Design For Music – Music and design / Day Event at St Bride
"...This one-day conference examines design for music and musical designing from multiple angles: from animation to album sleeves; identity to merchandise. Speakers include Karsten Schmidt (aka Toxi), Adrian Shaughnessy (Sampler, Unit Editions), Malcolm Garrett (Buzzcocks, Duran Duran), Fred Deakin (Lemonjelly, Airside) and rising star Kate Moross, whose vinyl-only label is just part of her mission to make music look good. Plus a host of musically oriented designers of every stripe.
Topics include: music as code (and vice versa); the visual culture of pop; vinyl as art object; design and typography for classical music; the creative legacy of Barney Bubbles; and design for performance. The day will be punctuated by a specially selected sequence of audiovisual treats: from funky abstraction to heavy-metal umlauts..."
A one-day conference at St Bride Library - curated by Catherine Dixon and John L. Walters
Edits Group – 300 Mark
The edits group has just ht the 300 mark with a great edit to Lee Dorsey - Night People by Chris Luck.
Happy new year!
Retro Graphics
A wonderful collection of post modernist graphics, space-race-esque posters and sleeves.
via Vectroave.
Font Feed Cover Of The Decade
Font feed are putting together a little album cover frenzy , sounds like right up our strasse.
From the top of my head, I think that I would go for the Playgroup DJ Kicks (2002), designed by Trevor Jackson himself.
Laurent Garnier Interview
I have come across this interview of Laurent Garnier, where he talks about his vinyl collection, studio and views on music.
The Recent Technics Drama By Red Rack’em
The recent Technics drama kind of passed me by. I noted that it was happening and saw the numerous threads across many forums but for some reason, I didn't feel that much of an emotional response. This is a bit odd as I have always rated the 1200/1210 as one of the ultimate design classics - unbeaten for years due to the sheer weight and quality of its design as well as the unraveling of product quality globally in the chase for steeper profits. I have always been proud of the fact that I can set them up well and often spot why they aren't working correctly in clubs and at peoples homes. I have payed my rent and bills almost solely with Technics for the last 8 years. So it's a piece of equipment that I know fairly well I would say.
I guess the potential loss of Technics production felt a bit too much like a brush with establishment for me to ponder it for more than a few seconds. I make music on a fairly spartan set up. My Technics are about 16 years old and my mixer is a crossfaderless DJM 300 which was lent to me a number of years back. I recently took the major step of upgrading my headphones to Sony V6s after years of struggling with my HD25s. Maybe it's just that I focus on the production and the gigs more now rather than the format and the tools? The music seems come in a fairly steady flow these days. Some digi promos from labels, trade with other producers, occasional digging, occasional online shopping. In the past I only had the option of buying vinyl. I only started using CDs in 2000 when I started to get stuff through my music journalism. My main motivation for playing digital music is that it's new and unreleased rather than the vessel that carries the sound.
As a fairly modern producer/dj, I guess I am probably a pretty normal example of the state of play regarding the format debate and all that jazz. The format that I play on is fairly arbitrary these days to be honest. It depends on the types of music that I am playing and the setting. If it's my radio show, I tend to play upfront digi promos from labels and cdrs from producers as I think that my show benefits from featuring music that hasn't been heard by many people. Plus it hopefully leads to some sales for the labels and increases the new producers profiles. People are more likely to download it if it's got loads of new stuff on it. This has led to the near total reduction of vinyl on my show.
But then again it's been the converse at gigs.
I have really enjoyed playing mainly vinyl again at gigs recently and this has been down to my change in taste as much as anything. I have been buying a lot of early 90's house by people like Ron Trent and Chez Damier and it would seem somehow churlish to have it on mp3 rather than the original vinyl. Even if the sound quality was better on the mp3s. I love playing new stuff at gigs as well on cdr but I find it a lot harder to keep track of where the cds are and what's on them. Even if I write names on the cds it can often become a blur in a club and I sometimes find myself playing the wrong track or the dub by mistake. I think it's harder to feel a connection with your digital collection as apart from the cds there's nothing tangible there to pore over. Having said that, on recent trips abroad I have often remarked to myself that I should have just brought cds while lugging vast amounts of records around in various transport situations!
The 7 Inch Incident
For the new episode of the Save Vinyl podcast we got a wonderful mixtape by Mr Chex of the Funk Royale Soundsystem.
Subscribe.
Podcast
Vinyl on Flickr
