Posts from — January 2008

Today, (like so many other day’s) I went to Google and saw that their name was built of Lego? Hover over the image, and up pops the alt tag… Happy Birthday Lego! 

You’ve nurtured many hours of… innovative,

creative,

and hmm… ‘devoted’ (?)

hours of play!

Building stuff up, and then knocking stuff down… 

LONG LIVE THE BRICK!

Also, while I’m talking about building stuff up… today I see that the Created in Birmingham blog is a joint winner in the Media Guardians Innovation Awards, which is great news. 

OK, I know all over the globe there are those of us that love a bit of Zep, but I spotted this in Birmingham a few weeks ago and it got me wondering…

Would Zep fans take the time to cut intricate stencils, to then spray around the city? hmm… or is this the work of a ‘record company sponsored’ street teams ambient marketing campaign? - taking it’s lead from the designer of the newly issued Mothership collection - Shepard Fairey - Obey - Manufacturing quality dissent since 1989! Some truly great work here.

Recent browsing unearthed this photo of the face that started it all for Obey - Andre the Giant. It’s quite strange seeing his iconic face on his person, rather than a sticker or poster! 

Andre tossing Mr Fuji. Ted Pushinsky © 

For any of you in Brum, this Friday evening 11/1/08, in the foyer of Symphony Hall at 5.30 see’s the Destroyers unleash their mighty sound. It’s a free gig and believe me they’re good, all 15 of them! 

The Destoyers - photo by Josie Bourne 

Anyone who know’s me and has gotten into any conflab’s about what new music is making me buzz, will no doubt have heard me enthuse (stop yawning!) about the amazing guitar work of Rick Tomlinson aka Voice of the Seven Woods.

I first heard Rick on Stuart Marconies Freak Zone on BBC 6 Music in 2006 and was instantly hooked. Fortunately it was only a matter of months until I was lucky enough to enjoy his live performance at Capsule’s annual Supersonic Festival. On that occasion Rick had drummer Chris Walmsley with him and together they made a glorious sound. 

Since then Brimngham has been able to enjoy VOTSW live on a number of occasions, the last being the one I missed… Well, isn’t YouTube great! Clips from Rick’s performance at last summers Moseley Folk Festival have just arrived online thanks to ever busy Chris (Prime Objective) Keenan - who is also responsible for the Supersonic clip above 

I look forward to more new music and captivating live show’s in 2008 - seriously worth checking out!

Worth noting too, that tuesdays Birmingham Post featured a great article about Chris in it’s Culture section. You can read it online, here.

Horse at New Street station by Tom Merillion ©

 …things aren’t as they first appear! Since I first saw the images of Birmingham born photographer Tom Merillion I was a fan. His images of the city, shot from the air, make this place I call home look like very detailed model. I’ve since seen similar images by photographer Olivo Barbieri of other european cities and even some photoshop generated ones of Tokyo by YongFook as found in the brilliant Ping Mag.

Colliseum, Rome by Olivo Barbieri ©

Tokyo Highway by YongFook ©

Well anyway, here’s the flipside. Model photographs that at first glance look real. I found this and thought iit was brilliant and definately worth sharing. Little People is ‘a tiny street art project’. Little hand painted people, left in London - to fend for themselves. Not much info about it’s creator ‘Slinkachu’, but new pics are posted quite regularly, and it’s certainly worth a browse.

Chatting with my friend the inimitable Mr Jago, the other day, he told me about an exhibition he was involved in Bristol in December.

Mr Jago at Opus Undergrond ©

The 12 Days of Xmas show involved ‘more than 70 of the world’s most loved & loathed contemporary urban artists’ and took place in the ‘The Old Bridewell Police Station in Bristol City Centre’. It sounds like it was a really good show with some great artists involved, several of whom I’m sure were chuckling to themselves as they brought their art to the Police station - a welcome alternative to their art bringing the Police Station (or it’s staff at least) to them!

The site has a full list of artists involved and their is a good Flickr set of images from the show.

Plenty of great stuff including the funny Obey pastiche - Tinker has a Posse. I’d been given some of these stickers in Bristol in the Autumn and was baffled but amused. I had no idea how big the Posse actually was!

The Royal Mail is Tinker’s Posse

After a restful break for Christmas and New Year, the dreaded headcold takes hold of me first day back to work! Great! - I hope everyone is well and best wishes for happy and creative 2008!

 Also, I realised that while my blog worked fine in Safari and Firefox on Mac and PC, Internet Explorer just wasn’t happy with it! (Cheers Bill!). So, I’ve changed themes and hopefully now everyone can join in!