It's Grim Up North

Well, so, some interesting news emerged yesterday which threatens to kill off the future of art and expression in Aberdeen. Ian Wood has pledged to donate fifty million quid of his own money to fund some bullshit scheme to "revitalise" the city centre. Two things: Aberdeen City Council has called the death knell for the City Centre by continually building stupidly huge shopping centres to take away business from it's main thoroughfare, and Aberdeen is hardly a city.

The proposed plan is to build a massive square over the top of Union Terrace Gardens, the railway line and the Denburn essentially paving from Union Street across to Schoolhill, which in itself is rediculous and will cost much more than the pledged £50 Million. The issue is that a feasibility study is to be put underway by Wood, and while this is going on any work on Peacocks will be halted in the meantime. If there is any slippage in Peacocks time the project will fall apart, they'll lose the Architects, the design team, the campaign team. There'll be job losses and in the long run, once the lease on the present building runs out Peacocks will probably just cease.

I know that a lot of people are sticking around in Aberdeen at the moment to help improve things and hopefully be a part of a changing culture up here, but any chance of that will be gone and im pretty sure all of the young artistic community will just up and leave. We've tried, we're still trying, we really want to make a difference, make a change. But how long can we just live with those in charge of Aberdeen pushing aside any kind of culture in exchange for short term solutions and easy cash?

It's not just Peacocks at risk, Whitespace, Citymoves, Cultural Enterprise and other organisations are going to be housed there. But if there was to be no peacosk that would be a pretty shocking state of affairs, because like it or loathe it, agree with the exhibitions or policy or not it is the closest thing we have to a Contemporary Art Centre and other galleries like Slogan need the support of Peacocks to thrive. if Peacock goes, art goes. Grays will be all there is left.

Two tunes in one day

Well, like a usual lazy sunday I haven't done much. Was pottering around on Logic this morning with a tune I started building last night, and tonight after the cinema I finished it off (Still need to do some vocals though) and wrote another one which is now finished. I'll pop them on the Myspace tonight maybe.

Anyway, this weekend, as per many, began on Thursday. Louise, Mhairi and Amy had been trying to arrange a screening at Grays on the grounds, it had fallen through, as had a back up plan of the beach so I ended up offering my back garden. There used to be some amazing parties in the garden here at Crown Street, but in the two-plus years I've been here there hasn't really been anything. So on Thursday Louise and that flattened out the grass, we put up a gazebo, got the projector and my new PA out and set up for a screening. The night went pretty well all in all and ended up with a load of us in the garden with a guitar. And general drunkenness, which made work a little difficult the next day.

Martin has some pictures, but he's busy out hob-nobing with celebrities and the like with his big lens, so I'll try and get them soon.

Anyway had a massive sleep to compensate and chilled out the rest of the weekend, watched Quantum of Solace today, which was pretty food despite my apprehensions. Not really sure the point of this any more, just boasting about my two tunes. Oh well.

Getting Ahead in the Lucrative Field of Artist Management

I've just finished putting together a wee piece that I've had i mind for the Peacocks Christmas exhibition. Not everything worked out how it should have, and it was a lot of work for three little things, but now they're done, or half done.

One went to Peacocks unpainted, and I held down the other one and the empty box for Hamnavoe. I'll talk more about that later. I borrowed a camera from work and took a few we shots, wasn't entirelly sure of using the digital SLR, but I seem to have been using them more than compacts these days.



So there they are, the Cassetteboys, named after the cut-up musician and a parody of many generations of walkmen. The collective name for the piece is "Getting Ahead in the Lucrative Field of Artist Management" a track from Psyence Fiction, suggested by the ever insightful IAMMARTIN.

So these three were all originally intended for the Peacock's Christmas Show, but I missed the deadline passed on saturday with the boxes unfinished and one of the walkmen missing, with Halloween and general business and laziness i missed the deadline, but found out it was extended till today so i managed to get one done for Amy to hand in to peacocks, which was lovely of her.

I had got a facebook message from brian the painter saying he was arranging an exhibiton at the Hamnavoe gallery and asked if I had something to put in. I ended deciding to put one of the boxes in, but it ended up two (One with the tape player and one empty) so Martin and I headed down to the gallery with the pieces, and a wee painting of Katies.

I think I must have made a bad first impression cause I saw Brian and walked over to him, but had to be stopped by the owner because I'd strayed too far into the gallery. His reaction to the cassetteboys was a "What the hell is that?" Now, that's probably not the most encouraging reaction to a piece of work I've ever had. He didn't seem muchly impressed so I think I'll probaly have them back for the weekend. Ho Hum.

Did have an interesting journey home featuring a drunk talking about de-tox and some sort of strange jazzy music coming out of a building next to Shirlaws. Also Karl was putting out some computers at work today and got me to take a photo of them



just before a fleshy spider gets a blowjob from John Hurt.