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!

I’ve just read that 2008 will see the release of a movie version Maurice Sendak’s absolutely classic illustrated book, ‘Where the Wild Things Are’. As if that’s not great news by itself, the director is non other than Spike Jonze . You’ll know his genius promo work for Sabotage by the Beastie Boys, Drop by the Pharcyde, Praise you by Fat Boy Slim, as well as the delightfully insane movie Being John Malcovich.

Where the Wild Things Are, is my default gift choice for the youth of my friends, it’s a book that no kid should be without, with some of my favorite illustrations ever.  Hopefully Mr Jonze will do it proud on the silver screen…It’s not due to be released until Oct 2008 (US) so hopefully we’ll get to see it before the end of next year.

Yesterday, I was enthusing about the latest series of the Mighty Boosh and their crazing ‘crimping’  to my brother Dan, when he suggested I’d like the kiwi duo ‘Flight of the Conchords’, a few short YouTube clips later I knew how right he was! I’ve still to see a full episode but from a brief search of ‘tinternet, I see that as well as being pretty darn funny, they also have an LP coming out on Sub Pop, next year!

Here’s a taste.

keeping warm is all about the layers… 

This is taking it a bit far admittedly, but very good fun nevertheless! 

is the name of DJ Chris Read’s ambitious and very excellent new mix tape which is available for free download - 28 years of rap history condensed into 75 mins, with over 800 tracks incorporated!! I really like the cover styling referencing the original NYC hip hop flyers of the late 70’s/early 80’s.

Residing in London these days’ Chris used to run the Substance nights at Birmingham’s Medicine Bar and from time to time he still comes back to play. Definitely worth checking out. Good work sir… 

and this morning I got a lovely one…

Copyright © 2007 Meisai. All rights reserved

My friend Lee sent me a copy of his first edition self published book “Breathing In/Breathing Out”. It was created to coincide in with his recent exhibition in Osaka, Japan. Lee’s work was exhibited at VADE MECVM in Osaka, after previously showing in Tokyo, at Adam et Ropé. Those of you in Brum, will no doubt have seen Lee’s work before in the brilliant publicity materials he’s designed the annual Fierce festival amongst many other things created in his role as designer at the mighty Fluid.

I’m a huge fan of his work, and seeing this awesome little book, I really hope it’s the first of many…

hai hai Mr B!!

Lucy’s first solo London show open’s this Friday 7th Dec at Lazarides Gallery in Soho - the info on the Lazinc site reads -

“Express Deviant Phonology - Opening on 7 December 2007 at Lazarides Gallery will be Lucy McLauchlan’s first London solo exhibition. It will present a series of new, unseen canvas work alongside a site-specific installation. The collaborative work will involve the participation of musicians whose music will affect the artist’s drawings while her visuals will influence their playing. “

It’s on until Jan 19th 2008 and is gonna definately be worth a visit if your in central London. Worth noting too that they are not open Mondays.

Go Lucy…