uncarved.org blog

Week 9: Industrial Grab Bag

Some Coil and Throbbing Gristle seven inch singles and related fanzines. I never saw TG live, as I was 11 when they split up. They existed as this weird phantom overlooking many of the bands I got into in the mid 80s. This was before the Mute reissue programme, so the vinyl took a bit of effort tracking down. I eventually got hold of Heathen Earth at the Reading Festival, praying that the record wouldn’t get damaged in the heat or under the DMs of my tent-mate.

I’m keeping the albums, obviously. But the seven inches… original Industrial Records pressings? Camouflage outer bags? Not played in at least 8 years? A no-brainer… ditto an obscure Coil seven inch in blue vinyl and random zines including a Diamanda Galas programme from her awesome performance at the Royal Festival Hall circa 1988.

Result: The seven inches averaged out at about a tenner. The zines for less. Diamanda Galas trumped them all at £11.00.

Week 10: Terminus

I was reaching the end of my tether, really. The novelty had completely worn off by now and I was going through the motions with the listings, barely adding any interesting trivia about the items. Spending Sunday evenings on ebay, Monday evenings packing stuff up and most of my lunch break on Tuesdays in the post office was proving very wearing. I can see the attractions of doing this as a full time job, but I don’t think it’s for me - and anyway I already have a job, and something resembling a life outside it, so this wasn’t strictly necessary. I even lost interest in blogging about it all, so pardon me if I keep this brief!

I finished off with a couple of records I’d bought cheap with a view to flogging them at a later date. One was by “The Burmoe Brothers” - an early effort by Guy Chambers (of Robbie Williams fame) from the 80s featuring Marc Almond on vocals. I think it was a bit jazzy, but I actually couldn’t even be arsed to listen to it again.

The other was a more interesting effort by The Bongos - a NY post punk band on Fetish Records, featuring Cosey from TG on one track.

Also some rare-ish Psychic TV singles and CDs and related fanzines/books. Oh and some bonkers texts from the bloke out of goth group Christian Death about the end of the world and setting up a paramilitary organisation. I am still not clear why he sent them to me.

Result: The rare records I’d acquired to sell on went for 99p each. This alone adequately flags up my complete lack of business acumen. The rest went for roughly what I expected it to.

Miscellania

I ran into Danny in Spittalfields Market and tried to palm a load of occult books off on him. I assumed he must know some freaky people who are still obssessed by all this stuff. My better half was impressed by my new zeal for geting rid of things. But either he doesn’t know any wand-wavers or like me he’s realised that a lot of it is too much trouble.

Get home and divvy up a load of books into 3 piles:

• Recycle: Books which are rubbish and not worth any money.
• Charity Shop: Books which are OK and not worth any money.
• Amazon shop: Books which are out of print and already up there for over 20 quid.

Amazon turns out to be a very slow way of getting rid of things, but people do pay top dollar.

I also found reams and reams of correspondence from the days before the internet. (Christ, that makes me sounds about 80!) A very nice evening was spent revisiting it before it too was savagely recycled. People used to really write, y’know? When I did a zine in the 90s there were dozens of people who wrote back with feedback - lots of them doing letters of 3 pages…

I offered the good people of Dissensus the chance to come and pick up 60 back issues of The Wire magazine and there were no takers, so in the recycling they went.

So that’s it, for now, I enjoyed the experience overall and as you can see it’s given me a chance to reappraise my past tastes. I’m proud of my 100% positive feedback and will probably do this again at some point. In the meantime there are more pressing matters to attend to - more news about them soon.

Less than two days to go in the Blogariddims Office Party Mix track spotting competition!

I won’t be doing an end-of-year-round-up but am instead doing a 2006mix which will only appear on a limited number of CDRs (i.e. you won’t be able to download it).

If you can identify more than 6 tracks in the Office Party mix (which you can download -follow that link!), you stand a good chance of winning one of these precious items.

Entries to me by midnight (er, UK time, I guess). Full details below…

People have always come together to move to music. In the process communities have been created, social divisions challenged, pleasure exalted over work and a billion relationships have blossomed. At the same time dancing bodies have often been subject to regulation – rules about when, where and how they can move, rules about who is allowed to dance with who, rules about what dancers can wear and put inside their bodies… That, in essence, is the ‘politics of dancing’. This site aims to be a celebration of dance as an affirmation of life in different times and places, sometimes dangerous times and places.

http://history-is-made-at-night.blogspot.com/

A great new blog from the people who brought you transpontine. Pieces so far include blues dances in 50s Notting Hill, dancing under the Nazis in France and an 1879 “drag ball” in Whitechapel.

A festive session featuring divas, teenagers, ice queens and those in between

1. “Everything I have is gone”
2. “Trying not to pose”
3. “Perhaps if I held you”
4. “The pleasures of night”
5. “It didn’t matter that he was tame”
6. “It penetrates your brain”
7. “A place to stay”
8. “I never get enough”
9. “Conversation is interrogation”
10. “You’re like a big expensive drug trip”
11. “She looked down on me”
12. “He’s not evil”
13. “Now you’re going to get a beating”
14. “Sleazy brown dirty macs”
15. “Leave your job and have some kids”
16. “Yes we do”
17. “Scorched and dieing”
18. “Never had a friend or wanted one”
19. “A criminal on the take”

How to get it

http://www.weareie.com/audio/blogariddims/Blogariddims.xml
is the link. Here is an idiot’s guide of what to do with it

You can also get it direct from http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogariddims/ or via itunes music store.

You really should subscribe - all the previous mixes rate amongst the highlights of my year. I’m slightly reticent about lowering the tone with this one, but only slightly

What’s it all about?

Blogariddims doesn’t have an office, which is just as well - given the people involved I doubt that much work would ever get done. That doesn’t mean we can’t have an office party, though, does it?

Crack open your chosen festive tipple and blast this out whilst wearing your most ill-fitting suit. For my part I created the correct atmosphere by chugging down a pint of mulled wine before even touching the turntables. So, swing your arms in the air… think about who you will try to catch under the miseltoe… scan in your arse. Despite my state of inebriation, I take full responsibility for the music here - this time of year is not the point to get obscure and credible.

Bonus blogariddims festive competition

Blogariddims being what it is, some of you may be less extrovert than others. Never mind lurking in the corner, we have a special ice-breaking party game for you lot. Being attentive to detail, you will have already noticed there is no tracklisting for this mix. Instead, each track is flagged up by a short quote from its lyrics.

Your mission, spotters, is to identify as many tracks as you can and then email the name of the artists and tunes to me by midnight on the 17th of January 2007. Use the [eden at uncarved dot org] email address with the subject line “blogariddims festive competition”.

The person who gets the most artists and/or titles correct will be sent a CD of my “Best of 2006″ mix, which will not appear online anywhere, and will only be burnt to 23 CDs. The full tracklist of the Office Party Mix will appear here on this blog on the 18th of January.

Interview with Kevin Martin about BASH, from Metro (free newspaper for London commuters).

Martin BTI’s review is here.

The highlight for me was definitely hearing the new Bug tunes, especially “Angry” by Tippa and one that kicked off with Ras B giving some shout outs.

I don’t want to hear another perfectly segued dubstep mix, I want to hear the sweet, shrill strains of estate agent screams, imploding windscreens, exploding petrol tanks!

Uncarved presents one hour and 23 minutes of music and commentary for your downloading pleasure!

Without giving too much away, this installment of RSI Radio is more eclectic than the debut. Fans of the first edition will be relieved to hear that I am less mumbly this time.

Comments welcome! People suffering from slow ‘net connections should get in touch and ask to be sent a CDR of the show.

 

 John Eden presents: RSI Radio vol2 part a [45:14m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 John Eden presents: RSI Radio vol2 part b [38:04m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 “A record is a precious thing, a costly thing. To fail to take care of it is tantamount to throwing away money. If you are to get the best return from your investment in it, it needs to be protected from its enemies - namely dust, grease, and static electricity.”

Readers Digest: This is a Record, courtesy of Matt off the Blood & Fire board.

http://www.souljazzrecords.co.uk/releases/?id=7844

http://www.myspace.com/ladybuglondon

http://www.myspace.com/thewarriorqueens

 http://www.myspace.com/thebuguk