Lovebox Festival 2010

The setting sun oozed amber light and cast a burnt orange tint over thousands of faces in the crowds, pints of pear cider spilled from paper cups and sun-kissed festival-goers’ dancing feet were covered in dust. This was the scene in the bustling East end last weekend when Lovebox 2010 took over Victoria Park, offering 50,000 musos respite from the sticky city heat of the Underground.

Following in Glastonbury’s fluky footsteps, Lovebox was spared rain – though lack of foresight and preparation left many a pale shoulder slightly pinker on departure. Despite the bombardment of in your face corporate sponsorship – Lovebox continues to live up to its 2008 award of ‘Best Medium Sized Festival’ as voted by the UK Festival Awards. Started in 2003 by Groove Armada as a one-day festival, it has since expanded in size and this year it added a third day to its bill.

Roxy Music, Grace Jones and Dizzee Rascal graced the main stage throughout the weekend, wooing the crowds. But rather than racing for a hot seat in the headliner crowd, many opted for the smaller stages and tents. The Rizla Arena bounced into life with the Trojan Sound system and revellers skanked along to a lively afternoon set. North-London band Man Like Me put on one of their famed quirky performances in The Cat Flap tent and had an audience spilling out through the seams. The NYC Downlow – a replica New York City tenement block – had a queue stretching from the door out into the festival for the duration.

Two drag queens clad in spandex danced around in a mock hotel bedroom – part of the set – serenading the crowd with their comical lyrics whilst fake moustaches were being issued below them at the ‘Porn Kiosk’. They call themselves ‘the world’s first travelling homo disco’ and offer a dark sweatbox with disco, soul, funk and dance sets.

Lovebox offers a perfect escape from the hustle and bustle of the city – a weekend of eclectic music and alfresco dancing. But you can hop on the tube home afterwards – saving you the hassle of blindly navigating your way back to your tent…

Professor Green

This article was written by Luke Bainbridge, for guardian.co.uk on Sunday 18th July 2010 00.05 Europe/London

Hackney’s Professor – or Stephen Manderson to his gran, who raised him – first appeared on Mike Skinner’s The Beats label, when his guest spot on the remix of “When You Wasn’t Famous” gained him the tag “British Eminem”. He secured a breakthrough with “I Need You Tonight”, which reached No 3 in April. Alive Till I’m Dead is similarly commercial, not least current single “Just Be Good to Green” with Lily Allen, but despite the obvious samples, Green’s inventive rhymes and neat line in self-deprecation – he’s usually chasing the girl, rather than vice versa – shine through.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

Three weekends. Nine writers. 30 minute plays. Made in Hackney.

Each weekend at the Arcola Theatre will feature three plays by three of Hackney’s best playwrights. These complete, short works are the culmination of the Arcola Writers’ Group workshops, and are dedicated to honing the talents of writers from a range of backgrounds and abilities.

This weekend the Arcola has the works of Tamara von Werthern, Matthew Turner and Omar El Khairy.

The White Bike
By Tamara von Werthern
Director Caroline Leslie

A young woman is killed as she is riding her bike on her way to work on Kingsland Road. But she is not ready to leave her life and young daughter behind. She finds herself in a parallel London, on her white bike, trying to find a way to come to terms with what happened to her and those she left behind.

Cast: Jack Hughes, Lois Jones, Rosalind Philips

The Interview
By Matthew Turner
Director Simon Pittman

David has been called to an interview at Mond Holdings. But how can he make a good impression when he doesn’t know a thing about the job or the company? Is there even a job on offer, or has he been called here for some other reason? This is a play about the questions we would rather not be asked.

Cast: Roger Sloman, Ryan Early, Cressida Trew

The Ark
By Omar El Khairy
Director Simeilia Hodge-Dallaway

As a war-torn nation contends with the violent presence of a foreign occupying power, two adolescent deities set out on a journey in search of a spaceship to another time and place. The Ark is a grown-up fairytale of love and loyalty set in our world, but not just yet.

Cast: Shane Zaza, Pippa Bennett-Warner, James Le Feuvre, Natasha Hatendi

 –

Live Music in The Bar

Sunday 18 July – Seamour’s Fat Lady plays in the bar from 6.00 – 6.30pm

“I used to say our music is a  sophisticated poppet, contrived from heartache and joy. But since taking up the banjo, I am much happier and my music although cynical is not sad.”

Made in Hackney
Saturday 17 July -  Sunday 18 July 2010
Arcola Theatre
27 Arcola Street
E8 2DJ
020 7503 1648

Starting time: 6pm on Saturday and 4pm on Sunday.
£7.00.

Buy tickets (external site)

One in a series on the Lea Valley, by historian Jim Lewis

Idea for a game: cut sheets of paper into small pieces and write a random noun on each, then put the pieces into a hat and tell your guests to pick two each and find a connection between them. One might get, say, “Cheryl Cole” and “The Edmonton Incinerator”, another “Dental floss” and “Phytosemiotics”.

Intellectually speaking, everything is but a few short steps away from every other thing (each individual on Earth is said to be linked via six degrees or less of separation to any other random individual), so a connection can always be unearthed.

The winner is whoever can find the least tenuous link between their two subjects.

Jim Lewis would probably be good at this game. In this illustrated series of books he seems to be picking out nouns from the hat constantly – albeit with “The Lea Valley” always in his other hand.

Apparently obscure topics he explores include “the Lea Valley and the founding of Meteorology” and “the Lea Valley and the State of Israel”.

Barometric pressures noted-down in Tottenham by a landowner in the early 1800s formed the basis of modern weather forecasting, he explains.

East London’s links with the Jewish State, meanwhile, began when Chaim Weizmann, the talented biochemist who went on to become Israel’s first president, set up a lab in Three Mills, Bromley-by-Bow.

Then there is computing, the dying process, broadcasting, aeronautics. The list is endless, as if all modern technology were rooted in the Lea’s marshy banks.

Carved in the ice age (around 1,000,000 years ago), the River Lea and its valley flow from Ware in Hertfordshire to Leamouth at the Thames. Lewis considers this area as a whole, but our borough gets a few noteworthy shout-outs.

Wick, for example, was apparently the birthplace of plastic. During the Crimean War, the Xylotine Factory in Wallis Road produced a forerunner to the packaging which now, unfortunately, sheathes so much supermarket produce (speaking of supermarkets, we learn that Tesco founder Jack Cohen first hawked his wares in Well Street Market, near Victoria Park, and then in Upper Clapton Road in the inter-war years).

Alfred Hitchcock, meanwhile, was starting his career as a title card designer in the 1920s at the confusingly named Islington Studios – a film studio based in Hackney. Lewis summarises the history of the film industry which grew up in nearby Walthamstow, helped in his task by photographs from the time, which are published alongside his text.

Perhaps most interesting are the author’s descriptions of the valley in ancient times.

Artefacts found in the region include a late Saxon log boat (unearthed in Clapton) as well as Neolithic tools and Bronze Age jewellery. After the fall of the Roman Empire, great battles were fought in the valley between Saxons and Danes.

Lewis writes: “Today’s casual visitor to the Lee Valley Regional Park would probably find it difficult to imagine the events that took place in this relatively small area of land adjacent to the capital that helped shape a future British nation. It might also be hard to imagine…that the east bank of the River Lea was once Danish territory while the west bank was Saxon.”

It is a comfort to think of these chthonic remnants – art, skulls, money and weapons – and a reminder that, however different the ancient world was from our world, the two are linked somehow, as if by a winding river.

This comprehensive series, which also includes two other titles (Gunpowder to Guns and Battleships, Buses and Bombers) is a good starting point for anyone wishing to learn more about the region’s history in the run up to the Olympic Games, when the world’s attention will be focussed on this fascinating neck of the woods.

The Lea Valley series by Jim Lewis is published by Libri Publishing.

Chris Singleton and the Distractions Photo: © Pal Hansen

With one album behind him and another planned, you’d have thought Stoke Newington-based, Dublin-born singer-songwriter Chris Singleton was on the road to success. However, in order to be able to record his second album, Lady Gasoline, Chris had to overcome a rare ear condition – hyperacusis, which is often described as an allergy to sound.

“I thought that I wouldn’t be able to make music any more”, Chris recalls. When recording the first album he noticed a sensation that he describes as similar to “when you get out of a swimming pool and experience blockage of the ears”. As time went by the problems increased, which made the making of the album extremely hard and frustrating.

Hyperacusis makes a person overly sensitive to sound, so that everyday things such as a trip on the Tube or bus become near to impossible as the sound levels are too loud and therefore too painful. While severe hyperacusis is rare, milder forms of the condition are known to affect musicians. This is because of overexposure to certain sound frequencies. As many as 86 per cent of patients also suffer from tinnitus – a ringing of the ears that is caused by the same exposure to sound.

After seeing a number of specialists who couldn’t find anything wrong and trying different methods, Chris was finally able to get the right treatment which helped him get out of a “very difficult time” and back into the studio to record his second album, which he describes as being “a compendium of different styles” and inspired by classic British rock like David Bowie, The Beatles and Mark Boland.

Chris’s first album Twisted City – “compiled as a journey through London” – got good reviews, making him well received in both the UK and his native Ireland, as well as landing him a distribution deal with Universal. Whilst Twisted City was a one man accomplishment, with Chris producing, playing the instruments and setting up his own record label to release the album, Lady Gasoline has been made in collaboration with friends and fellow musicians The Distractions, who in the past have worked with well-known artists like The Killers and Razorlight.

The main theme of the new album is relationships and all the emotions that come with them. The title track serves as a thread binding it all together: “she’s a sort of super-muse – she walks all over the record, leaving her boot prints on every track,” says Chris.

Lady Gasoline was released on IRL records on Monday 28 June.

Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler live at the Hackney Empire to promote new album The Suburbs. Photograph: Gaelle Beri/Retna

This article was written by Alexis Petridis, for guardian.co.uk on Thursday 8th July 2010 02.45 Europe/London

There’s something striking about the behaviour of Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler at the show to launch the band’s third album, The Suburbs. Between songs, he jokes with the crowd: “Well, I still think England have a pretty good shot at this World Cup”, he smirks to a chorus of boos.

He unexpectedly ends a song called We Used To Wait crowd-surfing, still clutching his microphone stand. He’s relaxed and confident, which makes for a marked contrast with how he looked at the final gigs in support of Neon Bible, the album that catapulted the Montreal band to the cusp of international, stadium-packing success. The bigger the album and the accompanying shows got, the more Butler looked like a man who’d discovered his appeal against a parking ticket had been turned down.

Then again, on the evidence of the songs the band play from The Suburbs tonight, Butler has every reason to be relaxed and confident: they sound amazing, a genuine progression from Neon Bible. Released to good reviews, that album began attracting a kind of retrospective criticism, principally that it lacked the charm of their debut album Funeral. That applied the band’s apocalyptic sturm and drang approach to songs about childhood memories, amping youthful vignettes into the stuff of epic legend. Neon Bible, on the other hand, just offered a bunch of apocalyptic-sounding songs about the imminent apocalypse, and the world is hardly lacking in stadium rock bands making a big old bombastic racket about the environment and war and reality TV.

There’s no denying the power of their old material: Intervention provokes an earnest singalong, while you’d have to be catatonic not to be moved as Neighbourhood (Power Out) segues into Rebellion (Lies). Equally, it’s hard not to draw the conclusion that the songs from The Suburbs achieve the same cumulative mass-euphoria effect, via a weirder, more nuanced, less obviously bombastic route: one track is fittingly titled Rococo, but Butler performs it with such blunt ferocity that virtually every string on his acoustic guitar is broken.

Decorated with layers of feedback, Empty Room sounds thrillingly chaotic, but, as the closing Month Of May thunders along, it seems in constant danger of slipping its mooring entirely and descending into noise.

But it doesn’t. The band encore with the hits: Neighbourhood (Tunnels), Keep The Car Running, Wake Up. The audience understandably go bananas, as does Florence Welch, who dances up in the balcony with the cheering abandon of a committed fan. Understandably, Butler and the rest of the Arcade Fire leave the stage wreathed in smiles.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

Road to Mecca. Photo: Idil Sukan

Written by Athol Fugard in 1984, this play obliquely explores some of the cultural changes that were taking place in the playwright’s native South Africa. Directed by Russell Bolam and set in rural 1970s, The Road to Mecca tells the tale of middle-aged widow Miss Helen (Linda Bassett) and her young social worker friend Elsa (Sian Clifford) who navigate with difficulty the moral space between value systems.

The narrative unfolds around the threat posed by the well-meaning local minister Marius Byleveld (James Laurenson) to Miss Helen’s eccentric lifestyle, which becomes a focal point for ethical judgement.  It is a tale of neglect, fear and loneliness with perhaps a smattering of hope. Compellingly performed by an able cast, this play is real and wrenching – a far cry from any recent notions of South Africa blasted on our TV screens in smug HD.

Showing at the Arcola Theatre  till 10 July.

Stand-up comedian Stewart Lee

On Saturday afternoon, renowned stand-up comic and Stoke Newington resident Stewart Lee read from the work of Arthur Machen, one of the founding fathers of horror fiction, as part of the inaugural Stoke Newington Literary Festival.

The sell-out event saw over a hundred people packed into the appropriately dark and mysterious surroundings of Stoke Newington International Airport.

Stewart Lee discussed his personal fascination with this hugely influential gothic writer and psychogeographer, and recounted his own history of spooky occurrences in N16, such as finding initiation certificates for a Druidic cult in the attic of his new house.

He then read an abridged version of Machen’s spooky tale ‘N’, set in Stoke Newington, to a spellbound audience.

Appropriately, the steaming hot weather broke just as a key moment in the story was reached. As the protagonist sees a beautiful green park where there should be only streets of terraced houses, summer rain suddenly began to hammer on the roof … almost as if Machen were making himself known.

Saturday’s event coincides with the Library of Wales’s publication of new paperback editions of two of Machen’s best-loved works, The Great God Pan and The Hill of Dreams.

Gwilym Games, Editor of the Friends of Arthur Machen’s magazine Machenalia said, “The new Library of Wales paperbacks make some of Machen’s best work easily accessible again in Britain. As a key London writer lauded by Peter Ackroyd and Iain Sinclair, anyone interested in the real mysteries behind everyday London life should read Machen’s work. Equally, Machen is part of a long tradition in Wales where his stories can be seen as part of a fantastic legacy stretching back to the tales of Arthurian legend.”

Born and brought up in the late 19th century in the Black Mountains of Monmouthshire, Machen’s tales of bohemian fin-de-siécle London were coloured by the dark and mysterious landscapes of his childhood.

The Great God Pan, his most famous story, was condemned on its first publication in 1894 as decadent and nightmarish. But its mixture of chilling horror and pagan sexuality with contemporary Victorian London, plus Machen’s distinctive and haunting writing style, soon brought him cult status.

H.P. Lovecraft was an early fan, while Stephen King recently described it as “one of the best horror stories ever written”.

Jessica Mordsley, the Library of Wales representative in London, said, “Saturday’s event was really memorable and atmospheric. It was the perfect place to introduce Machen to a new generation of readers.”

Django Bates Photo: © Nick White 2010

The BBC’s Jez Nelson introduced Anglo-Danish pianist Django Bates’ trio at the Vortex as one the most eagerly anticipated gigs of the year. This outing was the first in a UK series playing material from his newly released Belovèd Bird album- a homage to the legendary bop saxophonist Charlie Parker. Bates was joined by two young Scandinavian musicians: Peter Bruun on drums and Petter Eldh on bass.

They opened with a focussed rendition of Parker’s Moose the Mooche, with Eldh’s cycling figure mirroring Bate’s left hand bass line. From this grounding the pianist released flurries of notes gradually developing into progressively wide-ranging solos. Throughout the next few pieces- the second his own, the third Parker’s Billie’s Bounce- Bates continued this, seeking to release the tension accrued by such static bass figure repetition with releases of delicate notes building into ever prestidigious cacophonies. Bates is a compelling improviser and- much like in his compositions- is never afraid to move well beyond jazz clichés or even the idiom itself. Such spontaneity was reinforced by his assertion- after the third piece, whilst describing the format of the gig- that “a life planned is a life endured”. In typical Bates style however, after a statement that might invoke the wildest heights of group improvisation, the trio then moved into the pianist’s own melancholic Sadness All the Way Down, a beautifully slow, uncluttered piece with the emphasis well on space.

Following this there was a return to brasher, louder dynamics with Bates releasing frenzied lines over the top of the rhythm section. It was at this stage that something hinted at the outset became fully apparent: the balance was slightly awry for such agile music. Bruun’s drums- mic’ed seemingly to emphasise his impressive cymbal work- lacked any low end, whilst Eldh’s double bass boomed so much it eclipsed all bass drum hits. This hole in the midrange frequencies rendered the rhythm section too turgid when the bass was active and too light and ungrounded when the drums took the fore. Together this meant that Bates kept leaving them for dust with his solos.

The way he suddenly exploded into these- together with the way they were unabashedly nonconformist– conjured the idea of a jack-in-a-box, with a mass of pent up energy suddenly released by an individual with fixed eyes and an inane grin happily flaunting his eccentricity. This image was not hindered by Bates’ multicoloured fez. Such periodical springing to life outside the rhythm section’s turgor left Bates somewhat exposed however, and it was also not hard to imagine him waving about on a spring, unsupported by sonic ballast. It was indeed interesting to see Bates in the context a trio. In his usual big band outings there is more dense orchestration and texture for him to hide behind; here he was comparatively naked. But this made him no less compelling, and whatever heights were reached in the first half of the set, proved to be a valid portent for the second.

Any initial deficiencies in the balance were soon made up for by the band really playing in sympathy.  Pieces began gradually being distilled into progressively tight codas, and interplay in the between solos was born out with more confidence. This culminated in a scintillating section with drums, bass and piano all degenerating into an incredibly tight (and heavy) almost free-noise unison, then flipping back to down-the-line playing, then back to the noise, and so forth until a syncopated and perfectly synchronised conclusion. As in the first set, Bates then inverted the dynamics, choosing to sing a simple plangent descending line into a microphone, once again emphasising space over matter. Then a repeating figure high on the bass heralded more hell-for-leather improvising leaving the feeling that no stone was being left unturned. Finally following riotous applause, came an encore with a number by old Bates foil Iain Bellamy.

Overall, this gig was a rare opportunity to see Django perform in the context of a smaller band. In the second half at least, the two musicians he chose to accompany him proved they were easily up to the task, despite any misgivings over the balance.  The BBC’s Jazz on 3 will be played highlights from the gig on Monday 26 April. Tune in. Also, check the Vortex’s lineup over coming months for other ingenious musicians.

Future dates:

Thursday 5 August 2010
Django Bates Beloved Bird
Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club
47 Frith Street
Westminster, London W1D 4HT
Box office 020 7439 0747

Friday 6 August 2010
Django Bates Beloved Bird
Snape Prom
Snape Maltings Concert Hall
Aldeburgh
Suffolk
BOX OFFICE Tel. 01728 687110

East End Film Festival 2010 Photo © Tanja Schimpl

Venice, Cannes, Montreal, East End. Now in its tenth year (22-30 April 2010), the East End Film Festival mark may not grace the front of film posters and DVD boxes around the world but this does not prevent it from being one of the most enjoyable events of the city’s cultural calendar.

Over 200 films were shown, offering a glimpse into lives as diverse as drug-fuelled mountain dancing in West Virginia (The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia) to the coming of age in a Laotian monastery (Today is Better than Two Tomorrows).

These films were beamed into venues the length and breadth of the East End, from Dalston to the Docklands. The sheer scale, ambition and energy of this year’s festival was colossal.

In addition to the bounty of films on offer, there were countless exhibitions, gigs, workshops, discussions and installations to add to the bazaar. The festival Filmmakers’ Centre was a hive of activity throughout, including the opportunity for budding auteurs to collaborate on the making of a short film in just three days.

Rummagers ascended into trinket heaven at ‘Give and Take’ – a plethora of free books, fabric, ukuleles, lamps and an assortment of miscellaneous memorabilia all brought along and given for free at Spitalfields Market. ‘East End Heritage’ generously gave people the opportunity to observe thirty years’ worth of East End photographic history whilst crawling around the bibulous confines of ten of the area’s oldest and characterful pubs.

Mindful of the election, a series of political films were showcased under the theme ‘Riot, Race and Rock & Roll’. Alan Miles’ ‘Who Shot the Sheriff?’ opens on the fervour surround the 1974 general elections where the National Front was polling near 10 per cent in Hackney. The walls of Shoreditch are daubed with ‘wogs out’ graffiti, Martin Webster’s growly promise of racial discrimination reverberates to the pumping sounds of Aswad’s ‘Warrior Charge’. The film charts the rise of the National Front, the Rock Against Racism grassroots movement and the subsequent battle for the soul of working class youth in Britain. The audience of the Vibe Bar on Brick Lane was audibly shocked as they watched incredible footage of the fierce battles, taking place mere decades ago, on the very streets that they walked on to come to the venue.

Activist and photographer Red Saunders screened a moving short documentary showing interviews with Holocaust survivors Leon Greenman and Esther Brunstein. The latter recalled how Nazi guards at Auschwitz told them “a few of you may survive, but nobody will believe what you have been through.” Through the spirit of independent cinema, these crucial tales can be given voice.

“I didn’t say that actors were cattle, I said that they should be treated like cattle.” And with that immortal aside from Hitchcock, there was perhaps no more appropriate venue for festival goers to be herded into than Spitalfields Market to watch his 1927 silent thriller The Lodger. Hundreds braved the chilly night to watch a crazed killer stalk the densely foggy streets of London accompanied by a suitably eerie live score from the quartet Minima. With few title cards in this film, the ambient melodies ideally complemented the rhythmic interlocking images on screen. To add to the mood of the era, boutique hairdressers Hair and Jerome were present with an arsenal of Do Rags, transforming spectators’ barnets into 1940s masterpieces.

A particular highlight was the screening of Rime of the Modern Mariner – journalist Mark Donne’s documentary ode to the Docklands at the inspired setting of St. Anne’s Church in Limehouse. Using the folklore and grand history of the area as a starting point, the film charts the decline of the once largest port in the world and the culture sinking with it. Featuring interviews with the ‘last Dockers’, the film is interlaced with impressive tracking shots and time-lapse photography and even takes to the ocean to film on board a modern shipping container bound for Africa. Surrounded by the soaring baroque splendour of St Anne’s, it was a fascinating insight into a crucial part of East London’s history. Steven Berkoff (born in Stepney) even turned up to introduce it.

The EEFF was looking further east this year with a wealth of Eastern European cinema. In Morfiy, we were taken to nineteenth century Siberia for a Bulgakovian tragedy and in Ya we were shown a nihilistic portrait of life in a psychiatric ward. Outside a screening of Crush, a collection of Russian new wave shorts, I asked festival goer Irena about the grim undertones. “In Russia, our famous authors are people like Bulgakov and Dostoyevsky – very analytical and not so light.” One short in Crush follows a seafood restaurant worker in a shrimp costume traversing Moscow receiving numerous beatings due to his advertising technique of kissing everybody on the lips. “Very Moscow,” she explained, “with the violence and the allergic reaction to forced capitalism. But if you look closely, the theme of the film is love! We watch a lot of British television so we share this certain dark humour.”

Przemek and Benita, originally from Poland now living in Barking were pleased that the EEFF gave them the opportunity to watch cinema from their native country. “You can buy food from a Polish supermarket but it is not so easy to see a film. In the six years we’ve been living here I don’t think I’ve seen one.”

There is certainly something peculiar to East London that encourages such an event to take place. Sentiments echoed by Fyzal Boulifa, writer and director of Whore (the winner of Best Short Film prize) who shot parts of his film around Clapton. “It’s encouraging to see people around here trying different things, peculiar things, and willing to collaborate, compared to other parts of London that are so impersonal. I lived in South London before I moved here and now my experience of the city is totally different. At this stage of my life, I wouldn’t live anywhere else.”

The East End has always been a crucible of transformation and it was a pleasure to attend the festival cocooned in the area’s most colourful haunts, surrounded by the town’s most vivacious creatures. Immortal, and ever changing.