Far Gone and Out

DAZED & CONFUSED ANNOUNCES PARTNERSHIP WITH YOUTH MAGAZINE IN SOUTH AFRICA

2011-10-20T16:58:00.004+01:00

Dazed & Confused editor Rod Stanley will be traveling to South Africa to spend a month supporting the launch of Live Magazine South Africa, the new project from Live Magazine, a longterm media partner of Dazed.

Working as editorial mentor, Stanley will be helping a team of 21 young people largely recruited from the townships near Cape Town to work on the launch phase of a youth magazine that aims to empower and inspire young South African people of all backgrounds.

Based in Lambeth, south London, the original Live Magazine is a free publication “created by young people for young people”, launched by award-winning youth engagement agency Livity, and which has been media-partnered by Dazed & Confused since its beginnings ten years ago.

Live South Africa’s ambition is to take the Live Magazine model to the next level, printing 50,000 copies and aiming to become THE voice of youth for South Africa, also launching on mobile.

“In March this year, I began a one-year Fellowship with the Shuttleworth Foundation, who invest in people with big ideas around bringing about social change. I’ll be developing and launching a version of Live Magazine to engage, inspire, educate and empower young people in South Africa. We depend on our mentors to make the whole thing happen, and it's a huge honour for us to have Rod joining us for a month, and bringing a wealth of experience and knowledge for the benefit of South Africa's future publishing stars.”
– Gavin Weale, Live South Africa publisher

“Live magazine is a great project that all of us at the magazine have been proud to support since it started. I hope we can now help that original idea succeed in a different part of the world with different challenges.”
– Rod Stanley, Dazed & Confused editor

“Dazed has been supporting creative culture and freedom of expression in South Africa for over a decade and we are very proud that Live Magazine with our editor's support are launching there. It's an inspiring and provocative initiative.”
–Jefferson Hack, Dazed & Confused publisher

dazeddigital.com

http://www.live-magazine.co.uk/

http://livity.co.uk/

For press inquiries:

Abby Bennett – abby@dazedgroup.com

Brixton aftermath

2011-08-09T17:38:00.004+01:00

UK Uncut Protests 4 Dec 2010

2010-12-04T19:14:00.005Z

One of the odd things about today was how nervous some of the police seemed, like they were unsure of how to deal with what was happening. This was no march from one place to another, to be contained and managed according to procedure. There were no individuals that warranted smacking or arresting, and most of the passers-by (bar the usual idiots) seemed largely supportive once they heard what it was about. But how do you police a flashmobbed, free-form demonstration, started by a few organisers but without real leadership? As the crowd marched up and down Oxford Street according to whim, picking people up on the way, and shutting down target shops as they went, the police were often left shuffling along behind, muttering into their radios and looking a bit embarrassed. At times, it left the whole thing weirdly rudderless ("Where do we go now?") but there was also a whiff of possibility, that a new type of protest might be forming here – something pitched between the anarchy and illegality of direct action, and the ritualised tramp from A to B of the old-fashioned march. Is protest changing?

Neither Am I, Peckham Literary Festival - pics

2010-11-21T15:47:00.003Z

From Neither Am I, Peckham Literary Festival, Thurs Nov 18. Pictures by John Dawson.

Neither Am I performance at Peckham Literary Festival

2010-11-19T11:02:00.002Z

The first piece I read out last night, as guest-reader as one of the four anonymous horsemen of wonky live literature Neither Am I.

MAN BOOKER

My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, Sir Andrew, the rest of the judges…

Well, wow, what can we say. It's unexpected to say the least. I suppose firstly we'd like to express to all our colleagues on the shortlist what an honour it was to be listed in such esteemed company.

We really struggle to comprehend that our humble offering, with its peculiar and puerile obsessions with male masturbation, Armageddon and the distended and mutated notion of subjectivity in a post-celebrity mediascape has somehow edged out your wonderful books.

Peter, we thought you'd never top Oscar and Lucinda, with its natural and plausible characterization, and its wealth of wisdom concerning the experience of the 19th century Australian frontiersman, with all the universality that entails, but you've apparently done it with Parrot and Olivier in America... we only wish we'd had the inclination to read it.

Emma, the glamorous Emma, the bewitching Emma. The way you've managed to repurpose real events of a truly horrific nature, thought by many to be excessively traumatic to be subsumed into an artificial aesthetic, and somehow domesticated, infantilised and sentimentalised empirical experience of such monstrously alienating horror... well, well done you.

Damon, dear Damon, yours is a name we'll never forget, not least because it dominated the narrative of your book, a device that for the casual reader really blurs notions of fictive and factual identity, but for the more critically minded poses bigger questions, about the nature of solipsism, about a lack of ideas, about the centrality of the authorial ego in a market-dominated publishing industry. It was a real treat.

Andrea, maam, your first novel for six years, how many had been waiting for it we couldn't possibly hazard a guess. Clearly a profoundly personal topic for you to take on, slavery, one that requires incredible bravery in an industry completely dismissive of the notion that a modern black British woman should have such a heritage, should want to investigate her racial identity. You have avoided all the cliches and spoken on behalf of the typical black British woman. About identity. Sterling stuff.

Howard, you old Schlimazl. Serious laugh-fest, man. You are skewering those nebbishes with your razor-sharp wit, really, and representing for the whole of British Judaism with your crypto-zionist agenda. But really, we were all ver klempt, you know.

Tom, Tommy-boy, Tom-tom the Tomato, wow. Clever, man, really clever. But not just clever, you know, clever-clever. But we cracked the code, oh yeah mate, we cracked it and we posted it online too. We can say with our hands on our hearts that we are GENUINELY disappointed that you didn't win - we had 15 grand on you with William Hill.

Which naturally brings us on to the subject of the prize money.

Without wishing to be vulgar, the 50 grand will come in handy. You don't get 1000 Hungry Dereks on tick for very long before people start getting jumpy - naming no names, but Dave, you know we're good for it now.

Could someone tell Portillo up on the balcony to shut his bunghole? Oi, Portillo you twat, you're not on Andrew Neil now.

Sorry, I do apologise, some people just don't know about good manners. Anyway, we hope to be able to endow some kind of legacy of our win, if only to give hope to all the other small-press writers out there struggling to make big waves in the industry. They're all shit, as we all know, it's only when you get picked up by a major name that you have any kind of intellectual authority or true and lasting literary value, but you know, you've got to give something back haven't you.

Anyway, I've gone on long enough. On behalf of myself, Philip Roth, George Osborne and Floella Benjamin, thank you very much for making tonight such a real good night. The party's on back at ours and Barrymore's already in the pool. AROOGA!

Neither Am I

The Smarteez in Johannesburg

2010-10-25T22:24:00.008+01:00

Originally published in Dazed & Confused, June 2010.

FIX UP, LOOK SMART

A new generation in South Africa’s townships is challenging post-apartheid stereotypes with a brightly coloured burst of DIY fashion exuberance. Here, four young designers from Soweto take Rod Stanley into downtown Johannesburg and explain why they feel the next struggle for freedom is all in the mind

Photography Chris Saunders

Through a heavy turnstile off a downtown Johannesburg street, we walk into a dingy store stocking uniforms, sports kits and work-boots. Like seemingly every other shop in South Africa ahead of the World Cup, a stand of vuvuzela stadium trumpets dominates its entrance. Sibu, one of the young designers who are our guides today, pushes past them to chat with a shop assistant, who produces a ring of keys, unlocks a heavy steel gate at the side of the shop and motions us down the crumbling concrete steps into the darkness.

At the bottom, fluorescent lights click on, and we struggle to catch our breath against the hideously dank air (“There’s probably asbestos in here,” someone mutters). Another steel security cage, another set of keys, and we sweep into a room piled to the ceiling with endless shelves of boots, all caked with a thick layer of dust; they can’t have seen the light of day in decades. Sibu rushes over, picks up a particularly shit-kicking pair, and laughs – “I call these ‘end-of-the-month’ boots. Because at the end of the month, people haven’t been paid and get real pissed off! I like to take these steel- toed ones and file off the outer layer of material, so the metal shines through...”

Sibu is an imposing presence – a tall young man from Johannesburg’s satellite township Soweto, he is wearing tight homemade black trousers with three initials drip-painted across his bum, metres of heavy chains and fistfuls of silver jewellery. A floor-length homemade red cape hangs over his half-shaven, half-dreaded hair, and staccato sentences boom from within his hood at a hundred miles an hour: “I want to do my next fashion show using these boots, with all the dust still on them! My last show in Soweto was both a funeral and a wedding! And my birthday! Which is on Valentine’s Day!”

Nine of us pile into a creaking lift that shudders up four floors, disgorging us spluttering into another storeroom. Endless racks of vintage suits, uniforms and military jackets lie before us, all coated in the same thick layer of dust that points to the building’s pre-apartheid history, when this was an affluent department store serving the wealthy white ruling class. Today, you can buy a never-worn suit here for less than five pounds, although you might want to get it dry cleaned.

“This building is a hundred years old!” gabbles Sibu, perhaps exaggerating, although a faded framed picture of the shop in its heyday suggests at least the 1930s. “I was looking about here once, when the woman behind the counter said: ‘I can see you like old stuff. You should look upstairs.’ I was the first person to shop here, though others know about it now. But we got all the good stuff! We used to leave here with two binliners of clothes each.”

His “we” refers to the Smarteez, a collective of Soweto youth with a passion for outlandish, vibrantly coloured DIY fashion, created with material from local fabric shops, unwanted vintage gear, and just about anything else they can lay their hands on. With him today are Kepi, in jumpsuit, bowtie and pink beret; Thabo, all skinny green trousers, purple jacket and Joker-esque grin; and Floyd, notably topping off his ensemble with a corduroy cap and lady’s handbag. Something of a celebrity phenomenon in South Africa since they burst out of the township a year or so ago, the four core members have agreed to take us on a tour of the shops they use to source their material.

The wholesalers we are in now is on a busy street cutting through Johannesburg’s Central Business District. There are more high-rise buildings here than in any other part of Africa, and it was once a “whites-only” area. Now, the reverse is true; after the end of apartheid in 1994, the white middle-class and their businesses fled for the more secure northern suburbs, as crime rates rocketed and disadvantaged black families moved downtown. Entire office blocks were converted into towers of residential accommodation, and in the late 90s it was written off as a “no-go zone”, notorious for staggering levels of violent crime. Whites still rarely venture inside today. After 16 years of freedom, South Africa still has one of the highest crime rates in the world, with a scarcely believable 50,000 murders a year.

Today, downtown Johannesburg has the appearance of a somewhat scuffed, Africanised New York, with bustling streetlife, handpainted signs stretching up to the sky, and shops springing up in the gaps between other stores. The safety situation has improved somewhat, especially as the government tries to clean up the city ahead of this year’s World Cup, with the help of former New York mayor Rudolph Giulani. Today there is a buzzing, friendly atmosphere, with small crowds turning out to watch us shooting and filming on the streets. Nevertheless, we have retained the services of two armed guards from the aptly named Bad Boyz private security company – many of whom are ex-criminals, treated with wary respect by the area’s muggers and gangsters, who wouldn’t think twice about relieving us of every last piece of equipment at gunpoint. Louis Theroux once made a documentary about Bad Boyz, a fact of which they seem quite proud.

Just as downtown Johannesburg’s fortunes have changed over time, so has the outlook of the city’s black youth. The Smarteez see themselves as part of a new generation, who eschew the politics and activism of the struggle in favour of hedonism and self-expression. Kepi talks about how some commentators have compared the Smarteez to the Harajuku kids of Japan, but how that misses the point – “The big difference is that we don’t buy the clothes, we make them.”

Talk to others in South Africa about the Smarteez, and one can encounter a degree of resentment, even snobbery, at their sudden status. One (white) magazine editor says that she has never featured them, and never will, “because it’s not enough just that they’re young, and cool, and black, and from Soweto.” Perhaps not, but they are keen to explain that they are more than just cool kids; this is a business. Each has their own clothing line, which they make and sell through their network of friends, parties, and the clothing and music stores in Soweto, where many neighbourhoods still lack electricity and running water. Most have trained to some degree in fashion, and are keen to detail how they sewed their shirt themselves (Floyd), have two assistants and their own machines (Thabo), or will be a millionaire by the age of 35 (Sibu). Kepi has heard that they have inspired others to follow them in smaller townships around the country, where 10-year-old kids now customise their clothes and dance round a ringing cell phone. As Mili, a local journalist who accompanied us on the trip, says, “Just because they’re from Soweto doesn’t mean they can’t enjoy life and have a culture.” This attitude seems to have riled certain sectors of society, those who might perhaps find it preferable for black township youth to fit an angry, impoverished stereotype.

“I think that our parents grew up with apartheid and struggled,” says Kepi thoughtfully as we leave another shop, the Arabic-looking owner delivering his young Indian assistant a vicious clip round the ear as we go. “We do know of the struggle that our parents had, in order to free the majority from apartheid. But now that has gone – so for us, it has been like a clean slate. Now it is up to us to fight against self-oppression... that mindset of having to conform. That is the battle we are fighting now.”

The sun is beginning to dip behind the high- rises, and as the road recedes into dusk, it’s time for us to leave; there are no streetlights here. As we turn to walk up the road, two elderly women pass by with huge burning braziers balanced on their heads. “To be honest, I really don’t give a fuck,” Sibu says. “I’ve never voted and I probably never will. I was born into the free world. And some people accuse me of taking my freedom for granted. But to that I say fuck you! It’s my freedom to take for granted.”

DJ Fukdiscodeathface

2010-08-03T12:17:00.007+01:00

This was one of the articles that was due to run in Dazed July 2010's South Africa section, but we had to cut because we were short of space (sorry Murray). Now that the world cup has been and gone, I plan to post some bits and pieces from that trip over the coming weeks.

DJ Fukdiscodeathface – 'A lost boy in search of identity'

Joburg native MJ Turpin aka M18J92T is a man of many identities, a multimedia artist and circuit-bending musician as part of Machete Jacobite whose latest guise is DJ Fukdiscodeathface, which he describes as “as much a performance piece as DJ set”

Why the mask?

Listen more – watch less. Fuck identity.

How is your music and art linked?

Identity, politics, retribution, conscious acts of violence and geometry.

How do they reflect your experiences as a young South African?

On a day to day basis. When I deal with identity in my work, then I’m usually grappling with it in real life. If I'm working with violence and racism, then I have experienced this recently.

What are the Lost Boys?

A new project about being 4^th-generation sons of colonialists, but also the 4^th-generation of white Africans… and the interesting and sometimes problematic situation we find ourselves in. The basic premise is owning up to history, and the search for place and purpose within modern South Africa.

Why should people internationally pay attention to what is happening in SA?

Because everything has "been done" in Europe – the concept of originality has been reported dead on arrival in the emergency room. First-world ignorance can be Third-world bliss, but no longer… that's the beauty of a third-world country on the cusp of First world standing.

PS. My website is under construction at the moment but interested people can see some work and listen to some tracks here. http://www.behance.net/m18j92t

Photo by Warren Van Rensburg

Art of Natty Brooker / Spacemen 3

2010-07-14T12:33:00.007+01:00

Tomorrow night is the opening of the Natty Brooker exhibition at Hoxton Bar & Grill – Natty was the in-house visionary for cult drone-rock band Spacemen 3, creating much of that band's memorable artwork, such as 1991's "Recurring" cover, and later originating the iconic 'Angel and Devil' design for Spiritualized. More details on the show here: www.dazeddigital.com

And my short Dazed piece on it, with quotes from original Spacemen Will Carruthers and Sonic Boom. Will's blog here: willcarruthers.blogspot.com

In a swirl of colour and shaggy hair, Spacemen 3 shambled out of the Midlands town of Rugby and on to the British indie scene of the mid 80s, their distorted drone-rock issuing a clarion call to tripped-out adolescents and sonic explorers across the country. Hugely influential, later inspiring bands as diverse as Mogwai and MGMT, they were never ones to shy away from clarifying their primary source of inspiration – “Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To” as their band slogan put it. As such, the hallucinatory art of band member Natty Brooker provided a fitting visual counterpoint, his intensely distorted visions and endlessly repeating patterns lending the band their distinct visual identity.

After the band split in 1991, Pete Kember aka Sonic Boom formed Spectrum, while bassist Will Carruthers joined other core member Jason Pierce’s new outfit Spiritualized for one album (the exquisite Lazer Guided Melodies). Now, with Brooker suffering from cancer, Carruthers has pulled together a touring exhibition of his artwork, including the iconic album sleeves. “Natty never really made any money from his artwork,” explains Carruthers, who has already taken the show to Berlin, Glasgow and LA, “and he had a habit of giving his pieces away, so it’s been a bit tricky. He was always drawing and painting UFOs and stuff – on walls, doors, all over the houses we lived in. A lot of it doesn’t exist any more.”

Carruthers is now planning a London exhibition for the show, and hoping that some of their friends will unearth a few more originals for the night to be seen alongside the prints, which he is selling to help raise money for his old bandmate. “It should be a good night, and there are a lot of favours we can pull in for bands and DJs to play,” he smiles. “And then I guess I’ll have to take the show to Rugby, I’ll get in trouble if I don’t. London, LA, Berlin, Rugby… I think that has a nice ring to it.”

Sonic Boom on Natty Brooker:

“Gnatty, as he was known at the time, was always

quite the card, an ace and a joker simultaneously.

He was very early in combining disciplines usually

associated with low-brow genres like tattoo work and

graffiti. Some of his best work was lost on friend’s walls

and the houses he lived in and decorated inimitably.

His encapsulation of drug-induced vision was

perfectly in sync with the records he decorated for

Spacemen 3. They are immediately indefinable yet

somehow instinctively recognisable.”

Stephen Malkmus interview

2010-05-13T15:16:00.005+01:00

On the occasion of the brilliant Pavement playing live dates again (I saw them last night at Brixton), this is an interview I did for Dazed a couple of years ago with Stephen Malkmus, mainly about the Pavement years.

THE PAVEMENT LO-FI LEGEND ON HOW A FEW CALIFORNIAN SLACKERS ALMOST MADE IT TO THE TOP

“I grew up in Santa Monica for seven years and then we moved to Stockton, California. It’s pretty suburban, with not a whole lot going on. I was about 12 when I went to high school, I really identified with Kiss, the perfect band for an adolescent, I drew their pictures in notebooks. Then in the 80s, punk hit. Local bands like Black Flag and Dead Kennedys came to our town and played. I immediately joined a band. Scott (1) was around then, but he worked at a record store, and was really into new wave – he was more of an Anglophile, though I liked that stuff too. Eventually, that came through in Pavement. Pavement was a product of the seven-inch scene, bands like the Television Personalities (2) – just doing it, and maybe some day people would be interested. It wasn’t meant to be a touring band, we didn’t have any aspirations… it didn’t seem possible, we were just an art document.

We recorded with this local guy Gary Young, who became our drummer – he had a home studio in his garage, we just went in there and knocked Slanted and Enchanted off in a day for a couple hundred bucks. I didn’t know anything about the ‘lo-fi era’ – we thought the album sounded pretty big! We just didn’t know what we were doing. But we were also imitating bands like Chrome from San Francisco, who were very dirty sounding, a weird band for sure. I never really liked The Fall when I was younger ‘cos it’s sort of tuneless. But once you get your head around that, you can get lost in The Fall for a while. That was a nice influence to have (3).

In London, you generally have a friend of a friend who’s a pop star, but in America it’s much more spread out – you just don’t think anyone’s going to pay attention unless you’re near the power structures. There’s no svengali tradition like there is in England, with A&R men like Tony Wilson, Geoff Travis, Alan McGee or Malcolm Mclaren. Of course, we have people who discover artists, but one man with a label can have more influence in England… they can change the world in a second.

At that time, Kurt Cobain had the power to say, ‘Mudhoney should be up here.’ (4) I don’t think I’ve ever had my photo taken so many times as I did backstage there. Our record label guy had managed EMF, so he was well-versed in hype, and I’m sure he was back there saying, ‘These guys are going to be the next Nirvana, you’ve gotta get a picture of them now.’ There were like 40 to 60 photographers in line – we were getting sunburn from all the flashes.

We went on tour for too long, tensions rose too high. We were of the opinion that major labels were evil, basically. Our drummer was older, and his brother was saying, ‘strike while the iron is hot, and get lots of money.’ But we were young and couldn’t be bothered. So Gary Young walked out on us (5) – he was a great drummer and although I can play with anyone, it was sad to see him go.

We didn’t do some things that would have got us bigger… we never had a manager. I would have been fine with that kind of success – we wouldn’t have got a manager still, it would have just washed over us, and we would have mismanaged it all like we did at the smaller level! We were young, we were touring, and we were confident we were good… that was all that we cared about.

It was a deliberate mock-wind-up (6) – it was playful, but the Pumpkins took it all a bit seriously. It was meant to show the triviality of rock rivalries at that time. It was just a joke, really. The Smashing Pumpkins had some good songs – they should have been confident in that and not taken it so personally.

Wowee Zowee wasn’t popular with the people. I was like, ‘That’s cool, but in ten years time people are going to realise this record is great’. And the thing is, it came back in the end – it is a good record. But it was a little disheartening… though it’s not like we didn’t have it coming, we’d had a great run up ‘til then.

The idea of playing the old songs, the idea of doing that for 20 years, was just impossible. It wouldn’t be genuine to keep doing that. It seemed a good time to stop (7) , because not too much damage had been done.

I saw the Silver Jews as a side project. David (Berman) hadn’t taken seriously the idea that he could be a songwriter, he was just messing around in the basement, stoned and drunk. It blossomed with his ambition, it became his baby pretty fast, so he deserves all the credit. I stopped being involved after the first record… when we went to do another one, he had a nervous breakdown or something, and left us high and dry down in Memphis, and got some new people to record with… after that, it was his band and I just played on the records. Which I did on American Water, which is one of my favourites of the records we did together, and one of my favourite records I’ve ever played on, so it’s not like nothing came of it.

I don’t know why I chose Portland (8) . It was the best place that wasn’t New York, where it wasn’t working for me in terms of relationship stuff. It was pretty boring for three years, ha! No scoring hot chicks and no parties every night… and rainy. But two, three years ago, I became a family man, now I’ve got two kids – having responsibilities to people other than myself has meant getting music out has been a challenge. But it has made this album, and the preciousness and rarity of being able to do something like this, more exciting. Or maybe it’s just always exciting two months before the album comes out… before your hopes get crushed!

That Milwaukee gig was just to entertain ourselves and throw a wrench into our small works (9) . It was something just to surprise people. Especially in Milwaukee, which is a bit off the chart culturally in America – it’s not that it’s a bad place, it’s just a random place. Yeah, it does kind of raise the bar for the next Milwaukee show… but we’re not going back on this next tour. We’re sort of scared of it now.

There’s a lot of groups in Portland, what can I say? I don’t know if England loves it, but America does. I’m not of the really old school like Poison Idea and The Wipers – there’s the next school, grunge like Pond, and then Sub Pop, Elliot Smith – I came in round then… since then, we’ve had The Shins, Modest Mouse, and The Gossip. Now, there’s bands like Yacht. I guess Portland’s more laid back than Williamsburg, but there’s plenty of hipsters. Which is fine, I like hipsters.”

FOOTNOTES ON STEPHEN MALKMUS

1. Scott Kannberg was a childhood friend of Stephen and the other founding member of Pavement. He went by the name of “Spiral Stairs”, and these days he has his own band Preston School of Industry (also signed to Matador)

2.Influential British DIY band started in the late 70s by singer/songwriter Dan Treacy

3. Though Mark E Smith might disagree – “Pavement: it’s just The Fall in 1985, isn’t it? They haven’t got an original idea in their heads.” (The Wire, September 1996)

4.Reading Festival 1992. Nirvana headlined, and were influential on the main stage’s line-up that night, which included Mudhoney, Beastie Boys, L7, Pavement, and, er, Bjorn Again.

5. Young’s whacked-out behaviour on the Slanted and Enchantedtour probably didn’t help – he would hand out plates of cabbage to bemused gig-goers, and stop playing drums to run around the venue and do hand-stands.

6.The single “Range Life” from second album Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain contained the lyrics,“Out on tour with Smashing Pumpkins / Nature kids / I... they don’t have no function / I don‘t understand a word they say / And I could really give a fuck.” Singer Billy Corgan had something of a sense of humour failure, threatening to quit Lollapalooza in 1994 if Pavement remained on the bill.

7. Pavement called it a day in 1999 after their fifth album Terror Twilight.

8.Portland, Oregon. Where he now lives with his wife and two kids, and plays with his band The Jicks.

9. On 23 May, 2003, The Jicks surprised fans by playing a show consisting only of Pavement songs.

French - skulls and skeletons

2010-02-09T19:50:00.004Z

A couple of pieces I acquired from French recently – one pencil, one pen.

Autechre's Rob Brown on, um, algorithms

2010-02-08T14:17:00.005Z

On the occasion of a new album from Autechre, I found this 2003 Q&A I did with Rob ahead of the ATP festival they were curating… and found that I was foolish enough to ask him about software at one point. Here's his fantastically impenetrable response:

"A lot of the Confield album, maybe quarter or a half of it, we’d spend three weeks building a program to actuate a certain complex set of music to our design or specifications, control it by limiting certain paremeters, then you have to guide things into one place you want it. This time, it’s kind of learning to follow the dynamics... that kind of way of building stuff back then, it’s time-consuming. It spits out thousands and thousands of permutations to your specifications, you find yourself chopping thiings up and putting them together but... also exploring dynamics, mathematical dynamics that you want your music to benefit from. And now you can sort of sit back and program it all by hand, knowing what all those dynamics sound like and not have to worry about whether you can manipulate one little spot in an algorithm, when that algorithm is worthless if you start messing with it."

Glad that's settled, then.

Feeding Time is now on Twitter

2010-01-18T22:20:00.004Z

Yes, indeed. Feeding Time is now on Twitter. twitter.com/feeding_time

Wild Things: Spike Jonze & Maurice Sendak

2009-12-21T20:43:00.004Z

This anecdote about a vengeful Israeli waiter was one of my favourite bits from our cover story with Spike and Maurice.

MS: I remember I took my father to Florida, just before he died,

and he wanted to go to a Jewish hotel, strictly Kosher. Miami

Beach. Horrible. It turned out there were only two Kosher hotels

left, because that whole generation had passed on. We ate there

and there was a woman with her husband who was paralysed,

practically dead. She was viciously feeding him, and she did it so

roughly… and my father was burning, going, ‘I’m going to kill her,

it’s tragic how she treats her husband!’ The waiter was this Israeli

guy, a fiery guy, and he came out with a platter of food. And she

looked at what he brought and screamed ‘Pigs eat that! Pigs!’

Then he said to her, ‘That’s you. That’s what you are!’ And he

took the platter and threw it on the floor, and then he grabbed

her at the back of the neck, pushed it towards her and said, ‘Eat

it you fat pig, eat it!’ All in Yiddish. The whole room stood up.

SJ: That didn’t happen!

MS: It happened. And everyone is standing up and my father

is screaming, ‘Kill her! Kill her!’ And the woman who owned

the hotel came in and said to the waiter, ‘How dare you do that

to a customer?’ And he turned round and said, ‘Fuck you, old

lady, I’m done with this place. I hate you. And you know why

you wanted me here? To fuck you. Well, I’ve done it enough

times to know it’s no good.’

SJ: That’s true? He really said that?

MS: He really said that.

SJ: Because this sounds like the kind of story you’d make up...

MS: Life is like that. Life is like a story you’d make up.

(Photos: Leigh Johnson)

Vegetable sculptures at Lambeth Country Show...

2009-07-20T23:37:00.004+01:00

Including an aubergine killer whale, a courgette turtle, and a potato MJ! Cider clearly makes people completely nuts.

Vivienne Westwood on the campaign trail

2009-07-20T22:14:00.005+01:00

For the last issue of Dazed, I interviewed Vivienne Westwood and the renowned climate change scientist James Lovelock, author of such books as Revenge of Gaia. It was a fascinating meeting between two very inspiring characters, and I'm grateful to have been asked to document it. For a man with such a bleak view of humanity's immediate future, Lovelock has a genial warmth and sparkle that made him a chatty and engaging character to spend an hour with, even as he approaches the age of 90 (on July 26) - aided, no doubt, by his deeply philosophical take on our position in the 'big picture'. The meeting was also caught on film, and went into making part of this short film that we showed on Dazed Digital.

Since then, Westwood has been in full campaign mode. She appeared the other week on Jonathan Ross.

[videos deleted by BBC]

And then she did a cover story for the Independent magazine, in which she flew to New York with Richard Branson, and discussed the problems of climate change, her meeting with James Lovelock, and addressed the apparent contradictions of her own role within it all – including what it means to be preaching environmentalism when you're a globally renowned fashion designer sat in a first-class seat to New York. It's well worth reading.

It's tempting for some to sneer at perceived hypocrisy, but Westwood is clearly extremely passionate about her subject, and has also done her reading (which is far more than many a celebrity advocate of a noble cause). She said to me that she will do everything that she can to get the ideas of James Lovelock more widely known. And you only have to look at her army of fans posting online about how "Inspiring!" they find all this talk, to see that she's succeeding in reaching a new audience with her message. Of course, it's what that audience then does with that message that will be a true measure of her success.

(Top photo by Lina Scheynius)

Sian Alice Group at Hoxton Bar and Kitchen

2009-07-20T21:43:00.002+01:00

Doing a night with the lovely Sian Alice Group in a couple of weeks... also with Grave With No Name, and Esben & The Witch.

Live at the Apollo

2009-06-04T23:35:00.008+01:00

Some friends managed to take over my local Apollo video store, which has been shut, abandoned and generally smashed up for over two years, and somehow persuade the powers that be to let them organise a month-long local arts festival in it. Respeck. The launch party was tonight, and tomorrow heavy hitter artist Keith Coventry exclusively previews his upcoming Haunch of Venison show. You saw it in Herne Hill first. I'm looking forward to the crazy golf.

More details here. And some actual journalism here.

Kuniyoshi!

2009-04-25T13:40:00.006+01:00

Catalogue for the Kuniyoshi show at Royal Academy. Japanese woodblock prints from 19th century - really amazing. Best seen close up, so go see.

Cough/Cool vs. Feeding Time

2009-04-04T10:19:00.005+01:00

A few random snaps on the end of a disposable, from Feeding Time at Cough/Cool last week. First one is ex-Jesus And Mary Chain's Dougie Hart, who I didn't know was there, amused by my choice of last record before he took over from us: their 1988 sleaze-tastic single 'Sidewalking'. "I played bass on that," he laughed, before going on to play some gay disco.

Floating in space with Jason Spaceman, Another Man

2009-03-29T16:09:00.016+01:00

I did an interview with the towering musical talent (well, he's quite tall) that is Jason 'Spaceman' Pierce towards the end of last year, just after he'd got back from Russia with Spiritualized. He was good company – nowhere near as hazy as you might expect (given his rep), but smart, insightful and very funny. Anyway, the Q&A is published in the new issue of Another Man, which came out last week, with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore scrubbing up nicely on the cover.

And though I wouldn't normally go in for that kind of thing, he also signed my vinyl of Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space, which will be treasured (at least until some future grandchild inevitably flogs it to pay for their drug habit). I was a fresh-faced 20 years old when that album came out (summer 97), and listened to it a lot in the following years - it worked well as a counterpoint to long weekends spent sweating to terrifying electronic acid madness on the dancefloor at Turnmills or wherever. As such, it was particularly sweet to hear they're going to be the next band to take part in ATP's Don't Look Back series, and will be playing the album in its entirety at the Royal Festival Hall this October – exciting. See you on the Monday, if you're going.

Q&A with Jason Spaceman, extracted from Another Man 8, Spring/Summer 2009

Rod Stanley: And talking of gigs, you were asked to perform at the opening of that huge underground CERN collider in Geneva…
Jason Spaceman: They got in touch and asked us. It was a shame, but we just couldn’t get it together… you know, we have these weird pockets of fans – it’s very odd. When we made the film for ‘Out of Sight’, it coincided with Etna erupting. So, we went to the volcano and took a bit of money to bribe whoever was guarding it – but it was Sicily, they didn’t care. We got to the very top and kept walking. The only people we met at the top were two German vulcanologists, and they were huge Spiritualized fans!

RS: You do have a thing for playing unusual places – you once did the ‘world’s highest gig’ in a tower in Canada.
JS: That was an amazing show... though I just liked the pun, really. We were playing the 'highest' show on earth, so we said - let’s do just that. We played the top of the World Trade Centre as part of the same tour.

RS: And not many bands get to play the Royal Albert Hall, like you did in 1997. Was that a memorable experience?
JS: Last year, I booked the ten-year anniversary for that show but we weren’t able to do it… but often, the really special things are the things you don’t expect. We did this show in San Francisco – it was on Devil’s Night, the night before Halloween, and they sold 666 tickets and it freaked them out. So, they counted the actual number of people in the room and it came to 666 as well. Then they really started going crazy. The atmosphere was amazing, it really was the best show ever! You can’t plan for it. I don’t actually remember much about the Albert Hall, I don’t think it was even recorded.

RS: Um… you released it as a live album.
JS: Oh, yeah! (laughs) There you go. That’s how much my memory’s fucked…

RS: OK, how about taking a trip on the Virgin Galactic space

flight – J. Spaceman, floating in space?

JS: I reckon I would do that, though I don’t think I will, because of the cost. Also, I’m not great with heights…

RS: There’s something of an irony there.
JS: I know. I really do, though – I’ve got rotten vertigo. I joke that I get scared standing up. But I think I’d do it if it was within my means. I think you’d have to do it.

RS: What about doing the world’s first weightless gig?
JS: Um, I think we’re not specifically looking for ideas, but thanks…! For a while, though, we were looking at the highest planetary gig, and we got pretty close last year – in the Arctic Circle, in northern Norway, it was just beautiful. We were on this little island, people all came on boats. We played in this natural cathedral cave, with views over fjords and glaciers, and moose swimming in the water… There was 24-hour daylight, and the inside was carpeted in Arctic flowers. By 4am, it was like something from the Wizard of Oz. Ah, there’s another one – we were hanging out, probably not up to much good, and the coastguards came over to ask what we were doing. And then one of them goes, “Spiritualized!”

RS: So, particle physicists, German vulcanologists and Norwegian coastguards… who else is making up your fanbase at the moment?
JS: We met these kids in Finland this year, from right up in the very north. Can you imagine what it’s like to live there and get Laser Guided Melodies? To get this music that speaks in a weird way about where they are on the planet, but it’s come from somewhere else? I always think we’re good for that, and good for these people. In Spacemen 3, we always used to say that this is music for all the fucked-up children of the world. But fucked-up always meant remote… like there’s reality, but their reality is always a couple of inches back from that.

Another Man is out now

An aborted 'interview' with Aphex Twin, circa the 2005 Analord series

2009-03-06T23:17:00.013Z

In early 2006, I was foolish enough to attempt an email interview with Richard D James, AKA Aphex Twin, just as he released Chosen Lords, a 10-track CD album distillation of his then-recent 41-track Analord series, released only on 12" vinyl.

I just had a quick look at this Wikipedia entry, and it says that these three comments on this archived analogue v digital barney on the Planet Mu forum was the only time that the Cornish One entered into public conversation about these releases. Well, that's not completely true, so in the spirit of completism, I present this unedited email, which I eventually received in response to 17 slightly embarrassing questions I sent to him via his publicist at the time. Don't get too excited, though, her reply to me started thus: "afx questions. i will buy you a beer if you can make any sense of this. sigh." I managed to strip some of the more intelligible quotes from it for a short piece in the back of Dazed & Confused, smiled wryly and buried it in my archives, only to stumble across it the other day – there is some sense buried in there if you persevere.

(This might make part of a short series on mildly disastrous interviews. Or it might not.)

A few ANSWERS FROM Richard D James.

1. Analogue is to digital as what is to what?
composer is to journalist

2. No, really - what's the appeal of all these analogue synths? Is it the pleasure you get from working with them, or is it in the unique feel they have for the end listener?

There is only so much numerical music making that I then to take before obtaining cravings for something of truths to employ. The only true thing about the computers touches the keyboard and the static head on the screen. It helps when there are samples of true things to a certain extent. The fact that the crash of a computers is the only human thing about them. I count our brains am made to act one on the other with the other human ones and if we are on our own only for too a long time we start to go from biscuits. The manufacture of the music only on the Digital Equipment is nice during one moment, as to leave on holiday by yourself is nice during one moment whereas you beseech interaction, making ways on your clean obtains pretty synths insulated and similar are like my boy friends, they are unforeseeable like my best friends and need constant attention, they have certain characteristic odors, you must touch them in a special way to benefit the best from them. Its why I obtain the end of support finished so much fetishistic, its gathering taste of the people.

3. Are those words on "Crying In Your Face"?
supportive measuring is how I`d like to think of myself as a wordless twot who doesnt even know he can exist unless otherwise expressed to preference by other owners of products of the feline variety tell me otherwise,now I think you should agree to destroy your insane questions even though you were nice enough to ask them directly to me with great bravery.

4. Bear suits are excellent. Discuss.
Bringing to bear on people what you want like certain physical actions from a transduction of an email when and where you want them to can only be described as not wanting to do to ones self as to what other people would have one to do onto other peoples friends who know you but only by means of the transmundane time-realm but altogether in a hairy almost non interactive squarepushery manifesto way.

5. Did electronic / dance music reach its natural conclusion with drill'n'bass? Did this have anything to do with your current musical direction?
Id be a liar if i wasnt going to horse answer your question in an altogether truthful symbiotic musical mindsetted way but to be honest with you at the end of the earwig day and after ive begun to fully focus on the ocean ,we are music listeners riding in the same boat of cack. To want to draw a conclusion at any point can only mean that one has given up and is tired of journalism and has become ready to watch daytime tv all throughout ones numb day.

6. Have you ever sold any of your own records on eBay?
No but I did buy my own footprint on some lino that I left behind at a party.

7. What made you decide to release last year's Analord series on such a quaint format as 12" vinyl?
Because of ones failure to realize that they are in denial of the most sympathetic sound input method to the brain they must delude themselves in the hope that they can be forgiven of their classic mistake,its very touching and can remind us all of children playing outside in rivers so i wouldnt be too worried about this,just swallow your pride and move sideways.

8. What criteria did you apply in whittling down the 41 Analord tracks to 10 for the album release? Was this, at least in part, a reaction to the notion that Drukqs might have worked better as a single LP?

minimalism is favored by the tired people who bevel distribution with onlslaught of 4,500 new squelches in 6 minutes that require a reduction in the human working hours required by the listener to lifes made easier of the variety of the store of hmv but he is also useful in not disapointation of the wax that gathers human beings of the love although the defensive being is not in favor of my option..

9. What is the biggest lie you have told to the press (be honest now)?
to be honest with you that i am the aphex twinny pics.

10. Will the film of Neuromancer remain forever stuck in development hell? Had you given much thought to what you might create for the soundtrack, should it ever have come to that?
because of the film of Neuromancer and its remaining always in order, attacked in the hell of developmentosis, I had to take a lot in consideration and became confused to that which you could generate for the sonorous column, you would have it to never come to that one?

11. When you're out and you see someone in a sweaty Warp T-shirt making a rabid beeline for you, what do you do?
take a picture of them to add them to my fan database then ask their name.

12. Did you sample the sound of a filing cabinet being moved for "Alberto Balsalm"?

ha thats a good guess no it was opening a lid on an ammunition box with a wireless microphone inside.

13. What's your favourite computer virus?
ill attach it to this email for you.

14. What is the greatest piece of music that you heard in the last year or so? Or do you still prefer your music above anyone else's?

yes some new things ive just made i spose.
I havnt heard much this year but probably this album i just got
Bernard Bonnier-casse-tete [1979]

15. What's the silliest request you've had recently, remix or otherwise?
Outkast offered me a new Bugatti EB110 in exchange for 2 remixes.

16. Can you see yourself retiring the Aphex Twin / AFX moniker at some point, and moving on to something completely different? What challenges are there still out there for you?

If I held to use the Wortaphex aphexsysteme me would so finally complain, it was it I stops it to use bankruptcy to make.

17. Would you consider appearing in Celebrity Big Brother? Perhaps you could have a go at the theme tune while you're there.
Yes I would go on there, demolish the whole set after working out all the weak points then cut all the camera cables with the wire cutter i would have sneaked in.

Nerdcore 1: Super/Collider vs. the Science Museum

2009-02-15T20:17:00.008Z

Super/Collider presented its inaugural live event last week, as part of the Science Museum’s monthly late-night opening. Chris had sourced some awesome High-Definition footage of the moon from the Japanese space agency, which had never before been seen in this UK, and we showed it on a loop in the cinema while people dropped in and out as they pleased. We didn't realise how busy the museum would be (2,941 people through the doors, we're told) and the room packed out quickly and stayed busy – which was pleasant, considering we had only expected about seven of our friends to show up. Gary Weel, formerly of Werk, played a laptop set of suitably spaced-out sounds from the projection room, which worked perfectly – it's probably the only time we'll ever persuade a random bunch of museum-goers to sit in a darkened room and stare at the moon while listening to Sunn 0))). Amazing – thanks Gary, Andrew and the SM, and everyone who turned up.

Feeding Time/This is Music with Let's Wrestle etc

2009-01-30T13:57:00.005Z

Feeding Time/This is Music with Let's Wrestle, a couple of other bands and approximately half the DJs in east London is happening tonight.

Bat For Lashes - Dazed Feb issue

2009-01-22T23:39:00.001Z

This hit the stands today, and features a cover story by me with Bat For Lashes in the desert out in Joshua Tree, California, with rocking pics by Jason Nocito.

Psycho Candy

2009-01-22T23:10:00.001Z

This is one of my cats, Candy. Isn't she cute? Check out the Two-Face-like colouring. This is mainly a test post.