AMAZING! AMAZING! AMAZING!
Category: Podcast

Hi kids,
I'm on the radio this thursday on http://dum.diesel.com/radio
The show is called Red Red Tape, is on from 6-8pm thursday evening (UK time, do the maths) and it's me playing records and forgetting basic human speech during the links (I was really nervous).

PLUS......

PANICO! recorded live from saturday night

and an interview with EDU from the group and SAL P from minimal funk pioneers LIQUID LIQUID (http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:4f867uu070jk)

You can listen on 87.7FM if you're in London or stream from http://dum.diesel.com/radio

Peace

Paul

9:26 AM - 25 Comments - 37 Kudos - Add Comment

Lucid Dreams
Category: Dreams and the Supernatural

We're in London mixing a few songs with Mr Dan in his studio. It's similar to our place in Glasgow: not much of a conventional studio. A superslinky spring reverb hangs from the ceiling and various odd instruments scatter around the room. The Saarang electronic tambura is a favourite. You can't tell it's a studio from the street. It has a false front: looks like a restaurant that doesn't do much trade. It reminds me of a place on Duke Street, Glasgow around ten years ago: a Chinese supermarket where the only thing for sale was one ancient packet of wan tun at the bottom of a deep freezer. I don't think it was a studio they had in the back though.

We finished mixing Lucid Dreams before the weekend. It's going to be in Pacman, Donkey Kong or something. We mixed Ulysses yesterday after putting down the celeste in the dream sequence. There's a bit of a dream theme emerging, Dream Again and Lucid Dreams. A Severed Head too. It's the title of one song, the characters of another came from the Iris Murdoch book and the lyrics of Lucid Dreams came from a severed head at the bottom of the well by Tynron Doon. Today we're mixing Katharine Kiss Me. My favourite part is the human bones percussion. It sounds like a dead man dancing: because it is. When you hear the chorus and notice the rattling rhythm it's the clapping of dry carpals and metacarpals.

I went to see Gonzales last night. He's one hell of a performer. I was at the Fridge in Brixton at the weekend: great tunes and scary bouncers. I've been staying with a friend off the Holloway road. On the night bus back there was a steaming guy wearing flip flops. He seemed to have had his toes run over or stamped on. The nails were broken and blood was seeping from under them. He didn't seem to care. The guy next to him was half leaning against him eating Dixie Fried Chicken. When the bus swang round a corner, a few greasy crumbles would drop from his droopy lips to land between the flip flop mangle toes.

I'm reading 'The Emperor' by Ryszard Kapuscinski. It is a set of interviews with the courtiers of Haile Selassie shortly after his downfall:

…His majesty would take his place on the throne, and when he had seated himself I would slide a pillow under his feet. This had to be done like lightning so as not to leave Our Distinguished Monarch's legs hanging in the air for even a moment. We all know that His Highness was of small stature. At the same time, the dignity of the Imperial Office required that he be elevated above his subjects, even in a strictly physical sense. Therefore a contradiction arose between the necessity of a high throne and the figure of His Venerable Majesty, a contradiction most sensitive and troublesome precisely in the region of the legs, since it is difficult to imagine that an appropriate dignity can be maintained by a person whose legs are dangling in the air like those of a small child. The pillow solved this difficult and all-important conundrum…

Alèmayèhu Eshèté is the soundtrack. Now where's my Pillow Roadie?

Alex

11:20 AM - 61 Comments - 101 Kudos - Add Comment

Essential reading
Category: Religion and Philosophy

People often ask us if we can offer any advice to young bands yet to get on the ladder as it were. I would say read this...

http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

We all read this just before we decided to go with Domino, one of the truly great independant labels in the UK.

So there you go.

Paul

5:52 AM - 15 Comments - 25 Kudos - Add Comment

Under the stage...

10:43 AM - 78 Comments - 124 Kudos - Add Comment

Piano

4:02 PM - 37 Comments - 47 Kudos - Add Comment

Live room

2:37 AM - 54 Comments - 65 Kudos - Add Comment

Recording...

8:49 AM - 101 Comments - 156 Kudos - Add Comment

RIP Klaus Dinger

Just found out he passed away last week.
Klaus was a member of the "seminal" krautrock group NEU!, inventor of the "motorik" drumbeat and a one time member of Kraftwerk and was also behing La Dusseldorf, one of my favourite bands of all time.
Go and hunt these records down now or get on you tube and watch these..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b48qPmJudE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPuBCfvMrBA&feature=related

hmmm, sadly there’s a lack of Dinger associated material on youtube
Try and get hold of the first NEU! album and the self titled La Dusseldorf album. Amazing records.


Paul

6:36 AM - 12 Comments - 14 Kudos - Add Comment

Fling Spring Party

5:05 PM - 43 Comments - 45 Kudos - Add Comment

No WAVE WINNER!!

Congrats Nom Nom Nom!

Competition is now over!

Thanks for your messages!

Paul

7:48 AM - 16 Comments - 11 Kudos - Add Comment