This radio edit was broadcast once on 1 May 2020 on London's art radio station Resonance 104.4fm, as part of a day of special broadcasts to celebrate the station's 18th birthday. A radio edit from A Puppet Show by Steven Hull features Tony White performing short story ‘Apocryphal Fragment from the Lives of the Conquistadors', and Gibby Haynes track ‘Maigizo ya Bandia’, both from A Puppet Show by Steven Hull, for Glow: Santa Monica 2013. Steven Hull is an artist based in LA whose work often includes huge collaborative projects. The story was commissioned by Hull to be performed as a large scale psychedelic puppet show on Santa Monica Beach for the Glow Festival, with accompanying music commissioned from the legendary Gibby Haynes, and from Petra Haden, Tanya Haden and Anna Huff. The story was first issued as a separate track with sound accompaniment by Steven Hull, on a vinyl LP of the project released on Hull's own Nothing Moments label. But Christopher Schnieders in the LP liner notes writes that Haynes's music ‘synchronizes remarkably with Tony White’s story.’ Gibby Haynes himself says that he ‘intentionally did not read the story then was shocked to find out how much the writing inspired the sounds.’  White notes, 'Gibby Haynes and I never spoke or corresponded in advance or compared notes in any way, and we didn’t share anything with Steven, there wasn’t time. Yet when our files crossed over, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing: somehow the words and music seemed to illustrate each other.’ This radio edit played White's vocal and Haynes's music simultaneously. Image: A Puppet Show by Steven Hull, Glow: Santa Monica, 2013.

A Puppet Show by Steven Hull (Radio Edit, feat. Gibby Haynes, Tony White)

“I avoided the common for a few weeks and repaired my headphones with masking tape, but as the weather gradually got warmer we started going there again on the way home. 'We' being me, Gaz and Dom and self-confessed 'token girl' Daze. Dom was into reciting routines from the Arena documentary on writer William S. Burroughs that someone in the college library had videoed when it was on telly a couple of months earlier and which we must have seen a dozen times not including the rewinding of favourite sequences so knew those routines inside out in the way that school friends with older brothers knew Monty Python.”

Tony White reads his short story ‘A Porky Prime Cut’, with accompaniment by Richard Norris, as performed at the Free University of Glastonbury, 25 June 2011. Vocals recorded in Lewes, Sussex, July 2011.

© Tony White, 2011 / Music © Richard Norris, 2011

For more info on Tony White’s books, events, audio etc., visit his website: http://pieceofpaperpress.com/

A Porky Prime Cut was commissioned as part of Digital Transformations, an arts project co-ordinated and curated by SCAN with Bournemouth Libraries and Arts and Bournemouth Adult Learning. Digital Transformations was funded and supported by The Learning Revolution Transformation Fund, Bournemouth Borough Council, SCAN, Bournemouth University, and the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education.

A Porky Prime Cut

Track #1 from the vinyl LP by LA artist Steven Hull (Nothing Moments, 2014). Tony White reads his short story, a psychedelic parable about Cortés presented as a piece of Castañeda apocrypha, with sound by Steven Hull. This new short story formed the basis of Steven Hull’s huge Puppet Show performance commissioned for Glow 2013 (a triennial, dusk-to-dawn arts festival on Santa Monica Beach). The story is now available on a beautiful yellow vinyl, gatefold LP from Nothing Moments, featuring audio of the story with sounds and music by Petra Haden, Tanya Haden and Anna Huff, Steven Hull and the legendary Gibby Haynes of Butthole Surfers. A two-fold, full colour pamphlet insert features the full text of Tony White’s story, plus photos of A Puppet Show at Glow and an interview-essay with all participants by Christopher Schnieders.

A Puppet Show, track listing:

A Side:
#1 ‘A Fragment from the Lives of the Conquistadors’ story by Tony White and sound by Steven Hull, 12:50 min.
#2 ‘Horse Parade’ by Petra Haden, Tanya Haden and Anna Huff, 3:47 min.

B Side:
#1 ‘Maigizo ya Bandia’ by Gibby Haynes, 10:12 min.
#2 ‘Conquistadorable’ by Petra Haden, Tanya Haden and Anna Huff, 4:51 min.

Image: A Puppet Show listening station in the exhibition My Little Boat of Sorrow: Tami Demaree, Alex Evans, Tanya Haden, Gibby Haynes, Steven Hull, Jim Shaw, Allison Schulnik, and Marnie Weber. Rosamund Felsen Gallery, July 12 2014 — August 9 2014.

Find out more: http://pieceofpaperpress.com/2014/07/17/a-puppet-show-vinyl-lp-now-available/

A Fragment From The Lives Of The Conquistadors

‘Super dry, dark and funny. Glasnost for UK cops.’ (Tim Etchells)

At once a satirical performance, a protest and an act of radical remembrance—a memorial built in the mind—‘The Holborn Cenotaph’ is a short story by Tony White that was inspired by artists Stuart Brisley and Maya Balcioglu’s The Cenotaph Project (1987-1991). ‘The Holborn Cenotaph’ was originally written for and first performed by White at ‘The Cenotaph Project & the public sphere’ in the chapel at King’s College London, an event produced in collaboration with Balcioglu, Brisley and Dr. Sanja Perovic of King’s for Underground: Arts & Humanities Festival 2014. That event and the loose collaboration with Brisley et al that preceded it were made possible by White’s residency at King’s College London, funded by Creativeworks London.

Presented in the tradition of a Swiftian ‘modest proposal’, ‘The Holborn Cenotaph’ uses the language and performance of contemporary law enforcement and policy to frame a satirical proposition: that the high-rise tower of Holborn Police Station in central London be decommissioned and converted into ‘a new Holborn Cenotaph, a 50-metre high, networked memorial’ the purpose of which is not immediately revealed.

Since October 2014, White has given many readings of ‘The Holborn Cenotaph’, appearing at events and venues including Brixton Book Jam, the British Library, The MAC in Belfast, Richard Strange’s Cabaret Futura, Beaconsfield, Sylvia Plath Fan Club, Venice Agendas 15 at Turner Contemporary Margate, and many more.

This recording is of Tony White’s reading on the Speakers’ Corner stage at London Radical Bookfair at Goldsmith’s, University of London, 7 May 2016. 

The Holborn Cenotaph, live at the London Radical Bookfair

Tony White reads his short story ‘High-Lands’, for the TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2016 in Galway, Ireland. ‘High-Lands’ is performed here for the first time with live musical accompaniment from New Pope. Recorded live at the Galway Mechanics’ Institute, November 11 2016. Sound engineer: John Burke.

New Pope is a songwriter dealing in melodic indie dream pop and sometimes folk. In the past year New Pope has played Electric Picnic, Whelan's Ones To Watch and Hard Working Class Heroes, collaborated with acclaimed English author Tony White for the TULCA Festival of Visual Arts, and has been featured on BBC's Across The Line and RTE Radio 1's Inside Culture.

Onstage he is joined by Colm Bohan on percussion and Stephen Connolly on organ and guitar.

Released in December 2015, New Pope’s debut album YOUTH was named number 13 in the nialler9.com Reader's Best Irish Albums of 2015, number 23 in The Thin Air’s Irish releases of the year and Release of the Week in The Irish Times.

‘Onwards, Westwards’ - the opening track from YOUTH - featured on the soundtrack to American indie summer flick Baked In Brooklyn (2016) starring Josh Brener (Silicon Valley) & Alexandra Daddario (True Detective).

"Perfectly balanced between both the tender and more pining realms of nostalgia... offers up a wonderfully re-assuring, immaculately crafted summation of the inner, intersubjective workings of dealing with change and growing up" (Brian Coney, The Thin Air, YOUTH LP, 2015)

"One of the finds of the festival... It’s a low key gig, but the crowd’s attention never wavers – this is a chance encounter that pays off in spades." (Justin McDaid, Goldenplec, HWCH, 2015)

"New Pope is a treat that has left a now totally full yet utterly silent room entranced." (Eoin Murray, The Thin Air, Róisín Dubh, 2015)

‘High-Lands’ © Tony White, 2014 / all music written by David Boland / music © David Boland, 2016

‘High-Lands’ was originally commissioned by London Fieldworks and Resonance 104.4fm as part of Remote Performances and broadcast live from Outlandia, a unique artists’ field-station in Glen Nevis, Lochaber, Scotland. Remote Performances was supported by Arts Council England, Nevis Landscape Partnership (Heritage Lottery Programme), Oxford Brookes University, Live Art Development Agency (LADA), and Edinburgh Arts Festival. ‘High-Lands’ is collected in the critical anthology Remote Performances in Nature and Architecture, edited by Bruce Gilchrist, Jo Joelson and Tracey Warr (Ashgate/Routledge, 2015).

‘High-Lands’ draws on research undertaken as part of a loose collaboration with Stuart Brisley, Maya Balcioglu and Dr Sanja Perovic of King’s College London, that was made possible by Tony White’s appointment in 2013-14 as creative entrepreneur in residence (funded by Creativeworks London) and visiting research fellow in the French Department at King’s.

TULCA is a contemporary Visual Arts Festival, which takes place over 17 days throughout Galway city and county, funded by the arts council, Galway City Council and Galway County Council. Since 2002, TULCA has led the way for contemporary art in the west of Ireland, exhibiting art forms such as sculpture, video, paint, photography and performance art to name a few. TULCA 2016 was guest curated by Daniel Jewesbury. For more information about the TULCA Festival of Visual Arts see http://www.tulcafestival.com/

High-Lands (with New Pope, live at the Galway Mechanics Institute)

‘A Porky Prime Cut’ live. Tony White reads 'A Porky Prime Cut' with live musical accompaniment from bass player Simon Edwards at the Dirty Literature gig at the National Portrait Gallery, London, on 18 March 2011.

Dirty Literature was a series of events programmed by Electra at the National Portrait Gallery in London during 2011.

A Porky Prime Cut © Tony White, 2011; Music © Simon Edwards, 2011. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

‘A Porky Prime Cut’ was first published by SCAN in association with Artists’ Ebooks, Bournemouth Libraries and Arts and Piece of Paper Press. A Porky Prime Cut by Tony White is part of Digital Transformations, an arts project using photography, film, sound, mapping, creative writing, web design and exhibition to raise the profile of the communities of Kinson, Townsend and West Howe in Bournemouth. Digital Transformations is coordinated and curated by SCAN with Bournemouth Libraries and Arts, and Bournemouth Adult Learning. It is funded and supported by The Learning Revolution Transformation Fund, Bournemouth Borough Council, SCAN, Bournemouth University, and The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE).

A Porky Prime Cut (live at the National Portrait Gallery London)

SoundCloud page for novelist Tony White, author of novels including Foxy-T (Faber and Faber) and Shackleton's Man Goes South (Science Museum). 

the author Tony White

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