Plectrum Live Edition

presents

Biba & I

An evening of illustrated and music accompanied Biba tales with Delisia Howard & Chris Price

Writer Delisia Howard was not only in charge of cosmetics and household for Biba from 1968 to the closing of Big Biba in 1974, but she was also the in-house model on whom Barbara Hulanicki would fit and refine all her sample clothing designs for the highly influential fashion label and shops. With her husband, the illustrator Chris Price, Howard has created the imprint Hazard Books, to produce fabulous limited edition and handmade books, two of which, InBiba, and SinBiba, have continued their creative collaboration with Barbara Hulanicki, as they also feature her illustrations.

Wednesday 24th February 2010
at
The Horse Hospital
Colonnade, Bloomsbury, London WC1
(Russell Square Tube Piccadilly Line)

Doors 8pm Performance begins 8.30pm
Tickets: £5
To reserve tickets email: guy@theculturalpick.com

Each ticket includes the current issue of Plectrum
Become a fan of Plectrum - The Cultural Pick on Facebook

The books InBiba & SinBiba by Delisia Howard, Chris Price, and Barbara Hulanicki, in addition to other books from the Hazard imprint, which Delisia and Chris will be happy to sign,  will also be for sale on the night, with the cover prices specially reduced by 15%
www.bibabook.com

As will copies of the limited edition DVD boxset of the documentary Beyond Biba: A Portrait of Barbara Hulanicki at a specially discounted price of £20
www.beyondbibamovie.com

(Please note no credit or debit card facilities are available on the night)

The Plectrum Live Edition at Express Excess, 3rd February 2010, with Cathi Unsworth, Max Décharné, Jeremy Reed & Itchy Ear: The Ginger Light, Guy Sangster Adams, hosted by Paul Lyalls, through the lens of  photographer Fen Oswin
www.fenris.co.uk

at

express excess

CATHI UNSWORTH, MAX DÉCHARNÉ,

JEREMY REED & ITCHY EAR: THE GINGER LIGHT

GUY SANGSTER ADAMS

hosted by

PAUL LYALLS

Wednesday 3rd February 2010
upstairs at  The Enterprise, 2 Haverstock Hill, Camden, London NW3
opposite Chalk Farm tube station

doors 8.30 show 9pm
tickets £5/£3 concessions

Each ticket includes a copy of Plectrum magazine issue 4.

Performers’ latest books, which they will be happy to sign, will be on sale on the night.

Straight From The Fridge, Dad: A Dictionary of Hipster Slang by Max Décharné (No Exit Press)
will be available at the specially discounted price of £14

Bad Penny Blues by Cathi Unsworth (Serpent’s Tail)
will be available at the specially discounted price of £5

(Please note no credit or debit card facilities are available on the night)

Ticket reservations
Plectrum – The Cultural Pick: guy@theculturalpick.com
Express Excess: 020 7485 2659 or paul_lyalls@hotmail.com

Cathi Unsworth

Writer, editor, and ‘First Lady of Noir Fiction’, reading from her acclaimed new novel Bad Penny Blues (Serpent’s Tail).

“Bad Penny Blues isn’t only one of the best crime novels this year, it’s one of the best of the decade”
- Ray Banks
“A magnificent tapestry of period and place… confirming her status as one of Britain’s most potent writers of noir”
– Marcel Berlins, The Times
“A smart noir entertainment with the bitter aftertaste of truth”
- Christopher Fowler, FT

cathiunsworth.weebly.com

Max Décharné

Writer, rock musician (The Flaming Stars, Nikki Sudden, Gallon Drunk), & righteous lounge lizard, waxing lyrical about Hipsterville from the 1920s to the late 1960s from his acclaimed new edition of Straight from the Fridge, Dad: A Dictionary of Hipster Slang (No Exit Press)

“the lexicon for the hep cats of London’s most swinging trotteries”
- Jack Malvern, The Times
“Perfect for whiling away an afternoon working on that indoor café sunburn”
- i-D

www.myspace/maxdecharne

www.myspace.com/theflamingstars

Jeremy Reed & Itchy Ear: The Ginger Light

The Ginger Light is a unique collaboration between poet and writer Jeremy Reed and sonic soundscaper Itchy Ear.

Jeremy Reed has been hailed by The Independent as
“British poetry’s glam, spangly, shape-shifting answer to David Bowie.”

Other fans of his work have declared:
“He is Rimbaud reconfigured as the Man who fell to Earth”
- J.G. Ballard
“The most beautiful, outrageously brilliant poetry in the world”
-  Bjork
“Jeremy Reed is a legend. What more can you fucking ask?”
- Pete Doherty

www.jeremyreed.co.uk

Guy Sangster Adams

Performing his short fiction, writer, and editor of  Plectrum – The Cultural Pick.
Plectrum is a multi-format arts magazine with a bi-monthly print edition, and regular Plectrum Live Edition events mixing spoken word, live music, screenings, author readings, fashion shows, art and more. Whilst the website is home to the Plectrum Webzine and the Plectrum Broadcast Player with filmed interviews, profiles, and performances.

www.theculturalpick.com

Paul Lyalls

Hosting the evening and reading from his first full poetry collection Catching the Cascade ( Flipped Eye).
Lyalls founded the bi-weekly Express Excess 12 years ago and has established it as the home and testing ground for, as Time Out says, “the country’s brightest names in performance poetry and spoken word.”
He has also performed at 10 Edinburgh festivals, 1 Eton College, 5 Glastonbury’s and on a 73 Bus, and is one of the stars of BBC2’s Big Slam Poetry House. Whilst he also runs exciting poetry workshops in primary and secondary schools.

www.paul-lyalls.com

www.myspace.com/expressexcess

The Plectrum Live Edition with Max Décharné at The Horse Hospital 9th December 2009, through the lens of  photographer Fen Oswin www.fenris.co.uk

to all you hipsters, zip-gun angels, wolf-trap blondes,
throttle jockeys, dungaree dolls, hepcats, bobby soxers,
big baracudas, cool cats & real gone daddies…

Plectrum is scoring it straight for you,
with a night that will fry your wig:

Max Décharné

writer

Rock musician
(The flaming stars, Gallon Drunk, earls of Suave, & Nikki Sudden)

&
righteous Lounge Lizard

will be

Waxing lyrical
about Hipsterville from the 1920s to the late 1960s with an illustrated and record accompanied performance centred on the jam packed new edition (more entries, more pictures, more juice, more jive) of Straight from the Fridge, Dad (No Exit Press)

Playing live
a set list of the songs that have inspired him

In conversation
with Guy Sangster Adams, editor of Plectrum, telling tales from
20 years of combining the writing of short fiction, non fiction, and
music journalism, with singing, song writing, recording, & world tours

Wednesday 9th December 2009
at
The Horse Hospital,
Colonnade, Bloomsbury, London WC1
(Russell Square Tube Piccadilly Line)
doors 7.30pm Performance begins 8pm
Tickets: £6/£5 (concessions)
To reserve tickets email: Guy at theculturalpick dot com

Each ticket includes a copy of Plectrum magazine issue 4
& one night only entitlement to buy copies of Straight from the Fridge,Dad, which Max will be happy to sign,
at the specially reduced price of £14.00
(Please note no credit or debit card facilities are available on the night)

www.myspace/maxdecharne
www.myspace/theflamingstars

Presents a special screening of

Introduced by the film’s director

Louis Price

PLUS

Model Jan de Villeneuve

& artist and illustrator Daisy de Villeneuve

in conversation

with editor of Plectrum Guy Sangster Adams,

telling Biba tales and discussing Biba’s continuing influence.

Wednesday 30th September
Doors 7.30pm In Conversation/Screening begins 8pm
Tickets: £9/£7.50 (concessions)
To reserve tickets email: Guy at theculturalpick.com
Each ticket includes a copy of Plectrum MAGAZINE issue 3

Beyond Biba posters signed by Barbara Hulanicki,
and artwork and books by Daisy de Villeneuve,
will also be for sale on the night

BEYOND BIBA

(2009, November Films, 55 mins, director Louis Price: featuring Barbara Hulanicki, Molly Parkin, Gerald Posner, Twiggy, Ronnie Wood)

Barbara Hulanicki will always be remembered for Biba, the shop that changed the face of fashion in the 1960s and 1970s. A phenomenon in the truest sense of the word, Biba would leave an indelible mark on the minds and the wardrobes of those who ventured through its doors.

Just as Barbara was a key ingredient in the cultural explosion that occurred in London in the 1960s, she also found herself at the birth of the incredible cultural regeneration of Miami Beach in the late 1980s and 1990s. This is where she still resides, and continues to work as highly influential interior designer.

The film provides an invaluable glimpse into Barbara Hulanicki today. A rare insight into the woman herself, her memories of her father’s murder, the impossible glamour of Biba, the impact of her husband Fitz on her life, her thoughts on modern America, and her refusal to give up and live in the shadow of the past.

JAN de VILLENEUVE began modelling in 1966 and first came to London from the USA in 1968 to work for Norman Parkinson. She quickly became an iconic face of both the 1960s and 1970s. She also quickly became an habituée of Biba. Through her husband to be, the photographer Justin de Villeneuve, she met and became close friends with Barbara Hulanicki and her husband Fitz. Putting her career on pause for 13 years in 1975 to raise her daughters Daisy and Poppy, she returned to modelling in 1988 and is currently on the books of Models 1 as she continues her celebrated career of 30 years of modelling across 40 plus years.

DAISY de VILLENEUVE is an artist and illustrator who has been referred to as ‘The Last Biba Baby’; born when Big Biba, the last incarnation of the store, was closing down her mum, Jan, and Barbara Hulanicki surrounded her not only with Biba clothes, but also furniture, objects, and fittings from the shop, even down to her cot, bedclothes and pram. Immersed in Biba colours and style from the word go, Biba has remained a key influence on her personal style and her work.

www.daisydevilleneuve.com

Plectrum Live Editions put their best foot forward in shoes and boots from

www.jeffery-west.co.uk

Photographer Fen Oswin has captured a flavour of the Plectrum Live Edition at The Horse Hospital on 19th August 2009; more of his work can be seen at www.fenris.co.uk

Guy Sangster Adams ©2009 Fen Oswin: Fenris Photography

Spoken word, author readings, live music, cult film, & more

at

The Horse Hospital

Colonnade, Bloomsbury, London. WC1N 1HX

from 6.45pm (performances between 7.15 & 9pm )

Wednesday 19th August 2009

Entrance £5 (includes issue 3 of Plectrum magazine - retail price £2.50)

In person:
TRAVIS ELBOROUGH presents a vinyl accompanied reading from his latest book THE LONG-PLAYER GOODBYE: THE ALBUM FROM VINYL TO IPOD & BACK AGAIN (Sceptre), described  by The Spectator as a “wonderful book”, The Independent as “highly entertaining”,  Mail on Sunday as “richly enjoyable”, and the Sunday Telegraph as “engaging – and often very funny.”

JANINE BULLMAN and LEE BULLMAN (co-author of Blowback) reading from PUNK FICTION: AN ANTHOLOGY OF STORIES INSPIRED BY PUNK (Portico) edited by Janine Bullman, which features stories from 32 contributors including Johnny Marr, Billy Bragg, Cathi Unsworth, & Max Decharné.  “You leave its pages realising that being a punk really just means being young, high on the fumes of freedom and puffing your lungs up big enough to breathe life into the world” - The Guardian.

Plus short fiction performed by GUY SANGSTER ADAMS, editor of Plectrum.

Playing Live:
FALLING LUCID were the new band on everyone’s lips at July’s Lounge on the Farm, taking the festival by storm along with The Horrors, Billy Childish, and Kid Harpoon. The Kent based duo, Lauren Bateman (vocals) and Al Evans (guitar), have a sound which instills atmospheric and filmic music references into stripped down acoustic guitar and vocals, weaving infectious melodies into erudite narratives of county town culture and urban malaise. Mixing a diverse array of influences from Bat for Lashes to Reverend Gary Davis, Laura Marling to The Cure and, as is evident in their great cover version of Running Up That Hill, Kate Bush. “Great set by a great duo - please come back next year!!” - Sean B. (Founder, Lounge on the Farm Festival)

www.myspace.com/fallinglucid

On Screen:
LES BICYCLETTES DE BELSIZE (UK 1969, 27 mins)
PRESENTED IN ASSOCIATION WITH OPTIMUM RELEASING
Shot entirely on location in Hampstead, North London in 1968, Douglas Hickox’s enjoyably capricious musical love story follows the Raleigh riding Boy (Anthony May) in pursuit of the object of his desire, The Girl (Judy Huxtable).  From the fashions and soundtrack, to the whimsy, joie de vivre, naivety and knowing, this dreamlike and trippy film is entirely redolent of the late 1960s and very much a cult classic.

Plus interview and performance short films featuring:
THE WOLFMEN: MARCO PIRRONI & CHRIS CONSTANTINOU
KATE DAISY GRANT
& from The Horse Hospital archives rare and previously unscreened footage of KRAFTWERK in conversation with Guy Sangster Adams

Plectrum Live Editions put their best foot forward in shoes and boots from

www.jeffery-west.co.uk

Live Edition

@

www.myspace.com/bookclubboutique

‘Dick’s Bar’

The Green Fingernail

23 Romilly Street, Soho,  London

From 7pm

(Performances between 7pm & 9.30pm)

20th April 2009

FREE ENTRY

Poetry, spoken word, short fiction performed by

Salena Godden,  Cathi Unsworth, Abi Curtis, Guy Sangster Adams,

Music performed by Kate Daisy Grant, Melpomeni, Eyelash

& The Book Club Boutique House Band

& Live art from Mario Tauchi

Copies of issue 2 of the print edition of Plectrum - The Cultural Pick will  be on sale on the night priced £1

SALENA GODDEN
Salena Godden can often be found in the salubrious salons and private members bars of London’s Soho. She is an heady cocktail of Jamaican and Irish,  lives in North London, and has no pets, husbands, or children. Her articles, stories, and poetry have appeared in a diverse array of publications including Nude, Le Gun, The Illustrated Ape, Salzburg Review, and The Gay Times. Her fiction and poems have also been published in many anthologies including The Decadent Handbook (Dedalus), IC3 (Penguin), Fire People (Canongate), Croation Nights (Serpents Tail), and Oral (Hodder & Stoughton). She has regularly read and performed on BBC4’s Bespoken Word and BBC3’s The Verb. Under the name Salena Saliva she became renowned in the 1990s for ‘taking poetry into clubs’ and recorded with Coldcut, Alabama 3, and Simple Kid. She is now lead singer of Saltpeter, whose acclaimed album Hunger’s The Best Sauce (Fred) was released in October 2007. Sprinfield Road, Salena Godden’s memoir of growing up in Hastings in the 1970s, is forthcoming from Harper Collins.

www.myspace.com/wearesaltpeter

CATHI UNSWORTH
Cathi Unsworth is a writer, editor and journalist who lives and works in London. Cathi began her writing career on Sounds at the age of 19 and has written and edited at many music, film and alternative arts publications since. She is the author of the noir novels The Not Knowing and The Singer, and edited the award-winning book of short stories London Noir (all Serpent’s Tail). Her new novel Bad Penny Blues will be published by Serpent’s Tail in August.

www.cathiunsworth.co.uk

ABI CURTIS
Abi Curtis recently won the Crashaw Prize for Poetry and her collection Unexpected Weather is forthcoming from Salt. She won an Eric Gregory award in 2004 and published a pamphlet, Humbug, with Tall-Lighthouse in 2007. She lives in Brighton and lectures at Sussex University.

http://www.saltpublishing.com/blogs/crashaw.php?itemid=587

KATE DAISY GRANT
Unsigned singer/songwriter who has just self-released One Thing You Should Know About Me, her debut album of string laden songs with piano, autoharp and improvised twinkly noises on cobbled together objects which takes inspiration from World War I poetry, Victorian fairy tales, and Bagpuss.

www.myspace.com/katedaisygrantmusic

MELPOMENI
Artrocker said of singer songwriter Melpomeni’s debut single, I Need A Man, “If you like Diamanda Galas and Lydia Lunch, Melpomeni is for you, Lots of attitude and straighter than you might expect, but not in any way straight. Pass me that Curve album.” Dividing her time between her solo work and being in the Medieval Baebes, Melpomeni describes her sound as being like Kate Bush with a knife. Her album 9 Tragedies, 3 Love Songs, & A Breakdown is forthcoming.

www.myspace.com/melpomenirising

EYELASH
Acoustic set from the girls in the band that Rock Sound describe as “Glam influenced, trashy rock ‘n’ roll”.
http://www.myspace.com/eyelashband

MARIO TAUCHI
author of the wonderful and mind-bending MARIOMANDALA COLOURING BOOK and in collaboration with Trolley Books, will do a live performance of his amazing mariomandala drawings in the BOOK CLUB BOUTIQUE. The book features 108 black and white free-floating cosmic mandala drawings floating in white space, that the reader can colour in in any way they choose. Mario Tauchi is an artist who lives and works in Tokyo, where he does numerous performances of his mandala drawings, from nightclubs and shopping centres to galleries and bookshops. MARIOMANDALA COLOURING BOOK will be available in the night signed specially by Mario.