ART & LIT RICHARD MILWARD @ PINEAPPLE BLACK

Words: Claire Dupree Teesside author Richard Milward is highly revered around these parts, mostly due to his unique writing style which led the likes of Dazed & Confused to name him “one of the country’s most important and celebrated young authors”. Also a talented illustrator, Milward’s accolades come from far and wide, and his work is widely celebrated for its wit and gleeful abandon. His new novel Man-Eating Typewriter, published in March by White Rabbit, is yet another feather in the author’s cap, and described as a “hallucinogenic cocktail of A Clockwork Orange, Pale Fire and Jean Genet’s jailbird fantasies”. A surreal odyssey which flits from occupied Paris to lawless Tangier and London in the swinging 60s, Man-Eating Typewriter is an homage to the avant-garde counterculture of the 20th Century.

Milward pulls together a group of similarly talented Teesside pals for a special event at Pineapple Black on Saturday 15th July entitled Lubricate Reality With Dreams, which will include readings from Milward himself alongside David Keenan and a Q&A hosted by White Rabbit’s Lee Brackstone. There’s also a screening of Maxy Bianco’s Brother Nature, pop-up art and fashion courtesy of The Word & Happy Birthday, music from The Danny Kebabs, plus a special guest band to be announced. Richard Milward celebrates Man-Eating Typewriter at Pineapple Black, Middlesbrough on Saturday 15th July. www.richardmilward.com

MUSIC MUSIC AT THE MARINA @ NEWCASTLE QUAYSIDE

Words: Lee Fisher

There’s a new summertime all-dayer to put in the calendar, thanks to the team at NE1 in conjunction with Generator. Music At The Marina takes place on Saturday 29th July at the Urban Garden down on Newcastle’s Quayside, just in front of the law court and boasts a strong line-up of local talent. Running from 10am to 6pm, the line-up at this free event includes national hero Nev Clay, diffident exponent of confessional heartbreakers and tangential chat (in roughly equal amounts), upcoming teen outfit Idle Hands (with a sold-out Cluny 2 gig recently behind them), a mash-up of British and Pakistani influences from Haaji Ka Halva, a contemporary choir in the form of Voice Of The Town and the always on fire John Pope Quintet bringing fiery bass-driven jazz. All this and the Spin City DJs including the magnificent DJ Awkward Black Girl completing the line-up.

Music at the Marina takes place on Newcastle’s Quayside on Saturday 29th July. www.getintonewcastle.co.uk

17 TH - 23 RD JULY 2023

A mix and blend of the finest South Asian arts and culture

ROSHNI: SONIA SABRI COMPANY

Mon 17th July | 7.30pm

Dance City, Newcastle £15.00 / £12.50 concession dancecity.co.uk

MICHAEL MESSER’S MITRA

Wed 19th July | 8pm

The Cluny 2, Newcastle £15 / £17 ticketweb.uk

BBC Proms at Sage Gateshead: Yazz Ahmed and Arun GhosH Fri 21st July | 10pm-11.45pm

Sage Gateshead £8.00-£18.00 sagegateshead.com

Topographies: Places and Faces - South Asian Film

Shorts

Sat 22nd July | 3.30pm

BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead £5 gemarts.org

For full programme visit www.gemarts.org

The North East’s New Music Festival

Little Comets

Boiler Shop Newcastle

Tickets from £15 FREE tickets for NHS workers via Tickets For Good

Hannabiell & Midnight Blue

Benefits

Dylan Cartlidge Avalanche Party

Lizzie Esau

Ernie Venus Grrrls

Merczz + Sisi Me Lost Me

WHQ Electronic Stage Fringe Gigs & Conference +

MUSIC JUMPIN’ HOT CLUB’S COUNTRY CANTINA @ EASINGTON THORPE EAST FARM

Words: Lee Fisher

The Country Cantina is a really special event, clearly run for people not profit, just for the love of great music in green wondrousness.

Small and friendly – the Jumpin’ Hot crowd are a lovely bunch – it takes place in an accessible but fully rural barn and fields on the coast near Easington on Friday 14th and Saturday 15th July and offers a packed bill of roots music – Americana, Cajun, rockabilly and the rest – in an idyllic setting. This year you can catch local and national acts like Our Man In The Field, John Miller’s Country Casuals, The Veejay Cajun Band, national hero Nev Clay and the gentle Geordie swing of Shipcote & Friends, essentially the house band. There will also be campfire sessions, fine food and drink, a 78rpm record party and all sorts of other low-key shenanigans. The campsite is full but there’s a big parking area and plans for a minibus from Newcastle (check the website). Jumpin’ Hot Club’s Country Cantina takes place at Easington Thorpe East Farm on Friday 14th and Saturday 15th July. www.jumpinhot.com

ART & LIT

MICHAEL RAKOWITZ: THE WAITING GARDENS OF THE NORTH @ BALTIC

Words: Matt Young

Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz’s new project at BALTIC re-imagines the Hanging Garden, referencing the one in Babylon, considered among the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World. Rakowitz’s garden with be inhabited by new structures and sculptures reflecting the destroyed and looted cultural heritage of Iraq and Syria.

Using often highly charged political discourse as a personal jumping off point, Rakowitz expands his universe into memories, dreams and facsimiles, delving into complex social and cultural narratives. Rakowitz meticulously recreates lost cultural treasures using everyday objects and materials, such as newspapers, food packaging and discarded cans, detritus reclaimed from the streets. He conjures sculptural totems in his wider storytelling and his art acts as a catalyst for social engagement, prompting viewers to confront uncomfortable truths and engage with pressing contemporary issues www.michaelrakowitz.com

BALTIC have invited Michael Rakowitz, in partnership with Imperial War Museums and 14-18 NOW, to develop a major new commission in response to the idea of conflict. The artist’s proposal is to create a sprawling, immersive interior forest of trees, hedges, herbs and medicinal plants, conceived and tended to in collaboration with local organisations. The garden, at the end of the exhibition, will sprawl into the city in small parts to a network of community and school gardens, expanding its footprint beyond the gallery.

Michael Rakowitz: The Waiting Gardens of the North is at BALTIC, Gateshead from Saturday 15th July–Sunday 26th May 2024.

MUSIC NORTH EAST HARDCORE @ ANARCHY BREWERY

Words: Cameron Wright

Any fan of hardcore knows that at its purest, it’s best live. The sweat, the heat, the emotion and the community all together in a loud, proud mess. Ferocious vocals collide and fire off as dirty beats and mammoth riffs are churned out to rabid fans. It’s an experience that brings people together; a kinship that’s made through a love of the genre, a mutual understanding as everyone arrives for the same thrill.

Local promoters Neversleep are raising the sirens and releasing a rally cry for any likeminded fan of local hardcore music. Marketed as “the hardest show that’ll happen in Newcastle all year” the upcoming North East Hardcore gig at Anarchy Brewery on Friday 7th July is set to be a night of chaos and big beats.

Artists including Bloodfury, Wise Up!, Nothing

But Enemies, Cruelty and headliners Bulldoze will blow the roof off, and the night promises to be both a celebration of local talent, but also a safe haven for all fans of hardcore. North East Hardcore takes place at Anarchy Brewery, Newcastle on Friday 7th July. www.neversleepncl.com

MUSIC BREANNA BARBARA @ BOBIKS

Words: Jason Jones

Describing herself as a “southern occultist juxtaposed in the middle of the city”, Breanna Barbara brings her mesmeric, arrestingly luscious slant on indie nomadism to Bobiks on Tuesday 11th July. The Minnesota native –raised in Florida and now a resident of New York – released her sophomore album Nothin’ But Time late last year to blanket adoration, and has steadily garnered global attention for her pensive, Americana-tinged meditations ever since 2016 debut effort Mirage Dreams.

Introspective, spirited and ceaselessly entrancing, Barbara leans on a musical palette that is as indebted to psychedelia and classic rock tropes as it is to the old school country and Delta blues that first captured her heart as a teenager.

In more recent times, Barbara has served as touring vocalist for trip-hop legend Tricky, a collaboration that has allowed her to travel the globe ever more broadly and that culminated in her prominent inclusion on his 2021 LP, Lonely Guest.

Support is provided by local favourites Pink Poison, themselves wranglers and purveyors of all kinds of scuzzy, bluesy elements that combine to concoct a swirling, swaggering vortex of wonderful weirdness. If you needed any further convincing as to where you should be on the evening of Tuesday 11th, consider them to be it.