‘It’s insane,’ said a friend of mine after watching Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy.
That’s the ultimate accolade for a show which has been described as biting into an aurora borealis sandwich. Known for the phenomenally successful Mighty Boosh, Fielding has created a colourful world of bizarre characters in psychedelic settings which boggle the mind. It’s a kaleidoscope of lysergic humour, which takes in Sgt.Pepper, the most dazzling extremes of glam rock and more than a large dollop of The Banana Splits. Remember them? Andy Warhol features as Noel’s cleaner, with a voice like Stephen Hawking and a laugh that comes as tickets. It’s a hugely entertaining visual wonderland, with artistic and cultural splashes on a canvas of indefinable humour.
It’s about to end it’s first run, so grab the final episode onThursday 8 March on Channel Four (UK, sorry about that – emigrate) or watch the series on 4 OD but hurry because the episodes are expiring in order.
On my recent trip to London, I managed to grab some shots around Soho and the West End. Theatre Land is currently booming, with increasingly lavish productions competing with each other. This part of the city has the most character, and sitting in a Soho cafe, you can watch the world go by. All life is here, and Old Compton Street is almost like a film set, bustling with extras and rickshaws.
There is an urgency here, to see and be seen. I just wandered round casually taking pictures, and spotting celebrities. David Walliams strategically positioning himself under a spotlight with a leggy blonde outside the Palace Theatre, and Ian Brown trying to look mean and hard while waiting for a bus. Things must be going well if he’s getting the bus! No wonder the Stone Roses are reforming, so they can all afford Day Savers…
From Ed’s diner to Ronnie Scott’s jazz bar, this is a melting pot, embracing diversity from Chinatown to Oxford Street. There is still an air of notoriety and a sense that anything could happen. Eulogised by Marc Almond and mentioned in Brecht’s Mack the Knife, Soho retains some of the romance of the sixties when gangsters owned most of the property and Carnaby Street was buzzing just round the corner.
It’s amazing that The Vibes is nearly one year old, and yet you’ve all been spared one of my great obsessions. I just got back from London, where Panos and I went to The Doctor Who Experience, part thrill-ride, part exhibition. It’s the nearest you can get to actually being in the fifty-year-old BBC sic-fi show. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the world of the Tardis, Doctor Who is the perfect story: an infinite format which can be applied to just about anything that’s happened, and everything that hasn’t. It’s all about an alien with a stolen time/spacecraft, roaming the universe in search of trouble, saving lives and planets and fighting evil.
This is a short film of our trip to space, which includes a remix of Delia Derbyshire’s ground-breaking electronic theme, which is widely regarded as the earliest example of techno. She recorded it in 1962. Read it and weep, Detroit.
Watch in high definition and full screen…
“All of time and space; everywhere and anywhere; every star that ever was. Where do you want to start?” as the Doctor says to his companion. When it comes to travel, he’s universally free range. The sheer scope of this format means that the show keeps regenerating, much like the Time Lord himself. It never gets boring and big hitters like Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are eyeing the film rights as the Doctor’s profile continues to grow. For the madman with a box, this is going to be a great year. There, that was painless, wasn’t it?
I decided to remix Delia Derbyshire’s iconic and pioneering version of the Doctor Who theme to get me out of copyright wrangles when I posted the above video on YouTube. I took three samples, a ‘seething’ sound which was a kind of slithering hiss, the Tardis wheezing and a single bass note, which sounds a bit like a drum. It turned into an epic project and I stalled halfway through. Rather than go insane, I re-recorded the complete half of the track in reverse, and stuck it on the end of the first half, effectively doubling the length of the track and making it sound like I’d done twice the work. George Martin would love me. Delia, however would probably not join me on the dance floor as I threw shapes to the funked up version of her tune. And rightly so: her thundering realisation of Ron Grainer’s theme was the very first example of electronic dance music and about 20 years ahead of it’s time. It’s definitive and unique. No other piece of music has sounded like it before or since, and like a siren it excites and unsettles. It’s interesting to note that this version has never been successfully improved upon, in 50 years of Doctor Who.
I want you to meet my favourite painter! He died in 1967, the year I was born. He was off my radar too, until a TV producer friend of mine dragged me to the Edward Hopper exhibition in London at the Hayward Gallery in 1981. I was 14, developing a casual interest in painting and drawing to the extent that people would shove paintbrushes in my hand or position canvases in my path.
Horribly distracted by hormones, I sleepwalked through my audience with the Great Master and acquired a few postcards and a ‘so what?’ attitude on the way out. How I…want to slap my younger self.
Within a few years I tuned into the quiet magic of Hopper and my fascination with his realist style led me to study him for my Art A-Level (un-slapped.) I tried to paint in his style, aping Hockney’s early photo-realistic paintings but all the while aiming for the monumental stillness of Hopper’s human subjects, which were often dwarfed by the faded grandeur of his architecture.
It could have been his rugged, windswept landscapes or the stark and beautiful light of New England but I was spellbound by some undefined, elusive quality. There is a sense of desolation, a profound loneliness to much of his work. It makes me think that for all our sound and fury, there is an emptiness to our existence. Hopper didn’t discriminate between an extravagant Painted Lady or the bold functionality of a light house. He saw beauty in geometry, and he loved the way sunlight paints those shapes, completing them.
His study of dereliction or vacancy is equal to his celebration of our grand achievements. The fanciful facade of a 19th Century theatre is rendered with the same wonder as a simple tenement window glowing at night. But it was the pause for breath backstage which preoccupied Hopper, the noises off. The people in his paintings are very much still-life: quiet, reflective characters captured in oils. If Film Noir had been a colour medium, it would have looked like a Hopper painting.
The great drama of Edward Hopper’s figurative work lies in the mystery of what happened before the moment captured – or what happened after. Although his execution of the human form comes second to his masterful landscapes, the enigma lies in their sense of ennui. Each one seems to be slightly uncomfortable, anticipating something.
Hopper found majesty in our surroundings, exploring the way we impose ourselves on the landscape. We build boxes and we put ourselves in them.
Peter Freeman’s ‘Toy Boy’ is a beacon sculpture which was commissioned for the Northern Quarter in 1998 to draw attention away from the corporate main drag of Market Street and attract people to the independent retail of Affleck’s Palace and beyond. The wonderfully-named neon tower is currently unloved by the City Council, who left it derelict for years. It still flashes it’s animated message to skateboarders and clubbers alike, and I used some of my artistic license to repair it for this post (it’s falling apart in reality.)
Frank Sidebottom's mural
From Oldham Street you can see the graffiti murals of Stevenson’s Square, but my favourite is this one of Frank Sidebottom, the Bontempi Entertainer of Timperley, who bought joy to millions with his unique brand of cabaret and papier-mâché head. Not to mention Little Frank. Sadly Frank Sidebottom and his creator Chris Sievey have passed away, but his TV show is still running on Channel M… after three, now: ‘it really is!’
Street sculpture in Manchester's Northern Quarter
This mural is...smoking. If you get my drift.
That’s all from Bohemia for now. No more tiles from Tib Street. I’ve shown you the nicer side of Manchester, hope you liked it! Check out the other posts below.
Peter Freeman’s 
the vibes 