A cellarful of noise annoys

A year or so ago the very fine blog The (New) Vinyl Villain had a guest post from here, from the non-musical blog The Corn Poppy.   It was a reminiscence of a time long, long ago when I was a teenage Dead Trout.  This was back in Liverpool in the 70s, an incredibly fun time to be watching bands, knowing people in bands, being in bands.  The (new) Vinyl Villain carried another piece featuring Liverpool bands this week, concentrating on singles released on the Zoo label, from Big in Japan to the Wild Swans, by way of Echo and the Teardrops, not to mention Lori Larty and Those Naughty Lumps.

Gladys Palmer, Something for the Weekend, Granada

YorkieVision

This got me to surfing youtube and coming across the video above.  Everyone knows about Liverpool cellars and their place in the history of Merseybeat. In the 60's it was the Cavern in Mathew Street; in the 70s it was Eric's; all the best clubs are downstairs.  The video is all about another cellar.  Gladys Palmer's cellar in Prospect Vale.  This cellar was used as a rehearsal space for new bands including the Teardrop Explodes and Echo and the Bunnymen.  

It was also used by other less well known bands: there were the Occasional Tables for example, Julian Cope with Gladys' son David.  David Palmer, renamed by Mac, better known as Yorkie.  The Occasional Tables never played live, possibly never even rehearsed, these things weren't the  most important things about being in a band.  I remember some members of the Dead Trout with some members of Scotch Corner creating a band one evening called the Dead Barmy Faction (as in Red Army Faction). By the end of the evening there was a whole rationale, canon of songs, stage show planned.  That would have been Saturday night at Eric's, by Monday it would have been forgotten.

Yorkie was involved in several bands.  In the summer of 1979 it was A Rousing Silence.  Yorkie played bass, Mark sang, Abby played keyboards and I played guitar.  There was no drummer.  Because . . .  Echo and the Bunnymen rehearsed in the cellar.  They didn't have a drummer, the Bunnymen were a three piece with a drum machine. They left their drum machine there.  We used the Bunnymen's drum machine. Seriously. The keyboard? that was Paul Simpson's.  Paul was the original keyboard player in Teardrop, he left because they were becoming too poppy.  The keyboard was massive, a big wooden box, the size of a coffin.  It made an amazing noise,  play chopsticks on it and it sounded like a symphony.  Paul Simpson went on to be the Wild Swans.

 We played songs that Yorkie wrote and arranged.  The arrangements were all essentially the same.  Yorkie would play a bass figure, after a minute the keyboard would play a melodic phrase and the guitar would fill in the gap between each line with a little filligree.  It was mood music. It was a feeling, man.  There were lyrics that Mark sang but I don't remember them. The name came from a misheard Patti Smith lyric. We rehearsed every week.  We never played outside the cellar.

The neighbours complained about the noise from the cellar (I don't know why - the walls were covered in egg boxes, that should have kept the sound in shouldn't it?).  Probably not so much when we were down there, we were quite quiet and well behaved but the Teardrop Explodes rocked.  Gladys wrote a letter to her local MP (it was Liberal MP, David Alton) saying why it was so important that these boys should be allowed to play in the cellar. I'm pretty sure she invoked the more famous boys who got their break playing in the more famous cellar in Mathew Street.  She showed me the letter for proof reading before sending it.  It was beyond proof reading,  I told her she should send it as it was - I wish I'd kept a copy.

After I left Merseyside at the end of that summer Yorkie's band became HoHo Bacteria.  They got a new non-musician in playing keyboards.  His name was Michael Head and he later changed to guitar and subsequently led the Pale Fountains, Shack and the Strands.  Shack may just be the best band to  have come out of Liverpool.  Yorkie went on to play bass with Space.  You can see him here.  It's pretty damn good too,

(The rights to the Gladys Palmer video apparently belong to Yorkie although I guess Granada TV had a hand in the production.) 

dedicated to Yorkie and Gladys Palmer

Chapter Three - Conceptual Artist or Trapeze Artist

Chapter Three

While waiting at a bus stop Giraffe had read an abandoned blog article about Conceptual Art and thought about being a Conceptual Artist.

It must be easier than being a Trapeze Artist, thought the failed circus performer.

Giraffe did some research.  He read about Bill Drummond.

Interesting, thought Giraffe. I could do that.

Giraffe looked at his handiwork. 

Hmmm, he thought.  Perhaps everything worth saying has already been said.  Art is dead.

light blue touch paper

After this post I promise I won't mention this again.  Last week I had a day out in Birmingham.  I went to an exhibtion of Bill Drummond's work.  I wrote about it here and here.  The second piece was a reaction to the reaction that the first piece generated.  Part of the story was that Bill Drummond went out and tagged a Ukip poster. 

A photo that I took (actually a cropped section of the one above) and shared on Twitter was reshared and reshared, hundreds of times, mainly unattributed.  Including by the gallery.  Yesterday Bill Drummond wrote about his guerilla art attack in his weekly column in the Birmingham Post.  Today that was picked up by the Guardian and then by everyone else.  I saw my picture on an extreme right wing news feed.

 

Part of the point I tried to make in one or other of those pieces is that for Drummond a specific art item does not stand alone.  It is a process, starting with an Idea, followed by a Notice and one of the 25 Paintings, the Work itself and finishes later with a Conversation.  The Conversation may take the form of a lecture, a chat, a book, a video statement.  It may not be over then.  Perhaps all evidence of it needs to be collected together, burnt on a North facing hilllside and buried deep in the heart of nowhere.  Perhaps only then is the art complete.

 

 

 

The conversation started as soon as the three guys on the left in the picture above saw what was going on.  One took pictures on his phone and the story was out there before the paint was even dry.  It has taken a week for the media to get hold of the story and it took Drummond himself to write about it for that to happen.

 

Drummond has written about why he carried out his act of vandalism/art.  It is, of course, a well thought out, measured piece. In five hours on the Guardian site it generated over 1000 comments.  This is what Drummond wanted.  He wanted people to notice.

 

I've had a look at some of the comments on some of the sites and I don't think Bill has carried the day.  People seem to think blanking out their message is stifling free speech or giving them the oxygen of publicity or just imposing his own middle class world view.  Here's what he wrote.  Obviously this is Kopyright Birmingham Post and Bill Drummond.

 

Why I covered a Ukip billboard poster with my international grey paint
By the time you are reading this I may have been arrested. Maybe you have already read something about the arrest in the news.

As of now I am sitting safely on the Chiltern Line train heading from London Marlylebone to Moor Street Station.

More than 10 years ago I made up a brand of paint. It was called Drummond's International Grey. I had 1,000, one litre tins of it made. I was not planning on going into business to compete with Dulux or Crown.


Bill before he modified the UKIP poster

These tins of grey emulsion existed for one purpose only. I was selling them for you to use to paint over anything you found to be morally or aesthetically offensive.

Basically I was in the business of promoting vandalism.

When putting my schedule together for my three months in Birmingham, I planned that I would paint over a big billboard in the city.

I had in mind a billboard advertising one of the big chain of bookies or one for the modern crop of lone shark companies. My prejudices are that these companies prey upon the weaknesses of the weakest in society.

But when I started to work in Birmingham, I was almost disappointed to find there were no current billboard campaigns for these companies, thus nothing to truly offend me.

The lids stayed firmly on my last few tins of Drummond's International Grey.

That was until last week. As I strolled along Heath Mill Lane towards Eastside Projects, I was confronted with a billboard that offended me in so many ways.

As the train pulled into Moor Street, I was girding my loins for the job that had to be done.

On my return journey the job had been done and as yet I have not been arrested.

Over these past weeks working across Birmingham I have often been asked if what I do is political art. My usual answer is 'I do not know if it is art let alone political art.'


Bill Drummond and his modified Ukip poster in Birmingham

And when people ask me about my own political leanings, I will usually sidestep the issue by quoting my good friend Zodiac Mindwarp: "I have a right wing, I have a left wing, I am an angel."

On the right I am for the independent shopkeeper, or the young startup with ambition and on the left I am for the teacher up against the looming Ofsted report or nurse struggling to do their best within the limits of the NHS.

But mostly I'm for politics that are about ideas.

Ideas that are fluid and evolving. What I'm against is politics based on tribalism, be that class, religion or nationalism. And I'm obviously against politics based on dynasty or personalities.

I'm Scottish. I will always want Scotland to beat England at any sport from tiddlywinks on up.
But when it comes to Scottish nationalism in a political sense, I have problems.

I have no idea if Scotland would be better off independent or not. But what I do know is that I want fewer borders in the world not more.

And I don't want politics that exploit or pander to my more romantic notions of Scotland. I don't want politics based on a notion of what we think our country once was and may be again.

Following the same thinking, I have no idea if UK plc would be financially better off in or out of Europe.

But what I most certainly know was yesterday morning I walked past that billboard in Heath Mill Lane that was very cynically trying to pander to us at our most vulnerable and negative and not to our better selves.

I may be in danger of over stating it, but this would have been exactly the same appeal the National Socialist German Workers' Party would have had in Germany in the years after the First World War when the German people were feeling at their most beaten and vulnerable.

This billboard not only offended me morally and aesthetically it also went against everything that I feel political discourse should be about.

Thus there was nothing for it, after my train pulled into Moor Street, I picked up my last remaining tins of Drummond's International Grey and got to work.

And just to avoid confusion the word GREY is also my current graffiti tag.

That was only a couple of hours ago, but already the doubts are rushing in.

Photos of my handiwork are out there in Facebook and Twitter-land, being shared, retweeted, liked and favoured.

Is all I've done pull the pose of the rebel? A mere publicity stunt? Was it done just to appeal to those that would already agree with the sentiments?

By doing this have I added to the political discourse in the country in any sort of positive way? Or does it just entrench opinions? So much of what I perceive to be political art only entrenches opinions.

Or should I be doing the same to every billboard expressing the same sentiments across the West Midlands?

If you have any thoughts on the above maybe you should join me for the knit and natter session between 2pm and 4pm on Saturday at Eastside Projects. I could show you the billboard while we are at it.

This post first appeared here on the Birmingham Post. Bill is writing a weekly column for the Birmingham Post as part of his three-month residency at Eastside Projects, Digbeth.

Tales from Tickleford Gully

Scene: the public bar of The Corn Poppy, Tickleford Gully, earlier this evening.

 

A:  Evening.

B:  Quiet in here tonight.

A:  Aye.  That's the way I like it.  You should have been here last night. Bedlam!  Full of city folks and arty farty types.  It was like that time when Madonna moved into Tickleford Gully.

B:  Madonna? That was before my time.

A:  Aye, a year or two back.  She moved in to the Big House on the hill, Weston Towers. 

B:  Right

A:  Then she booked the church for a blessing for her parrot or something.  Brought all her friends and cronies in from that London and from Hollywood.  Bert and Gary had to come and help behind the bar - they were like kids with the keys to the toy shop - and we had to send out out to Lidl's for extra Ready Meals.  Made a killing that weekend.

 

B:  I'll bet.  So what happened yesterday?

A:  Well, it all started on Friday.  Some of us went out on one of Bert's magical mystery tours in his charabanc.  He just uses it as an excuse to take his wife shopping.  He dumped us in the middle of Brummagen, said "pick you up at five" and buggered off.   We wandered around for a while looking for bulls in the bullring but there weren't none.

I got lost in the market and eventually found myself at a custard factory.  Well, it said it was the Custard Factory but I couldn't see any evidence of it.  I kept on walking away from the hassle, found myself on an industrial estate.  Then I saw this notice:

It said NOTICE and then in smaller print Bill Drummond - The 25 Painitngs. 

 

Always been a fan of Drummond so in I went.  Funny old place, you'd think they would have tidied up a bit.  There's three big piles of books on the floor, a circle of chairs with some wool and knitting needles, a couple of timber bed frames, one with barrels under it, a desk with a couple of chairs, books, maps, shoe shine stuff.

On the walls there are maps, notices and paintings with odd words on.  Without an awareness of context they don't make much sense.  And then there's a real big deck of cards made out of 25 paintings (actually I can only count 23).

I'm looking at the walls, reading some of the notices when in comes The Artist.  "Hello Bill" I say.  There's a subtext here that says "I've followed your career since Big in Japan, got a complete set of Zoo singles, bought you a drink in 1979 after a Teardrop Explodes gig at the Nashville Rooms when none of you had any spending cash, read all your books, collected Scores, explored Penkiln Burn, monitored the ramblings of the Jamms, the KLF, the K Foundation and the rest.  45, the17, $20,000 are all on the shelf". 

Of course Bill doesn't know this and just says "Hi" politely and goes about his business, adding that he's just popping out..

I carry on looking around and see that rather than just popping out he's preparing for some painting.  So, I say, not just nipping out for lunch then.  Gamely he says I can come along.  He tells the gallery staff that he's "just going outside, I may be some time".  His quoting my namesake makes me feel quite proud.  Out we go, Bill carrying a roller and a paint pot, me carrying another pot.  Finds a site, does a spot of painting, adding to the greyness of Brum.  Some people pass by, admiring the art. A passing rasta takes some pictures on his phone, taps away, and already the work is being shared. Discussion has started. Job done, art made, conversation initiated, we return. 

When we get back Bill makes tea and coffee for everyone and says he wants to interview me.  I say yes but only if it is limited to four questions that I haven't been asked before. This is a new venture.  Interview 40 people, each for 40 minutes.  I'm (one of) the first.  Part of the concept is that the interview is a self contained event, which the interviewee can use as they want but Bill won't be using it, recording it or making a sculpture out of it.  We sit down at the desk in the gallery and start the interview.  Bill asks questions. He also puts forward his views, occasionally stopping himself to say this is your interview. Pretty soon we're talking about topics we have a shared interest in: Elvis, Dylan and the Beatles.  His favourite Dylan album is Nashville Skyline, mine is Blood on the Tracks.  He's a good bloke. 

 

B:  What does this have to do with how busy the Corn Poppy got last night?

A:  Well, I told a couple of people about it and showed them a picture.  They shared it; some of the people they shared it with shared it again, then some of them did too.  Some of them, tho' not all, credited the source of the picture and this site.  So there were nearly 1000 people in here last night.  Some of them were still here this morning, sleeping on the sofa.

B:  All gone now?

A:  There's just a few left.  It'll soon be back to normal.  Just you, me and the usual suspects.

B:  Thank goodness for that.  Make mine a double.  Have one for yourself.

A:  Don't mind if I do.

I will not sing a hateful song

 The 25 Paintings by Bill Drummond

slightly blocked by Man Made Bed by Bill Drummond

and Raft by Bill Drummond

Since he walked out of Art School in the early 1970s (disillusioned by the lack of ambition of final year students) and turned his back on Art Bill Drummond has dedicated his life to . . . Art.  He may have given up the idea of being Rembrandt but his actions, from the brutality, religion and a dancebeat of Big in Japan, through Lori & the Chameleons and the KLF to No Music Day and the17; from pre-Millennial graffiti to The 25 Paintings, from Soup Line to Curfew Tower everything is Art.  With a capital A. 

Much of Drummond's work is intense, earnest (nominative determinism in action, William Ernest Drummond) but with enough humour, childlike innocence and chutzpah to pull it off.  Drummond claims his work has no political or moral message but it does: everything I do, you do, he does has a moral or political dimension, even if it is only question everything.

Drummond is a painter, a musician and a sculptor  (Everything I do is a sculpture Bill Drummond; Everything I do is a prayer Spoonface Steinberg).  More than that he is a merry prankster and a conceptual artist.

The concept is crucial.  A canvas painted blue and yellow with the words BAKE CAKE is only a part of a much bigger concept: the size of the canvas (the width an inch less than Big Bill Drummond's height; the height in proportion with the Golden Rule), the colours - black, white and the primaries, no mixing (Mondrian would be proud), the font, nothing is left to chance. And then (quoting Bill Drummond):

"One of the paintings just has the two words BAKE CAKE on it, no further explanation. But what I will be doing is baking 40 cakes at Eastside Projects (Victoria sponge or chocolate). I will then draw a large circle on a map of Birmingham that is pinned to the gallery wall. The centre of the circle is the gallery where I have baked the cakes. Then I will drive out to the edge of the circle with a cake, knock on a random front door. If anyone answers I will say, ‘I have baked you a cake, here it is.’"

 5 of The 25 Paintings by Bill Drummond

Pieces of art are announced, with detailed devilment, like this one describing the process of defacing a dozen billboards over a period of a dozen years.

Nothing is left to chance, not even the type of paint or the nature of the vandalism.

I suppose there is one aspect which is left to chance

          The choice of the billboard

          is governed by Drummond's irrational anger

          generated by the billboard

So it was a gift that this was posted a couple of 100 yards away from the gallery where Drummond has started his world tour in Digbeth, Birmingham.  I'm not really happy about sharing the poster here. I wouldn't want one person to see it and think it was ok to vote for them.  But this is about the art.

Someone (The Lone Billboard Defacer?!) has been at work on this Ukip billboard! #billDrummond Photos by @TraceyTM pic.twitter.com/7H2frn5VTj

 TAKE BACK CONTROL OF OUR COUNTRY #billDrummond #antiukip #civic #rights #workersunite #international #grey pic.twitter.com/robzEXQvVO

photo by thecornnpoppy

So maybe a little bit political.

If Bill gets to read this can I say:

The Leaving of Liverpool

So fare thee well, my own true love,
And when I return, united we will be.
It's not the leavin' of Liverpool that grieves me,
But, my darling, when I think of thee

Traditional

Boots of Spanish Leather

So it's fare-thee-well, my own true love,
We'll meet an-other day, an-other time;
It's not the leavin' that's a-grievin' me,
But my darlin' who's bound to stay behind

Bob Dylan

Visions of Johanna

The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face

 Bob Dylan

Dark End of the Street

written by Dan Penn and Chips Moman

single by James Carr

recorded Royal Studios, Memphis

released on Goldwax Records, 1967

Any Day Now

b-side of In the Ghetto by Elvis Presley

recorded 20 February 1969 at American Sound Studios, Memphis, Tennessee

producer Chips Moman

in the interest of balance here's a comment from Streets Ahead on the Bristol Post website

UKIP claim 75% legislation comes from the EU but according to a House of commons research paper only 7% primary & 14% secondary legislation comes from the EU.

http://tinyurl.com/nnsgnb6
UKIP would have us believe EU migrants are sinking the UK but according to the University College London's research unit:
"People from European Economic Area countries have been the most likely to make a positive contribution, paying about 34% more in taxes than they received in benefits over the 10 years from 2001 to 2011, according to the findings from University College London's migration research unit. Other immigrants paid about 2% more than they received.
Recent immigrants were 45% less likely to receive state benefits or tax credits than people native to the UK and 3% less likely to live in social housing, says the report written by Professor Christian Dustmann and Dr Tommaso Frattini."
UKIP MEPs are looking after the UK's interests in Europe but vote against everything on principle, be it good or bad.
Ukip has been accused of "defending the indefensible" after it emerged the party's MEPs - including Nigel Farage - voted against a resolution designed to combat the illegal ivory trade in Europe.
Only 14 of the 671 politicians who voted opposed the resolution, and six of them were Ukip.
They included Farage, along with the party's deputy leader Paul Nuttall, Derek Clark, Gerard Batten, John Agnew and William Dartmouth.
UKIP claim we'd be better off outside the EU but the Confederation of British industry seem to hold a different view. Which research are UKIP's views based on?
http://tinyurl.com/psz6ysq

Read more: http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/Reader-s-letter-Disturbing-UKIP-posters-defaced/story-21039591-detail/story.html#comments#ixzz30dZvxMhw

Bill Drummond - gang warily

It's springtime.

 

 

  Forty bunches of daffodils, Bill Drummond

There are few artists who continue to produce work which is surprising, witty, interesting and challenging throughout their career.  Bill Drummond's work is not designed to shock; not designed to say "I'm cleverer than you".  It does make you think.  There are things we take for granted that Bill Drummond doesn't.

Cindy and the Barbi Dolls, Big in Japan

Bill Drummond on guitar, grooving with Dave Balfe on bass

Jayne Cassey on squeaky vocals with Ian Broudie on vocals and guitar

Budgie bashing the drums

 

The first time I saw Big Bill Drummond was in the Eagle pub in Lime Street Liverpool in 1976. He may have been with Roger Eagle (music promoter and legend) talking to Roger Chapman (once of Family, then of Streetwalkers, another legend) who was playing at the Empire that evening. 

 

The first time I saw a piece of performance art by Big Bill Drummond was when he was with the band Big in Japan.  I thought I was watching someone playing guitar in a band; I didn't realise I was watching someone who was playing the part of someone playing in a band.  He was that good.

 

At the time I sometimes played the part of someone watching a band.

 

 

Bill Drummond launches a raft and an exhibition tomorrow, March 13th 2014, at noon under Spaghetti Junction.  It is the start of a touring exhibition that will last until 2025.  Spend some time looking around Penkiln Burn to find out more about the world and work of Big Bill Drummond.  If you can, make your way to Birmingham before the 20th June 2014.

Bill Drummond

WORLD TOUR: 2014 -2025

Drummond is still concerned there may not be enough time to get everything done before he dies