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Featuring George the Poet Jonathan Coe Rab Ferguson Sean Beaudoin Babak Ganjei Thomas Kearnes Neil Schiller Guest Editor Kele Okereke
Mystery Issue, March 2013 | 46
LITRO MAGAZINE Issue 136 | July 2014
Happenings
04
George the Poet
05
POETRY Q&A
Jonathan Coe AUTHOR Q&A
Rab Ferguson WHEN TIME SLOWS DOWN
07 11
Sean Beaudoin
15
Babak Ganjei
25
Thomas Kearnes
29
Neil Schiller
34
STEVE-O IN SEVEN MOVEMENTS
TWENTY-ONE YEARS SINCE NEVERMIND MILEY CYRUS RUINED MY SEX LIFE WERNER HERZOG GETS SHOT
COVER ARTIST Babak Ganjei
Babak Ganjei is an artist living in London. He has played music with Absentee and Wet Paint. He has published two graphic novels (Hilarious Consequences and Twit) and has just released an illustrated silent reworking of the movie Roadhouse, imaginatively titled Babak Ganjei's Roadhouse.His work and writing can be found at babakganjei.com
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Litro Magazine
Music
EDITORIAL Dear Reader, What is there to say about the intangible art that is music? Well according to our trusted Wikipedia, “Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch, rhythm, and dynamics,” but we know that’s only half the story. There is an unspoken inner connection between music and the spirit. Music, said Arnold Bennett, is “a language which the soul alone understands but which the soul can never translate.” Richter described music as “the poetry of the air.” Tolstoy called it “the shorthand of emotion.” Words are the language of the mind but music is the language of the soul. Litro 136—Music—opens with an interview with bestselling author Jonathan Coe, whose work has often been notable for its exploration of the intersection between music and literature. Coe is also a musician, and it’s an interest that shows in his written work. As he says in his interview, “If the most beautiful tune in the world was set to the blandest and stupidest words, it wouldn’t bother me very much”. In When Time Slows Down, Rab Ferguson explores the hold that music can have over us, and the connections that it makes with the key moments in our lives. There can be something magical in the way it controls and moves us. Then Sean Beaudoin dissects the lifespan of the aspiring musician in Steve-O in Seven Movements, as he follows his protagonist from anarchic teenage rebellion to an altogether milder middle age. Beaudoin has rock credentials of his own, as the author of Young Adult rock novel Wise Young Fool. His reimagining of the rock’n’roll lifestyle rings eerily true.
Babak Ganjei’s cartoon Twenty-One Years Since Nirvana provides the heart of the issue, as he illustrates the ongoing influence of Nirvana, one of the most celebrated rock bands of all time. Then Thomas Kearnes turns the spotlight on Hannah Montana in Miley Cyrus Ruined My Sex Life. In MAAM—Mothers Against Allowing Miley—Kearnes has created a movement that sounds so realistic it might even already exist. Finally, we have Werner Herzog Gets Shot by Neil Schiller, in which a young music journalist unexpectedly returns to his Germanic roots, thanks to the music of an undiscovered band. If there’s one thing these stories have in common, it’s the power of music to connect and transport, whether it is being listened to or performed. There is nothing more powerful or more seductive than music and as a singer, producer and DJ, the joy that music brings is something that I have devoted my life to.
Kele Okereke Guest Editor July 2014
HAPPENINGS THIS MONTH
Litro Presents… at Latitude 2014 Latitude Festival, Henham Park, Southwold, Suffolk July 17-20, 2014 Litro will be hosting three enlightening talks at this year’s Latitude Festival, as part of the Literature line-up. Topics discussed will range from the secrets of getting your first book published to the impact of social media on modern fiction. Joining us in Latitude’s Shed of Stories will be editor-turned-writer Luke Brown (My Biggest Lie) in conversation with his contemporary James Miller (Lost Boys, Sunshine State); Patrick Flanery (Absolution, Fallen Land) talking with historian and TV presenter Kate Williams (Becoming Queen, Josephine); and finally the novelist, editor, publisher and translator Ben Fergusson–—author of our current Book Club read, The Spring of Kasper Meier—in discussion with new literary voice Rebecca Swirsky. The schedule for these three unique events is as follows (all take place in the Shed of Stories): Friday, July 18, 13:30-14:45—Luke Brown & James Miller Saturday, July 19, 18:00-19:15—Patrick Flanery & Kate Williams Sunday, July 20, 12:30-13:45—Ben Fergusson & Rebecca Swirsky We’ll also be reporting live from the festival on some of this year’s most exciting and innovative acts, as Litro goes to Latitude. For more details on the Latitude Festival and ticketing options, visit www.latitudefestival.com
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POETRY Q&A Litro talks to one of the hottest names on London's spoken word scene
with George the Poet Litro: What's your dream festival lineup, if you could select artists from any era? George the Poet: I just really wanna see Michael Jackson Litro: How important are lyrics in your musical process? George the Poet: Lyrics are everything to me, I build songs around them. Litro: Do you have a favourite lyric from someone else's song? George the Poet: That's hard. Probably Sam Cooke "Change is gonna come". Litro: Do you read much, either at home or on tour? George the Poet: Yeah reading really stimulates my writing Litro: How much does your reading influence your music? George the Poet: Words are gateways into other worlds, so reading helps me bring different things out of my music. Litro: If you weren't a musician, what would you like to be doing? George the Poet: I'd be making more money and working with kids. Litro: Will you be checking out the other stages at Latitude? George the Poet: I'll be checking everything! Litro: Who/what do you want to see? George the Poet: I haven't seen Ady Suleiman in a while and he's sick, can't wait to check the progress. I'm excited for loads of people though. Litro: Whose work—director, author, artist—would you like to write a musical score for? George the Poet: Charlie Brooker. If you see him please tell him George would like a word.
George The Poet is performing at Latitude Festival on Saturday 19th July in the Poetry Arena. Music, July 2014 | 05
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AUTHOR Q&A Kele Okereke talks music with the acclaimed novelist and biographer
with Jonathan Coe Kele: Music seems to play a significant part in your work. You famously named The Rotters' Club after progressive rock group Hatfield and the North. Where does your fascination with music come from? Jonathan: I don’t know where it comes from, but if you don’t mind rewinding to the early 70s for a moment, I can tell you exactly what the trajectory was. The first piece of music I can remember being blown away by was ‘Fire’ by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. I saw them perform it on Top of the Pops in 1968, when I would have been six or seven. It’s a famous bit of footage, with Arthur Brown singing the song while wearing his flaming helmet, and it made the most incredible impression. Terrifying and exciting at the same time. But for the next year or two, my main love was rock’n’roll—real 1950s rock’n’roll, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis. The first album I bought, at the newsagents and general stores at the top of our hill (which also had a little revolving rack of LPs) was a Bill Haley compilation, which cost 15 shillings. Then in 1972 ELO did a cover of Chuck Berry’s ‘Roll Over Beethoven’, and I loved the way they had incorporated classical strings and bits of the 5th Symphony. So I bought their album ELO 2, which unlike their later records is an out-and-out prog album. Five songs stretched over 40 minutes, lots of apocalyptic lyrics and tricky time changes. And that was a terrible turning point for me. I gave up on the other bands I’d been listening to (Roxy Music, Mott the Hoople, Derek and the Dominos) and became a total progressive music freak. I started with the soft stuff—Genesis, Camel, Caravan—but after a year or two I was mainlining Henry Cow and Gentle Giant. Of course, progressive music more or less fizzled out in the late 1970s, and I moved on to other things, like Ian Dury, Television and Talking Heads, but soon after that, in the early 1980s, British pop music had a new generation of great songwriters: Paddy McAloon, Roddy Frame, Ben Watt, Morrissey and Marr. When I formed my band The Peer Group, these were the people we tried to sound like. Kele: Your mother was a music teacher. What were your earliest musical memories? Jonathan: My first memory of playing music was a terrible repetitive piano piece called ‘The Jolly Farmer’ which I was made to play over and over until I hated it with a visceral passion. I had a few piano lessons but I was always bad at reading music: I had no patience for sitting down and learning musical theory, all I wanted to do was improvise. My first guitar was a present for my ninth birthday, and using that I wrote my first song. It was called ‘Sunset’. It had three chords—A major, G major and E major—and one line of lyrics, “Oh, the sun goes up and the sun goes down”. That was it. A bit like T Rex, actually, who I was also very into at the time. As a teenager, as I said, I got into my proggy phase and discovered the delights of major sevenths and major ninths, these bitter-sweet, Music, July 2014 | 07
WHEN TIME SLOWS DOWN Music casts its spell over an old flame
by Rab Ferguson There is a smell like botanic gardens, and ash. I relax back on the sofa as the smoke rises, drifting up and filling the room. I breathe in, rolling c-shaped curls through my mouth before pulling them down into my lungs. I breathe out, muttering the incantation, and they untwine, laid flat, then spin back into shape as they float away. There must be music as well, of course, because that gives the spell its power. I use the same songs as we used together. Most of them were held in me before we happened, and even the ones she introduced are as much mine as hers now. I consider Zeppelin, climbing a golden staircase that spirals up to the progression of the guitar. The recorders’ hum flows with me, a buoyancy gently pushing me on. Gradually faster, looking out to the green fields below, where the piper plays and the May Queen walks half between spring and summer. Faster still, guitar chords driving me forward as my shadow curves down the stairs. The solo, and I’m flying, leaving the last gold step and running through the air. As it slows I drift down, still lazily walking, then land crouched on the sweet smelling grass. Or Springsteen singing ‘Jungleland’. The violin raising a jazz city: the buildings blue and black cubes with yellow square windows. Rain patters in time with the piano, while the streetlight reflections are fire underfoot and on the roofs of cars. The saxophone roars, blowing the detail away into blazing colours. They fade, leaving their neon touches in the outline of a street. A last crescendo, the city in glorious Technicolor, before it wisps away on the night time wind. But I decide on The Mamas and the Papas, and ‘California Dreamin’. I turn the volume up on my laptop and set it playing. The guitar drives waves of smoke up through the room, and the harmonies knot around me, raising me towards the ceiling. As I reach the roof the flute begins to play and it stretches out as a white void above. I walk on a winter path, the snow crunching in rhythm. Branches arc overhead and above them the sky is bright and clear. The cold rings on my cheeks and steam slips out from between my lips. I draw the air in, a bitter but fresh rush through my body, then push it out and fall softly onto the sofa. The warmth has become the restful heat of a log fire, emanating over me as I sink back, the stress in my neck uncoiling and clicking away. I let out a long breath, and should have been sunken and happy till I was ready to choose the next song, but she leans over the side of the sofa, both hands on the armrest, her hair dangling over one side of her face. She smiles, the pink of her tongue poking out between her teeth: the way it always did when she was close to laughing. “I didn’t want to see you tonight,” I say. “Why all this then?” She lifts her hand and twirls lazy spirals in the smoke. Music, July 2014 | 11
STEVE-O IN SEVEN MOVEMENTS The seven ages of an aspiring musician
by Sean Beaudoin One Steve-O and Mike start playing in seventh grade because Mike's stepbrother is in a band called Valium Rescue and sometimes the stepbrother gets laid so why not? But mostly they drink and wear tube socks and have a van. It's fun. They come up with a name, The Torrentials, and play hardcore, which is not punk and so involves constantly correcting people. Mike says, “hardcore is to a pickaxe what punk is to lipstick.” There are some fights. By high school they play crappy clubs—mosh pits and straight edge and trying to sound even a tiny bit like Minor Threat while pretending not to. Mike wears an earring, a Gibson SG, and a Clash City Rockers T-shirt. Steve-O buys an off-brand bass for eighty dollars. It's called, like, “Bass.” The case is lined with fake pink fur that Mike says smells like pussy which make Steve-O think Mike was lying about all those cheerleaders because it smells nothing like pussy, and Steve-O would know since been hanging out at Dana Crane's for months, the Sunday nights when both her parents are at work and they can raid the liquor cabinet and listen to Murphy's Law on her futon. Mike suddenly decides he doesn't like The Torrentials any more. He wants to change the name to November Regions. Steve-O thinks November Regions is the lamest name he's ever heard. It sounds like a song from the last U2 demo that even U2 thought sucked too hard to actually put on the album. There's a fight, Steve-O wins. Mike spray-paints a bed sheet and hangs it in his parent’s garage. There is, of course, an anarchy circle around the A. Mike has no idea what anarchy is, or even wants to be. Something about wallet chains and waiters getting more per hour plus tips. This older dude named Drew plays drums. He's so good that he doesn't bother playing what they play. He looks like Iggy Pop and does roll after roll across the roto-toms. Ray Skal, already graduated, sings. He's balding and brings his own little cooler full of Bud Lite and refuses to share. He looks sort of like Brian Eno. SteveO knows that because he just bought a Brian Eno album, Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy, from the Imports section at Record World. The Torrentials have four songs. One original, a cover of Black Flag’s ‘TV Party,’ plus sarcastic covers of Berlin's ‘The Metro’ and The Thompson Twins' ‘Hold Me Now.’ Andy rolls blunts and keeps saying “they're not even really twins!” Music, July 2014 | 15
16 | Litroby Magazine Illustration Babak Ganjei
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www. l ocand a o t t o e me z z o.c o.u k Music, July 2014 | 21
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Mystery Issue, March 2013 | 22
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First Prize: £10,000*
The Manchester Writing Competition 2014 Manchester Poetry and Fiction Prizes
Under the direction of Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, the Manchester Writing School at MMU is launching the 2014 Manchester Writing Competition. The Manchester Poetry Prize will award £10,000* to the writer of the best portfolio of three to five poems (total maximum length 120 lines); the Manchester Fiction Prize will award £10,000* to the writer of the best short story of up to 2,500 words in length. The competition is open internationally to both new and established writers aged 16 or over. Judges – Adam Horovitz, Adam O’Riordan and Clare Pollard (Poetry). Christopher Burns, Claire Dean and Nicholas Royle (Fiction). The prizes will be awarded at a gala event hosted as part of the 2014 Manchester Literature Festival. For further details, to enter online, or to download a printable entry form for postal submission, go to: www.manchesterwritingcompetition.co.uk
…or contact the Manchester Writing School at MMU on
+44 (0) 161 247 1787/1797; writingschool@mmu.ac.uk
Deadline for entries: Friday 29th August 2014
Entry fee: £17.50 23 | Litro Magazine
*Terms and Conditions apply. See: www.manchesterwritingcompetition.co.uk
MILEY CYRUS RUINED MY SEX LIFE Suburban mothers unite against Miley
by Thomas Kearnes I’ve never understood canopy beds. It escapes me what a girl enjoys by having a cloth roof stretched over her. After all, there’s already a plaster one sheltering her room. Yet my daughter Chloe insisted; it was what she most wanted for Christmas, nine months ago. My wife told me we should be grateful that we were able to cater to our only child’s whims. Please, she murmured into my neck, Santa always rewards the nice boys. At the time, I thought it was kind of tacky for a grown woman to promise a man sex if he indulged her child, but these days even a hand job would make me shout like a revival minister. Chloe stirs beneath the covers when I kiss her forehead. She wants to know why Mommy isn’t taking her to school. Today is Mommy’s special meeting, I tell her. I’m not sure she knows what rally means. Oh, she says, and begins to dress. She’s still too young to find her parents embarrassing. In a couple of years, the eye rolling will begin. It will be Mom and Dad, not Mommy and Daddy. After that, Bitch and Loser. I’ve warned Lorna about this, that the last thing we should do is squander our credibility with Chloe’s friends, but she insists her crusade against Miley is God working through her. It’s not enough to protect our own daughter, she said, we must fight for all the children. Chloe emerges from her bathroom ready for the day. She’s still young enough to completely blot out, like an eclipse, any information that scares or confuses her. I might as well have told her Lorna was headed to Mars. As I follow Chloe out of her room, I glance at the patch of wall once home to a Hannah Montana poster, still a shade darker than what surrounds it. The sunshine pours through Chloe’s window every afternoon. Lorna had wanted to force Chloe to destroy the poster herself. I had to literally shake her to dislodge that lovely idea. Lorna has converted our den into the MAAM headquarters. Picket signs, posters and buttons fill the room. I must fight the urge to rig an election. My wife dreamed up the slogans her minions will shout today at noon in front of Best Buy. (Lorna lacks the courage to picket Wal-Mart.) When I imagine my petite, pixie-haired wife yelling NO TRAMPS IN THIS TOWN and MILEY CYRUS IS A VIRUS alongside her homely, middle-aged compatriots, I can’t compute how all that drive, beauty and compassion has been funnelled down to cheap alliterations and cheesy rhymes. Chloe asks Lorna what’s worse, a tramp or a slut? My wife’s eyes pop and she sets down the tape dispenser, kneeling before our daughter. That’s what parenthood demands of you: living life on your knees. They’re both very bad, Lorna tells her. I smirk and say they’re synonyms. After I send Chloe to the car, my wife mumbles that no one likes a smart-ass. I remind her that she liked them enough to marry one. Music, July 2014 | 29
WERNER HERZOG GETS SHOT A musical discovery reignites memories of the Fatherland
by Neil Schiller On the day that he left my sister cried. I didn’t. I was ten and I understood why he had to go. He took me to one side in the kitchen and explained it to me. I was the man of the house now. I needed to take care of the others. Once he was settled we could visit. I never saw him again. That night we sat together around our second hand television set, the ragged band of survivors that was now our family. It was almost Christmas. We ate marshmallows and watched Schneewitchen und die sieben Zwerge. That’s Snow White to you. It seemed to cheer everyone else up, but not me. I watched the stupid little green men tramp about in a brown smudge of old animation frames and I thought of him. If he’d been here he would have let me stay up late while he told me about Düsseldorf and the friends he’d had back there when he was growing up. He alone knew how hard it was. I saw it in his eyes. He took me to work with him once in the school holiday and I watched him grin goodnaturedly as the other mechanics made references to his brown overalls and his lunch of pumpernickel bread and rollmops. He told me afterwards it was just jealousy because he could fix automobile engines better than they could. “Why do they call you Franz?” “Ach, they are too stupid to pronounce Jürgen.” So he knew. I told him about school and he was at least sympathetic. My mother just couldn’t seem to grasp it. She embarrassed me by making me translate when the school nurse told her me and my sister had caught head lice. She made me ask if our German passports would be ok for a school trip to Wales. And she sent me in with my hair cut into a short back and sides. The top was a long fringe combed neatly from a left sided part. I looked like any other schoolboy catching the Deutsche Bahn in the crisp Rhine morning. Except I wasn’t catching the Deutsche Bahn was I? The kids called me Nazi Hitler and marched about behind me wherever I went. Nobody did anything about it. I think the teachers even found it funny. I learned the language quickly enough though. I started with “fuck off,” but it obviously sounded hilarious in my thick German accent because whenever I used it I’d have four or five kids shouting it back, mimicking the clipped way it came out of my mouth. So I ditched the accent too. I refused to speak in anything but English at home and I started cutting my own fucking hair.
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Publisher & Editor-in-Chief: Eric Akoto Magazine Editor: Dan Coxon dan.coxon@litro.co.uk General Online Editor : Eric Akoto Online Short Fiction Editor: Katy Darby katy.darby@litro.co.uk Online Fiction Editor: Craig Bates onlinefiction@litro.co.uk Non-Fiction Editor: Bella Reid nonfiction@litro.co.uk Book Reviews Editor: Inder Sidhu inder.sidhu@litro.co.uk Arts Editor: Daniel Janes arts@litro.co.uk Film & Arts Editor: Robin McConnell filmreviews@litro.co.uk Contributing Editors at large: Sophie Lewis, Rio, Brazil Lead Designer: Laura Hannum Marketing & Sales: info@litro.co.uk
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Institute of Continuing Education
International Summer Schools 6 July – 22 August 2014
Creative Writing Summer School 3 - 16 August Our new two-week programme builds on Cambridge’s rich literary tradition and is designed for participants who wish to develop their existing writing skills. Elements will focus on the writing of poetry, fiction and non-fiction in a range of genres and styles. Speakers include Wendy Cope, Jill Dawson, Jem Poster and Louis de Bernières.
Hanseatic League Summer School 17 - 22 August This multidisciplinary one-week programme, based at Madingley Hall, looks at the League’s foundation to its heyday, and beyond. Lectures embrace trade, transport, religion and politics. The course includes visits to King’s Lynn and the Fitzwilliam Museum. The Creative Writing Summer School can follow on from our Literature Summer School, or one of the other one to six-week specialist or interdisciplinary programmes detailed on our website. They are taught by leading Cambridge scholars and guest subject specialists. Participants can stay in an historic Cambridge College and take part in a range of excursions and social activities. +44 (0)1223 760850 intenq@ice.cam.ac.uk www.ice.cam.ac.uk/intsummer
LITRO| 136 The recorders’ hum flows with me, a buoyancy gently pushing me on. Gradually faster, looking out to the green fields below, where the piper plays and the May Queen walks half between spring and summer. Faster still, guitar chords driving me forward as my shadow curves down the stairs. The solo, and I’m flying, leaving the last gold step and running through the air. From When Time Slows Down by Rab Ferguson www.litro.co.uk
ISBN 978-0-9554245-5-7
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