Ok, here are my two cents on Nialler9 post and the comments it has ensued.
Firstly I wasn’t at the gig but I have talked briefly to people who were at it and in particular the blog author and yer man with the ponytail! I met both Niall and Tim at Seomra Spraoi on Friday night and the subject of a blog spat came up. I had a look at the post yesterday. I will talk about my overall feeling to this and deal with the spat in the bullet points at the end. I things it’s fitting to do so as such!
Continue reading ‘Go-Team gig. Bouncers, Visuals, Teamwork etc’
Saul Williams’ new album, “The Inevitable Rise Of Niggy Tardust” was released yesterday online in a similar fashion to the last Radiohead album a few weeks back. I’d heard a bit about this and being a fan a Saul’s and it’s notorious producer Trent Reznor, well I was pretty much sold before even hearing it. I paid the five bucks knowing it was going to a deserving artist and that many middlemen were being cut out of this transaction. Yesterday the download link arrived in my inbox and I give it a spin. I am impressed, very impressed. I did cringe a little when I seen there was a cover version of “Sunday Bloody Sunday” on the tracklisting but it turned out to be a good track. The album has a great energy to it and even though I don’t like to compare music so much to others, sometimes it is the best way to describe it. So this album has a combination of the best elements of Jimi Hendrix, NIN, Ministry, Gill Scott Heron, NWA , Public Enemy, Faith No More to name just a few flavours I hear here. But all in all this is Saul. My top 3 on this are Break, WTF? and No One Ever Does. But that’s likely to change! I recommend this.
Also check out his open letter to Oprah on his myspace blog for a look into the inspired mind of Saul Williams. These are profound words from a great human being and it has received an influx of positive comments and well wishes. Read it and keep.
Big up to the man, the poet.
From the website…
The wall of sound that we’ve created is tagged with such graffiti that a passerby would seek out doors and ways to ENTER. Once inside a world defined by dreams come true they’d find aligned with the simplest act of sharing what we treasure. Most people aren’t aware of the world of art and commerce where exploitation strips each artist down to nigger. Each label, like apartheid, multiplies us by our divide and whips us ’til we conform to lesser figures. What falls between the cracks is a pile of records stacked to the heights of talents hidden from the sun. Yet the energy they put into popularizing smut makes a star of a shiny polished gun.
Well, fair play to Radiohead. I heard about what they were up to a few days back and it brought a smile to my face. It’s common knowledge now that Thom and his team have put their new album “In Rainbows” up online for digital download at whatever price you’d like to pay for it. This is really gonna shake up the music industry, they’ve made a very important statement here. You can pre-order a vinyl (with cd) boxset for £40 also and you get the digital download for free. But the real action is with the download itself, costing whatever you can afford, or want, to pay for it.
I’ve not yet heard it myself but will get it soon. But for now I say; “hats off to Radiohead”
More info on the album is on a Wiki page here.
Nialler9 does a good 1st impressions review here.
Hicksdesign have some ideas for cover art for the digital version here.
A web survey that’s asks how much you paid for the album is here.
[edit] 13.10.07 - now that i’ve got to listen to it a few times; well, i like it. a lot. aptly for me, the track ‘Videotape’ is one of my favs, as is “House Of Cards”.
Picnic Network is a creative media festival which takes place in Amsterdam. I was fortunate to be an invited guest of DivX / Stage6 at the festival last week. On Wednesday I was on a panel entitled “Digital Video - The New Creative Process” as part of a day long session regarding “Transforming Media”. I got to meet lots of very interesting people with like minds starting with the good folks from DivX / Stage 6 ; Genevieve, Ben, Jim, Melissa, James and Jordan. The panel discussions were very stimulating as it represented a good cross section of people with new ideas for the creation and distribution of quality digital media. The following people participated alongside myself:
> M dot Strange - We Are The Strange - fantastic animator of a strange and extraordinary piece of work.
> Gabriel McIntyre - Xolo.tv - founding member of a forward thinking organisation of vloggers and a whole lot more.
> Jamie King - Steal This Film - director of the film about piracy online featuring The Pirate Bay as a case study.
> Henrik Moltke - Good Copy / Bad Copy - director of this excellent film, see my review of this from a while back
> Wendy Bernfeld - Rights Stuff - founder of advisory group for media companies
> Steven Lee - Star Wreck Studios - CEO of groundbreaking Finnish film company which explores space and beyond on a shoestring.
> Ton Roosendaal - Blender - Founder of groundbreaking animation solution, Blender.
And this was just the first day! - a great way to kick off an exciting week of new discoveries.
Continue reading ‘Picnic ‘07′
Well, I have a backlog of blog entries to put in over the past few weeks. I’m gonna back date them so the blog at least appears to be kept up to date. I guess that’s cheating, but what the heck, it keeps it neat and logical and it’s better than omitting these entries altogether. So, below in a while you should see my Electric Picnic review as well as my 1st trip to Amsterdam this month to IBC. I will be back there next week for the Picnic Network. Watch this space.
So, I haven’t had much of a chance to update this as I have taken on a big documentary project which examines the debate surrounding Tara and the M3 motorway. I won’t say more about it here for the moment as I am in the thick of it. I will be soon opening a dedicated site for it. Stay tuned.
So in the meantime, here’s a little video treat. On the new Myspace TV there is a cool little channel called the 10 Minute Theater. I came across this summary of one of my favourite films “Dark Star”. If you’ve not already seen the film I don’t recommend watching this, because it ruins it of course. But that’s the point and it’s a funny review of it. “Dark Star” is a very low budget film from the beginning of John Carpenter’s career. You’ll either love it or hate it. It is quite ridiculous and that’s why I like it! It’s got talking bombs, need I say more! So here it is, summed up, in ten minutes. I also found the script for the original short film version here.
Enjoy.
10 MINUTE THEATER Episode 12: Dark Star
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