Issue - LeftLion

Issue 37
Oct-Nov 2010
WELCOME TO
PLANET NOTTS
contents
LeftLion Magazine Issue 37
October - November 2010
editorial
14
Contain Notts
04 May
The news diary that breaks into
Leicester train station at 4am and
writes ‘CHILD MO’ above all the
placenames
LeftEyeOn
07
Our photography-inclined mates steal the souls of unsuspecting locals once more
in New Basford
08 AA Canadian
tale of a boy, a boiler, and some
bodging builder bell-ends
10
The Magnificent 7
The British Art Show comes to town for three whole months – and we’ve had a word with the curators
Unputdownable
13
Dog Is Dead: the mutt’s nuts
Thatchers Children
14
Smell and Lol from This Is England 16
It Shouldn’t Happen To A Veg
16
When you open a veggie café on GameCity5
28
The festival that makes gamers leave Mansfield Road, you unlock the gates of Hell
Yay, Very Lee
18
Stewart Lee comes to town, and talks to us about dead dad’s tuffehs
WriteLion
42
Another two-page lit-binge, than Bez
Crash Us A Flag, Youth
24
Our squad of top-flight designers create a series of flags for Notts
Notts Trumps
46
Plus the Arthole, LeftLion Abroad, Rock, Bloodleech, Gallery 47, Love Ends Disaster!, The Soundcarriers, MuHa, Ocean Bottom Nightmare, Patriot Rebel and ManEatLike Pig
Art Director
David Blenkey (reason@leftlion.co.uk)
Contributors
Alistair Catterall
Ashley Clivery
Ash Dilks
Rob Cutforth
Katie Half-Price
Sharriff Ibrahim
Chris Knight
Robin Lewis
Eireann Lorsung
Roger Mean
John Micallef
MulletProofPoet
Beane Noodler
Nick Parkhouse
Esther Parry
Rebel Rhymes
Roxx
Aly Stoneman
Andrew Trendall
Jessica Troughton
James Walker
Robin Vaughan-Williams
Poetry Editor
Aly Stoneman (poetry@leftlion.co.uk)
Noshingham
45
The Cross Keys, Terracotta and The Cover
Rob Antill (robantill.com)
Photography Editor
Dominic Henry (dom@leftlion.co.uk)
including the return of Katie Half-
Price
Reviews
27
Opportunity knocks for Alice Linchpin
Alan Gilby (alan@leftlion.co.uk)
Music Editor
Paul Klotschkow (paulk@leftlion.co.uk)
festival in town? Ooh, yes please
Hold Me Closer, Tony Dancer
22
The legendary ANTRØNY: better Listings Editor
Tommy Farmyard (leftlion.co.uk/add)
Literature Editor
James Walker (books@leftlion.co.uk)
everything that’s happening in town over the next bi-month, including...
Hustle
Editor
Al Needham (nishlord@leftlion.co.uk)
Film Editor
Alison Emm (ali@leftlion.co.uk)
Theatre Editor
Adrian Bhagat (adrian@leftlion.co.uk)
Art Editor
Frances Ashton (frances@leftlion.co.uk)
Event Listings
29
Huge, huge, huge breakdown of Sideshow
32
Another massive and dead long arts Editor in Chief
Jared Wilson (jared@leftlion.co.uk)
Marketing and Sales Manager
Ben Hacking (ben@leftlion.co.uk)
their house for a change
Can’t Knock The Hustle
21
Adam Pickering on the Hockley ’86 glam theirsen up for the Lion and talk about the recent Channel 4 series
credits
24
Sir John Borlaise Warren get the tea on for our reviewers
and Rocky Horrorscopes
Photographers
David Baird
Will Carmen
Debbie Davies
Kenny Howse
Philip Jackson
Geoff Kirby
Illustrators
Lord Biro
Bill Edwards
James Huyton
Rikki Marr
Simon Mitchell
Chris Summerlin
Rob White
LeftLion.co.uk received twelve million
page views during the last year. This
magazine has an estimated readership of
40,000 people and is distributed to over
300 venues across the city of Nottingham.
If your venue isn’t one of them, please
contact Ben on 07984 275453 or email
ben@leftlion.co.uk.
This magazine is printed on paper
sourced from sustainable forests. Our
printers are ISO 14001 certified by the
British Accreditation Bureau for their
environmental management system.
Want to advertise in our pages? Email sales@leftlion.co.uk
or phone Ben on 07984 275453 or visit leftlion.co.uk/advertise
Hey! Students! Want to find the places that do two-forones on Chlamydia, so you can rack up lines of Vim in
the toilets and pretend to be an extra in Skins with all
the other bell-ends in trilbies and flip-flops, who look
like my Grandpa on a works trip to Skegness circa 1973?
Well don’t ask us - we couldn’t give a toss. We’re Left-tothe-motherflippin’-Lion, youth, and if all you want to do
in Notts is go to whatever mong-barns those Fresher’s
helpers (who have only volunteered for that job so they
can get your pants off) tell you, put this mag down
now and jog on, duck.
If, on the other hand, you want to fully experience life in
the city that you’ve chosen to reside in – which, by the
way, wees all over the face of whatever dump you come
from - you’ve just pulled an genius move by looking at
this. We’re mature, responsible, have seen a bit of life,
and there’s so much we can show an innocent, wide-eyed
little thing like you. Come, take our hand and let us take
you to not one but two massively important art exhibitions
that are going off next month. Oh look, there’s our close
personal friends Dog Is Dead, you simply must meet
them - and they’re with our other close personal friends
Smell and Lol from This Is England ’86! Let’s all go on to
a party in the back room of the Old Dog and Partridge
(Nottingham’s most exclusive VIP bar) with our mates
Stewart Lee, the cream of the local band scene and the
vibrant, eclectic people of Mansfield Road, and dance,
dance, dance! Yes, we’ll grow together, you and us. We’ll show you
everything good about this lovely little city, with its
happy-go-lucky, salt-of-the-earth folk who never complain
about anything ever. And when the dancing’s over,
we’ll be that special magazine who takes you back to
our flat in St Anns and turns you from a mere youth who
knows nothing of ‘chelping’, ‘duddoos’ and ‘Forest being
rammell’, and spits you out as an adult who can hang
around outside the Lions shouting; “She tode meh to goo
ter paahnd shop in Broado to get two pregnunceh tests
forruh, the dezzeh slag” like you’ve always lived here.
Oh, and couple of other things before you rip into this
exceptionally mint issue; don’t miss us mashing down
Tempreh all day long, as part of the Hockley Hustle on
Sunday 23 October. And Mams of Notts: don’t take your
prams to Goose Fair on Friday night and end up clonking
people on the head with it as you carry it over your
shoulder, that’s well suckeh.
Word To Your Nana,
Al Needham
nishlord@leftlion.co.uk
Rob Antill
Cover Artist
Stereographic Projection, according to
Wikipedia, is ‘a mapping function that
projects a sphere onto a plane, except
the projection point’ According to us,
it’s ‘a bleddy mint thing that meks
proper mong-aht pics of the Square’,
and the person we have to thank for
bringing it to our attention is young Rob,
a recent graduate of Multimedia Design at Nottingham
Trent. When he’s not doing folk’s heads in with his headsnappingly outrageous camerawork, he’s throwing himself
about on a skateboard or snowboard, the daft bat.
digitalanthill.com
Aly Stoneman
Poetry Editor
Aly loves the sea, so naturally lives as
far from it as possible. This kind of logic
got her an MA in Creative Writing from
NTU, jobs in Literature Development
and a writing commission from Lyric
Lounge 2010 (Writing East Midlands).
Besides performing poetry with a
musician called Milk, she’s very excited about the regular
spoken word events she is running with books editor
James Walker (including Scribal Gathering at Café Bar
Contemporary and Shindig! at Jam Café in Hockley) and
invites everyone to come share the poetry madness!
alystoneman.co.uk
leftlion.co.uk/issue37
3
NOTTINGHAM NAMED ‘LEAST
CAR DEPENDENT CITY’
Great news for Nottingham, I think. Hopefully this
will help us to get the tram and Workplace Parking
Levy plans pushed through. There’s still loads to
do, though. Cycling through the city is still a bit of
a nightmare.
Adrian
Yeah agreed, and yes it would be cool if a good
cycle lane ran right through the city centre, up to
Hockley etc. Just hope all of the investment into
public transport/cycling infrastructure continues
now that we have a change of Government - makes
me proud to be a Notts lass. I would also think that
grassroots organisations such as Pedals would’ve
contributed a lot to the cycling infrastructure over
the years.
Sara
You should be able to take bikes on trams as well, a
proper integrated transport system.
theonelikethe
In Nottingham you can never depend on the fact
that when you wake up in the morning your car is
still going to be where you parked it.
death crab
This is somewhat deceptive - we’re number one on
this list for the same reason we’re always so high
on the gun-crime lists. When your leafier, middleclass, higher car-use areas don’t get factored into
your city’s statistics, it’s going to look like you’ve
got more widely used public transport than you
actually do. That said, credit does have to go to
local leaders for a transport plan that, while it
could be better, is pretty joined-up. When you look
at other cities of a similar size and with a similar
transportation infrastructure - Sheffield springs to
mind - we’ve got a pretty good thing here.
khongor
This is a little disconcerting if nothing else. Watch
Mansfield Road or any major in road to the centre
in rush hour and three quarters of the cars have
one occupant. So if Nottingham comes tops it just
means we’re the best of a bad bunch.
NS
MAY CONTAIN
NOTTS
with Nottingham’s
‘Mr. Sex’ Al Needham
August - September 2010
21 July
Forest and County announce that vuvuzelas are to be banned for
the forthcoming season, for fear of anyone there making actual
noise, instead of staring in blank, open-mouthed sheepy silence
like football fans are supposed to do nowadays. So if you hear any
wasp-like droning at Meadow Lane, don’t panic; it’s most likely
the hearing aids getting feedback off the pacemakers.
22 July
Billy Connolly and Sir David Attenborough get lobbed honorary
degrees off Nottingham Trent. One question; why do they even
bother with this sort of thing? Is Billy Connolly gonna look at his
degree and go; “Well, sod having me own TV programme where
I bomb around New Zealand on a massive motorbike – I am now
qualified for a low-entry admin job at Experian”?
4 August
A young local mongling has been banned from Sneinton for
smashing up wheelie bins to make sledges with, meaning that
he’s either a seasonally-confused cretin, or it takes ages for anyone
to get done in Notts. If he’s having this page read to him, listen up,
youth; knackered-up fridge-freezers make brilliant bobsleighs, and
there’s loads of them knocking about Sneinton.
6 August
A copper in Stapleford gets done for accidentally tasering a 14
year-old girl when restraining some bloke who was on that antisocial one. Come on, Notts Police, this is Stapleford. All you need
to do to make people run off there is make your taser crackle a bit
in front of them and then go “Look, this is electricity. Man’s blue
fire”.
16 August
The Council announce that the big rammelly chav-magnet Happy
Shopper Alton Towers known as Goose Fair will run an extra
day this year, just in case anyone in the Nottingham area has a
rabid craving to get rinsed and knacker their best trainers up on a
Sunday.
24 August
It’s worth remembering that although the
Campaign for Better Transport aren’t specifically
selling a product, this is still an example of
a survey being used to create headlines and
generate publicity for the organisation backing it.
New Jupiter Mining Corp
Extraordinary scenes in the Coach and Horses (town’s secondmaddest karaoke bar, and the exact inverse of the Old Dog and
Partridge, because everyone in there is actually nice), when
someone stabs theirself several times in the chest. If only they
could have waited until they got on the karaoke and asked for I
Wanna Be Your Dog or something else by Iggy and the Stooges;
they would have won the meat platter.
FAREWELL THEN, TRENT FM
28 August
The good news is that from next year, Trent FM
will be no more and gone for good. The bad news
is it’s been bought out by Capital, along with its
Derby and Leicester equivalents, and if you work
in certain offices you will now be subjected to
something called ‘Capital FM East Midlands’. So
same rubbish, just more homogenised, and with
fewer jobs and less local relevance.
New Jupiter Mining Corp
Oh, but the thought of that Twiggy cretin being
unemployed makes all the homogenised East
Midlands rubbish worthwhile. Does that also mean
the Ice Arena will just be the Ice Arena again? I do
hope so.
theonelikethe
Yeah, but it’ll probably be the Wilko’s Ice Arena
next.
myhouse-yourhouse
I love Wilko’s. I’d go to the Ice Arena more often if
that happened.
Mean
From what I read elsewhere the breakfast and
drivetime shows will still be the local presenters,
but all the other shows will be “consolidated”.
Wanye
I listened to Trent FM once.
Samyouwell
More fun and japery in Aspley – Darwin’s waiting room – as a
cheeky young scamp gets done for knocking about his brother’s
girlfriend and shoving a lit firework down her trackie bottoms,
presumably for not being related to either of them.
29 August
A nightclub in Mansfield called QI – yes, they named a club in
Mansfield after something with Stephen Fry in it – gets shut down
after ten serious assaults and five glassings in two months.
The club’s slogan? ‘Intelligent Clubbing’. Presumably ‘Logical
Stabbing’ and ‘Cerebral Shagging Against The Biffa Bin Round The
Back’ had been trademarked by someone else.
1 September
Fifteen kerbcrawlers get taken down by the police around the red
light area. Message to the owners of that fancy dress shop that
went out of business the other month; if you had changed your
name to ‘Forest Road Kerbcrawling Disguise Rental’ you would
have rinsed it.
2 September
Mansfield Town announce a special offer to all Forest fans: present
your season ticket at Field Mill, and see Mansfield v Tamworth
for a tenner. And then, presumably, hand over your car for a free
sandwich board that reads; ‘HEY! I’M A RIGHT THICK TWAT, ME!’
3 September
The B Bar on Heathcote Street gets shut down for four weeks after
three blokes get stabbed outside. While the Thurland’s been shut,
there’s been signs in the window telling folk to go to the B Bar.
Funny that, eh?
6 September
A woman who had an epileptic fit at a bingo hall in Beeston gets
barred out due to ‘health and safety reasons’. In a pig’s arse was
it – It was due to moaning cows getting the hump that someone
having an eppy was actually claiming a full house when they only
wanted 47, and the caller had just said 48, as if that actually had
any statistical bearing on what is essentially a random game of
pure chance. I used to be a bingo caller, I know what I’m going on
about.
7 September
Then they’d knock over a pot of peas to grab your Sta-Prest clad
arse while you’re giving out change during the prize bingo and
screech; “Eeh, I’ve had bigger lads than yo’, duckeh”
12 September
A mother-and-son partnership from St Anns get done for
beating someone up on Broad Street. I suppose I should be
looking down on at this sort of thing, but I’m sorry – teaming up
with my Mam to kick someone in would be the absolute highlight
of my life. I’d love to see me Mam get someone in a headlock and
screech; “Put some licks down on this pussyclaat eejat bwoy, Our
Al! And then I’ll do you some crinkle-cut chip cobs, just how you
like them, and you can stop up to watch It’s A Knockout and The
Goodies.” God, I’m starting to roar just thinking about it.
13 September
It’s announced that Radio Trent – and yes, I still call it ‘Radio
Trent’, just like I call ITV ‘ATV’ and Snickers ‘Marathons’ – is to be
killed off. The bad news that it’s going to be taken over by some
London gimps and merged with RAM FM and Leicester Sound, so
you’ll still have to listen to Robbie bastard Williams eight times a
day at your crap office job.
14 September
Nottingham is announced as the least car-dependent city in the
UK. Which means that the trams have been a roaring success,
or that there’s nowhere to park in town, or that rat-faced council
youths from this Politically Correct Nu Labour Hell have stolen
them all, depending on your point of view.
15 September
Oh Ray Gosling, you poor, poor sod.
Ticket Outlets:
www.Gatecrasher.com/tickets
Someone gets done for being caught by police outside Brownes
with a packet of flour up his ringpiece - which he was either
trying to pass off as wanker powder or saving it in the hope of
copping off with a fat bird in a school uniform at Reflex, if you
know what I mean, and I think you do. Think on, cokey shopboys –
next time you’re bent over a bog seat in Hockley, you’re effectively
sniffing someone elses arsehole. Nice.
21 September
22 September
d / £8 Standard
Doors:
10pm a– 4am Age: 18+
A 76 year-old bloke gets his wristsMotd.
slapped
for putting
workman’s life at risk by leaning out the window of his flat and
trying to cut the poor sod’s rope while he was abseiling down
the building, like he was Wile E. Coyote. He was later seen
rubbing his hands together with glee when DHL delivered a crate
marked; ‘ACME INDUSTRIES ROCKET-POWERED JET-PACK’.
Still waiting two months for your MCN fix? Are you thick or summat? The May Contain Notts newsletter hits
Nottingham every Friday(ish), with chelp, mither, rammell, and hugely important updates of what a gwan in
LeftLionLand. Slap leftlion.co.uk/mcn in your browser and stop fanning abahht, youth...
4
leftlion.co.uk/issue37
d
8+
Gatecrasher and Club NME presents
Fridays
Oct 22nd
Oct 1st
Alex (Marine
Metric
Parade)
Stanton
Warriors
(Live)
www.myspace.com/alexmetric
Tunnel : Club NME in association with
Boxfreshers Tour 2010
www.myspace.com/stantonwarriors
Reverend Soundsystem
Tunnel : Club NME presents...
Flashguns (Live)
Club NME Dj’s
(Reverend and the Makers)
Ocelot (Live)
Union Dj’s
Arkade : Rave Trent presents...
Krust
Rave Trent Dj’s
Arkade : Horse Play Presents...
Ben UFO
Horseplay Dj’s
Valve
Soundsystem
Oct 8th
Oct 29th
Plump Dj’s
www.myspace.com/plumpdjs
www.vlvmusic.com
Dillinja
Lemonde
Grooverider
Adam F
Walsh
Tunnel : Club NME presents...
Tantrums (Live)
Club NME Dj’s
Arkade : Hype presents....
Roksonix (Circus Records)
Hype Dj’s
MCs IC3, Magika, Spyder
Tunnel : Club NME presents...
Skeletons (Live)
Club NME Dj’s
Nov 5th
Arkade : GuGu presents...
HeavyFeet (Stamp! Beats)
GuGu Dj’s
Oct 15th
Dj Yoda
Magic Cinema
Tunnel : Club NME presents...
Resident sound clash
Club NME Dj’s
www.myspace.com/djyodauk
Tunnel : Club NME presents...
Arkade : Rave Trent presents...
Resident sound clash
Wild Palms (Live)
Club NME Dj’s
Arkade : Deckadance presents....
Nov 19th
Doc Scott (31 Records)
Deckadance Djs
Professor Green
Nov 12th
LIVE
NOTTINGHAM
Presents
www.Gatecrasher.com/Nottingham
Resident
sound clash
Grand Master
Flash*
Killa Kela
Thursday 21st October
Hadouken
Thursday 28th October
Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip
Friday 29th October
Twisted Wheel
Monday 1st November
Delphic
Gatecrasher Nottingham The Elite Building, Queen Street, Nottingham, NG1 2BL, Tel: 01159 101 101
BEAUTIFUL THINGS
FOR YOU AND YOUR HOME...
13 & 14 NOVEMBER 2010, 10AM-5PM
WEEKEND ADMISSION £5 UNDER 16s FREE
LAKESIDE ARTS CENTRE
UNIVERSITY PARK, NOTTINGHAM NG7 2RD
WWW.LAKESIDEARTS.ORG.UK
0115 846 7777
Over 50 of the country’s finest contemporary craft
makers selling everything from jewellery, bags and hats,
to sculptural vases and tableware at Lakeside, the
University of Nottingham’s public arts centre.
LeftEyeOn
Snapshots of Notts from over the summer, courtesy of the local photo talent...
Left to right from the top:
Jump - parkour in a sunny Market Square with
freerunner Mat Taylor from Urban Revolution
(Will Carman / carmanography.tumblr.com)
Emos? Exterminate! - extras from the Dr Who
universe have a mooch on the steps of the Council
House, either on a stag night or to promote their
show at the Arena on 25 October (Geoff Kirby / gkphoto.co.uk)
Turf it - Has Del Boy gone organic, or has someone
kitted out their Reliant Robin with the contents of a
butcher shop window?
(Kenny Howse / blue-soul-photography.co.uk) Fingers - another radical Muslim demo, another
counter-protest, just another day in England 2010...
(Debbie Davies / debsphotography.co.uk)
Shiner - After spending the whole summer in the
Dog & Partridge something had to give...
(anonymous)
www.leftlion.co.uk/issue37
7
Rob Cutforth prepares for the winter months by returning to his favourite subject: appallingly cack-handed British
craftsmanship. Annotations: Rob White
I swear this column is cursed.
Seriously, it’s not even funny anymore. I write about Jo and Twiggy, then they split up. I go to the
Tales of Robin Hood, and it closes down weeks later. I write a piece about working in Nottingham,
and then I get made redundant. Then I write a column about being made redundant and get a new
job before it was published, making me look a right idiot. I wrote a column last autumn on how
amazing the beer festival was, only for it to run out of beer on the Saturday. My mate John doesn’t
speak to me any more over my “Metal Karaoke” column and my Fantasy Football teams have been
junk ever since I wrote about how easy Fantasy Football leagues are to win.
Want more examples? Take my last three columns; one about how good the Robin Hood movie was
going to be (when it turned out to be a massive turd), a oh-isn’t-this-summer-amazing piece (which
has brought about CrapWeatherGeddon 2010), and my World Cup column extolling the virtues of
being an English footy fan (which...well, Christ on a bike, I can’t even finish that sentence).
So this month I’m going to go back to basics; I’m going to whinge about Limey builders. Why
tempt fate, you ask? Two reasons: firstly because writing about builders is a safe bet and, short of
blowing my house up with a bazooka, there isn’t anything more they could possibly do to make my
life any worse than it already is.
I’ve had shocking luck with builders in this country. There were the plasterers who plastered over
the damp-proofing, causing hundreds of pounds worth of damage. There was the alarm fitter
who simply didn’t show up. Ever. There were the bricklayers who buried the deposits from their
Portaloo in my front garden, left tons of industrial rubbish in my back garden and slathered a
retaining wall with indoor latex paint. Now my garden has a lovely prison yard feel; all it needs is a
poster of Raquel Welch over the entrance to a tunnel dug with a rock hammer to finish it off.
There were also the builders who installed pipework so close to the floorboards that simply
walking on the floor caused them to burst and flood my downstairs living room. There was the
painter who thought unpainted pieces of plywood made for quality skirting boards. Finally,
there was the builder who thought a plastic bag was all it would take to hold two sewage pipes
together. The pipes broke shortly after and flooded my front lawn with human excrement. Do you
know how difficult it is to have a sociable conversation with your neighbour when you’re standing
in a pool of your own filth? Bloody awkward, I can tell you.
However, these boys have nothing on the mental defectives who installed a new boiler while I was
away in Canada over the summer: it just might be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen since 2
Girls 1 Cup. Words simply cannot do it justice. Just look at it, over there, too the right.
This photo is not doctored in any way (well other than Robs scribbles). This is the actual, final
result. What kind of a person does this to a kitchen and thinks, “Yes, this is ok, I’m sure the client
will be happy with this.” A rabid monkey with hooks for hands and a haemorrhaging brain could’ve
done a better job.
Let me just take you through that photo step by step, shall I?
1.
First of all, the boiler is crooked. You can’t really tell from the photo, but believe me, if they had
put a spirit level on top of it, it would have exploded.
2.
You see that greyish/brown area around the top of the boiler? That’s where the wood that
boxed the old boiler in used to be. You know, because (call me crazy) maybe the world doesn’t
need to see that bit.
3.
The cupboard door. God, where do I start? Obviously, this boiler is bigger than the one
that was in there before, but surely there is a better solution than this. Maybe using a tape
measure beforehand and, oh I don’t know, suggest another boiler that would actually fit? The
thing that annoys me most about the cupboard door is the fact that you can still see the pencil
lines where they marked that cut. Let me say that again, They couldn’t even be bothered to
erase the effing PENCIL MARKS. The pencil marks are an unnecessary slap in the face, like a
burglar who robs your house only to come back a week later to wazz on your dog.
See how perfectly the cuts follow the boiler; this means that the moronic douche made CROOKED
cuts to allow for the CROOKED boiler. Then, because (obviously) the cupboard door is no longer
functional, he’s used two tiny clamps to hold it in place. I had the audacity to walk past the
cupboard too quickly, which caused the clamps to give way and the door to come crashing down
into the counter top and on to the floor. Only some seriously fancy footwork on my part (thank you
Tae Kwon Do green belt) avoided my getting a toe-ectomy.
25 High Pavement
Nottingham, NG1 1HE
Tel 0115 852 3231
www.cockandhoop.co.uk
8
leftlion.co.uk/issue37
From now on, I am only writing articles on things that can’t possibly burn me later. The next one is
entitled “Butterflies, Moonbeams and Unicorns”, so watch out for that.
(I should say that my gothic plumber, Tony Napleton, had nothing to do with this boiler install.
Tony is a great plumber, one I would recommend highly. If it weren’t for him, my house would be
under twelve feet of water. He is a godsend).
Read more from Rob at leftlion.co.uk/cinb
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THE MAGNIFICENT 7
The British Art Show happens once every five years, its importance to the UK art scene cannot
be overestimated - and the seventh incarnation is being held over three months in little ol’
Nottingham. On the eve of the most important cultural event to happen in Notts since time, we talk
to curators Lisa Le Feuvre and Tom Morton…
How did you become curators for BAS7?
Were you part of the decision to bring BAS7 to Nottingham? If not, who was?
Lisa Le Feuvre: I have been working as a curator and writer for the last decade, and was invited
by Hayward Touring to respond to the ways one might approach curating a British Art Show
in 2010. Following my responses, the selection panel invited Tom Morton and me to curate this
seventh edition of the British Art Show – it really is such an honour to curate this exhibition
and to add to its 35-year history. I work as a curator and a writer, activities that I see as being
intertwined, working on exhibitions in artist-run spaces, national museums and public galleries
as well as contributing to publications. Right now I teach on the Curatorial Programme at
Goldsmiths College in London, and over the last couple of years have curated a number of
exhibitions working with artists including Jeremy Millar, Alexander and Susan Maris, Renée
Green and Joachim Koester.
Tom: The show’s organisers pick the venues, not Lisa and I. That said, Nottingham is a great spot
to kick off.
Tom Morton: The short answer is that I was invited to apply for the post by BAS7’s organisers.
The longer answer is, I guess, my CV. I started writing for frieze magazine a few months after I
finished my MA. Four years later, Catharine Patha and I set up a year-long, itinerant project space
in London, Man in the Holocene, where we showed a number of the artists featured in BAS7
(Charles Avery, Roger Hiorns, Nathaniel Mellors, Keith Wilson, Olivia Plender, Gail Pickering,
Steven Claydon, Milena Dragicevic) alongside international artists such as Trisha Donnelly,
Makoto Aida and Erik van Lieshout. Following that, I was appointed curator at Cubitt, London,
and curated sections of the 2007 Athens and Lyon Biennales, and the 2008 Busan Biennale. I
currently spend a couple of days a week working as curator of the Hayward Gallery’s Project
Space, as well as continuing to write for frieze and other publications, and working as an
independent curator on projects like BAS7.
How British is the British Art Show?
Lisa: Although Tom and I knew each other, we had not worked together before British Art Show
7. It has been really inspiring to work with Tom and we are both very excited about how working
together has developed an exhibition that we both are incredibly proud of, and that we would
want to see if we were not involved with it.
What does curating a show of this size actually entail? It sounds like a huge logistical
nightmare…
Tom: BAS7’s administrative staff and the host venues are responsible for the day-to-day
organisation of the show, so Lisa and I really don’t have too much to do with the logistical side
of things, outside of cutting our curatorial cape to suit the cloth of budgets, space, etc. For us the
main task is working with the artists, and configuring and reconfiguring the ‘hang’ of the show
across different venues in four host cities. It’s like a game of three dimensional chess...
The theme of BAS7 is In the Days of the Comet. What’s that about?
Lisa: It’s named after HG Wells’ 1906 novel – which was set, for him, four years into the future
and, for us, a century in the past when the 75-year elliptical orbit of Halley’s Comet made its
predicted return. We are fascinated by the ways that the comet is a sign mistaken for a wonder,
be that cataclysm or rapture, and a figure of looping obsession. It is something that’s always with
us, no matter that it is sometimes far out of sight. For Tom and I these imperatives seemed very
pertinent to the ways in which artists respond the particularities and peculiarities to our time. It
was very important to us that this British Art Show was led by artists’ work in the first instance,
and our subtitle provides a soundtrack against which these artworks reverberate.
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How important is it to have shows of this magnitude outside London?
Tom: Very. Many of the artists who feature in BAS7 (the vast majority of whom grew up outside
London) have told us how important seeing previous iterations of the BAS in or near their
home towns as teenagers was to their decision to become artists. More broadly, it’s obviously
important to reach out to people who don’t usually have this volume of contemporary art on their
doorstep.
Lisa: Well, we don’t really see the exhibition as celebrating Britishness per se; rather, it is a
celebration of the ways in which artists who live and work in Britain are making art today. To be
based in Britain is not to be British: the ever-developing network of connections that makes up
the contemporary art ‘world’ in Britain - art schools, artist-run spaces, public galleries, etc - has
made it a location international artists choose to reside in by dint of its vibrancy, making ‘British
Art’ something that is defined both by artists born in Britain and those who live or work in
Britain.
What will be your personal highlights of the show?
Lisa: Well, in Nottingham the exhibition stretches across Nottingham Castle, New Art Exchange
and Nottingham Contemporary and the lion’s share of the work has never been seen before. It’s
hard to select highlights – there are so many great works.
Tom: We’ve invited 39 artists to take part, all of whom we’re really excited about, so it’s
impossible to pick one highlight. That said, I’m really looking forward to Keith Wilson, Mick Peter
and Cullinan Richards reaching a wider audience. These artists are very highly valued by their
peers, but haven’t really had this degree of institutional exposure before.
Lisa: In the Castle I think Nathanial Mellors’ new work Ourhouse will be really stunning – it’s a
brand new work that will develop over all of the stops of the British Art Show. Formed of videos
and an incredible animatronic figure, this work undoes and restructures language in a narrative
that loops between stock footage of television soap operas, science fiction and the impossibilities
of managing to make sense. At the New Art Exchange, look for Elizabeth Price’s ‘User Group
Disco: Hall of Sculptures’, a series of reveries and hallucinations built from functional household
appliances (from sieves to Soda Streams) set to a soundtrack of a-ha’s Take on Me and sentences
stolen from philosophy. At Nottingham Contemporary, make sure you go to the first programme of
events on 20 November where Olivia Plender will premier a performance that takes the form of a
script spiralling around a fictional experimental filmmaker.
interviews: Frances Ashton and Al Needham
A TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE ART
So you think the British Art Show is nothing
but a big gallery? You don’t know the half
of it. The next three months will see all
manner of creativity spilling out of three
main venues in a ludicrously varied number
of disciplines and formats. Here’s a mere
sample of some of the incredible one-off
events happening in town this tri-month
- and we haven’t even mentioned the
Sideshow festival yet (although we do, on
page 32)…
Haunted Karaoke
A mix of both established and emerging artists - Aaron Williamson, Kirsten
Norris, Jack Catling, Jenna Finch and Sian Robinson Davies - will be
using music and comedy to challenge the idea of entertainment. Held in
The Space, the multi-purpose facility located in the depths of Nottingham
Contemporary, each artist will present solo works under a spotlight.
Afterwards, everyone piles into Café.Bar.Contemporary for drinks and the
chance to have a go at Haunted Karaoke yourself.
Nottingham Contemporary, Thursday 7 October, 8pm - 11pm, free
In Production
Local filmmakers Ellie Harrison, Ben Judd and Sandrea Simons are the three
selected artists who will each be screening a new work before a discussion
with the audience. In Production will be a great chance to get an insight into
the process and ideas behind each film.
Nottingham Contemporary, Tuesday 12 October, 7pm - 8.30pm, free
Matthew Darbyshire
As an anti-consumerism installation artist, Matthew Darbyshire will be
presenting images of his previous projects and discussing the new works
that he has produced for BAS7. Using contemporary design that ranges from
designer furniture to Nike trainers, as well as items he has made himself,
Darbyshire will be exploring personal taste and social aspirations. His
work reconsiders objects, questioning how they have been appropriated by
corporations, property developers – and art galleries. Expect bright colours,
witty analysis and astute cultural observations.
Nottingham Contemporary, Thursday 4 November, 6pm – 8pm, free
The Night of the Comet
If you can’t face the Forest, this Bonfire Night art event will include music,
performance and poetry inspired by the H.G. Wells novel In the Days of the
Comet – the subtitle of British Art Show 7. An examination of astrology,
history, infinity and the Apocalypse with writer and live artist Michael
Pinchbeck, Mike Chavez-Dawson and Len Horsey. One treat will be that the
galleries will be open late and there will also be DJs to create a soundtrack
to the evening. Free sparklers and Dirty Snowball cocktails a-plenty..
Presumably, you’ve already scoped out Nottingham Contemporary. What do you think of the
place?
Tom: It’s great. The opening David Hockney / Frances Stark two-hander was an inspired choice,
and I think the way in which the group shows Star City and Uneven Geographies have underlined
the - horrible word - ‘relevance’ of contemporary art while respecting the viewer’s intelligence is
something many other British institutions would do well to note. The building and gallery spaces
look fantastic, too.
Sideshow will be taking place at the same time – will you be checking it out?
Nottingham Contemporary, Friday 5 November, 6pm - 10pm, free
Roger Hiorns
Proving that science, art and beauty can go hand in hand, Roger Hiorns will
be discussing his recent sculpture, including the new work made for the
BAS7. Previously nominated for the Turner Prize in 2009, Hiorns has worked
with fire, foam, copper sulphate and animal remains to explore the physical
and psychological resonances of material. An intriguing young artist who
will no doubt be provide a more than interesting way to spend a couple of
hours.
Nottingham Contemporary, Thu 11 November, 6pm – 8pm, free
Tom: Of course.
What do you know of the local art scene?
Tom: Enough to know I want to know more. Sideshow should help...
Lisa: Nottingham has such a strong artist-led scene, whose reputation stretches far beyond the
limits of the city. For me, meeting artists and sharing ideas is the driving force of how artwork
enters into an engagement with the surrounding world from where it questions assumptions and
turns what we think we know onto its head.
Nottingham Contemporary is understandably keen to project art as something more than a
niche activity for students and poshos. How will BAS7 support that view?
Tom: None of the artists in BAS7 address their work solely to ‘students and poshos’.
Contemporary art often demands a bit more from the viewer than, say, Hollywood films or reality
TV or airport novels or manufactured pop songs - all of which can at their best be amazing - but
it also often offers potentially much, much more in the way of - as the writer Jeanette Winterson
put it - ‘reminding us of the possibilities we’re persuaded to forget’. What’s really important is
that viewers feel confident in the fact that, whoever they are, art is trying to communicate with
them. Maybe the best way to think of it is as an alternative news service - something Chuck D
of Public Enemy once said of hip-hop. We all know that there’s a lot more to the world than is
presented in the mainstream media, and art is one the ways in which our species articulates
that missing information. It does so in a manner that may at first feel unfamiliar, but it’s that very
unfamiliarity that holds the key to new thoughts, and perhaps new freedoms. This is why the
proposed cuts to arts funding are so damaging. The people you call ‘students and poshos’ will
always be able to access art through their educational and financial privilege. It’s people who fall
outside these groups who will suffer.
British Art Show 7: In the Days of the Comet, Nottingham Contemporary, New Art Exchange and
Nottingham Castle, 23 October – 9 January. Free.
britishartshow.co.uk
Critic’s Circle
Join three distinguished art critics - Gilda Williams (London correspondent
of Artforum), JJ Charlesworth (Associate Editor of ArtReview magazine)
and Sam Thorne (Associate Editor of Frieze magazine) - as they discuss
what they might write about British Art Show 7. They will examine the
reviews of the exhibition in a What The Papers Say stylee, and take a look at
the 35 year history of the British Art Show.
Nottingham Contemporary, Wednesday 24 November, 7pm - 8.30pm, free
George Shaw
The Notts-based artist will be discussing the literary and musical influences
in his work alongside references to art history, Brought up in Coventry,
he later studied at Sheffield Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art and
has since worked as a teacher in Nottingham. His work is unique in that
he uses Humbrol enamel paint, usually reserved for Airfix models, to
create incredibly detailed paintings of the Midlands council estates of his
childhood.
Nottingham Contemporary, Thursday 18 November, 6pm - 8pm, free
Family Play and Learn
Why let the thirty nine selected artists have all the fun? Nottingham
Contemporary will have weekly family workshops to get involved with,
and all for nowt. We’ve been reliably informed that no formal art skills are
required, just imagination and fun. The workshops will be led by NC’s
Associate Artists who are experts in working to create, play and learn
and who will be following the themes of the BAS7 - exploring the past and
present, parallel universes and going on journeys.
Nottingham Contemporary, every Saturday and Sunday,
23 October - 9 January, 1pm - 4pm, free.
Alison Emm
leftlion.co.uk/issue37
11
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UNPUTDOWNABLE
They smashed it at Glastonbury, ripped up the festival circuit, dropped a critically-acclaimed debut single and
got a huge leg-up by the BBC this summer - so could Bridgford boys Dog Is Dead be the first Notts band in ages
to take it to the next level?
You’ve been busy this year, then…
We’ve played about seven festivals this summer. We’ve done
the Dot to Dot equivalent in a few cities and a few nice little
festivals. We have some dates in October across the UK,
including one in London with Someone Still Loves You, Boris
Yeltsin. They’re an American band – really good.
You were the only unsigned band that the BBC covered at
Glastonbury. Did you know that in advance?
No, we didn’t. At about 2 o’clock on Sunday morning when we
were off on a little mission to an obscure part of Glastonbury we
got this phone call from Joss’ mum. He was singing and dancing
and when we asked him what was going on he told us that we’d
been on the telly!
Had you been to Glastonbury before?
First time. It’s the best place in the world. It’s…big, and scary,
and full of hippies. We were quite lucky that we got the one year
when it hasn’t rained. It was a lot of fun but a bit too hot.
How does it feel when you are playing at a festival with
established names, but knowing that hundreds of people have
still turned out to see you?
We had Plan B on after us, which was the only reason anyone
was there. He’s quite scary, although you can’t be too scared
of someone in a suit knowing that there is always a trumpet
nearby....
What’s been your most rock n’ roll moment to date?
We played at a venue called The Fridge and it was absolutely
freezing. We were stuck in a dead cold dressing room, so when
no-one was around, like giggling idiots, we snuck into the
headliner’s dressing room and stole their heaters. We’re like a
punk band with no balls - a punk band full of Mark Corrigans off
Peep Show.
We hear you aren’t ashamed of being called a ‘pop’ band.
At the end of the day, we’re a pop band who write pop
songs. Most of the world listens to pop, so we don’t see why so
many bands say; “Well, we don’t want to be ‘pop.’” It’s quite
pretentious and dismisses what most of the world are listening
to. It’s pop - ‘popular’ music. It’s a bigger thing, changing the
face of pop music. When you try and do something leftfield, it
isn’t innovative at all - it’s making a mess for the sake of it.
There’s a lot of 80s influences in music these days, yours
included. You also use the saxophone a lot. Could you be the
new Spandau Ballet?
[Laughs] Rob loves his 80s music and always has done. We
don’t want to be lumped into the niche that is the ‘nu-pop-80s’
thing, it’s very ‘now’ and will go out. Having a saxophone in the
band is nothing to do with sounding like the 80s. We started
having a sax in the band as that’s what Trev was best at – and
what he’s still best at!
You don’t really write traditional ‘verse/chorus/verse/chorus’
songs…
That’s just what we started off writing, and it helps to be
different. Trying to write the perfect pop song is a bad idea - so
when we’re looking at structures, what happens, happens.
“Nottingham is a bubble - and
soon, it’s going to burst”
The reviews of your singles have been almost universally
positive. Is there already an album taking shape?
We put our single Glockenspiel Song out in June off our own back
as an experiment – and the response we got was overwhelming.
So much more than we expected, really. We have no idea how
Young is going to do. So, let’s see how it escalates and let the
album draw itself out. We have the material, but let’s see what
we can do off our own back.
What’s your favourite tune in your repertoire at the moment?
There’s one called The River Jordan which we play mid-set. We
get to rock out – it’s like being in Slayer for a period of time,
which we like. The songs we write are meant to sound their
best when played live – that’s what music’s about. It’s always
important to make a show out of your live performance, not just
be a band reeling off their records.
People round here are starting to expect big things from you…
A couple of years ago we were playing to mates and maybe a few
other people. And now, eighteen months on, we’re at Splendour,
with all these people at the front waiting for our set and we
hardly know any of them. There are loads of people that none of
us know wanting to hear us and wanting photos with us. We’re a
Nottingham band, obviously, but you don’t realise that when you
are played on Radio 1, XFM, and 6 Music that people around the
country now know about you. It’s good to go down to London
now - as it’s not as hard or scary as it used to be. There are people
who know who we are, which is such an amazing thing.
We have to mention the ‘Nottingham doesn’t have a huge list
of famous bands’ thing…
For a while there was a lack of good bands, but it’s a bit
unfair to say that nowadays. There was a huge metal scene
in Nottingham, when metal was nowhere near as well-known
nationwide as indie or pop. Now, though, there are a lot of
bands in Nottingham who are a bit more ‘indie’. Bands like
Swimming are doing well, so it’s a bit harsh on them. We’ve
actually found it easy being in Nottingham as an up-and-coming
band, due to the fact that bands here are all really supportive of
one another, venues have supported us way beyond what they
have to, and it’s smack bang in the middle of the country, which
makes gigging really easy. It was tough when we first started
out, and the politics of it all get really complicated, but when we
became a ‘serious’ band, Nottingham was behind us straight
away. Nottingham is a bubble - and soon, it’s going to burst.
We heard there was a plan to defer your university entrance for
a year to see how you got on as a band. That year must almost
be up now...
We took a year out to see if anything happened, and it’s gone a
lot better than we thought it would. So, we figured we’d take
another year. You can go to Uni at any age - so if, in ten years time
it still hasn’t worked...
In another year’s time, what would you consider to be
success? Are you ambitious?
We are ambitious. We’d like to be able to charge you to do the
interview! We know that in the next year we won’t be rock stars,
but we will have got to play some gigs in big stadiums. Last
year, Stornoway got the same coverage from the BBC as we did
this year and they ended up on Later with Jools Holland. They’re
going to be big - they played the Park Stage at Glastonbury
this year and to be honest, that’s something we’d love to do by
this time next year. If we’re not at that level we will almost be
disappointed.
Dog is Dead’s new single, Young, is out now. Get yourself a free
Dog Is Dead track - Motel - by pointing your browser towards
leftlion.co.uk/dog right now.
myspace.com/dogisdeadband
So how much of that is down to luck?
There’s always an element of luck with that. but you have to
force people to be interested. If everyone is talking about your
band, then people can’t ignore you. Keep playing until people
are forced to like you!
leftlion.co.uk/issue37
13
THATCHER'S
Taking the original film cast - most of whom come from Notts - and plunging them
deep into the mire of mid-eighties Britain, Shane Meadows’ Channel 4 series This Is
England ‘86 has been a runaway success. We collared two of the cast for a natter…
"TRYING TO COME DOWN FROM
IT WAS A VERY BIG DEAL"
Vicky McClure, AKA Lol
Tell us about your first audition for Shane Meadows...
It was about eleven years ago now and was for A Room
For Romeo Brass. There were loads of us at the audition.
I can’t really remember what exercises we did but I
thought there was no way I was going to get it. Paddy
Considine was there and we were just messing about
with props - I remember there being an oar for a boat and
that came into play at some point. When I got the part,
I was just like “how on earth has that happened?”
You were Paddy’s love interest in that film.
What was it like working with him?
Shane and him together are just hilarious.
They were college mates and they’d
created this together so it was great for
them. I remember filming the scene
where Morell has a hard-on in the
lounge. Shane said to me, “Just go
with it, Vic. Whatever happens,
we’re just going to keep rolling.”
So when Paddy comes in with
that and I laugh, that is
completely natural. I had no
idea what to do!
Do you keep in touch
with Paddy? He’s all over
Hollywood now…
We don’t phone or text each
other, but if there’s ever an
event or Shane’s getting people
together I see him. It’s always nice
to catch up. I went to the Empire
awards a couple of years ago and he
introduced me to Matt Damon which
I’ll be forever grateful to him for!
to
my
Do you ever get star-struck?
Yeah, I do! I worked with Madonna on Filth
and Wisdom and she’s off the scale celebritywise. I remember when I first met her, I tried
act as cool as possible but inside I’m like, “Oh
God; there’s Madonna!” You can’t help it.
How did you refer to her? Did you call her Madonna?
No, we called her M. I don’t know why - I never asked.
That’s what I could hear around me so I Just followed
everyone else’s lead. But I tried to avoid calling her
anything to be honest.
The part of Lol in the This Is England film was written
with you in mind…
Yes. We were in Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem a long time
ago and Shane was saying he was thinking about
making this film. He had some rough ideas on characters
and storylines and mentioned he wanted me to play this
character with a shaved head. I was like, “I’m gonna just
ignore whatever you said about the shaved head and
carry on listening...”.
Was shaving your hair off a big deal?
My hair was to my arse! My mum had nurtured it, putting
it up in a bun and all that sort of stuff. It was a massive
deal. But eventually I thought “it’s only hair”. Cutting it
off was liberating and helped bring the character to life.
Lol was put through the wringer in the TV series,
wasn’t she?
Yeah. It was very emotional, I had a few tears here and
there, Sometimes because I had to, but I was so involved
in my character that I was a bit emotionally destroyed
at times. It’s not like you could turn off as soon as the
cameras did.
We all saw what happened to her at the end of the last
episode. How did you feel after the scenes with her
Dad were in the can?
Well, me and Johnny Harris, who played my Dad – and
who, by the way, is the best actor I’ve ever worked with had already started the scene before the cameras started
shooting, so we were already in character long before,
to beef it up a bit. So trying to come down from that
14
leftlion.co.uk/issue37
afterwards was a very big deal. Funnily enough, that
was the first scene I shot on my first day on set – we shot
the last two episodes first and the first two episodes last,
which was a big challenge. But it got the dark scenes out
of the way first. The rape scene in episode three was one of the darkest
on British television for a long while.
I’d agree. I was on location on the day they shot that,
but obviously not on set. Shane was aware that it was
going to be a massive challenge for Johnny and Danielle
Watson, and to do a million angles wasn’t going to
be the right thing. In fact, the reason it’s had such an
impact on people is because it looks so real and totally
unglamourous. Because it was taken from one steady
angle, it kind of made you feel like you were looking
through the window. Shane always goes for realism, and
that’s what makes it hard to watch.
As an obviously tight cast who have known each other
for a long time, how do scenes like that affect the
group?
We’re were all supportive of each other and proud of
what we’re doing. Everyone knew what under pressure
we were all under; even people like Andrew Ellis
(Gadget) who wasn’t as involved with the darker scenes
had to get his kit off and do sex scenes. We all knew this
was probably the biggest challenge we’ve ever faced – it
was definitely mine.
You had your share of nude scenes as well…
Well, yes. And it was a decision I made myself. I wanted
the character to stay real, and having sex with your
clothes on doesn’t strike me as being that real.
Was it horribly awkward - particularly as it was with
Andrew Shim, who you’ve known for ages?
You just laugh it off, to be honest. There are cameras
everywhere, someone holding a boom, someone doing
your make-up…and it was far easier with Shimmy than
it would have been with someone I’d never worked with
before. I had far more difficult moments when I was
filming with clothes on and not having sex.
What’s life been like for you after being on telly every
week?
Walking round Nottingham has definitely got more
bizarre, put it that way. I’m getting recognised quite a
lot; but everyone’s being dead lovely and encouraging.
It’s very different to the reaction I got when the film came
out, which is understandable as we’re in people’s living
rooms once a week. It’s quite daunting to realise that
while we’re watching ourselves at home, two to three
million are doing the same.
You were also in Plan B’s music video for She Said
recently.
Yeah, it’s a great song isn’t it? I’m doing his next music
video next week actually. We’re quite good mates now
actually; he got me free tickets for V Festival. I feel quite
cool having him as a friend.
If you rent a film, what do you go for?
I’m not very good with decisions. What I tend to do is
buy a load. Last time I went DVD shopping I spent £60.
I just picked up a bit of cheese, a bit of action… a bit of
everything really.
What have you got coming up next?
At the moment I’m working with a make-up brand called
Illamasqua. It’s quite high end for stage and screen, but
you can also buy it in shops. They’ve written three short
films that should be going on the internet shortly. I’m no
model that’s for sure, but that’s what I loved about them
is that they don’t want that.
Is there anything you’d like say to LeftLion readers?
I love Nottingham and I’m very proud of my roots.
Whenever people ask “Where are you from?” I answer
“Nottingham, born and bred.” It rolls off the tongue.
CHILDREN
interviews: Jared Wilson and Jessica Troughton
photos: Philip Jackson
clothes: Pink and Lilly (pinkandlilly.co.uk)
"SHE'S THAT GIRL THAT SHANE
GOT OFF WITH IN THE SHED"
Rosamund Hanson, AKA Smell
Whereabouts in Nottingham are you from?
I’m from the city centre, not a long way from town. Being
accessible to the city is exciting; I think people from the city
are opportunists. But I see most of my castings and agent in
London, so I suppose my acting life is a separate entity.
When did you first decide you want to be an actress?
It was when my Year 6 teacher handed me the part of Kaa in
the Jungle Book school play and then gave me a form for the
Television Workshop. I wasn’t initially that interested but
then when I got there I got very excited by it. I thrived off
attention from an early age. My parents have never pushed
me into anything, they’ve always let me find my own way
in life and I’ve always been quite a role player with quite
a strong imagination. I find getting into a character very
exciting, it’s a new experience every time.
Tell us about the audition process for This Is England…
I went for an audition at Broadway for Shane. It was a
session of improvisation for a new project that was on the
horizon. I wasn’t told anything about the part at all - there
was no real storyboard. But I got told ‘we really like you’
and asked back for another session. So I did that, and got
the part. I read the script, and was absolutely thrilled by
it. I think they were looking for someone raw, who was
malleable and open-minded. Shane is very specific about
the people he works with.
What was it like making the film?
It was my first big break and I was in the middle of my
GCSE’s. We gelled as a group and all got on really well there was a real synergy in the gang. Shane doesn’t stick
to the script, he’s very instinctive and very ballsy with his
decisions and choices. Once he’s made a choice and got
something set up he’ll go at it with gusto. But everyone’s
in there together, it’s very organic and it all comes together
like a Jackson Pollock painting.
How much do you feel you got to make the part of Smell
your own?
It was based on a character Shane met when he was
growing up and so I had that to go on. She was the village
bike. Now that she’s developed and grown up a bit I feel I
own her more, but there’ll always be a bit of the character
that belongs to Shane. She’s that girl that he got off with in
the shed!
Did you expect This Is England to become as big a hit
as it did?
No, not at all. Shane’s got a massive following in Britain but
it’s an underground film still and he’s a very cult director. I
didn’t expect the amount of global attention it’s attracted.
But everyone that I’ve spoken to has said ‘I can identify
with one of those characters.’ There’s a gang and people
relate to relationships and dynamics in a certain group and
people can always identify with that.
There seems to be a strong friendship bond within the
TIE cast...
When we sit down and we all come together we are the
most unusual lot. Everyone is diverse, there’s a really nice
friendship bond and when we get together we really are
thoroughly pleased to see each other.
What else have you done that we might not have seen?
I’ve done a pilot with Ricky Gervais, which may get turned
into a film. I’m also working on a feature film with Mario
Kirkpatrick which is in development at the moment.
We hear you’re a keen tap dancer…
Well, I did Irish dancing! And I went to Miss Morrison
School of Dance.
And a member of the cleft palate charity Smile Train
UK…
Yeah, which I’m very proud of because I think people
should be allowed to go out there and have the
confidence regardless of issues and prejudices.
They should always feel confident and have the
ability to speak out and just really go for it.
It’s something I went through when I was
a child; I was so determined to be good at
English and read out loud in class and do
work with my speech therapist on my speech
impediment. It all made me more determined.
Everyone should have the opportunity to feel
beautiful.
If you’re renting a film, do you go for the
thriller or the rom-com section?
I go for what appeals to me which could be
anything. It could be any genre. As long as I
like the look of something then I’ll pick it up.
What was the last thing that made you
laugh?
Jo Hartley (who plays Shaun’s mum in This
Is England) got some chocolate mousse,
wiped it on her leg and pretended it was
poo, then wiped it off with a hankie.
What was the last thing that made you
cry?
We were watching Saving Private Ryan this
morning and this woman found out that
her husband was dead and she collapsed
on the floor. She knew they were coming
and they were bringing bad news.
What’s your ideal night out in
Nottingham?
Meeting good, creative people, enjoying
good music, looking good and just having
a laugh and enjoying people’s company.
Anything else you want to say to
LeftLion readers?
Remember that your friends make
you who you are and they’re really
important. It’s really important to have
a good group around you. If you don’t
feel like you’re around a good group
of people maybe try and retrace your
steps a bit and find out who those
people are.
What other actors do you admire?
Juliette Lewis. I like the way she’s a fearless actress and
she’s very fierce in her performances. I just think she’s an
incredible, strong, gifted woman. I like looking up to role
models like that because I find them inspirational. She’s not
just an actress, she’s a creative being. That’s what I strive
to be.
What do you want to do next?
Character acting, because I want to do very strong
characters and feel like I’m being challenged.
leftlion.co.uk/issue37
15
It Shouldnt Happen To A Veg
Starting a vegetarian café on Mansfield Road might have been akin to running a
Yates’s in Saudi Arabia, but Dotty’s Café will be sorely missed - not least, according to
a former staff member, because it kept most of Nottingham’s mentalists in one place…
words: Esther Parry illustrations: Rikki Marr
Working at Dotty’s Café was an incredible experience.
Who could pass up the chance to work in a place
where we’d put tea cosies on our head and pose like
mannequins in the window to freak out people on the bus
to Arnold, turn the sweeping-up into the dance to Prince
Charming by Adam and The Ants, or make elaborate
plans to turn the downstairs cellar into a petting zoo
containing helpless-yet-sexy lads we would ‘Fritzl’ into
cages? Even doing the actual job itself - just serving
scrumptious food to mostly lovely people in a gorgeous
place - was a joy, and my boss Susie was (and is) a
legend. Her advice for dealing with idiots was simple;
“Punch them in the throat” or “Kick them in the vag”.
And there were a lot of idiots.
You’d think that in this day and age most - if not all people would have a vague concept of vegetarianism.
You might also think that the words ‘Vegetarian Cafe’
in massive thick red letters on the window might have
given people a teeny-tiny hint that we didn’t sell meat in
Dotty’s. You’d be wrong. Because ours was a vegetarian
café on Mansfield Road and therefore a red rag to the
twattiest bulls in the city. This is what we had to put up
with…
again. However, my personal all-time favourite was the
woman who, when I told her I couldn’t make her a ham
sandwich, started repeatedly shouting at me to get out of
her house.
VIOLENTLY CARNIVOROUS WORKMEN
You’d think that they wouldn’t want to be walking, talki..
well, walking stereotypes, yet every day, it was the same:
they’d come in, ask for ham (or bacon, or sausages), only
to be surprised to learn they were in a veggie café that –
shockingly - didn’t actually sell meat. There’d be an array
of reactions to this;
1. “Ooorghh, Ah’m norreating none of that fookin’ veggeh
crap”
2. Start asking how one can be healthy and ‘stay alive’
without meat in one’s diet
3. Ask what we did sell, and react with disgust at the
thought of such cutting-edge extremist veggie cuisine as
‘a cheese sandwich’
4. Keep asking if you’re sure it’s a veggie place, like
they’re going to catch you out
5. Say; “OK then, I’ll just have a chicken sandwich
instead”
Sometimes, they’d actually come in more than once in a
day,
having either forgotten, or saying “Oh, I wasn’t sure
you really meant it. I thought you might’ve got some
meat in by now”. If you were really unlucky, you’d end
up wasting huge portions of your life arguing with the
world’s mardiest pedants about how the menu said
‘sausages’, when there wasn’t any meat in them. I
had to find a polite way of saying “Sorry, you pathetic
needledick - I just presumed that you wouldn’t be so
bastard thick that you’d understand that sausages on the menu of a vegetarian cafe obviously meant they
wouldn’t be meaty ones”.
This is not a class thing, by the way: confusion and then
anger about not being able to get meat from a veggie
caff applied to all walks of life. One very posh and stylish
woman came in once and started screeching about how
I’d ruined her life because I couldn’t make the chicken
salad sandwich she kept begging for. Over and over
HARDCORE ULTRA-VEGANS AND THE
VEGAN-CURIOUS
On the flipside were the ridiculously uptight non-meaties,
who would double, triple and quadruple-check that the
food was veggie/vegan, and bang on about the dangers
of cross-contaminating vegan and veggie knives. “Yeah,
um…I work in a vegetarian café, I know the rules. I’m not
about to bring you a live cow and a sharp knife and tell
you to tuck in”, I’d say. In my head.
But perhaps they had just met the next character and
been left wary: the man came in and wanted to find out
more about veganism. Not its principles, mind, because
I explained those and he couldn’t grasp any of them.
“These veeee-gans - what country are they from? Do they
not have animals in their country? Is it their religion?” I
kept explaining as simply as I could, in terms that a small
child could grasp, but he was still baffled. “If I went on
the Google, would I be able to find anything about these
veeee-gans? Would there be anything written about
them, do you think?” He then accused me of making
veganism up as an elaborate joke then left, muttering
about finding out more. I do hope ‘The Google’ had better
luck enlightening him than I did.
Vegans might have a higher moral conscience than
others, but that doesn’t mean they necessarily have a
higher level of intelligence: one of them bought a spinach
and feta cheese parcel, then came back to shout at me
for selling him cheese when, quote, “You know I’m a
vegan”. When I pointed out that he had specifically asked
for something with cheese in it, his come back was;
“But how was I supposed to know that cheese meant
cheese?”. He also came out with the reigning champion
of stupid Dotty’s quotes: “Are there any peanuts in the
spicy peanut noodle salad?”
APPALLINGLY RIGHT-ON MUMS
…who would let their spoilt, uncontrolled offspring
smush food all over the shop and break or scribble over
Susie’s immaculately planned-out 1950s décor. One of
them once let her already pretentious brats jump up and
down with muddy boots all over our little sofa, despite
me asking her repeatedly and nicely to stop. When one of
them spewed majestically over all the cushions, Mum had
the audacity to blame me for the sofa being there for them
to jump on. The kids’ names? Boudicca. And Wolf.
FLAT-OUT RUDE BASTARDS
…like the incredibly sullen Eastern European girl
from the hairdresser, known to the staff as ‘Ivana
Learnsomemanners’, who came in to tut and sigh that we
didn’t have “any food” in - or that the fare on offer was
“The same disgusting rubbish every day” One time, she
kicked off at me because her potato salad wasn’t heated.
Erm, it’s smothered in mayonnaise, love. Have you ever
tried microwaving mayo, you stupid, rude bitch?
…like the patronising bastards who treated you like you
must be educationally subnormal to work in a café. One
woman, who, when I mentally added up her bill, said
to me “Ooooh, you’re good at maths - for someone who
works in a café.
…like the even more patronising bastards who would
mangle the names of what they were ordering, and acted
like you were the one who was wrong when you put
them right. I’ll say this one more time, ‘tards: Calzone is
pronounced ‘cal- zone-ay’, not ‘cal-zone’ (which sounds
like a limescale remover). ‘Quiche’ is not ‘kwish’ or
‘kwitchy’. ‘Pizza’ is not ‘Pisa’ - that’s in Italy. And there
are three syllables in ‘falafel’ - not two, not four, and not,
in one memorable case, five.
…like the ones who didn’t seem to have any grasp on
reality, much less on pronunciation, who would try to
come behind the counter, asking if it was self-service.
One, to put it in the most politically correct tones, freaky
ginger bint was caught looking through the cupboards
above the sink in the staffroom after I’d directed her
outdoors to the customer toilets. She then told me off for
the washing-up pile looking messy, and then asked me if
I would buy her a different toilet roll, as she didn’t like the
kind in the staff toilet she’d gone into on her travels. And
shall l wipe your arse for you too, madam?
ELDERLY PERVERTS
We got loads. Trying to stroke my hand when giving me
money, while commenting on my figure or telling me that
“only whores wear blusher”. Asking to move their teapot
two inches to the left for him just to get a good gleg at my
cleavage. Or remarking upon the myriad flavours of cake
we had, and then asking me what I tasted of. I don‘t think
my answer - “goat’s cheese” - was exactly what he was
hoping for.
(always giving people the benefit of the doubt, me). “No
it’s not!” she laughed. “Tuna comes in tins”. “Yeeesss,
but it was a fish before they cut it up and put it into tins.”
“IS IT?” she said in amazement. “Are you sure? Well, I
never knew that! You learn summat new everyday! Well,
can I just get a cheese cob then, duck?”
But I’ll not have a word said against ‘Denis’, the world’s
oldest and least convincing tranny. We love her - she’s
harmless, not bonkers and her back story is tragic. Same
goes for Champagne Supernova, the UK’s cheeriest
schizophrenic. I even had a soft spot for Goodbye Horses
(who looks like Buffalo Bill out of Silence of The Lambs
when he’s doing the willy-tucked-between-his-legs
dance) who came in to sell us broken felt-tip pens from a
pram and started getting angry every time I turned down
his marriage proposals and offers to buy the shoes I was
wearing.
Despite all that, I loved working in Dotty’s. Like all
service jobs, the work could be repetitive, thankless and
frustrating at times, but it was also ace. Dealing with
twats was the price I had to pay to work somewhere cool,
fun and usually populated with good folk, and I mourn its
passing. Here’s hoping my next boss allows me to kick
people in the vag, too. Thanks, Susie.
THE VIBRANT AND ECLECTIC CHARACTERS OF
MANSFIELD ROAD
A man came in once with a very thin little girl, asking
what I had for 20p. When I said “nothing”, he went mad,
insisting he had to feed his daughter and there was no
food at home. Feeling sorry for her, I asked if he
really had no money, thinking I might do her
a bit of toast or summat for 20p. “Yeah, but
after I’ve bought the paper and a Big Mac
for myself, I’ll only have 20p left”. I had the
cheek to suggest that he might consider
getting her something decent to eat instead of
a Daily Star and a manky burger for
himself. He told me not to be so
stupid, and started screaming
that his daughter was going
to die of hunger, and that I
was a murderer. I pointed
out who the real villain of
the piece was, forced them
both out and slammed the
door. Poor kid - I still worry if
she actually got fed that day.
Parnd Woman was always a
regular; a scratchcard-obsessed
loon who harasses passers-by
and every business on Mansfield
Road with an innovative approach to
securing a deal: 1) thrust hand into client’s
face. 2) Scream “PARND!” (i.e., ‘pound’) at
them, in a Cockney accent. When the recession
kicked in, she took inflation into account and
started asking for 80p, which wasn’t the same,
really. If you’re feeling generous, she’s outside the
Coral bookies from 8am to 6pm, Monday to Saturday.
The story of Tuna Girl is now part of Mansfield
Road legend. A chunky lass in her late teens came in
one dinnertime and asked me for a tuna sarnie. I told
her I couldn’t do that, what with, y’know, being a
vegetarian cafe. “Yeah, I know”, she said sweetly.
“I want tuna”. “Tuna is a fish”, I pointed out,
thinking she was one of those people who has
confused vegetarianism with pescatarianism
leftlion.co.uk/issue37
17
YAY, VERY LEE
Stewart Lee, the quiffier half of 90s TV comedy duo Lee and Herring, quit stand-up to write operas about Jerry
Springer and Nottingham binge-drinking and a book about why he quit stand-up. Then he un-quit, and returns
interview: Jared Wilson
to the all-new Just The Tonic this month…
What inspired you to write your book How I Escaped My Certain Fate?
When you get on television, you get approached by publishers who want you do some kind of
trashy cash-in thing to be sold in supermarkets. I knew I couldn’t do that as it’s just not my style.
When Faber & Faber asked me if there was anything I wanted to do. It occurred to me that there
were a lot of books about comedians and their lives, how funny they were at school and all their
celebrity friends. But there weren’t many about the actual process of putting an act together. It
gets put in the biography section in bookshops, but I’ve tried to keep the personal details out
except where they are relevant to the work.
It’s had really good reviews. Did you expect that?
I didn’t, and I don’t think the publisher did either. Usually when I get dismissed by people, it’s
because of things that I choose to do. So I’m really pleased that people seem to have got it as I
went out on a bit of a limb. Plus, if it sells well, it means that we might actually get some money
out of it.
The last few years have seen a second resurgence for your work, after the Fist of Fun days…
That series was on TV just before comedy touring had really taken off and before
everything got put onto DVD – which it’s still not been out on. Ultimately it got
cancelled because not enough people liked it, but both Richard and I have
found a decade or more later that journalists, promoters and people that
run venues and labels often remember us. They were teenagers back
then, but now they’re able to support us in a more obvious way. It
took us a long time to realise that we’d ever been popular.
How did you ever get away with This Morning with Richard Not
Judy going out in a Sunday afternoon terrestrial TV slot?
It wouldn’t happen now, but it just sort of went in under the radar.
The person that commissioned it left and the new Controller of
BBC2 just didn’t like us and never watched it. Also, it was before
the real dawn of the internet and so it was much harder for people to
complain about things.
Did you ever get any feedback from Richard and Judy?
I’d met Richard and Judy before we did that programme - they weren’t
very nice. Then I met them after and Judy Finnegan said our work was
stupid and that it was ‘comedy about nothing’. We thought that was
really funny, so we used the quote on the posters.
And what about Jerry Springer?
We met Jerry Springer before he’d seen the opera and
he said he’d heard it was great and he wasn’t
going to sue us. Then we saw him again
after he’d seen it in Edinburgh and he
really liked it. Then he saw it again in
London and I think he understood it for
the first time, realising it was critical of
him and what he stood for. So he told
me that I was a bad person and that I
was the same as an apologist for the
Holocaust. I don’t really know what he
meant by that.
“Jerry Springer told me
that I was the same as an
apologist for the Holocaust”
Tell us about the bingedrinking opera you wrote about
Nottingham…
Richard Thomas, the composer of
Jerry Springer the Opera, got a
commission to do a series of six
short operas for BBC TV. It’s based
on an episode of Panorama, which
was about alcohol in the city. I
wasn’t involved at all with the
staging or filming of it, but the
words are mine. There was a
load of other stuff at the end that
they had to cut, like Robin Hood
coming out of the River Trent to
save the city.
Around the time of Stewart
Lee’s Comedy Vehicle, some
critics started to call you a
‘British Bill Hicks’. Did he have
any influence on your recent
work?
No. No-one was really aware of him
in the UK until about 1993 and I was
gigging long before then. I think the
first two of his stand-up albums have
dated badly, but there’s one routine the one where he talks about America
arming the world with weapons and
compares it to Jack Palance in Shane
- that did influence me, because it’s
quite dramatic and there’s lots of space
in it. It didn’t occur to me to mention him in
the book; he’s the kind of person the public
know about and I do think he’s really good.
But what I do isn’t really like him - his stuff was
almost exclusively political and social. The people
18
leftlion.co.uk/issue37
that I would be happy to say I’ve been influenced by are Simon Munnery, Ted Chippington, Kevin
McAleer and Johnny Vegas.
When you’re onstage, you like to alienate a crowd and then draw them back in. What’s that
about?
It’s like juggling. It’s not very exciting to watch unless the juggler drops a plate near the
beginning. At that point, you’re reminded that you are actually watching something live and that
there is something at stake. You need a reminder that there is jeopardy in the room; that something
could go wrong.
How has being a father changed your outlook on life and your career?
You have to be more positive about things. You’re more tired. You can’t afford to entertain such a
degree of cynicism because you hope the world will improve for your own child. But on the whole
it’s been really good and good for the work, because it gives you a slightly different outlook on the
world.
And do you think you’ll ever work with Richard Herring again?
Yes, in about twenty five years time. We’ve decided that it will be best left until our sixties or
seventies – as it will be much funnier then. Although I did do a few minutes with him in Edinburgh
on stage this year, where he came up and ripped a copy of the book up.
You’re playing Just The Tonic later this month. Everyone’s got a Darrell story - what’s yours?
My dad used to be obsessed by boiled sweets, and when he died recently I picked up all his stuff.
There were loads and loads of packets of sweets, and I put them in the glove compartment of my
Mini and I thought, as I eat those, I’ll think of my dad. Then I gave Darrell a lift up to Nottingham
from London. A few days later, I noticed that all the packets of sweets had gone except for one. I
asked Darrell about it, and he said it wasn’t anything to do with him. Then a guy he works with
said that Darrell had stolen them all when I’d got out for petrol and they were all in his office. And
that he’d laugh about how he’d got all these sweets off me.
Stewart Lee, 18 October, Just The Tonic, The Cornerhouse,
Burton Street, NG1 4DB. Tickets: £16
stewartlee.co.uk
LeftLion Advertorial October 2010.ai 22/09/2010 19:37:44
CAN'T KNOCK
THE HUSTLE
interview: Paul Klotschkow
photo: David Baird
The Hockley Hustle, an all-day multi-venue shebang across the poncier end of town celebrates its fifth birthday
at the end of October. Adam Pickering, the founder and lynchpin of the whole thing manages to spare ten minutes
of his ludicrously packed schedule to tell us why it’s the most important incarnation of one of the key dates in the
Notts gig calendar…
Remind us what the Hockley Hustle is…
It’s a music and arts festival across the nice bits of the city
centre, hosted by the best promoters and creative groups in
Nottingham, representing as many music genres and as many
styles of everything as possible. It has raised around £45,000 for
Oxfam and local NSPCC projects. Just under £22,000 of that is
from last year alone, so it has grown year on year.
How did it start?
It was part of Oxjam, the music festival that was originally about
lots of people putting on DIY events to raise money for Oxfam.
The Hockley Hustle has always been the biggest Oxjam event in
the country. When it started in 2006, I got seven venues involved
and realised that I would need a lot of help, so I got Farmyard
Records and Not In Nottingham involved, along with Folkwit
Records, and lots of people I’m forgetting at the moment. Drop
in the Ocean in 2005/6 was a big inspiration, and it really helped
to wake Nottingham up to the benefits of getting everyone
together. I’d been helping some acts out on the promotional
side already and doing some design work for various people, so
I had been getting involved a little bit for a while. I had a lot of
energy that needed putting in to something and just wanted to
do something positive.
How hard was it to get the first one off the ground?
It was surprisingly easy. All of the venues and promoters were
really keen to help. It was just a case of going out there, having
a lot of conviction and hope, and really just knowing what you
want to get out of people and approaching them in the right
way. As for the artists, they already had it in them. I think people
were waiting for something to put their energy into and waiting
for something to get excited about. As soon as you give people
something like that, they will run with it. Once people start
connecting with each other they start having their own little
offshoot projects. Seeing what that momentum does and what
you end up with is pretty exciting.
So how has it changed over the years?
We’ve always wanted to improve it and take it to the next
level, and we’ve always exceeded our expectations. This year
there will be over thirty venues, with events on the Friday and
Saturday incorporating venues from all over town. To be honest
and without sounding arrogant, we’ve actually got too big for
Hockley. There are only so many venues.
What goes through your mind the night before? Can you
sleep?
There are always particular tasks that invariably don’t get nailed
down til the night before, such as waiting on stage times and
stuff like that from various promoters. You’re just tying up the
loose ends. There’s no time to stop until it’s all over. As for the
actual day…pretty worn out, to be honest. There are weeks
where you’re working non-stop, waking up and getting on with
it, then trying to go to sleep whenever you can before getting
up again and getting back on it. So I’m usually completely
knackered by the actual day.
So, tell us about this year…
The main change is that we’re moving away from Oxjam this
year so that we can focus on more local charities. As for the
actual event, we’re bringing more of the good stuff. We are going
for events on the Friday and Saturday night with loads of events
all over town. There will be more variety, and more grass-roots,
community-led stuff too. And bigger and better headliners, with
a more diverse selection of acts.
Still looking for people to get involved?
If people have something they can bring to the table, there’s still
time. Go to the Hockley Hustle website - hockleyhustle.co.uk - or
join the Facebook group to get in touch.
What does the future hold for the Hustle?
We’re trying to develop; there’s a constant feeling within the
team of needing to take it forward, so we’re looking at building a
model for something bigger, more expansive and more inclusive,
that may well include the whole of Nottingham - but details are
shady at the moment. We always said that we would make it to
the fifth year with the Hockley Hustle and this year feels a bit
like the turning point. It’s a good time to go all out with this one
then stand back to take a look at it for next year. We are already
working on the next stage. It’s very exciting.
Any final words?
Thanks to LeftLion for all of the support over the years. Thanks
for the people of Nottingham who have got involved in one way
or another. Thanks to all of the musicians who have made the
Hockley Hustle possible. We all look forward to round five.
The Hockley Hustle, 22-24 October, across the City Centre, £15 £8. Check the website for updates and ticket info
hockleyhustle.co.uk
leftlion.co.uk/issue37
21
HOLD ME CLOSER,
TONY DANCER
interview: Paul Klotschkow
photo: David Baird
Antony Hodgkinson drums for Julian Cope, collaborates with a host of Notts bands, flew the flag for Derby AltRock in the mid-90s with Bivouac, and likes to be known these days as ANTRØNHY. Oh, and he got up on stage
during the 1992 Reading Festival and danced for his mate’s band - some bloke by the name of Kurt Cobain and became known as Tony The Interpretive Dancer...
How did you get into drumming?
I’ll skirt over this quite quickly; let’s just say that I was
quite a troubled child and I got into some serious strife.
One day I just got sick of the way I was and thought that
I need to start drumming. It’s very hard to explain really,
it was when I was eighteen. It was therapeutic; when I
started drumming, I never got in to trouble again. I found
out when I went back to college seven years ago to do
Music Technology at Confetti, that I did actually have
learning disorders and severe dyslexia and thinking back,
that is why I was the way I was.
What was it like being in a band like Bivouac in the early
90s? Did it differ to how things are now?
I don’t really deal with bands now – I’m more into side
projects with the artists I’m normally with. I guess it
is harder to get a deal as we did with Geffen, and it’s
probably harder to get support or to be able to tour the
States for six months. It’s just different times, I guess. I do
bits and bobs for people who need a drummer. I’ve recently
done a session for Paul Yeadon from Bivouac called The
Nation of Shopkeepers. I did stuff for Earth the California
Love Dream. Me and Joey from Punish The Atom are
working together on a project called Golden Hair, which is
a dance project, but quite heavy duty really.
How did you end up working with Julian Cope?
It was about two or three years ago, I met Julian through
a mutual friend called Doggen who plays guitar for
Spiritualized. What we do is quite improvised, like at the
Bristol Festival: Julian gave me a set list with no songs
on it - just who was on stage and when. Obviously I had
to ask what he wanted, and he said; ”Just have a rhythm
like the one you played in this session or that,” and then
it goes from there. It can be extremely boring for a great
percentage of people but a lot of the time something quite
magical can come from it.
So, Nirvana and the Reading Festival. Since the DVD
was released the whole ‘Tony the Interpretative Dancer’
thing is more widely known...
It’s always been a weird one really. I didn’t know that they
were releasing that DVD until it was out. I’ve always been
a bit apprehensive looking back on it, really, as I can be
very sceptical about my performances. It was the last time
that I actually saw Kurt as well. I had a tear in my eye at
the end when I realised they gave me a credit. I’ve had
seventeen years of basic anonymity but I quite like the fact
that I’ve accidentally become part of a secret history.
How did you get to know them?
Through an old friend of mine, Russell Warby. I met him
at a club called The Colour Wheel – the place where the
new toilets are on Greyhound Street - and we just got on
like a house on fire. He represented some Amphetamine
Reptile and SST bands who I’d pick up if he didn’t have a
driver. One day he said “I’ve got some bands coming who
are doing the Lamefest Tour - Mudhoney, Tad and Nirvana”
so I just picked them up at the airport and we hung out.
22
leftlion.co.uk/issue37
When they came back, we met up with them again it was
just lads together getting on really well. I think the dancing
came about as a dare.
When you were up on stage with Nirvana did you have
anything planned out?
No, it was all improvised. Just to be weird with it and get
lost in it really. Not to look...well, obviously it wouldn’t look
too professional. I can dance a lot better than that, but that
wasn’t the point really. It was to be part of the gig and to
show that anybody could do it. I actually overdid it in the
first song and ended up wearing a neck collar because I
gave myself whiplash.
What was going through your mind while all this was
going on?
‘Don’t slip over’, which I didn’t. ‘Stay away from Krist’ because I had been hit by the bass guitar before when he
throws it up. ‘Stay away from Kurt’ - because I may punch
him. I always had images of punching him in the face
flailing around. And ‘just feed off Dave’, because that’s
what we did for each other. When I watched the DVD, as
soon as I saw Kurt go on stage and play the first chords, I
actually felt the same surge as I did that night. You know;
this is it, full tilt, you are going for it. Amazing.
It must be nice to be a part of music history…
It is now, yes. I was always in awe of bands like Led Zep
or Sabbath – serious rock history – and now Nirvana have
fallen into that bracket. That’s the great thing about life,
really - you don’t know what is going to happen in the next
second or minute, some things will become apparent, you
can’t force it.
What’s your fondest memory of knocking about with
Nirvana?
I had been seriously ill a year, two years before meeting
them, and I was still mentally scarred from it - I was a bit
weird and uncomfortable. And Kurt just understood it and
took me under his wing. I could be a bit weird at times,
and I could say quite inappropriate things, but they were
very accepting of me. Kurt was a really sweet guy, and it’s
a shame what happened to him, but it was foreseeable in
a way. When Kurt died it was horrible and very upsetting:
I stopped drumming for nine years because of how it
affected me. I got into the more electronic side of things,
but I stopped physically playing drums.
So what’s your relationship with Nottingham?
I used to be able to see the glow of the Nottingham city
lights from where I used to live on top of the hills in Derby.
It’s a bit weird really, I was brought up in the country
but I always gravitated towards the city. I think it is the
whole ‘bright city lights’ thing. I moved here when I was
sixteen but I used to come to Notts for the humps behind
the Broadmarsh, because I used to BMX behind there many
moons ago in the late 70s. I have left, but I always come
back to it – it’s my stomping ground.
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CRASH US A FLAG, YOUTH
All of a sudden, there’s been a clamour for English counties to have their own flags. Lincolnshire and even Derbyshire have already
got one - so why not Notts? LeftLion put the word out to its dedicated team of designers and illustrators: this is what we got back…
Rikki Marr
Lord Biro
Chris Summerlin
Simon Mitchell
The creator of Byron Clough
“Nottingham is now recognised as a primary source for high grade dope - in both the botanical and slang sense of the word. Not only do we
produce the strongest sensi in the UK, we also have the biggest bag of talent when it comes to making music and art. I was going to name
all the sick beat makers, musicians, writers, DJs, MCs, bands, filmmakers, artists, designers, actors and dancers out there who make our city
the Home of the Peng, but there are far too many to mention”
rikkimarr.com
Reigning champion of the local gig poster
“I propose not just a flag, but a whole new secret society for the people of Nottingham, inspired by the Toynbee Tiles (Google it), the Freemasons (minus the George W Bush shit) and, of course, the words of Donovan Whycliffe Bromwell. Nottingham has long celebrated the underdog and applauded the glorious failure. Our cultural exports all fall short due to don’t-give-a-shit modesty or they break down in the rush
hour-traffic at 6.10 somewhere on the A453 on the way to a gig in London, where they were supposed to arrive at 7pm. It’s a curse, but I say
we should celebrate this. It’s what makes us Nottinghamians, not Robin Hood or ‘two girls for every boy’. Next time you suspect a stranger
is from our fair city, just slip this into the conversation: “Can I sing you a song?” Use it as a greeting, maybe, like the Masonic handshake. Or
write it on a wall somewhere without explanation. Treat positive responders kindly and cut them favours. We’ve got to stick together”
honeyisfunny.com
Tesco-despising, Elvis-loving champion of the underdog
“The red cross represents the cross of St. George. The green background, the fields of Nottinghamshire that have not been concreted over by Tesco. The white stags are based on the ‘White Hart’ which appeared in the legends of King Arthur and became the
personal emblem of Richard II. The White Hart is also a popular name for many pubs including a fine hostelry in Old Ollerton, a few
miles from the Major Oak. “
grumpyoldelvis.co.uk
James Huyton
Does rabbit-fixated gear for Bantum Clothing, amongst other things
“A new flag for Nottingham requires a new symbol - so why not the newly-built, multi-million pound freight container, sorry,
contemporary art gallery? Don’t get me wrong, I love going to an art gallery, and its probably going to be great for the city’s
economy - it’s just a shame that the building doesn’t really reflect the estimated £19 million it cost to create. The laser-cut lace
patterns may pay homage to the city’s heritage, but it hardly hides the fact it looks like a freight container. Maybe it’s meant to
be suggestive of a cargo of possibilities, shipped in from around the world, or something.”
jameshuyton.com
Rob White
Impervious illustration machine
“When I first came to Nottingham my first thoughts were of Robin Hood - you know, that Disney movie with the fox and the bear
(from The Jungle Book, for some reason). Anyway, I was quite excited that one of the first encounters I had was with a man with
one of them hats and a curly ‘tache, who had a target painted on his face, which I thought that was damn cool. So whenever I
think about Notts, I think about that dude. I also think the flag would look cool with a big ‘N’”
simitchell.co.uk
The cruel overlord of The Arthole
“When I first heard about the proposition for a Nottingham flag, I couldn’t contain my laughter as I
thought it absurd. My initial thoughts were a) it’s just going to get torn down and nicked, like the
arrow on Robin Hood’s bronze statue next to the castle, and b) it’s simply not necessary - we’ve lived
without one quite happily for a millennia. Why should we have one just because Derby’s going to
have one?”
byrobwhite.co.uk
leftlion.co.uk/issue37
25
Rather listen to the tunes on this page than read about
‘em? Better wrap your tabs round Sound Of The Lion, our
dedicated music podcast, available at leftlion.co.uk/SOTL.
And if you want your own tunes reviewed - and you’re
from Notts - hit up leftlion.co.uk/sendusmusic...
Alice Rock
Kill or Cure
EP (Rock Records UK)
With so many bands taking
themselves oh-so-seriously at times,
Alice Rock are on a mission to bring
fun back to punk. As with their
previous releases, humour seems
to have been a high priority in the
creation of this EP, with titles such as
Chips ’n’ Gravy and quirky, quick songs that could easily make
you think that Alice Rock have come hurtling from the eighties
in a time machine only to land in a pile of stripy clothes, jump
up and start playing without missing a beat. Forget the snarly
punk of the seventies, Alice’s voice (yes, she is actually called
Alice Rock in real life) is reminiscent of Toyah Wilcox and
with them only being a two-piece, it takes centre stage a lot.
With themes of motherhood in The Breeding Lady, shallow
perceptions of beauty in Robotic Perfection, abortion in Cut
Loose and the horrors of social networking on Monopoly, Kill
or Cure really is a mixed-up bag of light and dark. However,
the spiky poppiness of it all means that you’ll be chanting and
singing along to the tracks before you’ve even finished your
first listening. Alison Emm
Avliable online
alice-rock.co.uk
Love Ends Disaster!
City Of Glass
LP (Warning!)
After five years of steady progress,
LED have finally fulfilled their
promise. City Of Glass sets out its
stall from the beginning with a title
track that transforms itself from
murmurs of feedback to hook-laden
literate guitar pop. From here the
album takes in oblique song titles such as The Rudiments
of Piano Playing (Parts 1 and 2), rattling guitars that fans of
early Radiohead should lap up (see (Untitled Dream #24)),
dissonant instrumental passages that have been shipped in
directly from David Bowie’s Berlin era, razor-sharp riffs that
sound like they have come from some lost Gang Of Four album,
mournful chamber pop, and - on There’s Room In My Tardis
For Two - a swerve into the arena-sized melodies in which
Snow Patrol specialise. Special mention has to be given to
Alexander, which is the highpoint on an album that is littered
with standout moments. Squalling guitars that sound like
Robert Fripp has time-travelled from the 70s mesh with jagged
rhythms, with singer Matt Oakes’ rambling over-the-top
stream-of-conscious style, creating a discordant, yet sublime
sound. A sprawling, kaleidoscopic collection of art-rock moves
and angular post-punk indie shapes, then, and anyone who
gives it a listen will be sure to find something they like on an
album that covers so much in a short time. Paul Klotschkow
Available online
myspace.com/loveendsdisaster
Ocean Bottom Nightmare
What Would Judas Do?
Single (Self-released)
What would Judas do if he formed
a band? Being a sell-out of biblical
proportions, he’d probably either
don a vest and trilby and sing about
girls in discos or raid Oxfam of its
knitwear and pillage the tweecore crowd. What he wouldn’t do
is form a band as balls-out honest and face-meltingly loud
as Ocean Bottom Nightmare. God gave rock n’ roll to you,
rejoice! Starting, in the words of the great Ron Burgundy, by
‘keeping the cymbals splashy and taking the bass line for a
walk,’ the short jazz introduction is quickly accompanied by
some jagged guitar shredding. Then things get real heavy as
falsetto harmonies wrestle with brutal screams atop a layer of
filthy and furious riffery. They demolish the quiet-loud-quiet
formula by wandering from soft and surreal to a full throated
exuberance that is heavier than heaven. Ocean Bottom
Nightmare’s blend of pop sensibility, hard-punk atmosphere,
chunky alternative guitars and searing screams creates a solid
and impenetrable wall of sound. Their schizophrenic mathrock and simple but infectious choruses could one day see
them on the same mantle as Biffy Clyro. Just as our Lord Jesus
did with loaves and fish, Ocean Bottom Nightmare could feed
5000 with a simple meal of riffs and attitude. This is Rock with
a capital ‘R’. Amen. Andrew Trendell
Available online
myspace.com/oceanbottomnightmare
BloodLeech
Eat Defeat
LP (1st Blood Records)
Rolling deeper than the McQueen
sisters, 1st Blood and Leech bring
this collection featuring the cream
of Nottingham’s MCs, singers and
producers. As you would expect,
there is the usual heavyweight hiphop flavoured with a Nottingham
twang, as well as a smoother soul sound.
Quality raps are showcased on Why the Long Face?, featuring
Notts legend Cappo, while his pal Rukus absolutely smashes
two verses on Flick Ya Lighter. Posse cut Rewriting The
Rulebook flows at an urgently head-nodding tempo, enhanced
by bars from Allergy and Tom G of Ill Citizen, 1st Blood
regulars Louis Cypher, Tony Skank and Opticus Rhyme. You
Can’t Play Games sees rapper 2Tone lovingly reminiscing over
the canon of classic video-games like Streets of Rage, Sonic
and Goldeneye. They change genres on the reggae-infused
BBQ banger Can’t Say Why, where Liam Bailey provides a
perfect lilting hook. Liam pops up again with a soulful Finley
Quaye-sounding chorus on Super Shining. Another brilliant
local singer, Jay Thomas’ sultry vocals give mellow track
Leech Experiment (Storyboards) a sound much like Portishead
at their best. More great female vocals come from Charlotte
Sanderson on Tumble, punctuated with hearty raps from Jah
Digga. Topped off with great production and superior cuts and
scratches from NG’s finest DJ Dan Rattomatic, Eat Defeat is
a perfect starting point to explore the wide range of talent in
Nottingham’s urban scene. Shariff Ibrahim
Avliable online
1stblood.co.uk
Gallery 47
11th October Routine
EP (Self-released)
For a man of only twenty years of age,
Jack Peachey – the aforementioned
Gallery 47 - is a hugely prolific
artist. This is his fifth collection of
homespun acoustic charm, which
will only reinforce his status as
one of Nottingham’s brightest new
talents. 11th October Routine captures a young man reaching
a songwriting maturity that should be years out of reach Otherwise frames melancholic finger-picking with various
percussive samples. 20 Second Banjo is a song that’s deeply
in love with Neil Young’s Laurel Canyon period; it practically
radiates wistful sunshine and has the feel of a favourite pair
of faded denim jeans. Those Young influences are still present
in Dole, especially in the way he uses the top end of his voice,
with a more experimental acoustic leaning accompanied by
sound effects that flicker throughout. Duck Footprints could
almost be called emo-coustic, but the double-tracked emotion
is kept in shape by someone who is intelligent enough to
know when to hold back. Gallery 47 quite literally wears his
influences on his sleeve; the EP artwork is adorned with items
that obviously play a part in his songwriting – dog-eared Bob
Dylan and Neil Young LPs, old stuffed toys and photographs of
Syd Barrett. All of which hark to a well-worn past, but it’s fair
to say that Gallery 47 is in the lineage of more modern acoustic
acts such as Bon Iver and Iron and Wine. Paul Klotschkow
Available online
myspace.com/gallery47
MuHa
The Soundcarriers
Celeste
Album (Melodic)
With Celeste, their second album, the
ludicrously experimental Soundcarriers
have created an original soundtrack for
a film that doesn’t exist. Opener Last
Broadcast sums the LP up perfectly;
all blips and bleeps, guitars scraping
and organs stabbing, layered with
motorik rhythm, and whispered, soft male/female vocals – a
sound enthralled to psychedelica, krautrock, experimental
and European pop, wrapped up in an earthly warmth provided
by analogue equipment and nothing else. On an album that
is so considered, complete, and overflowing with musical
references, it is easy to get bogged down in the mire of trying
to pick out every shimmer of guitar, organ melody, or gently
delivered vocal line. You could say that this modern-day spin
through the more eclectic avenues of music’s back catalogue
recalls fellow English euro-pop aficionados Stereolab – we’d
sooner put it on, shut our eyes, and imagine ourselves in our
own personal Broadway of the soul. Paul Klotschkow
Available from all good record shops and online
thesoundcarriers.com
Taras
LP (Self-released)
MuHa class themselves as ‘New Roots
from Eastern Europe’. This is a phrase
that may turn a lot of people off, but
don’t fear, as this isn’t some kind of
tie-dyed folk we are dealing with. On
Taras, MuHa manage to meaningfully
mix the history and sounds of Eastern
European folk music with Indian and Western European
influences to create an album as refreshing as a dip in the
Volga. What does this mean in terms of music? Both Let’s Talk
About The Weather and Taras are all heady flamenco rhythms
and passionate Russian vocals, two things that on paper
sound like they go together as well as Trotsky and an ice pick,
but here they are a marriage of delights. Kaby Vedala (as the
liner notes state) is a traditional Russian Folk song made to
sound like classic British folk, all lilting guitars and starryeyed singing, much like Pentangle on a diet of Russian phrase
books. Whilst a song like New York Rain feels like it was
conceived in a jazz club. Taras carries on in this manner over
its thirteen songs and 45 minutes, gathering up sounds as if
they were souvenirs from various continents on the shortest
around the world trip ever - the fact that MuHa can make this
sound so enjoyable is testament to their dedication and craft.
Paul Klotschkow
Available online
muha.co.uk
Patriot Rebel
Back To Life
EP (Self-released)
This album is a categoriser’s worst
nightmare, and a gift to the rest of
us. Back To Life is a wild collage of
different (albeit all heavy) genres,
each of which propel themselves
with the velocity of a sombrerowearing Mexican mouse pumped
full of methamphetamine. Example: the juggernaut that is
Cupid’s Arrow, the screaming offspring of cock-rock infused
with grunge, (a genre which implies all sorts of negative
genital hygiene). No ridiculous spandex or abundant plaid
here, though; the terrible lyrics are gone, as is the unnecessary
posing. This is just hard and heavy, throwing everything at
you at once. The album begins as it intends to continue intensely powerful like a drunken toddler behind the wheels of
an articulated lorry, damn dangerous and fun. The influences
of varying forms of American rock are splattered throughout,
from 36Crazyfists, Velvet Revolver, Love/Hate and Black Label
Society in the crunchy and storming onslaught that is Gimme
Some More. The one persistent echoing influence - especially
within the vocal approach in Window To My Soul - is the late
great Layne Staley of Alice in Chains. Tough company to keep
up with, admittedly, but Patriot Rebel pull no soft punches;
they are out for blood, in the best possible way. Alistair
Catterall
Available online
myspace.com/patriotrebel
ManEatLikePig
A Glorious Egg
LP (MFS Records)
Daz, Groll and the enigmatic Howlin,
who wears a box on his head in the
shape of a pig: you can’t get names
much more rock ‘n’ roll than that, can
you? Heavily influenced by the mustyfolk thrash of Captain Beefheart,
Zeppelin and their experimental 60s
rock ilk, MELP’s first full release is rife with swagger and
creativity. 5 Year Stretch resembles a modern-day Bob Dylan
at his jauntiest, complete with sandpaper vocals, slamming
it with White Denim. Leonardo chugs and bashes its way
through heavy rock riffing with menacing whisky-stained
vocals. Soaking My Mind is a deranged stomp with an affable
Middle Eastern guitar solo breakdown, whilst Zephyrus is pure
Nick Cave. But it’s the reflective closer Pig Fluid that shows
the band’s true mastery; think Iggy Pop singing with Jimmy
Page’s guitar slides and solos. The blues-rock vocal drawls
“it’s all looking good in the neighbourhood” – said, of course,
with a certain sense of irony. There’s a stench that attaches
itself to this band as they move from the sublime to car park
drunk. Their carnivorous über-superior pub rock sound takes
their influences and then turns them up to twelve. Listening
to this album you really imagine you are there watching them
play live; it’ll get dirty, your ears will bleed, but good grief it’ll
feel good. Ashley Clivery
Available online
myspace.com/maneatlikepig
LEFTLION featured listings...
LISTINGS BIG IN THE GAME
TICKETS ON-LION
Buying tickets for events in Notts? From the
latest DJs at Stealth to the latest bands at
venues like Spanky Van Dykes and The Rescue
Rooms, you can get them all through our
website, at no extra cost. Even better, thanks
to our partnership with gigantic.com, every
time you buy one through us some of the funds
will go towards LeftLion and a bit more goes to
those nice folks at Oxfam.
leftlion.co.uk/tickets
DAYS OUT
Release your inner child and experience
the magic of Goose Fair with the dodgems,
waltzers, big wheel, helter skelter, hook-a-duck
and much, much more. Of course, there will also
be peas, trodden on by the fair virgins of our
city and smothered in mint sauce, and candy
floss - a plenty.
There’s nowt wrong with being a tourist in
your own city and especially not if it’s Robin
Hood related shenanigans. The annual Robin
Hood Pageant lets you step back in time and
experience the life and times of Nottingham’s
famous bad boy, Robin Hood.
If you fancy watching other people put
some proper effort into something then the
Survival of the Fittest event is taking place
from Victoria Embankment up to Holme
Pierrepont on 9 October and there will be a
host of entertainment going on for the slacker
spectators.
leftlion.co.uk/listings
SCRIBAL GATHERING AT
HOCKLEY HUSTLE
If you don’t know what the Hockley Hustle is by
now it’s because you’re emotionally disabled
and think that compassion is giving beggars
the 10¢ that was too small to change back
into sterling when you arrived back in Blighty.
It’s a ‘charidy’ event and this year the ‘Scribal
Gathering’ team are putting on a wide range of
events with a strong arty theme. There will be
authors and artists who collaborated together
for the forthcoming Staple publication 24
discussing the project. Alex Davis of Alt Fiction
will be putting together a panel that explores
that most visual of literary forms, fantasy fiction
and the graphic novel. Expect über-geek chic
and an appearance from Mark Charan Newton.
Finally that master of satire and slapstick
humour, Lord Biro, will be using his poetry and
sketches to introduce various topics which will
be debated by a Question Time type panel.
Topics will include the ‘Cleggaron’, cuts to the
arts and why shouting at icebergs is the most
practical way to stop global warming.
Other events include an open mic session, a
game of Literature Room 101 with Maria Allen
and a football panel that includes ex-hack Paul
Reaney, young-adult fiction writer Dan Tunstall,
‘three Singhs on a shirt’ author Bali Rai and our
festival highlight, Graham Joyce. Joyce is a
multiple Fantasy Award winner with a bigger
following than ‘County. He’ll be reading from his
recent memoir about his time as a goalkeeper,
the loneliest position on the field. There’s music
in the evening too.
23 October 3pm onwards
Nottingham Contemporary Café For even more listings, check our up to date
online section at leftlion.co.uk/listings.
If you want to get your event in this magazine
and on our website, aim your browser at
leftlion.co.uk/add.
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leftlion.co.uk/issue37
Nottingham kicks off a week-long
videogaming sesh with the return
of GameCity, but be warned:
lolling about on sofas is not
encouraged…
words: Al Needham
Videogame conferences may sound like a
spod’s wet dream, but the reality can be
crushingly mundane; a load of suits waffle
on about a game that’s not going to be out
for another year. There’s a massive queue to
have a go on the games that are available, but
not finished yet. Some poor cow dresses up as
Lara Croft. Etc...
GameCity, on the other hand, is massively,
refreshingly, gloriously different. A true festival of
interactivity, GC has been responsible for some of the
most bizarre events in town over the past half-decade,
including a Mario tea party, piano concerts of Sega themes
in a 14th Century church, games developers being grilled by
Notts kids, a live recreation of Crysis in
the Market Square and a successful attempt on
the world record for most zombies in one
place. Imagine a festival where videogames
receive the same respect as the music and
movie industries, and you’ll have a slight
idea what GameCity is about.
Maid Mario illustration: Rikki Marr
October - November 2010
What can we expect from GameCity5?
Loads, quite frankly, but the main highlights
will be the bringing together of Nottingham
Primary Care Trust and the mighty EA Sports –
of ‘It’s In The Game’ fame – to create the world’s
best health club, which’ll be staffed with trained
professionals and sporting celebs, in an attempt to
stop you from being a fat get and a lazy dosser. We’ll also
be the first people in the world to have a bang on EA Sports
Active 2, the Wii Fit-beating exercise console experience that
comes with its own working heart monitor.
The other huge element to GC5 is the launch of OpenGameCity,
a creative free-for-all binge where ideas from the likes of you are
hoovered up and expanded upon in an attempt to extend the
boundaries of what a festival can actually be. All you have to do is
hit up the application process on the GameCity website and add
your name to reserve space and time in one of the myriad venues
– and as long as it’s not illegal, dangerous or offensive,
you can rock up and do your thing – but you’ll need to get a shift
on, because places are already starting to get limited.
GameCity5 takes place right across the city centre at the end
of October, and is one of the most completely brilliant things to
happen in town this year. Get involved with it.
Iain Simons, Director of GameCity, talks about this year’s fest, taking
videogame legends to local pubs and zombie fracas-related issues…
So, the fifth GameCity. Do the expectations get greater year
after year?
I’m not sure we know what the expectations are, to be honest.
There was a bit of a worry after the zombie fracas of 2008 that
we’d need to do more/bigger/stupider, but the temptation to just
upscale has always been something we’ve tried to resist. I think
a lot of people come along expecting a lot of different things, and
usually they come away with a lot of different impressions. It’s a
stupidly multi-faceted event, and increasingly so - but at its heart
we’re basically all song-and-dance lovers. people to come from London – the American and Japanese
developers come here with little or no persuasion. Fact is, a few
years ago we turned down the chance to do GameCity - insert
other city name here - as a franchise, largely because it’s about
Nottingham, and to try and rinse and repeat it anywhere else can
only dilute that. All of the overseas folks have had a brilliant time
here - not just because of GameCity, but because of Nottingham.
Keita Takahashi has opted to try and realise one of his biggest
personal ambitions here with his playground. He’s not doing it for
the money, he’s doing it because he loves it here.
We can vaguely recall noises a while back about GameCity4
being the last one. What happened?
I think we started to re-evaluate what the whole thing was.
One of the constant questions we ask is; ‘what’s the point of
GameCity?’ There have been several moments where I’ve not
been sure if we’d continue, but events post-GC4 - kicking off
the GameCityNights gigs, Keita Takahashi’s playground in
Woodthorpe, working with a more persistent team and a bunch of
other things I’m not supposed to talk about yet - basically made
us realise that GameCity isn’t going to just be something that
happens during half-term in October.
Do you take them to Yates’s and the like?
I’ve not personally taken anyone to Yates’s yet, but one of my
favourite memories was Alexey Pajitnov – the man behind Tetris demanding, unprompted, to be taken to the Trip for a pint. Keita’s
favourite haunts include The Peacock - he has a taste for real ale. GC’s renowned for giving independent developers a platform
– but isn’t there a danger that it’ll become a victim of its own
success, with bigger players taking notice?
Yes - but that presupposes that bigger players taking notice is
necessarily a bad thing, which perhaps it isn’t. The main problem
we’ve always had with dealing with big publishers is that there
are a limited number of event models that they either can - or
want - to consider. A few years in, we’re now in the position
where we can point to stuff we’ve done and demonstrate to
bigger publishers the kind of thing that they might want to do
in the future. Basically, if we hired out the Arena and sub-let the
space to publishers to fill with hundreds of sampling pods, our job
would be simple. But we don’t, and it isn’t. What do your guest speakers – who number amongst some of
the biggest names in videogame history - think of Nottingham?
Is it hard to get them here?
Actually, the biggest problem we’ve always had has been getting
If you could get anyone from the history of videogames to
speak at GameCity, who would it be if Shigeru Miyamoto of
Nintendo wasn’t available? Hmmm…I’d love to get Jeff Minter of Llamasoft back, as he’s
amazing, but I think most of all I’d like to hear from David Crane,
the designer of Pitfall!, mostly because he made so much stuff I
loved as a kid. I wonder how he feels about Activision today.
What’s the future of GameCity?
Probably perilously uncertain, with a number of things we don’t
have that much control over, but I’d like us to fight on. There’s a
lot of new stuff we want to do and still have things in a holding
pattern from years ago that we’ve not managed to realise yet.
One thing’s for certain though: it’s definitely more than five days
in October. The OpenGameCity platform, which we’re testing out
this year, is a really important development to us. Sonic or Mario?
Mario. I’m offended that you’d even ask. GameCity5, across the City Centre, 26-30 October. Prices vary,
mostly free
gamecity.org
music event listings...
Saturday 02/10
Sunday 03/10
Soul Ska Shakedown
The Golden Fleece
Free, 8pm
The Acme Jazz Band
Deux
Jay Leivers Blues
Deux
Fires of Rebellion Night
The Old Angel
£5, 6pm - 1am
S.P.A.M!
The Rescue Rooms
Free / £6 / £7, 10pm, 10pm-3am
Sinfonia Viva with Colin Currie Marimba
Lakeside Arts Centre
£12 / £15, 7.30pm
Detachments
Stealth
£5, 10.15pm
Kinky Cops
The Robin Hood
Mimm Clothing Shop Presents...
The Bodega
£4 advance, 11pm - 4am
Oxjam Night Out
The Malt Cross
£3, 7.30pm
Spaceships Are Cool, The Will Jeffery
Band, Gallery 47 and Lisa De’Ville.
Arse Full of Chips
Rock City
£3, 10pm
Wildside
The Central
Back To Basics
The Maze
Sunday 03/10
Notts In A Nutshell
The Maze
£3
The Graceful Slicks, United Nemesis,
The Kingship and M1 Connect.
Farmyard Presents
The Golden Fleece
Cherry Ghost
The Rescue Rooms
£10, 7.30pm
Tim Robbins and The Rogues
Gallery Band
The Glee Club
£13.50, 7.30pm
Tuesday 05/10
Islet
The Bodega
£5, 7pm
The Twilight Sad and Errors
Stealth
£9, 7.30pm
I Am Kloot
The Rescue Rooms
£12.50, 7.30pm
The Daydream Club
The Malt Cross
Evil Nine
Spanky Van Dykes
Free / £2 / £3, 9pm - 2am
Wednesday 06/10
Gecko
The Maze
£4
Architects
The Rescue Rooms
£11, 7pm
Hassan Erraji
Lakeside Arts Centre
£9 / £12 / £15, 8pm
Plan B
Rock City
£15, 7pm
for more: leftlion.co.uk/listings
Yer Want
Japanning?
Goodbye Lizard Lounge, Hello Nihon
The end of the summer has been and gone, which
means that hanging around outside like those
mainland Euros do is no longer an option and your
mates who don’t smoke will not be coming outside to
chat to you whilst you slowly kill yourself. However,
it’s not all doom and gloom because you get to hang around inside and have roof covered fun instead - and the fun is
about to be turned up to maximum as Nottingham has a new venue, Nihon, opening this month in the Lace Market.
For the info-fans out there, Nihon means Japan or, in it’s original Katana characters, ‘the sun’s origin’. The venue is
designed around the Japanese influence on the Western pop culture of the seventies and eighties and it’s looking
like it’ll actually be a bit more interesting than just four walls, a couple of seats and a bar. Featuring a Godzilla
members bar on the top floor, a Space Invader influenced Arcade Bar, the robot dance floor room and the Keirin Bar
on the ground floor.
The Keirin bar will have its own consistent playlist of indie/electronica six nights a week and on Saturdays this
will be enhanced by DJs such as Coyote (Is It Balearic...? recordings), Daniel Donnachie (Cosmic Dancing/Bumble
Boogie) and the Soulbuggin’ crew. Upstairs is where the real parties will happen as Monday (Nottingham Trent)
and Tuesday (Nottingham University) will be students nights, Wednesday will be dubstep, Thursday will be rock/
indie/alternative and Fridays will be presented by Nottingham Fixed Gear Cycle Club, with Goldsprint Roller Racing
and block party vibes. Saturdays are a disco house production, featuring many of the best Nottingham based DJs
from that scene.
Located at the old Lizard Lounge, Nottingham based artist Jon Burgerman has helped design the robot dance floor
room so expect the weird, wonderful and pretty in there whilst you’re busting your moves, whereas the Keirin Bar is
themed around Japanese track cycling. Expect the place to be chocca full of Nottingham’s creative crowd who like
a bit of a party. The bar is open from 6pm until late but the upstairs will be in full swing until 3am.
Japanese-based cool in the Lace Market? Yes please.
Nihon, 41-43 St Mary’s Gate, Lace Market, NG1 1PU
thisisnihon.com
Thursday 07/10
Friday 08/10
Saturday 09/10
Geeneus, Katy B and Tipper
Dogma
Free, 10pm
Monkeynuts
The Maze
£4
The Deadstring Brothers
The Maze
£11 adv
John Otway Big Band
The Rescue Rooms
£11, 7.30pm
The Hustle With Detail
The Golden Fleece
Basement Boogaloo - Toby Tobias
The Maze
Darren Hayman - The Loves
The Chameleon
£7.50, 8pm - 12pm
Brentano String Quartet
Lakeside Arts Centre
£12 / £15, 7.30pm
Paper Wings
Cape Bar
£3.50, 7.30pm - late
Super Nihon
Nihon
£5, 10pm
Stephen Fasano, Moonboots, Coyote
and Tatham.
Tiffany Page
Stealth
£7, 7.30pm
Dean Friedman
Deux
Little Comets
The Bodega
£6, 7pm
Junip
The Bodega
£9, 7pm
Eilen Jewell Band
The Maze
£10, 7.30pm
Jay Leivers guitar workshop
Deux
Cockney Skankers
Marcus Bonfanti
Deux
NG26 and Arcanite Reaper
The Old Angel
£4, 7.30pm
Farmyard Presents
Jam Café
Basement Boogaloo returns to the Maze with some East End disco guv’nors
Basement Boogaloo began life beneath the
streets of Nottingham back in 2004, and has
since developed into one of the city’s best-loved
chuckers of parties. There’s three reasons for
that; a crystal-clear sound system, some of the
best DJ talent from across the disco galaxy and
a dancefloor full of sweaty herberts like you. Andy Smith (Portishead) DJ set
Moog
Project - Valve Sound System
Gatecrasher
Pesky Alligators
The Robin Hood
Sparrow and the Workshop
The Bodega
£6.50, 7pm
BB have had it large all over the shop in
both Notts and elsewhere (including regular
appearances at The Star of Bethnal Green,
East London’s premier ravey boozer), but their
spiritual home is The Maze, as it’s a perfect fit
for their sweaty brand of hedonism. They’ve
not been there for over six months, but the
prodigal sons of local dancey mentalism return
on Saturday 9 October with the dapper dons of
London’s East End disco scene - Toby Tobias
and Pete Herbert.
Basslaced - DJ Hype and more
Stealth
£10, 10pm
Talking Endlessly
The Central
£3
Rekids stalwart Toby specialises in a dancefloor-friendly blend of house and disco, and his Macasu EP on his very
own Latenightaudio label has been making waves amongst fans of proper dance music far and wide, helped in no
small part by a killer remix from Motor City Drum Ensemble. Pete, on the other hand, is a man of many aliases - some
of which you’ll know, all of which you’ll have danced to. Whether it’s as LSB (with Barcelona’s Baby G) or Reverso 68
(with Phil “Mr Balearic” Mison), the Maxi Discs mainstay is a prolific purveyor of polished productions which never
fail to impress.
With two of the UK’s most in-demand DJ/producers going head-to-head, full Funktion-One sound, real ale on tap and
the usual roomful of Notts disco-monkeys, this promises to be a rather special party indeed.
Pesky Alligators
The Robin Hood
Free, 9 - 11.30pm
Martin Stephenson
Deux
Waiting for Winter
The Bodega
£4, 7pm
Luxury Stranger
The Old Angel
£4, 7.30pm
Y&T
Rock City
£16, 6.30pm
Oxjam Nottingham Takeover
Various Locations
£6 adv / £7.50, 2pm - 3am
Audacious Face at Moog, I’m Not
From London at Heart In Hand,
Wire and Wool at The Falcon, Flux
vs Cultural Vibrations at Junction
Seven.
Yuck
Stealth
£6, 7pm
Deadstring Brothers
The Maze
£11, 7.15pm
Rat Attack
The Central
Plus We Are Revival, Year Of The
Flood, 1000 Scars, C Is For City, Go
Fast Or Go Home and The Rampton
Release Date.
Basement Boogaloo, Saturday 9 October, The Maze, 257 Mansfield Road, NG1 3FT, 10pm - 3.30am. £5.
themazerocks.com
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music event listings...
Sunday 10/10
Tuesday 12/10
David R Black
The Maze
Louder
Stealth
£4, 10pm
Sadio Sissokho
The Golden Fleece
Archie Bronson Outfit
The Bodega
£10, 7.30pm
Sadio Cissokho Live
The Golden Fleece
£3, 7pm
Frankie and The Heartstrings and
Summer Camp
Stealth
£8, 7.30pm
Bowling For Soup
Rock City
£18.50, 7pm
Avulsed
The Central
£5
Monday 11/10
Example
Rock City
£10, 7pm
Willie Nile Band
The Maze
£10, 7.30pm
Wishbone Ash
The Rescue Rooms
£17, 7.30pm
Tuesday 12/10
The Charlatans and Shaun Ryder
Rock City
£23.50, 7pm
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Gifts from Enola
The Chameleon Cafe Bar
£5 / £6, 7.30pm
Appleblim
Spanky Van Dykes
Free / £2 / £3, 9pm - 2am
Wednesday 13/10
The Gypsy Bible
Lakeside Arts Centre
£9 / £12 / £15, 8 pm
Fenech - Soler
Stealth
£6.50, 7.30pm
Alan Pownall
The Rescue Rooms
£7, 7pm
Thursday 14/10
Attack! Attack!
Rock City
£7.50, 7pm
Eric Taylor
The Maze
£10, 7.30pm
The Black Tears and Myna Byrd
The Central
Friday 15/10
Pickups and Pitchforks
The Central
Stephen Fearing
Deux
for more: leftlion.co.uk/listings
(Au)Tumn n’ Bass
Detonate comes back hard as the nights draw in
Fact One: the Detonate name has long been synonymous with
some of the biggest names in the dnb and dubstep arena. Fact
Two: autumn is usually the time of the year that they step up their
game with a procession of huge events. Let’s have a look out of
the window. Are the leaves throwing themselves off the tree?
They are? Yessss.
The first event of the new era happens on 15 October and is one of
the multi-venue splurges that Detonate do so well, with Stealth,
the Rescue Rooms and The Forum (which used to be EQ, which
used to be Jumpin’ Jaks, which is also the new venue for Just The
Tonic) playing host to a massive Hospital Records party featuring
High Contrast, Danny Byrd and Netsky - with a host of others
including Caspa, Jack Beats, Zinc and Calibre.
A mere fortnight later, on the 29th, they do it all over again with
a huge line-up starting Dutch electronic triumvirate Noisia,
with Andy C, Nero and Rockwell heading up another mammoth
line-up spread across Stealth and the Rescue Rooms. Then,
on 26 November, The Forum is pulled back into the mix as
Detonate presents Sub Focus, as well as Skream, Rusko, and
Brookes Brothers. And if that wasn’t enough, they’re putting on
two unmissable gigs in the shape of Magnetic Man’s festivalheadlining show at Nottingham Trent on 5 November and an
invincible coupling of two bona fide reggae legends Scientist and
The Upsetters on 23 November. Check the revamped website for
further details, and don’t forget that the immaculately refurbed
Golden Fleece on Mansfield Road is the official Detonate warm-up venue, with events a-plenty – including the
LeftLion Pub Quiz every Wednesday night at 9pm.
Detonate Hospitality Takeover, Stealth, Rescue Rooms and The Forum, 15 October, 10pm - 5am. Tickets £15.
detonate1.co.uk
Friday 15/10
Friday 15/10
Friday 15/10
The Maze Presents
The Maze
Tax The Fat, The Barnum Meserve,
Tokyo Green, Strangeling and
Percussion DJs
A World Of Music Festival ‘Local : Global’
The New Art Exchange
7pm - 11pm
Cadence Noir, Danielle Jade Fisher,
Lisa de’Ville , Natalie Duncan and
Sahraab and loads more.
Runs until: 17/10
Detonate Hospitality Take Over
Stealth
£12 / £15, 10pm
High Contrast, Caspa, Danny Byrd,
Jack Beats, DJ Zinc, Calibre, Netsky
and loads more.
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music event listings...
Friday 15/10
Sunday 17/10
The Majeure Force
Spanky Van Dykes
£4, 9pm
DJ Support from Pete Jordan, Dan
Neon and B-Boy J.
Nightshift
The Central
Fornost Arnor
The Old Angel
7.30pm, £5
No Love Lost, Twilights Embrace
and Bahamut.
Project - DJ Yoda Magic Cinema
Live
Gatecrasher
Battle Of The Bands
Nottingham Contemporary
Rivals, And Now We Wait, Your
Weapons Are Useless, Cavalry, Hit
Parade, Nitrox and Nobodys Fool and
The Chase.
Steve Mason
The Bodega
£12, 7pm
Saturday 16/10
Melt Banana
Rock City
£10, 6.30pm
Clubz Global vs Musika!
The Maze
7pm - 11pm
Ayar and Ali, DJ Gypsy Smith and
DJ I2I.
The Undercats
Deux
Darwin Deez
The Bodega
£8.50, 7pm
Kaox
The Robin Hood
Mas Y Mas
Nottingham Contemporary
Mark Chadwick
The Rescue Rooms
£14, 7pm
Super Nihon
Nihon
£5, 10pm
Nick Lawson and Romulus Schwarz.
Frazey Ford Band
The Maze
7.30pm , £11
Farmyard Presents
The Golden Fleece
Pesky Alligators
The Victoria Hotel
8.30pm - 11pm
Dinosaur Pile-Up
The Bodega
£7, 7pm
Skip ‘Little Axe’ McDonald
The Rescue Rooms
£10, 7.30pm
Monday 18/10
Acoustickle
The Maze
8pm , £3
Carl Barat
The Rescue Rooms
£12.50, 7.30pm
The Duke and The King
The Glee Club
£12.50, 7.30pm
Tricky
Rock City
£17.50, 7.30pm
for more: leftlion.co.uk/listings
OrangeFest: miss it and
be crushed
The Orange Tree on Shakespeare Street has long been one of the finest places
in Nottingham to grab a mighty tasty cocktail beverage along with holding
over thirty different rums from around the world on the bar as well as a
selection of real ales, ciders and standard spirits. A well rounded venue, the
food on offer ticks all the boxes too with seasonal, hearty food available and a
cracking Sunday lunch. It’s also a venue that has long been connected to the
music and artistic side of Nottingham, displaying local artists work on its walls
and playing host to a load of gigs over the years.
In association with Hockley Hustle 2010, The Orange Tree will be hosting
OrangeFest on Saturday 23 October. Starting at 3pm there will be live bands,
DJs, Swedish themed food (with a few British twists), vintage clothes stalls, a
photography competition and Nottingham’s own ‘psychological entertainer’,
Jack Curtis, messing with people’s minds. It’s going to be a bit of an
extravaganza, with loads to be getting involved with and to do in between the musical acts of the day.
If electropop, indie, fresh sounds are what you like to dance around to then you’re in for a treat. Musical headliners
of the night are two brothers from Leicester, Hot Horizons, and they’re squeezing this into a tight schedule of
London gigs. They’ll be playing rich, romantic and heartfelt indie pop tunes for the night. Support acts come in
the form of Nottingham bands Navajo Youth and Broadcast by the Sea and DJs Joy Machine and Future Sounds
Temporary.
Snappers take note, the photography competition taking place on the day is entitled ‘So Swedish’ with the prizes
on offer being tickets to the much lauded Warehouse Project in Manchester, courtesy of Kopparberg Cider. So bring
your camera and your imagination if you want to be in with a chance to win.
It’s beyond a bargain as it’s being hosted for absolutely nowt and as can be expected, there will be some proper
drinks promotions on the day. It’s going to be a night to remember with the doors not closing until 2 am.
OrangeFest takes place on 23 October, 3 pm – 2 am, Free entry. 38 Shakespeare Street, Nottingham
orangetree.co.uk
Wednesday 20/10
Thursday 21/10
Friday 22/10
Tuesday 19/10
Minus Society
The Maze
7.30pm , £3
Thomas Lee
The Central
£12 adv
Twenty Twenty
The Rescue Rooms
£9.50, 6.30pm
Alter Bridge
Rock City
£17.50, 7pm
Headwater
The Maze
7.30pm , £10
New Model Army 30th Anniversary Tour
Rock City
£17.50 - £30, 7pm
Runs until: 23/10
Wilder
The Bodega
£5, 7pm
Highness Sound System
The Bodega
£6, 11pm
Rock the Canalhouse
The Canalhouse
£7.50 (under 16 £3), 7.30pm-12am
Gren Bartley
The Malt Cross
Fenix TX
The Rescue Rooms
£10, 7pm
Jet Collective
Nottingham Contemporary
Zombie Disco Squad
Spanky Van Dykes
Free / £2 / £3, 9pm - 2am
Plus Pete Jordan.
Thursday 21/10
Hadouken
Gatecrasher
Crystal Castles
Rock City
£13.50, 7pm
Headwater
The Maze
£10, 7.30pm
Flash! AAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!
Beardyman
The Rescue Rooms
£10, 7pm
Gatecrasher land the Grandmaster (amongst other huge names)
After the impressive refurbishment of Nottingham Gatecrasher a
year ago, the iconic club has been going from strength to strength
and to prove that they’re not resting on their laurels, their Friday
nights are about to have a tasty new collaboration. Kicking off from 1
October, the new weekly session, Project, will be run alongside Club
NME.
Friday 22/10
Project will be a mix of some of the best names in dance and
electronic music right across the genres with Club NME bringing
live acts to ‘The Tunnel’, just one of Gatecrashers many impressive
spaces. Showing a dedicated move away from house music, the
opening night will see Alex Metric in the main room – a DJ that
has had his hand in remixes of Gorillaz and Ellie Goulding to name
but a few - offering the masses his popcentric sounds. Reverend
Soundsystem, the side project of Reverend from Reverend and the Makers, will be taking on The Tunnel with Ben
UFO (Hessle Audio) in The Arkade.
Gatecrasher aren’t showing all their cards on the opening night though as the following week sees the mighty Valve
Sound System bring Dillinja, Grooverider and Adam F to the decks. Highly regarded Sheffield five piece Skeletons
are on live duties. Friday 15 October will see the legendary DJ Yoda and his Magic Cinema taking over the main
room whilst veteran drum and bass DJ Doc Scott will be bringing a harder tempo in another room. Breaks fans
out there aren’t being ignored either as Stanton Warriors will be DJing on the 22 October with Brighton indie lads
Flashguns playing live in The Tunnel. The breaks will keep coming on 29 October with the Plump DJs doing what
they do best on the decks. If this is what they can fill a month with, you can see why your Friday nights may never
be the same again. If that’s not got you whistle wet then try this on for size Grandmaster Flash (pictured) will be
playing the main room on 19 November. Get it in your diary because that is going to be one hell of a night.
Influx - Hockley Hustle Pre Party
The Central
The Cult Of Dom Keller, The Wickets,
Cuban Crimewave, Die Chiwawa
Die, Dead Souls, The Cedars, Strings
Of Seville, The Jet Boys, Goonies
Never Say Die, Alaska, Jon Coates,
Elliot Morris, Sud Rhythm, Emily
Needs and Leni War.
Leggoman
The Robin Hood
Alejandro Toledo and The Magic
Tombolinos
The Maze
9pm, £8
Magic Kids
The Bodega
£6.50, 7pm
Border Community vs Wigflex
Stealth
£10, 10pm
Saturday 23/10
ASBO Peepshow
The Central
£12adv
Super Nihon
Nihon
£5, 10pm
Riotous Rockers and Daniel Donnachie.
The Skints
The Maze
8pm, £6
S.P.A.M.
The Golden Fleece
Orangefest
The Orange Tree
See above for details.
The Hockley Hustle
Various Locations
£8 / £10, 1pm - 4am
See page 28
Firefly - Stefano Miele
Marcus Garvey Ballroom
Stefano Miele, Phil Kieran, Xircus,
Beat Repeaters and Brother M.
Yeasayer
NTU SU
£13.50, 7pm
Another Evening With Great Men
and Ulterior
The Chameleon Cafe Bar
£5, 8pm - late
Jazzsteppa
The Golden Fleece
Wizz Jones
Deux
With a maze of rooms to get lost in the music, the new interior at Gatecrasher has added a modern twist to the three
floors of this impressive listed building which was, at one time the Elite Cinema. Always suitably extravagant, there
will no doubt be a few more surprises in the pipeline from Project - watch this space...
Marble
Deux
Project takes place every Friday at Gatecrasher, The Elite Building, 2 Queen Street, NG1 2BL
Project - Stanton Warriors
Gatecrasher
Weekend Nachos
The Old Angel
7.30pm, £5
With Funeral Throne, Cruel
Humanity, Throes, The Illusionary
and Contortionist.
gatecrasher.com
leftlion.co.uk/issue37
leftlion.co.uk/issue37
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P.S. YOUR MYSTERY SENDER
The debut short of local film-maker, animator and editor
Ben Wigley documents the extraordinary stream of weird
and wonderful rammell that has been anonymously sent
to Sir Paul Smith over the past twenty years - from a
child’s tricycle to a glitterball to a female bust to a traffic
cone covered in stamps. The fact that Smith himself
appears in the documentary is a real coup, as he turns
down scores of interview requests as a matter of course.
The insertion of a specially-commissioned Benjamin
Zephaniah poem sets the seal on a truly unique short.
The Paul Smith Screen, Broadway, date TBC - check
Sideshow website for updates
artdocs.com SIXES & SEVENS:
THE OTHER INTERIOR
JOHN NEWLING: SINGING
UNCERTAINTY
Fancy a truly unnerving night in a hotel room, without
Derek Acorah acting the dickhead? If you have £50
to spare, this is for you. Sixes & Sevens are the new
generation of Notts-art groups, and if this installation –
a glimpse at the hidden life of a hotel room, filled with
the residue of previous occupants inspired by the likes
of David Lynch and novelist Haruki Murakami, created
by Notts-based artist Sarah Duffy – is anything to go by,
we’re going to have to keep an extremely close eye on
them. Pack a toothbrush!
The internationally-renowned installation sculptor
assembles 150 members of the general public to St
Mary’s church in the Lace Market to sing a line each from
a hymn. It’s a reflection upon the very human longing
for certainty in a random world, taken from memories of
school assemblies (when the artist found the unfamiliar
words in hymn books an embarassing challenge) and
a recent reassessment (when the artist realised the
lyrics in hymn those same books were shot through with
questions).
Every Sat and Sun from 30 Oct to 12 Dec, The Ibis Hotel,
16 Fletchergate, NG1 2FS. £50. To book a room, email
marie@sideshow2010.org
sixessevens.blogspot.com
Thurs 2 December, St Mary’s Church, High Pavement,
Lace Market. Free.Please book via Sideshow in advance
john-newling.com
GROW YOUR
ONE THORESBY STREET
ATTIC PROGRAMME
The pride of Sneinton, One Thoresby Street - a network
of galleries, project spaces and studios - has become
one of the leading artist-led spaces in the Midlands.
Naturally, much is happening here, including a VHS
festival from Het Wilde Weten, a collaboration between
artists Tomas Chaffe and Blue Firth; a new sculptural
installation by Tom Godfrey; an interactive video and
sculptural installation from Joseph Hallam; a solo show
investigating the act of re-learning by Candice Jacobs;
a collaborative project examining burial rituals from Jeff
Baker and Alex Stevenson, and a drawing exhibition from
Pete McPartlan.
One Thoresby Street, NG1 1AJ
Fri 22 Oct – Sat 18 Dec. Free
Reunion
It’s all well and good banging on about your Moots and
Tethers, but studio groups in Nottingham didn’t start or
end with them, as this gathering together of artists who
blazed a trail with studio spaces in Can, Egerton and the
Oldknows Studio Group demonstrates. Expect two dozen
artists of the calibre of Geoff Diego Litherland, Inge Tong,
Rob Van Beek, Jeremy Millar, Simon Withers and Lisa
Clark, to name but a few, taking over the Oldknows in
mid-November.
3rd Floor, Oldknows Factory Building, St Anns Hill, NG3
4GP, 17 – 19 Nov, 11am – 3pm. Free
Unnamed
Why have one massive arts-fest when you can have two? While the
British Art Show has it large at the established galleries, the equally
important Sideshow will be demonstrating that the Notts art scene is
one of the most important in the country - and, as co-curator Jennie
Syson points out, things are going to get very interesting in town…
So what is the relationship between Sideshow and the British
Art Show?
Well, to say that they’re unrelated would be wrong, as the
original Sideshow came about in 2006 because of the last British
Art Show. The Arts Council decided to bring a collection of
Nottingham artists together, from some of the really interesting
artist groups that were around then, as they were looking for
a happening away from the main event, in venues such as
libraries and the West End Arcade. As an event it was great,
but there were a lot of local artists who felt they didn’t get a
look-in. We’re redressing the balance on that this time around.
We’ve already had a lot of feedback from the British Art Show
team at the Hayward Gallery, and we understand Sideshow
was one of the reasons that they chose Nottingham to launch in
– and the fact that there was already an appreciative audience
in place here.
So is it an approved Fringe event, or a cheeky ride on their
coattails?
Sideshow can be described as a fringe to the BAS, but it’s
organised by entirely different people. We’re funded locally
by the Arts Council, City Council and Igniting Ambitions.
It’s about what’s happening in Nottingham already, showing
people who will be coming to town to see the BAS what we’re
all about. It’s not exclusively local artists, though; we received
applications from much further afield, which was a surprise
considering that we didn’t advertise too widely.
What changes have been made with the 2010 version of
Sideshow?
It’s an entirely new model. This time, we wanted to bring the
democracy of the Edinburgh Festival - “if you build it, they will
come”, sort of thing. Everyone knows what it is and when it is,
and if you want to get involved, here’s the registration form, etc.
THE END OF OUR TETHER
Yelena Popova is a Russian-born artist now living and
working in Nottingham. Last seen in town as part of the
Star City exhibition at Nottingham Contemporary, her
installation in the Wallner Gallery presents a nostalgic
reflection on memory and history. Selected as an
artist to watch in 2010 by Abi Spinks of Tempreh, her
previous and wonderfully bizarre works include the use
of Ninja Mickey Mouse costumes, Martian Gardener (a
performance and painting series), and flogging her own
artwork for next to nothing in the style of a barrow boy
on the streets of Warsaw.
It’s the end of an era for NottsArt, as Tether fly their
Huntington Street nest and strike out as individual
artists. They’re going out with a bang, however, with
a huge range of events - including their Black Swans
series (an arts-based quiz show with artists from both
Sideshow and the BAS), Sideshowshow (a round-up of
both events that’ll be screened online at tethervision.
co.uk), giving over their space to Sixes and Sevens for
one night only, and throwing a closing party with live
music at the end of the festival – not to mention offshoot
exhibitions a-plenty…
Until Tues 9 Nov, Lakeside Arts Centre, University Park,
NG7 2RD. Free
yelenapopova.co.uk
Throughout the festival, 17a Huntingdon Street, NG1 3JH
32
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tether.org.uk
There have been commissions selected by a high profile panel,
but we haven’t ever said to anyone with the resources “no, you
can’t do that”. It’s not just a visual art show, either - there’ll be
live events, performances, theatre and bands.
Describe an average day in the life of a Sideshow curator…
It’s a bit manic, to be honest. When Candice (Jacobs) and I
originally planned it out, we thought it would be a three-days-aweek job. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been enjoyable, but it’s now
24/7 for the whole team. The job of a coordinator is incredibly
varied; with some of the commissions, the artists have a natural
ability to take care of themselves, whilst others need more
guidance. We’re covering a vast range of artists here, from the
very experienced, hugely thought-of and massively important
John Newling to very recent graduates who need more advice.
The range of things that are going on are overwhelming;
we’ve been looking for 150 singers for a public art piece at St
Mary’s, hotel rooms for an installation, emails requesting sixty
televisions… all very interesting.
Would you say that Sideshow is going to be the Nottingham
art scene’s coming-out party?
To an extent, yes. We’re certainly out and proud. The past
year has seen a lot of attention on us, due to Nottingham
Contemporary opening, and this is our chance to show a lot of
people from outside of Nottingham what’s going on here. And
there’ll be a lot of parties going on.
It almost seems like we’re at the end of an era here, with the
winding-up of Moot and Tether…
Definitely. The average life of an artist-led studio group is 18
months, so Moot and Tether have certainly earned their stripes
by being around a lot longer. Tether have reacted to Sideshow
like a bull to a red rag – they’re pretty much putting something
THE HEURISTICS LABORATORY
The Malt Cross – already one of the more cerebral
drinking holes in town - gets its gallery converted into
an idealised learning environment for three weeks in
November, opening itself up to play, experimentation
and reflection. It’s the first public project for the three
members of The Heuristics Laboratory, and they’ll have
a week each to learn completely new skills, while you
have a nosey. Pete McPartlan’s Telecine will create an
experimental and counter intuitive post-production
laboratory, Line Walk by Ruth Scott will be an exploration
of balance and imbalance, and Georgie Park has a go at
wood turning.
Tues 9 – Sat 27 Nov, The Malt Cross Gallery, St James’
Street, NG1 6FG. Free
theheuristicslaboratory.org.uk
HATCH: IT'S ABOUT TIME
The indescribably eclectic Notts performance art
collective - who gleefully throw together local artists,
writers, musicians and actors, just to see what happens
- take over the Castle to unfurl a large-scale, multidisciplinary project including the likes of Hetain Patel,
Reckless Sleepers, Frank Abbott (the man once wrote
storylines for The Tales Of Robin Hood) and Chris
Dobrowolski, the British Antarctic Survey’s artist in
residence.
Nottingham Castle, Weds 10 Nov, 6pm – 11.45pm. Free
hatchnottingham.org.uk
SOUND IT OUT
The first self-shot film by locally-based artist and director
Jeanie Findlay tracks the life of the last surviving vinyl
record shop in Teeside – Sound It Out Records, located
in Stockton-On-Tees. It’s a fascinating 18-month insight,
packed into - aptly enough - 45 minutes, as the camera
clocks the stream of random vinyl addicts, and then
follows them home to see them spinning their purchases
in their homes or at DJ sets. It’s a painfully intimate film
about men, music, memorabilia and Makina – a genre of
Happy Hardcore popular only in Valencia and the North
East.
One Thoresby Street, NG1 1AJ, Sat 11 Dec, 7.00pm. Free if
prebooked at sounditout.eventbrite.com, £5 on the door
jeaniefinlay.com
Annexinema: History of
Nottingham Cinemas
Once upon a time, you could have gone to a different
cinema in Notts once a week over the course of year
without ever returning to the same one, and Annexinema
- the local champions of social cinema – have been
documenting all fifty-two of them, in the form of 16mm
and digital audio recordings, from Leno’s in Hyson
Green to the Byron in Hucknall. Previously, they’ve
held screenings at disused shops, in decommissioned
cinemas, and have even used a cycle-powered projector
for a screening under a motorway flyover. This time,
they’re ensconced in the confines of the Byron, which is
now a bingo hall.
Byron Bingo Hall, High Street, Hucknall, NG15 7HJ, Fri 10
Dec, 6pm – 10pm. Free
annexinema.org
FRINGE OUT
SIDESHOW ALLEY CAFE
on every single day. I must stress that Tether aren’t necessarily
winding down completely; it’s just the studios which are
closing down. Moot really have matured and gone on to do truly
amazing things over the past few years, both here and abroad,
as well as bringing artists from other cities to Nottingham.
In their case, three out of four are still practicing artists in
Nottingham – and they’re concentrating on their own individual
work now. When you run a gallery for five years, as they did,
your art practice can take a bit of a back seat. So yes, it is the
end of an era – but also the beginning of a new one.
We all talk about a ‘Nottingham art scene’ - but is there
anything being produced here that makes us different from
anywhere else? Is such a thing even possible these days?
Well firstly, I think it’s a bit reductive to term it ‘regional art’,
because it’s practically saying; ‘if you’re not from London,
you’re no good and it’s not worth looking at you’, which
unfortunately is still the attitude of a lot of people. Having said
that, one fantastic consequence of regional art centres is that
it’s getting more like Germany here – where you can go to a city
that’s not the capital and discover fantastic contemporary art.
Nottingham’s one of the places that’s really coming up, along
with perhaps Birmingham and Bristol – independent scenes
that feed off London without depending on it. I don’t think you
can ever really say there’s a typical style in a certain place,
nowadays, but the unique aspect of Nottingham is that it’s very
small, but it’s got everything you need within a tiny radius.
There are lots of artists and studios in a very small space close
to the city centre, so instead of finding yourself walking for 45
minutes to get to a studio on an industrial estate, like you do in
other cities, there are some fantastic old industrial buildings in
places like Sneinton which are being used.
how people start to understand art as a business – something
that can be sustainable without relying on handouts. It’s going
to be scary, but it could be interesting. Some of the best art
in this country came out in the 80s, which was a terrible time
financially. Maybe there’ll be more corporate patronage, but
that usually results in monolithic sculptures in courtyards. We’ll
see.
What’s the future of Sideshow?
We’ve potentially spoke about it being a bi-annual thing, but
who curates it is up in the air; it could be the same people,
or, like the British Art Show it might need a new person each
time. Nottingham has always had lots of arts festivals, which
is great, but maybe all these things ought to come together
every two years, because there’s a massive audience for art in
Nottingham. We’ll see.
There’s another load of art students piling into Nottingham
this month, obviously, so what advice would you give to
them?
Go and see as much as possible. Not so long ago, you’d have
to wait a couple of weeks to see something good, but pick up
a copy of Artnot, Nottingham Visual Arts or LeftLion these
days and you’ll realise it’s now impossible to see everything
in Nottingham. Go to as many of the talks Nottingham
Contemporary are hosting. The profile of some of the people
there knocks me for six – it’s like getting a free MA. Go and see
what your peers are putting on and put something on yourself
– there’s lots of opportunities here. Most of all, learn as much as
you can and read as much as you can. There are so many artists
and curators here nowadays that you have to arm yourself with
knowledge. People round here will automatically know if you
know your stuff or not.
Everyone’s been banging on about the cuts in funding to the
arts – have you already felt the pinch yet?
In Sideshow’s case, not yet. But what I’ve definitely noticed is
now that there are fewer staff members at the Arts Council, the
lines of communication are a lot slower and there’s less local
knowledge and understanding on a grassroots level, which
is alarming and bodes ill for the future. Yes, I sincerely worry
about what’s going to happen, but the flipside of the coin is
that we’ve had it great for a long, long time in terms of funding
and I’ll be interested to see how artists function without it, and
SIXES & SEVENS: PILE
Co-curated by Simon Franklin and Craig Fisher, this
comprehensive sculpture exhibition takes in the works
from a huge list of Notts artists and forces them to
interact with each other. In some cases they are piled on
top of one another, with a collection of individual objects
which become one overarching piece - NottsArt Jenga, if
you will. Artists include David Bance, Craig Fisher, Dan
Ford, Simon Franklin, Lyn Fulton, Mark S Gubb, Frank
Kent, Brendan Lyons, Zoe Mendelson, Jock Mooney,
Audrey Reynolds, Lucienne Simpson, Debra Swann,
Lee Triming, Gerard Williams, Annie Whiles and Neil
Zakiewiez, to name but a few.
Fri 19 Nov – Fri Dec 10, Surface Gallery, 16 Southwell
Road, NG1 1DL. Free
sixessevens.blogspot.com
sideshow2010.org
The perennial LeftLion favourite when it comes to
meat-free snap will be handling the bar and catering
at One Thoresby Street, as always, dealing out coffees,
soft drinks and booze, as well as the usual cake, pizza,
soup and the like - with a special tea being supplied
for Sideshow by those lovely people at Lee Rosy’s.
Obviously, in keeping with the get-in-where-you-fit-in
ethos of the festival, there’ll be plenty of commissions,
events and exhibitions too - including the launch,
afterparty and gigs organised by Artnot.
One Thoresby Street, NG1 1AJ Fri 22 Oct – Sat 18 Dec.
alleycafe.co.uk
POSTHUMOUS PROGRESS
A very special one-off performance event curated by
Simon Raven and others, this examination into the role
of the guide in contemporary art will feature Professor
Lesley Smith (who, when not acting as head curator
at Tutbury Castle, is the UK’s No.1 Queen Elizabeth I
impersonator), performance group The Wolf In the Winter,
and a cast of artists both national and local for a multidisciplined tribute to Wollaton Hall. Roll up during the
day, or book your place on the coach from Sideshow Alley
Café from 5pm for the evening events.
Sun Oct 24, noon - 4pm, Wollaton Hall, Wollaton,
Nottingham NG8 2AE, England
WUNDERKAMMER
German for ‘wonder-room’, Wunderkammer promises to
turn the Art Organisation into the fulcrum of Sideshow.
It’s a veritable cabinet of curiosities filled by artists
across the city to form a crabbed, esoteric survey of
creativity - be it artwork created by them or an artefact
that gives them personal inspiration. Part survey of
the Nottingham art scene circa 2010, part lucky bag of
randomness, it’ll be a return to the past for the venue; in
a previous life it was known as Hopkinson’s, a hardware
shop stuffed to the gills with tools, accessories and
clutter
Fri 22 October- Sun 14 November, The Art Organisation,
21 Station Street, NG2 3AJ. Free
taonottingham.co.uk
Sideshow 2010, various venues across Nottingham, 22
Oct - 18 Dec. For the full list of events - of which we’ve
skimmed the surface - and updated detail, visit the
website. For more information or to participate, please
contact Jennie Syson at jennie@sideshow2010.org.
leftlion.co.uk/issue37
33
music event listings...
Saturday 23/10
Wednesday 27/10
We Are The Ocean
The Rescue Rooms
£7.50, 6.30pm
My Passion and Dead By April
Rock City
£8, 6.30pm
Beataucue (Kitsune)
Stealth
£5, 10pm
Clinic
The Bodega
£9.50, 7pm
Sunday 24/10
Thursday 28/10
Michael Weston-King
The Maze
8pm
Dreadzone
The Rescue Rooms
£15, 7.30pm
Kiuas, Metsatoll and Kalmah
Rock City
£10, 7.30pm
Against Me!
Rock City
£12.50, 6.30pm
Plus F**ked Up, Japanese Voyeurs
and Crazy Arm.
Catfish Keith
The Admiral Rodney
£10, 8pm
The Wombats
The Rescue Rooms
£13, 6.30pm
Monday 25/10
Shape Lt and Hardback Fiction
The Maze
8pm
The Birthday Massacre
Rock City
£12, 7.30pm
Tuesday 26/10
Maverickz
The Maze
8pm
Plus Page 44, A Graceful Descent,
Moosenbe Rangers
The Eighties Matchbox B-Line
Disaster
The Rescue Rooms
£9, 7.30pm
Tomorrow We Sail
The Malt Cross
Wednesday 27/10
Martha Tilston
The Maze
£10
Ultra! Live presents Dan Le Sac vs
Scroobius Pip
Gatecrasher
£14.50, 7.30pm
Anais Mitchell
The Maze
£10, 7.30pm
Belleruche
Stealth
£8, 7.30pm
for more: leftlion.co.uk/listings
Jammin’
The return of Oxjam
Everyone’s favourite Oxfamrelated music festival is back
once again - this time taking on
the mantle vacated by LeftLion
and organising an October
music festival across our beloved
Canning Circus.
Venues including The Ropewalk,
Shop, The Falcon, Scruffys, Moog,
Hand and Heart, Sir John Borlaise Warren And Junction 7 are being taken over to provide a diaspora of city centre
promoters to one of Nottingham’s best-kept secret areas.
Balls out rockers Audacious Face (usually to be found playing at The Central) take on Moog, with a line-up that
includes Nephu Huzzband, Fixit Kid, Isolysis and Freaky River Styx.
The ever-eclectic I’m Not From London (who put dozens of gigs on all over the place) take on Heart and Hand with
25 Past The Skank, The Cult of Dom Keller, Venom and the Terrortones and In Isolation, among others.
Wire and Wool (who do a monthly sesh at the Alley Cafe) are on a more acoustic tip with a line-up topped by Cecille
Grey, Gallery 47, Kat Kryss and Hackenbush.
Flux take on the upstairs of Junction 7, with Fat Digester, Long Dead Signal, Satnams Tash and more. Downstairs
Cultural Vibrations feature DJ Black Limelight, Black Sheep Band, Samzee, Mique and Kendrea Hayward.
As always, the pennies you pay on the door go to a raft of worthy causes and all in all it promises to be a top day
(and evening out). knowing the British weather we advise you to take an umbrella or a raincoat along with you, so
you can dive between venues without worry of your hair do being messed up good and proper.
Tickets for the gig are £6 advance from wegottickets.com or £7.50 on the day.
More detailed Nottingham gig information can be found on Facebook.
Friday 29/10
Random Hand
The Maze
£6
Plus The JB Conspiracy,
Breadchasers and Firing Blanks.
Detonate
Stealth
£10 / £12, 11pm - late
Andy C, Noisia, Nero, 16Bit, Total
Science, Rockwell and more.
Barnaby Bright
Deux
Farmyard Presents
Jam Café
Project - Plump DJs
Gatecrasher
Breakin’ Convention 2010
Nottingham Playhouse
£15.50 - £18, 7.30pm
oxfam.org.uk/oxjam
Friday 29/10
Saturday 30/10
Monday 01/11
Zephyr 5
The Robin Hood
Cancer Bats
The Rescue Rooms
£8, 6.30pm
Dillinger Escape Plan
The Rescue Rooms
£12.50, 6.30pm
Wholesome Fish
Deux
The Acme Jazz Band
Deux
Jay Stone
The Robin Hood
I Blame Coco
The Bodega
£7.50, 7pm
Pesky Alligators
The Fox And Crown
Lloyd Cole Small Ensemble
The Glee Club
£20, 7.30pm
Saturday 30/10
Fresh Produce
The Maze
£6
Super Nihon
Nihon
£5, 10pm
Cut and Shut Disco and Paul Wain.
AudioKyle
Found in Translation - Artnot
Sideshow Alley Café
£5 / £7
Romeo Must Die
The Maze
£5
Plus Taken By The Tide, Two
Minutes Hate and Orakai.
Since 2007, the mighty Audiophile have been
throwing massive parties all over Notts, with a firm
emphasis on true underground values, impervious
quality, and a point-blank refusal to compromise
when it comes to showcasing the cream of the
electronic spectrum. At long last, their wandering
days are over and they’ve found a new home – and
luckily for us, it isn’t a three-bedroom semi-detached
in Carlton with stonecladding on the front.
Farmyard Records Halloween
Party
The Golden Fleece
Soulbuggin
Moog
From October, the new base for all your Audiophilic needs is upstairs at Spanky Van Dykes, the still-rather-new
venue on the corner of Goldsmith Street that used to be the Horn In Hand. It’s a perfect fit, if you ask us; the high
ceilings and dramatic period features set off the party vibe to a tee, while the downstairs lounge and diner are a
great place to doss and calm yourself down.
The next chance to see Audiophile flexing their muscles at Spanky’s promises to be a big night, as Detroit
wunderkind Kyle Hall comes to town on Friday 8 October. A seven-year veteran in the producing game and the man
behind the Wild Oats label (even though he’s still a mere 18 years old), Hall has already been pegged as the next
big figure from the Motor City and is coming into his own as a prolific experimental house music producer. The
follow-up night on Friday 26 November is just as tasty, as Midland and Throwing Snow clash for a searing night of
electronic. The former has recently been blending garage, dubstep and house in some stunning collaborations with
Ramadanman, while the latter draws deep from the melodious dubstep well to devastating effect.
Other Spanky’s gigs to look out for some impressive Tuesday night line ups including Evil Nine (5 October),
Appleblim (12 October), Zombie Disco Squad (19 October) and High Rankin (9 November). If you’re looking for the
best in forward-thinking drum n bass, veteran promoters Cult have also taken residence at Spankys...
Kyle Hall, Friday 8 October, 8pm - 4am, £6, Midland and Throwing Snow, 26 November , 8pm - 2pm, £5,
Spanky Van Dykes, 17 Goldsmith Street, NG1 5JT.
spankyvandykes.com
leftlion.co.uk/issue37
Doorly
Stealth
£5, 10pm
Sunday 31/10
Detroit legend-in-waiting hits up
Spanky’s this month
34
Magdala Autumn Gala Concert
Albert Albert Hall
£12.50 / £15, 7.30pm
Fest-Fatale 3 Festival
The Central
£4, 6pm 12am
Exoterik, Invey, Scarlet’s Wake,
The Hell I Am, Grim Dylan, Aonia,
Hushwhore and Thracia
Egyptian Hip Hop
The Bodega
£6.50, 7pm
Micah P Hinson
The Rescue Rooms
£12.50, 7.30pm
Plus Serafina Steer.
Monday 01/11
Justin Townes Earls
The Maze
£11, 7.30pm
Delphic (Live)
Gatecrasher
£14.50, 8pm
Tuesday 02/11
Woody
Spanky Van Dykes
Free / £2 / £3, 9pm - 2am
Wednesday 03/11
Red Jester
The Central
£2
Voodoo Six
Rock City
£7, 7pm
Ironik
NTU SU
£9, 7.30pm
Icebreaker
Lakeside Arts Centre
£9 / £12 / £15, 8pm
Thursday 04/11
The Black Keys
Rock City
£16, 6.30pm
The Hamsters
The Rescue Rooms
£12.50, 7.30pm
Friday 05/11
Bryan Gee
The Maze
£6, 9pm
Magnetic Man with Katy B
NTU SU
£12, 8.30pm
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music event listings...
for more: leftlion.co.uk/listings
Friday 05/11
Thursday 11/11
Thursday 18/11
Saturday 20/11
Thursday 25/11
There For Tomorrow, Deaf Havana
and Me Vs Hero
The Rescue Rooms
£7.50, 6.30pm
Winds of Plague
Rock City
£9, 6.30pm
Plus Stick To Your Guns, For Today
and Monuments.
Ian Siegal and Ben Prestage
The Rescue Rooms
£12, 7.30pm
Highness Warm Up with Boysie
The Golden Fleece
Frightened Rabbit
The Rescue Rooms
£11, 7.30pm
Love Amongst Ruin
Rock City
£7.50, 7pm
Ready Steady 60s
The Maze
Saturday 06/11
Jazz Hands
The Alley Cafe
Super Nihon
Nihon
£5, 10pm
Foals
Rock City
£14, 6.30pm
Back To Basics
The Maze
£3, 9pm
Midge Ure
The Rescue Rooms
£13, 7.30pm
Friday 12/11
Alexisonfire
Rock City
£14, 6.30pm
Soul Ska Shakedown
The Golden Fleece
Free, 8pm
The Complete Stone Roses
The Rescue Rooms
£13, 7.30pm
Plus Special Guests Kings of Lyon.
The Wendys
Deux
The Soggy Bottom Girls
Deux
House Vs Home Presents
The Chameleon Cafe Bar
Andy Smith (Portishead) DJ set
Moog
Mimm Clothing Shop Presents...
The Bodega
£4 adv, 11pm-4am
A Plastic Rose and Kasper rosa
Sumac Centre
£2 suggested donation, 8pm
Mystery Jets
NTU SU
£12.50, 7pm
Pesky Alligators
The Fox at Kirton
Failsafe
The Rescue Rooms
£6, 7pm
Sunday 07/11
At The Altar presents.
The Maze
£4, 6pm
Vidina, Redmist Destruction, Call
For Exile, Throne Of Nero, Ever The
Optimist and Day Of Unrest.
Farmyard Presents
The Golden Fleece
I’m Not From London
Jam Café
Saturday 13/11
Dogs
The Maze
£8adv, 8pm
Soul Outlaws
Deux
Less Than Jake
Rock City
£15, 6pm
Marina and the Diamonds
NTU SU
£15, 7pm
Bad News Records Launch Party
Doghouse Studios
Taken by The Tide, Widows, ASBO
Peepshow and Godskies Ahead.
Yann Tiersen
The Rescue Rooms
£15, 7.30pm
Seth Lakeman
The Rescue Rooms
£17, 7pm
Monday 08/11
Sunday 14/11
Hidden Talents
The Maze
Tek-One
Stealth
£6, 7pm
Friday 19/11
Fixit Kid
The Central
Fresh Eyes For The Dead Guy and
The Wickets.
Owen Harvey
Deux
Farmyard Presents
Jam Café
Squeeze and The Lightning Seeds
Royal Centre
Steve Harley (Acoustic)
The Albert Hall
£21, 7pm
Saturday 20/11
W.A.S.P
Rock City
£16.50, 6.30pm
Baths
Stealth
£5, 10.15pm
Jonny One Lung
The Maze
£5, 6.45pm
The Colour Of Sound and Spokes
The Chameleon Cafe Bar
Rumour Cubes and 8mm Orchestra.
Cafe Boheme
Deux
Hackenbush
Deux
Friday 26/11
Maximum Rhythm ‘n’ Blues
Royal Centre
Bizarre Festival 2010
Cape
£4.50, 7.30pm
Super Nihon
Nihon
£5, 10pm
Artnot - Mark Gubb
Sideshow Alley Café
£5 / £7
Tuesday 23/11
Scientist Sends Dubstep to
Outerspace
The Rescue Rooms
£15, 7pm
Scientist vs The Upsetters, Mala,
Pinch and Sgt Poke.
BBC Radio 3 - BBC Philharmonic
Royal Centre
Wednesday 24/11
Interpol
Rock City
£22.50, 6.30pm
Pesky Alligators
The Lion Inn
Free, 9pm-11pm
Paul Smith
The Bodega
£10, 7pm
Detonate
Stealth
£12 / £15, 7pm
Sub Focus, Skream, Rusko and
Brookes Brothers.
The Forgeries
Deux
I’m Not From London
Jam Café
With Arrows of Love
Saturday 27/11
Matt Berry
The Rescue Rooms
£13, 7pm
The Mummers
The Rescue Rooms
£8, 7.30pm
Babyhead
The Maze
Jools Holland
Royal Centre
Dirty Buzzard
Deux
Dogma Presents
Back to put the Thunk in your Thursdays
Bars, clubs and restaurants come
and go in Nottingham, especially
those that are tucked away down
a narrow, Victorian side street.
It just goes to show how good
Dogma is at all three functions
when you consider that it’s been
holding it down on Byard Lane
for nine years. Then again, when
you can play host to such acts
as DJ Yoda, Jamie XX, Fabio, DJ
Zinc, Jack Beats, MistaJam and
DJ Fresh – to name just a few who
appeared this year alone – it’s not
surprising.
Lars Vogt - Piano Series
Royal Centre
Klaxons
Rock City
£16, 7.30pm
Devildriver and 36 Crazyfists
Rock City
£17, 6pm
Paige, Altas and I and Destine
The Central
Tuesday 09/11
Oxjam
The Golden Fleece
High Rankin
Spanky Van Dykes
Free / £2 / £3, 9pm - 2am
Dr Feelgood and Wilko Johnson
The Rescue Rooms
£17.50, 7.30pm
Adventure! Mayhem!
The Maze
£7.50, 8pm
String Driven Thing
The Maze
£10, 7.30pm
Philip Sayce
The Rescue Rooms
£12, 7.30pm
Wednesday 17/11
The re-launch on 7 October will have the Elementz Soundsystem presenting Geeneus, Tipper and Katy B in the
basement. The latter is the lady behind one of the biggest dubstep tunes of the year, and has guested with
Magnetic Man, Skream and Zinc – and all before she’s even dropped her debut LP. Chuck in local heroes The
Elementz, Karizma and Skiman with Kid Fix in the upstairs bar, and it goes without saying that you need to get in
early, as a ram-out is guaranteed.
Annihilator
The Rescue Rooms
£11, 7.30pm
As Dogma Presents continually strives to be at the forefront of new music and give people something a little bit
different to the rest, it’s easy to see what sets it apart from its rivals. Keep an eye on this place or else you may end
up shaking a flyer at the end of the month, annoyed at what you’ve missed out on.
Castrovalva and Mojo Fury
The Central
Dogma Presents, every Thursday, 9 Byard Lane, The Lace Market, NG1 2GJ. Free before 11pm, £3 after.
Wednesday 10/11
Demon Hunter
Rock City
£9, 7pm
Matt Schofield
The Rescue Rooms
£12, 7.30pm
36
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Anyway, the big news is that their
Thursday night Dogma Presents
sessions are returning for a new
season, bringing some of dance
music’s biggest DJs and rising
stars to Nottingham for a school
night session - and all for nowt if
you get there before 11 pm. With
promises of drinks promotions to
compliment an already ludicrously
low-priced evening, it’s a night for
the financially and musically savvy
amongst us.
dogmabars.com
Skunk Anansie
Rock City
£20, 6.30pm
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6
Nottingham's Music
& Creative Arts Festival
Hockley Hustle 2010
22nd - 24th October
VENUES
(more tbc)
Tickets
£8 advanced
£10 on the day
For more info visit:
www.hockleyhustle.co.uk
Over 30 venues hosted by the city’s best promoters and community groups, all raising money for local
charities and featuring hundreds of acts representing all genres and styles.
Friday 22nd October
Saturday 23rd October
Sunday 24th October
Tilt
The Golden Fleece
The Central
The Approach
The Alley Cafe
Pitcher and Piano
Nottingham Contemporary
Spanky Van Dyke’s
The Orange Tree
The Bodega Social
Gatecrasher
Baa Bar
Bar Eleven
Broadway
Jam Cafe
Old Angel
Dogma
Pit and Pendulum
Eschucha
Bunkers Hill
Pitcher and Piano
Image Bar
Cape
Le Gitane
Bad Juju
Miles Bar
Edins
The Bodega
Nottingham Contemporary
Market Bar
Wax Bar
music / comedy event listings...
Saturday 27/11
Saturday 02/10
Butterfly Fan the Inferno
The Old Angel
Tom Young
Canalhouse Bar
£4 / £5, 6pm
We Are Scientists
Rock City
£13.50, 6.30pm
Sunday 28/11
Aiden
The Rescue Rooms
£10, 6.30pm
Francesqu and The Dead Formats
Sarah Millican
The Forum
£12, 6.45pm
Monday 29/11
Volbeat
The Rescue Rooms
£10, 7.30pm
Tuesday 30/11
Gallows
Rock City
£13, 7.30pm
Villagers
The Rescue Rooms
£9, 7pm
Biffy Clyro
Nottingham Arena
£20, 6.30pm
Pixie Lott
Royal Centre
COMEDY
Saturday 02/10
Funhouse Comedy Club
Bunkers Hill Inn
£7adv
Ali Cook and guests.
Ian Moore
Glee Club
Ron Vaudry, Nick Doody and Joe Bor.
Long Form Improv Comedy
Workshop
Arts Organisation
£12, 2pm to 5pm
Stand-up Shakespeare
Canalhouse Bar
£5 / £6, 8pm
Naked Ant Wrestling
Arts Organisation
£3, 7.30pm
Sunday 03/10
Just The Tonic Sunday Night Social
Forum
Daniel Kitson, Rob Rouse, Eric
Lampaert, Nick Helm,
NCF Comedy Night: The Locals
Canalhouse Bar
£4 / £5, 8pm
Friday 08/10
Yianni Agisilaou
Glee Club
Plus Ivan Brackenbury and
Marty McLean .
Saturday 09/10
Saturday Night Comedy
Forum
Doc Brown, Daniel Sloss and
Danny McLoughlin.
Sunday 10/10
Just The Tonic Sunday Night Social
Forum
Ian D Montford, Daniel Sloss, Darrell
Martin,
Alun Cochrane
Glee Club
£10 - £11.50, 7pm
Wednesday 13/10
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Maze
for more: leftlion.co.uk/listings
Joke On The Water
The Glee Club lands on the Waterfront
All of a sudden, the comedy scene in Nottingham has exploded,
and the latest development – the expansion of the Glee Club
into our lovely city – has shot us into a whole new league of
laughter. The original club – situated in that hub of hilarity, er,
Birmingham – has scooped up awards left and right and was
named as one of the top ten comedy venues in the UK by The
Guardian, so much is expected from the new place.
The ex British Waterways building on Castle Wharf, which has
been treated to a £1 million refit, resulting in two auditoriums
with theatre-style seating to ensure everyone gets a good
view, a swishy café-bar, and facilities to upgrade the place into
a venue that can handle more than a mic stand on a stage.
But what about the talent? Glee are guaranteeing four live stand-up acts every Friday and Saturday night, with an
extra show on the last Thursday of every month. Their opening season includes Milton Jones, Mock The Week’s
Andy Parsons and controversial Irishman, Tommy Tiernan. Fans of the Nottingham improv group MissImp will also
be glad to hear that they have a residency at Glee on the second Wednesday of each month, when they will be
performing an unscripted sketch show based on the audience’s suggestions. Prices for comedy nights start at £8,
with big discounts for students.
It’s not all about comedy, though; the Glee Club will also be the city’s newest music venue, with a line-up that veers
strongly towards folkiness and acoustic singer-songwriters. The absolute coup of the moment is the appearance of
award-winning film director and actor Tim Robbins playing with his band, The Rogues Gallery on 3 October, with
Lloyd Cole (formerly of ‘and the Commotions’ fame, but now a solo folk singer) and acclaimed country-soul singers
The Duke And The King.
And it would be extremely remiss of us not to mention that the café-bar serves burgers, pizza and sharing platters
at lunchtimes – and the place is still kicking long after the laughter has died down, with a late bar and after-show
club vibes on Fridays and Saturdays.
The Glee Club, British Waterways Building, Castle Wharf, Canal Street, NG1 7EH
glee.co.uk
Wednesday 13/10
Sunday 17/10
Rob Deering
Forum
Pete Firman
Forum
Friday 15/10
Monday 18/10
Matt Hardy
Glee Club
Plus George Egg and Pete
Johansson .
Stewart Lee
Forum
Friday Night Comedy
Forum
Terry Alderton, Henning Wehn, Dave
Longley and Charlie Baker.
Greg Davies
Nottingham Playhouse
£12.50, 8pm Friday 22/10
Simon Bligh
Glee Club
£4 - £8, 7.15pm
Plus Imran Yusuf, Tommy
Campbell and Ben Norris.
MissImp Live in Action:
Glee Club
Friday Night Comedy
Forum
Miles Jupp, Mitch Benn, Chris
Stokes and Darrell Martin.
Crafty Boggers
Lustre returns to the Lakeside this November
Saturday 23/10
Lustre, Nottingham’s annual contemporary craft fair, is back for its
eleventh year at Lakeside Arts Centre this November. You may shudder
at the thought of a craft fair, but forget being dragged by your parents to
musty old church and community halls before Christmas when you were
little; the Lustre event is all about refined art, extravagance and beautiful
things that will make you break at least two of the seven deadly sins:
lust at the plethora of things that you just have to have for your gaff and
envy for the sheer talent of the artists involved and the skills they possess which you don’t.
Saturday Night Comedy
Forum
Nina Conti, Miles Jupp, Chris
Stokes, Darrell Martin,
The joy of Lustre is that you can have a mooch around and just appreciate the goods on offer for what they are
– artistic pieces that scream at you to look at them, touch them, hold them and be inspired by them, or you can
succumb to the consumer within and not only appreciate what’s on offer but also make a purchase or two (or three
or four). Perfectly timed for the run up to Christmas, you can get some hella individual gifts that are going to make
your loved ones smile and allow you to be smug in that you have given the best gifts this Yuletide. Or you can buy
yourself something nice and then tell your Mum and Dad that’s what they’ve bought you for Christmas.
So, with over 55 makers and hundreds of pieces, what can you expect? Jewellery, silverware, woodwork,
furnishings, fabrics, drawings, prints, china, ceramics, hand-blown glass, and the list goes on. It’s an easier
question to ask what you won’t expect. You’ll be bandying around terms like sumptuous, exquisite, unique,
indescribable within minutes of leaving – trust us, we’ve had a gander in previous years. Lustre also supports
newcomers to the genre with a collection from The Young Meteors, a group of twelve up and coming makers from
East Midlands universities. One of them is Nottingham Trent University graduate Harriet Foster who specialises in
hand-printed dresses, cushions and accessories.
So, if you’re in any way fond anything shiny, soft, pretty or tactile then whiling away a few hours at Lustre will be
right up your alley. Nottingham is more than lucky to be host to the twinkling jewel in the hand-beaten crown of
Britain’s craft fairs.
Lustre, November 13 - 14, 10am - 6pm, Lakeside Arts Centre, University Park, NG7 2RD.
£5 weekend ticket, under-16s free.
lakesidearts.org.uk
The Best in Live Stand Up Comedy
Glee Club
£4 - £10, 7.15pm
Simon Bligh, Imran Yusuf, Tommy
Campbell and Ben Norris.
Sunday 24/10
Just The Tonic Sunday Night Social
Forum
Ardal O’Hanlon
Nottingham Playhouse
£18
Thursday 28/10
The Thursday Food & Comedy
Special
Glee Club
Paul Thorne, Keith Farnan, Markus
Birdman and Michael Fabbri.
Thursday 28/10
Paul Thorne
Glee Club
£3.50 - £7.50, 7.30pm
Keith Farnan, Markus Birdman &
Michael Fabbri
Friday 29/10
Friday Night Comedy
Forum
Ian Cognito, Gavin Webster, John
Gordillo, Tim Clark,
Saturday 30/10
Saturday Night Comedy
Forum
Ian Cognito, Gavin Webster, John
Gordillo, Tim Clark,
Sunday 31/10
Brendon Burns
Forum
Thursday 04/11
Jimeoin
Glee Club
£9 - £12, 7.30pm
Friday 05/11
Ross Noble
Royal Centre
Dave Twentyman
Glee Club
£4 - £8, 7.15pm
Plus Alistair Barrie, Michael Smiley
and Dave Fulton.
Saturday 06/11
Funhouse Comedy Club
Bunkers Hill Inn
Michael Fabbri, Pete Jonas, Andrew
Watts, Alan Armstrong and
Compere Spiky Mike.
Dan Antopolski
Forum
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this is your videogame festival
GameCity5
your videogame festival
26-30 October 2010
GameCityNights
last Friday of every month
only at Antenna
www.gamecity.org
all the time
limbo by playdeadgames
Wednesday 4th
comedy / theatre / exhibition listings...
Saturday 06/11
The Colour of Nonsense
Lakeside Arts Centre
£6 / £9 / £12, 8pm
Friday 26/11
Lee Mack
Royal Centre
Runs until: 27/11
Saturday Night Comedy
Forum
Sunday 28/11
Friday 12/11
Sarah Millican
Forum
Ava Vidal
Glee Club
£4 - £8, 7.15pm
With Richard Morton, Dwayne
Perkins and Matt Kirshen.
THEATRE
Friday 01/10
Monday 15/11
Chris Addison
Nottingham Playhouse
£17.50, 8pm
Saturday 20/11
The Best in Live Stand Up Comedy
Glee Club
£4 - £10, 7.15pm
Yianni Agisilaou, Andrew Bird, Zoe
Lyons and guest.
Sunday 21/11
Isy Suttie
Forum
Monday 22/11
Jimmy Carr - Laughter Therapy
Royal Centre
Thursday 25/11
Tommy Tiernan
Glee Club
£16, 7.30pm
Andrew Lawrence
Lakeside Arts Centre
£5 / £7 / £10, 8pm
Friday 26/11
Jimmy McGhie
Glee Club
£4 -£8, 7.15pm
Plus Sean Collins, Stephen Carlin
and Gavin Webster.
The Post Show Party Show
Lakeside Arts Centre
£6 / £9 / £12, 8pm
Loot
Lace Market Theatre
£6 - £10, 7:30
Runs until: 09/10
Tuesday 05/10
The Featherstonehaughs: Edits
Lakeside Arts Centre
£9 / £12 / £15, 8pm
Thursday 07/10
Facebook
Nottingham Playhouse
£5 / £6, 8pm
Runs until: 09/10
Saturday 16/10
Dance4 Presents: Youth Shift
Lakeside Arts Centre
£5 / £7, 8pm
Wednesday 20/10
Natasha Wood
Nottingham Playhouse
£12 / £10, 7.45pm
Tuesday 26/10
Hofesh Shechter - Political Mother
Nottingham Playhouse
£16 - £10.50, 8pm
Runs until: 27/10
Spin On This!
Breakin’ Convention 10 rocks the Playhouse
If the words ‘hip-hop dance theatre’ bring to mind the
boring bits in films like Breakin’ and Beat Street, where
ghetto kids get conned by posh girls in legwarmers into
doing some Kids From Fame rubbish, think again.
Breakin’ Convention is more than just a show – it’s a twonight takeover, where the entire building is given over to
the pursuit of the perfect beat. Onstage are some of the
top hip-hop artists on the planet including Franco-German
B-Boy duo Sebastien and Raphael and thirteen-strong
Parisian crew Phase T.
LITERATURE ROUND-UP
October and November sees Nottingham play host to an orgy of literature related events as the city goes word mad.
Here’s our pick of the best - which means we’re involved in them in some way or another
May Contain Creative Notts - 6 October 6 7.30pm, Edins
There isn’t going to be a Creative Business Awards this year which either means there’s no other talent left to vote
for in Nottingham or that last year’s winners were so good that they want to big us up a little bit more. So come
down to that posh café opposite the Broadway and join local playwright and Hatch organiser Michael Pinchbeck,
our favourite local author Nicola Monaghan and us toerags from LeftLion for readings from some of the best articles
published in the mag. This won’t be your usual literary event. We’ll be arsing about, getting in some actors, mixing
it up and, well, you’ll just have to come down and see for yourself if we’re creative or just a bunch of hyped-up word
jockeys with no-one to knock us off our pedestal.
National Poetry Day: ‘Home is Best’ - 7 October 6.30-8pm, Waterstones
The theme of this year’s National Poetry Day is home and who better to interpret this than Candlestick Press, the
inventive publishing house that came up with the ‘instead of a card’ poetry pamphlets. Owner Jenny Swann will be
hosting a series of readings called ‘Home Is Best’, featuring poems from previous Candlestick publications as well as
other anthologies and collections. Expect lots of homely nibbles and drink. Aprons optional, but the poetry’s a must.
S
Booker Prize Evening - 12 October 8pm-10.30pm, Arnold Library
To celebrate the ‘Champions League’ of literature, six bibliophiles (Bianca Winter, Nicola Monaghan, Frances Finn,
James Walker, Jane Streeter and Peter Preston) will each argue why their shortlist nominee should scoop the
coveted prize. Expect furious debate, passion and tantrums as they put forth their case. Then sit back and revel in
the schadenfreude as five of them get it completely wrong and have to flee the city in shame. The event is aimed
at provoking a good old-fashioned debate with a strong emphasis on audience participation, so don’t worry if you
don’t know your Carey’s from your Donoghue’s, all opinions are welcome. The event will have a live link-up with the
award ceremony in London so you can pretend you’re in our shitty, smelly, over-crowded capital.
Nottingham Libraries Readers’ Day - 7 November 9.15-4pm
Council House
This event sells-out quicker than a Take That reunion, so make sure you’re first in the queue when tickets go on sale.
In a nutshell it does exactly what it says on the tin. Book lovers from the region come together and in a series of
themed breakout sessions discuss the wonderful world of words.
Friday 29/10
Saturday 20/11
Friday 05/11
I Offer Myself To Thee
Lakeside Arts Centre
£9 / £12 / £15, 8pm
Upswing Presents: Fallen
Lakeside Arts Centre
£5 / £9 / £12, 8pm
The Night of the Comet
Nottingham Contemporary
6pm - 8pm
Friday 05/11
Friday 26/11
Saturday 06/11
Tiny Volcanoes
Lakeside Arts Centre
£6 / £9 / £12, 8pm
Mother Goose
Nottingham Playhouse
£18 - £22
Runs until: 22/01
MulletProofPoet workshop
New Art Exchange
2pm - 4pm
G
RACHAEL
PENNELL
ChoColateria
Amy’s View
Nottingham Playhouse
£7.50 - £26.50
Runs until: 20/11
Wednesday 17/11
Bouncers
Lace Market Theatre
£7
Runs until: 20/11
EXHIBITIONS
Friday 01/10
We’ll Meet Again
New Art Exchange
Runs until: 07/11
LOVE
New Art Exchange
Runs until: 07/11
Dust on The Mirror
Lakeside Arts Centre
Free , 11am – 5pm Mon-Sat 12pm –
4pm Sun
Runs until: 31/10
Friday 01/10
Yelena Popova: Unnamed
Lakeside Arts Centre
Free, 11-5 Mon to Sat, 12-4 Sun
Runs until: 07/11
Monday 04/10
Mark Essen - Eternal Atlas
Trade Gallery
Free, 11am - 6pm
Runs until: 16/10
Saturday 06/11
Cosmos and Culture
Nottingham Contemporary
7pm - 8.30pm
Tuesday 09/11
The Heuristics Laboratory
Malt Cross
Runs until: 02/12
Wednesday 10/11
Hatch: It’s About Time
Various Locations
6pm - 11:45pm
Saturday 13/11
Lustre
Lakeside Arts Centre
£5 (under 16s free), 10am - 5pm
Runs until: 14/11
Nottingham Contemporary 1st
birthday celebration
Nottingham Contemporary
Runs until: 14/11
hysteria
But as always, the NG is represented with Freedom Movement, Broken Doll Dance Company, Steady Flux, CRC
Dance Company, Dash and Groundhogs. If you’re heavily into modern dance or breaking, you can’t miss this. And if
you like both, you’ve already got your ticket, haven’t you?
Breakin’ Convention, Friday 29 - Saturday 30 October, 7.30pm at the Nottingham Playhouse, £18/ £15.50
breakinconvention.com
Political Mother
for more: leftlion.co.uk/listings
Dance star Hofesh Shechter justifies all the hype with his first full-length work Political Mother which has been
wowing audiences and critics this summer. As a vision of political rallies, rock gigs, prison camps and war, it’s a
massive slab of riffs, booming drums, fast-cut cinematic lighting and committed, inspired dancing, where images of
mass hysteria and mindless obedience are interspersed with brief moments of tenderness and humanity.
Saturday 09/10
Secret Wars
Shop
Kid30, Rikki Finn, Ging Inferior,
Kaps, Jimmy Summit and Boaster.
Sunday 24/10
John Makepeace
Harley Gallery and Foundation
Free, 10-5 Mon -Sat, 10-4.30 Sun
Runs until: 24/12
Tuesday 16/11
Moving Histories - Frank Abbot
New Art Exchange
5.30pm - 7pm
Saturday 20/11
Revolution Paper
Lakeside Arts Centre
Free, 11am – 5pm Mon to Fri, 12pm
– 4pm Sun
Runs until: 27/02
WIN BOOKS
If you’ve not heard of Shechter, he choreographed the opening sequence of E4’s Skins and the overwhelming
response to his previous work, Uprising/ In Your Rooms, has singled him out as one of the most exciting artists to
emerge in recent years. Political Mother tours the world in 2010 so catch it here while you can.
Tuesday 26/10
Political Mother, Tuesday 26 - Wednesday 27 October, 8pm at the Nottingham Playhouse.
£16/ £14/ £12 (concessions available).
politicalmother.co.uk
British Art Show - Olivia Plender
Nottingham Contemporary
2pm
Graffitti - Oxygen Thievez
New Art Exchange
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Write Lion
It’s another double pager for our poets and as usual it’s an eclectic mix of styles. Robin Vaughan-Williams - the
newly appointed face of the Nottingham Writers’ Studio - is fresh to these pages as is Roxy Rob, who’s taken
time off from the dance floor to pen a little number. If you’ve got writers’ block and need any inspiration, then
check out our mammoth literature listing on page 36
If you’ve got any wordy needs, please contact books@leftlion.co.uk
Cyclone
Robin Vaughan-Williams
Boy
in a red
shirt running.
The wind all around
in his house, in his ears
in the trees that have been trampled
by some unseen weight.
In his hand something soft, white
more a blur, hard to focus
when the sun brings light
to what is lost.
Dalat Vietnam 2
Roxx
The MOON is a
beautiful balloon
supposedly
that none OF US
CAN RIde
life THOUgh
is somETHING
WE Can
deciDE
American Vernacular
Eireann Lorsung
I had some dreams. They involved the clock we never liked, which kept
chiming and chiming. That bird coming in and out like an idiot. Then
morning came, and it was like the dream, the parakeet squawking; what a
drag. I threw him onto the lawn, and the cuckoo clock—gears and springs
shooting everywhere—and I piled everything on top of them, all the things:
the books, the papers, the old shoes, half a ham sandwich we never got
around to eating. Your father’s fedora. Our bedsheets patterned with oysters,
the television, the eggbeater. Everything was waiting for you when you came
home (except the house, which was on fire), and I was standing in the yard,
laughing.
Facades
Mr. Sellout
I collect human faces,
Nail them to the wall
Of my memory,
Where they hang as remembrances, all
Staring their own story.
Dear Mr. Clegg,
This one is experience
Next to it is fear,
This one is hatred
Which is too severe.
The values you spoke of
And your policies too
Seemed to vanish the second
Results filtered through!
This one is called pride
This one is contempt,
And this unfounded face,
Is called resent.
Dave’s little ‘Muppet!’
Without Kermit’s style
It’s rare that you’re seen
More than once in a while.
Over here is innocence
Placed next to regret,
And this one is fortitude
And this one I forget.
So now you’re ‘Pro-Trident’?!
I thought, you were not?
It’s clear power and money
Can account for a lot!
John E Micallef
A vision at his heels
his back, head lowered
eyes fixed on what he holds
before him—something soft
he has not lost.
Saturday Night and Sunday Mourning
MulletProofPoet
I dreamed I was with Arthur Seaton last night
watched him swagger down streets cast in black and white
in Saturday suit, all hard bastard pretty
wondering what became of his Sunday morning city
Showing two fingers at speeding cars
kicking in windows of Yates’ wine bar
searching for factories that just weren’t there
hosed away as fast as the vomit in the square
Demolished and built on like the back to backs
he wondered why history’d given him the sack
how was he so young, yet broken and old?
burned by today, chilled by 50s cold
between fights and ale and fat arse slander
no good times left just propaganda
I screamed ‘Alan Sillitoe’s dead’ – he looked at me then spat.
‘Alan Sillitoe?’ he said ‘Who the fuck is that?’
Jazz Poet Tree
John Micallef
Rebel Rhymes
You’ve let us all down
I’d hoped I’d be smiling..
But you’ve made me frown.
Here we have happiness
Alongside it is hope,
This one is vitality
Which helps the rest to cope.
Lord Biro
Yours Sincerely..
Rebel Rhymes
I collect human faces
Stick them staring on a wall,
Fixing them with ego
So they will not fall.
My jazz poems grow,
On a jazz poet tree
My rhymes aren’t in time
With one, two, three...
Four...what’s more,
I deplore the kind
Who shrinks sounds into small spaces,
To fit a small mind.
Lord Biro
Ephraim’s Eyes
A Cautious Approach
Bryan Walpert
Pewter Rose, £8.99
In this, his first collection of
short stories, New Zealand
author Bryan Walpert tackles
tragedy, how it invades our lives
and how we take refuge from
it. Whether it’s the sudden and
violent death of a beloved spouse
or the sickening realisation that
the promise we were once sure
we held has evaporated while
we weren’t looking, each story
revolves around loss and pain.
Walpert’s deceptively meandering
style hides a sharp punch to
your gut as he leads us through
the manifold ways we meet
grief and disappointment. Some hide, some obsess, some flee
into fantasy, and others hold on to their sanity with whitened
knuckles. It’s a slim volume, but Walpert’s stories jump through
matters as diverse as ecology, mycology, super-hero mythology,
the role of the olive through history and Buddhism. It’s an
impressive collection with stories that resonate with compassion
and insight. Robin Lewis
pewter-rose-press.com
42
leftlion.co.uk/issue37
Swimmer in the Secret
Sea
Stanley Middleton
Hutchinson, £18.99
This posthumous love story
about two lonely men who meet
in a park on Christmas Day is
familiar territory to the former
Booker Prize winner Middleton
as he once more visits the world
of middle-class professionals
in the fictional Midlands city
of Beechnall. George, mid 40s,
is working as a postman after
ill health forces him to give up
teaching when he encounters
solicitor Andy. Back at Andy’s
house for drinks, George meets
Mirabel; solicitor, ex-fiancée
of Andy, and still his friend.
From this chance meeting their dramas unfold, the best set
pieces being narrated around two or three dinner tables where
Middleton’s gift for powerful dialogue is movingly deployed
to best effect. There is occasional humour too, such as when
George turns to the lonely hearts column after having his
achingly slow advances rejected by Mirabel. An old fashioned,
slow-paced, impeccably polite, romance. Chris Knight
randomhouse.co.uk
William Kotzwinkle
Five Leaves, £5.99
William Kotzwinkle is perhaps
best known for penning Doctor
Rat, a kind of Animal Farm for
the Vietnam War era which
scooped the World Fantasy
Award in 1977. But for me, this
stunningly beautiful novella
about a couple’s stillbirth is
far superior. Why? Because the
matter-of-fact acceptance of
what has happened to them
removes all hope from the
narrative, leaving the reader
as despondent and powerless
as the couple. When the father
realises the child is dead he just looks at the Doctor and nods.
There is no outburst of rage. No denial. Just acceptance. By
using simple language and not giving us an insight into the
inner workings of his mind, the reader is rendered emotionally
impotent. But this is the point. This is no magical solution to
this awful personal tragedy. The pain cannot be transferred to
metaphors. If there was a Booker for the novella, this re-release
would win hands down. James Walker
fiveleaves.co.uk
“I never knew there were so many people in Notts who
wanted to hear Czechoslovakian Psychedelia…” Interview: James Walker
Wayne Burrows: Poet. Editor of Staple magazine. Vinyl obsessive. And soon, the first ever writer-in-residence
at Nottingham Contemporary…
When does your residency start, and what do you hope
to achieve with it?
I’ll be there from January until March next year,
running workshops with older people, poking about the
exhibitions and writing about whatever I find there. The
two artists showing after the British Art Show are Jack
Goldstein and Ann Collier, and they both work with vinyl
records, so I’ll be able to indulge three obsessions in one.
You’ll always find me rummaging through boxes of LPs
and 45s at the Cattle Market on a Saturday morning, and
Rob’s Record Mart on Hurt’s Yard is like an art installation
in itself.
Galleries having in-house writers - that sounds pretty
unique…
Not quite – Pascale Petit’s been running a brilliant series
of workshops at Tate Modern, and others have done
things elsewhere, but it’s the only one working with
contemporary art in the region, out of the fifteen or so
residencies Writing East Midlands are running. They’ve
got Jean Binta Breeze at New Walk in Leicester, Mark
Goodwin out in the Landscape, and Jo Bell in Derby
Hospital, so we might be doing some exchange visits.
Each residency mentors a new writer as well, so there’ll
be a brilliant young writer called Aimee Wilkinson who
you may have seen with the Hello Hubmarine crew there
as well.
Tempreh has pretty much become your second home,
hasn’t it?
I was going before it even opened - they had a run of
exhibitions at places like Newstead while it was still
being built. The Gert & Uwe Tobias show that was on
with Diane Arbus this summer was fantastic. Hadn’t seen
any of their work before; I had to keep picking my jaw up
off the floor.
And you’ve worked with them before…
I did a night of Communist Bloc Rock’n’Roll, where we
talked about and played 60s and 70s Eastern European
records in the Café Bar during the Star City exhibition.
I never knew there were so many people in Notts who
wanted to hear Polish rock and Czech psychedelia - I
thought we’d have three blokes and a dog, but the place
was rammed.
You’re also editing a book bringing artists and writers
together…
That’s an anthology I’m editing for Staple, called 24 because there are twelve writers and twelve artists in it.
The contributors are mainly from the East Midlands, so
the writers include Damien G Walter, Michael Pinchbeck,
Fatima al Matar, CJ Allen and Emma Lannie, while
the artists are people like Mik Godley, Denise Weston,
Candice Jacobs, Yelena Popova and Victoria Siddle. The
idea is to bring the art and writing worlds together,
which we try to do in the magazine anyway, so this is just
our usual thing on a bigger scale and it’ll be out around
Christmas if all goes to plan.
By Way of Digression (or: Tearing Maps of Nottingham
and Los Angeles into Small Squares of Roughly Equal
Size, I Tape Them Back Together in Random Order, as
a Single Mosaic Featuring Equal Parts of Both, and Try
to Find a Way Back Home…)
Wayne Burrows
(for Frances Stark)
Any advice on surviving in the arts, given the
imminent cuts?
I’ve been freelance for years, and it’s always a bit
precarious, but the trick is just to find ways of keeping
afloat. If you can do that, then you become a bit like
a cockroach – you’ll have sod-all money through the
boom, and then the same in the busts. That said, being
freelance is probably no more insecure than being in a full
time job at the moment, so as far as advice goes it’s back
to Arthur Seaton – don’t let the bastards grind you down.
Tell us about the commissioned poem on this page…
It was written for an event where five poets responded to
David Hockney and Frances Stark’s work at Nottingham
Contemporary last November – we saw the exhibitions
a week before we had to perform the finished poems. I
liked Stark’s way of taking bits of printed material and
tearing them up, rearranging them, and all her references
were related to Los Angeles, so I decided to rip up her
world and shuffle it in with some Nottingham as well. It
had to be in LeftLion because nobody who doesn’t know
Notts fairly well could ever work out what’s going on in it.
What else are you up to?
There’s some texts I wrote in collaboration with the artist
Neville Gabie which are going into the paving when
Sneinton Market is redeveloped, a book about money I
started in 1998 that I’m still fiddling about with, and a
novel called Albany 6 that’s a sort of Philip K Dick remix
of the history of pop music between 1964 and today.
One of the characters in that is an artist named Robert
Holcombe, so I’ve made seventy odd collages in character
as him, and they might be shown somewhere one day,
too. Geoff Dyer once said you should always have lots of
things on the go so when you bunk off one you’re doing
another instead of nothing, and that’s what seems to
work for me as well.
At the junction of Clumber Street and Market Square
I watch the ice-rink emerge from its scaffolding
as a cold fog clears. The sky’s pale grey seems turquoise blue
as the dusk comes in, and the lights turn on,
as Wilshire Boulevard becomes Woodborough Road,
Hollywood moves to Hollowstone and the paving slabs in Wellington Square
map a grid like the view of freeway lights
from Griffith Park, inverted under their own steel moon.
Outside the Grauman’s just off Heathcoat Street
I find marks on pavements, yellow paint,
angles and arrows, numerals, words,
lines from the Whitmans, Spillanes and Kerouacs
who rode the Big Wheel, went where they would
on City Rider cards, to the outlands of Glendale and Warser Gate,
the deserts of Orange and Carlton Hill,
the all-night garages and cheap motels
of Long Beach, The Ropewalk and Spaniel Row.
Broad Street is Venice, where bamboo flourishes outside Kayal
and waitress-starlets take Chinese tea
in the street-facing windows of each café.
The billboards on Sepulveda Boulevard give us realtors,
Donuts, the Panto at Mansfield Palace Theatre,
a Berlin Wall of commercial print that runs from Radford to Rodeo Drive
as gutters freeze and the night grows deep. I keep moving,
take in the windmill at Watts, the Downtown dragon
with its stainless teeth, the Bath Street overlap with Beverley Hills
and crowded strip-lit Santa Monica bus
that stops at Victoria and Derby Road.
Pasadena nestles in a bend of the Trent,
its pueblos and semis, Aztec Hotels,
overlooked by the Clough Stand at Elysian Park.
Around Embankment and the County Hall,
deckchairs, rip-tides, the leaking heat
waxed into surfboards, stale bread broken for moorhens, swans.
I walk faster, from Echo Park to Wilford Bridge,
see pale moonlit sheets and lines of shirts
hung out on the cold. Somewhere between Hermosa Beach
and the lowered night barriers of Colwick Park
headlamps slice red-sandstone cliffs, throw long night-shadows
on the arterial roads linking Daleside
to the Pacific Coast. Pigeons are seabirds, insects swarm,
disperse in the glittering depths of space
where constellations sharpen, letters and punctuation-marks
pricked through indigo carbon sheets
as first rays of sunlight float through cloud
like this idle thought: that I will find myself lost, or maybe
find myself, in Burbank, San Pedro or Lady Bay,
cross Euclid Avenue and Mulholland Drive,
the junction of Thoresby Street and St Stephen’s Road,
my fingers like popsicles, and both eyes closed.
Commissioned by Nottingham Contemporary to read at Frances Stark’s
exhibition ‘But what of Frances Stark, standing by itself, a naked name…’
on 25 November 2009.
wayneburrows.wordpress.com
Katie Half-Price
“AYUP! When I flashed me tits at publishers this month they gen me some right moaning shite, so next
time I’m just gonna let ‘em cop a feel of meh merkin. Anyroad, let’s read summat...”
The Slap
Don’t Upset Renee: The
Discovery of Emotional
Oppression
Christos Tsiolkas
Tuskar Rock, £12.99
Pages: loads seeing as nowt
happens other than moaning.
Rating: Spit
This book has kicked up a right
mither, just cos this guy called Harry
gees a brat a slap across the chops
at a barbecue. Then the parents of
the brat press charges against him
just cos they ‘ant got the balls to do
it their sens. The book is tode from
the point of view of eight different
characters of varying ages, so that
yeh can see how tapped everyone
is nowadays. It’s been longlisted for
the Booker, which meks us laugh cuz them bunch of ponces are
the exact same kind of gets who don’t know how to handle kids.
I might write a book about how me step-father used to kick shit
out meh when he caught us neckin’ Woodpecker Cider behind
the bike sheds and then tried it on with meh when me mam wor
at Bingo. That’s a proper storeh.
atlantic-books.co.uk
Michael Sylvester with David
Knight
Matador, £12.95
Pages: Gnat’s piss
Rating: Spit
I was well excited when I got sent
this book - I thought it wor abaht
that dutteh cafe owner in ‘Allo
Allo’. Instead it’s about a man who
‘ant got the balls to stand up to his
mam, and so lets her and everyone
else bully him. Eventually he
realises what a soft twat he’s been
and decides to do summat, but
instead of geeing ‘em all a slap like that Tsiolkas suggests and
being done with, he goes off and finds a posh phrase for being
a mard-arse: ‘emotional oppression’. Bet yer mam were shittin’
hersen when yoh accused her of that, eh? I think the message
of the book is that sometimes it’s best not to get yer knock-off to
pan anyone that gis yoh a cut-eye look in the chippy - but let’s
be honest, it woks better than being a YITNEH.
troubador.co.uk/matador
Sum: 40 Tales from the
Afterlives
David Eagleman
Canongate, £9.99
canongate.net
Pages: Nor enuff.
Rating: Gargle then swallow.
This book is dead easeh to read,
and gets yer finking about all the
stuff that cud happen when yer die
and what it’d be like to knock abaht
wi’Jesus. One story called Circle
of Friends was really scareh cuz it
said wen you die, imagine if the only
ppl you knew in heaven were those
yeh knew in yer real life. Bleddy ‘ell
fire - if I get stuck for eterniteh with
folk I know it’d be like an endless lock-in at the Ode Dog and
Partridge! LOL! In the most believable scenario, yer can pay
moneh to ensure a glamorous lifestyle upstairs, like treating
yersen at Viccy Centre forever while everyone else is in Primark
- or Broado if they’ve murdered someone or bin a slag. So I’m not
cutting up meh credit cards just yet.
canongate.net
leftlion.co.uk/issue37
43
Plus Guests
DEVENDRA BANHART AND THE GROGS
BIRMINGHAM
LG ARENA
Wednesday 8 December
0844 338 8000
Buy online at livenation.co.uk
New Album ‘The Suburbs’ out now
www.arcadefire.com
A Live Nation presentation in association
with CAA and The Guardian
Another bi-month, another opportunity for us to cram as much snap into our
cakey maws as possible. If you want to be featured on this page email
noshingham@leftlion.co.uk
The Cross Keys
It’s got Modern British on lock
words: Aly Stoneman, Ash Dilks, Al Needham
The Sir John
Borlase Warren
Terracotta
The Sir John Borlase Warren - named after an admiral and MP
of Nottingham who helped give the French a right panning
back in the 18th Century, war fans - stands proudly at the top
of Canning Circus. It’s a part of the city that has a huge rep for
superior eating and drinking, and from the moment you step
through the doors and are hit by the unmistakably warm vibe
that only a traditional English pub can offer, it’s obvious that
this place is one of the main reasons why.
The funny thing about Chinese restaurant clichés is that, ten
minutes after you’ve had one (usually about the food being so
globular and oily that you feel like you’ve necked a bottle of
Spry Crisp n’ Dry), you feel the urge for another (usually about
the staff being horribly snippy and rude). Alas, in the case of
a lot of oriental eateries, there’s more than a grain of truth in
that – but then again, there are also places like Terracotta.
The none-more-finer China diner
Borlasing Squad got the Flava
This traditional pub on Byard Lane dates from the Victorian
era, when yards of ale were quaffed with much ribaldry presumably by people in bowler hats set at a jaunty angle.
Until recently, however, it was painted yellow, called ‘CK’s’,
and was one of those bars you ran past. Times have changed,
thankfully, and the Keys is setting its sights towards the
gastropub market. Despite my reservations about the tartan
carpet and big screen tellies, the decor is easy on the eye
and the walls boast work by Nottingham artists - including
Leftlion’s previous cover piece, Rikki Marr’s ‘Byron Clough’. So
far, so good.
Standing four-square behind British cuisine, the menu is laden
with the saucy vernacular of the old country – homemade
pudding, creamy mash, rich gravy, rump steak and rustic
chips. There’s also the more modern and casual snap, with
a good selection of salads and gourmet burgers (although
no veggie burgers, alas). Food starts at 8am with breakfast,
then a great lunch menu and light bites throughout the day.
Yes, you can ponce it up outside with a paper and a coffee,
but this place also serves up a right good ale along with an
adequate selection of wines and the usual spirits and bottled
assortments.
None of this ‘starters’ palaver – why bother when you can get
stuck in to the likes of homemade steak and kidney pudding
with bubble and squeak, mushy peas and onion gravy (£7.95)?
The carnal delight of biting into tender kidney and juicy
pudding pastry was that good, I had to fight to stop myself
licking my plate. My partner opted for the feta, courgette
and spinach tart with a black olive and roast pine nut salad,
dressed with red pepper coulis (£7.95). He scraped the plate
clean, and I can confirm it was top trumps as far as tarts go.
For dessert (remember: there’s always room for dessert),
I ordered Eton mess with shortcake biscuit (£3.95), a
quintessentially English mixture of strawberries, bashed
meringue and cream, while my partner had the heavenly
poached cherry and chocolate tart served with a brandy
fruit coulis (£3.95); rich, naughty - but very nice. All this was
washed down with a bottle of Cabernet Merlot (£12.95).
We immediately took advantage of one of JBW’s main selling
points; its real ales. There’s always four regulars on the go
with two extra guest ales in constant rotation. We went for
a pint of Bountiful (£2.80) - a chestnut ale packing rich fruity
flavours but still light and refreshing with a sweet, slightly
malty taste.
As you’d expect, quintessentially British dishes such as
lamb shank and fish pie are in full effect on the menu, but
Mediterranean influences abound, with chorizo mashed potato
here and smoked haddock gnocchi there. For starters, I chose
the Delilah charcuterie board (£7) - a delightful selection of
cured meats supplied by the aforementioned, award-winning
deli on Lower Pavement, while my partner went for the sun
blushed tomato and mozzarella melts with smoked paprika
aioli (£5), which turned out to be perfectly formed pillows
of Italian flavour laced with fresh herbs. Both were subtly
appetising primers for the main event.
As the weather was particularly Goose Fair, I plumped for the
pork belly with black pudding, sweet heart cabbage, potato
and parsnip crisps and apple and elderflower puree (£10), a
tower of well spiced heartiness that was topped off with a
perfect square of crackling. My fellow diner went for another
British staple that traditionally separates the wheat from the
chaff - fish and chips (£8). We were not disappointed, as it was
executed to perfection, with thick, crisp batter, moist, yielding
flesh, beer-infused chips and a soupçon of mushy garden peas.
With a main course, dessert and glass of wine costing around
£15 per head, The Cross Keys is a more-than-welcome addition
to an area that’s already got its fair share of decent venues,
and the perfect place for a rainy autumn treat that won’t break
the bank.
We were already won over, but our desserts (citrus cheesecake
and crème brûlée, £3.50 each) and a couple of amaretto liqueur
coffees (£3.70) set the seal on it; the Sir John Borlase Warren
more than holds its own in a very competitive dining quarter
as it effortlessly combines Brit-pub traditional values with
a tinge of nouvelle decadence. At just over £20 a head for a
three-course blowout, JBW is a highly recommended venue
for a casual meal with friends, not to mention a suitably
impressive first date venue.
15 Byard Lane, The Lace Market, NG1 2GJ. Tel: 0115 941 7898
crosskeysnottingham.co.uk
1 Ilkeston Road, Canning Circus, NG7 3GD. Tel: 0115 947 4247
sirjohnborlasewarren.co.uk
Situated in the People’s Republic of Beeston, Terracotta
spurns the usual nosh-by-numbers routine and introduces
a unique selling point; offering English diners the same
traditional, authentic cuisine that the Chinese residents have
been enjoying for years. If you thought the food of the region
was nothing more than sweet n’ sour this and egg-fried that,
prepare to have your mind blown by an overwhelming range of
textures and flavours. After having a serious look over our shoulders at the local
Chinese students getting stuck into a hot pot (a huge stockpot
where punters cook what, when and how they like), we
sorted out our own communal snap-related requirements
with a whopping selection. My personal favourite, the braised
aubergine with black bean sauce (£5.50) catapulted the
usually humble and tasteless veggie staple into a whole new
territory of flavour and texture, mingled as it was with bamboo
shoots, tofu and black fungi. It was so good that we ordered
it again, this time in a claypot with salted fish and minced
pork (£7.00) – and yes, it made for an equally appetising,
wholesome and healthy dish. Yes, healthy – not a word usually
associated with your average Chinese, but that’s how they do
it at home, taking the time to ramp up the flavour. Round Two, and the boat was well and truly pushed out with
the introduction of the stir-fried ho fan (fresh rice sticks) with
three roasts (£6.10), a steaming platter weighed down with
succulent cuts of belly pork, duck and char siew accompanied
with crisp pak choi and carrots that would satisfy the sort of
pickiest carnivore, and a seafood clay pot (£7.80) teeming with
tofu, prawns, scallops and mussels.
To call Terracotta a superior Chinese is like saying the Great
Wall of China is a nice little feature. The menu is colossal,
with dining options ranging from the lunch menu to the
aforementioned hot pot blow out, ]the student-friendly sharing
platters to the 100-person function, and the quick bite to the
eat-as-much-as-you-like. The adjoining cocktail bar (the only
one in Beeston) does some blistering two-for £6.50 cocktails
(the lychee-infused Beijing Breeze in particular), and there’s
even a karaoke bar upstairs if you want the full pan-Asian
experience. Which you do, quite frankly.
132 High Road, Beeston, NG9 2LN. Tel: 0115 9257248
terracottanottingham.co.uk
Our resident fast food expert Beane continues his quest to eat at every takeaway in Nottingham…
Amaya
We all know that the southern end of Mansfield
Road has been weighed down with many a
fine eatery for the ravenous sauced-up punter
on their way home from taahn, but only as
long as your tastes veered towards kebab,
chicken or chips – with those longing to cradle
a curry in their arms right out of luck. Not
anymore, people: Step forth, newly-opened
joint Amaya. Yes, it’s a full-blown restaurant,
but what we’re interested in is the fact that
pretty much everything on the main menu is
available as a take-away option. Sensing the
amount of competition surrounding them,
Amaya have set their prices nicely with some
Mapperley Fryer
great meal deal options - starter, main, naan
or rice for a tenner. On my first visit, I was
highly impressed with the chicken bhuna,
which is up there with the best Notts has to
offer – and trust me, I know from whence I
speak. Unlike other places on Manneh, the
staff are extremely and refreshingly friendly,
and I thoroughly recommend putting your head
round their door – and your gob round their
snap - sooner rather than later. The hallowed
turf of Mansfield Road just got better.
157-159 Mansfield Road, NG1 3FX
I’ve been visiting the Fryer for a number of
years now, and it wasn’t til I put pen to paper
for this review that I realised how close to my
heart I hold it. As chippies go, I wouldn’t call
it the best in Nottingham – but it ticks all the
boxes a proper chippy should, with a halfdecent fish supper as well as a pretty mighty
kebab/chicken/pizza selection. You only need
to see the pile-on the place endures from
hungry punters on their way home from work
to know it must be doing something right;
come 6pm it can be one-in one-out. Maybe it’s
their damn fine roast potatoes (or should that
be deep fried? - I’m not sure) or their quality
pork ribs, which are definitely worth a chomp
on. Run by a lovely couple (although you’ll
be lucky to get a squeak out of the rather shy
guv’nor), I’ve probably visited this place more
than any other in the past four years, which is
praise indeed. Do yourself a favour and give
‘em a go.
582 Woodborough Road, NG3 5FH
leftlion.co.uk/issue37
45
Leo (July 24 - August 23)
A new religion will prescribe you with a short-term inner fix, but at the end of the day it won’t
last. You can find answers to longer-standing issues by looking inside yourself, facing up to your
faults and fessing up to wrongs.
Virgo (August 24 - September 23)
Your belief that all life’s problems can be solved with a heart-to-heart talk and a good night’s
sleep will be severely tested this week when you’re introduced to the Riemann hypothesis.
There’s a one million dollar reward for that bad boy!
Libra (September 24 - October 23)
If you’re thinking of revamping your image, then you should find something chic - but also a little
unexpected. The unusual could affect you in different ways – you may become the new talk of
Nottingham, or you could end up talking to about someone right honourable about the indecent
exposure act.
Scorpio (October 24 - November 22)
You can stare for hours into a crystal ball. You could put your faith in the cards, or the tea leaves,
or even the I Ching. Or you could just ask Libra and know for sure. Libra - It’s Going To Happen...
Guaranteed™.
LEFTLION ABROAD
St Basil’s Cathedral, Red Square, Moscow, July 2010
Built in 1561 to commemorate
the capture of Kazan and
Astrakhan, St Basil’s marks
the geometric hub of Moscow.
Formerly a Russian Orthodox
building, it was secularised by
the Communists in 1929 – but
not even Stalin could bring
himself to knock it down.
Sagittarius (November 23 - December 22)
An inner glow could be caused by news of a tax rebate or other financial good fortune. It’s just as
possible though that it’s actually because of the sheer amount of microwaved food you’ve been
shoving into your gaping maw. Cook summat proper and you’ll feel better!
Capricorn (December 23 - January 19)
An accident involving the death of a prominent local historian at the DH Lawrence Museum in
Eastwood may be a cover-up for murder. Can Capricorn get to the bottom of it? Find out next
issue in Capricorn!
Here’s Rob Bradshaw giving it
some serious Nottsness in the
belly of the beast, with Kirsty
Manger on the other side of
the lens. Sadly, their plans
to get a pic of the mag with
Lenin’s corpse went for a toss
when they realised they didn’t
have enough Rubles to bribe
the police on guard.
Aquarius (January 20 - February 19)
When a small water sign challenged the industry giants back in 1952, nobody gave them a
chance. Today, we’re one of the big twelve, with 1,300 new customers born every hour. Aquarius We Are Your Future™.
Pisces (February 20 - March 20)
You can try to empathise with anyone but you will never understand the lives and emotions of
Geminis until you walk a mile in their comfortable Perry Charmelo shoes. Perry Charmelo shoes™
- serving stylish star signs since 1962!
Aries (March 21 - April 20)
Going somewhere exotic?
Take a copy of the Lion,
wave it about, send it to us,
and then you can bore the
arse off the whole of Notts
with your holiday snaps.
Lob them pics and details to
info@leftlion.co.uk
Your failure to align spirits with your soul mate and the blocking of open feelings with friends are
harming the worldly cosmic balance with which your life must harmonize. In the future, you must
try to avoid messages without any real content or meaning in them.
Taurus (April 21 - May 21)
You always wanted your life to mean something. So dedicate yourself to the vision of poet Herman
Hesse, who declared war on cheap, false beauty. All you have to do is go into town on a Friday
night loaded up like Arnie in Commando and let loose on most of the pubs around the Square.
Gemini (May 22 - June 22)
You have hit some kind of buffer at work. It may be that the traffic doesn’t move fast enough and
you feel that you’ve come as far as you can in your current role, so it’s time to move into a faster
lane. Whatever the difficulties are, deadly road rage against the boss never hurt anyone except
him.
Cancer (June 23 - July 23)
Ever notice that you can hide bananas in a row of laughter? Look
hahahahahahahahabananahahahahaha hahahabananahahahahahahbananahahahah and
hahabananahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Fresher, 2010
Graduate, 2013
This issue of LeftLion is officially
BEHIND YOU
LeftLion #38 is coming at you on
FRIDAY 26 NOVEMBER
OH NO IT ISN’T
OH YES IT IS
OH NO IT ISN’T
OH YES IT IS
etc
46
leftlion.co.uk/issue37
ve TK Maxx
Lives in: Ponce-box abo
Queuing outside
Can usually be found:
dnesday night
We
on
the Bodega Social
pital One:
Relationship with Ca
er of cash
-ov
ber
Benevolent lob
rything
Credit card used for: Eve
Lives in: Cardboard box
under
Trent Bridge
Can usually be
nd: Queuing for
Social Security onfou
Thursday mornin
g
Relationship with Ca
pital One:
Trapped in one of the
ir call centres
Credit card used for:
Slashing wrists