Issue 6. Free
JAGWAR MA
SIMON RUMLEY
THE EALING CLUB
FRED PERRY
BERGHAUS BARBOUR SPRING COURT GLOVERALL PETER STORM CHAMPION LEVI’S WOOLRICH PENDLETON WRANGLER RALPH LAUREN LACOSTE ADIDAS
PREMIUM VINTAGE CLOTHING 60 PORT STREET NORTHERN QUARTER MANCHESTER M1 2EQ
www.bionicseven.com @bionicseven
contents
8.
A RARE VINTAGE
24.
50.
28.
52.
EASTERN BLOC BOOKING
ICE QUEEN: HALCYON TALKS TO JULIA PICKERING
16.
MAMNICK
20.
SIMON RUMLEY: A PORTRAIT OF THE NINETIES
34.
INVENTORY
40.
FLATSTOCK: 24 HOUR POSTER PEOPLE
RUUD AWAKENING
A GUIDE TO FLY FISHING
62.
JAGWAR MA
68.
TOM ONSLOW-COLE
71.
THE EALING CLUB
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76.
Issue 6
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MATT NICKSON: BOOTLEGGER
A RARE VINTAGE MATT NICKSON & BOOTLEGGER’S FINE SPIRIT WORDS: JONATHAN FREDERICK TURTON IMAGES: DANIEL COPE
A
way from the deluge of undercut hairstyles and faux fur’s that currently pervade the high street, there are folk who possess a genuine interest in the associated culture of the ‘Roaring Twenties’ and the pre-war period that followed. Matt Nickson is one of those people.
esque parties, the Mancunian still plays sax in a number of musical outfits. We caught up with him at Bootlegger’s Prohibition Party in Hackney, London, to get to the root of his fascination with the Jazz Age.
Twenty-five years previous to Boardwalk Empire and Peaky Blinders, Nickson began delving into 1920’s paraphernalia, during which time he was a huge figure on the North West of England’s music scene; making the transition from Rock to Rave to Ronnie Scott. It would become more than a casual activity.
“It was the start of everything. It was the creation of popular music. What the early twenties did, and slightly before, with the advent of Jazz… for the first time, it was real music. It was music from the streets. It was Kid Ori, Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong and all these cats. It was related, technically, to the European Harmony and everything else, but it was much more urban. It was their culture, their folk music.
He was one half of ‘Matt and Phreds’- the legendary jazz club in Manchester’s Northern Quarter- as well as the saxophonist in cult, ‘Madchester’ groups E-Lustrious and Chapter and the Verse. Presently, when not spinning 78’ shellac through his gramophone at Gatsby-
Compare it to the house revelation in ‘88, and you get halfway to what it was like in ‘46. Nobody could afford to hire a big band anymore so small bands were playing that big sound. That was club music. It was house. It was in the cellars. It was on 42nd street. It 9
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was immediate. Right there in front of you. It would have been incredible to hear players like that, at that moment.” The Mancunian’s enthusiasm for the period is infectious. From the shoes on his feet, to the records he collects, the era seemingly permeates everything he does. “From four-hundred 78’s, I’ve now got twentyfive thousand. The further you go back, the more you discover a world of joy. It’s not some Woman’s Weekly, idyll of country living mindset, though. It’s not that. But with the vintage games and parties, where music played at a level so you could talk, you know, it brought people together. You can sit and watch the telly on a Wednesday night, or you could play a parlour game? I’ve got recordings from Sergeants and Army’s during the First World War. There’s this one guy who was awarded the Victoria Cross, who recorded this track, went back to the trenches and died when he took a shot. So there’s stuff like that knocking around.” For Nickson it goes beyond aesthetics and fashion. There’s an intrinsic, historical romance to it, and a specific quality, aligned with production techniques bound to the time. Why else would you collect a redundant, obsolete format of vinyl? However it wasn’t always flat caps and Miles Davis for the burly northerner. Fifty years after prohibition, Nickson was an integral part of a very different scene. “I grew up in a peculiar time, in the early eighties in Manchester when it was dead. I mean, there wasn’t even a nightclub. All the bands that came from Manchester, The Smiths and all that lot, they never even played the town. The Haçienda scene, I was in and then out of. We did loads of sessions with all those lads, in that period between ‘88 and ‘92. I played with a band called E-lustrious. We got banned because we had an ‘E’ at the start of our name, which was the best thing that ever happened to us actually, because we got loads of gigs after that.
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MATT NICKSON: BOOTLEGGER
I was practicing jazz eight hours a day back then, then doing a session where you played three notes or something. I loved it all though. We started to put a load of (jazz) gigs on, in the early-to-mid nineties, anywhere we could find. Eventually we opened the club in ‘99.” And what a special spot it was. For ten years, Matt & Phreds was the elite jazz club in the North of England. Phil Francis from the Cinematic Orchestra, Lee Friars, Jon Thorne, Julian Lamb, Jamie Cullum, all owe a debt to the opportunities allowed to them at 64 Tib Street. “We’d get all kinds in. The musicians would come, and everyone who’d been associated with the (rave) clubs. The recurring thing is that in 1999, like the early eighties, there were a couple of clubs open, but not many. The club scene had gone, the dance scene had gone, and hadn’t been replaced by anything. The times at the end of the night with the bands were best, when everyone had left. You’d have people who’d been playing at the MEN, and then you’d get a phone call. Once it was known by the Americans (American performers) that there was a place, a two-minute walk from the arena, that played jazz and was open, that was it. They’d finish their shows at quarter to ten, and they were in for the night.” Nickson is an anomaly, a musician that has transcended musical scenes and styles. A man resolute in his identity, who sits comfortably within life’s inevitably changing landscape. The evolution of his tastes and musical output is remarkable; his creative journey unique. Does the present bleeding of vintage tastes into mainstream culture annoy a little bit, though? “No. Doesn’t bother me. It’s up to them. Everything is a mish-mash of what went before. You look at the Sixties style with drainpipe trousers and the narrow lapels. It’s sort of a copy of the Twenties. Some of the Eighties fashions were like Forties fashions, and so on. It’s all being referenced. It’s about having respect for it, and love for it, like the guys producing Bootlegger do. I didn’t expect it to taste so good actually, but it does.”
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Matt Nickson seems as happy embracing the future as he does the past, and is in no way possessive of the retro culture that he purveys. Is there any snobbery amongst the Shellac community? “Not at all. What you end up with is people collecting vinyl, who then have the other three million tracks on their computer. That’s brilliant. So you’ve got that special thing, that you paid thirty or forty quid for, but then you’ve got access to the whole body of music on the Internet, and it’s the same with any other vintage item, whether that’s a piece of clothing, a game, record, or whatever. We’ve got a tent at Bestival now, where we’re bringing 1920’s Blues through to the beginnings of Rock and Roll, to kids, who are dancing along to it, which is just amazing.” Bootlegger are backing Nickson’s latest UK tour and the jazz aficionado will be working with the Imperial War Museum next year, as well as participating in a variety of other niche collaborations.The rich tapestry that is Matt Nickson’s career continues to impress. “I’ve never been afraid to take risks. I kind of spent my life learning to play this wonderfully complex music, and then the club came along, now the DJing is going really well. The idea has always been the same though. To find a stage, so the music has a platform.” For more information on Bootlegger and Matt Nickson, go to bootleggerspirit.com
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MAMNICK
ONE THING AT A TIME, AS BEAUTIFUL AS POSSIBLE WORDS & IMAGES: MAMNICK WWW.MAMNICK.COM
M
amnick (pronounced - ‘Mam’’Nick’) is the road that leaves Hope valley and begins it’s steady ascent of Mam Tor, deep within the splendor of the Peak District. ‘The Peaks’ are one of the most picturesque locations in Britain. Mamnick is a brand inspired by these scenes, on the doorstep of where our manufacturing takes place. Before visiting Mam Nick it was a mythical place to me. I’d been told stories about the feat that it imposed, the torturous drag before the steep finale that can be a grovel if you’re not prepared for it. It’s a hidden climb you may (or may not) do only 2-3 times a year. As you approach Mam Tor to your left hand side, while the road runs parallel to the Sheffield16
Manchester train-line, you get to size it up as you make your way towards the foot of the steeper section. Once you’re over the top, you get to feel that great sense of triumph. A feeling that money can’t buy. I was already in love with the place before I designed any products. I’m just as passionate about our manufacturing process and proud to say that our entire inventory is made in South Yorkshire. (apart from a small Japanese capsule collection). I tip my hat to my Grandad, Eric Barnett every time I work with steel. He spent his entire working life within the famous Sheffield steel industry and lived only six miles away from the factory. Our shirts are made by people only a stone’s throw away from the road that my Grandad and
I grew-up on. A family community where every weave and stitch has a story - it’s this family of people with their craft and workmanship that make us who we are. It’s nice to work so closely with manufactures that share the same feelings towards Britain’s manufacturing heritage and I’m grateful to them. Our buttons are made in Sheffield close to where I live now and we are working with a small shoe manufacturer in Derbyshire on a limited run of casual touring cycling shoes, inspired by Britains most famous cycle-tourist Ian Hibell. You could say Mamnick is a brand inspired by my love for the bike, but it’s is not a cycling brand. My ethos is very straightforward - “Do one thing at a time, as beautifully as possible”.
MAMNICK
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SIMON RUMLEY A PORTRAIT OF THE NINETIES WORDS: JONATHAN FREDERICK TURTON IMAGES: BRIAN CANNON & SIMONE VAN HATTEM
T
he Nineties. New Labour, Britpop, the Internet. Vic and Bob, satellite television, rave culture. For many it was a time of possibility; a new age was dawning, quite literally, with a new millennium just around the corner. It was a time of prosperity. The bust had faded with Thatcher and asymmetrical haircuts, whilst the boom advanced into the realms of the unprecedented. At the turn of the century, filmmaker Simon Rumley made three movies attempting to capture the attitude of the decade, of youth culture in particular. ‘Club Le Monde’, ‘The Truth Game’ and ‘Strong Language’, released over a three-year period, aimed to embody the spirit of the epoch. These were zeitgeist films, documenting what it meant to be a twentysomething at that moment in time. “My generation of people had been clubbing from the late Eighties into the early Nineties. Around 92-94 the club thing was kind of over, however 1996 felt like the pivotal year of the decade. You had the emergence of Tony Blair, Trainspotting and Oasis’ second album. In fashion, John Galliano was taking over at Christian Dior. An English guy, my age, taking over one of the biggest couture houses in the world. It felt like anything was possible. Everybody was chuffed to be British, to be a part of this scene where all around the world, we were recognized as this Cool Britannia thing. We were buying into it as much as anybody else.” 20
Rumley’s trilogy of early films aspired to reflect youth culture at this critical juncture. Being a filmmaker in London placed him perfectly. “I wrote the script for Club Le Monde around 93/94, which was pre-Trainspotting and preHuman Traffic. I spent the best part of three years saying ‘you need to make a film about clubbing, you need to make a film about clubbing’, but the film industry is run by middle-aged, fairly middle-class white men. It was hard for someone from that demographic to work out how a film like that could work. Although my movies were all set in London, you could have made them in Liverpool, Manchester, any UK city really. There might have been different references, musically, the way people dressed or whatever, but essentially they’d be the same. Everyone was going through the same thing. Going out, taking pills and having fun.” The filmmaking techniques employed by Rumley were pretty unconventional for that period of British cinema. Strong Language, his first film, had no real narrative, but featured a variety of semi-fictionalised characters expressing their opinion at a camera, in talkinghead style. How did his unusual approach manifest? “From 1990-1995, there were no significant British youth culture films. This was a time when Robert Rodriguez had just made El Mariachi, which was supposedly shot for seventy thousand dollars, and Linklater had
SIMON RUMLEY: A PORTRAIT OF THE NINETIES
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made Slacker for twenty-five thousand dollars. When I watched Slacker, I thought, ‘you can make a film that doesn’t necessarily have a narrative, and it can be a feature length movie’. I figured, ‘fuck it, I’ll go out and make a film myself ’, and I knew I could make it pretty cheap, using the people I’d met the previous summer.”
fidelity and growing up. We took it from there.” Rumley’s characters have the air of Blind Date contestants; their clothes, words, even their footwear, all drip with Nineties ardor. However, like Blind Date contestants, you find yourself wondering whether these people could possibly exist in the real world? Were Rumley’s characters exaggerated versions of individuals in the Nineties, or straight depictions? “Kind of both, really. They were meant to be believable. Ten, twenty years down the line, you’re meant to hear them talking about Blair, police brutality or Britpop and go ‘yeah, I believe that, that’s how I remember it’. By the same token though, certainly in Strong Language, there’s some deliberately contentious stuff. Some of the characters are quite wanky, really, but deliberately so. There’s some quite comic stuff, which was intended to be comic. It’s a case of initiating a heightened realism to get the audience to believe in what’s being said, but to take it with a pinch of salt and be entertained. There was definitely an element of provocation with it.” Rumley explored themes of loyalty, honesty, respect and individualism, particularly in Truth Game; all notions that artists have grappled with for centuries. What made the Nineties an interesting time to explore such ideas?
Some aspects of Rumley’s filmmaking were naive at this early stage in his career, but there’s an urgency in his characters, a palpable charisma that is directly attributable to his unorthodox methods. He approached his subject, end-of-twentieth century living, in a novel manner, which captured the fast-moving, dynamic nature of the time. “With Strong Language, it all kind of came about through improvisation. I basically wrote out twenty questions, and then I kind of wrote the characters around the actors’ answers. I took some of their answers, added some of my own dialogue and then we worked through it together. If there was stuff they didn’t like, we’d change it again, until everyone was happy. Truth Game was fairly similar, with actors answering questions upon the themes of love, 22
“As much as anything, it was about the age of the characters, and not necessarily that period of time in Britain. The Truth Game was set in 1999, focusing upon a bunch of regular people. It’s especially about how people change at the end of their twenties. It’s usually when people start to get a bit more serious about their jobs, maybe you’re struggling to maintain that friendship, or partnership with a boyfriend or girlfriend. It’s about all that. But the Nineties definitely made it interesting. There was a lot of excitement around 1999. ‘Oh my god’! It wasn’t just a new year or a new decade, it was a new century, a new millennium! I guess one of the questions I wanted to ask was, ‘does that actually change anything?’ As well as the personal travails of the individual, Rumley’s early work tackled
SIMON RUMLEY: A PORTRAIT OF THE NINETIES
sensitive subjects of the day such as racism, the environment, drugs, sex and money. How have the conversations progressed regarding those themes since then? How does today’s society compare to that of the Nineties? “It’s funny to think that back in the late Nineties people didn’t have computers. That’s the main point of difference. It was probably 2001 when I got my first PC. Then, the Internet was a new a thing. It’s crazy to think that fifteen years ago we didn’t have Facebook or Twitter. It seems so obvious nowadays, but back then life was so different. Even just fifteen years ago. You could argue there have been pretty solid steps forward in terms of homophobia in the UK, with same sex marriages, but racism remains prevalent. It’s all about computers though, and that access to culture. They’ve revolutionized popular culture. There are pro’s and cons obviously. Anyone my age would bemoan the fact that young people don’t spend time at record stores, instead they find music through a device on their lap, but it really has changed everything. Everybody is still learning were it goes and what it all means. Quite exciting really.” In many ways, the first phase of the 21st Century is delivering on the prophecies of the previous decade. Technological advancements today aren’t a million miles away from those imagined in Hollywood blockbusters of the time, with wearable computers and GMO’s now a reality. However, the bust has predictably returned, as have the bad angular barnet’s. Not exactly a post-modern utopia yet. If the opportunity arose to make a film capturing youth culture today, would Rumley be interested? “I would be, very much so. Arguably, I no longer have my finger on the pulse of it, but social media transfers so much information these days, anyway. How could you make a film about that? So undramatic. How could you make a movie about people going on Facebook or Twitter? Might be important for the transference of information, not exactly cinematic.” Simon Rumley’s Youth Culture Trilogy Box Set is available from select stores now. www.simonrumley.com 23
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EASTERN BLOC BOOKING
EASTERN BLOC BOOKING BERLIN’S GDR HOSTEL WORDS: JOE CONNOLLY IMAGES: THE OSTEL, BERLIN
D
isorientation and mild fear aren’t something that you usually look for when booking a hostel. But on waking up in Berlin’s ‘The Ostel’, after an evening sampling the oddball Mecca’s fine array of disconcertingly strong lager, it was difficult to feel anything else. Based in Friedrichshain - an area full of sensible footwear, brutal architecture and with an undeniable whiff of trendy - The Ostel transports its guests back to the bizarre, yet admirably comfortable surroundings of 1970s and ‘80s East Berlin. With everything from portraits of former East German leaders adorning your bedroom wall, to genuine copies of GDR issue holiday brochures -advertising long defunct trips to suspiciously affluent climes - the hostel has all you’ll need for a beguiling and surprisingly inspiring stay.
Capitalising on a growing nostalgia for the good old days of over-performing gymnasts, cumbersome, dysfunctional cars and tearyeyed devotion to moustachioed men, Ostel provides a welcome change from the all-toocommon identikit hostels of other European cities. Gone are the rows of bunk-beds and in their place lie single and double rooms, equipped with angular furniture and peculiarly garish wallpaper. The feeling of being trapped in the past is completed by WiFi only being available in the lobby. Schlecht! The surrounding area is populated by a decent array of cafés and bars, which have created a very un-GDR bohemian vibe, and there is a comically German supermarket within walking distance, if you’re after some indistinguishable meat in brine. A predictably efficient transport system links you to the rest of Berlin, and is accessible from the nearby Ostbanhof station.
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EASTERN BLOC BOOKING
Once you’ve finished checking that your room isn’t bugged, and got bored of pretending that you’re in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Halcyon recommends that you do the following:
Single and Double Rooms are available, as well as the painfully bourgeois option of an apartment. Bookings can be made at: www.ostel.eu
1. Buy a bottle of Schnapps 2. Drink bottle of Schnapps from ‘70s tumblers (Provided) 3. Pretend that you’re in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy some more 4. Become sufficiently worried about the impending arrival of the secret police, to have to leave the hostel, and explore Friedrichshain and the rest of Berlin. 27
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ICE QUEEN HALCYON TALKS TO JULIA PICKERING WORDS: JONATHAN FREDERICK TURTON
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JULIA PICKERING
“I
made a series of decisions in the way I wanted to live my life”, states Julia Pickering, reflecting on how she made the unlikely descent into the world of mountaineering. “The mundane aspects of life really quite scare me. I’ve always tried to find excitement”. Her existence today snowboarding and leading expeditions all over the world - certainly isn’t short of that.
at an outdoor centre, and had what would be considered quite a good job in management training and corporate work. I always knew that nine-to-five and the office wasn’t going to suit me though. I got offered the opportunity to lead a group of school kids out in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. That was going to be detriment to my career but I decided to just do it, and quit my job basically.
I think it’s really important to keep a childlike aspect on life at all times, and I kind of get that out of my trips.
Since securing her first sponsorship deal with Berghaus in 2010, Julia has become the first woman - and only the second person ever - to have climbed and ‘boarded the three highest peaks in the Arctic Circle. She’s explored and ridden previously unvisited mountain ranges in Greenland and Russia. Such achievements saw her selected as one of Lamb’s Navy Rum’s six ‘True British Character’s’ earlier this year. Yet her sense of adventure precedes her current profession.
“When I was six years old my parents took my brother and his friends on a skiing trip, up to Scotland. I didn’t actually ski then, but I was fascinated by the snow. Years later I worked
The decision led me into working freelance, which then led me to Greenland, which ultimately led to sponsorship. It was never a case of saying ‘right, I want to get sponsored’. The decisions I’ve made have led me into the position I’m in now.” Such actions are indicative of Pickering’s radical, unostentatious nature. Through the summer, Julia helps out at her husband’s bicycle business in the Lake District. During winter - when undertaking expeditions - she lives out of her mobile caravan with her two Huskies. A far cry from the corporate realm she once engaged in.
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The outdoor community isn’t all campfires and living-off-the-grid, however. Ski resorts and mountain holiday destinations often cater for the upper echelons of society. Does Julia’s bohemian attitude jar with some of the skiing fraternity? “I don’t want to be disrespectful but yeah, all the time. Once, we came across these two ladies. They were very well dressed, very posh, and they were walking past as me and my husband were getting out of our van. They literally looked at it with disgust and said, ‘do you live in that?’ Probably meaning well, they asked us if we wanted to come around for a bath. I told them that we actually had a shower in the vehicle. Some people just don’t appreciate the lifestyle.” As well as the occasional cultural impasse, being a woman must have presented some unique challenges in the world of adventure athletics. Yet Pickering has carved out a niche in the industry, her gender central to it. Has being a woman helped or hindered her progress? “Discrimination isn’t something I’ve experienced much, certainly not to my face! I organise all my trips, and the people that come on them seem to be all guys. I am quite girly, but they certainly don’t let me get away with carrying less kit or that. It’s definitely helped more than it has hindered, without question.
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There aren’t many female split boarders.” Julia Pickering possesses a seemingly insatiable lust for adventure. An excessive nature is almost a prerequisite for her line of work. Does that gravitation towards the extreme bleed into other areas of her life? “I take everything to the extreme, I think. When I was younger I would party a lot. I always wanted to be a rock star too, but I couldn’t sing, unfortunately. I became what you might call a bit of a rock chick? I took that to the limits as well. When I get into something, I get really, really into it, and it consumes me.” She’s shed the piercings and ripped jeans, but perhaps her lifestyle now isn’t too dissimilar to that of a rock star. Her work necessitates a large degree of performing and adventuring in new territories; it could be argued she’s more rolling stone than any touring musician. Having explored much of the world, and having achieved so much already, what keeps Julia seeking fresh challenges? “I think I’m just scared of boredom to be honest. I try and find fun in everything. I think it’s really important to keep a childlike aspect on life at all times, and I kind of get that out of my trips. It’s the feeling of wonder when you go to these places. So many people will never, ever see or do these things. That’s a huge part of it.”
JULIA PICKERING
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CROCKERY FROM £6.50
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CREATE GB BOOK ÂŁ15.00
Create GB showed the world that convention-prodding, thought-provoking and unashamedly eccentric British design and creativity is as thriving and resounding as it’s ever been. Designed by SB Studio, Create GB is now a beautiful 196-page publication, with 4 unique covers, and features the likes of Kai & Sunny, Jiro Bevis, Patrick Stevenson-Keating, Margot Bowman, Lee Broom, Kate Moross and many more.
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DESK BLOCKS
SMITH JOURNAL
Kukka blocks is a collection of minimal desk accessories made out of natural beech wood. No finish is applied to the wood, so it will darken with age. The collection consists of 4 pieces which can be assembled in any combination. The collection provides an elegant way of organising your desk with space for your pens, pencils, business cards, post-its and more.
The people behind Smith wanted to create something they’d be happy to read themselves. That smart, creative guys could peruse without shame, slap down on the coffee table, whack in their favourite old satchel or display proudly on the toilet reading rack. Something that looked good, but had substance, wit and inspiration, so here it is, the quarterly publication Smith Journal.
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INVENTORY
A STOOL
NUTCRACKER
Combined with a love of typography and a need for adaptable furniture, ByALEX designed the A Range: considered, playful and enjoyable. The Replica typeface - designed by Norm in Zurich - was specifically used in the design, as the distinctive diagonal cuts mean that there are no protruding elements, to trip you up.
Adam & Harbourth bring the archaic nutcracker straight into your home. Remove the shells from any nuts using the specific anvil hollows by striking the wooden cubes together, making the memories of our stoneage ancestors come alive and relieving any holiday stress.
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OSKAR BAG
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WOODEN RULERS
Our Oskar bag is made of 16oz Canvas (100% Cotton) making it very robust which allows it to master all daily demands with ease. The best feature, however, is Oskar’s ability to transform into a backpack. This is especially convenient if you’re out and about on your bicycle.
Inspired by Irish metal crafts, the lamp’s form, with its inclined head, derives from a study of the human figure. Handmade by craftspeople in Portadown, each lamp is unique, and individually numbered making the piece trustworthy and characterful.
These contemporary beech rulers from Hay transform a mundane stationary into something of beauty. Available in thick or thin stripes and a variety of colours and sizes.
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FLATSTOCK
WORDS: JONATHAN FREDERICK TURTON
S
ince rising to prominence on the psychedelic scene of the late 1960’s, gig posters have been a treasured staple of the music industry. At their best, they encapsulate the identity of the music we love, offering a tangible remnant of time and place to the possessor. They also, of course, let us know who’s playing down our local hall, which is handy. However, with the growth of social media as a means to promote shows, the practical function of the poster for live music has
diminished. Nowadays, you’re more likely to get an annoying Facebook notification (or ten), than see a cool piece of art pasted to a tile in a kebab house. Despite this, a hardened community of enthusiasts continues to champion the artform. Flatstock - a traveling gig poster exhibition -showcases the elite artists operating within the genre today, offering fans a chance to meet the people behind the works. Does lithography have a place in music, in the 21st Century?
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“I think as music continues to go deeper and deeper into the digital age, the amount of tangible objects is becoming more and more scarce”, reflects American Poster Institute President Andrew Vastagh. “Record stores have been disappearing and so are the posters in those stores, promoting the records. They’re now jpegs on the Internet. Physical media is also dwindling, so for a fan to find that piece of ephemera, with their favorite band’s name on it, it’s now even more special. Besides the resurgence of vinyl, gig posters are the main fix for those fans.” For some, the recreation has turned into more than a casual interest, as Andrew is quick to point out. It seems collecting gig posters has turned into something far bigger, and more important, than merely collecting gig posters. “Oh indeed. Sometimes these guys are more into the posters than the music. There is a community of rabid collectors that just decide, ‘I’m going to collect Elvis Costello posters, or Black Keys posters or Queens of the Stone Age posters’, and have to have every one, but are maybe just moderate fans of the tunes. It’s a pissing contest between some of them, but those dudes are awesome for the community, to keep people making stuff and showing the need and marketability to clients.”
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IMAGES: HOSCO PRESS LUKE DROZD JAY RYAN MITCHUM D.A. BUBBLE PROCESS
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Flatstock originated in San Francisco in 1992 when Frank Kozik and Firehouse - two prominent poster studios at the time - decided to put on a poster show in a small gallery called Cell Space. They invited other poster artists to register their attendance via a new website called gigposters.com. It must’ve been nice to meet other, like-minded individuals? “It was like finding out you weren’t the only one of your species, and there were other dudes out there doing what you were, just in a different city. People have been making posters as long as there have been gigs. I think some people, like myself, have a true passion for the music and wanted to be connected to it in some way. I can’t play a lick of music and I’m totally tone deaf, but I love the scene and creating, and wanted to be a part of it.” The first Flatstock was a moderate success, but it was never about making money. The primary intention of the event was to build a community of congruent people, and create a platform for the art to flourish. Since then its popularity has swelled. 46
“The most recent edition of Flatstock was in Barcelona for the Primavera Sound Festival. It was in this large concrete plaza, with one hundred thousand people in attendance over the course of three days, on the Mediterranean Sea. It was pretty amazing.
I feel people will always gravitate towards that physical piece, something they can handle and rub their fingers across the layers of ink, and smell the acrylic that went into making this thing. At the end of the day, you can’t hang a PDF.”
It’s Hamburg, Germany for the next one, then a smaller regional show in Dresden the weekend after. The appetite for the event has grown since that first show in San Fran. Every time we do a show somewhere new, the next year there are more fans of the posters and more poster artists, who started up after they came to the show the prior year.”
Good gig posters are as much about the moment in time they’re created, as they are the featured musician. A properly executed piece captures a social moment, as well as a musical one. There’s a sociological element to it.
It seems there is a robust, cult following of the sub-culture, but is there genuine concern that social media will eventually render the art form surplus? Is the fan base big enough to sustain the commitment of those creating the work? “It’s been an interesting time because as social media and our online personas grow, it connects like-minded individuals and encourages the offline creativity.
“People want to remember that amazing concert they saw, or maybe they met their future spouse at a show. Every time I do one of these Flatstock’s I have someone who has a specific connection with a poster I made for that night. It’s so great to connect people with something so personal, and you just know that they will take it home and cherish it. That makes it all worthwhile for me.”
THE BASEMENT CHARLESTON HOUSE 12 RUMFORD PLACE LIVERPOOL L3 9DG CALL 0151 227 1814 WWW.BOLDASBRASSTATTOO.COM BOLDASBRASSTATTOO@GMAIL.COM
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n January 2011, Ruud Gullit set out on a path that would fix a wry smile on the face of the football world, if not a few raised eyebrows. Within six months those smiles would turn into sniggers as the former AC Milan and Chelsea playmaker’s tenure as manager of Chechen football club, Terek Grozny, ended in humiliation. Three months prior to Ruud being freed of his responsibilities, we breathed the same, cold Moscow air, scented by flares, overzealous policing and footballing disappointment… As weekend strolls go, Sunday 10 April 2011 was a long, meandering one, that started on the banks of the Moscva River, darting inside the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour (an altar which Pussy Riot would later desecrate) before moving on to breakfast just beyond Revolution Square. Moscow is an intense city, and within an hour we had moved from the feverish devotion of Russian Orthodox worshippers to quiet streets, thronged with dead-eyed, ruthless-looking militia guards, stood side-byside. Protest isn’t tolerated too readily in Russia, and Red Square was to be the scene of some smallscale dissent later that day. The proportionate response was clearly to put hundreds of men onto empty streets, an arm’s length apart. 50
Oppressive doesn’t quite do the atmosphere justice and this was just a lazy Sunday morning. As I was looking forward to watching Spartak Moscow against Chechen opposition - a former Soviet state at war with Russia as recently as 2009 - thoughts turned to how proportionate the state’s attitude would be to match-day security later that evening. For the uninitiated, it should be known that a high percentage of people in Moscow are in uniform, but the omnipresent militia are clearly denoted by belted jackets, heavy boots and blank stares. Unless you’ve seen the inside of a Russian prison, liked what you saw and fancied going back, you wouldn’t choose to challenge their surly grasp on society. Breakfast was as hard to find as the match ticket. I won’t be eating a salmon roe Bellini again anytime soon and it was the first and last time I’d be able to locate Spartak Moscow’s club shop without very specific directions or a reliable map. Like everywhere else in the colossal sprawl of Russia’s uncompromising capital, it was tucked out of the way and only found via a dozen wrong turns. Only after buying the £15 tickets did a Russian companion express slight reservations about the combination of Sunday night football and Chechen opposition. It only takes a raised
RUUD AWAKENING BRAVING MOSCOW WITH TEREK GROZNY WORDS: ROB ALLEN IMAGES: FANAT1K.RU
RUUD AWAKENING
eyebrow to help the doubts really sink in; you could ask Ruud Gullit about that, but we were committed. After all, it was Moscow, not Helmand.
Oppressive doesn’t quite do the atmosphere justice and this was just a lazy Sunday morning.
It’s only three stops on the underground from Kropotnikskaya, our starting point, to Sportivnaya, the Metro station that deposits you at the opening to Moscow’s Olympic Park. The journey would have been unremarkable, save for the displays of unbridled drunkenness of the Spartak fans, one of whom was so thin and so hammered he appeared to draw his entire calorie requirement from weekend vodka binges alone. The functional box of the carriage offered no soft edges as it fired off from each station at speed, catapulting him into fellow passengers, windows and metalwork. Chanting the guttural chants of intimidation, you can hear Spartak coming a mile off.
statue of Vladimir Lenin, still watching over the stadium that was stripped of his name.
The darkness around the ground was temporarily lifted by lighting beneath the underpasses that are home to the unofficial/ official merchandise sellers. The gap between legitimate and hooky is often blurred in Russia, and not least in the area of Spartak match-day commerce. The haze from the stadium and passing traffic tinted the mist shrouding the landmarks of the Olympic Park, in the distance the hulking structures of the rarely used ‘minor arena’ and swimming pool, then the giant
Finally on the concourses of the stadium, a very young Spartak fan had his credentials checked and there was a problem. A militia guard wanted him out and, unrestrained by the fears held by lily-livered Western tourists, his voice hit a hysterical register as he kicked back firmly at the uniform trying to separate him from his friends. As we walk past, reinforcements arrived and the pitch of his voice got higher again. We walk another five paces and there’s a decisive smack behind us, then silence. At least he had a go, eh?
Oppressive regimes now history of course, there were four security hoops to jump through before getting into the ground. Each time a ticket check, a pat down and a shove to help you on your way.
The nil-nil draw was playing out beneath our position in one of the quadrants of the ground, next to the flame-toting home fans and suddenly a thought; what happened to the Chechen support? Thousands of heavy duty police here, and they haven’t turned up. A tug on my sleeve, a finger pointed into the opposite corner of the ground and I’m shown no more than six away supporters and their green flag. Come in a taxi? They could have come on a bike. With no more than 8,000 in the ground, in a city of 11.5 million people, Russia’s Premier League evidently suffers from serious big game syndrome, where only Muscovite teams playing Zenit St Petersburg do any real business. How to end such a romantic evening? Heading home with minutes to play, the redundant militia had formed a 200 yard chicken run – two lines of guards no more than two yards apart – to the door of the Metro Station. Eyes scanning us as we passed, faces right next to ours, mutual paranoia. Just ahead of us, equally keen to be first to the next train, a wiry teen with a hint of green scarf emerging from his leather jacket. The first Terek Grozny fan out of the ground, barely incognito, closely followed by two, cold, slightly bemused British tourists. 51
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A guide to fly fishing
A GUIDE TO FLY FISHING WITH
PHOTOGRAPHY: BARRIE DUNBAVIN STYLING: MATTHEW STAPLES & JOHN LLOYD
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hen you think of fly fishing, you may immediately imagine a typical participant’s attire to be somewhat gentrified; blazers, check shirts, natty ties, corduroy and a hint of Wellington boot. Cast your mind back to The Fast Show sketch with Ted and Ralph, if you like. Well the reality is that the days of sports jackets, waxed cotton and a feather in your cap are all but a thing of the past. Unfortunate in our opinion. But when we heard that Nottingham based label Universal Works had created a range of utilitarian clothing, with a modern cut, incorporating key pieces made from the daddy of tweed, Harris, we thought we’d best organise a shotgun remarriage. Universal Works has always been about mixing different styles and attitudes – old with new, workwear with tailoring, city with country –
and the Autumn/Winter 2013 collection is no exception. The starting point was the seminal pictures of Scottish crofters, taken by renegade photographer Paul Strand in the 1950s. These images of a proud community, living a tough life were then mixed with memories of early 1980s Harlem, where equally impoverished neighborhoods expressed their own pride through hip-hop, graffiti and sport. The result is ‘an exciting mix of northern British grit and New York Sass’ according to the brand. We think they’ve got it spot on. A collection of clothing that looks equally at home with a pair of boots whilst out walking in the country, as it does with box-fresh sneakers whilst treading the pavements of the city.
writer - actually painting lettering before it all went vinyl - led to the local coal mine, which brought an understanding of real workwear. Then, through fourteen years at Paul Smith, an elegant English sartorial element was added. A further five years at Maharishi dropped a love of streetwear into the melting pot.
This is the type of clothing that founder Dave Keyte had set out to create when he started the brand back in 2008, fusing experience and insight from jobs within a plethora of industries. An early career in the Midlands, firstly as a sign
Firstly, we got in touch with a bloke called Louis Noble, an expert in the field of fly fishing, industry-approved tutor and all round good egg, to teach us the basics…
With this in mind, we thought it would be just-so to take a lad from the city and drop him in the countryside, to learn the basics of an ageold pursuit. Wearing top garb from a brand that places a primary focus upon mashing elements of the two contrasting landscapes, the reality of this sartorial, environmental experiment was observed.
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T
he use of an artificial fly can be traced back to Roman times, when it would simply be dibbled on the water. Rods became more refined as time went by and in the 1500’s were long and heavy but no reels were used. The line would simply be attached to the rod tip and laid on the water, probably with assistance of the wind. The 1800’s saw shorter, lighter rods used in conjunction with reels. This was when fly casting, as we know it today, came into use. Modern equipment is highly technical and the choices for the beginner are vast, too vast in fact. Good guidance is essential so that you buy the most suitable tackle.
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Fly fishing, when I started, was very much an upper class sport and access to the best rivers was difficult and costly. The 1970’s saw a boom with the creation of small still waters that were stocked regularly with rainbow trout, usually not too difficult to catch. These proved very popular and today provide fishing opportunities all over the country, for good accessible sport. However, there is a growing trend for anglers, who have fished still waters for a considerable amount of time, to move onto rivers which are perceived as more challenging, even if the fish are considerably smaller.
Where to fish - the beautiful River Dee is considered to be one of the best rivers in Europe for grayling and also excellent for brown trout. I strongly recommend the water around Llangollen, managed by the Llangollen Maelor Association who issue day tickets for £12 or a full season for £85. Over 10 miles of fishing is available which is fantastic value. Tickets can be bought seven days a week from Watkin & Williams, the hardware shop in Llangollen. River fishing generally offers solitude. The pace of life today makes a day out in superb countryside a wonderful contrast and something that more and more people would like to take up.
A guide to fly fishing
1. It’s always best to learn in a structured way: To explain how a flyrod works – you allow the line to bend the rod efficiently and it will then unbend and propel the line either forward or backwards.
2. Side casting on the riverbank, using cones as a guide, will help you to manipulate the rod within the correct limits. 55
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3. Once this is mastered, you can move into the water to practice the ‘overhead cast’, which is the most commonly used. It’s best to perform casting with one hand only, initially, before moving on to using both hands.
4. Another cast, called ‘the roll cast’ is useful when space behind you is limited. It’s essential to be able to perform both of these casts reasonably well, or your first fishing trips will be frustrating and potentially dangerous, if you don’t keep the hook away from you.
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A guide to fly fishing
5. As with any sport, there is an initial outlay for the basic equipment. It’s not necessary to spend a large amount, but cheapest is not always the best, I can advise you. 57
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6. Let’s assume you want to fish rivers. The following will be suitable: A rod of 9 ft and rated as a 5 weight. This is an average type of set-up, suitable for different techniques. A basic reel for a line weight of 5 or 6, coupled with a weight forward floating fly line, weight 5. Some nylon leaders, which link the fly line to the fly. A small landing net to lift the fish from the water for unhooking.
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7. A fishing waistcoat with multiple pockets is useful to hold ancillary items such as line clippers and fly boxes.
8. Finally, a selection of flies; the choice is endless, but you only need a small selection. Flies are meant to catch fishermen as well as fish. 60
A guide to fly fishing
To find a fishing instructor near you, go to: www.gameanglinginstructors.co.uk Louis Noble: www.advancedschoolofgameangling.co.uk 07812 833068.
www.universalworks.co.uk
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THE ASCENT OF AUSTRALIA
JAGWAR MA WORDS: JONATHAN FREDERICK TURTON PHOTOGRAPHS: BRIAN CANNON
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he list of genuinely exciting musicians to emerge from Australia appears to grow exponentially. Sydney’s Jagwar Ma, purveyors of ethereal melodies and measured beats, are the latest yield from an incredible crop. As summer gives way to the harsh of winter, their debut album, ‘Howlin’, leaves an impression that will stretch beyond the season’s end. Their unique combination of everything from Balearic House to Psychedelic Rock has seen them compared with acts spanning four decades - from The Stone Roses to The Beach Boys - yet their style is resonating with audiences planted firmly in the now. It’s been an incredible year for the duo (sometimes three-piece); a period of monumental highs and catastrophic lows. From having barely played a live show, to overcoming life-threatening illness and being described by Noel Gallagher as ‘the band that the future of the galaxy depends upon’; it’s a story that needs little in the way of embellishment. Just how much have the lives of Jono Ma and Gabriel Winterfield changed, since the album release in May? Gabriel : “Yeah, it’s pretty different! I’m still 62
pinching myself that I don’t have a second job. I worked as a pizza delivery boy for a bit, at a pre-school as a teaching aid, I worked in retail. I did all these shit-kicker jobs, which was great as they paid money, but I’m pretty glad to hang up my array of name tags.” Not every band gets to tour the world, in what is essentially their first year, or release a record that receives critical acclaim across the board. When putting the album together, did they realise they were making something special, something that might catapult them into the big time? Gabriel: “I think we felt what we were doing was cool, and I did think to myself ‘man, if this doesn’t work, I don’t know what will’, but we were just so happy with how it was ourselves. If nothing would have happened like this, I still think I’d be pretty happy, doing my thing.” Jono: “Obviously it’s healthy to look back on your achievements and be proud, but we’re both staying focused on the road ahead.” They’ve been put forward by the music press as the first truly credible, ‘Madchester Revivalists’, a title that has followed them, for
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better or worse, since their emergence last year. The slow, syncopated house rhythms featured on some of their tracks, make their music easy to associate with the ‘Baggy’ scene of the early Nineties. But is it a tagline that the band identify with? G: “I think, ultimately, in a perfect world, you’d like people not to compare you, but it’s just the easiest way to describe something. If I was to describe what somebody looked like, I’d say ‘he kind of looks like that actor in Twin Peaks.’” J: (Laughs) “Or if you try to describe how something tastes, you know, ‘crocodile tastes a little bit chickeny’ or a bit ‘fishy’, and that’s fine! It’s just a little easy. We feel that it’s kind of a little narrow, and omits lots of other things that are going on in the music. We’ve been compared to genuinely great bands and great records though, so we can’t complain too much.” Given the multi-textured, at times overlooked, complexity of the record, the group has legitimate grounds to take umbrage with such basic analysis. With a variety of musical processes’ evident on ‘Howlin’, the comparisons seem lazy. G: “There’s an element of it being a reflection in a puddle of us, if we were to look at ourselves. I can hear a lot of music in it that I like, but even still, it’s the tip of the iceberg of things that we’re into.” J: “I think its subconscious, a lot of the time. It’s not like a conscious decision to have 10% of this, or 40% of that. It’s unavoidable that your influences are going to show their colours in what you do, because that’s how you learn music, from listening and interpreting. It’s a natural process.” There are elements of various musical styles to be heard on ‘Howlin’. Very little, however, appears to have been borrowed from Australian bands of the past. An unprecedented surge of fresh, original music has come from Australasia of late, seemingly disengaged with what’s gone before. What exactly is going on over there? J: “There were a bunch of things that came into line about five years ago. One really important thing was that the DJ’s, the dance community 65
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and the bands were all kind of one scene. Australia is quite small in terms of population, as is Sydney, where we’re all from. It’s quite a small city. It sort of felt like all the bands, and all the DJ’s and all the different club nights amalgamated. A radio station started up, FBi, and it all kind of happened at once. Everything was crossing over, everyone was playing the same parties, even though there was a diverse range of music.” G: “My first band was this kind of downbeat, Fugazi sort of thing. We’d finish playing and it wasn’t uncommon for there to be a techno DJ on afterwards, but it didn’t matter, it all just fitted. That’s probably where the ‘Madchester’ similarities truly originate, from that cocktail of music. Our cocktail, influence and experience probably isn’t that different to what happened in the North of England twenty-odd years ago.”
elements of Australian music go way deeper than the present. Australian Psych goes back to the landscape and how indigenous Australians lived, and their religious format, The Dreamtime. That’s arguably very psychedelic, with mythical beasts and a lot about the stars. I think the landscape and the environment have played the biggest part in the psychedelic music that’s coming out of Australia today.” Despite the success of ‘Howlin’, it hasn’t been all plain sailing for Jagwar Ma. Earlier in the year Jonno Ma fell seriously ill, threatening to derail the Jagwar train before it got out of the station. G: “It was around about May, right in the middle of things. We had to push all of our shows back, but I didn’t think about the band at all when Jonno fell ill. I was just concerned about my friend, who was very, very sick. It was scary. It was a very scary time for all of us.”
I think the landscape and the environment have played the biggest part in the psychedelic music that’s coming out of Australia today
J: “It definitely felt like there was something happening, that was exciting. It’s now starting to mature.”
One band that have surely influenced all Australian musicians in recent years however, are Tame Impala. Since they burst onto the international scene with their breakthrough album ‘Innerspaker’ in 2010, there has been an ongoing curiosity in the nation’s music. Although the two bands hail from different ends of the country, how have Tame Impala affected Jagwar Ma’s musical trajectory? G: “When Tame Impala came out there was this sense of pride. They made it feel like it was possible again. It didn’t seem like there’d been an Australian band for some time, where it didn’t matter if they were Australian or not, they were just a fucking great band.” J: “Stylistically they probably haven’t influenced us too much though. I think the psychedelic
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J: “It was a strange time, lying in bed when I was meant to be out there promoting the album. I’m just glad I’ve made a full recovery now. We’re very grateful of all the support we’ve had.” Since Jonno Ma’s recovery from the chronic illness that nearly shut down one of his organs, the band have gone from strength-to-strength, with Glastonbury, Reading and Festival No.6 appearances tucked firmly under their belt. With a host of North American and European shows pencilled in over the next six months, their ascendance shows no sign of slowing, nor does the more general propagation of new Australian music. Jagwar Ma’s seamless navigation of musical genres suggests that true talent is at work. It seems that Australia is no longer the poor relation when it comes to contemporary art and culture; the Aussies now have something else to shout about, besides the weather.
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NO-NONSENSE RACING
TOM ONSLOW-COLE
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here’s plenty of nonsense in sport. Bags of it. Motorsport is no exception, with team politics, driver egos and occasionally even real-life, actual politics vying for supremacy over how the sport is run and how each individual race pans out. There are exceptions to the rule of course, away from Eddie Jordan’s ludicrously starched collars, and Cristiano Ronaldo’s signature fragrance, lies the world of The British Touring Car Championship. Within this world, behind the wheel of an Airwaves Racing Ford Focus sits Tom Onslow-Cole… “When I was about five years old my parents broke up, as happens to a lot of kids, and I used to go and spend every other weekend with my dad. From when I was very young we’d be tinkering with cars on the drive and doing other bits and pieces, then when I was seven we got hold of a road go-kart. We’d go karting at an old abandoned tennis court of a Saturday evening, and later that year when the kart broke I got a proper Comer Cadet Kart and we went to a local track. We always said I’d never race, because it was such an expensive sport, but sooner rather than later I was leading the practice sessions and was the quickest kart on track. Through that we got suckered into racing and I’ve never looked back .” Serving an apprenticeship in karting, the longstanding route into motorsport for drivers, from F1 legend Ayrton Senna to ‘80s NASCAR mainstay Darrell Waltrip, was natural for Tom, but did he always have his eyes set on a career in the sport? “It was really difficult, to be honest. When I was karting it wasn’t so well publicised that drivers started in karts, so I never necessarily knew that they did. I went on karting until I was fourteen years old, and then moved into 68
junior car racing championships, so I was racing on all the big circuits in the UK at fourteen. Now, I’m at the pinnacle of European touring cars. The BTCC is one of the strongest championships in the world. In terms of heroes, when I was growing up, my dad was a huge Nigel Mansell fan, and you can’t really help but take on your dad’s heroes, so he was mine. I met him a few years ago, which was very cool, and a nice moment to realise how far I’d come” From screeching round a suburban tennis court, to taking on the world’s premier touring car drivers, a keen interest in mechanics has always been integral to Tom’s success. At the very top of the sport, how much input does he have into the setup of his car? “It depends at what level, really. In the actual design and production of the car, the driver doesn’t have too much involvement, unless they’re asked for feedback on certain bits of development. Within the setup of the car though, the technicalities of how the engine will run and so on, the driver provides a huge resource for the team. Nowadays an engineer will like the human input, but they’re not stupid either, so they’ll generally double-check what we say. This season has been a bit of a mix, really. I was involved in a very new team at the beginning of the year as a development driver, to help them develop their race car and bring it forward. We did that quite quickly early on, but unfortunately they ran into budget issues. Recently I’ve been picked up by the Ariwaves Team and they’re one of the power teams of BTCC. They’re also in a development year, with a new car, but at the moment things are going really well. The focus is geared towards next year now, this year has been a bit scrappy with lots of change and development, but things are looking good for next year.” www.edifice-watches.co.uk
TOM ONSLOW-COLE
Tom Onslow-Cole’s Five Tools Of The Trade: A cool helmet: “If you’re going to be a racing driver, you need to have a cool helmet. It’s an imperative part of the job, and it needs to look good” A hat: “If you have a helmet, unfortunately you’re going to get helmet hair. So you’ll need one of these after each race” A notebook: “I’m a little bit of a geek, so I’m pretty much everywhere with my notebook. Especially when you’re developing cars, this is important” Casio Edifice Watch: “A racing driver turning up late doesn’t go down well at all” Lucky pants: “Seriously. I’d be nowhere without those”
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THE EALING CLUB: LONDON'S LOST TREASURE
THE EALING CLUB LONDON’S LOST TREASURE WORDS: ANDREW MCROBBIE PHOTOGRAPHS: PHILLIP TOWNSEND
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ondon is rife with iconic embodiments of Rock ‘n’ Roll history. The David Bowie/Ziggy Stardust door in Heddon Street, Soho; Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s punk fashion shop ‘Sex’ at 403 Kings Road, Chelsea, not to mention, of course, Abbey Road Studios. Looking for that fabled zebra crossing snap, frenzied tourists have ruined the day of many a North London motorist; such places occupy holy status for music fans the world over. However, when you trace the lineage of Britain’s rock history to its very core, you unexpectedly find yourself in the leafy West London borough of Ealing, the socalled ‘Queen of the Suburbs’.
The relatively unknown Ealing Club was to London what the Cavern Club was to Liverpool. Having originally opened in 1959 as a Jazz joint, three years later it became the first place in the UK to play electric Rhythm and Blues, establishing itself as the heart of a musical movement, fronted by Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies’ band ‘Blues Incorporated’. What the place lacked in glamour it made up for in soul. Situated in a basement, below an Aerated Bread Company tea shop, opposite Ealing Broadway station, it was reached by descending down narrow steps to a dark and dingy alley way. Entering the club was apparently like attending a speak-easy
from prohibition-era Chicago; a particularly apt comparison, as musicians inside were essentially re-interpreting Blues from The Windy City, for a European audience. “The club held only two hundred when you packed them all in” Korner recalls, “but there were only about a hundred people in all of London that were into the Blues, and all of them showed up that first night”. In the words of Keith Richards, “the club became a place for Rhythm and Blues freaks to congregate”. Such was the raucousness of those early nights, a tarpaulin sheet had to be hung above the stage to protect the bands from punters’ sweat falling from the ceiling, earning the club the nickname ‘The Moist Hoist’. 71
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THE EALING CLUB: LONDON'S LOST TREASURE
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The seminal moment in the club’s history came on the 7th April 1962, when Alexis Korner introduced Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to Brian Jones. The Rolling Stones went on to play there over twenty times, before conquering the world and bringing R&B to the forefront of popular music. In addition to the music itself, the club became the dress rehearsal site for what have now become infamous Rock ‘n’ Roll antics; most notably the smashing of guitars by, a then young and fresh-faced, Pete Townshend. When Townshend appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman recently, he talked about the legacy of The Ealing Club; specifically how it was the catalyst for a larger wave of British music. Letterman observed the heady nature of those formative days when he asked Pete: “You guys [the bands who played at The Ealing Club] must have fed off each other’s energy and knew you were onto something, right?” As well as the Rolling Stones and The Who, groups such as Cream, Manfred Mann, The Yardbirds and Fleetwood Mac, The Animals and Free, all participated within, or were heavily influenced by, the scene that The Ealing Club generated. Whilst The Cavern has remained a Mecca for music fans - a place immortalised by some two-hundred and ninety-two early Beatles performances, with guided tours, a showroom and even a replica club, Le Caveau, in Paris The Ealing Club existed only in the memories of those who visited the place. That is until very recently. In 2012 a group of committed patrons, through a combination of fundraising gigs, exhibitions and general harassment of local authorities, succeeded in granting the club (now The Red Rooms) a blue plaque status as the site where ‘Alexis Korner & Cyril Davies began British Rhythm and Blues’. The club has since reverted to its origins, showcasing live music from emerging artists. Its impact is probably best summed up by Keith Richards: “Without it, there may have been nothing”.
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MARK BOULOUS
BLURRING THE BOUNDARIES MARK BOULOS AT FACT WORDS: JONATHAN FREDERICK TURTON IMAGES: THE FOUNDATION FOR ART AND CREATIVE TECHNOLOGY
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ark Boulos is an artist and filmmaker, producing movies in a documentary style. Yet it’s not quite as straightforward as that.
The American’s work is as much about subjective truth and belief as it is about evidence or fact, and has seen him spend time in the Philippine jungle with a terrorist, communist organisation as well as militant freedom fighters in the Delta Region of Nigeria. His interest is in the relationship between idea and material reality. His latest piece, ‘Echo’ - currently exhibiting at FACT, Liverpool - marks a departure from his previous projects in terms of form, but poses similarly striking questions with regards to how humans perceive the world they live in.
“I’m interested in Phenomenology, how humans experience a bunch of things and make sense of it in our brains. We’re continually selfediting images and sounds. We piece together our observations to make a picture, to make sense of things. I’m interested in the difference between the world as it’s perceived and the world as it is.” In the past, Boulos’ work has unfurled on multiple screens simultaneously in dialogue with each other. In addition to Echo, examples of this style are being exhibited in his latest show at FACT, with a variety of the Bostonian’s work on display. The deliberate fragmentation of his stories explores the nature of memory, and how humans build a narrative. His work acknowledges the splintered way that the average person retains information.
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In little bits. We jump between the present, anticipation of future and past experiences. Although Boulos has a clear idea of what he’s trying to imply in his work - socially and sociologically - he doesn’t corral the facts into one theme or narrative, instead encouraging the viewer to intuitively reach a conclusion, a rare approach in documentary filmmaking. With ‘Echo’, he’s explored this visceral style further. “My work before was about going to the physical, geopolitical limits. Going to live with Nigerian rebels is pretty out there. With Echo, I wanted to experiment in a way that I haven’t before, to go beyond my formal, technical limits. I wanted to make something that was much more visual, without people talking, something that was beyond my previous scope.” To achieve these ends, Boulos employed the skills of Professor Olaf Blanke, Director of the Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience at the Brain-Mind Institute in Lausanne. Prof. Blanke has pioneered research to induce outof-body experiences in test subjects, which fed into Boulos’ newly refined creative direction. Although Boulos works within the field of high art, the core subjects of his work - be it love, comradeship, violence or alienation - are accessible to those who are perhaps not overly familiar with the world of experimental art. While his previous projects exist as case-points in film innovation, Echo demonstrates the new territories that artists are occupying in the 21st century.
Echo will be exhibited between October 3rd and November 21st at FACT Gallery, 80 Wood Street, Liverpool. For more information visit: www.fact.co.uk
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Hristo Wilson B orn in Pismo Beach, California, to a Bulgarian gymnast mother and British playwright father, Hristo Wilson has been involved in professional tennis since he was fourteen years old. After volatile teenage years, in which Wilson seemed more concerned with the fast cars and loose women of downtown Los Angeles than his second serve, he rose to prominence at twenty, winning both The US Open and Wimbledon within twelve months. Three years of dominance followed. Wilson swept all before him, holding the world number one slot on both grass and clay courts, going undefeated for a record 742 days. His remarkable improvement, and the perfection of his trademark backhand down-the-line, was accredited to the maverick training techniques of his mother’s former gymnastics coach, an ex-KGB officer, whom he referred to only as ‘Patrik’. With such success however, came temptation. Whilst on a lucrative trip to Japan - promoting
an iced tea drink that would later turn out to contain banned substances - Hristo Wilson was arrested for assaulting a politician in a hotel bar.
The spate of controversies that followed - which Wilson would refer to as his ‘lost weekend’, in the tell-all autobiography ‘At Fault: The Hristo Wilson Story’- would see him arrested countless times, deported from Australia on suspicion of importing narcotics and suspended from the professional circuit, after rumours surfaced that he’d donated his French Open winnings to Belarusian freedom fighters. He was later cleared of the charges, but his form would never recover. Hristo now lives in New York’s Hotel Rouge, sharing a room with his Pug Frank and partaking in a long-running, tumultuous love affair with French socialite and model Lorraine Alsace. He is currently ranked 194th in the world.
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Vincenzo Pellegrini ‘I only ever wanted to be one thing” explained Vincenzo Pellegrini on winning his first Giro D’Italia at the age of twenty-two, “and it was certainly not a cyclist. It’s too much hard work. I want to be a film star.” A cyclist he would remain, however, an exceptional one at that. In the subsequent decade, Pellegrini would win three more Giros, before finally succumbing to the lure of the Tour de France, which he would vanquish at first attempt. His brash, aggressive soloist style would earn him the nickname ‘Il Lupo’ or ‘The Wolf ’ amongst the cycling press. The most successful period of his career was punctuated with a series of run-ins with other riders, cycling’s authorities and most famously a long-running, public feud with Giselle Samson, the wife of his close rival Jacques Samson. Pellegrini would regularly suggest that he was having an
affair with Giselle in the Italian tabloids, and attempted to present his winner’s bouquet to her from the podium, after several victories over her husband.
A less than conventional approach to courtship would be a recurring theme throughout Pellegrini’s young career. Several high-profile flings with Italian film stars and politician’s wives would see him unceremoniously stripped of ‘The Freedom of Genoa’, his hometown, and landed him in hot water with the sponsors of his own La Gazzetta dell Mondo team. Despite all of this, Vincenzo has always insisted that he has only ever loved one woman, his mother.
Pellegrini still races competitively and runs a successful frame building company from a cozy apartment, above his trattoria in a small suburb of Rome. He hasn’t been on the podium of a Grand Tour for three years.
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RASMUS FJASTAD ‘R asmus Fjastad is a scourge on the good name of golf ” read the PGA Tour’s official statement, after Fjastad, with a commandeering lead of five shots, drunkenly threw his clubs into the water off the 16th green at Augusta. “He will never play the game professionally again” it continued.
He would, however. After a twelve-month ban, the Scandinavian would return to the top of the sport’s highest earners list; his controversial blend of fiery temper and phenomenal short game keeping him there for several years. The demons hadn’t gone away though. On his return, Rasmus’ drinking was as apparent as ever, and he often relinquished vast leads; brushing off his capitulations by suggesting he
was distracted by “thoughts of the 19th.”
The Swede’s wife - his childhood sweetheart with whom he shares a mansion in the centre of Stockholm - has been known to rabidly defend her husband, against what she has described as “the baying hounds of the sporting press”. She claims “Rasmus’ drinking is under control. He plays up to it because you love it, and you love it because he plays up to it. There is nothing else to write about, because golf is dreadfully dull.” Fjastad, still one of the youngest players on the circuit by some distance, has sworn to retire at thirty, claiming that “there is much more to life than golf, and I am yet to taste a lot of it.”
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UNLIKELY STYLE ICON
MICHAEL FISH WORDS: DANIEL SANDISON IMAGES: JAMIE MATTOCKS
M
ichael Fish got it all wrong when he failed to predict The Great Storm of 1987. In sartorial matters however, he has almost always been right on the money.
Like a young, bespectacled Ron Burgundy, Fish broke into British living rooms in the early 1970s, swathed in suede, buckles and an array of garish, Technicolour shirts that would make even The Grateful Dead blush with anxiety. His early forays into what can only be described as ‘batshit colour-matching’ were hampered by the reluctance of Britons to trade in their black and white televisions. By the end of the decade however, most had relinquished and Fishy was free to sting the cataracts of Grandmas from Aberdeen to Henley-on-Thames. Like some sort of Met Office Tony Montana, the Eastbourne meteorologist brought a joie de vivre to what was often a dull outlook in
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1970s and ‘80s Britain. After the news had announced that your Dad’s pit was closing and policemen were intent on bouncing his head off every stair in the local constabulary, you could relax and stare, bewildered at a man with a receding hairline and a lime green kipper tie, telling you that it was going to rain for a fortnight. Small mercies maybe, but you’ve got to remember this was before people had the Internet. As times moved on and styles transformed, they dragged Michael Fish, kicking and screaming, along with them. Before weatherman of dubious repute Fred Talbot donned a mulitcolour sweater - featuring an embroidered forecast - Fishy had been there and done it. If, like us, you consider style to be about being there first, then you can consider Michael Fish the earliest of early adopters… when it comes to multicolour, embroidered weather forecast jumpers at least.
Michael aged. His long luxurious locks, that had once occupied exclusively the rear section of his head, were replaced by a neat trimmed look, yet the panache remained. Throughout the 1980s Fish led the charge with a stiff upper lip and a wardrobe so full of autumnal tones, it would force the cast of a Wes Anderson film to glow green with envy. Fish’s roll-necks and array of fine plaid blazers suggested that he may have once been destined for more glamorous surrounds, and one could easily imagine Michael playing the double bass for Scott Walker or driving a getaway car for Jean-Paul Belmondo. Instead though, he dedicated his life to the clear, concise reportage of precipitation, and for that we salute him. He made mistakes did Michael Fish, but you’d never have caught him underdressed. #UnlikelyStyleIcon