Sound Art Experiment number 11

Music can be a powerful force when used correctly.

Full of the joys of summer and the sounds of diplo I made my mixtape comeback with the latest instalment of Tayalarz, and the news of Dr Dre finally delivering on his long-awaited promise of a new album that fans have been waiting more than a decade for had prompted me to make a start on a 'Compton' influenced mix.

And even tho that creation may be in the extremely early stages and may eventually be lost to gestation, with the computer fired up and the hours growing small I chose to revisit a few neglected folders on the harddrive.

Lo and behold did Saturday morning creep up on me and shake me from my bed with a new desire.  

In this age of stealth albums nobody was expecting the penultimate SoundArt to grace the world with its presence.  Very few people were even wanting it.  But regardless.

The SoundArt project was a simple idea.

Instead of giving my brother my music and asking him to produce artwork influenced by the sounds he heard we would flip the script, he would provide artwork and I would be influenced.  12 images and 12 tracks produced over 12 months to create a full length experimental album within a year.

Track 1 debuted in December 2008....

(ahem)

SoundArt11 is a curious creature.  Staring at the stars and asking the ultimate questions as the artwork seriously suggests that we are not alone.

Other tracks have been much more of a sound collage, this perhaps could have been but now sounds more of a sound presentation... Taking it's musical cue and liberally borrowing Doorly's dubstep remix of Calvin Harris' 'Not Alone' as theories jacked from YouTube play out over it.

Previous instalments have heaved with creativity, either pulling things apart or putting them together, SoundArt11 was always intended to play out that way too, but the whole ethos of this expression of art was to let it find it's own way...

Only this morning was the majority of this track spun on its head to give it a more complete feel, choosing to play with a larger chunk of the original remix than originally intended and then swinging by the buena vista social club to provide a backdrop to a healthy discussion on the intelligence of our species that had been longing for a dancing partner for a long time.  The last piece of the puzzle fell from the sky, hailing from a planet that no longer exists.  I rented Man Of Steel two years ago in order to reuse a message that seems to resonate throughout this track, and also through the entire project.

so, who would be a #BetterBatmanThanBenAffleck ?

this article was written for and originally appeared on Faded Glamour



We geeks sure do like to get riled up.

News is delivered to us via the Internet, and then we vent via the Internet, making sure everyone that may be privy to our streams or comments will certainly know exactly what is on our minds.

Ben Affleck is Batman, no different.  I'd seen endless tweets and opinions before I'd even managed to find a legitimate news source to confirm that this wasn't merely wild speculation.

#BetterBatmanThanAffleck was soon trending, animals, emos and slobs all in costume, and memes of Matt Damon filling Robin's hotpants were widespread, but amongst all this, can we have some serious debate?

Although he certainly wouldn't have been my first choice to fill the role, the choice doesn't fill me with horror or nerd-rage, his divisive turn as Marvel's marmite Daredevil seems to be a main sticking point for those against the idea (personally, I liked the film) but memories of Gigli are long gone following star turns in The Town and Argo.  On top of all this, he knows his comics, is friends with Kevin Smith and has a chin that works for a superhero that will have little else on show.

Let us not forget that Michael Keaton had people up in arms when the Beetlejuice star was announced as Tim Burton's vision of Batman in 1989 and any harsh words against Heath Ledger's casting as The Joker following Brokeback Mountain, were soon silenced with his now legendary performance.  But if not Affleck, then who do you seriously want to see in the famous cape and cowl?

Going on the strength of rumours that the upcoming Man Of Steel sequel will draw inspiration from Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns (Zack Snyder's big reveal of the planned sequel was preceded by a quote from the 1986 comic miniseries) the aspects likely to be used will be that of an older Batman than we have seen on the screen before, possibly coming out of retirement to face off against the Kryptonian, and one hell of a first fight between a mortal man and an immensely powerful alien.

My initial suggestion of Clint Eastwood (now aged 83) was probably pushing the believability of sci-fi and fantasy to its limits, sure he's got the menacing growl and Gran Torino proved he is still not to be messed with, but swinging from rooftops... probably not.  My next name plucked from thin air was Harrison Ford (aged 71) who could easily bring his best brooding to the film, and the latest Indiana Jones flick shows that he has still got an action hero inside him after all these years.

And then I hit upon a genius casting choice that I can't believe hadn't been put forward already, it's time to really rile up the geeks, and bring back George Clooney.

When he first donned the Batsuit he was fresh out of ER, looking to cement his move to the big screen, and got swept up in Joel Schumacher's neon kitsch-fest that was too busy pandering to Arnie and trying to sell toys to be taken seriously, but times have changed, the Bat-nipples are a distant memory and Bane is now considered so much more than just Poison Ivy's moronic piece of muscle.  And what about Clooney?  He got over it, he came out of a bad situation that sunk the Bat-franchise and could have sunk his career, but instead he took on roles that proved his worth with Out Of Sight and Three Kings.

Now, at the ripe old age of 52 (11 years on Affleck) George Clooney still maintains his chiseled features and eligible bachelor status, perfectly suited for a role as aged socialite Bruce Wayne, time and time again on screen he has proved his versatilty and after 15 years, now could be his chance to return back in black and right the wrongs of Batman And Robin.

storytelling

so let me tell you a tale

it is a tale that you may be familiar with

the young Hunchbakk was a bit of a geek (what do you mean, what's changed?) and used to frequent a couple of local-ish comic book shops, one of which was Krypton Komics in Tottenham, just a stone's throw away from Seven Sisters station, my dad would drive me down there pretty much every weekend so that I could spend my pocket money on the latest Bat-titles that had been released

this must have gone on for perhaps a couple of years, until i reached the age where being more social was becoming more important and me and my friends would be out playing football or going to the cinema or going into Enfield Town and buying extra value meals from McDonalds, I can't remember why exactly, but I was reading comics less, and weaned myself off my weekly fix

i'm not saying that I was solely responsible for a downturn in business, but somewhere in the intervening years Krypton Komics disappeared from the High Road, something I duly noted on one of many nightbus journeys home


as detailed before on this blog, my Dad reawakened my inner geek with a Christmas present a few years back, and in this time comics have become ridiculously expensive and I have to sate my appetite for all things superhero with the occasional bargain graphic novel if I am lucky enough to find such a thing, and whatever Enfield's libraries seem to be carrying (currently a couple of Batman/Superman collections and Superman: Secret Origin).

perhaps finally I am getting closer to the point I am trying to make...

as we return once again to Krypton Komics, that had long since carried on as an Internet mail-order service, and which my little brother reliably informed me had recently relocated to an actual old fashioned physical real-world shop in Walthamstow.

so one sunny afternoon earlier this year I impulsively decided that I needed to make a pilgrimage to this new store in search of a specific back issue, I dragged my brother along for the journey and I walked away contended

in my arms I carried Legends, Millenium and a UK reprint Superman comic that is older than I am (with it's free gift of a postcard still attached) which I had paid a meagre sum for considering

and as my brother walked away from Krypton Komics he noted the imposing and run-down building that dominated the opposite side of the road

he stopped to take a couple of photos of the dilapidated building that appeared to be home to some kind of church network,  and now it's image adorns the very first Giles Babel t-shirt

women in refrigerators

so lets continue from that cliff-hanger ending

as i am sure you are all desperate to know what happens next!

y'see, i didn't even realise at the time the comics were published that Kyle Rayner's significant other ended up sharing space with Green Lantern's milk and sandwich ham, and i had no clue that her bizarre death actually served as a springboard for a movement that focussed on the humiliating, severe or just plain old tragic circumstances that see so many female comic book characters suffering.

the Women in Refrigerator movement saw a list produced of superheriones and female supporting cast members that had been "either depowered, raped, or cut up and stuck in the refrigerator", those on the list of particular relevance to my own reading habits and my own blogging include Barbara Gordon's Batgirl (who was paralised and tortured at the hands of The Joker), Donna Troy (who seems to get a pretty bum deal everytime there is a universe wide shake-up) and other DC heriones such as Wonder Woman, Huntress, Black Canary, Jade, Starfire and Zattana seem to have been abused, raped and stripped of powers between them all.

and there is also the saga of Gwen Stacy, Spiderman's squeeze that met an unfortunate end when Spidey's attempt to save here ended in the worst possible way.

I love that Gail Simone (who went on to write, among other comic books, Wonder Woman, Action Comics and Birds Of Prey) got her knickers in a twist in such a huge, attention grabbing way, and i love that the whole premise of the argument is based on a hacked up female that has been rammed into a fridge.

Some of the points are entirely valid, and some points are irrelevant to me, but i can't help but feel, particularly wth the case in point Kyle Rayner, that for the sake of the story, and to properly convey the desired effect, those closest to the hero will suffer.

Perhaps i have missed the point slightly, and i will agree that there are a sizeable number of instances where female characters seem to miss out on all the luck, but losing parents at a young age or even losing your parents, your home planet and the entire race you belonged to are still gonna be pretty tough on the guys too.

promises, promises

we in England have been promised an Indian Summer all week, it finally decided to arrive today.

most people pray that our country's pitiful amount of sunshine will actually land on their day off, but i tend to be quite the opposite.

whilst other people may relish the chance to laze about in the sun on their day off, i actually see it as an inconvenience, for whilst we are supposedly living in the future and so much of our lives depends on keeping our social networks up-to-date, i would much rather break away from the computer when the sun is shining, which means that remix-work or writing or blog-posts will likely go AWOL whilst i seek to spend my few hours away from housework out in the garden or on the sun-drenched streets.

owning your own home becomes such an enormous burden, waking up on a beautiful day to find that this unseasonal warmth means the bedclothes need changing, and of course the bedroom needs sweeping, and clothes need putting away, and the washing up too, not to mention the fact that i want to finish a remix that needs to be submitted today, when all i should really be doing in basking in the sun like a teenage mutant vitamin D obsessed turtle.

so with housework done, i proceed to prepare for our unseasonable Barbeque, it will be the first of october on saturday, today, on wednesday, just three days prior to that traditionally autumnal month, we are experiencing heatwaves and planning for BBQs, just a shame that the sun still seems to set at some time just after 7pm.

so i google some vegetarian BBQ recipes, head off to the Co-Op down the road to pick up a couple of ingredients, and then later, with my dishes ready to marinate and a couple of sailor jerry and cokes down myself, i proceeded to make room in my fridge for the influx of beer that i expect.

jars of olives and capers are repositioned, and tubs of philly are moved.

which reminds me....

didn't i say i was gonna post up some ol' draft blog posts...

last week i had gone looking into Forbidden Planet for a couple of back issues of some DC comics (that i never managed to find), particularly the DC Retro-Active line of comics, featuring stories by writers and artist from the '70's, '80's and '90's.

i was looking out for the 80's era Superman issue, anything featuring Batman, and the '90's era Green Lantern.

y'see, i liked Kyle Rayner, of course i liked Hal, but i was also quite into this new age of comic books that seemed to be occurring around me and the new blood in superhero talent that seemed to be taking over from some of the old guard.

of course it was all a marketing ploy back then and given time the status quo would be restored (hmmmmmmmmm) and of course, the new Green Lanterns and Green Arrows and whatever else would be usurped by their predecessors given time , but i didn't realise that then.

anyways, much like most plotting for modern day comic books, i have no idea where i thought i was going with this, but i do know that i told you guys that i was intending to shed light on some almost forgotten blog-posts, and y-know what, as fate would have it, the oldest of those posts actually does pertain to circa '90's Green Lantern Kyle Rayner, and a rather unfortunate predicament his girlfriend found herself in..



see....

this is almost practically relevant to my BBQ preparations.

i had to find room in our fridge for all the chicken and other marinated meat that were likely to turn up.

and yeah, a bad guy stuffed Kyle Rayner's girlfriend in a fridge.

i might explain further tomorrow if the sun isn't shining.

otherwise you'll have to wait.........

we're going through changes

so, as of this week, everything changed.

except some of it didn't.

not that i'd know too much about it, having just finished reading Battle For The Cowl and still not having touched Blackest Night and Brightest Day yet, let alone Flashpoint.

yeah, i'm talking about comics!


not only was the 31st of August 2011 an important day in my household, being the first anniversary of getting the keys to the house and going in and cleaning everything before settling down for a pizza and a night on an air mattress, it was also the day that followers of the DC universe may or may not have been waiting for, as the comics company swiped away a whole bunch of history and began re-numbering issues from #1, starting with JLA #1, ahead of 51 other other titles that shall be following shortly

i won't be clamouring to pick up a whole barrage of number 1 issues, to be honest, i doubt i'll actually buy any, there won't be much on offer to me as a comic book fan other than the chance to get slightly obsessive and delve back into the addictive world of buying monthly issues of comics, that i left behind some 11 or 12 years ago (not counting a slight blip buying the english reprints that got me hooked on Grant Morrison's run on Batman)

if there are stories worth reading that evolve from this 'new universe' than i shall consider stumping up for the collected trade paperbacks to find out why Superman doesn't wear his red pants anymore, why oh why can Barbara Gordon walk again and will Green lantern devise anymore crotch-mounted artillery?


these are comics tho, and i wonder how long it'll really be until the real reasoning behind a new universe is revealed, or how long until whatever changes are made are reversed, or rewritten, or forgotten or maybe just borrowed from in the next big shake up that will inevitably follow at some point or another.

but if i'm losing you... perhaps hear this guy out and see just why these changes are so important...

facing another crisis?

ok

so what exactly is going on with the DC universe then?

i'll have to admit one thing, for the amount of people that the 'reboot' has got riled up, i dare say that all of them, plus a few more, will be curious to see exactly what's going on with september's relaunches

like i said yesterday, i'm hardly up-to-date on current events in the DCU, i'm aware that the latest mass-crossover-type-thing is called Flashpoint, and that it involves The Flash

and word is he's been dipping his toe into the timestream and sodding things up considerably

the fact that Flashpoint concludes just before these massive changes get underway is unlikely to be a coincidence

and news has already leaked that Superman and Lois's marriage will no longer have happened as a result of Flashpoint

which raises a couple of bigger questions

how much will we see undone? and are DC establishing a new status-quo for their universe?

personally, i can't imagine that they would.  whenever comic book stories hit a massive turning point it is usually assumed that a year down the line practically everything will be as it was before, unless you're a second string superhero, in which case the usual guarantees don't apply and you'll likely be usurped by a younger hero taking the same name, i'm sorry, but those are the breaks

but the big hitters?

Superman?

Batman?

yes, we've seen massive shifts (better known as cross-overs or money makers) in their lives before, but if you just go re-setting their careers by a number of years, what would that mean?

would Superman never have faced off against Doomsday and died?

i'm more of a Batman fan myself, so perhaps Knightfall would have been erased from history, but would we go further back?  would Tim Drake ever have become Robin, would Jason Todd? is Dick Grayson still the Boy Wonder?!

no matter how DC plays this, and it could prove very interesting, i can't imagine that we'll see a complete striking of the DCU's complicated continuity from the books, not only would it be insulting to long-term readers, but it would be a complete about-turn from a company that have always seemed to embrace it's rich history (even if it does shrug off or ret-con portions of it on a whim)

people that have complained that the books have become too complicated to follow, and this is mostly down to the fact that massive cross-overs of late seem to have been drawing the world closer together, with knock-on effects that occur through-out an entire universe and run through multiple books, instead of allowing character their own threads that only occasionally tangle together, which may seem a great idea to get people interested in other books they don't usually shell out for, but isn't particularly easy on the wallet or on more casual or first-time readers

i for one, had always been fascinated by DC's past that i had missed out on, and enjoyed reading stories that referred back to them and would treat myself to back-issues or collected trade paperbacks as and when i could, it made the history richer when i could witness it all for myself firsthand

i don't view it as a messy continuity, i prefer to see it as legacy, and believe that there are writers out their such as Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison and James Robinson that will draw upon DC's rich tapestry of past goings on and almost forgotten characters

and even rebooted, how long could a 'simple' universe last before someone starts to complicate things, comics will continue to be published monthly and stories need to be told

perhaps we do need new comics that welcome new readers, but lets do it without alienating readers that have already dedicated their own time to following the lives of superheroes

green lantern's gatling crotch

so, DC comics caused quite a hubbub last week didn't they?

now, i can hardly admit to being over-qualified and up-to-date on everything comics, heck, i'm still stuck languishing somewhere in post-Final Crisis and pre-Blackest Night 2009, but this thing right here is the god-damn internet, so why shouldn't i channel the news via my own blog and spout out my own opinion??!


for anyone that may have had this news bypass them, DC comics are re-setting themselves, apparently pretty much re-setting everything (although the confirmed facts are almost non-existent), what we do know is that there will be 52 comic book titles that will be relaunched (and renumbered, starting with 50 #1s) and rebooted in september.

and it seems that there will be changes, with a lot of talk about how these comics will take us back into the earlier years of the superheroes careers, with an emphasis being on foregoing decades of convoluted continuity in favour for easier 'jump-on' stories that are much friendlier to newcomers

which, doesn't seem a bad idea, by any means, the general consensus is that DC fear they are not capitalising on movie adaptions and big screen heriocs by having such muddled histories that the casual reader can't or won't get to grips with

recieving the most attention so far is the re-booted Justice League America, which has already had an artwork reveal that sheds only a little light and raises more questions.

the talk of the town is that character costumes and origins may be tweaked and redeveloped if neccesary, and indeed, in the JLA we appear to have a much (much much) younger looking Superman and a re-jigged costume causing quite a stir, infact the whole team do certainly appear younger than they have in comics of late, it seems nobody is still really sure what's goin on with Wonder Woman and Green Lantern is overcompensating with his (ahem) thought-made-form armoury.

i've got a lot more i want to say on this subject, more opinion and speculation basically, but i shall return tomorrow to do that rather than leave you with a hugely lengthy blog

but before you hear what i have to say, let me give you Hitler's take on the whole debacle.

pelvic floor exercises

i'm sat around trying to satisfy my wandering mind with a variety of things including peanut butter on crumpets, Superman CBRs from way back in '06 and compiling a road trip mixtape that needs to get us to Somerset on wednesday.  and also giving this blog a breif update.

despite the fact that i think i am the most prepared that i have ever been for Glastonbury (including making dozens of lists that have infuriated my girlfriend) i still feel a little wayward and unprepared.

i have a habit of leaving things to the last minute no matter how forward thinking i have been so tomorrow (or more likely the early hours of wens) will be the real decider as i rush around cramming a few extra things that i have decided i've forgotten into my backpack despite having days when i could have meticulously planned the whole operation.

and this dread sense that has crept over me also relates to the quest for a house that my girlfriend and i embarked on and seemed to be never-ending, for an end may be in sight, it's just a shame that the whole process of surveys and solicitors and the like is all coming together at around about the same time as this year's Glastonbury Festival! what hideous and teasing timing.

my life has revolved around more than just packing and planning for the future but for now these are the things on my unfocused mind....