My Bristol favourites: Jules Landau

Jules Landau is lead singer, songwriter and founder of The Zen Hussies who release their fourth studio album, The Charm Account, on November 5.

Here are Jules’ top-five Bristol favourites:

The deification of Banksy

“In April 2009, Bristol’s guardians of culture went into meltdown when a group calling themselves Appropriate Media did some graffiti on another piece of graffiti. Normally of course, nobody would so much as shake a Sharpie at such an act, but when the graffiti in question is Banksy’s Mild Mild West piece, depicting a teddy bear hurling Molotovs at the rozzers, such an act is enough to make front page news. Appropriate Media, or whoever it was actually threw red paint over this famous work, in my eyes made a very poignant and timely political statement, one that old Banksy himself would probably have approved of. The ‘vandalism’ took place on Monday morning after a weekend in which the police kettled, intimidated and batoned protestors at the G7 summit demonstrations in London, during which innocent newspaper salesman Ian Tomlinson died as a direct result of police brutality. The red paint thrown on Mild Mild West was a very powerful statement about the heavy-handed actions of the police that weekend, but nobody else seemed to cotton on and the media and People’s Republic Of Stokes Croft got all righteous, getting toothbrushes out to scrub off the offending paint /blood. It wouldn’t surprise me if Banksy himself had done it.”

The Invisible Circus

“Many have extolled the virtues of The Invisible Circus and the frankly stark raving bonkers performances they have made happen in Bristol and beyond, not to mention the amount of amazing, decrepit old buildings they have catapulted themselves into and made temporary Shangri-las of lunacy since around 2004. I’ve read some jaded old farts bemoaning them saying ‘we did all this kind of stuff before in the sixties’… etc, but to them I say go back to bed and read your Debord and Freak Brothers comics. Watching ringleader Doug Francis descend on a wire from 150ft up in a fire tower, grinning like Toad of Toad Hall whilst singing and playing guitar surrounded by a colourful wrongtourage of audience and perfumers, is an image that has, for better or worse burned itself tattoo like upon my retina and I shall likely recollect with a smile on my deathbed. Our latest Zen Hussies album was all recorded at The Island too in the Woodshed Studio with Ben Capp, so although the circus have moved on to pastures new, their interventions have left behind a load of great creative spaces in Artspace Lifespace.”

The Sabrina Six Jazz Club

“Few know about this little gem, an occasional jazz club on a sizeable boat moored next to Redcliffe Bridge. Every Sunday night, the finest of Bristol and the surrounding areas’ old jazzers come and play wonderful hot and swinging old style stomps, blues and rags whilst the boat gently undulates from port to starboard as members of the Bristol Ancient Mariner’s Jazz Appreciation Society (BAMJAS) gently bob back and forth with a swing in their replacement hips to procure ales and gin from the 1980s-priced bar. Anyone wishing to indulge in an evening aboard the Sabrina will first need to become a member of BAMJAS, which involves parting with the sum of five guineas and successfully answering several, potentially difficult questions on the history of jazz.”

Giggsy’s Barbershop

“I have tried many barber’s around Bristol – the good the bad and the indifferent, the frighteningly cheap and quick, and the equally frighteningly hip and over-priced. I have in recent times come to place trust in the maintenance of my quiff solely to Giggsy on St Michael’s Hill. He is a man who understands that every person’s barnet is unique and requires a personal touch, and is a leading authority on Quiff Aerodynamics and Sustainable Pomade. He also has fine taste in music, will sell your records and CDs via his shop, his haircuts are done in just the right amount of time (neither too quick or too slow) at just the right price. It’s always good as well to be able to enjoy banter with your barber, and somebody who shares the same leftish politics and has got drunk with Chuck Berry is for me, just yer man for 20 minutes of yarning. There is also a squirrel you can feed from your hand at the shop’s back window.”

“If that doesn’t sell it to you, nothing will.”

The musicians

“It’s a cliché perhaps these days, but Bristol really is the musical capital of the UK. Forget Massive Attack, Portishead, Roni Size (no disrespect). The amount of really blisteringly talented musicians in all genres on all instruments that continue to descend on Bristol from afar is really inspiring, and we are very lucky to live in such a sonically rich city. Go to Swindon or anywhere else nearby and see how bereft of quality live music they are. I regularly get blown away, and sometimes moved to tears by the mostly unknown musicians that are magnetised to Bristol and are sweating away, plying their art in small venues like Left Bank (probably my favourite) for the love of the music, and not just chasing the next fashion or pay cheque. Folk, blues, jazz, hip-hop, punk, reggae, soul and a dozen other disciplines are all really well represented here in Bristol, and it’s great to live in a community where the masters of these various styles mix and have respect for each other, often collaborating in some very interesting crossovers. What worries me for the future, however, is that the areas of Bristol where this healthy fertilisation has been happening the past 30 years (Easton, St Paul’s, Montpelier, Stokes Croft etc) are very quickly becoming unaffordable for anyone without a regular career and its accompanying salary to live in them, and Bristol will in five years or so, be another bland, gentrified city centre, with all the interesting artists and thinkers having moved to pastures new and less expensive.”

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