Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
20.4.15
21.9.14
29.8.14
5.4.14
permaculture as fuck
I've recently completed a certificate in permaculture design. I'd like to say it's changed my life, but in all honesty, it hasn't.
What the course did do for me, was confirm a lot of things I had already been thinking. In my work we're constantly battling against corporate control of natural resources, big greedy businesses using up more than their fare share, and an increasingly more powerful corporate lobby. I knew these were bad things, and I knew that there were other ways. Living in a boat, then a caravan, I understood that choices to live on the edges of society were possible. But I didn't realise just how important those edges are.
In permaculture the edges are the most important bits. Where living things thrive, where experiments go right and wrong, and where new things begin.
Here is a film some lovely people from my home town made about some permaculture guy (who, after a quick google, seems to be pretty on it.) Nice work team.
What the course did do for me, was confirm a lot of things I had already been thinking. In my work we're constantly battling against corporate control of natural resources, big greedy businesses using up more than their fare share, and an increasingly more powerful corporate lobby. I knew these were bad things, and I knew that there were other ways. Living in a boat, then a caravan, I understood that choices to live on the edges of society were possible. But I didn't realise just how important those edges are.
In permaculture the edges are the most important bits. Where living things thrive, where experiments go right and wrong, and where new things begin.
Here is a film some lovely people from my home town made about some permaculture guy (who, after a quick google, seems to be pretty on it.) Nice work team.
5.3.14
9.11.13
24.10.12
November
This time last year I was in Oslo with an Oregonian, a Mexican American and a fellow Bristolian watching these guys be fucking incredible. "I want to live inside their songs." Yes please.
13.9.12
8.4.12
8.3.12
International Women's Day
Today I have posted a barrage of amazing and wonderful posts and tweets and messages about some brilliant people and ideas that have helped emancipate women, inspire all and encourage change. In no specific order.
Andrew Gibson; swingset. Via my friend Nick.
Angela Davis and Yuri Kochiyama: Mountains that take wing. Via my friend Gav.
Feminists. Everywhere. Past and present. Via UK Feminista and London Feminist Network
Robin Hood Tax's wonderful posts on women in the financial sector.
Andrew Gibson; swingset. Via my friend Nick.
Angela Davis and Yuri Kochiyama: Mountains that take wing. Via my friend Gav.
Feminists. Everywhere. Past and present. Via UK Feminista and London Feminist Network
Robin Hood Tax's wonderful posts on women in the financial sector.
"Happy International Women's Day. Marion is leading celebrations here in Sherwood. And a fact for the day: In the final report of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission of the US Treasury the words "she", "woman" or "her" do not appear once in its 662 pages. It is a book, like most historical tragedies, written about the follies and hubris of men."Girls on bikes; How the Bicycle empowered Women. By Maria Popover @brainpicker
Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel.” ~ Susan B. Anthony, 1896Nina Simone: I've Got Life
There is something i've got, nobody can take it away...Ani Difranco: Fuel
Beneath the good and the kind and the stupid and the cruelThere's a fire that's just waiting for fuel
24.11.11
6.11.11
bon iver
This was my other reason for being in Oslo. Bon Iver magic.
As I said on the night... I want to live inside their music forever.
And that is not an exaggeration.
I heart crescendos.
As I said on the night... I want to live inside their music forever.
And that is not an exaggeration.
I heart crescendos.
27.9.11
sound of rum
banger of a song from kate tempest and the sound of rum
"because when the whole thing shatters it always starts with a little crack"
"because when the whole thing shatters it always starts with a little crack"
28.11.10
tribute to emily teague
she sat on the steps and looked at the sky. It was still above her as she gently rested her fingertips in the cold strings of her guitar. Her hair hung in front of her eyes as she played, masking her face from the familiar stories she told with each note she sang.
The air was old and soft, and smelt of the city that she had grown up in. The music seemed to spill out of her palms each time she strummed a chord, the sound barely audible and lingering in the warm evening air. Each word spoken held its purpose and read like a poem drifting slowly around her small form nestling in the darkness of the evening.
She never thought when she sang. She just carried the music from her guitar, and let it free into the space around her, as it bounced off the brick walls and iron railings, old cars and rusty bikes crumpled against the neighbouring buildings, making each surface tingle with the new sensation of music.
The street transformed with each song. She sang louder and with more honesty as the guitar seemed to play itself, her movements pushing and pulling the notes until her voice merged with the music and she seemed to disappear into the street scene, as the focus faltered and the music took hold. The sky swam, her words softened and slowly the music created a picture of its own, resting above the harsh forms of the city, colouring them with ideas of love and truth and pain that helped create the rooms behind each door of her street.
The people pushed their ears up against their keyholes, their letterboxes and the cracks in the windowpanes to hear the sound of honesty filling the street in which they lived. The music called to each soul that was lost, confused and yearning for a familiar story to their own. The words filled their eyes and ears and covered their skin with colours they had forgotten existed. Shapes danced in the sky. Light danced on the concrete steps on which the girl sat. People danced behind their curtains, swaying their shoulders, loosening the knots that had tied themselves to the people they had come to believe that they are.
The girl sat on the steps and looked at the sky, her eyes open, her heart full and her notes on their way up to tell the moon a story of their own.
The air was old and soft, and smelt of the city that she had grown up in. The music seemed to spill out of her palms each time she strummed a chord, the sound barely audible and lingering in the warm evening air. Each word spoken held its purpose and read like a poem drifting slowly around her small form nestling in the darkness of the evening.
She never thought when she sang. She just carried the music from her guitar, and let it free into the space around her, as it bounced off the brick walls and iron railings, old cars and rusty bikes crumpled against the neighbouring buildings, making each surface tingle with the new sensation of music.
The street transformed with each song. She sang louder and with more honesty as the guitar seemed to play itself, her movements pushing and pulling the notes until her voice merged with the music and she seemed to disappear into the street scene, as the focus faltered and the music took hold. The sky swam, her words softened and slowly the music created a picture of its own, resting above the harsh forms of the city, colouring them with ideas of love and truth and pain that helped create the rooms behind each door of her street.
The people pushed their ears up against their keyholes, their letterboxes and the cracks in the windowpanes to hear the sound of honesty filling the street in which they lived. The music called to each soul that was lost, confused and yearning for a familiar story to their own. The words filled their eyes and ears and covered their skin with colours they had forgotten existed. Shapes danced in the sky. Light danced on the concrete steps on which the girl sat. People danced behind their curtains, swaying their shoulders, loosening the knots that had tied themselves to the people they had come to believe that they are.
The girl sat on the steps and looked at the sky, her eyes open, her heart full and her notes on their way up to tell the moon a story of their own.
emily teague
Last night the folk house in bristol saw the launch of emily teagues new album.
If you do not know about emily teagues music then you are missing out and have not spent enough time in my company, because my life is lived to an emily teague soundtrack. seriously.
As a best friend of, and unabashed fan of, miss emily teague, I have been on a musical journey that has spanned around ten years now by her side. Ten years of hearing new songs moments after they are written... of receiving emails full of words recorded in kitchens in different cities... songs of friendship, of love, of heartbreak, of growing and learning experiences that have shaped this woman into the well rounded and beautiful individual who stood on the stage of the folk house last night and sang out her soul.
I remember her first show, the nerves, the circle of friends around a girl and her guitar in the local pub, the sing a long that ensued afterwards, the bad flyers that were sent out before hand... I remember us visiting the folk house for the first time to see pindrop, daves collective. I remember being blown away by the musicians, the music, the atmosphere, the sincerity and the smiles in the room that night... and it fills my heart with pride to know that now, emily teague is part of this group. she is part of the world that loves, appreciates and nurtures honest open music like her own.
As a musician emily has blossomed into a skilled artiste. she can mould songs into how she is feeling, she is able to draw in other talented musicians and shape songs to make a completely new moment... And she has never lost her soul. As long as she has a guitar and a voice I honestly don't think she will ever be able to.
congratulations em. I am too proud for words.
You can listen to the album here
And you can purchase the album from itunes...
although I personally would not miss out on the fantastic artwork provided by miss aurelia lange
image above copywrited to aurelia lange
18.7.10
mumford
I saw Laura Marling play a few months ago with my beautiful friend Becky P (muchos gracias for the free tick my lover).. and now i have begun to enjoy the sounds of her former band mates, Mumford & Sons.
I feel as though I have let this lot pass my buy in the furore of their first album which did smashingly well...
but in recent days when I have been finding it hard to keep it together, Mumford & Sons have allowed a little bit of uplift to my hours of daylight.
and for this i thank them.
For a video following Mumford & Sons and Miss Marling creating a treat in India with the Rajasthani collective at the Dharohar Project please click here.
For a little treat shaped taster watch this:
I feel as though I have let this lot pass my buy in the furore of their first album which did smashingly well...
but in recent days when I have been finding it hard to keep it together, Mumford & Sons have allowed a little bit of uplift to my hours of daylight.
and for this i thank them.
For a video following Mumford & Sons and Miss Marling creating a treat in India with the Rajasthani collective at the Dharohar Project please click here.
For a little treat shaped taster watch this:
2.5.10
m.i.a
i rate M.I.A
we completely destroyed her album 'kala' at our last house on banner road.
shes one of those rare people who likes to get all up front and controversial with her songs, representing a side of music i usually affiliate with punk or hardcore; politics.
an alternative to all those 'ass ass tittie tittie' songs (in her own words) that popular music is often seemingly concerned with, m.i.a looks to empower those among us who don't usually get representation in music- first generation immigrants with something to say about the state of the world.
...and then a friend pointed me in the direction of this interview of M.I.A with Spike Jonze. (thanks owen) two very excellent people talking about the simple things that make m.i.a tick.
watch and enjoy
we completely destroyed her album 'kala' at our last house on banner road.
shes one of those rare people who likes to get all up front and controversial with her songs, representing a side of music i usually affiliate with punk or hardcore; politics.
an alternative to all those 'ass ass tittie tittie' songs (in her own words) that popular music is often seemingly concerned with, m.i.a looks to empower those among us who don't usually get representation in music- first generation immigrants with something to say about the state of the world.
...and then a friend pointed me in the direction of this interview of M.I.A with Spike Jonze. (thanks owen) two very excellent people talking about the simple things that make m.i.a tick.
watch and enjoy
29.4.10
6.4.10
4.1.10
her morning elegance
just as i was thinking about this beautiful piece of stop frame, i noticed bex has beat me to putting it up here.. so the appreciation is seconded.
completely.
completely.
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