Digital Vomit Records

FOR FULL INFORMATION ON ALL ASPECTS OF THIS RELEASE, CLICK HERE. (Text to be finished on 11 September.)

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.}

firstly, i don't think you should drop the loops project - it will find it's time…..

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?

I'll have a crack at sepia
:)

Oh bugger, someone's picked one already. Better some up with some rules then…

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'.

Can I take white?

Is black still available?

Well, I'll have ecru then.

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

Ooh, I love that album. I also have "You're Getting Better: The Word Jazz Dot Masters", which compiles four of his earliest albums, and for which I paid more money than I usually would. I discovered Nordine through his appearance on "Kaleidoscope" by DJ Food, many many moons ago.

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.)

i'd like puce.

I was going to say no to two colours, however I can probably rely on you to make two sufficiently different tracks, so go on then. And I know about the extra ten tracks, but I fancied the challenge.

While I'm here… please send WAVs (or if you must, 320kbps MP3s) to ku.oc.liamtoh|tforchsa.eel#ku.oc.liamtoh|tforchsa.eel and remember to upload anything above 10mb to sendspace.com or similar. No deadline as of yet, but when I secure a performance date that will change. And while I'm working on the assumption that this will culminate in a performance, I won't be listening to any of the tracks until that day. Spontaneity. That's the key…

Interesting project indeed. Dibs on orange.

I'd like Olive or yellow please.

do the lyrics/word samples need to be intelligible?

i might do something for this, but i'm not gonna pick a colour just yet.

Keith - pick one!

James - them's the rules baby…

I'll have a go at lavender.

Here 'tis. And oddly enough, it came out fairly similar to how I first heard it in my head. That doesn't happen very often.

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

Lovely, cheers. Obviously I won't listen to it yet, but I'm looking forward to it…

ok, I'll do o'live.
:-0

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

Muddy please!

[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

put me down for beige.

Fuschia for me :)

I really like the two tracks in so far

:)

Drohnwerks - as I'm not listening to any of the tracks, I'll have to leave it up to your own judgement.

so…let me get this straight…

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.

like recording yourself pooing while shouting brown?!!!

we are truly on the same lengthwave.

So I've been pretty busy these past couple of weeks, not really had much of a chance to keep up with this.

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.

I'd like grey please

I think DIH could do 'Purple' - what sort off deadline are we talking about here as I am struggling with hardware failures at the moment sadly..

I will direct you to the post three above this one Andy. ^^^

I am now directed to three posts above, but DIH will soon get to work on this!

Is this still happening? Is Flesh still available? Can you be bothered to e-mail me an mp3? Mp3 quality is irrelevant.

Yes, however 1) I've been busy with "real life" stuff lately, and 2) I'm currently looking into ways of funding the project, which would include the paints, canvas and maybe a limited pressing. It may end up being a kind of Can Buy Me Love-type thing, so there may be big changes afoot which might rule some of you out. But I'll say more about that when I've got something solid.

Yes.

Later.

phew I was worried, you'd got a venue and was going to say you've got x days to get it done…. would have had to drop as need to edit a video/dvd this weekend.

Worry not Keith, until I've worked out the logistics of the project I'm not even bothering to look for a venue.

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.

I reckon to get poster paints in 34 colours will cost about £60-70, canvas about £15… so let's round it up and say £100 of materials. Nowhere near as much as I thought, but then these are only poster paints. Ideally I'd like to get some emulsion paints, but that would probably be at least 5 times more.

34 colours? Man, I was taught to paint with 7 colours only: cadmium red, crimson (or scarlet), cadmium yellow, lemon yellow, cerelium blue, ultramarine, and white. Get big tubs of acrylic paint in those, look at a colour wheel, and you can make literally any other colour you want :) If mixing paint isn't part of your performance, just use those colours to pre-mix the others before hand. Acrylic dries really quickly, so that might be a bit of issue for pre-mixing paint, but you can add various additives to it so that it acts more like oil paint in terms of staying liquid. Daler Rowney System 3 paints are the ones to go for, cheap but respectable, and you can get them in tubes, tubs or really big fucking tubs like two litres big.

are there any colors left?

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

when is this due?

Read the thread Batuta.

hehe, I've read it (well, skimmed thru it).

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.

No, you don't have to be at the performance. If you'd like to be there, you're more than welcome. I'm still working out the costs of this project, and will get back to everyone as soon as I have something set in stone.

http://www.digitalvomit.com/colours

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'll do gold. (if what i culled from this thread is correct and its not taken)

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

i love a bit of green.
didnt get involved earlier coz thought i'd have to go to the live event. silly me.

i have read the info but cant find a deadline?

There's no deadline until a venue's confirmed.

groovy - ofc will help financially nearer the date. very poor student atm

Just had Burgundy in from a chap in France calling himself Gary Glitcher. It's in the collection, to be unheard until the time is right………….

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.

'allo there. most lamentably, i suck at not just music, but life… hell i probably suck at death too, which means i'll come back as a zombie and get a chance to suck at that. innovating in the field, my non-friends and likely soon-enemies…

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.

………………………..

Rosey it is.