Art

Taking another bite out of the apple.

Art, culture, photograph, photography, travel, U*S*A

This is the fourth time that I’ve been lucky enough to visit New York, the town named twice, and doesn’t get much sleep. Each time, it’s that little bit more familiar, which in its own way makes there even more to discover. I think all cities of a certain size have this ever unfolding sensation, with infinite pockets of history, hidden treasures held together with an expanding newness and buzz for being THE PLACE to be. This place just seems to do it more so, and it knows it

This trip is part week break and part family catch up. My parents have lived in Richmond, Virginia since moving to the states fifteen years ago. Unfortunately due to various health, pet and fiscal issues, they’ve not managed to explore this vast and varied continent as much as they perhaps would have liked. Recently they’ve caught the traveling bug and after visiting Jamaica earlier in the year, they’re finally making it to New York, NY and for my dad (who’s an architect), I know it’s kind of a big deal, so it seemed a good as place to meet up on my annual visit for a change.

My first leg of the trip was from Cardiff via Schiphol (which afforded me enough time to pop into Amsterdam for lunch and an icy beer on the Singel) then arriving in New York Friday evening.

I’ll never forget the first time I came to New York “it’s like being in a movie!” Everything about the place felt unnervingly familiar : the yellow cabs, the steam rising from the roads, the lights of Times Square, Massimo Vignelli’s subway way finding and of course the iconoclastic architecture — towering skyscrapers lifted from countless Hollywood pictures wherever you look! I fell in love with the place, and I do regret not taking advantage of the Erasmus exchange while at art college, or at least giving it a go in the Big Apple after finishing university. Every visit since, I feel an ever depleting percentage of that first rush of excitement to my senses, but there’s nothing quite like your first time. It’s one of the few places in the world I can honestly say I feel at home in – of course I’ve only popped in for fleeting stays, but it does feel as though one could be the most famous person in the world here and also anonymous at the same time, a melting pot of refuges, freaks, musicians, artists, business folk and chancers, looking to find their dream, their voice, their fortune, or outlaws simply looking to hide in the depths of the Gotham megalopolis.

I’ve spent the last few days walking the high-lines of Manhattan and the East side avenues of Brooklyn until my legs have been ready to fall off doing a number of the must-do tourist points with my folks – we got the lift to the top of the Empire State Building for a wonderful sundown view and went to the roof of the met after a picnic in Central Park, and on our last night ate Shabu Shabu in Chinatown 🙂 I know my Dad had an arm long list of things to see and do on his itinerary, and inevitably I think we probably only scraped the surface. In the throws of the mean streets and walking for blocks that seem so small on a map, each hour and day slips by until someone gets hangry in the rush to the right subway station and it’s way past everyone’s dinner time and feet and backs and minds are frayed. I know we could kick ourselves for not fitting in all in, but I guess that’s the nature of the beast.

Despite fitting in a handful of my own whimsical itinerary (not including lunch dates) I did get to spend an afternoon at PS1 at an art-book fair and saw a great performance by Gang Gang dance, had fish tacos in Williamsburg, got excited by art again at the MOMA, and generally despite myself, fell in love with New York all over again. I met up with friends who have made NYC their home for lunch and went for dinner and a beer with a couple that live round the corner from me in Cardiff — We never get round to catching up in The Welsh capital but after bumping into them at Williamsburg market on Sunday morning it made sense to that evening!

However, I did manage to not: have a hotdog at Coney Island, or drop into some of my favourite design studios while in town.

Id like to think there will be a next time in the not too distant future, and who knows – maybe one day lady liberty will come a calling me.

You can see my other New York Photos at my instagram and Flickr (in due course)

Getting Down the Garonne

Art, culture, Food, holiday, photography

As an early Summer break, my wife and I thought it would be worth taking a chill week off and visiting France. Despite having traveled to a fair few far flung places, I’d not been to France before, and felt it was high time to dredge up my pigeon language skills and bag a baguette. We also wanted to make sure we could spend some time doing nothing bar drink wine and eat fine cheese, so we booked an Air BnB stop over in Paris for two nights before heading on down to the Bordeaux region for some R&R.

Paris is certainly on my list of places to visit, so it rather exciting spending a few days traversing the tourist traps, catching fleeting views of the Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel tower, Pompidou centre, dipping croissants in hot chocolate and munching on some delicious entrecôte and frites. Paris befitted all the romantic stereotypes – it was as crowded, stuffy, impersonal and urine scented as I’d always imagined and I can’t wait to visit again one day with a bit more time on my hands.

Taking the TGV down towards Bordeaux, we arrived at our home for the next four nights – the Chateau le Bosquet des Fleurs, near the petite village of La Reole. Our host Karine, kindly picked us up from the train station and upon arriving at her chateau home, left us with a bottle of her own wine. We had arrived Sunday evening, so expected the nearby village to be pretty quite, but were pleased to find a pizzaria still open. What I don’t think we quite realised was that the village would also largely be closed Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday with cafes and restaurants finally waking up Thursday evening. If living the dream means only having a two and a half day week, I’m in.

Our first day was spent exploring the rough round the edges village of La Reole. There is a sense that it may have had it’s day, but there were some charming highlights in this medieval settlement that was once the seat of French democaracy: The fantastic crepêrie, L’échoppe serving up delicious and cheap galettes and crepes, the ever reliable boulangerie and the picturesque monastery that sits on the edge of the village looking out over the river Garrone which provides the setting for Gustav Eiffel’s first major work – the bridge across it.

Hopping on the train to travel further down the river, we visited Bordeau for a day out. Once the jewel in the wine producing region’s crown, it’s a vibrant multi-cultral city with a surprisingly unpretentious, but creative air and a laid-back atmosphere. the grey drizzle may have exposed it’s more gritty edges but we enjoyed lunch at less than half Paris prices and visited the excellent CAPC musée of contemporary art set in an old colonial warehouse
That was showing a piece by Tomoaki Suzuki.

After a rainy day schlepping about the chateau, having a chilly dip the pool, playing cards and catching up on some reading, we paid for a home cooked meal by our host. Karine cooked up a treat of wine poached egg salad, slow cooked duck and potato gratin all washed down with wine made from the vines in view from the window.

Visiting the nearby town of Marmande was unremarkable, not least due to us forgetting that the town would shut down for about three hours over lunchtime – again, something the French seem to do so well 😉 However, I did partake of a popular lunchtime delicacy – steak tartare. Not through the typical foolish Brit abroad mistake, but I genuinely wanted to try it. The plate of raw chopped beef was presented with a raw egg and herbs to mix up and I munched it down with a side of fries. Interesting!

My French trip was ever so fleeting, and I can’t wait to visit more of the country. I was surprised how quickly my terrible GCSE language skills came back to me and how accommodating and down to earth people were towards me at least attempting some Francais (yes, even in Paris). Despite being a bit cliché, The food was great overall, and far more simple than I had expected. It’s the simplicity of meat and potatoes or bread and cheese with reliable wine that make it great and far less rich and overblown than I may have been expecting.

GreenMan Sketches 2014

Art, culture, Drawing, festival, music

I got to spend a weekend in August enjoying the wonderful Greenman festival vibe, enjoying great music and catching up with friends. Here is a selection of drawings from my sketchbook. Don’t forget to check out my Tumblr for for music and miscellaneous doodles.

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My Secret 7

Art, culture, Design, music

It’s that time of year again when sweaty palmed music lovers get up one morning and queue up at their local record shop to spend lots of money on ‘rare’ pieces of fragile plastic. Yup – Record Store Day is happening on April the 19th 2014. As part of this national day of independent music love, a concurrent event called Secret 7″ takes place, a blind auction takes place with the proceeds going to charity for 700 one off pieces of Seven inch sleeve artwork with a selected track inside. The Artists and designers are a mix of invited famous names and those who happen to submit their own entries. Surprisingly, I wasn’t one of the invited artists, but I thought I’d give it crack anyway.

There are 7 tracks to choose from to create artwork for (each one is pressed 100 times). I went for Massive Attack’s Karmacoma as my choice, and eagerly began my design.

I had recently been doing some geometric line designs for the ‘Octa’ event in February, so I wanted to carry on with that flavour, and a single cover seemed a perfect excuse.

As the cover was to be a one off, I felt it would be fitting to screen print it – printing being a means to mass reproduction, so a single print seemed a poetic way of creating it.

Taking my design to the PrintHaus in Cardiff, I printed out the deisgn onto acetate, making sure it was the right size for the sleeve. It was, Just.

Next the design was burned into a freshly reclaimed screen. A few minutes in the exposure unit…

…and it’s done! (bar cleaning off the excess emulsion)

A test print needed to be done onto a fixed sheet of plastic to help aid the ‘registration’. As it was a one chance only situation to get it right, I had to make sure it lined up.

I printed out a couple onto paper for safe keeping / framing and gifting. The annoying thing was these came out pretty well. My single use 7 inch sleeve wasn’t the best pull, and lost a bit of quality in one of the corners. Note for next time – GET SPARES!

Anyway – the process was rolling, and I felt the cover needed a little something extra.

It might be that I had been swayed by my easy listening at the time so I decided to glam it up a touch. Discovering that fine line glue pens exist, I went to town. A sober onlooker would have advised I quit while ahead, but I had a vision dammit, and that vision was golden and sparkly.

Almost there, I needed to add a frame. The rules state that the track title and artist should not be included on the design, but I thought it would be a nice touch to include, but obscure them – The final owner of the sleeve could then remove the ‘frame’ and have the finished artwork.

Ta Da! All done.

I posted it off before catching a flight to Texas, reasonably pleased with my glitzy tasteless sleeve.

…….

sadly, I was not accepted to the final selection, which can be seen here

Anyway – Enjoy Record Store day on Saturday the 19th – and don’t forget to support your local music emporium

SXSW Day 5. Late Pancakes, Springs and Welsh Music in a church

Art, coffee, culture, Design, Drawing, festival, Food, holiday, music, photography, U*S*A

I’m hoping that my body clock and sleeping patterns are so thrown up and sideways right now, that when I get back to the UK, I’ll sleep so well I’ll be right as rain for work Monday morning. Stranger things have happened.
Which is how I had a 2pm breakfast (despite waking at 9am) in the Kerbey lane cafe, a typically Austin take on the American diner – all fresh juice, responsibly farmed produce and tacos on the menu along aside French toast and burgers. I was proper stuffed after my short stack of buttermilk pancakes 🙂

Checking out the Guadalupe road area around the university campus, I found a few decent thrift stores and an arcade bar playing punk rock in amongst the coin-ops. Seeing as I’d had a 2 o’clock breakfast I headed south to take in some of the south of the river vibes at Barton springs — a natural spring that is open for a short period every year for the public to swim in. Unfortunately the pool was shut for cleaning, but there was an area a little along that had people paddling and soaking up the sun. Feet all refreshed, I had to get downtown to get some music in me. I wanted to catch up with gulp and some of the contingent Cymraeg, so I went along to the turnstile records party at the st. David’s epistle church. It is a bit odd going all the way to Texas and hang out having a drink with a room full of people from wales, but it was a good night. Gruff Rhys played a lovely set accompanied by kliph Scurlock on drums, and Cate le Bon blew me away, despite having seen her a number of times – the sound and energy the band produced was great.

SXSW Day 4. Mary, Meetings, Cameras, Fans & Tradegy

Art, coffee, culture, Design, Drawing, festival, Food, holiday, music, photography, U*S*A

South by takes over this town, for good and not. It clearly brings an overwhelming focus and celebration of creativity to the town and generates a huge level of excitement and revenue, but also it seems a strain on the area and it’s resources.

Initially I couldn’t make it to town for a networking breakfast due to my bus running almost half an hour late (I was running late anyway) and I just about managed to make it to the convention centre for 11.30 where I was due to meet the band I’m tagging along the coat tails of, Gulp in order to pick up my music wristband. It turned out I could pick it up on my own, as as they were running late, was just as well. Without any coffee or breakfast and rather tired from however many nights little sleep it’s been now I walked past Jarvis Cocker who looked like he’d just arrived – of course I recognise him so I gave a friendly nod, smile and hello. A momentary glimmer or recognition from him faded into a confused scowl. I forgot his doesn’t know me. (but he’d probably like to).

I got to the dregs of the network breakfast and freeloaded on coffee, croissants and the strongest bloody Mary I’ve ever had (these Texans do like to free pour). A coffee shop meeting also failed to happen, so I spent the time drinking a cappuccino skyping with my wife.

At a bit of a loss, and deciding to save music for the evenings, I went to the Charles Long exhibition at the Contemporary Austin. I place of solace away from the crowds and a space to consider the impact humans are having on the planet due to our greed. An ode to Catalin – an early toxic forerunner to plastic and how our hunger for cheap and ‘safe’ substitutes has lead to the slow destruction of the ocean and our need for air conditioning and a comfortable life errodes the ice caps. There’s nothing subtle about this show, but that’s probably a good thing, and the 3D ‘datamapped’ iceberg sculptures have an ephemeral delicate beauty about them that certainly helped to centre me ready for main Congress. Towards the West or downtown, I took snaps of the area and visited Book People, local bookshop who’s had a who’s who of visitors from Simon Pegg to Timothy Leary (their photographs adorn a celebrity wall). I read a book on some interesting sketching techniques which gave me a little inspiration to get drawing (one of my personal aims of being here) . It’s not a library, so after browsing for a good hour , I bought a postcard, some chocolate and left. I LOVE American indie bookshops, well any bookshop really, I could spend all day in them browsing and feeling rejuvenated by the wealth of ideas, cover designs and knowledge (even if I’m terrible at actually getting to read of the bloody things once I buy them)

Across the road was Waterloo Records, one of the larger records shops – not first on my list as I was holding out for a smaller place, but I went in anyway, as one doe and left with a few cheap second hands: A Willie Nelson (I’m in his town afterall), A solo Todd Rundgren, and the new St Vincent album. I had a fantastical vision that if I did, somehow I’d actually get into the gig tonight and she’d be happy to sign it for me.

Another juice later (it’s all I seem to be eating and drinking here as I’ve lost my appetite in the heat, travel and sleep dysfunction) and I went into Hut’s Hamburgers, an old style joint from the 30’s with authentically delicious grass fed Longhorn burgers to match. Nothing mind blowing, but how I imagine a very good all American burger should be, with fries that have their skin on. Whilst eating I Met an LA PR agent who’s been doing SX since the 80’s. She’d had a few glasses of wine as it’s her day off, but we got on well and she insisted on walking me out to where she was heading. I drew my first band of the day, and headed to town.

The NPR showcase was tipped to be a good one, and some of the crew Cymraeg where at the venue. I discovered that they don’t allow ‘Cameras’ into the venue (more on my thoughts on this in a another post), and I pleaded and tried to work out a solution with the security and venue staff to let me in as I never take (digital) photos of bands these days, and how I was only out tonight to see St Vincent, but no. The man at the gate took a photo of me on his cameraphone and said I’d be able to jump the VIP queue if I came back after stashing it, which was really good of him. thanks to the sound engineer at the British Music Embassy, I stowed my cameras with him and heading back to Stubbs and saw Kelis then St Vincent play live. It was fantastic, despite the crowd taking lots of pictures with their cameraphones after being asked by the woman herself beforehand not to and afterwards I wandered backstage unhindered to see if she (St Vincent) would sign my record, but she was clearly upset about something and apologised before being hurried away by her people. I was the only person there, Vinyl and sharpie in hand, but no.
Wandering lonely around 6th Street, a homeless tour guide told me where to get pancakes near my house and about the oldest jazz bar in town – literally underground called the Elephant, so called because they found a wooly Mammouth bone while building it. I wasn’t sure if I beleived him, but sure enough there it was after everyone else had dumped me. I sat at the quiet bar drinking a nightcap of local bourbon on the rocks and a Spanish Austinite told me about the best burger joints in town and some super local tips as well as where Willie Nelson was playing tomorrow.

On the bus home, we drove past a street of police cars where an hour earlier a drunk driver ploughed through a crowd killing 2 people and injuring dozens. A sobering end to the day.

SXSW day 3. Film, chill and bands (finally)

Art, coffee, culture, Drawing, festival, Food, holiday, music, U*S*A

Waking up I promised myself no migas taco for breakfast. So I hopped on the metro rail ( unfortunately not a monorail as I had initially thought) after the ticket machine swallowed up 7dollars of my change and went in search of city treasure thrift. It was underwhelming, so I decided to stop in Cisco’s for breakfast. Supposedly an Austin institution where political deals have been made and broken it seemed a good cultural stop. I didn’t realise it was Mexican.

2 (good n spicy) migas tacos and a large coffee later it was time for the premiere screening of American interior , the new gruff Rhys film. Directed by Dylan Coch who also made Seperado with gruff and produced by Catrin Ramasut it follows gruff on a journey across America as he traces the footsteps of a supposed long lost relative called john Evans who first went to the new world to discover a tribe of native Americans that spoke welsh and along the way inadvertently helps to map the path to the pacific, and determines Canada’s border. It was a funny, heartwarming and enlightening film and rounded off with a special performance by gruff and kliph Scurlock followed by the magnificent Keith bear who talked about identity and played his hand carved flutes.

I met some old and new friends at the screening and accompanied them back to their house in the hot and sunny Texan afternoon which was great. It was a very ‘chill’ afternoon drinking iced mocha, supping corona while schedules and plans were made.

Following my new welsh/uk contingent back into town to latitude30 , where the British music embassy was hosting Huw Stephen’s uk music showcase, I had to watch the first half of sweet Baboo’s set from outside as I still didn’t have a wristband. Luckily Huw let me in through the stage door and I spent the night watching Alice Wolf, Prides, Bi Polar sunshine and Jungle. All in all a good evening with great company, decent music and some rather large rum and colas.

SXSW Day 1. Acclimatizing

Art, coffee, culture, Design, Drawing, festival, Food, holiday, music, U*S*A, VJ

After being woken by a bird (I presume) that sounded like a Guinea pig, and not being able to figure out how to use the coffee machine I headed out to explore the ‘hood. I picked up a coffee and a migas taco and walked west toward downtown via the Blanton museum of art. Housing a permanent exhibition of art from the Americas, the contemporary galleries displayed a refreshing Latin (and female) perspective on the rise of American abstract expressionism. The temporary exhibition was a retrospective of Eva Hesse and Sol Lewitt’s drawing experiments and how their relationship spurred each other on to challenge themselves. The musum’s main Atrium houses a commisioned permenant installation by Teresita Fernández made up of thousands of tiles of incandescent turquoise, giving the space an almost Mediterranean or Arabian feel.

A postcard later, I pushed on downtown to see if I could so some sxsw. The chaos of sixth street pushed me into the halcyon coffee shop for a recharging snack of Nutella crepe and an iced coffee before wandering about the ‘interactive’ trade show in the convention centre hall. I thankfully managed to pick up some free t shirts ( I didn’t bring enough) and some temporary NASA tattoos.

As the sum went down, I went to the river to watch the bats fly in and out from under the congress bridge. They squeak a lot.

My Analogue Boxes

Art, culture, Design, photography

Cameralamadindong

Over the years, I’ve managed to build up a fair sized collection of things. Stemming from an innate inability to let go of ‘stuff’, I continuously fail to live the zen-like lifestyle I like to think I aspire to. whether it’s badges, retro games consoles (and every version of street fighter two I can find for anything I won that has a processor), pens, magazines and on the shelf above my desk at home, cameras. I haven’t set out to ‘collect’ cameras, and each one is relatively unique, be it from a historical perspective or practical use / medium or aesthetic. Most of the camera are in use and serve a particular function. Or if they don’t ‘they’ll be useful one day’… Here’s a list of (some) of my analogue 35mm and 120mm cameras.
It’s all very hip right now to use ‘real’ film cameras, and I guess I’m typical of a breed of photographer clinging onto what may well be the last gasp of easily being able to shoot with film. There is a different discipline involved, and I recommend it to anyone who only thinks digitally when it comes to photography. There’s a different impetus on pushing that shutter button, as you know it has to count, and there’s no way of telling if a picture will be any good until it’s processed. I also believe that there’s a real physical quality to film based images, I don’t know if this is an imagined ‘false nostalgia’, but it’s almost as if there’s a spectrum of experience that defies current digital sensors in the same way that vinyl recordings hold audio frequencies either end the audible scale, I think that chemical photography includes a hidden spectrum that adds to it’s immediacy that can’t be faked with a retro filter.

Minolta Dynax 500si

My first ‘proper’ 35 mm SLR camera, which was a joint birthday / Xmas present when I first got interested in photography back in ’93. Although it might have been a bit overkill in terms or spec, it’s the camera I grew with and still used it fairly regularly until about 2007 when I inherited my first ‘D’SLR (a NIKON D70, which now belongs to my Dad). It’s still in good shape, despite the hand grip has discolored.

Mamiya C330

A Twin reflex medium format camera, similar to one reputedly once favoured by Dianne Arbus. Gifted to me in a semi functioning state, I’ve since shot a couple of rolls on it with pleasing results. it’s seen better days, and is a little temperamental, but once you get a clear shot from one of these things, nothing compares. wiki

Minolta Hi-Matic 7

After spending countless years gathering dust in my Father-in-law’s attic, I’m now the proud own of this wonderful little rangefinder. The quality of the lens is breathtaking in the right circumstances and the depth of field is fantastic. It has a rather peculiar focusing method, which doesn’t lend itself to super quick shooting, but as long as you’re not too precious when snapping with it, the results can be great. I tend to use this for people snaps, as I’m terrible at taking pictures of friends and family, but using this seems to take the pressure off, especially as I feel there’s an ‘immediacy of the moment’ that 35mm manages to capture, that can be too fleeting for the digital calculations of more modern photography.
I’ve since seem a company that refurbished rangefinders like this to make them super fancy
wiki

Canon AE-1

Another hand-me-down from a family friend who was about to list it on Ebay is quickly becoming my go-to camera when I don’t need the pin-point accuracy of my Nikon D7000. This is the only Canon camera in my rosta although I’ve gone through a few canon digital compacts, which I loved, but since owning a Nikon DSLR, the modern Canon’s never quite feel right in my hand. This analogue beauty doesn’t have this issue and I find shooting with it a consistent pleasure. wiki

LOMO Lubitel 166B

Picked up from a flea market a few years back, I only bought it because it was so cheap, and still with it’s original ‘Made in the USSR’ box and instructions. I’ve not shot anything with it as yet, but I’ve got a roll of 120 film in the fridge waiting to get exposed. wiki

LOMO Colorsplash

This little compact got me back into using 35mm film in about 2004 after a good few years shooting with digital compacts. from the ‘shoot from the hip’ stable of LOMO cameras the novelty factor with this device is the flash, specifically the ‘colorsplash’ flash. a bit of fun, and adds a certain flourish to blurry toy camera prints.LOMO page

Polaroid 635 CL

I think I picked up this simple beauty with it’s retrograde 80’s carefree lines from a charity shop in the late 90’s – an era when Polaroid film was still being made and sold by Polaroid and smartphones looked like this.The only Polaroid I’ve owned, there’s very little to go wrong in the camera body itself, as the film included a battery. it’s very much plug ‘n’ play, provided you can still find the film. Impossible project page

I’ve got a bit of hunting to do to find any samples from the Polaroid, but will add then here when I finally recover them from an old shoebox in the attic.

Going South

Art, bike, culture, Drawing, festival, music, U*S*A, VJ

South by South West is one of those events that has been on my ‘one day’ wishlist for a few years now, but the excuse to fly over to Texas for a week of music, crowds, tacos and sun has always eluded me. that is until this year.

Flights are booked and a house share set up, I’m winging my way to Austin on the 9th or March for the Music week (and the end of the interactive). I’m lucky enough to be tagging along with Gulp who are one of the showcase bands, so I’ll be taking my projector along and hopefully doing some projection for their set.

Now Texas may seem a bit of a long way to travel for the sake of a handful of half hour gigs (you’d be right), but it’s said that SXSW offers up innumerable opportunities to see, meet and share a drink with a who’s who of the interactive, Music and Film worlds. I’m personally seeing the journey as an excuse to immerse myself in the alternative ‘fringe’ SXSW – aside from filling myself with free tacos and saturating my ears with music on tap, I’ll be drawing daily (every band I see), photographing and writing for the Burning Red blog.

They Ride Horses Don’t They?

As for my music itinerary, I’m probably going to worry about that when on the plane or in the fray of Sixth street, and once I’ve had time to fill up my SXSW app schedule. I have a vision of throngs of people all trying to get in to the bands that are ‘so hot right now’ so if that does turn out to be the case I’ll likely go with the flow on that one.

I’ll be living like a Texan for the week, and should I need a break from the bands, here’s my list of top things I’d like to try and see and do while ‘keeping it weird‘.

Austinomnomnom

I’ve heard Austin is the home of Tex-Mex, but I’m getting the impression that it’s a foodies paradise no matter the flavour. I’m on a mission to find the best burger, pancakes, milkshake, tacos that I stumble across. Oh yes, and a pharmacy.

Speed Demon

I will be staying in a shared house allegedly a 45 minute walk to the downtown area where many of the gigs will be in the evening. I’m used to cycling my way around Cardiff, and considering Austin is a bike friendly city (for America) I’d like to try and get hold of a bike while there. Although many bike shops rent, it’d work out pricey and the bikes on offer all seem a nit too good. I’m going to make my way to the bike farm when I arrive and see if I can pick up an oldie for under $100. (fingers crossed)

Seeing is Believing

When I feel the need to give my ears a rest, I’ll likely fancy bombarding my eyeballs and brain with some art. I’ll cetainly be after some contemporary work, but the Blanton is a museum I see cropping up so I’ll start there, and see where that leads me.

Going Down

The wrong side of the river seems to be where it’s at. The South congress looks to be a long stretch of galleries, shops, cafes and curiosities. I can’t promise that I will be able to resist picking up a pair of boots while there though.

So, only two weeks to go and I’m equally excited and vervous, but I’ll be updating this and the Burning Red blog as often as I can, not to mention my instagram and tumblr sketchbook

Photo Credit: Phillip Kromer

How to Boil an Egg

Art, coffee, Food, music

I like eggs.

I don’t eat them as often as I like, but my weekend breakfasts certainly have a ellipsoidal shaped space for them.

Commonly on Saturdays I’ll go for a fried egg in a croissant for breakfast – sounds odd, but I urge you to try it, an American play on fried egg sandwich, the sweetness of the pastry and savoury egg combo is a winner. Sunday, is more a louche poached egg on toast vibe (the secret is not to let your water overly boiled and add a cap-full of vinegar to the water before cracking the egg in, don’t worry about creating an otherworldly vortex – it’s a myth.

However, since working only four days a week, Friday’s have become my boiled egg day.

The simplest of recipes, yet with enough nuances, Delia Smith needed to write a book about it to encourage people back into the kitchen in the 80’s.

Doing a quick internets search, there seems to be as many different techniques as one can realistically invent, and while most are variations on a them (put egg in water and boil it), it is surprisingly varied.

My personal method ignores Delia’s good advice (although I might try it next time to see) and goes on my gut instincts, so if it doesn’t work for you, I’m sorry. This method does not guarantee a perfect soft boiled egg, and I take no responsibility for hard boiled disappointment, but this is how I roll.

Method

Put your egg into a small saucepan.
Just about cover with water
bring to the boil (many chef say simply simmer, I would say go more than a simmer, less than a roll)
as soon as it’s bubbling, set the timer for 2 mins 30 seconds
Put your toast in the toaster (Soughdough if you can get it is preferable)
Time’s up! – quickly put your egg in an egg cup, while you butter and top your toast (Marmite for me please)
Bash, Slice, Peel – whatever you need to do to get into your egg.
Fingers crossed the yolk is runny and the white solid, NOW EAT!

Here’s a quick video I made a while back illustrating this, with sound by PhantomHead

Week–a–Gig–a–Thon

Art, bike, Cardiff, culture, Drawing, festival, music, VJ

It’s October!

Unofficially the busiest time of the year. In the space if a month, Cardiff plays host to the Cardiff design festival, the welsh music prize, made in Roath, Swn festival, Cardiff contemporary, some of these in the same weeks!

Usually on the week of Swn, like clockwork I’m guaranteed to have a cold, luckily this year I mostly got it out of the way last weekend, and just as the phenylepheriine was wearing off, Thursday evening welcomed the start of Swn with the Welsh Music Prize Awards. I arrived at the kuku club just about on time cycling through a sunny Llandaff fields from a student design presentation at Cardiff Met. After sweatily wandering into a dark sober club straight from work seemed to leave everyone a bit spaced out, so after a complimentary bourbon and lemonade, Jon Rostron and Huw Stephens welcomed everyone and Adam Walton warmed us up for the nominees. As a clip and introduction to each artist was played, the tightly packed crowd of journalists, bands, friends, promoters and fans nodded along and cheered each other on.
Georgie Ruth deservedly got the honour this year, and was genuinely surprised and excited. Wolfing down a ‘mini food’ trio of canapés, I hot footed I over to the angel hotel – somewhere I hadn’t been since a fetish themed rave in the late nineties. It’s good to see such forgotten venues with magical carpets being home to festival events. Eventually I managed to line check the projector and balance it on the edge of the stage (the only place to put it) in between HMS Morris and Chlöe Howl.
Walking round the corner to clwb Ifor bach I set up my projector and laptop just in time for a fantastic set by gulp. Their disco space pop filled the packed room with Guto Pryce’s psychedelic synth bass and Lindsey Levan’s soaring vocals. I always enjoying beaming with bands in clwb as I usually get to fill the stage upstairs with moving light, hopefully helping to produce a far more immersive experience than simply using screens. As the gig finished, I ran with asthma inducing speed around the corner to plug in, borrow Owain’s Ventolin and projected above the stage for a solid Trwbador gig in the Swn venue with the best carpet.

Friday, I had other commitments in the evening, but during the day, I popped into town to have a brief look at the Cardiff Open exhibition in the Castle arcade. Happening about every 6 months, it’s an exhibition made up of artists from around Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan, while the types of artists are varied, it does focus on the more ‘tangible’ side of art – paintings, sculpture, printmaking, photography and ceramics. The standard of the work does seem to be pretty high, and this year, I particularly enjoyed the huge lino print by John Abell with it’s beautifully primal depictions of medieval-wild welsh coal mining valley tales. Natasha Mayo’s blackboard painted clay sculpture of a hairless child holding a duckling standing in front of a large blackboard also caught my eye.

I went next door to chance at having my psycho analysis drawn by Casey Raymond, but probably fortuitously, he was fully booked.

Saturday saw the Made in Roath festival kick off with full steam. In its fifth year, made in Roath is a truly community led affair. Celebrating creativity in all its forms, the weekend plays host to workshops, music events, live art, exhibitions, street theatre and the hugely popular open houses, where people hold art exhibitions in their homes. In the afternoon I went over to check out ‘Inverness groove’ where there annual Roath bake off was held in spice of life, a dodgy postcard and tea room wa, cf≈ ≈s run by the SHO gallery, and artist Richard Huw Morgan DJ’d on the street with drunken miss orderly. The duo only played records from the record shops bargain crates. Rhm or ‘Mr ohm’ focused on only playing 60’s 7-inches with messages or notes scrawled on the sleeves, whilst Zia torta matched her outfit with a music diet of 80’s rock pop and early rave.

Saturday evening I was back in clwb to visualise for fist of the first man, for what may be their last going for a while (as guitarist allun Gaffy has gone to focus on other projects). With the lights off, I attempted to pummel the audiences eyes with audio reactive geometric white shapes while Mark Foley’s deep bass melted the walls to zwolf’s compositions.

After packing up my equipment, I stopped for a quick dance to the extremely loud and deep bass of clipping. While I couldn’t get on board the MC’s lyrics, his delivery got the crowd excited and the bone rattling sub’s got us wobbling.
I caught a chunk of the Wytches enthusiastic teenage pagan rock before catching the debut full band gig by Cardiff legend Foley’s sh…apes project. Simian-esque psychedelic phrases with the best use of a brass instrument in pop music I’ve ever heard (filtered and distorted into another worldly antagonistic wall of human sound).

Sunday, although I didn’t catch any more bands, going back to town via a house on my road that was housing an art exhibition (with a unicorn sign outside), I visited Paul Granjon and his ‘Thingy Robots’ at the ArcadeCardiff exhibition space in the Queens arcade. taking residencey with his automonmous electronic friends opposite a temporary electronic salvage ‘Dynamo Wreckshop’ – a space where discarded electronic goods are dismantledand reconfigured into new configurations. the room is sprawling with the innards of old scanners, printers, VCR’s and computer parts, there’s certainly a lot of dissection going on, and I was assured that plenty of new hybrid experiments are being created daily.

Weekends like this are what makes living in Cardiff such a delight. It’s small size means you can cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time, and you still won’t get to see everything. The city feels buzzing and creativity feels like it’s seeping out of the cracks in the pavement.

The fun still isn’t over either. There’s the Darkened Room screening of ET at g39 to look forward to followed by the now annual Roath nocturnal walk finishing up at Milgi for a Made in Roath closing party Thursday evening.