Cubelog

Last week I enjoyed one of the best nights out at the Cube for a long time - the “Cube Cola all spirits night”. This was the ‘first’ Cube Cola birthday party - though, slightly confusingly, not their first year - it was, according to the exquisitely James-Vickery-designed programme, “celebrating almost 4 years on the path to food science enlightenment”. The Cube Cola project is by Kate Rich and Kayle Brandon . . .

. . . and is based around providing a viable alternative to branded cola, manufactured from scratch. There is more info here, and here. The evening also celebrated many other home-spun products: food stuffs . . .

. . . some presented quite straightforwardly and deliciously, others with a bit more attached ( notably Jelena Stanovnik’s extremely good pie-chart Chocolate cake, which marks out the proportions of recorded religions in the UK as part of the ‘Life In The UK’ project by Jelena, Kate and Rasha Shaheen - who I’d previously seen give their presentation at Spike Island and Blackout at Shambala ); and also some clothes - in the form of some very versatile garments by Sylvia Zidek, including her specially designed trousers that level the pissing-field to make dignified street-urination as easy for women as men.

Kush DJ’ed infectious afro-beat in the bar . . .

. . . and Suffolk band The Pancakes played on their home-made instruments in the auditorium . . .

. . . creating a very warm village fête type feel, though with their casual references to murder, along with a live on-stage demonstration of the aforementioned feminist piss-pants, it was all kept just on the right side of too cosy.

There was a healthy crowd despite stiff competition from a sort-of homecoming gig by The Goxxip ( Cube associates Local Kid memorably brought them over here before they blew up in the mainstream ) and everything just seemed to fall into place to make a perfect entertaining and thought provoking evening that I couldn’t quiet imagine happening anywhere else . . . thank The Cube !

Later in the week, and probably because it was mid-week, the tribute night for Anthony H Wilson, wasn’t so well attended. Possibly just as well as the promised Karaoke Orchestra couldn’t make it, and my proposed contribution ( a compilation of YouTube clips transferred to DVD ) wasn’t ready too . . . not unlike the various mythologically-behind-schedule-Peter-Saville-moments chronicalled in ‘24 hour Party People‘, which we did get to screen from the DVD with Tony Wilson’s commentary ( a great idea from Hog ), after showing some performances recorded in the Haçienda from the FAC71 vhs I bought second-hand as a young teenager.

Having searched around the net for bits and pieces the pretty obvious parallels in attitude, and more than occasional ineptitude, between the Cube and the Manchester music scene Tony Wilson was so associated with, seem even more blatant to me, and hopefully we’ll schedule another more party friendly, and suitably irreverent celebration night later in the year . . .

. . . meanwhile here’s links to a little gem I uncovered that was made for Channel 4 in the 80’s [ it’s split into 7 parts ] . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyk5FwrbcgQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffeORmsUKL0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VnGxoz5RZk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laD5czT58gk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93qAiUIFysE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FveqO3T-2to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An013JKUgcY

. . . which, if nothing else ( presuming you’ve seen 24hr Party People ), should draw attention at just how good Paddy Considine was at playing Rob Gretton !

Rock ‘n’ Roll Baby, You Know it makes sense. Of Course being educated people y’all know that Rock’n'Roll is an euphemism for an act of sexual congress so it makes perfect sense (to me) to put on some R’n'R with some Bawdy Burlesque moves courtesy of Miss Poppy Von Tarte, see for yourself (apologies as I recorded this sideways…).

A Great example of the Fan Dance by Poppy there. I’m glad to say we also had Local Burlesque superstar Keda Breeze there too as well as plenty of the local RockaBilly aristocracy (they exist, I said Lou was one). AND Boy can they drink (twas a good night behind the bar). Talking of RockaBilly, The Cheater Slicks played some fine greasy sounds:

Rounding off the night was The Strip Chords, who featured Go Go Dancers, and just in case you needed more sleaze, with vintage 8mm Celluloid playing in the background, SEE:

Was a great night, and to the team We salute you

Caio For Now, xxx Richie Paradise

Friday 1st saw the Cube host the Greatness of the Magnificence Bowie Night, in which I played a fleeting part as a member of the Orchestra Cube. I actually spent most of the evening serving behind the bar, allowing me to indulge in my hobby of observing the drinking habits of the British public, well the Cube clientele. According to Zuleika , the size of the bar take can be extrapolated from the number of Absinthe shots sold. When the bar was cashed up at the end of the evening, we discovered we had taken some 800 quid.

With 77 paying punters, plus perhaps another 23 assorted volunteers, band members, groupies and liggers, that’s around 100 people in the building, giving an average spend per punter of £8. Eight quid gets you three bottles of beer or lager, which on the face of it doesn’t sound too unreasonable during the course of the evening’s entertainment.

What is possibly more interesting to contemplate is the standard deviation, or spread of this average. As some people may be limiting themselves to a single drink, it follows that some people must be drinking the equivalent of 5 or 6 bottles. Still, this is a society where alcohol consumption and excessive alcohol consumption is the social norm.

I’ll get my coat.

Here are a couple of photos from Friday 14th April’s The Light Fantastic event at the Cube. This was in collaboration with Eduardo Bozzo, whose project Tango Alchemy brings Tango, traditional and experimental, live and direct from Buenes Aires to Bristol and surrounding areas.

Beginning with an introductory class squeezed into the bar area, then performance and films, the evening built up into quite a full-on all-in knees-up, with people Tango’ing their way around the whole public part of the building, bar, lounge, auditorium, stage, garden, toilets (maybe)….

Since September, TLF has been putting on monthly dance-related events with a Cube feel, mixing film and live work, celebrating DIY culture, highlighting connections between locally distinctive and international work and experimenting with how artists & audiences engage with each other. All suggestions for future events welcome, and always interested in discussing collaborative possibilities: email kyra@thelightfantastic.co.uk

Bit of an experiment, but here’s the first videoblog on the cubelog . . .

. . .the visual is terrible ( it’s basically bad filming of a ( not itself terrible ) still of a dog on the screen, which you can just about make out - it was too dark to get any of the audience ), but the audio gives you an idea of the sheer exuberant rowdiness of the DLH event that took place last night.

This was before the skate films came on, which were interspersed, certainly not to everyone’s delight, with snatches of other ‘hardcore’ such as some of the weirder side of porn and violent and scatological G. G. Allin footage.

For the uninitiated DLH = Dean Lane Hardcore, for whom there is not much web presence, but scroll down some words here for a bit of background . . .