LAST EVER TRIPTYCH MUSIC FESTIVAL!!!

Self promo poster that MOST of west end Glasgow cool places wanted, bar one guy in a cool pub on great western road that didn't. Even though it was for a 2 day amazing event!



And this one's just a throwback from the last couple of weeks - there is no, I repeat NO special effects - that slug's crazy slime trail is all it's own.

Peace and Craziness

Jenny xx

Liz Lochhead's Educating Agnes, and drawing in Buchanan Street with a fat Soya Chai Tea Latte

Oh the sheer extravegance!
Money's tight and here I was eating the most scrummiest blueberry muffin and drinking the biggest chai tea latte in a Goliath Mug, like I had enough money for squandering! I'm such a wannabee. And to do it at the corporate monster of Starbucks, well...I'm a sucker too.

So I drew. Beautiful Glasgow Night. Feels like Summer is coming.

Was drawing Liz Lochhead's show 'Educating Agnes' earlier in the afternoon, without my Mighty Bright, which was a tad Mighty Tricky.
Hope to go tomorrow with more light for drawing. Will see if I have time.

Tomorrow is my 'Get Organised for Triptych Festival' day. Prints to make, Profile's to write, Print Order Forms to write, Picture Titles, Drawing Plan, Transport for framed pictures from house to venue to organise, Buy Hanging Materials, buy new trousers since 2 other pairs are WAY more holier than thou - that's for sure! And a meeting in the morning for Tchai Ovna where I've gone and got myself a 'part time' job. Looking forward to the structure, routine, creative people, music and good tea. Mmmmm! I miss those days in the Tea Houses of Taiwan!

Incidentally, Liz's show looks and sounds great. It's directed by Graham, and the stage design incorporates an expensive MASSIVE print of raw sexual tension by Robin. Go see it. 'Open Up The Gods'!

Edwyn Collins, A thieving Varmint, and the Cut Off Your Hands

Edwyn Collins and his Troupe, Oran Mor, 22 April 2008


Cut Off Your Hands (You Theiving Varmints!) Oran Mor, 22 April 2008

Wow, what a night. Was hoping Edwyn's gig would be upstairs in Oran Mor so that I could finally check out Alasdair Grey's mural/ceiling paintings, so was greatly pleased and impressed!! Apparently they're 20 years away from getting finished and Alasdair reckon's he'll never see the day. I met a lass called Joni the other night in the Rio Cafe who know's Alasdair and told me how he got a bunch of art students to do a lot of it - 'well, he's an old chappie, and climbing up that scaffolding with his asthma!!'

Anyhoo, Ben (my bro) was doing a very good job PR ing for EMI and got some free tickets for Edwyn's gig. I will admit, I was very excited to know that Edwyn was playing and felt he's one of the Scottish heroes of contemporary music that I should definitely draw. I love the music of his that I've heard, and I once heard an interview about him a wee while ago, stating how their music was so raw and unslick and that was the beauty of it. And tonight was no exception. He might have some paralysis down one side, but he's a damn fine trouper and got into it with the best of them. Some jiving tunes and Roddy Frame of Aztec Camera fame on the base was pure dead braw. The keyboardist Sean was a jolly nice chap who I found plays with other bands too like the Manics and Beth Orton (Woohoo! She's a star!) Anyway, straying from the story here.

The lighting was great; a lovely clash of electric blue and 'district' Red, though don't know which was the building itself or the lighting engineers magic. Great atmosphere though. It's 2.54 in the morning just now, and I've just cycled back from Partick after walking there from the Oran Mor. But again, that's another story.

Most adrenalin induced part of the night thought - people kept asking if I was selling my pictures, and I said I'd sell prints. Then some guy actually stole one of my pics, went away with it, sort of shuffled back to see what else he could take and shuffled away again - I'd made some friends in the audience and one of them came up to me to see if I knew what he'd done, and I claimed I'd no idea what he was thinking by taking it and buggering off. He clearly had no intention of returning it so the nice girl went off to try and get it back, me following.

He wasn't giving it back. 'Please give me my drawing back' 'Haw, Ayyyyyeee.' 'No really, please, give me my drawing' 'Naw way, ther's a hole bunch on the stage go and get yer ain''But their my drawings! Please, give it back!' I'm shaking at this point and have stopped trying to get my drawing out of his sweaty grip as it's just going to rip (cue Edwyn's song 'Rip it Up and Start Again....)- Ben goes to get security who manage (I don't know how) to get the picture off him. I say I'll give him a print - ah, that's how I got it from him! and he reluctantly loosens his grip, but then get's angry again and says 'Aye, I don't believe you'.


At this point the security shuffle him out claiming he's had too much to drink. The man was about 50/60 odd, a little overweight, sweaty, and well, desperate to have my drawing! But it was my best one and if I'm not keeping it, (I actually want to keep it for exhibition purposes) then I was flipping well going to sell it - I need to support myself somehow!!! I really was shaking like a leaf afterwards, more from the fact I thought my picture was going to end up in tatters - thankfully, gessoed Saunders Waterford paper is hardy stuff!!

I've had one of my pictures nicked before - one of my favourite one's from the Dunstaffnage Music Festival - the Vivians. Ben thinks he knows who took it. I'll find her eventually! You'd think, if there's people out there willing to steal my pictures, then they must be good huh? There must be people out there who'd pay appropriate coinage for them? I guess my unwillingness to sell things on the night might kind of scupper the ease of sales...Roll on Triptych!!

Incidentally, I met a lot of lovely people tonight, but one of them Bobby Bluebell, I kept getting his name wrong and called him Blueberry. Ah well.

Going to be drawing the dress rehearsal of Liz Lochhead's 'Educating Agnes' at the Citz tomorrow (later today). Looking forward to that.

Friday 18th April at the Arches - Catching Up

Al Seed - The Fooligan

Al Seed - A Mouth for Telling Stories...

Cabaret Act: 'If You Lived Here You'd Be Home By Now'

The Challenging Theatre of Ann Liv Young

The Mighty Naked, Al Seed, and Andy Arnold finally leaves the building

It's 3am Saturday morning and I've got a bucketload of things to do 'tomorrow'. But it's been 2 weeks of creative, organic, improvised, inspiring bliss bliss bliss.

Don't know if anyone actually reads this blog. But to be on the safe side I try to bleep out the sweary words incase any of my students ever read it. Ay yes, did you know I've been a teacher? And a Drinker, a Smoker and a Joker? Those were the days...

LAST night was great. Andy Arnold, Creative/Artistic Director/unboxable renegade arts wizard was finally getting the 'boot oot' of the Arches, the very place he set up and cultivated 17-ish years ago.

'Wee Hard Man', or 'Norman Wisdom on Speed' as a particular critic Joyce McMillan once titled him, was lauded by friends, contemporaries and peers alike in the tremendous decorated setting of the last arch. A most splendid 'Ciao Dahling' party tripped the light fantastic after an excellent 'Scratch' line up. Andy Arnold; he might be just up the road, but it would appear that he won't be able to be extracted out of the Arches' fibres as easily as the tramps' piss that leaks in most nights.


Tonight - a different night - I was in awe of the theatrical might of Al Seed. Lovely chap without the makeup and fearsome round belly, but in character - WOW! I could draw him for HOURS. Yet, I found it bloody difficult - watching him transport the audience in the spotlit blackness, you could hear a pin drop, and certainly some sketchy wee artist scratching away with her pencils...

And yet after all this excitement, I find myself head back, yawning and touch typing on a grand scale. Probably loads of spelling errors. Nope, just checked. Time for bed young-ish Soep.

Got some Soeperb drawings of Ann Liv Young and her troupe of naked, strap-on toting, mask wearing, body bumping and grinding, bitching and some obscure Frenchish language. Happily drawing away on my big whiteboard of people and memories of the Arches Theatre Festival, which are many, and quality, and good. Getting a 'season' ticket is most definitely worthwhile - it's a bloody great festival, and the initial encounter of the feast of visual and brain slapping delights are enough to get you reaching for the mighty goose feather simply so you can sample the next course of many.

Clash of the Titans: Old Firm, and stories from Iraq

Watching the Old Firm Game from Inside the Glaswegian.

Detail.

'A Fiery Old Firm Clash saw a red card, missed penalty, last gasp winner & ugly scenes at the End'.

This is the quote from Hotmail at 02.22am.

I think I was lucky just to lose my bike light and not my head when I decided I would get my pens and pencils out in a notorious Ranger's pub The Glaswegian. I came in after the kick off, which I'm sure wouldn't have endeered anyone to me. I quaffed 2 bottles of Magners (they didn't have any ginger beer or ale) and I didn't know any of the songs.

I wasn't the only one not singing, but by crikey, it was a much more heated affair than the last Old Firm match I drew in the Brazenhead (notorious Celtic pub). After being treated so nicely there during that weekend afternoon match, I felt like a traitor standing there tonight in that pub. And I don't even bloody support football in any shape or form. But I am Catholic. And that might have mattered...

I did get a load of curious glances and stares and I was just bloody nice and friendly back. There was me giving a nod and a smile when Rangers got their goal, and there was me still nodding and smiling after drawing lots of the tasteful phrases I was hearing and the 'jubilant' atmosphere, and there was me still f*****g nodding and smiling after I noticed somehow Rangers has got another goal; so it was 2-1 to Rangers ey? Shame. Guess Celtic didn't have their chance then.

What a bloody fool I am.

There was me curiously staring at all the drunken celtic supporters starting up songs under the Highland Man's umbrella (Argyll Street under Central Station), and crowds of strangers joining in from the other side of the road, with me thinking 'Aw, that's nice. Look how well the Celtic Supporters are taking it.'

Now I realise, perhaps, why some serious looking woman in a black bob, glasses and red top, at the end of the match, demanded what I was doing in the Glaswegian, and Where was I from?

Ah Jenny, with her wits about her, smiled gleefully and proclaimed 'Och I'm just an Art Student!'

'Oh that's alright then' she grunted and left me to it. I wish I'd been a fly on the wall as I haplessly pratted along with my picture mistakenly believing that everyone was exultant around me.

Hah.

So then I rushed back to the Arches for a quick bladder relief call before zipping into the 'light relief' of Bluey, the autobiographical play by Phil Spencer and his monkey/Dad Alfred.

From the perspective of an imaginative young boy witnessing his Dad going to the war in Iraq, believing it all pointless and stupid, and reflecting on the stories they shared, interjected with angsty adolescent male music, strobe lighting, smoke machines and 'right in there' audience participation.

Sharp and well practiced. The comedic look at an individual's experience of a war going on the theatre, was still honey compared to the raw redness of what I experienced beforehand.

And is that your last Old Firm documenting session Miss Soep? Have you had your fill of adrenalin fuelled drawing experiences? Are you going to stop, or join a side?

It's 2.49 in the morning. I'm ready for my pit, and by the way, No Comment.

Today (Tuesday) I drew Maren Strack and Art Raid

MAREN STRACK. LATEX Tuesday 15th - Wednesday 16th 7.30 - 8pm

Fwubbah-wubbah-wubbah-wubbah. Skrrrriiiiiiik-wubbah-Skrrrriiiiiiik-wubba-Ribbubahbuhbah-Ribbubahbuhbah-Skrrrriiiiiiik-wubbah-Skrrrriiiiiiik-wubba-Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeeewwww!

Maren Strack has vivid orange hair, bright eyes and chews gum watching the audience come in. With all the to-ing and fro-ing and rubbering about, I'm surprised she doesn't accidently choke on her gum. But she also has a big hefty bright blue old sewing machine attached to a piece of rope attached to her hair, which swings wildly and you wander how that doesn't smack her in the head.

However, it all seems well planned, structured and designed. Minimal entertainment that easily pleases. Highly intriguing, and though not as big a visual impact as her MuddClubSolo would have been, it's a good alternative for the uninitiated and creative minded.

ART RAID Tuesday 15th + Wednesday 16th 8.40pm - 9.40pm

From the shadows I drew and listened to the expectant audience who really didn't believe they were expected to steal all the artwork in this show? But what will people do when you've got a bunch of neanderthal security guards and snobbish curators who suspect you anyway? Have to say, it was fascinating to see people getting edgy, suspicious, and cunning. The dj music lent a certain 'panic/adrenalin rising' kind of an atmosphere. An intriguing exercise. My impressions are that 'stealing' the artwork makes it seem much more fun/special/exciting than the actual artwork itself. But I'm stating the obvious I'm sure.

Tonight (Saturday) I will mostly be drawing...

The Cabaret Acts - The Creative Martyrs - The Laurel and Hardy of Cello, Banjo, Ukelele/Mandolin with their acerbic observations and a big projected eye hanging over their heads.



Unfortunately, tonight was an odd one, and I didn't notice many people giving this group the attention they should have got. It was a tough crowd tonight, a feeling of being rushed - Whatever monster club night was on meant sets had to shape up and ship off double quick smart - last night (Friday) was much more relaxed and enjoyable, and there was I traipsing around Glasgow trying to catch Gi stuff that frankly I could have happily missed just to see TNF's Dias de las Noches again. Note I have spelt the title wrong a couple of times on the pictures. Yes, I'm a div.


New Art Club - This is Modern - 7.10pm - 1 hour 10 mins




These guys were brutal; but a very enjoyable intense and educational 1 hour and ten minutes, beautiful choreography from two visually unassuming loveable beardy dancy chappies. 'This is a Repeat' actually keeps cropping up in my head, as does 'This is a Canon' just a little later.






Coming from my completely illiterate dance terminology, I just thought it was all very bloody clever, definitely energetic, NEON BLUE! and yup, highly amusing. My laughter was a canon in all the wrong places due to me being a little slow on the uptake - I blame it on the 'drawing live' process. Apparently when Pete and Tom (New Art Club) got the email detailing what I was going to be doing, they reckoned it was going to be, well, sh*t. Apparently Tom was pleasantly surprised when they saw my drawings of the other acts (which are currently being projected after 6.30pm every performance night - Tuesday - Saturday 19th - Free Entry!). Ah wait wee Tom till you see my drawings of you!


Tim Crouch - An Oak Tree - 9pm - 1 hour

I could draw this guy for hours; he's got such a beautiful face and demeanor. During this 'show' I really was aware of the limitations of what I do - it was a pretty intense performance full of nuances which occasionally I missed due to drawing it. This is one performance I would quite happily watch again a few times, seeing as how everytime it's different. As an observer, I felt wary, perturbed, and morbidly intrigued (and Oh my God! Didn't my mobile go off in the middle of the performance! Very nice girl beside me offered to hold my sketchbook while I hunted to find the little f****r.

Still, I think it added to the whole improvised feel of the show...).

However, it was a strange experience this one. Even though I felt Tim Crouch was brilliant as an actor, I didn't engage like I normally do, since during the other shows, there's an element of the actors/performers being aware of what they're about to do, whereas in this one I felt as delayed as the actor getting instructed by Tim. It was a different kind of flow.


Licence Pending - 10.15pm - Um, who knows?!

This was an interesting end to the evening. After being kicked out of the main festival area for the goliath club night brewing up, a lot of bewildered and herded festival goers found themselves in the arena of Licence Pending, a quartet of poetic misfits that apparently habituate Glasgow.

Sitting at the side, I couldn't quite hear everything that was uttered, and I felt the audience engagement was a little lost from the girl in the frilly dress, and the tall chap in the braces. They seemed to rush a bit, compared to the girl dressed up as an old (Cornish?) Sea Captain who was relaxed enough to deliver her pieces successfully. The comedy of her pieces (and her sidekick) certainly helped. I do believe the first two's material was as worthy, but I don't think they allowed the audience to take in what they were doing, and at times it felt like being machine gunned without time to die.

So that's the end of the first week

- what will next week bring??!!

'Dias de las Noches' by Teatr Novogo Frontia

Sinister, Beautiful, Black, Spectral, Tense, Explosive. There's some words to describe my experience of this show.


Dias De Las Noches - Spectral Scene



Dias De Las Noches - Finale

Dias De Las Noches - Characters

Dias De Las Noches - Spectral Scene ii

Dias De Las Noches - 'Mask' and 'Lanky Devil'

Not since watching Roberto Benigni's 'La Vita è Bella/Life is Beautiful' have I laughed from the gut with such stress and anticipation of being horrified in the next instant. It wasn't their best show due to only a couple of technical hitches, but otherwise everything - the acting, costumes, use of the stage set - was brilliant. It was an absolute feast of visual delights with the accompanying sounds/music ripping right through you, and I couldn't draw fast enough.

(Just want to note the pratt who got up during the performance - my row of all rows! - and twice I had to shift all my materials and me. He better have had the shits or something equally as pressing...)

The following pictures were done in darkness as I didn't want to take away from the performance with my little 'Mighty Brite' reading light. So pretty much all the scribbles you see were done during, and the colour was added afterwards from memory.

I also just want to add this in - a review I found from 2004:

- Fringe 2004 Reviews (29)
Dias de las Noches Theatr Novogo FrontaAurora Nova @ St Stephens****
Teatr Novogo Fronta of the Czech Republic/Russia brings us into the world of two immigrant actors performing while war rages outside. More than being beautiful and, at times, funny, this is a production intoxicatingly energetic. The five performers, Ales Janak, Irina E. Andreeva, Robert Janc, and Yury Gertsman, work flawlessly together. The music by Vladimir Franz, Viktor Amalev, W.A. Mozart, and Roman Dubinnikov pulls it all together. Exciting and engaging.
Catherine Lamm

And now for something completely different -
Cabaret Act
H.Bomb (Harry Wilson)

Sixteen, by Rob Drummond, From a Different View

Well, I finally made it to the audience, or rather an extra seat put aside for me since 'Sixteen', due to it's small audience capacity - and rave reviews I'm sure - has been sold out both tonight and last night and apparently looking that way for the rest of the week - get your skates on people as there may be a slim chance you can snag a ticket!

So back to the play - I reiterate what I suggested from last night, only this time from the other side of a crack in a door. I saw that the 3 main characters where sitting on 3 chairs, not a sofa as I had thought; I think it would have been more uncomfortable if there had been a sofa, though it would have blocked the view somewhat of the activities going on behind it.

The play was excellent - slick, well engineered, and well put together. I think I just repeated myself.

Anyway, there were beautiful little phrases that were repeated in different situations that gave them a whole new and more poignant meaning - ' Just 2 drops, three's too much'.

The power struggles and suggestiveness were illustrated through the clothes, mannerisms, posture and intonations of the words; the actors themselves seemed to have experience on their side and you felt yourself getting roped in to their worlds. I've been told that every great story has at least one adrenalin moment, and there were quite a few in this tense, morbid and electrically charged little drama.

Ah how the pride of a man can destroy what he holds dearest. That's all I'm going to say about that.

The Severed Head of Comrade Bukhari, Daljinder Singh

Can you see the guy lying on the floor?
So, this is my live illustration from the show - all done during it I might add.
However, I might further 'accentuate' it - it's a bit light don't you think? And for such a deliciously dark humoured show, I think it deserves more.

(This is incidently the play whose rehearsal I had unwittingly clomped in on earlier during the poignant penultimate scene. I checked with the actors and director later - no hard feelings...)

The character Comrade Bukhari plays a good guy who seems a little too grown up to be playing with the mates he's got. I wondered why the writer chose to have them call each other Comrade when there seemed to be no other relevant matter, but I guessed it might have to do with the non-altruistic 'efficiency' of a certain communist country where the word 'Comrade' seems an obviously less friendly way of calling each other 'Brother' or 'Friend'.

It had a certain 'Lord of the Fly's' hits puberty feel to it, with all the angst, tests of heirarchy and helpless sensitivity of adolescent males. Excellent use of the set and their big little friend the Jukebox named 'W' apparently after George Dubblya himself since the voice on it is Texan. However, I found it quite hard to hear any particularly consistant character feature from the machine other than, well, it's inconsistancy and stubborness to be 'efficient'. (Look Jen, do you see that? - you've just figured it out...)

Anyway, enough from me. It's worth a watch. Go see it.

Arches Theatre Festival 08

Sixteen, by Rob Drummond

(This was the page I drew through the crack in the door - felt like such a voyeur! The top picture is half drawn at the time, half from memory and the initial sketches.)

So here I am, and here's the first two images of the day. Been sorting out technical and management difficulties - mainly my own!

Managed to clomp in at the end of one performance while 3 young lads were trying to deliver a poignant moment with a stumped head (heh heh) and they were talking about having a nice cup of tea. The Director Daljinder Singh came up to me at the end of the rehearsal and asked 'if she could help me?' in a manner that was obviously pissed off with my late entrance, spoiling the magic. - 'it put's the actors off'. I apologised and innocently replied that 'I had been told there was a 3 pm showing which I was supposed to be drawing at'.

I then realised I was late for the real 3pm showing and once I'd located it in the mass of corriders in the Arches, there was no chance in hell I was going to squeeze my way subtly into that!

Rob Drummond's play 'Sixteen' is played out in a tiny claustrophobic stage/theatre with 3 out of the four main characters all sitting together(what appeared to be one couch, but that was out of my view!), no-one really listening to each other, or explaining themselves properly. It's a stomach churning toe curling cringeworthy experience of a father's bid to stop his 'about to be legal' daughter openly committing the act under his own roof, with this charming good looking but 'foreign and 30 something' chap once midnight has chimed.

From the father's point of view, his bid to get rid of the unwitting 'young' man, has about as much speed, efficiency and disgust you might have at trying to squeeze a skelf out of your own skin.

I'm looking forward to seeing it properly before Saturday hopefully - it looks really good, and I don't think my viewing it through the crack in the door will ruin seeing it again from the specifically designated audience seating!

And just for a little throwback -

I've learned to use the old digicam somewhat, so here's some images from that fab chap Aidan Moffat's performance at the Arches on April 1st - no joke! He'll buy a picture from me one day so he will...!

The Support 'Band' - Remember Remember - Very very impressed with this chap and his saxophone playing sidekick. It was like the Desktop Symphony with the main man sampling bubblewrap, a lighter, scissors, hole punch, stapler, sellotape; seriously, I don't know if this guy has a desk job, but someone's missing their life's hoard of stationary! He meanwhile clapped, sang and played the electric geetar over it. Yep. I very much enjoyed the 'warm up' to Aidan. Much slicker too. But that's also what I love about Aidan's performances/music.

Anyway, time to go people. A festival to draw at/see etc. Come along and check it out!