Fiona and Phil have the open ears and curiosity that they had as kids.
They find things by going to look for them. They travel, they go to sampler shows and all-dayers, in search of something they don't know about. One discovery leads to the next. Their internet is a source of information rather than music. They find shape shifting and amorphous scenes inhabited by pools of do-ers and activists, villages of musicians, designers, t shirt people, putting on festivals without name bands or even headliners. There are echoes of counterculture; of Co-ops and communal living, ways of doing things that have risen out of both necessity and nous, a determination to be in control of the vehicle; an insistence on fleshy, real time relations within overlapping scenes; a pleasure in operations on a human scale, with a core audience that is big enough to maintain you and small enough to get to know.
They never miss a support act.
Hi John,
I’ve been thinking about what I’d be interested in chasing via the Reverb project, stuff we’d be able to include other folk in and discover some interesting ideas. I’ve been doodling a first pass at what that content might be - the diagram atttached is a big-picture take. If you think this is where we should be going I’d be happy to refine some questions for each of the 7 areas, though I’m not sure we’d need much more to get folk talking?
Ta Geoff....Meanwhile the oral history project rolls on some of it gets into the writing too, thanks to everyone who has engagaed after reading this stuff, and through the social media links and word of mouth.
Of what we've done, this is one of my favourite interviews....Labour Club “Squatters” Dave Clancy ,Sarah Duffin and Nessa Hughes. Lovely, funny people...
Sarah Duffin.. My mam was involved in the Labour party, so I was there at the opening and at the close, we were at 6th form, going there slightly illegally, and later we worked there as well..I did glass collecting, bottling up... we were very reluctant to work behind the bar...we were better on the other side of it..
David Clancy: I went for an 18th there, uninvited, we smuggled our way in...it was rough as shit...but I went back with Sarah and Ness...., no,the first time I was about 14, there was a Clause 28 meeting going on...
Nessa Hughes. First time I went, I was meant to be in maths. I was 17...I didn't think about the politics.. I just knew I wasn't conservative..we didnt get judged in there......we were called the Zippys, the Squatters..We were the Zippys because we were a bit hippy, a bit goth and a bit of punk thrown in...we had our own little Squatters corner....we had all our records on the juke box, we got to play them for free, we got the pool table for free...they knew we didnt have any money.
S We'd sit there all night with glasses of water, near the jukebox..”play number 125!”
S We were comfortable...it was such a bizarre mix of people...a lot that I remember chatting to were probably in their 50s and 60s, going out for a pint of stout, and I was there with my Robert Smith hair and eye-make up all over the place and they'd be like “hiya Sarah....” and then theyd be arguing with Chatty and the punks...
N I got banned off drinking Newcastle Brown...they didn't ban me, but they'd not serve me a bottle of dog..
S There was Graham and Arthur.. I was on a YTS scheme, on Walney, and Graham used to make me my lunch every day...
S the only trouble was in the upstairs bar...18ths, engagements, christenings...wed work the bar on function nights, you'd get to nine o clock and you'd think...its going to kick off....the only time there was trouble downstairs was the bikers from out of town...they were asked to leave, and they started to chuck pool balls at the optics.
N one of the glass collectors had to hide behind the bar..
S Me and you took up pool cues, didnt we? “We'll protect you...” Some nights we'd be like scowling at the punks...we all had our own little section..but on music nights it was pretty united , just there for the music, even if it wasn't your genre..
N like the Clementines...who'd have thought we'd get into that sort of music, but we became the Clementeenies...it made you go wild on the dance floor...
S Everytime they played we were there...when we got up to dance, everyone else did...especially when they saw what our dancing was like, they'd think..oh I can do that...
N You'd sit inbetween the tables on the floor, round the dancefloor...everyone wanted to be there...
DC it was a place beyond rules...you'd get Hash n Thrash raffling mushrooms...
S The Regal was over the road... we'd leave the club...go in the Regal through one door, do a conga right through it and back to the Labour Club through the other...past some bloke doing “tie a yellow ribbon..”
S That's where we grew up, what we grew up in..
N It was a safe place... It had no beer gardens so wed sit on the ground outside, by the DSS...we spent every spare minute we had there, for no reason...you heard a lot of things... you were exposed to lots of people and personalities...
S 16 year old me , I wouldnt have got interested in poetry and stuff any other way...
DC You were interested in peoples difference, you could celebrate that.
S the people that ran it had a tolerance and acceptance that spread to the people they employed, and the people that came in...
DC it almost didn't need rules. There was no threat.
S it was built on respect...if we got out of hand you'd get a telling and you'd apologise the next day..
DC..when it shut we had to move into a different world......I used to end up getting battered..
N I went out a lot less after that...we lost a community
S yeah, when I moved outside of the labour club I thought mm, I'm not sure I like this
DC I got my nose broke in Eddysons...one of the bouncers, and then he threw me out...to go from the Labour club, your nice little bubble, to that...
N we weren't equipped for it.
DC the last night....that was depressing.
(Bob Spencer: On the last night, the Clems has a revolving dartboard with song titles on it....they'd ask you to throw a dart and they'd play the song... I recorded it, but I missed a lot of the speeches to get the music on...I wish Id managed to get both now.)
N It was day light when we left, the police were there, we were all in tears..
DC why did it shut?
S We should have paid for our drinks...
Thanks, you three.
Anyone out there fancy getting involved? artspacebarrow@gmail.com
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Three interesting and related encounters around dance, tradition and the folk process. A few years ago a call from Nick Wall at Cecil Sharp House sent me across town to collect a collection of folkdance and tune 78s from a house clearance. They were owned by a local dance caller called Alan Rumbles. Our pal Bob Spencer in Barrow has just done some sterling work work on greasing and springing the REVERB wind-up gram, and I've digitised them for Gordon Jones at Furness Tradition and digging into the history of the sessions with the help of the Vaughan Williams library. They put me onto Sean Goddard at the University of Sussex who is doing a PHD on the role of recording and print media in the dispersal and popularisation of traditional dance music. Me and Gordon had a really interesting zoom chat with Sean, who knew the and the plan is to build a radio show. The missing link here is Mr Rumbles, of whom we know almost 0. Yet.
There had been an assumption that the tradition was dying, and that the first recordists and transcribers were catching the last breath of something. But these records, by Douglas Kennedy and others, did something else. Sean talked about the impact of these 1920s/30s recordings, how they helped to popularise English dance music. He told us how the recordings were made at Maida Vale and Abbey Road, using the studio's pool of musicians alongside others from Kennedy's circle, and how Kennedy- who we'd now call the Producer - would dance around the room while the musicians played, so that they got the tempo, and that we might hear him on a couple of the discs (we can!)
Elements within the Sharp circle had fixed aspects of the tradition and developed a vested interest in the demonstration, teaching and licensing of what they saw as their material. Variants on their dance steps and tunes were not always "officially" recognised. Over time though such heresies become acceptable, and, rather than a corrupting or diluting influence,they can demonstrate the vigour of the tradition. One of our records features George Tremaine of Skelton, Yorkshire, on melodeon, and demonstrates the liberalising influence of Kennedy, being one of the first examples of a musician from within a local tradition recording for EFDSS and for commercial release.
Rather than a by-product of everyday life, Culture is a force in its production and evolution. This evolution requires and encourages involvement with the new; new recording and playback technologies, new people, and what they bring with them. Not everyone approves; In the 30's, there were attempts to enlist UK folk culture and our traditionsfor grubby, ugly purposes, based around daft ideas of purity and preservation of something-or-other. It's happening again, of course. But our Folk culture is inclusive, not exclusive. Look at the mainstream and you might find Morris, Bhangra, Dub, and You'll Never Walk Alone among its countless rushing tributaries.
Nobody owns this process. No-one with the health of their culture at heart would seek to close off or restrict access to the public spaces where it finds its expression and its direction. No individual or establishment owns the folk process or has sole access to the energies that drive it. Those energies often thrive despite the best efforts of individuals or establishments. No one with an understanding of our history could claim the authority to shut that process down with crude, disingenuous mechanisms of their own invention.
At Ulverston Coro last week we saw Pete Morton and his Ghost Of A Sailor show..I know Pete as a great songwriter and interpreter of traditional songs, but this was something different, Pete became a kind of jukebox full of the most popular songs from decades and centuries long ago, and all were songs that have been absorbed by the folk process and adapted by we the people whenever we get together to sing...Nessun Dorma, Sweet Caroline, a bit of Woody Guthrie, Jerusalem, Look Back In Anger... he could include Youll Never Walk Alone and We'll Meet again...this was about folk song as the property of the people; songs learned from wherever they turn up, from other singers, records, films, picked up by football crowds, pub singers, karaoke kings, traditional folk singers.... whoever. Not a contrivance, not a pastiche, just what we sing when we sing. That's what the folk process is...the absorption of a vast range of material into a single stream that shows us who we are.
We wanted REVERB to include something that might signpost a stage in the process, and maybe even help it along a bit. These lads are the latest arrivals, they brought these dances with them from Afghanistan. To me they look like the social folk dances you see at Furness Tradition festival or at Carnival; you dance them with your friends, they're lively and celebratory. Again, technology plays a part...the music is online, they didnt have to cart crateloads of records with them, or get them imported in the way that, say, the Windrush generation did, and when Rahim was scrolling down for tunes you see people in Afghanistan dancing in the video that goes with the tune, and then suddenly the dance is there in the room with you. It was beautiful to watch, and the lads were great company.
More to follow.
And some music...
Paktiawal Mast Attan f. Rehman Kharoti
Thanks to our dancers Noorsalaam, Rahimullah, Abdulrazaq, Hamidullah, and their pal Sartoorshaman, and to Linda, Pat and Pete, and Amy at Full Of Noises for helping get this together.
So, Carl Flint emails me saying here was a guy selling old fanzines on his stall on Chesterfield Flea Market...(see photo). Mostly British but a few international ones as well. I didn't buy any, he says. as I'm trying to cut back on those sort of purchases in the interest of death-cleaning
He's fine by the way, and so am I..
I only heard that Death Cleaning is a thing quite recently. Might have been from Carl. It's a Swedish thing, a rational and civilised preparation for the inevitable that takes the onus off family and probably makes you feel a bit more in charge of things. It'd also be a good way to ensure that anything embarrassing gets deffed before you do, like that Sting Live lp with the blobby painting on the cover or the tubes of panic -purchase Pile Cream.
(We've all been there. It's nothing to be ashamed of.) (Pile Cream, not Sting.)
It's in the air. I've had quite a few discussions regarding souvenirs etc, about what you keep and what you don't and why. A few people had made a conscious decision to dump drawers full of stuff, but I don't think anyone referred to Death Cleaning though, they just let the conversation trail off....
Turns out there's a tv show about it too...
I have been doing it myself. The drawing portfolio regularly gets the treatment, drawings get screwed up and dumped, leaving clouds of charcoal dust hanging. The reasoning is that someone, one day, will have to go through this stuff. And not through familial obligation either. Its going to either be someone who volunteers, or a Professional. I'm trying to get a head start on it, getting rid of the rubbish, anything I don't rate. I suppose it would be easier on the poor sod who gets the job if I got rid of the good stuff, so there was only obvious rubbish there. I'm not really sure how he's supposed to know the difference.
Anyway obviously I desperately want these fanzines, but I'm not going to be around Chesterfield on any thursday coming up. Luckily my friend Androo Wobble is, and is good enough to wander down and grab me a selected bundle. Androo has excellent judgement on these matters so it'll be a good selection, and something to mystify whoever has to one day drag out whatever is under my bed. Many thanks youth.
The AOIRE / John Hall show at Full Of Noises will be rescheduled as soon as we can, and in the meantime John is writing this in the third person to let you that he has not been idle , and has taken delivery today of these items, which will form part of the presentation.
John would like to thank Gillian Hannan of Robinson's Customer Services, and Joanne Clayton-Brown of the Hope and Anchor, Ulverston. Gillian tells us that she used to drink at the Grain and Grape, when she was about 16. As John is sure did many of the people that will read this and hopefully see the show.
Alex tells us that the "Grey green stuff is Milliput & the green stuff is called greenstuff" and that "It sets a bit like chewing gum thats been chewed & stuck under a table." Which seems appropriate.
Each new pop tribe is first feared, then mocked and then commodified by the industry it seeks to undermine and by the culture it seeks to transcend.
As representations of these tribes become more frequent they are reduced to basic signifiers. By now, Hippy is a necklace and a pair of round specs, Punk is a circled A, Mod – or the movie spin-off revival versh -a Spitfire decal on a parka. The complexities of Rave are reduced to a Smiley, or just the use of the word "Rave."
Each is launched intact, loaded with private language and behaviour codes, but an often unclear demarcation; Early Ted was rooted in a post war appropriation of Edwardian Brit finery, but owed a share of its swagger to a pre-rock'n'roll America, through cinema depictions of riverboat gambler chic and the exaggerations of Zoot . Punk pillaged Fetishware and Rocker styles in a fusion of transgressive folk devilry. The more photogenic end of Brit Hippy and the Underground indicates a Pre-Raph tendency. Lace and velvet brushes against capes and Victorian militaria in search of Arcadia. Guinevere in Wonderland. Those round specs - Granny Glasses - hinted at the required hinterland of wisdom and unworldliness, preferable to the harder edge provided by the contemporary Harry Palmer Hornrim.* Only the Modernists of the late 50s - tech-heads, ears wide open, in a constant and exhausting state of self-appraisal and re-invention - can be said to be entirely of their own time.
Once the tribe is in orbit, there is a jettisoning of much of what got it up there in the first place. Its wit is diluted and coarsened; spokespeople (men, usually) are promoted and invited to the top tables. Edge doesn't stand a chance. It vanishes by design, through excessive handling, through the very processes that aid each new cult's ascendency to its tabloid demon high-waterline.
That unclear demarcation is now a given; we cheerfully loot the dressing up box, mixing and matching, punk rockers with flowers in our hair.
In a time when images float freely, and yet have greater weight and influence than actual experience, we read each other by means of references, allusions, and allusions to references.
And now of course, nothing goes away. What's in the dressing up box is also in the Retro shops, online and on what remains of the High Street. Retro is now itself an attitude of mind, rather than a step on the way to one.
You are what you adopt.
The contents of the Dressing Up box still reward attention; clues to lineage can be found, bits of arcane cultural salvage can be bolted together and cranked into life, and ridden to more explicit connections which are harder to commodify, and harder to appropriate.
The problem lies in who is doing the digging and what they do with what they find. The Underground, the Punks and the more idealistic of the Ravers were trying to build something. The best of them made their move outside the mainstream. They pulled up alongside it, and boarded. And if they didn't actually take the wheel, they had a positive influence on the direction of travel.
If history, in a post-truth world, can be reduced to images, floating unanchored in uncharted waters, then it can be appropriated and enlisted to any end, by people who really, really want to take the wheel.
* I know, because I have a pair of each.
https://www.artspacecumbria.com/product-page/aoire-appyali-organ-doner-7-45rpm-lathecut-vinyl As I type this there are just 123 Days and 11 ...
