How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - Fearne Cotton

After going to 'How To Fail Live With Elizabeth Day' at The Sage a few weeks ago I subscribed to 'How To Fail With Elizabeth Day', the podcast that celebrates the things that haven’t gone right. Every week, a new interviewee explores what their failures taught them about how to succeed better.

Guests have included the chef and cookery writer Nigel Slater, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the creator and star of Fleabag and writer of Killing Eve as well as the politician Jess Phillips.

I recently listened to the episode in which Elizabeth Day interviews Fearne Cotton. Fearne began her extensive broadcasting career as a TV presenter at the age of 15, and has since established herself as a radio presenter, a designer, a writer (of 2 cookbooks, 'Cook Happy, Cook Health' & 'Cook. Eat. Love' as well as 'Happy', in which she writes about her own experiences of happiness & unhappiness), and a social media talent who has her own podcast called 'Happy Place', after which the Happy Place festival was born. She has spoken openly about mental health, specifically her own experiences with panic attacks and anxiety.

The 3 failures that Fearne chose to talk about are

1. failing most of her GCSE's

2. a failed engagement

3. failure to be herself in her 20s

It was when she was discussing her third failure that Fearne broached a subject that she had previously avoided talking about publically, namely her previous experience of living with an eating disorder. I found her honesty deeply moving and feel a real connection to what she shared.

Seven Failure Principles from Elizabeth Day's How to Fail Live with Reni Eddo-Lodge

https://www.elizabethdayonline.co.uk/

 Seven Failure Principles from Elizabeth Day's How to Fail Live with Reni Eddo-Lodge

1. Failure is a fact but you are not defined by it 
"Just because you fail does not make you a failure"

2. You are not your anxious brain
The brain tells us something is a danger when it isn't 
We are not defined by our thoughts

3. Almost everyone feels they have failed in their 20s

4. Break ups are not a tragedy - your ex-partner has taught you something

5. Failure is data acquisition

6. There is no such thing as a future you

7. When we choose to share our vulnerabilities is when we feel most satisfaction


A couple more nuggets of wisdom that Day shared include

When times get too tough and you feel like giving up, cling on because the biggest failure may be not finding out what will happen

Anxiety doesn't want you to enjoy life

Some notes from How to be a public author with Cash Carraway, Paul Ewen and Carmen Marcus

Say the unsaid and taboo

Share the things that you are scared of

When procrastinating, "just write the shit version" - Dennis Kelly

A useful exercise is to distill the work to a single line

Fine the core of the book before offering it up for feedback so you can retain the core

Read your work out loud and sense the reaction

All writers need to be readers

Treat your story like it is a house - where are the public /private places?

Stick to your own voice

Don't wait for inspiration to hit

Writing is reading, walking, researching etc - try something new with your writing 

Cash Carraway: Skint Estate - Cash Carraway in conversation with Tina Gharavi

Type 'Cash Carraway: Skint Estate' into google and this is what Goodreads will show

Cash Carraway is a single mum living in temporary accommodation. She’s been moved around the system since she left home at sixteen. She’s also been called a stain on society. And she’s caught in a poverty trap.

Skint Estate is the hard-hitting debut memoir about impoverishment, loneliness and violence – set against a grim landscape of sink estates, police cells, refuges and peepshows.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/41955385

It is clear from the moment that Cash Carraway opens her mouth that sitting in front of me is a woman with an enormous amount of determination and passion for sharing what it is to live in a working class community, and highlighting the challenges that face such communities on a daily basis. I'm reminded of what Bernardine Evaristo spoke about last night, and believe that Carraway has chosen to manage her anger and frustration at the situation by channelling it into her creativity. 

Carraway speaks with a knowing rather than self-pitying voice.

"In general, the working class are not allowed to create art, they are only allowed to capitalise on their bleak situation."

Her transgressive writing is not therapy. 

Therapeutic writing is not creative writing.

Her book, Skint Estate, does not solve a problem.

She doesn't want to write stories of victims.

She does want to write stories of power.

The power of her spoken word is evidenced when she reads aloud a passage from Skint Estate. Talk about giving me goosebumps. This is an example of when the sound of the human voice can elevate words off the page and into another realm. 

She ends with a plea to the audience:

"Go and buy the book and please read the pages out loud and preferably to someone who didn't want to listen."

Bernardine Evaristo and David Olusoga in conversation

The synopsis of Bernardine Evaristo's Booker Prize winning novel reads

Girl, Woman, Other follows the lives and struggles of twelve very different people. Aged 19 to 93, they span a variety of ages, cultural backgrounds, sexualities, classes and occupations as they tell the stories of themselves, their families, friends and lovers, across the country and through the years. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly given it's recent Booker Prize Award, the majority of the conversation is spent discussing this particular publication. I found it fascinating to hear about the structure of the book and how she has constructed it so that each chapter focuses on one character, and links form between the chapters. 

Discussion regarding the politics around the Booker Prize, the judging panel and the source of funding for the Prize highlighted the sheer importance and level of achievement reached by Evaristo at becoming the first black woman to win the award.

Evaristo explained how she felt like she needed to represent a group of people whose stories had not been told. When asked to discuss her thoughts on writing a non-binary character when she does not identify as non-binary, she recognises that she was very careful in doing so, and conducts and uses her research so as to try to limit any misrepresentation or offence caused. She acknowledges that she never tries to pretend to be non-binary, and as the novel is a work of fiction, feels as though she has the right to be creative and include things that are not necessarily true. In a recent newspaper article she was quoted as saying 

"This whole idea of cultural appropriation, which is where you are not supposed to write beyond your own culture and so on, is ridiculous. Because that would mean that I could never write white characters or white writers can never write black characters."

Following another question about how she manages her anger, Evaristo clearly stated that she did not think it was at all healthy or beneficial to carry anger around with her and therefore any anger she does feel is turned into energy. She then tries to channel this energy into something positive that can make a difference and force change. She recognises that there are things that one has to leave to others to deal with. She knows that her talent is for writing and her passion is to change the way that black women are represented.

I found it refreshing to hear her talk about her life as an author. She has no set routine, and emphasised the importance of fitting in her writing in and amongst her usual daily activities. She cycles, watches daytime TV, socialises with friends, but her main focus remains her writing.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

My introduction to Words Weekend at The Sage

I spent a large proportion of the weekend at The Sage, Gateshead enjoying the inaugural Words Weekend. 

Fane Productions is behind this brand new festival;

"Words Weekend celebrates the power of words and stories with a packed programme of talks, workshops, panel discussions, music and spoken word. 40% of the 60+ events are free, and all are fully accessible and BSL interpreted. Through the power of words and stories, Words Weekend aims to unite communities and ignite imaginations."

Although I am (ashamedly) not particularly well-read (I am dyslexic and reading takes a lot of energy and time and requires specific conditions), I have (and always have) a great love for stories, both written and spoken, read or heard. In the last five years I have become increasingly interested in writing and spoken word, and I've begun to share some of my creative writing and audio work.

It was when I first read Mark Haddon's 'The Curious Incident of the dog in the night-time' that I realised that it was possible to write in a manner that echoes the way one thinks. I found it incredibly refreshing and liberating to read. At last I had found a book that was written in a way that I found pleasurable. I could easily, and relatively quickly, digest it. It did not conform to what I believed to be 'the norm' and the 'proper way'. By this I mean that I realised that stories did not have to be in prose.

This experience encouraged me to explore my own style of writing, and I have since created a couple of publications namely A lot can happen in fifteen minutes (2016) a risograph publication made in collaboration with Unstapled Press and Portion Control (2017) made for an exhibition titled REALITY CHECK at The NewBridge Project, Gateshead.

Over the course of the next few blog posts I will be posting about the various events that I went to. 

Bernardine Evaristo & David Olusoga in Conversation

Cash Carraway: SKINT ESTATE

Roisin Crowley Linton: Teenage Kicks

How To Be A Public Author: Cash Carraway, Paul Ewen, Carmen Marcus

Spotlight on Indie Publishers: Galley Beggar

Elizabeth Day's How to Fail Live with Reni Eddo-Lodge

The North in 100 Songs

As part of The Great Exhibition of the North, Northerners were asked to nominate their favourite Northern anthem.

Manchester-based illustrator Stanley Chow is creating a new series of portraits based on the favourites which will be exhibited at Sage Gateshead throughout the Great Exhibition of the North.

Mark Knopfler as illustrated by Manchester based artist Stanley Chow

Stanley Chow is an illustrator from Manchester. He started his career as fashion illustrator for various teen magazines in 1996. Since then his work has featured on book covers, in numerous magazines and newspapers and many ad campaigns globally.

The North in 100 Songs, chosen by Northerners, are:

10CC – I’m not in Love
808 State – Pacific State
AC/DC – You Shook Me All Night Long
Alan Price – Jarrow Song
Arctic Monkeys – I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor
Atomic Kitten – Whole Again
Buzzcocks – Ever Fallen in Love
Cheryl Cole – Fight for this Love
Chris Rea – Steel River
Cilla Black – You’re My World
Corrine Bailey Rae – Like a Star
Def Leppard – Animal
Dire Straits – Tunnel of Love
Dire Straits – Romeo and Juliet
Dream Academy – Life in a Northern Town
Echo and the Bunnymen – Bring On The Dancing Horses
Elbow – One Day Like This
Elvis Costello – Shipbuilding
Eurythmics – Sweet Dreams
Everything but the Girl – Missing
Everything Everything – Distant Past
Field Music – Count it Up
Field Music – The Noisy Days are Over
Frankie and the Heartstrings – Don’t Look Surprised
Geordie Ridley – Blaydon Races
Jake Thackray – Lah-di-Dah
Jimmy Nail – Big River
Joe Fagin – Breakin’ Away
Joy Division – Disorder
Kaiser Chiefs – Ruby
Kate Rusby – Underneath the Stars
Kathryn Tickell – Music for a New Crossing
Kathryn WIlliams – Tell Me The Truth As If It Were Lies
Kenickie – Come out 2nite
Lanterns on the Lake – Another Tale From Another English Town
Lighthouse Family – High
Lindisfarne – Fog on the Tyne
Little Mix – Shout Out to My Ex
Little Mix – Black Magic
M People – Search for the Hero
M People – How Can I Love You More
Mark Knopfler – Local Hero
Maximo Park – By the Monument
Mel B – I Want You Back
Nadine Shah – Out the Way
Nick Drake – Northern Sky
Nightmares on Wax – You Wish
Oasis – Live Forever
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark – Electricity
Penetration – Don’t Dictate
Pet Shop Boys – Love Comes Quickly
Pet Shop Boys – It’s a Sin
PINS – Too Little Too Late
PJ & Duncan – Lets Get Ready to Rumble
Prefab Sprout – When Love Breaks Down
Pulp – Common People
Rafiki Jazz – Jhooli Laal Qalander
Richard Dawson – Ghost of a Tree
Richard Hawley – The Ocean
Roxy Music – Love is the Drug
Roxy Music – Virginia Plain
She Drew The Gun – Since You Were Not Mine
Shed Seven – Chasing Rainbows
Skinny Pelembe – Spit/Swallow
Soft Cell – Say Hello, Wave Goodbye
Sting – Fields of Gold
Tasmin Archer – Sleeping Satellite
The Animals – House of the Rising Sun
The Animals – Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood
The Beatles – Something
The Beatles – Penny Lane
The Charlatans – North Country Boy
The Cornshed Sisters – The Message
The Cribs – Cheat on Me
The Fall – Hit the North
The Futureheads – Carnival Kids
The Housemartins – Happy Hour
The Human League – Don’t You Want Me
The Human League – Together in Electric Dreams
The Kane Gang – Closest Thing to Heaven
The La’s – There She Goes
The Lake Poets – City by the Sea
The Liverbirds – Why Do You Hang Around Me
The Long Blondes – Once and Never Again
The Marmozets – Play
The Police – Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
The Smiths – How Soon is Now
The Stone Roses – Mersey Paradise
The Unthanks – A Great Northern River
The Young’Uns – A Place Called England
The Zutons – Valerie
Various – The Water of Tyne
Venom – Black Metal
Venom – Welcome to Hell
Vessels – Eliptic
Vic Reeves and the Wonderstuff – Dizzy
Warm Digits – The Connected Coast
Wedding Present – I’m From Further North Than You
Whitesnake – Here I Go Again
Wild Beasts – Big Cat

Opening of Great Exhibition of the North

Friday was the official opening of Great Exhibition of the North and Newcastle and Gateshead were bustling with people enjoying the sunshine and curious about what the festival has in store.

I was at the media call in the morning, and got a sneak preview of the UK's largest water sculpture in action.

Later that night the water sculptures came alive again accompanied by music, poetry, drones, lighting and fireworks.

Live Stream footage of The Drone Ensemble performance at TUSK 2017

The TUSK Festival website features the live stream footage of the performance by The Drone Ensemble at The Sage.



It can be viewed via this link:

https://livestream.com/tusk/tusk2017/videos/164206934

Our set begins around 7mins 50seconds into the footage.



We also documented the performance ourselves and made a high quality audio recording. We will share these once we have edited the footage. So watch out for another blog post with more documentation.

Hans Grüsel's Krankenkabinet perform at TUSK 2017

Hans Grüsel's Krankenkabinet perform in a very theatrical manner. The three performers were transformed into Hansel and Grettle-like characters wearing huge fabric headgear that covered their entire face apart from a couple of holes for their eyes. Sporting a pretty pinafore dress, the violinist danced wildly around the stage in an energetic and enthusiastic manner so much so that she continuously had to readjust her headgear as it became loose. The seemingly innocent appearance was in contrast to their chaotic, wild and aggressive noise which left me feeling disquieted and in need of some fresh air!

"Hans Grüsel's Krankenkabinet is an ever-changing woodgrain diorama of dark forest characters. Using electronics, field recordings, acoustic instruments, props, costumes, and scenery, the ensemble explores the lost Teutonic rites of the past, while stumbling into the failure of the future."

http://www.hansgrusel.net/history.html

"What this band are like really can’t be done justice with a few pithy sentences. They’re genuinely like nothing you’ve heard before – and bizarre to the point of actually being quite disturbing: dwelling too long on their singular version Tea For Two can feel like you’re opening the door to a rapidly descending psychological staircase from which you may never escape. Heavy Vibes magazine had a good stab at defining the Krankenkabinet experience though – “Imagine yourself in a pre-WW1 German village where wooden children with mekanikal insides have taken over as they conspire to concoct the most demented Moog-driven kilng klang you’ve ever heard in your livenlife”. Lovers of Caroliner and last year’s sanity-tweakers Rubber O Cement will hear psychic parallels and there are rumours of shared personnel, clandestine though facts re Hans’ membership are. Whoever they are and whatever the hell they are doing though, this is going to be some kind of spectacle."
http://tuskfestival.com/artists/hans-grusels-krankenkabinet/

Staraya Derevnya performance at TUSK Festival 2017

Before the start of TUSK Festival 2017 I received an email from Gosha, one of the members of the collective, Staraya Derevnya, who was interested in The Drone Ensemble.



"Staraya Derevnya are a Russian/Israeli collective with a tangible feel of the steppe and the ice and a curious musical hybrid that suggests endless/lawless, hard-bitten territories but yet with submerged echoes of the Incredible String Band and MV+EE, or maybe Caroliner but with psychedelic stimulants forsaken in favour of eyesight-endangering homebrew hooch. Of course there are remnants of some kind of un-placeable folk music in there too, the ethno-musical signature of some imagined state long gone rotten, perhaps. And yes, fleetingly yet more than once there is a glimpse into what Comus would have sounded like had they been Russian. Staraya Derevnya make bewitching music that seems impossible to place in terms of direction and intention, like climbing into a cab only to realise its not a cab at all.."

Gosha explained that he was really excited about seeing The Drone Ensemble play as part of TUSK 2017, but that unfortunately the band had other commitments on Friday evening and so were going to miss our performance. We agreed to meet on the Saturday after Staraya Derevnya had performed in Sage 2.



I thoroughly enjoyed their performance, and found it very interesting talking to them about how they work together despite different members of the band being based in London, Moscow and Tel-Aviv. They play some of their own handmade instruments alongside sounds and noises and other instruments such as flutes, guitars, Theremin, Mbira, Shruti box and a kazoo. Vocals are in Russian. For their set at TUSK 2017 they worked with an artist to produce visuals for the performance. Hopefully The Drone Ensemble will get the opportunity to collaborate with Staraya Derevnya at some point in the future. Watch this space!

http://www.starayaderevnya.co.uk/

http://tuskfestival.com/artists/staraya-derevnya/

The Drone Ensemble perform in TUSK at The Sage

A few photos from an amazing event - more to come later!

The Drone Ensemble Live At The Sage, Gateshead On Friday 13th October, 6-7pm

TUSK Festival 2017 will kick off with a live performance by The Drone Ensemble from 6pm on Friday 13th October at the Sage I'd like to invite you to join me on Friday 13th October when I'll be playing in The Drone Ensemble from 6-7pm in the main concourse of the Sage. No tickets are required and entry is free! I'll then be heading up the road to The NewBridge Project: Gateshead, 232-240 High Street, NE8 1AQ for the opening of REALITY CHECK, a group exhibition that I have work in. I hope you can make it along to what should be a treat for your ears and eyes! THE DRONE ENSEMBLE The Drone Ensemble emit vast, deep, sonorous drones using instruments we have almost entirely designed and built ourselves. Joe Sallis leads musically and on instrument design and the Ensemble’s evolving line-up has been causing some excitement in Tyneside’s subterranean circles and how those sonorous waves of sound interact with the interior of Norman Foster’s architecture is something we can’t wait to hear. TUSK FESTIVAL 2017 Once more, alongside a truly eclectic and international music menu and TUSK’s trademark slew of UK debuts, festival goers can again enjoy the festival’s renowned film programme, exhibtions, talks, installations, interactions and more, all curated to inspire the musically curious. The announcements for TUSK 2017 are typically genre transcendent, offering festival goers a unique opportunity to broaden their musical horizons whilst enjoying a rip-roaring festival experience. The Line Up is: Fri 13 Oct Concourse 6pm Drone Ensemble Sage Two 7pm Swarmfront Sage Two 8pm Duncan Harrison Sage Two 8.45pm The Tea Towels Sage Two 9.45pm Valerio Tricoli Sage Two 10.45pm United Bible Studies Sat 14 Oct NRFH 12pm Andrew Liles NRFH 12.45pm Panel Discussion NRFH 1.45pm Midwich NRFH 2.30pm Film Programme Sage Two 6pm Luna Del Cazador Sage Two 7pm Kink Gong Sage Two 8pm Staraya Derevnya Sage Two 9pm ELG Sage Two 10pm Hans Grusel’s Krankenkabinet Sage Two 11.15pm Brainbombs Sun 15 Oct NRFH 2.30pm Film Programme NRFH 5pm Hans Grusel’s Krankenkabinet & Staraya Derevnaya NRFH 5.45pm Radio Play Sage Two 6.30pm Kara-Lis Coverdale Sage Two 7.30pm Ulas Ozdemir & Arash Maradi Sage Two 8.30pm Klein Sage Two 9.30pm Brigid Mae Power Sage Two 10.30pm Beatrice Dillon Sage Two 11.30pm Nurse With Wound As well as 3 days of TUSK’s unique and famously diverse live music programme, the festival will also include films, talks and more, as well as afterhours action and exhibitions at The Old Police House, Workplace Gallery and Shipley Art Gallery. tuskfestival.com | Twitter | Facebook Weekend Tickets for TUSK Festival 2017 are £60. Day Tickets are also available for £21.80.

the-drone-ensemble-live-at-the-sage-gateshead-on-friday-13th-october-6-7pm-as-part-of-tusk-festival

BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking at Sage Gateshead

The Limits of Knowledge - Radio 3's Festival of ideas at the Sage Gateshead


With so many options of interesting events to go to as part of the Festival of Ideas programme at The Sage, Gateshead, I initially decided to choose one that would give me an insight into many of the 'thinkers' of today. 

Listed as, 'Speed Dating' with New Generation Thinkers, the programme took the format of a speed dating night. There were 8 tables, at which 8 thinkers were sat, one at each table. Audience members were asked to sit at a table with a 'New Generation Thinker', so all of the thinkers had at least one member of the audience to converse with. The thinker was given 1 minute to explain their idea to the member(s) of the audience sat with them at the table. A noise was made to signal the end of the first minute, and then the audience were given 2 minutes to ask questions to the thinker about their idea. The beat of a drum signalled the end of the allotted time, and then the audience were asked to move in an anti-clockwise direction to the next table where the same process happened. We made our way round the 8 tables, and at the end had to vote for the thinker that we believed had the best idea. It was a really interesting exercise, and there were a varied collection of ideas. Here they are (in the order that I encountered them in):


1. Alasdair Cochrane - get rid of predators

2. Tiffany Watt-Smith - get rid of the term love, and break it down into its 6 constituent parts like the ancient greeks:
Eros, or sexual passion
Philia, or deep friendship
Ludus, or playful love
Agape, or love for everyone
Pragma, or longstanding love
Philautia, or love of the self
The rationale behind this idea is that there would be more love if we accepted or recognised love in all these parts rather than focusing purely on romantic love, and the notion that if you are single, it means there is something wrong with you.

3. Tom Charlton - Books on bikes (a mobile library)

4. Alun Withey - re-introduce public humiliation as a form of punishment i.e. criminals have to make a public apology to the masses

5. Will Abberley - get rid of all rules of English spelling so that misspelled words are not frowned upon, but merely seen as a creative way of spelling a given word. 

6. Naomi Paxton - give a free moon cup and training on how to use it to every female adolescent

7. Preti Taneja - ban public funding being spent on exporting Shakespeare as an English cultural icon, and allow other countries to have their own interpretation of the Shakespeare text

8. Jo Cohen - teach children manners in primary schools