_Black_Acrylic

Ross Fraser McLean - Charming Snakes @ HMC 10.02.12.

2012-02-11T09:58:00.001Z

To the Hannah Maclure Centre at the University of Abertay last night for my friend Ross's photography exhibition. It documented his travels and near-kidnapping in India, and I took a few photos of my own. Here they are:

http://www.creativedundee.com/2012/02/charming-snakes-exhibition/

receipts

2012-02-04T21:17:00.006Z

Bought a few items:

Henri Michaux - Miserable Miracle (New York Review Books Classics), £4.55

Chip E. – Time To Jack (House Records) 12", £2.49

Tyson - After You're Gone (Joe Goddard / Legowelt remixes)(Backyard) 12", £5.99

Mutant Beat Dance - Another World (Rong Music) 12", £9.99

Generator Projects - Members' Show After Party 03.02.12

2012-02-04T09:54:00.005Z

To Drouthy's last night for the post-Generator Members' Show event. The Shithawks played live and the enigmatic DJ duo Black Talc played some rap music off a laptop. I took a few photos and here they are:

The Shithawks bring blues and rock music

The crowd go wild for Black Talc

Yuck 'n Yum spring 2012 deadline reminder

2012-02-01T23:32:00.002Z

Just a gentle reminder that the deadline for the Yuck 'n Yum spring 2012 issue is fast approaching: LINK

fever

2012-01-30T22:11:00.005Z

Laurel and Hardy in Way Out West (1937)

Extract from Patrick DeWitt - The Sisters Brothers:

“Can you remember what you were dreaming of just now?” he asked.

“Only that I was being restricted,” I said.

“You kept saying, I am in the tent! I am in the tent!”

“I don’t remember.”

“I am in the tent!”

“Help me stand up.”

He assisted me and in a moment I was circling the camp on wooden-feeling legs. I was slightly nauseous but ate a large meal of bacon and coffee and biscuits and managed to keep this down. I decided I was well enough to travel and we rode easy for four or five hours before settling down again. Charlie asked me repeatedly how I was feeling and I attempted each time to answer, but the truth of it was that I did not exactly know. Whether it was the poison from the spider or the harried doctor’s antivenom, I was not entirely in my body. I passed a night of fever and starts and in the morning, when I turned to meet Charlie’s good-day greeting, he took a look at me and emitted a shriek of fright. I asked him what was the matter and he brought over a tin plate to use as a looking glass.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“That’s your head, friend.” He leaned back on his heels and whistled.

The left side of my face was grotesquely swollen, from the top of my skull all the way to the neck, tapering off at the shoulder. My eye was merely a slit and Charlie, regaining his humor, said I looked like a half-dog, and he tossed a stick to see if I would chase it. I traced the source of the swelling to my teeth and gums; when I tapped a finger on the lower left row a singing pain shot through my body from top to bottom and back again.

“There must be a gallon of blood sloshing around,” said Charlie.

“Where did you find that doctor? We should revisit him and have him lance me.”

Charlie shook his head. “Best not to search him out. There was an unhappy episode regarding his fee. He would be glad to see me again, it’s true, but I doubt he would be eager to assist us further. He mentioned another encampment a few miles further to the south. That might be our wisest bet, if you think you can make it.”

“I don’t suppose I have a choice.”

“As with so many things in a life, brother, I don’t suppose you do.”

http://www.vice.com/read/the-sisters-brothers-634-v17n12

Baba Gogo #4 @ Drouthy's 17.02.12

2012-01-29T18:37:00.004Z

Friday February 17 from 8pm

Baba Gogo #4: Valentine's Special with boutready2jack and ben 'jack your body' robinson

It is a night for couples, to commune under the candlelight with your loved one, find your future half or show despondency for your past liaisons to the orgasmic interplanetary melt of music box jams, acid, disco and house provided by our two guests, boutready2jack and ben 'jack your body' robinson. Not even our djs want to be alone tonight.

As for ourselves, we will travel musically the phases of enchantment, power struggle, honeymoon, resentment and self-destruction.

Romance and pandemonium for free at Drouthy's basement.

LINK

Zazou @ Kage 27.01.12

2012-01-28T12:47:00.007Z

To the Kage nitespot last night for Zazou, billed as "a phantasmagoria of Italo, Hi NRG and obscure Disco". I took a few photos and here they are:

Italo like you mean it

Zazou resident DJ Il Discotto

Stefan Blomeier meets his public

Dancers

Deejay for money

receipts

2012-01-27T20:37:00.005Z

Bought a few records:

Book Of Love - Boy (Sire) 12", € 2.00

Jellybean – Just A Mirage (Chrysalis) 12", £0.99

Blancmange - Waves/Game Above My Head (London) 12", £4.99

Yuck 'n Yum - Our New Cover Artist – Helen Flanagan

2012-01-26T17:48:00.006Z

Yuck ‘n Yum are delighted to announce that our new cover artist for 2012 is Helen Flanagan.

Helen is a photographer based in Birmingham, returning there after graduating from Falmouth University of Arts in 2010. Her photography captures human fragility with a delicacy in framing and the slightest of touch. She has exhibited across the UK and has been featured in multiple photographic publications including Dazed and Confused magazine. She is also cofounder of Books & Others, a project aimed at promoting photographic works, with visual artist Alex Bailey.

We at Yuck ‘n Yum are very excited to have Helen as our first photographic cover artist and are curious to see what direction Helen takes YNY in 2012. Helen has been featured twice in Yuck ‘n Yum in our summer and winter editions of 2011. You can view these works amongst others by heading to our zine archive.

You can read a nice interview about Helen’s project ‘No Strings Attached’ courtesy of It’s Nice That magazine here and view her photography and other projects at   www.helenflanaganphotography.co.uk, www.booksandothers.org and www.whenimsleepy.blogspot.com

We would also like to say a big thank you to Ross Hamilton Frew who is handing the baton over to Helen. Ross produced four stunning covers for us last year and we wish him all the best for the future.

The deadline for the Spring 2012 issue is the 23rd of February. 

LINK

curious

2012-01-23T21:06:00.002Z

Gregor Schneider - Totes Haus u r, 2001

Extract from H.P. Lovecraft - Supernatural Horror in Literature:

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. These facts few psychologists will dispute, and their admitted truth must establish for all time the genuineness and dignity of the weirdly horrible tale as a literary form. Against it are discharged all the shafts of a materialistic sophistication which clings to frequently felt emotions and external events, and of a naïvely insipid idealism which deprecates the æsthetic motive and calls for a didactic literature to "uplift" the reader toward a suitable degree of smirking optimism. But in spite of all this opposition the weird tale has survived, developed, and attained remarkable heights of perfection; founded as it is on a profound and elementary principle whose appeal, if not always universal, must necessarily be poignant and permanent to minds of the requisite sensitiveness.

The appeal of the spectrally macabre is generally narrow because it demands from the reader a certain degree of imagination and a capacity for detachment from everyday life. Relatively few are free enough from the spell of the daily routine to respond to tappings from outside, and tales of ordinary feelings and events, or of common sentimental distortions of such feelings and events, will always take first place in the taste of the majority; rightly, perhaps, since of course these ordinary matters make up the greater part of human experience. But the sensitive are always with us, and sometimes a curious streak of fancy invades an obscure corner of the very hardest head; so that no amount of rationalisation, reform, or Freudian analysis can quite annul the thrill of the chimney-corner whisper or the lonely wood. There is here involved a psychological pattern or tradition as real and as deeply grounded in mental experience as any other pattern or tradition of mankind; coeval with the religious feeling and closely related to many aspects of it, and too much a part of our innermost biological heritage to lose keen potency over a very important, though not numerically great, minority of our species.

Jane & Louise Wilson @ DCA 21.01.12

2012-01-21T21:17:00.011Z

To the DCA tonight for the opening of the Wilson Twins show. I took a few photos and here they are:

Face Scripting – What Did the Building See?

Atomgrad (Nature Abhors a Vacuum)

The Dundee art massive

http://www.dca.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/jane-louise-wilson.html

Hollywood Seven

2012-01-19T11:12:00.007Z

In 1974 Gloria Sklerov, a prolific songwriter who now specialises in wedding music, was asked to write an "urban story song" for Terry Jacks who needed a follow-up to the hit single Seasons in the Sun. "On the way home on the freeway one night I passed a motel called Hollywood Eight which intrigued me. I started to think about who might be checking in there. We decided to change the name to 'Hollywood Seven' because it 'sang' better. We then plotted the story and it all came out like it was meant to. Unfortunately the Terry Jacks deal fell though but we were thrilled when we heard the recording by Jon English. It used some of the synth riffs we had used in the demo and I was very proud of this version."

However it's the 1980 cover version of Hollywood Seven by Dutch singer Alides Hidding which has been "rescued from the depths of dollar bin obscurity" by DJs Mike Simonetti and Johnny Jewel. Recently released by Perseo Records (with other rare covers such as the German one with psychedelic guitar) Simonetti and Jewel's extended edit "clocks in at 6.51 and is mastered with extremely heavy drums."
http://aordisco.blogspot.com/2011/11/hollywood-seven-disconet-dilemma.html

0

In 2008 Mike Simonetti & Johnny Jewel were in a record store in Perth, Australia killing time on tour when they found another version of the song while looking through crates of discount records. It was definitely fate! To find this song in the most random record store in the most remote city on the planet had to mean something. Mike spun it that night at an after party deep in the belly of a basement. The song had the classic feel of the original, but was more like a version performed by Neil Diamond's long lost Australian brother. Nine months later, Glass Candy had the night off in San Diego. Outside of a record store in an alley behind a pharmacy, Johnny stumbled across an even more bizarre interpretation of "Hollywood Seven." A strangely hi-NRG inspired version mixed with shredding psych guitar riffs and sung completely in German! In 2010 Nat Walker (Chromatics / Desire) found yet another version of "Hollywood Seven" at a North Portland church rummage sale while looking for hip hop samples. This piano-driven version was a glammy early 80s gospel private press record and is the only version known to contain the fourth verse (this is the original Jon English 1976 version).
http://www.piccadillyrecords.com/products/MikeSimonettiJohnnyJewel-HollywoodSevenEP-Perseo-77353.html

To be honest the press release for this 12-inch is so epic that the best thing to do would be just to quote it in full. With full record geek's enthusiasm it details the cratedigger's journey that befell Mike Simonetti and Johnny Jewel and lead them to no less than four versions of "Hollywood Seven." As a result, Simonetti and Jewel take the artist's slot on this one not only for their extended edit of the original track but for their digging chops in unearthing a little dusty, dollar-disco diamond. It seems like there's weird cover versions of this all over the world. One surfaced in Australia. Another at a North Portland rummage sale. Another, sung in German, was found by Jewel in San Diego, "outside of a record store in an alley behind a pharmacy," which is how you know these guys are hardcore: they are literally looking for records in the alley outside the record store.

The original, a lynchpin of the duo's lauded Albuterol mix, is an immensely catchy trash-disco delight, with over-the-top everything: urgent horns, handclaps, scratchy guitar, rousing melody and an unbeatable soap opera storyline that revels in the clichés of stardom dreams born and broken in California. With its brutal, near-ridiculous melodrama, I could imagine Rainer Fassbinder spinning it.

The cover versions are a cabinet of wonders, or hotel mini-bar of wonders, unto themselves. The German version plucks the riff from Clapton's "Layla," replaces the horns with bright-ass synths and retells the tale in Dietrich deadpan, suddenly conjuring not only smoky Berlin cabaret but traditional German schlager-schmaltz. The "Piano" and "Ballad" versions are close kin, both slowing the tempo and upping the pathos with that world-weary feeling you only get in overwrought '70s rock.
http://www.residentadvisor.net/review-view.aspx?id=9499

receipts

2012-01-18T15:09:00.003Z

Bought a few items over recent weeks:

Jesus, You Know DVD, £12.90

Glenn Gould & Leonard Rose - Bach: The Three Sonatas for Viola da Gamba & Harpsichord CD, £2.72

Legowelt - The Teac Life (Legowelt) 4LP, £31.99

G Strings - The Land Of Dreams (Seventh Sign) 12", £8.99

Various - Nation presents The Modern Electronic Element (serie 2) 2LP + 7" (Nation), £16.99

festive

2012-01-16T20:32:00.005Z

Pierre Clémenti in Benjamin, or the Diary of an Innocent Young Man (1968)

Extract from Dennis Cooper - The Marbled Swarm:

Serge favored vintage black Slimane jeans, so tight in the legs that his near-robotic gait would have made Pinocchio a track star. His faux old-fashioned choice of a white and gauzy sweater flecked with Christmas trees was geared to mismate with a visible black T-shirt whose skull-emblazoned front seemed to represent his tortured soul's Peeping Tom. His limp, unimaginatively brown, forgotten-esque hair was worn in two chin-length, barely parted bangs that cordoned off a lightly made up face so classic that, had he not been such a downer, it might have sucked fan mail into his in-box like atmosphere into a punctured jet.
So taken was I with the drab atmospherics and festive details of this crosshatched-seeming boy that I was caught quite off guard when his morose eyes rose just far enough to spot the bulge he had occasioned in my slacks.

Yuck 'n Yum Guest Zine Winners

2012-01-12T11:12:00.008Z

Yuck ‘n Yum are proud to announce our two commissioned Guest Zine Projects: Valerie Norris with Steven Myles, and Michael Lacey.

Val Norris is a Dundee based artist who works within the medium of drawing. She has exhibited extensively with her most recent work featuring alongside Alex Frost and David Shrigley. Steven Myles is a musician also based in Dundee. They share an interest in song-poems, and will be creating a zine dedicated to the musical phenomenon.

Song-poems peaked in popularity between the 1950s and 1980s in America, originating from the slightly dubious commercial enterprise whereby music publishing companies would place adverts in magazines, soliciting lyrics from the general public and for a nominal fee arrange, record and press the “song-poem”. The basic premise is “We’ll set your song, your poem, even your goddamn shopping list to music; we don’t care what you give us, so long as your checks don’t bounce.” The undiscerning, democratic nature of the genre allows the opportunity for the full spectrum of the imagination to be expressed – from the banal to the transcendent, to the downright weird. Val and Steven will explore this rainbow of eccentricity through a collection of essays, experimental texts, cartoon strips, drawings and photographs.

Michael Lacey is an artist, illustrator and writer based in Glasgow and Liverpool. He graduated from Glasgow Art School in 2009. Michael’s work has been described as bold fragmented filmstrips. His most recent commission sees Michael join treasured Scottish artist Alasdair Gray as the only other artist to create a mural for Ubitqitious Chip. Michael will create a comic from a body of work he is currently working on.
He describes it as ‘A mess of drawings and lies concerning giant birds, dying ghosts, haunted boats, dogs carved into cliff faces, enormous brains in glass spheres, waterfalls of pianos, mutilation (self and general), rivers of blood, flooded hotels, dangerous playgrounds, accidental murders, magical circuses, abandoned mazes, pointless rituals, headless swordfighters, ballet-dancing goats, endless staircases, cavernous graves and deserted hotels pitching themselves into the sea.’

These projects will be developed by the artists over the next few months. Yuck ‘n Yum will then produce, launch and distribute the zines. We will be keeping you updated with progress and key dates along the way through the usual channels.

Yuck ‘n Yum would like to thank the Hannah Maclure Centre for their generous support in making this project happen.

Love from all the Yuck ‘n Yum team.

LINK

winning

2012-01-11T18:33:00.003Z

César Luis Menotti

Extract from Jonathan Wilson - Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics:

Menotti was an ineffably romantic figure. A pencil-thin chain-smoker with collar-length hair, greying sideburns and the stare of an eagle, he seemed the embodiment of Argentinian bohemianism. He was left-wing, intellectual, a philosopher and an artist. 'I maintain that a team is above all an idea,' he said, 'and more than an idea it is a commitment, and more than a commitment it is the clear convictions that a coach must transmit to his players to defend that idea.
'So my concern is that we coaches don't arrogate to ourselves the right to remove from the spectacle the synonym of festival, in favour of a philosophical reading that cannot be sustained, which is to avoid taking risks. And in football there are risks because the only way you can avoid taking risks in any game is by not playing...
'And to those who say that all that matters is winning, I want to warn them that someone always wins. Therefore, in a thirty-team championship, there are twenty-nine who must ask themselves: what did I leave at this club, what did I bring to my players, what possibility of growth did I give to my footballers?
'I start from the premise that football is efficacy. I play to win, as much or more than any egoist who thinks he's going to win by other means. I want to win the match. But I don't give in to tactical reasoning as the only way to win, rather I believe that efficacy is not divorced from beauty...'

Bounce N Break Yo Back

2012-01-10T15:55:00.009Z

DJ Spinn has been one of the most powerful forces in both footwork circles and the house party scene for the last ten years, known for his extensive knowledge of jazz and his ability to turn records by the likes of Roy Ayers into 160 BPM compositions.

The classifications that attach themselves to juke and footwork are generally based on what kind of party you're going to hear the track at, and while both are forms of dance music—one for the ass, the other for the feet—there has always been a gray area between the two. "Bounce and Break Your Back" is a perfect example. Receiving radio play on both Chicago and Detroit airwaves, it's a definite party starter familiar to those that want to bob, and those that want to bang.
http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?1235

What follows is a stack of 20 YouTube videos that show people dancing to DJ Spinn - Bounce N Break Yo Back:

at the house bouncin!!!!

Lol no comment

me recording my people dancing and acting crazy.

us gettin it in on a bored nite

killin it on yall haters

BOUNCE AND BREAK YO BACK DANCE MIX BY THE EAT EM UP GB'S BOOTY POPPIN SHAKIN TWERKIN

tashe 2nd video

oakhill

i was tired but still tried

[WE] AiNt kNO WAt tO dO lOl-*[WE] WAS jUSt jUKiNq ACtiNq dUMb

Bounce and Break Yo Back dance contest at Haitian American Festival. Norwalk, Connecticut.

Just havin fun

nun

me

ashley getting it

Dance

Marri at 4 years old

topfantasy2004's webcam video October 11, 2010, 10:33 AM dancin to bounce &^ break yo Back

i was fckin gettin it raw iz hell i believe imma have sum haterz 4 dis one

LOL WE WAS TRIPPIN AGAIN AFTER THE SUPERBOWL
LETS GET IT LADIES!!!

displayed

2012-01-06T16:27:00.005Z

Marcel Duchamp: Étant donnés: 1. La chute d'eau, 2. Le gaz d'éclairage (Given: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas)

Extract from Bruce Hainley, Pep Talk 5:

PT: That makes me wonder what was your entry, growing up in your family, to art, museums, reading, good books and authors you still love or the beginning of all that? You've talked about Interview magazine before, but...

BH: Interview was crucial, and my parents were members of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. For a period of my life, I saw the Étant Donnés as much if not more than any other work of art. Once I discovered it, tucked away in its corner of the museum, I wanted to see it every time I visited the museum... I remember the first time I saw it I literally thought it was the most hilarious thing I'd ever seen. I still think it's got that shocking aspect: very rarely do you see in any kind of art context what is taken to be "pussy" so splayed and displayed. I just could not believe that that was in a museum...

receipts

2012-01-03T21:36:00.003Z

Ringing in the new year with a few new records:

Deux - Decadence LP (Minimal Wave), $21.00

Willie Burns - = House (Creme Organization), £7.49

Seaside Houz Boyz – Seaside Houz Trax (Creme Organization), £7.49

Timothy J. Fairplay / Kalidasa - Cleopatra Loves The Acid / Bursting Through (World Unknown), £6.66

Coloured Cheryls

2012-01-02T22:37:00.002Z

Collage, 2012

foliage

2011-12-30T13:59:00.004Z

Ben Robinson - Eaux d'Artifice (Silk Flowers with Alexander McQueen Kingdom Eau de Toilette, Evian Water), 2004

Extract from by Octave Mirbeau - The Torture Garden:

We were approaching the bell. On the right and left there were immense red and purple flowers and blood-colored peonies, and in the shade, under enormous parasol-shaped leaves, petasites and anthuriums like bleeding tissues seemed ironically to greet us on the way, and point out the path of torture to us. There were other flowers also, flowers of butchery and massacre, tiger-flowers with their gaping mutilated throats, diclytras and their garlands of little red hearts, and fierce labiates with their firm and fleshy pulp the tint of mucus; they were veritable human lips — Clara's lips — crying from the tops of their tender stalks:
"Come, my dears, come quickly. Where you are going there is still more pain, more torture, more blood flowing and dripping on the earth, more contorted and torn bodies breathing their last on iron tables... more ragged flesh swaying on the gallows-rope, more horror and more hell. Come, my loves, come, lip to lip and hand in hand. And look between the foliage and the lattice-work, look at the infernal diorama unfolding, and the diabolic festival of death!"

receipts

2011-12-26T18:39:00.005Z

Bought a few items:

Glenn Gould - Bach: French Suites BWV 812-817 CD, £1.26

D'Marc Cantu - Fallen (Creme Jak) 2LP, £15.99

Drexciya - Journey Of The Deep Sea Dweller (Clone Classic Cuts) 2LP, £15.99

Xmas dinner 2011

2011-12-25T16:39:00.004Z

As cooked by my dad:

Boned, organic chicken stuffed with minced pork, sage, lemon, chestnuts and apple with pheasant, wild duck and partridge, served with braised carrots and parsnips, sprouts and sprout tops, cranberry and orange relish, bread sauce, roast potatoes and mashed potatoes.

monstrous

2011-12-21T23:09:00.003Z

Extract from by Octave Mirbeau - The Torture Garden:

“Dear Clara,” I objected, “is it really natural for you to seek sensuality in decomposition, and urge Your desires to greater heights by horrible spectacles of suffering and death? Isn’t that, to the contrary, a perversion of that nature whose cult you invoke, in order perhaps to excuse whatever criminal and monstrous qualities your sensuality involves?”

“No!” said Clara, quickly, “since love and death are the same thing! And since decomposition is the eternal resurrection of life… Look—” Suddenly she interrupted herself, and said:

“But why do you tell me that? You’re funny!” And with a charming pout, she added:

“How provoking that you don’t understand anything! How is it you don’t feel it? How is it you haven’t already felt that it is—I don’t even say by love, but by the heightened sensuality which is the perfection of love—that all the intellectual faculties of man awaken and become more acute? And it’s by this sensuality alone that you attain the full development of personality. Look! In the act of love, have you ever thought, for instance, of committing a beautiful crime? That is to say, lifting yourself above social prejudices and all the laws—above everything, in fact? And if you haven’t thought if it, then why do you bother making love?”

“I haven’t the strength to argue,” I stammered, “and it seems to me we are walking in a nightmare. This sun… this crowd… these smells… and your eyes—ah, your torturous and lustful eyes—and your voice… and your penchant for crime… all that terrifies me, and it’s all driving me mad!”

Clara gave a little mocking laugh.

http://bookkake.com/books/torture-garden/extract/

best of 2011

2011-12-20T19:55:00.007Z

Over on Dennis Cooper's definitive blog DC's yesterday, readers were invited to post lists of their personal 2011 highlights. What follows is my own illustrated best of the year:

A few things off the top of my head:

Music:

Cut Hands - Afro Noise 1

Hieroglyphic Being – Le Jardin Des Chemins Bifurquants

Books:

Dennis Cooper - The Marbled Swarm

Kate Zambreno - Green Girl

Wayne Koestenbaum - Humiliation

Art:

Sophie Lisa Beresford - Rave Meditation Dance, Edinburgh

It's highly recommended that you follow this 'ere link to discover what he and everyone else nominated as this past year's brightest and best: LINK

receipts

2011-12-19T22:34:00.002Z

Bought a few items:

Bruce Hainley - Pep Talk, $10.00

Animal Love DVD, £12.94

Ton Koopman - Bach Organ Masterpieces, £3.79

Yuck 'n Yum winter 2011

2011-12-16T13:51:00.002Z

The Yuck 'n Yum winter 2011 issue is now online and available for your festive delectation: LINK

Yuck 'n Yum @ Mixcloud / Winter 2011 launch

2011-12-15T19:45:00.006Z

DJ Ben 'Jack Your Body' Robinson with a festive minimix for the Yuck 'n Yum winter 2011 launch at HMC, Dundee 14.12.11

Ben 'Jack Your Body' Robinson XXXmas minimix by Yuck 'N Yum on Mixcloud

Yuck 'n Yum winter 2011 launch 14.12.11

2011-12-14T22:27:00.023Z

To Dundee's Hannah Maclure Centre this evening for the Yuck 'n Yum winter 2011 issue launch. This involved a piñata, some bicycle-like contraptions, mulled wine and tunes. A few photos were taken and here they are:

The Mordant Liquor of Tears: Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece

2011-12-14T20:42:00.001Z

Although regarded as a masterpiece of Renaissance religious art, the Isenheim Altarpiece is unlikely to feature on any of your supermarket Christmas card designs anytime soon. Created near the French Alsatian town of Colmar between 1512 and 1516 for an audience who suffered the debilitating effects of ergot poisoning, the Altarpiece is an artwork whose central panel, a horrifying, visceral crucifixion scene, was originally intended as a form of medicine. Patients at the monastery hospital’s chapel had been struck by ergotism, a malady contracted by eating fungus-infected rye bread. They experienced an array of unpleasant symptoms such as vomiting, gangrene, intensely painful burning sensations in their limbs and extremities, hallucinations and madness. Their fingers and toes would be dropping off and their skin would have broken out in painful sores. This is the context in which Grünewald’s magnum opus was originally seen, and his agony-wracked Christ was there to provide sympathy and to share in the victims’ suffering. His green, rotting corpse cries out in an empty desert, and the artwork conveys the message that pain will bring one closer to God.

Stanley Meisler’s September 1999 article for The Smithsonian magazine explained the artwork’s origins:

“The monks treated the sick with a balm made from herbs and other plants and with prayers to Saint Anthony, who was believed to possess miraculous curing powers. The monks also tried to bolster the faith of the sick by reminding them that Christ - and Saint Anthony as well - had suffered even greater torments. Grünewald's altarpiece played an important mystical and psychological role in the Isenheim treatment program.”

Ergot poisoning went by the name of Saint Anthony’s fire and was a regular epidemic in the Middle Ages. Fungus-infected bread was to blame, the local rye bread developing hard, dark spur-like structures. This contamination would thrive in damp conditions and affect hundreds at a time. The cause was then unknown, though was often blamed on witchcraft. The monks would serve the sick with good quality food, have them drink a holy fortified wine, and let them contemplate their rich collection of artworks.

The Isenheim Altarpiece takes the form of a multipanelled polyptych whose wings open out to reveal a Nativity, Crucifixion and Resurrection. Of these multiple scenes it’s the Crucifixion whose force has held sway over generations of artists and writers throughout the centuries. In the French decadent writer Joris-Karl Huysmans’ 1891 novel Là-Bas, the protagonist Durtal contemplates Grünewald’s picture, his musings forming an extended meditation on the work’s exquisite horror. In his description of Christ’s wounds, Huysmans doesn’t stint on the gore:

“Purulence was at hand. The fluvial wound in the side dripped thickly, inundating the thigh with blood that was like congealing mulberry juice. Milky pus, which yet was somewhat reddish, something like the colour of grey Moselle, oozed from the chest and ran down over the abdomen and the loin cloth. The knees had been forced together and the rotulae touched, but the lower legs were held wide apart, though the feet were placed one on top of the other. These, beginning to putrefy, were turning green beneath a river of blood.”

Durtal experiences a spiritual crisis, disgusted by the emptiness and vulgarity of the modern world, while in the altarpiece’s depiction of unalloyed suffering he can glimpse salvation:

“(Grünewald) had gone to the two extremes. From the rankest weeds of the pit he had extracted the finest essence of charity, the mordant liquor of tears. In this canvas was revealed the masterpiece of an art obeying the unopposable urge to render the tangible and the invisible, to make manifest the crying impurity of the flesh and to make sublime the infinite distress of the soul.”

In his overarching and accessible Story of Art, E.H. Gombrich wrote,
“Art for him did not consist in the search for the hidden laws of beauty - for him it could have only one aim, the aim of all religious art in the Middle Ages - that of providing a sermon in pictures, of proclaiming the sacred truths as taught by the Church. The central panel of the Isenheim Altarpiece shows that he sacrificed all other considerations to this one overriding aim.”

You’d be forgiven for assuming this art would hold scant appeal for modernism, but many artists did return to it repeatedly. The altarpiece had always held an evident lure for the grotesque and visionary Max Beckmann, and in 1932 it also inspired Picasso to complete a series of ink drawings of the Crucifixion. Christ’s twisted limbs and diseased wounds would be shadowed in the paintings of war veterans by Otto Dix and George Grosz, while Francis Bacon’s Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion used Grünewald’s 1503 Mocking of Christ as an influence for the blindfolded central figure. Bacon’s piles of source imagery teemed with photos of the crucifixion panel. The avowed atheist eventually travelled to Colmar two years before his death to see the Isenheim Altarpiece for himself in the green, decaying flesh. You’d hope this pilgrimage was no mere eleventh-hour religious conversion, but rather a meeting of two like minds. At a distance of five hundred years Grünewald and Bacon had between them performed the most forensic renderings of the human situation’s enduring anguish. I’d quite fancy making that trip myself at an apposite moment, whenever such a time might be.

inserts

2011-12-13T20:49:00.015Z

So for each issue of Yuck 'n Yum I design a flyer notifying our readers of the deadline for the next issue. What follows is a display of all that I've done so far:

summer 2009

autumn 2009

winter 2009

spring 2010

summer 2010

autumn 2010

winter 2010

spring 2011

summer 2011

autumn 2011

winter 2011

spring 2012

receipts

2011-12-13T19:24:00.003Z

Bought a few items:

Janey Smith - Animals, $10.00

H.P. Lovecraft - Supernatural Horror in Literature, £0.99

Various - Danza Meccanica: Italian Synth Wave 1982 - 1987 LP, €34.99

Yuck 'n Yum spring 2012 deadline

2011-12-11T22:14:00.001Z

So I made a flyer to advertise the next Yuck 'n Yum deadline, and here it is:

Yuck 'n Yum winter 2011 launch

2011-12-09T16:26:00.005Z

Dear Santa,
All of us at Yuck 'n Yum would love it if you could bring us guests to join us for our 'Christmas in Mexico' party next Wednesday. We will be launching the winter edition of our wonderful zine and would like to share it with lots of lovely people. We can promise festive punch and plenty of games. Of course, as always there will be some tunes and quirky visuals to ease us into the festive spirit. The launch will take place in the Hannah Maclure Centre, University of Abertay, 6-8pm on Wednesday 14th.

Also, two of our Yuck 'n Yum team, Alex Tobin and Gayle Meike, are feeling even more festive than the rest and are taking part in the SUPERCLUB XMAS PARTY 2011
Thursday 15th December
@ Third Door (formerly medina) £3/£4 after 12pm
11pm - 3am

For their very 1st Xmas bash, they have lined up a whole load of early pressies for all you Superclubbers!

Headlining are Mother Ganga (live), with support coming from resident Superclub DJs Fox Gut Daata and The Artist Formerly Known As Mince plus guests Hug Love & Myspace, who will be blasting out dance-crazy-tastic tunes from 80s pop/ ElectronicFunk/ JazzElectro / R&B/ Crunk... and all the way back!

Also on show will be the visual delights from some of their favourite artists that they have been very lucky to have worked with over the past year, they are: Diane Edwards, Lachlann Rattray, Alex Tobin and Gayle Meikle.

Music:

www.soundcloud.com/motherganga
http://www.myspace.com/fxgdaata

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/user/MrDrkedwards
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrAPFHlZki0
http://vimeo.com/tobinalex/videos
http://www.gaylemeikle.com/

For any information, please contact the Superclub email,
info@superclubstudios.com

Thanks Santa - looking forward to seeing you pop down our chimney,

Love,
YnY team

YNY Xmas meal PICTURE EXCLUSIVE!

2011-12-07T21:56:00.008Z

To the Chopstix Chinese restaurant last night for the Yuck 'n Yum Christmas meal, an event that is by now something of a seasonal fixture. Festivities continued later at Drouthy's. I took a few photos and here they are:

Yuck 'n Yum Turner Prize Party

2011-12-06T09:26:00.009Z

Last night members of the Yuck 'n Yum team got together to watch the Turner Prize announcement. For the record, I was convinced that George Shaw was nailed on to win. It's as well that I'm not a gambling man. Our discussions may well appear in the zine's next issue in some form.

Art paraphernalia

The prize is happening now

Alexandra makes a good point

Andrew talks art

Alex listens

Your correspondent and Andrew join the debate

receipts

2011-11-27T21:08:00.006Z

In between shopping for Christmas presents, I bought a few items. It's not like the postman will be busy this time of year:

Thomas Hardy - The Mayor of Casterbridge, £1.12

Dusty Springfield - Complete A and B Sides 1963-1970 2CD, £4.24

X-Mix 5 DJ Hell Presents Wildstyle CD, £2.43

Fac. Dance - Factory Records: 12" Mixes & Rarities 1980-1987 2LP, £9.24

DC's: There Are Dreams And There Is Acid

2011-11-26T18:53:00.003Z

I'm very proud to announce that today I guest-host an Acid House Day on Dennis Cooper's blog: LINK

Den Haan @ Zazou 25.11.11

2011-11-26T12:22:00.018Z

To the Kage nightclub last night to witness the antics of conceptual disco duo Matthew Aldworth and Andy Gardiner aka Den Haan. Proceedings were largely enveloped in a thick cloud of dry ice, but I took a few photos and here they are:

This is what Italo ass looks like

Zazou residents Stefan Blomeier and Il Discotto take command

The delightful Bobby with your correspondent

Assorted Zazouers

Lost Lake, Chalk Burst @ Generator Projects / The Skinny

2011-11-23T22:08:00.005Z

My review of the current Generator show has been published in The Skinny: LINK

Lost Lake, Chalk Burst @ Generator Projects

2011-11-21T23:55:00.002Z

At once poetic and arbitrary, Lost Lake, Chalk Burst is named after two colours of Dulux paints. The title would seem to cutely question the gap between art and descriptive words, and language is a recurring theme in the show. Curated in collaboration between four Glasgow-based artists, we get diverse practices that engage us to varying degrees.

The Generator’s first room contains Argot by Laura Smith and Rebecca Wilcox, who present text in the form of digital prints on the wall. This reads as a monologue spoken in abrupt sentences and is displayed next to freestanding steel frames. A similar tableau is installed in the larger room, alongside a video projection of a still life in muted colours. Like the frames stood empty and uninviting, the work here seems to want for content. Rather more diverting is the arrangement next door by Michael Kent, who projects desolate landscapes onto upturned sculptural plinths. Last Days, No More Time, Now or Never does at least bring a certain post-apocalyptic sensibility to the room.

In the show’s most affecting work, the Everly Brothers’ mournful croons drift longingly through the Generator’s galleries. The chorus of All I Have To Do Is Dream plays with just the word ‘Dream’ on a loop, part of Graham Kelly’s video installation Coil, Logo, Song, Spire, Eclipse, Slide. The music cuts to a scene of swimmers spiralling down a water slide, to tourists traipsing around a sunlit tower’s spiral staircase, then on to the lighting of a green mosquito candle that burns in another anti-clockwise spiral. More sightseers look skywards to an undefined spectacle, shielding their eyes from the glare of the sun. Kelly’s work offers itself as “the dissection of processes of production and presentation” but it’s the film’s etherealness that lingers with you, a reverie that echoes with the Everlys’ song.

receipts

2011-11-18T16:20:00.006Z

Got paid and had a birthday, so I bought a few items:

Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama, £14.99

Monica Loughman - The Irish Ballerina, £0.38

Jamie Gillis and Peter Sotos - Pure Filth, £43.73 (release date July 2012 )

Hieroglyphic Being - Le Jardin Des Chemins Bifurquants LP, € 18.16

Goodreads.

2011-11-17T22:24:00.004Z

So I just opened an account over at Goodreads. As I understand it, this will allow me to create "groups of book suggestions and discussions" and maybe share recommendations with like-minded souls. I've just spent about an hour compiling much of my library on there, and if you'd like to take a gander round my virtual bookshelves then you're welcome to follow this 'ere LINK.

Den Haan @ Zazou, Dundee 25/11/11

2011-11-16T18:41:00.003Z

Zazou @ Facebook

Zazou are proud to present Den Haan, the conceptual disco duo of Matthew Aldworth and Andy Gardiner, playing an exclusive DJ set of long lost decadent and baroque disco guaranteed to overdrive and ignite the dancefloor...........

Den Haan's music has brought them critical acclaim after releases on labels such as; Dissident, Optimo Music & Supersoul and firm DJ support from the likes of Optimo, Cosmo Vitelli, Headman and Ivan Sm...agghe. They have remixed Hot Chip, Little Boots and Gorillaz among others. Their debut album “Gods from Outer Space” was released on "The Courier Of Death‟ 28/02/11. They have played around Europe including London, Berlin, St Petersburg, Belgium, Barcelona, Paris and The Exit Festival.

£6.00 entry fee
Tickets available from Grouchos, Dundee.

Den Haan @ SoundCloud

memento mori

2011-11-12T21:04:00.004Z

Jean Seberg, À Bout de Souffle (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)

Extract from Kate Zambreno, Green Girl:

The girl behind the counter takes over from the male makeup artist. He is an artist. He doesn’t handle financial transactions. Earlier, to try to push the expensive makeup brushes on top of the purchase, he said: I am an artist. I must use my tools. You are my canvas. The salesgirl who has played the admiring spectator before now steps in front, clipboard in hand. All cool and business-like. The illusion is gone. They are not your friends. Or, to keep that illusion just a little longer, you know you must buy something. It’s part of the exchange, the ritual. She tallies it up. She barters with you still flush with attention. At home is a full makeup bag. But is there a price for seeing oneself anew in the mirror?

This is for the eyes. This is for the lips. This is for the skin. They haggle over the skin.

The skin is necessary of course. You need the skin. Without one of the tricks in the bag it all falls apart. It is a house of cards, your new identity. The makeup artist miraculously reappears to finish the sale. Look at how lovely you look. Your skin looks so young so dewy so glowing. You are reborn. You are luminous. You are lit from within. You flutter under the male flattery, docile, obedient.

I’ll take it. You say. I’ll take it. I’ll take the eyes, I’ll take the lips, I’ll take the skin. I’ll take it all.

Wrap up my new face and throw it in a bag.

They give you a face to take home, an actual paper face with colored in instructions. These masks like memento mori.

Faces, other faces. I can take mine off and breathe.

http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/kzambreno/2011/11/excerpt-from-green-girl/

receipts

2011-11-04T15:52:00.004Z

Bought a few things:

Dennis Cooper - The Marbled Swarm, £5.00

Octave Mirbeau - The Torture Garden, £10.00

DETROIT NEW DANCE SHOW 5xH0URS DVD + Italo DVD, £10.00

Leda – Welcome To Joyland LP, € 15.00

Sophie Lisa Beresford @ YouTube update

2011-11-02T22:09:00.008Z

Any seasoned _B_A readers will know all too well that the mighty Sophie Lisa Beresford is among my very favourite contemporary artists. A couple of new clips have been posted to her YouTube channel, and they can be seen below. If you're baffled as to why crochet tutorials and homework tips should be worth watching, then I hope that a read of my Yuck 'n Yum article would explain how her practice is both profound and always utterly consistent.

Crochet Club *1* What You Will Need to Begin Crocheting

This is a list of what you will require to begin Crocheting.

Here is the list in basic terms:

Wool/Yarn (Acrylic) DK (Double Knit), Plain (no fancy bits :) )

Crochet Hook size 4mm (G)

Scissors

and a Cupper! :) :D

stay tuned for 'Crochet Club' - How to Crochet

LOVE

Sophie x x x

Crochet Club *2* how to have your hands when crocheting

In this video we learn how to position our hands when Crocheting;
How to use our hands to control the wool and the hook, and keep a good tension flowing ;)

Easier than it sounds ;)

PTLLS Homework Help no. 1

This video shows where to find the simple criteria needed to pass your PTLLS theory assignments.

Sorry for the poor sound at the beginning, this levels out as the video goes on. If you would like a clearer video please ask. :) :D x x x

SLB @ Workplace Gallery

Yuck 'n Yum @ Mixcloud / Spring 2010 launch

2011-11-01T23:00:00.003Z

Ben 'Jack Your Body' Robinson live and direct from Dundee's HMC, back in the heady days of spring 2010.

Ben 'Jack Your Body' Robinson spring 2010 launch by Yuck 'N Yum on Mixcloud

Self-Portrait Day: My Halloween Costume @ DC's

2011-10-31T19:44:00.005Z

Bollo

Over at Dennis Cooper's exemplary blog DC's the annual Halloween party is in full swing. My own costume is below, but you're best advised to take a wander round to see what everyone else wore. This being DC's, some outfits are decidedly NSFW. That's if your W isn't Halloween-friendly, anyway.

Self-Portrait Day: My Halloween Costume, Day 1 (of 2)
Self-Portrait Day: My Halloween Costume, Day 2 (of 2)

For Halloween I've come as Something Scary:

Halloween Hocus Pocus @ The Stud Farm 29.10.11

2011-10-30T19:01:00.001Z

To the Perth Road last night for the mother of all Halloween fancy dress parties. I took a few photos and here they are:

Your correspondent as a dead Steve Jobs

Catherine as Grace Jones

Sarah as a bunch of grapes

Catrin as the News of the World

Fraser as Beyonce

Scott as Muammar Gaddafi

Claire as Lady Gaga

Stephen as a Jim Lambie sculpture that didn't sell at the Glasgow Art Fair

Andrew as the Human Centipede

Zazou Disco Terror Halloween Special @ Kage 28.10.11

2011-10-29T13:44:00.016+01:00

To the Kage last night for Zazou, Dundee's spookiest nitespot. I took a few photos, and here they are:

A ghost, on the dancefloor

I like watching horror movies

Kelly as Laura Palmer: "She's dead. Wrapped in plastic."

Oscar as Dr. Herbert West - Reanimator

Yikes!

DJ Stefan Blomeier as Benny (or is it Björn?)

Standing room only

Assorted spooky goings on

Your correspondent in full zombie regalia

Haunted dancehall

Zazou - !Disco Terror Halloween Special! Tonight from 11pm!

2011-10-28T10:50:00.003+01:00

Il Discotto & Stefan Blomeier play spine chilling space vampire disco grooves, ghoulish giallo soundtracks and deranged VHS synth scores from beyond your most vivid hallucinatory nightmares.
Visuals will be choice cuts of the rarest and most obscure horror/nasty/sci-fi/mondo films the 70s/80s have to offer.
PRIZES FOR FANCY DRESS = think Dawn of the Dead meets Studio 54......

Kage nightclub, St Andrews Lane, Dundee

A CUT A SCRATCH A SCORE @ Duncan of Jordanstone

2011-10-25T23:22:00.004+01:00

An ambitious multimedia project taking place at various sites across Dundee, A CUT A SCRATCH A SCORE can hardly be faulted for a lack of ambition. Described by Duncan of Jordanstone Exhibitions as being “a comic opera in three parts”, the venture incorporates opera, comedy, drawings, sculpture and moving images, and will “act as a stage for the city and its people”. Open rehearsals took place last week in the art college’s Cooper Gallery, as well as two offsite locations: City Square and the Botanic Gardens, with a team of resident writers responding to and reflecting on the process on a blog. I caught up with Beth Savage, dramaturge, who has been working with artists Sam Belinfante, David Barnett, Bruce McLean and Adeline Bourret to ask a few questions:

The Skinny has no opera section. What part of the magazine should this go in?

I think you would have to invent a whole new section for this. Do you have an “undefined” section?

Describe A CUT A SCRATCH A SCORE to our readers.

The project started with a weeklong series of live events and discussions which will be followed by an exhibition both in the Cooper Gallery Dundee and then later in the RCA London.
It combines elements from opera, literature and visual art to create a stage on which to examine the notions of comedy, music and art within society.
It takes inspiration from Dundee’s comic industry and adopts the archetypes, such as the gentle giant and the mischief-maker, characters which we are all familiar with, and uses them to ‘score’ the ups and downs of modern life.
The project also approaches subjects such as collaboration and hierarchy in art. It aims to create a true collaboration between the artists and the city and to reject traditional conventions of a hierarchical system allowing each of the contributors to the project to have a sense of ownership and authorship of the work.
There were various open rehearsals and salons with the artists and writers as well as forums such as the blog in which those who attended the week’s events could have their say and continue the discussions which came up. I hope these will continue throughout the exhibition period as they opened up some very interesting discussions surrounding the ideas behind the work and the project has only just begun.

Did you, or any of the other artists and writers, have any opera
experience?

Lore Lixenberg is of course an amazing opera singer and Sam Belinfante has a very strong classical music background which has greatly informed the work. Bruce Mclean and David Barnett have also worked with various theatre projects during their careers.

Was there much scope for adapting the work as the week went on? Was there any room for improvisation?

The Open Rehearsals acted as a space for both experimentation and inspiration. For example I was writing the libretto live as the events unfolded, this was then the basic starting point for the following rehearsals and Culminating Performance. A lot of what happened on the night was subject to change and much of it was improvised.

How do you hope to engage the city’s residents with this project?

By taking to the streets and involving local projects such as the Dundee Drum Academy, and the choir and singers from Dundee there will be a certain amount of public participation and authorship. When making live art in a public space there are always these amazing incidents caused by people’s reactions which really enrich the experience. It changes the way people move through or use the space for the duration of the performance, sometimes even longer. Also by opening up the project to the public through the Open Rehearsals and Salons there is a chance for people to experience aspects of making the work which might otherwise have been hidden and perhaps even to influence the work through the discussion.

http://www.exhibitions.dundee.ac.uk/acut.html

Stefan Blomeier - The Danish Straits

2011-10-20T18:00:00.005+01:00

"There is little known about the artistic persona of Stefan Blomeier. His recent music release Popular Electronics II / Radio Astronomy Research Laboratory Of Electronic Progress has given his persona something of a minor cult status and only increased the flow of rumours around the artist behind it.
In the run-up to the Netaudio commission for new works, a close associate of Stefan has released the following statement:
Early morning. Alone in the centre of an empty Aalborg traffic island, Stefan Blomeier listens to the cars in the distance. He hopes their humming might crowd out his past, smoothing over the angry dissonance. Far too much is at stake here. At moments like these, his memories are all cartoons and his achievements all computer games, and yet it is beautiful. Stefan Blomeier has never felt more alive than he does at this split-second pause-button image-capture video-tape freeze-frame."

http://synthseries.blogspot.com/2011/10/synth023stefan-blomeier-danish-straits.html

Stefan Blomeier @ _B_A

receipts

2011-10-18T20:56:00.003+01:00

Made a few purchases:

Kate Zambreno - Green Girl, £9.25

Kathy Acker - Blood and Guts in High School, £9.49

Le Comte de Lautréamont - The Songs of Maldoror (Solar Nocturnal), £6.16

Ragtyme featuring Byron Stingily - I Can't Stay Away 12", £15.00

void

2011-10-17T17:34:00.002+01:00

Salvador Dalí - Les Chants de Maldoror, 1934

Extract from Maurice Blanchot – The Experience of Lautréamont:

Reading Maldoror is a vertigo. This vertigo seems to be the effect of an acceleration of movement that, just like the encircling of fire, at the centre of which we find ourselves, provides the impression of a flamboyant void or of an inert and somber plenitude. Sometimes we see ourselves at the heart of an exceptionally active, sarcastic consciousness that it is hardly possible to fault. Sometimes this omnipresent agility, this whirlwind of lightning bolts, this storm overloaded with meaning, no longer offers the idea of a spirit in any way, but of a lumbering, blind instinct, of a dense thing, of this tenacious heaviness, proper to the body that undoes itself and to substances seized by death. These two impressions are superimposed; they necessarily go together. They give the reader a drunkenness that races to its fall and an inertia docile at his stagnation. In these conditions, how could he have the desire, and the means, to regain enough equilibrium to discern where he is falling? He proceeds and he sinks. Therein is his commentary.

AGK 2 post 15: Gayle Meikle and Alexandra Ross - I’m Sticking With You

2011-10-16T22:11:00.002+01:00

“Gayle and Alexandra make public the fact that they are indeed BFFs and they like cats with things on their heads. Perhaps the most beautiful show of friendship and love EVER. Hugs for everyone”

Gayle Meikle - I'm Sticking With You from yucknyum on Vimeo.

AGK 2 post 14: Ben Robinson - Ghost Rider

2011-10-16T20:07:00.005+01:00

“We can’t promise Ben will keep his clothes on, but we can promise this will be a must see”

Ben Robinson - Ghost Rider from yucknyum on Vimeo.

AGK 2 post 13: John Louden - Irreversible Assault

2011-10-16T19:59:00.003+01:00

“Two pieces of cinematic mood music combined to make one. Unlikely to be found on any karaoke machine”

John Louden - Irreversible Assault from yucknyum on Vimeo.

AGK 2 post 12: Morgan Cahn - Kiss Me

2011-10-16T18:31:00.003+01:00

Morgan Cahn - Kiss Me from yucknyum on Vimeo.

AGK 2 post 11: Skeleton Hopskotch - These Are The Things That I Like

2011-10-16T17:39:00.002+01:00

“Hello! Skeleton Hopscotch here. You might like my music video because it’s a list of things I like. You might like them too.”

Skeleton Hopskotch - These Are The Things That I Like from yucknyum on Vimeo.

AGK 2 post 10: Holger Mohaupt - Autobarn

2011-10-16T12:52:00.003+01:00

“From coast to coast in 4 seasons and 4 frames per second.
Please note the phonetic karaoke subs.”

Holger Mohaupt - Autobarn from yucknyum on Vimeo.

AGK 2 post 9: Hannah Maclure Centre Team - Addicted to Love

2011-10-16T11:06:00.003+01:00

“Robert Palmer’s 1986 chauvinistic classic re-imagined by the team at Hannah Maclure Centre, with more pouting and better dancing”

Hannah Maclure Centre Team - Addicted to Love from yucknyum on Vimeo.

AGK 2 post 8: Dawn Campbell - Someone Like You

2011-10-16T10:49:00.002+01:00

“The video consists of found cine (super 8) footage, which I projected onto the wall and filmed with an HD camera. I then edited a montage of clips which evoked some of the lyrics within the song.”

Dawn Campbell - Someone Like You from yucknyum on Vimeo.

AGK 2 post 7: Catrin Jeans and Sarah Messenger - You Spin Me

2011-10-15T16:00:00.004+01:00

You Spin Me Round created by Sarah Waffle Burger Messenger and Catrin Jeans which won the Hannah Maclure Centre Micro cinema mini residency. HMC's very own Clare Brennan sang with mates Sean, Lesley and Simon.

Catrin Jeans and Sarah Messenger - You Spin Me from yucknyum on Vimeo.

AGK 2 post 6: Stuart McAdam - Brown Eyed Girl

2011-10-15T15:49:00.002+01:00

Winner of Best Performance at Yuck 'n Yum's AGK 2011

"My ‘favourite’ song, and one which typifies the countless mobile discos I have been exposed to over the years."

Stuart McAdam - Brown Eyed Girl from yucknyum on Vimeo.

AGK 2 post 5: Andy Sim - Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of)

2011-10-15T09:32:00.002+01:00

Winner of the Fleet Collective Prize at Yuck 'n Yum's AGK 2011.

“An early review described the lyrical content of The Mars Volta’s ‘De-loused in the Comatorium’ album to be “like someone who has eaten a dictionary”, and the phrase stuck in my head (like the lyrics).
This video seeks to bring those words from their fantasy realms into reality but remaining trapped in the mind of the viewer.”

Andy Sim - Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of) from yucknyum on Vimeo.

Yuck 'n Yum @ Mixcloud / AGK 2010 Works Night Out

2011-10-14T14:45:00.007+01:00

On Saturday 18 September 2010 Yuck 'n Yum held its inaugural Annual General Karaoke event. Attendees enjoyed a dance afterwards to a 'Works Night Out' DJ set selected by Ben 'Jack Your Body' Robinson.

http://www.mixcloud.com/YucknYum/agk-2010-works-night-out/

AGK 2010 Works Night Out by Yuck 'N Yum on Mixcloud

Yuck 'n Yum autumn 2011

2011-10-13T18:12:00.005+01:00

The Yuck 'n Yum autumn 2011 issue is now online and hungry for your eyes: LINK

Here is a list of 20 books @ DC's

2011-10-12T21:55:00.006+01:00

I often comment on Dennis Cooper's superlative blog DC's. This week he requested that readers and distinguished locals nominate their favourite books. What follows is my own list, but I heartily recommend you follow these 'ere links to discover what others chose:

Day 1: LINK
day 2: LINK

Here is a list of 20 books.

Dante – Inferno

William Blake – The Complete Illuminated Books

Lewis Carroll – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Marquis de Sade – Justine

Mary Shelley – Frankenstein

Comte de Lautréamont – Maldoror

Jean Genet – Our Lady of the Flowers

Jean Rhys – Good Morning Midnight

Unica Zürn – Dark Spring

Salvador Dalí – The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí

JG Ballard – The Atrocity Exhibition

Gordon Burn - Somebody's Husband, Somebody's Son: The Story of the Yorkshire Ripper

Bob Flanagan – The Pain Journal

Andrea Dworkin – Heartbreak

RE/Search – Industrial Culture Handbook

Adam Parfrey (editor) – Apocalypse Culture

Sylvere Lotringer - Overexposed: Treating Sexual Perversion in America

Mike Kelley – Foul Perfection: Essays and Criticism

Peter Sotos – Comfort and Critique

Dennis Cooper - Closer

Yuck 'n Yum @ Mixcloud / Autumn 2010 launch

2011-10-11T21:23:00.005+01:00

Ben 'Jack Your Body' Robinson soundtracks the Yuck 'n Yum autumn 2010 launch, with a playlist encompassing doo-wop, horror soundtrack and acid.

http://www.mixcloud.com/YucknYum/ben-jack-your-body-robinson-autumn-2010-launch/

Ben 'Jack Your Body' Robinson autumn 2010 launch by Yuck 'N Yum on Mixcloud

MS Therapy Centre @ DCA TBC

2011-10-11T19:27:00.004+01:00

So I made a screenprint to advertise prospective DCA tours and events for Dundee's MS Therapy Centre. No details confirmed as yet, but here's the poster design:

ecstasies

2011-10-10T21:35:00.003+01:00

Ben Robinson - Public Holidays (Les Chants de Maldoror) 2009 screenprint, edition of 100

Extract from Comte de Lautréamont - Les Chants de Maldoror:

O stern mathematics, I have not forgotten you since your learned teachings, sweeter than honey, filtered through my heart like a refreshing wave. From the cradle I instinctively aspired to drink from your spring more ancient than the sun, and, most faithful of your initiates, still I continue to tread the sacred court of your grave temple. There was a haze in my spirit, something indefinable, smoky-thick, but I knew how to cross – religiously – the steps that lead to your altar, and as wind drives off the fritillary, so you have cleared this dim mist. In its place you set excessive coolness, a consummate prudence, and an implacable logic. With the aid of your strengthening milk my intellect developed rapidly and acquired immense proportions amid the entrancing clarity that you prodigally present to those who love you with a sincere love. Arithmetic! Algebra! Geometry! Grand trinity! Luminous triangle! He who has not known you is a dolt! He deserves the test of the greatest tortures, for in his ignorant thoughtlessness there is blind contempt. But he who knows and appreciates you wants naught else of the world’s chattels; content with your magical ecstasies; and, borne on your sombre wings, he desires nothing more than to rise in gentle flight, describing an ascendant helix, toward the spherical vault of the heavens.

Yuck 'n Yum @ Mixcloud / Spring 2011 launch

2011-10-09T23:43:00.003+01:00

Ben 'Jack Your Body' Robinson with a leisurely Sunday afternoon mix to launch the Yuck 'n Yum spring 2011 issue 24.03.11:

http://www.mixcloud.com/YucknYum/ben-jack-your-body-robinson-spring-2011-launch/

Yuck 'n Yum @ Mixcloud

2011-10-08T21:02:00.006+01:00

Yuck 'n Yum now has an account on Mixcloud. Playlists from recent launch events are already online from Alex Tobin and Ben 'Jack Your Body' Robinson, with more to follow in the coming days:

http://www.mixcloud.com/YucknYum/

YUCK ‘N YUM presents THE GUEST ZINE PROJECT

2011-10-07T22:30:00.003+01:00

The premise is a simple one. We're asking for proposals for a project that will be turned into a limited edition publication, funded and distributed by Yuck 'n Yum.
Your zine can be colour or black and white, and there are no restrictions on the size or the number of pages.
The deadline for submissions will be Friday 11th November, and your proposals need to explain in no more than 300 words what the zine will be about and what it will look like.
JPEGs are welcome but are not essential.
WE WANT YOUR ZINES!

A Brief History of Art and Chaos Magic: The Life and Work of Austin Osman Spare

2011-10-06T22:51:00.003+01:00

Austin Osman Spare was an artist who would come to be defined by his inner life as a visionary, magician and sorcerer. Achieving his greatest material success in the years leading up to the First World War, his work was never wholly accepted or understood by the metropolitan art elite. Today however, a few recent exhibitions and biographies have reawakened the public’s interest in this elusive and idiosyncratic figure. His automatic drawing techniques anticipated the surrealists, while his writings on magic have been studied by occultists ever since they were first committed to the page. Spare’s career is said to have run in reverse, beginning with scholarships and artworld celebrity, before finally ending in a shabby Brixton basement surrounded by stray cats. But whatever his status at any given time, Spare has never entirely disappeared from the radar of consensus reality.

Born in 1886, the son of a London policeman, he was something of an Edwardian artworld celebrity in his youth. At the age of seventeen he exhibited at the Royal Academy and won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art. An article in The Daily Chronicle from 1904 would catch him in the first full bloom of inspiration, while his mother claimed his talent was already evident at the age of four:

“All day long he would have a pencil in his hand, drawing anything that was placed before him - his parents, his sisters, or brothers. Nothing seemed to come amiss and we made up our minds that if it was at all possible he should be allowed to follow what was evidently his vocation. Of course it has been expensive to buy his board and paints, and all else that he requires, for, curiously enough, he can never be persuaded to sell any of his work. He is even averse to showing it to anyone.”

This reluctance to sell his work would remain consistent throughout his life. Self-analysis and self-discovery were always more of a priority. To The Chronicle’s journalist he was already confiding his thoughts on religion:

"I have practically none. I go anywhere. This life is but a reasonable development. All faiths are to me the same. I go to the Church in which I was born — the Established — but without the slightest faith. In fact, I am devising a religion of my own which embodies my conception of what we were, are, and shall be in the future."

Spare’s art is characterized by an extraordinarily high standard of draughtsmanship, a heavily stylized flowing line that would draw comparisons with Aubrey Beardsley. Like Beardsley before him, Spare was attracted to grotesqueries and much of his graphic work is populated by demons, satyrs, gods and monsters. He edited a number of arts magazines including Form - A Quarterly Of The Arts from 1916 to 1922 and The Golden Hind from 1922 to 1924. A 2001 Fortean Times article by Phil Baker makes the case for Spare’s artistic accomplishments:

“At best it is exceptionally powerful, but one of the most peculiar things about it is his chameleonic range of styles. Spare's distinct modes - some at different periods, others contemporary with each other - have been compared to Beardsley, Michelangelo, Dürer, and Blake, among others, but they have an intensity that goes beyond pastiche, with something unmistakably "Spare" about all of them.”

Spare also began to self-publish illustrated magical books from 1905, and from this point cultivated a reputation as an eccentric, marginal figure in cultural history. Meanwhile his standing as a magician would only increase. As Nevill Drury wrote in his 2000 article Austin Osman Spare: Divine Draughtsman:

“He nevertheless remains a legendary figure in the 20th century western esoteric tradition and is one of its truly original thinkers, his approach to trance states and his technique of atavistic resurgence representing a unique contribution to the study of magical consciousness.”

He was taught much of this by his neighbour Mrs. Paterson, whom he later claimed had the power to lasciviously transform herself from an aged crone to a sexually alluring woman. Through her he learned the technique of sigilisation, the use of drawing to concentrate the will and effect change in reality. Sigils are often simple graphic symbols whose form can be visualized and impressed upon the user’s subconscious mind. For the US writer and surrealist James Champagne, Spare would prove an inspiring figure:

"I most likely discovered Spare's work through the music of Coil, and became further interested in his life upon studying the teachings of Kenneth Grant, whose books and articles written in the 1970s all but saved Spare from fading into obscurity. Spare created a personalized, stripped-down, and ritual-free form of magical practice that I find highly creative and inspirational (especially his technique for creating and powering sigils, which I myself have employed to interesting effects), and in this regard he can be seen as a spiritual precursor for the chaos magic movement: many of the seemingly modern cutting-edge ideas that can be found in Peter J. Carroll's seminal "Liber Null & Psychonaut" are re-worked versions of Spare's own techniques."

During his many years of obscurity, Spare’s memory was kept alive by a gaggle of occultists and members of the rockstar aristocracy. Collectors have included the Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, the filmmaker Kenneth Anger and the Throbbing Gristle frontperson Genesis P. Orridge. A minor resurgence of interest has followed in the past year, with Phil Baker releasing his biography Austin Spare: The Life and Legend of London’s Lost Artist. A solo show was held at the Cuming Museum in south London, and a documentary film is said to be in production. After a century spent on the periphery or hiding in the shadows, could it be time for Austin Osman Spare’s star to rise once again?

masculinism

2011-10-05T23:18:00.004+01:00

Ben Robinson, Eternal Return (Jordan 'n Jodie) 2004

Extract from Andrea Dworkin - Feminism, Art, and My Mother Sylvia:

What characterizes masculinist art, and the men who make it, is misogyny--and in the face of that misogyny, someone had better reinvent integrity.

They, the masculinists, have told us that they write about the human condition, that their themes are the great themes-- love, death, heroism, suffering, history itself. They have told us that our themes--love, death, heroism, suffering, history itself--are trivial because we are, by our very nature, trivial.

I renounce masculinist art. It is not art which illuminates the human condition--it illuminates only, and to men's final and everlasting shame, the masculinist world--and as we look around us, that world is not one to be proud of. Masculinist art, the art of centuries of men, is not universal, or the final explication of what being in the world is. It is, in the end, descriptive only of a world in which women are subjugated, submissive, enslaved, robbed of full becoming, distinguished only by carnality, demeaned. I say, my life is not trivial; my sensibility is not trivial; my struggle is not trivial. Nor was my mother's, or her mother's before her. I renounce those who hate women, who have contempt for women, who ridicule and demean women, and when I do, I renounce most of the art, masculinist art, ever made.

AGK 2 post 4: Morgan Cahn - It's Not Unusual.

2011-10-05T21:43:00.002+01:00

Morgan Cahn - It's Not Unusual from yucknyum on Vimeo.

“There is an ear, some bright colours, maggots, fish, and a guinea pig. A good rockin’ time for all”

Yuck 'n Yum winter 2011 deadline

2011-10-03T23:29:00.003+01:00

So I made a flyer to advertise the next Yuck 'n Yum deadline, and here it is:

AGK 2 picture special!

2011-10-02T13:36:00.048+01:00

Last week Yuck 'n Yum held its second Annual General Karaoke event at Dundee City Chambers. I took a bunch of photos, and believe it or not these are some of the best ones. The text is annotated with notes from the AGK agenda.

Don't Look at Me (I Don't Like It) – Andrew Maclean
“The Lovely Eggs’ song will help Andrew introduce the room and make a live agenda point (karaoke vid) at once. Two birds, one stone. Think of it as an ice breaker except worse and don’t dare think of hiding in the loo.”

(Sadly I never got any photos of Andrew's performance, so here's one of him arranging tables before the event started.)

Come to Daddy - Alex Tobin
“The introductions are not over. Latest Y’nY member Alex Tobin presents a short introductory video about himself. Expect to want to hide in the loo again. Don’t look him in the eye - he wants your soul!”

I’m Sticking With You – Gayle Meikle and Alexandra Ross
“Gayle and Alexandra make public the fact that they are indeed BFFs and they like cats with things on their heads. Perhaps the most beautiful show of friendship and love EVER. Hugs for everyone”

HEALTH AND SAFETY ANNOUNCEMENT:

Ghost Rider – Ben Robinson
“We can’t promise Ben will keep his clothes on, but we can promise this will be a must see”

Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of) - Fear Wasabi
“An early review described the lyrical content of The Mars Volta’s ‘De-loused in the Comatorium’ album to be “like someone who has eaten a dictionary”, and the phrase stuck in my head (like the lyrics). This video seeks to bring those words from their fantasy realms into reality but remaining trapped in the mind of the viewer.”

It’s Not unusual - Morgan Cahn
“There is an ear, some bright colours, maggots, fish, and a guinea pig. A good rockin’ time for all”
Winner best performance

Roll with the Punches - Ali Smith
“Tony Browntown’s life has been made a living hell by a band of local rockers called ‘The Shithawks’. So one night he decides to put his Martial arts training to the test and rid his neighbourhood of these scumbags, once and for all.”

15 min break

Autobarn - Holger Mohaupt
“From coast to coast in 4 seasons and 4 frames per second.
Please note the phonetic karaoke subs.”

Irreversible Assault - John Louden
“Two pieces of cinematic mood music combined to make one. Unlikely to be found on any karaoke machine”

Kiss Me - Morgan Cahn
“Gloria Estefan’s Kiss Me with lots of explosions and fires: a ballad for the ages”

These Are The Things I Like - Skeleton Hopscotch
“Hello! Skeleton Hopscotch here. You might like my music video because it’s a list of things I like. You might like them too.”

You Spin Me - Sarah Messenger and Catrin Jeans
“Sarah and Cat dancing to the sounds of Dead or Alive with the internet in mind.”
You Spin Me Round created by Sarah Waffle Burger Messenger and Catrin Jeans which won the Hannah Maclure Centre Micro cinema mini residency. HMC's very own Clare Brennan sings with mates Sean, Lesley and Simon.

2011 AGK WINNER! £300 grand prize
You Can Call Me Al – Joe Howe and Lachlan Rattray
“Paul Simon and comedian Chevy Chase mime their way through Paul’s popular song,”

2010 SONGS + AUDIENCE = CLASSIC KARAOKE:

Don’t You Want Me? - Graeme Plunkett and Alexandra Ross
“An 80s classic exploring jealousy, dreams and Butlins.”
Graeme Plunkett and Alexandra Ross duetted and their chemistry was palpable.

Flash - Andrew Maclean
"I love you Karl Howman but we only have 24hrs to clean the kitchen!"
Andrew Maclean’s video was a cartoony mash up of science fiction spectacle and adverts for household detergent.

Runner up best video: Ali Smith on behalf of Gammamoth

Winning Performance goes to Stuart McAdam for his rendition of 'Brown Eyed Girl' he received £50 some wine and a framed print of the upcoming issue cover by Ross Hamilton Frew.

AOCB - Baba Gogo

http://www.agk.yucknyum.com/

index RIP?

2011-10-01T19:26:00.006+01:00

The social networking site Delicious was relaunched this week, and to no-one's great surprise it's a Helvetica-plastered atrocity. Future bookmarks may well be saved elsewhere, but for now here's the final installment of links from my Delicious page:

Girls' Generation lead K-pop invasion of Japan | World news | The Guardian

New Statesman - Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: An elegy for England

IN ALL OUR DECADENCE PEOPLE DIE : Boo-Hooray

Goatse as Industrial Sabotage | Deterritorial Support Group

FACT mix 283: Cut Hands – FACT magazine: music and art

Cannibal Holocaust: 'Keep filming! Kill more people!' | Film | The Guardian

Yuck 'n Yum autumn 2011 launch

2011-09-30T21:56:00.004+01:00

After gallivanting off to Edinburgh last time out, Yuck 'n Yum make a sensational return to home soil for the launch of the autumn 2011 issue.

We're back in the Hannah Maclure Centre at Dundee's Abertay University, a superswish penthouse plaza address that will house the latest of our exclusive soirees. You can pick up a FREE copy of the latest issue, bathe in the sounds of Alex Tobin's musical mise-en-scène, become an instant style icon by wearing a badge gratis, and also get the full VIP works just by turning up.

We'll be waiting for you from 6pm on the top floor. See you then!

http://www.yucknyum.com/

Yuck 'n Yum - Guest Zine Project deadline 14.10.11

2011-09-30T11:48:00.002+01:00

Deadline is Friday October 14th!

That’s right,
NO you didn’t just dream it.

If there's one thing Yuck 'n Yum really likes, then it's zines. Our own particular effort has featured a lot of fantastic art over the years, but now we think it's about time that YOU had a go at zine production for yourself. We want to hear from anyone out there with a proposal for a zine, and the content is entirely up to you: black and white or colour, text or image, photos or drawings... as long as your ideas are good.

We require a 300-word proposal along with a CV, 6 example images and any specifications such as the rough budget, the size and the colour required. Send this to us at zine@yucknyum.com and you could be seeing your zine being published and distributed by Yuck 'n Yum.

http://www.yucknyum.com/

Yuck 'n Yum @ State of Play 01.10.11

2011-09-29T19:49:00.004+01:00

Yuck 'n Yum will present a collective manifesto at the third AHM symposium this Saturday! Presentations start at 11am in the DCA Cinema.

You can book a place to see the talks here: LINK

We hope see some of you there!

jubilatory formula

2011-09-28T23:52:00.003+01:00

Sigil from Austin Osman Spare, The Zoëtic Grimoire of Zos

Extract from Phil Baker, Austin Osman Spare: The Life and Legend of London's Lost Artist

Spare's Sacred Alphabet will never be deciphered completely, because it doesn't fully add up; he claimed in the Fifties to have forgotten the key, and it is likely that many of the characters were invented simply out of graphic pleasure. It would, in any case, be personal to Spare himself, as he always stressed: he wrote in a later book that each of us has our "own arcana" [my emphasis] - our own symbol system, memories, reference points - possibly borrowing the word arcana from tarot cards (which didn't otherwise interest him very much). As one of his best commentators puts it, there is for every individual "the sacred alphabet of the mysteries that each one of us contains."
A psychoanalyst, Serge Leclaire, also catches this idea when he suggests that for each person there is an encoded core fragment unique to them, a "jubilatory formula",

...the inaccessible text of the elementary unconscious. It consists of a sort of secret ejaculation, a jubilatory formula, an onomatopoeia... The articulation of this formula, either out loud or in a whisper, connotes a jubilatory movement of the body, such as curling up and then stretching, taking pleasure in the result obtained and then starting again.

It is rare, Leclaire argues, for an analyst to arrive at these secret formulae, "since admitting them is, as it were, a violation of modesty. In general they are oscene or grotesque." And, considered as personal arcana, rather magical.

AGK 2 post 3: Ali Smith - Roll With The Punches

2011-09-28T07:58:00.003+01:00

Ali Smith - Roll With The Punches from yucknyum on Vimeo.

Runner up for Best Video AGK 2011

"Tony Browntown’s life has been made a living hell by a band of local rockers called “The Shithawks”, so one night he decides to put his martial arts training to the test and rid his neighbourhood of these scumbags once and for all."

AGK 2 post 2: Joe Howe & Lachlann Rattray - You Can Call Me Al.

2011-09-27T22:10:00.001+01:00

Joe Howe & Lachlann Rattray - You Can Call Me Al from yucknyum on Vimeo.

Winner of Best Video AGK 2011
“Paul Simon and comedian Chevy Chase mime their way through Paul's popular song”

AGK 2 post 1: Ben Robinson - Ghost Rider

2011-09-26T20:39:00.009+01:00

Over the next few days, this 'ere blog will provide a comprehensive guide to last Saturday's Yuck 'n Yum AGK 2 event. The AGK is the Yuck 'n Yum annual general meeting, only the K stands for karaoke. Artists make their own karaoke videos and perform to them accordingly. As this is my blog, I'll nominate myself to go first.

I performed Suicide - Ghost Rider.

Alex Tobin and your correspondent as Martin Rev and Alan Vega

The song contemplates the existential poetics of proto-punk motorbiking. The video is a psychedelic videogame where real people get hurt.

The original Suicide performance:

My 2010 AGK perfomance

Generator Projects - Burdens of Load, Zazou 23.09.11

2011-09-24T10:04:00.012+01:00

To the Generator last night for the opening of the group show Burdens of Load, "an examination of the changing socio-economic landscape of post-industrial Dundee". This was followed by a triumphant Zazou.

Charlesworth, Lewandowski & Mann, Untitled (facts not opinions)

Charlesworth, Lewandowski & Mann, Sound System (kick over statues)

Eric Sebastiaan Roelen, Parallel Imponderability

Charlesworth, Lewandowski & Mann, Untitled (breaking points)

Eric Sebastiaan Roelen, A=B

WEBSITE INAUGURATION, designed by Jamie Coull

Zazou: Djs Il Discotto, Stefan Blomeier and Poupée Flash play forgotten future retro classics from the seediest and most decadent Euro/U.S dancefloors of the 70s, 80s and beyond. Expect gleaming chrome plated Italo Disco, Coke-numb neon synth wave and pumping amyl nitrate scented Hi Nrg.

People, dancing

The crowd go wild

receipts

2011-09-21T22:26:00.003+01:00

A few items I've bought in recent days.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline - Conversations with Professor Y, £5.31

Phil Baker - Austin Osman Spare, £14.44

Marcus Mixx: Use Your Mouth 2 Love Me (Unknown To The Unknown), £6.99

Various: The Minimal Wave Tapes Volume One (Stone's Throw) 2LP, £14.99

The Bad Seed DVD, £7.95

AGK 2011 SNEAK PEEK

2011-09-19T22:06:00.002+01:00

AGK 2011 SNEAK PEAK from yucknyum on Vimeo.

Since the original Yuck 'n Yum Annual General Karaoke a year ago, the event has taken on an almost mythological status. Did it really happen? Were you really there? Shut up, you're just trying to look cool. And anyway, all that's in the past.

2011 is here so that means it must be time for AGK 2. Bigger and better, with even more spectacular karaoke performances. Prizes! Dancing! Art! Bonnie Tyler, possibly! Yes, it's all here, and we sincerely hope that you are too. This Saturday, the AGK 2 is going to make all your art and karaoke dreams come true.

http://agk.yucknyum.com/

L'Anarchiste

2011-09-18T21:28:00.023+01:00

Perfume is important. I've used it in my artwork, so it must be. When the latest bottle of 2 Man ran dry last week, I felt that a change was necessary. But a change to what? Comme des Garçons is getting too expensive for an everyday fragrance. So I did some research on Basenotes, and happened upon a review of L'Anarchiste. That might bring to mind photos of David Beckham wearing his diamante-studded T-shirt with the Crass logo. Crass, being a legendary anarcho-punk band, were rightly outraged and requested that Beckham make a donation to a political cause they support. He didn't, of course.

But the reviews made for a good sell. "Metallic", "like blood", "a hint of toothpaste". It smells strong and lasts for ages. People will smell it on me and ask what scent I am wearing. "Oh, this is by the French perfumier Caron. It's called L'Anarchiste." I will look cool.

It arrived in the post yesterday, in a box emblazoned with a quote by Antonin Artaud. This is a good start. As for the scent itself, well it's really more for going out on the razzle-dazzle. It does have a cool name though, and there is a definite hint of toothpaste.

n_ilk @ Dundee Botanic Garden 17.09.11

2011-09-17T08:33:00.005+01:00

To the Dundee Botanic Garden yesterday for n_ilk, a "music & arts micro-festival". Crowds, rain, degenerates wearing flowers in their hair, yes this was a festival alright. Live performances took place in the big Botanics greenhouse which was installed with an amazingly good soundsystem. Musical highlights were DJ duo Baba Gogo and the mighty Stefan Blomeier. Baba Gogo opened their set with the Joubert Singers, a record that found its perfect context here. Blomeier destroyed any lingering audience hippiedom with a righteous, acid-inflected live set.

A greenhouse

Festival fun

Sonny Carntyne

Your correspondent and Ryan share a moment

The crowd contemplate Baba Gogo

Joubert Singers - Stand On The Word (Larry Levan mix)

Stefan Blomeier brings the noise

FREEARTFORALL

2011-09-16T15:52:00.005+01:00

To the DCA's print workshop yesterday, to begin work on a project that I hope will involve the Dundee MS Therapy Centre on Peddie Street. I plan to get some attendants down for screenprinting classes in the near future, and started on a poster to advertise the event. I'll return next week to carry on some more with it.

AGK (a repeat of the post from 18.09.10)

2011-09-15T08:10:00.002+01:00

With the AGK 2 on the horizon, now seems like a suitable moment to revisit the sights and sounds of last year's epochal event:

The Chambers Suite, Dundee

Over the summer, Yuck ‘n Yum invited karaoke video submissions from musicians and artists throughout Scotland. At the AGK last night, creative types from around the country journeyed to Dundee to do karaoke battle.

The Skinny's AGK preview

THE YUCK ‘N YUM EDITORIAL TEAM:

Flash Andrew Maclean

Just Like a Cunt Ben Robinson
“The body imagined as an abattoir.”

I posted my karaoke video on YouTube today:

SONG + ARTIST = PERFORMANCE:

Theme from Cheers Richie Cummings with Stacey Hunter and Ross Mclean
“Opening Credits from the popular TV series Cheers as re-enacted by folk who were in the Art Bar, Dundee, one Saturday in July”

The Skinny performance prize runner up: 6 tickets for the private and very exclusive Karaoke rooms at Electric Circus in Edinburgh.
Coffee and Dundee Sinead Bracken and Fiona Gordon
“Milky the Milk Carton (from the original music video for Coffee and TV by Blur) spends the day in Dundee.”

I’m Gonna Be (500 miles) Dawn Campbell
“Daniel Pike and myself, Dawn Campbell filmed Stephen Sharp walk barefoot from Dundee to Edinburgh from the 6th of July to the 1st of August 2010. We also gave him his own camera to film a diary of the walk. It is this footage which is used in the Karaoke Video, to Stephen Sharp's approval. The song was chosen because Stephen admitted on an interview that what kept him going on the walk, was constantly singing the song on the video. In the footage it is possible to see the beauty of the landscape as he walks barefoot through Fife, as well as the deteriorating condition of his feet. The rough handheld footage adds a sense of texture, humour and openness, as we join him on his quest.”

Lemon Sole Alasdair Smith
“Gammamoth Productions proudly present- in Haggaro Vision- an audio visual odyssey, in collaboration with legendary music icons ‘The Sang Brothers’. For the first time in history the usually secretive duo have allowed Gammamoth access to a Celtic classic from their extensive Caledonian catalogue.”

What Would You Do / Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
Sam Blair

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes Catherine Weir
“In the style of The Platters, this video features JOH a cuddly bear indeed!”

Birdhouse in your Soul Derek Lodge and Andrea Sayers
“Video animation centered on the ‘blue canary’ of the song’s lyrics which was inspired by the songwriters’ childhood nightlight.”

SONG + AUDIENCE = KARAOKE:

Rehab Abi Lewis
“The video features “the wibbly wobbly charms of the paintbrush programme”, bringing Amy Winehouse to life.”

Jammied Ma Pelvis (Suspicious Minds) Andy Macvicar
"Jammied Ma Pelvis is a salute to all those who have taken to the stage in the garb and spirit of elvis. Shortly before his death, Elvis himself anonymously took part in an Elvis Impersonation contest in a local restaurant he happened to be in, only to come in third place. In 1977 there were 170 Elvis impersonators. By 2002 there were 85,000. At that rate of growth, by 2019 a third of the world's population will be Elvis impersonators. The King is dead, but long live the king."

Runner up prize for best video: 2 years subscription to MAP magazine
Debaser Andy Sim / Fear Wasabi
“We’ve made you a movie and we want you to know, we’re sewing up eye balls, we’re seeing the words we’re(not the Pixies) fitting our dogs with lasers, don’t know about you but we are debasers.”

The AGK champ receives £300 and a mini residency at the Hannah Maclure Centre performance and cinema space:
I’m Your Biggest Fan (Paparazzi) Rachel Maclean
“I’m Your Biggest Fan sucks the viewer into a morphing toy town, a sexy sugary space which reinterprets ‘Lady Gaga’s’ hit ‘Paparazzi’. Alluding to the recent internet scandal questioning her gender.”

You Gotta Problem / Dance Yrself Clean (Medley) Alex Hetherington

“A Variety of video edits to accompany songs by Toni Basil and LCD Soundsystem.”

Resident DJ Ben ‘Jack Your Body’ Robinson spins a ‘works night out’ set post Karaoke.

Whigfield - Saturday Night

Tamperer feat. Maya - Feel It

Eiffel 65 - Blue (Da Ba Dee)

DJ Jurgen presents Alice Deejay - Better Off Alone

Dj Sammy - Heaven

Haddaway-What is Love

Corona - Rhythm of the Night

London Boys - Requiem

Kenkraft 3000 - Zombie Nation

Ian Van Dahl - Castles in the Sky

Darude - Sandstorm

System F - Out of the Blue

DJ Jean - The Launch

Binary Finary - 1998

BBE - Seven Days and One Week

IKO - Digital Delight

Ferrara - Love Attack

AGK 2

2011-09-14T23:24:00.001+01:00

Saturday, September 24 · 7:00pm - 10:00pm

Chambers Suite, Dundee

Just when you thought it was safe to sing Bonnie Tyler...
it's the AGK 2!

Yuck 'n Yum are delighted to announce the sequel to last year's hugely successful AGK.

The 2010 Annual General Karaoke saw creative types from across Scotland making their own karaoke videos, and the chosen songs were performed at the Chambers Suite in Dundee for an array of glittering prizes.

The follow-up is coming on Saturday September 24th, and just like all the best sequels there'll be:

* MORE special effects!
* MORE explosions!
* MORE sex and violence!

Just like last year top prizes are up for grabs: £300 for best video!

For full up-to date AGK news visit: http://agk.yucknyum.com/

inde_x

2011-09-13T22:36:00.009+01:00

As you may have noticed, this 'ere blog's been lying very low of late. I've been hard at work on articles for the new issue of Yuck 'n Yum, which will launch soon in a sticky explosion of excitement. For now though, what better way to recommence proceedings than with a bumper list of links from my Delicious page:

Frieze Magazine | Archive | The thrill of it all | Richard Hamilton

LPCover Lover | The World’s Greatest LP Album Covers, 45′s too

Austin Osman Spare | Profiles | Features | Fortean Times UK

vive le parfum, le parfum est mort, état libre d'orange

Mike Kelley: It came from Planet Bunkum | Art and design | The Guardian

The Smart Set: All Made Up - February 15, 2008

From Top to Bottom - Perfume Patter

Green Girl

20 best: Acid House – FACT magazine: music and art

l_inks

2011-09-02T17:24:00.002+01:00

Another helping of bookmarks from my Delicious page is served:

FUTURE NOIR

Jane Birkin Recalls Her Life as Serge Gainsbourg's Muse - The Daily Beast

Pat Nevin: 'Why can't England produce a Messi or a Zidane?' | Small Talk | Sport | guardian.co.uk

DC's: A Weekend for and by Antonio Urdiales, Day 2 (of 2)

DC's: A Weekend for and by Antonio Urdiales, Day 1 (of 2)

Neon: 100 years of the greatest light show on earth | Art and design | The Observer

New Statesman - The NS Interview: Jake and Dinos Chapman, artists

Dundee Masters Show After Party 02.09.11

2011-08-30T22:39:00.003+01:00

This Friday from 10pm, GENERATORprojects and Yuck 'n Yum present the Dundee Masters Show After Party at Union 39. Featuring your favourite DJs Peg (n_ilk), Il Discotto (Zazou) and Baba Gogo!

LINK