Whilst going through my flat and burning old clothes, I happened upon a hole leading into 2007, climbing through which I was surprised to at once discover Hardsparrow's long thought lost OLO Radio mix! Although the waves of time have naturally acted to erode this artefact, degrading it to a mere 96kbps, it still contains recognisable objects and forms which I hope will bring delight to both the amateur and semi-retired researcher.
Leading experimental video maker Richard Sanz (pictured above, left) has his video for the Hardsparrow song "Reverse Charge"
screened this Sunday at the ICA in London, as part of a matinee of experimental shorts. This is all part of the tenth London Short Film Festival. They're also showing the Sanz video for Kinlaw's"One Day" as part of an evening of music film on Thursday at the Roxy Bar & Screen. Nice.
Launching his new TV series this week, David Attenborough was quoted as saying, "I suspect in the future you won't need nature jockeys like me... there are lots of dedicated people out there who want to do nothing more than film the mating of the dragonfly in the pond 100 yards from their house, and they'll put it on the web."
This comment immediately put me in mind of Martin Roberts, aka PowderedCows. The only difference being that Martin's passions extend beyond frequently posted pictures and videos of insects and bats to also include unsettling videos of paranormal investigations, sensitively-drawn visual records of gigs, and, of course, a seemingly limitless supply of woozy left-field indie pop uploaded to his Bandcamp page.
Martin's latest musical opus, Solitary Reptile, is launched this Monday with a gig at Boscombe's Cellar Bar. The album is a hazy, sunny affair, like a smudged-out Grizzly Bear sampled through an SK-1, with a scratched exotica LP stuck in a loop in the background. Although that might just be the track I have playing as I write this..
I contributed some backing vocals to the album's closing track, Reptile Take-Over, along with several other of Martin's musician friends. I can't quite tell which bits are mine, or if I'm even audible at all, but the whole thing sounds lovely!
You can stream the whole album here, and limited physical copies will be available at the launch gig. Check it out!
An old friend from my art foundation days, Paul Angelo Waddington, made this video of his paintings and used an old Hardsparrow tune for the soundtrack (it's an instrumental version of Tug Boat that was on the Fortune Fish EP). There are also some other ambient room-sounds/noises going on under the audio track, nice!
Paul's Atomology website is coming soon, but for now you can see some more of his stuff on Saatchi Online here.
Here's a little video to illuminate the working process behind the Hardsparrow song on the new Moozikk compilation. More songs composed in a similar style to come, which will probably eventually emerge under the pretentious collective title Hypergraphia.
If anyone can recommend a good free (or at least cheap) video capture software that might make future videos in the series a bit better, please let me know!
I'm sorry? Oh yes, of course, thank you, yes, that's everything, you can go now.
Martin off of PowderedCows is once against launching the mighty ship Moozikk into the choppy waters off the side ocean of the internet. The first installment raised a load of money for the Tree Foundation and their work protecting endangered sloths on their island all about sloths. It had this beautiful Jason Lytle song on it..
This time, the album is in aid of The Oceanic Preservation Society, specifically inspired by their documentary about the hunting of dolphins in Japan, The Cove.
Once again, Martin has managed to assemble a conscience-shattering mind-bugle of acts, including international jetset lofi ledge The R. Stevie Moore, inverted musical pantomime Harry Merry, and DIY music's Mr. Nice, The Karl Blau (backed by his current Earth bandmates!). There are also contributions from many of the usual South Coast suspects.. Yaaard, Head Of A Cuban Trojan, Ghost Town, the PowderedCow etc etc.. as well as contributions from lesser spotted locals such as Plinth, The Spectral Mirror, C!!S!!W!!S!! and the Smart Family Band.
But some of my favourite tunes are possibly by acts I don't really know.. really enjoying the contributions of Ronald Raygun and Bobby Gold in particular! For such a track-heavy compilation, this flies by like a breeze.. highly recommended!
I've contributed a new Hardsparrow track, called Generic Words Of Love. This song is one of the first fruits of a new project that I'm giving the pretentious title Hypergraphia. The composition process starts with me drawing images with blocks in a software step sequencer. Like cats and stuff. So, for this song, I wrote actual generic words of love with blocks to make the electronic sounds, then wrote a song over the top. This is why it might sound a bit mental. I hope that's okay with everyone.
I also added some backing vocals, using my wrestler microphone, and some badly played electric guitar - probably an effect of listening to too much KEEL HER recently. Who, incidentally, has also contributed an awesome track to the comp! ;)
Please go and check out this fantastic album.. there will also be a launch gig at On The Rocks in Bournemouth on March 31st, with PowderedCows, Ghost Town and Head Of A Cuban Trojan bringing the joyful noise. Free CDs of the comp for attendees, and sealife fancy dress massively encouraged!
You can get friendly with Moozikk on Facebook here.
Here's another track from the compilation, by the mysterious Uncle Umbro - a bit like an outtake from an alternative-universe version of Death Of A Ladies' Man, apparently performed by a sock.
The first Hardsparrow album, Oh, What A Sorry Life, is now available in a super-limited tape edition. There were only ever about 20-odd CDRs made of this, back in the day, but now this tragic classic of maudlin lo-fi can be yours to own on an incongruously bright-pink cassette, with a Bandcamp download code included.
You can hear the whole album on Bandcamp here, at least for a little while. I had planned to take the best tracks from the album and use them as part of a Hardsparrow compilation - there are two or three tracks on the album that it makes me cringe to listen to now (mainly due to dodgy vocals). But, much stirred by the lessons of Popeye, I strive not to self-edit, so I've decided to let people hear it as it was, warts and all. And, the odd patchy tune aside, there's a surprising amount of stuff on here that I still think is not too shabby! You know, considering that I did it and everything.
Enjoy it in your home.
Most of the album was recorded in the space of a month, in Charlton, in the summer of 2004. It was actually through giving the Pictish Trail a copy of this at Adem's Homefires fest that I got my first Fence Homegame gig, which has, of course, led to all sorts of trouble ever since. But I've also added in a couple of tracks (Ballad of Gordo and Quaggy River Rag) which date from sometime in 2005, when I was living in the middle of a school playing field in Kidbrooke, to make the thing fit onto two sides of a tape.
The cassettes cost £5, including postage - if you'd like one, please send via Paypal to hardsparrow@gmail.com. Or you should be able to just click the button at the bottom! But I bet it doesn't work.
Back when Hardsparrow was still just an unfortunate Ebay account name, I went by the name of The Brass Warrior and played bass in a band called Brides Of Kong. An unashamedly sleazy combo with little respect for genre-barriers, social taboos, or sensible song titles.
I'd spend long tube journeys to practises in Acton writing daft lyrics to make the other band members laugh. Some of these are still in their repertoire, and mine. I Drew Skeletons being an obvious example.
I'd already been writing and recording songs, but writing without the pressure to achieve anything other than making some other grown men giggle around the crisp machine in Survival Studios was a big breakthrough for me, and I wasted little time in transposing this discovery to my acoustic stuff.. the dubious comedy world of Hardsparrow was, for better or worse, born.
After illness forced me to abandon London town, I was replaced on low notes by Silent Dave, and the Kong - Dave, Mungo, Ant, and Dr. Vodka Martini - are still forging their unique badger-like trail on the London gig scene. You can catch them at the 12 Bar later this month, and you can now also download their first album, The Simian Songbook, from their Bandcamp page, here.
Other than Skeletons, I wroted the lyrics for Wildman, and came up with a couple of the other song titles.. Mungo did the rest, word-wise, and everyone chipped in musically. One of the most interesting things for me, personally, is to hear how far some of these songs developed from the original sketchy tunes we used to jam (ah, happy memories!), to the well-oiled machine that constitutes current Kong.
I can only hope that the world will one day also get to hear the Kong version of Hacienda of the Snake-Legged Dead, or the mythical lost Dog Smell of Griffin sessions.. hey, we all need a dream. In the meantime, don't be a wrong 'un and get some Kong in your life.
Some years back, I was briefly playing "inaudible banjo" and "keyboards played with my feet" in a band called Skitanja. At a rehearsal back in about 2006, the band's twisted mastermind, Steve Potatoes, had introduced me to the wonderful music of R. Stevie Moore. I can still vividly remember being stood by his computer, listening to I Like To Stay Home streaming through the interubes. Incredible stuff, I thought! Crucial work, really!
Fast forward to earlier this year, and I happened to find myself sharing a flat with Mr. Potatoes. So it was that I heard first-hand when the simply incredible happened - Potatoes (possibly whilst drunk) had booked R. Stevie to come and play in Bournemouth! It's little understatement to suggest that, for myself and many of my friends, this incredible booking coup represented the most exciting thing to happen in Bournemouth possibly ever! R. Stevie was touring outside the US for the first time in his forty year career, and was not only coming to the UK, but to Bournemouth!
Celebrate the news!
An overlarge supporting bill was arranged, posters and flyers were printed, and the mayor was informed.. and so it was that, on an uncharacteristically hot British summer's day, R. Stevie arrived in Bomo. (Now, don't ask complicated questions, but suffice it to say that he arrived from the continent, driven by one Steve Potatoes..)
Recently-opened superior record-purchasing emporium Rose Red hosted an afternoon acoustic session, with a relaxed R. Stevie playing a raft of lesser-heard (but genius) songs to an appreciative crowd, on the shop's wonderfully airy and light lower floor. As a fan, it was an unbelievable treat to experience R. Stevie playing so casually, in such an intimate environment. Really magical stuff.
In Rose Red Records
With hellos said to R. Stevie, and the instore cola supplies drunk dry, there was some aimless wandering in sunny Boscombe (something about a Sleeping Dog Lying test, the so-called woof response, on the counter in Richer Sounds?), before I headed to the venue for the evening show, Champions, with Martin and Ed.
Some of the area's best weirdo bands were also playing: Martin's ever-incredible Powdered Cows, plus a hastily reassembled but on-skronk Skitanja, featuring the afore-mentioned Ed, along with Martin, Potatoes and Inspector D. I. Signs. I played a Hardsparrow set too, but there you go. Nothing is perfect.
Powdered Cows
Pretty soon, it was nearing time for the R. Stevie main course. He seemed a bit distant and unsettled, compared to the earlier show. It's not hard to wonder what it must seem like to a seasoned musician like R. Stevie, to be in a foreign country and arrive in a venue like Champions, which is, quite frankly, a bit of a weird place at the best of times (part venue, part Overlook Hotel, despite great improvements and the best efforts of the owners to revamp it.) The stifling warmth of one of the hotter days of the year was probably not helping much either.
Nonetheless, the gig was great. Following fantastic sets from Skitanja and the Powdered Cows, R. Stevie's touring backing band, Tropical Ooze, played a set which was worth the price of entry alone.
Then R. Stevie played. Despite his seemingly unsettled mood, and the oddness of seeing a legend like RSM in a local venue that I'm not hugely keen on, it was fantastic to get to jump around to the actual R. Stevie Moore, playing the actual hits, backed by a solid band, surrounded by friends. Two of these friends, Rich and Lucy, had travelled down from London for the evening, just to see R. Stevie. The band swung into the sublime Play Myself Some Music, and all was wonderful with the world. The whole day was really such a special event.
The man, the legend
The set began to draw to a close earlier than I had expected, with a bit of an awkward stand-off developing between RSM onstage, and a slightly confused audience. Eventually, temporarily placated with a bottle of wine, the set continued for a short while longer, before finally ending with his celebrated solo rendition of the Popeye theme.
After the gig, I got R. Stevie to re-sign the back of my i-Pod (he'd actually done it earlier in the day, but it had rubbed off in the sweat-pit of the gig), rechristening it an R-Pod, in acknowledgement of the huge amount of the prolific musician's material that has made it on there.
The R-pod
By and by, it would turn out that I'd lost my wallet (and train tickets) in the venue, presumably whilst pogoing to I Like To Stay Home, and so it was that I had to wake myself at 6am to return to the venue, to try to recover it before catching the train back to Scotland. Did I say train? Well, I ended up having to change to the overnight coach in London, travelling on for some ten hours to Dundee, arriving in the early hours of Monday morning having had precious little sleep - it was a somewhat hellish journey, much of which was spent with the guy next to me, Bobby from Bulgaria, either talking incessantly, or asleep, crushing me like a long-suffering wife. And then I had to go straight into work.
But, you know what? It was all worth it. So totally worth it. For the legend that is R. Stevie Moore.
Some pen&ink CD-insert doodles I found on my hard-drive.. I guess these might have gone in the Sweet Lion version of Sea Mountain Songs or something. Clearly, at least one of them is in an asian Stone Roses tribute band (?), so seemed like a good moment to upload..
I've contributed a Hardsparrow track to an album called Beef Scratchings, compiled from the home recording efforts of various denizens of the Fence Records forum, the Beef Board. It's an interesting mix of stuff, from folky acoustica to austere electronic beats, though all with a pretty chilled vibe.
My contribution is an early version of a tune called Handwalker, which should eventually turn up in more polished form on the Sea Tractor album.
The CD packaging is really very beautifully designed, and also contains the odd (=very odd) sticker, as well as a random selection of doodles by the likes of myself and Heinz Junkins.
The album is available by donation, with £5 a suggested figure, though anything is acceptable. The proceeds are going to the fund to fix the roof of the Hew Scott Hall in Anstruther, the epicentre of Fence's reknowned Homegame events, and a venue very close to my heart.
Simply send a self-addressed size 0 (or larger) jiffy bag, with well-concealed cash money $$$, to Mr. Crivvens, 13 Emsdorf Road, Lundin Links, Fife, KY8 6HQ.
FULL TRACK LISTING
What’s Your Beef - Dr Love Northern Light – Cheesecats Hold me down – Coalface feat. Baerson Joy – David Neilson Mutual Irritations – Filthyswan Shells - Tishytash Carry The Stones – Cauld Yin On a Beach – Speill Berg The Rising Sun - Crivvens Ushinata Uta – Bhoywonder Warning: This Is A Demo – Black Dandy And The New Farming Community Get You Back – Scott Young Wake Up – Andrew Cleary Handwalker - Hardsparrow Never Go Home – Coalface Constant – Jah Baerson’s Nature - Baerson Feat. Coalface
I wrote this guitar thingy in Bournemouth, just before moving to Scotland, and recorded it on my camera. I found it the other day and thought it was quite nice, so I worked it out again. I tried to record it properly on my computer, but my left index finger is still a bit tender from my nearly cutting it off with some scissors a few weeks ago, so it came out a bit rubbish. Anyway, as part of my ongoing plan to guff up the internet, and in light of the current absence of any finished (nearly!), properly recorded Hardsparrow music, I took the worst of three takes and made this lazy video this afternoon. You should really hear this track backwards, it's much better.
After selling out of the first run at the Homegame Festival, I've finally got a second batch of Sea Tractor EP's pretty much ready to roll into envelopes and out to the post office.
The EP comes as a hand-vandalised 7", each one featuring a unique brush-rendered ink dawdle, downloaded straight from my braindrive to vinyl.
On the reverse, a unique Bandcamp download code will allow you to access the musical content from the comfort of your home or office computer.
There will only ever be about 30 of these "bad boys", with about 13 already gone, and a fair few more already spoken for.
Cost is £6, postage included. Like, anywhere. Look, I've even got a Paypal button here. And I managed to make it go in the middle. Although now there seems to be a big gap for some reason.. er..
I'm going away this weekend, but might upload some pics early next week so people can choose.. any orders before then will get a random selection!
☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ SOME USEFUL TIPS ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠
- DO NOT try to play on your phonograph machine. You will have to buy a new stylus shortly thereafter.
- DO feel free to hang the record up on a nail, or to make it into a wall-clock, or to throw it as a frisbee for your dog.
- DON'T be upset if you're a bit disappointed with tracks 2 and 4. I had to finish them quite quickly. And track 6; track 6 is something that my computer did, quite without my permission or blessing. I'm not responsible for that. Sorry.
- DON'T worry though. The Becky Becky Parentheses remix is flippin' great.
The (almost) full line-up for this year's Homegame Festival has just been announced by The List, here, and it includes me. Me! As well as a lot of other amazing acts. But mainly me. This is very exciting stuff! If you were me, you'd understand.
Fence Record's amazing Homegame festival has been going for about twenty-nine years now, and this will be the nineteenth time I've played, making me the youngest surviving musician playing who still somehow hasn't gotten any better at performing than the first time around.
Anyway, The List put a link to the Hardsparrow Soundcloud, which had next to nothing on it.. so I thought that might be a good excuse to update it.
If you go there now, you can download an mp3 of the song "Lighthearted", from my 2005 album "Oj! What A Sorry Life".. the CD-R that got me that first Homegame slot (my second ever gig) back in.. ooh, 2006? Wowsers..
This track should soon be available as part of a free download retrospective complication called "Glimmer of Hopelessness"*. Just as soon as the Hardsparrow homepage on the new improved Peanut Snake website is ready to roll. (*The previously mentioned "Magic of Hardsparrow" best-of has now been abandoned, due to the devastatingly low levels of magic actually found in the archives.)
In other news.. Peanut Snake will have an ahtwork for sale in a special exhibition, staged by Lovely Pigeon, taking place over Homegame. Fancy!
And things are currently on track (just) for the long-time-coming Sea Tractor hand-painted 7" to be available at Homegame too (digital cover pictured above). Hurrah! You can hear the Becky Becky Parentheses Remix of the EP title track at the fancy pants new Hardsparrow Bandcamp here.
P.S. I have had some of the best times of my little life at Homegame, many of them in the Hew Scott Hall and adjoining AIA Hall.. this community building is now in dire need of funds to repair a collapsed roof - please sign this petition to put your name to this worthy cause: http://www.petitiononline.com/AIA999/petition.html
My friend Martin, aka PowderedCows, has put together an amazing album, entitled Moozikk, that will be available to download from this Saturday, April 9th, from here, with limited CD copies available from the launch gig at Champions in Bournemouth (and possibly directly from the man himself?).
Musicians were invited to contribute basic tracks (a vocal plus one instrument) which were then put through the Powdered Cow's magical mystical blender. I've contributed the Hardsparrow song Ghost Castle, a much better re-recorded version of a tune from my Half-Bakes album. He has made it sound well spooky.
Martin has also managed to field contributions from Jason Lytle (of Grandaddy and Admiral Radley fame), Jorge Tapia (of Illinois' Eyes and Humanos), and the incredible Chica X!!! (See her on Chic-A-Go-Go here!)
There's also a ton of stuff by loads of great Dorset musicians, including Expedition Guide (Lee Jones of Dutch Husband/Head of a Cuban Trojan), and the ladies' fave, Michael Wookey.
Please check out and join the Facebook group here. And check out the Tree Foundation's homepage here.
Here's Expedition Guide's tune, click the link to hear more on the PowderedCows Soundcloud.
1 powderedcows - to paint a padlock 2 hardsparrow - ghost castle 3 the blackwater caravan - nothing left to break 4 yufei chowder - surface run off 5 thomas wykes - song for three toed sloths 6 language timothy - height of the sunflower 7 tim smart - holiday 8 michael wookey - empty ward 9 dan rumsey - watch you suffer 10 si crockett - i can't give up 11 jorge tapia - late 12 chica x - chica x 13 casini division - andromeda 14 sugar ray buzzard III - clean up your own mess 15 sval bards - brutaliser 16 luap rekcut - the world 17 jason lytle - credits will roll 18 disco's out (murder's in) - Kids 19 lee jones - pioneer pioneer 20 mischa - on my own 21 max longman - don't make me lie to myself 22 chuter - hopeless
One-man-maniac and vibrational video genius Rich Sanz has kindly made a video for "Reverse Charge", a reeeeversion of the recent Hardsparrow stage-punch hit smash chartguffer House Phone.
I asked him to make it like being lost inside a bush, in Jamaica. Instead, he seems to have gone straight for the sausage, with a video that features more schlange-slapping than a pack of Wall's best bangers dropped in a nest of greasy rattlers. All sausage, no mash.
If this isn't guffing up the charts something awful this time next week then I give up, all of it! Honest!
Check it out below. More optical goodness, natürlich, at Mr. Sanz's Vimeo account, here. Thank you, Mr. Sanz, thank you.
Some vinyl doodles I did back in February, for wall decoration at a Club Anemone night. These were sort of dry-runs for the soon-come Hardsparrow "Sea Tractor" single, which will come as similarly painted 7 inches, and in fancy pants card sleeves.
Images l → r, up → down = "Wave Staircase"; "Smoke O's"; "Weird Owl Anchovy"; "Howard Got Dem Boogy Eyes"; "Onion Cloud".
Peanut Snake/Hardsparrow will be bringing the Pine Cone Kick book-&-tape to Glasgow on October 31st, for a live reading as part of Fence Record's Hallowe'en party (awesome poster above by David Galletly)! Here's the full line-up and info, straight from the horse's face - should be an amazing day!
"As you'll have seen on the Fence home-page, we've already announced the following ...
King Creosote // James Yorkston // Silver Columns // James Yuill // Lord Cut Glass // Alasdair Roberts // John MacLean (DJ) // Jo Mango // Vladimir Lad // Randolph’s Leap // John B McKenna // Jonnie Common // Gummi Bako // Pictish Trail
in addition to the line-up on the website, we will have the following ...
* Debut screening of the Fence Home Game Film - put together by The Forest Of Black * Special screening of Separado! - a film by Super Furry Animal's front man Gruff Rhys. * A very special performance of King Creosote's 'My Nth Bit Of Strange In Umpteen Years' * New electronic solo project from Kev Sim, of FOUND fame, entitled River Of Slime * FOUND will also be DJ'ing, and there will be a solo performance from Ziggy Campbell too * Solo performances from Seamus Fogarty and Emily Scott * A talking picture book performance from Hardsparrow * Stand-up comedy from James Acaster, and more TBC
We've also invited our friends at Glasgow's Words Per Minute to devise a programme of spoken-word / film / music for one of our more intimate venues, including ...
* An exclusive screening of The Shutdown, Alan Bissett and Adam Stafford's documentary short about the Grangemouth petrochemical plant, which has won Best Documentary Short at the San Francisco Golden Gate and Palm Springs Film Festivals. * Live music performances from Adam Stafford (Y'all Is Fantasy Island) and Seafield Road (solo project of Swimmer One's Andrew Eaton). * Performance from theatre-makers Gary McNair, Kieran Hurley and Eilidh McAskill of Eilidh's Daily Ukulele Ceilidh. * New writing from Katy Macaulay
NOT ONLY THAT ... we can now reveal that all advance ticketholders for Hallowe'en will will have the opportunity to reserve their tickets for Home Game 2011 before anyone else! There will be a sign-up sheet at the Hallowe'en Party for those that wish to put aside some tickets for our big bash in Anstruther next year - the dates will also be revealed at this time
The whole thing is taking place on Hallowe’en itself – Sunday, 31st October 2010 … across three adjacent venues in Glasgow:
* Stereo, on Renfield Lane. * The (newly refurbished) Old Hairdresser, and * The (still currently under refurbishment) upstairs bit of The Old Hairdresser.
The music starts at 2pm and goes on until 2am.
TICKETS – are £25, and that gets you in all day from 2pm until 2am! Only available from www.fencerecords.com"
This post seems like as good an excuse as any to wheel out this fabulous video of last year's Fence Hallowe'en party, as filmed by Forest Of Black, whose Homegame film will be screening this year. The music is, of course, by the wonderful Withered Hand - "No Cigarettes".
So.. it's been a couple of weeks since I took part in Fence Record's inaugural Haarfest, an arts and music festival based in Anstruther in Fife, and I'm finally about able to bring myself to write a small blog summary of what was an absolutely wonderful fortnight.
I arrived the week before, to help set up the arty whatnots. In between seeing King Creosote perform the whole of Sinead O'Connor's I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got album (apparently with no prior warning to the audience) and Gummi Bako performing at the nearby Pittenweem Arts Festival, I was helping a team of ne'er-do-wells paint locally-sourced boulders to look like fruits and cheeses, sew sports day bunting from pieces of parachute material, and occasionally applying the odd coat of paint to the odd oversized chair. This was all under the guidance of Clare McAllister and Nicolas Party (of Blakam).
A stoney lemon on Anstruther beach, care of Nicolas.
Come the second week, the festival proper got underway, as a local disused library (which also served as our workshop) reopened as the Haarshop, selling local artist's wares, with the National Theatre Of Scotland taking over the back room with a fully functional hairdresser's salon and a purpose-built living room (both part of the 99...100 Project - to which a slightly hungover rendition of Hardsparrow's Orange Dog Blues was contributed!).
RM Hubbert playing inside Caiplie Caves.
I didn't get the chance to have my hair cut (they were fully booked) but I did get my photo taken by Sean Dooley, and as well as seeing lots of amazing music, had the opportunity to play a Hardsparrow set outside nearby Caiplie Caves (alongside RM Hubbert and Dominic Waxing Lyrical), and to exhibit artwork in "The Washing Line Show", an exhibition which made use of the communal washing lines by Cellardyke Harbour.
"Sea Sides", acrylic and marker on vinyl + fishing line, a triptych (?) based on the tarot card of the Moon, by Pual N, Peanut Snake's contribution to the Washing Line Show.
I also staged my first ever workshop, a great experience - some of the, erm, rather interesting googley-eyed walnut creations will haunt me to my grave.
Just a selection of the many googley creations made during the workshop.
Googley mania!
Throw in plenty of drinking and merriment, an unforgettably hilarious "Potted Sports Day" at Kilrenny Common, a trip around the harbour with the local rowing club, and the odd bit of late-night swimming, and it was a wonderful, wonderful week.
Congratulations to all involved in staging such a fantastic event, and thanks to Fence for letting me get involved - here's to Haarfest 2011!
On Tuesday, Peanut Snake will be getting on the Harry Potter train and travelling to that magical kingdom that is the East Neuk. There, we'll be helping with painting, building things and moving stuff around until it looks cool, all in preparation for the inaugural Haarfest, a one-week festival of arts and music, running from the 16th to the 21st of August, and put together by that Fence Records lot. There are very likely to be good times, and Fence are just about ready to roll them - hurrah!
There's music every evening (including WITHERED HAND!!!!) and workshops, walks and weirdness in the daytimes.
Peanut Snake should have been all over this like a badly-pitched tent in a thunderstorm, but moving premises has sadly interfered with production-line efficiency - however, there's still a tiiiiiny chance that you might be able to pick up a Peanut Snake patch, or a hand-painted Hardsparrow Sea Tractor 7".
What is for sure is that:
(i) there will be a very real risk of a painful and ill-advised Hardsparrow set at some point in the week; (ii) there will be some vinyl paintings/doodlings by Pual N on display (see example below); (iii) Peanut Snake will be hosting a workshop on Saturday 21st!
The workshop has been titled GOOGLEY-EYE DIY. The idea is that there will be a brief beachcomb at the start of the workshop, then we will retreat and, with the generous application of googley-eyes, create the sort of tourist-souvenir monstrosities you'll wish you had forgotten ever existed. In fact, if I can get hold of some whole walnut shells, then the title of the workshop will instantly be updated to "Googley Eye For the Walnut Guy".
Materials will be provided. Upwards of £4 GBP has been spent on googley eyes for this. I'm not messing about.
The original idea was to do a t-shirt modification workshop, however, this seemed a bit potentially complex given time constraints. BUT, I'm still bringing the gubbins for that, fabric paints, stencilling stuff and so on, so if folk have t-shirts, ties or tea towels that could do with jazzing up, then they should bring them along too - and we'll get them eyes googling!
