Bobby Friction presents South Asian Future Music
20th November 10pm £12 (adv) more on the door
The Club, 179 London Road Croydon CR0 2RL




020 8253 1030

DJ Bobby Friction, figurehead of the BBC British Asian Network and new music specialist, presents a club night looking at how a style of music born on the streets of Croydon has evolved into a myriad sub-genres and forms, genuinely dominating the club scene around the world with some of the most exciting and vital music being made by producers of South Asian descent. These musicians and DJs have claimed the bass culture of Croydon for themselves.

Bobby Friction has curated a night of music that features some of the biggest names and breaking talent making waves on the scene right now.



Engine-EarZ Experiment (DJ Set) feat vocalists Lena Cullen & Shahid Abbas Khan
Engine EarZ Experiment is one of the biggest baddest live oufits ever to come out of South Asian Dance music. The live show features ten members, which includes in their number three drummers, flutes and live visuals. That’s not to mention the finest pedigree of guest collaborators - including MC Jenna G, Foreign Beggars, Dynamite MC and Rodney P & Skitz.
Tonight Prash ‘Engine Earz’ Mistry will be chopping up Engine Earz revolutionary, mystical, Rank-Faced Dance Music with a selection of his favourite dance floor fillers - ably accompanied by Lena Cullen and Shahid Abbas Khan on live vocal duties.

www.engine-earz.com

The Nasha Experience (Nasha Records)
Nasha Records was formed by DJ / producers Ges-E and Osmani Soundz, they built up a name through releasing East/West dubstep and Drum n Bass and running monthly club nights at Herbal in Shoreditch. It was here that they met young dubstep prodigee Sukh Knight who now releases on Nasha alongside Shandy and Nuphlo.
The Nasha Experience is the live expression of all things Nasha which will be bringing some of that Herbal flavour to The Club.
www.nasha.co.uk

With a VERY special unique Are We Here? DJ set from our host and British Asian music maestro and presenter Bobby Friction (BBC Radio 1 & Asian Network)www.bobbyfriction.com

Croydon Dub Club Feat Mad Professor

Croydon Dub Club with The Mad Professor



When he was growing up, Neil Fraser didn’t play football or marbles with the other boys on his street in South London. With an insatiable curiosity about electronics, the young boffin, who had come from Guyana to London aged 12, was too busy dismantling the few items of communications equipment his parents possessed. That’s why they called him the Mad Professor.

Today, the name Mad Professor is known around the world and is indelibly associated with dub, the bass heavy style of Jamaican music of which Fraser was an early international pioneer. As much an approach to music and sound as a specific style, dub springs from reggae but re-interprets it, emphasising previously unnoticed elements of a song to create a hazy atmosphere, laden with effects and unusual sounds.

Although dub rarely troubles the charts, it’s cited by musicians of all stripes as a key influence; the sound has come a long way since Fraser first started putting together home-made sound systems and recording set ups in his teenage years.
 “I picked up a lot through magazines and through visiting electronic shops around London, I even used to salvage a lot of wires and parts from waste outside the telephone exchange, stuff that they weren’t able to use.”

In a time before specialist music equipment shops, improvisation was the name of the game: “You had to be able to build and use the equipment needed for recording music yourself or know someone who could do it for you,” says Fraser. 

How Low Can You Go? The story of BASS

Joe Muggs in discussion with Croydon's The World’s Biggest Bass Pioneers



For this panel discussion we have assembled generations of musical mavericks, who will try to get to the bottom of what Croydon life means to them and how it has affected their creative process and understanding of sound.

MAD PROFESSOR was instrumental in bringing British reggae into the digital age, and remains possibly the UK's most renowned reggae producer. Perhaps most famous for his reworkings of Massive Attack (music./albums/selected tunes – or the band – not clear??), he has produced over 200 albums since 1979 and collaborated with some of the biggest names in music. He remains innovative to this day.

Tony Thorpe aka MOODY BOYZ begun recording with the post-punk experimentalists 400 Blows – initially produced by Mad Professor. Since then he has brought an experimental dub sensibility to untold areas of British dance music. From his collaborations with the KLF to his current Studio Rockers dubstep album, he is truly one of the unsung heroes of electronic music.

Arthur Smith – ARTWORK – came of age in the rave years, releasing deep techno as Grain in the late 90s. In the Big Apple shop, he became a mentor to nascent dubstep musicians – particularly the then-teenaged Skream and Benga, with whom he formed the now-massive live project Magnetic Man. His records as Menta also remain vital documents of early dubstep.

DJ CHEF is known in dubstep as the DJ's DJ. With deep roots in Hip Hop b-boy culture, and the jungle explosion of the mid-1990s, his club and pirate radio sets in the 2000s helped establish the dubstep sound – and his DJing and production remains some of the most technically refined yet soulful in the genre. His Ringo and Sub Freq labels are connoisseurs' favourites.

As GOLDIELOCKS, 25-year-old Sarah Akwisombe is proving how the attitude and sonic force of dubstep and grime can be applied to create a new template for 21st century pop. As an accomplished producer (she worked for Mike Skinner's now-defunct The Beats label), songwriter, and stylist, as well as the boss of her own Gut Instinct label, she is no less than a modern musical auteur.

Peter Livingstone needs no introduction to dubstep lovers: as LOEFAH, his involvement with the DMZ club night and label created a hub and inspiration for the scene. His productions remain the touchstone for physical power and fearless minimalism in the sound. Lately though he has been looking to the future too: his Swamp 81 label has provided some of 2010's defining sounds, opening up new rhythms, tempos and possibilities for the dubstep generation.

19th November 6pm FREE with ticket to Croydon Dub Club
Black Sheep Bar  68 High Street Croydon CR0 1NA 020 8680 2233

Steven Severin presents his live score to “Le Sang d’un Poete”



Acclaimed solo artist, founder member of Souxie and the Banshees and key figure in the infamous Bromley Contingent who shaped much of the late 70’s musical landscape, Steven Severin cut his teeth in Croydon venues such as The Greyhound and now returns to where he began his career to perform the new score for “Le Sang d’un Poete (Blood Of A Poet)” - Jean Cocteau’s 1930 black & white surrealist classic and the second in Severin’s ongoing series of Music For Sielnts 7.

During their reign Siouxsie & the Banshees established themselves as one of the foremost alternative artists and were the only survivors of the London punk scene to evolve, innovate and succeed until their final shows in 2002. Severin has since committed himself almost exclusively to scoring for film & TV.


Since May 2008 Severin has been performing live accompaniment to silent films, startling audiences across the globe who have now come to expect the unexpected from the man who has crossed paths with such diverse luminaries as John Cale, Alan Moore, Jarboe, Lydia Lunch, Marc Almond, Merc Cunningham, Robert Smith and the Tiger Lillies. “Le Sang d’un Poete” received it’s premiere at the Silent Movie Theater in Hollywood in January this year and a CD of the score was released by Cold Spring on 5 October 2010.

8 November 8pm £12.50 - £15 Box Office http://www.croydonclocktower.org.uk/ 020 8253 1030

Sketching Lines On The Pavement – A Tribute To Malcolm McLaren

Sketching Lines On The Pavement – A Tribute To Malcolm McLaren
feat DJ Yoda (specially commissioned AV DJ show) also projected live for FREE onto buildings in Central Croydon - BBC6 Music: Back To The Phuture – Mark Jones 80’s NYC hip hop/electro set
+ Live Visuals
+ Skip Hop (Double Dutch Skipping Team)


“Croydon will always be remembered as a rite of passage of my life – one night layovers, in the arms of someone, the constant roaming at night through its market streets and thereafter navigating those deep leafy suburbs into the countryside beyond, spending hours looking out of Croydon’s art school windows, observing and then struggling to come to terms with these giant triffids of buildings that rise up and spread themselves all along East Croydon’s path, using charcoal pencil and anything close to hand. I drew and drew and drew.”
Malcolm Mclaren

Croydon was for a while muse and catalyst to cultural agitator and pop svengali Malcolm McLaren who alongside Punk artist Jamie Reed studied at Croydon Art School. Malcolm, who died earlier this year, is probably best remembered for his orchestration of the Sex Pistols, but he was always a cultural magpie of the first degree. Particularly with his plucking of Hip Hop from the streets of New York and his part in helping create a worldwide phenomena from this archetypal urban art form.


In partnership with Croydon College, Clocktower Arts will celebrate McLarens’ mammoth impact on 20th century popular culture by putting on a totally unique event.

DJ Yoda in the mix....


DJ Yoda is an internationally renowned DJ who fuses music and film in a live audio visual scratching and mixing extravaganza. In this specially commissioned one off piece, DJ Yoda will be exploring the career and influence of Malcolm Mclaren in a truly un-missable live video mash up.

Yoda’s set will be projected live on the buildings of central Croydon, the ‘triffids’  that inspired the young Mclaren to draw, in what promise to be a fitting tribute to such a legendary figure.

Hosting the party will be BBC 6music’s ‘Back To The Phuture’ - formed by Mark Jones, the head honcho of record label Wall Of Sound. Back To The Phuture is joining up the dots between the synth pioneers of the 80s and today’s electropop artists, it will be celebrating the rich history of the NYC-inspired electro and Hip Hop that blasted out from every soundsystem in every block party throughout the early part of that decade.





The event will also feature an epic display of skipping throughout the evening - the culmination of two months of workshops between local schools, Croydon College and ‘Skip Hop’ – a company set up to bring skipping to the masses.

This is a tribute to The Supreme Team’s seminal 12” record – Double Dutch. Brought to the UK by Malcolm McLaren, this skipping craze was born on the streets of New York in an explosive mix of traditional PE and expressive street-dance moves.

5th November 8pm £14 Adv  £12 Concession
tickets available from Box Office http://www.croydonclocktower.org.uk/ 020 8253 1030

St Etienne

St Etienne began life in the minds of two young Croydonites Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs, who joined by chanteuse Sarah Cracknell went on to be the definitive indie/dance crossover of the late 90’s. Glamorous and deftly cool they brought 60’s soul, Parisian chic  and a pop sensibility to the grey post-Acid House landscape of 90’s suburban England.



Their work which as well as music spans literature and film is often about the city and one city in particular – London., Fformer artists in residence at the Royal Festival Hall, St Etienne have built up a considerable body of work exploring the built environment and the experience of living in the city. 

On 11 November Finisterre and What Have You Done Today Mervyn Day? (both directed by Paul Kelly) are being shown here in two very special screenings, with both the director and members of the band in attendance. Afterwards St Etienne will be hosting their own party at Croydon’s iconic Warehouse Theatre.

Check out 'Side Streets' from St Etienne filmed in Croydon.


4 November 8pm -This Is Tomorrow - and a collection of 4.80 - £7.30pm (with Q&A with from director and the band) 

11 November 7.30pm - Finisterre and What Have You Done Today Mervyn Day? 7:30pm/ £4.80 - £7.30 (with Q&A from director and the band)

11 November 9pm – after party featuring St Etienne Soundsystem
£8 -£5  at The Warehouse Theatre Dingwall Road Croydon CR0 2NF


Tickets availabe from Box Office http://www.croydonclocktower.org.uk/ 0208 253 1030

Jonathan Meades Retrospective

Running throughout the festival will be the retrospective of Jonathan Meades, screened in The David Lean Cinema.


Author and TV auteur Jonathan Meades may have never made a film about Croydon, but Are We Here? Is proud to be presenting this first retrospective of his influential work.
Described by journalist and critic  AA Gill as “the civic David Attenborough”, Jonathan Meades’ documentaries are widely regarded as some of the most thoughtful, intelligent and perfectly crafted pieces of factual television ever made.

From subjects as diverse as urban regeneration (On The Brandwagon) to his relationship with his father (Father To The Man) one thing that binds all his films together is a palpable sense of the importance of place.
We make places. And places make us. We respond to what we have created. But how does this compact between mankind and its greatest artifices work? Many of Meades’ programmes are the expression of an obsessional preoccupation with places and the properties they reflect: fantasy and necessity, escape and expectation, individual assertion and collective fear.


The retrospective will take place throughout Are We Here? providing a fascinating overview of one of television’s greatest talents. Jonathan himself will be at The Clocktower following the final screening on 20 November, for an interview and Q&A led by journalist Hermione Eyre.

Here are a few of Jonathan's thoughts on surrealism...



10th November ‘Isle Of Rust  + Magnetic North’ 8pm/£4.80 -£7.30
18th November ‘Joe Building + Surreal Film’ 8pm/£4.80 -£7.30
20th November ‘On The Brandwagon + Father To The Man’ Sat 20 Nov 8pm £8-£10 (including Q&A with journalist Hermione Eyre)


Tickets available from the Box Office http://www.croydonclocktower.org.uk/
or call 0208 253 1030