Low-Budget Monster from B-Movie Hell

Finally, my computer lets me connect to LJ...

The weekend was awesome but also very exhausting.
Quick bullet points, full recap (and photo preview) tomorrow

Saturday I picked up my Folk Festival in town, took a train to London, met ginasketch, wandered around Borough Market and the South Bank until we finally found the Telectroscope, a wonderful steampunk machine. After early dinner at an Italian there, I headed off to Kings Cross to drop off my bag.

The Slimelight gigs were pretty damn cool. First Uberbyte, then RBN and XP8 as the main act. After 2.5 hours of stomping along to some choonz at Slimelight proper, Modulate tore pretty much the house down. I left after Modulate had finished because I was tired and by the time I'd walked to KX, I was hurting everywhere.

Sunday Is lept almost until midday, had long brunch and then headed to Bethnal Green for doing promo shots of The Texas Chainsaw Orchestra. That was a lot of fun. Watched them rehearse a bit afterwards, too.

I was finally home around 8:30, kicked the PC a couple of times until it would download the photos, had a bite to eat and a provisional look at the photos. The Slimes ones are as good as they're going to be at Slimes (shit light) and with a number of the TCO shots I'm really really happy.

I hope you had a good weekend, too. Now, good night.

Weekend part 1

Saturday Daytime

After picking up my Folk Festival ticket and wandering around the Grand Arcade for a bit, I took a train down to London and read a good chunk of Eugenie Grandet, my Blog a Penguinc Classic allocation. Nothing much has happened yet but I know exactly what everyone and the house look like. It's actually a lot less painful than anticipated.

As I got to Borough Market ahead of time, I wandered around a bit and took a few photos (just one below, more to follow). Then ginasketch joined me, we ate ostrich burgers (OK, but nothing special, next time I try a steak) and organic ice cream (rhubarb and gooseberry, nice) and wandered around some more.
Then we walked to the river and then the wrong way along it. (I thought I remembered the Telectroscope was West of London Bridge but it turned out to be East, rubbish). At least there were Pirates at the Golden Hinde ;o).
Having finally found the blasted thing, we admired the very steampunky design but decided against queuing (we would have been about 10m behind the sign that said "An hour from here") so I just took a few photos of the main body and snuck in one from the side. It's actually a good thing the_lady_lily wasn't able to make it because we never would have "met" each other.
Then we had an early dinner at the Italian on that corner. I had a rather good seafood risotto and a tiramisu afterwards. Quite nice there, sitting outside.

After that, we went separate ways and I dropped off my stuff at Kings Cross. To be continued.

 


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[Photo] Weekend part 2 - Saturday night

I made it to Slimelight just after 8 and luckily things hadn't started yet. Ran into psychokatuk, stevea23 and the ubiquitous jonny_eol and then Uberbyte started. Really enjoyed the gig (first time I'd seen them) and the two drummers added a good effect. I even managed to get some reasonable photos without having to resort to flash, thank Nikon for the 85mm f1.4...

RBN were next and they provided cheesy synthpop fun. Either the light was different or Steve is so much taller than Richard but I couldn't get a decent shot of him. :o( A couple of good ones of the keyboarders, though.

XP8 were the last act of the gig part of the evening and I really enjoyed them, too. I hadn't seen them live yet and I only knew a couple of their tracks so that was cool. The crowd was really up for them, too. For the final track, they were joined by Sammi of Faderhead, which rocked mightily (SIXTY-FOUR!).

  
  

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[Photo] Modulate at Slimelight

Modulate came on 1:30 and pretty much tore the house down. Now a four piece (Two synths, two blokes on laptops and twiddly knobs), they were cool to watch and the most dynamic electronics-only (i.e. no vocalist) act I've seen. They were sweating like pigs on stage and were really going for it and it looked like they really enjoyed themselves, too. The crowd was up for it, too.
Sammi of Faderhead made another appearance during their cover of Dirty Girls, Dirty Boys which I enjoyed a lot more than his own version during his support of Die Krupps in March.

A few photos, more to come when I'm through with them all.

   

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Weekend part 3 - Sunday

I was utterly exhausted so only got up around mid-day and as usual, brunch ran on for far too long so I feared being too late for the photoshoot in Bethnal Green. As I walked down towards the railroad bridge, I spotted some brightly haired people (a bit unusual in Hackney) and sure enough it was alixandrea with other band members. We walked to the studio where I discovered that the other tog was Taff's wife (how small is the world? And I didn't know she was a tog, either). I spent quite a long time chatting and waiting for people to put makeup on before I started taking headshots of those who were ready. The light outside was ideal so that worked quite well.
After everyone was ready, we took various solo and group shots under one of the arches which formed a good backdrop, much to the amusement of the occasional passer- or driver-by (the one taxi came past twice for a second look) who hadn't expected a bunch of loonies in scary makeup and, in case of the women, skimpy costumes.
It was a lot of fun and the Texas Chainsaw Orchestra are a really nice bunch (and from seemingly everywhere around the world) so I had a fun time and even produced some cool photos, I think. The band leader, Daniel, was a good director, for which I was glad because I still suck at that sort of thing.
I was flaking towards the end, though so I was glad when we stopped. I watched them rehearse a new tune (Low-Budget Monster from B-Movie Hell) and I definitely need to see if I can get to their next gig.
The following photo should give you an idea of the madness that went on:

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There's one hell of a Jam in heaven

Bo Diddley has just entered the stage