HARKATHON

meat shake

2011-03-09T01:59:00.000-08:00

The Blind Club

2011-02-13T10:26:00.000-08:00

Tour Not Bore

2011

2011-02-03T09:40:00.001-08:00

Sky Larkin - Year Dot (Minotaur Shock Remix)

2011-01-05T04:14:00.000-08:00

Berlin

2010-12-27T12:50:00.001-08:00

Berlin, originally uploaded by harkathon.

schoene toene = beautiful sounds

American Woman

2010-11-10T06:22:00.000-08:00

ROLL UP, ROLL UP

2010-10-05T07:28:00.000-07:00

I'm DJ-ing at Rollerpalooza. Come bop.

MORE DETAILS

Ear Food 2

2010-09-09T12:46:00.000-07:00

A Second Mixtape By Katie From Sky Larkin by Weareskylarkin on Mixcloud

City Of Gonads

2010-08-22T15:57:00.001-07:00

reproductive "skyline"

Tour Not Bore

2010-08-13T18:29:00.000-07:00

->>>>>> TOUR NOT BORE <<<<<<<<<<-

2010-07-30T11:52:00.000-07:00

"To me, what defines the history of Web is not just the launch dates of new browsers or services, not just the dot-com bubbles appearing or bursting, but also the appearance of a blinking yellow button that said “New!” or the sudden mass extinction of starry wallpapers."

Still Windmills

2010-07-06T18:07:00.001-07:00

Still Windmills, originally uploaded by harkathon.

Single cover, designed by Jack Hudson using a photo I took in Seattle. Check it- www.weareskylarkin.com/

2010-07-05T18:57:00.000-07:00

"Benevolence begins and ends in my imagination."

2010-07-01T07:44:00.001-07:00

2010-06-27T15:38:00.001-07:00

1899 drawing of nerve cells by neuroanatomist Santiago Ramón y Cajal

Dream Wedding Band

2010-06-25T19:14:00.000-07:00

marry me, marry Quack Quack

2010-06-24T15:47:00.000-07:00

SUMMER READING #2

"aiming at the eternal without irony"

Tour Not Bore

2010-06-24T14:40:00.000-07:00

.

SUMMER READING

"...in the port is safety, comfort, hearthstone, supper, warm blankets, friends, all that's kind to our mortalities. But in that gale, the port, the land, is that ship's forest jeopardy; she must fly all hospitality; one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would make her shudder through and through...for refuge's sake forlornly rushing into her peril; her only friend her bitterest foe!
...But as in landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God - so better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! Take heart, take heart, O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of thy ocean-perishing - straight up, leaps thy apotheosis!"
(from Moby Dick, included in The Black Veil by Rick Moody)

AKA, as our American friend and tour manager Ben would say, "Tour not bore!"
Or, in more testing times, "Don't you know tour is short for terror?"

(Ben, pictured below on arriving in Seattle after a 15 hour drive).

bow tie ben, originally uploaded by harkathon.

The Black Veil is one of many baggage-allowance-pushing finds that originated in Half Price Books, Seattle. Highly recc'.

P.38

"...I wish that I could remember more of this, that memory wasn't just a series of desires, a series of protective encasements for identity, like chain motels at the edges of canyons..."

2010-06-20T15:41:00.000-07:00

pip

read all about it

2010-06-17T10:14:00.000-07:00

"A science fiction flick replete with fictional cartographies, temporal recursion, and a wanton, metro-biological god-being that exists both within and without of time and space. Oh, and magic shoes."

bed

2010-06-15T06:06:00.001-07:00

masquerade

2010-06-14T15:44:00.000-07:00

Wow.

2010-06-12T08:26:00.001-07:00

, originally uploaded by harkathon.

Dorks on Parade

2010-06-11T10:27:00.001-07:00

Prague

2010-06-05T13:03:00.001-07:00

Prague, originally uploaded by harkathon.

Prague in January 2007.

Cafe Slavia, Prague, originally uploaded by harkathon.

hello everything

2010-06-01T12:09:00.000-07:00

(IMAGE)

The Forbidden Corner

2010-05-25T15:35:00.001-07:00

, originally uploaded by harkathon.

2010-05-18T16:55:00.000-07:00

"Specifically, both creative and schizophrenic people tended to have a relatively low density of dopamine receptors in the thalamus. Study author Fredrik Ullén explains that this might lead to "a lower degree of signal filtering, and thus a higher flow of information" — which would in turn give rise to both "the ability of healthy highly creative people to see numerous uncommon connections in a problem-solving situation and the bizarre associations found in the mentally ill."

Anti-Terror Judd?

2010-05-16T16:01:00.000-07:00

Traffic calming devices outside The Palace of Westminster.

ear food

2010-05-13T16:25:00.001-07:00

A Mixtape Made By Katie From Sky Larkin by Weareskylarkin on Mixcloud

(photo)

22222

2010-05-13T13:14:00.000-07:00

222222222

'Life In The Universe' (1981)

2010-05-11T14:00:00.000-07:00

(related; Love of Diagrams)

Election Fever/Nausea

2010-05-04T09:22:00.000-07:00

The difference between these two tallies is terrifying.

Sources; "swigometer" in a pub in York last week and
this website.

(click to enlarge)

Possible Album Title no.143

2010-05-02T19:34:00.001-07:00

Possible Album Title no.143, originally uploaded by harkathon.

cinema at the Mt St Helens visitor centre

Desert Rose

2010-04-26T11:05:00.000-07:00

Jean Nouvel's design for the National Museum of Qatar is inspired by desert roses. Swoon.

"Geologue"

2010-04-20T15:04:00.000-07:00

KH 4 RS 4 EVA (IDST)

(From 'Robert Smithson and the American landscape' by Ron Graziani)

pip

2010-04-16T13:24:00.000-07:00

雅だよ雅 - 育実

2010-04-10T15:52:00.000-07:00

http://www.myspace.com/masadayomasa

whereabouts 3

2010-04-05T17:10:00.000-07:00

YORKSHIRE

2010-04-05T16:27:00.001-07:00

vivclone1stroll 018, originally uploaded by Adam Simons.

Treebird

2010-04-04T18:34:00.001-07:00

Bolton Abbey 2009

Hudson

2010-04-03T16:57:00.001-07:00

(click images to view big)

Hard Format

2010-04-03T11:17:00.000-07:00

When my band played at CMJ Festival in New York last year I picked up a unique merch item. As we arrived at Union Hall in Brooklyn, Loxsly were packing up and their resin paperweights caught my eye. Individual and handmade, they incorporate slides from the artwork to their album "Tomorrow's Fossils" and bits of nature from their native Texas. I love discovering new ways in which people translate the sentiment of their music into hard format.

I'd never heard of Loxsly before, and the experience of stumbling across them proves that however I might have tried to keep up with the lists and lists of (welcome) recommendations that fly around such festivals, talking to the band holding the door open for you and diligently visiting the merch stand can be just as valuable.

View the whole set here.

Los Campesinos! "Romance is Boring"

2010-03-29T14:40:00.000-07:00

A photograph I took appears inside the artwork of the new Los Campesinos! album "Romance is Boring" (CD version only I believe), which may be bought directly from independent record label Wichita Recordings HERE.

EDIT- apparently the CD booklet is also tucked inside the vinyl release, hooray.

whereabouts 2

2010-03-20T02:02:00.001-07:00

A Very Slippery Slope

2010-03-18T18:28:00.001-07:00

patty's

2010-03-18T17:28:00.000-07:00

Central Cinema Seattle FTW.

explode into colors

2010-03-12T20:44:00.000-08:00

if I was at sxsw

whereabouts

2010-03-07T20:32:00.000-08:00

Seattle, February 2010 // one

Save 6Music

2010-03-05T13:27:00.000-08:00

If you haven't already, please join me in signing the petition to save BBC 6music. The news that the station is being threatened is an unwelcome postcard from home. Save 6music.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/

Langue

2010-03-03T18:01:00.000-08:00

this

Utili-kilts

2010-02-27T19:18:00.000-08:00

I'm spending the next few weeks back in Seattle, I love this city but somehow forgot about its population of Utili-kilts. Utility kilts.
Today this bare-legged chap in Capitol Hill kindly reminded me.

Met with universal disdain from all my Seattle-ite friends ("all three strikes"), these troubling garments would surely warrant a stabbing in actual Scotland and are apparently usually found wrapped around guys who work in IT.

Enjoy more eye-stabbing terror at http://www.utilikilts.com/
Prices range from $187.50 - $566. I shit you not.

Kate MccGwire

2010-02-12T16:27:00.001-08:00

www.KateMccGwire.com

FYI

2010-02-03T16:28:00.000-08:00

(Leeds, 35mm. )

The Best Bio

2010-01-30T14:54:00.000-08:00

Born in Bradford, Tasmin Archer first worked as a sewing machine operator and joined a group called 'Dignity' as a backing vocalist. Later, after studying secretarial skills she became a clerk at Leeds Magistrates' Court. She helped out at a recording studio in Bradford called 'Flexible Response', and subsequently began working with musicians John Hughes and John Beck. Archer signed to EMI in 1990 and released her first single "Sleeping Satellite" (a philosophical song about the moon landings) in August 1992, it reached number one in the United Kingdom. Tasmin is a Sunderland AFC fan.

"And when we shoot for the stars
what a giant step
have we got what it takes
to carry the weight of this concept?"

Happiness

2010-01-26T08:34:00.000-08:00

From 'Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe'

(part 1)
(part 2)

Additional Herzog; "I've always been after what I call an 'ecstatic truth' — an ecstasy of truth... facts do not create truth. Facts create norms, but they do not create an illumination."

HTB

2010-01-19T15:31:00.000-08:00

Excerpts from 'Horse the Band's Guide to Touring'

DO

Lower your standards to lower than they have ever been before.
When you start laughing in the midst of a horrible, mind numbing, financially devastating, morbidly depressing and pathetic situation, you are living at the top when you’re at the fucking bottom.

Wear your seatbelt.
Dying on tour is sad. I mean, when it comes down to it touring is pretty silly and self-indulgent. No good reason to die.

DO NOT

Be a pussy.
Really no one cares about you, and especially not your problems (unless they’re their problems too) just take it and don’t constantly be complaining or trying to get better shit than everyone else. It really doesn’t matter. And everyone notices and talks about you behind your back. You become a joke.

Sleep, in general, much.
Sleep is much better spent sprawled across tile or jigsawed between benches in airports, or drooling on yourself upright in the van than “during the night”. Nighttime is for living. Daytime is for regret/sightseeing.

Say the same thing every night.
You are supposed to be pretending to be an artist.

nugget

2010-01-19T07:14:00.000-08:00

"There is something disturbingly yet comfortably contained about touring. On the one hand you get to focus on your craft, but on the other there is an aspect of detachment and singularity about it. It's easy to become self-absorbed as opposed to outward-looking."

Dave Okumu of The Invisible
(one of my favourites of '09)

"not a significant bullet"

2010-01-18T11:10:00.000-08:00

The Slits

2010-01-10T16:07:00.001-08:00

(click to view big)

Doncaster Dome, December 2009. No photoshop, just grainy beer-splattered 35mm.

material

2010-01-09T04:44:00.000-08:00

new tools to consider; 3D plastic printer or pigment-producing E. coli bacteria (created in Cambridge and dubbed E. chromi)

happiness

2010-01-08T15:07:00.000-08:00

(image)

supa-dupa-flat

2010-01-06T18:04:00.000-08:00

' "Superflat" is not an authentic successor of "pop" but its hybrid, mixed, fake bastard.'
-Hiroki Azuma
(wiki)

Good news.

2010-01-04T09:29:00.000-08:00

(NASA image archive)

Happy New Year.

In the spirit of starting afresh, here's some ways to avoid going crackers in a new, self-determined environment.

(All taken from NASA's "Space Settlements: A Design Study" which proposes designs for Space colonisation)

A large geometry, in which people can see far beyond the "theater stage" of the vicinity to a view which is overwhelmingly visible.
Something must exist beyond each human's manipulation because people learn to cope with reality when reality is different from their imagination. If the reality is the same as the imagination, there is no escape from falling into solipsism. In extraterrestrial communities, everything can be virtually controlled. In fact, technically nothing should go beyond human control even though this is psychologically bad; however, some amount of "unpredictability" can be built in within a controllable range. One way to achieve this is to generate artificial unpredictability by means of a table of random numbers. Another way is to allow animals and plants a degree of freedom and independence from human planning. Both types of unpredictability must have a high visibility to be effective. This high visibility is easier to achieve in a macrogeometry which allows longer lines of sight.
Something must exist which grows. Interactive processes generate new patterns which cannot be inferred from the information contained in the old state. This is not due to randomness but rather to different amplification by mutual causal. It is important for each person to feel able to contribute personally to something which grows, that the reality often goes in a direction different from expectation, and finally that what each person takes care of (a child, for example) may possess increased wisdom, and may grow into something beyond the individual in control. From this point of view, it is important personally to raise children, and to grow vegetables and trees with personal care, not by mechanical means. It is also desirable to see plants and animals grow, which is facilitated by a long line of sight.
It is important to have "something beyond the horizon" which gives the feeling that the world is larger than what is seen.

Los Campesinos, Brixton Academy

2009-12-21T17:04:00.001-08:00

grainy 35mm fun

stage left / blue cribsmas.

2009-12-14T17:49:00.001-08:00

The Cribs, Brixton Academy. No digital tricks, just 35mm film and a sea of stage lights.

2009-12-04T17:23:00.000-08:00

More from Malawi 2003 from a pile of negatives I'm slowly digitising and digesting.
(click to view big)

Headless

2009-11-25T16:55:00.000-08:00

Amber
(more salvage from my pile of old negatives).

Malawi, 2003

2009-11-23T10:50:00.000-08:00

I'm in the midst of digitising old negatives, this was taken in Malawi in 2003.
(click to view big)

Peggy Sue

2009-11-22T15:22:00.000-08:00

Peggy Sue have a single out tomorrow, you should grab a physical copy here and/or an immaterial one here. I recently spent three weeks in the United States and Canada in their company on a joint tour with my band. They're a talented bunch of good eggs and are better at pool than us (though the pinball crown is mine).
Here are some snaps of them I took along the way.
(click to view big)

Timber Timbre

2009-11-09T07:51:00.000-08:00

Some sounds suit the cold so well I can't really begrudge its frosty return.

Thanks to Josh and the Eastscene guys in Toronto for the recommendation. I've dug my earmuff-esque Grado SR60s out of the drawer, tis the season.

"is it not bad enough", Ann Arbor, MI

2009-10-30T13:06:00.000-07:00

(click photos to view big)

FALL VIA RV, USA

2009-10-30T09:14:00.000-07:00

( Ohio - Ohio - Ohio - Chelsea NYC)

Harkathon 001; Letters to America

2009-10-08T10:29:00.000-07:00

Harkathon presents;

'Letters To America'

A zine compiled in honour of the Autumn '09 Sky Larkin / Peggy Sue joint headline tour of North America.

I asked a selection of bonza British bands to write a letter to one of the cities we will visit on the tour. Copies of the zines will be at every show and we'll do our best to distribute them to independent record shops we find along the way.
Thanks to all the bands for their contributions, to (previous Larkin collaborator) Jack Hudson for creating the cover and to Jen Kruger for taking papercuts for the team.

Come along to a show and pick up a copy to read letters from;

Slow Club to LA
Tubelord to Boston
Sky Larkin to Seattle
Ellen Los Campesinos! to San Francisco
Gareth Los Campesinos! to Vancouver
Copy Haho to Chicago
Dananananaykroyd to Toronto
Napoleon IIIrd to Detroit
Dinosaur Pile-Up to Seattle
The Joy Formidable to Washington DC
Chickenhawk to New York
and here's the delightful Sparky Deathcap's letter to Toronto as a sneak peek.

Kx

SMARTS

2009-09-23T06:37:00.000-07:00

one day of this:

equals this: SMARTS

cover art by http://sinabecker.blogspot.com/

"like the glass canopy of a jetfighter"

2009-09-17T07:02:00.000-07:00

but the fish thought of it before Goose.

w.y.k.y.n.f. (b.t.o.y.c.f). AKA "swoon"

2009-09-09T16:26:00.000-07:00

Beach Boys

2009-09-09T05:26:00.000-07:00

The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future
Los Campesinos video beach party

earth//wind//fire

2009-09-08T13:58:00.001-07:00

recently spied;

(windermere, castello, windermere)

MONUMENT TO THE FIRST B-BOY

2009-07-12T15:53:00.000-07:00

I WENT TO PAY MY RESPECTS TO THE FIRST B-BOY, FOREVER STANDING IN HIS B-BOY STANCE, VENICE, ITALIA.

Amps on Holiday

2009-07-02T16:17:00.000-07:00

(Fender Musical Instruments 1968 catalogue)

the original metalhead

2009-05-18T16:45:00.000-07:00

(from "Pythagoras and the Discovery of Irrational Numbers" by Daniel Vikum)

"It was within the field of music that Pythagoras first discovered a special correlation between numbers and the physical world.

According to historical accounts, Pythagoras was walking past a blacksmith when he became aware of the different sound pitches produced by pieces of metal being hit by hammers. He went on to experiment with other materials and found a consistent relationship between mass and sound pitch.

When measuring the pitches of vibrating strings he found that the sound pitch it produced was inversely proportional to its length. When he put two strings together and produced two tones he could describe intervals (the distance between two consecutive or simultaneous pitches) using numerical ratios.

He did however not merely discover that there existed a relationship between ratios and musical intervals, but that the intervals most pleasing to the ear also had the simplest ratios. He would call these intervals perfect intervals"

ultimate power

2009-02-15T05:25:00.000-08:00

"after we destroyed the dinosaurs we stretched their gizzards across the grand canyon and wrote the first song".

GWAR

admirable commitment

2009-02-03T08:43:00.000-08:00

(from the desk of John Cage, click to view big)

snow triangles

2009-02-02T11:01:00.000-08:00

2009-01-20T11:24:00.000-08:00

Something I have been meaning to tell you...

A Good Idea

2009-01-15T05:50:00.000-08:00

(originally seen at one of my favourite portals It's Nice That )

HARKATHON

meat shake

The Blind Club

2011

Sky Larkin - Year Dot (Minotaur Shock Remix)

Berlin

American Woman

ROLL UP, ROLL UP

Ear Food 2

City Of Gonads

Tour Not Bore

Still Windmills

"Benevolence begins and ends in my﻿ imagination."

Dream Wedding Band

Tour Not Bore

read all about it

bed

masquerade

Dorks on Parade

Prague

hello everything

The Forbidden Corner

Anti-Terror Judd?

ear food

22222

'Life In The Universe' (1981)

Election Fever/Nausea

Possible Album Title no.143

Desert Rose

"Geologue"

pip

雅だよ雅 - 育実

whereabouts 3

YORKSHIRE

Treebird

Hudson

Hard Format

Los Campesinos! "Romance is Boring"

whereabouts 2

A Very Slippery Slope

patty's

explode into colors

whereabouts

Save 6Music

Langue

Utili-kilts

Kate MccGwire

www.KateMccGwire.com

FYI

The Best Bio

Happiness

HTB

nugget

"not a significant bullet"

The Slits

material

happiness

supa-dupa-flat

Los Campesinos, Brixton Academy

stage left / blue cribsmas.

Headless

Malawi, 2003

Peggy Sue

Timber Timbre

"is it not bad enough", Ann Arbor, MI

FALL VIA RV, USA

Harkathon 001; Letters to America

SMARTS

"like the glass canopy of a jetfighter"

w.y.k.y.n.f. (b.t.o.y.c.f). AKA "swoon"

Beach Boys

earth//wind//fire

MONUMENT TO THE FIRST B-BOY

Amps on Holiday

the original metalhead

ultimate power

admirable commitment

snow triangles

A Good Idea

"Benevolence begins and ends in my imagination."