tenantspin got together with Kevin Casey last week to help with the launch of his new book Closing Time. The book, which chronicles 3 years in the demise of the public house in Liverpool (2007-2010) tells a harrowing and poignant story about the speed at which this is happening and the absolute volume of pubs effected by the rot/demolition/bad planning.

We got on the coach with kevin to talk about the book and share the thoughts of the room about the effect of the closures all suitably well-oiled by the free booze on offer from all of the amazing micro-breweries of Liverpool.

The webcast can be watched here.

The book can be purchased from the shop at FACT and Waterstones for a small fee you can have a piece of Liverpool Public House History!

More pictures after the jump!

Read on…

We have been webcasting for the past couple of weeks as part of the gallery show currently taking place at FACT until May 31st – Climate for Change.

This gallery show could be confused with yet another attempt to meet the question of our changing climate (if you believe that this is actually what is happening…thats another story) but, in actual fact it isn’t all to do with climate change. Of course, this has been a pretty important aspect of the show the very title lets the cat out of the bag a bit. However, this was also a show about action, re-action, debate, discussion, event, workshop, happening – to coin a few generic terms.

On our part, tenantspin wanted to reinvent our weekly forum for debate tried out in tate Liverpool end of last year, beginning of this year. We took the ‘change’ topic and talked through protest (should we? Shouldn’t we? Does it do anything?) bread (slow, fast, fat, thin) web 2.0 (what does it mean to be an armchair protester? Does the internet promote cause or promote slouchy debate) the last cultural commentators (does culture have legs after 08 – what is it anyway?) local environmental debate, community money, oil and finishing 26th May 12.30 – 1.30 with a look at Jean Grant and the Pool project’s ‘The Settlement’ before join artist Nina Edge for a game to change.

We have been on the couch with Mandy ‘Queen’ of Culture, Trine Hughes, Simon Snowdon, Erik Buchard, local artists, performers, Stan ‘the harp’ Ambrose, Kenny, David, Jon, Tracey, Jennifer, John, Dolly, Sid ‘The Greek’ Jay, Steve, Sandi, Gaby, Anna, St Francis of Assisi, John O’Shea, amongst many others.

To watch our programmes back you can visit the home page of the tenantspin website and have a look in the ‘on demand’ section of our mogulus channel. Or via www.mogulus.com/tenantspin.

A big thank-you to everyone who helped us to debate the issues and subjects of change in our Tuesday sessions.

As part of our year-long commentary on cultural events in Liverpool 2008 tenantspin invited Mandy ‘Queen of Culture’ back onto the couch to host an hour-long discussion with artists and commentators from around the city. Red Wire, The Royal Standard, Wolstenholme Projects and artinliverpool.com joined us to look at the last 5 months of events and celebrations and discuss what we all are aspiring to in the looming year of sustainability 2009.

There was much discussion around what we wish we hadn’t missed what we want to see and indeed the future of Liverpool once the coverted year is over. The debate will be uploaded to www.google.com/video soon so keep your eyes peeled!

We will also be doing our year round up from our studio in Tate Liverpool in January.

Part four of the Ways of Seeing series 2008 is available below. On this installment, tenantspin welcomed artist David Blandy and Bluecoat Blueroom onto the couch.

Watch live video from tenantspin on Justin.tv

tenantspin has had a hectic couple of weeks in the world of webcasting. On April 9th, we played host to a film made by FACT-based filmmaker Leon Seth and merseyside historian Ron Noon; Love Lane Lives. The film documents the rise and fall of Liverpool-based Tate and Lyle throughout the 20th century and the effect the closure of the two sites, Love Lane (now the Eldonian Village) and the river-based plant had on the local community. The event was well attended by past employees of the sugar giant and reflected the need to us to have a regular spot in our programme for screenings of films which have a strong community flavour.

on 7th May we held an afternoon discussion looking at the rise of gun related and violent crime in Liverpool. Our panel was made up of esteemed experts in this field including a representitive from Merseyside Police Matrix unit, a retired officer partly responsible for the Citysafe initative, a mother with a son currently in prison for committing murder and who is writing a screenplay about violent crime and a representitve from Liverpool Echo. The show was chaired by Liam Fogherty who dissected causes, effects and the representation of gun crime in Liverpool.

On 21st May (as seen below) we held the first of our Ways of Seeing webcasts with a virtual Nancy Davenport, University of the 3rd Age and The Windows Project.

June 4th saw the second part of our Cultural Commentators series this time chaired by Mandy Queen of Culture We began discussion with each person in the room listing their favourite event of 2008 with choices ranging from the Youth Orchestra to the decapitation of the Ringo topiary in South Parkway train station! What ensued was an interesting and diverse debate which concluded with one and all looking forward to the second half of the year and of the programme with great gusto. The event was covered by Liverpool Confidential to see the article click here.

Finally, last Wedensday 11th June tenantspin were on the couch with our second set of Ways of Seeing guests. Swedenish artist Otto Karvonen joined us via live skype-link-up from Helsinki for a discussion around the up-and-coming projects he is working with the Off the Page Writers group from North West Disability Arts Forum. We talked about writing in the public/not so public realm, signage and the effect it has on the cities citizens as well as the work of the Off the Page Group and how important the written word is to our everyday lives. Otto will be visiting Liverpool over the next couple of months to start his work so we look forward to seeing him in the flesh (and 6 foot smaller!)

Over the coming months there is no promise of a reprive in our schedule as we welcome Toxteth TV to FACT on 8th July 6.30 – 8.00 for L8A, a third Ways of Seeing webcast on the 9th; Hubbard and Birchler and Walton Youth Projects, on 30th July our Park Road Market debate surrounding local v’s global, 13th July The End of My World – a debate about the now topical global warming issues facing modern humans, on the 14th August we have the 4th Ways of Seeing with the Bluecoat Blueroom project and David Blandy and last but not least 17th September which is the last Ways of Seeing webcast, an open session days before the launch of the festival 2008 featuring a range of different artists and curators in Liverpool for the biennial. Phew!

tenantspin is very excited to present the first discussion in our six part Ways of Seeing Series 2008. For those of you that are new to us, tenantspin have been working with the Liverpool Biennial over the last 3 festivals, and in the build up we host a series of discussions aimed at giving us a bit of background leading up to the festival’s September launch.

In the broadcast below we welcomed, The Windows Project, University of the 3rd Age and artist Nancy Davenport who joined us all the way from America. Click here for more information about this years Biennial.