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Making the wait for lunchtime even harder than normal today is Volume 1 of a brand new graphic novel Yellowman which elegantly swan dived it’s way onto my doormat this morning.
The work of sometime Fringe contributor and all round chap, Justin Quirk, and noted illustrator Warren Holder, Yellowman is the story of an albino man on the run from acquisitive occultists in Victorian East London.
A dazzlingly creative and beautiful book, Holder’s stark, intricate artwork constantly pulls you into the story, his East London one of shadow and mystery, the perfect backdrop to this secret history of magic and science.
Fans of Alan Moore, and indeed anyone who appreciates just how good graphic novels can be should check this out right away.
The newly opened Late Night Chameleon Cafe, or LNCC for fans of initials, is many things to many men (and women)
A book store. A fashion boutique stocking mens and womens clothing for the affluent Dalston dweller. A record shop dealing in rare second hand vinyl and a select range of current imprints. A nightclub. All housed in a bizarrely crafted Shacklewell Lane space which is attendable by appointment only.
Luckily for some of you they do online shopping too.
Which brings us to the news that the shop has just taken delivery of a rather neat little stocking filler in the shape of an International Feel mix CD as modeled above.
The label supposedly run out of Uruguay by the decidedly grumpy Mark from Sheffield - who incidentally took part in a rather good interview with our own Flo Wong recently – have enjoyed a superlative year releasing richly detailed disco, balearica and cosmiche oddities from an array of talented producers including Coyote, Gatto Fritto, Harvey and Maxxi & Zeus.
An Insight Into The Mind Of .. marks the labels first foray into the mix CD market and contains an array of tracks which helped influence the overall sound of the label taking in everything from afro beat to proto house to library music.
Well, I think this is just going to be one of the best things released this year. Out soon on Lex Records, Unearthing is a new audio/visual project that involves the varied talents of Alan Moore, Mitch Jenkins, Fog, Adam Drucker from Subtle, Stuart Braithwaite from Mogwai, even Mike Patton.
Containing a double 180g vinyl audiobook with soundtrack , a 180g vinyl soundtrack instrumental , a deluxe photo print portrait of Alan Moore by Mitch Jenkins , a Dot-matrix printed transcript of Unearthing , an Unearthing poster by Mitch Jenkins, a CD audiobook with soundtrack and a CD of the soundtrack instrumental this, ladies & gentlemen, is how you get people to throw down (serious) money on physical products.
I used to be quite a voracious political animal, demonstrations one week, riots the next. Sadly though throughout much of the noughties when there seemed to be an embarrassment of things to get all riled up about a combination of disillusionment with the left and a general feeling of wanting to wash my hands of humanity meant I had retreated from any serious debate.
Anyway in the past few months I’ve begun to feel a stirring in the old political loins, blame it on Naomi Klein‘s ‘Shock Doctrine’, a much needed shot of focused rage if ever there was one or just the fact that our ruling masters have finally become so venal and corrupt that it’s shocked even me out of my torpor.
Adding fuel to the fire is the launch of the new Ctrl.Alt.Shift bi-annual magazine, which in its previous life you may have found tucked inside a Don’t Panic flyer pack or left lying around a club or record shop.
Making the move into mainstream newsagents this marks a major step up for the magazine and Chantelle Fiddy and her team have pulled together a scathing 84 page document focusing on corruption as both a key cause of poverty and the barrier to overcoming it.
Written and designed to engage disaffected dilletantes such as myself, the magazine features a mix of hard reporting and satire, from Guantanamo Bay inspired photoshoots and interviews with Tim Westwood to first hand accounts of the current situation in Gaza.
It’s still not all an easy read (necessarily so) and I’m not even saying I agree with everything they’ve written in the past but hopefully the magazine will at least shock a few people into action and start them questioning the world around them.
With a long overdue election finally upon us this year it’s time to switch on, take a good look around and screw the bastards to the wall. Over the next few months those weasels in Westminster will have to at least pay lip service to what the people want, let’s make sure we’re asking for more than just the right to ‘choose’ the Christmas number one.
I have to admit I love comics, always have, always will. Probably the only time in my entire adult life I’ve been truly and blissfully content at work was when I ran the graphic novels department at one of the big bookstores and could spend hours reading about muscled up closet fetishists, chasing each other around the universe on their endless quests to spank their evil counterparts spandex clad behinds.
Still much as I love to soak myself in the continuity fucked and often mindless sagas of the DC and Marvel universes, over the years comics or, if you want to hide behind a pseudo-literate veneer, graphic novels have also provided a fresh look the real world. Books such as Joe Sacco’s Palestine, or Art Spiegelman’s breathtaking Maus, fully deserving of a place alongside any traditional work of literature.
Celebrating this more concious strand of the genre is Ctrl. Alt. Shift unmasks Corruption a new anthology of work that brings together some of the leading graphic novellists of the day, people such as Peter Kuper, Pat Mills and Dave McKean, and sets out to address issues such as political corruption, global violence and social injustice and show just how powerful a medium ‘comics’ can be.
Indeed whilst comics dabbling in political topics may feel like a recent trend, from the all American Captain America taking the fight to the Nazis, or Tony Starkes hardon for the military industrial complex to the 1960′s Green Arrow as a champion of the working class and the likes of openly gay Northstar in the 1980s, there’s a long history of superheroes being used as cyphers for political viewpoints both left and right.
Illustrating this nicely, Ctrl.Alt.Shift are also staging an exhibition in London, where artwork from the anthology will be juxtaposed with vintage comic books to show just how political and social issues have been treated throughout the years. This free exhibition will be held at Lazarides Gallery, 8 Greek Street, Soho, London, W1D 4DG and runs from 6th – 28th November (Tuesday – Friday 11am -7pm and Saturday 12pm – 5pm).
As if that wasn’t enough Ctrl.Alt.Shift are also holding a night next Tuesday at the ICA to celebrate the release of the anthology, Dev Hynes (Lightspeed Champion/Test Icicles) will be showcasing his new project Blood Orange, and there’s DJs such as the lovely Mr. Crispin Dior and comic artist Woodrow Phoenix on hand to keep things moving along nicely. Full details can be found here.
Even better we have a pair of tickets to the night at the ICA, and a copy of the anthology to give away, just answer the question below and email or mentally transmit your answer to us before Friday (the 6th) 6pm and we’ll put you into the virtual hat.
Q: Monkey Joe was the sidekick to which furry superhero?
I remember the first time I heard The Velvet Underground, Oliver Stone’s biopic of The Doors had just come out and one of the other kids I was on holiday at the time with had the soundtrack on casette.
Thankfully even aged 13 I like to think I could spot a hack and despite having Morrison’s ‘genius’ thrust upon me at regular intervals over the years I’ve somehow managed to remain immune to his charms.
Still there was one track on that soundtrack that did instantly hook me in, the dissonant, screeching ‘Heroin’. Dark, sexy and unbelievably cool sounding, it was everything I wasn’t and so began my love of The Velvet Underground.
This month sees the release of The Velvet Underground: A New York Art, a hefty 320 page visual history of the band, that comes complete with contributions from all four members of the band, plus rock critics such as Jon Savage and even former Czech president Vaclav Havel.
Featuring never before seen photos from throughout the bands career, plus posters, flyers, scraps of lyric sheets and reviews, you’ll be hard pressed to find a more comprehensive picture of a band responsible for not only some of rock’s finest musical moments but also provided some of its richest imagery.
Much like an MP3 is generally a poor substitute for a slab of virgin 180gsm vinyl, the likes of Amazon’s kindle will always feel, to this old sod anyway, inferior to a well designed book. Thankfully much like those determined if ultimately doomed record labels that continue to stand Cnut-like neck deep in water, there are still publishers out there who appreciate the value of a nicely designed hardback.
Publishers like Black Maps Press whose latest book, the childrens’ fairy tale Anna & The Witch’s Bottle, follows in the noble tradition laid down by the likes of Carroll and Tenniel combining fantastical storytelling with gorgeous (if suitably eerie) illustrations to create something that will delight adults with an eye for nice design as much as its magical tale will win over imaginative children.
I missed the first wave of acid house, my descent into the strange labyrinthian world of clubs, warehouse parties and raves starting around 1992 (which horrifically may still be before some of you were born), but there was still a lingering sense that all the old rules had been swept away and we were working with a clean sheet.
Of course in retrospect we were in many ways retreading a well worn groove laid out by previous generations, but at the time trapped in the eye of the psychedelic hurricane it was easy to believe we were generally pioneering something dangerously new and exciting.
From jungle to electronica every party, frequently in venues which if you managed to clear your head and look through the smoke you realised were quite possibly someone’s office during the week, seemed to throw up strange new sounds which though today might play in the background of a Tampax advert seemed so utterly alien at the time.
Of course nowadays with every piece of music recorded at our virtual fingertips it’s easy to deduce the subtle evolution of music from one form to another, one slight mutation in every generation inexorably leading us forward, but at the time it was easy to assume the mantle of sonic creationists believing that in the blink of an eye we’d somehow conjured up these delirious new sounds.
What did and to some extent does still seem so revolutionary though was how club culture, the good and unfortunately the bad, swept the nation through the mid to late nineties. From underground cult to mainstream hegemony, the rise of dance music and its avatar the DJ was as astonishing as it was unstoppable.
In the short space of a few years I remember going from screaming rows with my parents over the weird druggy music I was listening to, to waking up to the sound of my mother hoovering the house soundtracked by Fatboy Slim’s ‘You’ve Come A Long Way Baby’ album, a remarkably apt title.
One of the best books to make sense of this strange time was Matthew Collin’s Altered State. Published in 1997 it charted the rise of acid house and club culture in loving detail, from the orbital raves to the impact of the Criminal Justice Bill and the pirate radio stations that at one point seemed to be transmitting from every tower block (shout out to Don FM!).
This month sees the release of a new updated version, with Collin charting club culture’s trajectory past ’97 as it rose and rose and then spectacularly collapsed under it’s own weight around the turn of the century. If you were around at the time you’ll want to buy this to remember exactly what on earth you were up to, if you weren’t well buy it and learn from history, so much of what is sometimes missing from today’s commodified club experience can be found within these pages.
Carrying on the theme another book published later this month is Raving ’89, aimed squarely at the coffee tables of those who once wore knocked off smiley t-shirts but now actually own coffee tables. A beautiful collection of Gavin Watson’s photographs from the year acid house exploded, it’s a perfect document of a time before camera phones had become ubiquitous in clubs.
Published by the esteemed chaps over at DJhistory.com, this really is an essential document for anyone interested in seeing the early raw days of rave and has brought back some awful memories of my own sartorial mistakes (the drugs were very strong then, ok!).
For a sneak peak check out this sampler of the book.
Luckily for you we have 2 copies of Altered State and a copy of Raving ’89 to give away, simply email the answer to the question below before Friday 17th July and we will pick a couple of winners at random.
Q. Where was Danny Rampling’s Shoom originally held?
Anyway all this reminiscing calls for some music so what better than a brand new mix of old tunes courtesy of the always quality Placid
