How To Do Long Division

Long Division is now well on its way. If you've not already, head over to www.longdivisionfestival.co.uk to find out more about our festival. We've been making a series of Vlogs covering its progress. Here are the first 3 parts:

Rhubarb Bomb is proud to announce 'Long Division' a brand new festival taking place in the city of Wakefield in the summer.

Created in partnership with Wakefield Venue 'The Hop', it will run over the weekend of June 10th -12th. The main event will be on the saturday, which will be a multi venue all dayer where you can switch your ticket for a wristband and wander between the venues at your leisure.

Check out the official website : www.longdivisionfestival.co.uk

There you can find links to the Facebook / Twitter / YouTube etc that will keep you updated on what's going on.

Many Thanks x

Zoey Van Goey VLOG

We were lucky enough to be able to make our way up to Glasgow (one of favourite cities) to see Zoey Van Goey launch their brand new (obviously...) record - 'Propeller Versus Wings'. They were supported by Malcolm Middleton - as Human Don't Be Angry and a choir called The Sirens of Titan. But why am i bothering typing all this? Just watch it!

Podcast Special

The new Rhubarb Bomb Podcast is now available to download

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/rhubarb-bomb/id381555466

It could be described as a 'special' as opposed to the regular episodes as we have based it around the almost obsolete idea of the B-Side, instead of the usual collection of newer records we've come across. I was joined in the studio by Tim Metcalfe of St Gregory Orange and together we searched through our record collections, picking out and playing our favourite B-Sides and talking inanely in the gaps inbetween. Its a pretty eclectic mix, but we hope you will enjoy it.

We were also lucky enough to have Tim perform a live acoustic version of a new song from the forthcoming St Greg album which can be found amongst all the mutterings. It's rather good. And maybe, one day, it'll be worth something...

Farewell 2010

2010 is finished. How does a year look in your mind? I see it as a circle, a clockface. It’s past midnight now, and the whole sorry state begins again – round and round we go, just a little bit faster than before.

Looking back at the physical issues we have created this year brings home how much RB has progressed. Issue zero – our ‘year zero’ - was released at the tail end of 2009 (and for completions sake will be included in this ‘end of year’ roundup) with our latest, Issue 1.4 being released at the start of Dec 2010. A huge amount of credit must go to Adam Hayward, our little design genius, for helping to give RB its own style and much more impact. From my perspective I have enjoyed the free reign of running a free fanzine; with no one to answer to and no profits to desperately raise, I am able to cover anything I want – the interesting stories, not the ones that will sell advertising space. And of course, I must thank our rotating stock of contributors who all add their own distinctive voice to the magazine. My special thanks to Melissa Greaves, David Cooper and Andrew Whittaker who have contributed to every single issue. Respect.

Highlight of the year for myself has to be interviewing Mark E Smith on the back steps of Balne Lane Working Mens club. Nervous doesn’t come close; I get nervous interviewing anyone I haven’t met before, let alone someone with a reputation of being a bit of a bastard to most people, especially journalists. Apprehensive – absolutely. People often quote to me the old one about meeting your heroes. I’m really not one for hero worship, but some have come pretty damn close this year. With Mark though, I wouldn’t quite go that far. It’s only this year that I’ve started buying Fall albums, so it was more of a developing interest. In fact I owned more Fall books than records. But I was aware of his ‘legend’ so to speak and I think my actual lack of wonder, but incredible curiosity and respect helped that interview work. He was high spirited, though also very forgetful. Essentially he had been drinking for a few hours and – brilliantly for me – was at the chatty, ‘matey’ stage and happy to talk about allsorts whilst being very prone to go off on a tangent. He was funny, and had an infectious, ‘evil’ cackle employed often whilst telling his stories. What struck me most was a comparison with a story Peter Hook had told in his live show about meeting Johnny Rotten. It was just the two of them in a room together and John was still ‘being’ Johnny, despite there being no audience to witness it; angry, twitchy, spitting everywhere. Hooky realised that’s who he was 24/7 – he lived it. And I had wondered that with Mark. I was sure the whole thing wasn’t an ‘act’ but I wondered if the live shows and the albums, the ‘Fall’ side of life was something he had to work himself up to, but I’m so happy to report that’s just the way he is. Confusing, contradictory, yes, but genuine to the end and very entertaining – it was a pleasure to meet him and that the interview felt more like an informal slightly drunken conversation in a pub, with plenty of laughs, made it even better.

Elsewhere, I’ve been really pleased with the sheer variety of people we have spoken to. Yes, they all fall somewhere around the word ‘Indie’, but as we’ve tried to push this year, it’s a tag that ties to many different people, not just a genre. The Cribs (my first ever interview) were passionate and forward looking, excited to be on the brink of releasing their first album with Johnny Marr. Malcolm Middleton was quiet but surprisingly open when talking about Arab Strap, also showing a dark, self-depreciating humour that was so dark I’m still not sure if it was humour or not. Richard Herring was inspirational in his dissection of his career, the heartening realisation that he was glad he’d not had a massive career in the spotlight because it had given him much greater freedom. The Pains of Being Pure At Heart name dropped a million bands that I’d never heard of but ended up broadening my musical horizons greatly. They also showed that though they are from New York, we’re all really not that different. Luke Haines was smart, talkative, insightful and surprisingly, after reading his book ‘Bad Vibes’, humble, though it was pleasing that he still refers to Damon Albarn as a ‘cunt’. Philophobia Music leader Rob Dee spoke to us way back at the end of 2009 and its particularly pleasing that not only have his plans actually come to fruition, but that Philophobia has continued to develop into a genuinely brilliant record label releasing consistently great records. Elizabeth of Allo Darlin’ was charming and a lovely mix of down to earth and rawly ambitious. In particular I found her descriptions of a international network of Indie folk exciting, giving hope to us all (especially in Wakefield). Slow Club were sweet and accommodating, especially since I cornered them back stage at Indietracks after a day on the booze. I’ve been so pleased that Rhubarb Bomb’s year of wider exposure has tied in with Standard Fare’s; they released one of our favourite albums of the year, whilst bookending 2010 with gigs in Wakefield – a small one for our launch night in Feb and a fantastic night supporting Allo Darlin at the end of the year, plus our favourite fest of the year – Indietracks – also hosting them. And they are genuinely lovely people, their quiet but defined ambition being especially infectious. It was great to speak to The Lodger, one of favourite bands from back in the day and I loved the desire there to try things new and different. Runaround Kids seemed to pop up in almost every issue, so it’s a good job they’ve warranted our support by turning out a brilliant year, with a great single backing up loads of fantastic gigs, including Leeds Festival. Piskie Sits, another Wakefield band turning up all over this year’s issues have also been flying the flag high for local music and equally have an exciting time ahead. Our interview with Greenmount Studios (i.e. Jamie Lockhart of Mi Mye and Lee Smith of Middleman) was a particular pleasure for me, those guys giving me a great insight into production with a mind bending mix of over the head technical know how and childlike excitement and wonder. Tim Metcalfe of St Gregory Orange inadvertently provided me with a whole interview when I asked him, during a podcast, ‘how’s the new album going’. The resulting answer was eventually cut down to two pages of text and we continue to wait for its arrival. We caught Tiny Planets incredibly early in their life. Since then they have built on their astounding live shows and we can’t wait for their EP next year. Pulled Apart By Horses rounded of a brilliant year with their first Wakefield gig; the humility, humour and passion they displayed showed how strongly they stuck to their routes, support slots with Muse not effecting them too much. Being 747 bounded in at the last minute to talk about their bonkers approach to music / filling peoples minds with facts which, as cross medium approached go, was pretty damn cool. Finally Shrag, a genius band, were happy, opinionated and passionate – just how it should be.

And then there were the near misses. We so nearly got to speak to Peter Hook when he came to Wakefield. And likewise with Howard Marks – literally until a few hours before his show. You wonder why they agree in the first place, but I always give them the benefit of the doubt and it makes me all the more thankful and excited when people do manage to speak to us. Perhaps most crushing of all however was the interview we had lined up with Russell Senior of Pulp. For a long time I’d dreamt of ‘tracking’ down all the members of Pulp who played on my favourite record, ‘The Sisters EP’ and interviewing each of them about it, issue by issue. No mention of ‘Common People’ of the Brit Awards, just that record, because it represented the Pulp I loved, and no one seemed to be bothered about Pulp anymore. Late summer I got myself into gear, getting contacts for all the band members and decided to approach Russell first. He replied swiftly and seemed interested in the idea. He said he was busy for a few weeks, but we could meet in Sheffield after that, and that it’d be ‘worth the wait’ for a face to face interview. A few weeks later I returned from my holiday to discover Pulp had reformed, unbelievably the very Pulp line up that recorded The Sisters EP. I was worried the interview wouldn’t happen any more, but equally excited I might have a massive scoop, especially given Russell’s slightly cryptic comment. Sadly, Russell got in touch to let me know it couldn’t go ahead. He had wanted to do a few interviews with purely fanzine size press, ignoring the mainstream, but as a band they had taken the decision to do no press whatsoever. I was gutted. I was so sure it would happen I had already spent a good deal of time daydreaming of meeting Jarvis in a small Parisian café, one year down the line, as I finished by epic 5 part journey, but it sadly wasn’t to be.

But those were just the interviews. Our semi regular ‘Indie Legends’ feature has covered Jimbob, Ange Doolittle, Captain Beefheart and Arab Strap, whilst our other regular feature ‘Lost bands’ looked at FMB, McCarthy, Sixto Rodriguez, Nosferatu D2 and Pylon. Roland X has provided some interesting vitriol in his Follow The Drum column. He’s ‘faced up’ to: ‘The Vacuum of Employment’, ‘Apocolypse II: The Return of Noel Rock’, ‘Rupert Murdoch Future’, ‘The Cost of Ideology’ and ‘Celebrity Prattle / Michael McIntyre’, whilst other one off features looking at things as diverse as Our most well received, or at least commented upon, article was ‘Escobar: An Obituary’ which documented the rise and fall of the most important and divisive music venue in Wakefield over the past decade. It certainly cause a stir and resulted in us being threatened with legal action by it’s well known former owner. We didn’t bow to the threat to remove it however, and though I resist the need to publish said email here, I can only presume I didn’t hear from the lawyers due to everything in the article being completely true.

It wasn’t all about Wakefield; we went to some fantastic festivals this year too, including Rough Beats, Indietracks, Truck Festival, Live @ Leeds, Fell Foot Sound and Constellations. We got involved ourselves too, joining up with some Wakefield Record labels to take a coach full of Wakey folk to Brixton for a fantastic gig in February. We also put on an art / music hybrid crossover mashup at The Art House in Wakefield, and held a fair few launch nights too as well as curating the opening night of Leeds Fringe Festival, appearing on Phoenix FM and starting to create our own Podcasts and VLOGs.

And 2011? Well, a bigger and better magazine with an even greater variation of features and opinion pieces, a fully functioning website featuring LOADS of things, including all our reviews, meaning you don’t have to wait 3 months to see what we’ve been listening to. Also, we’re going to be putting on our own festival in Wakefield in the summer. It’s going be MASSIVE, man.

So thank you for you support, we hope you will continue to stick with us. Here’s to an exciting and productive new year.

Thanks to all the contributors: Andy Whittaker, Melissa Greaves, David Cooper, Stacey Loren, Roger Green, Chris Cooper, Matt Singleton, Harry Rhodes, Jack Winn, Dan Hayes, Stephen Vigors, Paul Bateson, Jay Lawrence, Matt Hill, Jack Falcon, Jen Singleton and uber designer, Mr Adam Hayward.

Thanks to all the advertisers: The Hop, Trad Music, Mr Mickey Thompson esqe, On The Ride Promotions, Sticky Shoes, Pebble Records, Raise The Roof, Irene Studios, Truck Festival, Geek Pie Records, Rock N Roll Circus Rehearsal Rooms, Escobar and Horsforth Modern Art

Thanks to bands who played our launch nights / gigs: Standard Fare, Tiny Planets, The Fur Blend, St Gregory Orange, Candid Squash, Jeremiah, Piskie Sits, This Many Boyfriends, The Spills, Runaround Kids, Mi Mye, Salvage My Dream, Carrie Scott Huby and Bruce Rimell.

And the lovely people at Delta Design, Morley.

Dean Freeman
Editor, Rhubarb Bomb

Piskie Sits / Godspeed VLOG

Here's our latest VLOG, a video review of the Piskie Sits EP launch at The Hop, some clips from our Cafe Rhubarb launch night at Henry Boons in Wakefield and some (lousy) footage from Godspeed you! Black Emperor at Manchester Academy. The sound is ok though and the projections look pretty cool. Enjoy!

Howards Marks @ The Hop

Like an old fashioned political rally in the upstairs of a backstreet pub, the atmosphere tonight is electric, tense... and very sweaty. The upstairs of The Hop, Wakefield is a nicely proportioned room for seeing small scale bands, but how about a character such as Marks? The anticipation (and perspiration) increases as more and more people are squashed into the room. I’d wondered beforehand if this would be a seated affair, the audience politely enjoying tales of drug smuggling / taking / history whilst chuckling and occasionally applauding. Nah. We were squashed in like cattle, awaiting the hero, the great leader, the saviour.

Which resulted in a lovely opening moment when Mr Howard Marks entered the room, not from the side of the stage, but through the same door we had all come through. Flanked by two bouncers he worked his way to the stage through the almost immovable object of the battery farm swamp of punters, some folk reaching out hoping to touch the great man. Admittedly, this whole spectacle was due to the architecture of The Hop rather than a pre-planned self aggrandising gesture, but it was pretty cool.

He settled in on stage, a couple of pints and a projector for company. The swarm of the audience added a real edge, the expectancy of what he would say, what he would do – an element of danger. Prior to his arrival, a video had run on the projector of an American news report from the 80’s of Marks’ arrest for drug smuggling, eliciting cheers and boos form the audience. It was slightly strange to now see that character before us, a gentle grey haired man, slightly startled under the spotlights.

So it was appropriate he began his talk with examining the bizarreness of how his career path led him to this point. Out of the Welsh homeland to Oxford University studying Natural Science and Physics to being the worlds biggest dope smuggler, then Ex-Con to best selling author. And finally, as he realised at his first book signing, effectively a stand up comedian.

He certainly has a way with words, a wonderful turn of phrase and a sly, knowing look that betrays the supremely intelligent man behind the bedraggled mop of grey hair and the slight stoned demeanour (actually, completely stoned “I’m so stoned I cant see” he proclaims – not his most enlightened remark!) And he is a great story teller too. The first part of his ‘lecture’ concerns his 7 year incarceration. He referred to it as being like a Sine Wave, with dips and crests. On the high points he imagined, on his release, organising the biggest shipment of the best weed Europe had ever seen. At low points he would consider going straight. But the low points didn’t last too long…




It was during these sections the audience hung on his every word, almost as if he’d JUST been released. This was the press conference where he returns to the outside world, unrepentant, with crowds of supporters cheering the fact he simply exists. Such is the warmth this man has that these feelings are still strong all these years later. I keep thinking ‘Hitler’ as I type – obviously the most inappropriate comparison - but there is something of the magnetism of the dictator about Howard Marks – the benevolent autocrat. I’m sure plenty here would vote for him (well, wave his placards, you don’t generally vote for a dictator, but they did for Hitler, so I’ll let it stand) In fact, with the Pope’s visit to England prevalent in the news, he was compared to that all powerful head of state – “You should be our pope” someone said. With only a half second of pause he replied “But the Pope’s the only one who doesn’t have to confess”. Brilliant.

Interestingly, he then moved the discussion onto the history of Tobacco. Utilising the projector he traced the story of the discovery of tobacco by the European nations. Basically, we got it wrong. There are two types of Tobacco; Nikotina Rustica and Nikotina Tobaco. The Shamens in South America got high off the Rustica. It helped improve their ‘powers’ and those guys never got cancer… or even coughed; Shamen’s that were so old ‘they don’t even know there age’ But we took the Nikotina, about 20 times less potent. And of course, nowadays the companies pump so much shit into cigarettes, it’s barely even the same substance. We got the addictive qualities without the ‘getting high’ part. Bugger!



For me, this diversion into history and politics says a lot about Marks. And it says a lot for his audience that many started talking between themselves during these sections. I think for many, the fact that Marks openly advocates smoking spliff defines him; the parts about him going to Oxford or writing a book are secondary. But for me, those are the things that elevate him above being ‘some guy that gets stoned on stage’. He’s a smart, clever, guy who, in an incredibly bizarre way, has done something with his life. Whilst by his own admission a lot of things have just fallen into his lap (“you get out of prison after 7 years with no money, nothing to your name. And some publisher offers you £50,000 to write a book… what else are you gonna do?”), it’s his attitude and intelligence that have made him who he is. I don’t see that in the people who spent most the night shouting out ‘Spliff!’ or ‘Where’s the weed?’ whilst he’s attempting to educate them with a bit of cultural history.

In fact it became a little oppressive in there. There was a large contingent of fat, angry, middle aged ‘rockers’, getting progressively agitated within the compactness of the venue. They should try being a 5ft 2 girl with a sweaty back in their face (that’s my girlfriend, not me). This strata of his followers really got to me over the course of the night. It reminded me of ‘The Holy Bible’ by the Manic Street Preachers. It’s one of my favourite ever albums and I feel I share some kind of insight with other fans of that record. But there are other certain types of people who ‘love’ that album who, in my opinion, completely miss the point – like Richey Edwards was some kind of Pete Doherty esqe fuck up who was a miserable anorexic alcoholic who happened to write lyrics in a band. No! He was a brilliant lyricist who pushed himself to the brink for his art. He didn’t sit around in a sulk and wait for something to happen. Yet the perception of the audience can actually affect how the work itself is perceived. Equally, Howard Marks wasn’t just some guy in Wales getting stoned. He achieved things. He dreamt. Drugs are a central theme in his life, tying everything together, but I don’t think that defines him. A proportion of the audience are only interested in him as some kind of counter culture figure, a voice for their anger at the governments smoking ban and Nanny state politics, just as the BNP may well be a voice for their anger at all these different coloured people walking round the streets. A ‘no one can tell us what to do, fuck everyone’ approach. The house of commons style jeering from the people around me really did resemble that kind of aggression and I found it pretty unsettling.

But as soon as he moved to more ‘right on’ topics, some of it incredibly ‘spliffy’ (like “it actually says in the Bible that God smokes a reefer” Really?) he had them back on side. It’s straw grabbing, but the audience lap it up. Preaching to the converted see. Which makes it all sound a little negative at the end, which it totally wasn’t. I tried desperately not to let the audience dictate the show for me, but since I was literally rubbing shoulders with some pretty unpleasant people, it was difficult. But Marks’ ability as a story teller is beyond doubt and in different circumstances would be a national treasure. But if that were the case would I be seeing him in such an… intimate venue?

Although I wasn’t swayed by all his arguments, I was very inspired by his passion and attitude and in different circumstances would have happily listened to him all night. The man is a legend, but I’m sure you already knew that.