LeftLion Magazine - April 2006 - Issue 10

King & Queen Street. Pinhole Camera. www.bophoto.co.uk

Editor at large Jared Wilson (jared@leftlion.co.uk) Guest Editors David Blenkey (reason@leftlion.co.uk) David Bowen (photography@leftlion.co.uk) Jennie Syson (jennie@leftlion.co.uk) Deputy Editors Al Needham (nishlord@leftlion.co.uk) Nathan Miller (njm@leftlion.co.uk) Technical Director Alan Gilby (alan@leftlion.co.uk) Listings Editors Tim Bates (timmy@leftlion.co.uk) Florence Gohard (florence@leftlion.co.uk) Cover Design Rob White (rob@thearthole.co.uk) Magazine Design Woot (mail@woot-design.co.uk) Proofreader Charlotte Kingsbury (charlotte@leftlion.co.uk) Website Editors Adrian Bhagat (adrian@leftlion.co.uk) Dom Henry (dom@leftlion.co.uk) Photographers Andy Alker David Bowen (david@bophoto.co.uk) Dom Henry (dom@d-lounge.co.uk) Kevin Lake (staticsoulphoto@yahoo.co.uk) Contributors Alex Kocan John Burgerman Kate Symons Meg Rowell Mista Jam Neil Higham Roger Mean Sadie Rees Hales Tom Hathaway Marketing and Sales Manager Ben Hacking (ben@leftlion.co.uk) ‘If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.’

Francis Bacon LeftLion 349a Mansfield Road Nottingham NG5 2DA 0115 9123782 If you would like to reach our readers by advertising your company in these pages please contact Ben on 07843 944910 or email ben@leftlion.co.uk LeftLion magazine has an estimated readership of 40,000 in Nottingham. www.leftlion.co.uk received over 500,000 page views in March 2005.

Over the years Nottingham has proved to be a healthily flowing tributary of creative juices, contributing much to the national art pool from DH Lawrence and Dame Laura Knight to the renowned live art and performance scene that the city has latterly become known for. The owd Trent Poly has been responsible for slinging out some mighty fine artists over the decades and illustrious alumni and teaching staff include Simon Starling, David Batchelor, Mat Collishaw, Stelarc, Caroline Locke, Nev Smith, Cary Welling to name but a few…

With lots of creative bods on the LeftLion team, we have been itching to do this for a while and this epistle includes contributions from us lot in the form of advice, trivia and ok, lots of doodling. We have tried to provide you with an honest account of what Nottingham has to offer in the ways of art, so if there are some startling omissions in your eyes, let us know so that we can come and have a butchers!

Feast your eyes on a melange of visual splendour from the spidery scrawlings of Rob White to the comical craft of Jon Burgerman’s poster. There are words of wisdom from art mentor Prof John Newling and the latest news about the Centre for Contemporary Art Nottingham currently gestating in the Lace Market. We, as ever hot on the heels of Nottingham’s cultural happenings, presents comprehensive exhibitions and events listings alongside a handy map of where you can find the best art in town. We hope to enlighten you by bouncing a few questions off the Architects of Air and tell you what’s going down with emerging artists from the city.

We also catch up wity some local musical talents who you can see (for free) at future LeftLion events such as Grain, Weeble and The Henry Road. We wax lyrical with Nightmares on Wax founder George Evelyn and are very pleased to welcome new LeftLion columnist and 1xtra DJ Mista Jam into our crew. There is also plenty of randomness from the usual suspects.

LeftLion would like to thank all the artists who have contributed material to this issue; it has been a pleasure to view such a variety of work of such a high order. We fully appreciate the effort you have all gone to, like us, you do it for the love. Respect.

Dave, David and Jennie

nOTTs THE NINE O’CLOCK NEWS

What the F@@K is art then?

Art to me is any kind of visual or audio statement that invokes or is designed to create an emotional reaction to its audience.

Pisces J Art is an interpretation of any human experience which is given a form that can be decoded by any of the human senses; touch, sight, hearing, feel, smell...

Kate Hood It needs to include deliberate human interaction. You can’t just point at a twig on the ground you’ve never seen before and say “Behold, my masterpiece”. It’s an accident and no work of art until you make it yours by photographing it, representing it, positioning it or even destroying it.

Naomi For me, for an item to be labelled as “art”, the artist must have a reasoned emotional and/or rational motive to have created it. mrgeesbigcircus Art doesn’t need definition. What’s the point? floydy Was Andy Warhol’s work art? Considering that he used loads of assistants to churn out his screen prints.

Sara The creator of the work of art, the artist, is the one who decides it is art. Tracey Emin declared that her messy bed was art, therefore it was art.

Denz We’re lucky in Hoodtown to have such a wide range of Art to look at, feel, listen to and even smell but what some claim to be art is just a lump of rock to others.

Barnze

with Nottingham’s Mr. Sex Al Needham

Feb 1

Another month, another Forest defeat (this time a 1-0 loss to Milton fucking Keynes). Megson: “I am not a quitter and have no intention of packing it in.” Ahem.

Feb 2

Six local hoolies are banned from attending Notts County games. And no, we’re not going to make the obvious joke.

Feb 3

Hospital admissions for alcoholic liver disease in Nottingham have doubled in the last five years. We’re the East Midlands’ biggest pissheads after Corby. If you’ve ever been to Corby, you’ll know why.

Feb 4

Syphilis in Nottingham has risen 2950% in four years, thanks to middle-aged wife-swappers and chatty bastards barebacking prossies. Ugh.

Feb 5

The Castle gets a new and dead massive flagpole. The last one fell down a cliff.

Feb 6

PC Rachel Bown is shot investigating a burglary in Lenton. PC Bown is currently making a full recovery and intends to return to work as soon as possible.

Feb 7

The Council announce plans to spend £350,000 on a thousand new bins. Fucking hell…that’s £350 each. No wonder your binman wears a big fuck-off gold chain.

Feb 8

CCAN

After one win in ten games and a 3-0 spanking by Oldham, Gary Megson finally packs it in at Forest. Sigh.

Outreach projects are one of the most important functions of modern galleries - are they planning any education or art therapy work alongside the exhibitions?

David

Feb 17

Art galleries always seem quite aloof to me and not very accessible or friendly. I don’t always feel as if I know what I’m supposed to be looking for.

BigFatBadger Galleries are important and getting people involved in different art media is a good thing.

However, I don’t feel that destroying one of the few peaceful areas left in the city centre is the right way to go about things.

Lady Sadie The positives will far out weight the negatives. Notts has always had a strong heritage of installation and performing art alongside painters and photographers aplenty.

Trouble is... they keep moving to pastures new because there isn’t the critical forum yet in Notts. It’s such a small scene that artists inevitably bugger off.

Niffer

The prime suspect in the Rachel Bown shooting is nicked at Heathrow. Carl Froch successfully defends his Commonwealth title for the ninth time but a bicep injury rules him out of a March fight against Brian Magee.

Feb 19

Forest’s first away win in eight and a half months, beating Port Vale 2-0. Babies have been carried to term from conception in the time that Forest were shite on the road.

Feb 22

Great news for bad hairdressers, twatty clobber shops and owners of bars that play nothing but the Arctic Monkeys in Ningo, North-East China. Nottingham University opens a new campus there.

Feb 24

Another kick in the bollocks by the stat-men. Nottingham is the fourth worst area in the UK for teen pregnancies, beaten only by Lambeth, Southwark and our evil nemesis Hull, who always beat us in shit like this.

Feb 25

Forest absolutely mash down Swindon 7-0.

Feb 27

Nottingham is named the culinary capital of UK by MSN, with more world cuisine available per square mile than anywhere else. Apparently, you could run out of a differ-

ent Indian restaurant without paying every week for the next three years, or have a random fight outside a different chippy for the next 18 months.

MAR 3

Another man is arrested for the Danielle Beccan murder.

MAR 6

The Evening Post prints a scathing review of the American band Staind’s performance at Rock City. Nothing unusual about that, because they’re cack. Unfortunately, the gig hadn’t even taken place yet, Ooer…

MAR 8

A shortage of croupiers cripples the city, with Casinos having to recruit from overseas. Apparently, young employees just refuse to work the anti-social hours, and it’s nothing to do with not wanting to be spat at by fucked-off taxi-drivers or told to ‘die in the street’ by local restauranteurs.

MAR 8

Notts County’s young defender Kelvin Wilson goes to Preston North End on loan, with a view to a permanent move. Fee undisclosed, but rumoured to be around £150,000 up front with a similar amount based upon appearances.

MAR 10

There’s a fatal stabbing in Radford. Again.

MAR 12

The shame of it; Robin Hood (or an actor who used to play him at Tales Of Robin Hood) gets three years for cocaine trafficking. We always wondered what that bloke in green tights hanging about pub toilets in town was up to.

MAR 14

The ‘Assassination City’ bollocks rears its ugly head again as the Stirland –double murder trial opens. Eight local blokes are on trial.

MAR 16

There’s a drive-by shooting in Old Basford, when some poor sod on a bike gets on the wrong end of a shotgun.

MAR 17

This month’s hero; Mark Peachey of Mansfield, renowned for finding twats trying to rob his house, chasing after them, and tying ‘em up with the cord of his dressing gown. In one incident, he only had his jeans on when he discovered one of the fuckers, so he went back, got changed, and still caught the bastard.

MAR 18

A second man is arrested for the Marvin Bradshaw shooting (which led to the Stirland murders, if you’ve got your Nottingham Murder wallchart all mixed up).

MAR 22

Mike Tyson visits Mansfield, for some do or other. A wife-beating seminar, or summat.

MAR 25

County’s brickie-turned-striker Steve Scoffham suffers a suspected broken leg during defeat against Northampton Town. Forest do Milton fucking Keynes 3-0.

clockwise from top: juneau/projects, The Beauty Royale, 2004. Courtesy fa projects Ayling and Conroy, Ping pong asteroid, 2006. Courtesy Sideshow Marcus Coates, Finfolk, 2003. Courtesy the artist, photograph Mark Pinder

Art Life in the Hood ‘I start a picture and I finish it. I don’t think about art while I

work. I try to think about life.’ Jean Michel Basquiat

For the first time ever, Nottingham will play host to The British Art Show, a nationally important survey exhibition which occurs every five years. British Art Show 6 travels here on its tour fresh on the heels of its appearances in Gateshead and Manchester. In an inimitable gesture of legendary style, (and through necessity rather than design) Nottingham’s museums and galleries have split the exhibition across many sites including Angel Row Gallery, Beatties Toy Shop, Bonington Gallery, Djanogly Art Gallery, Lakeside, The New Art Exchange, Nottingham Castle and The Yard Gallery at Wollaton Hall. words: Jennie Syson The exhibition was curated by Alex Farquharson and Andrea Schlieker who at previous tour stops have been condemned for presenting a show weighted heavily with London based artists. Critics have also carped about the exhibition having too much of the same kind of work.

Hopefully in Notts this will be elevated by the exhibition appearing in more bite sized chunks across the city. The show comprises work and projects by 50 artists and artists groups, all of whom have been chosen because they represent what, in the curators eyes, is the best of what Britain has to offer in terms of contemporary visual art. It certainly portrays a vibrant scene.

There are some obvious gems in the illustrious list of names associated with the show, including a few artists who hail from the Midlands. Heather and Ivan Morison who have lived and worked in Birmingham until recently present a beautiful, medium format slide projection made up of images from their travels around the world. Phil Duckworth and Ben Sadler from Juneau/projects’ performances explore

in pseudo-scientific fashion how electronic gadgets fare when submerged in water or frozen. Other things worth a butcher’s include Doug Fishbone’s provocatively poignant yet perverted film Towards a Common Understanding (2005), which comprises clips ripped from the net to create an uncomfortable selection of imagery ranging from the pornographic to the ultra PC, and also Marcus Coates’s animalistic works which document how the artist attempts to communicate with seals, birds and animal spirit guides.

If that isn’t enough to get your art glands salivating, there will also be an extensive programme of events happening around the fringe for the BAS, called Sideshow. The aim of the fringe is to get the fine people of Nottingham to participate and interact with the art work directly by rolling up their sleeves and getting stuck into art which has direct bearings on everyday life.

Look out for the people in pink handing out yoyos and Blackpool rock around Hood Town. They will be able to fill

you in on the 40+ Midlands artists’ projects that have been selected to dazzle us. Things to keep an eye out for include dynamic Notts artist duo Ayling and Conroy, who have built a landscape of wonders in their living room in Sneinton.

Naomi Kashiwagi’s delicate ink drawings made using a piano and the work of Daniel Lehan which explores the issues of privacy and voyeurism. This salmagundi can be viewed, experienced, thrust upon you at venues throughout the city including the Wallner Gallery at Lakeside Art Centre, the splendid artist run space Moot, The Costume Museum and the Galleries of Justice.

British Art Show 6 and Sideshow are in town from 22 April until 25 June.

www.hayward.org.uk/britishartshow6

C-Mone is one of the brightest musical talents Nottingham has seen in years.

You might even have her in your music collection without realising it. Her appearance as Mike Skinner’s girlfriend on The Streets’ A Grand Don’t Come For Free pushed her very much into the public gaze. But her new album The Butterfly Effect proves that she is very much her own woman. words: Jared Wilson photo: Andy Alker You won the ‘best female’ award at the UK Hiphop Awards last year. That must have been pretty cool!

It was really cool. It’s just good to be recognised for the stuff that we’ve been doing. We’re in our own little bubble in Nottingham and having people across the country take notice is really a big thing for any artists from outside of London.

You seem determined to stay here and make it rather than move...

Everybody thinks that you’ve got to move down south to make it, but I’m not feeling that at all. If everybody moves to London then everything’s going to be coming from the same place and it’s important to represent where you’re from. We’ve got our own thing going on here and I’m happy to rep Nottingham.

Tell us about your new album...

It’s been a massive learning curve for me. People seem to be feeling it and I like to see them responding to different tracks. That’s what it was all for really. First and foremost it was an expression for me and I’d be doing it whether it went out on a big scale or not.

Is there a significance in the title?

Definitely. I’d heard about the concept of little things having big effects like a butterfly’s wings and hopefully this album could have a positive domino effect for the Nottingham scene. It might not even happen for me personally, but I do believe in cause and effect.

Some of the old OutDaVille crew have been involved in the album too…

Nick Stez and Lee Ramsay from The Marga Boys have helped out with the production and Big Trev has been helping out on promotion for us. Karizma was there at the album launch party too. If people around here are making music then I always want to work with others. It’s in my nature.

Have you heard from Mike Skinner recently?

Not recently. Doing the tune with The Streets got me out there on a big scale and got people thinking about me.

I know he’s doing well though and he’s got some new projects coming out soon. I might also be doing a gig with Plan B at some point, who is from the same label.

What’s an average day in the life of C-Mone like?

There are usually too many things to get done in a day and stuff spills over into the next day and the day after. I also do a bit of studying and working and always do a session or two at the studio every week.

Who do you rate in the Nottingham scene?

Wariko, Shifty Spirit, Cappo, Rapper Ru, Matic, Smiley, Doogie Howser, Karizma, the Marga Boys and many more.

Anything else you want to say to LeftLion readers?

Respect to everyone who is doing stuff for the love and enjoying it and being positive about things.

C-Mone’s album The Butterfly Effect is out now on Son Records and available in HMV, Selectadisc and OhMyGosh. www.c-mone.co.uk www.sonrecords.com

words: Jared W ilson Describe your style to people who haven’t seen you play before?

Matt: I suppose it lies somewhere between hiphop and electronica. It’s all pretty raw.

Andy: You could call it the art of fighting without fighting.

Tell us about the EP...

Matt: The EP works nicely as an introduction to what we do. It’s three tracks, just a quick slap in the face really to let people know that we’re here.

Andy: Anyone with any decent suggestions for the album name give us a shout though Sex, Drugs and Sausage Rolls is about all we’ve managed to conjure up at the minute.

Who are your musical influences?

Andy: J5, Dilated Peoples, Wu-Tang, Big Daddy Kane, Madlib, Ultramagnetic MC’s and too many to mention.

Matt: Aphex Twin, Wu-Tang Clan, Boards of Canada, Madlib.

Kids in Tracksuits are Nottingham beats duo Matt Cutler and Andy Hemsley. They’ve been displaying their musical talents at various nights across Notts over the last year or two, pointing crazy beats and bleeps towards hiphop punters and supporting the likes of Jehst and Sway. Most recently they hooked up with Dealmaker Records to release their Get Your Kit On LP and subsequent airplay on Radio One and a recent Steve Lamacq session are helping to push them upwards. We caught up with them for a chat about the essential difference between Diadora and Adidas…

Who else do you rate in the Nottingham music scene?

Matt: Lost Project are dope. Always quality UK hiphop coming from those boys. On an art tip I’m always feeling Rikki Marr’s work.

Andy: Yeah... Lost Project and Rikki are both fresh, Blumonkey too. There a lot of ill turntablists around town all doing their thing as well.

What was the last tracksuit you bought like?

Matt: I bought a Nike tracksuit top a while back. I’ve not had a full tracksuit since I was about six though. We’re not Goldie Lookin’ Chain.

Andy: Haha no. I am partial to a bit of polyester attire

though, some Adidas number would most likely have been the last I bought. Adidas always made the best tracksuits.

Who makes the worst?

Matt: I remember some really nasty Diadora tracksuits from when I was at primary school. Ugly purple ones.

Andy: I’d say either Gola or Fila are top of the bad tracksuit charts, or all the shite the rudeboy types rock, Lambretta and the such…I might be crossing into shellsuit territory there though I dunno…

Did you have a good time going down to Radio One for your session?

Matt: Yeah it was a good laugh, everyone was really cool and it was a good experience for us although it was totally surreal.

Andy: Yep really enjoyed it too, was pretty nerve-wracking actually playing live as you’d expect, the people there were all proper sound with us though Any collaborations coming up ?

Matt: We’re working on a tune with Blumonkey from Dealmaker which should be a banger. Hopefully we’ll be working with a couple of US emcees soon as well.

Andy: Yeah keep your eyes peeled…

Anything else to tell LeftLion readers?

Andy: We’ve got a load of gigs and stuff coming up.

Come see us play! www.kidsintracksuits.co.uk www.myspace.com/kidsintracksuits2

To build anything of significance takes time, the foundations must be strong and strength lies in sincerity, quality and honesty. Dealmaker Records know this and for the past two and a half years they have been laying down the foundations of a creative infrastructure, upon which a temple of musical wealth is now ready to be built. They are a non-profit record label who stress, wholeheartedly and categorically, the importance of independence and the cultivation of artistic power. Furthermore, they recognise that creativity is something that flows from passion, dedication, hard work and weed... I mean, enjoyment... which is why the artists on the record label are such a diverse range of talent and originality. We spoke to Ste and Rikki from the label about what makes a great deal. words Neil Higham Tell us a bit about the history of Dealmaker, how long has it been running?

Ste: We haven’t been running very long, because we’ve been building since October 2003, when we put out, well we didn’t really put out but gave loads of copies away of UK Duty Paid Volume 1; which was over 24 hiphop artists around Nottingham collaborating with each other to create the album.

It wasn’t intended to be an album showcasing Nottingham’s hiphop, it was a part of the local hiphop scene, because there’s a lot more to the city than what people see and there’s a lot more to Nottingham hiphop than just the collective that comes with Dealmaker.

When you did that album was it with a view to set up a record label?

Ste: No, it was just to boost the scene because there wasn’t a hell of a lot of an outlet and there weren’t a hell of a lot of promoters. The scene wasn’t as healthy and as thriving as we feel it is growing to be, at the moment. So the compilation album was not meant to be anything more than just that. It was gonna be a burnt CD that we passed around for a fiver and then it turned into a bigger project.

I haven’t met everybody that’s involved with the label but from what I do know and what I’ve seen, you seem to have a lot of different people who all have specific skills and elements to bring to the label.

Ste: Yeah. We refer to them as Ninjas. The network itself is called The Hoods in the Woods (big up Abbott, Chris Barker, Dwyz, Rikki Marr, Jody and Sean ‘The Boss’). Each person has an individual skill set that they bring to the table, thus completing a network of people that can run the full 360 degrees of what it takes to produce something from scratch; be it a record, a t-shirt, putting on a show, marketing or PR. Was that a conscious objective as you were building?

Ste: Yeah. It’s all about a game of cultivation. As well as cultivating artists and scenes, it’s also a cultivation of people to work behind the scenes of the music industry. Music and art are so important for cultural sakes, but they can’t escape that they need an industry to support them. So the people that work on the infrastructure of the label split themselves in that way.

Rikki: It’s a very loose collective but it’s a very tight unit at the same time.

Ste: The strange thing about the cultivation of the network is that I can’t go and find people, people can’t apply for it, there’s no job role or vacancy; it just happens, y’know?

So what are the ethics behind the label?

Ste: This is the thing: it would be a lot easier to do all this shit if we didn’t carry so many ethics while trying to stick to everything we’re trying to do.

There’s one way around doing things where we could just release records and grab whatever we think is gonna do well, run with it and do well as a label. In essence, what could be determined as doing well as a label is making money. But we carry the cultivation ethic with our label and it’s so important to have that otherwise the scene runs dry and that’s not good for any of us.

Do you have a definite set aim or objective, or is Dealmaker more about the continual process of cultivation, inspiration and creation?

Ste: It all comes back down to your ideal versus the continual battle between money and time. Our aim is for our part of the industry to be self-sustainable and so that means that we don’t make money out of the music on a scale where seven of us, there are seven ‘core’ members of The Hoods in the Woods at present, could live comfortably.

Rikki: It’s basically we wanna give everybody what they wanna get, the artists included as well as the workers from Dealmaker. It’s about getting to the stage where we build something that we can all live off and nobody gets ripped off.

Ste: And it becomes self-sustainable. Everything we do goes back into it.

Johnny Crump’s Broken Tracks and Dirty Music LP andThe Departure Lounge, featuring Karizma, Foz, The Sicarios and loads more fresh new musical talent are both out now.

www.dealmakerrecords.com

words: Sadie Rees-Hales

Weeble are one of Nottingham’s most popular live bands and have been around for a decade now.

The line-up and the music has changed along the way, but the eight-strong gang of Ribsy, Kron, Big Dave, Matt, Benjuth, Tock, Jody and Stef have got the fine art of ska-punk totally sorted. Where else are you going to find that and a band with a euphonium player? We went to find out more…

Despite catchy ska songs, mad performances and dancing fun there a more serious side to Weeble?

Matt: Being in Weeble is serious fun.

Ribsy: I hate Matt! We have to work really hard.

Big Dave: It’s like having a second job. That’s why I’m not at work right now.

Jody: Even though the songs might sound really happy and bouncy, some of the lyrics aren’t.

Benjuth: We have to be organised because we are such a large band. We have to remember to let everyone know what’s going on and where we need to be.

What have you learned from supporting bands like Streetlight Manifesto and Sonic Boom Six? Jody: As soon as we heard Streetlight Manifesto sound check, we upped our game straight away. Mentally, we saw them and knew we had to be as good as we’d ever been if not better. We played what felt like a set where we just really rocked it!

You’ve released a couple of CDs. How do they compare?

Ribsy: The addition of the brass section has really changed how we sound.

Stef: The CDs resemble how we sound live and our up to date line up.

Jody: It’s shows how our time and use of facilities has changed as well.

Can you explain about Fly On The Wall.

Benjuth: We put on gigs for other local bands. It’s about meeting other bands and organising gigs for new bands. It’s promoting local music. Our website is www.flyonthewall.com.

longer than we’ve been with our girlfriends.

Big Dave: That’s not true for me. I’ve only been in Weeble for a year! Tonight after our gig, I’ve got to go straight to work. I’ll get told off!

Which local bands do you recommend?

Matt: Grain, Stupid Stupid and Steve.

Stef: Breakneck, Mr. Wolf.

Ribsy: Winning By Default.

Big Dave: Metallica, Def Leppard!!

Jody: We want to mention 7 Seconds Of Love, even though they’re not local.

Do you ever feel like you would want to cover other genres of music with the band? Or is that why you do solo stuff and are in other bands?

Jody: I think Weeble has its style, it’ll change and evolve but it will always stay Weeble. But, yeah I mean if we did any of our solo stuff in Weeble it’d be pretty mad! There’s guys doing acoustic stuff, electronica stuff, political stuff...

We’d sound like a right odd bag of bits n bobs

You have some gigs coming up with the bloke behind rathergood.com and the Crusha cats?

Benjuth: We met 7 Seconds of Love at Coventry Jail House Alldayer. We’ve got gigs with them coming up on April 1st and 6th May. They’re just lovely blokes.

Jody: We all just got along. We think they’re heavy and they like us too. We’re going to be doing a gig with them in London too.

You’re very hard working and constantly gigging. Do you ever find it difficult to make time for other things?

Matt: Yeah, it is hard.

Kron: Weeble is life!

Ribsy: Everything outside the band comes second because we have been together for so long. We’ve been in the band

Do Weeble wobble but not fall down...?

Jody: We rock and we do occasionally fall over. I almost fell over last night, I tripped over a monitor, but I didn’t fall. So I guess the answer could be yes.

Weeble play LeftLion Presents at the Orange Tree on Thursday April 20th.

www.goweeble.com

words: Alex Kocan The Henry Road are one of the most tripped-out psychedelic bands that you’re likely to find playing around Nottingham.

The self-confessed creators of a mysterious new musical genre known as ‘Wagon Pop’, go by the names of Ben Lord (drums), Phillip Cog (keyboards/vocals), Tim Spectwatta (guitar) and Chrisp Selection (bass and guitar). They’re playing LeftLion Presents at The Orange Tree on May 18, so we caught up with them for a chat…

Ben: I don’t dig modern art. I’m a painter.

Tim: One form isn’t better than the other. It’s just where my heart lies at the time.

Hey guys! We’ve interviewed you before for LeftLion.

What’s new since then?

Phillip: We’ve been busy working away on a sequel to our EP Loggy Logg, called Loggy Two. Ben: It’s being mastered at the moment.

Phillip: We made a snap decision to do a sequel. The first one was done without any planning at all.

Tim: It sounds weird, even for us, so others may find it very odd indeed.

What’s the best recent gig you’ve played?

Phillip: New Years Eve at Junktion 7.

Ben: Mine has to be the Navigator night at Junktion 7. There was a guy who turned up looking like Jesus and introduced himself as the Navigator between songs.

Phillip: He did some wicked dancing.

What’s your favourite track from that album?

Phillip: How Can I Dig It? Ben: I’d agree with that. We tried to go for another sing along in the style of Massive Navy, off Loggy one.

Phillip: It’s got some world music in it as well. If you don’t like world music, then you don’t like the world.

This is the art issue of LeftLion. What’s the band’s stance on art?

Phillip: Would you like me to draw you something?

Ben: Phil is very good at drawing shapes. Geometry is his style. I can safely say, speaking for the band, that we like art.

Tim: I like half cows. I don’t like unmade beds or tents.

Sorry Tracey!

Ben: What really bothers me about Tracey Emin is her mouth.

Chrisp: I don’t have a problem with her. It’s the stuff that comes out of her mind.

Who are your favourite Nottingham bands at the moment?

Phillip: The Hellset Orchestra have a pretty strong sound.

Chrisp: Grain are good.

Ben: The Nutronstars are great. Their music is fun.

What makes you happy?

Tim: Food and alcohol.

Phillip: Plumbs and art.

Tim: Slippers.

Ben: I’ve got a phobia of slippers.

Have you been watching the new TV gameshow Deal or No Deal?

Tim: Yes. Tim: It’s all about Noel Edmonds’ trousers.

Ben: I watch it because Noel looks very much like my dad.

Chrisp: Ben’s dad looks like many people, including Jeff Lynn and a pirate.

Do you believe more in the scientific or theological theorem behind the creation, and existence of the universe?

Ben: Yes Ben: Phil said, the other day, that art is the universe.

Phil: I said nothing of the sort. Regarding the universe I like

to think of metaphysical concepts. But the scientific is nearly right, but not quite.

Ben: As you can see, Phil doesn’t watch enough Deal or No Deal.

Are you looking forward to your LeftLion gig at The Orange Tree?

Phillip: We’ve played The Orange Tree twice before. It’s a nice place. There are always people wandering about.

We’re definitely looking forward to that. See you there Wagon Poppers!

The Henry Road and The Ardency play LeftLion Presents at the Orange Tree on Thursday April 20th. www.thehenryroad.co.uk

words: Meg Rowell photo: Dom Henry

Grain are the kind of band that defy most genre descriptions, opting rather to be as outrageous, indefinable and elusive as possible. But their music is surprisingly accessible and their gigs are downright good old fashioned fun. Comprising of Ben on guitar and vocals, Loz on percussion, Rich on guitar and Dan on bass, their blend of hillbilly funk, bluegrass and the occasional yodel make Grain one of Nottingham’s most unusual and successful bands.

Tell us a little bit about the Grain sound.

Ben: We play kung-fu hillbilly funk, with bluegrass and hiphop influences.

Rich: Take eight tins of tom-toms, one mouth-waterorgan-melon, one cutlet of veal bass, sprinkle with zest of banjorine and serve riff-greasy.

How did you all meet and end up putting a band together?

Ben: I met Richard six years ago fighting over the last jar of salsa in a supermarket, we had a ruck and then made burritos. I waited outside the school gates for Dan and Loz just came in with the cats.

Dan: I think it was all quite accidental really, in the nicest possible way.

You have a very different sound to most popular bands. Is this a help or a hindrance?

Ben: Well I guess it singles us out, which is good. The audiences find it refreshing and the response has been overwhelming. I’m fucking skint though, that’s a bit of a hindrance.

Loz: The four of us celebrate the feast of Saint Giro once a fortnight and the rest of the time we cadge from Dan. We’ve had a wicked response from putting our stuff up on myspace and offered gigs around the country. Our music is

definitely causing a buzz.

Dan: I would say that being different is certainly a bonus when getting people to remember who you are. Hopefully that’s what’ll make people keep coming back.

You’re playing at the next LeftLion Unplugged, how are you rehearsing for that and are you making any major changes to your set?

Rich: My guru tells me that silence is the key. Dan has joined the TA, Loz has been moon bathing whilst Ben has been listening to the Flying Pickets.

Ben: It’s a good challenge to break the songs down and play them in different styles. You can expect some new songs as well which we don’t play in our usual set but will work very well in an Unplugged gig.

If you could put together your ideal gig, where would it be and who would play?

Dan: I would love to open for Toto or some other classic 80s band. Maybe A Flock of Seagulls or Tears for Fears, and we would be playing in a big field at some ridiculous hour of the morning.

Loz: I like a lot of the older bands, I wish I could have been at Woodstock.

Rich: Woodstock would be great, I’d have been Jimi Hendrix’s monkey boy, changing strings and handing him the lighter fluid.

Ben: In my lounge with Bob Dylan, Bob Marley and Bob Monkhouse.

What and who influences you all?

Rich: As a wee bairn, I’d rock around the house with a tennis racket to Guns and Roses (I was Slash, obviously).

My musical influences come from all over the place like the

rhythm of my washing machine. Ever harmonised with a hoover? Try it.

Ben: I have distaste for most ‘new’ music. It’s all really watered down sugar free cordial. The Pixies inspired me to start writing songs and Beck’s songwriting has been a big influence.

Dan: I spent a good part of my teenage years obsessing over old prog-rock bands like Rush and Camel. That’s probably rubbed off onto my bass playing in some way.

Loz: Weston, Bluegrass, Hendrix, Richard Prior, Noodles McDandy, Grand Funk Railroad. Old Basford are great to watch live.

What’s on the horizon for Grain?

Ben: A new drummer has just joined the band and he’s amazing so we’re looking forward to writing stuff with him, hopefully an album by the end of the year and a UK tour.

Dan: Lots more gigs out of Nottingham would be fantastic.

Loz: Playing at festivals, touring, sleeping in a van.

Anything else you’d like to say to LeftLion readers?

Ben: Dearly beloved LeftLion readers, please check the websites and come to a gig you bunch of muthas.

Loz: Quit your job and join the freaky membership.

Rich: See us play live, if you don’t like it, come again. If that fails, buy a James Blunt CD. Grain, Felix and Chris McDonald play LeftLion Unplugged at the Malt Cross on Tuesday April 4th. www.myspace.com/grainuk www.passthegrain.co.uk

words: Tom Hathaway illustration: Rob White

5.45 am, 23rd of April 1982.

Figueras, Catalunya

I could’ve been in the Jolly Farmers pub, listening to the Beatles, the Stones and the Sex Pistols, with a double showing of the ’66 final and three gallons of Shippo’s. As it happens, I’m waking up wearing me lucky Dennis the Menace T-shirt with a banging headache, having slept with a bottle of red wine in a motorway service duct just west of Figueras, by the main autopista to Perpignan. At least I’m spiritually replete of the occasion. Why am I here? Bloody good question. Answer? I’m going looking for a woman.

No, not just any woman. The Floridan slag who was supposed to meet me down in Lloret de Mar to get our heads down and work the World Cup summer down in Spain after the little bank job I pulled up in Switzerland.

We’d work that summer in Spain, then go to college in Atlanta, as arranged with her folks. But now? No show; no word; no answer to any of my calls. What’s the silly bitch doing? What’s going on? What happened to the ‘plan’?

Now got to get meself back up to her Grandma’s place in Munich double quick and hope I’m not being sought over borders. What a caper. Then what? The Falkland’s War hots up. Will I get drafted when I get home? It’s been the strangest time for travelling Europe. All the Germanic lands are politically with us and all the Latin lands against us. So much stuff hanging in the air today.

No time to moan, just do it. Check my pack. Relace me Docs. Black and yellow laces to repel the crawlies. Stow the vino collapso. Stand up and have a stretch. If I can get half way round the coast to Marseille before nightfall, that’s good. Italy and maybe the Brenner pass tomorrow, then things’ll look different, trust yerself. I’m up and loaded, standing by the road. I throw a handful of coins into the road… It’s just a little superstition I insist on.

Heyyy! Seven or eight minutes and the first van comes along! Jack the lad does it again! French plates; excellent!

We’re going to France. Bread van. Might even get breakfast if he’s not finished deliveries. Chase up to the slid-back sliding door and salute the man. French head on, now…

“Hey! Hello! Good morning! Thank you, thank you! I’m going into France, yes?”

“Come! Come, my friend! I take you to the south of Perpignan! I’m sorry it’s not very far. Saturdays I go to Montpellier, but…”

“It’s very kind of you; Perpignan is excellent! You can drop me on the autoroute, yes?”

“I drop you with the autoroute for Narbonne-Montpellier, yes, yes!” That was it. Flying start. Well that’s the greety, exuberant bit and the breather from it done with. Now it’ll be the weighing up bit, I guess.

“You live near Perpignan?”

“Yes…thirteen…fifteen minutes from the centre of Perpignan. I deliver the bread to Figueras every day.

Saturday to Montpellier… Is good, is good, is not too bad!” Then I noticed something. I had to bloody notice

something, didn’t I? Don’t know what I noticed, but I noticed it, anyway.

“Pardon me for asking… but am I right in thinking you are not French? Not that your French isn’t excellent, of course!”

“Ha ha ha! I was going to ask you the self same question, my friend! Where are you from yourself?”

“I’m from England. Nottingham. Nottingham Forest?” His eyes had already grown black. His colour drained. Everyone always came back with the reliable old Nottingham Forest routine, but not this bloke. Seemed like he was almost choking.

My god, my god. What have I done? These English devils hound my brother to kill him in the freezing Atlantic and yet they’ve found me first on the land. Here. In France.

What will he do? What will he say? Is he armed? Be calm, be calm; why would he be? Easy. Easy; it’s only a few minutes to the border. I can get help there if I need it. Try to concentrate on the road, man. Don’t let him see you shaking so.

“My mother! You…are…and I…am from Argentina!”

He took his fist from the gearstick and began thumping his heart repeatedly, as if to press the point home to himself.

Yep, I had to bloody notice it, didn’t I? He’s weighing me up. Expecting shite. He can see I’m much slimmer and fitter. Well, he can’t boot me out, because the van ain’t fast enough to get away from me. I’ll only kill him if I have to, but remember: no sympathy till Austria. I loaded my lungs for whatever. First though, I sensed the pressing overdueness of a snippet of becalming here. At least to stop him hitting something in his Latino panic. I drew the wine from my kit bag. His eyes practically popped until he saw what it was. God almighty. What are they telling these people about us? Are we really that bad? Can we be so terrible? I wanted to cry. I pulled the stopper.

“Here. Take a drink. For peace. It’s a special day for both of us.” I drank first, in case - as it looked - he thought I was trying to poison his daft Argentine rump. Then I reoffered it. “You don’t like wine? You make excellent wine in Argentina, yeah?”

“Yes! No! Thank you…thank you… no wine today! Work!

Driving!” He still refused, probably to hide the shakes. This was obviously too much for him. I had to try harder.

“Okay. I drink for you. I drink to the soon downfall of Thatcher…and…now I drink to the soon downfall of Galtieri…okay with you, my friend?” Now he began to cheer up and crack a grin. If he was happy with the system, he probably wouldn’t be living in France. Let’s trash the donkeys, not the lions. “…and one last drink for the soon end of this bad war, yeah?” He grabbed the bottle.

“I drink…I drink to that!” I had to grab the wheel briefly to skate us away from an oncoming car.

“Steady amigo! We need to be alive to see the end of it…yeah?”

“Ha ha ha! You have family in the war?”

“A cousin. With the Armada. HMS Antelope. The ship.

Where? No idea…”

“I too have a brother with the Armada. Belgrano. South Atlantic.”

“Then we drink again to two very brave and courageous men…safe return!”

“Safe return! It’s bad. It’s too bad. Why does England want our Malvinas, eh?” I could think of a bunch of things.

Minerals? Oil? Forward Antarctic base for those two? It’s bloody handy for something, or we wouldn’t be wasting the spondooleys going to get it back, that’s for sure. No. Let’s keep it on the up – but do it face to face. No losers.

No winners. “I don’t know. Why does Argentina want the Malvinas?”

“I don’t know. It’s too bad. You have had breakfast?” He fished around inside a carrier bag hanging from the door handle. Took out a bagel. Offered it. I was suddenly not hungry, but I took it and began to eat, so as not to offend or knock him back. Why don’t the donkeys negotiate like this?

Or why don’t they ask us to do it for them, since they’re such a bunch of wankers? They don’t stand on the receiving end of their bollocks. No, they make good and sure they’re miles away from the flack. It’s us every fucking time! Look at us! We’re two complete strangers getting on here like a bloody house on fire! Giggling, joking, sorting it. How difficult is this? Well, obviously it’s too fucking difficult and this time it’s me cousin and his brother (Lord preserve the lad), last time me Dad at Dunkerque and the time before that, me Grandad at Paschendaele and so on. Dee dahdah, dee doodoo.

Well, we trawled some strange looks from the guards at the Spanish and French border gates, I can tell yer! “Passports, please?” An Argie and a Brit, having a right old laugh, drink and natter together in the middle of it all. He went miles out of his way and risked a shedload of trouble from his boss, just to get me to a better position to the north of Perpignan.

When it was time to shake hands and leap out onto another road, with a better conscience on board, there was a tinge of sadness that we couldn’t have spent longer having a chat. But I was looking for a woman. He wished me and my family well, but added that he suspected the war would be a long and drawn out process of costly attrition. I wished him and his the same and agreed that it might well be, whilst at the same time for some reason feeling, even knowing, that it wouldn’t.

War? We’ve been practising every bloody Friday and Saturday night in England since we left school.

words: Jared Wilson

Deep in the subconscious of your average British musician and bedroom producer, there’s an adolescent Hiphop fan trying to get as close to their juvenile creative juices as possible. For George Evelyn (aka DJ EASE of Nightmares On Wax), Hiphop has been such a consuming force that everything he makes, from 1995’s anthemic Smokers Delight to In A Space Outta Sound, his latest album for Warp Records, follows this pattern. Sixteen years signed to one label? He must have something good going on. We caught up with DJ EASE to find out more about his Nightmares…

Tell us about the new album. What can fans expect from it?

It’s honest music to the highest degree, I really loved every minute of making this album, and you can hear that come through to the music.

Who have you got in the live band at the moment?

It’s pretty much the same band we’ve had ever had since Smokers Delight apart from Chyna B and Sara Garvey on vocals. It’s a full-on sonic attack. It’s always been my vision to take things that far. You want to represent what you’re putting down on record when you play live. I have always said you can’t do one without the other and there’s nothing better than having all that energy on stage.

Many consider Smoker’s Delight to be the defining album of the TripHop genre. Did you realise how big that record was going to break when you were making it?

Not at all. That album changed my life and is still evolving in such way that nobody could plan or imagine. It’s taken me across the world and back a few times too.

You started out breakdancing, before you founded NoW. How are you at busting moves these days?

Get me a good drink and the right atmosphere and I’m in!

What was it like working with De La Soul?

For me it was an amazing experience, I was like a kid in a hiphop sweet shop. I learnt so much from that experience.

I’d do it again anytime.

You’re signed to WARP Records. What’s it like working with those guys..?

We’ve been good for each other really. Sixteen years on any label is very rare. The fact they know to leave me to do my thing says it all. It’s a friendship to be honest. It’s not a business relationship. Obviously you’ve got to try and keep the momentum going because you build up that fan base and people want to know what’s happening or they forget.

But, at the same time, Warp’s belief is ‘build it to last.’

I read on your website that you’re a big KLF fan. Is it their music or their leftlfield acts that appeal to you? Or both?

It was their chill out album that inspired me to do a hiphop chill out album. Burning a suitcase of money when there are people starving on our planet is not a good idea!

Do you see Chris Morris around at Warp much?

Not really. I see his name on telly a bit. As a comedian I think Chris Morris is a unique talent, very sharp and exposes what we’re all caught up in. He doesn’t have many dealings with us on a day to day basis though.

What can people expect from your show at the Rescue Rooms in April?

150% good loud positive vibes for sure! We’ve got the best sound system (Iration Steppas) in the country with us. And all of the amazing vocalists from the new album ready to rock the spot...

What do you listen to on the stereo at home?

I listen to everything really, except commercial radio. You can hear the influences of what I listen to in my music. It’s always there somewhere…

Have you been to Nottingham much before? If so, have you got any favourite hang-outs here?

I’ve played a few spots, but never really hung out there.

What was the last album that you bought?

J Dilla (R.I.P) Donutz what an amazing piece of work. Any record that makes me wanna make music, is a great record.

Nottingham-based film director Shane Meadows was the first signing to WARP films. Have you seen any of his movies?

I’ve seen Dead Mans Shoes. I think it’s a great film and story, by a great British talent. The story and the cast are tight!

What was the last book you read?

Art of Tibetan Living by Christopher Hazzard.

What’s your favourite of your own tracks?

It changes from time to time, a lot of my tracks hold different memories...but Nights Introlude is up there.

What was the last thing that made you cry?

My mum.

You’ve travelled across the world with your music.

What are your favourite cities and venues to play?

I love playing in Germany as we always get a lot of love out there. I’ve also always had top gigs in London, which is a surprise. The Big Chill and my hometown (Leeds) have got be mentioned. I’ve probably forgot some places, we’ve been to so many.

If you could get anyone in to do a track, who would you choose?

I really want to get Jamie Liddell into the studio with us. I would also really love to work with Quincy Jones...

What was the last thing that made you laugh?

My daughter.

What is coming up for you over the next year?

I’m touring, running my new record label www.wax-on.net, more recording and moving to Ibiza.

Anything else you want to say to LeftLion readers?

Keep smiling and think positive. It is the only way.

One Love!

Nightmares On Wax’s new album In A Space Outta Sound is out now on Warp records. They play Camouflage at the Rescue Rooms on April 6th. www.nightmaresonwax.com

The Centre for Contemporary Art Nottingham (CCAN) will be opening its doors to the public in 2008. Making its home in the historic Lace Market quarter of the city and hewn into the sandstone and caves below Garner’s Hill, it will provide a much needed channel for contemporary visual and live arts in the region and beyond. We popped in for cuppa and a chat with Deborah Dean from Angel Row Gallery, who (along with Stella Couloutbanis at Future Factory) is one of the key players in the Nottingham art scene. Together they are responsible for bringing this iconic new space to fruition. words: Jennie Syson There is lots of interesting digging going on near the Weekday Cross. What’s going on?

It’s preliminary work and a detailed archaeological study of the site. From now to the end of the summer there will be some preparatory stuff happening to the foundations. This work is essential as all the city’s services, like the district heating line, run through the site and we don’t want to cause any problems. In terms of a building evolving, this isn’t the exciting bit, but it’s really important.

Did you know that there was historical stuff under the topsoil when you started?

The site has a rich history. It goes right back to before the Middle Ages. If you are developing a site for a new building its all part of the process.

How long has the whole process taken?

A long time. CCAN stems from an earlier project, where Future Factory also hails from. When I came here about eight years ago there was lots of talk about a gigantic complex for contemporary and live art. The idea I got of it was a more traditional art centre with lots of things all under one roof, a performance space, a rehearsal space, a gallery etc. CCAN is quite different from this original model, it will look at a more integrated approach to visual and live art practice. It’s on a smaller site and draws upon Nottingham’s need for a quality cultural arts venue.

Although it is smaller, it seems more focused and being able to present this has allowed things to happen more quickly.

With regards to including live and performance art, you mentioned that the earlier model would’ve had rehearsal

and performance spaces. How will this happen in the new design?

In the earlier project there was a bit of everything. Even artists’ studios for rent at one point. There really isn’t room for that to happen here but also it’s important to note that things have changed and moved on with artists, there is now an artist led studio consortium in the city that is being developed as a separate entity. I think that it will be all the stronger for that. The live art element is certainly still there because of its origins in the project. It was Nottingham Trent University who did the original feasibility study, coming from a more performance based perspective. Future Factory is a vital part of the project not least to represent the strong history of live practice in the city.

So what will happen to Angel Row? Angel Row will close prior to CCAN opening. The City Council originally got involved to find out how Angel Row’s work could be enhanced. This corresponded with Future Factory’s project changing. About four years ago it was decided that it made sense to combine the two things; to enhance Angel Row and provide a much needed platform for live art. Angel Row is a building block to this, but it has to close because we need the revenue for CCAN. I have always known that would happen and am excited about bigger things and new resources. The question is, how do you close a gallery in a positive way?

So there will be a point of time when CCAN’s not quite ready but Angel Row will have closed?

We aren’t sure at the moment. That’s possible. Most gallery projects that are refurbishments or expansions, there is always a bit of time when the venue is closed. Like IKON in

Birmingham or Arnolfini in Bristol. There is not an unlimited pot of money so it might need to close but the programme will definitely continue in other ways.

Do you mean off-site projects etc?

Yes. There are many good models of how other places have achieved this. The in-between bit of time could be really exciting. You are outside of the gallery walls, free from the restraints of bricks and mortar.

Angel Row has been able to support regional artists alongside ones of international standing. Ellie Harrison’s recent Day-to-Day Data is a great example of this. Are there plans for this to continue in CCAN? Definitely. I always wrestle with the word ‘region’, it’s coincidentally great work that just happens to stem from here. There is also this thing where ‘region’ is a word used in a derogatory way to mean ‘not in London.’ What we try to do here and in other venues in the Midlands is to do something a bit different and yet still support people who practice here. The question is how do we use our national reputation to support local artists without necessarily putting a big label on saying ‘Look! Regional work!’ As with all things it depends on what the artists want. CCAN will have a range of things from exhibitions; working with artists; educational and development programmes; talks and events. All supporting people in Nottingham.

www.ccan.org.uk

business, n o ti a tr s lu il lid building a so r twork and a is e m it u h lb a W b h o it .W native R aul es you’ll find it s b Nottingham e w rking with P t o s w e k r w a o d n e ’s e th of lt, h n and has one under his be s : David Bowe n s rd ig o s e w d . g Q in H and t LL corporate br p with him a u t h g u a c e g. W Smith clothin

How did you get started with illustration?

My drawing probably started when I was about two years old, taking the piss out of my brother. I’d refer to him as a ‘boc’, as the back of his head used to stick out rather far, and I used to draw pictures of this huge protrusion sticking out behind his ears. I said that by the age of 21 his head would weigh 50 pounds. He is the ‘boc’ monster on the arthole site. I also used to get obsessive about war films, drawing pictures of the British fighting the Germans, like most kids at the time. Now it’s a form of piss take of my friends or brother.

Was it something you would do instead of watching TV? Yes. I wouldn’t say I was an avid viewer of TV when I was a kid. I’d generally be out making things instead. I used to make lots of gliders and lots of drawings. My mother was telling me that she used to buy loads of pens, pencils and crayons and sheets of paper. I was pretty obsessive about it.

I kind of knew it was what I wanted to do since I was four or five years old. I started off watching Tony Hart and sent a few things off to ‘the gallery’, but they didn’t get shown. At home there is a big suitcase full of all those scribbles to this day.

When you began at college, what did you hope to achieve?

I started at college doing a BTECH, as I wasn’t too sure about which area to specialise in. I think I was almost creatively handicapped because most courses focus on realism at that age. Certain kids that weren’t as gifted with drawing would be quite talented at things like composing and then find out more later on. I thought I was going to do graphic design at the time, and spent a lot of time trying to think of it as a job, or a nine to five, you know, the way we think of things as a career. I think that took me away from my true calling, which was more painting, drawing and expressive work. It was at college that I decided to go and do illustration, which felt a little like a compromise. I could see myself more as a fine artist at the time, but I had a tendency to want to do work with more of a narrative to it. I never got too bogged down with writing a 10,000 word thesis on conceptual art and the strong drawing thing in me; boc making; and expressing myself with form

and colour was closer to my heart.

After college you worked from one of Nottingham’s artist studios. Was it a good halfway house between education and professional life?

It was a bit like that. There were some really interesting people of varying ages and disciplines and it was great to actually get a space. I came out of university after six years of working with a studio space and it was a challenge to move back with my parents.

Working out of a bedroom for a few years was difficult and I didn’t get the studio until about 1999. It was a major shift when I did get it.

Around that time you started working on the record covers for Bent, which are very different to the other work on the arthole site. Can you tell us about how you arrived at the ideas for them?

It was a very different move for me, particularly with the Programmed To Love LP. I got heavily into pattern and arranging the composition in a grid format. I was painting on canvases a metre square, but when I took them to the scanning shop they didn’t have a scanner big enough. Besides which, the scans were not of the quality I needed, so when it came to the album artwork I had to find a way around it, and the best way seemed to be breaking it into tiles. With the tile system I could get a section on an A4 scanner, which gave me the control over colour and quality to get exactly the balance that I wanted.

There was a creative game going on where I’d lay the image out on 36 tiles, 6x6, then break the boards up and randomly work on a small section of the whole canvas. It was quite abstract, just working with shapes rather than a whole image and I wasn’t distracted by thinking, ‘what’s that banana doing there’, or ‘where are Simon and Nail’s heads?’ It disassembled the image into almost meaningless shapes of colour, and it’s quite playful working with collage and bringing drawing into it. Assembling the image on a board about 1.5 metres square afterwards was like a discovery, like it wasn’t my work. As the work was reduced down, the detail would come through and I was able to use that once the image was together. I could see the small problems

and tweak it here and there. It’s a very beautiful way of working because it’s very detailed, unlike what I’m doing with the arthole at the moment. The Bent work leaned towards my university work in the way it was produced.

You did the Programmed To Love cover quite early on. Was it a big step up?

Yeah. I was sending samples of my work to publishers and advertisers. I got out of university and wanted to experiment, to see what would work and what wouldn’t. I was getting a few bits here and there and showed some of my university paintings at galleries in Cornwall and Buckinghamshire, where some sold, and then the Bent thing kind of turned up.

It involved a lot of work and research and took a long time. I was helping around the house and also looking after my father, who was unwell, so I worked hard at home on my computer. I’d also get time when I wasn’t needed and be at the studio late into the evening. It was an unusual time, because I felt so calm and very fixated on this piece of work. I think that’s why there is a lot of pattern in that piece and a lot of intricate detail. It’s probably a reflection of what was happening, as I was in some deep thought circles at the time.

More recently you’ve been working on some T-shirt designs for Paul Smith...

Yes, it was just before Christmas when they first approached me. They contacted me saying they liked numerous images on my site, mainly the cartoon stuff like the banana people and the war series. I had a couple of interviews with them, where they went through the website with me, and chose the designs which will now be printed on t-shirts to be sold in Japan. I’m looking to see where it will go now.

The website is massive at the moment and an entirely non-profit labour of love for you. How is it going to develop in future?

It’s totally changing! I’ve been looking into online selling with various banks and PayPal. Paul Smith will be putting the website URL on all the packaging, so it’s conceivable that in six months time some Japanese kid will want stuff off the website. I need to sit down and think about which illustra-

tions I want to use and plan maybe ten T-shirt designs and some prints on heavyweight paper.

There are a few memorable themes running through the website and the Mary cartoons are particularly dark. Can you tell us a bit about her?

She’s crap basically. It’s almost like I created a really crap person by mistake. I didn’t go out and intend to produce a really crap person, it came about by accident. I think my favourite one is where Mary meets herself, or receives a ‘box of cocks’, (laughs). I actually had the joy of creating her and then some months later also had the privilege of meeting a woman who wasn’t too far off her. I think she was stalking me. I bumped into her on Ebers Road recently, and she was staring into this big window. Anyway.

I’m not going to name drop. She was that bad. Long gone.

Do you have any advice for illustrators starting out?

A website is invaluable, although I’ve been in touch with various people who really appreciate getting work they can handle and lay out. Some people can’t stand websites and enjoy getting something in the post.

Do you have a favourite hangout in the city?

I’d say my mums, because she’s got an exceptional drinks cabinet.

Any message for LeftLion readers?

Don’t carry a gun!

works (clockwise from top left): Stamping Uncertainty, 2004-6; Transactions and Agreements, 2005; Mine, 2005; Lost, 1991.

words and illustration: Jennie Syson John Newling is a local artist with an international reputation. He is currently Professor of Installation Sculpture at the Nottingham Trent University and over the last two decades has installed works across Europe and the USA. He lives in Nottingham and is passionate about art and artists in the city.

What made you decide to do art?

Like a lot of people I fell into art. After nine years in education I was asked to do the John Moores sculpture show up in Liverpool with Gilbert and George and Henry Moore, I was the young one in the group and it was a lucky break for me. I was then awarded the first Fulbright fellowship in Art and went off to the US telling them I didn’t want to be attached to an institution or a university, but wanted to make work on the streets. This was a really important time for me. I started to look at strategic roles of production, outside a commercial white box space. I came back and continued to make work outside of museums and galleries.

Ironically, and luckily, that is when museums and galleries started to become interested in me.

Are there any key artists who influence your work?

There are artists that I admire immensely. I am troubled by and also really fascinated by the work of Joseph Beuys.1 When I was a student, Beuys was the hero! When I lived in London I was one of the many student helpers… that worked on his show at the ICA. I learnt quite a lot about him by doing this.

I like Jenny Holzer2 for other reasons. She started something rolling within western culture, a reinvigoration for arts in the political public domain. With the onset of modern rationalism in the early 20th Century, art lost its confidence a bit and went into retreat. A small marketable product. I have tried to open this out over the last twenty years or so.

I often get the same feeling going into a cathedral or church as going into a gallery. In almost all of the titles to your work you refer to religion. Why is important to make these comparisons?

I am fearful of religion and fundamentalism in all forms. I write philosophically about the importance of uncertainty. I think one of the big quests in my head has been to try and design a space that people can go to be quiet, to relax and think, to form questions.

The two spaces that instantly come to mind are the gallery and the church.

What do you think about the new visual and live art centre, CCAN3? It is being built on a historically interesting and rich site where a beautiful church and historic grounds meet.

There is an absolute connection to the past there, but a positive one. Art is steeped in ritual and myth, the gap between our expression and people’s reception of it. It is also steeped in thoughts of mortality.

CCAN should hopefully be important to the confidence of Nottingham. I think what artists have to do is grab the word ‘provincial’ and turn it into something strong.

If CCAN can help to do that it would be a great achievement.

What would be your key piece of advice to someone graduating this year?

I wouldn’t advise artists to stay in Nottingham at this stage. Go away, but come back! Those artists that return will need to make art for the region but keep an eye on what is going on elsewhere.

Don’t just go for the small opportunities here. It all gets squabbly and stupid. Think strategically and ambitiously. You need to be writing to senior curators who may say ‘No I’m not interested’ but if you write again two years later, they will remember…

I come from Nottingham but have lived and travelled all over the place. It made me realise how great the city could be for art.

We need more people who think like that.

The city is designated something like £800,000 to support cultural activities.

Nottingham should spend most of this money on commissioning £30-40,000 projects for good artists. Sustainability is the key. The region should find studio spaces for artists and subsidise the rent.

With some spaces that have traditionally been used as studios, property developers are now cottoning on to them in the same way as has happened in the East End of London and more recently in Liverpool.

This seems unfair.

EMDA4 should start looking at places that can be made available to artists at low rents. This will make things sustainable.

There is also a revolution in what is

happening with public art … I think a lot of artists undervalue what they do, and I’d include myself in that. Artists should also begin to look at ways to generate their work without selling.

Do you think the fact that more artists groups are springing up in Nottingham demonstrates a fear of working alone in individuals?

I think individuals are still very important in art. Yet there are new things happening here like MOOT.5 I’m really impressed by the way that they have opened up to the Nottingham audience. I think other groups in the city could do with not being too groupy or adversarial in a sense. I love going up to Oldknows studio and seeing what goes on there though. I have heard rumours that there will be an agency in the region that looks at temporary off-site projects. Many other regions have this and I think that it will do Nottingham good. We need curators, writers and managers as well as artists. They are all very different yet essential.

That sounds like Locus + in Newcastle or Artangel in London…

It’s crucial and distinctive for a city. Those examples you mentioned are exceptional.

Jon Bewley at Locus +6, ArtOffice in London run by Isabel Vasseur7, Arts and Ecology at the RSA8, Vivian Lovell at Modus Operandi9 – these people are fantastic! It’s all happening and it could be happening here. www.john-newling.com

words: Nathan Miller photos: Jared Wilson

We spoke to Stephen L. Holland, manager of Britain’s best comic shop...

I remember buying comics from you in the basement of Virgin in the late ‘80s.

How did you get from there to where you are now?

Virgin used to lease out space to other companies that offered what they considered complementary stock or services. The idea was there’d be a certain amount of cross-pollination, being in the heart of a Virgin Megastore would be good exposure for small comicbook retailers.

There were drawbacks, and I’m not just talking about being subjected to hours of MC Hammer over Virgin’s sound system.

We were restricted to the crowds coming into Virgin, when most cool kids, those burning with an aesthetic curiosity, have always bought their music from the longlamented Arcade Records or Selectadisc.

When that company was forced out of Virgin and into a pokey little grotto well out of reach of any decent foot traffic... well, it was just embarrassing, the state of that shop. When we arrived, the place was a shambles. Mark and I were determined that the comics we loved would, if presented in the right environment, sell to the average Joe in far greater quantities than the puerile superhero rubbish being churned out by the corporations.

At that point, two things happened. We organised a tour which took the Canadian creators of Cerebus (the finest comic ever to have been created), right round Britain. The queue outside our shop alone was five hours long. They said, ‘You’ve proved your methods work, why not take complete control and make the money for yourself, rather than someone else?’ Until then we just considered ourselves till monkeys, and it’s quite a scary prospect, risking all that money. But then we realised that the chain we were working for was about to go bust. It became put up or shut up and I’m rubbish at shutting up. So we took our campaign to the next level and set up Page 45. Somewhat closer to Selectadisc.

What are the differences between your shop and any other comic store?

We’re a comic shop. Most retailers calling themselves comic shops are cult scifi shops with little more than superhero comics, because that’s all they think cult sci-fi fans want to read. For all I know, that is all that cult sci-fi fans want to read, but we’re not here exclusively for cult sci-fi fans, we’re here for everyone.

It’s absurd to restrict your stock to a single tiny genre in this gloriously diverse medium. We’re bursting with comicbook fiction, autobiography, humour, sociopolitics, crime and mythology, and we love introducing it to new people, which is why we try to look approachable. As to the rest of the environment, we nicked the whole thing from Waterstones, a professional retail chain that did successfully cater for the real mainstream. We wanted to fool people into thinking it was a book store; all the collections are at the front, complete with spines (they look and feel just like novels until you open them up), most of the individual issues are at the back. The superheroes are all at the back as well.

Superheroes are going to put women off almost as much as American wrestlers, and we’re rather proud of the fact that although a mere 1% of the UK comics readership are women, if you stroll into Page 45 on a Saturday, it’s 50/50.

How did the rest of the industry manage to ghettoize itself so effectively?

For a start, you have to remember that in Japan and Europe it never happened.

Public perception there about comics was never killed by the superhero. They barely exist over there. Unfortunately, in the US and the UK superheroes have reigned supreme and we the retailers have let them get away with it. They even call themselves “mainstream” when they’re nothing of the sort. They’re a cult interest.

In 1954 an American weasel called Frederick Wertham declared, with no empirical evidence whatsoever, that comics were corrupting kids. The issue would have fizzled out as speculative at best but DC and Marvel (publishers of Batman and later Spider-Man) used it as an opportunity to squash their more diverse rivals by encouraging the creation of The Comics Code Authority, to censor comics to the point where any intelligent content was obliterated.

That was back then of course. Now there’s so much award-winning material it’s a shame that the Simpsons caricature of the average comic shop owner, with their own private obsessions with superheroes, is so woefully accurate. That’s all they read, all they know, all they care about, so it’s all they stock.

All of us at Page 45, Tom, Caroline and myself, would rather read about people

like our friends doing stuff that we do, like pubbing and clubbing and listening to music and getting drunk and laughing our heads off and shagging or even failing to shag, because that’s what we know, that’s what we care about, so that’s what we stock. (laughs) For example, anyway.

How come no-one’s yet been able to make a half-decent film of an Alan Moore book?

And are you looking forward to V for Vendetta?

Have you seen the way their promoting that movie? Sexy chick, hugging a masked man. The book was a direct reaction to Thatcherism: the idea that “it can happen here” - the “it” being fascism. Sexy chick hugging a masked man...? Not so much. I’ll re-read the graphic novel instead, cheers.

Hollywood is a vast machine, so its product is very expensive to produce. They have to appeal to the widest audience possible in order to recoup that outlay. The original League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, for example, is a collage of Victorian fiction. Nothing on those pages ever actually existed: none of the characters, not even the landscapes, the architecture.

Instead Moore stole whatever he wanted from the pages of 19th Century novels and moulded it into a satire of that fiction, and of the patriarchal, imperialist attitudes that spawned it. The film is just a superhero action movie.

What is it about the combination of words and drawings that made you want to devote a career to it?

The closest comparison to “words and pictures” is film. The thing about film, though, is that you seldom get to see the same frame twice. Each frame replaces the other, once the new one appears, the previous one is lost.

With comics, the frames (or panels) remain there in front of you, for as long as you want to linger. You control your own attention, so with the master craftsmen, they might decide to show you two panels, juxtaposed, from which you can draw a huge amount of inferred meaning, depending on how much effort you want to put in. Chris Ware we haven’t talked about until now, but his graphic novel, Jimmy Corrigan, trounced all the prose novels out there to win The Guardian’s First Book Award. So, you know, we’re coming on.

What made me want to devote a career to it was that no one else apart from Mark

seemed to actually give a damn. I’m the sort of guy who will naturally champion the underdog. I’m the same way about music, the same about film, and the same with comics, but for more logical reasons.

The best material was - and is - being created by the most individual creators, none of whom were/are being stocked and promoted by the vast majority of retailers.

That sucks for them because they then have to maintain day jobs rather than devote themselves to their craft.

It’s just not right that the hacks make the most money, whilst the inspired remain neglected. So if we can help raise their profiles and put money in their pockets, that’s what we’re going to do. Nabiel Kanan from Derby produced the exceptional graphic novel, Birthday Riots about a mayoral election in London.

Fantastic stuff, about how when you’re young, you’re radical, but the older you get, the more realistic/compromised you become. We sold 100 copies in the space of a few months. That book’s international sales have amounted to 300 paltry units.

We shifted an entire third of his opus - one store, in Nottingham. ‘Lamentable’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. He’s the finest comicbook craftsman in England, and if we can sell 100 copies here, one more single shop opening along our lines could do the same, thereby raising his sales by an additional third.

Apart from Nabiel Kanan, are there any other comic creators from round here who are worth checking out?

Lord, yes. We’re constantly discovering new people who throw us their wares across the counter, and there’s nothing like the thrill of discovering new talent like Leon Sadler or Paul Walker. Also, Tim Bradford seriously needs to move back to Nottingham, or at least send us some more of his comics. Andi Watson is more Staffs than Notts, but he’s right up there with Nabiel Kanan in the King of British Fiction stakes.

Anything else you’d like to say to the LeftLion readers?

Thank you for reading, I think. It really was enormously kind of you.

For a longer version of this interview, go to www.leftllion.co.uk/magazine www.page45.com

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1. Arts Council East Midlands St Nicholas Court, 25-27 Castle Gate, NG1 7AR. tel: 0845 300 6200 fax: 0115 950 2467 NOTTINGHAM GALLERIES (Municipal/Arts Council England/NCC funded) 2. Angel Row Gallery Central Library Building, 3 Angel Row, NG1 6HP 0115 915 2869 www.angelrowgallery.com 3. Future Factory comprising Bonington Gallery, Nottingham Trent University, School of Art and Design, Bonington Building, Dryden Street, NG1 4GG and 1851 Gallery, Nottingham Trent University, School of Art and Design, Waverley Building, Waverley Street, NG7 4HF. www.future-factory.com 4. Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery Friar Lane, Off Maid Marian Way. 0115 915 3700 5. Lakeside Arts Centre comprising Djanogly Art Gallery and the Wallner Gallery

Lakeside Arts Centre, University Park, NG7 2RD 6. The Yard Gallery Courtyard Stables, Wollaton Hall and Park Wollaton, NG8 2AE. 0115 915 3920 7. Moot (Some ace funding) Unit 3, The Factory, Dakeyne St, Sneinton, Nottm NG3 2AR, www.mootgallery.org Tel. 07786 257213, 07771 866822 ARTIST/COMMUNITY LED GALLERIES AND ART SPACES 8. My House Gallery (run by artist group Stand Assembly) My House Gallery events are split between two locations: Flat 2, 10 Victoria Avenue, Sneinton Dale, Sneinton, NG2 4HD. 34 Windmill Lane, Sneinton, NG2 4QB. www.myhousegallery.co.uk

9. Surface Gallery Basement, 7 Mansfield Road, NG1 3FB. www.surfacegallery.org 0115 934 8435 10. City Arts The Art Exchange, Gregory Boulevard, Nottingham, NG7 6BE. 0115 978 2463 11. The Malt Cross Gallery St James Street 12. Broadway Cinema café Bar (Host of Trampoline festival by Radiator) Broad Street, Hockley COMMERCIAL GALLERIES 13. Waterstones View From The Top gallery Bridlesmith Gate

16. Manhattan gallery 8 Flying Horse Wk, NG1 2HN 17. Art house studios 70-72 Derby Road, NG1 5FD 18. City Gallery 2-6 St. James’s Street, NG1 6FG

23. Moreland Court Artist Studio Group, Unit 3 Moreland Court, Moreland Street, Off Meadow Lane, NG2 3GE. 24. Nottingham Artists Group 2 City Buildings, 2nd Floor, 32-36 Carrington Street, NG1 7FG

19. Castle Gallery 20-22 Exchange Arcade, NG1 2DD

25. Nottingham City Artists Eagle Works, Hooton Street, off Carlton Road, NG3 2NB

STUDIOS ARTISTS GROUPS Artists Studios

26. Oldknows Studio Group 3rd Floor, Oldknows Factory, St Ann’s Hill Road, NG3 4GQ

20. Can Studios 4th floor, Oldknows Factory, St Anns Hill Road, NG3 4GP. 0115 958 8601

14. Pete Spowage/Spowage studios Estate House, 2 Byard Lane

21. Egerton Studio Group 4th Floor, Oldknows Factory, St Ann’s Hill Road, NG3 4GQ

15. Focus Gallery 08 Derby Rd, NG1 5FB

22. Goosewing 35 Warser Gate, NG1 1NU

27. Opus Studios Unit B3, Oldknows Factory, St Ann’s Hill Road, NG3 4GQ 28. Reactor Studio 5D Arkwright Street 29. Wollaton Street Studios 179 Wollaton Street, NG1 5GE

LeftLion shines a light on a few of the movers and shakers in the local art scene...

Chris Matthews

Jonathan Willett

Simon ‘seismik’ Dunn

Favourite colour: Blue.

Most influential artist: Marcel Duchamp or Piet Mondrian.

Tell us about your project, Mainframe: It’s like the artists studio as a mobile software application; a creative tool for mediating between the substance of meaning and the substance of material.

As an artwork it is ‘under construction’ and continually takes place; the unfolding event of the creative process itself.

Best Gallery or space for art in Nottingham: The revamped Bonington Gallery is looking really good as a white cube space. The old Art Deco laundry in Daybrook could have been a great space.

Who bought your first piece of work: Wayne McGregor, Choreographer of Random Dance Company.

Top tip for up and coming artists: Keep a sketch book and try to jot down at least one idea/drawing a day, sketches are at least as interesting as the finished product.

What are your future plans: Another exhibition, either for Architecture Week 2006 or early next year in the Netherlands, depending on funding.

CCAN, great plan or tin can: All centres, including art centres need a periphery, art always emerges from an outside. It will be interesting to see how the peripheral relates to this new centre once it is up and running.

Occupation/medium of work: graphic designer/monkeyologist Favourite colour: 0% cyan 100% magenta 0% yellow 0% black 100% pretentious answer Most influential artist: Johnny Rotten Best gallery space in notts: Walls of disused buildings Who bought your first piece of work: I designed my year 11 xmas disco poster in exchange for two tickets from Mrs. North my form tutor.

Top tip for upcoming artists: Be prepared for little or no money to start off with. If you are getting into it to make money they don’t bother but if you love what you do the money will find you. Plus its your portfolio that does the talking not any course or certificate, if you’ve got skills you don’t necessarily need a piece of paper to prove that.

Future plans: to get away from static work and get into the moving image and try to do some music promos (so any local bands/producers get in touch!)

CCAN, great plan or tin can: great plan! A) its not another bar or restaurant or flat, so hoorah for town planners actually removing their cheque lined blinkers for once. B) it was an disused crap hole used by junkies to shoot crack into their eyeballs. So is this new gallery a good idea? What do you reckon!

Dream project: Doing a music vid for Bent (hint hint) or designing the cover art for a cd that gets in everyone’s homes (and hearts) Tell us something about art and life: Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.

Via Vaudeville!

Blue Firth & Tomas Chaffe Favourite Colour: Orange (Tomas) Green (Blue).

Favourite tale about Nottingham: The Wise Men Of Gotham, and we’d like to ad that Chris Matthews tells the best tales about Nottingham.

Most influential artist: Cameron Jamie (Blue) I like how Duchamp gave up art and played chess (Tomas) Best gallery or space for art in Nottingham: Angel Row (because we work there).

Who bought your first piece of work: (Tom turns to Blue) Didn’t You?!

Top tip for up and coming artists: Work hard and get to know your peers.

What are Via Vaudeville’s future plans: Look out for our May event!

CCAN, great plan or tin can: Great Plan (looks like a sexy tin can).

Tell us something exciting about art and life: It’s like a work by Per Wizen, with a circus carousel powered by enslaved horses forever turning in an underground pit. But we’re not sure which is art and which is life.

www.seismikdesign.co.uk

Juicy Glass Favourite colour: I can’t choose.

Biggest influence: Life.

Best gallery/ space for art in Nottingham: Behind the Playhouse Theatre; where the Sky Mirror is.

Who bought your

Favourite colour: Turquoise, html code: 00F FFF Favourite tale about Nottingham: Nottingham Lace: 1760 -1950, by Sheila Mason. Oh, and the one about that dodgy bouncer in town, by Mossy.

Most influential artist: Jarvis Cocker. Although I do realise he’s a bit of tit who gets in a mess and has to claw himself out again. I can relate to that.

Best gallery space for art in Nottingham: Via Vaudeville! and Moot because the buildings were once part of the Lace industry and the people there are lovely.

Who bought your first piece of work: A granddaughter of a former Lace Factory owner offered ten quid for my Proper Lace DVD. Which was nice.

Top tip for up and coming artists: Stop wearing baggy jeans that show your dirty underpants. Oh, my favourite new artist is Blue Firth at Via Vaudeville!

What are your future plans: 1. Finish making a collaborative four minute film about regional cultures; 2. A post-modern local history walk with Via Vaudeville! in May; 3. Get a BBC series commissioned about local history; 4. Have a disco in a Library.

CCAN, great plan or tin can: So long as it pays some attention to Robin Hood and the Lace Market.

Historian David Greenwood suggests that Garners Hill was where Robin Hood was imprisoned according to medieval folk ballads. If they don’t respect local history and folklore now they’ll only regret it in ten years time…

Tell us something exciting about art and life: Life; don’t put the cart before the horse, so don’t put art before your life. Art; there have been very few studies on local and regional identity in the UK and academics are currently stressing that this is the future of research. For starters: the word ‘pagan’ comes from the Latin pagus; meaning region with its own identity. Ya get me? www.nowtonline.co.uk

Myhouse-Yourhouse

Favourite tune: Pepe Bradock, Vermeile. Deep house cut from legendary French producer that even self-professed ‘househaters’ get along with.

Most influential artist: Currently, Nottingham’s very own Crazy Penis. They’re really pushing things musicially and proving that deep house is more than a 4/4 beat. Now massively prolific, and first piece of work: My mum. never allowing quantity to affect quality, they’re Top tip for up and coming artists: Be visionary. unstoppable.

When is your next exhibition/siteing/future plans: Best space for music in Nottingham: My favourite coming soon my next local (ish) work on Glossop Rd, events were last summer on the terrace outside Cast Sheffield.

(The Playhouse). Their Sunday Market events with a CCAN, great plan or tin can?: Great plan! www.viavaudeville.com live band and DJs created a fun intimate atmosphere www.juicyglass.com that felt a million miles from being in a city centre.

Dominic Henry What is your first release: Myhouseyourhouse001 compilation with Zendin, Mike Bremmer, James Favorite colour: Black. The absence of light, and the sauce for lovers of contrast like me.

Gunca and Down In The Basement.

Most influential artist: Salvador Dali, his different take on reality was a major influence Top tip for up and coming artists: Be prepared to when I was a nipper, though it’s as well the school psychologist never got to see my pour everything you have into what you’re doing, offbeat pictures. especially money. If it’s a choice between some Best gallery/space for art in Nottingham: Angel Row gallery boasts a nice space, important promotion and eating pasta for a week interesting content and it’s within a lunch time stroll of so many city centre offices. or forgoing that promotion for a night out; there Who bought your first piece of work: A promoter from the Sheffield nightclub Niche. shouldn’t be any hesitation.

Top tip for up and coming artists: Don’t neglect the business, great art is also great Upcoming events/future plans: Next MHYH Events; product. I’ve met so many talented artists who are not successful purely because they Ride Bar, May 27th, Nottingham; Weekly on Tuesdays don’t market themselves very well. at The Pig and Whistle, Hollywood Blvd, California; What are your future plans: In between my usual nightlife, gig and event work I’m working on an ‘sub-urban’ project examining Sting, Stavanger, Norway; Record Label Launch @ inner city life at the moment, will be exhibiting in the autumn.

Lava Lounge, Atlanta.

Damien Hirst blessed or cursed: Blessed, whether you love or hate his art wecan only admire his business savvy.

James Blunt, blessed or cursed: Arrrghhhhhhh!

CCAN, great plan or Tin Can: You can never have too many galleries! www.thestonedsoupproject.com www.dlounge.co.uk

Nottingham based illustrator Jon Burgerman’s use of chewed up biros and felt tips has made him an in-demand doodler of international acclaim. His unique style of squiggly lined character illustration can be found in many a nook and cranny from pieces of cardboard and planks of wood to Sony’s PSP advertising campaign and MTV animation spots. LeftLion caught up with the penhandler to see where he draws the line… words: David Blenkey illustrations: Jon Burgerman When did you first start drawing?

All children are given crayons to doodle with and I was no different, so I can’t really say exactly when I started. I remember when I was about ten wanting to do drawings when I ‘grew up’. I’m still patiently waiting for that to happen.

How would you describe your work to someone who hasn’t seen it?

Strange characters, knitted together with interlinking lines and squiggles, often colourful and sometimes silly.

Who bought your first piece of work?

I can’t remember as I used to sell pieces and figures made out of Fimo when I was about fourteen at school. When I finished art foundation some of my peers and I put on an exhibition at the Custard Factory in Birmingham called Do You Want Fries With That (as we all thought trying to be artists would lead to a fast-food career). The manager of the Custard Factory bought one of my two big paintings whilst we were still setting up. The other one sold after the opening night. Kerching, dollar signs flashed in my eyes and my wallet was momentarily bloated with crisp folded paper instead of loose change.

How long do your drawings take to do?

Sometimes they are very quick but they might be the culmination of days of drafting pieces and scribbling

characters. It can depend on their complexity, though sometimes the simplest of drawings takes a very long time to get right.

Do you prefer drawing large or small scale?

Big or small both present different advantages and disadvantages. I supposed I’d err on the side of smaller things as there’s less colouring in required. I’m very lazy and easily distracted.

Colour or black and white?

I guess colour because you can maybe do more with it, though black and white is okay by me too.

Favourite colour?

Breen and gellow mixed with a hint a rurple.

What impact have computers had on your work?

They can make things a lot quicker, they can make things a lot slower. I think I wouldn’t be able to make a living out of doodling without computers though. Not especially for the art programs but for being able to chat and email people all over the world and send them work samples. Without a website I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have gained half the jobs I’ve done.

Do you prefer making animations or still images?

Stills because animations might look great and fun but are very time consuming and labour intensive to produce. It takes me maybe a week to make a 45 second piece, and by the end of it I’m cracking up and ever so slightly foaming at the mouth.

You been featured on sites such as Wooster Collective involved in collaborations with various European streets artists. What’s your level of involvement in the street art scene?

Somewhere between none at all and very little. I used to do a fair amount of stickering years ago but not so much in the last few years due to being busy and turning my attention to other things. If I find myself with the opportunity to paint and doodle outside with others I’ll gladly take it and I do still whack the occasional sticker up when out and about. I like getting involved in street art projects and collaborating with other

artists, who are very much street artists, but I wouldn’t place myself along side of them.

In the same way, I wouldn’t really call myself an animator either, even though I do make the odd animated piece.

Top tip for up and coming artists?

Doodle, scribble and draw all day long if you want to become proficient at it. Going to all different sorts of exhibitions and shows can also help broaden your inspirations.

Would you say the field of illustration is experiencing a revival at present?

It’s taken a little upturn recently, I think, but things perhaps still aren’t as rosy as they once were.

Favourite places in Nottingham?

(I’m hoping this will nab me some freebies) I love Wagamama’s, I’m very grateful there’s one in Nottingham. I also frequent the Broadway Cinema, The Keans Head and the great Shaba Nan Kabab in Radford. I also like that little art shop on Mansfield Road and the health food store further down on the same side. Oh and Carringtons chips, near the train station, are best I’ve had in Nottingham.

What projects have you been working on recently?

I’ve been working a lot on my toy projects with Hong Kong company Flying Cat. I’ve also just created a lot of artwork for a Japanese clothing brand called Love Rabby (who is a rabbit) and have some trinkets and goodies being produced by Australian trinket and goodie manufacture, Nook Art. I just painted a plank of wood in the trendy clothing store Plank on Heathcote Street, Hockley for their birthday.

When is your next exhibition/future plans?

I’ve got work in a group show called Papercuts in London at Dreambagsjaguarshoes which should open on the 27th of April and then a solo show in Paris in May, which should be open on the 4th until the 20th. I’m also in the middle of organising a small group show (two others and myself) in the centre of London for just after the world cup.

Best gallery/space for art in Nottingham?

I’m hoping it’ll be the CCAN space.

Last good exhibition you saw?

The last exhibition I saw was Ghosting at the Angel Row Gallery, and it was good, so that counts right?

Dream project?

An animated cartoon series would be cool but I’d settle for a food-for-doodles deal in the aforementioned restaurants and shops.

Anything else you want to say to LeftLion readers?

Oppose the expansion of the Eastcroft Incinerator, which is just inside the city centre, and is officially the worst offending incinerator in the UK. Have some pride in the city and don’t let Nottingham become the dumping ground for all of the East Midland’s waste. Recycle stuff, don’t burn it and then breath in the toxic fumes. See www.nail. uk.net for all the facts.

Jon Burgerman’s work is currently on display in Plank clothing shop, Angel Row window display, centre pages of this magazine and online at www.jonburgerman.com

clockwise from top left: Jules Cheret Aux Buttes Chaumont, (circa 1866); Henri Toulouse-Lautrec Jane Avril, (1899); J. Michaelson Nixon’s The One, (1968); Stanley King Collection; Wes Wilson The Sound, (1966), Thackery & Robertson Gallery; Saul Bass The Man With The Golden Arm, (1955), Museum Of Modern Art; Mirko Ilic Corporation Anti-War Demonstration in Washington DC, (2005); Craig Frazier Studio The Oxbow School; Studio International/Ivan Mestrovic Foundation.

Screaming From the Walls A Brief History of Posters

Today, we think nothing of walking down the street and passing by scores of posters adorning the walls bombarding us with all kinds of messages; go here, go there, buy this product, use that brand. It wasn’t always so; time was when a man could stroll along without having his thoughts drowned out by the screaming from the walls. So, how exactly did we get from scratching one-off images on cave walls to making mass produced, globally distributed displays of visual information? Well, that is story of distinct phases, innovation, industrialisation, war and a handful of European inventiveness… words: David Blenkey The first modern posters can be traced back to the sixteenth century. Initially produced to replace lazy town criers who had a habit of cutting their route short, the poster was seen as a more efficient means of communicating information to the masses. These initial pieces had to be produced as oneoffs as there was no method of print reproduction available.

Because of this, the first posters were made by highly skilled artisans with the skills necessary to produce accurate work consistently; the most notable being Parisian artist Jules Cheret. Regarded as the godfather of the poster, Cheret not only designed many of the first mass-produced posters but also helped refine them from simple text into a visual artform and developed a lithographic printing technique using stone blocks.

By carving mirrored images into clay tablets and using them as printing blocks by rolling ink on them, the ability to make multiple reproductions from a single source image became a reality for the first time; although considerable skill was required to achieve desirable results. This was effectively the birth of the modern printing press, revolutionising printed media and graphic arts forever while spawning a whole new industry; commercial printing. So began the dawn of the modern mass-produced poster. Once the industrial revolution hit the scene the

printing presses had plenty of custom from new industry and with the moving image and TV yet to be invented, the poster was the main vehicle for getting the message to the masses.

The poster became a universal attraction displaying everything from fine art to adverts for fags and booze.

Artists like Toulouse Lautrec helped to elevate the poster as an artform and the Art Nouveau movement really found its home in the medium. Then came WWI and governments the world over jumped on the bandwagon, launching poster campaigns on a previously unseen scale warning their citizens of the dangers of Johnny Foreigner. The best posters of this era generally come from the Soviet Union, characterised by bold graphic styling. They were a huge influence on the stark clean modernist style which was refined in Germany during WWII and still holds a strong influence in graphic design to this day.

By the time the TV reared its ugly head, poster production had become extremely cheap and everyone was doing it.

But big business wasn’t so interested any more and went off glassy eyed and salivating to the cult of the glowing box. The poster became small business, but as there were plenty of small businesses in the world, they carried on the

tradition and the poster kept evolving. This was the sixties and the poster was ideal for music promoters who needed a low cost way of getting the word about the latest freakout on the streets. The hippie scene of California became the place where the good stuff was. Adopting a playful approach to image making, many examples they came up with are steeped in art nouveau styling and psychedelic imagery with stunning results. Vietnam also provided plenty of fuel for the political poster on both sides of the line.

This was probably the last great wave of the poster for the time being but the legacy lives on. Advertising still relies heavily on posters and they are a cornerstone of music promotion but there may be a new wave lapping at the shore. With the arrival of home computers, the internet and the ever growing street culture, DiY poster making is once again rising from the underground. Many savvy artists are taking to street art to get their work seen; scanning in drawings, printing them out large scale en masse and pasting their work up on the streets for all to see. People will always want to express themselves and with the means of production so widely available, this is a culture with plenty of room for growth. The poster, like vinyl, will never die.

image by jon burgerman www.jonburgerman.com

“Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art.”

Ambrose Bierce ”You don’t take a photograph. You ask, quietly, to borrow it.”

Unknown ”Sometimes I do get to places just when God’s ready to have somebody click the shutter.”

Ansel Adams ”No place is boring, if you’ve had a good night’s sleep and have a pocket full of unexposed film.”

Robert Adams, Darkroom & Creative Camera Techniques, May 1995

”It’s weird that photographers spend years or even a whole lifetime, trying to capture moments that added together, don’t even amount to a couple of hours.”

James Lalropui Keivom ”If you’re photographing in colour you show the colour of their clothes. If you use black and white, you will show the colour of their soul.”

Unknown ”A good snapshot stops a moment from running away.”

Eudora Welty ”I think the best pictures are often on the edges of any situation, I don’t find photographing the situation nearly

as interesting as photographing the edges. “ William Albert Allard ”There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.”

Ansel Adams ”No photographer is as good as the simplest camera.”

Edward Steichen ”Every time someone tells me how sharp my photos are, I assume that it isn’t a very interesting photograph. If it were, they would have more to say. “ Unknown

words: Kate Symons photos: David Bowen & AoApress Say the word ‘luminarium’ and most people will ask, ‘lumi what?’ A luminarium shares a few key characteristics with a bouncy castle. Both are inflatable, colourful, made from PVC and designed to entertain people in a public space. But that is where the comparison ends. The sensory effect these large objects have on people is poles apart.

A walk through air sculpture that uses colour and light to inspire and amaze, a luminarium is a visual art you can enter.

Nottingham-based company Architects of Air specialise in creating and exhibiting them. The business, located at Oldknows Studios, is the brainchild of former Trent Polytechnic student Alan Simpson.

Alan’s luminaria sit somewhere between art, sculpture and architecture. His awe-inspiring structures have been exhibited at arts festivals, theatre festivals, science festivals or as individual exhibits in 34 countries, on five continents and been viewed by 1.5 million visitors. Not bad, for what is essentially a load of PVC. Each luminarium is made to inspire. To induce a sense of wonder in anyone who takes a shoeless walk through their womb-like tunnels of colour.

“What interests me is to develop new architectural forms to house the experience of light,” explains Alan.

Inspiration crosses all boundaries inside an Architects of Air luminarium. Children, families, single men, old women, middle aged couples, grumpy teenagers who enter one will wake from mundane reality and walk in wonder. Set up in 1992, Alan has now designed several different luminaria for Architects of Air. From the outset, projects with a socially responsible aim fed Alan’s own inspiration and set him on the path to setting up Architects of Air. After his degree studies, he got a part time job with Nottingham Probation Service. He was responsible for

offenders on community service orders. ‘Some of the people I was supervising were involved with the Winbag Inflatable Project, a charity designed to give a resource to the community that would be manned by offenders who might benefit from doing something different to gardening or painting and decorating,’ Alan explained.

Then, at an outdoor festival in Nottingham, Alan met Leicester-based community arts worker Roger Hutchinson who had built his own installation that people could enter.

‘I was touched by the beauty of the light to be found inside a PVC structure,’ said Alan. ‘Roger helped me get started building my own.’

He began with basic knowledge about blowers and plastic suppliers, and was shown how to do simple cutting patterns. His first structure was built in 1985. Now, in 2006, he is looking to build a new structure and collaborate more with local company Salamanda Tandem ‘to create more projects where we get to work with people with special needs.’ The site that inspires him most and which fed into his design of the ‘Arcazaar’ (pictured), are the bazaars he visited in Iran. ‘I appreciated the use of surface, the structure, light and geometry, discovery, disorientation, the harmony of the sacred and the worldly spaces.’

We were lucky enough to walk through the ‘Arcazaar’, when it was exhibited as the main attraction at an arts and environment day held at Nottingham Castle. Working alongside staff from Architects of Air, a group of long term unemployed people, supported by employment specialists Working Links, were given the chance to erect the structure.

From outside, the Arcazaar undulates like the roof of a middle-eastern bazaar and inside the path meanders to open out into tall, domed chambers. The premiere of the Arcazaar in Prague saw 7,000 visitors pass through the structure in just four days.

Of all the places in the world they have toured their luminaria, Clapham, North Yorkshire provided the backdrop to his favourite project. ‘I particularly liked the event we did there. It was a mini ‘Fitzcarraldo’ experience of hauling a structure up a mountainside. Exhibiting three structures simultaneously on significant locations in Madrid was also a high point.’

Alan is now a decade and a half into running a successful company that has inspired over a million people around the world. He said: ‘I feel enormously fortunate to have stumbled across something I can do which also has a value to people.’

An Architects of Air luminaria will be exhibiting at Nottingham Lakeside from 18- 25 June this year www.architects-of-air.com www.lakesidearts.org.uk/

LeftLion whips out the credit card and wallows in the retail wonderland that is Nottingham. Our correspondents this time around were Cristina Chapman, Jennie Syson and Dan Stairs

The Maze/Forest Tavern

Cafés and Bars: Arty outlets

When you’ve had enough of traipsing around all the galleries and offsite installations in town and you feel the need to rest your weary legs and take the weight off your Jimmy Choos, don’t despair! You can frequent one of the excellent cafes in the city and have a look at even more art when you’re sipping your Earl Grey. Top tips for arty beverages include The Malt Cross, with its very own white cube attachment and ‘creative vegetarian beats’ at Alley Café bar situated in a little twitchell near Angel Row Gallery and Lee Rosy’s in Hockley. All three establishments have regular exhibitions and reasonably priced work for sale by local artists.

If you’re still about when the stars are out and still haven’t had enough of the visual vibe it’s worth visiting WAX or Broadway for a late coffee or a beer, both café bars often screen interesting projections and new media work, (the former a host of the annual Big Grin Cartoon Festival in the Summer and the latter the venue for the biannual Radiator Festival of New Technology Art.) If cocktails are in order, CAST at Nottingham Playhouse provides perfect viewing for Kapoor’s Sky Mirror and the Orange Tree is a great stop off after you have been to the newly refurbished Bonington Gallery.

The Malt Cross, 16 St James’s Street, NG1 6FG. 0115 941 1048 www.maltcross.com Alley Café, 1a Cannon Court, Long Row, NG1 6JE. 0115 955 1013 www.alleycafe.co.uk Lee Rosy’s, 17 Broad Street, Hockley, NG1 3AJ. WAX, 27 Broad Street, Hockley, NG1 3AP. 0115 959 0007 www.waxbar.co.uk Broadway Cafebar 14.-18 Broad Street, NG1 3AL. 0115 952 66 11 www.broadway.co.uk CAST, Nottingham Playhouse, Wellington Circus, NG1 5AF. 0115 941 9419 www.nottinghamplayhouse.org.uk Orange Tree 38 Shakespeare Street, NG1 4FQ. 0115 947 3239 www.orangetree.co.uk

The Loggerheads

The Forest Tavern and its sibling live venue The Maze, caused alarm when it was vacated, boarded up and sold in January 2005. A certain group of locals even went as far as to set up a ‘Save The Maze’ campaign and launch a web site in protest. Thank god they did too!

Surely a venue that good was never going to stay empty for long..?

Running the show these days are Ben, Ed and Steve. Their mindset is to include quality entertainment, whichever form or genre it takes. As a result the place is host to everything from salsa classes to comedy, with a great selection of both dance and band-based music.

LeftLion is particularly tickled by the idea of speed-dating for artists. This is an original concept whereby creative enthusiasts from across the spectrum pitch to those who may be interested in their work (rather than a snog).

They have also unveiled a decent range of homemade food, including what might be the most reasonable Sunday lunch in the city at just £4.95. The staff are smart and friendly as ever and with Mansfield Road going through something of a regeneration, going right into the city centre every weekend may become a thing of the past. Check it out…

The Maze and the Forest Tavern, 270 North Sherwood St, Nottingham NG1 0115 947 5650

Hooters

Tucked away just outside the city centre in an area that dates back to the 1300s, The Loggerheads is set in one of the oldest areas of Nottingham. Back in the day this was an area of marshland, with a reputation as one of the worst slums in the country, but it has come a long way since those dark days.

Set against a cliff face with a choice of spaces to relax in, the all-new Loggerheads is a great live music space with a pub on one side and an intimate candlelit cave on the other. Managers Pete and Jay have an ethos of unmasking new musical talent from Nottingham and beyond, so you can expect quality sounds across the board too. Gigs coming up at the venue include Go-go, Honey Spider, El Gheko, City of Dog meets sincere flaw, Trickster as well as LeftLion Presents veterans Deep Sound Channel (live funk/ jazz/ drum and bass) and Alligator (funky hiphop). You might not have heard of these acts yet, but if you catch them at the venue you are sure to remember them afterwards. In fact they have live entertainment on every night.

They serve a range of freshly cooked food throughout the day and a more than adequate range of wines, beers and spirits. All in all, this looks set to be a top addition to Nottingham’s nightlife and is well worth paying a visit, even if it’s just to check out the cave! See the inside cover of this magazine for more details.

The Loggerheads, 59 Cliff Rd, Nottingham, NG1.

0115 9500086 www.theloggerheads.co.uk

For years, the Hicking building sat derelict, waiting for a classy and sensitive redevelopment to take hold.

Last year its fairy godmother came to the rescue and made a fairly good job of it.

Whatever you think of city centre living, few of you won’t have been tempted to snoop around the excellently redeveloped warehouse opposite the train station. That is until the fanfares came out for the grand reopening of Hooters on t’other side of the railway bridge.

We know Hooters is marketed as a fun, friendly atmosphere for all the family but we also know that the roller-skating, orange hot-panted and tight Tshirted waitresses attract just about every group of lads on a weekend bender. No matter how much we liked the 1980s Martini girls, there’s no way we’d head to Hooters for an afternoon out with our nieces and nephews.

Just imagine how the residents must be fuming? You buy a groovy warehouse flat thinking you’ll be able to shimmy downstairs to a funky café, restaurant or bar. But how does reality tip its hat to you? With a bar fuelled by testosterone and deep fat frying.

You can’t help wondering if the developers ran over budget and had to accept the first interested bar. If the council really were hoping to press ahead with their plan to turn the area around the train station into a flashy business quarter, they have failed at the first hurdle. On the plus side, Hooters will help to keep the footy-fans and stag-do crowds amused.

Hooters, The Hicking Building, London Road, Nottingham, NG2.

0115 958 8111 www.hooters.com

Are you being served?

What do cats eyes, 1950s ballroom overcoats and mustardcoloured waist jackets have in common? They each have a small place in the heart of Celia’s Vintage Clothing store.

It’s a cacophony of colour and fashions that can’t fail to tickle your fancy.

You can easily lose a Saturday afternoon sifting through the collection of shoes, boots, bags, capes, strides, frocks and tops that fill a stonking three floors of classic Derby Road architecture.

This is not just a place to get your threads for fancy dress pub crawls, 1970s disco nights or a vintage-themed hen weekends. Although you will find everything you need for any such event.

Celia’s is a place of fancy, a store where you can free yourself from the fashion storm troopers who run every glossy magazine in the land. Top floor for men’s fashion, bottom floor for ladies’ looks. Or perhaps you want a 1970s halter-neck summer dress? If it’s from days gone by, they may just have one in stock. And if they haven’t, head downstairs to the fancy dress department and go organise yourself a night on the town as Elvis or Marilyn.

Celia’s Vintage Clothing, 66-68 Derby Road 0115 947 3036

including a visit from intellectual Melvyn Bragg who is launching his new book, Twelve Books That Changed The World, on April 25th. It starts at 7.30am and costs £3, which is redeemable against the book if you decide to buy it at the end of the talk.

Of course, no sooner had the last piles of books been shipped out of Wheeler Gate and a piece of prime retail spot was being eyed up.

Enter stage left, Limeys. Now we never felt too comfortable with this store’s previous location at the bottom of Bridlesmith Gate. Arriving at the bottom of Nottingham’s Park Lane of shopping is always accompanied by much excitement, drooling in anticipation of the flourish of colour, patterns and new things to look at that lay afoot.

However, Limeys always seemed like a bit of a letdown with its super conservative window dressing and disappointingly bland selection of clothes inside if you could be bothered to make your feet walk through the doors. So, Limeys moving from this spot is a small relief for the nerve endings and brain cells in charge of our shopping adrenaline. Gosh, just think, what we’d be capable of if we applied our energies to real issues…

Waterstones, 1-5 Bridlesmith Gate. 0115 948 4499 Limeys, 25 Wheeler Gate. 0115 958 4097

Waterstones becomes Limeys We were never too sure why Waterstones had two stores a stone’s throw away from each other just south of the Market Square. The competition must have proved too much for each other as one has been forced to close.

Actually, the stores amalgamated to offer a bigger, better collection all in one place in the multi-storey Bridlesmith Gate shop.

While we’re on the Waterstones subject they have, as usual, a lively programme of events planned for the year,

Was no more…

Another sadly departed shop in the city centre appears to be Was (also known as the second-hand bit of Selectadisc.) But at least they went out with a flourish…

One week we went past on our lunch-hour and noticed the photocopied 20% off notice in the window. So we went in and bought some CD’s. The next week, we

noticed a slightly different notice offering 30% off. So we bought some more. By the third week they were offering 50% off and we were left wondering if it was worth waiting another week for further inexplicable discounts.

Unfortunately, the next notice said they would open on occasional Saturdays only. The future of the former Selecta-seconds shop looks bleak...

It’s not that surprising really. In today’s downloadable music market, little old CD shops are becoming a thing of the past, especially in prime city-centre retail spaces.

In the world of iPods there is little room for taking on someone else’s old favourites. A shame, but a sign of the times. Raise a glass to a great shop that Was. 5 Market St, Nottingham, NG1 6HY 0115 9584842

OhMyGosh The good news for local music shop buffs is that OhMyGosh appears to be staying open. We love this shop even though we only have one record deck at home.

With a fine selection of local music, as well as the best underground dance and hiphop grooves you could ask for it’s a great place to pop into and browse. If you catch owner Squigley on a good day he might even make you a cup of tea and give you a quick scratch lesson. He recently won the Eclective DJ battle at the maze and is now planning a move to hook up with Nottingham Light and Sound on Mansfield Road to create Turntable Heaven. We await the next few months with interest…

Turntable Heaven 43 Mansfield Rd, Nottingham NG1 3FB www.ohmygosh.co.uk 0115 941 4331

There’s a place in every city where you just want to be. Whether you want to people-watch or think about the good times, everyone’s place is different. Each issue, a member of the LeftLion crew explains the spot they like best, this time, A View From The Top… Despite being a small and relatively quiet city, on Monday morning it can seem a busy and all too hectic place to me.

All the animals scurry about in suits, late for meetings or just late for work. Every Monday I have to wait in town for around an hour and a half while my lab sorts my scans for one of my clients’ deadlines. The choice is to spend money on a moccafrapa-latte, er, ‘skinny’, and shift uncomfortably as I try to penetrate the thick cream layer, or to chip up to the top floor of Waterstones and see what they have on the walls.

There is normally at least one piece of work I’d love for my home, normally more, and the varied styles always surprise. One of my all time favourites was a piece which from a distance looked like a pencil sketch of a woman sitting naked with her knees drawn up, but as you got closer the lines making up her figure were actually made of written sentences. I’ve no idea who the artist was, or their motivation as I’m allergic to artist statements, but that was one memorable piece. It provoked a reaction, deserved a

second look and wasn’t made to match the colour scheme of someones lounge. On another occasion, I went there with my girlfriend to hear a talk by name-sake finder, Dave Gorman.

As my name is Dave and her name is O’Gorman so we tried to join his elite club as a couple, (subtly dropping the ‘O’ from Louise’s name,) but he was having none of it.

The other thing I love about the gallery is moving up through the layers of the bookshop on the way there and seeing the animals penned into their own interests, rather than scurrying madly. The random city dwellers slow down and find a spot in their favourite section of the shop. Travelling up the elevator, you can look down to the left at people moving in the alleyway, and when you take the free standing stairs back down, another great view greets you.

It’s not a romantic place and it’s not a place connected with a sentimental time in personal history, it’s a regular spot which has become part of a regular routine which makes Monday mornings more bearable.

Identity Cards It’s a cost effective way of building a personal profile of every UK citizen and making it readily checkable against the actual individual. It’s about social control, not crime. mr.reason Loads of countries make you carry ID cards, it’s normal. theonelikethe It’s going to create a state where people who fall into the gaps already will fall further (Low income? Fancy paying £100 for an ID card?

Why not? You a criminal then?)

BigFatBadger Who IS actually up for them? Most people I know aren’t keen. I’m definitely not, there’s some potential benefits but it’s just a cop out. Especially when they aren’t going to work in the first place.

Alan Britain has crap, decentralised IT systems already holding most of this information.

Inefficient, slow: the story of public services in this country and the reason why I can’t be arsed getting wound up about ID cards.

Kate Hood You Labour lovers - now look what they’ve done! At least if the agreed technologies are approved now, it will be better than waiting for the Tories to get power, when they might put in tracking devices and God knows what else.

Arnold Market No-one who values their freedom will ever carry an ID card. If they’re going to make you feel like a criminal you might as well be one.

Don’t forget, we can make a difference, the Poll Tax anyone? I am so embarrassed by our government. oldskool

Dozy Bastard Song Lyrics ‘You can’t make missiles out of mud...’ (Was Not Was) Take a dollop of mud. Pack it together in yer hands. Chuck it at someone.

It’s now literally and legally a missile. shedfixman ‘Ay yo, Dizzy Gillespie plays the sax’ (Nice & Smooth) Stop right there, lads. Dizzy Gillespie played the trumpet. You couldn’t be arsed to find summat else to rhyme with “Me myself, I likes to max”. You could have said “I go to town to find some crumpet”, and kept it real.

Lord of the Nish ‘I’m a soldier’ (Eminem) No you’re not- you’re a twat. Despisable twat who looks like he should be claiming his dole before going on the rob at Hyson Green Asda. Twat.

Harwill Tuesday ‘Tonight there’s gonna be a jailbreak somewhere in this town.’ (Thin Lizzy) Somewhere eh? ...The jail perhaps?

Peter O’Hanrahahanrahan

Join the Cult...

The Cult is a night of audio-visual entertainment that has been rocking Nottingham for the past couple of years. It started with Mouse (Stuart Rogers), XS:IF (Yemi Akinpelumi), Deft (Lawrence Graham) and Shifter (Tom Wood) and then about a year ago Christophe Christofferson (Chris Hough) came aboard.

They also have a large pool of local DJs who play various gigs around the city and will be starting new nights at the Golden Fleece and Stealth over the next couple of months. We caught up with them to find out more…

Explain the Cult to the uninitiated…

Yemi: The idea behind Cult was to combine imagery and visuals from Cult films with music from some of the best DJs in town. We do it as a unit. One person can’t be a Cult, it takes a collective.

Mouse: It’s a ten heads are better than one thing…

What gave you the inspiration to start The Cult?

Mouse: No-one was booking me to DJ, so I started my own night and booked myself. Nowadays I still end up playing at 8.30 to an empty room and some bored looking bar staff.

Yemi: We love films and music. Most club nights have visuals as a backdrop, but with us it’s a major part of the show.

Chris: We’ll move into smell-o-vision as soon as the technology is available.

What films have you done themed nights around thus far?

Mouse: The Big Lebowski (White Russians all round!), Scarface, Blade Runner, Wildstyle, City of God, La Haine, Pulp Fiction, Saturday Night Fever, Mad Max and more that I forget!

Any chance of you doing a Nottingham film soon? Perhaps a TwentyFourSeven Cult night or something?

Mouse: It is something we’ve thought about, it’s just finding the right movie. We all really respect Shane Meadows’ films. Romeo Brass stands out for me.

Shifter: We’re always open to new ideas. If someone would like to see one of their favourite movies to music, send us an email and we’ll look into it.

Chris: With the help of people like Shane Meadows I think the Nottingham film scene can really flourish. Ideally we’d love to get budding Cult film makers in Nottingham to get hold of us and produce visuals from their films for our nights.

What makes a cult movie?

Shifter: Anything that gives you a glimpse into someone else’s world and is done with integrity, style and class Yemi: Believe that shit! A film that will make you laugh, cry, or at least think.

Mouse: I don’t really think the movies we feature are real cult

movies. It depends on how underground you want to go? We could do nights featuring Lucio Fulci Zombie pics, or obscure art house movies only available from Japan, But how accessible would that be?

Chris: Anything too fucked up for pop culture.

Any opinions on art as this is the LeftLion ‘art’ issue?

Shifter: How can you not have an opinion? Art’s all around us and affects us every day. For Cult it’s been a powerful ally over the past two years. We’ve used and abused it as a propaganda tool as the backbone of our nights. The older Cult gets the more we seem to be blending the boundaries of music and art.

Yemi: There’s a lot of people on the art tip like Popx… you can’t really forget his ‘Stop Wars’ graffiti-work at the bottom of Hockley. Smallkid is like a busy little bee, spreading the word to the kids, At Cult’s sister night Doodle we actual have a drawing platform setup for people to come and draw or scribble down what ever is on the drunken mind Chris: See I’m still stuck in the ‘does life imitate art or art imitate life’ debate. The furthest I’ve got is a book on art by the toilet!

What’s going on for the Cult over the next year?

Yemi: Cult…Propaganda starts at The Golden Fleece on the third Friday of the Month, starting on the 21st of April. Cult mix CD Volume IV Mixed by Jon Rust is also out now! Check our website to get a free copy.

Chris: We’ve toyed with the idea of collaborating with one of the fine independent cinemas in Nottingham to bring together a weekend of cult movies and our unique take on a night out. This is still definitely in the pipeline. People will have to let us know what they think…

Mouse: We’ll be hosting Room 2 at Stealth Vs Rescued, on the second Saturday of the month. Its great for us as the size of the venue is going to let us experiment with a few things we’ve wanted to do previously but been limited by space or facilities.

So keep ‘em peeled!

Anything else you want to say to LeftLion readers?

Yemi: If you are interested in collaborating, DJing, VJing, Promoting, Writing, Photography, whatever your shit is, get in touch with us through our website Chris: Support your local musicians/DJ’s, they can get you free stuff!

Shifter: can we mention www.shifteronline.com and www.barschnapps.co.uk for doodle?

Mouse: It’s better to burn out than to fade away… www.wearethecult.co.uk

words: Jared Wilson

words: Jared Wilson

James Ford leads a charmed life. As the founder of House Gymnastics, this Nottingham Trent University graduate has previously appeared within the pages of LeftLion to big up exercise indoors, This time he returns on a lighter note.

Six degrees of smoking is a study of the art of smoking and more specifically the distance a lighter travels. For anyone who has wondered where their zippo got to James Ford probably knows…

Are you a cigar, tab or rollie man then?

Smoking a cigar is like smoking a thin turd.

I’m a Marlborough light man.

So what made you decide to instigate six degrees of smoking then?

Being a smoker, you find that you always lend your lighters to people and they disappear, but then at the end of the night you’ll end up with other random lighters in your pocket. I was in Venice and lent my lighter to a Finnish girl who was flying back the next day. I didn’t get it back and I started to think about the journey the

lighter had made. England, to Italy, to Finland and with the possibility that it may find it’s way back to me one day. Hence the numbering and labelling of the lighters to track their travels.

What’s the furthest away that one of the lighters has got to?

Quite a few have made it to America, some to Korea and a couple making their way across the middle east!

Has anyone you know been passed one back in a pub?

Not yet, but that would be a great conclusion to the project, and one of its main purposes. We’ll see….

Any interesting cigarette anecdotes?

One time when I was living in Nottingham I was in a club trying to impress a bird. I went to spark up and started toking at the wrong end of the cig! But she still came back to mine later!

How is the bogeyball (literally a ball of two years worth of Ford’s nose guff)?

Bogey Ball is sitting in a box on top of my wardrobe, waiting for the time when its crusty mucus appearance will truly be appreciated.

Are you still practising the occasional House Gymnastics?

Occasionally, but its more admin stuff and up-keep of the website now. Actually, the other day a Spanish education publishing house contacted me for some house gym photos because they wanted them in their latest learning book, which is to teach Spanish kids to read English! What!?

Tell us about a couple of your other current projects?

General Carbuncle is still slowly progressing (transforming a secondhand Capri into a British version of the General Lee from Dukes of Hazzard, using thousands of toy cars). But my newest work is called Fruity Flies and Megasorearses, which is paintings and drawings of flies having sex for fun and dinosaurs being gay (which is why they died out). There’s also a

selection of poems to accompany the works.

Here’s one for LeftLion: Ode to the Megasorearse Eye spy with my reptilian eye, Dinosaurs thrusting until they die.

Could this be the reason they became extinct?

For if he’s potting the brown, He’s missing the pink.

Cheers for that! So are you still visiting Nottingham regularly?

Nottingham is like a haven to escape to from the smog and skank of London. I visit at the drop of a hat.

Do you think you could fight Robin Hood?

Robin Hood had some serious bow hunting skills, but his tights made his pecker vulnerable. One swift kick and he’d be crying like girl.

www.jamesrobertford.com

words: David Bowen

What’s good people? MistaJam holding it down for the first time in print form for a long time. It took years of menacing phone calls; threatening abuse, violence and industrial sabotage but I’ve finally given in and started to write for LeftLion!

So, from now on you can find myself and Joe Buhdha putting the world to rights here but Buhdha’s too busy watching football to join us this time round and who can blame him?

Come on you reds! You can usually expect random mumblings about music, culture, football, food, film and basically our slant on everything LeftLion. So this month: Art… To me, Tracy Emin’s latest shitty drawers piece or Damien Hurst’s pickled dog cock installation are to British Art what Goldie Lookin Chain is to British Hip Hop. It’s all fake pretentious bollocks that someone is doing to make a quick buck and take the piss while people who just don’t understand buy into it, not realising that by buying the fake shit, they are starving a real artist of their support. Come on, if a dirty nappy and an ashtray was really art, then Broxtowe would be full of multi-millionaires.

Whatever happened to pictures? Some of the best and most influential art of recent times has come from the streets, from Hip Hop culture, namely graffiti. Keeping it contemporary and British, real artists such as my man Temper and keeping it Notts.

Small Kid and Dilk have done more for the aesthetics of British art in my world than Tracy Emin and her ilk could ever wish.

Will their pieces ever get the millions of pounds like those paid for Hurst’s animals in formaldehyde?

Probably not. Not in our lifetimes at least.

Anyway, enough ranting. If you’re a hiphop head like me, not only do you need to check out the HipHop M1X show with moi on 1Xtra every Thursday night 2-6am (or whenever the hell you feel online) but you also need to keep your ear to the ground as UK Takeover 4 is coming. Mark the end of May Bank Holiday weekend in your diaries and log on to uktakeover.net.

Until next time, large up Danny Cleary on the cartoon and I’m out like Ashley and Jermaine. www.myspace.com/mistajam www.bbc.co.uk/1xtra

This month’s answers are all themed around art and lots of them are answered elsewhere in this magazine. Please send your correct answers to nottsword@leftlion.co.uk or by post to the address on page 3. The first person to send in all the correct answers will win an exclusive set of illustrations drawn by members of the LeftLion team.

ACROSS 8 9 12 13 14 15 18 20 22 23 25 26 27 28

Sheriff’s owd house.

You (blank) Here.

It was a festival then.

Big Oversized Cranium.

The park with a gallery in t’yard.

East Midlands African Caribbean Arts.

Bookshop with top floor art space.

Formally suggestive Sneinton space.

Matt’s artistic metacarpals.

Former live art space (now rubble).

Basquiat’s Tag. Notts grafitti artist (sounds like Milk.)

Artistic toy shop.

Vine growing professor.

DOWN 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 10 11 16 17 19 21 24

Reactionary warehouse shenanigans.

Notts Trent Uni’s white cube.

Notts educated shed-boat-shed maker.

Blue and Tomas look at Folk culture.

Dame Laura who paints Goose Fair.

Art shop near Vicky Centre.

Lenny the Lion’s creator.

Celestial Line.

St Ann’s Hill Road studios.

Anish’s reflection on the firmament.

Lacey home of CCAN. Bouncing new media season at Broadway.

Trent trained snapper.

Basement space rising to the top

Aries (March 21 - April 20)

Libra (September 24 - October 23)

The sun is moving into Aries, which may mean a warmer climate for a certain members of ewe. Be warned. People are staring at you. It’s because you have an odd face and a cornucopia. There is nothing you can do about it but stare back and attempt to face things. Hide your horn.

Got a truly hideous amount of blood to remove from your best Sunday outfit? Pour hydrogen peroxide on blood and rinse with cold water. You can buy this from your local chemist, but you may have to pretend you are doing your hair. Hydrogen Peroxide burns the skin upon contact in sufficient concentration. In lower amounts, it is used medically for cleaning wounds and removing dead tissue If some blood remains, repeat.

Taurus (April 21 - May 21) Let’s face it, we’re all crazy damn fools! Fluttering about from one thing to the next, when in actual fact we’re just over-educated animals who should probably know better than to even try and set the video recorder. Who cares if you miss that TV show?

Especially when you can watch it exclusively on the repeat channel. Die TV die!!

Scorpio (October 24 - November 22) Picasso was a Scorpio. You can kinda tell these things. That guy had more bitches than he did paintings and he knew how to treat a lady (badly). They always came back for more from him because they thought he could make them immortal. Don’t be fooled either, they were never as ugly as he painted them. How could they be?

Gemini (May 22 - June 22) There are three types of people in this world today. There are those who think they know everything, those who simply do not think and those who know they know nothing. Be part of the first category and get every material gain you could ever want. Be part of the latter category and get peace of mind (or a piece of someone else’s). Don’t be piggy in the middle.

Sagittarius (November 23 - December 22)

Cancer (June 23 - July 23)

Capricorn (December 23 - January 19)

Gaudi, Barcelona’s greatest architect was a cancer (…in an astrological sense of course).

Not only did he build Catalunya into one of the greatest cities in the world, but he also thoroughly amused himself with a variety excessive design features. His untimely death came when surveying one of his creations from outside and getting hit by a tram.

Unfortunate.

Jean Michel Basquiat was a Capricorn. He had wooden teeth, a cool way about him and a date with Madonna. He lived a short, but eventful life and at least he never faded away. He once said “When I speak nobody believes me, but when I write it down everybody knows it to be true.” The horror indeed.

If bananas in pyjamas are really coming down the stairs and chasing teddy bears then you may have a psychological problem. If you have been taking hallucinogenic drugs then this will go someway to explaining the situation. If you have not and believe you are usually of sane mind, then go and see doctor and ask him to peel back your layers.

Aquarius (January 20 - February 19) Leo (July 24 - August 23) Warhol was a Leo, but he didn’t always roar like one. Instead he painted soup cans and hung around being pretentious. He didn’t, however, predict the rise of reality TV by wishing that everyone in the world would be famous for fifteen minutes. Simon Cowell and Endemol have since set about completing his work with a reign of terror.

I’m sick of this fucking about. I should have done this a long time ago. I grab your arms and draw you closer to me, kissing you hard on the lips. You still don’t want to let my tongue in, but eventually you have to. It flicks in and out like a tiny snake. Later you will know how good it will feel inside you.

Pisces (February 20 - March 20)

Virgo (August 24 - September 23) The blue pill opens your eyes. Is there a better way? A new religion prescribed. To those without the faith. The hero holding a knife. And blood is not enough. Is it too late to go back? Is it too late to go? There’s no one here. And people everywhere, you’re on your own

If you’re sexually frustrated then join the club. We (The sexually frustrated club) meet twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. We will unlock your darkest fantasies and make them all nice and clean again. We have a minute taker, a secretary and a chair (each)! More details about events are available from www.rogermeanishavingalaugh.com.

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Share price on 24 Mar (COF compa

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3666

No of employees (app

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60%

Amount of those agen

Amount of your life they own Evil rating

10 March 1917 Marcel Cuchamp unveils his Readymaid Fountain

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