Filed under: Music | Tags: Alessi, Andrew Bird, Ethan Johns, Johnny Flynn, Laura Marling, Laura Marling And Friends, Monk, Mumford and Sons, Peggy Sue, Pete Roe, Royal Festival Hall, Sons Of Noel And Adrian, Woo
This blog may be a little late in coming, but our total love for this gig is no less diminished. Where to start off in an evening of so many wonders. One of us was lost completely; in the zone, gone with the moment with head turned and focused upon a stage which bought out one amazing performance followed inexplicably by even more trance inducing, jaw tiring (from all the dropping) performances. On the other hand, the other struggled to keep calm and refrain from causing the forementioned friend severe bruising with the constant digs and jabs that would have resulted from hysterical, barely contained excitement…
The Royal Festival Hall is a beautiful venue, and by the time we got there the atmosphere was bustling pleasantly with friends gathered chatting, drinks in hand in excitement of the imminent musical extravaganza. There was a great seating area set on the floor of the Clore Ballroom where we sat wishing university was like so. Happy thoughts of the RFA were cast even before we reached our seats, at which point it was decided we would come back to sit in the wondrous balcony seats we likened to being a bit space age and slightly Star Trek.
The concert began with a warming, hearty video of none other than Laura Marling and friends. It was the perfect opening to the evening and it was truely great to watch footage of such a caring and close knit group bonded by friendship and music. It was a video that signified the importance of the social side of music – how playing, writing and showcasing music with others can bring people together and it became obvious that none of them could do what they do without having the support of the people around them.
After the video, Laura Marling walked on stage to give a brief introduction to the evening which was then followed by a new song of hers; ‘Oh Mama How Far I’ve Come’. A truly lovely song which filled the venue perfectly. We were absolutely astounded by the acoustics in the RFH, they made everything sound a million times better (which we didn’t even think was possible!).
The night was divided into two parts; each musician played one song of theirs which was then followed by a new song by Laura Marling in between. A short description of each performance can be read below:
Pete Roe: Clearly such a talented musician and much loved by all of them. Pete played ‘The Devil’s Dancefloor’ which is always a crowd-pleaser. His sheer talent at folk guitar is so enviable and he was a brilliant start to the night. Pete Roe also plays in Laura Marling’s band and joined her on-stage throughout the night.
Ethan Johns: It was our very first time hearing and seeing the well known record producer and songwriter, Ethan Johns. He played a song called ‘ Hello Sunshine’ which was fantastic. He frequently popped up on stage with Laura Marling too, playing a multitude of different instruments such as guitar, drums and what I think was a dulcimer (but my eyes could have been deceiving me). Johns has worked with artists such as Ryan Adams, Kings of Leon, Ray Lamontagne and Rufus Wainwright! Laura Marling can now be added to that amazing list as he’s just finished producing her much anticipated second album (Due for release in February 2010).
Peggy Sue: It was an unfortunate performance for Peggy Sue as they were experiencing guitar problems which was a terrible shame as ‘The Sea, The Sea’ is such a brilliant song. But! luckily, Laura Marling insisted that they repeated the song as part of the encore for the night which completely made up for it.
Johnny Flynn: Amazing, amazing, AMAZING performance. He played a new song called ‘Will I Pray’. If it is possible to have a performance steal the night in a show of such brilliance, it most definitely would have been this one. Johnny Flynns presence on stage in the absence of a band was simply mesmerising; the acoustics of the RFH amplified the great beauty of his voice,and you could sense around you the atmosphere of an audience captivated by the fantastic music produced by this gentleman.
Alessi: The magnificance of Alessi’s singing will bring a smile to you every time. She’s such a lovely musician and hearing her sweet voice in the beautiful surroundings of the Royal Festival Hall was truely special. Alessi sang her wonderful song ’Hummingbird’ and was joined by Benji from Mumford & Sons.
Sons of Noel and Adrian: Their performance of ‘Indigo’ was completely mind blowing. Seeing over 10 members of a band on stage at one time is always exciting and I very nearly fell out of my seat whilst watching them. Although the other artists were so, so amazing, it was still a nice change to witness such a large band come on stage. Jacob Richardson can seriously play a mean nylon stringed guitar and we were fascinated by the string section. Definitely one of the highlights of the already incredible night.
Andrew Bird: Possibly the most well known of ‘friends’ to join Laura Marling on the night. Andrew Bird was joined by Laura Marling and Marcus Mumford for his performance of ‘Headsoak’. It was a rather endearing performance and quite amusing at times – We’re almost certain that the whole audience was quite taken aback as well as immensely impressed at Andrew Bird’s whistling skills.
Mumford & Sons: The last performance of the night (before the encore). Mumford & Sons performed their song ‘Thistle and Weeds’ and of course they didn’t disappoint (but could they ever?).
…And last but definitely not least, Laura Marling. It seems an age away that Laura Marling was terrified of an audience not even a quarter of the size present at the Royal Festival Hall. Though still slightly awkward at times, her stage presence remained strong throughout and even Laura herself said the night was going surprisingly easy. The whole meaning of the night was to showcase music with friends, but it was also the perfect opportunity to present her new material to her fans. If you thought ’Alas, I Cannot Swim’ was an amazing album, then you’re definitely in for a treat for her upcoming second album. Marling has completely stepped it up a gear – Youthful songs such as ‘Failure’ have been cast aside; ready for a whole different sound altogether and man, are we excited ;)
Filed under: Art, Music | Tags: Bon Iver, Johnny Flynn, Ohbijou, Songs of the Whoeek, Woo
I stumbled across the odd name Ohbijou in the list of showcasing artists at SXSW, but didn’t investigate much more past their tune Black Ice. Mr Jeff Hamada however bought their amazing fantastical video for New Years to my attention, and I’ve been since pitying the fool that is me for not listening to the beauty of this band. I would not stop at treating your ears to New Years- for the moment you fall into Mecijia’s vocals so lush, and hold out for the sound of instrumentation so tentative…you will be hooked.
If you too wondered the meaning behind the band name, an intriguing answer was supplied by Vocalist/Guitarist Casey Mecija.
“The name is from a moment I had with someone…I couldn’t quite describe it’s meaning. The moment was fleeting but was gorgeous.”
There is so much that we love about Mr Flynn. We could not wait to see him again after our first encounter at Cargo, and then yet more so on our second at the RFH. Already eagerly awaiting his new material, songs like the above has me lingering ever dangerously on tenterhooks and steadily (and readily) increasing the playcount of said video…
There’s not much to be added, except ever more praise so I’d simply suggest you click play as I am doing now, and away! Enjoy!
You’ve probably heard of Mr Justin Vernon and Bon Iver. Maybe then you’ve heard that unbelievably handsome voice of his. If you’ve subconsciously nodded twice there, then you’ll know of being enchanted into the beauty of his songs. Heart wrenching and melancholic they may be, but they are also irrisistable, and I can’t help but slip on my headphones for a while at 4am to hear his voice.
Yeahhh! We’re going off to see The Dodos at Birmingham’s Glee Club soon. Been well excited to see what they’re like live since hearing of them through Fecal Face (love up Tripp, and everything Fecal) and appreciating greatly the sheer amount of sound, and wonderful melodious sound at that just two people can create. Undeclared is one my fave mellow ones off Visiter. An exhibition of love for watercolours and rainbow text plus two super nice covers of Undeclared off youtube follow below.
Enjoy yourself :)
(psst, their new album is out now, and first single Fables is well good.)
If there is ever anything that is a guaranteed massive win with me it is a mass of detail. Lines, dots, squares, drawing each of the kernels of corn on a cob, trying to draw every strand of hair, attempting to illustrate the population of china with stick men… There is just something very addictive and attracting knowing that the artist sat before their piece of work for hours on end, working on the small but many components of their imagery. You do have to get past various whispers of you being quite anal though…
I can never stop staring at the hectic,dreamy ecosystems of Gregory Euclide. He’s got this great ability to manipulate materials you never would have thought of using, and annoyingly using the materials we all use with even more skill and imagination,crafting them into his meticulous works.
He’s currently working on some new pieces for a solo show at the DavidBSmith Gallery, and is playing with a kind of dried spilt paint effect which is making my jaw drop. My words won’t do it justice: Below.
Look for more wonders on his flickr/Web
Filed under: Art | Tags: Alison Jacques, Art, Exhibition, Photography, Ryan McGinley, Woo
HERE
Check my wee mention of the man himself down below.
A great photo will make you stop, you’ll pause to discover words again, and most magically it will take you away just for that instance, whether it be someplace you desire to be within, or somewhere unknown and strange. It’s like that wonderful stirring inside of you, each time you listen to your favourite line in a song, or hear the voice of a singer able to bring shivers to your spine. It’s a really great tingle.
I’d quite like to get lost in Ryan Mcginley’s world- if only for a while! A world of carefree naked people (maybe I could get lost in it clothed…)faces stare back full of freedom and rebellion, of hidden stories, and ideas yet to be unravelled. There is also something 
quite daunting in the midst too. Maybe merely on a personal level being on the other side of the frame-you will wonder if you might find for yourself all that you spy through these windows, with all the contradictions that reality encompasses.
Mr McGinleys Dakota Hair-2004 (below) was the first of his works that I encountered. A barren, sandy landscape rushes by escaping the photo, and then this solitary nude figure drinking from a styrofoam cup on the back of a truck. It doesn’t seem all that extraordinary, but then the things that take our breath away the most are almost always very ordinary.
“My photographs are a celebration of life, fun and the beautiful…They are a world that doesn’t exist. A fantasy. Freedom is real. There are no rules. The life I wish I was living.”
His work is often said to be “voyeuristic”, but I feel as though it’s more like a great fervour for life, as if he is able to capture for us these small moments we thought we may have glimpsed; snapshots we just missed. He translates feelings, and memories and suspends them in his imagery. The sense of movement and suspension in time works to put this to great effect. Mr McGinley’s photos seem incredibly organic, but there is a certain amount of crafting involved in each scenario (come on, you don’t get beautiful naked people prancing around everywhere now do you), as he says himself, they are a fantasy, a similar but different echo of our own world.
“I got to the point where I couldn’t wait for the pictures to happen anymore…I was wasting time, and so I started making pictures happen. It borders between being set up or really happening. There’s that fine line.”
Since the summer of 2005 Mr McGinley has taken an annual road trip with his troup of assistants and beautiful guys and girls (according to a source, one assistant has the task of a carrying around a boom box to ensure that there is a soundtrack for Mr McGinley’s creativity, which is if I may say so.. UBER awesome). He gets them to interact with each other, getting them distracted with smoke and fireworks, and all matter of things so the models become very natural under the gaze of Mr McGinley’s camera. In this way he ’creates’ his photos, but it’s still not something you could simply replicate by taking a couple of naked people into the desert and taking a few shots. Without the knowledge of how these models will interact, how to capture all those senses being revealed, the photos would just be lifeless and dead which is simply not the case with Mr McGinley, showing the great grasp over the work he creates.
Ryan McGinley is a great big gust of creative fresh air. His fearlessness, spirit, and creative freedom something I aspire and envy. I love this inspiring quote from him…
”I’ve worked really hard. I’ve devoted my life to this. I’m not feeling any expectation from anybody else. I’m doing it for myself. I’m making the art for me first. I’m making it because these are the pictures I want to see. I’m making pictures that don’t yet exist.”
Some indulgent self promotion we created today whilst watching bearded weirdos on Dragons Den.. rocking out some seated head banging with the sounds of Local Natives…listening to the rain outside..and also contemplating the serious matter of: just what would you do if a bird flew in through your window?
Filed under: Film | Tags: Animation, Are You Unique, Buck, Can't Stop This Feeling, Franz Ferdinand, Interactive Wall, Mountain Dew, Subtleties Of The State, Video Friday, Woo
Endearingly hilarious.
Life as a clapper loader. It’s hardcore serious stuff. SLAM DUNK!
Interactive wall for the tourist information office, La Vitrine in Montreal.The installation includes tracking devices and low-resolution LED displays and is capable of showing many different visualizations based on the presence and movement of people.
New Franz Ferdinand video for Can’t Stop This Feeling. I want to learn how to do this! Love.
I love the feel of this animation!! You have to watch it a fair few times to really appreciate all the small things and transitions in it. Pretty darn good. Made by Buck for the rebranding of Mountain Dew.
This is “laugh out loud” stuff! A recruitment advert for police of all things.
Being someone who has difficulty even synchronising mouth and brain together, it’s pretty safe to say I’m superly impressed with Stefan Marolachakis’ ability to bang out a decent drum beat, and sing such heart wrenching lyrics at the same time.
Though their band name is a tad long, you can begin dismissing this trivial matter (it’s not the end of the world is it?…) on hearing Show Your Age. Mr Marolachakis’ voice stretches with passion, and pours emotion to a point where you feel that his voice may just crack during a epic chorus line. It gives you that tingle- that moment you know you’re going to be putting this song on repeat. And that is just one of a great handful of offerings.
Arising from Brooklyn, New York the core of the band consists of Stefan Marolachakis and Benjamin Smith. Drifting in and out have been various members – “14 bass players, and 1 fist fight” bringing the drama that has come to be expected of bands. However the two have remained strong, and their friendship/partnership is as it was in it’s creation on meeting in their Spanish class. They have kept a friendship where others have failed, and to top that they have created 2 full lengths, of which are nothing less than mighty!
“When everything else is removed and it’s just the two of us, there’s a really good line of communication there…It made it easier to make a record that felt honest and clear. ‘Say what you mean’ was one of our mottoes.”
From angsty, rough tracks, songs like trodden paths and the stories of faded bootprints. Onto the mellow belters that entrance you in the forlorn loves of bygone days. The End of the World.
“Most of the record is very much about our lives, our friendship and our friends in general…It’s definitely a growing up, life choices type of record.”
Their last offering was released late 2008.
French Exit (Leaving without saying goodbye)
Check out their MySpace
These are soo insane. They also make me terrifically jealous and eager to dig out my own watercolours. The details are so fine, and there’s just so much of it. And not to mention the colours. It’s a real nice departure from his paint work-which still remains incredible. So much imagination, so many ideas in each image that he creates. Gushing huge time!
Can’t stop staring so you go off and check out Mr Soto’s blog while I continue….
I love his diary on his visit to London just a month or so ago for his first UK show, and his various explorations of English “candy” (chocolate).
I’m greeted at the exhibition entrance by a nice gentleman in black attire, and he informs me that I shouldn’t take photos or touch the artwork. This being pretty basic knowledge when visiting galleries, I smiled and thought to myself “Well duh” then carried on into the exhibition space. It became quite obvious however as I looked at the work that not touching would be quite a difficult task…
I love Mr Koons’ humour and playfulness. There were many smiles and flickers of amusement on people’s faces as they wandered through the gallery and pondered over the work. I really hesitate to say that Mr Koons’ work ‘challenges’ it’s audience, because it seems so detached, (and it ‘s one of those horrible overused words used to describe art) but it does in that it plays with our expectations and what we are familiar with. His exhibition at The Serpentine consists of several installations of his casts of inflatable toys, and some large scale canvases. It felt like an amazing illusion of a fairground.
In the same way you stare at an Escher and wonder just how? Or step back from a great magic show and reconsider the feat that has just been achieved. How did they manage that? How am I falling for this trick?! You cannot help when looking at this series of work, but wonder how can this inflatable toy.. not be, that in truth it is an absolutely uncanny aluminium replica?
I stared so close, and so long at some of the pieces, that had everyone not been doing the same I’d have looked like a right loony. Down to the tiny tiny creases that you never consciously acknowledge, the way the surfaces reflect light, the crumpled edges of the seams, they were all captured-not one element amiss. It was spellbinding.
No matter how hard I scrutinised the inflata-minium there would just be fleeting moments where I could really say AHA! There it is! I can definitely tell its metal here! But you turn away and see another piece of work, and your mind is sent into a great new puzzle again.
At this point you realise really why that nice gentleman in black attire kindly mentioned not to touch the work. Because you have this great honking desire to want to confirm what your eyes can’t distinguish. It was excruciating trying to beat back the urge to reach out and find a cool surface, to understand the confusion…but that just spoils the fun doesn’t it?
Jeff Koons Popeye series continues until September 13th at The Serpentine. I urge you to go have your mind befuddled. (Pstt, IT’S FREE)
Mexican Kids At Home are an awesome sounding group from the UK. A favourite on their Myspace is the adorable Start a One Man Band: “I just wanna start a one man band with my songs that people don’t understand. And then I’ll finally be on my way but I still don’t have much to say about it. There are some things I hate the most, when I’m listening to the radio and I’m finding it hard to breathe.” Animal Shells is also a super cool song, we’re real suckers for some good ol’ banjo playing and this song has plenty! It’s really catchy too.
The songs appear to be so effortlessly constructed but at points darker messages seem to underlie, in their song One Day Older Than Today for example. It also looks as if they’re going places! They’ve been on 6music and Radio 1 and they’ve got a fair few gigs coming up this Summer. At some points, their music seems to resemble the likes of Noah and The Whale and Seabear which is definitely no bad thing.
The lo-fi sounds, the combo of harmonies and upbeat melodies make you want to crack open the ciders and sing along with your chums during a brill day out on some grassy fields.
Check em out!MYSPACEmexicankidsathome
Filed under: Art, Film, Music | Tags: Jasper Goodall, Linkin Park, New Divide, Transformers, Woo
Awesome video with a strange mix up of effects. Linkin’ Park still hold a very dear happy place in my teenage heart.
The movie was fantastic as well! Near 3 hours of robot goodness. OPTIMUS!!!
The smokey effect in the video reminds me of the work Jasper Goodall did for Muse.
Filed under: Music | Tags: Blur, Bon Iver, Feist, Songs of the Whoeek, The DoDos, White Rabbits, Woo
This week I have been listening to a lot of… Busted.
But apparently this is neither hip nor relevant as they are now defunct. So here are my choice of whack tunes for this week. (On a serious note- these are quite good. Ignore my questionable taste of boy bands, and flailing attempt to be cool is it.)
#1. Blur- For Tomorrow
I think it’s hard to be anything but be utterly in awe of everything that Damon Albarn does. Well, you could perhaps harbour an insane jealousy, but seriously. Blur, Gorrilaz, that crazy adaptation of Monkey, The Good, The Bad, and the Queen.
Makes you wonder maybe you should be making use of that brain matter you’re putting to waste, watching television and whatnot.
They looked simply sensational at Glastonbury, hopes are they’ll announce a tour as well.
#2. White Rabbits- Percussion Gun
This is definitely on my list of summer tunes. Yeahh.
Listen and maybe you can start to understand why. So good.
#3. Feist&Bon Iver- Vashti Bunyan’s Train Song
This song is bliss to listen to.
I’ve tried to listen to Vashti Bunyan before, and honestly asides from the phone advert song… I’m not that big a fan.
Bu put two of the prettiest voices together for this cover of Train Song is a match made in hear-ven (Sorry. I do have notoriously rubbish puns).
My heart flutters when they harmonise with each other, and goose pimples pop up, but words really really cant describe how good it is!!
Treat your ears to it at Hype Machine.
#4. The DoDos- The Ball
How do I purvey the importance of the fact that you should definitely be listening to
The DoDos?YOU REALLY SHOULD BE LISTENING TO THE DODOS.
They are so so good. For just two people in a band, they make a hell of a noise, nothing is amiss- melodies, beats, lyrics, they’re all there, in a wonderful combination.
What’s more? They’re coming back to the UK this fall.
An absolutely inspiring project.
Check out the other MP3 experiments on their youtube channel.
