Geordie Monsters Say Goodbye!

There's Geordie Monsters on the walls, there's Geordie Monsters printed and bound, there's Geordie Monsters on original paper, envelopes, newspaper pages in pen, sharpies, biro and pencil.

 
I'm done with Geordie Monsters - the open fanzine about local bands - and to say goodbye I've stuck em up in an exhibition at the Star & Shadow, just in time for its closing time in August, hah!

Except the Star & Shadow isn't quite closed for August - there's something or other on each week so if you walk through the doors (for storytelling on Friday, a party or a vintage fair later in the month), have a look in the lobby area and as you play table football or pingpong, scan the drawings of monsters.

They're up until they're in the way, and then they're gone. But it's been good to stick em all up in one place and see them again. A few folk have also had the heart to say very nice things about them. Even a bit of nostalgia & a perhaps ill-judged whiff of regret.

The crayon and paint monsters were made by Hotspur schoolchildren, myself, and some original inspiration left by Turps Zine. For the offcuts and mistakes wallpaper-pasted onto one wall I used the same bucket to re-cover a bit of the boys' toilets too.

If you're out & about in town, look for the final issue of Geordie Monsters in the Head of Steam, Star & Shadow, Cluny, Details, Cumberland, Tanners, Small Change, random pubs, who knows where the stack of 250'll get left.

 

Last day of June, last day of Absence

i n t r o

Over the last month I have neglected zines, the blog, and other forms of public encounter. I didn't realise it at the time, but this was a sensible choice as my life had become hectic and my mind consequently frayed. Now on the last day of June I find myself in a quite serene place again, so I can make time to share my thoughts and words and pictures. This is good timing, in that serendipitous sense that always gives me a feeling of joy & connection to the world. Because July is Zine Month (allegedly) with a different zine-like activity to do each day. The allegation and prompts to activity both come from 'Spill the Zines' and are put like this :

So July should feature blog updates from me in line with those prompts, and in line also with my desire to re-engage with things in Newcastle before I take some considerable time away in August & September.

Before June is gone, however, I wish to record a few things I HAVE noticed, have taken part in & have appreciated.

a p r i l

April was all about the travels and the birds again, as migration season returned & I did my usual volunteer shift on Malta. And the late Spring this year (everything 3 weeks delayed, from spawning to nesting to returning from warm climes) allowed me to actually see the British Spring, for the first time in a few years.

I loved it! -I took photos of flowers as they appeared and looked them up in my id book; I listened to the dawn chorus & got closer up to little mammals than ever before. The world is glorious, you know, and it scrapes its antlers off on bouncy birch stands (I've seen them), it has furry brown fur and shiny eyes, and if we stop fucking massacring it, it will constantly return each Spring.

 

m a y

 
May included a wonderfully drunken holiday in Manchester, and also some 'After Dark' Zine-making at Gateshead Library as part of the Late Shows. This was a very quiet event, perhaps due to rotten weather, but it was great fun to play with a photocopier, to learn verbatim some youtube rhymes about Harry Potter from 'the youth', and to be with some familiar faces in an unfamiliar (grand & friendly) setting.

My attraction to calm, reassuring and professional library staff continues unabated. I still believe Libraries to be the temples of thought in our culture, and the fact our current so-called government is intent on attacking & demolishing them is merely one sign of its vicious ignorance. (I find that some creatures are so contemptible we need to pretend they don't exist to regain our respect for human society. Luckily, none of them were present).

My participants made about a dozen zines of a dozen pages each. Lovely old Pete contributed a watercolour of the view outside the staffroom window; an unfocussed lad created beauty by repeatedly stamping my rubber stamp; and I had great fun moving library books along the photocopier to create multiple wobbly copies of faces repeating. I am thankful to those friendly contacts who occasionally fetch me out of my inward swamp and get me out onto these public platforms. They are not part of my main trajectory, but they're valuable moments when I get to stick my neck up above the dirty water and see what the rest of this living city looks like.

I turned up to that event fresh off a megabus from Bradford. Bradford is better than Newcastle at the moment - not financially or careeristically or anything like that (the kinds of things that 'matter' to mainstream society) - but in a DIY creative hunkering down and making cool shit happen. I have found there such welcoming spaces, such fresh optimism and faith in zine culture, such obvious little ideas made to happen that for some reason do not in Newcastle.

 

Perhaps it is because Bradford has had such a hard recent history, every cultural landmark under threat, every commercial edifice abandoned or demolished. There are so many gaps created in the skyline of the city that the remaining streets are starting to look like an archipelago in a gathering white space of sky.

This in fact is how I see the city centre now, and its occupation by DIY initiatives (photography, weaving, exhibitions, 'made in Bradford' handmade selling etc..) : as a beautiful wet grey archipelago, all sculpted with ancient carvings of forgotten industrial gods, dragons and motifs of the moneyed woollen class that built them up.

 

Now there are clusters of village-ports and the daytrippers arrive at the Interchange or Foster Square docks, sail through these blocks of stone, perhaps to bathe at the fountains for the day and then disappear home at night. Grand coffeeroom balconies at Waterstones (once the Wool Exchange) or Costa feel like the decks of galleons - all they miss are the rigging and the sound of shanties from below. 

But still, despite the demolitions and despite the constantly false promises of commerce and city-wide grand-plans-that-never-happen, there is also more of a nightlife there than in recent years. Pubs seem to be opening, and their little yards are full of drinkers' chatter. The Shoulder of Mutton has not changed, nor the Exchange or the 1in12. And while the Sparrow and other little occupations of the fabric of the old town are still a little dubious in my view, the kind of music and poetic print culture that their inhabitants are producing is wonderful. And better than what Newcastle produces.

The New Beehive is all polished glass and brass and I saw my favourite live performance of the last year in there - and it was free, of course, as were amazing music acts in a half dozen other venues that weekend. Meanwhile that same weekend all that Newcastle (sorry, NewcastleGateshead) could produce was one evening of free (good) music in the Ouseburn, the tokenistic Evolution 'Emerging' evening before the desolate shame of our Evolution Festival. Does anyone remember any more when there was a free music festival every year on Tyneside, before Orange sponsored it and stole it and then turned it round and made us pay to go to it? Is there anywhere less fitting to see a decent band than at their fuckingly horrendous massified dead-atmosphere quayside arena? Or anywhere that shows such disrespect to the human culture (the crowd, the fellow-bands, the followers and the neighbourhood) of that music culture?

Honestly, you need no political education to learn to hate the Corporate effect on the world. All you need is a sensitivity to what makes a gig special and makes you keep going back and yearning for and feeling a part of gig culture. And then you smell the bleach as distant money comes in and trumps your commitment, takes it away, cherry picks the boys n babes of the day and sticks them in a Rod Stewart jacket or whatever the fuck they do to make it all fake and empty.

It makes me angry and I feel no shame in expressing that. And this year Bradford's Threadfest (and its Bradford Baked Zines shop and its alt theatre happenings and its free jazz noodlings and its open art meetings and Jean and Simon and Andy and Howdo?) trumped Newcastle easily. Perhaps those who have moved up here to follow the arts funding stream and pursue that career channel are the poison that kills our creative enterprises? What is it that causes so much ego and possessiveness and branding and fakeness in Newcastle's scene?

j u n e

I've ranted for so long about May that June shall be short : the peak was an amazing week away in Wester Ross - I saw otters, dolphins, eagles, divers, mergansers, ducks and migrating birds and it does not belong to this blog. Work was also marvellous, albeit tainted like the rest of life by some individuals being big old disappointments, projecting their failings too strongly onto the others (always their betters, kinder, more caring, less well-earning).

I failed to attend two great events that I wished to - 'Art, Politics and the Pamphleteer' in Manchester, and 'The Politics of DIY and Self-Organised Culture' in Bradford. I missed out on smaller things too and the sense that I was failing to honour my commitments to projects that others cared about made me hunker down and fulfil those things. Now I can write most of them off. But I do regret that my hope to re-engage with the political and academic understanding of our world remains unfulfilled (I'd also intended to go the 'People's Assembly' leftyfest in London, to critically respond to its speechifyers and platform-builders). The EDL march was also, of course, for so many of us a dismal low-point in the history of Newcastle. Too many things were wrong about it to summarise here, but the grotty act of political policing recorded here should not be forgotten. Though I still have inklings for that side of thought and action, for now I think I've moved on.

Also in June there was the Green Festival. We take it for granted, that it is put on despite the council and the police and all that government infrastructure (never due to it). Those who organise it (I once was one, but haven't the muscle for it these days) have kept it happening despite all that shit. They put their lives through the hoops, waste their time filling in those forms, placating those faceless well-paid bodies, and they wriggle around to alleviate the fears of the modern day - and then they often have to put up with the self-centred disrespect of folk like me who attend. So well done, and thankyou, it was excellent.

The sun shone and by quite simply contributing a bucket of chalk and letting people play, I allowed the people around me create, play, and turn that swathe of tarmac into a temporary imprint of collective energy. Hippy dippy? You bet!

(I took my photo with some of my favourites here).

Hippies often are the ones who make the little things of beauty happen, and we could do with more of them and a gallon-load less of the snobs and hipsters and brandmakers that drift around our world, looking for bits to diss and bits to steal.

f i n a l l y

In this blog post I hope my ire, never short of supply, has not come over as overwhelming. I am as much in love with the world as ever, but the city has disappointed this Spring, when I found my nutrition and the vigour of life elsewhere. So to the survivors who live free of domesticity, I salute you as always. But most of all right now, a hug is owed to those who stay committed to our community and make it better. I am one of your dependents and your neighbour and I thank you.

And remember - July is Zine Month.

In Defence of Good Ideas : Drink & Draw

A good and supportive friend told me last night (this morning) that I should write down a rant that I delivered (briefly and with precision) as we waited for a taxi. 

I at first thought 'Surely everyone knows this stuff already? And I'm hardly in the first circle - I'm just an eavesdropper and an interested fanboy. The people who were in at the beginning must have already vented their disappointments, and pointed out the true facts, surely?'

But maybe not. People can be too polite to say. And the point was made to me that, increasingly, people just accept every change that happens without criticism & without memory: without choosing to care that something's shifted.

Me, I think it is SHOCKING when good ideas - good, creative, DIY ideas - get rebranded, get claimed and marketed, get the goodness of the idea taken out and get turned into a brand-echo. When the brand is then recirculated aggressively, widely, successfully, it covers up the original good idea. So that people like me who liked the good idea ( & who sometimes originate the good idea), get turned into outsiders who are just critical of reality. So if we want to join in we have to forget our criticisms? How wrong is that?


Sometimes I hate being a radical, being a moaner and a stubborn idealist. I just wanna ride the stream like the rest: join in with some nice creative endeavours, meet some good people to share some time with, experience some music and some moments of magic.

But then if you're 'serious' about being part of a scene, or if you really do love an artform and take it to your heart ... 

If you join an event and talk to people about doing something similar again, then you become the kind of person who can make a good idea happen. And if there are repetitive cycles of cynicism or of mercantile thieving-and-destroying out there, as I believe, then I think those who care about those good ideas need to start putting up a bit of defence. 


So, Drink And Draw.


I am going to write this first, and THEN check on the internet. It will be a nice experiment to test my memory against the recorded facts. But it can also be disempowering to be constantly in thrall to the 'right answer' already being out there on the internet. It stops us having a conversation, of putting our thoughts into words, and of modulating them. So apologies if this IS inaccurate, but here it is nonetheless:


Drink and Draw is a good idea. It is a get-together of people who like drawing comics, and it began in a particular US city at a particular US time. The aim was to create something sociable and inclusive, open and friendly. There were no profit motives and no one was using it as a move up the career ladder (the way that arts graduates in Newcastle are now encouraged to do). It was advertised, all welcome (so long as you were old enough to drink alcohol). The venue was a public space, easy to find, and you paid a small entry fee. The entry fee went on buying a crate or two of beer. And once you had entered, you could help yourself to that beer. No extra costs, no exclusivity, nothing more complicated than getting some fellow drawers and comics fans into a convivial space together. And then some creative stuff happened, according to the interests of those who went. It might have been hosted by a comic shop, or some such hub that the likely people knew.

Fast forward to Newcastle the last couple of years, and the Drink and Draw idea has become an international phrase, much beloved of comics fans and similar folk who like the idea of sharing their art, drawing with friends, and being part of that sort of community of interest. And who like a beer.

The venues: Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle Arts Centre, similar. 

The promoters: not sure, nice people most likely, but in a deal with the venue and maybe also with an 'arts organisation'. 

The door fee:   where does it go? 

The crates of beer:   not present. 

The bar:   charging money. 

The comics artists and drawing people:   only those with spare cash to waste on an entry fee and a charging bar, who don't feel upset or exploited by such a parasitical event drawing on their enthusiasm and their desire to share that convivial creativity together. Punters.


What was a good idea was a DIY, an open, a community-led, a sensible, no strings thing. Something that made sense on its own terms to bring people together and strengthen the community of interest that drew them together. It was given a name to describe it, and thus it spread.


What is now a marketable branding rip-off is deeply depressing in its mundanity. Sometimes it seems like every advertised event is another rip-off: another misuse of words, ideas and interests that we (the community) want to identify with. So we give it a punt and allow a little more exploitation for the sake of being with our fellows (this could be for music, for fanzines, for the environment, for anything, it's certainly not just comics). And maybe we have a good time. But it's a disappointing world, isn't it, that has turned every good idea into another situation like that?

We leave knowing we were there cos we were the punters with some cash in our pockets. And where was that community? I hope it was there somewhere. I always hope it rises above. But it was under attack and it shouldn't be.


Alright, rant done, I'll check the internet later today and add any facts to the comments. See you in a bit.

Googly eyes on some Muppets

As part of the Jim Shaw exhibition at the Baltic and on High Bridge street, loads of us who play with zines, boardgames, comics and other cheap pop culture stuff - with an enthusiastic irreverance - were invited to set up our stalls and do our thing one evening (in fact it was the 17th of January).

One thing I did was set up a chair with a magazine and an invitation on it. I provided googly eyes and glue and then people, at their own pace and according to their own whims, stuck the googly eyes onto some of the pictures inside.

I have now scanned the results (although I will redo it cos it's loaded a bit wrong), which can be browsed through here.

Here are some of my favourite images, with a few more on flickr.

 

The other thing I did that night will also get scanned and shared at some point in the future. It involved tippex.

 

Interfaith Week Sketches

These are really rather overdue.

They are from back in November, when I asked if I could attend the lunchtime talks organised by Newcastle University's Chaplaincy. These were to provide an opportunity to learn more about the smaller faiths present on campus : those which were not widespread enough to have their own dedicated week.

I found each of these faiths, and each of these talks, both stimulating and sympathetic.

The sort of person from a religious faith group who is willing to turn up to listen to those from other (rival?) faiths is often the best sort of person from a religious faith group. The opposite of a bigot. So I put my own beliefs aside for an hour each day and doodled the speaker.

Monday: Baha'ai

Tuesday: Ismaili

Wednesday: Jewish, Christian & Muslim

 Thursday: Sikh

Friday: Pagan

Pictish Mail Art, Viking Mail Art

Mail Art is a poncey term for a great idea: something both inclusive and boundless in its possibility.

When travelling, I always buy the local newspaper - the more local the better. It gives you an insight into what's actually happening in real places, which national papers simply do not do. In 2013, I have discovered, the local papers show the real consequences of the cuts agenda to people's hometowns : things being sold off in Dundee, schools shutting in Aberdeen, the waiting room at the bus station being closed in Lerwick. 

(I really hate this millionnaire's government that we have right now. It's so brutally toff-ish and evil that it seems like we're living through a pantomime, hard to take seriously. But that's not the topic of this post):

I was in Dundee and I found this cutting. 

Great! Today! I have an hour before meeting my friend (& host), now where the hell's this weird-sounding college? I asked around and got some very friendly guides hopelessly pointing me in the right direction, right building, right door, wrong floor, over the internal bridge, down a floor, 


"hello?" 

"I'm er just looking for ..."

"oh you're doing a mail art project too?" 

"No this one's by school children?" 

"Oh that way, great"

"thanks" 


- and so sweaty and bewildered I found it, in one of the nice old wooden-lined corridors they have in that old arts building. I'd never have spotted it if I was just rushing past. It is lovely when you find a gem in the middle of an unfamiliar warren like this.

 I had to be speedy by this point but I loved the range; the expression; the colour; the sense of experimentation - and the fact that they had broken out of their own little circle of friends; their own familiar school; their own instruction & sketchpad and risked throwing out their attempts at whatever 'art' is meant to be, to strangers. 

And then I had to run 


"which way's the door?"

"thanks!"

"oh also - what's your address so i can send you a postcard?"


And so I had an address to add, to my collection of people who I'd asked if they fancied a postcard from Shetland (half of them people I'd not met before). I'm still to send half of these now I'm home, and up in Lerwick I also ran out of time to draw or ink over the envelopes (this is because I spent all my time drawing my diary, which I will scan and share a bit later). 

I found some bargain-bin greetings cards half the price of postcards, added them to some naked shetland ones I'd picked up in a knick-nack shop, got given a couple more that my travelling companions found funny, and amongst the scrawls I did, is one very quick sketch of my legs (on the beach at St Ninians isle) that is actually one of my favourite drawings that I have ever done. Here it is :

 

I would never have rushed out such a quick clean sketch if if weren't for racing to make things to post. In fact I couldn't even bear to part with it fully, so I ended up sending that card to my mum and dad, optimistic that they would keep hold of it, for me to reclaim in future months!

So in this way I have ducked out of perhaps the greatest challenge and risk that (hypocritically) I think is the best thing about mail art - that it HAS to go through the postal system and risk the smudging, creasing, stamping, wetting and getting lost that that journey involves. Putting it in an envelope, as I (partly) and several of the schoolkids did, is a bit of a cop-out that I am not, in this case, ashamed to make public!

Unfinished lists.

I was going to make a big list of all the ideas, projects, works-in-progress and promised things that I haven't finished or got round to yet.

But then I didn't get round to it. 

One more for the list.