Draw Serge

In case you don't know, there's a great blog called Draw Serge. I thought that, what with the film coming out and all, now might be a good time to share.

Basically, it's loads of talented people and illustrators drawing the wonderful Serge Gainsbourg, curated by the illustrator Jonathan Edwards (@jontofski on twitter). There are some great images on there. A new one I particularly like is:

Also look for the Felt Mistress 3d Serge. It's great! Makes me wonder whether we could set this as a challenge at the next Jumpers for Goalposts. I'll have to ask the team what they reckon!

I have also just done a Wordle. You probably know about these, but basically you put your blog/ whatever into it and it makes a little word picture of what you talk about. What I've learned is I say REALLY too too much.

You can click it to see it more clearly. To do your own go to http://www.wordle.net/.

Love Bex x

Truck Festival 13

Some weekends ago we all packed up the car and headed down to Truck Festival. Fists were playing, so Hello Thor was there in a loosely "official" capacity to see them & support them as their record label (and record label's wives!). Or we just wanted to hang out in a field for a bit and listen to music... same thing really.
We arrived later on the Saturday, so unfortunately missed our friends Spaceships Are Cool in the Beathive. It became clear over the weekend, though, that they must have been amazing, because loads of people kept coming up to them and congratulating them all the time. It was lovely.

Truck had a really nice feel as a festival. I don't quite know what I was expecting, but it was definitely smaller. We parked the car, walked to where we would pitch our tents, pitched and walked down to the main stage and that took about 30 minutes. 25 of which were spent pitching the tent. At Glastonbury you'd walk 30 mins from the car before you even got a glimpse of any festival action and the same for the distance from your tent to any music. It makes a really lovely, relaxing, refreshing change. The farm was lovely and felt like a real farm, not just a huge pitch for the festival. For example, The Barn (where Fucked Up and Miss Dynamite played) actually was a barn and actually smelled of cow poo.

Anyway, music-wise we saw a very few things that evening:
- A mild & gentle introduction to the festival from Stornoway
- A little whisper of Darwin Deez as we arrived
- Fonda 500 in the Village Pub late on (always fun)

That's pretty much all I remember... the rest of the time was spent hanging out, gassing, eating burgers from the Rotary Club, drinking booze, dancing a bit in the dance tent, watching Nick offend a middle-aged gentleman, wandering around. In some ways it was kind of nice to not have the distraction of too many music "must-sees" because it meant we got to spend time with friends and not just mission around seeing a million bands.

Sunday
Obviously we started the day with Fists in the Village Pub. They were awesome. Played some new songs which they've just recorded somewhere in Dalston including one of my new favourites "Ascending". It was great to see them in this lovely, friendly festival context, although a little early at 11.50am. Despite this "morning" slot they gathered a pretty decent crowd and many more were drawn in through the set, which is always nice to see.

We wandered around a fair bit and caught:
Danny & the Champions of the World - fun, big country band
The Flowers of Hell - space-rock orchestra supposedly, bit like film soundtrack music - nice, but not high impact enough at a festival I felt.
Fucked Up - we couldn't make it into The Barn (it was ALWAYS rammed in there), so we peeped in from the side of the stage. We could smell the cowshit still, but couldn't see a great deal of what was going on!
Phil Lee - Old country guy who really looked the part and you kind of felt like his whole life was acting the part too, so it was a good show. I especially liked it when he sang about a lady's ugly baby and told us all after it was Willy Mason.
Piney Gir's Country Roadshow - I was really excited about this having listened to her online and really liked the music. We even almost nearly booked her back in the day when we did Supernight. However, I found it a bit creepy - too much schtick, not enough music, like a country cariacature, all mime hands and big facial expressions.
The Epstein - lovely country(ish) harmonies
Unicorn Kid - Super cute young guy bouncing around and having the best time while people danced in a hot hot tent to his music. Will put up a bit of film.

I feel like we saw other stuff too, but I can't remember what. A lot of time was spent on the hunt for food. This would be my only recommendation for Truck... your toilets were clean and had paper at all times, I don't know how you did that, the beer came in compostable cups, the wine in the bar was cold and delicious... but there just wasn't enough nice food. Options were burger, chips, bacon sandwich, wrap, lentil dahl. I reckon a stall with some homemade soups, some stews, more cake etc would go down a treat.

Thanks to Truck from everyone at Hello Thor Records for a lovely weekend and to our lovely friends for making it ace.

Here's some pics:

Love Bex
x

Diane Arbus @ Nottingham Contemporary

Hello!

Last Friday Anders & I popped down to the exhibition opening for the new show at Nottingham Contemporary. I still really like that building, for me it has a slightly communist feel about the design and I really love the lace panels, such a neat idea to tie it in to the area and give some decoration to what is quite a harsh facade. Anyway, we went to see the new exhibition which is work by Gert and Uwe Tobias (Transylvanian twins - not to be confused with the Cheeky Girls) and photography by Diane Arbus.

I had mixed feelings about the Gert and Uwe stuff. I liked their colour palette and the graphic/illustration style feel of their work, but I really didn't like the figurative pieces. Here's how the Contemporary describes them:
Gert and Uwe Tobias’ large woodcuts, gouache paintings, typewriter drawings and ceramic sculptures combine influences from traditional folk art and abstract art from the early 20th century. Their vividly coloured images, objects and environments evoke a world that is hallucinatory and strange.
 I think maybe it's the "hallucinatory and strange" part that doesn't really appeal to me. I tend to dislike whimsy and surrealism and particularly find it difficult to respond to art which combines that with "a sense of humour". On the whole I love humour in art, but probably more when it relates to concepts, rather than funny pictures of funny looking people. It somehow feels linked with that sort of venetian carnival mask look and I'm not keen on that either. Anyway, here are a couple of examples:

(Thumbs down from me)

(images just seen - thumbs up from me!)

It's so hard to try and encapsulate your reaction to a piece of art, isn't it? I will definitely go and look at their work more and see if I feel differently. One thing I particularly liked was the hanging of their work and the transfer of small design elements from their pieces onto the walls of the gallery itself. It was only a small detail, but I think it really adds something interesting to the exhibition.

Anyway, the main reason I'm writing is to say that the Diane Arbus work was really inspiring and fascinating and enjoyable - I'd recommend a visit to see it. I love photography and it's not often you get an exhibition of this size and quality in Nottingham, so I hope it brings lots of people in. The Contemporary say:
Diane Arbus is one of the most important photographers of the twentieth century, an influential figure whose compellingly honest style of photography paved the way for the work of contemporary photographers and artists.
They are wonderful images from a specific period of history and a specific place. They have a distinctly Amercian feel and really capture some of the subcultures around at that time, as well as more general images of children, people in the park etc. This image is one you'll see a lot:

It really captures the humour and humanity of all of Arbus' work. We saw only half of her part of the exhibition and I can't wait to go back and see the rest. It feels like I have a real treat saved up.

Check this out! I just found it online! Me and Anders were wondering at the show whether anyone had done this exact thing:

Brilliant!

Her photographs have an amazing mood and quality to them, the tone of the black and white is beautifully dark and distinct. I'd love to know enough about photography to be able to use black & white like that. 

She works often with people on the fringes of society and her aim was to "photograph everyone". I really like that idea.

Here's one more image which I thought was really powerful and beautiful:

Hope you get to go see the show, and hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Becky

x

Today I have been mostly...

Being a bit distracted. I've been working from home and just found it really hard to get into the groove today. I've done some good stuff, but none of it came easy. What did come easy was:
- sneaking a peek at twitter
- joking around on email with the Jumpers For Goalposts super-team
- making cups of tea
- watching tv for 10 minutes too long after lunch (damn you Come Dine With Me!)
- making "to do" lists so I could tick things off
- popping out into the garden.

It was while doing the last one that I took a few snaps and found a new friend... a teeny tiny baby frog! He's super cute, about the size of a fingertip and we've christened him Bruce. Here are a few pics from the garden, and a blurry shot of Bruce:

Can you spot teeny weeny Bruce on the last one?

Bed time now. Don't forget, it's Jumpers for Goalposts @ The Alley Cafe tomorrow. Live music & craft fun.

See you there!

Bex

Music & Crafting

I've written about Jumpers For Goalposts on here lots, but in case you don't know what it is.... it's Nottingham's finest music & crafting evening, hosted by Hello Thor Records and starring an acoustic act, DJs, a creative craft competition and MEGA prizes (TM). This month the act is Jake Bugg. Come down to the Alley Cafe on the 3rd Thursday of the month and join in.

Here is the brand new, very exciting Jumpers For Goalposts blog. I recommend a visit:

http://thesecretdiaryofjumpersforgoalposts.wordpress.com/

And you can read more on LeftLion here: http://www.leftlion.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=21877.0

Love Bex
x

New obsession

Hi,

I've just started listening to a tune off the new LCD Soundsystem album and I'm obsessed with it already.

If I knew how to stream it on here I would... instead you can watch this performance from Jools Holland:



There's something really beautiful about this song, it's so fragile and open and then an amazing tune at the same time. It reminds me a bit of Hot Chip, but with a bit more confidence. There's something really compelling about the fact that it's being sung by a forty year old man with a slight paunch and his shirt untucked too. I really like the phrasing of the verses, the way the lyrics are like long sentences spread out over the melody. I feel like I've known this song forever and yet I want to play it all over again as soon as it finishes. In short, I'm a bit in love with this song. Shhh... don't tell Anders.

love Bex
x