the less permanent

You should go an vote up this T-shirt design by Sophie Kern. It’s really good and she can win money for it and then we can buy one. Here’s an interview I did with her and one I just did today with her housemate Bryony on Art and Things.

My write up of Crossing Border festival is up on The Line of Best Fit.

This is the selection of some of the words I arranged in a specific order on the subject:

“Here in the UK, the words and music trick isn’t particularly a new one. People like good books and good albums. Or they are at least prepared to feign an equal interest in 1920’s era blues and Dadaist surrealism for the sake of their own sense of cultural identity, which mindless cynicism aside, still has the pretty pleasing effect of bringing together the two art forms to enjoy a very encouraging and useful mutual appreciation. All Tomorrow’s Parties, Latitude, Green Man, Bestival – there’s probably no need to detail them all, there is no shortage of festivals that are now combining music and literature successfully to introduce another dimension to their own cultural displays. The difference with Crossing Border, however, is that rather than giving the distinct impression of a music festival momentarily tipping it’s hat to the traditions of literature (as most British festivals, for all of their intentions, invariably do) Crossing Border feels like a literature festival with a lucrative sideline in gigs. Yes, in case you’re wondering, this is actually a rather good thing. Behind Crossing Border is the definite thrum of a sincere passion for language and melody and this clearly fuels the diverse and consistent quality that the festival provides in both fields. If it wasn’t squashed hopelessly into two nights, like a symphony into a ringtone it would probably be perfect. But touring schedules are touring schedules at the end of the day, apparently.”

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My friends and I have made another zine. It’s the Raw Canvas issue, Raw Canvas are the arts group based at the Tate Modern who invited us to do an event there. If you would like to read this issue of Art and Things please look underneath this paragraph. Thanks.

Right, so I made a post about this artist called Rosie Roberts who I interviewed for Art and Things maybe a week and a bit ago. Loads of my readers on here have been viewing the post and  people have been e-mailing/facebooking/talking to me about how much they like her.

So here’s some more, the art that she did for the Thee Single Spy album cover ( I took a couple of shots of it to fill space):

(In hindsight I realize I should’ve taken a picture of the back, not just two of the front. I’ll update this tomorrow)

I met their frontman Alex and interviewed him for Art and Things a couple of weeks ago. You can learn more about them and how to get hold of one of these wicked little vinyls (for free, I think) on their myspace – (if that turns out to be lie just e-mail him- what do you want from me?)

You can listen to an awesome track called Smoke That Tea by Thee Single Spy by clicking the play button below this paragraph. Make sure you listen to the whole thing because a) it comes together beautifully about halfway through and b) Alex sent it me in .wma (fair enough) but it ended up taking me ages to get this uploaded and to work properly. Like hours. So listen to it and make it worth my while. Please.

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Tessa is an artist. She lives up in York. She’s got a website called LittleYellowDrum.co.uk. I first met her in a pub in North London when I’d just come off of the alt albion tour and I was buzzing (very ill) from all of the Red Bull I’d been drinking that week and she listened to me talk really fast without telling me that I was a ‘weirdo’. Tessa is tip top.. And now she’s sent me this amazing parcel.

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