Tape Crackers, 2009, dir. Rollo Jackson

I saw this last night at the ICA. It was billed as “an oral history of Jungle music and an affectionate, touching, and, at times, incredibly funny, tale of bedroom obsessiveness.”

The film consists of London pirate radio taper Michael Finch running through a carrier bag of cassette tapes in his flat. It is so simple, it’s quite brilliant. The film is completely carried by two elements:

1) The awesome music and MC-ing on the tapes (covering late ‘ardkore in around 1993, through a lot of jungle and drum ‘n’ bass, ending with a dip into garage and proto grime circa 2000).

2) Michael’s awesomely life-affirming enthusiasm and knowledge about the stations, MCs, DJs and music.

I was worried by the “incredibly funny” billing in the blurb because it’s all too easy to mock obsessives (and I feel a bit defensive, being one myself!) but the humour and the film itself are both blissfully free of ironic piss-taking. People laugh when Michael gets distracted from his commentary because he has to nod his head and smile a lot when a bassline comes in because they know exactly what that feels like.

Some of us in the audience burst out laughing at his run-down of old school cassettes with metal screws in, because we remember that too. It’s that basic level of empathy that seems lacking in so much music criticism and coverage these days.

During the Q&A afterwards (hosted by Derek Walmsley from The Wire) Rollo made the point that he is often disappointed by the standard BBC4 music documentary format in which former stars relive their youth. He made the point that talking to punters with a broader overview of the scene (and their love for it intact) was perhaps a more effective way to go about showing the history. On the evidence of “Tape Crackers” he certainly has a point.

uncarved shop rebrand

I had to overhaul the uncarved shop.

Someone hacked my site through the old shop and installed a phishing scam on uncarved.org. Basically a load of faked bank webpages were on there. 

I’m not quite sure what to think about that. I’m not keen on people preying on the naive and vulnerable, but it’s not clear to me if the banks end up suffering from these scams or their customers.

(If you ordered anything from the old shop don’t fret, none of your bank details or anything serious were stored on the site).

Basically I agree with Martin on this one – there should be more people robbing banks in the traditional way and less of this computer-based tom-foolery. Same goes for music – in the olden days people had to stuff LPs or CDs into their trenchcoats if they wanted to hear stuff for free. Or at the very least have some decent mates to tape things for them.

Which is a slightly unusual way of introducing a top ten showbiz bank robbers:

1. The Bonnot Gang, 1911-1912

French anarchists who were the first to use cars for their getaways. The book about them is full-on, I can recall a few accounts of bitter sectarian in-fighting, including a rival sect’s printing press being smashed up.

This tradition is allegedly being kept alive by Italian insurrectionist anarchist Alfredo Bonanno who was arrested at the age of 70 in 2009 for robbing a bank in Greece. My recollection is that there was some doubt about whether he actually did the deed.

2. John Dillinger, 1933-1934

Didn’t he rob 23 banks or something? William Burroughs was keen on him: “To John Dilinger in the hope that he is still alive“.

3. Bonnie and Clyde, 1931-1934

Exerted an almost tectonic pull on everyone from Serge Gainsbourg & Brigitte Bardot to Papa Levi. Inspired that whole Thelma and Louise live fast die young, roadtrip kind of vibe.

4. Ronnie Biggs, 1963

Punk icon recently discussed here.

5. Red Army Faction / Andres Baader & Ulrike Meinhoff, 1970-1972

Sports cars, flashing their tits to the PLO, bombs aplenty. Punk, and yet so very serious and so very very wrong.

6.The  Covenant Sword And The Arm of the Lord, 1980s

Extreme right wing “Christian Identity” cult which robbed 19 banks in 8 US states in one month. They apparently spent all the money on guns, displaying a typically fascist lack of imagination. Included here because Cabaret Voltaire named their 1985 album after them.

7. Patty Hearst, 1974

“Death to the fascist insect that preys on the life of the people!”

Sixties pin up! Rich girl turns insane maoist terrorist! Locked up and then pardoned by philanderer Bill Clinton! Acts in John Waters movies!

8. Chelembra Bank Robbery, 2007

80 million rupees in the back of the van. Our anti-heroes took over the restaurant under the bank. Then drilled a massive hole through to the vault under the guise of renovating it.

If that isn’t mad enough, the whole scheme was inspired by a Bollywood movie. Respect.

9. The Geezer Bandit, NOW

For the name alone, really. This guy is apparently in his SEVENTIES and has been expropriating the expropriators in Southern California. He’s done 13 banks, including one on the 28th of January this year. Apparently has inspired facebook fan pages and also at least one copy cat robber. Also rumoured that he’s a young man in a rubberised Scooby Doo villain mask?!

10. Unknown: Central Bank of Iraq, 2003

The day before the United States began bombing Baghdad, nearly US$1 billion was stolen from the Central Bank of Iraq. This is considered the largest bank heist in history. Opportunism or what?

ANGRY BIRDS GOLDEN EGG BRIGADE BONUS LEVELS:

Rubbish bank robbers:

They were trying to put it back?!

Not actual bank robbers:

Rob Da Bank – festival organiser

The Blaggers – anti-fascist Oi band, who became “ITA”.

Banksy, heritage attraction in bohemian Stoke Newington.

Pow!: anthem for kettled youth

A double whammy from Dan Hancox on Grime and the recent London protests:

Lethal Bizzle’s Pow! (Forward) was the unofficial song of the recent student protests. Dan Hancox charts how it went from grime-scene scapegoat to righteous rallying cry:

Pow!: anthem for kettled youth | Music | The Guardian.

Following the lazy misrecognition of the ‘bunking’ EMA protesters from various quarters of media and government, Dan Hancox sets out to explore the complicated and contradictory soundscape of these urban motley crews:

Government Grime and the EMA Kids (Mute Magazine)

Georgina Cook exhibition

Woofah contributor, psychogeographer and dubstep documenter Georgina Cook is showing some of her amazing photos in London soon:

LAVA GALLERY PRESENTS  GEORGINA COOK

17-23 February 2011

Opening Exhibition Party
Thursday 17th February 2011 | 6PM-9PM | Free Entry
MUSIC FROM MARTELO & SKIPPLE

The bright spark behind Drumzofthesouth returns to London to showcase her photography.

The Drumzofthesouth blog played a big part in the development of the Dubstep scene, from it’s early days in South London to it’s current position as a global movement. What started as a blog later became a monthly club night, which took place at Plan B in Brixton. Georgina Cook now lives in Paris, but she is returning to London to hook up with LAVA Gallery for this event.

Martelo and Skipple are dropping by to DJ at the opening party on 17th February.

More info here.

Niche Homo

Fanzine of the week #2

Over 50 pages of leftfield guitar-based music, good attitude with tasty DIY layout and graphics.

The Ramleh interview is especially good, focussing just as much on their underrated guitar work as much as power electronics. They also ask Ramleh mainstay Gary Mundy about Croydon and dubstep artist Burial – a nice fresh approach.

The interview with Bruno Wizard of proto- UK punks The Homosexuals is a bit “all over the place” largely due to Bruno’s exuberant personality, but that makes for a much better read than the usual band interview.

“Suggested listening circumstances for the unemployed single male” is a nice feature and I also enjoyed the articles on “Geocaching” (GPS enabled treasure hunt / derive) in Hackney, “Mixtape Wars” (in which three people do compilation tapes and comment/disrespect on each other’s) and the rant on punk/hardcore record collecting.

I was less bothered about the other band interviews because I’d never heard of them… maybe I should investigate…

Niche Homo is avaiable from here.

Remembering the Embers: New Cross 1981

An interesting podcast about the New Cross fire, which includes documentary spoken word (both archival and new) and music:

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Some of the music is taken from the Lovers Rock mix I did with Paul Meme. I find this recontextualisation very interesting (and saddening). These tunes may have been the last sounds that 13 of the people at 493 New Cross Road ever heard. (14 are commemorated on the plaque and elsewhere because Anthony Berbeck, who was also present on the night, committed suicide two years later for reasons believed to be linked with the trauma of what he witnessed.) So the heartbreak and love evoked by the songs

Also featured is a haunting tune by Zena Edwards which was one of many highlights at the recent evening remembering the fire at The Albany.

There is more information on the podcast here.

No Ice Cream Sound zine

Fanzine of the week #1

I like dancehall and I like fanzines, so this was always going to go down well in my little corner of the world.

Hand printed, 28 pages, put together by a gang of young ‘uns who lurk about North East London – this is well worth your attention. There’s a palpable feeling of fun here, people writing about the music that they love.

The debut includes nice interviews with Natalie Storm, Wrongtom, Serocee and Mr Lexx. Plus some ziney features on kung fu tunes, apocalyptic imagery in reggae, Heatwave’s noughties riddim chart, a Soca commuting soundtrack and more. I wasn’t especially bothered about Kalbata running down the various bits of kit in his studio, but I guess that might be a must-see for producers out there.

A range of t-shirts is promised, and the associated blog and club night are already here.

Available now for £4.50 from Shimmy Shimmy.

more ‘ackney bashment biz

No shortage of nights out  on my doorstep these days.

This looks good and has Jamie Rodigan involved with the promotion, who seems like a top chap. Which I guess is hardly surprising given his pedigree.

These last few years have definitely marked a new generation coming through. Other examples would be Young Warrior and Joe Ariwa (see interview in Woofah #4), Alpha Steppa (son of one of Alpha & Omega, UK Dub fixtures).

Oh and after plugging Footsie’s grimey reggae “Rastaman Pickney” EP, it was great to read this interview with him where he talks about his Dad having been involved with London’s King Original soundsystem back in the day.

Anyway, Mudd Up looks like being a good ‘un. The Heatwave are guaranteed to rock any party. Papa Face has served most of us tunes for longer than he probably cares to remember, and was also the first UK MC to get a release on Fashion Records (or rather, its subsidiary Top Notch).

more improbable band t-shirts

The motherlode seems to be at this South American fashion blog.

But a lot of those featured aren’t actually all that improbable, I guess.

Maybe Ashlee Simpson is such a tortured soul that she regularly plays the first three Sabbath albums on rotation?

For all I know David Beckham, Miley Cyrus and Charlotte Church really do all share a deep and profound love for The Maiden?

Metal is funny like that – despite all the moral panics about Satan and head-banging health hazards, I don’t really think it has any kind of criticism of society at its core. I mean you can argue the toss about punk, but surely metal can simply be reduced to the youthful hedonism of rocking out and/or getting wasted, with some stuff about dragons thrown in for good measure?

I’ve written about my thankfully very brief brushes with metal and rawk before, but it’s not really my thing. So I can’t really work up much defensiveness or laughter when its imagery is used by celebs.

So y’know – if Britney wants to be into Led Zeppelin, fair enough!

But there is still part of me that has a weirdly protective attitude about punk. I actually find this troubling and hilarious in equal measures. Disentangling my own bizarre personality traits is the reason for this series about t-shirts I guess. (That, and posting photographs of attractive bare-armed young ladies seems to have a positive effect on my blog views, for some reason…)

Getting back on track, here is Lindsay Lohan wearing some garms from eighties California hardcore punk groups:

And “It Girl” Alexa Chung in a “Am I more skeletal than my t-shirt?” pose.

(with thanks to Sharon)

Cockney & Yardie: Heatwave 2010 UK Bashment Update

Large Up » Cockney & Yardie: Heatwave 2010 UK Bashment Update

Great round up for London dancehall runnings from Gabriel Heatwave with lots of photos and youtube business. There’s loads going on and this made me feel completely out of touch! Which means lots of lovely new stuff to check out,  so that’s fine by me.

On a similar note, the Heatwave crew just uploaded a new London Bashment mix with some ace selections and a good few specials as well as contributions from their MC Rubi Dan (who Paul Meme borrowed for the anthemic “Move Down Low”).

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Check http://www.theheatwave.co.uk/ for full tracklist, details of Heatwave nights and a whole heap more.

More London Bashment in the newly published No Ice Cream Sound fanzine, including Heatwave’s top riddims of the noughties. More about the zine soon…