[Photography] My 50/50 Project.... Lives Again!

"Life" [50/50-027]

The 50/50 project is back up and running now that I have replaced my Canon 50mm f1.8 lens that got broken in Southend back in April. So nice to have the shallow DoF and limited field of view again. Love it.

The full 50/50 set so far is here. It's a pretty random affair, no links between the images apart from the lens used. 27 images so far, 23 to go.

[Photography] 'Roid Week Summer 2011 Out-takes.

Four Polaroid that were out-takes from my 'Roid Week shoot. 2 on Polaroid ATZ; 2 on ImpossibleProject PX600SilverShade FirstFlush. I liked 'em enough to share, just not enough to use for 'Roid Week.

[Stuff] Final Shuttle Landing.

STS-135: The Last Shuttle Mission.  Space Shuttle Atlantis touching down for the very last time.  End of a space exploration era. Screen grab (cleaned up) from the NASA live stream of the landing.

[Music] Wugazi.

Wu Tang Clan + Fugazi = Awesome.

Not so much your usual mashup, this is more a painstaking remix project. The vocal tracks are direct lifts from various Wu songs; the backing tracks are finely pieced together from chunks of Fugazi songs; a riff from here, a drum track from there.  The result is one of the best mashups out there, alongside the ubiquitous "Grey Album" Metallica/Jay-Z one by DangerMouse and "The Beastles" project Beatles/Beasties by dj BC.

The album opener "Sleep Rules Everything Around Me" sets the style straight away.  The fine piano riff from Fugazi's "I'm So Tired" and the vocals from "C.R.E.A.M."  The tracks are worked together so well that if you were hearing them for the first time you would assume it was how the track was meant to be.  The album continues in a similar vein; the flows of the various Wu emcee's fed over mashed, chopped and mixed versions of Fugazi songs.  The whole thing is genius, but there are some moments when the already broad grin on your face explodes - the moment 2.18 minutes into "Nowhere to Wait" when the guitar riff from "Waiting Room" breaks the beat-driven song is a thing of beauty.  Equally sweet is the chorus of "Forensic Shimmy".  Brilliant.  The only track I cant really get in to is "Sweet Release" as it seems the sung vocal sample just does match with the backing track.  A minor thing though.

Playing "spot the Fugazi sample" and "name the Wu vocals" is excellent fun. Not worked out them all yet...

Download the album from the Wugazi site now before it gets taken down. http://wugazi.com/

[via: Justin Craigen]

[Music] Mother Love Bone - This Is Shangri-la.

Mother Love Bone were a hard rock proto-grunge band fronted by Andrew Wood.   Wood died of a heroin overdose before MLB released the début album in 1990, 21 years ago. MLB had the chance to be big, very big. They could have been Seattle's biggest stars, pre-grunge. It wasnt to be, with Woods death on March 19th 1990 signalling the end of their career.

Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament of Mother Love Bone, along with Wood's friend and roommate, Chris Cornell (of Soundgarden fame) recorded the album "Temple Of The Dog" as a tribute to Wood. Also on the Temple album was Eddie Vedder, who subsequently teamed up with again Gossard and Ament to form Pearl Jam.

Yesterday finally saw the release on DVD of "Malfunkshun: The Andrew Wood Story", 5 years after it had its premiers on the independent film circuit (Sundance, Toronto etc). See the website for information on the DVD release http://www.malfunkshun.com/. Malfunkshun was the band that Wood fronted prior to MLB.

Play the song, check out the film. Buy the "Mother Love Bone" compilation album (it contains the "Apple" début album plus their EPs).

[Music] Fugazi - Waiting Room [Live].

Some rather fine footage of Fugazi in their early days performing "Waiting Room" off their debut eponymous 1988 EP. An excellent performance, the band are tight and the crowd are excellent

[Photography] Overreach.

Overreach.

Apple iPhone 4 | Edited in the Instagram app.  Grabbed this on the iPhone whilst out taking Polaroid for 'RoidWeek.  The scene was too dark for a Polaroid to work, but came out nicely on the iPhone, even better when run through a "vintage" filter in Instagram.