A companion to www.nicholasabrahams.com
- ‘Optimism is Healthy’ : an interview with Lawrence
A few weeks ago i had the great fortune to interview Lawrence, the man behind Felt, Denim and Go Kart Mozart, and here it is on the Quietus website:
and for the interview with Paul Kelly, who has made the film about Lawrence, ‘Lawrence of Belgravia’
click here
Both very lovely chaps, and it’s a smashing film. That’s the two of them looking moody in the photo above. Lawrence was very specific, stating that brick walls always look cool.
- National Treasure!
Amazing to see the video I made with Jeremy Deller for the Manic Street Preacher’s ‘ single ‘Found That Soul’ being projected to a massive size behind the band at their National Treasures gig at the O2 Arena! Huge books! And huge sloths!
- Closer to Something
Took part in an artists talk at Four Corners on Roman Road and took the opportunity to take some pics of the show I’m in there, called ‘Closer to Something’.
They had this old video of mine playing in the window of the gallery on an old TV, which looked great as you walked down the street.
Nice TV you say? It belongs to Owen who works at Four Corners when he’s not being all guitary in his band, Cee Bee Beaumont.
And inside, Vid Spilum Endalaust could be watched in full on another monitor. Owen told me he ‘couldn’t believe it’ when he saw someone sit down and watch the entire 30 minute film. It’s always good to surprise someone!
The show brings together all sorts of artists who work with an element of chance in their work. Stand out works for me were some amazing portraits by Walter Hugo and a sweet film shot in Derek Jarman’s garden by Geraldine Swayne. But alas you’ll have to hurry to see the show, it ends on December 17th.
Here’s one of Walter Hugo’s beautiful portraits:
- If You Only Knew…
It was a great honour to interview the great jazz singer Jimmy Scott recently, and the Quietus have just put it online. Read it by clicking here.
He is a total legend, and, although a bit sleepy when I interviewed him, it was apparent that he lives and breathes music in a way that I absolutely admire.
Unfortunately it looks as if Jimmy has had to cancel the shows in the UK though! What a shame!
- Rock’n'Roll Ritual!
This is a teaser for a film called Vision Quest I have been working on about artist Marcus Coates and a ritual he performed for the community at Elephant and Castle, and most specifically the Heygate estate there (you must have seen it, an empty, looming mass behind the Elephant shopping centre)… Marcus is part artist, part shaman, and the ritual was performed accompanied by psychedelic disco heavy rock band Chrome Hoof. The film will be pretty amazing, a rockumentary and an artwork all in one. There will be more details about screenings and so on anon, from March 2012.
Marcus on the Heygate estate
Ps Marcus, being a man of taste, had banned me from using the phrase ‘a rock’n'roll ritual’, on the grounds that no one under the age of thirty uses the phrase ‘rock’n'roll’. ROCK’N'ROLLLLLLLLL!
- Fantastic Goings on at the Victoria and Albert Museum
Last Friday I received an email telling me that a very ancient film I made called ‘No Age New York’ was screening that night at the Victoria and Albert Museum, as part of its series of events based around the ‘Postmodernism’ show they have running there. You can actually watch ‘No Age New York’ by clicking here.
This is a shot of the programme for the event. The exhibition includes costumes by Leigh Bowery, Grace Jones, Klaus Nomi and so on. ‘No Age New York’ is a documentary of sorts, and features some post punk luminaries, including Henry Rollins and Lydia Lunch. Here is a still from it of Richard Kern, waiting to be interviewed on the roof of his apartment.
And this is Joe Coleman, who appears in some super 8 footage in the film:
Having legged it down at the last minute to check out the show etc, I was gobsmacked to see that Joey Arias was giving a free performance that night at the V&A. Joey is a New York nightlife legend, although for the last few years has been starring in the Cirque de Soleil show in Vegas, and recently has been touring what looks like the most amazing performance/puppetry show ever! Anyway, Joey had loaned the ‘Postmodernism’ show some outfits that had belonged to Klaus Nomi. As a tribute to his close friend and mentor Klaus, Joey performed the ‘Nomi Song’, which was pretty darn special. Luckily I had a little stills camera with me which also shoots small amounts of video…
He also performed some amazing songs in the style of Billie Holiday. Boy, can Joey sing! And tell anecdotes! Wowsa! I don’t know how many drag acts have performed at the Victoria and Albert. And I don’t know how many have received standing ovations too!
I was so amazed, what a talent, and managed to get hold of a promise from him to be interviewed for my doc on Jayne County. I’m looking forward to that! God, I’d love to persuade him to cover one of Jayne’s songs with his amazing voice!
As an extra treat, to see Klaus Nomi and Joey backing David Bowie on ‘TVC15′ and ‘Boys Keep Swinging’ click here!
- It’s Lifedrawing, Jim, But Not as We Know It…
A couple of nights ago, a very special life drawing class was held at the Horse Hospital in Russel Square, to help celebrate the fantastic exhibition by Ronny Long which include some of his bigfoot paintings.
I don’t think I can do better at discussing Ronny’s teenage artwork than this excellent article about him by Mikey Sperlinger – click here to read it. There’s something so romantic and lonely about the bigfoot that Ronny has returned to paint time and again since childhood. Here’s one below:
And Ronny has a blog about his life here.
To go along with the show, Stephen Fowler and myself organised a life drawing class based on the idea of a sideshow ‘wildman’… Stephen created a charmingly threadbare wildman costume for me to wear, and kept things moving, presiding over the class in character – part art tutor, part carnival barker.
What was truly wonderful was the people who came along did such great drawings and wholeheartedly threw themselves into the spirit of the whole thing! Never having posed for an art class before (and probably never will again!!), I really loved how quiet people were while they worked, and the sound of everybody’s pencils and sticks of charcoal scraping away at their drawings.
This is a clip Ronny shot of the wildman being lead on stage by Stephen:
These above 2 pics are by Etienne Gilfillan. This one is of Paul Bommer, and you can see more of his drawings of the wildman here.
This is Alex Czinczel and one of her paper ‘tearings’.
This pic is of bigfoot and a (timid) bear by Zeel.
It was, all in all, a great evening. I got into character maybe a little too much, smashing up a wooden stool, throwing food at the people drawing me, and generally going a little bit ape. But it was October 20th, the 44th anniversary of the famous Patterson Bigfoot sighting! And DJ Joe Egg played a set of wildman themed music. Amazing!
And finally, this is me with the artist whose show it was, Ronny Long, and then with a drawing he gave me that he had done… of the beast within me!
There is so much I could write about Ronny’s work. But maybe best that you watch a clip of some of his videos:
or better still visit the Horse Hospital to see the show, or buy a DVD of some of his film work, alongside ‘Master of Reality’, an award winning short documentary about him by Matt Killip (who also put the show together with Ronny – and who took most of the other pics on this posting), which is available at the show.
This is the trailer to Master of Reality, Matt’s film about Ronny.
Crikey, this is probably my longest blog ever! And its not about me and my films! Maybe it’s easier that way!
- Jackie Told Me…
A few days ago I was lucky enough to drop in on the opening of a small show of photographs by the legend that is Leee Black Childers. Here he is in 1972, arm in arm with Mr Iggy Pop, who Leee had the luck (?) to look after, along with the other Stooges, while they invaded LA. I interviewed him a while back about this, and of course about Jayne County. There’s a nice interview with him, mainly about David Bowie, here.
So this is me, Leee, and Pippa Brooks at his show at the Outside World on Redchurch Street in East London. It was great to see Leee again. He was very sweet, chatting to everyone and making everyone feel special. When he saw I had bought a portrait of Jackie Curtis he held my hand and said ‘Im SO glad you bought that, because I KNOW you’ll have it up on your wall, and that would have made her so happy, that’s all Jackie ever wanted, was to be up on people’s walls…’
Pippa shot this beautiful short clip of Leee telling the most succinct and lovely anecdote I have come across in years! There’s more on her blog here.
Having purchased the photo of Jackie Curtis I left… and then went back to get one of Jayne, who I am VERY slowly making a film about, and which I decided I just couldn’t live without! It’s just such a lovely photo, full of the playful fun of those times, I guess.
And just to round things off, here’s a song by the fabulous Jayne County, called ‘Jackie Told Me’, with Jayne in a rather reflective mood, singing about the days when she and Leee and Jackie Curtis all lived together in a little flat in New York…
- Let’s Get Closer to Something
An exhibition at Four Corners on Roman Road in London’s fashionable East End opens next week featuring a couple of my video pieces. Some info about it here. It also includes work by Geraldine Swayne, sometime member of Gallon Drunk and Faust, amongst many others. I believe the thing linking us ‘artists’ is that our work allows chance to play its part. Please go along and see some chance encounters!
- I’m Spinning Around
Just something I filmed the other night on my crappy £10 mobile phone. If it helps, I have a feature film in development called ‘News from Nowhere’, and, yes, it does involve the magic of plastic bags floating through the air! These ones were creating their own special vortex at the Elephant and Castle in South London. I think I will start adding the occasional blog about ‘News from Nowhere’, as it is definitely the project I am most excited about currently. Just have to raise the money to make it now! So, no problem!
