COMFORTABLE ON A TIGHTROPE

for enquiries/queries/Q's:
comfortableonatightrope@googlemail.com




26/05/2010

BRILLIANT COLORS














































































































come to town in a couple of weeks. You can see the poster and flyer above. 
The handbill-style flyer was type-written and Letraset-transfered before being 
digitally layered over a multi-layered block print by Jess Higgins.

Below are two excellent Brilliant Colors videos, one of which will look familiar to 
anybody who's a fan of the third video, which is included for context and because
really we hardly need an excuse to post video of one of our all-time favourite 
songs.

Unbelievably cheap tickets are now on sale HERE .











20/05/2010

The David Foster Wallace Audio Project is Amazing


























and now houses, for your convenience, the long out of print audio-book of 'Brief Interviews With Hideous Men' read by the late author himself. 

Brief Interviews With Hideous Men was first published in 1999 and consists of 23 pieces of short fiction including the 'Examples of the Porousness of Certain Borders' series and the titular 'interviews'. As a collection it presents a deep and heavy meditation on what it is to be a human in contemporary society. It is one of the boldest and most radical books we've ever read. The experiments in form (which are wild and various) always serve the story and not the writer's ego and the 'interview' format totally showcases the deftness and versatility of his voice. The 'interviews' offer unflinching portraits of the  variously flawed men of the title with the detail and precision of a sociological study and the emotional impact of a Lukas Moodysson film.

Download it for free H E R E , listen and be changed, be better.


As is standard audiobook protocol, some of the stories from the print-edition are not included.
The book was adapted for the stage and is now a motion picture. The trailer for which is presented below

13/05/2010

TONIGHT! S I C A L P S! LIVE! At the DEAF INSTITUTE










SIC ALPS

  • Just opened for the reformed Pavement and are playing the All Tomorrow's Parties they've curated
  • Just did two west coast tours: one with MAGIK MARKERS, one with SONIC YOUTH
  • Mike Donovan plays guitar on the new OH SEES album warm slime, and has made videos for Quasi and Ty Segall (who's most recent album was recorded by Matt Hartman)
  • NVH of comets on fire is now the full time replacement for 'the tower' a custom-pile of amplifiers used as both PA and monitors and previously referred to as 'the 3rd member'
  • have records released on Awesome Vistas, DRAG CITY, Slumberland, Yik Yak, Siltbreeze, Woodsist, Skulltones, Animal Disguise, 777 was 666, Mt.St.Mtn. their own Folding cassettes imprint and one song on the MUSEUMS compilation.

10/05/2010

YOU HAVE ONE DAY LEFT TO VISIT

THE STOMACH PUMP/SALFORD ZINE LIBRARY SHOW at Islington Mill. Over 1000 zines are displayed and available to read from the Stomach Pump archive and library's collection. Plus there is original work from MUSEUMS on display for the first time.


09/05/2010

Gmail Chat with D Bailey


10:04 PM me: oh oh
10:05 PM D: lol
  hi
  i went home early today, that nasal spray fudged me over. just got outta bed!
10:06 PM me: oh dear, do you still wanna do this?
 D: yeah, it's fine innit
  as long as you note that i've also got trapped wind
 me: this is all going in there
10:07 PM D: good job i'm always ON!
 me: shall i start by blowing your trumpet?
 D: i...don't...know
  do as you may!
10:08 PM me: okay, is it fair to state that your big break came in a Middlesborough FC fanzine?
10:09 PM D: YES!
  it was fly me to the moon from about 99
  to 2001 i think
10:10 PM and it lead to the springboard of selling framed caricatures in a local barbers, in middlesbrough
  juninho, ravanelli, phil stamp etc
 me: nice, and was that your first introduction to real D.IY. publishing?
10:11 PM D: I would say so, I've never thought of it that way but now I think about it, yes!
  It was a buzz seeing it in the fanzine on match day for sure
10:14 PM me: Do you feel that self-published work has more integrity or 'value'? Or that the freedom attained by self-publishing leads to better work sometimes?
10:15 PM D: slk
  fo sho. it means you've gone to the effort of sorting something out yourself and not waiting for things to drop in your lap
  (ignore that slk, typo)
10:16 PM you can do what you want, even if it's rubbish and no one will tell you STOP!
  it helps you get more of a voice and then maybe leads to better work
10:17 PM it can be as cheap or as complicated and expenny as you wanna make it
10:18 PM me: yeah, i guess we should make a distinction between vanity publishing, like 'look at my trainer collection in this beautiful hard-back book?'
10:19 PM 'Not even Jordan's got these!'
  or not
 D: truesies
10:20 PM though maybe if i had a massive wad i would make a vanity publication about the trainer oddities i've had over the years
  you cut your page accordingly, or pay someone else to do it if you can
10:21 PM trainers - first british knights (or burger kings) at school, dinosaur jr nike shoes - silver and garish
 me: what about records?
10:22 PM was there a moment when you became aware that people actually illustrated or designed them?
10:23 PM And that it wasn't some secret club controlled by the mafia or david geffen?
10:24 PM D: yes, can't pinpoint it exactly but it probably dates back to checking out my dad's records
  maybe cream or something that i wouldn't like so much now, that disraeli gears one
 me: does your dad have black flag records?
 D: "woah, you can print...silver"
10:25 PM hardly!
  his favourite is frank zappa
  that made me aware that record covers could be funny?
 me: Who did the zappa covers?
 Dgoogles it
 me: OOOOKAAAY.
10:26 PM D: don't know the name or if it's lot of names or anything but there's some good ones I think
  and then Limp Bizkit of course
10:27 PM I liked the Wes Borland (guitarist) cover illustration for one album a little too much
  s
  significant other it was called
  and it's gross
10:28 PM it dates back to 1999, i'd hoped it might be earlier than that
10:29 PM me: That's funny, i think everyone has these type skeletons in their closets and i think it's cool to admit it
 D: and I was into it RIGHT when it came out, so we can definitely date it to 1999
10:30 PM me: I think i still like Fun Lovin Criminals when in 1999
 D: i think my a-level artwork had extensive wes borland coverage and lifting
 me: AMAZING
 D: YO
  i definitely did
10:31 PM they didn't have good covers as I remember though
 me: No it was all fake-gangster b+w photos
10:32 PM D: I definitely used to think huey (lewis?) was cool, and now you see him all bloaty on channel 5 and it's like...damn girl
10:33 PM mind you, he's probably be chosen for the heston blumenthal feast tasting audience so who are I to scoff
10:34 PM me: No way! I asked the Black Flag question because that was how Raymond Pettibon first entered the consciousness and i see some parellels between the two of you
 D: oh yes please
  i'm a big fan but only of like the last five years or so...maybe longer than that
10:35 PM me: he somehow managed to make the cross-over to the fine-art exhibition carousel and but still has to do Foo Fighters record covers to pay the bills
 D: between five and ten actually, can remember d-loading images off the internet
10:36 PM me: I like the idea that all these millions of people own a reproduction of one his paintings
 D: black flag flyers first then saw the other stuff, like the surfing things and sonic youth cover and the art book stuff
 me: yeah it was the sonic youth cover for me too
10:37 PM but i couldn't make the leap in my mind yet to think of it as art, which i do now. I kind of think of everything as art
10:38 PM D: yeah, it's class to see someone getting all that gallery fawn who is genuinely class and is as productive as they come (soz replying to previous questbots) and it's funny that he's still doing foo fighters covers. if that's how he came into the game then maybe that's how he'll leave it. DOING COVERS FOR MINT BANDS
10:39 PM everything is art
 me: If you could do a record cover for anyone who'd it be?
10:40 PM D: oooooh good one
  i'd like to do a hip hop cover
  maybe for ghostface killah
  i'd do any hip hop cover but no one ever asks and I can reach the peoples for their peoples
10:41 PM me: i reckon he'd be into it, how do we get his number?
 D: hang around MOHO live til he next plays there for £5
 me: some kind of honey trap?
10:42 PM D: yesss
10:43 PM there'd be other people i'd like to do covers for, the classics - sonic youth, neil young, bob dylan (something super snazzy and modern)
10:44 PM though the pressure would maybe be too much to do something good
  so it'd end up being not very good and i'd get obsessed with searching for scathing reviews of it in forums
10:45 PM me: i reckon all the big guys just use something that already exists
  cause they can afford it
 D: yeah, like OBEY guy
  that led zeppelin best of that came out a while ago with lazy blimp artwork by that OBEY andre the giant guy
10:46 PM he phoned it from his iphone me thinkies
  *in
10:47 PM who would you do a cover for? or liner notes!
10:49 PM me: i'd do liner notes for ANYBODY, i don't think i'd be able to DO a cover for anyone, but i'd love to art-direct a morrissey one
  tbh i'd probably just ask you to do it if i ever got asked or Lucy
10:50 PM D: what about liner notes for basshunter? given that you know he's a sex pest?
  i'd like to see you art direct a cover
10:51 PM me: next time you get a brief i'll back-seat drive it for sure
 D: i'd be into that
 me: DEAL! 2 more questions then we'll wrap it up
10:52 PM D: kewl
  wind still trapped, i've got sick feelings but i keep burping
10:53 PM me: I feel responsible. that Root Beer and now high-pressure interview
 D: seriously, i think that root beer started it but it was delicious to be fair
10:54 PM me: you have to sip it bruv
  i'm on it right now
 D: i know but i opened it just before i decided i was going to leave and i just necked it to get rid of the nasal taste
10:55 PM me: yikes
  you recently exhibited for the first time in a long time, how did it feel? Would you do it again soon?
10:56 PM D: it felt good, i've never been that into the prospect of exhibitioning as I have a kind of mental block as to what you produce for an exhibition
10:57 PM i find it unnatural to think about specially made stuff as I never know what I'd make
  it'd be forced
  BUT with the islington mill expo it felt good and right because it was a collection of past (and recent) work that Lucy and myself had made and not many people have really seen it before
 me: So we'll have to wait 10 years for another retrospective?
10:58 PM D: anddd when I saw the work that Lucy had piled up for exhibition contention I was just like YES!
  haha, no maybe not. I mentioned to Lucy yesterday the thought about trying to get an exhibition elsewhere
10:59 PM so it might happen soon
  the thought of it is scarier than the reality, like trapped wind
11:00 PM I think it gave us both confidence, not in terms of people coming up to us and saying "this is amathing!" but more like we were both happy with what we presented
11:01 PM and it was nice, for us both I think, to look back through piles that otherwise rarely get looked back through. it's like the piles had a purpose!
  lonnnng answer
  we were pumped about being asked to do it too by Mark Mill
11:02 PM me: That's great, and it was really genuinely representative too. Of the similarities and and the differences. Yeah, he was so keen and so proud, it was amazing.
11:04 PM D: that's nice to hear, when I see lucy's work it's what I always want my work to look like but I can't do it because it doesn't come natural. so it pleases me greatly when someone who digs Lucy's work also digs mine because I feel there's big differences but some similarities somehow
 me: totally
11:05 PM I can't see how anyone can't dig both
11:07 PM D: wahey
11:08 PM that is most pleazing for me coming from you
11:10 PM :P
 me: Whoah
 D: dictate that
 me: that icon dance was weird
11:11 PM D: I designed it
  especially for your iphone
 me: i typed a big thing about you and Lucy that i just deleted
11:12 PM i wish i had an iphone, next time someone tries to sell me one on the street i'ma get me one
  Also i can't remember ehat else i wanted to ask
  what
11:13 PM D: damn
  on all counts
 me: Is there anything else you wanna get off your chest?
 D: ummmmm
  my trapped wind
11:14 PM me: Okay see you later
  Get well soon
 D: ahahha
  love you
  (put that)
11:15 PM it's so off the record it's ON the record
 me: LOVE YOU too
 D: don't stay up too late, thanks for asking all the Qs
  it was worth getting out of bed for
  meow
 me: xxx
11:16 PM D: speech soon x
This conversation formed the bulk of a zine made for MUSEUMS no.2 (see below), a few copies of which should soon be available from Good Grief! 

07/05/2010

TONIGHT! STOMACH PUMP exhibition opening

The Salford Zine Library collection, The Higgins Family collection and originals from MUSEUMS no.1 will all be exhibited and MUSEUMS no.2 will also be available for FREE to the first 15 attendees. MUSEUMS no.2 consists of 25 different zines made by some of Jess' Favourite people housed in block-printed pizza boxes. There is a zine by each of us in there in addition to our contributions to Andrew Beswick's 'Knick Knack' poetry zine which is also included. Other contributors include  Lucy Jones, David Bailey, Julia Scott, Matthias Connor, Katy Flynn, Jess Higgins, Miriam Avery and Edwin Stevens, NO WOMB, Alex Humphrys, Laura Skilbeck, Matthew Walkerdine, Kate Armitage, Sophie Lea Perry, Joseph Logan and more. It's gonna rule for sure.

We'll post photo's here of this and last weeks Mount Pleasant exhibition. After you go to this you should probably go to the Deaf Institute where Dinner Party and WAITERS both play now wave's BEST COAST show.

SOUNDS FROM THE OTHER CITY in thankyous, pictures and videos


THANK YOU GIRL MOUNTAIN, SEX HANDS, WAITERS, PHEROMOANS, WAY THROUGH, HOTPANTS ROMANCE, 
DINNER PARTY, MARIA & THE GAY, NO WOMB, TALK NORMAL, all of the staff and volunteers at THE ANGEL CENTRE, SFTOC Volunteer Ian, Lucy and Dave for the amazing poster and everything always, JC for the amp, the Salford Zine Library and the Carlin Brothers.

SEX HANDS



WAITERS



WAY THROUGH



DINNER PARTY



NO WOMB




(top-bottom) HOTPANTS ROMANCE, GIRL MOUNTAIN, WAITERS, SEX HANDS, PHEROMOANS, MARIA & THE GAY, WAY THROUGH, NO WOMB. If anybody has photos of DINNER PARTY please email them and we'll post them here. Thanks to Shay Rowan for the NO WOMB, HOTPANTS ROMANCE and TALK NORMAL photos. Check his Flickr here. All other photos by LG. All video by Nick Ainsworth and Lucy Jones.