Fnarp blang-grabble toop: what I learnt from drawing

Some time ago I went to a life drawing class. We sat in rows with our chosen tools, in my case an A3 sketchpad I had bought that day and the pencil I used to illustrate a 2012 short story collection. A succession of models in fancy dress glared at us: we drew Storm from X-Men, an evil-looking Darth Maul and someone from Blade Runner.

I didn't like it. It left me frustrated. I wanted to snap my pencil. I didn't snap my pencil. If you snap pencils, it releases lead into the atmosphere and a dolphin dies. I read that somewhere.

The models were great, the night was friendly and fun, the costumes and make-up were brilliant, and the company I kept was great. I drew lots and, for a while, I enjoyed the challenge of squinting at the shapes before me and trying to spew that onto paper.

Yet I learnt a few things:

I DON'T DO REAL THINGS.

I'd rather live inside my head. Things outside my eyes are boring. I need to mix things up into a beautiful field of horses or an elephant hick or a cheese goat Neil Buchanan mash-up or something so disgusting and weird it's probably NSFW.

I DON'T DO SCHOOL.

I won't sit still. I won't draw in a structured environment. I won't follow your recommendations to the letter. Don't give me an exam: I'd break it. I don't only think outside the box: I've opened a dictionary, crossed out "box" and written "fnarp" instead.

I DON'T DO CLOTHES.

Well. I wear clothes: I'm not a naturist. But I wanted actual life drawing not fancy dress. Models with skin and that. Nuddies. The sags and contours of skin are more interesting than leather jackets and capes. If you're not reading this naked right now, I'll be furious. Actually, I can see your reflection from my computer screen. My eyes. MY EYES.

I DON'T DO CONVENTIONS.

Despite this blog post using conventions of grammar on a template of a major blog publishing platform using equipment owned by multi-national corporations, I, like, totes don't do boundaries yeah?! Smash the system, yeah?! Fnarp blang-grabble toop p'dinb-dinb wam. That's not even a sentence. I'm out of control.

MAYBE THIS IS WHY I LIKE BASS MUSIC.

My dislike of following a crowd. My disrespect of popular conventions. My urge to always find the new. I feel restless.

Maybe this is why I got into electronic music. I'll spend the afternoon trawling Bleep, loafing around Resident Advisor or spinning through Soundcloud for something new: Objekt or The Bug or Butch.

Meanwhile everyone else is into fancy dress and normcore and real things and Ed Sheeran and Sunday lunch and saying how-do-you-do and wearing ties and television and breathing and jeezeverythingissoBORING.

Anyway. I kept my drawings. They were okay.

Sometimes people get lost

Sometimes people get lost. Christopher Columbus set off to find India and ended up playing for the West Indies cricket team or something. Sometimes I load up kitten fights on YouTube and end up watching body building videos. Like I say, sometimes people get lost.

Therefore, I produced these graphics for anyone who feels lost. You kind of have to be on Twitter to make them true because they say things like "you are on Twitter".

I hope someone will find them useful.

The Black Dog / Balil's 3/4 Heart

"If you remember the 60s, you weren't there."
"Music was just better in the 80s."
"I so got bogus on alcopops at the Britpop disco last night."

Yeah, I hear your conversations, you wrinkled dinosaurs living in the past. It's pathetic. I listen to new music all the time, while you close your ears off because your ear wax is made of nostalgia and one day you will drown in it.

Haaaaving said that...

I love this old track from The Black Dog, performing here as Balil (below).

Their Bytes album expanded my world. In this one track, you can hear trip hop, Orbital's Snivilisation and LTJ Bukem's atmospherics. Except this was some time before any of that came out, assuming we're dating trip hop to a couple of years later in the 90s.

This is truly forward thinking futuristic futurism right here, and definitely not me wallowing in techno nostalgia.



(Incidentally, The Black Dog's Sound of Sheffield volume 3 is out this week, including the bass-heavy Fraction Slide.)

Stephen Fry's moustache

Stephen Fry's moustache. That's it, really. Just those three words.

It was probably an episode of QI in which someone joked about an internet site dedicated to Fry's facial hair. Maybe. Anyhoo, the idea stuck in my head. 

Some three years later, I plopped out this: a Pinterest board with pictures of Stephen Fry sporting a moustache.

Because the internet needs this kind of thing.

I'm also spewing out an incredible amount of nonsense on Ello, including these creative writing tips, this menacing chap and this deeply confused cat.

Anxious Fats and the castle of happiness

Five billion years ago, I went on a school trip to France. I was very interested in going on a school trip to France. I'd learnt the word boulangerie and everything.

The trip was a nightmare. Some of my school "mates" were nobbists of the highest degree, and I spent the whole vacation feeling confused and overwhelmed. I still remember a supermarket cashier barking shapes at me while I nodded in a way I thought looked intelligent.

I still do the same nodding now.

Ever since, I've had an anxiety about not enjoying the moment. Such as dancing my mullet off in a club yet worrying about how many shirt buttons I should have unfastened, opting between one and two and three back to one like some kind of crap fabric traffic light.

It's happened again recently, only in a more general sense. I've been caught in a cycle of logistics and planning and stress. Even when chillaxing with my bluds (I think these are French words), my mind has been a dripping pipe of mental notes and worries.

Last weekend, that changed.

I attended a writing workshop run by Prole Books at the turret-tastic Bodelwydden Castle. I only went because I followed Prole on Twitter and, hey, it was in a castle.

I’m not really a workshop kind of guy, but the process loosened some pretty rusty bolts. I realise that clashes with my pipe metaphor, but shut up. Writer Sue Pace led the workshop without dictating, and allowed freedom to simply enjoy the process of writing.

The weekend forced me to stop, to take a step back. I threw some priorities up in the air and let them land in a different order. I've written a lot. I’ve even been facing some tiny demons this week that I have been avoiding for a long time.

I feel pretty.... boulangerie.

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Also this week, I performed with Flashtag at Manchester Literature Festival in a kind of literary human centipede which was, according to reviews, comedic and hilarious. And as Bad Language I co-hosted a bunch of rising stars along with development agency The Writing Squad and author chappie Matt Haig. I had an immense time at the Festival and thanks to everyone for making it feel prop spesh and well good.

The Aphex Twins: a classic comeback album?

The Aphex Twins will release a new album today for the first time in 13 years.

Gone are the dance moves of the past. This is a more introspective, mature sound, designed to reflect the Aphex Twins' recent 65th birthday.

Last week, I went to a listening party where I hung around Piccadilly Records looking shifty while loudly declaring that the album "had a good beat".

Here are ten comeback albums that are significant. Of course, it includes The Aphex Twin's new album.

1. Guns 'n' Iron: Chinese Illusion II / Use Your Democracy
2. My Bloody Valentine: Gangnam Stylin'
3. Stone Roses: The Third Coming
4. Westlife: Sexploitation Soundtrack Classics
5. Bob Dylan: One Man And His Casio Pre-Sets
6. U2 - Never Mind The 90s, Here's Something To Use In Your Advert
7. Peter Andre: Music For Airheads
8. Guru Josh: 2010s, Time For My Pills
9. David Bowie: Songs For Ricky Gervais
10. The Aphex Twins: I'm Banging My Computer Keyboard Against This Granny Does It Look Like A Track Title Yet

Stream an actual new Aphex Twin track now

It's a jolly little ditty, and not entirely unlike my favouritest band Plaid. Add a few Totems Flare-style synth and vocal bits. It may underwhelm some looking for a Windowlicker, but I'm a happy sausage right now. And it beats the grainy live clips already on YouTube.

The new album can be pre-ordered from Bleep here.

Further Fats: The Gospel According To Aphex Twin (2010)

Aphex Twin's new album: the truth

Aphex Twin's new album will be a collection of ballads with Irish boyband megastars Westlife.

Mr Aphex announced his first studio album for 13 years by threatening London with a zeppelin and then a small ad in the back pages of Loot, otherwise known as the "dark web".

There was also a posting on his official Twitter account, which read: "nuAlbum with WstLfe, theyre the 1s with Ronan in, rite?!".

The reaction from the music industry to Aphex Twin's comeback was swift and overwhelming. [Note: insert a bunch of tweets here and pass them off as journalistic quote sourcing.] Also, Phats & Small were unavailable for comment. Skrillex did hold a press conference at which the only attendees were Chase & Status, Nile Rogers, a bloke from Disclosure and whoever's left out of Milli Vanilli.

The album will be available in gatefold vinyl which plays, greetings card style, Avril 14th when you open it up. The first 500 copies will come with a free "Squarepusher sucks" sticker.

Alongside a live tour with Kid 606 and Austin Mahone supporting, the album will be promoted with residency on The One Show.

A statement from Ronan Keating reads: "Seriously, it's because we're Irish, isn't it? They just dressed in black and sat on stools. We had dance routines and stuff. Westlife didn't even do curtains properly."

What will the new album be like? Will his window be caustic, lickable or polygon? Further thoughts will be in the next edition of Electronic Sound.

Bonus: a possible album preview has appeared on YouTube: