Monday 28 September 2009

In Dispatches: BALLOONS

Balloons
The 02 in Liverpool is much like venues across northern England; what were once powerhouses, literally, of industry are now clubs and flats. And thus the dressing rooms at the 02 are made of bare brick, with iron pipes that run up the walls doubling as pillars. For a southerner, the austere architecture and people that may as well, frankly, be foreign, are alien enough, but when I started hearing sounds coming out of said pipes, that took the tasty rider biscuit.

Following the sound's trail I came upon Balloons (listed as 'Ballons', the fools) who were playing the second room underneath the main stage. There's something about them that yells "Dream band, we're your dream band". Maybe the singer was singing those exact words. He could have been certainly. They have Junos which is always a plus and their tracks have a warm quality which is something I aim for in my own recording. They're urgent and angular and flirt with the zeitgeist without actually being in it.

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Be sure to check out sister band Indica Ritual too.

Just bought

one of these

It was so heavy, I carried it out of the depression-era council estate (replete with children playing stickball and motorcars and lads in flat caps) I got it from and managed to lug it to the Premises which was nearby. Will pick it up on Wed when I'm back in London and shall play merrily.

Incal & Arzach

On the subject of Moebius:


This is what he did after Dune. Again, a fail but the surviving footage looks rad. Any video with pyramids firing lasers is a good call.

Jodorowsky's Dune, an exhibition.

If there's one thing you should know about me it's that I like Dune, or more accurately, I like what people have done with Dune. The book is of course awesome; with its complex themes of geology, theology, and its feudalism-in-space plot. But the best thing about it is how David Lynch and Alejandro Jodorowsky and their respective creative teams interpreted the source material and gave it their own visual stamps.

Lynch had production designer Anthony Masters (who did Kubrick's 2001)and Emilio Ruiz Del Rio.

Jodorowsky had H.R. Giger, Chris Foss, Moebius and Salvador Dali on board for his failed attempt to get the book on screen. BUT WHAT A FAIL

Photobucket

So I went to the private view of the exhibition of the concept work for Jodorowsky's failed Dune. It's got some good stuff there, but alas not as much as I would have liked. It could have provided more info and been more on the 'art as a technical process' side rather than the 'art as just art' in terms of presentation. But anyway it's cool to see it all.

Go here for info on the exhibition.

So I made a blog

Hello.