Greenbelt 2010: thronging bowels and fibs from the elderly

My annual pilgrimage to Greenbelt Arts Festival was plagued by being ill from head to heel, but I still managed to fit in a few hours of DJing.

I promoted the second set, on Sunday, with these posters around site (pictured). Most of them were quickly whipped down by anxious cleaning staff, but this one (pictured) survived next to the mens' loos for at least 24 hours.

You'll notice the stickers in the bottom left corner. They appeared thirty seconds after I put the flipping thing up. Without me noticing. As I was standing there. Very odd.

Other posters were the same bar the name at the bottom, which varied between different levels of stupidity (Susan Papp, Timothy Fishwhip). This poster is the only one that used someone's real name (Aaron Funk is Mr Venetian Snares).

This particular set went brilliantly, and thank you if you are one of the people that made it down. I didn't actually play any Venetian Snares, but only because the venue manager specifically told me "no Venetian Snares!". Which I don't expect happens much at Gatecrasher or Ministry Of Sound, and so is testament to the wonderfulness of the venue.

Anyhoo, back to the poster next to the loos. While I was stalking the men's toilets, which was constantly thronged by people of all ages and bowel states, I heard this very cute conversation between a seven year old boy and his grumpy younger sister:

BOY (reading): Ha! It says 77 and a half.

GIRL: That's stupid.

BOY: 77 and a half!

GIRL: They're probably 76.

BOY: It says 77 and a half. It's funny.

GIRL: It just someone having a laugh. There's no way they're 77.

BOY: Well, I think it's funny.

BOY skips off. GIRL takes one more look at the poster, then shouts after him:

GIRL: Anyway, everyone knows you never put your real age at the bottom of a letter.

I don't think they came to the gig.

Art exhibitionism: swarfega meisterwerks, Dutch prostitutes and-- oh sack being clever, just COME SEE ME DJ!

I am going to become a piece of art.

I will be suspended in an Elmo costume sixty feet above Picasso's grave, whence I shall be painted by 14 naked monks using only humous and swarfega as paints. (Elmo is pictured above, comforting a friend with an eating disorder.)

The actual real truth is a tad mundane. I was followed around Manchester by some dodgy art types, who then documented my journey. The result can be seen in We Were Spending Precious Time, exhibiting in Manchester's Green Room from Friday.

Because I'm not one to pass up a chance to slowdance my ego, and because the dodgy art types are my wonderful chums at Sometimes, I shall lend some twisted ambience to Friday's launch night with my first city centre DJ slot for a while.

Expect a smattering of Flying Lotus, a sniffle of Squarepusher, and a splatter of the new Growls Garden track by Clark, released at the end of this month but yours for the hearing on Friday night. Do come down, from teatime onwards at the Green Room.

While I'm talking art, check out an exhibition I've had a hand in creating.  From today, Nexus Art Cafe will play host to 40 Days Of Public Solitude, where we lock up 40 people over 40 days, one day at a time. They will be isolated and alone, but entirely in public view because they'll be locked up in a window - like Dutch prostitutes.

See a live video stream of the space here. Clever, huh?  I'll be writing more about both exhibitions as the next couple of weeks drag their relentless way toward the budding hell of spring.

Ever decreasing memories of lifted bosoms and a DJ Shadow dump

Edit: no wonder this post was so nostalgic. I've just realised (a month later) this was my 200th blog post. Hurrah! Light a candle or summink!

Ten years ago I flipped my first disc onto a spindle in public. I was rocking big beat in a rough bar. I broke the decks. I bombed.

But Fat Roland (yes, that's me pictured) was born unto the world, and the rest - as they allegedly say - is hysterical.

My head is seeping with memories as I think back through my decade of DJing. Little snapshots.

Electrical tape, perfectly parallel, pretending to be Tron lines on a floor. Long, smooth, edgy drum 'n' bass mixes and my DJ mates nodding in appreciation. Deciding to dump the beatmixing for John Peel-style weird track choices. My mate Fil signing the letter T when I play something he liked.

Sweating in a hooded top as I played the 'cool DJ' role with a bunch of energetic South Africans at Manchester Apollo. My wedding DJing phase, oh my wedding DJing phase. Lifting someone's ample bosom, two handed, from the needle-knocking danger zone. Lending my decks to LTJ Bukem's former musical partner and learning to mix jungle just by watching.

Some record label guys thrusting a pure white, unlabelled 12" at me - and my joy when I realised it wasn't crap. The sunshine last August and the couple dancing near the front. Beat-mixing at a skate park five gruelling hours a day over ten days, which included putting on a long DJ Shadow track while I had a poo. Being chased from Rusholme with said chum Fil, covered in wallpaper paste and flyposters.

I have slowed down, like an 80-year-old driver. Work is my steering wheel, and I just can't get enough cushions of spare time to rise me high enough to drive (by drive I mean DJ) safely (by safely I mean often). I'm tempted to delete that last sentence, but no, I'll just keep typing. Be damned.

I now find myself working three doors away from my first ever gig, and Facebook has put me back in touch with some of my pals from that time.

It all comes full circle. Like a record. Although not in ever decreasing circles, like what a record actually does. That would be depressing.

DEEPER FRIED FAT: MAGIC CARPET, BIG DOG

Confusion in our eyes that says it all - we've lost Control (well, almost)

Oh plop tarts. I was busy enjoying a bit of summery pop courtesy of King Of All The Animals, and I surf onto a site that tells me Sound Control have been silenced.

The most joyous moment of my life was discovering the blue, mottled knob-laiden monster that is the Roland JP-8000 in Sound Control's Salford store.

I spent half an hour in acid nirvana as I took that synthesiser to buttock-wobbling depths and combover-raising zeniths. As I slapped the cash on the counter, I made my best purchase ever and the "Roland" part of my DJ name was born.

Yes, I named myself after a bloody keyboard.

The staff at the Salford branch would always take time out to teach dimwits like me the finer points of sound modules and weird samplers, even if was a Saturday afternoon and the shop was full of greasy teenagers in pseudo-army shirts playing Wish You Were Here.

I was even allowed into their store room to peruse their nuts.

A great aspect of Sound Control is they give a damn about maintaining your gear. Now everyone who owns anything musical will see their beloved Stratocaster / digital drum kit / electronic zither (delete as appropriate) crumble before their weeping eyes.

The Salford branch remains open while administrators tout the business for all the rupees they can get. But the Manchester branch closed a few days ago, along with nine other Sound Control and Turnkey stores from Southampton to Glasgow.

I don't want to listen to King Of All The Animals now. I'm need comfort music so I can retreat to my happy place.

Doctor Adamski's Musical Pharmacy it is, then.

Edit: Music Thing wants your help in tracking down all the music equipment shops in the world ever. Go to it!

DEEPER FRIED FAT: NEVER MIND, QUIETLY ROOTING

And the winner is "I am a blithering hypocrite and you should pap me on the nose with the back of a spoon"

While I continue to search for my work / life balance, here's what has tickled or tackled me in the last 12 periods.

Oh and unlike last year, don't expect a 'record of the year' post. Most of this is about me, myself and what I've written, and my favourite things about me and myself and what I've written. You have read this blog before, right?

My DJ moment of the year: I've DJed less this year than you've had hot McDonald's chicken nuggets (they don't exist), but the impromptu gig at the Greenbelt festival has to lay the smack-down on anything I've ever done.

My video post of the year: It's stupid to take credit for plonking down a signpost towards other people's work, but then again I am a DJ. Here is the link which made me realise there wasn't such a difference between the Scratch Perverts and Delia Smith.

Blogs I have enjoyed with my eyes, part one: Here are five blogs that struck me in 2007. Like a freight train. And while my head is flung 600 yards down the track, let me reassure you I have missed a lot of favourite blogs off this list. But here goes the list, including links to their most recent entry. James and his blue cat was The First Blog I Ever Really Got Into, and while we're at it, Patroclus brought a beautiful humanity to the blogocube. Chinglish went round in linguistic circles while Fiction Bitch dotted the js and crossed the eyes. Nine Tenths Full Of Penguins made so many of my best moments of 2007 happen due to his annoying persistence of organising things.

My own blog post of the year: Stupidly prophetic because HMV went on to sell some of their Fopps and the Klaxons scooped the Mercury, and a notch above the rest because I don't know any other blogs that used the phrase "Fopp's flopped shops", my favourite post this year is I'm Quietly rooting for the Klaxons but this is a post about Fopp's flopped shops and not the bloody Mercury Prize.

My own phrase of the year: Because it projects the false impression I am a humble monk-like gentle giant and not an egotistical fame-felching starfucker, my piece about r 'n' b rises to the top for the opening phrase "I am a blithering hypocrite and you should pap me on the nose with the back of a spoon". It's amazing what a nonsensical word can do to a sentence; just ask Anthony Burgess.

Blogs I have enjoyed with my eyes, part two: Five more doozers, whatever a doozer is. No-one could touch George Monbiot for making me think until it hurt, so thank goodness for the soothing You Have Got The Wrong Person who, quite simply, got the wrong person. Get Weird Turn Pro pressed a cultural ear onto the tracks of electro funk-daddiness. Cultural Snow pimped his book (and my blog, to my surprise) and was still interesting. And the Manchizzle did what the Guardian says it does on the tin.

Other crap: It's has been my first good year for a long time. I went to counselling and it changed my life. I had the privelege to work at Greenbelf FM. I got too fat. I got lucky and paid off all my debts. I've already mentioned the Greenbelt gig. My cat turned 18. I forgot people's birthdays. I became Formula One pundit for a local radio station. I bought red trainers. I got a new job for the first time in nine years. I saved someone's life because I remembered my first aid course from years ago. I worked my bum-bum off at Refresh FM and loved every minute.

And now it's that part of the post where I put my self-centredness to one side and start awarding prizes to other people. Sorry? What's that? I've exceeded my 2007 bandwidth?

See you on the other side.

It's a magic carpet ride, every door will open wide to happy people like you

I've just burned my thumb by shoving my hand in the oven*, which was painful but on the bright side has lessened my chances of being murdered from hitchhiking**.

And it reminded my fast food-addled brain that I have itchy fingers or feet*** or whatever the saying is because I haven't run a music night for months.

My last foray into live Manchester eventdom in which I was the organiser and, naturally, the star was a moderately successful ABC-themed event with a punter-led video installation and big, colourful buttons for the public to select which Sesame Street clip they watched.

Part of the reason is this: I haven't had time. Strike that from the record; that was a putrid bile-dripping lie. If the truth be told, and this is the internets so it's always true all the time, I think I have become lazy.

So lazy, in fact, that here is a list of words I couldn't even be bothered to type on this blog:

a)

b)

c)

d)

e)

See? So the plan is to click my heels and land back into the colourful world of electronica arts, with the added expertingness of my Squeaky Productions cohorts. The last Squeaky Productions night, called Two, is dead in the water, although you can dredge for bodies on these blog posts.

Watch this space. Because at this rate, that's all my blog will become.****

*when I say "the" oven, I mean my oven. There's isn't some special oven shared by everyone like the sun or the air.

**I'm reading On The Road, which probably also explains ***.

****If I do too many of these asterisked post-scripts, it will also become an anemic imitation of James Henry's blog.

mpSunday: Gescom's Keynell Mix 1

Glitchbelt hit the buffers before it started. Am I complaining?

Let me tell you my Greenbelt story.

Greenbelt Festival is an annual Christian arts event in Cheltenham. This year it featured Billy Bragg and Coldcut, and in the dark, distant past has accommodated Lamb, U2, Bill Drummond and, er, Midnight Oil.

My task was to present programmes on Greenbelt FM, the on-site radio station, and help run the main Sunday morning communion service.

Me and the radio got on like a house on fire, without the screaming victims. I did five hours of showing off, otherwise known as presenting, plus various reporting bits and several hours of editing. I also teamed up with Lee to host games in a live radio show with a real audience, the highlight of which was Lee mopping up like a loon after a spectacularly messy game while grasping the mic because we were still live on air.

My Glitchbelt gig was cancelled as a favour to that venue's programmer Ben. I was busy enough anyway, although I felt sorry for friends who said they were looking forward to it.

But the good Lard taketh away and the good Lard giveth back in spades...

Greenbelt's main communion service has a congregation of somewhere up to 15,000. As the festival grew, they set up an 'overflow' Arena stage with big screens so you could partake in the main event albeit from a distance.

My job was to 'remix' the service for the Arena with the hugely talented Spir (pictured) from Fuse Factory. We messed around the dry feed with extra audio and visual elements. For example, during the collection, the main stage sang something hippy, while our stage rocked out (correction: nodded out) as I played a Gescom track while VJ Spir produced some trippy visuals.

The ambient backing we gave to the rather traditional communion service seemed to be appreciated by most people on the Arena stage.

The best bit came when the guys running the stage asked us to do an impromptu half-hour gig at the end. So Glitchbelt hit the buffers before it started, but instead I DJed with Fuse Factory to a crowd of somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000.

Am I complaining? You can't complain when you're on cloud nine.

Thanks must go to Sanctus 1 for letting me do the service in the first place, and to the Arena personnel for putting the cherry on top with the gig. Respect to Spir too; it was a pleasure working with you. Oh and big up to the Greenbelt FM massive for making the weekend so much fun.

Here's my first mpSunday freebie for ages. It's Gescom's Keynell Mix 1 remixed by Autechre. I used it during the service, and it was the first moment I thought "damn, this is going down really well, it's sunny and hot and I deserve a 99 after this".

>Right click and save target as for the mpSunday download: GUTTED! This mp3 has gone according to my rules of mpSunday. Click here for the latest mpSunday instead.

There's an erroneous glitch in the space / time continuum, and it just so happens to be in Cheltenham

So I've been a smidgeon busy with things and stuff and that, but normal blog action will be resumed when the holiday season is over in September.

Meanwhile, the flood-hit plains of Cheltenham are next in the Fat Roland diary. I will be hosting Glitchbelt, an hour of electronic musing at the Greenbelt Arts Festival, in the New Forms cafe this Sunday from 9pm.

Glitch is a sub-genre of electronica / IDM. Wikipedia describes it as "comprised of glitches, clicks, scratches, and otherwise 'erroneously' produced or sounding noise". So expect me to get erroneous with the likes of Gescom, Pole and The Books, as well as new material from the Vector Lovers.

Must go. I'm counting the pockets n my new rucksack, and I'm up to four so far.

Edit: You had better read the next post...

One, II, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve

This post will be exactly like Deirdre's Photo Casebook, except for the bits where it's different.

Last night, Squeaky Productions and Sanctus 1 hosted II, an occasional night of electronic music and creative visuals.

If that sounds vague, let me put some hundreds and thousands on top of that metaphorical ice cream for you. We have DJs play non-guitar-based music and we festoon a dizzying array of themed projections and games around the place, while punters drink beer and laugh about the internet.

The theme this time was ABC / 123. Here is the story of that night through the magic of mobile phone pictures, pictures, pictures... (Blogger: an ability to look up and tilt the blog into a cloudy dream would be useful for moments like this.)



We arrived at our venue, Manchester's glorious TV21, in the pouring rain. The raindrops were quite literally the size of planets. We were offered the use of an umbrella by caring bar staff, but of course we scoffed, being hard and that.

TV21 is a very well equipped venue. It's nice to be able to have equipment that doesn't fall apart upon being breathed at, and to have a room which allows for awkward wire routings and ceiling-hangings.

The first challenge is finding places to project onto. The basement of TV21 is bright and jazzy with swirling lights and Dr Who monsters hidden in unmentionable places. It is also quite cluttered, so we set about covering a wall with a sheet. This would have the equivalent effect of sticking a single Elastoplast onto one of Hannibal Lecter's victims, but you've got to give it a try.

Above, you see Fil nimbly putting up said sheet. You can tell he camps.



We then wired a laptop to three large, round buttons. Pressing a button chooses a video. The videos were a magificant mix of Sesame Street and geeky Youtube vids about things beginning with the letter T (tights, tablets, toaster). We projected this onto the Elastopl-- er, the sheet.



Here you see Stephen creating art, like God playing around with ideas in Genesis ("now, where should I put this sausage thing?"). The multicoloured letter box was then rigged with a camera and projected onto the other side of the room, so people could create 'art' in real time.

You will see some of those 'artistic creations' in another blog post in the next few days.



Stephen was our enterpreneur for the evening. He flogged bead necklaces for 50 pence a throw. The bead set cost us £10 and we made £10 back. It might not impress Alan Sugar, but I'd hire him.

And finally, we bedecked the tables with various letter-based games. And yes, the game pictured above (Letter Link, £7-ish, Woolworths) is exactly like Connect 4 but you have to spell words rather than match colours. Richard Whitely will be frolicking in his grave.

When I say "we", I really mean Stephen and Fil because they did all the hard work while I barked orders and acted like a primadonna disc jockey.

So how did it go? The second half of the story will appear on an internet near you in the next few days.

II is back: June 13, 8pm, at TV21, Thomas Street, Manchester

My seminal electronica music night II is back after a nine month break.

Do come down to TV21 in Manchester's northern quarter (wonderful graffiti pictured, not far from TV21) next Wednesday June 13 for an evening of electronic music and themed visuals and gimmicks. (Multimap reference here.)

You will get to hear a lot of the kind of music I crap on about on this blog, as well as tapping into the Fat Roland psyche of what constitutes a good night out.

This II will offer a deep, intellectual study of the modern use of numbers and letters. We will be posing questions such as:

- can a vampire really count to ten?

- just what is your favourite letter?

- what happens when you press this button?

We will have DJs, props, interactive visuals and it all happens from 8pm til midnight. I will be DJing, and Kid Mingus will be joining us, along with any other DJs I find wandering drunk outside my house.

It's a new venue for us, so do make it a good crowd.

I should point out that it is also acting as an after party to an art exhibition called Last Orders: A Celebration Of Manchester's Night Life at Nexus Arts Cafe. And the whole thing is brought to you by Squeaky Productions in conjunction with the legendary Stephen Devine.

Dirty tree and a turd

If you were looking for evidence that all DJs are ponces, then look no futher than the Bay Horse last Wednesday.

I had the audacity to celebrate my 33 1/3rd birthday with a Squeaky Productions event called 33 1/3. In all fairness, I didn't ask for cards or presents, although the lovely Lev gave me a treat I shall never forget. It was... erm... hold on now, it'll come back to me... oh yes, bubble blowing stuff that will no doubt liven up my Christmas parties this year as well as providing a serious health and safety hazard. Hurrah!

>Final insult

Back to Wednesday. We pushed the 33 1/3rd theme as far as we could be bothered. We showed Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult. We had vinyl LPs all over the tables and walls. We had a tombola with 33 1/3rd prizes.

And we also had a quiz with 33 questions. All the answers relate to the numbers three, 33, a third or, for festive fun, Christmas. You can play the quiz now on the Fat Roland website. Go on. It's really hard (said Santa to the elf) but give it a try anyway.

For those who submitted their answers on Wednesday, we now have a winner with a score of 16 out of 33. That is Rob Telford, and he has won a copy of Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult on Digital Versimilitude Discette (or "DVD" as my great great great great grandchildren call it). Rob and everyone else can also find the answers by clicking on the quiz at fatroland.com [link no longer available].

>Vinyl info

Finally, here is my track listing from Wednesday. I DJed for three hours, and these are the tunes for the first hour only. The second hour was pure vinyl request heaven, so we had such classics as The Cure, Paul Hardcastle and A-Ha. And the third hour was me putting on really long records so I could play pool with my chums.

Boards Of Canada: Alpha And Omega
Deadly Avenger: Black Sun
Up Bustle & Out: Ninja's Principality
Req: Upstairs
EU: Tanya
EU: Sm
Plaid: Get What You Gave
Autechre: Rae
Richard H Kirk: Velodrome
Primal Scream: Higher Than The Sun (A Dub Symphony In Two Parts)

PS - thanks must go to Kol and Fil for making the event happen. I can't live, if living is without you. I can't liiiiive, I can't live anymooooore. Altogether now...

Big Dog Small Dog Fox

A metaphorical box of thank you chocolates must go to everyone who turned up to II this week.

'Tracks' was the theme of II, which is held quarterly at Manchester Bay Horse pub famed for its disturbing horse photographs and intelligent graffiti in its spectacularly collaged toilets.

So we had a Thomas the Tank Engine Big Track set - see a video of it in action here. We had two real-life train sets in action, including my £1 set which went like a, er, train all night. It's amazing what you can get in pound shops these days.

>Picture switcher

A particular favourite of mine was a video switcher box set up by Fil, where you can select between video clips of toy motorbike races, a miserable child on a kart track, and a hugely dull man demonstrating tracks for fridge doors. Other visuals included a large rollercoaster CG vid and my own abstract train-track thingy based on the pic shown on this post.

Thanks must go to DJ Raven, Kol the train conductor, The Thin Controller who played a 'track'-themed set, and to Stephen Devine for joining us on set-up.

>Free CD!

Here's my track listing for the night. This will be available on an un-mixed compilation CD called Big Dog Small Dog Fox, strictly for home-listening purposes only, you understand. If you want a copy, ask me next time you see me. (It's not available over tinternet or post.)

1 BILL VANLOO Tunes (For Sarah)
2 FRACTION Waiting For Josh
3 THE REMOTE VIEWER Walsh Ambrose
4 APPARAT I Lost My Shit In Tel Aviv
5 WISP* Beadumaegen
6 VENETIAN SNARES Szamar Madar
7 MR 76IX* Streetbeatz
8 PROEM Long Distance Tiara
9 SQUAREPUSHER** Welcome To Europe
10 PLAID Get What You Gave
11 MU-ZIQ Brace Yourself Jason
12 LUKE ABBOTT* b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b
13 THE RUSSIAN FUTURISTS** Let’s Get Ready To Crumble
14 ORBITAL Input Out

*featured in my 'Filter / Cut-off' posts.
**featured in Top Tunes on the main Fat Roland website

Web updatingness: urban is the new urban

I'm going urban, and no I don't mean grime, R Kelly or concrete schoolyards.

The urban experience is the theme of an event called Shameless taking place at this year's Greenbelt Arts Festival.

Yours fatly will be providing an electronica soundtrack to the whole proceedings. You can read more about when, where, why, what and huh on my freshly updated website here.

If I bump into R Kelly wiping grime from concrete schoolyards, I'll let you know.

Balls!

Oh look, BALLS! Despite the last minute venue change, and the lack of Fil and his phenomenal powers of spatial awareness, II was a massive success on Wednesday.

The Bay Horse basement looked like the bastard child of an art deco brothel and a hunting lodge, and golly-by-gosh did the space work. It limited our options - visuals were not easy and the walls were made of paper - but the theme seemed to go down a treat.

The theme was balls, which meant ball-related visuals including Johnny Ball and testicular cancer (nice), and we tried to get as many balls into one space as possible. So there were cages full of balls, plasma balls, juggling balls, glitter balls, a stick-and-ball game, spot-the-ball and a mailing list form which encouraged you to fill in your title as if you were at a ball.

>Ball nirvana

We knew we had reached ball nirvana when we had punters choosing tracks using home-made lottery balls. Strangely, and by absolute coincidence because it was randomly chosen, the last track of the night was Jackson And His Computer Band's Utopia, a tune best known for its use in the O2 advert with the (ball-shaped) bubbles. Snipples from the advert are dotted around this post.

Big thanks to those who made the night happen, including Kol, Fil, Stephen, Sarah, Cris, Kev, Lev, Ben and others, and big-up to Kid Mingus and Pachuco for being brilliant. We had a ball. (Cue laugh.) Let's see another BALL!



>Tent snooze

My fun wasn't over. A few hours after we had packed away and thrown ourselves at the mercy of a rip-off taxi driver, I headed to the beautiful Isle of Anglesey for an overnight snooze in a tent.

It was a vaguely sinister couple of days. On the train there, a man gave me a look of death and then I realised he was staff and I was scared. Then there was the lady who told me all about her forklift driver sons who have just bought a house together in Grimsby, and I swear she had a knife behind her back. Probably.

Anglesey is the opposite of a box of chocolates; it is predictably dull in the centre but rich and surprising on the outside where all the sea and sand and coves are. Yes it has a McDonald's but it has retained a strong Welsh character.

>Staring monsters

I camped at the excellent Bagnol Caravan Park, where all the caravans seem to have net curtains and therefore no view. I was sharing the field with three pleasant for soccer fans; they listened to the wireless and said "how do you do" all the time (I think). And we were surrounded by strange wooden sculptures of staring monsters, which became all the more sinister since I couldn't get Venetian Snares' haunting Szamar Madar out of my mind.



Oh bless, a SMALL BALL! On my second day on the island, I discovered a writing workshop with Janice Madden. She has just written a book about her Aunt who was murdered then exhumed for the head to be removed. It has taken her seven years of toil to get this book done, so I wish her every success.

I meandered back home and chatted to all the interesting Irish people fresh off the ferry (I loved the Kerry man's story of storm waves hitting the side of his ship "like an anvil"). By this time, the only tune I had in my head was Smokey Robinson's Tears Of A Clown.

What a wonderful carefree few days. As the song goes, "Now if I appear to be carefree, it's only to camouflage my sadness." Could life get any better? *...sob...*

II venue change alert!

Tomorrow night (Wednesday)'s II will not be at Cord.

Instead it will be at the Bay Horse which is still in Manchester's Northern Quarter, quite near High Street where the trams go down. It is very near Bluu, almost opposite in fact.

The Bay Horse have been very accommodating, so do come down and spend lots of money at their bar. II will run from 8pm til 11pm, is totally free and will feature me, Pachuco Plays Pop and Kid Mingus.

Here is a map which shows roughly where the pub is.

Web updatingness: II on June 14

See my main website for the latest information on the next II on June 14. That's a week Wednesday or Wednesday week, depending on which side your grammar is buttered on.

My site features a famous man holding a ball. Lookee!

'O' logo

Sanctus 1 plays effeminate host to the sitdownathon that is II at Cord bar, at which you may hear a spun Fat Roland disc or three. Here is a taster of Sanctus 1's new flyer. [link expired, but just imagine something circle-y]

It reminds me of Aero, frogspawn, Mickey Mouse, Mexicans in hats, blowing bubbles and Orbital.

I loved the way Orbital's repetitive beats encapsulated the circular nature of their artwork. Yes I know it was probably the other way round, the cover designs reflecting the feel of the music blah-de-blah art imitating art etc etc. Shut up. See what I mean by spotting the theme in Orbital's album designs...

The green album
The brown album
Snivilization
Work
The Middle Of Nowhere.
The blue album
...and Rest / Play EP

Before you write in, the Middle Of Nowhere artwork doesn't work because it's a white circle on a white background. This is approximately as effective as tippexing snow, or persuading a flatulent bird to poo on Boris Johnson's head. White on white, very Sigur Ros.

There is something to be said for consistency of artwork, which is why Fat Roland stuff is often white on black and blobby to boot. I think the circular thing is a sprinkle of style that designer Louise Poole brings to Sanctus 1. It could of course mean Sanctus 1 is going round in circles like Orbital's layered beats. Or maybe Sanctus 1 is frogspawn waiting to leap from the pond in a burst of green slimy energy.

Personally, I'm working on a Mexicans in hats theory.

Lines and lines and lines and lines

"Lines and lines and lines and lines," said Tubbs, crumpling the map in confusion.

We had plenty of lines at Cord bar last Wednesday, and Kate Moss wasn't even there. Every three months I help run an evening of electronic music and abstract visuals at Cord Bar in Manchester's trendy Northern Quarter. The night is called II (Two) and it has now been running for a year. Our theme this time around was 80s/electronica and much of what we did was inspired by the dull but strangely appealing 1980s sci-fi flick Tron.

We had DJs and visuals and a Pac Man game and Operation. Plenty of beer was drunk and the Operation patient was buzzed muchly. I think it was a resounding success, so thanks has to go to Fil and Kolyn for the visuals, music and, er, the scary no-eyed mask. Thanks be to the gods that are Sometimes Records, particularly Maroogally and Pachuco for DJing.

If anyone has photos of the electrical tape we used to make the floor look like a Tron 'circuit', please let me know. Meanwhile, here is a list of tunes that Kolyn, Fil and I played. It's in alphabetical order by artist, just like my CD collection.

AFX - Arched Maid Via RDJ
DAF - Satellite
Donna Summer - I Feel Love
Fad Gadget - Ricky’s Hand
Flanger - Bosco’s Disposable Driver
Forgemaster - Track With No Name
Four Tet - She Moves She
Japan - Visions Of China
Kraftwerk - Numbers (pictured above)
Landscape - Einstein-A-Go-Go
Leila - Don’t Fall Asleep
Manitoba - Tits + Ass: The Great Canadian Weekend
Max Tundra - Ink Me
Mu-ziq - Brace Yourself Jason
Mu-ziq - My Little Beautiful
OMD - ABC Auto Industry
Small Rocks - Clodhopper
The Normal - Warm Leatherette
To Rococo Rot - I Wanted To Meet Him
Tricky Disco - Tricky Disco (Plone Mix)
Tuff Little Unit - Join The Future
Vector Lovers - Girl + Robot
Venetian Snares - Marty’s Tardis
Wauvenfold - Tri Gard
Yellow Magic Orchestra - Computer Games

"You lied to me Edward," wailed Tubbs. "You lied to me. There is a Swansea..."

Come and see me DJ on June 8th instead of wasting your money on a creatively bankrupt film franchise

I will be joined by Kid Mingus and Lypcyl at the next II.

II (Two) is a quarterly free event in the basement of the Northern Quarter's trendy Cord bar, just off Tib Street.

I'll will be playing tweeting birds and sit-down acid mayhem. Joining me will be Kid Mingus and Volume star Lypcyl. A spectacular visual show of basement proportions will be provided by Fil and Kol.

II takes place on Wednesday June 8th at Cord from 8pm, and it is totally, irrefutably and unegregiously free.

If you intend to see Star Wars instead of coming to II, please read this review first. You don't have to see it. It's not compulsory. In fact, it will be a devastating waste of money and you will die two hours earlier than you would have done if you go and see this creatively bankrupt excuse of a film.

Cord thanks blah love you blah lovey darling

Twas a decent night at Cord. A little cold, but considering the whole thing was organised within a week, it was a triumph.

Thanks to Mike Fallows, graphic design genius in residence at Sometimes Records, and to Stephen Devine. Both impressed more than a break-dancing Thora Hird.

Fil and Kol did a really good job with the visuals, even if Kol said there was 'something missing' and Fil didn't get his Highly Technologistic Gizmo working. Something must have gone right, because I took this photograph (below).

And thanks to Ben and all of Sanctus1 for supporting the event. You are my truffles, my only truffles, you make me happy when pies are grey.