Amster-fucking-Dam!

It killed! It was rammed-jammed. Full to capacity. Everyone got pissed and eat the food and then I had to shout at them to buy a book. The Hotel-V was such a wicked place to stay and even better place to throw a party. Thanks to Jan and Roxie and Amanda from the Hotel-V and Rick from the ABC...

Amsterdam Party- Last few guest list places!

Click here to sign up for next week's party in Amsterdam on the 5th Nov @ Hotel-V.
Free food+drink+creativity to confuse you and then before you  know it you've bought the book.

Street Knowledge Kindle Version

Anyone who's interested can now get hold of the book in Kindle form.
Click here to check it on Amazon.

Amsterdam Book Launch Next Week!

Come and get yours! Amsterdam hold tight...

TEL AVIV LAUNCH PARTY PHOTOS

Crazy times in Tel Aviv. What a place! The books went in a hour and that is a testament to how seriously they take their street shit! Rap genius' Cohen@Mushon played and I signed a few books. Cheers baby!

Greetings from j-ru

On my recent promo trip to Israel, I spent some time documenting the skate scene in Jerusalem. Pretty mental place but the people I was with were wicked and I had a rad time. The city has always been divided by religion, Jews, Muslim, Christian, Armenian, and so this is only going to create a fucking strange place. The one thing that was refreshing to to experience was the skaters attitude. If you were a skater or liked skating, that was alright, regardless of religion colour wealth whatever. And these guys are often regarded as outcasts by the authorities. What the fuck??? More later....

TEL AVIV LAUNCH PARTY

I'm dusting off my Hebrew and polish up my Yiddish (gotta love that!)

If anyone is near Tel Aviv this weekend, my TLV street crew (Oren, Pilpeled, Cohen@Mushon + DJ Walter, DJ Mesh, Broken Fingaz) are thowing me a party to launch Street Knowledge.

Sunday 17th @The Breakfast Club, Tel Aviv, 9pm

LV LTD Edition Book Sneaky Preview

Street Knowledge Launch parties:

Tel Aviv 17th October

Amsterdam 5th November

Followed by Manchester and London, dates TBC.

London is going to be taking Downtown, Uptown!!!! (See above).

ISHY IMMORTALIZED!

Seminal disco taxi immortalized in my latest column here
watch the film here

LTD EDITION STREET KNOWLEDGE BY HUSH

Say no more. Looks wicked. Cheers Hush...

Timeless Food is Timeless

Ok so I got hold of the above book. It's from 1954, so it's what's called a Classic (or just well old).
Last night delved in and I made the Pesto recipe from page 298 and it was simple and most excellent.

1 large bunch of fresh basil
1 handful  of pine nuts
1 handful grated parmesan or the stuff that's almost the same
10ml Olive oil
Salt&Pepper

Bung everything (except oil) in a Magimix or a pestle and blend. Then add oil a little at a time and work in until you have the consistency of creamed butter.

I served it with fresh tagliatelle: with the pesto on top and then some butter on top of that and then more grated parmesan. Multo Bene!

Street Knowledge Screenprint

LTD Edition Screenprint to promote the book in HMV and Waterstones. Two colour, biggest props to Warhola and his mom for the knowledge. Also thanks to the kid in Mali with his Nike on upside down...

Just got this note from a 25-year old reader in Glasgow. It's shit like this that does it for me!


'...just want to say; outstanding book man. Street Knowledge has opened up a whole new world to me and I'm really thankful you've been able to bring into people's lives. Cheers man. Peace.

First Curry of the Season!

It's been a long time. Been far to busy enjoying the summer and hanging with my family to get down and cook a decent curry. So while I'm getting down in the kitchen here's a couple of photos I took in Indian in 1992 to keep you company and put you in the mood. I'm cooking punjab-marinated chicken version of my chicken biken recipe (from the Urban Cookbook) with a Karahi Dhal and will let you know how I get on. Rice + Peace!

Ulster

Just back from Belfast, where I shot this graffiti'd ode to someone not very popular. A truly mental place which is one of the cities featured in my next book.

Today in Waterstones

IT'S OUT THERE!!!!

Street Knowledge has dropped on Amazon.

Click here to see it out there... 

And it's well cheap. How could you not???

Some Proper Street Shit.

The first shipment of Street Knowledge has hit the UK shores and is on the way to the shops (publication date 16th Sept) so to celebrate, I thought I'd throw out a couple of images from the next book that I'm working on that will drop in 2012, just to keep you on your toes. (if anyone ever reads this shit, that is)...

Here you go - Airforce 1

And then some of this: A Fading Union Jack

One is from Kigali and the other from Belfast, both of which are mental places...

Lost in the Karaoke Bar

SOMEWHERE IN CHINESE AIRSPACE 2003

SEOUL 2003

Both these shot were taking with a very primitive digi camera and are the only ones to survive. South Korea is a fucking strange place, and I was there to set up an animation studio for a TV show I was directing at the time. It was strange as the place was packed with cars and it took 2 hours to cross town, and then at night everyone got completely pissed on over-priced Johnny Walker ($250 per bottle) and tried to belt out some karaoke. I was on the wagon by then and this sent the people I was working with over there into a state of confusion. Which then turned to anger once they were drunk. Why you no drink? This in turn wound me up and there was one incident in a traditional Korean restaurant  when the CEO of a large TV station decided to taunt me for my sobriety and I offered him out. The producers on both sides dropped whatever they were eating and tried to stop us actually coming to blows, but it wouldn't have amounted to much as he was so pissed and I was well and truly jacked up on endless cans of coke... Even his kung-fu skills (if he had any) would not have been enough to fight through the alcoholic haze that he was in and land a blow.

The God of Drug Deals

CO-OP CITY, THE BRONX, 2000

I used to drive here to buy weed in the bad old days. Me and a guy from the ad agency I was working at would drive to a shopping mall in Co-Op city and wait in his bright red jeep for our connection to show. How obvious can you get? Two white guys sat in a jeep with connecticut plates sat waiting to score. But we lucked out or the god of drug deals was looking over us and nothing bad ever happened except the weed was never that good but it was cheap for New York, so what did we really expect?

A LIQUOR STORE SIGN, MOUNT KISCO, 2000

I don't think I ever went in here but this sign always reminded me of the old America, before it went all cosmopolitan and diverse (well, parts of it anyway!) I'd always drive past this sign on route 117 past the shitty strip malls that seemed stuck in the 60s, through the time-warp that is Mount Kisco, on my way to Shoprite to do the food shopping. When moved to New York I couldn't believe how limited the range of foods in the supermarket. You'd expect that they would have everything on offer, but no...

Somewhere outside of the US tomorrow, promise.

(DON'T) LOOK BACK IN ANGER

(DON'T) LOOK BACK IN ANGER (John Osborne reference not Quoasis)

Starting next month, I'm off to some mental places for my new book 'A** **** ** *** ****' (all will be revealed) and so I'd thought it would be nice (for me) if I had a look back at some of the place/faces/walls etc I'd written about/shot since I began this journey in 2003. I'm gonna (try) and dig out at least one a day and shove it up here.

EAST VILLAGE, NYC, MAY 2007

I was in New York writing the Urban Cookbook, and was staying at my mates spot on 1st & 1st. One sunday morning I was walking somewhere to meet someone and this guy was sat at a table in a pavement cafe on Bowery. I loved the fucked-up juxtaposition of the sleeved arm and the New York Times, so I snuck up behing the oke and let it off. I think I only took one shot (checking roll now) and this was it. For me this said it all about the lower part of Manhattan. I mean why the fuck would you want to go above 14th street now that the Shake Shack is so popular?

FROM MY NOTEBOOK AT THE TIME OF THE ABOVE SHOT

The L.E.S. is a-changing. They’ve stuck a big glass hotel in the middle of it ($400 a night). Get there before the magic is gone completely, before it’s gentrified. Plan your own route, and check out everything that’s happening; But most of all check the Bowery Bums and listen to their stories. These are the real historians, the real tour guides. Buy one a beer and they’ll give you a guided tour of all their spots, if they can still walk.

You will find many casualties of the war on drugs. Most are in their 50-s and so in the 1980’s they would have been at their peak, sniffing, snorting, freebasing their respective lives away. The result can be seen on the street, most of them are slumped in wheelchairs, still displaying the hospital wristbands from their last visit. Some want to talk, some want to be somewhere else. Talk to everyone, live for real. 

And then I walked around the corner and spotted this flyposter. I fucking love New Yorkers!

Strawberry Jelly+ Custard Tart

Okay, pudding and sweet stuff are not my strong point (what the fuck is??!!) but today I took the idea of strawberry jelly and custard and fucked with it to make a tart. It went okay, but my boy reckoned the custard was a bit 'eggy'. I made the pastry cases but next time I'm not gonna bother, as the bought ones won't taste like a fucking biscuit, and take ages to bake blind etc...

Custard:
100ml Double Cream
50g Caster Sugar
1 Egg
Vanilla

Strawberry + Strawberry Jelly.

Buy some tart bases.
Whisk together the custard ingredients, then pour and bake in the tart cases for 15mins and then let cool. Make up half a pack of jelly with 150ml boiling water. Add chopped strawberries and then add to the top of the custard tarts. Shove in the fridge and then serve with more cream...

King Adz @ PYMCA

Recently I've joined PYMCA.Com (The Photographic Youth Music Culture Archive) which is a total honour for me as they have the best archive of street and youth culture from Teds to Acid Teds to Nu Rave to whatever is going down right now and I'm too old to know about it.

What is col is that they've collected all my shit together (films, Pdfs) and presented them on a single page.

Click here for PYMCA

Click here for my pages (you might have to sign in)

Steak Kebab

This is a steak kebab that I marinated and cooked on the braai today. It was well lekker is downtown downtown, forget uptown - but I'll be thinking about how to take it there.

I'll upload the recipe when I've recovered.

Here's another photo:

1-2-1-2 This is just a test...

This is what I'm talking about... Above is a new interpretation of the Jamaican classic staple, Jerk Chicken, Rice & Peas, with Hot Pepper Gravy, but as a starter. Recipe below. Now this is taking the downtown uptown, with a swift kick in the maître d’s balls...

Rice & Peas

300g/10 1/2oz/1 3/4 cups Basmati rice 

1 bunch spring onions (or just a regular onion), chopped 

1 tin kidney beans 

4 teaspoons allspice 

4 tablespoons soy sauce 

4 cloves garlic, chopped (or 4 teaspoons garlic paste from a jar) 

1 chicken stock cube 

1 x 200g block creamed coconut 




Wash the rice and cover with water to about 3cm above the top of the rice. Mix the onion into the rice and water. Open the tin of kidney beans and pour into the rice, brine and all. Add the allspice, soy sauce, garlic and stock cube. Chop the coconut block into pieces and add to the mixture. 
Mix thoroughly and then cover the pan and bring to the boil. Cook for 20 minutes on a very low heat without taking off the lid. 

Turn off the heat and allow to the pan stand for 10 minutes before serving with jerk chicken and hot pepper gravy (see the following recipe). 




Jerk chicken with hot pepper gravy 



8 chicken portions (thighs and drumsticks) 
Jerk seasoning (Encona or similar) 

1 large pot yoghurt 

juice of 1 lime 




Wash the chicken pieces and score each piece deeply with a sharp knife three or four times. 

In a large bowl mix 1–4 teaspoons  jerk seasoning (depending on how hot you want it!) with the yoghurt and lime juice, and then add all the chicken pieces, one by one, coating each piece with the mixture. Marinate for as long as possible (overnight is best). 
Bake in the oven at 200°C/400ºF/Gas 6 for 60 minutes, or cook on a BBQ for 30 minutes. 




Hot pepper gravy  



2 teaspoons ground allspice 

1 teaspoon jerk seasoning 

1 chicken stock cube dissolved in 450ml/16fl oz/2 cups water 

1 tablespoon soy sauce 

2 teaspoons chopped garlic  

1 teaspoon chopped fresh root ginger 




Mix all the above ingredients in a pan and bring to the boil.  
Simmer for 10 minutes. 

Serve the jerk chicken with rice and peas and hot pepper gravy.

Taking Downtown, Uptown!

Bob Marley always went on about how he took downtown uptown when he moved into 54 Hope Road, Kingston, which was a larney suburb that he moved his people into and filled with smoke and footy. One of the projects I'm currently working on is how to take some serious street food staples and make them into killer cuisine. I love the way street food is served (and eaten) but it comes to a point where you want to take things to another level, so this is where I'm at right now, trying to develop what I know into something else, at the same time as launching my new book, working on the next book and trying to juggle shit shit, food and travel. Onwards and upwards.

Lekker Lamb and Butternut Hot Pot

This was born on the streets of Madchester and mutated into something via the Cape Flats. Rural old school English food twisted out of boredom and then blasted into the 21^st centaury with a couple of new ingredients. It’s not very summery but I’m fucking bored of the usual…

Oil

Garlic (chopped)

Onion (chopped)

4 large Lamb steaks

300g potatoes (sliced into thick crisps)

150g carrots (sliced)

½ Butternut squash (cubed)

salt & pepper

2 tsps Chilli

Fresh Thyme

Rosemary

1lt Lamb Stock

Red wine

1 tbspn Corn flour (mixed with 4 tbspns water to make thick paste)

In a big casserole fry the onions and garlic in the oil for a coupla mins and then add the lamb.

Brown the meat and then add the wine, stock, salt, pepper, chilli and Thyme & Rosemary.

Cook for atleast 2 hours and then add the carrots and butternut with the lid on at all times.

Thicken gravy with corn flour and then lay the sliced potatoes on the top. It doesn’t matter if they sink…

Cook for 20 mins with lid on and then 20 mins with lid off of to brown the potato.

Serve with something green.

This Must Be Just Like Living in Paradise...

I’m food shopping in a small place called Heckmondwike. No I’m not making this up, as I sometimes wish I was. I’m in a chain of supermarket (aren’t I always) buying some half-decent beef for the Sunday roast and the checkout guy starts talking to me.

‘Baking?’ he says, looking at the plain flour I’m buying.

‘Yorkshire puddings: Sunday Roast.’ I tell him.

‘Ah, but can you get them to rise?’ he asks with a smile.

‘Yes mate. And I’m not even from Yorkshire!’

‘Where are you from? Where were you born?’

‘London.’

‘Oh! Me too, which part?

‘Bromley.’

‘I was born in Brent. Quite near to you! We must have done something in our previous lives to upset the gods, to end up in a place like this!’

And that’s verbatim. You couldn't make shit like this up (well, I couldn't).

Hot and Sour Fish with Stir-Fried Veg Noodles

Hot and Sour Fish with Stir-Fried Veg Noodles

Here you go something to warm and tangy – a definite break from the norm. This takes 15 mins max to make and tastes fucking wicked. I had to go back for more (would you believe).

Hot and Sour Fish

2 large filets of white fish (Tilapia, River Cobbler are good and cheap)

Groundnut oil

2 teasp Chilli bean Sauce (or Nandos/hot sauce)

1 tbsp Tomato Puree

2 teasp Chinese Rice Vinegar (or normal stuff you put on your chips)

2 tbsp Sweet Sherry (or Chinese rice wine if you're posh)

4 tbsp Soy

Sesame Oil

300ml Chicken Stock

Salt & Pepper

Corn Flour

--

Sir fried Veg Noodles

Pack of Medium Noodles

Spring Onions (shredded)

Mushrooms (chopped)

Broccoli (chopped into small trees)

Garlic (chopped)

Sesame Oil

Sweet Sherry (or Chinese rice wine)

--

In a low wide pan, put: Chilli bean Sauce, Tomato Puree, Chinese Rice Vinegar, Sweet Sherry, Soy, Chicken Stock, Salt & Pepper and heat slowly.

-

Chop the fish filets in half and then coat with Corn flour + Salt & Pepper.

-

In a medium sized pan boil some water, then cook broccoli trees for 5 mins. Remove and then using the same water, cook the noodles for 4 mins. Remove noodles. Chuck water.

-

In a wok heat a decent amount of groundnut oil (150ml).

Fry the fish for 3mins each side. 

Then remove and place fish on kitchen roll to dry.

Empty wok of 99% of the oil. 

Add Sesame oil. Heat for a min.

Add Spring Onions, Garlic, Mushrooms, Broccoli, Noodles and stir fry for 4 mins.

Add splash more Sesame oil and Soy sauce and give it another min.

Place fish pieces in pan with sauce. Heat gently, covering the fish with sauce.

Dish up veg+noodles,  putting a couple of pieces of fish ontop and then some sauce… 

Done and dusted.

All amounts are for guide only and should be added according to taste. I used more chilli and sesame…

Ad Killaz R Loose

Started work on my 5th book - a complete guide to global creativity - and had to put together a PDF portfolio of all my advertising work as a creative/director. Why did I choose an image of the devil for the cover? I hear you ask, perhaps it's to do with having already sold my soul way back inna day when I was working in advertising 24/7. Or maybe I'm just taking the piss and saying that it is indeed a dark art. Whatever way I cut it, advertising - like film - is something that I can't seem to shake. Okay, so the money is often too good to ignore, and the work has taken me to some fucking wicked spots around the globe - Cape Town, Jozi, Mali, Rwanda, NY, SF, Seoul, TLV - but I often find myself justifying the fact that part of me is forever advertising. What the fuck? Why does this matter? Seeing that I sold out years ago, long before any of the books, the films, the TeeVee, it doesn't make any sense. Am I worried what anyone else thinks? I hope not, but deep down I guess it's just that I've been conditioned to think poor artist = good and advertising + cash = bad. But I say fuck all that. Creativity rules. End of Story, see you in the Groucho, motherfucker!

First copy of Street Knowledge drops through my door

After 25 years in the making, this finally arrived today. Still taking it all in but it does what is says on the cover and drops the knowledge for any fucker out there who's interested in street culture.

Peace+love to all those who got on board!

God of the Bends

This statue was on a bend in the road beneath a house I rented in Corfu last week. Lorry drivers would stop and give thanks for a safe ride up (and down) as the road was choc-full of hairpin bends and wasn't that wide.

Books books books

Books seem to be all about the fucking idiot box these days. I'm 65,000 words into a novel (the fourth I've written and the first to be published) and I'm hoping to bring reading back to the people who make it interesting - the young. I don't mean kids here but the 15-45 age bracket of people who like a good read about some counter-cultural shit. Not the nice educated middle-class women who have hi-jacked the literary festivals of the world.
I recently went to a party thrown by my publisher and was looking forward to meeting some legendary writers who I could talk to about writing. But it was full of people from the telly. All the 'famous' people there had TV shows which feature food, and they were all sticking together like icing to a cup-cake.

In the taxi outta there I realised that I had to take my shit back to where it belonged: underground. Not underground as in some kind of bullshit counter-culture sense, but underground as in I don’t give a flying fuck about projected sales; about the state of the industry or the current climate of the market (completely fucked); about promotional (boring) or legal shit (complicated); about anything other than writing a killer book that I absolutely love and other people may or may not like. It made me think that what I should be doing is writing something that I just have to get out there to keep my sanity from evaporating along with my meagre advance. A book that I have absolutely no choice in writing, not something that’s been focus grouped or tested for viability, but something real.

It is safe to say that in the last few years I had become caught up in the idea of some mainstream success from my work. This was down to the fact that I had a mortgage, a car loan, 2 teenage kids, blah blah blah, but mainly due to the fact that I was thoroughly bored of being skint. I wanted the finical stability that this kind of A-list success would bring and thanks to years of no drinking and drugs (the curse of the Banksy Generation), working my ass off 7 days a week, years relentless self-promotion and – most importantly – getting a powerful agent, I was in a position to become richer and just a little bit famous (comes with the money.) Or so I believed.

But then the writers party shook me out of my trance-like state and everything went and changed inside my head. All I ever wanted to be was a writer of books; books that talked about what it was like to be one of us (the Chemical Generation), books that dealt with coming out of suburbia in the 1980s and being so fucking bored with the surroundings that sometimes, you went and did crazy shit, in-between the usual middle-class suburban bullshit. I certainly didn’t want to be knee-deep in projects that were tailored to a certain market or engineered to be commercial successes.

What the fuck is going on? Really? Then this hit me: How do you have the strength to sit down and write a book knowing that no books really sell unless they accompany some lame-assed god-awful TV show presented by some half-witted inbred twat who’s just going through the motions, doing what they’re told just for the money, or a biography of a z-list sleb/slag/WAG with more tits than sense. What do I do to break out of my life even though I need some mainstream success just to live? There is no way I am going back to working a real job as I’m too far down the road and have burnt (blown up) all my bridges. I’m fucking unemployable. Add this to the fact that just about everything has been done before and nothing is original?

What happened was that there was a blip in the work load in between writing and designing my next non-fiction book Street Knowledge, and the promotional activities beginning, and so I got to work on the novel and I'm nearly there.

See you on the other side...

This is just a test...

There is an interview with me up at 405 magazine whatever thing (not sure what the fuck it's about). It's a nice piece and definitely the calm before the storm, as I've started having meetings with my publicist about Street Knowledge and y'all gonna be sick of the very mention of King Adz by the time Street Knowledge hits the shelves in a coupla months...

INTERVIEW HERE

Work in Progress

Been spending a bit of time recently (in between falling in love with sumac*) creating a series of 5 fly-posters for the launch of Street Knowledge.
Here's a preview of one of them, the colour will be done by hand once the posters (A1) are printed in black and white...
*Sumac recipes on the way...

Cold Killer Pasta

Hung out with my Roman Bella Granny this weekend, and as usual, she cooked a pasta dish. And I got the recipe and cooked it last night...

500g Italian Pasta (Bows, whatever)
1 large Mozzarella
1 pack quality small plumb tomatoes
1 pack Sunblush Sun-Dried Tomatoes (in oil from Deli)
Bunch of fresh basil
Olive Oil
Salt & Pepper
Olives (stuffed with anchovies or garlic or nothing)

Cook pasta an allow to cool in big bowl.
Chop up Mozarella into 1cm chunks.
Chop both Tomatoes in half.
Chop basil.
Chop Olives in half

Bung tomatoes, mozz into pasta bowl, mix, then add Olive oil, S&P, Olives.
Mix well and then serve.

Bella!

BBBBBB BEASTIE BOYS REMIXED

 By Mos DUB: Wicked shit... love remix culture...

Beastie Boys - Doublecheck Your Head by Max Tannone