No Hands Zine #25 Jan 2013

NO HANDS ZINE EDITION

#25

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ILLUSTRATION: Jo Billingsley — upflung.tumblr.com Design & Layout — www.bjthebear.com

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NO HANDS – JANUARY 2013 EDITORIAL: Richard Brass

WE’RE BACK! The more perceptive of you will note that we are back at our spiritual home The Polish Club. The Polish Club will always have a special place in our heart and we’re lookin forward to starting 2013 back there. But what a great coupla months we had at the 1in12 Club! Culminating in the Christmas party, with the 90’s Band special, it was flippin’ awesome. Thanks to everyone who came down and made it such a special night. We lay down the framework: the music, the bands, and all those little touches we hope you notice, like the zine you hold in your hand right now. But without you, well, it wouldn’t be a party. So keep on coming down and we’ll keep trying to make No Hands the night that you can rely on. By the way we will be back at the 1in12 in some way shape or form, cos we love the place. Funnily enough it seems there’s a split between those who think the 1in12 is the best NH venue, and those who think it’s gotta be the Polish. Some of you will

recall some pretty mental nights at the Playhouse as well. We’ve had memorable nights at em’ all, but what’s your favourite NH venue and why. Drop us a line and let us know

Email: mail@nohandsbradford.co.uk Web: www.nohandsbradford.co.uk Facebook: Search ‘No Hands Bradford’ Twitter: @nohandsbradford So this month is Grrrl month. What’s that all about you say? Well, a little while back it was jested that No Hands was made up of a testosterone fuelled bunch of lads, and that girls weren’t exactly represented. Inequality rife in the NH camp! Not entirely true o course, but we thought why not take the opportunity to let the boys take a back seat and the girls up to the front, take NH by the scruff of the neck and give it a shake up. We’re pretty excited, boys n girls alike, let the musical mayhem ensue!

SHIPLEY ZINEFEST @ THE HIVE'S POP UP SHOP IN THE UNDERGROUND MARKET - MARCH 2013 A month long event celebrating the art of the zine. The programme includes print workshops, a pop-up zine library and the launch of the Howdo?! Photocopy Club. Every Friday afternoon artists, poets and writers are invited to make and produce an A4 zine celebrating Secret Shipley.

More info— www.hivebradford.org.uk or email dianablagg@yahoo.com

ALL GRRRL!

By Leon Carroll Lets face it, there’s more than enough all boy groups in this world. Kasabian anyone? Thought not. I’m probably not best placed to comment on why females in pop and rock bands are outnumbered by males, being a male myself and benefiting from the privilege that entails. Elsewhere in this issue you may find a female perspective on this issue. I don’t have any answers, but I know what I like. So here are five current all girl bands who I love and who you may or may not have heard of. They are all unashamedly of an indiepop persuasion but hey, write what you know.

THE TUTS

The Tuts are a girl gang from darkest Middlesex, they play punky, spiky pop with a bit of ska and are excellent fun live. They’ve recently supported Kate Nash and have been described as a female Libertines.

I don’t really like The Libertines, but I like The Tuts. thetuts.tumblr.com

SEPTEMBER GIRLS

of which were on legendary K Records and they write upbeat noisy pop songs that rarely go over 2 and a half minutes. Short and bittersweet. www.agsfb.com

LIECHTENSTEIN

Liechtenstein are from Gothenburg and are influenced

by British bands such as Talulah Gosh and The Mo-dettes. Their songs are often atmospheric and the distinctive vocals complete with cool Swedish accents make them stand out for me. liechtenstein.bandcamp.com Now at this point I had a bit of a problem, and I struggled to come up with a fifth ‘current’ all female band which I know and love. Yeah I could throw in Dum Dum Girls, or Vivian Girls, but I’m not a massive fan of either of them (Dum Dum Girls were excellent when I saw them live but they don't do it for me on record). So I suppose that makes a point in itself indiepop fan tries to write top 5 all female band article and can only think of 4 current bands he loves (and indiepop is doing better than most genres in the female representation stakes, although its by no means a 50/50 male/female split). I didn’t set out to do that, I’m not smart enough to have thought of being so wry and clever. I could give you loads of female fronted bands, even ones where the females are in central roles with creative control, but all girl bands are harder to think of. That’s not good is it?

That being the case though, and not wanting to miss an opportunity to plug a great band, heres a female led and fronted pop band I really love:

THE SCHOOL September Girls are from Ireland, they have three, count em, guitarists and they make a holy wall of sound with surfy guitars and absolutely lashings of reverb. They released their debut 7” last year on Matinee Recordings and an album is likely in 2013. septembergirls.tumblr.com

ALL GIRL SUMMER FUN BAND

The School are from Cardiff and are led by Liz Hunt, and they make infectious pop which wears its Spector and Beach Boys influences on its vintage 1960s sleeve. They are signed to Spanish label Elefant Records and are therefore label mates of Camera Obscura, The Primitives and Helen Love. theschoolband.blogspot.co.uk In any case, in celebration of all girl bands, and female fronted bands, I also created a you tube play list of stuff I love which you can access via the No Hands website at this address:

AGSFB are a bit of an indiepop super group featuring as they do Jen Sbragia from The Softies and Kathy Foster from The Thermals. They’re from Portland, Oregon and have released three albums, the first two

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMgRBSDeqR c_n1nOKzNqn8RSdJx369i0c

NO HANDS INTERVIEWS THE LEGENDARY ‘ZINESTER: KARREN ABLAZE!

by Richard Brass THE CITY IS ABLAZE! For those who weren’t knocking about on the indie scene in the late 80s early 90s you mightn’t have heard of the Ablaze! fanzine; but let me tell you it was gorgeous! Penned by Karren Ablaze!, it was evocative, exciting and utterly fearless. For the better part of a decade Ablaze! was the herald for the indie, post-post punk, grunge and the alternative music scene in the North (especially Leeds and Manchester). A decade which saw the explosion of C86 indie bands, the advent of Baggy and the Madchester sound, Shoegaze, the tidal wave of American Grunge, Riot Grrrl and the beginnings of the bloated construct that was Britpop.

Quickly scanning the front cover of Karren’s just published book, “The City is Ablaze!”, reads an epoch making roll call of bands including The Wedding Present, Nirvana, My Bloody Valentine, Stone Roses, Sonic Youth, The Smiths, all interviewed or reviewed by Karren Ablaze. At times incurring the wrath of said bands with a splash of passionate penmanship; I mean you’ve gotta be doing summat right when you get a handwritten letter of complaint from Morrissey. That would be a major life event for many; for this pioneering zine maker it was all in a day’s work. The best bits of 10 years worth of the Ablaze! popzine, with comments and personal memories, can be found in this truly mighty tome. I managed to grab a little email interview with said pioneer for No Hands; thank you kindly Karren A: RB: Last time I encountered you was nigh on 20 years ago, selling your zine outside the 1in12 after a Huggy Bear gig. I could have sworn this was no later than 1992 but my memory gets sketchy. I recall it a mildly riotous gig with Huggy Bear calling for all the boys to move aside and make way for the girls to come to the front so they could dance. A scuffle and confusion then reigned when someone clambered on stage with a Ku Klux Klan type hood on. Any memories of that gig?

KA: I remember that gig vaguely, and that poor boy did get a hard time off the girls in Huggy Bear.

The whole tour though was super intense. I recall Jo Huggy taking a strong stance against moshpit violence at the Derby gig, and one of the band getting beaten up for that. There’s too much to say about everything that happened. Emotions and inspiration ran very high; there was creation and destruction in equal measures.

RB: No Hands is a Bradford ‘zine; what was your favourite Bradford venue back in the Ablaze! years, and was there any particular gig that really stood out as special?

Pavement’s first UK release was on an Ablaze! flexi. You’ve gotta be proud of that! Do you still have a record player and a record collection?

KA: It’s very pleasing to me that we were involved with Pavement at that early stage in their, umm, career. We even have a few copies of that one left (we’re selling them online cheaper than the record collector sites – www.ablazefanzine.com). I do still have a record collection, although I have just moved to Spain, and it has stayed with someone who can enjoy it. Since leaving Leeds I’ve acquired more vinyl in the shape of a limited edition Kim Deal single from ATP, so I’m gonna have to pick up a turntable now too.

RB: Nostalgia can be a crippling emotion, and perhaps I’m guilty of encapsulating the Ablaze! years as being an especially fertile period for underground indie music, but also one that saw a transition. Did the state of the music scene in 1994 (i.e. Britpop crashing the charts, electronic dance music changing the nature of clubbing etc) have any effect on your decision to close the Ablaze! doors?

KA: It wasn’t those things that stopped Ablaze!, because behind all those mainstream movements the underground carried on, and there were so many amazing US bands going at that time: Cupid Car Club, Unwound, Girls Against Boys, Drive Like Jehu, Scrawl, Heavens To Betsy (eventually Sleater Kinney)… I would have carried Ablaze! on for delights such as these.

KA: It’s gotta be the 1 in 12. What a beautiful place!!! I feel very proud of what you’ve all achieved with this venue. Anyone who hasn’t visited must go. It’s a Yorkshire bastion of anarchism, vegan cooking and amazing music.

RB: You were 24 when the Ablaze! era came to an end. In an interview you did with Vice you suggested that age was perhaps a factor as you were becoming more aware that what you wrote may offend people. There seems a tinge of sadness in this. Do you think that seminal, critical art is best created by the young as they are naturally fearless?

RB: Your zine sometimes came with a free flexi. In fact

KA: That might be true. Maybe it can only come from

the ones who have nothing to lose: drunk seventeen year-olds with no concept of danger, free to scale the walls marked “do not climb”.

RB: You’ve been a major influence for many other writers, for many zines. What would you say the core principles, key factors of a great ‘zine should be?

But then again, this is also the realm of old people.

The best piece of taking the piss out of a policeman I have ever seen was by a grandma at the Menwith Hill American spy base. He was like “Do not cross this line” and she was like “well what if I put one foot on one side and one foot on the other” etc. There was nothing he could do.

KA: I used to feel good about dictating the standards of zine production, but I don’t anymore. It’s nicer to be surprised. However, my favourite zines right now are exclusively about menstruation, so maybe that should be the number one core principle ;) RB: With the advent of the internet, social media and instantaneous access to reviews, interviews, sound clips etc etc do you think an actual paper fanzine has the power to affect people in the same way it did 20 years ago? Dave Haslam (Manchester writer/dj) started out as a ‘zine writer and in an article you wrote for the Guardian in 2009 he noted that “maybe...there was a deeper cultural value” to the “products and exchanges” of that era.

Would you agree?

KA: Yes, I don’t exactly see how a paper fanzine can do now what it could do pre-internet. Zines were crucial for the information they contained and we now have pretty much all of that in a very convenient storage system. But I don’t think the zine’s potential is exhausted, by any means, and I’d like to see what else they can do.

Forget the sadness; any time is the time to do the thing that it’s in your heart to do. It would be bogus to suggest that the only exciting art is that of the adolescent. (They are totally in charge of punk rock though.)

RB: Following on from this; you upset Sonic Youth with a review which they considered, “ageist!”.

That was sometime back now and they were still playing in 2011! How do you feel looking back in hindsight. Do you think a certain maturity in writing comes with age, a predisposition to analysing your thoughts as opposed to a stream of conscious as it were.

KA: Yes I do feel that I’m now able to have a bit of a think about what I write, whereas back then I was happy to write a bunch of nonsense and never even look at it again. That’s why it surprised me so much when people got upset about what I wrote. I think I was just writing whatever was on the top of my head at the time. As for Sonic Youth, it’s only because of how incredibly fucking important they were that I cared enough to slag them off.

RB: Did ten years of writing Ablaze! and complete immersion within the music scene leave you jaded at all. Is music still an all-encompassing passion?

KA: No, it didn’t leave me jaded. I carried on loving music just as much, and formed bands and stuff.

I think now, like 20 years later, I am a little bit harder to please, but I really love UK underground bands like Cowtown, Wooderson, Jelas, Monster Killed By Lazer, So’eza, Autobodies, Executive Legs, Wednesday Club, Jesus and his Judgemental Father…

RB: If you were still writing Ablaze! today is there one individual or one band that you’d love to interview.

KA: Green Gartside!

RB: In true DIY style you started your own publishing house to print The City is Ablaze!. What can we expect from you in the future; any print projects lined up?

KA: Yes! In the absence of submissions by any other writers as yet, I’ve written a book about health, a story about travelling in Portugal, I’m part way through a set of essays based around the Madrid Metro, and am planning a Handbook the Dismantling of Lad Culture, for which all manner of contributions (songs, poems, essays, stories, interviews etc) are welcome. Please feel free to contact us at info@mittenson.com and/or pick up a copy of The City Is Ablaze! from www.thecityisablaze.com.

GRRRLS, BANDS……AND BABIES?!

By Louise Phelan When recently asked by a male friend post-gig how I managed the ‘dichotomy’ of being a mother and being in a band I don’t mind admitting that the question had me rather stumped. The observation itself was nothing new, I’ve been asked many times how I manage to be in a band and have a baby and have a number of trite but true statements involving family help, understanding partner/bandmates, laborious timetabling and so on in stock, but ‘dichotomy’? That stuck.

I found the word floating around my head for days; what is it about these two things which means they’re so inherently opposed? And far more pressingly - why wasn’t anyone asking the boys the same question?!

‘Dichotomy’ can be defined as a ‘division into two parts, kinds, etc’ or even worse ‘division into two mutually exclusive, opposed, or contradictory groups’ Wow, so not only was I split in half, but my two halves were fighting (no wonder I was so knackered…). Now the discussion of these two (perceived) halves is far beyond the space and scope of this minor musing, as well as the ability of yours truly, but let’s take a little look…

Girls in music. Well, let’s face it, it’s not been great.

Great – and some not so great - strides have been made and a glance at the charts (if you can stomach it) will throw up a number of lone female singers doing very well, thank you. However, it’s fairly safe to say that the vast majority of these will be pretty girls at the helm of a record company wet dream, primped and preened by men, in videos by men, singing songs written by, well, men. And yes, of course there are quite a few notable exceptions of women singing, writing, and playing the music themselves, but they remain for the most part exactly that – exceptions.

When it comes to women in bands it’s much the same story, the standard still very much remains the 4/5 young white boys with guitars, the obvious high profile exceptions exist but they largely remain a girl in a predominantly male band. Oh and don’t get me started on the utterly depressing new feature of ‘Guitar World Girls’ in Guitar World magazine, but it’s a fine example of the position of girls in music, position being the operative word….

And so to the other half – the ‘mother’, now this is an interesting one. You are supposed to change when you have a baby, people are very clear about this.

From the moment the truth is out you will find yourself bombarded with warnings of how your life will change, how you will change, how You…. Must…. Change.

Now I nodded along with the rest of them as this rang in my ears for the umpteenth time whilst it slowly dawned ‘erm, why is that exactly?’.

Being a parent is a bit bonkers, it requires reserves of patience and energy you almost certainly didn’t know existed, but it does not require a fundamental change.

Indeed the best thing you can do (in my humble opinion) when faced with the, let’s face it rather terrifying prospect of sole responsibility of a brand new and utterly helpless person is keep a ruddy tight grip on who you are because you’re gonna need it.

Flawed and imperfect though you will undoubtedly be, being yourself and doing it your own way is the only way it will work. Try and follow the endless ’helpful’ suggestions, gentle coercions and vague or explicit disapprovals and you are not only doomed to fail whilst chasing an impossible dream, you’re likely to be pretty miserable too. If you change beyond recognition to fit what you feel you ought to be, well, it will get you in the end.

Louise plays bass in The Hobbes Fanclub (with 2 lovely boys!)

My son is ace and being his Mum is fantastic fun, a total joy and the most important thing I do, but I am not him and he is not me. Being his parent does not remove the need to receive pleasure or gratification or indeed any sense of purpose from any other source, and if it did, I would be doing him (and myself) a disservice, not to mention that I’d be a pretty dull Mum, and person - can I be both? I think so.

TESS TALKS GRRRL! I’ve always been a fan of a female vocal so when the idea of Grrrl Month at No Hands popped up I got all giddy. It's the likes of Camera Obscura, Anna Calvi and Lucy Rose that make me want to perform. One of my favourite bands of all time are the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and one of my greatest inspirations is YYY's front woman, Karen O, and how could you not love her?

Following the Grrrl theme this month we have the fabulous Dooks heading up the live music upstairs. Daisy's vocals are so effortlessly powerful.

Make sure you check them out... definitely not one to be missed!

POPSY PROMOTIONS PARTY TIME PRESENTS —

DEATH SHANTIES

Free Jazz group combining references to Medieval music, Sea Shanties and Field Hollars... devotional images, food stuffs, hair and projections.

Featuring Alex Nielson out of Trembling Bells and that.

RICHARD DAWSON

From Newcastle. UKs greatest singer songwriter returns to his second home, Bradford, to perform his unique brand of tear-jerking, jaw dropping non-revisionist folk. www.richarddawson.net

L'OEILLERE THE SASSYS

from France. Barabaric classical guitar www.loeillere.com

From London. Classic rock and roll covers by Bo Diddley and more, featuring Giles out of Kill Yourself and stuff. www.thesassysband.tumblr.com

I'll be playing a set with my sister Emily upstairs to kickstart the night and then you can catch us DJ-ing later on downstairs.

+ TIBETAN FOOD IN THE CAFE AVAILABLE FROM 7PM + COCKTAILS + DJS TILL LATE! AT THE 1 AND ONLY 1 AND 12 CLUB, ALBION ST, BRADFORD. FOR MEMBERS AND THEIR GUESTS. £4 IN.

THIS TIME

NEXT TIME

Friday 25 January 2013

Friday 22 February 2013

+ SUPPORTS Unique & Soulful Balladry from Daisy Dook with full band w w w. d o o k s . c o

Tess Connor-Kavanagh

+ Special Guest

MONTH

GRRRL DJS BANDS THEME ZINE

At The Polish Club, Edmund St, Bradford BD5 OBH just £2 entry for live music upstairs FREE DOWNSTAIRS FROM 8pm + FREE ZINE + DJs + DANCING til 2am

SILENT FRONT

From london. Stalwarts of the noise rock DIY underground. Think Unsane, Shellac, Dazzling Killmen. Handsome powerful rockers. www.silentfront.bandcamp.com

DEATH PEDALS

On your with Silent Front and offering more ear-buggering high octane noise rockings www.deathpedals.bandcamp.com

At The Polish Club, Edmund St, Bradford BD5 OBH £3 entry for live music upstairs FREE DOWNSTAIRS FROM 8pm FREE ZINE + DJs + DANCING til 2am

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