our parents, often and mistakes, grace denton

Weirdly, just after I wrote on here that I wouldn't be making much work for the foreseeable future, I found out that something I wrote about eighteen months ago had just been published in the anthology about parents by Often and Mistakes. The anthology was compiled by Grace Denton and so much work and care has gone into it. You can purchase this digital anthology at a price of your choosing and the proceeds will all be donated to Simon on the Streets, a West Yorkshire homeless charity. So anyway, Grace does so many ace things I thought it would be good to list a few of them below. This is by no means everything, but some of the things I know about. Grace has been involved in, and initiated so many wonderful projects and she is also an incredible artist. The things she does are always made with great care and sensitivity. But as well as this, they are always worthwhile and positive.

Grace (left) & Rose (right) I don't know who took the photo, please tell me and I'll credit you

Often and Mistakes is Rose Robbins and Grace Denton, based in Bristol. They showcase new work by writers and artists through print publications and videos. We also run comic-drawing and animation workshops. 

Judy Works, again if you made this great logo, let me know and I'll credit you!

Judy Works is a girl gang, support network and commissioner set up by Grace, Camille Rearden and Rosa Martyn to support and represent the creative endeavours of people who are non-male identified. The rest of the world is set up to support men. Judy Works is redressing the balance.

Anna (left) & Grace 9right) photo by Tom Copps

The Middle Ones are a band who write and play wonderful songs. They formed in Norwhich and have done so many great and exciting things like touring all over and making records and playing music for plays and doing a year-long residency at Cafe Kino in Bristol. I swapped Anna a Middle Ones 10" for the Tiger + Panda 10" when we went to Norwich. It has my favourite song on it, 'young explorer'. For a while, The Middle Ones were the only band I made an effort to see.

Expensive photo by Tom Copps

Grace sings and plays in EXPENSIVE with Matthew Cheney and Pete Shadbolt, an electronic pop band of 'non-performers'. The songs are dreamy and danceable and remind me of the music of Arctic Circle, which is not surprising because they are/were another project of Matthew Cheney, all round good-guy.

As I said, there's loads more and I haven't really written very well but I just think Grace is a great artist and a positive force in the world.

i work all day with talented women

I'm not one of your fancy types. I go to work to pay my rent and so on. Because of the casual nature of my job, a lot of the people who I work with are creative people like me. Moreover, the majority of them are women. I've been gradually getting to know everyone and their work and I have been consistently blown away by their talent.

I think that most of them would define what they do as 'fine art', which is not a world that I have much formal knowledge of, but I am (sadly) not surprised to learn that it is still a fairly sexist and retrograde industry. 

My personal experience of who is making the best culture right now is not what I see in the majority of galleries and is certainly not what is making the big money. No doubt things are better than they were. But there is still a way to go. 

so here is a list of some of the talented young women who I have the privilege of working with. I hope they don't mind my posting these images. I found them legitimately on the internet. I hope it doesn't come across as patronising either. I can honestly say that all of the people listed have made at least one piece of work that has stopped me in my tracks. 

Critical Studies Presentation by hilde krohn huse

Eyes of Sand by hanne lillee

The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking, (Man Cave) by athena papadopoulos

from Games by karis clapperton

cecily tattersall

holly parmley

shhh

Hey, on Sunday 15th of September this amazing day will be happening at the folk house in Bristol. Our tour buddy Two White Cranes is on the lineup and Steve and I will be holding a Stitch-Stitch/Polite Records stall in the garden. 

The whole thing is curated by awesome Rachael Dadd!

You can get tickets here

two white cranes/nervy betters tour 2013

 

I'll try and keep this short...

Bristol
We play at Aaron and Roxy's house and Kano and Ohne are there. We have a pizza party. The next day, we pick up the car. Super sporty with a spoiler. The rental men are excited for us. We see Rachael and Shuki. We pick up Roxy from work and drive to Birmingham

Birmingham
We listen to podcasts in the car. The show is at the Ace Bushy house (the Vagina Monolodge). Eve made us a tasty vegan cake. Jen Schande plays a lovely set then runs away. Everyone is super nice. We have fun. Next day, we go to have breakfast with lovely people. We do a crossword together.

Peak District
Friendly people at the youth hostel. We walk to Lud's Church. It is a big ravine all covered in moss. I guess it might be the Green Knight's castle. Steve makes such a great miso soup and stir fry dinner. We have a band practice by the river and scouts come with a chainsaw. We are afraid they might bully us.

Manchester
Liam makes us such tasty burgers and we meet Natalie. Roxy has an essay in her zine. She gives us vegan pie and cookies. LLION SWYD are so great. "Only dickheads win the lottery". We thought we had food poisoning but really we are just nervous. We stay up late and chat and then sleep in luxury. I have a chocolate milkshake with my breakfast.

Oxford
The light is prickly and nice on the drive. The owners of this house are both called Matt. We play to a little living room of people and then have a nice time chatting. In the morning, Steve and Roxy swim in the river. I sleep in.

Norwich
Anna takes us to a tea room. Me and Franky want to move here maybe... I am pretty exhausted. We get food at the place and set up with our own things. Stephen and Tammy arrive. They are so great! This is probably the best we play on tour. We have lost our minds at this point. I swap records with Anna. Her 10" has my favourite Middle Ones song on it. We eat breakfast at a raw vegan cafe. Anna picks up a shelving unit off the street.

Seaford
Nicol is waiting outside for us. So good to see him. We walk to the beach and swim in the sea at sunset. Roxy - a vegan - goads me into eating a battered sausage. We each play a song and then go to bed. Verity's room is very comforting to sleep in. In the morning, Nicol records some drums for the album.

London
Driving through London is intense. Holy shit. we stop for pizzas. I'm so happy to see Franky. We set up the flat and people start arriving. Olly plays first. He is great. It's his album party and he's made a good album. It's really hot and we have such a fun show and sing happy birthday to Olly. So many lovelies there! After I wave Steve and Roxy off I go straight to bed and sleep.

great people we're playing with on tour

 Bristol



Birmingham



Manchester



Norwich



Seaford



London



Super exciting! Here is the facebook page for the whole thing. Lots of them are house shows, so just contact me if you want to come to one of them!

two white cranes + the nervy betters on tour

So later this month I'm going on tour for the first time ever with good humans Steve and Roxy. I'm pretty excited! More dates TBA!
 

B R I S T O L
house show | thursday 22nd august

B I R M I N G H A M 

the vagina monolodge (houseshow) | friday 23rd august
facebook event

M A N C H E S T E R 

 house show | sunday 25th august
facebook event

 O X F O R D
house show | monday 26th august



N O R W I C H 

 the bicycle shop | tuesday 27th august
facebook event

S E A F O R D 

house show | wednesday 28th august
secret location

L O N D O N 

house show | thursday 29th august
secret location

recent uploadings

I have been doing stuff! It's mostly archiving old stuff though. There is a mounting list of future projects that I will hopefully make a start on in Autumn but the Summer is mostly being spent filling in tax returns and booking a UK tour (my contribution to this has been terrible by the way. All the dates so far have been booked by Steve and Roxy).

kino residency: exhibition

 

 So, the Next event of my residency at Cafe Kino will be on Sunday the 25th of November (this Sunday) from 2pm

hey, come to a bunch of stuff at cafe kino with lots of everything everywhere!

i'm gonna hang an exhibition i think and there will be musicians and all...

t w o   w h i t e   c r a n e s | upstairs

roxy has been touring japan and meeting her new nephew and she is sure to have some amazing stories and excellent songs for us.

g e o r g e ' s   r e e l - t o - r e e l | downstairs
george has promised to perform his giant tape loop in kino's basement. he is the king of sound.

n i c o l   p a r k i n s o n   (frozy) | upstairs
nicol will be playing without irina and rhiannon, who are not around, but he will hopefully be joined by lots of friends. also, it's his birthday!

d j   c u p c a k e | downstairs
lisa will flip the black pancake and drop the needle in all of the latest and most up to date manners.

t i g e r   &   p a n d a | upstairs
we're going to meet up tomorrow and come up with two sets. the upstairs one with involve songs and hopefully some pals.

w e   w a n t e d   t o   b e   l i o n s | downstairs
jack writes plays and makes beats and is planning a special sound and spoken word performance down in the basement.

t i g e r   &   p a n d a | downstairs
so the second thing will have drums i think and remember, phil dodd will be recording the music on his 4-track casette-o-matic.

UPSTAIRS and DOWNSTAIRS at kino

while this is going on, i guess i'll go around kino and hang pictures throughout the day, so the exhibition will be growing over time... i hope.

performance times to come!

polite records things

There are a few bits and pieces to report regarding Polite Records. Last week, Tiger & Panda published two digital things. 

Sleeper Train is the last song we recorded with David 'Ox' Burke and we made a music video to go with it. It is a fan video tribute to the BBC series of Smiley's people, based on the novel by John Le Carre. You get a free download of the video when you purchase the digital single, and you can watch it here.



We also published a free two track instrumental thing in tribute to our friends Kate and David (David being 'Ox') who moved to Dublin this year. The free download comes with some band photos.



Thirdly, Grizzly and the Bears are very proud to be playing at the first UK PRFstival at the Bristol County Sports Club on Saturday the 29th of September. We are playing at 9.30pm after an evening of great bands.

Finally, a few months ago I was contacted by the British library, asking me for archive copies of the whole Polite Records back catalogue. I've been dropping instalments of records off every month or so since then and it is the most exciting thing ever! We have Steve Brett at Stitch-Stich Records to thank for letting the British Library know about us.

kino residency: write good songs

Ellis (the sorry people)

Steve (the nervy betters)

George (the nervy betters/sound master)

Morbison

Morbison

Moscow Rules

Moscow Rules

Joan (morbison/the nervy betters)

The Sorry People

The Sorry People

The Nervy Betters ( nearly all these photos by Frances Dixon)

Write good songs was an evening of new bands and music held at Cafe Kino on Wednesday the 22nd of August 2012. It was Part of A Year With Henry Ireland. It was a free event and it was so much fun. There was a really great atmosphere and a good mix of musicses. 

Among those performing were members of An Axe, Grizzly and the Bears, Headfall, Two White Cranes, Trust Fund, Jelas, Tiger & Panda, I Know I Have No Collar and Box Car Aldous Huxley.

I remember hearing that Stitch-Stitch used to do evenings like this though I never made it to one. I hope we can do one again some day. First gigs are the best kind! 

brussels

photo by Frances Dixon

We arrived sleepy and happy into Brussels and perhaps we were caught off guard by the complicated (was it complicated) layout of the station. We got stressed out. In the end, a friendly man helped us back to Brussels Midi. We got a taxi to the hostel instead and things picked up from there.

We changed out of our two night old clothes, had showers and went to the bar for a beer. We walked around the block and had chips with mayonnaise next to the church. I can see the church out of the window now. I can't believe we've made it this far. I know it's not far really but it's the farthest I have traveled on my own planning and I'm pleased it has worked out.

It was a long day but we are on the train home and I am thinking about what a good time we had. It was so good to be with Frances on this big adventure. I have had some of the best experiences of my whole life and that's not even an exaggeration and I'm so happy I could share them with Frances.

kino residency: august

 photo by Frances Dixon

I spent August staying at my parents' house, working and putting on Cafe Kino events. Here are a few photos to summarise the whole thing. I'll make more detailed posts for the two main events (write good songs and music and movies) later. Also, here is a summary of the month in list form.

Frances and I found a place to have our wedding reception just before she left for China, so we parted in a great mood.

I spend the first week listening to old CDs and tapes, hanging out with my brother and his girlfriend and driving around visiting friends and their babies. I even caught Lauren between Afghanistan and somewhere else. Then my parents came home and we all went to the pub and I told them what was what for about two hours.

There were two weddings. One was of my old flatmate and friend Mark Slade, to Kerry, his girlfriend. Lots of babies there and lots of old pals. on the drive back, we visited my Grandparents and Aunt and Uncle.The second wedding was of Phil Dodd's brother, Pete and his girlfriend Lana. Grizzly and the Bears played!

Mostly I was working on projects and preparing for my week in Kino: 20th-25th Aug. The weekend before this, I stayed with Steve and Lisa and Sam in Lisa's house and we had a band practice for our new band The Nervy Betters in preparation for a new bands event on the following week. The next day, Lisa, Steve and I jumped on a big inflatable Stone Henge on College Green in Bristol.

Frances came back from China and I got to spend some time with her while looking for more Polite Records stuff to take to the British Library. We stayed up late Sunday night making a mixed tape for Cafe Kino. I made it on a blank tape my friend, Amy - 'primary care giver' - Parsons gave to me out of all the old CDs I had left behind when I left home.

For the next week, I spent time in and around Cafe Kino chatting and writing and drawing and preparing a story to be read out on Saturday the 25th of August. I stayed with the super generous Sarah and George and made them spinach and spring onion vegan pancakes for dinner as a thank you. 

Frances and I had an amazing curry with our friends Sarah-Jane and Daniel at Sarah-Jane's house in Yate. Daniel is going to go to Berlin to do an MA. He has been trying to do this for the last two years.

That week in Cafe Kino, I put on two events, with massive help from George and all at Kino. The first was called write good songs and was an evening of new bands and music ideas. The second was called music and movies and was an evening of songs and short films from Rachael Dadd, Ichi and me. It was also Rachael's last show before having her baby and she was joined on stage by a Skype video of Aaron and Kano in Japan. Kano is having a baby too!

Anyway, It was a fantastic three weeks and combined being busy with being on holiday in a way I wish I could make happen more often. I feel three years older, in a good way. I'm very grateful to everyone I got to spend time with over this month!