Author Archives: John Kerridge

About John Kerridge

I have a camera, drink tea and trip on untied shoe laces.

Sell Yourself

Each year, Ofcom the UK’s telecom watchdog publish a report on the state of the international communications market. The report includes data from countries including the US, UK, France, Germany, and Japan. In the latest edition, it says that 39% of Americans agree or strongly agree with the statement “I am happy to provide personal information online to companies as long as I get what I want” the highest of the nine countries sampled. While 70% of respondents either agreed or were indifferent to the commercial use of their personal information in return for free services.

Karl Lokko – Urine Village

1 Reply

I first met Karl almost eight years ago in Brixton, London. He is quite an imposing person given I stand 6ft, and he still towers over me like a giant from Han Christian Anderson fairy tale. As with many Black kids growing up within our inner cities, Karl had tough choices to make and dangerous lessons to learn. The first day we cast eyes on one another I was in my local government uniform and tie he was wearing a bulletproof vest. He talked rapidly about the life he was leading, the inspirational pastor who was helping him to rebuild his life, his dreams, his aspiration. He was young, but already time was catching up with him. Over the years he stumbled but resisted a return to the life he once led. Today Karl is a husband, poet, activist, influencer, and incredible human being who I am proud to call a friend. This is Karl’s first release of his poetry online. If you want to know more about Karl then click here.

Today I stumbled upon Hope Sandoval

Leave a reply

Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions (click here) latest album Until the Hunter (November 2016) is an evocative and beautiful landscape of lullabies. Track 4 on the album is entitled Let Me Get There and features the wonderful Kurt Vile in a duo.

Sandoval started her musical career with a friend (Sylvia Gomez) in a folk duo called Going Home in 1986 and would later form Mazzy Star with David Roback and release three albums in the 1990s. Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions have also released Bavarian Fruit Bread in 2001 and Through The Devil Softly in 2009. Sandoval also featured on the Massive Attack track Paradise Circus from the 2010 Heligoland album.

Even while we understand they’re inanimate objects, when mutated, manipulated, or uncannily accurate mannequins have tremendous power to attract and repel.

Goodnight Express

Leave a reply

A free newspaper is thrust into my midriff. Most people simply walk past the young man distributing them. He is hardly captivating, wearing headphones, comatose in a faraway land, going through the routine. Above the announcements Waterloo Station is a cold place at the best of times. I take the paper and without looking I make my way to the bottom of the steps. I glance at it. Noticing copies are bundled on the adjacent wall, burgeoning out of refuge bins, littering the immediate pathways.

The New Musical Express (NME) was once an important and valued commodity. In fact, alongside John Peel’s radio programme, Sounds and Melody Maker, the NME was a crucial source of information on band tours, interviews, the latest record releases. I make my way to Jubilee Gardens, under the shadow of the London Eye, sit and flick through its pages. It takes about 2 minutes to glance through the photographs with bubble quotes and advertisements. The images are shiny, precise and sterile. I am old and everything is well and truly in its place.

Its 15,000 labelled trees (2,500+ different species) come from Britain, China, North America, Japan, Chile and other temperate climates. The planting at Westonbirt Arboretum started in the 1850s by Robert Holford; the rich Victorian landowner to whom the Westonbirt estate belonged.

A Rainbow’s End

2 Replies

A war to end all wars. To pay the ultimate sacrifice to afford freedom to others. Never forget the price paid when you see the tears flowing and the wretched signs of fear scaring the faces of those trying to escape tyranny and war. The greatness of a country is measured in the remembrance not to turn its back on the reasons why past generations laid down their lives.

Each 12″ plastic figure in a hand-stitched shroud is linked to a fatality on 1st July 1916 using records from the Commonwealth War Commission. 19240 Shrouds of the Somme, College Green, Bristol 11th -18th November 2014. Rob Heard is the artist behind the exhibition, which marks the end of the Battle of the Somme on 18th November 1916. For more information click (here)

Gelatine

2 Replies

This ‘Gelatine’ video tells the reversed story of how gelatine candy is actually produced. Starting from wrapped candy, going all the way back it reveals a detailed and truthful story on daily foods and its origin.

Gelatine is one in a series of reversed stories on food for ‘Over Eten’ (On Food) a tv show focusing on our present knowledge about food, produced by the news department of flemish public broadcaster VRT, Belgium made by Alina Kneepkens who is a freelance director and reporter (click here).

Today I Stumbled Upon: Something Calm

Leave a reply

Three record labels each with a roster of artists able to ease you into the darker nights of Autumn and the first signs of winter. Clicking on the headings below will take you to the main website for each of the record labels where you will be able to access the full catalogues on offer. Predominantly you will find a crossover of ambient, electronic and classic styles. Sit back, put on some headphones and enjoy.

Serein

The name Serein was taken from a meteorological dictionary, it is used to describe ‘fine rain falling from a clear sky after sunset’. Located in Wales, Serein features artists from across the world. I came across Serein whilst slumming in my sick bed recently and immediately fell in love with their spectrum of sounds. The label provides an archive of free downloads, which can be accessed by clicking here.

Erased Tapes

Erased Tapes Records is a London based independent record label focusing on releasing avant-garde music which is widely regarded as very diverse in genres and styles. The record company was established in early 2007

Unperceived Records

UP is an independent record label founded by german based composer Hannes Kretzer. Like everyone UP love treasures and that’s what you might find here. The label aims to support freshly hatched artists, grow with them and give more people the opportunity to explore their music.

Over five days Worthy Farm is a venue where 170,000 people enjoy music, comedy, theatre, circus, cabaret, and other performing arts, but for the remaining 350 days it is a place of work. We conveniently forget this when leaving Glastonbury Festival considering the 500,000+ sacks of rubbish and the large assortment of camping gear carelessly abandoned by party goers. I wanted to capture a selection of photographs of when the land is at peace, as well as hunting down any telltale signs of the festival. There is something tranquil, but equally strange when walking around the site at this time. Instead of the loud music, smells of food cooking and the bustling crowds, you only have the noise of nature to interrupt your thoughts. When the music’s over, maybe we should all give a little bit more thought about the remaining 350 days of the year and leave no trace. I hope you enjoy the photographs.