Too Much Pressure for Mixtape Master at Margate Bookie

The 1980s were a great time for music in East Kent. The Clash, The Jam and The Ramones stormed the stage at the Canterbury Odeon. Local heroes Naughty Thoughts packed out the Ship in Margate Harbour. And acts like The Specials, Madness, and Elvis Costello shook the Winter Gardens to its foundations.

So spare a thought for poor Andrew Dennis, who, growing up in a village in Somerset, missed it all. But now, along with Hugh Atkins, the co-founder of the Mixtape88/00 project, he wants to recreate those heady days as part of the Margate Bookie on Saturday October 5 at Turner Contemporary.

Mixtape88/00: The Tale of the Tape, is a display of photography, tape paraphernalia and cassette-themed installations, that charts the ways in which friends shared music in the 80s and 90s, through the curating, the design and the sending of homemade DIY-mixtape recordings.

The interactive exhibition showcases the stories, friendships and memories that still hold strong from mixtapes - these fragments of our former shelves. So, bring your tapes and your stories along, and add your own voices to this ever-growing arts and music exhibition.

Andrew’s display coincides with a visit by lead singer and songwriter in The Selecter, Pauline Black, and musician-turned-author Daniel Rachel, to the Margate Bookie. They’ll talk about their pivotal roles within the two-tone movement with author and journalist Cheri Amour. They’ll also reflect on identity and belonging against a backdrop of racial tensions in 1970s England, and how they continue to share their stories through their work to the present day.

The Big Weekend at Turner Contemporary (October 5 & 6) is chockfull of amazing star authors. The Bookie features the thrilling and chilling Lisa Jewell, Turner Prize winning artist Jeremy Deller, local poet Harry Baker and Bibliomaniac Robin Ince. Plus Daisy Buchanan hosts comedy legend Helen Lederer in an exclusive live recording of the You’re Booked podcast.

The nine-day extravaganza also includes creative writing workshops, crime authors, showcases for local writers, the Poetry Slam headlined by Raymond Antrobus, a Children's Festival and so much more! And all this literary goodness takes place beneath Margate’s beautiful Turner skies.