Category Archives: LeftLion

LeftLion 44: When the music’s over, turn out the lights…

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LeftLion 44 is dedicated to music. This is because we have a thriving music scene at the moment and one of our many bands is on the cusp of finally making it big, not because one of our editors is a music junky. This has meant that literature is conspicuous in its absence, although we still have a thematic presence. Tony Hill was commissioned to do a piece on the Grey Topper, a nightclub in a pit village that was once the best music venue in Notts. The Jackdale hosted the likes of The Bay City Rollers, The Specials and Simple Minds in its time, reminding us that there used to be more options than Rock City. Rather than do a Q&A, Tony was asked to use ticket stubs, posters, and flyers from the period to sketch a historical picture of this much-missed venue and promote his book The Palace and the Punks.

Our WriteLion page features a poem from John Micallef, offering an updated version of Gil Scott-Heron’s The Revolution Will Be Televised. Aly and I heard John read at the Oxjam spoken word event in Beeston in a Barton’s bus depot (the glamorous world of poetry I here you say) and knew it was the perfect poem for this issue. We often find content for the page through chance encounters such as this, so get reading in public. The poem was originally going to be illustrated but then Nigel Pickard suddenly died at the age of forty-five and so we rightly decided to illustrate one of his poems. The poem we chose was Fog which is incredibly sad but beautiful. Our third poem was Lions by Viv Apple which we’ve had on hold for half-a-year but was perfect as it lightened the mood. Viv said ‘the poem was partly inspired by my personal history.  After Dennis had proposed to me 53 years ago at a Nottm Uni ‘hop’ in the Portland Building, I said I’d let him know next day, so we met as usual by the left lion, and I said ‘yes’.’ Unfortunately there wasn’t room for Lord Biro’s Jim Has kicked it – because it was too small and looked out of place on the page. He’ll be back though…

The editorial to the books page of WriteLion reads ‘At last, we hear you say. A page in the magazine that’s not about friggin’ music.’ One thing I love about writing for LeftLion is nobody takes themselves too seriously and so this internal kind of bickering enables the kind of tongue-in-cheek humour we hope readers appreciate. And of course, I meant it – but more of this later.

The page saw Rebecca S Buck’s first magazine review for us and not before time. She’s done an outstanding job promoting lesbian fiction online and giving our literature pages some much needed balance. Another debut reviewer was Megan Taylor – and her younger daughter Lola – who reviewed a Children’s History of Nottinghamshire. I thought this dual review was a really novel approach to critique and worked really well. We also celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Nottingham Poetry Society and ORE, the latest anthology from the MA Creative Writing students at NTU. My review was a self-published book about Pat Tobin’s chaotic life. Overall we covered a good range of genres and subjects.

The final two features on the WriteLion page were Katie Half-Price giving a twitteresque run down of this year’s Booker shortlist (the one criticised for its ‘readability’) and a feature on the Caribou Caravan. The latter is currently residing in Hopkinson’s Gallery and is the best thing to happen to Notts since Cloughy. I’ll be interviewing the owner Annelise Atkinson at the Nottingham Writers’ Studio in January and hopefully at Lowdham Book Festival, so watch this space.

I finally managed to get a review of John Marriott’s The Little Typists in to the music reviews section. John is a snarling, dead pan, sarcastic, hilarious performer who’s helped us out at Shindig! events. He’s one of the best performers in Notts and has you waiting on his every word. I described him as ‘MC Pitman with a synthesiser.’ Need I say more?

This issue threw up a lot of contentious issues. Firstly, if you’re having a music issue then you’re going to piss off anyone who isn’t interviewed and possibly open yourselves up to accusations of favouritism. There’s no easy solution to this but one thing we wanted to avoid was bland Q&As. Personally, I’d have liked a wider interpretation of ‘music’, such as the noise currently being made by the Occupy movement in Market Square. It was also a missed chance to help promote local businesses who could have done with a Christmas push. I’d have liked, for example, to have seen a ‘literature guide to shopping in Notts’ and similar for other departments. But this is far too long a debate to recount here. It does, however, raise the question of the purpose of LeftLion. I’d like to see a more fearsome roar. Nottingham is very angry at the moment and it’s our job to record this. The battle will continue into the next issue.

Scribal Gathering of Poetic Dissent

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Our Scribal Gathering events are few and far between but when they happen, they’re special. On Friday 4 November we put on a Scribal Gathering of Poetic Dissent to mark the two hundredth anniversary of the ‘Luddite’ rebellion in Bulwell and to show respect to the ‘Occupy’ movement who are currently residing in Market Square. As is often the case with events you are organising yourself, they bring little joy on the night as you’re running around making sure things are going alright and that performers know what they’re doing.

I kicked off the event with a fifteen minute introduction with Motormouf, a young beatboxer from Nottingham who’d previously impressed with performances with Nina Smith and Maniere de Bohemiens. It’s really important when you’re dealing with political content that you don’t start lecturing on the obvious and so we went for a simple format whereby I’d discuss current events and then when I asked Motormouf what he was ‘mad as hell’ about or his opinion of Alessio Rastani – the City Trader welcoming the recession, he’d break out into beatboxing. Then, just when you expected him to continue in this vane, he freestyled a poem about Rosa Parks that was outstanding. Contrast is the key; mess with expectations. I planned this routine in one meeting with Motormouf and it’s so good to work with someone who listens and trusts your judgement. The purpose of the routine was to make him look amazing and me the talentless ‘dumb blond.’ Tis a humble life.

Photo by Leftlion.

The Lambhorse Cabaret performance was a theatrical masterpiece, creating fake explosions courtesy of balloons and party poppers to bring down the system. They were joined by Stickman Higgins – who I wrote about in my last blog. Stickman is joy personified; he has so much energy it’s like he’s swallowed the sun. He played the part of an elderly Jamaican man and walked around greeting the audience before freestyling as the Lambhorse played on.

The key to large events is variety or else you overdose on the written word. Johnny Crump offered this by scratching on the decks with film visuals projected behind him. We also needed a variety of poets. Aly Stoneman was short and sweet, teasing the audience with her Ms Hood poem – in my opinion the perfect formula as then the audience want more. Joe Coghlan and Jonesy bounced an electric set off of each other, complimenting their differing styles. Debris Stevenson had the audience joining in which got everyone in a great mood whereas Scruffy Dave and Tokin’ John went for more traditional readings. And of course our joker in the pack was Al Needham who has not only made swearing socially acceptable but an art form in itself.

Photo by LeftLion.

Chester P was our final act and proved that you don’t need a stage persona to perform. Simply exuding personality and being yourself is enough. But who is he? He looked like a crazy old man with autism as he nervously shuffled back and forth on stage on the tips of his toes as he delivered a stream of consciousness that washed over the audience like a tsunami. Every now and then you’d catch a phrase, a joke or a clever metaphor and before the beauty of this observation could settle, bang in came another. Wow.

Of course not everything went to plan. I’d spent ages recording Big Issue Sellers and Protestors in V for Vendetta masks and then recorded audios to be dubbed over the top which related to the film. But these weren’t edited together properly and so our hopes of having an anonymous production didn’t work. This, however, is inevitable when you’re relying on the goodwill and free time of various people to help suture everything together. The event was a collaboration with Dealmaker and LeftLion, photographs were kindly taken by Ralph Barklam with Adrian Towell filming proceedings and Stupeflix made the brilliant video to promote the event. The night was dedicated to Peter Preston who recently passed away and although a free event, we left buckets on the bar for people to donate to the Alan Sillitoe Statue Fund – or to be sick in.

Now we need a theme for the next event. I’m thinking Berlusconi’s Bitches or perhaps updating the Roald Dahl classic…the Fantastic Mr. Liam Fox. So much choice in a corrupt world. Thank goodness for villains, life would be dull.