And Still They Try It On…An Open Letter

Dear promoter, thank you so much for your message.
Yes,  the ” ” are interested in playing a concert for you, but, before we agree to our services, and, due to what seems to be a resurgence of late, in booking agent’s offering disadvantageous deals to bands, I feel should clarify the following points.

When the promoter employs a band, we consider that the band is being paid for an original show of an agreed duration. Although we are happy to send out notification of the show(s) using the usual email, text and social network lists, radio and press and other opportunities as they arise (indeed, we are happy to give up a considerable amount of our unpaid time doing this) -  in no way do we consider it part of the band’s contract to guarantee an audience, sell tickets or promote the gig in any ways other than the above, or, engage in any ‘after the first (P) people have paid £X (+y), (where y = ‘your overheads’) the band gets £x (-n²) per person who pays at the door and indicates they are coming to see you’  malarkey. (Where n = bar take minus venue overheads, window tax, or something equally random).

If you are happy with the above - as I am sure you are, being a reputable promoter (and, may I say, your reputation does precede you) – please feel free to call me to discuss.

Yours,

Peter Bennett

Vinyl, Souvenirs, Degeneration

L-13 Recordings of Clerkenwell, The Dublo & Monkey Island, warmly invite you to:

A 10″ VINYL Launch Party..’Defunctus Est/Baby Don’t Blues EP.’”..set to be one of the stand-out records of 2012…” (John Robb, Louder Than War)

DATE: Friday 13th April 2012

VENUE: [temporary]  BUNKER L-13 176 Stoke Newington High Street London N16 7JL

Door (no cover charge) : 8pm-2am+  LIVE MUSIC : (BOTH BANDS PLAY LIVE) 10pm

Social Media: www.facebook.com/events/182974648485375

Vinyl, Souvenirs, Degeneration

L13 RECORDINGS (of Clerkenwell) duly LAUNCH the brand new 10″ vinyl from THE DUBL0 (Baby Don’t Blues EP) & MONKEY ISLAND (Defunctus Est). The evening will feature a ‘L-13 SUPPORTING THE ROCK N’ ROLL DEGENERATION’ makeover of the venue. Plus mystery 2-dimensional souvenirs from the vaults of the L13 LIGHT INDUSTRIAL WORKSHOP. Both bands will play a live set and the evening will be enhanced by DISC-JOCKEY’S (Eric ‘King Salami’ Baconstrip, David ‘Jumpy’ Jump, Steve $kull) operating a strictly VINYL- ONLY policy. Admission is of course FREE to the faithful Both bands play after 10pm running order to be decided by a specially minted commemorative coin.Rock ‘n’ Roll degeneration poster series designed by Harry  Adams 2012

Defunctus Est / Baby Don’t Blues EP (L-13 Recordings & Imprint Records)

Available now: vinyl 10″/mp3 with hand printed covers and insert sheet available now price £10 from www.l-13.org/acatalog/L-13_RECORDINGS.html or in the shops April 10 2012 via Imprint Records, Distributed by CARGO

L-13 Recordings, the musical arm of Clerkenwell’s L-13 Gallery, present this joint offering from two of Hackney’s most forward-thinking, backward-looking bands. Pressed on deluxe 10-inch vinyl, from hand-cut masters, and housed in individually-numbered hand-printed sleeves, each collectable disc comes complete with a free download code for the more… modern… among you.

MONKEY ISLAND – DEFUNCTUS EST (preview streaming: www.monkeyislandvinyl.bandcamp.com)
In this eight-track core sample of the terrain Monkey Island have been inhabiting over the last year or so since the release of Luxe et Redux, the body of rock has been mischievously rearranged on the slab post-exhumation and a cross section of the results displayed for scrutiny. The strata on view present us with a neo-vista of the bands recent activity. Mudrock, hardcore, metal-ore, artefact and other grim evidence of civilisation are ploughed into the arising midden via their bulldozing sonic archaeology, with the polluted industrial top-soil of punk liberally scattered throughout. A lyrical commentary is provided, its disrupted narrative doing little to assist a linear analysis, but leaving us with their wilfully hammer-headed version of rock’s megalithology and – fracked from an unsteady substrata of half-forgotten ideology, folk forms, surreal observation and digibox truisms – a few dark-humoured clues of how to maintain hope, and grinningly sidestep a seemingly catastrophically corporate future.

Released on a label whose roster includes Billy Childish, James Cauty and Jamie Reid and reads like a Who’s Who of underground pioneers and media certified outsiders, the record is a split with fellow eastenders…

THE DUBLO – BABY DON’T BLUES EP (preview streaming: www.thedublo.bandcamp.com)
Fronted by a twenty-something-year-old, double-bass-playing Hackney gal, their take on the blues is more revisionist than retro. Lo-fi and underground – in part recorded completely live – their unrepentantly independent stance and refusal to pander to a miseryologist interpretation of the blues, has allowed them to illuminate the twilight zone between rockabilly, blues and folk scenes, then slip away unnoticed in the dead of night after serious fun has been had by all. Drawing inspiration in part from both singer and bands coming of age in an area once charmingly known as the murder mile, this three track debut is a taste of the twenty-odd self penned songs, spanning rock n’ roll, boogie, gospel and jazzy standards the band has written over the last couple of years.

Over The Radar : New Art Coordinates in Hackney

‘Over The Radar – New Art Coordinates In Hackney’ + live music from BURNT TOAST & MORTON VALENCE & special guests  THURSDAY 5 APRIL. FREE ADMISSION.

Core Arts is an an artists and musician run charity for musicians and artists- it’s also a 300 capacity music venue and arts gallery in the heart of Hackney, with huge links and commitment to the local community. This cutting edge music and arts extravaganza puts Core Arts on the radar as a gallery and venue and promotes an open and positive attitude towards mental health.

Artists exhibiting include: Marcus Harvey, James Cauty (KLF), David Brian Smith, Gee Vaucher (CRASS), Sadie Murdoch, Gary Molloy, Christine Roche, Colin Smith, Ryan McClelland, Nigel Burch (THE FLEAPIT ORCHESTRA), Samuel St Leger, Jonny Green (SHE/GLITTERBOX/SATELLITE), Katie Miller, Ella Ritchie, Russell Higgs, Sara Hayward, Pete Bennett..and many more

Exhibition coordinated by Pete Bennett

Opening Night: Thursday 5th April 6pm-11pm – General Public are welcome: Free Entry (bar proceeds to CORE ARTS charity) (Art show runs from 5 April – 25 May 2012)

With live music from MORTON VALENCE (on stage 8pm) “Just about the most intriguing band on these shores at the moment..” (Guardian) & BURNT TOAST (on stage 10pm) “Gill Scott-Heron/Last Poets meets Jazzmatazz via Chicago art-grind from the Blast First label’s newest signing” (N16 Mag) + & special guests & DJ’s – incl. DGO Ranks #1 (roots rocka vibe)


Venue: Core Arts Gallery – 109 Homerton High Street, Hackney, E9 6DL  (bottom of Chatsworth Rd next to St Barnabas Church, easy buses/Homerton Overground 5 mins)

‘Over The Radar – New Art Coordinates In Hackney‘ puts Core Arts Gallery into the public eye as a fresh approach to exhibiting and making art.

Forging its own path in largely uncharted territory between arts centre, community space and commercial art gallery, Core Arts is first and foremost a creative hub with strong links to the local community. Core Arts is run exclusively by practising artists and musicians, for artists and musicians who have, or have had, severe and enduring mental health issues.

Artwork or performance at Core Arts is not judged or displayed on these terms. Pigeon-holes that categorise into ‘outsider’ or ‘therapy’ are strongly avoided. Individuality and creativity are respected and nurtured; artists are encouraged to develop their own strategies. Often, professional artists, musicians and writers share the same wall, stage and page as Core Arts members, without hierarchy. The results are exciting, refreshing and challenge both artistic and mental health preconceptions and clichés.

This show, with a host of exhibitors including many highly respected professionals from all areas of the arts, reinforcing and supporting Core Arts philosophy, is an introduction to the pioneering approach that Core Arts has pursued since its conception some 20 years ago.

Selected artist notes:

Marcus Harvey – the acclaimed painter who gained infamy via the Sensation exhibition has never been one to let his art stand still or rest on past glory. Always with a keen eye on how our culture deals with images, for years he’s been reinventing his work at the cutting edge of British art, and a new painting featuring a flight of Spitfire’s – part expressionist, part commemorative plaque – launches this show.

James Cauty -  one half of situationalist rockers The KLF, who famously burned a million quid in the name of art, machine-gunned the Brit Awards and pulled the comfort blanket from under the Turner Prize, Cauty’s recent work deals with riots, real and imagined and provides poignant and darkly humorous commentary on 2012 Britain.

David Brian Smith – stunningly executed, pictorially inventive neo-pastorals from a painter who’s forthcoming shows at Carl Freedman Gallery and at Frieze in New York will be among the most talked about this year.

Gee Vaucher – as visual spokesperson of the anarchist band/collective CRASS, her giant collages politicised one generation and outraged another. Never has her work been so relevant.

Sadie Murdoch -  using meticulously constructed photographic and painterly illusion, the eye is gently beguiled into a re-assessment of early modernism, often via 20th century figures – Roger Casement, Josephine Baker – as showcased in a recent shows at The Apartment, Athens and Spectral Metropole (curated by Ken Pratt), Vžigalica Gallery, City Museum of Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Christine Roche – author/artist of ‘I’m Not A Feminist But..’ books in the 1980′s, film-maker for Channel 4 & UNICEF. A fine creator of character and place is revealed in these painterly collages.

Colin Smith – lush painter of eerie Hopper-esque bleaks, the ghost of Édouard Manet haunts Sean Scully in this large-scale picture of a deserted, overflowing dam.

Ryan McClelland – exquisitely printed Kentucky Fried urbanals exposé junk culture in a contemporary nod towards Hogarth’s morality tales.

Gary Molloy -  a prolific artist working in many mediums, whose work has recently featured in the Hay Festival and Museum of Everything at the Tate, shows a new painting and ceramic.

Nigel Burch – musician, artist, poet and… ‘The best hangover cure I ever had…’ said uber-fan of his work, Charles Bukowski.

Samuel St Leger – systematic painting via Nash and Eric Ravelious, with a queasy dose of Lewis Carol thrown in the mix, disturbs the English landscape’s supposed serenity.

Russell Higgs – fumetti artist for our very own Hackney Citizen newspaper, with work recently shortlisted for the Guggenheim Biennial.

Jonny Green – artist, musician – maker of apocalyptic art for the BBC 24 mindset; set against hopelessly idealistic backdrops, raining asteroids and murder tape dig a shallow grave for prescribed optimism.

like

I guess we all know that soon, when you walk past an electronic billboard it will display an advert tailored to an averaged profile based on what you and the passing crowd like or have browsed on the web, activated by all the usual personal mobile devices. So given the content 99 percent of males peruse that will be er, briefly and embarrassingly entertaining, and totally predictable. The nerds who have the skills to design these app’s and social networks lack any useful social skills or, for that matter, social application, and cannot foresee the destructive effect it will have on the human race’s freedom to think outside of a roll play porn warfare scifi fantasy game scenario. Their paymasters don’t care. As Frazer of Dad’s Army used to say when Godfrey’s knitting came undone, ‘We’re All Doomed…’

Paul Holt: 17 Years of Sonic Mayhem

Paul Holt: 17 Years of Sonic Mayhem / Palookas Reissue ‘Gift’ & ‘Hit The Bottle’ Albums as ‘The Dirty Dozen’

Before Hackney Council clamped down on fly posting in their Olympic clean up, it was common to see scrawled, biro-art posters, individualising lamp posts, brightening derelict premises and advertising the numerous musical projects of one of north London’s sonic pioneers.  Always brash but self effacing, and always brilliantly funny in a gruff, hard stare, suffer-no-fools way, they were not unlike their creator, local resident of 20 odd years, Paul Holt.

Born in Highbury and raised in Essex, he returned to Stoke Newington by way of family connections in the early 80′s and co-formed Palookas. A band who’s musical history included the legendary Swell Maps and Television Personalities. An uncompromising 5 piece who carved their own niche in the alternative scene, releasing 4 singles and 4 albums between ’85 and ’91 and touring with contemporaries that included New Model Army, The Membranes and Pulp. Shunning the UK outside of London, but heading to Europe, where there and especially in Germany, their gothic-tinged, driving, post punk was embraced. Going their separate ways in 1991, the band finally achieved some sort of posthumous international glory when Kurt Cobain cited a certain Mr Holt’s guitar sound as an influence on Nirvana.

After the break up Paul stayed on in the area, then known mainly for its bent coppers, cheap rent and late drinking, eventually taking up residence in a back-alley garage, amassing a collection of musical equipment, tape machines and songs. Ignoring leaking roofs, heaterless winters and baking summers in order to pursue his own music, and there he stayed, for 17 years.

I visited the place a few days after seeing him come face to face with one of his former contemporaries, John Robb, at a Membranes reunion gig in Islington. The difference in the twists and turns their lives have taken over 25 years was apparent, one a successful journalist and TV pundit, the other still honing down the sonic masterplan he hatched in an N16 bedsit in 1985. Paul showed me round this legendary home of all night jams and sessions, telling me that he was about to be evicted, as the local gastro pub was building yuppie flats on the site. Great  – if you wanna raise a nuclear family on an advertising exec. budget. But if you wanna make music, proper rock ‘n’ roll, you’ve got to live like an artist. In thee garage – traditional home of the kick-out jams – home comforts give way to essentials: a vast accumulation of mouldy vinyl, where Capital Letters rub shoulders with Atomic Rooster, The Bad Seeds, acid house, Scritty Politty, Gang Of 4, PIL, The Ruts, Madchester and Faust. Drum kits take the place of coffee tables, amps are easy chairs, guitars ornament amongst tapes, cdr’s, effects pedals, spilling ash trays and empty bottles…

A typical day back then would begin, in his own words, late, in the local with a few beers, followed by more beers, copious amounts of herbal and chemical stimulants, and then, at some point in the small hours, the assembled circus of musicians, entourage, refugees and revellers would decant to the studio, to record all night. Powered by the so-solid drumming of Simon Pearson and the dubbed-up bass of Malcolm Joseph, who’s day jobs have included Spiritualised and Grace Jones respectively, but who were attracted from the bright lights to the explosion of ideas that is Paul’s songwriting, and the freedom of sonic experimentation – or just the freedom. Eventually these endless jams morphed into first the cheekily named John Paul Holt III and more recently, The Paralyticos.

A classic post punk sound prevails throughout all Paul’s music, with vocals (not always his – he often works with other singers, from Thai crooner Robby Chan to local rappers including his son Charlie) – snippets of conversation/truisms/sarcasm culled from the lower leagues of society, day jobs on building sites, hours spent either observing or partaking in the local pubs – sometimes gruff, sometimes wrong footing everyone with gentleness, charm, and melody.

Ambition beyond the self defeatism of the music world, a refusal or an inability to compromise and the sheer restlessness of having so many songwriting ideas in one head, have seen his bands gig relentlessly, each building a fierce live reputation. A notable high point being The Paralyticos concert in Dalston’s Rio Cinema, self funded, filmed live and released on the internet – well before it was trendy to do so – and, a seemingly endless output of new tracks…

Finally forced out of his studio by the gentrification, Paul is straight and sober and bounding with energy. Talking about recording new Paralyticos material at Audio Underground and, with the latest project, he brings us full circle; the re-release of Palookas acclaimed first and second albums ‘Gift’ and ‘Hit The Bottle’, remixed and remastered from the original tapes.  There’s even talk of a reunion and judging by the way contemporary sounds have caught up with the reissued songs on ‘The Dirty Dozen’, it will be welcomed. Maybe this time round they wont have to travel to central Europe to collect their dues.

www.palookas.co.uk
www.youtube.com/user/Paralyticos

First Published in N16 Magazine, Louder Than War December 2011
Peter Bennett, November 2011

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A Smith Olympiad 20 drawings given away with Monkey Island – Defunctus Est /The Dublo – Baby Don’t Blues EP collectors edition on 10″ vinyl

A Smith Olympiad 20 drawings given away with Monkey Island – Defunctus Est /The Dublo – Baby Don’t Blues EP collectors edition on 10″ vinyl

A Smith Olympiad 20 drawings given away with Monkey Island – Defunctus Est /The Dublo – Baby Don’t Blues EP collectors edition on 10″ vinyl

A Smith Olympiad 20 drawings given away with Monkey Island – Defunctus Est /The Dublo – Baby Don’t Blues EP collectors edition on 10″ vinyl

A Smith Olympiad 20 drawings given away with Monkey Island – Defunctus Est /The Dublo – Baby Don’t Blues EP collectors edition on 10″ vinyl

A Smith Olympiad 20 drawings given away with Monkey Island – Defunctus Est /The Dublo – Baby Don’t Blues EP collectors edition on 10″ vinyl

A Smith Olympiad 20 drawings given away with Monkey Island – Defunctus Est /The Dublo – Baby Don’t Blues EP collectors edition on 10″ vinyl

A Smith Olympiad 20 drawings given away with Monkey Island – Defunctus Est /The Dublo – Baby Don’t Blues EP collectors edition on 10″ vinyl

A Smith Olympiad 20 drawings given away with Monkey Island – Defunctus Est /The Dublo – Baby Don’t Blues EP collectors edition on 10″ vinyl

A Smith Olympiad 20 drawings given away with Monkey Island – Defunctus Est /The Dublo – Baby Don’t Blues EP collectors edition on 10″ vinyl

A Smith Olympiad 20 drawings given away with Monkey Island – Defunctus Est /The Dublo – Baby Don’t Blues EP collectors edition on 10″ vinyl

A Smith Olympiad 20 drawings given away with Monkey Island – Defunctus Est /The Dublo – Baby Don’t Blues EP collectors edition on 10″ vinyl

A Smith Olympiad 20 drawings given away with Monkey Island – Defunctus Est /The Dublo – Baby Don’t Blues EP collectors edition on 10″ vinyl

A Smith Olympiad 20 drawings given away with Monkey Island – Defunctus Est /The Dublo – Baby Don’t Blues EP collectors edition on 10″ vinyl

A Smith Olympiad 20 drawings given away with Monkey Island – Defunctus Est /The Dublo – Baby Don’t Blues EP collectors edition on 10″ vinyl

A Smith Olympiad 20 drawings given away with Monkey Island – Defunctus Est /The Dublo – Baby Don’t Blues EP collectors edition on 10″ vinyl

A Smith Olympiad 20 drawings given away with Monkey Island – Defunctus Est /The Dublo – Baby Don’t Blues EP collectors edition on 10″ vinyl

A Smith Olympiad 20 drawings given away with Monkey Island – Defunctus Est /The Dublo – Baby Don’t Blues EP collectors edition on 10″ vinyl

A Smith Olympiad 20 drawings given away with Monkey Island Defunctus Est collectors edition on 10″ vinyl

Another Ten Penneth

It’s been coming, the hideously rich have colonised Hackney in the last 5 years and flaunt their wealth whilst living door to door with the increasingly hideously poor. Rents have risen to the point where normal wages barely cover them. No one but city workers and trust fund kids can afford a half million pound mortgage for an average sized Victorian house. There is no affordable housing in the borough we work in. The youth projects the last government funded that kept a fragile peace on the housing estates and offer an alternative to the lure of gang life, are all being cut.

A pity the anger wasn’t more directed, but when the kids have consumerism rammed down their throat every day and no chance of a college education, its the shops they wanna loot and not the government they wanna overthrow. However, it is a genuine rising amongst a disenfranchised people against the injustices that the News International scandals have spotlighted. A mirror of  the corruption, greed and war that is at the top of our society. If anything the situation is saying  ‘We live here. You have abandoned us. We don’t trust you. And now we can’t even afford the consumer crap you try to fob us off with’.
Britain is angry, from the middle class, to the educated, to the poor, to the ignorant. And those who aren’t, are increasingly on ‘the other side’. Interesting times…