CENTRAL STATION, WREXHAM, WALES FRIDAY 24th July
The drone of the road’s singing its’ signal of possibilities in my ears. It hums its’ knowledge that there’s something else out there, that you can just ride off, thundering into wilderness, feet up in a ‘£47 pound a day’, rattling renta-van, adventurer spirit in one hand and a slightly limping mediocre service station BLT in the other, wind in my hair and not know what’s on the other side of that pylon.
Hello Friday night in Wrexham.
There’s sun over Shakespeare country, monsoon time on the M6, we’re past the chickens in pens, the sheep supine under trees, sheltering from the rain, nibbling the shoots of the low branches as sun spikes high over the hills. We climb upwards into Wales. Wrexham just tips across the border from England, countryside sparkling, feels good to be treading into a different country.
Even if all you see is a tuft of grass, the hills rising in the distance and the, delicately phrased by your parents as a kid, odour of “Ah the countryside”, it always feels like a massive relief to be out of the city.
We arrive at Central Station ahead of our friends’ Sue and Dee, the Robots in Disguise, who we’re on tour with. The venue’s a bit like it’s name , high roof, glass and eaves and the stage I guess some kind of platform. Our backstage is a large room, cordoned off from the rest of the venue, with sofa, tables of fruit, water and beer. There’s even a chef on hand to make us hot food, which is rare for a traveling band, unfortunately.
Posters of past CS players Silver Apples and The Joy Formidable locals neatly decorate the walls.
The hills wave in the background and sun streams through the long line of glass windows onto our long winter expectant bodies. It’s hazy, bright and airy in here. We sit on one side and RiD on the other taking turns eating and doing stage preening.
We play happy , loud and rattling like our van and have a good gig. I see Sue and Dee boogying in the front nudging the early, one beer in, 830 crowd. Gig one success.
RiD are up next and those girls are really fucking funny. Comic geniuses and fine songstresses. I giggle-sway my way through their set watching their fans jumping around as much as they do and mouthing lyrics to every song. I still blame them for the 24 hour medley that’s running in my head a week later.
Unfortunately for Marc he’s got a driving licence, unlike me and Vee, so he’s in the driving seat, moulded in for the next week.. Adrenaline pacing after our post gig sign-a-thon we head out into the black after midnight to Stoke on Trent. The wonders of the i-Phone sat-nav snuggling in my lap. Accompanied by Brian Eno, we drive.
Past the dark green of the night trees, past the ‘dont slow’, the cats eyes and into the looming yellow half-moon, driving into the stars, past the houses with the glow yellow bedroom lights, illicit escapades under the farm houses, the conversions, past the long walls of the old manor houses, the gold paint on the wrought iron gates. Past the sloping trees, caverns of green glades, driving into the arms, the boughs, through the greens of the night. Fog nestles in the lows of the road Bram stoker, Dick Turpin times with the lights of the cars shining, magnifying it’s smoky magnificent deep.
We hit the Travelodge ‘family room’. My pre-raphelite dreaming enters a ‘new’ phase,
SUGARMILL, STOKE ON TRENT , SATURDAY 23rd July
Stoke lies surrounded by hills, an old industrial town in Staffordshire, terraced houses swoop to the base of the valley and odd concrete tower blocks of hexagonal bricks rise out of the countryside. It’s the centre of the pottery industry in this country and named “The Potteries”, didn’t see any pots but I did spot a few Metalers’ wandering the streets, long hair wafting in the breeze.
The sun’s still glowing and after a night dreaming of taking an injured dove for a walk we mooch round town. We drop CDs into BBC Stoke, plug the gig, spend some time in a cool record shop, Music Mania. Feel excited at seeing Cargo Collective posters in the record shop, which we’ll soon be on. I buy the Arcade Fire album and a Delta Swamp Music CD to become part of our road-trip soundtrack.
We wander about the High street like bored teens looking for something. Killing time by the sunlight , pointing at leopard print coffin shaped purses in the towns’ Goth shop.
Sugarmill’s not open. We’re way too keen. We’re here early to fix strings, Marc bust a bass string last night and the MPC with drum machine bits on needs a few corrections so we sit, feet up in the van, white van driver style, and wait till the cleaners leave.
Eventually the doors open to the smell of bleach and we trail our gear in, past wet swipe marks on the black, still sticky with beer and glass, floor. It’s pretty gloomy in here, dark and seems odd to be inside such a dark cavern on such a sunny day. The place is well trodden with rock and roll nostalgia. There’s even the perfect background to rock and roll glamour, the backstage graffiti-walled room with classics such as;
“fuck you suck ass”
and next to what looks like a foot-hole in the yellowing wall:
“ Sausages on Stilts, Teeth painted purple at night, Wellingtons for Xmas, Joe Northern is a pretentious twat “
a personal favourite.
It’s about 5 30 when someone tells us Amy Winehouse is dead. Pretty focusing to hear about it before you play a gig. I remember the night Kurt Cobain died. I’m glad to be here and very much alive.
The sky’s still blue outside. I watch a bunch of old school punks hanging outside the pub next door, lots of men lifting shirts up and checking each-others’ tats out. I watch them and smirk to myself till I find out from a drunk girl later it’s a memorial for a suicide victim.
There’s something dark in this day. A sound man tells us about the Norway shootings. He says 90 dead. I thought he said 19.
The gig’s slightly weird but the gear’s massive, made for poseurs and noise monkeys. We’ve got our own on stage monitor engineer tonight , so even more control over what we hear.
I can’t see anyone for the lights only a semi-circle of sillouettes watching at a distance, I feel disconnected but I bang my drumstick hard into the guitar till I attach again. It’s a strange day.
SOUND CONTROL, MANCHESTER 25th July
I’m in the van outside Oldham Travelodge looking out over ‘Costco Wholesale’, ‘Subway’ and the bypass, the sound of cars humming along with the va vas’ and vee vees of my singing warm-ups.
After a night in the ‘family room’ with Marc, Vee and Beverly Hills Cop 2, I’m a little bit in love with Manchester.
We drive through arch bridges of railway lines, tunnels of red brick, iron towers, and more red brick Gothic buildings staggered by cool NY style lofts. We drink coffee in the Commons bar in the Northern Quarter, eat lunch by the canal and drop into BBC Radio Manchester. We can’t believe our luck it’s sunny and cheap. Everyone’s friendly. We get the weather on a good day I know.
It’s busy here at Sound Control, the busiest gig yet. It’s a large venue, super-club style.
The first few rows are filled with kids in sparkly made-up painted faces ready to jump around to RiD. We play well, monitors and PA clear and loud. Everything’s in its’ place. We play after a moog driven strobtastic local band called Schmoo. We play our usual support band half hour set , lights flashing. The set-up’s good here we even get a smoke machine, at one point billowing out so hard in my face we’re turned into Fields of the Nephilim.. I try not to choke, or laugh. I’m sure it’s looking great out front.
We sign a banana.
THE LAMP, HULL 26th July
We share what’s left of the Museli, one spoonful left each and a few nuts, like tiny squirrels and head starving to the pub next door to the Travelodge. Jobsworth says breakfast finishes at 12, bastard, it’s only 12 15. On the road to Hull it is.
Across the country now through the pastures of Northern England onto the Yorkshire docks, the north banks of the Humber estuary, where it meets the River Hull.
In the van again. Our Oldham Travelodge’d started to feel like home after 3 nights and started to look pretty lived in too. A nice layer of old teas wrappers, dead ends of teabags, packets of liquorice, eye masks, earplugs, make-up, wet towels, clothes and the TV remote building slowly.
The view from my back seat’s beautiful cross-country. The green, glorious everywhere as houses start to change to stone. We’re in salt mill country now , Bronte country, period drama country. Houses are square, industrial but cottagy, cows laze on the grass, dandelions are out in full swing, it’s like a Milka advert round here.
We go under the Humber Bridge 5th largest suspension bridge in the world , Marc makes me get the Wikki out on the phone and we read about the 200 odd bridge jumpers before they decided to put a rail up in 2009… We drive past whirling wind generators next to lines of smoking chimneys, old and new side by side. We get into the centre of Hull and cruise past the Marina, boats looking pretty, old dock buildings standing red and proud, mostly loft conversions now rising from it’s ‘most bombed city in WW2 along with London’ past. The modern glass front of the town aquarium “the Deep” looms like a giant grey metal shark rising out of the water as we eat more ‘chips with that’ food.
This is where Philip Larkin, the poet, was from, the House Martins, Everything but the Girl, Mick Ronson, Norman Cook, and the members who formed Sade minus the girl herself.
We find our venue, the Lamp, a smallish venue and cosy, one of those pubs that looked like it’s straight out of Toronto or Berlin. Murals of owls and other child friendly but adult cool animals decorate the walls. We find our perfect ‘set up with computers space’ and kill time, I do a bit of ironing for tonight on a lecturn and Marc and Vee play space invaders in an airy spot near the bar. There’s a low stage at the end of a dark low ceilinged room that we’ll be playing on later. Quite a different venue from the others, much smaller, but it feels cosy and more intimate. Better for us.
I do my singing warm-ups in the loo and hear Sue doing hers in the mens’ next door, it’s like fucking fame in here.
There’s some rock and roll tension in the air here to do with things that don’t involve us which we try to ignore it and get on as normal.
I really enjoyed playing here and we sign some cds’ vinyl and come off feeling exhilarated and happy at our Hull performance. We meet some guys from the support band Russolo who bizarrely say they’d got inspired by “I see you” when they’d heard it on the radio and written a song the next day. What good taste.
My favourite leather jacket and scarf get nicked .
XOYO, LONDON 27th July.
Marc starts the long drive through the night back to London. Past the cats’ eyes and service stations, the back ends’ of trucks and pylons, past the chugging, under cover of dark, polluting, smoking chimneys, shrouded up against the dark blue-black of the amber M16 sky.
I don’t want London back yet, just getting a pace up, on a roll. I want Doncaster, Leeds, Scunthorpe.
We talk about the Sex Pistols and pass a sign for ‘Matlock’. We go through a place called ‘Goole’ Marc says “Put an I in it”. Spacemen 3 “The Sound Of Confusion” on the stereo sounds still so fucking good and Jason Pierce takes us droning through the dark of Derbyshire.
It’s 430 and London money hits you in your wide-eyed expression. It’s so pretty and uptight, neat and expensive like someone’s just bought it a whole new wardrobe. Strange coming in from towns which look just normal, you get used to another view so quickly, no wonder the tourists love this place and Northerners joke about bloody Southerners. It’s a walking prick-teasing postcard. Lucky to live here among the middle-men who’ve taken all the wealth from somewhere else or someone else.
Last time we were at XOYO we had a great gig tonight’s no different. I come off stage soaking, make-up down my face feeling way up in the clouds. I can feel the slight exhaustion of lack of sleep from the night before and that kernel of energy inside takes a bit more to activate, it stumbles out when I put my finger on it, driving itself forwards and into the audience. I can sleep tomorrow. This is all I have now. I can give it away.
Must remember to buy waterproof make-up. It’s like singing in a swimming pool.
We’re a full band tonight. Our new member Melvin’s playing the Linn and drums. The lights and lack of sleep not helping my big wide eyes. I can feel it. The excess sound motivates my movement I crawl the stage loaded in sweat. The tassels from my dress that I always say I’ll never wear again have come out again and annoy me a little as usual, getting stuck in the guitar bridge. The sacrifices for dress love.
I’m glad to sleep in my own bed and stay there till about 2pm till we have to leave.
TALKING HEADS, SOUTHAMPTON 28th July
It’s the start of summer and apart from the lack of tan feels like we’ve been on our holidays, albeit to a bunch of Northern towns.
Last show of the tour. Sad to be leaving the road and the robots, had fun, laughed a lot.met some lovely new people and ate lots of sandwiches. Great to be on tour with your friends too. A Big high five to the wonderful Dee Plume and Sue Denim for inviting us. .
Roads have been green and empty and you can’t break that road tripping feeling. We’ve been lucky with weather, it’s been warm and sunny and windy. Glad to have left the small blight of Londons’ heat.
The sun’s stills streaming, we’re back on the road listening to “Hunky Dory” and “Here come the Warm Jets”. It doesn’t take too long to get to Southampton, we only leave London @330pm and get to the Talking Heads, a pub venue on a minor B road, just in time for soundcheck.
We head off for food after soundcheck and I have a ‘bad thai’ rather than a ‘pad thai’, but still better than a sarnie at least.
We meet some Numan fans down here and I come off stage with gravel on my back.
Seems fitting for the end of a road trip.
93 FEET EAST 14th July
This place has a place in our history. Marc used to work here with Paul Epworth in the good ol’ days when The Rapture were here and Marc used to have Absinthe thrown down his neck by the Mr Epworth. Marc was a trainee soundguy who had Fat Truckers shouting “Turn it Up Turn it up “ at him throughout a whole gig once.. Ah perfect.
Well we’re back here for an impromptu headline gig as someone’s pulled out and it feels smaller somehow. Or we’ve grown, which I doubt. Time does change perception that’s for sure. It’s scruffier round the edges now but it still feels homely as we’ve had some great gigs here.
We start, the bass drum on the Linn is making a tiny tapping sound , the tiniest bass drum in the world. Sound man shrugging his shoulders, you know the only thing is to take action, so the bass drum goes through the same channel as the snare and the high hats and the cymbals and that’s just how it’s going to be tonight. Done. Fine. It doesn’t seem to matter to anybody anyway. Sometimes Punk Rock is the only way forward.
My body startled by noise, drugged by machinery of the moment horse-drags me, drawn, towards the speakers, head buried as if climbing back into the eternal womb of sound. Very Spinal Tap if only I had the budget.
Everyone always says “You’ve got so much energy “. I can’t think there’s any other way. My body feels like a pepper shaker. Just reacting. Rhythmn is a dancer as they say.
1234 SHOREDITCH FESTIVAL Saturday 9th July
We’re digging into the sands of the day, cracking it open. Sending the shamans out early to wake the Saturday pleasure seekers. I’m up there in the clouds. Watching them sail. The wind’s breezy, blowing its’ weary way across the park. With it goes all pessimism and disappointment and anxiousness at the idea of a bad rain day.
Weather and it’s make or break hand. We are lucky today, it’s a perfect English summer day. Hot enough to tan but breezy enough to stay lolling, satisfied and entertained on the grass.
We get here early, doing the lunchtime stint on the Artrocker stage. We get the cabbie to drive right across the field to the stage /tent entrance.
Marc goes;
“Bet you’ve never driven right into a festival field before ”
Cabbie ;
“Hmm”
The cabbie doesn’t quite share our excitement at this prospect.
Well I’m excited, the spark of anticipation lights the air, people setting up, coffee machines just on. Doors not opened. You can hear the crackle, the sparkle-calm before the storm. The insiders view on how much work has gone into just getting this together for 1 day. The loos alone cost 13 grand. And how nice they are too…
We prep our shit, keyboards, tech on stands, leads plugged, ready to go for a quick changeover. The band before us Animal something all in white with animal pics’ on their chests jolly us awake with harmonies and jangles. Then it’s up to us. Tent fills up this is our first gig of the day. Another one later that night at the after show for Idol Magazine. The gig’s good, a bit surreal in a daytime way. Like having a roast for breakfast.
We’re happy to be here and be part of this.
I’m wriggly and silky. Sean Mc Clusky and Martin Tickner, who over the past weeks, we’ve watched getting more and more industrious, as the rehearsal room /Gallery Mauriece Eindhardt Neu Glallery turned into 1234 festival HQ.
It’s got more and more steamed up with activity to get this show on the road. Rock and roll history being created. This is the place with the stinkin’ toilet and black walls that keep the rock and roll dream alive, the place we’ve shot the Red Rock video and ‘black’ parts of the Worship video. Pete Dohertys’ sick is still fresh in the back room. I love this place and these people.
The sun catches my eye, I remember being here a few years ago, watching Twisted Charm. Walking on the grass the land looks different now. Sometimes you don’t think you’ve come as far as you really have. I’m glad to be here on this day.
We cruise round past the dodgems, past the galloping hair of the girls on the fairground ride that makes you sick to watch it. We find bands to turn and catch our ear. Sexbeet taking it out in the Rough trade tent, dance offs’ happening in the Bad Life dance tent.
We stand briefly among the sunglasses, oh how lucky they are it didn’t rain, in the backstage bit with the wandering eyes and long hair and exclusivity.
Eventually our free time’s cut to an end, along with drink tokens and food vouchers, and we have to leave to set up for tonight. The down side of being a performer not a punter.
Suddenly we’re thrown into the world of the moody taxi driver at the sight of equipment they have to drive half a mile.
Onwards into the night and performing on the wooden floor of El Paso the faces watching are brightened by sunlight,heightened by music and drinking and being round other bodies having fun. We play hard and it trips a memory of a sticker I had as a kid somewhere in my room that said ;
“ Happiness is catching we get it from one another “,
that and “ Save Water , Bath with a Friend” I still try live out both of those..
THE WORKSHOP Saturday July 2nd
A slight problem with neighbours and having the volume up. oops
BULL AND GATE Saturday 18th June
Thank fuck for that. All’s well. As the millionaires say “If you’re going to fail, fail quickly” and with the luxury of a ‘traditional’ venue and the first gig with live drum machines under out belt we’re OK. (For those who don’t have the glorious pleasure of inputting gigs onto their website, you either have to click ‘traditional ‘ or ‘non traditional’ venue, a fascinating rock and roll fact. )
The sound as usual here is all consuming with the towering speaker stacks on either side of the stage rather than in front of you. Tonight we play with the band ‘Meisha’ who asked us to support them on their EP launch night. They are super sweethearts, we feel very welcome at their evening.
I’m in ‘88 electro beating in my head. Long live the drum machine. Playing it live it’s got its own shape and sonority.The filters on the Linn the way you can go high to low snare in the time of a beat seems to make my body shake, I turn snakeward, the night forces my breath easy and I don’t miss the live snare.
Everything is learning everything is a beginning, one born every minute. I’m clambering out spluttering. No tears yet.
ST MORITZ 17th June
Change’s halking it’s evil ways round here, out of necessity or possibility or creativity or something it’s time for something different. Out it spits, jumps out the dark, biting jaw-hard scratching everything you do and all you get is dust. You take it like medicine that tastes like shit. When it lands you’ve got to just get your wheels on, crack your heels and get the fuck on with it.
My friend likes to say;
“Do what you’ve always done, get what you’ve always got “
I’m in the phone booth pulling on the all-in-one.
I’m the maniac with no choice but to carry on. Shape shifter dream seeker.
Melvin landed on us. Straight from Bangkok to Shoreditch , there’s a Thai thing going on. Turns out his family are even from the same town as Vees’ . Coincidence or Synchronicity. Melvin’s sent to wake the machines elevate them to the stage. Or the next stage. The sound reverberates, the crack deep of the Linn, the ‘peew’ of the tom when you twist the filter, ‘tsss’ of the high hat, the fat of the bass drum like the fat of the land. Wake the beasts, electronics in motion, power to the machines.
The Linn drum and the MPC 2000 twist their buttons to the hot lights. Marc nearly sold the Linn, hard up as usual, to his friend Richard D James, some guy who makes electronic music or something…. I think it’s the only drum machine he doesn’t own.
So we’re here with Melvin on stage with us in St Moritz, not the town in the Swiss Alps no but the club in Soho, an underground cavern below a Swiss restaurant , like an ice cave in a fondue glacier. Atmosphere’s killing it in here, gold records on the lumpy white porridge walls, low wooden beams with psychedelic lights whirring San Fransisco kaleidescopic magic above your head. It’s filled with glamorous history. Big on rock legend. In the late 80’s it was a members club, bands like Guns and Roses, Motorhead, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, used to come play. Funny to think I’ve shared that tiny stage and by the smell of it probably the same mic with Jon, Lemmy or Slash.
Club for Losers’ is the night we play, an old school Rock and Roll (of course ) night run by Max Mitchell who in his pale blue suit, spats and flat cap cuts quite a character.
St Moritz is a difficult choice for a band that basically looks like the inside of Maplins when they set up, but this seems to be how it’s turned out, so we’re here and plugging in adaptors, leads, keyboards, drum machines, amps, all manner of numbers of the MPC, multiple DI s and tripping switches in the process.
During our “doors in 20 minutes” soundcheck Max says ;
“Oh I thought you meant you had 2 outs in total ”
Marc;
“ER no that’s just the drum machine …”
etc etc
Despite the krypton factor factor, feats of tech wizardry beyond my radar are achieved in panic time and we actually get a sound going, which is helpful. It’s the first time we’ve tried this set up with the drum machines live so teething problems are probably normal. Thankfully we’ve managed to grow up pretty quick.
Mistake one, after the first song , with a bit too much enthusiasm for the Gods not to laugh in my face, I say ;
“ We actually performed a mini technical miracle in here ! ”
Ha Ha Ha they go.
The drum machine starts to become less and less audible to the human ear even tho’ poor Melvin’s hammering away on the pads with blistered fingers as if his life depended on it.
We troop on majestically, miraculously keeping in time as the drums appear and disappear and re-apperar seemingly of their own accord, with only one “fuck this shit ” from me and Marc.
There’s something refreshing about songs taking on their own instrumental arrangements never heard by us or anyone before. I’m reminded of Graham Coxon’s advice for bands to ” keep it loose “.
No danger of that here.
XOYO MAY 28TH
It’s quiet as death and I ‘m walking in a bubble, streets deserted, sky’s a damp cloth, grey, washed out, hanging over the city. Limbo’s lurking in the air. I wouldn’t blink if you said ‘the end of the world is nigh’, just give a quick sharp shoulder shrug and an ‘ah I see’.
I’m in the eye of the storm.
Somewhere, somewhere else not here, there’s football going on, fans in the pubs are sweating over beer and union so it’s death watch on the street. The London bank holidayers’re inside, or out of town, and the out of towners’ are where their name suggests they ought to be.
It’s that eerie pre-gig time, everything slows down, I’m in the waiting, but tonight it’s more than that. Anticipation’s been tugging for weeks.
That music that’s coursed through our heads’n fingers is finally out, done and dusted, that’s it, coming out, our contribution to the nations’ glorious noise is irretrievable now. I’m in a keen state of mind. Something’s coming. The Giddy’s definitely rising. The laborious birth of this dysfunctional child’s over and only its’ maturity and the deliverance of the next progeny awaits.
Anticipation’s a precursor to change. Being prepared for the illusive’s hard you have to be ready for everything, all eventualities, like Johnny Depps’ Hunter S T ‘s crazy scuba-typewriter outfit as he’s wading through the flooded room in Fear and Loathing and Las Vegas. Be prepared for anything. Success or Failure it doesn’t matter, all existential concepts anyway. I could do either very well I’m sure.
XOYO stands like an altar, my new favourite. The stage is great, a good size making you feel like you have arrived, all part of summoning the magic, the sound system’s good and loud, volume enough to command and conjure the rock and roll spirits and the staff all helpful and nice which makes a big difference to the whole experience.
We’re playing THE PLAYGROUND night, it’s Warren Morris (hot dance promoter extraordinaire)’s new venue of choice for his parties and I like his style. ‘My Tiger My Timing’ play before us, we’ve played with them the Bull and Gate and enjoyed them before too.
I’ve got a bit of time before we play, have to buy a 9V battery for my tuner, the four quid a pop square ones from the garage. Musicians are the only ones that buy these fuckers and we’re always skint, seems mean they’re so pricey. Streets are still parched of human life but it feels good to walk and breathe the smell of fresh summer rain in before it all begins. I don’t feel too nervous just excited and happy at performing but there’s something in the solitariness of the walk, the sound of the cars going round the roundabout, chatting bank holiday drinkers smoking outside that’s resoundingly calm and peaceful.
We congregate in the mirrored sanctuary of backstage it’s small, smells of the must of after-performance and a strange East London Dickensian basement damp but at least there is a backstage. It’s right next to the stage behind a theatrically black draped heavy curtain and feels secluded and private despite being right by the dance-floor.
We sit amongst our bags and coats on black vinyl sofas staring at a beer stocked fridge and start what looks like a jumble sale. Bags unzipped, clothes pooled in a band heap, together trying on each-others’ tops and bottoms blending into an amorphous mass of rock and roll spawn. I’ve got Marcs’ old Japan tee-shirt on with the cut-off sleeves, a black wool skirt and black lace ups, old work shoes given to me by his girlfriend that are tight and comfortable. They’re my stage favourites picked for their ability to prevent a broken neck or sprained ankle, which is pretty helpful.
The gig’s hot. I feel on it and in it.
Come to me my pretties I will whip you up.
Songs are ;
June Waits
Giddy Up
Black and Blue
Actress
Jungle of You
Worship
Surrender
Is this Love?
As usual it’s done in a second and I only remember fleeting random moments ; being on the floor or on the drum kit, the sound of my guitar scraping on the cymbal, Anthonys’ face smiling like a loon at me, singing next to Marc as he grips me either with enthusiasm or terror, moving a mic stand too low so I had to bend down to sing and how it got uncomfortable and a bit awkward, how my G string was out of tune after Surrender , how I hope no-one saw my knickers when I put my foot up on the monitors or how I missed a word out on Jungle of You as we’ve never sung it live before.
I definitely know it was a fucking good gig.
I come off sweating joy and exhileration. The DJs’ get started. Hey Today are up next as we come off heaving stuff out of the way for them. They’re a waitin’ in the wings, the black curtains lending it a dark theatrical mood. It’s just after 11 pm and I’ve got all night now to get hedonistic. This is a Proper club. I’ve got my head in the clouds fuelled and phased out, fazed into the smoke machine and banging to the Frenchie electro gang Kavinsky and DJ Feadz who destroy the house with their drum drum drum.
We can’t load gear out mid-club, impossible through the sea of steaming bodies so we laugh about the hardship of having to dance it out to the end
“AH WHAT A SHAME WE HAVE TO PARTY”.
and carry on surfing the line between the entertainers and the entertained marked out by that black curtain.
Forgotten how much I like vodka and people the different hazy energetic highs each bring. No wonder people move to Eastern Europe live in a hut in a forest with a bear rug, make icy soundscape music and beat their heads up and down to hard techno late into the night when they get tired of starring at the snow from the icy window of their wooden cabin.
We had 2 bottles of vodka one apple and one straight, stashed and ready to go.
Suddenly that time capsule accelerates, like the Prodigy video without the twist and the vomit and it’s 6am light, rememberances of pouring vodka into someones’ mouth from the cap and dancing dancing and we’re out on the empty street loading with no sign that there was ever a party or people. We’re the last out again, as usual, waiting for the taxi to load. The strong will survive, if we make it back in one piece. The vodka fire’s settled into my brain and starts to trace it’s alluring fingers into my wickedness as I just manage to halt the urge to jump cab mid home to walk the streets looking for something else, something more to keep on and on.
WORSHIP VIDEO
So here I am bending back, bending forward click zoom, head to the side, head turn, camera on. This place is so post modern darling. Futurisms’ fast pace lines and the Thames flows on. Modernisms’ vision of the future. Now it looks like the 70s again. Something out of the Tomorrow People. This is a real park, but it’s got the unnatural eerie glow of the man-made. We’re fitting right in. The dresses from Kokon to Zai , Maaike Mekking for the girls, Jonny Rocka for the boys. Ashes to Ashes. Sun blessed days in hats, banana legs, paper flowers, net and shirt dresses, shoulder pads and plastic. We’re sun blessed and blissed, Lucky Strikes striking up with that purr of the zoom, we’re a Manga cartoon over the city and far away is the concrete and glass.
We wait, convening early morning sun rising. In the hands of directing duo ‘Mustard and Glitter’ (Keith Martin and Sean Ash). The band, the team ready to go, to make that, this, something, art happen. Keith Martin, assisted by Michael Aveling and Erica Oberg turn up in Michael’s car packed fall of goodies. Me and Vee get frocked up in the toilets of the café, the boys just strip in the carpark. The stares from the morning kids and families, here on a weekend daytrip, drip off us as we stagger preened and pruned in our masks. We’re just hanging about in our 70s robot queen gear, blending in like freaks in the company of wolves. The city is close.
There’s nothing here. So quiet. Apocalyptic even. We find a patch of secluded decking and set up. We’re the sun worshippers and it’s blinking down. It’s hot the sunburn bleats down my neck, spf on my face but the sun always finds those virgin patches.
The track’s not even finished yet, this was supposed to be a photoshoot that’s turned into a video, I lip sync to an arrangement I don’t even know and which’ll probably change, again. We’re on the deck, sun twisting it’s turnaround into the afternoon. Peepers up, eyes down. Do a performance, sing the words, what comes next, not sure snip snip, Robert Harder our music producer sends an mp3 that morning straight to the i-phone. So modern. The mix straight off the desk straight to the video shoot. Applications application, we’re applying ourselves that’s for sure.
Keith brought with him some tape, coloured photography light filter tape I think, rolls of it that we drape and fondle through our hands. It flaps rattling guiltless in the breeze, trails of us and it casting shadows on the concrete. It’s hot and the paint comes off on our hands, faces and clothes. Stained, branded by its vibrancy.
There’s a section of the park that we move to but that’s not in the video. We run through the hedges, Alice in Wonderland style, there’re lines and rows of hedges. The lines are good here, the symmetry beautiful, a photographers dream. I’m in my friend Maaike Mekking’s amazing tutu shirt dress, Vee’s in the bumblebee waistcoat of hers too. We’re all frothy and frothing. The curves of the hedges like the curve of a wave, bending lines manned by one small border that looks like it’s full of overgrown cabbages. Slightly out of place among the sculptured beauty. Snap, snap, rollin’. Cut Cut cut. Those cabbages’ll never make the edit.
The track plays again and again. We stand up, standing by a group of poles we’ve discovered. We’ve got an audience now. Families and prams, kids on bikes clap our efforts. Essex boys go “oi what band you in ?”.
I watch a take back, it’s like watching myself in a mirror. What an oddball . Give me an instrument make me hide away, hide behind. I’m like a doll who can’t dance. We wind, curling around, bowing to the sun and sky, singing about Worship, money love, joie de vivre. Use it, you need it, don’t value and trust it. Love is different, truth is different. Can’t take it with you when you’re dead. That’s just one part of it all.
We leave the park and some days later we shoot the next part, the black, dark bit. Marcs’ girlfriend has lent me some black feathers that go round your neck, I clutch them with me and they end up starring.
We’re at the Maurice Eindhart Neu Gallery where we rehearse, our favourite video shoot spot. Red rock was shot here too. Today we’re in the front of the gallery, the walls have been painted black some time ago to do with an exhibition and it’s a fitting backdrop. More lip sync and doll ‘dancing’. Marc, Anthony and Vee stand in their group with instruments, this is the track I don’t play guitar on so I can do the whirling dervish voodoo rattle to my hearts content. All I can see is light in my eyes and hear the talented visionary Keith Martin go “yes great over there a bit, great yes !”. There’re some people sat drinking in the same room and when it’s dark everything’s pitch black and silent apart from some laughs and clinking of wine.
It doesn’t take long till the night is done and then Keiths’ partner in crime in ‘Mustard and Glitter’, the legendary Sean Ash twiddles his wondrous knobs in the back room and it takes on it’s mesmerizing mutating life. Every once in a while we see film stills that lead us into the crazy wonders of what we’re about to see. The stills themselves were such beautiful works of art we’ve ended up using some of them for ‘The Rise Of The Giddy’ LP artwork…
Hooray for Hollywood.
A WEDNESDAY IN LATE DECEMBER, BEST OF MYSPACE / CLUB FANDANGO NIGHT.
We’re at The Bull and Gate. This place used to be a bit of a shit hole but it’s great now. The PA’s massive, the stage monitors are on stage, on either side of the band, and are about twice as high as me. So that’s pretty good, we like it loud. I’m about to go on, my sister calls. I answer quickly, I’ve seen a missed call from my step mum too.
“ Where are you ? What are you doing ? ”
“ I’ve got a gig. Why ? ”
“ Oh don’t worry, call me later then. ”
“ No what ? Tell me now. ”
It’s always worse waiting, whatever it is.
“ Dads’ had a heart attack ”
Fuck.
“It’s OK he’s alive…”
How quick it can go from fine to horror to relief.
Half way through one of the songs the room starts to haze up. Edges are glazing and my voice’s shaking. All I can think is “ Don’t go there don’t go there” and try focus on the shape and meaning of words. This is shit. I don’t think sitting on the floor and having a bit of a cry would be exactly right right now. Call me English.
When you feel the boundary of life and death it jolts you out of the normal, everything pulses, shines, is more important than ever and you value things in a more heightened state. Trivia falls away, back where it came from.
I was laughing a lot too tonight, nervously probably, but just out of relief and the thank you of life. I had more chat than usual on stage and I felt a lot of warm stuff coming from the audience and from me to them. It was Xmas too so things were starting to sparkle and tinsel from inside.
Outside was bloody freezing. I probably would’ve stayed in bed if I was the audience. They did well. It’s a cliché “ I could n’t have done it without you ” award-winner speeches’ schmaltz but it’s the truth, otherwise we’d be playing to an empty room and I’d be forever a bedroom guitar player.
It was a Best of My Space night in conjunction with Club Fandango and Gill Mills was curating glamorously in her black leggings and heels. She’s been playing us on her radio show for a while now but this is the first time we’ve met her. She’s lovely and funny and even helps us load our gear out at the end of the night, tottering down the road carrying guitars, when we, as usual, are the last band standing after everyone else has gone.
Tonight we’re playing with My Tiger My Timing, Kurran and the Wolftones, and our friend and old drummer Tom Marsh’s band The Robot Heart.
They were up first and made the place glow with xylophone and harmonies and fairy lights and woolly hats. It felt even more xmasy and lovely to have a friend nearby playing beforehand.
We play, the sound’s great. Everything’s working for a change. I can hear everything clearly through those massive stacks, we play well, the cogs are turning and the machine’s oiled . Aside from my more than usual wobbly emotional state, which could’ve added to the performance, ( don’t give me bad news before every gig though ta ) it was one of those when you come off stage burning.
Halfway through I hear Anthony behind me ;
“ Can I take my trousers off? ”
Er I like the way he asked. I thought it probably wasn’t down to me. I turn round to see Anthony and his purple Y fronts gleaming. His explanation was he had long johns on underneath his jeans and was boiling up with all his hammering. He did put his trousers back on once his thermals were taken care of and we could carry on playing fully clothed. The audience got a bit more for their money tonight.
PETE WILLIAMS’ S PREMIERE OF HIS FILM ” THE PARTY STARTER” A TUESDAY IN DECEMBER
The party starter. That’s me. I’m knackered. Go to the gallery, try to sleep on the couch. Half an hour into my power nap and fun time over as a couple of boys come in the back to practice being the next somebody. I’m killing time in Old St, been up since 7. Martin from the gallery tells me the Dragon Bar’s got couches. I buy a magazine, see what style mistakes I’m making and find somewhere to sit that’s as far away from other people as possible.
Aussie Pete Williams, the film director, picks me up in his black car. Thank you Pete. He helps me take the gear, 2 trips to where he’s premiéring his new film, ”The Party Starter” and in which we’ve got our song Worship on the soundtrack. We pull up outside the Hoxton Pony where he’s filmed some scenes and the rest of the band are hanging outside the venue, smoking, they’ve had so many pictures taken they even look like a photograph now.
This is Petes’ second film. He’s made a video for us before, and the rest of the time he’s off being adventure man, climbing mountains or ab-sailing or running marathons or generally being a really fit guy. He’s quit his job and now, he makes films. He’s a can do, will do, does, kinda guy. Last time we did a gig for him he got us playing outside in a garden, in a residential block and someone spent the night in a police cell standing up for their right to party against an annoying neighbour and the police they’d called.
Pete’s quite a guy, and he likes us. You get the picture. His film’s a ‘ mockumentary ‘ about a 42 year old who’s paid to start parties and get the party going.
The venue’s got a flat floor, feedback bouncing off the mirrors encircling us. It’s good to be in an environment we’re used to.
I feel flat packed, motorised for entertainment. I’m ready to go. It’s snowing, gone from wet to freezing.
It’s romantic with the snow falling outside. My amp’s looking hot tonight.
Inside there’re bits of broken car, painted white, hammered to the walls and a glass case behind the bar filled with fake trees, a stuffed white Owl and what could be a Kestrel perched on a branch staring blankly out at the red plastic.
Reality’s surreal tonight.
There’s an acoustic guy playing before us. He says,
“Here’s a song I wrote in Los Angeles about four months ago, it’s about sunsets”.
Marc thinks he should go to Poland.
Wish I was on that beach. I’m freezing.
Marc’s clicking his fingers sarcastically. Vip’s looking glamorous and warm in fake fur. Anthony’s Anthony. We’re upstairs playing our usual waiting game till it’s our time, our moment. Tick-tock, I’m ready. Pete shows the film – it’s hilarious and brilliant. Our music fades in and out. Andrew WK’s “Lets get the party started” plays out.
We play. These guys are hardcore. Everyone’s happy and patting each other on the back. We are quadrupled by the mirrors. Everyone’s loud and drinking. I’m jumping, four times. The Kestrel and the Owl are pretty quiet tonight.
HOLY RAVE FRIDAY DECEMBER 3RD (A WAREHOUSE BASEMENT SOMEWHERE IN SHOREDITCH)
Marc’s on the dance floor swigging a 2 litre botte of Vodka and orange, classy and subtle. Spotted.
“ I’ve just thrown one of your bandmates out. He’s outside …”
Time to negotiate ( I’m getting good at this ). Till the day I have burly men at my bekon call ( ah that day thay day ) I need him to help me carry the gear, I’m the only one left now. Show is definately over.
“Well OK he can come back in if you can convince them..”
Says the promoter pointing to the massive ‘I was born in a gym’ bouncers bruising by the door.
Ba-taring skills fresh out of Morrocco and Marc’s back in the room. It’s freezing cold, about to snow any second and we need to move quick. It is kind of like an army exercise yes and there seems to be another situation. Marcs’ girlfriend’s had enough and ‘s screaming at the top of her lungs to him;
“Get me out of your midlife crisis shit!”
Ok fair enough.
I’m having a dandy time. Vip and Anthony had wisely stepped off an hour previously. I’d been club roaming watching The Coolness after we play, they’re funny. I liked their song ;
“Fuck off America, America fuck off !”,
A piss take on the Team America song ”Fuck yeah”, I’m guessing.
Chaz’s John Ross’ the coolest man in showbiz irony, women throwing and prostrating themselves in front of him sucking at his pink and grey nylon legging-ed leg, a strip of silver fabric delicately crossing his crutch. Girls take their tops off to “Take it Off’ on stage with the curly haired troupe. Set up or not, I ‘m laughing with the Vice Magazine glamorous teenage audience.
Upside to playing a warehouse party is you get to party all night with people half your age. Downside is everything’s hired in and put together from scratch meaning there could be a chance of a tinsy technical glitch or two in the middle of it all.
Enter the police. Of course the scene wouldn’t be complete without them. They make their first appearance early on during sound check. Four of Hackneys’ finest round for an inspection – just checking everything’s in order. Perhaps they were a bit worried when they’d seen 10, 000 people ‘attending’ on Facebook.
“Go on you can carry on with your sound checking”,
One of them says as they’re wandering about the room in front as we’re on the stage.
Marc pipes up as they’re heading to the next room,
“ You’re alright we don’t want to blow your ears”.
He’s so funny tonight. We sit and wait.
We play the gig, the monitors don’t work. I can hear myself way off in the distance, a detached entity singing out front somewhere. I should be used to this by now. It’s hard to be in the moment when you can’t actually hear the moment you’re supposed to be in. Sound check had been arduous with gear switching on and off, leads changing, levels up, down, eqs refined but was sounding hot in the end. Somehow between then and now, monitor elves had played their finest mischevious talents.
The monitor nearest me and Marc seems to have completely vanished, replaced by two smaller ones you can’t actually hear and one that wasn’t working at all.
The sound man says off-handedly afterwards,
“Yes, what happened was, in the change over someone had forgotten to plug these in and well, I’d borrowed them off my mate and didn’t want to turn them up too high just in case a blew them”.
Perfect.
Throughout the night the police are pacing up and down in the crowd checking everything’s legal. I spot them while we play the gig . They look like they’re having a jolly good time.
This being a “Holy Rave” there’s all manner of unholy facilities. I spend half an hour moving one black coat in one pitch black corner next to the stage over to another corner and back trying to find a dress, with Marc shouting in my face about moving gear that’s practically invisible to the naked eye.
The unisex loos will have to do ‘the dressing room double’ again. I hide behind a door and watch a guy throwing up on the floor in front of me just as he’s waiting to get into the loo. Bad luck. I change out of my sweaty black dress, with the fringing that keeps getting caught in the guitar bridge. I’m pinned up against the toilet room door as my shield. An intimate experience shared with only a few googly eyed boys in the toilet queue.
So, back to the rowing couple and severely alcoholically impaired bass player. It’s time to negotiate gear out of the 500 strong, laser addled, smoke machined, stobe bearing warehouse, up the back stairs, into the snow. Call a cab, load everything into the cab, load out of the cab, through a pop up shop filled with clothes that seems to be our Rehearsal room today, past the tiny space between the rails, drop off, load in, get back into the cab and get home. A breeze.
Today as I write this I can’t move my right hand properly. All the skin’s ripped off the index and middle fingers. I can remember cramp in my right hand at the end of the set. Another noise injury. Strings are pretty sharp, especially when used as some kind of finger grater. There’s a ridge cut out the depth and width of yes I think it looks like a low E. It hurts when I go underwater in the bath. Red raw. Antiseptic on. I remember two plectrums at one point as one hand was cramping up. Clone theory pedal high. Nano Muff up. Very Spinal Tap up to 11. No pain, no gain.
If this is “midlife crisis shit” it’s been going on for a couple of years now.
Can’t wait for the real one. I’ll definitely be ready.
A THURSDAY IN NOVEMBER @ MAURICE EINDHARDT NEU GALLERY
We’re supposed to be art, projected on the gallery wall. No sound. People are staring. I’m a prancing comedy of rock. Sweat and tears without the aural onslaught. I don’t mind being a caricature but I’m glad I don’t see myself. The camera’s a coy voyeur, prying at me. If you come down the black corridor to the back room you can hear the sound but if you’re in the front you can only see us on the big screen, silent stars in black and white. People walk by in the street watching us. We don’t even know. They peer leering through the window at our shapes, like big brother with the birds tweeting.
This is our rehearsal room The Maurice Eindhart Neu Gallery on Redchurch St in Old Street. Art action’s everywhere and we’re all here for Mick Rock. THE 70s Rock Photographer extraordinaire.
He’s got an exhibition on round the corner from here and is over from NY. Sean Mclusky who runs the rehearsal room, man about town, knows him from the 80′s in New York. He’s managed to convince him to come down and generally lend his presence, in association with Zippo, shoot some bands and put some of his prints in the front. His main exhibition is around the corner at the Ideas Generation Gallery. But in here it’s still a ‘omage to Mick with all those famous faces looming from the walls.
For those of you who missed the 70′s he was THE photographer man of the moment. Right place right time and talent. The guy who made stars into the Icons of the era. Snap go all the rock gods Bowie, Iggy Pop, Syd Barrett, Debbie Harry, Lou Reed, Roxy Music. He used to work for Melody Maker but back in the day you could keep the shots the mag didn’t use so his collection became the legend it is. Lou Reeds’ Transformer cover and Stooges’ Raw Power were shot at what’s now the Scala but then The Kings Cross Cinema.
Enter Mick Rock. I know it’s him even though I’ve never seen a picture, he looks like the 70s. Shaggy hair, glasses, tall, an air of ‘star’ about him and the look of a man who’s seen a lot of action and taken a lot of good 70′s drugs.
Sean introduces us. He shakes Marcs’ hand. I’m pushing my amp but say hello. We’re setting up in the back.
I say;
“Er so you’ve got an exhibition on?”
“Well apparently there’s some JAMboree going on round here and they invited me”
He’s got a slow melodic drawl and says JAMboree like he’s actually talking about berry jam.
I like him.
Flowers come out of his mouth when he speaks. It’s like he’s eaten the lyrics of a hundred Led Zepplin records. He’s snapping on his phone here now and takes a picture of Sean leaning on Marcs’ amp while telling him to “be natural” . Funny. He talks in a slightly detached way, eloquent and knowing.
He tells us how he had been shooting Bryan Ferry today. He says it’s been a long time since he’s shot him.
“It’s like doing the dance with an ex girlfriend”.
A telling confession about photographer and subject. Intimate, also a bit vampiric. Photographer and rockstar like journalist, rockstar feeding. Heavenly symbiosis. Bleeding, glaring, narcissistically addictive but sweet as heaven.
There’s a band playing in the front. We in the back room. Camera trained on us. Podcast going out. It’s a cross between rehearsal and performance. People come into our usually private space and listen. Line’s blurred. The blur makes us more relaxed. Less a gig than a peek.
It’s crowded now. Someone tips the lamp shade now we have strobe. In the other room we’re being watched, me jumping, pouting, in silence. Art this is.
We finish our slot on the merry-go-round. Next band “The Travelling Band” up next from Manchester. I watch them from the front see how strange and detatched it is. Then I listen to them sat on the sofa in the back and see how different it is when you can hear the music too.
Everyone’s dressed for Mick.There’s the aspiring the lively, the lovely, the exhibitionists, the exhibited. Sean’s turning people away. Door’s shut. For our ears only but eyes for everyone.
ELECTROWERKZ NOV 3rd
I’ve spent the day in a trance training my brain, my body into a state of pure power unrelenting essence merging through space and time channelling the powers of the universe to transmit all emotion, will through my body out into this ether to attack and placate all ills and now it’s pissing it down and I’ve got a headache. I’m lifting amps and guitars in a side street in damp dark Shoreditch from one mouldy room to another on a Friday night.
Electrowekz has a z at the end of it’s name and last time I was here was about 5 years ago when I went to see a friends’ band. It was S and M night. Men in masks skulking, buttocks gracefully turned to the fresh air and gimp like creatures hustling to get a view of an enormous breasted milkmaid desperate to share the glory of her endowment and a performance with a girl putting safety pins into her arm. It’s a bit different tonight.
It’s still a bit grim but definately rock and roll in all that cliché. The stage and PA is good and it’s got a good atmosphere for a heavy show. Air’s heavy with dark. It glows with heat, lust, sex, anger and euphoria. Perfect clichéd Rock and Roll parentage. Stairs are lit with cute nightlights misleading you winding to industrial rooms, silver-tubed air-con pipes rattle on the walls and the PA system’s basically the same size as the stage.
Soundcheck, as usual an epic journey into disappointment and vague unease. I leave the stage feeling a bit shit but with the annoying band catchphrase “bad soundcheck good gig!” clicking in my head. It’s a like an old wives’ tale to ease the pain and I try to relax cushioned by another cliché.
It’s all in the leds, the decibels, pixels, lasers, pick ups (I’ve got a new 1950s’ Gibson pickup in my guitar), wave forms, pedals, overdrive, cymbals, skin stretched, smoke machines, speakers, noise coming out of all orifices, textures, it’s all in the sound that makes it work. Then the channels don’t.
I’ve still got a headache. Everything’s loud and a bit aggravating. There’re still a couple of hours before we play. I go outside, it’s still raining, streets glisten, sparkle with wet but not with people. A rainy Friday and promoters’ hell.
I change outside an occupied loo in a downstairs corridor,of the Candid Café next door , one of the waitresses passes;
“Oo dressing up!”
I smile but haven’t got energy or inclination to go into it.
I get my black on.
It’s a black night. Every girl has got the black lace and net out. My red shoes come out then off. We’ve got a soundman tonight. Our own, like a miraculous safety net. Lord Auch come off ears ringing with Nick Cave-like strings and growl. Backstage’s busy. No full length mirror and the small one in the dressing room’s overshadowed by people and equipment. Piles of cases. The singer from Ulterior sits enthroning the room on a mezzanine above the throng and a large card bat with sharp edges, a left over from some other night, slashes by my head.
“Sorry! Didn’t mean to do that!”
He’s got his shades on inside.
I carry on looking for guitars, leads, tuners to get my bits together. Frantic. I hear the last song through the walls from Lord Auch. Slight panic knowing plectrums are in my purse as usual but this means finding my handbag and getting them out. Safe but awkward. The pay off.
We carry our stuff on, set up, hurried and stressful, plug in quickly, tested again. No time to mess about. Tuned. This place is theatre. Smoke machine’s pumping up a shield. Get lost in the fog.
Marc in soundcheck;
“Can someone turn the fucking smoke machine off!”
All I can see now is strobe. I mix with light, feel music under skin and bones melt. In my own dysfunctional sound and light cocoon. I can’t see the audience. I slip into the crowd and dance, hearing the others on stage playing, feeling what it’s like to be on the other side. People are dancing. I can’t see anything. At soundcheck I remember getting up on stage from the audience pit and it’s high. Warren the promoter had to help me up. This time it’s easy. Flying. I slip in my tights on someones’ pint who’d left it teetering by the monitors. I feel bad for them but can’t stop. Barefoot tights wet now. Soaked with beer. I go up to see Anthony on the drum riser it makes me happy seeing him smashing the cymbals full flow, full on, bobbing up and down headband on. Smash smash smash. I jump up and down then down again. Sit on the floor for some time my hand hurts from whacking the strings at the end of Is this Love? I’m surrounded by noise. I like that. Good gig.
Back in the dressing room I change out of wet clothes in the loo. There’s piss on the floor and a shower only the mad or desperate would get into. My feet are stage black. I need to surround myself with soft and warm. I wash quick then change into dry tactile things, like coming down off drugs. Back on the backstage sofa tying my shoelaces I look up and there’s a massive leg, sky high heel and an ass wrapped in denim. There are 3 girls, pretty and really done up. There’s a lot of hair flicking and suddenly lots of boys around. These are the rock chicks, archetypal 80′s rock girls. Ulterior sit discussing tactics with these their dancers. The rock cliche seems to be working. Rock and roll boys love girls in tight shorts. 3 girls packed in, tiny, cleavage out and miles of leg shins, sky high heels, cheeks out and Ulterior slogans on their tees.
“I thought we were dancing in cages?”
Seems their job description’s changed and now they’re on stage with Ulterior.
“What shall we do?”
Seems obvious.
The boys didn’t really seem to know. I’m not sure they had use of their mouths.
Suddenly half way through the Ulterior set the boys in the crowd seem to wander nearer to the stage to get a closer look at all that wiggling. I guess ‘sex cars sex war..’etc is their single and the theme of the night. They are good to look at and their lipstick is immaculate. Let other peoples’ guitars take me out now.
I stand up. My name’s Vanessa I’m a musician. There should be groups for that. Ah there are, bands. We’re in bands because we’ re dysfunctional. Take Oxfam and Oxjam they’re good motherfuckers they realise the world is basically screwed up what with cash, a long history of abuse and greed that inturn has left the ‘third world’ (can you really say that ? sounds weird) full of starving malnourished people with Aids and cleft palettes and lack of schools and doctors. We all know that shit. Its not new. But Oxfam are still plugging away to change the world, help the kids, the mothers, education health, support, getting water, etc etc etc.
This being the arena that we’re in today its almost inevitable that it’s going to come with some kind of fight.
Not only are we in a band cos we’re dysfunctional we’re in a band because we’re angry about pretty much everything. That much is basic rock and roll obvious. We’re happy on a day to day level but just generally, deeply annoyed, aggravated, pissed off about the world. So fitting that we play for Oxfam who are actually trying to do something about it. I ain’t Bono or Sting but if someone asks for your help it’s best not too think too hard about what the answer’s going to be.
Full moon reeks. It was always going to be F for Funny. The wolves are out. We stumble into the Good Ship poised, early, frothing with vivacity. The stage is being built, the stage is set. No one knows the future how things can turn out so unexpected, so different somehow.
We get wristbands have a tea, a white Americano, a Cappuccino, a toasted ham and cheese, a chorizo and cheese panini. We sit about, walk, talk, meet friends chit chat come back go out. Finally we soundcheck. It’s all running about two hours late . Health and safety measures meaning the stage has to be secured secure second to none and it is great higher bigger stronger better than before and we can’t be on it when people are under it. But this takes tick tock time.
Soundcheck takes a while keyboard noise going up and down in volume, the DI’s are fucked, the hire amp doesn’t work squaling like a pig as soon as it’s plugged in. Luckily I’ve got my Fender Twin back and fixed and it’s here with me. Its all a rush.
We go back home before the gig as we’re on at 11, do singing warm ups, practise patches of things I’m not happy with, get made up, relax get dressed. I pop down see Marc in the flat below after I’ve bought a battery from the shop for my tuner, then we go back.
The Good Ship is bristling. There’s a great sounding band Gavels I think playing as we go in. Hot and heavy rocking dirt. The promoter tells me there are still another 2 bands on before we play it’s just after ten now. We’re supposed to be on at 11. Not going to happen. Everyone is having their sets cut. I start thinking about which of our 12 songs will get binned. Ha! We were supposed to be ‘headlining’. Pretty funny now.
The band before go through introducing band members, each take solos “here’s so and so on bass!” etc. I just want them to get off the stage. Its not their fault they’ve only played 4 songs too.
It seems an eternity till they pack their gear and get off. Every second pop! goes another one of our songs.
I’m sure all the other bands felt the same but as we get the total lag of the day it’s probably the worst it’s been. We got screwed but then it’s not about us it’s for Oxfam so we remember to suck up our pathetic musician egos and get on with it.
DI ‘s still not working so we plug keyboard stuff straight in the desk. All the settings from soundcheck haven’t been saved, the sound guy tells Marc earlier he’s not a live engineer but a studio one . Ok things are looking good.
Marc had his laptop stolen 2 days before with all our sounds on for the gig so we’ve had to make do with sounds on an old half working korg for now. So everything’s in our favour today.
3 songs in we get told we have one more song to play. Marc was basically ready to trash the stage and leave there and then. I convince him quickly ( key) to stay. We may as well do a last one. We probably would’ve ordered our songs differently or played different ones if we knew we were only going to play for 15 minutes.
We play;
I see you
Giddy up
Midas
Worship
Actress
We do a sneaky and go straight into Actress after Worship so it looks like one song. Bit sad but everyone here just wants to play.
I climb the railings of the stairs, look them in the eye watch Marc thrash my guitar. He breaks it. We’re annoyed and it comes out. Of course it doesn’t matter it’s just how it is but in that moment you can’t help it. That musician gene.
Things are rawer when you’re on stage, unfortunately. Never as Zen as you’d like to be. The ultimate lifetimes’ work. Full moon howling down our necks. It’s in the air tonight. We’re pissed off. As we already know that’s why we’re here in the first place. I throw a micstand what a stupid kid. And kick my amazing red shoes to the other side of the room. Yes we are children this is arrested development absolutely.
The gig smashes to a close. At least we’re in one piece. So far.The night’s yet young. I swallow a Jack Daniels and ginger, Marc has a pint, Anthony and Vip wisely leave. After one drink I go outside to book a cab to take the gear back to the estate behind Golborne road that’s about to be knocked down, where me and Marc both live.
Outside’s kicking off. There’re undercover police on radios holding bemused looking people up against the wall outside. There’s all manner of agro unfolding. There are chic pretty boy regulars arguing on the door with managers about the DJ being shit and how they’d paid £5. (This is for Oxfam so I feel for the manager here). People are shouting, the air’s thick with aggravation, aggression. I wrap my scarf round and run to get the gear before the cab arrives.
The cab comes quickly of course. People are everywhere so getting things through takes a long time. I can’t find my amp. Turns out they’ve locked it away. Cab’s ticking. I run frantically to the bar try to get a key for the store room. This person has it, that person has it. I look over and see Marc literally being shoved out of the bar practically lifted up and thrown out. Shit what now. I ignore it for now and get back to finding and retrieving the damn amp. The same guy who just manhandled Marc aggressively out the door then unlocks the door for me sweet as pie and gives me the amp.
It has wheels and I fly it to the patient poor cabbie waiting.
In the car Marcs’ story unfolds how he asked the guy about the keys to the cupboard and how the guy sudddenly picks him pushes him out and throws him onto the road saying “dont tell me to fuck off!” Eh? Marc then finds it funny that the guy eventually takes his earplugs out to finally listen to him. It sounds like a definate case of misunderstanding all be it an aggressive one. The night’s thick with moon. It invades everything. Wearing off on everything.
I wake up thinking what a fucking great gig, singing The Jam ‘That’s entertainment’, feeling fitter but aching more than yesterday.
I get back to burning my sausages and flipping my egg. That’s it I m going vegetarian and giving everything away today or tomorrow.
Oh I nearly forgot on the original way there in the cab a massive Argos truck goes by as we’ve just pulled in outside the venue and smashes the cabbies’ side mirror right off then disappears carerring down the road. The cabbie jumps in his cab and takes chase…..we also leave 2 keyboard stands and my coat at the venue.
I hope they raised a lot of money.
( A BIG THANKS TO EVERYONE )
ACTON OXJAM GIG
“I don’t know if you’ve heard the words ‘Fung shui’ ”
Me and Marc look at eachother. He says it like “Shoooey” as in Hong Kong Fooey, in very pronounced way, gesticulating wildly. Feng Shooey. He’s looking at the road thankfully even though his hands are off the wheel. We’re in an Addisson Lee taxi from Westbourne Park to Acton where we’re playing the Kings Head for Oxjam. He mentioned he’d lived somewhere in Asia but was talking so fast and about so much it was hard to keep up.
We’re driving past those iconic gates of Wormwood Scrubbs as the day peaks conspiratorially over these west london suburbs. We think of the 70s’ TV series Porridge and all those other English films with a crim done time in them.
The cabbie’s a Very posh old gent in his 60s, one of those with a story or ten to tell.
“They should drop every Asbo kid outside there for a day, that’d stop them………..I’ve dropped and picked up at Wandsworth prison a few times. That was where we hung people back in the day, the gallows are still there in a plastic bag somewhere, you can feel it.”
Ah the Feng Shui reference.
He’s rolling and starts in on ourTreason Act (1351) and the ‘Princess of Wales’. He makes a joke about where it’d got Dodi and James what’s his name. An intellectual conspiratorialist.
“if a man do violate the King’s companion, or the King’s eldest daughter unmarried, or the wife of the King’s eldest son and heir”.
Suddenly we’re outside the pub saying bye and thanks to our cabbie, for his interesting chat, info, intellect and unintentional humour, like he’s some newly met estranged uncle. An iron staired fire exit awaits and we enter the night.
The room’s a lovely long hall affair complete with stationary mirror ball and low corner stage. We’re playing deep on west london virgin ground. Dan and Francesca from “It’s all Happening Zine”, who’ve put the show together, are hanging Oxjam posters with the copywriters’ dream tag line “Be Humankind”. Soundmen cluck. We’re headlining tonight and looking forward to playing a long set.
Morrisons is practically next door so after soundcheck we scan lurid photoshopped pictures of egg, chips and beans in the supermarket cafe and head for salad takeaways. I pick a few things but definately feeling quesy now. We head to Anthony’s up the road to eat and play the waiting game.
Finally it’s nearly time so we walk through the downstairs pub room, past the sofas and kids eating chips to a shady garden out the back and wait for the ‘Volitains’ to play before we go on. The youngest people in the bar are the first band up ‘Theory of Six Degrees’ they’re about 12 years old and look like mini Shoreditch types with their mum. Entertainment’s not long to arrive out the back and half way through my lime soda the first drunk of the evening comes out for a fag. He’s another man with a story or ten. His smiles reveal a missing incisor and his slurred jokeathon begins.
“You heard of Chris Rea ? Yeah? I went to school with him”
“Really?!”
“Oh yes he was a couple of years older.. born with a silver spoon in his mouth would’ve been a millionaire even without the music, his family owned a chain of icecream vans and cafes, luckily he didn’t marry Lady Di otherwise she’d a bin called Di Rea “.
OMG.
This is the second time Lady Di has made an entrance, bizarrely, today. He had a few more Chris Rea jokes to tell but after about ten minutes it seemed pertinent not to give him too much more attention, so that Eric Clapton nugget will have to wait. I like to think he really did go to school with Chris Rea.
As we know from our friendly cabbie informant Acton is the place where;
” ..young people, students, lots of different nationalities, people who are renting or can’t afford to buy a house” live.
The bar’s teeming with globe shot accents. It’s like an airport in there.There’re Irish, Australian, Argentinian voices and of course the old drunk guy who’d managed to get up the stairs. Nerves have kicked in now,I’m taking deep breaths to get rid of the soft sick air that lurks at the bottom of my lungs. I walk to the toilet through the crowd and see Volitain’s singer Candice with a make-up artist doing her make-up,very professional. They’re up before us and I watch them before we’re on. She’s got a powerhouse voice and the band rock cooly behind her.The guitarist very kindly has lent me his Vox AC30 for the night as my Fender Twin decided to pack in this week.
Tonight it’s shiny navy blue shorts night, a blue lace sweatshirt and navy blue tights. A blue day for me. This was a funny gig. One of those ones where lots goes wrong but it doesn’t matter because lots is right. It’s about carrying it off, rolling with it. It’s kind of Zen to be on stage and not care if it all falls apart, if people come in at different times, a section is longer here or there, you have to find your way. Nothing’s wrong it’s just a new way to do things. We’ve been jamming as a band more than we ever used to. This means as a group it’s easier to flow with what’s going on. Arrangements don’t have to be exactly the same time everytime, there’s more freedom within the structure of the song. Liberating.
It’s about rising beyond, not caring, being able to react immediately to change and still be calm and not give a fuck, about overcoming fear and panic and doing everything in the moment at the highest level. Being Punk.Punk and Jazz ‘ve got a lot in common.
I’m not there yet but this felt close. It’s like being in a computer game and getting through different levels. This gig felt like we’d moved onto the next stage of something.
Robert Harder, our producer, said it felt like a CBGB’s gig. Quite raw and rock and roll.
It’s a mental and physical endurance test. It’s also about telepathy and relinquishing the power of ego and self will. You can’t force it you have to ride it out until the other people are ready too.
SET LIST
I SEE YOU
GIDDY UP
MIDAS
BLACK AND BLUE
JUNE WAITS
ACTRESS
WHERE YOU AT
RED ROCK
BLACKOUT
WORSHIP
IS THIS LOVE?
ENCORE;
SURRENDER
Headlining means you can just keep playing till you’re booed off. Feels good playing a mixture of old and new. You’re moving. We’ve got a lot of songs now.
A gig flows through so many emotions, the key’s to come out feeling good no matter what now. In the early days we’d get depressed if something didn’t go right or someone would be upset about something. Now nothing matters. The audience enjoy it if you’re bloody dying on stage so it’s all irrelevant anyway.That’s not to say you don’t learn from the things that go wrong, you just don’t let them affect you, so the word wrong becomes subjective. That’s what it’s all about, for me anyway.
SINGLE LAUNCH: “IS THIS LOVE?”
Posted on Aug 19, 2010
Me at soundcheck:
“Can you take a bit of reverb off the drums in the monitors?”
(Sounds to me like Pantera)
Sound guy and Marc simultneously laughing at me…
” Er no that’s the sound of the room, it’ll be ok when it fills up”
Shit Koko. 2000 odd people coming up.
I love balloons especially when they’re red and heart shaped.
Lady in balloon shop :
“You have to be a bit careful they look a bit rude after a few hours.”
Me : “What do you mean?”
Lady: ” Well they start to look like nipples”
Me: “Perfect”
Lady: ” Well er..if you’re having an Ann Summers party?”
Me: ” just rock and roll”
200 of them half helium half fresh breath. It’s all a bit like the krypton factor trying to work out how to let them off without nets or showbiz production staff. So it’s bin liners stuck to the floor with masking tape on the stage then throw them into the audience, get them to rip the bags open.Easy.
Me to the audience ;
“No rip the bag rip the bag!!”
as I see the well crafted plan about to go up in the air still in a dustbin liner.
Two of our friends in the balconies pour balloons like water down onto the audience.
Before we got them bagged up they nestled to the ceiling like bats of the green room, so pretty, so many hearts shining looking down from the heavens like lovely happy little souls.
We set them free at the beginning to “Is This Love?” our single at the end of the set. I could see people doing what people do with balloons.I’m leaning back playing my intro guitar part one chord strumm 4 rounds.
The gig was fast track 25 min playing with
Kavinsky a funny french guy who I have a vague recollection of wrestling with, Kap Bambino the lovely crystal castlesque duo with crazy girl going mental all over the place, Autocratz , Is Tropical and Teenagers in Tokyo.
Koko’s an old music hall/theatre all red and gold cherubs and columns. From the stage I see the boxes, levels fanning out like a big fat cake. The doors had just opened onto a panic moment I’m getting texts from people saying they’re still in the queue we about to play. But suddenly it’s ok the quiet and still of the room’s scratched out and the humans roll in with noise.I see people they’re all the way up crowding. Everyone’s pushed up to the barriers in front of us.
This is good.I’m nervous as usual a slightly sick feeling in my bones and lady stuff tired.Where’s the chocolate and film damn this biology.
It’s like you’re being led taken over forces beyond leg here arm there move here there, push the sound out over, catch breath jump here lying there rock lean back on the heel sink into the overdrive.
Set:
I See You
Giddy Up
Where you at
Actress
Worship
Is This Love? with noise end
2 from the last album. Actress new version and 4 from the new one.
After the gig- relief.The whole night ahead to enjoy. Good music to let those demons out and so many friends there.I loiter on the roof- terrrace-smoky bit and catch
Warren the Playground promoter smiling, mouthing up to me from the outside:
“It’s sold out”
Then I dance like a loon… again and see one lone red balloon like in the french cartoon float up to the heavens over the packed crowd about 2am and Kap Bambino girl grab it with her hand and put it up to her face on stage.Still spreading their love right to the end.
Vanessa’s SECRET GARDEN PARTY
Posted on Aug 1, 2010
Weather beaten, sun addled, on the tube. something’s not right,like a sunhit colour drain picture. no satyr horns no spidermen outfits leopard girls mermaids and hoolahooping pandas ? just the metro and all those starbucks’ cups.home.
But this is now, then there was Secret Garden Party.
FRIDAY
On our way Out, Out ,Out of the city. new bass drum trigger and a hire van from Ron at ‘AVA CAR’, £15 a day advert on bodywork, causing a stir on the A41. back doors don’t lock, can’t open my window, passenger side, no handle, Marcs’ road rage tested he goes for the horn, once, twice , five times still no sound. I laugh he doesn’t, £15 pounds a day tho it’s a miracle. a miracle we got here.
Weather holding. countryside straight, flat, fertile, straw, trees, cottages slipped to pebbledash and back. enter Huntingdon…bit o’ history; Danes invaded, made it a Borough, King Edward the Elder (Alfred the Greats’ son) kicked them out. famous citizens include Oliver Cromwell, Samuel Pepys and yes John Major.
Thanks to the grounds of the manor house that’s survived and Eddie Temple Morris we’re here entertainin’ in The Remix Bubble,a grey geo-dome structure in the middle of a field.
Costume drama this is. Secret Garden Party still floating in a haze, fact or fiction, difficult to tell. no corporates either, incredible, ban those guys, everything tastes better, better taste.
Instead of the alarm, it’s get set, on your marks, GO like the night, out stalking, be the crazy, wired, fantastic, inspirational, creative, wonderous or just go plain weird. and here they definately went.
” I think today I’ll put a TV on my head, be an all in one mirrored robot, hell with hairy feet and be THE lord THE survivor THE normal.”
“sure sure come in yes you’re in the right place”.
It’s dark. sorted parking, tickets, passes, lock up, gear, find friends, unload bags, get to camp blow up mats, shake sleeping bag. OUT.
Vee and Anthony been here since Thursday camp all set, our tents’ up. we’re close up to the action. so close , you can hear the words to every song on ‘Where The Wild Things Are’ stage. the bass comes up through the soil up into your eardrum, through the earplug, the pillow, worming its way into your bones and mind.
Vee says:
“it’s ok second night you’re so tired you just sleep”
We find the thursday arrivals half cut under trees sunk into festival cocoon. let me slip.
Turn your head, the lights under trees glow with fake blue, bright green, lilac and gold. underneath you find a population, tiny clay figures, a terracotta army of tiny lost morph-like souls peering, origami swans glistening next to the weir and the river leading into the lake by the pagoda. or a neon TV or camp made of wooden structures where you slump under like you used to in the woods. everything glittering and peering at you for your attention so much detail, so much creative everywhere.
We walk, see whatever’s in our way. take it. bit of ‘Marina and the Diamonds’, then a man lifts a tent flap and we’re pure dark smoke now, choke, lasers and old school rave. we stay for some time.
fumbling round, no direction. we find the Delays on a ship. no programme no idea what’s on, so for every great thing we miss another great thing.
Festivals have a timezone. you’re in, time passes, you don’t know where you’ve been, what you’ve done, where you’re going,where you are. the beauty.
Friday night passes, a blur of festival price beer. I try sleep, the bass pumps shoots through, I’ve got earplug weapons sinking into my brain and eyemask but it’s still like sleeping in a bass bin, I wake every 2 hours sense excitement everywhere, then sleep again.
SATURDAY
The morning’s hot thank god. I’m knackered. all sun heat on your head socks off from cold night to baking tent morning and get that sleeping bag off quick. It’s a festival there’s got to be yoga. please save me from tent back, half-sleep and them butterflies are learning to fly. breathing good right? Still got a job to do. go on treat yourself I hear so I get a Shiatsu you know make the most of the facilities ‘n all that and float back to camp.
Saturday’s more wandering till ‘John and Jehn’ (French art noise groovers ) with our pal Raf from ‘Underground Railroad’ playing drums. they do cool and noise, seen them as a 2 piece, good now as a band.
I eat the best vegetarian Thali and bump into Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs guy in the queue for same. he has a velvet blue medaeival cape.
At some point I’m at the Great Stage listening to ‘The Egg’ with their white outfits numbered 1,2,3,4 for each member.the robot crowd are out in force never seen so much silver and white. perfect festival summer techno. I wiggle about at the back then after ‘The Egg’, ‘The Whip’ a lot slower, darker and more moody. I laugh at my own joke but refrain from saying ‘scrambled’.
Sun’s going down I’m stumbling over teenagers lying on hay bales and Nitrous Oxide capsules. it’s getting packed for ‘Gorrilaz soundsystem’, all visuals, no play, they’re in Syria at the same time and send their spectre. first track’s the famous “I’m happy..” people sing wildly to Damons’ animated projected puppet face. It is a great track, yes.
Suddenly it’s Fire !Fire! the wooden ship that’s been lingering in the middle of the lake is in flames. a firework and neon balloon milkyway billows up to black sky. nothing like a bit of pagan ritual to finish the night. fire weaves to ‘The Golden Filter’, who I happily catch by mistake. hip electo NYorkers with high priestess floating fringe frontwoman. we dance. bedtime for me. BOO.
That was sober saturday. difficult. down side of being this singer, not enough sleep, too much drink, it’s over for me. croak my way through. have to weigh it up, miss a bit of the party but less stress later. Keith Richards’d turn in his grave. oh fuck me, he’s not dead, lucky bastard.
I slink to bed with a big lip passing Anthony off out again. being the second night Vee’s right, I’m wrecked and yes I’m out 54321. life in the bass bin’s easy.
SUNDAY
Rise and shine. get shiny. walk to miracle van for make-up and dress-up, i-pod on Ozzie Osbourne knows those va va va va vee vee vee vees. I grab the Kokon de Zai dresses me and Vee’ll wear, all shoulders and dots.
feel alive at 11 45am. I walk the backstage road I time it perfectly meet Marc, Vee and Anthony on the corner and with a spaghetti western soundtrack in my head we walk the dust stone road to set up.
Gig time finally. everything’s smooth setting up but quick, new bass drum trigger flapping too much tho when we start. I like the way it goes bang, bang, bang instead of bang, but we switch it off a bit much for the whole set. sound is good.
Sun’s out. people and hangovers swarm, rest on the grass banks in the sun. nursing thurs/friday/saturday night heads. we play to wake them. the tent’s cool inside, at night it turns into a nest of light, smoke and arms.
Snap snap half hour over.too soon.
I see You
Giddy Up
Midas
Black and Blue
Where you at
Worship
Is This Love?
PRS are waiting for us backstage signing forms . never had that before. Greg.
“Everyone’s always really happy to see me, as I say ‘here have some money!’ it’s not a bad job ! ”
We love Greg.
Then we do an interview for Remix show. exciting. forgot to say I played guitar and keyboards aswell… oh well.
Then I hear the dreaded ” That was short and sweet” by the stage manager ! … er what you mean we could’ve played longer ? Sheet. Never leave unless someone kicks you off I guess.
Get me free cider, gin and tonic washed down with beer, get me naked men mud wrestling, let me boogie to Horace Andys’ vibrato, ‘The Skatalites’ horn section, the ‘Reverend Sound System’, Eddie Temple Morris’ DJing and let me sing to ‘Mercury Rev’. fuck me. finally.
Then I get a call from Marc who ‘d taken gear back to London in miracle van saying Remix tent called him saying:
“Have you guys left anything behind? er maybe you should come and have a check ..”
Shit. the lone Antoria 70′s Les Paul copy guitar standing where I’d left it nuzzled to the stage waiting to be carried to the van. Of course.
STUPID CUPID
Posted on July 13, 2010
cupids’ on a tea break too much overtime spring’s just been . get off your arse mate there’s work to be done. push the bow in deeper further come on do your worst. pansying around in your nappies and wings. this hearts got blood vampire.
stare at those white walls. need to take the black hole ghost walk through, like you’re in 6th sense. quick or shrug those shoulders wind that clock lie down do the usual bit of habit no monks here. the futures bright you can see for miles but the window’s painted over scratch your name feel better. open up maybe or never you decide, possible or never you decide.
a dog round the outside nose to the ground it’s a maze here.sniff sniff it out that house on the rock the signal’s on. you can go, now.
love is a white room you are outside touch the walls. Jack in the box jump jump painted windows don’t give a good view and it’s summer in there , feel the view. see those toes pushing through the wall up close whole body through nearly there.
so… so wide open now so halleluja take the signal the chair’ll keep swinging, hair’ll keep sliding. love. Lots Of Virtually Everything. Like Of Virtually Everything. Levels Of Virtually Everything. lucky dip all circused up tombola wait for the number to come up. magnets attract. can’t argue with that. feel the power. all those house records can’t be wrong. soundtrack that to your life.i like you. if you were a kid on a computer game no choice.instinct kicks like a drunk.you in there ?
taste the glove .push it real good. look closer, on the horizon. fill up fill your glass half full. had it. thirsy so thirsty. walking unwaking. Is this love ? is it ****.
Cupid shoots cuts blood runs pulls the needle out the signal’s on. this way out.
Single Launch “GIDDY UP” 93 ft East 8th May 2010
Posted on May 18, 2010
My last vision Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs guy showered in glitter.Winking ” They ‘re bullies” pointing at the cute feather lashed girls half zipped in dinosaur costumes holding glitter pots.”Not bad as bullies go”.
My first, a cloudy day, Giddy Up single launch at the Playground night. Soundcheck 7 Lucky 7.Nice and late. Maurice Einhardt Neu Gallery picking gear up.
First gig for a while.Give me the big stage give me the big pictures behind. Fuck, it smells of beer and electrics. 93 Feet East needs a clean up.
It’s freezing out plus the nerves shake. Everyone I know’s smoking. Sister lent me her grey coat cover those legs dearie you’ll catch your death. Not meant for the outdoors.Still shaking.
On stage keep the coat high and low tune up feel like a Gallagher. We’re not started yet. Too big but covered.
Here everyone knows their shit. Your own private organising hell pre-heaven. Set up not fuck up.Everything crossed. Midi, computers, drum machines. Tech. Fucking tech, oh beautiful tech. Plug it in. Tune up. Get your head ready. Pedals leads amp make sure tremelo ON Fender shaky lead falling out the back, volume- lead- check.Then look round sort Marcs’ bass if he’s in stress gear mode somewhere else in that parallel world.
The lights are red tonight darling there’s a new riser stage front.I like the new boy carousel for dancing ballerina. Faces bright tuned in like christmas.I can hear my song loud a second disconnected then oblivious. The now. Gotcha you’re it.
Yesterday I was a hoarse 8 hours stretch makes me a rough round the edges.Take me to thee you honey magic and liquorice. Bingo.Coax the nightingale.
Adrenalin’s a blindfold dive just plane jump. We are the entertainment. That’s all. Fuck ego or anger. That ‘ ll calm your nerves, don’t take it personally. Best way put it in that box don’t analyse just get through it..
Pre gig: 7 drops of Peace solution, constant sprays of Bach Flower rescue remedies, yoga, singing, breathing, meditating. Post gig: As much as i can take.
Set ;
I see you \ Blackout \ Black and Blue \ Midas \ Where you at \ Worship \ Surrender \ Giddy Up
8 songs so short. 35 minutes.So many songs to play, playing catch up can’t wait. Album out.
Idiot Time EP made no show tonight nothing from there today just more new ones from album.This is a test. One day we’ll do a 2 hour set I promise. Have a sleep over. Bring your pajamas.I’ll drink after. Save me some.
Goes giddy like a blur. Overtakes washes over roll with it. Backward roll even. Freak.
Anthony battering lost his stick better than marbles like a one armed bandit till he rescued it.The beat goes on.Vee on keys steely beautiful focused tap tap so much to remember. Marc singing big now hooray. Giddy Up bit more giddying. First time ever played it. Hotting up.
A show and an experiment.A show and a shake. A roll awake.Sweat shakes over now,freaked it out.
The end is sweet. Suck that early bonus play funtime now to Get Shakes, beautiful hat boy analogue heaven, Shouting like Mark E Smith swathed in keys. Back to work I’m busy packing up, welcoming thankyou thankyou you gorgeous ones.
Still early walking waiting for Mr Numan. Come on my love it’s late now. Wee small hours. Eddie Temple Morris’ band The Losers rock.Standing tall pump happy. Smile and head down sweat and rock. I was in the back then into the swarm. I love a mean house machine. Midi Midis frontman trousers down I see your pants baby. Eddie and Tom Bellamy give it. I like that. Bass line Candi Statton. dum dum de dumdum. Eddie in front lovely to play. Riff, a squelch my hands are in the air.i love a cheesy quaver.
I’m drunk now on rider cans you glamourous bitch.Tiny chat to gorg Gemma Numan and Ade Fenton on way in. Late and laters. So quick. Ade without eyeliner. Nice face. Nice to see it. Sounds like your mam.
Numan straight on. Into the fray. Headbanging to some heavies ,Teaches of Peaches. Funny.
We’re off doing gear packing. Save that dance.
Giddy Up single is available NOW through itunes, the official release is the 10th May.
Posted on April 15, 2010
We’ve been in hiding. Went underground there for a bit . Leaves us chomping at the bit. Been fiddling geek shit, polish polish, then just oo one more in she goes. Pop it in chew it down.
Ready for you now .. ah how we’ve missed your connection. We need your sparks.
So single first one for you this sunny spring. ‘Giddy Up’. Like a horse now gallop gallop. Gee up. Album coming after “The Rise and Fall of the Giddy”. Shake your head look up look down look around. Riding fast
we ‘re on you now.
Giddy Up
with love
Rubicks
