ISSUE
03
FEBRUARY 2012 it’sFREE
hDOOW? [by the
people of]
a cultural magazine for the
people.
bradford
hDOOW?
[editor’s foreword]
This month’s artwork comes courtesy of our good friend MERT. His photography has given this issue a distinctively Bradfordian feel and inspired the central theme of regeneration. MERT’s revealing imagery explores the forgotten corners of the city and provides the perfect contrast to our forward-looking issue. The City Park is the talk of the town. What is it for? Is it worth the money? And what’s in it for us? I attempt to answer some of these questions in this month’s bigISSUE. Mr Johnston, Douglas Thompson, Bobby Hick and Steve Hanson also turn their attentions to regenerating Bradford through a series of thought provoking and creative features. Our submissions box has been bulging with suggestions and we happy to be able to introduce some brand new sections (and of course writers) to the publication. Devyani Lamba visits the National Asian Wedding Show in fashionCULTURE and we are delighted to welcome Richard Ramsden and Mark Husak to our new food&DRINK section. As for the rest its business as usual as they continue setting standards high. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everybody who has backed this project so far and enabled us to get to where we are. We look forward to continuing and building on our strong relationships and accumilating many more in the coming months. Thank you to everybody who filled out our customer survey, your input is helping make the magazine magnificent. Missed out? You can still give us your thoughts by visiting our facebook page. Please keep your ideas, submissions and feedback coming. Enjoy the read, Haigh
[PEOPLE]
Producer: Distribution Manager: Artistic Director: Editor: Layout Design: Advert Design: spokenWORD: theatre&PERFORMANCE: liveMUSIC FilmREVIEW: Proof Reading: Contributors:
Mr Johnston Eric Dawson James Kemp Haigh Simpson Mr Johnston Mr Johnston Rob Ward Jane Steele Peter Huntley Chemaine Cooke George Quinn Mike Mckenny Rob Walsh Michael Metcalfe Bob Hick Steve Hanson Douglas Thompson Pete Huntley Chemaine Cooke Dick Stone Russell Allen Michael Nutter RM-Studios Devyani Lamba Richard Ramsden Marko Husak Andy Abbott Kelly McKenny Khawar Ilyas Joolz Denby Mussarat Rahman Rob Walsh
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Writer? haigh@howdomagazine.co.uk Artist? james@howdomagazine.co.uk SAY IT HERE. We want your If you have something to say about our city s and previews. views. We want your news, reviews, feature
ISSUE 3 [FEBRUARY 2012] [OUR PARTNERS] [COLLABORATIONS]
5_[theBIGISSUE] Haigh Simpson asks “What’s going on with the City Park?” 11_[ourHERITAGE] The Janus Face of Regeneration by Steve Hanson 13_[bratfudOUTLOOK] Three aspirational views of Bradford 16_[people&ART] Dick Stone rants about Therapeutic Blasphemy + introduction to two new exciting
18_[theatre&PERFORMANCE]
creative projects
Kala Sangam; Birth of a new theatre + Doctor William Radice speaking about Rabindranath Tagore
20_[theatre&PERFORMANCE] Theatre in the Mill Spring/Summer Programme by Chemaine Cooke
+ Naked Launch: Profile of Sue Vickerman by Jane Steel
22_[fashion&CULTURE] The Birth of a Bride by Devyani Lambi 24_[spokenWORD] Jane Steele introduces poems by Russell Allen & Michael Nutter 29_[artisticPERSPECTIVE] Interview with this month’s guest artist MERT 30_[not so] localLEGEND Haigh Simpson speaks with Howard Marks. 34_[food&DRINK] La Rue in Saltaire reviewed by Richard Ramsden + Bradford Beer Festival Preview 40_[liveMUSIC] Live music reviews/previews from around the district 44_[mediaREVIEW] 46_[filmREVIEW] Mike McKenny presents Ania’s Film Salon and Movies for Juniors 49_[secretBRADFORD] Our pick of where to check out in the district 51_[wotsSAPNIN?] A soundbite guide to what’s going on in January [SUBSCRIPTION]
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HowDo Magazine is an independent organisation that encourages creative expression. THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN HowDo ARE THE OPINIONS OF THE WRITERS & DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT THE VIEWS OF THE PUBLICATION.
24% Not Sure
Do You Think it Will Have a Positive Effect on Bradford? 49% Yes
Photo by Douglas Thompson
27% No
bigISSUE What’s Going On With The City Park? Three years ago the Bradford Civic Society released its report on the regeneration of Bradford. ‘Common Sense Regeneration’ offered solutions based on public consultation. The report’s findings were an indictment of the civic leadership of the city. The general feeling amongst those present at the consultation event was that development was repeatedly done to the city of Bradford and not for the city of Bradford. People felt that “planning is all too often in the hands of individuals who have scant knowledge or interest in Bradford’s unique and important heritage”, that “the Council and its planners are too prone to produce grandiose schemes…without securing the means to carry them out”, and most importantly that “members of the public are not listened to.”
How do you feel Bradford should be regenerated? “Reduce the cost of rent for shops and stalls in the market, and provide incentives for those willing to open new businesses. Fill the “Hole” and refurbish older centres especially the community hubs”.
Mussarat Rahman
Several years on, and with the grand opening of the city’s latest product of regeneration imminent, it seems little has been done to change the public opinion. Our own City Park survey found that just 13% thought the public were properly consulted on the development of the park, and that only 23% are fully aware of its purpose and intention. The official opening of the park on March 24th ought to be a seminal moment for the city, yet cynicism and distrust lingers.
There are signs that the Council are aware of this and are looking to address the problem. In a committee meeting on the ‘City Park Animation and Events Programme’ in October 2010 it was acknowledged that the current weaknesses of the project were a lack of focus/purpose, mismatched marketing, a lack of information/coordination and personal indulgence. With the park now open to the public and nearing completion it is vital that these issues do not affect its future.
No 71%
Do You Think it is Worth the Money?
Efforts are being made to engage the public, starting with the grand opening which is currently in development. The celebration promises a range of events and performance from children’s activities earlier in the day through to live music at night. It is hoped there will be something for everyone, and that it will showcase the potential of the space for similar events in the future. The opening event will be funded in part by the Council with extra investment coming via sponsorship. There are further plans for an ongoing animation programme, as well as commemorative events such as the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, but the hope is that outside organisations will also come forward with proposals for future events. Councillor David Green, the Council’s executive member for regeneration and the economy, said “We are having discussions with local groups about how they can utilise the space and use it for their own ends, it’s something that is going to grow organically because there is really nothing like this anywhere else and everybody is just going to have to learn as we go along to an extent.” When asked how the council will respond to proposed events Cllr Green said, “We will look at each case as it is brought to us and if by some small support from the council we can achieve that, we will seriously look at it…If people come up with ideas and concepts they think will work we are always open to listen and we can help provide professional support if not cash.” There are times when you need a public open space to be just that, and even in January it is still being used, which is a promising sign. There is a healthy level of interest and curiosity, with significant numbers of people stopping to admire, engage and pass comment. Only time will tell as to whether fears that the pool will soon be filled with discarded take-away cartons and supermarket trolleys will be realised. We do, though, have reason to feel optimistic that they won’t: 73% said they liked the park, and nearly half believed it would have a positive effect on the city. These figures are sure to rise once the true potential of the park is recognised. A common criticism raised during the survey was that the money could have been better spent elsewhere. Questions were raised over the value of such an indulgence in the midst of a recession, with 71% of the public believing the City Park was not worth the money. Cllr Green defended the £24million investment by saying, “Most importantly it is an economic and employment tool. It will raise the property values in the immediate area and attract in investors. We are already seeing a great deal of interest by investors to come in, create offices and to bring jobs into the city centre which will continue the ongoing regeneration of Bradford’s city centre which has been neglected for years.” (cont)
No 27%
Do You Like the City Park?
Yes 73% Yes 29%
5
These claims are substantiated in part by Provident’s recent decision to move their headquarters to the area. Longer term plans include the demolition of the police station to develop office accommodation and the moving of the magistrates’ court, opening up the area to further investment.
Were the Public Properly Consulted on its Development?
Where then does it fit into plans for wider regeneration in the area? Cllr Green says, “What we are trying to do is to create as much employment in Bradford city centre as we can to support the retail and the services industry such as the bars, restaurants and the cultural activities in Bradford city centre by generating that footfall during the day... We have got an original growth fund bid which will hopefully support Westfield getting on site as soon as possible. We have also put our own money into a growth fund for the rest of Bradford city centre to try and encourage people to come in and take the empty shops and the empty buildings, what we have got is some of the greatest architecture in the country but it is poor and unkempt in many places at the moment and we need to encourage that being bought up to use.” If they are to be successful they will need the support and input of the general public. The two main priorities of public concern remain as they were when the Civic Society first proposed ‘Common Sense Regeneration’ back in 2009. The Westfield site and the dilapidated Odeon Building are still burning a depressing hole in the city. The proposals made in the report should be reconsidered before sitting down with Westfield, as should the views of the people. We can only hope that the city park proves to be the catalyst the city needs. Wouldn’t it be lovely to see a fully restored Odeon site reflected in our new mirror pool? For too long the city has failed to make best use of its impressive heritage and transform itself into an attractive, prosperous and dynamic place. Let’s hope this is a turning point.
Report by Haigh Simpson
Sort Of 34%
Are You Aware of its Intended Purpose and Function? Yes 23% No 43%
How do you feel Bradford should be regenerated?
and geyser combo in the Bradford doesn’t need ‘regeneration’ of the sort that puts a pond from corrupt companies malls shopping middle of Centenary Square and begs for corporate the great beauty and nds understa who vision true with someone needs it that never appear of the community spirit c eccentri y scope of the physical city and is in love with the brilliantl architecture, heritage its for UK the in draw tourist biggest the be it houses. Bradford could venues B&Bs, boutique quirky see I its thriving arts community and its magnificent cuisine. Love endless. is list the clubs BoHo gigs events arts style tal and cafes in the continen Leeds. of copy sad a Bradford and honour it: don’t just try and turn it into
Joolz Denby
Yes 13% No 87%
How do you feel Bradford should be regenerated? Free city centre car parks, three hours initially. Rates holiday for streets where charity/empty shops predominate. Contract for firm with enough imagination to incorporate Odeon towers in new build. Demolish Kirkgate Market and replace with a replica of the original in Yorkshire stone. I believe the old entrance is in storage.
Rob Walsh
We asked our friends on Twitter the question: “What are your aspirations for Bradford?” ...and this is the response we got. @NeilFitzgerald “To create an collaborative, creative and daring environment that is not a slave to retail.” @uksajidmo “To embrace all the different heritages in the city into a cultural melting pot that is halfway between Leeds and Hebden Bridge” @yorksranter “World’s biggest temporary autonomous zone, Occupy Capital”. Or “nightmarish future of municipal competence”. @lordyosch “A thriving city centre with a bright future. Not a dormitory for Leeds.” @BPMonkey “Bradford to swap places with Hamburg for a couple of weeks. Like a geographical wife swap. It might come back better for it.” @loosely_bound “A place of beauty, magic, adventures and surprises that feeds your soul” @impgalleryphoto “Our aspiration is for Bradford to be recognised as the national hub for photography” @tombarrett19 “Beautiful streets and open spaces and diverse nightlife and culture scene.” “ @TanyaVital “Capitalism/spending/shopping is on the way out so we have 2 become a cultural techno centre. Use our assets & clean up town!” Follow us on Twitter @HOWDOBRADFORD
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The wool exchange; built 1867 Architects: lockwood & mawson of bradford
ourHERITAGE The Janus Face of Regeneration
I have returned to an earlier Bradford free magazine, ‘After the Break’, as its debut issue, in 1998, also carried the theme of ‘regeneration’. Then, as now, dealing with the city meant engaging with both the positive and negative. Looking back, there was anger at the sale of the Wool Exchange to private business, as an arts and regeneration conference took place. It is interesting to read Francois Matarosso’s concerns at that event, regarding a common flaw in regenerative thinking: that it often focuses on bottom-line economics, rather than on ‘its deeper sense, as the management of society’s resources’, to create a confident and creative city. Council officers sat and listened. There was advocacy around regenerating Thornton Road and Lister Mill, the Temple Bar area of Dublin was suggested as a model for this. So, let’s move ahead a decade and a half. If we look to Thornton Road, Junction Mill, once an art school campus, was closed by Bradford College in 2006, to be sold off to private developers. It remains closed and empty. For regeneration, the private and economic still holds sway, it seems. In his recent book, ‘A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain’, Owen Hatherley saves some of his most withering words for Lister and Manningham Mills, describing gated apartments and stolen birthrights. In 1998, the mill at 125 Thornton Road was proposed for artists’ studios, a project which did not come to pass. Many critics of Manchester’s post-1996 regeneration focused on how the public were engaged, and then, mostly, ignored. This said, New Labour pushed millions into the Bradford YMCA Culture Fusion building, right at the end of their tenure, a project wedding innovative architecture to an egalitarian project. We can now walk there to see it, in its colourful, concrete reality. In Junction Mill and the Culture Fusion building, side-byside, we have positive and negative aspects of change in the city, the Janus-face of regeneration. But Bradford is couched in much wider regeneration narratives. Owen Hatherley began his chapter on the West Riding of Yorkshire by describing Will Alsop’s ‘Supercity’, a proposal to join all of the West Riding up via an architectural masterplan. Supercity was unveiled at the equally utopian and doomed Urbis, in Manchester, in 2005. Hatherley’s critique largely points at New Labour’s stateled neoliberalism, which he views as having a mixed legacy. Urbis itself was a kind of default, New Labour icon, finally closing as the party became unelectable. Urbis characterised the public-private partnerships of Anthony Giddens’ ‘Third Way’ policy, and, like that idea, it suffered from a bad identity crisis, which would ultimately sweep it away. The ousting of New Labour roughly coincided with a massive economic collapse, and so these architectural grand gestures suddenly seem like ancient history. With this as a context, no discussion of regeneration in 2012 should focus solely on aesthetic surfaces, or consumerism, because it is clear that Bradford, like many other post-industrial cities, is facing deep systemic problems. Yet this still seems to be the only game in town, and most polls indicate that the public largely blame the current recession on Labour overspend. The cover of the November 2009 issue of ‘After the Break’ features a photograph of the balcony of a flat, decorated with flowers. The old lady who occupies it smiles out. Return to the site now, and you can still see this early
social housing, with arts and crafts features, only reduced to a quotation from the HBO TV series ‘The Wire’. The whole frontage is pasted over with steel panels, a piece of community art is placed at its centre, with a slogan which reads ‘come on city, come on city’, a football chant which doubles as a desperate cry for an unconscious, swollen patient to wake from a coma. Just down the road is High Point, originally built for the rather benign Yorkshire Building Society, and Hatherley rightly reserves some rhetorical language for this building: ‘It’s utterly freakish, the severed head of some Japanese giant robot, glaring out at the city through blood red windows… the combination of wild technological daring, Cold War paranoia, shabby corruption and crushed dreams…’ My frank response to this building is unprintable, it is the fact that capitalism no longer serves us, but that we serve it, in the form of an enormous, will-power draining, physical insult. If we want to summon Janus again, we could compare this site with the rooftop penthouses of Lister’s Mill, now re-fitted by Urban Splash, and sold on to a city elite. High Point, and Bradford’s ruined social housing, are icons for both the success of modernism, and its utter failure. Charles Jencks gave a very precise date and time to both the end of modernism and the rise of postmodernism: three in the afternoon on March the 16th, 1972. This is the date when the Pruitt-Igoe housing estate in St. Louis, Missouri, was dynamited, and mass social housing became a failed project. Whether you believe it or not, the ‘end of grand narratives’, from this point onwards, is firmly written into history. But the problem with postmodernism is that it masks the persistence and continued rise of the real Grand Narrative: capitalism.
One of the earliest anti-modern tracts about architecture was ‘Death and Life of Great American Cities’ by Jane Jacobs, but Owen Hatherley’s critique effectively follows it up, to argue that postmodernism provided few solutions to Jacobs’ many concerns. Because of this, regeneration, I believe, needs to regenerate itself as an idea. Because the notion that selfcorrecting, deregulated free-markets can deliver smooth and even regeneration, through shopping and the arts, exploded as loudly as the Pruitt-Igoe housing estate, when Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, on September the 15th, 2008. What I am certain about in this ultra-uncertain period is that ‘after postmodernism’ isn’t going to mean some new round of even fresher ironic fun, in Bradford or anywhere else. But nor is it likely to return us to stronger political unity either. Under these conditions, the only thing to do is to hold on to the practice of collaboration, and dialogue, as we try to here, and to continually open out the discussion as it unfolds.
Steve Hanson
11
With my energies spent elsewhere this month (keeping up with the growth of the inclusive creature that we have given birth to) Issue3 of bratfudOUTLOOK is a sharing of opinion from two active creatives living in Bradford. + I feel it necessary to chip in with my view on the matter: The way to regenerate a place is to inspire and energise its people. Instil pride and confidence. The viral nature of such feelings will create an excitement on the street and an energy that makes you feel that you are part of something happening, like it feels to be on the streets of London on a Friday night. Could the great sleeping giant that is Bradford re-awaken and have itself a renaissance? Bradford has a unique cultural diversity and a distinct identity that we need to embrace and celebrate. Less of following our friends in Leeds, Sheffield and Manchester; they seem pretty content with the image they have created for themselves. They stand proud. But do we? Might I remind the decision makers in this city who rid Bradford of its wild boar?! Bradford is a city of working people; down-to-earth sound folk, story-tellers from a massive spectrum of cultural perspectives. Or as the official tag line quite aptly states: “One Landscape Many Views”. Let’s be proud of our heritage and moreover let’s celebrate who we are in 2012. When I’m asked the question: Where are you from? ... I will stood tall and respond, “I am from Bradford West Yorkshire.” Be proud of this beautiful corner of the world. It is unique. I want to see more life on the street. The Council need to lighten up and trust the people by encouraging creativity. The stories I hear on the street are ones of poor dialogue between City Hall and the people who are scratching a living in our commercial centre.
Where else can you find exotic spices sold beside cassava, have your watch fixed and eat freshly prepared noodles whilst you wait. Bradford should sing and dance its way out of recession. Not through contrived artistic events that are commissioned at great cost by a panel of ‘experts’. Here we have a hotbed of artists who have received widespread accreditation for their progressive DIY creative endeavours. The Bradford Playhouse showed the potential this city has to lead the way in experimental art (experimentation, expression and exploration being the true purposes of art). So let’s give these individuals a platform to grow and spread their creative influence. I want a Biennial like the one in Liverpool. There you have the council, the academic and commercial institutions and its people all banging the same drum. Go this coming September and you will feel the buzz of a cultural capital which is awash with arts events, impromptu exhibitions by DIY artists, friendly street life and brilliant parties. It’s not like we are lacking the necessary ingredients of established arts venues and interesting disused spaces http://www.biennial.com/ Somebody somewhere once said (forgive me for forgetting who!); to follow the path to the Holy Grail is pointless, as this is not your path. Bradford needs to follow its own path out of recession. And I think it is quite clear that our path is one littered with colour, cuisine, music, street performance, story-telling, grandiose interventions, digital media, people and art. Let us find our identity and let us be proud Bradfordians. Mr Johnston
We are a city of shopkeepers, the predominantly asian areas and the thriving John Street market proves that is the way forward, so let’s support that and promote Bradford’s unique shopping experience!
looking out over bradford from the highpoint building (yorkshire building society)
bratfudOUTLOOK I WANNA DANCE WITH SOMEBODY
Okay, so it’s not like I’m asking for much… I mean Bradford is a city of around 300,000 people, right? We’re proud of our underground scenes, our diversity, our quirkiness and our curries. BUT WHERE DOES A GIRL GO ON A THURSDAY NIGHT TO DANCE? And I don’t mean nightclubs like Revs or Tokyos, I mean a proper cosy, moody club/café/bar with a dance floor. We used to be good at that. It’s not like I spend all my time harking back to the past – BELIEVE ME, I WANT TO LIVE AND CELEBRATE THE PRESENT – but I am seasoned enough to remember some great Bradford clubs, like the ‘Nash, the Sugar Cane, the Mayflower, the Palm Cove and more recently, the Mill, the Love Apple and for a short and beautiful time most recently, the Playhouse. Small, independent places, full of character and good music, where you could go out with your mates and have a good dance on a regular weekly basis. Wonderful, independent places where local people from all different walks of life, all ages, shapes and sizes, come together to drink, dance and socialise. Special spaces that reveal the character of an area, that tell you something about the people and the place you are in. And I’m not forgetting NO HANDS here (I love you guys) and their regular alt-pop party on the last Friday of the month at the Polish Social Club – but it’s a bit like dancing in someone’s living room, you know what I’m saying. Now, I’m not averse to dancing in living rooms, I do it often enough in my own. And once a month is just not enough! C’MON! I know there’s people out there playing some really cool compilation playlists to themselves!! Now, please, good people of Bradford, tell me if I’m missing something here.**I don’t want to have to go to the Hifi club in Leeds to enjoy a regular night out. We’ve got some great venues here in Bradford for dancing in; upstairs at the Polish, downstairs at Balanga, the 1 in 12, the cellar bar at the Beehive, to name a few. If we are talking regeneration, there’s nothing more regenerative than a good dance. I can’t and don’t believe I’m the only one who wants to celebrate being alive by having a great night out on a regular weekly basis. So I throw down the gauntlet to you music lovers and music promoters of Bradford! Let’s try this for starters: 8pm – 1am, every Thursday night – Welcome in the weekend with Bradford’s regular dance night. COME ON! You know you want to! ** Let us know if you there’s a place you go to regularly in Bradford for a good night out and a dance.
Bradford: A Vision
We should all be holy fools. The great god fashion is an idol that imprisons us. Let us be earnest and naive and celebrate our great city. It’s a Saturday in July and the sun is high in the sky. There’s an outdoor chess competition going on hosted by the Latvian Club and there’s an air of excitement. It makes the square feel almost like New York. We joked yesterday of Barcelona and La Ramblas because multicultural street performers and musicians playing here have given the city a truly cosmopolitan air. Jokes abound about this dirty old town; Bradistan’s like York with bite they say as dubeke, guitar and dulcimer play. Schools and local community groups are seen every day on the big screen. There’s a monthly competition for the best Bradford home video and then there’s the Canterbury estate carnival and the colourful costumes made by the community on show too. There’s a small open craft market with six stalls during the summer where local crafts are sold by DIY makers. My friend Zaytoon has a stall there once a fortnight where she sells really cool bags made from recycled materials. There are chalk artists, photographers; sometimes a caricaturist and it makes the place feel like Covent Garden. People are travelling to the city because of the unique flavour of DIY activity. People remark that it’s like the Corn Exchange in Leeds used to be. There are even whispers that in June, July and August it feels like the old Bradford Festival and that the Mela lasts all summer. Shops and businesses have done well out of the increased footfall. Smaller businesses are flourishing as they were mobile enough to recognise the opportunity. There is the sense that the square is a forum, a meeting place, a picnic spot and a place where you can go to meet old friends and get to know new ones. There is an air of safety and an absence of any fear because of a great sense of community. There’s Tai Chi and Parkour taking place every day whilst business is done by the shirts and ties; there’s free WIFI; all feel welcome and accepted. I can’t afford to go on holiday this year because of the recession but hell who’d want to jet off somewhere else when you live here.
Douglas Thompson
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people&ART It’s a Mean Old Scene [Therapeutic Blasphemy] by Dick Stone
“I never liked David Hockney, Delius bores me rigid and J.B. Priestley was a fraud.” This is the unholy Blasphemy of the Bradford Black Mass. Cross yourself thrice and sing “On Ilkla Moor Baht ‘At” backwards whilst burning an effigy of Christa Ackroyd (if you don’t have the real thing to hand) and in exchange for your soul you will be given as much copper as you can carry in a flat cap. It’s not an amazing deal but that’s Bradford for you; times being what they are. Alternatively if you’re a hard-up arts entrepreneur you could try your hand at the D.I.Y. arts scene. It’s very fashionable right now. In this age of austerity it’s almost as cool as being uncool. It’s all a part of Cameron’s Big Society. We’ll be digging for victory in the allotments before long for the hipsters are on the run ‘cause up is down and down is up. Let’s live off the poor by a vampirical process of osmosis. Let’s eat the poor, let’s desiccate the people; we’ll sell them their own culture repackaged and seasoned with a bastardisation of their original ideologies. I’m getting hard just thinking about it.
“What the Fuck is DIY Culture?” Do Do Do Do
it it it it
yourself; let no one else tell you how to. yourself; get up from your bed and walk you lazy bunch of bastards. yourself and expect it will be stolen by those who lack imagination. yourself and don’t be afraid; it doesn’t require grace, money or intelligence.
Our children produce better work than most that’s framed in the great white halls ‘cause they did it themselves and their struggle resonates within their work. I’m not saying don’t stand on giants’ shoulders but climb up there with your own two hands; do it yourself and don’t expect the group to like it, do it yourself; take risks, be dangerous and exciting. Don’t think I mean don’t work with others though I’m sick to death of manipulated tired recycled projects disguised as collaborations. Do it yourself and others will always join you. Do it yourself; it’s not left or right but its always political, always religious, local and personal. Do it yourself; don’t limp along seeking ‘the doctor’s’ advice when you know in your heart how to manifest from your imagination; it’s as easy as breathing just stop thinking and start doing. Do it yourself; don’t wait at the door they made for you or try to seek admittance to a world that could not know you. Do it yourself and turn none away. Dance, paint, act, channel, play, frame, write, record, spend, save, destroy, create, whack off naked on a segway... whichever way; however your heart, your head, your hands or stomach guide you; do it your god damn self. This month I mostly recommend sloe gin.
www.dickstoneartfeind.blogspot.com
If you were a woodland creature, which
would you be?
Sisters and brothers of the People’s Republic of Bradfo rd, don’t despair that winter far away. To entice spring tow is too long, and spring is so ards us we are going to buil d an enchanted woodland indo This way we can frolic withou ors! t frostbite and before we kno w it, spring will be upon us! The venue for our enchanted woodland will be the cellar of The New Beehive Inn, West gate, Bradford. On the first weekend in Marc h we will begin emptying eve rything that moves from the ceiling and walls with a bla cellar, we will cover the ck backdrop, and then begin to bring the woods into our trees, branches, willow, ivy, blank canvas. We will bring moss, grass, leaves, water, in spring flowers and we will feels like we have an underg keep bringing them in until round, enchanted woodland. it We will have just over a wee k to achieve this transform ation and so we need your hel something you would enjoy, p. If this activity sounds like whether you have experience of this kind of thing or not in. , then please come and join Once the woods are complet e (with a tree house, homes for animals, places to get lost arty frolics. Expect a mix of ) then we will begin the performance, visual art, film , dance, live music and pretty think of. There will be guest much any art form you can appearances from some of you r favourite regular Bradfo and days and evenings of art rd nights, guest curators , music and performance fro m the art farmers and their friends and collaborators. interested? check out www.t heartfarmers.blogspot.com
Kala Sangam Community Arts Day 10am – 5pm Saturday 17th March
[What’s on] for a comprehensive guide to what’s on theatre & performance wise visit:
St Peter’s House, 1 Forster Square, BD1 4TY
www.fabricculture.co.uk
To mark the launch of St Peter’s House as it’s new home, Kala Sangam is opening its doors to everyone to host a full day of fun and free arts events for the whole family, including: — New interactive digital art by Amorphous Orchestra — New visual artwork by Akari Maharani — Exhibition of artwork by local school children — Classical Indian dancing taster classes — Live music performances — Try out visual arts for yourself — Creative play activities for kids — Asian food tasting — Plus LOTS more to be announced soon!
kala sangam: Tagore lecture By peter huntley The second event at Kala Sangam’s brand new theatre space was given over to Bengali scholar Dr William Radice to speak on Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore is one of the great figures of the Indian subcontinent. He was knighted, won a Nobel Prize for literature, wrote the national anthems of both India and Bangladesh, published poetry, novels, plays, and songs, which he also sang. He was a translator, a painter and for good measure he also founded a university. It was therefore a pleasure to listen to Dr Radice speak with passion about Tagore’s literary work. While Tagore has seen a number of translations into English, including by his own hand, these translations have long been criticised for failing to capture the true essence of the Bengali originals. Demonstrating his own love of Tagore’s poetry, Dr Radice explained some of the problems inherent in the original translations, leading on to his own, new translation of Gitanjali, Tagore’s most famous collection of poems. Dr Radice has striven, and indeed succeeded, in returning an element of song to the works. Translation of literature is a high art and the end result is always bound up in the faith of the translator of the work, a faith which was much in evidence here.
www.kalasangam.org
Kala Sangam is a south Asian and collaborative arts organisation, offering yearround South Asian arts classes (dance, music, language), artists and performances, workshops, training opportunities and facilities, arts projects for young people, families and schools, and studio, exhibition & meeting room space for hire at St Peter’s House.
twitter.com/kala_sangam facebook.com/kala.sangam flickr.com/kalasangam
Telephone 01274 303340
The talk was enhanced by a reading of the poem: On the Seashore of Endless Worlds Children Meet, in both the Yeats and Radice English translations and the original Bengali. All three readings were accompanied by dances from Shuma Pal, to the original, and from Kala Sangam’s Artistic Director; Dr Geetha Upadhyaya, to the translations.
Prior to Dr Radice’s talk the audience was also treated to a wonderful dance by talented sisters Thilagawathi and Meenakshi Deivanayagm. The new theatre is, like most small new theatres nowadays, a black box theatre with raked seating. It was nevertheless an intimate and defined space, with the audience easily able to connect with the speaker and performers. St Peter’s House was busy that evening, with up to 250 young people at a church event swarming between the Cathedral and the Daisies Cafe. With Inder Goldfinger and David Wilson providing excellent musical accompaniment, Bradford certainly felt a lot warmer than it had any right to on a cold winter’s evening.
theatre&PERFORMANCE
Art & society By peter huntley A couple of months back I opined how sad it was to see a For Sale sign go up over the doors of one of Bradford’s historic theatres, and bemoaned the loss of such an iconic building. This month I’m very glad to note that a brand new theatre has opened, courtesy of Kala Sangam at St Peter’s House next to Bradford Cathedral. I was privileged to listen there to Doctor William Radice speaking about Rabindranath Tagore, the fascinating Bengali writer and you can find a review on the following page. However I was reminded, as Doctor Radice of how Tagore’s dualist instincts of exploring the personal and the spiritual world allowed him to subtly comment on the social British-run Indian world in which he existed, that from whatever country and culture you may be from, art manifests itself in one of three aspects. Human, Social/Political and Divine.
political work however does not generally endure. This is because within about an hour of it being created (or a little longer if you are lucky), social/political artwork becomes historical artwork. Relevant for only a small point in time to the forces that created it. Chekhov’s four great plays are performed today thanks to the gentle beauty of the characterisation, and it is forgotten that they were written as cannon shots against Russia, vilifying it for its stagnant and decaying society. In the same way, while Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984 remain astounding novels, their warnings against communism and fascism are receding as World War II and the Cold War, where these ideologies were essentially beaten, pass out of living memory, as Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We (on which both 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World were based) has already done.
While this applies to all artists everywhere, it can be pointed up most easily by a band. The Beatles. John Lennon was a revolutionary, a man who wanted to change the world and arguably did. His songs generally reflect the social aspect of life. They contain messages. Paul McCartney was the humanist of The Beatles, his songs generally followed feelings and personal situations, the dayto-day loves and losses of people. These songs contain explorations. Finally George Harrison was the spiritualist. While this aspect of his songwriting didn’t truly find freedom until after the Beatles split, it’s impossible to think of either Lennon or McCartney writing While My Guitar Gently Weeps. These songs are reflections.
While books generally survive in some form or another, in Theatre, this, by it’s very nature, the historification of social/political art, means that such plays often fall into disuse and without th physical aspect of a play, it barely exists. Theatre is not film - Battleship Potemkin for example remains a great piece of art simply for existing, but what would be the point of staging it today? How telling that Shakespeare is organised into comedies, tragedies and histories. Hamlet has been translated to World War II, the swinging sixties, the American gangster era and practically every other situation you can name because the universal themes of jealousy, madness and revenge that the play focuses on can be applied to any human situation.
Having such a fusion of writers in the group is what made The Beatles great. Many artists, including the Beatles as individuals, work in just the one aspect, Human, Social or Divine, creating explorations, messages or reflections. George Orwell’s 1984 is a social message. It happens to have a romance in it, but Orwell has no interest in exploring love. Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Patrick White’s Voss are all journeys into madness, of Ahab chasing his white whale, Kurtz hidden away in deepest, darkest Africa or Voss attempting to cross Australia by foot. All these novelists use the physical exploration of the uncharted world to relate to the journey of the heart or the mind, although this is by no means the only form of this aspect. For the divine, painters spring more easily to mind. Beyond portraiture, the vast majority of paintings or murals created in Italy from Roman times to the Renaissance and beyond are based around religion in some form or another. Art naturally separates out into these three categories, dependent on the creator’s bent, the thing they are trying to achieve. However these three aspects are not equal. Work in the personal aspect endures, because it can be easily related to by anyone who approaches it with an open mind. Likewise work in the divine aspect endures because, godfearing or not, the best of it can create a timeless awe of being in an indefinable universe. Social/
As I write, the Czech playwright Vaclev Havel has died. The news reports call him a President who was also a playwright, but in reality he was a playwright who became a President. The plays that Havel wrote while in opposition to the Soviets, the “Vanek” plays, are now historical works, but they helped to give rise to the dissident movement in the country and eventually to help propel Havel to the position of President, a post he never originally sought. While it was fourteen years between Havel’s first dissident play – Audience and free elections in Czechoslovakia, the plays nonetheless created Havel’s reputation as a figurehead of the resistance, placing him squarely on a path where he could help lead his country away from oppression. So these social and political works, destined to become historical byproducts, may not seem of much use. They are of the moment, quickly forgotten, yet they can, sometimes imperceptibly, change the direction of a moment. This is why the theatre must never stop writing about the social and political world. and why this aspect of art must remain at the forefront of the theatrical world.
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ART, THEATRE AND MUSIC from the University of Bradford
Theatre In The Mill: spring/summer program By Chermaine Cooke
MUSING AT THE MILL IN A BLACK BOX THEATRE THEATRE IN THE MILL DOUBLE WEEKEND REVIEW: INSTANT DISSIDENCE + STEVEN SEVERIN BY CHEMAINE COOKE Friday 20th January & Saturday 21st January.
Michele Panegrossi & Sophie Arstall
My Name is Sophie and I am… (Development Showing) Saturday 11th Feb, 7.30pm: A dance and digital media collaboration Chris Thorpe and Hannah Jane Walker
The Oh Fuck moment Monday 13th and Tuesday 14th February, 6.30 and 8.30pn Poems, talking and fucking up.
Word Life. Friday 17th February, 7.30pm With Seiben, Ross Sutherland, Leeds Young Authors and Open Mic. Jane Packman
A Thousand Shards of Glass Thursday 23rd February Saturday 25th February, 7.30pm An intimate performance and a story of adventure.
www.bradford.ac.uk/theatre box office 01274 233200
TLMC
February: Folk Narratives Thursday 16th February performances start at 6pm at the Treehouse Café, then you will be led on to J.B.Priestly Library and the 1 in 12 Library. With Vialka, The Housekeeping Society, Stephanie Hladowski, Kirtsie Penman, Captain Hotknives, Garfunkle and Simon.
www.bradford.ac.uk/music
Memory Theatre - part two open util 24 Feb. Storytelling and journeying. Our specially created 10ft square room (currently reminiscence project Back Door) becomes a space for Peter Hughes’s blip journal. Interactive installation by artist Yan Wang, Wishing Tree and the 1,000 Gnomes Project by Strawhouse. www.bradford.ac.uk/gallery
Bradford is reimagining itself before our eyes. Are we are shedding an old skin or is the emperor slashing at it to find his new clothes? We live and love in a rare moment, waiting for rebirth after hoping for the phoenix and the butterfly. Looking at the map I am a visitor to an empty space, holding before me the black box where the invisible is turned visible. I open the box to find a soft and sticky caramel. Rita Marcalo has moved to Bradford with her performance company Instant Dissidence. Her latest work-in-progress, Caramel, guides audiences through a montage of moving images, re-awaking childhood memories and provoking our senses. We are invited to surrender our boundaries and interact with the performers, on invitation, in a heady mixture of layered and looping sound, the sweet smell of the caramel, the charm of the girl giving a cooking lesson, and the image of a lady with candy floss hair. The hint of the erotic pleasure of taste cut through by the worming dance within the caramel; have you ever licked your fingers and been left with the stickiness? This was the beginning of a piece in which Rita and her cast built a sphere for us to enter and transported us to a world we knew existed but half-forgot was there. We are all connected. Where there is hope there is fear, where there is sex there is love. The next night, outside the theatre, the wind did howl for the entrance of the Vampyr. Clouds are charcoal, and the black box of the mill has been turned from sickly sweet to black and blacker still, until ready for Steven Severin’s layered soundscape. Carl Theodor Dreyer’s silent film made the theatre burn, as embers from the 1932 horror classic were kindled for us as Steven sat upon the stage: shadowy, illusive, with a subtle gothic presence, marrying a finely layered, minimalistic composition to an alchemical vision of halls-of-mirrors and shadows holding the strings of the damned. As a homage to this silent masterpiece, once almost lost, this new soundtrack soothed us with the macabre as death gave us a vision to heal us and save our souls. The shadow-play and the haze of this reconstructed and surreally unsettling film, with its haunting performances, drew the audience in by a beautiful collaboration between the echoes of sound and images, playing on our sense of creeping fear. Both Steven Severin, a legendary founder member of the Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Rita Marcalo a body-based artist famous for her iconoclastic and playful challenges to the boundaries of dance performance, know how to provoke absolute punk. But this time they sang and whispered and tapered toward their audiences’ subconscious with a look, a dance, a note, a sound; transforming and re-imagining the world in that little black box in a charcoal grey city that’s in an in-between time.
theatre&PERFORMANCE Naked Launch: Profile of Sue Vickerman You may remember Sue from the first edition of ‘Howdo’. When we were talking, around the time she submitted her poem for that edition, ‘Return to Bradford’, she said, “Don’t put me down as “local author...” ‘Poet’ is on my tax return. It’s what I do”. I was very impressed by this and asked her if she would like to build an interview and profile around that statement of no-holds-barred commitment. Happily, she said yes and talked about, among other things, the “unclothed” launch of her forthcoming book. Was getting to that level of clarity about your work a journey, or was that your vision from day one? It was a journey. There were two facets to it: firstly, having the self-confidence and self-esteem to say “this is what I am and this is what I do”. Secondly, life’s journey is the quest for one’s raison d’être [French for “reason for being”]. I’ve got these crayon pictures I did when I was six. I drew a picture of myself as a writer, then the following week I did a picture of myself as an artist. I couldn’t decide. And then, by ten years old I’d had all that knocked out of me, I was going to work in a bank or be a nurse. How did you reclaim that writer? I didn’t manage it till I was 30. I didn’t have the confidence to write for writing’s sake. There is a strong sense of Puritanism in me from my Methodist background. Everything has to be utilitarian and useful. Art for art’s sake is anathema to a Methodist, so I was a copious letter writer. I went to China teaching for two years and in that time I had seventy correspondents. So how did you make the leap from letter writer to poet? It was after coming back from China. I was 31 and had much more clarity about what satisfied me and what I wanted to do. I got myself onto a creative writing course, an MA at Northumbria University. It was ace, especially for the poetry. I was introduced to the network of poets and writers, which you really need. That’s when I became a self-employed writer, but there’s always the issue of putting a roof over your head and paying the bills, so from then on I’ve had day jobs to support that endeavour. I’ve also had three Arts Council grants, which is a lot to be awarded. My next book has been snapped up by my publisher. It’s a collaboration between me and 37 artists. The title is ‘A Small Life,’ and is written under a pseudonym, Suki. It’s the sad and sorry tale of a poet and writer who turns to life modelling to make ends meet...” I’m not putting “sad and sorry...” No no, put it – that’s what Suki is, it’s not me!! She’s very unstable, she’s all over the place. The book is about loneliness, and the quest for love. All books are about the search for love. That’s an interesting comment. Would that even apply to, say, ‘A Clockwork Orange’? Not just literature, but life itself, is a search for love. We all want connection.
And actually, if you think about the end of ‘A Clockwork Orange’, Alex starts behaving himself and wanting a relationship, doesn’t he? Hmmm, you may well have a point there. Is ‘A Small Life’ the subject of the exhibition you were telling me about? Yes. The launch of the book is on Friday 5th October at 7.00 p.m. at Leeds Art Gallery, and the exhibition there, of pictures from the book, goes on for the whole of October. I shall be doing the launch unclothed. A friend is doing the reading. You say “unclothed” rather than “nude”. Any particular reason? I just think that “nude” sounds a bit 1970s. It has slight connotations of nudist camps. And ‘Carry on...’ films?! Yes! All the readings will have discussions at the end, because I think this book will spark a lot of debate. I’ve got a whole poetry collection, for which I’m looking for a publisher, about being “the model”, “the thing”. A lot of people think there’s no difference between life modelling and glamour modelling. We life models are all shapes and sizes. We’re unadorned. It’s really practical. So even though it involves a naked form, your work as a life model has that Puritanical aspect to it also – that utilitarianism. Literally. There are architects in some groups, and when they draw me I look like a floor plan. I really enjoy that. That said, my book does have an erotic dimension: let’s be real, this is a naked body. So I’m breaking the rules of life modelling by writing this book; Suki has all these thoughts, in her loneliness and neediness. What I’m really excited about is the breadth and range of the contributing artists. One of them is a seventeen year old boy, then there’s the likes of Tom Wood, who has painted Alan Bennett and Iris Murdoch. Will the book be available on Amazon? Yes, from early October. You wrote the beautiful ‘Return to Bradford’. Now, after a slightly longer period, how does it feel to be back? I think Bradford is fantastic. Practically, it’s very cheap to live in. What I like about Bradford is that there are no boundaries.“...Everyone’s slightly deranged.” [Disclaimer: this is a general statement said in a very loving and affectionate manner, and by no means aimed at every single Bradfordian. Other forms and locations of slight derangement are also available...] ‘You walk past someone on the street and someone will just say something... It feels very fringe. There’s a real sense of street-level solidarity, like, “We’re all Bradfordians. We’re all in it together”. Interview by Jane Steele
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fashion&CULTURE The BIRTH OF A BRIDE
Contesting the need of representation by men, a woman can be independent, ambitious and most of all a fantasy, especially on her wedding day. Asian weddings are truly a celebration of womanhood. This transition from a young girl to a married woman is marked with expression. It’s rightly said that ‘A traditional bride comes to her husband much as the Western woman might enter a church. Their love is a devotion to be offered in secret.’ The National Asian Wedding Show held in the city last month epitomised every bit of excitement and preparation that goes into the unfolding D-day. In its fifth year, it’s the ultimate shopping experience for a couple soon to be exchanging their vows. I sensed intense competition among makeup artists promoting their stalls, using marketing tools like parading bride models, stunningly embellished. Regional biggies like Zara, Anokhi, and Bombay Stores made their presence known on the catwalk. It is customary for Asian women to do their wedding shopping under the expert guidance of Mummyji, and indeed the mums were out in force. Such exhibitions are also breeding grounds for wedding planners and event organisers. I was struck by both the differences and the similarities between brides in the West and Asia. Even though the ceremonies are very different, colours have contrasting significance for example, and the wedding gowns are worlds apart, yet a bride is still a bride, extremely nervous and exquisitely beautiful, waiting to say “ I do” or “Qabool hai”.
The INDIAN BRIDE ‘In every man’s heart there is a secret nerve that answers to the vibrations of beauty’ (Christopher Morley). Reverberating with the beauty and divinity of the female form, an Indian bride completes the ‘Solah Shringaar’ or ‘16 adornments’ to accentuate her beauty. The colours gold and red dominate the traditional bridal look. Gold symbolizes ceremonial purity; red has become a fundamental part of the Indian culture, the core symbol of power and spirituality, of protection and commitment. The ritual begins with ‘The Divine Bath’, part of the pre-nuptial celebration, when various packs of natural herbs and products are applied on the bride’s body and hair in a rather effective grooming session. Bridesmaids and other ladies organise this event which prohibits peeking from anything male. All this commotion is amplified by dancing and singing in the house.
BRIDAL BLISS “Sajna hai mujhe, sajna ke liye” (I want to look beautiful for my beloved) – in tune with this, the Shringaar begins covering her from head to toe: 1. 2. 3.
Wedding Dress: an authentic dress would be a red coloured Saree embroidered with gold threads. Kesh (Hair): carefully styled and adorned with jasmine flowers. The look is completed with the Maang-Teeka, made of gold which is laid in the centre parting of the hair and runs down to the forehead. Kajal (Kohl): made in the villages from the soot of an earthen lamp now replaced with black eyeliners, kajal makes the eyes look bigger and more attractive.
4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.
Bindi: visually the most striking form of body decoration, this ornamental round red/maroon mark on the forehead spells out a married and dedicated wife. It’s a sacred spot for it is the seat of concealed wisdom. In meditation, this is the centre point where all energy projects from, in a state of total concentration. On a bride it symbolises prosperity and auspiciousness. Nath (Nose ring): made of gold and supported by a gold chain which extends to just behind the ear, the nath completes the ethnic Indian look. Jhumka (Ear rings): made of gold embellished with diamond and other precious stones. Mangalsutra: this is tied by the groom to the bride during the wedding prayers and is made of gold and black beads. It is the most common symbol of a married woman. The necklace stands as a testament to the long life of the husband. Baaju-bandh (armlet): made of gold and worn on the upper part of the arms. Mehendi (henna): applied to the hands and feet of the bride a night before, a deep red colour strengthens the bond of love and is said to ignite sexual desires. Choodhiyan (bangles): adorning the fragile wrists of a beautiful bride, bangles are made of red/green glass and often gold. Haath-phool: eight rings on the hands covering all fingers and attached by a chain to a central flower covering the upper part of the hand. This is made entirely of gold. Kamar-bandh: a beautifully crafted gold/silver belt worn around the waist visibly accentuates the curves of her body. Payal (anklet): a heavy chain made of gold/silver with intricate designs; the tiny bells attached to the payal create a rich yet subtle ringing sound as the bride walks. Bichua (toe-ring): mostly made of silver, they are worn one each on second toe. Ittar (perfume): a carefully chosen fragrance. Sindoor: this deep red coloured powder is applied in a small line on the centre parting of the hair just under the maang-teeka towards the end of the wedding rituals and transforms the girl to being suhaagan (married).
One could say that, except for the Sindoor and the mangalsootra¸ most of the above adornments have now become fashion statements and yet exist as irreplaceable elements of the Solah Shringaar. Splashed with red in various forms, the beautification of the bride at the threshold of a new identity finalises what we may call the birth of a bride.
By Devyani Lamba
Photography of RM-Studios: www.rm-studios.co.uk
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[Foreword]
Cutler Heights to the city centre (vignettes)
Hello darlings, and welcome to another selection of spoken word finery. Look out for the very exciting SI Leeds Literary Prize. Full details are in the What’s On section. The deadline is 1st June but it’s being included now so that it gives all you budding (and qualifying) JK Rowlings chance to actually write a book before then. As far as writing goes, we have poignant and bittersweet poems from Russell Allen and Michael Nutter. Please send any submissions for next month to:
This is where the brown field pasture is. Razed ground. Where industry once made people proud. In summer scrub, grass, daisies, foxgloves push through the grave mounds of forgotten buildings but now hide while buddleia branches rattle in slate sharp winter wind. These new meadows their verges and hedgerows edged with carbon coated trees pennanted with tattering, flackering bags are littered with tumble dryers, bed frames and chairs. Boys in ragged tracksuits forage these hedgerows. Harvesting the fly tipped abandoned metal loading their windfall fruits onto Bradford carts. Only knowing their own rules, they freely flick the finger, protecting their mournful, curb crawling skewbald horses from impatient drivers.
jane@howdomagazine.co.uk Speaking of submissions I’d like to put a shout-out, in preparation for the start of the Olympics in July, for any writing connected to sport. I would rather not have some wholesome, squeaky-clean take on the subject. If you could twist it/subvert it/send it through a hall of mirrors, make it dizzy and then send it in, that would be great. I am sure there are as many poems and stories as there are people. Maybe you have hellish memories of school team sports and want to turn poison into medicine by writing about it. Maybe you think the Olympics is some folly taking place at the far end of the M1 and is nothing to do with you, and want to write about that. You get the picture, and you have the email address. Regeneration is the broad theme of this month’s mag. It’s a word that gets frequently bandied around. As ordinary-yet-extraordinary Joe and Joanne Soaps, it’s vital that we don’t simply allow the word to be hijacked, for the whole concept of regeneration to be boiled down to some notion of building a few office blocks and putting up a Debenhams. For me, in one sense, regeneration is every human being’s right. The right to stop and ask yourself: is this really what I want? The right to take stock, change direction, do something different, have five minutes (or forever) off the treadmill. Expressing that dream that has always nagged away at the back of your heart but you never did anything about, until.... That is the sort of personal regeneration that so easily gets lost in this world of roundabouts and retail parks and the Orwellian blaring of giant, city-centre TV screens. I hope that each person in Bradford and beyond can undertake their own “regeneration of the heart” in the way that brings them the most joy. Jane Steele
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Ponies appear abandoned on verges outside scrap metal merchants. Tethered to engine blocks and vandalised trees. Chewing mournfully in chained circles. Blown alongside all an olfactory free-for-all. The feral smell of rotten pork and decaying chicken fights curling gusts of fried bacon, the brimstone tang of welded metal and the acrylic pear-drop bite of new moulded fibre glass. Grimy puddles rim bin-strewn cobbled alleyways. Dumping ground for the leavings of long gone residents. The snatching wind spins papers, clothes and food packets with hieroglyph writing into mulching piles. Here hens peck unmentionable remnants that escape poorly bound, rotting bin liners. Cruising the strip of Richmond Road crowds of shouting lads hurl attention grabbing ‘Fuks’ and girls shriek, thrown back by Thub, Thub, Thub. Percussive shocks of sub-woofers that vibrate the fittings of pimped up cars. A screeling pack of ATBs aggressively howl. Their riders, man boys with more testosterone than sense belligerently provoke.
spokenWORD Goading reactions from startled drivers. Through the bus station. Stale piss. Sour smoke trapped in cheap clothing. Fresh disinfectant and a sign saying ‘Don’t cook when drunk’. Start at any edge of Bradford, each journey step a fractal view. Every degenerative death offset by regenerative hard won birth. by Russell Allen
Today was his walking day Saving money was his aim; less outgoings. he’d sought the advice of friends but they had luck. so that option he chucked (he’d never been on the winning side of a Christmas cracker). he was up against it. all of the time. so the wind blew and blew and the hail whacked his face and even the animals were warm and the bus flew by and drenched his new blue jeans and ‘it would do’, he thought, because today was his walking day. by Michael Nutter
[EVENTS]
If you are putting on an event you’d like us to publicise then drop me an email: jane@howdomagazine.co.uk. We would like to feature regular events, interesting one-offs and everything in-between.
The SI Leeds Literary Prize
Deadline: 1st June. This is a brand new literary prize for unpublis hed fiction by Black and Asian women resident in the UK aged 18 and over. It has been set up in conjunction with Peepal Tree Press in Leeds and the Ilkley Literature festival, where the prize will be present ed in October 2012. All information, including entry criteria and application form, can be found at www.sileedsliteraryprize.com
‘Wicked Words’ Open Mic @ 7arts, Chapel Allerton, Leeds - Wednesday 1st Februa
ry, 8.30 pm Leeds’ longest running live literature event. Wicked Words are now having their guest poet nights quarterly, billed as Wicked Words Showcase, in order to give a regular platform to more open mic poets. If you want to be included in a future open mic contact: b_mcpartlan@yahoo.co.uk. Beehive Poets - summary for February. All events are on Mondays at 8.30 pm 6/2/12 – read-round. 13/2/12 – visiting readers, tbc. 20/2/12 – AGM, followed by read-round. 27/2/12 – Bradford Poetry Workshop. Bring 6 copies of your poem to be workshopped. www.beehivepoets.org.uk Wordlife @ Theatre in the Mill, - Friday 17th February 7.30 pm
With Sieben, Ross Sutherland, Leeds Young Authors and open mic. www.brad.ac.uk/theatre
Wordlife vs. Howdo @ The new beehive inn - Friday 23rd March 7.30pm [Callou
t for open mic performers] On 24th March at The New Beehive Inn, Sheffield’s Wordlife will be putting on a music and spoken word event in collaboration with Howdo. It will be ace. There are a small number of open mic slots still availabl e. If you are interested contact us: jane@howdomagazine.co.uk.Even if you don’t want to get on the mic,come down anyway.
artwork double spread
Bradford Beck
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artisticPERSPECTIVE This month’s featured artist is our good friend MERT. When we were discussing which artists we could include this chap instantly came to mind. Most of the photographs are taken at night after many hours of roaming the hidden worlds that Bradford has to offer. James Kemp met him for a few brews... How Do?! So what kick-started your interest in photography? I don’t think there was one thing that kick started my interest. Even as a child I always had a camera of sorts, so it’s just something that has always been with me. I’ve got loads of photos going back years, starting when I was about 8 years old. It’s something I’ve always loved. I guess you could say that you’re part of an ‘underground’ movement called ‘Urban Exploration’. Is the photography an addition to the exploration or do you explore the derelict places in order to get some great shots? There’s a really good community of ‘explorers’, and I’ve met some great people through the scene, although I was taking photos in derelict buildings and underground sites years before I’d ever heard of the term ‘Urban Exploration’. I photographed the derelict Eastbrook Hall and the now demolished Highroyds Hospital at Menston (to mention a few) during my teens. Years later when I saw communities online doing the same thing and sharing photos, it didn’t take much persuasion to get involved. So for me, it’s always been about the photography. Putting a title to it (I feel) can give the hobby/interest some bad press. It wasn’t so long ago that there was an article in the T&A with the headline ‘Explorers hit heights of stupidity’. The article went on about the dangers of such excursions and how we shouldn’t be putting our lives at risk. Ok, there may be some risk involved, but you assess the situation, take care and treat the buildings / sites with respect. You wouldn’t walk across a floor that is crumbling to bits, or go down Bradford Beck in the pouring rain. I feel normal day to day life is full of more unanticipated risks! The article did make me laugh, one of the pictures they used had the caption ‘a youth looks at the Wool Exchange from the Lloyds Bank building’ - That youth they mention is in his late 30’s. If someone wanted to get into ‘urban exploration’, what advice would you give? Are there certain rules you have to adhere to? Don’t do anything out of your comfort zone, stay safe and don’t go out alone. It’s common sense really. Don’t break in anywhere, if you can’t get in, leave it. Breaking and entry is a whole different kettle of fish to trespass. One being a criminal offence, the other is generally a civil matter. There are some unwritten rules that people adhere to, one that I’ve seen crop up time and time again is ‘take only pictures, leave only footprints’. It goes back to the common sense thing, you get caught leaving a building with anything that was left inside, you could potentially be done for theft or burglary. What’s been the riskiest moment so far? Have you had any run-ins with the security? I’ve never had any real moments of risk, like I mentioned above, if you assess a situation, you’re not going to put yourself at risk. I’ve had the odd bump and scrape, but that’s about it. It can be unnerving if you’re down a culvert and the water levels start to rise though. I’ve had a couple of run-ins with security, and more often than not, they have been absolutely sound, they’re just doing their jobs at the end of
[MERT SAYS CHECK THIS OUT!]
the day. There was one security guard a couple of years ago who was throwing his weight around and tried to grab my friends camera which he shouldn’t have done, but we just walked away, no point arguing and adding heat to the situation. How do you feel about the amount of dilapidation, not just in Bradford but also in the UK. There is a lot of wasted space but without these places to explore you would lose a great deal of your subject matter. Would you just find something else to photograph? I hate it. There is so much potential and history tied up in these places, yet it’s left to rot. Bradford is a prime example. A UNESCO city of film, I don’t think Bradford even has a film school, why not put one in the old Odeon!? Right next to the National Media Museum. I do love to photograph these buildings, but I’d much rather see them being put to good use. I’d never run out of things to photograph. Where have you been taking pictures lately? I’ve been up and down the country quite a bit recently. There’s a huge derelict industrial site in Hampshire called NGTE Pyestock where they developed and designed gas turbines and jet engines. We took sleeping bags, spent the night there and had the ‘joy’ of bumping into to eastern European scrap thieves which you can imagine put us on edge a bit. One of my recent favorites was getting onto a moored up oil rig, and also into the Tetley’s Brewery before they started to demolish it.
Where are you planning on going next for your photography? Is there somewhere that is the ‘urban explorers’ holy grail’? People have their own goals and sites. I don’t think there is the one holy grail. I personally love underground photography, I’ve spent hours below Bradford shooting the Beck, but some people would cringe at the thought of doing that. I’ve got ideas of where I next want to go next, but you’ll just have to wait and see. Who or what are your influences? I suppose I couldn’t pin down one photographer as an influence as it’s something I’ve always done. It was my brother who first put the idea of going down Bradford Beck in my head, I remember him saying years ago how he’d love to follow it under the city. In recent years I’ve been adding colour to my photographs with flashes and coloured gels after being inspired by a book I received one Christmas called ‘Night Vision’ (Troy Paiva, Geoff Manaugh). What frustrates you about photography? How much it costs to buy and develop film. I love using film, it has a real depth to it if used well that you can’t recreate on digital cameras. It’s just so much cheaper and easier to use digital these days. What is the best thing about living and working in Bradford? All the great stuff there is to photograph, and all the crazy places it can take you!! Ethnic, cultural, quirky mix, there is a real cultural identity here which comes through in its people.
[In England] Don McCullin [Urban Exploration Forums] www.urbexforums.co.uk [the forefront of artists working with constructed photography] www.jamesca sebere.net [Latz + Partner Landscape Architects] www.latzundpartner.de/projects/detail /17
HOWARD MARKS He was Britain’s most wanted man. By the mid-1980s, he had 43 aliases, 89 phone lines and 25 companies operating throughout the world. At one stage he was believed to be accountable for 10% of the world’s hashish trade and smuggled sixty tons of cannabis in a single deal. He had contact with the CIA, MI6, the IRA, and the Mafia and was once labelled as ‘the most sophisticated drugs baron of all time’ by the Daily Mail. He is of course Howard Marks. He was released from America’s toughest federal penitentiary; Terre Haute, Indiana in 1995 after serving seven years of a 25 year sentence. Since then he has worked as a writer and performer and in 2010 his autobiography, Mr Nice was turned into a film starring fellow Welshman Rhys Evans. He now lives in Leeds and when he’s not busy touring his popular one-man show he can regularly be found in Azucar bar at Granary Wharf. What was it like seeing your life story played out on the big screen? It was such a long process, it wasn’t just like sitting down in a cinema and seeing a film of your life…By that time I had become very familiar with it..I was often on set and I have known Rhys (Evans) for about 15 years so by the time we came to see it, so although we were both nervous as hell, we were like two schoolboys on the front row holding hands…it was not a surprise.
How do you keep yourself busy these days? Writing and doing shows, I have just had a novel published and travel writing I do sporadically for newspapers. I have at least two books that haven’t been published yet.
Do you ever have any trouble with customs when you are off doing your travel writing? When I come back, yes. If I’m off to places like Pakistan or Jamaica they tend to wonder why I am there. It’s not a problem so much just more of a ‘one moment please sir’, nothing serious.
[not so]
localLEGEND
Which do you prefer? the life you lead now or the life of a fugitive? Well the fugitive one was a lot more adventurous and exciting but this one is a lot less nerve-wracking.
Do you find it difficult to replace that excitement and intensity?
I suppose I would have to say I do, stage fright gets close to it… I risk looking like a dick in front of a few hundred people, rather than spend the rest of my life in prison. Not quite the same intensity but it’s the closest thing to it. What is it you do in your stage shows? It’s comedy based on a mixture of drug laws and my life. Stand up comedy would be the best way of describing it, with audio and video enhancement.
What is the scariest situation you have ever found yourself in? Probably flying easyJet (laughs), but seriously it was the first day I went into the maximum security federal penitentiary. I was shit scared then, for sure.
Have you ever had any association with Bradford? Were there ever any dealings here during your trafficking days? I haven’t really. When I was a dealer, before I was a smuggler I lived with a guy, a fellow student at Oxford who was from Bingley. I visited him there a couple of times during the cases.
Do you visit Bradford often these days? I spend an awful lot of my time in Leeds, and I do occasionally go through to Bradford. I came over and DJ’d at the Mill a few times, it’s a great place. It was a series of very messy nights. I went to a Sikh wedding in Bradford a few months ago too and that was a lot of fun. It is a very rich part of the world in terms of variety of culture.
What is your involvement with Azucar Bar in Leeds? I am one of the partners in it and I occasionally do talks and shows there and I host the quiz night. We have got one coming up on February 5th actually. Do you consider Yorkshire as home now? Yeah I do, I find Yorkshire people very like Welsh people. They are down-to-earth, no-nonsense and enjoy a drinking culture. It is quite similar in many ways to where I grew up. I once acted in Heartbeat, I had a cameo part as a magic mushroom salesman so I got to see a lot more of Yorkshire, which was amazing.
Interview by Haigh Simpson
8th February: Howard marks talks @ The Hop, wakefield www.howardmarks.name www.facebook.com/OfficialMrNice
bradford beck
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“Locked in here all day; you don’t turn criminals into citizens by treating them this way” with kind permission from Billy Bragg
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Restaurant Review La Rue, Saltaire Reviewed by Richard Ramsden French? Well, no, not really…more like one of those ‘modern British’ places. There’s a lot of belly pork, lamb, black pudding and the like, with the odd Mediterranean dish and some Asian flavours here and there, too. Mainly though, think classic British ingredients and you’ll be close to the mark.
It’s been there for years, hasn’t it? Yes, absolutely forever. La Rue is as much a part of Saltaire as the Mill’s chimney, the four stone lions and traffic jams at the roundabout.
Is it good or is it just banking on its reputation? Nothing of the sort. It’s surprisingly good, and consistently so. I’ve eaten there several times over the years, and it’s always been OK – decent cooking, nice atmosphere, etc, etc, but this time, it seemed like the kitchen had stepped up a gear and really got stuck in to their menu. I ordered a starter of hash brown, black pudding and bacon, which I fully expected to be something hearty, messy and perhaps a little thrown together, but what I got was a fresh potato cake packed with herbs sat on top of a slice of very good black pudding with a perfectly poached egg on top, covered with a hollandaise type sauce with chunks of crisply fried bacon around the edges. It looked like it had been put together by somebody who had an eye for putting together a plate of food, and it tasted great. Uncomplicated, yes, but very tasty. The rest of our food was similarly good, including a propely cooked piece of chicken and a crème brûlée that cracked open with the slightest tap of a spoon, instead of the industrial drill you normally need to get in to such things.
[TRY THIS!]
It must be busy? I pass La Rue often, and it always seems full. It’s sometimes hard to get a decent table at the weekend, and the dining room was full by 8pm on the Wednesday we ate there. The fairly decent £15.95/£17.95 pricing for two/three courses seems to help. Reservations would be a good idea, but we chanced our luck and managed to get a table on the spot.
What’s it like inside? It’s essentially two shop units on Gordon Terrace converted into one restaurant. There’s a main dining room fronted with big windows and an awning, some tables outside for lunch, a smaller bar and dining area upstairs and a further dining room in the basement. It’s all very clean and modern looking, but it can feel cramped at times…tables are perhaps a little too close together, but such is the compromise a successful restaurant with only a limited available floorspace makes.
Service? Very good. Enthusiastic and friendly. Comped me a round of drinks that they’d forgotten to put on the bill when I mentioned it to the waiter, which was very decent of them.
Good value, then? Not bad during the week – the two/three course deal mentioned above is available Sunday to Friday all evening and up until 7pm on a Saturday, when the prices rocket to the £14 for a main course mark. Still not outrageous, and certainly not Big City prices, but a decent cut above the normal midweek level. You can find more articles by Richard @ www.them-apples.co.uk
oholic drink for only £9.95 day Dinner from 4-6pm. 2 courses + non-alc Sun Row or Man , ant taur Res sian Rus oundings The le, healthy, wholesome food in peaceful surr rdab affo u; men ch Lun rday Satu d Roa Treehouse Cafe, Great Horton
food&DRINK CAMRA’s Bradford Beer Festival 23rd - 25th February, Victoria Hall, Saltaire Marko Husak Of The Sparrow Previews. Bradford Beer Festival is probably one of the biggest and best attended beer festivals in the north of England. Each year Saltaire’s Victoria Hall opens the door to approximately 3,000 beer fans who travel from as far as Germany to taste the delights of English cask ale, cider and a small selection of top quality world beer. It is a place where local and national breweries showcase their flagship and new experimental guest beers and attendees have a great selection of 200+ beers to choose from.
As a self professed beer geek and bar owner the festival is always a good place to try something new, different and exciting. I want to try beers from breweries that I have not heard of before and I want to be ‘wowed’. The Sparrow part-sponsored last year’s beer festival and my colleague and I attended the event with the intention of trying as much beer as possible as well as spreading the word about our soon to be open bar. As you can imagine things got a bit blurred but we came across some standout beers that we liked so much that we have since offered them in The Sparrow. Our highlights were Buxton Axe Edge, a well balanced double India Pale Ale, The Liverpool Organic brewery (various beers), Odell IPA - a bombastic American IPA that puts most English IPA’s to shame and Grand Ridge - an Australian craft brewery who have unfortunately stopped exporting to the UK. Details for the beers at this year’s festival are vague and are often picked at the last minute depending on what the breweries have to offer. This is no bad thing as it keeps people guessing to what will be available. No doubt there will be beers from local breweries such as Saltaire, Salamander and Ilkley etc who last year did a tasty collaboration beer together. I also heard through the ‘hop vine’ that Red Willow will have beers at the festival. Red Willow are a brand new brewery that opened last year in Macclesfield. Their beers have big flavours, are well pronounced, use new hop varietals and push the boundaries. They have featured on many industry insider’s blogs etc and I recommend that you go sample their tasty beers. I also recommend for you to step outside of your comfort zone and try a style of beer you have not tasted before. Who knows? You may be surprised. Another tip is to hang out at ‘The Foreign Beer Bar’, which The Sparrow is sponsoring, and try some amazing beers from Germany, Belgium and USA at a fraction of the cost that you would pay in a bar. Beer festivals are all about trying new things. Go with an open mind and drink responsibly.
official sponsors of camra’s bradford beer festival 2012
SALTAIRE BR AT BRADFORD
THE
NEW INN The Brewery Dockfield Road Shipley BD17 7AR Tel: 01274 594959 info@saltairebrewery.co.uk www.saltairebrewery.co.uk
Bringing back a traditional pub to Thornton Village
MOORHOUSES PREMIER BITTER _ 5 ROTATING CASK CONDITIONED ALES HOME COOKED FOOD _ REGULAR LIVE ENTERTAINMENT _ WOOD BURNING STOVES
CAMRA’s Bradford Beer Festival runs from 23rd - 25th Feb at Victoria Hall, Saltaire. Tickets are available at a variety of pubs in the Bradford area but be quick as it always sells out.
Saltaire Brewery has a bar at B we will showcase the best of ou Stoke, Bristol Beer Factory, O Dark Star, Brighton. Full 35Festiv
Visit our website or follow us on facebook for details of events, JOHN & CHARLEY - 363 THORNTON ROAD, 3JX - TEL: 07825775557 BRADFORD CAMRA PUBRemember OF THE no Beer Club in Fe monthly beer clubs andBD13 our A WARM WELCOME AWAITS DISCERNING ALE DRINKERS, DINERS, FAMILIES & DOG OWNERS CARPARK & DISABLED FACILITIES
SALTAIRE BREWERY AND FRIENDS AT BRADFORD BEER FESTIVAL
The Brewery Dockfield Road Shipley BD17 7AR Tel: 01274 594959 info@saltairebrewery.co.uk www.saltairebrewery.co.uk Visit our website or follow us on facebook for details of events, monthly beer clubs and our exciting range of beers.
Saltaire Brewery has a bar at Bradford Beer Festival (23rd Feb – 25th Feb) where we will showcase the best of our beers and those of our friends, Titanic from Stoke, Bristol Beer Factory, Otley Brewery (from Cardiff – not over the hill!) and Dark Star, Brighton. Full Festival details at www.bradfordcamra.org.uk/beerfestival. Remember no Beer Club in February! We are all at the Festival, Victoria Hall, Victoria Road, Saltaire!! See you there!
Try something different. Try something local.
Bfd_Festival2012_A5land.indd 1
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THE
NEW INN
Bringing back a traditional pub to Thornton Village MOORHOUSES PREMIER BITTER _ 5 ROTATING CASK CONDITIONED ALES HOME COOKED FOOD _ WOOD BURNING STOVES _ REGULAR LIVE ENTERTAINMENT FRI 3RD FEB:
DO MISS AMERICA _
SAT 25TH FEB:
THE 309’S
A WARM WELCOME AWAITS DISCERNING ALE DRINKERS, DINERS, FAMILIES & DOG OWNERS CARPARK & DISABLED FACILITIES
JOHN & CHARLEY - 363 THORNTON ROAD, BD13 3JX - TEL: 07825775557
BRADFORD CAMRA PUB OF THE SEASON AUTUMN 2011 As featured in The Guardian’s Top Ten UK Craft Beer Bars
THE SPARROW BIER CAFÉ, 32 NORTH PARADE, BRADFORD, BD1 3HZ
dayTRIPPING Off The Beaten Track by Haigh Simpson
I have been feeling like a charlatan of late. Here I am sat in Saltaire editing a magazine about a city I rarely see. My infrequent visits to BD1 usually follow a regular route of the tried and tested. It’s time I rediscovered the city of my birth. And so, armed with a guilty conscience and two issues of HowDo I reach for my bus pass and head into town. My first port of call is Impressions Gallery at Centenary Square. I stop to take in the city park for the first time, I am impressed, yet underwhelmed. In my ignorance I expected the apathy to continue as I entered the gallery. I had always known it was there but for some reason I never felt compelled to look inside. I am glad I did. Who knew that Bradford housed work by Lichtenstein, Warhol, Hamilton and a collection of William Blake engravings? The city park is beginning to grow on me as I admire it from the gallery window. The view doesn’t seem like it belongs in Bradford. I am taken aback by another view as I head past what was once the Love Apple, looking beyond the now tasteless club frontage I see the lego-like structure I understand to be Culture-Fusion youth centre in the distance. Apparently the design of the building was influenced by the youths of Bradford, I’m not sure I’d let them loose in my living room. Gallery II was a hive of activity. Unfortunately I was not allowed in as they prepared for a new exhibition. Never mind it seems that there is tons of stuff on there at the moment so I am confident that the opportunity will come around again. Besides, I only have to cross the road to reach my next destination, to another place I have never been and one I was keen to visit having read so many fond accounts. I’m in the Treehouse café, a popular vegetarian/ vegan hideout. My decision to turn down Soya milk stirs a reaction.
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The Treehouse Cafe, Great Horton Road (Opposite university)
Tension is simmering, as is my cow’s milk. I assess the scene as I wait for my cappuccino, the place is busy and atmospheric, it has a relaxing, continental feel, but I can’t help feeling uncomfortable. The food looks appetising and the prices are generous, nevertheless I am struggling to hold back my immature urges. Have you got any roast beef? Last month I learned of a shop selling items won on 2p machines. Keen to find out how such a place is economically viable I went to take a look. I had hoped to pick up a souvenir for my travels, I was more than happy to pay in 2ps. Sadly it too was closed; hopefully my cynicism is unfounded Disappointed I retire to a regular haunt. The Sparrow is welcoming as ever and a beer is in order as I plan my next move. Peering out towards John Street Market it occurs to me that it must have been over five years since I last went inside. I see a narrative developing. The market appears to be closing down for the day and I have little more than ten minutes to explore. I manage to persuade a friendly chef at the Japanese noodle and rice bar to feed me. I am glad he did, my beef noodles are delicious, cheap and most importantly fast. Never again will I give up and go to McDonalds.
With the sweet, salty savour of soy sauce still burning my tongue and the sounds of bassline ringing in my ears I descend towards the underbelly of Bradford’s other indoor market. Balanga bar on Kirgate will be my refuge. I am to try the infamous mad dog shot. I like it, a lot. I can’t remember much of what happened after that but I do recall catching a fleeting glimpse of the city park as I made my getaway. Maybe it was the drink, the blurred lights and my hazy vision but I do remember thinking, ‘bloody ‘ell that looks ace’.
free entr y
Impressions Gallery is one of the UK’s leading independent venues for photography and we show the best of today’s photographers. Visit our space in the heart of Bradford’s city centre and enjoy talks, events, a specialist bookshop and frequently changing exhibitions.
Photography that gets people looking, thinking and talking
Impressions Gallery Centenary Square Bradford BD1 1SD tel 01274 737843
www.impressions-gallery.com enquiries@impressions-gallery.com talk to us on twitter @impgalleryphoto
Whatever the occasion, our catering will make it special and memorable. Please contact us now to discuss your requirements.
O U T S I D E C ATERING
83 Bingley Road, Saltaire, Bradford, BD18 4SB Tel: 01274 533084 Mobile: 07854 162695 www.terracecafebar.co.uk
No Doubt – Death of the Superunknown in Music by andy abbott Charlie Brooker posed an unoriginal but nevertheless timely and, as such, fairly creepy question in the last instalment of his recent Black Mirror series: What would life be like if everything we did was perfectly preserved, recorded and freely available? In the programme the answer was pondered via a science fiction narrative set in a not-too-distant future where brain implants that record memories (as if to a computer hard drive) are in near-universal use. The memories they record can be played back both privately and publicly in almost any situation, thereby erasing any chance of misremembering, doubt, hearsay or deception. This technological advance has predictably disastrous consequences for human relations, driving the main character insane as his paranoid inklings about his wife’s fidelity are fully confirmed and, eventually, replayed to him in high definition. As a Situationist-inspired techno-cynic the programme had a lot of resonances for me. In the past, my crude interpretation of Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle was that the (qualitative) poverty of contemporary life was attributable to the bullshit associated with technocratic capitalist society. A more authentic and visceral life can be arrived at through stripping away the layers of gloss and ‘images of things’ with which we are incessantly bombarded, to get down to the real (precapitalist) core of being. ‘Live in the moment, the here and now, the immediate and tangible!’ Accordingly I shunned spectacular devices like TV, the internet and, more recently, social-networking tools like Facebook and Twitter. Such a reductive view finds support in the writings and actions of anarchoprimitivists like John Zerzan, but is also demonstrated (less militantly) in the disdain for bourgeois pursuits and toys - smart phones etc - shown by factions of the punk community.
I now recognise that things are more complex. I also see that the tide is turning. At a recent squat gig I played in Halle, East Germany I enjoyed a game of table football with some radicalised teens. Such experiences are, for me, a rare and brief insight into the way in which ‘the youth’ live and think today. My team (made up of the visiting British players) tried to combat the ever-increasing seriousness of the game by making silly comments about the invention of table football; speculating that it was more likely to be a product of the Germans than the Brits and that therefore they had a home advantage. No sooner had such a spurious claim been aired though, it was shot down by a smug fourteen-year old waving his Blackberry at us and quoting from the table football Wikipedia entry to prove that it is, in fact, a Spanish invention. This was clearly no joking matter. That is not my only experience where the omnipresent accessibility of ‘facts’ – accelerated by mobile internet access - has curtailed a shared laugh. Elsewhere, on an artist residency in the Lake District, the group of friends I was with spent an entire evening drunkenly debating the width of the M1. If the place in which we were staying had had mobile phone signal or broadband it is likely that such a life-enriching experience would never have happened; at worse we may have quickly put the issue to bed and got on to doing some ‘proper work’. The decreasing margin for error, for misinterpretation, for speculation, second-guessing and wondering is constantly sold to us as a blessing. Apple assure us that we have knowledge at our fingertips, every moment can be an immersion in learning. We are more productive, confident and able. But, as Brooker unsubtly infers in Black Mirror, an uncritical embrace of the emancipative promise of technology can lead to a very dark and dismal opposite. Perhaps this flipside to technologically-aided certainty is best illustrated in the arts, and even more specifically in music. I’ve written elsewhere about the disappearance of the ‘dodgy metal past’ that easy access to the entire history of music via the internet has caused (see ‘A Young Person’s Guide to Music Criticism’). In that essay I proposed that because nowadays finding out about and downloading the entire back catalogue of the most trendy/obscure/’underground’ music artists is as simple as a quick Google search and a few clicks of a mouse, the commitment and work required of pre-web 2.0 music fans – not to mention the years of listening to mainstream pap – is a thing of the past. Becoming a ‘fan’ of weirder and outer-limits or leftfield music is no longer a hobby that requires laborious hours of searching through unusual fanzines or talking to odd record shop owners or elder siblings. Whilst this has had the positive effect of broadening the audience for such music, the downside is that modern fans of ‘weird’ music are unlikely to feel the intense sense of ownership or identification with music that previous ‘harder working’ generations were rewarded with. This has led to a more trend-based, fleeting and disinterested audience for such music and, accordingly, has further blurred the boundaries between the underground and mainstream. That essay was concerned primarily with the audience and their approach and reception of music, but what about the effects this aspect of technology has had on its creation? We know well that every generation has its own nostalgic fascination with the style and culture of a previous era; the eighties was a regurgitation of the fifties, the nineties showed an obsession with the seventies, and so on. Of late there’s been an acceleration in the return to previous eras – the spiral is growing tighter – and so now the very recent past is prime pickings for a ‘revival’ or revisiting. This affectation is best demonstrated in the underground/alternative music scene by All Tomorrows Parties’ increasingly absurd cash-in attempts that consist of getting bands that split up yesterday to reform and play ‘classic material’ from an album still warm from the pressing plant. This revisionism is undoubtedly made easier and more attractive by the ever-expanding archives of the internet. A quick Wikipedia search on a band or movement reveals all the history, context, associated acts and - in many cases - the equipment that helped define ‘that sound’. Youtube is littered with entire concerts-worth of footage that allow people to see what they missed out on, and offer ammunition for an even more accurate resurrection. I believe that this is a major contributing factor to the unwavering aesthetic ‘authenticity’ that bands of the present era demonstrate. It would seem that a strict adherence to the rules of genre and style is becoming the defining trait of underground music in our decade. The odd dodgy nu-metal/dubstep crossover aside, we have moved beyond the postmodern mash-up and ironic play of styles that was common in the nineties and early 2000’s towards a desire to ‘get it right’.
liveMUSIC
This love affair with accuracy and correctness also permeates the before and after of musical creation. Not so long ago my girlfriend was party to a promoter dishing out advice to an aspiring musician wanting to get into the indie-rock scene in Leeds. He was told that the first thing he needed to do was ‘decide what sound you want and who your audience are. There’s so many scenes in Leeds you need to first work out which one you want to be part of and then tailor your music to that.’ Such a cynical – not to mention wholly capitalistic – approach to music is becoming commonplace even in the free and easy underground/indie music world. Bands are now able to ‘target audiences’ in unprecedented ways. The communities of interest (rather than geographical proximity) that have proliferated with the growth of internet forums and social networks allow bands to identify an audience that are almost guaranteed to love certain music if it is as true to a resurrected or already-existing style as possible. As such, the way in which music is marketed, framed and distributed becomes increasingly targeted and focused rather than open and outward looking. If I were to take a Brooker-esque cynical stance it would seem, then, that the availability of the ‘facts’ of music – of archive footage, unlimited and easy access to back catalogues, of biographical, contextual and technological info - is limiting creativity to a safe zone of certainty rather than aiding real experimentation, risk and open accessibility. Because what else is creativity and experimentation than a willingness to get it wrong; to put two or more things together that shouldn’t work but might create something new; an embrace of the unknown and of doubt rather than the certain and well-rehearsed? As a backlash to this lack of speculation in music will we see a movement that embraces ignorance; that is willingly blind and deaf to the history of music and the genres and stylistic categories that have arisen from it? Will we see the emergence of a musical Luddite - dismissive of their pigeonholing as ‘outsider art’ – capable of shaking our growing and potentially debilitating obsession with the known and the guaranteed. Can we anticipate a revival of doubt as the next big thing in music? I hope I’m not wrong.
Andy Abbott is an artist, musician and writer. He plays in the rock band That Fucking Tank and is ‘Fellow in Music’ at The University of Bradford. www.andyabbott.co.uk
A Progress Report Well well, haven’t we been busy. Here at HowDo we gave the “call to arms” back in issue one and boy have you guys been coming up with the goods. Since then I have been inundated with material from bands, musicians and writers alike; I couldn’t be happier with the response. In this issue we have it all. I feel as though we have scraped off the surface and revealed a real diamond mine of world beating musical talent here and now it is really starting to excite me! I always knew that Bradford had a rich vein of music but now I believe that there is even more and that is truly fantastic. With so much to investigate and cover what we really need now is more people reviewing gigs and contributing to the development of our scene, this has already started happening and we need to employ the snowball effect further. If you are a musician or you know people who are I want to hear from you. If you would like to review any gigs or CD’s we want to hear from you also. In the meantime please enjoy what we have in this section this month. It’s a beauty!
george@howdomagazine.co.uk
PILGRIMS WAY @ TOPIC FOLK CLUB 26th Jan 2012 After looking at their website it would seem that Pilgrims Way are a set of very busy people indeed. Their current tour, which has been running from October 2011 and continues right into 2013 has seen them playing gigs all over the UK and with tonight’s performance it is easy to see why they are such a popular band. I had never been to the Topic before tonight, and as a new experience for me it is something that I suggest for lovers of all music, not just the preserve of the folkies. Pilgrims Way are a three piece traditional folk band ‘brought together by a series of chance meetings at sessions around the North West of England’. They take to the stage in the Irish Centre’s back room. There are no amplifiers, no drums and armed with only an acoustic guitar, a fiddle and the beautiful vocals of Lucy Wright they march into their set. From the first songs I recognise that Pilgrims Way have a traditional style and take as their inspiration, some of the most influential bands from the 60s/70s revival. I can’t pretend to have any kind of extensive knowledge on folk music so the gig to me became more of a focus in great musicianship rather than the content of the set. Tom Kitching, who was described in Living Tradition as “one of the best young fiddlers in England” is a seasoned pro with his instrument and perfectly holds the crowd’s attention. As the backbone he keeps the flow and melody of the group going strong, whilst on guitar Edwin Beasant creates the wall of sound on which the whole picture hangs. Beasant also brings out the squeeze box late in the set for a waltz and it makes me feel like I should be sat by a roaring fire in a pub of yesteryear, eating meat from the bone. Yes, I’d had a few by then. Lucy Wright’s vocals in “The Handweaver and the Factory Maid” (video available at www.pilgrims-way.net) are magnificent, the girl can really sing and the song stood out for me as their strongest offering of an excellent set. I will be going back to the Topic Folk Club for more, I had a great night. Its members know good folk music and take seriously the tradition that the scene demands. For more info on Pilgrims Way, including tour dates, visit their website. Their music is available through iTunes and Amazon.
George Quinn
Check this out....
.co.uk ort slots and The Marmozets – www.marmozets playing a number of high end supp a great heavy sound, have been on this. These have get f ford stuf Brad of from side d vier ban ng hea This you ly good. If you are into the real ly, real are y The . own r have a tour booked of thei guys are gonna be big! s to be the oldest folk club in ned its doors in 1956 and claim ope first n, Eato Alex by ded Bradford’s Topic Folk club, foun folk club. st continuously operating weekly the world. It is certainly the olde uk/ http://www.topic-folk-club.org.
Did You Know?
ld’ on the 30th January 2012. ut single ‘Say goodbye to the wor deb r thei ased rele Half In f Bradford Born Cut Yoursel on iTunes. It is available for download now
Also......
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liveMUSIC The Runners @ No hands 27th Jan 2012 “We play drums, Pure-Tone Analog Frequency, digital keys and other electronic devices.” I arrived about ten minutes into their set, I was instantly transfixed, I stood and didn’t move until they had finished. The Runners are familiar faces somehow. They are made up from other underground bands including Chops and Cowtown and with a various array of sequencers and synths they begin to build a gradually climbing, electronic assault. Their set has few vocals and when the singing comes it is drone like, repetitive (in a good way) and sounds similar to the vocal robot designs of Bowie’s Scary Monsters and Super Creeps album. The Runners have a big electronic 80’s influence from bands like NEU and Kraftwerk but there are also nice slices of the 60s and 70s whistling around in there and I swear I could hear something reminiscent of ‘Telstar’ too. Listen to their track ‘Pulsar Quasar’; you will know what I mean. The set, designed to reach a trance-like climax, does just that and when I look round the crowd are just as transfixed as me. Towards the end technical problems temporarily postponed the set, but once the band had waded through a sea of wires that NASA would have been proud of it continued its ascent. A shoegaze baby of many influences make this band a must see. Now HowDo I get off this satellite?
George Quinn
ell presents:
tion with The Bruden
Mel Crash in associa
the man, the legend, the
fully qualified survivor...
michael chapman plus guests
‘Fully Qualified Survivor’, the classic 1970 Harvest album now re-released on Light In The Attic Records
[DON’T MISS]
ruary 2012 Leeds / Thurs 9th Feb Brudenell Social Club, the door n o 0 1 £ , e c n a v d 8a Doors 7:30pm / £ rudenell B e h t & o b m u J , h s TicketsfromCra
mon 13th feb - Art Farmers present: the mary hampton cotillion @ The New Beehive Inn Cellar Bar Mary Hampton acclaimed godd ess of underground chamber folk will be frolicking beyond the cellar door in the atmospheric basement of the New Beehive Inn. She leads the stark and sickly sweet quartet ‘Cotillion’ with a bite that wryly delights any audience lucky enough to catc h their whims of grace and mel odic beauty. This cat’s mother will delicately play trul y timeless, wistful songs of long ing and love’s labours lost in the low down deep dark ness of the Beehive Cellar. I hop e the fog’s still thick and damp with musty leaf mou ld all around as we hear their hon eyed harmonies. So sinful to miss; so inexcusable not to cut your heart on this black and broken mirror.
BRADFORD
IRISH CLUB
Céad Míle Fáilte
“The friendliest and most inclusive club in Bradford” Mr Johnston HOME TO: THE TOPIC FOLK CLUB (EVERY THURSDAY) JATP JAZZ (1ST FRIDAY OF THE MONTH) THE JODIE KENNEDY SCHOOL OF IRISH DANCE (SATURDAYS)
Traditional Ales & The Best Guinness in Bradford Games League (x2 full size snooker tables) * Luncheon Club * Irish Language Lessons
Jam Sessions (Sunday) * Portrait Drawing (Wednesdays) * Music Lessons (Wednesdays) Monday to Friday 7:00pm -12am Saturday 11:00am – 12am Sunday 12pm – 12am
Free Student Membership
A Quarter PAGE AD IS AS LITTLE AS £70. sUPPORT hOWdO’S sOCIAL aGENDA & iNVEST IN BRADFORD! PLEASE CONTACT: MRJOHNSTON@HOWDOMAGAZINE.CO.UK
Rebecca St, Bradford BD1 2RX Tel : 01274 732000
www.bradfordirish.com
A taste of Poland.
Homemade Polish Food; HowDo certified “chuffin brilliant”
extensive selection of Polish Beer & Vodka!!
live sport on TV lunchtime drinks offers fri 3rd feb: Live PsychoBilly Tues 14th feb: VALENTINE’S DINNER WITH polish singer spring/summer program on its way!! NTS:
PRESE
Open all week lunchtimes and evenings ‘balanga bunker’ Venue available for bands & Clubnights top of kirkgate market opposite james street Bradford City Centre
h
The 1in12 Club 21–23 Albion Street Bradford BD1 2LY 01274 734160 www.1in12.com Established 1981
Rumours in a certain local newspaper about our imminent demise have proven to be unfounded. We’ve had the final inspection by the West Yorkshire Fire Service and are happy to reveal that we passed with flying colours! The 1in12 club is alive, kicking (well limping) and open for the following events this month... Thursday 9th February Sees This Obscene Baby Auction putting on Sunflare (Portugal), Gigantes and Azores playing what promises to be a truly epic gig. Thursday 16th February We will have french duo Vialka playing an acoustic gig up in the library, following on from their amazing performance here last year. Thursday 23rd February We have Pete Simonelli (USA), Insect Ark (USA), Bilge Pump (Leeds) and Black Octagon storming it up on the gig floor. Friday 24th February Sees the excellent Robots vs Sharks present... Above Them, The Living Daylights and Cut Yourself In Half. Doors are open at 8pm and it's only £4 on the door to get in.
As always, events are open to all members and guests of the 1in12 club. To join, see our website or pop in Thursday–Sunday from 7pm to fill in an application form.
Saturday the 25th February Steve and Tatty's birthday gig is an alldayer to raise money for the S.O.P.H.I.E (Sophie Lancaster) foundation. Entry is free with donations to the cause on the door and the gig is spread across two floors. Headliners include Bullet Kings, Homebrew and Geoffrey Oi!Cott and more. Doors from 2pm! Watch this space for the gig of the year on March 31st. The legendary Antisect are playing a gig to benefit the 1in12 Club and it promises to be packed so get in early!
Foreword How Do has deservedly received a great amount of positive feedback following the first two issues. It seems there is an almost insatiable appetite for discovering those wonderful events that are going on right under your nose, but that you’ve not previously had the fortune of hearing about. This is precisely what is highlighted over this edition of How Do’s Film Review. Khawar Ilyas went to Ania’s Film Salon, where this month Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey was being screened. I on the other hand witnessed the unique juxtaposition of communal vinyl listening and contemporary science fiction viewing. Finally, in an attempt to illustrate the fact that all cinema in the region makes up the entire picture, we have Kelly McKenny giving us a family spin from the multiplex, highlighting Cineworld’s ‘Movies for Juniors’ screenings; a relatively unknown feature of the very visible multiplex, and a wonderful way to introduce your young’uns to the magic of the big screen.
Movies For Juniors by Kelly McKenny
As a mother of two young children and a cinema lover, I am often faced with a dilemma that I am sure is familiar to many: is it worth the full price ticket cost for a film that at least one of the three of us may not sit still through, never mind follow? Part of the answer to this of course lies in how much I want to see said kids’ film myself, and dragging them along gives me a great excuse to go see the latest Disney film; an excuse I would gladly pay for. For those other occasions when my enthusiasm for the film itself is slightly lessened, I am a huge fan of Cineworld’s weekly ‘Movies for Juniors’ session every Saturday morning, which gives families the opportunity to see one of a choice of three films (usually one at 10 am, one at 10.10 and one at 10.20) for the bargain price of a pound per person. Though these are not brand new releases, films will often turn up at one of these slots just a couple of months after their original release date, and are rotated regularly so that out of the three choices on offer there will usually be at least one we haven’t seen yet.
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I want to cynically say that for a pound each, any pleasure the little ones get from the film on display is only a bonus to my relief at getting to sit down in a relatively quiet room for a good part of Saturday morning, but the truth is these outings have led me to seeing a number of truly great films I would otherwise probably have missed (How To Train Your Dragon for instance), as well as getting to share my love of the cinema going experience with my children – something I hope will stay with them for life.
Ania’s Film Salon - 2001: A Space Odyssey by Khawar Ilyas
Ania’s Film Salon is located about five-ten minutes walk from Bradford town centre; it takes place in Gallery II on the University campus (though is open to the public as well as students). If you walk towards the gym, then towards Waterstones, right opposite you will find Chesham building; in there you will find the art gallery. Everyone was very welcoming and approachable, informing of the event and future exhibitions. The aim of this project is unique, as their plan is to incorporate exhibitions, which lead into screenings of relevant movies. Caroline, who was the host, explained that the aim is to present a screening in a comfy environment, which was the case thanks to the sofas, chairs and refreshments. The movie was projected upon a white sheet, with sound coming through a subwoofer and speakers. After, there was a discussion and analysis. It was appropriate to set this screening in a gallery, as the movie itself could be considered art; the cinematography, the soundtrack, and the ideas presented. Tying into the programme theme of memory, you could argue that the whole movie is like someone’s memory. It is a wonderful exploration of mankind’s evolution and an illustration of the visionary mind of Kubrick, as the film shows voice recognition, portable devices to watch video on, video calling, etc. This was an amazing experience that combined art, filmmaking at its best and a hugely relaxing evening. There will be other events in the upcoming weeks, including the showing of Memento, which is a personal favourite with regards to memory and movies. It does not matter if you are a film buff or not, Ania’s Film Salon is an enjoyable, intellectual and fascinating few hours of your evening. Ania’s Film Salon is FREE and will be screening Mike Figgis’ Timecode on 7th Feb (5.30pm) and Christopher Nolan’s Memento on 22nd Feb (5.30pm). Call 01274 233365 for details.
filmREVIEW
Akira Noyama - Fantasy Girl
Watching Films and Spinning Records by Mike McKenny
So often could a screening of a film be enhanced by immediately following it up with a brew, some homemade cake and a good chat. Well how about you take this and add a themed spinning of some vinyl. Shipley Film Society, who screen in the Kirkgate Centre in the heart of Shipley, and The Record Club, who hold an event on the last Saturday of every month in the same venue, have teamed up to provide just that. The film screened was Duncan Jones’ fantastic lo-fi science fiction film Moon from 2009. Shunning his middle name of Zowie, bestowed upon him by his eccentric dad, disguises the fact that he is the son of rock legend David Bowie (whose surname is also Jones). It was only appropriate then that the record in which Bowie dedicated a track (Kooks) to his son, Hunky Dory got a complete spin out. Nice and simple: play side A, flip it over, play side B. The audience took the time to pay attention to – and appreciate – the music, or to have a nice chat, or read through the various 1990s issues of NME scattered around the
tables. With a licensed bar serving bottles of local ale, tea, coffee and a selection of homemade cakes, there’s plenty going on to generate a relaxed and welcoming atmosphere. The intro that preceded the screening, opening with “this is community cinema at its finest”, then warning of possible sound problems and the fact that they’ll have someone on ‘heater duty’ as it has to be switched on and off at various intervals, so that the room isn’t either deathly cold or swelteringly hot, was the kind of self-deprecating, human admission of fallibility that makes such a community endeavour so welcoming and worthwhile. The Record Club are on Twitter @therecordclub. You can see what Shipley Film Society are up to on their website www. shipleyfilmsociety.org.uk
You can find MIKE McKENNY on Twitter @destroyapathy. Get in touch if you’d like to know more on these stories, or if you have any film related views on Bradford.
[What’s On] BRADFORD AFRICAN FILM FESTIVAL @ STUDENT CENTRAL LECTURE ROOM, UNIVERSITY OF BRADFO
RD “Meaningful issues are what’s on offer at the Bradford African Film Festival” [Friday 3rd Feb] - 6.30pm - Bamako: Award Winning film by Abderrahmane Sissako With special guest Paul Rogers (University of Bradford Peace Studie s) discussing issues raised by the film. [Friday 10th February] - 6.30pm Moolaade [Award winning film by Ousmane Sembene] When a woman shelters a group of girls from suffering female circumcision, she starts a conflict that tears her village apart. [Friday 17th February] - 6.30pm Crisis in The Congo: Uncovering the Truth - Exploring the role that the United States allies, Rwanda and Uganda, have played in triggering the greatest humanitarian crisis at the dawn of the 21st century. Leeds Antifascist Film Festival (4th & 5th Feb @ various locations)
FREE - (donation appreciated). Films from all over the world, accom panied by talks, refreshments, stalls and other such activity. Stay for one film or stay for the whole weeke nd; there should be plenty of interesting material. See leedsabc.org for more details
Ken Russell: Enfant Terrible of British Cinema (11th Feb, 10.30 - 16.30 @ Media Museum
) This study day will feature some of the memorable sequences from his films and offer discussion of his place in the pantheon. Includes a screening of Women in Love. Leeds Film’s February Film Favourites (23rd Feb 17.45 & 24th Feb 18.00 @ Victoria Hall
in Leeds Town Hall) Leeds Film have selected a diverse range of some well-loved films from different eras: Powell & Pressburger’s The Red Shoes, The Coen Brothers’ The Big Lebowski, Hitchc ock’s North By Northwest and Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now.
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secretBRADFORD There is so much more to Bradford than meets the eye. In this section we aim to point out some of the cities finest facets, some you may know, some you may not but all of them are worth a visit. This is our ongoing guide to the best places to eat, drink, shop and see in Bradford.
This unremarkable spot on Westgate offers the discerning individual a budget meal that is quick, easy and delicious. Nisar and Mr Malik provide a warm and friendly service, and the special offers are unbeatable: A choice of curries (including a choice of vegetarian options) with chapattis or naan or chips...all for three quid! Chicken or burger with chips and a drink: £2 sterling. Only in Bradford could you find such a place.
ELAINE’S BARGAIN BASEMENT, JAMES STREET Tucked away under the old Wool Exchange lies Bradford’s very own slice of Italy. Pizza Pieces offer authentic Italian pizza and pasta to eat in or take away. It’s rare to find pizza done properly without paying restaurant prices; you need look no further than here. The décor is a treat as is the food, the exposed arches and original tiling give the place a genuine Italian feel whilst drawing on Bradfordian heritage. Friendly staff and a relaxing atmosphere help make this the perfect lunchtime hideaway.
Follow your nose along Thornton Road for approximately 4 miles and you will eventually come across a public house of the most idyllic order. The New Inn in Thornton village backs onto South Square Arts Centre making this combo a very worthwhile destination. Newly renovated; the proprietors Charley and John have done a fine job in retaining the building’s character whilst making it feel warm, clean and contemporary. This place is family friendly by day offering home cooked food and open space, and lively by night with its fare of rotating cask conditioned ales and regular live music. We tip this spot to establish itself as another dot on the ale map of West Yorkshire. So check it out! It’s really quite splendid.
Bradford’s Kurdish immigrants from Iraq have made a small but notable mark in the city when it comes to offering a welcome change from the usual cuisine on offer. Judi Bakery on Lumb Lane is a small, humble place that excels on two fronts – amazing, fresh baklava (a sweet made of honey and pistachios) that they produce themselves; and a small but tasty range of fast food. Their egg nan for just £1.50 is a cheap-eat revelation. It consists of a couple of baked eggs on a thick chewy roti served with onions and is best with lashings of chilli sauce. For 50p more you can get a lamb or chicken keema option. Either is perfect for a late breakfast or a cheap, filling lunch.
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[A SOUNDBITE GUIDE TO WHAT’S GOING ON IN FEBRUARY] Fri 3rd Feb_ Sat 4th Feb_
ROCKERS & ROLLERS; loud, heavy, live music @ New Beehive Inn BD1 3AA JATP JAZZ; Partikel - African & Latin in a contemporary New York style @ Irish Centre BD1 2RX Krossbreed + Blowgoat @ The Gasworks, Ivegate Do Miss America @ The New Inn, Thornton, BD13 3JX Jack Trio @ The Cricketers Arms, Keighley BD21 5JE Cajun Roosters + Tom Attah @ Cougar Park, Keighley REVERB feat. Revolve Soundsystem @ Rios Live Northern Rokk @ The Cricketers Arms, Keighley Howlin’Johnny and The Full Moon Blues Band @ The Old Sun Hotel, Haworth Foxes Faux and The Liam Newton Psychonaut Experience @ Parkside Social Club, Haworth Flight 19 @ The Shipley Pride
Tue 7th Feb_ Wed 8th Feb_ Thu 9th Feb_ Fri 10th Feb_ Sat 11th Feb_ Sun 12th Feb_
Dooks at The Cricketers Arms @ Keighley Glorious Nights of Music “Open Mic Night” @ Factory Street Studios The Return of ArtFarmers Open Mic Without a Mic @ New Beehive Inn BD1 3AA Sunflare (Portugal), Gigantes, Azores @ 1 in 12 Club, Albion Street Topic Folk Club feat.The Durbervilles @ Bradford Irish Club BD1 2RX Michael Chapman @ The Brudenell Social Club, Leeds LS6 Russian State Philharmonic Orchestra @ St Georges Hall Rewind @ The Cricketers Arms, Keighley BD21 5JE Road To Horizon @ The Gasworks, Ivegate Dirty Green Vinyl + Station Lane + Social Therapy @ Rios Live BD1 2AL Old School Enemy/Brand New Analogues @ The Black Swan, Thornton Road Havana Rocks @ The Gasworks, Ivegate Broken Hearts Club @ The Cricketers Arms, Keighley BD21 5JE Eddie Earthquake and The Tremors @ Rosse, Saltaire Hookster @ The Shipley Pride, Shipley Winter Bang Stand @ Caroline Street Social Club
Tue 14th Feb_ Thu 16th Feb_ ri 17th Feb_ Sat 18th Feb_
Howlin Matt @ The Cricketers Arms, Keighley BD21 5JE Polish Singer @ Balanga Bar & Restaurant, Godwin Street ‘Folk Narratives’ event featuring Vialka, Captain Hotknives...+ @ Treehouse Café, 6pm moving on to J.B Priestly Library and 1 in 12 Club, Albion Street Topic Folk Club feat.Pete Morton @ Irish Centre, BD1 2RX No Hands at FND; The Hobbes Fanclub @ Student Central, University of Bradford Horizon Bay @ The Gasworks, Ivegate Big Fat Kill @ The Cricketers Arms, Keighley BD21 5JE Operator Six and Wooden Machine @ Smallworld Venue, Russell Street, Keighley Dubbin Up The Downfall; dub, punk, ska @ The Trades Club, Hebdon Bridge Therapy Sessions @ Rios Live BD1 2AL
Thu 23rd Feb_ CAMRA’S Bradford Sat 25th Feb_
CAMRA’S Bradford Beer Festival @ Victoria Hall, Saltaire Topic Folk Club feat.O’Hooley & Tidow @ Irish Centre, BD1 2RX Pete Simonelli (USA from Enablers), Insect Ark (USA), Bilge Pump, Black Octagon @ 1 in 12 Club Beer Festival @ Victoria Hall, Saltaire Above Them, The Living Daylights, Cut Yourself in Half @ 1 in 12 Club, Albion Street No Hands featuring live music from Humanfly, Magnapinna, BAR @ The Polish Club Hey Alaska + Attention Theives @ The Gasworks Emmott and The Folkestra @ The Cricketers Arms, Keighley BD21 5JE CAMRA’S Bradford Beer Festival @ Victoria Hall, Saltaire 309s @ The New Inn, Thornton, BD13 3JX Sausages Garages - DJ Alec playing alternative tunes @ The Black Swan, Thornton Road The Soul Circle Gang @ The Cricketers Arms, Keighley BD21 5JE Blue Star Tatoo @ The Shipley Pride, Shipley
www.bradfordmuseums.org www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk www.impressions-gallery.com www.kalasangam.org www.fabricculture.co.uk
Fri 24th Feb_
www.gasworksvenue.com www.1in12.com www.bradfordirish.com http://www.brad.ac.uk/gallery/whats-on/spring-summer/
If you have any events that you would like to publicise please send info to bradford@howdomagazine.co.uk
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University of Bradford - Theatre in the Mill University of Bradford - Gallery II Delius Arts Centre Oxfam Bookshop Arts & Resource Community Centre [BIASAN] City Park
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
The Treehouse Cafe RM Photography Studios The Mill Bradford Irish Centre Sweet Centre Resaurant Judi Bakery Westgate Fisheries
1 in 12 Club Impressions Gallery 19 Gasworks 20 Pizza Pieces 21 Kala Sangam, St.Peter’s House 22 Balanga Bar 23 The Sparrow 17 18