now where

our parents, often and mistakes, grace denton

Weirdly, just after I wrote on here that I wouldn't be making much work for the foreseeable future, I found out that something I wrote about eighteen months ago had just been published in the anthology about parents by Often and Mistakes. The anthology was compiled by Grace Denton and so much work and care has gone into it. You can purchase this digital anthology at a price of your choosing and the proceeds will all be donated to Simon on the Streets, a West Yorkshire homeless charity. So anyway, Grace does so many ace things I thought it would be good to list a few of them below. This is by no means everything, but some of the things I know about. Grace has been involved in, and initiated so many wonderful projects and she is also an incredible artist. The things she does are always made with great care and sensitivity. But as well as this, they are always worthwhile and positive.

Grace (left) & Rose (right) I don't know who took the photo, please tell me and I'll credit you

Often and Mistakes is Rose Robbins and Grace Denton, based in Bristol. They showcase new work by writers and artists through print publications and videos. We also run comic-drawing and animation workshops. 

Judy Works, again if you made this great logo, let me know and I'll credit you!

Judy Works is a girl gang, support network and commissioner set up by Grace, Camille Rearden and Rosa Martyn to support and represent the creative endeavours of people who are non-male identified. The rest of the world is set up to support men. Judy Works is redressing the balance.

Anna (left) & Grace 9right) photo by Tom Copps

The Middle Ones are a band who write and play wonderful songs. They formed in Norwhich and have done so many great and exciting things like touring all over and making records and playing music for plays and doing a year-long residency at Cafe Kino in Bristol. I swapped Anna a Middle Ones 10" for the Tiger + Panda 10" when we went to Norwich. It has my favourite song on it, 'young explorer'. For a while, The Middle Ones were the only band I made an effort to see.

Expensive photo by Tom Copps

Grace sings and plays in EXPENSIVE with Matthew Cheney and Pete Shadbolt, an electronic pop band of 'non-performers'. The songs are dreamy and danceable and remind me of the music of Arctic Circle, which is not surprising because they are/were another project of Matthew Cheney, all round good-guy.

As I said, there's loads more and I haven't really written very well but I just think Grace is a great artist and a positive force in the world.

press release: birds like waves

Darling, do you promise to love me in the punk times? Love me in the wussy times? The fat wallet times? Baby-mine , you held the chromatic tuner to your lips and expressed a perfect G. Meanwhile, my tape machine sings a rattling A#. 

I bus home happy this evening. The city's feelings are a din. Like that one time on Buffy (Season 3, Episode 18, production code: 3ABB18). 

Mucus adheres. The mucus of my music adheres to your waxy canals. Thank you for listening. 

Things have changed a lot and this is a heavy thing to consider. My love for you is still eternal and tender. 

CDs, tapes and downloads to follow. 

Today, something just clicked for me and there was no fear.

birds like waves

There is a new thing up on the Polite Records page today. It's one song from an album length collection of recordings I've made for a new projects called Sea Glass. I made these recordings in the summer as something to do. Part of the point of starting a new thing with just me was so that I'd have something to work on when my other bands are not in the same place as me (The Nervy Betters are all over the South of England and Olly is about to move back to Bristol). I'm making a small number of CDs and Cassettes and I'm guessing they'll be later this month so I will write an update when that happens.

polite podcast no.8

This is the last episode of the second series of the polite podcast. It is a tour diary of the Frozy/Nervy Betters July tour 2014. 

Weds 9th July - The Nest, Bath 
Thurs 10th July - Gwdihŵ Café Bar, Cardiff 
Fri 11th July - House Show, London
Sat 12th July - The Vagina Stereolodge, Birmingham
Sun 13th July - Gulivers, Manchester
Mon14th July - 13th Note, Glasgow
Tues 15th July - Mystery Day 
Weds 16th July - Traveling Man Bookshop, Newcastle

There will probably be one more series of podcasts in the new year.

credits

from Polite Podcasts, track released 31 August 2014 
live recordings of Frozy and The Nervy Betters by Nicol Parkinson 
field recordings by Henry Ireland 
photo by Steve Brett

our blood is an ocean

I get to work on this cool project with my pal Jack. I'm making an animated backdrop and he is being weird and awkward on stage. I think it's going to be really great!

polite podcast no.7

This is the third in this series or season of the Polite Podcast. It's being published at 8AM on the 16th of July. There is one more podcast in this series, which will be published at some time in August.

credits

from Polite Podcasts, track released 16 July 2014
Thick Like Snow - Oh Peas! (ohpeas.bandcamp.com)
One - Attacked by Wolves (attackedbywolves.bandcamp.com)
Folds - Nick Gunzburg (www.nickgunzburg.com)
Big Sound - Glowy (glowingcateyes.bandcamp.com/releases)

Interview: A-J

polite podcast no.6

This is the second episode of a second series ('series') of polite podcasts. Things are as they were. There will be four shows, this time in the summer months and I will be publishing them in the mornings, not the evenings.

This episode was published on 21st June at 4.43AM, which is sunrise on the year's longest day. the next episode will be ay 8AM on the 16th of July. No special occasion this time, but it will be the last day that we are on tour.

credits

from Polite Podcasts, released 30 September 2013
We're Doing it - Ace Bushy Striptease acebushystriptease.com
Mao's Dynasty www.handidiom.co.uk/mao'sdynasty.html
Dirty White Van - King of Cats kingofcats.tumblr.com
The Girls of Summer - Hugh John Noble hughjohnnoble.bandcamp.com

Interviews - Gef Lucena (Saydisc Records: www.saydisc.com ); Nicol Parkinson

music videos

Video by Grace Denton

video by David Hopkinson

fan art

I got an envelope of nice stuff in the post today from Stef Purenins and Sarah Graley. Among the many great creative things that they do separately and together, Stef and Sarah are also a band called Sonic the Comic. I totally love their songs. they are making a new album right now and I only just started listening to their last one, Pixel!



And if that wasn't enough, they made this cover song of Gravestone by The Nervy Betters!

moving picture show

I'm doing an animated backdrop for a one man show by a writer called Jack Sanderson-Thwaite. It's a lot of fun to get really into drawing and animating for long periods of time. Anyway, we've done enough work for people to know that it is happening now. I'm pleased to be part of it. 

the nervy betters lp arrives

stars don't shine to noise

Headfall released Stars Don't Shine to Noise in November 2004, just short of ten years ago. The record has just recently been made available to order online, along with a free digital download of the whole album. It was one of the first records I ever owned and it is still one of my favourite and most prized possessions by far. 

Seriously, you should buy this album. It is a genuine undiscovered classic. The only reason this thing is not completely sold out is that for a long time, the only place you could purchase it was at Headfall shows, which only tend to happen once, maybe twice a year in pretty small venues.

George McKenzie (drums, guitar, violin, piano, humming, tape loops, clarinet.) once told me that this album was the only thing he's ever made that he is still proud of. He then went on to tell me where all of the mistakes were. But they don't sound like mistakes to me. This whole shuffling, brooding thing sounds so on purpose, grey as mist on the sea, broken glass, to sand, to salt water. A bunch of punk kids trying to make jazz, awkwardness exploding out of them. Everything is poetry, sung and played, 'a truth too teenage'. 


I don't want to keep describing how it sounds. You can find out for yourself, and you should. I just think that what it does sound like, what it wants to sound like, is captured perfectly, stylistically, aesthetically, framed in smokey static electricity, perfectly honed and curated, artfully presented. a jagged frenzy beneath a swelling surface, barely restrained, three yearning hearts.

shrieking violet issue 22

The Shrieking violet is a great free zine, edited and curated by Manchester-based writer Natalie Bradbury. I'm really lucky to have some of my dumb writing in this issue, among some great articles about art, architecture, philosophy, culture... Pretty much everything. I recommend this and all the previous issues, which are free to read online.

Natalie also has an essay on being vegan up on the food-chain blog, which will be included in the third and final food-chain zine, to be completed this year.

torquay sketch

I have this little sketchbook. I think this year I will try and do more little sketches.

I have this little sketch book. I think this year I'm going to try and do more little sketches.

tiger & panda & ox & otter live at cafe kino: press release

Polite Records are proud to present Tiger & Panda & Ox & Otter Live at Cafe Kino

cat no.: pcd016 
format: CDR/download
artwork: CDR with photographic print, lino printed title and 12 page mini-zine
price: £5 (CDR) £2 (download)

The night this record was made was something special. One of those times that you get so rarely in life when you can't think of anywhere you'd rather be or anything you'd rather be doing. The atmosphere in the basement of Cafe Kino was cosy and warm (thanks to the large crowd mostly -it had been freezing during setup), and it felt like the whole room was willing the performers to do well. 

Henry Ireland and Olly Watson have been my friends for a long time and I am extremely lucky that this is the case. From the outset of this record, you get a taste of what their music is about -at once intensely personally revealing and incredibly shy. The way Henry introduces the concept of the evening and then instantly rubbishes it reflects their style of serious ideas and high concepts refracted through a prism of “let's not take this too seriously, eh?”. Their music is always both serious, but in its own way, not some poe-faced reallyfuckingartisticactually way that often comes out of the independent music scene. 

I recorded the performance in a pretty simple way: 2 large diaphragm condensers in a mid-side stereo pattern. This works by combining the signal of one mic in cardioid pattern facing the front and another in figure of 8 pattern facing both sides. You double up the figure of 8 signal and invert the phase of one of those. Through magic I don't understand, this creates a nice, wide stereo field with a strong centre. I also had a boundary microphone on the back room of the wall to add extra detail (this comes into its own in the noisier parts of the show, when it really picks up the delay repeated keyboard bass notes), and took a direct out from the mixing desk to give me a clean vocal signal. The direct out is what means we can actually hear the boys' lyrics, and is the reason I had a tear in my eye at the end of the show, having been one of the only people in the room who heard exactly what Henry was saying in the midst of the music. 

I am immensely proud to have been a part of this and I hope that I am allowed to record many more Tiger and Panda records in the future. 

-Phil Dodd

polite podcast no.2

kino zino

I really am making work, and in a visual medium see? It's not just gigs. Though having said that I will be playing guitar as part of Palomica this Thursday. It's a house show in London I think. i will try and get more details...

polite podcast no.1

Hello, so this is the first polite podcast. It contains songs by different people, oral histories and field recordings. I will be releasing an episode in the last hour of every month until the end of this year. So that's four episodes in total, okay? Okay!

coffee machines: palomica
the whole town watching: here is the river (liz melia; blake gifford; ben meschko)
the river: two white cranes
glimmer: we wanted to be lions

interviews: marion ireland; maggie willans
field recordings: henry ireland; nicol parkinson
edited: henry ireland 

a drawing of me

This is a nice drawing by Joff Winterhart of my face wearing a My Two Toms hat at the Shhh festival a couple of weeks ago. There are other drawings of the day by Rosie Faragher.