Spring Clean, Summer Upgrades and Some New Music
Posted by David | Filed under Music, News, Web
Summer is in the air, the ironic melodic synth pop of The Magnetic Fields‘ appropriately titled album Holiday is on the jukebox album and shanx.co.uk is upgraded with a new look.
The summer weather and Norway’s “Light at Night” at 1 in the morning allowed for some outdoor low-fi (because we know no other way) music with Stefan as part of our “David and Me” project. It was a beautiful evening – “one for the mind and not to be recorded” as a wise man once said. We were visited by a curious beaver, some deer, jumping fish, a skunk (we think) and passers by.
Musically speaking for “David and Me”, melody and simplicity take precedence with bedroom noises from melodicas, ukuleles, glockenspiels and rhythm eggs also making appearances. Magnetic fields and Herman Dune are strong influences. Mostly though, the driving force is some sort of ode to our favourite, sadly departed all-too-young St.Thomas. We hope summer will be kind and give us some recordings of our songs to put out. For now, some roughness (we like roughness!)
Didn’t It Make You Sad When You Sulked?
- The Willow Tree -
While on the music front, Billy Spring Band have been busy in the studio recording rough demos for a full 8 or so songs. We have quite a mixture of songs now ranging from a “skrangly” Neil Young rock sound to a smooth jazzy tune all the way to a waltz! Check back here in the upcoming weeks for some rough demos. BSB now have, in addition to our Myspace, an online home with the kind collective of bands @ Snotpope with whom we share practice rooms, studio and equipment. Find it by clicking my banner design below.
Digitally, I’ve been particularly impressed with Wordpress 2.8 publishing platform’s features that make running a blog a LOT easier and much more intuitive. Plugins, themes and widgets can all now be installed and activated directly through the Wordpress Online Site Admin interface. The sidebar widget housing your e.g. Twitter, Flickr and Last.fm feeds can be adjusted seamlessly using drag and drop thanks to AJAX. Gone also are the cumbersome days of downloading your plugins/upgrades as zip files, unpacking them and uploading them via FTP. One standout plugin is the Wordpress InstantUpgrade plugin by Zirona. Once set up, Wordpress is upgradable in one click – no more worries about file permissions or overwriting important files.
Watch this space for more music from David and Me and BSB. And, above all, god sommer!
Tags: Billy Spring Band, David and Me, InstantUpgrade, Music, Outdoor Music, Summer, Upgrade, Wordpress
Fun with your own word clouds
Posted by David | Filed under Web, e-Learning
Wordle.net allows you to easily create word clouds based on any blogs or texts of your liking – just paste in some relevant text, let the wordle engine do its magic and then tweak the look to your heart’s content. Lots of possibilities for this in presentations, design and art based projects.
Tags: clouds, Web, word clouds, wordle, wordle.net
Billy Spring Band: on Myspace and Demo in the mix
Posted by David | Filed under Music, Personal
Billy Spring Band and we are now active on Myspace! Have a listen and become our friend @ www.myspace.com/billyspringband
We are currently finishing up a 2 song demo that we will be giving away very soon. Just get in touch for a copy and Ill be happy to send you one. The sound is in and around the indie rock/country genres. Possibly somewhere between Neil Young and Bonnie Prince Billy with some special female vocals in there. The 2 demo songs are definitely on our rockier, less laid back side. I play guitar on the tracks and have designed the demo’s artwork. Let us know what you think.
Tags: Artwork, Billy Spring Band, Demo, Myspace
Picasa Web Albums test run
Posted by David | Filed under Web
Title says it all I think. Miscellaneous gallery of inspirations.
Tags: atalante, bande a part, chris marker, godard, inspirations, Picasa, pierrot, webalbums
Tentative Step Into Tees
Posted by David | Filed under Artwork, My stuff
Here are a couple t-shirts with my designs you can purchase online in various sizes (click the shirts for access to my webshop courtesy of the excellent www.spreadshirt.net)
design front, text back
Tags: clothes, design, graphic design, line drawings, shirt, t-shirts
More drawings and more thanks
Posted by David | Filed under Artwork, Drawing, Links, My stuff, News
Firstly a big thanks to everyone who came along to my exhibition in Godt Brød and who gave me feedback.
As those pictures and drawings come down, I’ve put up 12 new line drawings up on flickr. The drawings date from the end of summer to yesterday evening and the themes are somewhat disparate rannging from Kissing to Kerouac to Cancer Research to Leonard Cohen to Ikea and The Dance. You can also browse my pics using this very nice flash gallery by airtightinteractive.
They Said Repent Repent
Beauty And Comfort In A Twisted Logic
Yet When He Called Out Not Even An Echo Replied
Tags: B&W, Cancer Research, concepts, Exhibition, Ikea, Kerouac, Kissing, line drawings, Loenard Cohen, new drawings, The Dance, Themes
A Sunday Evening Ditty – Reaction to…
Posted by David | Filed under Artwork, Music
“Reaction to the things that have recently come before”
click play below to listen
A short, first-takes, Sunday-evening song
mp3 download
Tags: David Shanks, download, free, mp3, Music, postrock, reaction, Reaction to the things that have recently come before, song
Godt Brød Exhibition
Posted by David | Filed under Artwork, Drawing, News, Personal, Photography, Uncategorized, Writings
Facebook event link
Info/Price List
As of today I have a selection of my pictures and drawings on display in Godt Brød ecological bakery/café, Trondheim.
Godt Brød Trondheim
Thomas Angells gate 16
7011 Trondheim
73 53 61 40
Click here for a map
Opening hours are 8am-6pm everyday except Sunday.
It’s an excellent bakery/café right in the city centre so please drop in, have something to eat, take a look around and leave a note in the guestbook!
The exhibition is a mix of things old and new. On display are my previous black & white photographs from France and Scotland, a more recent surreal/dark series on loneliness and solitude and also a few of my line drawings that are fresh off the press.You can also look at/buy postcards and my collection book Times Beyond the Tree.
You can browse my photos and drawings here
If you are interested in buying any photos/drawings/prints just get in touch for a price and details on size and framing: davidmichaelshanks@gmail.com
Thanks,
David
Tags: David Shanks, Drawings, Exhibition, Photography, Photos, Pictures, Trondheim
More going on over there
Posted by David | Filed under Artwork, Drawing
emotional eviction, originally uploaded by David Shanks.
More recent line drawings and photos from Cuba are now available over on my flickr page
Tags: art, black and white, David Shanks, Drawings, line drawings, Pictures
Revivalist Music
Posted by David | Filed under Music, My stuff, Video
I found some videos of my old band Barefoot from Glasgow . Head over to the my music section to check them out. You can also find more Barefoot songs at our Myspace
Tags: band, Barefoot, glasgow, Music, punk, revivalist music, scotland, scottish punk, Video
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