La Bête Blooms - Home

I should start off by explaining this is not a review. I'll leave the reportage to those in the know; those with writerly aspirations. This is more of a personal Ode to La Bête Blooms.

Maximum Fog at E Book Show

The E Book Show opens at the John Hansard Gallery Central in Southampton on February 2nd and my new book, Maximum Fog, will be there!

I'll be off for a look around the show sometime during the month of February so I'll have a proper post about it then.

There are still a load of Maximum Fogs sat in my room, so if you'd like a copy they're available here via my website.

 

The Ballads of Nan Goldin's Sexual Dependency

Nan Goldin is perhaps an obvious choice for this project, but she is still an interesting one. Her project, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, infamously started its life in the late 70s as a choreographed slideshow set to music. Since those humble beginnings in front of small crowds in Manhattan's clubs and DIY venues, it went stratospheric and became what most now know it as: a photobook.

Each "chapter" of the book has a different title, taken from some well-known songs and some more obscure ones - I assume chapter 14 is like the rest of the titles and is taken from the song Working Girls and Brides, but it is omitted from this mix because I can't find any evidence that it exists.

These song titles, uncredited to any original artist in the context of the book, only hint at what their accompaniment might be, and it is only the memory of the more well-known songs that may provide any context unless you were to listen to each song as you looked through the book.

[The full "track list" is only available in the book, to my knowledge. I could not find it online and the one Spotify playlist of the songs from the book that does exist is incomplete.]

The book is known for its grit, its realism, its honesty, but would this still be the case if each chapter were considered alongside its namesake? I wonder.

I am interested in bringing image and music together not as accompaniment, but considering the worth of both photo sequence and mix tape equally, on a level playing field, as well as the unique experience that the combination of the two creates.

The Ballad is the perfect example of where this unique experience has been lost, discarded for the preferred experience of sitting alone in a room with the book on your knee. Some of the songs presented here would not be my choices, but that is what makes them interesting. I think Nan Goldin's photographs are good - for want of a better, but relatively neutral word - but Lonely Boy by Andrew Gold, as a song, for example, is sickly sweet, as are some of the other songs here, and that makes their placement alongside Goldin's photographs laughable, and then, quickly, quite sinister. Do such light-hearted songs belong next to such heavily-weighted images? Does Goldin want us to consider the images as the former rather than the latter?

Lonely Boy is also, in my opinion, a horrendous song. Should this colour the section of the work I'm looking at? Should I disregard one in favour of the other because they are different mediums? - that's too easy - Or should I consider them both together, jarringly, and have an altogether new experience from this collision?

Some of the songs here fit nicely with the world Goldin presents us with - the Louisiana Red track being even more horrifying in Goldin's context than it is in its own right and The Intruders, a soul group I am personally very fond of, have been tainted forever with their lyrics presented in a new, and ultimately misogynistic, light - others couldn't possibly be more at odds with the images we are looking at, at least in terms of sound ... I'm looking at you again, Andrew Gold.

I have read reports that these choreographed slideshows lasted for 45 minutes although there is no record of the songs played in that environment. This mix is an hour long and some of the tracks have been shortened in line with my own aesthetic judgement. Some tracks also have multiple versions by different artists, so my own judgement can be seen again there. Therefore this mix is by no means faithful to The Ballad's original context. It is also unfaithful to its original photobook context. In my opinion, this collection of songs is a far more interesting window to look at Goldin's work through, disregarding the tell-all autobiographical introductory text that welcomes in her photobook and overshadows the contents page just before it.

Goldin has cast a long shadow, with photographs of (mostly) young people engaged in controversial and / or sexual activities being hard to ignore in photography even now, and that's not for lack of trying. I'm prepared to engage with Goldin's book again with this mix firmly jammed in between its pages, and it's about time it was generally considered in this way again, beyond its original legend of origin.

Now That's What I Call Photography 30

Another Snow Day

Mix for Larry Sultan's Tulsa

Snow Day

MIX: The Alter Destiny

A Man and a Woman

To Maggie, Liz,

All the best for the future

Love and best wishes

Martinxx

- - -

and Simon! And Sean. (and Andy Attwater!) 

and Martin the medical man! 

And Tim, and Stephen + Will!

And Nigel Jones + Nick Fielder

- - -

I love Lazarus!

- - -

Tony! Sam! Andy! Kevin! Steve Rob!
- all the most scandalous guys in my life!!

- - -

Nick 4 Bronwen – a pair of melting maltesers!!!

- - -

How's Nick Bronwen?!

- - -

I'm in love with all the B'B's!!!

- - -

I love Phil

- - -

CARDIFF UNIVERSITY IS THE MOST SCANDALOUS PLACE THERE IS!

- - -

Sam, Steve, Paul, and Andy are all the most scandalous B'B's in my life!!!

- - -

Philip is the best thing that's ever happened to me.

- - -

Phil is Audrey's & no one elses
(except for Ri's rambling friend – Maggie!)

- - -

Audrey + Maggie

Love Simon + Frankie Abbot!!

- - -

Org, and nibber lips!
→ You bitch (sorry Org – I love him really!)
Well lay off – he's mine!

- - -

The bushy dance's were the most scandalous party's there were!!

- - -

MEN are acely fantasticly, revinously,purely SEX.

- - -

[Drawing of a malteser with arms, legs, face]
← A sexy malteser! Named Nick!

- - -

Paul Hesketh I Lazarus I Phil

- - -

Liz and bionic Sam!

- - -

How's Sam Bronwen?
And what about Paul (or Tony – no, I've got him!)
How about George, Nick and Michael?!

- - -

Martine loves Andy Attwater!

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Being in love is the most fantastic thing in this world & I'm in love – there is only one person for me – Phil.

- - -

Thursday the 24^th June 1976 was the most fantastic day of my life.

- - -

AVEC ANDY ATTWATER IL EST …. …. “VIVA LA FRANCE”!!!

Maggie, what were we doing with Lazarus by the tennis courts at Bushey!!

- - -

Men are ace!

- - -

Bionic sam! [stick man drawing]

- - -

Well ... no comment ... but seriously
we were just walking, and talking,
all the way round the tennis courts!...
what about you and ... Sam?!
You'll get Bronwen jealous!

Actually he was asking me if I wanted more ...
no, not what your thinking, more of the chinese food!!
- Very scandelous.

Actually ... to tell you the truth
I really fancy Chris Phillips - the drunkard cow!
and definitely Andy Attwater ... the bionic male ...
and you can guess what he's bionic at can't you?!

Well, I haven't experienced anything with him
so I don't know, but of course you have!??!? ...
 ... of course ...
"Viva la France!"!

- - -

Maggie and Liz,

Would be the first to write on this side
- well you won't know that when others have written on here!!!
Mad as usual.
Well only two days to go - hope you enjoy life
out there in the big wild world - I wish I was coming too
- Life was great with you , E. Rees and fish-tanks
(Maggie-Margaret and I'm not angry) and I'll miss you.
Now for something scandalous - Maggie's having an affair
with Kevin Thomas (what a creep) and
E. Rees is having a good thing going with Steve H.
It was great teasing you ...
Be careful with all those Welsh paper men
and look after Granville and Spooky (& Nick Pringle).
Support all melting malteser males
- they're complete sex -
a typical Ricky comment.
Oops, don't I ramble? Well, that's me!!!
Not very scandalous but it's too late
and my mind doesn't register after 7.00 pm!!!

All my love,

Miss Vacant, Bronwen (putey) xxx

Send my love to Graville – and I don't care if you read it!!
Drop me a line sometime, Granville!!!!!

- - -

Monsieur Verte is ace! Remember all those lessons alone with him?
And when you lost your nobbs, Bronwen?!!

- - -

Jeremy is the sexiest member of staff we've had mal!
→ Rather Mr. Willis – his puffed tummy turns me on B.
- you forgot aout his one lung and the bullet in his leg
– it really does something for the way he walks!
→ control yourself Margaret.

- - -

Personally Baker turns me on
– I'm a queer! How about you?
- - -

I've heard about you and Fitz in the staff cloakroom
– naughty, naughty!!! All lies!

Rubbish!!

- - -

I'm frustrated, inhibited and nobody understand me!!!
Usual story – I'm confusing, Bronwen xxx

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Real cool man!
- - -

Bronwen – remember the time you and Sam were upstairs
… playing darts, did you say?

Sarky comments – we were actually – I'm faithful to Nick
even if you can't be to Kevin.
- - -

Thomas carrying on with Borg
– Margaret honestly you must tear them apart
dangling them on a string like that!!!

Un Homme Et Une Femme soundtrack with personal messages written on inner sleeve.

I found this in a junk shop in Newport last week. I need to figure out the best way to rephotograph these properly - suggestions encouraged - but been dying to share it. Perfect combination.

Recent

Maximum Fog - Zine

January 2013.

Self-published.

40 pages.

First edition: 50 copies.

£4 + p&p

Click here for purchase

Because of the Cats

Agnes Martin Resolution

I don't usually share things on this blog that aren't photographs (excluding the occasional mix tape) but it's the start of a new year and that seems to have happened without consequence: no New Year's Day hangover; no instant nostalgia for a summer of royalism and sports (this past summer was amazing for totally different reasons); no meaningful self-reflection or half-hearted declarations of imminent personal change. Nothing needs to be added, changed, regretted or jinxed.

But that doesn't feel right. Maybe I need to be more proactive in my self-criticism and get with the times. I'll decide on that at a later date.

However, for now, I have decided that if I were to have a New Year's resolution, it'd be to be more like Agnes Martin

My New Shoes

New Year's Day