Theabsurd.Co.Uk
About Theabsurd.Co.Uk
WWW. THEABSURD. CO. UK
Theabsurd.Co.Uk Description
TheAbsurd began life back in 2008 as an alternative online culture magazine for north Wales and by 2010 had become regular evenings of spoken word and music at venues across north Wales. We’ve kept the name because for us, it’s a symbol of what we’ve accomplished together over the years and we like that it continues to evolve to reflect our slow unfolding. Our life with the hounds is quite absurd, but on another level TheAbsurd (in all its incarnations) has always been about us managing the creep of existential angst by working to create meaning in our lives.
We have plans to fully embrace vanlife in the nearish future (May 2018) by selling up and hitting the road fulltime in a VW Crafter that we’ll modify ourselves. This current van (the VW long-wheelbase T5) is our test phase, where we’re figuring out how we can live on the road while still working to pay for it all through Sophie’s writing & poetry performances and Andy’s graphic design. The plan is that this will encourage us to tread more softly on the earth, forcing us to examine exactly we need to live with, and what we can do without. The latter is growing with each trip.
We want to live by the seasons, not deadlines; eat when we’re hungry, not at mealtimes. We want to ride when we’re filled with energy and swim in the mornings because it’s all there waiting for us. We’ll figure out the rest as we go along.
Reviews
Having a bit of a clearout of unused kit.
Fender Standard Telecaster (MIM) 60th Anniversary. - £395 Lanikai LU-21CE concert ukele with built-in pickup, + soft case. - £85 Bucara Djembe 7inch. - £10... Fender Bullet 150 guitar amp. - £45 Stagg CA15 acoustic amp. - £25 Squier BP15 practice bass amp. - £25
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VINYL RECORDS FOR SALE: I'm selling my beloved record collection. Plenty have gone already, but a full list of what's still available along with prices is on the link below. There are still some to add to this... compilations, 7", 10" etc. Email design@andygarside.com for sales/info/etc. Cheers!
Metaforestry headdress & staff. In 2013 I collaborated with the amazing Emmi Manteau and Paintpotface to create Metaforestry: storiau o'r Gogs. We toured the hour-long show of poetry, music & art across the UK including Wilderness and Uncivilisation Festivals. The long poem Psycholingualgeography was part of the performance and is also in Dark Mountain issue 4. The headdress was custom-made in Germany and shipped to the UK. It currently hangs on the wall in our house and loo...ks stunning. It's a heavy headdress - I could only wear it for an hour at a time. The antlers are naturally shed. I hand-made the staff from a Rowan tree taken from Llandegla after becoming obsessed with the tree (I still am). Rowan is a tree of power and also the second month of the celtic tree calendar (February, when I was also born). The Rowan Moon is associated with Brighid, the Celtic goddess of hearth and home. Honored on February 1, at Imbolc, Brighid is a fire goddess who offers protection to mothers and families, as well as watching over the hearthfires - probably time to pass her on to look over a new family. £200
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Festival Fur & Feathers: In 2012 I collaborated with Steve Nicholls and Andy Garside to dream the DRKMTR project. It was an experimentation with noise, poetry and art that we toured across the UK including to an abandoned office in Sheffield and the awesome (and sadly now closed) Mello Mello, Liverpool. Still love this promo video Andy made for the DRKMTR album: https://vimeo.com/38533502 And here we are in Sheffield: https://vimeo.com/49615101
... Custom-made feather mohawk (clips into hair with a banana clip), very light and easy to wear. Made in Los-Angeles and shipped to the UK. Vintage faux-fur shrug (with pockets). Vintage tan cowgirl boots size 6, shipped over from USA. £100 ONO.
Here's a final video of me performing with DRKMTR wearing the headdress: https://www.youtube.com/watch…
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Selling up to hit the road means letting go of things that mean a lot to me. I found Dark Mountain at a point in life where I was struggling to make sense of the world and my place in it. DM helped me to find a wider network of people who think similarly but who I'd never have even imagined existed. Working with them improved my writing and gave me the confidence to be brave with my work (mainly because they always published the poetry I thought wouldn't fit anywhere: Psycho...lingualgeography and Rebel Sun). I can't thank them enough for their encouragement and support over the years. I've got poetry on this album as well as in two of the anthologies (and I was editorial assistant on two issues), but there's not room in the van for it all, and part of this process is the Letting Go of Stuff. So deep breath - here goes. - Sophie.
Entire Dark Mountain back catalogue including: Anthologies 1 through to 11. All in excellent condition. (The first three are no longer available through DM). The DM Manifesto. The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth - original limited edition hardback (some sunlight fading on the cover). From the Mourning of the World - Limited Edition 12" vinyl. Uncivilised Poetics CD. £85 ONO. The Dark Mountain Project http://dark-mountain.net/
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We're hitting the road this autumn and need to sell around 95% of our stuff in order to do so. We'll post things on here for sale over the next month but get in touch with us if you want to drop round to rummage through books, CDs, household stuff... words@sophiemckeand.com design@andygarside.com
Hi All! Well, we've been pretty quiet on here for a while, and although we're not putting events on anymore we are still here and we're still Absurd :) What we are doing is getting fully into the #vanlife scene and lifestyle. We've started small(ish) but have big plans for bigger vans and bigger travels. We'll be documenting this on our website - http://www.theabsurd.co.uk - which will include everything from travel, our favourite places to visit, recipes, poetic musings, pho...tography and more.
Long live theAbsurd!!
Andy & Sophie (and hounds) xx
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Friends of theABSURD... The incredible Jon Ronson presents his one-man show telling the true story behind his new film FRANK, and of his time as the keyboard player in the legendary Frank Sidebottom's band Llangollen Fringe Festival tonight in the Town Hall at 8pm Plus, theAbsurd's very own Sophie McKeand will be interviewing him onstage and conducting an audience Q&A too http://www.llangollenfringe.co.uk/…/40- jon-ronson-frank-sto…
Here are a few pics from the fantastic weekend we had at Wakestock Festival 2014. Thanks so much to everyone at Focus Wales for inviting us along. So proud to be part of such an amazing stage. https://www.facebook.com/theABSURD/media_ set…
Just one week to go until Wakestock 2014! TheABSURD will be there as part of the amazing Focus Wales stage. See y'all there!!
FIVE WEEKS TO GO!!! Book your tickets here... http://www.wakestock.co.uk/tickets
We've only bloomin' gone and been invited to Wakestock Festival this year. Focus Wales have their own stage with the best line-up ever and theABSURD are proud to be bringing spoken word to it. Looks like it's going to be the best Wakestock ever!! We'll be announcing the poets very soon!
http://theabsurd.co.uk/
http://theabsurd.co.uk/
Is there anything better than going to see a great play at the theatre? Yes. Free tickets to see TWO great plays at Clwyd Theatr Cymru. So here's the details of the plays:
http://bit.ly/1j7gD6Y (play is called SILENT)
http://bit.ly/1itzmVR (play is called FORGOTTEN)
... Enter the code PIC241 - or call the box office on 0845 3303565 quoting the same code. This gives you TWO-FOR-ONE.
Or if like us you want FREE tickets for Silent for tomorrow night only, call Ann Williams on 01352 701557 or email ann.william@clwyd-theatr-cymru.co.uk
That's how much we love you :)
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