Month: May 2014

Prince & 3rdEyeGirl – Live in Manchester, May 16 2014

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Prince and 3rdEYEGIRL Manchester God, but this week’s been depressing.

The fledgling summer has died. All the Beach Boys, High Llamas, Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci and Grateful Dead is already looking quite silly and out of place on my MP3 player.

This apocalyptic weather is, of course, a portent of doom. The shit-eating moronic ukip drones have gloated so hard at their statistically-underwhelming “victory” that the heavens have opened. A vengeful god in which I certainly no longer believe is expressing his displeasure at our apathetic nation.

You can almost hear him: “Oh, so you’re willing to invite buggery by evil through your apathy, are you? Then surely you won’t mind a little RAIN.”

It makes me long for even this time next week; when there was still possible to believe that the majority of people are inherently good; when there remained the very real possibility that Farage might die in his sleep the very night before his horrifying excuse for a party was drowned in a tide of reactionary “not on my watch” votes for the lesser of two evils.

This time last week, the world didn’t seem nearly so horrible as it seems now. After all, I had just seen Prince.

Read the full dispatch from what already feels like a more innocent time here.

Somewhat Abstract At The Nottingham Contemporary

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Nottingham Contemporary

Somewhat Abstract is the largest exhibition of works from the Arts Council ever assembled outside of London.

For me, this exhibit was a big deal, as it enabled me to finally see Francis Bacon’s Head VI in the flesh, so to speak.

I say “finally”, but I only became aware of this painting’s existence last summer, when the Arts Council displayed various pieces from their collection on billboards and posters on roadsides, bus stops and train stations across the country. Still, it’s the sort of image that, once seen, can never be unseen.

This was displayed on a small, out of the way poster along Liverpool’s dock road:

Francis Bacon Head VITerrifying. Brutal. Beautiful.

Fair to say, I’ve been somewhat haunted by that screaming pope ever since I first saw it. How fortuitous that, within the year, it should be exhibited for free at a gallery conveniently located on my walk from work to the train station!

Though Francis Bacon’s painting dominates proceedings (for me, at least), there is so much more to see at Somewhat Abstract.

Read my full review over at FCK LDN.

Arcane Surrealist Dislocation At The Whitby Museum

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Whitby Museum

This, I promise, will be the last bit of writing about Whitby on this site. For a while, at least.

Honestly, I spent less than 48 hours there and I’ve been wittering on and on about the place for weeks.

But yes, my first article for FCK LDN is all about the Whitby Museum, and the curious surrealist dislocation I experienced there.

Surrealist dislocation is quite hard to explain, but Breton explained it by way of a Lautréamont quote, who once wrote about a “chance meeting on a dissecting-table of a sewing-machine and an umbrella.”

By chance, you see two things together than do not necessarily belong together. This acts as a springboard for the sort of deep thoughts, ideas and free associations that might not otherwise have been made.

“The mind is ripe for more than the benign joys it allows itself,” wrote Breton.

The mind can therefore feast at the Whitby Museum, where fossils rub shoulders with arcane charms and steampunk augury.

Read all about it at FCK LDN, complete with many, many pictures!

FCK LDN

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I’m writing for an exciting new website called FCK LDN!

I’d like to pretend that it’s a community dedicated to lambasting Lily Allen’s horrible breakthrough single, but it’s not. Rather, it’s a site that sets out to highlight that there’s more to the UK than London; that our bustling capital receives an unfair proportion of arts funding and attention.

“FCK LDN is a new online magazine; a magazine that will do to London what every other magazine does to the rest of the UK.

It will pretend that it does not exist…”

Continue reading →