February 23, 2008
SPOON NEWS!
SPOON PLAY SCALA, KING’S CROSS, MONDAY 25th FEBRUARY 2008
The thought of once again being stood shoulder to shoulder with fellow Spoonocrats (Spoonatics?) cradling a pint, confident in the knowledge that I’ll know and like every single song the band play has sustained me through a black winter. Truly I am a small, nerdy man. I haven’t always got as much from Spoon gigs as I do from their records but last August at London’s Borderline was up in my top 5 gigs of all time, so my quarg-circuits are fizzing with anticipation! Haven’t been to The Scala for ages (last time was probably 10 years ago (!!) when, dressed as Ken Korda at the request of the band, I introduced Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci) but I remember it being a lovely venue. Will you be there? Buy tickets here
Here’s a bit of footage I shot of lead singer Britt Daniel before that Borderline gig on 17th August of 2007. When the band had finished their soundcheck Britt and I squeezed into the tiny dressing room backstage and I tried not to look too obviously over-excited as he played 3 songs for me: The Beast & Dragon Adored, Advance Cassette and this one, Black Like Me, the wonderful final song on their latest album Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga and one of my favourite Spoon songs ever! I’ll probably post the other two at a later date. You can read my fan review of the subsequent gig and more about how I got to film with Britt here.
In addition to the hand held camera that shot this footage I had a small digital camera on movie mode, taped to the wall shooting the performance as if from a webcam. The idea was to include it as part of my MeeBOX pilot somehow but in the final analysis this kind of musical performance just didn’t fit with everything else and for the sake of compromise we used an edited version of my video for Spoon’s Don’t Make Me A Target which I posted briefly last year then removed. I’ll repost that vid, along with loads of brand new bits from MeeBOX just before the pilot goes out in March (or early April).
Maybe see you Monday!
February 14, 2008
BUG 06 NEWS!
BOOK NOW TO AVOID CRUSHING DISAPPOINTMENT!
I know I only just dissected BUG 05 and BUG 06 isn’t until the end of March, but so many people have said they were unable to get tickets for the previous shows that I thought I’d give you an early heads up so you can’t say I didn’t tell you. You can book tickets here. Looking forward to seeing you already!
February 8, 2008
SON OF RAMBOW & OLD TOYMOVIE NEWS!
DIY MOVIE FUN & ‘SHINEY’
My friend Garth Jennings’s film Son Of Rambow is due for release in the UK sometime in the next few months. It’s about a couple of schoolboys who become friends while making a Rambo inspired action film in the early 80’s. As far as I can tell it’s got almost nothing in common with Michel Gondry’s forthcoming Be Kind Rewind, except that it features people using video cameras to ape Hollywood movies (which is what everyone does with a video camera at some stage, let’s face it). Anyway that link is enough for a trend to be spotted, hence this nice article in The Guardian today which gratifyingly namechecks me and Joe along the way and even quotes a couple of Joe’s toy movie lines! It makes me wish someone would pay us to make more of these. Of course, we could make them for free and put them on You Tube, but they take a while and we’ve got complicated grown up lives to maintain! If any eccentric millionaires with a penchant for 3 minute toy based remakes of popular films are reading, get in touch.
Here’s one of the toymovies I had more of a hand in, our version of Shine. Joe’s approach to the toymovies he took charge of like Toytanic and Saving Private Lion tended to be more deconstructive and straightforwardly, well, funny. I tended to go for more obscure choices and then just do a kind of weird infantile re-make which, looking back on it was sometimes missing the point. I think maybe Joe tried to tell me as much once or twice but I probably got defensive about it. I’m so much more mature now, as anyone who has heard my Song Wars sulks on our 6 Music show can attest! I still have a soft spot for this one though, despite the miss-spelling of ‘Shiny’ and the fact that the lovely all inclusive You Tube frame (which shows much more than a regular TV would) means that my hands are clearly visible in a lot of the shots.
FUN FACT: When we did Vinyl Justice with Gary Numan for The Adam & Joe Show we handed him a toy keyboard and he picked out the tune for ‘Cars’ on it while we were filming. We never used it in the piece but the audio turns up in this toymovie, so when you hear ‘Cars’ that’s genuine Numanoid fingerwork you’re hearing!!!
BUG 05 & ROEL WOUTERS VIDEOS!
HE ROELS!!!
Thanks to all of you who showed up to another sell-out BUG at the BFI/NFT on the south bank last Thursday. These are just about my favourite gigs at the moment and it’s always a really good crowd that comes along. It was another good evening with perhaps our best set of guests so far (with all due respect and deference to our previous guests who have all had their own special marvelosity!) I spoke to Phil Sansom and Olly Williams, the directing team known as Diamond Dogs who were fantastically nice, funny guys and to the Dutch artist Roel Wouters (pron. ‘Rool Vooters’) who struggled through my rambling interview in his second language so charmingly that everyone sort of fell in love with him. It didn’t hurt that the two examples of his work we showed that night (more or less his only forays into pop video thusfar) were a couple of absolute peaches. Check them out. Great tracks too! Here’s Roel’s You Tube channel and here’s Roel’s lovely website, both well worth a CSI style investigation. Book now for BUG 06 here!