how romantic...

for some bizzarre reason that is unknown to me (probably because i'm male) my girlfriend takes great delight in looking at diamond rings and pictures of wedding dresses, and, erm, wedding hair, so i know this post will thrill her...

because nothing says 'i love you' quite like a star wars themed wedding!



but what is most impressive about this geeky display of affection is just how spectacular the whole thing looks, it had the potential to be a real shambolic sham full of geeks and weirdos, but even when the bride is wearing a dress based on a stormtrooper uniform the whole thing is executed with class and comes across as unique, rather than freak.



quite how classy a star wars themed wedding reception that includes Las Vegas style entertainment for the guests and dancing stormtroopers can only be answered with a little bit of imagination, tho there are afew photos of that too.

but on the whole, the wedding photographs strike a beautiful balance between the weird and the wonderful and are a wonderful reminder of a union between two people that is likely to stay with you, whether you attended the wedding or not



credit where it's due, i first read about this over at great white snark

and all the photos can be viewed on the website of patdy photography

everybody needs good neighbours

earlier this week my neighbour moved away, he's been my neighbour my entire life and now he's not, which is kinda strange.

it's not like i realy talked to him very often, not in recent years anyway, but you just knew he was there and accepted that. in fact the most memorable conversations seem to be discussing the squirrel that used to live in his loft and had moved into ours, and when he banged on the door to tell me to turn down a DMX track that i was playing at excessive volumes when i was sixteen or so maybe

he knocked on the door earlier this week, simply informed me he would be leaving the next day, i asked him where he was going, and he told me, he asked me if i got some good photos of his sofa and i told him i had, tho he didn't realy seem to understand the concept of stray sofas as i tried to explain

and that was that realy

i guess my new neighbour will be someone else that i don't talk to, much like the other side and much like many other people and their neighbours

Mutilated Sofas

after this past week of zombie obsessing it seemed kind of appropriate to feature an un-dead sofa

hacked to pieces, and sitting morbidly in my neighbour's front garden last week

dawn has broken...

... actually it broke last week, but these things take time y'know!!

Dawn Of The Don!!

what an amazing night!!

although walking into a venue when everyone outside smoking looks decidedly un-zombie like while you're caked in make up leaves you feeling slightly uneasy about making so much effort

thankfully, once we were inside we weren't the only ones and soon, being a zombie drinking £3 pints of fosters in such dark and inviting surroundings seemed quite natural

and tonight seemed like such a special occasion, the anticipatory dressing up and the fact that it had been a stupidly long time since i had seen Akira The Don or Marvin The Martian live, all thrown into the mix with the filming of Akira's new music video...



first up was Marv the Martian, joined by Pixel (looking nothing like the Pixel of the old days!) and by his DJ/producer Jack Nimble for a short set of brand new material, no looking backwards for these guys tonight!!



what started as a slow burning performance soon saw Marv and Pix hit their stride with a performance full of swagger, showing huge promise for the new mixtape (my particular favourite, Tin Can) and setting the tone for the rest of the evening



But tonight was all about The Don, taking to the stage in a pink fluffy hooded dressing gown bearing his adopted moniker and leading his newly formed full live band into a cut from his forthcoming album, before hurtling into more recognisable material from recent mixtapes for a buoyant crowd.

a rather, ahem, relaxed approach to touring has seem Akira missing from the live circuit for some time, but you wouldn't know that the tracks played weren't tried and tested on the strength of the performance given tonight, and the whole shebang seems to suggest that things can only get better...



Mixtapes were plundered of their gems, a brass section trumpeted along, unheard material was given all due respect and fans that have been around a while (i count myself among them) were thrilled to bits by a throwback mega-mix of hits that encompassed the debut album and earlier

there was never gonna be much chance of me knocking this gig, but Akira is an incredibly charismatic performer that could never prove to be unlikeable, with his boundless energy and ca-ca-eating grin he could win over the sternest sceptic



and i mustn't forget the reason that so many re-animated music fans had gathered in Holloway tonight, the filming of I Am Not Dead (Yeah!), geddit, with it's obvious zombie theme and the encouragement to lurch forward and moan a deathly moan along with the choruses refrain and hope for our five minutes of fame as an undead extra covered in fake blood, honestly, what more could you want from a friday night out?

can't wait to see the finished video, i'll post it up as soon as it hits the interwebnets!



next up? a free solstice gig in the Natural History Museum!!

special mention must also be made of my brother, who had a particularly prosperous evening considering i only managed to convince him to come earlier the same day:

Upon introducing him to Akira, he turned to him and said 'so you're the famous Ian Byford, of Ian Byford Art!'. He was also picked to be a rather prominent zombie by the person filming the music video. And the photo's he took of the performances are now all over Akira's website and flickr set and on Marvin's blog.

before dawn

before we could get on our way to last friday's dawn of the don gig came the process of applying face paint and fake blood and ripping clothes to create the perfect zombie effect, so before i give you my recount of events and afew more photos tomorrow, i thought i'd give you guys a look at the full horror of me and my brother ready for a night on the tiles in all it's gory glory!!

tongue firmly in cheek

Christian Bale has killed people while dancing to Huey Lewis, he has helped revive Batman's hollywood reputation, he's shouted at people that 'trash his scenes' while filming and now he's gonna save the future/past/whatever as a growned up John Connor

the film's out today and later this month we have the likely to be stupidly overblown action sequal to 2007's stupid overblown action Transformers movie, so what would happen if you crossed the two together?

Sound Art Experiment Number 5

SoundArt5
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ok, 2 months over due and i guess you must be expecting something pretty spectacular after all that waiting, erm, i'm afraid i may be about to disappoint a lot of people...

SoundArt5 has been a particularly challenging track, and i think that much is fairly obvious when you hear the end results, but the SoundArt project as far as i'm concerned has been all about challenging myself and pushing myself to think about my practices and inspirations differently

and what exactly are you meant to do when you're presented with a defaced Chris De Burgh Live double LP as the corresponding artwork to the music you are gonna be producing??

i took inspiration (and a few samples) from the live album that had been picked up from a charity shop and chose this as a starting point for producing a track with a 'found sound' concept and has been made using some rather redundant formats including vinyl, tape and minidisc.

working on the 'found sound' concept i took bits and pieces that i had stumbled across accidentally and wove them into the track, so aswell as Chis De Burgh there is also an anonymous reggae track that i found on the cassette i had recorded the vinyl onto while trying to transfer it to minidisc, the slowed down effect was exactly what i heard back and i haven't tampered with that at all, and as the track progresses it seems to work itself out, i also started reconstructing the beat of the track using the beeping of a minidisc player on pause and tape deck buttons being pressed.

the final track is messy, overlong and is a bit of a hotch-potch, which ultimately is rather representative of the artwork provided, it has given me an insight into different practises tho, and i may work on an edit of the track without De Burgh, but for now (try to) enjoy April's SoundArt while i try to play catch up.

SoundArt5