“The Mainstream is just so fucking conservative”… We sit down with Josie Long

Published in En Vague issue one

Over the last 15 years Josie Long has ascended the rungs of the alternative comedy circuit, and is now using her brand of skittish, whimsical humour to rally against the destruction of institutions for young working class artists.

We meet above the 50 capacity Invisible Dot venue, before her work in progress show. Josie’s on stage persona reminds me of my internal monologue when your brain refuses to sleep. She jumps erratically between her frustrations with politics, worries about her future, silly jokes and non-secular observations all filtered through a boundless enthusiasm for life.

In person, as we chat over a cup of tea, she’s more laid back but still gloriously skittish. She chats with free abandon getting more and more animated as we discuss her charity work. She could well be the most affable human ever.

“I was very lucky” she explains, “I started going to these stand up classes in Bromley when I was 15 and found I loved it…. But these days everything with Council Funding is getting cut”.

“When I first came to London I thought it was all punks and squats and anarchists but now it’s just full of people who seem like apprentice candidates…all the venues I loved have been replaced by Crossrail and Jamie’s Italian”

“I moved to Hackney cos’ I thought it was full of all these creative arty people… But I wasn’t doing anything. I was just like a yuppie”

“Then I heard about the Browne Review [the report that recommended the removal of University caps and subsequent tripling of fees] and I felt like it had to do something”.

But instead of signing half a dozen E-Petitions, or sending an expletive ridden tweet- like the rest of us, Josie’s ‘something’ turned into “Arts Emergency”, a charity dedicated to mentoring underprivileged students attempting to make their way in the arts.

To try to counter the ‘who you know’ nature of the industry Arts Emergency has assembled what it refer to as ‘The Alternative Old Boy’s Network’. This support group is made up of 1500 graduates and artists giving up their time to mentor students.

“all those great bands in the 80’s and 90’s with like oasis and stuff they all happened while they scraped by on benefits, now you need a feel time job to “What we want to tell people is you can still make a living from the Arts, you just need to graft!”, she says, now gesticulation furiously.

As someone who wears her socialism with pride and routinely uses ‘Tory’ as a term of utmost derision, Josie says she found it odd adapting to the political neutrality required when running a charity. “There’s loads of rules, you have to be completely a-political, individually we’re all very political but as an organisation we can’t be.”

“What I like to say is we’re creating 100s of children socialist sleeper cells but I should probably stop saying that” she laughs.

Although her national political outlook is bleak she has an infectious positivity for local activism. In 2011 she organised an ‘Alternative Reality Tour’ with fellow stand ups Tiernan Douieb, Simon Munnery and Nathaniel Tapley as well as comic book writer Alan Moore and folk singer Grace Petrie. “We just turned up in town centres and performed from the back of a van, it was great to perform to people who wouldn’t normally get to see stand-up” she grins.

After the gig she headed off to guest DJ at the Shackwell Arm’s now infamous ‘Scared to Dance’ indie night. Her set is dominated by 80 and 90’s working class heroes from Morrissey to Mike Skinner. She told me how she saw the music industry becoming increasingly dominated by privileged elites. “all those great bands in the 80’s and 90’s with like oasis and stuff, they all happened while they scraped by on benefits” she explains, “now you need a full time job to scrap by”.

“People seem to see the mainstream like food at a friend’s dinner party, like you just accept what you’re given. But if you just scratch the surface there’s so much more…. You’ve got bands bringing out cassettes, which is fantastic as they’re so ridiculous, and zines and stuff on online, there’s still so much going on, you just need to go out and find it!”.