Plan B Be Your Guide… Words: Everett True Illustration: Thom Dowse Photography: Kat Green, Toby Amies Polaroid Photography: Everett True, Cat Stevens, Mertle
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There’s a new movement in town, antifolk (UK). It’s drunken, belligerent, raucous, sensitive and spontaneous. It eschews folk and anti-folk (US) orthodoxy to strike out into uncharted territory. Confused? Let Plan B be your guide… Words: Everett True Illustration: Thom Dowse Photography: Kat Green, Toby Amies Polaroid photography: Everett True, Cat Stevens, mertle There’s a new movement in town. up elongated talent shows where the ability to bully underground level doing their thing – contemporary It’s British, predominately. Wouldn’t translate someone in a less fortunate situation than yourself storytelling. Not with acoustic guitars. I’ve been to the States or Europe, let alone any of those is seen as a plus. an independent artist back as far as I can go, and countries where they object to the cultural Antifolk (UK) should not be confused with its there’s no restriction on what I can do. In Ireland, hegemony of a bunch of rich white corpulent far more refined, stylised and effete American and where I grew up, I was surrounded by all this fucking complacent war-mongering tastemakers. It’s too Continental counterpart, anti-folk, which is basically fiddle-dee-dee when I was a kid, and all the songs rooted in the humour of British culture: the ways people who are folk singers by any other name (with I sang were either football songs, or ’kill Catholics’ it is and isn’t acceptable to express (male, mostly) a smidgeon of punk attitude thrown in, whatever songs, sectarian songs with a good fucking beat. feelings within that culture. It exists at that weird the helll that is meant to be in 2007) singing with Antifolk is about writing songs without worrying crossover point where laddish working-class male acoustic guitars and some melody. Antifolk may well about hit records, just being honest.” humour meets downwardly-mobile middle-class have been inspired by its New York counterpart, but Antifolk (UK) is quite a small movement. The banter: it’s not above taking potshots at itself (it it sure ain’t about Jeffrey Lewis and Herman Düne. scene mostly exists in a couple of places – a few frequently does) and it’s pissed off and alienated by Sure, it’s a relation…the sort of relation you talk squats and open mic nights in London, the West the prevalent mainstream, both at its reliance upon about in soft murmurs and scandalised whispers End’s minuscule 12 Bar Club (promoted by prime NME-sanctioned guitar bands that ceased to have at weddings when your mother’s back is turned. movers Filthy Pedro, David Cronenberg’s Wife and any resemblance to being a tool of the revolution “Antifolk is basically folk music,” explains JJ Crash), where inebriates…I mean initiates…are around about 1982, and its fondness for pumped- Brighton promoter Larry Pickleman, “people on the encouraged to get up on stage and swear at every 54 | plan b opportunity; and in Brighton, where Pickleman’s individual sound played with little regard for niceties Still, there is a willingness among some of Sunday Sermons held sway during 2006. or musical merit. Truecore, in honour for my own the purveyors of antifolk (notably Bobby McGees, “When we did stuff in Belfast,” Pickleman fondness for clambering up on stage and winding Pickleman and Spinmaster Plantpot) to put continues, “the way you got a gig was put a gig folk up – although if that was the only point for themselves on the line, to eschew the tired baggage on, set yourself a deadline. But [By the end of 2006] getting up there, it would get tired pretty quick. of rock’n’roll, to place the personality first – and because I was putting on so many acts, I wasn’t I’m touched by the epithet, but not sure it’s of that, I heartily approve. In proportion. Everything playing any gigs myself. It stopped being what it appropriate. There aren’t enough women involved. in proportion. Also, by the very act of getting up on was about, so I bailed out. Most acts on MySpace (Notable exceptions include Eleanor from the Bobby stage with little extra adornment (instruments, band remind of when I went to art college in Wales – all McGees, and the totally charming nursery songs members) the antifolk lot are leaving more room for these well-brought up kids, totally devoid of passion of Larry Pickleman’s wife mertle.) There’s too spontaneity, and hell yeah. I’m up for that. or integrity. Even though I get the odd lame duck much alcohol consumption – and though I don’t “It’s about grabbing whatever’s at hand,” sometimes, the people I try to book are little cunts, disapprove, it’s not where I’m at these days. Also, it explains Tom Mayne, mainstay of David totally not masters of what they do – it’s that lo-fi seems, the quieter you play, the more likely you are Cronenberg’s Wife. “Filthy Pedro now has Tim in DIY thing all over again.” to be overlooked. And, despite antifolk’s calls for an his band, he plays the violin and squeezebox…Look end to convention, there’s still an alarming tendency Look Dancing Boys have their drumbeat, Larry has In the Plan B offices, they’ve taken to calling this among its practitioners to fall back upon an acoustic his sampler, I’m mainly electric…Sgt Buzfuz have music ‘Truecore’ – this belligerent, unpredictable, guitar and a droll, slightly deprecating tale. a dulcimer. And you just grab whoever’s available.” plan b | 55 antifolk (uk) Spinmaster Plantpot deadpan, deadbeat ‘Antifolk is more self- humourist Adrian Teenbeat, the much-touted Sixties sex- loathing than narcissistic’ rock of John and Jehn, Irish talisman Jinx Lennon with – Spinmaster Plantpot his quick-fire verbal sorties… “Jinx is one of those guys,” smiles Tom Mayne, “He’s kinda mysterious, what punk was to rock,” quoth Lach (whose genial, in that he’s got some great videos on YouTube, um, folksy sound has long since become part of the professionally well made, and he’s made two new orthodoxy). albums – how’s he managed to do that? He doesn’t “Last time I had Paul Hawkins down in Brighton have much money; furthermore, he’s unknown. I introduced him as spas rock,” Pickleman says. “He I don’t see him in magazines, I don’t hear him on wasn’t so sure about that. I was like, ‘Paul that’s the radio, he lives in a border town between Ireland what you are, this freaky, tall, sixth former singing and Northern Ireland…If you want an example of these really passionate songs’. He’ll come through antifolk, there’s one. He plays 20 songs in half an hour – he puts so much effort into it, no matter Bobby McGees how many people have turned up.” Truecore – oh, alright then – antifolk (UK) started There’s diminutive blagger Spinmaster Plantpot a couple of years ago, when Tom, in tandem with (office manager at the Houses of Parliament: now Filthy Pedro, decided he’d had enough of not being carving out an alternative career as TV’s resident able to gig regularly simply cos he didn’t fit in with mouthy short-arse), former Country Teasers The an established scene. So they called themselves Rebel, fast-paced rapper Stuart James, Lucy Joplin antifolk, after the NYC anti-folksters. It was a handy with her size zero, degenerately honest acoustic appellation. It wasn’t meant to refer particularly to songs, the perverse word-play of Filthy Pedro – even a sound or musical instrument, more an attitude: my cherished Stolen Recordings bands (notably immediately it started, you could draw parallels Matthew Sawyer And The Ghosts) have been between the nasty tales of David Cronenberg’s Wife affiliated with antifolk… and DIY counter-culture, while mandolin-toting And then there’s Milk Kan. Scots duo Bobby McGees draw their inspiration “Scrappy [Milk Kan singer] wants to attract as unashamedly from the twee post-C86 scene. much attention to his music as possible,” suggests Most credit Sgt Buzfuz’s Blang club at the 12 Mayne, “but he still plays the antifolk festival for Bar as being the original place to hang out, but the nearly no money. He was one of the first to be good Sgt was reluctant to typecast his nights; so involved, but his songs really lend themselves to Pedro and DCW started promoting regular antifolk ‘The people I try to book are little cunts, totally not masters of what they do’ – Larry Pickleman festivals, with their collections of chancers, dancers, it. Winston Echo played the same night as you: drunks and the insane. wicked show, he really brought the audience to him. Open mic nights are a big part of antifolk: it’s He’s had us up to Northampton to play, him and where many of its participants first got up on stage. The Retro Spankees…people were saying they’re There’s in informal MC present, and anybody who not antifolk, but what does that name mean – it’s wants can take a turn at the mic: like karaoke a little scene collective, a website, you can run with without the annoyance of having to stay in tune. it a bit, but ultimately it doesn’t mean shit. “There’ll be drunk and homeless people walking ”Traditionally, people outside London hate around,” states Tom. “Then a rapper will get up, London, and Londoners are so unashamed at Milk Kan somebody will bring a mummy onstage, someone’ll bigging themselves up, and people from up North do a poem…it’s that kinda craziness.” are a little more humble.