Jocks&Nerds Issue 13, Winter 2014 by Jocks&Nerds Magazine

STYLE HISTORY CULTURE ©

WINTER 2014/15

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STYLE HISTORY CULTURE ©

VOLUME 1 ISSUE 13 Cover Wong Kar-Wai photographed by Chris Floyd

Editor-in-Chief & Creative Director Marcus Agerman Ross marcus@jocksandnerds.com Assistant Editor Chris Tang tang@jocksandnerds.com Editorial Assistant Edward Moore edward@jocksandnerds.com Junior Designer Anna Holden anna@tack-press.com Financial Department Emma Gregory and Bryan Kemsley accounts@tack-press.com Publisher Johanna Agerman Ross johanna@tack-press.com

Associate Editor Chris Sullivan chris@jocksandnerds.com New York Editor Janette Beckman janette@jocksandnerds.com Fashion Editor-at-Large Marcus Love Staff Writers Paolo Hewitt, Chris May, Andy Thomas, Mark Webster Staff Photographer Ross Trevail ross@jocksandnerds.com Music Events Programmer Stuart Patterson Design Consultant Colin Christie Subeditor Guy Weress

Commercial Director Andrew Chidgey-Nakazono andrew@tack-press.com Commercial Manager Chris Jones chris@tack-press.com Creative Services Manager Tack Studio Nina Akbari nina@tack-press.com Italian Advertising Representative Angelo Careddu Oberon Media, Viale Richard 1/b, Milan 20143 +39 (0)2874 543 acareddu@oberonmedia.com Swiss Advertising Representative Amelia Guercio Magazine International, Rue du Valée 3 Geneva 1211 +41 (0)78 723 72 53 aguercio@magazineinternational.ch

Intern James Evans Original Design Phil Buckingham

Contributors Salim Ahmed-Kashmirwala, Christopher Altenburg, Mark Anthony Bradley, Dustin Cohen, Kevin Davies, Sophie Delaporte, Marco Dellasette, Nicky Emmerson, Chris Floyd, Jill Furmanovsky, Orlando Gili, David Goldman, Lee Vincent Grubb, Tim Hans, Owen Harvey, Eric Hobbs, Martin Holtkamp, Adam Howe, Mia Howe, Elliot Kennedy, Takashi Kumagai, Rob Lowe, Karen Mason, James McNaught, Sam Nixon, Mattias Pettersson, Chris Pizzello, Simon, Richard Simpson, India Truselle Special Thanks Howard S Berger at Palm Door Films, Ann Corrie, Cécile Delemme at Yohji Yamamoto yohjiyamamoto.co.jp, Fabrice Gadeau at Rex Club rexclub.com, Matt Gunderson at River City Rodeo rivercityrodeo.com, Martin Kelly at Heavenly Recordings heavenlyrecordings.com, Katy Offley Productions katyoffleyproductions.com, Jill Warford at the Gordon Parks Museum gordonparkscenter.org, Takao Yamashita at Beauty:Beast beautybeast.sakura.ne.jp Jocks&Nerds Magazine, Tack Press Limited, 283 Kingsland Road, London E2 8AS Telephone +44 (0)20 7739 8188 jocksandnerds.com facebook.com/jocksandnerds Twitter: @jocksandnerds Instagram: @jocksandnerdsmagazine Jocks&Nerds is published four times a year, printed by Park Communications Ltd parkcom.co.uk To subscribe go to jocksandnerds.com/subscriptions All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or part without the written permission of the publisher. The opinions expressed in the magazine are that of the respective contributors and are not necessarily shared by the magazine or its staff. Jocks&Nerds is published by Tack Press Limited ©2014 s

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Contents

92–95 MUSIC: Brian Wilson struggled with his demons while making sweet pop music

14–24 SEEN: River City Rodeo is a display of ranch-hand skill

96–101 COVER STORY: Wong Kar-Wai is Hong Kong’s most famous film director

26–37 NEWS: A round-up of new books, exhibitions, gear and records for this winter

102–109 STYLE: Bikusuku Custom Photographs Martin Holtkamp Styling Adam Howe

38–47 PEOPLE: Guys and gals doing interesting things, with style 48–52 DETAIL: Farr’s School

110–113 BULLETIN: Kickers The Kick Hi has been adopted by a wealth of youth cultures

of Dancing Photographs Lee Vincent Grubb Styling Salim Ahmed-Kashmirwala

114–119 CULTURE: Gordon Parks created some of America’s most important social-documentary photography

54–59 PROFILE: Alex Turnbull is the skater-drummer-filmmaker renaissance man

120–127 STYLE: Ned Wolfgang Kelly Photographs David Goldman Styling Mark Anthony Bradley

60–64 SPORT: Marty Reisman was New York’s most dapper table tennis hustler 66-73 STYLE: Scoundrels of St James’s Photographs Marcus Agerman Ross Styling Salim Ahmed-Kashmirwala 74–77 CULTURE: Lenny Bruce was incarcerated for his comedy half a century ago 78–83 SPOTLIGHT: Saxophone was used in early rock’n’roll records and endures today 84–91 STYLE: True Confessions Photographs Nicky Emmerson Styling Richard Simpson

128–133 CINEMA: Martin Scorsese is the Hollywood insider interested in documenting the human condition 134–141 STYLE: Leo Houlding Photographs James McNaught Styling Marcus Love

156–161 SPORT: New York Basketball tells the story of the first professional game 162–169 STYLE: Ride the White Horse Photographs David Goldman Styling Richard Simpson 170–173 CINEMA: Joe Meek was the music producer who pioneered the studio as an instrument in its own right 174–176 BULLETIN: Dickies 67 Collection is for skating in style 178–182 GALLERY: London Underground Radio is keeping the spirit of pirate radio alive in the digital age 184–188 HISTORY: Sam Cooke was the soul sensation who met an insalubrious end 190–191 ICON: Sunglasses started as smoked rocks to become the most stylish of accessories

142–146 CINEMA: Bob Stanley has made a film created entirely from archive footage from the British Film Institute 148–155 STYLE: Wilfrid de Baise Photographs Sophie Delaporte Styling Marcus Love

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SEEN

River City Rodeo Photographs Janette Beckman

Dubbed the “most dangerous eight seconds in sports”, rodeo is both a symbol of dexterous machismo and traditional Americana. Those eight seconds refer to the time a rider needs to stay on a 2,500-pound bucking bull or horse – more specifically a bronco, an untrained horse. That said, the origins of rodeo are neither American nor sporting. It was

Spanish and Mexican ranchers who first practised “rodeo”, a rounding up of one’s cattle, in effect a legal headcount. Records of wrangling in Mexico date back to the 16th century, and bull wrestling was practised by the ancient Greeks. Today, the fanfare and paraphernalia is as American as hamburgers and the Statue of Liberty. Adorned in colourful

chaps, hats and boots with spurs, the riders – mostly young men, due to the physical demands and high risk of injury – limber up and test their wits against untamed beasts. Theirs is a nomadic life, crisscrossing the continent, living on prize money, sleeping under the stars. rivercityrodeo.com

SEEN | River City Rodeo

Orin Larsen, 23, professional bareback rider, Inglis, Manitoba, Canada Describe your style. Laid-back, relaxed with no worries. What’s so special about the rodeo? The western atmosphere and the rodeo way of life. The people you’re competing against are your pals, you want them to be as good or better than you. Describe the rodeo in three words: Fun, electric, dangerous. Who’s your style icon? Kelly Wardell. Who’s your favourite musician? Ryan Bingham. What’s your favourite movie? Tombstone.

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SEEN | River City Rodeo

Dru Melvin, 32, professional rodeo cowboy, Hebron, Nebraska Describe your style. Jeans and T-shirt kind of guy. What’s so special about the rodeo? The people involved. Omaha’s rodeo is special to me, it’s awesome competing in front of your home crowd. Describe the rodeo in three words. Family-friendly entertainment. Who’s your style icon? Don’t have one. Who’s your favourite musician? George Strait. What’s your favourite movie? Lonesome Dove.

SEEN | River City Rodeo

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NEWS

John Smedley Sea Fever Collection

In the 1930s, knitwear company John Smedley produced the nautically themed ‘Sea Fever’ range. Referencing this collection and taking inspiration from the colour palettes of seascape horizons, John Smedley has now recreated ‘Sea Fever’. ‘A Century of Colour’ takes note of the brand’s Lea Mills’ 100 years of fabric dyeing. A new dyeing technique has also been used that, creating a graduation effect, gives the colours the appearance of a wave. johnsmedley.com Photograph Chris Tang Styling India Truselle Words Edward Moore Bag Designer Charlie Borrow charlieborrow.com Location The Cat and Mutton, 76 Broadway Market, London E8 catandmutton.com Cardigan by John Smedley; jeans and T-shirt, model’s own.

Drawn by Light: The Royal Photographic Society Collection

The Royal Photographic Society was founded in 1853 with an aim to showcase the art and science of the then-new photographic medium, and is now one the world’s largest collections. With some of the earliest-known photographic images – by 19th-century pioneers like Roger Fenton and Julia Margaret Cameron, through to contemporary photographs by the likes of Martin Parr and Terry O’Neill – Drawn by Light: The Royal Photographic Society Collection charts the history of photography as we know it. Science Museum, Exhibition Road, London SW7 until 1 March sciencemuseum.org.uk Words Edward Moore

Eastern Madonna, 1935 Photograph Walter Bird, The Royal Photographic Society © National Media Museum, Bradford/SSPL

Earthquakes, Mudslides, Fires & Riots: California and Graphic Design 1936–1986

California is generally referenced through its sunbaked landscapes and offbeat hippies. Less is known of the long-standing history of graphic design that saw California’s advertising, entertainment industry, print and all other facets of its consumer culture through the 20th century. This book, edited by graphic designer Louise Sandhaus, charts 50 years of graphic design in California from 1936, during the height of American modernism, right through the swinging 1960s until 1986. Out on 12 January thamesandhudson.com Words Edward Moore

Cal Tjader Quintet album cover by Betty Brader, 1956 © Concord Music Group Inc Image courtesy of Los Angeles County Museum of Art

NEWS Led Zeppelin on Led Zeppelin

First there was the New Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. From Jimmy Page’s skiffle days to when Led Zeppelin was honoured by the Kennedy Centre for their contribution to US and global culture, Led Zeppelin on Led Zeppelin features over 50 interviews from the band, spanning five decades. Out on 12 January omnibuspress.com Words Edward Moore

Led Zeppelin, Hollywood, 1973 Photograph James Fortune

Les Misérables DVD

Divided into three parts and spanning five hours, French director Raymond Bernard’s 1934 film Les Misérables is considered one of the greatest adaptations of Victor Hugo’s epic novel. Now restored in 4K by Pathé, the film has been added to Eureka’s Masters of Cinema series. Out on 8 December eurekavideo.co.uk Words Edward Moore

Hackett Collaborations

Hackett has collaborated with a handful of UK brands this season, producing footwear with shoemakers Joseph Cheaney & Sons made from cloth by the 250-year-old Fox Brothers, and a backpack and briefcase with accessory-maker Bill Amberg. hackett.com billamberg.com cheaney.co.uk foxflannel.com Photograph Chris Tang Styling India Trusselle Words Edward Moore Laurel Valet Simon Kaempfer for Zilio A&C available from Twentytwentyone twentytwentyone.com

NEWS Martin Luther King, Alabama, 1965 Photograph Bob Fitch © The Black Star Collection, Ryerson Image Centre

Human Rights, Human Wrongs Exhibition

Starting around 1945, three years before the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the exhibition Human Rights, Human Wrongs brings together imagery from events such as the Civil Rights Movement, independence movements in African countries, the Vietnam War and the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, all of which enquire into the importance of photojournalism in understanding civil and human rights. The Photographers’ Gallery, 16-18 Ramillies Street, London W1 from 30 January thephotographersgallery.org.uk Words Edward Moore

Hat by Stetson; cardigan, trousers, scarf, bracelet and bag, model’s own; shirt by Baartmans&Siegel.

Stetson 150th Anniversary

In 1865, John B Stetson created a hat that would become the symbol of the Wild West: the highcrowned, wide-brimmed ‘Boss of the Plains’ hat; 150 years on and Stetson’s brand has developed into America’s iconic hatmaker – with the word ‘Stetson’ often used to describe any type of cowboy hat. Gamblers Ball for the Good is at at Hippodrome Casino, London, on 21 February www.stetson-europe.com Photograph Chris Tang Styling India Trusselle Words Edward Moore Furniture Dealer Abel Sloane abelsloane1934.com

Love is Enough Exhibition

William Morris, a 19th-century English textile designer, and Andy Warhol, a 20th-century American pop artist; the two appear to have little in common – but an exhibition at Modern Art Oxford suggests otherwise. Love is Enough is curated by Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller. “They have a lot in common; both were restless, highly ambitious for art, and both were what I would call multimedia artists,” he says. “The scale of their legacy on culture is almost unimaginable.” Modern Art Oxford, 30 Pembroke Street, Oxford OX1 from 6 December modernartoxford.org.uk jeremydeller.org Words Edward Moore

The Story of Tristram and Isoude by William Morris, 1862 © Collection of Bradford Museums & Galleries

NEWS The Best of Doisneau: Paris by Robert Doisneau

One of the most able exponents of the photographie humaniste movement that swept through France in the 1950s, Robert Doisneau (1912-1994) claimed his work rejoiced in “the ordinary gestures of ordinary people in ordinary situations”, which this book certainly illustrates. Among others we see workers, beggars, lovers, jugglers, children, dancers – all touched by the hand of a master who loves his subjects and was as sensitive to human suffering as he was to human joy. The Best of Doisneau collects the man’s most loved images from Paris alongside lesser-known pictures and some previously unpublished. Out on 3 March rizzoliusa.com Words Chris Sullivan

Jacket and sweater by Woolrich Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris, 1951 Photograph Robert Doisneau

Looking for Johnny Limited Edition Vinyl

At first he was John Genzale, then Johnny Volume and finally Johnny Thunders; a central figure in the birth of punk with his band the Heartbreakers and the New York Dolls. His life recently became the subject of Danny Garcia’s documentary Looking for Johnny, the soundtrack to which, has been released on red vinyl, limited to 2000 copies. jungle-records.com Words Edward Moore Photograph Colin Christie

Woolrich Teton Outdoor Performance Group

Created in the 1970s, Woolrich’s Teton fabric brought a new level of innovation to the world of outerwear. Equipped with waterproofing, a breathable membrane and tear-resistant weaving, Teton still stands strong today and has inspired a new Cordura fabric, which has taken the original technologies even further. woolrich.co.uk Photograph Chris Tang Styling India Trusselle Words Edward Moore Sales Assistant Aaron Mills

NEWS Billy Name. The Silver Age: Black and White Photographs from Andy Warhol’s Factory (1964-1968)

When Andy Warhol secured his new studio at 231 East 47th Street, Manhattan on 28 January 1964, he sought the decorative hand of Billy Name, who went on to cover the space in silver foil and spray paint. Warhol then gave Name a Pentax Honeywell 35mm camera and made him the resident photographer the Factory, which he remained until 1968, documenting Factory regulars such as Lou Reed, Nico, Edie Sedgwick and Bob Dylan. reelartpress.com Words Edward Moore

Fashion in the ’70s

The style of the 1970s found itself stuck between the freedom of expression from the 1960s and the labelflaunting success culture of the 1980s. A collaborative work of fashion historian and curator Emmanuelle Dirix and design writer Charlotte Fiell, Fashion in the ‘70s is an in-depth look at this period, outlining the different styles.

Lou Reed, luncheonette on the corner of 47th Street and 3rd Avenue, New York, 1967

Out on 3 December fiell.com Words Edward Moore

Millions Like Us: The Story of the Mod Revival 1977-1989

Back in 1979, a compilation called Mods Mayday brought together some of the young bands at the heart of the mod revival. Inspired by both the original 1960s scene and the DIY energy of punk bands like Squire and Secret Affair, it opened the door to a whole new world. Another of those young bands was Purple Hearts, whose single ‘Millions Like Us’ provides the title for this comprehensive document of a much maligned but influential scene. cherryred.co.uk Words Andy Thomas Photograph Colin Christie

Public Enemy: Inside the Terrordome

Public Enemy brought hip-hop into new and enlightened territories. They released four bestselling albums in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and were the fourth hip-hop group to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – following Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys. Public Enemy: Inside the Terrordome charts both the group’s success and cultural significance, and hip-hop’s significance past and present. Out on 9 February omnibuspress.com Words Edward Moore Photograph Tim Hans

Fred Perry x Nigel Cabourn

In 1929, well before he won three consecutive Wimbledon Championships, Fred Perry was crowned World Champion of Table Tennis. Fashion designer Nigel Cabourn, a table-tennis enthusiast who plays five times a week with an ex-England pro, has collaborated with Fred Perry to create a full range of apparel inspired by the likes of Perry and BritishHungarian five-time World Champion Victor Barna. cabourn.com fredperry.com Photographs Chris Tang Styling India Truselle Words Edward Moore Table Tennis Players Ralf Claussner and Guy Godfrey Mondrian’s Glasses and Pipe, 1926 Photograph André Kertész © The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Modern Photographs from the Thomas Walther Collection, 1909–1949

Between the first and second world wars, the creative possibilities explored through photography were unparalleled. During this time, photographers such as Berenice Abbott, Aleksandr Rodchenko, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand and Edward Weston were pushing the medium to new heights. This important period is documented in the 300-plus photographs that constitute the MoMA’s Thomas Walther Collection. Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53 Street, New York from 13 December moma.org Words Edward Moore

NEWS Dan Budnick: Marching To The Freedom Dream

Published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and to precede the 50th anniversaries of the Selma to Montgomery March and the Voting Rights Act in 2015, this book of US photojournalist Dan Budnik’s work documents three decisive marches of the civil rights movement. It begins with the peaceful Youth March for Integrated Schools in 1958, moves onto the iconic March on Washington in August 1963, where Dr Martin Luther King Jr delivered his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, and closes with the 1965’s victorious 54-mile Selma to Montgomery March that, through some of the most segregated areas of rural Alabama, comprised thousands of marchers. Martin Luther King after his speech, Washington DC, 1963 © Dan Budnik

trolleybooks.com Words Edward Moore

Big Shots: Rock Legends and Hollywood Icons by Guy Webster

Guy Webster photographed the likes of Bob Dylan, Jack Nicholson, Jane Fonda, Jimi Hendrix and Mick Jagger in Los Angeles in the 1960s – a transformative time for both music and culture. With a foreword from Beach Boy Brian Wilson, Big Shots: Rock Legends and Hollywood Icons compiles 300 Webster portraits. guywebster.com insighteditions.com Words Edward Moore

Brian Jones, Monterey Pop Festival, 1967 © Guy Webster

PEOPLE

Kitty, Daisy and Lewis

Multi-instrumentalist trio Kitty, Daisy and Lewis, all hailing from the musical Durham family, have played together since they were kids. “My mum [Ingrid Weiss] used to drum for the Raincoats,” says Daisy. “My dad also came from a big family; he was born in India. They used to do the same thing we did as kids, just sit around and sing songs and jam.” The band has just finished their third album and for the first time have brought in someone from outside the family – Mick Jones from the Clash – to produce. “We were all a bit worried about having an outside person in the studio because we record everything ourselves. [But] he was so enthusiastic about the music and the vibe. I think he really enjoyed it,” says Daisy. “It’s a weird story, but the day I was born we figured out that my dad was actually cutting a record with Mick for Big Audio Dynamite – my mum’s water broke while they were cutting it. The hospital phoned my dad, or my mum phoned my dad, and my dad was like, ‘Hold on, just let me finish the B-side’.” Kitty, Daisy and Lewis The Third is out on 26 January. The band will perform at London Electric Ballroom, 184 Camden High St, London NW1 on 18 February kittydaisyandlewis.com sundaybest.net electricballroom.co.uk Photograph Jill Furmanovsky Words Edward Moore

Chrissie Hynde

Having released solo debut Stockholm this summer, Chrissie Hynde, 63, is still perpetuating her musical legacy. Raised in Ohio in a cultural vacuum that could only be partially filled by the odd gig, she joined a band, Sat. Sun. Mat., and read the NME, before moving to London in 1973. After a chat about Iggy Pop at a party, she became involved with music journalist Nick Kent and landed herself a writing job at the NME. It fell through and, after working for Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood briefly at their store Sex, she had the urge to start her own band. After several attempts, with the likes of Mick Jones, Jon Moss and Tony James, she formed the Pretenders with James Honeyman-Scott, Martin Chambers and Pete Farndon in 1978. Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders play at Koko, 1a Camden High St, London NW1 on 16 December. Hynde’s ‘Adding the Blue’ is out now carolineinternational.com chrissiehynde.com Photograph Jill Furmanovsky Words Edward Moore

PEOPLE Mark Jones

It’s been 20 years since Jones started Wall of Sound Records. “It all began when I started creating imagery and Super 8 visuals projected onto screens for all these crazy acid-house nights, such as Shoom, Trip and Sin,” he says. “I persuaded my mum to buy me a Yamaha CS synthesiser from a catalogue and I started making music. This led to my band Red Box that Paul Oakenfold signed to Champion Records. We released a single called ‘Never Trust Your Soul’ which did OK. I formed another band, Perfect Day, what I call ‘prock’ – that is, pop rock. I’m going to remix and re-release a few songs from the band in early 2015.” Jones then hooked up with Marc Lessner at Sole Trader Records, selling 12” dance records out of the back of a car. He took the idea a step further and began pressing records for the likes of Basement Jaxx, Kruder&Dorfmeister, Howie B and Larry Heard, then compiled them all on Give Them Enough Dope Volume 1. “Then I signed Propellerheads, Stuart Price, Röyksopp and more recently, Mogwai, the Human League, Grace Jones and Schoolly D, while new artists include Kids on Bridges, Killaflaw, Ekkoes and BEF. It’s been an interesting journey.” Perfect Day’s remastered The World Tonight is out next year perfectdayuk.net wallofsound.net Photograph Owen Harvey Words Chris Sullivan

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PEOPLE

Jun Takahashi

To be an outsider to punk could perhaps be a slight contradiction to the spirit of a subculture that, above all else, needs to exist outside the establishment. Jun Takahashi, the fashion designer and creative force behind the brand Undercover, has grown up with punk for most of his 45 years but, as he has done in Japan, any attempt to involve himself with the western subculture might be labelled ‘reinterpretation’. It only takes a glance at an Undercover garment to realise such a categorisation was a little off point; Takahashi’s designs possess nothing less than raw power and impact. “I borrowed a Sex Pistols album from a friend in junior high school and was completely mesmerised by the branding and jacket,” says Takahashi. “After that, I found out about [Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren’s] Sex and Seditionaries and became deeply interested in that fashion.” He went on to study at Bunka Fashion College in Tokyo, alongside the likes of Nigo, who went on to start A Bathing Ape. He also was lead singer in a punk band, the Tokyo Sex Pistols. Thus he nurtured his taste for both music and subculture. Before even graduating in 1991, Takahashi took his influences from punk and started Undercover, which is now celebrating its 25th year. “I wanted to make clothes we wanted to wear, and that’s where it started,” he says. “Rather than a particular aspiration, it grew into its own as we kept moving forward and gradually took on different challenges.” Undercover will celebrate its 25th anniversary with a series of events in 2015 undercoverism.com Photograph Takashi Kumagai Words Edward Moore Photographic Assistant Chisaki Nakamura Coordinator Adam Howe

PEOPLE

Alex Maglalang Barrow

Accordion player Barrow plays in two bands – skiffle punks the Severed Limb and latin exoticists Malphino. “Both mix it up a lot,” he says immaculately turned out in 1930s Parisian hepcat style. “My personal input is accordion-led styles like cumbia, zydeco, forró.” Born in Windsor but long a resident of London, Barrow’s Philippino mum and British dad both encouraged his musical proclivity from an early age. “I was taught piano as a kid,” he says. “I moved to London but, when I returned to visit, Dad had chopped the piano up for firewood! So, inspired by jazz manouche and bal-musette, I started on the accordion. It was small and easy to lug around and, being low on cash, I started busking with the squeeze box.” Severed Limb’s If You Ain’t Livin’ You’re a Dead Man is out in February damagedgoods.co.uk Photograph Kevin Davies Words Chris Sullivan

BB Davis

Mysteries of the Revolution (MOTR) is the lovechild of drummer and flutist BB Davis’s earlier band Red Orchidstra. Davis founded MOTR to take the music beyond the confines and codifications of Hammond organ funk. “I wanted to include psychedelica, electronica and neo-classicism,” he says. “And to acknowledge three albums which were my raison d’être as a musician: Mahavishnu Orchestra’s The Inner Mounting Flame, Return to Forever’s Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy and Weather Report’s debut.” Davis adapted the band’s name from Dušan Makavejev’s movie WR: Mysteries of the Organism, a celebration of psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. It has been seven years since MOTR’s first album, featuring Davis, keyboardist Dan Biro and the late bassist Mark Smith. “Mark’s death took the wind out of my sails for a long time,” says Davis. Rather than find another bassist, Davis eventually recruited guitarists Vincenzo Lamagna and Jonny Woolnough, turning MOTR into a quartet. MOTR’s second album You Turn Me On is out 1 May mysteriesoftherevolution.com Photograph Kevin Davies Words Chris May

Marcus Samuelsson

Adopted from his native Ethiopia and raised in Gothenburg, Sweden, chef and restaurateur Marcus Samuelsson, 44, was exposed to an eclectic cultural mix. “As a kid, I was introduced to David Bowie, Frank Zappa and Bob Marley as a way to learn English, you know?” says Samuelsson. “Everything I was drawn to wasn’t race-based, it was originality-based. When we travelled, we ate first and that’s where we got culture, the food. I was never introduced to children’s food. If they had oysters, we had oysters. If they had herring, we had herring. That was our culture.” This interest in food through his family encouraged Samuelsson to study at Gothenburg’s Culinary Institute. After apprenticing in Switzerland and Austria, he went to New York in the mid-1990s to apprentice at Scandinavian restaurant Aquavit in Manhattan, and within a few years was executive chef. He went on to write a handful of award-winning cookbooks and open several restaurants; the most recent, Red Rooster – named after a famous speakeasy on 138th Street – opened in 2010, serving comfort food and hiring locals. Marcus Off Duty: the Recipes I Cook at Home is out now marcussamuelsson.com Photograph Janette Beckman Words Edward Moore Location Red Rooster, 310 Lenox Ave, Harlem, New York

redroosterharlem.com 45

Pete Molinari

Molinari is an UK-born musician with American dreams. “My first vision of America was my cousins who used to come over from San Francisco and see our family in Kent and give me a bunch of books and records,” he says. “Whenever I had a Steinbeck or a Walt Whitman book, it just made me dream a little bit. America was this other place where you could realise all your aspirations.” Having played gigs in his hometown and on trips to Paris, the US eventually came calling. Molinari packed up his bags and headed to New York. “I already had a taste of the west coast – I went to San Francisco first – but New York was different. It felt a bit more like London, but still a different vibe altogether. When I spent enough time there learning, playing all day in the park, I started playing three or four cafes a night, sometimes at one or two in the morning, it was hard but good, you know.” The practice paid off and Molinari, now based in LA, has recently released his fourth record Theosophy on Cherry Red Records, working with the likes of Andrew Weatherall and Tchad Blake. “I’ve also got a collection of lyrics and poems coming out. I’m calling the book Café del Artista after a cafe I played at in New York. I used to end up staying there and they’d feed me. I’d play there every night.” Café Delle Artista is out in 2015 petemolinari.com Photograph Eric Hobbs Words Edward Moore

PEOPLE

Leo Leigh

The son of British director Mike Leigh, renowned for his brand of kitchen-sink realism, 33-year-old Leo Leigh, also a filmmaker, has been surrounded by cinema since he was a child. “We’d watch all kinds of stuff, Dad’s video collection was massive,” says Leigh. “You’d walk up these stairs and there was a wall of hundreds and hundreds of films. Me and my brother [Toby], we’d just spend hours watching them.” After dropping out of Surrey Institute of Art and Design – “The teachers were just bitter, washed-up filmmakers” – Leigh’s calling came through documentary, making short films on his own. “I started working for Spine TV and had access to the camera 24/7,” he says. “I’d just film everything. I’d find somebody out on the street, get their number and go meet them. I hope what I do has a truth to it and no matter how bizarre a character or a situation, I always try to make sure there’s some kind of meaning behind it.” Having just directed a full-length documentary on infamous ping-pong hustler Marty Reisman, as well as a ‘making of ’ his father’s film Mr Turner (screening now), Leigh has bigger aspirations and has started working on a feature script. “I think there are stories in fiction I really want to tell,” he says. “There are subjects you could make a documentary about, but at the same time they might be more interesting to explore in fiction, in drama.” leoleigh.com Photograph Owen Harvey Words Edward Moore

DETAIL

George wears boots by Timberland; jacket by Adidas Originals x Barbour; trousers by Cos; hat, rings, watch and socks, model’s own.

Farr’s School of Dancing

Photographs Lee Vincent Grubb Styling Salim Ahmed-Kashmirwala Digital Assistant Liam Aylott Styling Assistant Nicolas Payne-Baader Dancers Dominik Magloire and George Packe-Drury-Lowe Location Farr’s School of Dancing, 17 Dalston Lane, London E8 farrsschoolofdancing.com

Dominik wears boots by Dr Martens; jacket and jeans by Evisu; T-shirt by Dsquared2; ring, stylistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own.

DETAIL | Farr’s School of Dancing

George wears boots by Justin Deakin; suit by Levi’s Made&Crafted; T-shirt by Cos; hat, watch, rings and socks, model’s own.

Dominik wears boots by Palladium; jacket by Cos; tracksuit bottoms by Adidas Originals x Spezial; T-shirt by Adidas; hat by Lock&Co; ring, stylist’s own.

Aviakit , D Lewis and Lewis Leathers are trademarks of Lewis Leathers Ltd, 3-5, Whitfield Street, London W1T 2SA Tel: 020 7636 4314

DETAIL | Farr’s School of Dancing Dominik wears boots by Vivienne Westwood Man; jacket by Cos; trousers by Dsquared2; ring, stylist’s own.

PROFILE

Alex Turnbull 23 Skidoo. Stussy. Tony Alva. Ronin Records. Disco Zombies. Words Andy Thomas Portrait Owen Harvey

While they would play an important part in the creative fusions of post-punk, Alex and Johnny Turnbull – sons of artists William Turnbull and Kim Lim – first made their mark on London subculture as skaters in the mid-1970s, inspired by the ghetto aesthetic of LA skateboarders Jay Adams and Tony Alva (immortalised in Dogtown and Z-Boys). Skating style and culture proved an important foundation for Alex; in the late 1980s he joined the International Stussy Tribe and formed production team Ronin Inc., and he and Johnny set up influential UK hip-hop label Ronin Records. “Skaters by their very nature are urban guerrillas, they make everyday use of the useless artefacts of the technological burden,” said photographer and writer Craig Stecyk one of a few articles on Dogtown for Skateboarder magazine in the mid-1970s. Around the poor LA neighbourhoods of Santa Monica and Venice, the Zephyr skateboard team reclaimed curved walls of asphalt and disused swimming pools in pursuit of their art. Style was everything to these 54

original skate punks: from the way they rode a lip of a pool to their uniform of faded Levi’s and dark blue Vans. Equally stylish and defiant were the images and words of Zephyr member Stecyk. His stories on these skaters reached across the Atlantic to inspire the young UK scene. When London’s first skate parks opened, like Skate City in London Bridge, the Turnbulls found a new home as members of the leading UK skate teams. Johnny Turnbull and school friends Fritz Catlin and Sam Mills formed 23 Skidoo in north London in 1979. Joining the band in 1980 as a percussionist, with new vocalist Tom Heslop, one of Alex’s first gigs was a performance attended by Rod Pearce of Fetish Records. Released on Fetish in 1982, 23 Skidoo’s debut mini LP Seven Songs sounds as urgent and agitated today as when it emerged in the creative aftermath of punk. Fetish design director Neville Brody’s hand-crafted sleeve hinted at the sinister, hypnotic funk within. “My work for Fetish came out of a gut reaction to its music, and the situation it was published in. I wanted

to force the record buyer into a state of consideration – a gut reaction to my gut reaction,” said Brody. In his NME review Paul Morley called the LP “A variably energetic and stimulating addition to that collection of perceptions, hallucinations and associations brought into play by Joy Division, Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle and A Certain Ratio.” Like these bands, 23 Skidoo had been liberated – but weren’t about to be confined – by punk. Inspired by William S Burroughs cut ups, Kenneth Anger films, the motorik pulse of Krautrock, Indonesian repetition and Burundian drumming, the band made a case for writer Simon Reynolds’s assertion that “punk had its most provocative repercussions long after its supposed demise.” Second LP The Culling is Coming (1983) confounded critics – abstract and freeform, it was a world away from the punk-funk of their contemporaries. It was part-recorded at the WOMAD festival. “Instead of using pleasant ‘world music’ sounds, we used city noises, gas canisters, explosions. It was just this barrage of noise,” Turnbull later recalled. In 1983, >

PROFILE | Alex Turnbull

Skateboarder magazine, 1978

the group released their most commercial single ‘Coup’, later sampled heavily on the Chemical Brothers’ ‘Block Rockin’ Beats’. The Turnbulls’ interest in eastern music was furthered on an exploratory trip to Bali that produced Urban Gamelan (1984). The martial-arts stencils of Brody’s sleeve pointed to another great love. Named after a term for masterless samurai, Ronin Records was a breeding ground for early British hip-hop artists like Roots Manuva, Skitz, and Rodney P. At around the same time, Turnbull became an original International Stussy Tribe member – alongside designers Hiroshi Fujiwara in Japan and Jules Gayton in New York – and helped connect the street styles of New York, London and Tokyo. Connections made during that time proved hugely influential to international streetwear – from Supreme to Gimme 5 and beyond. The Ronin Records samurai logo continued the visual language of early 23 Skidoo. As well as having Neville Brody design their sleeves, they also worked with scratch-video pioneer Richard Heslop. His multi-screen projections became an important part of the band’s live gigs and he still works with them today. Turnbull began his own film explorations and in 2011 made a documentary, Beyond Time, about his father shortly before he passed away. He interviewed figures such as Peter Blake and Richard Hamilton (with whom William Turnbull set up the Independent 56

Training at the Bob Breen Academy, London, 1987

Group in the 1950s, along with Eduardo Paolozzi) and repositioned the secretive artist as a pioneer of modernism. For the last five years, Turnbull has worked on his new film Rise of the Underground about how street culture and style has impacted and informed the mainstream – from the 1970s skating scene through to the birth of Stussy. Since 2006, he has also worked as a custodian of William Turnbull’s work from his Hackney Road studio.

WHEN IT CAME TO SCHOOL AND CAREERS THEY WERE LIKE, ‘DON’T DO ART’ Having your dad’s work around you must inspire you now, but what was it like to grow up the son of artists? It’s interesting, my brother and I had just grown up around it. We used to wash his sculptures for pocket money. That was our relationship to his art, you know. It has always just been there. So even though we

were both creative and my dad encouraged us to draw, when it came to school and careers, they were like, “Don’t do art.” For my parents and their generation, art had been a real struggle. Then Johnny’s and my creativity ended up manifesting itself as music. But it really started with skating. How did the skating begin for you then? There was a film called Skaterdater (1965) showing with Rollerball. It was very early skateboarding with guys in bare feet and windcheaters, duelling going down a hill. So we borrowed a mate’s board and went to Primrose Hill. One day we bumped into these two guys who subsequently became our teammates: Richard Heslop, who ended up making our films for 23 Skidoo, and John Shayer, who went on to become one of the main slalom guys. John had two proper skateboards, a G&S Fibreflex deck slalom board with Bennett Pro Ad tracks, and a Banzai with Road Rider 4 wheels with Bennett Pros. And it was like Close Encounters of the Third Kind for us because there was nothing like that back then. There was none of that Americana, no tube socks, no OP shorts, no Vans, there weren’t even sneakers. It was amazing for me and my brother to see these incredible new skateboards. So what was your first skateboard? It was a Skuda, I’m embarrassed to admit. But at least it had urethane wheels and open bearings. The Skuda board was some

23 Skidoo, 1982. Richard Heslop, Thom Heslop, Fritz Catlin, Johnny Turnbull, Sam Mills and Alex Turnbull

shitty fibreglass thing, though. I remember getting some of that aluminium flooring and my mum helped us cutting it out and sticking the trucks onto it. When did you get serious about skating? It would’ve been when we went to the Southbank [in the mid 1970s]. It was John Shayer who told us to go down there. For the next four years that was our life. Every Saturday and Sunday that was what we did. The Southbank was the beginning of skateboarding in London. How important was that for you? That was where we met everybody. I’ve realised subsequently that it was a really important time, culturally. Skating was one of the first times that people from all different cultures and walks of life came together. There were the kids there from Kensington and Chelsea with kids from Stockwell and Brixton. We were a bit too young for punk at the beginning, so this was like our little underground scene. And in the context of the film, it was very important. It was like underground before underground, and very individual, I think, in the way that punk was. This was really the start of the British skate scene then? Yes, we were there at the beginning with

all those guys. People like John Sablosky, Jeremy Henderson and Jules Gayton, who would become a very good friend through DJing and the Stussy Tribe. There were a lot of very interesting people who came through skating that have stayed friends. When did you start getting into the clothes? It was through the kids at the skateparks from Kensington and Chelsea and places like that who had all the gear. They were wearing things like Converse, Pro-Keds and maybe a military jacket. So a lot of the stylistic things that we started to pick up came from those kids. I remember coming down to Skate City at London Bridge and thinking how cool it was compared to skateboarding down the end of the road. How important was it at the time? Well, it was a shit skatepark, when you look back. But it was a skatepark and that was so important, because there really were none at that time. It was brilliant to have that. We all ended up working there as marshals, which essentially meant we got in for free. That’s when the teams started, the Hobie and Benjyboard teams and then my team, Logos. We were the radical, rebel team, a bit like the Dogtown guys. We were the first punk skaters.

When were you first aware of Dogtown? It was very early, because of the Stecyk article. We were aware of it at the same time as mainstream America. Somebody like Jeremy Henderson or John Sablosky got a copy of Skateboarder magazine from America. And it would get passed around the Southbank. That first article changed everything. When we saw those grainy black-and-white pictures of Jay Adams and Tony Alva, they were just completely different to what had been before. Until then, skating had been very upright, clean cut, very Beach Boys. Then along came the Dogtown guys. It was like punk – before punk. It was so aggressive and stylish with torn jeans and Vans, so cool but we never knew what all this gear was. Where did you start getting the gear? There was Alpine Sports in South Kensington, a ski shop that had a small skateboard section downstairs. But the only real skateboard shop was Slick Willies in High Street Kensington. Alpine Sports was where you would go for skateboards, but Slick Willies had Converse, Pro-Keds, tube socks. But again, it was very expensive. How important was that period to the future of street style? If you look at those Alva boards and > 57

PROFILE | Alex Turnbull ads, you can really see where the Stussy aesthetic came from. It was only when I started research for the film that I saw how influential it was. Those early Alva ads were so radical. It was so far ahead of the time in terms of advertising. No one had done anything like that. This was years before magazines like The Face. How did you go from skating to music? Music was always a big part of my life. When we were skating it was a very important factor. Paul Simonon from the Clash was one of my early style icons, after Tony Alva. I actually started playing the bass, then moved on to drumming in a few local bands like Table 12 and the Disco Zombies. Skidoo had started as a school band and were playing as a fourpiece. They had a gig with Funkapolitan and they asked me to play percussion. Could you tell me how the band was introduced to Fetish? We’d met Rod Pearce through Genesis P-Orridge, then played a gig at the Venue supporting Joe Bowie’s avant-garde funk outfit Defunkt. Rod was there and after the gig asked if we wanted to make a record. It was a pretty big deal for us. He invited us to Sheffield to record at Western Works with Cabaret Voltaire. That was an incredible opportunity. They were a huge influence. Neville Brody’s artwork for Fetish was pretty amazing, wasn’t it? Yes, Neville was doing all the artwork for Fetish. Neville is one of the most talented creative people I know, and I know a few! All his artwork was fantastic: Cabaret Voltaire, Clock DVA, and Throbbing Gristle. We were very fortunate to have someone like that creating artwork for our records. They still look amazing today. What other music was influencing you? We had very eclectic taste. Fela Kuti was a big influence, rhythmically; Studio One and other reggae stuff like Grounation by Count Ossie and the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari; the Last Poets were another with LPs like Delights of the Garden and This is Madness; there was also jazz-funk stuff like Freeez and Atmosfear; we saw the Art Ensemble of Chicago at the Roundhouse; and James Blood Ulmer. We had really deep and wide influences, for young kids from north London. Of all the British bands, who did you feel most aligned to? 58

As well as Cabaret Voltaire, there was obviously Throbbing Gristle. I always wrestled with a lot of their music, but they were a big influence, conceptually – but the Cabs were more of a musical inspiration. The two other bands were A Certain Ratio (ACR) and This Heat. ACR were great, they looked great with their short-back-and-sides and camo. But the best band I ever saw live was This Heat. They were something else, playing with all sorts of cassettes and loops. It was very experimental and powerful. When did you start using tape loops? They came from William S Burroughs who we were lucky enough to play with at the Final Academy in 1982. It was the idea of words speaking for themselves. We would open up cassettes and splice them into loops. When the first Sony Walkmans came out, there was a black one that could record, and had a small

‘WE UPSET SO MANY PEOPLE IN THE MUSIC BUSINESS WHO’D BEEN ROOTING FOR US’ speaker. We’d leave the cassette loop in, hit record and straight away you had a tape loop. When we went to Western Works with the Cabs we had a 10-minute backing tape of ambient, weird tape loops. We went in and played that track completely improvised, and I remember we walked out and the Cabs were like, ‘Fucking hell, what was that?’ They were using drum machines and programming and stuff, but we were very organic. You can definitely hear it on Seven Songs. That was produced by Tony, Terry and David (Genesis P-Orridge, Ken Thomas, Peter Christopherson). In the week before recording, we just came up with a load of ideas. For ‘Kundalini’ we played what we thought was a run through and they said, ‘Yeah, we recorded it.’ So that album was recorded in two days, sometimes that’s just the best way. Johnny and me went to Bali

the next day and while we were away it went to No.1 in the independent charts. Is it true to say The Culling is Coming confused many people on its release? We upset so many people in the music business who’d been rooting for us, so we were kind of ostracised from that point on. Back then, being commercial was the worst thing you could be. So we did everything we could to not be that. Having said that, Urban Gamelan had a more commercial sound. That was interesting because we worked with Sketch Martin (Linx bassist) and he was on the opposite trajectory. We were trying to come in from leftfield and he was trying to go out to leftfield. But we had found this mutual bonding over this film Shogun Assassin. That went on to influence all our imagery with Ronin. How did you get into martial arts? I got into it seriously in about 1981. I was living in a squat in Hackney with a friend Keir Fraser from the band Last Few Days, and he’d been to a kickboxing class. I ended up training with this guy who became my teacher for 20 years, Bob Breen, who is one of the top Jeet Kune Do teachers. Through that I got introduced to amazing guys like Dan Inosanto, who was Bruce Lee’s partner. Dan is an incredible inspiration. He’s a black belt in about 15 arts but will go and put on a white belt to learn something else. There is a Bruce Lee adage: “Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.” And you can apply that to 23 Skidoo. How did the martial arts filter through to Ronin? I love Japanese culture, the calligraphy and everything. The attitude and integrity of samurai warriors was what inspired me. So the idea of a ronin, a highly trained assassin that is free and not part of the establishment, really appealed to me. So when we started doing remixes as Ronin Inc. we kind of saw ourselves as the hit men you call in when you want a job done. It was kind of tongue-in-cheek. Ronin was very influential in UK hiphop. When did you get into the music? It all changed for me in 1983 when I saw Red Alert and Afrika Bambaataa at the Shaw Theatre on Euston Road. There were these English guys like Max LX warming up for them; they were cutting

Ronin Inc, 1990: Fritz Catlin, Johnny Turnbull, Peter “Sketch” Martin and Alex Turnbull

up breaks, and I just thought, ‘Wow.’ As a drummer into funky drums and tape loops, that was really inspiring. Seeing these guys manipulating sound but doing it on the beat. That was one of the first real b-boy events with London All Star Breakers. Then I got into being a DJ. How did you get connected with Stussy? I was in New York hanging out with Jules Gayton and Jeremy Henderson. One day, they took me to meet Paul Mittleman who had been working for Stussy, which was, at this point, two clothing rails in a warehouse in midtown Manhattan. I remember seeing the beach pants and T-shirts with the logo and it was like, ‘Wow, this is what we’ve been waiting for.’ Next thing, Shawn [Stussy] came to London and me and my friends James Lebon and Michael Kopelman took him to a club called Enter the Dragon, where I was playing. Then I sent him this mix tape that had a skit I’d made using the ‘Alex... Alex Baby’, from an Alexander O’Neal record. Shortly after, Michael called to say Shawn had sent some stuff for me. I go around to his house and

there’s this baseball jacket with ‘Alex Baby’ on it. There is no doubt that for a few years, that personalised jacket was the coolest, most sought-after item of clothing. That was the start of the Tribe. How important was Stussy in relation to the street styles that followed? It seems almost incredible now to think that before that point, none of the streetbrand stuff existed. You had some random sportswear and the double-goose jackets and stuff like that, but it was all very lowkey. You had to know where to go in New York to find it. This was the beginning of all of that. So much has grown from Stussy. Shawn was a real visionary in that respect. He created the blueprint, both in terms of fresh gear and how to market it. He was the first person to send the stuff to DJs and people he thought were cool. Seems very obvious now, but at the time no one had done it. Shawn, helped by Paul Mittleman, created a tribe mentality and linked like-minded people from New York, London, LA and Tokyo. There are a lot of interesting things that sprang from it. There was this period from the

mid-1970s to the mid-1990s when almost all modern street culture was created. That was when it was mined and pioneered. Hiroshi Fujiwara says in the film that since the mid-1990s there hasn’t been much new. That seems like a sweeping statement, but when you think about it, it’s kind of correct. People went out and researched and learned it and since then everything is like a combination of those things. Now with the internet, everyone’s a fucking expert but most people have no proper knowledge of what they’re talking about. Whereas back in the day, you had to really research your experience. If you saw someone wearing something cool, it might take you years to find out where to get it. So it was a real journey, and it’s the same with records. Many relationships were forged because of the journey and the experiences you shared. Unfortunately, much of that has been lost. Rise of the Underground is currently in post-production breakingthemould.net 23skidoo.co

SPORT

Marty Reisman Lower East Side. Ping Pong. J Jaques & Son. USTTA. Hiroji Satoh. Hardbat. Words Chris May

As Marty Reisman told it, there are three rules for successful ping-pong hustling. First, let the mark suggest the money match. That way, he is unaware he is being set up. Ditto, let the mark suggest the size of the bet. Third, win by a small margin. The mark may be tempted to try again. Reisman knew what he was talking about. He grew up on New York’s Lower East Side in the 1930s and 1940s. Now as bright and shiny as most of Manhattan, back then it was rough and impoverished. The LES formed the backdrop to Damon Runyon’s ambient novels about New York’s criminal demi-monde; Reisman stepped straight out of Runyon’s pages. He supported himself as a ping-pong hustler from the age of 14, first on the Lower East Side, then in his own parlour on Broadway, then shooting money matches against maharajahs and assorted panjandrums in India and the Far East. When he died in 2012, aged 82, he’d only ever held a salaried job for four weeks. Reisman set out his rules for hustling in his autobiography The Money Player: The Confessions of America’s Greatest Table 60

Tennis Player and Hustler, published in 1974. Long out of print, a used copy will cost you at least £40. The manuscript for a more recently written autobiography is in the care of writer Sir Harold Evans, a former Sunday Times editor and, since 1984, a New Yorker. Evans has played ping pong at tournament level since he was a teenager, knew Reisman well and, in Reisman’s last years, played him for fun on a near-weekly basis. He is currently arranging publication of the book. Meanwhile, director Leo Leigh, son of Mike, has released a documentary, Fact or Fiction: The Life and Times of a Ping-Pong Hustler. He follows Reisman around Manhattan for the last three years of his life as he tells his story, attends to his ailing wife Yoshiko, and reluctantly confronts his own mortality. It reveals a sharp-witted, sharply dressed native New York octogenarian still in possession of all the charisma and flamboyance he was famous for as a younger man. Reisman habitually wears aviator shades and one of many Borsalino fedoras. And he pulls it all off, even the faux leopard-skin pants. Fact or Fiction rides a resurgence of

interest not just in Reisman, but in ping pong as a social activity. Actor Susan Sarandon is a co-owner of international upscale nightclub-come-pong parlour chain Spin. Its East 23rd Street premises has 16 tables available by the hour, three giant Reisman portraits on the walls and a space called Marty’s Room. Sarandon hosted a memorial event there following Reisman’s death. In London, Bounce, designed by Russell Sage, has 17 tables, a restaurant and a bar. Bounce boasts that it is located on the Holborn site where ping pong was “invented” in 1901. True, sports-equipment maker J Jaques & Son patented the name ‘ping pong’ from the same address that year, but the game dates to the 1880s when it rivalled billiards as the upper-class parlour game du jour. It was invented by British colonial army officers in India, who placed a row of books across a mess table and hit a golf ball back and forth with cigar-box lids. It’s all a long way from the Lower East Side in 1930, the year Reisman was born. There was always a degree of reinvention in the way Reisman told his story, depending on who he was talking >

New York, 2012 Photograph Sam Nixon

to and what the circumstances were. But there is a backbone of verifiable fact. His parents divorced when he was a toddler and he went to live with his part-time cabbie and compulsive gambler father at the once-grand Broadway Central, then a welfare hotel at the wrong end of Broadway. Ping pong was a hugely popular sport in New York and there were walk-in parlours every few blocks. Reisman took up the game at age 11. He was soon bunking off school and practising 10 hours a day. He and ping pong were made for each other. He won the NYC Junior Championships when he was 13, and a year later was playing for money at Lawrence’s Broadway Table Tennis Club, a former speakeasy owned by gangster Legs Diamond. Reisman’s abrasive relationship with the US ping-pong establishment began when he was 15 and lasted all his life. The initial conflict was over side bets, which were banned by the governing bodies. During the 1945 national championships, Reisman mistook the president of the Table Tennis Association (USTTA) for a bookie and tried to place a bet on himself to win. He was escorted from the hall by a police officer. In 1949, briefly back in favour with the USTTA, Reisman was part of the US team that competed in the British Open Championships at the Empire Pool (now Wembley Arena). He won, beating five-times world champion Viktor Barna. Reisman played shots from between his legs, behind his back, with the soles of his shoes. The 10,000-strong capacity crowd loved him. The Daily Mirror called Reisman ‘The Danny Kaye of Table Tennis’. The New York Post called him ‘The Fred Astaire of Ping Pong’. Within days, Reisman had fallen back out with the USTTA. Objecting to the standard of the US team’s London accommodations, Reisman had upgraded himself to a better hotel, charged it to the team, and encouraged fellow players to follow suit. The USTTA fined him and he was obstructed from competing in major tournaments for three years. Undaunted, he went on the payroll of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team as a warm-up novelty act, playing stunt-laced exhibition games with exUSTTA teammate Doug Cartland. On one tour, Reisman invented his signature trick of breaking a cigarette in half with a ping-pong ball. While 62

touring the Far East, he also developed a sideline in small-scale gold smuggling. Reisman’s longest-lasting conflict with the USTTA began in 1952. Having manoeuvred his way into that year’s World Championships, he was matched against Japan’s Hiroji Satoh in the semifinals. Reisman was widely expected to win but, from out of nowhere, Satoh won 3-1, using a revolutionary new paddle with a sponge layer between the wooden base and playing surface. The paddle allowed Satoh to hit with devastating speed and also put extreme spin on the ball. The USTTA endorsed the paddle and encouraged its use. Practically every player in the world became a softbat convert – except Reisman, who stuck with the classic hardbat, and campaigned for

REISMAN STUCK WITH THE CLASSIC HARDBAT, AND CAMPAIGNED FOR IT, UNTIL THE END OF HIS LIFE it, until the end of his life. In a New York Times interview in the 1980s, Reisman said, “The modern game is played with fraud, deceit and deception. [Hardbat] is the purest reflection of a player’s ability. It allows a dialogue between players. It’s mano-a-mano. Like in a chess game, it enables a player to set up a winning move several shots in advance. Sponge has killed the game. It’s made it totally boring to watch.” Reisman returned to playing money games in the Far East, and moving more gold. By 1958, he had made enough cash to open his Broadway parlour, Riverside. “A real ping-pong parlour,” he says in Fact or Fiction, “Down and dirty, grungy. Open from sundown to sunrise.” Regular players included Kurt Vonnegut, Bobby Fischer, Dustin Hoffman and David Mamet. There was also a Runyon-esque cast of supporting characters called Freddie

the Fence, Betty the Monkey Lady and Herbie the Nuclear Physicist. Reisman himself was known as the Needle, a reference to his sartorialism, sharp wit and tall, slim build. In 1960, Reisman was persuaded to enter the US Open Championships using a softbat. He won, but never played with one again. He spent the next 50 years running parlours, playing money matches in the US and overseas, and investing in the stock market. He said he won and lost three fortunes. In 1997, aged 67, he won the new US National Hardbat Championships. In his career, he won 22 major table-tennis titles, including two US Opens and the 1949 British Open. Leigh says he called his film Fact or Fiction because, “With Marty you didn’t really know what to believe or what not to believe. He was a classic Lower East Side New Yorker, a true hustler. The whole way he carried himself, and the things he wanted people to know, you felt a hustling element. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t an honest, truthful person. But I think he had a way of withholding information, which is a form of hustling. He was really fun, stimulating company and I liked him a lot. But you had to read between the lines a lot of the time.” One person who can throw first-hand light on Reisman is psychologist and author George Weinberg. They met in 1949, when Weinberg was an aspiring ping-pong player, and became lifelong friends. Weinberg only gets to contribute a sentence or two to Fact or Fiction, which is a pity, because he has an alternative take on Reisman’s character and story. “The thing about Marty that most affects me,” says Weinberg, “is the way he portrayed himself as a hustler, someone who was just about making money. But that wasn’t really what he did. Marty was an entertainer. He gave people a sense of glow, an optimism for tomorrow. Every day was exciting with Marty. You laughed when he was around. He lost many money matches because he wanted to do something spectacular, hit the ball behind his back or whatever. He wasn’t there just to win money from people, It wasn’t his nature. I always told him, I don’t like your image as a hustler, because that’s not what you are. I prefer to remember Marty for his generosity. When he opened up his ping-pong place, he would let half a dozen street people sleep there every night. He never forgot >

SPORT | Marty Reisman

Photograph Malcolm Anderson

SPORT | Marty Reisman

New York, 2012 Photograph Leo Marks

his own impoverished youth. He didn’t really have that much, but for people who were poorer, he was incredibly generous. He gambled on the stock market and made a big fortune and never took it out. It went way up, from $10,000 to a million or something. And I’d say, ‘Marty, take the money out! Keep half of it if you’re such a genius, gamble with the other half.’ But he never did and he ended up with what he’d started with, the $10,000. It was sad.” Despite appearances, Weinberg says Reisman never had much ready cash. “He loved clothes, of course,” he says, “The latest colour, the latest cut. He had a large wardrobe. But he knew where to get the good stuff at a decent price. Whereas you and I have six things to do today and a dozen more calls to make, Marty had a free day. He’d go visit sales, try on 72 jackets and find the right one. Sometimes he’d call me and say, ‘I’ve got the perfect jacket for you, come over here.’ And if I could, I would. And, of course, all kinds of items showed up in Marty’s ping-pong place. I don’t know if they were stolen or found.” 64

In his film, Leigh asks Reisman if he ever thinks about death. “I’m immortal,” Reisman replies. “I’ve got my whole future to think about. Why should I think about death? It’s in direct conflict with my future, which is about to blossom.”

‘HE WASN’T THERE JUST TO WIN MONEY FROM PEOPLE, IT WASN’T HIS NATURE’ As a psychologist, does Weinberg consider age denial something positive? “Age denial can be sort of, don’t tell me I’m superannuated, I don’t want to be written off,” says Weinberg. “I think there’s a lot to be said for not wanting to be typecast by age. Why should you

judge me by my age? I’m a kid trapped in an old person’s body. If I was ageappropriate I’d be dead.” Compared with Weinberg, Harold Evans met Reisman late in life. He was interviewed for Fact or Fiction, but did not make the cut. “I played in the 1948 British Open championships, the year before Marty won,” says Evans. “I didn’t win but I carried on playing off and on. I wrote about the game occasionally and around 1999 I was asked if I’d help Jerome Charyn promote his book [Sizzling Chops and Devilish Spins: Ping-Pong and the Art of Staying Alive].” Evans played some exhibition games with Reisman to publicise the book. “It was tremendously flattering to be able to play with Marty,” says Evans. “He was a terrific teacher and we had a lot of fun. So when he said, ‘Let’s do it more often,’ I approached the residents’ board in my apartment building and asked if I could put a table in the basement. I did, and I painted it and put in some lighting. Marty would come around and play about once a week. One of his attributes which we enjoyed together was his ability to quote long passages of Shakespeare. I’d start something off and he’d finish it for me. I’m not bad at it, but he could quote much longer passages than me. He was pretty literate. He loved to play with words.” Around 2003, Reisman told Evans that he had written a new autobiography. “For years I’d say, ‘Marty, where’s the book?’” says Evans. “I got him to work on it and he got it up to a publishable standard. It’s very funny and extremely well-written. The other stuff he wrote was slight by comparison. But he was reluctant to let go of the manuscript. I’ve recently come to the conclusion that he never wanted to publish it, because he would lose a companion. Like we all feel when we’ve written a book. You send it off to the printers and you feel bereft.” Eventually, Reisman put the text in Evans’s hands. “I’ve got a publisher lined up,” he says, “I hope it will get published soon. I don’t want any money for it. It’s just something I want to see happen. Marty was one of the greatest players ever seen on the face of the Earth.” Fact or Fiction: The Life and Times of a Ping-Pong Hustler is out now on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play and other VOD platforms

STYLE

Simão wears suit by Roberto Cavalli; scarf and beret by Lock&Co. Florence wears dress by Missoni; earrings and bracelet, model’s own; watch by Tudor. Milo wears suit by Vivienne Westwood Man; hat by Lock&Co.; scarf, stylist’s own.

Scoundrels of St James’s Photographs Marcus Agerman Ross Styling Salim Ahmed-Kashmirwala Grooming Despina Economou using Nars Scoundrels Simão Borges, Florence Steinberg and Milo Anthony Whittaker Locations Dukes Hotel, 35 St James’s Place, London SW1 dukeshotel.com Cafe Murano, 33 St James’s Street, London SW1 cafemurano.co.uk

Sim達o wears gown by New&Lingwood; trousers by Richard James; sweater by Vivienne Westwood Man; shoes by John Lobb; hat and cane by Lock&Co.; socks by Turnbull&Asser. Milo wears gown and sweater by New&Lingwood; trousers by Richard James; shoes by John Lobb; hat, gloves and cane by Lock&Co; watch by Tudor; socks by Turnbull&Asser.

Sim達o wears coat by Caruso; trousers and slippers by Roberto Cavalli; beret by Lock&Co.; scarf by John Varvatos.

STYLE | Scoundrels of St James’s

Milo wears jacket by Versace; hat by Lock&Co. Simão wears jacket by Missoni x Hancock VA; hat, stylist’s own.

Florence wears jacket and shorts by Vivienne Westwood Anglomania; sweater by Vivienne Westwood Man; shoes by Casadei; earrings and bracelet, model’s own. Milo wears jacket by Canali; trousers and sweater by New&Lingwood; shoes by John Lobb; socks by Turnbull&Asser. Simão wears suit and sweater by Vivienne Westwood Man; shoes by John Lobb; socks by Turnbull&Asser.

STYLE | Scoundrels of St James’s

Milo wears coat by Just Cavalli; hat, scarf and cane by Lock&Co.; watch by Tudor; ring, model’s own.

Florence wears dress by Vionnet; shoes by Casadei; hat and cane by Lock&Co.; earrings and chain bracelet, modelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own; gold and ebony bracelet by Shamballa Jewels; ring, stylistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own.

STYLE | Scoundrels of St James’s

Florence wears dress by Karl Lagerfeld; jewellery by Shamballa Jewels; ring, stylist’s own. Simão wears jacket and shirt by Roberto Cavalli; watch by Tudor; ring by Shamballa Jewels. Milo wears suit by Richard James; scarf, stylist’s own; ring, model’s own; watch by Tudor.

CULTURE

Lenny Bruce Joe Ancis. Harry Gibson. Lord Buckley. Hipster. Cocksucker. Words Chris May

Early one afternoon in October 1962, Lenny Bruce left a friend’s apartment in North Hollywood and made his way along Lankershim Boulevard. Bruce had been awake for 48 hours, enjoying a Belshazzar’s Feast of heroin, speed and mescaline. He was at the peak of his career, the hottest and most divisive comic in the USA. As Bruce walked, he became aware of a car crawling along behind him. Flashing that he was about to be stopped by the drug squad, he accelerated his pace and, rounding a corner, dropped a small packet of heroin on the pavement. Too late. The cops were already out of the car and coming towards him. They retrieved the heroin, collared Bruce and bundled him into the car. It was his third drugs arrest since 1959. The police drove Bruce to the West Hollywood sheriff ’s station, where a group of newspaper reporters were, as usual, kicking their heels, waiting for some action. A photographer called out, “Hey, Lenny, where were you busted?” “At Lawrence Welk’s pad,” he replied, the contemporary equivalent of telling the media you had been arrested at a PCP 74

party at Nicholas Parsons’ place. Even when up against it, Bruce had a gift for one-liners. And until 1966, when he died of a morphine overdose, he stayed lucky, too. Bruce would be arrested on narcotics charges three more times that year. In all cases, the charges were either dropped or resulted in non-custodial sentences. If any one person can be called the inventor of modern stand-up comedy, it is Bruce. He arrived at his mature style while living on the US west coast in the late 1950s, and gained a national profile as part of the beat-led San Francisco revival of 1958, a curtain-raiser for the counterculture that would hoist its flag in the city in the mid-1960s. Bruce’s performances were brilliantly observed, part-scripted, part-improvised, long-form comic monologues shot through with dissenting politics, attacks on organised religion, espousal of liberal values, mockery of public figures, contempt for mainstream showbusiness, and a catalogue of words such as ‘fuck’ and ‘cocksucker’ that could get you jailed if used in a public performance. Routines such as ‘Religions Inc.’, ‘Christians and Jews’, ‘To is a Preposition, Come is a

Verb’, ‘How to Relax Your Coloured Friends at Parties’, ‘Are There Any Niggers Here Tonight?’ and ‘White Collar Drunks’ delighted the beat generation as much as they outraged American right-wingers. Bruce was regularly arrested for using “obscene” language onstage, though he really was harassed for his ideas, not his words. The accumulated time and expense of fighting prosecution and staying out of jail bankrupted him in 1965 and contributed to his death a year later. But Bruce refused to moderate his opinions, his lifestyle or his vocabulary. Like his contemporary William S Burroughs, he did not just live outside the law but in open defiance of it. As Bruce not altogether flippantly wrote in his autobiography How to Talk Dirty and Influence People, “If you can’t say ‘Fuck’, you can’t say, ‘Fuck the government.’” Lenny Bruce was born Leonard Alfred Schneider in 1925 on New York’s Long Island. His father was a shoe salesman, his mother a semi-professional singer and dancer. His was an unsettled and unhappy childhood. His parents divorced when he was five and he was >

shuffled between them and a string of relatives. At 15, Bruce dropped out of school and spent two years working on a Long Island farm. In 1942, aged 17, he enlisted in the US Navy and spent the war on active service aboard the USS Brooklyn in the Mediterranean Sea. But by 1945, he’d had enough. He finessed an early discharge by persuading the ship’s doctor that he was developing homosexual urges for his crewmates. Bruce wanted to follow his mother into showbusiness; so, cashing in his GI Bill grant, he took a Greyhound bus to Hollywood. He spent 1946 studying at the Geller Dramatic Workshop and failing to get film or stage work. In early 1947 he returned, broke, to New York and moved in with his mother. With her help he acquired an agent who got him spots as an impressionist in out-of-town burlesque clubs. He changed his name and became one of dozens of wannabe New York comics who did poorly-paid work in minor clubs once or twice a week and spent all their time hanging out in Hanson’s, a showbusiness haunt on Broadway, nursing a cup of coffee, bullshitting and hoping for a break. Bruce’s 1947 act included a few jokes but was mostly impressions of film stars like James Cagney, Bette Davis and Peter Lorre. He started as an impressionist out of necessity. To be a comic, he had to have the material and the delivery, an attitude and a stage personality, his own humorous take on the world. At this point, he had none of it. Enter Joe Ancis. Crippled by stage fright, Ancis only gave one, disastrous, paid performance in his life. But in the late 1940s he was regarded by most young New York comics as the funniest man in town. Ancis would keep the Hanson’s regulars doubled up with laughter for hours. His machine-gun monologues were surreal, in the moment, hyperbolic observational routines fuelled by weed and speed, delivered in a mix of uptown jive talk and Yiddish, peopled by jazz musicians, hookers, hustlers and junkies. Ancis was Lenny Bruce before Bruce was Lenny Bruce, but without the social comment Bruce added later. They met in late 1947 and were inseparable until 1951, when Bruce got married. Ancis gave him the tools and confidence to build his act. He also introduced Bruce to the New York jazz scene and to two comics in its supporting cast who were also to influence his style. 76

What I Was Arrested For, 1971

When bop came downtown from Harlem in the early 1940s, it pitched up in a string of clubs along 52nd Street. The music was revolutionary, but the club owners were old-school burlesque operators and, for them, the mixed bill was an article of faith. Erupting geniuses such as Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk

‘I FEEL TERRIBLE ABOUT BRUCE. WE USED THE LAW TO KILL HIM’ and Dizzy Gillespie would be sandwiched between snake dancers, contortionists, conjurers and comics. Pianist and comic Harry “The Hipster” Gibson, as hip as the boppers, and white, had one such novelty act. He’d grown up on the edge of Harlem and his habitual use of jive talk was not an affectation. In his autobiography Everybody’s Crazy But Me Gibson claimed he invented the term “hipster” around 1939. He had a jukebox hit with ‘Who Put the Benzedrine in Mrs Murphy’s Ovaltine?’ in 1947, and for laughs displayed an outsize hypodermic

needle atop his piano. Thus blacklisted by radio and with his own drug problems, Gibson soon faded from view, but later reinvented himself as a minor-league rock-cum-cabaret act. Monologist and scat singer Lord Buckley, born to an English father and American mother, was part of the same night-world as Gibson. Sporting a waxed moustache, dinner jacket and colonial pith helmet, he openly smoked weed onstage and spoke in a mixture of jive and caricature upper-class English. Buckley’s monologues about religion – notably ‘The Nazz’, an irreverent spin on Jesus of Nazareth – predated Bruce’s seismic ‘Religions, Inc.’ and ‘Christians and Jews’ and he acknowledged Buckley’s 1955 album Hipsters, Flipsters and Finger Poppin’ Daddies Knock Me Your Lobes as an early influence. Buckley died in 1960 but became a counterculture hero with posthumous albums like A Most Immaculately Hip Aristocrat. The next important person to enter Bruce’s life was Harriet “Honey Harlow” Lloyd, a stripper he met while appearing at a club in Baltimore. They got married in 1951 and soon moved to Los Angeles, where Bruce again tried and failed to get into the film business. Harlow went back to stripping, Bruce to comedy, and between them they made good money. Back east, both had used weed and benzedrine, a relatively mild form of speed. In LA they started shooting heroin and also discovered methedrine,

CULTURE | Lenny Bruce

the most powerful amphetamine. From the mid-1950s until his death, Bruce was an on-off user of heroin, morphine and dilaudid (synthetic morphine), barbiturates and methedrine. As he wrote in his autobiography, “I’ll die young, but it’s like kissing God.” Bruce and Harlow were not just hogs for dope but hogs for sex, too. In most people, opiates and amphetamines reduce the sex drive, but the Bruces seem to have been unaffected. Bruce remained priapic right up until his last couple of years, when he was taking quantities of heroin and methedrine that would have neutered a bull elephant. Harlow acted as Bruce’s procurer among her fellow strippers and the pair often took a girl or two home with them after work. They divorced in 1955, but Bruce held a torch for Harlow all his life. Against the odds, during their orgiastic years together in crummy LA strip clubs, whacked on heroin and speed, his comedy blossomed. The drugs helped, disinhibiting him. And the audiences helped, too. Most punters were there for the strippers and alcohol, and zoned out when the comic came on. Bruce found he could say anything, get away with anything. Sometimes, in an attempt to rouse the audience, he would come onstage naked. By the time he returned to New York in 1959 for a season at the Den, a tiny club in the basement of a Madison Avenue hotel, Bruce’s act had been transformed. Politics and long streamof-consciousness meditations on society had replaced the one-liners and impressions with which he had left for LA six years earlier. The pace, language and ambience owed a major debt to Joe Ancis, and sizeable ones to Harry Gibson and Lord Buckley – but the content was Bruce’s. Comic Buddy Hackett, another Hanson’s graduate, caught Bruce’s homecoming show and told a mutual friend, “Lenny’s back and he’s wild. He’s doing Joe with social comment.” The Den season got Bruce a favourable New York Times review and, just as usefully, a dubbing in the New York Daily Mirror by gossip columnist Walter Winchell as “America’s No. 1 Vomic”. He left New York for standingroom-only performances across the US. Returning in December, Bruce packed out a Carnegie Hall performance during the city’s worst snowstorm in decades. And then his legal problems began. In October 1961, Bruce was arrested at

Jimi Hendrix at home with his record collection, London, 1967

San Francisco’s Jazz Workshop for saying “cocksucker”. There followed multiple obscenity and drugs arrests, and by 1964 legal problems combined with spiralling drug use were driving him over the edge. Bruce spent his time wired on methedrine, obsessively researching obscure points of law, falling out with his lawyers and experimenting with industrial-strength hallucinogen – and horse tranquilliser – DMT. Meanwhile, his income shrank as club owners, fearing police harassment, became wary of booking him. In 1960, he had declared earnings of $106,000 (£500,000 in today’s terms); in 1964, he made less than $10,000, not enough to cover even his legal bills. On top of it all, his tax affairs were being investigated. Bruce was having to rely on pro-bono lawyers of varying competence and handouts from wealthy admirers such as Phil Spector. In April 1964, he was arrested on obscenity charges following a show at the Cafe au Go Go in Greenwich Village. The prosecution was widely regarded as the personal crusade of devout Roman Catholic district attorney Frank Hogan, who was insulted by Bruce’s attacks on the church. (This was still two years before John Lennon outraged middle America when he remarked that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus”.) Writers and actors rallied to his side. Allen Ginsberg formed an Emergency Committee Against the Harassment of Lenny Bruce. A petition demanding the

charges be dropped was signed by more than 80 people, including Paul Newman, Bob Dylan, Richard Burton, Norman Mailer, Elizabeth Taylor, Susan Sontag, John Updike, James Baldwin, Henry Miller, Joseph Heller, Gore Vidal and Woody Allen. Even the conservative showbusiness trade magazine Variety wrote: “The prosecutor is at least equally concerned with Bruce’s indictments of organised religion as he is with the more obvious sexual content of the comic’s act.” Bruce’s trial began in June, and he was sentenced in December to “four months in the workhouse”, his act described as “patently offensive to the average person in the community”. He spent 18 months focusing on his appeal and on 3 August 1966, died of a morphine overdose at his home in the Hollywood Hills. According to Phil Spector, Bruce died “from an overdose of police attention”. One of the prosecutors on the Cafe au Go Go case, assistant district attorney Vincent Cuccia, agreed. “I feel terrible about Bruce,” he later wrote. “We drove him into poverty and bankruptcy and then murdered him. I watched him gradually fall apart. It’s the only thing I [ever] did that I’m really ashamed of. We all knew what we were doing. We used the law to kill him.” In December 2003, then New York Governor George Pataki granted Bruce a posthumous pardon as “a declaration of New York’s commitment to upholding the First Amendment.” 77

SPOTLIGHT

Saxophone

Tutti Frutti. Grady Gaines. Adolphe Sax. Iggy Pop. Lester Young. Words Chris May Photographs Christopher Altenburg, Janette Beckman and Mattias Pettersson

Back in April, Courtney Love posted a video applauding the induction of her late husband Kurt Cobain’s band Nirvana into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and also made some comments about another inductee, Bruce Springsteen. Explaining why she disliked his music, Love said: “My Springsteen problem is just that saxophones don’t belong in rock’n’roll. They just don’t belong.” Luckily, no one ever explained this to Little Richard, the man most deserving of the title ‘creator of rock’n’roll’. Both his breakout singles, ‘Tutti Frutti’ (1955) and ‘Long Tall Sally’ (1956), featured raucous solos from tenor wild-man Grady Gaines, and the saxophone continued to feature heavily in Richard’s music. Despite the odd naysayer, the saxophone is more ubiquitous than ever – fittingly in this, the 200th anniversary year of the birth of its inventor Adolphe Sax. The totemic, perfectly-proportioned tenor, its textural palette ranging from a caress to shock‘n’awe, is in front, but the soprano is closing the gap. Dance music is one of several holdouts, partly because the saxophone sound, created by the movement of air through a tube, is yet to be nailed digitally. Another is classical music, for which the sax was invented, but as the classical repertory expands to include the work of composers no longer in thrall to 17th and 18th-century instrumentation, the saxophone is making deeper inroads here, too. Iggy Pop gave a taste of the stylistic reach of the saxophone this summer on 78

his BBC6 Music show. The two-hour programme Sax in the City played some of the giants of post-bop African-American jazz – John Coltrane, Archie Shepp, Albert Ayler, Dexter Gordon, Pharoah Sanders – and took in its pre-history with Jelly Roll Morton and his Red Hot Peppers and Luis Russell and his Orchestra. It touched on early rhythm and blues, with Red Prysock, and early instrumental rock’n’roll, with Johnny and the Hurricanes. There was James Brown funk, Stan Getz bossa nova and Charlie Parker bop. Included, too, was a track from Pop’s 1977 album The Idiot featuring David Bowie on, among other instruments, the saxophone. Here are five of today’s most individual and engaging saxophonists… Adam Waldmann Waldmann leads Kairos 4Tet, whose album Statement of Intent won a MOBO Award for Best Jazz Act. His playing combines in-the-moment improvisation with modern song forms and a lush melodicism suggesting Charles Lloyd and Jeff Buckley. Everything We Hold (2013) features guest vocals from Omar and Emilia Mårtensson, and a four-part suite saluting the Occupy movement. Waldmann was first attracted to the saxophone because of its relationship with the human voice. “I was really into singers,” he says, “but I was too shy to sing. And it seemed to me that you could play the saxophone like a singer singing. It can emulate a lot of the qualities of the

voice, and like the voice it’s also about sounds made by the player, rather than the instrument. As a kid, I was attracted to the mystique, too. The saxophone is steeped in jazz history, especially the tenor, starting with Lester Young, with his hipness and the way he played. It’s intertwined with so many pioneers of the music, and in ways beyond music, with real masters who were searching for something else, for something transcendent – especially if you look at the spiritual and political concerns of players like Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane. It’s not a history that can be taken lightly, because these were guys who were playing for their lives.” Waldmann has transposed paradigms by which most players approach the tenor and the soprano. “Generally, people play the tenor for fierce, energetic things,” he says, “and the soprano when a ballad comes along. But I’ve tended to go the other way round. The tenor can be played very aggressively, but it can also be used in a subtle way. I’m trying to extend my palette on both instruments, by changing how I hold the instrument in my mouth, and various other technical aspects.” Kairos 4Tet play at the Vortex Jazz Club, 11 Gillett Square, London N16 on 17 December kairos4tet.com kingsplace.co.uk vortexjazz.co.uk

Adam Waldmann with his Selmer Mark VI, London Photograph Mattias Pettersson

Ingrid Laubrock Brooklyn-based Ingrid Laubrock, born in Germany and London-based from 19892008, made a big impact in 2004 with her album Forensic while a member of London jazz and improvisation collective F-IRE. Since then, her trajectory has been one of unbroken experimentation. She has significantly extended the vocabulary of the acoustic saxophone. Her current groups are Ingrid Laubrock Octet, Anti-House, Sleepthief, new quintet Ubatuba, and Paradoxical Frog, a collaboration with pianist Kris Davis and drummer Tyshawn Sorey. “The first time I picked up a saxophone, I just went berserk on it,” says Laubrock. “I remember I had the mouthpiece on upside-down. It was an amazing experience, feeling my lungs being squeezed to the max, having this huge amount of screaming sound coming out of this tube. I remember it being completely primal and it felt fantastic. I was able to express something that I couldn’t on the piano, which was my main instrument then. That experience clinched the deal there and then.” How has the move to New York impacted her music? “The musicians I play with here are a big inspiration,” she says. “Mary Halvorson, Kris Davis, Tom Rainey, Tim Berne, Nate Wooley, Tyshawn Sorey. There is a great amount of creative energy here and musicians tend to be very seriously into what they are doing. That’s the case in London, of course, but there are just so many more musicians here. The scene has really changed the way I compose. There’s an openness to playing complex material as well as improvising freely – a lot of people I know do both. “I also work with my husband, [drummer] Tom Rainey, who is a total inspiration, musically. We talk about and work on my music and he is instrumental in shaping it when we perform. One thing that has probably changed my musical life more than anything is that I’ve been involved in many of Anthony Braxton’s projects. Working with him and getting a glimpse into his genius is absolutely mind-blowing every time, both as a composer and as a saxophonist.” Ubatuba’s debut album is out in spring or early summer. Anti-House’s new album is out next year firehouse12.com ingridlaubrock.com intaktrec.ch Ingrid Laubrock with her Selmer Super Balanced Action, New York Photograph Janette Beckman

SPOTLIGHT | Saxophone

Stuart Bogie with his King Zephyr, New York Photograph Janette Beckman

Stuart Bogie Originally a clarinetist, Stuart Bogie joined New York afrobeat pioneers Antibalas as tenor saxophonist in 2001. He was with the group for 11 years, before leaving to concentrate on his band Superhuman Happiness. Recent guest work includes David Byrne/St Vincent, Rufus Wainwright and Arcade Fire. “People say when I play saxophone it’s a brash, colossal, unyielding sound,” says Bogie. “It doesn’t sound like there’s any control. When I play clarinet it sounds like someone in a conservatoire. I just got into a particular aspect of the sound of the saxophone. I can freely move air with it, I can bark, I can shout. The saxophone has raw power.” Bogie says the power fell right in with Antibalas’s music. “The first time I got invited to sit in with them, I took to afrobeat immediately,” he says. “It was an incredible awakening, a real where-have-you-been-all-my-life moment. It was like it knew my genetic code. Until then, I had mostly connected with electric-era Miles Davis and 1960s and 1970s free jazz. I found afrobeat combined all that with beautiful, incredible, interlocking rhythms – an organic synthesis of dance music and improvisational jazz. “I’d only been playing the tenor seriously for a year. I decided that if I was going to work on anyone’s saxophone approach, it would be Fela Kuti’s. I got his records and I would play along. Albums like Johnny Just Drop were perfect, they’re all call and response and I could join in the responses. With Fela it’s not about him as an instrumentalist – inherent in playing in that style is learning that the material aspects are subservient to a greater spiritual hierarchy. You go right to the mathematics of his melodic ideas.” Early on, Bogie got flak from some jazz musicians for focusing on afrobeat. “I remember being lectured to for not having devotion to jazz, to hard bop or blues, to a tradition by which I could justify my right to play music,” he says, “which I thought was crap. My soloing is still influenced by Albert Ayler, but I discovered my tradition in afrobeat and I found it gave as much as I gave to it. It was more symbiotic than me seeking something out in a library. It was like my education started up again.” Superhuman Happiness’s Plays for Heartbroken Lovers is out early next year stuartbogie.com superhumanhappiness.com 81

Skerik with his Selmer Super Action 80 Series II Tenor, Seattle Photograph Christopher Altenburg

Skerik Seattle-based Skerik is as uncategorisable as the list of bands he has founded or worked with might suggest: Skerik’s Syncopated Taint Septet, Darkwave, Omaha Diner, Critters Buggin, Garage a Trois and both Les Claypool’s Fancy Band and Frog Brigade. Skerik is also an out-to-town member of Brooklyn’s beyond-jazz scene. As a resident of Nirvana’s hometown, what does Skerik make of Courtney Love’s saxophones-in-rock assessment? “We should definitely all stop what we are doing and respect her wishes,” he says. “That is the contemporary solution. But most of us from Seattle have long since been trained to ignore whatever comes from her mouth, which is a shame, because punk rock needs a strong, loud, intelligent voice. There was a saxophone on the Stooges’ Fun House, and if Iggy has a saxophone on his record, that’s reason enough for everyone to shut up.” Skerik believes Jimi Hendrix’s pedal-driven tone manipulations were saxophonebased. “It’s my opinion that Jimi’s creative use of distortion was partially inspired by certain growling techniques used by saxophones,” he says. Skerik’s saxophonics are certainly close cousins of Hendrix’s guitar effects, but his first forays into electronics were pragmatic rather than aesthetic. “It was about survival, necessity being the mother of invention,” he says. “You’re playing with this loud band, and how do you get over? You need a distortion pedal or something. I was playing with this brilliant [grunge] band Sadhappy. They were really loud and so I just started putting effects on things – and it started this ridiculous, expensive pursuit that will make me broke some day. But at least I’ll have some exciting records under my belt.” The passion of Skerik’s playing evokes the spirit, though not the form, of mid-20th century jazz radicals such as Albert Ayler and John Coltrane. Does he feel a kinship with that era, when jazz was still a gritty street music? “Yes. I want to hear adventure,” says Skerik. “Education is a beautiful thing, but there’s so many other things in life that go into creating music. Today you have all these college-trained technicians that can sound exactly like Charlie Parker or John Coltrane or whoever. But what’s in your story? What are you telling? Is it something worth hearing? Rebels. That’s what we love about punk rock and Charlie Parker, Jimi Hendrix. There are a lot of musicians playing music just for other musicians who play that kind of music. What’s that word? Ouroborus: a snake eating its tail. You can only eat so much of your own body before it’s gone.” Darkwave’s self-titled album is out early next year. crittersbuggin.com royalpotatofamily.com myspace.com/syncopatedtaint

SPOTLIGHT | Saxophone

Idris Rahman with his Selmer Mark VI, London Photograph Mattias Pettersson

Idris Rahman Rahman co-founded London’s reggae and dub-based Soothsayers with trumpeter Robin Hopcraft and the band debuted with Lost City (2000). Rahman is also a member of newly-formed trio Wildflowers, a groove-based, cosmic jazz group with Leon Brichard (bass) and Tom Skinner (drums). “I became interested in the saxophone when I was in secondary school,” says Rahman. “I’d learned the piano when I was younger but gave up because I wasn’t into the music. The saxophone had connotations with jazz, a different kind of music, rebel music, and even then I was attracted to music that had something to say. In the 1950s and 1960s, most saxophonists, like most other jazz musicians, didn’t talk publicly about politics. Some did, like Archie Shepp, but they were still playing a music of protest. Jazz generally came out of a movement of black people getting together and trying to beat the system. And that they were playing music at such a high level of artistry, despite the obstacles wider society was throwing at them, was in itself political.” Rahman got an unexpected blast from 1960s African-American jazz back in the summer, when he tuned into Iggy Pop’s BBC6 show. The recording that blew him away was opener ‘New Generation’ from Albert Ayler’s 1968 gospel-jazz hybrid album New Grass. “It’s an absolutely extraordinary mix of funk, soul and Motown,” says Rahman. “I hadn’t been aware that Ayler did that sort of music. I don’t know why he started playing like that – maybe he’d had enough of art music, wanted to make some money – but the music itself was brilliant. Really raw, really funky. Dirty funk. Some of the best use of the saxophone is when it gets down and dirty. That’s when I start listening.” Soothsayers’ Lost City vinyl reissue is out now. Wildflowers debut EP Wildflowers Part 1 is out in March facebook.com/onthecornerrecs soothsayers.net 83

STYLE

Louis wears coat by Pringle of Scotland; shirt by Paul Smith; hat by Lock&Co.; neckerchief and cravat ring, stylist’s own. Filip wears coat by Blk Dnm; trousers by Vivienne Westwood Man; shirt by Pringle of Scotland; hat by Lock&Co.; scarf, stylist’s own.

True Confessions Photographs Nicky Emmerson Styling Richard Simpson Photographic Assistant Chris Kennedy Styling Assistant Emily Munden Grooming Bjorn Krischker at Frank Agency using Clarins Men and Phyto Haircare Brothers Louis Eliot louiseliot.com and Filip Sevo Casting Camilla Arthur camillaarthurcasting.com Location The Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great, West Smithfield, London EC1

Filip wears suit and pocket square by Paul Smith; shirt by AgnĂ¨s B; bag by Hackett.

STYLE | True Confessions

Louis wears coat by Dunhill; trousers by Agnès B; shirt by Adrien Beau chez Agnès B; scarf by Paul Smith; necklace and bracelet, stylist’s own; cane by Lock&Co.

Louis wears shirt by Adrien Beau chez Agnès B. Filip wears suit by Vivienne Westwood Man; shirt by Pringle of Scotland; necklace and hat, stylist’s own.

Filip wears coat and shirt by Agnès B; trousers by Vivienne Westwood Man; necklace, stylist’s own.

STYLE | True Confessions

Louis wears coat by Hackett; sweater by Dunhill; scarf by Paul Smith. Filip wears coat by Vivienne Westwood Man; suit by Paul Smith; shirt by AgnĂ¨s B.

Louis wears coat by Caruso; trousers by Dunhill; shirt by Karl Lagerfeld; shoes by Hackett.

STYLE | True Confessions

Filip wears suit by Paul Smith; shirt by Pringle of Scotland; tie by Caruso; pocket square by Richard James; chain, stylistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own. Louis wears suit and shirt by Vivienne Westwood Man; tie and pocket square by Richard James; hat by Lock&Co.

MUSIC

Brian Wilson

Beach Boys. No Pier Pressure. Eugene Landy. Good Vibrations. Words Chris May Portrait Dustin Cohen

Jimi Hendrix, Robert Johnson, Brian Jones, Jim Morrison, Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain, and conspicuous by his absence, Brian Wilson. Somehow, Wilson didn’t die at 27. But by 1969, at that fateful age, after recording two of rock’s most uplifting masterpieces, Wilson’s congenitally vulnerable mental health had been undermined by epic drug use – he was on his knees. Against the odds, he survived. He went on to survive, too, the attentions of a rogue psychotherapist who, over two decades, reduced him to a near-vegetative state. Wilson returned in the 1990s when, under benign psychiatric care, he started making beautiful music again, beginning with the Don Was-produced 1995 album I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times. At the Royal Festival Hall in 2002 he was still visibly fragile and brought the audience to tears with a sublime performance of the classic Beach Boys album Pet Sounds which he produced, arranged and wrote in 1966. In 2004, again at the RFH, he gave the world-premiere performance of Smile, his next Beach Boys masterpiece, still unreleased four decades after it was recorded. From 2005 to 2011 he released four studio albums. He collaborated on the Beach Boys reunion album That’s Why God Made the Radio in 2012, toured with his band in 2013, then tracked material for new solo album No Pier Pressure. Wilson’s recovery, while not yet fully complete, has been remarkable. “In 1995,” says Don Was, now president of Blue Note Records and bass player on the new album, “it was hard to imagine Brian driving a car, going somewhere by himself. But now he does. For Brian, the effect of getting out and

playing over the last 15 years has been huge. Remember, Pet Sounds was a stiff when it came out. He’d made this masterpiece, knew he’d made a masterpiece, and it didn’t sell. It was devastating. So I think finally getting out and playing Pet Sounds for audiences all over the world made a massive difference. And doing the same with Smile two years later. He’d been kept out of the mainstream of life, really isolated, and didn’t fully grasp how many people admired him and what he’d done. That was the first time he could see how people responded to it.” “It’s pretty unique,” says Wilson – a famously enigmatic, going on taciturn, interviewee – of No Pier Pressure. “It’s very different than anything I’ve ever done.” Was is more forthcoming. “I would say there are at least four songs in there that realise the vision that Brian’s been chasing for maybe 40 years,” he says, “Certain things he set out to do in Smile that for a myriad of reasons were never completed. I think it came together for him. It covers a pretty broad spectrum of music. And he’s singing beautifully, too.” Also expected in 2015 is the release of Bill Pohlad’s Wilson biopic Love & Mercy. Paul Dano and John Cusack play the young and old Wilson, and Paul Giamatti psychotherapist Eugene Landy. The film uses parallel narrative to cover two periods in Wilson’s life, the creative ferment of the 1960s and the hell of the 1980s. “It’s a thrill to have a movie made of my life,” says Wilson. “It’s very, very good. It was a trip to see.” And as trips go, his has been a long, strange one. Wilson formed the Beach Boys in 1958 with his brothers Dennis and Carl,

cousin Mike Love and family friend Al Jardine, in his bedroom at home in the Los Angeles satellite town of Hawthorne. The band was named by their record company when they debuted in 1961 with ‘Surfin’; they had their first US Top 10 hit in 1963 and a dozen by 1966. From the start, Wilson was the chief songwriter and, once they were recording, de facto producer. By 1963, he had developed the group’s signature sound, a blend of Chuck Berry rhythms, Four Freshmen vocal harmonies and Phil Spector production values. By the time the Beatles hit the US in 1964, Wilson was already moving from chugging surf singles towards more baroque, suite-oriented albums, a process the ‘British invasion’ accelerated. Artistically, Wilson’s annus mirabilis was 1966. Throughout the year he was in intense creative competition with John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Both sides exchanged test pressings of upcoming releases. The Beatles’ Rubber Soul (released December 1965) influenced Pet Sounds (May 1966), which influenced Revolver (August 1966), which influenced ‘Good Vibrations’ (October 1966), which influenced Sgt. Peppers’ Lonely Hearts Club Band ( June 1967), which influenced Smile. With Sgt. Pepper, the Beatles were judged to have won. If Smile had been released as planned in 1967, the just verdict would have been a draw. But 1966 was also Wilson’s annus horribilis. Pet Sounds, too innovative for its own good, was a commercial and critical flop in the US, and the other Beach Boys lobbied for a return to their hit formula. Smile was even further out and its release was cancelled. Wilson was badly wounded >

Brian Wilson and Keith Moon, 1976 Photograph James Fortune

by the rejections. His involvement with the band continued – most notably on Smiley Smile and Surf ’s Up – but by the early 1970s he was only peripherally engaged. On Carl and the Passions: So Tough (1972) he played little and cowrote three tracks. On Holland (1973) he played even less and co-wrote two. The damage to Wilson’s selfconfidence was exacerbated by his drug intake – or more precisely, by the combined effects of out-of-control acid and cocaine use. Until 1964, Wilson had been a law-abiding California boy who enjoyed girls, fast cars and the occasional beer. During sessions for The Beach Boys Today! that autumn, he began smoking dope. Today! was the band’s eighth album in four years and when not in the studio, Wilson was almost continuously on the road. Dope reduced the stress. He started taking acid in early 1965, while working on the Beach Boys’ Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!). Within days, the drug triggered auditory hallucinations, from which Wilson still suffers. But it opened up an immense creative portal. “Drugs very much helped my creativity,” he says. “LSD got me deep into the music. The first time I took it, it started in the early evening and about two or three in the morning I went to the piano and wrote the song ‘California Girls’. So the LSD did have an upside, it helped me write my songs.” “On the downside,” Wilson said in a 2011 interview with the Guardian, “LSD fucked my brain.” By the end of the 1960s, Wilson was 94

piling other drugs on top of the acid. He started using speed on a regular basis in 1966, before switching to cocaine in 1968. It was his drug of choice until 1974, by which time he was also using heroin. Now dangerously obese, Wilson had become a virtual recluse. He ventured into LA only to hang out with the Hollywood Vampires, a take-it-to-the-max drugs and alcohol fraternity whose members

‘THE LSD DID HAVE AN UPSIDE, IT HELPED ME WRITE MY SONGS’ included Iggy Pop, Alice Cooper, Harry Nilsson, John Lennon and Keith Moon. In 1975, in desperation, Wilson’s wife hired Eugene Landy, who promised to cure Wilson’s addictions. But if an excess of strong drugs had damaged Wilson’s mental state, his treatment under Landy – which lasted, off and on, until 1992 – was just as toxic. Landy said his ‘24-hour therapy’ relied on “the therapeutic team [exerting] control over every aspect of the patient’s life… of their physical, personal, social and sexual environments… to totally disrupt [their] privacy.” A Landy

assistant was always on duty in Wilson’s home, shadowing him and administering a cocktail of antipsychotic drugs. Superficially, Landy’s regime freed Wilson from his addictions, and after demanding his fee be doubled, Landy was let go in 1976. But by the end of the decade, Wilson was off the wagon, and in 1983 Landy was re-hired at $430,000 a year. Contrary to the American Medical Association’s code of professional conduct, Landy then successfully manoeuvred to become Wilson’s manager and financial partner. In 1985, he began taking a quarter of Wilson’s songwriting royalties in addition to his annual fee. On 1988’s chillingly detached Brian Wilson, Wilson’s only Landy-years album, the shrink is credited as executive producer (more prominently than Wilson’s producer credit) and co-writer of four tracks, including standout ‘Love and Mercy’. When the Beach Boys finally won a 1992 court order barring Landy from making contact with him, Wilson was approaching clinical catatonia. (Partly as a result of the case, Landy’s licence to practise psychotherapy in California was revoked. He died in Hawaii in 2006). In 2006, in an unusually discursive interview with the US charity Ability Awareness’s magazine Ability, Wilson said that, as well as hallucinations and panic attacks, he experienced bouts of severe depression. “I have to take medication to treat the depression,” he said. “It goes pretty low, pretty deep. I get depressed to the point where I can’t do anything. I can’t even write songs, which is my passion. I get it mostly in the afternoon. I dread the derogatory voices I hear during the afternoon. They say things like ‘You are going to die soon’, and I have to deal with those negative thoughts. But it’s not as bad as it used to be. When I’m on stage, I try to combat the voices by singing really loud. When I’m not on stage, I play my instruments all day, making music for people. Also, I kiss my wife and kiss my kids. I try to use love as much as possible.” Wilson’s health continues to improve. “I see a psychiatrist once a week,” he says, “and he’s become a really close friend. We talk and he helps me out. He tells me, ‘Well, when you hear the voices, why don’t you make a joke and say to them, How are you doing, Voices? How are you doing today? You know, talk humorously to them.’ I tried that out and it works a little bit.” Don Was says that being produced

MUSIC | Brian Wilson

The Beach Boys performing live on The Ed Sullivan Show, 1964

by Wilson for No Pier Pressure felt “like winning a big prize. If I tell you it was an honour, it sounds like I’m just throwing words at you. But it’s true. He’s a way better producer than I’ll ever be, and a way better artist. It actually tormented me a bit in the 1990s. Once I got to know him and got super-absorbed in his stuff, I realised that I would never be as good as him, in any of the things I do. There was a period when I couldn’t write a song because every time I sat down to play something I thought, ‘Wow, what’s the fucking point? He can do it so much better. Why not just play his songs?’ Ultimately, I had to come to terms with the fact that it’s OK to not be as good as Brian Wilson, because nobody is. So you’re in good company. You can be in awe of what you can’t do, and I’m in awe of Brian. But the important thing is to feel good about what you can offer and not worry about the stuff you can’t. “On the new album, I was thrilled to take direction from him, to see what he’d come up with. He knew what he wanted the bass to play, though he was open to suggestions, too. He told me what he liked about my playing was that I don’t sound like a session guy, I sound like a guy

in a band. He liked that human touch on it, he didn’t want it to be perfect.” In 2013, it was rumoured that No Pier Pressure would be a triple-album set, with one disc of new songs, another of mostlyinstrumental tracks with guitarist Jeff Beck, and another of a suite that began as the closing tracks of That’s Why God Made the Radio. But Beck’s tracks were subsequently dropped, and Wilson has since announced a single-disc format. Beck tried to find out why his tracks didn’t make it. “I did go up to check out this deli [in Beverly Hills] that Brian frequents,” he says. “He goes regularly, three times a day. I went up there and sure enough, within five minutes he walked in. And I said, ‘Hello, Brian.’ He said, ‘Hi!’ And he walked straight past me. It was like I never existed. There’s something not quite right.” As well as playing bass on No Pier Pressure, Was was recruited to A&R it when Capitol Records’ appointee unexpectedly left the label. How does he rate it? “I think some of these songs are going to blow people’s minds,” he says. “They blew my mind. One that was really memorable to play on was ‘The Last Song’. It was really intense, man.

It seemed like a farewell. Basically, he’s saying, ‘Maybe one day we’ll come back and play music for you again, but it doesn’t seem likely, this seems like it’s it, there’s just never enough time for the ones that you love.’ It’s real deep. I got choked up playing it.” The song was recorded in two versions, one with Wilson singing lead, the other featuring Lana Del Rey. No Pier Pressure also includes guest performances by Kacey Musgraves and Zooey Deschanel, along with Al Jardine and founding Beach Boy David Marks. The ‘Beach Girls’ haven’t been universally welcomed. “It bums me out to see some of the negativity about the album I’ve been working so hard on,” Wilson says. “In my life in music, I’ve been told too many times not to fuck with the formula, but as an artist it’s my job to do that, and I think I’ve earned that right. I’ve just been trying to make something that has a really great feel, you know? So let’s just wait until the album comes out, because I think you might dig it as much as I do.” No Pier Pressure is out in March, and Love & Mercy is in cinemas summer 2015 brianwilson.com capitolrecords.com 95

COVER STORY

Wong Kar-Wai

Hong Kong. Wing Chun. Chungking Express. As Tears Go By. Tony Leung. Words Chris May Portrait Chris Floyd

Set in the turbulent years between the fall of China’s monarchy in 1911 and the founding of the communist People’s Republic of China in 1949, the central strand of Wong Kar-Wai’s The Grandmaster tells the story of Ip Man, a key figure in the development of kung fu’s wing-chun style and the man who taught Bruce Lee martial arts. You might want to add “Apparently” to the start of that plot summary, which is a précis of the press release announcing the film’s international release. That the times portrayed were turbulent is obvious enough, as nationalist and communist militia, Japanese invaders, criminal gangs and rival kung-fu schools set about each other on screen. But Wong’s singular style needs decoding before a clear narrative emerges; as almost always with his work, it is helpful to forget received ideas about how a story should be told, and go with the flow. The ride is what made Happy Together, Chungking Express and In the Mood for Love arthouse hits; while for some Wong enthusiasts its relative absence made immediate Grandmaster predecessor, the Norah Jones and Jude Law vehicle My Blueberry Nights, a disappointment. Many defining elements of Wong’s cinematic language are back centre-stage in The Grandmaster. He is sparing with narrative signposts; he relegates dialogue in favour of emotional communication, much of it fleeting, conveyed in a facial expression, adjustment in body posture or tweak of longtime production designer 96

William Chang’s colour palette; the remaining dialogue is often enigmatic; scenes are jump-cut and the chronology is non-linear; there are flashbacks within flashbacks; and, though there is no actual doubling-up of characters as in earlier films, there are few aids to character recognition. Appropriately for a movie dealing with wing chun – so firmly grounded and literally in-your-face that it can be practised in a phone box – there is also a serial use of close-ups that’s barely ameliorated by occasional longshot scenes in China’s subtropical south or the ice deserts of the north. Chinese and Korean casting is back, too. Lead Tony Leung, a Wong regular since 1991, is joined by Chang Chen (Happy Together and 2046), Zhang Ziyi, Zhao Benshan, Song Hye-Kyo and Wang Qingxiang. The original Hong Kong version of The Grandmaster runs for 130 minutes. The international version, released by the Weinstein Company, notorious for its editing interventions, is a more linear assemblage of 108 minutes including explanatory text for English-language speakers. Whether Wong’s arthouse audience will welcome this, and to what extent it will make The Grandmaster more accessible to mainstream cinema audiences, are both questionable. But, happily, there is plenty of muscle left. Wong himself was brought up to enjoy cinema without making distinctions between arthouse and commercial films. Born in Shanghai in 1958, he moved to

Hong Kong with his family at age five. His father encouraged the reading of classical Chinese literature, but much of Wong’s cultural education came from cinema. “My mother liked movies a lot,” he says. “We didn’t have any relatives in Hong Kong so when we went out of the apartment it was either to shop or watch a movie. We saw one almost every day. My only hobby as a child was watching movies. My mother would pick me up after school and we would go straight to a cinema. We had cinemas for Hollywood films, local productions, European cinema, historical films, all sorts. And in Hong Kong then, there was no concept of art films – even a Fellini film was treated as a commercial film. So as a kid, I didn’t make any distinction between art films and commercial or genre films. I just liked cinema. My advice to young film students is just to see as many films as you can. Good films and bad films. You can learn something from all of them.” After secondary school, Wong studied graphic design at Hong Kong Polytechnic, then left the course to take up an apprenticeship at local TV station TVB. “They started a Director Training Program,” says Wong. “You got paid 750 [Hong Kong] dollars a month. I thought it was a good idea, since you could learn film and also make money, so I joined the course and then, after a year, the producer asked me to write scripts.” In 1979, Wong became a freelance scriptwriter. “I wrote action films, martial- >

Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung, In the Mood for Love, 2000

arts films, comedies, horror. I worked for big companies, small companies, gangster companies. In the late 1980s, when the Hong Kong film industry was prospering, they needed directors and young faces, and I got my chance. I found a producer willing to back me and I made As Tears Go By [released in 1988]. After John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow (1986), gangster films were doing very well and I wanted to do one – but different from what I had seen in Hong Kong. I wanted to do a film about young gangsters, and since I knew the producers [Alan and Rover Tang] very well, they gave me lots of freedom.” As Tears Go By tells the story of a small-time gangster trying to keep an even smaller-time gangster out of trouble. There is an echo of Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets, but Wong says he borrowed only the Robert De Niro character; the others came from hanging out in bars with a gangster friend. “I had spent three or four years of my youth drinking, fighting and driving fast cars,” he says. “I knew the territory.” As Tears Go By unexpectedly gathered ten Hong Kong Film Award nominations, winning Best Supporting Actor ( Jacky Cheung) and Art Direction and that, combined with a decent box-office take, encouraged the Tangs to finance Wong’s second film. Set in Hong Kong and the Philippines circa 1960, Days of Being Wild revolves around a lothario and his various 98

‘conquests’ and examines how people deal with rejection and lost love – a familiar theme in Wong’s work. “It was a complete failure, commercially,” he says. “Even in Korea, where they loved As Tears Go By, audiences hated it so much they threw things at the screen.” Critically, however, Days of Being Wild was a triumph, winning five Hong

‘WE WORKED LIKE HELL – LIKE THIEVES – AND IT WAS FUN’ Kong Film Awards including the first of Wong’s several Best Picture and Best Director awards. But he had to return to scripting other directors’ movies before securing finance for 1994’s Ashes of Time, the first of his two martial-arts films. It subverted the tradition, referencing, with twists, the chivalry-and-swordplay wuxia genre that Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon took, very successfully, to the US and Europe six years later. “Traditional martial-arts films are designed to stimulate the senses of the

spectator,” Wong said in 1995. “I wanted to make mine a means of expressing the emotions of the characters. The style of martial-arts movies has become sterile and ended up in an impasse – fantastical ballets in the air, with actors suspended on wires. I was determined not to go in this direction, since it seemed dead. I wanted the actors to fight on the ground so that their duels had a realistic feel, not an artificial one.” Wong’s overseas breakthrough began with 1994’s Chungking Express. An offthe-cuff affair shot in just two months, its story of two Hong Kong policemen on the rebound from broken relationships resonated beyond Asia. In an interview with film scholar Peter Brunette at the 1995 Toronto International Film Festival, Wong said he made Chungking Express as an antidote to the gruelling two-year shooting of Ashes of Time. “We had to do everything in two months’ time,” he said. “And we didn’t have a script, because I had just finished Ashes of Time, [which] was also my first time being a producer. From a director’s point of view, I don’t think [producing] was a good idea. I had to think and think to make the decisions – the director needs to rely on his instinct, you know. The impulse. Then Ashes of Time was going to Venice that year, so we had a slot without anything to do. “So, I said, ‘Why don’t we make a film?’ Like a student film, which is very >

COVER STORY | Wong Kar-Wai

Michelle Reis and Takeshi Kaneshiro, Fallen Angels, 1995

Andy Lau, As Tears Go By, 1988

simple, straightforward. With all my crew. Like after taking a test, we would have a holiday. So I just started shooting. I sat in the coffee shop writing during the day, and then shooting at night. We didn’t have any permits, we didn’t have any set-ups, we just went to places we already knew well. We worked like hell, like thieves, and it was fun.” Quentin Tarantino’s distribution company Rolling Thunder picked up the film. “Chungking Express just blows me away,” Tarantino said. “It has this wonderful romantic-comedy feel while at the same time inhabiting a crazy, frenetic Hong Kong world. But there’s also a Godardian flavour, which makes it very different.” According to the late Chicago SunTimes critic Roger Ebert, however, it was the flavour of Jean-Luc Godard that was likely to stop Chungking Express from breaking beyond cineastes. Ebert wrote in 1996: “If you are attentive to the style, if you think about what Wong is doing, Chungking Express works. If you’re trying to follow the plot, you may feel frustrated. When Godard was hot, in the 1960s and early 1970s, there was an audience for this style, but in those days, there were film societies and repertory theaters to build and nourish such audiences. Many of today’s younger filmgoers, fed only by narrow selections at video stores, are not as curious or knowledgeable, and may simply be puzzled by Chungking Express.” The ripple effect of online availability has taken Chungking Express further than Ebert could have foreseen. Wong’s second big overseas success was 1997’s Buenos Aires-set Happy Together. The film subverted standard romantic movies of the time by making the central protagonists a gay couple, and had an international-friendly soundtrack including Frank Zappa, Astor Piazzolla, and Caetano Veloso. The film won Wong the Best Director award at 1997’s Cannes Film Festival. More acclaim followed for 2000’s In the Mood for Love and 2004’s 2046. The Grandmaster, six years in the planning and three years in the making, is Wong’s first feature since 2007’s My Blueberry Nights. In search of authenticity, the new film’s trio of leading actors each took two years’ martial-arts training, a squad of kung-fu masters was employed to give advice on set, and fight scenes were choreographed by Yuen Woo-Ping, fight director on The Matrix, Kill Bill and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. 100

Zhang Ziyi, 2046, 2004

Leslie Cheung, Days of Being Wild, 1990

But Wong has made a few departures from the chronology of wing chun and with Ip Man’s biography. Central to wing chun’s development was 18th-century female master Yim Wing-Chun, who

‘IT’S NOT A STANDARD KUNG-FU FILM, FULL OF CAMERA TRICKS’ invented the ‘sticking hands’ technique. In the film, presumably to acknowledge the developmental importance in wing chun of a woman, Yim is replaced by a fictional figure, Gong Er (Ziyi Zhang), a martial artist for whom Ip Man (Tony Leung) carries an unrequited torch. In the

film, traumatised by a particularly brutal fight, Gong Er ends her life an opium addict. In real life, it was Ip Man who, some say, took to opium to ease the pain of his final illness. “With The Grandmaster,” says Wong, “I wanted to make an entertaining film with a message about a world that I’m interested in. It’s a story about one of the golden periods of martial arts in China. It’s not a standard kung-fu film, full of camera tricks. I spent several years researching different schools and met many real grandmasters. I went to lots of demonstration sessions. When you talk with the grandmasters and watch their demonstrations, you realise a highlevel kung-fu fight is not 15 minutes of wham-bam non-stop fighting because, if you are as good as they are, normally it is one punch or one kick and it’s all over. My hope is that the film will reignite interest in traditional martial arts among young Chinese people.” The Grandmaster is in cinemas now weinsteinco.com

COVER STORY | Wong Kar-Wai

Tony Leung, The Grandmaster, 2013

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STYLE

Keichi wears coat by Paul Smith; jeans by Michel Klein; sweater, modelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own.

Bikusuku Custom Photographs Martin Holtkamp Styling Adam Howe Photographic Assistant Robert Zetzsche Styling Assistants Kumiko Kobayashi and Soichiro Kobayashi Bikers Yukiko Fujinaka, Shota Ishida, Jun Iwata, Keiichi Sato, Takayuki Shoji, Toshiyuki Shoji, Yusuke Umezu, Hiroyuki Yamanaka and Yusuke Yatomi

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Hiroyuki wears T-shirt, trousers, hat and belt by Beauty:Beast; trainers by Supra; towel by Daiso Japan; bracelets, modelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own.

Yusuke Yatomi wears coat and trousers by The Sakaki; shirt by Uniqlo; shoes and sunglasses, modelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own.

STYLE | Bikusuku Custom

Shota wears jacket by Bedwin & The Heartbreakers; jeans, T-shirt, trainers, hat and chain, modelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own.

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Toshiyuki wears coat by Gloverall; trousers, modelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own; polo shirt by Uniqlo; trainers by Vans; hat, modelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own.

STYLE | Bikusuku Custom

Jun wears top by Supreme; jeans by Hysteric Glamour; trainers by Nike.

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Yukiko wears jacket by John Varvatos; shorts, T-shirt and shoes, model’s own. Helmet, on scooter, stylist’s own.

STYLE | Bikusuku Custom

Yusuke Umezu wears coat by Nigel Cabourn; jeans by Denime; trainers by New Balance.

BULLETIN

Robbie Pinna aka Pinnetto, 37, guitarist for Elephant 12, wears shoes by Kickers; trousers from Pop Boutique; jacket, T-shirt and braces, model’s own Where are you from? Sardinia. I’m based in Archway, north London. Describe your style and influences. A blend of electro, hip-hop and heavy rock. Describe your music in three words. Bombastic. Infectious. Fresh. Who’s your musical hero? Dave Grohl. What are your favourite albums? Rage Against the Machine by Rage Against the Machine and The ABCD by Afrikan Boy.

Elephant 12’s single ‘Love Knock On Wood’ is out in January elephant12.com

Kickers Kick Hi Photographs Elliot Kennedy Styling Karen Mason Words Edward Moore

Kickers opened their first store on the King’s Road in London in 1975 and duly released the Kick Hi, a shoe that has made it into the wardrobe of various UK subcultures over the past four decades.

The successor to the first Kickers shoe, the Legend – inspired by the spirit of 1968 Paris student protests – the Kick Hi introduced the brand’s hardwearing cleated sole, suitable for stomping at

football terraces, exploring illegal raves, and navigating the dance floors of the Hacienda and UK garage nights alike. kickers.co.uk

Bumi Thomas, musician and photographer, wears shoes by Kickers; jeans by Uniqlo; jacket, cardigan, shirt, hat, earrings, tie and gloves, model’s own Where are you from? Glaswegian-born Nigerian. Describe your style and influences. Folk, jazz, highlife rhythms and neo-blues melodies, infused with reggae, delivered with soul. Influences are Björk, Yinka Shonibare, Miles Davis, Nina Simone and Sade Adu. Describe your music in three words. Organic. Cathartic. Soul. Who is your musical hero? Benjamin Clementine. What is your favourite album? Native Stranger by Ben Onono.

Debut EP ‘Feather Pearl’ out now bumithomas.com

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Gene Dudley, 29, musician and producer, wears shoes by Kickers; jacket by Dickies; jeans by Levi’s; shirt by Edwin Jeans Where are you from? Muswell Hill via West Midlands. Describe your style and influences. Funk and grooves with roots-reggae sensibilities. Describe your music in three words. Old but new. Who’s your musical hero? King Tubby. He did a lot with very little. What’s your favourite album? (Chet Baker Sings) It Could Happen To You.

His debut album Saturday Shifting is out now wahwah45s.com

Niall Galvin aka Only Real, 23, musician and producer, wears shoes by Kickers; jacket by Levi’s; jeans by Edwin Jeans; shirt by Gant Rugger Where are you from? West London. Describe your style and influences. Flavoursome flavourful heartfelt bangers for ya. Describe your music in three words Honey nut bae. What are your favourite albums? London Calling by the Clash, Halcyon Digest by Deerhunter, Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde by the Pharcyde and Full Circle by Hieroglyphics.

His debut album Jerk at the End of the Line is out in March onlyrealreal.com virginemirecords.com

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BULLETIN | Kickers Kick Hi Paul White, 33, musician, wears shoes by Kickers; shirt by Wrangler from Rokit; jeans by Carhartt WIP; watch, model’s own Where are you from? London. Describe your style and influences. John Coltrane, Weather Report, Stevie Wonder, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Gong, Fairport Convention, Bob Marley, Aphex Twin, The Orb and Björk. My style is jazz, hip-hop, psychedelic, funk, soul, folk, electronic, ambient and African. Describe your music in three words. Psychedelic rhythmic feelings. Who’s your musical hero? Joe Zawinul. What’s your favourite album? Bob Marley and the Wailers’ Live!

An album with Open Mike Eagle is out next year.‘Running on a Rainy Day’ 12” out now facebook.com/paulwhitemusic

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CULTURE

Gordon Parks Life Magazine. Harlem. Marva Louis. Roy Stryker. Voigtländer. Shaft. Words Edward Moore

In March 1933, the month of Franklin D Roosevelt’s inauguration, 20-year-old Gordon Parks found himself in Harlem, at a crossroads in his life. Behind him, a hometown filled with racial segregation and bigotry, a loving family, a deceased mother, a bitter period of homelessness since age 15. Ahead, the potential to be one of the most acclaimed photographers of the 20th century, as well as a highly regarded composer, filmmaker and writer. All to come, if he chose the right path. Stranded after a trip to New York, Parks was wandering Harlem’s streets in desperate need of cash. A quick answer came in the form a sharply dressed man in a zoot suit, going by the name of Charlie. “How’s it going, man?” asked Charlie, cigarette smoke curling through his lips. “Not too hot. I need a lift, and a big one,” replied Parks. A new employee may have fallen into Charlie’s hands. “Like to make some bread? I need somebody to deliver some little packages to some people around here. They’ll hand you some loot and you bring it back to me, then I’ll put some bread in your pockets,” said Charlie. The prospect of bread was too good, so Parks agreed to Charlie’s proposition. But after a nightmare about being trapped 114

in prison, Parks thought twice and never spoke to Charlie again. A few years later, his career as a photographer would take off. Something seemed to have nudged his conscience that night. “Your heart will tell your frets which roads to take,” said his father by his mother’s deathbed. “There’ll be signposts along the way giving out directions. You’ll have the right to question them, but don’t ignore them.” The last of Sarah and Jackson Parks’s 15 children, Gordon was born on 30 November 1912 in Fort Scott, Kansas – which he described in his final memoir, A Hungry Heart as “the mecca of bigotry”. Losing many childhood friends to acts of racist violence, he described how, “Those days I ate hatred, a lot of it. Yet thanks to a caring mother and father, I also ate cabbage, cornbread, grapes, apples, strawberries, watermelon, and slaughtered hogs from a smokehouse.” Those years of love and care, amidst the racism and segregation that plagued Fort Scott, would lay a solid foundation for the rest of his life. The night before his mother was buried, in May 1928, Parks slept beside her coffin. Losing his friends and now his mother, death had already been a close companion. When staring into his mother’s open casket,

“The fear of death gave up and left”. More struggles were to come. Sent to live with his sister in St Paul, Minnesota, Parks was kicked out on the winter streets by his brother-in-law David. “I moved off to face the world,” Parks said. “I was at the bottom of it. There was only one direction to take, that was up.” Surviving the winter, he found love in spring with a girl named Sally Alvis. After working various menial jobs, he married Alvis and they welcomed Gordon Jr in 1934. That same year, Parks started working as a waiter on the North Coast Limited, a train from Chicago to Seattle. One night at the Chicago Oriental Theatre, following a Clark Gable film, Parks saw a war report on the Japanese bombing of the US gunship Panay. The cameraman, Norman Alley, documented the event until the ship sank. After the report, Alley jumped out from behind the Oriental curtain to roaring applause from the crowd. Parks was awestruck and carried this mood all the way on the train to Seattle and into a pawnshop on King Street where he bought his first camera, a Voigtländer Brilliant, for $7.50. Parks had begun his lifelong mission. “I bought what was to be my weapon against poverty and racism,” he wrote. >

Photograph David Parks, 1975; courtesy of and copyright The Gordon Parks Foundation

CULTURE | Gordon Parks

Red Jackson, Harlem, New York, 1948. Photograph by Gordon Parks. Courtesy of and copyright The Gordon Parks Foundation

On the train back to St Paul, his enthusiasm was furthered by a chance encounter with Magnum photographer Robert Capa, whose Life-stamped luggage came to Parks’s attention. “Mr Capa, be sure to save a locker for me at the magazine you’re working for,” said Parks. “OK,” said a bewildered Capa. “I’ll remember.” Parks’s future was set in stone. After spending three years developing his skills as a documentarian, capturing whatever caught his eye on the street, falling off a Seattle pier when photographing seagulls in flight, Parks had gained an interest in fashion, and so found himself at the door of high-end St Paul womenswear store Frank Murphy. “What can I do for you?” asked an unimpressed Murphy. “I’d like to shoot fashions for you, sir,” said Parks. Murphy waved him away from his store but Mrs Murphy intervened, convincing him to give the budding photographer a chance. A few days later, Parks shot 12 gowns on three models, impressing both the Murphys and himself. At the lab after his first shoot, Parks discovered he had double-exposed all but one image, a print of which he placed at Frank Murphy’s door the next morning. Mrs Murphy admired the image and wondered about the rest. Parks apologised and explained his mistake. “Would they all have been that good?” she asked. “Oh, that’s probably the worst of the lot,” he said. He reshot the models and was given a healthy cheque by the Murphys. The images also impressed another woman, 116

Flavio da Silva, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1961. Photograph by Gordon Parks. Courtesy of and copyright The Gordon Parks Foundation

Marva Louis, the wife of then World Heavyweight champion Joe Louis. She insisted Parks move to Chicago to shoot fashion and society photos. He accepted. Before setting off, on 4 November 1940, his daughter Toni was born. In Chicago, Parks’s documentary work took off. He photographed the hardships experienced by black people living on the city’s south side and after exhibiting the work won a fellowship from the Julius Rosenwald Fund, championing equal opportunities for all Americans. This granted him an apprenticeship to work in the Farm

‘HE WAS A SPECIAL KIND OF GUY, AND I’M NOT BRAGGING ON HIM’ Security Administration (FSA) photography unit in Washington DC – among photographers such as Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange and Carl Mydans. At the FSA, he was in the care of highly respected photographer’s manager Roy Stryker. “I’m going to give you your very first assignment – and it’s to be

without your camera,” said Stryker. “Several blocks up the street is Julius Garfinckel’s department store. It gets very cold here in winter, so buy yourself a heavier coat. On the corner, across the street is a restaurant, White’s House. Have lunch.” At both establishments, Parks was rejected for being black. Stryker’s assignment had taught him quite a bit about his nation’s capital. Back in his office, Stryker explained to Parks that bigotry couldn’t be photographed in an obvious manner. “Talk to older black people who have spent a lifetime experiencing what you went through this afternoon,” said Stryker. After their discussion, in a room at the FSA, Parks encountered an elderly black cleaning lady called Ella Watson and heard her life story. Watson told him how Southern mobsters had hanged her father, how her husband was shot two days before her daughter’s birth, how her teenage daughter was now bearing two illegitimate children, and her grandchild was stricken with paralysis. Parks had already found his subject for Stryker. The photograph he took of Watson, entitled ‘American Gothic’ – a reference to Grant Wood’s 1930 painting of a white farming couple – is now regarded as one of his most famous images. In 1943, the FSA was absorbed by the Office of War Information (OWI), where Parks was sent to work along with Stryker. At the OWI, he documented the 332nd all-black fighter group, known as the Tuskegee Airmen, but was denied clearance to follow them to the war in Europe. Parks quit the OWI and ended up, once again, in Harlem. “Life had given me a smooth ride for a few years, but now it had dumped me back in Harlem,” he wrote. “Winter was coming, and I was jobless and almost broke.” Determined, he knocked at the doors of Harper’s Bazaar but was denied work because the Hearst Company did not hire blacks. With a little help from Stryker, Parks was sent in the direction of Condé Nast, where art director Alexander Liberman hired him; he had become the first black photographer for Vogue. On 4 March 1944, Sally called from Minneapolis where she was staying with her relatives. Parks’s second son David had been born. “About three weeks after I was born, Dad and the rest of the family had moved to New York City,” says David, now 70 years old and running a filmproduction company in Texas. “I was born when he just started to really make it big.”

The Fontenelles at the Poverty Board, Harlem, New York, 1967. Photograph by Gordon Parks. Courtesy of and copyright The Gordon Parks Foundation

While he had become a fully-fledged fashion photographer at Vogue, Parks’s hunger to be a documentarian was growing. A 1945 assignment for Stryker, who had started working in public relations at Standard Oil, took Parks to Yellowknife, Canada to document the struggles of Native Americans. He left a lasting impression on the locals, who named Great Gordon Lake after him. “There have been about 15 or 16 schools named after my dad,” says David. “George Lucas and his wife are also setting up the Gordon Parks Arts Hall in 2015 at the University of Chicago. He was a special kind of guy, and I’m not bragging on him, but when you have all these places named after you, there’s something going on there.” At the end of the second world war, America was still a racist country. For Parks, it was time to take action. “Black people were on the move against racism,” he wrote. “I wanted to move with them. The right forum was uncertain, but neither the chic pages of Vogue nor the conservative offices of Standard Oil had the answer. A vast and restless audience was waiting. The problem was to move within range of its understanding.” His request to Capa to save him a locker was about to be granted. In 1948, Parks arrived unannounced at the office of Wilson Hicks, Life magazine’s toughest picture editor, to present his portfolio. “How’d you get in here?” asked Hicks. “I just walked in,” replied Parks. “Well, just walk out,” said Hicks. Determined as ever, he won over Hicks and chose his first assignment – a story on Harlem gangs. Parks had become the first black photographer to work for both Life and Vogue. In Harlem’s 25th Precinct, looking for a suitable subject for his story, Parks encountered 16-year-old Red Jackson,

American Gothic, Washington, DC, 1942. Photograph by Gordon Parks. Courtesy of and copyright The Gordon Parks Foundation

the leader of the notorious Nomads gang who Jackson assured were “the toughest ones up here”. Parks told Jackson he wanted to help the Nomads cool things down by exposing the foolishness of gang violence in Harlem. Thinking it a “crazy” idea at first, Jackson, with a little of Parks’s street savvy and charm, was convinced and decided to show him around his turf. “Why a gang in the first place, Red?” asked Parks. “Protection, man,” said Jackson. “They say, ‘You belong to a gang, cat?’ ‘No’ means you get robbed and bopped. If you’re a Nomad, they think twice before they start any shit.” Not only did Parks convince Jackson to do the story, he gained a friend – as he would with many of his subjects. After watching Jackson threaten to cut out the heart of a rival gang member, Parks was troubled at seeing “a talented individual so badly misdirected.” His solution was to invite Jackson and the gang around for a meal with his family, hoping to show them a better life to aspire to. “I was a teenager then,” reminisces Toni, now 74 and a photographer based in the UK. “It was during the day and we were all there with Red.” The outing put Jackson in good spirits. To return the favour, he asked if Gordon Jr would like

to hang out with the gang for the day. Parks approved, to the joy of his son – who was returned safely after. Back at Life, the story on Jackson was praised by Hicks, who wanted to run it on the cover. But the chosen image was compromising; it showed Jackson wielding a firearm. Parks cut up the frame and the article was dropped from the cover. The story was still a huge success and put Parks in the spotlight as a rising star. His illustrious career for Life had begun, and would span 20 years and over 300 assignments. “It was very exciting,” says Toni. “He’d take us to Life, around Rockefeller Center, and David and I would play there. It was like our little playground.” Between 1949-51, Parks worked for Life’s Paris bureau, living in the capital with his family and absorbing vast quantities of classical music and modern literature. “When he went there it just opened him up to all kinds of things,” says Toni. His career as a writer and composer would blossom shortly after – his first concerto was performed in Venice in 1956 and his acclaimed, semi-autobiographical novel The Learning Tree was published in 1963. It was also in this period in Paris that he would > 117

Husband and Wife, Sunday Morning, Detroit, 1950. Photograph by Gordon Parks. Copyright The Gordon Parks Foundation. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston

embark on a journey of great personal importance, on a story for Life which has remained unpublished to this day. In 1950, for the first time in 23 years, Parks returned to his hometown, Fort Scott. Assigned to a story on segregated schools and given free reign on the subject, he chose to track down 11 old classmates from the Plaza School, now spread across the States, before visiting Fort Scott itself. “None of us understood why the first years of our education were separated from those of the white; nor did we bother to ask,” Parks wrote in his unpublished draft. “The situation existed when we were born.” The images for ‘Back to Fort Scott’ will be shown early next year at Boston’s Museum of Fine Art. As curator Karen Haas explains, “These school friends left this little town in southern Kansas to go to these northern industrial cities to find freedom from the discrimination they experienced as children. Everyone had followed in Gordon Parks’s footsteps without his knowledge. But he was the most successful, so it was really a moment for him to take stock of.” The Fort Scott trip initiated a highly productive period in Parks’s career, in which he would work on some of his most acclaimed stories for Life. In 1961, he was assigned to document poverty in Rio de Janeiro. Resting one day under a 118

jacaranda in the Catacumba favela with Life reporter and translator José Gallo, he encountered a small boy with a tin of water on his head. “Death was all over him, in his sunken eyes, cheeks and jaundiced colouring,” wrote Parks in his third autobiography Voices in the Mirror. “Jerking sideways like a mechanical toy, he smiled a smile I will never forget.”

‘YOUR PURPOSE IS TO SHOW THAT HUNGER IS SOMEONE’S ENEMY’ Life requested an impoverished father and his family – but, with that 12-yearold boy Flavio da Silva, Parks had found a subject that “said more about poverty than a dozen poor fathers.” Parks and Gallo followed da Silva to his home in a tin shack where he looked after a family of eight, washing and cooking for his siblings with the water he carried to the favela. After spending time with

him, Parks discovered da Silva was sick. They visited the local hospital were he was diagnosed with bronchial asthma, malnutrition and suspected tuberculosis. “This little chap has just about had it,” said the doctor. Walking back to the favela, da Silva stared up at the Cristo Redentor statue and said, “Papa says El Cristo has turned his back on the favela. I’m not scared of death. It’s my brothers and sisters I worry about. What would they do?” The story, ‘Freedom’s Fearful Foe: Poverty’, published in June 1961, had such an effect on readers that thousands of dollars were sent in to Life, enough to cure da Silva of his ailments and move his family out of the favela. Parks’s camera had become a force to be reckoned with. After stories on Malcolm X – which resulted in a friendship and the honour of becoming godfather to his daughter Qubilah – and Muhammad Ali, Parks produced his most potent photo essay yet. Published in a special section of Life in March 1968, ‘Race and Poverty: The Cycle of Despair’ was his story ‘A Harlem Family’. It came about through a discussion with friend Phillip Kunhardt, Life’s assistant managing editor and founder of the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation, where the Gordon Parks Collection was created in 2007. “Why is there so much racial tension across the country? And why are blacks rioting

CULTURE | Gordon Parks in the big cities practically every month?” asked Kunhardt. Parks said he would live with a family in Harlem for a week, then answer Kunhardt’s question. At the anti-poverty board in Harlem, Parks met Bessie Fontenelle, a mother of eight who saw the importance of exposing the misfortunes of the impoverished. “OK, Mr Parks,” she said, “looks like you’re going to be part of the family for a while.” He then visited the Fontenelles, who had no heating and little else besides. “Ten of them slept huddled together on mattresses in the kitchen with the oven going all night,” wrote Parks in the article. The father, Norman, had been out of work for eight months. While photographing the family objectively, Parks became fully involved, taking the children out for fried chicken and chips, and Bessie to see her incarcerated son Harry. Acts of kindness and compassion – as passed on by Parks’s own parents – often overshadowed the journalistic rule of keeping a distance from one’s subject. “Your purpose is to show that hunger is someone’s enemy. Yet it’s hard, knowing that you could fill their ice box with little effort or expense,” he wrote in his diary. At the end of Parks’s time with the Fontenelles, Norman, after drinking all night – a common treatment for poverty and unemployment – gave Bessie a horrible beating. In response, she put sugar and honey in a pan of boiling water and threw it over his face, burning off his skin. “Why the sugar and honey?” asked Parks the morning after. “To make it stick and burn for a while,” she said. As with the story on da Silva, the article captured the hearts of Life readers and brought in thousands of dollars. Life bought the Fontenelles a new home in Long Island and helped Norman get a job. But for the Fontenelles, luck didn’t stick. Less than a year after moving into their new home, it burned down in the night, killing Norman and son Kenneth. Bessie and the family returned to Harlem. “She wanted to go back to the city,” Toni says. “And there, her kids died in jail, some on drugs. [Eldest son] Norman Jr is the only one that’s alive now from the whole family, he has a whole batch of children himself.” The tragedy caused Parks a great deal of grief. “The painful memories are rumbling through me like the vestiges of a shipwreck,” he wrote. A month after the story was published, Dr Martin Luther King was assassinated. Showing Kunhardt and millions of Life readers how

Sylvie Hirsch in Dior Skirt, Paris, France, 1949. Photograph by Gordon Parks. Courtesy of and copyright The Gordon Parks Foundation

racial tensions had reached boiling point, the message in Parks’s Fontenelles article was more important than ever. In his obituary to Dr King in Life, Parks wrote, “He spent the last dozen years of his life preaching love to men of all colours. And for all this, a man, white like you, blasted a bullet through his neck... If the death of this great man doesn’t unite us, we are committing ourselves to suicide.” Parks continued to document the movements of blacks against racism, producing stories on Eldridge Cleaver and the Black Panthers. In 1971, he directed his highly successful blaxploitation film Shaft, whose protagonist gave young blacks a new hero to identify with. A year later, Life folded as a weekly publication. Parks developed his career as a director, releasing four more feature films; author, writing four autobiographies; and composer, directing a ballet tribute to Dr King, Martin, in 1989. “Anything he did, he did it very well,” says David. “He was also a ski jumper, played basketball with the Globetrotters, and was a very good tennis player, too.”

Parks died of cancer in March 2006, in New York, aged 93. He was buried in Fort Scott, his life coming round full circle. While multitalented, it was his stories for Life that would hold special importance right up to his death. “If Dad had a story, he remained friends with them,” says David. “Like Red Jackson, who was his first break at Life. The irony was, he was the last person to see Dad before he died. They spent at least 10 minutes together but I don’t know if Dad was coherent enough to know it was Red. When I was driving Red back home to Harlem, we were listening to some music and it came on the radio that Gordon Parks had passed. We silently drove to Red’s and that was the last time I saw him, too – he died a year later. Life definitely has a way of coming around.” Gordon Parks: Back to Fort Scott opens at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston on 17 January 2015 mfa.org mkfound.org steidl.de 119

STYLE

Jacket and trousers by Paul Smith; shirt by John Varvatos; pocket square from Costume Studio; necklace, stylist’s own.

Ned Wolfgang Kelly Photographs David Goldman Styling Mark Anthony Bradley Grooming Oliver Woods at One Represents using Kiehl’s Actor and musician Ned Wolfgang Kelly, 25, graduated from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, London, in July. He is appearing in independent films Among Sweet Flowers and Shades and Hen Party – which will tour film festivals in 2015 – and his own short True Faith, which premieres at the London Short Film Festival in January. His band the Coptics release their first EP Bite My Thumb this month

mandpartistmanagement.com thecoptics.tumblr.com

Jacket by Polo Ralph Lauren; trousers by Richard Anderson; shirt by Canali; shoes by Louis Leeman; pocket square, stylist’s own; ring, model’s own; socks by Richard James.

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Jacket and shirt by Polo Ralph Lauren; sweater by John Smedley.

STYLE | Ned Wolfgang Kelly

Coat by Alexander McQueen from Mr Porter; trousers and waistcoat by Caruso; vest by Marks&Spencer; shoes by Louis Leeman; scarf and pocket square from Costume Studio; pin, stylistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own.

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STYLE | Ned Wolfgang Kelly

Top by Kolor from Mr Porter; trousers by Paul Smith; vest by Marks&Spencer; shoes by Polo Ralph Lauren; necklace, stylistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own.

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Cardigan by YMC; trousers and shirt by Paul Smith; vest by Marks&Spencer; necklace, modelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own.

Coat by Richard Anderson; trousers by Caruso; shirt and slippers by Richard James; scarf by Paul Smith.

STYLE | Ned Wolfgang Kelly

Jacket by Paul Smith; trousers by Richard James; shirt by YMC; shoes by Louis Leeman; tie by Polo Ralph Lauren; tie clip, stylistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own.

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CINEMA

Martin Scorsese

Paul Schrader. Wiseguys. Catholics. Jake LaMotta. Palermo. Washington Square College. Words Chris Sullivan Portrait Chris Pizzello (AP/PA Images)

I will never forget the first time I saw a Martin Scorsese picture. It was in 1976, during the hottest summer on record. Every Monday my pals and I would bowl up to our local Merthyr Tydfil flea pit, the Scala, where the air-conditioning was an open back door, half the clientele were there to sleep off a day’s boozing, and the cinematic fare was almost entirely exploitation. As a rule, we turned up uninformed; we’d either see something remarkable or truly awful. On this occasion we found Taxi Driver showing so, thinking it another Death Wish, paid our 25p, sat down and had our gobs smacked senseless. A mad New York picture inhabited by lowlifes, hookers, pimps and druggies, it told of troubled insomniac Vietnam vet Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) who is obsessed by the need to either purify or destroy the city. It was unlike anything this 16-yearold had ever seen or envisaged, and from that day Scorsese movies were a constant in my life. I grew up with his films and the inimitable genre he created. “I remember when Taxi Driver was released, some reviews said it was an exploitation film because there’s a lot of violence in it,” chuckles Scorsese, sitting at the Directors Guild of America in New York’s Upper West Side. “The whole film is based on the impressions I had

as a result of growing up in New York, this city which was bankrupt morally and financially and simmering with tension. Taxi Driver was exactly what we wanted, the three of us – I was the director, Robert De Niro was the actor and Paul Schrader wrote the script.” The story behind the script is itself worthy of an article. Schrader had split with his wife, his union, his job and his apartment so, homeless, he drove around the streets on his own for days on end. “I realised I hadn’t actually spoken to anybody in weeks,” Schrader once said. “And this metaphor came into my head of the taxi car and the seclusion and the paranoia. Then I wrote it very quickly but as self-therapy, and not to be made. I just wanted to get this ugly thing out of me. I was surprised when the script was sold and it became this film.” A few months after I saw Taxi Driver, my confederates and I had some time to kill while up in London to hit the Soho nightspots, so ducked into the Academy on Oxford Street and caught Mean Streets. I’d loved Taxi Driver but Mean Streets was pretty near perfect. Here was a filmmaker who was talking to me and every other young ne’er-do-well that ducked, dived and had pals who were mad, bad and dangerous. Scorsese knew his subjects and, more importantly, so did we.

“The film was written for Harvey Keitel whose character Charlie, I’ve since realised, is based on my father, who was also named Charlie,” says the director, who wrote the script with Mardik Martin. “Johnny Boy is based on his brother Joe who lived underneath us. My father came from a family of eight or nine and Uncle Joe was the youngest and was constantly getting in trouble. My father was the one who, out of respect for the family, had to have what we call a ‘sit down’ to make peace with the people Joe had upset.” A galvanising piece of personal filmmaking, the strength of Mean Streets is in its depiction of a gang of workingclass guys from a neighbourhood that, though vehemently Little Italy and supremely New York, could have been any working-class neighbourhood from Merthyr Tydfil to Millwall to Moscow. Certainly, Scorsese knew what he was talking about. His parents hailed from Palermo and the family lived on Elizabeth Street in Little Italy – a self-sufficient Italian-speaking locale controlled by the omnipresent ‘made men’ who held court in its restaurants and cafes. “The other interesting figure in Mean Streets is the heavily mobbed-up guy Giovanni, who runs the restaurant,” says Scorsese. “I saw my first displays of this kind of power when I was about nine >

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Goodfellas, 1990

years old, in this little restaurant. One particular guy, who I believe was killed in 1968, was a very powerful mafia figure. He didn’t have to say anything, he didn’t have to do anything. He’d just walk in a room and everything would stop. I’ve never forgotten that.” Ever since, Scorsese’s been criticised for presenting Italian-Americans as hoods and gangsters. “A lot of friends, when they saw the movie, would say, ‘Oh, it’s about wiseguys, but not everybody’s like that,” he recalls. “Yes, that’s true, but I’m telling the story from my point of view.” Essentially, Mean Streets is about responsibility. “It’s about being your brother’s keeper,” he says. ‘It’s about what’s right and what’s wrong, morally. It has to do with borrowing money and disrespect. I made the film about a period of my life when I was going to Washington Square College at the same time as hanging out with the same kind of guys you see in the picture, the friends I grew up with.” De Niro’s rendering of Johnny Boy the screw-up hoodlum marks the film. It’s De Niro at his best – wiry, mercurial and charismatic. “It was Bobby who came up with that improvisation with Keitel in the back room of the bar – which really pulls the film together,” says Scorsese with a smile. “That scene when he says, ‘I was there and then Joey Clams, y’know Joey Clams? No. No, Joey Scala is Joey Clams,’ and all this stuff about the money he owes. It’s one of the longest scenes in the film and is pivotal. Bobby is something else there. He really impressed me.” Of course, one of Scorsese’s best traits is that he’s a film fan. “For me, film was all about European cinema, Italian mainly,” 130

he says. “Every Friday night when I was four or five, my parents, grandparents and all my uncles would come over to our tenement and watch Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves, Roberto Rossellini’s Paisà and Open City, all these great subtitled pictures. I understood the language, what they were doing. I was captivated.” It was on TV that he first watched many great influences – Carol Reid’s The Third Man, Max Ophüls’ Letter from an Unknown Woman and Jean Renoir’s The Southerner – but it wasn’t until he went to

‘I DIDN’T THINK THERE WAS A PLACE FOR ME IN HOLLYWOOD ANYMORE’ the cinema that this whole world opened up. “I suffered from asthma so was taken away from sports, and the only thing they could do was take me to a movie theatre,” he says. “When I was in that theatre, boy, that was peace, that was heaven. The next thing that had a similar effect was the church, particularly St Patrick’s Old Cathedral on Mott Street. For me, it’s the cinema and the church.” He studied film at Washington Square College (now New York University) and started making short films in 1963. His

first feature Who’s That Knocking at My Door (1967) starred Harvey Keitel, and in 1972 he was hired by Roger Corman to direct the lacklustre Boxcar Bertha. A year later he shot Mean Streets. Once I’d seen it, I was like a teenage gal waiting for her puppy-faced pop idol to release his next platter. I scoured the Sundays for news of Scorsese’s next picture and, in 1977, queued in the rain to watch New York, New York the night it opened in Cardiff. My expectations perhaps too high, I was disenchanted as – apart from De Niro’s Hawaiian shirts, peg trousers and correspondents, a style I, too, sported – I felt it missed the mark. I lived in hope and was well rewarded three years later, in April 1980, when I saw Raging Bull open at the Odeon Leicester Square and was blown into the following Tuesday, whereupon I watched it again. Many believe it’s his greatest work but Scorsese almost turned it down. “Marty is fond of saying that Taxi Driver is my film, Raging Bull is De Niro’s and The Last Temptation of Christ is his,” says Schrader. In truth, it was De Niro who was obsessed, and the only man to direct in his eyes was Scorsese who in 1978 was “like a brother” but still couldn’t see why the actor was so gung-ho on making a picture based on middleweight champ Jake LaMotta’s ghosted autobiography Raging Bull: My Story. And Scorsese, who’d just made live documentary The Last Waltz about the Band, was in a bad way. He collapsed – a mix of prescription drugs, asthma medicines and cocaine had cleansed his blood of platelets and left an impending threat of brain haemorrhage. Soon-to-be-wife Isabella Rossellini didn’t

CINEMA | Martin Scorsese

Who’s That Knocking at My Door, 1967

think he’d live. “I went through that rough period of my own,” Scorsese told Vanity Fair, “but came out the other side alive and finally understood Bob’s obsession.” Paul Schrader took Mardik Martin’s script, bolstered the Joey LaMotta ( Joe Pesci) character, and Scorsese and De Niro finished it off on the Caribbean island of St Martin while the director recuperated. Now that it made sense, it appealed to Scorsese on every level. He riffed on the almost Old Testament subplot regarding Jake’s incomprehensible jealousy over his wife Vikki, who he imagined was having an affair with his brother Joey. He was drawn to Jake’s Catholic masochism and his facility to take vicious thrashings but remain standing, then out of nowhere knock his exhausted quarry flat on his ass. As Scorsese said, “Jake LaMotta fought as if he didn’t deserve to live.” And he was attracted to the overriding fact that LaMotta was a victim – of his father, who put him in unlicensed bouts as a kid to earn a crust, and mafia hoods who forced him to throw his 1947 fight with Billy Fox. But, above all, he was drawn because, as he said, Mean Streets and Raging Bull are “really the same movie”. The film opened in 1980 to exalted reviews but, due to the lack of a proper advertising campaign, the box office was lukewarm. Prototypical megaflop Heaven’s Gate was released almost simultaneously by the same studio, the doomed United Artists. “The era of big-budget personal filmmaking was over,” Scorsese told the Guardian remorsefully. “I was going to move on to other things – go to Italy and make documentaries. I didn’t think there

Raging Bull, 1980

was any place for me in Hollywood anymore.” Nevertheless, the picture was nominated for eight Academy Awards and has since been voted the best film of the 1980s and one of the greatest films ever made in numerous critics’ polls. Having grown up in a working-class Catholic boxing community, I knew the likes of LaMotta only too well. Scorsese did not win the Best Director Oscar, though De Niro did get Best Actor for a portrayal that critic Pauline Kael described as “a swollen puppet with only bits and pieces of a character inside”. We wondered how Scorsese could follow up this monumental work, but follow it he did, with prophetic study of fame King of Comedy. Wannabe stand-up star Rupert Pupkin, living in a world of make-believe, kidnaps his idol, pompous talk-show host Jerry Langford ( Jerry Lewis playing himself ). The ransom: an appearance on Jerry’s show that will make him famous. Angry, lonely, satirical and horrendous, The King of Comedy was Scorsese and De Niro at the top of their game. As was his wont, De Niro polished his stand-up skills in open-mike sessions in small comedy clubs while Scorsese watched endless talk-show reruns. Then,

on a visit to Blue Mountain, a Broadway clothing store with a ‘Shirtmaker to the Stars’ sign and a Pupkin mannequin in the window: “It had everything,” Scorsese says, “The face, moustache, the red shirt, red tie and everything. We said, ‘That’s him! Let’s do it.’” Again, I waited in line to see the film on its first night, this time in New York on a -20° evening in February 1983. It was so cold my brilliantine froze to my head, but it was worth it. I was married to a New Yorker club girl named Holli, so we were entirely conversant with the city’s arty underbelly. Accordingly, news of Scorsese’s next project After Hours, set among SoHo’s bars and lofts, intrigued us no end, especially as many friends had been dragged in as extras. Paranoid nerd Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne), whose money blows out a cab window, gets stranded amongst SoHo’s barking mad, drug-crazed locals, only to fall foul of a succession of vigilantes and cruel women. Scorsese, who we’d often see in the clubs, recreated this world of ours with unerring accuracy. To be sure, watching it now is like travelling in time to the madness of lower Manhattan, circa 1985. By now, Scorsese releases were not > 131

Mean Streets, 1973

Taxi Driver, 1976

just films but events anticipated by every hepcat on the block. In just 13 years he’d made seven features, only one of which missed the bullseye. Still, I admit I felt rather dismayed as, no matter how much I loved The Hustler, I could not see why anyone would, or should, make its sequel, The Colour of Money, especially utilising Tom Cruise. Apparently an attempt to move into commercial filmmaking, you can’t blame Scorsese for it. Nonetheless, I found it facile and annoying. Next was The Last Temptation of Christ, a Schrader adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis’s controversial book. It upset millions of Christians, looks incredible, and is a brave but somehow unengaging film. At this point, I thought Scorsese – the filmmaker of the city, of boxing rings, bars, nightclubs, pool halls and taxi cabs – had lost the plot and now wandered the desert with some method actors in robes and sandals. It was like losing a friend, but I needn’t have worried. He soon came up trumps with veritable masterpiece Goodfellas, based on the story of mafia thug turned informer Henry Hill. Seduced and forsaken by ‘the life’, Hill worked his way up through the mob, connived with vicious fellow lowlifes – such as Jimmy ‘The Gent’ Conway (De Niro) and Tommy DeVito (a superlative Joe Pesci) only to fall from grace. “I saw this review of Wiseguy, Henry Hill’s memoir by Nick Pileggi,” said Scorsese, “that talked about Henry Hill being a guy on different levels of the underworld. And that’s what made it valuable. Diaries 132

tell you a lot about a place and time. I’m fond of James Boswell’s London Journal. Mean Streets is a street corner, stealing a quarter to get a pack of cigarettes. Goodfellas started on that level but then went a lot further, but the very powerful point in Goodfellas is that these guys are trapped in that system. The only way [Hill] would get out is to be killed. He realised he’d better talk. Because Goodfellas touches on something very dangerous that younger people might admire or emulate,

‘THAT’S THE LIFESTYLE. IT COULD TURN LIKE THAT ON A DIME, AND YOU’RE DEAD’ we showed, in the last hour of the film, that the life is anything but a good life.” Like all Scorsese’s best movies, there is always a standout scene we remember and quote for years afterwards. On this occasion its Pesci’s ‘You think I’m a funny guy?’ scene. “Joe Pesci improvised that,” grins the director. “He told me this story that happened to him with a friend, a guy he knew, a made man. Joe was laughing and the guy says, ‘Yeah, yeah, real funny.

Funny guy. So you think I’m a funny guy?’ And Joe had to use his wits to get out of the situation, take a chance and say, you’re putting me on. You know, I’d almost had you. So Joe said, ‘I’m dead either way. I can’t leave the room. The whole room is stopped. Everybody’s looking at me. I better call him on it.’ That’s a true story. A made guy who knows all about ‘the life’, when asked what film summed it up, said Goodfellas, because of that scene. He said that’s the lifestyle. It could turn like that on a dime, and you’re dead. That’s what you have to know. I’m interested in that historical detail, its like anthropology.” This is where Scorsese gets it right. His films are precise anthropological, historical and psychological reenactments that work best when based on his own life experience. I was again apprehensive about his next film, a remake of J Lee Thompson’s 1962 classic Cape Fear. I felt like a football fan whose team was about to play the best squad in the world. But De Niro’s chillingly exact reprisal of Robert Mitchum’s psycho ex-con Max Cady turned him into a tightly coiled predatory Nietzschean superman. A work of overwhelming cinematic brutality, it grabs you by the throat from the off. In 1993 came The Age of Innocence which left me cold and bombed. Then he bounced back again with Casino, again based on a Nick Pileggi book, and again providing a platform for a bravura De Niro performance, as casino boss Sam “Ace” Rothstein. It follows the same moral leit motif, ‘Live by the sword, die by

CINEMA | Martin Scorsese

Casino, 1995

the sword’, as Goodfellas. “Take Casino,” Scorsese said to the Guardian in 2003, “There’s the scene where Joe Pesci’s character and his brother are killed with baseball bats in a cornfield by their closest friends. “That way of life that we depicted, that’s where it really ends – your closest friend smashing you in the head with a baseball bat. Not even a gun. Not cutting your throat. If you want to live in that lifestyle, that’s where you’re going.” Notably, Casino was the last film De Niro has done with Scorsese. Neither has been quite so efficacious since. In 1999 he released Gangs of New York and found a new leading man in Leonardo DiCaprio (who was suggested by De Niro) but casting the baby-faced actor as a 19th-century New York gang member was never a good idea. The whole ambitious film was never going to work. Scorsese tried to squash almost every detail from Herbert Asbury’s seminal 400-page book into 160 minutes (and with a $100m budget) when just a chapter would have done admirably. Since then, I was let down by The Aviator; thought The Departed a fine film but not a patch on Hong Kong original

Infernal Affairs; Hugo didn’t touch my sides at all; and I haven’t found any of his music documentaries that appealing. I was again on the verge of losing faith. But, as I have proved, you can’t keep this diminutive New Yorker down. Like a Duracell bunny, all he needs is new batteries and he’s back on form. Last year, he surprised us all with the deliciously politically incorrect Wolf of Wall Street in which DiCaprio shone, aided by Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire writer Terence Winter’s faultless script. Basically Goodfellas on Wall Street – featuring guys who make $12m in three minutes at a company where dwarfs are pitched across the office to lift employee morale, where snorting anthills of Bolivian powder is encouraged – it was a return to familiar ground. Scorsese is also executive producer and directed the first episode of Boardwalk Empire, a monumental TV series again close to his Italianate home. Looking back, of the 22 features he has directed, nine are seminal films, five are downright classics – an achievement reached only by the likes of Hitchcock, Fritz Lang and John Ford – and like the aforementioned, Scorsese has created

a milieu that all his best movies adhere to. ‘Scorsesesque’ is defined by the LA Times as films that feature: “Fluid camera work cut to an eclectic soundtrack... with themes of Catholic guilt, the ItalianAmerican identity and pervasive violence. Usually set in the American Northeast.” For the coming year, Scorsese has a busy slate. He has just shot a Terence Winter HBO project (working title The Long Play) about a record company exec in late-1970s New York trying to exploit the city’s diverse music scene, starring Bobby Cannavale, Olivia Wilde and the UK’s Juno Temple; is shooting Silence, about two 17th-century Jesuit priests in Japan, starring Liam Neeson; and is prepping both a Frank Sinatra biopic and an Al Pacino mobster film, The Irishman. Indeed, it looks as if Scorsese, this constant throughout my adult life, will have me queuing up yet again. Silence and The Long Play are in production. The Irishman and Sinatra are in planning hbo.com paramount.com universalpicturesinternational.com 133

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Leo Houlding

Photographs James McNaught Styling Marcus Love Photographic Assistant David Mannion Styling Assistant Becky Cordrey Leo Houlding, 34, started climbing at age 10 and, at 18, was the first Briton to free-climb Yosemite National Parkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 2,307m El Capitan. In 2007, he climbed Mount Everest. His 3D TV show with ex-Royal Marine Monty Halls, Lost Worlds with Monty Halls and Leo Houlding, screens on Discovery and Sky 3D in early 2015

leohoulding.com discovery.com

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CINEMA

Bob Stanley Saint Etienne. London. BFI. Heavenly Records. Pop. Words Andy Thomas Portrait Kevin Davies

“Whenever you go down the roads in Britain, you travel not in three dimensions but four – the fourth dimension is the past. As we move to and fro in this fourth dimension, we see not only landscape, but the economic, political and social forces at work behind the landscape, shaping it, forever changing it, but leaving here and there the record and the mark.” So begins the narration to How We Used to Live, the latest collaboration between Saint Etienne and filmmaker Paul Kelly. Using colour archival footage from the 1950s to late 1970s, the documentary is a psychogeographical love letter to a postwar, pre-Thatcher London. London has preoccupied Saint Etienne’s Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs ever since they formed the group in the creative fallout of acid house. It was in 1990 that they arrived with their version of Neil Young’s ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’ on Heavenly Records. That summer, Bob and Pete got a basement flat in Tufnell Park and started to explore London’s many corners. Like many a suburbanite before them, the pair shared a romantic notion of the city born from their love of pop culture: be it 1960s mod bands or cult films. But much of their subject matter for those early-1990s LPs like Foxbase Alpha and So Tough came from more mundane, everyday things: cafes in Kentish Town, tube names in A-Z Maps. It was no surprise that when the group finally released a Best Of in 2009 it was titled London Conversations. Observations of everyday London were mixed with meditations on the city’s past and its future in their trilogy of Paul Kelly films. They had met Kelly when he was in Heavenly band East Village and first worked with him on their ‘Avenue’ video. The trilogy began with Finisterre (A Film About London) that accompanied the 2002 LP of the same name. The narrator name-checks Geoffrey Fletcher’s The London Nobody Knows, a cult 1967 documentary by Norman Cohen and 142

narrated by James Mason but first a book revealing 1960s London’s underbelly. In a Guardian piece on the film, Stanley wrote: “No horseguards, no palaces, but Islington’s Chapel Market, pie shops and Spitalfields tenements. Carnaby chicks and chaps, the 1967 we have been led to remember, are shockingly juxtaposed with feral meths drinkers, filthy shoeless kids, squalid Victoriana.” How We Used to Live reveals another alternative view of a lost London, this time pieced together from largely unseen footage from the BFI’s archive. Stanley wrote the script with writer Travis Elborough while penning his weighty history of modern pop Yeah Yeah Yeah, so it was left to Wiggs to score the film’s evocative soundtrack.

very oppressive. I was scared myself, until I was a bit older. So it wasn’t like I was going there from a really early age. But then I started going to gigs and record-shopping, of course.

What are your first memories of the city? My dad worked somewhere around Cannon Street when I was five or six. I’d come up to London from Redhill in Surrey and I remember driving into town with him, thinking all the buildings were still really sooty. It would have been the early 1970s; I just remember everything being very black. Another time I came into London for Madame Tussauds or some other touristy thing. I remember driving back over one of the bridges and asking my mum what all the wharfs and warehouses were. They were all big and black and empty and they fascinated me. This was well before they had been restored. I remember my mum saying, ‘That’s bloody typical, we bring you all the way up to London and you want to know about derelict buildings.’ So that’s kind of been the story of my life.

What year did you form Saint Etienne? The first time we went into a studio was 1988, when we tried to make an acidhouse record. I knew Richard Norris [from the Grid] because he was working at [psychedelic label] Bam-Caruso and I used to help them putting records into sleeves and stuff. He had a 303 and we borrowed it and went into the studio for the day to try and make a record. But we couldn’t get the bloody thing to work. We made some random noises.

When did you start coming into London for music and culture? I’d have been about 15 then. I think like Lawrence [Hayward, from Felt] says in Finisterre, all the ambitious kids wanted to come to London but most kids were scared. I came from the home counties where it was all fields, so London seemed

Which record shops? The first shop I really remember being important was Rough Trade. Me and Pete were doing a fanzine and took it to the shop. It was a proper C86 [NME cassette compilation] era fanzine. But alongside all those indie bands such as Talulah Gosh and the Pastels were people like John Barry. We also did stupid collages, like really bad Kurt Schwitters copies. We used to write about tennis and films as well all sorts of things, really.

Where did the mix of styles on ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’ come from? Essentially, we both had very broad tastes in music. When we started the band I had never aspired to play guitar and travel around the country in a transit van playing to 10 people. But at the same time I really wanted to make records with strings, harpsichords and things from the records we loved. We wanted to sound like the Left Banke and Derrick May at the same time. How did the record end up on Heavenly? We were quite pleased with it, so played it to Jeff Barrett, who we knew from putting on gigs at the Black Horse pub >

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I went up there one day in the pouring rain, and there was really nothing there but it was fascinating. We knew [music writer] Kieron Tyler, who was working as an archaeologist for the Museum of London, and he had all these interesting facts, like plastic and petrol were invented there, but nobody ever talked about these things. So that was the beginnings of it.

How We Used to Live, 2013 Image courtesy of Heavenly Films

in Camden. We had a cassette of the track and we played it to see his reaction. It was in the Bushranger pub [on Goldhawk Road] and he sat there listening to it on his Walkman. And when it finished, he said, ‘Yeah, I’m just about to start a record label, can I put this out?’ So that was it. It was that easy. Early on, your writing often drew inspiration from everyday London life. What was it that drew you in? Pete and I got a flat in London in January 1990, the same month we made ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’, and we just got obsessed with it very quickly. Coming from the home counties, London was very exotic. Just looking at an A-Z and seeing all these places that were just names to us back then: Swiss Cottage; White City; Golders Green. Then when you went to these places, like Hoxton or Haggerston, there was often nothing there. The use of names would become very important to Saint Etienne. I guess it’s just the strange kind of things names can evoke. Take a place name like Saint Etienne, for example. It’s just a nondescript steel town, I believe. I’ve never actually been there but that doesn’t really matter. It’s just a name and a feeling it evokes. So yes, names were important to us from the beginning. For example, ‘Girl VII’ off Foxbase Alpha is just a list of place names, alternating names of tube stations from the A-Z with places around the world. Names can just trigger things in your mind that probably have nothing to do with the place. In the new film, we used the old telephone exchange names in the narration. For example, around Kentish Town going up to Gospel Oak is ‘GULliver’. I find all that kind of stuff really interesting. 144

How did you decide on the structure to the film? When we went through all the archive footage we had a certain idea of nine or 10 different themes we wanted to use. These would be visual themes, like pubs, cafes, the seasons, sport, etc. Quite often the footage just wasn’t there. So when me and Travis came to write the script it was really the images that were available that dictated the dialogue. We decided to have a fictional narrator [Ian McShane], but as all the voices and dialogue were led by the footage we found we actually had to drop quite a lot of it, as we couldn’t find anything in the archive to match. Finisterre referenced The London Nobody Knows. How did you come across that? We both remembered seeing clips of it on ITV in the 1980s. When we started looking you couldn’t even get a bootleg of it. So we hadn’t seen it for years, but we remembered enough to start talking about what we’d film if we made it now, what places are about to change and what areas are central to our understanding of what London is. The other film was Patrick Keiller’s amazing London (1994). That was a lot darker and more specific politically than The London Nobody Knows, but equally influential. What Have You Done Today, Mervyn Day? was next in your London trilogy. How did that project come about? Another friend, Redmond O’Neill, had seen Finisterre and said to us, ‘You have to go to the Lower Lea Valley’. He was working for the mayor [Ken Livingstone] and knew the area was about to change forever with the Olympics. He was also a cyclist and used to go around there a lot. So we looked at the A-Z and it was just this white area of derelict land. Paul and

How We Used to Live is entirely archival. How did the idea come about? Paul had seen Terence Davies’ archive film Of Time and the City about Liverpool, and was blown away by it. We watched it three times in a row – and I kipped on his settee and watched it again. Though we thought it was amazing, we started to think about what we would do differently. How did you get access to the archive? Pete and I had done new scores for two BFI design films [Designed in Britain (1959) and Design for Today (1965)] so we gave them a call and they really liked the idea. We spent five days a week for six weeks sitting in this weird hut on the roof of their offices at Stephen Street watching loads of old videos. They had things like ‘London’ and ‘Rivers’ written on the side, almost nothing to tell you what the film was about. What are you faced with when you enter a film archive? It’s basically just loads of VHS videos. There was an old magazine programme, London Line, that was made for the Commonwealth countries. It started in 1965 but was never broadcast here. So it was weird seeing this footage that nobody in the UK had seen; there was some gold on those. But much of the time was spent with our fingers on fast-forward as most footage was of the Royal Family. Then there was Visit London’s collection and Central Office of Information archive. Was there footage you wanted but couldn’t find? Paul had it in his head that he’d seen this footage of an elephant with a gasmask. But it couldn’t be found and we presume it doesn’t exist. Is humour important in your films? Definitely, it’s a lot more effective than bashing people over the head all the time. That’s not the way we work – though the film’s definitely political. It finishes in 1979 when the Conservatives got in and shut down all the film units where this

CINEMA | Bob Stanley

Pete Wiggs and Bob Stanley, London, 1990 Photograph Joe Dilworth © First Third Books

Sarah Cracknell, Pete Wiggs and Bob Stanley, Malmö, Sweden, 1997 Photograph Paul Kelly © First Third Books

footage came from. They just didn’t exist anymore. Focusing on the years we did, we were not trying to say there was some kind of utopia before the Tories got in. We certainly didn’t want the film to be overly nostalgic, that’s an easy trap to fall into. The political point was that London was like this in the postwar period. No one thought it was a utopia at the time, but it was a functioning, progressive city where councils gradually tried to make things better. And that just doesn’t exist anymore. At the same time, the city has always been at war with the population. That’s Patrick Keiller’s point in his film. So 1979 proved to be an important cut-off date for the film? Yes, but also on a non-political point, it was around then that people switched to videotaping, and the film just looked awful, horrible handheld crap. Whereas before you had proper film units with light meters filming things properly. The film does, of course, evoke a lost London. How do you feel seeing your favourite spots gone forever? There will always be change, of course. You go back to Max Beerbohm writing in the 1890s about Georgian London

being ruined by Edwardian architecture, or Geoffrey Fletcher complaining about 1950s cafes in his book because he missed the chop houses and dining rooms and things gone before. So change happens constantly. You have to accept that that’s what London is. But the scale of what is happening now is different to anything

‘CHANGE HAPPENS CONSTANTLY. YOU HAVE TO ACCEPT THAT THAT’S WHAT LONDON IS’ any of us can remember. It’s building for people who don’t even live in London. And everything in the way is being demolished. At the same time, there’s no safe tenure for people living in council flats. It’s just really unpleasant.

While making the film, you were also writing Yeah Yeah Yeah, your ‘Story of Modern Pop’. People may be surprised to find everyone from Hendrix to De La Soul in it. How do you define pop? For me, pop can include everything from rock to hip-hop, anything that might appear in the charts. People have tended to use the term for music that is just lightweight and commercial. I’d only rule out things that would never get in the charts, like most classical music. What were important for you to show in the book? People can now know a lot about different types of music from the internet, but that is often without knowing how things organically developed over time, and also without recognising how these artists were perceived at the time. So I thought a lot of that had been lost. My starting point and the ultimate guide was the charts of the day, because that is what people were actually listening to. You can’t argue with the charts – they are like a socio-historical guide to the time and will almost always reflect what was really going on. > 145

CINEMA | Bob Stanley

Highgate, London Photograph Kevin Davies

How much of your research was done with old magazines and papers, and how much was the internet? I tried to use as much printed material as possible, so I bought stacks of old music papers. There’s so much in them that you don’t find online. There were loads of interesting and quite often odd things. For example, the Velvet Underground got lots more coverage at the time than you would think. You get the impression that nobody, apart from David Bowie, had heard of them before [Lou Reed’s] Transformer. But that is clearly not the case; there was a review of ‘Who Loves the Sun’ in Record Mirror. Unless you go back to the original material, you would never know that. And Nick Drake wasn’t completely unknown; he got good reviews, for example, in Rolling Stone and Disc. The music of Saint Etienne is always a key part of your films with Paul. What is happening with the band right now? Apart from doing the music for this film we’re talking about a new album next year. We just showed the film at the Barbican, played the soundtrack live and did a short set: three covers, three new songs and a couple of old ones. The covers were Squeeze, Madness and Spandau 146

Ballet but weren’t really recognisable. It was the first time we had written new stuff for over a year so it was good fun. When you haven’t had your head in archive footage what music have you been listening to lately?

at the time. And a lot of this music will be new to me so I’m very excited. And hopefully with the music being so old there won’t be so many nit-picky readers. After spending five years on the film have you now had your fill of London? Ha, yes. I’m thinking of moving to Yorkshire! Even before this one, Paul was saying, ‘We can’t make another film about London.’ There are only so many things you can say about London.

‘WE WERE NOT TRYING TO SAY But it’s a city you obviously still love. THERE WAS What is your favourite part of London? I love Highgate, where I live. Apart SOME KIND from being beautiful it’s got this really interesting history, kind of left-leaning OF UTOPIA and musical. It’s so green, it’s like being in London but feels like escaping at BEFORE THE same time. It’s perfect for me. TORIES GOT IN’ the How We Used to Live is out in early 2015. I’ve been listening to a lot of ragtime because I am starting on my new book, on the birth of pop. Again you get a lot of blues histories and jazz histories but the real story gets lost along the way. So I just want to do a similar job to my other book, showing what was actually popular

The soundtrack is out on 9 December; it will launch at Curzon Mayfair, 38 Curzon St, London W1 on 7 December bobstanley.co.uk curzoncinemas.com heavenlyrecordings.com saintetienne.com

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Wilfrid de Baise Photographs Sophie Delaporte Styling Marcus Love Lighting Emmanuel Pineau Styling Assistant Becky Cordrey Lighting Assistant Lara Guffroy Locations Scout Marine Grandpierre, and Le Grand Rex, 1 Boulevard Poissonnière, Paris legrandrex.com Wilfrid de Baise, 56, is a record producer, photographer, interior designer, manager of the band Pulpalicious, agent for Noe Two Gallery, and director of Red Star Events. Pulpalicious’s first single ‘How I Feel’ is out on 15 December

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New York Basketball

‘Black’ Jack Ryan. New York Rens. Phil Jackson. Ron Shelton. Julius Erving. Spike Lee. West 4th Street. Words Mark Webster Portraits Janette Beckman

On the surface, in quite the literal sense, it’s not much to look at. The island of Manhattan is the mother of all intense, vivid, urban experiences; its skyscrapers were the first to reach for the stars, while buildings such as Midtown’s post office and Grand Central Station are jawdropping monuments to the most workaday functions. But in amongst all of this, pretty much at the very heart of Manhattan, is Madison Square Garden – the Garden’s most recent incarnation, in fact, built in 1968 atop Penn Station. The destruction of the original led to the creation of a city Landmarks Preservation Commission. It could not be more anonymous. Save for a few neon signs outside, you’d be pressed to separate it from the station it intertwines with. But behind those walls, below the surface, in amongst 20,000 New Yorkers screaming love and devotion, bitterness and bile, at the shiny floor below them, it‘s a different story. Madison Square Garden is the home of the New York Knickerbockers, the Knicks. Their given name goes all the way back to the Dutch routes of the city, it being a common surname among the 156

European residents; it came to simply mean New Yorker. In 1946, the Knicks became a founding member of the Basketball Association of America, which three years later emerged as the NBA. They, along with the Boston Celtics, are the only two teams still based in their original city. The roots of the sport itself dig even deeper into New York – but first, it is the future of the team that is of interest. In January, the Knicks will take their show on the road to play a regular season game at the O2 in Greenwich, London. Then in February, along with their new neighbours at Barclays Centre, the Brooklyn Nets – formerly the New Jersey Nets housed across the river – the twin cities will host the traditional mid-season break, the All-Star Weekend. Central will be a former title-winning Knicks player whose fame really became the stuff of legend when he coached Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls to multiple titles and made them arguably the sport’s greatest-ever team. Phil Jackson joined the Knicks out of college in 1967, at the start of an era of titlewinning they have singularly failed to

match since. He won two championships as a player, but missed another in the 1969/1970 season because of injury. He produced a book instead, Take it All!, a photo diary of the season. Known as the ‘Zen Master’ due to his coaching style, Jackson isn’t your average grizzled gaffer. These were definitely the Knicks years. With teammates like Walt ‘Clyde’ Frazier and Earl ‘The Pearl’ Monroe alongside him, Jackson was part of a team that was classically New York City – sleeves rolled up, ready to work – but with a strut in their stride. Now he’s back in the Garden and in charge of the whole enchilada. Naturally, greatness is not so much expected, as assumed, with the likes of Spike Lee and Woody Allen right in the front row pointing that fact out with the rest of the Big Apple hardcore. Greenwich Village is an entirely different slice of that particular piece of fruit, and it still insists on feeling just like one. It is a compact, intimate and home to a quirky group of neighbours who strive to ensure the area retains its unique personality. Along 6th Avenue, bordered by a subway exit, the plain wall of a tenement building and a clutch of >

Arnie Segarra and Jack Ryan in the Cage, New York

New York Knicks’ Jerry Lucas, Walt Frazier, Willis Reed, Phil Jackson and Bill Bradley, 1973 Photograph George Kalinsky

trees that wouldn’t look out of place in Sherwood Forest, are the West 4th Street Courts. Half the space is devoted to handball games played against the tenement wall, the other is a cramped, undulating basketball court. The wire fence that surrounds it has earned it the nickname ‘The Cage’. And this is where New York also becomes central to the sport as a whole, because for many, West 4th Street is the home of street basketball. Streetball is where the game got its juice. You might have seen it portrayed in Ron Shelton’s 1992 tribute to the game White Men Can’t Jump, with Woody Harrelson in the titular role. That film was set by the beach on the west coast. Back east, alongside the uptown traffic, ‘Black’ Jack Ryan was the man who lived the life for real. Ryan nearly made it into the big league with the New Jersey Nets; he was once described by Brooklyn-born former NBA (and streetball) player Chris Mullin as the best shooter outside the league. But where Ryan really came into his pomp on a court was in streetball. And in particular, on the hallowed concrete at West 4th Street. Ryan grew up in Brooklyn, “known as a good shooter, but when I was younger, I had this other thing I could do, which was jump. Dunk the ball – that’s all I wanted to do. I started by touching the backboard, then tipping the rim. Then taking pieces of paper and dunking them. Then softballs. Then taking the air out of a basketball so I could palm [grip with the hand against the forearm] until my hand got big enough and I could do it for real.” 158

It was his older brother who inspired Ryan to keep developing his talent. “He was one of the better guys in the park. I saw all the love and respect he got and I was like, ‘Wow, I want to be like that.’” Ryan’s brother spotted his abilities and took him from his friends and had him play against his own. “I was like 13 or 14 and I thought I was going to get killed. But now I’m better than them, so we’re not playing them no more. Now we’re across the park with the guys who are even older, even better.”

‘NO ONE’S GOING TO BOTHER YOU HERE. AND THAT MADE A DIFFERENCE FOR THE KIDS’ But for Ryan, the real test lay across the river in Manhattan. On a court that had actually been a conduit for players like former Knick Anthony Mason and much-travelled Brooklynite Smush Parker to enter the NBA, and had also attracted NBA players like the legendary Julius ‘Dr J’ Erving to try a hand against the cream of the streetball game. These tall,

thrilling tales can be seen in Bobbito Garcia’s heartfelt tribute to the scene, the documentary Doin’ it in the Park. Jack Ryan is part of that story – basketball magazine Slam has proclaimed him one of the ‘Greatest Playground Ballers of all Time’ – and his arrival on the scene was as dramatic as you could hope. “I always knew about West 4th and I thought, well everyone else thinks I’m good – I think I’m pretty good – let’s see how good I really am. So I rode my bike there and I didn’t know a soul. And I don’t think there was any other white player there. But I parked my bike, and they were down the other end, and I was down this end.” Ryan walked to the spot where his life took off in 1997 and pointed out to me where it happened – that even with the uneven surface, there was a perfect sweet spot from which to launch an assault on the basket. “I had a basketball and I just came down and tomahawked a dunk right there. I went back and did it again and it didn’t take long before one of the guys here, Sherman – we’re like brothers now – shouted, ‘Uh-oh, we got a white boy dunkin’.’ And I got on a game, and I was there every day. And I thought, this West 4th Street, there’s no better place.” Ryan is not shy to point out that the reason he loves this court is, “I’ve always been a show-off. I don’t want to play like a normal white guy. I was flashy and look – I have my audience, and they’re here to see me perform.” And he has expanded this ability to entertain into a show that features at Knicks half-times at Madison

SPORT | New York Basketball

Renaissance Ballroom souvenir program, 1965

Square Garden, and with the Harlem Wizards, a Globetrotters-style team that does school fundraisers, playing against teams of teachers, police and firemen “with two or three skits per quarter”. When you put all this together, it is perhaps not surprising that Ryan’s life is about to become the stuff of Hollywood – Justin Timberlake will play him in a film due in 2015. Ryan is happy with that. “He is an above-average player,” he says. “We played together, and he played hard. He definitely knows the game. He asked to play Horse [a game of one-on-one] after, and his friends were like, ‘You gotta beat him or we’ll never hear the end of it’. And he’d already beaten [Dallas Maverick] Dirk Nowitzki and [Cleveland Cavalier] Mike Miller. I beat him first game, I beat him second game, and he was like ‘OK, again!’ And he was in a rush, he had to go. After the fourth game I beat him, he’s like, ‘I can’t go out like this. One more!’ After seven games, he didn’t beat me one game, he didn’t come close. I don’t care who he is. I’ll beat him again.” Better-than-average wouldn’t have gotten Timberlake a game on the actual West 4th Street courts. But as Ryan’s former Cage coach Arnie Segarra points out, that could also be an issue for bona fide players from the, for want of a better word, legitimate game. “Streetball is freeflowing, and those who come out of the more structured game, even the pros, can struggle to adapt. The guys who would come down here out of college ball, you

had to unlearn them. If you have the ball and you pass it, you’re not going to see it again. I call it the Bermuda Triangle,” which is clever wordplay on the system Phil Jackson adopted and made famous, the Triangle Offense. Segarra is a native New Yorker of Puerto Rican descent who moved to the Village in 1967. He was there when the West 4th Street court came into its own. “NYU was one of the top 10 basketball programmes in the country. Some of the players would come down here during lunchtime, and other guys would come along and challenge them. That was the beginnings of it on this court. And they’d come from all over to the Village. And look, you’ve got restaurants, you’ve got eye candy – men and women! – and no one’s going to bother you here. And that made a difference for the kids because some of the neighbourhoods were rough.” Up in Harlem is another legendary ball park, Rucker Park, opened in 1950 by local teacher Holcombe L Rucker to give the local underprivileged kids some safe fun and even a shot at a college scholarship through the game. It, too, has had the greats grace its courts – oldschool heroes like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain, to modern-day superstars like Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. But basketball’s roots in the area go back decades earlier, all the way to where the game as we know it began. A couple of blocks over and a few streets down on West 138th Street is the

Abyssinian Baptist Church. Created from a mosaic of rock seemingly alien to the area, its services attract worshippers from across the world that queue around the corner and down the street for the chance to hear the choir in full voice. To do so, they stand alongside a derelict building that offers no obvious clues as to its past. I am on the corner beside this building with Claude Johnson, a man who has worked with brands like Nike and Phat Farm, but in recent years has made it his mission to protect an important chapter in history. And this building, the old Renaissance Ballroom, is a bricks-andmortar focus for that task. “You come here now and you still say, ‘Wow,’” says Johnson. “There are some old photographs of it, and you can see how beautiful the signage and the people were. It’s too bad. But it’s not too late, even if they put the footprint inside the condo – if they build one. Or a display telling the history, even a little gift shop.” The reason Johnson is so interested in an old dance hall goes to the heart of the game of basketball. On completion of the Ballroom in 1924, the venue became home to the first all-black professional basketball team, the Harlem Rens. Johnson is the man who started and runs the Black Fives Foundation – which does everything from preserving artefacts of the era to contacting and connecting descendants of the original teams. “The game became popular here on an amateur level in the early > 159

New York Renaissance aka the Rens, 1939

1900s, through the 1910s. But when they realised they had so many people willing to pay for tickets, that there was so much revenue, managers and players said, ‘Shouldn’t we get a cut?’” “Then eventually the semi-pro idea of splitting the gate became professionalised, as much as anything to stop what was called ‘player jumping’ – guys who would play for two or three different teams in a day. So the first four-year contracts were drawn up to create genuinely professional teams, and that was this one. But you could only become one of these new professional teams if you had a home base. So Bob Douglas, whose Spartan Braves had been playing at the Manhattan Casino – right next to Rucker Park – approached the West Indian owner who was developing these blocks and said, ‘If you let us play here, we’ll change our name.” Thus the Rens were born. Johnson said the Ballroom was the hot spot in Harlem, “A major neighbourhood community event. It was dancing, a game, and more dancing! They always had a house band – and when I say house band, I mean [pioneering swing band] the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra!” From here, the reputation of this nigh-on unbeatable team and the brand of basketball they played started to filter out of the area and across the country. “Newspapers such as the New York Age and Amsterdam News – what was called the ‘Negro press’ – were distributed nationally, and they started to cover the 160

scene. And it just spread. And the best teams were from New York. The first two – what were called ‘Coloured Basketball World Champions’ – were from New York City. And because there were more people here, there was more talent, and there were more spectators.”

‘THE FIRST TWO – WHAT WERE CALLED ‘COLOURED BASKETBALL CHAMPIONS’ – WERE FROM NEW YORK’ Contemporary basketball at its best is as much entertainment as athleticism, and as this story proves it was always like that, and for good reason. Today, Johnson endeavours to ensure that the Black Fives leagues find their place in the timeline of the sport, and he does that in a variety of ways. Nike produced a limited edition of their bestselling basketball shoes with the Black Fives logo on them, and in 2015, Johnson

plans to bring back to life clothing from seven original teams from seven cities, in collaboration with 47 Brand, who already work with the NBA on clothing ranges. While if you happen to be in New York at any time, you can go along to the home of the Nets in Brooklyn and see a mural portraying the story of the Black Fives and their place in the city’s history. “The Barclays Centre actually got in touch, and the owners – including Jay-Z – approved it.” says Johnson. “So when they opened the arena, I asked if I could bring some descendants, and I found 40. And they got to sit in the owner’s suite and go out onto centre court at half-time.” What’s more, this exhibition, it turns out, almost perfectly squares the circle of the game’s connection with the city. Founded in Brooklyn in 1904, the Smart Set Athletic Club created, Johnson says, “The first independent, fully organised, all-black basketball team. They played their first game at a place called the Knickerbocker Courts, which was actually an indoor handball court – the game they play downtown alongside the West 4th Street Cage. Back in those days, handball was the most popular game among Irish immigrants. That changed when outdoor courts were introduced, so basketball got its balcony, and its shiny floor.” blackfives.org hoopwizard.com nba.com

SPORT | New York Basketball

Claude Johnson in a replica New York Rens vest outside the teamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s former HQ, Harlem

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CINEMA

Joe Meek

Telstar. The Outlaws. The Tornados. Holloway Road. Words Andy Thomas

On the wall of a 24-hour grocery shop on the Holloway Road, obscured by a satellite dish, is a small plaque to one of the most important figures of postwar pop culture. It was here at number 304 that maverick producer Joe Meek changed the face of British music forever. Meek formed his RGM Sound Ltd above leathergoods store AH Shenton on this traffic-choked north London street in late 1960. Recording artists from his homemade bedroom studio, he was the original DIY producer, a sonic pioneer years ahead of his time. Tape loops, multiple overdubbing, phasing, distortion, compression, echo, reverb and sampling were just some of his innovations. Despite his avant-garde leanings, in the early 1960s he had a string of hits, including No.1s for the Tornados’ ‘Telstar’ and John Leyton’s ‘Johnny Remember Me’. But beneath the pop veneer were ghostly sounds and haunting lyrics that point to Meek’s obsessions with outer space and the occult. Fuelled by diet pills and a compulsive work ethic, his volatility increased as the hits dried up. In 1967, gripped by paranoia, he shot his landlady before turning the gun on himself. Joe Meek has remained something of a cult figure. We had to wait until 2001 for an in-depth biography, John Repsch’s The Legendary Joe Meek: The Telstar Man; a film, Telstar, followed in 2008. Now a documentary from Howard Berger and Susan Stahman, A Life in the Death of Joe Meek, is to shed more light on his creative genius. “We wanted the audience to come up with their own impression of Joe Meek,” Berger says. “There was going to be some good things and some bad. He had so often been portrayed simply as this freakish character that had this horrific ending. But we started to learn about him as a human being, about his interests, passions and experimentations. We’re not saying overlook the horror of 170

the last few minutes of his life, but look at what he achieved, and his influence.” Robert George Meek was born in Newent, Gloucestershire in 1929. One of three brothers, he was nicknamed Joe by his grandmother. Something of a mother’s boy, he was called a sissy around the small village. He sought escape in technology, repairing broken radios and rewiring electronic components in his parents’ garden shed. “I was radio-mad, I couldn’t keep my hands off valves and wires,” he recalled. From an early age he was obsessed by sound. “He used to get up at 3am and put microphones out on the walls to record the early-morning birds singing,” his brother Eric told John Repsch. “He’d have me spinning round the corners, ripping on the brakes and smashing glass to sound like a car crash.” Joe acquired his first gramophone at age five and by the time he was 16 had built a valve amplifier and a TV from scratch. He used homemade equipment to provide music and effects for amateur dramatic societies, and at the same time was a mobile DJ playing village-hall discos. His love of technology was matched by his interest in outer space, furthered when he became an RAF radar mechanic. In 1953, he got a job repairing TVs for the Midlands Electricity Board but spent more time experimenting with tapes. “He was sticking sounds on top of each other, going from tape to tape, three or more times,” said Repsch. “Odd noises went into 10-minute horror stories: a few suitably menacing words mixed with such homemade sound effects as the crunch of gravel, a knock at the door, an eerie scream.” At MEB he built a disc cutter and made his first record, a collection of sound effects. In 1954, he moved to London to work as an audio engineer for International Broadcasting Company, making shows for Radio Luxembourg. He also worked on records like Humphrey

Lyttleton’s top-20 hit ‘Bad Penny Blues’. The late British trumpeter called Meek “the first of the creative sound mixers”. Writer Travis Elborough, who recently chaired a Q&A at a London screening of A Life in the Death of Joe Meek, agrees. “He was really aware of the idea of the studio as its own instrument. I think it’s a significant shift, what he did with ‘Bad Penny Blues’, the way he manipulated the piano and brought the brushes up.” ‘Bad Penny Blues’ was part of a session for Denis Preston of Lansdowne Studios. Preston recalled it was Meek, not the musicians, who sent it into the charts. “I think it was Joe’s concept. He had that forward drum sound, which no engineer at the time would have conceived of doing, with echo.” In a recent article for Recording magazine, Barry Cleveland, author of Joe Meek’s Bold Techniques, explained how Meek differed from other sound engineers. “In the mid-1950’s, British engineers were essentially scientists that wore white lab coats and were expected to ‘record by the book’. Meek almost singlehandedly led the revolution that ultimately toppled that regime, implementing many firsts along the way.” Around this time he really started to experiment with reverberation. “Not content with just sticking a speaker and a microphone in the bathroom, he would try them out inside a dustbin or down a drainpipe and record what came out the other end,” said John Repsch. At IBC, he also engineered a series of influential skiffle hits in the mid-1950s for Lonnie Donegan, but was soon annoying staff by constantly changing the EQs on the tape machines. He left to join Denis Preston’s famous studio and, despite impressing the musicians there, had a typically fractious relationship with Preston and was soon asked to leave, but not before accusing colleagues of spying on him. His paranoia and temper worsened with his pill intake. >

Joe Meek in his studio, Holloway Road, London, 1963

The Tornados, 1963

“I have to watch these [record company] people like a hawk,” he told the BBC in 1964. On leaving Lansdowne in 1959, Meek launched Triumph Records with William Barrington Coupe, had a hit with Michael Cox’s ‘Angela Jones’, but sought more creative freedom. Finally, his ambition to own his own studio was fulfilled through a wealthy benefactor: toy importer Major Wilfred Alonzo Banks. Moving to his tiny Holloway Road studio, Joe Meek became Britain’s first independent pop producer. “The fact that he was independent was very important,” says writer Jon Savage. “He was totally on his own, in many ways.” Freed of the constraints of major studios, his sonic innovations knew no limits. His recording techniques form part of his legend. Using the bathroom as an echo chamber, percussion made by stomping on the floor, flushing toilets played backwards, banging broomsticks on bathtubs, anything to achieve the sounds in his head. Meek could well have remained an avant-garde artist. Hearing his Triumph concept LP I Hear A New World: Outer Space Music 172

Fantasy, you may well have expected it to be the road he’d take as the 1960s dawned. A milestone in space-age exotica, its use of stereo and tape delay on the crudest of equipment was hugely prophetic. His recently purchased clavioline keyboard enhanced the mood; other studio tricks included vibrating knives, fingers rubbed across combs, bubbles blown in water. Introducing one of the more experimental tracks by his band the Blue Men, ‘The Entry of the Globbots’, in the sleeve notes, Meek claimed: “This is one of the tracks where you can almost see the type of people that live on one section of the moon.” But it was as a pop subvertist that Joe Meek is best remembered. The avalanche of hits began with ‘Johnny Remember Me’. Penned by Geoff Goddard and processed to eerie effect by Meek, it was one of a number of ‘death discs’ banned in the early 1960s by the BBC. “There was also a real gay sensibility about ‘Johnny Remember Me,’” says Jon Savage. “I think of it as the sound of melodrama. It’s also very teenage. There is a kind of innocence but, at the same

time, darkness to it. ‘Wildwind’ [Meek’s next record with John Leyton] is even more hysterical. Suddenly the level in the middle just goes up and stays up. It’s very, very strange.” Despite their strangeness, these songs were, of course, consumed as pop records at the time. “They were really odd but nobody had honed down what a pop single should sound like yet,” says Travis Elborough. “So what you did with those three minutes of vinyl was still an unknown quantity. Meek’s great thing, of course, was novelty, and people loved that. He drew a lot from TV; westerns and things like that. It was the same with outer space. All this entered the public consciousness with the postwar interest in flying saucers, then Sputnik; it was his ability to recreate those epic panoramas in small rooms in north London.” Goddard would become Meek’s partner on a string of hits for groups like the Outlaws, Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers, and Screaming Lord Sutch. As Bob Stanley wrote in his pop history Yeah Yeah Yeah: “The classic RGM single was so sonically compressed it sounded like

CINEMA | Joe Meek an orchestra had been squeezed into a wardrobe.” Meek’s sound was as expansive as it was claustrophobic. “He created very strange atmospheres,” says Howard Berger. “You listen to his stuff in the early 1960s, like Joy & Dave, and he was five years ahead of his time. It was a very three-dimensional sound. He was creating beautiful soundscapes and playing with different level of compression. Certain instrument sections were very open and others were compressed really tightly.” Meek revelled in pushing the technology to the limit. His use of distortion would become commonplace but at the time was hugely inventive, as was his treatment of drums. “What he did with the drums on the Outlaws’ ‘Crazy Drums’ was just fabulous,” says Elborough. “On that you’ve got the immediate pre-cursor for what Martin Hannett did with Joy Division on ‘She’s Lost Control.’” He also, of course, loved echo, and had a number of homemade devices he would use to create reverb. This was all created in a studio set up about as far from the formality of Abbey Road as you could imagine. “Some people called it a dump,” says Howard Berger. “It couldn’t compete with other studios in terms of money or veneer, it was its own very grassroots thing. I think the way the studio was ‘not designed’ was reflective of the immediacy and the sound coming out of it.” John Repsch described the room: “Joining the yards of electric cables draping the floor were great strands of reel-to-reel recording tape. Anyone looking in would see a jumble of Heath Robinson-style machinery and a mass of apparently tangled wires with barely space to walk. And yet he could reach down amongst the mess, join two wires together and immediately produce the sound he wanted.” Berger is keen to give credit to the musicians who worked at 304 Holloway Road: “This was never just a story about Joe Meek. It was this river of amazing and often overlooked talent that is, in some cases, Joe’s equal. Some of the musicianship on these tracks is just amazing, I mean really incredible instrumentation and arrangements.” Meek’s biggest success was ‘Telstar’. “One thing that was really fascinating about Meek and that whole era in British music is the success of the instrumental,” says Travis Elborough. “You had groups like the Tornados and the Shadows having huge instrumental hits.” The first British No.1 in the UK and USA, ‘Telstar’ was inspired by the communications

satellite launched in 1962. While space certainly fascinated Meek, his greatest obsession, which he shared with Goddard, was the paranormal. They wrote ‘Tribute to Buddy Holly’ for Mike Berry (and the Outlaws) after contacting the recently departed singer through a séance. When interviewed on the subject for the Psychic News, Meek said: “I am sure I receive my inspiration from the spirit world. When I wrote ‘Johnny Remember Me’ it was early in the morning and I just opened my eyes. I always keep a tape recorder by my bed, and I sang that song into it without working on it at all. As a gay man living through the witch-hunts of 1950s Britain, Meek had good reason to escape into other worlds. “He grew up at a time when the view of homosexuality was really bad, it was a very ugly time,” says Jon Savage. “People like Meek were guilt-ridden and still living

‘THE FACT THAT HE WAS INDEPENDENT WAS VERY IMPORTANT, HE WAS TOTALLY ON HIS OWN’ under the dreadful threat of the illegality, which was horrible.” In 1963, Joe Meek was arrested for importuning in a public toilet on Madras Place just off Holloway Road. With his name splashed across the tabloids he was the target of blackmailers and a figure of abuse. He responded with his last No.1, the Honeycombs’ ‘Have I the Right’, a thinly veiled song about repressed sexuality. The B-side to his last Tornados production ‘Is That a Ship I Hear?’ was ‘Do You Come Here Often’, a bigger two fingers to the bigots. “He was really having fun with that, getting something over on people,” says Savage. But the arrest created a spiral of amphetamine-induced paranoia. Things worsened with money troubles and a lack of hits in the mid-60s, and when Phil Spector called one day, apparently to acknowledge Meek’s influence on his

‘Wall of Sound’, he was called a thief and hung-up on. Though similarly preoccupied with the success of George Martin with the Beatles, Howard Berger thinks Meek’s jealousy of other producers has been overstated: “There was rivalry, there were so many amazing songs around – but Joe was not a stupid guy and he appreciated other producers doing amazing things. He was in a position of competition, though, and there were going to be days when he showed that to some people.” While Meek’s hits certainly dried up, he was responsible for a string of cultish 7-inches. “By then he would probably have been seen as out of date, so they were never hits,” says Savage, “but he produced some wonderful freakbeat records, like the Buzz’s ‘You’re Holding Me Down’, ‘Crawdaddy Simone’ by the Syndicats, ‘Come on Back’ by Paul Ritchie and the Cryin’ Shames, and Jason Eddie and the Centremen’s ‘Singing the Blues’. They are all very odd, the production was way out from what else was going on.” But the vivid, fantastical imagination that had fed his best work had turned selfdestructive and ‘Come on Back’ would be one of the last records he produced. Fuelled by a worsening pill addiction, by the time of a court case over ‘Telstar’ royalties he was teetering on the edge. Believing his studio to be bugged, real and imagined threats abounded and his behaviour became erratic. His paranoia peaked with his belief that he would be implicated in the ‘Suitcase Murder’ of a young male prostitute he knew. On 3 February, the eighth anniversary of Buddy Holly’s death, he shot Mrs Shenton with a single-barreled shotgun, then himself. Despite biographies and biopics, Joe Meek’s creative genius has been blurred by his troubled life, and A Life in the Death of Joe Meek seeks to straighten the record. Howard Berger and Susan Stahman’s belief in the project was reinforced when they had a private screening for the Music Producers Guild. “I was shocked to see who turned up,” says Berger. “All these legendary producers that I admired were there. I discovered that growing up, Joe was their hero. To suddenly see so many people there who were influenced by him in such a strong, almost religious way, that was the real shocker for me.” A Life in the Death of Joe Meek is out next year joemeekdoc.com

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BULLETIN

Joseph wears T-shirt by Dickies. Joel wears T-shirt by Dickies; hat by Converse.

Dickies 67 Collection Photographs Rob Lowe Styling Mia Howe Words Edward Moore Skaters Joseph McDermott and Joel Wilson Location Frontside Gardens, 67 Rothbury Road, Hackney Wick, London E9 frontside.org.uk

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for skaters with such added features as reinforced stitching and flexible fabrics. dickiesstreetwear.com

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BULLETIN | Dickies 67 Collection

Joseph wears sweater and trousers by Dickies; trainers by Converse; hat, stylistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own.

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GALLERY

Mister Bounce, 27, Radio King Online, Brixton; wears T-shirt by Jonny Cupcakes What kind of music do you play? Grime, UK rap, hip-hop. When did you first start playing on the radio? Nine years ago. Describe your style. Energetic, educational, creative. Who are your favourite musicians? Preditah, Sir Spyro, Swifta Beater, Blade Brown. What’s your favourite tune right now? ‘JAWS’ by Lxury, ‘On A Level’ by Wiley, ‘Eyes Closed’ by Blade Brown. Who are your favourite DJs? DJ EZ, Kayper, Jazzy Jeff, Logan Sama, Oneman. What’s so special about music? It has the power to change emotions.

radiokingonline.com

London Underground Radio Photographs Orlando Gili Words Mark Webster

Pirate radio in the UK has come a long way, quite literally, since early broadcasts in the mid-1960s from fishing trawlers and platforms off the Essex coast, well beyond the grasp of the authorities. The era really began when Ronan O’Rahilly – inspired by earlier Scandinavian pirates – established Radio Caroline aboard the MV Caroline because he couldn’t get a Georgie Fame record programmed on pop station Radio Luxembourg. The need to distribute the music that established stations wouldn’t 178

play drove much of what happened subsequently. Twenty years later, the battlefield had moved to the tops of tower blocks where the cat-and-mouse chase with the Department of Trade and Industry became more like guerilla warfare. Kiss FM was one of those pioneering stations, of course, but went legit as dance music seemed to get a hold on the mainstream. Music moved on, inevitably; styles split to create new hybrids, while the voices of those bringing the music also

changed to reflect the culture and the audience. In the 21st century, modern pirate stations don’t need ships and tower blocks to get their message out there. Indeed, they needn’t even be satisfied tucked away on FM, not with the internet at their disposal. Though the technology may have shrunk, it would seem the appetites of listeners and the desire to spread the word simply won’t diminish.

Michael Nguyen, 26, Reprezent 107.3FM, Peckham; wears top and T-shirt by Adidas; jeans by Levi’s What kind of music do you play? Afrobeat. When did you first start playing on the radio? April 2013. Describe your style. I grew up listening to garage and grime DJs, so I love to mix. What’s so special about playing live radio? You never know who’s listening; the Queen might be locked in. Who’s your favourite producer/musician? The Neptunes. What’s your favourite tune right now? ‘Wo Onane No’ by Kwamz & Flava. Who are your favourite DJs? DJ EZ and Jazzy Jeff.

reprezent.org.uk

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GALLERY | London Underground Radio Martyn Bonanza, Resonance 104.4FM, London Bridge; wears vintage shirt by Ely Cattleman, jeans by Edwin Jeans Where are you from? Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. What kind of music do you play? Americana and country, krautrock, psych and soul. Describe your style. Someone once described my show Bonanza & Son as John Peel fighting with Liam Gallagher over whether to play Johnny Cash or Steve Earle. Who are your favourite musicians? Mickey Newbury and Bob Dylan. What’s your favourite tune right now? ‘Yeah OK, I Know’ by Christian Lee Hutson. Who’s your favourite DJ? Andrew Weatherall.

Resonance’s annual fundraiser runs from 9-15 February 2015 resonancefm.com

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Gabriel Kariuki, 42, Liquid Live, Peckham; wears sweater by Puma; jeans by Levi’s; trainers by Adidas What kind of music do you play? House. When did you first start playing on the radio? Ten years ago. Describe your style. Dark and brooding. Who’s your favourite producer/ musician? Cajmere. What are your favourite tunes right now? ‘Dance to the Death’ by Bellavoid and ‘The Ride’ by Just Joe & Max Britton. Who’s your favourite DJ? Derrick May. What’s so special about music? Like Bob Marley said, ‘When it hits you, you feel no pain’.

liquidlive.net

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GALLERY | London Underground Radio DJ Brockie, 43, Koollondon, Hackney; wears T-shirt by Billionaire Boys Club; jeans by True Religion What kind of music do you play? Drum and bass, jungle. When did you first start playing on the radio? 1991. Describe your style. I’m a rave DJ and play across the board. What’s so special about playing live radio? It’s real as it can get, one to one with the people. Who’s your favourite producer/musician? Det and Ed Solo. What’s your favourite tune right now? ‘System Check’ by Brockie & Ed Solo. Who’s your favourite DJ? DJ Eastman. What’s so special about music? Keeps me alive, ever I think.

Koollondon’s 23rd Birthday is at Warehouse London, Harbet Road, London N18 on 19 December. DJ Brockie’s EP The Story So Far, Past and Present comes out in 2015 koollondon.com warehouseldn.co.uk undilutedrecords.com

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HISTORY

Sam Cooke Bertha Franklin. Civil Rights Movement. Soul. Words Chris Sullivan

Fifty years ago this month, on Friday 11 December 1964, ‘The King of Soul’ Sam Cooke was found by police sitting, back against the wall in a hotel room, naked but for an overcoat and one shoe. He had a lump the size of an egg jutting out of his crown. One .22-calibre bullet nestled in his chest having careered through his lungs and heart. The room at the sleazy $3-a-night Hacienda Motel on Figueroa Street in South Los Angeles belonged to a Bertha Franklin, the motel’s homely 55-year-old manager. Cooke’s red Ferrari sat empty outside except for a bottle of whisky and a copy of Black Muslim periodical Muhammad Speaks. When police arrived at the scene they found Franklin covered in blood but unharmed. Her .22 was loaded with three bullets; three casings lay nearby. She said the dead man arrived at 2.35am with a female companion and went to sign the ledger. “I told him, I saw her. ‘You will have to put ‘Mr and Mrs.’” Cooke had appeared on The Tonight Show and Ed Sullivan many times and was as famous as any black man in the world, yet gladly registered using his real name. They sloped off to their room, but 20 minutes later he was back, knocking on Bertha’s door dressed in just an overcoat, looking for his lady friend. The manager, right then on the phone to motel owner Evelyn Carr, told him she wasn’t there. At 3.08am, police were called by one Elisa Boyer from a nearby phone booth. “Will you please come down to this number? I don’t know where I am. I’m kidnapped,” she said. Franklin later claimed the ‘man’ had returned asking for the girl but, when told she wasn’t there, smashed the door in, searched the room, then grabbed her by the wrists and demanded to know where 184

she was. They fell to the floor, wrestling. “I tried to bite him through that jacket,” said Franklin. “Biting, scratching and everything. Finally I got up, when I kicked him, I run and grabbed the pistol off the TV and I shot… at close range... three times.” By her account, though the bullet went through his heart, he came at her again so she whacked him hard over the head him a broom handle. His last words were, apparently, “Lady, you shot me.” Carr, still on the phone, hung up and phoned police at about 3.15am. “I think she shot him,” Carr said. Meanwhile, just half a block away, the cops had located the 22-year-old Boyer. She showed them where she’d thrown the man’s clothes but failed to mention the thin wallet in which Cooke carried his credit cards, his wad of cash or his driver’s licence, which were never retrieved. She was taken to the precinct where she told her side of the story. She said she’d met Cooke for the first time that night at a dinner party in Hollywood. They adjourned to a club, PJ’s, where she claimed he got in an argument with a man so she asked to be taken home. But, instead of taking her north to where she lived, he went south towards Watts. At the Hacienda Motel, he left her in the car as he registered then “dragged me into that room... pulled my sweater off… and ripped my dress off. I knew he was going to rape me.” Boyer said in the midst of his attack the rapist undressed and went to the bathroom. “I picked up my clothes and bag and ran out,” she maintained. She said she then banged on the manager’s door to no avail so pulled on her jumper and walked up the block, only to discover she had his shirt, trousers and sports jacket tangled in her clothes. The police logged Cooke’s

body in the morgue at 4.15am. An 11am autopsy showed 0.14 percent blood alcohol, 0.08 being the legal driving limit, and no sign of drugs. By 3pm, the corpse lay in the nearby People’s Funeral Home. By the inquest on 16 December, some 60,000 weeping teenagers and elderly gospel fans had queued to view the body. The two-hour inquest seemed contrived to conceal a murky agenda. The coroner disallowed the Cooke family lawyer from asking known callgirl Boyer (aka Crystal Chan Young, Jasmine Jay and Elsie Nakama) what she did for a living as he thought it might prejudice the jury. Boyer left without cross-examination. The coroner then declared that, as Franklin had no lawyer, she couldn’t be questioned either and she also left. A policeman then stood up and, telling the court that they’d both passed lie-detector tests, verified their stories. The inquest never established why the singer was in such a rage, why Boyer didn’t run away earlier, how a large, older woman could overpower a fit 33-year-old man or where his money, wallet and ID went. The jury thus accepted the image of a drunken, rampaging, rapist negro without question. The shooting was ruled “justifiable homicide” by the 15-man jury who never thought to question the police version. Case closed. America’s black press went ballistic with banner headlines lambasting the injustice, exposing Boyer as a prostitute of four years standing, and accusing an openly racist LAPD of a cover-up. The white press largely ignored it all. It was a national outrage. Consequently, at the first of Cooke’s two funerals, a visibly moved Muhammad Ali told the assembly, “I don’t like the way he was shot. I don’t like the way it was investigated. >

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HISTORY | Sam Cooke If Cooke had been Frank Sinatra, the Beatles or Ricky Nelson, the FBI would have been investigating yet and that woman would have been sent to prison.” At the time, Cooke was as big as Sinatra. Only Elvis outsold him on RCA Records. Cooke’s second funeral service took place at Mount Sinai Baptist Church in LA. By 5pm, 5000 people had the church surrounded and folks fought and jostled and sold Cooke memorabilia on the pavement. Inside, Billy Preston played the organ prelude and Lou Rawls and Bobby Bland sang hymns while the congregation wailed and shouted, “You can’t take Sam, Lord!” Then Ray Charles walked down the aisle, touched the casket, turned with tears streaming down his face and said, “Sam, baby this is for you,” and sang a slow version of the old spiritual ‘Angels Keep Watching Over Me’. None of this was surprising, of course. This was Sam Cooke, who many claim invented soul music, and whose whole life seemed dedicated to the conceit. Cooke was born on 2 January, 1931 in Clarksdale, Mississippi, the fifth of eight children. The vicinity spawned many legendary American bluesmen: Robert Johnson, BB King, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and Howlin’ Wolf. Cooke’s mother Annie Mae and his father Charles Cook, who turned from cotton picking to preaching, joined the migration from the Depressionravaged South and moved to Chicago in 1934. Cook Sr found a job preaching and started a family religious act, The Singing Children. Sam was lead tenor. They settled in Bronzeville, the centre of a growing black musical culture where the likes of Billy Eckstein, sax giant Gene Ammons and a young Ella Fitzgerald regularly displayed their talents. It was a tough neighbourhood. Cooke joined a ‘club’, or gang, known as the Junior Destroyers. “We used to fight quite a bit,” he once explained. “And we all had our territory.” After singing professionally for five years, Cooke, aged 15, formed a gospel quintet, the Highway QC’s. In 1950, he became the lead singer for major gospel act the Soul Stirrers and promptly went on the road for six years, performing at least 1000 concerts all over the US while clocking black pop artists Little Richard and Chuck Berry attracting ‘chessboard’ audiences of both whites and blacks. This was where Cooke needed to go. In 1957, he recorded his first single under his own name (he’d added the ‘e’), 186

George Gershwin’s ‘Summertime’, but it was b-side ‘You Send Me’ that got DJ juices flowing and on 1 December, Cooke sang the song on The Ed Sullivan Show. It subsequently sold two million copies and was No.1 on both the R&B and Billboard Chart. Sam Cooke had arrived. He was 26 and had sung professionally for 16 years. Over the next seven years, Cooke became perhaps the biggest soul singer in the world. He had 30 hits globally, including the still enormously familiar, ‘Only Sixteen’, ‘Everybody Likes to Cha Cha Cha’, ‘Wonderful World’, ‘Chain Gang’, ‘Cupid’, ‘Havin’ a Party’, ‘Bring it on Home’ and ‘Twistin’ the Night Away’. He was the biggest crossover artist of the day, loved by both black and white, with an $100,000 advance from RCA and ownership of all his work. He started his own record and publishing companies,

COOKE WAS SET TO BE A LEADING CAMPAIGNER IN THE FIGHT AGAINST RACISM unheard of in the 1950s and 1960s, particularly among black artists. Certainly, this was another reason why Cooke was held in such high regard. He was vehement about African-American common liberties. His rise to fame had run parallel with the burgeoning civil rights movement and, as a young singer, he’d suffered the prejudices of the South. He and his band travelled hundreds of miles to find lodgings that would accept them, washed in truck-stop toilets and were refused service in restaurants and diners all over the South. He was close by when 14-year-old Emmett Till, who also hailed from Chicago, while visiting relatives in Mississippi (just 20 miles from where the singer was born) was captured, tortured and murdered for allegedly whistling at a white woman. Cooke was also touring the South when Rosa Parks was arrested on 1 December 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing

to give up her bus seat to a white man. No wonder then, that he spoke out. His editorial encouraging black people to ‘have the courage to stand up and be counted’ was nationally syndicated in 1960. He refused to play to segregated audiences in Little Rock, Arkansas, so had them string along a rope to separate black and white. Eventually he got to cancelling shows that were segregated. Then on 8 October 1963, Cooke, at the height of his fame – along with his wife, brother, and friend and Soul Stirrers’ manager SR Crane – were denied rooms in Shreveport, Louisiana’s whites-only Holiday Inn. They kicked up a fuss, were arrested for disturbing the peace, taken to a cell and later bailed. Spurred on by the incident and inspired over Christmas by Bob Dylan’s ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’, Cooke wrote ‘A Change is Gonna Come’, and recorded it in January. The song celebrated and championed the efforts of the growing Civil Rights movement and was a risky release for the pop artist. Nevertheless, when he appeared on Johnny Carson’s hugely popular The Tonight Show in February 1964 he insisting on debuting the song which became the anthem for the civil rights movement and, it’s said, was sung at Malcolm X’s funeral. It was certainly sung at President Obama’s inauguration in Washington in 2009. Everything was thus set for Cooke to become a leading campaigner in the fight against racism in the US. In February 1964, he’d met to discuss politics and religion with friends Malcolm X and Cassius Clay in Miami (where Clay was set to fight heavyweight champ Sonny Liston), and in the summer donated all proceeds of ‘A Change is Gonna Come’ to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, after which Dr Martin Luther King asked him to participate in the biggest civil rights benefit concert yet. In July, the Civil Rights Act was passed, outlawing racial discrimination, and Cooke’s enormously prescient song was triumphantly blasted across the US. Headlines on that fateful December day told of the release of 19 white males suspected of killing three civil rights workers in Mississippi; King’s acceptance of the Nobel Prize and his immortal speech days before: “I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him.” As the newspapers were delivered, Cooke lay dead, battered and shot, the victim of

‘unfolding events’. But was it the work of outside agents, or of his own making? The anomalies surrounding Cooke’s death are legion. To begin, Boyer said on oath that they’d first met at a Hollywood party where he’d sang, while in fact they hooked up at Martoni’s Italian restaurant in Hollywood where he was dining with producer Al Schmitt and his wife Joan. Witnesses said they acted like old friends. She claimed the singer “kidnapped” her, but Boyer was left alone in the car when Cooke went to register so she could’ve escaped or yelled for help. If Cooke intended to rape her, why did he register using his real name? She said that she accidentally took Sam’s clothes when she grabbed her own but surely she would have noticed a shirt, jacket and trousers wrapped up with hers? And why wasn’t her account questioned? A month later she was arrested in Hollywood for prostitution and, in 1979, Boyer was found guilty of killing her boyfriend. And then there was Franklin, the former madam with her own extensive criminal record, who said she’d wrestled off this athletic man in his prime. She claimed she shot him at close range (the powder burns suggest 1.5 inches away), but two of the three shots hit the wall. How could she miss from that range? After this man who was shot through the heart rushed her, instead of shooting him again she put the gun down and hit him with a broom. Franklin, who had shot a man six months earlier at the Hacienda under suspicious circumstances, soon moved to Michigan. Both women had a motive. Witnesses at Martoni’s said Cooke had perhaps $1000 in a wad that Boyer had seen. It was never recovered. But the intrigue doesn’t end there. In her book Rage to Survive blues chanteuse Etta James revealed that when she viewed Cooke’s body in the funeral home he was so badly beaten that his head was decapitated from his shoulders, his hands were broken and crushed, his nose was smashed and he had a two-inch bump on his head. These injuries were never explained, or even questioned. Some, such as Ike Turner, apparently claimed that Franklin made arrangements with Boyer to scoop Cooke up and bring him to the motel. Entering the room, Cooke was hit from behind, knocked cold and robbed. He awoke, without most of his clothes and wallet, dashed to the office, saw the conspirators and, when they refused to open the door, kicked it in. Franklin shot him and told Boyer

Muhammad Ali and Sam Cooke in the studio, New York, 1964

to call the police from a phone booth. When the police arrived, since his wallet was stolen, they couldn’t identify Cooke and regarded it as a routine justified ghetto homicide. As one of the most famous African-Americans in the world, Franklin had to know him, especially after he signed his name. She withheld this because it would have prompted a deeper investigation there and then. The Hacienda Motel was a known hooker hangout, so it’s possible Cooke paid for sex with Boyer and, when he stepped into the bathroom, she slipped off with his credit cards and cash – a most common modus operandi, attests 1950s R&B band the Upsetters’ manager Henry Nash: “Most hookers during that day... When they would clip you, they take your clothes and shoes, especially your pants, so you couldn’t chase them,” he said. “Standard practice.” Cooke should have seen it coming. He had long let his concupiscence get

him into hot water. As a teenager, he served 90 days for handling pornography and, without doubt, had a clear history of an uninhibited sexual drive that had left offspring strewn along the path of his concert tours. In just spring 1953, he fathered three daughters to three women, the last, Linda, to long-time Chicago girlfriend Barbara Campbell. Cooke married none at the time (he tied the knot with Campbell in 1958) but wed Dolores “Dee-Dee” Mohawk who left him in 1957 due to his infidelities. When he hit it big, his manager was fending off countless paternity suits. No one knows how many children he fathered, but the manager said he signed a lot of cheques. This, of course, added massive strain to his marriage to Campbell, with whom he had two more children – Tracey in 1960, and Vincent, 12 months later. Tragically and significantly, the latter drowned in the family pool on 7 June 1963 aged 18 months after crawling out > 187

HISTORY | Sam Cooke

Photograph Jess Rand, 1960

on his hands and knees. “He blamed himself, he blamed God and he blamed Barbara. He was never the same again”, asserted the great R&B drummer Earl Palmer after the singer’s demise. “He started to drink more than I’d ever seen him. [There was] a distinct change in his personality. He was very grief-stricken.” If anyone considered that Cooke, on the night of his death, acted out of character, perhaps this was why. Still, the gospel fraternity remained unconvinced their golden boy was simply the victim of a petty crime and a raging libido. Many firmly believed the singer was assassinated by the mob; Cooke band member Paul Foster clamed he’d been battered and killed across the road from the motel and that Franklin was paid to take the heat. Curtis Womack thought that, after his run in with unions at the 188

Apollo in New York, his business with the mob at New York’s Copacabana and his cancelling of sellout shows, he got

‘SAM WAS WORTH MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE TO CERTAIN PARTIES’ too big for his boots and was executed. “I believe Sam was killed because he was worth more dead than alive to certain

parties,” Cooke’s nephew Erik Greene said. “Franklin and Boyer were both compensated for their involvement, but neither one pulled the trigger.” Others have thought his wife Barbara, who had threatened in public to shoot him, was complicit. It was common knowledge that she’d been seeing a bartender; and to make matters worse, she turned up at the Cooke’s funeral with Bobby Womack (a 21-year-old guitarist Cooke had nurtured) who was wearing Cooke’s clothes and his big gold ring. She married Womack three months later. They divorced in 1970 after Womack was caught by Barbara creeping into his step-daughter Linda’s (Cooke’s daughter) room for illicit sex (he admitted such in his autobiography Midnight Mover). She shot him, grazing his scalp. Linda later married Bobby’s youngest brother, her step-uncle Cecil, and together they became Womack & Womack. Theories regarding Cooke’s death thrive but the question remains: why were the LAPD, the DA and coroner so keen to believe such thoroughly implausible stories as told by a known prostitute and a former brothel-keeper, as Franklin was, even in the face of huge public consternation? Cooke was a huge star, so why didn’t they investigate further? People were understandably upset that the former gospel heartthrob and son of a preacher was portrayed as an oversexed potential rapist; that was not only far from the truth, but almost impossible to disprove. He could get any gal in the world and had no need of street girls. But it was what Cooke did, as his friend Bumps Blackwell once said: “Sam would walk past a good girl to get to a whore.” It seems much of the singer’s life was so right, but also so tragically wrong. Curiously, when he was laid to rest in Forest Lawn Cemetery, Los Angeles, the plaque above his grave said: SAM COOKE, I Love You 1930-1964 Until the Day Break, And the Shadows Flee Away. He was, in fact, born in January 1931. Bring it on Home: Black America Sings Sam Cooke is out now acerecords.co.uk

ICON

Sunglasses

Words Chris Sullivan Photograph Simon Styling Marco Dellasette Driver Luca Marietti Car 1974 Alfa Romeo GTA 1300 Junior, courtesy of Marietti Cars Garage marietticarsgarage.it

The first sun ‘glasses’ were invented in 12th-century China – two crude chunks of smoked quartz positioned on wooden arms to block out sunlight – and consequently, after Marco Polo opened the trade routes from his native Italy to the East, some canny knave brought them to Europe sometime after 1430, with limited success. More than a century later, some trendsetting aristocrats adopted the conceit and the rest, as they say, is history. Of course, they weren’t cheap, probably the price of a small car today. It wasn’t until optician and inventor James Ayscough came along in the mid1700s – and began prescribing cheaper tinted glass lenses for folks with a certain stigmatism – that they caught on, albeit in a mini way. Jump forward 100 years to when syphilis was prevalent, as was one symptom: extreme light sensitivity. The sunglass became a must-have item amongst the diseased and moneyed classes. It might be safe to say that even then the sunglass was a status symbol – but exposed a not-enviable condition. But it was the 20th century that saw the popularity of the sunglass take an almighty leap. Unsurprisingly, first examples were purely utilitarian as, by the first world war, the well-heeled were indeed travelling in cars and aeroplanes and, as a result, the untoward glare of the 190

sun at the wrong time and wrong place could indeed cause injury and even death. Photographer Giuseppe Ratti envisioned such and, in 1919, created ‘Protector Glasses’ for pilots and racecar drivers that were rudimentary rubber-edged smokedglass lenses attached to the head by rubber bands. So popular were they that Ratti named his company Persol (‘per il sole’ meaning ‘for the sun’), crafted a barrage of glasses and created a global identity, not just for his brand, but for Italians per se. And while the former smudger hit pay dirt in Europe, in 1929, Foster Grant founder Sam Foster sold his first pair of sunglasses on the Atlantic City boardwalk. Aided by the Hollywood acting community who sported them at every occasion, sales were through the roof. Accordingly, by the mid-1930s, just about everyone wanted in, including Army Air Corps Colonel John Macready, who commissioned New York medicalequipment manufacturer Bausch & Lomb to produce efficient eyewear to guard pilots from the perils of highaltitude glare. In 1936, the company launched ‘Anti-Glare’ sunglasses with green lenses and plastic frames, then redesigned them using polarised-lens technology recently invented by Polaroid founder Edwin H Land. Aviators were supplied free of charge and, after 1937,

the general public was able to buy the renamed Ray-Ban ‘Aviators’. Undeniably, by the 1950s, sunglasses were on everyone’s nose in the US. But for many they had lost their utility, the design often impinging on functionality. German-born Wilhelm Anger (the pioneer of plastic fashion glasses) moved into plastic ski goggles. A car enthusiast, his next move was to create a goggle range specifically for racing drivers. Thus, when asked by his marketing manager what to call his range, he said ‘Carrera’ – the gruelling Carrera Panamericana road race had finished in Mexico a day earlier. Always innovating, in 1964 Anger patented Optyl, a form of resin that was hypoallergenic, tremendously robust and 20 percent lighter than other plastics used in eyewear. Today most high-end sunglasses are made of Optyl. In 1979 he teamed up with Ferdinand Alexander Porsche to create the now iconic Carrera Porsche range of folding glasses with interchangeable lenses held in place by a hinge. Demand outweighed supply until Carrera Porsche sunglasses were the 1980s themselves – performers such as Duran Duran, Rick James, Yoko Ono, U2, Sophia Loren, Usher and Bryan Ferry have sported various models, as have the likes of drug baron Pablo Escobar, Kate Moss and Robert De Niro.

Sunglasses by Porsche Design; jacket by Closed; sweater by Lanificio Colombo; gloves, stylistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own.

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John Lobb www.johnlobb.com

Versace www.versace.com

John Smedley www.johnsmedley.com

Vionnet www.vionnet.com

John Varvatos www.johnvarvatos.com

Vivienne Westwood www.viviennewestwood.com

Johnny Cupcakes www.johnnycupcakes.com

Without Prejudice www.withoutprejudice.com

Just Cavalli www.justcavalli.com

Woolrich www.woolrich.co.uk

Justin Deakin www.justindeakin.com

Wrangler www.wrangler.co.uk

Karl Lagerfeld www.karl.com

Y-3 www.y-3.com

Kickers www.kickers.co.uk

YMC www.youmustcreate.com

Kolor www.kolor.jp

Yohji Yamamoto www.yohjiyamamoto.co.jp

Lanificio Colombo www.lanificiocolombo.com

Item:

Two Pockets with button-down flaps Box stitching over pleats

Cone Mills heavyweight denim

Single sided big â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Eâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; red tab

Riveted cuffs Buttoned waist adjusters (reverse)

The original 1953 Type II Jacket

The stitch for stitch reproduction Made in the USA levi.com/levisvintageclothing