Interesting interview with Raimund Reintjes of Berlin’s RAW Tempel which has been a cornerstone of the dub scene over there for some time. Music is well covered, but also the changing nature of the city, including its gentrification.
A Conversation with Trinity
DanceCrasher » DJ Jamboree: A Conversation with Trinity. Pt 1.
New interview with the foundation deejay over at dancecrasher. Some nice insights into working with King Tubby and Yabby You and even bits on his visit to the UK in the early eighties.
hackney council vs banksy
I see a red door and I want it painted black
No colours anymore I want them to turn black
“The council’s position is not to make a judgement call on whether graffiti is art.”
Nahhhhhhh you don’t get out of the thorny issue of art and censorship as easily as that! Surely we need to see the Council itself as a creative agent (“the urge to destroy is also a creative urge”) – and Stoke Newington Church Street as an installation? A durational piece spanning several decades…
I’ve lived in Stoke Newington for about 12 years now (and was coming here long before that). I’d been aware of it for some time as it was the kind of place that cropped up with alarming regularity as part of the counter culture discourse of the eighties. The Vague cartoon above (circa the Televisionaries issue, 1987?) portrays the area as consisting of nothing but off licences and video shops.
It was better than that by the mid nineties – you had a load of cheap unpretentious curry places where you could bring your own beer, for example. After our daugher was born I would regularly wheel her (modestly sized) pushchair into Totem Records and have a rummage through their generally overpriced but still great racks while she gurgled away. And there were a bunch of good second hand book shops, and The Vortex jazz bar and caff, (which everyone raves about now but nobody ever seemed to be in there when the jazz was happening – it was rammed for the quieter weekend breakfast sessions). Somebody once told me that the Vortex used to be a Kangol hat factory, which I really hope is true.
I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes
Then we got Fresh and Wild, a huge and very poncey organic supermarket chain. Totem Records was replaced by a shop selling really expensive baby clothes. And suddenly there were loads of estate agents.
Slowly but surely there was less and less that I liked, and more and more bijou shops for “yummy mummies”. There was a bit of a ruck when The Vortex closed down, with a squatted occupation and anarcho “social centre”. I didn’t really bother all that much with it because I hadn’t felt a stake in the place or the street as a whole for some time by that point.
I generally find anarchist social centres a bit alienating these days. Around 2002 I popped down to the Radical Dairy after they got raided by the cops. Daughter tagged along in pushchair (we carried her in a sling when we marched against the war in Afghanistan in 2001. So yes, she is probably going to grow up to be a rabid Tory).
At the Dairy the usual subcultural suspects were sitting around (listening to some Tappa Zukie if I remember rightly). They were all nice enough, but I was pretty much pounced on when it was found that I lived nearby. Which I assumed meant that I was a rarity and the vegan caffs, library of Kropotkin pamphlets and weekly spanish lessons werent making great inroads to the local community. Once I’d been assigned the role of “local person” I fed them some lines questioning the police raiding the place rather than closing down the crack houses up on Stamford Hill, which I was pleased to see mentioned in the next issue of the Gazette. But I never felt the urge to go back there.
Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against people taking over spaces and trying to do things with them. I would have loved for there to be something like that nearby when I was a teenager. I just think it is very difficult to break out of a subcultural scene and connect with “ordinary people” (whoever they are), and social centres for a while were heralded as doing that, when perhaps they weren’t.
I wanna see it painted, painted black
Black as night, black as coal
Church Street subsequently reached new levels of hysteria when Nandos bought the lease on The Vortex (after rumours of similar bete noires such as Starbucks and Tescos). There was a campaign website bemoaning “their desire to clog up the clean air of Clissold Park with the stench of battery farmed chicken grease and chip shortening” (Clissold Park is a good ten minute walk from the site, so that would have to be some powerful stench).
Aroma aside, the main objection to Nandos seemed to be the incursion of chain stores which would herald the end of Church Street’s unique parade of independent shops. Personally I don’t really want Church Street to be filled with the same chain shops you see everywhere, but if the alternative is increasingly expensive boutiques that I can’t buy anything from then I’ll take utility over independence every time. I didn’t see any protests against Fresh And Wild opening.
The simple fact is that the rents were going up as Church Street became an overspill for Islington’s Upper Street (in parallel with property prices increasing as young professionals who couldn’t afford to live in Islington moved to the area). So business owners either had to rely on high footfall and national back up (chains) or selling expensive niche stuff to rich people (boutiques).
Needless to say Nandos got their way in the end. And you will find me there occasionally, having a hungover Sunday lunch.
“How could anyone think it’s a good idea to paint the whole side of a building black?”
So this is a longwinded way of explaining the background to the Council painting over Banksy. Church Street has been changing rapidly ever since I first set foot there in the early 90s. Graffitti is by its very nature ephemeral – it also changes over time. You can see that the Banksy piece has been tagged over in silver in the “before” photo up top, for example. Encasing graffitti in perspex leads us down the road of commodification – removing precisely what is exciting about the medium: its illicit nature and impermanence.
Hackney Council’s latest work confirms all of this – the near eradication of the Banksy is a satisfying response to my feelings about Church Street – what has already been lost, and what is to come.
I wanna see the sun blotted out from the sky
I wanna see it painted, painted, painted, painted black
DUKE VIN & THE BIRTH OF SKA – New Film Screening
the tenth gig I can remember going to
Click here for a complete list of entries in the series “the first 23 gigs I can remember going to”.
10. Psychic TV with With Tiny Lights, Zoskia Meets Sugardog, English Boy On The Love Ranch, Webcore. Hackney Empire, July 3 1987
June 1987 was taken up with hay fever and sitting my ‘A’ levels. I wasn’t very confident. I’d managed to pass nine ‘O’ levels a couple of years before but hadn’t dealt with the increasing demands of the sixth form all that well. I was doing subjects that didn’t suit me, I hated most of the teachers (and indeed a good few of the other pupils) and was easily distracted by music, fanzines and mad stuff I’d got out of the library.
There was a fair bit of parental pressure to knuckle under and succeed. I didn’t respond well to that either. So I sat in the exam room nervously and did what I could. The stakes were pretty high – if I got good enough grades then I could leave the parental home and live somewhere much more exciting as a University student. If not, well I was fucked. Maybe, it was suggested, I might consider working in a bank?
I left school for the last time and tried to put all of that to the back of my mind. The results weren’t due for a few months. Time to cram in as much as possible.
This gig was a BIG DEAL. After a couple of years of being obsessed with Psychic TV (even more than I was obsessed with lots of other things) this was the first time I got to see them in the flesh.
Various envelopes with funny symbols rubberstamped on them had been winging their way to me in the post from PTV HQ and I’d amassed a fair amount of literature and interviews with Genesis P-Orridge also. Not to mention faithfully trogging down to Our Price every month to see if they had the latest installment of the Live LP Series, and slowly amassing the back catalogue via 2nd hand shops in London and classified ads in Record Collector magazine.
Psychic TV were still flush from the success of the “Godstar” single (“It’s about Brian Jones, the one of the Rolling Stooooones”) and surrounding exposure. This “hyperdelia” was a definitive break from their previous “skulls/skinheads/scarification” phase, although the sub-VU influences were present from day one. I seem to recall that people attending this gig were encouraged not to wear black. Which probably means my clothes were even shitter than usual.
We knew which direction to go in when we got out at Bethnal Green tube because we’d been to the Empire already to see Test Dept. Oh how we delighted in pointing this out to anyone who looked vaguely like they might be going to the gig, which generated a singular lack of acclaim. We didn’t care, we were just well up for it.
I’d rung up the venue several times before the tickets had even been printed, such was my youthful eagerness. We’d been allocated seats in the 3rd row. I was very very excited. The audience was a suitably mashed up selection of mid-80s London subcultures – goths, punks, industrial skinheads, traveller hippies, straight looking types. A lot of weird t-shirts, a lot of tattoos and piercings. A lot of people clamouring around the merchandise stall, myself and Wal included.
I spent as much money as my zeal allowed. Wal bought a black t-shirt featuring two people shagging on a psychic cross (like on the yellow flyer above. “Oh… That’s, ah… nice, Wal…” – my Mum). I got a more modest one with the cross hidden behind some psychedelic flames. Plus a sew on patch, plus some badges and probably some records as well. If they had been selling Psychic TV fag lighters and car tax holders then I would have bought them too, even though I didn’t smoke or drive. I was so ripe for manipulation it must have been hilarious. Or terrifying. Or perhaps just slightly endearing.
We wandered around, soaking it all in. I spent as much time looking at my fellow gig goers as I did the acts on stage. Most of the support bands were on PTV’s own Temple Records.
I think we must have headed up to the balcony to check out Tiny Lights (quite good psych folk), English Boy on The Love Ranch (synth pop / proto techno / hi-nrg, featuring Dave Ball out of Soft Cell) and Zoskia Meets Sugardog (industrial funk with live sampling, featuring the legendary John Gosling). I don’t think any of them were on for very long.
None of them were all that memorable I’m afraid. The non-PTV Temple Records roster was a regular fixture of the MVE bargain bins in the late 80s and does contain some jewels as well as some nonsense. Turning Shrines were always a favourite of mine – an early project by Fred Giannelli, who would go on to collaborate with Richie Hawtin on Plus 8 records
Webcore were pretty great – electronic psychedelia which encapsulated PTV’s ideas about making “acid dance” music. I know Genesis P-Orridge has tried to blag his way into history by inferring that he had quite a lot to do with the creation of acid house, which is pretty spurious – but PTV were most definitely talking about making “acid dance” music around 86/87. (See also “Dr Ecstasy” on the flyer above). Webcore were definitely a product of the free festival Hawkwind/Ozrics traveller scene but were using drum machines instead of wibbly guitar freakouts. That eventually bled into things like The Orb, Club Dog, Spiral Tribe and perhaps even (shudder) Goa Trance over the ten years that followed.
Webcore had a nice manic edge to them and my mate Wal was well into it. Yet another stamped addressed envelope was sent off and I got back a nice letter and load of very hippyish flyers. I sent off for their “The Great Unfolding” cassette, which the good people of Kill Your Pet Puppy have duly uploaded here. Worth a listen if the above hasn’t put you off.
And then, Psychic TV. Why did I like them so much? Well, I think they were just a really good window into several other worlds. The ideas were more important than the music for me (which, I have to say, explains a lot when you hear some of the records!). I liked all the subversive anti-religious stuff, I liked the pseudo culty vibe to it, I liked all the stuff about self exploration and sexuality. I liked noise and William Burroughs and all that stuff. There was a wide streak of compassionate libertarianism running underneath the brutality, at least I hoped so. If I’m honest I liked the obscurity of it all, the vast amount of things which could be collected – records, books, ideas.
I wasn’t even doing it to annoy my parents – after the numerous arguments around the dinner table I went for the quiet option for a lot of what interested me. Eyebrows were raised a year later when a really heavy 10 inch psychic cross made of solid steel turned up in the post. Not to mention what I was posting to people myself, but that’s a digression best left for another time.
At his best, Genesis P-Orridge is one of the most charismatic people I have ever seen on a stage. He came on to rapturous applause, took a look around the Empire and said “Well they were saying in the music papers that nobody would come to this, I don’t know about that…”
I can’t remember the line up but I don’t think either Alex Fergusson or Fred Giannelli were involved that night. Gen was pretty intense, getting right in people’s faces. Including mine, as I was pressed right up against the stage, soaking it all in like a true believer. Wooo! Musically this may not stand up as their best gig, but it was a pretty intense experience for an intense teenager. I am sure the set included a couple of live fixtures of the time like “Riot in the Eye” and also some new takes on old tunes like “Unclean” and “Twisted”. There were also some wibbly ambient pieces which I remember not liking so much. Psychedelia maaaaaaaan – and I still thought I was more of a punk than a hippy, of course.
I do remember being profoundly affected by the massive projections, however. I’d never seen imagery like Catalan before – an incredible dreamy surrealist piece shot by Derek Jarman in the outskirts of Barcelona and starring Jordi Valls of Vagina Dentata Organ. All of the early PTV films were really powerful back then – we didn’t even have a video at home so the only way I could check this stuff was on a massive screen with the band doing a live freakout soundtrack.
There was also some heckling – people shouting “Godstar” and other stuff (“Weetabix!” for example – wtf? Presumably a rubbish pun on “porridge”). I have a memory of Genesis being pretty adamant that they weren’t going to do Godstar. Which is pretty odd for a gig organised on the 20th anniversary of Brian Jones’ death. Maybe they were sick of it, or maybe it was too much of a product of the studio (and the absent Rose MacDowell’s harmonies?). I enjoyed the banter between Gen and the audience anyway – this was a fucking great gig.
But then I discovered that my wallet wasn’t in my trouser pocket any more. The gig was over, I was scrabbling around an emptying venue trying to find my train ticket. And the remainder of my money. And feeling a bit scared, frankly – how the fuck was I going to get home? Had I dropped it amongst the dancing throng or had one of these sinister hippy occultists nicked it? My partner in crime had spent all his money as well so a loan was out of the question.
There was talk of an after party around the corner at Club Mankind (a squatted venue where the Hackney Central Club is now located). We had no idea where that was and didn’t fancy wandering the dark streets trying to find it and blag our way in. A vague plan about walking back to Kings Cross and bunking the train was hatched.
But then Peter Rehberg showed up and heroically mentioned that he could give us a lift home in his car and why the fuck hadn’t we mentioned that we were coming anyway?
After that Peter’s beaten up blue VW Beetle became my preferred method of transport to London gigs.
And my wallet? The next day I pestered the Hackney Empire again, on the off-chance. It was posted to me a few days later, completely intact with my bank card, remaining money and even my new psychic cross patch inside. “Yes we’ve got it. Apparently it turned up backstage.” Hmmm, I thought. They can’t be that bad then…
“It’s chipboard quality, easy installment scheme.”
“[The guitar] cost me £5 from a guy in another squat, which was cheap even then,” he admits, “and I replaced the missing bridge with a door handle.”
Great retrospective piece on squat punk dubbers World Domination Enterprises over at The Quietus.
Ages ago I used to exchange tapes with a bloke who now runs a well known neo-folk label and distro. We gradually drifted apart, for obvious reasons. One of my tapes had some World Dom tracks on the end of it and his reply was quite telling: “That was awful. NEVER SEND ME ANYTHING BY THIS BAND EVER AGAIN.” The “industrial dub litmus test”… 🙂
life in a plastic bag
NOT THE REAL BEYOND THE iMPLODE: Book review: “INHALANTS” by Mark Pownall 1987, Franklin Watts.
Martin’s always on top form when it comes to moral panics of yesteryear (see especially his writing on rabies public information adverts), so his look at the perils of glue sniffing is a real treat.
It also gives me an excuse to bang on about the eighties, as I tend to do. (Pretty morbid this week – dead music journalists and ragga producers and now this!). It was another one of those things that you found out about as a kid which made the world seem like a darker place. But it also added a bit of sinister glamour to TV dramas and John Craven’s Newsround.
I recall at least two TV shows with glue sniffing sub-plots (possibly Casualty and Juliet Bravo?). Pasty white kids shuffling tentatively into hardware shops woth doomy background music playing. Vacant looks and knackered skin around the mouth. Don’t do it kids!
The 1981 NME soundsystem splashdown special issue also featured a good piece on glue sniffing, but unfortunately I don’t have it any more.
I suppose it’s a testament to human creativity in a way – getting wasted the cheapest way possible.
I’m sure that in most classrooms across the land kids are still sniffing anything they can get their hands on to relieve the boredom of their lessons. But for the most part glue has been replaced by cheaper and better highs. Not least alcohol, which wasn’t exactly easy to get hold in the eighties even if you were of drinking age.
A google image search for “glue sniffer” shows faces a million miles away from pasty skinheads. It looks like a destructive hobby for poor kids everywhere. Perhaps that means its ripe for a revival amongst the doyens of global ghettotech / favella funk / holidaying in someone else’s misery.
The last time I saw someone with a glue bag was ten years ago in Brazil. Sao Paulo is the 2nd biggest city in the world and has a horrifically visible rich/poor divide. We were staying with a friend of a friend in a gated apartment block guarded by a man with a gun. There was really no middle ground between that and abject poverty.
Driving along a motorway in a flash car, we saw a little kid in rags who couldn’t have been more than ten. He was hanging out in the rubble underneath a bridge, lifting the tell-tale plastic bag up to his face…
Steely R.I.P.
Seems like Wycliffe “Steely” Johnson, keyboard player and 50% of ace JA production duo Steely and Clevie has passed away.
Man I don’t even know where to start with this one. I guess we all got so used to 70s roots legends dying before they got due credit and respect for their work that it began to seem almost natural. But it’s still shocking when people who really hit their stride in the 80s and 90s pass away.
The story of Steely’s hospitalisation first came to light via the JA Observer (which I picked up thanks to Rootsman on Blood & Fire)
Sad news confirmed by Radio Jamaica.
One of the best things about playing the Big Chill House with the Droid the other week was pulling out so many of those sevens with the white labels and the red, yellow and black lettering. Things like Ninjaman’s “Murder Dem” and Reggie Stepper’s “Drum Pan Sound” – bonafide classics which always always bring a smile to my face when I hear them.
Steely and Clevie produced so many top tunes and built so many top riddims (Streetsweeper! Bagpipe! Nine Night!) that I’m reluctant to even try an overview here. So I’ll just sign off now and say thanks to Steely for all the great tunes, never met you but your name and work meant a lot.
Steven Wells tribute event
This just in from 3:AM Magazine:
16 September 2009
From 7.30pm
Basement, Zebrano 3am Bar, 18 Greek St, London W1
Free
Join us in the dirty beating heart of Soho to celebrate the life and works of legendary music journalist Steven Wells and his Attack! Books.
For one night only, the mayhem is unleashed once more as the whole Attack! Books roster reunites to pay tribute to the man: Mark Manning, Stewart Home, Tony White, Tommy Udo and Stanley Manly.
Hollow Earth: Cary Grant Re-Up
Hollow Earth: Cary Grant Re-Up
Matt republishes his excellent comic strip from back in the day. Proper weird London drifting – complete with crate digging.
I loved Matt’s cartoons so much that I was always pestering him to do more. I was thrilled when he agreed to do some strips for the first few issues of Woofah. But he always has so many things on the go that I wasn’t surprised that he gracefully bowed out to concentrate his energies on other things.
But “the jail that is the capital”, Matt? Surely you still have the waters of the mighty Thames still flowing through your veins like the rest of us?