christmas card from a blogger in chapel allerton: finally, the barrel nut #11!
December 4, 2014 at 10:49 am | Posted in art, no audience underground, not bloody music | Leave a commentTags: collage, copier art, cut-ups, dada, dr. adolf steg, gary simmons, hiroshima yeah!, joe murray, mark ritchie, michael clough, no audience underground, posset, scanner art, text score, the barrel nut, visual art, yol, zines
Bloody hell, it has been nearly six months since the last issue dropped! Bet you thought I’d discretely shoved this barmy little project down the back of the sofa. Well, I could make up a whimsical nonsense story to account for the delay (erm… lost on a yeti hunt? Nope – used that one) but the sad fact is that I’ve just been busy with other things. Still, who can resist the zen calm to be found in folding a bunch of these zines at the kitchen table? Not me. Also, I thought it might be nice to do something special seeing as it is the fifth anniversary of RFM this month so not only does a shiny new issue appear but, for the first time, it is DOUBLE SIDED. Woo!
Wrapped in the usual dada silliness by your truly you will find cut-up collage by RFM’s own Joe Murray and Hiroshima Yeah!’s Mark Ritchie (big themes: space, god, death, n’ that) and proper art that looks like a Bauhaus photographic experiment by Mark’s co-writer Gary Simmons, plus an indication of his financial situation and a terminal film still from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Barrel Nut regular Yol praises King Coffee on the tomb wall and offers sage personal advice in the form of one of his rolling text scores/typewriter screeds. Dr. Adolf Steg of (the already much missed) Spon offers some vaguely dermatological doodling with newspaper headline addenda and finally Michael Clough gets an unheard of four-panel spread for an example of his unnerving scanner art ‘totems’ series. It is top notch stuff.
Should you be a recent convert to this blog and thus have no idea what I am talking about, here’s a repeat of the basics:
The Barrel Nut is a microzine – a single sheet of A4 paper cleverly folded to make an eight panel (per side), A7 pamphlet. Paper copies will be distributed to anyone who wants one, or who has expressed an interest in the past. I’ll bring some to gigs I attend and a bunch will be passed around by those with a similar love of the post.
Should you be so inclined then you are very welcome to download and print out your own. Links to the latest issue in jpeg and pdf formats are below (you’ll need to trim the print-out down one edge to make it fold properly). Some more context, assembly instructions and previous issues can be found on The Barrel Nut’s own page (tabbed above).
Should you wish to contribute artwork then I would be very grateful indeed. Submissions need to look OK when reproduced as a black and white photocopy and be 7cm by 10cm in size (or scalable to roughly those dimensions). Good quality scans attached to an email are fine, originals sent in the post ideal. Please get in touch.
All contributors should have their copies by now, it was available to pick up at the gig last week and a bunch more will have been distributed with the latest issue of Hiroshima Yeah! Subscriber copies will be in the post soonish – consider it a Christmas card from the RFM family. Contributions still always welcome – if you like this little distraction then please feel free to send me something. More will follow in the fresh New Year.
The Barrel Nut issue #11 FRONT as a pdf file
The Barrel Nut issue #11 BACK as a pdf file
nictate your membranes for the barrel nut issue #10!
July 15, 2014 at 8:21 pm | Posted in art, no audience underground, not bloody music | Leave a commentTags: collage, cut-ups, dada, foldhead, gary simmons, hiroshima yeah!, joe murray, no audience underground, paul walsh, photography, text score, the barrel nut, visual art, yol, zines
Confidants, low-rollers, members of the 50-copies legion! The editor is proud to groan sleepily that the latest issue of The Barrel Nut has arrived and that a double figure issue count has been reached. Blimey! The reviews of the previous issue are in:
That’s some classic mail art shit right there.
…says PJM of the awesome Node Pajomo fanzine (paper/post only folks) and dare I say this issue rattles the bars even harder.
RFM co-writer and hep cat Joe Murray takes the first two pages to cut-up jazz/beat style with some discombobulating appropriation. Funny, poignant, rug-tugging. The centre spread sees Nut-fave Yol present a percussive illustration/text score set comprising of one word/sound. Could be a transcription of a recent performance for TV remote control and laminate floor by my son Thomas. Finally we have contrasting photographs – one a glorious evocation of freedom through art caught by Gary Simmons of Hiroshima Yeah! fanzine, the other a mysterious, possibly squalid, record of Mirfield detritus taken by Paul Walsh of foldhead and early hominids. Who knows, eh?
For anyone new to this momentary distraction, here’s some dog-eared explanatory bumpf:
The Barrel Nut is a microzine – a single sided, single sheet of A4 paper cleverly folded to make an eight panel, A7 pamphlet. Paper copies will be distributed to anyone who wants one, or who has expressed an interest in the past. I’ll bring some to gigs I attend and a bunch will be passed around by those with a similar love of the post.
Should you be so inclined then you are very welcome to download and print out your own. Links to the latest issue in jpeg and pdf formats are below (you’ll need to trim the print-out a bit down one edge to make it fold properly). Some more context, assembly instructions and previous issues can be found on The Barrel Nut’s own page (tabbed above).
Should you wish to contribute artwork then I would be very grateful indeed. Submissions need to look OK when reproduced as a black and white photocopy and be 7cm by 10cm in size (or scalable to roughly those dimensions). Good quality scans attached to an email are fine, originals sent in the post ideal. Please get in touch.
As ever, I’m proud to bring this to your attention. A fun issue, I think. Contributors and subscribers will be receiving copies in the post in due course. A bunch will be distributed by the redoubtable Hiroshima Yeah! fanzine. Links to downloadable versions below, as promised.
I’m in the lovely position of having a few contributions for future issues in hand but submissions always brighten the day. If you like this little project then please feel free to send me something. C’mon – get the crayons out and remember to ask an adult for help with the scissors. Dada safe, kids.
new product! tj cuckoo sings yol: vox-object on hairdryer excommunication
February 17, 2014 at 9:54 am | Posted in new music, no audience underground | 2 CommentsTags: drone, hairdryer excommunication, kevin sanders, midwich, new music, no audience underground, noise, shameless self-congratulation, text score, the barrel nut, tj cuckoo, yol
tj cuckoo – vox-object (3″ CD-r, hairdryer excommunication, edition of 15 or download)
Ladies and gentlemen, RFM is delighted to announce the second release by tj cuckoo – vox-object – now available from hairdryer excommunication, the impeccable label run by Kevin Sanders.
Following the runaway success of too tired to eat, too hungry to sleep (the first tj cuckoo release, a C10 on Matching Head – literally some people were interested) I’ve decided to keep this alias for any non-midwichian noise emanating from these parts, especially that featuring and/or inspired by my baby son Thomas.
Tom does not feature this time but his pre-verbal jabbering, chuntering, shouting and bibbling inspired me to attempt a couple of things I’ve never done before. Firstly: perform a score and secondly: use my voice in a recording.
The score is the third of three text pieces by Yol that I have published in The Barrel Nut, the RFM microzine. Anyone unfamiliar with Yol’s work as artist or performer is missing something unique and I recommend clicking on the links below or the tag above and setting time aside to catch up. Anyone unfamiliar with The Barrel Nut can click on the link to #5 below, or its page tab above, and get the skinny there – free treats for anyone interested in zines, graphics and the DIY aesthetic. Anyway, this is the piece I’m referring to:
The more I looked at it and the more I heard Thomas chattering to himself, the more I fancied giving it a go. Tracks one, two and four are performances of the ‘vox’ column. The first is an intimate rendition having been woken in the middle of the night by the boy yelping in his sleep. In the second I mimic his shuffling by kicking the dictaphone about as I record. The final version is accompanied by a percussive rummage in the toy box. The third track is an interpretation of the ‘object’ column. Unlike Yol, I am far too timid to contemplate actually destroying something, so my conflagration (or not) is a 16 minute drone track built from heavily filtered domestic recordings.
Here’s Kev’s account:
vox-object features three tracks of pre-linguistic attempts at communication with a longer, more caustic track to boot. The guttural numbers are invariably more successful, communicatively speaking, then any hitherto fully formed words (or sentences), images or semaphore that have been used to communicate…er…erm… anything. Seriously. I have no ‘idea’, but a very deep understanding of why.
Fired in the kiln alongside the shorter throatings is a wonderous track featuring Hayler’s deft droning abilities. Detailed, grainy, dark drones crackle through thine ears until thee be burned out and ready to tackle one more explication of being. Prepare to have your skull seriously bent around this beast.
A mere fifteen copies exist on 3″ cdr with simple black and white photocopies of Yol’s score and the usual hXe stamps and typewritten accoutrement.
Cool, eh? I’ll have a few for trade shortly, Kev is selling the remainder for a token, cost-covering amount. Otherwise available to freely download from the hXe site (which is a very high quality resource that you should frequent frequently) alongside its sister release Clusters, clutter and other ephemera by the man Kevin himself.
Released, by the way, with Yol’s blessing – why not have a go at it yourself?
vox-object on the hairdryer excommunication blog
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