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Voting is November 4th I believe, if you’re going down to Cali (cos you live there!), please vote ‘No’.

Oh and one little thing, if you’re in the US vote for this man, otherwise a kitten cries. He’s your only hope, and you know it. And partly mine, because it’s not all separate anymore:

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Oh and closer to home:

Depression, recession, repossession: and they want to ban happy hours and cheap alcohol?!?!

Gordorn Brown is an asshole. Well you knew that; but it would be nice if he stopped the Presbyterian moralising such as possibly banning anything fun happening in this now depressing little country, and proclaiming about stupid and unfunny radio hosts, and maybe, like, ooh, little things like concentrating on the fucked up economy and a fucked up war like he’s supposed to?

Would be nice.

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And Cameron stop grinning at the back there. You’re just as fucking bad.

There was an era in the mid to late 80′s where videos weren’t cheap. So when rave and hiphouse/hiphop came along they needed something for MTV and Top of the Pops etc – so enter the stand in front of a screen video, usually with graphics ‘genlocked’ (aka ‘keyed’) ie. placed digitally behind them, or stock video, even more cheaply projected behind them…and loads of silly dancing. Like this (Keith Haring a B movie inspired):

Other ones include A Guy Called Gerald’s Voodoo Ray, which owes rather a lot to Len Lye’s Colour Box, uses computer animation and projection, and suddenly I feel an unusual desire for Sanatogen, not MDMA:

Neneh Cherry might be more famous now for cookery programmes, but in 1987 she was standing in front of a screen with some very embarassing earrings. Am I bovvered?
Pointless fact: it was produced by Tim Simenon, aka Bomb the Bass hence the reference to Tim and Timmy, you might hear from that person shortly…

Obviously one of the problems was the complete anonymity of the dance music at the time – few vocals, no ‘stars’, just rhythm. What to do? Well what about constructor worker garb, ripped video game graphics, weird building shots (cos it’s house! geddit?) and dodgy mosaic effect (cos it’s the nu digital age, right?). Erm…

ACCCIEEEDDD! Certain Residents inspiration to this one – the tune was banned in the UK so never shown fully:

And as rave took over, the videos got cheaper and more like Amiga demos, which is funny because they were probably produced on the Amiga:

And FSOL aka Stakker Humanoid were making their own 3D videos (Amiga probably too ) which seem very ahead of their time:

And apparently you should move your body over glowing radioactive lava fields:

and some actually became soundtracks for Amiga games:

Also pop got in the act twith bigger crowds but basically the same idea (1990)

As an aside, it’s interesting because I remember seeing videos by Cerith Wyn Evans using these overlay techniques from the early 80′s, and of course one of Leigh Bowery’s videos which was shot purely in a video booth at the Tropicana in London using the same idea…sadly neither are on YouTube but I’ve had a lot of fun looking at video of Leigh, he was a lovely man.

Anyway back to the (day)glowing outline 90′s – what’s interesting is that those with bigger budgets co-opted that ‘dance in front a screen’ style but maybe lost something of the original charm:

And then you have modern day, were the whole thing was co-opted by the new rave scene – such as the pisstaking Trashfashion:

and the MGMT Time to Pretend video which I refuse to link because they’ve obviously asked everyone who posted the video to disable embedding – they or their record company REALLY don’t understand new media and should be slapped. So there.

(I really recommend you watch the High Quality by clicking on the video and going to the YouTube page if you can)

In which our intrepid heroes produce the Rough Guide to Beacon Hill, not with Sank-her Goo-her or Magenta DevineTime but the infinitely cheaper Kirk and Tim. We also go to the Chinese Great Wall – no expense spared. All because I love* Beacon Hill so much!

Also take a trip around my home town, it’s the greatest town around, it’s a city (well village) of pain, it’s one big factory! (apols. to Mark Mothersbaugh)

Podcast version (MP4 – 58Mb)

* sentence may include traces of sarcasm. Please see a doctor immediately if allergic.

Incidental, coincidental, and purely mental music used:
Super Furry Animals – Hometown Unicorn
Felix – It Will Make Me Crazy (big mix)
Mark Mothersbaugh – My Home Town
Richard Hawley – Long Way Home

hometown unicorns - by Kirk and Tim -beam me out of here! it's a dump!

It seems like music the book selling model is changing – Boing Boing has had a lot of posts recently that support the fairly obvious theory that giving away free e-books actually increases sales (it makes total sense, try before you buy always increases sales, and like CDs sometimes you want the physical object, more so with books.

So when Mr Holy13Nation recommended a book to me, The Pirate’s Dilemma by Matt Mason, it was great to see that as well as the usual Waterstones/Amazon gubbins they were using the same ‘pay what you like including $0′ model as introduced by Nine Inch Nails (no not Radiohead, they just stole that idea, and it was just a fan-gimmick cos as soon as it hit the shops the ‘free’ copies magically disappeared!).

You get the feeling that the likes of Mr Mason, BB’s Cory Doctorow and Lawrence Lessig get it, that the future will be free electronic versions, or donation/pay what you like model, which will actually increase people buying books, CDs etc. as they’ll get a chance, as with P2P to ‘try before they buy’ – the idea that these technologies destroy the artist getting any money is ludicrous – who loses out is those with bad stale content.

It also makes sense as unlike the physical product the outlay is far far less – server space, bandwidth and setting up a paypal/ecommerce payment are far cheaper than the oil, shelf-space and outlay of a physical product. I think we will see more of this – and I’m pleasantly suprised to see a major publisher like Penguin get involved in this.

The book? Well only read the first few pages so I can’t give a review yet, but so far if you are into the sort of remix/mashup/open source and indeed YARR! pirate culture here at Radio Clash, then I think you’ll love this book. And at a nice price – one you determine.

Oh and even the book logo is Creative Commons, and available on the website, hence my ‘remix’ above.

Skip to the End 10 Podcast with DJNoNo is live – crazy talk, crazy tunes and crazy three times ten minute mix from a certain insane little red robot DJ. Occasional transient noise outbursts by DJ Lumpy and Mr Herring, and hosting and the rest of the excellent of the tunage from Pete Juxtaposeur, going from rave to dubstep, electro, drum and bass to silly mashups, cutups and breakcore.

Includes 30% more unheard DJNoNo and Instamatic tunage too – some of which won’t be heard for a while, or not in this form.


Here’s the tracklist of the mix, featuring kazoos, accordions and banjos, and err, death metal…

Calamity Metal Party

Humpback Whale – Also Sprach Zarathustra
DJNoNo – Imperial Nanny (Bomb mix)
Wahkazoo – Rainbow
The Toy Dolls – Livin la Vida Loca
Darrell Glenn – Banjo Mambo
DJ not-I – Whatcha Waiting For, Get A Move On (Gwen Stefani vs. Mr. Scruff)
Dj Moule – Dance to my Hump
DJNoNo – Fuck Me Rock (aka Fraggle Ross)
Larry Tee Feat. Princess Superstar – Licky (Herve Goes Low Remix)
The Presets – Talk Like That
Instamatic – White Witch Dub
Amorphis – Light My Fire
DJ Donna Summer – Push It (DJ Donna Summer Edit)
Ten Masked Men – Push It
CheapyD – Ass & Tetris (You Forgot Poland)
Ed Cox – The Tetris Theme Tune
Bong Ra – Hello, My Cock is an Aardvark
DJNoNo – Cross Channel Pigeon
Aaron Spectre – You Don’t Know
Delia Derbyshire – Time to Go

Go on. You knows you want to.

P.S. Thanks to Jeb for pointing out the the Licky song