THE FINAL PUSH: THE SANDINISTA! FEMALE RAGE ISSUE

Back in 2013 I reported on the launch of a new underground literary fanzine, PUSH. Three and a half years, twenty-three issues, two Best Of PUSH books, the emergence of a raft of exciting writers, a host of literary events, and the giving away of cupboardfuls of nick-knacks and pop culture memorabilia during editor Joe England’s legendary raffles later, the mag is folding.

When PUSH appeared, it took its inspiration from the tiny independent press network, especially Blackheath Books, and since establishing itself as leaders in the field has paved the way for the likes of Paper & Ink and Hand Job to do a similar thing. None though, with respect, has had the bite of the England’s collections of prose, poetry and art.

Neither burning out or fading away, the final Sandinista! issue, is full of incandescent rage from an all-female cast. Some of the pieces make for extremely uncomfortable reading, and this from a series that has never shied away from confrontation or ugly truths. As Joe says, “I love this issue, and really cannot see where I could take the fanzine forwards from here.” I’ve huge respect for people leaving things at the top so credit to Joe, not only for collating a tremendous amount of work but for being a key conduit in bringing like-minded folk – writers and readers – together and giving them a platform. A push, if you will.

A third Best Of PUSH will appear soon, published, once again, by East London Press. The final issue of PUSH can be obtained from Joe here.

PUSH The Best of the First 10 Issues - EDITED BY JOE ENGLAND (2014)

Not much more than eighteen months ago literary fanzine PUSH was launched onto an unsuspecting public. I liked it immediately and wrote here suggesting "Amalgamating pop culture, drug paranoia, rushed sex, football hooligans and the threat of violence, it is just one glance away from a character in a John King novel". And so it continued.

These things can be a flash in the pan and soon fizzle out but editor Joe England has pumped out the issues - thirteen and counting - whilst keeping the standard exceptionally high. So much so East London Press have published PUSH Best of the First 10 Issues as a smart paperback book. Not only that but John King himself has written a glowing foreword (see, I must occasionally know what I'm on about/throw enough shit at the wall...).

King draws the comparison with these unfamiliar working class writers - all outside the established literary circle and clique - and a similar scene in the 1990s when his The Football Factory and Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting were published and "there was similar talk, an amazement among commentators that the common folk could read - let alone read such books".

The problem is finding this stuff. I don't read that many books as it's difficult to know where to find work that connects. As King correctly attests, "The truth is that many people are not interested in contemporary fiction because there is nothing that remotely relates to their lives". Spot on. I was unceremoniously dumped out of my English Literature O Level studies as the teacher believed there was no way I'd pass the exam. He was probably right. Not to diss old Billy Shakespeare but I couldn't make head nor tail of Richard II; was bored stiff by Silas bloody Marner; and didn't give a hoot whether some boy John went to sea or not. I don't know what's on the school curricular these days but it's a wonder I ever picked up a book again. In fairness unless it was about football or music I wouldn't have been interested anyway. Luckily I'd later discover the Beats but even they can be impenetrable much of the time. But Joe England has found enough writers for the likes of me to fill his fanzine every six weeks and edit what one hopes will be a succession of Best Of editions.

Reading these pieces again I'm struck once more how great and perceptive the writing is. Some passages make me wince in horror, some choke me up, some are angry, some downright funny and some are written by right cankerous bastards. Whether short stories, poems (yes, poems for Christ sake), interviews or artwork, I get it. It makes sense. It's alive. It talks my language. I'm not going to single out individuals as I'd have to list too many. It's all good.

Fanzines are fabulous things, born out of the passion and the need to share of the editor, and they're the labour of love of one person who often ploughs a lonely furrow. I'm chuffed and indeed weirdly proud of Joe England for seeing his baby - so far limited to blink-and-you-miss-it print runs sold on the street outside West Ham games (football fans read something other than tabloids or mags with soap actresses in various states of undress? What an audacious assumption on England's part) - recognised by East London Press. East London Press aren't Penguin Books - they are still a tiny independent press - but this feels like vindication of Joe's vision. It's not really, the words of these talented writers were already valid no matter what the format, but in its small way it's a victory, a triumph, for everyone involved. It'll reach more people, it's a step forward. PUSH Best of the First 10 Issues now sits on the bookshelf next to John King, Irvine Welsh, Dan Fante, Tony O'Neill etc. as an essential volume of modern day underground literature.

PUSH Best of the First 10 Issues is available from East London Press, priced £7.99.

For more about PUSH see Joe England Books.

A launch party with readings, music and debauchery takes place at the Orford House Social Club, Orford Road, Walthamstow, E17 on Saturday 6th December. 7pm. Free. Cheap bar.  

PUSH - ISSUE 11

The latest edition of Joe England’s energetic literary zine comes up with the goods again with another bumper issue. I like the widening of content these days with the usual underground fiction (yes, don’t fret, Michael Keenaghan is still here)  and poetry supplemented  by artwork, an interview with Keith Levene of Public Image Limited and a vivid account of the recent East London Renaissance evening which launched Joseph Ridgwell's latest book. Yours truly is featured in that piece (“legendary cool hipster,” no less) where I’m implicated in a debate about the ownership of a funky bra with holes in. I’m saying no more, you’ll have to buy it.

Steve Finbow’s trial as a kid for Brentford FC compensates for having to read a poem about snooker.

PUSH Issue 11, 60 x A5 pages, limited edition. £3 includes P&P from Joe England Books. 

EAST LONDON RENAISSANCE PRESENT A CHILD OF THE JAGO - THURSDAY 20th MARCH 2014, E17

People of the capital, the East London Renaisance’s A Child Of The Jago event is almost upon us. Thursday 20^th March 2014 is the date. Put it in your diary, scrawl it on the kitchen calendar, key  a reminder in your phone, insert a new page in your Filofax, tattoo it to the forehead of a family pet, just don’t forget it.

The Orford House Social Club in Walthamstow will be transformed into a hotbed of underground culture including poetry, art, music, dancing and jellied eels.

There’ll be readings for ears by local boy made good/bad/ugly, Joseph Ridgwell, launching his new A Child Of The Jago collection; soul poet Tim Wells will testify from his Keep The Faith; editor of PUSH Joe England will stir the word pot; and one of the most exciting literary talents out there, Michael Kennaghan, will twist your melon. Your eyes will be agog at art work by Martin Ridgwell, Jose Arroyo and Lisa Crudduck; glamorous retro adult cabaret and vaudeville films. Your gastronomic senses will burst at a cockney buffet supplied by the legendary Manze's Pie and Mash Shop (now given listed-status on Walthamstow High Street where its stood – almost untouched by the modern world – since 1929) and, of course, there is a bar stocked with booze at social club prices. And finally, Lord Monkey Picks and His Super Sounds (that’ll be me then) will be spinning the platters the matter to add some soulful strut to proceedings.

All this gaiety starts at 7pm. Get down there as early as you can as I think most of the “event” kinda stuff is scheduled for the first half of the evening before the night descends into total debauchery. Disregard the flyer where it says admission is four quid, it's FREE.

It'll be a literary event like no other. Don't forget.  

See also Monkey Picks interview with Joseph Ridgwell.

A CHILD OF THE JAGO: THE JOSEPH RIDGWELL INTERVIEW

As a much published writer, Joseph Ridgwell’s novels, short stories and poems have muscled in and roped off a corner of the underground literary scene and claimed it as its own. His latest book of poesy, A Child Of The Jago, finds Ridgwell in nostalgic mood as he returns to his native East London and reflects on family, relationships and a disappearing culture. With his usual bolshiness and bravado turned down a notch this warm collection is probably his best yet.

As a long-time champion of his work here on Monkey Picks I thought it time to collar Mr. Ridgwell for a chinwag about his new book, poetry, the East End and the curse of the drinking classes.  

Who are you? Explain yourself young man.

Ha, who am I? Fuck knows. You know, Monkey, each morning I get up and look in the mirror and this strange, somewhat desperate looking face leers back at me. Maybe I’m the devil’s footman, maybe I don’t even exist? Word on the lit-vine is that I’m the creation of some millionaire author living in Bermuda, who getting sick of writing safe formula mainstream pap, decided to create me to fulfill his or her inner crazy screwball artistic side? A sort of literary Frankenstein if you like. Or could be I’m just a kid from a small council estate in East London who one day decided he wanted to be a writer and my doodlings are a result of such an out of kilter audacity. A careers advisor once suggested floristry as a suitable occupation for someone with a constitution as delicate, sensitive and refined as mine. I remember walking out of that office with a very confused look adorning my boat. 

I can imagine. This new book of yours, A Child Of The Jago, what's it all about?

The Jago is about my childhood growing up in East London in the 1970’s & 80’s and contemporary London, focusing on lost communities, culture, and a certain way of life that has all but disappeared. Where did all the indigenous Cockney’s go? It’s like they’ve been wiped off the face of history.

Actually, what triggered all this Cockney nostalgia and reflections were two incidents that occurred in my life simultaneously. One, I was posted to an office in Commercial Road, in the heart of the old East End and Jack the Ripper territory. The other was that I began dating a young Swedish girl who resided in a squat in Bethnal Green. Thus, after being away from the East End for decades, I was suddenly spending everyday there.

The job I had at the time was a cushy number, I operated like a lone wolf amongst the massed ranks of frosty adults feigning efficiency. Attached to three different locations nobody knew for certain where I was at any given time. Naturally, I took advantage of this anomaly and exploited it mercilessly. I came in late, left early, took entire days off, and took two to three hour lunches on a regular basis, sometimes never even coming back. I’d go to the White Hart in Whitechapel or the Pride of Spitalfields just off Brick lane for my daily constitutionals, and afterwards go to Kossoff’s for a salt beef roll, mustard and sliced gherkin, and take a stroll around the East End. It was during these mellow interludes, why the rest of the mugs were hard at it, that all the memories came rushing back. Visiting Petticoat Lane for apple fritters on a Sunday, trips to Hoxton Market, Manze for Pie & Mash, looking at the animals in Club Row, (there was a lion there once) etc. What struck me was that although the place was almost unrecognisable to how it had been as a child, if you looked carefully signs of the old way of life were all around.

But what the devil is a Jago?

The title for the collection was taken from a novel by Arthur Morrison of the same name. What Arthur thinks of me nicking his title is unknown as he’s long dead and almost forgotten. In Morrison’s novel the Jago is an imaginary area of the East End, close to an old rookery in what was then and still is, Bethnal Green. It you haven’t read it, check it out.

This sojourn in the East End also encouraged me to write a historical novel about the East End called, The Jago, which is a companion to A Child of the Jago. The novel is currently gathering dust in a forgotten drawer so if publishers are reading this and fancy a bit if it, then don’t hesitate to get in contact. Oh, and by the way, it’s only the best book written about the East End ever.

A Child of the Jago is full of poems. Who wants to read poetry? Isn’t that a hard sell?

Poetry, in my opinion, is often unfairly maligned. Think of poet and an image of an effete looking man, wearing a scarf or a cardigan, and sporting a mangy beard springs to mind, (wait up, that’s me) or some mad lesbian with crazed hair. Or all those really boring poems, especially WWI poetry, that we were forced to digest at school. Actually school is the problem, the traumatic experience puts people off for life. Then, there’s all the really bad poetry, for every good poet, there’s a million bad ones. Then there’s mainstream poetry, mostly safe, well written bits of nothingness. So, for any lit fiend looking for something a little different, a little dangerous, a little counter-culture he’s got to do a little bit of digging, a little bit of seeking to unearth anything worth reading. However, if the fiend does take the time to scrape under the surface it can be a worthwhile sometimes life changing experience. Added to this is the fact that poetry can be read fast, a collection easily read in under an hour, and in an age where time is precious poetry should have a far higher profile than is currently does. 

What makes a good poem and what distinguishes it from simply being a few sentences of prose cut into tiny lines?

I think a good poem should leave a lasting imprint on the brain. It has to have one or more killer lines that the reader will not be able to easily forget. Where are the Rebels is a good example, not necessarily the poem but at the very least the title. People might say that anyone can do that, write a line that sticks in the readers mind for years afterward. My answer to that is go on then. Byron's So, We’ll Go No More a Roving; Keats’s La Belle Dames San Merci; Burns’ A Red, Red Rose; Bukowski’s The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hill’s; Li Po’s A Quiet Night Thought; these are all classic examples of what I mean, but there are thousands of others. One of my personal fav’s is Baudelaire’s To A Creole Lady. The line – “Under a canopy of crimson trees” - is unforgettable. Also Swinburn’s Love and Sleep, Bukowski’s I Saw A Tramp Last Night, etc, etc...Keep digging fiends.

One of your earlier collections, you mentioned then, was Where Are The Rebels?, now you're asking where is the rag and bone man, the egg man, the pools man and the Hofmeister Bear. Are you going soft on us?

If anything my life philosophy is hardening. At the moment I’m going through an extreme anti-work phase. I read an essay by US anarchist, Bob Black, the gist of which rails at employment in all forms. Subsequently my latest novel is about work and the misery it creates. Of course I’m sure some work is very rewarding, like say the work of a marine biologist, or a classical conductor, but for the rest of us work is at best tolerable and at worse mind-numbing pointlessness. Unfortunately for those of us, the majority, the only option to being a wage slave is starving to death in the gutter.

And the rebels? Are you still searching for them?

I’m still wondering where they are, for they have to be out there somewhere. At the present time, however, I don’t see many. Life is short, enjoy it while you can. Get drunk, take drugs, be promiscuous, don’t work too hard, go dancing. Retain your inner child. Life makes people hard and they begin to take things way too seriously. Most jobs are utter nonsense so treat them as such.

Your books are published as limited editions by small independent publishers like Blackheath Books and Kilmog Press. They're lovingly and carefully produced; not least Jago with illustrations by your cousin Martin Ridgwell. When will we be able to buy your books at train stations and airports?

I’ve been fortunate enough to be published by a handful of maverick publishers who all produce beautiful artisan craft books. These are books you will never see for sale at train stations or airports. Sometimes I ruminate on why the mainstream has consistently rejected my highly stylised Cockney capers until it is pointed out to me that I never submit my work to any mainstream publishers. Maybe I’ll start doing that and discover that I’m discovered and shortly after this discovery my books, no longer beautiful, but mass produced pulp, will appear for sale in train stations and airports. Realistically though, I fear that I’m going to have to die a tragic death before anyone outside a select circle of sordid lit fiends, takes notice of what I’ve been trying to do for the last fifteen years. 

One of those “sordid lit fiends”, Joe England, editor of litzine PUSH, gives you much credit in encouraging him to launch his mag, to which you contribute each issue. What is your role?

My role, if I had a role, was very small. Mister England got in touch and mentioned that he was thinking of starting a litzine. He then asked what I thought of such an idea. My response was to tell him to, ‘Just go and do it,’ which he took on board and within a couple of weeks the phenomenon that is now Europe’s best-selling litzine was born.

How important in a digital age is it for writers to have their work available in a physical format?

I think it is more important than ever for writers to have their work available in a physical format. I mean, what if we run out of electricity? Where would all those tech geeks be then? Sometimes you have to see the bigger picture and avoid a herd mentality, which is what most people working in today’s media are unable to do.

What kind of soiree have you planned to launch A Child Of The Jago?

No soiree Monkey, this is going to be what can only be described as “a do”. It might bankrupt me financially, but I believe that when embarking on such things, you might as well do them with a bit of style. The evening will feature Joe England, Tim Wells, Pepe Arroyo, Michael Keenaghan and Martin Ridgwell. Alongside readings there will be an art exhibition, book and art sales, and music supplied by Lord Monkey Picks and His Super Sounds. There will also be films of old vaudeville acts and some adult cabaret.  No minors allowed. Canape sized pie and mash, jellied eels, cockles, whelks and winkles from Manze’s Pie and Mash Shop also provided. If anyone reading this is interested the shindig will be held from 7pm on the 20th March 2014 at Orford House Social Club, Walthamstow, E17. 

A Child Of The Jago by Joseph Ridgwell is published by Kilmog Press.  

For more Ridgwell antics see Lost Elation.

KEEP ON PUSHING: PUSH NINE HITS THE STREETS

Last March I wrote about the launch of litzine PUSH, edited by West Ham United sufferer Joe England. Since then the issues have appeared quicker than Andy Carroll at the bar and vanished faster than Rio Ferdinand at a drugs test. Produced as strictly limited editions they’ve sold up almost immediately via England hawking them outside the Boleyn and to an eager mob of postal purchasers. There are no back copies to be found of a now collectable series.

Issue nine is out now with an increased print run, so if you look lively there may yet be time to bag a copy. And you should, it’s very good. A stable line-up of regular contributors – including England, Joseph Ridgwell, Michael Keenaghan and Carlton Burns – lay the foundations with a blend of literary tough tackling and deft poetic touches. They’re supplemented this time by a couple of familiar renegades and mavericks: Dan Fante and Adelle Stripe. A natter with Primal Scream biographer, Sham 69 narrator and street-smart factotum, Grant Fleming, provides accompaniment to the half-time pint.

Sixty pages bristling with sex, drugs and punk rock ‘n’ roll. And Trevor Brooking. Sign up here. 

"I'LL BREAK EVERY ONE OF JOHN COOPER CLARKE'S FINGERS". - U.V. RAY TALKS TO MONKEY PICKS

In a crowd of pretenders adopting the pose of outsider-chic, u.v. ray is the real deal. Published across the tracks from the literary chattering classes for 20 years, his new book We Are Glass features seventeen short stories that demand attention; grabbing the balls and nailing them to the nearest bar stool. u.v. ray picks up the baton for the underdog, the junky, the freak, the weirdo and the whore, forcing the reader to glimpse the unforgiving brutality of life through their fingers. It’s a bruising encounter yet it flickers with compassion and is the best short story collection I’ve read since Dan Fante’s Corksucker back in 2005.

Monkey Picks unscrewed a bottle with u.v. 

Who are you? Explain yourself.

Take away the writing and I don’t know who I am. Without the writing I have no identity.  The rest of my life exists only in the background to my writing. I don’t believe I will live a long life because soon I won’t have anything left to give the world. And I think people fade away when they don’t have anything left to give. I never felt part of anything. I have always lived in emotional and psychological isolation. It seems natural that neither am I part of any literary clique. I stand apart from them. I have no desire for literary camaraderie or to amass awards. My work is an act of suicide, as if I have written it in my own blood. It is born of the scars I have amassed in life. And I have scars all over me.

But I have changed my views vastly over the last couple of years. I consider myself a pacifist these days. I do not advocate violence. Live and let live, that’s what I say. There is only one thorn in my flesh. John Cooper Clarke. He’s not a punk poet; he’s the Cliff Richard of the poetry world and if he comes near me I’ll break every one of his fingers.

What is We Are Glass?

We Are Glass essentially explores alienation and neurosis in the lives of people living in the city. I don’t hold with this bullshit that a story should have a beginning, middle and an end – all tied up neatly with a bow. At least not in the contrived, conventional sense. I have no time for that sort of contrived, two-dimensional fiction.

Fuck those post-modernist airy-fairy literary types with their PHDs. Most of them know all there is to know about technique; and they harp on about form and contrast all the time – but they can’t write for shit. More now than ever we need writers willing to take matters back into their own hands. Right now is where we create our own history. For how long are people willing to sit back and let these pretentious ponces – those I refer to as the Frilly Knickers Brigade - peddle their crapola in the literary market place? We don’t need creative writing tutors. I award myself the title of Dr. I do not believe in being a lily-livered, panty-waisted pussy. I do not seek their approval or camaraderie. I exhale whisky fumes and write fast and write hard. All the way through. Hammer the bastard into submission with scant regard for plot or reason. That is my method.

Everything is too sanitised now. It’s a symptom of society. And writers, once the last bastion of rebellion, have followed like little lapdogs. I think governments and corporations are close to victory, it is the rout of civilisation as I understand it. All passion and creativity is being stamped out in their vituperative pursuit of a socially engineered populace. These days people are happy to look to corporations and buy their identities off the peg. Such is the reason for the title of the story in We Are Glass – Where Are the Assassins? I am not really referring to killers; I am talking about those who assassinate mediocre thought. There can be no profit in aligning one’s self with a society that has become clinical and soulless. The stories aren’t just dark, they are as black as black. I’m not pretending to be something. My work is a direct result of my inability to find acceptance amongst humanity. And this is not to make myself appear interesting to others. I have experienced alienation to the point that it is painful, I have therefore retreated into my own work. All I’ve done is turn that alienation into characters in stories. Author Richard Godwin called We Are Glass: A dark, suggestive rebellion, a challenge to the status quo. That is what I hope We Are Glass is.

Kids growing up wanting to be footballers or pop stars, not writers. What went wrong?

Well, there is nothing wrong with wanting to be a footballer. Football is modern theatre for the working classes. The emotion involved for fans is unbelievable. I have nothing against that. I’d love it. As I have said many times, if I were a footballer my goal celebration would be to run up and stand before the opposing fans, thrusting my crotch at them in a sexual manner with my tongue hanging out.

Pop stars gyrate suggestively, nigh on naked, for the entertainment of screaming thirteen year olds. Let’s not fucking go there.

How'd you rate your chances against Henry Chinaski in a fight?

If I got him on an empty stomach I would be in with a chance. But if he’d eaten a sandwich... that might be a different kettle of fish.

What happened to The Queen Mother Slags? I'd like to see them. Reckon they might reform?

The drummer, Guss – aka Mister Magoo – popped his clogs of a drugs overdose. The band never really got off the ground in the first place and there was no future for us after that. But that’s ok because you know what? I have no ambitions to do anything at all. I spent a good two decades in a drug and alcohol induced haze and I’m proud of it.

We Are Glass by u.v. ray is published by Murder Slim Press and available here.

u.v. ray is also featured in the issue two of PUSH litzine alongside Joe England, Joseph Ridgwell, Michael Keenaghan and others. For further details try Joe England Books.

THE NEW WORD ON THE STREET: PUSH – ISSUE ONE

New literary fanzine PUSH might better be called KICK or WHACK such is the impact of its writing. Across 42 simply presented pages it features previously unknown writers like Jeff North, Carlton Burns, Ian Scanlon and some character Dirty Boozy Bastard, alongside names familiar to followers of the underground lit scene: Joseph Ridgwell, Michael Kennaghan, That Petrol Emotion’s Raymond Gorman and editor Joe England.

Sold at a giveaway price of £1.50 on the streets, outside football grounds and at gigs, the uncompromising prose isn’t for the faint hearted. Amalgamating pop culture, drug paranoia, rushed sex, football hooligans, and the threat of violence, it is just one glance away from a character in a John King novel. In the way football matches offer a valve to release pressure and tension, these writers hammer their words. By way of balance, the poems offer quieter contemplation and snatches of respite from the onslaught of tough fiction. I asked Joe England about his inspiration for launching a new mag.  

“I suppose PUSH had its origins for me when I recently discovered the wonderful world of the small press, firstly through Blackheath Books which I found out about through back-reading Monkey Picks, and then other doors opened up courtesy of Joseph Ridgwell. I love the whole approach of the small press, the limited print runs and the amazing quality in look and writing. I have a great appreciation of online litzine’s like Melissa Mann’s Beat The Dust, but online/e-reading just isn’t the same as holding a publication in your hands. Same reason why the experience of vinyl still cannot be beaten. What kicked this in motion was four weeks ago when I managed to get my hands on an issue of Kevin Williamson’s Rebel Inc. mag from 1993 and in an email conversation I mentioned to Joseph Ridgwell how the world needs a street lit fanzine right now as much as it did back then. ‘Do one then’, he said and within three weeks I was selling PUSH on the street and posting it to various parts of England, Ireland, Scotland, Sweden and Germany. At a football match the other week, witnessing a complete stranger engrossed in issue one was mind-blowing. If the same chap was reading a PDF file of PUSH on a Kindle the impact would have been soul-burning.”

Such is England’s rush of enthusiasm that issue two is already nearing completion. These things tend to succeed or fail on the strength of their editor. Despite making his name and being championed by the small press, Charles Bukowski constantly bitched against them in his letters, claiming they only lasted a couple of decent issues until editors lost their bite and accepted poor quality submissions from their mates or famous poets (even himself). If PUSH can keep the standard of its first issue (Keenaghan’s “Bent” is worth the cover price alone) there’ll be no complaints here and besides, it’s a heck of a lot better than reading the excuses from Sam Allardyce or Harry Redknapp in the match day programme.

Contact pushmag@email.com for ordering details or visit Joe England Books.

West Ham United legend Julian Dicks models PUSH.