A fire has settled on my belly. A constellation of rubies; scarlet stars on a sky of skin. Rash thoughts have become gut feelings: nettle kisses, whip-scorn wishes.

Some wear their hearts on their sleeve. I keep mine close to my chest, play the game with a poker face and the steady hand of a butcher cutting the pack.

But the heart rules the blood along with the feelings. Thoughts silenced, thoughts reversed, thoughts stifled at birth will find other, more fluid outlets.

Time's corroding agents burn where they can, turning sweat to rust. The pinprick gunfire of an open wound leaks the inevitable truth: shot by shot, drop by drop.

Posted by Hg on Saturday 13 December 2008 at 23:44.
Received 2 comments so far.

Three weeks ago, I contributed a picture to the A Message For Obama Flickr group. I'd received an invitation to join the group from Meg and it seemed like an interesting idea. There were just over twenty existing photos in the pool when I added mine. I watched in amazement over the next few days as new submissions were added by the minute.

The following week, I was delighted to receive a message from The Guardian, requesting permission to include my contribution in a book that it was planning to publish based on the group's images. Any hesitation on my part - purely on grounds of bashfulness - was quelled when I read that profits would be donated to the organisation's Katine project.

The book was published yesterday. This morning I fired off a few questions to Meg - who is not just the founder of this Flickr group, but also The Guardian's head of communities - to explore the background and progress of this fascinating phenomenon. Her responses convey her obvious enthusiasm for both the concept and its execution.


How did the original idea come about?

The essence of the idea was to see if we could capture reaction to Barack Obama's presidential victory in a creative way - the day after the result, it seemed like everyone was talking about it in our offices, in our social networks (Twitter, Facebook and the like) and online. It was really interesting that people were sharing such personal thoughts and reflections about and reactions to the election result in very public spaces, and we decided to see if we could create a space where they could be collected together - Flickr was the obvious place. It started with a few of us taking pictures around the Guardian offices (I think mine was the first in the group we created - it said "Please don't fuck it up" which is genuinely what I was worried about especially on the back of all the euphoric celebrations the night before).

Did you expect so many images to be added to the pool so quickly?

No, that was amazing. When I created the group, I sent invitations to a number of my contacts on Flickr who I thought might be interested, and it obviously struck a chord because they started adding images straight away. The real bump came when Heather Champ (community manager at Flickr), who had been invited and added her own image, featured it on the Flickr blog. Suddenly, pictures came pouring in from all corners of the world.

At what point did the book concept emerge?

Quite quickly - within a couple of days, really. Once we saw the amazing variety and quality of messages and photos we were inspired to find a way to make something tangible out of it. Normal publishing deadlines mean that books can take a long time to turn around (months, in some cases) and can present a financial risk to the publisher (you have to decide how many copies to print in advance, and then there are marketing and distribution costs). We realised that it would be possible to use Blurb, a print-on-demand service, to publish quickly and print copies only as people ordered them, which meant it was possible to get something out within weeks, not months. That's important when you're surfing on zeitgeist!

Did most of the people who you approached grant permission for their image(s) to be used?

Overwhelmingly, yes. I sent requests to 163 people and received 155 positive replies - and the other eight didn't answer. People seemed to be really happy to collaborate on this project, and I'm sure the promise of a free book didn't sway them at all...

What lessons have been learned from "using content-gathering and publishing techniques we have never tried before" [a quote from Emily Bell's blog post]?

First of all, I think there's a difference between content-gathering and creative collaboration. Setting a creative challenge and seeing how people interpret it isn't new, but doing it at such scale and in a way which respects people's opinions and interpretations can be hard. It emerged quite quickly that we needed to be fairly strict about the format of submissions, not because of the book but because without clear focus, it could very easily turn into a repository for people's images of election lines, Obama t-shirts, candles, maps of the US, kittens, sunsets, and so on - and there are loads of groups for that stuff already. So we settled on a very clear premise: is it a personal message to the president-elect? Then it's fine. If not, then it's out. So that was the first lesson - a ruthless focus at the start takes time and effort to establish but ultimately makes it easier for others to see how they can contribute, and becomes self-policing quite quickly.

Secondly, we realised how important it was to tread carefully. As a passionate photographer and Flickr user myself, I was super-sensitive to the possibility of people feeling exploited by bigmeeja, and so we did everything possible to respect people's rights and views, asked permission to feature their images and talked to them about the process and the big picture. I've been on the receiving end of mails from media organisations saying "Can we use this picture?" but without a clue what for, or how it would be portrayed or anything. I wanted to avoid that sort of cluelessness.

The third lesson learnt from this project was that publishing something using proprietary software can be a somewhat temper-fraying, nail-biting experience...

What has been the most striking aspect of this project for you personally?

The amazing creativity and thoughtfulness of contributions to the pool has been incredibly inspiring. It would have been easy to have ended up with a thousand webcam pictures of people with their thumbs up saying "nice one!" but actually, people have found interesting ways - and words - to express their hopes and fears about an Obama presidency.

Do you have a favourite image (apart from mine, obviously)?

Well, yours is brilliant, obviously... but it's difficult to choose a favourite, as you can imagine. I particularly like this strong image - it was the first submission to the pool to really use the body in an interesting way of delivering a message (and I really like the little added bit on the thumb). I love this one, this one and this one, either for image quality or because of the particular messages, which capture the zeitgeist particularly strikingly. But I also love the spirit of this one, which didn't make it into the book, unfortunately.

Is there potential for a whole series of A Message For... projects, or is this strictly a one-off?

That's a good idea! We have no immediate plans to repeat the experiment, but you never know when another opportunity might present itself. One of the most important things about A Message for Obama was that it provided a creative outlet at a very particular time, when people were full of opinions and reactions - I'm not sure it would work as well at any other random time. Right idea, right medium, right time.


That conclusion strikes a chord. Occasionally I find the ephemerality of blogging a little frustrating. Recently I've been starting to get myself involved in other media (in the broadest sense of the word) that produce a more physical end-result. That's why I'm pleased to be involved in this book, quite apart from its potential benefit to Katine.

Time will tell what Barack Obama makes of his tenure of the US Presidency. However, this project provides an enduring snapshot of a moment when people felt that the likelihood of change was sufficiently strong to motivate them to make a direct, online address to one of the world's most influential figures. You can preview and buy the book here.

Posted by Hg on Thursday 27 November 2008 at 14:41.
Received 1 comments so far.

Crook @ Sweeps


There's no point in beating around the bush, so I'm just going to come straight out with it: I'm convinced that Lupen Crook is one of the most important artists currently operating in the UK. There's a sense of visceral honesty emanating from his work that I've only encountered in a handful of other performers during my thirty-plus years of music obsession.

With a back catalogue of songs covering difficult truths frequently couched in riddle and metaphor, a musical canon that blasts its way through conventional genres with little regard for collateral damage and a larger-than-life personality that sometimes wilfully seems to court the reputation of idiot savant and awkward bastard, there are plenty of potential barriers to understanding and enlightenment.

However, listen with patience and an open mind and you'll be rewarded by an astonishing command of melody and rhythm, a fertile collection of lyrics covering a broad range of recurring, universal preoccupations and a voice that tells you as much - or as little - as you're willing to hear. If art is the divining of the unique and the original, this is some of the purest art you're likely to encounter.

I had so many questions. The first thing I wanted to explore was that name - suggestive of wolf, flower, thief, instrument of control, sickness, anger - and how it encapsulates his creativity...


I'm constantly fascinated by the way that so many contemporary musicians tend to adopt a different identity (as expressed by their name) as part of the process of conveying their vision to the world. Where did 'Lupen Crook' come from and who is he?

Role play and fantasy, the idea that we can transcend our normal selves and for a moment live the life of something other than a figure in the mirror. Most people view their existence, in some way at least, as being mundane and unsatisfactory to the way they once imagined. A child's vision of what they see themselves as in the future is a vision rarely met, more often than not it is left to waste away, eventually considered unrealistic and impossible.

Even those lucky few who consider their dream achieved find the reality is quite different from the childish original. Even the loose frenzy of madness has its problems. Like most, since a very young age I have toyed with the imaginary world of aliens, alter egos, alternative realities and Lupen Crook is no different. Though I have accepted that adulthood won't ever satisfy the child inside of me, I am obsessed and unwavering in my pursuit for small moments that remind me that those fantasies once existed and therefore do exist.

To have your feet buried in the ground with the roots and worms and a head in the clouds gazing stars and strange unidentified shapes is where I stand now. The body can bend, break and take the brunt of everything else.

Do you feel that as Lupen Crook you're consciously in character like an actor, or is it more a case of forging this new identity in order to express who you "really" are?

Lupen Crook had originally satisfied a creative longing, in that I had given birth to this elusive character. A character who, free from sexual, social or spiritual restraints, became a name and person that I would live through. He was a character that in the minds eye I could fabricate a past, present and supposed future.

Lupen Crook formed a material safety blanket that I wrapped myself up in, thus allowing feelings that were felt and found difficult to put in plain words and also feelings that were perhaps not so natural or even external to myself, though were nonetheless of great interest to me, more comfortable to explore.

Looking back, the insecure and confused in me created this blanket and I am glad to say his inclusion in my life has given me the ability to work through the vast and vicious colours and characterisations that we all fight and fondle with, the pleasures and pains of growing up in such a strange bewildering world.

Your Medway origins are well documented. They're also a recurring feature of many of your lyrics, from "Dick Strange..." to "Ode To Fucking Everyone", as well as in other areas of your output such as your recent MySpace blog posts. How important is this sense of place to you?

The Medway Towns [a conurbation in Kent comprising five towns on the River Medway: Strood, Rochester, Chatham, Gillingham and Rainham] is a fascinating place. I have been both its prisoner and patriarch for twenty-six years now. I call it Invicta's Belly. Victor being a giant wandering beast of low mental attention, who in a time long past grazed on the green grass valleys of Kent, wet his tongue on the swamps and clusters of branch and other debris. I imagine he happened upon this cruel ground and greedily ate it up.

Unbeknown to dear Victor, spider mites and nasty worms that'd formed under the shadow of London's over-hang entered through his mouth and down into his belly. There they partied for days and weeks on end in idle celebration of their escape from the ground they'd grown out of and remained up until this moment trapped. Victor grew terribly ill that night, clutching his stomach and cursing the Gods he forced fingers down his throat to retrieve and expel whatever evil had entered into him.

His new residents were stubborn though, fighting back against the bile and causing cramps that would eventually see Victor fall back and find death. Those spider mites and dirt worms are our ancestors. We are stubborn and aggressive, we take part in idle celebrations and fight back against the bile of those who wish to expel and cleanse themselves of us.

Medway Council don't tell you that in their brochure, but I shit you not: it's all true.

You were talking earlier this year about fostering some kind of informal movement of locally based, like-minded artistic peers called the Medway Non League Extreme. Can you tell us more about this? Is there anything tangible to share, or is it more a statement of intent?

Non League Extreme is nothing but an idea, though it is an idea all the same and that is definitely something - a statement of intent at least. What will it be? Only what we make it. If it remains just a concept then that is fine by me, what exists here will continue like the defiant might it is, with or without a title. I believe along with a few others that it provides an accurate description of the attitude and diverse movement that is festering beneath the underground of The Medway Towns and perhaps even further afield. Time will undoubtedly tell.

From a Medway perspective, London sometimes seems to be just on its doorstep and yet at other times it feels like it's light years away. You've poked fun at the 'London scene' in 'Junk 'n' Jubilee', yet you regularly play gigs there. Do you have something of a love-hate relationship with the place?

There is so much to London. My experience up until this year has been performing, which has been to a certain extent sitting on my perch feeling disgusted by the vicious circles of social interaction that define the 'scene' up there. I still fucking hate it.

Having grown up a little now - and with my experience in New York - I realise that it is not the individuals but the groups themselves that are so devilish. Always a vampire close by, though it is these people that I feel sorry for. It seems the need to define oneself in such a demanding and broad-minded place overwhelms the need to simply exist as an individual. Those initially appearing as leaders of these fashionable packs are often those truly lost. A spiritless twit carried around on the current of conformity under the illusion of individuality and revolution.

Having been homeless since January, I have taken to wandering without intent and London has proved a great inspiration. With my only company being my disposable Argos guitar (a handy weapon if the need ever arise) and notepad, I have spent days and nights on the streets in separation from the London I have previously been exposed to. Through isolating myself and moving freely through the streets I have experienced the true city and I can say it is a wealth of experience and interest.

I have made my time with a great variety of people, from the grey suits to street whores and all else between, though have not yet felt the claustrophobic frustration I normally associate with the place because I travel on my own, and my intention has only been to experience myself in alien environment.

You recently spent a couple of weeks in New York. How were you received by an American audience? Would you like to go back? Did being in New York give you any kind of new perspective on yourself, the band and your output?

I didn't visit New York; I lived there for sixteen days. I became its resident. We were lucky enough to have some very kind people who welcomed us into their homes and gave us the option of resting our heads whenever the need arose. I rediscovered my role as a songwriter and artist and that has spurned my constant wandering of late.

Plans to go back are being formed as we speak, though Tom Murderbird is in charge of that side of things. My role this year is writing and besides, everything I attempt to organise other than these songs seems to fall flat on its face, for I am absolutely and undeniably the most disorganised creature in England, perhaps in nature.

Your earlier material was broadly acoustic and then for a while you veered quite markedly towards a harder punk/garage rock sound. More recently - both in solo performances and as a band - you seem to be returning to the "unplugged" style. How do you see things evolving from here?

As I have already said, the last few years have been littered with personal and professional disorder and looking back, musically this has been evident. However, I have found my source again and know where I am heading as far as the subject of my songs is concerned. I think also my relationship with the Langridge brothers [i.e. The Murderbirds] is now fully formed and we are beginning to find our feet as a team of musicians.

In the past, creating a 'sound' has never been our prerogative and with so many songs flying around we've ran wild down a thousand avenues with no real sense of why or where it may lead us. Sorry to go back to our trip to New York, but that really sorted some things out. At the time I wasn't strictly allowed in the country, that and financial reasons meant we were unable to bring our full set up so as hand luggage we carried two guitars and a Cajon box for Bob to bang on. It allowed the acoustic element that we had lost or left behind to reappear naturally.

For the next while whilst I write, we plan to build on that and experiment, keeping a mind's eye on what we've learnt in New York. It feels great to be building back a band from nothing, just a couple of guitars and a wooden box. I believe this next record will be our most concise and complete record to date.

Your songs hint at such a huge range of musical influences, yet in terms of genre they can be quite difficult to pin down. Is this the result of a concerted effort to be original, or simply the completely intuitive result of what happens when you start to write?

I have always found this question difficult. My role as a songwriter is not to bother myself with the writing of songs, but to welcome experience and incident no matter what the consequence. As long as I have a guitar to hand then those experiences will naturally manifest themselves as songs. This is the reason why I find myself in such constant difficulty, because that random and reckless way of living is my muse.

Unfortunately - and what those close to me have come to realise - is that my best material comes when I cannot afford the comforts normally associated with nowadays. I am selfish to my obsession and this is why I have no plans to fix an abode anytime soon. I have a record to write, after all. It must be said though, I am very lucky to have a few understanding people surrounding me so that when it gets too much for my brain there is a sofa to rest my crooked self down upon. Bless those few.

Many of your lyrics seem quite oblique, yet on occasion you're happy to explain what the songs are about at your gigs. Do you relish the ambiguity - I'm thinking of your description of yourself a couple of years ago as "a self-absorbed prick who wants to confuse people" - or would you rather be clearly understood?

Still a self-absorbed prick I'm afraid, though this new body of work is unlike anything else I have done - though don't expect a dazzling disco record and there'll be no costume changes either, though when the millions roll in who knows?

Seriously though, the movement I talk of is subtle, though the scent strong. In previous works I have felt - perhaps through insecurity - that I must cover my subject and songs with lyrics layered heavily in cryptic analogies and puzzling nonsense. I am trying for simplicity. My subject is one of loss, love and lust and these are three particulars that everyone must experience, so therefore this record will have to be clear and concise and available to everyone regardless of their age, intellect or musical preference. I am digging deeper than ever this time and the results shall have to be completely honest if they are to reach into people and sit as I intend them to be sat.

You don't tend to address political issues directly in your songs, but nevertheless you cover politics tangentially (references to the left and right-wing in "Staghead & Monster", or the "rivers of blood" and subversion of racial stereotypes in "Ode To Fucking Everyone", for example). Are you actively interested in politics?

I am interested in the politics between me and you, her and him, us and them. Everything else stems outward from these simple partnerships and in my opinion loses effectiveness and certainty as it does. Perhaps I'm just too dumb to understand actual politics, probably. Just seems to me like great thinkers invest their efforts in creating philosophical ideas and revolutionary theories only to have complete idiots take them off the paper and try to apply - no sorry, force - them into actual fact. I resign back to the book and will ignore that idiot unless I get the chance to grab him by the balls and stick my filthy tongue down his throat.

There seems to be a hugely anti-authoritarian streak running through your material. You're not very keen on institutionalised figures of authority, railing against priests, politicians, the "hypocrites' curriculum" and even the fire brigade. Have you had many direct experiences that have contributed to this viewpoint?

It is true that my viewpoint toward authority figures and organised institutions is perhaps not met with optimism and delight. I am of Catholic upbringing and influenced by the ethics of punk rock entirely. I hate the curriculum because I believe it starves the teacher of his/her right to teach. So many good people have grown up believing they are stupid when the fact is, there simply wasn't the correct structure in place to teach them properly. True teaching is something that comes from the heart, a heart of experience and understanding.

In the big bad world, life is life and it remains sadly unchanged, though its scale has ballooned and the space for lies to congest and persuade truth has grown wider than ever. It has been well documented by others that fear is a valuable tool and these invisible bastards will always use it to coerce and control everyone who falls under their iron might wing.

I consider it a test nowadays. Having gotten myself in a few bits of trouble I now try to fight with a form as cunning as they, rather than with fists and four letter words spitting quick out my mouth. In truth, I crave for an understanding of others and through them hopefully I will see myself and better manage to live a life full without bitterness.

I guess that avoids the question of actual experience though. Aside from the Catholic stitch in my side and a few arrests that I've wholly deserved, I've holidayed quite a few months in Medway's local Shelley Ward in the past. Once under section and the other two occasions through necessity. All three times, heavy tranquillisation and rash diagnosis have been administered. I was told once that my song writing was a direct contributor to my 'illness' and that I must 'stop chasing this idle obsession immediately' if I ever wanted to get better, or avoid getting worse.

I ignored them. I lied to them. I fake wellness. Now I deal with any abnormal thoughts honestly and without embarrassment. Most important to me is a clear head and a good night's sleep when I can get it. Be ready to fight when I have to and most of all to know that when the time comes I know whom I'm fighting against and exactly what for.

I get the impression that you have strong views on religion too. There are the specific references to "middle-class Christians with filth on their minds" and the "Catholic Crook" drawing on your MySpace site, as well as frequently recurring themes of fire, burning and hell in your lyrics. Are you a religious man?

Organised religion will burn for eternity in organised hell. That said, I am a deeply religious man, just a very disorganised one.

Many of your songs appear superficially dark and rather bleak, but they're also frequently savagely funny, punctuated with an almost light-hearted wordplay and a tender kind of hope. I've had a stronger sense of this in 2008. Is this an under-rated element that has been there all along, or something that has emerged more recently?

I am glad you've noticed. Depression and desperate struggles, debt, a half hearted though continual affair with alcoholism, a dysfunctional appetite for sexstruction and a constant need for attention though complete lack of it within myself - where has it gotten me? I find myself once again crying like a fucking child, feeling sorry for the life that I am forced to lead like a drunk dog through parks built for cars, eating out of bins and wearing nappies full of shit. So I am always searching for a little light, and dearly wish it would fly by like a flutter and kiss me on the forehead right about now.

I understand that you're no longer with Tap 'n' Tin Records and during your recent gigs you've abandoned most of the songs you've been playing for the last year or so in favour of almost entirely new material. What are your plans for the coming months?

Yes I have come to the end of my recording contract. Of recent gigs I wouldn't say abandoned, rather let rest those songs for a while. I am bleeding material at the moment and enjoying the process very much. Having to perform old material would be very confusing to me, especially when I am trying to discover new ground on which to walk.

I have a small following which I am grateful for, but the big cheers come from the older and better-known songs and that I fear might subconsciously influence my new material. A clean slate is required and so recent gigs have been unorganised affairs, though for me, very important because this is all gearing up for the next record. If I have to alienate through the absence of "Lucky Six" then so be it, I couldn't care less at the moment.

You're very visually expressive - you share a lot of your artwork on MySpace - and you've also talked in the past about writing a novel. How's that going? Would you like to broaden the scope of your output further, or have you made a decision to focus on your music for the foreseeable future?

There is a novel written, though I desperately need an editor to help me because though I could explain it front to back in under five minutes, it is structurally a very complex affair and the very thought of it gives me the shivers.

To be fair, having concentrated my efforts on songs for such a long time now, a full-length book has proved too much for my mind to contain and to complete anything you need to give it your fullest attention. I have never done that with my story so I don't deserve it just yet.

No worries for the moment, it's out of mind. I am content with my wandering, writing my songs and sketching people in my little black book as they pass by.

The track "Matthew's Magpie" appears on your 2005 debut EP and was re-recorded for your final single on Tap 'n' Tin. It's clearly a song that has a particular significance for you. Several of your lyrics refer to birds, but this one seems especially symbolic. Would you like to elaborate?

Matthew's Magpie is what I would call a host song. This is a true-life tale and its origins lie around the same time I discovered my role-play partner Lupen Crook. The damned bird followed me for a whole day in the mid-summer sun around Victoria Gardens in Chatham. Despite my efforts to shoo the bird away, it stubbornly sat on the shoulders of my shadow as if whispering in the ear.

Some sort of message, though to this day the words remain unclear. So I didn't ever work out what that message was, but a new obsession grew from that day and this song is probably the only clarification of Lupen Crook's birthplace and his future intentions.


Thus we end where we began, with the emergence of Lupen Crook from his shadowy progenitor. Does this artifice of personality imply any lack of substance or authenticity in the music? I don't think so. It takes a certain kind of bravery to abandon the certainties of a former identity; not to mention a considerable level of talent to be able to sum up your experiences and conclusions so honestly, in an art form frequently hijacked by the trite and the banal.

Lupen Crook continues to fascinate his many fans because he offers nothing more or less than a complete dedication to exploring who he is and what he feels about the world around him. To call this self-obsessed or narcissistic would be to miss the point: that in doing so, he encourages his audience to take the same perspective on their own lives. If that isn't art of the highest order, I don't know what is.


This interview was conducted in June and originally published in DrunkenWerewolf issue 5 in October. DrunkenWerewolf is published bi-monthly and covers new and unusual acts who operate in a roughly acoustic/indie/experimental vein.

Posted by Hg on Friday 21 November 2008 at 22:39.
Received 0 comments so far.

Elks' two pre-album singles - reviewed collectively in issue 3 of DrunkenWerewolf - were an impressive demonstration of confidence and accomplishment. Nevertheless, maintaining a similarly consistent level of quality across an entire album was by no means a foregone conclusion. Many groups have faltered at the considerably larger hurdle of putting together a cohesive collection of material that manages to be as absorbing as their initial offerings.

Thankfully the band has risen to the challenge and this self-titled debut fulfils their early promise in a rather spectacular way. Both of the singles - The Acorn and Wide Avenues - appear in re-recorded versions. Neither of these particularly break new ground, but appear to have been fleshed out and given subtle makeovers in line with the slightly warmer and more complex tone of the album as a whole.

Elks' lyrical preoccupations remain broadly unaltered: their outsider perspective is a recurring concern, fleeing the small towns in which they were born (in Four Pale Letters), where they felt "like dogs locked in hot cars, where one breath is too many to have to hold", yet (in London) feeling no more at home in the metropolis ("London, this is a warning, your people are tired, your people are wired").

Fear, fights and paranoia abound. In The Acorn they leave the city for "the lakes and the mountains" but little changes: "I keep a gun under my bed, because these country folk are all whack-whack-whacked on prescription medicines". Nauseated and panic-stricken, comfort can only ultimately be found in a brown bag used as a breathing aid and a return to the environment that fuelled their original anxiety.

Independent Bodies continues the theme of isolation ("No one knows what's the matter with you when your devil's within"), its title emphasising the disconnection between the narrator and everything he sees around him. Epic Of Diet Soda rejects churches, political parties and the military against an intense and jaunty musical backdrop that wouldn't have sounded out of place on one of the earlier Pixies albums.

In fact, the music as a whole bears many passing similarities with Black Francis' former band, without being remotely derivative. Don't come to Elks expecting to hear a modern take on Surfer Rosa - you'll be sorely disappointed - but nevertheless there's a similar mixture of complexity supporting a core of strong melodies. Remember the way that The Pixies made rock sound fresh and interesting again? Elks do that too.

On the subject of Big Names, occasionally I've heard echoes of Radiohead in this album. I doubt this is the result of any conscious attempt at homage, but sometimes there's an air of desolation to the vocals that couples with some kind of unexpected chord change and sounds oddly familiar. Neither of these comparisons should undermine Elks' own musical vision, they merely hint at the band's level of achievement.

Elks perform a fine balancing act between many fascinating dualities: environmental claustrophobia and epic soundscapes; the song-oriented structures of indie and the more challenging textures of math-rock; tender reflection and screaming catharsis. The great thing about their album is that none of this feels contradictory. Rather, it all coalesces in the form of a captivating set of songs that deserves to win them many new fans.


This review was written in June and originally published in DrunkenWerewolf issue 5 in October. DrunkenWerewolf is published bi-monthly and covers new and unusual acts who operate in a roughly acoustic/indie/experimental vein.

Posted by Hg on Wednesday 19 November 2008 at 09:01.
Received 0 comments so far.

I have this romantic notion of a country full of bedroom musicians singing their hearts out, unconcerned by whether there's a potential audience for their output, let alone a market. It's the old cliché: I do it for myself and if anyone else likes it that's a bonus. A fine sentiment, but there comes a point at which if you've got something to say, you need people to hear it. And so, it's time to listen to Kez Pietersen.

Let's get the disclosure out of the way first. Kez is a friend of the [DrunkenWerewolf] editor's, which is precisely why Tiff isn't writing this review and I am. Yes, pushing her into the limelight (via a couple of surreptitiously shared tracks on the DW LiveJournal page) and then reviewing her first EP might be considered nepotism of the highest order, but rest assured that I've (sadly) not been handed a fat wad of scruffy fivers in return for a good review.

Not that this would be necessary. The first time I heard the title track of this EP, I was hooked. I played it constantly for a long time. I also pushed it in several friends' directions, many of whom struggled with the rawness of both its execution and its sentiments. Unsurprising, since this EP was created in the time-honoured tradition that has stood many fledgling artists in good stead: press Record, play the music, press Stop.

Is this just a polite way of saying that actually, it's all a bit crap? No. Quite the reverse. This is an intense blast of pure personality. In one sense it's "just" a generic acoustic singer-songwriter release, but - crucially - I've never heard anyone who sounds quite like this. It's a pure expression of self and ultimately that's what the best art is all about. There's all the time in the world to polish things up later.

The no-bullshit approach extrends to the lyrics, which cover relationships ("You're not man enough to be my man"), self-examination & self-doubt ("I've fallen behind, yes I've lost my mind"), truth & deceit ("Your cryptic bullshit means nothing now") and bitter-sweet character sketches ("Pour another glass, it's just another bottle from daddy's cellar"). She's cynical at times, but ultimately an optimist.

5st 2lb is one of the strongest tracks, a relentlessly descending progression that recalls Manic Street Preachers' 4st 7lb in more than just subject matter (the opening "One in five die with their hands in their throat..." floors me every time). She has a beautiful voice: sweet and slightly husky, which balances nicely against the intensity of many of the lyrics and carries the EP through its occasional flaws.

Its roughness is precisely what I love about this collection. From a technical point of view, the playing is all over the place: sometimes hesitant, with fluffed notes, missed plucks and inconsequential fuck-ups. She sounds like she's working at the limit of her abilities, but that's why it's so good. This is a real human being, with a guitar, a handful of chords and a head full of ideas. It's not slick.

There are many different things that you can demand of the music that you listen to. If you're after a honed, crafted studio performance, this EP isn't for you. If, on the other hand, you've ever been captivated by the early boombox intimacy of Mountain Goats, Diane Cluck's circular introspection or Kristin Hersh singing Appalachian murder ballads, you'll find plenty here that's deserving of your attention.


This review was written in June and originally published in DrunkenWereWolf issue 5 in October. DrunkenWerewolf is published bi-monthly and covers new and unusual acts who operate in a roughly acoustic/indie/experimental vein.

Posted by Hg on Tuesday 18 November 2008 at 16:17.
Received 0 comments so far.

"Every artist knows that if they get something in a sketch it can be impossible to recapture that energy in another medium. And that's the kind of energy I'm trying to get into everything. When you paint, you're in the moment. Creativity is the only thing that engages with life. It's the joining of mind and material. It's a spiritual thing - and all of life should be like that."

The Sunday Times published a fascinating feature on Billy Childish last month. I've read numerous interviews with Childish over the years and I've been intrigued by his outlook on life, but it wasn't until a couple of years ago that I finally started to make sense of his music via a compilation called My First Billy Childish Album (and particularly, its spoken word piece I Am The Strange Hero Of Hunger).

"I'm in love with desperate men with desperate hands, walking in second-hand shoes searching for God and hearing God and hating God."

The rawness of tracks like The Day I Beat My Father Up seems to have become a common theme in much of my listening over the past eighteen months, but when I look back I can see that it's always been present in the output of many of my long-term favourites like Patti Smith, Kristin Hersh and Gavin Friday. That intensity and honesty of expression seems to be something that I'm repeatedly drawn to.

The day was breathing without a sound
The dog was dead, buried in the ground
The sun shone like sixteen golden fingers
It glistened like diamonds in my mother's windows

In this recent interview, Childish talks about the need for immediacy in art and his "no sweat" attitude towards creativity. His apparent insouciance stems from a belief that it's important to just get on with things and not care too much what others think, or indeed what you think of them yourself. He associates skill with effortlessness and his philosophy of "the glorious amateur" offers a robust rebuttal to that reactionary Andrew Keen nonsense.

"People think I'm an amateur. That's become a derogatory term, like I don't know what I'm doing. But an amateur is someone who does things out of love."

This interview has crystallised my thoughts on how I relate to artists and musicians. Childish is an especially strong example of the artistic and personality attributes most likely to draw me in. I've started trying to define these things that engage me, to make their common themes more explicit. I've been scribbling notes and drawing mind maps, getting to grips with what my choices say about the art I love and, in turn, what they say about me.

At its heart, it's the encapsulation of a particular creative archetype: the definition of a recurring strand of artistic DNA that I find eternally fascinating. This is very much a work in progress, but it's something I want to write about at greater length once I've spent more time on it. I suppose I'm struggling to get to grips with what universal conclusions I can draw out of it to make it accessible to other readers, rather than just pure navel-gazing on my part.

Posted by Hg on Monday 17 November 2008 at 12:47.
Received 0 comments so far.

Postal Poetry is, in its own words, "a fantabulous showcase for collaboratively and individually created poetry postcards". It's run by Dana Guthrie Martin and Dave Bonta. I'm thrilled that my first submission, The Emergency, has recently been published. Details of how you can contribute your own postcards can be found here.

I came up with the idea for this submission after my holiday in Ireland this summer. I have an ongoing fantasy about living on my own, in the middle of nowhere. I suppose it's the flipside of my early and ongoing desire to live in England's capital city, this occasional desire for stillness, silence and wilderness.

Coincidentally, between acceptance and publication of The Emergency, both Rod Liddle and Sara Maitland have written on this subject for The Times and the Guardian respectively. Maitland's article is based on the experiences that she has documented in A Book Of Silence, recently published in the UK by Granta.

"One of the effects of enforced silence is a heightened awareness, of the senses suddenly sharpened. It is not just, during the daytime, the shrillness of the chaffinch and the wren beginning to get one's goat: it is that with the moronic fugue that accompanies urban life excised, other stuff floods in to fill the space. According to a Brazilian study earlier this year, silence - or more properly, unaccustomed quietness - mimics the effects of tinnitus. Tinnitus is that terrible ringing in the ears experienced by about 25% of the population, the cause of which has not yet been determined (although it manifests itself with undue regularity in the ears of pensioned-off heavy-metal guitarists). The point is, with regular sound removed, the body acts quickly to fill the gap."

Rod Liddle
"My assumption had been that silence was monotone; that it would be very pure, very beautiful but somehow flat, undifferentiated. But the more silences I encountered, the more silent places I inhabited, the more I became aware that there were dense, interwoven strands of different silences. Silence can be calm or frightening, lonely or joyful, deep or thin. There is religious silence; a self-emptying silence, and romantic silence - what Wordsworth called the "bliss of solitude"."

Sara Maitland

My fantasy is just that. My holidays are a temporary retreat from a location and a lifestyle that I've chosen, that I would choose again, that generally makes me very happy. I might occasionally daydream of a reclusive existence on top of a cliff with only a dead sheep for company, but sooner or later I always turn around.

Posted by Hg on Sunday 16 November 2008 at 22:44.
Received 1 comments so far.

We're looking for designers to help with both the upcoming issue of DrunkenWerewolf and future issues. We're trying to get a strong, stable design team together, so we're especially interested in anyone who'd like to contribute for more than a single issue.

In particular, we're looking for people who can be given a likely word count and the URL of a band's MySpace page, who will then research the most appropriate type of design for a particular feature and get to work on the design before the feature is written.

DrunkenWerewolf has an influential reputation and operates in small print runs. It's a labour of love and none of the contributing writers, designers, artists or photographers are paid. However, you get free copies, guestlist places and plenty of experience.

If you're interested in helping out, first check the magazine's MySpace page & blog to get a feel for the territory and then e-mail drunkenwerewolf [at] hotmail [dot] co [dot] uk. We're always on the lookout for writers too, particularly gig reviewers. Get in touch!

Posted by Hg on Wednesday 12 November 2008 at 07:49.
Received 0 comments so far.

Andrew Dubber's New Music Strategies blog consistently raises fascinating and timely questions about the development of the music industry in an online, inter-connected world. Yesterday, he asked whether audio fidelity has any ongoing importance in the age of the iPod and the MP3. I'm not sure that my comment really got to grips with why this question fascinates me. This morning another analogy occurred to me. If a recording is a "snapshot" of piece of music in a particular environment at a particular time, maybe it's comparable to a photograph of a friend or loved one.

Sometimes a crappy phone-cam shot encapsulates what you love about that person better than a glossy studio shoot ever could. It seems to capture their spirit, their essence, their uniqueness. By comparison, a technically perfect studio portrait can often seem false, awkward or stilted. Of course, the reverse is often equally true. A throwaway Polaroid-type snap can easily be just that: sub-standard, fit only for the bin. A measured and thoughtful depiction of someone in a controlled environment can allow subtle nuances to elevate the purely documentary to the artistic.

When cameras were expensive and required a greater amount of technical expertise to achieve decent results, people hired specialised photographers to take their picture. It was a big deal. It might literally have been a once or twice in a lifetime experience, one to be treasured. Now a huge percentage of the world's population walks around with a camera in its pocket by default. The equipment does much of the work and the results can often be amazing, especially when considering the relative lack of planning and effort required to get the result.

I've made numerous recordings of live music performances with my mobile phone's frankly astonishing microphone. In many cases, I value their intimacy and energy more highly than the recorded versions of the same songs. Their "quality" goes beyond the merely technical. I'm reminded of the hoary and patronising cultural cliché of certain "primitive" tribes refusing to have their picture taken by "civilised" explorers, because of the fear that the camera would steal their souls. We smile in comfortable smugness. How ridiculous!

I too think they're wrong. I don't think anyone can steal your soul, any more than they can steal your identity (so-called identity theft is the stealing of the props and trappings of identity, rather than the identity itself). But in another sense, I think they might have a point. At best, a photograph or a recording can capture the spirit of something or someone. If what you're looking for in your relationship with the world is an acquaintance with multiple forms of uniqueness, surface noise or software compression are - at worst - minor inconveniences.


Postscript: half an hour or so after writing this, I remembered a quote that I came across a couple of months ago. I didn't deliberately re-use the phrase in my concluding sentence here, but it clearly bubbled up from my subconscious. Peel's comment seems like the perfect four-word response to the original question.

Posted by Hg on Friday 07 November 2008 at 10:20.
Received 2 comments so far.

The Importance Of Elsewhere 58


I love it when you stumble upon something completely unexpected that fires up your imagination. This happened to me last Friday. I was driving down the Maidstone Road into Chatham, intent on going to the Look At Medway photography exhibition at the Brook Theatre Gallery, when my attention was caught by a sign outside a large Victorian House: "Art Show".

Worth a look, I thought. If it's twee, I've wasted five minutes and if it's good I'll be glad I stopped off. I made my way back up the street to an attractive-looking detached house that seemed a rather incongruous setting for an exhibition. Another sign outside, which I'd missed on my way down the road, said "The Importance Of Elsewhere".

This sounded familiar, but at the time I couldn't quite place it. I wandered in and was immediately greeted by a couple of the organisers, who explained that the building was Chatham's former Registry Office, warned me that things were a little crowded at present and offered me a cup of coffee. You don't get that at the Tate Modern. I was intrigued.


The Importance Of Elsewhere 54


In its former incarnation, the Registry Office was the overseer and underscorer of births, marriages and deaths for the town: the gateway for most of life's major rites of passage. The exhibition wasn't just borrowing an abandoned building; inspired by Philip Larkin's poetry, most of the pieces comprising the show were created in direct response to it.

In fact, given the office's transitory status (it's going to be refurbished as a residential unit in a few months' time) countless opportunities were taken to merge the art with the building itself. For example, the lines of poetry written on the municipal-building-style carpet guards running up the stairway and the use of fireplaces as pedestals and focal points.

Elsewhere, the building's wallpaper was used as a canvas for numerous pieces. Lines from Larkin's work were scratched into beautiful wooden handrails and graffitied onto bannisters. Fire exit signs were incorporated into larger works and multicoloured twines of fabric spilled out of ventilation grills and ran alongside bright-red fire alarm wiring.


The Importance Of Elsewhere 14


Larkin's infamous This Be The Verse ("They fuck you up, your mum and dad...") was embroidered onto a curtain that hung in front of a marker-pen modified window. It seemed like a fitting comment on the phenomenon of suburban window-twitchers and the minor domestic atrocities conducted in the name of familiar and societal respectability.

The place was a perfect physical synthesis. As the exhibition's accompanying leaflet comments, "Participants have picked up on Larkin's recurring themes - the relentless force of time, the route of ordinary man through life's fleeting collisions with happiness, and the journey towards the resting place of Elsewhere."

In several cases, it was hard to tell how much conscious thought had gone into the creation of the work and how much the building had permeated the subconscious regions of those involved. Was the wallpaper samples book used as the basis for written texts simply a cheap and convenient found material, or a hint at the multiple layers of time embodied by the building?


The Importance Of Elsewhere 39


Dust-marks left behind by clocks that had hung on the wall were seized upon by the participants and used to profound effect to comment upon "time's eroding agents". Window casements were used as anchors for brightly coloured swathes of material. A safe - presumably too heavy to shift and left behind after the move - housed two pairs of gold shoes.

I liked the unintentional irony of the straightforward administrative sign on the inside of the front door ("Please make sure you have SET THE ALARM if you are the last one to leave!!!"). Also of presumably unplanned poignancy was the network socket at floor level in the A Love Seat Removed room, discreetly marked with the label "END OF LINE".

I chatted for some time to creative director Tania Holland, as well as Wendy Daws, one of the artists involved in leading the project. They explained the involvement of various community groups in the project, including Kent Association for the Blind and MCCH Pathways (which works with adults with learning disabilities, autism or mental health problems).


The Importance Of Elsewhere 28


The Importance Of Elsewhere worked on so many different levels: as a philosophical repositioning in terms of identity and creativity of what would seem at face value to be a rather stuffy administrative building; as an exploration of Larkin's most essential themes; as a demonstration that an inclusive form of community art can be vibrant and compelling.

What I enjoyed most about this show was its sense of playfulness. Though dealing with weighty and occasionally potentially uncomfortable themes, there was an overall sense of joie de vivre in the engagement with the building and the determination to make the most of the fascinating and fantastic opportunity that its circumstances provided.

Ironically, the event's success subverts its own title, indicating that The Importance Of Elsewhere is actually located very clearly in the here and now. It's a credit to the hard work, imagination and self-confidence (newly acquired, in some cases) of all those involved and a fascinating model for future projects, both in Medway and... elsewhere.


Further reading and viewing

Posted by Hg on Friday 24 October 2008 at 23:45.
Received 7 comments so far.

To a certain extent, I've retreated into my own little bubble over the past couple of years. During the summer, over a few beers in a holiday home in a remote spot on a peninsula in north-west Ireland, my brother-in-law and I were watching the news. A dispute was taking place between Georgia and Russia. My brother-in-law expressed concern. Somewhat provocatively, I said that I didn't give a shit.

Naturally, I was immediately asked to justify myself. I said that I'd grown tired of being a news junkie, of being ground down by the relentless negativity of the media and the resulting anxiety that it causes about issues over which I have absolutely no influence. I likened this dispute to keeping abreast of a stressful marital dispute between a couple living three streets away who I've never met.

Over the past few years, my life has been focused on five areas: spending time with my family and friends, exploring my creativity, earning an income, paying attention to physical and mental well-being and keeping our domestic affairs running more smoothly than they have previously. My internal frame of reference in most areas has shrunk to a small geographic area covering London and Kent.

"Doesn't that just make you one of those insular, Little England, fog-cuts-off-continent Tories that you're always banging on about?" he asked. Fair point, I admitted, but inaccurate. It's more about scope of action and ability to be involved. Take music, for example. I tend to prefer marginal artists these days. If I focus on bands from the south-east of England, I'm more likely to be able to go to their gigs.

The honest truth is that there is a certain amount of escapism involved. I've felt out of sync with much of the world - or at least, the part of it that I live in - for most of my adult life. I've toyed half-heartedly with many of the things that seemed to dominate people's attention over the last couple of decades. For a while I even convinced myself that I could enjoy a life of designer labels and property improvement.

The truth will out, in the end. I built a house of cards that tumbled down spectacularly. I've learned over the past few years that I am not who I thought I was, or who I thought I wanted to be. I'm a starry-eyed dreamer who can spend literally hours staring out of the window. I'm motivated by ideas and concepts, by relationships and connections, by the essence of things rather than their surface sheen.

The past few years have been about creating an environment around myself in which to float aimlessly, allowing direction to reveal itself slowly rather than panicking about its lack and forcing myself down a road to nowhere. A smaller bubble-world has suited that purpose and, putting it bluntly, the larger world outside could go to hell. And, interestingly, it seems to be doing precisely that.

My curiosity is roused. I'm reading newspapers again. Fascinating things are happening. House prices plummet. The questionable business models of investment banks are failing. The obsessive and misguided "target culture" in education is scaled back in favour of genuine achievement. Privately owned commercial organisations are being taken into public ownership. Labour is finally working.

When I hit my mid-teens in the early 1980s, the world seemed a fascinating - if somewhat scary - place. As the decade progressed into a frothy maelstrom of wine bars and padded shoulders, I felt less and less in common with it. In my UK-based context, one of the main reasons for that was undoubtedly the self-centred, market-driven, no-such-thing-as-society ethos of Thatcherism.

Its legacy has been remarkably persistent, but the one thing I've learned over the years about the passing of time is that whoever came up with the grandfather clock got it absolutely right. The pendulum swings in one direction, pauses in mid-flight for a split second and then returns inexorably the other way. I was worried for a while that the laws of reality had been catastrophically re-written, but no.

The Thatcher's roof is on fire. The straw is dry, the rage is strong and there is no rain in sight. She wanted us all to be consumers, so now we are flame. Somewhere in one of the rooms below, a small piece of metal hurtles towards its next tick. I'm standing outside, eyes re-opened, basking in the warm glow, my world getting bigger by the second, slowly feeling less like an alien in my own country.

Posted by Hg on Friday 17 October 2008 at 10:31.
Received 6 comments so far.


DrunkenWerewolf issue 5 is out now, including interviews with Lupen Crook, Kiran And The Night Owls, Untitled Musical Project, The Delta Fiasco, Planningtorock, Day For Airstrike, The Old Romantic Killer Band and Tim Holehouse. My reviews of recent releases from Elks, Kez Pietersen, bIRDbATH and The Jelas sit alongside plenty more by my fellow contributors.

It's almost exactly three years since I first came across Lupen Crook (blogs are useful). Since then he's become one of my favourite musicians and I've spent a lot of time immersing myself in his intriguingly skewed vision of the world. Offered the opportunity to interview him earlier this year, I thought hard for at least ten seconds before jumping at the chance.

It eventually happened in late June. His responses - couched in a characteristic blend of baroque embellishment and arresting bluntness - were fantastic. Quite literally, in some cases; "Medway Council don't tell you that in their brochure, but I shit you not: it's all true," he concluded after one particularly juicy digression into Kentish mythologising.

The questions reflect many of my own broad preoccupations - identity, location, context, influences, and so on - as well as covering more specific areas like the recurring theme of anti-authoritarianism in his work. His answers reveal much, sometimes with a startling degree of candour, about his background, motivation and growing sense of purpose.

"I was told once that my song writing was a direct contributor to my 'illness' and that I must 'stop chasing this idle obsession immediately' if I ever wanted to get better, or avoid getting worse. I ignored them. I lied to them. I fake wellness. Now I deal with any abnormal thoughts honestly and without embarrassment. Most important to me is a clear head and a good night's sleep when I can get it. Be ready to fight when I have to and most of all to know that when the time comes I know whom I'm fighting against and exactly what for."

Sporting a crookedly feline cover shot by Jenny Hardcore and retailing for the bargain price of Three British Pounds, DW5 is stocked in shops in Bristol and Liverpool and is also available via the online/offline magic of PayPal & post. You can keep up with Drunken ravings and recommendations via the blog, as well as becoming a fan of the magazine on Facebook.

Posted by Hg on Tuesday 14 October 2008 at 14:47.
Received 0 comments so far.

Previously

It's bollocks. We are agreed. Utter pretentious nonsense. Self-indulgent waffle, supported by a cushion of who-you-know and money, signifying nothing.... »

Posted by Hg on Saturday 04 October 2008 at 23:30.
Received 2 comments so far.

I will fold myself eight times in, then eight times further inward. You will not see, you will not find... »

Posted by Hg on Friday 26 September 2008 at 21:43.
Received 5 comments so far.

You will not know me, I make this my mission. A silver-haired cat, spitting and scratching, claiming escape. Obsidian intensity...... »

Posted by Hg on Friday 26 September 2008 at 15:46.
Received 0 comments so far.

I've become a jewel with many faces, a pretty cage that hides the beast within. A facade of kaleidoscopic beams... »

Posted by Hg on Friday 26 September 2008 at 11:51.
Received 0 comments so far.

He finished me off with a mercury draught. A mercy killing in a private room: one brother caned and the... »

Posted by Hg on Friday 26 September 2008 at 07:51.
Received 2 comments so far.

We walk up the mountain to the look-out point Abandoned for decades but still watching the sea There's a... »

Posted by Hg on Friday 29 August 2008 at 23:24.
Received 2 comments so far.

Amongst my family members, I'm known as "the one who loves his music", with the tacit understanding that "his... »

Posted by Hg on Saturday 02 August 2008 at 23:58.
Received 0 comments so far.

I can't let the Summer pass without saying a few words about the Lounge On The Farm 2008 festival,... »

Posted by Hg on Saturday 02 August 2008 at 15:21.
Received 0 comments so far.

Earlier

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Copyright

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