Walking adds

More photos of Fran Crowe's exhibition 'Walking To Save Some Sea' added to Dubdog@Flickr.

Walking to save some sea

Went to a great exhibition today called "Walking To Save Some Sea". Responding to a UN report (2006) that says there is an average of 46,000 pieces of plastic litter per square mile of the ocean worldwide, artist Fran Crowe spent a year beach combing in Suffolk for plastic. The result is a stunningly well executed and thought provoking exhibition at Languard Fort, Felixstowe.

As I posted here a few weeks ago, last year I resurrected my McJunk project, an ongoing photographic study of McDonalds detritus. I am a firm believer of the adage, "If you won't clean up your own shit, you shouldn't expect others to do it for you", and litter has become, in my mind, an appropriate metaphor for current attitudes towards society. Unfortunately I see too often the results of a 'sod the consequences/look after number one' mentality that has evolved as a result of, and indeed, has been nurtured by, the holy trinity of government, shareholders and city traders - namely: unbridled Capitalism. To add insult to injury, high street stores are bandwagon jumping onto populist ideas such as banning carrier bags as if they haven't known the environmental facts about them for years. But because it's now fashionable amongst the chattering classes and business can see the marketability angle, they try to portray themselves as acting 'responsibly'. Go figure, when have responsibility and Capitalism ever been easy bedfellows? And when are they really, I mean really, going to address the over packaging of goods. Let me guess, when it makes good marketing sense to do so.

Ho hum, sorry about the rant, but that's the result of going to a thought provoking exhibition. Go and give it a look, it's running until 5th May. See selected photos below. Langaurd Fort details available here, and Fran Crowe's website available here.

ABC3D

Popup by Marion Bataille
Uploaded by jacques_faciale

A brief history of Pindown

by Jason Whittaker.

Misanthropic university lecturer with guilt complex about comfortable middle-class lifestyle + balding civil servant staring at 40 with a gnawing sense of under-achievement.

Pindown formed in 1998, when industrial metal fret-monkey Martyn "Roki" Peck approached Nigel Ball and Jason Whittaker with the lame idea of forming a WhiteSlug cover band. The band performed once under the laughably pretentious name "Omega Point" and, despite the absence of covers, shocked no one by sounding exactly like WhiteSlug anyway. Roki left the band, bored after one gig and desperate to play covers for cash in a Clash tribute band and it was left to Nigel to relaunch the new line-up with a less shit name. Unfortunately, "Pindown" was the best he could come up with. Inspired by a banned restraint technique used in children’s homes or by a WWF pro-wrestling show, depending on which member of the band you talk to and how drunk they are. The name is of course a metaphor for the doomed struggle for individual freedom of expression in a world of institutionalised repression. And nothing symbolises that better than a sweaty man in tight trunks trapped in a half-nelson.

The band got off to an unusually active start, managing another gig a mere 12 months after the Omega Point debut. Since then, Jason’s abject indifference to entertaining the public and Nigel’s passive-aggressive refusal to write more than one set of lyrics per year has left the band vying with Earth Mother Fucker for the title of least prolific band in Ipswich. Their solitary recorded output, "Democracy in Action" was eventually released in 2004, but immediately withdrawn from public circulation with the realisation that it had become obsolete as soon as it was complete. The band emerged briefly in 2005 to screen a video for "Blood Brand" at the Ipswich Corn Exchange. Disturbingly reminiscent of "Sign o’ the Times" by Prince, with more swearing, the film provides an rare insight into Nigel’s autistic fascination with typography. It has since been screened in Europe and the US.

Awareness test

Security tip

Security tip: make sure that nobody's watching you when you enter your security code. Sound advice from the Cooperative Bank that, everytime I enter my code from my G5 at home, has me checking over my shoulder to check none of the cats are writing down my details!

Live and direct

Saw this in the window of a Samaritans Charity Shop.

Instructional

Canned

Various Dubdog films are now available as part of the Canned Films online project. Bloodbrand, Contractual Freedom and DigiDigitDigital can be seen here.

White Slug

Spring clean

The Dubdog main website has been spring cleaned with new work added and some old work stripped out.

Pindown In Action

Hot on the heals of Antigen, Pindown is picking up a little momentum at the moment as well. We are submitting a remastered version of the 2004 track 'Flea Circus' to a Best of Ipswich Bands CD due out in June this year. The CD will also feature such luminaries as The Stupids, Extreme Noise Terror, Optimum Wound Profile, White Slug, Earth Mother Fucker and Violent Playground. These are only a handful of bands that will be featured on the double CD, but alas, it will not feature Ipswich's smallest export, Nick Kershaw. Nevermind.
Other Pindown news includes the launch of a MySpace page with most of our 2004 release, Democracy In Action, available for public scrutiny. As much as I still hate MySpace (the launch decision was out of my control), in the 4 days there has been music posted we have had more visits to the page than came to our last gig! See Dublog Links to access.
Lastly, as mentioned in my previous post, we are preparing for a rare public appearance on July 18th supporting Henry Homesweet at the launch party for his first CD release on Antigen Records. We are working on new material to preview at this outing but will also include the most accessible bits of Democracy In Action and projected visuals from Dubdog. I was toying with the idea of live VJing at the same time as performing but in reality I think it'll be better if I QuickTime some footage to fit the set list. More details available here and from the Antigen and Pindown MySpace pages as they emerge. I can mention that there will be a limited number of free CDs given away on the door featuring the great and good from Antigen's back, and current, catalogue.