Ifyou're looking for something cosy, serene and easy on the ears, then every last Tuesday of the month in the relaxed setting of The Maze (Mansfield Road) The Last Tuesday Café brings you live poetry readings from Nottingham's very own DIY Poets, sandwiched by live jazz from Engine W Fader, as well as solo acoustic performances by some of Nottingham's lesser known artists.
As well as Engine W Fader, who's years of funky alternative jazz in Northern Ireland has led to 3 DIY albums, an Organic Award, a TV advert and gigs around Europe, The Last Tuesday Café is just another one of their many projects and is certainly the most regular, it's a night like no other in the city, plus it's free entry every month! So come along and be wined and rhymed.
From working in a volunteer DIY centre in Belfast, Engine W Fader's founding members Jani and Olli have come to Nottingham to see what they can create on the scene here.
Interview
Gaz – Tell people a bit about the idea of Jazz Cafe?
Jani – Well it is really a mishmash of ideas, music, poetry and a chance to give people a place to show their stuff. So it mixes Poetry from some local poets and the D.I.Y poets (who have a free little magazine) and some chilled music.
Oli – Thats why we do it on a Tuesday at The Maze as it has a nice relaxed atmosphere, if you want to go up market or party then you do it at the weekend. The music is normally quite chilled and people can really listen to it and check out the poetry too which is really good.
Jani – Like tonight we have the D.I.Y poets doing a few readings, Shaun Belcher, Engine W Fader (E.W.F) and The Mindless Raskal but it changes each week with different poetry and bands.
Gaz – Tell us about E.W.F and the history of that?
Jani – E.W.F, we have been doing forever but in this form about a year, and this current incarnation is a 3 piece Jazz version, which is very chilled and cool.
Oli – We have had 4 different versions of the band in the past since we started back in Belfast. two where E.W.F and 2 Engine W Faders, we have had different members with me and Jani and we have changed style too. E.W.F is whatever you want it to be really, Engine W Fader or Every Woman's Fantasy or whatever you want to make of it!
Gaz – Tell us about the gigs you run and the work you do both here in Nottingham now and in the past, how has it all progressed?
Jani – It hasn't progressed as fast as I'd like really but I am impatient! We did a night called Emmaculate Friday and we will being do another soon, that is sort of Djs and E.W.F and a dance artist called Pinky and some visual artists and Djs. Some were experience but some it was there first proper set and they had only played in a bed room before! It was a good mix…
Oli – There was some pop stuff, drum and bass, jazz, funky tunes, Pinky doing her thing with her dancing to R n B and the visual trippy stuff so it was an interesting night we hope.
Jani – We will do it again but a little different but i sort of just wait til I feel it is time for it to come, all the feedback we had from it was really positive and people have emailed asking when we are doing another so we will soon. We didn't make any money but we had a great laugh, handing out ice creams and doing the venue up!
Oli – We don't plan things to much, the Jazz Cafe is the first regular thing which is every last tuesday of the month but we like to have these ideas and do it when we feel the time is right. So we do something and it goes well and then wait a few months and people start hassling you to do it again so we go..errrrmmm ahh okay and do another night! At the moment we are getting pressure to do another Emmaculate Friday so we will do that again probably early December.
Jani – We will mix it up again, getting some new, less experienced people and some more experience people involved and hopefully putting on something a bit different.
Oli- It is great seeing people mixing styles and experience and having a good time and just going with that so it can be a risk, putting people on who haven't played before or you haven't seen before but normally we know just by talking to people if we get on with them that they will try there hardest and pull off a good show! It gives people a chance to shine and in a way that is why we mix so many styles and acts, we also split it up so people do one short set then something else happens and they come back later to do more so it stays fresh and is always changing to keep people interested too. Some times you get a band play for an hour and if it isn't to someone's taste you can loose that person but if you keep it moving and changing quick you keep people's attention I think, as long as you manager the stage well then it keeps flowing round.
Jani – The other project we are working on at the moment is with young kids, we haven't finished or performed it yet but we want to give kids a chance to perform.
Oli – We are working in an old folks home, making a rap with some of the old folks and also some young kids rapping over the top. I did the music and the kids wrote their lyrics and rap over the top and the old folks are singing and help write the words too and so I might get them to come to a night and perform that once it is finished, you'll have 15 year olds and 70 year olds on the same stage doing a rap together!
Jani – It has been a great project to do, a lot of these kids were getting involved in gangs and things and had got sick of the life that went with rapping and hip hop but working together with these old folks, away from that scene I think has given them a aim and they have found a new scene and also met people they'd not normally meet or work with and I think it has given both the kids and the old folks a new respect for each other, it has been a really nice project to do.
Oli – The main rapper is called Mini T and I recorded a few E.Ps for him but then he got into all this gang stuff and was getting in to trouble and fights so he just stepped out of it all and stopped and said 'Thats it I ain't spitting no more' and he didn't do anything for 3 or 4 months but he is really good. Then I got him to help with this project and he was really happy to be doing it again as long as it doesn't lead him in to the whole gang culture like before.
Gaz – Tell is about other things you've done in the past in belfast before Nottingham and your future plans, or is it all pretty spontaneous?
Oli – It is all pretty spontaneous! Rather than planning our life out we just get a good idea and then work on doing it, then once it is done get another idea and do that so it often does just happen.
Jani – We wont be here to much longer not next year, we are off to Italy and France to play with E.W.F.
Oli – We like away day trips! We don't get paid for it but we just meet new people and have fun. It all started in belfast, we both worked in D.I.Y centers, running studios, running the cafe and venue and we just met loads of people who were doing music and art for no pay, no fame just because they loved doing it and we put out our fingers and started a thing called Eurockzic with a group of friends across europe, in Italy and the Czech Republic, who were working on the same D.I.Y ethos. We started doing gig swaps with their bands coming to us and playing and we got to go to Italy and Czech and play gigs so you'd pay your flights and they would pick you up, feed you, get you some gigs and then you go back home again.
Jani – It is a great way to make new friends and play to new people and have loads of fun, using internet to communicate helps and do it off your own backs.
Oli – We started it because a another arts organisation in Belfast had the contact in France but didn't want to do the music side so we jumped in and started making the contacts and it just grew from there. Belfast had a pretty good D.I.Y scene and we knew people who had squats all round europe and bands because of it. So the communities already were there but it was based mostly around a lot of punk music and lots of hardcore sort of stuff so we changed that a bit as with our music and ideas you can go to that level but we like our jazz and blues as well as our punk so we had to discover another scene to bring that into. Even now though we play punk festivals with our jazz music cause once your in that scene you know you can sort of slip in and play and people do like in, they have fun watching us idiots playing our silly jazz! They all romantically dance round the floor you know?!?! Before going mad to the punk and metal later!
Jani – I'd like to do a festival in Nottingham sometime with a mix of musical styles, visual arts, Djs and dancing.
Oli – Yeah, just keep it snappy!
Gaz – How have you found Nottingham to work with?
Oli – We like The Maze! We find you need a venue to work with, who are on a level with you and will give you freedom to try your ideas without asking for permission to put something different on. We found the guys at The Maze are very open to trying different things and giving us freedom as well as working with us to put on original nights. It makes it easier than breaking into a closed scene when you first come to a city if you have people who are willing to give people a chance and try something new.
Jani – I think in Nottingham you have to look for the good music and it is about knowing where to look or you get the same and the same you know? If you go to some places it is the same stuff all the time, the same bands and styles and no-one new gets a real chance, that makes a stale scene but there is some great stuff here when you look hard enough.
Oli – I was surprised you know, coming from Belfast I thought Nottingham would have loads going on and it would be well advertised and in your face but it seemed livelier in little Northern Ireland than Nottingham sometimes! Then maybe we haven't looked enough but you didn't have to look to much in Belfast. We used to just hire the centre of Belfast, the band stand in the city centre and put bands on, you just phone the council and say we want it on this day and that it, put a P.A in, £20 to the council, get a band, do a poster and people watched until they turn the electric off and then we got a guy with a pedal power generator and people took it in turns to power the P.A in to the night and the music went on! You did it yourself, no major police presents, no health and safety checks just the community getting together and organising music and art! The music there was very visible. I thought England would have more of that but it seems quite closed. Last summer was our first summer here and at first we were like wow, festivals in the arboretum every weekend, thats great but then we went along this year and thought…oh that's the same as last year. It might be a different band but it is the same people running those events and the same styles, it doesn't seem as diverse as I thought it would be.
Steph – Your right though, the scene is hidden from the general public you can only find that diversity when you really look for it and all the major events are the same really.
Oli – People don't want to go out which I find amazing! When we first got here we thought we'd go to the pub so in traditional Belfast way we got to the pub at 10.30pm, we got there and everyone was going home! We were like 'Where's the party?' But there wasn't one…the amount of people you tell about the Jazz Cafe or Emmaculate Friday and we say come out, it is FREE and they say yeah I'd like to, I am not doing anything so maybe…erm…but I have to watch Eastenders or Coronation Street! The community does seem as sociable as I would have thought. You don't talk to people on the street as much too, there is a lack of banter! I feel like we are slagging it off! It is not all bad though, what you guys do is good and D.I.Y poets and there are things going on.
Jani – You stumble across some great things, it is just sad that it isn't seen more and that the mass of the community doesn't get involved.
Steph – Okay, It is good to have people say it how it is and not shy away from that though! We agree with you completely! Finally shout outs, any thank yous, Big anyone up?
Oli – Big up to the D.I.Y poets, Victor our drummer and massive Big up to The Maze, Ben and Ed have been so great and everyone else there!
Jani – Pinky, Nick Wright, Naz Tanbouli, everyone who played Emmaculate Friday and has played or done readings at Jazz Cafe.
Oli – Big up to Squadrons and the young rappers and old folks!
