Offmessage

I promised things on the very border between art and wank following my Christmas of self indulgence and this is surely an example. i like recently linked to Penkiln Burn, Bill Drummond’s web site. It is (as always with Mr Drummond) a situationist’s dream of the kind of art/wank nonsense that I love.

Bill Drummond is one of those people that has touched my life almost consistently for over 15 years. From his days managing The Teardrop Explodes and his tempestuous relationship with the Arch-Drude himself through the KLF and the K Foundation and on to Bad Wisdom and his relationship with the legendary Mark Manning and Gimpo he has kept reappearing in some form or another.

It’s sometimes hard to know if I am simply blinded by a longstanding teenage view of ‘cool’ or whether in fact the output of counter-cultural ‘heroes’ like Drummond actually has value beyond a pop culture froth; drug-fuelled self-obsessed bombastisism is as easily mistaken for art today as it always has been. In Drummond’s case the fact that he has so willingly and, importantly, ably challenged the art establishment as well as the industry that made him makes me feel that even though I’m still a sucker for a well packaged pop band there’s more to him than many.

Like Ken Kesey before him (another offmessage hero) Drummond not only began as an insider before trying to redefine the establishment he came from, but he too has gone on to a degree of acceptance unimagined at the time of his greatest rebellion. It’s fascinating to see, for example, that this year’s Turner Prize winner was a collaborator on Acid Brass, a project at the time credited almost entirely to the KLF . Indeed, one of Deller’s Turner pieces made references to ‘rave’, ‘The KLF’ and used a word map to show how acid house was linked to brass bands. I’m sure I’m not the only one to have noticed this irony, but you don’t hear Mark Lawson talking about it on Front Row.

Not for him the creeping intellectualism of Jarvis Cocker, the non-stop one trick pony of Lemmy, nor the desperate mediocrity of Grace Slick. No. Bill Drummond’s fire keeps on burning - his appetite remains, only his diet has changed.

• Penkiln Burn - what would appear to be current
• You Whores - also current
• My Death - also current
• Open Manifesto - also current
• K Foundation burn a million quid - well worth a read
• The Manual - also worth looking at, particularly if you have an interest in ‘pop’
• The Foundry - London venue with Drummond’s involvement
• Black Smoke - Jimmy Cauty’s current project (with the occasional help from Gimpo, apparently)

Any fan of Mark Thomas will no doubt have a fond loathing of Monsanto, the main global purveyors of GM crops. Nice to see then that they have finally been hauled up for dodgy business practices. This time in particular bribing an Indonesian official in an attempt to avoid safety trials being carried out on their GM cotton.

God bless ‘em

Was being Dudley Moore’s partner (if any of the documentaries I saw over Christmas were anything to go by). Nonetheless Peter Cooke has been voted the comedian’s comedian. Good to see Chris Morris was 11th. Thinking of them both makes me think of Why Bother? An absolute must listen.

Like they say Ben, there’ll always be another Poker tournament. No-one else fares much better.

Seriously this is one of the funniest (and cruelist) things I have ever read. It’s a gift that just keeps on giving. Read it all the way to the end.
Found at MeFi

Christmas brought me a camera phone (well, work did, but it arrived just before the break, so it felt like a Christmas present)…. My return to the office clearly signalled that Christmas is over…

As well as surfing along the edge of pretention in my search for “art” I’ve also been worrying about something considerably more mundane… Being a long term fan of The Good Life and a sucker for anything produced by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall my conscience has recently been rather painfully pricked by a) the distance that my food travels before it reaches my plate, and b) the treatment of the animals that I eat. All painfully noughties middle class Guardian reading things to worry about I know, but I can’t help it - I am a sucker for the zeitgeist. Anyway. It would appear that it isn’t only the British who are worrying about their pigs and chickens. we make money not art reports that the Dutch and Americans are also joining in… Better living for pigs and McDonalds move towards more humane chicken slaughter. I particularly like the idea of a pig high rise…

The ever increasing impact of Christian fundamentalism on US politics is, as we all (should) know, really rather scary. The fact that the Bush administration supports (and promotes the sale of) a book that says the Grand Canyon was created by the biblical flood made famous by Noah’s ark should be laughable, but it’s yet another example of the insidious creep of nonsense into state sponsored fact.

Doug, Rowan and Jacob came to stay for New Year and in one of the many late night ramblings conversation turned to the Big Trak (as all conversations have to, in the end). Here then, for your delectation is not on the Big Trak but TV Cream’s top 100 toys from our childhood (younger readers may be shocked by the lack of playstations, but that’s how it was back then). Every one a winner (or at least that’s how I remember them).