Issue 106 / Dec 2019/Jan 2020
December 2019/January 2020 double issue of Bido Lito! magazine. Featuring: BEIJA FLO, ASOK, LO FIVE, SIMON HUGHES, CONVENIENCE GALLERY, BEAK>, STUDIO ELECTROPHONIQUE, ALEX TELEKO, SHE DREW THE GUN, IMTIAZ DHARKER and much more.
December 2019/January 2020 double issue of Bido Lito! magazine. Featuring: BEIJA FLO, ASOK, LO FIVE, SIMON HUGHES, CONVENIENCE GALLERY, BEAK>, STUDIO ELECTROPHONIQUE, ALEX TELEKO, SHE DREW THE GUN, IMTIAZ DHARKER and much more.
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ISSUE <strong>106</strong> / DEC <strong>2019</strong>/JAN <strong>2020</strong><br />
NEW MUSIC + CREATIVE CULTURE<br />
LIVERPOOL<br />
BEIJA FLO / LO FIVE<br />
ASOK / SIMON HUGHES
Sat 23rd Nov<br />
Life At The Arcade<br />
Sat 23rd Nov<br />
Mountford Hall,<br />
Liverpool Guild of Students<br />
Sam Fender<br />
Sat 23rd Nov<br />
The Steve Hillage<br />
Band<br />
+ Gong<br />
Sun 24th Nov<br />
Primal Scream<br />
Thur 28th Nov • 6.30pm<br />
Mountford Hall,<br />
Liverpool Guild of Students<br />
Mac DeMarco<br />
+ Los Bitchos<br />
+ Phoebe Green<br />
Fri 29th Nov<br />
The Doors Alive<br />
Sat 30th Nov • 6pm<br />
The Wonder Stuff<br />
performing ‘The<br />
Eight Legged Groove<br />
Machine’ & ‘HUP’<br />
+ Jim Bob from Carter USM<br />
Sat 30th Nov<br />
Pearl Jam UK<br />
Thur 5th <strong>Dec</strong><br />
Shed Seven<br />
+ The Twang<br />
Fri 6th <strong>Dec</strong><br />
Mountford Hall,<br />
Liverpool Guild of Students<br />
Happy Mondays<br />
+ Jon Dasilva<br />
Fri 6th <strong>Dec</strong><br />
SPINN<br />
Fri 6th <strong>Dec</strong> • 7.30pm<br />
Conleth McGeary<br />
Sat 7th <strong>Dec</strong><br />
Prince Tribute -<br />
Endorphinmachine<br />
Tue 10th <strong>Dec</strong><br />
Mountford Hall,<br />
Liverpool Guild of Students<br />
Razorlight<br />
Wed 11th <strong>Dec</strong><br />
D Block Europe<br />
Thur 12th <strong>Dec</strong><br />
Mountford Hall,<br />
Liverpool Guild of Students<br />
Daniel Sloss: X<br />
Fri 13th <strong>Dec</strong><br />
Mountford Hall,<br />
Liverpool Guild of Students<br />
Dermot Kennedy<br />
Fri 13th <strong>Dec</strong><br />
The Lancashire<br />
Hotpots<br />
Fri 13th <strong>Dec</strong><br />
Scouting for Girls<br />
Sat 14th <strong>Dec</strong><br />
The Smyths<br />
… The Smiths 35<br />
Sat 14th <strong>Dec</strong><br />
Ian Prowse &<br />
Amsterdam<br />
+ The Supernaturals<br />
+ Steve Pilgrim<br />
Wed 18th <strong>Dec</strong><br />
The Darkness<br />
+ Rews<br />
Thur 19th <strong>Dec</strong><br />
Cast...<br />
All Change Album<br />
Fri 20th <strong>Dec</strong><br />
Cast...<br />
Mother Nature Calls<br />
Album<br />
Fri 20th <strong>Dec</strong><br />
Christmas<br />
at the Academy<br />
Sat 21st <strong>Dec</strong><br />
Cast...<br />
Magic Hour Album<br />
Sat 21st <strong>Dec</strong><br />
Limehouse Lizzy:<br />
The Greatest Hits of<br />
Phil Lynott & Thin Lizzy<br />
Tue 31st <strong>Dec</strong> • 10pm<br />
Twisted Circus NYE<br />
Sat 11th <strong>Jan</strong> <strong>2020</strong><br />
Elvana:<br />
Elvis Fronted Nirvana<br />
Sat 18th <strong>Jan</strong> <strong>2020</strong><br />
Mountford Hall,<br />
Liverpool Guild of Students<br />
Stereophonics<br />
Wed 29th <strong>Jan</strong> <strong>2020</strong><br />
The Interrupters<br />
+ Buster Shuffle<br />
Sat 1st Feb <strong>2020</strong> • 6.30pm<br />
Liverpool<br />
Rocks Heat 4<br />
Mon 3rd Feb <strong>2020</strong><br />
Kano<br />
Tue 4th Feb <strong>2020</strong><br />
Mabel<br />
Wed 12th Feb <strong>2020</strong><br />
Inhaler<br />
facebook.com/o2academyliverpool<br />
twitter.com/o2academylpool<br />
instagram.com/o2academyliverpool<br />
youtube.com/o2academytv<br />
Sat 22nd Feb <strong>2020</strong><br />
The Fillers (The Killers<br />
Official Tribute Band)<br />
Tue 25th Feb <strong>2020</strong><br />
The Murder Capital<br />
Thur 27th Feb <strong>2020</strong><br />
Kiefer Sutherland<br />
Fri 28th Feb <strong>2020</strong><br />
The Big Moon<br />
Sat 29th Feb <strong>2020</strong><br />
Bulsara and His<br />
Queenies<br />
Thur 5th Mar <strong>2020</strong><br />
Gabrielle Aplin<br />
Thur 12th Mar <strong>2020</strong><br />
Mountford Hall,<br />
Liverpool Guild of Students<br />
The Blindboy Podcast<br />
- Live<br />
Thur 12th Mar <strong>2020</strong><br />
Tragedy: All Metal<br />
Tribute to the Bee<br />
Gees & Beyond<br />
+ Attic Theory<br />
Sat 28th Mar <strong>2020</strong><br />
AC/DC UK & Dizzy<br />
Lizzy<br />
Sat 28th Mar <strong>2020</strong><br />
Becky Hill<br />
Sun 29th Mar <strong>2020</strong><br />
Cigarettes After Sex<br />
Sat 4th Apr <strong>2020</strong><br />
Mountford Hall,<br />
Liverpool Guild of Students<br />
Circa Waves<br />
Sat 4th Apr <strong>2020</strong><br />
808 State Live<br />
Tue 21st Apr <strong>2020</strong><br />
Darwin Deez - 10Yearz<br />
Sat 2nd May <strong>2020</strong><br />
The Southmartins<br />
(Tribute To The Beautiful<br />
South & The Housemartins)<br />
Sat 9th May <strong>2020</strong><br />
Fell Out Boy<br />
& The Black Charade<br />
+ We Aren’t Paramore<br />
Sat 16th May <strong>2020</strong><br />
Nirvana UK (Tribute)<br />
Sat 23rd May <strong>2020</strong><br />
The Bon Jovi<br />
Experience<br />
Fri 11th <strong>Dec</strong> <strong>2020</strong><br />
Heaven 17<br />
FRI 22ND NOV 7PM<br />
BLOOD RED SHOES<br />
+ QUEEN KWONG<br />
+ GEN & THE DEGENERATES<br />
FRI 22ND NOV 7PM<br />
SLADE<br />
SAT 23RD NOV 10.30PM<br />
BRING IT ALL BACK<br />
- ONE DIRECTION PARTY<br />
FRI 29TH NOV 7PM<br />
SPORTS TEAM<br />
SAT 30TH NOV 6.30PM<br />
SKINNY LISTER<br />
SAT 30TH NOV 7PM<br />
HERMITAGE GREEN<br />
WED 4TH DEC 7PM<br />
ALDOUS HARDING<br />
THUR 5TH DEC 7PM<br />
BEAK><br />
FRI 6TH DEC 7PM<br />
WILD FRONT<br />
& POLAR STATES<br />
SAT 7TH DEC 7PM<br />
IAN MCNABB &<br />
COLD SHOULDER<br />
TUE 10TH DEC 7PM<br />
THE PAPER KITES<br />
+ AXEL FLOVENT<br />
WED 11TH DEC 7PM<br />
ECHOBELLY<br />
“STRIPPED BACK”<br />
THUR 12TH DEC 7PM<br />
BEABADOOBEE<br />
+ NO ROME + OSCAR LANG<br />
SAT 14TH DEC 7PM<br />
NATALIE MCCOOL<br />
+ DENIO + GALLIA<br />
+ ALEX TELEKO<br />
WED 18TH DEC 7PM<br />
ALI HORN<br />
THUR 26TH DEC 10PM<br />
D.O.D & FRIENDS<br />
FRI 24TH JAN <strong>2020</strong> 6.30PM<br />
LIVERPOOL ROCKS HEAT 1<br />
SAT 25TH JAN <strong>2020</strong> 6.30PM<br />
LIVERPOOL ROCKS HEAT 2<br />
MON 27TH JAN <strong>2020</strong> 7PM<br />
SLEEP TOKEN<br />
FRI 31ST JAN <strong>2020</strong> 6.30PM<br />
LIVERPOOL ROCKS HEAT 3<br />
FRI 7TH FEB <strong>2020</strong> 7.30PM SOLD OUT<br />
THE LATHUMS<br />
SAT 8TH FEB <strong>2020</strong> 7.PM<br />
BILLY LOCKETT<br />
THUR 13TH FEB <strong>2020</strong> 7PM<br />
HMLTD<br />
FRI 21ST FEB <strong>2020</strong> 7PM<br />
JAMIE WEBSTER<br />
SAT 22ND FEB <strong>2020</strong> 7PM<br />
THE MYSTERINES<br />
SUN 23RD FEB <strong>2020</strong> 7PM<br />
JULIAN COPE<br />
THUR 5TH MAR <strong>2020</strong> 7PM<br />
ORLANDO WEEKS<br />
SAT 7TH MAR <strong>2020</strong> 7PM<br />
PINS<br />
THU 12TH MAR <strong>2020</strong> 7PM<br />
HAYSEED DIXIE<br />
+ 8 BALL AITKEN<br />
SAT 14TH MAR <strong>2020</strong> 7.30PM<br />
THE K’S<br />
MON 16TH MAR <strong>2020</strong> 7PM<br />
JOANNE SHAW TAYLOR<br />
WED 25TH MAR <strong>2020</strong> 7PM<br />
PALACE<br />
WED 25TH MAR <strong>2020</strong> 7PM<br />
DARCY OAKE<br />
FRI 27TH MAR <strong>2020</strong> 6.30PM<br />
LIVERPOOL ROCKS SEMI<br />
FINAL 1<br />
SUN 29TH MAR <strong>2020</strong> 7PM<br />
WILLIAM DUVALL<br />
(OF ALICE IN CHAINS)<br />
FRI 3RD APR <strong>2020</strong> 6.30PM<br />
LIVERPOOL ROCKS SEMI<br />
FINAL 2<br />
SAT 18TH APR <strong>2020</strong> 6PM<br />
THE ACADEMIC<br />
SAT 25TH APR <strong>2020</strong> 6.30PM<br />
LIVERPOOL ROCKS FINAL<br />
TICKETS FOR ALL SHOWS ARE AVAILABLE FROM<br />
TICKETMASTER.CO.UK<br />
90<br />
SEEL STREET, LIVERPOOL, L1 4BH<br />
ticketmaster.co.uk<br />
11-13 Hotham Street, Liverpool L3 5UF<br />
Doors 7pm unless stated<br />
Venue box office opening hours:<br />
Mon - Sat 10.30am - 5.30pm<br />
o2academyliverpool.co.uk
1 NOV <strong>2019</strong> - 23 FEB <strong>2020</strong><br />
FREE ENTRY<br />
you feel<br />
me_<br />
REBECCA ALLEN<br />
MEGAN BROADMEADOW<br />
ANNA BUNTING-BRANCH<br />
PHOEBE COLLINGS-JAMES<br />
BRANDON COVINGTON SAM-SUMANA<br />
ALIYAH HUSSAIN<br />
SALMA NOOR<br />
FACT / 88 WOOD STREET / L1 4DQ<br />
fact.co.uk<br />
Anna Bunting-Branch and Aliyah Hussain, Warm Worlds and Otherwise (2018-19) and META (2018) commissioned as part of Worlds Among Us, a<br />
collaboration between FACT, The Mechatronic Library, QUAD and Wysing Arts Centre. Installation view at FACT. Image by Rob Battersby.
CHRISTMAS<br />
at Liverpool<br />
Philharmonic<br />
Elf Spirit of Christmas Awake, Arise – A Christmas Show For Our Times It’s a Wonderful Life<br />
Connie Lush
An Audience With<br />
Connie Lush<br />
Plus support Satin Beige Chousmer<br />
Friday 6 <strong>Dec</strong>ember 8pm<br />
Music Room<br />
Connie Lush<br />
Plus special guest Thomas Lang<br />
Saturday 7 <strong>Dec</strong>ember 8pm<br />
Music Room<br />
Film<br />
Elf (cert PG)<br />
Tuesday 10 <strong>Dec</strong>ember 7.30pm<br />
Christmas Tour<br />
FARA<br />
Tuesday 10 <strong>Dec</strong>ember 8pm<br />
Music Room<br />
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra<br />
Clare Teal with<br />
Guy Barker – In the<br />
Christmas Mood<br />
Wednesday 11 <strong>Dec</strong>ember 7.30pm<br />
Family Concert<br />
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra<br />
Sing-along with Santa<br />
Saturday 14 <strong>Dec</strong>ember 11.30am & 2.30pm<br />
Sunday 15 <strong>Dec</strong>ember 11.30am & 2.30pm<br />
Awake, Arise –<br />
A Christmas Show<br />
For Our Times<br />
Featuring Lady Maisery, Jimmy Aldridge<br />
and Sid Goldsmith<br />
Monday 16 <strong>Dec</strong>ember 8pm<br />
Music Room<br />
Baked A La Ska:<br />
Ska of Wonder<br />
Monday 23 <strong>Dec</strong>ember 8pm<br />
Music Room<br />
Film<br />
It’s a Wonderful Life (cert U)<br />
Tuesday 24 <strong>Dec</strong>ember 11am & 2pm<br />
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra<br />
Ghostbusters: Film with<br />
Live Orchestra (cert PG)<br />
Saturday 28 <strong>Dec</strong>ember 7.30pm<br />
Sunday 29 <strong>Dec</strong>ember 7.30pm<br />
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra<br />
Messiah<br />
Saturday 4 <strong>Jan</strong>uary 7pm<br />
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra<br />
Spirit of Christmas<br />
Saturday 14 <strong>Dec</strong>ember 7.30pm<br />
Tuesday 17 <strong>Dec</strong>ember 7.30pm<br />
Wednesday 18 <strong>Dec</strong>ember 7.30pm<br />
Friday 20 <strong>Dec</strong>ember 7.30pm<br />
Saturday 21 <strong>Dec</strong>ember 7.30pm<br />
Sunday 22 <strong>Dec</strong>ember 2.30pm<br />
Box Office<br />
0151 709 3789<br />
liverpoolphil.com<br />
LiverpoolPhilharmonic<br />
liverpoolphil<br />
liverpool_philharmonic
BIG DRAG PAGEANT<br />
CHRISTMAS SPIEGELTENT 29 NOV <strong>2019</strong><br />
NEW YEAR’S EVE <strong>2019</strong> PROHIBITION PARTY<br />
TUSK BALTIC 31 DEC <strong>2019</strong><br />
THE WEAVE XMAS SPECIAL<br />
THE JACARANDA CLUB 3 DEC <strong>2019</strong><br />
NEW YEAR’S EVE WITH CRAZY P<br />
CONSTELLATIONS 31 DEC <strong>2019</strong><br />
TOMORROWLAND PRESENTS DIMITRI VEGAS & LIKE MIKE,<br />
GARDEN OF MADNESS CENTRAL DOCKS 7 DEC <strong>2019</strong><br />
THE MUSIC OF PRINCE<br />
THE AUDITORIUM AT M&S BANK ARENA 1 FEB <strong>2020</strong><br />
JOHN COLPITTS MAN FOREVER<br />
KAZIMIER STOCKROOM 8 DEC <strong>2019</strong><br />
THE 1975<br />
M&S BANK ARENA LIVERPOOL 26 FEB <strong>2020</strong><br />
BEANS ON TOAST<br />
PHASE ONE 20 DEC <strong>2019</strong><br />
SOUND CITY <strong>2020</strong><br />
BALTIC TRIANGLE 2 - 3 MAY <strong>2020</strong><br />
THE FLYING LUTTENBACHERS<br />
KAZIMIER STOCKROOM 20 DEC <strong>2019</strong><br />
CREAMFIELDS <strong>2020</strong><br />
WARRINGTON 27 - 30 AUGUST <strong>2020</strong>
TATE LIVERPOOL<br />
13 DEC <strong>2019</strong> – 3 MAY <strong>2020</strong><br />
THEASTER GATES<br />
AMALGAM<br />
FREE FOR TATE MEMBERS<br />
Supported by<br />
Media Partner<br />
Theaster Gates still from the film Dance of Malaga <strong>2019</strong><br />
© Theaster Gates and courtesy of the artist.<br />
Photo © Chris Strong<br />
With additional support from the Theaster Gates<br />
Exhibition Supporters Group and Tate Members
Be part of it<br />
Become Be a member<br />
part of it<br />
Become a member<br />
Sign up online at<br />
liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/membership<br />
Sign up online at<br />
liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/membership<br />
or at one of our venues<br />
or at one of<br />
#NML<strong>2020</strong><br />
our venues<br />
#NML<strong>2020</strong>
5 – 19 Oct <strong>2019</strong><br />
8 Feb – 14 Mar <strong>2020</strong><br />
14 Feb – 15 Mar <strong>2020</strong><br />
20 Feb – 13 Mar <strong>2020</strong><br />
8 May – 13 Jun <strong>2020</strong><br />
22 May – 13 Jun <strong>2020</strong><br />
Book now at<br />
storyhouse.com
WHAT DAY IS IT?<br />
26TH - 31ST DECEMBER <strong>2019</strong><br />
ANTI SOCIAL JAZZ CLUB BEST OF <strong>2019</strong> - JOE GODDARD (HOT CHIP)<br />
LOST ART SOUNDSYSTEM - PUB TROPICANA : ULTIMATE 80S PARTY<br />
NEW YEEZY EVE - WAVERTREE WORLDWIDE TAKEOVER<br />
40 SLATER STREET, LIVERPOOL. L1 4BX THEMERCHANTLIVERPOOL.CO.UK
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New Music + Creative Culture<br />
Liverpool<br />
<strong>Issue</strong> <strong>106</strong> / <strong>Dec</strong> <strong>2019</strong>/<strong>Jan</strong> <strong>2020</strong><br />
bidolito.co.uk<br />
Second Floor<br />
The Merchant<br />
40-42 Slater Street<br />
Liverpool L1 4BX<br />
Founding Editor<br />
Craig G Pennington - info@bidolito.co.uk<br />
Publisher<br />
Christopher Torpey - chris@bidolito.co.uk<br />
Editor<br />
Elliot Ryder - elliot@bidolito.co.uk<br />
Digital Media Manager<br />
Brit Williams – brit@bidolito.co.uk<br />
Design<br />
Mark McKellier - mark@andmark.co.uk<br />
Branding<br />
Thom Isom - hello@thomisom.com<br />
Proofreader<br />
Nathaniel Cramp<br />
Cover Photography<br />
Robin Clewley<br />
Words<br />
Elliot Ryder, Cath Holland, Christopher Torpey, Julia<br />
Johnson, Neil Grant, Simon Hughes, Sam Turner,<br />
Paul Fitzgerald, Bethany Garrett, Laura Brown, Chris<br />
Brown, Damon Fairclough, Rhys Buchanan, Matthew<br />
Hogarth, Anouska Liat, Joel Durksen, Sophie Shields,<br />
Daniel Ponzini, Georgia Turnbull, Rhys Thomas, Jennie<br />
Macaulay, Glyn Akroyd, David Weir, Nina Franklin,<br />
James Zaremba, Matthew Thomas Smith, Imtiaz<br />
Dharker.<br />
Photography, Illustration and Layout<br />
Mark McKellier, Robin Clewley, Keith Ainsworth,<br />
Antony Mo, Lo Five, Mr Marbles, Daniel Patlán, Ryan<br />
Lee Turton, Luke Parry, Lucia Matušíková, Lauren Avery,<br />
Lucy Roberts, Jemma Timberlake, Niloo Sharifi, Tomas<br />
Adam, Stuart Moulding, Mook Loxley, Glyn Akroyd,<br />
Brian Sayle, John Johnson, Nicholas Daly.<br />
EDITORIAL<br />
The end of the decade doesn’t feel too different to when<br />
it began. Protest. Helplessness. Reality.<br />
Of all the changes brought about by David<br />
Cameron and Nick Clegg in five bitter years, raising<br />
tuition fees is probably the least<br />
devastating when you weigh the receipts<br />
up against the body count. But, for me,<br />
it was the first moment in my life where<br />
I’d been directly affected by a democracy<br />
I wasn’t old enough to influence. A<br />
democracy where I’d eventually be<br />
granted four votes on a national scale<br />
before the decade was out. Three of<br />
which I’d be on the losing side. The fourth<br />
is still in the phase of protest. It’ll switch<br />
to helplessness on the evening of 12th<br />
<strong>Dec</strong>ember. The early hours that follow<br />
deliver the reality.<br />
Being told that I would be the first<br />
cohort to pay tripled tuition fees was the<br />
most forcible lesson I’d had of ‘getting<br />
what you’re given’. It was a mantra that<br />
typified much of those first five years of<br />
the decade. Tuition fees were just the first<br />
incision, the entry point before many vital organs of society were<br />
removed. So many more were to get what they were given, not<br />
what they deserved. All with much more severe consequences<br />
than carrying inflated university debt. Many protested. We<br />
looked on helpless. Then we saw the reality. Austerity bred the<br />
chaos that unravelled in the five years that followed. When you<br />
push a community to breaking point it will start to point fingers<br />
within. Then the irreparable damage is done.<br />
FEATURES<br />
“Bravery will always<br />
have a home in<br />
Bido Lito! for the<br />
decade to come”<br />
Bravery is the key. It’s the source of power the assumes<br />
control without reason. For 10 years, Bido Lito! has been a<br />
chronicle of bravery, platforming/celebrating/holding up those<br />
who choose to assert themselves through music and art. Those<br />
who’ve taken control of their situation,<br />
those who’ve completely lost themselves<br />
in it. It takes an unrivalled bravery to<br />
formulate a public facing expression of<br />
protest, of helplessness, of reality, of<br />
escape.<br />
This issue, like the 105 that have<br />
run through the decade, is packed full of<br />
bravery. Bravery is Beija Flo’s expression<br />
of physicality and the world that exists<br />
beyond the limitation of form. Bravery<br />
is ASOK following emotive intuition;<br />
equally for Lo Five in the spiritual sense.<br />
As noted by Simon Hughes, bravery<br />
is taking ownership of addiction and<br />
seeing that circumstances can be<br />
reversed. This in particular is something<br />
to take note of when feeling the strains<br />
of the political climate, the world beyond<br />
the socialist bubble of Liverpool.<br />
Bravery is taking back control of language, of image, of<br />
expression. Taking it away from those who’ve weaponised its<br />
use. Bravery will always have a home in Bido Lito! for the decade<br />
to come. This won’t change. But, on 12th <strong>Dec</strong>ember? Let’s hope<br />
it’s a time for real change. !<br />
Editor<br />
Elliot Ryder / @elliot_ryder<br />
Photo by Robin Clewley<br />
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The views expressed in Bido Lito! are those of the<br />
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reflect the opinions of the magazine, its staff or the<br />
publishers. All rights reserved.<br />
16 / BEIJA FLO<br />
Beija Flo’s experimental artistry is boldly laid bare in her new<br />
material; Cath Holland learns more about its subtle contours.<br />
20 / ASOK<br />
Breathless breakbeats and warped techno that drip with the<br />
energy of club walls; ASOK on the notion of making music in the<br />
moment.<br />
22 / ART AS CONVENIENCE<br />
Since opening at Birkenhead Market in June, Convenience Gallery<br />
has been working to rub away the divide between the everyday<br />
and the artist.<br />
26 / THERE SHE GOES AGAIN<br />
Social history writer and football journalist Simon Hughes looks<br />
back at Liverpool’s progression over the last 10 years.<br />
REGULARS<br />
14 / NEWS<br />
34 / SPOTLIGHT<br />
40 / PREVIEWS<br />
24 / GEOGRAPHY OF THE ABYSS<br />
Electronicist Lo Five navigates us through the terrain of his latest<br />
album, a world conjured from meditation and internal discovery.<br />
30 / A DECADE OF<br />
EXCLAMATION<br />
A selection of Bido Lito! writers pick out some of the most<br />
important cultural moments to have taken place in Liverpool over<br />
the past decade.<br />
37 / BEAK><br />
Constantly sharpening the edges of their three-sided setup,<br />
these masters of sonic immersion know how to keep it sounding<br />
fresh.<br />
39 / STUDIO ELECTROPHONIQUE<br />
“The intention for my music was to make it underthought:<br />
straight from my brain to the machine. I wanted to do it in the<br />
now”<br />
42 / REVIEWS<br />
52 / ARTISTIC LICENCE<br />
54 / THE FINAL SAY
NEWS<br />
The Stomach And The Port<br />
Rashid Johnson, The Crisis, <strong>2019</strong><br />
Liverpool Biennial returns for its 11th year in <strong>2020</strong>,<br />
taking place between 11th July and 25th October. The<br />
contemporary art festival will engage with Liverpool, its<br />
history and cultural landscape in even greater depth, guided<br />
by a theme of The Stomach and The Port. Liverpool’s<br />
dynamic as a historic international port city – a point of<br />
global contact and circulation – provides the perfect canvas<br />
on which to consider the analogy of the city as an entity<br />
similar to the body; a fluid organism that is continuously<br />
shaped by and shaping its environment. Public spaces,<br />
historic sites and the city’s leading art venues will ‘host’<br />
the various artworks that will comprise the Biennial, the<br />
UK’s largest festival of contemporary visual art. New<br />
director, Fatos Üstek, and curator, Manuela Moscoso, have<br />
constructed this modern vison for the festival, working with<br />
more than 50 international artists to interpret this theme in<br />
relation to Liverpool. biennial.com<br />
A Feast Of Fests 1<br />
Festival season never ends on Merseyside, and <strong>2020</strong> is already shaping<br />
up to be plentiful in that regard, with announcements coming thick and<br />
fast. SOUND CITY have come out of the blocks with all guns blazing<br />
for the festival in the Baltic Triangle (1st-3rd May), headlined by goth<br />
grunge stars PALE WAVES. THE BLINDERS, THE MYSTERINES and<br />
STEALING SHEEP are among those also joining the fray, with more<br />
expected announcements due early in the new year. Barely a week<br />
later (7th-9th May), FOCUS WALES gets up and running for <strong>2020</strong> in<br />
Wrexham 7th-9th May. The mercurial GRUFF RHYS headlines, with<br />
some brilliantly eclectic acts – such as FLAMINGODS and GEORGIA<br />
RUTH – spread across a line-up that has something for everyone.<br />
And, after a year off, Positive Vibration Festival Of Reggae returns to<br />
the Baltic Triangle, on 12th-13th June. HOLLIE COOK and GENERAL<br />
LEVY AND JOE ARIWA are the big-hitters leading the way, in what is a<br />
welcome return to the gigging calendar.<br />
Pale Waves<br />
A Feast Of Fests 2<br />
Cykada<br />
What, you want more festivals? OK – we can help you there, because our diary <strong>2020</strong> is already filling up with<br />
unmissable dates. LIVERPOOL INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL is one of the earlier starters, taking place at Hope<br />
University’s Capstone Theatre between 27th February and 1st March. London collective CYKADA bring the fire;<br />
Belgians TIN MEN AND THE TELEPHONE bring the raucous fury; and saxophonist TONY KOFI brings a quartet<br />
whose set will focus on Kofi’s work with Ornette Coleman. The 10th edition of THRESHOLD will also, sadly, be its<br />
last. The grassroots arts and music festival has championed many emerging artists during its tenure, but will be<br />
wrapping things up in the Baltic Triangle on 3rd and 4th April (artist announcements due in <strong>Jan</strong>uary <strong>2020</strong>). INDIKA<br />
has made some slight changes to its programme, moving its main festival to November (12th-22nd) across a number<br />
of city centre venues, including St George’s Hall, Leaf and the Philharmonic Music Room. A major Diwali celebration is<br />
also planned as part of the revamped programme, with year round taster events and showcases to keep us keen.<br />
Read The Dots<br />
Big Wows Treasure Hunt<br />
Two local art organisations, The Reader and dot-art, are joining forces to<br />
deliver a new range of activities and workshops for <strong>2020</strong>. Based in the<br />
recently refurbished Mansion House in Calderstones Park, The Reader is a<br />
national charity that champions the benefits of shared reading and literature.<br />
In teaming up with independent art gallery dot-art, The Reader will be<br />
incorporating a visual art programme alongside a number of art classes<br />
and community workshops within the Mansion House. dot-art has been<br />
running a successful series of art classes with The Bluecoat for a number<br />
of years, and their involvement with The Reader will open up exciting new<br />
possibilities; nature photography, walking drawing, textile arts and short<br />
story illustration courses will all take a lead from the glorious setting of<br />
Calderstones Park.<br />
If you haven’t yet managed to get your hands on the limited edition<br />
STEALING SHEEP Remix Wows cassette we teamed up to release<br />
earlier this year, you may just be in luck. A number of the special<br />
pink cassettes – featuring versions of the tracks from the Sheep’s<br />
third album Big Wows remixed by their friends – are dotted around<br />
the city (and even further afield) to be picked up for free. We’ve<br />
hidden 50 cassettes in locations specific to Stealing Sheep – places<br />
where they’ve played, worked, recorded music, filmed videos and<br />
created artwork. We’ve even left a number of cassettes at Liverpool<br />
landmarks for anyone to find. If you want one for your collection,<br />
follow the clues on our Twitter account (@BidoLito). Big wows!<br />
Independent Venue Week<br />
Sinead O’Brien<br />
Anna Calvi is the ambassador of INDEPENDENT VENUE WEEK <strong>2020</strong>, the nationwide<br />
festival that puts the spotlight on the indie music venues that are the lifeblood of the UK<br />
music scene. In Liverpool, a whole host of establishments are taking part between 27th<br />
<strong>Jan</strong>uary and 2nd February, bringing a slew of gigs at an otherwise downbeat time of<br />
year. District, Grand Central Hall, The Zanzibar, Jimmy’s and Parr Street Studio2 all have<br />
activity planned in, with many shows still to be announced at the time of going to press.<br />
The Jacaranda venues – Phase One, EBGBS and Jacaranda Club – throw themselves<br />
into the action once more, with BLACKWATERS’ headline show at EBGBS on 30th<br />
<strong>Jan</strong>uary one of their highlights. Craft Taproom and Handyman have their own weekend<br />
scheduled, featuring SILENT-K and MATT MCMANAMON (The Dead 60s) among others.<br />
And Birkenhead Library gets in on the act, with a joint headline show from SINEAD<br />
O’BRIEN and PUMA BLUE on 2nd February. Keep an eye out for more shows to be<br />
announced. independentvenueweek.com<br />
14
DANSETTE<br />
Glitch-pop wizard PODGE gives us<br />
an insight into the various layers and<br />
sounds that inspired the treasure<br />
trove of sonic delights that is his new<br />
EP, Eatmore Fruit.<br />
Walt Barr<br />
Free Spirit<br />
Muse Records<br />
Am I Not A Woman And A Sister<br />
Am I Not A Woman And A Sister is a brand new visual<br />
installation by Manchester-based artist ELIZABETH KWANT,<br />
co-curated with female survivors of modern day slavery in<br />
partnership with Liverpool charity City Hearts. Situated at<br />
the International Slavery Museum, the piece seeks to better<br />
understand the history of the transatlantic slave trade and its<br />
strong links with the North West region. The film on display<br />
reflects on colonial slavery and the legacy which is still felt on<br />
a social and tangible level here in Liverpool, Manchester and<br />
surrounding mill towns, with further assessment of modern<br />
day slavery and human trafficking that is rife in contemporary<br />
first-world societies. The moving image installation is open<br />
now, showing until 15th February <strong>2020</strong>.<br />
Steel A March<br />
A new initiative aimed at 16-25 year olds looking to exhibit and develop art<br />
works is set to host its first event this coming <strong>Jan</strong>uary. ANTISTEEL will be a<br />
pop-up project that moves around the city and seeks to platform a wide mix of<br />
creatives, offering access to those who do not have formal training or in higher<br />
education. The first pop-up show will take place at MAKE North Docks on 9th<br />
<strong>Jan</strong>uary, with an open call for submissions to be part of the group show running<br />
until 12th <strong>Dec</strong>ember. Works can cover everything from music, art, fashion<br />
and performance, with applications to be sent to livantisteel@gmail.com for<br />
consideration.<br />
Sweet Release(s)<br />
In case you were wondering: yes, we get lots of music sent our way each month<br />
and, yes, we listen to it all. If you’d like a taster of some of those morsels we’re<br />
lucky enough to hear, try some of these on for size. THE FLOORMEN take a step<br />
into Sketches Of Brunswick East territory with a brand new EP that’s full of woozy<br />
ditties and meanderings. The Easy Peelers “Don’t Panic, We’re In Cannich” is a<br />
collection of songs written and recorded by the quartet in a caravan in Scotland,<br />
complete with the patter of rainfall on the window. Multi-instrumentalist and<br />
former Wave Machine VIDAR NORHEIM makes a welcome return with a new EP<br />
of squelchy synths and immersive pop on X-Ray Eyes (check out The Pink Echo,<br />
too, for a Bido nod!). And, fresh from his track 4F3D63 Hex being included on<br />
the new Future Bubblers 3.0 release, WILROY has interpreted Dutch producer<br />
Stephen Emmer’s 2017 album as Home Ground (The Wilroy Remixes). A touch<br />
of progressive hip hop is added to the soulful originals, which feature Chaka Khan<br />
and Leon Ware. Keep the music coming!<br />
Elizabeth Kwant, <strong>2019</strong><br />
Why can’t we do this IRL?<br />
In November 2018, Shirrako, a YouTuber, shared a<br />
video of his modified Red Dead Redemption 2 avatar<br />
killing a suffragette, creating huge controversy due to<br />
its violence against a female character. This incident,<br />
which sparked the comment “why can’t we do this<br />
IRL?”, is the subject of artist Megan Browdmeadow’s<br />
piece within the you feel me_ exhibition at FACT,<br />
which centres on restorative justice. On 7th<br />
<strong>Dec</strong>ember, the second part of this immersive VR<br />
experience launches, which centres on a virtual trial<br />
of the accused video game character. Delving into the<br />
ethical questions behind gaming, this piece engaged<br />
with FACT’s Dungeons And Dragons gaming<br />
community to discuss the social, ethical and moral<br />
implications of such behaviour in a virtual space.<br />
It’s Quizmaaaaaassssss!<br />
Bido Lito! and Liquidation’s joint Christmas Christmas Christmas<br />
trivia extravaganza returns on 10th <strong>Dec</strong>ember, with Constellations<br />
once again hosting proceedings. The event looks to cap off a great<br />
year in Liverpool music with fans, friends and colleagues pitting their<br />
wits and arcane bits of music knowledge against one another for a<br />
selection of fantastic prizes in Punk Rock Bingo (not Bongo). Once<br />
again, all proceeds from the night will go to chosen charities The<br />
Whitechapel Centre and MIND, and there will be festive live music<br />
from some special guests. Head to ticketquarter.co.uk to get your<br />
tickets before we’re all booked up – and email chris@bidolito.co.uk to<br />
reserve your table.<br />
The Floormen<br />
I originally found this song<br />
when Madlib sampled it on<br />
Freddie Gibbs’ Crime Pays.<br />
This song and Crime Pays<br />
were constantly being played<br />
when I was hanging out with all my friends during this past<br />
summer. The electric piano chords and soft vocals really<br />
bring the whole relaxed vibe together and getting to hear<br />
Freddie Gibbs rap about “Choppin’ up this change with<br />
cocaine in my microwave” over the top of it totally switches<br />
up the whole mood of the song.<br />
Bruno Pernadas<br />
Valley In The<br />
Ocean<br />
Pataca Discos<br />
This lovely song from<br />
Portuguese jazz musician<br />
BRUNO PERNADAS was<br />
one of those songs that I had on repeat this summer.<br />
I love the contrast of male and female vocals and the<br />
chord progressions keep me on my feet, never being too<br />
predictable. The descending middle eight is one of my<br />
favourites of all time, with the simple guitar and the rich<br />
vocal harmonies bringing it to the next level.<br />
Mac DeMarco<br />
Nobody<br />
Mac’s Record Label<br />
The newest MAC DEMARCO<br />
album came to be my new<br />
favourite of his over this<br />
last summer. It’s really<br />
helped me appreciate super<br />
minimal arrangement and<br />
instrumentation. Nobody in particular made me realise that<br />
one tiny element can bring so much feeling to a song. The<br />
warbling synth in this song changes it from a chill guitar<br />
tune to a warm, slimy, relaxing load of goop.<br />
Hinobu Tanaka<br />
& Kazumi Totaka<br />
Professor E. Gadd<br />
Luigi’s Mansion<br />
Soundtrack<br />
I straight up named one of the<br />
songs on Eatmore Fruit after this. Me and my friends found<br />
this by accident while going through the Luigi’s Mansion<br />
soundtrack and it’s stuck ever since. This song shows you<br />
the true power of a really good groove. I tried to capture<br />
that feeling in my track Prof. E Gadd, but it came out pretty<br />
different in the end.<br />
soundcloud.com/pooodge<br />
Podge’s new EP, Eatmore Fruit, is out now.<br />
NEWS 15
BEIJA FLO<br />
Physicality and form have been at the forefront of Beija<br />
Flo’s experimental artistry, boldly laid bare in her fervent<br />
songwriting and zealous live showcases. Cath Holland<br />
learns more about the subtle contours of her being.<br />
16
30 minutes into interviewing BEIJA FLO, I know more intimacies<br />
about her than women I’ve known all my adult life. We’re in a<br />
slightly different scenario than a naturally developing friendship<br />
gradually built; every word and pause is recorded, as we talk in<br />
a Liverpool city centre bar in late afternoon. But my point still stands: Beija<br />
likes to share.<br />
I first heard of Beija via a review of one of her shows. The writer wrote<br />
at length about the singer, poet and artist’s medical history, namely her<br />
diagnosis of MRKH syndrome – more of that later. In the accompanying<br />
photographs she looked witchy, wild and sexy, in fishnets and leotard with<br />
everywhere hair and much drama. Seeing her perform myself, I witnessed<br />
a minimalist yet theatrical performance – she and a laptop, but on a stage<br />
decorated like a burlesque club in Berlin. Most of all, she was a woman<br />
comfortable in her own skin. Weeks later, a nervous daytime show at<br />
Birkenhead Library away from her usual crowd showed the vulnerability of<br />
a fledgling artist.<br />
I’ve since learnt a lot more about Beija Flo the artist: she’s a life model,<br />
standing and reclining naked in front of complete strangers for a living. On<br />
one hand we have Beija the bold siren, with a microphone and great one<br />
line put-downs. And on the other, a young woman still trying to find her<br />
place.<br />
Beija’s MRKH syndrome means she has no womb or sexual organs.<br />
She talks frankly about that and her poor health at her gigs and in<br />
interviews, via social media, wherever she can. I sure as hell didn’t know<br />
what it was the first time, so I Googled madly for information on the<br />
subject. It’d be rude not to.<br />
“I’m an enigma to the NHS,” she tells me of it, and her seven-year<br />
experience with the cyclical vomiting syndrome which leads to constant<br />
nausea and daily bouts of being sick. “The amount of time I’ve been in<br />
[hospital], it’s like, ‘Do you mind just talking to a team of junior doctors,<br />
because you know way more than we do’.”<br />
So yes, we think we know all about Beija Flo. How wrong we can be?<br />
We’re to learn a heck of a lot more, revealed in a forthcoming exhibition<br />
at Output Gallery incorporating her different creative strands. Somewhat<br />
tellingly, the collection of drawings, poems – she cites eccentric oddballs<br />
like Viv Stanshall and Ivor Cutler as influences – and photographic selfportraits,<br />
is called Nudes, along with the recent single of the same name.<br />
This is the sharing of her most secret self and experiences yet, an insight<br />
into an 18-month period some time ago when she suffered a series of<br />
scarring events. “I gave trust to the wrong people and received scars in<br />
return,” says the press release.<br />
“Over this period I was with a very abusive partner emotionally and<br />
slightly physically,” she explains quickly. “Sort of had a lot of sex when I<br />
didn’t really want to.”<br />
Er, having sex you don’t want is much more than ‘slight’ abuse. It’s the<br />
real deal. Abuse is abuse.<br />
“Yes. No, not slightly, really.” She smiles, sadly…<br />
In the song Nudes, with its bleak narrative and static electronic musical<br />
bed, she sings of the relationship: “I’ve been the fool…” But any blame<br />
needs to be firmly on the abuser’s shoulders.<br />
“Yes. Yeh… I was with someone who wasn’t very good for me. And left<br />
me feeling very small and very angry. But also very un-listened to and very<br />
insignificant.”<br />
Abusive relationships have emotional and physical effects and this<br />
exhibition is about your relationship with your body. I’m guessing this<br />
experience had an effect on your body, and how you viewed it?<br />
“After that, sex really wasn’t fun anymore for a while, quite a while.<br />
And it affected me with later partners. Maybe half a year after being with<br />
him, I met this really wonderful girl and I know that I was very challenging<br />
to be in a relationship with. It was more to do with what I’d been left with.<br />
[I] didn’t want to be hurt or revisit emotions.”<br />
The issue of body confidence is part of the exhibition as well, I take it?<br />
“The exhibition is an insight into the journey I’ve been on with my own<br />
body; the good bits and the bad bits. I still have days where I’m, like, ‘I hate<br />
this’. Sometimes if I eat a really big meal I get a bit bloated and I hate that<br />
because my biggest, biggest nightmare is, and I know it’s silly, but, erm, I<br />
get very insecure someone might think that I’m pregnant. Because I can<br />
never ever be pregnant.”<br />
And that upsets you?<br />
“It’s a really, really big concern. My weight has always been up and<br />
down I have some days where I put on a bit of weight and I feel really<br />
good about where all of that weight is.”<br />
As long as it’s evenly distributed?<br />
“Yeh! It’s not like I’ve ever stood naked in front of anyone and they’ve<br />
gone, ‘Oh, no, you’ve had too much ice cream, put your T-shirt back on’.<br />
No one’s ever said that and I think I almost have a few little tricks I use on<br />
myself to make myself feel good about my body.”<br />
The photos in the exhibition were taken during her ‘lost weekend’<br />
that lasted four or five months after the bad relationship ended. She won’t<br />
reveal when this took place “because people can’t figure out how old Beija<br />
is. All I can tell you it happened in a window on Bold Street”.<br />
And which window is that? I ask.<br />
“Can’t tell you.”<br />
But she can tell me it was warm, so when<br />
indoors she was naked much of the time,<br />
purposely isolating herself.<br />
“I remember having a lot of fun but also<br />
feeling very lonely. But almost being grateful for<br />
the loneliness, ’cos it meant I really discovered<br />
my body. I took lots of walks and did lots of<br />
drawing and wrote lots and spent a lot of time<br />
with myself.<br />
“That man I was with, the horrible one, was<br />
quite abusive. Abusive,” she corrects herself. “I<br />
lost a lot of myself in that experience and I’m<br />
still gaining that back. Or maybe I will never<br />
quite get her back.”<br />
The eventual need to be with people led her<br />
to go on a series of dates, but again with men<br />
who took advantage of her vulnerable state.<br />
“I don’t fully remember all of it. It was a<br />
very dark period of time where I look back and I<br />
think, ‘Who was that woman in my body?’ I did not like her.”<br />
She thinks it happened because she feels more ‘normal’ when she’s<br />
in a relationship with “someone not totally emotionally understanding or<br />
won’t just hear ‘I don’t have a vagina’ and… [will] let you explain how you<br />
can have a normal… a great sex life.<br />
“That’s when I feel the most confident in my body and my issues<br />
because, even though I’m very confident about my MRKH syndrome, and<br />
know that if any future partner would have an issue with the syndrome<br />
that they’re in the wrong, not me.<br />
“I’m intrigued by sex and how people do it,” she continues. “I’ve<br />
always, always been interested in what other people are doing in sex and<br />
I remember being in the earlier stage in my life when sex was a lot more<br />
blurry and I didn’t really know what it was. When I first started discovering<br />
my body I was ahead of the other girls, really. I was with the boys in terms<br />
of experimenting with masturbation.”<br />
It’s not that teenage girls don’t masturbate, I don’t think. It’s more that<br />
it’s taboo. They don’t talk about it.<br />
She nods. “I remember asking boys how it felt and how do you do it<br />
and I was very intrigued. It wasn’t in a sense of let me see it or anything, I<br />
was very interested in how other people saw their bodies.”<br />
Beija and I meet again a couple of weeks later, in the same place on<br />
the same sofa, but this time I ask her to bring some of the photos from<br />
“I have always aimed<br />
to never lose the<br />
confidence and the<br />
innocence and the<br />
freedom of being a child”<br />
FEATURE<br />
17
her Nude months. A fan of the late American photographer<br />
Francesca Woodman, who specialised in experimental photos<br />
of herself and other women, Beija’s images are true to her<br />
inspiration. There are lots, all of Beija at this mysterious place<br />
on Bold Street. Taken at different times of the day and night, in<br />
some she’s naked, others wearing underwear. Her mood varies,<br />
too: she’s in distress in one picture, the next peaceful and happy.<br />
Some are natural and stark, others posed and a little contrived.<br />
In one she’s in a bath dyed red with food dye and bath bombs.<br />
A few show her body only, no face. She knew from the get-go,<br />
she says, which images out of the incredible 500 taken were to<br />
be used for the exhibition. From different times of the day, when<br />
newly woken or late at night, and in earlier images she has no<br />
body hair. In ones taken later, armpit and pubic hair is growing<br />
back as her confidence and sense of self makes a return.<br />
She flicks through them and recalls each one with surprising<br />
clarity. It’s not like looking at photos on your phone of a night out<br />
with friends, holiday snaps or shots photographers take of her<br />
at gigs. So what did she think of her body laid out in such a way<br />
when she saw them for the first time? A camera taking a still of<br />
you like this and alone, no audience to pander to or entertain,<br />
how did she feel? It’s difficult to get an answer out of Beija on<br />
this one – I ask her three times. “They’re sad in places and hard to<br />
look at,” she concedes eventually. “I captured how I was feeling.<br />
It was more, ‘This is what we’ve got’. It wasn’t a negative or a<br />
positive.”<br />
She points out one of her laying down with a peaceful<br />
expression on her face, her upper body at ease and content.<br />
There are visible love bites on her neck. “This one is after quite a<br />
nice one night stand. I quite liked him and never heard from him<br />
again.”<br />
You look very girlish there: pink skin, slightly flushed.<br />
“Yeh, it’s partly the lighting. After you’ve had a nice time with<br />
somebody you feel… it looks a little bit like I’m glowing.”<br />
In a remarkably beautiful photograph, Beija somehow<br />
resembles a pre-Raphaelite painting, her hair cascading around her<br />
shoulders in waves. She’s often booked for life modelling precisely<br />
due to that look. Hylas And The Nymphs, the 1896 oil painting by<br />
John William Waterhouse, springs to mind, removed temporarily<br />
and controversially from public view from Manchester Art Gallery<br />
last year, leading to accusations of censorship. The irony being,<br />
if you wish to take the subversive view, it features females<br />
surrounding and luring a young man into the water for their own<br />
pleasures. The nymphs are calling the shots.<br />
Beija’s hair changes in the images as we go through them, in<br />
itself reflecting her state of mind, she reckons. In some she’s cut it,<br />
obviously and dramatically.<br />
“I don’t really get my hair cut often. It’s almost as if I have to cut<br />
something off myself, [so] I’ll cut off my hair. It’s quite cleansing.”<br />
On the plus side, it grows back.<br />
“It grows back newer and stronger, which I like.”<br />
Beija points out exhibition photos she calls “the sunburnt<br />
drunk ones”. “It was on a really hot day,” she says of them,<br />
“and I’d been out with lots of my male friends and I sat there<br />
frustrated, [thinking] ‘Why aren’t I allowed to take my top off and<br />
sit here? Why is it I was allowed to do that when I was six, but<br />
not now I’m a woman. How come boys are allowed to become<br />
men and lots of rules don’t change, especially with how they<br />
present their body?’”<br />
It’s the women should exist in private space only and men<br />
alone own the public arena scenario, as old as time itself. “Being a<br />
woman is challenging.”<br />
Beija goes on to share stories, of being told by men and boys<br />
when she’s not wearing a bra and the male inability to pass a<br />
woman in a crowded space without placing his hands on her<br />
hips, shoulders or back.<br />
“There are people out there who don’t understand personal<br />
space,” she laughs at the ridiculousness of the last example.<br />
Going back to the subject of the<br />
exhibition, I can’t help but wonder if<br />
revisiting such a strange period in her<br />
life is an entirely positive experience?<br />
Most people don’t enjoy dredging up<br />
bad stuff.<br />
“It’s been emotional. It’s like,” she<br />
pauses to take a breath. “Do you ever<br />
feel sorry for your younger self?”<br />
All the bloody time, my dear.<br />
“If only you knew then what you<br />
know now? I felt so horrible for that<br />
period of time and I look back and I’m<br />
so proud of myself for getting to where<br />
I am now. Although I’ve still bloody<br />
miles to go, the universe loves playing<br />
games with me. I get lots of shit<br />
thrown in my garden.”<br />
Do you think woman relate to you,<br />
because of the openness around your vulnerabilities? Women<br />
are restricted by our biology and physical weakness compared<br />
to men. Your limits may be different from most women but the<br />
common bonds remain.<br />
“[With] the openness and honesty of it,” she speculates. “I<br />
don’t think I particularly dress up or glamourise my struggles. I<br />
think a lot of women don’t realise that we all have something to<br />
say. We’ve all had bad experiences and some people think, ‘Oh,<br />
I’m a woman and that’s just the way unfortunately society is’, and<br />
I’m like, ‘Sod that for a bunch of bananas’.<br />
“Some women at first hate me ‘cos they think I’m being really<br />
cocky: ‘Look at this girl, she knows she’s really thin’ and whatever.<br />
Then they watch the show and find out all of these things and I<br />
haven’t had the easiest time. A large amount of the time the way<br />
women dress is for other women. I feel for women that dress for<br />
other women and are so self-conscious that they maybe don’t<br />
wear something they like and feel comfortable in.”<br />
Being part of a group is a human need, though. Everyone<br />
feels that, even outsiders.<br />
“What I mean is, a lot of women feel really under pressure to<br />
act a certain way and look a certain way. When people see what<br />
I do and the confidence and the fact I feel sexy onstage… still<br />
people ask me why I wear leotards, where I get the confidence<br />
running around in the nip. Essentially I have always aimed to<br />
never lose the confidence and the innocence and the freedom of<br />
“Being told that<br />
there was so much<br />
my body can’t do, I<br />
asked myself, ‘What<br />
can my body do?’”<br />
being a four-year-old running around in your knickers around a<br />
paddling pool in the middle of the town park.”<br />
This exhibition explores the relationship between you and<br />
your body, yet you must ultimately feel let down by yours?<br />
“You know, men can shout all they want at me. I don’t have a<br />
vagina. You can’t have sex with me even if you tried. It’d hurt you<br />
a lot more than it would hurt me because it’s essentially shoving<br />
your dick into a brick wall. That’s not going to feel good. I feel in<br />
particular with that side of things, me being told that there was<br />
so much my body can’t do, I’m like, ‘OK, what can my body do?’<br />
You can look but you can’t touch because of my situation.”<br />
Incels – men who think they are entitled to sex and resent<br />
women when they can’t get it – get<br />
very angry. You as a woman can be<br />
hurt in other ways by them.<br />
“Yes,” she nods. “Yes. Been there.”<br />
So you’re aware of your<br />
vulnerabilities?<br />
“Yes, I am. When I’m not at a venue<br />
and travelling to or from I’ve had men<br />
think I’m a prostitute just because<br />
I’m in knee-high boots and a leotard.<br />
That’s a very strange position to be<br />
in but, also, unless we go for it in the<br />
places that are safe then it will never<br />
get to the point where we want it be.”<br />
When planning the photo<br />
session to go with this article, the<br />
first thing she asked herself and the<br />
photographer, Robin Clewley, was,<br />
‘What am I allowed to do?’ Speaking<br />
shortly after the session, she confesses to being “a bit nervous”<br />
on the run up to the day.<br />
But I want to know, how different did it feel, being<br />
photographed by someone else?<br />
“It was obviously different to posing for myself.”<br />
Many photos for the Nudes exhibition were taken by<br />
candlelight, a contrast with the professional lighting draped<br />
across the shoot.<br />
“Because I’m a life model subject so often, I trust people<br />
to get me to position my body in a way that works from their<br />
angle. The paintings and drawings I see of myself are always so<br />
beautiful. That’s how I felt after this shoot.<br />
“Robin made me look like a Renaissance painting. Everyone<br />
should feel like a Renaissance painting.” !<br />
Words: Cath Holland / @cathholland01<br />
Photography: Robin Clewley / robinclewley.co.uk<br />
@iambeijaflo<br />
Inside The Walls: Nudes, Anxieties And Other Content runs at<br />
Output Gallery from 17th <strong>Jan</strong>uary to 2nd February <strong>2020</strong>. The<br />
single Nudes is out now via Eggy Records.<br />
18
FEATURE<br />
19
20
ASOK<br />
Breathless breakbeats and warped techno that drip with the energy of club walls; ASOK sets new<br />
parameters for making music in the moment.<br />
“It all changed for me in 2013.” Stuart Robinson,<br />
producer and DJ, AKA ASOK, isn’t recalling his<br />
breakthrough moment in music here. By this point,<br />
he’d been DJing for over 15 years. And by the moment<br />
he’s about to recollect, he’d been touring the world as Cosmic<br />
Boogie, a project set up with Merseyside’s premier loop digger<br />
Greg Wilson. At the height of its success his lightbulb moment in<br />
music was about to flash before his eyes.<br />
“I was playing at a party in Montenegro on a beach, a private<br />
party,” he begins, essentially<br />
alluding to the first steps towards<br />
this conversation we’re now having<br />
today in his home studio, one<br />
centred on his jagged breakbeat,<br />
“You’ve got to<br />
connect with the<br />
music the way you’d<br />
want others to”<br />
warped techno and jungle-infused<br />
productions. “There was probably<br />
around 2,000 people there. About<br />
1,500 were probably the most<br />
beautiful women I’ve seen in my<br />
life.” In the world of the jet-setting<br />
DJ, the picture he’s painting doesn’t<br />
seem like the crux for change, but he<br />
continues. “There was DJ Robinson,<br />
sweating behind the decks in 40<br />
degree heat. People doing lines of<br />
coke from the decks. It was wild. It<br />
was going off.”<br />
Starting out as a DJ in the mid 1990s, picking up a pair of<br />
Vestax PDX-2000s in exchange for designing a website for<br />
Manchester record purveyors Eastern Bloc, Robinson came up<br />
through raves in Manchester and Liverpool. He cites escaping<br />
to musical scenes thriving beyond post coal mining Newton-le-<br />
Willows as the gateway to dance music. “The best way to go<br />
somewhere new was to get absolutely twatted and go to dance<br />
music clubs,” he colourfully illustrates. Attending his first rave<br />
at 14, his first forays as a DJ came later in the world of drum<br />
and bass, jungle and hardcore. Though, he says, there was little<br />
change in approach whether in front of the decks of behind;<br />
always unadulterated release.<br />
By 2003, he’d moved away from breaks and studiously<br />
delved into learning about dance music and its history. “I just<br />
started reading books and learning a lot. I met Greg Wilson, and<br />
we started the Cosmic Boogie project, playing disco all over the<br />
world for about five or six years.” Robinson was an in-demand<br />
DJ and label owner, doing his thing at headlining shows across<br />
the world with a slick mix of house, funk, boogie and disco. Then<br />
came that day on the beach Montenegro. The turning point, as<br />
2,000 dancers waited for the cues of his next selection.<br />
“I looked up and I just thought, ‘I’m not enjoying this. I’m<br />
playing the same set everywhere I go. I’m painting by numbers.<br />
I’m not learning anything’. I came home that night and ended<br />
Cosmic Boogie. One million plays on SoundCloud, 15,000<br />
Facebook followers – I just wiped it out that night. Finished.”<br />
The very next day ASOK was ushered into life. Initially a<br />
name adopted in his drum and bass days, the moniker served as<br />
internal resurrection. The restrictions of disco were forcibly pulled<br />
from the record bag, erasing a world of beach parties, four-figure<br />
attendances and indulgent hedonism. Robinson was to stop<br />
playing for everyone else. From 2013, the focus became creating<br />
something of his own. “I felt free. And as soon as that freedom<br />
came, I told myself to buy some equipment and make a tune. I<br />
bought a Juno 6 and Roland 707, opened up Ableton for the first<br />
time and realised I had no idea what to do.”<br />
The baby steps into production quickly turned to strides after<br />
perseverance. The incessant reading and research soon developed<br />
into a knack for songcraft, energised by a sweat drenched<br />
empirical understanding of the dancefloor garnered in his youth.<br />
Six years down the line, Robinson now has an enviable<br />
release discography. A slew of EPs and singles on revered labels<br />
Lobster Theremin and Mistress have arrived since that day in<br />
Montengro. Releases that meld acerbic acid house, twitchy jungle<br />
breaks, hissed atmosphere, blissful piano and pounding kicks.<br />
It is music written from the heart. Quite literally. It feels its way<br />
through like a heart rate rapidly powering the necessary bodily<br />
movement the track demands; rising, hurtling and, in moments,<br />
resting in the euphoria – if given the chance.<br />
“For me, producing has been about recreating the feelings<br />
I had on the dancefloor, as a dancer, as a fan. It’s all about<br />
capturing that raw emotion in the moment.” The commitment to<br />
recreating the momentary euphoria is reflected in his producing<br />
style. Rather than piece together his tracks in arrangement view,<br />
everything is mixed live. The visual accompaniment is forgotten<br />
about, essentially. It’s as though Robinson could shut his eyes<br />
and completely let go of the walls that surround him once the<br />
music begins to rumble from his<br />
studio monitors. It becomes personal.<br />
Attached to the now, the moment,<br />
the happening. The mix has to be led<br />
by intuitive feeling, rather than the<br />
precision that can come to rule when<br />
gradually knitting small pockets of<br />
music together.<br />
He further underscores the<br />
dancefloor DNA in his production when<br />
asked about the motives to produce<br />
in such a way. “I make a track as<br />
though I’m dancing to it in the club,”<br />
he says with an energetic animation.<br />
“I’ll be playing certain tracks through,<br />
feeling when parts get repetitive, when<br />
aspects need to breathe, when more<br />
urgency is needed. I’m always thinking of the rhythm of a room,<br />
feeling as if I was a dancer and wanting the break to drop out at<br />
that moment – when the body expects it.”<br />
The process is like buying a set of paints, preparing them in<br />
front of an easel and allowing emotive drive to take its course.<br />
There’s no set plan. Rather than follow the paint-by-numbers<br />
DJing of Cosmic Boogie, his own music allows the heart to pluck<br />
random numbers form the sky a fill the space with energetic reds<br />
and yellows, all washed with a bright white flash of energy. It’s all<br />
about catching the spark, making the most of that high you know<br />
can’t last forever. “You can sit there and sift through so many hihat<br />
samples. By the time you get one, that raw feeling you had is<br />
gone and you’re no longer feeling it. You can over engineer it. You<br />
lose the part that made you excited about the track. You’ve got to<br />
connect with the music the way you’d want others to.”<br />
He loads up Ableton and plays a track formed from in a<br />
recent rush of energy. The process seems even more urgent<br />
when he informs me that most of his tracks have been made in<br />
less than an hour. He continues to explain as he presses play. A<br />
breakbeat immediately serrates through the room. This is one<br />
he’s aiming to release on Lobster Theremin. He starts to talk me<br />
through its foundations, but shouting has become necessary,<br />
such is the decibel level. “I get a load of channels up. Hit record,<br />
then start to bring everything in.” The shouted conversation<br />
tapers off as the syncopated drum patters take hold of his<br />
attention. The music has already caught him in just over one bar.<br />
As he later informs, music has to be cautiously rationed to avoid<br />
it stealing the abundance of his days. “I become totally lost,” he<br />
informs me, once the stop button is found. “If I put some dance<br />
music on when trying to work at home, I can’t do it. I’m in it, part<br />
of it, thinking over the incidental notes, any parts I’d change. It<br />
grabs me so much. My brain is triggered by dance music.”<br />
Robinson has severe ADHD. It’s something which he has<br />
lived with all his life, yet remarkably has only been recently<br />
diagnosed. It’s highly evident as we talk; conversation regularly<br />
trails off into new topics. His voice is breathless at times, taking<br />
draws on a cigarette in the moments he pauses. His mercurial<br />
nature embodies the title of his 2016 album, A Mind Forever<br />
Voyaging. “You can see where the name comes from just<br />
watching me. It never stops,” he says with shades of humour.<br />
Above his monitors and computer sits a sign reading<br />
the words ‘Don’t Make Techno’. It’s a mantra subtly rooted in<br />
his ADHD. Something which, in a musical sense, he’s taken<br />
ownership of, using the condition as a vessel to journey through<br />
worlds that require more than a 4/4 stride. It’s a jovial swipe<br />
in reality, knowing he does incorporate the genre into his<br />
productions. However, it speaks more of his unwillingness, or<br />
inability, to remain in one place. To endlessly look beyond the<br />
steady pace; running, sprinting pausing and quickly changing<br />
direction. “When playing, I have to change direction every three<br />
tracks. I get bored,” he attests. “The sign is just a little reminder<br />
to try and make something that’s not continually the same.<br />
Ultimately, I’m always voyaging, always drifting around.” !<br />
Words: Elliot Ryder / @elliot_ryder<br />
Photography: Keith Ainsworth / arkimages.co.uk<br />
soundcloud.com/asok-four-triangles<br />
Mistress 14 by ASOK is available via Mistress Recordings in<br />
<strong>Jan</strong>uary <strong>2020</strong>.<br />
FEATURE<br />
21
ART AT YOUR<br />
CONVENIENCE<br />
Since opening in Birkenhead Market in June, Convenience Gallery has been working to rub away the divide<br />
between the everyday and the artist. Julia Johnson meets its curators to learn more about their programme<br />
of exhibitions, tutorials and workshops.<br />
22
Is it perhaps easy, especially in a city perceived to be as creative as Liverpool is, to take the<br />
flourishing of the arts scene for granted. But having a city filled with people driving to create<br />
work is only half the story: the conditions must also exist for these talents to mature. This is<br />
why spaces are crucial; places where artists can develop ideas by putting them into practice,<br />
and where they can find audiences receptive to their talents.<br />
Enter CONVENIENCE GALLERY. Based in Birkenhead Market since June <strong>2019</strong>, the project –<br />
led by artists Ryan Gauge and Andrew Shaw – is a space for artists to grow through practice and<br />
exhibition. Affiliated with the socially engaged Small Steps Events, Convenience developed as its<br />
own project from the desire to put art and artists in the spotlight as a main event in their own right.<br />
Acting as facilitators rather than selective curators, Convenience’s format is optimistic and trusting.<br />
They believe in the fundamental talent of individuals and its ability to blossom with the right<br />
community.<br />
As artists, Ryan and Andy know that having confidence in the strength of your own work can<br />
sometimes be a challenge in itself. “One of the barriers is that you just sit in your own head for<br />
hours,” explains Ryan. “The point with Convenience was to be able to get a load of artists to sit and<br />
to say, ‘What do you want to do? No barriers – what would be beneficial?’ And a lot of it was just<br />
people getting to have conversations about their work, because they don’t get to do that.”<br />
From these conversations, several strands of programming and interaction have emerged.<br />
Exhibiting is one, of course: giving artists a space in which visitors can view their work. It’s another<br />
question which maybe isn’t addressed enough in public conversation: where are the spaces for<br />
artists to emerge for an audience? And the location and layout of<br />
Convenience make it a unique venue.<br />
Located on both sides of an aisle in the centre of Birkenhead<br />
Market, their units open out directly into the path. There are no<br />
physical or psychological boundaries that an audience needs to cross<br />
in order to engage with what’s being shown. Ryan and Andy have<br />
understood the importance of tapping into the potential of this setup<br />
to spark curiosity since the first exhibition. “It was a lot of wall-based<br />
work, so it was immediately relatable, even if you were just walking<br />
through,” says Andy.<br />
This has had a significant effect, not just on how people<br />
are accessing the work, but what happens in the subsequent<br />
interactions. Convenience’s approach, once again, is openness:<br />
they’re aware of their place as a point of connection between the arts<br />
scene and the everyday, and want to be as open to all as they can be.<br />
There’s plenty of space to sit and chat in their units, and many visitors<br />
do, including those who are less art conscious than your regular<br />
gallery frequenter. “The big question we get asked is, ‘What’s actually going on?’” says Andy.<br />
“People are excited about the ‘weirdness’ that we’re situated here. We find there’s a lot of people<br />
here getting a watch fixed, who say ‘I do art!’ and they get their phone out and start showing us all<br />
the work that they do.” It is in these moments the gallery reveals itself as not only a proving ground<br />
for young, new artists, but a bridge to those who’ve casually practised away from the four walls<br />
of local and national institutions. It subtly brings the two together thanks to its irregular home in a<br />
once bustling heart of Birkenhead commerce.<br />
Importantly, these passing conversations are increasingly able to continue beyond a brief visit,<br />
by attending the workshops Convenience facilitate. Our conversation returns time and again to the<br />
gallery’s programme, which is growing in collaboration with the artists they work with – indeed, at<br />
their request. Ryan says how, at those early meetings, “there was quite a lot of artists saying ‘I’d<br />
quite like to teach a class about what I’m doing’. It’s a chance to sit down for two hours with people,<br />
it’s more interactive than just viewing art”. “And it becomes a regular social thing,” adds Andy. “We<br />
do a lot of them that are more affordable, because we don’t want people to feel like they’re priced<br />
out of something.”<br />
“Convenience’s ideal<br />
is to have a space<br />
with no boundary<br />
between the viewer<br />
and the art or artist”<br />
As well as evenings focusing on particular skills, Convenience are also collaborating with LJMU<br />
and Bloom Building to bring the Thinking Out Loud lecture series to Birkenhead. Open to anyone,<br />
the evenings are comprised of an accessible lecture, followed by an artist-led workshop inspired<br />
by the subject. As a way of introducing audiences to new creative concepts and activities, it’s an<br />
interactive and engaging format.<br />
As for the question of ‘why Birkenhead?’, the answer is less about establishing space<br />
specifically for Wirral as it is about broadening opportunity in a way which happens to be<br />
geographical as well as philosophical. Convenience very clearly see themselves as part of the<br />
Merseyside arts scene. They were participants in October’s Studio Shuffle, when studios and<br />
groups – including Dorothy, Antisteel, Arena, Road and The Royal Standard – opened up in the<br />
Baltic Triangle to exhibit what their artists have been working on. Talk is already of one taking place<br />
in Birkenhead. They’ve also hosted an exhibition of work by this year’s LJMU graduates, BURST Our<br />
Bubble. But they’re again keen to point out that this isn’t just overflow from across the water – it’s<br />
an expanding of the conversation. “If you live over here and you’re an artist, you can’t always get<br />
into Liverpool. There’s always been the question of ‘how do you get people to come over?’ Well,<br />
there are people who live here as well! So you’ve gotta be for them, too.”<br />
Until 21st <strong>Dec</strong>ember, Convenience are working with the international LOOK Photo Biennial to<br />
exhibit work by Hong Kong-born artist Dinu Li. The Anatomy Of Place takes over all three of their<br />
units and explores the ideologies and rituals that bind people and places together. Rather than<br />
this being a project forced into its venue, the exhibition was established through a mutual feeling<br />
that the space was right for the work. Andy explains how this came<br />
about. “Dinu was really into the market. It’s a big part of the work,<br />
where he grew up was a big market place. So he liked the space, and<br />
so we started chatting to him about his work. I think we just had a<br />
really good conversation about it. It grew very quickly from one piece<br />
to this collection, spread across all of the units. All the work in this<br />
show has entwined narratives which he’d never been able to show all<br />
together, and he was really excited to be able to do that.”<br />
A major international programme LOOK may be, but this story<br />
centres on the same qualities as have been found in every aspect of<br />
Convenience’s work: relationship with the community and support<br />
for the artist to realise their vision. It’s an ethos that spreads across<br />
collaborations with international artists such as Dinu, or those who<br />
stumble upon the space when looking for a watch repair. Ultimately,<br />
it’s a space that looks to mix institutionally taught art with experience<br />
of the real world, all blended together through exhibitions and wide<br />
array of tutorials and workshops.<br />
Our changing shopping habits, and the need for the purpose of traditionally commercial spaces<br />
to change with them to survive, has seen projects akin to Convenience emerge up around the<br />
country. The example of Convenience shows how such spaces can become symbols of the kind<br />
of society we want to exist. The team describe their ideal as having a space with “no boundary<br />
between the viewer and the art or artist”. After just a few months they’re well on their way to<br />
making this an interactive reality. !<br />
Words: Julia Johnson / @messylines_<br />
Photography: Antony Mo / @antonymo<br />
facebook.com/conveniencesse<br />
Convenience Gallery can be found on Brassey Aisle within Birkenhead Market. The Anatomy Of<br />
Place, part of LOOK Photo Biennial, continues at Convenience until 21st <strong>Dec</strong>ember.<br />
FEATURE<br />
23
GEOGRAPHY O<br />
Electronic artist Lo Five<br />
navigates us through the<br />
terrain of his latest album<br />
Geography Of The Abyss – a<br />
world conjured from meditative<br />
states and internal discovery.<br />
Illustrated through adjoining<br />
artwork made specifically<br />
for the record, the Wirralbased<br />
producer touches<br />
on the hurtling potential<br />
to travel even when in the<br />
most static of states.<br />
Geography Of The Abyss travels across the terrain<br />
of the inner self. It’s a continuation of a theme I’ve<br />
explored and tried to make sense of through pretty<br />
much all of my music.<br />
I’m endlessly fascinated with the nature of consciousness<br />
and memory, how one colours and shapes the other. I’ve been<br />
practising meditation on and off for around 15 years now,<br />
and I guess that sort of inner journey of self-inquiry has been<br />
expressed in some form on this album. I see the record as a kind<br />
of a mirror image of my own experiences of meditation.<br />
The album is made up of a series of live jams rather than<br />
piecing it together on a computer; building these repetitive<br />
loops that I could get lost in late at night, just by focusing in on<br />
the music and tuning into feeling, or as close as possible. Taking<br />
this approach, the album and its production is pretty much the<br />
same as meditating; focusing your attention on an object that’s<br />
not your thoughts until your ‘self’ falls away. This happens<br />
naturally with any activity that requires long periods of simple<br />
concentration, like painting or knitting for example. It’s like a<br />
mini holiday from your mind. Therefore, the album has ended<br />
up a more contented and intuitive record, rather than something<br />
cerebral or wholly conceptual.<br />
For me, meditation is about suspending that inner judge<br />
we all have inside of us, the one that forms opinions of<br />
situations, others and ourselves. In theory, it’s the perfect<br />
vessel for severing the ties with contemporary capitalism<br />
and the continual drive towards individuality. But we live in a<br />
24
F THE ABYSS<br />
world of increasing levels of judgement and opinion. Just look<br />
at Twitter. Capturing attention is the name of the game and<br />
we’re increasingly giving our attention away to causes that<br />
don’t necessarily help our mental well-being. It comes at a<br />
price to ourselves. Binary opinions on social media have been<br />
effectively gamified, offering rewards to extreme views that<br />
stir up negative feelings, rather than rewarding open-minded<br />
attempts at understanding and compassion. This direction<br />
society has taken has real-world consequences which may<br />
appear harmless and trivial on the surface. In reality, they are<br />
quite subtle and insidious, especially when amped up by the<br />
people in charge. Narrow-minded judgement and opinions are<br />
obviously divisive and isolating, so it stands to reason that a<br />
practice that offers the dropping of this act of judgement could<br />
be something that offers some sort of exit strategy from the<br />
current state of affairs.<br />
In my view, there is a strong relationship between the<br />
tangible and the mental. They share a similar geography and<br />
are often bound by the same contours. What are we but the<br />
sum total of our experiences and memories, which are formed<br />
in real-world environments? There is a contrast with the<br />
familiar and the unknown within the album’s artwork [pictured],<br />
as there are nods to local landscapes, as well as places I’ve<br />
never been. I liked the idea of framing the album as a journey<br />
through the familiar/unfamiliar, both of which can be just as<br />
familiar to one another when the context of the self is removed.<br />
Beyond the glitchy silhouettes of places and spaces, and<br />
their abundant energy, the realities of their origin are quite<br />
lame, really. They’re merely screenshots from Google Earth,<br />
edited and manipulated to appear as though visual discoveries<br />
of my own internal Mars Rover. However, the source material<br />
shouldn’t stand in the way of the conceptual journey they<br />
represent. I like firing up Google Earth and picking random faraway<br />
places to wander around. Places I’ll probably never visit.<br />
They all come together to form a virtual exploration that the<br />
record encapsulates.<br />
As with the recurring theme of the record and my previous<br />
releases, making music is about discovery. That exciting<br />
eye-opening feeling of experiencing something new for the<br />
very first time. That’s absolutely the attraction for me. That’s<br />
where the record tries to position itself. I guess travelling holds<br />
the same attraction, not that I actually do much of that in the<br />
tangible form. Nonetheless, we’re all on a journey, and anything<br />
we make or do is a reflection of that journey. There’s always an<br />
element of escapism to the music and especially this record.<br />
Not just escaping my current environment and situation, but<br />
escaping myself. !<br />
Words and design: Lo Five / @EM0TI0NWAVE<br />
lofive-cis.bandcamp.com<br />
Geography Of The Abyss is out now via Castles In Space.<br />
“There is a strong<br />
relationship between<br />
the tangible and the<br />
mental. They share a<br />
similar geography”<br />
FEATURE<br />
25
THERE SHE<br />
GOES AGAIN<br />
Following the release of his latest book, There She Goes – Liverpool, A City On Its Own: The Long <strong>Dec</strong>ade:<br />
1979-1993, social history writer and football journalist Simon Hughes looks back at Liverpool’s progression<br />
through the last 10 years, and the challenges still to come in the decade before us.<br />
Three years out of 50. It’s a small figure, and one I can’t<br />
stop thinking about, especially when it’s essentially just<br />
one year – when you really think about it.<br />
In 1970, back when Liverpool was still a<br />
Conservative city, its political interests aligned with the rest of<br />
the country until 1972 – when Edward Heath reigned as Prime<br />
Minister, a role he would lose in 1974.<br />
Since then, there has just been one short period when<br />
Liverpool has not been a place in opposition. That was under<br />
Frank Prendergast from 1997 until 1998 when the city rejected<br />
New Labour and stood with the Liberal Democrats for the next<br />
12 years.<br />
It is said repeatedly now that Liverpool is an undisputed<br />
Labour stronghold but that wasn’t the case until 2010. It feels<br />
like much has changed since the start of the decade, though<br />
– not least in terms of feeling among the younger generation<br />
of Liverpudlians who seem more socially aware than ever and<br />
certainly more politically conscious than they were before.<br />
There are reasons for this change, starting with the 20th<br />
anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster in 2009 when those too<br />
young to remember or even understand what happened 20 years<br />
earlier started to ask questions after Andy Burnham’s public vow<br />
to help seek justice in front of a packed Anfield.<br />
There was a shift that day, a generation who had grown up<br />
with the consequences of the 1980s finally emboldened. In 2011,<br />
there was the lifting of the 30-year rule on government papers<br />
and what many had suspected for decades was as good as<br />
being confirmed as true – that Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative<br />
government in 1981 had at least discussed the possibility of<br />
allowing Liverpool to slide. Considering what happened to the<br />
city throughout the rest of the decade, you can only assume<br />
Geoffrey Howe’s memo about “managed decline” was put into<br />
practice.<br />
The Hillsborough Independent Panel’s findings came next,<br />
this amid the austerity of the latest Tory government. It has<br />
surprised many who were growing up in the 1980s the way the<br />
“Scouse not English” mantra of this era has accelerated because<br />
the sentiment didn’t exist with the same appetite when things<br />
were even worse than they are now. But are they better? Are<br />
they just as bad but in a different way?<br />
Liverpool is a more cosmopolitan city than ever. Its economy<br />
has boomed through tourism, which, whether we like it or not,<br />
serves to benefit the drugs barons whose finances are washed<br />
through the hotels and restaurants that so many visitors like<br />
to sleep and eat in. Liverpool looks smarter and, unlike other<br />
Northern cities, it is not made of glass. It feels like it is built to<br />
last. The development of the Baltic Triangle has been spectacular<br />
and I hope that extends into other parts of the city that require<br />
investment at its southern end, albeit without it endangering the<br />
identities of the communities that live there.<br />
Stray outside the centre, indeed, and the struggle is arguably<br />
greater than it has ever been in the boroughs that have long<br />
struggled anyway. Homelessness was not the scourge of the<br />
1980s like it is now. It may be a national issue but the figures<br />
prove it is worse in the cities where the government has no<br />
council control. Foodbank collections in Liverpool are a reflection<br />
of the spectacular generosity that exists here but it is also a<br />
reflection of how genuinely<br />
desperate so many people have<br />
become.<br />
Perhaps change will come.<br />
The Brexit vote in Liverpool<br />
was closer than many people<br />
in Liverpool expected. Yet it is<br />
worth remembering that while<br />
Liverpool suffered because of<br />
the increase in trade with the<br />
European Economic Community<br />
in place of the British Empire,<br />
when Liverpool was at its lowest<br />
in 1993, the European Union<br />
dedicated more money than any<br />
British government in history to<br />
help start some form of recovery.<br />
A fortnight after the murder of<br />
James Bulger – just at the point<br />
where it felt like Liverpool couldn’t<br />
slump any further – funding was allocated to Merseyside, along<br />
with parts of the old East Germany and the poorest regions of<br />
Southern Italy. If parts of Liverpool feel left behind, it is mainly<br />
because of the lack of care from successive governments which<br />
have run along too similar lines rather than necessarily the EU.<br />
In writing There She Goes, I was told coldly by Professor Patrick<br />
Minford, whose economic policies defined Thatcherism and<br />
impacted so gravely on Liverpool, despite the fact he worked<br />
in the city, that the EU repulsed him because it was “a socialist<br />
machine” in so many different ways.<br />
I wonder where Liverpool will be 10 years from now. It is a<br />
city which will always be in the news because of its association<br />
with music and the council will have to challenge the interests<br />
of property developers to ensure classic venues remain open<br />
even if the land they stand on is potentially profitable. It is a city<br />
“Liverpool is a city which<br />
will always be in the news<br />
because of its association<br />
with music, crime and<br />
football. But where will it<br />
be 10 years from now?”<br />
which will always be in the news because of its association with<br />
crime, and the threat of gangsterism largely goes unreported<br />
even though there is a cocaine epidemic which goes a long way<br />
towards explaining knife crime. It is also a city which will always<br />
be in the news because of its football, and changes are necessary<br />
if the grassroots game is to survive.<br />
Supporters of Liverpool FC should be proud of the way<br />
they mobilised themselves and pushed out greedy owners at<br />
the start of this decade, as well as the way they challenge the<br />
New England venture capitalists who are currently in charge. If<br />
Liverpool manage to win the league for the first time in 30 years,<br />
maybe the greatest challenge<br />
for fan culture will arrive. What<br />
tricks will Fenway Sports Group<br />
try then?<br />
The ecosystem at Anfield is a<br />
fragile one but when it feels like<br />
everyone is pulling in the same<br />
direction, the club can seem like<br />
it is unstoppable both on and off<br />
the pitch. So long as no decisions<br />
are made that jeopardise the<br />
interests of local supporters, then<br />
Liverpool have a better chance.<br />
Other than winning football<br />
matches, the club’s priority should<br />
be to find a way to get more<br />
young Liverpudlians inside the<br />
ground.<br />
An even more significant<br />
period feels like it is ahead for<br />
Everton whose move to Bramley-Moore Dock will potentially<br />
make Liverpool’s waterfront more stunning than it is. In theory, it<br />
will re-energise a part of north Liverpool which has never really<br />
recovered from the period which sets the scene for There She<br />
Goes in the years before 1979. Ultimately, I hope the book makes<br />
younger readers particularly understand better where the city has<br />
been and where it is now coming from. !<br />
Words: Simon Hughes / @Simon_Hughes__<br />
Illustration: Mr Marbles / @mrmarblesart<br />
There She Goes – Liverpool, A City On Its Own: The Long<br />
<strong>Dec</strong>ade: 1979-1993 is out now, published by deCoubertin Books.<br />
26
GOLDEN BROWN<br />
This extract, taken from There She Goes, looks at how the owner of one of Liverpool’s most recognisable<br />
shops was forged by the city’s 1980s heroin epidemic.<br />
When a Pakistani ship carrying heroin with<br />
a street value of £1million was seized in<br />
Ellesmere Port, customs officers admitted<br />
to reporters they were losing control. It was<br />
April 1983, roughly around the time Brendan Wyatt went<br />
back to a Birkenhead flat following a night out in Liverpool.<br />
He was accompanied by a friend and two girls. What<br />
happened next surprised him. One of the girls reached into<br />
her purse and brought out some foil. “Then the smack... it<br />
was dead casual, as if they were just smoking a spliff,” he<br />
remembered, through the fug. “Don’t worry, it’s just smack –<br />
you don’t get addicted to it…”<br />
Wyatt returned to his side of the Mersey without having<br />
tried ‘this new drug’ but within a few years, it had taken<br />
him – just as it had already gripped Birkenhead by that point,<br />
where nine per cent of 16- to 24 year-olds were users.<br />
Research in the 1980s found that if you lived on the Wirral<br />
estates, particularly in the Noctorum area – which, like those in<br />
Liverpool, were hastily built in the post-war years – you were<br />
16 times more likely than the average person to die.<br />
There was one theory that smack penetrated Birkenhead’s<br />
estates just before Liverpool’s, because Liverpool’s gangsters<br />
wanted to use it as a testing ground as nobody was quite sure<br />
of heroin’s capabilities. It had been around London’s bohemian<br />
community in Soho for almost a century, but researchers<br />
believed its availability only began to spread after 1979 when<br />
revolution in Iran led to a refugee crisis across Europe. In<br />
Liverpool, smugglers marketed it as a non-addictive, smokable<br />
high; but, uncut and 90 per cent pure, it would leave users<br />
like Brendan Wyatt “off your head for hours – rather than<br />
withdrawing quickly”. It would feed off boredom, alienation and<br />
desperation.<br />
Howard Parker, whose 1985 book, Living With Heroin,<br />
dealt with case studies from the Ford Estate, believed that what<br />
happened in Liverpool and Birkenhead was a part of a cycle<br />
that began in the US in the 1960s, explaining that epidemics<br />
like these have lifespans of 10 to 15 years before the demand<br />
retreats because the next generation “won’t go near it – they’ve<br />
seen the impact”. Smack, therefore, only became ‘dirty’ and the<br />
drug of ‘losers’ when the lower orders in big numbers were<br />
hooked.<br />
Wyatt was one of them. He had grown up amongst the<br />
terraced streets of Kirkdale, a fiercely strong-willed district<br />
and working class to its core. He had a vivid memory of his<br />
childhood and could envisage being in a classroom in 1979.<br />
“Thatcher was elected in May 1979 and I remember the<br />
morning after clearly: a 12-year-old devastated by politics –<br />
can you imagine?” He had learned about the realities of life<br />
early, after his mother died when he was just four. By the time<br />
Thatcher got in, his father had already been made redundant<br />
from his job on the docks because of containerisation. “You’re<br />
suddenly finding yourself on free school dinners, which was a<br />
label to carry. I’d rather not eat than have the stigma.”<br />
He left school in 1982 and went straight into one of the<br />
dreaded Youth Training Schemes, promoted by the Tories<br />
– earning just £23.50 a week as a painter and a plumber.<br />
There had been just 11 apprenticeships and more than 3,000<br />
applicants. “We were bread to be thrown on the scrap heap,”<br />
he believed. “I went to a secondary modern school and there<br />
was never any discussion whatsoever about university options.<br />
I thought university was what you saw on University Challenge.<br />
The expectation for decades before was you’d follow your dad<br />
into the docks but when that came to a stop, there was nothing<br />
else.”<br />
Wyatt’s father died in 1984 and it turned his life upside<br />
down. He started taking heroin because of the dulling effect<br />
of the hit and his naivety to the consequences. “There were<br />
no skeletons walking around or people sleeping in doorways<br />
because the long-term impact wasn’t visible. It was still early<br />
days with heroin. You’d see big, strong, well-dressed lads in pub<br />
corners smoking it. It’s hard to explain how it makes you feel.<br />
It’s not a high like charlie, it sends you the other way quickly.<br />
It separates you from the world’s problems and your own<br />
problems; it numbs any pain. Then comes the rebound where<br />
you feel worse than you did before you took it.”<br />
Wyatt did not really stand a chance. No mother, no<br />
father, entering adulthood living in a city overwhelmed by<br />
unemployment and a drug epidemic. He was exactly the wrong<br />
age at exactly the wrong time – or the right time if you were a<br />
drug dealer. He was not the only target in this market. He and<br />
an entire generation would grow up with an ingrained drug<br />
culture – a black economy that sustained the city more than any<br />
government initiative.<br />
“For a while, the routine is great: you’re chasing the dragon<br />
and riding a wave. You’ve got all the jewellery, you’ve got a car<br />
and a lovely looking girlfriend. Anyone looking at me would<br />
have thought I was smashing it. It takes eight or nine months<br />
for it to unravel. You wake up one day and you’re skint. You<br />
think you’ve got the flu and you haven’t. You need gear to make<br />
yourself feel normal. The jewellery starts getting pawned, the<br />
car goes – you can’t afford the MOT. The girlfriend goes and<br />
then your friends go. I lost all of my friends. Not because of<br />
anything I did but because you alienate yourself. You become<br />
very selfish and all you’re interested in is that next fix. There<br />
are weddings, christenings – there’s funerals to go to. You stop<br />
going. You pull away from society. It gets around then that<br />
you’re on the gear. I’d get people coming up to me saying how<br />
disgusted they were because before, I’d been a good lad. By<br />
1988, it was really noticeable. People started swerving me<br />
completely and rightly so. I’m a mad Liverpool fan and I’ve been<br />
to 35 countries to watch them. But I can’t remember Liverpool<br />
winning the league in 1990. I didn’t give a fuck about anything<br />
else by then. That’s how much it depletes your interest in<br />
anything. The FA Cup final after Hillsborough was my last game<br />
until 1996.”<br />
Wyatt returned from Sheffield after the Hillsborough<br />
disaster and headed to the State nightclub to try and find out<br />
information about what had happened.<br />
“Everyone was crying and hugging but I didn’t cry for three<br />
weeks,” he admitted. “The only solution for me was to selfmedicate.<br />
I went right on the rollercoaster. All sorts of drugs<br />
came into play. My only memories from the early 1990s was<br />
the Sunday mornings because it was harder to get gear then.<br />
The drug dealers had their day off – just like the dockers used<br />
to on a Sunday. I was out at nine o’clock trying to score with the<br />
street dealers. I’d look at fellas walking their dogs and I’d think,<br />
‘What I’d do just to be like him.’’’<br />
“Morality flies out of the window – when you’re hooked, you<br />
get whatever you can to feed the addiction,” admitted Wyatt,<br />
who served three prison sentences in foreign countries, two<br />
in Germany, another in Switzerland – each time for shoplifting,<br />
“to feed what I needed”, which also led to him getting nicked<br />
in Liverpool several times. On one occasion, he was eligible for<br />
bail but only if he paid a long-standing £18 parking fine. “When<br />
I told the copper I was skint, he said, ‘You must have someone<br />
who can pay it…’ But I didn’t have a person in the world who<br />
could pay that fine. So, I had to do two days in Walton. The<br />
copper was saying, ‘I’d pay it myself, but I can’t’. That’s how<br />
isolated I’d made myself. I’d outrun all of my favours.”<br />
Wyatt suffered a heart attack and needed chemotherapy<br />
to treat liver damage related to his addiction. 25 years clean,<br />
he told me his story quietly in the back of the shop he now<br />
owns in Liverpool’s city centre where he sells deadstock<br />
Adidas training shoes. The name, Transalpino, refers to the<br />
sleeper he took across France, Switzerland and Italy to the<br />
1984 European Cup final in Rome, just before heroin really<br />
came into his life. He took ‘absolute’ responsibility for all of his<br />
actions as a drug user but wondered whether it would have<br />
been different for him had conditions in Liverpool been better.<br />
Wyatt, known more commonly as ‘Jockey’, estimated that<br />
more than 100 friends had died because of smack – “if you<br />
became an adult in the 1980s and you were from workingclass<br />
Liverpool, I’d imagine you have at least one family<br />
member who is still addicted, in treatment or in recovery”.<br />
“I’m one of Maggie’s children,” he concluded. “Smack<br />
made a lot of fellas my age desensitised and it has impacted<br />
the generations after us. Kids were brought up in crack dens<br />
and because of that, there’s a lot of sociopaths knocking about<br />
today. Nobody has shown them any respect so why should<br />
they show respect back?”<br />
FEATURE<br />
27
Wow. It hardly feels like 10 years since we started<br />
on this journey – how time flies when you’re in<br />
the middle of great social and political upheaval,<br />
soundtracked by music that’s as angst-ridden as<br />
it is fearless. As is common when times are tough, music acts as<br />
a salve and spark; and we can perhaps look back at the 2010s<br />
with a little more affection knowing that its soundtrack is one<br />
for the ages.<br />
The first issue of Bido Lito! came out in May 2010, shortly<br />
after the general election which saw the beginning of a punitive<br />
decade of Tory rule. Softened as it was by the coalition with<br />
the Lib Dems (think: being punched repeated by a boxing glove<br />
rather than bare knuckle), things maybe didn’t seem quite so<br />
bleak back then. Little did we know what impact austerity would<br />
have on our society, wearing away at the cultural bonds that<br />
unite us all. We arrive, jaded, at the end of the second decade of<br />
the millennium, desperate for a fresh beginning.<br />
We’ll all have our own memories that stand out from the past<br />
10 years, moments that have affected us deeply or have proven<br />
to be turning points in our own lives. For our look back at the<br />
decade just gone, we’ve asked some of our core team of writers<br />
to pick out a selection of key cultural moments that they believe<br />
have had the greatest impact on our collective consciousness.<br />
We could quite easily have filled a book on dozens more<br />
memories – indeed, we’ve filled <strong>106</strong> magazines with them – so<br />
our selection is far from definitive, merely a snapshot. Therefore,<br />
if anything comes to mind, we’d like you to send us your own<br />
cultural moments from the past decade that you feel are worthy<br />
of mention.<br />
The collection of tribes and scenes that make up our music<br />
community is undoubtedly much changed: healthier and more<br />
diverse in many ways; but lacking greatly in others, not least in<br />
the infrastructure around the music venues that are the lifeblood<br />
of a community of inter-dependent independents. From Static to<br />
the Baltic Triangle, noise has been a constant issue, making us<br />
face up to what kind of place we want our city centre to be. The<br />
coming decade will see that battle continue, and it is up to us to<br />
work out how we create an environment that is equal parts music<br />
city, party city and destination city.<br />
We also need to encourage, or make space for, more<br />
collectives to add their voices to the hubbub, especially those<br />
from the worlds of jazz, grime/trap and hip hop. The underground<br />
dance, electronic and experimental purveyors that have coalesced<br />
around 24 Kitchen Street in the Baltic Triangle, for example,<br />
is surely one of the biggest, warmest successes of culture-led<br />
regeneration in the past decade – although there are fears it’s<br />
now in reverse. And we should look beyond the confines of the<br />
city centre – much like the seeds of growth around Smithdown<br />
Road – if we’re to find further fertile places for our noisy artists to<br />
flourish.<br />
I’ve enjoyed seeing some of these tribes develop in a musical<br />
context over the years, not least those underground scenes that<br />
gathered around Strange Collective’s and Eggy Records’ DIY<br />
events. Queen Zee provided a momentous moment for queer<br />
visibility when they headlined Pride in 2018, which has also<br />
been buoyed by the work of Sonic Yootha and Preach. Stealing<br />
Sheep gathered their whole scene around them for a brilliant<br />
representation of their varied world when they filmed a video<br />
with Jack Whiteley and Joe Wills in the Kazimier Garden; which<br />
was just as exciting to witness as was XamVolo’s entrance to the<br />
GIT Awards in 2015, when a new sense of possibility descended<br />
the stairs onto the Kazimier stage with him. The re-emergence of<br />
Mick Head has also been particularly warming to see, with long<br />
overdue recognition rightfully coming his way.<br />
It is a great tragedy that some people haven’t been able to<br />
see this all play out, not least Alan Wills and Tony Butler, two<br />
pillars of Liverpool music in the prior decade. The respect that<br />
both men commanded has been carried on by new torch-bearers,<br />
and their impact will still be felt as we embark on a new decade.<br />
We must also remember the memories of the talented young<br />
musicians from the groups Viola Beach and Her’s, who tragically<br />
passed away. The best way we can honour their memories is<br />
to make sure that the great work they started gets completed,<br />
and that their stories are remembered for future generations to<br />
discover.<br />
It’s easy to get side-tracked by the flashy, large-scale events<br />
that we’ve become used to and forget about the more basic,<br />
grassroots cultural institutions that we need to encourage. Yet,<br />
we also shouldn’t play down the impact of great communal<br />
moments – giants, parades, fireworks – in bringing the city<br />
together and restoring some much-needed collective pride.<br />
Whether you agree with the fence or not, LIMF is a massive<br />
upgrade on the Mathew Street festival, and is a far more<br />
progressive way of celebrating music for a city with a reputation<br />
on a global scale; and Sound City has re-discovered its heart,<br />
after a brief sojourn down on the docks. Watching together,<br />
dancing together, celebrating; that’s the very essence of culture.<br />
This was our culture – what was yours? !<br />
God Save The Florrie<br />
Community action in Liverpool is a powerful force. The<br />
changes that can be brought about by collaboration, by the<br />
bringing together of people from diverse backgrounds for the<br />
benefit of all, is something this city does well. By necessity<br />
more than desire, more often than not.<br />
A fine example of this is the Florence Institute, or The<br />
Florrie. A beautiful, Grade II late Victorian former boys’ club<br />
at the heart of Liverpool 8, The Florrie was in a perilous<br />
state of decay until a group of impassioned individuals with<br />
community ties to the building formed a trust to restore it to<br />
its former glory, and open it as a wholly inclusive community<br />
centre for all. Eight years and over £6 million later, The Florrie<br />
opened its doors to the community in 2012. Later, with the<br />
arrival of director Anne Lundon, The Florrie moved towards a<br />
programme of culture and creativity as a way of supporting<br />
the community and building cohesion.<br />
Today, The Florrie is both proactive and reactive in<br />
responding to the needs of the community and provides a<br />
wealth of activities, from belly dancing lessons to reading<br />
groups, art sessions to yoga and circus skills. Plus, of course,<br />
the now legendary guitar group run by the Tea Street Band’s<br />
A DECADE<br />
Placing one final exclamation mark at the<br />
end of the 2010s, a selection of Bido Lito!<br />
writers pick out some of the most important<br />
cultural moments to have taken place in<br />
Liverpool over the course of the past decade.<br />
Resurrecting The Everyman<br />
Demolishing a theatre is a dangerous thing. Once it’s gone, what<br />
happens to all the ghosts?<br />
When the elderly Everyman Theatre was knocked down in 2011,<br />
efforts were made to encourage its theatrical spirits to stick around. Its<br />
bricks were saved, its site was preserved, and when the regenerated<br />
Everyman finally opened on 2nd March 2014 – complete with its<br />
startling façade featuring 105 life-size Liverpudlians – it was a relief<br />
to find that the box-fresh new venue somehow felt as if it had always<br />
been there.<br />
Not all its ghosts came back. The reinvented Everyman Bistro never<br />
recaptured the magic that had made its previous incarnation into one<br />
of Liverpool’s most energised cultural hubs. But with its youth theatre<br />
space and its writers’ room, and its homely auditorium performing the<br />
trick of pretending it never went away, the Everyman remains a piece<br />
of Hope Street heaven – a resting place for old ghosts and for spectres<br />
yet to come.<br />
Damon Fairclough<br />
Timo Tierney. With happenings and exhibitions from notables<br />
such as Jamie Reid and Jimmy Cauty, The KLF, Michael<br />
Head, The La’s and Greg Wilson’s 14-hour Super Weird<br />
Happening in the mix, The Florrie has firmly established itself<br />
in the cultural beat of the city. By the community, for the<br />
community. #GodSaveTheFlorrie.<br />
Paul Fitzgerald<br />
Jemma Timberlake / jemmatimberlake.co.uk<br />
Words: Christopher Torpey / @CATorp<br />
30
OF<br />
EXCLAMATION<br />
Community Assemble<br />
It was 2006 when Laurence Westgaph said to me that FACT should have been<br />
built in Toxteth. Liverpool was in peak city centre regeneration at that point and<br />
there was still an assumption that to have good art it needs to be in the centre, and<br />
in a building.<br />
The night of the Turner Prize in 2015, Granby CLT hired out Liverpool Small<br />
Cinema. No one expected the Four Streets and Assemble to win the coveted arts<br />
prize. The pictures of when they win remind me of Liverpool in Istanbul in 2005. The<br />
underdogs become the obvious choice.<br />
Just a handful of years before, the residents of Granby were still convincing the<br />
council they deserved to keep their homes. After the win, they’re fielding calls from<br />
all over the world.<br />
Before then, community was a thing many arts organisations used to tick boxes.<br />
You’d get a few gems, but we’re talking top down, not bottom up.<br />
Post 2015, you can’t get away with pretending. Liverpool needed a kick up the<br />
arse. It needed art that was by its people if it wanted to be for its people. It needed<br />
reminding its art scene always works when it’s a bit punk; a bit less curated for a<br />
CV. It’s not there yet, but it’s a shift in power. Liverpool’s art scene needed a punk<br />
moment, and this was quite punk.<br />
Laura Brown<br />
Niloo Sharifi<br />
K Is For Kazimier<br />
A spaceship being hoisted over Wolstenholme Square, sparks flying off its<br />
base, following a symbolic battle between the evil Monotopia developers and<br />
Captain Kronos, astride a giant ostrich. You couldn’t have imagined a better sendoff<br />
for The Kazimier, the venue that was the creative, madcap, maverick focal point<br />
of artistic possibility in Liverpool.<br />
The night that the Kaz closed, New Year’s Eve 2015, was a momentous,<br />
ambitious celebration of all that the venue-cum-club had come to stand for. By the<br />
time the great burning K sign lit up the night sky, the writing had already long been<br />
daubed on the wall: Wolstenholme Square had already been shorn of MelloMello<br />
and Wolstenholme Creative Space – fellow outsider, independent spaces run by<br />
artists, for artists. Prior to their arrival, it was a part of town where people wouldn’t<br />
dare venture; since their departure, the square has succumbed to the endless<br />
sprawl of Liverpool ONE and premium city centre living apartments. Only the<br />
Kazimier Garden and Penelope light installation remain, towered over by flats and<br />
hemmed in by ‘vertical drinking establishments’ and ‘retail opportunities’.<br />
The escape to Planet Kronos ultimately only took the remaining Kazimier team<br />
as far as the Invisible Wind Factory in the North Docks – but the metaphorical<br />
flight of the city’s creative heart outside of the city centre still hasn’t materialised.<br />
The Baltic Triangle and Ten Streets projects aren’t quite the promised lands they<br />
first seemed, and a gaping, K-shaped hole still remains at the heart of Liverpool’s<br />
creative scene.<br />
Christopher Torpey<br />
Diggin’ Your Selections<br />
The vinyl boom hit Liverpool city centre after a lengthy period of<br />
slim pickings for those preferring the physical product in its traditional<br />
format, the omnipresent Probe aside. Dig Vinyl launching on Bold<br />
Street five years ago was a game changer, a second-hand record shop<br />
with knowledgeable staff well-armed with picky good tastes and<br />
attuned to customers’ wants.<br />
As a lifelong collector, Manchester was a common destination<br />
before Dig’s arrival, but the record-buying community here is now able<br />
to indulge in a wider tour of record shops on home turf thanks to the<br />
opening of Dig: Phase One/Jacaranda, 81 Renshaw and Pop Boutique.<br />
There’s a marked difference between a record shop and a space which<br />
simply has records for sale. Dig is securely in the former category – as<br />
is now the case with stores that followed – supporting new releases<br />
from new local artists and signposting rarities, but equally open to tips<br />
from those they sell to.<br />
Cath Holland<br />
FEATURE<br />
31
Robin Clewley / robinclewley.co.uk<br />
Lucy Roberts / lucyannerobertsillustration.co.uk<br />
Small Space For The Big Screen<br />
I’ll let you into a secret about Liverpool Small Cinema, which was open between 2015<br />
and 2017 in Liverpool city centre. If the audience were laughing, or recoiling in horror, the wall<br />
of the projection booth would bulge, reacting to the force of the reaction. I first noticed it at<br />
a screening of John Waters’ Female Trouble, which managed to get the 56-seat crowd to do<br />
both.<br />
The space, on Victoria Street, was willed into existence by Sam Meech, arts project Re-<br />
Dock and a gang of volunteers. The place was built entirely through donations and offcuts and<br />
screened a huge variety of films. From a 24-hour Groundhog Day marathon, to championing<br />
female directors, offering LBGTQ+ screenings and somewhere for local film-makers to screen,<br />
it offered a home to many unable to use spaces like Odeon.<br />
It was completely its own thing and open to all. Now it’s a hotel bar, as the developers<br />
moved in. But, for a couple of years, it was ours and it felt we could do anything in the city.<br />
Chris Brown<br />
Dividing Wall<br />
The repeated destruction of Banu Cennetoğlu’s posters along Great George Street,<br />
which acted as a collection of records about refugee and migrant deaths, was an unsettling<br />
moment.<br />
It dented the city’s sense of self-identity as giving welcome to all, where fascists and<br />
anyone who would exclude minorities is quickly sent packing. But it also forced us to<br />
answer to the previously-hypothetical question of how such an attack is responded to. And<br />
the final decision to leave the work in shreds felt, to many, unsatisfactory. This was already<br />
a work which had been criticised for “aestheticising” tragedy. To stop repairing it felt like a<br />
confirmation that The List was more focused on violence than on advocating for the rights<br />
of the most vulnerable.<br />
The List’s fate has left its scars, but its real legacy should be a deep questioning of<br />
culture’s role in visualising and platforming empathy.<br />
Julia Johnson<br />
No Festival Today<br />
If we’re honest, Liverpool’s music community can be quite a hostile place to outsiders. Outsiders bringing what seemed to be a festival<br />
themed around British colonialism with a line-up consisting solely of Britpop also-rans were duly met with scepticism in 2017. Hope<br />
And Glory Festival came from nowhere and no one seemed to know who was behind the garishly-branded shindig. That would change,<br />
however.<br />
Ticket sales went well. There was clearly an appetite to see Embrace rub shoulders with The Pigeon Detectives on the Amritsar<br />
Massacre stage before the lad from Keane presented a screening of Zulu in the main room at St George’s Hall. However, when the<br />
weekend came, like the empire it looked to celebrate, things started to fall apart.<br />
I happened to walk past the festival site shortly before midday on the opening day. As I peered through the Heras fencing, past the<br />
B&M Bargains plastic flamingo garden ornament, I thought it unusual that the build seemed only three-quarters finished so close to doors.<br />
The bulldog spirit would no doubt prevail though. Later that day social media was rife with discontent. Queues stretching up London<br />
Road, not enough bars or toilets and timings running so far behind schedule bands had to find alternative venues to play. And it got worse.<br />
The words ‘no festival today’ have rightly been etched into Liverpool music folklore. This is how the Hope And Glory communications<br />
team (or most likely, the man in charge) chose to break the news that the event, which had been promoted for over a year and had Ocean<br />
Colour Scene fans sleeplessly anticipating all summer, would not be going into its second day. And the drama did not finish there.<br />
Predictably there was a mixture of horror, mockery and anger on social media. The organiser, outed as Lee O’Hanlon, was digitally<br />
hung, drawn and quartered. O’Hanlon didn’t help his case by responding to many social media missives with flippancy and truculence.<br />
A more expansive (and bizarre) statement was released in the week after the festival, pointing the blame at a Liverpool City Council<br />
employee who briefly became a cult hero and talking at length about where they stored the sandwiches and milk.<br />
Hope And Glory was a trailblazer in glorious festival fuck-ups. Unfortunately, there is no slick Netflix documentary and fly-by-night<br />
events do keep happening, but what it did provide Liverpool with is a cautionary tale and some of the funniest moments of the past<br />
decade. Outsiders are very welcome. Just don’t bring jingoism, please. Or Razorlight.<br />
Sam Turner<br />
32
John Johnson / @John.johno<br />
Giant Steps?<br />
When the Giants found their way their way back to Liverpool in 2018, it was<br />
a moment of celebration, but one to reflect on.<br />
Liverpool changed in 2008. The year as European Capital of Culture<br />
established the city on the world stage as a destination. A place to be. The<br />
figures say that growth has increased by £1.6 billion year-on-year since the<br />
end of 2008. Perceptions outside the city have certainly changed. Liverpool is a<br />
modern, forward-facing city, not only proud of its contribution to the arts, culture<br />
and sport, but dependent, more than ever before, on that contribution for its<br />
future. Maybe the full legacy will only be known in years to come, when we have<br />
the true bigger picture.<br />
The city mandarins talk of growth, of investment. From street level,<br />
however, that growth looks to be more about the Blade Runner claustrophobia<br />
of Wolstenholme Square, or the sheer whatthefuckery of the Lime Street<br />
development, a prestigious entry point to the city with the grand opulence of<br />
William Brown Street to one side and a grim metal box showcasing a new<br />
branch of Lidl to the other. Maybe this is the legacy for some. Culture comes<br />
from people, though, and that means the grassroots. Art needs space. It needs<br />
support and nourishment. So, while it’s no doubt an achievement for the city<br />
council, in the face of central government cuts, to protect the Biennial, or Sound<br />
City, Africa Oyé and LightNight, there is still a glaring need for the council to<br />
better support grassroots culture. That should be the true legacy.<br />
Paul Fitzgerald<br />
Haring at Tate<br />
Keith Haring’s presence in Liverpool was palpable all summer and into the<br />
winter of <strong>2019</strong>. Emblazoned on buses and T-shirts and collectables, with DJs in<br />
every other venue paying homage.<br />
Tate Liverpool housing the first major UK exhibition of Haring’s work felt<br />
like the North Star in a widening sky of constellations that are reorientating the<br />
city’s pull as a cultural destination. Vibrant, urgent and playful, Haring’s output<br />
has a humanity to it that resonated with the city. What’s more joy-inducing than<br />
Shazam-ing the shit out of the tracks played in a curtained room where his Day<br />
Glo works sit under UV light? What’s more sobering than understanding that his<br />
work was made in the face of a wilfully ignorant Reagan administration during<br />
the AIDS crisis? The exhibition was attractive and important.<br />
It can be all too easy for the face of the city to rely on certain tropes while<br />
its underbelly swells with a cutting edge not necessarily seen by those outside<br />
of Liverpool. Haring didn’t put Liverpool on the map, but his work has helped to<br />
broaden our horizons, and others’ perception of the city as a cultural destination.<br />
Bethany Garrett<br />
Streets Ahead<br />
My first visit to 24 Kitchen Street saw dust tumbling<br />
from the ceiling, such was the size of the sound system<br />
drafted in to celebrate Less Effect hosting Objekt. Since<br />
then, the music policy of the club has followed a similar<br />
track. Although now it’s likely small-scale debris drifting<br />
down from the ceiling can be attributed to the army of drills<br />
burrowing in the foundations of luxury apartments next<br />
door.<br />
The rise of the Baltic Triangle was one of the most<br />
positive in the slew of recent city centre developments. The<br />
work of Baltic CIC set the foundations for a new chapter<br />
in Liverpool’s electronic music scene, giving rise to 24<br />
Kitchen Street, Constellations, Camp and Furnace, Haus,<br />
Baltic Weekender and microclimate tastemakers Melodic<br />
Distraction Radio. A pared back answer to Detroit and<br />
Berlin’s repurposing of defunct industrial spaces, these<br />
homes to artistic endeavour and escapism are now ever<br />
more surrounded by simply homes, short term rentals and<br />
aspirational studio flats with necessary balcony to take in<br />
your achievements. Such apartments stand ever taller over<br />
Kitchen Street; Constellations is to be swept aside; the<br />
remaining venues in the district do their best to rattle the<br />
double glazing of local professionals.<br />
For a moment Liverpool had a thriving creative district<br />
and night time scene that was its own, free from large scale<br />
residential intrusion. Crane your neck on Jamaica Street now<br />
and it’ll be hard to see how a sound system large enough to<br />
rattle a building to its core will ever be able to feature again.<br />
Elliot Ryder<br />
Robin Clewley / robinclewley.co.uk<br />
If you’d like a soundtrack to these cultural moments, head<br />
to bidolito.co.uk to listen to our <strong>Dec</strong>ade Dansette — a selection of<br />
tracks that stood out to us as memorable markers along the way.<br />
FEATURE<br />
33
SPOTLIGHT<br />
ALEX TELEKO<br />
“Songwriting can<br />
be so selfish at<br />
times, especially<br />
when you’re<br />
dealing with your<br />
own emotions”<br />
Leaping from synth wave to<br />
the digital age, ALEX TELEKO<br />
drinks in addictive 80s melody<br />
and convulses to the maddening<br />
beats and bleeps of the<br />
contemporary era.<br />
A by-product, birthed in the ceaseless surge of an intense<br />
digital labyrinth, 22-year-old ALEX TELEKO coolly steps onto the<br />
scene breathing words radiating a reluctant truth we flinch from.<br />
But it’s not entirely confrontational. His artistry also possesses a<br />
narcissistically relatable demur that we can’t help but concede to.<br />
Based in Liverpool, this modern innovator takes his selfdesigned<br />
concepts and manipulates them in a way that reveals<br />
his lust for digital emotion: “I’ve written music in many styles for<br />
a long time, but recently I’ve been trying to draw human emotion<br />
out of a computer instead.”<br />
A self-proclaimed crooner who produces “midi ballads in<br />
synthesis”, Teleko is not one to sugar-coat the reality we share. A<br />
realist who strives towards challenging the general perception of<br />
contemporary music, while also keeping his feet on the ground,<br />
he tells us that his creative intellect hasn’t always resided in<br />
music. “I much preferred the idea of becoming a train driver<br />
or a firefighter. However, some aspirations are unobtainable,<br />
so creating music seemed like a stable fallback plan.” Big<br />
aspirations steered his path, noting a wish to support the fondlyremembered<br />
Europop of Steps, because, “Why not?”<br />
As far as inspiration goes, he is his own muse. That is not to<br />
say further musical influence is obsolete. “My head has always<br />
been very scatterbrain, so I would absorb anything that had a<br />
strong melody or hook,” he explains. “That could be anything from<br />
police sirens echoing outside to chart-topping singles on the radio,<br />
so I don’t think I could pinpoint one piece of music, purely because<br />
everything with a musical nature acts as a form of inspiration.”<br />
Spurred on by an inwardly pleasing writing style, he goes on<br />
to explain how “songwriting can be so selfish at times, especially<br />
when you’re dealing with your own emotions and experiences,<br />
which I regularly interject into what I create”. It’s this strong sense<br />
of narcissism that some believe makes Teleko so delightfully<br />
appropriate for listeners nowadays: he accommodates them<br />
with a real human voice they can associate with, all the while still<br />
serving hard-hitting, bassy synths.<br />
That being said, Teleko admits to enjoying the more<br />
mischievous side of production: “I like to use my writing as a form<br />
of people watching, too, stalking the odd habits and tendencies of<br />
others, it provides some sense of entertainment.” Not just a theme<br />
in his writing, this also makes an appearance in performance: “I very<br />
much enjoy playing Call Me Digital. I like how, despite its upbeat<br />
exterior, there is a tormented and sick meaning at the centre of the<br />
song. It’s a good juxtaposition to me, to have something abrasive<br />
and visceral mixed with what is a seemingly pleasant surroundings.<br />
It probably says a lot about me subliminally.”<br />
Having performed mainly in Liverpool – with the exception<br />
of the odd anomaly – Moon Duo at the Invisible Wind Factory<br />
and Future Yard Festival have been notable highlights. Ultimately<br />
his favourite would be the former, despite the fact that it was<br />
“bordering on temperatures parallel with the Arctic Circle, but<br />
it’s an amazing space”. It’ll take more than temperature to halt<br />
Teleko’s infatuation with live performance, however, as he has a<br />
number of shows lined up to round off <strong>2019</strong>, beginning with the<br />
Merseyrail Sound Station showcase at Liverpool Central on 30th<br />
November.<br />
Which other artists does Teleko think others should be made<br />
aware of? “Die Orangen are one of the great acts coming out on<br />
Malka Tuti, an experimental label based across Europe with its<br />
roots in Tel Aviv. Khidja and Tapan are others on their roster that<br />
are worth checking out.”<br />
It’s safe to say that, with taste this eclectic, there are inspiring<br />
things to come from this young emerging artist. !<br />
Words: Anouska Liat<br />
Photography: Luke Parry<br />
@alexteleko<br />
Alex Teleko support Natalie McCool on 14th <strong>Dec</strong>ember at Arts<br />
Club, and appears at the Eggy Records NYE show at Sound.<br />
34
ABBY<br />
MEYSENBURG<br />
Arresting lyricism and delicate<br />
instrumentation are gently weaved<br />
together by this Seattle native<br />
quietly causing a stir.<br />
“Songwriting has<br />
proven to be the<br />
most cathartic<br />
communication of<br />
what I am feeling<br />
and thinking”<br />
If you had to describe your style in a sentence, what would you<br />
say?<br />
Lyrically driven indie-folkrockpop.<br />
Can you pinpoint a live gig or a piece of music that initially<br />
inspired you?<br />
When I was 14 I had the opportunity to see one of my favourite<br />
bands at the time (The Head And The Heart) play in an old<br />
theatre in Seattle, where I’m originally from. I had waited in the<br />
queue for three hours and ended up in the front row. It was<br />
the band’s first hometown show in a long time and I remember<br />
witnessing their collective energy, as well as their gratitude<br />
towards the crowd and the city, and immediately wanting nothing<br />
more than to be in a band.<br />
Do you have a favourite song or piece of music to perform?<br />
What does it say about you?<br />
I really enjoy performing unreleased songs. They’re often new<br />
and fresh to myself and the band and bringing them outside the<br />
practice room is a lot of fun.<br />
Do you have a favourite venue you’ve performed in? If so, what<br />
makes it special?<br />
A few days before I moved to the UK, I played a farewell/EP<br />
release show with my old band in the violinist’s backyard. We<br />
hung lights and made lanterns, our friends sat on lawn chairs and<br />
blankets, and my mom baked cookies. It was super wholesome.<br />
What do you think is the overriding influence on your<br />
songwriting: other art, emotions, current affairs – or a mixture<br />
of all of these?<br />
Definitely emotions and experiences. I tend to wear my heart on<br />
my sleeve, but songwriting/performing has proven to be the most<br />
cathartic communication of what I am feeling and thinking.<br />
Have you always wanted to create music?<br />
I’ve always loved performing, whether it be ‘talent shows’ at my<br />
family gatherings, school plays, or covering songs on YouTube<br />
with my friends. I attended an arts-oriented high school and it<br />
was there that I began to take songwriting more seriously.<br />
If you could support any artist in the future, who would it be?<br />
Phoebe Bridgers or Lucy Dacus, probably. Both of them have<br />
been big inspirations to my own music, although I get a pit in my<br />
stomach just imagining what I’d say in the green room.<br />
Why is music important to you?<br />
I think music is a great platform for individuals to communicate<br />
their complex thoughts, feelings and experiences. Often, I’ve<br />
found the words I’ve been looking for to explain myself in<br />
someone else’s lyrics. That makes me feel a whole lot less alone<br />
in the world.<br />
Can you recommend an artist, band or album that Bido Lito!<br />
readers might not have heard?<br />
There’s a whole lot more to the Seattle music scene than grunge<br />
and there are a lot of fantastic artists in that area right now.<br />
Cataldo and OK Sweetheart are a couple of my favourites.<br />
Photography: Lucia Matušíková<br />
facebook.com/ameysenburgmusic<br />
Abby Meysenburg plays the Merseyrail Sound Station showcase<br />
at Liverpool Central Station on Saturday 30th November.<br />
MINCEMEAT<br />
Building their sound around the dull<br />
fuzz of an unearthed £50 1960s Tiesco<br />
guitar, MINCEMEAT come out all guns<br />
blazing with pummelling, bone-shaking<br />
controlled chaos.<br />
“MINCEMEAT<br />
happened after<br />
coming across a<br />
terrible cheap guitar<br />
with a fantastically<br />
nasty sound”<br />
If you had to describe your music in a sentence, what would<br />
you say?<br />
Fast/slow garage punk rock clatter with a bit of motorik and some<br />
other oddities thrown in.<br />
Have you always wanted to create music? How did you get<br />
into it?<br />
We’ve all played in bands for a while, but MINCEMEAT happened<br />
after coming across a terrible cheap guitar with a fantastically<br />
nasty sound. It became an interesting project to try to write<br />
songs around its sound.<br />
Do you have a favourite song or piece of music to perform?<br />
What does it say about you?<br />
Probably one of the ones we’ve played least. Suck In from the<br />
new EP is a good, screamy glam guy which isn’t too exhausting<br />
to play, so possibly that one. What does that one say about us?<br />
That we get bored easily and we’re out of shape.<br />
Can you pinpoint a live gig or a piece of music that initially<br />
inspired you?<br />
Our first show was supporting Detroit garage gods The Gories.<br />
It was so much fun and really exciting to be playing on the same<br />
stage. Their stripped-down, ‘just smash through it’ approach to<br />
rock ’n’ roll informed the way we created songs. They’ve done<br />
loads of more ‘complex’ music in different outfits since their first<br />
recordings. We asked Danny the guitarist if it was hard to forget<br />
how to play the guitar for The Gories shows and he just acted like<br />
he had no idea what we were on about. It was kind of great that<br />
he didn’t understand how he was channelling all this primitivist<br />
noise.<br />
Do you have a favourite venue you’ve performed in? If so, what<br />
makes it special?<br />
Drop The Dumbulls Gallery. It’s got a great atmosphere and<br />
the shows are usually carnage. Plus, Jake and the staff are all<br />
sweethearts.<br />
If you could support any artist in the future, who would it be?<br />
Ohmns.<br />
What do you think is the overriding influence on your<br />
songwriting: other art, emotions, current affairs – or a mixture<br />
of all of these?<br />
Our lyrics tend to sound like blurred string of undiscernible barks,<br />
but there are actual words. They often materialise from a variety<br />
of different areas. Sometimes the visual arts, literature, cinema,<br />
experiences, mental health, politics and the general flotsam and<br />
jetsam of the human condition.<br />
Photography: Lauren Avery<br />
facebook.com/mincemeatmusic<br />
Mincemeat’s EP Aroma is out now.<br />
SPOTLIGHT<br />
35
Bristol electronic three-piece BEAK> have been a<br />
creative force for a decade now – and they continue<br />
to reach new heights on nothing but their own terms.<br />
Considering the immersive and compelling musical<br />
landscapes they’ve become known for, the concept behind the<br />
band is actually relatively simple: it’s about creating explorative<br />
music free from any bullshit or expectations.<br />
An outlet for the three to experiment and innovate away<br />
from their other musical endeavours, the band is in healthier<br />
shape than ever before (although you can be sure Geoff<br />
Barrow would have a self-deprecating joke to hand about that<br />
statement).<br />
Following another ambitious year on the road and in the<br />
studio, they’re hitting the Arts Club as part of their <strong>Dec</strong>ember<br />
UK tour. As Rhys Buchanan picked up the phone to bassist Billy<br />
Fuller to chat about their last 12 months, the ever-present sense<br />
of drive and community behind the band remains palpable.<br />
PREVIEWS<br />
So, two glorious releases in the last few years, how’s it all<br />
been in your world?<br />
It’s been super productive since we’ve done our third album<br />
[>>>] and the last EP [Life Goes On]. We’ve been going to new<br />
places as well which is always refreshing. This year Mexico has<br />
been really good for us – we never thought anything like that<br />
would ever happen, but we played a festival there and it seemed<br />
to just land, the crowd went crazy for it. So the organisers of the<br />
festival had us back for a show in Mexico City and Guadalajara<br />
a few weeks ago. Both shows sold out and they want us back<br />
again next year. When we first started to do Beak>, I never<br />
expected anything like that to happen. It’s crazy reaching such<br />
heavy heights. We’re just buzzing now and really excited for the<br />
upcoming UK tour.<br />
You’ve been a band for a long time now, do those moments<br />
keep you motivated?<br />
That’s always a massive motivation for us, getting to play all<br />
of these great places and seeing all of the happy faces. The<br />
other motivation is to make tunes that excite us away from the<br />
other bands that we’ve been in, which is the reason why we<br />
got together. It’s still a totally different experience; it’s the most<br />
interesting band that I’ve ever been in and long may it last. We<br />
wouldn’t do it if we weren’t having fun. It’s all about enjoying<br />
ourselves and making good music.<br />
Do you think that element of freedom is a massive part of<br />
Beak> for you guys?<br />
Yeh, sometimes it’s not even very serious. I don’t know if you’ve<br />
seen our live shows, but sometimes we just take the piss out<br />
of each other onstage. A friend of mine said the other day they<br />
heard someone saying we’re like a comedy act with songs inbetween.<br />
It’s mostly about when we get in the room together,<br />
we don’t discuss much, we just fire things around, some things<br />
land and some things don’t. We all come up with stuff, bring<br />
ideas in and other times we do it on the fly in the studio. There’s<br />
not much discussion about it, we’re just trying to push for<br />
something we haven’t done before. We don’t want to repeat<br />
ourselves from here on in.<br />
That seems true of your live schedule, as well: earlier in the<br />
year you played on a bridge in Bristol for Extinction Rebellion<br />
which felt quite spontaneous...<br />
That came about because I had to go into town for some<br />
shopping – I didn’t even know that was happening. I walked past<br />
Bristol Bridge and I was like, ‘Hang on a second what’s going<br />
on here?’ I was there for about an hour chatting to people and<br />
thought it would be cool if they were up for us doing it. We went<br />
to play some tunes there and played a different set to bring some<br />
attention to it all. It worked out really well, we did a couple of<br />
Gary Numan tunes like Cars because everyone was frustrated<br />
with the traffic, then we did a cover of Pigbag which went down<br />
great. I think there’s a good video of that online.<br />
This year you’ve got another Christmas charity event lined up<br />
helping the homeless in Bristol.<br />
Do you feel like it’s important to<br />
be engaged with the community<br />
as a band?<br />
You’ve always got to be active and<br />
look out for other people. We’ve<br />
always believed in that and will<br />
always do it. The ‘Give A Shit<br />
Christmas’ thing is something that<br />
we’ll do every <strong>Dec</strong>ember as long<br />
as we’re together. I don’t know<br />
what it’s like in Liverpool, but the<br />
scale of the homeless problem is<br />
the worst it’s ever been in Bristol.<br />
I don’t want to get too political,<br />
but I put a lot of blame on the Tory<br />
government and austerity for that.<br />
There should always be money available for a human being.<br />
Everybody is someone’s son or daughter out there and people<br />
are dying. It’s disgusting and we’re not up for it. That’s the<br />
reason why we do this event for local charities every year. Last<br />
year we raised £9,000 and, with a bigger venue, this year we’re<br />
hoping to get five times that.<br />
GIG<br />
BEAK><br />
EVOL @ Arts Club – 05/12<br />
“I don’t want to<br />
be responsible for<br />
boring anyone. I think<br />
it’s best to keep it<br />
interesting and keep<br />
the hooks coming”<br />
Constantly sharpening the edges of their three-sided setup, these<br />
masters of sonic immersion know better than most how to keep it<br />
sounding fresh.<br />
Speaking of that sense of community, to what extent does<br />
having Invada Studios at your disposal help the band’s fluidity?<br />
The fact that it’s there for us is invaluable to be honest. It’s like<br />
a miniature Motown. When you go in, it’s like the label. All the<br />
records are there ready for mailorder;<br />
the releases are everywhere,<br />
filed away. We rehearse in the<br />
same room that we record in.<br />
When it first started we could<br />
pick and choose when we went in.<br />
Now we have to book a lot further<br />
in advance. It’s great when we’re<br />
in because we have it and can do<br />
some serious damage. It’s deluxe,<br />
really. We’re spoilt.<br />
Your songs are quite sprawling<br />
and immersive. How disciplined<br />
do you need to be when it comes<br />
to playing live?<br />
As a live thing, we never do any jamming; there’s never any<br />
heads-down, doing a Hawkwind kind of thing. People are<br />
always surprised by that. Otherwise, if there was anything more<br />
to get out of it then we would do it on track. I’m not putting<br />
anyone down, but I find that when a band’s head goes down<br />
they just starting whacking on the wah-wah and the fuzz pedal<br />
and they’ve had one too many goes on the bong. It just bores<br />
me. I don’t want to be responsible for boring anyone. I think it’s<br />
best to keep it interesting and keep the hooks coming.<br />
They’ve been coming for some time now and it seems it will be<br />
that way long into the future?<br />
Yeh, it’s all a discipline because, ultimately, we go through a lot<br />
of pain to make an album. The first album was the easiest thing<br />
we’d ever done because we didn’t properly know each other back<br />
then. So, we went into the studio, had a cup of tea, set our gear<br />
up and just started playing. The first song on the first album is<br />
us playing for the very first time in the studio. That all came very<br />
quick and easy because it was so natural. Then you go on tour<br />
and find out who you are, then once you’re involved then you’re<br />
working within parameters from there on in. Album four, which<br />
we’re starting work on in the new year, will be another adventure/<br />
headache/brilliant experience. If we’re up, then hopefully we’ll<br />
carry on making good and interesting music. That’s where it lies<br />
really. It’s not that difficult to think about, if we’re happy then the<br />
music will come out the back of it. !<br />
Words: Rhys Buchanan / @Rhys_Buchanan<br />
Photography: Daniel Patlán-Desde<br />
@BeakBristol<br />
Beak> play Arts Club on Thursday 5th <strong>Dec</strong>ember. Life Goes On is<br />
available now via Invada Records.<br />
PREVIEWS<br />
37
STUDIO ELECTROPHONIQUE is the new project of<br />
former High Hazels frontman James Leesley. The<br />
first signing to Violette Records which isn’t a Micheal<br />
Head project, the debut Electrophonique EP Buxton<br />
Palace Hotel sees Leesley and his ‘imaginary band’ create a<br />
microcosm which lies somewhere between kitchen sink drama<br />
and The Velvet Underground. Balancing love and its inevitable<br />
pitfalls with a raw yet delicate sound, the Steel City balladeer’s<br />
first output has already captured the imaginations of the likes of<br />
Richard Hawley and Pete Paphides.<br />
On a cold Friday night, Matthew Hogarth caught him on the<br />
other end of the line shortly after a winter evening kick-a-bout.<br />
PREVIEWS<br />
Sonically, the songs sound a bit like The Velvet Underground<br />
if they’d recorded in the North of England. Who and what<br />
influenced you to start Studio Electrophonique?<br />
I’ve been listening to music all my life, a lot of different varied<br />
things. The Velvets kind of got me into music properly, but<br />
growing up I listened to Oasis and Coldplay on the radio. They<br />
were on the radio, but obviously you kind of get into the darker<br />
and more obscured side in your own time. I’ve been playing<br />
music for a long time with a band but that kind of ran its course,<br />
quite naturally, and I just had a lot of ideas in my head that<br />
weren’t complicated enough that they’d need a band. In a way<br />
they were almost on a four-track up there, in my head. I felt like<br />
my head only had enough space for the melodies and a bigger<br />
accompaniment in mind. I’ve always wanted a four-track. I’ve<br />
never been a technical wizard by any stretch of the imagination<br />
and always stayed away from the likes of Logic and all that. I’ve<br />
always focused on writing the songs and left the recording to<br />
someone who knew what they were doing.<br />
So what attracted you to recording on four-track?<br />
It was only after I stepped away from being in the band that I<br />
thought I could do with an easy bit of equipment to record on.<br />
A lot of my favourite bands have used both four-tracks and<br />
eight-tracks over the years, and some of them recordings I love.<br />
I thought it must be a good enough place to start. So I just got<br />
myself a knackered old Fostex X-15 just to play around with and<br />
work it out. I’ve never worked with cassette before, and I thought<br />
if I can get ’em down on tape it’ll feel quite nice, push me down a<br />
route that I may not have gone down if I’d gone into the studio.<br />
I recorded the tracks in the spare room in me house which made<br />
it naturally a lot more hushed and quiet, because I couldn’t be<br />
blaring the place down. So I got ’em down without having any<br />
intentions of anyone hearing them; I know that’s a cliché, but I<br />
genuinely just thought I’ve got to clear some space out. It were<br />
just a bit of fun that I’d go upstairs in mine after work and just<br />
get a few songs down. I’ve got a couple of little old Casio organs,<br />
80s ones with only one or two good sounds on ’em. I just used<br />
those and an old Philicorda organ which I picked up for about a<br />
hundred quid, which provided a table for everything. I wanted to<br />
limit myself to just that and record it to tape. Luckily, I got a few<br />
tunes down and it echoed the old 60s recordings and modern<br />
bands demos that I loved. It had a really nice warmth.<br />
Lyrically, Buxton Palace Hotel seems to be a pretty personal<br />
EP. Would you agree with this?<br />
I’ve never been someone to overthink how it’s going to be<br />
received. Through practising, over the years I’ve come upon a<br />
style whereby it’s more the thoughts that people are having<br />
that they would never say. It can be very exposing. It’s all about<br />
putting your thoughts out there. If you look at the approach of<br />
the likes of Morrissey, Stuart Murdoch of Belle And Sebastian<br />
and Lou Reed, the thing they’ve all got is a really sensitive side.<br />
I wanted it to feel like it was just one person listening to it. I<br />
wanted it to feel very real. The fact that I was in a collaborative<br />
band meant that occasionally I would maybe doctor a few lyrics<br />
to make it more acceptable. There’s no reason for a filter, which<br />
makes everything a lot easier.<br />
When you’re on your own, there’s no one to stop it. The speed<br />
I could work at was so much<br />
quicker. It’s the first time I’ve used<br />
characters in my work; a lot of the<br />
stuff is personal but I’ve managed<br />
to put it into characters and the<br />
lyrics could be about anyone.<br />
The atmosphere of some of the<br />
tracks often feels quite isolated,<br />
lyrically blending romance with<br />
darker tones. Would you agree?<br />
Subconsciously, I was always<br />
trying to keep the balance between<br />
the two. I was basically trying to<br />
take you to a place for a moment,<br />
however long that may be. If I’m in<br />
the mood for a band I can create a<br />
little world which I can just access. I wanted to take people away<br />
for a little while.<br />
The intention was to make it underthought. I wanted to get it<br />
straight from my brain to the machine. I wanted to do it in the<br />
now. It is quite warm sounding but when it gets quite bleak, I try<br />
to bring it back. I wanted it to be so intimate it could fall apart at<br />
any point. All my friends who were into stuff were really into it. I<br />
didn’t have any idea if it was any good.<br />
GIG<br />
“The intention for my<br />
music was to make it<br />
underthought: straight<br />
from my brain to the<br />
machine. I wanted<br />
to do it in the now”<br />
STUDIO<br />
ELECTROPHONIQUE<br />
La Violette Società @ Studio2 – 20/12<br />
Hushed, attentive tones crafted in the dead of night - James Leesley’s<br />
new solo endeavour captures an honest, moonlit reflection of solitude.<br />
You’re the first artist to release on<br />
Violette Records who’s not Mick<br />
Head. How does that feel?<br />
I was a bit apprehensive because<br />
they hadn’t released anyone else.<br />
But I sent it to them because I<br />
really liked what they stood for,<br />
and obviously I’m a big fan of Mick<br />
Head. I thought, ‘May as well, and<br />
they might like it’. I don’t think they<br />
planned to put it out to be honest,<br />
but they just went, ‘This is alright<br />
and we haven’t really got anything<br />
else coming out,’ and it was doable.<br />
I think I was quite quick and easy to<br />
work with so it wasn’t a matter of<br />
waiting around. It moved really quickly and I think that helped.<br />
Matty [Lockett, Violette Records] said he just wanted to put out<br />
good records that they like.<br />
With High Hazels you’ve already got a decent fan base, but sell<br />
out-shows are no mean feat in Liverpool and you obviously did<br />
really well across the country and Paris. How does this feel?<br />
We couldn’t buy a gig at times, it was really difficult. But with this<br />
I kind of didn’t even plan to play live. The first gigs I did were with<br />
Richard Hawley. My first gig was in Holmfirth supporting him,<br />
and two gigs in London. Both were over a thousand capacity<br />
each. Luckily, I had a bit of live experience but I had to play<br />
quick and learn fast. If it went wrong I’d look the biggest fool in<br />
the world. I think a lot of [the success] has been [down to] the<br />
venues that have been dressed up nice. I wanted to do stuff<br />
that was a little bit different. Luckily the Violette guys sorted the<br />
Scandinavian Church in Liverpool and I managed to sort out the<br />
Lantern Theatre in Sheffield. It took a good couple of months to<br />
even get in touch with them. In the end, I went to this strange<br />
gig on a Thursday night just to see a human who worked there.<br />
I got chatting about Sheffield Utd and he passed me a number<br />
and I eventually got in. Roy, who runs the live side of things for<br />
Violette, played the show with me and did spoken word and<br />
people loved it. It was more of an experience and people loved it<br />
as a night. I think it was a bit of pot luck to be fair.<br />
Paris was daft. They were so nice. There was a massive spread<br />
and a bath of beer. I felt like this is how it should be. !<br />
Words: Matthew Hogarth<br />
Photography: Ryan Lee Turton<br />
violetterecords.com/studio-electrophonique<br />
Buxton Palace Hotel is available now on Violette Records.<br />
Studio Electrophonique plays La Violette Società’s Christmas<br />
Special on Friday 20th <strong>Dec</strong>ember, with Toria Garbutt, Daisy Gill<br />
and Roy.<br />
PREVIEWS<br />
39
PREVIEWS<br />
CLUB<br />
SOLOMUN/<br />
GROOVE ARMADA<br />
Various venues – 21/12 and 31/12<br />
Circus Christmas Special<br />
Circus and Chibuku have your festive party season covered with two heavyweight shows that will give you every<br />
reason to get off the couch and escape the TV repeats.<br />
YOUSEF presents a special Circus Christmas party at Bramley-Moore Dock on 21st <strong>Dec</strong>ember, with house<br />
music superstar SOLOMUN helming what will be a huge show down on the docks. The Bosnian-born DJ has been<br />
a titan of house and techno music for almost a decade, regularly scooping industry awards while running successful labels<br />
(Diynamic, 2DIY4), clubs (Ego) and multiple Ibiza residencies (Pacha, Ushuaïa). Solomun’s emotional take on European house<br />
music is characterised by ultra funky basslines and euphoric melodies, reflective of his love of hip hop, soul and funk.<br />
Circus have re-tooled the vast warehouse space at Bramley-Moore as an ideal venue for raving and partying, and the<br />
location will add a new dimension to their famed Christmas party blowout. Leeds’ globetrotting deep house technician HOT<br />
SINCE 82 brings an element of energy and dram to proceedings. “King Of Space” DJ STEVE LAWLER also joins the party,<br />
hosted by Circus maestro Yousef and also featuring ENZO SIRAGUSA.<br />
And if that wasn’t enough for you, Chibuku come up trumps with a New Year’s Eve party to cap off the year in fine style.<br />
Chart-topping big beat duo GROOVE ARMADA return to Liverpool for the first time in a decade, with a DJ set at Invisible<br />
Wind Factory that dwarfs that 2009 set at Barfly for a Circus Easter special. The global stars have since played Creamfields<br />
on numerous occasions, but their mix of electronic, house and trip hop is equally suited to more intimate clubs.<br />
Having picked up a Grammy nomination (Superstylin’), soundtracked entire advert breaks, worked with artists as diverse<br />
as Neneh Cherry and Richie Havens, and set up the popular Lovebox festival, the duo have very little still to achieve in the<br />
game. Through decks and FX shows and a series of dancefloor EPs, Groove Armada have marked a return to the DIY spirit of<br />
the warehouse turntables where the project first began. Go on, sign off the year in style.<br />
EXHIBITION<br />
THEASTER GATES:<br />
AMALGAM<br />
Tate Liverpool – 13/12/19-03/05/<strong>2020</strong><br />
Chicago-based artist THEASTER GATES is one of the world’s most influential living artists,<br />
working across social and urban issues that speak to the same ethos of community<br />
fracturing that has been highlighted by the work around Granby in Liverpool. Having studied<br />
urban planning – alongside a joint masters in religion, ceramics and city design – Gates’ work<br />
shows how art can transform places and improve the lives of the people who live there. He is best<br />
known for his projects in the South Side of Chicago, where he has redeveloped abandoned buildings<br />
for community use.<br />
Gates also worked as a potter for 15 years, which taught him the power of making something from<br />
only bare materials. “I feel like as a potter you also start to learn how to shape the world,” he commented<br />
in a TED talk he gave, titled How To Revive A Neighbourhood: With Imagination, Beauty and Art.<br />
In Amalgam, Gates explores the complex and interweaving issues of race, territory and inequality in<br />
the United States, from the slightly curious starting point of Malaga. Not that Malaga, however. During the<br />
19th Century, this small island off the coast of Maine, USA, was home to an ethnically mixed community.<br />
In 1912, on the orders of the state governor, Malaga’s inhabitants were forcibly removed to the mainland.<br />
They were offered no housing, jobs or support.<br />
The exhibition uses sculpture, installation, film and dance to highlight this history. A new film, Dance<br />
Of Malaga <strong>2019</strong>, features the choreography of acclaimed American dancer, Kyle Abraham, while Gates’<br />
musical collective, The Black Monks, provide the score. Their blues and gospel-inspired sound can be<br />
heard throughout the exhibition, continuing into an immersive ‘forest’ installation.<br />
Launching at the same time in Tate’s neighbouring Wolfson Gallery, a new exhibition of work by<br />
VIVIAN SUTER provides an immersive installation of tropical landscapes of Guatemala. A maze of Suter’s<br />
large-scale hanging paintings brings to life the organic elements – such as volcanic and botanical matter –<br />
that the Argentinian artist is surrounded by during her everyday life.<br />
Theaster Gates<br />
ticketquarter.co.uk<br />
EVENT DISCOVERY PARTNER<br />
40
GIG<br />
Aldous Harding<br />
Arts Club – 04/12<br />
Aldous Harding<br />
Returning with her third record in April, for many, ALDOUS<br />
HARDING’s Designer is an understated contender for album of<br />
the year. The New Zeland-born, Cardiff-based singer-songwriter<br />
has crafted a varied selection of wonky folk since arriving with her<br />
eponymous debut in 2014, but Designer sees Harding achieve new<br />
levels of eccentricity and panache. From start to finish the record<br />
is assured in its oddness and comfortably blends the abstract<br />
with her winsome songwriting formula. Rather than force its point<br />
home, the record beckons you into its world, one that remains often<br />
indecipherable but aboundingly charming. Taking centre stage at Arts<br />
Club, Harding will offer a hazy, sun-kissed escape from the winter chill.<br />
MUSICAL<br />
Miracle On 34th Street: The Musical<br />
The Playhouse – 07/12/19-04/01/20<br />
Miracle On 34th Street has been spreading festive cheer, in various guises,<br />
since the 1947 feature film that picked up three Oscars. Via a novel,<br />
TV series and the much-celebrated 1994 feature film starring Richard<br />
Attenborough, it has become a Christmas staple. Meredith Wilson’s lyrical<br />
rendering of the story of six-year-old Susan, a Christmas sceptic, and Kris<br />
Kringle, is brought to sparkling life on stage as a musical, which gives<br />
centre stage to the famed seasonal song, It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like<br />
Christmas. The set of Macy’s is brought to the Playhouse stage, with a<br />
story specially tweaked for a Liverpool audience, which will get Christmas<br />
lovers of all ages in the mood for festive magic.<br />
Miracle On 34th Street<br />
GIG<br />
Judy Collins<br />
Grand Central Hall – 11/01/20<br />
JUDY COLLINS has been an omnipresent force in music for the best part of five decades. In<br />
that time she’s featured on 55 records and inspired millions with her contributions to folk<br />
music and Americana. As well as performing to countless audiences since the 1960s, the<br />
American singer songwriter as drawn in praises from Rufus Wainwright, Shawn Colvin,<br />
Dolly Parton, Joan Baez and Leonard Cohen, who all honoured her legacy by featuring on<br />
the album Born To The Breed: A Tribute To Judy Collins. An artist of such stature deserves<br />
a stage to match, and the opulent backdrop of Grand Central Hall will be the perfect fit<br />
when she arrives in Liverpool for an exhibition of vulnerable songwriting littered with social<br />
activism and determination.<br />
CLUB<br />
Crazy P Soundsystem<br />
Constellations – 31/12<br />
The final New Year’s Eve party at Constellations takes on epic proportions under the<br />
stewardship of Melodic Distraction. No holds will be barred for this grand celebration of the<br />
Greenland Street venue, which will be winding down operations in <strong>2020</strong>. Cosmic disco dons<br />
CRAZY P are charged with piloting this closing party (of sorts) to another dimension, which<br />
will make for the perfect kind of celebration. Shimmering with pop, throbbing with electronica<br />
and slinking with disco, revellers will prepared to blast off into <strong>2020</strong> in the highest of spirits.<br />
The Soundsystem is a club variation on Crazy P’s live setup, and will feature live vocals from<br />
Danielle Moore. Melodic Distraction DJs will be joined by a host of the region’s finest selectors<br />
in getting things primed for this huge signing off party.<br />
THEATRE<br />
Four To The Floor<br />
Invisible Wind Factory – 22/01-25/01/20<br />
Four To The Floor<br />
A history of dance music is rendered in this off-site performance from the Unity Theatre and production company Turntable<br />
Theatre, which is also your invitation to the closing part of the century. Inspired by Earl Young’s 4/4 beat that revolutionised<br />
music for dancing, this immersive theatre show with an electronic heartbeat charts dance music’s progression from the disco<br />
to the underground rave scene, via youth culture, political movements and superstar DJs. The action takes place wherever it<br />
needs to rather than be confined to the stage: the audience is placed at the heart of the narrative, blurring the lines between<br />
theatre and a rave. Real dancefloor stories are told in thrilling fashion, touching on the effects of gentrification, ‘luxury living’<br />
and city growth on rave culture.<br />
GIG<br />
The Flying Luttenbachers<br />
Kazimier Stockroom – 20/12<br />
Weasel Walter’s shape-shifting collective THE FLYING LUTTENBACHERS have been in existence,<br />
in various forms, since 1991. Taking in prog, punk jazz and no waves elements (among many<br />
others), the outfit has deconstructed music and reality via a multitude of seminal releases. Anyone<br />
trying to keep up with Walter and his Luttenbachers – or the constant line-up changes – will attest<br />
to the group’s commitment to exploring extremities in music. The current line-up will see a quartet<br />
of guitar, bass, drums and saxophone, under Walter’s tutelage, engage in the kind of explosive<br />
free jazz improvisations that feature on the group’s recently released album Imminent Death.<br />
Liverpool’s own DIY pop experimenter CLAIRE WELLES offers support, alongside Manchester’s<br />
sonic adventurers YOSSARIANS and no wave goth soundscape artists JEZEBEL. Tickets available<br />
now from TicketQuarter.co.uk.<br />
The Flying Luttenbachers<br />
PREVIEWS<br />
41
REVIEWS<br />
Daughters (Tomas Adam)<br />
“The entire<br />
experience is<br />
anxiety-inducing and<br />
downright unnerving,<br />
like watching a<br />
good horror film”<br />
Daughters<br />
+ Jeromes Dream<br />
Harvest Sun @ Arts Club – 01/11<br />
DAUGHTERS triumphantly returned after an eight-year-long<br />
hiatus with one of the most twisted and harrowing albums of<br />
the past decade, You Won’t Get What You Want. The album is<br />
a surprising and rewarding continuation of their earlier work;<br />
Daughters embrace the sounds of no wave and industrial music,<br />
without sacrificing the hectic noise-rock edge they perfected over<br />
their short, yet lasting, discography.<br />
Tonight’s support, JEROMES DREAM, are something of<br />
hardcore legends in their home state of Connecticut. The shortlived<br />
outfit were together for a mere four years in the late 90s,<br />
releasing two albums, both of which were one of the first to be<br />
recorded by seminal producer Kurt Ballou, essentially the Nile<br />
Rodgers of heavy music. They return after nearly two decades<br />
of silence without skipping a beat. During their original stint, the<br />
band refused to use microphones and even play on the stage,<br />
often setting up on the floor. Rejecting convention, the music is<br />
often angular and inharmonious, favouring screeching guitars<br />
and violent screams. Cuts from their new untitled record like<br />
Drone Before Parlor Violence are more melodic, and hark back to<br />
the nostalgic emo and post-hardcore of the late 90s, yet hardly<br />
sound dated in the slightest. Long droning sections in Half-In<br />
A Bantam Canopy see the band embracing post-rock in a way<br />
they previously haven’t. Everything about them serves as a big<br />
middle finger to the mainstream. Frontman and bassist Jeff Smith<br />
screams into a microphone with his back to the audience and<br />
doesn’t say a single word in between songs. The message is loud<br />
and clear, but he could at least turn around and give the kids who<br />
are to see him a wave?<br />
There is an air of anticipation as Daughters take to the<br />
stage. The music dies out and a familiar tune plays over the<br />
loudspeakers; the beautiful post-punk classic Goodbye Horses<br />
by Q Lazzarus. The walk on reference is two-fold: firstly, as a<br />
nod to Daughters’ embrace of the new wave sounds of the 70s<br />
and 80s; secondly, and more notably, the song’s legacy is forever<br />
intertwined with its iconic use in the classic film The Silence Of<br />
The Lambs. In the spine-chilling scene, serial killer Buffalo Bill<br />
gets all dolled up and films himself singing along to the song with<br />
his penis tucked between his legs. All the while his latest victim<br />
tries to escape becoming a part of his “woman suit”. Sleazy,<br />
depraved and sex-obsessed, Daughters take to the stage.<br />
Given the introspective nature of You Won’t Get What You<br />
Want, one might expect the audience to be awestruck and<br />
inward during their performance. We quickly realise this is not<br />
the case as they begin The Reason They Hate Me. Frontman<br />
Alexis S.F. Marshall assumes control with a bloody forehead and<br />
brings all the energy of The Dillinger Escape Plan to Arts Club.<br />
He stage dives, climbs on top of speakers, wraps the mic cable<br />
around his neck. A man after GG Allin’s heart, he puts his fingers<br />
down his throat, spews an ungodly amount of saliva onto his<br />
hand and wipes is all over his face. The band have clearly not lost<br />
their roots on The Lords Song, which is the closest they sound on<br />
their latest record to their earlier days.<br />
There is a healthy mix of old and new, squeezing in blistering<br />
songs like The Virgin and Our Queens (One Is Many, Many Are<br />
One) from 2010’s self-titled album, with the common thread<br />
being the wild and shrieking guitar sounds that only Daughters<br />
can make. Songs like the crooner Less Sex and Satan In The Wait<br />
are where the band steps into new territory. The beautiful synth<br />
lines in the latter sound like they could be right out of a Peter<br />
Gabriel song, giving the audience a well needed breather before<br />
returning to the punishing, throbbing latter half of the song as<br />
Marshall screams “This world is opening up”.<br />
Marshall’s lyrics transport you right into the twisted mind of<br />
a mad man. There’s something deeply unsettling and apocalyptic<br />
about the poetry of the closer, Ocean Song, the story of a man<br />
overcome with paranoia at the banality of everyday life, who<br />
simply begins to run from his home. “The shadow haunts him<br />
for several yards/The ghosts of what he was, desperate to keep<br />
up until gone”. Seeing the song performed live verges on an<br />
exorcism, for Marshall and for the audience. The entire experience<br />
is anxiety-inducing and downright unnerving, like watching a<br />
good horror film. For those who can stomach them, Daughters<br />
have become one of the most compelling bands in recent<br />
memory. !<br />
Joel Durksen / @joeldurksen<br />
Daughters (Tomas Adam)<br />
42
She Drew The Gun<br />
+ Peaness<br />
+ Mamatung<br />
EVOL @ O2 Academy – 09/11<br />
I’ve been lucky enough to see SHE DREW THE GUN a<br />
few times over the years. From the Buyers Club loft in 2016 to<br />
Glastonbury’s Park Stage in 2017, The John Peel Stage in <strong>2019</strong>,<br />
to a slot on this year’s BBC Radio 6 Music Festival at Liverpool’s<br />
Olympia. Their stages keep getting larger and their audiences<br />
greater. But there is something about a headline hometown gig<br />
in the main room of the O2 that feels bigger than all of these<br />
previous gigs. After all, there’s no place like home. A home crowd<br />
is special. No other city will get to experience this night.<br />
It might feel like She Drew The Gun appeared out of nowhere<br />
and grabbed a headline tour and slots on some of the most<br />
famous stages in the world, but it’s been a long and eventful<br />
road. After winning Glastonbury’s Emerging Talent competition<br />
in 2016, Louisa Roach has been splashed all over the radio,<br />
been to Texas for SXSW and toured around Europe spreading<br />
the message of her revolution. If anyone is going to bring people<br />
together for a cause and a dance it’s these guys.<br />
They’re known for their part gig, part political rallies. Their<br />
music aids their message with a beat, not relentless shouting<br />
like we’re used to seeing on the TV. If you’ve listened before, you<br />
know this is what to expect at these shows. Roach encourages<br />
sisters and brothers of the audience and her revolution to come<br />
together in Sweet Harmony – as one of their songs suggest. It<br />
works. We’re pretty used to coming together here in Liverpool.<br />
This tour is to support She Drew The Gun’s second<br />
album, Revolution Of Mind. It’s an album of the times we<br />
are living in; a critique of the systems we are living in. Roach<br />
comments on everything from<br />
personal relationships, capitalism,<br />
depression, global war, politics,<br />
feminism. The list goes on. But she<br />
doesn’t preach, she raises current,<br />
everyday issues for us to think about<br />
and act upon – politically charged<br />
track Poem reminds us of this.<br />
It’s a wet and windy Saturday<br />
night but that doesn’t stop people<br />
turning up for tonight’s show.<br />
Psychedelic trio MAMATUNG fill the<br />
stage with a range of instruments<br />
to kick off the festivities, with vocals<br />
and tracks reminiscent of Kate Bush<br />
and Haim. It’s fitting for tonight’s allfemale<br />
line-up.<br />
Chester’s PEANESS fit right into the second support slot with<br />
their sun-soaked indie-pop that once again touches on politics,<br />
Brexit and breakfast. The room is near full to bursting for their set<br />
and it’s nice to see people turning up to support the support. The<br />
contagiously charming trio are a joy to watch.<br />
By the time the lights dim for She Drew The Gun, fists<br />
are already in the air, deep bass rumbles through the floor, a<br />
shredding guitar cuts through the anticipation and they delve<br />
“Roach encourages<br />
sisters and brothers<br />
of the audience<br />
and her revolution<br />
to come together<br />
in Sweet Harmony”<br />
right into Resister, the first track off Revolution Of Mind. It’s one<br />
of their most recognised songs and a perfect crowd-pleaser<br />
to kick off the evening. Carrying on with Something For The<br />
Pain and Wolf And Bird, each song carries a different theme<br />
and style. From the ethereal chillness of Since You Were Not<br />
Mine to the grungy bass of Paradise,<br />
the setlist tells a story of Roach’s<br />
thoughts and feelings about all<br />
aspects of the world today. Some<br />
tracks like Arm Yourself, which<br />
Roach claims we should do against<br />
the Tory government, inspire fists<br />
of solidarity in the air, while others,<br />
like Pit Pony, just encourage a bit<br />
of a dance. There’s spoken word,<br />
rapping, singing and moments<br />
where the music speaks for itself.<br />
It’s a show that keeps on giving.<br />
Roach ends with a list of thank<br />
yous. She thanks her mum, friends<br />
and the audience for spending a<br />
rainy Saturday night with them with<br />
closer Thank You. It’s an ode to all the great female musicians<br />
who have come before her, from Aretha Franklin to Joni Mitchell,<br />
PJ Harvey and Tracy Chapman. If She Drew The Gun keep<br />
performing like they did tonight, it won’t be long until we can add<br />
Louisa Roach to aforementioned group of influential women. !<br />
Sophie Shields<br />
She Drew The Gun (Keith Ainsworth / arkimages.co.uk)<br />
FEET<br />
+ Courting<br />
I Love Live Events @ Sound – 03/11<br />
COURTING’s sound is the future. A very near future, but<br />
a future nonetheless. Whether you like their staggered drum<br />
patterns or harsh vocals, it doesn’t matter. They conspire to drag<br />
you into their own vision of the 21st Century. Following similar<br />
sonic patterns as <strong>2019</strong> breakouts Black Midi, as well as sharing<br />
anthemic choruses with Shame, debut single Not Yr Man is as<br />
punk as it is rock. Tonight they’re sharing a stage with band who<br />
are similar but more mature. FEET, with their leather jacket look<br />
and determined presence on stage, are brutally honest in the<br />
type of music they produce. They’ve chopped between band<br />
members before finally settling on a group they feel most capable<br />
of producing their debut album – something they successfully did<br />
at the beginning of October, just a few weeks before they take<br />
centre stage here in Liverpool.<br />
Courting strike first, hurling blankets of riffs across the<br />
cold concrete walls in the Sound basement. Tonight they are<br />
without a bass player, yet they still manage to create a bespoke<br />
atmosphere of “meandering sonic mess”. This self-prescribed<br />
genre tag is printed on their first batch of merchandise and they<br />
seem to deliver an ironic sensibility to the sentiment; the music<br />
is tight and they are captivating to watch. Courting catch their<br />
best moments when they feel visceral rather than cerebral; the<br />
panting and screaming on unreleased tracks leave breadcrumbs<br />
of multiple genres and it is up to the crowd tonight to follow them<br />
on their march. Luckily, they’re there every step of the way.<br />
Four songs in and lead singer Sean Murphy-O’Neill has<br />
stepped into the crowd, (something he looks to have flirted with<br />
for a while, but finally plucked up the courage to do). He parades<br />
a cowbell and proceeds to hand it out to spectators as they try<br />
to keep the rhythm of the song intact. Coincidentally, it is in the<br />
fleeting manner that Courting attain the most telling moments of<br />
melodic cohesion. Equally, it is these moments that most resonate<br />
through with listeners.<br />
Key to this connection is their stroke of lyrical humour: “I<br />
kinda wanna take the lads on tour and go to Pontins” Murphy-<br />
O’Neill chants. It is in these brief instances where he has the<br />
crowd in the palm of his hand, and the cowbell in the other.<br />
Feet are here tonight in support of their new debut album<br />
What’s Inside Is More Than Just Ham. Despite the comical title,<br />
there is a dramatic sense of seriousness about this band; they<br />
sing with purpose. Each drum beat wraps around the stage and<br />
demands total involvement as they sway on the stand-out Good<br />
Richard’s Crash Landing. Even before they manage to whisper<br />
the first lyric, the crowd are primed to jump the gun and are<br />
hanging on every word.<br />
There is plenty to admire here. Almost romantic red lights<br />
shine across the room, and it’s hard to tell whether they convey a<br />
feeling of love and lust, or resentment and anger. Perhaps both.<br />
Feet are a band that reside in the empowered juxtaposition. It’s<br />
their ability to dance effortlessly between a plethora of emotions<br />
makes their live shows so in demand, so enthralling.<br />
Feet are definitely building momentum. Even for a handful of<br />
people gathered on a freezing Sunday night, it’s easy to see why.<br />
For now, it is their best kept secret.<br />
Daniel Ponzini / @daniel_ponzini<br />
REVIEWS 43
REVIEWS<br />
Black Lips (Stuart Moulding / @Oohshootstu)<br />
Black Lips<br />
+ Yammerer<br />
+ Ohmns<br />
EVOL @ Arts Club – 13/11<br />
With a status as revered and prolific as Atlantan garage punks BLACK<br />
LIPS, they’re a band you have to see to believe. Rewind eight years and<br />
they were well known (or extremely notorious) at venues around the<br />
world. Gigs would descend into urinating and nudity on stage, just a<br />
small sample of their reputation. In the years that followed, they became<br />
somewhat controversial figures within the punk scene.<br />
It’s <strong>2019</strong> now. Have Black Lips mellowed with age? Has craziness<br />
stirred through the years? With a full supporting cast of Liverpool’s own<br />
punks in tow, the scene is set to see if the notoriety still rings true.<br />
As has been said a thousand times before – even by myself – but no<br />
less true: OHMNS know how to put on a show. They smash out classics<br />
from 2015 EP The Rice Tape. But what’s noticeable, particularly with the<br />
seven-minute version of Keshi Heads dedicated to Craig Charles, is how<br />
Ohmns elongate their riffs and a punk classic transforms into a sludgy jam<br />
that you can’t take your eyes off.<br />
Next on stage are Chester’s YAMMERER. With a lead singer who is<br />
wrapping himself in his microphone lead and has sunglasses on the back<br />
Snapped Ankles<br />
Harvest Sun @ Invisible Wind Factory Substation – 25/10<br />
of his head, Yammerer feel more like a performance art piece rather than<br />
a punk band. You don’t have to know which songs are which, which is<br />
probably a good thing. You can’t take home a coherent sentence from the<br />
microphone. But it matters little. You want to participate in the madness<br />
yourself. The entire set fluctuates between simmering anticipation to full<br />
blown pandemonium. What’s more punk than that?<br />
Black Lips immediately go for the jugular as they hit the stage, with<br />
only an hour until curfew. They start off with Arabia Mountain classic<br />
Family Tree. The crowd, which is hitherto relatively tame, splits into<br />
madness and fear of madness. People begin to spin and bump into each<br />
other, and some are courageous enough to crowd surf. You’re holding<br />
someone up by their boot, but it’s definitely all part of the fun of being in a<br />
crowd that energetic.<br />
They play a varied selection of songs, including tracks from 2015’s<br />
seminal album Let It Bloom and of course, their biggest hit O Katrina! The<br />
songs begin to mellow as they turn towards their album Sing In A World<br />
That’s Falling Apart, their forthcoming country-infused record.<br />
For the more hardcore garage punk fans, this might not be what<br />
they’ve come for, but it’s still captivating to witness a band’s sound<br />
evolving in this way. Line-up changes aside, Black Lips appear to have<br />
finally gelled together for the long term. They’ve matured and found<br />
comfort in the country, but they haven’t completely forgotten to give fans<br />
what they want.<br />
Georgia Turnbull / @GeorgiaRTbull<br />
Snapped Ankles (Mook Loxley / @MookLoxley)<br />
Or:la<br />
The Wonder Pot @ 24 Kitchen<br />
Street – 16/11<br />
24 Kitchen Street has remained a bastion<br />
in Liverpool’s underground electronic music<br />
scene over the years. It’s become a citadel for<br />
electronic music culture to grow and expand,<br />
break new ground and test its audience. It’s<br />
been six years since its inception, but it didn’t<br />
take long for it to emerge as one of Liverpool’s<br />
leading mixed-use independent music<br />
venues and arts spaces. Hosting regular club<br />
nights, performance art events and various<br />
workshops, it’s now renowned among the<br />
city’s creative community. Notably, Kitchen<br />
Street has allowed the electronic scene to grow<br />
at an unprecedented level, hosting hard-hitting<br />
DJs from Berlin to Detroit. But it hasn’t been a<br />
solo effort. Kitchen Street is the centre point<br />
of collaboration, working with innovative<br />
promoters such as The Wonderpot, Watt Hz??<br />
and Meine Nacht to introduce Liverpool to<br />
some of the most electrifying nights the city<br />
has witnessed in recent memory.<br />
To celebrate their sixth birthday, who<br />
better to take the reins than the Derryborn<br />
OR:LA. Starting her musical journey<br />
in Liverpool and a much-loved frequenter<br />
of Kitchen Street, Or:la has constantly been<br />
progressing since the start of her career.<br />
Originally DJing with Liverpool based nights<br />
such as Meine Nacht, she has moved onto<br />
become a resident at Manchester club monolith<br />
The Warehouse Project, as well as producing<br />
her own tracks for Hotflush, Deep Sea<br />
Frequencies and, more recently, her own label<br />
Céad.<br />
Walking into Kitchen Street, there is an<br />
immediate sense of warmth and a feeling of<br />
elevated spirits. A gathering of party people<br />
and electronic enthusiasts, creating the sort<br />
of vibe a birthday truly deserves. Immediately,<br />
as Or:la jumps behind the decks, she brings in<br />
her kaleidoscopic mix of genres, which varies<br />
from bass, breaks, techno and everything in<br />
between; ready to sway the people of Kitchen<br />
Street whichever direction she pleases.<br />
Through her guidance, the wide array of<br />
sounds fit snugly under one umbrella held aloft<br />
high above the decks, moving the crowd in a<br />
way that most DJs can’t achieve.<br />
A birthday occasion requires energy, and<br />
there is little shortage with the Kitchen Street<br />
native at the helm.<br />
Rhys Thomas<br />
44
Matisse: Drawing With Scissors<br />
Lady Lever Art Gallery – until March <strong>2020</strong><br />
Henri Matisse’s famous cut-out images can be found on<br />
postcards, fridge magnets and bookmarks worldwide. They’re as<br />
ubiquitous as they are well-loved, so it’s pleasing to see the Lady<br />
Lever Art Gallery host this touring exhibition from the Southbank<br />
Centre in London.<br />
This exhibition consists of 35 colourful lithographic<br />
reproductions made posthumously for the French art magazine<br />
Verve in 1958, based on the original cut-outs produced in the<br />
later years of Matisse’s life. As the viewer goes through the<br />
Nu bleu II (Blue Nude II), 1952 (lithographic reproduction, 1958). © Succession H. Matisse/ DACS <strong>2019</strong><br />
galleries, they are enticed into worlds of<br />
mermaids and dancing figures.<br />
The cut-outs, which include the<br />
renowned L’Escargot and Nu Bleu (I-IV),<br />
were produced between 1951 to 1953 by<br />
Matisse when he was rendered immobile<br />
as a result of chronic illness. Each work was<br />
completed with the aid of assistants, but<br />
very much under the watchful eye of Matisse,<br />
who was such a perfectionist that one of the<br />
assistants was near to physical exhaustion<br />
by the end of her time with him. His eye for<br />
perfection means that the works are beautiful<br />
and the figures fluid: the vivid pictures jump<br />
out at you across the room. There’s<br />
a sense of movement and vitality<br />
to the figures and the places they<br />
depict, referencing dance and<br />
Matisse’s travels to Tahiti, which he<br />
had visited in 1930.<br />
One of the astounding things<br />
about the originals is their size –<br />
L’Escargot is nearly three metres<br />
by three metres. The only clue<br />
to the scale of the originals is a<br />
small black and white photograph<br />
of Matisse directing an assistant<br />
from his wheelchair, pointing<br />
imperiously with a cane with the<br />
massive parakeet from 1952’s La<br />
Perruche et la Sirène looming large<br />
in the background. You can only imagine the effect<br />
these originals would have had – a charming detail<br />
is that Matisse’s doctor advised that he wear dark<br />
glasses to protect him from the visual assault – as even<br />
the smaller reproductions brighten up the galleries.<br />
It almost goes without saying that the prints are<br />
beautiful, and the trajectory through the exhibition,<br />
whichever direction you come in from, makes sense.<br />
The lighting levels mean the exhibition mercifully lacks<br />
the glare on the glass which hinders viewing other<br />
works in some galleries in the Lady Lever.<br />
Pieces have been metaphorically reframed for<br />
<strong>2019</strong>. The curation is caught between letting the art<br />
speak for itself and intervening and placing them in<br />
their cultural context and explaining, quite heavyhandedly<br />
at points, how and why the cultural context<br />
has changed.<br />
Undoubtedly, it’s good to reappraise art in light<br />
of new and welcomed cultural and societal norms<br />
L’Escargot (The Snail) 1952-53 (lithographic reproduction, 1958). © Succession H. Matisse/ DACS <strong>2019</strong>)<br />
and use pieces as a vehicle to discuss values and raise issues of<br />
inequality. At points, however, it seems unsure whether this is an<br />
exhibition where emphasis is on the art or whether the pieces are<br />
used as a vehicle to discuss society. This was particularly evident<br />
from the picture of Danseuse Créole where the accompanying<br />
description gives biographical information about the dancer<br />
Katherine Dunham on whom the picture was based. A 1963<br />
quotation from the dancer Josephine Baker, another of Matisse’s<br />
muses, about the horrendous effects of segregation, is painted<br />
across one of the galleries and could potentially have been better<br />
used or linked.<br />
The ‘pay what you think’ scheme for admission means the<br />
works will hopefully be seen by people whose purses don’t<br />
quite stretch to the £10-plus admission fees of the blockbuster<br />
exhibitions – which, let’s be honest, are most people in the<br />
current climate. It’s definitely worth a visit and will lift your spirits<br />
through the dark winter months.<br />
Jennie Macaulay<br />
To celebrate our first year in The Baltic, Liverpool,<br />
Dallas Prints is running a charity art auction with<br />
all proceeds going to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital<br />
and Great Ormond Street Hospital.<br />
We have 4 exclusive framed giclee prints up for<br />
grabs - all signed by the artists and limited to an<br />
edition of ONE.<br />
Artwork is provided kindly by world renowned<br />
artists The Singh Twins, Carne Griffiths<br />
(@carnegriff), Jason Hollis (@jsn_hollis) and<br />
Mike Badger (@mikebadgerart)<br />
The prints will feature<br />
Hahnemuhle’s new Natural<br />
Line of fine art papers<br />
which use unique raw<br />
materials: Bamboo,<br />
Hemp and Agave. The 4<br />
framed works will also be<br />
on display at The Tusk Bar<br />
until the auction’s closing<br />
date of 30 <strong>Dec</strong>ember <strong>2019</strong>.<br />
REVIEWS 45
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ADD TO<br />
PLAYLIST<br />
Scientist<br />
+ Kiko Bun<br />
+ DJ Oxman and MC Magoo<br />
Positive Vibration @ District – 02/11<br />
Despite taking a year out from their annual festival offering,<br />
the Positive Vibration crew have certainly not been resting<br />
on their laurels. A series of high profile shows throughout the<br />
year, including Horseman, King Yellowman and Mad Professor,<br />
have kept the reggae chalice blazing in Liverpool and tonight<br />
is arguably the jewel in the crown as acclaimed dub pioneer<br />
SCIENTIST brings his seminal 1981 album Scientist Rids The<br />
World Of The Evil Curse Of The Vampires to the ever welcoming<br />
environs of District (not for the first time a District first-timer<br />
comments on its inclusive coolness).<br />
District is pretty packed from the off and the crowd are soon<br />
dancing to DJ OXMAN, aided and abetted by MC MAGOO, whose<br />
selection of rarities and classics is pure quality and leads us<br />
skanking into KIKO BUN’s support set. The versatile Bun, a member<br />
of the current South London scene that includes collaborators Loyle<br />
Carner and Tom Misch, seems equally at home delivering a lovers<br />
rock vibrato or a dancehall flow and mixes songs from his relatively<br />
modest recorded output, such as the bouncy Sticky Situation, with<br />
new material from his forthcoming debut album which sounds<br />
very promising indeed. The UPPER CUT BAND take no time at<br />
all to hit their stride, the rhythm section of Bob Pearce (drums)<br />
and Ross Erlam (bass) are immediately locked into the tightest of<br />
irresistible grooves, offbeat cymbal crashes sending the crowd<br />
dipping in unison. Marcin Bobkowski’s choppy guitar riffs and Cyrus<br />
Richards’s swirling keys blend exquisitely with the punchy horn riffs<br />
of Adam Webb (sax) and Jake Jacas (trombone).<br />
Frankly, if the crowd had just come for the Oxman DJ set and to<br />
see Kiko Bun and the Upper Cut Band they would have gone home<br />
handsomely rewarded. But yet, the main event is still to come; it is<br />
approaching Day Of The Dead midnight when Scientist appears<br />
at the mixing desk as quietly as one of the ghouls he is about to<br />
vanquish.<br />
Visible Women<br />
Liverpool Irish Festival @ Philharmonic<br />
Music Room – 23/10<br />
“What do they call me? My name is sweet thing,” sings LISA<br />
O’NEILL with a biting intensity. The County Cavan songwriter<br />
admits she’d been unsure whether it would be appropriate to<br />
cover Nina Simone’s Four Women for tonight’s Liverpool Irish<br />
Festival showcase; none of the song’s narrators are white, and<br />
they’re either subjects of slavery or live in its cruel wake.<br />
However, its themes of oppression, inequality and resilience<br />
will surely have a universal resonance for many listeners tonight.<br />
Her voice peaking, she drives down her heels one final time and<br />
lets out a chilling bawl of “Peaches!”. A battle cry signalling the<br />
strength found in sisterhood, it’s an incredible note to finish the<br />
evening on. Yet, O’Neill is only one of the four performers that<br />
make the Visible Women showcase so memorable this evening.<br />
Bilingual spoken-word artist CIARA NÍ É hosts. Having been<br />
assured that Liverpudlians are famously “a great craic”, her blend<br />
of Irish Gaelic with fierce, proudly feminist poetry immediately<br />
appeals. The rattle of Iggy Pop’s Lust For Life backdrops her spin<br />
on Irvine Welsh’s “choose life” Trainspotting monologue. It’s a<br />
powerful take, pitching provocative humour against hard-hitting<br />
naked truths.<br />
Captivating English songwriter MAZ O’CONNOR is the<br />
first singer to take centre stage. Drawing from her fourth album<br />
Chosen Daughter, which was influenced by the trials and<br />
torments of various female relatives, her timely and evocative<br />
set is steered by her pristine, delicately nuanced voice. Mary’s<br />
lyrics linger long after she takes her leave, whereas the direct<br />
thrust of Loved Me Better hears O’Connor take aim at dominant<br />
patriarchy. Limerick’s LAURA DUFF then follows, her sultry pop<br />
DJ Oxman (Glyn Akroyd / @glyn_akroyd)<br />
Scientist Rids The World Of The Evil Curse Of The Vampires is<br />
an epic and playful comic book title for an album that is generally<br />
regarded as a dub classic, taking previously released (and, in 1981,<br />
contemporary rather than established) material from the likes of<br />
Michael Prophet and The Wailing Souls, adding judicious twists of<br />
echo and reverb but never draining the originals of their integrity.<br />
The sound quality, which has been superb all night, is<br />
somehow taken up a notch. A fuller, brighter sound drawn out by<br />
Scientist’s sleight of hand (promoter Rory Taylor later comments,<br />
“We’ve used that PA thousands of times but I’ve never heard it<br />
sound like that before”).<br />
No self-indulgence here, or 20-minute dub outs – just the<br />
songs delivered in relatively concise form. The performance<br />
takes not much longer than the original album, the unassuming<br />
controller hunkered down behind the decks – situated off-stage to<br />
the right of the dancefloor – are all that separates Scientist from<br />
an audience who are facing away from him towards the stage. As<br />
the performance progresses more and more people are sneaking<br />
a wondering look over their right shoulders to try to get a clue as<br />
to how Scientist is conjuring up this sound. Who knows? He is a<br />
picture of unadulterated concentration, probably the only person in<br />
the building not dancing.<br />
Prophet’s Love And Unity becomes Your Teeth In My Neck;<br />
Wailing Souls’ Fire House Rock morphs into The Mummy’s Shroud,<br />
its memorable horn motif echoing long into night. Bun strides<br />
across the stage, arms aloft as the crowd sing every word of Blood<br />
On His Lips (Wayne Jarrett’s Love In My Heart). The Upper Cut<br />
Band prove equally adept at soloing as they do nailing down a<br />
groove: horns, guitar, and keys all stepping out of the shadows to<br />
be transformed by Scientist’s sound-shifting searchlight.<br />
From the sea of bobbing heads audience members shout<br />
out their praise – “Thank you, thank you, massive tune that was”,<br />
“Sick album, fucking wicked man” – smiling faces and cheers<br />
signalling universal agreement until Scientist, his exorcism<br />
complete, smiles at last and disappears.<br />
It has been a night of understated brilliance, a mixture of<br />
science, alchemy and magic to rid us of our demons.<br />
Glyn Akroyd / @glynakroyd<br />
Lisa O’Neill (Tomas Adam)<br />
inflections bringing more groove to proceedings. Humbled, she<br />
talks about how empowered she feels to be part of this bill.<br />
Still reeling from the last time we caught her, it’s a joy to<br />
see O’Neill make her grand return to Liverpool. A powerhouse,<br />
like Simone, Björk and Karen Dalton rolled into one, she’s a<br />
storyteller and songwriter of remarkable depth. Opener What<br />
A Voice says it all. Backdropped by the Liver bird, tales of<br />
cormorants, wrens and blackbirds circle overhead. “It’s good<br />
to shine a little light on madness, it’s in us all,” she grins before<br />
Violet Gibson; its daring chorus, “I moved in silence, for the love<br />
o’ truth, not violence” feeling particularly apt as we look back<br />
over the showcase.<br />
David Weir / @Betweenseeds<br />
ADD TO PLAYLIST is the monthly<br />
column brought to you by MELODIC<br />
DISTRACTION RADIO, delving into the<br />
fold of the newest releases on the dance<br />
music spectrum. If you’re into 808s,<br />
sample pads, DJ tools and everything in<br />
between, then you’re in good company.<br />
V/A<br />
NH Vol. 3<br />
Nervous Horizon<br />
Nervous Horizon have swiftly<br />
established themselves as<br />
one of the most potent labels<br />
in the game. Nominated for<br />
Best Breakthrough Label in the DJ Mag awards this very<br />
year, they’ve become synonymous with experimental yet<br />
club-ready sounds and the new, percussion-driven London<br />
style. Drawing on a global palette of reggaeton, taraxxo,<br />
gqom and dabke, as well as techno and bass, old favourites<br />
DJ Plead and label co-head TSVI join newcomers Tzusing,<br />
Object Blue and hard drum prodigy, Ehua, who plays in<br />
Liverpool on the 6th <strong>Dec</strong>ember.<br />
Bella Boo<br />
Once Upon<br />
A Passion<br />
Studio Barnhus<br />
Studio Barnhus’ latest<br />
release features LA producer<br />
Bella Boo with a debut full-length. Following on from a<br />
smattering of EP releases and guest appearances, the LP<br />
oozes with signature Barnhus pop sensibility. Born out of<br />
a desire to capture the fullness of a creative era following<br />
the news that her studio building would be repossessed,<br />
Bella Boo craftily dives between melodic house, Balearic,<br />
post-dubstep and ambient while even finding the time to<br />
squeeze in a sultry R&B jam. Head to She’s Back for the<br />
standout track.<br />
Jabes<br />
Klunk001<br />
Klunk<br />
The boys’ club of UK bass<br />
’n’ breaks ’n’ techno is in a<br />
healthy place, and a number<br />
of the month’s releases have<br />
been stellar (shout out to Facta, Desert Sound Colony, Yak<br />
and 96 Back). However, in the interest of platforming only<br />
one white man per month, the crown’s gotta go to Jabes.<br />
Quietly perfecting his hyperactive melodies over the last<br />
few years, he’s becoming one of the tightest producers of<br />
the neonate scene. More importantly, you get a fetching<br />
yellow techwear cap if you buy the record.<br />
Words: Nina Franklin and James Zaremba<br />
Melodic Distraction Radio is an independent internet radio<br />
station based in the Baltic Triangle, Liverpool, platforming<br />
artists, DJs and producers from across the North West.<br />
Head to melodicdistraction.com to listen in.<br />
REVIEWS<br />
47
LIVERPOOL - 17/19 BOLD STREET (1st Floor) · L1 4DN
PIZZA, TEQUILA, COCKTAILS<br />
25 Parr St, Liverpool L1 4JN<br />
WWW.CRAZYPEDROS.CO.UK
table theatre<br />
presents<br />
four to the floor<br />
A history of house<br />
22-25 JANUARY<br />
AT THE INVISIBLE WIND FACTORY<br />
BOX OFFICE - UNITYTHEATRELIVERPOOL.CO.UK<br />
0151 709 4988<br />
Beans on Toast<br />
FRIDAY 20th <strong>Dec</strong>ember<br />
Phase One, Liverpool<br />
The Local Honeys<br />
Wednesday 22nd <strong>Jan</strong>uary<br />
Gulliver, Manchester<br />
King Creosote<br />
Performing a live accompaniment to the film<br />
From Scotland with Love<br />
Monday 16th March<br />
Bridgewater Hall, Manchester<br />
Peggy Seeger<br />
Monday 18th May<br />
Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool<br />
@Ceremonyconcert / facebook.com/ceremonyconcerts<br />
ceremonyconcerts@gmail.com / seetickets.com
ARTISTIC<br />
LICENCE<br />
This month’s selection of poetry is taken from Matthew Thomas Smith’s<br />
debut book, Songs - a collection of tales pulled from the most surreal<br />
colours of the day to day.<br />
When and where did you start writing poetry?<br />
1994. Bootle, Merseyside. (They started out as nursery rhymes/<br />
lullabies but I could not get the hang of the guitar.)<br />
To what extent have local surroundings shaped your poetic<br />
voice and written vernacular?<br />
I do feel rooted in Bootle and Liverpool but through that same<br />
language I also feel like a citizen of the earth.<br />
The atmosphere and visual landscape of the poems featured<br />
in Songs ranges from the desperately real to the sarcastic and<br />
abstract. What is it that draws you to the themes featured<br />
throughout the collection?<br />
All of the poems are part autobiographical. I have lived these<br />
poems. The poems are me and the world around me.<br />
Would regard your poetry as a product of political upheaval, or<br />
an answer to it? Can poetry be a vessel for change?<br />
Both. It can, and I hope these poems can help to show that.<br />
The day I went to the Job Centre<br />
Out of place next to the well-used under<br />
threat library<br />
and not 300 yards from the block of flats<br />
where some middle-aged fella threw<br />
himself off<br />
perhaps in response to the bedroom tax<br />
or a recent smack drought<br />
part-time vacancy notices still hang<br />
next to the always-open automatic doors<br />
they promise flexible hours and competitive<br />
rates<br />
it seems that nobody wants to be a<br />
window-cleaner’s apprentice<br />
or a courier for an ‘ever-expanding’ criminal<br />
law firm<br />
I shuffle from one foot to the other in the<br />
falling queue<br />
conscious of empty desks and out of use<br />
signs on printers<br />
You won’t find anything here son<br />
jibes the well-dressed woman to my left<br />
this is more of a ‘keeping up appearances’<br />
set-up<br />
If this collection of poetry is, as your press release states, to be<br />
the last you will ever write, what statement do you wish the<br />
collection to convey?<br />
Nifty Records approached me to release a Poetry Collection. I had<br />
never planned to. Songs feels likes a natural ending – 30 years of<br />
me within one object. I feel I need to move on. I need to see what<br />
else there is. I am not a messenger, as such. Not really. Ultimately,<br />
I would like it if more people started to engage with poetry. That<br />
has always been the aim.<br />
Words: Matthew Thomas Smith / @mtsmith2605<br />
Photography: John Johnson / @John.Johno<br />
niftyrecords.com/shop/songs<br />
Songs is available to pre-order now via Nifty Records and is<br />
officially released on Friday 6 th <strong>Dec</strong>ember at The Royal Standard.<br />
Idea for a British film that would probably<br />
win an Academy Award<br />
A rich fella with a plummy voice<br />
has a cob on because<br />
his mother just won’t die<br />
and he can’t bear his wife<br />
countless infidelities later<br />
his mother dies<br />
and he inherits a fortune<br />
but he still isn’t happy<br />
For the Mountaineers<br />
climb the shale and slate<br />
while it is still able<br />
to take the burden<br />
the daytripper-favouring path<br />
only goes so far<br />
leave the camera in the house<br />
not everything is photo-worthy<br />
use your eyes<br />
kneel down<br />
get closer<br />
don’t take a tent<br />
fold your flag into your pocket<br />
be mindful of the summit<br />
look out for kestrels or a search-party<br />
headed by a bloodhound or a helicopter<br />
and beware of robin redbreasts<br />
rarer<br />
knowing<br />
tuned-in<br />
52
BIDO LITO! AND LIQUIDATION PRESENT<br />
THE REAL QUIZ<br />
TUESDAY 10TH DECEMBER - DOORS 7PM, CONSTELLATIONS<br />
ALL PROCEEDS DONATED TO MIND AND THE WHITECHAPEL CENTRE
THE FINAL<br />
SAY<br />
Writer and artist in residence at Chester Literature Festival,<br />
Imtiaz Dharker, looks to the connective power of words and subtly<br />
poetic voices as an antidote to the ‘bullies of language’<br />
“Words are there<br />
to be used with<br />
pleasure, not to<br />
be squandered; to<br />
remind us what it is<br />
to be human”<br />
These are strident times and it is too easy for subtleties<br />
and nuances to be lost in the noise of devalued words.<br />
When we stop and really listen to each other’s voices,<br />
we make a still space in the world, and that is a space<br />
for poetry, where each word is carefully weighed. I think it is<br />
needed now more than ever. Poetry may whisper or rage, but it<br />
can say things the heart knows before the world has a chance to<br />
catch up.<br />
When I was asked to be artist in residence at Storyhouse, I<br />
knew I wanted to fill it with words and images that would make<br />
it a living book for the whole community, for all the<br />
people who step through its doors into its<br />
welcoming spaces.<br />
All the time I was writing the poem<br />
Storyhouse, I was thinking about the<br />
weight and power of the words we<br />
say to each other, how we greet a<br />
stranger, how we draw a map of the<br />
heart in the language we use and<br />
how poetry can travel without a<br />
passport.<br />
A while ago I wrote a poem<br />
called The Right Word. In it there<br />
are words like ‘terrorist’ but it is<br />
not about terrorism. It is more<br />
to do with how a single image<br />
can be dressed in new words<br />
to make it mean something<br />
quite different, how words<br />
can be used to stir fear<br />
and suspicion. I work with<br />
film, too, and I know I can<br />
take the same shots and<br />
edit them to make totally<br />
contradictory stories. But<br />
that is what is happening<br />
around us all the time: so<br />
many channels, so many<br />
people’s versions of the<br />
truth depending on the<br />
agenda of the person who<br />
tells it.<br />
I had intended to stop<br />
with the revelation that the<br />
person at the door is a child,<br />
but sometimes a poem takes<br />
on a life of its own and this is<br />
what happened at the end. The<br />
‘I’ in the poem opens the door and<br />
offers unexpected hospitality. The<br />
child takes off his shoes. After all the<br />
terrible loaded words and suspicion, the two<br />
acts of courtesy are a kind of healing.<br />
Perhaps because of its ability to say the<br />
unsayable, more and more people are turning to poetry now, but<br />
it has always been there, under the world’s skin, working away<br />
to say things that needed to be said. It is part of everyday life<br />
and speech, in every language, in Urdu or Farsi or in English. We<br />
speak Shakespeare’s poetry without even realising it, in phrases<br />
that are used every day. It is in the language of ancient songs, of<br />
anonymous women working in the fields, in the words spoken<br />
between lovers, between parents and children, in holy books<br />
and unholy curses from 2,000 years ago to two minutes ago.<br />
I eavesdrop shamelessly on conversations in cafes, stations,<br />
on trains, on the street. I see it as part of my job as a poet to<br />
listen to the words around me, in everyday life, not just what<br />
people say, but how they say it, the spaces between the words,<br />
the hesitations, the accent and odd usage. For me it’s like mining<br />
treasure and some of it finds its way into poems.<br />
There’s eavesdropping at all kinds of levels: listening to<br />
human voices of course, but also listening in on the world,<br />
nature, social shifts, the heart’s secrets. I suppose<br />
there is a furtive element to it. It does mean being<br />
undetected, having an ear to a keyhole, lying<br />
in wait for things people don’t even know<br />
they are hiding or aren’t ready to tell.<br />
So I don’t think of poetry as some<br />
rarefied thing. I see it as being<br />
involved with the world, not afraid<br />
to get its hands dirty, because<br />
it has always been about<br />
making sense of the everyday,<br />
examining the soiled<br />
underside of things, the mess<br />
of life, seeing, understanding<br />
it at an odd angle and<br />
putting words to it all.<br />
In a chaotic world,<br />
where language is brutalised<br />
daily, it is needed more than<br />
ever. With the explosion of<br />
media, there are platforms<br />
for all kinds of poetry and<br />
whole continents of new<br />
listeners. That is something<br />
to celebrate, because it is a<br />
wide and generous space<br />
and can accommodate all<br />
kinds of voices.<br />
Most of all, words<br />
are there to be used<br />
with pleasure, not to be<br />
squandered, but to be<br />
savoured; to remind us<br />
what it is to be human,<br />
with this great gift of<br />
language.<br />
It is the way to<br />
answer back and stand up<br />
to the bullies of language, an<br />
act of subversion, and is far<br />
too powerful to be controlled<br />
or contained. !<br />
Words: Imtiaz Dharker<br />
Illustration: Nick Daly / @nickdalyart<br />
Imtiaz Dharker is artist in residence at Chester Literature<br />
Festival, which takes place across Storyhouse until Saturday<br />
30th November. Imtiaz Dharker’s work will remain in situ at<br />
Storyhouse throughout <strong>2020</strong>.<br />
The Right Word<br />
Outside the door,<br />
lurking in the shadows,<br />
is a terrorist.<br />
Is that the wrong description?<br />
Outside that door,<br />
taking shelter in the shadows,<br />
is a freedom fighter.<br />
I haven’t got this right.<br />
Outside, waiting in the shadows,<br />
is a hostile militant.<br />
Are words no more<br />
than waving, wavering flags?<br />
Outside your door,<br />
watchful in the shadows,<br />
is a guerrilla warrior.<br />
God help me.<br />
Outside, defying every shadow,<br />
stands a martyr.<br />
I saw his face.<br />
No words can help me now.<br />
Just outside the door,<br />
lost in shadows,<br />
is a child who looks like mine.<br />
One word for you.<br />
Outside my door,<br />
his hand too steady,<br />
his eyes too hard<br />
is a boy who looks like your son, too.<br />
I open the door.<br />
Come in, I say.<br />
Come in and eat with us.<br />
The child steps in<br />
and carefully, at my door,<br />
takes off his shoes.<br />
54
Blow 3.0<br />
Tin Men and The<br />
Telephone<br />
Tony Kofi Quartet<br />
Cykada<br />
Sarathy Korwar<br />
Martin Archer’s<br />
Anthropology Band<br />
Moonmot<br />
Hippo<br />
Beyond Albedo<br />
Blind Monk Theory?<br />
Yaatri<br />
Liverpool<br />
Saxophone<br />
Day <strong>2020</strong><br />
27 Feb - 1 Mar <strong>2020</strong><br />
Festival tickets and tickets<br />
to individual events available<br />
For full details and box office please visit:<br />
www.thecapstonetheatre.com/jazzfestival/
YOUSEF PRESENTS...<br />
CHRISTMAS SPECIAL<br />
SAT 21ST DECEMBER<br />
BRAMLEY MOORE DOCK. LIVERPOOL. 2PM - 11PM<br />
HOT SINCE 82<br />
STEVE LAWLER<br />
YOUSEF<br />
ENZO SIRAGUSA<br />
LEWIS BOARDMAN<br />
TICKETS ONLINE: SKIDDLE.COM