22.12.79

We've had a good do this year. Hope you have and all.
More to come in 2015 including a collection of poems by Donald 'Partially-Sighted' Pascoe compiled from his work during the late 1970s / early 1980s.
It includes this festive doozy...

No. 1 Single..

Hard to believe it's almost 'that' time of year already.
Well it's a good 5 week off yet but the proliferation of baubles and that every time you venture into town has an intoxicating effect.

With Sir Bob, Captain Bono et al chucking their Zucchero-esque caps into the ring to challenge the festive ubiquity of Emperor Cowell and his pie-eyed minions, encouraging apathetic relatives throughout the land to concede that they don't know their grandchildren, nieces, nephews, sons, daughters and such anywhere near as much as they should, and they are directed by the notion that the charts are the solution that will free them of their avuncular / paternal / falsified notions that they care.

It goes without saying how much our previous projects (a badly photocopied social history of Burnley's failed commercial ventures // a photographic record of the time-travelling exploits of a 1970s footballer // several barrels of an entire porter available exclusively at an East Lancs Micro-Brewery) illustrate all too well how we posess a natural instinct for today's consumers and what 'the kids' want, so we figured if anyone could attempt to loosen the stranglehold these various commercial factions have on popular music, it is we. So here's what we've done;

Though completely and totally unrelated to that mop-topped fab four who still continue to sell tons of records, our pals Lipton & Jarvis have adapted a moniker of 'The Beatless' (check the speeling) in homage to classic Yuletide gift misunderstandings, with particular reference to my elderly Aunt who presented my 9 year old self with an off-white robotic 6" plastic monstrosity bubble-backed onto a 'Space Wars' card that one can only assume her cataract-ridden vision regarded said 'gift' as a Palitoy StormTrooper or something. Our relationship never recovered.
Based on extensive research into the most enjoyed contemporary pastimes and public interests in order to give this product maximum popular appeal, our musical chums have recorded a cat walking on a piano, a great deal of tapping, and what sounds like a spaceship or something and mixed it all together. And called it 'No. 1 Single'.

If all those commercial aspects weren't quite enough to assure us the coveted Yuletide top-spot, as football is still very popular with the youth of today, and in keeping with our Number One theme, our good friend Don Pascoe was recorded reading out the names of several of his favourite Burnley FC goalkeepers who all wore The Clarets Number One shirt during the latter part of the 20th century, taking in sporting luminaries who are still widely revered to this day such as Paul Crichton and Tony Woodworth. Unfortunately the tape recorder broke and he appears to be talking backwards but still..
Leaving nothing to chance and keen to make this release as commercially viable as possible we have released it solely on the most accessible format these days - The cassette single.
It retails at £1.99 so give us a shout if you want one.

Accompanying track '25/26' is a short instrumental interpretation of the melancholic feelings that prevail when you find yourself alone as Christmas Day sneaks off for another year and you're sat there with a full belly and empty pockets at midnight waiting for 'Mutiny on the Buses' to commence on BBC2.

Waiting for the Dots...

Nostalgia eh?.
Endearing enduring rose-tinted recall that files away the rough edges of distant memories.
Ours include:
- Winning Darth Vader with Peter Noble in a playtime game of 'Topsies'.
- Watching Andy Ruffell perform mighty horse kicks right next to our classroom.
- Beating St Johns 5-2 thanks in part to a hat-trick from a curly-haired left-winger.
- Sneaking down the park at dinner and trying to 'buck' (ie break) the rocking horse.
- Sitting cross-legged counting down the dots waiting impatiently for 'The Boy from Space'.

All these were drawn from our time at Barden so that's what we've called our ale, natch.
Brewed to perfection by our good friends at Moonstone Brewery, it's currently on sale at the ever-wonderful Ministry of Ale in that there Burnley. It's a flipping winner.

Accompanying our latest release is a fine Porter-fuelled nostalgia-laden library music fest containing several of those 'Schools TV' themes we fondly remember. FIND IT HERE...

Nostalgia eh?. It's not what it used to be - That's for sure...

Another piece...

Last minute reminder about our do 'Jigsaw' over at the marvellous THREE WISE MONKEYS in Tod tomorrow night. Full respect to Gig and the crew there for the incredible amount of support they give to local creative folks, enabling many tip-top events to flourish.

Tomorrow, you can expect more of the same from the, ahem, "critically acclaimed" 0282 Disc Jockeys whose platters that matter will be accompanied by our pal Richard Walker's AMAZING 'White Rabbit Psychedelic Lightshow', a visual treat that would grace any venue.

Fun starts at nine though you'd do well to get down early and sample the delicious cuisine and magic selection of ales. Come and say hello; We'll be the ones stood behind the turntables, Dad-dancing and supping stout...

Don't kid yourself you've seen it all before...

As any regular purveyor of this so-called blog will attest, writing has never been our strong point.
With that in mind, wherever possible we're more than happy to hand over the reigns to someone else in order to help fill our blank pages. Over to 'Million Mouths' then to, erm, 'explain' what the bobby is with their new MixTape thing. Catch them this Wednesday at t'Ministry of Ale in that there Burnley as they provide the soundtrack to our new book launch which will be marked by an exhibition of sorts with folks playing old arcade games and that. You heard. Over to 'Million Mouths' then...

"Yeah, so just imagine that the past was futured here to the present day and Mr Pool was still open right?, and like John Hughes was directing the film yeah??; Well this is what would be emanating from the JukeBox there ala synthesised liquid smoke. Pure classic Now-Then Wave ostensibly laced with liberal lashings of contemporary Yacht Rock and dairy-free ButterScotch Funk yeah??".

Hope that helps clear up any confusion. Listen to it RIGHT HERE and make your own minds up.

Flippin' Typical...

Flippin' typical.
You wait ages for a considerably lacklustre, shoddily organised, poorly attended 0282-related event to arrive, then three turn up all at once. Rejoice, etc....
Firstly, there's this here book 'everybody' has been hotly anticipating regarding Peter Noble's ubiquitous presence throughout space and time (hence the title). Extremely limited in general appeal even by our wilfully esoteric standards. To help 'celebrate' this momentous occasion a small selection of original artwork used in said book will be available for sale should anyone be inebriated enough to consider such a foolhardy purchase.

Then there's the inaugural '0282 Coin-Ops League' session, offering folk the opportunity to back-up all this "I clocked Kung-Fu Master in Mr Pool" // "I clocked Trojan in Wonderland" // "I clocked Side-Arms in El Greco" // "I clocked Renegade in Goodwill Taxis" etc etc NONSENSE that's been perpetuated down the years by various parties. Come one, come all. Put up or shut up.

And if the thought of all that doesn't make you delirious with anticipation, we also herald the return of 'Million Mouths' after a hiatus of several years. Hence all proceedings will be soundtracked by 'Musics Post-75' by various selectors.

As Danny Boone quite understandably proclaimed; "It's all happening...".

A brief explanation of our new book...

As teenagers, we first encountered Peter Noble on Burnley market circa 1985 while trying to locate Nike windcheaters. It goes without saying how he subsequently became an integral part of our lives.

There were other local places to buy clobber of course, though all had their own pitfalls;

-- Roy Marlor didn't really want us there although they were happy to take our birthday money in return for over-priced Lacoste polo shirts.

-- Malcolm Yardley was over-zealous in his attempts to sell us over-elaborate tracksuits.

-- We couldn't find the so-called 'Kappa Warehouse' reputedly located in Mill Hill.

-- There was always too much Hi-Tec gear in Cocker's. Well too much.

-- Sportak could never really get their heads round what we wanted hiking boots and Luhta ski jackets for when we spent most of our time in Wonderland.

-- Even Jolly Garments, located up Queensgate out of the way, flush with their altruistic approach at letting us splurge our entire school uniform grants on Pringle knitwear and sandy Farahs in order to unwittingly dress like Kenny Lynch, didn't tick all our boxes.

Enter Peter. No qualms at letting you try Samba on even if he knew you were skint, while generously regaling you with his countless tales regarding everyone and everything.

He had time for us, that was the thing really. It meant a lot then. It still does.

                                                                     Friends of Peter Noble.   Briercliffe, 2014                                               

                                       

'El Trop'

First things first. It's our inaugural 'Jigsaw' night over in Tod next Saturday.
Have a look on this here poster for all fine details. Looks like a doozy:

In a tenuous attempt to link into this event into our current obsession (have a guess), our pals Barden Juniors have provided us with this fine mix (RIGHT HERE!!!!). South American flavours abound, they've called it 'El Trop', and the eagle-eyed among you might sense the link (also tenuous), to the sadly missed 0282-centric nite spot where one could seek out a plethora of divorcees of both sexes, brimming with the magical 'high sex drive / low self esteem' combination very popular in those times and places.

In another coup, we're mega chuffed to have been granted permission by one of our favourite local artists (Stephen West) to use one of his critically acclaimed World Cup paintings as visual accompaniment. Stephen has also chosen two of his other works for us to include. Thanks again mate x

                                                 

The Death of a Modernist Masterpiece - Barden High School (1968 - 2006)

The Death of a Modernist Masterpiece – Barden High School (1968 – 2006)

Conversation has a strange method of developing and diversifying content into an obsession. As always, this particular conversation took place in a pub, over a pint of cask beer, in the formerindustrial powerhouse town of Burnley, Lancashire. This outpouring and cascade of words was about beautiful buildings which Burnley has lost over the last fifty years. The usual suspects were verbosely paraded out: the former Baptist church on Manchester Road, the Thorn Hotel on St James’ Street, the Yorkshire Hotel on Yorkshire Street (aptly). My contribution was treated with the usual revulsion, contempt, even hatred, that I have become finely accustomed to: my former secondary school, Barden High.

For me, Barden High School represented 1960s Modernist architecture at its absolute zenith. A contemporary cathedral to learning, shimmering proudly in its coat of red brick and dominating the skyline around the vicinity in which I grew up. Sadly, like so many buildings of its epoch, the school stands no more! This piece is an affectionate tribute to a fine school, both the quality of the teaching and to the building itself, which only now exists in a handful of grainy photographs and in the nostalgic memories of former pupils, teachers and the local community.

In his recent television series entitled ‘Bunkers, Brutalism, Bloodymindedness’, the legendary architecture and art critic Jonathan Meades vented spleen at the way architectural legacies are treated in this country. Just as scores of beautiful, gothic, Victorian buildings were brought crumbling to their knees during the pre and post war cull of our architectural heritage, all in the name of progress (apparently), we are now experiencing the same bulldozing holocaust of exemplary Modernist and Brutalist buildings from the 1940 – 1960 periods. We, the British, for all our obsessions with questionable fascist organizations like English Heritage, have an appalling contempt for architecture which does not fit into our supposedly twee and narrow minded opinions of what good architecture should be conceived as! One outspoken critic of the government’s mass clearing initiatives of the late 1960s polemicised that British town planners and civil servants have inflicted more damage upon the architectural and social infrastructures of this country than Adolf Hitler and the Luftwaffe ever did. I concur wholeheartedly with that anonymous voice of dissent!

Nikolaus Pevsner, the German-born, British-based art and architecture critic, was the typical establishment, anti-modernist objector, although his contributions to the protection of Victorian architecture is certainly to be congratulated. Pevsner insisted that Brutalism had its roots deeply engrained in Expressionism, the brick based idiom which can be traced back to the Netherlands, Germany and the Baltic states during the 1920s and 1930s. One of the greatest exponents of Expressionist architecture was the Dutch designer Michel de Klerk, whose shimmering red brick social housing concepts must surely have been a major influence on the design of Barden High School. 

Michel de Klerk’s Expressionist architecture in all its glory – Zaamstraat, Eigen Haard, Amsterdam West. 1913 – 1915.

Barden High School, Burnley. 1968 – 2006. Potentially an architectural exponent of Michel de Klerk.

The New Barden High School was first conceived in March 1967 as a replacement for the old Barden Boys School, which had outgrown its usefulness and an amalgamation with the Burnley Wood Secondary School. The new school was built on the former Barden Recreation Ground and was officially opened by Lord Jackson of Burnley on 17 October 1968, bizarrely at 2:30 in the afternoon. This was a typically Barden-esque acknowledgment and obsession with belatedness. The new intake of pupils actually started their education on 16 September. One can only imagine how magnificent the new school must have looked in an era much vaunted for its explosion of Technicolor! The setting was the personification of perfection. Nestling in an area surrounded by both park and farmland and draped by the magnificent backdrop of Pendle Hill and the Ribble Valley, the setting formed a juxtaposition of red and green, primary colours which complement each other and sit together harmoniously throughout all weather conditions. My personal recollections are of the school in winter, when the dazzling red of the brickwork sat upon the white snow covered peaks of Pendle and the ‘Yves Klein’ blue of the sky. The large banks of windows allowed plenty of natural light to flood the classrooms, although the main corridor interconnecting the full length of the school was always notoriously dark from the school’s inception. This was not helped by the somewhat unnecessary needfor endless sets of double fire doors, which made negotiating the corridor awkward, especially at peak times. The stifling application of Health and Safety legislation was apparently alive and well and exhaling its foul breath as far back as the late 1960s! Still, the school had been designed to help complement the educational needs of the pupils, with each department’s classrooms branching off the main corridor as tributaries feed into a river. This replaced the Victorian concept that classrooms should circulate a central space, usually the school hall, where religious instruction took place, therefore instilling a ‘sacred heart’ to a building. Perhaps the architects of the New Barden wanted to reflect an emphasis on education and learning and less on theological instruction, although religious study has always played an important part in the school’s philosophy and ideology. The new school badge was designed by my former art teacher, Mr Peter Bielatowicz, a minimalist structure of green and red (those colours again) featuring three Lancashire roses, the Book of Knowledge, amanufacturing cog and two weaving loom shuttles, a semiotic exploration of learning, industry and hard work, the school’s ethos. Red and green were also implemented into the design of the school tie.

During my tenure at the school Barden had two main focuses: sport and the arts. Being a single sex school (most disappointingly for most of us) it is easy, with hindsight, to see how the extracurricular activities were moulded towards the passions of boys aged 11 – 16. I personally didn’t have much of an interest in partaking in sporting endeavour, although I was and will always be a vociferous supporter of Burnley Football Club. For sensitive souls like me, the arts and literature were the sole focus of my passions. The school boasted a fine library and the music and art departments were always bursting with cutting edge equipment and this was in the days before computer technology revolutionised the classroom. This leads us to beg an answer to the searching question:

‘why was Barden High School demolished?’

The official reply will be the need to restructure and modernise the secondary education system in East Lancashire, amalgamating the two remaining single sex schools in Burnley (Barden and Walshaw) and redeveloping the existing Barden site to incorporate the new Thomas Whitham Sixth Form Centre. Cynics will argue that Burnley Council desperately needed a way to spend the government cash which poured down upon Burnley after the social unrest of late 2001 and the modern obsession for building new American styled super schools, which has resulted in almost all of Burnley’s historic school buildings being demolished and rebuilt as these functional, spatial and ergonomic, yet soulless and somewhat lifeless structures, lacking any architectural integrity or artistic splendour. Sadly, I am unable to give prestige to the original architects who designed the New Barden High Secondary School as, according to the Lancashire County Council archives department, the original blueprints and planning applications have been lost. Likewise, we have no record of the original contractor who helped to construct this Modernist masterpiece and bring it to life. In a sardonic twist of irony, we have plenty of records relating to the companies who helped to raze it to the ground. Likewise, the original suppliers of the red bricks, the surveyors, the structural engineers: all names which appear to have been lost to posterity.

Perhaps, fifty years from now, we will feel overwhelmingly protective to these super schools which have been built over the last decade in a similar vein to how we Modernist enthusiasts feel about buildings constructed during those amazingly inventive thirty years which followed the end of World War II. This may be a somewhat quixotic belief to uphold. We are living in an epoch where architecture is suffering. Whilst we can feel privileged to engage with the work of great contemporary architects such as Zaha Hadid, Norman Foster, Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind and Rem Koolhaas,who’s magnificent and intelligent structures adorn some of the world’s greatest cityscapes, the architecture which is inflicted upon British towns and cities lacks inventiveness, imagination and beauty. An entire housing scheme in a North West town has recently been completed without any thought given to the placing of residents’ refuse and recycling bins! Total architectural ineptitude. If functionality and ergonomics are to be the most important element of modern day architecture, then this housing scheme has failed at the first hurdle! One may argue that I am against modernisation; I am not. I appreciate that modern architects need to be given new commissions, whether they be showpiece buildings in our major cities or new schools and housing estates in Burnley, but I do not want our interesting and diverse architectural heritage to have to make way for them. I believe Barden High School was beautiful, it was interesting, it complemented its landscape and surroundings harmoniously. But now it is gone and we need to make sure that other important, local buildings from the mid-twentieth century don’t fall under the bulldozer’s grip. Preston has only just managed to save its fantastic, Brutalist bus station. Time will tell if this historically important building will become one of the city centre’s focal points, or if this is just a stay of execution!

I will conclude this piece with the words of Jonathan Meades, the one man crusader for Expressionist, Modernist and Brutalist architecture:

It took more than three-quarters of a century before high Victorian architecture began to be rehabilitated through the efforts of John Betjeman, Evelyn Waugh, etc. Their pleas went unheeded. They were reckoned to be perverse and mischievous. Thousands of "monstrosities" were destroyed. The survivors are now widely valued and lost ones are mourned. We have learnednothing. Half a century after Brutalism's heyday, the term "concrete monstrosity" trips readily off the tongues of the unseeing, the torpid, the incurious. Britain is once again being architecturally cleansed in favour of timidity and insipidity.

Let us hope that the pioneers of this needless and senseless demolition begin to see sense.

Thank you for reading.

Mark Jones

I would like to thank Andrea Dewhurst for her help, tolerance and perseverance editing this article and for taking my pataphysical musings and turning them into something cohesive and understandable.  

St George's Day 1979

Cutting through the hyperbolic ridicule of our standard posts, we just want to say that we're liking this Pascoe character more and more. A lot. 

Happily things have changed tremendously in the 25 years since this poem was conceived....

Now Then...

Due to frankly preposterous levels of half-arsed public interest and ale-fuelled heartfelt local demand, it is with great something that we announce the third print run of our maiden Burnley-centric tome.

There can't be many contemporary publications that feature claret-tinted memories of Sportak AND  t'Circ can there? - Enabling fond recollections of your first Luhta Ski Jacket and / or shag rash among various other snippets of ill-considered milltown nonsense.

'But why bother to put stuff like this out when clearly nobody gives a toss?', you may understandably (and somewhat rudely) enquire. Well we'd tell ya why, you cheeky bast, but there's no legitimate excuse that we can muster at this time. Come back to us on that one. All we can say in earnest is that one or two local heads bizarrely felt they'd somehow missed out on previous releases of the book, on account of all previous few hundred copies selling out, which is far more than a ramshackle tin-pot outfit such as ours could ever hope to replicate. So it's their fault...

Pascoe. Sort of...

Seek and you shall find, said that bloke. Turns out he was half-right and all.
According to those with half-decent memories, Pascoe was a Poet. Sort of. A Punk and all. Sort of. 'Kind of like John Cooper Clarke or Seething Wells or something', says our mate Al. Sort of.
He plied his wares in the 0282 area (and beyond) in the late 70s / early 80s, and shared a gaff round Duke Bar way til he split one day and that was that. Sort of.
Nosey Gets that we are, the feelers went out regarding Pascoe, and Al's pal John J turns up trumps with a handful of fliers bearing Pascoe's name, and a couple of his poems that he 'swapped off him for a rolly after a gig he'd done with Tiger Tails' way back which he'd luckily hung on to.
I'd like to thank John J and Al for their help so far, but neither of them 'bother with Facebook or any of that computer shit', so it's unlikely that they'll see this. Never mind.
This might be the first you've heard of Pascoe. Hopefully it won't be the last. Sort of.

Close to the Noam...

Well what can we say eh??. You sit there waiting ages for a Lipton & Jarvis mixtape dooly, and then two turn up at once!!!. LoL, lmao, BELM, etc...
Pair of goodies though these two - The first is in lieu of our next 'Close to the Hedge' session up at the very Ace GREEN CHIMNEY IN COLNE which falls on Friday March 21st (Ltd cd versions to be given away on the night).
The second is a bit special and all - It's chock full of of Chomsky, doing what he does best, illustrating truths and injustice as only he can. His wise words are soundtracked by all manner of aural sexiness including choice numbers by, among others; Herbert Eimert, Giorgio Carnini, and Cecil Leuter.
Here's the really smart bit though - They've only gone and called it 'A break from the Noam' haven't they??. Not Norm, but Noam!!. As in Noam Chomsky!!!. Lol, lmao, BELM, etc.....

(Both mixes can be found RIGHT HERE!!!).

The 'Cloud is dead. Long live the 'Cloud...

Right then. In the last month or two our SoundCloud account has come to be a pain in the backside. If it weren't enough hassle having to redo / scratch one out of every three or four mix tapes due to their zealous content Police, there's been countless other agg to deal with. Not worth the time in other words. Or the pennies. So we're knocking the SoundCloud thing right on the head for now, at least until their service provision is altered massively.
Now, before all you Hipster Doofus' (Doofi??) out there start skriking uncontrollably at being forced to question the legitimacy of existence in a world free from our many kind freebies, calm yourselves. We're shifting it all over to MixCloud instead. (AND YOU CAN FIND IT ALL RIGHT HERE!!)
"But what about the ability to Download your incredible selections", we hear you cry. Fair point. As our luddite selves understand it, just Google 'How to download from MixCloud', and all your Christmasses just came at once. (other search engines are available).
ONCE AGAIN FOLKS - OUR MIXCLOUD ACCOUNT IS RIGHT HERE.

Love THIS

Well it's that time of year already folks, where whether we like it or not, romance is shoved right down our throats (ooh Matron, Fnarr, Fnarr, etc etc). A time-served occasion affording star-crossed Lovers the opportunity to splurge their hard-earned spondoolix on more heart-shaped trinkets and what-not just as their bank balances begin their post-Yuletide recovery, while ostracisng all manner of singletons because they aren't able to properly celebrate another cynical sales opportunity by greetings card peddlers the world over.

Not that we here at 0282 are totally against any form of public or private displays of passion. Or tenderness. Or affection. Or indeed anything along those lines. So let us provide you with this here 'MIXTAPE THINGY' (RIGHT HERE!!!) to soundtrack any amourous activity you may find yourself involved in this Valentine's Day, whether with a group of open-minded individuals fuelled by boxed wine, alone with that special someone, or perhaps an onanistic adventure of your own making. Whatever tickles your fancy, it's fair to say that one thing we can all agree on is the sort of sounds that will get our collective motors running. That's right - Wonky un-Pop and Foreign Psychedelia. Enjoy...

MixCloud Doings

Right then. So it seems that there's a few of you out there in "I know we're getting quality gear for free, but we still want it tailoring to suit our ungrateful needs" land, and with that in mind, we've started a MixCloud account to compliment our already much under-appreciated, greatly ignored, SoundCloud doings.
Any attempt on your parts to give a little back for a change, instead of take, take, taking all the time would be greatly appreciated. Really. So give yourself a quick earful of a few tasty morsels RIGHT HERE, with a view to increasing our listening stats, in order to make us appear far more popular than we could ever hope to be in real life. Thanks x.
For those who require a visual stimulus to accompany our inane ramblings, find enclosed some posters for a couple of upcoming 0282-related 'gigs'. Please feel free to 'like', and 'share', and all that disingenuous guff...

Close to the Hedge

What better way to start 2014 than to procure a new residency playing odd Folky records at a splendiferous East Lancs Caff that sells Real Ale besides all manner of tip-top fodder??
We're that chuffed with the new night we're doing at The Green Chimney in Colne that we've only gone and done an exclusive mixtape in celebration of the fact haven't we??
You can download it RIGHT HERE if you're so inclined.
Like the poster says, it all starts on Friday 24th January. Hope to see you there.....x