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Local artist, Ian Byford to exhibit his work at Enfield Town Bar
Sculptures on display at Bar Form on Sunday 2nd August

Ian Byford has been picked as one of a small number of artists to display their work at Bar Form, Genotin Road, as part of Form Fest, a three day mini-festival that will showcase music, art and fashion.

Born in Enfield and currently living in Waltham Cross, Ian Byford, 23, works in a variety of mediums, including sculpture, photography, digital art and writing. Often his sculptures are composed of materials either found or donated, or bought from charity shops and he has recently been working on a multi-media project entitled ‘Distopeian Scrapbook’ that tells the stories of individuals living in a not too distant future that is far from perfect.

The ‘Distopeian Scrapbook’ will be represented by a number of works that will be on display at Bar Form, including new sculptures that have been created especially for the Form Fest exhibition and a limited number of mini-comics have been written and produced that will be available free, exclusively at the event.

More art, works in progress and the Distopeian Scrapbook so far can be viewed on www.ianbyfordart.blogspot.com


Ian Byford will be exhibiting his work from 6pm – 8pm on Sunday 2nd August at Bar Form, Genotin Road.

ok, so The Enfield Advertiser disapointingly overlooked my brother and his exhibition so i thought i'd use my initiative and publish an online article so you all know what's going on this weekend, actually it's more like a copy and paste of my press release which is pretty much what 'journalists' at local papers do anyway

and since Bar Form seemed to be coming up a little bit short on artists i decided that i'd exhibit some of my photography alongside my brother's sculptures (cos he's not the only talented one in the family y'know) to help em out, so i have been hastily putting together my own display, so head down to Bar Form this weekend for a three day mini-festival kicking off tomorrow, featuring the fantabulous Bubblegum Stomp DJing on Saturday and artsy stuff from both me and my brother on Sunday



(click the flyer for a larger view)

i read the news today, oh boy...

and was all that hard work really worth it?

today my brother's face and sculptures were gonna be featured in The Enfield Advertiser as a prelude to his exhibition at Bar Form on Sunday, so i thought i'd rush out and buy one so i could get the feature scanned in and uploaded without having to wait for the paper to be delivered

except the newsagent didn't have it yet either, so i thought, 'sod that feeling of pride when you open a newspaper and see a family member (as long as it's good news), we are living in the future now, i'm gonna get online and read the digital copy'

so i flicked through the digital pages, and i kept flicking, and i even kept flicking when i got to the houses and cars and classifieds and the sport incase it had been misplaced by the editor, and then i went back and flicked through again incase i'd missed it

and i can't see it anywhere


such a shame after i spent the time writing an informative press release complete with examples of Ian's work, and that they rung to speak to him about his influences and even sent a photographer round to get some pictures for the feature.

such a shame they chose to overlook a local artist displaying his works in Enfield Town and spread the word a little in order to support someone putting their heart into what they want to do instead of jus being chewed up by the rat-race

instead you can look at some old people painting and read about an exhibition already in its 61st year that by the looks of the article sounds rather well attended anyway





well done Enfield Advertiser for supporting new talent!!




by way of consolation tho, u can order the pics from the shoot on a get well soon card



if YOU want to support new talent you can come along to the exhibition at Bar Form this Sunday where a number of sculptures will be on display from 6pm, entrance is £2 but that will get you in for a whole evening of entertainment including a music quiz and bands playing live




(click the flyer for a larger view)

and don't forget Bubblegum Stomp will be DJing as part of Saturday nights FREE line-up

evidence

i've gotta feeling that this weeks blogging is gonna be rather heavy on Bar Form references as possibly the only place worth going in Enfield gets even more interesting with the launch of the first ever Form Fest this friday

but before we start looking forward, lets have a little recap of last week shall we?

if you want photos of the bands performing you can get your fix over at www.ianbyfordart.blogspot.com, i was also armed with my camera, but only came away from the evening with three photos (of which i only took 2)

so i thought i might aswell upload them and give you a slightly different perspective of Sel-Out!











and true to my word, there shall be more shenanigans at Bar Form which i shall now shamelessly plug and i promise you won't have heard the last of

so maybe i'll keep it brief for now and bombard you all again later, but here's the basics:

a three day festival of music, art, fashion and entertainment
running from friday 31st til sunday 2nd

you can catch Bubblegum Stomp on the decks on saturday and my little brother shall be displaying his sculpture and artwork as a part of sundays programme

the rest of the info you'll need is on this flyer!



(click the flyer for a larger view)

the end is the beginning is the end

and i think i've diagnosed the problem, it seems like the mic input on my computer is kaputt. it was hanging in there briefly as i was getting a little experimental, the next time i try - nothing. i could be wrong, but this seems most likely...

how completely apt that my computer pulls through its long bout of ill health, only for it to start falling apart as soon as i dedicate myself to working on my music again

and so life's little sagas continue

can't it just go right?

bakk to business

making some noise for SoundArt6 except i can't hear the sound

plug the headphones into the kaoss pad to make sure, and yep, got sound coming out of there

maybe try recording it?

ok, so it records the noise i'm making, and i can hear it through my headphones plugged directly into my kaoss pad, but i can't actually monitor the sound in the usual fashion

probably a pretty simple solution to the problem, but i can't see what the fault is

sometimes i just wish i knew a little bit more, that i could be a bit more technical in what i'm trying to achieve instead of just bumbling my way through and hoping for the best

sometimes it would just be nice if everything went right and worked all at the same time

(let go of the frustration now)

jigga what?

quick, change the subject

cos no-one wants to click onto a website and only have an out of date plug for an event that has been and gone

maybe i should have scheduled a post go up up early this morning but i didn't have the time and wasn't realy sure what to post up anyway

so as i was racking my brains i remembered that my original intention after coming back from this years Glastonbury was to do a Glasto themed week

so i thought i'd hark back to that and feature the video that introduced Jay-Z to the pyramid stage in 2008 that BBC viewers would not have seen, it's more like a barrage of clips than a montage and played on the 'controversy' of Jay-Z as a mainstage headliner, tho i do think the video was slightly underhand in implying that a difference of opinion was verging on being a race war




well done to DJ Yoda too, who was doing his bit for the environment, by recycling the above video and using it as his own intro for his audio/visual mash-up set in the dance village this year, simply inserting his own moniker to replace all mention of Jay-Z in his usual cut and paste fashion

tonight's the night

i don't think there's much more to be said about it if you haven't taken the hints so far

take one last look at the flyers and if you want any more info (like band links, etc) it's all here



and we'll see you there

stomp 2.0

ok, nothing has realy changed that much.

but Bubblegum Stomp is slightly evolving

DJing duties over the past few years has allowed us to invest and upgrade some of our equipment a little bit, obviously we all still have great taste in music and are passionate about the music we play so nothing has changed there

chances to get out and thrust this music in your face have been a bit thin on the ground recently, but hopefully now we're fully equipped again we can take our new toys out on the road for some dancing, merriment and frolicking...

c'mon people, good quality DJs going cheap... don't make us make our own fun?!




and perhaps it's also time for a Hunchbakk update, after returning from Glasto my computer (and the brain centre for any of my musical outpourings) was out of action and still in intensive care, thankfully it pulled through alright but i just haven't found the time and the focus recently to knuckle down and devote myself to making (or even finishing) new music.

bear with me people, there will be light at the end of the tunnel, i just need to return to the right mindframe and give it my all again

that slight break means that SoundArt is running behind schedule, but ideas are firmly in place for those still outstanding, and with any luck a fully functioning computer should enable me to stretch myself a little further and attempt some of the half-baked plotting that had been clogging my head while my computer was suffering with lurgies and making creativity a little difficult



keep checking back, i owe you some music!!




and may i also remind you that Bubblegum Stomp shall be hitting the decks at the newest night in town, Sel-Out! which launches this thursday (23rd July)

admittedly we'll be using the house decks and not our brand spanking new ones but we'll still give you that same quality stomp that you know and love and want to fondle...

flyers... woooooh!

off the page

being content kills my creativity

i haven't written any poetry for quite a while

nothing much has riled me enough to get a strong reaction or been fuel for inspiration

i wrote this a couple of nights ago, after realising that i hadn't been writing

it isn't my strongest work


The tale you tell has already been told
The present of history can not be sold
Pursue the gift until it is given
Repeating history of a life once more living

splurge

(ahem)

crisis

comics can be such a devastating force

they are unique and under appreciated as a medium, but those that have become trapped will know exactly what i mean.

they appear simplistic yet can be bewilderingly complex and an overpowering form of escapism

the problem lies in the fact that so little is ever contained in a single story, and stories can soon stretch to include other characters, whose lives are in turn intertwined with other characters, add to this the fact that to keep everyone on their toes and keep the coffers full, events in a fictional universe can (and undoubtedly will, every summer) spiral out of control to encompass practically every and any superheroes still standing, thus rotting your brain, feeding on your wages and keeping you from wanting to venture anywhere near the real world

and i'm realy feeling the pressure right now

as mentioned before, i dipped out of reading comics for a long time, but was lured back recently by the odd title, every now and then i'd put a little money towards a reasonably priced graphic novel from amazon and dedicate a small portion of my time to geeking out

and i know i'm way behind the times, but i recently read Identity Crisis, and i found myself craving what's next, only to be confronted by a number of preludes and countdowns and companions that tie-in to the follow up Infinite Crisis, and dreading looking further beyond that at the cost of indulging myself in One Year Later, 52, Final Crisis and all of that's accompanying preludes, countdowns, companions, tie-ins and spin-offs that i will undoubtedly be suckered into wanting to read

ok, that little rant may not make sense to everybody

but trust me, geeking ain't easy

Heads Up!! Sel-Out!!

Stuffs is happening at Bar Form in Enfield Town very soon!!

Bubblegum Stomp's very own Selmador is heading up a new live band night next thursday, 23rd July!

of course Bubblegum Stomp shall be DJing, sharing deck duties with members of Retro Crooks!

and there are three live bands, all making their debut performances at Bar Form, they are The Jacks, Ben Darius Ralph and The Fetts!

and incase you didn't understand any of that, here is a flyer that pretty much says the same thing!!



you got that, thursday 23rd, from 8, £4 entry.

good.


and Bubblegum Stomp shall also be joining in the fun of Form Fest, Bar Form's very own 3 day mini festival that shall encompass art, fashion and music.

featuring, among other things, exhibitions, live bands, DJs, a quiz and a BBQ, the Form Fest kicks off on Friday 31st.

among all that cultured goodness shall be an exhibition ofartwork and sculptures from my brother on sunday 2nd, and also DJ sets from Bubblegum Stomp over the weekend.

Stray Sofas 4

so after looking at somebody else's photography and that brief mention of the stray sofas project i thought it was time to get on with it again, especially when i realised how few i had actually published on here so far, and how many i have seen recently





this stray was spotted in Waltham Cross

hold on tight, plenty more to follow in good time

rock balancing

i like Dave Gorman for a number of reasons, initialy for his debut TV series, and then his book inspired by that TV series, and more recently for his skills and passion as an amatuer photographer


i've been meaning to post some examples of his work for ages, but trying to choose the right examples to use was a challenge in itself, as he seems to have a number of recurrent themes that run through his works

much like my own photography (tho admittedly my rank of amatuer of some way below Dave's) he appears to look for the smaller details that may be overlooked, has a habit of documenting graffiti and has his own passion for serialising the obscure, such as balancing rocks and this world's unseen faces, in the same way i am tracking down stray sofas.

i thought i'd leave the rest for you to discover, but would showcase a couple of Dave Gorman's three part polaroid portraits, which convey the kind of warmth that only a polaroid can and also distorts perspective to unique effect (which had inspired me to attempt something similar)

no-one and everyone

so i may be coming to terms with the inevitability that sooner or later i shall be a part of the stupidly massive and stupidly stupid facebook network, but even tho it may be perfectly suited to my dis-jointed and distracted way of thinking i have no intention of signing up to twitter (now lets see how long until i retract these sentiments too)

from an outsiders point of view, this video is completely spot on and only enforces every argument i have against 'tweeting'





but if you've already fallen foul of twitter, then maybe take a look at my little brother's tweets and consider following him if you realy have got nothing better to do with your life, tho i am thinking that he is only using it as another promotional tool to ply his artistic wares and that all the tweeting about tea drinking is ironic (hopefully)

and i know dyslexia is a sensitive subject and shouldn't be mocked, but i'm sure even my brother would find it slightly amusing when in an attempt to plug his t-shirts on spreadshirt he instead tweeted that he was 'creating products for his spreadshite shop'

the battlelines have been drawn

i made a stand a long time ago, while everyone else was defecting to facebook i chose to stick with myspace, and tho i still stand by my reasoning that myspace is better for music and bands it seems to be a slightly empty argument when myspace has practically become a barren wasteland and i'd have more chance of staying in touch with the people i know if i actually wrote letters to them

and although i am now actually slightly swayed by the idea i still have my reservations about it, for a start, no matter how much of myself i choose to put on display, i am still an intensely private person (the reason why my blogs don't reveal every detail of my life)

i have no interest in people that i barely spoke to at school being constantly updated of when i 've done something as insignificant as breaking a high-score in a brain numbing game or as significant as entering/exiting a relationship

i have no intention of updating my status constantly

will facebook last? how do i know i won't have to jumpship as soon as i'm signed up, because there is another faddish more popular site that everyone i know has moved onto (and the longer i leave it, the more i run the risk)

and i quite like being hidden behind the Hunchbakk persona, there is no great secret of who i realy am among friends, i just like remaining masked, almost as if it allows me to be who i choose to be and sometimes be who i am not

and lets face it, facebook is a bit ugly



but y'know what, maybe i'm being a bit like those protesters that turn up with placards to voice their negative opinions against a film they haven't even seen, i can't really judge it til i've given it a go, so maybe

this is a low?

can i possibly be the only person that isn't showering the Blur reunion shows with heaps of praise?!

please don't get me wrong, it wasn't like i didn't enjoy being there, but it just didn't quite ring true with me.

the build-up and the day itself were great, back when the tickets went onsale in december when the news of their reunion broke, i knew i had to be there and reports of their immeasurable power all the way from smaller intimate shows, right the way through to their Glastonbury headline slot had fuelled me up for the kinda show that is gonna live in your heart forever...

and spending a sunny summer day in a London park drinking cider, eating ice cream, applying sunblock and enjoying Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Golden Silvers, Crystal Castles and Foals seemed like it was heading to its perfect conclusion by the time Blur hit the stage at quarter past eight on a fine thursday evening




perhaps i was expecting too much, actualy, i'm quite certain i was expecting too much.

and although i was thrilled by the brit-pop era singalongs and enjoyed the song 2 jumpalong, i questioned if i was the Blur fan i thought i was or if i had got a bit caught up in the nostalgia (that damn, nostalgia) and the NME crafted hysteria.



so, crushed beneath the weight of expectation, Blur knocked out the cheeky chappy mockney singalongs, played album tracks i wasn't familiar with, released a second greatest hits (sorry, beginners guide), missed out Charmless Man and Stereotypes and played a couple of songs currently greasing the wheels of commerce and soundtracking adverts, including my personal favourite, and set closer, The Universal (or, that song from the gas advert)



besides, i was always more of an Oasis fan

Do I Know You??

or more importantly, do you know them?




these two pictures are taken from a memory card found at Glastonbury festival last week, i was gonna be a good citizen and hand it in but i thought that if the person who lost it hadn't realised or didn't think to reclaim it it could be stuck in a deep dank lost property bin for eternity.

i thought that it would be more interesting to load them up to the internet, to my blog and to orphan photos where the photos can remain forever and stand more chance of being reunited with their owner.

i expected plenty of crazy Glastonbury pics to be on there, fond memories that would be sorely missed, instead there were only two pics of a couple of geezers (no offence).

but either way, if you recognise them, or you are one of them, get in touch with a comment or message me through myspace and i shall return the memory card


the only other image that looked like it had been saved to the card was of two kids, again, if you recognise em, get in touch

Rest In Peace

this is a slightly late and slightly wayward tribute to Michael Jackson

Its not like i've been deeply affected, but i am saddened by his death

i found out he had died while at Glastonbury, which was a strange experience, a mixture of word of mouth and over-subscribed mobile networks had a bizarre filtering effect on the news and what many took as festival rumour was soon distorted, embellished and ridiculed... but when the persistent rumour refused to go away and texts from the outside world said the same, you had to accept that news of Michael Jackson's death could be true

i'm an eighties baby and have strong memories of Michael Jackson and his music, like watching the video for Black and White for the first time, trying to moonwalk like everybody else, impersonating Jacko's trademark moves and yelps and being round my cousin's listening to HiStory over and over again, and these are just the first thoughts that come to mind

and i think Michael Jackson is set to become the Elvis of our generation, his contribution to the world of entertainment and his musical legacy will long live on and eclipse the darker times of his life and lower points of his career

out of respect i've tried to curb my morbid curiosity and avoid the media circus that still surrounds Wacko Jacko in death

and of course, we all know that death is the best career move

R.I.P

Glastonbury

ok, so i've been back home since Monday afternoon, but i've been trying my best to avoid returning back to normal life, which has meant very little time spent on the internet (phew), and as a byproduct, absolutely no blog posts

so i'm throwing myself back into it with a breif recap of Glasto '09 but i won't bore you with a lengthy review or any of that nonsense (other people get paid to do that, and it seems too much like hard work for me right now), instead i'll treat you to afew of my favourite images i captured this year