Dale Grimshaw

Someone in a rather dubious red coat and a strange looking misshaped hat shouted in a rather aggressive way the other day that the big problem with Organ was that “you’re always so damn positive about everything!”.  Surely that’s not quite right? Met a painter recently at a scuzzy gallery over in Dalston who said she feared us coming to her exhibitions because we can be so damn critical, she said she liked the way we tell it how it really is but she worries when she sees us at her shows. I do like to think we do tell is like it is and that when we are positive there’s substance to the coverage, we’re not one of these damn websites that does little more than cut and paste a press release while sucking up to people and trying to sell them some advert space, we do like to actually get out there and go see the art or the music.  According to misshaped hat man, we need to stop being so excited by every band we ever and “get a grip on things”, really can’t take a man in a hat like that seriously though, did you really g out in that hat?

Thing is, really good bands and really great music gets us excited, so does good art or a well put together exhibition. We see a lot of bad art we don’t cover it, we encounter some really average bands, we don’t bother with them. Never saw the point in cluttering up our pages with negative reviews, or even worse than cluttering up a website or a printed page with critically negative reactions, the clutter of indifferent reviews about art or music we don’t really feel that negative or positive about, do you really need us covering the dozens of six out ten heard it all before bands churning out more “stuff” to clutter up our time, we don’t have the damn time!  And we do hear some dreadfully average music and we do get our in-boxes cluttering up with all kind of generic nothingness –  I mean, did a music PR company really just try to get us to cover some band they insist are making “Brit Pop for the Brexit generation” and then try to tell us that it would be “a good fit with our readers”? Britpop!? Britpop was tedious enough first time around. all those average Blur impressions in every pub in Camden, we were there, it really was tedious fighting through it all to get to a Homage Freaks gig.  Sure, we could clutter up these pages telling you about the “Brit Pop for the Brexit generation” and keep silly hat man entertained, we could clutter up our pages with all the generic metal or the tediously bad sub Porcupine Tree neo-prog or the tediously bad street art made by clueless idiots who somehow learned how to cut a half-arsed stencil without slicing their fingers off – Do we really need to tell you about yet another street art show with yet another stencil of a damn stormtrooper or that damn artist who insists on imposing her bad bad painting on every wall East London has to offer or the gallery that just asked us to cover the opening of some shallow exhibition cluttered up with yet more of the same slick faceless screen printing of cats and coke cans, do we really need to tell you about this thing we’re listening to right now, some bunch of beard growing hipsters who sound like the worst bits of Wham, the press release claims it to be “an utterly spellbinding dose of hyped-up pop”, sounds like half-arsed hipster tedium to these tortured ears, we get hundreds of these things coming at us every day, why waste space on any of it? Why!?  We could fill page after page with the mundane, the generic, the average, the tedious, the screen prints and the dreadful blight of street art conformity, there’ so much of it, depressing soul sucking shallow art, bad bad bands, tedious conformity bereft of thought, desire or a need to do anything other thwen be like everything else, mere “stuff” that none of us need.

Did you see that selfie what Francis Bacon did? I’m sure we said all this a few weeks back, but yes, Miraculous Mule are that good, and yes This Heat were that magical last Saturday night and those Hedley Roberts paintings in that show that opened last week are worth seeing in the flesh, so why clutter our pages or your time telling you about the average bands or average art shows or the bad painters or that guy with his little people and that second hand idea borrowed off the other guy with the little people who already did it five times better? Why?  I mean, look at these bozos coming up here, spent all their time grooming their comedy beards and silly hair and forgot that a tiny hint of a speck of originally might make their music a tiny bit interesting, we’ve heard this all so so many times already, never mind the style, where’s the damn substance? Spend more time on your music and less on your damn hair cuts you silly silly people….

Oh yes, we could clutter up our pages with reams of this averageness brought to you by the bands with the comedy haircuts and the tedious tattoos or the generic painters or the street art clowns the clueless street art websites like to tell us are currently “smashing it”, we could do all that, but nah preposterous hat man, when we say something is worth checking out then that’s because it really really is.  We don’t have time for the six out of ten bands or the art that doesn’t excite or that street artist who causes me to take a different route to the station just so I don’t have to see what’s been inflicted on the street by said artist – it really does upset the whle balance of the day having to pass that abomination every  time I need to get to London Fields station, but why waste time saying so when there’s so much art and music that does excite and does need to be covered? Did any of the self appointed art websites actually bother going to to that opening and actually covering it last week or did they all just cut and paste the press release and sit at home basking in their own self-importance? So much good art and exciting music out there, why bother with the average? And do you really expect us to take you seriously when you go out in a hat like that?  Nah,  the big problem isn’t that we’re “always so damn positive about everything!”, the problem is we so often seem to be the only ones who are willing to get out there experience these things and get so damn positive about them….

Here’s some things we cut and paste in a lazy way while sitting here wearing hats….

WORD IN TRANSIT is a underground spoken word event that will be held on the last carriage of a tube train located on the Piccadilly line. The event will consist of a performance that will occur in between each tube stop starting from Finsbury park all the way to Cockfosters. No date, looks like they’re looknig for contributors, “we are looking for work that addresses the banality of the 9 to 5, the hellishness of the daily commute and the crippling cost of London transport”, more from Campbell McConnell

DALE GRIMSHAW has a gallery show coming up, now he’s a painter who art on the street and the substance of it is  worth bothering about, we make no apologies for the cut ‘n paste…

Well Hung say they are “delighted to announce Dale Grimshaw’s first solo show at Well Hung Gallery. Pride and Prejudice brings together a body of work based on a ‘two worlds’ theme that Dale has been developing over the last few years. The work contains a strong political message, depicting portraits of threatened indigenous people, mostly from Papua New Guinea, which collide with familiar symbols of the privileged western world, producing a jarring effect that emphasises their powerlessness.

More recently, Dale has become involved with the political struggle to free West Papua from Indonesian occupation. This bitter and hard fought struggle is rarely reported in the West and through his work, Dale has been supporting Benny Wenda, the campaigns leader and long term champion Peter Tatchell, in raising awareness in the UK.

Due to Dale’s involvement with this Campaign his latest work is moving towards a subtler and more emotively lead approach to painting. Contrasting with the earlier, more graphic representations of Western culture, Dale has begun to incorporate softer references to his cultural identity, for example graffiti interspersed with decorative wallpaper motifs. This makes the figures themselves more personal and touching, reflecting his increased interest in the plight of individuals and the intensity of their cultural identity, which is so at risk.

Dale’s work has always been boldly figurative and has been inspired by his strongly held humanitarian beliefs. However, this political message is always achieved by an emphasis on powerful direct emotions and a deep empathy for his subjects.

Join us on Thursday 23rd March for the private view from 6pm until 9.30pm. Music and refreshments will be provided, the event is open to all but please do email info@wellhung.co.uk to confirm attendance. Admission is, as always, free”.

Well Hung is at 239 Hoxton Street, London, N1 5LG. The show runs for 23 March – 6 April – Facebook event page. There’s an interview with Dale here

Dale Grimshaw