06 Recommends
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RECOMMENDS
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BOOK
THE HOLY BLOOD AND THE HOLY GRAIL
FILM FESTIVAL
RESFEST
MICHAEL BAIGENT, RICHARD LEIGH & HENRY LINCOLN TEXT BY PAUL CUNLIFFE
At the top of everyone’s holiday reading
list this year has to be Dan Brown’s
blockbuster thriller The Da Vinci Code.
It’s a shamelessly thrilling ride featuring
religious conspiracy theories and secret
societies, a perfectly crafted blend of fact
and fiction and undeniably one of the
most readable and enjoyable novels of
recent times. It’s trash, but boy oh boy,
it’s great trash.
The first thing you’ll want to do after
reading it is get on the Internet and see
how many of Brown’s riddles and codes
and revelations are factual and how many
were invented whilst he was suspended
upside down from his ceiling trying to
come up with the next ingenious plot twist
(I haven’t made that up – he actually does
that.) Inevitably you’ll be led to The Holy
Blood and the Holy Grail, the original
religious conspiracy book that caused a
storm twenty four years ago and saw a
televised face-off between the then Bishop
of Birmingham and the authors hosted,
bizarrely, by Barry Norman. “Amateurish,
ignorant and grotesque,” went the
aforementioned Bishop’s review as the
authors where confronted with a list of
‘79 errors of fact’ identified in just two
chapters of the book, and asked to defend
their findings – the ‘errors’ most frequently
turned out to be just different points of
view. It is of course chock full of bullshit
and bunkum, much like Brown’s novel.
Even the authors themselves have come
to look back on the work with some
doubt. That doesn’t change the energy
and conviction it contains though. It’s a
great read, fascinating as a point of view –
no matter how flawed the research –
remarkable in its pacing, unfolding so
gradually that the final denouement comes
out of nowhere and hits you right between
the eyes before you’ve realised what
you’ve just read. It’s also interesting to see
how Brown has used this source material
so completely, mining nearly every aspect
of the mystery and regurgitating it in a
fast-paced thriller style.
Importantly, it does serve a real function,
to make us question the foundation of our
beliefs and those that would try and claim
a right to control and shape those beliefs.
And everyone loves a good mystery, right?
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail
(Arrow Books) is available from
www.amazon.co.uk and second-hand
bookshops throughout the UK. To be
taken, joyously, with a pinch of salt.
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DIGITAL SHORT FILM EXTRAVAGANZA
TEXT BY GABRIEL SOLOMONS
Resfest returns to Watershed in October
with a programme as eclectic, vibrant and
dazzling as we have come to expect from
this seminal digital film festival. The
festival showcases the year’s best short
films, music videos and animation through
a mix of screenings, workshops and live
music events. This year’s programme
includes such gems as a retrospective of
the works of visionary director Jonathan
Glazer, responsible for award-winning ads,
music videos and the feature film Sexy
Beast; highlights from Warp Records’
‘Warp Vision’, a music video DVD
compilation released later this year;
‘Gaming Inspired’ is a curated programme
focusing on the influence of video games
on short films and music videos; a
programme of rare works from the highly
sought after UK animation collective
Shynola, best known for their
collaborations with Radiohead; a panel
discussion Inside Music Videos which
involve some of the key music video
deciision makes and premiere screenings
of the surf travelogue, Sprout and
Freestyle: the Art of Rhyme, which is
being screened only in Bristol which is a
documentary explosively tracing the story
of a group of underground hip-hop MCs &
DJs from the early 1980's to the present
day. The director Dj organic will be
present and will be playing a rare DJ set.
Resfest runs from Thu 28 – Sun 31 Oct..
Box Office: (0117) 927 5100
Mention Iceland and most people will
think of Bjork or igloos. Images of frozen
tundras and inhospitable climates spring
to mind and a slight chill may creep
through your bones. West country
photographer Kirsty Denley is quite
familiar with the place due to her frequent
travels there and subsequent body of work
that will be exhibited at Bath’s cutest little
gallery, the Walcot Chapel. So what can
we expect from the show?
‘The majority of the exhibition is the result
of my travels to Iceland over the last five
years. Through photography I have been
able to capture the ever-changing
landscapes of Iceland that I have returned
to six times now.’
The clear, unpolluted light and dramatic,
often barren landscapes of mountains,
glaciers, waterfalls, steam vents, deserts,
and volcanoes are represented in these
striking colour images, which were taken
throughout the island in each season.
The exhibition will also feature
monochrome photographs from Kirsty’s
other journeys around England.
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‘THE FINAL
DENOUEMENT
COMES OUT OF
NOWHERE AND
HITS YOU RIGHT
BETWEEN THE
EYES BEFORE
YOU’VE
REALISED WHAT
YOU’VE JUST
READ.’
RESFEST AT THE
WATERSHED.
SHYNOLA
^
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Decode Magazine
Issue Fifteen
EXHIBITION BATH
ISLAND LANDSCAPES
Monday 20th - Sunday 26th September
2004 at Walcot Chapel Gallery, Walcot
Gate, Walcot Street, Bath from 10.30am
- 6pm. Admission is free.
www.kirstydenley.co.uk
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07 Recommends
LEAVE YOUR
‘COOL’ AT THE
DOOR PLEASE –
BAXTER’S DEBUT
ALBUM IS ALL
ABOUT LUSH
STRINGS, HIGHWIRE VOCALS,
AND CATCHY
MELODIES.
FILM
HERO
BETTER THAN ‘CROUCHING TIGER...’
SHOWING FROM 24 SEPTEMBER
EXHIBITION
SPIN CYCLE
SPIKE ISLAND, BRISTOL
11 SEPTEMBER TO 24 OCTOBER
BOOK
ONLY HUMAN
FREUD’S GREAT GRAND-DAUGHTER,
SUSIE BOYT, ON HUMAN COMPLEXITY.
DVD
BAD SANTA
ABOUT TIME TOO. OUT NOW (REG.1)
EVENT
CHELTENHAM
FESTIVAL OF LIT.
EXERCISE YOUR GREY MATTER.
8 TO 17 OCTOBER
COMEDY BATH
LENNY HENRY
SO MUCH THINGS TO SAY
SUNDAY 7 NOVEMBER
THEATRE ROYAL, BATH
Decode Magazine
October / November 2004
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EDEN PROJECT. 9 OCT. TO 5 NOV.
ALBUM TOM BAXTER •b••u••y
this
FEATHER & STONE
Qq
TEXT BY PAUL CUNLIFFE
Damien Rice’s ‘O’ has been knocking around in
the high end of the charts for about thirty five
years now; it surprised just about everyone by
creeping in there in the first place and now it’s
gotten comfortable. It ain’t going nowhere. Proof
that mature song-writing really does have a place
in the greater public’s consciousness, and the
top ten? Or that a persistent TV ad campaign can
work wonders for album sales? Either way Rice’s
‘Cannonball’ is currently getting more radio play
than Britney’s latest, albeit an up-tempo, radiofriendly version with an added drum track. It’s
pretty astounding when you consider the fate of
similar earnest balladeers in the last few years.
And if you think this is a one-off, be warned,
there’s another ‘Cannonball’ on its way in the
form of Tom Baxter’s ‘My Declaration.’ Baxter is
Sony’s latest foray into the singer-songwriter
market and to be frank, he’s bloody good at it.
‘This music is to be used ‘ONLY’ in conjunction
with fully engaged ‘HEART & SOUL’”, warn the
liner notes of his debut album Feather and
Stone. And it’s hard to disagree. Leave your
‘cool’ at the door please – Baxter’s debut album
is all about lush strings, slick production, high-
•••••
EXHIBITION
RESPONSE
TO EDEN TEXTILES
wire vocals, and catchy melodies. He’s almost a
one-man Keane – except he’s better than that.
Catch the first verse of ‘A Day In Verona’ or the
shuffling ‘All Comes True’ and you know you’re in
safe hands. Lyrically we’re undoubtedly in Nick
Drake territory with talk of the ‘moon and me’
and ‘pretty city dresses’; to be honest, familiar
and unremarkable stuff. Vocally though, Tom
Baxter is remarkable – unafraid to falsetto his
way towards a chorus, to jazz it up a little, to be
emotional. Comparisons with Jeff Buckley are
already coming thick and fast – it’s hard not to –
but you shouldn’t think of Baxter as just another
squealing impersonator, he’s a lot more
sophisticated and Feather & Stone is a very
accomplished debut. Will he be the next
breakthrough acoustic singer-songwriter? The next
Damien Rice? I hope so, but I also hope that we
won’t have to watch him gurning with sincerity in
a persistent TV ad campaign to get there.
Feather & Stone is out now on Sony. Debut
single ‘My Declaration’ is out on September
27th. Visit www.tombaxter.co.uk for more
information and tour dates.
BOOK THE FINAL
CONFESSION OF
MABEL STARK
BY ROBERT HOUGH
A few years ago a pal invited me and my thengirlfriend to go see the circus that was visiting
Bath. Then-girlfriend said, ‘I’ll come as long as
it’s not animals’. It wasn’t animals, it was
Chinese acrobats. They were pretty cool, but
after reading this book I think animals would
have been awesome. Mabel Stark, while never
even approaching household name in this
country, was once legend in the US. Hers was
the ‘biggest cat act in the history of the American
circus’ – a nightly laugh in the face of death, a
five-foot blonde toying with enormous tigers who
she knew could tear her face off for a laugh and
on several occasions nearly did. The result of
part practice, part an unnatural rapport with the
animals, her show ruled the American circus
during the twenties, a time when the American
circus ruled America. Then came the Depression
and TV. Hough’s book is based on what he
details at the back as exhaustive, mind-breaking
research – I’d have lasted about half a morning
– but it’s mostly the author running with it,
capturing the circus in the roaring twenties as
one long insane party enough to put Gatsby and
his pals on the wagon for life, and painting the
sixties as the circus peoples’ existential
hangover: just as Elvis launches his comeback,
we get Mabel lamenting her crazy life, her five
husbands, her prize tiger Rajah – the last of
whom formed literally the climax of her show.
Elderly, watching Gilligan’s Island strung out on
sleeping pills and beer, these scenes – placed
cunningly throughout the book – lend poignancy
to the bawdy, brilliant rest. Hough matches vivid
and intelligent prose to a story exciting as a
movie about dinosaurs; it’s a rare and special
page-turner that features bestiality, bigamy and a
jaguar called Nigger. Read, but do not try this at
home. Jake Webb
08 Recommends
BOOK
THE COMA
DECODE
RECOMMENDS
ALEX GARLAND’S (THE BEACH) 3RD NOVEL.
SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER / NOVEMBER
COMING SOON
‘A-MART’:
THE ART SUPERMARKET
WEBSITE
THE END OF THE WORLD
WWW.MIT.EDU/~MIKEHO/MEDIA/ENDOFWORLD.SWF
TEXT BY GABRIEL SOLOMONS
The Ale and Porter, a visual arts organisation based in a
Victorian warehouse in the heart of Bradford on Avon is
planning something different this year as part of their
ambitious arts calendar.
Using wit and humour, the venue - which puts on a range of
events including talks, movies and specialised courses - will
be transformed into a traditional supermarket with central
display shelving and aisles running the length of the gallery
and will even have a cashier sitting prominently in the
supermarket window ready to welcome and serve punters.
Using the familiar visual props of daily high street shopping,
the Ale and Porter pride themselves on making art for the
everyday, so what better way to demonstrate this than with
an art supermarket?
Their shoppers will benefit from exactly the same kind of
‘Buy One Get One Free’ enticements and low cost offers they
are used to when they stock up on groceries. ‘We aim to
make contemporary art a high street commodity.’
Stretching the idea of affordable art that little bit further,
their artist-led initiative will provide an opportunity for new
work by a range of artists to be exhibited and sold in an
innovative and accessible way. A selection of established and
emerging artists will produce art multiples to stack their
shelves in what could be seen as a ‘dumbing-down’ exercise
but what they prefer to see as ‘clever marketing’. There will
be special offers, fresh produce, recycling bins, shopping
trolleys and an a-mart jingle and will also have their ‘own
brand’ range of art multiples, with the a-mart logo, produced
‘in-house’. Interested or enraged?
Ffi: Contact Fiona Haser, Ale and Porter Arts, 25 Silver
Street, Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire BA15 1JZ
Tel: 01225 868919 / Mob: 07800 856 310
Email: [email protected]
•b•u••r•n
EXHIBITION BRISTOL
SNAPSHOT
HARRIETT WHITE AT CENTRESPACE GALLERY
Harriet White’s paintings
explore the ‘snapshot’ quality of
photography. Fleeting expressions
that only exist for a fraction of a
second are painted in precise
time-consuming detail.
See a selection of work by the
local artist at Centrespace:
6 Leonard Lane, Bristol
18th – 30th September
< Stuarte
DVD
THE FOG OF WAR
GREAT POLITICAL RETROSPECTIVE. OUT NOW.
MUSIC SINGLE
CHA CHA TWIST
DETROIT COBRAS SHAKE, RATTLE N’ ROLL
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Last summer we were all a-rave about the Cobras’ marvellous ‘Life Love and
Leaving’ album; this writer played it twice a day for months. They’ve been quiet for
a while but now they’re back! with a new single and probably a new drummer if
their past record is anything to go by.
‘Cha Cha Twist’ is unique among the Cobras’ output in that it appears not to be a
straight cover but a hybrid of two songs: the old R ’n’ B standard ‘The Twist’ (‘Come
on baby, let’s do the twist!’) and a more obscure garage nugget. But the song’s
credited to just one writer, a Hank Ballard; further research reveals that the song
may have been recorded by Connie Francis. Then I got bored, ’cause I always get
bored with research, and who cares? It rocks, it rolls, it’s sexier than Marilyn
Monroe stood a-top an air vent. It’s also the soundtrack to a Coke advert, so does
that mean the Cobras are selling out and swallowing corporate soft drink for a fast
buck? No way – if this means they get the exposure they deserve, then fine. You
never know – they might get on Top of the Pops and that, where they can feast on
Keane’s twitching, bloodless corpse, corrupt McFly’s boxer-shorted asses, and
leave Tim Kash marinating in whiskey and fag ash. Mmm. Jake Webb
Out in September
Decode Magazine
Issue Fifteen
09 Recommends
EXHIBITION BATH
WHISTLER TO WARHOL
PRINTS FROM THE CECIL
HIGGINS GALLERY
FILM
COLLATERAL
CRUISE & CO. ON THE STREETS OF LA. OUT NOW.
SEPTEMBER 11TH TO NOVEMBER 7TH / VICTORIA ART GALLERY
It’s not every day that you get a chance to stand face to
face to prints by some of the world’s most famous artists
from the past 130 years. Hence the excitement at hearing
that Bath’s Victoria Gallery is to host an exhibit which will
include work by Toulouse Lautrec, Cézanne, Dali, Picasso,
Degas, Munch (he of recently nicked ‘Scream’ fame) Matisse
and Hockney. We get the chills just reading off this list!
The Exhibition, to include 50 prints, will trace a path
through Impressionism, Cubism and Surrealism to Pop Art
and Abstraction. Visitors to the gallery will get a chance to
see some seminal printwork from the early 20th century, a
time when printmaking started to make a huge impact on
the way that artists disseminated their work.
During the 20th century printmaking was used by many
artistic movements such as the German Expressionists who
brought spontinaety and boldness to their prints and the
surrealists of the 1930s who favoured etchings to evoke
a mysterious introspective world. The method was
enthusiastically embraced by lots of artists who were
particularly attracted to the fact that prints could reach
a far wider audience than paintings.
A must see exhibition if ever there was one.
The exhibition continues until Sunday, November 7.
Victoria Art Gallery by Pulteney Bridge, Bath
Ffi: 01225 477233 / www.victoriagal.org.uk
THEATRE
ONE NIGHT STAND
CUTTING EDGE STUFF. BRISTOL OLD VIC. 2 NOV.
FESTIVAL BRISTOL
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS
GET YER’ SHORTS OUT. 17-21 NOVEMBER. W’SHED
EXHIBITION BATH
PRIMA MATERIA
SIX CHAPEL ROW, BATH. 11 SEPT. TO 16 OCT.
ALBUM
IN A SAFE PLACE
THE ALBUM LEAF. HAUNTING STUFF. OUT NOW.
WEBSITE
QUESTFORTHEREST.COM
FIND THE POLYPHONIC SPREE. LOVELY.
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tQq
• •••
Decode Magazine
October/November 2004
ABOVE
‘REPAS’ BY PICASSO
LEFT
‘DIVAN JAPONAIS’
BY TOULOUSE LAUTREC
BELOW
‘CRAK’
BY ROY LICHTENSTEIN
LIVE MUSIC BRISTOL
DECODE UNPLUGGED
TEXT BY THEO BERRY
So we’ve had fun putting on music showcases so far. We’ve rocked out at the Croft, we’ve
chilled out at The Folk House. We’ve put on some great acts and you might possibly, if
we are drunk and you really push us, say that we’ve booked the one (but not two) duff
act. But now, after the thrills of promoting for the first time have died away, we’re looking
for a new musical adventure. How fortunate then that it happens to be our Music Editor’s
birthday (he’ll be 23) this October. Decode will be putting on a Free Gig in a badly kept
secret location featuring our favourite bands from the past 12 months. It will be
absolutely ace! Keep you eyes peeled to the forum on www.decodepublishing.com for
details. For those not on the Web we’ll be kind though and announce that Decode:
(Really) Unplugged will be taking place at Bar Unlimited, on Bristol’s Gloucester Road,
on Thursday 21st October. Featuring the innovative and exciting talents of Whale Bone
Polly and Max Milton, with more acts to be confirmed, this will be completely Unplugged.
Really. Well, we wanted to do something a bit challenging, a bit different. No PA. No
amplification; just raw sound. So come to listen, not chat – otherwise you will be hushed
into silence. www.decodepublishing.com/interact
DECODE 16. ‘BLACK & WHITE’
OUT NOV.