If you’ve been down to Gunwharf recently you may have noticed the latest addition to the Aspex family, The Lighthouse.
The Lighthouse is a small stand-alone building, located between the Loch Fyne and Fire & Stone restaurants – perfectly situated to attract passing visitors and shoppers to the innovative work of the gallery.
The Lighthouse will give the Aspex education team the perfect opportunity to carry on the great outreach work they do with local families and young people. Check out the good work on the Education blog.
The prizes for our 3rd Birthday Charity Raffle are coming in nicely. We have some incredible items on offer to date including 2 tickets to a Pompey game, a Holga camera kit, a night shoot with Diana Goss, a Ye Olde Bike Shoppe vintage bike, Kings Theatre Tickets, a £40 Bonzo Studio voucher, Wedgewood Comedy Club tickets meals for 2, nights out, free drinks, tee shirts, lot’s of art prints, various crafts and hopefully much more to come.
If you came to the 2nd Birthday Raffle last year you’ll know it was a huge success, and we raised over £600 for the Portsmouth RNLI and Portsmouth Autism with over 200 people in attendance.
We will sell tickets on the night for £1 each, or £8 for 10 and ALL proceeds will go towards the Portsmouth RNLI and Portsmouth Autism, with the winning numbers being drawn at the end of the night.
As before there will be a limited supply of free Strong Island Ice Teas on arrival as well as a background playlist supplied by Pet Sounds. Have a peek at last years very successful event HERE and keep up to date over Facebook HERE.
Contributors agreed so far include: I Love Dust, Bruce Jamieson, James Batchelor (Portsmouth FC), Diana Goss, Sam Smith, Mark Persuad, Stu Trett, Little Johhny Russells, The Belle Isle, Mikey, Sopranos, Alanna Smith, Chris Richards (Southsea Skatepark), Dan Tidbury, Phil Bennett (Holgathon), Bob & Karl (Bonzo Studio), Michelle (So Scone), James Weaver, Fran Bierton, Kings Theatre, The Wedgewood Rooms and Matt Howarth.
We have some amazing memories of the recent Strong Island Exhibition at The Round Tower, local film and media company and good friends of Strong Island Compulsive Productions have just finished a documentary about the exhibition. The film covers the history of the tower, the exhibition itself and the possible future for the Hot Walls area and was made in partnership with Portsmouth City Council and the University of Portsmouth.
Following the success of ‘Ou est la lapin?’ back in the Spring I am launching a campaign called ‘Make one, pass it on’. This time by making, we will be making a difference. Here’s the lowdown
All aprons must be handmade and finished by December 1st. Every apron regardless of size, style and workmanship will be sold for £10. A special event will be held to sell the aprons and after that will be for sale online.
All money raised goes to a fantastic charity called ‘Fine Cell Work’ that teaches prison inmates needlework.
For all your support over the last 3 years we’d like to say a big thanks and invite you to our 3rd Birthday Party on the 29th of September. Our good friends at The Belle Isle have agreed to let us hold another little social at their bar on Osborne Road and we’d love it if you could join us.
There will be a Charity Raffle with prizes from a variety of local artists, photographers, retailers, friends and much more besides, as well a few freebies. If you came to the 2nd Birthday Raffle last year you’ll know it was a huge success, and we raised over £600 for the Portsmouth RNLI and Portsmouth Autism with over 200 people in attendance.
We will sell tickets on the night for £1 each, or £8 for 10 and ALL proceeds will go towards the Portsmouth RNLI and Portsmouth Autism, with the winning numbers being drawn at the end of the night. Take a look at just some of the prizes that were on offer HERE.
As before there will be a limited supply of free Strong Island Ice Teas on arrival as well as a background playlist supplied by Pet Sounds. Have a peek at last years very successful event HERE and keep up to date over Facebook HERE.
Grow up and go home yeah. Theory’s response to the riots is more than just his opinion on the recent riots, he’s clearly as aggrovated about this state of affairs as we are, if not a whole lot more. There’s more at stake than Olympic games. Listen…
I’ve literally just found out about this when asked if I knew what was happening. I couldn’t find much info aside from the dates and times, but The NEWS had a few words to say so I cheekily pinched them.
“The 2011 Festival will feature top acts, many of them local, including Jackie Leven, The Marvels, Little Johnny England, Jigantics, ColvinQuarmby, Reet Petite & Gone and the Aynsley Lister Band. Pub fringe events will be provided by Andy Broad’s Festival Blues Jam, Robin Bibi, The Jellyrollers and Sons of the Delta.
Afternoon concerts will be held at the Club on Saturday, Sunday and Monday over the Bank Holiday weekend. Evening concerts will be held on the Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
One of the strengths of The Southsea Folk & Roots Festival has been in recognising the wealth of local talent we have in our area. The Festival wouldn’t have been the same without appearances by local heroes such as The News Awards winner Chris Ricketts, Ade Cull, Arlen, Legacy, Andy Broad, Apicella, Mary Jane, Hard Times String Band, The Jellyrollers, Father Jack, Dan Ogus, Della Perrett’s Sweetedge, White Knuckle Blues Band, The Continentals, Burnt Ice and many, many others.”
Scott comes down to listen to me play records at the Dog, he’s given me a handful of (amazing) compilations, and he’s never too proud to ask who a song is by, I was particularly pleased to introduce him to the wonder that is ‘Forever Changes’ by Love. He’s been a reputable DJ round these parts far longer than me (although that makes it sound like I’m reputable so…) and so it was a no-brainer that I wanted a contribution from him. He actually got himself quite wound up when we were talking about ideas he’d had for playlists, a few having already been done, and a few that could’ve been called derivative, mainly due to songs taking import over theme. And so it was, he went away and came back with a finely honed, well thought out and most importantly, banging collection of gems, I felt bad when he left the DJ booth that night, but Christ it was worth winding him up…
Over to Scott.
Like most folk, having been asked by Charlie to compile 15 tracks for Pet Sounds, I straight away focused my research on how many songs there were out there that had the word ‘pussy’ in the title… well, it was for kicks if anything else, I got up to 23 tracks and figured I would wean out some of the more, let’s say, sexually titillating numbers, leaving me with various versions of El Pussy Cat by The Skatalites, Mongo Santamaria or Georgie Fame (take your pick) – Iggy Pop’s Pussy Walk was present as was Pussy Stank by Andre Williams, Scarlet Pussy by Prince, Black Sugar’s – Pussy Cat (great track). Heck I even had John Barry’s Pussy Galore’s Flying Circus instrumental from Goldfinger, but enough was enough, “get a grip Scott and concentrate”.
I had been listening to a few David Holmes albums prior to putting this comp together. I always like how he arranges his scores and would sandwich songs from other artists in between them, which in turn delivers a space, as in a space between music, be it a brief interlude or a pause for thought. It can change direction and move the listener on to something quite different. I went with the idea that my theme would be Verbs of Unaided Human Motion, you know, to run, to walk, to strut, to scoot etc… and that I would somehow put together a linear soundscape to it.
Some, if not most of the tracks present here are new to me, I had fifteen pieces of a puzzle and I had to put them all together to make some kind of linear beginning, middle and end. There are also some sleazy numbers thrown in for good measure, but so that it doesn’t sound too Tarantino-esque I’ve stuck a Harry Belafonte track in there for fun, enjoy.
01. Young Man, Flee – AK5A
02. Let’s Take A Walk – Raphael Saadiq
03. Wade In The Water – Ramsey Lewis Trio
04. Higher You Climb – JJ Grey & Mofro
05. Running Out – Mable John
06. Stagger Lee – John Holt
07. Swagger – Joe Brown & The Bruvvers
08. The Stroll Part 2 – Binky Griptite & The Mellomatics
09. Swim – Jack Hammer
10. Mo’ Calypso Strut – Calypso King & The Soul Investigators
11. Jump In The Line – Harry Belafonte
12. Louisiana Hop – Pete “Guitar” Lewis
13. Late Night Scurry – Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds
14. Tiptoe On The Highest Hill – Twink
15. The Scoot – Stoned Rock
The DVMISSION 48-Hour Film Challenge is now six years old. It’s grown to be an annual extravaganza with over 250 amateur and professional filmmakers taking part every year. This year’s challenge will be taking place from the 14th to 16th October 2011, This includes the glitzy & infamous Premier Night with film screening, awards ceremony and after party. The 2011 Premier will be held on Southparade Pier – Portsmouth UK. The challenge is now open for applications. Please visit www.dvmission.co.uk to find out more and see previous challenge films.
“If the idea of writing, storyboarding, filming, editing, adding sound and rendering a whole movie in 48 hours sounds crazy, then you’re right. This is an endurance test of both human and machine.” Jinx Prowse MISSION Director (2010)
“DVMISSION is better than Christmas!” Team Worcester Massive (2009)
“It’s the Sex Pistols meets the Oscars!” Audience feedback (2008)
“It’s Rock n Roll film making” Roy Hanney MISSION Producer (2007)
This years DVMISSION has been brought to you by ‘Master Media Ltd’ and the ‘Blue-Rooms AV Skunkworks’.
As you may know each year we run a home brew competition in February where the winning brew has the opportunity to be brewed by Irving & Co Brewing Co. and sold around the city in the summer. Last year’s brew, the Strong Island Hopper Ale, was hugely successful being one of Inving’s best selling ales and selling out so quickly it went through a second brew run. This year’s winning ale is Dry Dock No. 1, originally brewed by Lee Immins, went on sale in some of Portsmouth and Southsea’s pubs over the weekend.
We spoke to The Hole in The Wall in Southsea who said the new ale went down a storm with it being their best seller on Sunday and with almost two barrels empty by the end of the Bank Holiday weekend. Those guys at the Hole in The Wall and their regular ale drinkers know their stuff so for us this was amazing early news with the ale.
To officially launch Dry Dock No. 1 we are having a launch party with the lovely souls at The Belle Isle on Thursday evening. The ale will be on full flow, come down and try a pint or two. As well as being on sale all around the city the ale will also be available in Chichester’s Belle Isle too, so you can drink it away from home for the first time too.
Just over a year ago, a group of Strong Islanders were sat on the Isle of Wight ferry on our way to the yearly Randonnee cycling event; 60 miles around the island spread across 5 checkpoints. Whilst on the crossing we couldn’t help but admire various enthusiasts and their custom team jerseys. Fast forward a year and it is my great pleasure to unveil the Strong Island cycling jersey. Made as a one off for the event, the jersey is our way of representing this city and all the values that come with it. Thanks to the combined designing efforts of Chris Ballingall and Tristan Savage, we were able to produce this clean, retro looking jersey that 11 of Southsea’s finest could wear to conquer the island’s endless hills. Well done chaps.
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