New Red Dawn

KING INK 2011

So, a new year and a new chance to push things to the limit, bring ideas to fruition, wow the crowds or crash and burn in the process, sink into ignominy, end our days sleeping rough on dog shit stained park benches, dredging white lighting outside performance nights and screaming through blackened lungs and teeth at entering punters and performers, “Don’t get in there, that’s where dreams are destroyed!”.

All good stuff.

We have a bunch of shows lined up for the new year! In 2010 we had our first launch; this year we are going to concentrate on putting on ‘events’ i.e. shows with a theme and/or characters.

We will make these shows as mixed media orientated as possible. One of our biggest challenges is to develop and learn how to do this seamlessly and get the most out of current, available technology (i.e. on the cheap!).

So far we have the following lined up:

• 17^th March, Theatre Royal York: WORD MACHINE. In partnership with Monkfish Wordtank from Newcastle we are putting on a showcase of their work and ours along with a element of open mic and contributions from local York performance artists and writers.
• 22^nd March, Heart Centre, Headingley, Leeds: SELF 101: An Introduction to you. As part of the Headingley Literary Festival we are putting on a show in which visiting professors from The University of Freduberg carry out three weird and wonderful lectures into the self and consciousness.
• June, The Arc, Stockton: SELF 101: An Introduction to you. Sometime in June (dates are being confirmed) we will bring the Contexts of the Self event to the Arc for a performance.
• June, Middlesbrough, Literary Festival: Again, sometime in June we will be putting on a themed night for the Literary Festival, possibly horror based and we will put out something asking for contributions from people to perform, similar to the zine and the launch for Vol 2.

If you can get to any of these events, particularly York and Leeds then we would really appreciate it. If you live in Leeds or York please start passing the word around about them so we can get bums (not that your friends, peers colleagues are bums per say, maybe dregs but not bums) on seats and get feedback on the show.

Also this year, we will publish Vol 3 of the “I’m Afraid of Everyone,” only this time we are shaking things up, doing things a bit different. So we decided… (dunt dunt dah!) that Vol 3 will be an audio book! Yikes! How are we going to staple it?!?

Not only that, but it will have a narrative running throughout which we as King Ink will write. We will use this to create a ‘world’ within the audio book, and given our obsessions and interests you can probably guess it isn’t going to be a particularly pleasant one (but as usual there will be flashes of deepest, darkest humour).

Alongside the words, we may lay on some soundscapes, tones, scratchy analogue whines, bleats and bass murmurs. We hope to please, or perhaps contort the ears as much as the mind. To achieve this we plan to work with local musical talent.

We will be asking for guest contributors, who we will work with to create short stories or poems to illuminate and examine this world of ours, through pieces which add texture or focus on specific characters whom inhabit it.

So, if you want to contribute to Vol 3, here are some guidelines:

• Can you please send two pieces of work (i.e. prose, poems), no more than 500 words each to showcase your writing. If you have done any audio book work or written any radio plays then please also send those, no more than 5 pages for each piece please.
• All examples should be sent to us by the 30^th April, you have until Midnight (moo hoo ha haa!) to send them to imafraidofeveryone@gmail.com.  
• We will then review the examples, pick out the best work and get back to all successful contributors by the 30^th June (or sooner, depending on how many contributions we receive), and will then confirm names on the blog on the same day.
• Successful contributors will then work with us between June and the autumn to write and then record the pieces. Contributors will have the option of recording the work themselves or using actors (who we will drag of the street and then dispose of or keep in a cage in Tim’s basement if we feel they can be useful).
• We will then aim for a launch in September, possibly with a performance of all or some of the pieces. The venue will be revealed closer to the time but it will be in the North East.

Lastly we are going to try to get a website set up over the next couple of months. We are being assisted with this by Mr Crash Raindog, who is dungeon master of the interweb and e-ternet and we are very grateful that he will be bringing his skills to the table to help move us to the next level. God bless you governor.

There will probably be other events and bits and pieces happening this year but we will keep you in the loop via the facebook page and the blog.

Please get involved, support us where you can and together lets make this a bloody good year before we all descend into the Mayan approved and pre-ordered apocalypse in 2012!

Whilst we wait for the flames to engulf our skin and souls, you can do no better than boogie down to the following pure classic album, Return to Cookie Mountain by TV on The Radio.

Return to Cookie Mountain 

Released in 2006, which was a good year for apocalyptic pop (same year Liars released their seminal Drum is Not Dead), every track is a funky, noise behemoth, trading in every style from post punk, trip hop and even barbershop to make a cohesive, melancholy whole. 

"Open my heart and let it bleed on yours." Indeed.