A call to musicians and producers
In the wake of the success of my last performance poetry gig I am moving on to my next idea. This new project is going to be an audio monologue with a musical score. Sort of an audio play but not. We'll call it a show. It will be about 6 minutes long. When this piece is finished I hope to get it broadcast and I will also do live performances of it.
Please let me lead you through some examples so you can guage the scope and mood of the project.
The structure will be similar to Blue Jam by Chris Morris http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct_bcmG8Tkc I am a massive fan of Chris Morris and this piece could be considered my tribute to his work.
A successful example of me working with a musician was back in 2007 when I worked with Ollie Owen to produce a short clip from a longer script called Battery Class http://butterscotchworld.co.uk/martin/batteryClass.php Together we sampled noises and then Ollie took them away and processed them. We came together again a few weeks later and combined images and sound. Some worked, some didn't. Another few weeks of improvement and we had it. I gave Ollie free raine of production style, instructing only on the mood and timing i.e. It needs to take longer in building to tension or it needs to lighten suddenly at this point. It's more important how it feels that what it is.
I reckon the people who scored The Green Wing are the same people who did Blue Jam. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQk9excAowY
Please comment now if you think you can help put an original score to a monologue like I am suggesting and I will email you. It doesn't matter where you are based because I travel all over the place for my art and we can also work remotely using Skype and similar.
Tickets for John Cooper Clarke performing poetry at Thekla in Bristol
Been to Bristol Ticket Shop today to buy tickets to see one of my favorite poets. If you are a South-Westernite that has never checked out John Cooper Clarke (the bard of Salford), I recommend you take this opportunity. It's on Sunday 28th November at Thekla, Bristol.
Original T-Shirts by Local Artists for sale this weekend
This Saturday and Sunday (that's 17th and 18th July) between 11am and 6pm you will be able to go to Felix's house on Alma Street in Taunton (a short walk from town centre) and look through a wide range of clothing for sale at incredible prices.
On offer will be original t-shirts and jumpers produced by local artists at prices from about £5 up to £15. I have produced a few t-shirts myself including the "Fight" design above and there's also stuff from FRA (Fresh Rotten Apples), Felix himself and many more people who I will add to this blog when I've got confirmation later tonight.
As well as the new clothing there will also be a large selection of second hand and vintage clothing from Charlotte and friend's personal wardrobes. They all need clearing out before they move back to London permanently never to be seen in Taunton again.
THIS SALE WILL ONLY EVER HAPPEN ONCE. Grab this opportunity to get unique art style threads at very affordable high street prices! It's got to be worth popping by!
Inspirational hangover leads to blog redesign
At the weekend I met the very lovely Hyperfrank who was down as a VIP guest to Stub Footed Pigeon. With just a hungover chat she inspired me to inject a bit of life back into my blog. I tend to swing between thoughts of what I should be using this for. Is it all a narcissistic farce that should be stopped or have my meandering ramblings got true value? Should I make it exclusively about my own work or focus solely on the people I observe? Probably a mixture of both is best, no? Should I use it for political purposes and expose the corruption I see in my various professional roles or should I turn it into a marketing tool for my website design business. I still really don't know but at least I'm feeling invigorated to just keep posting regularly. In the words of Hyperfrank: "Just do whatever man".
In the meantime I've given this blog a visual redesign. Using the LightWord theme for WordPress as a base I have added my own original header and a gradient background. All made using only Illustrator and Photoshop with no stock images involved. Booyeah! Check out that high quality render and realistic 3D perspective.
The Simpsons Censored
I have just watched the Sunday afternoon showing of The Simpsons on Channel 4. It's a classic episode where the family dog Santas Lil Helper is behaving badly and Lisa is off school with the mumps. There is a scene where Marge is demonstrating to Lisa how an experienced seamstress can develop a callous on her index finger. She pricks it with a pin lightly, then hard enough to bend the pin and then - and this is where Channel 4 censor it - she holds a cigarette lighter beneath it and blackens the surface without flinching. The joke in the scene is the way Marge's demonstration escalates to an unexpectedly ridiculous level but without the cigarette lighter it's just a freaky moment. The comedy suffered as a result of censorship. It was my understanding that channel 4 was one of the more liberal broadcasting bodies but now I'm not so sure.
Bye bye stepping stones
For the first time in my life I have no crap jobs on my CV! I am writing this to give hope and inspiration to all you teenagers and early 20-somethings out there who are desperately trying to make your CV look good. I have just given mine a revision for the hundredth time in my life and I went through the usual steps of first adding all the new stuff to the top of the page and then scrolling down to the bottom and chopping off the old stuff to make it fit back on 2 sides of A4. But the jobs I had to choose to cull were all proper good! Things like teaching assistant or part time web designer. No paper rounds, no Sainsbury's deli counter, no McDonalds kitchen assistant, no office temp work, no gardening for DLO. So have faith my young friends for there will come a time when all those shitty jobs that you've hated so much just stop mattering. I am 26 now and this is the first time I've had no dodgy things to sully the page.
Dear Europe, we’ll take your free parking but not your people, sincerely yours, hypocritical Britian
No! Come back! Please!
Yesterday lunchtime in a sunny town centre I started filming on a project that I have been wanting to do for about a year. I am very driven on this because not only do I have a rock solid concept in mind with an exact vision of how it should look, but I have a confirmed exhibition for it. The exact location and dates are still in negotiation but I can say that it will be in Taunton town centre and will coincide with Somerset Arts Week, which, as the name in no way suggests lasts 6 weeks. Wouldn't it be more appropriate to call it Somerset Arts Month? This name would also carry the added advantage that the 3 letter acronym wouldn't sound like a horror film.
So today saw my second session of filming and to my great delight I found the people who were in my top 3 of desired subjects. They agreed to take part and I was so pleased to have gotten their pictures at such an early stage in the project. So I switched off my camera and said thank you, as I reached into my bag to pull out the final but still absolutely essential stage - the model release forms - they jumped up excitedly and rushed over the road to catch their bus. Like a desperate journalist watching his career fall away in front of him I chased them waving the forms, pleading that they would sign but they were having none of it. Gutted I stood there. I have on tape the best footage I have ever taken but cannot use it until I track them down and get their John Hancock on those forms!
Martin Joiner Girlfriend
I am being stalked! Wicked.
A fellow blogger and friend from Bristol, Jal contacted me today explaining that whilst checking his web-stats he noticed a user had found his blog by searching Google for the term ""Martin Joiner" girlfriend". Now lets get all Columbo on this.... Whoever it was must have ample internet knowledge because they have used the quote marks to specify that my name must appear in that order with a space in between them. Not many people know this search engine trick. Also, my friend stated the user had visited the site before, suggesting they had been there to watch the YouTube video of my poem that was posted on that blog several months ago. This creates two trains of thought: Firstly, they are a poetry fan suggesting it could be the girl who was asking after me in the Perfect 5th several weeks ago. Billy the doorman said a girl was asking for me but I haven't seen her since. Secondly and rather ironically, the poem is called "Infatuated" and is actually a funny little piece I wrote about falling in love (or just thinking you are in love) with a girl on Facebook.