EDUCATION & WEAKNESS

Never was there a better time of year to have two such glorious subject matters to write about for my Camden Calling diary / journal /breakdown / whatever. Saying goodbye to 2011 and reflecting on lessons learned and starting 2012 ready to turn weaknesses into strengths.

This is what we do at Camden Calling last week we had a lovely article written about us in The Camden New Journal that you can read in full by clicking here

So what have I learned, well the first is do not be so eager to get on your Christmas break that you cannot be bothered to update the personal blog because the whole thing seems a bit tedious and daunting now. So while my cogs are turning perhaps you would like to check out Decembers radio show.

Education by lockedonradio

The lessons I think we all learned at Camden Calling in 2011 were to think more creatively, more flexibly and to give anything a go, there were a few dramas in 2011, much gnashing of teeth my end, some genuine and over dramatic frustrations and some unrealistic expectations of one another and what the project can achieve with limited resources. These things sound negative but my view is that they are 100% positive. They are our foundation for moving in to 2012 and the high drama and sometimes high emotion has led to us organising ourselves much better. Members are now working more effectively on lead areas, we are developing a mentor role within the project, and are now also unashamed to say that Camden Calling is an organisation for exceptional vulnerable people; that our recovery journeys however bumpy and painful they may be rely on being given the opportunity to be exceptional.

So what do I have to say about weakness? I think I have said it all, we are learning to turn our negatives into positives, which when you stop and think about that is not so easy as it sounds. We are complex as human beings and we can only strive to make better. The year has started very well for us in terms of opportunity, new members coming in, funding in the pipeline, meetings galore and lots of new friends being made.

The Choose My Music - State Of Music Album project is helping us not just to raise funds but to get the Camden Calling message out to a wider audience. I would like to say a massive thanks and congratulations to Dom on the release of the State of Music Vol 1, all proceeds are being donated to Camden Calling and the album is available on digital download here.

So rambling over, as usual nothing solved and I am still chasing my own tail. Our radio show on the subject is far more eloquent.

PRESS RELEASE FOR URBAN BEATFARE EVENTS 2012

Event Details

Sunday 5th Feb 2012 The Enterprise 2 Haverstock Hill London NW32BL 7.30 – 11pm

alexis@camdencalling.org 07815 61 99 33 FACEBOOK EVENT

Camden Calling is a small arts collective of exceptional homeless & ex-homeless people. Working together with support to host mainstream events for a mainstream audience.

From February 5^th 2012 our successful Urban Beatfare night will be taking over a monthly slot at the Enterprise in Camden. The night features an exciting mix of urban influenced music performed by up and coming names on the live scene. An open mic competition also runs at every Urban Beatfare gig and contestants compete for a 25 min opening slot at the next show.

Camden Calling is an organisation set up to celebrate and encourage the diverse and quite amazing talents of people on the fringes of our society. People who without this community would not have a voice. All events are in part planned, promoted, produced and include performance from the members. Members showcasing at this first event are Dekay & The D’Mans

Acts Supporting are, Ruthless, De’Vide, Airklipz and last years final open mic winner 3REED

All profits from the sale are reinvested into helping the Camden Calling members to pursue their artistic and creative ambitions. Gigs run on the first Sunday of the month throughout 2012.

PRESS RELEASE NEW MONTHLY EVENT FOR 2012

Event Details

Sunday 15th Jan 2012

The Good Ship

289 Kiburn High Road

London NW6

3pm - 7pm

alexis@camdencalling.org 07815 61 99 33

FACEBOOK EVENT LINK

Camden Calling is a small arts collective of exceptional homeless & ex-homeless people. Working together with support to host mainstream events for a mainstream audience.

In Jan 2012 a new FREE monthly live music event will be launched. The Camden Calling Sunday Sale Gigs are an exciting mix of acoustic eclectic musical styles, from some of the best up and coming acts on the live scene, fusioned with a laid back chilled out 2nd hand sale. Gig goers can bargain hunt and recylce any unwanted treasures of their own by donating them to the sale.

Camden Calling is an organisation set up to celebrate and encourage the diverse and quite amazing talents of people on the fringes of our society. People who without this community would not have a voice. All events are in part planned, promoted, produced and include performance from the members. Members showcasing at this first event are Dekay & The D'mans & Ben is A Dark Horse.

Acts Supporting are, She Makes War, Zoe Konez Music, The Acapella Punk, JD Smith, Lily Gaskell & Hadleigh Ford.

All profits from the sale are reinvested into helping the Camden Calling members to pursue their artistic and creative ambitions. Gigs run on the third Sunday of the month throughout 2012.

REALITY

Reality by lockedonradio

So here we are at the time of year where we all have a little comtemplate about the successes and failures of the past year. It is a scary but safe time because our conclusions can be put on the back burner while we gorge oursleves and make merry for a week. If we are fortunate, as I count myself, this Christmas week provides precious time to let our thoughts sink in and a plan develop. Often this plan is in the from of fairly useless resolutions but it is a plan nonetheless and comforts on what is quite literally the darkest days. The reality of the situtation here at Camden Calling is that despite the successes of this year we find ourselves in exactly the same postition we were in this time last year. I am waiting on a yes or no from on high to put either plan A Best Case Scenario or Plan B Worst Case Senario into action and I find this limbo period is not very helpful. So as we come to the end of a brilliant year where we have achieved so much, I am also aware as usual that the clock is ticking and that a certain amount of crunch time exists as I am potentially holding a rather weak hand.

So much has been achieved this year, we have the Radio Project going from strength to strength, the video project looking like it is going to blow the amazing work we did last year totally out of the water, and the contacts that members made this year through the documentary have provided opportunities that are out of this world. We have more live shows than ever booked for next year, and yet here we are at a crunch. The reality is best or worse case scenario this project needs more public support in order to survive.

This last post of the year is somewhat of an appeal for help in 2012 and below are listed 5 reasons and 5 ways to support us in 2012.

REASONS

To enable us to keep recruiting more exceptional individuals from the homeless community.

To support our members to continue to make great music, and deliver exciting arts projects, using our unique way of working to make plans realities.

To enable our members to make more and more connections and friends in the world in which they have identified.

To allow this project to continue challenging perceptions of individuals that need help in a world that is full of stigma.

To support our efforts to bring people from all walks of life together through cheap quality events.

WAYS TO DO THIS

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter and repost and retweet our news. The message needs to spread far and wide to capture imagination.

Join our street team in 2012, volunteering to get the message out there and get people to gigs.

Come to gigs see for yourself what we are doing and how members lives are totally changed. We operate a £2 guest list for most events and a quick email will get your name on it alexis@camdencalling.org

Volunteer your skills and time to support the team or an individual member. An email is the best way to make contact.

Visit our merchandise page and buy something or make a donation, the project needs cash flow.

Thanks so much to everyone that has played with us, supported us and been inspired by us in 2011. Special thanks to Anna Edwards, Dom Paczko, Peter Guinness, Ross Sutherland, Gerard Galvin- Barrie and Janice Barrie for her never ending support. You have all helped me not to give in just yet.

PRESS RELEASE

Choose My Music Records Presents............

THE STATE OF MUSIC

One Country, 50 States, 50 new underground unsigned artists!

Choose My Music Records is proud to present The State Of Music, a series of 5 compilations albums celebrating the best of American Underground music, while supporting one of the UK's most innovative community groups Camden Calling.

The State of music is a unique feature on the website choosemymusic.org . Writer Dominic Paczko is on a one man mission to discover and feature and independent band or artist from each of the American states. Over the next 12 months fiftly imaginative, diverse acts will be profiled on Choose My Music ; and at regular intervals the cream of these artists tracks will be released digitally on five compilation albums through the Choose My Music label. By the time each album is released each artist will have gained significant exposure through the Choose My Music site, with interviews, sound clips and video footage.

The State Of Music Part 1 will be released on the 30th Jan 2012 through the Choose My Music website and Bandcamp.com. There will be a limited run of CD's priced at £6 with the download priced at £3

Doms Radio Interview for Q

State Of Music Q Radio by dominikrpaczko

About The Label

Choose My Music Records is a new label set up by former Electric Honey Records [ Belle & Sabastian, Snow Patrol, Biffy Clyro] student Dominic Paczko who channels his love for underground music through his website choosemymusic.org

About Camden Calling

Camden Calling is a community project dedicated to helping homeless and ex-homeless people to access music arts and popular culture, www.camdencalling.org

Contact Dom

07841 128431 / choosemymusic@gmail.com

ANARCHY

Welcome to this months blog and as readers will know by now I am linking to the theme of our radio shows in order to add the radio player, in the hope of getting a few more people hooked on the shows. This month has been a rather odd one at CC. I was going to tell you a ridiculous allegory filled tale of one particular incident that really got my back up, but I have kind of let it go now, and we have so much good news to share. You do not need to know about mutiny led by and Elf to defend her Gnomes in a land full of money grabbing Goblins. So here is the anarchy show, special thanks to Steve White & The Protest Family for a fantastic music interview. A wee project update can be found below.

Anarchy by lockedonradio

So October has been a pretty tough month I do not mind saying, like our politician friends I have had to put in some tough austerity measures here at Camden Calling, and it has been a bit of a test perhaps of the members commitment to the project. Every penny has pretty much had to go in to the bank to try and make sure we have funds to continue in 2012, making some provision for the fact that some funding applications we are waiting on may not come to fruition. We have suffered a couple of setbacks, namely me putting quite a bit of time and effort into the Sunday Sale event that was subsequently ruined by said Goblin. It left us in a bit of a pickle but largely an annoyance because of the time that had been put into it. The event will be relaunching in January somewhere where we can create a lovely chilled Sunday afternoon vibe, and where it will not cost you, the good folks that support Camden Calling, the best part of four quid for a can of warm beer. We will be moving to the wonderful Good Ship in Kilburn , one of the first venues to embrace the Camden Calling project and we cannot wait.

Our Urban Beatfare night is going to be taking up monthly residency at The Enterprise come 2012 and members are busy working away on a bit of re-packaging and re-branding. Our Eclectic Anarchy night will be moving around London in 2012 but will be a FREE GIG for the duration, supported by some of the best friends that Camden Calling has made since our birth.

The Locked In Transit music video project is going really very well indeed, Kilburn High Road and Violent Dreams have been shot and we are getting ready for Stealth Tax Time. This is Richards first track and he is now in rehearsals getting a full set together for live performance. This is something really quite different and fulfills an idea we had at the start of the year to get some of the groups poetry on to the CC stage in some way. Martin another of the groups poets will also be recording his poem Drowning for the video project. This is pretty great news given we have had to suspend a lot of the poetry group work due to financial constraints.

The Camden Calling documentary will be screened ahead of it being shown on the BBC on the 21st November, if anyone following this blog would like to attend please email me for a seat as they are limited. Our Patron Peter Guinness will also be speaking at this event, and we are really planning this to be a bit of a call to arms for all of those that support us. There may be those of you with skills or ideas that we can use of the coming months that may make all the difference to the future of our project. If you have Sky or Virgin TV you can also catch Dekay's Guide to Estates on the 1st November at 9pm.

So we plug on, tweaking the project here and there, supporting one another and working together for we hope a greater good, sharing our skills & plugging the gaps, ocassionally we have some dispute or other to settle and sometimes I have to pull rank. We do have some rules! But largely we are a group of people just getting on with it, trying to change our own, our colleagues and those that come into contact with us lives for the better. We try to support projects and people who like us are on the margins and have to shout to be heard. Below is a music video made by our friends Heavy Load [a truly anarchic band] featuring Dekay, this song was to highlight hate crime against disabled people.

Those of you that have listened to the radio show will hear Steve White say in his music interview that the status quo exists because the belief in human nature is basically all wrong. I agree, Goblins you are and always have been wrong, Elves watch out most of you are getting Goblin faces and Gnomes, you don't have to be Gnomes, like the Camden Callers you just have to believe there is more to life, and if you need help find it. The status quo sucks because it does not encourage any of us to make the most of our lives. So I will leave you with a video of Steve White & The Protest Family, collaborating with Camden Calling member Rukas on a special version of what has become an anthem here at CC. Believe me if you guys had been on the bill I might have been tempted not to pull that gig.

YEARNING

This month I am it seems challenged with talking about my experiences of running the Camden Calling project through the theme of yearning. I have been putting quite some thought into this and I am kind of coming up with blanks. As we explored this theme, putting the radio show together, I began to feel more and more that yearning is a totally adolescent emotion. Have a listen and see if you agree?

Yearning by lockedonradio

This month saw the event of Camden Calling's 3rd birthday party. As each year passes I do like to reflect on the project and think of how we are going to move forward in the next year. I like this to be a positive session with myself, but given that I am stuck with yearning as a starting place for this private therapy session, I think the best way forward is a good bit of what Dr Freud would call transference or displacement. So we are now going on photographic journey of some of the Camden Callers 3rd birthday fancy dress characters. I am going to consider the predicament these characters find themselves in, draw parallels to my own predicaments and empathise with the things these characters may yearn for.

So then, starting with the Big One the man himself Mr Jesus Christ, how do I yearn for the same things? Not gonna start getting all deep about this, although he had 12 followers, and there are 12 Camden Calling members........... eh eh. You see where I am going it is probably deeply offensive so I should stop! Hey that whole Christ complex thing is for middle class boys anyway. I think Jesus and I probably both yearn not to be misinterpreted. Sometimes people do not listen to the actual words I say and choose to hear what they want, I am guilty of letting this pass too often. People think of me as a soft touch and then get all upset when I turn like a rabid gerbil on them. So I yearn to be better at nipping this in the bud. This would be better for me, the Camden Calling members and the project as a whole. So on that, and the whole money changer temple thing, JC and I agree all the way.

Next up we have a Manga Character. Well it is 4am as I write this and I have spent the last hour trying to research these kinds of characters as I know nothing. Without getting too into the whole feminism thing [believe me people have written dissertations on this] I believe Miss Manga and I yearn for a bit of equality. We are fighting the good fight and
kicking some ass but essentially judged on our femininity and all that caper. Here we are in the 21st Century and still I find that I am either assumed to be a male if I use the abbreviated version of my name or worse still I actually often get a swifter response to correspondence that way.

Number 3 the good old Mad Hatter, his best mate was the white rabbit who was forever late. In my opinion that's what drove the poor old Hatter mad! I can say I have actually only ever been late about 6 times in my whole life. Lateness infuriates me and I yearn for people to respect that. My day does not have enough hours in it you see. I spend my life respecting others individuality and trying to work out ways in which it can be embraced. SO PLEASE PLEASE respect that this is my little thing. It is just a small thing but it is mine.

Ok probably losing readers now, those not offended will probably soon be offended, but you win some you lose some. So how does running a small arts collective for vulnerable and homeless people mean I could have anything yearn-wise in common with a prisoner of war? We have established yearning is a bit piss weak in my opinion and I have used this opportunity to whinge into the ether about nothing really. So me and soldier boy here probably yearn for exposure, for someone to see and really understand what is happening and how it is life changing. Camden Calling is not a perfect project, but we are 100% DIY and exist because of the work we put in. This project has inspired people, who had frankly written themselves off, to try, to persevere, and then try harder. So like the Colonel here I yearn for people to look and really see because my unit are doing the most extraordinary things.