Depth Charge Ethel · 16 August 2007, 05:23 · File under: Making Loving
We filmed Grinderman in the studio and Pitchfork wrote about it!
Wai-O-Tapu, New Zealand · 16 July 2007, 00:39 · File under: Going Loving
Devastations at The Luminaire · 11 December 2006, 08:18 · File under: Listening Loving
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Damien Jurado at The Luminaire · 11 December 2006, 08:00 · File under: Listening Loving
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Stay Bruised... · 20 May 2006, 00:37 · File under: Loving
Just clearing out some old stuff and found this great photo from Nikki.
Nikki Sudden · 28 March 2006, 00:18 · File under: Loving Hating
The last bandit. Gone too soon.
Home taping is killing music · 24 October 2005, 21:13 · File under: Making Loving
This week our show that was at The Hospital in Covent Garden earlier this year opens at George Rodger Gallery in Maidstone. The show is basically a set of videos that together make up an ongoing series called ‘Precious Little’.
When we made the first version it wasn’t ever intended as a series, it was a logical extension to a body of work we’d been developing at that time around the idea of the home made compilation cassette – or as everyone outside the UK prefers to call them, the ‘mixtape’. The mixtape appeared in various forms in some of our very earliest work. This particular piece was made specifically for a show at Hobbypop Museum in Dusseldorf, curated by Dan Howard-Birt. Dan explained to us his ideas around the show, specifically around romance, and the idea just seemed to fit. We filmed a group of our friends, and friends of friends – basically whoever we could get to actually turn up. We aimed for about a dozen, and filmed each one of them talking about a specific tape they’d either made or received from a lover, past or present. We then turned the camera on ourselves, and filmed each other doing exactly the same thing. We ended up with something like about 10 hours of footage, which eventually we edited down to 30 minutes. We called the piece ‘Fucked up lover’ after a Freeheat song, and because talking about mixtapes people tell you some really fucked up things. The show opened in Germany, then moved to VTO in London.
A couple of years later we were invited to go to Montreal, to make a new piece of work in the city, with Pavilion Projects. We worked through a lot of possibilities, before settling on the idea that we wanted to make a new version of this piece, but re-shot with people from Montreal. We knew we’d only be there long enough to shoot and then edit the piece, so finding the right people to film had to fall to the curator, Robin Simpson. We wrote a detailed explanation of the sort of person we were looking for (really, just a description of most of our friends) and sent it over to Robin, who did a superb job of finding exactly the right sort of people. So, we landed in Montreal, took a day or so to adjust to the extreme cold (it was January and – we were told later – Montreal was in the middle of a particularly cold spell) before beginning filming. Again we ended up with something like ten hours of footage, and again we edited it down to about 30 minutes. This time we called the piece ‘Everybody else is wrong’, after the song by Epic Soundtracks, and also acknowledging the unique mindset of the typical serial tape-maker.
A year or so later we were considering possible projects for The Hospital in Covent Garden and began to realise that these pieces make sense as a single series. We’d wanted to make another version for some time, but hadn’t really considered showing them together before, but in the context of The Hospital it just made sense. We’d make a new version, which we were able to do with much better production values than the first version (which had been shot on VHS) which was projected at one end of the gallery, with comfortable seating (hey, it’s thirty minutes long!) and at the other end we’d show the two earlier works on plasma screens. The new version we called ‘Anyone else isn’t you’, after the song by The Field Mice, but also because it again seemed to capture something of the mindset of the participants.
So, the show that was at The Hospital is now moving to Maidstone, to be presented at the George Rodger Gallery, which was part of the Kent Institute of Art & Design, but is now part of the University College for the Creative Arts, which is a merger of KIAD and the Surrey Institute of Art & Design. Keeping up at the back?
At The Hospital the show had been accompanied by a catalogue with new texts by Momus, Steve Lamacq and JJ Charlesworth. We wanted to do something that would accompany the show in Maidstone, so this time we decided to produce an online project. The idea is very simple, it’s basically a web site where we’re inviting people to add a song to an ongoing collaborative tracklisting. Participants simply name a song, say who it’s for and write a few lines about why. The song is then added to an endless mixtape tracklist. As the list grows you’ll be able to check out the songs that other people have added and read their reasons why. It’ll be online in a couple of days.
Which was all a rather long-winded way of getting round to saying… while researching the project we stumbled over the wonderful Project C-90 and another site put together by the same guy, the absolute classic masterpiece Cassette Jam ‘05.
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Ravedown · 17 October 2005, 07:59 · File under: Listening Loving
Still playing Good Shoes and still loving it. Must go and buy their single. No doubt Rough Trade will be sold out by now. Got the Sennen album in the post this weekend. Brilliant stuff, way better than the (rather brilliant) demos on their web site. There’s very much an air of 1991 round here at the moment – downloaded the Mark Gardener album the other day… every bit what you’d expect. Nice, in a not remotely essential sort of way. Thursday night we spent at Sonic Cathedral at The Legion on Old Street to see Jim Reid. Whatever anyone tells you, the man is a legend. Couldn’t get to the end of a fucking song, but a legend none the less.
Telegram Sam · 5 October 2005, 06:26 · File under: Loving
Uncle Iain and Aunt Jane!
