Fallout

Seeing as the current topic seems to be fancy dress and costumes I'll throw this in to the mix. My good buddy Aled wanted to go to a post-apocalypse themed party as the Vault Dweller from the third game in the Fallout series. It's a nice simple costume, primarily because you design your own character's face and build so all you really need is to get the outfit right. The starting costume is basically a jumpsuit and a wrist-mounted computer, here's my attempt for Aled:

The PipBoy 3000 - built out of a Pringles tube card and an assortment of bits and bobs.

 Painstakingly masked and painted - yellow over blue needed lots of coats!

 

 Aled modelling the full ensemble.

Of course Aled ended up wearing a long coat - ideal for the character, less so for the hours I put into the "101" on the back of the jumpsuit!

What did you do, Ray?

A couple of years ago I made a Ghostbusters costume for a party, complete with scratch built Proton Pack. Sometimes I get a little over invested in a project, it took over my life for a bit. This may be why I didn't post any pictures at the time but seeing as it's Halloween it seems appropriate that I dig them out, so here you go:

Everything from Celebrations to toilet rolls... Pepsi Max to Pringles!

  

The wand (with glowing tip naturally!); the complete pack and wand undercoated; the final costume. 

Proton pack sprayed black, drybrushed, dusted, and stickered. The red disks have small lights behind them to make them glow. I was Stantz in case you were wondering!

... and here I am at the party with a (arguably) less authentic but (arguably) more attractive Ghostbuster:

p.s. Adam Savage bought a kit! Never thought I'd out do Adam at making prop costumes!

I have a problem...

The first step, I'm told, is recognising that you have a problem. I like containers, there I said it! I like containers and I like collecting things. Containers are useful and you shouldn't throw away things that are useful...

They're useful, ok? I'll use them!

But often useful containers look alike and then having a set of them means they'll tessellate well making the most of the space... and also they'll look cool!

Maybe I'll refill them with spice, it'll save us money!

Then of course some things have nostalgic value as well. I have fond memories of being allowed Golden Syrup drizzled on my rice crispies when visiting Nain and Taid. It's also the only food stuff that comes in paint tins. 

Come the apocalypse I'll have to choose between using these for target practice or storage

And then sometimes containers contain good things and keeping them is a way to keep a sort of journal of your other hobbies. Bottles with cork stoppers are cool.

Referring to Gin as a hobby is probably a bad sign.

These four photos catalogue everything I'm throwing out today*, inspired by the possibility of moving house and not wanting to carry empty containers! I am ashamed to admit that my collection extends far further than this, but I've made the first step on my path to recovery.





*except those 4 identical jam jars, they'll be useful!

Vinyl: Continuing thoughts

Some more thoughts on vinyl and possible future purchases, in no particular order.

The Black Keys
I saw The Black Keys play the Astoria (rip) back in 2005 (?) It remains one of my favourite gigs. The stage was virtually empty just two men, a set of drums and a stack of amps but the sound produced was immense. Stripped down blues roots rock at it's very finest, and if I was buying on vinyl I'd probably want to go back to Rubber Factory. Their latest album Turn Blue is to my mind a bit of a disappointment it's not bad as such it just doesn't meet expectations and doesn't reach the heights that the previous two albums Brothers and El Camino do.

Nirvana
Somewhat clichéd I know but Nevermind is an album that defined my generation. I will confess to only having a passing interest when they had their day, Inutero and Bleach meant very little to me and I liked bits and pieces from Nevermind but not the whole thing. The first of Nirvana album I loved start to finish was Unplugged in New York which my brother and I used to play on loop whilst we played Doom. I've grown up a lot since then or at least got older and I've come to love Nevermind and recognise how brilliant it is and worthy of every piece of praise it's receive or the years! Add to all that the seminal cover art.

The Beastie Boys

The Beastie Boys seem have always seemed like good fun, three friends who liked playing word games and being a little bit silly. I can relate to that. Their music has a playfulness and a freedom that comes from having enough success to do whatever they like, which luckily has always sounded good to me. Their are plenty of worthy albums to choose from with excellent songs and equally iconic album artwork: the Blues Brothers-esque drive through of Ill Communications (arguably the "best" album); the plane tale of Licence to Ill; the 360 street photo of Paul's Boutique (an album I listened to extensively whilst designing ducts!)

But, for me, nothing quite sums the Beastie Boys up as well as Hello, Nasty. It may lack the raw brilliance of Ill Communication's Sure Shot or Sabotage and the cheeky humour of Licence to Ill's She's Crafty and Girls but it makes up for it in consistently lively and entertaining songs. The cover says it all here are three friends apparently riding through space in a sardine can, intergalactic pioneers!

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
One of the things that amazes and amuses me in equal measure is how Nick and co  can produce such diverse songs from some of my favourite songs to a rare few which I struggle to listen to all the way through, and every thing in between. This makes picking a single favourite album very difficult.Murder Ballads will always have a place in my heart as the first Bad Seeds album I owned and as such was my intro to Nick definitive style of blood and rhetoric (with that album very much dwelling on the blood). In my late teenage years this loving violence or violent love seemed a perfect antidote to the nauseating pop of the day, much aided by the Nick and Kylie collaboration Where the wild roses grow. I've always (perversely perhaps) enjoyed the image of Nick recovering in Australian rehab (which I imagine to be something like One Flew Over) obsessing over the girl on the TV in the only program deemed calm enough to show the patients - Neighbours.

Dig, Lazurus, Dig! is raised to deity level by the inclusion of More News from Nowhere a tale of life on the road for an ageing musician retold as the Odyssey and is quite possibly my favourite song of all time. The double album of The Lyre of Orpheus and Breathless fits together so perfectly, The Boatman Calls is an album that I keep rediscovering and find more in each time, so much to choose from!

Thoughts, comments and suggestions welcomed!

Wedding: Draw Down the Stars

As wedding photos go I always tend to prefer casual to formal, I'm not particularly comfortable posing for photos. Harriet and Tim's greatest skill then is perhaps their ability to seamlessly integrate themselves with whatever event they're shooting. They felt to me like any other guest at our wedding and very quickly the fact that they were taking photos didn't bother me at all. Between Harriet's sincere and effervescent enthusiasm and Tim's easy natured friendliness they were in fact very welcome guests. Tim and I bonded over a clearly similar taste in music - I complemented him on the Tom McRae reference of "Draw Down the Stars" and he complemented me on our table names being song titles and the Wedding CD we'd created. It seemed, throughout in fact, that they had a clear understanding of what was important to us.
On writing this I haven't actually seen the photographs but having seen Chris and Kennedy's (who recommended Draw Down the Stars to us) I am very excited and itching to see ours!

Wedding: Lavender Dining

Obviously the catering is a huge part of any wedding but Lavender Dining go far beyond just providing food. We cannot recommend Lavender highly enough. Ben and Clare make an excellent team, husband and wife as well as business partners - Ben in the kitchen and Clare seamlessly managing front of house.

From our very first meeting with Ben it was very clear just how different they were from any of the other caterers we had looked at. Too often companies we looked at made it feel like you were just another in a long line of weddings to be churned out, picking from a list of standard menu options and feeling more like you were organising a buffet for a corporate event.

Ben took the time to get to know us and the style of the wedding we had planned, the menu itself developed organically with us sending ideas back and forth until we had the meal that was perfect for us. Then we got to taste everything in our own home - a great insight into the boutique home catering that Lavender offer. It was an excellent evening after which we felt we had to temper our expectations to the effect that, when scaled up for the wedding, it wouldn't be as good.  Turns out we were wrong!  The food at the wedding was amazing as many of the guests commented. We had a number of people with dietary needs including a lactose intolerant bride, vegetarians, gluten intolerants, and one guest who has a plethora of serious allergies, all of which Ben took in his stride, subtly adapting the menu to accommodate. All of this was at a considerably more reasonable price than others we looked at.

To us though Lavender's greatest asset is Ben himself who has constantly gone above and beyond the role of caterer to ensure that our wedding day was perfect. He had an excellent understanding of the kind of thing we were looking for and added tweaks to the service to suit - little touches that made a big difference. Perhaps the best example of the lengths Ben went to was the Sunday after the wedding when he stuck around long after his things were tidied away to help us sweep and clean the venue itself before helping us load all our things into various vehicles to take away from the site. On seeing us struggle for space he loaded his own car and followed us back to our place and helped unpack! Judging from the time, energy and enthusiasm Ben was prepared to dedicate to us it'd be very easy to assume that we were his only wedding, but we know they have had functions nearly every weekend this summer!

It didn't really feel like a business relationship, despite being very professional in all our dealings, Ben was just another friend helping us with our wedding and we are sad that now the day itself has passed that has ended. We will be looking for any excuse to use Lavender Dining again in the future!

Vinyl: Purchases!

Yesterday I bought some records! The experience of going into Sister Ray Records was equal parts exciting and terrifying, a voyage to a new world with no idea whether you will be welcome or even if you'll like it. It reminded me of when I started to collect comics - rows and rows of things to buy with little real knowledge of what you wanted and whether they'd have it, all of which were being flicked through by people who seemed to know exactly what was going on and what they wanted.

"I get by because of the people who make a special effort to shop here - mostly young men - who spend all their time looking for deleted Smith singles and original, not rereleased - underlined - Frank Zappa albums. Fetish properties are not unlike porn. I'd feel guilty taking their money, if I wasn't... well... kinda one of them."

I tried not to think about it too much, not to worry too much about my collection being perfect from word go, just to relax and see what they had. First thing to note of course is they don't have the infinite range of choice that we have grown used to thanks to the internet, and then there's first/second hand to consider, again much like collecting comics. Obviously I had thought quite a lot in advance about what records I might like. I thought 3 or maybe 4 would be good to start the collection off and in no time at all I had found 4 I wanted. I briefly questioned whether I needed them all, which obviously I didn't, but I wanted them so I bought them anyway.

The National - Boxer

I first bought Boxer (on CD) on a whim, I'd never heard of, or heard anything by, The National but I wanted some new music and the cover spoke to me. This might be your kind of thing, it said, give it a go. Turns out it was a thoroughly awesome album start to finish. I have listened to it more than any other album in my collection, according to iTunes I've heard the whole album over 250 times and one of the songs 400 times, of course I've also listened to it on other computers iPod and CD. So yeah it's an album I needed to own on vinyl. Alligator and High Violet have similarly high play counts and are both spectacular albums, the pre-Boxer albums are good but don't really measure up. I haven't listened that much to their latest album Trouble Will Find Me much yet but am enjoying it greatly so far.

Beck - Guero

Beck has for a long time been a favourite artist but picking an album to have in the collection was always going to be tough! The styles of the albums he's produced are so varied it's pretty hard to compare them. Mellow Gold certainly has palace in my heart as the first Beck album I owned and obviously includes Loser but if you're looking at early Beck it's hard not to go straight for Odelay as a classic with instantly recognisable cover art to boot. Midnight Vultures despite some excellent tunes probably comes across as too electronic to really fit listening on vinyl, somehow it would seem at odds. If inclined more towards a full album experience with something more melodic to wash over the listener Sea Changes or Morning Phase are both very good options and to most people probably sound least Beck-ish.

I've only seen Beck play live once and it was a truly amazing experience, the high point of which being whilst Beck himself did a little acoustic number, Golden Age, on guitar the rest of the band sat down at a laid table and were served food as they listened to Beck play. Then, slowly at first, they began to tap along, growing louder as they chinked glasses and hit cutlery against crockery building to the massive percussive sound of Clap Hands. All of which was repeated in miniature by marionettes at the front of the stage, this in turn was filmed and projected behind the band so you could watch the whole thing unfold in triplicate! Guero was the album Beck was touring with when I saw him, it might not end up being the only Beck I buy but it's an excellent start.

Radiohead - The Bends

When thinking about buying/owning vinyl it's very hard to not give in to nostalgia. I suppose it is in its very nature nostalgic - hearkening back to a previous technology which somehow is better than anything and everything since. For me that nostalgia manifests in two ways: firstly in classic albums that were originally released on vinyl and secondly in albums that were important to me, favourites listened on constant repeat through sixth form and university. Radiohead and Portishead are both very firmly in that second category. The Bends is one of a few albums that reminds me of sixth form and uni in equal measures, for me it is the quintessential Radiohead album. Definitely worth listening in its entirety, whilst all the songs are excellent somehow the album adds up to that much more. Portishead's Dummy is still an exceptional album and I probably don't go back to it often enough. At the time it was something entirely new to me, I kind of music that was unlike anything else I listened to. Haunting and beautiful. I suspect it will benefit from the extra depth and deliberateness of vinyl.

Portishead - Dummy

I haven't listened to them yet, but that's my plan for the rest of Saturday!