#63 DEC 2014 - JAN 2015 Amber Run - Jeanie Finlay - Rough Trade -The Dilettante Society Nottingham Nativity - Joe Buhdha - Boff Konkerz - City Arts - Event Listings contents editorial LeftLion Magazine Issue 63 Dec 2014 / Jan 2015 12 24 32 How do. Your eyes aren’t deceiving you, this magazine does indeed cover both December and January. Before anyone starts shaking their fist about how we said we were going monthly, we have decided to run a bumper Christmas/New Year issue. Mainly because we didn’t fancy distributing an issue on the first of January. Especially after seeing all the events that will be going off - check it out in the back, there are enough affordable NYE parties to make you think that people actually want to celebrate with you. So, what have we got in our fat Nottingham sack for you? Plenty, that’s what. We’ve 06 Street Tales 24 Figuratively Speaking 43 Art Works chatted to the band who should smash the Plus Advertising Sectioned Bob Robinson is an artist who Corrina Rothwell and Splinter Cell charts next year, Amber Run, and to the man still has things to say who’s been there, done that and made the 08 LeftEyeOn 44 Pick of the Month: December record, Joe Buhdha. Speaking of records, our Pleasing pictures 26 Big ‘Orrible Caunt Some tinsel-tastic events, plus some city’s hipster status is going through the roof He wasn’t the nimblest of fellas but for those that are sick of all that with the recently opened Rough Trade records. 10 In Focus he had fists like ham hocks They’ve even got a thing to inflate your tyres Farmyard Records and I’m Not From 45 Listings with that, although a little too cool for school, London hook up with a camera 29 The Ianfinity Trap With Nusic Box it is actually incredibly handy for when your bike’s wheels are feeling a bit flat. Arts-wise, Get stuck in to the first of a series of 12 Cheeky Buhdha sci-fi kids’ books. Forever 49 Last Pick of the Year we chatted to a tattooist from Sutton-in- Ashfield who has never used a tattoo gun in The music man who couldn’t stop A rundown of what Nottingham has even if he wanted to 30 Sobar, So Good up its New Year’s Sleeve his life, a painter with a slightly warped, but surreally beautiful take on life, as well as our The recovery charity who still want very own community arts institute who’ve just 14 Band on the Run you to have a good time 52 Spoke ‘n’ Words upped sticks and moved in to the city centre. Five lads who have their sights set We look at the lasting impression on the charts and stadiums 31 Funny Business Raleigh has left on the city It is Christmas, and if you’re not someone Proving that laughter is medicine who wets their knickers every time someone 16 Owl You Doing? 56 Write Lion flashes a bit of tinsel near you, you’re not Frank Shelton’s bird turns quite a 32 Oh Little Town of Nottingham The usual reviews, plus a poet gets alone. We couldn’t ignore it though, so we few heads in Nottingham Make your home a bit prettier with all soppeh about Nott’num constructed an advent calendar that’s about our Nottingham nativity giving a bit back in the month when not 18 She’s Behind You! 58 Music Reviews everyone is having the best time ever. And Jeanie Finlay documents the 34 Mr Inkredible Eleven toppers of the Notts pops, if you’re a bit skint, or just appreciate some production of an amateur panto A machine-free tattooist whose art plus what’s been on our mixtape fine craftsmanship, get stuck in to making our is in high demand Nottingham nativity. It’ll look dead good on 20 Bit of Rough 60 Noshingham any surface in your house, we guarantee it. The record store that’s defying the 36 Good on Yer We go a bit healthy, then drink Right, that’s enough Christmas talk for now. slump... Naughty or nice, you’ll definitely some wine to balance things out impress Santa by doing these things I’ve saved the best for last, that beautiful bird 22 Dilightful 62 The End on our cover. Yeah, she caught your eye. That’s Two girls who want to shake things 39 Art of the City Rocky Horrorscopes, Art Hole, Kim, and she is a gorgeous barn owl belonging to Frank Shelton. You may have spotted him up just for fun Nottingham’s community arts group Notts Trumps and LeftLion Abroad around the Market Square or up Carlton way, gets an NG1 postcode dog in one hand, Kim on the other. We had a credits right good natter with him - which you can read on page sixteen - and he let us have a stroke. Softer than triple quilted toilet roll. If you see him about, say ayup, and have a pet Editor-in-chief Photography Editor Chris Moore yourself. Jared Wilson ([email protected]) David Parry ([email protected]) Emma Richardson Rawson Photography That’s it then. Be good, be safe, be fun, and Editor Poetry Editor Phil Tooze we’ll see you in February. Alison Emm ([email protected]) Aly Stoneman ([email protected]) Andrew Whitton Ali Emm The Back and Front Master Screen Editor Contributors [email protected] Alan Gilby ([email protected]) Harry Wilding ([email protected]) Beane Penny Blakemore Marketing and Sales Manager Sport Editor Wayne Burrows Ash Dilks ([email protected]) Scott Oliver ([email protected]) Matt Clay Christopher Dodd Designer Stage Editor Joe Earp Our love of print may leave us with Raphael Achache ([email protected]) Hazel Ward ([email protected]) Craig Farina one foot in the past, but we like to Alex Fowler play with new technology. Recently Sub Editors Editorial Assistants Andrew ‘Mulletproof’ Graves we’ve been mucking around with Shariff Ibrahim Sam Nahirny ([email protected]) Katie Hutchcraft interactive print / augmented reality Dom Henry Bridie Squires ([email protected]) Hannah Parker software, and we decided we liked Tim Sorrell it. So do the Arts Council England, who have Art Editor Sales and Marketing Assistant given us some money to fund a year-long trial. Mark Patterson ([email protected]) Nicola Stapleford ([email protected]) Illustrators Christopher Paul Bradshaw So if you want to use your phone or tablet Community Editor Cover Photo Ian Carrington to get more out of LeftLion then download Penny Reeve ([email protected]) Shaun Gordon Mike Driver the ‘Layar’ app (it’s free). Then, as you look Paul Fillingham through this mag, wherever you see the Literature Editor Crema the crop Rikki Marr LeftLion mobile icon point your screen at the James Walker ([email protected]) Wired Café (wiredcafe.co.uk) Rob White page. Have a squizz around until you get a swirly circle, then the magic happens. Deputy Literature Editor Photographers /leftlion Robin Lewis ([email protected]) Nick Clague Grace Copley @leftlion Music Editor Joe Dixey Paul Klotschkow ([email protected]) Shaun Gordon @leftlionmagazine LeftLion magazine has an estimated readership of 40,000 and is distributed to over 350 venues across the city of Nottingham. If your venue isn’t one of them, or you’d like to advertise, contact Ash on 0115 9240476, email [email protected] or visit leftlion.co.uk/rates leftlion.co.uk/issue63 5 WHAT NOTTS words: Joe Earp illustration: Mike Driver We delve a little deeper into the history of our city’s streets to give you the tales they’d never have taught you at school... The Bubonic Bell Inn As recompense, he was offered the building Angel Row, site of such fondly remembered to the right of the Angel Inn and soon establishments such as Rainbows and SFC recovered his trade to a point where he’d Halal, actually has a history that goes back stolen every customer from next door, the even further than the advent of melted cheese landlord of which offered to sell out to him. and mayo atop flimsy chips. Running from the theatre of broken late-night dreams that These days, the Bell Inn is still made up of is St James’s Street, right up to the beginning two buildings - the current central doorway of Mount Street, towards the Playhouse, the would have been the alley between the stretch was first named Angel Row after an buildings, giving access to the stables at old inn that used to sit in the left half of what the rear, which is now converted to a bar. is now the Bell Inn. The pair of buildings have one roof - well, three really. Over the years when it’s been in Back when the bubonic plague was a big need of repair, they have circumvented the deal in Nottingham, a collection of buildings problem by plonking a new one on top of the and narrow alleys between Long Row broken one. Other than having olives on the and Parliament Street were identified as menu, live jazz and a pleasantly plague-free the breeding ground for the disease and environment, it’s pretty much as it was. condemned to be demolished. Nestled right in the middle of the plague-ridden street was Another tale from the Bell Inn’s history is the aforementioned Bell, an inn that was when the landlord’s son married a widow, just as popular back then as it is today. The the landlady of the Trent Bridge Inn, he landlord, on hearing of the removal of his best discovered a large field to the rear of the TBI. customers and the demolition of his premises, And, being one who was interested in a new was having none of it. In time-honoured game called cricket, he used this for his team fashion, he complained to the council. to practice on, leading to the establishment of the Trent Bridge Cricket Ground on that site. Owzat for a history lesson? leftlion.co.uk/streettales ADVERTISING SECTIONED Local adverts ripped from the pages of history… As we all know, nothing helps communicate the true spirit of Christmas quite like a gift-wrapped shotgun with a tinsel bow tied to the cold metal of its fully loaded double-barrels. At least, that’s what this 1966 magazine advert would have us believe. “Armstrong’s Gunsmiths wish all their customers a Merry Christmas and a Safe New Year,” runs the jovial copy underneath a picture of a flaming candle and some festive holly leaves. “Call in and talk over your shooting problems, but please remember, we are closed All Day Monday. No parking problems.” Elsewhere, in the same magazine issue, we find fashion plates showing well-bred young ladies modelling tweeds in amply stocked armouries we’re more likely to associate with Al Pacino in Scarface than the eligible daughters of the Right Honourable Lord and Lady something-or-other at their lovely family home near Castle Donington. There are endless engagement and marriage announcements, adverts for sports cars, pages extolling the virtues of diamond jewellery, fat gold watches and real fur coats. Put bluntly, the whole issue sometimes resembles a bizarrely archaic hybrid of Downton Abbey and Grand Theft Auto. Except it’s safe to say that, even at the height of the many moral panics it’s caused, at least Grand Theft Auto drew the line at shotguns as Christmas gifts. leftlion.co.uk/adsectioned words: Wayne Burrows 6 leftlion.co.uk/issue63  WHAT NOTTS F P U A N Stuff what happened in November… had on their hands in September, but there passengers were allowed to get off cos they Ne-No G was still an impressive amount of smoke weren’t at a stop so, as you can imagine, A Nottingham mum has E Gordon Scott Monkey Does One billowing out of the building. Let’s all be a it got ugly. Crowds gathered, tram horns had an operation to stop  He was the king of the swingers, the shoe bit more careful, shall we? were blasted, and a sea of smart phones her from having seizures that shop VIP, but he’s gone into retirement. You captured every moment. After about twenty are triggered by the voice of pop may have spotted a pretender to his throne 999, What’s Your Emergency? minutes, onlookers fully lifted the car and star Ne-Yo. Having to walk around flapping about wildly in the window of the We’re happy for people to explore their moved it out the tram’s road. A woman everywhere with headphones on to the relocated shop on Lister Gate, but he kinks, so long as no one gets hurt. This returned from having a coffee to hoards of drown out lurking tunes was growing doesn’t even come close. We don’t care that immediately rules out using 999 to get giggling students and a ticket off a CPO. somewhat tiresome, so she’s had part of other Gordon Scott shops in other cities yourself revved up. Some bloke with his Tomorrow’s another day, love. her brain removed. Unfortunately, she still had similar monkeys, ours was the best cos brain in his balls got banned from phoning has a fit every time she hears him, so we’re he hung out in Nottingham. Dry your eyes, the East Midlands Ambulance Service after Dirty Dental Deeds calling for the r’n’b cheese master to do her, though, he’s too good for the bin. If you calling them up to every ten minutes. He Over 32 years, an estimated 22,000 patients and everyone else, a favour and hush his want to visit the sixty-year-old simian, pop clocked up nearly 1,200 calls, costing us have been treated by Desmond D’Mello, a mush. down to Brewhouse Yard Museum where taxpayers almost £30,000. No mate. Get dentist from Daybrook in Arnold. Turns out he’s settled in quite nicely. yourself a mucky mag and be off with you. Dezza has been well dutteh for the duration, Crass Monkey taking a lax approach to hygiene protocols According to some pretty angry reviewers Leg Splints Get Pinched Love Is An Open Pound Shop Door by not changing his gloves and washing on the Facebook, Brass Monkey has been A lad with cerebral palsy has had his leg The pound shop army is expanding and his equipment in the bogs, the lazy bleeder. getting a bit heavy handed with its patrons splints robbed. For the second time. His the latest among the troops is sat opposite He’s been barred from practising and now of late. Sadly, the bar didn’t respond too mam reckons the jebs who did it were after Viccy Centre. The day its doors opened, a everyone who came into contact with him well, essentially insulting everyone who the trainers attached to them more than frenzy ensued with hoards of pumped up and his mangy mitts is being urged to posted on their wall. The manager’s brother anything else and probably chucked them shoppers sacrificing limbs and internal have blood tests to see whether they’ve even decided on a bit of trolling, though we afterwards, so keep an eye out. It's gonna organs to get to the Frozen gear in time developed infections from the malpractice. don’t think anyone paid too much attention take seven weeks for the poor fifteen-year- for Christmas. Frugal fanatics clubbed to his goading, as it was a bit shit. As the old to get new splints. C'mon BioCity, knock together, creating a chain to pass stuff over Shottingham Strikes Again final cherry on the cake, Monkey even him some out on one of yer 3D printers. heads and to the till. Although it was like a A seven-year-old kid got a bust lip after uploaded an image of someone getting church meeting compared to Black Friday a copper accidentally fired a gun and its punched as their cover photo - because NCN Basford Combusts which, we can confirm, has marked the end cartridge bounced off the floor, smacking they’re just that funneh. We’re sure Now we’re not sure what’s going on at of humanity altogether. her in the face. All this happened on a business will be roaring over the Christmas the moment, but educational institutes school trip to Sherwood Lodge - the girl’s season. are going up like a youth in a Kappa shell Tow On The Tram Line fine now but the po po were a little less suit who can’t light his fag properly. NCN Some silly sausage parked their Mini than transparent about the whole affair, Basford is the latest building to have caught on double yellers outside Trent Uni and pissing off many a councillor. Sort it out, fire. It wasn’t quite the inferno the UoN backed up three trams. None of the tram you plonker plods. LEFTLION CROSSWORD Bit of a wordy so-and-so? Test your grey matter and Hoodtown knowledge here. No dictionaries up for grabs - they’re well expensive - but we will be giving away a fine tea towel and a mystery prize from a local pahnd shop as a prize to one of your clever boggers who can be bothered to send in their completed crib. Mail it to 8 Stoney Street,  happy crosswordmas, one and all NG1 1LH, or be well fanceh and scan it and email it to [email protected]  Last issue’s winner is… drum roll, please… Zenn Athar. Big up yourself with your skills and whatnot.  1 ACROSS 2 This Nottingham band like to chance the traffic lights (5,3)  2 3 The bloke who got Angelina talking Notts on the box (4,8) 3 4 5 Adopted American excuse to lose your shit in the shops (5,6)   8 The only fans to start on each other when their team loses in a local Derby (6) 5 6 9 Robin’s alcohol and God loving chum (5,4)  12 You’ll need a compass to find this brewery (10)  14 The sauciest Wise Man of our nativity scene (2,8) 7 8 9 15 This sociable venue has just turned fifteen (3,6)  17 Teeny tiny cinema (6,2)  10 18 This charming, old school Nottingham rapper is supporting Method Man and Redman (7)  19 Some say it’s not right, but we love a bit of it on our Yorkshire puds (3) 11 12  13 DOWN 14 1 Bet this lass ain’t too chuffed they named one of the city’s ugliest roads after her (4,6)  15 4 The day after Christmas Eve (9,3)  6 All we want for Christmas is… (3)  7 Fans of Nottingham bike company, assemble! (7) 16 17 10 Plugged in Pelham Street caffeine-pushers (5)   11 He Can’t Stop and Won’t Stop his love for hip hop (3,6)  13 Where is he? - All together now! (6,3) 16 Which car manufacturer got some free advertising when a plonker parked her car on the tram  18 19 tracks in town (4) 17 The bar on Friar Lane to get high on life, milkshakes and Scrabble (5) NOTTS’ MOST OPINIONATED GROCERS ON… New pound shop opens on Milton Street Angelina Jolie says “Ayup me duck” at US Awards Is it ever going to be as good as the pound shop in ACROSS DOWN ceremony Scarborough, though? That one is absolutely fantastic. We 2 This Nottingham band like to chance the 1 Bet this lass ainW’t htooo i csh sufhfeed? tIhse yshe an ice skater? No. She’s a famous don’t really go in those sorts of places, but we’ve seen a traffic lights named one of tahcet crietys’ss. u Bglrieasdt rPoiatdts’s wife. Oh. I’m sure he’s not from round shop on Alfreton Road called the Pound Shop Plus. What’s 3 The bloke who got Angelina talking Notts after her here. Where’s she from? America. Oh. Well why are they that about? It’s hardly a pound shop if all the items are on the box 4 The day after Christmas Eve 5 Adopted American excuse to lose your 6 All we want forp Crhertisetnmdasin isg to talk in an East Midlands accent then? Still, more expensive than that, is it? shit in the shops 7 Fans of Nottingthhaemy bpikreo bcoambplayn cyo,uldn’t do any worse than Kevin Costner. 8 The only fans to start on each other when assemble! Nottingham declared Britain’s cleanest city their team loses in a local Derby 10Plugged in Pelham Street caffeine-pushers 9 Robin’s alcohol and God loving chum 11He Can’t Stop aMndin Wi opna’tr Skteopd on tram lines How far did they go to check? Some of this city is filthy. 12You’ll need a compass to find this his love for hip Dhoidpn’t lots of people pick it up and move it? They must have Whoever did that survey must be blind. Did they do it at brewery 13All together nowb e- eWnh esrter oisn hge.? Why does it matter that the tram got stopped 4am in the morning, immediately after the cleaners had 14The sauciest Wise Man of our nativity 16Which car manufacturer got some free anyway? We’re not in London, so who cares if people are been round? Maybe they just had a big tidy-up beforehand scene advertising when a plonker parked her car 15This sociable venue has just turned fifteen on the tram traac klist itnl eto bwint late. They’ll probably dig the tram up again in for that one special day. Or maybe someone got a 17Teeny tiny cinema 17The bar on Friatrh Liarntey tyoe gaerts h iaghn don p liufet, trolley buses back on. backhander… 18This charming, old school Nottingham milkshakes and Scrabble rapper is supporting Method Man and Redman 19Some say it’s not right, but we love a bit of it on our Yorkshire puds leftlion.co.uk/issue62 7 Guardian of The Wells Road The creepiest things on the road. Their cold, dead eyes make us want to drive into them, which can’t be right. Chris Moore hiddenlight.co.uk Hillside In case you have never been outside towards the end of the day, this is what a sunset looks like. Emma Richardson emmarphotography.co.uk 8 leftlion.co.uk/issue63 The Newton Building This building will look greyer and more imposing to NTU’s students the closer to exam time it gets. Phil Tooze facebook.com/ Riotphotography1 Bus Turning The only long exposure on Maid Marian Way that won’t get you arrested. Rawson Photography rawsonphotography.com leftlion.co.uk/issue63 9 leftlion.co.uk/issue62 9 I’m Not From The Farmyard Nottingham is equally blessed and cursed to call Will Robinson and Tommy Farmyard its friends. As respective heads of I’m Not From London and Farmyard Records, they have filled our evenings with a fine selection of gigs, some of which will go down in local history. To balance this out, they have also created a Christmas tradition that can only be described as an assault on the senses. We, cautiously, got them to to reveal what makes them tick, in pictorial form… WWiillll,, TToommmmyy aanndd FFrriieennddss SSiinngg TThhee CCllaassssiiccss,, SSuunnddaayy 2211 DDeecceemmbbeerr,, TThhee GGoollddeenn FFlleeeeccee farmyardrecords.com imnotfromlondon.com 1100 lleeffttlliioonn..ccoo..uukk//iissssuuee6633