Cubelog

hogge and myself have been installing a beautiful 1930s lamphouse to our 35mm projector. unfortunately due to cooling problems we’ve had to reinstall our old lamphouse, although these pictures remain of its brief moment insitu. wonderous lines.

james

. . . at the Seven Inch Cinema night on Thursday.

Sadly, possibly because of a Qu Junktions final jaunt at the soon to be closed Seymour’s Family Club, The Cube was nearly empty for a fantastic programme of short films and musical performances put on by our like-minded Birmingham counterparts.

I managed to record most of the ubergeeky ZX Spectrum Orchestra performance which you can check below . . .

If you’re in Birmingham in February you can catch the Flatpack Festival put on by the same people which will feature a performance by my computer ( NOTE while we’re in gloriously pedantic geek mode : I say “my computer” but he’s not generally meant to be called “my computer”, he actually is  my  computer, so it’s “mr_hopkinon’s computer™”, or just “The   Computer” to you thank you ! )

Got no pics or nothing, but I feel honourable mention should be made of our own 7 inch cinema of sorts - “7s & 8s” featuring Super8 films and & 7 inch singles put on by Cube projectionist, Ali, the next day, and almost next door in Cafe Kino.

It was lovely.

And hopefully the first of more.

This was QuWack, number 1, “M” ( for all Male. Next, obviously, will be “F” for all female . . . )

Two nights, seven and a half solo male performers, all categorised as uncatergorisable, doing one fifteen minute set each - the “half” men being one man doing a pair of seven and a half minute performances to end the first day and start the second - with the curtains closing bang on the 900th second ( or 450th ) whether they’d finished or not . . . geddit?

That’s what we were promised, and broadly got, although Saturday had an extra bonus performance ( from George Headfall ) and a Chiz curtain calculation error meant Kid Carpet got cut off at the 10 minute mark - but he came back almost immediately for a 5 minute encore much to the crowd’s delight.

It was all top notch and a tribute to good thinking by Chiz & Mark of Qu for giving so many singularly talented odd-bods a set set time to prepare something stunning for.

A particular inspirational stroke was Chiz’s idea, faultlessly executed by Adam Faraday, to video the performances which were then played back ( sans audio ) immediately onto the closed curtain while the change-overs took place . . .

. . . so bringing a wonderful coherence to the over all events.

There were too many performances for me to do in-depth reviews, but overlapping themes were looping and layering ( Ian Green / Maiof / Freeze Puppy/ Def Con Stylus and Paul Bradley ), virtuosic single instrument mania ( George / Colin Smith ), startling vocalisations ( Men Daimler / Team Brick ) and timely Ivor Cutler tributes . . .

. . . from ( separately ) mr_hopkinson’s computer and ( pictured ) Kid Carpet . . . which leaves out-on-their-owners Don Mandarin ( karaoke of your own songs ), just off the plane from Berlin international electro superstar Kurt Wiesel ( needs no introduction - this man is HUGE, if you haven’t heard of him, you will . . . ), a beautiful little set from last minute slot filler Fránçois, plus S J Esau, who I sadly missed as I was taking care of my computer after his set ( sorry, Sam ! ).

Friday’s audience was a little bit undersubscribed - not too bad though - but Saturday was completely packed out - all in all amazing.

The one female performance presence in this male, though handsomely un-macho atmosphere, was multi-linguist Lea Piontek, who introduced acts carabet style in the spotlight in front of the closed curtains . . .

. . . including Kurt’s intro in German and Fránçois’ in French.

Loads of pics up on Sparror . . . and if you want mp3s of my compy’s Cutler tributes you can get one on his myspace space ( search for Ivor’s image ), and the other on Rob Da Bank’s listen again ( around the 1:04 mark ), if your reading this around the week it was written . . .

Late again, but here’s my perspective on recent(ish) Cube related events . . .

I was in The Cube for filming of the first pre-recorded version of Max Blackout for the Tollgate House project, with Adam and Ali ( a.k.a. Max’s sinister shadow ( see below )) trying to figure out how to light the greenscreen . . .

. . . which though it looks pink here ( it’s yet to be covered with green fabric from the fabulous fabricland ) it is often also called bluescreen ( you know what I mean ).

A few days later on the same stage was another Orchestra Cube rehearsal . . .

. . . with no Richie, and so no drums this time. Taking the cue from the missing beat Peter lead several excises relating to rhythm for the usually more melodically minded - including directing one of the more musically conventional members ( Marcus ) to attack his keys as if slapping his hands in mud. Nice.

Also appealing to me was the suggestion for communal sighs and laughs at ( and as ) certain points in the improvised composition - could have just sounded silly, but the maestro’s conviction somehow always wins through.

No practice this week, by the way, but there is a performance by Orchestra Cube splinter group Sculpture at the soon-to-be-sadly-shut Seymour’s Family Club ( whose website almost hits the same stylistic heady heights of Fabricland’s ). That’s today, Wednesday ( this week ).

Thursday ( last week ) saw the first Tollgate House launch - this was a number of films and installations projected on the-soon-to-be-demolished tallest building in Bristol, all introduced by Max Blackout . . .

. . . and climaxing with Rod Maclachlan’s ‘It Is All Around Us’ installation which has been running every night this week since, with audio accompaniment on 87.7 FM.

The second launch is this Thursday, starting 6.45. The work looks amazing on the huge scale, and just the view from on top of the carpark, where the audience views it from, is amazing too . . .

. . . but do wrap up warm, if you’re tempted to come along this Thursday, as it’s a might nippy up there.

As the Tollgate launch event finished at 9pm, there was still time for me to make it to The Cube to catch the end of The Here Shop Bottle Orchestra . . .

. . . making innovative use of natural Cube contents to great effect, and accompanied by the also be-bottled audience. They were supporting main act Vladmaster, who was doing something with the tiny, which I thought was a nice contrast to Tollgate’s massive scale - but equally immersive.

Basically she ( she being Vladimir, who comes from Portland, Oregon, along with her suitcase full of Viewmasters™ to hand out, and who was at one point sporting antlers . . .

)

. . . makes original, and quite beautiful, Viewmaster™ discs, with accompanying audio, to tell stories. It’s a really great idea to do this as a performance in a cinema . . .

. . . where all the individuals are communally submerged in their own private worlds. Sounds great too when the audio track goes “ding!” to signal the next slide and everyone releases their little levers together in a big collective clatter.

Thank you Here shop.

Thaere Shop.

( And Here is where Vladmaster originals are available to purchase, I believe. )

And so finally to The Books review . . .

. . . as you probably know from the extensive promotion, The Books, with The Clogs, are on a UK tour, the second date of which was a pre-sold sell out at The Cube.

The Clogs played first featuring some virtuosic violin playing, and a nice bit of bassoon - which there’s not nearly enough of these days in my opinion . . .

. . . they were then joined by The Books for their final couple of numbers . . .

. . . though I thought they became a little bit, ahem, clogged, when they all played together and preferred them playing as separate groups where I felt they really excelled. Also excellent was DJ Lovewig in the packed bar between band outings . . .

The Books’ set was wonderful - the combination of samples and live instruments of their recordings brought to life by smart use of synchronised projected archive footage, much of it the source of the original samples . . .

. . . that image is from the first track which featured Mormons taking off and putting on their hats. Again, might sound simple, or even silly but in execution becomes marvellous. A different working of the Mormon hat footage by The Books is also on a DVD project that I’ve got some work on too . . . info here for the interested.

Anyway, enough of the “me-mail” ( a word I heard on Word of Mouth for verging on spam self-aggrandisement - an episode which also featured a certain ( but not that certain ) Tom Betts talking about computers ) Anyway, Ok, I’m off . . . fer now.

. . . also tomorrow night - starting 6.45 - is initmate~INTIMATE

Maybe go to this before going to Vladmaster . . ?

Info here