No Hands Zine #24 December 2012

ZINE

ILLUSTRATION: ‘Creepy Fox’ By Tommy Davidson www.tommydavidson.co.uk Design & Layout — www.bjthebear.com

NO HANDS WWW.NOHANDSBRADFORD.CO.UK

FREE AS A BIRD

#24

SOUND SHACK RECORDS, PROPER BRADFORD, PROPER DIY..

by Richard Brass

In 2013 Sound Shack Records will put out 12 issues of the Sound Shack CD/’Zine package which started with the impressive “13 for 2013” released on the 10th December. It’s a daunting endeavour, but a challenge that the self styled “...Hardest working label in Bradford” is up to I reckon.

Sound Shack Records was launched in Bradford in 2010, by Nagbea, a bonafide local legend in my eyes; you’ll not meet anyone more enthused and positive about the local music scene. Steeped in musical lore, a musician and collector himself, with roots that dig deep into Bradford’s collective musical history, there’s no one better out there to embark on this aural crusade. I caught up with him one recent winter eve (purely metaphorical; I like the idea of the interview taking place in a smoky, dim, local hostelry; tape deck set, earnest debate.

In reality we had a blather on t’ blower and this little interview was by email. It’s still a cold winters eve outside mind).

RB: Sound Shack seems to be a real labour of love: a Zine, a Record Label, Gig Promotions, a true reflection of the DIY spirit. What drove you to start up Sound Shack and where do you expect to take it?

N: Sound Shack Records started in August 2010 as a reality (it had been kicking about in my head for a year or so, but had no action plan …until) ; I heard an early Demo of some songs by a singer called Phil Fowler in a band called the Sentimentalists. The songs were, and continue to be a little bit off the beaten “indie” track , they were unlike anyone I’ve heard and conjured up wonderful 3 minute vignettes of real life in a northern town. I loved the songs….the songs put me to work.

This chance (or was it, fate?) meeting prompted me to put the idea of a label into effect and to this end I brought out a limited edition Vinyl 7” single with the Sents, called Tobacco c/w Poppa’s stoned on chemicals again. Pretty early on we realised Vinyl is definately a rich man’s sport, so we moved on to CD as the artefact pretty quickly, and with a CD to CD copier (does 1 at a time!) the label was born. We hope to return to limited edition vinyl at a

later date but in the next 2 years we cracked on and built up a rosta of about 12 bands and in August of this year (2012) we put out a limited edition of 20 x 18CD Boxed set, with booklet, Keyring and all housed in a hand made individual box….They look and sound ace, we have 5 Left!.

We aim to take it to the point where people outside of Bradford understand that Bradford’s musical heritage and history is a MAJOR thing, and although we’ve been overlooked in the past as a “scene city” that is about to change. Our label we hope will aid this process.

RB: Is there an archetypal Sound Shack artist, anything you look for in particular when putting summat out on the label?

N: Our label is very eclectic, so there is a real variety of genre and types of band and music.

However, Ato, my 13 year old son and A&R man, and myself have a criteria we always apply to whatever we hear. The criteria is simply this: does it make us listen and go ….wow that’s fab (we don’t really say that, we might say f*****me****that’s ace!). If it does, we’re on it. We like different stuff musically, but it ranges from spoken word to doom metal punk, with reggae, folk, classical, piano, dance, trad punk, electro, blues, and everything that can be listed and much that isn’t. Essentially I’d say that if the song or the sound affect us then we check it out. Next criteria: are the Bands, people we can work with….if they are high maintenance and want limos, dressing rooms and huge cheques and all that then we are definitely not the label for them. If they can get into our DiY/Love not Money ethic and our Post capitalist method then the game is on!

RB: You claim to be the hardest working record label in Bradford, tongue in cheek I’m guessing, but you certainly don’t take any short cuts! No social media, no website... there seems to be a reliance on the tangible, face to face, real leg work.

Is there a working ethos behind what you do?

N: Actually we’ve recently modified our claim slightly, we are in fact now…. Sound Shack Records- A Kitchen Table Record Label. This makes us the hardest working because most of

what we do, we do in house, this takes us time and effort. We also limit our output to what we can do ourselves in our “cottage industry”, small is beautiful setting. We are not Sony, we will never be Sony, we don’t ever want to be Sony/a corporation. This again translates into our marketing, sales, publicity, sales etc. we live in Bradford and feel that there is huge audience here for music made in and by the people of the city. Our job as a label is to make them aware of it and encourage them to support it. To this end I’d rather spend 90minutes on the street corner “big issue style” and talk to 10 interested local people than “tweet/twitter/facebook” 2,000 people on t’interweb. For us it’s a LOCAL focus first, let the world make its way, in a quiet and orderly fashion to BRADFORD, the home of ….exciting and original tings!

gigs I played in bands during the 80’s and 90’s. It has a new influx of people taking what was built in the past and making it relevant to them NOW. That is Bradford’s greatest asset……the Tenacity and commitment of those that get involved with culture, music, art, politics etc. …They have staying power.

Its great to see places like Made in Bradford & How Do! setting up shop in Bradford and to see No Hands and Obscene Baby Auction keeping the zine/music scene vibrant.

Locally my big tip for a scene epicentre is the Black Swan Pub on Thornton Road. Great location, superb in House PA, Andy and Lisa committed to Live original music every Friday and Saturday, a great venue for diverse music in a friendly and welcoming venue.

RB: So what have you got in store for us in 2013?

Any tip offs, anyone in the Sound Shack stable we should be looking at especially?

N: Sound Shack Records will be putting out a monthly CD/Zine available at shops, pubs, venues etc around Bradford; and on Ebay for out of towners.

Each month we aim to produce 500 copies and to have between 13-16 Great songs by Bands playing in and around Bradford. We welcome music from anyone wanting to feature on the compilation or who would like to write an article/review etc in our ‘zine. Artists in and around the Sound Shack label are all well worth checking out.

RB: Well said! You seem to always maintain an effortless enthusiasm for Bradford and the local music scene. I don’t think I’d be castigated for saying that a lot of people are less than complimentary about our home town and are more likely t’ carve a path to Leeds for a gig or a night out. How would you sum up the current scene in Bradford, is there owt in particular exciting you locally?

N: Yes I do and it’s not a hard thing to do because in my 40 plus years in and around the scene it has never been boring. The 1in 12 Club perhaps exemplifies what I’m talking about. It’s a different entity to the one when I played a gig there in the 80’s as the 2nd band on, and in the subsequent 15

I’d recommend all interested in hearing the sounds from the “coal face” to get a CD/Zine ….Then you’ll know why I’m always buzzing on the local bands/artists, I’m not going to name names BUT I guarantee that on each compilation CD, one or more of the songs you will hear will make you also utter…..That’s F*******Brilliant!

Thanks again to you Richard and all at No Hands….Keep on Keeping On. RB: Cheers Nagbea, always the extra positive vibes! Here’s to 2013 and more musical adventures in Bradford.

ARSENAL, THE DAILY MAIL AND A WOMAN IN ROCHDALE

by Michael Wood

First week in December Bradford changed a bit when Bradford City beat Arsenal.

The riots had changed Bradford in that they made people fear the City and the hole in the ground & Odeon situations have literally changed Bradford but that manifested itself largely just in that they gave George Galloway a set of promises to make and then break to become my MP. But when Bradford City - local team fallen on hard times - beat an Arsenal team managed by beleaguered Frenchman Arsene Wenger and peopled with a squad of international footballers it shifted the City into the media spotlight and that spotlight focused (in a small way) the world's attention.

Which was wonderful. My first Bradford City game was in May 1981 and I've been at almost all the significant events since and this one was no different, initially at least, with a flocking of well wishers congratulating supporters as if they were players. People you have not spoken to in years Tweeted to ask how it was, colleagues stopped to ask

you to recount the emotional tapestry of events, supporters had kinship. It was good.

The world's media talked about Bradford City and as a result the City of Bradford. There was a discussion of how Arsene Wenger, his team struggling, might lose his job. Wenger is seemed had fallen out with his gnarled English assistant Steve Bould and was out of touch. Wenger's team did not have the same passion as those salt of the Earth Northerners. That was a little patronising but if, when reading those articles which seemed to pepper the national press, you felt patronised you might not have noticed the hints of xenophobia creeping in.

It was not that Arsenal were players with international caps but, perhaps, that they were international. Suddenly Bradford City were being held up as having a set of values prescribed as distinctly British - grit, determination - which were not found in Arsenal with the exception of young English midfielder Jack Wilshire who was given a pass by a press who seemed to want to paint Bradford City as a caricature to represent an agenda.

And much of that agenda is nostalgia. It talks of a time when football was less obsessed with money and the fact that Arsenal's side cost £65m to assemble and Bradford City £7.5k was oft mentioned ignoring the inconvenient truth that to all the other clubs in League Two Bradford City are a club that spends an outlandish amount of money putting together teams which perform badly. In the last five years Bradford City have spent over £7m on wages. Dagenham and Redbridge were promoted one year with a wage bill of £750,000.

But our victory - Bradford City's beating Arsenal had been appropriated by a media who wanted to sell a nostalgia and an agenda. The game, the game I'd watched a few days before which had been the home side playing a smart defensive display and the visitors struggling to break down the rugged rearguard action, was repainted as being some near part-time footballers spurred on by some sense of injustice. In the retelling justice could only be done if Bradford City's men of England - good and true and ignoring the fact that Carl McHugh is Irish and Nakhi Wells from Bermuda - could defeat the lackadaisical, unindustrious, indolent team of "international stars" who had come into the English game.

story, a good news story, and it was beamed over the world and outside of the walls of the 1 in 12 club few would even appreciate the problem while inside the 1 in 12 club its likely that many people would have stopped when they realised this article was about football but consider, just for a moment, how many other events are misrepresented in this way.

If I told you, dear reader, that the tone of these articles was mostly seen in the Daily Mail then you will have an indication of why it is annoying to have a night of genuine pleasure hijacked by that section of the media and presented to abutt the story of a local council not being happy to carry on having Eastern European children live with UKIP members and coming before those nasty Australian DJs attacking our Princess Kate. Its not nice to have something you want to consider yours forcibly borrowed and put back in your hands later, tarnished, and not as it should be because it had been used to serve troubling agendas.

How it opened a door for David Cameron and Nick Clegg came through.

But Bradford the City as well as Bradford City did well out of this. It was a different

Think about Gordon Brown's attempt at re election and the effect on that campaign that his description of Gillian Duffy - a woman in Rochdale who believes that people who are on benefits and are classed as vulnerable should not get paid those benefits - as being a bigot and how much of an impact on our society, on our lives, that the representation of her and that incident has had.

What agenda drove that portrayal? What agenda has it that those over paid, over here internationals have been beaten by the good honest Brits of Bradford? I'm not sure and this article is polemic and perhaps tangential but I'd rather just have my football not tarnished, by reporting straight and honest and for the Daily Mail to leave things alone.

BRADFORD MUSIC ARCHIVE OF THE MONTH TUMBLERS: CULT CLUB; WE MISS YOU!

by Richard Brass Tumblers Tickets circa 1991-1994...the free admission tickets used to be much loved and sometimes even exchanged like currency. The beer and spirits were that cheap that you didn’t need reductions but times were different back then. You could have a night out on a fiver if you walked into town and back home. Tumblers sometimes had mid-week nights where you could pay £3 in and all your drinks were 30p. The beer was dutifully watered down and the Jack Daniels was decidedly odd! Inside was just buzzing.

Two floors of music, an ace jukebox downstairs wi The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, The Clash, The Cure, Buzzcocks, The Smiths etc, a pool table corner that was next to the toilets so your shots were constantly interrupted, couches that had seen better days but were proper cosy, lotsa Bradford Grammar Boys and Girls frequented the place, roughing it wi local indie kids, street toughs, geeks and misfits. Upstairs was mental, two dancefloors often rammed, in the early 90s you’d hear everything from The Breeders, Nirvana, Betty Boo, KLF, Happy Mondays, Stone Roses and the Combined Harvester Song! My memories are of constant laughter, perfume, snogging strangers, dancing like a nutter and just being soaked in beer (sometimes quite literally) as plastic cups of ale sloshed over and down your clothes or other peoples. The toilets upstairs were nasty, dim, overflowing often wi sick, you can probably imagine. Coats were always nicked outta the cloak room (I lost two lovely ones to some tea leaf over t’ years, but that just seemed like an occupational hazard). “Lads and Lasses Where’s Your Glasses”

was the refrain that any Tumblers goer dreaded at the end of the night. But adventures might be had on the way back home, maybe at the Ithfaak Curry House on Legrams Lane, or on the couch outside Preston Taxis, wandering into the Student Halls of Residence nearby, down at Quatros Pizza opposite the Queens Hall, or snogging outside the club if you were lucky..

Everyones memories of Tumblers over the course of the 80s and 90s would differ. I know when I went there first back in ’86 it was pretty different. More Smithy (nearby pub) folk there, more tribal on the dancefloor, Spear of Destiny’s – Liberator being a massive track upstairs back then. A much bigger article could emerge one day on this fabled place. I look forward to it! Meantime for those who never went, or for those who want to go dewy eyed wi nostalgia, check this out I sincerely urge you: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hamYr3iy-z0 Tumblers, the building was demolished in 2008.

THAT FUCKING TANK TOUR REPORT DEC 2012

By Andy Abbott WWW.THATFUCKINGTANK.CO.UK In December 2012 the band that I play in, That Fucking Tank, did a short weekend tour in the UK. Despite its brevity and lack of exotic locations it was perhaps the best run of gigs we’ve played since our formation in 2003, in which time we have performed 300-plus gigs across UK, Europe and beyond. So, why was it so fun? In an attempt to work it out, here’re some tour reflections.

1.

GOOD VENUES

2.

GOOD COMPANY

3.

GOOD OTHER BANDS

4.

GOOD AUDIENCE

5.

WE BOOKED IT OURSELVES

Tank have played a lot of different spaces and contexts, from house gigs, Euro-squats and independent social centers to purpose built venues and large festivals. On this tour we had a good mix; playing Brew Dog pub in Newcastle on the first night, a church in Bradford (Delius Arts and Cultural Centre), a warehouse in North London (Spatchcock) and a practice space in Sheffield (Audacious Art Experiment). This way, we got some corporate hospitality courtesy of the Brew Dog brand (money, food, more booze than we could drink) that was balanced out with some authentically punk self-organised/DIY spaces. Variety is the spice of life!

We’re very lucky to be part of a DIY/underground scene that is sustained by genuine friendships and an ethic of hospitality. On this tour everyone we met was lovely. We caught up with old friends and made some new ones. The spaces we played made for a friendly and relaxed atmosphere. Our touring companions Wooderson from Sheffield-via-Grimsby were also stand-up chaps of the highest order.

Aside from Wooderson (who played a blinder every night) we were fortunate enough to see some new bands that it was great to share a stage/floor space with. One Man Dance Team from High Wycombe are a two-piece of cheap keyboards and drums that sound like Lightning Bolt/Deerhoof with free jazzish drumming; Rivals are an excellent melodic punk rock band featuring Ross off of The Futureheads; The Sassys are a new band from London doing rock’n’roll covers with guitaring provided by our old band mate Giles Bailey. Check them all out!

After 10 years of playing live it would appear we have finally got to the point where what we do is met by the majority of the audience not with looks of confusion, nor by covering their ears, but with smiles, whoops and even dancing! We don’t play the most immediately catchy style of music and it’s flattering that people have either seen us perform, or engaged with the records, enough to be able to know what’s coming next and get into the off-kilter grooves. There’s nothing that dissolves the dread of an encroaching Monday morning than an animated room of bodies on a Sunday night. We always wanted to be a danceable racket and it appears after 10 years that’s a claim we can stand behind!

As with pretty much 99% of the gigs we’ve played these were the result of some friendly emailing between us and the promoters/venues/organisers. We don’t use agents or tour managers. We’ve had a long relationship with some of the promoters whilst others we were yet to meet in person. In either case, a bit of unmediated contact prior to the gig makes for a more relaxed and enjoyable experience.

SO, DO IT YOURSELF; it’s more fun, more rewarding and no-one has to pay to cover the (minimum) 10% cut managers charge that makes gigs increasingly expensive. The bands you’ll see at No Hands operate in a similar way so you know the small door charge goes to covering their expenses, not to some management company that have mega-bucks to invest in ‘the next big thing’! I’m happy that Bradford was one of the gigs on our short-but-sweetest tour and hope that we can make it as positive an experience for visiting bands as it was for us!

NEXT TIME

Friday 28 December 2012

Friday 25 January 2013

90’s PLAYING LIVE 1 TIME ONLY!!!

BAND

11pm

ALTERNATIVE

ROCK PARTY BAND

Members of That F*cking Tank, NOPE, Dolphins + Guests, busting out 90’s Classics.

Expect; Pumpkins, Nirvana, Green Day, Weezer, Soundgarden, Foo Fighters, QUIZ Therapy? RATM, and more!!! ..................................

9pm

BLACK DOGS PUB QUIZ Join us for Black Dogs’ ‘How Long is a Piece of String?’: The Pub Quiz where Wikipedia and Google mean nothing and subjectivity rules. www.black-dogs.org

..................................

DJs+DANCING+FREE ZINE

COCKTAIL BAR!

1in12 CLUB, BRADFORD

FRI 28 DEC FREE 8PM - 2AM 21-23 Albion Street, Bradford • www.1in12.com

IN OTHER WORDS WE DONT KNOW WHATS HAPPENING IN JANUARY BUT SOMETHING WILL DEFINITELY HAPPEN. WATCH THIS SPACE................................................................................................................................................

XMAS THIS OBSCENE BABY AUCTION

BANDS N THAT

NO HANDS

DJS•ZINE• FUN

THIS TIME