That’s Life! / A day of duplicating and frolicking! (Good Press from 30/04/2016)

In September 2013 Glasgow's Good Press gallery/art collective presented the A History Of exhibition.  Conceptually sound, it was wonderful, hands-on celebration of cassette culture and music sharing which Not Unloved embraced fully.  Spool forward to 2016 and as part of Glasgow Zine Fest 2016 they're dusting off their high-speed tape duplicator to present That's Life! A day of duplicating and frolicking!.  There's an admirable cast of contributors this time including Roxanne Clifford (isn't her forthcoming Patience single for Night School a POP gem?!), Russell Walker of astute chroniclers of modern life The Pheromoans in the guise of The Teleporters and Good Press's own Jess, Nick and Matthew.  The Glasgow underground is well represented with Sean Armstrong of Spinning Coin/The Yawns, Happy Meals, Rob Churm, Michael Kasparis among many others contributing who knows what.  It's sure to be a blast!  The exhibition runs from 30th April to 19th May. Get involved!

Full details here.

Vital Idles

Scant minutes into the first show by the Good Press Gallery house band, Vital Idles, on Sunday, 24th May 2015 at Glasgow's The Old Hairdressers, I knew they would be a group I would clutch to my heart.  Informed by the sounds of the early 80s DIY revolutions in both the UK and New Zealand, they zipped through a succession of ever more adorable songs.  'The Garden' was a high-point.  Sensibly, someone saw fit to film it:

Jessica, the singer, is a terrific performer prone to bouts of vigorous dancing and insouciant mic use.  Sure, not all the notes she hits are the expected ones, but this ain't opera and sometimes a bit of wrongness makes things right.  Each of the elements of their sound is as it should be: rhythms are thumped out unfussily on a minimal drum setup, the bass is tight and propulsive and the guitars have the immediacy of Buzzcocks or Crystal Stilts.  Manchester-based label Comfortable On A Tightrope has just released a tape of Vital Idles demos.  Get it on bandcamp or from the label.  Oh,and if you've ever wondered how the children of Messthetics might tackle The Smiths, then wonder no more:



Their inauguration into playing live was such a blast that I can't wait to see Vital Idles again. Somebody make it happen, please!

The History Of

As a born evangelist (ok, music bore), I totally embraced the self-compiled tape as a means for spreading the good word about whichever groups I was keen on for most of the 90s.  I really did churn them out!  I received some absolute belters, too.  Lots of those I received through the indiepoplist's (R.I.P) monthly tape swap were incredible.  Having said that, I seldom bought pre-recorded tapes - they never had the allure of vinyl or the convenience of cds - so for me tapes are almost entirely associated with active construction.  I'm sure that's a large part of the reason why I loved Good Press gallery's "The History Of" exhibition/installation so much.  Timed nicely to coincide with the recent Cassette Store Day*, it's a hands-on installation.  You can read about and listen to a selection of tapes "compiled and created by a selection of artists, musicians, record labels and other practitioners who have an invested interest in music" on deliciously antiquated tape recorders and then, if it takes your fancy, pay 2 quid per tape and duplicate you own copy of those which piqued your interest on a high-speed duplicating machine.  You get to fold the little (pre-scored - great attention to detail!) inlay cards, too.  I chose to duplicate cassettes compiled by Monorail's Dep Downie (a history of Mike Watt in 20 bands/projects), illustrator/lecturer/publisher Marc Baines (a history of the fabulous Vesuvius Records which he co-ran in the 90s and which, in its time, produced some beautifully packaged cassettes) and Portland, Oregon's excellent M'Lady's Records.  "The History Of" runs until October 6th and if you ever excitedly made a mixtape to change a friend's life, you'll love it. Who knows, you might find yourself rushing home, retrieving those dusty shoeboxes full of tapes from the loft and looking back fondly on your own history of making tapes.  Well done to the Good Press team for such a brilliantly conceived and wonderfully executed installation.

* Sure some folks scoffed about CSD but I had a great time at Monorail listening to Cheer's gentle guitar atmospherics with good friends and buying "Summer Rain" by The Pastels and a tape of album demos on Suplex Cassettes by The Proper Ornaments.