Old Yeller

I dunno. It made sense at the time.

While I'm still keen to steer the musically-inclined amongst you toward my latest album The Birdcage with the toothy, glistening grin of a huckster shilling snake-oil, this week I dug out an older track from way back in '07 and gave it a bit of spit'n'polish. This is from an album of electro-cheese I wrote for some friends who helped with the production. At the time they were popping up as DJ troupe The Labrys Trio playing the various gay bars of New South Wales and wanted some original material to throw into their sets. The overall album, released as The Labrys Quartet (I was their 'honorary fourth lesbian') came out a bit patchy if I'm honest but there were enough nice bits to justify an eventual reissue down the line. This one I quite like for being so uncharacteristically DnB compared to most of my other stuff. One big lament is the choice of title/lyrics - had I but known how hideously overplayed the phrase 'Keep Calm and Carry On' would have become I'd have gone another way. Hindsight, 20/20, etc. As she often did with the early Struwwelpeter albums, my old pal Alison weighed in on the drum programming side of things with this one. Listen below or keep for keepsies, 'cause I'm kindness personified. On the subject of old, shoutey songs I also recently threw up a remastered version of the very first track from the very first Struwwelpeter LP, originally recorded way back in 2003. Juxtaposed against the general mellowness of The Birdcage it seems I had a lot more Red Bull in me back then. I'm off to spend a mellow weekend away with no distractions save for the new Palahniuk, but to leave you all with a literature recommendation of my own (not Throat, for a change) have a read of my review of experimental filmmaker Steven Woloshen's Scratch, Crackle and Pop, a very enjoyable read that made an area of filmmaking I had little frame of reference for very accessible and appealing:

The "What the hell happened to October?" Blog Post

Despite my semi-regular declarations of being snowed-under with life, work and other fabricated commitments, it's actually quite rare to let over an entire month go by without forcing my inanities on the blogosphere. Things have kicked into gear in an amazing and, at times, slightly terrifying way and my time is rarely my own. Probably for the best as when I have free reign over my own time I tend to use it playing emulated SNES Lemmings while eating dry cornflakes from the box. I'm not even talking name brand here, folks; I'm talking ASDA's own. Eeyup.
All in all, life is good. Faith No More are plugging away in the studio and Twin Peaks is coming back, so those two alone should give me a will to live at least through 2016. Work-wise I'm back in the bits and pieces world of animation freelancing alongside the now quite full-on Project Group Hug (it's a book, by the way, though I doubt there was any lingering mystery as it's been up on my LinkedIn for a while now).

Whilst researching for this film I lived with The Stig for eleven months

This follows a quite long contract with the fabulous folks at Slurpy Studios doing a series of educational videos for Oxford University Press. It wrapped up in September and you can have a look at a couple of the vids I worked on at the Activate Kerboodle site.
Skwigly is still maintaining its stride with some great coverage up since I last posted. New articles include reviews of Signe Baumane's wonderful Rocks In My Pockets (which I'm delighted to see is performing brilliantly) and Floyd Norman's quasi-autobiographical animation handbook Animated Life.

Interview-wise there are new chats with Canadian NFB directorial duo Nicola Lemay and Janice Nadeau (No Fish Where To Go) as well as Australian animator Anthony Lawrence (Grace Under Water), both of whose films were screened as part of this year's London International Animation Festival which I was able to swing by. Another NFB film which premiered in the UK recently was Seth's Dominion, a brilliant feature documentary on Canadian cartoonist Seth directed by Luc Chamberland (interview here).

Also worth catching up on are the latest episodes of Lightbox, with J.G. Quintel (Regular Show), Mikey Please (Marilyn Myller) and Dan Ojari (Slow Derek) of Parabella Studios and experimental, drawn-on-film artist Steven Woloshen (1000 Plateaus). 

October's podcast has a fabulous line-up also: Animator Craig Smith interviews Tonko House (who made the amazing Dam Keeper), Julia talks to Jorge R. Gutiérrez (director of Reel FX's The Book of Life) and I chat with artist Lisa Hanawalt, designer on Bojack Horseman, a show I have to say I'm quite tickled by.

All the usual listening options are here for you, folks. Stream below, download for keepsies or subscribe, whydoncha?
This marks the twenty-fifth episode to date (not even including the various specials and minisodes) and I have to say the continuing support and feedback over the years has been amazing, so thanks so much to all for keeping us going. From my perspective there's no danger of it slowing down soon, so here's to twenty-five more!

Gawd 'elp us...