FOLLOW US ON:
GET THE NEWSLETTER
CONTACT US
The surreal, intricate collage of Lola Dupré
09.14.2011
09:44 pm
Topics:
Tags:


 
Like many traditional collage artist, the Glasgow-based Lola Dupré makes all her work out of just paper, scissors and glue. But unlike most artists Lola goes further than relying on a simple juxtaposition of imagery to make a point. Instead she uses multiple copies of source material, employing thousands of cuts and manipulating tiny shards of paper to create a strange, amorphous, almost fractal vision. Her work is like looking at a dissolving reality reflected in a spoon.
 

 

 

 

 
In a recent interview on the Empty Kingdom blog, Lola says this of her modus operandi:

t came about through experiments with paper as a sculptural medium, through a chance arrangement in 3D forms I began to think about applying it in 2D.  I guess the work could say a few different things about me; I think I am meticulous and multi-dimensional as a person, perhaps that comes across in my work, I’m not sure.  In my opinion, I create, and it is up to the viewer to decipher things and find meaning.

You can read the rest of that interview here, and see all of Lola’s work at her website www.loladupre.com - in the meantime, click read on (below) to see more of her exceptional work. 

 

READ ON
Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
|
09.14.2011
09:44 pm
|
Art from Chaos: The Sweet and the story behind ‘Ballroom Blitz’
09.12.2011
11:33 am
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
It was art out of chaos. Pop art. The Sweet‘s “Ballrooom Blitz”, Glam Rock’s catchiest, trashiest, most lovable song, came from a riot that saw the band bottled off the stage, at the Grand Hall, Palace Theater, Kilmarnock, Scotland, in 1973. Men spat, while women screamed to drown out the music. Not the response expected for a group famous for their string of million sellers hits, “Little Willy”, “Wig-Wag Bam” and the number 1, “Block Buster”.

Why it happened has since led to suggestions that the band’s appearance in eye-shadow, glitter and lippy (in particular the once gorgeous bass player Steve Priest) was all too much for the hard lads and lassies o’ Killie.

It’s a possible. Priest thinks so, and said as much in his autobiography Are You Ready Steve?. But it does raise the question, why would an audience pay money to see a band best known through their numerous TV appearances for their outrageously camp image? Especially if these youngsters were such apparent homophobes? Moreover, this was 1973, when the UK seemed on the verge of revolution, engulfed by money shortages, food shortages, strike action,  power cuts and 3-day-weeks, and the only glimmer of hope for millions was Thursday night and Top of the Pops.

Another possible was the rumor that Sweet didn’t play their instruments, and were a manufactured band like The Monkees. A story which may have gained credence as the band’s famous song-writing duo of Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, preferred using session musicians to working with artists.

The sliver of truth in this rumor was that Sweet only sang on the first 3 Chinn-Chapman singles (“Funny, Funny”, “Co-Co” and “Poppa Joe”). It wasn’t until the fourth, “Little Willy” that Chinn and Chapman realized Sweet were in fact far better musicians than any hired hands, and allowed the band to do what they did best - play.

True, Chinn and Chapman gave Sweet their Midas touch, but it came at a cost. The group was dismissed by self-righteous music critics as sugar-coated pop for the saccharine generation. A harsh and unfair assessment. But in part it may also explain the audience’s ire.

In an effort to redefine themselves, Sweet tended to avoid playing their pop hits on tour, instead performing their own songs, the lesser known album tracks and rock covers. A band veering from the songbook of hits (no matter how great the material) was asking for trouble. As Freddie Mercury proved at Live Aid, when Queen made their come-back, always give the audience what they want.

Still, Glam Rock’s distinct sound owes much to Andy Scott’s guitar playing (which has been favorably compared to Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck), Steve Priest’s powerful bass, and harmonizing vocals, and Mick Tucker’s inspirational drums (just listen to the way he references Sandy Nelson in “Ballroom Blitz”). Add in Brian Connolly’s vocals, and it is apparent Sweet were a band with talents greater than those limned by their chart success.

So what went wrong?

If ever there was a tale of a band making a pact with the Devil, then the rise and fall of Sweet could be that story. A tale of talent, excess, fame, money, frustration and then the decline into alcohol, back-taxes, death and disaster. Half of the band is now tragically dead: Connolly, who survived 14 heart attacks caused through his alcoholism, ended his days a walking skeleton, touring smaller venues and holiday camps with his version of Sweet; while the hugely under-rated Tucker sadly succumbed to cancer in 2002.

The remaining members Priest and Scott, allegedly don’t speak to each other and perform with their own versions of The Sweet on 2 different continents. Priest lives in California, has grown into an orange haired-Orson, while Scott, who always looked like he worked in accounts, is still based in the UK, and recently overcame prostate cancer to present van-hire adverts on the tube.

This then is the real world of pop success.

I doubt they would ever change it. And I doubt the fans would ever let them. So great is the pact with the devil of celebrity that once made, one is forever defined by the greatest success.

Back to that night, in a theater in Kilmarnock, when the man at the back said everyone attack, and the room turned into a ballroom blitz. Whatever the cause of the chaos, it gave Glam Rock a work of art, and Sweet, one of their finest songs.
 

 
Bonus ‘Block Buster’ plus documentary on Brian Connolly, after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
09.12.2011
11:33 am
|
James Bond and his guns
09.08.2011
06:30 pm
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
An interesting curio from the 1960s explaining the derivation of James Bond’s weapon of choice.

In the first Bond novel, Casino Royale, Ian Fleming armed 007 with a .25 calibre Beretta Jetfire, which he kept in a chamois shoulder holster, so as not ruin the line of his jacket. However, in 1956, a Glasgow-based firearms expert, Geoffrey Boothroyd, wrote to Fleming suggesting a Beretta wasn’t necessarily the best gun for a spy:

“I have, by now, got rather fond of Mr. James Bond. I like most of the things about him, with the exception of his rather deplorable taste in firearms. In particular, I dislike a man who comes into contact with all sorts of formidable people using a .25 Beretta. This sort of gun is really a lady’s gun, and not a really nice lady at that. If Mr. Bond has to use a light gun he would be better off with a .22 rim fire; the lead bullet would cause more shocking effect than the jacketed type of the .25.

“May I suggest that Mr. Bond be armed with a revolver?”

Fleming opted for the Walther PPK, and graciously thanked Boothroyd for his advice by creating the fictional character Major Boothroyd, a service armourer, who first appeared in Dr. No and subsequent Bond novels. Later, Major Boothroyd was identified simply as ‘Q’ in the Bond films, and was played first by Peter Burton, then from the second film onwards, by Desmond Llewelyn, until his death in 1999, when John Cleese took over the role.

In the following clip from 1964, Sean Connery introduces Boothroyd, where he explains the differences between a Beretta, a Walter PPK and a .44 Magnum - better known as Dirty Harry’s favored tool of the trade. A longer version can be viewed here.
 

 
Via Letters of Note
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
09.08.2011
06:30 pm
|
Exclusive interview with legendary photographer Brian Sweeney
09.06.2011
07:33 pm
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
It was his art teacher who first suggested he should pick up a camera. “My paintings were shite. I had a wee camera but didn’t really use it much till I went to college where I did this design for print course thing at the GCBP (Glasgow College of Building and Printing). Most of the photographers who were there at the time thought I was studying photography I spent so much time in the darkroom.”

That’s when Brian Sweeney found he had more than just a natural talent for photography. A talent that would lead him to become one of the most sought after, award winning photographers in the Europe. 

It was probably something that as always there in the background, as he explained in this exclusive interview with Dangerous Minds:

Brian Sweeney: ‘A-ha, the background. Funnily enough, I met up with some old schoolfriends of mine recently, who informed me I was always an arty-farty little bastard. I do remember being told by the headmaster that school was for learning and not a bloody discotheque - I’ve always loved that word ever since during that period we were all dressing up as Dexy’s Midnight Runners, something I still haven’t grown out of yet - well, that 80s period anyway.’

It was his fascination with music and fashion and soccer that led Sweeney to start documenting the clubs he and his friends hung out in.

Brian Sweeney: ‘I’d always been around bands from an early age. We were going into night clubs like Lucifers (now the Sub Club) and Fury Murrys to see a lot of later Factory bands. Then Acid House kicked off and I was sort of there shooting DJs, my mates etc, the scene basically for fun…..then ID, The Face, Melody Maker needed shots of the regional scenes and my name popped up quite a lot, so I started shooting for them up here [in Glasgow]. It just sort of kicked off…I then started shooting for all the labels, just in the right place at the right time. Everything happened very quickly from being on the dole and arsing around nightclubs to well earning money and shooting celebrities and arsing around nightclubs in London.”’

Arsing about or not, Sweeney is a legendary figure in the photographic world, known for his professionalism, enthusiasm and boundless energy, going from one location to the next, fashion shoots, adverts, documentary work, magazine work - his creativity never stops. Sweeney’s been described as the equivalent of Hunter S Thompson with a camera - but only far more talented - while his looks have been described as a grizzled Santa’s helper or a more handsome Billy Bob Thornton, take your pick. 

See more of Brian’s work here and here.

Selection of photographs from Were Antelopes Sleep below, for details check here.
 
image
 
image
 
More from Sweeney and a selection of his photos from ‘Were Antelopes Sleep’, after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
09.06.2011
07:33 pm
|
‘Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life’ from 1993
08.22.2011
07:36 pm
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
This is an excellent short film, Franz Kafka’s It’s A Wonderful Life, written and directed by the immensely talented Peter Capaldi. It stars Richard E. Grant, Elaine Collins, Phyllis Logan, Cripin Letts and Ken Stott, and is a comedy about Kafka’s frustrations in writing Metamorphosis - with a little nod towards the work of Frank Capra. This was a deserved Oscar winner back in 1995, for best short film, and Capaldi is now better known for his foul-mouthed Maloclm Tucker form The Thick of It. One hopes he will return to writing and directing soon.
 

 
The rest of ‘Franz Kafka…’ plus the best of Capaldi as the foul mouthed Malcolm Tucker - NSFW, after the jump….
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
08.22.2011
07:36 pm
|
Neil Young busking in Glasgow 1976
08.12.2011
08:02 pm
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
Hoots mon! Rare film of Neil Young busking in Glasgow city center, April 1 1976, prior to headlining at the city’s legendary Apollo Theater later that night.

Mr Young performed outside Glasgow’s Central Station, on Gordon Street, where he sang “Old Laughing Lady”. Because of the date - All Fool’s Day - it has been suggested that Mr Young was carrying out his own practical joke for the benefit of those lucky denizens of the Dear Green Place.
 

 
With thanks to Neil McDonald
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
08.12.2011
08:02 pm
|
New Music: Steven Cossar’s sublime Pioneers Of Anaesthetic
07.03.2011
03:24 pm
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
Over the years, the Variety Bar near Charing Cross, Glasgow has been a hotbed for artists and musicians: from painters, such as Steven Campbell, Peter Howson, and Adrian Wiszniewski, to the legendary AC Acoustics (one of John Peel’s favorites), Happy Particles and now, Pioneers of Anaesthetic.

Pioneers Of Anaesthetic is the name by which musician Steven Cossar writes, records and releases his music. Since 2000, Steven has recorded almost 400 songs, which he compiles onto “albums” of 30-40 tracks each, these are then sold or given away at gigs.

“I try not to use the same guitar tuning twice, although there are many identical tone intervals with transposed sets of strings. I have played occasional shows around Glasgow, which typically consist of 2 sets - One written and one written on the spot ; Instant Composition Improv, if you will.”

So successful is Steven’s Instant Composition that many of his audience have asked after shows if he is “actually lying and have pre-written the Improv sets.” For the record, he doesn’t, which makes Steven’s talents all the more exceptional and impressive - “Apparently, the less writing I do… the better.”

“I’d describe the music as short songs for a long attention span. The ideas and melodies are repetitive but usually dissolve quickly enough to (hopefully) warrant repeated listening.

“A recurring structural trait is to leave the flourishes and embellishments out until the last phrase or chorus, so that the song seems like a short glimpse of it’s potential and there is plenty left to the listener’s imagination.

“Lyrically, I rely on home-truthing and coming clean about stuff I’d usually shy away from in ‘real life’.”

It is this that makes Pioneers Of Anaesthetic’s music deliciously addictive, the songs, none of which last much more than 1 minute 30 seconds, are short enough to catch interest, but finish before that interest is sated.

Steven’s interests and influences include Guided By Voices, Red House Painters, and Lou Barlow. He’s also claims he is “Inspired by the approach of the late Hip-Hop producer, J Dilla more than any other artist. His influence on urban and all alternative musics is staggering.”

Over the years, Steven has been a well respected ‘Gun For Hire’ around Glasgow, contributing his musical talents to several bands.

I am a multi-instrumentalist, but have a heavy slant towards guitars and drums. I guess most of the bands I’ve played with never really wanted to commit fully and it’s always been a case of not taking it too seriously.

“I play in Larmousse (City Slang) with Cliff Henderson and David Gow (Sons & Daughters), I’m recording an album with Steven Ward (Empire Builder), I play in Mandrake Shepherd who’ve just completed a 3 song Demo session at my house in the preperation for Studio Album.

“I’m rehearsing a new Band, tentatively called Mussel Memory, with two friends I’ve played with for years, Iban Perez (Tut Vu Vu, Sparkling Shadazz, Rags & Feathers) and Ben Ashton (L Casio Immunitas, Sparkling Shadazz) and we’re incredibly excited by the material we’ve garnered thus far. I’m preparing to release a split 10” and Download with fellow Glasgow Bedroom Savant, BLOOD BLOOD. We have a mutual appreciation for the processes we share and the slightly off-kilter side to each other’s songs.

“I’m also rehearsing a full band version of Pioneers Of Anaesthetc for some shows this Winter. The band will feature Paul Foley (Eva, Vaselines, Mandrake Shepherd), Gordon Farquar (Stapleton, Happy Particles), and Cliff Henderson (Larmousse).”

But all this other fruitful activity won’t mean a lessening of his creative work as Pioneers Of Anaesthetic.

“I am continuing my current exercise in high volumes of output. It’s what I call ‘Quantity Control’.

“The idea is that I limit myself to one hour to write and record each song. I feel that once an initial idea leaves your head, with every passing second - it’s being compromised and re-thought. I just want to try to minimize the interference I have with the imagination’s melody-writing process.

“Quite often, It makes me laugh out loud, as the stuff that comes out is nowhere near what I’d usually shape it into, but that’s got to be healthy.”

 

  Warp Zoner by Pioneers Of Anaesthetic
 
Listen to more from Pioneers Of Anaesthetic, after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
07.03.2011
03:24 pm
|
Peter McDougall’s Classic Gangland Film: ‘Just A Boys’ Game’ starring singer Frankie Miller
06.01.2011
07:40 pm
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
In 1979, rock singer Frankie Miller landed the lead as Jake McQuillan in Peter McDougall‘s brilliant play Just A Boys’ Game. It was an incredible piece of casting for what was one of the best dramas produced for British TV in the seventies.

Indeed, it is fair to say McDougall, along with Dennis Potter and David Mercer, wrote some of the greatest and most powerful dramas produced during this time:

There can be no better justification for the modus operandi of the BBC drama department of the 1960s and 70s than the discovery of Peter McDougall. The most original Scottish voice of the era, McDougall might never have been given a break at any other time in broadcasting history.

McDougall started work at 14 in the Clydebank shipyards, alongside Billy Connolly. After a few years, he left and moved to London, where he became a house painter. One day, while painting actor and writer Colin Welland’s house, the young McDougall impressed the future Oscar-winner with his tales of marching and mace throwing in an Orange Walk. Welland encouraged McDougall to write his story down, which became the Italia Prix-winning drama, Just Another Saturday:

Just Another Saturday was first broadcast on 7 November 1975, as part of BBC2’s Play For Today. Britain, then as now, was a place of great inequality. Sectarian troubles in Northern Ireland were at their height. Issues of Scottish independence/devolution were in the spotlight, with the collapse of traditional industries such as shipbuilding on the Clyde, and the associated poverty, mirrored by vast wealth promised from North Sea oil in Scottish waters.

The script, screenplay, direction, film stock, lighting, photography, sound recording and editing of Just Another Saturday combine to give an understated, real-life appearance; making the emotional impact of picture and dialogue all the more intense. The use of brief close-ups of very human details add hugely to the emotional effect; faces in the crowds tell, evocatively, of Scotland’s pride and sadness. Outdoor shots especially show powerful visual imagery. The Duncan Street violence is that much more disturbing because much of it is hidden from view.

The play is about beliefs and innocence, and the desire to escape. As Lizzie tells John, “at least you believe in something”; Dan despises all “the organisations” on both sides of the Glasgow Protestant/Catholic divide: he ridicules what he sees their moral hypocrisies, like “suffering for the cause”. There is pointed irony in the fact that the only injury John incurs over the whole day is from a confused drunk. Dan points out the divisions that the organisations cause and the many contradictions from Scottish history that make their positions absurd. His quiet socialist conviction is delivered with great pathos.

Director John Mackenzie was flabbergasted at McDougall’s raw talent, and claims the finished film barely contained a single change from the original draft of the script. However the Glasgow police blocked filming on a drama they feared would cause “bloodshed on the streets in the making and in the showing.”

There wasn’t bloodshed, but considerable outrage that McDougall had highlighted so many of Scotland’s ills. McDougall was undeterred by the controversy, going on to write: The Elephant’s Graveyard (1976), with Jon Morrison and Billy Connolly; Just A Boys’ Game (1979),  with Frankie Miller, Ken Hutchison, Gregor Fisher and Hector Nicol; A Sense of Freedom, the story of Scotland’s notorious gangster, Jimmy Boyle: Shoot for the Sun (1986) with Jimmy Nail, and told the dark story of heroin dealers in Edinburgh; Down Where the Buffalo Go saw Harvey Keitel as US Marine stationed at Holy Loch naval base, and the slow disintegration of his life; and Down Among the Big Boys the story of a bank heist with Billy Connolly.

These days, McDougall’s work is rarely seen on TV, as those now in charge of drama commissioning are but mere “civil servants”, more interested in focus groups, audience figures and mediocrity, than genuine talent. It’s a shame, for McDougall is the best and strongest voice to have come out of TV over the past few decades.

McDougal’s Just a Boys Game is an equal to Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets, and contains some of the finest performances put into a TV film - watch out for comedian, Hector Nicol’s sly performance as the elderly hard man, whose respect Miller wants to earn, as well as brooding Ken Hutchison (from Straw Dogs) as Dancer and a young Gregor Fisher (who later starred as Rab C. Nesbitt) as Tanza, and Katherine Stark as Jane. It is an brilliant, brutal and unforgettable film.

The astounding Just a Boys Game (Play for Today, tx. 8/11/1979), was another ‘play in a day’, pursuing hard man Jake McQuillan, whose life of alcohol, violence and emotional impotence is threatened by the arrival of a younger, razor-wielding thug. Jake’s casual ‘boys’ games’ ultimately result in the death of his only friend.

Featuring some of the strongest violence the BBC had ever dared broadcast, it was stunningly photographed by Elmer Cossey and featured McDougall’s most crackling dialogue and richest characterisations, all brilliantly evoked by a cast headed by blues singer Frankie Miller in a performance that melts the camera in its intensity.

Miller sadly suffered a brain hemorrhage in New York in 1994, while working on new material for a band with Joe Walsh of The Eagles. Miller spent five months in a coma, after which he went through rehabilitation. In 2006, Frankie released his first new material in almost twenty years, Long Way Home.
 

 
The rest of McDougall’s ‘Just A Boys’ game’ plus ‘Just Another Saturday’, after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
06.01.2011
07:40 pm
|
Eric Bogosian interview from 1982: ‘They’ll never put me on a TV station saying this kind of stuff’
05.29.2011
03:22 pm
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
In the Fall of 1982, Eric Bogosian traveled to Britain, where he performed in his two solo shows Men Inside and Voices of America. His tour took him from London’s ICA, through Cardiff, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, Middlesborough, to Glasgow and Edinburgh, during the months of October and November , traveling with just one small suitcase of clothes, a black wool overcoat, and a selection of paperbacks to keep him company. Quite a feat at a time when things were organized without the advantage of the internet, emails, texts or mobile phones. It reveals much about Bogosian’s ambition and self-belief, as it does about his talents. 

Bogosian had opened Men Inside and Voices of America that Fall, at the Martinson Hall in New York, where he was hailed as “the best performance artist I’ve yet seen,” by Valentin Tatransky in Arts Magazine. He had also been described as like “a man possessed, a medium,  a schizophrenic,” by Sally Banes in the Village Voice, and as someone who could “perform the performer, and out-perform the performance artist,” in Flash Art.

At the time, I was a student, avoiding studies while editing the university magazine. How I’d heard about him, I can’t recall, a press release or flier most likely - my life back then seemed lived from the inside of an aquarium - knowledge, happiness, love and success were always beyond the glass. This disengagement with the external world might explain why I turned up late after his first show at the Third Eye Center, on Sauchiehall Street. Understandably, he was pissed, but I made my excuses and walked him back to his hotel on Cambridge Street, with arrangements to see and meet the following night in Edinburgh. These then are extracts from that interview.

Bogosian performed in a small stage area, surrounded by raised seating. He was imposing, for such a compact figure in black shirt, black pants. A bare stage except for one chair. Everything was suggested, created, from Bogosian’s physical presence. He walked onto stage and became a small child flying as Superman, talking to his father, mimicking adult bigotry before, shockingly, breaking into a stutter. So began the darkly comic Men Inside a carnival of souls from a troubled America - dysfunctional men, unable to interact with the world because of their bigotry and hate.

From Superman, Bogosian became a young man masturbating before declaiming his loneliness by saying “I love you” to a centerfold. Then on to a bored teenager, a stud, a bully, a sleaze-ball, a down-and-out, a Blood and Sword evangelist. It was loud, noisy and funny. Bogosian’s performance was as brilliant as his characters were low:

“Each character, each scene, flows into the next presenting different aspects of man gone wrong: his sexism, his racism, his hate.

It’s my effort on my part to try to communicate from a man’s point of view, trying to be sympathetic to men, saying this is how it happens, this is how a man ends up with these perspectives about women, about life - what can we do about it?

The thing I’m trying to lay out on women is the whole discussion of Women’s Liberation, Feminism, and the like, is all very complicated and that’s the first thing - it’s a complex issue, it’s not black and white. Women are perfectly justified in complaining about their situation, however, in different times men have also been put into situations that are not so great, the biggest one I can think about is certainly war.

War is Hell on Earth, and nobody should ever have to go through that. And of course, now, here in Great Britain people are thinking of the Falklands thing. I mean, it has to be thought about, if anything is sexist, it’s men should have to go off and die, that is sexist thing too.  All I’m saying, we’re all people, let’s try and be a little sympathetic to each other, while we try to find out what exactly is going on.

I was in a restaurant on a Sunday morning in Vancouver, on tour, and I came in and had my breakfast around 10 o’clock in the morning, and there was all these men in the place, all by themselves: smoking a cigarette, reading a paper, eating a breakfast, looking kinda glum, kinda down. And these two couple came in, both in their sixties, and each guy was very dapperly dressed with his wife. And the women were happily chatting with each other and the men were sort of ushering their wives in. And you had a very strong feeling that these women were in some way protecting these guys, they were giving them something to do with themselves, yeah know. They weren’t like every other guy in this place, and you got the feeling that these guys were kinda looking across at these two couples, how these guys’ clothes were clean, their clothes were pressed, and how, how they had something to fucking do.

And all those other guys were just crumpled up pieces of paper. And here are these two guys, who because they stuck it out with a couple of marriages, now that they were in their sixties, had something to do. And somehow I wish people would admit this: that mean and women are different, and that for whatever reasons, whether they’re cultural or whatever, they are complimentary aspects of one another.


Bogosian was concerned that some of the Scottish audience was offended by certain aspects of his performance thinking they may have confused the views of the characters with the performer’s. After all, this was dangerous stuff to bring to a city more attuned to the Royal Lyceum’s revival of Noel Coward, than an act billed as a cross between Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor.

“I don’t expect anyone to be so critical about performance or experimental theater as I have been. I mean, it’s my life, it’s all I’ve been doing for the past 12-13 years, it’s all I’ve been doing - working in theater and complex theater. I don’t expect everyone who walks in off the street to understand about that - they’re taking it at face value, and they may not even notice the technique I’m employing.

For instance, the exotic dancer and the Led Zeppelin thing seem very alike, but their movements are very complex. You just can’t jump out and do that stuff, it’s all choreographed, and all rehearsed a lot, it’s just subtle. Someone might watch and go, ‘Hmm, not bad, that’s good movement.’ But not everyone’s going to understand that, what it’s about. They’re going to go ‘Ha-ha. look at that, he’s playing guitar,’ you know?

I can’t say if that’s something formal or theoretical in my work, it’s just something I’ve always done as an actor. It comes through from the inside. I don’t think any good actor can explain what happens when they become Someone. I become them totally and I know I’m inside them, and somehow it reads, and that’s the funny thing because at acting school they teach you how to relate what’s going on inside your head to what you look like outside. I don’t know what I look like, I’ve seen photos and stuff, but somehow what I look like is corresponding to what I’m feeling.

In a way that’s very direct and without any real training on it, I just hit the stage and it starts happening to me. But that’s just me, it’s like something I’ve got to my advantage, that I should make the best use of.”

The second half of the show was Voices of America a relentless tour of America’s airwaves, where every speaker, no matter how cheery or inane, seemed obsessed with death:

“If you had a choice to die from a nuclear holocaust (oh no!) or, a heroin overdose (oh wow!), which would you choose?” - ‘Voices of America’

This was all very much a hint of Bogosian’s Barry Champlain in Oliver Stone’s Talk Radio.

Voices of America started out as a sort of finger exercise, so I could practice my voice, and it ended up as a piece.

At the time I was trying to get into advertising, so I made this demo tape of adverts and jingles and stuff, but the company thought it too cynical.

It’s very black. I’m interested in the way society’s fascinated with the lives of its stars and superstars, with its violence and consumption, its decadence.

Like how Keith Richard’s habits became published or how real death and real suffering are treated. How things are mass produced indifferently, and people’s suffering doesn’t come through, but is just forgotten.

Though I don’t think my philosophy or my ideas about anything are social or profound or anything, they’re just basic, mundane, liberal ideas, what we call liberal in America. It’s just like everyone else should be nice to everyone else, and how you can do it and go vote and I’m against the death penalty and for social programs. It’s just dumb stuff - I don’t mean these things are dumb - I mean I’ve got nothing to tell anybody that they shouldn’t already know. I’m just making stuff I’m interested in, it’s the piece I’m interested in - how can construct them and how can I act them out, it’s just all that stuff is in my head and it all might as well come out in the show, it might as well be there, as not be there.

And I know they’ll never put me on TV for saying these things, that’s the funny thing about it: I don’t think there’s anything radical about what I’m saying or doing, but they’ll never put me on a TV station saying this kind of stuff.

The current comedians in the States are just zany, they’re just crazy guys. Comedians with a conscience are not wanted in the mass media.

It’s just intuitive, a whole set of things are interesting to me, things that operate in my life. It’s like my face, if I get a nose job, and get my nose to be straight and my chin to be stuck out and stuff like that.

If I’m eloquent in expressing my particular set of perameters in my frame of mind they start to seem universal, or interesting or something like that, or, somebody at least might identify with them. I don’t start off with a theory and try to work it all out, it’s just that I try to express myself as best I can.”

Later, we walked out into the Georgian cobbled streets of Edinburgh’s New Town. It was late and cold, and the evening’s silence reminded us of our own past experiences of walking around empty streets at night listening for parties to crash.
 

 
 
Bonus clips of Eric Bogosian in performance, after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
05.29.2011
03:22 pm
|
Upside Down: The Creation Records Story
05.03.2011
07:43 pm
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
Upside Down: The Creation Records Story is a roller coaster of film, which tells the incredible tale of one of the most important independent record labels of the past fifty years - Creation Records

This excellent film reveals how the gallus Glaswegian Alan McGee started the label with a £1,000 bank loan in the 1980s, and went on shape music in the 1980s and 1990s, as he made Creation home to such talents as The Jesus and Mary Chain, Primal Scream, Medicine, The Pastels, Teenage Fanclub, BMX Bandits, Super Furry Animals, The Boo Radleys, Saint Etienne, Momus, My Bloody Valentine, 3 Colours Red and Oasis - who were signed for £40,000.

McGee originally thought Liam Gallagher was the band’s drug dealer, as he told the Sun:

“I was up in Glasgow seeing my dad and I wasn’t sure I’d even go to the gig. I got there early by mistake. Oasis were on first, before most people arrived. There was this amazing young version of Paul Weller sat there in a light blue Adidas tracksuit. I assumed he was the drug dealer and that Bonehead, the guitarist, was the singer.

“It was only when they went on stage I realised it was the lead singer Liam Gallagher. I knew I had to sign them.

“Noel and I talked after the show and just said ‘done’ and he turned out to be a man of his word.

“I was lucky to be there. We didn’t send out scouts. Most of my signings were because I happened to see new bands. That couldn’t happen any more. If a new band as much as farts it’s all over the internet.”

Upside Down: The Creation Records Story brilliantly captures the creativity that came out of the chaos of the legendary McGee’s drug-fueled reign as President of Pop.

“I was on one continuous bender from 1987 until 1994. Until Oasis came along the Creation staff were more rock and roll than the bands we signed. Then Oasis came along and things got even crazier.

“I was permanently off my head on cocaine, ecstasy, acid and speed. We’d be awake for three days.

“We went one further than having dealers hanging around. We just employed them instead.

“But they were different times. If you behaved now like we used to people would phone the police.”

Upside Down: The Creation Records Story is now available on DVD, with a short cinema release, details here.
 

 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
05.03.2011
07:43 pm
|
A Tale of Two Cities
04.30.2011
11:00 am
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
A tale of two cities: London and Glasgow, yesterday, April 29 2011.
 

 
With thanks to Joseph Mckay
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
04.30.2011
11:00 am
|
Wishing the happy couple all the best with Ultimate Thrush
04.29.2011
09:14 am
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
It would be silly of me to introduce Divorce to a brand new audience, I feel, without also pointing people in the direction of the other relatively new Glasgow band that absolutely slays (in a punk fashion) - Ultimate Thrush. Being the day that’s in it, this can act as another special dedication to Kate and Harry. Perhaps this is a suitable soundtrack to the conjugal rituals that will take place in Buckingham Palace tonight?

Ultimate Thrush come from the same Glasgow School Of Art-influenced noise/d.i.y. nexus as Divorce, but have a very different approach. Comprising just one guitarist, one drummer and a lead screamer, they too make one hell of a racket but this time sound like a more math-rock take on the better bits of the Jesus Lizard. It should be noted that the drummer and guitarist are brothers, and are both incredibly good and incredibly tight.

Another band who have a dedicated mosh-pit following, Ultimate Thrush usually take to the stage dressed only in white sheets, and have been known to crucify their fans for the benefit of spectacle. Their stated aim on forming was to piss people off, but this backfired majorly as they are now one of the most popular live acts in the city. They have toured the UK and released a split tape with Divorce on Milk/Winning Sperm Party, and their debut 10 track EP on Winning Sperm Party is one of the best rock releases I have heard in the last 5 years. If you like punk/noise/thrash/Black Flag/Melvins/Sonic Youth I really can’t recommend it highly enough. As a taster, check out these two rehearsal clips:
 

 

 
You can listen to and download (for free) the debut Ultimate Thrush EP from Winning Sperm Party. If you want to hear more, I guess you could go to their MySpace.

 

Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
|
04.29.2011
09:14 am
|
Screw the Royal Wedding - listen to Divorce instead
04.29.2011
08:32 am
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
What a beautiful day. The sun us shining, birds are singing in the trees, flags are fluttering in the breeze. It is, indeed, a nice day for a white wedding. And down in old London town, ancient rites of passage are being replayed as we, the British Nation, stand as one in mind, body and spirit to salute the dawning of a new era, the start of a new chapter in how we the common people are governed over by ancient power elites. 

As the future king takes his bride-to-very-shortly-be up the aisle, I too would like to do my small (but perhaps significant) part in helping write this page of history. Tonight I shall be dressing as a priest and singing “Gett Off” at a gypsy wedding reception in Salford, but until then I will turning the volume up, banging my head, and revelling in the girl-powered noise glory of Glasgow’s Divorce.

Inspired to form at a gig by modern noise legends Aids Wolf, Divorce launched in 2008 with a core ratio of four girls to one boy, and a run of chaotic but highly energised gigs around the city. The mosh-pits they inspire are instantaneous and legendary, with as many women being thrashed about as men. The group released their first (self-titled) 10” single on the Optimo label in 2009, to considerable acclaim, and have gone on to release split singles with Comanechi and Ultimate Thrush. A full album was recorded and mixed for release in 2010, but was put on indefinite hold after the departure of the singer Sinéad and guitarist Hillary.

While this may seem like a career-ender for anyone less committed, Divorce have taken it in their stride, moved on and hired a new singer called Jennifer. There have been some new demos floating around on the net of this new line up (that sound great) and having seen Divorce mark II play I can confirm that they have lost none of their energy and connection with the crowd. Now, if only they can get their fingers out and finish another album, then we’d really have an excuse for the country to take a day off work, get blind drunk, and beat up anybody perceived to be even slightly different.

Divorce - “Amuse Bouche”
 

 
Divorce - “Pipe Down”
 


 
Divorce (mark II) - “Love Attack”
 

 
 
For more information on Divorce, visit the Divorce blog, or if you are really desperate, here is their Myspace. The “Divorce” 10” on Optimo Music is available to buy here.

Divorce play live in Glasgow tonight, as part of Optimo’s “TIl Death Do Us Part(y).”

Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
|
04.29.2011
08:32 am
|
‘Shout!’: Scenes from an imaginary film on the life and music of superstar Lulu
03.21.2011
05:17 pm
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
Scene 1

Exterior Night: Glasgow.

W/S of cranes and ships along the river and docks, tinged orange by winter’s twilight. City lights sparkle, the small theaters of tenement windows, the sound of distant traffic, blue trains rattling to the suburbs.

Caption

: Glasgow, 1963

Interior Night: The Lindella Nightclub. Wisps of smoke, tables along one side of room, a bar with a scrum of customers, eager to get drunk, enjoying themselves. Backstage - a band, The Gleneagles, are ready to go on. They can hear the audience getting restless. The bass player asks if everything is okay? Over the sound system, the voice of the compere introducing the band. This is it. A ripple of applause, a rush, then the band is on stage. At the rear, a young girl, who looks hardly in her teens, her hair bright red, sprayed with lacquer, and set in rollers. She has a cold, but smiles, and looks confident. A pause. She checks with the band. The audience are uneasy, mutter quick comments (“Away back to school, hen”). Laughter. Then 14-year-old Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie, opens her mouth and sings:

Lulu

: Wwwwwwwweeeeeeeelllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!!!!!!!

The voice is incredible. Little Richard, Jerry Lewis and The Isley brothers all rolled into this tiny figure at the front of the stage.

At the back of the room, a woman stands slightly away from the crowd, which is now mesmerized by the young girl’s singing. The woman is Marion Massey, and she will become Lulu’s manager.

Lulu

: (V/O) When I was fourteen, I was very lucky. I was discovered - to use a terrible term - by a person who was absolutely sincere. Since I was five, people had been coming up to me saying: ‘Stick with me, baby, and I’ll make you a star’. In fact, nobody ever did anything for me. Then Marion came along.

CU of Marion watching Lulu perform.

Marion Massey

: (V/O) She looked so peculiar that first time I saw her. Her hair was in curlers underneath a fur beret. She had a terrible cold, was very pale and wore three jumpers. But I was very intrigued by her. It wasn’t her singing;There was something tremendously magnetic about this girl. I knew she had the makings of a great star.

Cut To:

Scene 2

Caption

: London, 1964

Interior Day: Lulu performs on Ready Steady Go
 

 
More scenes from Lulu’s life co-starring David Bowie, Sidney Poitier, Maurice Gibb and Red Skelton, after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
03.21.2011
05:17 pm
|
Who is Bruce McLean? And what does he want?
03.12.2011
07:44 pm
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
Back in the 1980s, when I had nothing better to do than watch TV and collect unemployment benefit, I saw a video of the artist Bruce McLean. It was shown as part of Channel 4’s art series Alter Image in 1987, and after watching, my first thoughts were: Who the fuck is Bruce McLean and what does he want?

I was lucky, I had time to go and investigate. In the library, I found this:

Maclean / McLean an Anglicisation of the Scottish Gaelic MacGilleEathain. This was the patronymic form of the personal name meaning “servant of (Saint) John”.

Interesting. But not quite right. Later, there was more.

Working in a variety of mediums including painting, film and video projection, performance and photography, Bruce McLean is one of the most important artists of his generation.

It was with live works that McLean first grabbed the attention of the art world. An impulsive, energetic Glaswegian, he became known as an art world ‘dare-devil’ by critiquing the fashion-oriented, social climbing nature of the contemporary art world in the ‘70s. At St Martins his professors included the great sculptors of the day, Anthony Caro and Phillip King, whose work he mocked ruthlessly. In Pose Work for Plinths I (1971; London, Tate), he used his own body to parody the poses of Henry Moore’s celebrated reclining figures, daring to mock the grand master himself.

 
image
Pose Work for Plinths (1971)
 

The notion of using his whole body as a sculptural vehicle of expression led him to explore live actions: ‘it was when we (a collective) invented the concept of ‘pose’ that We could do anything’. Pose was live sculpture: Not mime, not theatre, but live sculpture. My colleagues, Paul Richards, Ron Carr, Garry Chitty, Robin Fletcher and I created Nice Style ‘The World’s First Pose Band’, which performed for several years, offering audiences such priceless gems as the ‘semi-domestic spectacular Deep Freeze, a four-part pose opera based on the lifestyle and values of a mid-west American vacuum cleaner operative’. Behind the obvious humour was a desire to break with the establishment, something that he has continued to do throughout his life and work. In 1972, for instance, he was offered an exhibition at the Tate Gallery, but opted, for a ‘retrospective’ lasting only one day. ‘King for a Day’ consisted of catalogue entries for a thousand mock-conceptual works, among them The Society for Making Art Deadly Serious piece, Henry Moore revisited for the 10th Time piece and There’s no business like the Art business piece (sung).

Now, I knew. Bruce McLean is a performance artist, a conceptual artist, a painter, a sculptor, a film-maker, a teacher, a joker, who knows art can be fun, which is always dangerous.
 

 
Bonus clips, including Tate Gallery interview with Bruce McLean, after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
03.12.2011
07:44 pm
|
Page 4 of 6 ‹ First  < 2 3 4 5 6 >