Home is where the heart is... Work by: Pranksy's Art (http://www.flickr.com/photos/pranksy/)

Want to see your artwork blown up as a three-story art installation?

Art Republic is launching a  national art competition called ‘Street Art’ in association with StreetSmart – the homeless charity.  The winning piece will be displayed large style in Brighton and London.

Along with some fab prizes (and a little fame and glory thrown in for good measure), you’ll also have the nice feeling that you’ve helped people sleeping rough.

As well as looking sharp, your piece should be about raising awareness of the homeless situation in the UK. A panel including Pure Evil, Inkie and Ben Eine and Static will be the judges of fashion+function=winner. You never know, it might not ever happen.

As big as this

And oh yeah, the winning artwork would be on this scale…

How to enter

Email your image (it must be an original piece, created by you) to artwork@artrepublic.com, please enter ‘Street Art Competition’ in the subject line.

Or if you are a member of Flickr, images can be uploaded through our ‘Street Art competition with StreetSmart’ group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/artrepublic-street-art-competition/

The competition closes on Friday 8th January 2010.

What you’ll win…
The winning artwork will be displayed as a massive art installation (the size of a three-storey building) for all to see and enjoy. It will appear on buildings in London and Brighton in early 2010.

The winning image will also be sold worldwide as a limited edition print through the artrepublic website, with all proceeds going to StreetSmart. The winner will also receive a meal for two at PINTCHOtapas in London and a night’s stay at Myhotel Bloomsbury.

The competition coincides with this year’s campaign by StreetSmart and their restaurant partners to raise money for the homeless during the festive season.

“Street art is experienced by everyone and therefore creates a bond between those who live on the streets and those who have a roof over their heads. This is a unique opportunity for an aspiring or established artist to express themselves, with the winner’s message being exposed to the world”. Lawrence Alkin, CEO, artrepublic.

For more info, check out the competition site.

Subsource 'The Reason' Video Shoot

Breakbeat/drum n bass influenced band Subsource are sharing the stage with legendary reggae act Dreadzone tonight at a totally sold out gig at the Komedia, which should prove to be a fruitful night for ticketholders.

Subsource, if you’ve never heard of them, have been an awesome player in the breakbeat scene and this year were nominated as best live act at Breakspoll International awards in London. They are like a cross between a world music act and a dance music cross-over band, but with some attitude in the same vein as bands like Asian Dub Foundation.

The band have just finished work on their first album, “Tales from the Doombox”, bringing in mastering engineer John Davis (The Prodigy, Pendulum). The tracks are less cheesy than I’d expect from a cross-over band and a few tracks where I even forget I’m listening to live music. “New Bones” for instance, where the Muse-sounding vocals are dropped for a deep dubby rumble. Nice.

The album’s due for release in 2010, so keep an eye out for it.  Komedia have added a second night to the billing for Subsource and Dreadzone, and tickets are now on sale for 4 June show – if you’re a bit of an early bird !

We’ve got a Subsource t-shirt and track for anyone who can name of the band members – email us at contribute@brightonfusion.co.uk with SUBSOURCE in the header.

In the meantime, check out this remix from Raffertie.

http://files.me.com/getinltd/tvwmhk.mp3 (right-click to download)

For those of you who can’t get enough of Acid House, you can now spend an entire evening reliving the days with two back to back films “Summer of Rave” and “High on Hope”, followed by Rocky (X-Press 2) and Midnight Steppers’ Neville Watson on the decks at DJFlicks.

Admittedly, most of the people who were around during the first rave era are pretty much OAPs now and probably wouldn’t like a recreation of a magical era they’ve done once before, but the night also offers a gallery exibition of images from Gavin Watson’s forthcoming book, Raving ’89 and a talk with Bill Brewster about his memories of the old days.

The night hinges around two documentaries:  “Summer of Rave”, which focuses on the rave scene in 1989, and “High On Hope”, the Piers Sanderson film about the infamous Blackburn raves. They sneak preview of clips from Gordon Mason’s forthcoming house history, “They Call It Acid”.

DJFlicks, Friday 23 October, 6.30pm-2am
(doors open 6.30; films start 7.30)

£12/£10 NUS Over 18s only
The Old Market, Upper Market St, Hove (off Western Rd)

Tickets can be purchased in advance http://www.ticketweb.co.uk/user/?region=gb_south&query=detail&event=350876&interface=

DJ Flicks is supported by a bursary from Smirnoff Creative Grants. There are more £5k grants available on www.facebook.com/SmirnoffGB.

Tim Lay reading at Grit Lit

At recent Brighton Festival fringe literary event Grit Lit, Tim Lay read an extract from his second novel Rats with Wings, which tells the tale of a London copper – Lewis – who is dragged down to Brighton by her sinister patrol partner Letch for an unknown and dodgy pretext.

They’ve just left a swingers’ party outside of Brighton and return to find an outdoor rave on the seafront and are about to take some drugs.

‘You doing one?’ he asked. She stuck her tongue out so he could see the yellow tablet sitting on it.
‘In for a penny in for a pound,’ he said with a nervous smile and popped his.

The rave was easy enough to find. They’d cut down to the beach and driven up and down the seafront until the crowds and the sound of music had led them to it. Rob breathed a sigh of relief as Letch parked up the car. He’d survived the journey, hair-raised but unscathed, and was thankful that home was only a walk away from here. His new acquaintances didn’t seem to be in any rush to leave the car – the interior light was on and new lines were being carved – but Rob needed some fresh air. He got out of the car and walked his way up to the rave.

A couple of hundred people were spilling out of a concrete recess, cut into the side of the hill, an alcove that must have dated back to the Victorian times. Colonnade pillars and high ceilings gave it an air of majesty, despite its popularity as a shooting gallery. The speakers were set into a smaller alcove at one end. It was a small system but came out swinging, the punchy bass boomeranging around the alcove and spinning its way outside.

A single strobe threw shadows from the tightly packed dance floor on to the white ceiling above. People spilled out of the alcove and crowded the area outside, talking, drinking, smoking, laughing and dancing. Some sat, or lay on the steep grass bank.

Rob stood for a while, hands in pockets, bobbing his head, self consciously, his eyes on a girl wearing a silver bikini top and fairy wings, a glow stick in each hand. He felt a bit disjointed, like everyone else was in on something that he wasn’t. He couldn’t feel anything from the pill Lewis had given him, but he wondered if he was just too drunk to notice its effects.

In the car, the drugs were kicking in and Letch’s body had begun to hum, a little like a plane warming on the runway. He felt good. Alert but relaxed, and satisfied too – just the way one is when they’ve done a good job. And the swingers’ party had been just that.

‘So what’s the score then?’ he asked, watching Lewis chop. He took a quick glance out of the window to make sure that Rob wasn’t near the car.

‘Four, two,’ said Lewis.

‘Sarcastic bitch,’ he said, flicking the top of her shoulder.

‘What fucking score?’ said Lewis. She leant forward, taking the whole line up one nostril because the other one had become too blocked.

‘What’s his name.’

‘Rob?’ Lewis shrugged and handed him the note. ‘Nothing.’ She sniffed. ‘He just seemed like a laugh.’

‘Some laugh,’ Letch muttered. ‘Any of that vodka left?’

‘No. Got this though.’ She pulled a bottle of Jack from under her chair. ‘Swingers’ compliments,’ she grinned.

‘Ooh. You’re a sly one!’ Letch broke the seal and drank heavily before wedging the bottle in the pocket of his door. Stooping low he snorted both of the remaining lines. He pinched his nose and rode out the sting that was so far up his nostril his eye hurt.

‘Hey,’ she said. ‘That one’s for him.’

‘I need it more than he does,’ grunted Letch. Through watery eyes he saw the expression on her face. ‘Fuck sake. Make him another. There’s enough of it. Do the same again for me while you’re at it.’

‘It’s not a race,’ she tutted, reaching for the bag.

‘So did you fuck him?’ Letch asked, liking the way the word sounded to him. Very definitive, he thought. Starts soft and ends hard. F-U-C-K.

‘Not my type. We were having a laugh.’

‘Shall we ditch him and go somewhere else?’ asked Letch, stroking the steering wheel.

‘Like where?’

‘I’m sure there’s some little drinking den that’s open all hours,’ he purred. He was massaging the back of his neck, massaging away the stress of the day. He moved his head rhythmically from side to side, and the more he did it the more he found himself wanting to do it.

‘It’s not fucking Hackney,’ shot Lewis.

He didn’t reply. Just carried on moving his head from side to side, letting his fingers probe the muscles of the lower neck, feeling the skin ripple beneath his touch…

‘Why, who did you fuck?’ she asked, looking over. Letch was slouched in his seat, head lolling against the window, a knee crooked and resting on the upholstery. He had his eyes closed and she knew he was fucked because, unusually for Letch, he was smiling.

‘No one special,’ he replied.

‘I wasn’t impressed with that Letch,’ she said, her tone more serious. ‘That was out of order not telling me what sort of place that was.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Letch. He opened his eyes, had the words in his mouth that he wanted to say, but his vision was flickering and the words were suddenly lost as the humming inside his body began to intensify.

‘I know,’ was all he could manage. He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes again, unable to carry on talking, trying to hold back the sweats.

‘Oh well,’ said Lewis, gazing out of the window. ‘I suppose it’s another tick in a box. Fucking swingers’ party,’ she laughed softly.

‘Got to get out,’ said Letch urgently, groping for the door handle.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Out,’ he hissed, and literally tumbled out of his door.

He shouldn’t have double dropped those pills, she thought. Could’ve been anything in them. Served him right really. She didn’t even know if he’d done an E before. Letch was more booze and charlie. She thought about going outside and seeing if he was ok, but Letch wasn’t the really sort of person you did that with.

She was glad she’d slowed down when she’d got to the swingers’ party. She felt all right now, could go on through the night. No worries. She leant over and pulled the driver’s door closed, then snorted one of the new sets of lines. There was a knock on the window and the back door opened.

‘Thought Letch had scared you off,’ she laughed.

‘Nah,’ said Rob, although his smile was just a little too thin.

Letch was flying now, but shit had it been a rough take off…

One minute, he’d been fine, sitting in the car, snorting coke and shooting the breeze with Lewis and the next he’d been clawing to hold it together as that hum in his head had just got louder and louder until he’d thought he was about to do a Leah Betts.

He’d thrown up and sat on a kerb for a good long while, head in hands, until the hum had gone quiet. Only when he’d been absolutely sure his head wasn’t going to cave in, had he started walking. He hadn’t a clue where he was heading, just put his head down and walked until the feeling wasn’t so bad anymore, and his jaw had stopped grinding like an industrial compressor.

He’d stopped by the pier, smoked a cigarette, done a self-assessment and passed himself fit, then turned around and walked back the way he’d come feeling like Forest fucking Gump.

He was aware that the world around him seemed different now, as if the edges had been sanded down and softened. He felt different too. Half an hour ago he’d been praying to a God he didn’t believe in, pleading to him to make it to the other side, but now he felt fantastic, like a superhero incarnate, ready for anything. His mind was clear and alert and his body felt fully charged. His stride was purposeful and he had the sudden notion that walking had never seemed so enjoyable before.

The sea front road was lively considering the hour, people walking this way and that along the seafront path, gangs of boy racers huddled around car boots stuffed with stereo speakers, and the occasional roar of engines as souped up saloon cars raced off down the long straight road. Letch reached a shuttered café beside a deserted playground. A solitary figure sat on one of the wooden tables, his white puffer jacket shining him up like a beacon in the darkness. He had some cans on the table beside him.

‘Hey mate, you don’t want to sell me one of those do you?’ Letch called over.
The figure didn’t reply straight away. He looked at the can in his hand and to the cans beside him.

‘Yeah all right,’ he said. ‘Cost you five.’

‘Five quid for a can?’ Letch laughed contemptuously.

‘It’s the only bar round here geez. Take it or leave it.’

‘I’d better take it then son,’ said Letch. ‘You got change for a twenty?’

‘I’ve got change.’

Letch veritably skipped over to where the cockney was sitting.

‘Let’s see your money first.’

Letch smiled. ‘Here, ‘he said, pulling out the bundle of notes he’d taken from Swinger’s party.’ ‘Satisfied now?’

The cockney nodded and gave the can over. ‘You like acid mate? Got some Superman blotters if you fancy.’

‘Superman eh?’ asked Letch, doing a little jig on the spot. It was too good to be true. ‘Why the fuck not! The night’s still young wouldn’t you say?’

‘I suppose so,’ the other shrugged, unimpressed with Letch’s enthusiasm. ‘How many?’

‘How many you got?’

‘Ten.’

‘I’ll take the ten then please my good man.’ Letch quipped. He cracked the can open while the cockney removed his shoe. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said without looking up. ‘They’re wrapped in cling film.’

‘Good. I’d hate to get Athlete’s mouth.’ Letch began to laugh at his joke.

The cockney didn’t laugh. He held the plastic wrap out to him. ‘Go on then mate,’ he said. ‘Thirty quid and five for the beer.’

Letch pulled his wallet out. ‘I’ve got an idea,’ he said. ‘Why don’t I take those ten, this can, and another for luck…’ He nodded to the lagers on the table. ‘… And we’ll call it quits shall we?’

The cockney cracked a smile. It was part bemusement but part something more sinister. ‘You’re having a fucking laugh pal.’ His hand dropped down and behind, reaching for something in his waistband.

‘You’re right,’ said Letch. ‘I’m having a real fucking laugh.’ He snapped his wallet open and flashed his Met ID. ‘Now give me another can and fuck off.’

Letch could see the white of the puffer jacket bobbing away in the dark of the distance as he tore the plastic wrapping away and ripped off a cardboard square. ‘OK superman,’ he said out loud. ‘Let’s see if we can make this party fly shall we?…

The tab stung his tongue and he drained half the can to drown the battery taste away.

Tim’s first novel, The Sewerside Chronicles,was the winner of the 2007 Undiscovered Authors prize. His short stories appear in QueenSpark’s Alt Future and the upcoming ‘Urban’ anthology published by Phoenix Press

Shepard Fairey’s President-elect Barack Obama

Brighton has always been at the forefront of producing budding artists of many forms in music, art, and prose. So for a city flush with students and uncapped talents, Art Republic are offering one lucky artist the chance to have their print exhibited and sold at one of their two galleries and worldwide online with the launch of “The art of hope” competition taking place this month.

Art Republic want you to illustrate how you feel about the opportunities presented by the transition between 2008 – 2009. Budding artists are encouraged to submit their piece of graphic or poster art via the Art Republic website by January 30th and the winner will be announced by the end of February 2009.

“This is a fantastic opportunity for an aspiring or established artist to express themselves, with the winner to eventually expose their work to the world”, says Andrew Milledge at Art Republic. “We want to see raw, honest artwork depicting an attitude or viewpoint regarding change. We are all hoping for a positive New Year and this competition will bring people together with some fascinating images”.

Art Republic

For more information visit www.artrepublic.com

Enter the ‘art of hope’ competition either by visiting the Flickr pages or you can email your image to artwork@artrepublic.com.

Wanna win up to $6000 in cash prizes? 2008’s Grammy nominated electronic duo Justice are celebrating big time – and they’re giving their fans a piece of the action with their YOU WERE GREAT IN 2008 contest.

The duo are celebrating the NYC premiere and soon-to-launched DVD/CD “A Cross the Universe”, in which every second of their three-week March 2008 American tour was filmed. It’s true what they say, ya know: “Extraordinary things that can happen when a bunch of frogs gets dropped in dreamy America.”

Justice – A Cross The Universe – Trailer from industreate on Vimeo.

YOU WERE GREAT IN 2008
To enter the “YOU WERE GREAT IN 2008″ contest, it’s easy. All you have to do is:
1) Register at www.industreate.com/contest

2) Make a 1-4 minute film of HOW you were totally fab being you this year.

Were you: clubbing, hanging out with your mates at the pub, travelling around India, festival hopping, cruising in the car, singing to yourself?

Trying to get on X-Factor, or even just hanging out on Brighton beach pretending to be a mime? I’m sure you were very good at whatever you were doing.

Filming’s a cinch – do it with your iphone, your camera, whatever floats your boat. The Vimeo site can help you with any techie questions if you’re not in that way inclined.

3) Upload your video to www.vimeo.com and tag it with “JST4ALL” and “BRIGHTONFUSION“.

There’s some top prizes including an all-expense paid trip to hang out with Justice, specially signed merch & STUFF but sadly if the NYE trip is only for US residents. HOWEVER all is not lost as UK people will get the FULL WHACK of the total value of the grand prize – that’s $1000 if you win !!

FAME, GLORY, CASH, STUUUUUUUUUFFFFFFFF!!!

But you need to be quick -deadline for entry is 26th November 2008.

Top winner and five runners up for each category (individuals & blogs) also walk away with loads of other special merch plus the immense fame of having your video playing everywhere in Chicago and getting exposure of the Justice crew. So who knows?

The final winner will be chosen by Justice, So Me, Busy P, Dan Stiles and many many other industry bods.

To learn more, including the guidelines, which I recommend having a look at quickly before whizzing off your entry, go to the contest site.

Good luck and don’t forget to tell ‘em we sent you !!

“A CROSS THE UNIVERSE” DROPS DECEMBER 9th ON ATLANTIC RECORDS

Fancy throwing a £25k party for your friends, all expenses paid? Well now’s your chance.

Mobile phone and broadband provider company 3 are hitting the young demographic on their own turf with their Facebook Seriously Social Party Competition.

HERE’S HOW TO ENTER
From NOW until Thursday 6th November (that’s 23:59 for you slackers), all you’ve got to do to become one of 25 FINALISTS is:
1) Join the Facebook Fan Group for the INQ phone – 3’s Seriously Social Party Competition
2) Write on the wall in 20 words or less why you should be picked as a finalist.

Maybe it’s because you’ve run successful parties. Are you a promoter or someone with the most friends oN Facebook? Maybe it’s because youR friends are strippers – or Latter Day Saints. Who really knows how the judges will decide who the top 25 are? I’m thinking cameras, flash, action. Big Brother house material? I hope not! Just let your imagination go wild.

WHAT’S NEXT?
1) The 25 finalists will be notified by phone or email by 8pm on the 7th of November. If 3 aren’t able to contact you by 9pm on the 7th of November, you’re stuffed. Sorry.

2) If you’re one of the 25 finalists, the race is on. An event page will be set up on Facebook for your party, and you’ve got from 7th November to 11.59pm on 16th of November 2008 to pull in the attendees.

3) Whoever gets the most people to say yes wins.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST
Sit tight on your phone after 18th November 2008. If you’re a winner and 3 can’t get you by 1st December 2008, you lose out. If you answer, your party’s IN!

RULES & LEGAL STUFF
It’s 18 & up, parties only in the UK – for more info, go to the facebook site and read the fine print.