RON ATHEY

I saw this a while ago now but i feel i have to write about it.

I have worked in the CCA for maybe 5 years now and had always heard of 'the guy who was HIV positive that sat on a pyramid and bled all over the place.' A piece of live performance art i never thought i'd like to see but curiosity killed the cat when i heard he was performing again at this years new territories.

He had been in all week and i served him coffee, a lovely chap.

Rumours were that he would be cutting himself, fisting himself and then lying down and rubbing rock salt on his open wounds.

As an avid fan of Japanese horror and gore and thinking nothing more of watching people on film do the most fucked up things to one another i decided to test my boundaries and see how i'd react to it being peformed live infront of me. Real Blood, a real person.

The noise on the clip i have provided will haunt me for years.

The show started off to look quite beautiful. His naked body (which could easily have been a hers)decorated in tattoos, the thick long blonde wig attached to his head covering his face he started to swing it in time with the hypnotic noise, he picked up a brush and started brushing it vigoursly, caressing every knot out of it so it was barbie doll smooth. Things started to get freaky when he started manically backcombing it to undo his previous effort at which point he flicked the wig back and started unhooking the hooks one by one. Blood started spurting out of his scalp onto the glass, people in the audience gasped and shouted in outrage. 'Call and ambulance', 'this is disgusting, he needs help' At this point i thought i would leave but i was weirdly hypnotised. A woman infront of me collapsed. I thought the show would be stopped at this point but it carried on. Half the audience had left in disgust. I had ringing in my ears so I went outside for a cigarette and to ask myself if i really wanted to see more. I met someone who had been working with him and had seen this performance before. His reaction was somewhat discouraging as he was worried about the amount of blood he was losing. 'He has hit an artery' 'Too much blood' He assured me he had his partner there and if things got bad he would stop the show. Shaking, we both returned to the performance. I had missed him fisting himself. (thankfully) and he was now lying flat. Still. Covered in blood. open wounds.

I looked up onto the lighting rig. Kenny( the tech for the night!) looked peaky, armed with a bucket of salt ready to pour on his on his naked lacerated body. He didnt flinch as the salt poured down like a ray of light into his soul. Just like in the movie ghost when a patrick swayze's life is taken by 'him' from above.

He had lost too much blood and the show was cut short.

The audience was silent. Then after a long pause there was rapturous applause. I started to clap too. I felt like i was having an outer body experience at this point. Like i wasn't in the room.

With the amount of blood i witnessed i imagined an ambulance to be outside the building waiting to give a blood transfusion. But nothing.

I went through to see my friends who were dj'ing. I couldn't really speak. I was in shock.

I had to go to meet other friends in the ivy and my way out the door i bumped into the last person i thought i would ever see again, Mr Ron Athey, Smoking a cigarette, laughing and acting completely normal. I almost felt angry at his normality after practically fucking me up for my evening ahead.

Glad he was safe though.

An expierence i am glad i experienced. Never again.

Not going to say much on this apart from WOW! The images are truely unbelievable.

Stunning.

Fiona and myself cried.

Dogtooth

On at the gft @ the moment is the darkly comical and slightly uneasy to watch DOGTOOTH. Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos.

Winner of the prix un certain regard @ cannes last year. An award introduced into cannes to recognise new talent with original, innovative and daring works.

This movie doesn't fail to tick all of those boxes.

Set in Greece, the story is based around what appears to be a normal family. Mother, Father, Son and two daughters simply known as 'eldest' and 'youngest'.

Sat around the dinner table you know things aren't quite right when the daughter asks for her mum to pass her the telephone in return she then passes her the salt.

For an unknown reason the father has decided to keep them hidden from the real world and instead they live in the confines of their house and garden which has large fences which block out their surroundings. Father is the only character who is allowed to leave the house which he does daily by car to earn his family a crust.

In this self created safe house the mother teaches them illogical things in order to explain the world as they are permitted to see it. In a fantasy like world where cats are the enemy, aeroplanes fall from the sky as toys and their mother gives birth to a dog.

Everything seems to be working fine until the father brings a lady from work home to satisfy the sons sexual urges. Bringing elements from the real world into this fragile wonderland soon confuses and unsettles the children and sparks a series of events that challenge the father and mothers teachings.

This film is a definite must. It lures you into to its four walls and plods along. You think nothing much is going to happen, like watching a family drama on t.v then out of the blue something Dark will happen leaving you feeling uncomfortable in your seat.

Definitely not one to go see with any members of your family.

zenit

my new toy :)


Purchased this lovely russian camera from the wonderful world of ebay for 6 bucks including a flash. I also bought 5 rolls of out of date film to experiment with. I have been snap happy and looking forward to seeing the results. I will put pics up on here when i get them developed.

COZY

Glasgow international festival of visual arts

http://www.lowsalt.org.uk/welcometobridgeland.html

Lots on but these two stuck out.

Have my cake and eat it

Fortified v's Soulmotive

Super Hyped for next weeks Fortified.

I'm hoping that headhunter will pull out a few fresh Addison groove tracks. The place is going to errupt when he plays FOOTCRAB that's for sure.

Really looking forward to seeing Hyetal though. Found this quote on Hyetals interview on Sonic router from Lazer sword.

They describe his music as feeling "like... I just won a marathon race and I'm at the dubstep rave and everyone is pouring champagne on me and I'm eating wedding cake with all my ex-girlfriends... and they just told me they still love me. All of them."

It is pretty fucking amazing!

Fortified is @the art school Friday the 23rd. See you there.

NYC

Some old pics i took whilst in Nyc a few years ago. The one of 5 pointz in long island does not do it justice. The place is HUGE! I got off the subway at a grey grotty wee corner which had a few tags here and there. I thought it must be the wrong stop then i walked round to another corner to be faced with a rainbow of colour seeped into the walls of this 200, 000 square foot factory building! I was soo overwhelmed by it. So many names i recognised. The name on the written letter caught my eye. MERES! Meres one is the original founder and curator of the 5pointz. His sign was absolutely spot on by the way. The place STANK!

I don't know anything about the the two wall stickers other than i found them in Brooklyn.

The other is photo is just of a wee vintage shop that i thought looked cool. It was unfortunately closed.

Brian Dettmer

Thought i'd share this artists work with you as i find it utterly amazing. Most of Brian Dettmers current works are created by altering books including old dictionaries, encyclopedias, textbooks, science and engineering books, art books, medical guides, history books, atlases, comic books and also old cassette and vhs tapes.

He seals and cuts into the books with surgeon like precision to expose select images and text to create three dimensional works that reveal a new interpretation of the books original content.

His use of cassettes is what brought him to my attention. He melts and forms them into mainly skeletal forms and he even produced a life size skeleton entirely from tapes. Another of his works that interested me was his use of old gangster movie VHS tapes (The Godfather, Scarface etc) which he unraveled and formed into funeral arrangements.

a slice of the 50's/60's

Came across this old postcard on ebay today and bought it.

Glad to see the females of the 50's were still as demanding as me.

The Lyrids Meteor Shower

The lyrids isn't the greatest of meteor showers but it's still worth a watch. Observations have been made for over 2, 600 years. It will be at it's peak on the 22nd/23rd of april and is best viewed around 1am.

Until the Light Takes Us is a feature length documentary chronicling the history, ideology and aesthetic of Norwegian black metal - a musical subculture infamous as much for a series of murders and church arsons as it is for its unique musical and visual aesthetics.

This is black metal as seen through the eyes of those who created it, of those who live it.

It's showing at the gft on april the 23rd.

I want to have my cake and eat it!

DEADBOY

Bought this cassette last January from judement dispenser.

DEADBOY'S RAP BEATs TAPE.

I had heard of him at the tail end of the year. He has now been signed to the NUMBERS label and he finally has a gig in Glasgow next Saturday (17th) April @ stereo. You should defo go check him out.

Alexandro Jodorowsky's Holy Mountain

When googling looking for another weird film to watch i came across this wee gem.

Here is a synopsis from someone on imdb.

"A Christlike figure wanders through bizarre, grotesque scenarios filled with religious and sacrilegious imagery. He meets a mystical guide who introduces him to seven wealthy and powerful individuals, each representing a planet in the solar system. These seven, along with the protagonist, the guide and the guide's assistant, divest themselves of their worldly goods and form a group of nine who will seek out the Holy Mountain, in order to displace the gods who live there and become immortal."

It is bizarre and beautiful. Worth a watch.

http://www.hotweird.com/jodorowsky/siegel.html

Heston Finally did it!

So one of my childhood dreams finally became reality the other night.

Anyone recognise this? :)

Happy chappy

I found this wee chappy on one of the rare days i took a bus to work. He was discovered in a lane behind sauchiehall street. He made me smile.

R.I.P Mclaren

Just arrived in the post. Forgot how much i liked this song.

Toybot blog, worth a swatch.

Some nice art work from the toybot blog.

what do you thrash? well whatdya got?

Nostalgic movie that first introduced me to good music, boys and skateboarding. I remember watching it with my pals big brother and his friends who i fancied. I thought i was the shit and decided to take my skateboard (plank of heavy wood bought from woolies)
down to Oban pier to practise my 'tricks' Let's just say it didnt go to well and from then on spent most of my time sitting on the board and going down hills. Sounds lame but remember this was in Oban. We have some pretty steep hills! :)