Steven Wilson - Insurgentes

deviantART will celebrate its 8th birthday on Thursday 7th August 2008. In celebration, we will donate 10% of the total print sales from our Store made on the 7th August 2008 to Project FOCUS: Art for AIDS Orphans in Uganda, a project which is registered with Global Giving.

Across the world children seek recognition and a chance to create. In Lyantonde, Uganda, devastated by AIDS, the reality of poverty and social stigma threatens community cohesion and cultural heritage. The needs of AIDS orphans demand a response that extends beyond material support and touches upon the human need to share experiences with others. We want to help provide these young people with a means of self-expression, developing their voice through artistic media in connecting with themselves and the world.

deviantART’s donation will assist Global Giving to open an art school for children with fine-arts, music, photography and film classes taught by art professionals and students. A cross-media project will also be created as a community needs assessment and fundraising tool for program development.

We hope that you join us in making our 8th birthday an event to remember. Our birthday celebrations are on PST timezone, and kick off as soon as the day turns over to 7th August in Los Angeles, USA. Your sales will count until Midnight PST that same day. By supporting your favourite artists on deviantART, you will also help create positive social change by educating, inspiring and empowering humanity through art.

Further information here.

In support of my good friend and work colleague Danielle (aka $moonbeam13 I’ve offered a 20″x30″ Fine Art Print of Synesthesia as part of the Artisan Crafts Silent Auction on deviantART.

It’s on rolled (unframed) canvas and I’ll sign it for you and cover the shipping costs. There’s a reserve price of $50 -bidding starts July 21st and ends August 17th 2008, so you still have time to make an offer.

For you newbs who don’t already know, Sister Bliss is “that chick from Faithless”, aka Ayalah Bentovim.

Nightmoves is yet another top notch compilation album. It’s got quite a dark and moody sound at times, yet still retains that anthemic, progressive house/trance vibe that Sister Bliss is widely known for.

With somewhat of a Baleric feel to the first half of the mix, she kinda took me aback when I realised that she had moved into a mix of The Enemy, which credits her and Rollo, from Faithless. I forgave her for this though by including the absolutely awesome Mark Knight remix of Underworld’s Beautiful Burnout, which is one of my favourite Underworld tracks ever. There’s a wicked Layo & Bushwacka track on there too.

It’s very smooth and infectious listen - infact I’ve had it on non stop play since I bought it 2 days ago. That’s right — I said bought. You can download the album directly from the label here on Pieces of Eight Records.

Tracklisting:

01 I Can’t Wait For Love - Matti Schwartz feat Jonny L

02 Titan - mi:grant

03 Body Jackin - Jamie Anderson & Content

04 ET - Peplab (Peplab Classic Treat Mix)

05 Premature Ejaculation - Bangkok Impact

06 Shake Yourself Loose - Dynamix (EG and TJ Gonella Dub Mix)

07 Jupiter Calling - Thomas Schwartz

08 Savior - Basto! feat I-Fan (John Dahlback Remix)

09 The Sin - DINKA (Chris Reece Tribal Sucker Remix)

10 The Slightest Touch - Tim Fuller

11 Shimmering Stars - Jakatta (Joey Negro Galaxarian Dub)

12 With You Forever - PNAU

CD 2
01 Europa - Pryda

02 This Song Is About You - The Enemy (Rollo & Sister Bliss Remix)

03 Beautiful Burnout - Underworld (Mark Knight Mix)

04 Eurasia - Marc Romboy vs Gui Boratto (Marc’s Mix)

05 All Alone - Splittr (Michael Gray Mix)

06 Black Bag Job - Donnacha Costello

07 Stalker – Probspot (Fine Taste Remix)

08 Liquid Cement - Teenager (Roman Rai Mix)

09 Beneath You - Mark Mendes

10 Long Distance - Adam K & Soha

11 The Bus I Wasn’t Officially On - 16 Bit Lolitas

12 Off the Chain - Samuel L Sessions

13 Tabloid - Layo & Bushwacka!

14 Kind of Peace - Faithless (Gabriel & Dresden Mix)

I’ve been so busy over the past few weeks that I haven’t really had time to write proper, defined entries, so here’s a mishmash of updates.

At last, the new Studio Frames launched over on deviantART. The product development was really interesting and I’m sure they are going to be a great success. Kudos to Tom, Lisa, Ollie and Bryan for being such awesome guys to work with.

V6/sleek — including the new message centre also launched around the same time as the new product. It was the slickest launch I’ve experienced during my time with dA. Fantastic to see concepts grow from rough paper drafts into how the site now looks.

Currently working on a few projects that are quite time consuming, but I am enjoying all the challenges and developments that they bring! I can honestly say I really do have one of the best jobs in the world

Music related I’ve been listening to a lot of Underworld lately - and of course, my beloved Porcupine Tree. Steve Wilson released another cover track - it’s my favourite one yet. Interesting that he chose a Prince track to cover, I’d never have guessed that!

The Porcupine Tree forum has been growing too. I’ll also be contributing to the Carbon Nation fanzine too in the future, some interviews and cover designs up my sleeve.

Been feeling pretty creative lately - have had a few enquiries about commissions too, so hopefully those will work out.

So that’s it for now - more soon!

Discovered a new band at the weekend - Demians.

Steven Wilson, ingenious mastermind of my beloved prog rock superstars, Porcupine Tree described this band as;

“One
of the most assured and accomplished debut albums I’ve ever heard, the
textures and dynamics within the music are breathtaking. A must for
everyone that appreciates the art of epic and ambitious 21st century
rock music”.

With a recommendation like that, I just had to hear it for myself - and I was far from disappointed. Led by front man Nicolas Chapel, this is the debut album from the French band and I’m already hooked. It’s a very diverse album, with 9 beautiful tracks that take you on journey through a world of deep emotions and great spirituality.

How does Nicolas Chapel feel about the unexpected praise from his renowned colleague, Steven Wilson?

“To
be honest, I haven’t really begun to realise what is happening. I’m
speechless just knowing that he feels so strongly about an album I’ve
put so much of myself into. Everything I could tell you about Steven
Wilson would involve respect and inspiration, so I feel honoured just
thinking he said something so encouraging”.

Find out more about Demians here http://www.demiansmusic.com/ or if you want a listen check them out on last.fm

I’m getting pretty fed up with all these self righteous and sanctimonious doo-gooders whining about Amy Winehouse. After watching her Glastonbury performance I’m convinced even more so than ever that she’s on a high speed train to self destruct, but she’s not the first female with talent to do so.

At 24 yrs old she’s the first brit to win 5 Grammys in one night. She lifted the Ivor Novello award for 3 times and she had the top selling album of 2007, which went platinum 5 times over.

Everywhere I go I see people bitch off because their own lives are so boring and mundane that they need to make up for it by picking on the real lives of others who at some point in their life will self harm and get wasted on their substance of choice, illegal and/or legal is irrelevant.

Apparantly she’s only got 70% capacity in her lugs because of emphysema. She can still belt out a song better than most and kick the ass of Kylie, Madonna and other associated lip synching barbie dolls.

There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that she’s an extremely troubled girl. Her performance last night at Glastobury included her almost falling over a few times, her boobs slipping out the top of that incredibly tight dress and her throwing a few punches into the crowd. She went right down into the front of the mosh pit area and was lucky she didn’t get grabbed by some nutter and pulled in there.

Winehouse makes no bones about claiming that “Back to black” came about because she “started drinking and fell in love”. She sings of emotional heartache and pain and we can remember it all vicariously, but then sigh a relief of been there, done that and get back to our own fucked up lives. We all have them, varying degrees.

Compare this to the bullshit that you get spoonfed from the likes of Sex in the City - heartache that can be solved by shoes, or diamonds. Eh, gimme Amy as therapy any day.

Some of my friends think that she’s going to be dead by 30. I must admit that earlier this year I figured she’d be dead by June. What good is talent if it will be dead by 30? Who knows. But surely it’s better than continously being fed such ambition-led fools such as Jade Goodyer, Victoria Beckham + the other spice bints. Think about how some of the truly gifted females behave.

Judy Garland, Billie Holiday, Edith Piaf - all women who’s talent for singing was never denied, but they all had a great capacity for reckless behaviour too. Janic Joplin, Patti Smith was no angel either. Stevie Nicks, PJ Harvey… I could go on and on.

However, it would appear that if your talent can fit into a size 0 bikini and go to the gym for 5 hours everyday you’ll get more recognition, and respect. Personally, I think it’s really tragic that people expect other entertainers to be “role models”. Key word here - ENTERTAINERS.

Your role models should come from friends and family, or professions which really do change the world. People who give up their lives for others, firemen, nurses, doctors, and let’s not forget the 1000s of people who are right now giving up their freetime to help in countries where kids are orphaned due to landmines or other attrocities.

In terms of picking a role model from mere entertainers, Winehouse is the only kind worth having. Proof that excellence can rise to the top in a sea of competent mediocrity, and that talent is worth so much more than mere ambition.

Sure, she’s had plenty of ups and downs in her life and we are bound to see many more, but she stands heads and shoulders above the hpocrites who relentlessly criticise, pity and eugh.. “save her”!

I live in hope that despite however self destructive she appears to behave, that self esteem from such talent will pull her through. Maybe she really will settle down again with Blakey, or die in her own bed from an overdose.

Either way, she’s a legend now and forever. Like star crossed lovers from one of her songs, maybe if we truly love her, we won’t try to change her and we’ll set her free.

So I caved in and fixed up twitter, if you care to follow me on there you can do at twitter.com/purenarcotic. Don’t expect anything too exciting on there. I only really wanted it for when I’m out and about, so you’re most likely to get random comments about me almost running over coffin dodgers or some eye candy which has caught my attention.

I’m tired, really tired, kinda feel like I am coming down with something.

Every time Monday comes around it seems to get quicker. I demand more weekend!

This past weekend was pretty cool. Hung out with Connor for most of it, who turned up with a bottle of tequila in hand when I had already ravished a fair mount of red wine. Nuff said.

Work feels really hectic right now, I think I need a vacation somewhere where there’s no internet or phones, or at least a few days break away.

Fucked up news of the week — my good friend Lisa is currently under investigation by the FBI for taking photographs. It’s fucked up. You would think that with all the rapes, murders, child abductions and other assorted crimes that should prevent any FBI Agent from sleeping at night, that this sort of investigation would be a complete and utter waste of time and resources.

I said I was going to keep this up to date so don’t blame me if you get lots of random rambles.

The past few months have been pretty hectic for me at work and in my personal life too. Ups and downs all over the place. Currently pretty much in a state of indifference but I guess that’s good compared to the extreme lows that have reared their head of late.

Despite work being hectic, I’m still loving it. Lots of wicked things just around the corner for everyone on dA. It’s great to see Pete leading up MN@, and Chris just joined the Comm Dev team too recently, so that makes me proud to see people from volunteers move into paid positions, especially two awesome people that I brought into MN@. </smug>

I’m hanging for some decent shows to start up again, particularly the new series of Dexter, Entourage, 24 and Californication. The Wire finished forever, boo hoo. It was definately one of the best police shows I’ve ever seen, second only to The Shield and the UK’s own Waking the Dead.

Seen a few decent movies lately too - The Wonderboys and Iron Man were probably the best ones over the past 3 months. Indiana Jones was awesome but not on the same level as Iron Man for me. Downey Jr kicked some serious ass in that and I am hanging for the sequal already.

30 days of Night was pretty cool, finally a vampire movie that didn’t romanticise it all.

I started to watch The Sopranos too, after being nagged at for years. So far I’ve seen 2 episodes and loved it. Just wish I had more time to get into it!