Blog: Gutterbreakz

Ekoplekz Bulletin Board

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After a decade out in the cold, I finally got some of my hi- fi gear, and specifically a turntable, back into the living room at home, having removed all the kids' crap and reorganised the furniture, thus reclaiming this room as an adult living area. Oh, the simple joy of playing a record on a decent stereo system whilst lounging on a sofa. It's almost like the old days...except I'm not allowed to smoke anymore...and if I get too comfy I will invariably doze off. Yes, there's always [...]

"Once upon a time, people believed in the future. When I was growing up in England in the 1970s, one of the most popular programmes on TV was called 'Tomorrow's World'. Every week scientists would talk about how new and wonderful inventions would make our life better. Sociologists talked of an impending leisure society, where our biggest problem would be what to do with all the spare time created by increasing automation..." Neil Transpotine ( History Is Made At Night ) "The future we were sold in the 1970's/1980's where robots would [...]

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There's a program on my laptop called 'Windows Movie Maker'. I've never opened it before, but tonight I was feeling bored and listless so I opened the fucker and, for the sheer hell of it, 'created' the above promo clip using a few old pictures from my raving days and the first two minutes of a killer tune called "Elephants" by October. It is scheduled for release around late July or early August on Immerse Records. Here's what Immerse's Kid Kut had to say about it: "...created back in 2003 when Jules (October), myself [...]

Nothing unusual in itself, but I'm taking this one personally. All my life this little retail space at the bottom of Cleeve Hill has been an off-licence. My dad used to come in here to buy his cans of Hoffmeister and packs of Marlborough. Sometimes I would go with him and wait obediently and patiently while he chatted with the ever-jovial proprietor about the football results, hoping that he might feel inclined to buy me a packet of crisps or a chocolate bar or maybe some Opal Fruits from the enticing selection [...]

Featuring Delia's green lampshade, John's cash register, and the bloke who used to present Screen Test . What more could you possibly want? The amazing and ultimately tragic story of Peter Zinovieff and EMS in a nutshell. And here's what the rock stars did with EMS synths...

c/o Headhunter . Amen, brother...

Following on from the Cabaret Voltaire post, I've tracked down a few other clips that stand out in my memory as particularly influencial in my personal development. It is perhaps hard to remember now how influential these brief televised encounters could be for a teenager growing-up in the '80s, thirsty for fresh musical experience, yet desperately restricted for choice and information by today's standards. Yes, we had the radio, and we had the music press, and sometimes we even had enough pocket money to buy an actual record, but often it's these fleeting, unplanned televisual experiences that burn brightest in [...]

Matthew Ingram Showreel January 2009 from Matthew Ingram on Vimeo . Clever chap, isn't he..?

A couple of links sent my way earlier today - Jan Jelinek's 'radiophonic' hoax album (via Bob ) and a Conny Plank podcast (via Matt ) - converged in my mind and sent it flashing back to a little-known krautrock-inspired hoax album entitled Auf Die Mond! I always assumed it was a hoax, anyway. Promotional cd-r copies were floating around in 2001, yet when I googled it I couldn't find a single reference to it's existence! Hard to believe, I know, but somehow this particular item has managed to remain undocumented on [...]

Go on, you know you want to...

Shocked and stunned to discover this snippet of archival footage of Daniel Miller and Robert Rental in performance and at home studio back in '79 - I had no idea such a document existed.

Discovered this by accident tonight. Not sure how I feel about it. Of course, my wife (who knows that (a) I detest Duran Duran on general principle and (b) Warm leatherette is one of my favourite singles ever) thinks this is absolutely hilarious. And when did La Bonn and his chums start pretending they were Kraftwerk..?

I don't pretend to be an expert on his career, all I know is I fucking loved watching Kung Fu when I was a kid. I still have my collection of bubble gum cards and, as a mark of respect, here's a few of my favourites....

In the middle of reading Dave Haslam's "Not Abba - The Real Story Of The 1970s" (4th Estate, 2005),which I found in the local library, not a charity shop. Haslam's narrative style can be a bit jarring in places, but I like the way he's interwoven the political landscape with popular music. So on the one hand I read that "the National Front made headway in an era when the political process looked flawed and the major parties lacked credibility" (hmmm, sounds familiar), whilst on the other discovering that soul group Sweet Sensation were from Manchester, [...]

Speaking of books, how did people manage to drool over cool pictures of sexy records and CDs before websites like Hard Format? Well presumably they spent twenty quid on a big coffee-table tome like this... "Discstyle" by Martin Pesch & Markus Weisbeck (Collins & Brown, 1999) I assume it's long out of print, but I came across a copy in a charity shop this week for two quid. It's a luxurious thing, with a forward by Ian Anderson (Designers Republic), charting the [...]

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