Taking a leap and book ideas.

I was supposed to be writing at least one blog entry a month, if not more and yet suddenly it's well over 2 months since the last little ramble.

As the old school reports were so fond of saying "must try harder"

Okay, this is the second attempt at this entry, the first try reached new heights of rambling nonsense and went off in ever waffling tangents of no interest to anyone, especially me. Focus young Middleton, focus.

Time and Money

Right, first and biggest update since I was last here is that I took the leap and reduced my hours at the day job and dropped down to part time with the sole intention of giving myself more time and energy to spend on my creative passions. For those that don't know I work for the NHS (in the Health Records dept, for various local hospitals) and for years have been working full time with as much overtime as I could handle. The job (while not stressful) is physically exhausting, I'm on my feet for the majority of the day with lots of manual handling, added with the 5 mile bike commute each way I was always totally wiped out and good for nothing by the time I got home in the evening. However with my domestic situation changing a couple of years back and all those long hours paying off to meet all the financial criteria to enable my wife to move over from the states I was able to re-evaluate things. They'd already cut overtime at my job and then thought, fuck it, life is short and spoke to my boss asking if it would be possible to reduce my hours. She said that it wasn't possible at that moment but she'd keep it in mind. To be honest I kinda forgot about it, then at the start of last month she said that they could juggle the numbers enough for me to go down to 30 hours and I signed a contract update. To be honest I then had a total "Shit!!! What the fuck have I done???" moment, for in real terms I was basically taking a £300 a month pay cut of my own doing. I work for the NHS remember so I didn't earn much to begin with. Still, I figured if I stopped buying so much stuff (by stuff I pretty much mean books and records) and tried to be a bit smarter with food bills it'd be okay. A few weeks into this new routine, as great as finishing at 2pm every day and having every afternoon to concentrate on art I am having severe 'stuff' withdrawals and having to go back to watching every penny and still not making it to the next pay day which is sending me back into that "what the fuck have I done???" mode. Obviously if I could fill that £300 hole each month with art income would be the ideal scenario and aim, I just have to try not to either fall into a debt/depression hole in the meantime. 

Quick charcoal sketches from this week, just to get my hands dirty.

Having to worry about making money from my art very quickly sucks any creative energy I might have gained. As I think I mentioned in a previous post I unsuccessfully tried to go the full on 'self employed' artist route back in the early 2000's, it was stressful and I fell deep into the aforementioned financial and mental health black holes. Back then I was primarily working doing album covers, something I haven't done for a while and right now have no desire to get back into. In an ideal world I'm hoping that if I have the time to make art that I personally like and excites me, for myself, then it should follow that others will (hopefully) enjoy it too and want to give me money for it. The very small amount I make from print sales doesn't even being to make a dent in things plus I still haven't quite figured out how to keep peoples interest in that and direct folk to my web store without constantly spamming my social media pages. I feel like there is only so many times I can say "hey, I've got a fancy new lino print". To put things in context, unless I post something like that most days I get no traffic to my Big Cartel page and even when I recently posted some "hey come buy my wares" blurb on a Facebook page it got over 2000 views and a bunch of likes but generated only 2 orders. I might just add here that I am extremely and forever grateful to each and every print order I get and those 2 orders this week were certainly two times better than none. 

Still, it's only a month or so into this and I need to figure out some sort of new routine so I make the best of my time. Whatever, even if I'm not sure what I'm doing I want to make sure I'm always doing something. I do have plenty of plans and don't want to let stressing about money suck the life out of it, so time to chill and focus. As I said life is short and to be honest I'm not sure there would have ever been a 'best time' to make this jump so I just need to grab the opportunity and do my best to make it work.

Oh, but if you had wanted to buy a print from me but never got around to it, now would be a great time, thanks. Buy my gubbins here -   Bonehive - Big Cartel Store

Book projects

For those of you who follow my often neglected Facebook and Instagram pages might have seen a post from a month or so ago where I was canvassing interest in an idea I'd been ruminating on, that being putting together a little book of a selection of sketchbook pages. Thanks to the many of you that gave me such positive feedback and said they'd be interested in such a venture. It's definitely something I plan on moving forward with and have been busy going through my stack of sketchbooks selecting which pages I think I might like to share and scanning them in to work on. I'm sure the selection process is going to get endlessly revised but I currently have about 130 odd possible pages. I also need to still think about a design and format but hopefully I can start pulling that all together in the not too distant future and then get it up for pre-order so I can gauge the demand. Obviously it's all new and not something I've done before so don't want to end up with a house full of stacks of unsold books. 

Where the magic happens. Scanning station a go-go.

Having said that never to make things simple or easy for myself I started thinking about another. separate book I want to do. This second one purely focusing on my pen and ink stuff, I know that this is the style I mainly started in and also primarily the work that most people seem to know me for, especially within the punk scene. It seems to be a medium I have a love/hate relationship with, there have been long periods where I've felt like I would rather gouge my own eyes out than work in that style again but then I get a hankering out of nowhere, screw up my eyes and settle back into hours/weeks/months of interminable detailed dot work. I have to say though once I've got a composition drawn up there is a special kind of satisfaction as the drawing pulls itself together. Anyway, as I was sorting through various stuff I discovered I had a bit more of this style than I thought. I've always felt it is somehow separate to a lot of the other work I do so gathering it all together (along with preliminary sketches) I feel wold be a worthwhile project. I think this will take a lot more work putting together than the sketchbook idea and I'm still not sure which to do first. I think I'll do all the scanning for both projects first and then decide. Either which way I'm feeling pretty committed to the ideas and plan on getting both of these out before the end of the year. There'll be progress updates as I go.

A portfolio full of old black and white scritchings and scratchings

Other stuffs

As always I seem to have a million other projects on the go or on the ever increasing back burner. Actually I don't think that back burner works anymore there are so many random things piled up on it, many of them dusty from years of neglect. Oh well, I'll get around to them one day. Honest.

Music related, I finally finished pulling everything together for the Angst - Practice and Live 1986 CD release which is coming out on Malaysian label Black Konflik, hopefully sometime in October. For more info on who Angst briefly were check back to my first blog post as there's a little potted history plus YouTube links. Still seems kinda crazy that the noise we made in some little rehearsal room some 35 years ago that was then forgotten on a cheap cassette and buried in various boxes and cupboards in various houses over the decades should now be seeing the light of day on a CD, if someone had told us that back then not sure what we'd have made of it, well probably just laughed and said "fuck right off!!" 

Angst CD on Black Konflik Records

Black Konflik Records

Angst history

Similarly, from that self same year (1986 was a good vintage it seems), I'm currently working on the cover design for a vinyl release of the Terminal Filth Stench-Core demo that we're releasing as a co-release between our own label Terminal Filth and our friends Agipunk from Italy. Mila and Koppa from Agipunk originally asked me about releasing this probably a good couple of years before D.I reformed and have then been kinda poking me every few years so it's only taken me...err... about 15 years to get this sorted. As it is, I'm still struggling with what to do for the cover art (another reason I'm not keen to get back into the record cover game, I have enough trouble thinking about what to do on my own bands stuff let alone anyone else's) but I will get it done within the next month or so. It'll be the first time that old demo has been on vinyl in complete form. Most of the tracks were originally on the Re-Opening Old Wounds lp/cd that Leggo put together for Desperate Attempt records back in the 90's but that didn't include the tracks Distance and Cleancore Killer.

Also waiting for me to finish cover art is the long overdue D.I 'Dance of the Plague Bearer' 12", this is 5 re-recorded old tunes that we recorded back in 2017 during the recording of Husk, it was supposed to come out soon after followed by a CD compilation of all D.I stuff recorded since we got back together in 2007. I've been having a huge creative block with this, constantly working up ideas and then rejecting them, to be honest I just want this DONE (a sentiment I'm  sure shared by Snapa who runs the label and has been patiently waiting for YEARS). The back cover and labels are done at least so that's something. 

Then when these are done I need to finally turn my attention to getting a Spine Wrench discography sorted for which I have a couple of interested labels waiting in the wings. This is another project that I first got asked about many years ago and has just been forever on the to-do lost.  The main problem with this is that the masters have long since been lost in the mists of time so I will need to digitize everything from cassette and then get it all re-eq's and mastered. Bri Doom has done a great job with the old D.I and Angst stuff though so I'm sure I'll be employing his great audio skills again to get that all compiled.

Spine Wrench 1992 - Jarrod, Charlie & me.

I have to say I have come to realize that all these musical projects (and come to think of it the art book stuff) are all concerned with historical material, much of it 20 or 30 odd years old. I'm keen not to be forever looking backwards and really need some new exciting projects to sink my teeth in to. Thankfully I've got the small group show with friends that's booked for November to work towards getting some new paintings and drawings together for. Band wise, hopefully D.I will get back into writing mode again soon, we had written 3 new songs before the pandemic hit and everything got put on hold. I went back and listened to the rehearsal recordings of those recently and had forgotten how good they were sounding. Our plan was/is to get enough new stuff together for a new full length album at some point. Plus hopefully Haavat will be back practicing and writing again soon. Anyway, much to keep me busy and off the streets.

Cheers to those who made it this far, you win a penny chew of your choice.

Springtime scribblings - Peni poster & past inspirations.

 Ye gads!!!...I see it's already been well over a month and a half since my last post on here and I was so determined not to lose the flow...oh well. Just looking at the stats on here there've now been over 600 views of the Hitching Tales blog but only 39 of the following, rambling entry. I did say when I started this that I didn't care if no one read it and that it was really just for me to lift the lid on my jumbled headbox to relieve the pressure and try and focus my confused thought tangles...and yet, it would be nice to know that there were a few folk who check it out regularly. I do still have a whole list of longer topics I want to cover, bigger pieces, I just need to set aside the time. Seems if I don't share the link on social media no ones going to know to check though, then there's the fact that if it's an art-centric post I'll share it via the Bonehive Facebook and Instagram pages, if it's Deviated Instinct related I'll share it from the band pages and if it's just general waffle then maybe from my personal page, I probably should have just focussed on one thing but then I'm not a very focussed person and I feel like I'm generally all over the place in my head so maybe it's a truer reflection.

Anyway onwards, stuff...

Rudimentary Peni Tribute poster.

I had originally only intended on ever doing a limited run of 50 of these, they sold out really quickly and I've since been asked multiple times if I'll be doing another run. After some general ponderance I've decided to do one more (final) run, This time when they're gone they're gone. The reason for my initial reluctance was that I was more than aware that although I'm sure a good few liked the piece purely for my art I'm sure the majority wanted it purely because they were fans of Rudimentary Peni and perhaps if I'd left off either the band logo or 'Death Church' it perhaps wouldn't have sold so fast. I felt a little uncomfortable about the idea of perhaps simply profiting off another's name. I mean in theory I could produce endless 'tribute' pieces of favourite bands knowing there'd always be a market of that particular bands fanbase. However remember this piece was actually only intended for inclusion in the 'International HC & Punk Black Book' that Freddy Alva kindly invited me to participate in and offering posters only came about after being repeatedly asked about the possibility . 

Anyway, immediately after they had sold out someone who had been unable to order one in time alerted me to the fact that someone had already listed one on eBay at a higher price. More to the point in the blurb on there it wasn't immediately obvious that it was neither 'official' RP stuff or that it wasn't Nick Blinko (although it should be obvious to anyone), still, I was uncomfortable with the thought of anyone mistakenly thinking this was anything other than a well intentioned tribute. Plus just generally disappointed that someone would buy one with the sole intention to immediately try and turn a profit but then again sadly I should never be surprised to be let down by people in this world.

So, all this has led me to making some subtle alterations to this second edition, simply my signature in the corner and the words 'a tribute' added after Death Church, nothing that spoils the general composition but also hopefully leaves no one in any doubt as to it's origin and intention.

I probably overthink these things but there ya go.

Stock is ordered and I will post on my social media pages when the poster goes live in my Big Cartel webstore.

https://thebonehive.bigcartel.com/

A fork in the road - Those Inspirational Moments

I've been floundering (creatively speaking) of late, well for a while, as has been documented in some of these entries. I feel I need something to jolt me one direction or another, I have a thousand semi formed, half baked ideas all going off in different tangents and I can't decide which way to turn and head off, I need a shove. Anyway that got me thinking, maybe I should share just such a moment when something really hit me for six, artistically and then informed the work I made for a while.

First time I visited Barcelona in 1998 I spent some time visiting The Fundacio Antoni Tapies, though if I remember correctly it was a typically rushed affair at the end of the day just before it was closing (which also reminds me of the time literally running around the Uffizi in Florence before they closed, trying to see all the treasures of the Renaissance at high speed in 10 minutes is not the way to view great art, but I digress).

 The Fundacio Antoni Tapies

Anyway I was already really into Tapies work from all the awesome huge books they had in the Art School library (this was prior to using the internet much) but nothing could prepare me for the power seeing some of these works 'in the flesh' would have. One particular piece literally stopped me in my tracks. It was magnetic and seemed to exude such creative energy I just sat in front of it transfixed. I think I could have sat there for hours.

GRAN MATERIA AMB PAPERS LATERALS 1963 260x195 cm

Of course this reproduction does as little to convey the spell this piece held me in as does the meagre 6x4 inch postcard I purchased of it from the gift shop, still to this day that (now much faded) postcard has been stuck to many a studio wall and ideas pin board and now acts a bit like a totem, almost like things around it are able to draw a charge. It was the pure physicality, the glorious depth of surface. Unfortunately I've since forgotten how to speak in bullshit art speak so I find it near impossible to convey exactly what it was/is about it, only that I knew I needed to explore these ideas and feelings in my work on return and it almost single handily pulled things together and focussed my disparate ideas.

Taking this as a starting point and running with it working in a way inspired by this and also by surfaces and things I saw in the urban landscape it became my central way of working for two or three years. Looking back on that work it's still probably my favourite stuff and certainly was the most enjoyable and fun to work on. Obviously with the space, materials and daily inspiration of being around creative people it was easy to immerse myself in this at art school, then straight after I got my studio where I had the space to continue in this way. Unfortunately, after that the prolonged period of depression (previously mentioned in a prior post) kind of put the brakes on things, then I had to give up my studio space and without room to make larger, messy work I switched tack and almost moved the polar opposite direction with small, tight drawings and paintings on paper. Yet, over all this time I still feel like there's unfinished business there and that I hadn't really explored it as far as I'd have liked.

Here are some details of a few pieces from that period (1999-2002).

It's been on too many year end 'to-do' lists to be funny but with warmer weather here and now a large garage space just waiting to be made a mess of I really have no excuses. I think it could also be time to make some use of all the reference photos I've taken on my travels. Prague is definitely one of my favourite cities, it's obviously full of the most wonderful architecture, art and sculpture and yet the thing I always get so exited about and end up taking tons of photos of are random crumbling walls and these little portal things they have on the buildings, I'm guessing they're housing some sort of power outlet or meter or something, who knows, but I just find them very aesthetically pleasing. I've always had it in the back of my mind to somehow intergrade then into my artwork somewhere, somehow, so maybe this, combined with going back to exploring abstract relief work could be another jumping off point.

Prague memories.

I've also had a hankering for a while to make a series of acrylic abstract paintings, perhaps these two streams will feed into each other. Frustratingly though in the meantime I have several band related projects where record covers need to be done ASAP for imminent release so will have to continue struggling with the small, tight illustrative stuff for a while yet. These are all for bands I play (or have played in) by the way, I think there needs to be a totally other post about why I hardly ever take on cover art commissions from other bands anymore and why I'm not really up for doing record cover design these days.

Also, note to self, now that the plague days seem to be subsiding and the world is gradually opening up I need to make the time to go to more galleries and perhaps I'll have another of those wonderful eureka moments when seeing some artwork in the flesh really sparks something new in me and my work. They're the best times.

Sacramento 2010 and general ramblings.

I recently came across the MP3's from this gig back in 2010 hidden away in a dusty corner of my hard drive. From what I remember one of the guys from Cura Cochino sent it to me, he'd asked if we'd be happy for them to release it as a live cd on Buried in Hell Records. We thanked him for the recording but politely declined the offer as we didn't really think the quality/playing warranted a physical release. however, going back to listen to it now although I still stand by the decision not to release it I definitely think it's worthy of sharing. The sound is a little up and down and broken up for the first minute or so while they're obviously getting levels but thereafter it's a pretty solid recording. A bit guitar and vocal heavy in the mix but has a nice raw energetic feel and is a cool document of the night / tour. At that point we were still just primarily playing old shit, Blunt Instrument being the only new tune in the set, also this one of the very few gigs where we played Void so it's cool to have a recording of that song.

It was one of those strange mid-tour gigs where you're in and out of a place so fast and you don't even see the city or anything. It was about half way through our 2010 West Coast US/Mexico/Canada tour, we'd just spent a few fun days in the Bay Area, we'd been staying/partying at our good buddy Rooster's old pad in Oakland and had played a couple of great gigs in Berkeley and San Francisco. 

We didn't leave the Bay Area until quite late so got to the gig space on the outskirts of Sacramento pretty much as it was all about to kick off. It was way out of town in some kind of storage unit/garage/ lockup(?) at the far end of some industrial estate. I don't recall getting to see Sacramental proper at all.

Now I think I should explain that upon getting to a venue the very first thing I generally do is check out the toilet situation. Even after all these decades I still get a level of nerves before I play, it appears no one else in the band does, it doesn't bother me though, I'm happy with that as to me it means I still really care (not that they don't of course) but anyway this means my nervous body says, "what? you gotta play? Right....you gotta shit!!", thus, while everyone is generally on stage setting up ready to play it'll be "where's Mid? oh right....toilet, pre-gig dump". It's s serious business. So...get to a venue, check out where the toilet is, what state is it in? As anyone who has played the Euro squat circuit will know you're very much playing Russian Roulette on that front. Anyway so it's 1 - Where's the toilet? 2 - Is there a door? 3 - Is there a lock on the door? 4 - Is there a seat? 5 - Is there any bog roll? etc, obviously if you hit a yes on all of those you're in toilet heaven, it's very rare though. I could write an entire post on toile horror stories of the world (as could any touring band). In this case it was very simple though.

There was no toilet. Nothing!! you couldn't even nip outside to slash in the empty parking lot either as their was a cop car sat opposite all night obviously on piss patrol. It must have been a quiet night in the neighbourhood..

So that meant before I could even think about playing I had to go on a toilet hunt. There weren't even any open stores or bars in the area and it was a good mile or so before me and Alicia found an out of the way Del Taco or Taco bell where I could utilise their facilities. We did get a burrito for the walk back of course.

The gig itself was pretty fun, there was only a small turnout, I don't know if it was because it was a Monday and out of town or whatever, it didn't really matter though. I'll always put as much in if it's 5 people or 500, I'm just chuffed to play. All the bands were great, everyone was super friendly and the few that were there were having a blast and everyone rocked hard. Plus they made a killer chilli.

D.I with some of the Sacto crew.

Anyway, as soon as the gig was done we hotfooted it out of town, I'm not sure if it was because we had nowhere to stay or just that Joe (our trusty driver for the tour) was keen to press on up north to his hometown of Portland but we just jumped back in the van and between him and Greg they pulled an all night drive up to Portland while we kipped in the van. Thus, we never did get to see Sacramento at all (hence no photos). maybe we'll come back some time, that'd be cool. 

Other news and general wiffling and waffling.

Firstly I'd like to thank everyone who checked out my Hitching Tales post a few weeks back. It got shared about quite a bit and has currently had over 550 reads which is super cool, I guess it was something a lot of other older folk could identify with and it was awesome to see others sharing their own hitching tales on Facebook. I do have plans for some other quite extensive posts about various memories/topics from the 80's, I just need to find the time. I guess there's no hurry though (well apart from my ever crumbling memory box).

Art life, I've been spectacularly unproductive of late. if you've read any of my previous posts about my problems with creative block, procrastination etc, well, writing about them hasn't helped at all as I've just been repeating all those various old bad habits. I'm still struggling over finding any focus and deciding which of the million ideas I should prioritise and work on. However there are a couple of exciting irons in the fire. Firstly, good friend and band mate, Katri (KatriK Design) has booked the space at Studio 20 here in downtown Norwich for a 3 day group exhibition/event in November which she's kindly asked me to be part of. I'll add more details about this once we get things all sorted but a bunch of us will be exhibiting and (hopefully) selling work and having a general grand ol' time. I'm super psyched about this, it gives me something to aim for and hopefully I can soon focus on getting a new series of work together. As I write this it is just over 6 months away but I don't want to get too comfortable with that thinking I have ages as I know how quickly that will fly by, I'm determined not to get to October and realise I suddenly have to rush to make work at the last minute. It's 22 years since I graduated at Art school and it's still a fairly regular anxiety dream where I dream it's literally the night before the private view and I suddenly discover I literally have no work at all and haven't even started yet!!!! From what I remember we had most of the last of the three years just to work on stuff for our show (alongside writing the infernal dissertation). Even being able to work on art all day every day (well apart from the evening job I had at Bertram Books) it was still a last minute stress so 6 months of only having evenings and weekends I'll need to be both organised and disciplined, neither of which are my strengths. It'll be good though and it's welcome pressure. I also have another exciting offer of a collaboration in the works, likewise more about that when I've something concrete on the go. Plenty to get my teeth into at the moment so I need to get with it and seize the day as they say.

It's all coming at a perfect time really, the latest lockdown is finally easing and fingers (and everything) crossed there's some light at the end of this long bullshit tunnel. I have recently been struggling with a little period of depression but feel like I'm through that black cloud for now, it's Spring (my favourite time of the year), started to see friends again, got some band practices booked for next month, plus a gig for later in the year so just hoping everything continues to settle down.

while I was struggling with my mood and general mental well being a while back I found welcome solace in losing myself in this. I always turn to this wonderful film, Sigur Ros is the best therapy, making  myself a cuppa and relaxing on the sofa and getting lost in these sights and sounds never fails to soothe the soul.

That'll do for for today, may I just add that this post was written hopped up on goofballs. Drinking a large cup of coffee immediately followed by a can of Tenzing Blackberry and acai energy drink wasn't a smart move.

I need to go for a run........................

On the Road to Nowhere. Hitching Tales.

Looking overjoyed to be on the road again, 1985

I recently read steve Ignorant's excellent autobiography 'The Rest is Propaganda' and had to chuckle when I came to this little passage where he describes the misery of his one and only foray into hitch hiking.

"From Bude it took us two days to hitch back to London. Two blokes hitching together don't get anywhere fast - I know that now. I spent the whole trip tired, hungry and wondering why I was doing it. Above all, I promised myself I'd never, ever do it again. By the time we walked back into Dial House any attraction hitching or camping could ever have held for me was stone cold dead. I've never been as glad to get anywhere in my life. A romantic way to travel? You're having a laugh."

That all rang so true. My hitching days were primarily between 1984-86, only a couple of years but our little Norwich crew were always travelling around the country going to gigs, visiting friends and whatnot and thumbing it along the highways and byways of this grey little island was our only way of getting around. Hardly anyone drove, certainly no one had a car and our meagre dole cheques couldn't stretch to the luxury of coach or train travel so getting out there on the slip roads and laybys and sticking out our hopeful grubby thumbs was the only option. Living out in Norwich didn't help, most bands didn't venture this far out East. It wasn't on the way to anywhere, there was no one passing through. Of all the many, many journeys I took I'm sure there were decent hitches where I'd get quick rides with nice people who took me right where I wanted to go but they are not the ones I remember. When I think back to those days I think back to being cold, being wet, standing by the side of the same stretch of road for 8 hours. Of cars pulling over a little way up the road only to suddenly roar off while laughing abuse just as you run up to get in. Of having to sleep in bushes and under bridges because you're stuck in the middle of nowhere, of getting picked up by creeps. Of constantly thinking as steve says "Why am I doing this?". I was happy when I decided it was no longer how I wanted to travel and I mostly think back to those journeys with a shudder but yet strangely it's still something I'm glad I did and certainly led to some fun times, seeing great bands and crazy times with friends from all over the country. 

I remember as a kid in the 70's you'd see hitchhikers all the time, even on the little local roads around my way outside Norwich, trying to get into the city. My dad never picked anyone up of course and I recall having this view that all hitchers were somehow on the fringes, hippies or whatever. It was similar to the tale we got told of squatters back then, I used to think squatters were people who would move into your house while you were on holiday and then it was impossible to get them out again. I vividly remember getting back from family holidays as a kid in the early 70's with a sense of relief to get home and discover that squatters hadn't taken over our house.

Anonymous stretch of road from an old roll of film. At a guess I'd say it's somewhere in the back end of beyond in the middle of the fens. I probably took this because it had been the same view I'd had for several long hours.

To get out of Norwich there were really only two main routes to go. If you were going to London (probably the most frequent hitch) then it was just a case of walking to the roundabout just on the edge of town and  getting on the A11 then onto the M11, unless you got dropped by Cambridge you could often get all the way there in one lift.  If you get stuck after an hour or so then you'd split up and hopefully meet up later at the destination. Even better than hitching alone though was to hitch with a girl, you'd let them stand in front and kind of lurk behind. I remember hitching with Mary a couple of times, she'd stand there, stick her chest out and you'd be guaranteed a lift almost immediately. She'd been a seasoned hitcher for a few years plus her somewhat outgoing and super confident personality was a bonus in getting attention.  Plus she'd always be super chatty (and a bit flirty) with the drivers which meant you could just sit quietly and enjoy the free ride. Occasionally if things weren't going well and there were a bunch of us she'd stand and hitch while we'd all hide in the bushes out of sight, cars would stop and she'd say "do you mind giving my friend a lift too?" and two or three of us would appear, sometimes they'd just drive off before we could get in but often they'd reluctantly give in, none too happy.

Leggo and Debbie taking the first hitch.

The other route out was by walking way out and hitching by the roundabout onto the dreaded A47 onto the A17, this was the route we had to take if we wanted to get to the midlands or anywhere North and was always such a lottery. Depending on where you were headed it generally meant lots of smaller lifts and knowing all the best hitching spots to get dropped along the way or you could very easily (and often were) dropped in the middle of nowhere by some farmer turning off onto some bumfuck village in the godforsaken Fens. First you had to get to Kings Lynn, get out on the outskirts and hitch on the slip road onto the A17 (one of the shittiest roads in the known universe) and then try and get a lift to Newark outside Nottingham where you would have to get dropped at a certain point before the town and then get onto the slip road onto the M1, once you were on that Motorway then you had the whole North ahead of you. This was the route of getting to Leeds and for many of the great gigs I saw at Adam and Eves.

When there were 5 or 6 of us all going to the same gig it would be a case of deciding who was going to go first and then taking turns and see who would get there first. It was always a drag if you drew the short straw and you had to watch your mates getting picked up and off and away but then equally such a blast when after getting picked up yourself you'd pass your mates at the side of the road stuck at some roundabout an hour down the road and give them a cheeky wave as you zoomed by. Very occasionally if you had a cool lift they'd sometimes stop and pick them up too if there was room. Then we'd all meet up in dribs and drabs with our dossbags and tales of our lifts in whatever city we were heading. It was such a blast to get an easy, drama free ride and then be able to just relax and get drunk. Then it'd just be a case of hoping you could find someone who'd put you up at the end of the night. In London that often meant jumping the tube and hossing off to some squat or other. If not it was a case of finding some cardboard and trying to find a quiet corner in a train station or something. Wherever you ended up there'd always be that horrible sinking feeling the next morning, waking up with a hangover knowing you had to take a ride out on the tube to Redbridge station, the last stop on the east bound line, where you could walk to where there was a slip road and long layby as the M1 motorway left London. Often, unless you got there super early there'd already be tons of hitchers waiting to take their turn and get out. It was always particularly grim if it was late afternoon and you still hadn't even got your first lift out of London yet. Oh the many, many miserable hours stood at Redbridge roundabout. Home never felt so far away.

I remember one time me and Snapa had hitched to London to see Antisect, it was out in Woolwich somewhere. When we finally got there we found out it had been cancelled at the last minute (always a risk back then) There were still a bunch of punks who'd travelled out just hanging about on the streets so we just got drunk anyway, Colin Jerwood from Conflict was there, I think maybe he'd been the one putting the gig on, anyway he said me and Snapa could doss round his flat for the night. He had to go somewhere and do something so just gave us vague directions and said he'd see us there later. it was somewhere way across London so we ended up taking a night bus with our little scrap of paper with directions. Of course we managed to both pass out on the bus and totally miss the stop, we woke up with the driver telling us to get off as he was parking up in the depot for the night. We had no idea where we were, what part of London even it was so we just wandered around looking for somewhere to sleep. We eventually spotted a horsebox attached to a car parked up in a car park. We were able to clamber up over the back doors and drop inside. At least we'd be dry for the night. We did manage to get a couple of hours kip but I was super paranoid about the owner arriving the the morning and driving off to god knows where without realising there were a couple of stowaways so we hopped out at the crack of dawn. Unfortunately a couple of hours curled up in the hay we absolutely reeked of horse shit. We did manage to find our way out to Redbridge and get a lift to Thetford, within 30 seconds of us getting in the car the driver had to open all the windows. I bet he was chuffed sick.

These two pics were taken from a trip me and Snapa made down to Brighton to see Antisect. I remember we decided to hitch the day before, probably worried that if we left on the same day we might end up getting stuck and not make the gig. A wise decision as these were taken the morning after a particularly cold and uncomfortable night spent under a motorway bridge somewhere south of London. I remember that Snapa had a sleeping bag but for some insane reason I'd decided to bring nothing but that small, thin and painfully inadequate yellow blanket. I don't think I got a minute of sleep. As was often the case we'd travel with a marker pen and leave little messages for other hitchers that might get stuck or for mates who we knew might be travelling the same route. Here's what we deigned worth leaving at this spot.

We successfully made it to Brighton later that morning and here is Snapa taking a bracing stroll along brighton beach.

HItching back down south from the many gigs in Leeds always first involved taking a bus out to the busy Wetherby roundabout where you could hopefully get a lift from traffic jumping onto the M1. It was a popular hitching spot and also had a bit of folklore, I remember being warned about the 'Wetherby Willy watcher' (my memory might be betraying me on the exact nickname but it was definitely something like that), apparently a notorious wrong un'. I have no idea if I ever came in contact with this fabled fellow but I did get a couple of dubious rides from there. First time I really can't remember anything about the guy who picked me up just that there definitely seemed to be something 'off' about him. He just seemed a bit jumpy, asked me a bunch of odd questions, then suddenly took a strange turn off the Motorway and headed out into the country on a small b-road, I questioned where he was going and then he hurriedly said he had to make a pick up somewhere. He then abruptly stopped at this little junction in the middle of nowhere and told me to get out. He said he'd make the pick up and then come back this way, get me and we'd be back on our way. I was never particularly quick on the uptake so I remember actually standing there after he'd sped off for a while until the penny dropped....oh, he's not coming back. I'm guessing he'd decided he'd stopped for the wrong person for whatever he had in mind, or just lost his nerve, probably a lucky escape but I was still now stuck in the back end of beyond. There was no traffic at all so I figured all I could do was try to walk back to the motorway. After a couple of miles I could see it in the distance across from a few fields of farm land. Once I'd made it there obviously there was no actual stopping places on the motorway and it's illegal and dangerous to walk on the hard shoulder so I just had to struggle along through these fields parallel to the road until it came to a junction or service station or somewhere I could hitch from. By now it was already getting dark and I couldn't see where I was going. I then came across a rather large irrigation dyke across a field which I had to attempt to cross, I made a running jump and just about cleared it but then I lost my balance because of the rucksack and sleeping bag on my back, fell backwards and landed in the ditch getting soaked through. I remember just standing there in the dark, in a muddy field, hundreds of miles from home, wet and tired thinking "Fuck my life!!!" I finally came across a service station but it was derelict and no longer in service so no traffic was pulling in or stopping. I decided to give up for the night and tried to find somewhere sheltered to sleep. I found an old disused bus shelter and settled in only for a police car to pull up, they told me to get up and move along (where to?) saying there were a lot of rats around (?) and I couldn't sleep there. Of course they could have just given me a lift to the next roundabout but didn't. I just waited til they'd gone and went back and crashed. I can't remember how or where I finally got a lift but I do recall I finally got back to Norwich late in the evening the next day, at least a full day after everyone else I'd been with had got back.

Steve from the Disrupters trying his luck to get back south. We'd hitched up to Leeds together, not sure who to see, possibly Conflict.

Another time, also hitching from a gig in leeds. A  bunch of us were hitching down to Nottingham, where Leggo was living at the time and I'd started the hitch on my own first. Amazingly I got picked up pretty quickly and also the guy was driving directly to Nottingham, result!!! Getting to the destination in one lift was always a rare treat to savour. The dude who picked me up was an older businessman type, he was pretty jolly and very chatty although his conversation was a little strange. He kept asking me if I was a dancer, "Have I seen you before? Are you sure you're not a dancer?", I was thinking, I have no idea what sort of dancers you might have seen that look like me in my raggy clothes but whatever. Anyway, I was telling him that I was ahead of all my mates and I'd probably have to find a pub to kill some time in until the others arrived, he then said that he knew a good pub and he'd buy me some drinks if I didn't mind the company. I guess my brain didn't go much further than 'free beer!!!', so I was "sure, why not". However when we got to the outskirts of Nottingham, he said "actually, let me just drop past mine and we can have a quick drink there first"...errr, okay, he lived in this massive house with a long drive in a nice leafy middle class suburb of the city. I was still pretty clueless as he seemed friendly and above board but it was beginning to feel a little off. We went into his posh house and he said "let me get you a drink", he had one of those fancy big globes that open up and act as a drinks cabinet and he poured me a huge vodka, without getting himself anything, then after handing it to me he walked over and locked the door. What the fuck? I can't remember exactly what he said, but it was along the lines of "so....can you help me out??" as he pulled some notes out of his wallet. It was only then that the penny finally dropped!! yeah, after I was in his locked house!!!! It still makes me roll my eyes right into the back of my head to think back to how utterly slow on the uptake I was. I mean, what was it going to take, him standing with his trousers round his ankles before it clicked. I put the drink down and said "please unlock the fucking door", he looked shocked and thankfully walked over and opened it. I don't think anything else was said and I just made a hasty exit, I was a slight, skinny 19 year old and he was considerably larger than me and I was in his locked house where no one knew I was, it really could have gone so badly. To be honest I think he was so compliant in letting me out because he was probably a little dumbfounded and had assumed that surely I was aware of what was going on. I finally managed to find my way into the city and to Leggo's where everyone had arrived and relayed my tale to much mirth. I did temporarily think about going back in the evening and fucking up the guys car but even if I'd have been able to find my way back it was a stupid idea and in truth I was really just angry at myself for being so naive. You live and learn, it just takes a little longer for some.

I do still have a little diary from 1985 which has a good few little hitching notes in it, they're all pretty much the same though. I never seem to be recounting a positive experience. This sums up a typical entry. This was a hitch I did with Mark (D.I's second drummer, who played on the Terminal Filth demo). I think we'd gone up North to see the Subhumans. 

Thursday July 25th 1985
Well after yesterday's abysmal hitch you’d think a straight hitch from newark to Norwich would be a piece of piss, well we got a lift after 2 minutes to Sleaford roundabout, good so far and then stood there for 5 and a half fucking hours, then at about half eight in the evening we started walking and we walked and walked and walked. Cold, hungry and wet, really great fun! After about 3 small lifts we finally made it into kings Lynn at about 1 in the morning. We tried hitching it a while but as a thunder storm approached we hit it into Kings Lynn to shelter and freeze to death. God it was awful just sitting under a shop front in the early morning waiting for the sun to come up. We then started hitching again around about 5am and "yahoo!!" got a lorry all the way to Norwich, what a relief, plus he was playing Marillion all the way.

In case you're wondering, the fact he was playing Marillion was a good thing.

Sean during our unsuccessful trip up to Newcastle to see Anti-Cimex. We had such a crappy hitch we spent the night under a bridge, missed the gig and finally got to Newcastle the day after. Thankfully I'd already seen them ripping it up in Leeds supporting (and blowing away) Grave New world era Discharge.

I think we all pretty much decided we were sick of hitching at the same time, lifts seemed to be getting consistently worse, people seemed to be stopping less often. Thankfully D.I was playing out around the country a lot more now so that took care of most of the travelling to see bands itch. Also for a while we figured out a pretty good coach ticket scam where we could get tickets on National Express for next to nothing. Obviously this was all way before any sort of computerised, printed ticket. To book a coach journey you had to go up to the third floor in Jarrolds (Norwich departement store), where the guy selling coach tickets (who kind of looked like Sam the eagle from the Muppets) had a little desk in the corner by the purses and handbags. Tickets were those big ones that were printed on a handheld carbon duplicating gizmo that he had to push this lever back and forth to print the ticket. We'd usually get Snapa (as he was the smallest) to go and buy one child's ticket (if he could get away with it), then we'd be able to alter it by adding several adults on the ticket in pencil, which kind of looked similar to the carbon, you just had to sort of rub it and smudge it a bit and then crinkle the ticket up a bit and hope they'd not look too closely. This way we'd often forge a ticket for 5 or 6 of us for the cost of a single child. I don't think we did it very often as we didn't want to push our luck, the drivers would look at the messy scrap of paper with some suspicion and sometimes ask "so, who's the child" but I don't recall ever getting actually refused.

I wish the road signs were in shot so I figure out where these were. it's probably somewhere along the A17, i think this was the day that we were having such a shit time we invented the 'hitching dance', this was one of those rare journeys where getting stuck didn't really matter. I think we were coming back from a gig, it was warm and the weather was good and we had company so it was just a laugh. We were getting absolutely nowhere so were taking it in turns to do ridiculous dances as the cars came past figuring out if we were already weren't getting anyone to stop, looking demented couldn't hurt. it certainly kept our spirits up anyway. 

Looking back it's amazing to think how far out of my comfort zone I'd put myself. Prior to leaving home and moving into the city at age 17 I'd been living in a small village and had grown up as an incredibly anxious and painfully shy kid. In 1984 I'd very quickly thrown myself into new situations, living in a squat and suddenly befriending and dealing with a whole city scene, of course, in the punk scene my shyness and general social awkwardness was easily hidden and helped with copious amounts of alcohol. Not really an option when you're out hitching. I just threw myself into it as I wanted to be part of the crew and get out around the country but if my shyness wasn't quite as bad as it had been I was still a very quiet person. I still am, small talk isn't my thing, I'm more than happy with a comfortable silence. This probably made me a terrible hitcher to pick up, a lot of drivers, especially the truckers often picked you up as they just wanted some company. They'd often been driving all over the continent on gruelling haulage routes and just wanted some conversation or someone to help keep them awake and there'd be me, after a few awkward introductions I'd just fold in on myself and settle into a silence, to which they'd no doubt sigh and just have to turn the radio up. That was another reason it was also preferable for me to hitch with a  companion as I could leave them to do the chatting while I just settled in and watched the world go by.

Me and Amelia taking a break while stuck on a typically bad hich trying to get back from london

Another little Diary entry, travelling back from a couple of days in London with Amelia.

Friday May 31st 1985

So we started hitching, yet another bad hitch, because of the problems on the M11 or A11 or whatever we had to go via the Cambridge road where we got stuck for ages plus we kept bumping into this twat who was hitching to Norwich n'all. He obviously thought he was king of the hitchers. Then we got stuck in Newmarket, a real bummer, we ended up walking about 6 miles. Sat in a flower field and was happy, if I wasn't with Amelia I'd have been really pissed off. We saw all these signs with DD and Snapa written on them so we obviously weren't the first to get stuck there.

I'm sure tales like this were the same and each and every one of us back then getting around the country by our thumbs, in fact I'm sure I probably got off quite lightly and everyone would have at least one situation worse than anything here. (Please feel free to share them in the comments.) Though I think some are just more suited to it and would go with the flow, I mean I never hitched abroad or around Europe as many did, i can only imagine what throwing foreign roadways and languages into the mix would mean!!

Okay, so then who's taking the first hitch? See you there....

...hopefully.

Master of None. To focus or diversify?

Something I really struggle with regarding getting on and building any sort of solid body of work is just focusing on just one particular medium or style. It seems that many (if not all) the really successful artists both past and present whose work I admire and find inspiring have found something that is indisputably ‘them’. Work with a strong style and identity that you can look at and know it’s theirs. In my head I really don’t know if I have that, when I look back at all the stuff I’ve done in a wide variety of media it all feels like a bit of a clusterfuck in my head. I’m sure everyone goes through those stages of experimenting with various materials and styles before they hit on something special, something that just works for them and know this is what they want to do, this is what their artwork is going to be about. I feel like I’m constantly going through that without ever really arriving at that moment. Perhaps that moment doesn’t really exist and it’s just about making choices and sacrifices. I have this constant internal fight going on between me that is always thinking of the next thing and likes to mix it up and the other voice telling me I need to stop wasting time trying to be a bit of everything. It really does feel like a constant case of ‘Jack of all trades - master of none’.

Looking back through decades of work I see I’ve tried my hand at, produced bodies of work in - pen and ink illustration, watercolour pencil drawing/painting, large charcoal drawing, large multimedia relief pieces (both figurative and abstract), Sculpture, collage (traditional/paper and digital), painting (both oil and acrylic), printmaking (specifically lately linocut) and photography. I think that’s everything. If I assembled 2 or 3 of each of those and displayed them together would it as a whole look like my work or a rather disparate group show?

I feel like the sensible answer would be to decide on one or maybe two styles/media and subject matter and just really concentrate on those, master a particular discipline but I know I’d just get bored. After a few days of intense dot work on some tiny, massively detailed pen and ink piece I’d be dreaming of working on a 6 foot charcoal drawing, working loose and fast.

Recently I think I’ve been very much driven by my environment and lack of space or a studio where I can make a mess. I've been just making small drawings and paintings. They seem to get smaller and tighter over time and now I'm really craving making something big and expressive. Once the spring kicks in and it gets warmer out I’m planning on making full use of the garage space I’m now lucky to have and getting large and messy. 

Is it okay to have one stream of work that is 5 foot abstract assemblages with plaster and wood and wax etc and another that is nothing but 6 inch tight pencil drawings? I don’t suppose there are any rules and perhaps I might yet stumble on something I want to explore and exclusively work on for years but for now I guess I’ll just continue flitting from thing to thing trying to keep my busy brain engaged. I should probably choose 2 or 3 things and just concentrate on those, however in many ways my artwork feeds directly from other aspects of my life, I mean on any given day that days soundtrack is most likely to feature a variety of punk, country, folk, modern classical, Americana, 70’s rock, indie, psychedelia, electro, crust, metal, post rock, jazz, straight up pop and fuck knows what else. I’d go crazy just listening to one style of music but then on the other (other) hand (too many hands going on here) if I was trying to play 20 different styles of guitar in a band it’d be a fucking mess. Mind you, perhaps I would if I could, it's more that I can only actually physically play one dubious, half arsed style because I’m lazy and never practice. I’d love to be able to play country guitar.

To be continued….

Some recent reading rambling.

I recently finished a really great book, 'Burning Down the Haus - Punk Rock, revolution and the Fall of the Berlin Wall'. This was an awesome read, I have to say my knowledge of Deutsche punk (east or west) and the pre-unification situation in Germany is practically zero so this super detailed account was hugely educational in many ways. Honestly I'd always had this really ignorant and uninformed idea that everyone in the east was just desperately trying to 'escape' to the west, this was obviously the angle that the mainstream media was presenting over here back in the cold war days of the 70's and early 80's. So to read that in fact the east German punks who were fighting against massive oppression from the regime and most specifically the Stasi had no interest in escaping into the west but were instead intent on fighting the system to simply make life better for them and everyone in the east. In fact the Stasi would often banish punks to the west as a way as removing the problem. Initially the only voices calling for unification was actually from the growing number of neo Nazis (another constant threat the punks had to deal with).

Anyway, American author Tim Mohr who lived and DJ'd in Berlin during the 90's spoke to many of the key figures in the East German scene from bands such as Planlos, Wutanfall, Namenlos, Feeling B and many others to piece together an exhaustive history of the time.

I got into punk at the age of 12 in 1979, which was a similar time frame to a lot of the figures in the book but when I read about what they had to endure to even be punk it just makes you realise how hardcore, resourceful and incredibly resilient they were. Would I have stuck to my guns against the brutal oppression they had to deal with on a daily basis? Unlikely. I was arrested on demos back in the 80's but I would think questioning from Norwich CID was a walk in the park compared to days of relentless interrogation from the Stasi, often for little more than being found with some vague lyrics written on scraps of paper.

We toured West Germany in 1988 a year prior to the wall coming down but didn't get to Berlin or anywhere close to the East. I did first visit Berlin for a week in 1999 though and was pleased to see a whole section at the end of the book relating to the very productive time after the wall came down when there was a power vacuum before reunification and the East German punks squatted a whole bunch of old buildings and set up a whole alternative network, central to which was the large squat Tachelese. I visited there, having a look around some of the artists studios and had a nice sandwich in the basement café Zapata in 99 (I posted a few photos recently on my Instagram page), the building was evicted in 2012 so I'm grateful I got to see that piece of important Berlin history.

Describing what happened in Berlin during that short lived power vacuum between the fall of the wall and unification Tim MOHR SAYS -

"What was suddenly happening in East Berlin wasn't bohemianism, it was pure magic: the imposition of something completely new on this blank slate of a city, a collective imagination being brought to life. and for that reason alone, the crumbling wasteland of central East Berlin became the most beautiful place on earth just then, an entire city of limitless possibility...

....The dream of scaling up a society based on socialist anarchist cells seemed to be working. East Berlin had become an autonomous zone on par with the Paris commune of 1871, and unlike nineteenth century Paris, Berlin had no central government to fight , no national troops threatening to invade - there was in essence no central authority at all in the aftermath of the collapse of the communist regime"

Anyway, I'd highly recommend picking up a copy of the book, I got my copy from the awesome Land of Treason distro - https://landoftreason.co.uk/product-category/books-on-hardcore-punk/

Here's some basic history of Tacheles - Kunsthaus_Tacheles from Wkiipedia

Tacheles in 1999

A younger me some 22 years ago outside tacheles in Berlin.

Here's an interview with Tim Mohr talking about the book and the scene.

n the flipside to this, as inspirational and uplifting I found Burning down the Haus I’m struggling through the Harley Flanagan ‘Hard-Core - Life of my Own’ biography which I’m mostly just finding really depressing. The constant (and I mean utterly relentless) tales of being crazy fucked up on LSD, angel dust and whatever other drug coupled with gratuitous, detailed accounts of sickening violence. Yeah we get it, you’re a fucked up hard ass. The uber macho thug core tough guy shit that Cro-Mags spawned pretty much encapsulates everything I hate about that side of hardcore. Also his recollections of some punks back in the day in New York who were in that grey area between right wing skinheads and punks ‘chaos punks’ really brought back some bad memories. I’d not really heard anyone else use chaos punk as a term since the 80’s where back here in Norwich they were the bane of our fucking lives. There was a whole chaos crew here and we were their sworn enemies (it was one way, we didn’t give a fuck about them and just wanted to be left to do our own thing). One even had ‘kill hippy Punks’ on the back of his jacket. We pretty much gave up playing local gigs because the constant overbearing threat of violence was just so tiresome and so many gigs were ruined by their brainless nonsense. Certainly one thing from back in the day I don't miss.

Don’t get me wrong when Age of Quarrel came out in 1986 it blew me away. All our crew were totally into that record and it used to get played to death at the old D.I Drayton Road punk house and it’s still undeniably a classic (putting aside some dubious lyrics). 

I saw the Cro-Mags in 1987 in Leeds at a huge metal fest titled ‘Christmas on earth’. we’d all mainly gone up there to see voivod but unfortunately they couldn’t get into the country so didn't play. Aside from Cro-Mags other bands on the bill were Megadeth, Overkill, Nuclear Assault, Kreator, Laaz Rockit and Kreator. From what little I remember it was all a bit of a damp squib with Cro-Mags actually being the only high point. I remember we spent some fun time hanging outside beforehand getting nicely drunk only to discover once inside it was like this horrible soulless dark aircraft hanger without a fucking bar, all I remember them serving was orange juice and there was a no re-entry policy.  Being stuck inside a giant metal fest without alcohol was a serious downer. There was no atmosphere as the place was only about half full plus the sound was truly abysmal. I think Cro-Mags were the only band to manage to get a half decent sound. There was also this huge gap between the stupid crowd barriers and the stage (so typically metal) plus really over zealous security apes policing the photo pit. If you were quick it was still possible to clamber onto the barrier and stage dive from there, which I was having fun doing until at one point I was surfing on top of the crowd trying to drop back down when one of the stage thugs grabbed me and pulled me into the photo pit, I was then dragged away by my dreads all the while being punched, pulled behind the stage, a fire door was kicked open and with a few more choice punches to my body found myself unceremoniously thrown into the street. Luckily (or perhaps unluckily) a kindly photographer managed to get me back in with his press pass. Nuclear Assault were half way through their set when I got back in and all the other bands sucked. Anyway, that’s my little Cro-Mags tale. Oh and I did do the cover art for a UK/HC Cro-Mags tribute album on Blackfish records back in 1999. Amazingly, I’m still actually pretty happy with the painting I did for that, it was kind of fun.

Anyway still got about 100 pages of the biography to get through so maybe there'll be some sort of redemption and positivity yet, c'mon Harley you can do it.

This all took me waaaaaay too long to write. I think I might be missing the point of a blog, especially if I want to write on a bit more of a regular basis. Also I possibly chose the wrong platform as Blogger is being buggy as hell and driving me insane with totally random formatting and layout issues that are mostly making no sense. Ah well I shall persevere.

Cheers to anyone (anyone?) who is actually reading my ramblings.