London Loves.....Akerman

        'See Perspective at the Elephant' by Jeremy Akerman 

"You should really pop in and see Jeremy's work, it's mind blowing" says Amalie Russell, owner and director of the Hardy Tree Gallery, in her endearing Canadian dialect. Her words did the trick because suddenly here I am, again, in this petite but enticing arts space cowering beside the hustle bustle of central London traffic and grime.

Russell (an artist herself) has managed, in a short space of time, to exhibit a diverse range of artists here, from local photographers, to audio-visualists accompanied by techno DJ sets, to Goldsmiths-trained bastions of that golden 1990s era of British art. Jeremy Akerman falls into the latter category, his skills honed at that grand old Deptford institution, he was in the year below the much celebrated Gary Hume. Having established himself as a curator as well as an artist in his own right he has returned from a residency in South Korea and produced a series of fantastic... photographs? ...paintings? I'm stuttering...."I call them mosaics". Yes, mosaics. Exactly.

Influenced by cubism, I at first assume these images, created with a cutting knife from huge photographs, to be the creation of a mathematical brain. They are, essentially, landscapes but the scenes depicted (parkland, churches and urban buildings photographed and enhanced to a smooth, colour-heightened "postcard like texture") have been painstakingly chopped into circular shapes and fragments and carefully rearranged across the artwork distorting the viewer's perception. Blowing your mind? Actually I rather felt them to be quite lulling. These are familiar images to me. A leafy Hampstead Heath, a concrete Aylesbury Estate in Elephant & Castle basking in the sun. Yet the contiginous circles, juxtaposed with a kind of precise anarchy in relation to one another "so that a piece of the top left of the scene can be seen right the way down in the bottom right", I found to be a transporter. Moving me from familiarity to a distant newly discovered place. 

             'Pleasurable Forest' by Jeremy Akerman

Good art should blend humour and seriousness, I have always thought, in order to bring real pleasure. The bruised gore of Francis Bacon for example has never been pleasing on my eye. Akerman here gives me what I want to see. Comedy and obfuscation amidst a quite serious point - that perception is everything and can be messed with. "The world is all around us and we are in it. It surrounds us and sometimes we effect it and sometimes it effects us". I ask whether he means this in a phenomenological sense and he half agrees. "Sometimes there are days when you trip over something and bump your head and coincidences happen. Somethings things just aren't quite physically right. Social study says things are 'all ok' [ordered and rational] and we start off from that perspective so as to make sense of them. But if you start off from a position of 'everything is not ok', like the Cubist movement did, then you reveal other things."

It's at this point that I make the enquiry as to whether Akerman is a former mathematician to which he laughs and says the pieces don't follow a geometric law. "It's more about perception than maths. I got a C at 'O' Level." This humours me intensely as I also got a C (at GCSE). I blame this on my flagrant truantism and Akerman and I briefly compete over who bunked off school more than the other. Kids these days can't bunk off we agree, everything's locked down. It turns out Ackerman's brother beat us both in bunking off. "One day our mother found him in the shed at the bottom of the garden. Turned out he'd been there most of the school year." I turn to Russell to assess her absentiesm credentials but she, charmingly though somewhat embarrassed, reveals she was something of a swot at school (a NERD in Canadian). Akerman's girlfriend Anne Odling-Smee, here to accompany him on a drive down to Brighton, was also a straight A student. When I mention my mother's recent move to the south coast, Bexhill-on-sea it turns out she worked as a designer on the refurbishment of the grand art deco De La Warr Pavilion on Bexhill promenade. (Small world, and something I should revisit in future blogs.)

             'perspective4' by Jeremy Akerman

Having touched on his early family life, Akerman reveals the shed his brother bunked off in was in the garden of their vicarage home. He is in fact the son of a vicar. While his brother rejected faith and eyes it with suspicion ("he felt let down and you don't want to hear the words 'God will never let you down' when he already has let you down") Akerman is much more exploratory around the subject. "The church is the base of almost every bit of art history we know of" he says. He finds churches fascinating, but in several of his pieces, including the one above, the central round 'eyes' appear. "People's eyes generate a kind of chaos theory. Not chaos theory but a distortion of order. This notion of the eyes focusing in the centre is me trying to eliminate myself, if you emptied yourself out and tried to see yourself you might end up looking like that", he says pointing at the image.

His father, the vicar, was buried in a church later burnt down and its ruins had to be supported by scaffolding erected around the church to stop it collapsing in on itself. Clearly prime fodder for a cut up, heavily dissected colourful mosaic. One which means a lot to Akerman clearly, but one that - as art should - laces the seriousness of morbidity, love and death with a comic touch.

He wastes no opportunity to reference Simone Weil as his chief theological influence - observations that go somewhat over my ill educated head - but his serious approach to "pushing perspective to an absurdity" is reflected mostly in his discussions of the meanings around God, belief and art. Looking at the church pieces he describes, perhaps sarcastically a "highway to the heavens" and that the relationship to space in a church always comes back to this visual idea. When I ask if he believes in God he tells me "it's not about belief, it's just there. I grew up in my father's vicarage so it's just there. As a believer and a liberal you're more promiscuous than athiests. You get to explore so much more without shutting yourself off". Somehow I believe him. 

Rowan Williams, somebody he also respects as a theologian lifted Weil's idea of abandoment for his own writing. "The notion that when that God has abandoned his creation you move into another space. God's tactical withdrawal sucks people towards him into the vacuum created. Heidegger said what attracts us is that which calls to us. It calls and we go towards it. It's like creating art in the studio, something calls you and you go to it and bask in it for a while."

He says this while we look at his rendition of the Aylesbury Estate teetering on the brink of visual collapse while the wasteland foreground glistens like sand on a French beach. Then he says I should come and see his studio in Brockley some time.

And by God, I just might!



Jeremy Akerman's 'The Stream Will Soon Renew Its Smoothness' exhibtion is on at the Hardy Tree Gallery, Pancras Road until 25th November

London Loves.....St Pancras

               © Hisano Luttman

The Hardy Tree Gallery, a tiny, boundary pushing arts space on Pancras Road is currently showing a wonderful exhibition of black and white photos by local artist Hisano Luttman. Born in Japan, Luttman moved to Kings Cross over twenty years ago. She has lived there ever since, a resident of what is sometimes referred to as Somers Town. Between 1988-1990 she documented the area in a personalised photographic portrait of the streets and architecture. Today, in 2012 the pictures appear to come from a completely different world. A bygone era of London rapidly disappearing underneath ceaseless modernisation. The gallery, itself situated in the heart of St Pancras is overlooked by the shiny new behemoth of the Eurostar terminal. The beautiful gasometers in Luttman's pictures have all been ripped out and the skies are instead littered with the sight of cranes lifting and moving building materials. New buildings have emerged, creeping skywards. New, expensive looking roads have replaced the dark, dingy streets once stalked by prostitutes and drug dealers. The British Library and The Guardian are neighbours in the area. The UK Centre for Medical Research is currently building its new £500 million home on a vacant plot, from where the future of cancer treatments will be mapped out. The beautiful St Pancras Renaissance Hotel has reopened after lying dormant for decades. The area has seen significant change since Luttman's photos were taken. In an interview with London Loves she told me what the pictures and this area of London mean to her.

London Loves: What does the Kings Cross, St Pancras and Somers Town area mean to you personally?

Hisano Luttman: This is the place I’ve lived since 1988, sure I have lived somewhere before, but this is the place I call home. As I learnt about the place, the history, I found an attachment, also I became close friends of an old lady (by using the local launderette where she was the service wash girl), a sweet lady, she was in her 80s, born and lived all of her life here, she introduced me to her friends, they became my friends. To them, I was never Hisano, I was Tina, it felt strange, but also natural. I met her family, and she met mine. This was where the sense of belonging really came from. I remember she told me about the Chalton Street of her youth, a busy marketplace 7 days a week, this pokey little street sandwiched between Euston and St Pancras. Sainsbury’s, all this street, both sides was stalls, a Jewish furniture shop, a silk stocking place… that’s how the area came alive to me.

                    © Hisano Luttman

London Loves: What's the biggest change you've seen or felt in the 20+ years you've lived in the area?

Hisano Luttman: The people. When I arrived there some of the older people felt to me like the characters of those old films, the Ealing or the Gainsboroughs, remainders of another age. Those people had an inherent sense of Britishness. I knew the people who had lived all their lives in this area, who had spent their lives for example working in the local industries, on the railways, they were a part of the local fabric. But now they’ve gone. Those that remain, they may be the same people – people who’ve spent their lives around here, but their experience are different, they weren’t shaped in the same way.

London Loves: Talk us through your favourite photo from the exhibition and what you like about it/what it says about the area...

Hisano Luttman: The shot of the kings cross parcel yard (main pic), it contains everything I loved about the area; the brickwork, the cobbles, the gasometers, the railway lodging house…. People have said to me it looks Victorian, but I did nothing, just snapped it, that was how it was and that was how I caught it.

London Loves: Are you positive about the future for Kings Cross?

Hisano Luttman: I am not sure … the change was needed, it had to happen, but what I see now is a community sidelined, nothing really for the locals. It’s like, to the east of the Pancras Road, everything is new and modern, you cross over into Brill place and you’re in Somers Town, nothing has changed. All this wealth and yet for the people who have lived here all their lives, the old people, the day centre – the lunch club, shut down last year, not because there are no old people, but because of cuts to services. So where, I ask, are the benefits to the community from all this money? 

     © Hisano Luttman

London Loves: You must have seen a lot happen in these streets or from your balcony... tell us the good and bad things you've seen in the area.

Hisano Luttman: Somers Town is actually a warm place, a small place. And once you are inside it, the community itself is quite close. We look after each other and know each other. It doesn’t mean you nod an hello to everybody, it’s more that even if you don’t know the gang of kids hanging out on the corner, once they’ve seen you a few times, they know you are local, so they’ll leave you alone. It’s an inclusive community.

On the downside, when they cleaned up the worst parts of the Cross (Argyle Square), they didn’t solve the problem of the hardcore drug addicts and prostitution, they just displaced them. We caught the fall out and for a few months, it was not a nice place to be. Of course we have our own problems, every place does, but we saw them triple or quadruple overnight. We got over the worst – largely thanks to a dedicated ward councillor continually pestering the Council and Police, but again they – the addicts and prostitutes were just moved on, it just make’s me wonder where they went.

London Loves: Does anywhere in London feel even remotely like Japan?

Hisano Luttman: Department stores – English departments stores before were really old fashioned. You had departments (fashion, haberdashery, kitchen appliances etc), but now the department stores like Selfridges, the layout is like Japanese stores, so you’ll walk form a section selling one brand, into another selling a rival brand, into another, all within a single department … that’s very Japanese. But the service, no, English assistants don’t have it. Also in the sense of the shopper – especially young people, before they would look for individuality, visit markets, look for the little shop that was special, but now it all seems to be Brand driven and that to me is a very Japanese thing. And it’s inherently sad that I think you’ve lost that, because with it you lose the individuality, the flair…. It’s a funny thing, because back in the 80’s that’s something we Japanese studied of the English – that individuality, the music, the fashion, it was so London driven … and yet now its almost - in a way - the opposite.

London Loves: There are so many people in London from every part of the world, I always wonder do they feel at home here. Do you?

Hisano Luttman: I can only speak for myself, and as someone who came here – not born here. If someone asks me where is my home, Nagoya or London, I would always say Nagoya, because I always feel – even after all of this time and all of my positive experiences – I still feel like I am a bit of an ‘alien’. But, whenever I go back to Japan, then I miss London, I want to come back, because when I am there I feel in some unexplainable way estranged from Japanese society – not like I don’t fit or have my place, but like I have seen or lived too much to feel totally comfortable with it – questioning my actions and responses so to speak.

London Loves: What other photographic projects, particularly in London, would you like to do.

Hisano Luttman: As you know, the photos in this exhibition were all taken between 1988 and 1990, around this time I took lots of photos they were never expressly intended for exhibition, they were just me capturing images through my lens. I want to revisit the images I took then, and maybe also revisit some of the places and compare the changes.

 St Pancras - A Photographic Diary 1988-1990 is on at the Hardy Tree Gallery, 119 Pancras Road, NW1 1UN until the 2nd September

London Loves.....Dogs

Some people are dog people and some are cat people. In my family we grew up with both. At our peak we had two dogs and four cats running around, not to mention rabbits and gerbils. By the time we left our old house on Nightingale Road, half way between Bounds Green and Wood Green, so many pets had come and gone our garden was very much a pet cemetery. 

In this edition of London Loves, I asked three London 'dog people' (four including me), to talk about their own dogs.

The Surtees family slowly graduated to getting a dog, first practising with fish (killed by the cats obviously), stick insects (released back into the wild once we grew bored and terrapins (god knows what happened to those). But from as early as I can remember we incessantly begged our mother to get a dog. She finally caved in when I was about 8 or 9 years old. On the proviso that we all take turns walking him in the evenings she drove us all down to Battersea Dogs Home and we came back with Frank. The staff there had labelled him cross Great Dane but he looked more like a Pointer than anything else. Immensely powerful, he could run for miles up mountains, over streams and swimming across lakes to chase sheep (literally). On the Parkland Walk - a disused railway line that serves as a nature trail running between Finsbury Park and Muswell Hill - I remember many summer evenings after school spent trying to get Frank to come back and to stop humping other people's dogs. He was neuteured but that didn't stop him. Fiercely protective and mildly insecure it took him a long time to shake off the mistreatments he'd endured before being rescued. Our second dog Smiffy was similar. Most rescue dogs have 'issues'. When Frank died we all went into a period of mourning which, for me, was truly depressing. Smiffy is dead too now. They both had nice lives. The sad thing about owning dogs is that their lives are so short and they seem to go from puppies to old timers in the blink of an eye.

In September 2001, about a week after 9/11, my mum returned from a week in Derbyshire on a residential course with the Association of Radical Midwives and as I walked into the kitchen to greet her I was surprised to find a tiny fluffy ball of black and white leapingng up the garden steps and immediately beginning to chew my toes. It was love at first sight. Her mother was a white boxer, her father an unspecified huge hound. We named her Poppy and in eleven years she's grown from this cheeky thing...

 

Into this...

 

Here, my mum Anne Surtees (main picture) talks about what Poppy means to her...

"Poppy is my sixth dog and probably my last dog. She started life in a deprived council estate in Derby. From being a tiny bundle of black fluff with a spattering of white she grew into a beautiful, sensitive, funny gentle giant. As I just wrote that sentence she knew I was thinking of her and came over to push her lovely face into mine, smiling with pleasure at me. I feel very lucky to have a dog like Poppy who is happy to do anything: walk for miles over hill and dale in sun or rain, trudge through snow, drive in the car for hours, live with cats, say hello to old ladies, sleep in a tent... Anything is fine with her as long as she can do it with me alongside her. She is my best friend who accepts and loves me unconditionally. My children say she is naughty and she does take advantage of her age and position sometimes. Barking at unsuspecting passers-by who come too close, wanting treats in her dinner and digging up my garden if I leave her alone for too long are just a few examples of her transgressions. Yet her cheeky grin and wicked tail wag absolve her every time."

My next London dog owner is Laura Roberts. Originally from the Rhondda Valley in Wales Laura now lives in East Finchley in north London with her boyfriend Ed and their dog Fred. Here's Laura's account of living with Fred...

"This weekend it'll be a year since we picked up Fred and brought him back to London. He was a gift for my birthday from my boyfriend. Our friends back home in South Wales show Beagles and often have puppies for sale. We'd been speaking about getting a dog for a while so I asked if they had any boys left in their recent litter. They said no but that we could have one from the next litter. Little did I know that my boyfriend had been in touch to ask them to keep Fred for us.  

I'd always had a dog growing up and seem to remember him being a lot easier to look after than Fred. Maybe I'm looking back with rose-tinted glasses, or maybe it's just that my parents did all of the 'work'. During Fred's first six months with us he managed to destroy half of my shoes, our bottom bookshelf of books, quite a few dvd cases and two handmade cushions. People say that dogs chew things because they're bored, because they don't have toys. It's a lie. Our living room looked like Pets at Home but all he wanted to chew was our stuff. He also took it upon himself to ensure that every last inch of our carpet had been wee'd on. We soon became quite well acquainted with the wonder that is a Vax carpet cleaner. Since then though he seems to have got a lot better - or maybe there's just nothing left to destroy. 

The puppy classes might've helped too. My boyfriend saw the classes as a sign of weakness - we were admitting that we couldn't train our own dog - so I took Fred there myself. It was six weeks of hell. The other puppies were all around three months old - tiny little things. Fred was this great, big, seven month old dog who looked like he'd been kept back a good few years for failing class. He spent the first class mainly facing the wall because that was the punishment for barking too much. Bad dog. It did get better though and we passed the course. Although everyone passed so I'm not too confident our certificate actually means anything.

One of the best things about being a dog owner in London is people's reaction to him - so many people stop and stay hello. Strangers even start talking to you on the tube if you have a Beagle sitting on your lap. Before we got him we didn't know any of our neighbours. Now - due to the many hours we spent outside encouraging him to wee away from our carpet - we know loads of the people who live around us. It makes you feel a lot more settled in your community. We walk him at least three times a day around the same route which means that quite often you see people on a daily basis - it's like being back in a village as opposed to being in a city.

The only trouble with having a dog in London (although this might apply to anywhere) is that he's a magnet for children. He's a friendly looking dog so most children aren't afraid of him plus, he's really good with them and will happily sit down to be stroked. Some children are very polite and ask before touching him but you wouldn't believe the amount of kids that come running up and grab at him before asking. It's fine because he's generally a good dog but not all dogs are and you never know, he could be having an off day. I wish parents would teach their kids that they should ask before touching a dog."

My final dog owner, Chris Hey, lives in Wichmore Hill and has recently acquired a Labradoodle (which, if you hadn't guessed is a cross between a Labrador and a Poodle). Here, Chris tells us about Molly the dog...

"We chose our beautiful labradoodle puppy because we wanted a gentle, affectionate and easily trained(!) companion in our retirement. After previously owning two much-loved rescue dogs we decided this time we wanted a dog that didn't moult. Molly quickly grew tall and weighs 26 kilos at 9 months, but she loves to run and play and we will make sure she doesn't get fat by over-feeding her. She is the most gentle, happy dog I have ever known and likes nothing more than being with people. She has never cried or whined, only barks at umbrellas, and is eager to do party tricks. She adores going to the vets  as there are more people there, and animals which she sees as a bonus! Her biggest sin? Infrequently, joyously, but unpredictably, ripping up plastic, wood, garden plants, tea cloths etc. in the blink of an eye. She is a comforting companion, a source of fun and a soft fleece to hug."  

London Loves.....Gigs

Last year bulldozers demolished London's best concert venue the London Astoria to make way for the Crossrail project. A sad moment for many London concert goers not to mention the G.A.Y community.

The size and shape of the Astoria - somehow large but intimate at the same time - and the ability to see the stage perfectly from downstairs or upstairs made it my personal favourite.

I saw some marvellous gigs there including The Libertines euphoric first big headline show in early 2003. Afterwards, being amongst the last to leave, we exited sweating into the chilly Charing Cross Road to find a gaggle of schoolgirls gathered around a tall bedraggled Burberry-coated figure leaning against a lamppost; Pete Doherty. Why he was hanging around outside the front entrance of his own gig I still don't know. Maybe he wanted some fresh air. Maybe he was waiting to score some skag. Or maybe - as later events suggests - he just wanted to meet his fans. I still have his scrawled autograph on a travel card somewhere but he managed to succesfully evade my attempted kiss on the lips. Ah, those romantic pre-Oyster card days.

That was a special show as anybody who was there will testify. It took place in near darkness. Very low lighting, a very nervous shy Pete and Carl presumably on a lot of drugs wearing leather jackets with nothing else underneath just bare sweaty chests. Two shambolic frontmen and a juggernaut of a rhythm section. John barely moving and looking like he'd rather be anywhere else but there. Gary pounding the drums at ear splitting volume.

The opening chords of 'Horrorshow' ringing through that venue like a pneumatic drill and the chaotic, sprawling, anarchic moshpit that accompanied every song was electrifying. A call back to the old days of gigging. Punk rock for a new generation.

Somewhere in the midsts of time my ticket for that gig got lost. Probably in the crowd. I lost many things in that moshpit; a pair of spectacles, a jumper, my sanity..... But I've kept the tickets to pretty much every other concert I've ever attended in London. And here I've compiled a few of the tickets to gigs that have meant the most to me. You've probably all got favourite gig memories so please do share yours in the comments section below.

Nirvana, Brixton Academy, April 1994 - The gig that never was

I kick off with a gig that, sadly, never happened. A gig I looked forward to more than any other in my life. I was 13 years old when the tour was announced and remember asking my nan to book tickets for me and my best mate Graham. When they arrived via Stargreen box office - one of London's few remaining independent ticket outlets, located on Argyll Street, a place I thoroughly recommend instead of Ticketmaster et al - the anticipation was almost too much to bear.

Nirvana meant so much to kids of a very specific age - my age. They occupied a small window of time in between the indie of the late 80s and the coming of Britpop and Oasis which changed 'indie' music forever. Nirvana were the last of the truly alternative bands. They have become misunderstood in the course of time as a depressing, overwrought, teenage angsty band. In reality they were just a very heavy, very loud rock'n'roll band with an incredible sound, a ferocious drummer and an unbelievable singer/screamer. And they were showmen - trashing their equipment after every show to entertain the fans.

A month before the Brixton show Kurt Cobain overdosed in Rome midway through the European leg of the In Utero tour. The tour was postponed and Kurt flew back to Seattle to recuperate. He never recuperated and was found dead on 8th April at his home having blown his brains out with a shotgun. The postmortem found that he killed himself on the 5th April - the date of the gig we were supposed to see.

Rage Against The Machine, Brixton Academy, September 1993 - My first ever gig

Look at the state of this ticket. It gives you a rough idea of how messy it was in the Academy that night. Sweaty, riotous, celebratory. An amazing way to kick off my London gigging days. I still remember buying the ticket from the box office a few weeks before the show. Talk about pre-internet era! Buying tickets IN PERSON. Some work colleagues and I recently relived the magic of buying tickets in person; trundling down to the Scala one lunchtime to get Kurt Vile tickets. No booking fee and seeing the ticket printed off there and then from the machine - of such things dreams are made.

Anyway, Rage Against The Machine. Another angsty, grungy, heavy band. This was an Anti-Nazi League benefit show with a really big bill of support acts and my brother and I queued up from about 4pm (note the doors opening time of 5pm). We were pretty much first in the queue. The line-up as I remember it was: Lush, Headswim, Billy Bragg, Senser (who remembers them??) and Rage at the height of their powers. I was a very scrawny 13 year old and there were some very large metaller type men in the crowd. With every mosh I was lifted fully off the floor with no control over my own body movements. Amazing, truly amazing. How my (usually very strict) mother let me go to gigs like this at that age I do not know. I suppose she had no choice in the matter, she could see nothing was going to stop me.

Compulsion, LA2 (later the Mean Fiddler), June 1994 - The naughty gig

Who remembers the band Compulsion? Nope, didn't think so. Who remembers the LA2? Yeah, some of you do. The London Astoria 2 later knows as the Mean Fiddler was situated just yards from the main Astoria and the entrance was a very exciting lit stairway going down underneath the bowels of the West End. It was a sweaty, thrilling little club venue that hosted Popscene - the britpop club night which along with Loony Tunes at The Dome in Tuffnell Park was the place for teenaged kids with floppy haircuts to dance to Blur, Ride and The Inspiral Carpets in those heady days called the 1990s.

Who were Compulsion, you ask? It's not really important but here's a taster.

Why was this the naughty gig, you ask? The answer involves ampethamines, parents and expulsions from grammar schools.

The gig was tremendous and was notable for the lead singer wearing a t-shirt upon which were scrawled the words 'STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON'. Skunk Anansie, in one of their first ever shows, were third on the bill. They would later go on to headline Glastonbury.

Oasis, Wembley Stadium, July 2000 - My favourite gig of all time

Say what you will about Oasis, they know how to play a rock'n'roll concert. This was my favourite ever gig for many reasons. The location, the fact it was meant to be the last ever concert before the old Wembley was knocked down (sadly Bon Jovi squeezed another gig in later in the summer therefore nullifying that claim), the weather, the atmosphere, the support acts (Doves in their pomp and a rejuvenated, reunified Happy Mondays) and above all the sheer banter.

The concert took place amid uncertainty as to whether it would be Oasis's last ever gig. The brothers had come to serious blows just weeks before. This was the second of two nights at Wembley. After the first night Liam Gallagher went on a massive all-night bender arriving at the show on the Sunday still pissed and high and cursing everything in sight. The gig was televised live so we got to re-live it all again when we got home. I still have the video. Gigs just do not get more entertaining than this. Oh and the music was pretty special too.

Eminem, London Arena, February 2001 - Worst gig of all time

Perhaps the shittest, most depressing concert that has ever taken place in London. The venue in docklands under the shadow of Canary Wharf was picketed outside by gay rights activists angry at Eminem's 'homophobic' lyrics. The audience consisted of kids with spiky hair and braces accompanied by their mums, mixed with wannabe badboys smoking spliffs and doing 'gangsta' hand signs. The main event featured an American man wearing a boiler suit flailing around with a pretend chainsaw wearing a Jason mask pretending to pop pills and kill people. Every song cut out halfway through to be replaced with weird cartoons on the big screen. Half way through I simply walked out - perhaps the only gig I've ever left midway through. What the hell was I thinking???

Fugazi, Stratford Rex, May 1999 - Loudest gig ever

So deafeningly loud that one could hear ringing in their ears not just days afterwards but in between songs! Bizarre venue. Not surprising really as this is a bizarre kind of band. Look at the ticket price - £6! In 1999! Don't mug yourselves off guys. Guys? Oh.

Tindersticks, Highbury Garage, November 1993 - Cheapest gig ever

Ok, so the Fugazi one was comparatively cheaper, inflation wise, but the Tindersticks for a fiver?? You just wouldn't get that these days. Intimate pre-'Relentless make-over' Garage. Audience of thirty somethings and middle aged fogies and us 13 year old kids too young to even drink. A nice couple bought us each pints of ale. Our mate's dad collected us afterwards in the car. Not exactly rock'n'roll.

The Strokes, Alexandra Palace, December 2003 and Interpol, Alexandra Palace, November 2007 - Closest ever gig(s)

I love a gig that is within walking distance of my house. Who doesn't, right? None of that post-gig public transport hideousness. As a long time Wood Green resident and now as a Crouch End resident I love it when decent gigs take place at Ally Pally. I can go to the local pubs I like beforehand and laugh at all the poor bastards who have to trek back to south London or wherever.

I can see it from my window now as I type, the old palace sitting up there on top of the hill overlooking all of London. I've been to a few shows there. These two were easily the finest. And look at those pretty concert tickets too. Splendid. Really fucking splendid.My (girl)friend collapsed near a bus stop on the way home from the Strokes one and we had to call an ambulance. That wasn't so good.

Babyshambles, Rhythm Factory, May 2004 - Weirdest gig ever?

After the Libertines imploded the Doherty idolisers - myself included - followed him everywhere he went and supported him in everything he did. For a while. This, one of the early Babyshambles gigs with the early line-up when Pete was still borrowing the guitarist and drummer from the brilliant, short lived White Sport (who were also on the bill ) was bizarre. A sweatbox Rhythm Factory with emotional drunk, high youngsters falling all over the place, kissing, fighting, groping.

We waited til about 1 or 2am for Doherty to finally show up and run onstage clearly very high on crack to give a thoroughly abrasive, dishevelled, disconcerting set most of which just sounded like feedback and a clattering banging sound. At one point Doherty tried to light a cigarette for about 2-3 mins. Afterwards I shared a taxi back to Finsbury Park with some girls from the north east who were crying because they'd finally got to see their hero play live. Really weird.

Morrissey, Kentish Town Forum, November 1999 - The day I hugged Morrissey

Anybody who knows me knows the extent of my Smiths and Morrissey obsession. In 1999 a friend and I went to see him play four nights in a row at the Forum in Kentish Town. I attempted to get onstage on each of these four nights. On one occassion Morrissey spotted me crowdsurfing toward the stage and put his hand out to pull me onstage. For a brief moment, merely seconds, I put my arms around him as he sang 'Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me'. I buried my face in the back of his neck which was incredibly sweaty. The sweat was cold as he had just been off stage before returning for the encore. That's about as much detail as you need...

Here's a picture of the moment, which somebody actually captured and put up on a Moz fans forum site....



Radiohead, South Park Oxford, July 2001 - Best ever non-London gig

Ok, so, in a blog about London things this is kind of cheating right? I do apologise. But I couldn't write an article about gigs without mentioning this one. And, well, Oxford is close to London, right?? It's just down the M40.

This was a fantastic gig despite the heavy, consistent, pouring rain. Supergrass and Beck supported but nobody cared about them. This was Thom and the boys at the absolute peak of their powers coming back triumphantly to their home town. Quite formiddable.

I attended this gig with the young members of the Mystery Jets who had just completed their bacchelaureates. Posh, eh? Blaine's mother (who lives in a village nearby) tried to get me to persuade Blaine and Will that pursuing rock'n'roll was not a fruitful path while Blaine's father Henry - also a Mystery Jet - retained a thoughtful silence and a half smile. I half heartedly told them that maybe they should continue with their studies. Thankfully they ignored me.

London Loves.....A New Pair of Trainers

Many esteemed writers have had their say on the London riots. Most of the comment has been eloquent and heartfelt but few have really been able to put themselves inside the heads of the rioting kids. Instead I feel we ought to listen to the kids themselves - the products of this environment. And to those who grew up in the area where the whole thing exploded.

I left off for a while for things to simmer down before wording my response. Partly because the whole thing was at turns depressing, confusing, sad and at times even comical. Partly because I didn't quite know what to say. This blog is about the things London loves after all. And the vast majority of Londoners really did not love these riots. In some quarters there has been genuine hatred directed towards the looters; an incredulity and sheer disbelief at what was happening on our beloved streets, to our beloved shops, communities, buildings, houses and citizens.

The hate-filled, angry responses towards the looters did not surprise me. These responses came from people who have voices, people who index highly within the social networking sphere and aren't shy about tweeting and facebooking their disgust. Middle class, relatively affluent people, some with young children, most with a mortgage and a comfortable job. People with nice things furnishing their houses and disposable income in the bank to buy more stuff to adorn their homes (even if it means going further into our overdrafts....tut tut). People like me, people like you.

What I've tried to imagine over and over in the last few days as I saw kids smashing in the windows of JD Sports in my own beloved Wood Green (where the real looting of commercial high street premises began) was "if I was a 14 year old kid right now, would I be doing this?" The answer is no I don't think I would.

Yes I was angry and anarchistic as a kid, yes I didn't have the trainers and computer games that I wanted but I didn't grow up in poverty dependent on parents who were dependent on benefits, alcohol or drugs. And I didn't therefore have that sense of helplessness unique to poverty.

Many of the Londoners expressing disgust at what happened this week have probably never been inside a council flat. Not to generalise about council flats, but they are often sparsely furnished, undecorated, chilly and damp. This might sound like a 1980s cliche. It's still true now in at least 50% of cases even in spite of the amazing work done to social housing schemes under New Labour.

My response I suppose needs to be broken down piece by piece because the London riots were not a singular entity but a hotch potch of strange events triggering echoes in different suburbs. Wood Green, a place where I lived for 20 years of my life until moving out a matter of weeks ago is not a rough area. It is poor yes, multicural certainly. But people are generally happy and treat each other with respect. There is however a difficult relationship going on within the community. Above the shopping mall and high road there are council flats where families with young children and teenagers live. I've seen these kids spitting off the balcony onto shoppers below, chucking things off, smoking weed up there, comparing pitbull terriers. It's almost a hidden world above the shopping paradise below. They are bored, penniless, naughty and watch everyday as the capitalist machine rolls on and consumers pile in driving 4x4s from surrounding posher areas like Muswell Hill and Crouch End to do their shopping. They watch the capitalist machine they are not part of day in day out. And they get pissed off. And when they can, they nick stuff from the shops.

I'm not here to discuss the socio-economic reasons why they are bored or penniless or want to steal stuff. What I am saying is it's a reality that seemingly 90% of the population cannot understand, and that is where London society has failed.

If we cannot understand children being so disengaged from lawful, civil society that they are prepare to loot then perhaps, instead of simply criticising, we should make an effort to understand and look at what it is in London that is broken and needs fixing.

I would like to draw a distinction however between looting and violence.

While I can understand the mentality of looting what one doesn't have and what one is prohibited from having because of an entrenched system of disenfranchisement I cannot understand the wanton violence towards people and the destruction of property we have seen - particularly burning down buildings.

In the early hours of Sunday morning I watched a 1930's art deco building in Tottenham burn to the ground taking with it 23 residential flats above. On Monday I watched a building in West Croydon burn furiously for an hour also taking with it people's houses and independent businesses. The wanton, almost senseless destruction that took hold of Enfield, Ealing, Clapham and other quiet suburban areas baffled me as much as it baffled 'outraged of Tunbridge Wells' and yet I agree with some of the 'liberal commentators' who have spoken out against the massed ranks of public opinion. The system that has created inequality in these London boroughs - the economic wheels powered by a morally bereft banking system, supported by complacent politicians who further alienate the youth by closing youth centres and pricing them out of an education system increasingly aimed only at the privileged few - these are the things that should outrage people. And we should all be outraged at ourselves and our own complacency for failing to recognise how disaffected young people are in London today.

Finally, and sadly, the trigger for all of this destruction was quickly forgotten amongst the clamour and the madness. Mark Duggan, shot dead by police in Tottenham, was a black man with a young family living in a predominantly black area of London. Black men on the streets of London are 26% more likely to be stopped and searched than their white counterparts. While London has made huge strides forward since 1993 when in the wake of the Stephen Lawrence killing the Metropolitan police were described as "institutionally racist". For many in areas like Tottenham, Edmonton, Lewisham, East Ham, Harlesden, Southall and Brixton there still exists a tense stand off between ethnic minorities and the police. That this simmering tension was brought to a head by a killing is sad. Sadder still was that the furious response - a peaceful march that descended into violence - shocked so many of us. The majority live light years away from these downtrodden areas and it is not our place to cast judgement without first attempting to understand or to reach out and help poor communities.

As with the Rodney King beating that triggered the LA riots, America was shocked by the ferocity of response from the black community. But why? Here was a man being savagely clubbed by police officers only a generation on from the civil rights movement and the end of the Jim Crow segregation laws. Here in London, a place I like to think of as more racially integrated than LA, Duggan was shot dead just 25 years on from the Broadwater Farm riots - an episode of Tottenham life (in which a black woman died in her own home during a police raid) that left wounds which have never really been fully healed

More recently in 1999 in Tottenham Roger Sylvester, a black man with mental health problems died after being held down by six police officers for twenty minutes. The unlawful killing verdict was later quashed at which point his family "opted out" of the legal process.

There are other frequent incidents of poor policing and insensitive police attitudes in Tottenham and similar areas; many go unreported but are noted and memorised by the black community. It is easy to ignore what many of us do not have to face on a daily basis. The policing of these communities still has a long way to come.

The best that can come out of all this sadness would be that London becomes tighter, stronger and more unified. The famous 'Blitz spirit'. This has already begun in the shape of organised clean ups and the wonderful 'Why We Love Peckham' noticeboard outside a smashed and boarded up shop.

Quite frankly, what London needs right now from all of its inhabitants be they black, white, Turkish, Asian, policemen, looters, shop owners, MPs or residents is, quite simply, love.

Remember London loves you and you love London.

Peace.

London Loves.....Buses

by Joshua Surtees

Typical. You wait for ages, then two blogs come at once. A bit like London's buses.

This city has a strange relationship with public transport. London apparently has the best transport system in the world and the worst system in the world at the same time. And buses embody this strange dichotomy more than any other mode of travel.

On Friday night after a 3.5 hr epic Ibsen play at the National Theatre we decided, in hindsight wrongly, to get the bus back to Kings Cross rather than walk across Waterloo Bridge and get on the Piccadilly line at Covent Garden. We thought it would be fun. And, to be honest, we couldn't be arsed to walk. It was dark, raining, and windy. And there were loads of tourists huddling under the shelter looking tense and wondering if this was what is referred to as "a British Summer". The thought of a warm bus delivering us jauntily through London streets to our destination was comforting. 20 mins later, the optimism had worn off and we were huddling together for warmth. Tired, hungry, and suffering from post-Ibsen stress disorder, we cursed miserably at everything in our wake. Especially the wretched tourists. At least 10 other buses had pulled up at our stop, offering sanctuary to the lucky few. 168s to Hampstead were abundant in number. The no.4 to Archway mocked us like some kind of delinquent. Even the 243, that masterpiece of a route that terminates in God's own country of Wood Green, where the streets are paved with gold (and general litter) gave us a knowing look as it chugged onwards. The 26, 341, 188, 76, and last but not least the no.1 to Tottenham Court Road; all arrived and departed as per schedule. Later........much, much later it seemed to our tired, Ibsen-ravaged minds, the 59 finally showed up. No apology from the driver. Not even a look of guilt or shame in his eyes. In fact possibly a glint of satisfaction "I've got the worst job in the world, but I have the power to make you extremely late. And cold. And wet."

Halfway through our severely-delayed journey, a ride that had been bumpy, stop/start-y and, in truth, further marred by a loud cross-aisle conversation conducted in French by two gallic chaps, the driver informed us that the bus was terminating at Holborn and turfed us out into the damp, black night once again. Whereupon, Boris Johnson appeared out of nowhere, creeping out of the shadows, slapped me about the face with a wet fish and ran off shrieking up Chancery Lane like an albino on speed.

Ok, I made the last bit up. But every citizen of this wonderful city recognises the point I'm trying to make.

Another 'funny' incident involving waiting for a bus occured this weekend. At about 4pm on Saturday afternoon I found myself once again on the South Bank but consuming much lighter fare this time. Disney's The Aristocats at the BFI with family members including a 3 year old whose birthday we happened to be celebrating and her 4 year old brother. In short, my beloved niece and nephew.

Needing to get back to Crouch End we navigated Waterloo Bridge (this took an unprecedented 45 minutes to cross owing largely to the fascinating spectacle of boats and water and people on boats on the water all passing directly below us). On Aldwych we waited for the usually reliable 91. Half an hour later we were still waiting. "Something must be happening in Trafalgar Sqare" we muttered vaguely to each other. And something was indeed happening in Trafalgar Square as we soon discovered. Suddenly in the distance, fast approaching we saw hundreds, no thousands of naked people heading towards us. It was Naked Bike Ride day and clearly they had stopped the traffic. To be fair, if you're going to be massively delayed then this is probably the cause of delay you'd most likely choose; simultaneously entertaining and a little bit wrong.

My niece and nephew didn't think it wrong though. Just massively fun. Merrily they waved each cyclist past as if cycling naked through the city centre was the most normal thing in the world.

There are many London bus tales from my 30 years of riding on them. None quite as slapstick or bawdy as Reg Varney and co got up to but varied nonetheless.......

I've cried on buses, laughed on buses, been drunk on buses, been sick on buses. Been mugged on a bus, been mugged off on a bus, been kicked off buses and fallen off buses. Cursed bus drivers, praised bus drivers. Got lost on a bus, woken up in Tottenham Hale at 3am on a bus. Lost money on buses, found money on buses. Chatted people up on buses, been chatted up on buses. I've seen a friend (accidentally) spit in the face of a rudeboy on the bus (wind/open window/velocity is a tricky combination to master when phlegming out the window.)

Blimey, I've even driven a bus. For about a day. It was a difficult time in my early 20s. A passing phase. Not one I'd care to repeat. The experience did, however, give me a newfound respect for drivers. When I saw the work rotas including 5am starts and 2am finishes in horrendous, life-disrupting rolling shift patterns my spirit was soon broken. When I carefully considered the thought of driving a huge vehicle containing lots of moody, strange, demanding people almost non-stop for 8 hours a day on London's traffic jammed, polluted, noisy, chaotic, roadworked, traffic lighted, potholed roads. Well, let's just say it wasn't a career opportunity I embraced with open arms. I took my £100 training money at the end of the week and never went back. Even now though I can still recall the driving instructor up at the Wembley training centre screaming, literally screaming at the poor trainees as they attempted manouevres in the relative safety of the training yard, and it sends shivers up my spine.

So, essentially, have a bit of respect for the poor buggers. They may be moody, unsympathetic, rude, bad at driving and bordering on the psychotic. But there's a reason why. Any job where you think "would I do that for a living?" and the answer you come up with is "no", is a job for which a certain degree of tolerance and empathy should be directed toward those who undertake it on a day-to-day basis.

Hmmmm....where is this blog going? What's it's final destination? Is it out of service? Does it terminate here?

I wanted to wax lyrical about Routemasters. The glorious, quaint red beasts that used to prowl our streets. Ding-dinging their way from Clapton Pond to Victoria (the 38) or from Liverpool Street to Westbourne Park (the 23). I sincerely mourned the passing of these beautiful machines. They encapsulated the picture postcard image of an antiquated London clinging on to the remnants of the past. They conjured up romantic ideals of a 1950s/60s transitional period. A London recovering from the Blitz, then swingin', then roughing it through the tough economic climate of the 70s. The band I played in in the mid-noughties even wrote a love song dedicated to the subject entitled 'Death of the 73'. We couldn't understand why something so elegant, so historic, so quintessentially London would be taken away. The main claim was environmental. Which seemed incongruous in the face of how many cars clog the streets. Alas, the green march of time continues apace, and rightly so, but it's sad that allowances couldn't have been made in this instance. Instead the loathed bendy buses were launched. Nobody to this day has a nice word to say about them or can fathom why they were introduced.

The last ever routemaster bus journey took place on Friday 9th December 2005. The 159 from Paddington, passed slowly along Oxford Street with customers desperate to get a last ride, and many a tear in the eye of the old codgers who'd ridden them for years. It reached its final destination (Streatham) just before 3pm and was driven ceremonially into its permanent grave (Brixton bus garage) by Peter Hendy the Commissioner and Head of Buses at London Transport (sorry Transport for London ....I'll never get used to that one.)

I suppose I'm a sentimental old fool. I view change with suspicion. I don't like it much. The newly designed routemaster will hit the streets in 2012 in time for the Olympics. It's a lovely design, but it's ultra-modern. Not a patch on the authentic real thing.

I'll leave you with some of London's best (and worst) bus routes.

29 - Wood Green to Trafalgar Square (this bus passes through some serious ghetto-age and was famously referenced by Johnny Borell - remember him - in Razorlight's live shows.) It used to be a double-decker and I once saw somebody smoking heroin on the top deck as it rolled through Camden Town. Ah, the good old days. It's a bendy bus now. Which is an absolute travesty. A genuine contender for worst bus route in London.

210 - Finsbury Park to Brent Cross via the delights of Highgate, Hampstead and Golders Green it passes within touching distance of Karl Marx's grave. Used to be a quaint little single decker. Now it's a beast with two decks. Is nothing sacred?

88 - Camden Town to Clapham Common. Although I'm loathe to include a largely south London route, this is arguably the most picturesque, scenic route in London. From Great Portland Street onwards it's a tourist's dream taking in the busy shopping thoroughfares of Oxford Circus, Regent St and Picadilly. Next Trafalgar Square, Whitehall, the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. Past Tate Britain then across the river and into the gritty, urban hinterlands of Vauxhall before coming to a stop in the delightful confines of Clapham Old Town with its buzzing gay bars, Surrey-born trust funders and Australians trying to buy cocaine and out-drink each other.

73 - Seven Sisters to Victoria. While it has, like many other routes, been reduced to bendy bus status it is still a classic. It takes in the extremes of London, from its downmarket starting point in Seven Sisters through trendy Stoke Newington, Essex Road, Upper Street it then chugs along Euston Road before heading through the West End to the glitz of Bond Street, round Hyde Park terminating in Victoria.