Eliza Gregory's Five Things.

Written by Lazy Gramophone on Wednesday the 24th of April 2013



Five Things is a series of short journal posts introducing each of the writers and artists involved in our up-coming Time project.

Since the project's inception, the idea has been to create an environment where independent writers and artists could come together in order to share their work. The result of this endeavour is a collection of stories, images and poems based around the theme of time, its pages placing particular focus upon the relationship between words and pictures. By sharing in this way we hope to inspire each other as well as those around us, to draw a diverse audience and so help to illuminate the work of alternative artists and writers everywhere.


Biography.

Beverley -born musician and writer, Eliza Gregory, lives in London.  Fresh from school in York, she migrated south and cut her teeth as a musician (vocals/bass/guitar) in UK DIY hardcore, doom and metal bands, before entering education at Kellogg and Ruskin Colleges, Oxford.

2011-12 saw a hiatus from music to complete an MA at Goldsmiths College with a focus on poetry. Projects over the past year included writing in collaboration with the Royal Philharmonic Society, curating noise and poetry nights at V22 for This is DIY collective, work published in the latest (26th) Highgate Poets anthology, releasing a record with Necro Deathmort on Distraction Records, and moonlighting with various other bands both live and on record.

Eliza has written numerous songs, short stories and poems and is currently completing several volumes of poetry and music. All of which are to be published/released as part of disparate projects over the course of 2013.
 
(Bio photo by Julie Kane)



Five Things that Inspire Me.

This was a great exercise that I found to be really hard as I like all the things, all the time on a sort of Wheel of Fortune rotation. The one sensible thing Jack Kerouac said in On the Road '"I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop..”.  That's more true today to me than ever.

SOUNDS: The Cure (1977-1989) & Disintegration - I heard my sister listening to Disintegration when I was around ten years old and it gave me a naive musical epiphany. Before hearing them I played classical instruments in youth orchestras and quartets, whilst simultaneously liking KISS. The impact of the opening song completely blew me away with the dense swelling layers of sound giving the impression they'd harnessed all the known world to contribute a noise, making Plainsong like a bloody great big droney tank. The lyrical content was startlingly honest in contrast to all the saccharine pop and party music floating about:
"I think it's dark and it looks like rain" you said / and the wind is blowing like it's the end of the World" you said / "and it's so cold it's like the cold if you were dead" / and then you smiled for a second.
This band signifies the beginning of my love affair with records and navigating the broader musical seas. They effectively ruined any kind of classical career I had designs on by introducing me to the joy of composing with simple chord patterns, later perpetuated by Mudhoney, Jesus Lizard and Diamanda Galas. Currently both albums by Liberez and Gaza's newest record, 'No Absolutes in Human Suffering', amongst a metric freakton of other records make me all weak at the knees.  I read somewhere that just before Disintegration was made, Robert Smith was ready to pack it in. I'm glad he didn't.

Art Nouveau - As I'm a bit of a magpie, Art Nouveau contains for me everything to admire in an art movement. All aspects of work were exquisitely rendered but even more pleasing was that the inspiration was often taken from nature's own patterns. This lot (both the British and French schools in particular) revelled finding beauty in everything and incorporated it to their work with the most incredible precision. The consideration and intricacy of any piece be it wallpaper, fabric, a chair, let alone the paintings and images, are so aesthetically pleasing it's quite overwhelming. It showed me how you can choose any subject and make its beauty come to the fore. A veritable feast.

John Donne (1672-1631) - This Aubade, The Sunne Rising (1600 approx.) tells of John cursing the sun's untimely interruption to his er, bedchamber activities, quashing the chance for him and his lover to stay in bed for as long as they fancy.  I think they did so anyway, quite often, as he had an army of children. How could his wife refuse him, with written pieces like that?

Waiting For Godot by Samuel Beckett (1953) - Two men on a stage talk, waiting for somebody who never shows up, over the course of an afternoon. No props, bells or whistles, just pure dramatic interaction. This is quite possibly one of the best mid-twentieth century plays written and the themes within it permeate everything I do - whether I'm conscious of it or not.  It asks all the questions a human can ask about being human. I thought early Red Dwarf, with its minimal sets, mismatched characters and ultimately, feeling of isolation, was the sci-fi comedy equivalent. It occurs to me every time I see it.

The Collected Works of Billy the Kid by Michael Ondjaate (1970) - A mixture of poetry and prose so packed with ideas, imagery and sensuality, I'm always amazed that it's only a narrow volume. It revolutionised the way I thought about varying style over the course of one book; the use of numerous narrators in storytelling and multi-perspectives within that. Chartering the demise of Billy the Kid and his clan, it's a graphic tale, brutal, linguistically acrobatic and utterly compelling as a book of poems. You can taste every cigarette, smell the gunshot and touch both the time and landscape conjured - so much so it feels like a biography.  This was my bible for quite a while and influenced my first full collection of poems (titled 'The Procession'), which has taken nearly four years to complete. I don't think I've ever loved a book so intensely.


The Time Project.

1. Time Book Launch Lazy Gramophone Events Page 

2. Time Book Launch Facebook Page

3. View our Clock page (counting down to the release of Time)

4. An introduction to Time

5. Contributors' Five Things Journal Posts:
- Adam Green
- Bryn Hall
- Inua Ellams
- Zoe Catherine Kendall
- Andrew Walter
- Laura Dockrill
- Mat Lloyd
- Sorana Santos
- Will Conway
- Hannah Stephenson
- Matt Black
- Claire Fletcher
- Carl Laurence
- Zophiel Webb
- Jude Melling
- Stacie Withers
- Tom Hirons
- Megan Leonie Hall
- Vincent J Prince
- Kaitlin Beckett
- Guy J Jackson
- Eliza Gregory
- Jeannie Paske
- Jo Tedds
- Maria Drummey
- Tom Harris
- Liz Adams
- Lola Dupre
- Kirsty Allison
- Alexander Aspinall
- Paul Bloom

6. Buy Time from the Lazy Gramophone Shop 

7. Press/Reviews
(Click the links below to read each article in full)

Huffington Post:
'An intriguing book project from one of the most innovative groups of creative people in the city.' ~ Huffington Post

Fabric Magazine:
'...we'll bet you've never seen time as it's portrayed in this stunning new publication.' ~ Fabric Magazine

Rooms Magazine:
'Time is a treasure box brimming with creativity and fresh talent.' ~ Rooms Magazine

Annexe Magazine:
'Lazy Gramophone's anthology, Time, lives up to the high bar it sets for itself.' ~ Annexe Magazine

MORE...

For more on The Time Project tweet us @lazygramophone or #TheTimeProjectLGP or visit our Time Facebook page.
Tags for this post: Necro Deathmort, Five Things, Lazy Garmohone, Time, Eliza Gregory.

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Title: The Time Project - Lazy Gramophone Press
By: LazyGramophone
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