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Get that bleedin' kettle on

The Upper Precinct, under construction


This shot, looking towards Broadgate is from a wonderful set of pictures on Flickr called Coventry and Bablake School 1955-1962, including some of the Queen's visit to Broadgate and larking about smoking fags at Bablake.

Filed under  //   coventry  
Posted May 31, 2009
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Move On! Northern Soul and R&B night in Coventry


Can't see me being able to make it with the baby popping out around this time but here it is, Move On! - a northern soul and R&B night at the Coventry Colliery Sports and Social Club in Keresley, Coventry. A fiver in, they're promising to play off sevens only - original ones at that.  (via modculture)

Filed under  //   club   coventry   dj   northernsoul  
Posted January 6, 2009
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Sinister inflatable pink elephant watches over Broadgate


 Stumbling around Coventry last night we came across this... Sheep Purple and Andy McGeechan have some better photos.

 

Update: Tentorsman on Flickr reports that he installed the pink pachyderm for a "local consortium" (CVOne, right?) and their "purpose will become clear".


Filed under  //   christmas   coventry  
Posted December 7, 2008
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New art gallery in Coventry - The Fishbone Gallery


Blimey. Came across this flyer in Browns last night for The Fishbone Gallery, a new gallery based in a red brick Victorian chapel in Longford in Coventry. Here's what they say about their first exhibition:

Fishbone Gallery are proud to announce that - ENTRANCE - our inaugural exhibition, opens to the public on Saturday 29th November 2008. The show presents a diverse selection of art works by Coventry and West Midlands artists practicing in a wide range of media, from photography and video, to print, sculpture and installation.

Coventry is a major city that has, up till now, suffered from the singular lack of a gallery that answers the needs and promotes the work of new and experimental artists. Fishbone Gallery is that gallery and ENTRANCE the show that will set the standard for future exhibitions in Coventry.

The arts in Coventry really are on the mend, and we want you to be instrumental in the enterprise. We do hope you will find the time to come along and make this exhibition the success that we all , for so many and varied reasons, need it to be. 

Good luck to everyone involved, I'll be along as soon as I've worked out my Christmas shopping.

Filed under  //   art   coventry   exhibition   gallery  
Posted December 6, 2008
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Covscene Chrimbo Bash - 20th December at Playtime Warehouse

Thoria! Christ.
 
Some good names, if nothing else - I like the sound of Drag Queen Bingo, and I really want Marmaduke Hussy to be called Marmaduke and the Hussys.

There's a thread on about this event over at the Covscene forum, and here's the inevitable Facebook event.

We popped over to the Playtime Warehouse about a month or two ago, and it looks like it could be a really good space, but they've really got to update their website: the next event is slated to be Justin Robertson on the 15th November...

Filed under  //   coventry   events   gig   music   playtimewarehouse  
Posted December 6, 2008
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Running round Coventry town centre dressed as a black panther

"If Dean don't do it, I'll do it". 

Oh dear. Spoken in fluent drunk. And Dean very sensibly, didn't fancy it.

So a week last Sunday, as part of the Coventry Christmas lights switch on procession, I turned up to meet Adam in a particularly glamorous car park in Coventry to put on a black panther outfit,in aid of promoting the Coventry (Cassidy) Jets American football team. Here's a photo of me grinning inanely.
In stark opposition to the useless bag of cocks that are the football team, and much like the local ice hockey team the Coventry Blaze, the Jets are rather good and actually won the American football league over here in September. We went to watch them when they played the London Blitz the other year at the Ricoh, and it was actually - no really - very entertaining, in part 'cos of some comedy passing from our quarterback at the time. 

Anyway Adam Etheridge, the pink jaguar in the set of photos below works tirelessly if slightly grumpily as the secretary of the Jets to promote and arrange things, so bleedin' hooray for him. Look at the big bastard, in some rare smiliness, clearly overjoyed to be back in the furry.
The funny thing about wearing the helmets - apart from it being very claustrophobic and scary - is that if someone takes your photo, you smile. Despite the fact that they can't see your face. Dunno, it's automatic.
Actually, I'll just reiterate how scared shitless I was when I started wearing the helmet. Ohmigod-I'm-dying scared. Pathetic really, but it reminded me of the claustrophobia I felt it in that Anthony Gormley white cube thing. 

Along the way we bumped into Fraser, who it turns out is occasionally the BBC Coventry and Warwickshire woodpecker, and really seemed to have it down. I suspect that I looked like a bloke in a furry suit, but Fraser actually gives it everything, with routines and all. 
So the procession started off, and we legged it through the middle of town, shaking hands and ruffling kiddies' hair. Which was all thoroughly surreal. Adam was really loving it, think he's found his calling.
Sorry to the tiny kid who I scared to death - I must admit it would have been really frightening to have an angry looking six-foot panther walk up to you.

At the end, we were really shafted... here's some general silliness.

                 
Click here to download:
Running_round_Coventry_town_ce.zip (3065 KB)

Filed under  //   animal   costume   coventry  
Posted November 25, 2008
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Maps of Coventry through the ages


Historic Coventry has maps showing the development of the town centre through the ages.

Filed under  //   coventry   history  
Posted November 4, 2008
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The dreaded canopy comes down

Sniff, the tears just won't stop coming. I'm hoping they'll back something large and heavy into Cathedral Lanes, damaging it - then once they've started, they might as well keep going... 

 

 


         

Click here to download:
The_dreaded_canopy_comes_down_.zip (274 KB)

Filed under  //   architecture   coventry  
Posted November 2, 2008
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Something That I'll Never Really See: photography exhibition at the Herbert Art Gallery in Coventry

Really enjoyed this exhibition of photography  at the freshly re-launched Herbert Art Gallery  in Coventry, with pictures from the V&A's collection, along with a surprisingly great selection of photos made by secondary school kids. 

Lots to recommend, if only I could remember, dammit - but this one above stuck out, Vik Muniz 's wonderful shiny sugar syrup painting of Jackson Pollock, apparently done from memory. Vik sounds like a bit of character, he's also done the Mona Lisa out of jelly, and also peanut butter. Mmm.

We had a quick look at Kinopixel's "Exploding the image " installation, which I'll hold judgement on for a bit: the quiet bit that we saw looked nothing special, Norman Mclaren was doing way more fun stuff in 1940,  but I promise I'll go back and give it more of a chance.

You can now wander around the downstairs new bit of the Herbert, and the History Gallery is open - here's a pic below. I know there are those who aren't keen (hello Neil ) on the new building, but I've got to say that I like what I've seen so far.


update : Wolfiewolf has all the photos you could ever need of the new Herbert and the collection.

Filed under  //   art   coventry   exhibition   photography  
Posted November 1, 2008
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Pram @ 7 inch cinema at the Bablake Old Boys Club in Coventry

I'll write a bit more of this up at the other place shortly, but here's some initial disorganised reporting on the weekend. 

As part of the "A Thing About Machines" art festival, Pram did a show somewhere half-between a DJ and live set with a whole bunch of tape loops and ancient devices.  

There's something about the sound of tape, and the organic quality that it lends to otherwise harsh electronics really came out in Pram's set, which was more textural than beaty or particularly melodic. Being improvised, it dragged here and there, but only occasionally. And for all the use of old techniques and electronics, it seemed much less dated than Mr 90s Drum And Bass Violin Player at Taylor John's later on, brrrr. 

Gear spotting twat that I am, there were a couple of synths, an 8 track tape deck, a Roland Chorus Echo, a glockenspiel and - hope I'm not giving some sort of secret away here - this odd device on the middle right of the pic below, which is a jam jar mounted on a some sort of old industrial electric motor.

The operator takes a tape head (presumably plugged into the mixer) and wipes it along the tape as the jam jar rotates, quite ingenious. I'm not sure what sounds were coming from it, but I'm thinking that you could have a bunch of sustained notes from an organ set across the jam jar and play it like the bastard offspring of a Stylophone and a Mellotron.

Oh and and a celebratory packet of Tooty Frooties or some other retro sweet should go to Scott Johnston of Film Ficciones for providing me and my sister with the retro-thrill of the evening, a tiny clip of Children's Film Foundation film "Glitterball", we recognised it straightaway.


Filed under  //   7inchcinema   athingaboutmachines   coventry   festival   gig   pram  
Posted September 22, 2008
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