electric angel /design for life

live, last night, sold out!

thursday evening, as a dreary, misting of dank weather engulfs the town, a small gathering of surfers, designers, poets and artists got together for the second of our ‘tiny poetry’ gigs at the electric angel gallery – tonight was the turn of landscape poet mark dickinson.

mark’s work is intrinsically linked with his surroundings, his time spent in the natural environment, be it fishing or surfing. he says more important to his poetry than these activities is walking. his great knowledge of natural environments, geology, history and words create orchestral poems that build and ebb and flow as if a part of the landscape themselves. mark read from a decades worth of work ending with the epic trods which follow.

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our next poet, john clarke, attended (who you can see next thursday, 26th august), along with local filmmaker ollie banks, who works with mark on many surfing related projects, and james koppert, another of our poets who’ll be performing on thursday 9th september.

two weeks in to our tiny poetry gigs and they seem to be going down very well indeed.

tiny poetry

what’s the point of having space if you’re not going to use it? ok, so we only have a tiny little space but let’s use it anyway. so as seen as our current exhibition is all on the walls (literally – see here) we thought it would be fun to use the gallery floorspace for some poetry gigs while it was on. there’s the loose theme of the sea/surf/coast to tie in with the exhibition, but we’ve told the poets ‘do what you want’ and we can’t wait to hear what they do.

for full details download a flyer here.

peasholm magic lantern

coastival sees the welcome return of scarborough’s festival of light [which i think was our first design work for create]. we’ll be converging on the rotunda museum for a lantern parade on friday 13 february and will certainly be checking out other light goodies such as video installations in the south bay underground car park and in the crypt of saint martin’s church on south cliff. there’s also something called the chroma van which promises ‘a unique exploration of colour perception in the comfort of a remodelled caravan’. how can you resist that?

i’ve also been invited by poet kate evans to apply typographic interpretations to a series of haiku’s as part the peasholm magic lantern. the lantern will take place in the faux-oriental pagoda on the island of peasholm park and features haiku’s by kate, photographs by mark vesey and an original composition by amaya huntley. kate showed me the first draft of the complete sequence yesterday – i think it’s going to be something rather special. the music is wonderful and the whole experience reminds me very much of some of the more immersive alt.worship experiments we instigated in bradford.

the images above are from felt – our little book of treatments of poetry from 2 years ago. this haiku makes an appearance as part of the magic lantern – you’ll have to come experience it for yourself to see the others.

what we’re listening to [14] – ollie’s free download

back as part of digital scarborough 06 we organised a creative coast event – the 5 minute pitch. we invited a panel of investors and creatives to hear three local creatives pitch an idea, dragon’s den style.

the ‘pitchers’ received training on speaking in public from lizzie of raised eyebrow and duncan from business link. ollie green was the youngest of the participants – still in school at the time – and impressed the panel with his idea for an internet radio station showcasing local music and his enthusiastic & slick presentation.

forward-wind 2.5 years and olllie is now at music college and has just released his first album ‘hold on’. it’s a free download so you can enjoy it too: http://ollie.bandcamp.mu/

the tracks are as infectious as ollie’s enthusiasm was back at the sjt in ’06.
if you’re local, look out for an interview with ollie in next month’s issue of scarborough’s future.

kosmigroove – what we’re listening to [13]

it’s funny when you discover a description and whole subculture for something you’ve been into for ages, blissfully unaware that there’s a whole load of other people out there also desperately seeking more of the same. such it is with a clutch of albums currently on rotation in the studio, all of which are apparantly fine examples of ‘kosmigroove‘. nice to know we’re not alone.

miles davis, olympia 1973
miles in his post-bitches brew stop-start chuggery. ‘jazz fans’ often hate this stuff. but if you like it there are lots of live performances from this period available on the net.

charles earland, leaving this planet
tight group with stellar soloists often heading for the stratosphere.

tony williams lifetime, emergency!
where jazz really meets rock. frantic, distorted, kinda scary.

fela ransome-kuti and africa ’70 with ginger baker
funk jive goodness.

pirates, puppets, projections and proms

a quick mention…

for the punch and judy puppets exhibition opening tomorrow at scarborough art gallery. maybe see some of you at the launch this afternoon?

for seafest for live music, boats, seafood, fireworks, real ale and other good things in and around the harbour this weekend. it’s free. [as is the wifi]

for rachel howfield‘s installation in the coffee lounge at scarborough art gallery which opens on saturday.

and for the bbc proms which begin tonight with a blast of brass and there’s plenty more of that in this year’s programme. i’ll offer my pick of the proms next week [like you're the least bit interested...]

have a good weekend y’all.

what we’re listening to [12]

with last night’s south bank show retrospective of billy joel it’s maybe time for us to confess our appreciation of the piano man. songs in the attic was part of the studio soundtrack last year and we’ve been willing in summer with cold spring harbour.

Continue reading…

what we’re watching [1]

jonathan meades : magnetic north. tv rarely produces anything as stimulating as a jonathan meades documentary. any of them. last night’s giddy ride in search of ‘north’ ranged from inebriation as essential climate coping mechanism to the secularisation of religion embodied by reformation church-stripping via dogging as metaphor for heaven and hell. wonderful. but then anything that debunks the myth of ‘south’ is good by me.

one gripe though – in the programme southwold was quoted as the first english seaside resort. tut-tut, mr meades. that accolade does belongs to somewhere beginning with an ‘s’, but it’s definitely in the north of england.

what we’re listening to [11]

nothing. because it is no music day.

what we [james] are/is listening to [10]

well as adrian is away on holiday it’s just been me in the studio this week. i’ve been busy! here’s the albums that have got me through a testing week:

shine eyed mister zen by kelly joe phelps is an album i’ve had for a few years and it makes a comeback in times of stress and need. this is seriously heart-felt acoustic blues, its not feelgood music, it’s pure and simple with nothing but kelly joe’s rasping yet soft voice and beautiful acoustic picking. it reminds me of camping at the end of summers at deserted beaches, when the air is starting to chill and the nights begin to draw in, playing guitar with friends.

sufjan stevens album come on feel the illinoise is the second of sufjan’s 50 states project album’s, where each album relates to one of america’s states. whether he seriously intends to do this is debated but if he does and all the albums are as good as this it’d be worth owning them all. sufjan’s style of folk is original and beautiful, and very emotional, referencing the places and people of illinois. his lyrics often relate to his faith and you’ll best know his songs for being used in the FiveUS pre-programme stings on TV.

elephant eyelash by why? is a strange album. i’d call it folk hip-hop. why? began life as a solo project but has since become a full band. they are part of the anticon collective of artist who have produced some very original work, taking hip-hop to a more poetic level with elements of electronica, folk and minimalist music. why? features some of the more pop tinged elements of this genre and is really fun.