This is King Jim. He’s from London but he wears plaid shirts and does Americana like he was born with a broken heart and nothing but an acoustic guitar and a desert highway for company. We’re not talking Mumford & Sons flouncing. We’re talking beautiful campfire tenderness that will take your emotions and wring every last tear from them. Don’t believe me? Go here and download his debut EP. It’s free. It’s a very limited release. It’s the first of three and you’ll kick yourself if you miss it.
Film director Claude Lelouch’s legendary 1976 short film, C’etait un Rendez vous. I have posted and reposted links to this so many times. It keeps getting taken down from YouTube. If a proper version was available to buy I would, but it isn’t and I love it, so I’ll repost yet another link, because it’s Paris and I do have a bit of a thing for Paris.
I’ve no idea what Herb Lester Associates actually do all day long, but evidently it involves drinking coffee, wandering around a bit and making amazing maps of London and New York. I have both You Are Here (a map of the best places in London for freelancers to get free wifi, good coffee and be left alone) and Wish You Were There (a map of long lost ’60s LDN), and I love them both. I shall no doubt be getting their newest, the self-explanitory How To Find Old New York in time for my next visit to NYC. I suggest you do the same by clicking here.
I’m a big fan of documentary film maker Gary Hustwit. He made the brilliant Helvetica, a film about a typeface, and Objectified, a film about the impact of industrial design on everyday life. Now he’s completing his design trilogy with the city-centred Urbanized, or at least he would if he had the money to do it. He’s looking for $85,000 to finish the film. I’d give it to him myself if I had it, I love his work so much. But I haven’t, so wisely, rather than wait for me, he’s started a crowdsourcing fund on Kickstart to get the last of the cash in, so if you fell inclined to turn your hard earned into a cinematic masterpiece you could do worse than click here.
As a follow on from the earlier Hyperpotamus post, check out his website. Really nice, simple design. May well have to borrow a few style cue for the next incarnation of this blog. Wonder if there’s anything on wordpress what does a similar, moving box type thing.
Went to see the legendary Buck 65 [above] last night at the Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen. Buck, was, as usual, everything you could ask a lo-fi, DIY hip hop legend from Halifax Nova Scotia to be: dark, dirty, surreal and comically twisted. The man is a lo-fi, DIY hip hop legend for a reason. Did I mention he’s a legend? However, the evening’s excess of amazement wasn’t just limited to the Buck. Support came from Spanish one man a cappella army, Hyperpotamus[below]. He does that thing where he live samples his vocals to build up backing tracks which he then sings over. It’s not a new trick. I’ve seen plenty of people do it, but none as entertainingly as this. The videos on his site don’t really do him justice. Much better to see him live if you get the chance.
Forget the social networking enabled revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia. If you want to know the real power of Twitter look no further than the picture above. That’s Darshan, a very dedicated Jamiroquai fan in Washington USA. She’s holding a pile of magazines I sent to her. She re-tweeted links to my most recent Jay Kay interview in the Mail On Sunday like a maniac, so I thought it only nice and right to post her a hard copy. While I was at it I included a load of other features I’d done with Jay over the last decade. Darshan got the package last night. I got this photo this morning. We’ve never met, but we’re both having better days because of the other. That is the power of Twitter. It might not be up there with toppling governments, but you know, it’s the little things.