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SAD DAY FOR PUPPETS LIVE @ NATION OF SHOPKEEPERS, LEEDS 05.02.11

L E O NPlaysPOPThis month one of my current crushes comes to West Yorkshire. Fantastic!

One of my favourite things when watching a band play live is seeing the various band members catch each others eye and smile. You know that thing where they’re all in their own little world but then look up and exchange a proper big wide smile. Sad Day For Puppets are that kind of band.

Watching them play to a disappointingly small crowd in a cordoned off corner of Nation of Shopkeepers in Leeds on the second night of their UK tour I was struck by how much they seemed to be enjoying themselves despite the relatively humble surroundings. Those little looks and smiles to one another that suggest they’re having a good time are both intimate and unguarded, and they encourage you to enjoy yourself too, make you feel like your part of it. So much so that during ‘Again‘, I was absently joining in with the line “trying to find a way back home” and when I looked up singer Anna Eklund was smiling at me, having apparently spotted me singing along. Cue much blushing on my part but renewed vigour in my dancing.

The band all grew up in Vasterort near Stockholm, Sweden, and are led by the tiny Anna who stands front centre and gazes into an unknown distance while Marcus Sandgren abuses various guitars. Martin Kallholm writes the songs and occupies a spot in the back corner, preferring to let others come to the fore. The sound is sort of shoe gaze with balls mixing Dinosaur Jr with Lush if you like, Marcus even doing that ‘plectrum sliding down the E string’ thing once in a while like a jet fighter screaming past yer ears. New single ‘Sorrow, Sorrow’ was a particularly highlight (with bassist Alex providing harmonies) but the setlist is mostly the bands louder stuff such as ‘Such A Waste’ and ‘Monster and the Beast’ from new album ‘Pale Silver and Shiny Gold’, plus some older gems like ‘Marble Gods’.

Sad Day For Puppets make melodic, melancholy and sometimes mournful music (hows that for alliteration?), but whether on record or on stage its always an uplifting experience. Come back soon.By Leon Carroll

Think of Thornbury. You know Thornbury. Kind of straddles Bradford and Leeds,ttjust on the outskirts. What comes to mind? B&Q? McDonald’s? To gym bunnies its home toa luxury gym and health club, complete with a swimming pool, spa and complimentary towels. To cinema goers it’s the location of Cineworld, 2 for 1 offers on Orange Wednesdays, question-able hotdogs and overpriced sweets. To drivers it is the location of a busy roundabout during rush hour, and long waits at junctions before you finally lose it and force your way out to a chorus of angry beeps – or is that just me? To Bradfordians in the October of 1903, it was the location of a world famous show – oh yes! Bill Buffalo with his Wild West show was in town and you’d be shuck* to miss it.

To those of you who are not on top of your American history, Buffalo Bill (or William Cody to his grandmother) was a man of many talents and claims. He was a buffalo hunter (hence the name), a Civil War solider, a trapper, a Fifty-Niner (a gold seeker during the gold rush when many men were left broken-hearted when their fortunes didn’t ‘pan’ out – ‘pan’, Get it? Gold panning? Never mind), a bullwhacker, a Pony Express rider, a wagon-master, a stagecoach driver, a hotel manager, and maybe an exaggerator by the look of this long list of jobs he claimed to have had. In 1883, Cody decided to set up his own Wild West show after touring with a friend’s for ten years. Bill’s show included horse parades, staged races, demon-strations of skills (such as shooting), circus ‘freaks’ and re-enactments of stagecoach robberies, Native American attacks and Pony Express riding.

The show toured Britain in 1887, 1892 and 1903-4. The 1903-4 tour was plugged as the “Absolutely Final Tour of Great Britain”, drawing large crowds. Buffalo Bill put on two shows at Thornbury, on Leeds Road, with his troupe of 800 performers (including a bearded lady), 500 horses and 18 buffalo, performing for 28,000 people. In true in British tradition, the tents were threatened by torrential rain and gale force winds. One source says that a show on the final day had to be cancelled due to weather conditions – it is presumed that those due to attend just tutted at the inconvenience.

So next time you’re at Thornbury, sampling the questionable hotdogs, playing with the car radio while stuck in traffic or walking across B&Q’s car park to check out the latest special offer on paint, pause for a second. Imagine the sights of the tents, bodies filing in and stagecoaches racing. Imagine the sounds of gunshots, animals and applause. Imagine the legend that is Buffalo Bill, who came to a northern textile city to share his tales and feats of the Wild West of America. A show of that magnitude, fame and reputation is to this day hard to match – until the Chippendales come to St. George’s Hall for one night only in March.

* Shuck is a local word for ‘crazy’ in case any non-Bradfordian out there don’t know

By Lauren Padgett

EDITORIAL // COMMENTMichael Wood

We walked around rocksand pools, dipped and hollowedas the tides crashedsoftly a million years.Looked back as climbersbolted up popularfaces worn into Thailand.An enquiring bluebirdpopped across a menuin the wicker-topped restaurant,and danced on the back of your chairas we ate and looked outat the long-boats and their captainsselling mad fungus to the tourists.

I am part-buried there nowon the beach at Hat Ton Sai,under her hissing cliffs,among her vicious black fliesbig as Tijuana beans.A translucency whenyou hold me up to the sun.An oval moon in your hand,like some silken missileyou hurled reckless as a childin battle with youthful mercenariesbut maybe ought to have keptin your pocket.

Hat Ton Sai

John Joseph Holmes

Poet’s Corner

No Hands, No Feet by Saturday morning perhaps as after a ruddy good evening of tunes at January's No Hands downstairs we look to open the top deck for dancing this time round.

No Hands, No Plan because who needs a plan on a night out but if we had a plan it would be to throw the door upstairs at about eleven o'clock and have our top djs/danceologists bringing you the music to throw shapes to, if throwing shapes if your thing. Throw shapes, dance in irregular ways and generally get down upstairs while downstairs we provide

the same slabs of soulful excellence, indie pop tweeness and generally chilled out enjoyment we always have.

The first No Hands 'zine has been pawed over and perused over the last month and for your pleasure you have in your hands our second offering. Read, enjoy, and pass on to your friend who wonders where you go on the last Friday of every month.

YOU!DANCING!

ME!

F R I E N D S O F N O H A N D SBy Dominic Devereaux

We are lucky at No Hands to have the odd special guest come over and play some music with us; like our pal Dipak who got the New Year No Hands bash rocking with some great old reggae and funk. Many of you will already know about the events he, Aejaz and the rest of the DisOriental family have organized over the years and maybe about the one coming up at the end of March.

DisOriental used to inspire, entertain, educate and integrate a crowd of diverse and fun loving folk through its passion for finding new sounds, new artists and new global music on a monthly basis at its spiritual home of the Love Apple Café. It’s more transient and less regular in its current incarnation due to the organizers living in different parts of the world so when it happens you need to make sure you don’t miss out. Expect a warm welcome, live music, friendly folk, large fun and an unstoppable urge to get on the dance floor.

The next one is hosting Krar Collective from Addis Adaba, a live band playing gritty, rootsy music with otherworldly sounds and magical vocals that gets everyone dancing plus the usual mix of D.J.s including; DisOrientalist, Clez, Papa Al, Mistify and Mistryllaneous playing a mashup of the funkiest dance floor bangers from all parts of the globe.

The only problem is….. it’s the same night as No Hands! You decide.

Disbeats from a bo

rderless worldriental

DisOriental at Penelope’s53-55 Arundal Gate, SheffieldFriday 25th of March. £6 OTD /£5 if you join the facebook page.

N E W & L O C A L M U S I C R E C O M M E N D E D

Download 2 free Stalking Horse tracksfrom the ‘Specters’ album sampler

www.stalkinghorse.co.uk

Words—Michael Woodwww.dalliance.co.uk

Heathen Head, Howling Heart/Off Auto is released on 7”/digital on May 9th 2011 via Too Pure,with the debut album Specters due for release Summer 2011.

The bite of the lip as waves smash on the side of a small boat in a storm. The sly delight as darkclouds muster overhead. The sensation of moods deepening and emotions stirring. This is thefeeling of Stalking Horse's debut album Specters.

The rich layers of Specters shows Stalking Horse's chief musician Wu at his most completive buildinga world of storms and dark clouds around him resonating and thunderous one moment, soft andyielding the next.

A veteran of Bradford band This Et Al Wu came to prominence for his intelligent pop articulationsand as that band passed into the night so Wu retreated to the East Coast of England to work with recording stalwart James Kenosha at his Lodge Studios in the wintery months of 2009 and 2010.

And so was born Specters in its menacing and beautiful glory. Panoramic soundscapes with striking, unique vocals matches with an array of instrumentation including Chinese guitars, mandolins, pianos, ukuleles taking you to places you have feared to tread, but hoped to go. Places that are lush, and to be studied.

There are signposts and signifiers to other work - solo Thom Yorke perhaps, Warp Records too - but Stalking Horse claim a sound and a mood and a feeling of their own.

Stalking Horse appear Live—

Live At Leeds Sat 30 April 2011Leeds Met

more dates announced soon

F I L MThese Films Are Linked #2: Black SwanBy Michael Wood

Massive Thanks...Michael WoodLeon CarrollDom Sheard

If you would like to contributeto No Hands Fanzine in any waythen get in touch with one of us!

Mark HusakLouise PhelanDave Owen

Jo BillingsleyLauren PadgettJohn Joseph Holmes

There is a joy to seeing Black Swan with friends as the film dubbed as ostensibly about the staging of a ballet turns into some rather grizzly body horror and I speak as one who put hands over eyes on more than one occasion when watching director Darren Aronofsky once again turn stomachs.

Aronofsky's film shows a production of Swan Lake which strikes one as a a far from sedate affair and send the mind boggling as to how Natalie Portman is cast in the same role that Billy Elliot ends up playing in Stephen Daldry's eponymous film of 2000. A transformation into Jamie Bell is not the body horror on offer.

Instead Aronofsky references such gory delights John Landis's 1981 oft watch An American Werewolf In London as bones break and transform into odd shapes. A nod too to David Cronenberg who defined the genre and if you have the compul-sion to watch things become other things then his 1986 The Fly is a fine place to start.

Perhaps more horrific than the body horror though is French Ballet Director Thomas as played by Vincent Cassel who is a character so built of the cliché of European arrogance and the desire to sleep with everyone the script puts him next to that he almost derails the movie. Hollywood seems to

love to give Cassel the role of movie ruining foreigner - his turn in Steven Soderbergh 2004 heist "romp" Ocean's Twelve reached a level of irritating seldom thought possible.

Back in France though Cassel is capable of some jaw dropping work having made his name in 1995's story of riots in Paris La Haine directed by Mathieu Kassovitz - a director who is now best known as "That bloke that Amelie goes out with in Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain" - and taken the title role in Jean-François Richet pair of Mesrine films about an infamous Gallic Gangster the first - Mesrine: L'instinct de mort- being especially wonderful.

Back in the ballet room though there are few better stories of life alongside a full length mirror than Powell & Pressburger's immortal classic of 1948 The Red Shoes which pits a young dancer inthe middle of a tussle between her tutor's demand for utter devotion to the art and her love for acomposer. At times Powell & Pressburger's heroine Victoria Page - played with aplomb by dancerMoira Shearer - seems to be metaphorically ripped in two by the demands on her.

Her pity then for Portman who is literally ripped in two.

O P E N I N G S O O N

http://facebook.com/thesparrowbradfordhttp://twitter.com/thesparrowbd1thesparrowbradford@gmail.com

Craig SheehanBen HoldenRichard Brass

No Hands are excited to announce the details ofa new bar that is opening in Bradford city centre. The Sparrow 'Bier Cafe' will be launching in the Springtime on North Parade and will specialise in the sale of over 60 different quality beers. Select wine and spirits will also be on offer and Deli style sandwiches, speciality teas, coffees and cakes will be available all day.

The Arts will feature heavily at The Sparrow. Music playlists will be handpicked and updated ona regular basis and works by local artists will hang on the wall. We think that The Sparrow will be the perfect place to 'hangout' by day or by night.

A relaxed 'bier cafe' in Bradford city centrefor lovers of great beer, music and art.

F I N D N O H A N D S O N F A C E B O O Kbjthebear.comF R E E L A N C E D E S I G N E R D E S I G N & L A Y O U T

NO HANDSFRIDAY25th

MARCHLIVE BANDS UPSTAIRS!NOPE (Leeds/Bradford)

(Glasgow)

(Glasgow)

ETERNAL FAGSIf the inmates of Napa State Mental Hospital formed a band after The Cramps visited to play there in 1978, they might have sounded something like Eternal Fags.

psychedelic jammed out Kraut-ishrock

semi-improvised loosely written pop songsSMACK WIZARDS

freePOLISH CLUB, EDMUND ST

BRADFORD

WEIS

ERE

2 Floors of MusicResident DJsCheap DrinksSnacksVisualsFUN!

artfarmersobscene babyauction

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