Posted: July 1st, 2008, by Ollie
Just stumbled across these amazing snaps of an amazing gig I attended last month…
The gig was Texas/LA/Brussels duo Stars of the Lid at St. Giles-in-the-Fields church in London. Prior to this I was feeling pretty down on bands/live music in general, but I left the church on a cloud of delirium. Their set was like seeing your life flash before your eyes in the moment before you die, but stretched out over an hour and a half. Staggeringly beautiful.
What made the gig even more special was Lichens, the solo project of Rob Lowe of 90 Day Men. Real minimal vocal stuff with a bit of guitar that, over 30 minutes, whirled into a climax that left the whole crowd literally speechless as Lowe wandered down the center aisle and out of the door, still whispering his echoed mantra. Since this gig I haven’t been able to get enough of his recorded stuff, specifically Omns and The Psychic Nature of Being, both available from Kranky.
Opening the gig was the ever-wonderful James Blackshaw. He has a new album out on Tompkins Square which, if it’s half as good as the last one, will be a total belter. An incredible evening, and certainly the musical highlight of my year so far.
[Photos courtesy of Adrian Nettleship/Miles of Smiles]
Filed under: live reviews, photography | 3 Comments »
Posted: April 15th, 2008, by Stan Tontas
In the pub last Sunday we found a fantastic mock-tourist guide to Glasgow. It’s so well-designed and understated that we spent the first 5 minutes outraged at the latest Council-sponsored tack.
Foreigners might be unfamiliar with the laughable Scotland with style rebranding / gentrification campaign underway here, much to the amusement of your actual Glaswegians. A black & white photo campaign, much vapid posturing and no recognisable link to everyday life, it’s the public face of an attempt to remake the city as a short-break / conference destination. Thus we have litter wardens dressed as police, sub-Bladerunner video advertising and bouncers repelling the goths from steps at the back of a famous bookchain. A nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there.
What The Caravan Gallery have done with their garish and glossy Glasgow – It’s so stylish! is skewer those pretensions quite nicely while at the same time celebrating a more “authentic” (yuk) Glaswegian style. Instead of dribbling on about modern architecture they say “Glasgow has a lot of different buildings”, under a photo of the Norfolk St flats and the accompanying slum-clearance survivor. Not pretty but very Glasgow.
The whole thing could have been just a bitter joke but there’s a sense of affection for the people of Glasgow. No resort to the easy neds-&-knives clichés, the targets of the satire are them as need their pretensions punctured: “A dead conifer adds the finishing touch to this ‘aspirational lifestyle’ balcony” of 1.5 square metres. While at the same time, they’ve picked out the scruffy, unashamed but under threat areas like Paddy’s Market: “This is not ordinary soup, this is Hell’s Kitchen soup”.
Try and get hold of a copy (maybe from these guys), it’ll tell you more about Glasgow than a hundred billboards or gritty exposés.
Filed under: art and design, photography | Comments Off on Glasgow – It’s so Stylish!
Posted: April 9th, 2008, by Chris S
Just when you thought Flickr couldn’t get any more addictive or time-consuming, the bastards have added a video function which is amazing. They’ve limited things to 90 secs to give the Flickr videos a feel of moving photographs and give an excellent place to upload stop-frame animations or quick movies you might have filmed on your digital camera.
I put a load up today that have been clogging up my hard drive:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sumlin/sets/72157604455376098/
Obviously it’ll bury Flickr under the weight of German Fetish Porn in about a fortnight but it’s a good idea nonetheless.
Filed under: film and video, photography | Comments Off on Flickr Video
Posted: March 31st, 2008, by Chris S
Just got back from a week in a van with Bilge Pump and the other Lords. I’ll spare you a lengthy tour diary and instead point out that if you want to see 8 people slowly crumbling then I’ll stick a few photos up every day over here at my Flickr site:
www.flickr.com/photos/sumlin
If you took any pics of any of the gigs then let me know or email me them or something and I’ll stick them up.
Filed under: all about us, photography | Comments Off on Gringo Tour
Posted: March 11th, 2008, by Chris S
I got a new point-and-shoot digital camera for Xmas. I was always a little shutter-happy anyway (my Flickr page has far too many photos on it) but getting to grips with this one has meant a couple of day trips in 2008 already and it’s still winter.
Wollaton Park in Nottingham: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sumlin/sets/72157604088758388/
Rutland Water: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sumlin/sets/72157604054833088/
Filed under: all about us, photography | Comments Off on Pictures for you to look at
Posted: March 7th, 2008, by Chris S
Sam McPheeters has a Flickr page full of his 0.33 megapixel cameraphone snaps. Here are 3 at random:
Quaint Drive Vs. Obvious Roadrunner Gag
Satan Demands To Know Why You Thought You Could Trick Him
Watermelon Opts Out
http://www.flickr.com/photos/15087810@N02/
Filed under: photography | Comments Off on Embittered yet humorous man offers joy through lo-resolution photographs
Posted: May 6th, 2007, by Marceline Smith
Yesterday was 05/05 and Flickr organised a 24 Hours of Flickr event. Everyone was invited to take photos of their day and post the best one in the group pool with the best ones being used in a charity photo book in aid of Médecins Sans Frontières. There’s currently almost 3000 photos in the pool and it’s an interesting view of what goes on around the world in any one day. My submission is here. 05/05 was a fairly uneventful day for me with most of it taken up with categorising diskant blog posts and eating homemade bread. The pool is open until May 21st so if you took any interesting photos yesterday, why not join in.
UPDATE: Yay, my photo made it into Interestingness, the 500 most interesting photos of the day.
Filed under: news, photography | 1 Comment »
Posted: February 13th, 2007, by Chris S
I went to Berlin, it snowed. It was beautiful. And a bit scary in a Gothic, Eastern-Block kind of way.
I took hundreds of pictures. Waste time by viweing them here:
www.flickr.com/photos/sumlin
Filed under: photography, travel | 1 Comment »
Posted: January 11th, 2007, by Chris S
Filed under: end of year, photography | No Comments »
Posted: January 2nd, 2007, by Marceline Smith
I was going to copy I Like and do 1 photo from each month but I appear to not have done anything in January and an awful lot in Feb/March. Plus 15 makes for a better screenshot. It’s difficult only picking one photo of each place I visited but it does look like I had quite a fun year.
L-R top to bottom:
1. Brighton Pier at dusk on the Uter tour
2. Me and Econoline at 3am in the great Blizzard of March, Glasgow
3. The hilariously twee wallpaper in my first purchased home. Yes, we kept it.
4. Todai-Ji Temple, Nara. My favourite photo of Japan.
5. Largs on one of the hottest days of the year
6. St Stephens Church in Dublin – again for an Uter gig
7. Visiting my sister in London
8. Best costume winners (but disowned by my own mother)
9. Another great Audioscope and a lovely afternoon with Parts & Labor.
10. Angel Bunny joins us for a weekend in Newcastle for crafting
11. I made so many things last year but my brooches were the most popular
12. Detour round Speyside while visiting my family
13. Meeting Bob the Builder at Minehead ATP
14. My handmade Christmas cards
15. Me. I look very different to me in 2005
Full photos here.
Filed under: end of year, photography | 2 Comments »