Liam Lynch, Photographer: April 2008

Monday Morning You Look So Fine: Against Me!

Been busy a long time... internet up to shit though. Got back from Cape Town last week and been burying myself in work (and Mighty Boosh... and Oasis bio's)...

As you do.

Had an odd conversation in the wee small hours of last Saturday morning; an old mate, and a lot of free booze (him, not me) and very little sleep (me, not him) and we got onto the topic of blazing trails. Pulling shapes, if you will. I know he feels a bit odd about it, but my only weirdness of the evening was not so much inspired by his calling me a "taste-maker" as it was by us referring to me in the third person. Truth be told though, I'd rather be a bit tasty than a tastemaker.

That said, it's been a bit bizarre in many ways the last few... there is a commercial world I move through that takes itself far too seriously, and yet sees "art" more as a 40-year-old would a Porsche, or a Blonde a boobjob, than just... well, "art" , I guess. Thank the Lord for Zander Blom, ACG and Mr. Geers, I suppose.

More on that later... can't be arsed now, really. The above is finally for Snakey... I think my original is better, don't you? ;-)

Here's what's been knocking around between my eardrums lately.

"Derived influence in style of dress.
Similar trends in camera technique and editing...

All the taste makers drinking from the same glass.
Is there anyone thinking what I am?
Is there anyone thinking what I am?" - Against Me!

Don't worry, none of this is aimed at you... well, maybe you there in the too-tight shoes... and you next to him. And that ponce on your left...

Later.

Freedom Day.

Imagine spending even more than 120 minutes in there... think about it.

Later.

Monday Morning You Look So Fine: ACOIO.

A little overwhelmed, to be honest. Just back from the Red Bull Music Academy's A Class Of Its Own. So much new music, both on my iPod and witnessed live...

Torsten catching me off-guard with his sunrise beats; Hannibal's take on Hotstix, as well as his Living With colab with Owusu...

Some of the best house I have ever heard from Black Coffee, nuf respect to Busi in the process; that, and anything Wally lays his hands on...

Seeing Ben Zinc kick it live again at Assembly, along with DJ Lil' John, who scored me some of his Buraka Som Sistema, which has been on HEAVY rotation since...

Aloe handed me two albums, along with hearing him drop it live: keep your eyes for the working titled Change Your Mind. Rio and I got messed up on sleep-dep one night and took an ether-tour round his extensive roles in New Zealand's Reggae, Dub and Hip Hop scene...

And not to forget Göran "Always Hungry" Dahlström, himself overwhelmed above, whose vocals have been stuck in my head for days and days and actually caused Ben to laugh...

Much respect to Red Bull Music Academy. I learnt a lot, and I was just the fly on the wall... I think A Class Of Its Own is an experiment in genius.

More to come...

Later.

Monday Morning You Look So Fine: Aloe Blacc.

None of this is going to make any sense... but it's a line, amongst others, that I got to hear of Aloe's. There was a listening session, and a recording session, and somewhere between I went to the hospital, and returned to the studio to find part of my finger on the floor.

Drama at the Red Bull Music Academy's most recent Cape Town experiment... thank Gott for music to zone to... even with painkillers and night fever, I still have this jam circling...

"I mean damn, why you even come out to the club?
If you wasn’t up in this bitch looking for love..." – Aloe Blacc

It should make sense in the near future... maybe when Change Your Mind sees the light of day. The man treats genres like hurdles...