So this was a quick cartoon Joe drew of me on a record of his he kindly gave me. I think I was wearing a baseball cap, which might explain what’s going on with the top of my head. Otherwise he seems to have got me spot on. And it just shows I haven’t changed much as the years have passed by…

A while ago I was lucky enough to take part in a daylong workshop about wildlife sound recording by Chris Watson, the brilliant sound recordist behind many of the best nature documentaries you see on TV. For instance, you can hear his work in shows like Life in the Undergrowth and The Life of Birds.

And Chris recorded one of my favourite albums ever, ‘Outside of the Circle of Fire’

It sounds like some awful album your parents would have owned of wildlife sound recordings, but it isnt anything of the kind… the recordings themselves are so textured and interesting its hard not to conjure imaginary scenes whilst listening to them. Maybe I just like the sound of hippos ‘laughing’. It’s another great recording from Touch.

Gosh, I’ve just noticed Chris is doing a talk with Sir David Attenborough! Should be good, although its not til august, more details here.

Anyway, here’s a short film I made on the day with Chris Watson, its very abstract (mainly due to filming on a couple of short ends of film!), very gentle and more of an accompaniment to the sound records done by many people on that day than a film in its own right. It was just my way of responding to listening and learning from a very experienced and generous guy.

I would love to do another workshop with Chris. And next time I will remember to take more film with me!

This is Youtube footage of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull erupting earlier this year. Iceland is such a volcanic island, it really doesn’t seem surprising that it comes to life every now and again. And I just wanted to tell you how i let nature play its part in my super 8 film ‘Vid Spilum Endalaust’ I made a couple of years ago now.

When I was making it, I wanted it to be more like a spell than a tour film. And to this end, I tried to use the alchemical process of film making as part of the process. Its very important to me, this physical activity, the flickering of the film frames on a screen, the bathing of the celluloid in liquids to make an image appear…

Here’s a brief moment from the film:

I develop a lot of film by hand, and when I do so I like to drop in various things into the mix to make sure that each batch is different, unexpected, unique. That’s why so much of it looks messed up! For this film I collected volcanic ash from the hallucinatory landscape of Iceland and added it to my film developing chemicals to form a potent cocktail involving the landscape which influences the band’s music so heavily. Hopefully it imbued the resulting footage with something special that couldn’t be found elsewhere!

This is a photo of Kenneth Anger, the magus of independent film, with me. His films, such as ‘Scorpio Rising’, have been so influential. They are less like movies and more like spells, short self-contained dreams.

Innvocation of My Demon Brother, a film by Kenneth Anger.

I just found this old postcard made by Mark Pawson, badgemaker, gocco expert, artist, morrisey look-a-like and general all round good guy. On the reverse the card reads ‘C’mon vikings let’s go party’, and it’s a gocco print of an afternoon of booze and fun at Mark’s house. I’m there on the bottom right of the picture, caught with a naughty ciggy in my hand! Another mutual friend and gocco printer is Xtina Lamb whose prints can be seen here. And there’s some more gocco prints from a project my Mark working with other artists if you click here. The gocco is dead! Long live the gocco!

This was the flyer to our first ever ‘Les Folies..’ and this is a pic of me with the fabulous Jayne County…

…. subject of a current film project of mine. If you don’t know about her, you should. And you will. Because the film looks like its going to be something quite different to your average rock doc! But I will write about that on another post, because this one is to celebrate the first in a quarterly get together in South London (yes, you know there’s life across the river Thames!) which we are calling ‘Les Folies…’

Here I am with my lovely co-host Pippa Brooks, who writes a great blog ‘madame says’ and sells her wares at her and Nathaniel’s brilliant/tiny shop M. Goldstein:

(note matching stripes and eyewear!)

We are hoping to show odd films, book readings, a little bit of whatever interesting we can get our hands on, in our favourite London caff, Scooter-Caffe.

I was a little terrified as to how this would go, showing rushes of an unfinished film, but it was a hoot. Here are some photos by Etienne Gilfillan
which describe it better than I can write it!

yes, that's Jayne County on the big screen!

So, thanks to all that came, and here’s looking forward to the next one… in a few months time!

I don’t right now actually hate the NME as they are exclusively running the video i made for Veronica Falls.. you can see it by clicking here

.. sigh… yet again…

When we had that snowy spell some weeks ago, I spent a fun (but freezing!) afternoon on Hampstead Heath with new darlings of the indie scene, Veronica Falls, and with no budget and less time we managed to knock together a bouncy pop video for their new single ‘Found Love in a Graveyard‘. Just me, my trusty super 8 Nizo and the band, who managed to persuade some kind soul to lend us a sledge. And yes, we did go to a graveyard, but only because I made them lay some roses at the grave of Karl Marx… sigh.. young love!

The video is not public yet, but here are a few stills to whet your appetite:

Recently while throwing lots of old books and magazine out, I came across a copy of a magazine from a dim and distant episode in my life. For a few issues, I was Film Editor of Dazed and Confused. I ended up getting in a row with Jefferson about something really stupid and minor and decided I couldn’t be arsed with them any more. He went on to become rather rich and shag Kate Moss and I didn’t. But I did get to interview an odd selection of people including John Woo, James Ellroy and William Gibson and this one with Chow Yun Fat, so I’m not complaining. Much to my surprise, Mr Chow genuinely was a MASSIVE Ray Cooney fan and talked excitedly of doing a big screen version of one of his plays… I’d still pay good money to see what John Woo could have done with ‘Run for Your Wife’, heroic bloodshed style.

Time passes so swiftly but it must be about 2 years ago that I ventured down to Brighton with film maker Ben Rivers and archivist William Fowler of the BFI to spend a lovely day interviewing an inspirational figure for all three of us – a filmmaker so underground he has become one of Britain’s best kept secrets.

The video of that interview with the marvelous Jeff Keen is available on a 4 DVD set of his works available from the BFI, and its a lovely release packed with films full of mystery and strangeness. Here’s a clip of one of Jeff’s psychedelic frenzies:

As he pointed out on that day, if he had chosen to leave his hometown of Brighton maybe his work would be better known. Jeff had also spent much of his life as a gardener, and seemed to have little interest in the world of mainstream cinema.

Sitting in his two room apartment, surrounded by all the props, paintings and redundant home movie equipment that has gone into making these movies for over 40 years was just such a thrill. Some of his paintings resembled those of Robert Crumb, but when I asked if he would sell one in particular, Jeff came over all vague. I would love to own an original Keen!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy his films as much as I have over the years, and I’m glad that the BFI are stepping up to put out works such an uncompromising and profoundly influential filmmaker.