OK, that last post was a bit of a rant. To restore balance, this is a lovely animation of a little boat. Treat yourself, watch it full screen and coffee in hand: Little Boat from nelson boles on Vimeo.
Category Archives: Artists
David Peat’s street photography
Take four minutes to enjoy this beautiful slideshow and commentary from David Peat. He sounds wonderfully young and peaceful (he’s a 64 year old film maker diagnosed with a terminal cancer). The Scotsman has a nice little profile of him and his career here.
RIP Gil Scott-Heron
Wow, this was surprising news to come home to: Gil Scott-Heron has passed away. He and my friend Rory kept me going through many a retail assistant hour. Here’s a man who combined speaking a message we need to hear, with music that needed to be heard. Decades it old it may be, but The…
A Word On Statistics
A Word On Statistics, by Wislawa Szymborska Out of every hundred people, those who always know better: fifty-two. Unsure of every step: almost all the rest. Ready to help, if it doesn’t take long: forty-nine. Always good, because they cannot be otherwise: four — well, maybe five. Able to admire…
The difference between equality and equal treatment
or, “A long post about short people”. Randy Newman’s Short People was a surprise hit in 1977. Randy’s way of parodying prejudice is to write in character. Even with the over-the-top caricature in the song, it wasn’t always taken as intended. There was widespread criticism for the extremely negative picture it painted of the “vertically…
Well done, Matt Cardle
Low as my opinion of the X Factor is, good on Matt Cardle for running the gauntlet and coming out a winner. I hope it gives him a chance at the artistic career that past bands and songwriting didn’t manage to deliver for him. It’s interesting that Cage Against The Machine came in 21, while…
Cage Against The Machine
I am extremely happy to read that there is another protest against the soul-destroying X-Factor this year, with a group of artists releasing a recording of John Cage’s 4′ 33″ as a charity single. To me, the X-Factor is to music what modern finance is to working. Yes, there’s a lot of effort put into…
Well done the Weegie!
Nice to hear a sound artist from Glasgow has won the Turner, with Susan Phillipsz and her Lowlands piece at Tate Britain. Sound installations remain a bit obscure. I wish I’d known about the concept back in 1992 when I did a year of Electronics and Music at Glasgow Uni (a course that was tediously stuck…
Glastonbury Revelations: Two Door Cinema Club
Two Door Cinema Club were the band that kicked off the music at Glastonbury for me, on the Thursday afternoon. I was dragged along to see Boy George of all artists the night before, which was actually quite a fun flashback to the 80s, but not exactly what I’m hoping for at a rock festival….