#Leicester punk

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

THE ART OF THE UK PUNK PORTRAIT -- WITNESS THE PASSAGE OF TIME THROUGH PUNK EYES.

PIC(S) INFO: Spotlight on a classic punk portrait of Tanya Rich (then age 19, I believe), c. 1979, former manager of DISCHARGE and one-time girlfriend of Roy "Rainy" Wainwright -- a portrait series 45 years apart! 📸: Wayne "Spike" Large.

"In 1979, I took a portrait of @tanyarichvo Following a formal photoshoot last week in Birmingham, we wanted to collaborate on the recreation of one of my all time favourite portraits. The original image has been used many times over the years and is one of my most successful images. Not only did we both want to re-capture that look on Tanya’s face in a contemporary style, but I thought it would be cool to use my exact same vintage Olympus 50mm f1.4 lens that took the original film negative all those years ago. It’s an iconic lens with a soft film like quality to it. With the help of modern technology, old lenses can be mounted onto new digital cameras to give that smooth cinematic look. With the expert help of @aliciakingvo to compare my original image to what I was seeing in the viewfinder, we managed to get the photo! I am delighted with the result."

-- WAYNE "Spike" Large (Leicester, UK punk scenester, now professional photographer)

Sources: www.picuki.com/media/3384441386461034239 (Picuki 2x).

[marian-1122]

Joe Strummer soundchecks at Notre Dame Hall , Leicester Square Westminster , London , England , 6th July , 1979 .

©️ Virginia Turbett/Redferns

[bestfuckinmusic]

Sarcasm - The Lowest Form Of Wit 7" - 1992

Leicester hardcore on the excellent Tribal War Records label. Crustier than your pants after a three day weekend festival.

[shamblz]

Finally checking the music scene in Nottingham out but I'm already too late 😪

[c-40]

A-T-3 314 In Embrace - The Living Daylights

In Embrace were from Leicester and one of two acts from the midlands on Dave Barker's Glass Records at the time, the other was Bron Area from Nuneaton. They supported another Nuneaton act Eyeless In Gaza quite a bit and EIG's Pete Becker would join them to play keyboards later in the eighties. In 1983 In Embrace released their second full length album Too on Glass Records and the 9 minute non-album single The Living Daylights, the later was reissued by Emotional Rescue in 2020 https://emotional-rescue.bandcamp.com/album/the-living-daylights

[kaggsy59]

Trains, family, books and vegan food! 🚂👪📚🥗

If you follow me anywhere on social media, you’ve probably picked up that I’ve been away on a quick jaunt to visit my Ageing Parent and the Offspring in the Midlands; this was something I did every summer leading up to the pandemic, and I re-introduced that last year. I still feel vaguely twitchy about travelling, as there are vulnerable family members, but the break is nice and it’s always…

[bitter69uk]

Sue Webster achieved fame and success in the post-Young British Artist era with her then-husband Tim Noble. Following their separation in 2013, the 56-year-old Leicester-born multi-media conceptualist re-visited her teenage obsessions for fresh inspiration as a solo artist. One of those obsessions: hero worship for life-changing punk band Siouxsie and The Banshees. As Webster recently told the Evening Standard, it prompted a new direction for her art: “I based it on a theory that everything I’ve ever learnt in life was from listening to Siouxsie’s first four albums.” (Me too, Sue! Me, too!).

During lockdown, Webster began daubing naïve outsider art-style portraits of spooky punk high priestess Siouxsie onto vintage black leather motorcycle jackets sourced from Spitalfields Market. (One of these efforts was prominently displayed in the first “Monster” room of the recent visionary Horror Show exhibit at Somerset House). Webster’s current “Full Leather Jackets” exhibit in Hackney Wick collates all these works. I went yesterday with my friend Sam and was entranced! Here are my pics. Alongside the customized biker jackets, the exhibit includes re-printed pages from Webster’s adolescent diary. My favourite entry begins something like “Dad confiscated my hair crimpers …”

In the Evening Standard piece, Webster recalls the brain-scrambling impact of coming across a black-and-white photo of Siouxsie in the music press aged 11. That mirrors my experience exactly: it was seeing a grainy pic of Siouxsie in all her cadaverous glory in a magazine when I was in my early teens that planted the idea of moving to London. (All these decades later, I’m still unsure whether to be grateful to her or not!).

Further thoughts:

One funny thing Webster noted: in the old days of the music press before the internet, you'd turn to the ads to mail order your punk and New Wave t-shirts, badges and accessories (especially if you didn’t live in London). She wanted to track down the old-school Siouxsie badges that were ubiquitous in the late seventies / early eighties. During lockdown she scoured eBay, and they simply seemingly haven't survived into the present-day. You can't source 'em anywhere. So, for the exhibit, Webster created her facsimiles.

Finally: needless to say, I deliberately wore a Siouxsie t-shirt to the exhibit – and then forgot to ask Sam to take a photo of me standing in front of one of the jackets! Anyway, see even more here.

The “Full Leather Jackets” exhibit is at Project Space, Unit 14-15 Trafalgar Mews, Hackney Wick, E9 5JG. Wednesday - Saturday 12-6 pm, 28 June - 15 July 2023.

[nocompromise-noregrets]

five good things

aaaaand straight in with the really good one:

We have Last Cat Standing back after his thyroid treatment - he spent nine days at the vet hospital, and his thyroid is completely cured. Hooray! He turned 18 on Monday, and this has got him back to normal and given him who knows how many more years. I can't tell you how much of a relief it is, given that we lost the other three to various things that we couldn't do anything about.

I have a four day weekend, having done two days for job number two last week, and I am going to enjoy every last moment of it.

I did a full-body-stretch yoga routine today, having done no exercise whatsoever (other than a bit of walking) for far too long - I've been really achy and sore this week, particularly around the hips, which is always a sign I need to exercise, and I feel a lot better for having stretched properly, although I'm going to have to do the same routine every day for a good long while, I suspect.

I've got a gig lined up! It's not until October, but New Generation Superstars, a bunch of punk rock n' rollers from Leicester who I got to know at Trash Fest in Helsinki well over ten years ago, are finally playing this end of the country, and to top it off they're supporting Spread Eagle, who were a fantastic hard rock band at the end of the 80s/beginning of the 90s and who have been reformed for a few years now. I had no idea they were back, so when I saw the dates on NGS's FB page yesterday I had to go and check in case it was someone else - but it's them! I'm so excited. :D

I've almost finished my OU course - I just have the final essay to do, and my tutor thought my essay plan was good so it should be fairly easy to write it up from that. I'm on course for a good First/Distinction, which is deeply satisfying given that the last time I did any studying I was fairly solidly in the 64% territory all the way - which is all right, but I couldn't seem to improve whatever I did, I didn't know what they were looking for so I couldn't do it. This time round there's a lot more guidance, and also I'm 30 years older and more experienced, and it's given me a bit of a self-confidence boost.

Talking of self-confidence boosts, I was rather delightedly surprised (or surprisedly delighted) that Supermodel got such a good reception - thank you to everyone who's read, kudos'd and commented! I've been feeling a bit invisible in fandom lately, but you've all really helped me feel better. Perhaps a tiny bit tempered by the almost-resounding-silence that greeted the greatest treasure you could ever hope to find, but hey. XD I've long suspected that the Barduil fandom prefers modern AUs to canon-'verse, and this pretty much bears it out. Extra-special thank you to everyone who kudos'd and liked that one!!

I've nominated a few pairings and fandoms for the Rare Pairs Exchange and am rather looking forward to signups and assignments...

That'll do for now! And a reminder that I'm taking prompts for Barduil Month so if anyone wants to request a fic or two, please feel free!

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

FIRST WAVE PUNK PORTRAITS -- CLASS OF '78.

PIC(S) INFO: Spotlight on a few self portraits of Leicester, UK punk rocker, Wayne Spike Large, c. 1978, then budding photographer and now legendary photo documentarian of the first DISCHARGE UK tour during the band's "Realities of War" era, c. early 1980.

Source: www.picuki.com/media/3438869503208056541 (Picuki 2x).

[punkrockmixtapes]

For Anon : Ten Albums

So actually putting together 10 albums that I'd consider my favorite of all time is super tough but here are 10 that I still go back to a lot or were influential to me.

The Clash - The Clash Song: Police and Thieves

Rancid - Life Won't Wait Song: Leicester Square

Refused - The Shape of Punk To Come Song: New Noise

Chixdiggit! - Chixdiggit! - Song: Shadowy Bangers From a Shadowy Duplex

The Postal Service - Give Up Song: Such Great Heights

The Murder City Devils - In Name and Blood Song : Press Gang

Samiam - You Are Freaking Me Out - Song : She Found You

Jimmy Eat World - Clarity - Song: For Me This is Heaven

Dear Landlord - Dream Homes - Song : Whiskey and Records

The Menzingers - After the Party - Song: After The Party

I could really go on for a long time and this feels like a kind of bland list but these were the first 10 that popped into my head. It feels odd to put anything by the Misfits or KISS or more emo... I don't know... I hope this answered your question....

[marian-1122]

Mick Jones performing live at Notre Dame Hall , Leicester Square , Westminster , London , UK , 6th July , 1979 .

©️ Virginia Turbett/Redferns

[rockyjulesxx]

the chronicles of remus john lupin: the start of moony’s life viewed through snapshots

remus john lupin is the only child of hope and lyall lupin. born march 10 in cardiff, wales.

at ten years old he got into a car accident that left him with chronic pain for the rest of his life.

a little over a year later, he was fully recovered and finished with rehab. within this time his father had left him and his mother- the medical bills were stacking up and his fathers guilt of being intoxicated while driving the crashed vehicle “forced him to leave,” according to the fair well letter he had left behind. his mother was wonderful however and took care of him and worked 60 hour weeks to support the both of them through this time. hope never seemed to stop smiling and somehow always had fresh baked cookies for her “beautiful boy” ready on the kitchen counter. remus always thought she was magic.

a core memory in his childhood was on his twelfth birthday when he and his mother sang the rubber band album together in their backyard. they had twirled each other around and cooked dinner with the vegetables they had picked from their growing garden . even during in that moment, all remus could think about was how that instant would be a memory he would always remember. the still image that remains burned into his mind of his mother’s fine hair flowing behind her as she laughs half spun around remus’s scarred hand always aches behind his eyes. he searches to find a smile as genuine as his mothers on that day.

two weeks later remus received his second letter. this one retrieved from his mother’s will. she had hung herself amongst the trees in their backyards forest. march 24 was the first day remus ever experienced pain.

by thirteen remus was well accustomed to being in group homes in london england. he always carried his mothers old books, records and golden locket that held a flower petal from his old garden from home to home.

by fourteen he was already developing a smokers cough, and constantly got caught up with older group home boys who introduced him to the night scene in london because “who had never been to leicester square after living in london for a year?”

at fifteen he met lily who was drawn to him because of his intelligence. she wanted someone to study with after her last and only friend and her had a bad falling out. she quickly found out that remus wasn’t as aloof and punk as he appeared to have been walking down their school’s corridors. he was much more kind and compassionate than she could have imagined her study partner ever being.

on new year’s eve that same year in a crowded bar that lily suggested they visit, remus had his first kiss of the new year from a boy adorned with leather pants feather boas. a boy with long dark hair who danced his way through the crowed with not a care in the world. every eye was on him and every hand stretched towards his direction, but only remus saw the smile that evoked just has much joy from his soul has his mother had on that day. in that instant love at first sight was made for more than just the movies.

sirius and remus were forever, that remus made sure of. he vowed to never see sirius’ smile as just a smile. he knew there was more, more pain and sorrow that hid beneath it that no one was ever supposed to know about. but remus knew that smile- it was his mothers smile. and this time remus isn’t twelve and naive, he’s 16 and determined to make a forever a reality.

[amiscellany]

I’m a man of a certain age and size. An XL Fred Perry shirt fits me, physically and culturally. It’s as stylish as I can get without feeling stifled, it locates me temporally in the 2 Tone/post-punk era that shaped me as an impressionable teenager and it’s smart enough to sport on stage but casual enough for me to wear around the house in just my pants. My clothes rail has a dozen identical Fred Perrys and I especially used to favour the black ones with yellow trim. But apparently, according to a pink-haired hipster girl in the merch queue at one of my Leicester Square theatre shows five years back, this has now been adopted as a covert uniform by the far right in Europe and the US. So I quickly took six neo-Nazi black and yellow Fred Perry shirts to the local People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals charity shop, where hopefully they were snapped up by a delighted cat-loving north London racist.

[notasfilosoficas]

“Yo creo que el dinero es un sirviente magnífico pero un amo tiránico”

Mark Fisher

Fue un escritor, filósofo, profesor y crítico cultural británico nacido en Leicester en julio de 1968.

Adquirió notoriedad por sus publicaciones en su blog firmadas como k-punk a comienzos del siglo XXI.

Su libro más conocido es “Realismo Capitalista, no hay alternativa?” publicado en 2009.

En su juventud, Fisher estuvo influido por la prensa musical post-punk de finales de los 70.

En 1989 realizó un grado de humanidades en inglés y filosofía en la Universidad de Hull, terminando posteriormente un doctorado en Filosofía en la Universidad de Warwick en 1999.

Durante esta etapa fue miembro fundador de l colectivo Cybernetic Cultural Research Unit, afín al pensamiento politico aceleracionista y a la obra de los filósofos Sadie Plant y Nick Land considerado “el padre del aceleracionismo”.

Pensamiento

A finales del año 2000 Fisher redefinió el termino de “realismo capitalista” (utilizado mucho en Alemania para describir el arte basado en el uso de materias primas). En donde describe la sensación generalizada de que el capitalismo solo es el único camino viable en donde es imposible imaginar una alternativa coherente.

Este concepto filosófico esta influido por el concepto althusseriano de ideología (del filósofo estructuralista francés Louis Althusser) así como por las obras de Frederic Jameson y Slavoj Žižek.

En sus primeros intentos por explicar el realismo capitalista, Fisher se refiere a la aceptación de la sociedad actual de que el mundo actual no puede organizarse de otra forma. Que el capitalismo es indestructible e irreversible, pues no hay otra cosa, no hay otra posibilidad y por lo tanto no queda otra cosa a que adaptarse, y expande este concepto argumentando que es la mejor forma de describir la situación ideológica existente desde la caída de la Unión Soviética.

Para Fisher, vivimos en un mundo de individualismo obligatorio y de privatización, en donde incluso la enfermedad se ha privatizado, en donde los jovenes viven en un estado de “impotencia reflexiva”, en donde saben que las cosas van mal y que ellos no pueden hacer nada al respecto.

Fisher observa que muchos adolescentes viven en un estado en el que siempre están buscando estímulos placenteros, a la vez que consideran todas las cosas como aburridas. Han nacido y crecido en una cultura rápida, caótica y sin memoria, en donde reciben dosis digitales pre-digeridas acompañada de una incapacidad de general para concentrarse y que generan los cada dia mas frecuentes deficits de atención.

Muerte

Fisher murió en enero de 2017, se suicidó a la edad de 48 años, poco antes de la publicación de su ultimo libro “Lo raro y lo Espeluznante”. 

Su lucha contra la represión fue narrada por el propio Fisher en varios artículos en su Realismo Capitalista, en donde argumentaba “la pandemia de angustia mental que aflige nuestros tiempos no puede ser correctamente entendida, o curada, si es vista como un problema personal padecido por instrumentos dañados”.

Fuente: Wikipedia y Youtube: La travesía: Mark Fisher y su lucha contra el realismo capitalista. 

[katiehickenbotham]

Some pictures from the Punk: Rage And Revolution exhibit which took place in Leicester this summer :)