halcyon issue 5
DESCRIPTION
Tony Law, A Band Called Death, Exit Festival, Thee Oh Sees.TRANSCRIPT
TONY LAW A BAND CALLED DEATH EXIT FESTIVAL THEE OH SEES
Issue 5. Free
PREMIUM VINTAGE CLOTHING
60 PORT STREETNORTHERN QUARTER
MANCHESTERM1 2EQ
www.bionicseven.com@bionicseven
BERGHAUS
BARBOUR
SPRING COURT
GLOVERALL
PETER STORM
CHAMPION
LEVI’S
WOOLRICH
PENDLETON
WRANGLER
RALPH LAUREN
LACOSTE
ADIDAS
50.EXIT FESTIVAL
10.TONY LAW: EMBRACINGTHE ABSURD
8.PALACE SKATEBOARDS X REEBOK
contents
12.MARATHON MAN: THE ROAD TO ULTRA-TRAIL DU MONT BLANC
18.A BAND CALLED DEATH
28.BC CAMPLIGHT
34.THE BURRELL TWINS
40.HIUT DENIM
46.GLYNN PURNELL
60.INVENTORY
24.STEVE EDGE
74.THEE OH SEES
Issue 5
Halcyon HQ
16 Connect Business Village Tate Suite 9 24 Derby Road Liverpool L5 9PR
Telephone: +44 (0)151 207 7744 Email: [email protected]: www.halcyonmag.com
Editor-in-ChiefDaniel [email protected]
Style Editor Matthew [email protected]
Content EditorsJonathan Frederick [email protected] [email protected]
Business Development DirectorAlan McCarthy
Business DevelopmentJohn [email protected]
Art DirectorRoy [email protected]
Facebookfacebook.com/halcyonmag
Twitter@halcyonmag
Read the digital magazine and get exclusive online content at www.halcyonmag.com
64.BRAVE FOOLS: DRIVING THE MONGOL RALLY
88.ENDLESS SUMMER
78.ADIDAS SPEZIAL
98.ALAN PARTRIDGE
HALCYON
8
PALACE SKATEBOARDS X REEBOKhere’s only one new Palace arrival that we’ve cared about this summer, and it certainly wasn’t that royal sprog. PALACE Skateboards and Reebok have come together to rejuvenate some of the brand’s timeless silhouettes. With the Classic Leather and the Workout both
getting the once over from the London-based skate staple, it seems that we’re going to be seeing a lot more from PALACE than T-shirts and decks in the near future.
www.palaceskateboards.com
T
PALACE X REEBOK
9
ood ideas come out of absurdity’, suggests Tony Law, on a sunny, Friday afternoon in the capital. Good comedy as well, it seems. The Canadian comic’s brand of
humour has been routinely labeled ‘absurd’ in the broadsheets; a favourable fusion of high intelligence and alternative nonsense. Over the last year or so, his stand-up has covertly entered our living rooms - through appearances on Mock the Week, 8 Out of 10 Cats and most notably Have I Got News For You - yet his style remains a million miles away from conventional, mainstream palates. Should we be surprised by Tony Law’s burgeoning popularity?
‘I used to feel like I didn’t know how to do it right (stand up comedy). For a while, none of the dudes that were doing things unusual, or different from that standard, stand-up style, were getting anywhere.
I thought it was so odd for an art form to be so standardised. For a while it seemed promoters had found a winning formula and kind of stuck to it. Too much power getting into too few hands or something? Who knows, but it seems to be opening up a little more now, with the old Interweb. I guess a generation of fans are looking for something new. ’
The success of left field comics such as Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt, as well as Sean Lock and others, suggests comedy fans are now looking beyond tired, benign observations about toasters not working, or the behaviour of drivers in a traffic jam.
‘I just try and be funny. The odd time I will try and write something that is broadly mainstream and acceptable, but it tends to
‘G
HALCYON
10
TONY LAW
11
always veer off in some strange direction, you know. I tried to write a bit about Tesco once and it veered completely off track.
Most of my stuff gets written on stage, I can’t really sit at a laptop and write jokes. I go to an awful lot of new material nights, usually with some headlines written down, and see what comes spewing out of my mouth. It gets figured out there but I guess generally, I like to find something a bit more exciting to do, more interesting.’
Absurdity is a running theme through our conversation- ‘the absurd’ arising out of a fundamental disharmony between the individual’s search for meaning and the meaninglessness of the universe. Has Absurdism, as a philosophy, informed his comedy?
‘Yeah I’d say so. It’s nice to get a point across in an absurd way. I reckon it sticks in your brain longer, doesn’t it? My comedy style comes out of being terrified of the world yet happy to be in it, but still terrified. You know like when you consider the vastness of space? It freaks me out, makes me feel a bit sick and nauseous. Sort of awful and wondrous, all at the same time.
There are so many things you could get real angry about, but then there are so many beautiful things, it sort of doesn’t make any sense, does it?’
Law’s cheery nature in the face of life’s abject terror is laudable. Stand-up comedy, a particularly absurd and scary profession to go into, is clearly the perfect fit for such a spirited guy. How did Law’s energy manifest before finding a stage, though?
‘The jobs I used to do were rubbish. I never
had a proper career, just did all kinds of like, shit work. I was a funny kid though. I was always the funniest kid.
I watched Monty Python and stuff on Satellite TV in Canada but I always thought, because I was such a farm boy, “I’ll never be able to do
that”. That’s what pretty boys did, or people from the city did. It took me a long time to get confident enough to do my own gig. Then it was a mission to work out when you’re funny around a bunch of people you’re comfortable with, how to translate that onto a stage. That was the tricky bit.’
The North American comes across modest and humble in conversation, yet at some point in every comedian’s life, they have to declare to friends and family that they’re funny enough to make a living out of it. At what point does that happen?
‘That took ages! I always thought “I’m going to have to stop this soon, I’ve got to get a real job’’. Then it kind of dawned on me that there was nothing else I was capable of doing. Having kids made me think ‘‘fuck it, I’m going to have to give this a real go’’. Thirteen years in and I feel, finally, maybe I can get my head above water. Maybe this can actually be a career?’
With a sell-out tour completed and a new show, ‘Maximum Nonsense’, due to debut at Edinburgh Festival, a career it most definitely now is.
The Absurdist writer Albert Camus argued that ‘once the individual accepts the absurdity of life, they then, and then only, have the freedom to create meaning in their existence.’ Has Tony Law accepted life’s absurdity, and what meaning has he created?
‘I accepted it a long time ago. Life is absurd. The only meaning is like, loving someone maybe, or being loved? I lack the vocabulary but you know, make other people feel good rather than bad, or try to at the very least. Oh and, also, don’t be a dick.’
TONY LAWEMBRACING THE ABSURD
WORDS: JONATHAN FREDERICK TURTONIMAGES: JAMIE HOLLIGAN (SCHMAME INDUSTRIES)
‘I always thought “I’m goingto have to stop this soon,I’ve got to get a real job’’.
Then it kind of dawned on me that there was nothing else
I was capable of doing’
12
HALCYON
MARATHON MAN
THE ROAD TO ULTRA-TRAIL DU MONT BLANCWORDS: DANIEL WHITEFORD
IMAGES: FRANCK ODDOUX
ocked inside a portaloo thirty minutes before the start of the race, the nervousness that had been building over the preceding weeks was suddenly palpable. With the furore of the busy start-site filling my peripheral hearing,
I tried to focus on making myself as light as possible for the upcoming exertions. I was literally shitting myself.
As is the case with many great ideas, ours (to enter a 100km ultramarathon) was put together in the pub one evening after five or six pints of strong ale. Prior to shaking hands with my mate Leo, my organised running experience amounted to an event at a District Sports Day as an eleven year old and a 1215th place finish in a Half Marathon, which had been ran the morning after a twelve hour drinking session and four hours of fully-clothed sleep. Nonetheless, changing weekend priorities after a few years in the working world had left me starved of competitive sport, and I was running out of ways to sartorially disguise a waistline that had been gradually expanding since leaving university. The challenge of an ultramarathon seemed just the foot up the
arse I needed. We signed up for the London to Brighton Challenge the following day, with no idea if either of us would actually be able to do it.
We stayed in a hotel near the race’s start-line the evening before. Twice I considered the ramifications of quietly leaving in the middle of the night and never speaking to Leo again but my alarm rang, all too soon, at 5:15am. I chinned a bowl of porridge and hoofed the first of sixteen pain-killers taken throughout the day, before we took a taxi to the start-site in deathly silence. We set off at 6:45am on the first of our 100kilometres, trying to settle into a comfortable pace as quickly as possible; something that wasn’t helped by stopping for a piss within the first 200 yards.
We’d trained hard for this. So hard, in fact, that we were confident enough to put the cart well before the horse in the months previous and look into our next challenge. The Western States 100 - a one hundred mile slog across California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains in fifty degree heat - and the Marathon des Sables - a scarcely plausible 251km jaunt across the
L
13
MARATHON MAN
Sahara Desert - both piqued our interest, but it was the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc that stood out.
There are quite a few moving parts to the UTMB offering; four separate ultramarathons of varying length and accent, each with their own qualifying criteria. Realising that the 100km race we’d entered was an official qualifying heat for one of these events, our motivation quickly switched from ‘let’s not fail and look like a right pair of tits,’ to ‘kinell, we badly need a sub-15 hour qualifying time and I hope they give out free pens.’
The opening 20km out of London passed by relatively incident-free. This was never destined to last though and we ran into our first challenge of the day at 25km, as the trails became bogged with thick mud, making it difficult to move with any sort of rhythm. This challenging stretch also happened to coincide with us being joined by a complete arsehole; the need to put as much distance as possible between ourselves and the irritating idiot was enough motivation to push on. The last I remember, he was some way behind us, yelling about his ankle and a compound fracture, or something.
We declined the warm cans of Grolsch and Pink Floyd ‘Live in Pompeii’ DVD - offered from the spoof aid station that had been set up on the blisteringly hot roof of our mate’s car - and plodded on reasonably comfortably, until taking a brief wobble at 53km. I pulled myself together enough to look a little more in control when arriving at the official 56km ‘half-way’ site ,and we chatted with friends and family, who had so kindly come out to support us. We had no idea what to expect in terms of the physical and mental deterioration that might follow.
Just a few minutes after leaving the half-way site, the wheels began to fall off. My memory is hazy but the next 6-7 kilometres were, without question, the toughest I’ve ever run. At 64km, after taking three full minutes to clamber over
a stile, I forced a break from running to sort myself out. Squatting, head in hands, and wholly ignoring the words of encouragement being offered by Leo was, excluding any time I’ve needed to remember a Wi-Fi password, the most demanding moment of my life to date. At this point I’d ruled out ever buying a bottle of Evian again, let alone running up the mountain it’s sourced from. Eventually I perked up enough to start moving again. Leo set off in front, with me following, focusing on the monotony of his footsteps, attempting to find an inner state of running Zen. I failed, horribly. Every single stride a personal hell for the next 3km, but the 500 metres of downhill coasting towards the next aid station at 68km was the most spirited I’d felt all day.
I ducked into another portaloo and subsequently lost the day’s spread-bet we’d been running, as Leo had guessed the marker of my first ‘relief stop’ to within 5km. It turned out i n c o n s e q u e n t i a l anyway. Regardless of the fourteen plus hours spent slurping on bowel-wrenching
energy gels, he somehow avoided fertilizing a single field all day.
In light of the psychological hole from which I’d so recently emerged, I was wary of what was to come. But seeing my family for five minutes was invaluable and I set out from the aid station in much better nick than I’d arrived. The following few kilometres were a complete reversal; I felt good, while Leo spent some time battling his own personal demons. A few games of ‘what would you rather have done to you right now instead of running one hundred kilometres?’ were played, and he quickly recovered from his spiral. We ran through to 89km before wanting to do violent things to the people responsible for plotting the route.
Here, the luminous pink directional markers we’d been following all day led us up what might as well have been a climbing wall. We stumbled up the track’s steepest incline, muttering some horrific obscenities but trying to convince ourselves that we likely had a
14
HALCYON
We declined the warm cans of Grolsch and Pink Floyd ‘Live in Pompeii’ DVD - offered from the spoof aid station that had been set up on the blisteringly hot
roof of our mate’s car
MARATHON MAN
15
16
HALCYON
downhill ride to the finish in Brighton. We didn’t. What we had was a long - though less severe – climb, stretching over another 4-5km. Had we not just ran 91km, we might have been in a better state to do something with the incredible view now to our right; the Sussex countryside stretched to the horizon with an orange sun setting to the west. I tried to come up with something poignant about our accomplishment of running all the lands we could see before us, in a single afternoon. Leo told me to fuck off.
Tension between the two of us grew as we made our way up the final, drawn-out hill. The light-hearted raillery that had been so integral to our morale throughout the day took a somewhat barbed tone. The topography levelled out with 4km to go and so too did our language, before we finally got our first glimpse of the event clock’s neon lights at the finish-line. The next 2km was a blur of high-fives and hi-jinx. After overtaking a couple of people on the final bend, we had the home straight in its entirety to bask alone in the glory of a grandstand climax. The sprint finish we had been joking about all day materialised, with 100m remaining, and we bounded across the finish line. I’ve never been so happy to stop moving.
Running has a sometimes-justified reputation as being a sport for loners; socially awkward, poncey middle-class blokes in tiny shorts. This isn’t always the case. From training for and competing in a single ultramarathon, I’ve learned far more about cooperation, communication and wearing appropriate clothing than I had from a lifetime of playing football. Managing the psychological highs and lows of numerous 30+ mile training runs - and the race itself - nurtured a strong team spirit, toughened me up mentally and brought about a healthy obsession and dedication to ultramarathon running.
We ran our first 100km in well under fifteen hours and qualified for either of the third tier Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc ultramarathons; an achievement I’m particularly proud of, considering the ‘let’s just have a fucking stab at it’ approach we had taken to begin with. The plan now is to earn even more qualifying points at our next trial in September - a 100km race along the path of the River Thames - and improve on the category of contest we can enter at UTMB 2014. This ultramarathon running lark is really, pretty addictive.
MARATHON MAN
17
18
HALCYON
DEATHTHE BAND THAT TIME FORGOT
WORDS: JONATHAN FREDERICK TURTONIMAGES: DRAFTHOUSE FILMS
19
ast month, a documentary premiered in the US that skewed the history of rock and roll music. The film - every bit as heart wrenching and incredible as last year’s Oscar winning Sixto Rodriguez picture ‘Searching for
Sugarman’ - is a story about three African-American brothers who were playing Punk Rock before Punk Rock existed. Before Bad Brains, The Sex Pistols and The Ramones, there was a band called ‘Death’.
A story of rejection, rediscovery, and so much more, A Band Called Death has its beginnings in downtown Detroit in the late Sixties, when three siblings embarked upon the most unlikely of musical journeys.
‘Growing up in Detroit, it was such a great time, when Motown was churning out all those amazing hits. Aretha Franklin, Bob Seger, it was such a bustling place’, recalls original band member Bobby Hackney. However, it wasn’t the famous Tamla sound, so synonymous with the Motor City and its natives, which the Hackney brothers were drawn to.
‘See, we grew up in the black community. At that time, people were tuning into bands like Earth, Wind and Fire, however my brother David was listening to The Who and The Beatles. As soon as I saw those guys playing that guitar I thought, “all bets are off”. If we ain’t playing this I ain’t gonna be having no fun. Rock ‘n’ Roll man. We just kind of immersed ourselves in it.’
Early on in the film, it is David- Bobby and Dannis’ older brother- who emerges as the natural leader of the collective. A portrait of a special individual begins to shape.
‘David was real creative’, suggests oldest brother Hank, who wasn’t a part of the band. ‘I mean, he would put together some makeshift sounds that would just work, that you wouldn’t believe.
They’d be playing in the house, and they’d send people walking down the street holding their head! It wasn’t a rock and roll culture in Detroit, that was white boy music!’
David had original plans for his band that were removed from their immediate environment, and from pretty much everything that had gone before.
L
DEATH: THE BAND THAT TIME FORGOT
20
HALCYON
‘The more people talked to us about changing (our music), the more we went into Rock and Roll’, Dannis expands. ‘We would start to practice and cop cars would show up. The neighbours had called them on us.’
It wasn’t till after the passing of the Hackney Brothers father, Earl, however, that David’s musical vision truly crystallised. ‘At that point Death became Death’, Bobby emphatically states. ‘David wanted to put a positive spin on death; it’s kind of like birth, it’s not a good or bad thing, it’s just a thing.’
Their sound by this point held all the musical hallmarks of Punk Rock; the fast, industrial riffs, the political edge, the repetitive rhythms, and - of course -an inherently rebellious spirit. However the death of their father moved it into another realm, a more spiritual sphere, whilst still operating within the punk paradigm.
In 1974 the Hackney Brothers took their unusual brand of rock to the world, yet nobody really knew what to do with it. Radio stations refrained from regular airplay whilst, internationally, the boys suffered innumerable rejections from record labels. It seemed the industry wasn’t ready, until the famous Motown producer Clive Davis offered them a twenty thousand dollar advance to record an album, under one condition; they changed their name.
‘That sent David into another place. He had this death concept, the name went with the concept, the concept went with the music and nothing could change. David turned the deal down.’
Thirty-five years of obscurity ensued. The three brothers made families, played sporadically in a number of bands, whilst David fell deeper and deeper into alcoholism.
‘David was one of those genius types. The demons got to him, man. The demons got to him’, recalls Dannis, with tangible regret. David passed away in 2000, but not before handing over the master tapes of Death’s solitary demo ‘Politicians In My Eyes’, to his brother. ‘‘He’d always believed that the world would hear our music’, laughs Bobby. ‘He always said “the world is gonna come looking for our music one day”, and they did.’
21
‘David wanted to put a positive spin on death; it’s kind of like birth,it’s not a good or bad thing, it’s just a thing’
BOBBY HACKNEY
DEATH: THE BAND THAT TIME FORGOT
22
HALCYON
Nine years after David’s passing, the poignancy of his words really began to manifest. While at university, Bobby’s son - and David’s nephew - Julian, listened to a record by an extremely rare Detroit Rock band, recommended to him by a friend. The lead singer’s voice bore a remarkable resemblance to his dad’s. Julian, bemused and bewildered, enquired with his father about an early foray into rock music. The story checked out.
Slowly, the reputation of the demo grew amongst the record collecting community.
Simultaneously, Bobby’s three sons began playing their father and uncle’s tracks live, intending to get the music of Death out to the masses. Their popularity swelled. Internet music forums were inundated with posts about the first black punk band.
Within a year, Drag City had reissued the original record and four years since then, with a seal of approval from the likes of Joey Ramone, Alice Cooper and Kid Rock, the documentary ‘A Band Called Death’ has entered cinemas. The renaissance is almost complete.
In David Hackney we find a true anti-establishment punk icon, not only playing music that predates everything we ever knew about
the genre, but entirely embodying punk ethics and sensibilities
‘This whole thing is happening not because of my faith, but because of David’s faith. Dave was the one who said all this stuff was going to happen, but now we’re living it, and that’s what’s making everything so strange.’
The concept of the band - so immersed in mortality, and of course death - is so astonishingly relevant to their implausibly mystical journey, that it would make the ultimate cynic consider the nature of destiny. The prophetic, unwavering spirit of David and his vision make this incredible resurgence the natural end to the story. Death is not only the band’s name, but also a fundamental theme from the get-go, a theme entirely bound to the band’s identity, illustrated excellently throughout the film. ‘It’s like a movie, and we’re the unwitting stars of it, and David is the director. Even from his grave, he’s directing the movie. ‘
In David Hackney, we find a true anti-establishment punk icon, not only playing music that predates everything we ever knew about the genre, but entirely embodying punk ethics and sensibilities. Although the revelation of Death’s music as a clear precursor to Punk is astounding, the Death story contains even more interesting elements. The cultural essence of the narrative manages to supersede its musical significance.
David Hackney is artistic integrity personified and the way the record came to prominence is, fundamentally, the reason why people still go to record stores.
‘What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and to lose his soul? David’s music was his soul, and he never wavered on that. We had the chance to change the band name, to gain the world, and David didn’t waver. David’s dream was consistent from day one, and he never strayed from that dream.’
A Band Called Death at once captures the romance of rock and roll and the human experience - a real music story - simultaneously tragic and glorious. It might have taken a while but Death, in life, have finally gained their rightful place in the high chambers of music history.
A Band Called Death - in select UK Cinemas from September.
HALCYON
24
teve Edge is a rare breed. East End urchin turned European Artist of the Year, Cockney geezer come Shoreditch staple. He was a published designer at the age of twelve years old and shared his childhood home with
a chimp called Primo. Not your average being.
The marketing guru has led a remarkable life, so it was no surprise when Lamb’s Navy Rum recently named him one of their six ‘True British Characters’, a role he’s stepped into with aplomb.
‘I was incredibly honoured to tell you the truth. I was honoured because I love the good old English brands, and to be selected as a true British character, of this isle of ours, it was something that I accepted immediately.
It’s been a great campaign and, in all honesty, it was nice to be a part of an alcohol drive. People have said “Stevie, are you alright doing that”, and I’ve told them to fuck off. We all like a drink, right?’
Despite Edge’s enthusiasm for booze generally, Lamb’s isn’t any old tipple. Founded in 1827, Alfred Lamb’s Navy Rum was originally a combination of eighteen high calibre blends. Its history encompasses Caribbean adventures, The London Blitz and the more general fortunes of the British Navy.
‘For me it was always a sailors and pirates drink. In all the pirate movies, when I was a kid, they were always ‘yo, ho, ho’ and a bottle of rum. So I always had this kind of magical impression about it.
It was always this drink that really bad, yet moralistic people drank, and I kinda liked that. Then of course as I grew up, there were more and more of these stories and it became even more legitimate when I learned the British Navy had a rum ration. They were given a pint a day at one point! I figured in that case, fuck me, it must be good stuff!’
Steve Edge has collaborated with some of the biggest brands in the world, designing marketing strategies for over twenty-five years. Why did he choose to be a part of this campaign?
‘I just love collaborating with these old brands. Locks & Hatters Co, 1676: Fortnum and Mason, 1707: Rules Restaurant, 1798; we’ve worked with loads of them. This with Lamb’s
A RUM DIARY: STEVE EDGE
S
25
A RUM DIARY:STEVE EDGE AND HIS LOVE FOR LAMB’S
WORDS: JONATHAN FREDERICK TURTON
isn’t a professional collaboration though. I did it because it sounded like fun.
These brands haven’t survived because of luck. At the end of the day, they’ve survived because they’ve got great products. When I talk to clients and they’re whinging saying “urgh, recession” I say listen, don’t talk about the recession mate, imagine these brands that have not only gone through recession, recession, recession, but have gone through world fucking wars, and are still here today flying their flag!
Here we have this great brand, Lamb’s Navy Rum. It’s been around and now it’s back again, and it’s all the things we’ve spoken about. There are fashions, there are fads and changes, but you know what, quality remains.’
Steve Edge has achieved so much in his profession, collaborating with everyone from Star Wars to Pipex. Besides quaffing more rum, what else does he have left to achieve?
‘You know what mate, I’m very fortunate. I was born a dyslexic kid, and as long as I had a bag of glitter in my hand, magic markers and plastic scissors, I was fucking happy. Things have never changed. I wake up every morning with my magic markers, my plastic scissors and my glitter, I have a spring in my step and I’ll tell you what, I’m the happiest man on the planet. I’ll never change, I’ll never stop. This brings me everything in life I could ever wish for.’
Lamb’s Navy Rum - by its very essence - is a drink of true British character, whilst Steve Edge is a perfectly placed zealot. Both excellent British exports; long may their sterling work continue.
Find out more about Steve Edge, Lamb’s Navy Rum and the ‘True British Character’ campaign at www.lambsnavyrum.com
HALCYON
26
SUBSCRIBE TO HALCYONMAG.COM AND GET EXCLUSIVE ONLINE CONTENTWEBSITE: HALCYONMAG.COM FACEBOOK: Facebook.com/halcyonmag TWITTER: @HalcyonMag INSTAGRAM: @HalcyonMag
28
HALCYON
B.C. CAMPLIGHTBURNING BRIGHT IN MANCHESTER
WORDS: ANDY ASHTONIMAGES: JONATHAN FREDERICK TURTON
B.C. CAMPLIGHT: BURNING BRIGHT IN MANCHESTER
29
rian Christinzio’s path to where he currently resides has been a rocky one. The creative force behind three-piece B.C. Camplight, Christinzio’s story is a fascinating one. Through interviews and press releases,
Halcyon built a picture of a not-so-happy wanderer, with tales of hard times, vagrancy and hellish benders.
Now settled in the UK and making music again, Christinzio seems in a better place, both geographically and spiritually. We asked musician, Halcyon contributor and kindred spirit, Andy Ashton, to take some time away from the guitar and engage this most intriguing and talented of artists.
“I hope I didn’t come off too negative”, was the final thing this hulk of gentle contradiction said during my visit. We met in a dark, cosy little boozer in his adopted home of Manchester- the perfect venue for a heart-to-heart. It’s hard to believe that this softly spoken, thoughtful and genuinely funny man could ever find reason to be negative- until you scratch beneath the surface. Once you listen to some of the things that have occurred in his life, it all becomes very clear; how the shadows and light within have shaped this individual, and his view on the world.
After five minutes of conversation, I felt as though I’d known him for years. B.C. has a very personable quality, replicated in his music; happy and familiar, but original and captivating enough to keep you tuned in. Our discussion was never going to shape into any sort of career retrospective. Instead, a snapshot of a rare talent and his inner struggles, past and present, unfolded. He’s a songwriter of substance, in the mould of Harry Nilsson or Dennis Wilson, in possession of a haunting, pure voice that could belong to any classic era. “You know what’s really weird about that? My voice gets higher every year and I don’t understand it. The bottom note stays the same, stays at a G, and I go about a half step up a year. I don’t know what’s going on.” The observation, like many throughout the day, is rounded off with his trademark dark humour, “I probably have a disease or something.”
His conflicted nature encouraged me to dig deeper into what happened to this man; how did he become this dark character who is oddly, simultaneously, full of light. “I was a weird kid in high school. I was the captain of the football team but I was also in the Madrigal travelling choir. I was the high tenor and I always loved, and for some reason always found sort of masculine, Frankie Valli and Brian Wilson’s voices”.
B
It’s an interesting progression for a football captain and keen amateur boxer to now be playing piano and singing with such delicate beauty. As a musician myself, I’ve had moments where I’ve happened upon trouble, simply because I didn’t want people to think I was a pushover. Have these same thoughts ever entered Brian’s head, and has he acted upon them before? “That’s interesting. I don’t know if maybe I over compensated for that too, because a lot of the time, when I’m around a large group of people, I do see myself ‘puffing out’. Maybe that’s why, because subconsciously I’m thinking ‘they know you’re a musician, so they BETTER know you can fucking throw them through a window’. It’s funny, I say ‘I’m a musician’, and people say ‘oh really, what do you play?... Oh, you don’t look like a piano player’.
The troubles that Brian has encountered are well documented, including breakdowns and run-ins with the law, which he’ll readily admit are mostly of his own doing. I asked just how distressing it became; was he even aware that it was happening, and was there a moment in the storm darker than any other point? “I certainly was aware. The past five years before I came to Manchester was one long heart of darkness, a real black time. I literally had a rock bottom of about 1200 days. I had stopped music. Every now and again when I needed to pay the rent, because I was still popular in Philadelphia, I’d play at a place called Johnny Brenda’s. Five or six hundred people would show up, I’d do a show ‘uh thanks’, take the money, get a few bags of coke, and pay my rent. After that, I was squatting. I found this abandoned church and there was this guy renting a room at the top but he lived in Ecuador or something, so I just moved in and just never paid the rent at all. For about eight months.”
“If I was still scraping by and doing ok in Philadelphia, I’d
still be there and I’d still be telling people ‘my record’s coming out next year’ - and it’d be 2020”
30
HALCYON
B.C. CAMPLIGHT: BURNING BRIGHT IN MANCHESTER
31
Even by my own particularly low standards this was shocking to hear. What does a man do on a day-to-day basis, whilst squatting in a church for the best part of a year?
“I don’t know. The hardest part of this whole thing since I’ve been back and productive, is that lost time. It’s just despicable, an embarrassment. I think of, like, my parents, they should be sainted you know, and my friends. It’s just crazy. I literally didn’t do anything other than I made other people’s records better, did a few shows here and there and just basically tried to, like, con my way through life.”
Such episodes would be enough to finish off almost any aspiring artist, but thankfully Mr. Christinzio is made of sterner stuff, taking a philosophical viewpoint on the period. “If it wasn’t for that then I wouldn’t have this, you know? If I was still scraping by and doing ok in Philadelphia, I’d still be there and I’d still be telling people ‘my records coming out next year’ and it’d be 2020. So, in a way, I’m glad it happened. Like I said, I’m pretty ashamed of myself.”
This all leads to our current location and the obvious question, out of everywhere in the world, why Manchester? “Number one: I always had the best shows here. Two: my publisher is in London. I didn’t want to move to London, but they were begging me to come back to the UK and make another record. Also, I had like a little pocket of fans that kept in touch with me for some reason via email, even five years after my last show. One of them, his name is Mark Powell and still a friend of mine
32
HALCYON
here, just basically said ‘I’m setting you up with a place, just get here’ and I was here in like a day and a half.”
Brian turned up with just a song in his heart. “I just showed up. I didn’t know anyone, I didn’t even have the studio that we were going to record in. I didn’t even know if there was one here. Everything has worked out so serendipitously, it’s just been amazing.”
His new record is slated for an autumn release and will add to the quite wonderful previous efforts ‘Hide, Run Away’ and ‘Blink of a Nihilist’. Is this now the beginning of fulfilment? I asked him to define his idea of musical success and he responded expressively, but in typically contradictory fashion; “I’m starting to understand that, less and less as I get older. I don’t have any problem saying that I don’t know what the definition is, but I guess for me, technically, it would be doing exactly what I want to do and it being appreciated. I do exactly what I want to do, and it is appreciated to some extent. To some people, that might seem like a kind of success. But I think, probably, success would be actually being happy in your life and doing exactly what you want. I do exactly what I want, but nine tenths of the time I feel like jumping off of a bridge”.
Brian Christanzio still carries some baggage from his previous misadventures, but then who doesn’t? It’s difficult to tell whether Brian will remain on the path of productivity, but on this showing, we’ll be hearing about him for all the right reasons in the future. Did he come across too negative? Not at all. Just honest.
B.C. CAMPLIGHT: BURNING BRIGHT IN MANCHESTER
33
34
HALCYON
BRITAIN TO BROOKLYNTHE BURRELL TWINS
WORDS: STE TURTONIMAGES: CHRIS CARR
CHRISCARRPHOTO.TUMBLR.COM
rom the moment they’re born, intrigue surrounds identical twins. With only 0.2% of the world’s population being of the monozygotic variety, it’s natural for people to take an increased interest, when a set of these most rare
siblings enter the public domain. Boxers Scotty ‘Bang Bang’ and Deano ‘Badnewz’ Burrell are the latest to launch a double-fisted assault on the sporting world, attempting to follow in the footsteps of past successful twin athletes, such as football’s De Boer brothers, or the NFL’s Super bowl winning Barbers. Along with a striking appearance that only enhances the customary curiosity, The Burrells possess a transatlantic fighting tutelage that should help them make waves in the sport.
Although born in Queens, New York – to Jamaican parents – Scott and Dean Burrell found their way to the fight game on British soil, following a move to South London at the tender age of two. ‘We always did well educationally, we just liked to fight’ relays Scotty. ‘We enjoyed combat and the buzz to be the best fighter in school. Dad was a big boxing fan and taught us some skills from a young age.
It was our mum that brought us to a boxing gym at eleven though, that’s where it all began.’ Once the parents had acknowledged that their sons’ thirst for fighting could be turned into a positive, boxing became a constant for the brothers, running parallel with academia. After a double graduation from Roehampton University - with degrees in Business Studies and Social Science of Sport – how did the scholars decide that their future employment lay in the ring? ‘From a young age, we both knew that boxing was going to be our career. We said to each other “when we’re ready to turn pro, we’ll move back to the States’’. America is the best place for boxing, as far as training and big fights go. We wanted to test ourselves from the beginning.’
Times away from home are notoriously the toughest in a boxer’s career, but these are usually six to ten week periods during training camp. In 2010, the brothers decided half measures wouldn’t cut it, and left London for the foreseeable future in search of sporting success, earmarking Brooklyn as a potential catalyst for great things. How did they manage to adjust to their very distant, very new surroundings?
F
the burrell twins
35
36
HALCYON
the burrell twins
37
‘We missed our family and friends and just the usual things we’d been used to growing up, like mums cooking and Jaffa cakes… trust me, they don’t stock them here. But boxing allowed us to meet a lot of people and have time to see the city.’
Settling in may have taken a little while, but they eventually formed a handful of genuine friendships and found favourite spots, such as the Caribbean Negril restaurant in Greenwich Village. Professionally, on the other hand, New York’s new arrivals benefited from a familiar face and venue. ‘Our Dad always told us about Gleason’s gym as amateurs. At the age of seventeen we went there to train and met Hector Roca. We were impressed by how good a coach he was and felt we’d learnt so much with him in our few weeks training. Hector was also impressed, and offered to train us when we were ready to turn professional.’ Roca’s past pupils include the likes of Arturo Gatti, Iran Barkley and even actress Hillary Swank, whilst she prepared for her Oscar-winning role in Million Dollar Baby. Taking his invitation was clearly a no brainer. ‘Hector’s the man… he’s got a lot of history in boxing. His stories are very entertaining and it’s good to hear where other fighters were at during different stages of their careers.’
Working under such experienced coaches in one of America’s elite gyms clearly had, and continues to have, major benefits; especially for Deano and his unorthodox stance. ‘I felt like, as a southpaw in England, they didn’t really show me anything specific. They do here, in terms of hand positioning and defensive work. Coaches in Britain are more focused on conditioning, which I think has benefited us both, as we have a higher work ethic than 95% of the fighters here. However, there’s a lack of technical training in the UK, which coaches here are more focused on.’
New York will always boast a boxing presence, but over the last decade the sport has been in rapid decline within the state. With gyms closing on a weekly basis, fighters frequently compete in amateur tournaments simply representing themselves - rather than a club - however, big-time boxing recently returned thanks to the opening of a new multi-purpose indoor arena in Brooklyn last year. The site has already provided the likes of Bernard Hopkins and local favourite Zab Judah a stage to perform, delivering a boxing boost
38
HALCYON
for the borough that will surely have benefits at grassroots level. ‘The Barclays Center has brought a new buzz back to the NYC scene. All the local fighters can’t wait for their opportunity to fight there, including us. It’s now a possibility to win our first world titles here, in Brooklyn.’
Three years in, commitment to the cause and The United States as a base is indubitable. Interestingly though, the brothers have decided to pencil in a September appearance back in the UK, at the most traditional of British boxing locations; London’s York Hall. With a lot of depth in both the domestic lightweight and light-welterweight classes – Scotty and Deano’s divisions, respectively – could fighting back home become a regular thing? ‘We definitely want to fight back in England as often as possible. It’s a great opportunity to show our family, friends and fans our progress. We’d still love to fight for a British title down the line, so it’s important to stay somewhat active there.’
The Bethnal Green appearance may serve as perfectly timed home relief. Both fighters have tasted defeat early in their careers, with Scotty on the wrong end of a split decision last time out. Is there almost an advantage for a young fighter to learn from a loss, especially in an era of padded undefeated records? ‘Obviously us coming here, we’re unknown and are always the away fighter, to an extent’, Scotty fires back firmly, but not defensively. ‘It’s important to be focused on becoming a world champion, not
so much on keeping our records untarnished.’ A Fighter usually loses at some point in their career, some can’t recover from it, others are strong enough to bounce back and turn a negative into a positive. We’re both doing that.’ Although they share virtually the same DNA and live corresponding lifestyles, it’s a lively possibility that one of the Burrell twins will achieve more than the other. A study from Italian scientists – one of several on the matter- followed the career of identical twins that
trained together under the same coach, with exactly the same regime, during their time as professional race walkers. When assessed in retirement, the physical attributes of each competitor were almost indistinguishable,
although one brother had achieved Olympic gold while the other had a far less successful CV. Is there a level of competitiveness between the brothers? ‘I feel like we always encourage and push each other to the limit, but there’s always a level of friendly competition’ Scotty explains. ‘We both know that we aren’t each other’s opponent, but we use the fact that we’re both in the sport, with the same goals, to constantly push each other into improvement’ adds Deano. ‘Team Burrell is all about unity.’
It’s an unconventional path that the Burrell Brothers have chosen. It remains to be seen just how big an impact the twins can have on the boxing world, but what is undisputable, is that that the journey has produced a pair of devoted, intelligent and entirely impressive individuals.
‘It’s important to be focused on becoming a world champion, not so much on keeping our records
untarnished.’
the burrell twins
39
40
HALCYON
HIUT DENIMSTYLING: MATTHEW STAPLES
IMAGES: RAIM GRIN
Cardigan is a small town of 4,000 people. 400 of them used to make jeans. They made 35,000 pairs a week, for three decades. Then one day the factory closed. It left town. But all that skill and knowhow remained, without any way of showing the world what they could do. That’s why The Hiut Denim Company was started - To bring manufacturing back home, to use all that skill and to breathe new life into the town. So yes, Cardigan is going to make jeans again.
HIUT DENIM
41
42
HALCYON
HIUT DENIM
43
44
HALCYON
HIUT DENIM
45
www.hiutdenim.co.uk
46
HALCYON
GLYNN PURNELL
47
or a long time, the idea of a Michelin starred chef seemed something entrenched within a certain class or a certain lifestyle. How did a council estate kid from Birmingham use his own brand of exciting, innovative
cuisine to put the second city on the map.
What made you care about food as a kid?
For me it was always about the togetherness of it. I’m off a council estate, my dad was a factory worker and my mum used to work for Woolworths, so it was always a time when the family came together. It was a bit like The Waltons in our house, round the table all the problems were shared, all the arguments were settled, and with us not having a lot of money, we always had a respect for the food. It was food which brought us all together.
Locality gets given a lot of credit in terms of food from around the world- Basque, Parisian, North African. Was your upbringing in Birmingham important to your style of cooking?
Most definitely, it’s definitely about my roots. We do a Purnell’s Tour, which is all about being brought up in Birmingham, the use of spices, using cheaper cuts, pieces of meat that people might not usually use. Pork belly and things like that always play a part on my menu. We do cheese and pineapple on sticks , and we call it ‘The Emotions of Soixante-Dix’, as in ‘The Emotions of 1970’, which a lot of people look at and say “Oh this guy is so pretentious”, but we’re actually just taking the piss.
When they meet me they realise that I’m taking the piss as well, because it’s about skidding on your knees at a social club, or being at a kid’s party. It doesn’t matter where you go, you’ll always find cheese and pineapple on sticks, our version is quite edgy and a technical dish for the chefs to cook, but at the end of the day, it’s just cheese and pineapple on sticks. It makes me smile every time I eat it.
In recent years it’s become more acceptable for young men, as they do with their clothes or their football team, to take an active interest in quality food and drink. Has your
GLYNN PURNELLWORDS: DANIEL SANDISON
F
restaurant and others like it made this more acceptable? Is fine dining more accessible now?
I’m from a very ‘fine dining’ background. I’ve worked in other Michelin star restaurants and things like that, but the thing that I think is great is British chefs are beginning to open very contemporary restaurants. As a young man you don’t feel intimidated coming into my restaurant, we’ve thrown away the tablecloths, we’ve thrown away the dickie-bows and the arrogant waiters. I like my restaurant to be like coming to dinner at my house.
As a young man walking into a Michelin star restaurant, particularly if you’re with a lady, must be quite intimidating. Restaurants, like Purnell’s (Glynn’s restaurant in Birmingham city centre), have evolved so much that it’s so casual. It’s more of a ‘gastronomic’ restaurant now, rather than ‘fine dining’, which is a very old fuddy-duddy word for me. That phrase is semi-banned in my restaurant, because it’s like talking about your Nan’s doilies, or Potpourri, or whatever the fuck it’s called. It’s all about hospitality for me now, and people enjoying great food in a relaxed environment.
It’s been said in the past that fine dining and cities don’t necessarily mix, but you seem to have taken objection to that, and want to put your restaurants at the heart of things. What’s the thinking behind this?
Don’t get me wrong, there are some absolutely fantastic restaurants in this country with amazing views, but they can be a little bit out the way. I love being in the city centre, I’m a city centre boy. I’ve been brought up around blocks of flats and the smog and all the rest of it. Birmingham, and it’s the same with Manchester and Liverpool, these very industrial cities seemed pretty grim, but within the last five years they’ve sort of evolved. They’ve got great restaurants and young people are comfortable to come into the city centre to eat. Once you’re there you can go for a drink afterwards, or do whatever you want, it’s all part of the experience.
Programmes like The Great British Menu and Saturday Kitchen have brought young, down-to-earth British chefs into our living rooms. Have these characters always been in the industry or has there been a transformation in more recent years?
They’ve definitely always been around, but previously it was impossible for the public to reach out and touch them. I believe in the last five years, chefs have started coming out of the kitchen a little bit more and interacting with customers. At the end of the day, we’re just normal men.
Years and years ago, chefs were these French or Swiss blokes who were arrogant and if you wanted it Well Done they would come out of the kitchen and beat you up. Those days are gone now, the customer is more intelligent, they know more about food. We’re more relaxed because they’re educated about food, and it’s relaxed the whole thing. It’s opened it up.
Being able to see someone like myself or Sat Bains or Simon Rogan cooking on a Saturday morning, in a t-shirt or a jumper, talking about what’s happening, a bit of football or whatever, someone like Valentine Warner is on there with a cool pair of trainers on, people start to think, “hang on, this fella is like me”. The barriers have been broken down. We want to talk to our customers, listen to them and we want to be just as cool as the people watching us. To be honest, when I was a Commis Chef, it wasn’t very cool to be a Chef. Not just because I smelt of fish all the time either, it just wasn’t very cool. It’s changed though, and that’s good for everyone involved.
Glynn will be cooking at Summercamp Festival at Liverpool’s Camp & Furnace during the August bank holiday weekend
For more info, go to: www.summercampfestival.co.uk
48
HALCYON
50
HALCYON
EXIT FESTIVAL
51
WORDS: JONATHAN FREDERICK TURTON & JAMES PROCTORIMAGES: EXIT PHOTO TEAM & JONATHAN FREDERICK TURTON
52
HALCYON
EXIT FESTIVAL
53
ess than twenty-years ago the West Balkan region of Europe, otherwise known as the Former Yugoslavia, was at war. Primarily a territorial conflict between former Yugoslav states, The Bosnian War was particularly brutal,
characterized by mass shelling, rape and ethnic cleansing. Not since World War Two had Europe seen such bitterly awful scenes.
However, since the war ended in 1996, the region has made gargantuan steps. Nowhere is the progress more visible than at EXIT Music Festival, held annually in Serbia, a country that was wholly integrated in the fighting of two decades ago.
‘You couldn’t be prepared for it, no matter what your background was’, explains Vedran Mujagic, member of arguably the regions biggest band, Dubioza Kolektiv. ‘We’d witnessed the collapse of The Iron Curtain and the fall of the last dictators of the Eastern Bloc. People were initially optimistic, talking about democracy and first multi-party elections. Then it all just fell apart, lightning fast, in a manner that nobody expected, not even in their wildest nightmares.’
The members of Dubioza Kolektiv couldn’t be better placed to speak upon the struggles of the time. Formed in Sarajevo, Bosnia, during the four-year ‘Seige of Sarajevo’-the main battleground of the war and the longest occupation of a capital city in recorded history - they witnessed the destruction of warfare first hand.
L
54
HALCYON
‘There was no easy way to accept what happened. A four-year long war and a loss of more then 100,000 lives. Completely unimaginable. In the end, you can only conclude that human kind is very resilient and we can adopt to almost anything, and learn how to survive in any conditions.’
Survive they did. Despite the daily chaos, the collective were drawn towards positive recreations. Central to coping with the destruction was music.
‘The music scene in Sarajevo during the siege was an unprecedented phenomenon. In a besieged city with no water supply, and no electricity, you had a booming scene with dozens of bands rehearsing and recording in improvised basement studios, powered by generators with fuel that was found god-knows-where.
Radio “Zid” (Radio “Wall”) played music by local bands in a demo chart show called “No Sleep Till”. In that moment it was the most important show on earth for us, because it offered an opportunity to be heard, even if the radio signal barely covered the city.
We were all just trying to find a way to remain normal and music was the only safe shelter for that purpose. Music was our answer to the aggression and primitivism that fueled the war.’
The Bosnian War was chiefly a Croatian, Serbian and Bosnian dispute, but affected all neighboring countries. The depraved nature of the conflict left deep, gaping wounds between the previously united nations and their inhabitants. So when organisers of EXIT Festival first planned their event in 2000, four years after the war, it was a pretty ambitious idea. Imagine for a moment if France, in 1950, invited the English, Germans and Italians to party side by side for a weekend?
54
EXIT FESTIVAL
55
HALCYON
56
HALCYON
Despite the obvious dangers and pitfalls, this is exactly what three students from Novi Sad, Serbia, did. They’ve never looked back. Held in an abandoned fortress on the Danube River, there isn’t quite another carnival like it. Routinely voted into polls of the world’s best festivals, EXIT’s unique history and incredible setting - as well as the caliber of music on offer - marks it out amongst the world’s elite cultural events.
‘EXIT offered a window into how life could look for a normal young person in the Former Yugoslavia- listening to exciting new music, meeting with people from other countries and having fun. It was the first time in years that young people from the region could meet and interact after a decade of conflict.
You must understand that in the period of the first editions of EXIT Festival, people were really hungry to hear new music from the West. In that moment, youths from the majority of the ex-Yugoslav countries couldn’t travel abroad because of the strict visa regime, not to mention the hard economic situation.
EXIT successfully showed that young people here wanted to live normal lives, to have normal interactions, freedom of movement and that war-time tensions weren’t something that was central to their interests.’
Since those initial years, EXIT has grown into one of the biggest and most prestigious music festivals in the world. Each year it attracts some of the biggest names in the music
industry, headliners this year including Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, The Prodigy and Snoop Dogg. It remains a platform however, for Eastern European bands to showcase their talent. Dubioza Kolektiv this year played their unique blend of politically motivated ska, rock and Bosnian folklore to a full capacity Fusion Stage.
‘We decided to make a band because there was a big gaping hole in the scene. Almost no one wanted to talk about issues that were important to society. It was all about having a good time. War had just finished and young people just didn’t want to think about anything that reminded them of politics. Our idea was to put those issues back into focus and it’s worked
EXIT FESTIVAL
57
58
HALCYON
extremely well. Today, you have large number of politically engaged bands, and in turn fans, that are not afraid to talk about things that were considered a “no-go zone” for a long time.’
Although the Balkan states have come a long way, Vedran still believes that the region has further to go in terms of economic, political and cultural progress.
‘Bosnia is officially the most corrupt and poorest country in Europe. All the countries in the region have enormous foreign debt, high unemployment rate and extremely expensive and inefficient administration.
That leaves us with a lot of topics for socially and politically engaged lyrics in our songs and very little chance that we will ever write a love song!’
Despite past and present problems, for both Dubioza Kolektiv and the founders of EXIT festival, music has been a catalyst for positivity. At a time when all seemed lost - in a region where so much was lost - music played an integral role in mending relations and moving the regional psyche forward.
In naming their festival ‘EXIT’, its founders where implying that Serbians needed to find an escape from their own plight. They found it. EXIT Festival firmly illustrates the positive things people from this part of the world are capable of, embodying a new, forward thinking attitude for the region.
As in every part of the world, the Former Yugoslavia still has obstacles to hurdle and issues to confront; as Dubioza Kolektiv are more than ready to point out. Considering what they’ve already overcome, they are more than capable of triumphing.
EXIT FESTIVAL
59
60
HALCYON
DRAKES LONDON SILK BOW TIEFounded in 1977 by Michael Drake, Jeremy Hull and Isabel Dickson, the original Drakes collection was comprised of mens quality scarves. A range of English handmade ties and printed silk handkerchiefs quickly followed, and today Drakes is the largest independent producer of handmade ties in England.
INVENTORY
61
WOLVERINE BOOTMore than 125 years ago, Wolverine founder G.A. Krause built a company on a dream of creating finely crafted footwear. Now Wolverine is honouring its heritage with a collection of boots inspired by Wolvertine s original designs. www.14oz-berlin.com
62
HALCYON
FILSON RUCKSACKThe entrepreneur Clinton C. Filson from Seattle, Washington in the Northwest of the USA, found his salvation and disposition during the great gold rush at Klondike River. Differing from the prospectors he did not resort to the mines and rivers but supplied the soldiers of fortune with heavy-duty clothing und robust luggage. In 1897 he founded the C.C. Filson Company, and up until today his name stands for excellent weather-guard and leisure clothing, and above all for hard-wearing bags.
VIBERG BOOTThe company was founded in 1931 by Edwin Viberg and specialised in the production of work boots. Today the brand is managed in its third generation by grandson Brett Viberg. The shoes and boots of the traditional family-run business are made in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada and impress with the best leather and high-quality craftsmanship. www.viberg.com
INVENTORY
63
STETSONIn 1865, John B. Stetson fashioned the hat that would become the symbol of American independence, integrity and strength. Today, everything that carries the Stetson trademark, from authentic Westernwear to rugged actionwear, contemporary streetwear and timeless classics, stays true to these American values: Make things right and the best they can be.
LUDWIG REITERLudwig Reiter is a family run business in the fourth generation, with it’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria. The shoe manufactory was founded in 1885, it’s core business being handmade shoes and other leather goods. The main component of its corporate identity is the traditional “Goodyear-Technique” for producing welted shoes.
www.14oz-berlin.com
64
HALCYON
t was back in 2007 that my friend, Martyn Johnston and I, raced the Mongol Rally. We were both first year architecture students at the time, and I had stepped in to replace his pal who had dropped out at the last minute. The
rally was still relatively unknown back then and having done no research of my own into the event, I really didn’t know what to expect. Some contestants enter to raise money for charity, others to challenge themselves. I, on other hand, had a gaping hole in my summer that needed filling.
Martyn had already named my adopted team, “Ey Up Genghis”, however we were yet to own a vehicle with which to undertake the monumental journey from London to UlaanBaatar in Outer Mongolia. Now, as then, the Rally strongly encouraged the use of a car of one litre or less- the shabbier and smaller the better. Breakdowns are not only to be expected but encouraged, enjoyed even, almost viewed as the Rally’s ultimate goal. Without an award for first place or runner up prizes, The Mongol Rally is much more about the journey than the destination.
After scouring eBay for badly listed vehicles Martyn found our whip; a 1987 Citreon 2cv Dolly with a new chassis and recent engine rebuild; it was the perfect car. By some weird stroke of fate its M.O.T. expired on the 21st July, the very day the vehicle was to leave British territory and begin its swan song journey to the distant steppe of Outer Mongolia.
We snapped it up and became very comfortable with our new friend immediately. Martyn decided we should name it, and fancied Charlie. Having not had any say in our team name I was going to have my ten pence worth. “You can’t call a beautiful, curvy French girl Charlie mate. She’s going to have to be Amélie or something”- and so it stuck. Amélie she would remain.
Very quickly the launch date arrived and we were thoroughly under prepared. We didn’t have nearly enough clothes, tools or navigational apparatus. To make things worse, pretty much everything that Martyn bought at car boot sales to save money broke, or malfunctioned at some point. The Adventurists, the rally organisers, had arranged
BRAVE FOOLS: RACING THE
MONGOL RALLYWORDS: CRAIG CHAMBERLAIN
I
BRAVE FOOLS: DRIVING THE MONGOL RALLY
65
66
HALCYON
for the rally to be launched from Hyde Park, and as neither Martyn nor I had driven in London we were both a little fazed. We finally managed to find the park but couldn’t find an entrance. Bored of driving - a pretty bad omen at this premature stage of the event - I mounted the curb and entered via a pedestrian gate, dodged a couple of trees and bounced down onto the road to where the line of cars was already several hundred meters long.
We joined the huge crowd walking up and down, everyone excitedly discussing routes and pre-race disasters, modifications, rocket boosters and oil slick devices. Rumour had it that Jack Osbourne was there with a huge support vehicle, but we were busy talking to the brave teams setting off in original Minis, Trabants, ice-cream vans and Hackney Cabs.All too soon we were off. It was quite a disorientating start, let go in batches to avoid disrupting traffic we soon broke up, and by the time we had passed Trafalgar square we were on our own. At Dover, there were many cars, but we were keen to get some miles down and so by the outskirts of Calais we were on our own again.
The EU was a slog, but by the Ukraine we were entering the Second World, a world defined by the Cyrillic alphabet, flat vastness, broken roads, Russian vehicles and people of a distinctly different stock. We revelled in its otherness. On this leg we met an Austrian duo. Far more experienced and prepared than us, they took us under their wing. Like Martyn and I, although only students, Herwig turned out to be an architect and Jacob had been studying for years to be an engineer. We got on well and enjoyed having some company outside of our ever more claustrophobic vehicles.
BRAVE FOOLS: DRIVING THE MONGOL RALLY
67
Our first stop together was L’viv, a fantastically laid out and decorated city, with an Habsburgian air. We decided to share a meal somewhere posh, as it would be our first opportunity to eat markedly cheaper and the last chance to get anything remotely refined. Off the cobbled main street, under an arch into a church square, we found the fanciest looking bar and took a table on the pavement.
All too soon we separated from the Austrians. They headed north, sometime after the Russian border, following a more direct route through the south of the country into Siberia, while we dropped into Kazakhstan. As we drove south the sunflowers gave way to wild grass and prairies, with herds of horses, Steppe Eagles and a glimpse of our first camel. Crossing the border took a while and far short of Oral, our intended destination, the road became too dangerous for night driving. We camped up for our first night in the wild with the fullest compliment of stars yet - the whole of the heavens visible until meeting the flatness of the land.
Next entered was Aral. Once a busy fishing town, it had suffered greatly due to soviet agriculture and engineering. In need of running repairs, we were directed to a Bazaar. Rolling up at the dusty central square in our red and white convertible car, that was roaring and backfiring, certainly caused a stir. A series of old railway lined the edge of the square whilst men worked metal and fixed tyres. A communist-built market hall stood at the head of the opening, surrounded by people selling fruit, clothes and hardware. The place was mainly deserted but by the time we had introduced ourselves to the mechanics, a fair crowd of spectators had gathered- such a strange feeling being the object of genuine curiosity.
68
HALCYON
BRAVE FOOLS: DRIVING THE MONGOL RALLY
69
70
HALCYON
The resident welder held sway over the proceedings. He was short, both in stature and temperament, but was the only man providing such a service in the locale so had good reason to feel important. He had a squashed up little face and a wild assortment of teeth that he seemed to swill around his mouth like tobacco, ever in danger of being ejected in a stream of spittle- quite the character.
We stripped the exhaust system down completely and Pij, the welder, took a broken piece of pipe to inspect. Where two separate pipes are clamped together we were missing a substantial piece of metal. No problem for Pij. He nimbly took a piece of rod and began flattening and curling it to the shape of the missing piece. He quickly cut and welded it into place and we had a pretty good fix up – we were ready to go on again, all for a very reasonable price.
The road on from Aral to Tashkent was the most challenging and dusty we’d experienced. We pulled an overnighter to arrive, exhausted, the following noon. We were treated with amazing hospitality in Uzbekistan but nevertheless, were happy to leave and enter Kirghizstan where we welcomed the relative calm, abundance of water and the huge, spectacular mountain ranges. Of all the places we travelled through, I wish we could have spent longer in Kirghizstan.
Soon we descended back into Kazakhstan and on into the Republika Altai, perhaps Russia’s most beautiful province. Windy roads lead up through wooded hills into high alpine valleys, dotted with log cabins and crystal clear waters, running from the melting snow high above- truly magnificent.
BRAVE FOOLS: DRIVING THE MONGOL RALLY
71
On the Mongolian border we met our final convoy partners, “Team Clouseau”, fellow 2cv drivers. In many ways we were too fatigued by the time we reached Mongolia to make the most of it. By then we were focused on getting to the end, longing too much for a decent sleep and a substantial meal. The terrain in Mongolia was the hardest yet, and unrelenting. Following a bad river crossing we had several breakdowns; luckily, the mechanically minded Rupert of Team Clouseau got us running again several times. However, they needed to complete the rally and eventually abandoned us. Our car finally crossed the finishing line on the back of a lorry, beneath three yurts, a family’s furniture, sixteen children and their brave grandma- remarkably apt.
The Mongol Rally has been described as ‘The Greatest adventure in the World’- a bold but not outrageous declaration. It was the trip of a lifetime, or perhaps one of many more to come. It left me exhausted, exhilarated but wiser, and a little more aware of how big a Citroen 2CV really is.
The Mongol rally is currently underway. Keep up to date with its progress at www.theadventurists.com
72
HALCYON
hether referring to their prolific output, diverse musical style or insane live performances, Thee Oh Sees - on all fronts - are a band that does things differently. Since forming in California a
decade ago, the five-piece have ignored pretty much all industry norms, much to the delight of their global cult following. With their latest cut, ‘Floating Coffin’, the group seems to have harnessed their boundless energy and adventurous spirit to produce, what must be considered, one of the best rock records of the year. Ten years of musical marauding has culminated with an album to remember.
Created in 2004, originally as an outlet for lead singer John Dwyer to explore his instrumental experimentations, the band have released two or three records every twelve months. A quick turnaround usually infers questionable quality, with artist(s) committing every vague thought and loose-end to the mixer. Yet with Thee Oh Sees, the rule doesn’t seem to apply.
‘We work hard’, declares bassist Petey Dammit. ‘I think it seems strange for us to release so
many records because of a tradition in the recording industry to do things a certain way. For decades it’s been months and months in the studio, one release a year, tour this, tour that- do this, do that... We just do what we want to do.’
Each release has been crucial on the ad hoc musical path the Californians have stomped down. Such prolific output has enabled them to explore more ground than most.
‘We don’t try to limit ourselves with maps or GPS directions. Just go with the flow and enjoy the scenery.’
Compass in hand or not, the destination they’ve arrived at is undoubtedly favourable. Despite it being a music writer’s job to do so, it’s nigh on impossible to describe the music on ‘Floating Coffin’- an album that possesses dreamy psychedelia, garage spikes, haunting melodies and comforting strings. How would they describe their sound?
‘I’m not sure how to describe it. I generally dislike putting music into specific categories
THEE OH SEESWORDS: JONATHAN FREDERICK TURTON
IMAGES: TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS PR
W
74
HALCYON
75
THEE OH SEES
HALCYON
76
like “Garage” or “Psych”, because then it’s stuck in a very small space, and would be required to sound a specific way. When you try to make music that is your own, or a mix of different genres, well then it isn’t fit to call it a specific genre... So, I really don’t know what to call our music!
I reckon people should just take a moment to listen and decide for themselves if they like it, without worrying too much whether a blog, a music writer or friend approves of it or not.’
It goes without saying that Thee Oh Sees live shows have developed a reputation in recent years. Why do people enjoy their gigs so much?
‘We try to bring as much energy as we possibly can. I reckon it’s because that’s the sort of show that stood out in our minds growing up, watching live music. It worked in the past, no need to try and fix it or change it.’
Although Dwyer and co have been around for a time, it seems their popularity has soared seriously in the last year. Have the band members felt a growing interest in their music of late?‘We’ve been touring internationally for a few years now. That helps a lot. The first time we played in London there were maybe ten people at the show. The next time twenty, the next forty. If you keep playing and put on a good show people will tell their friends and come to your next one, it aint rocket science. It doesn’t matter what country you’re playing in.’ As well as possessing a tangible disdain for predictable ‘release cycles’, as well as many other industry conventions, it seems the band aren’t too hot on the press side of things either. Dwyer recently described ‘war’ as an influence on their latest offering, curiously describing the release as a ‘dark album’.
‘It actually isn’t really a dark record. John mentioned that in the press release to see what would happen, or what people would think about that. If you re-read the lyrics, there are actually a few songs about kittens. I’ll probably get in some trouble for revealing that, but I thought it was pretty funny!’
Other than meddling with the system further, what can we expect next on Thee Oh Sees voyage?
‘More touring, more records and more rocking out. As long as people will let us.’
78
HALCYON
ADIDAS SPEZIAL
79
ADIDAS SPEZIALWORDS: DANIEL SANDISON
IMAGES: DANIEL COPEWWW.DANIELCOPE.CO.UK
80
HALCYON
o you think you know adidas?
We caught up with adidas employee, collector and, most importantly, lifelong fan Gary Aspden, on the eve of the Spezial exhibition, in Hoxton
to take us through the finer points of four decades of the brand with the three stripes.
Some of the styles on show at Spezial have long been deadstock, why did this particular exhibition come about now?
I had lent shoes to a couple of gallery exhibitions that were focussed on the crossover between trainers and fashion. When I went along to see them I felt that due to it being such a broad topic and because the curators were working across a number of brands that it was only ever going to be possible for them to give a top line overview of this subject. I guess I personally wanted to see something that dug in deeper, something that would appeal those people like myself who are passionate and arguably fanatical about it. I felt the only way that was going to be possible was to work around one brand, which for me could only be adidas. I wanted to present a snapshot of adidas that would appeal to people like me and my peers. Whilst growing up (and in many cases being sports fans) we had bought into sportswear and adopted it into something way beyond it’s original purpose. I wanted even the most ardent fan to be able to see exhibits that would excite them. To cut through all the jargon and the trainspotter facts and dates and just present a collection of products that would be very evocative but at the same time was in no way trying to present it as a historical lineage or database. A kind of adidas ‘Greatest Hits’ but purely from a cultural perspective.
The concept for the show was to keep it purely to footwear and we very deliberately did not ask adidas for anything from their archive in Germany - if there were percieved ‘gaps’ in what we were presenting then that would be fine by us. It is futile to try and be completist with this topic as that’s not achievable. Whilst this would have not been possible without the
financial support of the company they too liked the idea we proposed of the content being ‘by the fans for the fans’ (we used to say ‘parties for the people by the people’ at the Blackburn raves back in 1988) and demonstrating through the selection of products on show how passionate those fans are. The contributors to this exhibition are not trainer collectors - they are adidas trainer collectors. Myself, Robert Brooks, Noel Gallagher, Mike Chetcuti and the other contributors like adidas trainers - we are passionate about adidas without being mindless. We don’t like every shoe the company does or has done but the ones we do like we tend to have longstanding love for (long after the waves of hype have settled down).
There was a certain freedom in the admission of calling it an incomplete history - the gallery build we are putting in will house about 600
pairs, I personally own about 800 pairs and Robert and Noel both have sizeable collections (although Noel has his across several locations so was more limited in what he could access within the timeframe) so we
had to strip it back for the final edit. We also wanted to put a few lesser known vintage shoes in, to show where the company had gone really off the radar with their designs, so we felt it would be a giggle to acknowledge a few of the more bizarre creations (check out those adidas ‘Andy’ white leisure slip on shoes!). Due to the timing of the catalogue production (we didn’t plan for it to start going into the realms of a book) versus the final curation of the exhibition there will be a few shoes in the gallery show (and on the deadshoescrolls website) that aren’t in the book. We located a pair of vintage adidas Suisse from an old mate of mine who doesn’t collect trainers as such, but had kept them for posterity (the soles are crumbling on them). For various reasons they arrived after we had sent the catalogue to print. We would have liked to put them in there as they were an important shoe when I was growing up a shoe you don’t hear many people talking about nowadays. We also decided to reference all the exhibition shoe names with their images on www.deadshoescrolls.com instead of in the show itself. Deadshoescrolls was a site that
S
I wanted even the most ardent fan to be able to see exhibits
that would excite them.
ADIDAS SPEZIAL
81
82
HALCYON
ADIDAS SPEZIAL
83
Mike Chetcuti created when he was at college in the late 90s which created quite a stir at the time that he felt we should resurrect for the purposes of this project. We are hoping that leaving the names off will get rid of some of the one upmanship and allow people who may not be so au fait with the back catalogue to just appreciate them rather than feel they have to be an expert. The more curious can look them up online afterwards.
People believe they know a lot when it comes to adidas, be it sneaker blogging or casual culture, however Spezial seems to show a real range of the design work adidas has been involved in. Many won’t even have heard of some of the styles on show, let alone seen them. Was it a fun process delving into the archives for this rare & often overlooked product?
I’m glad you said ‘believe they know a lot when it comes to adidas’ - I believe that they believe that! I grew up wearing adidas. I have worked with them in various capacities for 14 years, I have a huge collection of adidas shoes (a number of which I was involved in the design/marketing of ), I have a significant number of old adidas catalogues but I am the first to admit that while I may know a lot there is a wealth of information on this brand that I know nothing about. Different shoe silhouettes were given the same names by different countries in the days when much of the company was handled by licensees (particularly in the 70s and early 80s) so I am always cautious of people who are overly definite about it. I have met guys who worked with Adi Dassler who have enough humility to say that they don’t know the whole picture so I find it difficult to take a lot of the ‘experts’ too seriously.
Working on this show was a blessing and a curse. Getting all my personal collection shoes together and out of their boxes was great as there was stuff in there that I had forgotten I had, but then there were other pairs that had somehow gone astray (I’m still trying to figure out what’s gone on there). A couple of my vintage pairs soles had cracked and crumbled since I last got them out but I’m not going to start vacuum packing my shoes - that would be going too far for me. We underestimated the time and effort the catalogue would take and much of the copy editing in it I had to do personally as we wanted all the shoe images to be correctly named - that is one job that I
84
HALCYON
ADIDAS SPEZIAL
85
86
HALCYON
would not want to do again. Giving all the history and technical info on every shoe would have been far more work than we had the time, resource or inclination for, so we opted to populate the text with personal anecdotes from adidas fans.
We hoped that people would find the product mix of the exhibition to be inclusive and not exclusive and that it would make those particularly from younger generations appreciate and see the brand in a whole new light. There are so many different facets to adidas so to limit it to styles that are only relevant to Hip Hop heads or football casuals or streetwear obsessives would be doing it a dis-service. We’d like to think there were elements that would appeal to all those audiences in there.
History & heritage play a huge part in the prestige of adidas as a brand, is this something you were conscious of when putting the exhibition together? The brand has a prominent sentimental value in many people’s lives, is that the same for yourself?
Of course but we have also included a few modern performance shoes in there - as anyone who has ran in them will tell you the adidas Boost is an incredible footwear technology. I personally think that as running shoes go there’s nothing on the market right now by
any brand that even comes close to Boost technology. You have to remember that all those historic products were at the cutting edge of sports technology when they were originally released - this is easily overlooked as people only want them now for their aesthetic value.
Is there a style in the collection that you think represents the archetypal adidas product? Something that symbolises what you do?
For me the archetypal adidas footwear product would have to be the Gazelle.
Which shoes stand out for you & why are they your favourites?
I find the vintage Micropacers, Tubulars and the adidas One’s fascinating. They are all from different decades but are all super conceptual, experimental, futuristic and way ahead of their time technologies. None of them did that well commercially on release and any thoughts of re-issuing them now is pretty unrealistic as the audience for them would currently be way too niche to warrant the investment that would be needed to recreate the moulds. They are not my favourites but they do amuse me.
As for my favourite adidas trainers . . . that’s like asking a music fan ‘what’s your favourite album?’
ADIDAS SPEZIAL
87
88
HALCYON
88
HALCYON
A BAND CALLED DEATH
89
ENDLESS SUMMER
89
ENDLESS SUMMERIMAGES: RAIM GRIN
STYLING: MATTHEW STAPLESBOOTS PROVIDED BY PALLADIUMWWW.PALLADIUMBOOTS.CO.UK
90
HALCYON
ENDLESS SUMMER
91
92
HALCYON
92
HALCYON
A BAND CALLED DEATH
93
ENDLESS SUMMER
93
94
HALCYON
ENDLESS SUMMER
95
96
HALCYON
ENDLESS SUMMER
97
98
HALCYON
UNLIKELY STYLE ICONALAN PARTRIDGE
WORDS: DANIEL SANDISONIMAGES: WWW.CASUALCO.COM
ackanackanory! Norfolk’s maddest man is a style icon!
With a wardrobe of sports casual attire to make the toppest of top table boys wince with envy, and an array
of nautical rig-outs to rival Paul Weller at his weirdest, it was only a matter of time before we featured Alan Gordon Partridge within these pages.
It should be no great surprise that a man who favours Bang & Olufsen music systems, Lexus cars and counts Bill Oddie amongst his close personal friends would extend his clearly impeccable taste and insatiable one-upmanship to sartorial endeavours. Whether it’s a Stone Island mackintosh whilst enthusiastically hailing a cab, or a delightful Aran jumper and quilted gilet combination whilst propping up the bar at the Linton Travel Tavern, Alan is always remarkably well put together.
It’s when Partridge travels to Europe’s fashion capital however, that he really comes into his own. His ‘Cruiser Arrivist’ look, pairing a canary yellow shirt with horizon blue stay-crease action slacks and tan string-back driving gloves, is eclipsed only by the Parisian chic of the mother of all summer ensembles
‘Who is this cool customer?’ exclaims Alan, as he guides us through a sporting look to rival late ‘70s Björn Borg. ‘Ice white shoes, ice white socks with double cadet stripes, v neck t-shirt with chevron action flash and a tossed pink sweater.’
You can stick your fabled casuals of the 1980s, it’s A.G Partridge who calls the shots for us.
#UnlikelyStyleIcon
J
