There Were Dead Bodies Everywhere In My Village

If you are a fan of photographic art, I thoroughly recommend a trip to the National Theatre on the Southbank. Outside is a free exhibition of Rankin’s photographs of the Mugunga camp in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Approximately, 17,000 people live in the camp on the outskirts of Goma. Entitled 'Cheka Kidogo', Rankin’s exhibition - in partnership with Oxfam - aims to raise the profile of the humanitarian crisis in the DRC. While it has achieved its aim in press inches alone, I felt sad to watch the video pleas for help. One woman presumed that if so much effort was going into taking the photographs, then it must mean that the world might step in, resolve their problems, and help them home. I fear that too much optimism will lead to disappointment.

You can currently see a selection of the photograph’s on Oxfam’s’ website: Oxfam - Cheka Kidogo


Rehema Buera, 52. Restaurant owner
“I lost my husband and four of my children because of this war. After the attack, there were dead bodies everywhere in my village. I found the dead bodies of my husband and my four eldest children – all shot in the head. That day, 175 people from my village were murdered.”

Seraphine, 42. Entrepreneur
“I came from Rutshuru in Katwiguru. My own husband was killed in front of my eyes. There is still no peace in Rutshuru. Laurent Nkunda (leader of CNDP) is still oppressing us. We lived with the Interahamwe and there was no problem with them. But when Laurent Nkunda came, we started suffering a lot. He shot many people. Many people. Please help us get rid of those enemies so that we can go back to home. That is what we want. If you help us with this, really, we can finally heal."

Furaha Vumilia, 65. Basket maker
“It takes two weeks to make a basket – but it only sells for 260 francs (25p). How can you work for two weeks to make 25p? I fled when the war came. People were throwing bombs into our houses. I was living with my son. He and his wife were killed. I fled with my two grandsons. One is 15 and the other 13. They are orphans now.”

Alexis Ruangu, 29. Hunter – from a Pygmy tribe
“I know someone from my village who was castrated by the rebels. This war has scared us a lot – it has really affected us. I can’t say if we will ever return home. We are afraid that if we go back we will be killed. Pygmies move around the forest. We hunt, and look for honey and potatoes. My family’s not used to staying in one place, living among so many people.”


Oxfam tell us that “since 1998, the country has lost 5.4 million people to conflict, and the deadly disease and hunger that it has unleashed. Over a million people are displaced in the eastern part of the country, with over 500,000 people having fled from violence in the last year alone. Rape is epidemic. This year more than 1,100 women a month have reported being raped, although the real figure is likely to be much higher.”

Another excellent photographic journal of the camp is shared by Julien Harneis, Unicef worker, on Flickr. If you watch it as a slide show, I suggest that you turn ‘info’ on and pause to read the text.


Fabpants Recommends: Last night I went to see Neon Neon, with Yo! Majesty as support. I was grinning from ear to ear when Neon Neon, Yo Majesty! and Har Mar Superstar took the stage together for Sweat Shop. Har Mar Superstar also sang an entire song while stood on his head. Yo! Majesty looked impressed, Gruff Rhys looked delighted and Cate Le Bon looked stunning.

Download MP3: Neon Neon - I Lust You (courtesy of saladdaysmusic.net)




As for the encore, I recognised this short video from the End of the Road Festival cinema tent:

I’m A Normalite

The highlight of my week so far has been the most fantastic experience of seeing Davina Maccoll in zombie form. Since the days of 3am airings of ‘God’s Gift’, back in the day, Davina has been working towards this role. This is the role she was born for.

Dead Set is an amazing new series by Charlie Brooker. While I am not a fan of all his works, this is the best televisual programme that I have seen in a very long time. Yes, that means it trumps 'The Wire'.

Anyone who knows me well, the wonderful fools, will know that I visited the cinema twice in three days to watch the remake of Dawn of the Dead (this link is not for the faint hearted). There are no prizes for guessing which film inspired 'Dead Set'. Oh, the thrills, the spills and the belly aches.

For those of you yet to make the discovery, Dead Set is a zombie version of Big Brother. The vacuous nature of Big Brother contestants and fans is portrayed faultlessly. Not only does the show turn Big Brother into a gorefest of zombie mayhem, it is fantastically scripted and directed . I shouldn’t be shocked that a British comedy series has been made to such exceedingly high standards, but I am. That makes me love it all the more.

Apparently, there are cameos by real Big Brother contestants. They will be lost on me.

Don't shoot. I'm a normal person.

I’m a Normalite.

Fabpants Recommends

The Old School:
Download MP3: Depth Charge - Dead by Dawn (sorry, this link has died)


And the best ever, jolliest zombie track of all:
Download MP3: Herbert Chappell - The Gonk (courtesy of eccentric-cinema.com)

Black Magic

In Level 3 of the Tate, Material Gestures - a room full of Contemporary Paintings - serves to impress. The use of collage and non-traditional materials is striking. I didn’t visit every room at the Tate, but of those that I did visit, this room impressed me the most. I won't recommend viewing the artwork on the Tate website to form an impression. It would be pointless. The use of texture to create a stunning visual effects will be lost.

These were my favourites:

Mark Bradford - Los Moscos 2004. This reflects the grit of urban living. I’ve never been to Los Angeles, the inspiration for this work. Instead, it reminds me of Berlin.

Raqib Shaw - Jane 2006. The gory faces are brilliant. What would Jane Seymour think?

Ellen Gallagher - Bird in Hand 2006. The evil peg leg’s hair is something to behold.

Wangechi Mutu - You were always on my mind 2007. Like a parasitic growth you were always on my mind.

Albert Oehlen - Loa 2007. Techno, techno, techno. Black metal techno.

Michael Raedecker - overnight 1998. Check out the ripples in the sand.


Fabpants Recommends: The All New Adventures Of Us: Best Loved Good Night Tales

Download MP3: The All New Adventures Of Us - 45 Forever (sorry, this link has died)


Download MP3: The All New Adventures Of Us - The Art Of The High Five (sorry, this link has died)

Scream When Your Life is Threatened

“Shriek when the pain hits during interrogation.
Reach into the dark ages to find a sound that is liquid horror, a sound of the brink where man stops and the beast and nameless cruel forces begin.
Scream when your life is threatened.
Form a noise so true that your tormentor recognizes it as a voice that lives in his own throat.
The true sound tells him that he cuts his flesh when he cuts yours, that he cannot thrive after he tortures you.
Scream that he destroys all the kindness in you and blackens every vision you could have shown him.”
Jenny Holzer from Inflammatory Essays, [no title] 1979-82

See it in gory colours at the Tate Modern: Level 5 - Idea and Object. It hurts the eyes.

Fabpants Recommends: Pocketbooks – Proofreading. Sometimes all we need is a bit of twee pop. This band give away their music for free, here’s 4 tracks from the album:

Download MP3: 01. Pocketbooks - It Started with Squares




Download MP3: 02. Pocketbooks - Running Circles




Download MP3: 04. Pocketbooks - A Picture Waiting For a Frame




Download MP3: 08. Pocketbooks - Every Good Time We Ever Had




Here’s a more recent release:
Download MP3: Pocketbooks - Don’t Stop

City Dwellers Dressed Up Like Europeans

I went to the Tate Modern again on Saturday, as part of another big day out in London. It was a fantastic day and I mainly want to tell you that I absolutely love this photo:
Seydou Keïta - Untitled 1952-1955 / 1995
It was the highlight of my day.

The work of Seydou Keïta deserves the accolade. You can view all of the Seydou Keïta photographs displayed at the Tate Modern via the Tate website and step into Mali 1949-1960, or thereabouts:
Seydou Keïta at Tate Modern

If you want easier viewing access, you can try these websites for two different, but similar collections:
Seydou Keïta at African Imagery
Seydou Keïta at CAACART

Keïta’s amazing story is told here alongside some of his works:
Seydou Keïta at Ego Design

Fabpants Recommends: Herman Dune has a new album out. Here are some tasters from 'Next Year in Zion' (courtesy of nastypanda.com):

Download MP3: Herman Dune - Try To Think About Me




Download MP3: Herman Dune - On A Saturday




Download MP3: Herman Dune - Next Year in Zion

Just White Air and Waiting

Henry Chinaski, in many ways, is your typical outsider. He's depressed. He likes to be alone. He hates his parents.

He might be an outsider, but he's not sensitive. He's tough. He could knock seven shades of shit out of you. Even if he couldn’t, he’d have a damn good go. If you beat him unconscious, he’d still come back for more.

Below are some excerpts from Charles Bukowski’s 'Ham on Rye' (1982). If you want to find out how tough he is, read the book. For now, it’s all just white air and waiting.

-

“The first thing I remember is being under something. It was a table, I saw a table leg, I saw the legs of the people, and a portion of the tablecloth hanging down. It was dark under there, I liked being under there. It must have been in Germany. I must have been between one and two years old. It was 1922. I felt good under the table. Nobody seemed to know that I was there. There was sunlight upon the rug and on the legs of the people. I liked the sunlight. The legs of the people were not interesting, not like the tablecloth which hung down, not like the table leg, not like the sunlight.”

-

“The first children of my age that I knew were in kindergarten. They seemed strange, they laughed and talked and seemed happy. I didn’t like them. I always felt as if I was going to be sick, to vomit, and the air seemed strangely still and white... One problem I had was going to the bathroom. I always needed to go to the bathroom, but I was ashamed to let the others know that I had to go, so I held it. It was really terrible to hold it. And the air was white, I felt like vomiting, I felt like shitting and pissing, but I didn’t say anything. And when some of the others came back from the bathroom I’d think, you’re dirty, you did something in there...

The little girls were nice in their short dresses, with their long hair and beautiful eyes, but I thought, they do things in there too, even though they pretend they don’t.

Kindergarten was mostly white air...”

-

“We went down into a cellar, under the house. It was dark and damp and we stood a while until our eyes grew used to the gloom. Then I could see a number of barrels.

'These barrels are full of different kinds of wine', Baldy said...

I put my mouth under the spigot and opened it. A smelly liquid trickled out and into my mouth. I spit it out.

'Don't be chicken! Swallow it, what the shit!'

I opened the spigot and I opened my mouth. The smelly liquid entered and I swallowed it. I turned off the spigot and stood there. I thought I was going to puke.

'Now, you drink some', I said to Baldy.
'Sure', he said, 'I ain't fucking afraid!'

He got down under a barrel and took a good swallow. A little punk like that wasn't going to outdo me. I got under another barrel, opened it and took a swallow. I stood up. I was beginning to feel good.

'Hey, Baldy', I said, "I like this stuff."
'Well, shit, try some more.'

I tried some more. It was tasting better. I was feeling better... Never had I felt so good. It was better than masturbating. I went from barrel to barrel. It was magic. Why hadn't someone told me? With this, life was great, a man was perfect, nothing could touch him.

I stood up straight and looked at Baldy.
‘Where’s your mother? I’m going to fuck your mother!’”

-

“’Let’s go’ said my father, and I walked into the bathroom.
He got the strop down.
‘Take down your pants and shorts’, he said.
I didn’t do it. He reached in front of me, yanked my belt open, unbuttoned me and yanked my pants down. He pulled down my shorts. The strop landed. It was the same, the same explosive sound, the same pain.
‘You’re going to kill your mother!’ he screamed.

He hit me again. But the tears weren’t coming. My eyes were strangely dry. I thought about killing him. That there must be a way to kill him. In a couple of years I could beat him to death. But I wanted him now. He wasn’t much of anything. I must have been adopted.”

-

“I walked back into the bedroom and got into bed and pulled the covers to my throat. I looked up at the ceiling as I talked to myself.

All right, God, say that You are really there. You have put me in this fix. You want to test me. Suppose I test You? Suppose I say that You are not there? You’ve given me a supreme test with my parents and with these boils. I think that I have passed Your test. I am tougher than You. If You will come down here right now, I will spit into Your face, if You have a face. And do You shit? The priest never answered that question. He told us not to doubt. Doubt what? I think that You have been picking on me too much so I am asking You to some down here so I can put You to the test!”

-

Gathered around me were the weak instead of the strong, the ugly instead of the beautiful, the losers instead of the winners. It looked like it was my destiny to travel in their company through life. That didn’t bother me so much as the fact that I seemed irresistible to these dull idiot fellows. I was like a turd that drew flies instead of like a flower that butterflies and bees desired. I wanted to live alone, I felt best being alone, cleaner, yet I was not clever enough to rid myself of them”

-

“I made practice runs down to skid row to get ready for my future, I didn’t like what I saw down there. I didn’t like what I saw down there. Those men and women had no special daring or brilliance. They wanted what everyone else wanted. There was also some obvious mental cases down there who were allowed to walk the street undisturbed. I had noticed that both in the very poor and rich extremes of society the mad were often allowed to mingle freely. I knew that I wasn’t entirely sane. I still knew, as I had as a child, that there was something strange about myself...

Sitting there drinking, I considered suicide, but I felt a strange fondness for my boy, my life. Scarred as they were, they were mine... It was felt to sit alone in a small space and smoke and drink. I had always been good company for myself.”

Fabpants Recommends: I’ve been writing this blog whilst listening to Horse Stories album 'Everyone's a Photographer'. My Geek had never heard it before. He liked it. My Geek rarely likes music that he hasn’t heard before.

Download MP3: Horse Stories - Lies (sorry, this link has died)

Download MP3: Horse Stories - Bloody Time Of The Year (sorry, this link has died)

Download MP3: Horse Stories - You Explained Away (sorry, this link has died)

Children of the Ashes

“The bridge was half destroyed, and hung in flames into the river. So I ran to the iron railway bridge, a hundred yards downstream. The wooden sleepers were burning here too, but I ran along the red-hot metal rails. On the far side crowds of maddened people were running like demented lemmings, trying to get across the river. They were screaming, and it sounded like one enormous voice. In the middle of the bridge lay four or five bodies, unrecognizable as human beings, but still moving. Then- skin hung from them like strands of dark seaweed! Instead of noses, holes! Their ears and hands were so swollen as to be shapeless. One of them falls off the bridge! Now another! And then one after the other they tumble into the river, helplessly exhausted. They drowned, and made no attempt to save themselves. But there were still fifty or sixty clinging to the red-hot rails. In their terror of dying they clawed their way over one another, their eyes hanging from their sockets, pushing one another into the river, and screaming all the time.

Somehow I got across the railway bridge, but on the far bank there were mountains of corpses blocking the way forward. These people must have been chased by die roaring tongues of flame that caught them here. They were still burning. I thought that they were all dead, but now they began to whimper. A woman was calling for her husband. A mother for her child. And the flames sprang to life again andgripped them pitilessly. My own eyebrows were singed, my hands and my face burning. My only thought was that I must get out of here, somehow, anyhow. I must fight my way through the corpses. I pushed them aside, pulling on a head to clear a passage. "Zuru, zuru" .., This contact with my hands was loathsome. The skin on the face stuck to my palms. Beneath the skin was something yellowish. I was trembling all over, and I dropped the dead man's head, tried to push his hand aside in order that I might get through ... and that hand was nothing but bones beneath charred flesh, and the skin off his face still stuck to me.

I climbed on top of a pile of corpses. Layer upon layer of them. Some were still moving, still alive. I had to get over them. I had to climb over. There was no way of getting through. I can still hear the cracking of their bones. At last the mountain of the dead lay behind me. One of my feet was aching horribly. Only now did I notice that I had lost a shoe. My bare sole had been cut by glass splinters and was bleeding. An open water tank, against air raids. I buried my face in it. The water was boiling hot. I began to feel faint. And thirst, such a thirst. There was no drop of sweat on my desiccated body, but it was covered in blood and bits of strangers' skin. I reeled and wanted to vomit. I took hold of myself and automatically picked out the little stones that had got into the wounds on my feet. Now the wounds began to bleed again from horrible, black gashes. And the little stones were in them again. There was no sense in taking them out. Up to then I had at least been able to breathe and moan and shout. But now my throat was so parched that I could scarcely utter a sound. When I tried to shout it was as though my throat was pierced by a thousand needles being driven into an open wound. I mustn't think about the pain! I must run, run, run, that was all - run for my life.”

From the ‘Diary and Recollections of Kazuo M.’ as published in ‘Children of the Ashes: The People of Hiroshima After The Bomb’ By Robert Jungk (1985)

Fabpants Recommends: Pivot's debut album 'O Soundtrack My Heart'. It has now sound tracked the words of 'Kazuo M' and his recollections of Hiroshima just after the bomb. For me, the words and music worked well together. The tragedy of a flattened city, where civilians fought for their lives and failed to do so in their thousands, is hard to comprehend. The music helped me to visualise it like an archived film. It helped to bring home the horror. It is hard to think of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as anything but stories. We have to remember that they were real and we have to remember that they were awful.

Download MP3: Pivot - Fool In Rain (courtesy of porkpiesuperman.com)




What follows is a series of excellent podcasts by Pivot:

Download MP3: Pivot - O Download My Heart - Ep1 - Cosmic Gods of Synth



01. Van Halen - 1984 [1984]
02. Vangelis - Main Titles [OST: Blade Runner]
03. Jean Michel Jarre - Oxygene IV [Oxygene]
04. Tonto's Expanding Headband - Ferryboat
05. David Bowie - Warszawa [Low]
06. Pink Floyd - On The Run [Dark Side Of The Moon]
07. Klaus Schulze - Floating [Moondawn]
08. Kitaro - Flight [The Best of Ten Years 1976-1986]
09. Vangelis - Spiral [Spiral]
10. Kitaro - Mororism [Oasis]
11. John Carpenter - Main Titles [Assault On Precinct 13]
12. Brian Eno - 2/2 [Ambient 1: Music For Airports]

Yes, this is a retro ambient selection, and happily for me, it excludes 'Aphex Twin'.


Download MP3: O Download My Heart - Ep2 - Australian Music



01. The Drones - Shark Fin Blues [Wait Long By The River and Watch The Bodies of Your Enemies Float By]
02. Grinderman - No Pussy Blues [Grinderman]
03. Augie March - Cold Acre [Moo, You Bloody Choir]
04. Qua - On Clouds [Painting Monsters On Clouds]
05. The Necks - He Led Them Into the World [The Boys]
06. Jack Ladder - Once In A Lifetime [Not Worth Waiting For (Single)]
07. Phil Slater - The Chance [Strobe Coma Virgo]
08. Snowman - We Are The Plague [The Horse, The Rat and The Swan]
09. Matt Rosner - Dissolve [Morning Tones]

Nick Cave lives a stone's throw from me, quite literally, but it seems that the Aussies still class Grinderman as a band of their own. Good for them. But he's my neighbour and not theirs!


Download MP3: O Download My Heart - Ep3 - 13 Autobahn Favourites



01. Cluster - Hollywood [Zuckerzeit]
02. Neu! - Hallogallo [Neu 1]
03. Flanger - Studio Tan [Templates]
04. Roedelius - Veilchenwurzeln [Wenn Der Sudwind Weht]
05. Andrew Pekler - Rockslide [Cue]
06. Farben - Live at the Saraha Tahoe 1973 [Textstar]
07. Kraftwerk - The Model [Man Machine]
08. Moebius - Transport [Tonspuren]
09. Oval - Textuell [Systemisch]
10. Isolee - Rest [Rest]
11. Moebius/Plank - Tolkuhn [Material]
12. Can - Mushroom [Tago Mago]
13. Tangerine Dream - Mysterious Semblance At The Strand Of Nightmares [Phaedra]

Oddly enough, I listened to Tangerine Dream's 'From Dawn 'til Dusk - 1973-1988' only a few days ago.

Gig Review: Holy Fuck Nuts

I went to see ‘Holy Fuck’ on Saturday. I can’t believe that anyone could witness the sheer effrontery of Holy Fuck's equipment, and their command of it, and walk away unimpressed. It’s like watching something from the future; the future as imagined in the 1970s. The Starship Enterprise Control Panel makes music, and the music tastes good.

My live cherry popping ‘Holy Fuck’ moment was at Lounge on the Farm earlier this year. Needless to say, I was gobsmacked. I missed their Brighton gig in April, this year, because ‘This Will Destroy You’ took precedence. I fobbed the fuckers off and a festival threw them right back at me. Coincidentally, both bands played Brighton this Saturday too. They should start sharing a bus, or more conveniently for me, playing on different nights. On Saturday night, Holy Fuck won the gig wars. A scrapheap challenge inspired looping machine has an undeniable draw. Watch that tape man; it like cave tape it's so old.

For their live show, Holy Fuck entertain a drummer, a bassist, two magicians, two metal tables, a salad of knobs, pedals, things that go wah wah, bim, bop or boom, and a sprinkling of keyboards. Sometimes, from the corner of the stage, garnish appears. What will it be next? An electronic tissue covered comb? The metal tables’ offerings are as organic as the music.

Stood directly in front of the stage, it took enormous reserve not to add my hand to the action. Brian Borcherdt’s tray of goodies was within reach and, at times, I might have stroked his beard. A man with that many gadgets is bound to be distracted sometimes. Part of me regrets not making a surreptitious attempt. Would anyone have noticed a misplaced and poorly timed twiddle or a little beard stroking?

So what about the music? Is it worthy of the title ‘HOLY FUCK!”? Well ‘Lovely Allen’ has to be a serious contender for 2008 greatness. It fills the room, soars through the gaping holes in my mind and steals the air from my mouth. For the most part, Holy Fuck create music that’s best seen in process. It should blast from a million speakers and reverberate forever. It’s no twee sing along. It's something to behold and almost touch. I almost touched. I was a small and interfering hand away.

Fabpants Recommends: Restlesslist. Yes, only fifteen people in Brighton make music, and Brakes and Electric Soft Parade have spawned a new baby. Their support slot on Saturday was most certainly noteworthy. These are my notes. Check out their MySpace, skip the first song ‘The Shoe that Fits...’ (a Pipettes remix that makes me want to be sick), and listen to the rest, from ‘Butlin Breaks’ onwards. Whilst supporting Holy Fuck, they were undeniably shambolic between songs, but otherwise impressive. Their album “The Rise and Fall of the Curtain Club” might be available for a spot of shoplifting in a store near you.

Download MP3: Restlesslist - Butlin Breaks (courtesy of www.chromewaves.net)

The Cats that Live on the Beach and Other Tales

As a child, we used to sail to Horsey Mere from Hickling Broad in a Half Decker. The boat was my granddad’s, and it was large enough to accommodate our rather large family and a couple of eager guests.

My Mum likes to remind me that I was still wearing reins when I first went sailing in that boat. We would stock up on picnic food, sail to Horsey, and then walk to the local pub. Sometimes the wind would die and it would take hours to drift home. The sail from Hickling to Horsey was, and still is, beautiful. It makes sailing at sea seem pointless.

On other days, we would drive to Winterton or Waxham and walk along the sand dunes. This is something I still do with my parents when I go home. We still go out in the Half Decker too. The land of my childhood is the land of my sun-soaked daydreams. When I return, I sigh with pleasure, look about me and wish that I could marry my life of gigging, cycling to work, and the wonderful grit of urban living, with the flatlands and waterways of Norfolk.

Several years after I moved away from the county, another big family moved in. They are grey, have large whiskers and love sunbathing. They are fabulously fat seals, and they live along the coastline between Sea Palling and Winterton. Now when I visit my parents, if it’s the right time of year, we go and say ‘hello’ to the seals.

Saying ‘hello’ to the seals with my folks is like marvelling at a gift of nature. On Thursday morning, my dad counted 74 seals sunbathing on just two beaches. “It won’t be long before lots of new seal pups add to their numbers”, he told me. My Dad knows about that kind of thing. On Thursday, I saw more seals than I have ever seen before. Seals are ace.

You may not know this, but Cranes have also colonised the Broads over the last 30 years. This is the only part of Britain where you can see Cranes in the wild. On Wednesday afternoon, I saw my first Crane. Actually, I saw four.

I was in the hinterland of rural Hickling, where an ‘Oi, you, geroff my land!” and the threat of loaded shotgun wouldn't be the biggest surprise. I was riding a bike that looks like it was born in the 1950s and my Dad was riding it’s bigger brother. These bikes are my Dad’s idea of mountain bikes. They are so damn cool. With jaunty smiles and silly waves, we passed a flock of birdwatchers.

Then, with bandy legs, and little suspension, we headed off-road, away from tripods and people, and into shotgun territory. The sound of human life, cars and motorbikes stopped. My Dad quietly called for me to stop. There they were, four massive cranes, as fat as Christmas turkeys and as tall as pink flamingos. We watched them for ten minutes, or more, in wonderment. After seeing the seals on Thursday, we heard the Cranes crying. They make a hell of a row.

My Dad's a bit of a twitcher. I’m not, but seeing a group of massive rare birds with him was just dandy. He’d seen an Osprey before I arrived. He was very excited.

Fabpants Recommends: The Raveonettes - Lust Lust Lust. The Jesus and Mary Chain comparisons are obvious, but this album takes you on it’s own journey. Female vocals have rarely sounded better when set against a fine wall of fuzz. It’s hard to believe that this band's not British. The album's so pretty and maudlin.

Download MP3: The Raveonettes - Dead Sound



I also recommend “Conflict of Wings”, a 1954 film that features Hickling, Ludham and a cast of extras from the area. Seeing the locals and film stars haring up Hickling Broad in a random array of boats, to have an anarchist style protest, is brilliant.

Silence is so accurate

I went to see Rothko in London on Saturday. I am listening to Rothko now. It took Rothko forty years to find a voice, and even then he didn’t talk much. Instead, he made ambient soundscapes. In hindsight, I realise my error. I should have listened to Rothko whilst pondering on his art. At least it would have helped me to erase the mass of people that stood in my way. Erasing people from your vision is not easy.

The Rothko paintings on display at the Tate Modern are from 1958 to 1970. On February 25, 1970, Rothko was found dead; his blood a free flowing expression of suicide. His arms had been sliced open. A razorblade lay at his side. He had overdosed on anti-depressants. He was 66 years old.

Rothko’s depression on canvas mirrors the human emotion. The Black on Grey series made me feel like I was on a vast lonely planet; its surface made possible by sad, discontented fingers.

The Black-Form paintings invited me to walk right into them, to be swallowed up by their warm and comforting darkness. They are simple, minimalist, and yet the textures and simple colour contrasts draw you in. Sometimes depression is comforting. Rothko’s art reflects this.

It’s a shame that so many people want to see Rothko’s works. The art invited silence and yet there was none. I longed for privacy and a stampede threatened. Depression should be lonesome. When the dark cries of despair fill the room, there should be no one to hear.

I could take or leave many of the Seagram murals, but perhaps I wasn’t seeing them in the right context. A vast empty room did not lie before me. The most striking of the murals hung on the right wall, but the room was too busy, in terms of paintings as well as people. It didn’t look as one. It looked like a wide corridor, as busy as an underground walkway at rush hour. Instead of adverts, a random array of Rothko’s works of a similar colour cried out for machetes, the blood of the art ponce and unity. The paintings longed to share the blood of a massacre.

Apparently, Rothko’s intention was to upset, offend and torture the diners at the Four Seasons. Raw and bloody steaks partnered by raw and bloody images. Eat the rich. Let the rich eat themselves. The centrepiece was not a violent act of terrorism by paint. It wasn’t that inspiring. It was a violent act of hanging the uninspired alongside the exceptional, under bright lights, in a room with too many doorways and too many people.

The gallery was too busy for contemplation. I bought a book for that. Instead of erasing people, my imagination will have to add scale, texture and colour. Oh dear.

Just in case you were wondering, I didn’t like any of the Rothko paintings that had sharp lines. I also know shit-all about art.

Fabpants Recommends: Paying £12.50 to see the works of Mark Rothko in an overcrowded room. Take an MP3 player with you. The MP3 player should contain nothing but the music of Rothko. Mark Rothko was appalled that only the rich got to see his work and donated his paintings to the Tate. Now only the rich get to see his work.

Rothko, the band, recently released a ‘retrospective’ album called ‘A Life Lived Elsewhere’. This is a limited edition (350 copies only) CDR album, only available from the Rothko website.

This blog was fuelled by the album “Wish For a World Without Hurt”. It’s bleak and beautiful. I don’t have a copy of the compilation album. I don’t need an introduction.

Download MP3: Rothko - I Feel Lost Without You (courtesy of www.adams-dress.com)