the only reason i'd ever want to dj would be to play tracks like the one on my myspace profile. www.myspace.com/keredis
I met Samy and Kaiser a year and a bit ago in a squat called el patio de las maravillas here in Madrid. Back then it was the only place anything interesting happened in the city. It had just opened, and was an example of a space being used brilliantly, without any of the pernicious political bullshit that inevitably accompanies Okupas in Spain. Sure, there were kids with dreads, and a few of those wierd genie trousers, but for the most part it was perfect.
This is a list of the cool stuff that went on in the first month or so.
Open air concerts by Au, Bestia Ferdia, Maher Shalal Haz Baz and Grabba Grabba tape amoung others that i didn't go to
This wierd canopy thing made out of pulleys that covered the courtyard when it rained.
A bike rack out the front.
A weekly workshop on how to build midi controllers out of random toys.
Open air projections of actually quite interesting documentaries.
And local kids like Samy and Kaiser mixing with wannabe hipsters like me.
This is what went wrong.
Within 2 months, the concerts stopped, and the bar filled up with hippies.
Bicicritica moved from it's workshop in Vallecas, into the building, filling it with heaps of old bikes and general shit (i have no problem with critical mass - it's just gone a bit hippy recently)
The actually quite interesting wall painting and art installations like the canopy thing got replaced by shitty anarchist graffiti, CNT logos, and the dumbest fucking bullshit cartoons featuring asterix and Obelix, fighting the roman empire.
I have no problem with people being political. I even think that some political views are better than others. For instance, socialism is better than fascism. But i find it hard to accept an ideology that turns you into a 12 year old radicalised fuckwit without any aesthetic sensibility whatsoever.
Rejecting and criticising the art market and whatever for being disgustingly capitalist is great. I'm with you. Right on etc. But that doesn't mean you should reject pretty things just cause they dont carry a clear political message. Do you scowl at sunsets because they're not red enough? do you deliberately make yourself vomit on the flower beds in the park?
are you such a fucking arsehole that you turn what was an important open cultural space for people from lots of different backgrounds in the centre of madrid into another scowly hippy ghetto of righteousness?
obviously you are.
lunes, 24 de noviembre de 2008
martes, 12 de agosto de 2008
Fino
It's just gone 10 oclock in the morning. I've been up since 7. Last night i was drinking tequila with this girl called Kelly and my friend Lisa who was sitting in a hammock in Kellys flat. We went out and brought back a pizza. We listened to the Clash, Calexico and Silvio Rodriguez, none of which are bands i especially like.
Lisa and Kelly live in Caracas, which is the capital of Venezuela which is at the top of continental south america and is in the news every now and again because of its ebullient president and the inappropriate things he says to international leaders.
C is a city of about 5 million people, which by Latin American standards is pretty insignificant. It doesn´t have any pretty colonial architecture due to earthquakes, 1950's city centre remodelling under the perez jimenez dictatorship, and what remains is streaked with exhaust fumes, bulletholes and city grime on account of it being in the centre which is now a slum.
When you go abroad you always feel safer than you do at home. It has alot to do i think with not hearing the stories that make you paranoid. It's like the first time you got mugged you didn't walk down that street again. At home your phone is filled with text messages about how pete got stabbed the other night in the park and you can turn it into gossip if you like, but it still makes you think twice.
I think this is the problem with Caracas. Rumours. For starters, the TV is filled with surgically perfect presenters, dripping jewllery, tans and smiles, talking about killings, politics and how generally fucked the country is. I am sure that the country for those people is fucked. But nowhere near as fucked, cut, sobbing and ripped up as it is for the people who have to deal with the majority of the crime. The vastly disproportionate poor.
I have next to no interest in talking about how the poor are a direct result of the widespread cultural racism and exploitation at the hands of the upper class and middle class elite. From what i understand the argument runs that the number of poor has risen under the present government. But so has migration to the urban centres and immigration from surrounding latin american countries. Which is probably a sign of a relatively strong economy.
the next argument talks about living conditions. Slums are dangerous cramped and living conditions are terrible. Right. And call me a postmodern liberal tourist, but the question seems to be about aesthetics. Slum housing is self constructed, but the same capitalist rules apply to it as any kind of housing. THe more money you have, the bigger and better that house will be. With the government turning a blind eye to the robbing of electricity, and taking direct action to provide water, the slums seem a cheaper alternative to providing housing for the urban poor. It's worth asking how much the visual impression these developments have upon the 1950's upper class generation has in terms of generating fear is down to their aesthetic departure from the ideals set forth under perez jimenez.
What does exist is crime. Caracas has one of the highest proportional murder rates in the world, and yet the violence is mainly focused within poor urban areas.
What i'm getting at here is how the fear of crime contributes to the perpetuation of crime. The response of the relatively well off classes is to retreat into gated communities, shopping centers and TV, leaving the centre to the slums and negating any possible dialogue between the classes. I'm not saying senora rosales should walk into the centre dressed in prada, but the point is that people always take precautions about their environment and it's a great feature of people that they adapt to the environments they find themselves in. And this goes across the social and economic spectrum. It seems to me that the isolationist hysterical approach of the U/M class contributes to the problem, and expresses a collective fear which has guilt and hypocrisy at it's root, and continuing inhumanity as it's result.
This is a discourse that i feel is shared by the people i met and liked in Caracas. Photographers, Fixers, Students and Cinematographers who took it upon themselves to confront and experience disparity first hand, placing it under the banner of experience and seeing it as necessary. It's worth saying though that Kelly still carries mace when she goes out after dark.
Lisa and Kelly live in Caracas, which is the capital of Venezuela which is at the top of continental south america and is in the news every now and again because of its ebullient president and the inappropriate things he says to international leaders.
C is a city of about 5 million people, which by Latin American standards is pretty insignificant. It doesn´t have any pretty colonial architecture due to earthquakes, 1950's city centre remodelling under the perez jimenez dictatorship, and what remains is streaked with exhaust fumes, bulletholes and city grime on account of it being in the centre which is now a slum.
When you go abroad you always feel safer than you do at home. It has alot to do i think with not hearing the stories that make you paranoid. It's like the first time you got mugged you didn't walk down that street again. At home your phone is filled with text messages about how pete got stabbed the other night in the park and you can turn it into gossip if you like, but it still makes you think twice.
I think this is the problem with Caracas. Rumours. For starters, the TV is filled with surgically perfect presenters, dripping jewllery, tans and smiles, talking about killings, politics and how generally fucked the country is. I am sure that the country for those people is fucked. But nowhere near as fucked, cut, sobbing and ripped up as it is for the people who have to deal with the majority of the crime. The vastly disproportionate poor.
I have next to no interest in talking about how the poor are a direct result of the widespread cultural racism and exploitation at the hands of the upper class and middle class elite. From what i understand the argument runs that the number of poor has risen under the present government. But so has migration to the urban centres and immigration from surrounding latin american countries. Which is probably a sign of a relatively strong economy.
the next argument talks about living conditions. Slums are dangerous cramped and living conditions are terrible. Right. And call me a postmodern liberal tourist, but the question seems to be about aesthetics. Slum housing is self constructed, but the same capitalist rules apply to it as any kind of housing. THe more money you have, the bigger and better that house will be. With the government turning a blind eye to the robbing of electricity, and taking direct action to provide water, the slums seem a cheaper alternative to providing housing for the urban poor. It's worth asking how much the visual impression these developments have upon the 1950's upper class generation has in terms of generating fear is down to their aesthetic departure from the ideals set forth under perez jimenez.
What does exist is crime. Caracas has one of the highest proportional murder rates in the world, and yet the violence is mainly focused within poor urban areas.
What i'm getting at here is how the fear of crime contributes to the perpetuation of crime. The response of the relatively well off classes is to retreat into gated communities, shopping centers and TV, leaving the centre to the slums and negating any possible dialogue between the classes. I'm not saying senora rosales should walk into the centre dressed in prada, but the point is that people always take precautions about their environment and it's a great feature of people that they adapt to the environments they find themselves in. And this goes across the social and economic spectrum. It seems to me that the isolationist hysterical approach of the U/M class contributes to the problem, and expresses a collective fear which has guilt and hypocrisy at it's root, and continuing inhumanity as it's result.
This is a discourse that i feel is shared by the people i met and liked in Caracas. Photographers, Fixers, Students and Cinematographers who took it upon themselves to confront and experience disparity first hand, placing it under the banner of experience and seeing it as necessary. It's worth saying though that Kelly still carries mace when she goes out after dark.
jueves, 26 de junio de 2008
Mas Fuego
Zingone. They´re called Zingone, and they look like fucking circus clowns. My girlfriend LOVES Tektonik. She was talking some shit about how the arm movements are really gracefull. It reminds me more of those funny trance moves that people used to do to Brandon Blocks Power of Love remix in Gatecrasher at the end of the 90´s. It´s totally a movement, but it´s not a subculture. Tektonik is fashion. Just like ponytails on guys were in the early 90´s.
I don´t really want to talk about the tektonik stuff anyway. I meant to say that this type of distorted bass kick/ handclap electro is like garage rock. Digitialism and Justice and Yelle have spawned a black tide of boy girl, boy boy, (but not girl girl yet) outfits that are chirping away like the fillament of a streetlight outside your window at 4 in the morning and just as annoying. Like when you couldn´t go into a club in london without some platinum blonde girl in leopard print tights telling you about how her ex boyfriend shared a joint with Pete once, now i guess people in this scene talk in hushed french tones about their friends of friends who had a track on a kitsune compilation. I never realised i felt so strongly about all of this until just now. What´s my problem with the french? Maybe it comes down to the sheer audacity of having so many fucking bikes in a city as mountainous as paris. And then they put their pretty wispy girlfriends on the handlebars like it´s 1945 or something. No. This isn´t it. That´s not a reason to hate, What´s going on with this article. All i wanted to say was that Zingone have a shitty name, they look insufferable, Their anti fashion stance just makes them look trendy and yet, and yet THEY WRITE GOOD QUIRKY COMPLEX DANCEFLOOR BANGERS WHICH I LIKE. that´s all, and now i´ve gone and fucked it.
www.myspace.com/zingone
I don´t really want to talk about the tektonik stuff anyway. I meant to say that this type of distorted bass kick/ handclap electro is like garage rock. Digitialism and Justice and Yelle have spawned a black tide of boy girl, boy boy, (but not girl girl yet) outfits that are chirping away like the fillament of a streetlight outside your window at 4 in the morning and just as annoying. Like when you couldn´t go into a club in london without some platinum blonde girl in leopard print tights telling you about how her ex boyfriend shared a joint with Pete once, now i guess people in this scene talk in hushed french tones about their friends of friends who had a track on a kitsune compilation. I never realised i felt so strongly about all of this until just now. What´s my problem with the french? Maybe it comes down to the sheer audacity of having so many fucking bikes in a city as mountainous as paris. And then they put their pretty wispy girlfriends on the handlebars like it´s 1945 or something. No. This isn´t it. That´s not a reason to hate, What´s going on with this article. All i wanted to say was that Zingone have a shitty name, they look insufferable, Their anti fashion stance just makes them look trendy and yet, and yet THEY WRITE GOOD QUIRKY COMPLEX DANCEFLOOR BANGERS WHICH I LIKE. that´s all, and now i´ve gone and fucked it.
www.myspace.com/zingone
domingo, 18 de mayo de 2008
Six Million Ways To Die (choose one)
Hola A Todo El Mundo, this weird band from Madrid are getting more media coverage than Penelope Cruz’ cleavage this month. They’re doing interviews with everyone from El Mundo to Mondo Sonoro. Myspace have chosen them as their highlighted band of the week and they’ve been building up their tally of gigs played in a pleasantly workaholic manner. From three to 6 in 2 weeks isn’t bad for a band who made some demos, hand made the sleeves and then didn’t get round to recording the CD’s.
Beneath all the hype there’s a few people unsettled by this sudden rush of publicity for a new band. For a start their live shows are still a bit shabby. The songs are undeniably brilliant, and each of the 6 members brings something else to the sound – shouty boy/girl choruses, melodica solos, or the type of euphoric violin breakdowns more common on GYBE! than on pop songs.
Hitting Spanish crowds with this kind of thing though, is risky. A typical gig audience is made up of fashionably dressed cultural retards, fucked up on coke and whiskey, and raised on europop. It’s like rather than slowly building a scene by taking risks on booking great foreign bands (like delorian just did with Radioclit - who cares that there were only 50 people there? It was a fucking blast.), making Madrid an essential stop on the indie touring circuit and then sitting back with a smile as a whole army of inspired kids take to the streets and build the revolution one fanzine at a time, throwing a band as delicate and visionary as HATEM right into the established scene is a bit irresponsible. Yes they deserve wider exposure, but this should come from the inside out, right?
Regardless of all this, they still make me smile like I’ve just seen a kitten in a wig tied to a pink balloon sailing over a rainbow, and clara and me did a big ‘Hola A Todo El Mundo’ graffiti on the wall of a bassment last night, complete with clouds and expert shading.
Incedently I’ve spent the entire week spraypainting shop shutters, which means my hands look like I’ve got leprosy and my lungs and nose are both totally full of little particles of montanna hardcore spraypaint. Not cool. Not by a long waysábado, 3 de mayo de 2008
Nightlife Nightlife
Ah shit, Glass Candy rocks. I haven't been out at night for a little while. Well not the 20 hr, gram of coke, next day bars and having stupid fun with new friends kind of night anyway. I kind of miss it. Justice have just released ANOTHER single off the recordwithoutakeyonthekeyboardforthetitle, everything is hotting up here in madrid, and last summers friends are coming out of the woodwork again. Last summer with the ed-banger thing, new MIA stuff and not having anything get in the way of tuesday nights, it was like riding this wave of new faces and stupid conversations for three months. I was splitting up with my ex, who lived in london anyway, and was just enjoying my new flat and flatmates. THen the Vice thing happened which was kind of half unexpected and half totally fucking worked for, and the winter has passed equally as quickly just with other focuses. My girlfriend Flo for instance, who i really cant find anything bad to say about acosted me in the first party we through here, helped me through leaving my flat, put me up and we started working together on the kind of projects i always wanted to be doing but seemed totally out of reach. I've broken computers, lost all my music, been dancing around to new bands that sound like old bands and old bands like the Make Up, Black Lips and Telepathe that keep drawing a line through reality like the raised bump on the other side of a piece of card when you score it with scissors. I've been to London, Portugal, Valencia, and Barcelona so many times it's starting to feel like a torrid second home.
Talking of homes. I had a chat with my new flatmate clara last night, the normal thing about getting fucked up. Isn't it wierd how you always get to that chat before talking about yr parents or whatever. It's like the obligatory new house icebreaker.
www.myspace.com/glasscandy
Talking of homes. I had a chat with my new flatmate clara last night, the normal thing about getting fucked up. Isn't it wierd how you always get to that chat before talking about yr parents or whatever. It's like the obligatory new house icebreaker.
www.myspace.com/glasscandy
miércoles, 23 de abril de 2008
I Did A Line Of Coke With Richard Hell (While Patti Smith Introduced Me To Her Son)
Tonight i saw Patti Smith lead the service to a segregated crowd in a courtyard which echoed with her voice right up to the glass ceiling. Tonight i saw Richard Hell push his hair back from his face, and make a grab at untucking an oversized vneck t-shirt from his one size too big suit.
Tonight i saw Patti Smith recite a poem to the moon which worked despite itself. Tonight i saw Richard Hell make me laugh with bad acting in a terrible film he made 18 years ago which worked despite itself. Tonight i saw crowds of aetheists clapping evangelistically in time as Patti Smith recited the second sutra of Allen Ginsbergs howl "holy holy holy" changing the words to 'holy is Madrid' like Ice T when we were 14 and he said 'Born Black, born white, born yellow, born in BRYCETON' even though we were in brighton.
Tonight i saw richard hell shamble through improvised versions of songs he wrote too long ago with a guitarist who was a mate of the people who organised the gig.
Tonight i saw a middle aged man who grew up with punk stand
mouth open with admiration as patti introduced her flat capped wearing son jackson on guitar.
I love honesty in music but i think it's a sham. I've always loved the way that richard hell showed this and exploited it and made the most out of it without loosing faith in the effect it has, despite the act. I love how patti buys into the whole hippy thing and people fall at her feet mesmerised. I love how people still come out of richard hell gigs muttering what the fuck was that. I can't choose between them, i wouldn't want to. I'm happy knowing that between me and them lies an ocean 20 leagues across and that they are both stars, glued onto the ceiling with the roof and the sky and the galaxy beyond.
Tonight i saw richard hell shamble through improvised versions of songs he wrote too long ago with a guitarist who was a mate of the people who organised the gig.
Tonight i saw a middle aged man who grew up with punk stand
mouth open with admiration as patti introduced her flat capped wearing son jackson on guitar.
I love honesty in music but i think it's a sham. I've always loved the way that richard hell showed this and exploited it and made the most out of it without loosing faith in the effect it has, despite the act. I love how patti buys into the whole hippy thing and people fall at her feet mesmerised. I love how people still come out of richard hell gigs muttering what the fuck was that. I can't choose between them, i wouldn't want to. I'm happy knowing that between me and them lies an ocean 20 leagues across and that they are both stars, glued onto the ceiling with the roof and the sky and the galaxy beyond.
jueves, 20 de marzo de 2008
Static
"I'm like a Black Republican/ no cant call it that/ More like a Black Democrat/ Barack Obama i'm down with that."
- Juelz Santana
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/18/barackobama.uselections20081
- Juelz Santana
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/18/barackobama.uselections20081
Of Mice and Men
If there was one thing, one thing i was going to do no matter what this month, more than buy pot plants for all the people whose floors i've been staying on over the last 3 months (yes, i know), was go into a shop and pay money for Third. Not, download it, copy it, get it sent free, but BUY IT...
So i'm listening to it now and it's giving me a headache.
and making me feel guilty.
fuck you soulseek. you are the devil child of the headphones in Our Price.
So i'm listening to it now and it's giving me a headache.
and making me feel guilty.
fuck you soulseek. you are the devil child of the headphones in Our Price.
Totally
What i'm thinking is:
Is collecting, buying, professing interest in twee lo-fi plinky plonky casio music equal to buying those 'bad day' kitten posters? I'm listening to Totally Micheal right now. Death hill Over and Over is the song that you hear in your head when you watch emilo estevez' dance in the Breakfast Club with the sound off. There's also a song about Winnona Ryder, with the line 'even though i'm not a high class retail outlet, i'd love for you to steal my heart' Twee? easy? lazy? yeah. But for a quick sugar rush you cant really beat it. The problem comes when your ipod get's wiped accidentally, and a 'friend' fills the fucker with shit like mgmt and nobody without letting you listen first.
www.myspace.com/totallymicheal
Is collecting, buying, professing interest in twee lo-fi plinky plonky casio music equal to buying those 'bad day' kitten posters? I'm listening to Totally Micheal right now. Death hill Over and Over is the song that you hear in your head when you watch emilo estevez' dance in the Breakfast Club with the sound off. There's also a song about Winnona Ryder, with the line 'even though i'm not a high class retail outlet, i'd love for you to steal my heart' Twee? easy? lazy? yeah. But for a quick sugar rush you cant really beat it. The problem comes when your ipod get's wiped accidentally, and a 'friend' fills the fucker with shit like mgmt and nobody without letting you listen first.
www.myspace.com/totallymicheal
miércoles, 19 de marzo de 2008
Easter
I sort of still believe in the easter bunny. do you know what i mean?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT5LR55RBio
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT5LR55RBio
The Good, The Bad and The Folky
It really is like Bonnie prince bily and Matt Sweeny and Baby Dee just got together in this freak folk vigillante posse, and decided to run those young devendra banhart/ coco rosie punks out of town.
After they send the vagrants off crying they sit around the saloon going back to their card games and bourbon. Baby Dee sits down at the piano and improvises a rag about the whole thing while thurston moore sits in the corner with a sourpuss face because although they let him drink in the same bar, everytime he tries to join in their card games, they make some joke about madonna. Then Baby Dee flashes her tits at him and he gets all embarassed.
All this is heading to where i talk about the Baby Dee album, which unless the cover art is spectacular and theres a shot of her crotch or something you’re not going to buy. It’s a shame bacause its one of those records you need to listen too say more than once in your life before it gets buried on your hard drive.
I really like the current 93 stuff, but david tibet has got this annoying fucking habit of making similies really obvious. Like, “The Whirls of Laughter, like Whirlpools” Really David? you didn’t work so hard on that one did you?
But really neither you or i give a fuck about a bit of halfarsed lyric writing when his record have more talent on them than a Chinese secondary school.
The best song is the one about albinos (is she an albino?) and there isn’t a bad one. Andrew W fucking K is on it somewhere as well, drumming, or philosophising or something. It’s strange how everything he said a few years ago sounded like blah blah stoner logic, but now he’s some kind of a guru. Maybe he always was and what do i know.
So now the Wild West New Freak Folk Posse are riding down into your town on tour, and unless you’ve fucking earned that beard, i’d shave it off before you venture onto their turf.
www.myspace/theonlybabydee
After they send the vagrants off crying they sit around the saloon going back to their card games and bourbon. Baby Dee sits down at the piano and improvises a rag about the whole thing while thurston moore sits in the corner with a sourpuss face because although they let him drink in the same bar, everytime he tries to join in their card games, they make some joke about madonna. Then Baby Dee flashes her tits at him and he gets all embarassed.
All this is heading to where i talk about the Baby Dee album, which unless the cover art is spectacular and theres a shot of her crotch or something you’re not going to buy. It’s a shame bacause its one of those records you need to listen too say more than once in your life before it gets buried on your hard drive.
I really like the current 93 stuff, but david tibet has got this annoying fucking habit of making similies really obvious. Like, “The Whirls of Laughter, like Whirlpools” Really David? you didn’t work so hard on that one did you?
But really neither you or i give a fuck about a bit of halfarsed lyric writing when his record have more talent on them than a Chinese secondary school.
The best song is the one about albinos (is she an albino?) and there isn’t a bad one. Andrew W fucking K is on it somewhere as well, drumming, or philosophising or something. It’s strange how everything he said a few years ago sounded like blah blah stoner logic, but now he’s some kind of a guru. Maybe he always was and what do i know.
So now the Wild West New Freak Folk Posse are riding down into your town on tour, and unless you’ve fucking earned that beard, i’d shave it off before you venture onto their turf.
www.myspace/theonlybabydee
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