Friday 28 August 2009

Making Plans

Sex Is Disgusting enters the second cycle come September. Most people pull the plastic from their pools in the summer but instead we've covered ours, letting all manner of life gestate, letting our calm waters carry algae and microscopic life that doesn't just buzz, it feeds back, it shreds, it grows and it grows. There is much life growing. We took a break from shows over the summer and continued with the records, albeit at a comfortable pace, putting out the perfect summer jam in the form of 'Bowie Knives', a 7" by Mazes (myspace.com/mazesmazesmazes). Copies of the single are still available and instructions on how to order can be found at myspace.com/sexisdisgusting. Please also check out SID001 Human Hair 7" which is on the brink of being gone forever, or until we repress. We are now in the process of gathering the tracks and artwork for SID003 & SID004, 7"s by our close friends Graffiti Island and Thee Fair Ohs. The former peddle crackling ghost-punk, channeling Beat Happening, The Urinals and tribal stomp whilst the latter have shot their 100mph garage with a bullet made of pure tropical vibes. A 180 degree turn for Thee Fair Ohs but one which has paid-off, check our their new material at their Myspace (myspace.com/theemightypharoahs). After that we've got Pens/Mazes and The Bitters, releases which I'd imagine will see us through until the dawn of 2010.

So yes, releases are plentiful on the horizon. As for shows, we lucked out with;

Sex Is Disgusting present .. #11;
Saturday 26th September - Lovvers (Wichita, Nottingham), Male Bonding (Sub Pop, London) & The Human Race (London) - The Cowley Club, London Road, Brighton - EARLY SHOW - 7pm till 9pm - £5.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=141485931666&ref=ts
http://www.last.fm/event/1199724+Sex+Is+Disgusting+%2311+-+LOVVERS-MALE+BONDING-THEHUMANRACE

Sex Is Disgusting present .. #12;
Saturday 10th October - Divorce, Wetdog, Ultimate Thrush & La La Vasquez - The Greenhouse Effect - 8pm until 11pm - £5.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=123272529254&ref=ts
http://www.last.fm/event/1199740+Sex+Is+Disgusting+%2312+-+DIVORCE-WETDOG-ULTIMATETHRUSH-LALAVASQUEZ

Posters & flyers to come soon.

So yeah, aside the immediate horizon holds Graffiti Island & Fair Ohs records, plus shows from Lovvers, Male Bonding, The Human Race, Divorce, Wetdog, La La Vasquez & Ultimate Thrush. In terms of the wider, greater future the plans are just as exciting, if not even more. Secret records, DUDEFEST 2 (sooner than you'd think, with exciting headliners) and a website! xxx

Friday 14 August 2009

PINK PRIEST

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Artwork by Danielle Nemet for the 'Cat Tails / At The Mouth Of The Swollen Summer' c20 on Digitalis Ltd


The generously prolific PINK PRIEST has been flossing my brain with his heavy-drone-synth-pop-rocks for time now. With summer jams like 'Falling In Love For Years And Years' he manages to condense a whole mid-summers heatwave day up in one song. You can feel that prickly burn on the back of your neck, smell the sickly mixture of sweat and suncream, and hear the hum of those elusive crickets as the sun sets against a red sky. All that and in under 3mins. Then there are the claustrophobic, dark, brooding and heavy pulses of 'A Peach From Hell' (a+ for the title), or the chilly and glacial 'Sleep Ranger'. All are executed with delicate and understated skill, restrained and refined, a beautiful simplicity. Currently there's a cdr on La Station Radar, a few tapes on BATHETIC, aB, FAMILY TIME, and a forthcoming LP also on La Station Radar. The dude behind PINK PRIEST also writes the fantastic GOD OF BLUES blog. Go check it all out, you got time to kill.

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Artwork by me for the 'Honeysuckle' Lp on La Station Radar.

Wednesday 12 August 2009

RENT BOYS are making it

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These dudes from Leeds fucking slay. I just stumbled on their myspazz page in some late night band surf and was floored. My jaw literally dropped. Every track is a 100% solid winner. They kinda do that party time garage punk thing a bit like Personal & The Pizzas, Traditional Fools or Audacity maybe. But fuck comparisons Rent Boys make this stuff their own. Oh man the front man can properly wail, he doesn't have to use tons of reverb, or make the vocals sound like hes eating biscuits under water. I am catching some heavy vibes from this and these tracks were all recorded with one mic!? WOAH. I gotta party with these dudes too, cos you know these dudes party. Hopefully Sex Is Disgusting will be working with these guys in the not too distant future. Check it HERE

Tuesday 11 August 2009

Another post not about a band or a label.

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'RED', gloss, varnish and marker pens on canvas 40x50cm.


I'll be honest right now, and say the last few years worth of painting graduates from Brighton Uni have been pretty disappointing. Walking around the recent graduate shows i've noticed what can only be described as the proliferation of a house style that i can sum up rather simply, but accurately as semi-finished abstract expressionism or maybe ADD-stract expressionism. Room after room i was confronted with poorly executed, half finished canvases that look like they could have been done by one artist, not the forty or so that were actually exhibiting, and more often than not on large canvases that i suspect were a tactic employed to fool the viewer into thinking they were any good. They all looked like wall sections of a room in the middle of a indecisive diy makeover. Last year there were only two things that caught my eye (wanted to take home), one was a large glossy pink phallus-ish painting called 'Marge' by Katherine Mckenzie (i have a postcard of it on my wall), the other work i liked was Paul Griffiths' eerie portraits. This year it was the same, but there was only one name i bothered to jot down on the back of my hand - Sam Barrett. His work was a breath of fresh air, some humor and fun amongst the dreary slop of his classmates. I thought he must be a total outsider, and i wondered if his classmates thought he was mad or a simpleton even? Well obviously he's neither, he's obviously a totally rad dude. What other kind of person would paint dinosaurs skating on ramps made of slime, or flying, stoned bananas with boobs? Can i get a Dude Culture high five. Using varnishes, felt tip pens, lush coloured resins and oils the paintings become saturated to the point where you think you could almost dive in to mess around in the gloop. I confess, i did poke at a particularly rubbery looking bit of resin, i couldn't resist. Here's a few pics for you to enjoy, and you can check out more of his stuff HERE, but what you really need is to see the work in the flesh, so i hope he'll be exhibiting sometime soon.

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'Superior Quality', oil, varnish and felt tip pens on calico 40x50cm


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'Die Brucke', felt tip pens and resin on canvas 40x50cm