Cale

John Cale left the Velvet Underground on the year I was born, (Cale, on the right is iconically photographed with the Velvets by Gerry Malanga and below: by Bevis Bowden in 2008 at his home town of Garnant South Wales) since then his influence has inseminated my existence through his involvment with The Stooges, Patti Smith, the Happy Mondays and the punk revolution which he was at the bleeding edge of. I find it fascinating as a visual artist that he has been asked to represent Wales at the Venice Biennale- It seems I can not escape him. He is truly a renaissance man, a bard engaging and collaborating in every art form from film through all manner of experimental music to poetry and performance. Cale will be making a film for the festival at the beginning of March; The Biennale's people have asked Blown's people to make a photographic record of the event so watch this space!
After 800 years Blown is moving its offices from Chateau Blown (pictured left) to the throbbing heart of the Pear Media Empire (below- If you look carefully you can see me waving, 17th row window 14th from the left). I will miss shooting peasants on Christmas day and the nine course breakfasts we used to enjoy; but in our new offices we will have electricity and indoor flushing toilets. We firmly believe that all magazines will soon be thus equipped.

I am up to my elbows in blood....

...but the ritual rebranding of Blown is finally complete and ready to be rolled out across our global chain of abatoirs and boutique cryogenic units.
But enough about us what about Michael Sheen, I met him under the M4 at Portalbot, He was impeccably turned out and supremely affable .Our pet genius Zac Mead was photographing him for the National Museum and the National Portrait Gallery whilst old gents ambled slowly past with terriers in tow, Zac had chosen to photograph Michael in his home town as he returned to visit his family in between marketing assaults and appearances for Frost Nixon. The space under the M4 is silent,completely silent in spite of thousands of tons metal roaring just 30ft above our heads. I lied to some kids from a special school from whom the question 'whadje doin mista' worried me more than the it ought to have. I felt sure they would explode if they knew how close they were to the Hollywood dream. Portalbot inspired Ridley Scott (who was also brought up there) to create Bladerunner and I think it is beautiful and every experience I have had there only further rienforces that conviction.
The last time I took a photograph there at night the bomb squad paid a visit to search my car and home the next day, I had been reported,photographed, databased and tagged as a potential terrorist. God Bless Portalbot.

Here is a great preview to Portalbot steelworks on Youtube- brings out the little boy in me.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqdSqgGdFhM

White Knuckle Ride

It has been an extraordinary white knuckle journey, a rollercoaster ride even- We have a vision to build a magazine that sits between academic publications such as Portfolio and edgy fashion mags like Exit.
Our most recent high has been to have Ed Pereira from Pear Media come on board as our exec. editor . His business genius is so overwhelming as to be deemed illegal in certain EU countries and he now has the remit of whipping us flaky creatives into some semblance of order. Our other main partner is the Arts Council of Wales who invested in us when we were just musings on the back of a fag packet. We love them for it.
I will relay events in the journey over the coming weeks and introduce you to our extraordinary contributors. Opposite is a new piece of work by the renowned Tom Wood entitled 'Walking through Shoes' .Tom took 3000 rolls of film and 15 years to build his 'All Zones Off Peak' buses series. This image is from a new unpublished body of work . We salute you Tom; you are an obsessive.