Nathan Penlington is a magician, poet, writer and stand up word chucker. He is cleverer than I am but we share a love for words and music and visual thinking. You can check his stuff out here and here and all over the place.
1. Where are you? Describe your surroundings
I’m in my small basement flat in Hackney. I’ve been a voracious reader since my teens, and I’m continually inspired by novelty, but now that means the book piles are fighting it out with the coconut monkeys, obscure board games, and magic props. I guess I now live in that magical forgotten street brick-a-brac shop I imagined I would find as a child.
2. I always imagined that Bob Dylan’s ‘Visions of Johanna’ was written about a visit to an art gallery and if you know which art gallery it was you would be able to unlock the imagery contained therein. Do you have any pointless theories?
Perhaps the definition of being creative means you constantly have pointless theories. I have always kept a notebook, and I have always kept all of them. My teenage diaries and notebooks though are particularly full of pointless, intellectually brooding, and ridiculous theory. I’ve just pulled one off the shelf at random to make sure I’m not making that sentence up. This is my teenage theory of Nowism™: “Simplifying to the extreme I define Nowism™ as increduality toward postmodernism with its great academic and cartoon antiheros, and its great Coca-Cola™ sponsored nil:nil penalty shootouts. You do not live in the dust of the hundred years dead. You live here, and you live now. Let the dead worry about the past. Embrace Nowism™ before it embraces you”. I think that speaks for pointlessness itself.
3. My son puked his tea all over his mum’s shoulder this evening which I thought was quite funny until I realised she was wearing one of my best jackets. It reminded me of when we were teenagers and couldn’t go to parties without Sice chucking up the four cans of Mackesons that he’d bought for the occasion. Sometimes we didn’t even get out of his kitchen. I once got so drunk on whiskey when I was fifteen that I ended up in next doors house and everyone had red eye, like photograph red eye. I threw up in my sleep that night and my dad threw me in the shower where my sister tells me that I kept on telling him to piss off. The next morning all my posters turned their heads to stare at me and I wasn’t allowed any tea. Another time I lost the keys to a car he had borrowed to take us to Blackpool. My brother and I had to sneak out of the hotel and walk back up the Golden Mile looking for them but we never did. Another time I, well, you get the idea. What grim memories of childhood are etched onto the inside of your consciousness like primitive wall paintings depicting my dad chucking spears at me?
You should keep the jacket as it is, and show it to Sonny when he is older. Once me and my mate Kriston bunked off sixth form and went to the Offy. By ten o’clock we were sat on a bench near the cut drinking cheap vodka, by twelve o’clock I had passed out on the bench. Kriston shook me awake so we could move before everyone came out for dinner. I sat up quickly, and projectile vomited all over his favourite suede jacket. He refused to clean it, and wore it for years with the stain on the shoulder. He said it was a badge of honour. Mind you, we were into Bukowski at the time.
I was born and brought up in Rhyl, North Wales, which means my brain is full of grim childhood memories, and I guess inversely for most, particularly of the summer. I started my first job when I was thirteen, working on the crazy golf and trampolines, for 65p an hour. Trampoline duty was the worst, I don’t know how many times I had to mop the springs and rubber after some kid had pissed themselves in jumping excitement.
4. I’m listening to ‘All Around My Hat’ by Steeleye Span which I loved when I was a kid. it’s fucking awful. Are there any songs/bands/films/cereals that you can’t understand why you ever liked?
The first records I remember buying were early-to-mid Shakin Stevens, including The Sunsets albums, but stopping abruptly at ‘Lipstick, Powder and Paint’. I even collected Hula-Hoop packets to save up tokens for a t-shirt with his face on. I like the Sugababes and The Supremes, I like them even though I want them to be better than they actually are. The Supremes’ ‘A Bit of Liverpool’ must be the worst Motown album ever made. But maybe age decreases your sense of embarrassment, sometimes, even now, ‘Eternal Flame’ by The Bangles shuffles its way onto the hifi, and I don’t even flinch.
5. I love listening to Richard Brautigan read his poem ‘Boo, Forever’
Spinning like a ghost
on the bottom of a top
I’m haunted by all the
space that I will live
without
you
It sounds like he’s rattling a stick inside a bucket as he reads it. What poets/poetry influenced you?
Brautigan’s reading voice really surprised me the first time I heard it. It’s like he has the voice of an automated telephone service and words are stitched together from pre-recorded vowel sounds. But his simplicity of language, his playfulness, and the lightness with which he conveys sorrow and loss is something I try and achieve in my own writing, even in its most experimental form. The British equivalent is the novelist BS Johnson whose attempts to create a new form to reflect the content of each of his books means his work is also very close to my heart. I tend not to separate poets out from other writers, as some of the most poetic writers have avoided writing poetry. And so many twentieth century experimentalists, particularly those of form, are a constant inspiration; JG Ballard, WS Burroughs, Milorad Pavic, James Joyce, Edward Packard, Raymond Queneau and George Perec.
6. I’ve just flicked through a copy of Huey P Newton’s ‘War Against the Panthers’ looking for inspiration. Enclosed within it’s pages I discovered a piece of paper with Richard Sonnenfeldt’s signature on it. This was sent to me by a friend a number of years ago, a friend that I fear I have neglected somewhat recently. I will rectify that immediately. What was the last occasion on which you suffered guilt?
The death of someone that you have been close to in your life, will always make you feel guilt. It is a sign of how important they were to you. My mate Kriston died at the beginning of the year, and although we had been close for years, we just hadn’t spoken to each other for quite some time. Time and distance tends to do that. All you can do is acknowledge the guilt, swallow it, and move on.
7. I need an assistant but I can’t afford to pay them. If I had a assistant I would make more money and would be able to pay them. What should I do?
There is a government drive to encourage volunteering. I think it has something to do with them trying to staff the Olympics as cheaply as possible, and them not wanting to give anything actual back to the community. You could probably get funding to ‘employ’ a volunteer, which you could use to pay them until you earn enough money to actually pay them. In that way no one looses. And there might also be one more person wearing a tabard at the 2012 opening ceremony.
8. Today I feel like John the Baptist as depicted in Geertgen Tot Sint Jans’ fifteenth century painting ‘John the Baptist In The Wilderness’. As well as being a stunningly beautiful painting, one of unusual depth for it’s time, it speaks to me of melancholy and uncertainty; of being trapped with a space without constraint. How are you today? Is your path forward clear and true or a roundabout filled with brambles and wee bitey things.
I’ve just been to the kitchen to make a cup of tea, our kitten Kook, who is teething, took a flying fanged leap at my ankle and drew blood.
9. I did a remix for Kid 606 a couple of years ago that he liked. I even sang on it. What’s your proudest achievement?
When I was a child my Dad used to play us ‘Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of War of The Worlds’ every Sunday. The fear I felt running to school on Mondays, pretending the lampposts were Martian tripods, is etched into my very being. A wrote a poem about it, which includes a short bit of the Narrator’s introduction, which I performed on BBC Radio 4. So, technically, I have been Richard Burton in Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of War of The Worlds on Radio 4. Even with my over active imagination, no one would have believed at the beginning of the 21st century that that was possible.
10. On the 21st March 2000 Alan Bennet wrote in his diary ‘Read the hitherto unpublished extracts from Sylvia Plath’s diaries without much interest. I hadn’t known about Hughes’s homophobia - though I’m not sure that antipathy to Truman Capote can be so consumed, Capote really deserving a phobia to himself.’ Is there anyone that you cannot stand. Somebody who’s viewpoint is diametrically opposed to yours and who’s very existence is a daily effrontery. At the minute mine is the bloke who parks his car outside my house when he has his own garage and DOESN’T EVEN LIVE ON MY STREET!!!!!
I was talking about this very subject with a friend on the way to Wales a few weeks ago. It was decided that everyone needs a nemesis. The difficulty is finding someone you respect enough to hate with venom. I’m currently writing a new show about the world’s most famous psychic who, unfortunately, already has a worthy nemesis. But the world of psychics, mediums, and clairvoyants is full of con-artists and frauds eager to exploit the sick and vulnerable, any one of which makes my blood boil.
Sorry friends. Mary and Sonny are both ill and I have to stay home and be a good father. We’re rearranging another after Green Man, I’ll keep you posted X
I met Akira the Don in 1995 and ever since then we have talked about making a record together. Somewhere between writing and recording the 2005 Singles Club and making ‘Distractions’, I recorded these bits of music with this in mind. They’re not perfect and I would do much of it different now but I think it works as a collection and historical document. That’s right, I used the phrase ‘historical document’ within the context of my own self. I am a twat. Anyway, we still haven’t got around to making a record together and the songs here were filed in a dusty corner of my computer’s hard drive until the beginning of 1996.
One night in early 2006 Mary had gone off to work and I was wondering what to do with myself when I had the notion of inventing a band on myspace. I called myself The Black Serpent Choir, uploaded a few tracks and sent invites off to all my mates. About three people guessed it was me straight away buy I denied it of course. Adam Walton and Bethan Elfyn played the tracks on their respective radio shows and I think I even did a BSC Mix for Adam’s show? I was offered a gig at the Buffalo Bar in Cardiff which I accepted thinking it would be a good way to prolong my anonymity if I were to somehow persuade a couple of people to do the gig for me.
I asked two friends, John and Richard, If they fancied dressing up as monks and learning to play a laptop set. Being consummate artists (show offs) they of course agreed and we spent a week rehearsing. I bought a couple of ace latex old men masks and I really thought I was going to get away from it. The week before the gig they did a couple of interviews and had their photo taken, hilarious. I was more nervous during their soundcheck than I’ve ever been for one of mine (I wasn’t even there) and sure enough when we met back at the house we had a problem synching up the laptops. After a while I thought I had solved the problem and they left for the gig and I went to the pub. I intended to be late so that everyone could see me arrive. By this time most people were convinced that I was The Black Serpent Choir, that I was underneath one of the masks on stage and I thought it would be funny to show up while the band were on stage. But stage time came and went and I received a text whilst in the pub opposite from Richard telling me that the two laptops wouldn’t synch. Ah nuts.
So I had to go in and edge up to the stage (hidden away from the main seating area so not many people saw me up there) and try to sort it out. We decided just to wing it in the end, they would just have to keep time with one another. In the end I don’t think anybody cared that much although I thought the gig was brilliant and it was the nearest I’ll ever get to seeing myself live. After that I forgot about the Black Serpent Choir again until I decided to keep my electronic and my song shit separate, at least for the time being. The next Black Serpent Choir album will blow this one away but that’s for next year, until that glorious day there is this. Press Play.
At some point in the past I wasn’t actually sure that this would ever come out but here it is, yo. I could write something moving about the relationship between the artist and his/her audience, the symbiotic line we each have one end of etc But really this is
YOU - ‘We like music’
Me - ‘I’ve made a music you might like, would you like to buy one?
You - Hmm, I dunno, what if it’s crap..?
It’s not crap. It’s me doing what it is that I do nowadays but maybe not next time and after that who can really say?
I should never have given records away, I should be proud of what I do. Besides, baby needs records, I mean, clothes.
So the album is out next Monday. It’s all happening so fast and I can’t keep up. There have been some ace reviews, notably in Mojo and Pitchfork and a bit of radio play. Weird for a bunch of songs that have been on on Myspace for well over a year (I’ve taken them down now but they’ll be up again soon) but it feels good to know that people are hearing what I’m doing, it’s been a while since I felt that, ace.
So, if you register at my shop (nothing there yet but have a look anyway, go frolic in the orangicity of it all) you win yourself a Sonny Boy Sampler, ‘Deep, High, Ocean Wide’ which is the title of a song I wrote that is lost forever to the winds and the shadows that gather where once memory basked etc Anyway it features the custard of the Sonny Boy stable. Martin Carr, The Black Serpent Choir and mr bravecaptain himself who may not be making any more records for the foreseeable but who has kindly donated his back catalogue for us to enjoy all over again.
I know that you know that all these bands are just me but this is only the beginning…
Flow Machines have a FREE remix ep available from their site featuring remixes by Akira The Don, Cian SFA, Mark West (ex Fanfarlo), Three Men in A Dub and Me, yours truly, mememememe.
I don’t actually know Meg Baird but after listening to her solo album ‘Dear Companion’ over and over again for the last few months I felt like I was qualified to force my nonsense on her. On ‘Dear Companion’ her pure, plaintive voice wraps itself around songs of death and longing and brings a peace upon me wherever and whenever I hear it. Meg is a founder member of Espers who also make very fine records indeed.
1. Where are you? Describe your immediate surroundings.
I am in my 3rd floor apartment in Philadelphia with all the windows open. It’s very peaceful at the moment, especially since there aren’t any helicopters flying overhead just now. I’m trying not to knock over my guitar, it’s leaning against the couch and I should be practicing.
2. My favourite article of clothing is a sweater I bought about six years ago. It’s Arsenic Grey with a slightly raised neck and the figure ‘29′ emblazoned
on the front. it’s gone at the elbows and, despite the care with which I tend to it, it smells a bit like my dearly departed Grandfather’s outside toilet.
It protects me from devils, evil spirits and the gloom that descends without warning on bleak Tuesday afternoons. I fear nothing whilst wearing it and
would wear it into any battle that I may stumble across. I told my eight month old son the other day that he would inherit ‘Old 29′. He was so excited that
he tinkled all over the couch. What’s your favourite article of clothing.
I have an inherited dad’s sweater that I wore it all through college. I don’t hold on to many clothes or things, but I don’t think it would be possible to give this up, even though it is pretty much retired from wearing now. I always have a favorite pair of jeans and boots, but I am too hard on my clothes to have the same favorites for long. I also have a youth-large hunting orange hoodie that I love. I do feel that it protects me from getting shot accidentally when walking through any wooded area, and keep it around all the time for that reason.
3. “She was not a woman given to recollections” Writes Dorothy Parker in ‘Big Blonde’ “At her middle thirties, her old days were a blurred and flickering
sequence, an imperfect film, dealing with the actions of strangers”.
I have a shocking memory, shocking. I forget names and faces seconds after I’ve met them, it makes life very confusing.
Last Monday I texted somebody apologising for texting on a Sunday and tried to rearrange an arrangement that I hadn’t actually arranged.
What is your first memory?
My first memories involve wood floors and hearing my mom’s voice from another room.
4. What is the one thing you and your sister fight about the most?
Who gets to play the piano.
5. My mate Corin in Boston maintains that he doesn’t like the band Boston where in actual, immutable, fact he is their number one,
all time, bestbandever, fan.
Boston The Band Fanclub Status? ‘Knickerwetter’.
Which band do you outwardly deride yet secretly like? Mine’s Snow Patrol. I have all their lyrics collected in a Royal octavo with Secret Belgian Binding and their turgid, vapid, grandiloquence paints rainbows over my heart. I deride them. Or do I?
(I can’t actually answer this question and still have it a secret?)
Since I feel relatively uneducated about music, I try and never indulge these kind of secrets. I feel like my only way to keep any credibility alongside people who know so much is to at least be very honest about my ears. All the same, I recently way underplayed my love for Tom Tom Club’s “Genius of Love.”. I think this track is a joyful, strong hearted, downtown love-prophecy and a really cool piece of recorded music history.
6. You’re an American musician. What do make of Kaka going to Madrid?
Thank you for the research project.
7. I’m listening to ‘Illinois’ by Sufjan Stevens whilst typing this. It’s one of my favourite records although saying that I could live without a few tracks. Beautifully recorded,
great songs, amazing voice and poignant, singular lyrics. If you had the choice between singing and songwriting, what would it be?
Singing for sure, as long as songwriting is only applying to lyrics, not melody and sound. I’d take glossolalia over lyrics if I had to choose.
8. I’m making a mixtape at the minute, it’s great fun. I’m going to use your A Capella of ‘Dear Companion’ and add some beats, dubby bass and doubtless
a dangerously distorted Moog Bass (Modular Moog. 901b 8-Osc. Stereo Saw + Sub) until the only way they’ll be able to know what the song is will be by it’s dental records.
What do think about electronic music. Great musicians expressing their musicality through modern technology or geeky pocket fumblers, button pushing musical dwarves with operating
manuals sticking out their arse pocket?
No that’s great! Funny enough, the A Capella B-side was designed for this purpose. Tony Vogdes from Tequila Sunrise is a big fan of dance music, and this idea was meant to be a layer in that “album as object” type of thinking (not a concept I am so great at personally!). I wish I knew more about electronic music. Humans looking for new sounds is fascinating.
9. I thought Racism had begun and ended in the seventies and yet democratically legitimised Nazi hitsquad, The British National Party have just been voted overlords of Britain. Has there
been a noticeable difference in America since the end of the republican reign of terror and the dawn of Obama’s presidency?
Maybe racism seems more transparent and demystified…possibly making it easier to see problems with class, poverty and civil rights? But trying to really quantify things like mood just anecdotally–it feels almost superstitious. Of course there was tons of legitimate celebrating and relief to see Obama win and Bush leave. I would be even happier to see The Heritage Foundation go away. I remember seeing some kind of news or fiction or documentary piece about a clerk who worked there who began to shred the donations he was ostensibly processing, I wish I could find the source of this, maybe I have made it up by now.
10. My favourite food is beer and cake, lots and lots of cake. And beer. What’s your favourite cake and beer?
