What you saying Hackney?

Fear

Long Leave

Last night I went down to The Macbeth to take pictures for Long Leave. Crystal Fighters got the crowd hot and sweaty dropping a couple of dubstep sounds...which helped. Kap Bambino were also...energetic and helped baste the crowd for the Hip Hop anthems that were to come later in the night. Although there was nothing fundamentally wrong with Kap Bambino's live show, they looked and sounded awfully like Crystal Castles and although it can be argued that that is a good thing. They felt pretty out of date, especially following Crystal Fighters huge set. I didn't particularly like either but I have a feeling we will hear a lot more of Crystal Fighters as soon as they get a good manager and booking agent.

All Caps Sale

Mr Caps has informed me that the 40% Sale is still on at the ALL CAPS STORE
cop while you can. I like the Get Em Tee especially....

latest love

Rollei 35 - German Edition with a 40mm lens.

Didn't have the best day ever so i thought I'd try and do something productive so I went to find this :)

Had to traipse to Brentford (..??) and walked for so long through some industrial estate that it felt like the bones in the balls of my feet were being crushed cz i wasnt wearing sensible shoesies.

Got it and a whole load of old film and little leather cases for the camera and the flashes that slip onto the hot shoe which is on the bottom (???) cz the camera is so small. This means that I'll have to shoot upside down.

Can't focus it through the rangefinder either, so it's gonna be a guessing game. Film wasting? I've got 110 to get through so I'm ready.

besos.

www.covertcandy.co.uk

So it seems like swapping is the new black, and it seems like an especially good idea under the loom of the credit crunch.

I've come across this clothes swap site CovertCandy which is based in the UK only and means you swap what you don't want for what you do and earn credits in doing so which allows you to buy more things... There is no money involved at all and it is all done by post!

The deets are on the site, there aren't too many items up on there yet as it is apparantly brand new. I've just signed up and I think it could be something that will pick up pace and be quite worthwhile if enough people join!

Some of the most decent things I found on there whilst browsing:





(Just found one of the first 1000 users I receive 25 credits to spend.)

DJ Zinc January mix

A veerry nice 59 minute House mix sent over to Accrobeau from Bingo Beats for your aural pleasures.

DJ ZINC JANUARY MIX

TRACKLIST
kidda - jb remix
atrak - shake it down
zinc - pimp my ride
mr oizo - positif edeet
bodzin - rubin
ng + katy - tell me
zinc - blunt edge
hot chip - touch 2 much (fake blood mix)
magic mix 1
mystery jets - half in love (foamo edit)
boy 8 bit- wolfen
avh - ski harder
ghetto
spells
warrior - cvs (remix)
zinc - horrible
jb - what (b8b mix)
proxy - din dah
journey into sound
busy p protect + entertain (crookers remix)
watch dis
reservoir dogs - buddah finger
tc - wheres my money (caspa/jb longer mix)
proxy raven - nolay special
zinc - 138 trek
zinc loves leia

saturday afternoon

If you don't know much about the struggle of political status that the Irish prisoners endured and are interested this is a gold mine.

This Saturday afternoon Rio cinema on Kingsland High Road is having a screening of Steve McQueen's 'Hunger' accompanied by a discussion. I know I will struggle to watch it for a second time but am definitely going to get out of work for this.

Full details on a facebook events page as always so CLICK FOR MORE

Be good to see some faces

besos.

(photo by me. shot in twinbrook west belfast. couple more of that set here)

Invite your friends but probably not your family

home made

hiiiiiiiiiiiii

did this at my mates house on sunday.

completely aware that i'll regret it at some point in the future but whaddafuck... as swedish people would say.

sails still have to be coloured so i'm gonna order some opaque white and a colour for the main part of the boat??? i want the little flags at the top to be red (i'm a Gooner) so maybs a different colour. ideas?

besos.

Ulysses

A few friends of mine just made this new video for Franz Ferdinand. They filmed it in L.A. and I think it looks great, check it out.

yes ebay

when i told my sister i had bought 100 films she got excited about endless fun time infront of the tv... should know me better.

48p per film. ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh!

Swapsies

I wonder enough what I might get in exchange for a copy of Coyote Ugly, enough that I might show my face at this:


http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/event.php?eid=109606705116

Top 50

Oh yeah sweet jesus they should re-name the first half of January 'top 50 time', every single publication, website and critic worth its weight in promotional frisbees feels compelled to put into order the albums that happened to have a release date within the same 12 month period. It's amazing. How can one album, one artist, some up an entire year? It's like saying "What mood were you in in 2008?" the answer is always going to be "lots of different ones", "but what was your TOP mood of the year?"... its stupid. But whatever, who cares, it does give a good idea on who actually made a decent record, and its an excellent way to make sure you didn't miss any good records while you were too busy working/masturbating/drinking/fucking another year away. If you can't be bothered to look around to see who 'won' 2008 I've compiled some edited highlights for you here, as well as coming up with my own top 10.

At first I thought that Rolling Stone, in a bizzare attempt to stay on-top of the ever changing musical climate, had asked Brad Pitt to pick their top 50 albums of the year for them. Luckily I was mistaken and they stayed very firmly IN 'the box' by asking all their critics instead. TV on the Radio came out on top, with their latest 'dear science' (as an interesting side note, did you know that during the Concrete and Glass festival in October the venue that TV on the Radio were supposed to play fell through, so they were hastily re-booked to play at Cargo?!) although the whole top 50 completely discredits itself with the inclusion of Kaiser Chiefs at 21 and the Jonas Brothers at 40, seriously. TV on the Radio also top the lists of The Guardian, Spin, the New York Times and no doubt countless more. The other big contender for 'winner' of 2008 has to be Fleet Foxes, who sail to the top of Pitchfork and Mojo's lists and generally show up a lot in most peoples top 5/top 10, coming in at 2 in Rough Trade East, Filter and Q. They also notably top the Hype Machines list of Albums. Although I love the Fleet Foxes record, its a pretty depressing thought for me that it could in some way "sum up" 2008, as nice as it is I dont think 2008 was that chilled out. Other albums that seem to be featuring way more in these lists than they were on anyone I knows i-pod are Portishead's 'Third', Bon Iver's 'For Emma, Forever Ago' and that Glasvegas record, all of which I think are only in matching the depressed mood of the journalists doing the lists wondering if they were going to have a job when they came back to work in January. One of my favourite and most agreeable top 10's is from the NME who are one of the only publications noting the GENIUS of the Mystery Jets record, and reppin Friendly Fires as a late contender and Metronomy to boot. At the top of their pile is MGMT, which when I think back through the year is one of the only bands who I think i've truly started and ended the year with. They've had a constant stream of big singles so they've been constantly on the radio, and to be fair the album doesn't have a bad track on it. They've also still got huge remixes coming out of their tunes, most notably 80kidz and Soulwax's efforts on 'kids', which shows a continued interest in them by them kids in the clubs (and them kids on the blogs).  Away from the album and to the live circuit I saw them in tiny venues in Texas at the start of the year and then in huge tents at V and Reading in the summer, which is always amazing to see a band do, in fact, the hype and the atmosphere watching them at SXSW was amazing, we had to break into the gig through the backstage door and pretend to be the official film crew for them ha, there was literally 500 people outside trying to get in. I discussed this whole thing last night with Kieran from the View, and he's also saying that MGMT is up there as one of the best, and in the Hype Machine's end of year charts they are officially the most blogged band of the year. So yeah, NME, I think you might be right, MGMT is my album of the year. Here is an attempt at the rest of the top 10.

1.MGMT - Time to Pretend

2.Mystery Jets - 21

3.Late of the Pier - Fantasy Black Channel

4.Friendly Fires - Friendly Fires

5.Hot Chip - Made in the Dark

6.Cage the Elephant - Cage the Elephant

7.Weezer - The Red Album

8.Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

9.Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

10.Kings of Leon - Only by the Night

Oh god that took forever and I'm sure I've missed something obvious. Also fully not caring that that could actually have been the NME top 10, not trying to look cool those are the albums I've enjoyed the most and listened to the most in 2008. As an extra note I might edit this upon hearing the records that have been in lots of lists that I haven't heard yet (TV on the Radio, Lil Wayne, Bon Iver) and other records that I just haven't got round to picking up yet (Laura Marling, Santogold, No Age)...

So come on then, what's your top 10? or just top record of the year? What did I miss (other than that SICK Jonas Brothers record - thanks Rolling Stone)?

22 disposable camera photos from New York City

FAIL

failblog.org

Volume Magazine

The new issue of Volume Magazine is available here on line and at various places around town for free from today. I did some photos for them of Baxter Dury and of the curators of Concrete and Glass, check them out in the issue. I tried to post some un-used shots from these shoots but blogger is hating on me so hard right now, so make sure you click that link and have a look through.

OH MY GOD

(no pun intended)

MORE AT ATHEISTNATION.NET

kansas is now on my places to visit list

hah beso

p.s. thanks abi tundeh for bringing this to my ahtencion

Re: London Lights

My ever considerate Mum directed my attention to these.

- congrats Jason Hawkes

They made me think of our big brother blog BNTL and the sorts of things they could be popping out with a helicopter and a £10,000 lens.

For more, check 'News Stories in Photographs'

besos

Dogme 95

So I was watching Julien Donkey Boy by Harmony Korine again tonight, and at the start of it realised there is a certificate saying "Dogme 95", now I don't know if I'm stupid or what but I had no idea what that meant, so I wikipedia'd it, standard.

Basically, if you dont know either, there is a set of rules that you are supposed to follow to have a Dogme 95 certificate, as follows -

1 - Filming must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in (if a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found).

2 - The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. (Music must not be used unless it occurs within the scene being filmed, i.e., diegetic).

3 - The camera must be a hand-held camera. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. (The film must not take place where the camera is standing; filming must take place where the action takes place.)

4 - The film must be in colour. Special lighting is not acceptable. (If there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera).

5 - Optical work and filters are forbidden.

6 - The film must not contain superficial action. (Murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.)

7 - Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden. (That is to say that the film takes place here and now.)

8 - Genre movies are not acceptable.

9 - The final picture must be transferred to the Academy 35mm film, with an aspect ratio of 4:3, that is, not widescreen. (Originally, the requirement was that the film had to be filmed on Academy 35mm film, but the rule was relaxed to allow low-budget productions.)

10 - The director must not be credited.

There is a whole list of films that follow these guidelines on the Dogme 95 website. Does anyone know any more about it, or know any of those films? Would be good to know which other ones to check out.

Synth

This is at the 1985 Grammy awards, sweet. I found the link to it on this rather dull piece on the Guardian about wether electronic music "won" in some kind of imaginary battle between electronic and guitar based bands that the journalist has made up in order to squeeze a blog out of the fact that Florian Schneider is leaving Kraftwerk.

If there was any sort of battle actually happening then I'd think things were pretty even, with the NME revealing its top 10 new tips for 2009 today and 5 of the 10 being electronic-ish artists (The Big Pink, The XX, Empire of the Sun, Little Boots and Kid Cudi). I was glad to see The Big Pink and The XX getting props along side Florence and the Virgins, and agree that all should do well this year. I'm also a fan of Little Boots and i'm interviewing her in March so am taking more of an interest in her progress. I would've liked to have seen Graffiti Island getting some press though, and think that La Roux and We Have Band are going to be the biggest new acts in 2009. Who is everyone else tipping for the main stream?

Rusty

Went East today to get a few snaps of Russ, hopefully he will like them....looks a bit ginger in the second one but Im sure it wont do him any harm.

Dubstep Christmas