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

polite podcast no.3

from Polite Podcasts, released 30 September 2013

impossible walls: fontaine 
inclosure: moscow rules 
i found you: the dream is over
middling good boy: damh

interviews: marion ireland; mark dillon; philip dodd; elisa lloyd; james cabaniuk

polite podcast no.2

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 

two white cranes/nervy betters tour 2013

 

I'll try and keep this short...

Bristol
We play at Aaron and Roxy's house and Kano and Ohne are there. We have a pizza party. The next day, we pick up the car. Super sporty with a spoiler. The rental men are excited for us. We see Rachael and Shuki. We pick up Roxy from work and drive to Birmingham

Birmingham
We listen to podcasts in the car. The show is at the Ace Bushy house (the Vagina Monolodge). Eve made us a tasty vegan cake. Jen Schande plays a lovely set then runs away. Everyone is super nice. We have fun. Next day, we go to have breakfast with lovely people. We do a crossword together.

Peak District
Friendly people at the youth hostel. We walk to Lud's Church. It is a big ravine all covered in moss. I guess it might be the Green Knight's castle. Steve makes such a great miso soup and stir fry dinner. We have a band practice by the river and scouts come with a chainsaw. We are afraid they might bully us.

Manchester
Liam makes us such tasty burgers and we meet Natalie. Roxy has an essay in her zine. She gives us vegan pie and cookies. LLION SWYD are so great. "Only dickheads win the lottery". We thought we had food poisoning but really we are just nervous. We stay up late and chat and then sleep in luxury. I have a chocolate milkshake with my breakfast.

Oxford
The light is prickly and nice on the drive. The owners of this house are both called Matt. We play to a little living room of people and then have a nice time chatting. In the morning, Steve and Roxy swim in the river. I sleep in.

Norwich
Anna takes us to a tea room. Me and Franky want to move here maybe... I am pretty exhausted. We get food at the place and set up with our own things. Stephen and Tammy arrive. They are so great! This is probably the best we play on tour. We have lost our minds at this point. I swap records with Anna. Her 10" has my favourite Middle Ones song on it. We eat breakfast at a raw vegan cafe. Anna picks up a shelving unit off the street.

Seaford
Nicol is waiting outside for us. So good to see him. We walk to the beach and swim in the sea at sunset. Roxy - a vegan - goads me into eating a battered sausage. We each play a song and then go to bed. Verity's room is very comforting to sleep in. In the morning, Nicol records some drums for the album.

London
Driving through London is intense. Holy shit. we stop for pizzas. I'm so happy to see Franky. We set up the flat and people start arriving. Olly plays first. He is great. It's his album party and he's made a good album. It's really hot and we have such a fun show and sing happy birthday to Olly. So many lovelies there! After I wave Steve and Roxy off I go straight to bed and sleep.

a new lino project

Proofs from a couple of new panels. I'm having a go at a slightly longer story this time. I don't know when it will be done...

i think it's ok to start thinking about autumn now

frogs

I didn't think or dream about school for the last five years. Then the last few nights I dreamed of waiting for the bus. I dreamed of going into classrooms I did not remember. The subject was always maths.

The roads in my dreams wound and the corridors were full of people I did not know. It sprawled like a hospital, a factory or a farm. I was in the wrong class room constantly and without my homework always. Anonymous authority figures. I dreamed of snapping and telling them fuck you. the indignation of an adult.

There was this maths problem that I could never figure out. The problem was set for us a few times in primary and secondary school:

There are lily pads in a line. You start with two frogs, one at each end of the line with the middle pad empty. The frogs can hop one pad at a time and can hop over one another when they are next to each other. The objective is to figure out the minimum number of moves required for the frogs to swap places.

Once you've done that, you do the same thing with two frogs at either end, again with one empty pad in the middle.

Then you do it again with three frogs either side...

 

You're supposed to take these numbers and use them to figure out an equation to express the minimum number of moves required to swap the places of any number of frogs in the same setup (i.e. equal numbers on either side with one empty pad in the middle).

 

I don't know why I needed to figure this out now. I could never do it in school and it made me feel bad about myself. I didn't have the guts to ask for help with it and I guess I had accepted it was the limit of what my brain could do. The problem was I panicked and didn't have the patience to examine the problem. When I came back to it and made an effort to move forward cautiously, a correct pattern gradually emerged. 

One time, when I was little, I saw a frog in the pond across the road from our house. I was wading in the water and disturbed it. The sky was the colour of the road and it rained and I stayed out in the pond until it was dark, waiting for the frog. When I finally gave up, I went inside and drew pictures of frogs instead.

kino residency: august

 photo by Frances Dixon

I spent August staying at my parents' house, working and putting on Cafe Kino events. Here are a few photos to summarise the whole thing. I'll make more detailed posts for the two main events (write good songs and music and movies) later. Also, here is a summary of the month in list form.

Frances and I found a place to have our wedding reception just before she left for China, so we parted in a great mood.

I spend the first week listening to old CDs and tapes, hanging out with my brother and his girlfriend and driving around visiting friends and their babies. I even caught Lauren between Afghanistan and somewhere else. Then my parents came home and we all went to the pub and I told them what was what for about two hours.

There were two weddings. One was of my old flatmate and friend Mark Slade, to Kerry, his girlfriend. Lots of babies there and lots of old pals. on the drive back, we visited my Grandparents and Aunt and Uncle.The second wedding was of Phil Dodd's brother, Pete and his girlfriend Lana. Grizzly and the Bears played!

Mostly I was working on projects and preparing for my week in Kino: 20th-25th Aug. The weekend before this, I stayed with Steve and Lisa and Sam in Lisa's house and we had a band practice for our new band The Nervy Betters in preparation for a new bands event on the following week. The next day, Lisa, Steve and I jumped on a big inflatable Stone Henge on College Green in Bristol.

Frances came back from China and I got to spend some time with her while looking for more Polite Records stuff to take to the British Library. We stayed up late Sunday night making a mixed tape for Cafe Kino. I made it on a blank tape my friend, Amy - 'primary care giver' - Parsons gave to me out of all the old CDs I had left behind when I left home.

For the next week, I spent time in and around Cafe Kino chatting and writing and drawing and preparing a story to be read out on Saturday the 25th of August. I stayed with the super generous Sarah and George and made them spinach and spring onion vegan pancakes for dinner as a thank you. 

Frances and I had an amazing curry with our friends Sarah-Jane and Daniel at Sarah-Jane's house in Yate. Daniel is going to go to Berlin to do an MA. He has been trying to do this for the last two years.

That week in Cafe Kino, I put on two events, with massive help from George and all at Kino. The first was called write good songs and was an evening of new bands and music ideas. The second was called music and movies and was an evening of songs and short films from Rachael Dadd, Ichi and me. It was also Rachael's last show before having her baby and she was joined on stage by a Skype video of Aaron and Kano in Japan. Kano is having a baby too!

Anyway, It was a fantastic three weeks and combined being busy with being on holiday in a way I wish I could make happen more often. I feel three years older, in a good way. I'm very grateful to everyone I got to spend time with over this month!

lindau

photo by Frances Dixon

maybe this photo was by Frances?

photo by Frances Dixon

It is raining like the last time we left Berlin. We give Ana a text as she had recently moved to the city. It is nice to see all of Berlin one last time on our train ride to the station.

We are on the bottom bunks of a couchette to Munich. We tuck ourselves onto little shelves and lie on our backs in the dark compartment as lights all manner of colours and shapes flicker on the ceiling from the night through the crack in the curtains. It is like a zoetrope. It is a beautiful riot of noise and light but its frequency is hypnotic and I sleep well, though lightly.

We have a tea and a coffee in Munich and head straight back out in the direction of Lindau. Spindly legged conifers gather densely around a river, mist still collecting on its surface. The train crosses a little bridge and there is water all around.

When we get out the town is very quiet and the air is slightly bitter like it gets when winter is coming. Out at the edge of the harbour is a gate guarded by a lion and a lighthouse. Beyond them are the Alps. 

The alps are pitch black and mist hangs about them, the only thing defining them in three dimensions.

copenhagen & ferry

 photo by France Dixon

 photo by Frances Dixon

Bicycles are lent in every available space and copper spires turning brown to turquoise are all around. I had a pastry for breakfast and Frances had a boiled egg. She had a nice little loaf of bread with it. We wander about and there are many cobbles and ruddy brick buildings and green streaked copper roofs that billow at the bottom.


We are sitting in the quiet carriage and people around us a speaking softly in German and a mixture of Scandinavian languages. I will miss the softness and the understatement and the rest. We can see the sea on either side of the train and rain water is running across the windows. It is all grey and blue. 

We are unexpectedly on a ferry between Denmark and Germany! We go outside and are blown about. I can feel the salt in my hair. Everything is blue plastic and wet. We hold onto each other to approach the rail. The ferry churns the water and huge white plumes burst on the black surface. In the distance, the sky blurs into the sea.

deer in progress

A lino-cut I'm working on for the aforementioned book about working in art galleries. kind of looking for an excuse to try some gold leaf with it.

dowry EP launch

The Dowry EP by Tiger & Panda is now available to buy. You can buy it here on 10" (including free download code) or as a digital download in any format.

Dowry was written as a performance of two medleys in 2009 on Dowry Parade in Bristol. It was performed at the scout hut in the same year. We had always intended for it to run together and wanted to document it, so in 2011, Phil Dodd recorded us performing it at his house on Hermitage Street in Cheltenham. He did a great job.

The music and artwork for Dowry are a collection of things from the time surrounding our year living together on Dowry Parade. It is deliberately simple and stark in places and the two sides of the record have distinctively different atmospheres.

Olly and I have been making music together since we were seventeen. This is something we have been working toward since then and I'm so glad we did it the way we have. The cost of the production of this record was £830 but you can do it for much cheaper if you print your own artwork. you can get 250 7"s for about £450 plus VAT from DMS ltd and hand draw a cover onto paper if you want (we did this with CDs with our friends when we were in school and it was lots of fun). We decided to get our artwork printed up nice so it cost extra.

I was able to do this because my Grandma, before she died, discovered some money she didn't know she had. She and my Grandpa decided to give it to my brother and me and told us to do what we liked with it. I had just put it away and saved it but then my Grandma died earlier this year. We had recorded the songs by then but had not decided what to do with them. I decided that a constructive thing to do with the money was to make something I was proud of and that would last, and that is why I have dedicated this record to my Grandma.

We haven't put thank yous in the liner notes because we didn't want to miss anybody out, but I would like to thank Phil Dodd in particular for endless help and support, Frances and Steph for help with everything, including folding and writing out download codes, all at Stitch-Stitch and especially Steve Brett, Steve and Jo, Annie and Will and our mums and dads for coming to watch us, Headfall and Local Kid records, Cafe Kino, and Betty Morris, for letting us book the scout hut for shows.

o & a

I went for a walk on Primrose Hill the other day. I like taking photos of buildings the peer into the parks in London. Here are a couple of photo collages, demonstrating the escape of discarded letters from abbreviated words (a project from a couple of years ago) into the ionosphere.