Pete, Lee and I trailed round Watermouth from eleven thirty in the morning until four in the afternoon trying unsuccessfully to sell the old domed bell from the empty Church. I stayed outside each shop as I look too much the heavy browed criminal, and let Pete and Lee do the work. The most we were offered was £25 and Lee’s £70 asking price got him laughed out of one shop. We must’ve tried every antique dealer in central Watermouth before giving up, tired and miserable.
Afterwards I saw a few videos at the Art College made by two film makers who’ve been brought over from Holland. They were being shown on three monitors simultaneously. There were about a dozen people in the audience. The videos featured the usual heavy scenes of north European urban decay, Grantish undertones, and hackneyed ‘industrial’ sound-track (contact mikes being struck against oil drums and metal grating etc.), men digging holes with the video colour balance distorted, to a backing of “Dig-A-Hole, Dig-A-Hole,” repeated slowly over and over again.
There was nothing at all memorable about them and both Lee and I were quite bored. But, for some reason that was inexplicable to us both, Ian and Gav liked the videos, and they, George and a girl from Whincliffe (Sarah?) went out to eat with the two Dutch film makers and to discuss their work.
The use of electric drills, hammers and iron bars etc., to produce ‘industrial’ sounds is such a cliché nowadays in the wake of Einsturzende Neubauten and co. It’s surprising anyone can get excited about it.
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