Urban Exploration in the Ragged Kingdom

ISAM live in Graz

Urban Exploration jamming at Temple Works

Babylon Burning

Buxton’s BUG

“I tell people that BUG is like going round to a friend’s house and having him open up his laptop and show you interesting and amusing things he’s found or made, except not as tedious and shit as that sounds.” Adam Buxton

We went to see Adam Buxton present BUG last night at the Hyde Park Picture House in Leeds, with no real preconceptions whatsoever.

Well, maybe one. That it would be something akin to watching Rude Tube live, but with more interesting beats and without that curly-haired twat.  Thankfully it was nothing of the sort.

Sitting in an art-house cinema to watch cutting-edge music videos was a novel enough experience in itself, but the focus of the evening was definitely the host, Adam Buxton, who was in fine comedic form, making the whole experience much more like live stand-up comedy than anything else I can think of.

He would be the first to admit he has been off the public radar for a few years – in “TV Jail” as he puts it! But he has still been very active in the digital realm, carving out his own surreal style via his Youtube channel. While incarcerated in obscurity, Buxton has embraced the viral and assimilated this culture into his comedy vignettes, which seem just as playful (but a lot less infantine) than his seminal work with former partner-in-crime, Joe Cornish. As a childhood fan of The Adam and Joe Show it’s really nice to see his comedy mature and develop as I do.

The whole evening had a really relaxed and intimate atmosphere – like you really were round his house, peering over his shoulder while he showed you his favourite online clips. My only criticism of the event was that it didn’t last quite long enough. I could easily have stayed into the small hours watching music videos with him. It felt like I was hanging out with an old mate of mine that I hadn’t seen for a few years, and it seemed like the rest of the audience felt the same.

The music videos he showed us were also of high quality. Alongside more obvious (but still great) choices like Roots Manuva’s Witness The Fitness and contributions by the legendary Cyriak, there were also some great videos that had passed me by, and I enjoyed this aspect as much as the comedy. If you get chance to go see one of these shows, do so!

Some of Adam Buxton’s new material:

Adam Buxton’s website

BUG website

Urban Expo 1

Urban Exposition 1

Improvised music by Urban Exploration with Live visuals.

 

Urban Exploration Live Jam

Practicing hard for their debut performance at  Bridgnorth Music and Arts festival the Urban Exploration Collective have recorded this live improvised set.

Urban Exploration Live Debut

The whole collective have been busy preparing a monster setup of modular synths, drum machines, laptops, tape echoes, stomp boxes and miles of cable for their live debut as a performing group, at this year’s Bridgnorth Music and Arts Festival.

They will also be curating a whole day of experimental electronica and whole night of banging techno at the festival:

More information on the festival

Here is sneak preview from one of their early practices…

Burning the Bridge to Nowhere

Doug Stanhope does not give a fuck what you think. There’s no sugar with his pill. No lubricant with his dildo. Nothing is sacred during his acerbic assaults on the state of the modern world and all myths must be destroyed, however positive they may seem.

I think it goes without saying that his comedy is not for the easily offended, and if you consider porn and drugs to be society’s sickness you probably won’t like him. He may even make you physically ill. If this sounds like you, you can stop reading this now and save yourself an aneurysm.

But he isn’t provocative for the sake of it (a criticism that could easily be leveled at Frankie Boyle for example). There is a ruthless logic at work, to the point where anyone with a questioning intelligence will find it hard to disagree with him – even when he’s advocating fun with pedophiles, pissed and leering on stage, or vehemently blaming people that have children for climate change – the arguments are watertight. Even the most liberal-minded comedy-lovers may flinch, but his rants make sense, and expose us for our own hypocrisy as a society. And I, for one, find that shit hilarious.

No Refunds is my favourite. The first time I watched it I was pissing myself for hours afterwards. It’s anger and energy is infectious. It came as quite a shock, as I had previously only seen his rather downbeat contributions to Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe. Although they were intelligent and witty they didn’t quite prepare me for the genius of his on-stage performances, which have been compared (incorrectly in my view) to those of Bill Hicks. Anyway, don’t take my word for it, watch this shit:

I was ecstatic when I heard Doug had a new DVD out. But Burning the Bridge to Nowhere is an odd one. Filmed in Oslo with only 36 hours notice, you can see why both the time constraints and the language barrier may have contributed to the slightly stilted delivery of his new material. Maybe it was the lack of alcohol or maybe he was just pissed off – his comic timing doesn’t seem to be up to his usual standard. I don’t want to seem overly-critical though as some of it is really good (parts of it are up there with No Refunds) and he has set himself a very high bar with previous shows. What I would say, is that if you like Stanhope, watch it, and if you don’t yet, watch the others first – you’ll be more forgiving of the bits of it that don’t work quite so well.

Buy it from Amazon

Headcleaner Blog

For those of you that liked the video we posted from “20 years of Braindance”, you will be glad to hear that you can keep up to date with Headcleaner’s movements on his new site:
http://headcleanersound.com/

It includes live videos, information and even some videos demonstrating the devices he has been building recently. Check it out!

Headcleaner @ Rephlex Night

Headcleaner’s awesome improvisation with a modular synth of his own creation! Easily the best thing at 20 years of Braindance, showing the old skool how it’s done basically. This is next level shit 😉