www.alexgodwin.co.uk illustration: Alex Godwin

LeftLion Magazine Issue 26 contents December 2008 - January 2009 editorial

Merry Christmas and a Happy 2009 to all our readers! Instead of talking about the stuff that’s in this magazine as usual, I’m going to talk about stuff that’s not instead. Confused? Well, there’s no need to be. If you like this magazine you will love what we do online at www.leftlion.co.uk for some, if not all, of the following reasons:

Podcasts LeftLion now have a suite of podcasts that you can listen to at your leisure, whether you’re in the kitchen preparing a Sunday roast or at work with your headphones on staring at your computer. Shows include: 6 9 16 - LeftLion Radio (featuring chelp from Nish and the K) - Sound of the Lion (All-Notts tunes with Tom from Not In ) 04 May Contain Notts 13 The Drop That Keeps Dripping 21 LeftLion Listings - Cult Radio (Mouse and Chris with the best local The latest news round-up from We paid a visit to a children’s shelter From clubbing to theatre to art and ) Nottingham’s Mr . in Cambodia that was paid for by back again. Nottingham beer money. - Poddingham (Paul telling you about what’s on in Notts) - ALT-Lion (alternative rock with Jon and Dan) 05 LeftEyeOn 26 Write Lion - StuPod (student ramblings straight outta HoodTown) Choice cuts from our Nottingham 14 P Brothers A selection of creative writing from galleries. Nottingham’s Heavy Bronx hiphop the LeftLion Forum The Fortnightly Lion duo in the house. We now send a fortnightly email to thousands of people County vs. Forest across Notts and beyond. It’s a bit like this magazine, but 06 We take an in-depth look at Reviews shorter, more frequent and sent straight to your email inbox. Nottingham’s local football rivalry. Free Christmas Board Game 28 Stuff people have sent us recently Go to www.leftlion.co.uk/newsletter to sign yourself up! 16 Don’t say we don’t treat you - here’s – including new albums from The a fun way to spend a couple of hours Hellset Orchestra and Ocean Bottom A Canadian In New Basford with mates. Nightmare. Forum 08 Rob visits The Tales of Robin Hood. Idle away your days discussing the relative merits of the slanty N logo and how bad that Russell Crowe film Artist Profiles The End Page ‘Naddinghayum’ is going to be, with over 2,500 other 18 This issue’s selection of movers and 30 Rocky Horrorcopes, The Arthole, Nottingham folk. 09 We get some words from shakers from the local arts scene. Notts Trumps and Notts Abroad. Nottingham’s best known actress. Videos A series of short films and music videos produced locally - a 20 The Last Night Of The Year bit like YouTube, but much better quality and 100% Notts! 10 Lovvers Suggestions of how you might want We have a few words with the latest to spend the last hours of 2008 in Nottingham Events punks on the indie scene. Nottingham. This magazine has the most comprehensive printed listings of Nottingham Events. But the ones on our website are updated every day and have all those and more. So if you want to know what to do on Saturday night look no further!

Directory credits Want recommendations of a good bar or restaurant to try out in Notts? Fear not, the LeftLion Directory is like a more Editor Photographers informative version of the Yellow Pages, pre-packed with Jared Wilson ([email protected]) Jon Rouston maps, features, user reviews and (coming soon) special offers and discounts! Art Director David Blenkey ([email protected]) Sound Bloke Mike Cheque Interviews Deputy Editors More interviews than we can cram into here. Recent Al Needham ([email protected]) ones include Dylan Moran, Sam Rockwell, The Money Nathan Miller ([email protected]) Adrian Bhagat Theatre Editor and Pendulum. Then there’s our back catalogue including Charlotte Kingsbury ([email protected]) “Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took the likes of The Prodigy, Paul Smith, , the Adrian has been writing for LeftLion his last drink and swore his last oath. Today, we Xylophone Man and more. Technical Director are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty for nearly five years. When not in the Alan Gilby ([email protected]) theatre he can be found at gigs, real-ale days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient Reviews pubs and the Broadway Cinema, where Marketing and Sales Manager shortcomings considerably shorter than ever.” People always ask us why we don’t review events in this mag. he’ll only watch films with subtitles. Ben Hacking ([email protected]) Mark Twain It’s because we save them all for the website - where they He’s working as a computer programmer go up within hours of the event. Read about the latest gigs, Art Editor whilst developing plans to open a vegan theatre, exhibitions and films in Nottingham. Updated daily! Frances Ashton ([email protected]) tapas bar in Skegness.

If you would like to reach our readers by Theatre Editor advertising your company in these pages Photos Adrian Bhagat ([email protected]) Jesse Keene please contact Ben on 07984 275453 or email See galleries from the latest events in Hoodtown and beyond. Nikki Barr [email protected] Literature Editor Roger Mean James Walker ([email protected]) Shariff Ibrahim Advertise Tom Quickfall LeftLion has an estimated readership of 40,000 in If you’re running a business in Notts and want to let Music Editors the city of Nottingham. LeftLion.co.uk received LeftLion readers know about it, either in print or online, Natasha Chowdhury ([email protected]) Cover Illustrator over 4 million page views in the last 12 months. then email [email protected] Paul Klotschkow ([email protected]) Chris Summerlin

Oh yeah… and check out our New Year’s Eve gig at Photography Editor Illustrators This magazine is printed on paper sourced from Brownes and the Market Bar (see the back page) and come Dominic Henry ([email protected]) Alex Godwin sustainable forests. Our printers are ISO 14001 Rikki Marr certified by the British Accreditation Bureau for and see in 2009 with us! Contributors Rob White their environmental management system. Dave Evans [email protected] Jaycee

www.leftlion.co.uk/issue26 3 MAY CONTAIN EARLY XMAS DECORATIONS with Nottingham’s ‘Mr. Sex’, Al Needham God Almighty, a house down my street in Beeston already has Xmas decs, tree and lights up in early NOTTS November! Are these guys insane or what? Sara October-November 2008

Not really, the whole of Nottingham city centre is alight... SamYouWell Sept 28 Mr Sex’s dad is one of the people who escaped fiery death when I like the Cornerhouse lights. They take the edge off the Balford Conservative Club skittle team’s coach bursts into that infernal building. flames on the way back from a day out in Whitby. He was more Stillman pissed off about leaving two cans of bitter on the back seat, and tried to lead a heroic yomp across the moors to find a pub, despite In these energy crisis times, surely the idea is to being told not to by the police. save electricity, not go hell for leather on burning it all away. Woe betide when the energy runs out! Sept 30 Onward Christian soldiers! Jo and Twiggy, the D-list celebrities of local radio broadcasting, Sara split up. Let’s have a minute of silence from Radio Trent. Actually, make it a century. Or two. I really like the idea of having lights up and decorations, i just wish Christmas hadn’t put its stench all over it. I’m pretty certain the idea is to Oct 1 help brighten up winter, to put decorations up Goose Fair. Is it me, or is it getting smaller every year? By the year where the flowers have failed for the season, to 2038, someone will go for a walk across the Forest and accidentally help fight against those cold night blues. tread on it. Sir Dancealot Oct 2 May as well leave them up all fucking year. The Council reveal that they’ve over-spunked the building of the Anyway, where can I get my easter eggs? Market Square and Nottingham Contemporary by a million quid Alexander Supertramp each. Come on, it’s easily done. You know what it’s like - some sales rep comes round to sell you an arts centre, then he says he’ll Viccy Centre have installed their new display, I even chuck in a free extension and he’ll split his commission, but Oct 24 remember commenting on the animatronic elves you’ll have to sign this form right now before his boss finds out. A man in Mapperley claims to see a UFO. No-one believes him. faces being all dirty last year on here and lo and And you end up with a big pile of bricks and One are on Meanwhile, in a pub 34,000,000 light years away, a three-headed behold they have been replaced... with a load of your arse. purple-skinned alien in a pub gets laughed at by his mates when buck-toothed, puffy-cheeked, budget Disney dwarf he claims to have seen Mapperley. “No, I did! It was all flashing! rip-offs. Whoever gets paid to make these things There was a golf club and everything!” must be laughing all the way to the bank, proper Oct 3 offensively shite. Waitrose announce that they are moving into that munting new Jack Twatt building in Trinity Square - y’know, the one that makes you feel Oct 27 like you’re in East Germany in the seventies when you go past the Police send letters to violent Forest and Derby fans, asking back of it. them not to be naughty at the forthcoming game. Then they do a mailshot to dogs that reads “Er, could you stop sniffing each JO AND TWIGGY SPLIT Oct 5 other’s arseholes, please?” Hang on a minute - Conservative Club? You class traitor, Dad! I knew there was summat suspect about you when you belted me Oct 31 Hurrrrah - no more inept rantings of the unfunny for chucking a leaflet back in the Tory candidate’s face during the Nottingham breaks the world record for most zombies in one manbeast and Twiglet the Moronic. This has made 1983 General Election and wouldn’t let me go to Youth Club for place at the same time, in the Market Square. It will break the my year, never mind day. a month. And no, I don’t care that you only go there because the record again next month, when Primark has its January Sale. 44ton ale’s cheap. I have no father. Nov 1 haha! hahahahahahahahaha.... Oct 7 Some youth on his way to a fancy dress party as Rambo gets hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha put on lockdown by Babylon for having a plastic knife on him. The haha Jimmy Sirrel gets a right good send-off at St Mary’s, with David coppers’ll regret that in five years time when he comes back for ha. Pleat, Laurie McNenemy, Dave McKay, and Alex Ferguson in at- Alan tendance. The latter even refrains from doing his usual pointing-at- revenge with a plastic rocket launcher, bought from Poundland. watch-and-screaming-like-slapper-outside-Jumpin’-Jaks-for-taxi The funny thing, Alan, is that you’re still in their routine at the vicar. Nov 2 top friends on MySpace. And have you seen how The Derby derby. Ha ha ha! Phew. many friends they have? 666... 9 Oct Jared The Dalai Lama gives away over sixty grand to charity after mak- Nov 4 ing an unexpected profit on his week in Nottingham. Apparently, The Slanty ‘N’, that much-maligned consonant, is finally toppled Alan, you’ve made Nottingham cry. And the fact a coach party from Clifton saw all the Buddhas on display, and by the City Council. In its place will probably be more banging on that this story is over two months old and nobody thought ‘Ooh, that looks like ah Dad I’ll gerrim one for Christmas’. about Robin Hood, but I’ve sent in a drawing of Su Pollard with a had noticed is testament to the huge and enduring call centre headphone jammed into one ear and an NG3 tattoo on sway Radio Trent has over the cultural realm of Oct 10 her neck to the council. I’m quietly confident. Nottingham. More grief for the Council, as they confirm that they’ve lost over Lord of the Nish £42m in Icelandic banks. Which is almost as much as Bulwell Nov 6 The Brian Clough statue is unveiled, and the very mintness of Her mum’s finally had enough of her and kicked her spends in Iceland whenever there’s buy-one-get-one-free on oven it is only slightly tempered by Gary Newbon telling thousands of out, then? chips. serpico people how great it was to be back in Birmingham, the sucky get. Oct 16 As someone next to me said; “Eeh, it’s dead funneh aah he abso- I never ever listened to them. Were they that bad? An eight year-old lad from Aspley gets done for making a knife in lutely fookin’ ‘ated half the bastards up there on that stage.” Surely not worse than Chris’s Moyles and Evans. class out of a blade from a pencil sharpener stuck in a biro case. daley thompson Kids today, eh? When I was his age, we were making Death Stars Nov 12 from the tops of cat food tins and chucking ‘em at the doors of the Vienna, that posh new restaurant across the way from the Square, Worse than Evans, nowhere near as bad as Moyles. boiler room, or putting handfuls of fibre-glass down each other’s shuts down after only three months, which is a damn shame But then, what is? back. We made our own fun in them days. because it was skill! My mate had a pigeon leg lollipop when we New Jersey Manufacturer’s Insurance Co. went in. We felt a bit guilty when we went past the picket line of Oct 18 pigeons in wheelchairs giving us cut-eye looks, mind. The fact that they’d turn up to the opening of an Nottingham’s chatty kids get another slap-down when it’s re- envelope was what really made people actually vealed they have the mankiest teggehs in the country, with their Nov 18 hate them - people who probably couldn’t even dental health being 35 years behind the rest of the country. This The BNP membership list is published online, giving all the op- name another Trent FM presenter. They even portunity to put names and addresses to the mouth-breathers appeared in your cage when you went on the means our kids have seventies teeth. Flared teeth. With Bay City who write brain-meltingly cretinous rammell on the Post’s lam- Nottingham Eye: a disgrace! They should have Rollers tartan on them. issued a warning before you paid. entable website. Unsurprisingly, Mansfield tops the list (where Jared Oct 19 it would have been easier to publish who isn’t in the BNP), while A church on Talbot Street announce that they have planning per- Long Eaton, Beeston, and all the other bits of banjo-country bring HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH mission to erect a bleddy massive 65-metre cross that will tower up the rear. Congratulations, Bestwood, Aspley, The Park, Radford, HAHAHAHAHAHA over the city, meaning that the pavement outside Rock City will Lady Bay and Strelley - you are vermin-free. Twats. be sticky with liquefied Goth next decade. robcutforth Nov 21 Oct 22 Nottingham knocks back plans to have an elected mayor when Nottingham gets £650,000 of government money to deal with only 89 people bother to respond to a public consultation. Balls! I anti-social kids. Hopefully, they’ll spend it all on a giant Dad’s fist was going to run for it. I would have gone on the batter in town mounted on a lorry that gets driven around estates and shakes with me chain on, made it illegal to stand outside a McDonalds violently at youths, whilst a 200db sound system broadcasts thinking you’re rock without wearing tiger face-paint and holding the words “Ah know where yer live, yer little boggers!” over and a balloon, and would have put a UFC fighting cage in the Square over again. every Saturday night. You missed your chance, Nottingham, and it’s your own fault. 4 www.leftlion.co.uk/issue26 LeftEyeOn What’s been going on round Notts of late, through the lenses of our photographers...

FromCaption notestop -left left to to right bottom from the topright... Deep Sound Channel playing in Dogma at the Hockley Hustle... Sun 5 Oct... raised 15k this year... Deep(Al Greer) Sound Channel playing Dogma for the Hockley Hustle, a charity festival across Nottingham venues that raised fifteen thousandThe Transatlantic pounds forCollective charity onat theSunday Bonington 5 October. Theatre (Al Greer)Arnold with guest trumpet Jay Phelps from Empirical... Part of nationally acclaimed Nottingham Jazz Steps programme... The(Dom Transatlantic Henry) Collective at the Bonington Theatre Arnold with guest trumpet Jay Phelps from Empirical. Part of the nation- allyNottingham’s acclaimed undeadNottingham at the Jazz Game Steps City pr worldogramme. record (Dom attempt... Henry) Friday 31st October... 1227 dressed up for Thriller... (Stephen Wright) Nottingham’s undead at Game City, where a new world record forSpaceships the amount are ofcool zombies at Brownes... gathered LeftLion in the samedo Friday place 17 was Oct set on Friday(Carla 31stMundy) October. 1227 turned up and then they all danced to Michael Jackson’s Thriller. (Stephen Wright) The LeftLion Radio team are on the case... (Al Greer) A member of Spaceships Are Cool performing at October’s LeftLion night at Brownes. Also playing on the night were XS:IF The Hiphop Disciple and the Stiff Kittens. (Carla Mundy)

The LeftLion Podcasting team gathered together at StoneSoup studios. Listen to their new range of broadcasts at www.leftlion.co.uk/audio

www.leftlion.co.uk/issue26 www.leftlion.co.uk/issue26 55 Why I Became A Magpie! words: Dave Evans

WHEN I WALK my dog on the local park every day I try not Road stand of decrepit . Everything seemed to Unlike cities such as Bristol and , there is no North/ to become too disheartened by the number of kids wearing be made of wood and the air was thick with an aroma that South divide. A Nottingham lad doesn’t follow the Tricky Trees Chelsea, Arsenal, Man Utd and Liverpool shirts. After all, in combined Players Navy Cut, pies and piss with bad breath, because he lives in Ruddington, like a Magpies fan doesn’t 1974, when I was six years old it’s exactly what I was doing. Bovril and burps. follow them because he’s from Bulwell. We’re not Catholic, Forest aren’t Protestant or vice versa. Hell, my Dad followed Forest I had the full white strip with the numbered garters, and hand- This funny little team that played in black and white stripes home and away throughout the sixties and seventies, while stitched on the back of the shirt by my Mam was the coolest had just come back from 2-0 down to draw 2-2 with Manchester my idea of fun on a Saturday is a road trip to Rochdale. There’s shirt number to have - seven. You see, I was a Leeds United fan United. Yes, the actual, real Manchester United! I have no idea simply no rhyme or reason to it. back then. who played for United that day; I can’t even be bothered to look on the internet as I sit and type this because thinking back One thing that is clear on the rare occasions that we meet in They were the league champions, had the best players and - most almost 35 years I can feel the grin start to appear on my face. a fixture these days is that when it resurfaces, that rivalry is importantly for me - they had Peter Lorimer playing for them. He as strong as any other in the country. The plain fact is that we played number seven. Peter Lorimer had black tousled seventies At half-time, my Dad was chain-smoking and telling the bloke Magpies hate Forest because they’re like that bigger brother hair and possessed the thing that sparkled like a stolen jewel to a next to him that Notts would never come back from this. But they who gets you in a headlock while his mate raps his knuckles on six-year-old lad from Aspley: the hardest shot in football. did and as we made our way back to my gran’s house again, your head. When he eventually lets go, you try to swing back crushed by the crowds walking down Arkwright Street, I pulled but miss and fall on your arse. Then, as you sit ‘round the dinner Of course in those days, both Forest and Notts were slugging at his arm; ‘That was skill dad! Can we come again?’ table with holes in the knees of your new school trousers and it out against each other in Division Two; what we now, rather your mam asks you how you did it, you keep quiet… and that alarmingly, call the Championship. This meant that the first Kicking a ball around the playground at Robert Shaw Primary makes you hate him even more. match my Forest-supporting Dad ever took me to was over School on Western Boulevard on the Monday lunchtime I the border in what seemed like another country - Derby. So, distinctly recall cutting one in between the jumpers from a fine These days, with my Dad living away, his weekend visits to clutching a white, yellow and blue woollen bar scarf, I stood angle. As I wheeled away in celebration I shouted out the name Nottingham require him to sit in the Jimmy Sirrell stand with me, right at the front, behind the goal at the old Baseball Ground of my new hero. ‘What a great goal from Steve Carter’ I told Ken, Thommo, Dave, Adrian, Liam, Martin, Laurence and the rest waiting for a glimpse of my hero. anyone and everyone who could hear. Steve Carter, as I’m sure of us. Ignoring the dross that we’ve had to endure on the pitch you won’t be surprised to hear, wore the number seven shirt for for the last fifteen years or so, we idle away another afternoon by When Leeds won a corner close to me, this thirteen-stone Jock my new mob of heroes. testing each other to name a team of eleven ginger Notts players ambled over towards where I was standing and stood there with over the years, or whether there’s ever been another Delroy to his hands on his hips. ‘Peter, Peter!’ I shouted waiting for him to On his Topps playing card (five in a pack, plus a stick of play for us other than our current striker, Delroy Facey. wave over to me, give me a cheeky wink or, goddammit, even chewing gum that tasted like soil) he handsomely smirked out wander over and ruffle my hair. But there was nothing. at you wearing a shark’s tooth necklace. I wanted one of those Dad loves it and as we walk back home from the pub analysing In the car on the way home with a down-turned smile like the necklaces of course, but the only place you could find them was why we could never seem to beat Rushden and Diamonds, I ask saddest of clowns I told my dad I didn’t support Leeds anymore. in the 5p-a-grab machines at Mablethorpe that were impossible him if he misses going to Forest these days: ‘I fell out of love His relief was clear to see. His broad smile practically said to win on. with Forest 25 years ago,’ he answers. ‘These days I’d just rather ‘Thank fuck for that, I haven’t got to drive this bleddy Vauxhall come to watch Notts with you and your mates and have a laugh Viva to Derby again next season.’ Of course my Dad still used to take me down to Forest with him, regardless of the result.’ but I was never that bothered by who won or scored, my eyes A few weeks later, I was sat at my gran’s house in the Meadows were always firmly fixed on the half-time scoreboard. As the A few years ago, when I had a different job and more time on reading the Beano when my dad said, ‘Come on son, we’re off to whistle blew and the fella behind the windows started lifting 3ft my hands, I was watching a reserve game at Meadow Lane on a the match.’ Would this be it? Would this funny team in red and numbers around, everyone waited to see what would be placed Tuesday afternoon with my mate Phil. As two old blokes sitting white be the ones for me? Or would I spend two hours staring at in window J. in front of us berated the linesman for a dodgy offside decision the sky wondering why Plug from the Bash Street Kids had ears I turned to Phil and said: ‘Do you reckon that’ll be us in thirty that stuck out like that, as Forest huffed and puffed their way to QPR 1…Notts County 0. The crowd booed. Why would they years time?’ a 0-0 draw with Cardiff? boo when their closest rivals were losing? Surely, like everyone at Meadow Lane did, they should cheer when their rivals are ‘I hope so,’ came his reply. The following week however, this was it. March 19, 1974 was the losing? I didn’t understand it, but then the rivalry in Nottingham day I fell in love with football. I was crammed into the County is not the easiest one to explain to an outsider anyway.

6 www.leftlion.co.uk/issue26 � 4 COUNTY vs. 18 23 13 7 FOREST �� HISTORY 1 2 16 �� 6 21 1. 1888 Notts play in the inaugural season of the Football 11 20 League. 3 �� 2. 1892 Forest win the Football Alliance and get promoted to 17 the Football League. Notts tonk ‘em 3-0 in the first meeting between the two. �� 5 3. 1894 Notts get relegated, but become the first team out of the 15 top division to win the FA Cup. 8 �� 22 4. 1898 Forest win their first FA Cup. GLORY 19 25

5. 1914 Forest have to apply for re-election after finishing bottom of Division Two. �� 9 14 6. 1925 Forest bounce back, but are relegated from Division One, 10 not returning for 32 years. �� COUNTY 12 24 7. 1926 Notts are relegated out of the top division, starting an FOREST exile of over half a century. �� 8. 1932 Forest batter Notts 6-2, their biggest derby victory.

9. 1935 Notts relegated to Division Three South. 26

10. 1947 Notts become the dominant club in Nottingham after ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� signing from Chelsea and getting promoted TIME to Division Two while Forest slip down to Division Three.

11. 1955 Notts spank Forest 4-1, their biggest derby victory. 17. 1976 The last season that Notts finished higher in the league 21. 1992-3 The beginning of the end for both clubs, who get 12. 1958 The balance tilts in Forest’s direction – they get than Forest. relegated from the top division, just as the Premier League promoted and win the FA Cup, while Notts are relegated starts and the serious money rolls in. twice in consecutive seasons. 18. 1978-81 The Glory Years: Under Cloughie Forest get promoted back to Division One and win the League Cup 22. 1994 The last league game between the two clubs sees 13. 1967 Forest come this close to winning the Double, while twice, The League and the European Cup twice, while Jimmy Notts win 2-1. Sir Charlie Palmer Day! Notts are fourth from bottom in Division Four – the furthest Sirrel becomes one of just three managers in history to take a away the two clubs have ever been from each other. club from the bottom division to the top. 23. 1994-99 Forest yo-yo upwards, Notts yo-yo downwards.

14. 1969 Jimmy Sirrel joins Notts, and gets them into Division 19. 1984 Notts get relegated two years running again, and flirt 24. 2004 Notts end up in Division Four and very nearly go Two in four years. with bankruptcy. bankrupt.

15. 1972 Forest are relegated to Division Two. 20. 1991 Notts claw their way back to the top division under 25. 2005 Forest end up in Division Three. . 16. 1975 Brian Clough joins Forest. 26. 2008 Forest get promoted to the Championship, whilst Notts continue to languish in the bottom tier.

Why Our Local Rivalry Is Rubbish, And Why We Should Celebrate That! words: Al Needham

FACT: when it comes to football, Nottingham’s two-team Forest in the sixties and seventies, and The Meadows for Notts rivalry is by far the weakest in the country, which is pretty up until the same time (renowned local journalist David McVay strange when you consider we have the oldest local derby in pinpoints the rebuilding of the Meadows and the scattering of its LOCAL DERBIES the world. Please don’t jump down me throat, rabid Magpies and fanbase as a killer blow for the club’s fortunes). Reds, because when you consider the facts I‘m about to lay out, GAMES PLAYED you won’t only agree with me, but you’ll be jumping in the Square Success in celebration. It’s not that our teams are crap. It’s because our city is that damn good! Both clubs have yo-yoed all over the shop for nearly 150 years, 381 meaning that crucial, history-making games have been few and It can’t be denied that success-wise, and barring a golden period far between. Neither club has ever prevented the other from LIVERPOOL 208 for both clubs from the late seventies to the early nineties, both winning silverware - the last time they met in the FA Cup was in Forest and Notts have spent most of their lives punching below 1894, and they’ve only met once in the League Cup. NORTH 160 their weight. But there are far more important reasons why our MANCHESTER 149 rivalry lacks the bite of other cities. Football Hotbediness This is a factor that I’ve made up, but it’s a vital one. Yes, you hear BRISTOL 108 Sectarianism that Nottingham football is less intense than it is in Newcastle, Most clubs formed in the Victorian era sprang directly out of Liverpool or even Derby, but if you ask me, ‘Football Hotbed’ NOTTINGHAM 95 religious sports clubs and schools, meaning that if one started is shorthand for ‘there’s arse all else to do here on a Saturday up in a city for one creed, another would invariably come into afternoon’. being to cater for the other lot. So, a multi-team city would end up having a Catholic club (Man United, Arsenal, Liverpool, Hibernian, So what makes a Forest fan a Forest fan, and so on? Well, here’s Celtic) and a protestant club (Man City, Chelsea, Everton, Hearts, the great thing about Nottingham; there’s no one reason. Some Rangers), meaning that an entire family tree would stick to one people will support a club because their Dad does, while some LOCAL DERBY STATS club - and, in the case of Glasgow, can still be the cause of some will support a club because their Dad doesn’t. Some went for serious needle. Although Forest were formed as an off-shoot of an Forest when they were beating everyone in sight (or because Forest win Notts win Draw Irish shinty club, no Notts fan has ever referred to them as ‘The they used to), while others go for Caanteh because they like the Pope’s XI’. We’re right heathens in this town. underdog. Most of us, on the other hand, were dragged to a game League 35 28 23 and thought to ourselves ‘Yeah, I like this team - I’m one o’ them now’. Being given the freedom to pick your local team regardless FA Cup 4 2 3 Catchment Area of religion or history is a beautiful thing, people; let us never In places like Birmingham, Bristol and Sheffield, the local clubs are forget that. League Cup 1 0 0 a fair distance from each other, meaning they have full reign over Goals 136 118 their outlying areas. But Forest and Notts have been virtual next (Oh, and a quick word about people from Notts who support one door neighbours for years, in a city that isn’t that big. The only real of the Big Four: Scum.) catchment areas either club has ever had have been Bridgford for

www.leftlion.co.uk/issue26 7 Rob Cutforth wanted to immerse himself in a totally authentic Nottingham historical experience. But then he thought ‘sod it’, and went to Tales of Robin Hood instead...

I’VE HAD NUMEROUS ARGUMENTS with Nottinghamians about how this city should grab on to Robin Hood’s big ol’ medieval teats, milk them until they’re red raw and then milk ‘em some more. Trust me: speaking as a foreigner, there is a lot of money in those merry men - and after walking around St Anns for a couple of hours, I can tell ya, this city could use it.

I could never understand why the people in this city are so anti-Robin Hood. Simply saying ‘Robin Hood’ to a local will invoke his gag reflex. I’ve always thought this was a shame considering how crap or un-Nottinghamish the other touristy things in this town are. Don’t get me wrong; the Galleries of Justice are wonderful, the outdoor ice arena was okay and that big ferris wheel that breezed through town had its charm, but none of them really scream ‘Nottingham’ at the tourists, do they? In fact, that ferris wheel screamed ‘fourth-rate London wannabe’. And the Goose Fair? What in the seventh level of Hades does a Goose have to do with Nottingham? In fact, the very few geese I have seen around here are Canadian! You’d be closer to the mark calling it Gimp-footed Pigeon Fair. Lord knows we’ve got enough of those.

Anyway, I walk past the Tales of Robin Hood on an almost daily basis and had always meant to go in. It looks sketchy with those naff (I love that word) decorations in the window, but it’s guide. I haven’t read the dictionary definition in falcon shit. I look at my wife and say, ‘Jeez, ‘Maintenance Man’, who must’ve been one of got ‘Robin Hood’ on the marquee and it’s on of ‘lobby’, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t contain they could’ve at least cleaned that stuff off,’ to the background Merry Men not mentioned in Maid Marian Way. It’s got to be good, right? a water wheel, a giant fibreglass horse, a which she replied, ‘I think they leave it on there the story. While glory hounds Little John and very live falcon and a dead-looking dog. After on purpose to add to the reality’. Of course. Silly Friar Tuck are out swashbuckling, Maintenance I had no idea. waiting in Dante’s lobby with a French family me. Man sits back at camp in Sherwood Forest for about ten minutes, someone who appears sharpening arrows and stitching rope ladders My wife and I arrive at TORH, hungover, on to be the doughy love-child of Dave Grohl and Our guide - who is not Fat Dave Grohl at all, but together. Yeah, that must be it. Will and a grey Sunday morning. We pay our £9 each Peter Pan bounds in and leads us toward a Robin Hood’s pal Will Scarlet himself - knocks Maintenance Man swap perplexed looks and and are told to wait in the lobby for the tour huge wooden door that is absolutely blanketed on the big wooden door and shouts ‘Open up in start letting empty carriages go through. Hm, I the name of Robin Hood!’ No answer. He knocks don’t think that was supposed to happen. again even louder and pushes the door open a crack to peek in. This engages the automatic We get on one that they both deem to be safe door mechanism and the door starts opening. and we’re off. The car moves past a number of ‘Whoops!’ he says and pulls the door shut medieval scenes where the mannequins quake again. about like giant Action Men in the midst of a death rattle. As if that isn’t strange enough, you ‘Hm, I don’t think that was supposed to can actually smell the action. When you go past happen,’ I whisper to my wife. I learn very the fake coal fire, it smells like coal, when you quickly that if you turned Tales of Robin Hood go past the fake food it smells of roast dinner. into a drinking game, where you took a swig Everywhere else smells of pee. No, seriously. every time you said ‘Hm, I don’t think that was If you learn nothing else from TORH, it’s that supposed to happen’, you’d be comatose fifteen medieval Nottingham funked like a Top Valley minutes in. subway on Sunday morning.

Something behind the door is obviously askew. At the halfway point it dawns on my wife and Will now has to stall us until whatever is I that it’s very quiet. This is the Tales of Robin behind the door is fixed, so he attempts some Hood, damn it - where’s the bloody tale? I shtick. To two hungover people and a family look up and see a speaker above our heads that doesn’t speak English, God help him. He and point at it inquisitively. She shrugs, and pretends he’s going to kick the door in and tells I poke at the speaker cover only for it to pop a couple of gags about how Robin Hood used to out of the top of the car giving me a clear view wee in the water wheel, and that the dead dog of the ceiling. Hmmm, I don’t think that was actually belonged to the man himself. You could supposed to happen. hear a pin drop. Ordinarily, I am the king of the sympathy laugh, but even I can’t manage it. It was at this point the sheer ridiculousness of my current situation hits me. I am sitting in a broken Finally, Will takes another peek past the door underground gondola, rolling past twitching, and gets the signal that everything is OK. The leprous dummies that stink of piss in complete door swings open…onto what looks like the silence. My wife and I lapse into a giggling fit that crappiest tourist attraction I have ever seen. doesn’t end until we go to bed that night. If there was a place called Crapland where the buildings were made of crap, where crap At the end of the ride, my wife asks Will if there people drive crap boats over rivers of crap and was supposed to be any sound. He looks up at are lorded over by King Turd, Tales of Robin the now misaligned speaker cover and replies, Hood would be more crap than that. Thing is… ‘Yes, there was. Hmmm, go upstairs and tell it’s also brilliant. them Will Scarlet says you can have a free go on the archery’. Suffice to say that when we went I have never seen anything like it. You wander up to ‘the archery’, there was no-one there. I through underground caves while these mad think I saw Robin Hood himself though, sitting dummies talk to you and each other. I couldn’t on the bar chatting up some girls, but it could really understand what many of them were have been a tramp. saying (did I mention it was crap?), but I think the gist is that you are trapped by the Sheriff of Speaking as someone who Tales of Robin Hood Nottingham and sentenced to death. Before you is firmly aimed at, I have to say that it’s so are sent down, however, Robin Hood’s Merry bizarre that it belies belief. We left in a weird Men (led by our hero, Will Scarlet) help you state of giddiness, that had in actual fact cured escape on what can only be described as an our hangovers. I hadn’t laughed like that in a underground chairlift. Yes, you heard me right. long time and although it might’ve been for all the wrong reasons, there’s no denying we had a We get to the chairlift bit where Will Scarlet day I would recommend to anyone. is sorting out the moving chairs out with

8 www.leftlion.co.uk/issue26 You can take the girl out of Seven rising stars from The Television Workshop

Nottingham, but you can’t take Pui Fan Lee Arguably the most globally famous of all the ex-students as Po the Teletubbie. Pui Nottingham out of the girl. is currently a presenter on CBeebies, but has appeared in the steamy Channel 4 series Metrosexuality and also had a Samantha Morton is one of the UK’s most respected and small role in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. versatile actresses. In 2007 alone she played Marilyn Monroe, Deborah Curtis, Mary Queen of Scots and Myra Toby Kebbell Hindley. She’s acted in Hollywood blockbusters alongside Mr RockNRolla himself, Toby made Tom Cruise, Johnny Depp and Daniel Craig. She’s a national his film debut as the mentally challenged Anthony in Shane treasure and she came back to Notts in November to do a Meadows’ excellent Dead Man’s Shoes. benefit appearance at Broadway for The Television Workshop. Since then he’s worked with Oliver Here’s the highlights… words: Jared Wilson Stone (Alexander), (Match Point) and (RockNRolla). His portrayal of manager Rob Gretton, alongside Sam On her early days in The Television Morton in Control wowed audiences. Workshop… The thing I love about the Television Workshop was that you met people from all walks of life who came together. I was A mainstay of Shane predominately homeless at the time. I Meadows films having was in and out of foster homes and had appeared as Romeo Brass left school at the age of twelve. So for me (A Room For Romeo Brass), it was just good to be part of something Donut (Once Upon a Time in so constructive and to have something the Midlands), Elvis (Dead that was consistent in my life. At one Man’s Shoes) and Milky (This point Ian (the workshop leader) kicked me Is England). He was also the out for misbehaviour - it was ages until he voice of Grot in a TV version let me back in, but he also gave me train of Fungus The Bogeyman. fare to go to London to audition for Peak Practice where I played a blind runaway. It seemed fitting. I got the part and things Georgia Groome went well for me from there. Star of London To Brighton and the lead in new On playing Myra Hindley… movie Angus, Thongs I have to go on my instincts as to whether and Passionate Snogging. I can get inside a character or not. As a Named by The Times parent myself I initially said no to the part. as a ‘movie megastar of But I thought about it more and thought tommorow.’ about what art is about and I thought I should do it and try to be respectful, even Joe Dempsie to her memory, which might seem a bit Shot to fame playing wrong in the scheme of things. There are Chris in Skins, but layers upon layers to everything and my Joe has also recently job as an actor isn’t just about turning up appeared in on time and reading my lines. and is currently filming

as Duncan Mackenzie On making her directing debut with in the movie adaptation The Unloved, which is currently filming On meeting Woody Allen, during casting respectful in the way I said it, but they’d of The Damned United, in Notts… for Sweet and Lowdown… paid a lot of money to get me out there a film about Brian I didn’t really want to be a director because I think my ignorance helped as I didn’t and I had to let them know how to get the Clough’s fateful time in a lot of the directors I see are more like stage really know who he was at the time. I best out of me. charge of Leeds United. managers. They have ideas and stuff, but I still spoke in a really broad Nottingham don’t see a lot of them putting their necks accent when I met him - you can take On childcare… on the line. A long time ago I had a vision of the girl out of Nottingham, but you can’t a film, with various images in my head like take Nottingham out of the girl. So I just If I hadn’t been an actor I would have photographs or a recurring dream. I tried to told him I’d have a proper look through been working in childcare. I know a lot Vicky McClure of actors do the whole charity and social write it but failed miserably. Then a friend the script and let him know if I was As well as leading roles conscience thing, but I’m always giving of mine Toni wrote it for me into one of the interested. Looking back I wish I could do for Shane Meadows in myself a kick up the arse to say I’m really most beautiful things I’ve ever read. that now, it was cheeky but also honest both A Room For Romeo lucky with where I am. I could easily and showed a sense of confidence, which Brass (Ladine) and have been working in Birds cake shop I think impressed him. It’s not that I was This is England (Lol), On how acting sends you a bit mad… still, which would be a problem for my stupid, I just knew who I was and didn’t Vicky has recently been weight as I really like egg custards. But I think back in 1996 I went a bit bonkers. I give a flying monkey’s what anyone else directed by I wouldn’t have any of it were it not for was working all the time, but not putting thought. As my gran and my nana always (yes, as in the singer) in acting or The Television Workshop. anything back into myself. I decided to told me, ‘Even the Queen has a shit!’ Filth and Wisdom. go and live in Bali for a bit and write poetry, do yoga and get my head together. On fashion… I didn’t really care about being famous On working with Steven Spielberg… I was born in 1977 and I think that says or earning money. But listening to other Minority Report was the biggest film I’d a lot for who I am as a spirit. I was voted Mista Jam people helped and sometimes it’s just worked on, but I work the same way on worst dressed person at the Oscars. I was With regular Radio about trying to escape your profession. I’ve all of them. I remember being on set, I had wearing a Paul Smith designer suit that 1 and 1xtra shows got an Uncle Jeff and he’s a builder, but a stand in and there were loads of lights was a rip-off of the cover from the Patti under his belt, Mista he’s not building houses 24 hours a day is everywhere. So I asked for a word with Smith album Horses. Eight years later Jam (aka Peter he? I just had to learn to stand back a bit, Steven and said ‘Listen, you’re not going everyone is wearing it! Dalton) is one of the rather than staying up until 4am stressing to get the best out of me like this and if rising stars of British over scripts. Another major turning point that’s the case I might as well go home radio and runs the was having children. There’s nothing like now. You’ve got to get all the lights out, For more information, or to donate UK Takeover hip-hop having someone else to look after to focus we’ve got to rehearse it and get to know to The Television Workshop, visit nights. Acting-wise your mind on the important things. what’s going on inside out.’ I was very thetelevisionworkshop.co.uk he started out as a teenager in Crossroads, but more recently appeared in BBC3’s Trexx and Flipside. MORE FILM REVIEWS AND INTERVIEWS AT LEFTLION.CO.UK/FILM

www.leftlion.co.uk/issue26 9 Taking lo-fi, scuzzy blues, and bone rattling punk head-on in a free for all, Lovvers are here to slam mediocrity against the wall and slit its throat with their jagged post-punk sounds. They got together in Nottingham, released a bunch of class 7”s and are now signed to the wicked Wichita Records. So at the moment things are going well for the band, and with a tour itinerary that would make even the most hardened road warriors weary, they’re definitely making sure that they keep up the momentum. Fortunately for LeftLion, Michael and Henry from the band were able to spare a few minutes from their busy schedule for a chat... words: Paul Klotschkow

For the people reading this who don’t know who you are, please tell us who’s in the band... Hi, Lovvers are Henry on guitar, Shaun is the singer, Michael plays bass, and Steve is the drummer.

How would you describe the music you play? Pop music for people who like good music.

Tell us one secret that you’ve never told anyone else? One of us recently ran over a cat - accidentally of course!

What is your association with Nottingham? It’s where we formed.

What’s your opinion of the current music scene in Nottingham? I don’t think the scene is as good as it was when we all lived there but with promoters like Damn You! and venues like Chameleon and the Arts Organisation, it definitely has some good things going for it.

For you, what makes a memorable night out in the city? Nowadays it’s just going somewhere with friends who we haven’t seen for a while and hanging out with them. Anything which does not involve going to Stealth, basically. For example the Annexinema short film nights at Stand Assembly or the gigs at Chameleon. If you could put together your own fantasy festival, who would you have playing and where would you hold it? Your album Think came out in September. One of the “With promoters like Captain Beefheart, The Urinals, Pavement, Holger Czukay, noticeable things about it is its brevity; it’s direct, straight Warren G, Chromatics, The Replacements, Thinking Fellers to the point and just 27 minutes long! Was it a conscious Damn You! and venues like Union Local 282, German Oak, Screeching Weasel. We would not intention to make the LP so short? give a toss where it was held if those acts were on the bill. To begin with it’s not an LP, its an EP. I don’t know where people Chameleon and the Arts get the impression it’s an album, but it’s not. It is direct and What’s the last thing that made you laugh? straight to the point. It wasn’t a conscious decision; it’s just the Organisation, Nottingham What is the difference between Gordon Ramsay and a cross- way the we wrote for the EP are. But seeing as it’s kind of country run? One is a Pant in the Country... an introduction to us for people who never heard the 7”s, I think the length helps. It’s hard to get bored of it anyway. defi nitely has some good What’s the last book you read? Raise High The Roofbeam, Carpenters by J D Salinger. Your first releases as a band were a group of swiftly released 7”s. things going for it.” Why release your music this way instead of simply sticking up After what I can imagine has been a busy year, what’s the an mp3 on a website? What is it that attracts you to the format? What’s the best gig you’ve attended as a punter? plan for Lovvers in 2009? For us, the logical step when starting a band is to demo some It’s a long list but seeing as this is a Nottingham-based We want to record a new 7”, tour Europe again, then go to songs and then put out a 7” - whether it is self-released or on a magazine, my personal favorite Nottingham gig was Arab On America. Record the album and release it in the summer. Tour. small label. We were lucky and had a great label with Jonson Radar at Bunkers Hill. Play the festivals. Then more touring... Family who wanted to put out our demo on a 7”. We then did two more 7”s on that label as working with them was really What makes you want to be in a band and write songs? What do you get up to when not doing stuff with the band? easy. None of us have ever bought an mp3 and we all buy vinyl Thinking about having to go back to working an office job. We all have girlfriends so I guess see them and other friends. so it was an obvious choice. Also vinyl sounds the best, and all Michael likes to cook as that’s one thing you can’t do on tour. our recordings sound much better on vinyl than on CD or mp3. How does the songwriting take place in Lovvers? Henry has another band and a solo project and likes to make Even my dad said the same about the new 12”. One of us comes up with a guitar part or a bass part to a funny songs in his attic. Shaun helps his girlfriend run her and then we just build on that. We usually do it with just the vintage clothes shop, and Steve rides his new bike a lot. After seeing you live a couple of times this year, I can honestly say guitars then go into a practice room and add drums. Pretty much the band is a great live act, and you always seem to be playing a the standard way I think. gig somewhere. What do you enjoy most about playing live? It’s fun, you get to meet lots of nice people and get to see lots of What music have you been listening to recently? Lovvers debut EP Think is out in record shops now. places. We also get asked to play with bands we like so that’s Eddy Current Suppression Ring, The Strange Boys, The Hipshakes. www.myspace.com/letscommunicate always good.

...and what’s the worst thing about playing live? Bad sound men. MORE MUSIC REVIEWS AND INTERVIEWS AT LEFTLION.CO.UK/MUSIC

10 www.leftlion.co.uk/issue26 HigH COnTrAsT ∕ Annie MAC sCrATCH PerverTs ∕ DJ MArky kissy seLLOuT ∕ FriCTiOn ∕ sHy FX ruskO ∕ gOLDie ∕ HATCHA LOgisTiCs ∕ TOMb Crew ∕ CyAnTiFiC JOker ∕ nu TOne ∕ TrAnsiT MAFiA HigHness sOunDsysTeM JAyMO & AnDy geOrge F.O.O.D sOunDsysTeM ∕ DeTAiL DOLLOP DJ’s ∕ HOODOO DJ’s MCs sTAMinA ∕ sP ∕ wreC ∕ rAge i.D ∕ ruTHLess + loads more!

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TheThe DropDrop ThatThat KeepsKeeps OnOn Dripping...Dripping...

Three years ago Nottingham musicians, promoters, bar owners, staff and music lovers came together and created Drop In The Ocean (DITO) - a charity music festival that took place in dozens of venues across Nottingham. The first event took place on Sunday 20 January 2005. The second took place on Sunday 11 June 2006. Between them the festivals raised £84,200 which was distributed amongst worthy causes. Jared Wilson paid a visit to Cambodia and the children’s shelter in Phnom Peng that your beer money helped to build…

IF YOU THINK CRIME AND CORRUPTION in Nottingham Ocean, Nottingham, UK.’ As I enter I am greeted by the happy has been bad over the last decade then Phnmon Penh, six faces of the mainly female children who live there. Despite thousand miles away in Cambodia, is on a whole new level. the fact that they have experienced atrocities that people like I hadn’t even got to my hotel from the airport before I was us will never have to deal with, there are beaming smiles all offered guns and prostitutes. A friend of mine who was there around. Unlike in their family homes, the children now have around the same time had a guy in the street offer him ‘little their own bed in a safe environment (rather than just a blanket girls, all under ten years old’. From our safe base in the UK on a dirty floor) and are schooled in English, maths, knitting, it’s hard not to judge because of these horrors, but you have farming and word processing. The emphasis of the shelter is to know more about the upheaval the country has been on them recovering from the traumas they have been through through to understand why it’s like this. whilst learning skills that can offer them a future out of crime.

Put simply, it can be a struggle for Cambodian people to You’d think that the children would look older than their years guarantee a half-decent standard of life for themselves and their because of their past. If anything it’s the opposite. Years of families. Summing Cambodian history up in a few paragraphs is malnourishment have meant that many of the older teenagers LETTER FROM PAK SREY VONG like trying to write a dictionary on a matchbox, but after several appear to be barely into their teens. On my way there I stopped - One of the children in the shelter decades of political upheaval and the tyranny of Pol Pot (which off at a fruit market and spent $20 (they trade in US currency as claimed the lives of up to three million people - including all well as Khmer) on bananas, rambutans and apples (which are My name is Pak Srey Vong. I am 17 years old and I study in grade schoolteachers, doctors, journalists and anyone deemed to be an an expensive treat out there). This bought three binbags worth 10. I live in CCPCR now (Cambodian Center for the Protection ‘intellectual’) the country is still recovering and so are the people. and when I handed it over to them as a pre-dinner treat they of Children’s Rights). I have two older brothers, one older sister were all delighted, though insistent that I eat it with them. and a younger brother. My older brothers are working now, my There are no state benefits and not enough jobs for the amount sister studies in grade 12 and my younger brother is in grade of people there. One of the main ways to make money is through Then, with the help of their teacher Huch Phat, I took a class 8. My father is a policeman. He is 49 years old. My mother is a crime, and children are one of the few resources which they for half an hour - a good chance for them to practice their housewife. She is 47 years old. can trade. Despite the fact prostitution is illegal in Cambodia, already impressive English language skills. They ask me if you have enough money you can do just about anything - about my family, my job and my life back in England. The I came to the Center because there were many problems in my including buying police protection. Sadly, as a result the country cultural differences are obvious to see. When I tell them I have family and also some bad influences from friends and sometimes has become a regular holiday spot for Western paedophiles. been travelling the world for the last few months they look violence and other problems too. I want to be a journalist because We’ve read all about Gary Glitter in the UK press, but there are astonished. Most of them have never even been or will ever go I want to travel around the world. I love writing and reading hundreds more like him out there, just without the ex-pop star outside of the city. Even though I am not religious, I say a quick books, newspapers and magazines. When I leave the Center and baggage to attract tabloid attention. prayer for them and count myself lucky to be born in a country go home, I’ll study many languages. In the future, if I have enough where I have levels of freedom I’d never fully appreciated until money, I want to study in England. Those are my dreams. The Cambodian Center for the Protection of Children’s Rights that moment. (CCPCR) is located on a quiet street outside the centre Why do I love the Center? Because it has many children, so I of Phnom Peng and was set up to help the victims of sex There’s a little bit of Nottingham culture in Cambodia and it’s have older and younger sisters here. It is fun. I can study Khmer, crimes. From the outside you can’t tell what is behind the big changing the lives of young people there forever. Everyone who English, computers, dancing, cooking, art and other things. I wooden gates and the people involved with the shelter clearly had any involvement in the festival should feel really proud that have a lot of friends in this Center. It’s very fun! My house-mother appreciate this privacy. The children that come through the three years on the money is changing Cambodian children’s cooks very nice! My teachers are very good and very funny. I love doors are referred by Social Services and many of them (some as lives forever. The organisers of the festival have told us being in the Center so much. When my house-mother goes to the young as six or seven) had been working as child prostitutes. that there is unlikely to be another DITO as they feel they have market, I go with her. She is very funny! She is a good mother. passed the torch onto the likes of Hockley Hustle (who raised The place is custom-built for their needs and is run by a over £15,000 with their festival in October) and Oxjam. It only I was very happy when you came here, Mr. Jared, and visited the small team comprising the shelter manager, the housemother takes a drop in the ocean to change the tide… Center. I thank you for coming to Cambodia. I wish you good luck. and part-time teachers. It is overseen by Anne and Alex, God bless you with good health. God loves you. representatives of Family Care Cambodia, who acted as guides for the day I spent there. All of them do their jobs out of a See more photos from the shelter at I thank you, brother, so much. powerful sense of belief for the cause. www.leftlion.co.uk/ditoshelter Bye-bye!

The plaque above the door on my way in made me smile, www.familycarefoundation.org From stating proudly ‘This building was funded by Drop In The www.dropintheocean.org Pak Srey Vong

www.leftlion.co.uk/issue26 13 If you’re a music head in Notts then just the mention of the dynamic duo Paul S and DJ Ivory signifies heavy beats and well-crafted dopeness. With links into the Zulu Nation and a notoriety which spans from HoodTown to the far flung US shores, they’ve worked alongside a host of Nottingham talent including Mr 45, Cappo and Scorzayzee and crossed the pond to add the likes of Boss Money and Sadat X of Brand Nubian to their address books. Their new album, The Gas, is out now. LeftLion caught up with them in an old-time watering hole for some politicking science of a musical nature… words: Jesse Keene photo: Dom Henry

How did you first get into hiphop? and asked the guy behind the to find the emotion they once had Paul S: I saw the video Buffalo counter ‘what’s new?’ He handed for this beautiful thing. We needed Gal around 1983 and things kind of over this record by Mace and Puff to put our money where our mouth went from there. I gained knowledge, Daddy where they were rapping over was and that was the reason that we watched videos and just developed the classic tune The Message. That started putting out records. I feel that passion and love for the culture. really marked a day for me where I you have to have a strong reason for saw hiphop start to take a downward putting any kind of music out there, Ivory: If you were based in turn. Before that you would go and don’t just dash it out for the sake of it! Nottingham at the time then you were either into The Smiths, King Kurt or hiphop. I remember meeting “You have to have a strong reason for Paul around that time. There was a spot in town before Rock City putting any kind of music out there, don’t called Hoofers which was just full of breakers and crews, so I would see just dash it out for the sake of it!” Paul about there from time to time. We both had similar experiences dig through the crates and find So tell us about the new album... good MCs from Notts on that show work with these artists and to get growing up and we both come from classic tunes from the likes of EPMD Paul S: Basically everything we have and we smashed it, so from there respect for our music from them! a Nottingham New York-centric point and Gangstarr. Then suddenly you’re done has evolved naturally, like when it was just a natural progression to of view. just presented with this complete we worked with Sadat X, we just move on to do more in the US. shit. made it happen. We play out a lot in What made you start putting out Ivory: We pay for everything off our Ivory: It got worse because a certain New York and feel that we have more The Gas is out now on Heavy Bronx your own music? own back so it has to be the best part of hiphop grew massive, while of a connection with the scene there records (and reviewed on page 28). that we can put out at the time plus Paul S: It came about from us DJing other heads were turning their back than at home. A while back we did we need to be really vibing with Read a longer version of this interview at The Bomb in town on Thursday on it. So while this was all going on a live show for John Peel and for me the artists that we’re using for the online at www.leftlion.co.uk/music nights. It was around 97-98 and Paul and I were growing into these that was the pinnacle of the UK scene hiphop at that stage had got really project to truly work. It’s been an really bitter people who were trying at the time, we worked with a lot of www.heavybronx.com shit! I went into a local record shop honour for us to go out to NYC and

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14 www.leftlion.co.uk/issue26 For men and women

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Book online at www.jackshair.com Gift vouchers available

1 Fletcher Gate Christmas and New The Lace Market Year bookings now Nottingham being taken for the NG1 1QS1Qs chicest restaurant 0115 9483313 in town.

With gorgeous chandeliers, a stunning Italian bar, plush interiors, and deep sultry colours throughout the restaurant, all guests will be treated to something special. Main courses start at £6.50 and include traditional homely Italian pizzas, lasagne’s, spaghetti vongole and crab linguini with a large selection of poultry dishes and a choice of fish. A menu for all tastes.

THE LAST FRIDAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS

YES, IT’S DECEMBER ONCE AGAIN, and we’re about to reach that magical 12. You manage to get a short in at The Maze, Fade, The Poacher, The Loft, date in the calendar - the night when we all celebrate breaking up from work The Fleece, Nag’s Head, Rose of England and The Peacock. Win seven points. by getting as battered as humanly possible. Now you can recreate the thrills,

spills and violence all year round with this extra-special board game… 13. Oh. My. GOD! You run into Su Pollard and Des Coleman, who offer you a

STATION STATION

Win ten points. ten Win Win ten points. ten Win ROLL THE DICE… THE ROLL ROLL THE DICE… THE ROLL

Lose two points. two Lose

Lose two points. two Lose sexy threesome if you can sort out a cab right now! Roll three consecutive

ROLL THE DICE… DICE… THE ROLL ROLL THE DICE… DICE… THE ROLL

C M Q

C M Q sixes and you win the game outright! BUS BUS ROLL THE DICE… THE ROLL

THE RULES: DICE… THE ROLL of Muse. of back the the back of Muse. of back the pavement the to frozen frozen to the pavement the to frozen

g game. game. g wron wrong game. game. wrong

treh. Fac Food at at Food Factreh. Food at

behind a bin round bin a behind behind a bin round bin a behind Santa hats who are who hats Santa Santa hats who are who hats Santa

MARSH You’ll need a dice, a pen and paper, and a counter for each person. As you go around MARSH hotels. Ooh, hang on, on, hang Ooh, hotels. hotels. Ooh, hang on, on, hang Ooh, hotels.

r Nana r you your Nana your

line your stomach your line line your stomach your line 14. VICCY CENTRE

scalp of Brian Harvey Brian of scalp scalp of Brian Harvey Brian of scalp of kaylide harridans in harridans kaylide of

the board, you’ll pick up or lose points - but when you’ve been ‘round the board four in harridans kaylide of your houses and houses your your houses and houses your

un into into un run r You You BROAD BROAD

You feel the urge to to rge urge u the the feel feel You You

e sacred sacred e the th find find You You er a group a er ov trip You

times, you’re absolutely kaylide and your game is over. The winner is the one with group a over trip You Make repairs on all all on on pairs repairs re Make Make CENTRE

CENTRE 15. You feel the urge to line your stomach at Food Factreh. Roll the dice…

VICCY

the most points after everyone has finished, but be warned - you can also win the VICCY

1. The queue goes all the way down Parliament Street. Go round the board

game by being the last person standing after everyone has gone to hospital…

15 15 16 16 16 17 17 17 20 20 18 18 twice. If you pass The Lions for the fourth time, your night is over. 19 19 21 21 2-3. You get all peas down your best top. Lose two points. 4-5. You see a really entertaining fight over the last fishcake. Win one point.

1. THE LIONS 14 6. You get a photo on your mobile of your boss off their tits, performing a lewd ROLL THE DICE… ROLL THE DICE… redundan redundancy party. act on a saveloy. Win five points! 2. You’re utterly transfixed by the tender yuletide sight of a pisshead climb- You run into a Capital One ing up the Xmas tree to impress some girls. By the time he gets arrested, your Capital One 16. You run into your Nana - roll the dice… mates are already at the Sky Mirror - go there now. 22 1. She’s in a bra and leather mini-skirt, on her way to Jumpin’ Jaks. Vomit up

cy party. ? ? three points. 13 3. Somehow, you end up in Re-Flex. Roll the dice…  ? 13 outright! ?  outright! 2-3. She’s in a queue for Daniel O’Donnell tickets. For August 2010. Lose one point. 1. A gang of meatheads recreate the Battle of Orgreave. Go to QMC. Game over.  ? ? 4-5. She can’t be arsed to go to Primark for your obligatory three pairs of pants, so 2-3. Y ou get groped by someone dressed as Margaret Thatcher. Lose three points.  ? ? cab right now! Roll Roll now! right cab cab right now! Roll Roll now! right cab gives you the money up front - which you ‘accidentally’ spend on one point. Coleman, who offer offer who Coleman, Coleman, who offer offer who Coleman, if you can sort out a a out sort can you if  a out sort can you if

and you win the game game the win you and and you win the game game the win you and you a sexy threesome threesome sexy a you

4-5. They actually play a song not by Duran Duran or Wham! by mistake. Win one ? ? threesome sexy a you three consecutive sixes sixes consecutive three three consecutive sixes sixes consecutive three Oh. My. GOD! You run You GOD! My. Oh. but you lose two points all over over all points two lose you but  into Su Pollard and Des Des and Pollard Su into  Des and Pollard Su into 6. She’s come out the bingo with a wheelbarrow full of money - win five points!

point. ? ? your best trousers. best your you in the chest. They miss - -  miss They chest. the in you

6. Crikey! You get bought a pint by Toneh Adleh aht ter Spandaah Balleh! Five ? ? community attempts to stab stab to attempts community   the in care needs who Someone 17. You find the sacred scalp of Brian Harvey behind a bin round the back of

points! ? ?

?

 ?

 ?  Muse. Win ten points.

?

 ?

23 

23 ?

? ?

T T S S E E H H C C Y Y T T I I N N U U M M M M O O C C

4. You run into your Dad - roll the dice…  T S E H C Y T I N U M M O C

?  18. You trip over a group of kaylide harridans in Santa hats who are frozen

? ? ge to get a

1. He’s sitting under a cashpoint, playing the theme tune to EastEnders. Lose five  Peacock. 

? 

12 12 to the pavement - roll the dice…

?

 ?

points out of shame. ? 

? ? ? ? 1. Your forehead is impaled on a stiletto. Go to the QMC. Game over.

  Head, Nag’s

2-3. He’s dancing in the pub like a gnome trying to put out a fire. Lose one point. Head, Nag’s

 

? ? ?

? 2-5. Your head gets wedged in a particularly large hoopy earring. Go right

Rose of England Rose of England

 points. Win seven Win seven points. Win seven and The and The Peacock. Peacock. and The

4-5. He gets a round in. Win one point. 

Fade, The Poacher, The Poacher, Fade, Fade, The Poacher, The Poacher, Fade,

? ?

?

? to get a manage mana You round the board and back here again while the fire brigade free you. If it’s   The Fleece, The Loft, The Loft, The Fleece, The Fleece, The Loft, short in at The Maze, short in at The Maze, short in at The Maze, short in at The Maze,

 

6. He’s on a promise with that tranny from Mansfield Road, and on his way to ? ?

? ?

 your fourth time, your night is over.

You’re in a pub the  You’re in a pub the

?

some club called ‘NG1’. Win five points worth of hush money so you won’t ? ?

ROLL THE DICE… ? ROLL THE DICE…  poncey bit of town 

poncey bit of town 6. You land on the fat one. Nothing happens.

and dying to curl and dying to curl   

? ?

? ? bring it up over Xmas dinner. ?  

 

? ?

? ?  

one off. one off. 19. You stop to contemplate the true meaning of Christmas - buying rammell so ? ?  

? 5. The statue of Brian Clough comes to life and offers to take you for a pint 24 ? your Mam doesn’t get the hump with you for the next twelve months. Peg it to no!

through time and space. You hold his big bronzey hand and roll the dice… eld Road Viccy Centre now - if you pass The Lions for the fourth time, your night is over.

1. The Works, 2002. Go to QMC. Game over. 11 2. The Olde Trip to Jerusalem, 1147. A load of knights on their way to the Cru- Oh no! 20. Make repairs on all your houses and hotels. Ooh, hang on, wrong game. You step upon You You step upon You the big slippery sades are making a nuisance of theirsens by taking three hours to get their the big slippery tramp-wee slide tramp-wee tramp-wee slide tramp-wee of Mansfi of Mansfield Road of Mansfield Lose two points. ROLL THE DICE… ROLL arses out. Lose three points. THE DICE… ROLL 3. The Bell, 1322. A monk on the door won’t let you in, because your sandals look 21. BROAD MARSH BUS STATION casual. Lose one point. 4. The Old Corner Peg, 1958. Arthur Seaton crashes you a Woodbine. Win one 22. You run into a Capital One redundancy party. Roll the dice… point. 25 25 1. You get caught up in a massive three-hour fight between Accounts and Tel- an

5. The Beer Keller, 1979. You drink Shippos out of the European Cup with Robbo to the esales. Go to QMC. Game Over. and ,. Win three points. 10 10 2-3. Everyone is slitting their wrists on sharpened-up credit cards. Go directly 6. The Bomb, 1998. Wahey! Win five points! Fish M Fish Man to the Sky Mirror whilst you wash the blood off your best shirt. 4-6. Your mate who worked there gets you in on the last round he will be able to

6. You’re in Chambers on the Karaoke, but the DJ has cued up the wrong song. the run into in You ROLL THE DICE… ROLL ROLL THE DICE… ROLL afford for the next two years. Win one point. Roll the dice… Ooer! You must have 1. Do You Wanna Touch, Gary Glitter. You get dragged out and nailed to a tree. Go Ooer! You must have ROLL THE DICE… ROLL THE DICE… 23. A huge stack of rubbish glossy magazines that no-one picks up finally had a bad pint, as to QMC. Game over. had a bad pint, as you’re feeling a you’re feeling a gives way at Dogma, trapping hundreds of people. You get three points for 2-3. Angels, Robbie Williams - someone throws a half-full bottle of WKD at you. bit badleh. bit badleh. pitching in with the rescue effort, but you go right round the board and back 26 Go right round the board to The Lions while you recover consciousness. 26 again. If you do this for the fourth time, your night is over. 4-5. Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen. You nail the ‘Galileo’ bit. Win three points. 6. Please Don’t Go, KWS - the national anthem of Nottingham. Win five points. ? ?  24. You’re in a pub in the poncey bit of town and dying to curl one off. Roll ? ? CHEST  CHEST the dice… 7. SKY MIRROR ? ?  1-5. All the cubicles are full of shopboys and hairdressers making strange snuf- ? ?

 COMMUNITY ? ? fling noises. Go all the way round to Broad Marsh Bus Station, but if you 8. Oh dear - you run into Twatty Random Mate. Roll the dice to see where he  Repellence, minus three Repellence, minus three ? ? pass The Lions for the fourth time, your night is over. D20s plus the level of D20s plus the level of You enter the Pit and You enter the Pit and  D12 rolls. And have D12 rolls. And have your Cloak of Goth drags you… your Cloak of Goth Pendulum. Roll two Pendulum. Roll two ? ? three points while three points while 6. There’s one free. When you come out, the bar gives you a certificate. And ten   you’re doing it. 1. Tantra. You sit on one of the beds and end up with the DNA of half the morons you’re doing it. CHANCE

? ? points!

?

 ?

 in Nottingham on your arse. Lose five points. ? 

? 27 ?

27 

2. Old Dog and Partridge. None of the latter, plenty of the former. Lose two points. ? 

?

 ? 25. You get Sam Lindo to play When The Saints Go Marching In, changing 

? 

9

3. Wetherspoons. You spend an uncomfortable half an hour trying to get served. 9

?

 ? the lyrics to Nottingham Is Full Of Fun. Everyone on the board goes round  ? 

?

You don’t. Lose one point.  ?

?  once while they mindlessly chant it over and over for 90 minutes, and if they

? ? ? ?

4. The Newcastle. He doesn’t realise it’s been shut for months. Nothing happens. ?

 go past The Lions for the fourth time, their night is over.   

? ? ?

5. Varsity. All the students have gone, and you don’t have to wait seven hours to ? ...of getting at taxi at this time

 

 of night? In a pig’s arse, mate.

? ?

? ?

 get on the pool table. Win one point. 

 

?

Lose two points while you? wave 26. Ooer! You must have had a bad pint, as you’re feeling a bit badleh. Roll

?

? at ignorant drivers like a prat. 

sounds of it, they want  sounds of it, they want you on the back at the 6. The Social. He gets you upstairs for nowt. Win three points. you on the back at the

Oh no! Someone taps

 cashpoint, and by the  cashpoint, and by the

?

? the dice… ? ?

to see who it is…  to see who it is…

ROLL THE DICE ROLL THE DICE

  ?

to start on you! ? to start on you!

? ? 1. You vomit a perfect Derby County logo right outside the doorway of the Thur-

9. EEEEEEEE! The Xmas robots in Viccy Centre are rebelling against their   

?

?

? ?   land. Go to the QMC. Game over.

? ? 

overlords and are rampaging up Parliament Street, led by the Gordon Scott’s  28 28

? ? 2-3. You boff all down your best shoes. Go directly to the Sky Mirror to wash Monkey, destroying every pub in their wake! Fortunately, that’s no real loss. it off in the water installation. If it’s your fourth time past the board, your Win three points. 8 night is over. Oh dear! Oh 4-6. You hold it down. Well done! Win two points. drags you… drags you… drags you… drags you… You run into into run You 10. You run into the Fish Man - roll the dice… into run You to see where he to see where to see where he to see where ROLL THE DICE ROLL 1. You get into an hour-long argument about the rights and wrongs of selling THE DICE ROLL ILLUSTRATIONS: RIKKI MARR RIKKI ILLUSTRATIONS: Twatty Random Mate. Random Mate. Twatty Twatty Random Mate. Random Mate. Twatty 27. You enter the Pit and Pendulum. Roll two D20s plus the level of your Peperamis. Go forward to the Lions. If it’s your fourth time, your night is over. WORDS: AL NEEDHAM Cloak of Goth Repellence, minus three D12 rolls. And have three points 2-3. He accidentally catches you in the groin with the corner of his basket. Lose while you’re doing it. one point. 2 3 CHANCE 4 5 6 7 4-5. He gets unselfish with the shellfish. Win one point. 28. Oh no! Someone taps you on the back at the cashpoint, and by the 6. You find a cockle clinging on to a huge diamond ring. Win five points! The statue of Brian You’re in Chambers sounds of it, they want to start on you! Roll the dice to see who it is… Somehow you Clough comes to life 1. Eek! It’s Nottzilla! Go to the QMC. Game over. 11. Oh no! You step upon the big slippery tramp-wee slide of Mansfield Road You runrun into on the Karaoke, SKY and offers to take you 2-3. Ooer - it’s a pissed-up slapper who’s mistaken you for the ex she had a - roll the dice… end up in Reflex. your Dad. but the DJ has cued for a pint through time MIRROR row with on Jeremy Kyle two years ago. She tries to snog you. And then 1. You go right under the 17 to Bulwell. Go to the QMC. Game over. up the wrong song. ROLL THE DICE... ROLL THE DICE... and space. demands a ‘Lie Detekarrr’ Lose three points. 2-3 - Slide all the way forwards to Viccy Centre. You hold his big ROLL THE DICE… CORNER 4-5. It’s your mate from out of town who you haven’t seen for years. Win one 4-5 - You manage to cling on and take down everyone else playing. Everyone bronzey hand and HOUSE point. loses two points. ROLL THE DICE... 6. Cor! It’s Jesus, come out on an early birthday piss-up! Win twenty points! 6 - You knock over all the mouth-breathers who hang outside kebab shops and ponce fags off you all year without even saying thank you. Win five points. Curated on the theme of a cabinet of curiosities. Four Nottingham artists show their weird and wonderful artworks - imaginative investigations sprung from deep within their psyches. By Frances Artist Profiles Ashton, Gallery Manager Southwell Artspace.

Aylwin Lambert Yelena Popova What kind of art do you make? What kind of art do you make? I paint, draw and work with text; My work varies in media - I’ve produced stop live art sometimes. I’m interested in motion animations, collages and dioramas. I’d applying durational qualities of the say the one thing all my work has in common is film to traditional media - I make wall that it looks deliberately outdated. running (sequential) paintings and video streams of drawings. What inspires/drives you? Trying to figure out the world around me, doing What inspires/drives you? this visually is just what works best for me. The unknown. The future. Progress. In particular I’d say my interests are myths, Time. Complexity. Matter. ideas of utopia and progress and the concept of hauntology. What’s the best thing about being an artist? What’s the best thing about being an artist? You keep on playing. Being able to spend an unhealthy amount of time in a fantasy world of my own creation. What’s the hardest thing about being an artist? What’s the hardest thing about being an artist? Raising your game. Trying to find enough time, money and space to produce work. Can you tell us about a recent project or goal? Can you tell us about a recent project or goal? I usually have a few projects on the go at the same time. We are developing a project called Actual I had my first solo show at Southwell Artspace a few months back which is the thing I’m Wall, a space in Oldknows studio, which is open for small shows, residencies and collaborations. It’s happiest with achieving so far. In terms of goals I’m aiming for, I’d like to finally get round to about collaborating and connecting with other artists. As part of this initiative I’ve started the +ARA doing a big canvas that I’ve had in my mind for the past eighteen months. project (+ Another Russian Artist), where I exhibit the work of contemporary young Russian artists. Perhaps in the future we can exchange shows between Nottingham and Russia and twin Nottingham What are your career aspirations over the next five years? and Russian artistic communities together? I’d like to find the money to do an MA. Other than that I just want to make and show as much work as possible. What are your career aspirations over the next five years? Well, apart from developing my personal work and pushing my practice further, I’d like to take part What does the future hold in store for you? in the development of arts in Nottingham - to make it as compelling as London¹s East End. I feel that Ideally, to somehow start selling enough work so I can have the time and money to realise all Oldknows Building and all the artist groups in there could play a bigger role in the local community. my ideas. Realistically I try not to think about it too much. What does the future hold in store for you? Hard work for sure. New exciting people and friends hopefully.

www.yelenapopova.co.uk Jackie Berridge What kind of art do you make? Simon Raven After many years as an abstract painter, I am now making figurative work based on politics What kind of art do you make? in the playground. At first glance, the paintings I mainly make performances and appear to be bright and child-like but on films - and when I’m working closer inspection, a more sinister and hostile towards those will write, draw, environment is revealed. I also finished an MA in paint and put things together in a chldren’s book illustration in 2007 and I hope to sculptural way. For some of the films self-publish a book called Grace which is a fusion - which I make in collaboration as of both figurative and abstract elements. part of a group called 15mm Films - I’ve contributed towards writing What inspires/drives you? and recording music. I love a challenge and the leap from large abstract paintings to small scale picture books What inspires/drives you? demonstrates this. From working in a more Being open to new experiences is organic way where I was able to move abstract inspiring. There are a handful of elements around, I have learned to plan a 32 artists I feel lucky to know page picture book where pace, narrative, text, as friends, who I find constantly inspiring. I’m driven by the idea of being as good as they are. sequential image and character were all new considerations. What’s the best thing about being an artist? The best thing about being an artist, and I imagine this is true of most things, is the unexpected What’s the best thing about being an artist? things which happen. I often have no idea what it is I’m working on until something accidental I love developing of seed of an idea into a body of work. occurs and then a kind of clarity, which is very rewarding, surrounds everything for a while. Often it is talking to people who bring a new way of looking at things which clicks and stays with you and What’s the hardest thing about being an artist? makes life more interesting. I love having a studio, a kind of hermetic refuge, in which to play. I hate the business and marketing side of arts practice which is so necessary to promote work, submit proposals and apply for funding. What’s the hardest thing about being an artist? The hardest thing about being an artist is striking a balance between art and life. Can you tell us about a recent project or goal? I set up Harrington Mill Studios (HMS) in Long Eaton on the first floor of a beautiful Victorian Can you tell us about a recent project or goal? lace factory. It has been a slog but we have 18 spaces and a growing waiting list. It has meant I’ve recently joined Backlit studios, which is a new artist run gallery/studio group in Nottingham. the promotion of my own work has taken a back seat, but I think this will change as the studios We just opened a month ago - the turnout for our first exhibition was very encouraging. I’m become more established. currently working on a series of performances and films under the collective title Hood. The work is about outlaw mythology in Nottingham, combining personal history with an enjoyment What are your career aspirations over the next five years? of baroque ‘Shottz’ gun culture. The new 15mm film The Way Out, made in partnership with To continue pushing personal bounderies. Beaconsfield, London, is nearing completion, and I hope to bring that work to Nottingham. The Way Out is a series of trailers for films which don’t exist, about a hapless group of disabled What does the future hold in store for you? terrorists - hellbent, Angry Brigade style, on disabling the world... I have recently taken part in two open studio events, one at HMS and the other at my home town in Southwell. As a result of these I have been offered two shows, one at Millgate Museum, What are your career aspirations over the next five years? Newark and the other at DEDA in Derby. With a solo exhibition at HMS in September and an inv I’d love to be able to live solely from my work, or training as an artist. Travelling round the world itation to participate in a curated show in London relating to hidden narratives, I am going to be making performances... and having a home to return to, that’s what I want. busy... oh, and I am also looking forward to participating in the Florence Biennale in Dec 2009. www.15mmfilms.com www.jackieberridge.co.uk www.harringtonmillstudios.co.uk

If you are a Nottingham-based artist and would like to be profiled in this section, please email [email protected] MORE ART REVIEWS AND INTERVIEWS AT LEFTLION.CO.UK/ART

18 www.leftlion.co.uk/issue26 LeftLion-BigWheel-280x380 19/11/08 11:17 Page 1 LEFTLION featured listing LISTINGS OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2008

It’s Christmas-time in Nottingham, which means that town is going to be (a) busy and (b) cold. However the Ice Rink is up in the Square again this season and the German Market is alongside it again too. So you can fight off the cold after your shopping trip with the choice of either mulled wine or a glass of quality pilsner. Then you can attempt to find your snow shoes on the ice and pretend you’re skating around in Canada or Antarctica or somewhere else equally nesh. PG 21 ∙ GIGS The Last Night Of The Year Touring bands and artists playing this season include: The Roots, Bad Manners, New Year’s Eve is the one nights of the year where everyone wants to go Klute, Hot Chip, Jools Holland, Ocean out and find a good party. So LeftLion brings you nine suggestions of how to Colour Scene, the Bootleg Beatles, Isobel Campbell and Mark Laneghan, Aaron Lib- spend the last hour of 2008... words: Paul Klotschkow and Shariff Ibrahim erator, , The Buzzcocks, The LeftLion and Spectrum have done, but didn’t. Then you look at the up and coming months, Quireboys, The Fratellis, Ugly Duckling, Brownes and the Market Bar and you realise that next year will just be as bad. But for a couple of and... erm Status Quo. hours on 31st December you can forget all about your worries and Not content with bringing you the only magazine and website that laugh until you start shitting beer, thanks to one of the best comedy matter in this city, LeftLion have got together with the best breaks clubs in the country, Just The Tonic. The night’s headlined by Earl promoters around to bring you one of the greatest New Year’s Eve Okin, with Dave Longley and Matt Reed. Once the comedy is over parties this town has ever seen. If you know what’s good for you, you can have a boogie on the dance floor. you will get yourself down to Brownes, where you will be treated PG 22-23 to some of Nottingham’s best music makers; with Old Basford, www.justthetonic.com £23.50 8pm-late The Stiff Kittens, Vinyl Abort, The Money and Alright the Captain LEFTLION LIVE all performing. Over the road in the Market Bar, breaks legends The Maze We’re loving life at our new live music The Freestylers (featuring MC Sir Real) head a line-up that also Right, we know that New Year’s Eve is the worst night of the year includes Heavyfeet, Pete Jordan, Teddy Boshanks and the Clubfoot to go out in town. Fact. Every place charges you the earth to get venue Brownes and have three fun events soundsystem. One ticket will get you into both venues. Prices are in, you even have to pay to get in to Weathercruds! Not only that, to tell you about. Our free entry monthlies £7 for the first 100, £10 before Christmas and £12 before NYE. but it’s the one night of the year when every moron within a 20 are an ace way to beat the credit crunch www.leftlion.co.uk/tickets £7-12 8pm-5am mile radius of the city descends upon it, and inevitably ends up where you want to go. So do yourself a favour and head to one of and for December we have a Farmyard Countdown 2008 Nottingham’s best venues (which happens to be attached to one of Records night lined up on 12 December Nottingham’s best pubs) for some trippy dub dance in the form of Rock City/Stealth/Rescue Rooms with Natalie Duncan (page 22) and Ma- Deep Sound Channel. There will also be a one-off super group, DJs The biggest music event in Notts this New Year. Three clubs, seven from Muzika and loads of quality ale on tap! ble’s Husbands. Then in January we go arenas and 50 acts from 9pm until 6am. Heading up the immense www.themazerocks.com £10 adv 9pm-late all hiphoptastic with a Son Records night roster are turntablist supremos Scratch Perverts and Hospital featuring Styly Cee (page 23), Cappo and Records’ High Contrast, so expect some hiphop and drum & bass sets of calendar shattering magnitude. Hosted jointly by Detonate Murder Mystery Event Eastwood Hall C-Mone. But the big gig this winter is our and Hospitality among others, there will be more heavyweight DJ For all you Columbo wannabes out there, what better way to see New Years Eve party in association with action in the form of Goldie, Brazil’s DJ Marky, Shy FX, Friction and in the New Year than by donning your sleuthing hat and getting those detective juices flowing? Set in the grounds of picturesque Spectrum – featuring The Freestylers, Old electro-boy Kissy Sell Out. Tickets are £20 for the first 100, £25 after that and £30 after 21 December, but don’t count on there being any Eastwood Hall, this Cluedo-style mystery unfolds over a three Basford, The Money, Vinyl Abort and oth- left by then. course dinner. The winner receives a bottle of bubbly and major ers. More details in the article opposite. www.alt-tickets.co.uk £20-30 9pm-6am bragging rights at the disco afterwards. The event starts at 3pm, with dinner and mystery solving until 10pm, then a disco until 1am. An overnight stay in a double en-suite room costs £200. Pitty Patt Club The Social www.new-years-eve-parties-uk.co.uk £170-200 4pm-late A good way to not only have a class New Year’s Eve, but also escape G the flim flam of chain bars and pubs, is to head to The Social. Here P 21 ∙ THEATRE you will be able to welcome in 2009 by watching a bevy of beautiful Junktion 7 & COMEDY ladies strutting their stuff on stage, thanks to the Pitty Patt Club If you want to go out on New Year’s Eve, but don’t fancy going in – Nottingham’s greatest burlesque night. So what’s it going to be, to the centre of town because of all the broken glass, bodily fluids, Touring bands and artists playing this a bar full of drunken lads from Top Valley or a room full of the most and morons that will be laying about the place, then do yourself a season include: The Roots, Bad Manners, beautiful women you are ever going to set your eyes upon? favour and head out to Junktion 7. Situated in Canning Junction, it’s www.myspace.com/thepittypattclub £8 adv 8pm-2am close enough to town to be part of the action, but far away to not Klute, Hot Chip, Jools Holland, Ocean be near all the carnage. What’s even better is that they are treating Colour Scene, the Bootleg Beatles, Isobel the good people of Nottingham to a free gig on 31 December, with Boatyard Boogaloo Canal House Pickups N’ Pitchforks, The Kull and Union X bringing the rock in to Campbell and Mark Laneghan, Aaron Lib- If lacing up your favourite dancing shoes and coming over all the early hours of 2009. erator, Erol Alkan, The Buzzcocks, The Flashdance is your thing, then there is only one place for you www.junktion7.co.uk Free entry 9pm-late Quireboys, The Fratellis, Ugly Duckling, this New Year Eve. The Basement Boogaloo people are throwing one hell of a party for you above the Canal House. The stellar and... erm Status Quo. line-up includes resident Boogaloo DJs Nick Shaw, Ed Cotton Sinfonia VIVA’s New Year’s Eve Classical Gala and Beane, along with Greg Wilson who will be throwing down The Royal Concert Hall some electrofunk, Maddslinky, and Schmoov! Dance to your New Year’s Eve isn’t just about cramming premium lager down your For even more listings, check our heart’s content, get smashed, and then accidentally fall in to the neck before trying to cop off with the person standing next to you regularly updated online section water....maybe. at the strike of midnight. If you have more refined tastes and fancy www.myspace.com/basementboogaloo £10 from Selectadisc, going off on a classical trip, then you need to get yourself down to at leftlion.co.uk/listings. Funky Monkey and the Canalhouse 10pm-late the Royal Concert Hall. They are going to be bringing in the new year with popular sinfonia VIVA who are going to be serving up a And if your event is still not in there, Just The Tonic The Approach medley of popular Scottish tunes that will then be chased down with some Strauss. Spiffing. spread the word by aiming your New Year’s Eve can possibly be the most depressing night of the www.royalcentre-nottingham.co.uk From £7.50 7:30pm browser at leftlion.co.uk/add. year. It’s the time when you look back over the past twelve months and think of all the missed opportunities and things you should onwards

20 www.leftlion.co.uk/issue26 nottingham event listings... for more: leftlion.co.uk/listings

Monday 01/12 Thursday 04/12

The Roots Tina Dico Rock City The Rescue Rooms PULP £16.50 adv, 7.30 £10, 7.30pm The new face on Nottingham’s Monday Mayhem Radar retail scene is Pulp, situated Junktion 7 The Bodega Social Club upstairs in the Victoria Centre £1 / £2, 8pm £4, 9pm (close to Game and House of With Jet Set Disco, These Waves, With Vivian Girls. Fraser). The expansive store Hackenbush and For This Day. Richie Muir is a treasure trove of items Southbank Bar selling a huge range of gifts and Tuesday 02/12 Free, 7pm accessories, all of which are very

Acoustic Tuesdays much inspired by the world of popular culture. Choose from a wide range of CDs and DVDs alongside Halle Christmas Concert books from the silver screen and a multitude of other items and accessories inspired by music, film and The Malt Cross Royal Centre Free, 9pm - 11pm £9 - £26, 7.30pm TV. Their clothing ranges from an impressive selection of official band merchandise, to kids clothes for the more fashion-conscious mums and dads out there (t-shirts featuring slogans such as ‘my dad listens Tayo’s Tracksuit Party The Lost Cause Band to Led Zeppelin’). There’s also funky merchandise exclusive to Nottingham such as Banksy prints and Brownes Deux mutant dolls. £4, 9pm - 1.30am £4 (charity), 8pm

The emphasis is on a feelgood store that puts a smile on your face as you shop, taking a range of products Wednesday 03/12 Friday 05/12 spun from iconic highlights of the last forty years and putting them all under one roof. The independent store is the first of its type in the country. Owner James comments ‘as soon as we visited the city we Bad Manners Mood Indigo The Rescue Rooms Shaw’s Restaurant and Bar knew it was right for us. People have their own sense of style here and that was a very important aspect £15, 7.30pm Free, 9pm - 11.30pm in choosing a location. Music sells in many formats now, from downloads to CDs to merchandise, we’re Plus Max Splodge from seeing clothing ranges becoming an additional way of showing support for a band or genre of music and Splodgenessabounds. Human Fly we’re responding to this’. Stocking fillers galore for the avid Christmas shopper! Junktion 7 Official Secrets Act £2 After 11pm., 10pm - 2am The Bodega Social Club Pulp, Unit 311, Victoria Shopping Centre, Nottingham, NG1 3QN. 0115 941 5775 £5, 6.30pm Working Nights Plus (We Are) Performance. The Loggerheads Friday 05/12 Saturday 06/12 Tuesday 09/12 Free, 8pm – late The Steel City Tour With Matt, Alex and Neetin. Bruce Myers and The Brucifers Eli Paperboy Reed Mood Indigo Royal Centre Deux The Bodega Social Club Skin £29.50, 6.30pm Twin Atlantic £3, 8pm £7, 7pm Free, 8pm With , ABC and Rock City Plus The True Loves Heaven 17. £6adv, 7pm Stealth Vs Rescued MNSTR, Detonate and Rave Trent

Stealth Youngsta Brownes Alright The Captain Livewire Various, 8pm - 3am The Bodega Social Club Free, 9pm - 1.30am Junktion 7 The Rescue Rooms £5, 10.30pm Icicle, Transit Mafia and more. £3, 8.30pm £12, 7.30pm CULT D&B Sessions Plus Seven, Early Bird and Senate. Plus Maybeshewill and Buenos Muse Zach Hill Aires. The Mixmag Xmas Party £4 before 11pm / £6, 10pm - 3am The Log Jam The Bodega Social Club

Stealth With Blame, DJ Snaxx, Mouse, The Loggerheads £5 advance, 7.30 pm Thursday 04/12 £8, 10pm Houghmeister and MC Anger. Free, 8pm - 1.30am Plus Shield Your Eyes and Shapes. Detonate, dollop, Smakkit, Wigflex, Klute Futureproof, Misst and Hoodoo. Spunge Amy LaVere Warrior Soul Dogma Rock City The Maze Rock City Free, 10pm - 3am Station £10 adv, 7pm £8, 7pm £10, 7.30pm Plus Transit Mafia and MC Ruthless. The Approach Free, 9.30pm Ocean Colour Scene Basement Boogaloo The Hold Steady Invasion Rock City Junktion 7 Rock City The Orange Tree Spectrum December Blow Out £22.50 adv, 6.30pm £5, 10.30pm £14, 7.30pm Free, 8pm Gatecrasher Loves Nottingham With The Voom Blooms. £tbc, 10pm - late Dynamics

Hot Chip, Fake Blood, Pete Jordan Saturday 06/12 The Golden Fleece Wednesday 10/12

Apocalyptica and more tbc. Free, 8pm - late Isobel Campbell and Mark From The Jam Rock City Lanegan Rock City £12.50 adv, 6.30pm Jools Holland Pure Filth Rock City £20, 7.30pm Royal Centre BluePrint £14, 7.30pm Viking Skull £31.50, 7.30pm £6, 10pm - 3am Plus House of Brothers . Joan As Policewoman Rock City With his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra. Aaron Liberator, Techno Phil, The Rescue Rooms £8 adv, 7pm Tinitus, Kez, Agent Smith, Suspect Flamboyant Bella £12.50, 7.30pm Plus Vains of Jenna. I Luv Live One, Fijjitt, DJ Lobes, Red K, Bashy The New Art Exchange Stealth Flash and Rigbee Deep. £6, 7pm DoleDrum £3 / £5, 11pm Messiah The Maze Royal Centre £3, 8pm £10 - £18, 7pm Alright the Captain, Apparatus of Sleep and more. B A S E M E N T Rompastompa Igloo Thursday 11/12 £tbc, 10pm - 4am Word of Mouth BOOGALOO Mick Lawler and Friends Muse Deux £2, 8.30pm - 2am Basement Boogaloo continues its quest to bring us £3, 8pm Ill Citizen, Jalporte, Jay Thomas the finest parties from across the disco galaxy on and Say Say. Saturday 6 December. The word ‘pioneer’ should Sunday 07/12 Blessed By a Broken Heart and never be used lightly within music, but its one that I Am Ghost you will consistently hear associated with the mighty The Quireboys Junktion 7 Rock City Ashley Beedle, who will be taking to the decks on the £15 adv, 7.30pm - 12am £10, 6pm night. Plus The Breakdowns. Radar - Everything Everything Tribal Infinity The Bodega Social Club Various production outfits throughout the nineties have seen Beedle gain a strong reputation as one of £3, 9pm the dons of dance music. Establishing his deep disco sound as The Black Science Orchestra in the early The Maze £3, 8pm nineties, a remix of the Trammps tune Where were you? made its way into many a DJ’s box alongside Plus This Machine. Fromage Funk the seminal anthem New Jersey Deep, then moving into two major artist albums as the Ballistic Brothers. The Loggerheads X-press 2, his most recent pseudonym provided mainstream success with the chart hit Lazy (featuring Free, 20.30 Monday 08/12 Bobby Dazzler and Karen. Talking Heads vocalist David Byrne) and made him one of the most sought after bookings around. Bayside and Hit The Lights Smeely Mob Presents... Now a prolific remixer and head of three record labels, Beedle has taken his musical journey to a level that Rock City The Maze allows him to bring new talent into the scene and help it flourish. Boogaloo has secured a reputation as £10, 7.30pm £tbc, 8pm one of the best underground nights the city can offer, bringing consistently impressive bookings (such as Plus Oh No Not Stereo. Contempt, Automads, Up Against The Wall Motherfucker and Kerbface. the recent Faze Action) to The Maze on Mansfield Road. With dependable support from Nick Shaw, Ed Monday Mayhem Cotton and Beane, expect good time dancefloor music from the deeper side of the clubbing spectrum. The Maze Spectrum Christmas Party £1/ £2, 8pm Dogma Basement Boogaloo at The Maze, Saturday 6 December, 11pm-3.30am, £5 entry. The Brightsparks, Wolftickets, £tbc, 9pm - late www.myspace.com/basementboogaloo Gallery 47 and The Hubris. With Hexadecimal, HeavyFeet and Pete Jordan. leftlion.co.uk/issue26 21 event listings... for more: leftlion.co.uk/listings

Friday 12/12 Saturday 13/12

Captain Dangerous Album Noodle Xmas Frolics Launch Gig/Party Moog LUCCA Rock City Free, 8pm - 4am £tbc, 7pm With Peter Mangalore, Jimmy Lucca is a new Italian restaurant on Fletcher Gate. It’s named after Bolus, Felson, Duncan Whiteley, a village in the North of Italy and run by chef M Ricci, who puts the Rigbee Deep at The Alley Cafe Ally Reilly, Mark Allen, Matt Hinton flavours on his varied venue down to his “experience of being brought Alley Cafe and DJ Weiss. up watching and helping Nonna make pasta, drying it in the sun”. Free, 8:30pm – close With Minister Hill, Jah Bundy and A Funeral Party The interior of the restaurant is nice and plush. There is plenty of space Nowhere Common. The Loft and it’s smart without being overly formal - with sultry deep burgundy Free, 7pm - 12am Futureproof With Luxury Stranger and guest décor and intimate, yet never invasive, lighting. The staff are young and BluePrint DJs. helpful, adding an upbeat atmosphere to the place. £6, 11pm - 4am Headhunter, Actress (live), Santa Slaughter Xmas Tour The food is everything you’d expect of a classy Italian restaurant, plentiful Oneman, Spam Chop, Bizmarc, The Rescue Rooms in portion and full of flavour. For starters I went for the Ricci Signature Ben Start, Chamboche and Aled. £9, 6pm Antipasto (£7.50), a tasty selection of Artisan cured meats, farmhouse With Bury Your Dead, Full Blown cheeses, olives, chargrilled vegetables, salad and a sweet pear. My Bopp Chaos, Emmure, Your Demise and The Rescue Rooms The Boy Will Drown. guest had the Pate Ai Fegatini (£4.45), which was a Tuscan-style chicken £4, 10pm liver and pancetta pate - surprisingly sweet and subtle in its flavour. With Reverend Ribble and The The Pitty Pat Club Ginger Nuts and Bopp House DJs. The Bodega Social Club For mains I tried the Ribeye steak (£14.95), which came served with £6, 8pm potato wedges, a huge field mushroom and a grilled tomato. My friend went for the house special of Pan Fried People in Planes The Winter Wonderland Bream (£11.95) which came with home-made gnocci and sun dried tomato pesto. They were both cooked to The Bodega Social Club Masquerade Ball perfection and the portions were generous. We were almost too full to have a dessert, but in the interests of £6, 7pm journalism we tried the huge Tiramisu (£4.95) and ice creams - chilli and mango (fruity and refreshing, but with The Popes Mr Scruff - Keep It Unreal Junktion 7 a hot kick), parmesan (rich, with a light texture) and After Eight mint (classic). Stealth £10, 7.30pm - late £10, 10pm Plus The Beast and The Priest and This was a great feed, made from ingredients sourced locally, but tasting like they had come straight from the support. heart of Milan’s restaurant quarter. Including our bottle of Chilean Merlot (£13.99) our bill came to £60, but for UK Subs Xmas Gig those on more of a budget their large pizzas start at £6.95 and everything served here is healthy and filling. Junktion 7 A Christmas Spectacular Buon alimento! £8, 9pm - 2am The Maze Lucca Ristorante Italiano, 1 Fletcher Gate, The Lace Market, Nottingham, NG1 1QQ £7 adv, 8pm Skaville Xmas Party Rebel Soul Collective, Trevor Tel: 0115 9483313 The Maze Organ, The Skinnys, Bambi B £15 adv, 8pm Tame, Crimson Sugar, The Jet Boys Symarip, Smoke Like A Fish and Skazz. and Girls and Sir Isla Man. Sunday 14/12 Thursday 18/12 Saturday 20/12

Roy De Wired Koshka Buster Stak It Up The Ghost of a Thousand The Approach Lakeside Arts Centre Southbank Bar The Approach Rock City Free, 10pm £12 / £15, 7.30pm Free, 7pm Free, 8pm £6, 9pm Plus The Casino Brawl. Spectrum Purple Radio Xmas Party Emmett Brown The Fratellis Gatecrasher Loves Nottingham Ride Bar The Maze Rock City Road Block £tbc, 10pm - late Free, 1pm - 1am £3 / £4, 7.30pm £20, 6.30pm The Loggerheads Audio Bullys, Pete Jordan and Freeman. Free, 8pm - 1.30am Radar - The Redwalls Eastville Monday 15/12 Acoustic Jupiter Monkeys Deux The Bodega Social Club Smokescreen £3, 9pm The Maze Deux Free, 8pm Sew What Vs Monday Mayhem £3, 8pm £5, 10pm The Maze Robbo Legendary Deep House Sound Psycle £5 (charity), 8pm Poppycock BluePrint Southbank Bar System with DJs Frandanski and With The Notebook, Crimson Free, 7pm Rob. Moog £5, 10pm - late Circle, Goon Squad and Fenix Fire. Free, 8pm - late Mindvox Xmas Party Highness Sound System LeftLion Sunday 14/12 Wednesday 17/12 The Maze The Bodega Social Club Brownes £4 / £5, 7.30pm £6, 11pm - 4am Free, 8pm - 1.30am Stiff Dylans Thunder Xmas Show With Black Fuzz, Lois, No Comment With Natalie Duncan, Mables Rock City Rock City and Dirty Royals. Family Carol Concert Husbands and the Stiff Kittens. £4, 7pm £27.50, 7.30pm Royal Centre The Bootleg Beatles £8 - £15, 7pm The Pains of Being Pure At Heart Hidden Talents Royal Centre Saturday 13/12 The Bodega Social Club The Maze £22.50, 8pm Firestorm £6.50, 8pm £5, 9pm Igloo Go Go vs Mufti Fancy Dress Ladies only cabaret show. Various, 10pm - 4am The Loggerheads Natalie Duncan, Mables Friday 19/12 Free, 8pm - 1.30am Husbands and the Stiff Electric Church Kittens play the LeftLion Mood Indigo Deux Christmas Party at Brownes Shaw’s Restaurant and Bar £5, 8pm (in association with Farmyard Free, 9pm - 11.30pm Records) on Friday 12 Best gig you’ve ever played? December. Free entry. Come and Headway Sunday 21/12 Natalie Duncan I really enjoyed playing in the cave Rock City celebrate the festive season! at Loggerheads. There’s always a £6, 7pm Johnny and the Raindrops comforting, drunken vibe down there. Christmas Party exciting. It’s nice to hear my Censored Xmas Party Polish Club songs with a cello, flute and If you could get anyone to make a The Rescue Rooms £2, 2.30pm saxophone. song with you, who would it be? £5, 7pm Either Win Butler, frontman of Arcade Performance What kind of people do you Fire or CocoRosie. Because they’re two Evil:Scarecrow Southbank Bar think will be into your music? of the most original and adventurous Junktion 7 Free, 7pm Anyone with a broad imagination £5, 8pm - 2am artists I’ve come across. who enjoys soulful singing and Plus Illuminatus and Spirytus. Revolution Sounds Xmas Party is interested in lyrics. The Maze Choose a super power! The Maze Xmas Party £9 / £11, 5pm I’d have Bernard’s watch (which can Describe your style... The Maze With Sonic Boom 6, Nylon, Jimmy stop time). Quirky, lyrical and emotional. £5, 9pm The Squirrel, JB Conspiracy, Photo: Nicholas Stevenson Royal Gala, Three Beards, DJs Kel, Mouthwash, Dirty Revolution, The Natalie Duncan has the kind of What’s your ideal night out in What are you listening to at the Monkeyman and Adam Wise. Skints, Minus Society and more soulful voice that could make even a Nottingham? acoustic acts and DJs. moment? Bestwood Estate gangleader reflect Probably a few drinks at the Orange Roy De Wired I’m listening to a lot of Joanna on his life and ultimately break down Tree or Broadway and then either to The Approach Cantamus Christmas Concert Newsom and Bat for Lashes. with regret and cry like a big girl. Like the Malt Cross to watch some music, Free, 9.30pm Royal Centre a Nottingham version of Nina Simone, or somewhere like The Maze or Stealth Plus Good Times DJs from £12 - £20, 7.30pm Tell us about one of your songs and she usually sings alongside a piano or for some . midnight. what inspired you to write it… saxophone and will be representing One of my songs is called Joe, Wednesday 24/12 for us at Brownes in December… What’s coming up next? Beck Stacey and it was inspired by a mixture Deux I’ve just started playing with new of, admittedly, quite a sadistic £3, 8pm Xmas Eve What have you been up to recently? people and new instruments and The Approach relationship I was in as well as the Plus Zoe Pinder. Recently I have had enough free time should be recording an album soon. Free, 8pm illusion and stigma surrounding on my hands to be writing some new P Brothers prostitution and possibly the image songs and practicing the old ones www.myspace.com/betweenthekeys Muse Andy Whittle and Friends portrayed by a pimp. with new musicians which has been www.farmyardrecords.com £3, 10pm Deux Plus Jonathan. £5, 8pm 22 leftlion.co.uk/issue26 nottingham event listings... for more: leftlion.co.uk/listings

Sunday 28/12 Sunday 04/01 Friday 16/01

The Establishment Establishment Erol Alkan Southbank Bar Southbank Bar Stealth Free, 7pm Free, 7pm £8, 10pm Nottingham’s favourite bands talk about their favourite venues

Christmas with The Rat Pack Shivver The Highness Sound System Royal Centre Monday 05/01 The Maze play at The Golden Fleece £21.50 - £27.50, 7.30pm £5 (NUS), 8pm Monday Mayhem “Highness first ran a monthly The Maze LeftLion Monday 29/12 £1 / £2, 8pm session at the Fleece ten years Brownes ago; it was truly our birthplace. Free, 8pm - 2am Monday Mayhem With Styly Cee, Cappo and C-Mone The Maze Tuesday 06/01 We’ve played numerous sessions £1 / £2, 8pm Kevin Montgomery at the Fleece, but the one that Satans Minions, Talking Shape, Saturday 17/01 sums up the pub to me was last Red Eyes of Russia and The The Maze £12, 7.30pm New Year, the two separate levels Reverb. Saturday Night Knees Up! made sure that we could rub The Malt Cross shoulders with the people while £3, 8pm Wednesday 07/01 still maintaining a stage type set- Tuesday 30/12 up. And with our speaker boxes at close proximity on two levels the sound Roses Kings Castles Limehouse Lizzy Kerbface was all-enveloping” The Bodega Social Club Rock City The Maze £12, 7pm £tbc, 8pm £6, 7pm Presenting the Very Best of Thin The Golden Fleece, 105 Mansfield Road Plus support. Lizzy Roisin Dubh: The Spirit Of myspace.com/goldenfleecenottingham / myspace.com/highnesssounds Thursday 08/01 The Black Rose Tour. The Glen Miller Orchestra Royal Centre Tee Dymond All That Remains £13 - £17.50, 5pm Southbank Bar Wednesday 21/01 Saturday 24/01 The Rescue Rooms Free, 7pm £10, 7pm Buzzcocks Smokescreen

Wednesday 31/12 Plus The Haunted. Rock City The Maze Devil’s Haircut £15, 7.30pm £5, 10pm Junktion 7 LeftLion and Spectrum NYE Sticky Morales £4 / £5, 8pm Brownes and The Market Bar Southbank Bar Lord Auch

£7 / £10 / £12 / MOTD, 8pm - 5am Free, 7pm Thursday 22/01 Stealth

LeftLion: Old Basford, The Money, £8, 10.15pm Friday 09/01 Kerrang! Relentless Energy Vinyl [Abort], Alright The Captain, Liam O’Kane Album Launch Drink Tour 2009 Stiff Kittens DJs. Spectrum: The A Night of Reggae The Maze Firefly Rock City Freestylers feat MC Sir Real, The Maze £5, 9pm Marcus Garvey Ballroom £15, 7.30pm Heavyfeet, Pete Jordan, Teddy £8, 9pm Plus Babar and more. £tbc, 10pm - late Mindless Self Indulgence, Bring Boshanks, Freeman, Clubfoot Me The Horizon, Black Tide and In SoundSytem and Chow. Poppycock Highness Sound System Case of Fire. Moog The Bodega Social Club Sunday 25/01

The Pitty Pat Club NYE Free, 8pm - late £6, 11pm - 4am Masquerade Ball Jason Heart Southbank Bar Richie Muir Band The Bodega Social Club I’m Not From London Sunday 18/01 Free, 7pm Southbank Bar £10, 8pm The Loggerheads Free, 7pm Free, 8pm - 1.30am Buster Vula Malinga NYE Party Southbank Bar The Maze Justin Townes Earle The Loggerheads Free, 7pm Free, 7pm - 4am Saturday 10/01 £7 / £8, 9pm The Maze All women cabaret. £10, 7.30pm The Bittersweets Alternative New Year’s Eve Saturday Night Knees Up! The Malt Cross The Maze The Rig £3, 8pm £10 adv, 7.30pm Saturday 24/01 Monday 26/01 £6, 8pm

Saturday Night Knees Up! Ugly Duckling Urban Intro Detonate Hospitality NYE Monday 19/01 The Malt Cross The Bodega Social Club Southbank Bar Rock City £3, 8pm £8, 8pm Free, 7pm £25, 9pm - 6am Teddy Thompson Plus Jimmy Screech.

High Contrast (NYE), Annie Mac, The Rescue Rooms We Are The Ocean Wildside Clubnight Scratch Perverts, DJ Marky, Kissy £11, 7.30pm Rock City Junktion 7 Sell Out, Friction, Shy FX, Rusko, Plus Tift Merritt. £7, 7pm Tuesday 27/01 £tbc, 9pm - 2am Goldie, Hatcha, Logistics, Tomb

Crew, Cyantific, Joker, Nu Tone, The View David Thomas Broughton Ghoul Garden Andy George, Transit Mafia, The Rescue Rooms The Maze The Maze Styly Cee, Cappo, C-Mone and Highness Soundsystem, Jaymo, £12.50, 7pm £tbc, 8.30pm Detail, Dollop DJs, Stamina MC, SP £3 / £3.50, 9pm more play LeftLion at Brownes (in Plus Samamidon and Doveman. MC, MC Wrec, Rage, I.D, Ruthless association with Son Records) at and more! Depraved Brownes on Friday 16 January 2009. Igloo It’s free entry so get your arse down to Various, 10pm - 4am New Years Eve Party our first event of 2009! holding back in our own departments

Junktion 7 here. Cappo’s on the money as usual, Free, 9pm Sunday 11/01 plenty of scratches which you don’t Union X, The Beast and The Priest seem to get alot of these days. Throw and Pickups and Pitchforks. Styly Cee Roy De Wired it all in there. Drop the Bomb! Bang. Southbank Bar Styly Cee is a man known in many New Years Eve Free, 7pm guises. He started as a pirate radio What kind of people do you think The Maze £10, 8pm host, then became half of Lost Island, will be into your music? Deep Sound Channel, We Are The Wednesday 14/01 dropping the Forbidden Ground album Mothers, inbreds, tractor bastards, Man and Muzika DJs. on Son Records in 2000. Then, most confused Christians, slags, angry John Wheeler aka Barley famously, he had a stint as everyone’s slags, Obama, Obama’s kids, two of NYE Party Scotch favourite rapping miner Pitman the security guards at Viccy Centre The Golden Fleece The Maze (Witness The Pitness etc). During this and Chuck D. £5 adv, 7pm - 4am £10, 7.45pm time he’s also been a producer and Percussion and DJs tbc. Solo show - Stories (and songs) mentor for the likes of Cappo and Describe your style... from the mind of Hayseed Dixie. C-Mone. Alongside Cappo he’s just Funky authentic energised pure-core Sinfonia Viva NYE Classical breaks. Gala dropped The H-Bomb EP and we’ve What’s your ideal night out in Royal Centre Thursday 15/01 got the gang along for a gig with us at Nottingham? Tell us about one of your songs and £13 - £19, 7.30pm Brownes in January… I’d get drunk on Mansfield Road then Duke Special what inspired you to write it… get a taxi to the Commodore club Electric Catfish New Year The Rescue Rooms What have you been up to recently? On the Unwritten Rule remix with (RIP) to see Bucks Fizz relive their Swamp Dance £10, 7.30pm I’ve been working on the H-Bomb Cappo, I dusted my mic off and Eurovision glory. Then get a taxi

Deux project with Cappo. It’s been on the attempted to keep up. I thought I’d home, drive past Ocean to see all the Richie Muir £5, 8pm go for about a year now, from first lay down a few verses and see if i still police vans, while racing a spot in a Southbank Bar recording to getting the finished could and I’m pleased to say it worked. Corsa. Free, 7pm We have completely different styles vinyl, which is out now. We have also Friday 02/01 and flows and it’s a good contrast. Random Hand produced a for the track What’s coming up next? It should be on the Son Records web Stumble in The Jungle The Maze Unwritten Rule with Pete 1st Blood, H-Bomb live shows. My construction The Maze £5 / £6, 8pm who did a great job. I think he has site soon. of the pyramid - I’ve just finished a half £5, 9pm Plus China Shop Bull, Love and A only recently been able to listen to scale model made out of mash potato. 45, Fat Lady Singh and Red that song again after his marathon Pick a superpower... I’m going to import an internet bride of pain editing the thing. People that The obvious one, the ability to stop in the sales and try Reggae Sauce on appreciate straight-up energised people talking shit instantly, just by my chips. hiphop should love it. Neither of us going sshhh! www.sonrecords.com

leftlion.co.uk/issue26 23 event listings... for more: leftlion.co.uk/listings

Wednesday 28/01 Weeklies Wednesdays Thursdays Fridays

Don Broco Mondays Joe Strange Band Num Lock The Maze Approach Open Decks and Open Mic Hand and Heart £tbc, 8pm Open Mic Night Free, 8pm Loggerheads Free, 8pm - late Golden Fleece Plus guests. Free, 5pm - 12am A night of experimental, unusual Free, 8pm Bring some records or bring an and innovative music with DJs Thursday 29/01 Joe’s Musical Circus instrument and come and set the every week and live groups once a Neon Rocks Hand and Heart scene for the start of the weekend. month. Daylight Robbery Stealth Free, 8pm - late Southbank Bar £3, 9pm - late A showcase for singer-. Your Disco Santero Free, 7pm NTU student night. Bodega Social Club Brownes Free, 8pm - late Free, 9pm - 1.30am Nottingham Folk Club Motherfunker Thursdays Regulars and friends get a chance The Maze The Cookie Club to become the DJ. Fridays £tbc, 8pm £1 before 11pm, 10.30pm - 3am Showcase Golden Fleece Loggerheads Roar!!! Free, 8pm Free, 8pm Hand and Heart Reggae, DnB, funk, hip hop and disco. Friday 30/01 Tuesdays Free, 8pm - late Live Thursdays A night dedicated to premiering Poppycock Drawing Club Golden Fleece new or screening oldschool Saturdays Moog Hand and Heart Free, 8.30pm skateboarding videos with DJs. Free, 8pm - late Free, 7pm - 11pm Live music every week. Saturday Night Knees Up! Come and use the gallery as your Chow Malt Cross Barb Jungr drawing studio for the evening. Club NME Brownes £3, 8pm - late Playhouse Stealth Free, 9pm - 1.30am Resident bands and special guests 8pm, £tbc MNSTR! £2 / £4, 10pm - 2am every week. Brownes Wire and Wool Free, 9pm - 1.30am Word Of Mouth Fridays Play The Loggerheads Detonate, Spectrum and ClubFoot Muse Gatecrasher Free, 8pm - 1.30am residents. Run in partnership with Superstar Boudoir £7 / £9, 10pm - 4am Bands, acoustic acts, visuals, light Camouflage, the home of live Gatecrasher shows, artwork, performance and Acoustic Tuesdays underground hip-hop, bringing £10 / £12, 10pm - 4am Make your own night! more. Malt Cross the finest quality acts for your A slice of action from the world’s Hand and Heart Free, 8pm acoustical enchantment. leading dance music brands. Free, 8pm - late A selection of local acts. Saturday 31/01 You provide the music; we’ll Modern World Atomic / Sabotage provide the atmosphere. Live Jazz The Cookie Club Saturday Night Knees Up! The Cookie Club Hand and Heart £1 / £3, 10.30pm - 2am £2 b4 11pm, £4 after (NUS Freeman The Malt Cross Free, 8pm - late discount), 10.30pm - 3am Brownes £3, 8pm Tuned Free, 9pm - 1.30am Rock City The Pop Confessional Stak It Up Wednesdays Bodega Social Club Southbank Bar £1 - £5, 10pm - 3am All the latest alternative music £1 / £3 / £5, 11pm - 3am Sundays Free, 7pm Electric Banana Classic POP tunes from all eras, Bodega Social Club alongside a healthy dose of pop and chart music. and lots of fun and games with Sunday Jam Sessions Rubber Room £2 / £5 adv (NUS), 10pm - 3am prizes. Loggerheads The Maze Free, 8pm £3, 9pm LeftLion Pub Quiz Chic Gatecrasher Love Shack Golden Fleece Rock City Reggae Roast La Roux £2 / team, 8pm £4 / £5, 10.30pm - 3am Four floors of music. £4 - £5, 9.30pm - 2am Golden Fleece Stealth Like booze? Like quizzes? Sorted. Free entry, all day. £5, 10.15pm

24 leftlion.co.uk/issue26 nottingham event listings... for more: leftlion.co.uk/listings Theatre Comedy Monday 01/12 Monday 01/12 RADIATOR FESTIVAL Aladdin Just The Tonic Playhouse Approach Since its inception in 2000 the Anglo- Runs until: 24/01 £tbc, 7.15pm German Radiator Festival which is curated Kenneth Alan Taylor is back as Big Value comedy showcase. in Nottingham by the Berlin-based Anette Widow Twankey to celebrate his Schafer and Miles Chalcraft has earned 25th Playhouse pantomime! Tuesday 02/12 itself a reputation of excellence. This year they’re taking their particular brand of hi-fi Friday 05/12 Jimmy Carr creativity underground, bringing together Royal Centre a cadre of artists, academics, geographers, Cinderella £20, 8pm urban theorists, scientists, sociologists and Royal Centre fellow citizens in a series of events around £10 - £22, Various The Big Jam the city. Runs until: 18/01 Junktion 7 With Brian Conley as Buttons. Free, 8pm - 2am A symposium on Thursday 15 and Friday Sarah Millican 16 January explores various Exploits Monday 08/12 Grove in the Wireless City, with heavyweight

£4 / £5, 8pm contributors from across Europe and the A Christmas Carol Plus Gary Delaney, Jonathan Lace Market Theatre US. And they’re not messing about – the Elston, Ashley Turner and Compere organisers’ aim is to ‘explore, remodel and £6 / £7 / £8 / £9, 7.30pm Spiky Mike. re-present space in both its traditional and Runs until: 13/12 Ghosts rattle their chains, miserly emergent forms’. If you’re looking to get Ebenezer undergoes a nocturnal Saturday 06/12 ahead of the metropolitan curve, this is transformation… where the horizon is. Rock$star Junktion 7 Sunday 14/12 £3 / £4 / £6, 8pm - 2am Meanwhile, an elite squadron of artists will be Going Underground, into the organisations that spin the web of the city’s infrastructure - architects, planning departments, telemarketeers, city council offices, surveillance Winter Lights Concert and monitoring centres. Working as undercover agents, they’ll gather information before interpreting and Lace Market Theatre Sunday 07/12 presenting it as new artworks. £12, 2.30pm Just The Tonic Approach A number of associated satellite events are also happening around the festival and responding to its themes. Tuesday 13/01 £10, 7.15pm These include Annexinema masterminds AMIS, who will be hosting one of their always fascinating film nights, Secret Headline Act. as well as new school impresarios Hatch, presenting a third collection of the weirdest and most wonderful Hatch performers they can find. Loggerheads Fun Upstairs Free, 7pm - 12am 13 January – 18 January, various venues and times Robin Hood www.radiator-festival.org Showcasing performance-y work Free/£2, 7.30pm doors. 8pm start. for creative minds. With Jim Smallman, Rex Purnell,

Tom Roche, Simon Gunnell, 80s Monday 15/12 Sunday 21/12 Monday 01/12 Wednesday 14/01 Luke, Tudur Owen and compere Matt Turner. Just The Tonic Just The Tonic Sokari Douglas-Camp The Shape of Things Approach Approach New Art Exchange Lace Market Theatre Monday 08/12 £tbc, 7.15pm £8 / £10, 7.15pm Free £6 / £7, 7.30pm Big Value Comedy Showcase Xmas Special with Ivan Runs until: 19/01 Runs until: 17/01 Just The Tonic Brackenbury and Sarah Millican. Approach Figuring Light Tuesday 16/12 Lakeside Arts Centre £tbc, 7.15pm Tuesday 20/01 Monday 22/12 Free, All day Big Value Comedy Showcase. Should I Stay or Should I Go Runs until: 18/01 Sir Gowen and The Green Night Maze Just The Tonic Duncan Bullen, Jane Bustin, Lakeside Arts Centre Wednesday 10/12 £4 / £5 / £6, 8pm Approach Rebecca Partridge, and Richard £5 / £7, Various £tbc (NUS), 7.15pm Kenton Webb. Runs until: 31/01 Simon Day Big Value Comedy Showcase. Friday 19/12 Lakeside Arts Centre Inspired Boeing Boeing £12 / £15, 8pm View from The Top Royal Centre Funhouse Comedy Saturday 27/12 Free, All day £10 -£25, Various Trent Bridge Inn Runs until: 21/12 Runs until: 24/01 £4 / £5 / £6, 8pm Ken Dodd Sunday 14/12 Jill Perry and Lizzie Adcock present With Andy White, Rob and Skatz, Royal Centre their festive gallery gift. Just The Tonic Tyson Boyce and Tudur Owe. £15 - £18, 7pm Wednesday 28/01 Approach

£5 / £7.50, 7.15pm Comedy Underground Yesterday Wednesday 31/12 Wednesday 03/12 Simon Munnary, Lucy Porter and Loggerheads Playhouse Charlie Baker. Free, 7.30pm - 1.30am Late Night Shopping Event £various, 8pm Just The Tonic NYE Stuart Wilde, Ryan Mcdonnell and Bead Shop Craig Murray. Approach £23.50, 7.15pm Free, 6pm - 9pm Learn new beading techniques. Words: Frances Ashton With Earl Okin, Dave Longley, Mat Reed and guest. INSTALLATION OVERDRIVE Friday 05/12

Exploring issues of imprisonment, genocide and anger, are three Friday 09/01 Windows on War Soviet Posters exhibitions that show a darker side of contemporary art at Nottingham’s The Mighty Boosh 1943-1945 two newest venues. Nottingham Arena Lakeside Arts Centre £25, 7.30pm Free, All day Steel sculptor, Sokari Douglas Camp’s exhibition Strength of Feeling Runs until: 10/01 Runs until: 22/03

explores issues of race, gender, exploitation and violence, including a life-sized steel bus parked outside carved with the words “I accuse the Friday 16/01 Saturday 06/12 oil companies of practising genocide against the Ogoni.” Adjoining this Postcard Show 2008 is Anthony Jadunath’s work Red, named after the dominant colour in Comedy Underground Loggerheads Surface Gallery his art which symbolises the anger he feels at the way he, as a double Free, 7.30pm - 1.30am Runs until: 20/12 amputee, has been treated throughout his life. Both are overtly political exhibitions which celebrate personal victories over oppression. Tuesday 20/01 Tuesday 13/01

Nottingham Contemporary’s current exhibition, The Impossible Prison, Funhouse Comedy Radiator Festival is housed in the abandoned police cells of the Galleries of Justice - a Maze Various Locations fantastic location for an exhibition exploring the theme of confinement. £4 / £5 / £6, 7.30pm Free, all day Runs until: 18/01 Each artwork is contained by its own cell and the line-up boasts See box out above for more impressive international artists such as Bruce Nauman, Dan Graham Exhibitions information. and Vito Acconti. This intriguing combination of video, sculpture and Monday 01/12 conceptual work has been selected to celebrate Michel Foucault’s Friday 16/01 seminal text Discipline and Punish. It’s Almost Always Fiction in the End Nottingham Castle Lucinda Chua Sokari Douglas Camp’s Strength of Feeling and Anthony Jadunath’s Red are at the New Art Exchange Runs until: 04/01 Lakeside Arts Centre

until 18 January. Free, All day Anthony Jadunath: Red Runs until: 22/02 Nottingham Contemporary’s The Impossible Prison is at The Galleries of Justice until 14 December. New Art Exchange A retrospective of her photography Free from the late eighties to the More previews and reviews at www.leftlion.co.uk/art Runs until: 11/01 present.

leftlion.co.uk/issue26 25 Write Lion This month from the Write Lion forum we have a few pieces on a theme that everyone from the Bard to the Beatles has pondered in the past: Love. We also have a piece about a journey from a writer named after a raincoat. What better way to end 2008 (or start 2009) than by putting pen to paper (or fi nger to keyboard), and laying down some words for posterity? If you want others to read your work (and it to be considered for publication in here) then log on and post at leftlion.co.uk/forum.

06/10/08 It frustrates me to high heaven, which I you smoke them? You make them glamorous You, on the other hand, are addictive; like suspect is far, given the connotations that this and sexy and I have to channel all my cocaine. I like black coffee. phrase evokes, that you manage to ruin and self-control through my veins and into my You are so exciting. Just thinking of you, I feel I lie. infiltrate my thoughts against my will. So if fingers to prevent myself from tearing all electrified. Sometimes, I have white. you must know, yes. Yours was not the only your clothes off. It is possibly a good thing My stomach fills with butterflies. And sometimes, if I’m feeling really naughty, I hand that I held, or the only lips I kissed, as if that I met you after the smoking ban was I am utterly infatuated, my sweet addiction. have a biscuit with it; a good one though, not I would never be kissed again. enforced, otherwise there could be some very To me, you are beautiful; perfect. one like a rich tea whose whole infrastructure I am exhausted with guilt. traumatised children in Weatherspoons. I crave your scent, your touch, your voice. crumbles as it touches the pleasant brew, Although, I am still angry with you. This is why I like you and not him. I need you, I must have you. leaving you with a nasty, mushy conglomerate Your affection, or lack of, turns me into this He is mundane. Instead, I am stuck with him. and a dose of regret in the base of your mug. monster. A self-destructive, needy monster. I Dull and tedious to the point where I think I count the seconds until he is gone, ‘til I can It must also be a mug. I require a high imagine myself as this creature, with blue fur, if the government sent him to Iraq, the war stop faking everything. concentration to water ratio for this event. big blue eyes and little claws, stamping its would cease. He would be capable of boring With him everything is rubbish. It is while I’m drinking this fine concoction feet in a huff, like a little black rain cloud. the soldiers to death. Although, this may This is why I need my coffee, my dirty, that I think of you. Am I in love? result in the unfortunate death of many British naughty, little, two-sugars coffee. My thoughts are as bitter as these cheap And I find it more than odd that I like the soldiers and personally, I do not wish for this coffee granules. smell of cigarettes. Maybe it is only when level of blame. Kaylen

10 Years On Upon Far Shore No Tittles Any More

He doesn’t love me I saw, I swear, a shadow I saw! Gold never covered sins with ease… You should have never done that For my Art Across the bank, upon far shore. Go live your life, go play the game, She said, her arms beating his chest Or my Poetry All dressed in black and shrouded face – Go search in vain for futile fame, Watching him slowly shake What, then? A grey fog carried in deathly grace. Yet come the end, don’t cry to me; His head I broke his heart I asked him where he travelled to, For judgements done, it’s yours to be, As the last drops of warmth left (Way back when) His gaze so cold it travelled through! Lest remember this - My ride’s not free.’ The day curled like a salted rose He’s healed mine A hiss, a crackle, a cruel croak of voice: And laughter is a cherry on fire ‘I am the end, the hollow creep, Le Cagoule In the autumn Wendy House That stalks these shores that man doth keep. The final flight, the Boatman. Please! A.Catterall

Aimez vous la Café Deux Guitare? “Relax and Refuel” 12 Noon – 2pm Mon – Fri

Enjoy fresh coffee, handmade sandwiches, panini’s, soups and patisserie deux in a relaxed and stylish atmosphere. Pre-orders welcome, text 07799886369 or e-mail [email protected] (before 11am please)

Enjoy or join in! www.theguitarbar.co.uk phone 07770 226 926 www.hoteldeux.com Hotel Deux, Clumber Avenue, Sherwood Rise, Nottingham, NG5 1AP If you haven’t found us yet you should have gone to Specsavers.

Time, once again, to clear through that pile of CDs, books, mags, and all the other stuff we get sent. If you have anything you want us to give the once-over, please send it to [email protected]

MUSIC P Brothers Electric Baths Ocean Bottom Nightmare The Gas (Heavy Bronx Records) Electric Baths (Haiku My IQ Records) We Are Serious EP (Phat Phidelity) Ever since the P Brothers’ DJ Ivory It is clear from the opening track A group already well established dropped the first Hear No Evil mix, of the album that we are dealing on the scene within the East these Nottingham beat merchants with yet another fine example of Midlands, this is the debut EP from have had a worldwide reputation the wealth of talent to be found local Nottingham alternative rock as some of the finest crate diggers on the Nottingham music scene. band Ocean Bottom Nightmare. in the game but are only now Both the band and their label Influenced by acts such as releasing their first LP proper, The deal in original and innovating Biffy Clryo and hardcore punks Gas. A collection of new joints music, as is evident throughout Refused, this four track release and some vinyl releases from this release. The album states gives a fair insight to their talent. the past few years, the album is its intention with opening track Itchy / Tasty confirms the opinion a truly masterful work. Despite Western Daughter, a psychedelic that the three-piece thrashy rock working with Cappo, Mr 45, Scorzayzee and other Nottingham folk song with haunting double-tracked vocals. Everything outfit are on the ascent. OBN have forthcoming dates around acts in the past, The Gas is really a New York album at heart. is well arranged, with intelligent overdubs that serve only to Nottingham, Derby and Leicester. If you have already witnessed Meeting on the eighties Rock City scene, it was only a matter of complement, not smother, the strong writing and performances. them live, then you will be familiar with the ferocious energy time before these two gravitated towards their spiritual home. Atoms And Muscles combines a beautiful vocal melody with ever thrown into a performance. Judging from their savage burst Tracks like Blam Blam, Cold World and Boss Money Gangsters, building electric guitar, intertwining around each other in a style of an EP, you can expect nothing less than a frantic storm of which all feature Boss Money, bump along with that boom bap reminiscent of John Frusciante’s solo work. This is a mature and crashing guitars at ear-splitting volume that would not be out of style perfected in nineties NY by DJ Premier. The Gary Numan intelligently produced effort that is worthy of multiple listens. place at Rock City on a Saturday night. Jaycee flipping Digital B-Boy and flute rocking Got It On Me, with rapper Another success for Notts! Tom Quickfall Buy this if you like: Slipknot Milano, are two highlights of a consistently brilliant album. This Buy this if you like: Gomez is pure, raw hiphop crafted with genuine knowledge and love www.oceanbottomnightmare.com for the art. Shariff Ibrahim www.myspace.com/electricbaths Available now Available now Buy this if you like: Nas www.heavybronx.com Available now

Hellset Orchestra The Datsuns Cornelia The Carrousel Awaits (Wicked Wicked Bird Records) Headstunts (Cooking Vinyl) Engine (Ramjac) Quite easily one of Nottingham’s Headstunts is the band’s fourth This album is a surge of long most compelling bands to see album to date and arguably their awaited Swedish tranquillity. at the moment. Luckily the punchiest and most entertaining Cornelia takes and band manage to translate the offering so far. The Datsuns, turns it into folktronica. Its sense of drama and excitement purveyors of hard and fast futuristic fusions are mixed with of their live shows to their garage rock from New Zealand, gentle vocals to create an air of records, which makes listening are currently touring Europe to simplicity which both soothes to this second album a joy from promote this new album. Several and satisfies. It is not the kind of start to finish. The Carrousel tracks here immediately grab electronic jangle that confuses Awaits carries on their tradition your attention, and with frenetic you as to what planet you’re of writing songs that have as guitars and heavy drum work on, but creates an album with a much adventure, interest and intrigue as any great Victorian most of the album can best be described as having a punk dreamy aura. Cornelia’s vocals are chilling, particularly during vaudevillian theatre. It’s hard not to write about the Hellset rock slant to it such as on Highschool Hoodlums. Not to say I’m a Fool, which suggests a cry of heartache and internal Orchestra without referencing the 1800s, as they seem to have the band are in anyway limited to one style of play. Eye of the scarring. Blackbird has a chorus which resonates Madonna’s a particular fascination with this era. For instance, there is a Needle shows a more measured approach, which builds rather What It Feels Like For A Girl, with a less commercial feel. Any one sneaking suspicion that the year in Miss July ‘89 is 1889 rather then attacks from the off. Definitely recommended, The Datsuns of these tracks would fit contentedly on the type of compilation than 1989, while the sound of the The Carrousel Awaits, with latest album really is that entertaining. Dan Skurok album that you buy your mum for mother’s day, convinced that its tinkling pianos, dizzying strings and arch vocals, could have Buy this if you like: The Von Bodies or Green Day she can relax to it whilst doing her yoga in the front room. It’s been delivered straight from an old music hall. The music twists definitely an album to crack open a bottle of wine to, turn down and turns at every opportunity, while the songs are all stories www.thedatsuns.com the lights and bask in the hypnotic hybrid of Engine’s healing about events that have happened or are going to happen, as Available now sounds. Nikki Barr predicted and told by a crazed evangelical babbling preacher. Buy this if you like: Sia The Hellset Orchestra teleport the listener to their own world for www.myspace.com/corneliacornelia the best part of fifty minutes, and what a joyous, perverse and Available now thrilling world it is. Paul Klotschkow Buy this if you like: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds or The Arcade Fire www.thehellsetorchestra.co.uk Available now

FILM BOOKS

Big Things Terrence J. R. Green David Belbin (Anonymous Room) The First Prince of London (AuthorHouse) The Pretender (Five Leaves) We’re always happy to receive This murder mystery set in the fictional David Belbin continues his prolific DVDs through the post at LeftLion, city of Wattingham sees the main literary output with his first adult novel especially when they’re as good as protagonist Charlie try to unravel the The Pretender, the story of a young this! With a strong Notts-based cast murder of Karen, the daughter of his man with an accidental gift for literary which includes Tony Claasen (who close friend, Mr Smith. The mystery is forgery. The novel itself is 22 years in the also wrote it), Mark Devenport (who a voyage of self-discovery as the hero making, originating as The StoryForger, directed), Rupert Proctor (star of 2004’s is forced to confront many issues about and proving patience is not only a virtue One For The Road) and Dean Palo (aka his life, his friends and the city where but the defining trait of any ambitious rapper Scorzayzee) this is a feature he has grown up. The self-published author. The book’s underlying theme will length comedy about a subject with author must also confront some harsh touch a raw nerve with many writers, which the cast are likely to be very truths, most notably that he will never particularly the (deluded) belief that we familiar; a group of people trying to make a film on a miniscule budget. be taken seriously unless he improves are all able to produce masterpieces. It’s nicely made with footage of local places you will recognise from the poor spelling and grammar which If we were, I doubt many would we the streets of Nottingham. It transcends its budget with hard work, result from an eagerness to see his words in print. Having said be as altruistic as Mark Trace, the 19 year old protagonist. good production values and a heavy dose of self-depreciating that, it is the very same impatience that has compelled him A thriller using literary forensics to uncover the ageless humour. Hopefully they’ll get a distributor soon. Until then watch to write about conflicts faced by urban living Afro Caribbean question of originality, Belbin’s best to date. James Walker. clips on their website and read an interview with the director on males. This makes his flouting of syntax etiquette more Buy this if you like: C4 documentary The Artful Codgers or www.leftlion.co.uk/film. Jared Wilson forgivable. James Walker. Shakespeare and the Ireland Forgeries by Derek Bodde. Watch this if you like: One For The Road, A Room For Romeo Buy this if you liked: Watching John McCain eat humble pie www.davidbelbin.com Brass, British films generally. www.alibris.com www.big-things.co.uk

28 www.leftlion.co.uk/issue26 LETS briNG IN THE NEW YEAR RIGHT. WELL, WRONG BASEMENT BOOGALOO NYE LOFT PARTY THE CANAL HOUSE, NOTTINGHAM Saturday 6th December GREG WILSON electrofunk roots MANSFIELD RD ASHLEY BEEDLE NOTTINGHAM BLACK SCIENCE ORCHESTRA / X-PRESS 2 MADDSLINKY with residents AKA Zed bias NICK SHAW & ED COTTON 11pm-3.30am SCHMOOV! LIVE £5 entry PLUS RESIDENTS 0791 279 0084

ED COTTON, NICK SHAW & BEANE www.groups.to/basementboogaloo www.myspace.com/basementboogaloo 10pm till very very late TICKETS £10 TICKETS AVAILABLE in Pre-party at > 8pm-12am advance ONLY FROM THE LOFT FUNKY MONKEY, with BEANE and friends SELECTADISC anD THE CANAL HOUSE www.groups.to/basementboogaloo 48-52 Canal Street www.myspace.com/basementboogaloo Nottingham Capricorn (December 23 - January 19) December and January appear to be the quietest months in the garden... but appearances can be deceptive. The soil is absorbing the rainfall as microorganisms convert fodder into usable nutrients for the next crop and the souls of the ex-neighbours buried under the patio curse you late into the cold dark night.

Aquarius (January 20 - February 19) A beautiful, symmetrical fir tree is a perfect symbol of the Christmas season. By decorating it with treasures, you create a one-of-a-kind memory of the season and gain favour from those gods who judge people in measurements of tinsel and baubles.

Pisces (February 20 - March 20) I was reading a book the other day by Albert Camus, where he said; “In the depths of winter I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” I thought about this for a while and realised that I feel almost exactly the opposite. I’m an invincible winter kind of guy. LEFTLION ABROAD Aries (March 21 - April 20) Room 8, The Joshua Tree Inn, Joshua Tree Park, California, USA The stars foresee a change in careers this week. Because of the credit crunch they’ve changed Many famous people have visited the Joshua Tree Inn and Park in California, but room number 8 is usually their orbit and will be now be aiming for a career in a secure government-funded public reserved for morbidly curious country music fans. While staying there on 18 September, 1973, American organisation, instead of wasting their time predicting your future - which is actually really dull. singer Gram Parsons overdosed after one last day of too much tequila and morphine and died aged 26. Fulfilling his last wishes, his manager Phil Kaufman and a friend stole Parsons’ body from the Taurus (April 21 - May 21) airport in a borrowed hearse, drove it back to the park, poured five gallons of gasoline into the coffin and Avoid the humdrum this month by wearing fancy dress... all the time! Yes, your workmates will turning it into an enormous fireball. The two were arrested several days later, but since there was no law think you’re an absolute hoot, your partner will be aroused by your consistent changes in outfit against stealing and the body, they were fined $750 for stealing the coffin. and those people in the jury at your case will be absolutely charmed and laugh your case out of If you can get a photo of a LeftLion sticker or copy of the mag somewhere dead exotic, send it to the courtroom. [email protected]. Gemini (May 22 - June 22) If you often feel like you can’t be bothered then the best thing is not to be. You’ll be able to fix the car and do the housework another day, so why worry about this one? Instead do absolutely nothing and see how long you can stick it. Please remember, however, that eating, drinking, sleeping and breathing are all something.

Cancer (June 23 - July 23) As Oscar Wilde said, a pessimist is one who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both. No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit. They also tend to make a really crap cuppa.

Leo (July 24 - August 23) You are kind, you are compassionate and always willing to take a diversion to help someone else. These are all qualities to be proud of. If you feel bad about drawing the line with someone face to face then wait until they’re asleep and do it then instead with a biro over both cheeks.

Virgo (August 24 - September 23) I went to an astrology conference in Blackpool the other week. It was one of those ‘networking’ events where you’re supposed to make links and share ‘best practice’ etc. So I shaved Mystic Meg’s legs for her, shampooed Russell Grant’s chest hair and gave Jonathan Cainer a blowjob. All in all I went down pretty well.

Libra (September 24 - October 23) I put a bird table up outside, next to the shed yesterday. Spent ages making it, cutting the wood down to size, fixing it together and then varnishing it all. The missus went absolutely mental when she saw it! I’m not sure why she was so angry. I’d put her on there in eighth place, which was quite flattering really.

Scorpio (October 24 - November 22) Some people think it’s cruel to shave a cat’s fur off, but even they would have to admit that it can be kind of funny. For even more fun and frolics sellotape empty Smarties boxes over their legs and get them to parade around the house on your homemade cat-stilts. Sagittarius (November 23 - December 22) CHRISTMAS FOR ADULTS This Christmas when you’re drinking and eating to excess please spare a thought for the real CHRISTMAS FOR KIDS victim of the season: the turkey. Not only do they have a country full of hairy men named after them, but once a year their family and friends are killed so that we can eat them. Poor sods!

The next LeftLion Magazine will be out in Nottingham venues 300 Presents received (£ total): Presents received (£ total): 30 at the beginning of Total spent: £8.20 Total spent: £820 Best present: Grey socks Best present: Castle Grayskull Fe bruary, r eady for the High point: Christmas Eve - drinking! High point:Christmas morning - presents! Low point: January 2 - back to work. start of Spring Low point: January 2 - back to school.

30 www.leftlion.co.uk/issue26