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Over the past couple of years the Bear has been leaving, or 'installing' if you will, random objects on Tooting Common and other places in London.
Sometimes as you will see from the picture it's a little man with a message. At other times, things - clocks, old telephones, wooden penguins, paintings, etc have been attached to trees and other art 'stations'. The aim of Bear @rt is to take people by surprise by leaving something that causes them to look twice. The intention is that it will amuse (or irritate, if they're so uptight that they can't take a joke) people and maybe inspire them to install some art of their own in a public space.
Hi everybody. Just to let you all know that today I was officially ordained as a Dude-ist priest - a representative of The Church of the Latter Day Dude (if you're confused ref The Coen Brothers' The Big Liebowski or enter Dudeism in Google). So if any of you want any advice about slackerism or wish to get married in 'certain US states -and other parts of the world', I'm your man. Remember the Dude's code 'Take it easy. Do nothing'.
Oi, who nicked my Lucida font?Don't like this one as much but seems that choice has been limited now to six or seven. Boo. Not happy.
Anyway, more from the Streetcomber archives. I recently found this nifty little tiled table ( made in Denmark so could be G-Plan style fans) lingering in a lonely and lost fashion at the entrance to an industrial estate in Tooting. So whisked it up and brought it home. It has now become a beast of burden (as is the fate of all tables) and supports our Cornish pottery lamp through thick and thin. What a team they are.
So there you go freegans, keep 'em peeled and who knows what you might find.
By the way. That figure in the mirror? That's my evil twin. He must never be released from the mirror. Never. Do you understand? NEVER!
And another week has gone by and more items of previously-loved flotsam and jetsam have been added to the itinerary of the stately House of Bear.
To wit; Anglepoise lamps in stereo, a fine little folding table, a cute little plant pot holder and several pieces of rounded vinyl known to many as 'records'. Chief amongst these were Kraftwerk's Autobahn and Roxy Music's debut (of which the cover alone is worth the price of admission). But hold.There is more. Please observe 'Loving and Free', by Kiki Dee. On the cover of this the doe-eyed chanteuse is draped in clothing -high waister, patch-pocket bellbottoms, cheesecloth blouse and painted clogs - dragged straight from the pages of Jackie magazine (those of you under the age of 45 should ask your mother, sister, aunt about Jackie - which was 'legend' and Kiki, who sadly was not, except to my girlfriend Nicky and her friend Sarah).
But above and beyond any of these was a rather fantastic Formica-topped table which I picked up at breezy old, rain-lashed Brighton today. This small but perfectly formed apparatus comes complete with hatched, salmon-pink top and a compact cutlery drawer suitable to house all manner of utensils. Furthermore it has a makers label on the bottom which tells that it was manufactured in East Germany by steadfast hero- worker (First Class) hans ... or it could've been Dieter or maybe Wolfgang.Anyway it is a thing of beauty and I shall sleep with it tonight. God bless the Eastern bloc.
I was looking through some old photos today and I came across this one. It is of my beautiful little Yorkie-cross bitch Fizz and was taken on Monday February 9 2009. Those of you with sturdy memories may recall that that was the day when it snowed heavily in London and left the streets inches deep in the white stuff. As you can see Fizz, who had just come back in from the garden, seems to be wearing a pair of moonboots that look as if they could have been created by Courreges, but were in fact the result of the sticky, newly settled snow clinging to her long leg-hairs. You may also remark that her head seems to be missing from this photo. That is correct. But don't worry readers, we found it later and reattached it using candlewax and tin foil.
Apart from that what I will always remember about that day was how happy everyone was. In Balham the streets and green spaces were thronged by hundreds of grinning people who, because the unexpected down fall of La Neige had totally disabled our creaking transport system, had seized the opportunity to take a day off work and replace their usual daily grind with sorties to Tooting Common where they would create snowmen and throw snowballs at their offspring.
Being short of the latter, Nicky and I went to Trinity Stores, that bastion of civilization and all things yummy, where we had tea and cakes to the accompaniment of choral music. The latter, which may well have been Handel's Messiah, made it feel like gentle Jesus' birthday. So much so that in my mind at least Feb 9 2009 will go down as the best Christmas Day I ever had.
If I were ever to become Prime Minister, and it could happen with a little bit of effort and a lot of bribery, I would decree that at least once a year the streets of London should, in the absence of the real thing, be sprayed with fake snow and everyone would take the day off. What a fantastic blow for slackerdom that would be.
Last Friday night I went to the Queen Elizabeth Hall on London's Southbank to see a friend of mine, Ed Lovechocolate, playing in his circuit bending electro-eclecto band Worm. Circuit bending, in case you didn't know, is a radical way of making music from sounds taken from the circuit boards of Speak and Spell machines and other such bedrocks of modern music as Casio keyboards. Apparently, once these circuits are reassembled in alien bodies, you're never quite sure what noises are going to come out of them: could be something that sounds like white noise, could be a spooky voice, could be the sound, of, well, a circuit being bent. Whatever it is though it's very interesting and atmospheric especially when teamed with a trombone, a sax player, a bass player and a drummer playing a drum machine with his hands rather than sticks. At times it felt like you were grooving along a New York waterfront with a sea fret muffling the distant, hub and thrum of the city while the calls of strange anonymous creatures and fog horns occasionally pierce the gathering river-mist. At others you could have been in a basement in 1970s Berlin with Krautrock bands such as Neu rehearsing next door.
There is no guitar or (human) vocals in tonight's incarnation of Worm, but who knows next time there could be; that's the beauty of this outfit they play only by their own rules. If you're looking for something unpredictable, individual, ambient yet cutting edge, jazzy tinged, electro but occasionally funky, then check 'em out. They'll be playing somewhere near you soon.
Afterwards, thanks to the largesse of said Mr Chocolate, who surprised us with free tickets, Nicky and I toddled off a few yards toward the river where we witnessed the return of The Woodentops.
Now anyone over thirty may remember The Woodentops from the mid-eighties when as a five piece led by the diminutive but hugely charismatic Rolo McGinty, they had a certain amount of indie chart success with their debut album Giant and singles such as Well,Well,Well, Love Affair With Everyday Living, and Good Thing. Thirtysomethings may also recall that after the ill-received follow up album Woodenfoot Cops on the Highway, The 'Tops faded from view somewhat.
But now they're back with three fifths of the original line-up of McGinty, Frank De Freitas Bass), Simon Mawby (lead guitar) plus new drummer Paul Ashby and new keyboardist Aine O'Keeffe,and more of that million-mph, but relentlessly melodic, indie-rush and tumble, that once had them christened by me, at least, as 'The fastest band in the West'.
So what did we get for our money (yeah I know we got free tickets but phrases should be regularly coined otherwise they'll die)? Well quite a lot actually. Accesorized to the crystal-meth chord work, raging rhythms (Paul Ashby, how do you do it? Are you in fact bionic?) and Rolo's plaintive vocals we get a wall of sound that approaches and eventually surpasses anything that that ol' jail bird Phil Spector could've mustered up even in his hayday. In amongst the build and crescendo Mawby spat out rippling lead lines as McGinty riffed righteously and joyfully over O'Keefe's inventive, po-going, keyboards. Mixing new with equal amounts of old the set list satisfied past appetites while making the mouth water for what's to come.
All in all a fantastic gig. If you get the chance to see the 'tops take it. You won't regret it even though your ears might be ringing for a few hours afterwards.
