AN ARTIST’S VIEW

Most of you will have heard about the closing of The Little Art Shoppe in Sherborne after the death of Peter Stone. It is truly a sad loss to the town and to me personally having been a longterm customer. It was a joy to go in and spend a little time carefully selecting colours and brushes. Picking out different colours to experiment with and being able to open the tube to see the actual colour rather than depend on a printed sample or even worse a smudge on a computer screen makes all the difference. I’ve seen the growth of the retail space double if you can believe that! It was just the right-hand side when I first moved to Sherborne and was run by Peter’s mother. The left-hand side, I think, was the front parlour. It had the feeling of an old-style sweet shop and I don’t think we shall see the like of it again. 118 years of trading and belonging to the same family for four generations is remarkable.

Before the doors finally shut for good I took the opportunity to do a small pen and ink drawing of the outside. A three-story building in such a small space was a delight to draw. The number of positive comments from passers-by who admired what I was doing and that I was making a record of the place proved to me that it will be truly missed.

Whilst in the mood for drawing old buildings I took a stroll down Trendle Street. Trendle Yard is an interesting collection of buildings. Many years ago the whole area was once a brewery. I can recall a small government surplus shop just under the arch selling ex-army camouflage clothes, netting etc. You’d hardly know the place was there! It was tucked away so. Now, both Riley’s Cycles and the Trouvaille Gallery, which was on Cheap Street, occupy the space. Trouvaille Gallery is a den of creativity. Right in the corner of the yard, the barn door opens to reveal a large space on various levels exhibiting a range of work by local artists from paintings, ceramics, jewellery, sculpture and a selection of cards and art materials. There is also an area for courses and workshops to take place. A very popular activity is ‘paint your own pottery’. Choose your item, paint it and then it will be fired for you! So, when one creative business closes another opens. If your bike needs to be fixed you can wander around the Trouvaille Gallery whilst you are waiting!

There are several viewpoints where I could have chosen to draw aspects of the yard, each one just as interesting as the next. This A5 drawing, I feel, sums it up. It was done on a buff-tinted card using pencil, Conté crayon and ink pen. The sense that these buildings had a former use comes across when you look at the placement and shape of windows and doors. It would be nice to be able to go back in time and have a good nose about! History is all around for us to see if we can just give ourselves the time to stop and look. laurencebelbin.com

Counter Culture

Paul Maskell, The Beat and Track

No.18 Louis Cole: From Obscurity to Just Clowning Around

If you’re a fan of jazz-funk, electronica, avant-garde pop or grind-core you’ll probably find merit in the works of Louis Cole. Be it his insanely good jazz drumming, his superior keyboard skills or his penchant for injecting humour and sometimes surrealism into his songs his material is, without doubt, some of the most accomplished and inspiring songwriting of the present day.

Louis Cole was born and raised in LA by a jazz pianist father and a bass-playing mother. Cole learnt to play the drums at just eight years old. Throughout his formative years and with the encouragement of his parents he studied and ultimately graduated in Jazz Studies at music school. Shortly after graduating Cole began to upload music videos to YouTube on the advice of a friend. These videos began to gain some serious traction with posts on social media etc by celebrity fans such as John Mayer and Bjork. After the success of several songs on YouTube including the quirky Bank Account, which showcases Cole’s talent on drums, keyboards and vocals, he proceeded to co-found the band KNOWER to begin to create longer-formed songs. He co-founded the band with fellow Jazz Studies graduate Genevieve Artadi and proceeded to release both his debut solo album and the debut album for KNOWER. The first KNOWER album, Louis Cole and Genevieve Artardi, was an eclectic mix of jazz funk and electronica which was the perfect vehicle for Cole’s rather avant-garde approach to song structure and the super funky vocals of Artardi. Live sessions of the songs from the album have YouTube viewing figures in the tens of millions. Between the years of 2011 and 2014 the band released two more albums of intense funk which did much to increase their profile in the music community. They produced a single **** the Makeup, Skip the Shower for use on the console game Grand Theft Auto V. They then went on to record tracks with American jam band Snarky Puppy for their Family Dinner - Vol 2 album featuring on tracks I Remember and Hope. thebeatandtrack.co.uk

At this point the live scene was demanding their attention and the duo formed a stable 5-piece live group, including Nate Wood, one-time drummer for Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders, and began touring fairly heavily in the US. They got a huge break in 2017 –while still relatively unknown they performed a European tour with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and went on to build a great reputation for some seriously tight jazz/funk. This recognition propelled Cole into some unchartered territory as he co-wrote several tracks with Seal for his album 7 and went on to co-write two tracks with Thundercat for his album Drunk.

Cole was signed to Brainfeeder Records (run by the artist Flying Lotus) and released his third and fourth LP with contributions from his now good friend Thundercat and KNOWER vocalist Artardi. Thundercat had such admiration for his friend that he featured a song on his Grammy award-winning album It is What it is called I Love Louis Cole on which Cole added a ripping drum track. Take a listen to this track, the drums will blow your mind.

So what does a now celebrated virtuoso in jazz/funk, tour support for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, YouTube hit and friend and collaborator to Thundercat do next?

Well…(and this is purely speculation) he forms a two-piece grindcore/jazz/electronica band that performs anonymously in clown masks under the moniker of Clown Core. They’ve actually been creating music for some time now but it is only now widely regarded that the duo are made up of Louis Cole (drums, keyboards, vocals) and Sam Gendel (sax, keyboards, vocals). The music has been described as genre-defying and definitely has some heavy avant-garde moments as full screamo hardcore makes way for a classic smooth jazz sax solo in the same song. With albums entitled Toilet, Van and 1,2,3,4, all self-released and available on YouTube, Cole’s talent, humour and disregard for the norm has produced single songs with over 5 million views… if indeed it’s him. He’s not telling. And why would he? He’s just doing his thing and simply clowning around.

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