Simon Bookish: entire live show streaming on Soundcloud
You may have spotted a rather fabulous photograph of experimental composer and underground pop star Simon Bookish playing live in Mary Magdalene’s Church on the site last week. It was taken at a mesmerising one-off performance, augmented with live sampling work by Leafcutter John and staged as part of a series based around disparate pianists playing a highly prized Bösendorfer concert grand piano.
Well, the whole bloody brilliant gig is now streaming on Soundcloud. Set aside some time for it. Serious.
And, let’s give a general HOORAY FOR THE INTERNET.
05 Nov 2010
Films opening today in London - 5 November 2010
Another Year
Due Date [Review]
FIT
Jackass 3D
Let Me In [Review]
Mammoth
05 Nov 2010
Due Date
Everyone’s got one: the type of friend who fate threw you together with and now you just can’t seem to drop. Can’t think who it is? Then it’s probably you. Or you have no friends. In either case, you’ll probably have sympathy for Robert Downey Junior’s character in ‘new’ comedy Due Date.
05 Nov 2010
Best of the week's Top 5s
This week it started being dark before we’d left work. Grim. But you know some things that aren’t grim? Cigarette-making giant cats, Sheheradaze nights, S shaped migration patterns and mugs of tea in gothic churches. All of these and more were featured in this week’s Top 5s.
London’s art deco delights
Best upcoming events at a bookshop near you
Why getting to work in a tube strike ain’t so bad
Do you like music? Are you poor? Click me
05 Nov 2010
London agenda for Friday 5 November
1. Remember, remember, the 5th of November. Bonfire nights around London [Londonist]
2. Celebrate 10 years of activism at Girl Fawkes – A Ladyfest Ten Celebration [Le Cool]
3. Get ready for our close-up at Flashing Bodies Action Five at The Cinema Museum [Run Riot]
4. Nice up with Shepdog + The Nextmen at the Jazz Cafe [Spoonfed]
5. Watch free fireworks on Wanstead Flats [Tired of London]
05 Nov 2010
Arcane Roots
We don’t post much metal stuff on here, for some reason. But we like plenty, and this rules. Some massive production, pleasingly technical playing, and Patton-ish (Mike, not General George) vocals combine into… a video we wanted to post. Raargh!
04 Nov 2010
Free Music Events in London
With us all becoming slowly more impoverished what with it getting to the Christmas present buying time of the year and wacking the heating up a notch or two, Snipe thought to share some of the best regular free music events across the capital to keep us all merry.
1. Daylight Music @ Union Chapel – Saturdays at 12 midday
Union Chapel sure put on a host of amazing music, film and comedy in the evenings but Daylight Music does just what it says on the tin by providing a free dose of Saturday soundtracks to those of us determined enough to get out of bed before midday. So blitz away that Friday night hangover with a mug of tea and a musical affair at Islington’s Gothic church. Arctic Circle are producing the line-up of artists ranging from ambient sound art to psych-folk and post-rock. There couldn’t be anything more cosy to do on a blustery Saturday.
2. Mind the Gap @ Carnivale – Saturdays, Monthly
Keen to catch the latest homegrown talent? Mind the Gap’s gigs are culturally and artistically diverse and held at a fab venue in Aldgate – all the events Carnivale hosts are free infact! Run by a friendly bunch and organised by the young people of East London the scheme aims to build the creative core of London’s community by getting the young involved in putting on events.
3. Instores @ Rough Trade East, Weekday Evenings
Of course this would be on here, and obvious it may be, but surely a Rough Trade instore is something all Londoners must tick off their to-do lists. The fact that they’re hugely popular goes without saying; as does the fact that you need to get there sharpish to get in – it is little hassle for a free event. Plus; after an evening of free music you won’t feel so guilty when you proceed to spend £50 on albums and coffee post-performance.
4. Rota @ Notting Hill Arts Club – 4-8pm Saturdays, Weekly
I can’t mention these instores without mentioning the outstores. Independently organised and supporting young local record labels, music sites and club nights, they provide a homely, amiable atmosphere. The happy hour drinks help too.
5. The Station Sessions @ St. Pancras, Weekly
Free music in strange places. Once a week for an hour over the summer St Pancras offered musicians a platform (quite literally) for which to entertain commuters and convince us all that getting on that crowded train at 6pm was too much like hard work. A vast array of performers is promised to return for the third season. Good acoustics too!
04 Nov 2010
Vessels Gig Changes Venue
This show, as previewed in the latest Snipe, has moved from The Black Heart to The Queen Of Hoxton.
The Queen of Hoxton | 1 Curtain Road, EC2A 3LT
Vessels make post-rock interesting again. Theirs isn’t the kind of by-the-numbers band that plagues the genre; it’s altogether farther reaching. It’s an epic, swirling soundscape filled with emotional rancour. Debut long player White Fields and Open Devices found them crafting a niche somewhere between the environmental echoes of Sigur Rós and the hardcore riff attack of Oceansize. There are also elements of Battles in their twinkling riffs and shifting time signatures, but again, it’s a sound Vessels make their own by shifting the influences around. Live is the environment to truly enjoy their sound as it allows their harder edge to come to the fore and their technical mastery to become blazingly apparent.
04 Nov 2010
London agenda for Thursday 4 November
1. Electro-pop with amazing duo Hundred in the Hands [John Rogers]
2. Travel to 1960 with the first three episode of Coronation Street at the BFI [Le Cool]
3. Relax in the Pembury Tavern [Tired of London]
4. Watch the Malcolm Hardy Awards for most original UK comedian [Spoonfed]
04 Nov 2010
No Sir! There's nothing on earth like a genuine, bona fide, electrified, cable-car!
Vertigo sufferers beware. Seen that episode of The Simpsons where monorail fever grips the city of Springfield?
Well, our very own Mayor Quimby, Boris Johnson, is hoping something similar will grip east and south-east London. Except it won’t be “MONORAIL!” we’ll be singing – it’ll be “CABLE CAR!”
Planning documents have just been submitted for the project, which is due to link the O2 at Greenwich with the ExCel centre at the Royal Docks.
It’s not the first time somebody’s tried to do it – a similar scheme was binned in 1998 after a row between its private backers and the operators of the under-construction Millennium Dome.
Four years ago, the O2’s owners wanted to build one to Canary Wharf, only for that idea to be dropped when it was realised passengers would be able to peer into penthouse flats on the Isle of Dogs.
But although it will undoubtedly offer great views of the capital and become a tourist attraction in its own right, the plan has met with bemusement among the people who are expected to use it. The road network south of the river is notoriously clogged up, with most people agreeing Something Must Be Done to clear the Blackwall Tunnel bottleneck – whether with new public transport projects, new road crossings, or both.
Pretty as a cable car might be, it’s not going to do much to clear those traffic jams or ease the congested Jubilee Line, although once Crossrail comes it could provide a handy link for North Greenwich.
But with little cash in the pot and TfL hoping to raise funds for the scheme with private finance, it might be the best frustrated river crossers will see for some years.
The historical precedents for the Greenwich cable car aren’t encouraging – but there’s no sign of a Marge Simpson waiting to object. Both Greenwich and Newham councils keen on the project, it’s likely to be given the go-ahead.
If the cash can be found, the cable car could end up one of Mayor Johnson’s legacies to London. Like the “Boris bikes”, the cable car will be nice to have – but it won’t be an answer to our pressing transport problems.
03 Nov 2010
Snipe Highlights
Some popular articles from past years
- An interview with Desiree Akhavan
- Peter Bayley has worked for 50 years as a cinema projectionist in East Finchley
- Number of people using Thames cable car plunges
- Diary of the shy Londoner
- 9 poems about London: one for each of your moods
- Nice Interactive timeline lets you follow Londoners' historic fight against racism
- Margaret Thatcher statue rejected by public
- Summer Camp: Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days
- Punk brewery just as sexist and homophobic as the industry they rail against
- Only 16 commuters touch in to Emirates Air Line, figures reveal
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