Stealth @ The Blue Note

Quite by chance, I recently came across this excellent post on The Quietus.com. It’s triggered a huge bout of reminiscing and taken me on a real trip down memory lane…

I had the great fortune to be in the right place at the right time back in the mid 1990′s. My good friend Danny Kudos had a key role in distributing the Ninja Tune label throughout the world at the time, which meant that we got to go to one of London’s legendary clubs on a regular basis and almost always on the guest list.

My own personal memories of the club are now somewhat faded….

I remember Mr Scruff in the upstairs bar playing Bad Manners and Chas & Dave; I remember unbelievable six deck mixing action from Coldcut, all pre digital, all live, all done to perfection; I remember having my drink continually knocked as the downstairs room was effectively a corridor leading from the staircase at one end of the space to the other, and people always seemed to be on the move; I remember one night when a bright light suddenly shone out from behind me. As I turned around I was looking straight into a film camera, with the flash light reflecting from the very low ceiling. Christ knows what I looked like, but I later found out that my aunt and uncle had seen the footage (and recognised me) on local Nottingham TV news, a feature about ecstasy use in clubs would you believe… I remember quiet Japanese people standing against the walls never dancing, never smiling just being there, and I remember being so wasted one night at chucking out time that I very selfishly knocked on a friends door in nearby Haberdasher Street at 3.30am asking if I could stay the night as I couldn’t possibly make it home (she probably still hasn’t forgiven me, sorry Anna). And I vaguely remember crashing on the cushions up in the top room, talking bollocks and smiling a lot…

But most of all I remember having some of the best times it was possible to have on a Thursday night. The Blue Note was an amazing place, far too small really for what went on there, but excellent non the less. We also went to LTJ Bukem’s Logical Progression night there before he moved it to Turnmills, and Talvin Singh’s Anokha on a Monday night was a pretty amazing experience, although I think we only did that once or twice..

And all right Stealth finished too soon etc. etc.. but isn’t that what helps makes things great in hindsight…

Many thanks to Danny and The Ninja Tune crew for the few memories that I still have of those heady days in a pre-trendy Hoxton…

DJ Food has collected what looks like all the Stealth fliers on his brilliant site here, and they are all well worth a look (as is his whole site to be honest)

Saul Bass

Last weekend, me and A made a special effort to go to the Kemsitry Gallery in Hoxtonia, as I had seen that it was hosting a Saul Bass exhibition, and we are both big fans of Mr Bass’s work.

Whilst this particular exhibition was a tad on the small side, it was a timely reminder both of his astonishingly powerful graphic style and also that we had been to an excellent “full blown” Saul Bass retrospective back in 2004 at the Design Museum.

Even if you haven’t heard the name Saul Bass, you will almost certainly have seen some of his posters and opening title sequences: West Side Story, The Man with the Golden Arm and Vertigo are all design classics. His trademark was simple, solid colour and bold shapes that seemed to sum up the essence of the film in one image.

During his long career as a graphic designer (Bass was a New Yorker, born 1920, died 1996) he was also responsible for some of the most instantly recognisable US Company logos, including Bell Telephone, Warner Brothers, Minolta and Quaker, all of which (with the same skill as in the film posters) seem to capture the essence of the company in one simple image.

An in depth site of his work can be found here if you fancy finding out more about this truly great man.