Temple's Run

More churlish souls would probably be irritated at the way Julien Temple continually churns out Sex Pistols documentaries.  However, when the documentaries are as good as Never Mind the Baubles, the improbable tale of (what turned out to be) the Sex Pistols' final British gigs on Xmas Day in Huddersfield, the churls should pipe down.  The footage of the gigs themselves (one in the afternoon for the families of striking firemen, at which a gleeful Johnny Rotten cavorted with children to Boney M's Daddy Cool before handing out cake, followed by one in the evening) was limited, but it was given context by interviews with the surviving band members, and by contemporaneous footage of Britain in 1977, from Top of The Pops to TV ads for Smash, and from vox pops to political footage.  While this has all been done before (seemingly, no punk documentary is complete without image of overflowing bins in Leicester Square), it was the sheer diversity of the contextual material that really set Never Mind the Baubles apart, and which really does credit to the researchers and director. The rights-clearances alone must have taken an age.  The additional material showed Britain in the 1970s to be even stranger, even more brown and grey than I remember- the short clip of the man in the pub proudly placing a red hot poker into his pint of cloudy cider before noisily and messily slurping it down is now etched on my retinas.  You've got four more days to watch it on the iPlayer, though with luck, like most of these BBC4 docs, it'll come around again.

Frank in a Sense

And just in case you think the Stepkids (below) aren't festive enough, here's the late Chris Sievey aka Frank Sidebottom to get the party started. And please, this film can't come soon enough.

Gilles' Play

I may not have mentioned this, but chez Irk we have a Gilles-ometer, a device that we can hold next to the stereogram to ascertain the exact Gilles Peterson-ness of any given tune. Constructed using some oscillators and VU meters we found in a skip, connected to the finest plastic tubing, some 13 amp fuses, a metal colander and a stock of bargain-bin Young Disciples CDs, it's not pretty but it performs its job with considerable aplomb.  Holding it next to the speakers when, say, Metallica's Enter Sandman is playing, elicits nary a flicker.  Some gangster rap by the Geto Boys produces a little more movement on the needle, but not much. Not smooth enough, too many rough edges.  The more polished tones of French rapper MC Solaar finally brings the Gilles-ometer into life, as does anything on the Acid Jazz label, early dubstep and Fela Kuti.

Anyway, I mention this because earlier this year, we nearly broke the damn thing when we exposed it to James Blake's Retrograde.  The needles on the meters were pushing into the red, the device started to smoke and we thought with some satisfaction that we'd discovered the most Gilles Peterson-esque record ever, the one that took our homemade contraption up to 11.  That was until earlier this month, when a record we'd never heard before came out of our radio. Sounding like a mash-up of Prince, Everything Everything and Steely Dan, it was smooth, quirky, instantly catchy, and we held up the Gilles-ometer expectantly.  Sure enough, it immediately started peaking, its needles oscillating wildly*, and smoke began to pour from its roughly-hewn innards. Finally it combusted, and the pile of smoking ash and acrid burned plastic bears testament to what is definitively, officially the most Gilles Peterson-esque tune ever.  Here it is:


And just in case you think I'm merely being facetious, I happen to agree with the Gilles-ometer. It's ace. The video less so, but there's no arguing with the tune.



*apologies to Smiths fans.

Beyond our Ken

On the occasion of the demise of Brit jazz legend Stan Tracey, here's a bizarre and revealing (at least in parts) interview he did a few years ago with the Right Hon Ken Clarke MP.

Around the Horn

I'm extremely gratified to see the revival of one of my favourite blogs of the year, The Art of ZTT, which burst into life in January with an avowed mission to document the photography and graphic design around one of the seminal record labels of the last 30 years, but which seemingly petered out in March almost as soon as it had begun. Happily it's back, with a batch of recent postings including an interview with the illustrator of the Relax cover.  Its a terrific-looking blog, almost as good-looking as the work of the illustrators, designers and photographers it documents, notably XLZTT, Accident, John Stoddart, A.J.Barratt and others.  It's also terrifically well-informed and researched, and, if nothing else, serves as a salutary reminder that while Peter Saville, Mark Farrow, Malcolm Garrett and others may have garnered the most headlines in Design Week, there was plenty of innovative and eye-catching work going on elsewhere.

Dolby Laboratories

Leafing through today's Daily Mail (hey, it's for research purposes only), I was gratified to read the heart-warming story of a 33 year old man who has spent $100,000 on plastic surgery in a quest to make himself look more like his pop star idol.  And I have to admit, it's money very well spent. He very closely resembles Thomas Dolby in his pomp.

Wait, hang on a second...what do you mean he was trying to look like Justin Bieber?

Chips Ahoy

As I've said here before, Hot Chip are one of those bands that, on paper, should entirely float my boat.  In reality, they rarely get me as excited as they should.  This, though, from Hot Chip member Joe Goddard, is entirely lovely and follows a string of great releases on Goddard's Greco-Roman label.  Which is making me wonder; maybe it's Alexis Taylor that's holding them back from greatness and keeping them in the realms of averageness.