Nerve Centre Interviews: Paul Tarpey. (Kick Boxing For Snakes)

Before we commence this lil' interview with Kick Boxing For Snakes' Paul Tarpey, The Nerve Centre wishes to apologize for the unfortunate typo on many of the programs where we credited him with the equally fascinating, but incorrect, name of 'Kung Fu Fighting With Snakes'! Sorry to all those people out there lost in confusion! Without further ado, let's ask Paul some pertinent questions

 

The Nerve Centre: How did your performance go at The Nerve Centre? Any highlights?

Paul: It was very relaxing. I think most people who make me nervous when they watch and have heard most of it before thought it was on later, or thats what they said, so it was a cosy feeling and someone laughed in a way I approved of. The highlight was when Steve told me he forgot he was performing and was just listening along. 

TNC: What was your favorite piece of art?

P: I love John O'Neil's stuff and my favourite is his depiction of fascism which is very challenging and funny. I also really liked his Bush smoking gun picture. His work is very powerful but always remains modest in a way that I think helps it communicate more effectively. The Neptune guy's pubic hair was also challenging and funny but it lost its appeal on second viewing.

 

TNC: It's inevitable I'd mention the band name! I'm guessing you don't kick box with snakes regularly so how did you settle with Kick Boxing For Snakes?

P: It's an advertisement from a classified ad that I made up for a magazine in the mid nineties and a friend would mention every time he saw me. I go through a place called Didsbury in Cheshire on the way to work and I think they would organise such classes if I tutted loudly enough about the lack of provision for snakes within the local community. It is political correctness gone mad or it is madness gone politically correct. Who knows or cares.

 

TNC: What do you think the most important message of The Nerve Centre is?

P: I don't really believe in messages in that sense. Not since god told me to kill Kennedy and I put in a lot of planning only to find it had been done already. I think that the crucial element to any such project are the people who will have never seen much like this happen before and take that forward to their own lives and do something amazing too. Maybe we will never know it is linked but the Left needs that level of humility to survive I think. There are a lot of new faces and that is always good.

TNC: Why do you think there is so much activity and creativity in Liverpool particularly?

P: It is the right size for it. I don't know. I have a friend called Steve Higginson who has amazing theories about port cities and the sense of outsiderness. I know that it was feeling like an outsider that made me want to do something unacceptable in public. You don't need to know what that was but just be thankful I have stopped. I think it definitely welcomes anyone who accepts its terms and conditions. It is a self indulgent city and defensive, but anger and romance sweats through its pores. Yuck, sorry.

TNC: Any last words or pieces of advice for The Nerve Centre or it's readers?

 

P: Just remember if you don't do it someone without your passion will do it instead and you will hate them and yourself. History can now be written by the disenfranchised and the paranoid for the first time since we scrawled in caves. Learn the skills on offer and listen to all the people down there in the centre who have done it before but bear in mind that they could be lying or mad. Oh and if you are involved in organising anything always think about how you would feel walking in somewhere on your own confronted by people you didn't know and a giant sea god in front of you. That is as crucial as anything else. People seem to be wandering in without too much worry which is not as common as it should be.

 

Thanks Paul and sorry again for getting the band name wrong! We must have been watching Jackie Chan at the time in the office...

Paul is a part of defnetmedia, who can be found here.