Saturday, 10 December 2011
The Pink Floyd & Syd Barrett Story (BBC Documentary)
The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett Story is a documentary released on DVD on 24 March 2003, produced by Otmoor Productions in 2001 as part of the BBC's Omnibus series and originally called Syd Barrett: Crazy Diamond (in the US, a slightly modified version aired as the last episode of VH1's Legends series in January 2002). Directed by John Edginton, the film includes interviews with all the Pink Floyd members - Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright - plus the "fifth Pink Floyd", Bob Klose, who left the band in 1965. The film includes rare early television appearances of Pink Floyd, and home movies.
In 2006 a new "definitive edition DVD" was produced in the UK and Europe in which the full unedited interviews conducted by the director with Pink Floyd are now made available, alongside the original documentary.
The focus of the film is Syd Barrett, the lead vocalist and guitarist of the early Pink Floyd, who created their unique psychedelic sound and most of the band's early songs, including the singles "Arnold Layne" and "See Emily Play" and much of their first album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.
Syd Barrett's name passed into rock folklore when he was kicked out of Pink Floyd in 1968 and, after two extraordinary but erratic solo albums, disappeared from music altogether amid rumours of a drug-induced breakdown.
The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett Story has contributions from Humble Pie drummer Jerry Shirley (who played on Syd Barrett's two solo albums The Madcap Laughs and Barrett as well as Syd's final London concert on 6 June 1970 with David Gilmour, when Barrett abruptly left the stage after playing only four numbers), bassist Jack Monck who played at Syd's last ever public concert in 1972 at the Cambridge Corn Exchange, producer Joe Boyd who produced Arnold Layne, photographer Mick Rock who photographed Barrett for The Madcap Laughs cover, and artist Duggie Fields who shared an apartment in London's Earls Court with Barrett in 1968 and witnessed his changing mental state at close hand.
According to his sister, Barrett watched the documentary when it was broadcast on the BBC. He apparently found it "too loud", although he did enjoy seeing Mike Leonard, who he referred to as his "teacher". He also enjoyed hearing "See Emily Play" again.
Old Woman In A Casket
In 2006 a new "definitive edition DVD" was produced in the UK and Europe in which the full unedited interviews conducted by the director with Pink Floyd are now made available, alongside the original documentary.
The focus of the film is Syd Barrett, the lead vocalist and guitarist of the early Pink Floyd, who created their unique psychedelic sound and most of the band's early songs, including the singles "Arnold Layne" and "See Emily Play" and much of their first album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.
Syd Barrett's name passed into rock folklore when he was kicked out of Pink Floyd in 1968 and, after two extraordinary but erratic solo albums, disappeared from music altogether amid rumours of a drug-induced breakdown.
The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett Story has contributions from Humble Pie drummer Jerry Shirley (who played on Syd Barrett's two solo albums The Madcap Laughs and Barrett as well as Syd's final London concert on 6 June 1970 with David Gilmour, when Barrett abruptly left the stage after playing only four numbers), bassist Jack Monck who played at Syd's last ever public concert in 1972 at the Cambridge Corn Exchange, producer Joe Boyd who produced Arnold Layne, photographer Mick Rock who photographed Barrett for The Madcap Laughs cover, and artist Duggie Fields who shared an apartment in London's Earls Court with Barrett in 1968 and witnessed his changing mental state at close hand.
According to his sister, Barrett watched the documentary when it was broadcast on the BBC. He apparently found it "too loud", although he did enjoy seeing Mike Leonard, who he referred to as his "teacher". He also enjoyed hearing "See Emily Play" again.
Old Woman In A Casket
David Hockney on iPhone/iPad art (Studio Q)
http://www.cbc.ca/Q
In the 20th century, pop-art painter David Hockney was probably best known for his painting for L.A. swimming pools. In the 21st century though, he is on the front lines of digital art with his work on iPhones and iPads.
In the 20th century, pop-art painter David Hockney was probably best known for his painting for L.A. swimming pools. In the 21st century though, he is on the front lines of digital art with his work on iPhones and iPads.
jayrosen_nyu Jay Rosen
NPR did something astounding today. You have to listen to appreciate it. npr.org/blogs/itsallpo… Dave Winer wrote about it jr.ly/cnk9
NPR did something astounding today. You have to listen to appreciate it. npr.org/blogs/itsallpo… Dave Winer wrote about it jr.ly/cnk9
The F Scale
This online, interactive F Scale presents that instrument in its final form. Additional infomation, including an explanation of the personality variables the F Scale tries to measure, is given below after the questionnaire. So take the F Scale now - or else! And if you want a good definition of fascism (something that somehow eluded the authors of the Authoritarian Personality studies), check out Fascism: The Ultimate Definition.
HERE
Friday, 9 December 2011
The road sign as design classic
The Design Museum has added a motorway sign to its collection. So is British road signage a design classic?
There is very little to like about motorway journeys. Endless black tarmac, blurry white lines and fuzzy green trees.Motorways are about getting from A to B in the quickest - legal - possible time. But have you ever spared a thought for the signs dotted along Britain's roads?
White lettering on blue signifies a motorway and white on green signals a primary route. Everyone knows that. And they'd recognise the lettering, regardless of where it was.
Then there are those familiar and friendly images for school children crossing the road and men at work.
Britain's roads look as they do because of Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert. The graphic designers standardised the road network, created many of its signs and produced two new typefaces, Transport and Motorway.
In the 1950s, road signs were a mess - a confusing and dangerous hotch potch of different symbols, colours and lettering. But more and more people were acquiring cars.
As the government set about creating a brave new world of motorways, Kinneir and Calvert were given the job of making signs that could be clearly read in a split second.
Calvert, now 75, says they had to start from scratch. "It required completely radical thinking. The information wasn't there in terms of reading distance, clarity and letter spaces. We had to make up the signs and then test them. It was instinctive."
They were tested in an underground car park and in London's Hyde Park, where they were propped up against trees to determine the most effective background colours and reading distances.
One of their biggest decisions, which caused upset among conservative commentators at the time, was to opt for a combination of upper and lower case letters.
"The actual word shape was the most distinctive thing because if you had Birmingham in capitals, from a distance, it's difficult to read but in caps and lower case you have word shape," says Calvert. "That was fundamental."
After the success of their big and bold motorway signs, the pair were commissioned in 1963 to overhaul the rest of Britain's roads. They created new signs and remodelled existing ones, based on the European protocol of triangular signs to warn, circles for commands and rectangles for information.
They favoured pictograms rather than words on the signs, and Calvert drew most of them in the curvaceous style of the Transport typeface. Many of her illustrations were drawn from her own life.
Very few people have heard of Calvert but her portrait is probably one of the most recognisable in the UK, after the Queen's on stamps.
The girl in the school children crossing sign is based on a picture of herself. She didn't like the grammar school overtones of the earlier sign, which featured a boy wearing a cap and carrying a satchel...
Continue reading
FACT mix 307: Ayshay
Ayshay is the recording alias of Fatima Al Qadiri. Based in New York, but born in Senegal and raised in Kuwait (according to a recent Fader interview, she then lived in eight cities before settling in Brooklyn), her debut EP Warn-U, released on Tri Angle this Autumn, is one of 2011’s most unique and unsettling records.
Inspired by Sunni and Shiite Muslim worship songs, Warn-U is built 100% from Al Qadiri’s own voice, re-pitched and manipulated to mimic everything from century-old ghosts to Autotune chart pop. For those who’ve followed her Global.wav column (and, sometimes, accompanying mixtapes – check the Muslim Trance one once you’ve listened to her FACT mix) for DIS magazine, it’ll make a little more sense: mainstream Western pop and Muslim religion and culture are two key constants in Al Qadiri’s frame of reference, and the music she records as Ayshay (Arabic for “whatever”) absorbs and rethinks both. It’s also worth checking the excellent EP she recently released under her own name, Genre-Specific Xperience.
FACT mix 307 is subtitled Ayshay’s ‘Surrender’ mix, and is dedicated to the Fade to Mind crew (Kingdom, Mike Q, etc), Dave Qualm, Azizaman and DJ Rashad and Spinn’s Ghettoteknitianz clique. That, combined with the rest of this introduction, might make you think you know what you’re getting into – traditional Muslim song, ballroom house and footwork. Trust us, that’s not even half of it.
Listen/Download
@'FACT'
T.Rexmas!
1. Super Funk Christmas (1972) 00:12
2. Christmas Bop (1975 - original) 03:49
3. Xmas Jingle (1971) 00:15
4. Free Xmas Flexy (1972) 08:49
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