Listen to a Londoner: Jackie Kingsley and Michael Shamash

Listen to a Londoner is a weekly interview post with people who live (or have lived for a while) in London. If you fit the bill and want to be interviewed, give me a shout at littlelondonobservationist@hotmail.co.uk. Always looking for new volunteers.

Michael and Jackie from London RIP

In this ever-changing city that is slowly being devoured by corporate coffee chains and high street shops, Michael and Jackie have frozen a few favourite London locations that have been lost to the times on their website, London RIP. They welcome and encourage others to reminisce and contribute their own loved and lost locations from London life.

LLO: Tell us a bit about your website London RIP.
M&J: London-RIP celebrates the London places we’ve lost and are losing. It’s a very personal record of an ever-changing landscape and we invite people to contribute their memories of their favourite places. We’re not particularly interested in places that are “important” – more the pubs, clubs, cinemas, record shops and bookshops that make up the city as people really experience it. We’ve been friends since the 70s, so London-RIP tends to focus on that era a bit, but we’re just as interested in what’s happening now, especially as London is going through such a period of change.

LLO: Which London loss has been the most disappointing for you?
M&J: Our ex-local pub, The Royal Oak, in Temple Fortune. There wasn’t anything particularly special or wow about it, and that’s the point. It was just an average local boozer which happened to be at the heart of the community. Its loss is emblematic of all the local pub closures going on in London. 

LLO: What was the most unique place you can remember that has now disappeared?
M&J: Production Village in Cricklewood. It was a faux village that was actually a film set, and had a pub that served a vile beverage called Hog’s Grunt. The whole place was mad as a box of frogs and utterly unrepeatable.

LLO: The two of you met in the late 70s. What were the best pubs and clubs in London back then that aren’t around any more?
M&J: Neither of us ever saw the Sex Pistols at the Roxy or anything like that, so we can’t pretend nostalgia for anything particularly lionised, but we do miss a lot of the mid-sized music venues that seem to be disappearing – the Music Machine, later the Camden Palace is an exception because it’s still a venue, but places like The Moonlight and The Nashville have sadly gone.

LLO: You ask your readers and share Emma Thompson’s anwers – what aspects of London’s past do you miss most? What are your own top 5 answers to this question?
M&J:
1.) Cheap and cheerful cafes
2.) Non-ironic, sensible specialist shops (eg haberdashers as opposed to chichi cheesemakers)
3.) Being able to park in Regent Street (not environmentally sound, but very handy)
4.) Green line coaches
5.) Someone we met recently remarked that 15 years ago you could safely shout at policemen if you felt like it. The context of this was watching some bloke handcuffed on the ground surrounded by angry coppers after what looked like a pub scuffle. Not sure if you really could shout at policemen (at least without getting a good hiding), but we like the idea of everything being a bit less serious and officious than it is now.

LLO: What has been the most drastic or surprising way London has changed since your childhood?
M&J: The move towards the city centre, particularly the east. In the 70s and 80s, some people predicted that London would become like an American city with the centre dead apart from commuters and life revolving around the suburbs. That so hasn’t happened, with places like Hoxton becoming the new Camden (and rapidly evolving into the new Hampstead).

LLO: Share a photo of a well-missed London location?
M&J: The picture is of Oriental City. It certainly wasn’t very promising from the outside, but this oriental shopping mall and all-round food paradise was a wonderland at the Colindale end of the Edgware Road. The real Chinatown, RIP.

Thanks Jackie and Michael!

Website: www.london-rip.com

For more Listen to a Londoner posts, click here.

 

London Art Spot: Tom Blackford

Tagging London’s walls with a spray can as a student bursting for creative freedom led Tom Blackford to where he is with his artwork today: freelancing as an illustrator, painter and muralist. With his debut solo show lined up, clients like EA Games and Magna Entertainment on his CV and plenty of new pieces in the works, Tom is one to keep an eye on. He’s painted on everything from the inside of the Barbican and outside of The Foundry to white office walls to surf boards and snowboards.

Tom has taken a few moments away from preparing for his show to talk to us about what he learned from being a graffiti artist, his passion for Japanese culture that seeps into his painting style and the mystery girl who keeps appearing in his latest work.  

LLO: How does living in London influence your creativity?
TB: To be honest I’m not sure. I’d say my subjects were pretty ‘other wordly’ and not directly influenced by the city itself or the people it inhabits. Growing up in London in the 90’s turned me on to graffiti and that’s become a big part of how I like to realise a certain proportion of my work. Other artists I’ve met and painted with have inspired me and helped clarify my goals as an artist but aesthetically I think my work represents a world in my head that’s pretty distant from the the place I physically reside in.

LLO: Tell us a bit about your artistic background.
TB: I’ve drawn since I could hold a pen and never stopped. I studied art at school but found the formal teaching side of it boring and frustrating. I just wanted to express myself and never followed the briefs. Based on a portfolio of personal work I went to university to study illustration only to be completely disillusioned by the ‘commercially viable’ aspect of the work as I’d always been more interested in art for art’s sake, so I decided to focus on graffiti. Although risky at the time, looking back it was a great decision as where as I already knew how to draw, graffiti taught me a lot about colour theory, composition and ultimately how to paint.

LLO: Your debut solo show is coming up next month. What can we expect from that?
TB: Blood, sweat and tears! The show is through Upper Playground which is great as although I’ve been involved in many group shows, I wanted to wait for a name I could trust before getting excited about the prospect of a solo show. We’ll see what happens…right now I’m working on about 10-12 new paintings among other bits and pieces. I thought about the idea of a very strict theme for the show although my mind’s all over the place right now with different ideas and I guess the work will reflect that. Thees nothing like a looming show to really get you asking yourself a lot of questions about what it is that drives you. 

LLO: When did you create your first piece of graffiti?
TB: I was tagging for years before I attempted to use a can to produce anything more substantial. I started painting a few letter based pieces in around 2004 and switched to focusing on characters the same year, realising very quickly that if anything, it was going to be figurative work that was going to work for me.

LLO: You’ve already worked for some big names like Marvel, Nike, MTV, Pixar, etc. Who is your dream client?
TB: I don’t have a dream client but there are some musicians I’d love to do cover artwork for and galleries I’d like to exhibit at. I think that concept work for video games/movies would be interesting too. 

LLO: There is a girl who features regularly throughout your latest work. Who is she? Your muse?
TB: I wish I knew! I actually reflected on my latest work recently and realised that she seems to have cropped up quite a bit. It’s not a conscious decision. I’ll start sketching a female character and no matter where I start out, something often leads me back to ‘her’. Some people say she looks like my girlfriend but the fictitious girl appeared first!

LLO: Your website bio says you have a “passion for Japanese history and pop culture”. Any advice on the best place to get a bit of Japanese culture in London?
TB: I’ve always been obsessed with oriental culture but really got into it when Japanese animation and Manga hit the UK market in the early 90’s…a lot of the good stuff was hard to find then so it had this ‘cult appeal’, a lot like graffiti. Some of the things I watched and read back then had a massive impact on me and the imagery it contained is stuff I think I still feed off through memory to this day. It’s funny because I don’t consciously think about my work as having strong Asian sensibilities until I have a new viewer mention it…it’s something that I think will always be identifiable, something I can’t escape but don’t really want to. It’s something I’ve definitely embraced in the canvas work I’m producing right now.

Oriental City (formally known as Yohan Plaza) in Colindale used to be a great place to shop for Japanese food and books but I haven’t been there in years so couldn’t say whats happening there now. The Japan centre in Piccadilly is good for Manga and Orbital off Leicester Square would be the place to check out Japanese comics and toys. 

 

LLO: Which piece are you most proud of and why?
TB: This changes all the time. There are pieces I’m proud of because of the circumstances that surround them and others because of the things I learnt whilst creating them. I just finished a new painting for my debut solo show that I think highlights where I’m at right now.

LLO: You’re currently a freelance painter, illustrator and muralist in and around London. Where’s the best place to go to find your work in the capital?
TB: My paintings can regularly be found at White Cross gallery although with exhibitions looming most of my canvases are in storage right now. I recently painted the front of ‘The Foundry’ in East London and decorated the entrance to the Upper Playground store off Carnaby street. My graffiti work doesn’t tend to stick around too long unless commissioned by a specific property.

LLO: Favourite London-based artists?
TB: That’s difficult…pretty much all of my favourite artists are from Japan and the States. I really like Jamie Hewlett’s work. I felt like I’d been waiting a long time to see someone do a really cool animated music video when Gorillaz came along.

Thanks Tom!

For more of Tom’s work, check out his website: www.inkfetish.co.uk

For more London Art Spot interviews, click here.