Crammed Organisms - Exhibition

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Massive Attack - Meltdown @ SouthBank Centre

It's getting closer....We're excited!

We love Grant and Delj. Meltdown should be more than a music festival, and hopefully very visual. I can't wait to hear who's playing on Sunday.If you live in Bristol you'll encounter Massive Attack in one form or another, whether you see Grant driving around in his Westfalia VW or DJing at a venue in the city. If you keep your eyes open, they're very much part of the city I've been part of too, and they're never predictable and corporate.

My first big gig thing with them was I think in '94 at Ashton Court house, where you were greeted by a 5ft model of 'EuroChild' in all it's vinyl glory, and you then had a choice of going to the chill out room, where Grant was DJing or going to another room where there was a buffet (complete with vol-au-vents and things on sticks). It was a pretty strange gig, but at least it was memorable.

Roll on Sunday!

Spring-ey, Summer-ey Happy List

With Spring comes renewed interest in doing happy, summery things (it’s sort of like a New Year’s resolution list, but in April - here’s my list)

- give up my morning coffee which has 2 sugars in it – (replaced with lemon & honey teabags)

- cycle to work (which is getting to be a 2-3 day a week thing)

- Sort my blondish hair out (it’s got weird dark blonde stripes in it – I have such a love/hate relationship with it)

- Not spend so much money on buying lunch

- Draw something, anything every day, instead of reading about it – (it’s more like 2-3 times a week – I painted some mini Marshall amps the other day)

- Start a blog about famous Jack Russells (a Heat magazine blog for Dxtr and Dsy)

It's sunny, it's spring!

Lovely Ashton Court with the lovely Miss Daisy.

Weather's been a little weird at the moment, but it seems to be predominantly sunny (freezing as well), but this means very happy poochs.

Smorkin' Labbit - Kozik

I sooooo want this. Kozik is still producing fabulous toy-related artifacts even though he's changed direction in his work. The smokin' rabbit still lives on in this stool.




Get your smorkin' labbit sit-ey down thing here from KidRobot for $1000.

Loving the Etsy - Ramones Window Shades

I love Etsy, it brings together creative peoples mad ideas and finds homes for them all over the world.
I particularly like this little find. They also do Johnny and June Cash! (cute Boston Terrier too!)

The Seller is Drinkanddream.

Miss Nonchalant Daisy

Princess Daisy (as she is occasionally known) has expensive tastes.

Carnivale

I've become addicted to box sets - curse those HBO people for making damn fine TV. I started watching Six Feet Under before Christmas, and recently finished the final series (six). I felt bereft without the Fisher and Diaz family. So to fill the gap, I heard about 'Carnivale'. It had a fabulous old Americana 'washed out colour' sort of feel to it. And, although it is not the most gripping series, there is a certain charm to it, you care about the characters, and the visual aspect to it is wonderful. I can't wait for series two!

Truffles - ymmm

I love cute food stuffs (see previous posts about pretty cakes), and I came across these babies.

You can buy them here http://www.sailorjerry.com/detail.php?i=741&more=359

Zaha Hadid exhibition at Design Museum

And these are a few of my favourite things...(from 2007)

Here's my Top 5 lists of some fab things about 2007.

Films
1. The science of sleep
2. The last king of Scotland
3. The lives of others
4. 2 days in paris
5. Eagle vs shark / Pan’s Labyrinth

This year was a great for little indie films. I think we saw most of the films in Jan/Feb, and found the rest of the year didn’t have anything better to offer.

Music
1. UNKLE – War Stories
2. Raising Sand – Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
3. Bjork - Volta
4. Rufus Wainwright – Release the Stars

I found I haven’t really listened to a lot of new music this year, hence I can’t even think of a 5th album. The UNKLE album was a bit of a grower, and the last two had sparkling moments, but certainly weren’t great albums. The only thing that really knocked me out was the production on the Robert & Alison album. T Bone Burnett has done a cracking job (Gone, gone gone and Rich Woman are fabulous).
For 2008 I’m really looking forward to new albums by Portishead, Isobel and Mark Lanegan, Madonna and Courtney Love.

Food
1. Café Meitreya
2. Teoh’s
3. Pieminster

Books/Magazines
1. Bust
2. Fingerprint – the art of using handmade elements
3. Design it yourself – ellen lupton
4. The crafter culture – amy spencer
5. Fashion market 1 (Japanese book about London indie crafty businesses)
6. Craft Magazine – a cute A5 US publication. It even had an article on Phranc (lesbian folk artist from the 80’s) who makes everyday objects out of paper (shirts, boots).

Gigs
1. Bjork doing ‘declare independence’ at Glastonbury with all the flags waving.
2. Jarvis Cocker – Electric Picnic singing ‘boys are back in town’ to Phil Lynott’s home crowd.
3. Gossip – Glastonbury. This was the final gig of the whole Standing in mud all day and Beth Ditto showing us how amazing her voice is, and stage diving into the crowd.
4. Courtney Love’s birthday gig – mad, bad and dangerous to encounter.
5. Portishead’s acoustic thing at Mr Wolf and them doing new songs at Butlins.
6. Beastie Boys doing ‘Sabotage’ twice at their multi-gigged time at the Electric Picnic in Ireland.

RIP
Miss Isabella Blow (the fashion business is a poorer place without your eccentricity)

(c) David Lachapelle

Which modern bombshell am I?

You Are Most Like Liv Tyler

“I don't want to spend so much time obsessing about myself.”

What Modern Bombshell Are You Most Like?

Boo Hiss to the rain

Here at pooch villas, we don't like the cold and the rain. So we're staying in our duvets. In Daisy's case - literally in the duvet.

Electric Picnic - Ireland

I apologise profusely for slacking on the blog front. It's been a very busy September, and I realised I didn't get to share my experience of the wonderful Electric Picnic festival which was just outside of Dublin (it's the one I went to last year).

It's a much happier festival than Glastonbury, and the quality of the bands they get always amazes me. Lost Vagueness appear, and this year they had a mini graphics festival with some of my favourite graphicy-designery people giving talks (Ben Drury, Tim Biskup, Jon Burgerman). Here's a taster of the festival in picture format.

The wonderfully smiley Jon Burgerman drawing me in cartoon form!

Lost Vagueness
The very colourful and wonderful Ms Bjork

Beastie Girl
And Beastie Boys!
UNKLE

Just a happy pic of Miss Daisy

This was taken on one of the few days of sunny summerness this year.



For the rest of the time she took to driving.

Rock 'n' Roll!!!!

You know sometimes you see something and think... I really should've designed that or written it. Well this is today's one. A t-shirt designed by (the like minded) Julie Maier, who is probably a Virgo too.

And if you want to buy it, you can get it from the wonderful t-shirt company Threadless.

Sooo Jealous.

Courtney Love - Secret Birthday Gig

Wow, what a month - Glasto, now Miss Courtney Love. Like Marmite, I think you love her or hate her, and I'm sure you can guess which camp I fall into.

I received an email out of the blue regarding this gig, and due to less than a weeks notice, I was unsure whether to go or not. I tracked down some tickets and headed London bound! Later I found out it was the day of her birthday and she was playing to 350 people, in a gorgeous hall with chandeliers and lots of swirls of plaster.

I met some great people before hand, which made the evening all the more fun (including a painter who is currently exhibiting at the Saatchi Gallery). When she arrived we all sang Happy Birthday, and she was rather impressed by the turn out and bon homie.

Some of her fans bought gorgeous bunches of flowers, presents from French patisserie house ‘Laudree’ (colourful expensive macaroons) - which she later gave out to her band, and the audience….and they were delicious. And standing by the side of the stage was my favourite mullet-boy Noel Fielding from the Boosh! I smiled at him, and he smiled back. Well you would….wouldn’t you?

She is one of the last 'rock-stars' of the music scene before it all started to head towards ‘downloads’ and ‘myspace’ and bands could that could headline Glastonbury, but you certainly wouldn’t recognise them if you bumped into them in Asda. She’s old-school, still hard-core, mad, bad and dangerous to encounter, and I’m still pleased she’s still around.

My Glastonbury

Post-Pop-Punk. It’s the Polysics!

On a good friends recommendation I went to see the Polysics. A Japanese band that have been around for 10 years, and obviously have a devoted fan base judging by a few of the fans at the gig – one young lady had the same orange boiler suit as the band, complete with band logos.

They were supported by Munch Munch (who I’m going to skip past, because they were quite dull), and a mad trio called Gay against You. The energy, the white outfits and the leaping through the audience thrusting microphones into audience members armpits. They were insane, extremely energetic but quite endearing. Just what you need in a tiny 150 capacity back room of a pub on a hot and sweaty night, and you left that room with a big smile on your face.

And the night got even better when the Polysics did their thing onstage. Hugely influenced by Devo, with bags of energy, recorder playing madness and pom pom thrusting. And they did a fab version of ‘My Sharona’. Also the bassist was superfab who has to be the inspiration for Noodle from the Gorillaz.

These last two pictures are the support band, Gay against You.

Rufus the Fabulous