Glasto girl

Callie's Official Review of Glastonbury;

Blur- Fantastic
Nick Cave- Very good
Bon Iver- Very good
Bruce Springstein- if he'd sang one more song I would have thrown a stone at him to make him stop
The Specials- Good
Spinal Tap- dreadful- accidently saw them
Yeah Yeah Yeahs- Alright
Bat for Lashes- a bit dull
Neil Young- Excellent
The Doves- Very Good
Camping- Hell on earth

Human interface

Hi from Multitouch Barcelona on Vimeo.

And dead

Mark Thomas is celebrating. Thanks Ken.

Blame it on the boogie

When Steven Wells signed off his last piece of writing before he died, little did he know the ironic connotations of the last line. As the press hype up a world going stupid idiot mental over a dead pop star, Boff of Chumbawamba pays tribute to Steven Wells who would have had a field day with this current farcical praise of pomposity and egotism. Read it here on Chumbawamba's blog. It puts things in perspective a little.

Mc300

For eager Dublog readers (the select few), you may have wondered why this blog's header still contains the phrase 'recent work', considering most of my postings of late have been more of the 'interests and throwaway comments' variety. Well, here's a brief round up of all things Dubdog, outside of talking about graphic design for a living in the day job.

McJunk is still ongoing and in fact, it turned 300 today. I posted here a while ago that I was looking at putting on McExhibition and this is still on the cards. I'm getting large prints done every month to level out some of the costs and I'm looking into different display formats and framing options. In the meantime I have also started writing and designing McBook to bring together the myriad of reasons for my continuation of this project. McBook will service two main functions; firstly it will give McJunk some context outside of observational photography and it will also act as an exhibition catalogue which I will use to help secure gallery space. Of course, if there are any Dublog readers who have any inroads in this area (gallery space that is), I'm open to suggestions. McBook will be self published through Lulu.com and will be available to buy online.

The book will take a while to get together, as will all the exhibition material. This is not just down to the day job but also because I'm also currently stepping up the pace (ever so slightly) on the Pindown front. In response to the relative success of our recent gig in Colchester, I'm working on some back drop visuals for Pindown for future live outings. I will also soon be writing new lyrics to accompany Jason's current spurt of musical creativity. This is all in preparation for going into a studio to record new tracks and stuff we've had knocking around for a few years but have never properly recorded. This should all see the light of day in a new Pindown release scheduled for late 2009, early 2010.

More details of all these projects will be released here as and when they unfold.

R.I.P Swells

Forget Farrah Fawcett, I've just heard the sad news that Steven Wells, journalist and poet, has died. There would rarely be a week that I wasn't glued to a Swells review or interview in the NME in the 80s. He lambasted most bands for the pompous self loving smug idiots the majority of them were. Not to say I always agreed with his tastes, but he was never, ever, a dull read. The closest we've got in mainstream journalism today is Charlie Brooker. There's a tribute here, and his last article here. For a sample of a rather tame (for him) rant about the Manic Street Preachers in 1999, go here.

Just play

Doesn't matter what order you play them in, it works - just play. Musical experiment by Darren Solomon here.

Batman, but better

Pixel chair

British allotments

Claire's allotment blog.

Repair

From Platform 21

A message to you

Interesting interview here with David Storey, the designer who, alongside Jerry Dammers of The Specials and typographer John ‘Teflon’ Sims, created the Two Tone graphic identity and record sleeves.

Below: Walt Jabsco and the original Wailers photo of Peter Tosh that inspired his creation as mentioned in the interview.





After reading the interview, you'll see why it is such a crying shame that Dammers isn't involved in The Specials 30th Anniversary gigs. The whole Two Tone concept was his idea, he was a man of vision with an innate sense of the power of visual language coupled with using music as social commentary to drive home a message. Come on, the guy also single handedly got Nelson Mandela released from a 25 year prison sentence. OK, I exaggerate somewhat but lets be fair, before The Special AKA released that song, how many people in this country outside of hard nosed politicos had heard of Nelson Mandela? Not many. Jerry Dammers achievements are chronically under valued, not just in musical history, but in youth culture and British social history as well. And he got 'blokes' dancing again.

If you're wondering what he's up to now, them check out The Spacial AKA, his tribute to Sun Ra and Clement 'Coxsone' Dodd.

DJ Derek

DJ Derek pt. 1 from Grand Finale on Vimeo.

DJ Derek pt. 2 from Grand Finale on Vimeo.

Three veggie breakfasts

Paskins Town House, Brighton

Ken & Sarah's, Hollesley

Claire & Nigel's, Ipswich

Show time

This Wednesday saw the Private View of the UCS School of Arts Degree Show. The evening was a great success with drinks flowing freely all night, good humour and industry interest in student work.

Dan looks on as Damien eyes keeps his eye on the drink

The show took place in 2 locations; the new Waterfront Building where the first graduating BA (Hons) Photography students exhibited, and in the Art Block in Campus North. Fine Art and Interior Design students took the top and ground floor exhibition spaces in the Art Block respectively with Graphics taking two rooms on the middle floor. Despite the middle floor being traditionally difficult rooms to show in, the quality of the work and room layout overshadowed this and the graphics exhibition was the busiest of the lot all night dragging well on past the official finish time and needless to say, spilt over into a nearby bar.

 

Dave talks to Tom and Chris

Congratulations to award winners:

Ümit Souleyman - Level One Studentship Award.

Hannah Ruffles - Level Two Studentship Award.

Suzanne Franks - Level Three Studentship Award and The Graham Scott Award for Typography.

One of the patrons of the course, TCM, awarded three prizes in memory of the late Adam Easdon (an ex-student of the course who worked at TCM after graduating) for a brief they set at the beginning of the year: Runner-ups, Anna Nyberg and Robbie McWilliams both received cash prizes while Sean Scannell won £1000 and work experience with the London based Media Production Company. Simon and Ben from TCM were genuinely shocked by the quality of the work and had a tough time choosing a winner, mentioning that much of it could have gone straight to TV.

Ian chats to Rachel

Well done to all the Graphics students for an excellent show, you've done yourselves proud.

The show continues until Monday 8th, 10 am - 6 pm and 11 am - 3 pm on Saturday and Sunday.

Thanks to the Reunion Gallery for sponsoring the show.

Nothing more important