually essential to have if you want to fully experience Year Walk - in a way I'd certainly not expected when the game started.

The only downside, if there is one, is that Year Walk is a game very much suited to playing at night, preferably in the middle of winter, yet the nights are getting noticeably shorter at this time of year. That said, it's snowing out there as I type, and when I took a walk in the local countryside earlier today I couldn't hear the crunch of my own footsteps without Year Walk coming back to me. Like any good story, it lingers in the subconscious after the end, never quite letting go. Highly recommended - and beware the Church Grim.

Talk about the Blues (Brothers)

2013-03-08T21:12:39+00:00

A couple of months old it may be, but I only just read this enjoyably compulsive account of the making of The Blues Brothers by Ned Zeman in Vanity Fair. 5 pages long and worth every word.

...Aykroyd spends his free time speeding through outskirts and befriending coroners. Belushi, being Chicago’s favorite son, does anything he wants. Everything about him—his lunch-bucket charm, his utter lack of pretense—makes Belushi a figure of such resounding local popularity that Aykroyd calls him “the unofficial mayor of Chicago.”

A trip to Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs, boggles [John] Landis. “Like being with Mussolini in Rome,” he remembers. Belushi, having entered one of the stadium’s crowded bathrooms, smiles and shouts, “O.K., stand back!” Everyone retreats from the urinals. Belushi does his business. Then, zipping his fly and beaming, he says, “O.K., back you go!”

“John would literally hail police cars like taxis,” Mitch Glazer says. “The cops would say, ‘Hey, Belushi!’ Then we’d fall into the backseat and the cops would drive us home.”

[...] The film’s budget is $17.5 million, then an expensive proposition, particularly for a comedy. Or whatever it is. Nobody quite knows. There’s comedy and lots of it. There are car chases and crashing helicopters. But all of the above revolve around four giant song-and-dance numbers, each starring a different music giant: Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, and Cab Calloway. Not to mention the performances by Jake and Elwood.

“You could tell there was confusion,” Landis says. “I told some of the crew, ‘This is a musical.’ They were so confused. They didn’t know what the fuck they were making.”

[...] One night at three, while filming on a deserted lot in Harvey, Illinois, Belushi disappears. He does this sometimes. On a hunch, Aykroyd follows a grassy path until he spies a house with a light on.

“Uh, we’re shooting a film over here,” Aykroyd tells the homeowner. “We’re looking for one of our actors.”

“Oh, you mean Belushi?” the man replies. “He came in here an hour ago and raided my fridge. He’s asleep on my couch.”

Only Belushi could pull this off. “America’s Guest,” Aykroyd calls him.

“John,” Aykroyd says, awakening Belushi, “we have to go back to work.”

Belushi nods and rises. They walk back to the set as if nothing happened.

It has a happy ending, until you remember what happened next. Read while listening to some of the greats, then follow with Strand Of Oaks's remarkable Daniel's Blues, the saddest song you'll ever hear written from the perspective of Dan Aykroyd.

Daniel's Blues by Strand of Oaks

Playing with fire

2013-02-14T20:02:49+00:00

This morning's commute to work was made infinitely more exciting by listening to The Knife's Full of Fire. It's the first track to appear from their whopping new album, Shaking The Habitual, not due for another two months. In the meantime, this will do very nicely.

As you can see up yonder, Full Of Fire clocks in at 9:16 and immediately strikes a harder, more aggressive tone than their earlier work (think a more discordant We Share Our Mother's Health rolling downhill in a shopping trolley). Insistent beats yank you to the dancefloor, only for increasingly distorted voices to scare you off it. Throughout, things stay tense, wide-eyed and unpredictable. Background music it ain't, but playing this while doing anything instantly makes it an edgy thrill, like you're up to something shifty and sinister. Even if it's the washing up.

It took a few listens before it clicked with me, in doing so demonstrating the ongoing importance of a radio station like BBC 6Music. Marc Riley, in particular, has a real Peel-like knack for championing the more... challenging tracks that can take time to win you round, making use of having a four-nights-a-week show to persist bringing new music past that first what-the-hell-was-that phase. Much the same happened with We Want War by These New Puritans, a startlingly complex, unsettling and long piece of music that sounded like nothing else out there on its release. As with Full of Fire, We Want War did absolutely nothing for me the first couple of plays but, with Riley's persistent championing of the song, it eventually clicked to such an extent that it was one of my favourite songs that year. Instant gratification through Spotify, Soundcloud, iTunes and Emusic is all very well, but there's still very much a need for DJs like Marc Riley, Tom Ravenscroft, Mary Anne Hobbs (all to be found on 6Music) who know that sometimes the very best music doesn't always grab you by the lapels and give you a great big kiss. Sometimes music that on first listen leaves you cold needs time to slide under your skin and never let go.

Life, Death and Dadness

2013-01-13T11:22:12+00:00

Audrey with toes and wrist bent, 2011 - Nadav Kander

It's been way, way, way too long since I last did any life drawing, and by god I miss it. While I wait for the opportunity to start again, it's good to see the work of others trying to capture the human form in a way that is neither lecherous nor tedious. As such, I was impressed by the ten photographs of nudes by Nadav Kander posted by the Guardian on Friday to accompany an exhibition of Kander's latest work (and, in their infinite wisdom, enabled comments - as always, best avoided). While the accompanying copy lays it on a bit thick - "nudity never loses its power to shock"? Really? - the images themselves are fascinating. All too often you'll see paintings striving to look like photographs, rarely vice versa, yet when you first look at these it's actually a bit of a struggle to compute the knowledge that they're not paintings, that these are not figures rendered in oils or pastel, but flesh and blood (particularly that first image). Pale skin blindingly white surrounded by darkness, monochrome but for red hair. Striking, beautiful, I love how these images capture the human body in a way that is both warts-and-all real (a la the paintings of Lucien Freud) and ethereal, like white chalk on black paper, dead and alive. Could've done without the chicken drumstick, mind.

I've blogged before about the wonderful Maurice Sendak and, on top of his exceptional body of work, what a delight he was to listen to in interview. Right at the end of 2012, the New York Times uploaded this wonderful 5-minute video, which takes an excerpt from an interview Sendak gave in 2011 to Fresh Air on NPR where he discusses his mortality, his atheism and the sadness of seeing friends go before him, depicted with simple but charming illustrations from Christoph Niemann. It's incredibly moving, and I cannot recommend it enough - please, do find 5 minutes to play this, but not in public. Every sentence is precious, heartfelt and raw, awash with emotion and sincerity, and I swear within 4 minutes I was in tears. His voice, oh god...

James Kochalka's sketchbook diaries came to an end on New Year's Eve - two weeks on, I still miss those daily glimpses of life and imagination, but I completely understand why he's chosen to move on after so many years (the first strip in volume 1 of the collected diaries is from 26 October 1998). Somehow I imagine rereading them now I'm a parent will add a new dimension to his more family-centred strips - just two weeks before the diaries came to an end, his strip for 16 December resonated a hell of a lot with me, given my abject failure to be an artist (unlike Kochalka himself). I'll probably print it out, pin it up and bash myself round the head with it the next time I'm bemoaning my (lack of) professional lot. Maybe it seems a self-evident message, that being a great Dad would be achievement enough, but it still means a lot to see it captured so simply. To the Elf himself, I would say thanks for keeping up that daily discipline for so long, and all the best for the future - you've been more of an influence than you'll ever know, and not just because I'll never look at a paddling pool the same way again.

Big in Japandroids

2013-01-06T06:36:37+00:00

"Remember saying things like 'We'll sleep when we're dead'/ And thinking this feeling was never going to end?"
- Younger Us, Japandroids

Japandroids @ Crowbar 11.28.12 - photo by Nicole Kibert

I always enjoy Best Of lists on music blogs at the end of the year. While it can be tempting to get bogged down in arguing about who's placed where (for my money any list that didn't have The Seer as #1 was utterly utterly wrong) they're best approached as helpful spotlights on releases that passed you by the first time round. The first monthly Emusic sub after the lists go up is always a treat, as I follow up some of those recommendations and, more often than not, find a few to be my favourite albums of the passing year.

Last month was no exception, as I nerdishly studied the best ofs at The Quietus, BBC Music, Line of Best Fit, Pitchfork and Drowned in Sound, along with Emusic's own. One album that cropped up a couple of times was Celebration Rock by Japandroids, a two-man band I'd never heard or heard of before. Still, at 8 tracks it was a cheap buy (£3.36 on Emusic, £4.72 on Amazon), with an enticing review from the former promising:

"With just a guitar and a drum kit, meanwhile, the lifelong friends generate enough heat and momentum for an entire E Street band. Songs surge forward recklessly, explode, and then plow forward again."

Besides, any band that covers Mclusky can't be bad, right?

Thankfully Celebration Rock is an album that lives up both to the reviews and its own title. A million miles away from sneering indie, wistful shoegazing or detached dreampop, this is rowdy raucous rock, blazing with passion. It's way too heartfelt, too desperate to be mistaken for frat-boy rock - this is music for roaring in basement clubs, not stadiums, fists in the air, all sweat and smiles, hollered until hoarse - "we yell like hell to the heavens! HEY!"

Track after track of breathless rock hits hard, like The Hold Steady at their loudest or The Replacements at their wildest. It's such a thrill to hear, to feel this music quicken the pulse and gladden the heart. Every song's a treat, with the opening salvo of tracks particularly blistering. Even so, the album's highlight is the penultimate track, The House That Heaven Built, exploding with affirmation, a sonic bearhug of support and belief - "When they love you and they will/ (And they will!)/ Tell 'em all they'll love in my shadow/ And if they try to slow you down/ (Slow you down!)/ Tell 'em all to go to hell!" YES! PUNCH THE SKY AND MAKE IT SHATTER!

Little wonder I've been playing it on a daily basis for the last week - it makes the dullest of domestic duties altogether more enjoyable. At 36 minutes it's over all too quickly, though any longer could've been downright exhausting. Not only that, it's the perfect length for my morning commute, the closing fireworks spluttering just as the train pulls into Waverley, giving the first working day of the year a much-needed kick up the arse. HEY!

You've come a long way, Bagl

2013-01-02T13:57:40+00:00

Predictably, 2012 was completely and utterly dominated by our wee little Bagl, to the extent that there's not really anything else to remember from the last 12 months apart from baby stuff and work (oh, and good music, which thankfully remains a constant). No films, no concerts, very few books (Penelope Leach aside), no trips away (an overnight stay at Kirkcaldy Hospital waiting for the boy to appear really doesn't count). Still, it's not every day you bring a new Nagl to the world.

So I'd started writing a post on New Year's Eve looking back over the last 9 months or so, but every time I read it back the words seemed useless, pompous and inadequate, all at the same time. So, taking a leaf from Wifey's book, here's a selection of pictures of Bagl from 2012, with a few brief (well, that's the plan) written memories to go with them. Should you be indifferent or repelled by baby photos, go no further. I won't be making a habit of this sort of thing, honest...

March, 3 hours old

He was so small, so vulnerable, so terrifying. He was passed to me in the operating room, all bloody and new. I held him awkwardly in my arms, shaking with lack of sleep, anxiety and a dizzying intoxicating love.

April

A few weeks later, we were told that an initial test of Bagl's blood had tested positive for cystic fibrosis. It's the sort of two-word condition I knew nothing about, save that it was bad in some way. Reading the symptoms made my insides feel like caving in, the words "life expectancy" making me convulse with tears, although subsequently watching this video made a huge difference in picturing what his life could be like, that it wasn't an immediate death sentence or even close. For a few days we clung to each other, trapped in some dreadful quantum superposition, imagining our future lives if it was or wasn't true, as we waited for the results of a second, more focused test to come back. They finally did, the negative result excitedly given down the phone as soon as it was in the health worker's hands, all the contingency plans we'd made over the weekend dissolving with relief into nothingness. We sometimes think of our alternate universe selves, coping with a second positive result and all that would have meant. We hope they're okay.

May

His first month was insular, as though he should still have been in the womb he'd been pulled from, though little by little he showed awareness of the world around him. First our eyes, our faces, then those of others, then odd little details he would lock onto - the warning label on the inside of his car seat, the mobile above his changing table, the green ring on the toy dangling above his seat in the kitchen. In May he became noticeably more interested in the world, eyes wide and shining even while his limbs moved slowly, jerkily, like a tentative puppet, all squeaks and hiccups. In those early weeks I kept thinking of the creature from Eraserhead, and how that film finally made a fucked-up sort of sense through the lens of early parenthood.

June

For the first month there's no positive feedback - the baby either cries or doesn't cry, although sometimes we'd see him smiling in his sleep, as though his face was trying out expressions during downtime. Then the smiles and the laughter came, along with odd little chirps and "ohs". Soon it became clear there were particular things that amused him, a list which has changed and grown immeasurably since - right now, high on the list is: the pips on Radio 4, me blowing my nose; playing a music box (one from our friends that plays the theme from Amelie is his absolute favourite); watching the BOINC screensaver; any kind of *kling* *klang* *ting* noises (wedding ring against glass works well); track 2 from the Rastamouse album (when we sing along); very slowly playing This Little Piggy and very quickly playing Row, Row, Row Your Boat; and, brand new today, the word "plumbum". And, of course, bouncing. Lots of bouncing. His smile is full and wide, Totoro-like, and lifts my heart when I come home after work and he gives me a great big grin, while his laughter goes from little giggles to whoops and shrieks. It, and he, was so worth the wait.

July

Not a great picture - he looks like a right bruiser - but I hardly took any in July. Still, it does show him really getting to grips with his baby gym. It's a splendidly hardy wooden one from Hape, which I only became aware of after a friend in America posted a link to it, and I was glad to see it was also available in the UK. It's simpler and less garish than the many plastic baby gyms out there, but Bagl has certainly found it a joy, from the early days when he would stare up into the dangling mirror, moving his head left and right as though he was still developing stereoscopic sight, to even now when he uses it as a place to lean against while upright - and, when teething, to give the red ring at the top a damn good gnaw. In the times between, it was fascinating to see him becoming more engaged with the gym, reaching out and grabbing, increasingly enthusiastic and co-ordinated.

August

I wasn't sure what to expect when it came to reading - I wanted to read to Bagl from as early an age as possible, but he didn't seem interested in the early black and white baby books we showed him. Turns out he just needed a bit of time. This cloth book, sent over by our friends in Belgium, was an early success as he could look at the pages, grab them in tiny fists and shove it into his mouth with more ease than a chunky board book. As he's grown more used to reading, he's clearly got into turning the pages (hence the need for board and cloth books just now - he's not got the subtlety yet for paper) and already has particular favourite books. Top of the chart is a biiiig board book of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, followed by Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See (he's clearly an Eric Carle fan) and Monkey & Me, with Where's Spot moving up the charts these last few weeks, and Goodnight Moon now part of his bedtime routine. Wifey has already started blogging about the books he's reading and I'm sure there'll be plenty more this year.

September

See what I mean about that smile? And it's got wider - and toothier! - since.

September

I was amazed that in less than half a year he could go from being a tiny, helpless little creature, utterly lost in itself, to being - well, this. So exuberant, so happy to engage with the world and with people, I swear he's already got better social skills than me. If the above photo had a title, it would simply be "WAHEY!"

October

November

We started offering Bagl 'real' food just as he was coming up to 6 months, and he's been doing brilliantly ever since. Unlike the clichéd image of purees and spoon feeding, we've gone down the baby led weaning route and it's worked a treat. He's tried everything that's been plonked in front of him, from steamed vegetables to roast potatoes, cheese & spinach muffins (see above) to juicy chunks of lamb and steak, sweet potato & black bean mash to porridge on spoons (which he feeds himself with, normally caking his face with mushy oats in the process). He even cheerfully chowed down some black pudding while visiting family just after Christmas, so already he's more adventurous than most adults I know. It's a profoundly messy business, no doubt about that, but if it means he grows up with an open mind and an appetite for a variety of food, it'll be worth every last crumb.

New Year's Eve

And just to wrap the year up, Bagl started crawling forwards in December - then decided this wasn't enough, and has required us to support him as he walks around the home. Each hand gripped onto one of our fingers as he became, over just a matter of days, increasingly sure-footed and steady with bipedal location (though on laminate flooring he still has a hint of the wobbly drunk). For Christmas, one of his grannies got him the above, a toddler wobbler from Brio. And after just a few days of that, he's sometimes able to get from one side of the room to the other without needing any support from us, though he's not yet got turns or picking himself up worked out yet and he's still insisting on walking around the place, supported by us. Even so, bets are now being placed on when he takes his first steps. Good grief. I thought we had more time!