Hackney Council get a lot of things right. Fair play, they do a pretty good job and you have to applaud their ‘different’ approach to tackling fly posters, whether you agree with it or not. Hell they know the difference between pissed up tagging and quality street art too.

I’ve personally witnessed one Hackney Graffiti Removal Van pull up outside Cargo’s front door and the driver get out and approach Nick Walker’s Moona Lisa. I jumped in and said, ‘you’re not going to remove that are you?’ Only for the driver to get out his mobile phone and take a picture of it, get back in his wagon and drive away. (Now Nick’s piece has been ruined by dickhead taggers writing ‘I Love You Dave’ all over it and other 2am pen drivel, oh the irony). I’m still dining out on the story.

So it was strange to walk up to Cargo on Tuesday morning and see Myne’s new poster piece covered with Hackney’s patented anti-fly poster techinque. ‘CANCELLED – NOT THE EVENT ADVERTISED BUT THIS POSTER’.

Which is all well and good but what about when the poster isn’t advertising anything? What’s happens when the poster is a piece of art? Surely Hackney have been handed too much power when they have the ability to cancel art? What’s next, Hackney Council cancel dreams…

Whether Myne’s poster is advertising anything is a can of worms that Shepard Fairey would love to open up, and it’s clear that Myne’s work is influenced by Mr. Obey, but surely the Hackney Council can tell the difference between a poster advertising a night and a piece of poster art, can’t they. Can’t they?

UGLY DOG VOTE - The western world’s approach to the canine is a give and take relationship; cuddles, walks, companionship etc. But when you go out of your way to acquire a mutt that looks like walking road-kill just so you can enter it into niche competitions like this and make other people puke into their mouths upon seeing said said ugly dog, then that’s not a healthy relationship to have.

SCIENTOLOGY: NOT A CULT – I see McDonald’s has been edging away from it’s fast food restaurant connations by painting the front of their restaurants green and serving salad, but it still serves perma-heated 4-hour-old burgers in under 30 seconds. Same goes for Scientology. You can tell everyone you’re not one. But you are one.

URBAN ART AUCTION – Amazing artists selling their brilliant art… wow if I had money, I’d buy Nick Walker’s Headless Astronaut… but I don’t.

BORED MUCH?

There’s nothing funny about stealing a man’s hat… or is there? hee hee hee

Oh yeah, and who the fuggle thought it was good idea to introduce Winehouse to Doherty to each other? “Pete meet Amy, Amy meet Pete. Now don’t do drugs together then film yourselves playing with baby mice, then put it up on youtube, k?”

“Uh, we can all see you, blue boat number 22, peddling for your life in the big pedalo lake that is the world of pop music. Madonna, your time is up, please come in. Sure, you’ve had your fair share of crew members aboard H.M.S. Madonna lending a hand with the leg-power, and your constant refreshing of collaborators and producers has kept you afloat for longer than normal, but where once we applauded your age, determination and lack of shame, we’re now worried for your health and think you need a good long nap interrupted by a big slap and some aversion therapy. OK?

“please, just one more hour, I’ll tag onto the NY Disco scene / Retro Country / William Orbit / Parkour / Timbaland pedalo in front and it’ll be plain sailing, yeah?”

“No, come off it you old slag, you’ve well outstayed your welcome, and besides the new ‘hip-hop-r’n'b’ production style is way too strong a look and you’ll end up sounding like you are guesting on Justin tune, rather than the other way around. Anyway, you know that last bit of credibility you left on the shore? Well, some kids have just ran off and nicked it.”

“oh shit. Really?”

“really. To quote Timbaland, “you’re out of time, all you’ve got is four minutes (to get off the pedalo lake)”

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This event was fictionalised. You can buy Madonna’s new album at all good record shops, probably even Starbucks.

Street Art is famous. Not ‘did you see me jumping around in the background of that live news piece’ famous either, Street Art is proper. Street Art IS the news piece. As I took my 6pm power-nap on Friday night, the Radio 4 news announced that Banksy has unveiled some new art in a disused railway next to Waterloo. Damn, street art on Radio 4? Charlotte Green saying ‘guerrilla street artist’ gives me the ‘orn (actually anything that Charlotte Green says give me the ‘orn)

So my friend and I shouldn’t have been surprised to turn the corner of Leake Street on Bank Holiday Sunday to see the hour and half long queue that sprawled infront of us.

Hell, it should have been obvious that when upon googling the ‘Cans Festival’ name and a sponsored link for the stencil based art exhibition sprung up as a highlighted box, that this Banksy-powered 3 day long street art event was going to be rammed for the duration, having has it’s very public arse, PR’d the hell off.

All the better for it though, the Cans Fesitval was a really special event, nicely hosted, well run, suitable grungey and run down with walls, cars, hoardings, and boards full of the best stencil art in the world. Everyone who cuts outs and sprays for a living was there, there was a blackboard with the newly arrived artists’ names scrawled on it. Hush and Eelus was on there when I walked past.

One complaint my friend had was that the £3 programme being sold in the queue had nothing about the artists who were painting that weekend. Only some cobbled together texts from some old anarchists and the same old pseudo-intelligent, apocalyptic one liners about freedom found in any Socialists fanzine. Aimed at

the normal street art exhibition goers, the programme should have been more informative to the crowd that turned up, which was a refreshingly broad spectrum:

Students filling their art foundation portfolio, Londonites filling their bank holiday weekend, parents dragged along by their kids, kids dragged along by their parents, not the typical ubertrendy free booze snagging laggers who normally frequent these street art shindigs. Another top notch achievement by the organisers of this event, properly bringing the attention of the masses to the glut of quality stencil art that is walked by each day on the streets of the UK, via the power of google sponsored links and Radio 4.

The taste tide might be turning on Banksy (on the bus down to Waterloo, there was new stencil on the side of a disused pub in Dalston that has a Rat painting a sold sign with the tag ‘Wanksy’ underneath it). but all kudos must be given for the ‘look at me / don’t look at me / why aren’t you looking at me?’ street artist for putting his full weight behind this event and giving some overdue exposure to some brilliant artists. Banksy pieces were pretty special too, even with his trademark ‘twat-you-over-the-head’ subtly of sentiment, his pieces’ stood out.

But the best thing about this show was coming across brilliant pieces from Artists who’s work is normally only seen on the streets of Argentina, Spain, Italy and from all over the world. And putting to use this old train tunnel to showcase such top talent.

In the final week of April, the art collective Le Gun descended upon the inside of Cargo to paint a specially commissioned mural on the outside of the lounge area and on the DJ booth

Spending three days working all the hours that God gave them, the Le Gun collective set to work creating a black and white wonderworld, Within that world stood a bar and within that bar, lurked a decidedly odd clientèle being served unholy concoctions of inebriating substances with a side orders of the most bizarre sustenance

On closer inspection, the details reveal themselves to you, it’s like indulging in some people watching with no fear of being caught. I collared one of the troop and made him answer some inane questions. You know, for shits and giggles.

Wow, there’s a lot of you in Le Gun! What’s the story, how did you guys all end up painting together?

We all met up at the Royal College of art, a few years ago, at the base of it LE GUN is made up of 4 illustrators and 2 designers but when we have a job similar to the one at Cargo we call in the troops ( mainly contributors to the magazine). The magazine was started while we were at the college. We had big parties to raise the money to print it, and decorated the parties with big wall drawings we all did together. The murals we do now evolved from that.

What are the advantages and disadvantages to working in a big team like this?

We have all worked together quite alot now so we all know how it works and what each one of us is good at, there are some disagreements some times. We all have quite different personalities but generally we are all wanting to head in the same direction, none of us are that interested in being commercial we just want to do our own thing and have a good time doing it.

What’s the story behind this mural?

The general idea was that it would be a continuation of the bar or some sort of feast, alot of it was made up on the spot. There is a bit of a psychedelic influence and also the occult. We have been inspired a lot by the band Hawkwind lately

What’s up with the dude with a big afro on a leather skateboard? Are there regular characters you guys paint?

The afro man was created by Bill Bragg , there some characters we regularly but most of the time we try and make characters up to suit the mood of the place, some characters can be found in the pages of LE GUN, this is what makes it fun for us and finally the people looking at it.

What’s next for Le Gun?

We are planning an exhibition called The Family at Cordy House on Curtain Road in Shorditch in June so look out for it, we will also be working on a set design for Madness at the Hackney Empire, and we are decorating the Royal Festival Hall for the D&AD awards.

The new issue of LE GUN will be out in June/July at all good bookshops. Go to www.legun.co.uk for more info

I’ve been asked to clear up the rumours. The Street Food Cafe did NOT burn down. They who run the eatery decided to follow a rather extreme cleaning method, highly recommend by the massively ego’d Chef Pierre Malbroset. They set fire to inner workings of the Street Food Cafe ON PURPOSE!! Yeah, that’s right. They wanted a real deep clean that can only be achieved through combustion… That is what southern softs called sarcasm, not a dialect that ole Les is that accustomed too, being a straight talker northern ex-stand up / ex-squaddie / ex-husband, but I’m getting my noggin round it slowly…

No, ok, there was a bit of fire, but it went out. And then from the ashes of the Street Food Cafe comes the brand spanking new CARGO RESTAURANT. That’s right, Cargo and the SFC have finally got married, and the SFC has taken the name of the Cargo by deed poll. It now votes and pays bills under the name of Cargo Restaurant, please for everyone’s sake as Snip Diggy Dag would say, ‘do not get it twisted.’

Work has been getting underway and by Monday 12th of May, the Cargo Restaurant will be open to the public, with a brand new menu, a new look and brand new name. They’ve even got a brand new bar in the new Cargo restaurant so stumbling distance is now only a couple of heavy steps away

Welcome to the Cargo Music Section.

So e-mail me with music and things that I should check out cos I’m pretty lazy and I like it when things fall in my lap. Here’s what coming up this month that gave me a semi-lob.

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LIVE

So promoters called Get Lonely, (named after a Mountains Goats album, already in my good books) continue their brilliant run of nights down here at Cargo, with Man Man on Tuesday, The New Amsterdams on May 19th (from the ashes of the Get Up Kids, again, extra kudos from the inner 13 year old within me) and then Diane Cluck and Emmy the Great on June 11th. A nodding round of applause for the promoters involved.

Lykke Li (how do you say that, each of my mates say it differently… Like Lee, Licky Li, Likey Lei??) plays on June 4th and like Hansel, she’s so hot right now.

The Stag and Dagger Festival looks like a good shot at creating a East London wide festival with a really storng line up through out 15 venues. The east london festival format has been tried before and failed because of the weakness of their line-ups, harsh, but it’s true, but S&D looks sweet, with Bang Gang playing live at Cargo we the rather excellent party boy A-Trak getting up on the decks.

Dubstep heads needs to get down for From The Furnace, Mala and Adrian Sherwood on a collaboration tip… too good, too bass, too needed.
ALBUMS / EP’S

Santogold’s new album. We can’t wait. She’s popping up everywhere from broadsheets to Jools Holland, and the raft of producers she’s got on board is going to make this album relevant to any dance floor in the UK…

Rustie - Dirty as hell, production as heavy as Flying Lotus, a little bit of the lower end of Skream, plus the tongue in cheek and fidgityness of ModeSelektor. Catch him at the You Don’t Know party at Corsica Studios on 23rd May with Daedalus.

The Mountain Goats John Darnielle has recently returned the favour for guesting on the last tune on Aesop Rock’s None Shall Pass record by letting Aes rip ‘Lovecraft in Brooklyn’ apart and then put it back together. As with ‘Coffee’, their styles somehow work together seamlessly and there’s Sketch Theatre visuals thrown in too, here