Ray Lowry 1944 - 2008

It would seem that they are dropping like flies... Gideon Baws, Levi Stubbs, Dolemite... and now, The Clash's official "war artist" Ray Lowry has sadly shuffled off this mortal coil.

It was Ray who had the idea to use Pennie Smith's photo of Simonon smashing up his bass for the cover of 'London Calling', as she apparently thought it too grainy to blow up. Anyway, if you don't own it, you should. Or at least listen to it.

A tribute to Ray and his work can be read here.

Blatant Self Promotion

So... we made a video.

Typically, it didn't go entirely to plan, but we all had a good time making it.

We (The Iron Wagon media conglomerate and Dave Lynch of Nicely Sliced) managed to rope in Doug McLaughlan from Gentlemen's Pistols & A Third Foot and local rotter Avid for the stunts, and even the mighty Snoz rocked up for a bit of a session...

The video is for "Lovers Pass", the first single from The Old Romantic Killer Band's debut album 'The Swan With Two Necks' due out later this year on Bad Sneakers.

The tune is available by download only from iTunes from November 10, but if you check out the band's MySpace or the Bad Sneakers site you may be able to get hold of it for free...




For those of you sick of the fuzziness of YouTube, a Quicktime movie of the vid can be viewed here.

Genius Alert

Jonathan Glazer, all-round visual genius, showed this video of his parents' opinion of his work at last week's MVAs where he was given the Icon Award by none other than his former client and uber-scenester James Lavelle.

Gideon Baws 1975 - 2008

It is with considerable sadness that we learn of the untimely death of Gideon Baws, one of the highly talented animation collective Shynola.

Most of you will have seen a Shynola project, be it one of their early videos for Mo'Wax, adverts for Orange, a barrelload of promo work for Radiohead's Kid A, the title sequence for Channel 4's The IT Crowd or their animations for Garth Jennings' recent adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

A tribute to Gideon by his friend David O'Reilly can be read here, and an interview with Gideon and Richard "Kenny" Kenworthy from 2004 can be heard here.

As our own tribute to Gideon's work, we would like to post this, possibly their finest promo, the video for Lambchop's 'Is A Woman':

New Video! FLEET FOXES - He Doesn't Know Why

Fleet Foxes are everyones favourite and even my mum digs them, but who cares? they are awesome and deserve more coverage than a Sarah Palin nudie flick, any way here it is (the Fleet Foxes video not the Sarah Palin video).



Fleet Foxes Myspace

Holy Mixtape, Batman!

Continuing our occasional series of posts relating to the internet mixtape phenomenon, and following on from "The Dark Knight" smashing the shit out of box office records this summer, here's one for all the comic geeks out there: Batman: The Animated Album courtesy of mashup wizard Blame The Kid.

Featuring dialogue and music samples from the rather good Batman:The Animated Series, this whole thing reminds of me of my teenage love of the Nelson Riddle Orchestra's soundtrack to the 1966 TV series, and even Prince's misfire of a soundtrack to the Tim Burton movie.

Anyway, go and download the mixtape. It's free, and you can always delete it if you don't like it.

I shall leave you with a demonstration of how to correctly perform the Batusi:

Romain Gavras presents: JUSTICE: ACROSS THE UNIVERSE

Romain Gavras is the paris born and son of famous Greek film maker Costa Gavras, he is also a film maker in his own right. He recently came to our knowledge after producing DJ Mehdi's Signatune video, then caused some friction with his Stress video made for Justice, which depcited inner city youth battering the crap of of tourists and busy bodies. He is now working on a live/tour documentary with So Me (Art director and video producer of Ed Banger stardom) and Xavier De Rosnay & Gaspard Auge (Justice), which will be released to coincide with their forthcoming tour which hits towns and cities in two weeks time, starting with a night at Makuhari Messe in Tokyo and ending four weeks later in Amsterdam. I can't comment on any of the footage in the DVD as I obviously haven't seen it yet, but I've located the trailer below for your perusal and subsequent enjoyment.

Tour Poster



Trailer...