uncarved.org blog

A while ago these images appeared on the North Sixteen Twitter:

I recognised them from a 1970s reggae documentary “Aquarius” as they are announced as being Stoke Newington (London N16), which is where I live:

(Footage starts at 4:50 but it’s well worth viewing in its entirety)

There was some interest about the exact location of these shots, as things have changed a fair bit in the meantime. I figured veteran reggae writer and lifelong Hackney resident Penny Reel would know. I grabbed him on the Chatty Mouth reggae forum.

Can you ID the locations of these shops in Stoke Newington taken from a 1976 film?

The top photo is Roy Shirley’s record shop cum studio on Birkbeck Road. The male in the doorway is Mr Shirley himself.

The bottom picture is Mr Johnson’s cafe on the corner of Sandringham and Birkbeck Roads. These two premises were within 20 yards of each other. In the back room of this cafe one could buy £5 deals of hashish and grass. It was the first Afro-Caribbean business on the street and is now a hairdressing salon.

Roy Shirley is pictured on the left of this photo. Back in the early 1970s, I used to go to blues dances in Birkbeck Road, off Ridley Road market, in the company of man like Ras Painter, Ras Paul, Gene Rondo, Sir Collins, Sir George, Roy Shirley and the rest of the Stokie rasses.

Many thanks, Mr Reel! It should go without saying that Stoke Newington has changed massively since I first visited in the late 80s, but it’s pretty much unrecognisable compared to 1976…

You should have seen Stoke Newington Church Street in the 1960s. Forget the Queen Anne villas and the “big houses”, back then it was a street of second hand shops. The whole area had lost its 18th century elegance and was now a slum street, full of thrift shops, second hand clothes and furniture shops, junk stores, indigent newsagents, cheap cafes, fish and chip shops, etc.

It was not until the Greenham Common lesbians moved in during the early 1970s, followed by the architects, media folk and squatters in the later ’70s that it turned into the wholefood, latte, sub-Hampsteadian parish it is today.

All the proles have moved to Herts and the provincial middle-class have temporarily moved in. However, once these people have children of five years old, William Patten school will not do for them and they will all move back to Devon, where they rightfully belong.

Penny Reel is the author of the essential Deep Down With Dennis Brown (Drake Brothers) which also includes a wealth of information about the reggae scene in London.

He also edited and wrote most of the 1981 Soundsystem Spashdown feature in the New Musical Express.

Stewart Home – Blood Rites of the Bourgeoisie (Semina, 2010)

Home’s latest novel is an installment in a series of books of experimental fiction. More on other episodes in the series anon, I hope.

“Blood Rites” has a number of themes – identity blurring, spam, the machinations of the art world in London. It confuses as much as it reveals, which should make for a satisfying read for the more adventurous. Dan Brown this isn’t.

The text includes a number of paragraphs of rewritten spam emails, which can be annoying, or poetic or distracting – just like wading through “real” spam when you’re trying to get to your email or blog comments. It gives “Blood Rites” a slightly off-kilter rhythm, which I enjoyed very much.

Much of the book also covers the thorny tale of the real identity of Belle Du Jour – something I’ve previously covered in relation to Stewart here. There’s even an appendix which includes some pretty weird comments from Home’s Mr Trippy blog, in which some nutjobs are completely convinced that he is Belle Du Jour, even after her actual identity was revealed. (Or was it? Ad infinitum tedium…)

Blood Rites of the Bourgeoisie is published as part of Book Works’ Semina series (No.7) edited by Stewart Home. Printed offset in an edition of 1,500 copies, b/w, 128 pages with a soft cover, and colour dust jacket. Designed by Fraser Muggeridge, 130 x 195 mm.

1. Zap Pow – The River (Lee Perry production, 1977)

2. Augustus Pablo – East of The River Nile (Augustus Pablo/King Tubby production, 1977)

3. Dr Pablo – North of the River Thames (Adrian Sherwood production, 1984)

4. Digidub – South East of the Thames (Lee Berwick production, 1993)

Link

5. Tinie Tempah – South East of Thames (2005)

With thanks to Dan Hancox and Neil Transpontine.

To the Albany in New Cross, via the brand spanking new train line which joins the previously isolated South East and North East parts of London.

The journey allowed me some time to ruminate on the mixed feelings I had about the event. “Margins Music” was a bold album, linking up the psychogeography of London with its various sonics. Blackdown and Dusk gave great interview in Woofah issue 3 and Mr Blackdown himself shared a bill with Georgina Cook and I at last year’s Creative Edge event at UCL.

Oh yeah and they got my best mate to remix their album.

But but but… doing a live show based on their album? Really? Once again full marks for ambition, but horrendous memories floated through my brain at the thought of it. Not least being munted at one of the mid 90s Tribal Gathering festivals and stumbling into the Metalheadz tent as they launched into a piss poor “Jazz Odyssey” with much backslapping from Goldie about taking it to the next level with “real musicians”.

The Albany was far from full when we reached. Mr HistoryIsMadeAtNight and I caught up with Melissa Bradshaw at the bar. Blackdown paced about, impossible to miss because of his height (one of the few people I have to look up to in conversation, ha ha!).

And then, without much fanfare, it kicked off. Dusk and Blackdown took to laptops, another geezer fiddled with the backing film, two ladies on vocals up front, a female percussionist and I think a female keyboard player, but I couldn’t quite what she was doing from my vantage point. An encouragingly multiracial and non-blokey line up, I felt.

Full marks so far – they’d not gone for anything insane like string quartets or jazz saxophonists. It sounded tight, Farrah and Japjit’s presence at the front was an all too welcome deviation from the usual problems of “bloke playing with laptop” which make performances resemble offices.

The sparseness of the audience and the laid back nature of the first half of the show made it hard to really get sucked in, but the visuals helped – lots of gritty footage of London, mashed up with Bollywood films and some neat on-the-fly video scratching and distorting. Despite that, there were still moments when I longed for the venue to transform itself into a big tent at a festival… I felt a bit stiff standing there, pint in hand, shuffling about.

That said it was an impressive debut, I certainly didn’t notice any fuck ups. The set increased in intensity throughout and there were some ace bits of percussion soloing. Vocals were faultless and occasionally had the hairs on my arms standing on end. Volume-wise it was still alright for talking to the man next to me, but that also meant there weren’t any rib-rattling b-lines.

Farrah and Japjit departed after a while and were replaced by… Trim. Woah.

Margins Music features Trim and Durrty Goodz, arguably the two most accomplished grime MCs in terms of abstract vocal impact. Trim specialises in woozy poetics that take a few plays to suss out – but always grab your attention.

This was hardly his usual territory though. It’s not like he’s even a regular fixture at the rare grime raves in London. The only other time I’ve seen him was at Dirty Canvas in 2007. But the Albany was all arty and not exactly banging and… people weren’t exactly waving their hands in the air bawling for a reload. He did great though, sliding out some top abstract bars (and, uh, some slightly more base ones!). He even improvised some lines about kicking back and enjoying a beer when he spotted me and Mr H.I.M.A.N. doing precisely that.

Then Farrah and Japjit rejoined the group as they raised the roof for the final track – credits rolling on the screen behind them.

We showed our appreciation. As Blackdown himself says, it worked.

Dates in Brighton, Manchester and elsewhere follow. My man Grievous Angel is doing a set at the Manc show. Check this out if you have an open mind and want something a little way different…

EDIT: History Is Made At Night review now up also.

Issue 3 of the borough’s scurrilous subversive freesheet is now available online.

All your news and analysis as well as a crucial rundown of cinematic masterpieces which have been shot in Hackney.

Available around and about, but you can download a pdf here.

Pdfs of previous issues also available, including “Top Ten Hackney Tracks” and “Top Ten Hackney Novels”.

On Saturday a young man was shot in London Fields, caught in the cross-fire of what can safely be assumed to be a gang related confrontation. The shooting took place during a community festival.

In an uncanny echo of the “Day Today” “Dead Pigeon” sketch, Jules Pipe (the elected New Labour Mayor of Hackney) pointed out: “Despite this very worrying incident, hundreds of people were able to enjoy the event in London Fields safely.”

Sensing the opportunity to seize the crown for crass comments relating to this tragedy, Hackney Citizen has leapt into the breach with an absolutely toe-curling piece by Morag McKeown .

Like many middle class people, McKeown seems particularly vexed by gentrification and middle class people’s role in it. She is also concerned with the plight of poor people, from a bizarrely tabloid anthropological angle:

Hackney is home to some of the worst housing in the country. Slums. Families squashed into tiny houses, damp riddled, stacked up like criminals in estates full of drugs, intimidation and fear. The women try to keep clean, the fathers try to stay clean and the kids run around like toy soldiers marking their small bits of territory with drugs, guns and violence. They put the edge in Hackney.

As someone who has spent a fair bit of time on the estates around London Fields, I find this “ghetto-glamourising” particularly annoying.

I left a comment on the site, and harangued the Citizen on twitter:

Why have you published this nonsense?

Hi John we hoped the piece would stimulate debate, please post your criticisms of it on the site. many thanks, keith [direct message to johnedenuk]

Would you a publish piece saying all the middle class blokes in new flats nr London Fields were coke heads who beat their wives? For debate? [direct message to HackneyCitizen]

Hi John no we wouldn’t, but the piece doesn’t make inferences about all individuals in a given situatiion. best, keith [direct message to johnedenuk]

It makes that inference about people who live in “slums” in the 3rd para. [direct message to HackneyCitizen]

Hi John we’d be happy to consider publishing a counter argument to the piece. best, keith [direct message to johnedenuk]

As someone who lives on an estate, I have no desire to be associated with you if you publish stuff like that. Putting it politely. [direct message to HackneyCitizen]

Perhaps unsurprisingly no further response was received. I daresay Keith feels very threatened having unwittingly communicated with someone who lives on an estate, who is no doubt typing with one hand and brandishing a crack pipe and firearm in the other.

An estate, near London Fields, earlier today.

Direct messages on Twitter are private. I wouldn’t usually publish direct messages publicly like this. But I figured I might as well in this case, not least because Hackney Citizen was recently in bother itself for reproducing an allegedly private phone call between Hackney Tory Mayoral candidate Andrew Boff and a Hackney Council call centre.

At the time of writing, Jules Pipe had just issued a revised statement. The victim of the shooting is described as being in a “serious but stable condition”.

Meanwhile I am sure that Hackney Citizen is very pleased with the “debate” that McKeown’s piece has generated – 32 outraged and knee jerk comments… and counting.

I’m grateful to my old mucker Merrick for dropping by with his thoughts on the election. We’ve argued the toss about politics for well over 15 years now and I’m pleased that it looks like continuing until we are shouty old men.

I’m sure that Merrick is correct that, nationally. people avoided the Greens and Independents in many areas because they were voting tactically against the Conservatives.

But as Matt Sellwood (Green candidate for Hackney North and Stoke Newington) has pointed out, this doesn’t apply in Labour safe seats. Indeed it looks like large numbers of the electorate here were either not persuaded by the Greens, or irrationally voted for Labour because they wanted to send a strong message to the Tories (who stand ZERO chance of being elected here).

Whilst we can all take some comfort about the British National Party’s absence from Barking and Dagenham Council, I’m not at all convinced that this means they will now run off with their tails between their legs. My friend Glyn Rhys has dug into the numbers a little and come up with some rather more troubling conclusions.

Perhaps the most obvious of these is that the BNP now have 563,000 people prepared to vote for them. And that this support is despite an unprecedented campaign pointing out how horrible and “Nazi” the BNP is. Either these voters are fine with voting for alleged Nazis or they simply don’t believe it.

Merrick is correct to compare the current state of play with the National Front’s vote in the 1979 election. He is also right to say that there is probably a “ceiling” which far right (and far left, but that’s another sorry story) groups can reach in UK elections. Indeed, the main threat that far right parties pose is not seizing power and implementing their policies, but by acting as pressure groups on mainstream political parties.

The BNP now have double the votes the NF achieved and seem to be able to successfully spread out into new areas, which the NF failed to do. With electoral reform right at the top of the political agenda for the first time I can remember, those 563,00 votes may count for a great deal more next time around.

Parliament’s main priority in its next term will be to address the massive debt incurred whilst bailing out the banks. This means savage cuts, job losses and even harsher times for those at the sharp end. There are going to be a lot of pissed off people around looking for alternatives to whatever combination of Lib/Con/Lab ends up in charge. Call me cynical but I’m not sure that they’re all going to flock to the Green Party or the remnants of the left…

Road Rage archive #1 « Piece of Paper Press.

Tony White on 1980s Hackney, the backstory to his “Road Rage” crusty pulp novel, Psychic TV and much more…. well worth a read, as are his books!

Basically turnout was high and Diane Abbott’s vote increased massively. Plus the Greens did much worse than I expected, and I overestimated the prospects for the Indepedents.

There’s has been some consternation about a few hundred people getting locked out of polling stations last night. Whilst that’s unfortunate it’s unlikely to have made much of a difference to the big picture.

My career as a pollster has not got off to a great start, but I couldn’t find any other git who was prepared to put their money where their mouth was and come up with actual numerical predictions. I wasn’t a mile off but I’m glad I’m not a betting man…

Those results in full:

Candidate / Party / Actual Votes / uncarved.org prediction

Diane Abbott (Labour) 25,553 (13,000)
Keith Angus (LIb Dem) 11,092 (8,006)
Darren Caplan (Conservative) 6,759 (4,000)
Matt Sellwood (Green Party) 2,133 (7,846)

Suzanne Moore (Ind) 258 (976)
Maxine Hargreaves (The Christian Party) 299 (777)
Alessandra Williams (Ind) 61 (213)
Knigel Knapp (Monster Raving Loony Party) 182 (236)
Paul Shaer (Ind) 96 (29)
Dr Jack Pope-De-Locksley (Magna Carta Party) 26 (66)

actual percentage / uncarved.org percentage

Diane Abbott 54.9 (37)
Keith Angus 23.9 (22.8)
Darren Caplan 14.6 (11.4)
Matt Sellwood 4.6 (22.3)

Maxine Hargreaves 0.6 (2.2)
Suzanne Moore 0.6 (2.8)
Knigel Knapp 0.4 (0.7)
Paul Shaer 0.2 (0.1)
Alessandra Williams 0.1 (0.6)
Dr Jack Pope-de-Locksley 0.1 (0.2)

In other news, Jack Pope-de-Locksley is in the Hackney Gazette this week strongly disavowing any nazi tendencies. Not that this seems to have had any bearing on his vote.

Thanks to the three prospective MPs for Hackney who have taken the time to comment below. It’s definitely to their credit that they seem to be seeking people out to have a conversation with, even cynical gits like me.

This is for them:

A superb bit of live MC bizness recorded at the last Trash & Ready Session. Champian, Clappers Priest and Professor Mark on the mic.