25/11/2013 Introducing... Monster JawI have written a small review/introduction for the French webzine La Magicbox of Monster Jaw's first release, the Get a Tattoo EP. You will find the English version below and both English and French versions are now on The Magicbox website. ENGLISH HERE and FRENCH HERE. Oh, and a quote from the review is now on their latest online promo! :-) At the risk of sounding like an old cynic, I have to admit that nowadays, I tend to question the motivations behind the emergence of a new band. My years as a music journalist are over now, but during that time, I have encountered countless outfits who, although talented enough, didn’t have the chops to confront the realities of the music business: they wanted to make it NOW and were not ready to wait for fame to come knocking – or make the necessary efforts to achieve it. I used to know a well-known music producer who founded his own small music label, then signed a few young bands – who were all excellent – on a generous 50/50 deal; he even sold some of his personal possessions to finance the whole venture. Unfortunately, within a few years, it was over: apathy, impatience and lack of real artistic motivation from the bands killed off the fledging label, and the producer, disgusted, moved to Norway. He carries on producing and creating music because it is his passion. None of the bands are still active. I can predict that somehow, there is no risk of any of this happening with Monster Jaw – or at least, they’ll have a good go at it. Formed in February 2013, Monster Jaw hails from the Northern cities of Leeds and Bradford. There’s frontman, guitarist and songwriter Mik Davis, bassist Neil Short – whose tattoo is featured on the EP cover – and drummer John Bradford. Mik Davis, whose previous work with New York Alcoholic Anxiety Attack and Utopian Love Revival produced brilliant tracks and attracted rather a lot of attention, also produces other artists - read my review of Mik's collaboration with Joolz Denby, The Black Dahlia, which he has also produced, HERE. This is a band with a real artistic, creative edge and a mind of its own – how could it be any different when you are managed by iconic artist, writer, poet and tattoo artist Joolz Denby, who is also the band’s official artist. The trio have also been endorsed by clothing label FLY53 and produce DIY, bonkers videos which are miles away from the over-produced, slick mainstream monstrosities in vogue nowadays. They describe their music as “Garage grunge” and if I tell you that their interviews are peppered with references to people like Iggy And The Stooges, Bush, The Cramps, Jesus and Mary Chains and The Doors, you will have a pretty good idea of their musical influences. Monster Jaw know that one of the best ways to build up a following is to work on your social media and play, play, play… They have already built up a great live reputation and have been opening for the legendary New Model Army on three dates of their current UK tour. This three-track EP is a taster of the album to come next year. It was recorded with London-based Belgian engineer/producer Wes Maebe (The Libertines, New Model Army, Roger Walters, Robert Plant among others). Title track Get a Tattoo is a seductive tribute to the art of tattooing with a heavy, sonorous guitar. Summer Girl is a more playful, bouncy and energetic proposition with a punky, spunky guitar. Perfect to have your head turned. Then there’s the fast and fierce We Don’t Care About Anything which stands at less than two minutes, enough to mock our brainless consumerism, trend-led society. The three tracks on this EP are instantly memorable and catchy and show off the band’s musicianship and Mik’s vocal range. Monster Jaw are ready for you; but are you ready for Monster Jaw? Head HERE to purchase Get a Tattoo. Read an interview with Monster Jaw HERE. More videos HERE. 20/11/2013 Bjork on TVSomeone shared THIS on Facebook, and I just HAD to put it on here. It's so cute, beautiful, intelligent, poetic and dreamy. Obviously, it is a rather old video and TVs don't look - or work - like this anymore! But as always, I would sit and listen to Björk for hours. The world is a better place when people like her are around! Unfortunately, there are very few of them. Warning: It's a bit of a lengthy one - I have spent a WHOLE DAY on it! I hope you do not fall asleep whilst reading it! There are loads of links to click if you feel your eyes irresistibly closing... In a recent article entitled “The problem with literary festivals”, The News Statesman wondered whether there was a future for literary festivals in our austerity-scarred, celebrity-led and technology-obsessed times, and if attending them was really worth the trouble, both for the audience and the authors. The comments are as interesting as the article itself, so go and have a look. Even the London Book Fair is losing its Earls Court home and its future is now uncertain as the publishing powers that be are fiercely disagreeing about where to hold the next events. There seems to be an ever-increasing chasm between traditional publishing and less corporate, more independent and forward-thinking authors/publishers. It looks like one constant in the industry is the lack of interest shown towards small independent publishers and self-published authors; there is still a belief that if you haven’t got an agent and are not published by a “proper” publishing company, you are bound to be an amateur who cannot string two sentences together. Thankfully, it looks like there has been an explosion of small, independent literary festivals around the country ready to take a few risks, but they are not widely publicised and you would need to do your research yourself. Anyhow. This leads me to the second edition of Shorelines: Literature Festival of the Sea. This biennial event – the first one of which took place in 2011 in Chalkwell Park, Westcliff-on-Sea – is curated by local resident and acclaimed author and artist Rachel Lichtenstein – who, incidentally, is working on a book about the Thames Estuary. When I participated in Metal’s Culture Lab: on writing fiction in October 2012 (my blog about it HERE), I knew that the week-long creative lab would enable me – an author without an agent or a publishing contract and completely deprived of any contact in the industry – to take part in a literary festival, and I couldn’t let this opportunity pass me by. Since the lab, I have created my own small imprint and published my first novel. In due course, I was invited to do a reading at Shorelines with the other members of the group who took part in the Culture Lab. I also thought that it would be a good idea to volunteer to help at the event. I really wanted to see what was going on behind the scenes and learn a little bit more about how to set up and run a small cultural event – I would love to have a go one day at setting up my own small literary/artistic event, you know, something a little bit different, with music, collaborations between visual artists, musicians and writers; stalls would be offered to independent, alternative publishers and authors. I already have a few names lined up in my head… So, then. I volunteered, and ended up working four days at the Leigh Community Centre. I can’t deny that it has been some kind of a challenge for me, as I am not a very sociable person and have been happily indulging in the solitary life of a freelancer and writer for the past four years! But I’ve survived, learning a lot along the way, which can only be a very positive thing. I have been going to events put together by Metal for several years now, and it was brilliant to get to know the team a little bit more. I was very impressed by the amount of work necessary to prepare the venue for the event – the main hall was unrecognisable on opening night, transformed into a proper intimate venue; one of the upstairs classrooms was turned into a welcoming Green Room, complete with deck chairs! Someone has to stick up for art and creativity these days, and Metal does that brilliantly and with a very contagious enthusiasm. What ensured the success of this festival, I think, was its modern, refreshing approach to the world of literature: there were well-known authors and self-published ones; novelists and adventurers; artists, cabaret singers and musicians; there were multi-media performances and art workshops; oh, and most of it was entirely FREE. So no moaning about art and literature being for a wealthy elite or any such nonsense. There was a bookshop in the reception area where I was able to display copies of my first novel, I Am a Muse. Of course, I bought several books – but didn’t sell any of mine… That’s life! Obviously, the fact that I was working at the event and taking part in a group reading prevented me from attending quite a few events. I missed Robert Macfarlane, whose talk was exactly at the same time as mine; I had brought along my copy of Holloway for him to sign as I am working on a book about Dorset, but I didn’t even catch a glimpse of him… To help me deal with my disappointment, I bought The Old Ways, which I have been meaning to read for ages. I also missed Justin Hopper’s Public Record – a walk around Old Leigh’s fishing village accompanied by poems inspired by archival reports of 19th-century Estuary sea accidents. Local author Syd Moore had also organised a walk around Old Leigh, where her first novel The Drowning Pool is based. Apparently, the walk was so successful that it began with 18 people and ended with 30! The opening event on the Friday was a stunning performance by Norwegian-French writer and performer Caroline Bergvall of her new piece of work, Drift. I have to admit that I didn't know Caroline Bergvall at all before Shorelines. I had had a bit of time before the festival to have a look at her website and I have to say that I have found it pretty much fascinating. Caroline works with languages; she is bilingual herself (French-Norwegian) and speaks English fluently, albeit with a slight accent. I have a French ID card but I have been having an intense, very emotional relationship with the English language since childhood - a relationship that is extremely difficult to explain and make sense of. I have always been fascinated by bilingualism and what it does to your personality - I have experience of it. I also have a thing for Scandinavian landscapes and culture. I do find Bergvall's work simply enthralling because it speaks to something deep inside of my head and heart... Drift is a live performance mixing words, electronic visuals and music performed by percussionist Ingar Zach. The performance is high-hitting, hypnotic, atmospheric. It uses language in a creative way just as a sculptor would use clay or stone or a painter would use paint; it links past experiences to present ones, a theme that I have always been interested in. From the artist's website - I think I wouldn't explain Drift in a better way: “Drift takes you on a journey through time and space, where languages mix, where the ancient cohabits with the present.[It] invents a language of connections and of extremes: from Anglo-Saxon and ancient Nordic seafaring literature to rare pop songs to human rights reports of contemporary sea migrants’ disaster. A complex and haunting meditation on sea travel, exile and history.” I also took a bit of time out to listen to the delightful Cathi Unsworth, who was one of the guest speakers at our Culture Lab back in October last year. She brought in a bit of alternative grittiness and rock’n’roll edginess to the festival by reading from her powerful latest novel, Weirdo. She took us on a bleak yet incredibly evocative walk along the seafront of the fictional Norfolk town featured in her book - based on Great Yarmouth, where the author grew up... Another fiction writer present at Shorelines was Deborah Levy, who talked about Swimming Home, shortlisted for the 2012 Man Booker prize. A very charismatic personality, Ms Levy took us to Nice in the South of France and to a very dead Mediterranean sea, then was invited by Craig Taylor, the editor of Five Dials magazine, to press the “send” button on his laptop to send issue 29 to its subscribers – the next issue will contain some Shorelines-related articles… Throughout the weekend, people could slip into Room 6 upstairs to watch Mikhail Karikis’s multimedia installation, Sea women, about a disappearing community of female divers on the island of Jeju, located between South Korea, Japan and China. But even better than the installation itself – for me – was the talk this multi-talented, fascinating artist, performer and academic gave about his project, from the background to his research to his encounter with the Jeju community; he described in detail “the vocal practices of the women, including the unique sounds of their ancient and trans-generationally transmitted breathing technique”. Interestingly enough, the women he has met are the last divers on the island. The money they have made thanks to their speciality has enabled them to educate their daughters so they do not have to perpetuate the tradition and can go and find a better life for themselves. The weather had been awful on the Saturday - thankfully, the rain had stopped just on time for the beginning of the walks at 4 pm - but Sunday morning, it was just glorious. I walked from my flat to Leigh-on-Sea via the seafront; it was full of runners and happy dogs! I was determined to catch the whole of the glamorous Lili La Scala’s sea-themed brand new show, Siren. The seasoned cabaret performer admitted to being very nervous about the show – this was the first ever time she was performing it in front of an audience – but of course, it didn’t show. As confident and witty as ever, Lili sang a bunch of lovely sea-related songs with her trademark theatrical panache, only accompanied by a piano. Behind her on the screen, photographer Simon Fowler’s beautiful images of the Thames estuary added to the magical atmosphere. Siren brings together songs from different eras and with varied moods: from The Ships of Arcady (1919) to Siren Song, written especially for the show by Michael Heath, via Nick Cave (The Ship Song) and Tom Waits (Fish and Birds), Lili kept the audience spellbound. If a professional performer like Lili La Scala was nervous about her show, imagine the state of my nerves before and during my reading. As I wasn’t the first one in my group to have to stand up and get onto the stage, I had plenty of time to stew and worry. I was reading the 1,000 words I had written during the Lit Lab – I had worked a little bit on it since especially for Shorelines. I also had a visual presentation and a song by PJ Harvey, all minutely timed. Standing on the stage, I think I forgot to breathe for a while and the words struggled to come out; I could hear my voice wobble, and of course, I read too fast – without the pauses between the different sections, as I had planned – I think I just wanted it to be over. So I managed to get to the end of my reading without any major mistake but too early in the presentation! The extract I read was the opening of my third novel, The Right Place, which is in the development/research phase at the moment. I have added the extract to The Right Place page on this very website. There, you can read a little bit more about the novel and watch the official video of PJ Harvey’s The Wind – it has absolutely nothing to do with the subject matter of the song, sadly. I predict that Shorelines will grow over the years, and I hope I will be able to participate in the next edition – as an artist or volunteer. As Southend has been identified by The Sunday Times as one of the places London "hipsters" and creatives are flocking to - once again as recently as two weeks ago - it is only logical that we should see an explosion of creative endeavours in the area, and it can only be a good thing. Bring it on. Find some pictures of the event HERE.
A great blog about the festival was posted HERE – the author managed to go to some of the events I couldn’t attend! The Shorelines festival is branching out and is paying a visit to the National Maritime Museum as part of its event “Lost at sea Late with the Thames festival” on November 28th. More details HERE. Cello rocks. Hard. The two acts below would be absolutely perfect for The Pleasure Gardens, the eccentric club night featured in my first novel, I Am a Muse. Its founder, Constance Blackwell, wouldn't rest until she had secured Rasputina and Jo Quail for her next event! Legendary "cello-rock" band Rasputina were in town last Wednesday, and there was NO WAY I was going to miss this event! Led by the incredibly charismatic Melora Creager, Rasputina have been a huge influence on trends such as Modern Victorians, Steampunk and Freak Folk and are championing DIY, art-school values and work ethic. Rasputina are cultured, alternative, highly original and absolutely unique. Heavily influenced by history - social, cultural and in a wider sense - Rasputina's body of work is made of fascinating, vivid storytelling and fantastic melodies. Seeing them play live is a thrilling experience: Melora's voice is incredibly versatile and clear; she is one with her instrument which obeys her every whim. Daniel is a real virtuoso and his cello rocks harder than any guitar in the land; Dawn's drumming is tribal and occult. The audience was enthralled, understandably. More pictures! Here's a video of Rasputina performing 1816: The Year Without a Summer I was also simply blown away by the support act: Jo Quail. An extremely talented - and in demand - professional cellist, Jo writes, records and performs instrumental music that encompasses a wide range of genres. A virtuoso classical musician, she also has one foot firmly planted in the alternative scene(s). Her beautiful compositions are haunting and haunted, mysterious, with a dash of the occult; classical mixes with dark folk and industrial to create intriguing, bewitching soundscapes. I have been looking for the perfect music to accompany The Book of Thoth, my second novel - I always have one or two tracks to use as the soundtrack to one particular story. I think I have found them! I particularly love this track, Jhanoem The Witch 4. Author Neil Gaiman gave a lecture at the Reading Agency on 14th October. An edited version of that lecture has been made available on The Guardian's website. It is essential reading: a passionate, poignant, rousing, intelligent plea for books, fiction, literacy, libraries and imagination. Everything is in there. Our uncultured and boorish politicians should be MADE to read it. Below, I have reproduced my favourite bits - although the whole thing is my favourite bit really... Some of these quotes remind me of the child and teenager I was - an avid reader with a wild imagination, desperate to live somewhere else, to experience something else, knowing there was more to life than what I could see around me. Books and the ambition of becoming a writer have pushed me, have made me study hard and stay focused, curious, inquisitive, interested. They saved me in my (numerous) hours of need... Here's to books and fiction... Neil Gaiman on The Guardian Fiction has two uses. Firstly, it's a gateway drug to reading. The drive to know what happens next, to want to turn the page, the need to keep going, even if it's hard, because someone's in trouble and you have to know how it's all going to end … that's a very real drive. And it forces you to learn new words, to think new thoughts, to keep going. To discover that reading per se is pleasurable. Once you learn that, you're on the road to reading everything. And reading is key. There were noises made briefly, a few years ago, about the idea that we were living in a post-literate world, in which the ability to make sense out of written words was somehow redundant, but those days are gone: words are more important than they ever were: we navigate the world with words, and as the world slips onto the web, we need to follow, to communicate and to comprehend what we are reading. When you watch TV or see a film, you are looking at things happening to other people. Prose fiction is something you build up from 26 letters and a handful of punctuation marks, and you, and you alone, using your imagination, create a world and people it and look out through other eyes. You get to feel things, visit places and worlds you would never otherwise know. You learn that everyone else out there is a me, as well. You're being someone else, and when you return to your own world, you're going to be slightly changed. Fiction can show you a different world. It can take you somewhere you've never been. Once you've visited other worlds, like those who ate fairy fruit, you can never be entirely content with the world that you grew up in. Discontent is a good thing: discontented people can modify and improve their worlds, leave them better, leave them different. If you were trapped in an impossible situation, in an unpleasant place, with people who meant you ill, and someone offered you a temporary escape, why wouldn't you take it? And escapist fiction is just that: fiction that opens a door, shows the sunlight outside, gives you a place to go where you are in control, are with people you want to be with (and books are real places, make no mistake about that); and more importantly, during your escape, books can also give you knowledge about the world and your predicament, give you weapons, give you armour: real things you can take back into your prison. Skills and knowledge and tools you can use to escape for real. I do not believe that all books will or should migrate onto screens: as Douglas Adams once pointed out to me, more than 20 years before the Kindle turned up, a physical book is like a shark. Sharks are old: there were sharks in the ocean before the dinosaurs. And the reason there are still sharks around is that sharks are better at being sharks than anything else is. Physical books are tough, hard to destroy, bath-resistant, solar-operated, feel good in your hand: they are good at being books, and there will always be a place for them. Literacy is more important than ever it was, in this world of text and email, a world of written information. We need to read and write, we need global citizens who can read comfortably, comprehend what they are reading, understand nuance, and make themselves understood. According to a recent study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, England is the "only country where the oldest age group has higher proficiency in both literacy and numeracy than the youngest group, after other factors, such as gender, socio-economic backgrounds and type of occupations are taken into account". We have an obligation to support libraries. To use libraries, to encourage others to use libraries, to protest the closure of libraries. If you do not value libraries then you do not value information or culture or wisdom. You are silencing the voices of the past and you are damaging the future. Fiction is the lie that tells the truth, after all. 19/9/2013 Holiday reading...So on Saturday, I am off to my favourite place, Dorset! Two weeks away from the overcrowded South East... Bliss. I am going there to rest and recharge my batteries, but also to research my third novel, The Right Place. I am trying to get a proper feel of the place, and I would like to find somewhere to stay and write next autumn, when I hope to start working in earnest on the book. The small cottage we always book might be a solution, but it is near Dorchester and I still haven't started driving again after all these years; I am therefore looking for something in Abbotsbury (or as near as possible!). I am half way into The Game and I am enjoying it immensely, as I've enjoyed all the Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes' mystery novels I've read so far. This series is absolutely fantastic, and I don't really understand why/how this hasn't been made into a TV series. It would be an absolute hit (if well made, of course)! This book is about walking the sunken paths in south Dorset, so I cannot give it a miss... Dorset's "literary celebrity". I've fallen in love with his county, I've been to his birthplace, now I have to read a bit more of his work! The title says it all! A 1922 first edition just purchased last weekend! New Model Army, one of my favourite bands. Not only for their music, but also for their poetic lyrics and their strong values, which I share.
A fabulous special edition put together by rock mag Vive Le Rock. Some great stuff in there, loads to read. Matt ArtPix and Arcane Publishing had a very busy weekend at the Alexandra Palace Antiques, Collectors, Art Deco and 20th century fair! It was absolutely amazing to trade at this truly iconic London building. A real privilege! We set up on Saturday... And Sunday, we were there before 8am on time for the trade opening hours! The weather was glorious early in the morning. Unfortunately, it didn't last and we packed up under the rain... Our stall was absolutely packed (and very colourful!) Unfortunately, these days, I am on a very tight budget and therefore couldn't buy a lot... But I couldn't resist these wonderful pictures of 20s actresses - well, one is more a 30s actress and there's also an actor! Four are of one of my favourites, the fabulous Miss Lillian Gish! Here we have: Lillian Gish Colleen Moore Kay Francis Marion Davies Marion Nixon Raquel Meller Betty Amann Clive Brook And I found a splendid book entitled "Thomas Hardy's Dorset", a first edition of 1922... This from the excellent Peter Moore Bookseller (and I also got a lovely PBFA book thrown in for good mesure!). I will take the book with me on holiday as I am going back to Dorset! It was very hard (but enjoyable) work...
The next Alexandra Palace fair is on 1st December, and this time we will visit as customers! And we might be back as traders at the Alexandra Palace fair next year... By the way... Not good news... "The UK’s antiques, collectors, vintage, craft and other types of fairs are under jeopardy by HMRC’s proposed enforcement of a draft EU regulation and a revised interpretation of the way current regulations have been applied, in a desperate attempt to scrape together a relatively small amount of VAT from organisers. The bottom line is that organisers who are VAT registered should have been charging the full rate of VAT (currently 20%), from November 2012, which would directly increase stallholder costs to attend most of the fairs held in the UK." Go HERE to learn more... 15/8/2013 The London Book FairI have never been to The London Book Fair, even when I worked full-time in educational publishing.
I have decided that I will be going next year (I'm saving the entrance fee!) as a visitor, author and (very) small publisher, with my ears and eyes open. It's high time I took that publishing business seriously! I am hoping that 2014 will bring some interesting and exciting developments for Arcane Publishing (not least the publication of our second book!)... 10/8/2013 631?I am only able to check the amount of "unique visitors" per day on this site, as I would need to upgrade yet again (i.e pay more money) to see precise stats and what people have been typing into search engines to end up on the Miss Gish website. It's been going quite well over the past few months, the numbers increasing steadily. But yesterday, it broke the record: 631 people seem to have visited the Miss Gish website. 631?? Really? Wow.
If every single one of those people bought one of my books, I'd be over the moon. Unfortunately, it's definitely not the case! Anyway, I try and post regularly so for those people who read this: thank you for passing by and do come again! Something else that's interesting... I have just typed in "I Am a Muse" in the Amazon search engine. The only person who sells the book on there should be Bluetones, as the shop is owned by an acquaintance and he has agreed to sell the book in his online shop, but he sends the orders to me and I am the one who posts them to the customer. Today, two more sellers seem to have the book in stock, and sell it at quite a high price; only they don't: I am the only one who has got copies - The British Library and five other deposit libraries have a copy each, but that's it. A few people have bought the book but they don't have online bookshops. So what I'd like to know is this: how is it possible that those people sell my book when all the copies that exist are here, patiently waiting in their boxes in my office to be sold? Mystery! Maybe I should try and buy one of my own books to see what happens? 28/7/2013 Hurray for Southend!Imagine my (very nice) surprise when I opened The Sunday Times Magazine today - I buy The Sunday Times every Sunday, and yes, I know it's owned by Rupert Murdoch - and I stumbled on a 6 page-long feature about Southend and how it's become the boom town, especially thanks to its arts scene!
*Update*: You can read the full article on Metal's website HERE. |
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March 2024
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