RED

 

Now that the MuZiK KluB is coming to an end I’ve been going through some of the releases to find ‘band’ projects that I did during the four years of the MuZiK KluB so I can perhaps have a go at remastering them and presenting them with their own individual bandcamp page, available as a free download.

The first of these will be a project I called RED which came out with MuZiK KluB Release number 20 back in February 2015.

With the MuZiK KluB, because I was doing so much music, I often bought instruments off eBay and then used them to make sounds that would take me down a different road than the one I normally would go down. Usually I would sell the instrument a few months later and try to buy something else with the money to try a different approach again. This often resulted in me kicking myself a year later and wishing I hadn’t sold the drum machine or synth as I would have liked to do another album of a specific project.

With this project I tried to do an electro version of Talking Heads meets Joy Division with a 303 bassline synth and 707 drum machine and also a Novation synth. Everything was recorded live onto my 8 track recorder and mixed later on a computer. What I ended up with was an electro kind of dark gothic funk which sounded like The Human League with Peter Hook playing all over it!

Have a listen and decide for yourself. I have remastered the original as I have different monitors now but other than that I have not changed anything. I’ve tagged it under ‘Alternative’ and ‘Coldwave’ in Bandcamp.

It comes in three formats: FREE download with PDF lyric book, black vinyl CD in manilla discobag and deluxe jewel case limited edition signed red vinyl CD with 8 page lyric book.

I’ve also got all the original 8 track stems which I will email you if you want to have a go at remixing the album yourself (if you buy one of the formats!).

I hope you like it. It’s free but please donate if you like it enough to listen to it more than once. I loved listening to it on my headphones walking to the post office, it’s very groovy baby.
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Shane Meadows Portrait…

Shane Meadows, filmaker

I did a degree in Photography at Nottingham Trent University between 1991-94. In my final year Shane Meadows started as a third year on my course. I got to know him quite well and one day I was walking past the Broadway Cinema in Nottingham with my camera and Shane shouted over: “Chris, come and take my picture, I’m gonna be famous soon.” I remember thinking ‘what a smart-arse arrogant thing to say!’

So I went over and got him to stand against the wall and I bent down and shot upwards to capture him in a Mussolini-like pose to try and get a picture that reflected his arrogance. I think he already knew something good was happening to him back then because a few weeks later he was on the front cover of the Evening Post because Bob Hoskins was going to be in his film.

At this time I was experimenting with very slow 50 ASA unbranded cheap Jessops 35mm film and then ‘pushing’ the exposure rates and over developing it. It gave the negative the contrast you get with that process but also an unusually flat even tone with lots of grain (or as we used to say: ‘grain the size of dogs bollocks). I love the way the line of the edge of his face and head merges with the background but stands out almost like a pencil line drawing because the film grain in the background is so big.

This was all done with chemicals and lots of trial and error and you can probably just do it in photoshop now with the click of a mouse (or can you?). It ain’t the same though because with all the digital technology at hand, you wouldn’t think of pushing cheap 50 ASA film to get these results. With digital you have so much choice that it’s often a case of ‘where do you start?’. It’s the same with music and computers. Back then it was good to have those limitations. It’s good to have the computers too though.

Kickstarter Reward Addition and FREE Acid Rock…!

 

FIRSTLY: There’s a great 3 track EP here as a free download. It definitely falls under the categories of psychedelic– Kraut–Acid–Space–Rock.

There’s also a cheap CD for people who don’t do the downloads. It’s worth having for the 11 minute ‘poundshop’ Neil Young wig-out on the first track alone!

SECOND BIT OF NEWS: A few people who can’t make the gig have been asking if they can buy the souvenir programme and CD separately. I wasn’t sure about this as I wanted it to be exclusive to the gig but then I don’t want to be a churl and simply deny people who collect six by seven stuff . So, I’m going to reach a compromise and put a reward up of just the programme and CD on Kickstarter but only make it available for the rest of the Kickstarter campaign, which has another 16 days to go. So the next 16 days will be your only chance to get the programme and CD on it’s own, it won’t only be available after that without buying a ticket for the gig.

CLICK HERE to pledge.

At the moment, it’s looking like the programme will be in the format of an A5 soft back book of no less than 33 pages. I can’t say too much about it yet as I’m working on it right now, but trust me, it will look awesome and be a really interesting read with lots of photographs too.

 

kickstarter already funded!

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What a great way to do a gig. The goal of £1000 has already been reached. Gig will defo go ahead. Thanks everyone…and, we still have another 50 tickets to sell between now and October 28th! Rock on. Looking forward to it. Got to start making plans to do this in other cities, especially abroad. Could we fund a one off special show in Paris? I think we should try. 🙂