October 2008 Archives

This is graffiti in a tunnel under the M48 in south Wales.  It is a hang-out.  I suspect (from the graffiti) that substances are consumed here...

A friend of mine, David MacKay (Professor of Natural Philosophy, Cambridge University) has written a book on climate change (without the hot air).  It is intended to present facts rather than opinion.  The book is to be published in December 2008, but will always also be free at David's website.

In the section on nuclear power, you will see some of my Chernobyl / Prypiat photographs.

Note that they do indeed have a trader's license.  And a hygiene certificate.  And that they are proud of both of these facts.

Thanks to Mick for the sourcing of this, and for sampling the fare.

I've just completed my very first film and uploaded it to YouTube. 

Have a look.

Ironic really.  I had to take something into 'work' and went on my bike... I'd always know that there was a short cut through the Park to Milton Road... but never bothered to find it.  Yesterday though I did look for and find it.  And found these tubes.

I was so amazed I jumped off and simply lay my bike and bag on the grass - so haphazardly that I guy coming along the path behind me asked if I was OK.  He was bemused about photographing pipes but came round to the idea in the end.  Should have given him an EMC card. 

In just one afternoon Rob and I traveled through a realm of wonderfully related artists and musical styles and bass lines.

And all via the wonder of YouTube and iTunes and anecdote.

Where did we start? 

I think is was Shajarian from Iran. See YouTube.  Music to lift you.  From there, via demonstrations of how Iranian scales link to 'European' (Is that the right way to frame it) bass lines ["you have to bend the notes to get to the micro tones"], we arrived at Pentangle. 

Pentangle.  Some of the best bass playing around.  Yikes.  More YouTube fabness.  We were here to see the Iranian influences on the music.  Marvelling at Danny Thompson on bass and (drooling over) Jacqui McShee on vocals got us (me) thinking (and linking ot) Fairport Convention and Sandy Denny.  There is a criminal scarcity of Sandy Denny on YouTube (:. 

From there we drifted to Karen Carpenter.  Another pitch-perfect singer.  We marvelled at the astute bass line of Close to You and never once wondered why two electronica musos (sp?) would be so engaged.  The music is just so captivating and utterly beautiful (but we did agree that "Please Mr Postman" is shit and to be avoided). 

And then, Yes arrived.  At this point (as at all points) it is actually (and always) about the bass [see all of the above BTW].  It then 'decenced' to "this is what got me into playing the bass [n the 70s]".  Right then, this is hot.

Bit difficult to get Heart of the Sunrise (1970?) original line up vid so this will have to do.  We both agreed that this was the business, and what we grew up with.  This was Rob's inspiration ["can you hear how, as with Karen Carpenter, the bass 'jokes with' and follows the vocals? [4 minutes in BTW]"].  Sure can.  Also both agreed that Geddie Lee copied this.  No bad thing. 

Mine (inspiration to pick up a bass) was (is) Lord of Light, Hawkwind.  There are no worthwhile versions on YouTube.  This is the studio version that got me going in 1975 (from the school record library).  The Space Ritual version has Lemmy developing the bass line to new heights.  Ahhhhhhhh. 

Then we were listening to The Stranglers and onto vids of Nazis.  Tercer Reich.  It seems to be that you have to 'confirm' your age (over 18?) to watch Nazi stuff.  Why is that?

Winding down was to delicate Cabaret Voltaire.  Oh so delicate.

These are very long exposures (5-15 seconds).

Technically, I think that the laser was random, but what you see here is where it impacted on moving dancers. 

Just happened to be passing the old place.  Looked very much the same.  No radical changes to the old Barrington workplace.