Issue 40 April-May 2011 Take it in your stride LEFT LION ad:Layout 1 01/02/2011 14:03 Page 1 Take it in your stride! Plan your easiest route around the city by walking, cycling, tram, train or bus at www.thebigwheel.org.uk LeftLion Magazine Issue 40 contents April - May 2011 editorial The last few years have been enough to make a crate- 07 14 15 digger cry. February 2009 saw the legendary Selectadisc bite the dust after forty years of trading. Twelve months later Funky Monkey on Pelham Street closed, which was a sad loss to local soul, funk and house DJs. Then this year began with OhMyGosh on Mansfield Road shutting up business after several years of serving up fat hip-hop beats. The latter blow was slightly mitigated by the fact that Bantum clothing have taken over the building to sell ace NG-centric t-shirts and hoodies. But all in all this is still a very worrying trend for music lovers everywhere… So when an event like Record Store Day comes along (Saturday 16 April) we decided to throw our full support behind it and celebrate those independent record shops in Notts still left standing. In the middle of this issue you can 04 May Contain Notts 09 Making An Impression 19 Write Lion read interviews with the men behind Heavy Sounds and The news diary that knows you can’t TV impressionist and experienced Poems about motherhood and The Music Exchange record shops, as well as thoughts spell ‘Nottingham’ without an ‘M’, board-treader Alistair McGowan smoking in pubs, reviews of books from former Selectadisc head honcho Jim Cooke and an ‘O’, an ‘N’ and a ‘G’ mulls over Cloughie, the Nottingham by Tom Warner and David Belbin distributor-turned-author Graham Jones. They explain accent and his new play at the why the stores are in such dire straights and why you Lakeside Reviews might want to reconsider before you make that next CD LeftEyeOn 20 The latest licks from the LeftLion 05 Eye candy from our team of purchase from Amazon or Tesco. Hello Dolly stereo. This month with Duke01, snappers, this month featuring a 11 Andy Barrett talks to us about Jezz Hall, The Henry Road, giant lobster, a working forge, Another, slightly less important, date for the diary is Chinese operas, staging a Illuminatus, The Lukewarm Friday 29 April: the day Wills and Kate get hitched! As fireworks, My Chemical Romance performance at the castle and Equation, Oldboy, RUBIX, and daffodils you will see from our cover by the charming and debonair writing a play about a genetically- Shrinkwrap and Verbal Warning Rikki Marr, we thought we’d give them both the kind modified animal of Nottingham welcome that would befit such a royal A Canadian in New Basford Five Loaves and Two Fishes presence. We also allowed our Canadian columnist Rob to 06 22 Richard Herring explains to us why Rob gets excited by the prospect of Art Works let off some steam by ranting about them. Still, it’s hard to Wills and Kate getting hitched 12 he’s not trying to offend Christians begrudge the pair for giving us an extra day off work, huh? Our new regular feature on local and mourns the loss of the Tales of artists looks at Katherine Cooper’s Robin Hood While we’re on the subject of royalty, I interviewed James The Royal Family Come Time With Me and Jeffery and Louise from local noisemakers Royal Gala too. Never 07 The eighteen-legged live music Baker’s Buried Monument Nottingham Events Listings before have I been offered Viagra by an interviewee and, phenomenon known as Royal Gala 23 What to spend your money on, sadly, it probably won’t happen again anytime soon. If you sit down with us for a natter and Independents Day 15 while you still have some haven’t seen them play live yet, you need to! They’re the offer us some viagra Our music editor looks at the dying most exciting live act in this city right now. Hopefully my trade of the independent record Noshingham store and talks to the people behind 29 questions weren’t too hardon ‘em. Write Up Your Street We fill our bellies at Jamie’s Italian, 08 Heavy Sounds, The Music Exchange MemSaab and Squeek Henderson Mullin, head honcho and Selectadisc (RIP) Also in this issue are: a man who once wrote a musical of Writing East Midlands, tells about a cloned sheep, a well-known TV impressionist who us about the challenges local writers 30 LeftLion Abroad is also excellent at writing and reading other people’s face with the recent funding cuts Plus Rocky Horrorscopes, The lines, and a man tasked with rounding up and inspiring Arthole and Notts Trumps the rabble of writers flung across the East Midlands. Oh... and a comedian dressed as Jesus. Ta-ra for now duck! Jared Wilson credits [email protected] Editor In Chief Screen Editor Tim Sorrell Jared Wilson ([email protected]) Alison Emm ([email protected]) Jonathan Taylor Carla Mundy Andrew Trendell Royal Photographer The Rock Stage Editor Tom Warner Alan Gilby ([email protected]) Adrian Bhagat ([email protected]) Harry Wilding Originally from a small Leicestershire village, Carla has been working in Sub-Editor Administrator Illustrators Nottingham as a photographer for four Alison Kirkman ([email protected]) Duncan Heath ([email protected]) Judit Ferencz years. Uni brought her here and she Rob White hasn’t left since. She shoots mostly Art Director Cover music and portraits but also enjoys David Kingsbury ([email protected]) Rikki Marr Photographers photographing equestrian subjects and David Baird food. She can usually be found down Marketing and Sales Manager Contributors Dave Cavill the front at gigs in and around the Midlands, mumbling Ben Hacking ([email protected]) Mike Atkinson Debbie Davies something about “annoying red washes.” In this issue she Rob Cutforth Lamar Francois has taken photos of Royal Gala and Henderson Mullin. Designer Ashley Clivery Carla Mundy carlamundyphotography.co.uk Becca Hibberd ([email protected]) Rebecca Gove-Humphries Katie Half-Price LeftLion.co.uk received twelve million page views during the last year. This Literature Editor Gareth Hughes magazine has an estimated readership of David Baird James Walker ([email protected]) Shariff Ibrahim 40,000 people and is distributed to over Happy Snapper Robin Lewis 300 venues across the city of Nottingham. Music Editor Frank McMahon If your venue isn’t one of them, please Hailing from Liverpool, David was Paul Klotschkow ([email protected]) Roger Mean contact Ben on 07984 275453 or email drawn to Nottingham in 2004 by the Al Needham [email protected]. lure of chicks, beer and a degree in Photography Editor Thomas Norton photography at Nottingham Trent Dominic Henry ([email protected]) Beane Noodler This magazine is printed on paper sourced University. He’s since stayed in Nick Parkhouse from sustainable forests. Our printers the city to work as a photographer are ISO 14001 certified by the British Poetry Editor Tom Quickfall – often shooting portraits of Aly Stoneman ([email protected]) Carol Rowntree Jones Accreditation Bureau for their environmental management. HoodTown’s finest for this magazine. Rebel Rhymes He’s also the resident photographer at Rock City and the Rescue Rooms and a patron of the Want to advertise in our pages? Email [email protected] fantastic music shop The Music Exchange. or phone Ben on 07984 275453 or visit leftlion.co.uk/advertise david-baird.co.uk leftlion.co.uk/issue40 3 MAY CONTAIN with Nottingham’s NO RECORD SHOPS LEFT HMV’s Wheeler Gate branch closes this weekend. ‘Mr. Sex’ Al Needham Though it’s no great blow to my record collection, I’ve hardly ever shopped there, I’m still kind of sad to see that store go. It’s traded there, under various NOTTS guises, almost as long as I can remember. Rooksby February - March 2011 Fear not! There’s a Sainsbury’s metro opening 1 February across the road. Hooray! A judge announces he is yet to decide Myhouseyourhouse what to do with the Blackberry that was seized in a raid on a load of Wow! They only moved into that store a year activists that belonged to undercover or so ago, after closing the Lister Gate branch. fed Mark Kennedy. I’ll tell you duck – Still, the HMV model is massively outdated now. you open it up, and you find out that Advertising two old DVDs for a tenner like it’s a God knows how much taxpayers bargain deal! money has been wasted on a few Jared Levellers mp3s, a recipe for mung bean risotto, and some phone numbers of Not surprising considering they announced earlier easy crustie girls in Forest Fields. this year that they are shutting 60 stores. There are still some good record stores in town though: 2 February Anarchy Records, Good Vibrations, The Music A pet crematorium owner gets eight Exchange and Heavy Sounds! months for being caught lobbing three Daysleeper dead dogs, a couple of carked-out cats and a former guinea pig in a field after And OhMyGosh if you’re a dance head and Rob’s taking money to have them respectfully Records if you don’t mind a good root around. bunged in an incinerator. I bet she Metal Monkey drop-kicked the guinea pig an’all. Come on, we all would have. They’re just the There might be an intermittent record fair coming right size.