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A video discovered on the internet. Two inappropriately dressed women from the north of England are standing in an expensive but sparse-looking kitchen, pretending to drink from impractical square cups. Presumably the director has asked them pass the time by ad-libbing, which would explain the following rapier-sharp exchange that pulls no punches and transports the unsuspecting viewer right into the midst of a white-hot drama rich in narrative and characterisation:

Girl 1: You’ll never guess where I’ve been today.
Girl 2: Where’ve you been, then?
Girl 1: I went to the shops and bought some nice skirt.
Girl 2: Did you? Did you spend a lot on it?
Girl 1: No, it were a right bargain.
Girl 2: Was it now?
Girl 1: Yeah.
(Knock at door)
Girl 2: Are you expecting someone?
Girl 1: As it happens, I AM expecting someone.
(After that it all gets a bit unpleasant)

Why am I mentioning all this? Because it’s time for another helping of Chips!

Yes indeed, everyone’s favourite freak-pop avante-garde funk mentalists have a brand new single out this week and it’s a corker. ‘Fistula’ and it’s B-side ‘Mobility Plaza’ were both recorded in a basement in Chicago by the legendary Bobby Conn, have received airings on BBC 6Music, and are available now on 7″ single and/or three-track digital download. Three-track? Oh yes, because customers will be happy to receive an extra digital bonus track with their purchase, a remix of Fistula by a certain Robin The Fog, which will hopefully sweeten the deal still further. In fact, here it is now:

Sensational.

Available now from Parlour Records and I would imagine all the usual places such as Rough Trade, i-tunes and what have you. And don’t forget to attend the single launch party at Power Lunches in London’s fashionable Dalston on 17th May, along with two other excellent bands, METHODISTCENTRE (homoerotic street punks) and EARL SHILTON (black metal). To avoid confusion I’d like to point out that this event will NOT be at lunchtime, it will kicking off at 19.30 or thereabouts in the evening. Just wanted to clear that up.

See you there. Make sure you wear a nice skirt.

I have never been a particularly massive fan of The Beatles. Don’t get me wrong, I quite like that one off ‘Revolver’ that goes backwards and the other one about dragging a comb and catching a bus. But otherwise I can’t say they have played a particularly substantial role in my life up until now. But all that has changed! Because, gentle reader, I have finally hit the jackpot. My latest crate-digging mission in the flotsam and jetsam of recorded media culminated in the discovery of this miraculous item sitting sleeveless and forlorn in a Notting Hill charity shop; and fame and fortune could do nought but follow:

As you can see it’s a 7″ single of breakthrough Beatles hit  ‘Love Me Do’, with the slightly lesser known ‘PS I Love You’ on the flip (obviously you can’t actually see that bit, but I’m assuming a little preliminary knowledge here). You may also have noticed, however, this is not just any old single. It’s a Test pressing! In STEREO, no less!  Were my eyes deceiving me? How was this even possible? My already mounting excitement then took another giant leap forward after discovering a webpage discussing the top five selling vinyl releases on ebay, which claimed that a Parlophone demo of ‘Love Me Do’ with sleeve sold in October last year for a whopping $17,334.20. Despite the fact that the similarities between a demo and test pressing are somewhat blurred, and that this record didn’t come with a sleeve at all, I quickly realised that any record collector or Beatles fan worth their salt would pay through a succession of noses to get even a sniff of this treasure; and that I would comfortably be able to retire on the profits, perhaps building that little place in the country I’ve always promised myself;  filling it with tape machines while engaging a kindly old butler to finally help me catalogue my BBC sound effects collection (and also make toast). All this for an outlay of fifty pence. Not bad at all.

And yet as I admired the view from my freshly-purchased ivory tower, I spared a moment of pity for the poor sap who forsook all of this splendour by foolishly donating this highly covetable rarity to a charity shop only two doors down from Notting Hill’s Music And Video Exchange, possibly the most famous second-hand vinyl emporium in the whole of London. The poor man (and it’s always a man) could never have known what he had. So close to finding a profitable home for this treasure. And yet so far!

I must say my associates have been less enthusiastic about it all.  There have been those who, no-doubt motivated by jealously, expressed frank doubts as to whether this was as genuine an article as my brief, sweeping glance had confirmed. Such nay-sayers are quick to point out that there is clearly an actual proper printed black label visible under  the hastily glued-on white one. They go on to observe that the catalogue number ‘Parlophone 5148’ was actually a 7″ single by The Roulettes, entitled ‘I’ll Remember Tonight’, released two years later. And that an ‘actual’ stereo version of ‘Love Me Do’ didn’t even exist until 2009. And the fact that there is clearly a third track cut into the B-side. A ‘PPS I Still Love You’, perhaps?

‘Furthermore’, continued my so-called well-wishers as the butler politely-but-firmly attempted to show them the door, ‘What does the fact that you bought it for 50p in a charity shop lying in the very shadow of  The Music And Video Exchange tell you?  A little reading between the lines suggests that some pathetic attempt  at espionage was afoot, but the staff at MVE quickly spotted it and laughed them out of the shop! You’re a fool, Robin The Fog!’

Dreadful people. But I must confess, as the drawbridge closed behind them, my natural scepticism did start to creep back. It’s true that it’s a little unlikely anyone would be so unaware of the 60s supergroup as to sling out their rare promotional material in the same way they would dispose of, say, Johnny Mathis or Russ Abbott LPs. But all doubts evaporated once I gingerly placed my needle into it’s astonishingly valuable grooves. Here’s what I heard:

That’s enough, we don’t want to wear it out. But I think you’ll agree it’s the Beatles alright. That’s definitely McCartney on the piano. This must be some incredibly scarce early demo of ‘Love Me Do’ perhaps created before their manager Brian Epstein convinced them to radically overhaul the song and add lyrics, guitar, bass and drums. Plus Ringo on the tambourine. It’s even rarer than I thought! And what a fascinating insight into the early days of one of our greatest bands as they explored their light-classical, easy-listening roots! Appalling inept forgery? I think not, I know what side my bread’s buttered. Even if I now have a Butler for that…

My asking price is £1,000,000. I can be contacted at the usual address. Please form an orderly queue.

Hello. Three cheers if you got here by clicking on a link on the Resonance FM website some time between the hours of 22.30 and 23.00 on Saturday 28.04.2012. Three cheers indeed.

I hope you enjoyed trying to guess whether the mystery item was a window, a wall, an orange or Mr. Benedict. Or hearing about the Benedict’s adventures ordering sherry.  And if this is your first visit to my site, feel free to have a look round, and perhaps buy yourself a cassette.  If, on the other hand, you have absolutely no idea what I’m on about, don’t worry. It was just my little attempt to use up thirty minutes of spare airtime with something silly. I’ll fill you in on the details later.

Anyway, here’s another teaser from my on-going tape-loop project in the Bush House basement, fresh off the spools from last night. Once again this piece was made entirely using two tape machines, a recording of a door handle and precious little else. As you can hear, the tape loop was suffering slightly by the end of the evening, and the title comes from the condition it was in once I’d finished. The poor thing has made several thousand trips round the machine by now, I’ll wager. At one point I almost thought we were going to have to abort, but it held in there:

Work continues on the project slowly but surely. Please also note the picture taken by celebrated Lomographer Hannah Brown, who was recently my guest at Bush House and took a whole roll of beautiful photos of the building in it’s final days as the home of a major international broadcaster.  All will shortly be unveiled. Sorry to be continuously dangling the carrot like this. But I’m afraid I must dash as I have to lock up the studio early. Please excuse the mess.

Yours in haste,

RTF.

Remember a few weeks ago when I was going on about the Dexter Bentley Hello GoodBye Show on Resonance FM auctioning off their airtime at the rate of £10 per minute, with all proceeds going to help keep the station on air? Of course you do, we’re great friends, you and I. But in case you missed this very fine show, it’s now available for podcast here. There’s plenty to get your ear-teeth into, including offerings from Dexter Bentley stalwarts Sergeant Buzfuz, Little Sparta, Chips For The Poor, and a highly arousing Joy Division cover by Datasette. And, most pertinently for our own concerns, there’s an exclusive three-minute radio advert ‘How To Sell 50 Orange Cassettes Without Being Really Trying’ by Guy J. Jackson & Robin The Fog. A veritable feast for the ears.

But wait, there’s more! This week just happens to be something of a milestone, as The Hello GoodBye Show celebrates nothing less than a decade of broadcasting on Resonance 104.4 FM with a FREE event at Tate Britain on Friday 13th April between 18.00 – 21.30 hrs. Expect a lively night of music, performance and dance (yes, dance, that’s what it says here) featuring live sets from Way Through, The Skinjobs and the aformentioned Sergeant Buzfuz’s Holloway Tales. I shall most certainly be joining them and hope you will too.

But there’s still more! The anniversary party spills over into the following morning, with a live broadcast between 11.00 – 13.30 hrs from Home Front Gallery in Herne Hill, South London for the opening of the artist James Alec Hardy’s Decadia Broadcast System exhibition, an archive of video footage shot behind the scenes at Hello GoodBye over the years and shown as a temporal monument, in the form of a totemic street sound system.

As I’ve mentioned before, I spent five happy years as a sound engineer serving this Resonance institution, and genuinely count those Saturday afternoons squeezed into a small studio amongst mounds of instruments, amplifiers, musicians, small children, strategically-positioned buckets and the occasional spaniel as some of the happiest times of my life. Each week I was amazed anew at the variety and quality of artists they managed to add to the pile; and at how the show always somehow managed to go out on time, despite our soundchecking six bands right up to the very last minute while trying to fix the fusebox.

The fact that Hello GoodBye continues in its tenth year to discover and promote such a wealth of new talent, all on a minuscule budget is a testament to boundless energy and enthusiasm of the programme’s central nucleus (and in particular  the tireless Richard Bentley, a true champion of independent music). When not working on the show or organising the next of their long-running series of live events, Dexter Bentley is also a band, with Richard at the helm. Frankly I don’t know where he gets his energy from. Here’s one of my favourites:

On a slightly different note, a key moment for me during my time with the show occurred sometime in 2006, when a certain trouble-maker named Spinmaster Plantpot appeared as a guest on Hello GoodBye via telephone to perform his unique brand of a-capella noise poetry. Listening to his torrent of accelerated gibberish and having enjoyed an awful lot of Atari Teenage Riot over the years, it didn’t take long to decide that a remix was in order, grab a recording of the performance, and set to work throwing lots of noisy jungle breaks and gabba kickdrums all over it. The resulting track ‘Hello Spinmaster'(also featuring presenters Richard and Simon’s voices in the opening seconds) was played on the following week’s show and received such positive feedback that I decided to press it up on vinyl and have a shot at the Christmas number 1 (you think I’m joking? I timed it especially). Perhaps unsurprisingly, it failed to hit the top spot, but did garner some nice reviews, including ‘treading the fine line between shite and genius’ and ‘A super-dumb, scum-rave anthem’, which remain two of the nicest compliments I’ve ever been paid. As this week is a special anniversary I’ve dusted off a copy, and here it is once more. As you can hear, I was a very angry young man in 2006:

Sadly Spinmaster Plantpot lost interest in the project and rather dropped off the radar soon after the single’s release. The last time I saw him, he was appearing in an ITV documentary that pertained to be an insight into the trials and tribulations of ‘short and angry’ men.  He was even quizzed by GMTV’s Lorraine Kelly on the subject, for which he deserves our sympathy, although had things worked out differently, I’m sure we could have worked in some sort of breakfast television promotional opportunity. As it is, the fact that we never did make an album together is one of my biggest regrets, though of course there are advantages in boiling an entire working relationship down to the three tracks of an EP. It’s very difficult to bore your audience in just under seven minutes…

Anyway, I’m drifiting. See you on Friday. And again on Saturday. And together we will raise a glass and wish them many more years of happy broadcasting. Dexter Bentley – we salute you!

Having spent another night tinkering with my Bush House recordings below stairs, I initially thought I was hearing things when I popped upstairs for a 6am tea-break. Spending the night in the bowels of a largely empty building surrounded by weird creaking noises can do funny things to a chap. Fortunately on this occasion there was a much simpler explanation:

I should know better than to leave the machines dubbing themselves off in my absence, the last time I did the reels jammed and spooled a great big puddle of tape all over the floor. However, the only problem on this occasion was a momentary sense of confusion.

Work on the project (working title ‘My Life In The Ghosts Of Bush’– until I come up with a better one) is continuing apace and at some point I might be ready for a great unveiling. But not just yet. Time is running out for Studio S6, the Fostex the Studer, and of course Bush House. Soon the curtain will drop on them all. So, while there is still a working studio and a functioning tape machine the tinkering continues. I’m not sure if I’d be so bold as to call it a last hurrah, but I hope you get the idea.

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Some of the visitors to this site may be aware that when not fiddling around making funny noises, I occasionally draw a wage making current-affairs based noises for the BBC World Service, which last week marked it’s 80th birthday with a number of special events occuring around it’s headquarters, the iconic Bush House building in Aldwych, Central London.

Not only was all this revelry a celebration of the World Service’s continued existence in spite of eight under-funded decades of budget cuts, service closures and various attempts at character assassination by The Daily Mail; it was also to bid a very fond and rather sad goodbye to Bush House, it’s home for the past 70 of those years. One of the most interesting of these events was Tuesday’s ‘Farewell to the Stairwell’, a programme of musical performances celebrating the many different cultures and musical talents of the people working in this remarkable building. A large number of staff from various departments across the World Service contributed their skills, and throughout the day the walls and ceilings echoed to the sound of music from Burundi, Kyrgyzstan, France, Bulgaria, Uzbekistan and many other exotic locations. And of course I managed to work it into an excuse for yet more fiddling…

Fiddling? Oh, yes. My own contribution was a sound installation that played throughout the day in the Bush House lifts, consisting of a number of recordings I’d made using the sounds of the stairwell itself as a source material. A laminated poster (it had to be laminated to avoid becoming a ‘fire hazard’) explained to passengers just what was going on, hopefully concisely enough to be read in the brief span of a lift journey to office or studio:

“…The sounds you are hearing were created entirely using recordings made in the Centre Block Stairwell, often in the small hours of the morning; featuring a squeaky door handle and the sounds of someone whistling. These recordings were then taken into the studio to be looped and edited using one of the surviving tape machines. No artificial reverb or echo has been added, these are purely the sounds of the space. A Work in Progress….”

To add a little more detail (as hopefully you’re in less of a hurry), the Portland Stone-constructed walls and high ceilings of Bush House’s Centre Block make for a wonderfully resonant space and this lift installation was the first fruits of a recent project of mine making recordings in the stairwell and landings of Centre Block, often at night, using a portable hard-disk recorder or mobile phone. These recordings were then taking down to the basement studio S6 and dubbed onto quarter-inch tape. As I only had two tape machines at my disposal, loops are created by bouncing the recordings between the two and playing them back at different speeds, gradually working them into rough compositions. Thanks to the lovely sonorous qulaity of the stairwell, it takes surprisingly little effort to get some genuinely strange and otherworldly sounds from a recording of something as simple as a door handle. The only thing I needed do was adjust the speed of the playback and the arrangements of the sounds into loops and phrases. The natural echo of the space did the rest.

The following is a wildtrack recording I made by riding up and down in the lift a few times during the evening. I was really pleased with how the recordings blended in with the natural sounds of Bush House, not just the usual hustle and bustle, but a special stairwell performance on the second floor landing by a group of Georgian singers which fades in and out of the recording as the lift passes that particular floor.

I received some really great feedback from various passengers in the lift over the course of the day, some of whom compared it to Whale song and reportedly abandoned their various errands to ride several times up and down the building listening. A couple of very geneorous folk even drew analogies to the work of BBC Radiophonic Workshop, which made me very proud indeed. Others were slightly more disturbed, complaining that they thought the sounds they were hearing were the result of some sort of elevator breakdown. This is possibly due to the oversight that although there are ten lifts throughout Bush House, only the four in Centre Block were equipped with an explanatory poster. Apologies to anyone who was spooked, having once spent forty minutes stuck somewhere between the third and fourth floors of the North-East Wing, I can readily sympathise.

I must say a huge thank-you to one Lucy Gibson, for organising an incredible day of events all over the building, of which my installation was only a part, arranged at the very last minute (due to my own tardiness!); and to Clive, Vince and Dave in the Operations room for going to considerable efforts to pull it off. I still have a lot of work to do before I’m ready to properly unleash the finished results, but I hope this has whetted a few appetites in the meantime. It really is amazing what you can do with a spool of tape, a mobile phone and a sense of adventure!

The other news is that Factual Uncertainties, a spoken word ‘list’ piece by Leila Peacock (for which I produced the sound design) was selected to be part of this year’s Sound Thought Festival at The Arches in Glasgow. The connection between this and my lift installation is that this piece was also recorded in the basement of Bush House, where I do all my aforementioned extra-curriuclar fiddling. You may remember my writing about ‘Factual Uncertainties’ on this site back in October, when the Berlin-based branch of the ‘Don’t Panic!’ website ran it as a feature. If not, or if you just didn’t quite make it to Glasgow in time, here it is again:

The annual festival of mould-breaking music, sound and performance returns.

Brought to you by Glasgow University postgraduate students and the Arches, Sound Thought is two days of interdisciplinary compositions, performances, installations, presentations and provocations, travelling across disciplines, between genres and way beyond expectations. […] Expect blindfold journeys through dark corridors, noise, argument, pop song endurance and outright murder, lost correspondence to Chris De Burgh, ultra-minimal improv, the most exciting chamber ensemble in the country, stupidity, seriousness, and music for understanding, transgression and change…

As part of the festival, the piece was played on Friday 19.00-21.45 in Arch 6 and then again on Saturday 11.00-19.00 in the Foyer. Naturally there was a whole bunch of other exciting stuff to see and hear as well, so why not have a gander at the online brochure to find out what you missed?

One thing you definitely haven’t missed yet is Leila’s ‘Anatomy Of Invention‘ exhibition, which is running in the same venue until 31st March. Apologies for once again quoting verbatim from the press bumph, but they just write these things so much better. Besides, everyone else does it:

A series of prints which takes as its premise a small book of Scottish Country Dances which the artist found in a charity shop. Filled with immaculate diagrams for over 150 different folk dances, each is a map of physical intent – a potential narrative.

Like performance scores, each delineates a line of intention for the participants relying on a highly complex system of symbols to be read correctly. Like Beckett’s silences, Hanne Darboven’s numbers and Emily Dickenson’s dashes, here symbols are a way of writing without describing – turning print into action, dashes into dances.

Written in colloquial Scots, the humorous names speak of a vibrant oral culture: Kiss Under The Stars, Land O’Cakes, Soldier’s Joy, Wicked Willy, Rest And Be Thankful… In stark contrast to the grids of symbols, each name lies in wait like a story, as yet unwritten by the feet which will dance them.

Such an exhibition would be well worth the extortionate price of a cross-country rail ticket or the hellish discomfort of a 14-hour National Express nightmare, I can assure you (in case it’s not clear, I’ve stopped quoting the press release). And hopefully they’ll be more to follow, as Leila is veritable ideas machine, and looking set to be increasingly in demand this year. But in spite of this, I’m still  hoping to convince her to take some time out from her hectic schedule and contribute one of her lovely monologues to this Bush House sounds project. Fingers crossed.

In fact, I’ll address her directly: Will you help, Leila? Will you?! No pressure!

A big thanks to everyone who helped Resonance FM raise £18,500 in their mammoth fund-raising drive. It was quite an exhausting week, culminating in a four-hour free-for-all between myself, Lucky Cat Zoe and Mr. Connor Walsh of In The Dark, which for an extended, un-rehearsed transmission on slightly malfunctioning equipment went really rather well.  And my newly acquired poster of ‘The Sex Adventures Of The Three Musketeers’ should make for an interesting conversation down at the framer’s shop…

But there’s still more! The wonderful Hello Goodbye Show which goes out on Resonance every Saturday from Noon to 13.30 is giving away their show on 31st March at the rate of £10 per minute. That’s ninety minutes ripe for the filling with all of your songs, bands, field recordings, bits of sound art, or whatever you like. Within reason, of course, but someone of your exquisite tastes doesn’t need to be reminded of that, surely?

They’ve asked me to make them a radio ad for Resonance to play in-between their programmes. I was happy to do so. Here it is:

I have a special connection with Dexter Bentley and the Hello Goodbye show, my first job at Resonance was engineering for them, and the very first thing I saw upon my arrival to the studio was the baby buggy belonging to the programme’s then-youngest host, 3-year-old Chester Bentley. I quickly realised this was no ordinary show and no ordinary station I had got myself into. I spent five happy years amidst the chaos every Saturday morning, setting up three bands in five minutes on semi-functional equipment, making mammoth rounds of tea and strategically placing buckets under the holes in the roof (in the old Denmark St days), until the rigours of shiftwork and supposed ‘proper broadcasting’ (HA!) took over. In that time Dexter Bentley played host to literally hundreds and hundreds of bands, including Pete and Peggy Seeger, the late punk legend Ari Up of The Slits, Metronomy, good grief, the list goes on…

In fact, while we’re on the subject, here’s a short feature on Resonance FM I made for Monocle Radio a little while back, which makes special reference to Hello Goodbye. Hopefully this should provide a little colour:

Send your bids to dexterbentley@hotmail.com. You can have as long as you like, but be warned,the minutes are going fast!  I shall most certainly be contributing, most likely with a track from the recent ‘Notes On Cow Life’ cassette/download release.

Did I mention that was still available? It most certainly is. And that’s a charity release too. In fact, I’ve made a new page on this very website devoted to the label and it’s inaugural release, so feel free to have a click and a listen.

It’s been a busy old year so far, hasn’t it?

Hello. As you will no-doubt be aware Resonance FM is currently holding an on-air auction to raise some desperately needed funds to stay afloat. Right up until midnight on Sunday 19th February, there’s a veritable cavalcade of unique and wondrous items, special live events, celebrity guests, spontaneous competitions and much more. And for my own part, I shall be presenting the OST show in Jonny Trunk’s absence this Saturday 18th February from 16.30 – 18.30 on 104.4FM in London and worldwide on the web via www.resonancefm.com. I’ll be joined in my endeavours by Zoe from the Lucky Cat Show that goes out an hour previously, and together we have plans to turn the afternoon into a three-solid-hour bid-fest!

The auction is already taking place right NOW, with many splendid items up for grabs, but here’s a few we’ve organised specially for the OST show that I wanted to draw your attention to. Some of them are only being auctioned during the actual show itself, whereas others can be bid upon until right up to the following midnight. And the details of a couple of the items below haven’t been completely ironed out yet, so I’ll just keep updating when I have more to tell you. Let’s start with the BIG GUNS:

–‘The Shuttered Room’ OST, an unreleased LP by the late, great Basil Kirchin, 1 of only 29 pressed with special hand-made artwork. No reissues, no additional pressings, 29 copies for the world. You will never see this record again after Saturday, unless you win it! Here’s Station Manager Chris Weaver modelling the last copy you will ever see, and laughing nervously lest it should fall…

-A ridiculously rare DJ Food Postcard Record, 1 of only 30 pressed. Two minutes of strangeness in postcard-sized record form, released to coincide with his recent exhibition at the Pure Evil Gallery in London. This is the last one, there are no more.

– An extremely sexy DJ Food-designed 12″ Serrato controller disk on unique splatter vinyl. Used for controlling that fancy Serrato DJ software that allows you to DJ in a vinyl stylee using a laptop, and saving you the hassle of hauling a tonne of precious plastic around on night buses, or accidentally stepping on your prized copy of ‘Warhead’ in the dark. Think I might pop in a bid for this one myself…

-A 4xCD boxed set of commercially unavailable recordings by the great library music composer Roger Roger. Seriously, this is not available to the general public and is rare as hen’s teething gel. Bidding has started for this already, and no wonder, the music is truly subliminal. And there’s four CDs of it. Here’s Chris once again, taking time out from his tea-break to demonstrate:

–‘Play OST For Me’, your chance to be a sort-of host-cum-guest on your very own, personalised episode of The OST Show, playing all your favourite soundtracks and affiliated recordings, while Jonny Trunk plays butler and panders to your every whim. Bonus points if you play ‘A Whole New World’ or the theme from The X-Files’, as somebody did once (on a different show, I hasten to add).

– Cheekily smutty 30″ x 40″ movie quads (a slightly posher form of jumbo poster) promoting vintage fleapit classics ‘The Erotic Adventures of Zorro’ and ‘The Sex Adventures Of The Three Musketeers’ which it’s amusing punchline ‘Free for all and all for free!’  You really have to see these to believe them, which is a shame as Resonance seem to be having trouble uploading jpegs onto the spreadsheet. Anyway, take my word for it, they’re highly amusing.

–Five pairs of tickets to see one of the films at the BFI‘s forthcoming season concentrating on the work of  Vincente Minnelli and three pairs to any of the upcoming Opera Encore screenings (which are during the day, please take note!). With thanks to our friends at the British Film Institute for this most generous offer!

-A VERY exciting CD containing an exclusive unreleased work by sound artisit John Wynne, a four-minute piece concerning the secret to great radio, in a limited edition of 1, courtesy of our friends at ‘In The Dark‘! This work will not be made available anywhere else! Plus they’ve even thrown in a year’s free entry to their regular ‘nights of stories told through sound, of communal, focussed and curated listening events’, which is worth at least £30 in itself! Wow! Manager of In The Dark, Mr. Connor Walsh, will drop by with the treasured CD on Saturday to give it a plug and a play (but only a little, it’s secrets are strictly for the ears of the winner!

–A Sesame Street Oldskool Vol. 1 DVD Boxed set containing over seven hours of material, including the 1969 pilot episode, the opening episode of each of the first five seasons (check out the Orange Oscar!),the original ‘pitch’ film, songs such as ‘I Love Trash’ and ‘C is For Cookie’ and more bonus scenes than you can shake a stick at, including my all-time favourite – ‘The Great Cookie Thief’.

I’m going to have a lot of trouble giving this one away…

-A set of signed Kid Koala promotional postcards and sticker sheet, each one depicting an amusing koala-related image drawn by the kid himself, or a quirky peak into his jazz-playing-mosquito-loving world.

And lots, lots more…

Furthermore, as some of you might already be aware, due to my recent harping on about it, I’ve just released a limited edition cassette album ‘Notes On Cow Life’ in collaboration with Mr. Guy J Jackson. There are only 50 copies available, with 50% of the proceeds from each sale are going to the People Live Here organisation, and until next Monday I’m donating the other 50% to Resonance. So if you feel like purchasing a fine piece of limited edition sound art now is the time to do it!

BUT for one lucky bidder, there’s also the  chance to own a mysterious, forbidden 51st copy. The copy that shouldn’t have been, an abomination, a blot on the laws of physics. 51 should simply not go into 50, it cannot. Nevertheless it exists. And it’s up for auction too:

Or if you love your radio but aren’t that interested in shiny objects to accompany it, then perhaps a donation is more up your street? Every little helps and the station accepts Paypal, cheque or cash stuffed into envelopes and thrown over the gates. A spreadsheet of all the items up for grabs and the current highest bids can be found by visiting here.

If you love Resonance  104.4 FM and the broadcasts by OST, please do support us via a donation, pledge, bequest, gift or purchase from our shop. The alternative – for the station to take regular on-air advertising, thus bringing us a step closer to Heart FM territory – is too hideous to even think about contemplating. Tune in on Saturday at 15.30 (for one hour of Lucky Cat, then two of OST) with your chequebook, paypal account or cash-stuffed envelope close to hand and help us once again celebrate this unique and extraordinary station!

Yes, indeed, an ego trip, taking a moment out to bask in my new-found fame and glory. Because this week I have spread across the web like wild-fire, with no less than TWO websites running special Fog-related features! I think we can safely say my world-domination plans from here on in will run quite smoothly.

First off is Slow Thrills, the music blog of one Mr. Jonathan Greer, an affable chap whose writings and thoughts on music are very much in-demand these days on his own site as well as such journalistic beacons as The Huffington Post and The 405 to name but a couple. Jonathan is starting a new weekly programme of ‘Guest Mixes’ for the Slow Thrills site, and this week asked me to deliver the inaugural session. Naturally, I was only too happy to oblige, but he’s the writer, so I’ll let him do the explaining:

I asked him to do a mix as a bit of promotional activity for his new cassette release in collaboration with Guy J Jackson, “Notes on Cow Life”, as this is also the first release on his new label The Fog Signals. Well, he has done that, and so much more! The 35 minute mix includes a unique remix of some tracks from the album, as well as audio from the likes of the Focus Group, Imbogodom, Hills Have Riffs, Gum Takes Tooth, Roj, Gregory Whitehead, Ekoclef and Ken Nordine. Put some headphones on have a listen, I think it’s fantastic.

You hear that? ‘Fantastic’! Well, far be it from me to argue with someone Music Week recently branded a ‘taste-maker’! Here it is for your listening pleasure.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

And of course don’t forget to pick up your limited edition cassette (or completely unlimited download) of ‘Notes On Cow Life’ from the label site here.

The second exciting occurrence took place on the Awkward Movements website, which is basically an umbrella organisation run by a shady clique of underground DJs operating around London and encompassing a record label, radio shows, guest mix podcasts and an informative music blog. And I was surprised and delighted to find a very detailed and extremely complimentary article about your humble scribe, whom they describe as ‘an incredibly creative and unique force around underground London music and arts scenes’, which could well be the nicest complement I’ve ever been paid! Certainly better than the standard ‘he’s the guy that does that thing…’

They mention ‘Notes On Cow Life’ too, as well as a couple of other things I’m currently working on. And as Awkward Movements mainstay Keith P and I share a love of all things Henson, there’s a link to the Sesame Street Special edition of the OST Show that I did a few years back:

Which brings me neatly to the next item on the agenda, namely that I shall be presenting another edition of that very show, OST,  in Jonny Trunk’s stead next Saturday 18th February at 16.30GMT on Resonance 104.4FM. Not only that, but I’ll also be assisting champion selector Lucky Cat Zoe with her own show, which goes out an hour before. For this reason, and because  next Saturday just happens to fall during Resonance FM’s crucial week of fund-rasing, we’ve decided to pool our efforts and bring you a three-hour radio extravaganza, as well auctioning off all manner of exceptionally desirable goodies in order to raise some much needed cash to keep this remarkable station on air. And we really do need you to dig deep, dear reader, the price tag to keep Resonance afloat is certainly no small potatoes.

More on this to follow imminently. Imminently, I tell you…

There are those who would howl with derision at the thought that in the teeth of a gigantic recession anybody would be hare-brained enough to set up a label specialising in releasing obscure sound art on out-moded formats. And believe me they do howl. In fact, even I was surprised at the amount of snarky comments generated by certain members of my showbiz circle upon announcement of the launch of my brand spanking new imprint, The Fog Signals. Still, I never was much good at doing the sensible thing, and so here it is, our inaugral release. Snark on this:

Yes, friends, it’s finally arrived – ‘Notes On Cow Life’ by Guy J. Jackson & Robin The Fog! Perhaps the most hotly-anticipated limited edition sound-art cassette of the year, it contains thirty fabulous minutes of noise, prose and profanity, courtesy of the bendy, subversive stories of Hollywood legend and former American Idol contestant Guy J. Jackson bolted onto the warping and wefting sound design jiggery-pokery of Robin The Fog. It contains 10 of Guy’s fruitiest stories and many a doabolical twist and turn along the way, as well as some of the meatier offerings from my big sound cupboard. And 50% of the profits are going to charity!
 

Released as a limited edition bright orange cassette, the colour of cheerful madness; ‘Notes On Cow Life’  is limited to a mere 50 hand-numbered copies, though if you particularly object to things that exist in a tangible state, it comes as a download too. And if you’re not quite sure where you stand between the poles of tangibility and convenience, you should know that all purchasers of the cassette get the downloads thrown in gratis. The download, being a intangible object, is not limited at all and will go on being a download long after all the cassettes have been bought up by screaming admirers. Although tape enthusiasts are rewarded for their lifestyle choice with an exclusive secret bonus track at the end of side B!

On the subject of charity, I can also confirm that for each cassette sold, we’ll give 50% of the proceeds to thoroughly worthy ‘People Live Here’ organisation, who are doing some amazing work bringing the plight of the residents of Port Harcourt, Nigeria to the eyes of the world. You can find out more about their attempts to creative a ‘human city’  and about how you can help by visiting them here.

But for now, sit back, fire up that vintage walkman someone gave you as a retro Christmas present, and enjoy half an hour of magic and intrigue, safe in the knowledge that in some small way, you helped make the world a slightly better place. As an added bonus, Guy even found time to make a video for one of the tracks:

Further releases on The Fog Signals to follow soon. With accompanying levels of snark, no doubt. Still, my back is broad…