Rosey it is.

un/fortunately, god mocks me by giving me cool friends to remind me of the omnipresent suck factory that is my life, so in this case so there's these two guys i met in prison, oh wait jail i'm sorry so uncouth of me see PRISON is a term of endearment for someone who is sentenced to go to jail… you get frowned at when you say prison in jail, leaving me to speculate the kind of rectally-engaging punishment one would get for calling prison jail.

ANYWHOOODLES, my next-door-neighbor was a pimp. he taught me a lot, he had a segment on my late-night-talk-show called "ask the pimp next door" and he decided to be the one who told me that i need to stop just fucking women and start getting money from them… life got 433% better within one week of exiting jail. and holy shit you haven't lived until you've been dunked on by a 54 year old man during rectime. after he landed and i was so disrespected i had to hand out my lunch/dinner snacks like condoms at a parole office, he told me that with my infinite bombast and his ability to exist in our world we'd be unstoppable, so basically, we started a co-op where he does all the work and i just talk shit about it on the internet: AND ON THE 2308470238740982374093874098374083724082370937207R53745R92743947230^488897-TH DAY GOD CREATED THE THOROUGHBRED PIMPS.

he has informed me that we need to take number 26, rosey.

i'll e-mail a copy of this message to you to ensure the swift and proper delivery of this divine mandate.

No progress on the performance, but I've had a brainwave that might yield something. The Colo(u)rs page has also been completed, containing full details on the full extent of the release, how you can become involved either with audio or by donating, and (not) much more… Have a look in the top-left menu.

i have read the info but cant find a deadline?

only joining in now, since before i wasn't sure if i'd have the time/energy…

Text still needs to be edited/confirmed/ammended/etc, but the gist of this project is now fairly clear, including the grand scale I'm working to, in every sense of the word. The main thing that needs finishing is the "Financing" bit, but it's half 1 in the morning and I need to get some sleep.

I love the idea. What it's not clear to me is whether we have to be at the performance in order to contribute a track. I've love to, but my finances are as bad as yours, I think, so that's not possible for me at the moment. As far as contributing with some cash to make it happen à la cum-by-love, I can do that if it's not a lot of money. Plus I'm thinking of doing this with some friends, so we could all share the "cost".

Sorry if I'm too thick. Kind of hangover all day after a few beers yesterday at the (amazing) Crank Sturgeon show.

I'll do brown if it's not taken.

when is this due?

My current thinking is as follows: a CBML style system where each person submits a track, and some money for paint and a canvas. I would pay for a large chunk of the materials myself, but any help would be greatly appreciated, so I would set up a Radiohead-style thing where people can donate what they want, as long as they donate something. In return they would get a DVD of the performance and a copy of all the tracks on CD, while particularly generous donators would be given the opportunity to come along and paint the colour of their choosing. Obviously this is a fairly big financial undertaking for all involved, particularly for my unemployed self, and with the world's finances shot to bits it would be silly to impose a fixed fee. But I don't see how I could possibly afford all the materials myself right now. 6 months ago, no problem. Now, it's tricky. Maybe it would be better to put everything on hold while I sort my money woes out. I was about to say "although there's nothing stopping you working on tracks", but if I'm going to end up asking you for money I guess there is something stopping you. It's a tricky one for sure. Thank you Blair and Bush.

Yes.

Later.

J - correct. It's meant to be an improvised artwork, and it's much easier to improvise when you have no idea what you're going to be working with in advance. Just ask Drew Carey. Make it as awkward as you like, just don't do anything literally PA-destroying. Pretty please.

There's still no deadline, and there won't be a deadline until I've secured both a venue and, crucially, the money to buy the paints and canvas. Once that deadline is set though, that really will be it - no extensions. So if you're interested I would suggest just getting the tracks in as soon as you can, because the deadline could be 6 months after I announce it, or it could be a week. Well, the latter's very unlikely, but you get my point. As I said in the Digg thread, I do have a venue in mind in Colchester (St. Martins Church, for those in the know - Anthony seemed interested in the idea) but I'm still on the lookout for prospective venues, including ones in London.

Feel free to spread the word; direct people either to this thread or to my email address. I've got a few people in mind to ask about doing something, so hopefully we'll get a nice mix between the noise guys and the songwriters. Oh and by the way, don't bother coming up with any track titles because I'll just end up renaming the track back to it's original colour. I know no-one's done that yet, but just a forewarning.

we are truly on the same lengthwave.

you're gonna hear every track for the first time whilst performing in front of an audience?

i'm awfully tempted to record something….awkward.

:)

[edit: I don't know if this (~1MB gsm wav) is too subtle a remix - the file was recorded to a cassette, which then played through a guitar fx pedal and a tiny smudge of reverb. The result was captured on a laptop running Audacity. I like the result, but I can see how it sounds like I bought a shit copy of the record and recorded one channel from it :S

Playing guitar at the mo - but might be a birthday song rather than olive…..

http://www.zshare.net/audio/59475693b15cfed0/

James - them's the rules baby…

I'd love to contribute to this project (the short track length was the deciding factor). Would I be allowed to bagsy one colour for Twocsinak and one colour for DJ Sarah Wilson, or is that being greedy? If so, could I have my two joint favourite colours, "Turquoise" and "Magenta"? They clash so deliciously.

(Also, to be nitpicky, the original "Colors" LP only contained the first 24 colours listed above. The additional 10, from "Brown" to "Coral", are CD bonus tracks. Not that that should stop you from including them, of course.)

And if anybody's looking for the Nordine album you could take a look here…

You can either take the original Nordine track and remix/cover/etc it, or create an original track based on/inspired by that colour… and that colour only. Vocals are required - live, sampled or synthesised are fine, but it must be intelligible. Maximum track length is 1:45 - If this really is going to be done as a performance, I don't want to be painting for more than an hour. Preferably you should go under, around the minute mark.

That's it I think. Go geddum. All available colo(u)rs are on this page under the heading 'The colo(u)rs'.

secondly, nice idea.
back in the early 1990's (it sounds so much longer ago than just 90's) i did a simular type thing and recorded an album representing the clours.

I should dig it out and have a listen. Like the idea to taking it to the next step and going the art / performance thing (it'll need videoing in all it's glorey )

DVD release?

Right, so that loop project doesn't really seem to be going anywhere……………… so fuck it, let's kill that and try something else.

_{Erm, sorry Drew and Drohnwerks. And that other guy…}

_/blush/

About a month ago I attended an event in London hosted by Ghost Box and Trunk Records (you can read about it in this month's Wire). Towards the end of the thoroughly entertaining and disconcerting evening (a roller-disco with the soundtrack to Cannibal Holocaust anyone?) Jonny Trunk (of 'The Ladies' Bras' infame) got out some paint and a copy of the Ken Nordine album Colors (I know, I know), which features the voice of Jazz Talk reciting poetry about 34 of your favourite colours to an avant-garde jazz-lounge backdrop. He then invited ten people to get into overalls (or "Devo outfits" as I prefer) and to paint a colour to it's respective track, responding to the nature of the music and the lyrics. Some painted huge delicate swirls of yellow and green, others literally threw their cans of decorating paint at the canvas. I chose black, and threw my paintbrush (and everyone else's paintbrushes, come to think of it) at the canvas as hard as possible in a fit of mock-anger even rivalling that Fast Show sketch. Although I drew the line at actually destroying the canvas.

Anecdotes aside… since then I've become mildly obsessed with this Colors album, first released in 1966. It is utterly bizarre, very quirky yet always entertaining. And what a voice Nordine has… There are plenty of places where you can "find" copies of it, so I'd urge you all to grab it, purely so you can experience it for yourself. And when you've listened to it, maybe you'd be interested in helping out with a little project… Basically I'd like to see this album completely reimagined, remixed, whatever… culminating in a grand live performance/painting session similar to what Jonny Trunk organised last month, reacting in real-time to the music with the corresponding paints. Where, when and how this would be, I don't know… but fuck the album - a live improvised musical painting performance… that would be better than any compilation!*

There are 34 colours/tracks on the album, in chronological order:

Olive, Lavender, Burgundy, Yellow, Green, Beige, Maroon, Ecru, Chartreuse, Turquoise, White, Flesh, Azure, Puce, Magenta, Orange, Purple, Muddy, Russet, Amber, Blue, Black, Gold, Crimson, Brown, Rosey, Hazel, Mauve, Fuschia, Sepia, Nutria, Cerise, Grey, Coral.

I guess you'd just take dibs on a colour and go from there. You could listen to the Nordine track first (which I can supply you with if all other "avenues" fail) and either cover or remix it, or just take it in entirely your own direction. I can't tell you all the ins and outs about the project because right now it's just an idea - a pipedream, if you will - but if there's enough initial interest then maybe I'll lay out a few basic guidelines and then we can all go from there.

Personally I feel there's only so far we can go with circle-jerk projects that always feature the same bunch of (admittedly very talented) artists, so I reckon something like this might be sufficiently interesting and different enough to draw in people from outside the DigiVom ranks, and even outside the usual Cock Rock Disco/Wrong Music/V/Vm/etc networks, given the quirky nature of the source material and the broad scope of what could be done with (or without) it.

Your thoughts, if you please….

_{*Oh alright, there'll probably be some kind of release too. Just don't ask me what form it will take yet.}