Did some press for a Kubin-related release on Meeuw Muzak. Like shitting blood out of a stone or something.

It sez:

out now

Meeuw Muzak 039
Max Goldt / Felix Kubin / Mark Boombastik: Fog Frog
b/w Max Goldt: Ladies Ladies
7″ single

“The future is female”, announces the well-known homosexual ironist Max Goldt here (on Ladies Ladies) speaking in 1983, long before getting married to a woman and thereby exhibiting a confounding yet admirable internal consistency. This finely-tuned sense of amibiguity will be familiar to those who have followed Goldt’s work as a musician and then an author since the late 70s. He is of course also a noted columnist in the German-speaking world. Here on this record his lyrics and vocals are filleted from the historical timeline for a reconstitution involving the various talents of Mr Kubin and Mr. Boombastik.

Mark Boombastik: musician, singer, DJ and human beatboxer par excellence – giving the frogs something to hop to here on Fog Frog.

Felix Kubin: Ubiquitous celebrity in an alternative universe, but in ours a nebulous presence in the musical underground since the heyday of the Neue Deutsche Welle. A self-professed dadaist, one shouldn’t try and linger too long on a definition for Felix.

He is, however, the wicked svengali whose tendrils traverse time and space to tickle this record into existence, because Side B’s Ladies Ladies, as previously mentioned, is actually a post-feminist pre-ejaculation from way back when, here recently gently re-agitated in the Kubin studio. The 2003 “too-Neubauten” mix (involving electric heater percussion) of Fog Frog has been updated to a more judiciously organized final version, whilst still retaining the original tipsy-sounding recording of the famously discerning Mr Goldt in his hotel room. Aged like a fine wine, perhaps. Indeed the thin pining sounds come from a Fellini-inspired choir of wine-filled glasses. So, the old ladies meet the new frog princes and off they go. Here is the transformation. (Pete Um)

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Strongly advise you to check out the first (at least) Max Goldt record on Gagarin.

This is my pal and mentor Felix Kubin:

This is the cryptic advice he offers me (ignore the bit about air conditioners):

But earlier I was reading this article about how the Aphex has 6 albums worth of material completed, and actually getting annoyed with Our Rich. Took me ages to see the irony!

This post is kinda for Dave. Can’t sort the formatting out cos of the voodoo but try and follow the gist for the grist….

Chores:

Email Alexis. (Hi Alexis!)
Finish the fucking Kubin sleevenotes.
Washing.
Post large package of ROCK MUSIC to The Russian Federation.
Ring helpline about lost Co-op membership card.
Discuss diary with Sam/gossip.
Ask Tom about phones?
Somehow acquire several compilations of Country & Western music and transfer them onto blank CDs for one of the people Jo supports.
Do video about Kafkaesque persecution by the housing people.
Pick up Syd, buy “Dog Days” and visit library.

Last night Dave brought goat curry round in a taxi and we drank a lot of wine and talked about how old synths are great and the MS-20 in particular and what a great shame it was that I ran out of DV tape that time when I attempted to film the tutorial that Felix Kubin gave us at Ashvale. Dave lent him his own Korg while Felix was on tour in the UK and in return Felix shared some of his knowledge of the instrument, which is prodigious. He knows it inside and out to the extent that he actually took it apart to adjust something, feeling around in its innards like a veteran veterinarian. We felt like little boys, and in fact I was so in awe that hardly a damn thing he said went in. There was just too much information. In fact it was a masterclass for a pair of idiots, as I hope Dave will agree. Anyway, in our discussion about MS-20s and Felix Kubin last night the subject of the difficulties associated with touring such instruments came up and it occurred to me that it’s a shame that Felix is an ambassador for a design classic that has long since ceased to be produced. In a perfect world, I reasoned, full-paged colour adverts would appear in music magazines showing a deadpan Felix Kubin with his arm resting casually over the MS-20 he had received free from Korg for life in part payment of the recognition of the role he had played in ensuring the machines ubiquity amongst practitioners of electronic music, amateurish fools or otherwise. If Dave had the money, I know for a fact that he would stump up for a super-ridiculous Goodiepal-pregnant guerilla-bollocks mega-meta culture-stunt type thing tomorrow, i.e. an advert in The Wire.

So, please send cash or more wine. I am on the dole and Dave works in the hospital.

I have a small role in this so I thought I’d big it up. I know Mr. Phizmiz through various encounters but primarily from 6 days of fun on the autobahns for the Gagarin Anniversary Tour in late 2008, and I consider him to be one of the most gloriously silly people I have ever met. I really ought to have done some kind of tour diary bizniz about that tour but one memory that sticks in my head was the last night in Mannheim, as tired and emotionally worn out as I’ve ever been and absolutely desperate for sleep, but kept awake (and in hysterical laughter) by a sustained rally of ideas between me and EP for a play/short film about a guy having a wank on a coach. I suppose I should say that the idea arose out of a true story and I was there but this was many years before the tour and I was not the wanker in question. The annoying thing, typically for these kinds of ideas, is that I can’t remember any of the stuff that was so bloody amusing.

Anyway, Ergo is a man of many talents, and someone who humbled me by knowing a staggering amount about arty stuff that wasn’t just music since 1960, which is how I roll, I suppose. The whole spectrum of the arts seems to be constantly being absorbed through his skin, as he’s incredibly busy and isn’t just lying there on a couch reading Wikipedia. I laughed the other day when I saw he had dedicated something he’d done to Morecambe & Wise, among others, but then I realised this was a serious tribute. But yes, for all his varied talents, which he lists as “Composer, Writer, Artist, DJ, Radio-Artist, Film-maker, Installation artist” I have to say I’m personally most impressed by what he does with radio. I recently tried to do some radio stuff and I found it bloody hard, even though I was given a completely free hand, but Phizmiz seems to have a natural facility for it. I should write something that does him more justice but I want to get various bits of umbusiness out of the way today so I’m just trying to get a bit more hype in the hyperlink innit.

The Faust Cycle
or, The House of Dr Faustus
-Released 1st January 2010 on Headphonica –

Written, Composed, Performed & Produced by
Ergo Phizmiz

Project consultants
James Nye, Martha Moopette, The Travelling Mongoose

One afternoon Ergo Phizmiz finds himself lumbered into delivering a parcel to the house of legendary alchemist and necromancer Dr Johann Faustus who, since the events of some time ago for which he is renowned, has entered into a rather quieter life in a vast, labyrinthine house, with hundreds of lodgers running the gamut from artists, birds, bird-people, walking fictions, ventriloquists, a Cassowary, running chairs, walking gramophones, and myriad automata.

This enormous dream fable, told through speech, songs, collage and sound-design, is the result of over three years delving down various rabbit-holes, and features collaborations in a range of contexts with artists of many disciplines, including Jack Phoenix, Margita Zalite, Pete Um, Angela Valid, Bela Emerson, Martha Moopette, Amie Willingale, and Zenith Pitts.

In glorious radiophonic technicolour, it is a musical-comedy of disorientation and magick, somewhere between nightmare and the half-remembered childhood whimsy of an insomniac music-hall artiste.

Download the entire 15 hours, complete with magnificent artwork from Moritz Grunke and friends, free, from the marvellous Headphonica.

Grateful for these stateside props. Looks like Rare Frequency doing good work there.

Was mixing my drinks last night, with way more herbal teas than standard. Green tea, peppermint, cammomile. crashed out about 2AM after viewing the enjoyable Royal Tennenbaums with my hand on the volume knob all the way through. I could watch Gene Hackman all day. Awoke sweating after vivid dream just after 4. Dream was in the style of sophisticated and modish American TV program about a military unit engaged in jungle warfare, like a more humid version of Generation Kill. Woke up silently screaming – being pursued by guys in headscarves swarming down a hill. Outside it was a muggy, misty East Anglia.Felix’s thing was fun, although I have some regrets. They are:

Should have taken more pictures because it was hard to take a bad one, especially at the party.
Wish Felix DJed the 7″ singles he asked us all to bring (one each was stipulated, although I brought about 6 and Dave brought 3), or maybe even asked me and Dave to DJ, although he probably doesn’t know quite how talented we are in that regard. He certainly didn’t know I had brought my MP3 player with minijack to RCA phono adaptors just in case.
I regret being totally fucking partied out by about 1.30AM, thereby not getting to actually talk that much to people.
I regret telling Mariola’s daughter that she sounded like her Mum. What I meant was that I’d been trying to discern evidence of her maternal origins all evening and suddenly I caught a glimpse in her manner, in a sudden intensity of expression. Even Bobby, who isn’t synonymous with propriety, was more or less aghast at this gauche error.

Treated Belgium and London as one long holiday and I’m a little tired and bored of myself now. I’m sure burning the candle on and off uses more wax or something. Anyway, you lot babysit the apocalypse for a bit. I’m getting an early night.

This dude Mr Mike Polar, some friend of Thimitris’, contacted me to tell me he was intending to see me play in Munchen, so him and his buddy travel from..uh… Hanover, I think. I was a bit suspicious of such singlemindedness, to be honest, but when I met Mike and his friend they turned out to be extremely pleasant and intelligent individuals. Anyway, here’s some snaps Mike took:

 

And here’s a nice picture of me and Mike. He’s holding a copy of Bumskipper 5, which in turn has a photo of our mutual friend Thimitris, aka Dimitri aka Dans Mon Salon with everybody’s pal Mr Richard D James.

He’s also taken the time to upload some footage to YouTube. I haven’t watched all of it because what I have looks quite considerably worse than the memories I have but ain’t that just the way, especially with the good gigs.