NOTES from the UNDERGROUND

THE POWER OF LOCALLY BUILT COMMUNITIES Whenever I’m out and about the most common question I get from the people who I haven’t seen recently is, ‘Will you ever promote drum and bass raves again?’ And I always get caught off-guard with it, as it brings with it so many emotions. I loved the life as a drum and bass promoter and I think I was really good at it, mainly because I really cared. From the booking, the programming, the designing, the promoting, the anxiety before, the

One hot Mid-August evening in Cardiff city centre down one of the alleys around Cardiff Museum, close to the student areas. Me and Andy ‘Shrew’ pasting up art work and posters. We’d chosen a spot that could be seen from the busy road and had good footfall in the morning from both workers and students. Both laughing and joking until from the far end of the skinny alleyway the blue lights flashed. Luckily it was a riot van so we had time. The poster I was just slopping the last

When I was a kid me and my brother cornered a snake with our bare hands in Kenya, stupid thing to do, but back in Wales my mum had always encouraged us to be close with nature and we’d go collecting tadpoles, frogs, newts and the best thing to catch was slow worms or grass snakes. But here we were in the hot, humid acacia woodland of the Maasai Mara, it was completely dark the only lighting was spotlights lighting walk ways. My mum had spotted a frog catching moths attracted

Concrete Junglists has never been scared to stand on its soapbox. I get told all the time that I would be earning good money if I just kept my mouth shut, but what would I be running. The brands I used to admire, I’ve watched them grow and be sold and grow again. But as those brands get further from their source the voice diminishes and their sense of being something to wear, falls from the shoulders of the original tribe and onto the capitalist clothes horses. Take someone l

In all honesty I never knew I was gonna do any of this, my art teacher in school wouldn’t let me take GCSE art as I wasn’t good enough, my music teacher told me to mime at the school recitals as to not spoil the performance, by the age of thirteen I had resigned myself to a life behind a desk or stacking shelves. The only turning point was being sat next to a girl I fancied in my media studies class, she told me she wasn’t doing school after the exams but going to an out of t

We seem to be inundated with people telling us how to lead our lives at the moment, how to be more productive, how to be fitter, how to eat better, sleep better, think better. But behind all these people telling you how & why & when, are algorithms, pay walls, likes, comments, the new dopamine hits of digital value and the cash incentives of sponsors, subscribers and investors. Most things can be classed as fads and can be tried, tested and forgotten, somethings stick, the on