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.

The great procrastinator and other tales.

 Since I started finally writing on this blog last month I’ve been thinking about the nature of my creative block and more specifically my quite spectacular procrastination skills. I’ve actually procrastinated writing this particular post for a good week or three. 

I’m treating this as a fresh start and like I’m going right back to the beginning (whatever and wherever that is), with that in mind I figured it would be a good idea to try and see what patterns I have to my personal roadblocks and self sabotage. Time to try and break some of those and find a way around those blockades.

One of my favourite and most used excuses to myself regards my work space and environment, like I can’t start making anything until my work space is ‘just so’ and if I can just get this space sorted or add/remove this piece of furniture then I can think and create. It’s odd how I feel like I just can’t create within any sort of chaos, everything has to be tidied and sorted first. Back in the 80’s and early 90’s I literally (and happily) lived within a maelstrom of utter chaos and filth, it didn’t bother me at all. I’d just push things aside, set up somewhere within it all and draw/paint, completely engrossed and utterly oblivious to whatever was around me. The first Deviated Instinct covers and a bunch of Napalm Death album covers were created from within that detritus. 

In the middle of a Napalm Death cover back in my old bedsit days, a free penny chew for anyone who can tell which record cover that is. Also note all the big crazy canvas paintings/collages on the wall. I miss doing big stuff.

Since my bedsit days I’ve lived in 5 different houses and trying to find and make the perfect work space has always been a struggle and an excuse I’ll use as to why I’ve not been able to work. After I finished my visual Studies degree in 1999 I finally did what I’d always dreamed of and got a studio. I got a space within the Warehouse Artists Studios, a co-op studio space in the centre of Norwich (sadly no longer there and long since demolished for a housing development). You had to be interviewed to get a space and once accepted had a space among 20 odd other artists. There was also communal spaces for workshops and group shows, a darkroom and access to computer and admin stuff for networking and promotion. I had a space for about 5 years and spent some of that time serving on the management committee as well as working as the marketing and media manager for a while ( a role I got a reduction of my studio rent for). Looking back it really was perfect and I miss it a lot and yet it still didn’t lead to me making huge amounts of work or taking great creative leaps. Sadly moving into that space also coincided with a time when big aspects of my life were in turmoil and falling apart coinciding with a rapid downward spiral for my mental health. Much of the time I had that studio I was struggling with at times crippling depression and anxiety which literally took me years to work through. Coupled with having to constantly increase my hours at my day job I was able to spend less and less time there until I just couldn't justify the money I was spending on rent for an unused space and had to reluctantly give it up. By this time I’d then moved into a small flat on my own so also had to move all my accumulated art supplies, tools and often very large and cumbersome work into every corner of my apartment. 

My old studio circa 2000-ish.

Gubbins in my old studio during the dark days.

As I was writing this a memory just popped into my head, there used to be a local regional arts magazine style TV programme called 'The Biz' on ITV in the early noughties. I can't remember how it came about but I recall being featured one week and someone who used to be in Eastenders coming down with a camera crew one day to film me and my work in my studio. It was all quite surreal. I recorded the short piece (where they also created a montage of my work to a Napalm Death soundtrack) onto a VHS which is gathering dust in a cupboard somewhere. I haven't seen it since and haven't had a VHS player for a decade or so, I should try and get that converted and post it though, unless it's too cringingly embarrassing. Anyway, I digress...

When I’m feeling particularly hard on myself I tend to beat myself up for wasting such a great opportunity but in truth it was just shitty luck that the universe had various planets colliding for me at once and I’m not sure there was any other way I could have muddled through. In the years since though I do feel like I’ve lost all connection to any kind of local art scene or network. Also my work when I’ve done any has had to adapt to my lack of space, thus I went from making big, messy relief pieces and large wax sculptures and 6 foot charcoal drawings to tiny, tight illustrative drawings and not much else.

Since we moved into a new place last year I've actually got a choice of spaces in the house I can work in but still find myself making the same lame excuses. However I’m really trying to make the effort to just shut up and work through it this time. I’ve set up a little drawing corner in the spare bedroom we’re lucky to have plus we have the luxury of having a large garage (with currently no car) so have no excuse for not getting back out and dirty, making some bigger, looser work. I’m looking forward to sharing this as it develops, definitely feeling some Spring optimism growing.

So basically so long as I can find some spare table space somewhere or room to set up my easel if I want to paint I have no excuses, even if I had an amazing gigantic dream studio no doubt I’d be able to find a reason it wasn’t quite right yet. That’s not to say I’d not like to get back to having a proper studio space of course. A Mid can but dream.

One of my current little sketching corners. From here I plan to conquer the universe.

One of my other primary creative roadblocks is too many plans, ideas and infernal lists to the point where I just can’t focus and feel totally overwhelmed by it all, which leads to not knowing which to start with or focus on and thus nothing gets done at all. I’ve started multiple little journals and sketchbooks that are just full of lists of proposed projects and ideas and inspirations. These go back years and years and then I see I’ll go back and revisit old lists and leave myself snarky little comments about not having done something five years later or something. I mean, scribbling ‘fail, fail, fail’ over something really helps!! Yeesh.

I did just look over a bunch of pages and lists I’d made back in 2010 and noticed a good few things (that weren’t even new in my head then) that I’ve still not got around to and would still like to do.

I’m not sure what the answer to all this is, I know that I should just choose one thing, focus on it, work on it start to finish, sounds simple but yet I seem unable to quieten the noise in my head whilst working already thinking about the other things I want to. Maybe I’ll actually write myself some sort of timetable for how I propose to use my free time over a 2 week period and see if I can stick to it. I’m usually hopeless at these things though, my many futile attempts at “okay, I’m going to draw every single day even if it’s just a two minute doodle” rarely get past day 3.

I probably need a list of ideas of how to tackle my lists. Yep, that’s the way.

I need to reboot my brain.

Other things...the pressure of feeling like I need to justify everything in a piece of art. I blame art school for this but that’s a whole other post at some point I think.

Also, the scourge of social media and the modern brainfucking disease of distraction and total lack of an attention span and…..

...oh, look, a butterfly.

Yep that’s another topic to tackle in a post of it’s own.

I think there is a lot more on all this I could waffle on about but that’ll do for today. You see what I mean about attention spans, mind you when I wrote a post on facebook that was longer than about 2 sentences my brother told me “no ones got time to read all that”, so cheers to anyone who got this far.

Things I've been digging this week - 

I’ve been really getting into the ‘Gas Lit’ album by Divide and Dissolve. I usually find I can take or leave a lot of drone/doom but there’s something otherworldly about the whole vibe of this album. I can’t quite put my finger on the feeling it evokes, even though they sound nothing the same I get a similar under the skin feeling from Ulver’s ‘shadows of the Sun’ album.

Also I guess some of the oppressive noise is in a similar vein to the Body but I get more of a positive kick. Whenever I listen to The Body I always have the mental image of a beaten naked man chained up, kneeling in his own piss in the corner of some vast empty warehouse while a figure in a pig mask holds a snarling dog and shrieks at him as he weeps and snivels. Happy stuff.

Divide and Dissolve don’t make me think of that.

Also it’s all about Context.

The world probably doesn’t need any more bunches of beardy blokes just tuning way down and playing very loud very slowly.

Divide and Dissolve most certainly aren’t that.

Taken from their website -

Divide and Dissolve are:

Takiaya Reed (Black and Tsalagi [cherokee])

Sylvie Nehill (Maori)

“We would like to observe a radical shift in the current paradigm of complacency in regards to oppressive power dynamics, genocide, racism, white supremacy and colonization” the band have previously said “to give weight and validation to voices that are traditionally misrepresented and crimilinized before given a chance to speak”

I was also going to write about a couple of great books I just read but I think I'll save that for next time. This has already taken me way too long to post. One of the reasons for doing this blog was just to get a flow going, keep it fairly brief, rough and ready but I've already found myself sort of obsessing over it and things taking 10 times longer than they should. Not to mention that I'm continually thinking of other things I want to post about that then get added to all the physical and mental lists and suddenly I've got even more stuff to get overwhelmed with and slow me down.

So enough.

Hit publish, move on and stop wittering ya dithery old get.

An introduction and finding a path out of the fog.

 As is evidenced from my meagre and sporadic activity on both my Instagram and Facebook art pages I’ve hardly been prolific with my artwork over the past few months/years/decades. Indeed that is how long it feels like this creative funk/slump and general block seems to have been dragging on. Of course it’s all about perception and maybe from the outside looking in it doesn’t seem quite so barren but from my confused, constantly overthinking inside the struggle to get back into any kind of meaningful flow feels never ending. Scrolling through social media it always appears that the entire world is making amazing work though of course I know this is but an illusion and all you are seeing are peoples very best, curated lives and in all likelihood everyone is struggling just as much as you….but it doesn’t help.

As part of my apparent intention to be the world's greatest procrastinator I have been planning to do a blog of some form or other for about the past 10 years, it’s always on my end of year well meaning ‘to-do’ lists for new beginnings in a new year. There it generally stays, never getting out of my head onto the screen but I finally broke the seal and made a post with last month's short piece about one of my old bands ‘Angst’ so now it’s time to make a start on the other aspect of the blog - my artwork/life. 

I’m planning on splitting my posts here between documenting and talking about various old and current bands and musical projects as I go through the long process of digitising decades of old cassette recordings etc and then hopefully working through my creative block regarding my visual art  by discussing and sharing my ideas, working practices etc. I’m also planning on doing a bunch of small interviews with some of the amazingly talented friends I have working as artists or makers within the creative fields, finding out about others particular working practices and how they deal and overcome various hurdles and issues. We shall see.

The infernal list maker.

I have heaps of old journals where I’m constantly berating myself for not making any art, trying to unpick the knots of twisted wool inside my head plus literally no end of lists. I make lists. Lists and lists and more lists. Unfortunately the things on those lists very rarely get done, just moved onto other future lists. Looking at my most recent lists from the start of the year it really isn’t a lack of ideas or plans for work I’d like to make, quite the opposite, it’s TOO MUCH stuff, too many things, too many ideas. I never know what I should/could do first, where to start, and so inevitably I get so overwhelmed I do nothing. I’m hoping that by keeping this blog I can at least feel like I’m doing something and gradually find some focus. I know I’m a year or ten behind the times and blogs are probably very much yesterday's thing. Probably there are very few, if any, out there interested or with the attention spans to wade through my waffle and stream of consciousness but I don't really care. I’m mainly doing this for myself, however, if by some small chance anyone reading should find anything interesting or want to offer any comment or feedback or start a discussion that’d be most grand and appreciated.

Looking back through old sketchbooks, photos of old atwork plus all the cassettes of personal musical experiments it seems like I was most productive through the 90’s plus that’s when I took more chances with art and music and there were the biggest leaps in both ideas, styles and output. I was wondering why that was? Did I have more free time? In some cases yes, as I wasn’t working long hours at a mind numbing and physically exhausting day job as I have been these past 15 years or so, however it was also a time when my daughter (born in 1992) was small and I was designated stay at home dad while her mum was finishing her degree and Uni and working part time so child care was taking up a lot of my time. Also it was the decade where I did both my access Art course at City College and then my 3 year Visual Studies degree at Norwich Art School both of which I absolutely loved. I’d be an eternal student if I could afford it and being in that environment my work thrived. However I think the biggest difference between now and then is the lack of time destroying distractions. This was largely a time before the internet invaded our everyday lives and brains and also before Netflix and TV on demand. I want to write a whole separate blog post at some point on my views on Social Media and how I feel it has (largely negatively) affected the way I work and think. I feel like we have all been irreversibly re-wired and trying to override this and free ourselves to work in the way we used to (for ourselves, without the need for constant validation etc) feels increasingly impossible.

Never enough sketchbooks.

Anyway, I guess this will do for now. This is just a basic introduction, in the meantime please keep an eye on my anti-social media for new stuff. I’m hoping to write here at least once or twice a month to start with and have already a list (of course) of several topics and posts I intend to write soon. 

If you got this far, thanks for reading, I’m really hoping this will be a bit of a spring board and that it will prove the start of a new period of creative productivity. Looking forward to sharing my random meanderings along the way.

Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/bonehive

Instagram page - https://www.instagram.com/mid_bonehive

Currently playing while I write this - 

Myrkur - Folkesange cd

Other recent musical inspirations - 

BIB - Deluxe lp

Neil Cassal - Fade Away Diamond Time cd

Wardruna - Kvitravn cd

Black Country, New Road - For the First Time cd.

Emma Ruth Rundle, Thou -  The Helm of Sorrow EP

Currently reading - 

Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock,Revolution and fall of the Berlin wall - Tim Mohr

Norse Mythology - Neil Gaiman

Steve Ignorant / References with Mathew Worley 

My muse Maia