Andy Rowe
Conversations and writing
Articles below are part of an ongoing series being written for the Sunday Tribune about people involved in the experimental art and music scene in London
Get in touch if you are interested in having a bit of writing done for your publication or something
"Even though there’s plenty going on all around and inside that can ordinarily serve to knock me off course and bring on bad feelings and suchlike, I get feelings of calm and continuity when I return to the maintaining of the writing about people that I know well or know a bit or don’t know but by meeting them I begin to know them more. I’ve written about more than twenty people now and have found that I’m mainly attracted to the sheer variety of art stuff that I have found that they do. And their ideas and backgrounds and thought processes that go on while this covid nonsense continues."
"London is a pretty big place but I guess that’s a relative question and it’s only big when compared to small things and it’s small as well when compared to other things that are really massive. To me anyway it felt a bit bigger than I normally regard it as because I took the underground travel machines over to the west London area to see Martin Lau and to talk about stuff with him from socially distanced separate areas in a park. I wore double masks while under the ground to keep away the fear. "
"The world has sort of definitely been kind of sort of maybe a bit different for what seems like a long time now, though I have troubles measuring that as for some people it is long and for some people it is short as you get different perspectives at different times when you are alive. By saying that I then realise that I’m really deflecting myself from admitting that it actually is different and has been like that for many people for a long time."
"I was having some thinking morose about my lack of visits to art exhibitions and events and suchlike during this virus time since February when it started and I know that there’s been some of the online replacements going on and I’ve seen some of them here and there but I also had information circling around me that there were a few going on in the real world outside of my computer screen and that some were big and some were smaller."
"When I sat down and started to write this word thing about Rick Jensen I didn’t really need to ponder long about how to start with the introduction as I’d already had a brilliant idea about how to do it and he’d already supplied me with the answer anyway. So it was him who was the catalyst of my brilliant idea because when I’d contacted him and said words like do you want to meet up for an article talk and he’d said yes and we’d arranged a time and then in the meantime between then and the meeting happening, a clarinet had come into my life but I didn’t know how to work it and I’d informed all and sundry about it on the social medias."
"I didn’t want to start another article by again giving details of how I know a certain person and all the rigmaroles I apparently went through to contact them and arrange a meeting, but my mind goes into a kind of non-beeping flatline when trying to come up with a new type of introduction to the person article subject."
"I got invited by the FB method of invites to an outdoor gathering what was round the corner from where I live so it was convenient to go in that respect but it was also convenient because I wasn’t doing anything at the time when it was on so I went to it. It was an outdoor gathering ceremony ritual thing and the weather decided to be ok too so that was another factor that made me go out of my home into the world to see it."
"I started to write this by first spending considerable time just sitting in front of the keyboard and screen thing and puzzled over how I could start an introduction to the article as I had prior experience of not trying to force it and that I should just wait until the words started to form in my head and when they did then I should be ready and eager to grab them and write them down quick before they disappear."
Moving images and still images with Charlotte Hendy
"My mind goes off and off on tangents during the thirty five degree heat of now and assesses where I am with people that I been talking to and it made a list of properties of what they do and have done and I found out with a massive pounding realisation that most of them have an affinity for using sound in their practice. Well, mostly sound I guess. No, not guess, I mean sound I believe and assert. But not really many of predominant use of images."
Complementary video and sound with L’Aubaine
"I did an interview article thing last week with a person who has an interest in film and cinema and corresponding visual arts and the consequences of talking with that person was that I gained an elevated interest in those film pictures and all that visual stuff. The film interest remained bubbling around in my regular thoughts and it influenced the decisions I made when I was thinking about who I could talk with next about our lockdown times."
Creating things with Phillip Raymond Goodman
"Headthoughts that made it appropriate to contact Phillip Raymond Goodman for talking at this current time were the fact that I felt that we’d been kind of spinning around in an orbit on the social media and also beforehand in the real life concert and performance attendances but never and not quite intersecting and crossing paths much apart from a hello of occasionally and I can’t quite figure out when but it did happen."
Sounds and paint and writing with Jude Cowan Montague
"Jude Cowan Montague is the person that first asked me if I’d like to write some articles on people that I know in the local experimental music and art and sound scene in mainly the area of London that I currently find myself existing in as well as possible considering the corona infringements. I figure there must have been considerable trust involved or faith or thoughts of something along the lines of well I’ll let him have a go and if he’s no good then I’ll tell him to stop."
Emerging from lockdowns with Emilie Newman
"I came to writing this article about Émilie without really wanting to do an introduction first as I’d seen some of her work prior to this and I became so enthusiastic about it that I just thought I don’t really want to do an intro thing, I just want to get on with talking about Émilie and her work and her lockdown stuff but then I thought no you should do an introduction thing first like usual as even though you know her maybe other people don’t and you’ve done introductions for other people in your previous articles so at least try and stick to a standard. I think introductions are necessary really anyway for accurate beginnings."
Sound making and sound mental health with Robbie Judkins
"I didn’t really know Robbie Judkins when I first saw him play as his Left Hand Cuts Off The Right (LHCOTR) project. It was at New River Studios, so many years ago that I can only approximate the time and say plenty. Maybe ten years or something but I’m still guessing. And now I think it’s inaccurate to say I didn’t really know him, because I bought one of the tapes he was selling afterwards and just said yeah cheers. I think I would have used some more conversation if I knew him a bit, so I’ll say I didn’t actually know him, as when I think about it, that’s a more accurate word for describing if I knew him or not. "
Walking then sitting down with Gardyloo SPeW
"I did a contact communication with Gardyloo SPeW because the name kept being prevalent and noticed by me in my social media things that I use although mainly the blue coloured one. It made me aware that she knows people that I know as well and I then also recalled how perhaps periodically we’d actually met in the real life social arena of the experimental music performance scene but I don’t remember speaking much or we might have said hi or something similarly smalltalk or maybe not. My memory gets cloudy easy so I asked to meet and talk to make it not cloudy."
Low frequency talking with Andy Page
"I wanted to write an article about sound artist Raxil4, sometimes known as Andy Page and to get it started I figured I’d best do an introduction that detailed where or how we first met. I realized I could still write an article even if I didn’t know him personally but I already knew him so stopped realizing that and moved on to remembering that we first met at a Soundfjordevent up in Seven Sisters round about 2008. It was a small performance sound show and tell event that also involved talking to each other and drinking things."
Balancing masks and livestreams with Jasmine Pender
"While the lockdown thing has been going on I been finding entertainment and solace in what other people that I know have been doing with their time, either in an artistic capacity or just in a capacity that keeps your mind occupied and the darkness at bay until another idea for an activity comes along and makes you busy again. But mostly the art and music stuff and as such I’d noticed that Jasmine Pender had branched further out into the arena of facial attire that she’s explored before with deep listening eye masks that were made to drown out your eyes while listening to her Rotten Bliss project."
Talking twice with Tigersonic
"I’ve become acquainted with Felix Tigersonic via my useful method of saying hello at social gatherings involving like-minded musician shaped artists making sounds for each other and for occasional members of the unsuspecting public. We seen ourselves most often at the similar events of Linear Obsessional and Scaledown. Maybe at Hundred Years Gallery but I’m not sure I’ve played or she played or we both played or we both watched others play. I can’t remember anyway. "
A true story interview with Sam Enthoven
"Sam Enthoven is another person involved in the London experimental music and arts scene that lockdown lately has deprived me of periodically meeting and so I used this article writing exercise as a reason to contact him with ideas of comparing his recent experiences with mine and finding if we have travelled common routes lately. I used the social medias for the contact and subsequent discussions."
Talking with Alex Monk two metres apart in real life
"I’ve known psyche folk musician Alex Monk for about 15 years but I don’t know why I consider that to be relevant. I needed a sentence to write as an introduction to this piece of writing derived from communicating with Alex and that first sentence seemed to serve that purpose. I may delete it if during the course of writing the piece I find something else that is preferable but I also might forget and just leave it in."
Harmergeddon in my room – Livestream thoughts
"I contacted audio visual performance art duo Harmergeddon using a common internet messenger service and asked them some questions on the subject of livestream performance which they responded to. I then felt able to write this article with Harmergeddon lockdown livestream quotes interspersed with my thoughts after watching a live performance of theirs on the internet in my home."
The slate pipe banjo draggers – thoughts on finding ideas in lockdown confines
"I’ve been spending a lot of time staring into space, or actually I’ve been thinking about staring into space, when I’ve actually just been doing something else. Something more constructive. Although I’m not saying that staring into space isn’t constructive, it has a time and a place. Especially now, in these times since the lockdown began. I thought, or the thought appeared to me, I didn’t have the thought, or I didn’t make it occur. It was just there and I noticed it. "