delfouneso

"I have to admit that I haven’t paid a lot of attention to this website [DavidSoul.com] for quite a while and I’m sorry about that. I’m lazy. On the other hand, I don’t like talking trash and when there’s nothing to talk about or when it’s just about filling space, I prefer to demure to memory, which is not the easiest thing for me to remember. But recently, my dear friend, colleague and artist in his own right, David Delfouneso reminded me of a collage of film moments from Starsky And Hutch that he’d edited together five years ago and that he told me I had seen, but of course didn’t remember. It is brilliant ... not me ... him and his compilation put together against the music of Dungeon East and Whild Peach ... Set Me Free. Although Starsky And Hutch was a seminal ...read more

This information spans every significant relationship I ever had. Back before Spotify, before iTunes, Apple Music and CDs; we used to make mix tapes for our girlfriends or for parties we were either hosting or attending. Without fail, the first track on my first tape would always be the first 30 seconds or so of UB40's D.U.B Dub. There was just something about it that set the whole tape up and ensured its place as the opening song on side A. At nineteen I was still a teanager when I first heard it and I hadn't heard it in the last twenty years or so because it was never re-released on CD or digitally in the time since I stopped sampling off vinyl. I finally got to hear it a few days ago when I purchased a turntable and hooked it up to my computer ...read more

I know someone who is in China this month visiting some of the places that I visited almost two years ago. The village that I stayed in for five very cold days will – at some point in the near future – be turned into a city of apartment blocks. The land used for farming will disappear and the farmers re-housed. As I write this I am already formulating a plan to re-visit Weifang to document the changes. There are people there that will be greatly affected by these changes. Some for the better, but also some for the worse. One of the earliest moments that I captured on film was that of children playing in a tree. I found the simplicity of that activity quite profound in that it reminded me of my own childhood when the technology-driven toys that western children take for ...read more

I’m older now and it seems that one of its benefits is that I am finally becoming the person I should always have been. I’m quieter, happier, less impulsive (that one takes effort), less stubborn and a lot more considerate. I don’t see too many of the ’old gang’ anymore... nice people but far too young to be any kind of a support structure!.. and that has helped me to find my inner peace. I now only spend time with people I care about and who care about me. As soon as I see a glimpse of arrogance, anger or plain rudeness I’m off in the opposite direction without a word of protest or hint of disappointment. It’s nice not to hear the sound of my own voice complaining... to quote a friend, "my dark passenger has finally left me." Anita Fran has helped. I ...read more

"San Francisco - a U.S. city favourite of mine, if not one of the greatest cities in the world - also offered me a seminal moment in my early career. After guest starring in the television series, The Streets Of San Francisco (1972) (Karl Malden and Michael Douglas), Clint Eastwood, who saw the episode, offered me the role of ’Davis’ in the second of the Dirty Harry films, Magnum Force (1973). Not only would that film mark a first ’big’ break, Magnum Force would eventually lead to an offer from Aaron Spelling to do the role of Hutch in Starsky And Hutch. "San Francisco and her musicians also provided me a serious beginning to my recording career as well as the musicians who would make up ’The Band of Friends’ for the next twenty years... Andy Kulberg, Chris Michie, Norton Buffalo, Richard Green, Jac Murphy ...read more

I have two albums by Pueblo Café ; La Batalla (2010) and Busch Oro (2004). My favourite tracks are Reflejos, Nieves Tiempos and Todo Mi Vida which translated into English are All My Life, Reflexes and Snow Times. Long before I looked up the lyrics to translate them into English and discovered what they were singing about; I'd already had one of the tunes playing as the soundtrack to our lives back in 2007 when putting together a short film about a holiday in The United States. It was winter in London, England so a welcomed break in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas and Hawaii over a period of nineteen days was not to be sneezed at (excuse the pun). Pueblo Café are also known as The Browntown Looters and it was their Todo Mi Vida track from 2004 that I ended up using ...read more

I’m about to change all that right now by telling you about my next adventure: Switching up a gear and revamping this website into something that my family and loved ones might want to look at long after I’m dead and gone... There are a few of you that I’m pretty sure I’ll outlive so I’ll try and post something of interest for you sooner rather than later, starting with something that literally inspired me to get out and get filming again. I shot it a couple of years ago whilst renting in Werribee, Victoria,MelbourneAustralia. It got me out of bed and out the house at 5 o’clock on a Sunday morning to catch the sunrise, a big truck and a 1970s V8 powered muscle car. ...read more

My father died when I was only twelve years old. He had been ill for quite some time with cancer and I remember taking care of him each day when I got home from school. I was all he had during that time as my mother worked nights in the hospital and my brother was always at the pub. When people asked me about him I would always tell the story of how he sat us down one day and told us about the argument he got into with a German man he encountered one day whilst walking along the canal bank. The argument ended with my father killing the man and dumping the body in the canal. My father took pride in telling the story because the money that the dead man had on him financed our new life in England. My mother hated ...read more

They’re gone. They caught the plane out of Melbourne, Australia this evening and I was very sad to see them go. The emotional exchange caught us all by surprise. I will miss them and I hope that they will miss me. They have been the place for me to go of an evening when I didn’t want to be on my own. They have been my family here in Australia. ...read more

Anyone who knows me will be aware that I’m passionate about filmmaking. I have other skills but this is the one that centres me. When I travel I always have a camera with me. In the winter of 2008 I visited Weifang - a Prefecture-level city in the Shandong province of China - for what was to be the coldest winter I ever spent anywhere. My friends have heard me talk about this so often now... about the solar powered water tank on the roof that delivered piping hot water but stopped short of coming out of the tap because it had re-frozen along the way... or the restaurants with thick blankets across the front doors and patrons eating their meals whilst still wearing their coats (and in my case - hat, gloves and scarf)... or the office buildings where the receptionists greet you from ...read more