Bad Timing have been responsible for bringing some of the most interesting and experimental musicians in the world to play in Cambridge, throughout the last decade. They are currently collaborating with artistic groups Aid & Abet, and Wysing Arts Centre, as well as planning a series of gigs in the run-up to their tenth anniversary. Explorer spoke to Bad Timing’s Jo Brook…

What have you been up to with Aid& Abet recently? How did this project come about, and how has it been going?
“I’d really been hoping for something like that to happen in Cambridge – a large industrial arts space within the city – but couldn’t really see where it could be done. So when it opened I went straight down and got talking to the group of artists that run it about similar spaces they knew in other cities like Birmingham and Bristol, and how those places work with local music organisations like Supersonic Festival to put on special events. We soon found there was interest in making similar links in Cambridge, and organising music-based events at the space. The second project at the space – Art As A Full Time Hobby – celebrates DIY resourcefulness, self-publishing and distribution, and hobbyist ways of making art. The project is based around visual artists but there are parallels between the way these artists are working and the ways we work on music, with DIY film-making as a common area of activity.

“Originally we were invited to organise a music event within the space but we asked if we could also do our own DIY project there and amazingly they said yes. The result is a tiny four or five-capacity arts centre called Self Assembly, which is a six foot cube with a junk roof that three of us built over the course of a working week. It has a gallery space, film screenings and live music. It also has a 1,998-track jukebox of music by Pete UM, Cambridge’s own obsessive bedroom musician.
“Although we’ve done events in churches and clubs, we’re often categorised as ‘small-venue promoters’, so we in part we thought it would be ironic, on finally getting the use of a larger space, to build a small venue inside it. It’s also inspired by DIY and junk architecture, from things like the Amphis building at Wysing to people’s tiny sheds on allotments made of scraps of wood and plastic, as well as the idea of creating your own scene from scratch, and having something of your own which you can create and curate.

“The final day of the project, Saturday 30 July, will be the culmination of the show and projects and a chance to see all the work which has been created on site by artists Alex Pearl, Gareth Bayliss and Annabel Dover as well as within Self Assembly. At 2pm there will be the launch of a new zine ‘Soon All Your Neighbours Will Be Artists’ by Aid & Abet and groups in Birmingham, Bristol and Cardiff. Then in the evening there is a gig and closing party organised by Bad Timing, starting with C Joynes and Babygrand doing special sets within Self Assembly as its final events, before Pete UM and The Doozer play on a stage in the large main space of Aid & Abet with live visuals from possible area audiovisual and Cambridge Super 8.

So what’s been the reaction from musicians to your Self Assembly venue?
“There’s been a few people lining up to play there and it’s interesting how people see it in different ways. People have responded to the idea of a tiny venue only suitable for solo artists and a small fanbase – Pete UM once played a 12-hour gig in his own room in a shared house. Other people see it as a shed – as in the place where DIYers are banished to do their own projects.”

What are you doing in collaboration with Wysing Arts Centre in September?
“Last year Wysing held their first music festival – Be Glad For The Song Has No End – a festival of music made by visual artists, and organised by Andy Holden who recently had a show at Kettle’s Yard. This year there is a follow-up festival – Past Present Future: Space-Time on Saturday 10 September. The theme is music and art made in the legacy of psychedelia. Musically the idea is to avoid rigid or primarily retrospective interpretations of the psychedelia theme and focus on a forward-looking and wide-ranging line-up of electronic and hypnotic, improvised and immersive music, taking in a wide spectrum of electronic music, noise, dubstep, current psych-influenced hypnotic guitar music and minimalist composition – a two-hour performance of Terry Riley’s ‘In C’ by a 20-piece orchestra.

“Bad Timing were initially asked to suggest suitable local artists but it quickly turned out we were thinking along really similar lines about the theme and the whole line-up so Bad Timing was invited to become a partner in the festival and get directly involved in programming. The line-up still has some final acts to be added at this time but it features a lot Bad Timing-related artists such as Astral Social Club, Disinformation and Alexander Tucker. We’re also really excited to be able to invite some bigger artists in like Demdike Stare – which we probably wouldn’t be able to take the risk of booking in a smaller event in the city – and to be putting them on in that unique setting, with new buildings being constructed specially alongside Amphis and Andy Holden’s Boulder Stage. There are also talks, films, performance and family activities. Tickets including optional coaches from Cambridge or London are available and camping is also possible. Early bird tickets are available until early August.”

Are projects like these part of an overall plan for Bad Timing to move away solely from gig promotion into other areas?
“Bad Timing will always be about live music and events, as that’s something I’ve been interested in from almost as soon as I started getting into music.  But it’s always been part of my idea of Bad Timing to do special events and use unusual spaces and go beyond what happens in the few hours of an event. Before Bad Timing started I programmed a festival including installations within the Museum of Technology. But although I’m always looking out for ideas and spaces, and speaking to people about spaces, this year has been the first time in a few years – probably since we were involved in the Junction’s enter: unknown territories festival in 2007 – that the opportunities to do that have really come up.

“The visual side of promoting music has always been important to me too.  I try to make sure Bad Timing has distinctive posters and flyers and designing these is an essential part of being a promoter for me. I’ve also created artwork for vinyl releases and do live visuals, and we have worked with Cambridge Super 8 group on some of our events. In parallel with Bad Timing I also organise one of the Kettle’s Yard New Music Morning events where local artists are showcased in a different context to the usual gigs.”

What would be your dream music or art project to work on in the future?
“I would like to do some events in some really weird spaces, particularly hidden industrial spaces. I would really like to try to do something similar to Self Assembly again at some point, maybe on a bigger scale or in a different kind of location.  It’s good to think there are some more opportunities to make things happen in Cambridge at the moment.

What Bad Timing gigs have you got coming up in August?
“On Thursday 4 August we have R Stevie Moore, a legendary lo-fi ‘outsider’ rock artist who’s influenced a lot of current musicians, particularly Ariel Pink, and also Pete UM, who opens that night. After making more than 400 albums in his bedroom he’s now doing his first tour of the UK and Europe. Then on Saturday 13 August we have two acts from the American Not Not Fun label. High Wolf uses loops, percussive sounds, fuzzy keyboards and obscure sunken melodies to create a ritualistic atmosphere combining aspects of exotica, drone and minimalism. Ensemble Economique is a project by Brian Pyle (of Starving Weirdos) taking every angle on drone music – from drifting tone-scapes to excursions into noise.”

Do you think there’s a growing interest in Cambridge for the sort of gigs/events you’re involved in?
“It’s definitely grown from when we started. The city wasn’t on the touring circuit (or even on the map) for musicians and record labels organising tours then, and we really had to persuade everyone involved, including even small venues, to let us try to bring these things to Cambridge. Since we started, live music has really expanded in general so I think more people expect to see international tours come to smaller places and look for listings.

“These days for its size Cambridge certainly has a huge number of touring artists coming through on the underground and experimental side and other people are now promoting small international underground music shows here in parallel areas to Bad Timing – in particular Crushing Death and Grief, and Harvest Time/Palimpsest Festival, as well as others like Kesh. So there is now a quite a range of gigs going on here for people who follow these kinds of music. But we do still have to work hard to get the word out though. and the population is also pretty transient. So it can build up for a while only for those people to leave – and it’s not just people who are here to study.”

Could you give us a brief history of Bad Timing, and what you do/have done for the last ten years or so?
“We started Bad Timing because a regular night we went to at the Portland Arms – Spare Toasters – was ending after two years and we all needed somewhere to play and DJ. At that time I was also involved in LEAPS (Live Experimental Arts Performance Society) which was what got me involved in running events in Cambridge (after previously doing nights in Brighton). But LEAPS wasn’t primarily music-focused and was specifically set up to feature local artists only, whereas I was getting more interested in bringing in non-local UK and touring artists here to play. So two of us decided to start Bad Timing. The name is taken from a Jim O’Rourke album (and in turn the obsessive Nic Roeg film), but it was also meant to be an alternative to more club- and dance-orientated electronic music nights as well as being in the spirit of lo-fi, DIY and John Peel, who often used to play vinyl records at the wrong speed.

“Within a year of starting, we had moved from putting ourselves and local artists on to inviting artists from the UK to booking international touring artists like Venetian Snares. Since then we’ve brought people from across the world to Cambridge and artists are often keen to come back and do the kind of intimate smaller shows we have. In some cases support slots have made connections with international artists that have led on to European tours and record releases for Cambridge artists.
We keep it to about 10-15 gigs per year and only book things we’re into. So the kinds of music we put on have naturally evolved over the years, with noise, post-punk, improv, electronica, grindcore, art-rock, improv, sound art all featuring, although our deepest roots are in electronic and experimental music of all kinds. It’s hard to pick out individual artists who stand out but we’ve been lucky enough to book people we’d never have dreamed of when we started.  I’m particularly pleased to have brought people like Wolf Eyes and Pita (Peter Rehberg) here. and we’ve had some memorable small shows with people who are now much bigger, in particular Panda Bear.

“We’re also interested in music which is not just experimental in sound but is actually made using invented instruments or equipment, especially DIY things which musicians have designed or made themselves. Our event for the Junction’s enter festival was a night of people using high-voltage electricity and modified circuits and homemade synthesisers to make music and we’ve had more than one act playing fluorescent tubes, Janek Schaefer’s three-tonearm record player, modified electronic circuits, toys and Gameboys, an industrial steel catering sink used as a drumkit, homemade guitars with springs built into the body. My own music is also based on DIY inventions and putting old and supposedly obsolete technology such as cassettes and FM radios to use to make music.

“Probably our most unusual event involved the setting of an official Guinness World Record at The Portland. In 2003 Janek Schaefer (turntable inventor and sound artist) celebrated his 33 1/3 birthday (and Bad Timing its second) and he decided to set a new record for most vinyl records smashed in 30 seconds, which I believe still stands.
For the first five years Bad Timing was a collective of two or three people but by about five years ago the others had both had four years of doing gigs and wanted to concentrate on making and releasing music.  Since 2006 I have run Bad Timing single-handedly. In late November Bad Timing will celebrate its tenth birthday and we’re planning a special event. More details about that soon but it will be very much in the spirit of Bad Timing!”

Here’s a flavour of R Stevie Moore (4 August at The Portland Arms, Chesterton Rd. Cost: £6/£7) from Youtube

Bad Timing www.bad-timing.co.uk