Monday, January 14, 2008

Ayla's birthday cake by Kasbah, Delhi: 3ACAOC

A very chilled affair, straight forward chocolate sponge with one layer of chocolate filling and chocolate icing, so not very imaginative either. Competent, tasty, heavy texture. It was iced with Ayla's name at very short notice however, which is worth something.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

I've been published!

Well sort of - in a very roundabout, lazy way. Schmap.com is a tourism site with info about Glasgow that they cull from various commons repositories, hence tehy came across my Flickr photos. Its nice to get some recognition!

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Guinness Cake by Dave Green, 1ACAOC

I am hearby restarting the cake reportt in blog form, having been inspired by Dave's cakular offerings last night. We shall have a strict protocol to any cake report, that is:

Title must begin with the official cake title, followed by attribution to the cake author, whether it be man or corporation. Following a comma the cake rating will be displayed according to the official cake rating scale as we pioneered in NYK, where we shall use the Chocolate And Orange Cake from Peckhams as our benchmark against all other cakes are judged. Hence the use of the acronyms ACAOC (after chocolate and orange cake) and BCAOC (before chocolate and orange cake). These are to be used as if one were reading the cake chart as a list, BCAOC signifying a cake that is better than chocolate and orange cake and ACAOC signifying one that is less good. The number signifier preceding said acronym relates to what degree the cake in question is better or less good than the CAOC.

So, as an example Dave's Guinness Cake, which I have given a 1ACAOC is approximately 1 less good than the CAOC, so nearly as good, ie. in the chart it would be somewhere just below the CAOC. Got it? good.

The Guinness Cake was a pleasure to eat, bringing with it to the table the same wholesome quality of Guinness, combined expertly with a dense chocolate sponge quality. In fact quality is the one word that sprang to mind with this cake, which was topped with a luxurious cream cheese based topping - something that were I told it before, I would surely have baulked at, however it weass a resounding success and perfect compliment both in tazste and texture to the cake. The one area where I think there may be room for improvement, and hence why it has to come after the CAOC is in the main cake texture - just a little to homogenous in comparison, I think with the addition of some variation in the form of chocolate chips or something, maybe pork scratchings (on the alehouse theme), it could triumph. But an excellent offering and it did inspire me to file the first cake report in about 3 years, so can't be at all bad.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

First Day Falls

Attempting to film Joel and snowboard at the same time. I knew I couldn't multitask...

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Hecq

Ayla pointed me in the direction of Hecq who has an uber-cool myspace here. Thanks for that Ayla!

Friday, November 02, 2007

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Flight of the Conchords

That's why they call them Business Socks.

dBass gig this Friday


dBass jazz bar flyer nov07.jpg (JPEG Image, 756x560 pixels)

Monday, October 29, 2007

YouTube - Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip - Letter from God

YouTube - Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip - Letter from God
A crackin' song, (to be expected from the sac v pip combo) with excellent choice of beats.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

In Rainbows


If you haven't already done so, you should probably go here - but here's the killer question: how much is it worth?

Monday, October 01, 2007

But where's the recorder?

I was listening to The Decemberists' song The Crane Wife part 1 and I couldnt help but notice the similarity to a certain West End denizen's song about a boy with an arab strap...

Uncanny.

entschwindet und vergeht.

entschwindet und vergeht.: May 2007

I have discoveered that Murphy (Dougie) has a blog. It even shows some of his architecturally concerned meanderings. And he has also been doing some performance. Excellent stuff.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Screenwiped

How have we in this flat only just discovered Charlie Brooker's Screenwipes?

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Bench


Bench
Originally uploaded by Spherical Roy
Some new pictures on Flickr, from a couple of trips.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Avast photos from Gilly


tattooing
Originally uploaded by gillyroche
Gilly has put up some photos from Friday night's shenanigans, which also at the last minute featured Mr. Harry Wilson AKA H-Bomb. which was nice. there are also some pictures of me on a tiny bike.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Weird Bikes, episode III

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Avast!

Avast!

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Do come along if you can - Friday 14th Septemeber at the Captain's Rest, featuring Wake the President, Atoms for Peace and Tiago Andrade.

In celebration of Mark's borthday, Gilly coming back temporarily and mourning Lu going away temporarily.

Monday, September 03, 2007

SpokePOV, Freddie Grubb & Spherical in racing action



Originally uploaded by selimski
a whole load of great photos by selimski in this set.

Friday, August 31, 2007

Endangered Machinery


Endangered Machinery :: Industrial and Industrial Heritage Photography :: Haiko Hebig

I do like this.

See here too, for more industrial beauty.

via Core77

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Latest Google Toy


Okay, its probably not the latest (i think that must be the Google Sky application which is a whole other post) but this is very very cool. Geo-referenced 3D rendered buildings... Just follow the link above and click on the '3D warehouse network link' then open the kmz with google earth...

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

News of the bizarro


275 Wilton St
Originally uploaded by Spherical Roy
275 Wilton St, post collapse.

Friday, August 24, 2007

Monday, August 20, 2007

New pictures


MGM
Originally uploaded by Spherical Roy
Mainly from a couple of recent visits to Whiteinch.

Calgary Folk Festival

Some bands we loved at this years folk festival in alphabetical order. Those we really loved have an asterix or two:

Neko Case

Folk, Singer-Songwriter lady from the US.

City and Colour*

Lead singer from Alexis On Fire (Dallas Green) solo project. Kind of indy alt.

Brett Dennen*

Acoustic, Singer-Songwriter in the vain of Jack Johnson but MUCH better...

Eccodek

Canadian dub with african flavours.

Bela Fleck and the Flecktones

From the folk fest programme "Acoustic, Bluegrass, Folk, Funk, Jazz". Cool electronic banjo and drumitar to boot!

The Hummers*

More Canadian Dub, Funk, Jazz.

Paul Ubana Jones*

Blues/Rock, Kiwi Caribbean Londoner.

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings

Classical Funk/Soul/Gospel with a James Brown esque stage production.

Leo Kottke*

Amazing 6 and 12 string gutiar picking, simply beautiful music.

Nathan**

Possibly my newest favourite band. Alt-country from Manitoba.

Jon-Rae and the River

Alt-Country, Gospel, Rock, Soul...

Squirrel Nut Zippers

Fun, almost Divine Comedy, Cabaret/Big Show band.

TOFU*

A three-piece spoken word/hip hop beat box outfit from BC. Amazing, thought-provoking, at times hilarious, poetry.

Rufus Wainwright

I think hes pretty big at home so you probably know the score, but i was very impressed with his performance, he has a great voice, and he wore lederhosen!


Overall a very enjoyable weekend, see flickr for a handful of pics. The festival is set on an island park in the bow river and you feel a million miles from the city. If anyone has plans to visit calgary you could do worse than to time it to coincide with the folk fest...

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Japanese Sewers

Crooked Brains by Venus

For anyone who watched Teenage Mutant Ninja/Hero Turtles back in the day..

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Newly painted living room

Pictures of the newly painted living room, Rupert St:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/royshearer/tags/flat/

Friday, August 10, 2007

200th Post is Black

This is the 200th post to theSlog, and it comes via Padraig!

When your pc screen is all white (like a word page, for example),
your computer comsuption is about 74 Watt. When it's all black, the
average ist about 54 Watt.

Because of this, a few month ago, Mark Ontlush wrote an article
about the amount of energy that could be saved if Google had a black
background instead of white.

Considering the high popularity of the website, according to
Mark, the energy savings would be about 750 MW-Hour per year.
Answering to this post, Google created a black version of it's
search engine named Blackle.com ( http://blackle.com ) , that works the
exact same way as the original version but uses less power.
Pass it on to friends, family and discussion list...let's all
give our support to Blackle!!

Lawn Mower Bike

Lawn Mower Bike

I like these bikes, they're weird, but strangely logical!

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Consumption without consuming too much

Zero-waste Design now has a shop. Its an etsy shop, which means it was easy, but everythings priced in dollars.

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

I love map

Data Visualization: Modern Approaches

I think this is quite interesting. An article about information representation on the web.

Monday, July 30, 2007

Smile and Say Thanks


Harry + Chris' + Cat + David's play is on at the Bedlam theatre, venue 49 from 13 Aug to 25th Aug, Edinburgh Fringe.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

New photies


Salon Lights
Originally uploaded by Spherical Roy
I now have a cameraphone..

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Questlove on worldwide

I can thoroughly receommend listening again to last night's worldwide, featuring an interview with Questlove:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio1_aod.shtml?radio1/peterson

You may also like to check out:

Ben Westbeech (Dave McCormick know him, y'know)

and

The Heritage Orchestra

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Jo on the gogglebox...



fast forward to about nine tenths of the way through to see Jo.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Theo Jansen

I'm not going to apologise for this video: enormous wind powered walking machines, anyone?

There are more details here too.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Antibalas

from Gaz

I feel I must apoligse for my last 3 posts being exclusively from YouTube. I shall try and be less dumbed down in the future..
R

Beatboxin' Bush

Sunday, July 08, 2007

YouTube - London Calling - Bike Messengers Race

This is quite fun, although I advise you to turn off your sound before hitting play...!

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Malcolm and Jamie...

The following post contains strong language, expertly used:

Scene. Interior of Malcolm Tucker's office.

Malcolm: He loves Al Jolson

Jamie: The guv'nor

Ollie: Mamee!

Jamie: You take the piss out of Al Jolson again and I will remove your iPod from its tiny nano-sheath and push it up your cock, Then I'll put some speakers up your arse and put it on to shuffle with my fucking fist. Then, every time I hear something that I don't like - which will be every time that something comes on - I will skip to the next track by crushing your balls.


Armando Iannucci's The Thick of It

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Musical things I liked at Sonar

Kazumasa Hashimoto
Black Galaxy
Chris Clark (obviously)
Nicole Willis & the Soul Investigators
Dizzee Rascal
Kode 9 & the Spaceape
Oris Jay
Skream
Spacek & Benji B (basically all the dubstep)
Mira Calix
C2C (great fun)
Flying Lotus
Bubbz & Deadbeat
An On Bast
Tiago Andrade!

some design stuff about my recent trip

Set out to write an update on the zero-waste blog about my trip and got a bit carried away. Was going to post here too but i think a link would be better in light of its length!

Sadly not going to be many photos from the trip and evry few audio recordings too. Guess I was having too much fun catching up with folk - disappointingly little to report anecdotally unfortunately anyway. Will just say that I'm glad I went, and its hard to go back to work 9-5!

Monday, June 25, 2007

Dancin'



Courtesy of Mr. McCormick , who has a new location for his blog...

Friday, June 01, 2007

Front page news!

Calgary made front page news today on Guardian Unlimited. For all the wrong reasons...
It's a fair comment, but after being here 9 months and seeing a little of what Calgarians can and are doing in regards to climate change and sustainability issues, I'm a little more optimistic that things wont be as bad as Klein makes out. I may however have just caught the Cowtown bug. Yeehaw!

MySpace Outage Leaves Millions Friendless | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

MySpace Outage Leaves Millions Friendless | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Monday, May 28, 2007

japanese contraption - Google Video

japanese contraption - Google Video

Engrossing ball runs from the Japanese childrens' program, 'Pythagoras Switch'.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Living on the Edge



Urban spread is like no other i've seen in Calgary right now. This is a wonderful collection by the 10 cent designer on flickr that i think describes the spread better than i could ever put into words.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Lost America




Amazing photos and a guide on how to "lightpaint" at this site.

Image: ©Troy Paiva / Lost America

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Kitchen Diaries



courtesy of Kath

Monday, April 23, 2007

Eerie view at Dungeness


Eerie view at Dungeness
Originally uploaded by Spherical Roy.
I've uploaded my latest film - pics from Dungeness in October 06, new year at Gilly's, and Neel, Kath and Rowan's recent visit to Glasgow.

Friday, March 23, 2007

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."

Donald Rumsfeld

Saturday, March 17, 2007

loo in progress


loo in progress
Originally uploaded by Spherical Roy.
I've posted some photos of the flat renovations, as many have requested. Its hard taking photos indoors - my flat doesn't fit in my wee camera..

The collection is here [link might be below photo]:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/royshearer/tags/flatrenovations/

Friday, March 02, 2007

Toutes les autos de Tintin


Toutes les autos de Tintin

Testament to Herge's attention to detail, via Core77.com

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Frightened Rabbit: Sing the Greys: Pitchfork Record Review


Frightened Rabbit: Sing the Greys: Pitchfork Record Review

The Ol' FR get a respectable review at Pitchfork, something thats not always easily achieved. Hooray for the Rabbit! Hooray for Glasgow!

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

The role of Governmental websites.

I have always thought that progressive, democratic societies are built upon fundamental ideas such as freedom of speech and the right to a decent education (amongst many others). Considering both of these points makes me think about the internet.

Everyone has the right to write anything they so wish (as I am doing right now) and publish this on the internet, a freedom of speech that is incredibly difficult to restrict. Educationly, the internet has also enlightened many, even with a crappy 28.8k connection one could imagine that access to material (granted some of dubious educational quality) never before available to some has improved vastly. Corporations, NGOs, Universities and National Governments have all used the internet to their advantage, to inform and to educate the general public in whatever way they wish.

There is the problem however of institutional bias. What an NGO and a Corporation say about the same situation could be hugely different. This, I think, is unavoidable and it is up to the reader to decide who they believe. However, should this be the case when it comes down to websites operated by national governments? Should spin be allowed? I think not. I think there is a responsibility on governments, as the bastions of progressive, democratic societies, to provide the 'decent education' as I mentioned above.

Which is why when I recently checked out the Government of Canada's official Climate Change website I was so sorely disappointed. To be fair, you can eventually get to some musings on climate change after following a bunch of links from one government department to anothers website. But I was honestly shocked that one could simply declare an issue as huge as Climate Change a closed book, one that this government has decided simply to not provide any easily accessible information on. Could you imagine if they decided to not provide any information on HIV/Aids or simply had a page for a website instructing the reader that the site is 'temporarily unavailable'?

Perhaps there is no responsibility on any government to provide free and accessible information on any issue. One could argue with the reams of information on everyone elses website that this would be pointless. Perhaps that is what institutions like the UN are for, but at least, if you have an official page on an issue, maybe it should have a link to that institution?

It's a thinker...

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Ryuichi Sakamoto

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Adam Buxton but no Joe

Adam Buxton

Well, having spent about the last five days with the flu, I now have a long line in stories of sweating profusely for no reason, and whats good on On Demand. One of the latter is three series of the Adam and Joe show - you know what that means: three opening episodes that you have to pay absolutely nil for! (they're free). So they're the ones I watched, but I know the rest are there for me in moments of boredom, of which there are sure to be many seeing as I am living in one room with an armchair opposite the TV, which is on the fridge. (The builders have started).

Anyway, have had fun reading Adam's blog, which Jonny Greenwood linked to on Dead Air Space. Speaking of whom there was a Late Junction special last night dedicated to, from what I could tell, 'some tunes Jonny probably likes' seeing as they never actually talked to him. Still, it was good.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Useless Dog

What a Useless Dog... But lovely to have around the place no doubt.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

'Compared to this, Iraq was easy'

'Compared to this, Iraq was easy'

Guardian correspondent Declan Walsh reports from Afghanistan, embedded with the 10th US mountain division, in a series of narrated slideshows. Good stuff.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Flickr distraction


DON'T OIL MACHINE WHEN RUNNING
Originally uploaded by equipeowen.
This is from the Stick Figures in Peril group.

Also, Dave Gorman's Interesting Flickr Coincidences set is quite, wll, interesting.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Soviet bus shelters



Polar Inertia, a photography site has an interesting gallery of Soviet bus shelters, of which this is one.

via Core77

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Magischer Garten: nach acht und vierzig Stunden

You asked for it: the Magic Crystal Garden, documented in Flickr glory..

Thank you Anneka!

Tatooine


Tatooine
Originally uploaded by chartno3.
Haven't been there for a while, but Jonathan Percy is still posting photos for Chartno3, now at Flickr..

Sandy

Strangely, I've never visited Sandy's website before - it's rather good

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Dead christmas tree

Jenny has astutely moved onto Chrimbo trees...

The Guy Dawg


yessir
Originally uploaded by gillyroche.
Gilly has posted some photos from our new year in Milnathort. Thank you Hurly Burlys!

Sunday, January 07, 2007

It's Dave!

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/postgraduate/students/profile/573
Wow, you really liked that course, eh Dave?

And here he is again, this time at Culturelab:
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/culturelab/people/profile/david.green

Friday, January 05, 2007

Dead umbrella


Dead umbrella
Originally uploaded by Jennifer Louise Taylor.
Jenny is documenting all those deceased umbrellas that tend to pop up in Glasgow every winter...

Monday, December 25, 2006

Festive Greetings!

And as a gift, something I think I forgot to blog about a month ago: Neel's pictures from our climb in Glen Coe, that is Aonach Eagach:
here
Best wishes,
Roy

Monday, December 11, 2006

WebbIE

This from Neel:

Just heard a really interesting interview with one of the members of the cinematic orchestra on gilles peterson from last sunday - new album coming out soon he plays one track as a preview. Forward to minute 44 or 45. (hold down numpad 6 to forward if using accessible listen again (link below))

try this out
http://www.webbie.org.uk/download/WebbIE3.exe
for a standalone version of the BBC listen again for all the radio stations. Saves going through the browser interface (which maybe only I find really annoying) Also installs accessible podcaster and podcatchers. The webbie website also has a really neat interface to project gutenburg for free, out of copyright books.

Saturday, November 25, 2006

Snap

If you're wondering what on earth is going on here the following might explain it:
Snap

Reached via Geobloggers.com, an interesting blog about geotagging on Flickr and Google and the such like and possible intergrations with mobile technologies - very interesting, via the Guardian Technology supplement last Thursday.

Monday, November 13, 2006

I am Kritch

I am Kritch

Richard has pulled out the stops and cemented his web presence (he's a got a website)

Friday, October 13, 2006

theSound updates finally

I have rehashed the front page of theSound a wee bit to reflect the more fragmented nature of my web presence. I still like theSound. But that was then. This is now.

I suspect that that update was for the last time.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Glasgow this week

As produced by Suzy and co.

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Google Ads


Don't you just love the 'user targeted' ads that Google puts into gmail?

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Ladakh 06 photos!

I've uploaded my photos from Ladakh. For reference the address is:
http://www.zero-waste.co.uk/thesound/ladakh06

I hope you like the gallery. I chose the music myself. The initial view is a bit small though. If you click the bottom left button, you'll get a larger view of the gallery. If you want to turn off the music, which is likely, its the bottom right button.

Enjoy. I will happily give you a more comprehensive commentary if you come round my house.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Bell's Bridge


As you probably know, I have been cycle messengering since about May, and am loving it, although today was rather tiring having been off the bike for 7 weeks. Although I think the altitude in India did me good stamina wise, cos my bigger complaint was my sore bum! Anyway, I like couriering because I get to cycle all over the city and see new bits of it and get paid for the privilege. People say it must also be good for keeping fit, but I think the fumes from idling engines negate any beneficial physiological effects.

Today I did a long run from Temple in Anniesland to Sighthill (well, more like Royston) so I took the canal towpath all the way across teh north side of the city centre. I think its pretty cool that thats even possible. I also was at Bell's Bridge at just the right time to see it turning to let a boat through, which I've never seen before. It was much quieter than I expected, judging from teh condition of the painwork - its obviously better maintained inside than out. Also it was just a case of a couple of guys closing the gates at either end and pressing a button on the main mast around which it rotates - dead simple. It did grind a bit when meeting up with the other bit of teh bridge actually, but other than that very elegant!

Sunday, September 10, 2006

MacKinlay enjoying Calgary sunshine

As you may or may not know my co-blogger and also I'm happy to say lover, er, best buddy, has moved to Calgary. But fear not! This is no reason to impede his Slogging, so while he gets sorted, here are some of his first photos on Flickr.

Valley of Flowers


Rishikesh
Originally uploaded by Spherical Roy.
I've uploaded some pictures from the first leg of this year's India trip to Flickr. I have more, but am nearing my upload limit on Flickr so will put up my own gallery in time. Got dust in my camera in Ladakh anyway so they're not that good sadly..

Element Magazine

I wrote a review of the Subtle gig way back in June for my friend Matt who works for Element Magazine and they printed it! Its in the August issue which may be found in selected venues in Glasgow and can be downloaded from the Element website. Its amazing what people will print..

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

The Global Rich List

Have a lok at where you come in the global wealth rankings...

Saturday, July 01, 2006

popcorn ear


popcorn ear
Originally uploaded by gillyroche.
Gilly has put up some photos from when we went to San Fermin in Pamplona a coupla years back. see here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gillyroche/

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Gig Review: Low

Well, so much for resolutions. I've been to quite a few gigs since Battles and haven't written anything about them. Here's what I wrote to my friend Nick about the Low gig on May 2nd at the ABC. My Latest Novel supported:

>>
I enjoyed My Latest Novel more than the last time i saw them(which was the first) i think they've got better, Paul's calmed down a bit. They played better and the songs were more consistent. I love that loud acapella stuff, its really striking. There's a fairly dark thing to the lyrics i think which i'd never noticed before.

I donn't know Low all that well, just have a couple of albums but really like Trust. It was a nice gig in general cos its so subtle and down tempo everyone was so quiet and attentive. Its a shame the drummer and bass player looked so bored at times! They make quite a noise for a three piece, despite playing very few notes - it was a real lesson in subtlety and craft - the quy was hardly touching his guitar strings - just exciting them at the specific volume
he wanted. A well spent evening, I think.
<<

Went to see Radiohead at Blackpool (Empress Ballroom) on Saturday. Still mulling it over somewhat, deserves a more extensive review probably. Mind you, there are plenty of other so-called reviews on the fansites already, and some live bootlegs.

Friday, May 12, 2006

My proposal to mysociety

mysociety have called for proposals for their next democratising web application, so I put one in to do with strengthening micro-communities, such as that which should exist in our close here in our Glasgow tenement. Please have a read and leave any comments there.

St. Georges Cross graffiti


st georges cross
Originally uploaded by gillyroche.
by Gilly.

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

New photos on Flickr


George and Aby
Originally uploaded by Spherical Roy.
such as this of George and Aby, some from Skye, some from Loch Lomond, some from Anstruther.

Monday, May 01, 2006

All sorts of wonderful geographic data

"Global-i is a 3-dimensional interactive globe that displays information about the world in your browser. The Earth can be rotated and inspected and displays can be changed to see information in the most appropriate form." from Core77

Sunday, April 30, 2006

Thoughts at 2am on Sunday

battles are hard. They play with the vim and vigour I knew little of before seeing Frightened Rabbit a couple of weeks back. Apparently now that is the norm. All other drummers must up their game.

The difference between the Rabbit and Battles has to be intent however. Whereas Saturday night's Battles set was a lesson in performance and technique (by no means classical, but skilled nonetheless), Friday's was another display of shear heartfelt exuberance. FR's drummer plays like his life depends on it. So does Battles' except, that drummer appears to be directing his own fate. He looks like a drummer punishing himself. He doesn't play each with drum with both hands, he dedicates one stick to each. He doesnt put his crash and hi hat within easy reach, he makes himself work to reach them. The man sweats like a, cheese. or something that sweats an awful lot. It is as if the man is restricting himself in order that he can be the machine that Battles wants to be - one that pumps out a newborn montage of free dance and metal. Which it does, but with little overall purpose. I see the skill, the sweat and the conviction, but I can not clearly see the aim, the soul, the meaning. Perhaps battles are just an exercise, with no meaning.

Saturday was a night of drumming. We had battles, followed by Steve Reid and Keiran Hebden (Fourtet), two renowned rhythm mongers, all preceded by James 'Colditz' Chapman, trombonist turned drummer turned expert composer/producer. A tantalising set comprising all new to me tunes, played out to found sound backings on piano, cello, viola and trombone. James played with virtuosity, George blew assertively and lucidly. The performance was precise and so considered that it was played out serenely by all. A delicate and modest set that left the audience enraptured.

Later, Reid and Hebden would play with similar attentiveness but the sound let them down, as it did all the acts occasionally throughout the night. The venue was great for the event, large, open and friendly, and sufficiently trendy. But the sound was volatile, erring mostly on the high-end, and with various channels mysteriously droppiong out on occasion, while Reid's drums were almost constantly swamped by Hebden's belching samples. The quagmire lifted at one heady point of true dialogue between drummer and laptop but that was sadly unique. The perfomance showed great potential and given its brevity is undoubtedly an exciting work in progress.

The night ended with the Sun Ra Arkestra of which I feel unqualified to say much. It was simply a great way to end a great lineup, psychadelic and off-the-wall, trad and mod, simply a great big band. The first that I've seen in far too long.

[This is hopefully the first of many attempts to document the silly amount of time and money I spend at gigs and exhibitions.]

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

a short animated film

The cold beauty of car parks

Czech based photography via core77.

Thursday, April 20, 2006

A big shared drawing pad

just try it

Friday, April 14, 2006

Moondog

September 8th last year saw the passing of one of the 20th C´s most respected musical icons. Louis T. Hardin better known as Moondog was a revered pioneer on the Avant-Garde/Minimalist scene, his revolutionary attitude towards composition and melody was lauded by such eminent notables as Philip Glass and Steve Reich, while his style and attitude drew comparisons to Harry Partch.

Crazy japanese chain-of-event type antics

some great chains of improbable mechnical systems delivered via the medium of video

Friday, April 07, 2006

april 6th early hours


april6 014
Originally uploaded by Spherical Roy.
What I've been up to of late. (one of a couple of projects. The others being some CAD tuition at the art school, and still plugging away at the 'tonepad' idea - a portable musical sketchpad for graphically scoring and playing back simple melodies, chord sequences and rhythms. Thats what the Webcam is for (atop the speaker). Click the picture for more info about what i was up to at this point.

Friday, March 31, 2006

Masters PDE graduates 2005 no.1

Here is a picture taken by I don't know who of my calss on graduation many moons ago...

Friday, March 24, 2006

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Throwies


I like these little critters from Eyebeam in New York - build your own magnetic LEDs for chucking at metal stuff...

RecycleGlasgow Wiki

I've started a wiki (editable website) for recycling resources in Glasgow at:

http://recycleglasgow.wikispaces.com/

Please feel free to augment at will.
R

Friday, March 03, 2006