Bones/Liver & Lights News

The incorrigible Ken Jones has a terrific website

dedicated to the history of the mysterious hidden

River Effra and other things Herne Hill related...

He has commissioned us to write something related

and our contribution is up now on the website below...

click and watch on Soundcloud for extra info and the

full lyrics follow below...

It is a prototype demo that Ian, Mikey and

Biscuit will no doubt add to in good time...

www.effrasound.co.uk

Yfra/trap

Yfra/Effra, 

the Brixton Creek,

the shape shifter of effluent

from the creeping suburbs

to the stinking Thames,

red bricked and rooved,

the stink piped prison

of belching fatberg Golems

fueled by pasta slime

and belching clingy wetwipes,

discarded facemasks

and red eyed rats

no poison can detox,

no sneaky maze riddler 

can Ku-klux  her hidden darkness 

on whiskered turnpike-tiptoes,

execute the rat trap blunt-slice

that splinters  bone 

but does not quickly kill,

like a furred jesus on a triggered cross

the thorndrips glooping 

metal scented in the midday heat.

The green-livered lentil griddlers,

wishing our sweet accursed city into

more of a home counties bailiwick

think they have cancelled 

the Poets Corner rat-run

with their wood-lego fairy gardens 

yet beneath these dulcet covens

of child-worship and genteel aspiration,

the real rodent city scraps and scurries 

in our shitstream

fighting tooth and claw 
for each precious second of life awarded

down in the black pipe.

Clutch your unspoiled babies tight

as the trap sings snap! 

-sound frozen in the midnight  stillness,

sleepy eyes unfocus on brown oil 

leaking from open wounds

three or four oozing welts 

sticky thru a rubby shirt of hair,

inside  the bonecrushed whip-shop,

interior leaking  livid 

like taloned  torturers biblical

have sliced across his desert brown back,

have licked his messiah brow with rat-love 

and brung him loinclothed forth

to meet his fate.

A million million more

in the dark Yffra beneath

your crisp white sheets

insane with hunger

yellow toothed 

await.

ALSO

I did a 'Shed Talk' for the Centre For Fine Print Research

at UWE (thanks to Angie Butler and Sarah Bodman.....)

about my recent paintings and

how they will one day become a book.....

Arthur and me jamming in the background....

with Extra Special Celebrity Guest Appearance

(No, not Britney....)

Lasts about five minutes and you can watch it here

...I would be thrilled to hear your comments, obviously....

https://vimeo.com/432873854

Youve been kind!

We have made a second hand made edition of our collaborative 

Bird Radio/ bonesandtheaft house tour album ‘You’ve been Kind!” 

A bit like the cover of The Who’s Live at Leeds- gatefold recycled 

brown folded card with lots of free gift inserts- a signed print, 

a new zine with all the lyrics, a vinyl masterpiece and various 

invite cards.....only 20 copies then they are gone! If you want one 

they are only 20 quid inc postage . It's the record where we made 

a song for all the houses we visited on our house tour.  

Paypal me if you want one :

paypal.me/bonesandtheaft

You can also buy it here:

https://bonesandtheaft.bandcamp.com/merch/youve-been-kind

A202 L&L 60

Liver & Lights No. 60

The A202. 

Vauxhall to New Cross Via Camberwell Green.

As some of you might know...

I recently made this book with the current

crop of talented  Illustration students 

on the Foundation course at Camberwell College of Art...

...unfortunately held in self isolated aspic currently 

as we await the passing of the plague.....

The book is  an illuminated version of

One Shoe Mickey's famous poem celebrating our magical road:

"South London's answer to Route 66"

cut up into 71

fragments and made into 71 block printed text-explorations, 

reassembled into the finished paperback.

NB: OSMs poem  was written in response to the 

wonderful Alan Brownjohn's earlier poem (AKA A202) 

written about this road,

(Check it out...and his other work..He is a wonderful and inspiring, 

if shamefully ill-recognised  English post war poet and  Humanist)

which paints it in rather more unflattering light than

Mickey's more celebratory offering...

So...  because the College is closed 'until further notice' we couldn't launch it

and I have 200 copies currently gathering spiders under my bed:

Which are for sale from me for £10.00 each,

plus  £2.00 postage

Buy a copy for your sister's boyfriend's birthday?

Because if you order two copies

Postage is FREE !!

paypal to me:

paypal.me/bonesandtheaft

crypt again

We are playing the Camberwell  BA Illustration  

degree show fundraiser 

this Thursday at 

The Crypt under St Giles Church 

in Camberwell...

along with Fell and   

some others I believe...

-we will be on soon after 8.30pm,

 I'm told..

and free beer for the first 40  

folks through the door!

see you down the front....

costumes etc

bonesandtheaft? costumes?

as you all know...

I've been merrily constructing wacky costumes 

to perform in for the last 30 years or so

but aside from actual gigs

 I have only exhibited 

them once before- 

...at Brixton East in 2015.  

Watch this space for further news on that front...

In the meantime, here is a recap of some of my 

more memorable creations, darling:

L&L 59

                       

Back in the studio today after the long xmas break from creative activity, 

I remembered that during my recent show at Hart Club I had printed 

Liver & Lights no. 59 using  a brand new hand carved rubber stamp alphabet,

 letter by painstaking letter, with nearly 300 individual stampings in 

each of  the twenty copies I managed to make…  

A new text celebrating  a small moment in the life of Mutton Jeff, 

a real person who lives in my street, it is  decorative, brightly coloured 

and difficult to read, requiring time,  earplugs and slow solitude to explore.

How will I distribute these? 

Who will want them in our hectic electronic world? 

Some of you might know that, with a few arts council funded exceptions, 

most of the previous  50-odd Liver & Lights publications have been 

funded by pre-publication subscription. This is an ancient method of funding 

things  that became popular  in the  19th Century, utilised to finance the creation 

almost everything, from voyages of exploration to opera companies, 

from railway stations  to parliament buildings. I gleefully borrowed the idea 

and  for 30 years have successfully funded my books  (

and records), accruing over 100 regular subscribers at one stage, 

although sadly, you, my subscribers, have dwindled in the last few years 

to a mere handful, what with so much competition out there 

and reading being somewhat out of fashion……

So few are you and so painstaking was the process of making that 

I’ve only made twenty of these new books, so if you want one you 

had better get on the case fast, although just in case anyone new out there 

might be interested, I’ve made a further twenty inkjet printed copies, 

identically bound and difficult to tell apart from the hand printed ones 

except that they are half the price!

Liver & Lights No 59  Mutton Jeff By OSM. 

Hand printed hand bound in an  edition of 20 copies signed. 

An A5-ish paperback with genuine 19th Century vintage marbled paper 

dustjacket 

£30.00 (inc postage)

Liver & Lights No 59  Mutton Jeff By OSM Hand printed hand bound 

2nd edition of 20 copies, signed. An A5-ish paperback with 

genuine 19th Century vintage marbled paper dustjacket 

£20.00 (inc postage)

Please send me an old fashioned cheque payable to 

Liver & lights scriptorium, 229 Railton Rd London SE240LX

or paypal to

paypal.me/bonesandtheaft

                      

2019: A Momentous Year

Phew what a year for

bonesandtheaft

and 

Liver & Lights

Starting off with 

a new pair of shoes

for Copper,

 meeting the world

in March at the 

Star of Kings.....

 In June

we  finally played a long awaited gig at  Tate Britain!

A New Backdrop and  a new suit specially sewed for

the occasion... 

Sold out and bouncers turning people away!

We wish it were always thus!

I think most people who came thought 

it was a great gig tho...Big Thank You for

all you who turned out  and especially those who

brought cash and bought our

Brand New Album:

Mickey

The New Album is available still, should you be short of Xmas gifts...

from

https//bonesandtheaft.bandcamp.com

as are all our four albums in Vinyl, CD and download

and lots of other stuff...books tshirts badges and more books...

In fact, FOUR new  books made this year too!!

Including one one paperback 

containing the story of Mickey and all his

beautiful Glove paintings

...only a tenner, stuffed with colour

over 100 paintings illustrating the

One Shoe Mickey Project,- here is 

one I sold...sad to se any of them go really, 

but I feel the Mickey project is

complete now...so on to new things in the New Year

and Three hand made books I printed.

This one below, The Burger of Truth totally carved from

rubber stamps and given away free at the Totally Brilliant

One Shoe Mickey exhibition at Hart Club Gallery   

in Westminster Bridge Rd

 where we 

also played  a fantastic and very memorable gig....

Here is the Amazing  Hart Club Gallery window

with the Mickey costume, 

made of 200 dropped London Gloves

  

 fianlly...here is Liver & Lights No 59  in production during my 

Hart Club Residency...more details about this next year

Whats going to happen next year?

Lots!!!

We have plans for vinyl singles,

new songs, new books...

maybe even another house tour?

We will be hopefully be doing House gigs over 

a few weekends late spring early summer..

if you want us to come and play in your house, garden,

studio, shed or cellar...let us know and we

will try to fit you in!

Happy Xmas and New Year to all who have come to gigs, 

bought albums and generally supported us over a momentous year

lots of love,

OS Mickey

Hurricane Mike

Wingco Mullean

Admiral lord Biscuit

Prince Nawros

Bird Radio

and Arthur Bently

xxxxxxx