Archive for April 2010

Jerry Dammers - Stage, Screen & Space

Friday, 23 April 2010 Comments Off

Stage: A snapshot of something about to happen...taken a few weeks ago.

Here the Orchestra await their cue; they're about to head to the stage, a procession of masked and capped musicians and singers playing percussive instruments and chanting...

It's after the end of the world!... It's after the end of the world!...It's AFTER the end of the world!

This is how the live show begins.



Screen: Check out Jerry Dammers' Spatial AKA Orchestra on Later with Jools Holland tonight on BBC 2. Recorded earlier this week, it was an amazing performance by Jerry and the band and a brilliant way for them to wind-up their first nation-wide tour.
Jools interviewing Jerry is also a must-see for any Specials fans - true or otherwise. It's hilarious.



Space: It's almost twelve months to the week since the Not-So Specials appeared on Later: two bands, light years apart.

I Got Plenty of Java / And Chesterfield Kings / But I feel like crying

Saturday, 17 April 2010 Comments Off

Like the big brother you never had, this image speaks to you in a secret code. Its message is unmistakable: the sharp cut hair, that Ivy League shirt, the modern jazz LP, the soft pack Chesterfield Kings - all strike a chord and allay so many recurring sartorial doubts.

So what if it’s the mid-1980s London not the Newport Jazz Fest, circa 1958? You’ve got Donald Fagen on your side and that’s all the back-up you need.

He's telling you - It’s OK to wear loafers with no socks, button-down shirts and madras shorts; it’s OK to wear cream London Fog raincoats and bucket hats… no matter how ridiculous everyone else thinks you look.

In reality this is Donald Fagen in character. Sitting in a corner of his New York apartment with a makeshift backdrop behind him he's posing as DJ Lester of WJAZ - the Nightfly...His stage props include a vintage microphone (which he has no clue how to use), a turntable (as opposed to a more contemporary CD player) and a copy of a 1959 Sonny Rollins LP.

Contrary to the mood suggested by this image, The Nightfly itself was recorded using state of the art technology. In fact the recording is of such high quality that many engineers still use it as a standard when testing audio equipment.

Only years later do you realise that what you mistook for classic Ivy attire was in fact Fagens caustic satire. Maybe everyone else had a point after all.

travelling without moving

Comments Off

While so many people are becoming increasingly stressed over the interruption to air travel caused by Icelands volcanic ash, Dr Martin drew my attention to the unusual silence caused by the temporary absence of plane-filled skies.


Being a city dweller all my life I've grown used to that sound, the almost constant drone of airplanes overhead. But these past few days have made me realise that no matter how familiar that sound is it also, in it's own way, adds to the tension of city living.


It's something people living in rural areas often say they instantly notice when they spend any time in London.


Now, with the current suspension of air travel, the atmosphere is fresher, the light seems richer, streets less claustrophobic; it's almost like waking up in a new city without having left home.


And so, like Dr Mandi Martin, over the next week or so I intend to enjoy and appreciate the novelty of clearer, quieter and cleaner skies.

Riot On Redchurch Street

Thursday, 8 April 2010 Comments Off

Will this be the day people remember as the point of no return? Will it go down in history like the Notting Hill Riots in 1959, as the day the veneer of social harmony caved in under the pressures of territorial entitlement..?
Probably not. Unfortunately it'll take a lot more than a mini riot on Redchurch Street for the Council, the law enforcers and - least of all - the developers to rethink their one-sided definition of regeneration.

Brick Lane, Broadway Market, Dalston, Hackney, Hoxton, Whitechapel...To so many these are the hot spots, the cool spots, the places to go, move to, be seen in...
...For others these are home. The only home they've ever had. To them, it's become a place which has been invaded by a mass of people - people who either fear them or don't see them.

In reality these places are the sites of a huge conflict - constant friction between cultures, classes and expectations.

You see flashes of it all the time - if you bother to look.

Local Asian kids getting stopped by police on Brick Lane for looking out of place, while the trendies happily buy their drugs just a few metres away, drinking beyond their limit and...pissing on street corners without any restraint, consideration or respect.
Looking at it all objectively it seems that in order for regeneration to take place it needs to be preceeded by degeneration. Bars, clubs, squats, drugs and graffiti making a deprived but otherwise relatively unassuming neighbourhood unbearable for families and unwelcoming to anyone not willing to join the party.

This is where you see the gap between the haves and the have-nots in high definition; where the entitled play while the disenfranchised struggle - and pray.

So is it any surprise that there was a riot on Redchurch Street tonight?
Sadly, no. It's bigger than the people hanging outside the gallery looking at sneaker art; it's bigger than the people gathered peacefully in the mosque opposite; and way bigger than the guy who decided to urinate outside that mosque.

It's regeneration, baby.

This is going to be an eventful summer. No doubt, no doubt, no doubt.

Newer Entries »

« Older Entries

Followers