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!

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

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.

oliver watson, two white cranes, the nervy betters in our living room

So Last night was the last stop on the Two White Cranes/Nervy Betters tour and also the album party for Oliver Watson's 'loosestrife'. We had it at our house and it was lots of fun!

mark pawson is a nice guy

Variant 37/38

The other day I found out that Mark Pawson had written a little nice paragraph about one of my zines in this article from 2010 in Variant Magazine. It was a nice surprise!

dowry's first trip to the usa

On the way to a long-time friend of Polite Records. Good luck little record!

also: don't worry, Nick, I did put your address on the parcel but have cleverly removed if from this photograph to keep you safe from your over-enthusiastic fanbase.

microphone

Guess I'd better start the year by blogging about this amazing microphone my brother built me this Christmas. It's an old dynamic mic that he rehoused in a lathe turned laminated wood and aluminum casing. I feel pretty lucky. I can't wait to try recording with it!

polite records things

There are a few bits and pieces to report regarding Polite Records. Last week, Tiger & Panda published two digital things. 

Sleeper Train is the last song we recorded with David 'Ox' Burke and we made a music video to go with it. It is a fan video tribute to the BBC series of Smiley's people, based on the novel by John Le Carre. You get a free download of the video when you purchase the digital single, and you can watch it here.



We also published a free two track instrumental thing in tribute to our friends Kate and David (David being 'Ox') who moved to Dublin this year. The free download comes with some band photos.



Thirdly, Grizzly and the Bears are very proud to be playing at the first UK PRFstival at the Bristol County Sports Club on Saturday the 29th of September. We are playing at 9.30pm after an evening of great bands.

Finally, a few months ago I was contacted by the British library, asking me for archive copies of the whole Polite Records back catalogue. I've been dropping instalments of records off every month or so since then and it is the most exciting thing ever! We have Steve Brett at Stitch-Stich Records to thank for letting the British Library know about us.

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!

two white cranes/trust fund/morbison/kate and david

tiger & panda & ox & goat (photo by phil dodd)

tiger & panda & ox & goat (photo by phil dodd)

tiger & panda & ox & goat (photo by phil dodd)

morbison (photo by phil dodd)

morbison (photo by phil dodd)

two white cranes (photo by phil dodd)

trust fund (photo by phil dodd)

trust fund (photo by phil dodd)

two white cranes singing with trust fund (photo by phil dodd)

dance party survivors

We had a great time putting on the dance party and gig for some amazing bands and to say goodbye to our amazing friends Kate and David who are moving to Ireland. We had a super fun gig at the Betsey Trotwood and afterwards we danced like there was an ass in our pants!

kino residency: production line

The last Cafe Kino event was a zine making workshop. It was lots of fun and loads of great zines were made. Thanks to the generosity of Steve Brett, you can see all the photos from that day on my flickr page. As well as Steve, massive thanks is also owed to Bob and Charlotte who helped make the day so great. 

2nd of march at old st mary's

Last Friday, we put on a gig and art show at St Mary's Old Church in Stoke Newington, London, with Rob St John, Frozy and Tiger & Panda & Ox. It was a great evening and we were very grateful for everyone who played and attended and helped. We were especially grateful to John Field and St Mary's Art. If you are looking to put on an evening of music or anything, they only take a percentage of the door and run a bar for you and are generally helpful and encouraging. You can contact them here. Also, worth mentioning was Steve Brett, who came all the way from Bristol to play with Rob and also did the door while we played.

a wonderful drawing of the evening by Lizzie Stewart

this photo may have beent aken by olly watson

rob st john

frozy

kino residency: a lecture about language

design by Michal William, photo by Frances Dixon

On the evening of Sunday the 12th of February, I held the first event of my residency in the basement of Cafe Kino. This was an introductory lecture about language with some information about me and the 'encyclopedia' performance that I was going to be carrying out in the basement for the week starting the day after this event. After I'd done my lecture, there was music from Will Newsome (Wig Smith) and Matt Loveridge (MXLX). Thanks a lot to Will and Matt, who were both incredible and played better than I ever could have hoped. And thanks a lot everyone who made it along. I will be typing up a transcript of the lecture to go with the final product (book) of 'encyclopedia'.

Will Newsome (Wig Smith)

Matt Loveridge (MXLX)

flickin' the 'v's

Spent most of my free time over the last week printing this artwork for the next tiger & panda & ox ep, flickin' the 'v's. I'm pretty pleased with how they look now and I think they will be ready to buy around the 2nd of march when we are playing at Old St Mary's. The nets for this packaging are recycled card and they came from a company called eco-craft ltd. I have Steve Brett to thank for telling me about this company. As well as being excited about the artwork, we listened to a rough mix I had made of the songs the other day and were pleasantly surprised. I'm looking forward to finishing this project!