Since I have been back in action it has been brought to my attention that some of you can no longer see the photograph in the body of the email but sadly I just don’t know how to fix it. (frustrated face) I need to find someone who can (if anyone knows of a wordpress bod lemme know) but this might take a while…
so in meantime if I can urge you to just click on the title of the post (in blue) it will take you thru to the post on my website. I know this is an inconvenience but it will roughly take up 1-3 more seconds of your day and hopefully my pictures are worth that lil extra effort…
I’m sure the people you are referring to are guilty of these accusations as you’ve gone to so much effort to highlight their hideous ways but could you mebbe tell us who these people actually are..just so that we can avoid/expose/run out of town? Give us somit to go on here…
Lockdown closed everything so what did people do? They got around it. They moved their activities outdoors. Onto the streets, into the parks, wherever they could continue their endeavours whilst the buildings that housed them remained inaccessible. I think what the solutions to the restrictions have shown is that it was never about the place, it was always about the activity. It has meant that we do not need to be quite so literal anymore. If you put art on a tree it becomes an art gallery. If you do squats on the sidewalk it becomes a fitness centre etc etc.
The question is..will these alternative locations still be used when the venues return? Or has outdoors officially become the new indoors? Yes, it’s a little weather dependent but it feels like a revolution has begun. We can now think it much more fluid and creative ways about where and how we do things. Necessity is the true mother of invention and if there is one thing the pandemic brought that was positive it was the notion that you do not just give up. Nothing just stops. You find a way. You make shit happen. That is what we do.
I’m sure when everything finally re-opens we’ll go back to doing stuff the old way but if ever there was a time to reassess how we do things it is now. There’s a fork in the road folks, we can all see it, s’up to us which path we take. Maybe the purpose of this never-ending shit show is to reveal a way to emancipate ourselves from the rinse and repeat process of endless consumption and fill our lives with other pursuits that are more fulfilling and ultimately more sustainable..and hopefully we will now realise that the only real restrictions are the limitations of our own imagination…
I walk past Rough Trade West on Talbot Road almost every day of my life. I don’t always go in as I will just want to spend money I don’t really have but I always check out their window display which features the covers of their current top picks. At night they put the grill down and I have taken the odd shot as this ‘imprisoned effect’ can give the album artwork a whole new dimension. Over the years I have built up a little collection which I now share with you this week.
Rough Trade is most definitely a revered institution of Ladbroke Grove and I personally feel very attached to it as it has been a part of my record buying existence for as long as I can remember, both guiding and providing for me, the tunes that would shape my life. My proudest moment of the MYLDN book coming out was finding out they were selling it.
This area has always had a rich and vibrant record shop scene and Rough Trade has, for me, always been its beating heart. If you want to read The Vinyl factory’s great article about the history of record shops in this neighbourhood you can see via this link here.
Now sadly many have bitten the dust and only Rough Trade, Honest Jons, People Sounds and The Notting Hill Music Exchange remain. And yet right now, like most shops, none of them are open. Rough Trade’s grill is now up all the time and these shots have become a metaphor for this ongoing ‘incarceration’ of the high street. The retail sector is literally trapped behind bars, unable to function and through no fault of their own. Seeing shops closed has sadly become an all too familiar sight and it feels right now like they might never be resuscitated from their current stasis. But we desperately need them to come back. Our local shops are not just about consumerism, they are an integral part of our communities.
My heart goes out to all the businesses who have been levelled by the pandemic and I hope the government does what’s right and supports them in their hour of need and sustains them through this debilitating situation. The high street was already flagging under the joint pressures of gentrification and internet shopping. Let’s ensure Covid is not the kiss of death but works instead as a wake up call to highlight its necessity. Our retail interactions might seem slight but over time they become genuine relationships and are essential to a sense of wellbeing. They make us feel connected and less isolated, something which is more important now than ever.
One thing that gives me hope is seeing people utilise Rough Trade’s click and collect option to pick up new acquisitions from the shop they literally cannot wait for. It reminds me that for some (myself very much included) music is a necessity not a luxury. Music is the lifeblood that keeps us going. It cannot be extinguished, it gives us energy, it calms us, soothes us, excites us and our love for it will endure no matter what is thrown at us. I know I would not have gotten through this last year without it. So long live Rough Trade and all the other fine purveyors of music for dispensing the tools we need to survive..
The police turned up to police a carnival that had been cancelled
People in yellow jackets patrolled the area to tell people there was no carnival happening.
The shops were boarded up to protect outlets from the revellers that never arrived.
All in all it was fucking weird as hell. Everyone expected somit to be happening but in the end nothing did. This vacuum of activity created a highly unusual and deeply eerie feeling in the hood. Turns out The Notting Hill Carnival is so big that even its absence has a presence.
I saw one man bashing a drum walked up Portobello whilst blowing his whistle and one man briefly stood on a car and that was about it.
I also went to an extremely sedate officially sanctioned tiny gathering on the Monday and at one point, as we were leaving, 3 riot vans containing around 40 cops turned up.
It was symptomatic of the police presence overkill as they spent 3 days looking for arrests to justify their existence. We heard of a few people we know being stop and searched for no reason, even one guy who was out for a walk with his 7 year old son. Sadly and painfully predictably, they were all black.
I have been to many Carnivals in my time (too many to count – everyone bar one since 1995 if you feel like doing the maths) but this is the first one I’ve been to when they only people who showed up were the Police. We truly live in strange times.
My highlight of the weekend was our neighbours who had a party on the street for 2 days and kept the carnival spirit going. I wasn’t really feeling it myself but was glad someone was. Roll on 2021 is all I can say…
p.s good to be back. hope ya didn’t miss me too much ;)
And so I end the week where i began, on the very same corner. Just some random local moments, all connected purely by geography and a captured stance. As we’re all trying to get back to some sort of “normal’ thought I would bring you some good ole fashioned street photography devoid of any doomy gloomy social commentary for a change. Sometimes a photo is just a photo…as someone must surely have said at some point..
