Potential lost

I am reading a book by J.G Ballard at the moment. It’s called "Empire of the Sun" – There has been a Hollywood film made of it but I have not seen that.  This book has affected me a great deal. It is beautiful and horrific and ultimately fascinating book about war.  I do not always feel the need to be up beat and positive all of the time. It is ok to think about sad things, it is ok to be disturbed by something. There is a time and a place for different emotions. It is how we deal with life and come to realistic terms with our own existence.  Hence, this blog is about loss.

What I have not been able to get out of my head this week is the frustrated thoughts of potential lost.  We cannot choose what life or era we are born into and some of us are unfortunately born into a time or place that stifles, freedom of creativity, expression, and, well, life.  I have the imagined faces of the creative, adventurous and supremely educated characters JG Ballard describes as wasting away in Shanghai war camps branded onto the inside of my eyelids.  So much potential lost and starved. What would these people have done; achieved; brought to the world if they had been dealt a different hand? 

Just before you slit your wrists, it is leading somewhere...

These thoughts have since developed into a consideration of the concept of luck and chance in life, and right now I feel bloody lucky.  Despite not being a world famous music producer (yet), I am in the extremely fortunate position of being amongst like minded people who I can express myself creatively with, and more importantly, we have the freedom to actually do it.  Just need to keep reminding myself of this every time the music business does my freakin' nut in.

Col x

Stefan's a very good friend of mine and we made live drum and bass together. Now he's living out in Oakland California making outstanding electronic pop music with a lady with a wonderfully open and distinctive voice - Zeina.

Listen and enjoy.

D x

Django Django - Default

Just put on to these guys by Col. So fresh and fun!!

Django Django - Default by Django Django

2BillionBeats February 2012 Mix

Apologies for the length of time between posts. It's moving house that does it you see. And children. And a hectic work environment. And the amount of paperwork that you have to do these days.

You see you used to pay someone some money for something and expect a service you could rely on precisely because you paid some of your hard-earned cash for this privilege. I'm not talking that long ago either.

Yes there were charlatans, idiots and downright con-artists out there pretending to sell a service and actually merely grabbing you by the short and curlies and giving you a sort of financial wedgie. But you needed to be unlucky to encounter one of these black market types.

Nowadays I can't tell a good'un from a bad'un I'm drowning in so much legal paraphernalia. The last 30 years of a US-led litigation frenzy means that no-one is prepared to go the extra mile for you. Or at least not without an armful of legal 'get out of jail free' clauses. In fact, you have to go an extra mile for them!

Even the apparently simple task of installing a bit of software so that you can listen to something on your computer involves signing up to 1001 clauses that you don't, nae can't, read because life is too goddamn short.

Anyhow, I've moved 1.8 miles down the road (I measured it using the car's odometer) and the above is a sort of apology for not keeping in touch.

Which all leads me rather oddly to Tom and Col's 2BillionBeats project and a nice little mix that they've put together that you should all listen to (if you're not drowning in too much paperwork....)

Diet

Happy Chrimbo and a little Grace Slick (well quite a lot actually!)

So I'm lounging around here down in Landaaan with the family and actually have 5 minutes to post something!

Firstly, may I wish everyone a very merry Christmas. Normally it's seasonal to look back at the past 12 months and do some kind of review and top 10/20/50/100 tunes/films/books/reality tv shows/idiots (delete as appropriate) of the year.

But I'd rather look forward, particularly as we will be moving house in January, and consider 2012. So in the UK we have the Olympics to look forward to, rising unemployment, huge debt, exclusion from Europe(?), the Hobbit on film and the Gadabouts actually officially releasing their album (remixed and way, way better sounding! More on that in 2012).

As a little christmas pressie I've also attached a link to one of my all time favourite tracks by Grace Slick somewhat disingenuously referred to as psychedelic rock on Wikipedia. More like spanish/latin american rock to me but woteva!!!!

Diet


Grace Slick - Theme from the movie Manhole

Scuba - Essential Mix - Live @ Sonar (June 2011)

Sorry haven't posted for a while - a necessary radio silence I'm afraid. Too many babies on the scene at the moment.

Anyhow, had to big-up Paul at Hotflush who used to play the second room at a couple of our Payload nights that we put on down in Landaan in the early naughties.

This is from his set at Sonar this year and I have to say I take my hat off to Paul. He's managed to stick to his principles and build an essential label where all the music has that key ingredient of coolness. I believe that he lives in Berlin now although I might be wrong - I've been soooooo out of touch lately.

Diet


PS Get well soon Col xx   Scuba - Essential Mix - Live @ Sonar (June 2011) by Hotflush

A simple digital life

I miss my vinyl records. However, I have been thinking about space recently and how things have changed since the most popular medium of purchasing art has been sitting on your arse and sucking it out the ether through your laptop. I am torn between having that something to touch and admire in its physical form and the active ceremony of discovering it in a real shop with real people, and saving time and space by taking the easy digital option. I am also considering buying a boat to live on which is far smaller than my already small space that I can't fit my vinyl records in anyway. (They are stored in a studio in Manchester along with everything else exciting that I own). To be digital is also to be environmentally conscious and if you are educated in the issues that the world faces today and in the near future, it is to be a responsible global citizen. I love the idea of a simple life with little space consuming possessions that did not use much needed natural resources to produce, but I think there will always be a part of me that loves the clutter of vinyl, tapes, analogue hardware and artwork that filled my childhood and nothing will ever quite match its character. What do you think?