Its been a busy period for me as of late so i’ve not had much time to write about my fav things which notably seem to include alot of theatre and assorted bits and pieces.  Joelocal is a directory site based in Australia that provides services to small and medium businesses looking for more work.  It helps to match up everyday folk looking for trades and services in their local area with the guys that actually do the work.  The listings are ordered to give the user the closest and best reviewed companies at the top of the page.  Listings can include details such as emails, photos, abns, logos and more so the customer knows the kind of services they are going to be getting before calling the company up to get a quote.  The large majority of the businesses who list on joelocal tend to be small single business owners looking to find new ways to connect with their local audience.  Gary, a locksmith from balmain has been using the site for over a year now and has increased his business turnover by an additional 200%, he’s now looking to take on additional staff and keep growing his business further over the coming years.

Just wanted to mention the programme of events happening up at the Pro Cathedral in Clifton at the moment. Created by Artspace Lifespace, who we share the Old Police Station with, the space is quite literally stunning. It’s amazing that these buildings exist hidden away here and there around the city. This old cathedral has been stripped back by Artspace Lifespace who spent weeks gutting the building and making it ready to hold a series of weird and wonderful events. I went along to see Haxaan, the 1920s film about witchcraft, with a new, live score by Bronnt Industries Kapital. I’ve been thinking about the film ever since – very eerie watching a film about satan, witchcraft and people being burnt in hell in a church! It’s certainly very impressive up there – and a welcome addition to the arts scene in Bristol. We seem to spend a lot of time talking and not enough time doing in this city. It doesn’t have the same get-up-and-go as our northern counterparts, and none of the eclectic anything-goes of London. Bristol needs people like ASLS to start making bold moves – I think sometimes broad brush strokes is better than careful consideration. Who cares if some of the output ends up being crap? At least some people are putting stuff out there…

I’m having quite a nice day to be honest. I’m sitting in the Wellcome Collection Cafe in London, getting some stuff done.

Over the past few weeks, the nice thing about working in London for four days a week has been making the trip back to Bristol at the weekends (well, not actually making the trip, I’m not that fond of the First Great Western trains with no wifi and loads of people eating Burger Kings all the way to Weston Super Mare). I get back to Bristol and feel like I can breathe a bit. I get to see the puppy. I can walk up the hill at the back of my house and feel like I’m not in a city any more. But mostly, recently, I’ve got home and locked myself indoors for two days before heading back to the Big Smoke on Sunday afternoons.

But this week, I’m sticking around. Tonight I’m off to see a work-in-progress showing of Autobiographer, Melanie Wilson’s new show at the Roundhouse, and tomorrow I’m off to BAC to get square eyes and watch the whole of Twin Peaks back-to-back. It starts on Saturday morning and runs all the way to Sunday evening. Jesus.

And last night, last night I saw The Song, the new Rosas show at Sadler’s Wells. I’ve never seen that company before. In fact, I’m a bit of a late-starter when it comes to dance. I absolutely fucking loved this show however. Performed, for most of the show, in complete silence, but with The White Album somehow present in the room throughout, occasionally bubbling up at points with an exquisite and beautiful version of Rocky Raccoon, and a casual, throwaway Blackbird (complete with tweety tweets from the rest of the performers), it was, for me, completely unpretentious and there. It was like having everything smoothed out in front of you. Like a calm room. Clean sheets. Effortlessly cool.

Apparently it wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea though. Quite a few walk-outs, including one man who said ‘I SIMPLY CANNOT BEAR ANOTHER MINUTE OF THIS’ as he left, which was quite hilarious. And The Guardian gave it a bit of a bum review. But it just did something for me. Not even sure what yet. Just something.

Letter from Mark and Sarah at Theatre Somerset…

Dear Colleagues

We have heard today that Somerset County Council’s Cabinet will be meeting on Monday 1 November to discuss a budget proposal to stop all funding for the Arts in Somerset as from 2011/12. Decisions will be ratified at a full council meeting on the 10th November.

We want as many people as possible, not just those of us working in the arts, to be aware of this. As the information has only just be announced, no formal campaign strategy has been devised yet. And there’s not much time. In the first instance, we suggest the following:

Encourage people to attend the meeting on Monday 1st November at 10am at The Taunton Conference Centre on the Somerset College Campus, Taunton – artists, practitioners, supporters, audiences, participants – as many as possible. Those that can’t get in can mill around outside prior to 10am – maybe convene at 9.15am or earlier with banners, flags, stilt-walking etc. as councillors arrive. Having a big presence is crucial. Parking isn’t good so be prepared – please see attached information. We will try to let you know as soon as we can if something is organised – where to meet, what time etc
Questions can be asked by the public at the beginning of the meeting. There is a protocol for asking questions – requests have to be made in advance of the day – please see attached information. This is key.
Contact SCC Conservative cabinet members – the revised list of 6 is below – before the meeting. Write to them, email them, phone them. Their contact details are attached.
Contact other conservative politicians in the same way, there are 30 or so: their details are on the SCC website. Don’t just rely on email.
Come up with your own key messages from your own perspectives to illustrate the benefits of arts funding – maybe suggest that we don’t mind the arts budget taking a hit, but a 100% cut is throwing the baby out with the bathwater
Put the news on your websites, facebook, twitter etc etc – rally as much support as you can.

We are living in unprecedented times and urgent action is required. We’ll let you know any more information when we can.

Regards

Mark & Sarah
Mark Helyar & Sarah Peterkin
Theatre Co-Directors, Take Art: Theatre
01460 249450
www.theatresomerset.net

Cabinet members:

David Hall
David Huxtable
Christine Lawrence
Ken Maddock
John Osman
Harvey Siggs

That’s quite a long title. Those are the two things I’m doing on Friday night. 1927 are at the Tobacco Factory this week with Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, which I haven’t seen, but by all accounts is rather smashing, so I’m off on Friday. And then after that, it’s the Arctic Circle single launch. Here are the details: Qu Junktions presents Arctic Circle + Munch Munch with Katapulto + Illegal Seagull DJs at Bristol County Sports Club Fri 10th Oct 2008 / 7.30pm / £6 adv from Bristol ticket shop, Here Shop, 20th century flicks/ £7 on door This is a show of pleasures rad, rare, guilty and racy. Arctic Circle do it in a big but humble/jumble blaze of glory. They refresh the spirit with their cultish brand of DIY. They helped put the night together to celebrate the release of their new 7-incher out on Stitch Stitch records, a double A-side featuring ‘Prancing Pearl’ and ‘Mothers Ruin’ – both typically upbeat AC tracks. Munch Munch mess with songs in a delicious twin drum, freeform way. They have been touring mad this summer, proving a hit at indie, dance, prank and part nights. Take stock. Katapulto proves that off kilter keyboards are central to this night – he is singular madcap fun. Eccentronica indeed. Illegal Seagull bind it all together or just let it all hang out.

So – my previous post was a tad premature…  The website is now live, and you can look at some nice things about HighTide. Perhaps the most important of these nice things is the call for artists, which we’re trying to get out to as many people as possible…  Click here to find out how you, if you’re an artist that is, can be involved in 2008′s festival.  This is a great offer I think – particularly those of you how make devised theatre – it’s basically a £3000 commission to make a show for the festival, which is quite rare in the devised theatre world!  Anyway, it’s all on the HighTide website, so have a peek to find out more. I’m sat in Watershed with a nice beer, some nachos and I’m about to go and see Goat Island at Arnolfini. And I’ve just finished a day of Special Guests rehearsals.  I like days like this.

So, it’d Friday. It’s October and you can see your breath outside. Battles happened. Wednesday night at Trinity – pretty damn good. These are the things that are happening: I’m listening to Radiohead’s new album In Rainbows. Read the reviews here. Make up your own mind. I love it. I’m also listening to The Beta Band’s old stuff, Fiercy Furnaces, the DFA dub mix of The Rapture’s Sister Saviour and The Sea and Cake. All thrown up by last.fm over the past couple of days. The HighTide 2008 website launches today. Check out www.hightidefestival.org to find out about what’s happening at next year’s festival and watch a rather natty two minute promo vid. Also this week, and slightly randomly, so forgive the tangent, I had a sneak preview of the new Stella Artois website… So we’re all familiar with their adverts – big budget, shot like a film etc etc. Well, this website is pretty bloody good. You can watch all the old commercials, play some rather impressively-made games/challenges, and the whole thing feels very carefully considered. I reckon that us lot in the arts could learn a thing or two from his. Everyone’s always going on about viral marketing and how important it is etc etc, well this site is interactive to a tee and encourages you to ‘pass it on’ every step of the way. People like the National Theatre are edging towards doing some interesting stuff with e-flyers and short quick-time movies, but this Stella Artois stuff is in a different league. I guess it all comes down to budgets – but in my mind, if us arts marketeers just lopped a bit of our print/direct mail budget (who reads letters nowadays?!) and put it into making our e-marketing just a little bit more snazzy we’d certainly see the returns. Blimey, I sound like I work for AMA. Seriously though, I attended a South West Arts Marketing conference earlier this year on E-Marketing and it’s absolutely shifted how I approach marketing live events now. (As I write, emails from Facebook keep popping into my inbox from the Cube Cinema inviting me to events… all at no cost to them!) Last thing is that I’ve been working on a very basic holding site for Mayfest 2008 using WordPress. You can view it here, and very soon it’ll be configured to the domain www.mayfestbristol.co.uk. It’s going to have info on this year’s festival and an archive of previous festivals (seeing as Bristol Old Vic have wiped all evidence of live performance from their website). Check it out.

So – my previous post was a tad premature… The website is now live, and you can look at some nice things about HighTide. Perhaps the most important of these nice things is the call for artists, which we’re trying to get out to as many people as possible… Click here to find out how you, if you’re an artist that is, can be involved in 2008′s festival. This is a great offer I think – particularly those of you how make devised theatre – it’s basically a £3000 commission to make a show for the festival, which is quite rare in the devised theatre world! Anyway, it’s all on the HighTide website, so have a peek to find out more. I’m sat in Watershed with a nice beer, some nachos and I’m about to go and see Goat Island at Arnolfini. And I’ve just finished a day of Special Guests rehearsals. I like days like this.

I’ll be hanging out at Bristol Old Vic for quite a lot of this week watching new scratch/work-in-progress showings of some shows. It’s the first incarnation of the theatre’s new development programme. If you’re up to speed with the various artists making work in and around Bristol at the moment, you’ll recognise many of the names. Go here to see the full programme. They’ve done some lovely leaflets too, courtesy of Document. Check it out…

I went to the third Queer Cafe event at Kebele Cafe in Easton, Bristol last night. It was a very vegan affair. It after all, a vegan cafe, but I must admit I can’t really deal with soya milk in a cup of tea, perhaps it’s the Yorkshireman in me. I hadn’t been to one of these events before, and after those initial toe-curling minutes when you don’t know anyone, it soon loosened up. We watched a rather good documentary called Boy I Am, which is about American trans female to males. I don’t really know that much abot the trans community, but I thought this was fascinating, particularly the view that the option to ‘go trans’ has meant that there is a whole generation who are growing up rejecting butch as a way of life – that somehow that’s not enough anymore, which maybe for some it isn’t. One of the most interesting moments is when a friend of the F to M people was interviewed and she spoke of her initial anger that her friend was deserting feminism, lesbianism (as a cultural movement) and womanhood – that it almost felt like she was giving up, throwing in the towel. There were some really lucid, articulate F to M people talking about their experience of their body when they were growing up and the lengths they had to go to to try and fathom what or who they were. *** This weekend: Tim Etchells reading from his new book at Arnolfini, followed by a performance of Etchells’ Sight is the Sense that Dying People Tend to Lose First, performed by Jim Fletcher of New York City Players and Elevator Repair Service. Also: putting up shelves, house work, a walk, some wine, some nice food.