OPENSOURCE LONDON

Whitechapel Gallery show for localism....Rank deluxe

Introducing......

The rank deluxe's new guitarist.......Thom Battle.....

Lennon and dylan out of their minds in the back of their cab

I fucking love this video - Its so raw and vivid....The best part for me is Dylan saying "I don't want to vomit in the taxi - I am going to vomit into the camera...." That I would like to see - Personally I put it down to the acid.

Will we begin to see child prodigy's playing instruments like computer games?

This weekend for some reason. I don't know why, perhaps little man tate? I started looking for child prodigy's on you tube. I found an awful lot of 8 years old children with a deep understanding of the blues. On this I was very excited at the future of music.....I mean watch quinn and latz and this one is outrageous. I recognise that these people learnt their craft and established interest before computer games like guitar hero and stuff...I play the guitar and am in a band but I often wonder how good I would be if I had guitar hero to hand...I mean are we going to see the rebirth of hair metal. I say this because computer games are not about expression of the soul but about high scores. High scores are all see about effectiveness and getting the high score...i.e. I can play faster than you can...I am interested to see how the technology effects the creativity of the children born in the last five years...the reality is everyone will be able to express themselves to the maximum...its just a choice....I want to be an artist ect ect. But I leave you with this young producer....

Band and stupid t.v. shows that may have influenced my taste in music for the worse

What started out as a musical hook up from my New york buddy and guitarist in The Rank Deluxe, Thom Battle. Soon descended into a strange opening of the recesses of my mind. T-Battle mentioned that in NY he and his buddy's would go into a bar, put some dark heart and get all fucked up to this genre. personally I think the music is fucked up enoug. See the video -

So this lead to a full scale trip down memory lane. Its a cultural thing, but I found it hard to watch this video without being reminded about Pugwall and his band orange organics.

As if this wasn't bad enough Tom and my girlfriend, Fiona then start reminiscing about a show called "california dreams" For a second I was thinking what is this trash and then as if by magic I suddenly remembered that I had watched about 100 episodes of this as a child but had completely forgotten about it. I had removed the image of a reacially well balanced californian rock band out of my mind....Personally i think it was the precursor.

California dreams was a dire tv show and should never have been aired on British tv. I mean It gave me a complex....A big one....Then led to a quick look at the classic jesse on caffiene pills clip which for a youngster could be quite shocking and disturbing....

Woah and finally onto the a really bad anti drugs message from the SBTB crew....Did anyone even tell screech...I mean woah there that shirt is enough to inspire a young mind to get on the crack pipe and start shooting heroin between the toes. You can see the Classic "no hope with dope" NBC spot here, it is frankly ridiculous.

Blip.fm - The pretenders conundrum

I have been using Blip.fm for a couple of weeks now and I have taken to it like a duck to water. I have to confess that I never really understod the reason behind twitter. I used it as a kind of track my mental state. As the below mash up of hitler shows - TWITTER has established its own culture and in jokes.

Using twitter service for approximately 1 year now I totally get the point but I don't know what I am achieving by twittering anymore. I have lost my twittering way. I find that Blip gives me a reason to stick a dumb thought out thereby attaching it to a piece of music. I really like the fact that I can integrate blip.fm into my twitter feed. ahhh. Now everyone can see my love for immortal technique in the afternoon.

The best thing for me is not only do I get to see my brothers listening habits I can also give him props. This might sound like a simple tool, but it is so effective in this instance. This leads to the question do I have musical taste if I choose my music via other people who have nice taste?....Hmmm. The pretenders conundrum - I mean is taste inherent or is it something you can learn.

A little musical project: EJECT EJECT EJECT tracks

I have been making some electro stuff for a while now and have never shown it to anyone, well, my Brother and he seemed to like it. I thought I should put something up on this blog. Here are two kind of tracks from my side project "Eject Eject Eject" - The first track is "34576" and the second track is "Poetry for the dead" (it has a vocal on it but I am not quite ready to put that up yet...Need more confidence.) -  I made these in Reason. Of which I am a big fan. Hope you like it - I do - Comments welcome. : )

"34576"

"Poetry for the dead"

The rank deluxe single art work

As you probably know I am in a band called The rank deluxe and we are signed to Fat-cat records. Anyway we have an album out soon and have so far put out one single. Here is the artwork for the first and second singles. The pictures were shot by the legendary Nic Shonfeld. I really like the way the images look...hope you like them too.
                                     

                                     

 

 

The sounds of nature

I was sitting at my computer and got the need for some birdsong, not enough of it these days. One things for sure it definitely takes me away from where ever I am. Well if you fancy getting away from it all for a bit then click here for some tunes....my favourite is the The Living Outback: Pied Butcherbird - really nice and chilled.

The flaming lips with all your power what would you do?

If you could blow up the world with the flick of a switch
Would you do it?
If you could make everyobody poor just so you could be rich
Would you do it?
If you could watch everybody work while you just lay on your back
Would you do it?
If you could take all the love without giving any back
Would you do it?
And so we cannot know ourselves or what we'd really do...

With all your power
With all your power
With all your power
What would you do?