Issue 37 Oct-Nov 2010
WELCOME TO
PLANET NOTTS
contents
LeftLion Magazine Issue 37 October - November 2010
editorial
14 Contain Notts 04 May The news diary that breaks into Leicester train station at 4am and writes ‘CHILD MO’ above all the placenames LeftEyeOn 07 Our photography-inclined mates
steal the souls of unsuspecting locals once more
in New Basford 08 AA Canadian tale of a boy, a boiler, and some bodging builder bell-ends
10
The Magnificent 7 The British Art Show comes to town for three whole months – and we’ve had a word with the curators
Unputdownable 13 Dog Is Dead: the mutt’s nuts Thatchers Children 14 Smell and Lol from This Is England
16 It Shouldn’t Happen To A Veg 16 When you open a veggie café on
GameCity5 28 The festival that makes gamers leave
Mansfield Road, you unlock the gates of Hell
Yay, Very Lee 18 Stewart Lee comes to town, and
talks to us about dead dad’s tuffehs
WriteLion 42 Another two-page lit-binge,
than Bez
Crash Us A Flag, Youth 24 Our squad of top-flight designers
create a series of flags for Notts
Notts Trumps 46 Plus the Arthole, LeftLion Abroad,
Rock, Bloodleech, Gallery 47, Love Ends Disaster!, The Soundcarriers, MuHa, Ocean Bottom Nightmare, Patriot Rebel and ManEatLike Pig
Art Director David Blenkey (reason@leftlion.co.uk)
Contributors Alistair Catterall Ashley Clivery Ash Dilks Rob Cutforth Katie Half-Price Sharriff Ibrahim Chris Knight Robin Lewis Eireann Lorsung Roger Mean John Micallef MulletProofPoet Beane Noodler Nick Parkhouse Esther Parry Rebel Rhymes Roxx Aly Stoneman Andrew Trendall Jessica Troughton James Walker Robin Vaughan-Williams
Poetry Editor Aly Stoneman (poetry@leftlion.co.uk)
Noshingham 45 The Cross Keys, Terracotta and The
Cover Rob Antill (robantill.com)
Photography Editor Dominic Henry (dom@leftlion.co.uk)
including the return of Katie Half- Price
Reviews 27 Opportunity knocks for Alice
Linchpin Alan Gilby (alan@leftlion.co.uk)
Music Editor Paul Klotschkow (paulk@leftlion.co.uk)
festival in town? Ooh, yes please
Hold Me Closer, Tony Dancer 22 The legendary ANTRØNY: better
Listings Editor Tommy Farmyard (leftlion.co.uk/add)
Literature Editor James Walker (books@leftlion.co.uk)
everything that’s happening in town over the next bi-month, including...
Hustle
Editor Al Needham (nishlord@leftlion.co.uk)
Film Editor Alison Emm (ali@leftlion.co.uk)
Theatre Editor Adrian Bhagat (adrian@leftlion.co.uk)
Art Editor Frances Ashton (frances@leftlion.co.uk)
Event Listings 29 Huge, huge, huge breakdown of
Sideshow 32 Another massive and dead long arts
Editor in Chief Jared Wilson (jared@leftlion.co.uk)
Marketing and Sales Manager Ben Hacking (ben@leftlion.co.uk)
their house for a change
Can’t Knock The Hustle 21 Adam Pickering on the Hockley
’86 glam theirsen up for the Lion and talk about the recent Channel 4 series
credits
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Sir John Borlaise Warren get the tea on for our reviewers
and Rocky Horrorscopes
Photographers David Baird Will Carmen Debbie Davies Kenny Howse Philip Jackson Geoff Kirby Illustrators Lord Biro Bill Edwards James Huyton Rikki Marr Simon Mitchell Chris Summerlin Rob White LeftLion.co.uk received twelve million page views during the last year. This magazine has an estimated readership of 40,000 people and is distributed to over 300 venues across the city of Nottingham. If your venue isn’t one of them, please contact Ben on 07984 275453 or email ben@leftlion.co.uk. This magazine is printed on paper sourced from sustainable forests. Our printers are ISO 14001 certified by the British Accreditation Bureau for their environmental management system.
Want to advertise in our pages? Email sales@leftlion.co.uk or phone Ben on 07984 275453 or visit leftlion.co.uk/advertise
Hey! Students! Want to find the places that do two-forones on Chlamydia, so you can rack up lines of Vim in the toilets and pretend to be an extra in Skins with all the other bell-ends in trilbies and flip-flops, who look like my Grandpa on a works trip to Skegness circa 1973? Well don’t ask us - we couldn’t give a toss. We’re Left-tothe-motherflippin’-Lion, youth, and if all you want to do in Notts is go to whatever mong-barns those Fresher’s helpers (who have only volunteered for that job so they can get your pants off) tell you, put this mag down now and jog on, duck. If, on the other hand, you want to fully experience life in the city that you’ve chosen to reside in – which, by the way, wees all over the face of whatever dump you come from - you’ve just pulled an genius move by looking at this. We’re mature, responsible, have seen a bit of life, and there’s so much we can show an innocent, wide-eyed little thing like you. Come, take our hand and let us take you to not one but two massively important art exhibitions that are going off next month. Oh look, there’s our close personal friends Dog Is Dead, you simply must meet them - and they’re with our other close personal friends Smell and Lol from This Is England ’86! Let’s all go on to a party in the back room of the Old Dog and Partridge (Nottingham’s most exclusive VIP bar) with our mates Stewart Lee, the cream of the local band scene and the vibrant, eclectic people of Mansfield Road, and dance, dance, dance! Yes, we’ll grow together, you and us. We’ll show you everything good about this lovely little city, with its happy-go-lucky, salt-of-the-earth folk who never complain about anything ever. And when the dancing’s over, we’ll be that special magazine who takes you back to our flat in St Anns and turns you from a mere youth who knows nothing of ‘chelping’, ‘duddoos’ and ‘Forest being rammell’, and spits you out as an adult who can hang around outside the Lions shouting; “She tode meh to goo ter paahnd shop in Broado to get two pregnunceh tests forruh, the dezzeh slag” like you’ve always lived here. Oh, and couple of other things before you rip into this exceptionally mint issue; don’t miss us mashing down Tempreh all day long, as part of the Hockley Hustle on Sunday 23 October. And Mams of Notts: don’t take your prams to Goose Fair on Friday night and end up clonking people on the head with it as you carry it over your shoulder, that’s well suckeh. Word To Your Nana, Al Needham nishlord@leftlion.co.uk
Rob Antill
Cover Artist Stereographic Projection, according to Wikipedia, is ‘a mapping function that projects a sphere onto a plane, except the projection point’ According to us, it’s ‘a bleddy mint thing that meks proper mong-aht pics of the Square’, and the person we have to thank for bringing it to our attention is young Rob, a recent graduate of Multimedia Design at Nottingham Trent. When he’s not doing folk’s heads in with his headsnappingly outrageous camerawork, he’s throwing himself about on a skateboard or snowboard, the daft bat. digitalanthill.com
Aly Stoneman
Poetry Editor Aly loves the sea, so naturally lives as far from it as possible. This kind of logic got her an MA in Creative Writing from NTU, jobs in Literature Development and a writing commission from Lyric Lounge 2010 (Writing East Midlands). Besides performing poetry with a musician called Milk, she’s very excited about the regular spoken word events she is running with books editor James Walker (including Scribal Gathering at Café Bar Contemporary and Shindig! at Jam Café in Hockley) and invites everyone to come share the poetry madness! alystoneman.co.uk leftlion.co.uk/issue37
3
NOTTINGHAM NAMED ‘LEAST CAR DEPENDENT CITY’ Great news for Nottingham, I think. Hopefully this will help us to get the tram and Workplace Parking Levy plans pushed through. There’s still loads to do, though. Cycling through the city is still a bit of a nightmare. Adrian Yeah agreed, and yes it would be cool if a good cycle lane ran right through the city centre, up to Hockley etc. Just hope all of the investment into public transport/cycling infrastructure continues now that we have a change of Government - makes me proud to be a Notts lass. I would also think that grassroots organisations such as Pedals would’ve contributed a lot to the cycling infrastructure over the years. Sara You should be able to take bikes on trams as well, a proper integrated transport system. theonelikethe In Nottingham you can never depend on the fact that when you wake up in the morning your car is still going to be where you parked it. death crab This is somewhat deceptive - we’re number one on this list for the same reason we’re always so high on the gun-crime lists. When your leafier, middleclass, higher car-use areas don’t get factored into your city’s statistics, it’s going to look like you’ve got more widely used public transport than you actually do. That said, credit does have to go to local leaders for a transport plan that, while it could be better, is pretty joined-up. When you look at other cities of a similar size and with a similar transportation infrastructure - Sheffield springs to mind - we’ve got a pretty good thing here. khongor This is a little disconcerting if nothing else. Watch Mansfield Road or any major in road to the centre in rush hour and three quarters of the cars have one occupant. So if Nottingham comes tops it just means we’re the best of a bad bunch. NS
MAY CONTAIN NOTTS with Nottingham’s ‘Mr. Sex’ Al Needham
August - September 2010 21 July
Forest and County announce that vuvuzelas are to be banned for the forthcoming season, for fear of anyone there making actual noise, instead of staring in blank, open-mouthed sheepy silence like football fans are supposed to do nowadays. So if you hear any wasp-like droning at Meadow Lane, don’t panic; it’s most likely the hearing aids getting feedback off the pacemakers.
22 July
Billy Connolly and Sir David Attenborough get lobbed honorary degrees off Nottingham Trent. One question; why do they even bother with this sort of thing? Is Billy Connolly gonna look at his degree and go; “Well, sod having me own TV programme where I bomb around New Zealand on a massive motorbike – I am now qualified for a low-entry admin job at Experian”?
4 August
A young local mongling has been banned from Sneinton for smashing up wheelie bins to make sledges with, meaning that he’s either a seasonally-confused cretin, or it takes ages for anyone to get done in Notts. If he’s having this page read to him, listen up, youth; knackered-up fridge-freezers make brilliant bobsleighs, and there’s loads of them knocking about Sneinton.
6 August
A copper in Stapleford gets done for accidentally tasering a 14 year-old girl when restraining some bloke who was on that antisocial one. Come on, Notts Police, this is Stapleford. All you need to do to make people run off there is make your taser crackle a bit in front of them and then go “Look, this is electricity. Man’s blue fire”.
16 August
The Council announce that the big rammelly chav-magnet Happy Shopper Alton Towers known as Goose Fair will run an extra day this year, just in case anyone in the Nottingham area has a rabid craving to get rinsed and knacker their best trainers up on a Sunday.
24 August
It’s worth remembering that although the Campaign for Better Transport aren’t specifically selling a product, this is still an example of a survey being used to create headlines and generate publicity for the organisation backing it. New Jupiter Mining Corp
Extraordinary scenes in the Coach and Horses (town’s secondmaddest karaoke bar, and the exact inverse of the Old Dog and Partridge, because everyone in there is actually nice), when someone stabs theirself several times in the chest. If only they could have waited until they got on the karaoke and asked for I Wanna Be Your Dog or something else by Iggy and the Stooges; they would have won the meat platter.
FAREWELL THEN, TRENT FM
28 August
The good news is that from next year, Trent FM will be no more and gone for good. The bad news is it’s been bought out by Capital, along with its Derby and Leicester equivalents, and if you work in certain offices you will now be subjected to something called ‘Capital FM East Midlands’. So same rubbish, just more homogenised, and with fewer jobs and less local relevance. New Jupiter Mining Corp Oh, but the thought of that Twiggy cretin being unemployed makes all the homogenised East Midlands rubbish worthwhile. Does that also mean the Ice Arena will just be the Ice Arena again? I do hope so. theonelikethe Yeah, but it’ll probably be the Wilko’s Ice Arena next. myhouse-yourhouse I love Wilko’s. I’d go to the Ice Arena more often if that happened. Mean From what I read elsewhere the breakfast and drivetime shows will still be the local presenters, but all the other shows will be “consolidated”. Wanye I listened to Trent FM once. Samyouwell
More fun and japery in Aspley – Darwin’s waiting room – as a cheeky young scamp gets done for knocking about his brother’s girlfriend and shoving a lit firework down her trackie bottoms, presumably for not being related to either of them.
29 August
A nightclub in Mansfield called QI – yes, they named a club in Mansfield after something with Stephen Fry in it – gets shut down after ten serious assaults and five glassings in two months. The club’s slogan? ‘Intelligent Clubbing’. Presumably ‘Logical Stabbing’ and ‘Cerebral Shagging Against The Biffa Bin Round The Back’ had been trademarked by someone else.
1 September
Fifteen kerbcrawlers get taken down by the police around the red light area. Message to the owners of that fancy dress shop that went out of business the other month; if you had changed your name to ‘Forest Road Kerbcrawling Disguise Rental’ you would have rinsed it.
2 September
Mansfield Town announce a special offer to all Forest fans: present your season ticket at Field Mill, and see Mansfield v Tamworth for a tenner. And then, presumably, hand over your car for a free sandwich board that reads; ‘HEY! I’M A RIGHT THICK TWAT, ME!’
3 September
The B Bar on Heathcote Street gets shut down for four weeks after three blokes get stabbed outside. While the Thurland’s been shut, there’s been signs in the window telling folk to go to the B Bar. Funny that, eh?
6 September
A woman who had an epileptic fit at a bingo hall in Beeston gets barred out due to ‘health and safety reasons’. In a pig’s arse was it – It was due to moaning cows getting the hump that someone having an eppy was actually claiming a full house when they only wanted 47, and the caller had just said 48, as if that actually had any statistical bearing on what is essentially a random game of pure chance. I used to be a bingo caller, I know what I’m going on about.
7 September
Then they’d knock over a pot of peas to grab your Sta-Prest clad arse while you’re giving out change during the prize bingo and screech; “Eeh, I’ve had bigger lads than yo’, duckeh”
12 September
A mother-and-son partnership from St Anns get done for beating someone up on Broad Street. I suppose I should be looking down on at this sort of thing, but I’m sorry – teaming up with my Mam to kick someone in would be the absolute highlight of my life. I’d love to see me Mam get someone in a headlock and screech; “Put some licks down on this pussyclaat eejat bwoy, Our Al! And then I’ll do you some crinkle-cut chip cobs, just how you like them, and you can stop up to watch It’s A Knockout and The Goodies.” God, I’m starting to roar just thinking about it.
13 September
It’s announced that Radio Trent – and yes, I still call it ‘Radio Trent’, just like I call ITV ‘ATV’ and Snickers ‘Marathons’ – is to be killed off. The bad news that it’s going to be taken over by some London gimps and merged with RAM FM and Leicester Sound, so you’ll still have to listen to Robbie bastard Williams eight times a day at your crap office job.
14 September
Nottingham is announced as the least car-dependent city in the UK. Which means that the trams have been a roaring success, or that there’s nowhere to park in town, or that rat-faced council youths from this Politically Correct Nu Labour Hell have stolen them all, depending on your point of view.
15 September
Oh Ray Gosling, you poor, poor sod. Ticket Outlets: www.Gatecrasher.com/tickets Someone gets done for being caught by police outside Brownes with a packet of flour up his ringpiece - which he was either trying to pass off as wanker powder or saving it in the hope of copping off with a fat bird in a school uniform at Reflex, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. Think on, cokey shopboys – next time you’re bent over a bog seat in Hockley, you’re effectively sniffing someone elses arsehole. Nice.
21 September
22 September
d / £8 Standard Doors: 10pm a– 4am Age: 18+ A 76 year-old bloke gets his wristsMotd. slapped for putting workman’s life at risk by leaning out the window of his flat and trying to cut the poor sod’s rope while he was abseiling down the building, like he was Wile E. Coyote. He was later seen rubbing his hands together with glee when DHL delivered a crate marked; ‘ACME INDUSTRIES ROCKET-POWERED JET-PACK’.
Still waiting two months for your MCN fix? Are you thick or summat? The May Contain Notts newsletter hits Nottingham every Friday(ish), with chelp, mither, rammell, and hugely important updates of what a gwan in LeftLionLand. Slap leftlion.co.uk/mcn in your browser and stop fanning abahht, youth... 4
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Gatecrasher and Club NME presents
Fridays Oct 22nd
Oct 1st
Alex (Marine Metric Parade)
Stanton Warriors (Live)
www.myspace.com/alexmetric Tunnel : Club NME in association with Boxfreshers Tour 2010
www.myspace.com/stantonwarriors
Reverend Soundsystem
Tunnel : Club NME presents...
Flashguns (Live) Club NME Dj’s
(Reverend and the Makers)
Ocelot (Live) Union Dj’s
Arkade : Rave Trent presents...
Krust Rave Trent Dj’s
Arkade : Horse Play Presents...
Ben UFO Horseplay Dj’s
Valve Soundsystem
Oct 8th
Oct 29th
Plump Dj’s www.myspace.com/plumpdjs
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Dillinja Lemonde Grooverider Adam F Walsh
Tunnel : Club NME presents...
Tantrums (Live) Club NME Dj’s
Arkade : Hype presents....
Roksonix (Circus Records) Hype Dj’s
MCs IC3, Magika, Spyder
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Skeletons (Live) Club NME Dj’s
Nov 5th
Arkade : GuGu presents...
HeavyFeet (Stamp! Beats) GuGu Dj’s Oct 15th
Dj Yoda Magic Cinema
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Resident sound clash Club NME Dj’s
www.myspace.com/djyodauk Tunnel : Club NME presents...
Arkade : Rave Trent presents...
Resident sound clash
Wild Palms (Live) Club NME Dj’s
Arkade : Deckadance presents....
Nov 19th
Doc Scott (31 Records) Deckadance Djs
Professor Green
Nov 12th
LIVE NOTTINGHAM
Presents
www.Gatecrasher.com/Nottingham
Resident sound clash
Grand Master Flash* Killa Kela
Thursday 21st October
Hadouken
Thursday 28th October
Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip
Friday 29th October
Twisted Wheel Monday 1st November Delphic
Gatecrasher Nottingham The Elite Building, Queen Street, Nottingham, NG1 2BL, Tel: 01159 101 101
BEAUTIFUL THINGS FOR YOU AND YOUR HOME... 13 & 14 NOVEMBER 2010, 10AM-5PM WEEKEND ADMISSION £5 UNDER 16s FREE
LAKESIDE ARTS CENTRE UNIVERSITY PARK, NOTTINGHAM NG7 2RD WWW.LAKESIDEARTS.ORG.UK 0115 846 7777
Over 50 of the country’s finest contemporary craft makers selling everything from jewellery, bags and hats, to sculptural vases and tableware at Lakeside, the University of Nottingham’s public arts centre.
LeftEyeOn
Snapshots of Notts from over the summer, courtesy of the local photo talent...
Left to right from the top: Jump - parkour in a sunny Market Square with freerunner Mat Taylor from Urban Revolution (Will Carman / carmanography.tumblr.com) Emos? Exterminate! - extras from the Dr Who universe have a mooch on the steps of the Council House, either on a stag night or to promote their show at the Arena on 25 October (Geoff Kirby / gkphoto.co.uk) Turf it - Has Del Boy gone organic, or has someone kitted out their Reliant Robin with the contents of a butcher shop window? (Kenny Howse / blue-soul-photography.co.uk) Fingers - another radical Muslim demo, another counter-protest, just another day in England 2010... (Debbie Davies / debsphotography.co.uk) Shiner - After spending the whole summer in the Dog & Partridge something had to give... (anonymous)
www.leftlion.co.uk/issue37
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Rob Cutforth prepares for the winter months by returning to his favourite subject: appallingly cack-handed British craftsmanship. Annotations: Rob White I swear this column is cursed. Seriously, it’s not even funny anymore. I write about Jo and Twiggy, then they split up. I go to the Tales of Robin Hood, and it closes down weeks later. I write a piece about working in Nottingham, and then I get made redundant. Then I write a column about being made redundant and get a new job before it was published, making me look a right idiot. I wrote a column last autumn on how amazing the beer festival was, only for it to run out of beer on the Saturday. My mate John doesn’t speak to me any more over my “Metal Karaoke” column and my Fantasy Football teams have been junk ever since I wrote about how easy Fantasy Football leagues are to win. Want more examples? Take my last three columns; one about how good the Robin Hood movie was going to be (when it turned out to be a massive turd), a oh-isn’t-this-summer-amazing piece (which has brought about CrapWeatherGeddon 2010), and my World Cup column extolling the virtues of being an English footy fan (which...well, Christ on a bike, I can’t even finish that sentence). So this month I’m going to go back to basics; I’m going to whinge about Limey builders. Why tempt fate, you ask? Two reasons: firstly because writing about builders is a safe bet and, short of blowing my house up with a bazooka, there isn’t anything more they could possibly do to make my life any worse than it already is. I’ve had shocking luck with builders in this country. There were the plasterers who plastered over the damp-proofing, causing hundreds of pounds worth of damage. There was the alarm fitter who simply didn’t show up. Ever. There were the bricklayers who buried the deposits from their Portaloo in my front garden, left tons of industrial rubbish in my back garden and slathered a retaining wall with indoor latex paint. Now my garden has a lovely prison yard feel; all it needs is a poster of Raquel Welch over the entrance to a tunnel dug with a rock hammer to finish it off. There were also the builders who installed pipework so close to the floorboards that simply walking on the floor caused them to burst and flood my downstairs living room. There was the painter who thought unpainted pieces of plywood made for quality skirting boards. Finally, there was the builder who thought a plastic bag was all it would take to hold two sewage pipes together. The pipes broke shortly after and flooded my front lawn with human excrement. Do you know how difficult it is to have a sociable conversation with your neighbour when you’re standing in a pool of your own filth? Bloody awkward, I can tell you. However, these boys have nothing on the mental defectives who installed a new boiler while I was away in Canada over the summer: it just might be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen since 2 Girls 1 Cup. Words simply cannot do it justice. Just look at it, over there, too the right. This photo is not doctored in any way (well other than Robs scribbles). This is the actual, final result. What kind of a person does this to a kitchen and thinks, “Yes, this is ok, I’m sure the client will be happy with this.” A rabid monkey with hooks for hands and a haemorrhaging brain could’ve done a better job. Let me just take you through that photo step by step, shall I? 1.
First of all, the boiler is crooked. You can’t really tell from the photo, but believe me, if they had put a spirit level on top of it, it would have exploded.
2.
You see that greyish/brown area around the top of the boiler? That’s where the wood that boxed the old boiler in used to be. You know, because (call me crazy) maybe the world doesn’t need to see that bit.
3.
The cupboard door. God, where do I start? Obviously, this boiler is bigger than the one that was in there before, but surely there is a better solution than this. Maybe using a tape measure beforehand and, oh I don’t know, suggest another boiler that would actually fit? The thing that annoys me most about the cupboard door is the fact that you can still see the pencil lines where they marked that cut. Let me say that again, They couldn’t even be bothered to erase the effing PENCIL MARKS. The pencil marks are an unnecessary slap in the face, like a burglar who robs your house only to come back a week later to wazz on your dog.
See how perfectly the cuts follow the boiler; this means that the moronic douche made CROOKED cuts to allow for the CROOKED boiler. Then, because (obviously) the cupboard door is no longer functional, he’s used two tiny clamps to hold it in place. I had the audacity to walk past the cupboard too quickly, which caused the clamps to give way and the door to come crashing down into the counter top and on to the floor. Only some seriously fancy footwork on my part (thank you Tae Kwon Do green belt) avoided my getting a toe-ectomy.
25 High Pavement Nottingham, NG1 1HE Tel 0115 852 3231
www.cockandhoop.co.uk 8
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From now on, I am only writing articles on things that can’t possibly burn me later. The next one is entitled “Butterflies, Moonbeams and Unicorns”, so watch out for that. (I should say that my gothic plumber, Tony Napleton, had nothing to do with this boiler install. Tony is a great plumber, one I would recommend highly. If it weren’t for him, my house would be under twelve feet of water. He is a godsend). Read more from Rob at leftlion.co.uk/cinb
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THE MAGNIFICENT 7 The British Art Show happens once every five years, its importance to the UK art scene cannot be overestimated - and the seventh incarnation is being held over three months in little ol’ Nottingham. On the eve of the most important cultural event to happen in Notts since time, we talk to curators Lisa Le Feuvre and Tom Morton…
How did you become curators for BAS7?
Were you part of the decision to bring BAS7 to Nottingham? If not, who was?
Lisa Le Feuvre: I have been working as a curator and writer for the last decade, and was invited by Hayward Touring to respond to the ways one might approach curating a British Art Show in 2010. Following my responses, the selection panel invited Tom Morton and me to curate this seventh edition of the British Art Show – it really is such an honour to curate this exhibition and to add to its 35-year history. I work as a curator and a writer, activities that I see as being intertwined, working on exhibitions in artist-run spaces, national museums and public galleries as well as contributing to publications. Right now I teach on the Curatorial Programme at Goldsmiths College in London, and over the last couple of years have curated a number of exhibitions working with artists including Jeremy Millar, Alexander and Susan Maris, Renée Green and Joachim Koester.
Tom: The show’s organisers pick the venues, not Lisa and I. That said, Nottingham is a great spot to kick off.
Tom Morton: The short answer is that I was invited to apply for the post by BAS7’s organisers. The longer answer is, I guess, my CV. I started writing for frieze magazine a few months after I finished my MA. Four years later, Catharine Patha and I set up a year-long, itinerant project space in London, Man in the Holocene, where we showed a number of the artists featured in BAS7 (Charles Avery, Roger Hiorns, Nathaniel Mellors, Keith Wilson, Olivia Plender, Gail Pickering, Steven Claydon, Milena Dragicevic) alongside international artists such as Trisha Donnelly, Makoto Aida and Erik van Lieshout. Following that, I was appointed curator at Cubitt, London, and curated sections of the 2007 Athens and Lyon Biennales, and the 2008 Busan Biennale. I currently spend a couple of days a week working as curator of the Hayward Gallery’s Project Space, as well as continuing to write for frieze and other publications, and working as an independent curator on projects like BAS7.
How British is the British Art Show?
Lisa: Although Tom and I knew each other, we had not worked together before British Art Show 7. It has been really inspiring to work with Tom and we are both very excited about how working together has developed an exhibition that we both are incredibly proud of, and that we would want to see if we were not involved with it. What does curating a show of this size actually entail? It sounds like a huge logistical nightmare… Tom: BAS7’s administrative staff and the host venues are responsible for the day-to-day organisation of the show, so Lisa and I really don’t have too much to do with the logistical side of things, outside of cutting our curatorial cape to suit the cloth of budgets, space, etc. For us the main task is working with the artists, and configuring and reconfiguring the ‘hang’ of the show across different venues in four host cities. It’s like a game of three dimensional chess... The theme of BAS7 is In the Days of the Comet. What’s that about? Lisa: It’s named after HG Wells’ 1906 novel – which was set, for him, four years into the future and, for us, a century in the past when the 75-year elliptical orbit of Halley’s Comet made its predicted return. We are fascinated by the ways that the comet is a sign mistaken for a wonder, be that cataclysm or rapture, and a figure of looping obsession. It is something that’s always with us, no matter that it is sometimes far out of sight. For Tom and I these imperatives seemed very pertinent to the ways in which artists respond the particularities and peculiarities to our time. It was very important to us that this British Art Show was led by artists’ work in the first instance, and our subtitle provides a soundtrack against which these artworks reverberate.
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How important is it to have shows of this magnitude outside London? Tom: Very. Many of the artists who feature in BAS7 (the vast majority of whom grew up outside London) have told us how important seeing previous iterations of the BAS in or near their home towns as teenagers was to their decision to become artists. More broadly, it’s obviously important to reach out to people who don’t usually have this volume of contemporary art on their doorstep.
Lisa: Well, we don’t really see the exhibition as celebrating Britishness per se; rather, it is a celebration of the ways in which artists who live and work in Britain are making art today. To be based in Britain is not to be British: the ever-developing network of connections that makes up the contemporary art ‘world’ in Britain - art schools, artist-run spaces, public galleries, etc - has made it a location international artists choose to reside in by dint of its vibrancy, making ‘British Art’ something that is defined both by artists born in Britain and those who live or work in Britain. What will be your personal highlights of the show? Lisa: Well, in Nottingham the exhibition stretches across Nottingham Castle, New Art Exchange and Nottingham Contemporary and the lion’s share of the work has never been seen before. It’s hard to select highlights – there are so many great works. Tom: We’ve invited 39 artists to take part, all of whom we’re really excited about, so it’s impossible to pick one highlight. That said, I’m really looking forward to Keith Wilson, Mick Peter and Cullinan Richards reaching a wider audience. These artists are very highly valued by their peers, but haven’t really had this degree of institutional exposure before. Lisa: In the Castle I think Nathanial Mellors’ new work Ourhouse will be really stunning – it’s a brand new work that will develop over all of the stops of the British Art Show. Formed of videos and an incredible animatronic figure, this work undoes and restructures language in a narrative that loops between stock footage of television soap operas, science fiction and the impossibilities of managing to make sense. At the New Art Exchange, look for Elizabeth Price’s ‘User Group Disco: Hall of Sculptures’, a series of reveries and hallucinations built from functional household appliances (from sieves to Soda Streams) set to a soundtrack of a-ha’s Take on Me and sentences stolen from philosophy. At Nottingham Contemporary, make sure you go to the first programme of events on 20 November where Olivia Plender will premier a performance that takes the form of a script spiralling around a fictional experimental filmmaker.
interviews: Frances Ashton and Al Needham
A TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE ART So you think the British Art Show is nothing but a big gallery? You don’t know the half of it. The next three months will see all manner of creativity spilling out of three main venues in a ludicrously varied number of disciplines and formats. Here’s a mere sample of some of the incredible one-off events happening in town this tri-month - and we haven’t even mentioned the Sideshow festival yet (although we do, on page 32)… Haunted Karaoke A mix of both established and emerging artists - Aaron Williamson, Kirsten Norris, Jack Catling, Jenna Finch and Sian Robinson Davies - will be using music and comedy to challenge the idea of entertainment. Held in The Space, the multi-purpose facility located in the depths of Nottingham Contemporary, each artist will present solo works under a spotlight. Afterwards, everyone piles into Café.Bar.Contemporary for drinks and the chance to have a go at Haunted Karaoke yourself. Nottingham Contemporary, Thursday 7 October, 8pm - 11pm, free In Production Local filmmakers Ellie Harrison, Ben Judd and Sandrea Simons are the three selected artists who will each be screening a new work before a discussion with the audience. In Production will be a great chance to get an insight into the process and ideas behind each film. Nottingham Contemporary, Tuesday 12 October, 7pm - 8.30pm, free Matthew Darbyshire As an anti-consumerism installation artist, Matthew Darbyshire will be presenting images of his previous projects and discussing the new works that he has produced for BAS7. Using contemporary design that ranges from designer furniture to Nike trainers, as well as items he has made himself, Darbyshire will be exploring personal taste and social aspirations. His work reconsiders objects, questioning how they have been appropriated by corporations, property developers – and art galleries. Expect bright colours, witty analysis and astute cultural observations. Nottingham Contemporary, Thursday 4 November, 6pm – 8pm, free The Night of the Comet If you can’t face the Forest, this Bonfire Night art event will include music, performance and poetry inspired by the H.G. Wells novel In the Days of the Comet – the subtitle of British Art Show 7. An examination of astrology, history, infinity and the Apocalypse with writer and live artist Michael Pinchbeck, Mike Chavez-Dawson and Len Horsey. One treat will be that the galleries will be open late and there will also be DJs to create a soundtrack to the evening. Free sparklers and Dirty Snowball cocktails a-plenty..
Presumably, you’ve already scoped out Nottingham Contemporary. What do you think of the place? Tom: It’s great. The opening David Hockney / Frances Stark two-hander was an inspired choice, and I think the way in which the group shows Star City and Uneven Geographies have underlined the - horrible word - ‘relevance’ of contemporary art while respecting the viewer’s intelligence is something many other British institutions would do well to note. The building and gallery spaces look fantastic, too. Sideshow will be taking place at the same time – will you be checking it out?
Nottingham Contemporary, Friday 5 November, 6pm - 10pm, free Roger Hiorns Proving that science, art and beauty can go hand in hand, Roger Hiorns will be discussing his recent sculpture, including the new work made for the BAS7. Previously nominated for the Turner Prize in 2009, Hiorns has worked with fire, foam, copper sulphate and animal remains to explore the physical and psychological resonances of material. An intriguing young artist who will no doubt be provide a more than interesting way to spend a couple of hours. Nottingham Contemporary, Thu 11 November, 6pm – 8pm, free
Tom: Of course. What do you know of the local art scene? Tom: Enough to know I want to know more. Sideshow should help... Lisa: Nottingham has such a strong artist-led scene, whose reputation stretches far beyond the limits of the city. For me, meeting artists and sharing ideas is the driving force of how artwork enters into an engagement with the surrounding world from where it questions assumptions and turns what we think we know onto its head. Nottingham Contemporary is understandably keen to project art as something more than a niche activity for students and poshos. How will BAS7 support that view? Tom: None of the artists in BAS7 address their work solely to ‘students and poshos’. Contemporary art often demands a bit more from the viewer than, say, Hollywood films or reality TV or airport novels or manufactured pop songs - all of which can at their best be amazing - but it also often offers potentially much, much more in the way of - as the writer Jeanette Winterson put it - ‘reminding us of the possibilities we’re persuaded to forget’. What’s really important is that viewers feel confident in the fact that, whoever they are, art is trying to communicate with them. Maybe the best way to think of it is as an alternative news service - something Chuck D of Public Enemy once said of hip-hop. We all know that there’s a lot more to the world than is presented in the mainstream media, and art is one the ways in which our species articulates that missing information. It does so in a manner that may at first feel unfamiliar, but it’s that very unfamiliarity that holds the key to new thoughts, and perhaps new freedoms. This is why the proposed cuts to arts funding are so damaging. The people you call ‘students and poshos’ will always be able to access art through their educational and financial privilege. It’s people who fall outside these groups who will suffer. British Art Show 7: In the Days of the Comet, Nottingham Contemporary, New Art Exchange and Nottingham Castle, 23 October – 9 January. Free. britishartshow.co.uk
Critic’s Circle Join three distinguished art critics - Gilda Williams (London correspondent of Artforum), JJ Charlesworth (Associate Editor of ArtReview magazine) and Sam Thorne (Associate Editor of Frieze magazine) - as they discuss what they might write about British Art Show 7. They will examine the reviews of the exhibition in a What The Papers Say stylee, and take a look at the 35 year history of the British Art Show. Nottingham Contemporary, Wednesday 24 November, 7pm - 8.30pm, free George Shaw The Notts-based artist will be discussing the literary and musical influences in his work alongside references to art history, Brought up in Coventry, he later studied at Sheffield Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art and has since worked as a teacher in Nottingham. His work is unique in that he uses Humbrol enamel paint, usually reserved for Airfix models, to create incredibly detailed paintings of the Midlands council estates of his childhood. Nottingham Contemporary, Thursday 18 November, 6pm - 8pm, free Family Play and Learn Why let the thirty nine selected artists have all the fun? Nottingham Contemporary will have weekly family workshops to get involved with, and all for nowt. We’ve been reliably informed that no formal art skills are required, just imagination and fun. The workshops will be led by NC’s Associate Artists who are experts in working to create, play and learn and who will be following the themes of the BAS7 - exploring the past and present, parallel universes and going on journeys. Nottingham Contemporary, every Saturday and Sunday, 23 October - 9 January, 1pm - 4pm, free. Alison Emm
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interview: Nick Parkhouse
UNPUTDOWNABLE
They smashed it at Glastonbury, ripped up the festival circuit, dropped a critically-acclaimed debut single and got a huge leg-up by the BBC this summer - so could Bridgford boys Dog Is Dead be the first Notts band in ages to take it to the next level? You’ve been busy this year, then… We’ve played about seven festivals this summer. We’ve done the Dot to Dot equivalent in a few cities and a few nice little festivals. We have some dates in October across the UK, including one in London with Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin. They’re an American band – really good. You were the only unsigned band that the BBC covered at Glastonbury. Did you know that in advance? No, we didn’t. At about 2 o’clock on Sunday morning when we were off on a little mission to an obscure part of Glastonbury we got this phone call from Joss’ mum. He was singing and dancing and when we asked him what was going on he told us that we’d been on the telly! Had you been to Glastonbury before? First time. It’s the best place in the world. It’s…big, and scary, and full of hippies. We were quite lucky that we got the one year when it hasn’t rained. It was a lot of fun but a bit too hot. How does it feel when you are playing at a festival with established names, but knowing that hundreds of people have still turned out to see you? We had Plan B on after us, which was the only reason anyone was there. He’s quite scary, although you can’t be too scared of someone in a suit knowing that there is always a trumpet nearby.... What’s been your most rock n’ roll moment to date? We played at a venue called The Fridge and it was absolutely freezing. We were stuck in a dead cold dressing room, so when no-one was around, like giggling idiots, we snuck into the headliner’s dressing room and stole their heaters. We’re like a punk band with no balls - a punk band full of Mark Corrigans off Peep Show. We hear you aren’t ashamed of being called a ‘pop’ band. At the end of the day, we’re a pop band who write pop songs. Most of the world listens to pop, so we don’t see why so many bands say; “Well, we don’t want to be ‘pop.’” It’s quite pretentious and dismisses what most of the world are listening to. It’s pop - ‘popular’ music. It’s a bigger thing, changing the face of pop music. When you try and do something leftfield, it isn’t innovative at all - it’s making a mess for the sake of it. There’s a lot of 80s influences in music these days, yours included. You also use the saxophone a lot. Could you be the new Spandau Ballet? [Laughs] Rob loves his 80s music and always has done. We don’t want to be lumped into the niche that is the ‘nu-pop-80s’ thing, it’s very ‘now’ and will go out. Having a saxophone in the
band is nothing to do with sounding like the 80s. We started having a sax in the band as that’s what Trev was best at – and what he’s still best at! You don’t really write traditional ‘verse/chorus/verse/chorus’ songs… That’s just what we started off writing, and it helps to be different. Trying to write the perfect pop song is a bad idea - so when we’re looking at structures, what happens, happens.
“Nottingham is a bubble - and soon, it’s going to burst” The reviews of your singles have been almost universally positive. Is there already an album taking shape? We put our single Glockenspiel Song out in June off our own back as an experiment – and the response we got was overwhelming. So much more than we expected, really. We have no idea how Young is going to do. So, let’s see how it escalates and let the album draw itself out. We have the material, but let’s see what we can do off our own back. What’s your favourite tune in your repertoire at the moment? There’s one called The River Jordan which we play mid-set. We get to rock out – it’s like being in Slayer for a period of time, which we like. The songs we write are meant to sound their best when played live – that’s what music’s about. It’s always important to make a show out of your live performance, not just be a band reeling off their records. People round here are starting to expect big things from you… A couple of years ago we were playing to mates and maybe a few other people. And now, eighteen months on, we’re at Splendour, with all these people at the front waiting for our set and we hardly know any of them. There are loads of people that none of us know wanting to hear us and wanting photos with us. We’re a Nottingham band, obviously, but you don’t realise that when you are played on Radio 1, XFM, and 6 Music that people around the country now know about you. It’s good to go down to London now - as it’s not as hard or scary as it used to be. There are people who know who we are, which is such an amazing thing.
We have to mention the ‘Nottingham doesn’t have a huge list of famous bands’ thing… For a while there was a lack of good bands, but it’s a bit unfair to say that nowadays. There was a huge metal scene in Nottingham, when metal was nowhere near as well-known nationwide as indie or pop. Now, though, there are a lot of bands in Nottingham who are a bit more ‘indie’. Bands like Swimming are doing well, so it’s a bit harsh on them. We’ve actually found it easy being in Nottingham as an up-and-coming band, due to the fact that bands here are all really supportive of one another, venues have supported us way beyond what they have to, and it’s smack bang in the middle of the country, which makes gigging really easy. It was tough when we first started out, and the politics of it all get really complicated, but when we became a ‘serious’ band, Nottingham was behind us straight away. Nottingham is a bubble - and soon, it’s going to burst. We heard there was a plan to defer your university entrance for a year to see how you got on as a band. That year must almost be up now... We took a year out to see if anything happened, and it’s gone a lot better than we thought it would. So, we figured we’d take another year. You can go to Uni at any age - so if, in ten years time it still hasn’t worked... In another year’s time, what would you consider to be success? Are you ambitious? We are ambitious. We’d like to be able to charge you to do the interview! We know that in the next year we won’t be rock stars, but we will have got to play some gigs in big stadiums. Last year, Stornoway got the same coverage from the BBC as we did this year and they ended up on Later with Jools Holland. They’re going to be big - they played the Park Stage at Glastonbury this year and to be honest, that’s something we’d love to do by this time next year. If we’re not at that level we will almost be disappointed. Dog is Dead’s new single, Young, is out now. Get yourself a free Dog Is Dead track - Motel - by pointing your browser towards leftlion.co.uk/dog right now. myspace.com/dogisdeadband
So how much of that is down to luck? There’s always an element of luck with that. but you have to force people to be interested. If everyone is talking about your band, then people can’t ignore you. Keep playing until people are forced to like you!
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THATCHER'S Taking the original film cast - most of whom come from Notts - and plunging them deep into the mire of mid-eighties Britain, Shane Meadows’ Channel 4 series This Is England ‘86 has been a runaway success. We collared two of the cast for a natter…
"TRYING TO COME DOWN FROM IT WAS A VERY BIG DEAL" Vicky McClure, AKA Lol Tell us about your first audition for Shane Meadows... It was about eleven years ago now and was for A Room For Romeo Brass. There were loads of us at the audition. I can’t really remember what exercises we did but I thought there was no way I was going to get it. Paddy Considine was there and we were just messing about with props - I remember there being an oar for a boat and that came into play at some point. When I got the part, I was just like “how on earth has that happened?” You were Paddy’s love interest in that film. What was it like working with him? Shane and him together are just hilarious. They were college mates and they’d created this together so it was great for them. I remember filming the scene where Morell has a hard-on in the lounge. Shane said to me, “Just go with it, Vic. Whatever happens, we’re just going to keep rolling.” So when Paddy comes in with that and I laugh, that is completely natural. I had no idea what to do! Do you keep in touch with Paddy? He’s all over Hollywood now… We don’t phone or text each other, but if there’s ever an event or Shane’s getting people together I see him. It’s always nice to catch up. I went to the Empire awards a couple of years ago and he introduced me to Matt Damon which I’ll be forever grateful to him for!
to my
Do you ever get star-struck? Yeah, I do! I worked with Madonna on Filth and Wisdom and she’s off the scale celebritywise. I remember when I first met her, I tried act as cool as possible but inside I’m like, “Oh God; there’s Madonna!” You can’t help it.
How did you refer to her? Did you call her Madonna? No, we called her M. I don’t know why - I never asked. That’s what I could hear around me so I Just followed everyone else’s lead. But I tried to avoid calling her anything to be honest. The part of Lol in the This Is England film was written with you in mind… Yes. We were in Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem a long time ago and Shane was saying he was thinking about making this film. He had some rough ideas on characters and storylines and mentioned he wanted me to play this character with a shaved head. I was like, “I’m gonna just ignore whatever you said about the shaved head and carry on listening...”. Was shaving your hair off a big deal? My hair was to my arse! My mum had nurtured it, putting it up in a bun and all that sort of stuff. It was a massive deal. But eventually I thought “it’s only hair”. Cutting it off was liberating and helped bring the character to life. Lol was put through the wringer in the TV series, wasn’t she? Yeah. It was very emotional, I had a few tears here and there, Sometimes because I had to, but I was so involved in my character that I was a bit emotionally destroyed at times. It’s not like you could turn off as soon as the cameras did. We all saw what happened to her at the end of the last episode. How did you feel after the scenes with her Dad were in the can? Well, me and Johnny Harris, who played my Dad – and who, by the way, is the best actor I’ve ever worked with had already started the scene before the cameras started shooting, so we were already in character long before, to beef it up a bit. So trying to come down from that
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afterwards was a very big deal. Funnily enough, that was the first scene I shot on my first day on set – we shot the last two episodes first and the first two episodes last, which was a big challenge. But it got the dark scenes out of the way first. The rape scene in episode three was one of the darkest on British television for a long while. I’d agree. I was on location on the day they shot that, but obviously not on set. Shane was aware that it was going to be a massive challenge for Johnny and Danielle Watson, and to do a million angles wasn’t going to be the right thing. In fact, the reason it’s had such an impact on people is because it looks so real and totally unglamourous. Because it was taken from one steady angle, it kind of made you feel like you were looking through the window. Shane always goes for realism, and that’s what makes it hard to watch. As an obviously tight cast who have known each other for a long time, how do scenes like that affect the group? We’re were all supportive of each other and proud of what we’re doing. Everyone knew what under pressure we were all under; even people like Andrew Ellis (Gadget) who wasn’t as involved with the darker scenes had to get his kit off and do sex scenes. We all knew this was probably the biggest challenge we’ve ever faced – it was definitely mine. You had your share of nude scenes as well… Well, yes. And it was a decision I made myself. I wanted the character to stay real, and having sex with your clothes on doesn’t strike me as being that real. Was it horribly awkward - particularly as it was with Andrew Shim, who you’ve known for ages? You just laugh it off, to be honest. There are cameras everywhere, someone holding a boom, someone doing your make-up…and it was far easier with Shimmy than it would have been with someone I’d never worked with before. I had far more difficult moments when I was filming with clothes on and not having sex. What’s life been like for you after being on telly every week? Walking round Nottingham has definitely got more bizarre, put it that way. I’m getting recognised quite a lot; but everyone’s being dead lovely and encouraging. It’s very different to the reaction I got when the film came out, which is understandable as we’re in people’s living rooms once a week. It’s quite daunting to realise that while we’re watching ourselves at home, two to three million are doing the same. You were also in Plan B’s music video for She Said recently. Yeah, it’s a great song isn’t it? I’m doing his next music video next week actually. We’re quite good mates now actually; he got me free tickets for V Festival. I feel quite cool having him as a friend. If you rent a film, what do you go for? I’m not very good with decisions. What I tend to do is buy a load. Last time I went DVD shopping I spent £60. I just picked up a bit of cheese, a bit of action… a bit of everything really. What have you got coming up next? At the moment I’m working with a make-up brand called Illamasqua. It’s quite high end for stage and screen, but you can also buy it in shops. They’ve written three short films that should be going on the internet shortly. I’m no model that’s for sure, but that’s what I loved about them is that they don’t want that. Is there anything you’d like say to LeftLion readers? I love Nottingham and I’m very proud of my roots. Whenever people ask “Where are you from?” I answer “Nottingham, born and bred.” It rolls off the tongue.
CHILDREN interviews: Jared Wilson and Jessica Troughton photos: Philip Jackson clothes: Pink and Lilly (pinkandlilly.co.uk)
"SHE'S THAT GIRL THAT SHANE GOT OFF WITH IN THE SHED" Rosamund Hanson, AKA Smell Whereabouts in Nottingham are you from? I’m from the city centre, not a long way from town. Being accessible to the city is exciting; I think people from the city are opportunists. But I see most of my castings and agent in London, so I suppose my acting life is a separate entity. When did you first decide you want to be an actress? It was when my Year 6 teacher handed me the part of Kaa in the Jungle Book school play and then gave me a form for the Television Workshop. I wasn’t initially that interested but then when I got there I got very excited by it. I thrived off attention from an early age. My parents have never pushed me into anything, they’ve always let me find my own way in life and I’ve always been quite a role player with quite a strong imagination. I find getting into a character very exciting, it’s a new experience every time. Tell us about the audition process for This Is England… I went for an audition at Broadway for Shane. It was a session of improvisation for a new project that was on the horizon. I wasn’t told anything about the part at all - there was no real storyboard. But I got told ‘we really like you’ and asked back for another session. So I did that, and got the part. I read the script, and was absolutely thrilled by it. I think they were looking for someone raw, who was malleable and open-minded. Shane is very specific about the people he works with. What was it like making the film? It was my first big break and I was in the middle of my GCSE’s. We gelled as a group and all got on really well there was a real synergy in the gang. Shane doesn’t stick to the script, he’s very instinctive and very ballsy with his decisions and choices. Once he’s made a choice and got something set up he’ll go at it with gusto. But everyone’s in there together, it’s very organic and it all comes together like a Jackson Pollock painting. How much do you feel you got to make the part of Smell your own? It was based on a character Shane met when he was growing up and so I had that to go on. She was the village bike. Now that she’s developed and grown up a bit I feel I own her more, but there’ll always be a bit of the character that belongs to Shane. She’s that girl that he got off with in the shed! Did you expect This Is England to become as big a hit as it did? No, not at all. Shane’s got a massive following in Britain but it’s an underground film still and he’s a very cult director. I didn’t expect the amount of global attention it’s attracted. But everyone that I’ve spoken to has said ‘I can identify with one of those characters.’ There’s a gang and people relate to relationships and dynamics in a certain group and people can always identify with that. There seems to be a strong friendship bond within the TIE cast... When we sit down and we all come together we are the most unusual lot. Everyone is diverse, there’s a really nice friendship bond and when we get together we really are thoroughly pleased to see each other.
What else have you done that we might not have seen? I’ve done a pilot with Ricky Gervais, which may get turned into a film. I’m also working on a feature film with Mario Kirkpatrick which is in development at the moment. We hear you’re a keen tap dancer… Well, I did Irish dancing! And I went to Miss Morrison School of Dance. And a member of the cleft palate charity Smile Train UK… Yeah, which I’m very proud of because I think people should be allowed to go out there and have the confidence regardless of issues and prejudices. They should always feel confident and have the ability to speak out and just really go for it. It’s something I went through when I was a child; I was so determined to be good at English and read out loud in class and do work with my speech therapist on my speech impediment. It all made me more determined. Everyone should have the opportunity to feel beautiful. If you’re renting a film, do you go for the thriller or the rom-com section? I go for what appeals to me which could be anything. It could be any genre. As long as I like the look of something then I’ll pick it up. What was the last thing that made you laugh? Jo Hartley (who plays Shaun’s mum in This Is England) got some chocolate mousse, wiped it on her leg and pretended it was poo, then wiped it off with a hankie. What was the last thing that made you cry? We were watching Saving Private Ryan this morning and this woman found out that her husband was dead and she collapsed on the floor. She knew they were coming and they were bringing bad news. What’s your ideal night out in Nottingham? Meeting good, creative people, enjoying good music, looking good and just having a laugh and enjoying people’s company. Anything else you want to say to LeftLion readers? Remember that your friends make you who you are and they’re really important. It’s really important to have a good group around you. If you don’t feel like you’re around a good group of people maybe try and retrace your steps a bit and find out who those people are.
What other actors do you admire? Juliette Lewis. I like the way she’s a fearless actress and she’s very fierce in her performances. I just think she’s an incredible, strong, gifted woman. I like looking up to role models like that because I find them inspirational. She’s not just an actress, she’s a creative being. That’s what I strive to be. What do you want to do next? Character acting, because I want to do very strong characters and feel like I’m being challenged.
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It Shouldnt Happen To A Veg Starting a vegetarian café on Mansfield Road might have been akin to running a Yates’s in Saudi Arabia, but Dotty’s Café will be sorely missed - not least, according to a former staff member, because it kept most of Nottingham’s mentalists in one place… words: Esther Parry illustrations: Rikki Marr Working at Dotty’s Café was an incredible experience. Who could pass up the chance to work in a place where we’d put tea cosies on our head and pose like mannequins in the window to freak out people on the bus to Arnold, turn the sweeping-up into the dance to Prince Charming by Adam and The Ants, or make elaborate plans to turn the downstairs cellar into a petting zoo containing helpless-yet-sexy lads we would ‘Fritzl’ into cages? Even doing the actual job itself - just serving scrumptious food to mostly lovely people in a gorgeous place - was a joy, and my boss Susie was (and is) a legend. Her advice for dealing with idiots was simple; “Punch them in the throat” or “Kick them in the vag”. And there were a lot of idiots.
You’d think that in this day and age most - if not all people would have a vague concept of vegetarianism. You might also think that the words ‘Vegetarian Cafe’ in massive thick red letters on the window might have given people a teeny-tiny hint that we didn’t sell meat in Dotty’s. You’d be wrong. Because ours was a vegetarian café on Mansfield Road and therefore a red rag to the twattiest bulls in the city. This is what we had to put up with…
again. However, my personal all-time favourite was the woman who, when I told her I couldn’t make her a ham sandwich, started repeatedly shouting at me to get out of her house.
VIOLENTLY CARNIVOROUS WORKMEN You’d think that they wouldn’t want to be walking, talki.. well, walking stereotypes, yet every day, it was the same: they’d come in, ask for ham (or bacon, or sausages), only to be surprised to learn they were in a veggie café that – shockingly - didn’t actually sell meat. There’d be an array of reactions to this; 1. “Ooorghh, Ah’m norreating none of that fookin’ veggeh crap” 2. Start asking how one can be healthy and ‘stay alive’ without meat in one’s diet 3. Ask what we did sell, and react with disgust at the thought of such cutting-edge extremist veggie cuisine as ‘a cheese sandwich’ 4. Keep asking if you’re sure it’s a veggie place, like they’re going to catch you out 5. Say; “OK then, I’ll just have a chicken sandwich instead” Sometimes, they’d actually come in more than once in a day, having either forgotten, or saying “Oh, I wasn’t sure you really meant it. I thought you might’ve got some meat in by now”. If you were really unlucky, you’d end up wasting huge portions of your life arguing with the world’s mardiest pedants about how the menu said ‘sausages’, when there wasn’t any meat in them. I had to find a polite way of saying “Sorry, you pathetic needledick - I just presumed that you wouldn’t be so bastard thick that you’d understand that sausages on the menu of a vegetarian cafe obviously meant they wouldn’t be meaty ones”. This is not a class thing, by the way: confusion and then anger about not being able to get meat from a veggie caff applied to all walks of life. One very posh and stylish woman came in once and started screeching about how I’d ruined her life because I couldn’t make the chicken salad sandwich she kept begging for. Over and over
HARDCORE ULTRA-VEGANS AND THE VEGAN-CURIOUS On the flipside were the ridiculously uptight non-meaties, who would double, triple and quadruple-check that the food was veggie/vegan, and bang on about the dangers of cross-contaminating vegan and veggie knives. “Yeah, um…I work in a vegetarian café, I know the rules. I’m not about to bring you a live cow and a sharp knife and tell you to tuck in”, I’d say. In my head. But perhaps they had just met the next character and been left wary: the man came in and wanted to find out more about veganism. Not its principles, mind, because I explained those and he couldn’t grasp any of them. “These veeee-gans - what country are they from? Do they
not have animals in their country? Is it their religion?” I kept explaining as simply as I could, in terms that a small child could grasp, but he was still baffled. “If I went on the Google, would I be able to find anything about these veeee-gans? Would there be anything written about them, do you think?” He then accused me of making veganism up as an elaborate joke then left, muttering about finding out more. I do hope ‘The Google’ had better luck enlightening him than I did. Vegans might have a higher moral conscience than others, but that doesn’t mean they necessarily have a higher level of intelligence: one of them bought a spinach and feta cheese parcel, then came back to shout at me for selling him cheese when, quote, “You know I’m a vegan”. When I pointed out that he had specifically asked for something with cheese in it, his come back was; “But how was I supposed to know that cheese meant cheese?”. He also came out with the reigning champion of stupid Dotty’s quotes: “Are there any peanuts in the spicy peanut noodle salad?”
APPALLINGLY RIGHT-ON MUMS …who would let their spoilt, uncontrolled offspring smush food all over the shop and break or scribble over Susie’s immaculately planned-out 1950s décor. One of them once let her already pretentious brats jump up and down with muddy boots all over our little sofa, despite me asking her repeatedly and nicely to stop. When one of them spewed majestically over all the cushions, Mum had the audacity to blame me for the sofa being there for them to jump on. The kids’ names? Boudicca. And Wolf. FLAT-OUT RUDE BASTARDS …like the incredibly sullen Eastern European girl from the hairdresser, known to the staff as ‘Ivana Learnsomemanners’, who came in to tut and sigh that we didn’t have “any food” in - or that the fare on offer was “The same disgusting rubbish every day” One time, she kicked off at me because her potato salad wasn’t heated. Erm, it’s smothered in mayonnaise, love. Have you ever tried microwaving mayo, you stupid, rude bitch? …like the patronising bastards who treated you like you must be educationally subnormal to work in a café. One woman, who, when I mentally added up her bill, said to me “Ooooh, you’re good at maths - for someone who works in a café. …like the even more patronising bastards who would mangle the names of what they were ordering, and acted like you were the one who was wrong when you put them right. I’ll say this one more time, ‘tards: Calzone is pronounced ‘cal- zone-ay’, not ‘cal-zone’ (which sounds
like a limescale remover). ‘Quiche’ is not ‘kwish’ or ‘kwitchy’. ‘Pizza’ is not ‘Pisa’ - that’s in Italy. And there are three syllables in ‘falafel’ - not two, not four, and not, in one memorable case, five. …like the ones who didn’t seem to have any grasp on reality, much less on pronunciation, who would try to come behind the counter, asking if it was self-service. One, to put it in the most politically correct tones, freaky ginger bint was caught looking through the cupboards above the sink in the staffroom after I’d directed her outdoors to the customer toilets. She then told me off for the washing-up pile looking messy, and then asked me if I would buy her a different toilet roll, as she didn’t like the kind in the staff toilet she’d gone into on her travels. And shall l wipe your arse for you too, madam? ELDERLY PERVERTS We got loads. Trying to stroke my hand when giving me money, while commenting on my figure or telling me that “only whores wear blusher”. Asking to move their teapot two inches to the left for him just to get a good gleg at my cleavage. Or remarking upon the myriad flavours of cake we had, and then asking me what I tasted of. I don‘t think my answer - “goat’s cheese” - was exactly what he was hoping for.
(always giving people the benefit of the doubt, me). “No it’s not!” she laughed. “Tuna comes in tins”. “Yeeesss, but it was a fish before they cut it up and put it into tins.” “IS IT?” she said in amazement. “Are you sure? Well, I never knew that! You learn summat new everyday! Well, can I just get a cheese cob then, duck?” But I’ll not have a word said against ‘Denis’, the world’s oldest and least convincing tranny. We love her - she’s harmless, not bonkers and her back story is tragic. Same goes for Champagne Supernova, the UK’s cheeriest schizophrenic. I even had a soft spot for Goodbye Horses (who looks like Buffalo Bill out of Silence of The Lambs when he’s doing the willy-tucked-between-his-legs dance) who came in to sell us broken felt-tip pens from a pram and started getting angry every time I turned down his marriage proposals and offers to buy the shoes I was wearing. Despite all that, I loved working in Dotty’s. Like all service jobs, the work could be repetitive, thankless and frustrating at times, but it was also ace. Dealing with twats was the price I had to pay to work somewhere cool, fun and usually populated with good folk, and I mourn its passing. Here’s hoping my next boss allows me to kick people in the vag, too. Thanks, Susie.
THE VIBRANT AND ECLECTIC CHARACTERS OF MANSFIELD ROAD A man came in once with a very thin little girl, asking what I had for 20p. When I said “nothing”, he went mad, insisting he had to feed his daughter and there was no food at home. Feeling sorry for her, I asked if he really had no money, thinking I might do her a bit of toast or summat for 20p. “Yeah, but after I’ve bought the paper and a Big Mac for myself, I’ll only have 20p left”. I had the cheek to suggest that he might consider getting her something decent to eat instead of a Daily Star and a manky burger for himself. He told me not to be so stupid, and started screaming that his daughter was going to die of hunger, and that I was a murderer. I pointed out who the real villain of the piece was, forced them both out and slammed the door. Poor kid - I still worry if she actually got fed that day. Parnd Woman was always a regular; a scratchcard-obsessed loon who harasses passers-by and every business on Mansfield Road with an innovative approach to securing a deal: 1) thrust hand into client’s face. 2) Scream “PARND!” (i.e., ‘pound’) at them, in a Cockney accent. When the recession kicked in, she took inflation into account and started asking for 80p, which wasn’t the same, really. If you’re feeling generous, she’s outside the Coral bookies from 8am to 6pm, Monday to Saturday. The story of Tuna Girl is now part of Mansfield Road legend. A chunky lass in her late teens came in one dinnertime and asked me for a tuna sarnie. I told her I couldn’t do that, what with, y’know, being a vegetarian cafe. “Yeah, I know”, she said sweetly. “I want tuna”. “Tuna is a fish”, I pointed out, thinking she was one of those people who has confused vegetarianism with pescatarianism
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YAY, VERY LEE
Stewart Lee, the quiffier half of 90s TV comedy duo Lee and Herring, quit stand-up to write operas about Jerry Springer and Nottingham binge-drinking and a book about why he quit stand-up. Then he un-quit, and returns interview: Jared Wilson to the all-new Just The Tonic this month… What inspired you to write your book How I Escaped My Certain Fate? When you get on television, you get approached by publishers who want you do some kind of trashy cash-in thing to be sold in supermarkets. I knew I couldn’t do that as it’s just not my style. When Faber & Faber asked me if there was anything I wanted to do. It occurred to me that there were a lot of books about comedians and their lives, how funny they were at school and all their celebrity friends. But there weren’t many about the actual process of putting an act together. It gets put in the biography section in bookshops, but I’ve tried to keep the personal details out except where they are relevant to the work. It’s had really good reviews. Did you expect that? I didn’t, and I don’t think the publisher did either. Usually when I get dismissed by people, it’s because of things that I choose to do. So I’m really pleased that people seem to have got it as I went out on a bit of a limb. Plus, if it sells well, it means that we might actually get some money out of it. The last few years have seen a second resurgence for your work, after the Fist of Fun days… That series was on TV just before comedy touring had really taken off and before everything got put onto DVD – which it’s still not been out on. Ultimately it got cancelled because not enough people liked it, but both Richard and I have found a decade or more later that journalists, promoters and people that run venues and labels often remember us. They were teenagers back then, but now they’re able to support us in a more obvious way. It took us a long time to realise that we’d ever been popular. How did you ever get away with This Morning with Richard Not Judy going out in a Sunday afternoon terrestrial TV slot? It wouldn’t happen now, but it just sort of went in under the radar. The person that commissioned it left and the new Controller of BBC2 just didn’t like us and never watched it. Also, it was before the real dawn of the internet and so it was much harder for people to complain about things. Did you ever get any feedback from Richard and Judy? I’d met Richard and Judy before we did that programme - they weren’t very nice. Then I met them after and Judy Finnegan said our work was stupid and that it was ‘comedy about nothing’. We thought that was really funny, so we used the quote on the posters. And what about Jerry Springer? We met Jerry Springer before he’d seen the opera and he said he’d heard it was great and he wasn’t going to sue us. Then we saw him again after he’d seen it in Edinburgh and he really liked it. Then he saw it again in London and I think he understood it for the first time, realising it was critical of him and what he stood for. So he told me that I was a bad person and that I was the same as an apologist for the Holocaust. I don’t really know what he meant by that.
“Jerry Springer told me that I was the same as an apologist for the Holocaust”
Tell us about the bingedrinking opera you wrote about Nottingham… Richard Thomas, the composer of Jerry Springer the Opera, got a commission to do a series of six short operas for BBC TV. It’s based on an episode of Panorama, which was about alcohol in the city. I wasn’t involved at all with the staging or filming of it, but the words are mine. There was a load of other stuff at the end that they had to cut, like Robin Hood coming out of the River Trent to save the city.
Around the time of Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle, some critics started to call you a ‘British Bill Hicks’. Did he have any influence on your recent work? No. No-one was really aware of him in the UK until about 1993 and I was gigging long before then. I think the first two of his stand-up albums have dated badly, but there’s one routine the one where he talks about America arming the world with weapons and compares it to Jack Palance in Shane - that did influence me, because it’s quite dramatic and there’s lots of space in it. It didn’t occur to me to mention him in the book; he’s the kind of person the public know about and I do think he’s really good. But what I do isn’t really like him - his stuff was almost exclusively political and social. The people
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that I would be happy to say I’ve been influenced by are Simon Munnery, Ted Chippington, Kevin McAleer and Johnny Vegas. When you’re onstage, you like to alienate a crowd and then draw them back in. What’s that about? It’s like juggling. It’s not very exciting to watch unless the juggler drops a plate near the beginning. At that point, you’re reminded that you are actually watching something live and that there is something at stake. You need a reminder that there is jeopardy in the room; that something could go wrong. How has being a father changed your outlook on life and your career? You have to be more positive about things. You’re more tired. You can’t afford to entertain such a degree of cynicism because you hope the world will improve for your own child. But on the whole it’s been really good and good for the work, because it gives you a slightly different outlook on the world. And do you think you’ll ever work with Richard Herring again? Yes, in about twenty five years time. We’ve decided that it will be best left until our sixties or seventies – as it will be much funnier then. Although I did do a few minutes with him in Edinburgh on stage this year, where he came up and ripped a copy of the book up. You’re playing Just The Tonic later this month. Everyone’s got a Darrell story - what’s yours? My dad used to be obsessed by boiled sweets, and when he died recently I picked up all his stuff. There were loads and loads of packets of sweets, and I put them in the glove compartment of my Mini and I thought, as I eat those, I’ll think of my dad. Then I gave Darrell a lift up to Nottingham from London. A few days later, I noticed that all the packets of sweets had gone except for one. I asked Darrell about it, and he said it wasn’t anything to do with him. Then a guy he works with said that Darrell had stolen them all when I’d got out for petrol and they were all in his office. And that he’d laugh about how he’d got all these sweets off me. Stewart Lee, 18 October, Just The Tonic, The Cornerhouse, Burton Street, NG1 4DB. Tickets: £16 stewartlee.co.uk
LeftLion Advertorial October 2010.ai 22/09/2010 19:37:44
CAN'T KNOCK THE HUSTLE
interview: Paul Klotschkow photo: David Baird
The Hockley Hustle, an all-day multi-venue shebang across the poncier end of town celebrates its fifth birthday at the end of October. Adam Pickering, the founder and lynchpin of the whole thing manages to spare ten minutes of his ludicrously packed schedule to tell us why it’s the most important incarnation of one of the key dates in the Notts gig calendar… Remind us what the Hockley Hustle is… It’s a music and arts festival across the nice bits of the city centre, hosted by the best promoters and creative groups in Nottingham, representing as many music genres and as many styles of everything as possible. It has raised around £45,000 for Oxfam and local NSPCC projects. Just under £22,000 of that is from last year alone, so it has grown year on year. How did it start? It was part of Oxjam, the music festival that was originally about lots of people putting on DIY events to raise money for Oxfam. The Hockley Hustle has always been the biggest Oxjam event in the country. When it started in 2006, I got seven venues involved and realised that I would need a lot of help, so I got Farmyard Records and Not In Nottingham involved, along with Folkwit Records, and lots of people I’m forgetting at the moment. Drop in the Ocean in 2005/6 was a big inspiration, and it really helped to wake Nottingham up to the benefits of getting everyone together. I’d been helping some acts out on the promotional side already and doing some design work for various people, so I had been getting involved a little bit for a while. I had a lot of energy that needed putting in to something and just wanted to do something positive. How hard was it to get the first one off the ground? It was surprisingly easy. All of the venues and promoters were really keen to help. It was just a case of going out there, having a lot of conviction and hope, and really just knowing what you want to get out of people and approaching them in the right way. As for the artists, they already had it in them. I think people were waiting for something to put their energy into and waiting for something to get excited about. As soon as you give people something like that, they will run with it. Once people start
connecting with each other they start having their own little offshoot projects. Seeing what that momentum does and what you end up with is pretty exciting. So how has it changed over the years? We’ve always wanted to improve it and take it to the next level, and we’ve always exceeded our expectations. This year there will be over thirty venues, with events on the Friday and Saturday incorporating venues from all over town. To be honest and without sounding arrogant, we’ve actually got too big for Hockley. There are only so many venues. What goes through your mind the night before? Can you sleep? There are always particular tasks that invariably don’t get nailed down til the night before, such as waiting on stage times and stuff like that from various promoters. You’re just tying up the loose ends. There’s no time to stop until it’s all over. As for the actual day…pretty worn out, to be honest. There are weeks where you’re working non-stop, waking up and getting on with it, then trying to go to sleep whenever you can before getting up again and getting back on it. So I’m usually completely knackered by the actual day. So, tell us about this year… The main change is that we’re moving away from Oxjam this year so that we can focus on more local charities. As for the actual event, we’re bringing more of the good stuff. We are going for events on the Friday and Saturday night with loads of events all over town. There will be more variety, and more grass-roots, community-led stuff too. And bigger and better headliners, with a more diverse selection of acts.
Still looking for people to get involved? If people have something they can bring to the table, there’s still time. Go to the Hockley Hustle website - hockleyhustle.co.uk - or join the Facebook group to get in touch. What does the future hold for the Hustle? We’re trying to develop; there’s a constant feeling within the team of needing to take it forward, so we’re looking at building a model for something bigger, more expansive and more inclusive, that may well include the whole of Nottingham - but details are shady at the moment. We always said that we would make it to the fifth year with the Hockley Hustle and this year feels a bit like the turning point. It’s a good time to go all out with this one then stand back to take a look at it for next year. We are already working on the next stage. It’s very exciting. Any final words? Thanks to LeftLion for all of the support over the years. Thanks for the people of Nottingham who have got involved in one way or another. Thanks to all of the musicians who have made the Hockley Hustle possible. We all look forward to round five. The Hockley Hustle, 22-24 October, across the City Centre, £15 £8. Check the website for updates and ticket info hockleyhustle.co.uk
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HOLD ME CLOSER, TONY DANCER
interview: Paul Klotschkow photo: David Baird
Antony Hodgkinson drums for Julian Cope, collaborates with a host of Notts bands, flew the flag for Derby AltRock in the mid-90s with Bivouac, and likes to be known these days as ANTRØNHY. Oh, and he got up on stage during the 1992 Reading Festival and danced for his mate’s band - some bloke by the name of Kurt Cobain and became known as Tony The Interpretive Dancer... How did you get into drumming? I’ll skirt over this quite quickly; let’s just say that I was quite a troubled child and I got into some serious strife. One day I just got sick of the way I was and thought that I need to start drumming. It’s very hard to explain really, it was when I was eighteen. It was therapeutic; when I started drumming, I never got in to trouble again. I found out when I went back to college seven years ago to do Music Technology at Confetti, that I did actually have learning disorders and severe dyslexia and thinking back, that is why I was the way I was. What was it like being in a band like Bivouac in the early 90s? Did it differ to how things are now? I don’t really deal with bands now – I’m more into side projects with the artists I’m normally with. I guess it is harder to get a deal as we did with Geffen, and it’s probably harder to get support or to be able to tour the States for six months. It’s just different times, I guess. I do bits and bobs for people who need a drummer. I’ve recently done a session for Paul Yeadon from Bivouac called The Nation of Shopkeepers. I did stuff for Earth the California Love Dream. Me and Joey from Punish The Atom are working together on a project called Golden Hair, which is a dance project, but quite heavy duty really. How did you end up working with Julian Cope? It was about two or three years ago, I met Julian through a mutual friend called Doggen who plays guitar for Spiritualized. What we do is quite improvised, like at the Bristol Festival: Julian gave me a set list with no songs on it - just who was on stage and when. Obviously I had to ask what he wanted, and he said; ”Just have a rhythm like the one you played in this session or that,” and then it goes from there. It can be extremely boring for a great percentage of people but a lot of the time something quite magical can come from it. So, Nirvana and the Reading Festival. Since the DVD was released the whole ‘Tony the Interpretative Dancer’ thing is more widely known... It’s always been a weird one really. I didn’t know that they were releasing that DVD until it was out. I’ve always been a bit apprehensive looking back on it, really, as I can be very sceptical about my performances. It was the last time that I actually saw Kurt as well. I had a tear in my eye at the end when I realised they gave me a credit. I’ve had seventeen years of basic anonymity but I quite like the fact that I’ve accidentally become part of a secret history. How did you get to know them? Through an old friend of mine, Russell Warby. I met him at a club called The Colour Wheel – the place where the new toilets are on Greyhound Street - and we just got on like a house on fire. He represented some Amphetamine Reptile and SST bands who I’d pick up if he didn’t have a driver. One day he said “I’ve got some bands coming who are doing the Lamefest Tour - Mudhoney, Tad and Nirvana” so I just picked them up at the airport and we hung out.
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When they came back, we met up with them again it was just lads together getting on really well. I think the dancing came about as a dare. When you were up on stage with Nirvana did you have anything planned out? No, it was all improvised. Just to be weird with it and get lost in it really. Not to look...well, obviously it wouldn’t look too professional. I can dance a lot better than that, but that wasn’t the point really. It was to be part of the gig and to show that anybody could do it. I actually overdid it in the first song and ended up wearing a neck collar because I gave myself whiplash. What was going through your mind while all this was going on? ‘Don’t slip over’, which I didn’t. ‘Stay away from Krist’ because I had been hit by the bass guitar before when he throws it up. ‘Stay away from Kurt’ - because I may punch him. I always had images of punching him in the face flailing around. And ‘just feed off Dave’, because that’s what we did for each other. When I watched the DVD, as soon as I saw Kurt go on stage and play the first chords, I actually felt the same surge as I did that night. You know; this is it, full tilt, you are going for it. Amazing. It must be nice to be a part of music history… It is now, yes. I was always in awe of bands like Led Zep or Sabbath – serious rock history – and now Nirvana have fallen into that bracket. That’s the great thing about life, really - you don’t know what is going to happen in the next second or minute, some things will become apparent, you can’t force it. What’s your fondest memory of knocking about with Nirvana? I had been seriously ill a year, two years before meeting them, and I was still mentally scarred from it - I was a bit weird and uncomfortable. And Kurt just understood it and took me under his wing. I could be a bit weird at times, and I could say quite inappropriate things, but they were very accepting of me. Kurt was a really sweet guy, and it’s a shame what happened to him, but it was foreseeable in a way. When Kurt died it was horrible and very upsetting: I stopped drumming for nine years because of how it affected me. I got into the more electronic side of things, but I stopped physically playing drums. So what’s your relationship with Nottingham? I used to be able to see the glow of the Nottingham city lights from where I used to live on top of the hills in Derby. It’s a bit weird really, I was brought up in the country but I always gravitated towards the city. I think it is the whole ‘bright city lights’ thing. I moved here when I was sixteen but I used to come to Notts for the humps behind the Broadmarsh, because I used to BMX behind there many moons ago in the late 70s. I have left, but I always come back to it – it’s my stomping ground.
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CRASH US A FLAG, YOUTH All of a sudden, there’s been a clamour for English counties to have their own flags. Lincolnshire and even Derbyshire have already got one - so why not Notts? LeftLion put the word out to its dedicated team of designers and illustrators: this is what we got back…
Rikki Marr
Lord Biro
Chris Summerlin
Simon Mitchell
The creator of Byron Clough “Nottingham is now recognised as a primary source for high grade dope - in both the botanical and slang sense of the word. Not only do we produce the strongest sensi in the UK, we also have the biggest bag of talent when it comes to making music and art. I was going to name all the sick beat makers, musicians, writers, DJs, MCs, bands, filmmakers, artists, designers, actors and dancers out there who make our city the Home of the Peng, but there are far too many to mention” rikkimarr.com
Reigning champion of the local gig poster “I propose not just a flag, but a whole new secret society for the people of Nottingham, inspired by the Toynbee Tiles (Google it), the Freemasons (minus the George W Bush shit) and, of course, the words of Donovan Whycliffe Bromwell. Nottingham has long celebrated the underdog and applauded the glorious failure. Our cultural exports all fall short due to don’t-give-a-shit modesty or they break down in the rush hour-traffic at 6.10 somewhere on the A453 on the way to a gig in London, where they were supposed to arrive at 7pm. It’s a curse, but I say we should celebrate this. It’s what makes us Nottinghamians, not Robin Hood or ‘two girls for every boy’. Next time you suspect a stranger is from our fair city, just slip this into the conversation: “Can I sing you a song?” Use it as a greeting, maybe, like the Masonic handshake. Or write it on a wall somewhere without explanation. Treat positive responders kindly and cut them favours. We’ve got to stick together” honeyisfunny.com
Tesco-despising, Elvis-loving champion of the underdog “The red cross represents the cross of St. George. The green background, the fields of Nottinghamshire that have not been concreted over by Tesco. The white stags are based on the ‘White Hart’ which appeared in the legends of King Arthur and became the personal emblem of Richard II. The White Hart is also a popular name for many pubs including a fine hostelry in Old Ollerton, a few miles from the Major Oak. “ grumpyoldelvis.co.uk
James Huyton
Does rabbit-fixated gear for Bantum Clothing, amongst other things “A new flag for Nottingham requires a new symbol - so why not the newly-built, multi-million pound freight container, sorry, contemporary art gallery? Don’t get me wrong, I love going to an art gallery, and its probably going to be great for the city’s economy - it’s just a shame that the building doesn’t really reflect the estimated £19 million it cost to create. The laser-cut lace patterns may pay homage to the city’s heritage, but it hardly hides the fact it looks like a freight container. Maybe it’s meant to be suggestive of a cargo of possibilities, shipped in from around the world, or something.” jameshuyton.com
Rob White
Impervious illustration machine “When I first came to Nottingham my first thoughts were of Robin Hood - you know, that Disney movie with the fox and the bear (from The Jungle Book, for some reason). Anyway, I was quite excited that one of the first encounters I had was with a man with one of them hats and a curly ‘tache, who had a target painted on his face, which I thought that was damn cool. So whenever I think about Notts, I think about that dude. I also think the flag would look cool with a big ‘N’” simitchell.co.uk
The cruel overlord of The Arthole “When I first heard about the proposition for a Nottingham flag, I couldn’t contain my laughter as I thought it absurd. My initial thoughts were a) it’s just going to get torn down and nicked, like the arrow on Robin Hood’s bronze statue next to the castle, and b) it’s simply not necessary - we’ve lived without one quite happily for a millennia. Why should we have one just because Derby’s going to have one?” byrobwhite.co.uk
leftlion.co.uk/issue37
25
Rather listen to the tunes on this page than read about ‘em? Better wrap your tabs round Sound Of The Lion, our dedicated music podcast, available at leftlion.co.uk/SOTL. And if you want your own tunes reviewed - and you’re from Notts - hit up leftlion.co.uk/sendusmusic... Alice Rock
Kill or Cure EP (Rock Records UK) With so many bands taking themselves oh-so-seriously at times, Alice Rock are on a mission to bring fun back to punk. As with their previous releases, humour seems to have been a high priority in the creation of this EP, with titles such as Chips ’n’ Gravy and quirky, quick songs that could easily make you think that Alice Rock have come hurtling from the eighties in a time machine only to land in a pile of stripy clothes, jump up and start playing without missing a beat. Forget the snarly punk of the seventies, Alice’s voice (yes, she is actually called Alice Rock in real life) is reminiscent of Toyah Wilcox and with them only being a two-piece, it takes centre stage a lot. With themes of motherhood in The Breeding Lady, shallow perceptions of beauty in Robotic Perfection, abortion in Cut Loose and the horrors of social networking on Monopoly, Kill or Cure really is a mixed-up bag of light and dark. However, the spiky poppiness of it all means that you’ll be chanting and singing along to the tracks before you’ve even finished your first listening. Alison Emm Avliable online alice-rock.co.uk
Love Ends Disaster!
City Of Glass LP (Warning!) After five years of steady progress, LED have finally fulfilled their promise. City Of Glass sets out its stall from the beginning with a title track that transforms itself from murmurs of feedback to hook-laden literate guitar pop. From here the album takes in oblique song titles such as The Rudiments of Piano Playing (Parts 1 and 2), rattling guitars that fans of early Radiohead should lap up (see (Untitled Dream #24)), dissonant instrumental passages that have been shipped in directly from David Bowie’s Berlin era, razor-sharp riffs that sound like they have come from some lost Gang Of Four album, mournful chamber pop, and - on There’s Room In My Tardis For Two - a swerve into the arena-sized melodies in which Snow Patrol specialise. Special mention has to be given to Alexander, which is the highpoint on an album that is littered with standout moments. Squalling guitars that sound like Robert Fripp has time-travelled from the 70s mesh with jagged rhythms, with singer Matt Oakes’ rambling over-the-top stream-of-conscious style, creating a discordant, yet sublime sound. A sprawling, kaleidoscopic collection of art-rock moves and angular post-punk indie shapes, then, and anyone who gives it a listen will be sure to find something they like on an album that covers so much in a short time. Paul Klotschkow Available online myspace.com/loveendsdisaster
Ocean Bottom Nightmare
What Would Judas Do? Single (Self-released) What would Judas do if he formed a band? Being a sell-out of biblical proportions, he’d probably either don a vest and trilby and sing about girls in discos or raid Oxfam of its knitwear and pillage the tweecore crowd. What he wouldn’t do is form a band as balls-out honest and face-meltingly loud as Ocean Bottom Nightmare. God gave rock n’ roll to you, rejoice! Starting, in the words of the great Ron Burgundy, by ‘keeping the cymbals splashy and taking the bass line for a walk,’ the short jazz introduction is quickly accompanied by some jagged guitar shredding. Then things get real heavy as falsetto harmonies wrestle with brutal screams atop a layer of filthy and furious riffery. They demolish the quiet-loud-quiet formula by wandering from soft and surreal to a full throated exuberance that is heavier than heaven. Ocean Bottom Nightmare’s blend of pop sensibility, hard-punk atmosphere, chunky alternative guitars and searing screams creates a solid and impenetrable wall of sound. Their schizophrenic mathrock and simple but infectious choruses could one day see them on the same mantle as Biffy Clyro. Just as our Lord Jesus did with loaves and fish, Ocean Bottom Nightmare could feed 5000 with a simple meal of riffs and attitude. This is Rock with a capital ‘R’. Amen. Andrew Trendell Available online myspace.com/oceanbottomnightmare
BloodLeech
Eat Defeat LP (1st Blood Records) Rolling deeper than the McQueen sisters, 1st Blood and Leech bring this collection featuring the cream of Nottingham’s MCs, singers and producers. As you would expect, there is the usual heavyweight hiphop flavoured with a Nottingham twang, as well as a smoother soul sound. Quality raps are showcased on Why the Long Face?, featuring Notts legend Cappo, while his pal Rukus absolutely smashes two verses on Flick Ya Lighter. Posse cut Rewriting The Rulebook flows at an urgently head-nodding tempo, enhanced by bars from Allergy and Tom G of Ill Citizen, 1st Blood regulars Louis Cypher, Tony Skank and Opticus Rhyme. You Can’t Play Games sees rapper 2Tone lovingly reminiscing over the canon of classic video-games like Streets of Rage, Sonic and Goldeneye. They change genres on the reggae-infused BBQ banger Can’t Say Why, where Liam Bailey provides a perfect lilting hook. Liam pops up again with a soulful Finley Quaye-sounding chorus on Super Shining. Another brilliant local singer, Jay Thomas’ sultry vocals give mellow track Leech Experiment (Storyboards) a sound much like Portishead at their best. More great female vocals come from Charlotte Sanderson on Tumble, punctuated with hearty raps from Jah Digga. Topped off with great production and superior cuts and scratches from NG’s finest DJ Dan Rattomatic, Eat Defeat is a perfect starting point to explore the wide range of talent in Nottingham’s urban scene. Shariff Ibrahim Avliable online 1stblood.co.uk
Gallery 47
11th October Routine EP (Self-released) For a man of only twenty years of age, Jack Peachey – the aforementioned Gallery 47 - is a hugely prolific artist. This is his fifth collection of homespun acoustic charm, which will only reinforce his status as one of Nottingham’s brightest new talents. 11th October Routine captures a young man reaching a songwriting maturity that should be years out of reach Otherwise frames melancholic finger-picking with various percussive samples. 20 Second Banjo is a song that’s deeply in love with Neil Young’s Laurel Canyon period; it practically radiates wistful sunshine and has the feel of a favourite pair of faded denim jeans. Those Young influences are still present in Dole, especially in the way he uses the top end of his voice, with a more experimental acoustic leaning accompanied by sound effects that flicker throughout. Duck Footprints could almost be called emo-coustic, but the double-tracked emotion is kept in shape by someone who is intelligent enough to know when to hold back. Gallery 47 quite literally wears his influences on his sleeve; the EP artwork is adorned with items that obviously play a part in his songwriting – dog-eared Bob Dylan and Neil Young LPs, old stuffed toys and photographs of Syd Barrett. All of which hark to a well-worn past, but it’s fair to say that Gallery 47 is in the lineage of more modern acoustic acts such as Bon Iver and Iron and Wine. Paul Klotschkow Available online myspace.com/gallery47
MuHa The Soundcarriers
Celeste Album (Melodic) With Celeste, their second album, the ludicrously experimental Soundcarriers have created an original soundtrack for a film that doesn’t exist. Opener Last Broadcast sums the LP up perfectly; all blips and bleeps, guitars scraping and organs stabbing, layered with motorik rhythm, and whispered, soft male/female vocals – a sound enthralled to psychedelica, krautrock, experimental and European pop, wrapped up in an earthly warmth provided by analogue equipment and nothing else. On an album that is so considered, complete, and overflowing with musical references, it is easy to get bogged down in the mire of trying to pick out every shimmer of guitar, organ melody, or gently delivered vocal line. You could say that this modern-day spin through the more eclectic avenues of music’s back catalogue recalls fellow English euro-pop aficionados Stereolab – we’d sooner put it on, shut our eyes, and imagine ourselves in our own personal Broadway of the soul. Paul Klotschkow Available from all good record shops and online thesoundcarriers.com
Taras LP (Self-released) MuHa class themselves as ‘New Roots from Eastern Europe’. This is a phrase that may turn a lot of people off, but don’t fear, as this isn’t some kind of tie-dyed folk we are dealing with. On Taras, MuHa manage to meaningfully mix the history and sounds of Eastern European folk music with Indian and Western European influences to create an album as refreshing as a dip in the Volga. What does this mean in terms of music? Both Let’s Talk About The Weather and Taras are all heady flamenco rhythms and passionate Russian vocals, two things that on paper sound like they go together as well as Trotsky and an ice pick, but here they are a marriage of delights. Kaby Vedala (as the liner notes state) is a traditional Russian Folk song made to sound like classic British folk, all lilting guitars and starryeyed singing, much like Pentangle on a diet of Russian phrase books. Whilst a song like New York Rain feels like it was conceived in a jazz club. Taras carries on in this manner over its thirteen songs and 45 minutes, gathering up sounds as if they were souvenirs from various continents on the shortest around the world trip ever - the fact that MuHa can make this sound so enjoyable is testament to their dedication and craft. Paul Klotschkow Available online muha.co.uk
Patriot Rebel
Back To Life EP (Self-released) This album is a categoriser’s worst nightmare, and a gift to the rest of us. Back To Life is a wild collage of different (albeit all heavy) genres, each of which propel themselves with the velocity of a sombrerowearing Mexican mouse pumped full of methamphetamine. Example: the juggernaut that is Cupid’s Arrow, the screaming offspring of cock-rock infused with grunge, (a genre which implies all sorts of negative genital hygiene). No ridiculous spandex or abundant plaid here, though; the terrible lyrics are gone, as is the unnecessary posing. This is just hard and heavy, throwing everything at you at once. The album begins as it intends to continue intensely powerful like a drunken toddler behind the wheels of an articulated lorry, damn dangerous and fun. The influences of varying forms of American rock are splattered throughout, from 36Crazyfists, Velvet Revolver, Love/Hate and Black Label Society in the crunchy and storming onslaught that is Gimme Some More. The one persistent echoing influence - especially within the vocal approach in Window To My Soul - is the late great Layne Staley of Alice in Chains. Tough company to keep up with, admittedly, but Patriot Rebel pull no soft punches; they are out for blood, in the best possible way. Alistair Catterall Available online myspace.com/patriotrebel
ManEatLikePig
A Glorious Egg LP (MFS Records) Daz, Groll and the enigmatic Howlin, who wears a box on his head in the shape of a pig: you can’t get names much more rock ‘n’ roll than that, can you? Heavily influenced by the mustyfolk thrash of Captain Beefheart, Zeppelin and their experimental 60s rock ilk, MELP’s first full release is rife with swagger and creativity. 5 Year Stretch resembles a modern-day Bob Dylan at his jauntiest, complete with sandpaper vocals, slamming it with White Denim. Leonardo chugs and bashes its way through heavy rock riffing with menacing whisky-stained vocals. Soaking My Mind is a deranged stomp with an affable Middle Eastern guitar solo breakdown, whilst Zephyrus is pure Nick Cave. But it’s the reflective closer Pig Fluid that shows the band’s true mastery; think Iggy Pop singing with Jimmy Page’s guitar slides and solos. The blues-rock vocal drawls “it’s all looking good in the neighbourhood” – said, of course, with a certain sense of irony. There’s a stench that attaches itself to this band as they move from the sublime to car park drunk. Their carnivorous über-superior pub rock sound takes their influences and then turns them up to twelve. Listening to this album you really imagine you are there watching them play live; it’ll get dirty, your ears will bleed, but good grief it’ll feel good. Ashley Clivery Available online myspace.com/maneatlikepig
LEFTLION featured listings... LISTINGS BIG IN THE GAME TICKETS ON-LION
Buying tickets for events in Notts? From the latest DJs at Stealth to the latest bands at venues like Spanky Van Dykes and The Rescue Rooms, you can get them all through our website, at no extra cost. Even better, thanks to our partnership with gigantic.com, every time you buy one through us some of the funds will go towards LeftLion and a bit more goes to those nice folks at Oxfam.
leftlion.co.uk/tickets
DAYS OUT
Release your inner child and experience the magic of Goose Fair with the dodgems, waltzers, big wheel, helter skelter, hook-a-duck and much, much more. Of course, there will also be peas, trodden on by the fair virgins of our city and smothered in mint sauce, and candy floss - a plenty. There’s nowt wrong with being a tourist in your own city and especially not if it’s Robin Hood related shenanigans. The annual Robin Hood Pageant lets you step back in time and experience the life and times of Nottingham’s famous bad boy, Robin Hood. If you fancy watching other people put some proper effort into something then the Survival of the Fittest event is taking place from Victoria Embankment up to Holme Pierrepont on 9 October and there will be a host of entertainment going on for the slacker spectators. leftlion.co.uk/listings
SCRIBAL GATHERING AT HOCKLEY HUSTLE
If you don’t know what the Hockley Hustle is by now it’s because you’re emotionally disabled and think that compassion is giving beggars the 10¢ that was too small to change back into sterling when you arrived back in Blighty. It’s a ‘charidy’ event and this year the ‘Scribal Gathering’ team are putting on a wide range of events with a strong arty theme. There will be authors and artists who collaborated together for the forthcoming Staple publication 24 discussing the project. Alex Davis of Alt Fiction will be putting together a panel that explores that most visual of literary forms, fantasy fiction and the graphic novel. Expect über-geek chic and an appearance from Mark Charan Newton. Finally that master of satire and slapstick humour, Lord Biro, will be using his poetry and sketches to introduce various topics which will be debated by a Question Time type panel. Topics will include the ‘Cleggaron’, cuts to the arts and why shouting at icebergs is the most practical way to stop global warming. Other events include an open mic session, a game of Literature Room 101 with Maria Allen and a football panel that includes ex-hack Paul Reaney, young-adult fiction writer Dan Tunstall, ‘three Singhs on a shirt’ author Bali Rai and our festival highlight, Graham Joyce. Joyce is a multiple Fantasy Award winner with a bigger following than ‘County. He’ll be reading from his recent memoir about his time as a goalkeeper, the loneliest position on the field. There’s music in the evening too. 23 October 3pm onwards Nottingham Contemporary Café For even more listings, check our up to date online section at leftlion.co.uk/listings. If you want to get your event in this magazine and on our website, aim your browser at leftlion.co.uk/add.
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leftlion.co.uk/issue37
Nottingham kicks off a week-long videogaming sesh with the return of GameCity, but be warned: lolling about on sofas is not encouraged…
words: Al Needham
Videogame conferences may sound like a spod’s wet dream, but the reality can be crushingly mundane; a load of suits waffle on about a game that’s not going to be out for another year. There’s a massive queue to have a go on the games that are available, but not finished yet. Some poor cow dresses up as Lara Croft. Etc... GameCity, on the other hand, is massively, refreshingly, gloriously different. A true festival of interactivity, GC has been responsible for some of the most bizarre events in town over the past half-decade, including a Mario tea party, piano concerts of Sega themes in a 14th Century church, games developers being grilled by Notts kids, a live recreation of Crysis in the Market Square and a successful attempt on the world record for most zombies in one place. Imagine a festival where videogames receive the same respect as the music and movie industries, and you’ll have a slight idea what GameCity is about.
Maid Mario illustration: Rikki Marr
October - November 2010
What can we expect from GameCity5? Loads, quite frankly, but the main highlights will be the bringing together of Nottingham Primary Care Trust and the mighty EA Sports – of ‘It’s In The Game’ fame – to create the world’s best health club, which’ll be staffed with trained professionals and sporting celebs, in an attempt to stop you from being a fat get and a lazy dosser. We’ll also be the first people in the world to have a bang on EA Sports Active 2, the Wii Fit-beating exercise console experience that comes with its own working heart monitor. The other huge element to GC5 is the launch of OpenGameCity, a creative free-for-all binge where ideas from the likes of you are hoovered up and expanded upon in an attempt to extend the boundaries of what a festival can actually be. All you have to do is hit up the application process on the GameCity website and add your name to reserve space and time in one of the myriad venues – and as long as it’s not illegal, dangerous or offensive,
you can rock up and do your thing – but you’ll need to get a shift on, because places are already starting to get limited. GameCity5 takes place right across the city centre at the end of October, and is one of the most completely brilliant things to happen in town this year. Get involved with it.
Iain Simons, Director of GameCity, talks about this year’s fest, taking videogame legends to local pubs and zombie fracas-related issues… So, the fifth GameCity. Do the expectations get greater year after year? I’m not sure we know what the expectations are, to be honest. There was a bit of a worry after the zombie fracas of 2008 that we’d need to do more/bigger/stupider, but the temptation to just upscale has always been something we’ve tried to resist. I think a lot of people come along expecting a lot of different things, and usually they come away with a lot of different impressions. It’s a stupidly multi-faceted event, and increasingly so - but at its heart we’re basically all song-and-dance lovers.
people to come from London – the American and Japanese developers come here with little or no persuasion. Fact is, a few years ago we turned down the chance to do GameCity - insert other city name here - as a franchise, largely because it’s about Nottingham, and to try and rinse and repeat it anywhere else can only dilute that. All of the overseas folks have had a brilliant time here - not just because of GameCity, but because of Nottingham. Keita Takahashi has opted to try and realise one of his biggest personal ambitions here with his playground. He’s not doing it for the money, he’s doing it because he loves it here.
We can vaguely recall noises a while back about GameCity4 being the last one. What happened? I think we started to re-evaluate what the whole thing was. One of the constant questions we ask is; ‘what’s the point of GameCity?’ There have been several moments where I’ve not been sure if we’d continue, but events post-GC4 - kicking off the GameCityNights gigs, Keita Takahashi’s playground in Woodthorpe, working with a more persistent team and a bunch of other things I’m not supposed to talk about yet - basically made us realise that GameCity isn’t going to just be something that happens during half-term in October.
Do you take them to Yates’s and the like? I’ve not personally taken anyone to Yates’s yet, but one of my favourite memories was Alexey Pajitnov – the man behind Tetris demanding, unprompted, to be taken to the Trip for a pint. Keita’s favourite haunts include The Peacock - he has a taste for real ale.
GC’s renowned for giving independent developers a platform – but isn’t there a danger that it’ll become a victim of its own success, with bigger players taking notice? Yes - but that presupposes that bigger players taking notice is necessarily a bad thing, which perhaps it isn’t. The main problem we’ve always had with dealing with big publishers is that there are a limited number of event models that they either can - or want - to consider. A few years in, we’re now in the position where we can point to stuff we’ve done and demonstrate to bigger publishers the kind of thing that they might want to do in the future. Basically, if we hired out the Arena and sub-let the space to publishers to fill with hundreds of sampling pods, our job would be simple. But we don’t, and it isn’t. What do your guest speakers – who number amongst some of the biggest names in videogame history - think of Nottingham? Is it hard to get them here? Actually, the biggest problem we’ve always had has been getting
If you could get anyone from the history of videogames to speak at GameCity, who would it be if Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo wasn’t available? Hmmm…I’d love to get Jeff Minter of Llamasoft back, as he’s amazing, but I think most of all I’d like to hear from David Crane, the designer of Pitfall!, mostly because he made so much stuff I loved as a kid. I wonder how he feels about Activision today. What’s the future of GameCity? Probably perilously uncertain, with a number of things we don’t have that much control over, but I’d like us to fight on. There’s a lot of new stuff we want to do and still have things in a holding pattern from years ago that we’ve not managed to realise yet. One thing’s for certain though: it’s definitely more than five days in October. The OpenGameCity platform, which we’re testing out this year, is a really important development to us. Sonic or Mario? Mario. I’m offended that you’d even ask. GameCity5, across the City Centre, 26-30 October. Prices vary, mostly free gamecity.org
music event listings... Saturday 02/10
Sunday 03/10
Soul Ska Shakedown The Golden Fleece Free, 8pm
The Acme Jazz Band Deux
Jay Leivers Blues Deux Fires of Rebellion Night The Old Angel £5, 6pm - 1am S.P.A.M! The Rescue Rooms Free / £6 / £7, 10pm, 10pm-3am Sinfonia Viva with Colin Currie Marimba Lakeside Arts Centre £12 / £15, 7.30pm Detachments Stealth £5, 10.15pm Kinky Cops The Robin Hood Mimm Clothing Shop Presents... The Bodega £4 advance, 11pm - 4am Oxjam Night Out The Malt Cross £3, 7.30pm Spaceships Are Cool, The Will Jeffery Band, Gallery 47 and Lisa De’Ville. Arse Full of Chips Rock City £3, 10pm Wildside The Central Back To Basics The Maze
Sunday 03/10 Notts In A Nutshell The Maze £3 The Graceful Slicks, United Nemesis, The Kingship and M1 Connect. Farmyard Presents The Golden Fleece
Cherry Ghost The Rescue Rooms £10, 7.30pm Tim Robbins and The Rogues Gallery Band The Glee Club £13.50, 7.30pm
Tuesday 05/10 Islet The Bodega £5, 7pm The Twilight Sad and Errors Stealth £9, 7.30pm I Am Kloot The Rescue Rooms £12.50, 7.30pm The Daydream Club The Malt Cross Evil Nine Spanky Van Dykes Free / £2 / £3, 9pm - 2am
Wednesday 06/10 Gecko The Maze £4 Architects The Rescue Rooms £11, 7pm Hassan Erraji Lakeside Arts Centre £9 / £12 / £15, 8pm Plan B Rock City £15, 7pm
for more: leftlion.co.uk/listings
Yer Want Japanning?
Goodbye Lizard Lounge, Hello Nihon The end of the summer has been and gone, which means that hanging around outside like those mainland Euros do is no longer an option and your mates who don’t smoke will not be coming outside to chat to you whilst you slowly kill yourself. However, it’s not all doom and gloom because you get to hang around inside and have roof covered fun instead - and the fun is about to be turned up to maximum as Nottingham has a new venue, Nihon, opening this month in the Lace Market. For the info-fans out there, Nihon means Japan or, in it’s original Katana characters, ‘the sun’s origin’. The venue is designed around the Japanese influence on the Western pop culture of the seventies and eighties and it’s looking like it’ll actually be a bit more interesting than just four walls, a couple of seats and a bar. Featuring a Godzilla members bar on the top floor, a Space Invader influenced Arcade Bar, the robot dance floor room and the Keirin Bar on the ground floor. The Keirin bar will have its own consistent playlist of indie/electronica six nights a week and on Saturdays this will be enhanced by DJs such as Coyote (Is It Balearic...? recordings), Daniel Donnachie (Cosmic Dancing/Bumble Boogie) and the Soulbuggin’ crew. Upstairs is where the real parties will happen as Monday (Nottingham Trent) and Tuesday (Nottingham University) will be students nights, Wednesday will be dubstep, Thursday will be rock/ indie/alternative and Fridays will be presented by Nottingham Fixed Gear Cycle Club, with Goldsprint Roller Racing and block party vibes. Saturdays are a disco house production, featuring many of the best Nottingham based DJs from that scene. Located at the old Lizard Lounge, Nottingham based artist Jon Burgerman has helped design the robot dance floor room so expect the weird, wonderful and pretty in there whilst you’re busting your moves, whereas the Keirin Bar is themed around Japanese track cycling. Expect the place to be chocca full of Nottingham’s creative crowd who like a bit of a party. The bar is open from 6pm until late but the upstairs will be in full swing until 3am. Japanese-based cool in the Lace Market? Yes please. Nihon, 41-43 St Mary’s Gate, Lace Market, NG1 1PU thisisnihon.com
Thursday 07/10
Friday 08/10
Saturday 09/10
Geeneus, Katy B and Tipper Dogma Free, 10pm
Monkeynuts The Maze £4
The Deadstring Brothers The Maze £11 adv
John Otway Big Band The Rescue Rooms £11, 7.30pm
The Hustle With Detail The Golden Fleece
Basement Boogaloo - Toby Tobias The Maze
Darren Hayman - The Loves The Chameleon £7.50, 8pm - 12pm
Brentano String Quartet Lakeside Arts Centre £12 / £15, 7.30pm
Paper Wings Cape Bar £3.50, 7.30pm - late
Super Nihon Nihon £5, 10pm Stephen Fasano, Moonboots, Coyote and Tatham.
Tiffany Page Stealth £7, 7.30pm
Dean Friedman Deux
Little Comets The Bodega £6, 7pm
Junip The Bodega £9, 7pm
Eilen Jewell Band The Maze £10, 7.30pm
Jay Leivers guitar workshop Deux
Cockney Skankers
Marcus Bonfanti Deux NG26 and Arcanite Reaper The Old Angel £4, 7.30pm Farmyard Presents Jam Café
Basement Boogaloo returns to the Maze with some East End disco guv’nors Basement Boogaloo began life beneath the streets of Nottingham back in 2004, and has since developed into one of the city’s best-loved chuckers of parties. There’s three reasons for that; a crystal-clear sound system, some of the best DJ talent from across the disco galaxy and a dancefloor full of sweaty herberts like you.
Andy Smith (Portishead) DJ set Moog Project - Valve Sound System Gatecrasher Pesky Alligators The Robin Hood Sparrow and the Workshop The Bodega £6.50, 7pm
BB have had it large all over the shop in both Notts and elsewhere (including regular appearances at The Star of Bethnal Green, East London’s premier ravey boozer), but their spiritual home is The Maze, as it’s a perfect fit for their sweaty brand of hedonism. They’ve not been there for over six months, but the prodigal sons of local dancey mentalism return on Saturday 9 October with the dapper dons of London’s East End disco scene - Toby Tobias and Pete Herbert.
Basslaced - DJ Hype and more Stealth £10, 10pm Talking Endlessly The Central £3
Rekids stalwart Toby specialises in a dancefloor-friendly blend of house and disco, and his Macasu EP on his very own Latenightaudio label has been making waves amongst fans of proper dance music far and wide, helped in no small part by a killer remix from Motor City Drum Ensemble. Pete, on the other hand, is a man of many aliases - some of which you’ll know, all of which you’ll have danced to. Whether it’s as LSB (with Barcelona’s Baby G) or Reverso 68 (with Phil “Mr Balearic” Mison), the Maxi Discs mainstay is a prolific purveyor of polished productions which never fail to impress. With two of the UK’s most in-demand DJ/producers going head-to-head, full Funktion-One sound, real ale on tap and the usual roomful of Notts disco-monkeys, this promises to be a rather special party indeed.
Pesky Alligators The Robin Hood Free, 9 - 11.30pm
Martin Stephenson Deux Waiting for Winter The Bodega £4, 7pm Luxury Stranger The Old Angel £4, 7.30pm Y&T Rock City £16, 6.30pm Oxjam Nottingham Takeover Various Locations £6 adv / £7.50, 2pm - 3am Audacious Face at Moog, I’m Not From London at Heart In Hand, Wire and Wool at The Falcon, Flux vs Cultural Vibrations at Junction Seven. Yuck Stealth £6, 7pm Deadstring Brothers The Maze £11, 7.15pm Rat Attack The Central Plus We Are Revival, Year Of The Flood, 1000 Scars, C Is For City, Go Fast Or Go Home and The Rampton Release Date.
Basement Boogaloo, Saturday 9 October, The Maze, 257 Mansfield Road, NG1 3FT, 10pm - 3.30am. £5. themazerocks.com leftlion.co.uk/issue37 leftlion.co.uk/issue37 29
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music event listings... Sunday 10/10
Tuesday 12/10
David R Black The Maze
Louder Stealth £4, 10pm
Sadio Sissokho The Golden Fleece Archie Bronson Outfit The Bodega £10, 7.30pm Sadio Cissokho Live The Golden Fleece £3, 7pm Frankie and The Heartstrings and Summer Camp Stealth £8, 7.30pm Bowling For Soup Rock City £18.50, 7pm Avulsed The Central £5
Monday 11/10 Example Rock City £10, 7pm Willie Nile Band The Maze £10, 7.30pm Wishbone Ash The Rescue Rooms £17, 7.30pm
Tuesday 12/10 The Charlatans and Shaun Ryder Rock City £23.50, 7pm
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Gifts from Enola The Chameleon Cafe Bar £5 / £6, 7.30pm Appleblim Spanky Van Dykes Free / £2 / £3, 9pm - 2am
Wednesday 13/10 The Gypsy Bible Lakeside Arts Centre £9 / £12 / £15, 8 pm Fenech - Soler Stealth £6.50, 7.30pm Alan Pownall The Rescue Rooms £7, 7pm
Thursday 14/10 Attack! Attack! Rock City £7.50, 7pm Eric Taylor The Maze £10, 7.30pm The Black Tears and Myna Byrd The Central
Friday 15/10 Pickups and Pitchforks The Central Stephen Fearing Deux
for more: leftlion.co.uk/listings
(Au)Tumn n’ Bass Detonate comes back hard as the nights draw in
Fact One: the Detonate name has long been synonymous with some of the biggest names in the dnb and dubstep arena. Fact Two: autumn is usually the time of the year that they step up their game with a procession of huge events. Let’s have a look out of the window. Are the leaves throwing themselves off the tree? They are? Yessss. The first event of the new era happens on 15 October and is one of the multi-venue splurges that Detonate do so well, with Stealth, the Rescue Rooms and The Forum (which used to be EQ, which used to be Jumpin’ Jaks, which is also the new venue for Just The Tonic) playing host to a massive Hospital Records party featuring High Contrast, Danny Byrd and Netsky - with a host of others including Caspa, Jack Beats, Zinc and Calibre. A mere fortnight later, on the 29th, they do it all over again with a huge line-up starting Dutch electronic triumvirate Noisia, with Andy C, Nero and Rockwell heading up another mammoth line-up spread across Stealth and the Rescue Rooms. Then, on 26 November, The Forum is pulled back into the mix as Detonate presents Sub Focus, as well as Skream, Rusko, and Brookes Brothers. And if that wasn’t enough, they’re putting on two unmissable gigs in the shape of Magnetic Man’s festivalheadlining show at Nottingham Trent on 5 November and an invincible coupling of two bona fide reggae legends Scientist and The Upsetters on 23 November. Check the revamped website for further details, and don’t forget that the immaculately refurbed Golden Fleece on Mansfield Road is the official Detonate warm-up venue, with events a-plenty – including the LeftLion Pub Quiz every Wednesday night at 9pm. Detonate Hospitality Takeover, Stealth, Rescue Rooms and The Forum, 15 October, 10pm - 5am. Tickets £15. detonate1.co.uk
Friday 15/10
Friday 15/10
Friday 15/10
The Maze Presents The Maze Tax The Fat, The Barnum Meserve, Tokyo Green, Strangeling and Percussion DJs
A World Of Music Festival ‘Local : Global’ The New Art Exchange 7pm - 11pm Cadence Noir, Danielle Jade Fisher, Lisa de’Ville , Natalie Duncan and Sahraab and loads more. Runs until: 17/10
Detonate Hospitality Take Over Stealth £12 / £15, 10pm High Contrast, Caspa, Danny Byrd, Jack Beats, DJ Zinc, Calibre, Netsky and loads more.
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music event listings... Friday 15/10
Sunday 17/10
The Majeure Force Spanky Van Dykes £4, 9pm DJ Support from Pete Jordan, Dan Neon and B-Boy J.
Nightshift The Central
Fornost Arnor The Old Angel 7.30pm, £5 No Love Lost, Twilights Embrace and Bahamut. Project - DJ Yoda Magic Cinema Live Gatecrasher Battle Of The Bands Nottingham Contemporary Rivals, And Now We Wait, Your Weapons Are Useless, Cavalry, Hit Parade, Nitrox and Nobodys Fool and The Chase. Steve Mason The Bodega £12, 7pm
Saturday 16/10 Melt Banana Rock City £10, 6.30pm Clubz Global vs Musika! The Maze 7pm - 11pm Ayar and Ali, DJ Gypsy Smith and DJ I2I. The Undercats Deux Darwin Deez The Bodega £8.50, 7pm Kaox The Robin Hood Mas Y Mas Nottingham Contemporary Mark Chadwick The Rescue Rooms £14, 7pm Super Nihon Nihon £5, 10pm Nick Lawson and Romulus Schwarz.
Frazey Ford Band The Maze 7.30pm , £11 Farmyard Presents The Golden Fleece Pesky Alligators The Victoria Hotel 8.30pm - 11pm Dinosaur Pile-Up The Bodega £7, 7pm Skip ‘Little Axe’ McDonald The Rescue Rooms £10, 7.30pm
Monday 18/10 Acoustickle The Maze 8pm , £3 Carl Barat The Rescue Rooms £12.50, 7.30pm The Duke and The King The Glee Club £12.50, 7.30pm Tricky Rock City £17.50, 7.30pm
for more: leftlion.co.uk/listings
OrangeFest: miss it and be crushed The Orange Tree on Shakespeare Street has long been one of the finest places in Nottingham to grab a mighty tasty cocktail beverage along with holding over thirty different rums from around the world on the bar as well as a selection of real ales, ciders and standard spirits. A well rounded venue, the food on offer ticks all the boxes too with seasonal, hearty food available and a cracking Sunday lunch. It’s also a venue that has long been connected to the music and artistic side of Nottingham, displaying local artists work on its walls and playing host to a load of gigs over the years. In association with Hockley Hustle 2010, The Orange Tree will be hosting OrangeFest on Saturday 23 October. Starting at 3pm there will be live bands, DJs, Swedish themed food (with a few British twists), vintage clothes stalls, a photography competition and Nottingham’s own ‘psychological entertainer’, Jack Curtis, messing with people’s minds. It’s going to be a bit of an extravaganza, with loads to be getting involved with and to do in between the musical acts of the day. If electropop, indie, fresh sounds are what you like to dance around to then you’re in for a treat. Musical headliners of the night are two brothers from Leicester, Hot Horizons, and they’re squeezing this into a tight schedule of London gigs. They’ll be playing rich, romantic and heartfelt indie pop tunes for the night. Support acts come in the form of Nottingham bands Navajo Youth and Broadcast by the Sea and DJs Joy Machine and Future Sounds Temporary. Snappers take note, the photography competition taking place on the day is entitled ‘So Swedish’ with the prizes on offer being tickets to the much lauded Warehouse Project in Manchester, courtesy of Kopparberg Cider. So bring your camera and your imagination if you want to be in with a chance to win. It’s beyond a bargain as it’s being hosted for absolutely nowt and as can be expected, there will be some proper drinks promotions on the day. It’s going to be a night to remember with the doors not closing until 2 am. OrangeFest takes place on 23 October, 3 pm – 2 am, Free entry. 38 Shakespeare Street, Nottingham orangetree.co.uk
Wednesday 20/10
Thursday 21/10
Friday 22/10
Tuesday 19/10
Minus Society The Maze 7.30pm , £3
Thomas Lee The Central £12 adv
Twenty Twenty The Rescue Rooms £9.50, 6.30pm
Alter Bridge Rock City £17.50, 7pm
Headwater The Maze 7.30pm , £10
New Model Army 30th Anniversary Tour Rock City £17.50 - £30, 7pm Runs until: 23/10
Wilder The Bodega £5, 7pm
Highness Sound System The Bodega £6, 11pm
Rock the Canalhouse The Canalhouse £7.50 (under 16 £3), 7.30pm-12am
Gren Bartley The Malt Cross
Fenix TX The Rescue Rooms £10, 7pm
Jet Collective Nottingham Contemporary
Zombie Disco Squad Spanky Van Dykes Free / £2 / £3, 9pm - 2am Plus Pete Jordan.
Thursday 21/10 Hadouken Gatecrasher
Crystal Castles Rock City £13.50, 7pm Headwater The Maze £10, 7.30pm
Flash! AAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!
Beardyman The Rescue Rooms £10, 7pm
Gatecrasher land the Grandmaster (amongst other huge names) After the impressive refurbishment of Nottingham Gatecrasher a year ago, the iconic club has been going from strength to strength and to prove that they’re not resting on their laurels, their Friday nights are about to have a tasty new collaboration. Kicking off from 1 October, the new weekly session, Project, will be run alongside Club NME.
Friday 22/10
Project will be a mix of some of the best names in dance and electronic music right across the genres with Club NME bringing live acts to ‘The Tunnel’, just one of Gatecrashers many impressive spaces. Showing a dedicated move away from house music, the opening night will see Alex Metric in the main room – a DJ that has had his hand in remixes of Gorillaz and Ellie Goulding to name but a few - offering the masses his popcentric sounds. Reverend Soundsystem, the side project of Reverend from Reverend and the Makers, will be taking on The Tunnel with Ben UFO (Hessle Audio) in The Arkade. Gatecrasher aren’t showing all their cards on the opening night though as the following week sees the mighty Valve Sound System bring Dillinja, Grooverider and Adam F to the decks. Highly regarded Sheffield five piece Skeletons are on live duties. Friday 15 October will see the legendary DJ Yoda and his Magic Cinema taking over the main room whilst veteran drum and bass DJ Doc Scott will be bringing a harder tempo in another room. Breaks fans out there aren’t being ignored either as Stanton Warriors will be DJing on the 22 October with Brighton indie lads Flashguns playing live in The Tunnel. The breaks will keep coming on 29 October with the Plump DJs doing what they do best on the decks. If this is what they can fill a month with, you can see why your Friday nights may never be the same again. If that’s not got you whistle wet then try this on for size Grandmaster Flash (pictured) will be playing the main room on 19 November. Get it in your diary because that is going to be one hell of a night.
Influx - Hockley Hustle Pre Party The Central The Cult Of Dom Keller, The Wickets, Cuban Crimewave, Die Chiwawa Die, Dead Souls, The Cedars, Strings Of Seville, The Jet Boys, Goonies Never Say Die, Alaska, Jon Coates, Elliot Morris, Sud Rhythm, Emily Needs and Leni War. Leggoman The Robin Hood Alejandro Toledo and The Magic Tombolinos The Maze 9pm, £8
Magic Kids The Bodega £6.50, 7pm Border Community vs Wigflex Stealth £10, 10pm
Saturday 23/10 ASBO Peepshow The Central £12adv Super Nihon Nihon £5, 10pm Riotous Rockers and Daniel Donnachie. The Skints The Maze 8pm, £6 S.P.A.M. The Golden Fleece Orangefest The Orange Tree See above for details. The Hockley Hustle Various Locations £8 / £10, 1pm - 4am See page 28 Firefly - Stefano Miele Marcus Garvey Ballroom Stefano Miele, Phil Kieran, Xircus, Beat Repeaters and Brother M.
Yeasayer NTU SU £13.50, 7pm
Another Evening With Great Men and Ulterior The Chameleon Cafe Bar £5, 8pm - late
Jazzsteppa The Golden Fleece
Wizz Jones Deux
With a maze of rooms to get lost in the music, the new interior at Gatecrasher has added a modern twist to the three floors of this impressive listed building which was, at one time the Elite Cinema. Always suitably extravagant, there will no doubt be a few more surprises in the pipeline from Project - watch this space...
Marble Deux
Project takes place every Friday at Gatecrasher, The Elite Building, 2 Queen Street, NG1 2BL
Project - Stanton Warriors Gatecrasher
Weekend Nachos The Old Angel 7.30pm, £5 With Funeral Throne, Cruel Humanity, Throes, The Illusionary and Contortionist.
gatecrasher.com
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P.S. YOUR MYSTERY SENDER
The debut short of local film-maker, animator and editor Ben Wigley documents the extraordinary stream of weird and wonderful rammell that has been anonymously sent to Sir Paul Smith over the past twenty years - from a child’s tricycle to a glitterball to a female bust to a traffic cone covered in stamps. The fact that Smith himself appears in the documentary is a real coup, as he turns down scores of interview requests as a matter of course. The insertion of a specially-commissioned Benjamin Zephaniah poem sets the seal on a truly unique short.
The Paul Smith Screen, Broadway, date TBC - check Sideshow website for updates artdocs.com
SIXES & SEVENS: THE OTHER INTERIOR
JOHN NEWLING: SINGING UNCERTAINTY
Fancy a truly unnerving night in a hotel room, without Derek Acorah acting the dickhead? If you have £50 to spare, this is for you. Sixes & Sevens are the new generation of Notts-art groups, and if this installation – a glimpse at the hidden life of a hotel room, filled with the residue of previous occupants inspired by the likes of David Lynch and novelist Haruki Murakami, created by Notts-based artist Sarah Duffy – is anything to go by, we’re going to have to keep an extremely close eye on them. Pack a toothbrush!
The internationally-renowned installation sculptor assembles 150 members of the general public to St Mary’s church in the Lace Market to sing a line each from a hymn. It’s a reflection upon the very human longing for certainty in a random world, taken from memories of school assemblies (when the artist found the unfamiliar words in hymn books an embarassing challenge) and a recent reassessment (when the artist realised the lyrics in hymn those same books were shot through with questions).
Every Sat and Sun from 30 Oct to 12 Dec, The Ibis Hotel, 16 Fletchergate, NG1 2FS. £50. To book a room, email marie@sideshow2010.org sixessevens.blogspot.com
Thurs 2 December, St Mary’s Church, High Pavement, Lace Market. Free.Please book via Sideshow in advance john-newling.com
GROW YOUR ONE THORESBY STREET ATTIC PROGRAMME
The pride of Sneinton, One Thoresby Street - a network of galleries, project spaces and studios - has become one of the leading artist-led spaces in the Midlands. Naturally, much is happening here, including a VHS festival from Het Wilde Weten, a collaboration between artists Tomas Chaffe and Blue Firth; a new sculptural installation by Tom Godfrey; an interactive video and sculptural installation from Joseph Hallam; a solo show investigating the act of re-learning by Candice Jacobs; a collaborative project examining burial rituals from Jeff Baker and Alex Stevenson, and a drawing exhibition from Pete McPartlan. One Thoresby Street, NG1 1AJ Fri 22 Oct – Sat 18 Dec. Free
Reunion
It’s all well and good banging on about your Moots and Tethers, but studio groups in Nottingham didn’t start or end with them, as this gathering together of artists who blazed a trail with studio spaces in Can, Egerton and the Oldknows Studio Group demonstrates. Expect two dozen artists of the calibre of Geoff Diego Litherland, Inge Tong, Rob Van Beek, Jeremy Millar, Simon Withers and Lisa Clark, to name but a few, taking over the Oldknows in mid-November. 3rd Floor, Oldknows Factory Building, St Anns Hill, NG3 4GP, 17 – 19 Nov, 11am – 3pm. Free
Unnamed
Why have one massive arts-fest when you can have two? While the British Art Show has it large at the established galleries, the equally important Sideshow will be demonstrating that the Notts art scene is one of the most important in the country - and, as co-curator Jennie Syson points out, things are going to get very interesting in town… So what is the relationship between Sideshow and the British Art Show? Well, to say that they’re unrelated would be wrong, as the original Sideshow came about in 2006 because of the last British Art Show. The Arts Council decided to bring a collection of Nottingham artists together, from some of the really interesting artist groups that were around then, as they were looking for a happening away from the main event, in venues such as libraries and the West End Arcade. As an event it was great, but there were a lot of local artists who felt they didn’t get a look-in. We’re redressing the balance on that this time around. We’ve already had a lot of feedback from the British Art Show team at the Hayward Gallery, and we understand Sideshow was one of the reasons that they chose Nottingham to launch in – and the fact that there was already an appreciative audience in place here. So is it an approved Fringe event, or a cheeky ride on their coattails? Sideshow can be described as a fringe to the BAS, but it’s organised by entirely different people. We’re funded locally by the Arts Council, City Council and Igniting Ambitions. It’s about what’s happening in Nottingham already, showing people who will be coming to town to see the BAS what we’re all about. It’s not exclusively local artists, though; we received applications from much further afield, which was a surprise considering that we didn’t advertise too widely. What changes have been made with the 2010 version of Sideshow? It’s an entirely new model. This time, we wanted to bring the democracy of the Edinburgh Festival - “if you build it, they will come”, sort of thing. Everyone knows what it is and when it is, and if you want to get involved, here’s the registration form, etc.
THE END OF OUR TETHER
Yelena Popova is a Russian-born artist now living and working in Nottingham. Last seen in town as part of the Star City exhibition at Nottingham Contemporary, her installation in the Wallner Gallery presents a nostalgic reflection on memory and history. Selected as an artist to watch in 2010 by Abi Spinks of Tempreh, her previous and wonderfully bizarre works include the use of Ninja Mickey Mouse costumes, Martian Gardener (a performance and painting series), and flogging her own artwork for next to nothing in the style of a barrow boy on the streets of Warsaw.
It’s the end of an era for NottsArt, as Tether fly their Huntington Street nest and strike out as individual artists. They’re going out with a bang, however, with a huge range of events - including their Black Swans series (an arts-based quiz show with artists from both Sideshow and the BAS), Sideshowshow (a round-up of both events that’ll be screened online at tethervision. co.uk), giving over their space to Sixes and Sevens for one night only, and throwing a closing party with live music at the end of the festival – not to mention offshoot exhibitions a-plenty…
Until Tues 9 Nov, Lakeside Arts Centre, University Park, NG7 2RD. Free yelenapopova.co.uk
Throughout the festival, 17a Huntingdon Street, NG1 3JH
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There have been commissions selected by a high profile panel, but we haven’t ever said to anyone with the resources “no, you can’t do that”. It’s not just a visual art show, either - there’ll be live events, performances, theatre and bands. Describe an average day in the life of a Sideshow curator… It’s a bit manic, to be honest. When Candice (Jacobs) and I originally planned it out, we thought it would be a three-days-aweek job. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been enjoyable, but it’s now 24/7 for the whole team. The job of a coordinator is incredibly varied; with some of the commissions, the artists have a natural ability to take care of themselves, whilst others need more guidance. We’re covering a vast range of artists here, from the very experienced, hugely thought-of and massively important John Newling to very recent graduates who need more advice. The range of things that are going on are overwhelming; we’ve been looking for 150 singers for a public art piece at St Mary’s, hotel rooms for an installation, emails requesting sixty televisions… all very interesting. Would you say that Sideshow is going to be the Nottingham art scene’s coming-out party? To an extent, yes. We’re certainly out and proud. The past year has seen a lot of attention on us, due to Nottingham Contemporary opening, and this is our chance to show a lot of people from outside of Nottingham what’s going on here. And there’ll be a lot of parties going on. It almost seems like we’re at the end of an era here, with the winding-up of Moot and Tether… Definitely. The average life of an artist-led studio group is 18 months, so Moot and Tether have certainly earned their stripes by being around a lot longer. Tether have reacted to Sideshow like a bull to a red rag – they’re pretty much putting something
THE HEURISTICS LABORATORY The Malt Cross – already one of the more cerebral drinking holes in town - gets its gallery converted into an idealised learning environment for three weeks in November, opening itself up to play, experimentation and reflection. It’s the first public project for the three members of The Heuristics Laboratory, and they’ll have a week each to learn completely new skills, while you have a nosey. Pete McPartlan’s Telecine will create an experimental and counter intuitive post-production laboratory, Line Walk by Ruth Scott will be an exploration of balance and imbalance, and Georgie Park has a go at wood turning. Tues 9 – Sat 27 Nov, The Malt Cross Gallery, St James’ Street, NG1 6FG. Free theheuristicslaboratory.org.uk
HATCH: IT'S ABOUT TIME
The indescribably eclectic Notts performance art collective - who gleefully throw together local artists, writers, musicians and actors, just to see what happens - take over the Castle to unfurl a large-scale, multidisciplinary project including the likes of Hetain Patel, Reckless Sleepers, Frank Abbott (the man once wrote storylines for The Tales Of Robin Hood) and Chris Dobrowolski, the British Antarctic Survey’s artist in residence. Nottingham Castle, Weds 10 Nov, 6pm – 11.45pm. Free hatchnottingham.org.uk
SOUND IT OUT
The first self-shot film by locally-based artist and director Jeanie Findlay tracks the life of the last surviving vinyl record shop in Teeside – Sound It Out Records, located in Stockton-On-Tees. It’s a fascinating 18-month insight, packed into - aptly enough - 45 minutes, as the camera clocks the stream of random vinyl addicts, and then follows them home to see them spinning their purchases in their homes or at DJ sets. It’s a painfully intimate film about men, music, memorabilia and Makina – a genre of Happy Hardcore popular only in Valencia and the North East. One Thoresby Street, NG1 1AJ, Sat 11 Dec, 7.00pm. Free if prebooked at sounditout.eventbrite.com, £5 on the door jeaniefinlay.com
Annexinema: History of Nottingham Cinemas
Once upon a time, you could have gone to a different cinema in Notts once a week over the course of year without ever returning to the same one, and Annexinema - the local champions of social cinema – have been documenting all fifty-two of them, in the form of 16mm and digital audio recordings, from Leno’s in Hyson Green to the Byron in Hucknall. Previously, they’ve held screenings at disused shops, in decommissioned cinemas, and have even used a cycle-powered projector for a screening under a motorway flyover. This time, they’re ensconced in the confines of the Byron, which is now a bingo hall. Byron Bingo Hall, High Street, Hucknall, NG15 7HJ, Fri 10 Dec, 6pm – 10pm. Free annexinema.org
FRINGE OUT SIDESHOW ALLEY CAFE
on every single day. I must stress that Tether aren’t necessarily winding down completely; it’s just the studios which are closing down. Moot really have matured and gone on to do truly amazing things over the past few years, both here and abroad, as well as bringing artists from other cities to Nottingham. In their case, three out of four are still practicing artists in Nottingham – and they’re concentrating on their own individual work now. When you run a gallery for five years, as they did, your art practice can take a bit of a back seat. So yes, it is the end of an era – but also the beginning of a new one. We all talk about a ‘Nottingham art scene’ - but is there anything being produced here that makes us different from anywhere else? Is such a thing even possible these days? Well firstly, I think it’s a bit reductive to term it ‘regional art’, because it’s practically saying; ‘if you’re not from London, you’re no good and it’s not worth looking at you’, which unfortunately is still the attitude of a lot of people. Having said that, one fantastic consequence of regional art centres is that it’s getting more like Germany here – where you can go to a city that’s not the capital and discover fantastic contemporary art. Nottingham’s one of the places that’s really coming up, along with perhaps Birmingham and Bristol – independent scenes that feed off London without depending on it. I don’t think you can ever really say there’s a typical style in a certain place, nowadays, but the unique aspect of Nottingham is that it’s very small, but it’s got everything you need within a tiny radius. There are lots of artists and studios in a very small space close to the city centre, so instead of finding yourself walking for 45 minutes to get to a studio on an industrial estate, like you do in other cities, there are some fantastic old industrial buildings in places like Sneinton which are being used.
how people start to understand art as a business – something that can be sustainable without relying on handouts. It’s going to be scary, but it could be interesting. Some of the best art in this country came out in the 80s, which was a terrible time financially. Maybe there’ll be more corporate patronage, but that usually results in monolithic sculptures in courtyards. We’ll see. What’s the future of Sideshow? We’ve potentially spoke about it being a bi-annual thing, but who curates it is up in the air; it could be the same people, or, like the British Art Show it might need a new person each time. Nottingham has always had lots of arts festivals, which is great, but maybe all these things ought to come together every two years, because there’s a massive audience for art in Nottingham. We’ll see. There’s another load of art students piling into Nottingham this month, obviously, so what advice would you give to them? Go and see as much as possible. Not so long ago, you’d have to wait a couple of weeks to see something good, but pick up a copy of Artnot, Nottingham Visual Arts or LeftLion these days and you’ll realise it’s now impossible to see everything in Nottingham. Go to as many of the talks Nottingham Contemporary are hosting. The profile of some of the people there knocks me for six – it’s like getting a free MA. Go and see what your peers are putting on and put something on yourself – there’s lots of opportunities here. Most of all, learn as much as you can and read as much as you can. There are so many artists and curators here nowadays that you have to arm yourself with knowledge. People round here will automatically know if you know your stuff or not.
Everyone’s been banging on about the cuts in funding to the arts – have you already felt the pinch yet? In Sideshow’s case, not yet. But what I’ve definitely noticed is now that there are fewer staff members at the Arts Council, the lines of communication are a lot slower and there’s less local knowledge and understanding on a grassroots level, which is alarming and bodes ill for the future. Yes, I sincerely worry about what’s going to happen, but the flipside of the coin is that we’ve had it great for a long, long time in terms of funding and I’ll be interested to see how artists function without it, and
SIXES & SEVENS: PILE
Co-curated by Simon Franklin and Craig Fisher, this comprehensive sculpture exhibition takes in the works from a huge list of Notts artists and forces them to interact with each other. In some cases they are piled on top of one another, with a collection of individual objects which become one overarching piece - NottsArt Jenga, if you will. Artists include David Bance, Craig Fisher, Dan Ford, Simon Franklin, Lyn Fulton, Mark S Gubb, Frank Kent, Brendan Lyons, Zoe Mendelson, Jock Mooney, Audrey Reynolds, Lucienne Simpson, Debra Swann, Lee Triming, Gerard Williams, Annie Whiles and Neil Zakiewiez, to name but a few. Fri 19 Nov – Fri Dec 10, Surface Gallery, 16 Southwell Road, NG1 1DL. Free sixessevens.blogspot.com
sideshow2010.org
The perennial LeftLion favourite when it comes to meat-free snap will be handling the bar and catering at One Thoresby Street, as always, dealing out coffees, soft drinks and booze, as well as the usual cake, pizza, soup and the like - with a special tea being supplied for Sideshow by those lovely people at Lee Rosy’s. Obviously, in keeping with the get-in-where-you-fit-in ethos of the festival, there’ll be plenty of commissions, events and exhibitions too - including the launch, afterparty and gigs organised by Artnot. One Thoresby Street, NG1 1AJ Fri 22 Oct – Sat 18 Dec. alleycafe.co.uk
POSTHUMOUS PROGRESS
A very special one-off performance event curated by Simon Raven and others, this examination into the role of the guide in contemporary art will feature Professor Lesley Smith (who, when not acting as head curator at Tutbury Castle, is the UK’s No.1 Queen Elizabeth I impersonator), performance group The Wolf In the Winter, and a cast of artists both national and local for a multidisciplined tribute to Wollaton Hall. Roll up during the day, or book your place on the coach from Sideshow Alley Café from 5pm for the evening events. Sun Oct 24, noon - 4pm, Wollaton Hall, Wollaton, Nottingham NG8 2AE, England
WUNDERKAMMER
German for ‘wonder-room’, Wunderkammer promises to turn the Art Organisation into the fulcrum of Sideshow. It’s a veritable cabinet of curiosities filled by artists across the city to form a crabbed, esoteric survey of creativity - be it artwork created by them or an artefact that gives them personal inspiration. Part survey of the Nottingham art scene circa 2010, part lucky bag of randomness, it’ll be a return to the past for the venue; in a previous life it was known as Hopkinson’s, a hardware shop stuffed to the gills with tools, accessories and clutter Fri 22 October- Sun 14 November, The Art Organisation, 21 Station Street, NG2 3AJ. Free taonottingham.co.uk
Sideshow 2010, various venues across Nottingham, 22 Oct - 18 Dec. For the full list of events - of which we’ve skimmed the surface - and updated detail, visit the website. For more information or to participate, please contact Jennie Syson at jennie@sideshow2010.org.
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music event listings... Saturday 23/10
Wednesday 27/10
We Are The Ocean The Rescue Rooms £7.50, 6.30pm
My Passion and Dead By April Rock City £8, 6.30pm
Beataucue (Kitsune) Stealth £5, 10pm
Clinic The Bodega £9.50, 7pm
Sunday 24/10
Thursday 28/10
Michael Weston-King The Maze 8pm
Dreadzone The Rescue Rooms £15, 7.30pm
Kiuas, Metsatoll and Kalmah Rock City £10, 7.30pm
Against Me! Rock City £12.50, 6.30pm Plus F**ked Up, Japanese Voyeurs and Crazy Arm.
Catfish Keith The Admiral Rodney £10, 8pm The Wombats The Rescue Rooms £13, 6.30pm
Monday 25/10 Shape Lt and Hardback Fiction The Maze 8pm The Birthday Massacre Rock City £12, 7.30pm
Tuesday 26/10 Maverickz The Maze 8pm Plus Page 44, A Graceful Descent, Moosenbe Rangers The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster The Rescue Rooms £9, 7.30pm Tomorrow We Sail The Malt Cross
Wednesday 27/10 Martha Tilston The Maze £10
Ultra! Live presents Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip Gatecrasher £14.50, 7.30pm Anais Mitchell The Maze £10, 7.30pm Belleruche Stealth £8, 7.30pm
for more: leftlion.co.uk/listings
Jammin’ The return of Oxjam
Everyone’s favourite Oxfamrelated music festival is back once again - this time taking on the mantle vacated by LeftLion and organising an October music festival across our beloved Canning Circus. Venues including The Ropewalk, Shop, The Falcon, Scruffys, Moog, Hand and Heart, Sir John Borlaise Warren And Junction 7 are being taken over to provide a diaspora of city centre promoters to one of Nottingham’s best-kept secret areas. Balls out rockers Audacious Face (usually to be found playing at The Central) take on Moog, with a line-up that includes Nephu Huzzband, Fixit Kid, Isolysis and Freaky River Styx. The ever-eclectic I’m Not From London (who put dozens of gigs on all over the place) take on Heart and Hand with 25 Past The Skank, The Cult of Dom Keller, Venom and the Terrortones and In Isolation, among others. Wire and Wool (who do a monthly sesh at the Alley Cafe) are on a more acoustic tip with a line-up topped by Cecille Grey, Gallery 47, Kat Kryss and Hackenbush. Flux take on the upstairs of Junction 7, with Fat Digester, Long Dead Signal, Satnams Tash and more. Downstairs Cultural Vibrations feature DJ Black Limelight, Black Sheep Band, Samzee, Mique and Kendrea Hayward. As always, the pennies you pay on the door go to a raft of worthy causes and all in all it promises to be a top day (and evening out). knowing the British weather we advise you to take an umbrella or a raincoat along with you, so you can dive between venues without worry of your hair do being messed up good and proper. Tickets for the gig are £6 advance from wegottickets.com or £7.50 on the day. More detailed Nottingham gig information can be found on Facebook.
Friday 29/10 Random Hand The Maze £6 Plus The JB Conspiracy, Breadchasers and Firing Blanks. Detonate Stealth £10 / £12, 11pm - late Andy C, Noisia, Nero, 16Bit, Total Science, Rockwell and more. Barnaby Bright Deux Farmyard Presents Jam Café Project - Plump DJs Gatecrasher Breakin’ Convention 2010 Nottingham Playhouse £15.50 - £18, 7.30pm
oxfam.org.uk/oxjam
Friday 29/10
Saturday 30/10
Monday 01/11
Zephyr 5 The Robin Hood
Cancer Bats The Rescue Rooms £8, 6.30pm
Dillinger Escape Plan The Rescue Rooms £12.50, 6.30pm
Wholesome Fish Deux
The Acme Jazz Band Deux
Jay Stone The Robin Hood
I Blame Coco The Bodega £7.50, 7pm
Pesky Alligators The Fox And Crown Lloyd Cole Small Ensemble The Glee Club £20, 7.30pm
Saturday 30/10 Fresh Produce The Maze £6 Super Nihon Nihon £5, 10pm Cut and Shut Disco and Paul Wain.
AudioKyle
Found in Translation - Artnot Sideshow Alley Café £5 / £7
Romeo Must Die The Maze £5 Plus Taken By The Tide, Two Minutes Hate and Orakai.
Since 2007, the mighty Audiophile have been throwing massive parties all over Notts, with a firm emphasis on true underground values, impervious quality, and a point-blank refusal to compromise when it comes to showcasing the cream of the electronic spectrum. At long last, their wandering days are over and they’ve found a new home – and luckily for us, it isn’t a three-bedroom semi-detached in Carlton with stonecladding on the front.
Farmyard Records Halloween Party The Golden Fleece Soulbuggin Moog
From October, the new base for all your Audiophilic needs is upstairs at Spanky Van Dykes, the still-rather-new venue on the corner of Goldsmith Street that used to be the Horn In Hand. It’s a perfect fit, if you ask us; the high ceilings and dramatic period features set off the party vibe to a tee, while the downstairs lounge and diner are a great place to doss and calm yourself down. The next chance to see Audiophile flexing their muscles at Spanky’s promises to be a big night, as Detroit wunderkind Kyle Hall comes to town on Friday 8 October. A seven-year veteran in the producing game and the man behind the Wild Oats label (even though he’s still a mere 18 years old), Hall has already been pegged as the next big figure from the Motor City and is coming into his own as a prolific experimental house music producer. The follow-up night on Friday 26 November is just as tasty, as Midland and Throwing Snow clash for a searing night of electronic. The former has recently been blending garage, dubstep and house in some stunning collaborations with Ramadanman, while the latter draws deep from the melodious dubstep well to devastating effect. Other Spanky’s gigs to look out for some impressive Tuesday night line ups including Evil Nine (5 October), Appleblim (12 October), Zombie Disco Squad (19 October) and High Rankin (9 November). If you’re looking for the best in forward-thinking drum n bass, veteran promoters Cult have also taken residence at Spankys... Kyle Hall, Friday 8 October, 8pm - 4am, £6, Midland and Throwing Snow, 26 November , 8pm - 2pm, £5, Spanky Van Dykes, 17 Goldsmith Street, NG1 5JT. spankyvandykes.com leftlion.co.uk/issue37
Doorly Stealth £5, 10pm
Sunday 31/10
Detroit legend-in-waiting hits up Spanky’s this month
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Magdala Autumn Gala Concert Albert Albert Hall £12.50 / £15, 7.30pm
Fest-Fatale 3 Festival The Central £4, 6pm 12am Exoterik, Invey, Scarlet’s Wake, The Hell I Am, Grim Dylan, Aonia, Hushwhore and Thracia Egyptian Hip Hop The Bodega £6.50, 7pm Micah P Hinson The Rescue Rooms £12.50, 7.30pm Plus Serafina Steer.
Monday 01/11 Justin Townes Earls The Maze £11, 7.30pm
Delphic (Live) Gatecrasher £14.50, 8pm
Tuesday 02/11 Woody Spanky Van Dykes Free / £2 / £3, 9pm - 2am
Wednesday 03/11 Red Jester The Central £2 Voodoo Six Rock City £7, 7pm Ironik NTU SU £9, 7.30pm Icebreaker Lakeside Arts Centre £9 / £12 / £15, 8pm
Thursday 04/11 The Black Keys Rock City £16, 6.30pm The Hamsters The Rescue Rooms £12.50, 7.30pm
Friday 05/11 Bryan Gee The Maze £6, 9pm Magnetic Man with Katy B NTU SU £12, 8.30pm leftlion.co.uk/issue37 leftlion.co.uk/issue37 34
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music event listings...
for more: leftlion.co.uk/listings
Friday 05/11
Thursday 11/11
Thursday 18/11
Saturday 20/11
Thursday 25/11
There For Tomorrow, Deaf Havana and Me Vs Hero The Rescue Rooms £7.50, 6.30pm
Winds of Plague Rock City £9, 6.30pm Plus Stick To Your Guns, For Today and Monuments.
Ian Siegal and Ben Prestage The Rescue Rooms £12, 7.30pm
Highness Warm Up with Boysie The Golden Fleece
Frightened Rabbit The Rescue Rooms £11, 7.30pm
Love Amongst Ruin Rock City £7.50, 7pm
Ready Steady 60s The Maze
Saturday 06/11
Jazz Hands The Alley Cafe
Super Nihon Nihon £5, 10pm Foals Rock City £14, 6.30pm Back To Basics The Maze £3, 9pm
Midge Ure The Rescue Rooms £13, 7.30pm
Friday 12/11 Alexisonfire Rock City £14, 6.30pm
Soul Ska Shakedown The Golden Fleece Free, 8pm
The Complete Stone Roses The Rescue Rooms £13, 7.30pm Plus Special Guests Kings of Lyon.
The Wendys Deux
The Soggy Bottom Girls Deux
House Vs Home Presents The Chameleon Cafe Bar
Andy Smith (Portishead) DJ set Moog
Mimm Clothing Shop Presents... The Bodega £4 adv, 11pm-4am
A Plastic Rose and Kasper rosa Sumac Centre £2 suggested donation, 8pm
Mystery Jets NTU SU £12.50, 7pm
Pesky Alligators The Fox at Kirton
Failsafe The Rescue Rooms £6, 7pm
Sunday 07/11 At The Altar presents. The Maze £4, 6pm Vidina, Redmist Destruction, Call For Exile, Throne Of Nero, Ever The Optimist and Day Of Unrest. Farmyard Presents The Golden Fleece
I’m Not From London Jam Café
Saturday 13/11 Dogs The Maze £8adv, 8pm Soul Outlaws Deux Less Than Jake Rock City £15, 6pm
Marina and the Diamonds NTU SU £15, 7pm
Bad News Records Launch Party Doghouse Studios Taken by The Tide, Widows, ASBO Peepshow and Godskies Ahead.
Yann Tiersen The Rescue Rooms £15, 7.30pm
Seth Lakeman The Rescue Rooms £17, 7pm
Monday 08/11
Sunday 14/11
Hidden Talents The Maze Tek-One Stealth £6, 7pm
Friday 19/11 Fixit Kid The Central Fresh Eyes For The Dead Guy and The Wickets. Owen Harvey Deux Farmyard Presents Jam Café Squeeze and The Lightning Seeds Royal Centre Steve Harley (Acoustic) The Albert Hall £21, 7pm
Saturday 20/11 W.A.S.P Rock City £16.50, 6.30pm Baths Stealth £5, 10.15pm Jonny One Lung The Maze £5, 6.45pm
The Colour Of Sound and Spokes The Chameleon Cafe Bar Rumour Cubes and 8mm Orchestra.
Cafe Boheme Deux
Hackenbush Deux
Friday 26/11
Maximum Rhythm ‘n’ Blues Royal Centre
Bizarre Festival 2010 Cape £4.50, 7.30pm
Super Nihon Nihon £5, 10pm Artnot - Mark Gubb Sideshow Alley Café £5 / £7
Tuesday 23/11 Scientist Sends Dubstep to Outerspace The Rescue Rooms £15, 7pm Scientist vs The Upsetters, Mala, Pinch and Sgt Poke. BBC Radio 3 - BBC Philharmonic Royal Centre
Wednesday 24/11 Interpol Rock City £22.50, 6.30pm
Pesky Alligators The Lion Inn Free, 9pm-11pm Paul Smith The Bodega £10, 7pm Detonate Stealth £12 / £15, 7pm Sub Focus, Skream, Rusko and Brookes Brothers. The Forgeries Deux I’m Not From London Jam Café With Arrows of Love
Saturday 27/11 Matt Berry The Rescue Rooms £13, 7pm
The Mummers The Rescue Rooms £8, 7.30pm
Babyhead The Maze
Jools Holland Royal Centre
Dirty Buzzard Deux
Dogma Presents Back to put the Thunk in your Thursdays Bars, clubs and restaurants come and go in Nottingham, especially those that are tucked away down a narrow, Victorian side street. It just goes to show how good Dogma is at all three functions when you consider that it’s been holding it down on Byard Lane for nine years. Then again, when you can play host to such acts as DJ Yoda, Jamie XX, Fabio, DJ Zinc, Jack Beats, MistaJam and DJ Fresh – to name just a few who appeared this year alone – it’s not surprising.
Lars Vogt - Piano Series Royal Centre
Klaxons Rock City £16, 7.30pm
Devildriver and 36 Crazyfists Rock City £17, 6pm
Paige, Altas and I and Destine The Central
Tuesday 09/11
Oxjam The Golden Fleece
High Rankin Spanky Van Dykes Free / £2 / £3, 9pm - 2am
Dr Feelgood and Wilko Johnson The Rescue Rooms £17.50, 7.30pm
Adventure! Mayhem! The Maze £7.50, 8pm
String Driven Thing The Maze £10, 7.30pm
Philip Sayce The Rescue Rooms £12, 7.30pm
Wednesday 17/11
The re-launch on 7 October will have the Elementz Soundsystem presenting Geeneus, Tipper and Katy B in the basement. The latter is the lady behind one of the biggest dubstep tunes of the year, and has guested with Magnetic Man, Skream and Zinc – and all before she’s even dropped her debut LP. Chuck in local heroes The Elementz, Karizma and Skiman with Kid Fix in the upstairs bar, and it goes without saying that you need to get in early, as a ram-out is guaranteed.
Annihilator The Rescue Rooms £11, 7.30pm
As Dogma Presents continually strives to be at the forefront of new music and give people something a little bit different to the rest, it’s easy to see what sets it apart from its rivals. Keep an eye on this place or else you may end up shaking a flyer at the end of the month, annoyed at what you’ve missed out on.
Castrovalva and Mojo Fury The Central
Dogma Presents, every Thursday, 9 Byard Lane, The Lace Market, NG1 2GJ. Free before 11pm, £3 after.
Wednesday 10/11 Demon Hunter Rock City £9, 7pm Matt Schofield The Rescue Rooms £12, 7.30pm
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Anyway, the big news is that their Thursday night Dogma Presents sessions are returning for a new season, bringing some of dance music’s biggest DJs and rising stars to Nottingham for a school night session - and all for nowt if you get there before 11 pm. With promises of drinks promotions to compliment an already ludicrously low-priced evening, it’s a night for the financially and musically savvy amongst us.
dogmabars.com
Skunk Anansie Rock City £20, 6.30pm leftlion.co.uk/issue37 leftlion.co.uk/issue37 36
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Nottingham's Music & Creative Arts Festival Hockley Hustle 2010 22nd - 24th October
VENUES
(more tbc)
Tickets £8 advanced £10 on the day For more info visit: www.hockleyhustle.co.uk
Over 30 venues hosted by the city’s best promoters and community groups, all raising money for local charities and featuring hundreds of acts representing all genres and styles.
Friday 22nd October
Saturday 23rd October
Sunday 24th October
Tilt The Golden Fleece The Central The Approach The Alley Cafe
Pitcher and Piano Nottingham Contemporary Spanky Van Dyke’s The Orange Tree The Bodega Social Gatecrasher
Baa Bar Bar Eleven Broadway Jam Cafe Old Angel Dogma Pit and Pendulum Eschucha Bunkers Hill
Pitcher and Piano Image Bar Cape Le Gitane Bad Juju Miles Bar Edins The Bodega Nottingham Contemporary Market Bar Wax Bar
music / comedy event listings... Saturday 27/11
Saturday 02/10
Butterfly Fan the Inferno The Old Angel
Tom Young Canalhouse Bar £4 / £5, 6pm
We Are Scientists Rock City £13.50, 6.30pm
Sunday 28/11 Aiden The Rescue Rooms £10, 6.30pm Francesqu and The Dead Formats Sarah Millican The Forum £12, 6.45pm
Monday 29/11 Volbeat The Rescue Rooms £10, 7.30pm
Tuesday 30/11 Gallows Rock City £13, 7.30pm Villagers The Rescue Rooms £9, 7pm Biffy Clyro Nottingham Arena £20, 6.30pm Pixie Lott Royal Centre
COMEDY Saturday 02/10 Funhouse Comedy Club Bunkers Hill Inn £7adv Ali Cook and guests. Ian Moore Glee Club Ron Vaudry, Nick Doody and Joe Bor. Long Form Improv Comedy Workshop Arts Organisation £12, 2pm to 5pm
Stand-up Shakespeare Canalhouse Bar £5 / £6, 8pm Naked Ant Wrestling Arts Organisation £3, 7.30pm
Sunday 03/10 Just The Tonic Sunday Night Social Forum Daniel Kitson, Rob Rouse, Eric Lampaert, Nick Helm, NCF Comedy Night: The Locals Canalhouse Bar £4 / £5, 8pm
Friday 08/10 Yianni Agisilaou Glee Club Plus Ivan Brackenbury and Marty McLean .
Saturday 09/10 Saturday Night Comedy Forum Doc Brown, Daniel Sloss and Danny McLoughlin.
Sunday 10/10 Just The Tonic Sunday Night Social Forum Ian D Montford, Daniel Sloss, Darrell Martin, Alun Cochrane Glee Club £10 - £11.50, 7pm
Wednesday 13/10 Should I Stay or Should I Go? Maze
for more: leftlion.co.uk/listings
Joke On The Water The Glee Club lands on the Waterfront
All of a sudden, the comedy scene in Nottingham has exploded, and the latest development – the expansion of the Glee Club into our lovely city – has shot us into a whole new league of laughter. The original club – situated in that hub of hilarity, er, Birmingham – has scooped up awards left and right and was named as one of the top ten comedy venues in the UK by The Guardian, so much is expected from the new place. The ex British Waterways building on Castle Wharf, which has been treated to a £1 million refit, resulting in two auditoriums with theatre-style seating to ensure everyone gets a good view, a swishy café-bar, and facilities to upgrade the place into a venue that can handle more than a mic stand on a stage. But what about the talent? Glee are guaranteeing four live stand-up acts every Friday and Saturday night, with an extra show on the last Thursday of every month. Their opening season includes Milton Jones, Mock The Week’s Andy Parsons and controversial Irishman, Tommy Tiernan. Fans of the Nottingham improv group MissImp will also be glad to hear that they have a residency at Glee on the second Wednesday of each month, when they will be performing an unscripted sketch show based on the audience’s suggestions. Prices for comedy nights start at £8, with big discounts for students. It’s not all about comedy, though; the Glee Club will also be the city’s newest music venue, with a line-up that veers strongly towards folkiness and acoustic singer-songwriters. The absolute coup of the moment is the appearance of award-winning film director and actor Tim Robbins playing with his band, The Rogues Gallery on 3 October, with Lloyd Cole (formerly of ‘and the Commotions’ fame, but now a solo folk singer) and acclaimed country-soul singers The Duke And The King. And it would be extremely remiss of us not to mention that the café-bar serves burgers, pizza and sharing platters at lunchtimes – and the place is still kicking long after the laughter has died down, with a late bar and after-show club vibes on Fridays and Saturdays. The Glee Club, British Waterways Building, Castle Wharf, Canal Street, NG1 7EH glee.co.uk
Wednesday 13/10
Sunday 17/10
Rob Deering Forum
Pete Firman Forum
Friday 15/10
Monday 18/10
Matt Hardy Glee Club Plus George Egg and Pete Johansson .
Stewart Lee Forum
Friday Night Comedy Forum Terry Alderton, Henning Wehn, Dave Longley and Charlie Baker.
Greg Davies Nottingham Playhouse £12.50, 8pm
Friday 22/10 Simon Bligh Glee Club £4 - £8, 7.15pm Plus Imran Yusuf, Tommy Campbell and Ben Norris.
MissImp Live in Action: Glee Club
Friday Night Comedy Forum Miles Jupp, Mitch Benn, Chris Stokes and Darrell Martin.
Crafty Boggers
Lustre returns to the Lakeside this November
Saturday 23/10
Lustre, Nottingham’s annual contemporary craft fair, is back for its eleventh year at Lakeside Arts Centre this November. You may shudder at the thought of a craft fair, but forget being dragged by your parents to musty old church and community halls before Christmas when you were little; the Lustre event is all about refined art, extravagance and beautiful things that will make you break at least two of the seven deadly sins: lust at the plethora of things that you just have to have for your gaff and envy for the sheer talent of the artists involved and the skills they possess which you don’t.
Saturday Night Comedy Forum Nina Conti, Miles Jupp, Chris Stokes, Darrell Martin,
The joy of Lustre is that you can have a mooch around and just appreciate the goods on offer for what they are – artistic pieces that scream at you to look at them, touch them, hold them and be inspired by them, or you can succumb to the consumer within and not only appreciate what’s on offer but also make a purchase or two (or three or four). Perfectly timed for the run up to Christmas, you can get some hella individual gifts that are going to make your loved ones smile and allow you to be smug in that you have given the best gifts this Yuletide. Or you can buy yourself something nice and then tell your Mum and Dad that’s what they’ve bought you for Christmas. So, with over 55 makers and hundreds of pieces, what can you expect? Jewellery, silverware, woodwork, furnishings, fabrics, drawings, prints, china, ceramics, hand-blown glass, and the list goes on. It’s an easier question to ask what you won’t expect. You’ll be bandying around terms like sumptuous, exquisite, unique, indescribable within minutes of leaving – trust us, we’ve had a gander in previous years. Lustre also supports newcomers to the genre with a collection from The Young Meteors, a group of twelve up and coming makers from East Midlands universities. One of them is Nottingham Trent University graduate Harriet Foster who specialises in hand-printed dresses, cushions and accessories. So, if you’re in any way fond anything shiny, soft, pretty or tactile then whiling away a few hours at Lustre will be right up your alley. Nottingham is more than lucky to be host to the twinkling jewel in the hand-beaten crown of Britain’s craft fairs. Lustre, November 13 - 14, 10am - 6pm, Lakeside Arts Centre, University Park, NG7 2RD. £5 weekend ticket, under-16s free. lakesidearts.org.uk
The Best in Live Stand Up Comedy Glee Club £4 - £10, 7.15pm Simon Bligh, Imran Yusuf, Tommy Campbell and Ben Norris.
Sunday 24/10 Just The Tonic Sunday Night Social Forum Ardal O’Hanlon Nottingham Playhouse £18
Thursday 28/10 The Thursday Food & Comedy Special Glee Club Paul Thorne, Keith Farnan, Markus Birdman and Michael Fabbri.
Thursday 28/10 Paul Thorne Glee Club £3.50 - £7.50, 7.30pm Keith Farnan, Markus Birdman & Michael Fabbri
Friday 29/10 Friday Night Comedy Forum Ian Cognito, Gavin Webster, John Gordillo, Tim Clark,
Saturday 30/10 Saturday Night Comedy Forum Ian Cognito, Gavin Webster, John Gordillo, Tim Clark,
Sunday 31/10 Brendon Burns Forum
Thursday 04/11 Jimeoin Glee Club £9 - £12, 7.30pm
Friday 05/11 Ross Noble Royal Centre Dave Twentyman Glee Club £4 - £8, 7.15pm Plus Alistair Barrie, Michael Smiley and Dave Fulton.
Saturday 06/11 Funhouse Comedy Club Bunkers Hill Inn Michael Fabbri, Pete Jonas, Andrew Watts, Alan Armstrong and Compere Spiky Mike.
Dan Antopolski Forum leftlion.co.uk/issue37 leftlion.co.uk/issue37 39
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this is your videogame festival
GameCity5
your videogame festival 26-30 October 2010
GameCityNights
last Friday of every month only at Antenna
www.gamecity.org
all the time
limbo by playdeadgames
Wednesday 4th comedy / theatre / exhibition listings... Saturday 06/11 The Colour of Nonsense Lakeside Arts Centre £6 / £9 / £12, 8pm
Friday 26/11 Lee Mack Royal Centre Runs until: 27/11
Saturday Night Comedy Forum
Sunday 28/11
Friday 12/11
Sarah Millican Forum
Ava Vidal Glee Club £4 - £8, 7.15pm With Richard Morton, Dwayne Perkins and Matt Kirshen.
THEATRE Friday 01/10
Monday 15/11 Chris Addison Nottingham Playhouse £17.50, 8pm
Saturday 20/11 The Best in Live Stand Up Comedy Glee Club £4 - £10, 7.15pm Yianni Agisilaou, Andrew Bird, Zoe Lyons and guest.
Sunday 21/11 Isy Suttie Forum
Monday 22/11 Jimmy Carr - Laughter Therapy Royal Centre
Thursday 25/11 Tommy Tiernan Glee Club £16, 7.30pm Andrew Lawrence Lakeside Arts Centre £5 / £7 / £10, 8pm
Friday 26/11 Jimmy McGhie Glee Club £4 -£8, 7.15pm Plus Sean Collins, Stephen Carlin and Gavin Webster.
The Post Show Party Show Lakeside Arts Centre £6 / £9 / £12, 8pm Loot Lace Market Theatre £6 - £10, 7:30 Runs until: 09/10
Tuesday 05/10 The Featherstonehaughs: Edits Lakeside Arts Centre £9 / £12 / £15, 8pm
Thursday 07/10 Facebook Nottingham Playhouse £5 / £6, 8pm Runs until: 09/10
Saturday 16/10 Dance4 Presents: Youth Shift Lakeside Arts Centre £5 / £7, 8pm
Wednesday 20/10 Natasha Wood Nottingham Playhouse £12 / £10, 7.45pm
Tuesday 26/10 Hofesh Shechter - Political Mother Nottingham Playhouse £16 - £10.50, 8pm Runs until: 27/10
Spin On This!
Breakin’ Convention 10 rocks the Playhouse If the words ‘hip-hop dance theatre’ bring to mind the boring bits in films like Breakin’ and Beat Street, where ghetto kids get conned by posh girls in legwarmers into doing some Kids From Fame rubbish, think again. Breakin’ Convention is more than just a show – it’s a twonight takeover, where the entire building is given over to the pursuit of the perfect beat. Onstage are some of the top hip-hop artists on the planet including Franco-German B-Boy duo Sebastien and Raphael and thirteen-strong Parisian crew Phase T.
LITERATURE ROUND-UP
October and November sees Nottingham play host to an orgy of literature related events as the city goes word mad. Here’s our pick of the best - which means we’re involved in them in some way or another May Contain Creative Notts - 6 October 6 7.30pm, Edins There isn’t going to be a Creative Business Awards this year which either means there’s no other talent left to vote for in Nottingham or that last year’s winners were so good that they want to big us up a little bit more. So come down to that posh café opposite the Broadway and join local playwright and Hatch organiser Michael Pinchbeck, our favourite local author Nicola Monaghan and us toerags from LeftLion for readings from some of the best articles published in the mag. This won’t be your usual literary event. We’ll be arsing about, getting in some actors, mixing it up and, well, you’ll just have to come down and see for yourself if we’re creative or just a bunch of hyped-up word jockeys with no-one to knock us off our pedestal. National Poetry Day: ‘Home is Best’ - 7 October 6.30-8pm, Waterstones The theme of this year’s National Poetry Day is home and who better to interpret this than Candlestick Press, the inventive publishing house that came up with the ‘instead of a card’ poetry pamphlets. Owner Jenny Swann will be hosting a series of readings called ‘Home Is Best’, featuring poems from previous Candlestick publications as well as other anthologies and collections. Expect lots of homely nibbles and drink. Aprons optional, but the poetry’s a must.
S
Booker Prize Evening - 12 October 8pm-10.30pm, Arnold Library To celebrate the ‘Champions League’ of literature, six bibliophiles (Bianca Winter, Nicola Monaghan, Frances Finn, James Walker, Jane Streeter and Peter Preston) will each argue why their shortlist nominee should scoop the coveted prize. Expect furious debate, passion and tantrums as they put forth their case. Then sit back and revel in the schadenfreude as five of them get it completely wrong and have to flee the city in shame. The event is aimed at provoking a good old-fashioned debate with a strong emphasis on audience participation, so don’t worry if you don’t know your Carey’s from your Donoghue’s, all opinions are welcome. The event will have a live link-up with the award ceremony in London so you can pretend you’re in our shitty, smelly, over-crowded capital. Nottingham Libraries Readers’ Day - 7 November 9.15-4pm Council House This event sells-out quicker than a Take That reunion, so make sure you’re first in the queue when tickets go on sale. In a nutshell it does exactly what it says on the tin. Book lovers from the region come together and in a series of themed breakout sessions discuss the wonderful world of words.
Friday 29/10
Saturday 20/11
Friday 05/11
I Offer Myself To Thee Lakeside Arts Centre £9 / £12 / £15, 8pm
Upswing Presents: Fallen Lakeside Arts Centre £5 / £9 / £12, 8pm
The Night of the Comet Nottingham Contemporary 6pm - 8pm
Friday 05/11
Friday 26/11
Saturday 06/11
Tiny Volcanoes Lakeside Arts Centre £6 / £9 / £12, 8pm
Mother Goose Nottingham Playhouse £18 - £22 Runs until: 22/01
MulletProofPoet workshop New Art Exchange 2pm - 4pm
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RACHAEL PENNELL ChoColateria
Amy’s View Nottingham Playhouse £7.50 - £26.50 Runs until: 20/11
Wednesday 17/11 Bouncers Lace Market Theatre £7 Runs until: 20/11
EXHIBITIONS Friday 01/10
We’ll Meet Again New Art Exchange Runs until: 07/11 LOVE New Art Exchange Runs until: 07/11
Dust on The Mirror Lakeside Arts Centre Free , 11am – 5pm Mon-Sat 12pm – 4pm Sun Runs until: 31/10
Friday 01/10
Yelena Popova: Unnamed Lakeside Arts Centre Free, 11-5 Mon to Sat, 12-4 Sun Runs until: 07/11
Monday 04/10
Mark Essen - Eternal Atlas Trade Gallery Free, 11am - 6pm Runs until: 16/10
Saturday 06/11
Cosmos and Culture Nottingham Contemporary 7pm - 8.30pm
Tuesday 09/11
The Heuristics Laboratory Malt Cross Runs until: 02/12
Wednesday 10/11
Hatch: It’s About Time Various Locations 6pm - 11:45pm
Saturday 13/11
Lustre Lakeside Arts Centre £5 (under 16s free), 10am - 5pm Runs until: 14/11
Nottingham Contemporary 1st birthday celebration Nottingham Contemporary Runs until: 14/11
hysteria
But as always, the NG is represented with Freedom Movement, Broken Doll Dance Company, Steady Flux, CRC Dance Company, Dash and Groundhogs. If you’re heavily into modern dance or breaking, you can’t miss this. And if you like both, you’ve already got your ticket, haven’t you? Breakin’ Convention, Friday 29 - Saturday 30 October, 7.30pm at the Nottingham Playhouse, £18/ £15.50
breakinconvention.com
Political Mother
for more: leftlion.co.uk/listings
Dance star Hofesh Shechter justifies all the hype with his first full-length work Political Mother which has been wowing audiences and critics this summer. As a vision of political rallies, rock gigs, prison camps and war, it’s a massive slab of riffs, booming drums, fast-cut cinematic lighting and committed, inspired dancing, where images of mass hysteria and mindless obedience are interspersed with brief moments of tenderness and humanity.
Saturday 09/10
Secret Wars Shop Kid30, Rikki Finn, Ging Inferior, Kaps, Jimmy Summit and Boaster.
Sunday 24/10
John Makepeace Harley Gallery and Foundation Free, 10-5 Mon -Sat, 10-4.30 Sun Runs until: 24/12
Tuesday 16/11
Moving Histories - Frank Abbot New Art Exchange 5.30pm - 7pm
Saturday 20/11
Revolution Paper Lakeside Arts Centre Free, 11am – 5pm Mon to Fri, 12pm – 4pm Sun Runs until: 27/02
WIN BOOKS
If you’ve not heard of Shechter, he choreographed the opening sequence of E4’s Skins and the overwhelming response to his previous work, Uprising/ In Your Rooms, has singled him out as one of the most exciting artists to emerge in recent years. Political Mother tours the world in 2010 so catch it here while you can.
Tuesday 26/10
Political Mother, Tuesday 26 - Wednesday 27 October, 8pm at the Nottingham Playhouse. £16/ £14/ £12 (concessions available).
politicalmother.co.uk
British Art Show - Olivia Plender Nottingham Contemporary 2pm
Graffitti - Oxygen Thievez New Art Exchange
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Write Lion
It’s another double pager for our poets and as usual it’s an eclectic mix of styles. Robin Vaughan-Williams - the newly appointed face of the Nottingham Writers’ Studio - is fresh to these pages as is Roxy Rob, who’s taken time off from the dance floor to pen a little number. If you’ve got writers’ block and need any inspiration, then check out our mammoth literature listing on page 36 If you’ve got any wordy needs, please contact books@leftlion.co.uk
Cyclone
Robin Vaughan-Williams Boy in a red shirt running. The wind all around in his house, in his ears in the trees that have been trampled by some unseen weight. In his hand something soft, white more a blur, hard to focus when the sun brings light to what is lost.
Dalat Vietnam 2 Roxx
The MOON is a beautiful balloon supposedly that none OF US CAN RIde life THOUgh is somETHING WE Can deciDE
American Vernacular Eireann Lorsung
I had some dreams. They involved the clock we never liked, which kept chiming and chiming. That bird coming in and out like an idiot. Then morning came, and it was like the dream, the parakeet squawking; what a drag. I threw him onto the lawn, and the cuckoo clock—gears and springs shooting everywhere—and I piled everything on top of them, all the things: the books, the papers, the old shoes, half a ham sandwich we never got around to eating. Your father’s fedora. Our bedsheets patterned with oysters, the television, the eggbeater. Everything was waiting for you when you came home (except the house, which was on fire), and I was standing in the yard, laughing.
Facades
Mr. Sellout
I collect human faces, Nail them to the wall Of my memory, Where they hang as remembrances, all Staring their own story.
Dear Mr. Clegg,
This one is experience Next to it is fear, This one is hatred Which is too severe.
The values you spoke of And your policies too Seemed to vanish the second Results filtered through!
This one is called pride This one is contempt, And this unfounded face, Is called resent.
Dave’s little ‘Muppet!’ Without Kermit’s style It’s rare that you’re seen More than once in a while.
Over here is innocence Placed next to regret, And this one is fortitude And this one I forget.
So now you’re ‘Pro-Trident’?! I thought, you were not? It’s clear power and money Can account for a lot!
John E Micallef
A vision at his heels his back, head lowered eyes fixed on what he holds before him—something soft he has not lost.
Saturday Night and Sunday Mourning MulletProofPoet
I dreamed I was with Arthur Seaton last night watched him swagger down streets cast in black and white in Saturday suit, all hard bastard pretty wondering what became of his Sunday morning city Showing two fingers at speeding cars kicking in windows of Yates’ wine bar searching for factories that just weren’t there hosed away as fast as the vomit in the square Demolished and built on like the back to backs he wondered why history’d given him the sack how was he so young, yet broken and old? burned by today, chilled by 50s cold between fights and ale and fat arse slander no good times left just propaganda I screamed ‘Alan Sillitoe’s dead’ – he looked at me then spat. ‘Alan Sillitoe?’ he said ‘Who the fuck is that?’
Jazz Poet Tree John Micallef
Rebel Rhymes
You’ve let us all down I’d hoped I’d be smiling.. But you’ve made me frown.
Here we have happiness Alongside it is hope, This one is vitality Which helps the rest to cope.
Lord Biro
Yours Sincerely.. Rebel Rhymes
I collect human faces Stick them staring on a wall, Fixing them with ego So they will not fall.
My jazz poems grow, On a jazz poet tree My rhymes aren’t in time With one, two, three... Four...what’s more, I deplore the kind Who shrinks sounds into small spaces, To fit a small mind.
Lord Biro
Ephraim’s Eyes
A Cautious Approach
Bryan Walpert Pewter Rose, £8.99
In this, his first collection of short stories, New Zealand author Bryan Walpert tackles tragedy, how it invades our lives and how we take refuge from it. Whether it’s the sudden and violent death of a beloved spouse or the sickening realisation that the promise we were once sure we held has evaporated while we weren’t looking, each story revolves around loss and pain. Walpert’s deceptively meandering style hides a sharp punch to your gut as he leads us through the manifold ways we meet grief and disappointment. Some hide, some obsess, some flee into fantasy, and others hold on to their sanity with whitened knuckles. It’s a slim volume, but Walpert’s stories jump through matters as diverse as ecology, mycology, super-hero mythology, the role of the olive through history and Buddhism. It’s an impressive collection with stories that resonate with compassion and insight. Robin Lewis pewter-rose-press.com
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leftlion.co.uk/issue37
Swimmer in the Secret Sea
Stanley Middleton Hutchinson, £18.99
This posthumous love story about two lonely men who meet in a park on Christmas Day is familiar territory to the former Booker Prize winner Middleton as he once more visits the world of middle-class professionals in the fictional Midlands city of Beechnall. George, mid 40s, is working as a postman after ill health forces him to give up teaching when he encounters solicitor Andy. Back at Andy’s house for drinks, George meets Mirabel; solicitor, ex-fiancée of Andy, and still his friend. From this chance meeting their dramas unfold, the best set pieces being narrated around two or three dinner tables where Middleton’s gift for powerful dialogue is movingly deployed to best effect. There is occasional humour too, such as when George turns to the lonely hearts column after having his achingly slow advances rejected by Mirabel. An old fashioned, slow-paced, impeccably polite, romance. Chris Knight randomhouse.co.uk
William Kotzwinkle Five Leaves, £5.99
William Kotzwinkle is perhaps best known for penning Doctor Rat, a kind of Animal Farm for the Vietnam War era which scooped the World Fantasy Award in 1977. But for me, this stunningly beautiful novella about a couple’s stillbirth is far superior. Why? Because the matter-of-fact acceptance of what has happened to them removes all hope from the narrative, leaving the reader as despondent and powerless as the couple. When the father realises the child is dead he just looks at the Doctor and nods. There is no outburst of rage. No denial. Just acceptance. By using simple language and not giving us an insight into the inner workings of his mind, the reader is rendered emotionally impotent. But this is the point. This is no magical solution to this awful personal tragedy. The pain cannot be transferred to metaphors. If there was a Booker for the novella, this re-release would win hands down. James Walker fiveleaves.co.uk
“I never knew there were so many people in Notts who wanted to hear Czechoslovakian Psychedelia…” Interview: James Walker Wayne Burrows: Poet. Editor of Staple magazine. Vinyl obsessive. And soon, the first ever writer-in-residence at Nottingham Contemporary… When does your residency start, and what do you hope to achieve with it? I’ll be there from January until March next year, running workshops with older people, poking about the exhibitions and writing about whatever I find there. The two artists showing after the British Art Show are Jack Goldstein and Ann Collier, and they both work with vinyl records, so I’ll be able to indulge three obsessions in one. You’ll always find me rummaging through boxes of LPs and 45s at the Cattle Market on a Saturday morning, and Rob’s Record Mart on Hurt’s Yard is like an art installation in itself. Galleries having in-house writers - that sounds pretty unique… Not quite – Pascale Petit’s been running a brilliant series of workshops at Tate Modern, and others have done things elsewhere, but it’s the only one working with contemporary art in the region, out of the fifteen or so residencies Writing East Midlands are running. They’ve got Jean Binta Breeze at New Walk in Leicester, Mark Goodwin out in the Landscape, and Jo Bell in Derby Hospital, so we might be doing some exchange visits. Each residency mentors a new writer as well, so there’ll be a brilliant young writer called Aimee Wilkinson who you may have seen with the Hello Hubmarine crew there as well. Tempreh has pretty much become your second home, hasn’t it? I was going before it even opened - they had a run of exhibitions at places like Newstead while it was still being built. The Gert & Uwe Tobias show that was on with Diane Arbus this summer was fantastic. Hadn’t seen any of their work before; I had to keep picking my jaw up off the floor. And you’ve worked with them before… I did a night of Communist Bloc Rock’n’Roll, where we talked about and played 60s and 70s Eastern European records in the Café Bar during the Star City exhibition. I never knew there were so many people in Notts who wanted to hear Polish rock and Czech psychedelia - I thought we’d have three blokes and a dog, but the place was rammed. You’re also editing a book bringing artists and writers together… That’s an anthology I’m editing for Staple, called 24 because there are twelve writers and twelve artists in it. The contributors are mainly from the East Midlands, so the writers include Damien G Walter, Michael Pinchbeck, Fatima al Matar, CJ Allen and Emma Lannie, while the artists are people like Mik Godley, Denise Weston, Candice Jacobs, Yelena Popova and Victoria Siddle. The idea is to bring the art and writing worlds together, which we try to do in the magazine anyway, so this is just our usual thing on a bigger scale and it’ll be out around Christmas if all goes to plan.
By Way of Digression (or: Tearing Maps of Nottingham and Los Angeles into Small Squares of Roughly Equal Size, I Tape Them Back Together in Random Order, as a Single Mosaic Featuring Equal Parts of Both, and Try to Find a Way Back Home…)
Wayne Burrows
(for Frances Stark)
Any advice on surviving in the arts, given the imminent cuts? I’ve been freelance for years, and it’s always a bit precarious, but the trick is just to find ways of keeping afloat. If you can do that, then you become a bit like a cockroach – you’ll have sod-all money through the boom, and then the same in the busts. That said, being freelance is probably no more insecure than being in a full time job at the moment, so as far as advice goes it’s back to Arthur Seaton – don’t let the bastards grind you down. Tell us about the commissioned poem on this page… It was written for an event where five poets responded to David Hockney and Frances Stark’s work at Nottingham Contemporary last November – we saw the exhibitions a week before we had to perform the finished poems. I liked Stark’s way of taking bits of printed material and tearing them up, rearranging them, and all her references were related to Los Angeles, so I decided to rip up her world and shuffle it in with some Nottingham as well. It had to be in LeftLion because nobody who doesn’t know Notts fairly well could ever work out what’s going on in it. What else are you up to? There’s some texts I wrote in collaboration with the artist Neville Gabie which are going into the paving when Sneinton Market is redeveloped, a book about money I started in 1998 that I’m still fiddling about with, and a novel called Albany 6 that’s a sort of Philip K Dick remix of the history of pop music between 1964 and today. One of the characters in that is an artist named Robert Holcombe, so I’ve made seventy odd collages in character as him, and they might be shown somewhere one day, too. Geoff Dyer once said you should always have lots of things on the go so when you bunk off one you’re doing another instead of nothing, and that’s what seems to work for me as well.
At the junction of Clumber Street and Market Square I watch the ice-rink emerge from its scaffolding as a cold fog clears. The sky’s pale grey seems turquoise blue as the dusk comes in, and the lights turn on, as Wilshire Boulevard becomes Woodborough Road, Hollywood moves to Hollowstone and the paving slabs in Wellington Square map a grid like the view of freeway lights from Griffith Park, inverted under their own steel moon. Outside the Grauman’s just off Heathcoat Street I find marks on pavements, yellow paint, angles and arrows, numerals, words, lines from the Whitmans, Spillanes and Kerouacs who rode the Big Wheel, went where they would on City Rider cards, to the outlands of Glendale and Warser Gate, the deserts of Orange and Carlton Hill, the all-night garages and cheap motels of Long Beach, The Ropewalk and Spaniel Row. Broad Street is Venice, where bamboo flourishes outside Kayal and waitress-starlets take Chinese tea in the street-facing windows of each café. The billboards on Sepulveda Boulevard give us realtors, Donuts, the Panto at Mansfield Palace Theatre, a Berlin Wall of commercial print that runs from Radford to Rodeo Drive as gutters freeze and the night grows deep. I keep moving, take in the windmill at Watts, the Downtown dragon with its stainless teeth, the Bath Street overlap with Beverley Hills and crowded strip-lit Santa Monica bus that stops at Victoria and Derby Road. Pasadena nestles in a bend of the Trent, its pueblos and semis, Aztec Hotels, overlooked by the Clough Stand at Elysian Park. Around Embankment and the County Hall, deckchairs, rip-tides, the leaking heat waxed into surfboards, stale bread broken for moorhens, swans. I walk faster, from Echo Park to Wilford Bridge, see pale moonlit sheets and lines of shirts hung out on the cold. Somewhere between Hermosa Beach and the lowered night barriers of Colwick Park headlamps slice red-sandstone cliffs, throw long night-shadows on the arterial roads linking Daleside to the Pacific Coast. Pigeons are seabirds, insects swarm, disperse in the glittering depths of space where constellations sharpen, letters and punctuation-marks pricked through indigo carbon sheets as first rays of sunlight float through cloud like this idle thought: that I will find myself lost, or maybe find myself, in Burbank, San Pedro or Lady Bay, cross Euclid Avenue and Mulholland Drive, the junction of Thoresby Street and St Stephen’s Road, my fingers like popsicles, and both eyes closed. Commissioned by Nottingham Contemporary to read at Frances Stark’s exhibition ‘But what of Frances Stark, standing by itself, a naked name…’ on 25 November 2009. wayneburrows.wordpress.com
Katie Half-Price
“AYUP! When I flashed me tits at publishers this month they gen me some right moaning shite, so next time I’m just gonna let ‘em cop a feel of meh merkin. Anyroad, let’s read summat...” The Slap
Don’t Upset Renee: The Discovery of Emotional Oppression
Christos Tsiolkas Tuskar Rock, £12.99 Pages: loads seeing as nowt happens other than moaning. Rating: Spit This book has kicked up a right mither, just cos this guy called Harry gees a brat a slap across the chops at a barbecue. Then the parents of the brat press charges against him just cos they ‘ant got the balls to do it their sens. The book is tode from the point of view of eight different characters of varying ages, so that yeh can see how tapped everyone is nowadays. It’s been longlisted for the Booker, which meks us laugh cuz them bunch of ponces are the exact same kind of gets who don’t know how to handle kids. I might write a book about how me step-father used to kick shit out meh when he caught us neckin’ Woodpecker Cider behind the bike sheds and then tried it on with meh when me mam wor at Bingo. That’s a proper storeh. atlantic-books.co.uk
Michael Sylvester with David Knight Matador, £12.95 Pages: Gnat’s piss Rating: Spit
I was well excited when I got sent this book - I thought it wor abaht that dutteh cafe owner in ‘Allo Allo’. Instead it’s about a man who ‘ant got the balls to stand up to his mam, and so lets her and everyone else bully him. Eventually he realises what a soft twat he’s been and decides to do summat, but instead of geeing ‘em all a slap like that Tsiolkas suggests and being done with, he goes off and finds a posh phrase for being a mard-arse: ‘emotional oppression’. Bet yer mam were shittin’ hersen when yoh accused her of that, eh? I think the message of the book is that sometimes it’s best not to get yer knock-off to pan anyone that gis yoh a cut-eye look in the chippy - but let’s be honest, it woks better than being a YITNEH. troubador.co.uk/matador
Sum: 40 Tales from the Afterlives David Eagleman Canongate, £9.99 canongate.net Pages: Nor enuff. Rating: Gargle then swallow.
This book is dead easeh to read, and gets yer finking about all the stuff that cud happen when yer die and what it’d be like to knock abaht wi’Jesus. One story called Circle of Friends was really scareh cuz it said wen you die, imagine if the only ppl you knew in heaven were those yeh knew in yer real life. Bleddy ‘ell fire - if I get stuck for eterniteh with folk I know it’d be like an endless lock-in at the Ode Dog and Partridge! LOL! In the most believable scenario, yer can pay moneh to ensure a glamorous lifestyle upstairs, like treating yersen at Viccy Centre forever while everyone else is in Primark - or Broado if they’ve murdered someone or bin a slag. So I’m not cutting up meh credit cards just yet. canongate.net leftlion.co.uk/issue37
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Plus Guests
DEVENDRA BANHART AND THE GROGS
BIRMINGHAM LG ARENA Wednesday 8 December 0844 338 8000
Buy online at livenation.co.uk New Album ‘The Suburbs’ out now www.arcadefire.com A Live Nation presentation in association with CAA and The Guardian
Another bi-month, another opportunity for us to cram as much snap into our cakey maws as possible. If you want to be featured on this page email noshingham@leftlion.co.uk
The Cross Keys
It’s got Modern British on lock
words: Aly Stoneman, Ash Dilks, Al Needham
The Sir John Borlase Warren
Terracotta
The Sir John Borlase Warren - named after an admiral and MP of Nottingham who helped give the French a right panning back in the 18th Century, war fans - stands proudly at the top of Canning Circus. It’s a part of the city that has a huge rep for superior eating and drinking, and from the moment you step through the doors and are hit by the unmistakably warm vibe that only a traditional English pub can offer, it’s obvious that this place is one of the main reasons why.
The funny thing about Chinese restaurant clichés is that, ten minutes after you’ve had one (usually about the food being so globular and oily that you feel like you’ve necked a bottle of Spry Crisp n’ Dry), you feel the urge for another (usually about the staff being horribly snippy and rude). Alas, in the case of a lot of oriental eateries, there’s more than a grain of truth in that – but then again, there are also places like Terracotta.
The none-more-finer China diner
Borlasing Squad got the Flava
This traditional pub on Byard Lane dates from the Victorian era, when yards of ale were quaffed with much ribaldry presumably by people in bowler hats set at a jaunty angle. Until recently, however, it was painted yellow, called ‘CK’s’, and was one of those bars you ran past. Times have changed, thankfully, and the Keys is setting its sights towards the gastropub market. Despite my reservations about the tartan carpet and big screen tellies, the decor is easy on the eye and the walls boast work by Nottingham artists - including Leftlion’s previous cover piece, Rikki Marr’s ‘Byron Clough’. So far, so good. Standing four-square behind British cuisine, the menu is laden with the saucy vernacular of the old country – homemade pudding, creamy mash, rich gravy, rump steak and rustic chips. There’s also the more modern and casual snap, with a good selection of salads and gourmet burgers (although no veggie burgers, alas). Food starts at 8am with breakfast, then a great lunch menu and light bites throughout the day. Yes, you can ponce it up outside with a paper and a coffee, but this place also serves up a right good ale along with an adequate selection of wines and the usual spirits and bottled assortments. None of this ‘starters’ palaver – why bother when you can get stuck in to the likes of homemade steak and kidney pudding with bubble and squeak, mushy peas and onion gravy (£7.95)? The carnal delight of biting into tender kidney and juicy pudding pastry was that good, I had to fight to stop myself licking my plate. My partner opted for the feta, courgette and spinach tart with a black olive and roast pine nut salad, dressed with red pepper coulis (£7.95). He scraped the plate clean, and I can confirm it was top trumps as far as tarts go. For dessert (remember: there’s always room for dessert), I ordered Eton mess with shortcake biscuit (£3.95), a quintessentially English mixture of strawberries, bashed meringue and cream, while my partner had the heavenly poached cherry and chocolate tart served with a brandy fruit coulis (£3.95); rich, naughty - but very nice. All this was washed down with a bottle of Cabernet Merlot (£12.95).
We immediately took advantage of one of JBW’s main selling points; its real ales. There’s always four regulars on the go with two extra guest ales in constant rotation. We went for a pint of Bountiful (£2.80) - a chestnut ale packing rich fruity flavours but still light and refreshing with a sweet, slightly malty taste. As you’d expect, quintessentially British dishes such as lamb shank and fish pie are in full effect on the menu, but Mediterranean influences abound, with chorizo mashed potato here and smoked haddock gnocchi there. For starters, I chose the Delilah charcuterie board (£7) - a delightful selection of cured meats supplied by the aforementioned, award-winning deli on Lower Pavement, while my partner went for the sun blushed tomato and mozzarella melts with smoked paprika aioli (£5), which turned out to be perfectly formed pillows of Italian flavour laced with fresh herbs. Both were subtly appetising primers for the main event. As the weather was particularly Goose Fair, I plumped for the pork belly with black pudding, sweet heart cabbage, potato and parsnip crisps and apple and elderflower puree (£10), a tower of well spiced heartiness that was topped off with a perfect square of crackling. My fellow diner went for another British staple that traditionally separates the wheat from the chaff - fish and chips (£8). We were not disappointed, as it was executed to perfection, with thick, crisp batter, moist, yielding flesh, beer-infused chips and a soupçon of mushy garden peas.
With a main course, dessert and glass of wine costing around £15 per head, The Cross Keys is a more-than-welcome addition to an area that’s already got its fair share of decent venues, and the perfect place for a rainy autumn treat that won’t break the bank.
We were already won over, but our desserts (citrus cheesecake and crème brûlée, £3.50 each) and a couple of amaretto liqueur coffees (£3.70) set the seal on it; the Sir John Borlase Warren more than holds its own in a very competitive dining quarter as it effortlessly combines Brit-pub traditional values with a tinge of nouvelle decadence. At just over £20 a head for a three-course blowout, JBW is a highly recommended venue for a casual meal with friends, not to mention a suitably impressive first date venue.
15 Byard Lane, The Lace Market, NG1 2GJ. Tel: 0115 941 7898 crosskeysnottingham.co.uk
1 Ilkeston Road, Canning Circus, NG7 3GD. Tel: 0115 947 4247 sirjohnborlasewarren.co.uk
Situated in the People’s Republic of Beeston, Terracotta spurns the usual nosh-by-numbers routine and introduces a unique selling point; offering English diners the same traditional, authentic cuisine that the Chinese residents have been enjoying for years. If you thought the food of the region was nothing more than sweet n’ sour this and egg-fried that, prepare to have your mind blown by an overwhelming range of textures and flavours. After having a serious look over our shoulders at the local Chinese students getting stuck into a hot pot (a huge stockpot where punters cook what, when and how they like), we sorted out our own communal snap-related requirements with a whopping selection. My personal favourite, the braised aubergine with black bean sauce (£5.50) catapulted the usually humble and tasteless veggie staple into a whole new territory of flavour and texture, mingled as it was with bamboo shoots, tofu and black fungi. It was so good that we ordered it again, this time in a claypot with salted fish and minced pork (£7.00) – and yes, it made for an equally appetising, wholesome and healthy dish. Yes, healthy – not a word usually associated with your average Chinese, but that’s how they do it at home, taking the time to ramp up the flavour. Round Two, and the boat was well and truly pushed out with the introduction of the stir-fried ho fan (fresh rice sticks) with three roasts (£6.10), a steaming platter weighed down with succulent cuts of belly pork, duck and char siew accompanied with crisp pak choi and carrots that would satisfy the sort of pickiest carnivore, and a seafood clay pot (£7.80) teeming with tofu, prawns, scallops and mussels. To call Terracotta a superior Chinese is like saying the Great Wall of China is a nice little feature. The menu is colossal, with dining options ranging from the lunch menu to the aforementioned hot pot blow out, ]the student-friendly sharing platters to the 100-person function, and the quick bite to the eat-as-much-as-you-like. The adjoining cocktail bar (the only one in Beeston) does some blistering two-for £6.50 cocktails (the lychee-infused Beijing Breeze in particular), and there’s even a karaoke bar upstairs if you want the full pan-Asian experience. Which you do, quite frankly. 132 High Road, Beeston, NG9 2LN. Tel: 0115 9257248 terracottanottingham.co.uk
Our resident fast food expert Beane continues his quest to eat at every takeaway in Nottingham…
Amaya
We all know that the southern end of Mansfield Road has been weighed down with many a fine eatery for the ravenous sauced-up punter on their way home from taahn, but only as long as your tastes veered towards kebab, chicken or chips – with those longing to cradle a curry in their arms right out of luck. Not anymore, people: Step forth, newly-opened joint Amaya. Yes, it’s a full-blown restaurant, but what we’re interested in is the fact that pretty much everything on the main menu is available as a take-away option. Sensing the amount of competition surrounding them, Amaya have set their prices nicely with some
Mapperley Fryer great meal deal options - starter, main, naan or rice for a tenner. On my first visit, I was highly impressed with the chicken bhuna, which is up there with the best Notts has to offer – and trust me, I know from whence I speak. Unlike other places on Manneh, the staff are extremely and refreshingly friendly, and I thoroughly recommend putting your head round their door – and your gob round their snap - sooner rather than later. The hallowed turf of Mansfield Road just got better. 157-159 Mansfield Road, NG1 3FX
I’ve been visiting the Fryer for a number of years now, and it wasn’t til I put pen to paper for this review that I realised how close to my heart I hold it. As chippies go, I wouldn’t call it the best in Nottingham – but it ticks all the boxes a proper chippy should, with a halfdecent fish supper as well as a pretty mighty kebab/chicken/pizza selection. You only need to see the pile-on the place endures from hungry punters on their way home from work to know it must be doing something right; come 6pm it can be one-in one-out. Maybe it’s their damn fine roast potatoes (or should that be deep fried? - I’m not sure) or their quality
pork ribs, which are definitely worth a chomp on. Run by a lovely couple (although you’ll be lucky to get a squeak out of the rather shy guv’nor), I’ve probably visited this place more than any other in the past four years, which is praise indeed. Do yourself a favour and give ‘em a go. 582 Woodborough Road, NG3 5FH
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Leo (July 24 - August 23) A new religion will prescribe you with a short-term inner fix, but at the end of the day it won’t last. You can find answers to longer-standing issues by looking inside yourself, facing up to your faults and fessing up to wrongs.
Virgo (August 24 - September 23) Your belief that all life’s problems can be solved with a heart-to-heart talk and a good night’s sleep will be severely tested this week when you’re introduced to the Riemann hypothesis. There’s a one million dollar reward for that bad boy!
Libra (September 24 - October 23) If you’re thinking of revamping your image, then you should find something chic - but also a little unexpected. The unusual could affect you in different ways – you may become the new talk of Nottingham, or you could end up talking to about someone right honourable about the indecent exposure act.
Scorpio (October 24 - November 22) You can stare for hours into a crystal ball. You could put your faith in the cards, or the tea leaves, or even the I Ching. Or you could just ask Libra and know for sure. Libra - It’s Going To Happen... Guaranteed™.
LEFTLION ABROAD St Basil’s Cathedral, Red Square, Moscow, July 2010 Built in 1561 to commemorate the capture of Kazan and Astrakhan, St Basil’s marks the geometric hub of Moscow. Formerly a Russian Orthodox building, it was secularised by the Communists in 1929 – but not even Stalin could bring himself to knock it down.
Sagittarius (November 23 - December 22) An inner glow could be caused by news of a tax rebate or other financial good fortune. It’s just as possible though that it’s actually because of the sheer amount of microwaved food you’ve been shoving into your gaping maw. Cook summat proper and you’ll feel better!
Capricorn (December 23 - January 19)
An accident involving the death of a prominent local historian at the DH Lawrence Museum in Eastwood may be a cover-up for murder. Can Capricorn get to the bottom of it? Find out next issue in Capricorn!
Here’s Rob Bradshaw giving it some serious Nottsness in the belly of the beast, with Kirsty Manger on the other side of the lens. Sadly, their plans to get a pic of the mag with Lenin’s corpse went for a toss when they realised they didn’t have enough Rubles to bribe the police on guard.
Aquarius (January 20 - February 19)
When a small water sign challenged the industry giants back in 1952, nobody gave them a chance. Today, we’re one of the big twelve, with 1,300 new customers born every hour. Aquarius We Are Your Future™.
Pisces (February 20 - March 20) You can try to empathise with anyone but you will never understand the lives and emotions of Geminis until you walk a mile in their comfortable Perry Charmelo shoes. Perry Charmelo shoes™ - serving stylish star signs since 1962!
Aries (March 21 - April 20)
Going somewhere exotic? Take a copy of the Lion, wave it about, send it to us, and then you can bore the arse off the whole of Notts with your holiday snaps. Lob them pics and details to info@leftlion.co.uk
Your failure to align spirits with your soul mate and the blocking of open feelings with friends are harming the worldly cosmic balance with which your life must harmonize. In the future, you must try to avoid messages without any real content or meaning in them.
Taurus (April 21 - May 21)
You always wanted your life to mean something. So dedicate yourself to the vision of poet Herman Hesse, who declared war on cheap, false beauty. All you have to do is go into town on a Friday night loaded up like Arnie in Commando and let loose on most of the pubs around the Square.
Gemini (May 22 - June 22)
You have hit some kind of buffer at work. It may be that the traffic doesn’t move fast enough and you feel that you’ve come as far as you can in your current role, so it’s time to move into a faster lane. Whatever the difficulties are, deadly road rage against the boss never hurt anyone except him.
Cancer (June 23 - July 23) Ever notice that you can hide bananas in a row of laughter? Look hahahahahahahahabananahahahahaha hahahabananahahahahahahbananahahahah and hahabananahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Fresher, 2010
Graduate, 2013
This issue of LeftLion is officially
BEHIND YOU LeftLion #38 is coming at you on
FRIDAY 26 NOVEMBER OH NO IT ISN’T OH YES IT IS OH NO IT ISN’T OH YES IT IS etc 46
leftlion.co.uk/issue37
ve TK Maxx
Lives in: Ponce-box abo
Queuing outside Can usually be found: dnesday night We on the Bodega Social pital One: Relationship with Ca er of cash -ov ber Benevolent lob rything Credit card used for: Eve
Lives in: Cardboard box under Trent Bridge Can usually be nd: Queuing for Social Security onfou Thursday mornin g Relationship with Ca pital One: Trapped in one of the ir call centres Credit card used for: Slashing wrists