Art work on sale

I have been working on visual art over the past few months and have now put some of this online on the Dret Skivor bandcamp page. 

Some of the proceeds from sales will go to Medecins Sans Frontieres. 

Sample - 

LoS

 

FINISSAGE!!!

As you will be aware if you read this blog, I have had some visual art installed at Larrys Corner in Stockholm for the past month or so. On Sunday 18th January, myself and Karl Boson who is sharing the space with me, finish our installation with talks about our art and we will also do some solo music sets. 

Entry is free in and donations are always welcome via Swish on the day. If you still do F*cebook, there is an event here - https://www.facebook.com/events/1500696471010984

LoS

Live is life???

[Thanks to Dave Mays for this picture of Loaf of Beard in Leeds recently]

40 years ago more or less, a song by an Austrian band Opus called Live is Life was in the charts in the UK.  It would be a few more years until I fully appreciated the sentiment behind that title, as I started my own live appearances in late 1990 with Leeds band Big Wednesday. For the past 35 years, I have played live in many different acts, some formal, some made up on the spot, some as solo artist and I estimate probably around 1700 performances (I am not sure of the real number but I have definitely done around 600 in the last decade according to this blog and its listings). I know loads of people from, and have the vast majority of my friends linked to, music somehow or other. Playing live has been my way of socialising and making contacts to allow collaborations to happen and so the circle of life/live continues. I write music, I run a couple of labels, I create visual art, but playing live in a venue, squat, festival, under a bridge, in a park, in a road tunnel, in a cycle tunnel, at an actual international BIG festival (rare, but has happened a few times), weddings, in a cellar, in a front room are where I feel happiest and most comfortable and rewarded. Live is life for me and as long as I am fit and able to perform, I will do. 

Of course, playing live involves other folk to help the process. Promoters and spaces, sound engineers and lighting tech, loads of people and this band of collaborators help keep things running. I have been a promoter myself and this taught me about managing my own expectations as a performer. I have of course been to thousands of gigs so I can see both sides of the performer/audience barrier and I try to break down that barrier as much as I can when I am on stage. 

Live music is a social good in my experience and I worry how or if it will survive much longer. Covid caused havoc with a lot of venues shutting temporarily or sadly for good and now when enormo-gigs with 100 quid plus ticket costs attract huge audiences and the smaller venues struggle to get folks into gigs for a few quid (I know this is a bit of a generalisation, but there is some truth). Venues have also not been helped by stupid court cases by idiots who like the vibe of living in a city or town, but would rather not have to have a venue that has been in existence much longer than their accommodation contributing to that vibe. 

So, after this stream of letters and words, what is the conclusion? Support your local music scene, get involved, perform and enjoy it. While it is still possible. Live is life? Too right it is. 

LoS

New art

Finished this beauty off today - recycled card on thick paper.

#prockonst #nykonst #visualart 

LoS

 

Loaf of Beard recording update

I went over to the other half of #loafofbeard in #Kil yesterday and we finished the recording for the second LP which is due out early in the new year. 

There is a lot of content, 13 songs, and the matters discussed include the military industrial complex, the bastards who run the world, the use of cake as a way of survival and naturally, elks. 

Picture of magpie as there is no snow yet.....

#electropunk

LoS

ART!!

Last week, I was in Stockholm at Larrys Corner to install some of my art, sharing the space with local artist Karl Boson. 

Here are a few pictures and to see them in real life, get down to Grindsgatan 35 on Södermalm! The art will be there into the new year and is all for sale!!!

#visualart #bildkonst

LoS

Talk on The Miners Strike now available to listen!

A few weeks back, I was in Malmö where I gave a talk on The Miners Strike of1984-85. I attempted to contextualise the year long dispute, how it came about and the social and political consequences in the aftermath, some of which are still being felt today. 

The good people at SIGNAL audio recorded my talk and huge thanks go to them for having me speak and the images shown below are theirs. 

Listen here -> https://www.signalsignal.org/coal-conflict-and-class-struggle-thatcherism-and-the-destruction-of-collectivism-in-the-uk-2/?lang=en

#solidarityforever #otjc #thatcherism

LoS