Secondly, I have stumbled across something of a horrific nature. Horrific in the sense that it is created by some of the guys from The Horrors. Spider and The Flies is something for synth & sequencer heads. PS. If you think that Dizzie’s latest track is pushing new boundaries in synth, you really don’t get it.

Thanks to Moosleybay.com for the image, heroes.

Having watched a couple of documentaries on the Horrors recently (recommendation – Counting in Fives doc), it’s apparent that this music lark isn’t just a flash in the pan to some of these guys, not just a way of earning some coin and getting some ladies. So yeah, obviously check out the new Horrors album and check out Spider and the Flies whilst you’re there. You can catch the Horrors at Offset Festival and Field Day this year whilst the gig on the 17th June at the Troxy in Whitechapel will be mad.

Finally and probably most appropriately in view of the title, the guys who brought us the best video shop of our lives (Today is Boring – which unfortunately shut down but has been reincarnated (in a way) further up Kingsland Road in Dalston) are pulling together a flesh eating flash mob as they did in 2007 to maraud the streets of London this very Sunday. So what else are you going to do – if you’re hungover from Saturday night’s antics you’re half way to being dead anyway!? Check out their site for details and some shots of their last deadbeat debacle.

Demonstrations start at 11am under the following guises;
* Moorgate
Red horse against War;
* Liverpool St
Green horse against Climate chaos
* London Bridge
Silver horse against Financial crimes
* Cannon Street
Black horse against land enclosures and borders in honour of the 360th full circle anniversary of the Diggers

My initial reaction was that due to the syncronisation of the ‘parades’ people looking to be involved will have to chose between anti-war, anti-climate, anti-finance or whatever the fuck the last one is supposed to be. Wouldn’t it be embarrassing if, say it was just Black Horseman was left on his Jack because everyone else threw their weight behind the other causes?

For those of a less civilly disobedient bent, there’s a timely exhibition at 187-211 St John Street, called “Affluenza” - which should go someway to highlight some of the causality of our current predicament through the medium of art.

It’s a bit surreal when you consider the above fact alongside the likelihood that only a small percentage of Londoners will make it down to see the Rodchenko & Popova exhibition that is running at the Tate Modern until 17 May.

Rodchenko and Popova were some of the founding fathers of constructivism which was an artistic movement loosely based on the premise that art should feature in every strand of life, from political messages to film posters using avant garde methods for the time (early 20th century Russia). This bred an exciting period of Soviet art which merged the mundane of everyday life with abstract and thought-provoking output. Albeit the celebration of which is somewhat subdued by how events transpired afterwards (i.e. Stalin) and the fact that constructivist styles were often used to carry the message of Communism. The style remains influential today across many disciplines. Below is one of Rodchenko’s more famous works, which you recognise as it influenced Franz Ferdinand’s first album cover.

If you are too lazy to pop down and see it, at least check out this 8 minute documentary about Rodchenko and the Russian Avant Garde…

I Love Rubbish.com is a site we have shown the love to before and will continue to do so whilst they keep popping up with awesome photos, stories and gems of the web. In the future of the internet say version 29.0 or something, when websites can take other websites out for cocktails, dinner and a little download time, I Love Rubbish.com is first on our site’s list.

Courtesy of said site, here’s (apparently I have to add probably for legal reasons or lulz, I can’t remember which) Banksy’s latest works popping up in New Orleans. Whilst Banksy has gone through the cycle of cool and now firmly resides in the consciousness and on the coffee tables of the deeply average, you can’t knock the politically risky international stuff he pulls off. I think my favourite Banksy piece was the one he did in Gaza, which you can see here.

Anyway, no further delay, here it is. I’m not sure what I make of his new ‘Gas Off’ slogan, but it is a shame someone has ruined it with that kid playing the trumpet.

Cowards die many times before their death

Shoreditch hasn’t always been packed full of languishing artistes, whining musicians and general “cooler than thou” fuck tools. Some of it’s famous former residents include Jeremy Beadle (RIP), Barbara Windsor (watch the infamous Carry on Camping scene here) and none other than William Shakespeare. In fact, if the Bard was still around today he’d pretty much be the next door neighbour of the Irregulars and we would no doubt be big buddies, pulling all nighters dancing to victorian electro mash ups.

As a hat-tip to the ruff-sporting maestro, a number of performance are planned at the Old Blue Last this month. Drop by on either 2,9, 16, 23 or 30 August to be immersed in some wordsmithery which will far surpass the usual sub-normal lyrics that spew out the mouths of the bands who normally take to the stage at this venue. Check out some tickets here. If you fancy a quick read of some of his handiwork, the complete works can be found here.

No doubt the fashionistas of Shoreditch will shortly be sporting this tasty little number…

Spotted down in the Shad Thames area (south side of tower bridge). No idea who the artist is, but I like it.

I am, apparently, noted for the high quality of the t-shirts I wear. While I do own a few that I’ve picked up from threadless over the years, my main source of t’s these days is the awesome service t-post.se
Every 6(ish) weeks they will send you a t-shirt, nicely wrapped up and delivered to your door (in an envelope that fits through the letterbox).

And mostly they’re great t-shirts. Admittedly, the current clown one is deeply, deeply messed up, and probably will never get worn, but the rest get great play. The t-shrts are based on a stroy that has been in the news, or at least reported on, in the previos 6 weeks, and they vary from a t designed around the 2004 tsunami to much lighter news stories:

They’ve only got about 2500 subscribers worldwide, so the odds of bumping into someone else wearing the t’s are pretty low, and even if you do, at least you know you aren’t part of the ridiculous brick lane t-shirt massive. Well worth the price, IMHO.

Anyway, the hours I spent traveling allowed me to dissect the weekend’s written media content and by Jeebus was there some Toss drizzled with waffle and a side portion of blah. Here’s a snippet of some of the clangers I spotted…

First up, I had to laugh at NME this week. Firstly because they seemingly did a ram-raiding job on our site i.e. drove their shitty little Ford Fiesta of a journalist into our palatial site and brain-raped us! As you will know, we did a review of the Pepys the other week and waxed lyrically about the Nu New Cross scene and low-and-pilferers-behold, NME run an identi-kit article this month.

Secondly, I spotted this comedy gold in the NME Ad section: “Drummer required for London-based punk rock band 18-25. Influences Kings of Leon, The Fratellis and Oasis“. I have only one thing to say to this…

The second publication that I trawled through was Private Eye…whilst the thought of Ian Hislop makes me judder and convulse in disgust, I have to admit that I chortle like a German at Oktoberfest with two wenches on his lap when I read Hislop’s 6th form-esque, finger-pointing and general sarky bastard of a magazine. This issue I particularly enjoyed this tracking of the Daily Mail’s top drawer and consistent reporting:

“Low-energy light bulbs can trigger epilepsy” – Daily Mail 25 June 2007

“Energy-saving light bulbs can cause migraines” – Daily Mail 2 Jan 2008

“Low-energy light bulbs ‘can damage your skin’” – Daily Mail 5 Jan 2008

“Free gifts for every reader – 2 free energy-saving light bulbs” – Daily Mail 19 Jan 2008.

Finally, I turn my attention to Dave Sexton of the Evening Standard (which for those who aren’t in the know, is the bulked out version of the London Lite). Anyway, Mr Sexton made a comment relating to the near record sale of a painting by Francis Bacon at Christies. I doubt Bacon will be losing too much sleep over it in his grave as he already holds the record with another of his paintings. He highlighted Bacon’s quote (apparently albeit this is not a quote that I can find anywhere on the internet), and I paraphrase, that ‘we come from nothing and we die as nothing’ and alluded that to sell a painting for £23.6m is hardly nothing.

Whilst I accept that Sexton’s comment is indirect praise for Bacon’s “violent” work, I think he’s missing the point. I think that if he understood Bacon’s wider thoughts on life and especially wealth, that Bacon would probably be disgusted with some uber-rich tosser buying his work to hang in private, away from the prying eyes of the public. Secondly, on a pedantic note, the fact that Bacon’s dead means that he can hardly dive into the sales proceeds like Scrooge McDuck can he Sexton?

There was an article about the Colony Room (one of Bacon’s favourite haunts) in Timeout the other week, but don’t read that…read this instead, it’s much better on the same topic (it also smells a bit like Timeout may have robbed that site I have linked to for their article!.

Doctor: Sir, you really must give up smoking and drinking
Patient: Why? Will it make me live longer?
Doctor: No, it’ll just feel like it.

I’ve been using the new BBC iPlayer (which is 100% for the win!) for the last couple of days and it’s had an unexpected side effect – it’s brought on a severe bout of existential dread.

It’s not the iplayer itself you understand, more the programmes that I have been able to watch through it. Firstly I watched “Dance Britannia” – which is a documentary written by the excellent Times Columnist, Caitlin Moran. The programme, in a nutshell, tracked dancing in the UK from Northern Soul through to Acid House through to the mosaic of theft we have now. Frankly, we don’t live in authentic times from a musical perspective, we’re just a generation that begs, steals and borrows from true movements, true underground scenes and true musical exploration and expression.

Check out those two videos (northern soul & acid house) – I just can’t imagine that thesedays? Either people are too caught up in getting wrecked or people are too caught up trying to be cool to actually have a good time.

To be honest, I don’t think this banality ends with music, we don’t seem to have much fight, I look around and pointless consumerism has consumed the gusto and originality of so many.

The second programme that I watched which made me despair was Charlie Brooker’s Review of the Year. When you see a year’s noteworthy TV output summarised and dispatched relentlessly by Brooker in just over an hour, you realise what a disgrace TV has become. If you consider how many people are choosing to live their lives sat in front of it, night in, night out it really does make you wonder what the fucking point is. How can I take someone serious at work when I’ve just heard them parping on about Strictly-Cum-Dancing
whilst-buying-ahouse-and-doing-it-up and-having-your-kid-kicked-the-fuck-out-of-by-Supernanny?

Parping Work Colleague: I think if we change this part of the document, we could really be on to something…
Me: Oh, I see…so you have ideas as well as being an immeasurable cretin? Well why don’t I set you up a little pretend “Ideas Idol” over here in the corner? Let me know when you’re finished so I can set up a panel of judges, routinely ridicule you and then kick you out of this fucking place.
Parping, dribbling Work Colleague: Wow, will I get an interview with Fern Cotton?

Although one thing that did make me chuckle was Brooker mentioning the whole phone-in scandal thing. It just made me think – what’s worse than watching Richard & Judy? Watching Richard & Judy and getting stiffed by a fixed phone-in! Haha.

Anyway, whack on some Eluvium and check out this slideshow tagged “existential dread” on flickr, it’s interesting viewing. Or just watch this, if you need a little bit of cheering up after my rant…

Whilst the literature of Tolstoy, Chekov, Bulgakov and Dostoyevsky remain my number 1 Russian cultutal export, Propaganda (albeit a concept not-originating in Russia) and particularly Propaganda posters are my second favourite. They give a great insight into the politics and issues of the time and the relationship between the ruling powers and the general population. Also I think they are aesthetically pleasing, with some really abstract and striking designs.

What’s interesting is that you can visually see the changes in political ideology since 1900 through to 1990s…they are like the lazy man’s Russian political history textbook! Hence why I like them.

It doesn’t stop there, now that you’ve found the Russian posters – why not check out the other side of the coin and the US and UK posters that have been knocking around over the last 100 years (Loose lips sink ships and all that). I’m yet to have it confirmed, but I have a suspicion that George Michael’s Careless Whisper was inspired by said UK political poster…

Also the Chinese, Italian and Spanish posters are all pretty fly as well…

ANYWAY – this website is pretty much for the win, it’s called a Soviet Poster a day (keeps the capitalists at bay?) and does exactly what it says on the tin.