radio 4 night

Posted on December 11, 2007 by zuleika

Would anyone like to tell me a bedtime story of what happened on this wonderful night?
I missed it all thanks to a cancelled train… waaah!

Perhaps you can tell it and make me feel like I was there…

Radio chap

Posted in General, Radio, Stories, Transport, weather | 2 Comments

YES! YOU CAN CAN CAN!

Posted on December 5, 2007 by richie paradise

Mid November saw the Cube Orchestra venture South of the river (kinda, if you know your geography) to Spike Island where we had been invited to play on/with a very interesting piece by Turkish Artist Can Altay. The piece is called Ey Ahali!. “Ey Ahali!” is the typical phrase of the traditional introduction to a public announcement, verbally made by shouting on the streets.
Anyhow you can see Uncle Liam and the gang here and then good old YouTube has two clips.
Uncle Liam of Cube Orchestra fame Ey Ahali! It's The Cube Orchestra!

I enjoyed meeting some new members of the Orchestra as I don’t get down so often these days, venerable types each and every one of them. Look out on the clips for some of these handsome chaps


A few regulars too, Ale on guitar/voice, Richard keys, Liam on Trombone (1st time ever), Mark on sax and me on Handsonic. This was great fun, basically for those too lazy to follow links the stage is the art, it has speakers in which you plug into. A small but appreciative audience seemed to enjoy themselves, as did the Orchestra who celebrated with beer and snacks at the Arnolfini afterwards.
Spike Island audience

Our thanks to Can and the Spike Island crew.

Big love, Richie Paradise Captain Richie Paradise

Posted in Art | Comments Off on YES! YOU CAN CAN CAN!

It’s coming…

Posted on December 2, 2007 by zuleika

Cabaret Poster December

Posted in Cabaret, flyers & posters, General, Music, performance, promo archive, Theatre | 1 Comment

Whilst looking for jobs

Posted on November 29, 2007 by ladylucy

I came across this and thought it would be of interest
But what ever you do volunteers don’t you go on strike cause you don’t get paid

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/05/371645.html

Posted in activism, General, Volunteers | Comments Off on Whilst looking for jobs

That’s The Spirit

Posted on November 5, 2007 by richie paradise

Hello Chums, apologies for the lack of posting, basically I’m a lazy sod, unlike these plucky fellows
Lovely, lovely volunteers
Upstanding decent fellows every last damn one of them. Come to the Cube and see more of them.
So, Things I have failed to Blog:
The Cube Cabaret/9th Birthday Bash – Reason – ‘I’m editing footage and didn’t take any photos and anyhow didn’t Mr. Hopkinson do a wonderful job?’.
Cabaret/Ladyfest – Reason – ‘Not my finest moment……….’
Cube Orchestra playing to Haxan and The Sea Hawk (starring hottie Errol Flynn) – Reason – ‘Possessed by an evil spirit’.
Skulpture (Cube Orchestra Free Jazz spin off band) at The Junction – Reason – ‘Gagging order by local constabulary’.

One will endeavor to improve ones self,

You’re Money and You don’t even know it, Richie Paradise Richie Paradise

Posted in Cabaret, Cube Orchestra, feminism, General, Richie Paradise, Volunteers | Comments Off on That’s The Spirit

Snorkel Sundays

Posted on October 21, 2007 by zuleika

I just found this tale and thought I’d share it, hope that’s okay Ali.

From: zuleika
To: ali jones
Subject: Re: [Cubeadmin] send reinforcements!

>
> it would be lovely to have some synopsis on cube activities.
> any takers?
>

Well, Ali, perhaps you’ve had some polite replies from the others but Ithink you deserve to hear the real story so here goes:

After you left we had a three week mourning period, all in black with cuboid veils. We only drank Guiness and smoked liquorice paper rollies, we painted the cube black and generally took on an emo style. Finally on the 21st day we tore off our blackness in a fine display of fireworks, funny foam, ticker tape and superglued hundreds and thousands all over our bodies (leading to some impressive multi-coloured rashes). We danced around to We Are Family and found it a very healing process.

In MArch we showed Pan’s Labarynth five times a day for the whole month.
We made Â2, 000, 000, 000 and invested in teabag recyling. Which was a shame because that’s when it all happened…

The April showers have been pretty bad this year. The hole in the roof reopened and suddenly, during the Small Squeaky Noises Night, we were flooded from floor to ceiling. Myself and Polly in a superb effort of combined Blusheretting and Synchronised Swimming managed to pull everyone out and nobody died (although Leslie Smith suffered from tinitus for
several weeks). The only option was to turn the Cube into a spectacular Water World Cinema, showing Esther Williams films, Life Aquatic and the like. The Snorkel Sundays have been particularly popular. We are hoping we dry out by high-summer.

On a personal note, I had an intense affair with Leslie Smith and we were briefly engaged until he found me in a compromising embrace with a Ukranian rabbit juggler one Tuesday night. Nevermind, it was worth it.

Well, that should fill you in.
Hope all’s spectacular and this hasn’t cost you hundreds of dollars in
web-time.

Underwater love,
Zuleika xxx

Posted in Blusherettes, Cube, General, Stories, The Blusherettes, weather | 3 Comments

happy birthday everyone

Posted on October 18, 2007 by site admin mr_hopkinson

I think today, the 18th of October, is the actual anniversary of the day The Cube first opened it’s doors to the public in 1998 to screen Radio On. It was quiet cold as I remember and the wrong lens was on the projector for first half – those were the days.

Anyway, not much to add right now, but hopefully soon more documentary of recent nostalgic events ( the Port City affilated Cube Tour, the Billy Childish gigs and more party pics ) meanwhile here’s one of those old S&H movies Zulieka mentioned. This features camera work by Chiz and the old pre-fire entrance through the Chinese restaurant at around the 3 minute mark . . .

. . . sorry for the terrible encoding quality – it’s from the old days.

As always any type of Cube related posts ( doesn’t have to just be reportage – in fact the more unusual the better . . . ) are welcomed here – do email me ( mr_hopkinson at hotmail dot com ) for a login if you don’t have one, but happen to have sometime to say or show . . .

Posted in General | 6 Comments

Cube 9 from Outer Space

Posted on October 10, 2007 by zuleika

The Cube’s 9th Birthday and the fourth cabaret took place at the end of a rather nostalgic cube week for me.

Saturday the 29th was my fith anniversary of Cube and Billy Childish was back (that gig was actually my first shift). Rounded off suitably by a late night, early morning dance-off. Then there was the tour on Tuesday. Then the birthday, with all the familiar faces and watching S&H films just to add to the memories.

The Cabaret went well, I enjoyed putting a Russian slant on Ziegfeld. We had some great acts designed specially for the night (thanks to Richie for his amazing bookings).
I was really pleased about the amount of costumes and the effort put into making them.

At one point the beroller-skated I went into the auditoium to check out The Man from Uranus and presented with a scene of madness. There was a free for all on his theremin and much dancing (a rare thing in the auditorium itself). There were black robot knights, day-glow aliens, cosmonauts and silver galor.

Wonder what will happen when we are ten…


Promoted to full page from the comments, by request, here’s a little edit of the evening . . .

Posted in Cabaret, Cube, Cube Cinema History, General, performance, Richie Paradise | 7 Comments

Return of the QuWack a.k.a. QuWack Off out of The Cube

Posted on September 26, 2007 by site admin mr_hopkinson

The third edition of QuWack, QuWack(E) . . .

QuWacktion

. . . took place last weekend – the first two . . .

QuWack(M) and QuWack(F)

. . . were held at The Cube, which is my justification for mentioning it here, despite it being an event at Spike Island . . . and I will just mention it rather than do a full review, but suffice to say it was a pretty universally acknowledged triumph and a credit to Cube affiliates Qu Jucktions and Blackout Arts. The only criticism I can muster is the f to m ratio wasn’t as balanced as the overall Qube outings . . .

Many pics here : https://sparror.cubecinema.com/mr_hopkinson/2007.09.22%20QuWack(e)/

Posted in General | Comments Off on Return of the QuWack a.k.a. QuWack Off out of The Cube

Even better than the real thing

Posted on September 16, 2007 by site admin mr_hopkinson

Last week I enjoyed one of the best nights out at the Cube for a long time – the “Cube Cola all spirits night”. This was the ‘first’ Cube Cola birthday party – though, slightly confusingly, not their first year – it was, according to the exquisitely James-Vickery-designed programme, “celebrating almost 4 years on the path to food science enlightenment”. The Cube Cola project is by Kate Rich and Kayle Brandon . . .

cola grrls

. . . and is based around providing a viable alternative to branded cola, manufactured from scratch. There is more info here, and here. The evening also celebrated many other home-spun products: food stuffs . . .

foody

. . . some presented quite straightforwardly and deliciously, others with a bit more attached ( notably Jelena Stanovnik’s extremely good pie-chart Chocolate cake, which marks out the proportions of recorded religions in the UK as part of the ‘Life In The UK’ project by Jelena, Kate and Rasha Shaheen – who I’d previously seen give their presentation at Spike Island and Blackout at Shambala ); and also some clothes – in the form of some very versatile garments by Sylvia Zidek, including her specially designed trousers that level the pissing-field to make dignified street-urination as easy for women as men.

Kush DJ’ed infectious afro-beat in the bar . . .

kushy

. . . and Suffolk band The Pancakes played on their home-made instruments in the auditorium . . .

cakey

. . . creating a very warm village fête type feel, though with their casual references to murder, along with a live on-stage demonstration of the aforementioned feminist piss-pants, it was all kept just on the right side of too cosy.

There was a healthy crowd despite stiff competition from a sort-of homecoming gig by The Goxxip ( Cube associates Local Kid memorably brought them over here before they blew up in the mainstream ) and everything just seemed to fall into place to make a perfect entertaining and thought provoking evening that I couldn’t quiet imagine happening anywhere else . . . thank The Cube !

Later in the week, and probably because it was mid-week, the tribute night for Anthony H Wilson, wasn’t so well attended. Possibly just as well as the promised Karaoke Orchestra couldn’t make it, and my proposed contribution ( a compilation of YouTube clips transferred to DVD ) wasn’t ready too . . . not unlike the various mythologically-behind-schedule-Peter-Saville-moments chronicalled in ‘24 hour Party People‘, which we did get to screen from the DVD with Tony Wilson’s commentary ( a great idea from Hog ), after showing some performances recorded in the Haçienda from the FAC71 vhs I bought second-hand as a young teenager.

Having searched around the net for bits and pieces the pretty obvious parallels in attitude, and more than occasional ineptitude, between the Cube and the Manchester music scene Tony Wilson was so associated with, seem even more blatant to me, and hopefully we’ll schedule another more party friendly, and suitably irreverent celebration night later in the year . . .

. . . meanwhile here’s links to a little gem I uncovered that was made for Channel 4 in the 80’s [ it’s split into 7 parts ] . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyk5FwrbcgQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffeORmsUKL0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VnGxoz5RZk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laD5czT58gk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93qAiUIFysE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FveqO3T-2to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An013JKUgcY

. . . which, if nothing else ( presuming you’ve seen 24hr Party People ), should draw attention at just how good Paddy Considine was at playing Rob Gretton !

Posted in Art, Bar, Cube, dj, Events, feminism, Food, General, Gossip, Music, performance | Comments Off on Even better than the real thing