Steve from MushyPea

Well, after a stressful/fun/eventful/tiring/confusing/wonderful weekend at the Beautiful Days festival, I came away with one question.
In particular, this is aimed at Glass, but others I'm sure will be able to contribute.

One of the stalls was the Mushy Pea Juggling stall, manned by a very nice guy called Steve.
The second sentance he said to me was (and I quote) "I invented contact staff..." which is quite a claim. He said Glass (amidst others) had attended his workshops and that all things contact staffy basically came from him. Two questions:
1) Is this true?
2) Where does he hang out/spin?

Although not a great staff spinner myself, I have to admit that he was freakin' awesome! I was very sceptical after such a bold claim but - damn it - he was VERY good.
Also his CJ was very good, well, awesome (I asked if he was the SilverMan but he isn't...) and his club spinning was like nothing I'd ever seen before - wicked! I really must get myself a 4" ball soon.

Did he have blonde dreads?

No....

Tall, slim, dark brown (black?) hair

Ah. I thought you could mean the juggler Steve Brown. Mind you, I haven't seen him recently so I'm not sure of his follicular status You could have a look at the University of Southampton's Juggling Club gallery and see

[ 21. August 2003, 10:48: Message edited by: )spanner( ]

Simple test Spanner - did he invent contact staff?

BTW looked at the pics and it's not him (not sure if that'll help with your answer spanner).

I think Trident moves are the earliest recorded instances of contact staffing...

Thats been around for a thousand years or so from my rather sketchy memory.

Then again, if he did come up with some contact moves without seeing or hearing of it himself then, he is correct, he DID invent it.

He didn't claim to the "the one who brought contact staffing to Europe" or anythign like that, which is a whole different kettle of fish.

Of course, I'm just arguing semantics here, but 'invent' and 'the first' have quite different meanings...

Agrees with Charles, as he remembers Cube FX and his awesome Trident

At least that's one person eliminated from PC Durbs' enquiries

Charles...semantically speaking, he did not invent it either, he only thought of it since to invent something is to "create by ingenuity or imagination something which did not previously exsist" (definition care of Websters Unabridged Dictionary: The dictionary for all your linguistic and grammatical needs )

Just because he did not know it exsisted, does not mean it did not, and a bit of research on his part would have proven he did not invent it at all, but merely had a stroke of creative ingenuity in his own world.

What happened to the days when people said "Hey! I thought of this...tell me what you think?"

Instead now people are popping out of the wood work claiming to have created everything that has been a standing tradition for thousands of years. It hurts my brain.

Oh..crap...I read Silverman's name somewhere. Now I have to toddle off to find it or it will drive me nuts all night!

oops....Just coz i know everything doens't mean I know anything...

Well said Pele, you know what i was trying to say, but I guess I just

"didnae hae ta wurds fohret"

Probably should wait for Glass to reply.
MushyPea Steve (think he hangs around Bristol and will most probably be at the Bristol Convention) has indeed been the major innovator of Contact Staff. Whilst the idea has been around for ages (the first video of contact moves is 1901?) Steve is the first person I know of devoting so much thought and effort into contact staff as a style of spinning. Steve's aim is to mimic every traditional staff move with a contact version.

I believe many of the moves Glass and other 'old skool' London spinners of years past originated from Steve. Hence all contact in London today stems from Steve. And as until recently contact staff seemed to be mainly UK only (this is backed up by what I saw whilst travelling) Steve's claim seems to be pretty valid.

i believe glass has shown me one or two videos of steve.
he's a f*ckin legend - so much so that i'm not sure i actually ever want to meet him

can't comment on the contact staff thing really as i wasn't around when it all started but i do know that he made glass' contact staff specially for him and that drew credits him with a lot of his moves.
if its the same steve then its not just the contact staff stuff that he's sick at but clubswinging [full body snakes ], cj [crazy body rolls] and poi too [the bf wasitwrap].

i believe he is the man on this video @ 1:30, after doug...?

[ 21. August 2003, 22:28: Message edited by: coleman ]

is this Steve the Steve that makes staffs called Steve's Staffs?

yep

gonna get me a big one of those @ bristol this year...

Checked out the vid is pretty cool, liked the "illuminating" contact ball effect Dougie had at the begining. Oh and did you notice the Girl after Steve has Ewan and Karrie Snogging in the background.

See yas tomorrow

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If Steve's Staffs are the straight (i.e wickless) UV staffs, they were very nice and cheap and cheerful. My friend bought 2.

His CJ was crazily good (hence asking if he was the SilverMan - both are tall, slim, dark-haired and wear glasses) and I saw a bit of his club swinging which was also very impressive. I don't think I saw him poi...

cheap and cheerful is kind of the opposite to a steve staff...
afaik his are the ones with 4" wicks and lovely weight.
normally about £30 i think.

they have a lump on the ends before the wick that is usually decorated with holosparkle tape with black tape for making thin stripes.

glass' (contact specific - ooooh ) steve staff has no wicks and is brown.

whats brown and sticky..

Glass's staff

I love that joke - now I have a varient answer!

If you wanna get in touch with Mushy Pea and solve this mystery once and for all.....the suppliers of their stall are...."Flaming-funky-fire-monkey".....and the can be reached on www.poipoi.info.......i bet they Know the answer!
I met the founders of 'poipoi' at Glasto this year(very nice people!!!)and met the guys from Mushy Pea at Larmer Tree Festie...(Also very nice people!).......So that's my advice..... happy searching -x-

Hands up anyone who didn't meet the poipoi people at glasters this year....

C@ntus....... so you were there then?????.......and are you being a little sarcastic....hhhhhhhmmmmmmmm??????

[Didn't realise the poipoi troop were so popular!!!!!!!!!!]

No i wasn't there. The delectable Fluffy Napalm Fairy wasn't there either.

And neither were Coleman, Nix, PK, Miniero, Durbs, MisStix, HelsBells, BamBam, Alienfox, SpacemonkE, Bovril Monkey, Glass, Dom, Firemorph (alledgedly although i didn't see him - but then i wasn't there so i wouldn't would i), Knoxious, Bairy Fen or those lemon obsessed Bristolians.


As far as I know you're the only HoPper that went to glasters this year....

and i've no proof that you actually went cos you didn't show up and introduce yourself at the HoP camp. Not that there was one.....


I've forgotten what i was talking about.

*bump*

i want a 5 foot steve staff, but haven't found them anywhere online

I know several people with them, i beleive bambam has 2 and she says she got them in candem, but Oddballs didn't have any of the 5 footers when i was there on saturday.

ta

Steve, yes, I met him at the bjc, and it was great, he didnt claim to invent it then, but we had some fun swapping moves, cos I didnt learn from him I had some stuff that he hadnt seen before. I was well nervose, but in fact it was cool to comunicat with another contacter who had come from a totally diffrent perspective. His Cj is awsome, yes.

Hes a cool guy, but i remeber him trying to teach a feild full of noobies fishtails, admarable and well done, but funny to watch!.

t

i want one of those too flid!

bam's were purchased at the bjc last year which is where i am hoping to find one this year.

other people may have better information so i'll ask around if you want one sooner than april

get in touch with deranged headgehog off here hes trying to learn with a 7 ft staff.
its very painful and very heavy

flid - if you want a 5foot steve you have to go to oddballs and get them to put one aside for you from the next order as he makes them himself and they are really popular he cant keep up with the demand for them hence them only rarely being in stock at oddballs.

Ah steve from mushy pea, he sold me a staff at towersey festival 2003 and taught me a bit of stuff himself, he is amazin at everyfin, poi, staff, contact juggling (my god hes amazin at contact juggling), diabolo and juggling. He told me hes making a dvd at the mo for contact staff so look out for it i suppose.

ive also heard talk of this legendary steve fellow...

ive got a friend who kinda knows him, and has told me may storeys of his contact staffing exploits, and invention claims...

sounds like i should try and meet this dude.