Notes From Afar
I was saying just the other day that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen a really great advert. Well I’ve just seen the best ad I’ve seen in a long time: Write The Future from Nike.
Sure it’s a huge budget epic full of over-paid footballers, but it captures the passion and the nail biting tension of the 90th minute brilliantly.
As a friend used to say “it only takes a second to score a goal”.
Maths and numbers have never been my strong suit, but after I read Fermat’s Last Theorem I started to see them differently; to see an elegance and beauty I hadn’t before appreciated.
Whilst in Minsk last week my new chum Alec shared this fantastic video with me.
Watch this video and tell me that numbers can’t be art:
Never mind all that election malarkey – Underworld have released their first live music in two and a half years, and it’s available free from Underworldlive until May 20th.
Underworldlive describe Scribble as “a gene-splice between Yellow Magic Orchestra and Grooverider blasting out over the dancefloor at Fabric on a Friday night”.
I was more than interested to see that Scribble is a collaboration with Hospital Records artist High Contrast. You may remember from my 2008 Review that I have a new found love of (fluid) drum and bass; well I’d say 99% of my drum and bass listening is accounted for by Hospital Records artistes. So Scribble sees my favourite band come together with my genre du jour – a truly intriguing combination.
I’ve only given Scribble a few listens so far; my first impression is of a lighter, and dare I say it poppier Underworld – not that this is in anyway a bad thing. It’s got a great hook, and some of those lovely Underworld vox-pop moments – think Two Months Off. What it perhaps lacks are the Karl Hyde stream of consciousness poetry lyrics I love so much.
But this is just one track – a teaser – I can’t wait to hear the rest of the album.
I’m not entirely sure why my Sunday morning mind decided to dredge up Bloodrunners, but I’m rather pleased it did.
Bloodrunners was a comic strip written by Andy Sparrow about a group of dispatch riders that couriered body parts. I loved the comic strip, particularly the character Jack Shit, but I have even fonder memories of the Bloodrunners film.
I bought my VHS copy of the Bloodrunners film from Andy himself at the Bike Show circa 1998 or 1999. I remember it costing me £14.95, which at the time was a lot of money – I could fill the tank of my bike three times for that.
I loved the film; it was very silly and yet very cool. I watched it over and over again whilst recovering from a bike crash, waiting for my “Powervalve” to be rebuilt and my broken wrist to heal. I wanted the ZXR 750 that stars as Hoover so much; I loved the colours and the air hoses that fed into the air box and did nothing other than look cool.
The film itself was only 30 minutes long with minimal plot, but lots of wheelies and other bad biking behaviour. Here’s a clip of the first bike scene in the film:
The art critic at the beginning of the clip is played by Andy Sparrow himself.