Friday, 29 September 2017

The Babe Rainbow || Moth Club

When I first saw the short film Midnight Ramblers - an incredible paean to the passion and glamour of rock groupies - last year, I was instantly struck by the music. It was perfect. Breezy, retro-tinged, dreamy, energetic - it fits exquisitely into the art film duo Wiissa's groupie wonderland. Of course, I had to know who’d provided the soundtrack. Turns out it was The Babe Rainbow, a groovy Aussie band boasting titles like Secret Enchanted Broccoli Forest and Peace Blossom Boogy. They sound like drugs and sunshine, and are with Australia’s coolest indie record label, Flightless Records, whose roster also boasts King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. Hearing from a colleague that they’re playing in Hackney in just a couple of days, it seems like fate.

Moth Club has become one of my favourite venues over the past year, with it’s Lynchian clash of dated pub furniture and gold glitter ceiling. It’s not quite Byron Bay, but somehow it’s perfect for The Babe Rainbow. When I arrive – early – there are pockets of young people in spangly silver jumpsuits and gasoline faux fur congregating in corners, drinking warm beer from plastic cups. I lean against the bar, alone, hoping one of these kids – so much cooler than me – will be attracted to my aura and start talking to me. It doesn’t happen, so I wait for the band.

I don’t have to hang around long. Within half an hour of my first sip of spiced rum, lead singer and ‘troubadour of consciousness’ Angus Dowling prances onto the tiny stage, clad in a green-and-black onesie. Following him out are bass guitarist Dr. Elliot Love Wisdom and ‘guitarist with mystique’ (one for you, Almost Famous fans), Kool-Breeze. They take a second to observe their audience. I’m at the front, in an oversized Grateful Dead t-shirt tucked into a Seventies suede patchwork mini. Next to me is a group of three excitable, long-haired boys, seventeen perhaps, who’ve squeezed their way to the front and who seem equally as enraptured by the hipster girls next to them as they do the band. I wonder if we’re an appealing crowd.

The band’s first song is a new one, but it doesn’t matter. We’re already grooving. The energy is instant, manic, and it’s emanating from the group and out into the audience. You can feel the electricity passing through the crowd, from the stage all the way to the stragglers in the back, like a dynamite trail. By the time they get to Johny Says Stay Cool, six songs in, we’re all thrusting back and forth, stamping on each other’s feet, smashing into one another to Angus’ cries of ‘breathe in, breathe out’. The front of the stage is a psychedelic mosh pit. BREATHE IN – I collide exuberantly with the teenage boy next to me – BREATHE OUT – he steps on my toes – BREATHE IN, BREATHE OUT! ‘You’ve got to dance. You’ve just got to,’ the boy shouts into my ear. I nod.

Later, after the band perform a particularly trippy rendition of Blondie’s Heart of Glass, they break for twenty, giving me a chance to head outside for a smoke and a think. King Gizzard, this band certainly is not. Something’s missing – they don’t seem to have quite come into their own yet. But I’m into it. They’ve got a lot of groove and charisma, and they’re causing everyone in there – me included – to lose their minds a little bit. Who cares if they’re not quite polished yet? I spot Angus, Dr Elliot and Kool-Breeze, a few feet away with some female fans. They look like three blonde angels. Or cult leaders. Everyone’s playing it cool, even the fans. I’m momentarily transfixed.

Back inside, I get myself another rum and cranberry. There’s a girl next to me, shy, looking like she doesn’t want to be alone. Eye contact, earnest smile. The bar maid’s counting my change - I ask the girl if she’s having a good time. She nods with nervous enthusiasm. ‘I love them. There’s no one else like The Babe Rainbow. Anywhere.’ Good soundbite. The barmaid hands me my rum and my change, and the girl and I find an easy route to the front, next to the trio of teenage boys again. The one in the yellow t-shirt – the foot-crusher – smiles at us. We’re just in time. The funky intro of Love Forever swirls from the stage. Angus writhes like a snake around the stage, perhaps a little self-consciously.

And then it’s over. The lights stay down, and I get a beer from the bar, keen to stick around and lap up any last phantoms of psychedelia. I’m a bit disappointed – what am I looking for? – when the room all but empties. Even my new pal, the nervous girl, is out the door without as much as a parting smile. To the station, then, I guess.

I wait at Hackney Wick. A flash of yellow and excitable babble – it’s the boy and his friends. I wonder briefly how they discovered the Babe Rainbow (poseurs?), but I don’t ask. I don’t speak to them at all. Outside of the protective walls of the Moth Club, the normal London rules begin to apply again. No speaking to strangers. No feelings, other than frustration. He points at me.

‘Hey, she’s got a Grateful Dead t-shirt!’

Sunday, 5 February 2017 / lists, music

Seven dreamy things about Fleetwood Mac's Rumours

Happy birthday, Rumours!

Fleetwood Mac's most iconic and celebrated record turned 40 yesterday! It's not my favourite album they put out (that'd be the brilliant followup, Tusk) but it's undoubtedly an exceptional and lovely record.

After I'd given the album approximately seventeen spins and put on my most Stevie of dresses - a 1970s black mini with caped chiffon sleeves, purchased from a vintage shop called Lucy's Lounge in Dublin - I made a list of the dreamiest things about Rumours to celebrate.

1. The unique general vibe of the album - intoxicating, ethereal, immersive, natural, fun.

2. The cover. Isn't Stevie just the most ethereal, spooky thing around? I love the black ballet shoes with her iconic Rhiannon dress.

3. Dreams, the album's most successful track - and arguably the band's signature tune - plays a quiet but vital role in the novel I'm writing, which is tentatively titled Kit's People.

4. It was produced by Ken Caillat, who also worked on albums for Alice Cooper, Wilson Philips, The Beach Boys and Frank Sinatra. Quite an impressive resume by anyone's standards, but thirteen year old me would have been more impressed that his daughter is Colbie Caillat!

5. It was supposed to have Silver Springs on it, which is just about the only thing that could have made the album better!

6. Never Going Back Again - such a sweet little tune. My favourite on the record.

7. The mystical, almost primal sounds of Gold Dust Woman.

Thursday, 12 January 2017 / culture, film, writing

Film preview: Stand by Me

Last summer marked the 30th anniversary of one of my favourite films, Stand By Me. To celebrate, Liverpool arts centre FACT held a screening. I wrote a little something for their blog back in July, and completely forgot to post about it here!

Awarded the prestigious honour of being the first Stephen King adaption he didn’t try to quash, Stand By Me follows four young boys as they go on a mission to discover a dead body and get on television. Like any good coming-of-age film, however, the real story is not found in the plot but the journey.

A true ode to American boyhood, the film shines a sensitive spotlight on the crucial stage of pre-adolescence when everything seems uncertain. For the four protagonists, that’s the last weekend of summer before they enter junior high school [...read more on the FACT blog]

Friday, 6 January 2017 / travel

New Years Eve in Ireland

I've had this feeling for a while that I must go to Ireland. I'm not sure what sparked it, but I found myself reading Irish literature almost exclusively, in what I can only assume was an attempt to vicariously absorb a sort of Irishness through the pages. John Banville, Caitriona Lally and Kevin Barry all found their way to the top of my reading list, pushing in front of perfectly good authors who lacked the decency to be born on the Emerald Isle. Naturally then, when my friend Steph - who I've seen only once since she moved to Paris seven years ago - invited me on the New Years Eve trip she and her friends were taking to Dublin, I said yes instantly.

I came across an incredible vintage shop in Dublin, run by the fantastically colourful Dandelion. She was a Sixties groupie goddess, decked out in a psychedelic mini dress and huge, drawn-on eyelashes. An hour later, and I was 100€ poorer. It was definitely worth it for my new 1930s tea dress, the black caped chiffon mini of Stevie Nicks' dreams, and a 1960s green velvet mini dress (apt, no?). I like to pick up vintage whenever I travel to a new place.

I spent time not only in Dublin, but in Connemara, Galway and Cong too. The serene beauty of Connemara was startling, and almost impossible to do justice to with an iPhone. The wild landscape was like something out of Middle-earth. It's the kind of place that makes you glad to be alive.

Cong is a quaint village in the West of Ireland. It's very proud of its role in the 1952 romantic-comedy, The Quiet Man. There's a beautiful statue of the film's stars, John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, near Cong Abbey. Galway was lovely, of course. It was a beautiful day, and the town was packed for the bank holiday. There's nothing better than chips on the seafront, is there?

Our actual New Years Eve plans got scuppered. I got on so well with one of my hostelmates, Luisa, that I ended up celebrating with her instead of Steph and her friends. It was raining heavily, but we wanted to see the city firework display from the bridge. Unfortunately, it got cancelled at 23.58pm due to the weather, so we ended up limping into 2017, thoroughly sodden and drinking cheap champagne out of plastic cups with an angry Irish couple.

Happy 2017!

Monday, 19 December 2016 / music, travel

The Top Five Moments of Desert Trip*

It was probably a little extreme, having never been to a festival or even gone camping before. I should have started small, maybe a little campsite in Aberdovey or something. But no, I decided to fly halfway across the world to sleep alone in the middle of the desert for my first experience - during tarantula mating season at that. I think my camping inexperience really came to light when I started confidently bashing something into the ground that was supposed to go into the canopy. Maybe it was when I brought literally nothing to sleep in but a tent and a child's sleeping bag.

A blanket would have been nice to offset that hard, hard ground beneath the tent. Oh, and one of those little gazebo things that campers smarter than me were utilising might have allowed me to stay in my tent after the sun started working its evil magic at around 6.30am, when it suddenly went from unbearably cold to surface-of-the-sun hot. But this post isn't about my camping mishaps - if it was, I'd mention how many times I tripped over the neon orange guylines and landed flat on my face in front of my attractive Norwegian neighbours. So, without further ado, I present to you my top five moments from the inaugural Desert Trip.

1. Neil Young performing Harvest Moon under the full moon

Of the acts I was most excited to see at Desert Trip, Neil Young fell somewhere around fourth. He's written some of the most glorious songs of the last century, but I was never mad to see him. He turned out to be an absolute lunatic, in the best possible way. A true outlaw. His performance of the classic 'Harvest Moon' ended up being the most beautiful and poetic musical experience of my life.

Picture the scene: A hundred thousand people gathered in the middle of the desert, bonded by their mutual love for music, fall silent. Neil Young has begun to sing. As the gorgeous melody of Harvest Moon starts up, an actual full moon begins to rise. In fact, many quietly acknowledge that it's the fastest they've ever seen the moon move. As he croons the lyric, 'there's a full moon rising...' and the screens switch to spectacular shots of the one rapidly ascending above us, the crowd whoops softly. When Neil strums his guitar for the final time, the moon is hanging huge and bright immediately over him. Around me, people are crying at the ethereal beauty of what they've just witnessed. Goosebumps. Incidentally, Paul McCartney was also quite excited by the moon and repeatedly led the audience in mass werewolf howls during his set.

2. Waking up to the actual Roger Waters singing Shine On You Crazy Diamond

Sounds bizarre, doesn't it? Unfortunately, desert dust and contact lenses aren't exactly cosy bedfellows, and by the final day of the festival, I was basically temporarily blinded. I was in agony. I had to get my eyes flushed in the medical tent. I had no choice but to remove the lenses, which is unfortunate because I'm severely myopic. Long story (kind of) short, the fact that I made it to the venue, back to the campsite in the dark, travelled to LAX, navigated one of the world's busiest airport on a day they experienced technical issues and changed terminals, then made it through Heathrow arrivals while alone and unable to see a foot in front of my face is probably my life's greatest achievement. Only casualty: my favourite hat, accidentally abandoned in the airport bathroom post-wee.

Anyway, the point is that due to my blindness, I missed Roger Waters' set. This was really upsetting because I'd heard how incredible it was from Weekend One folks, and just about anyone who has ever seen him perform. I've seen footage since and it's stupendous. Miraculously, I managed to get back to my tent in one piece after the Who, and fell asleep feeling sorry for myself before he even came on stage. A while later, I faded into consciousness to the sound of Roger Waters performing Shine on You Crazy Diamond. Not through my earphones or my gramophone - the actual Roger Waters actually singing the actual classic Shine on You Crazy Diamond for real. Even though I didn't get to see him, lying in my tent alone in the desert and taking that in - still dazed with sleep - ended up being one of the most surreal and incredible experiences I could have hoped for.

3. Paul McCartney's entire set

I was kind of nervous seeing Paul. The Beatles have meant so much to me in my life. I have made some of my closest friends because of The Beatles, and at times The Beatles have been my closest friends. Even though John's my favourite, it was Paul who wrote the majority of the songs that have touched my life the most. My nerves came from the bad press he's received in recent years for his vocals, mainly from the scourge of humanity itself, the Daily Mail - but were these criticisms well founded? Would the pedestal I put him on be kicked down, my adoration tainted? As much as I have defended him over the years, it can't be denied that his voice hasn't aged as well as, say, Mick Jagger or Tom Jones.

It's worth saying that I was in extraordinary amounts of contact lens-related pain and had limited vision - and it was still one of the greatest nights of my life. I'm usually one of those infuriating people who doesn't move much during a concert. But I was singing, dancing, swaying, crying, yelling, clapping, screaming and generally behaving like an absolutely lunatic. I found a note in my phone recently, composed on the night of the concert, which simply read: Paul McCartney is a god amongst men. My standouts were Maybe I'm Amazed (his live version is always better than the recorded one), Helter Skelter, Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite (yeah, I know), the Abbey Road Medley, Jet (accompanied by an actual jet flying over) and A Day in the Life/Give Peace a Chance/Why Don't We Do It In The Road with Neil Young. Then again, I did miss my favourite Wings song - Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five - while trying to fix my lenses in the toilet.

4. All the cool people

I wasn't concerned about travelling alone because it makes you more approachable. I find that you tend to meet more interesting people when you're not already moving in tribes. Most of the fantastic, unusual, well-travelled people I met were considerably older than me. Minus the music, my Desert Trip experience seemed to happen in vignettes. In minutes, I'd meet and get to know people on a deeper level than I'd known anyone before and then we'd part like strangers. I'd discover what moves them, what brought them here, the parts of the world they'd travelled to, their feelings on the current political situation in the US, how they'd dressed in their youth. Small talk didn't exist for a weekend. I felt more interesting by default that these people thought I was worth conversing with. It helps that Americans are so much less reserved. I encountered such incredible generosity, from JR who sincerely offered me both money and guidance 20 minutes into our friendship after learning I was travelling with very little, to the Peruvians with the free pot, to the group of Australians who invited me to stay with them in their tent. So to everyone I met - Alex from Chile, JR from the Bronx, Bob from Northern California, the Aussies, the Peruvians, Ben, Jessica, Gabriel etc - thank you for making the experience what it was. You made Desert Trip.

5. The Photography Experience

Watching footage of Desert Trip has been weird because the energy of the show doesn't come through at all. Many people were so amazed by the festival that they walked around in a daze afterwards (though some of that was probably due to 'other' variables ;)), but on video the whole thing looked and sounded a little lacklustre. I once read an interview with famed rock photographer Bob Gruen on the subject. He said that "video hardly captured the excitement of rock and roll at all. To capture one peak moment in a still photograph that says so much about the energy and excitement, the mood of an artist - you can only do that in a photograph."

Gruen was one of the contributing photographers to the Photography Experience, which always seemed to have a large queue of people waiting to enter. Some of these people were inevitably mainly interested in gaining access to the only air conditioned building onsite, but everyone was blown away by the exhibition. It didn't matter that some of the photographs were already well-known to rock fans - nothing beats seeing over 200 of them together in an environment like this. I've never wanted to be a Stone more. Brilliant.

Honorary mentions: delicious vegan food, great vintage market, nice merch selection.

* from the POV of someone who was blind during The Who and missed Roger Waters completely.

Wednesday, 2 November 2016 / personal, travel

Los Angeles

LA. LA. I've been avoiding writing about it because I didn't want to turn it into 'work'. Silly, non? But I had such an incredible time, and I was scared I wouldn't be able to express that wonder in words. Especially as I have very few photographs to back them up.

It's hard to eloquently put into words why I loved LA so much. Had I been to Marrakesh, I could have talked about the chaos of the colourful markets, abuzz with mad collective energy and magical trinkets. A visit to Siem Reap and its ancient temples would have provided endless paragraphs on the sort of spiritual electricity that burns down the back of your neck and travels over your skin in such historic holy places.

But Los Angeles? It smells quite bad (though my sense of smell is mercifully dull). It's the dirtiest Western city I have ever been to, and I'm from Wolverhampton. There's no strong sense of culture or history beyond the entertainment industry, and even that stretches back only to the last century. I experienced more street harassment in my first half-hour in LA than I previously had in my entire life - and I've been to Paris. My favourite was the guy in the Spiderman costume who ran across Sunset Boulevard to catch me. Having stroked my arm while hitting on me for several minutes as I tried to enter a supermarket, I finally managed to escape, but not before he finished with this charming line: "Thanks for letting me touch you. I hope you'll let me taste you." And that's the story of how I was sexually harassed by Spiderman on my way to buy donuts. What a charmer.

So why did I love LA? Forgive the cliché, but I felt free. I had been concerned that travelling alone would reduce any avenues for adventure, but it only heightened my experiences. I'd never felt so instantly at home before, like my spirit was at rest. Maybe I lived there in a past life.

I kept being overwhelmed by the distinct sensation that I'd discovered what happiness felt like. For a long time, I've been convinced that it doesn't exist. Certainly not for me, anyway, and probably not for anyone else either. That at best, it's an illusion only a few of us had seen for what it truly is. But I certainly felt like I was happy in LA, and excited, too, at the realisation that it was finally my turn. I had never been happy before. My head felt clear. It is usually muddled, filled with cotton wool. But I knew what I would have to do when I got home, and it no longer seemed as intimidating. I was restored.

Perhaps I should elaborate on the things I got up to in California. I'm saving Desert Trip for a separate post, and there's going to be a "California Haul" post, as well. Los Angeles is home to some incredible vintage, which I wish I'd bought more of. It was 32c, which for a pasty Brit like me is pretty hot. It was too sweaty to wear my hat, which is a real bummer because I ended up leaving it in an airport restroom. On the first day, I decided to go for a wander around the neighbourhood, really get a feel for Hollywood. I always forget how long American avenues are, so I got lost quite easily - you can be on the right avenue yet miles away from your destination. In the UK, even if you're on the wrong end of the avenue, you're usually still only a few doors away.

By chance, I came upon the Hollywood Forever Cemetery without looking for it. Like most cemeteries, it's very peaceful. I've never understood why people don't like graveyards - they're just about the most serene places you could visit. The visitors are quiet and respectful, and the dead aren't saying anything either. Of course, it didn't look much like a regular cemetery. Hollywood Forever was beautiful. There wasn't another soul around. I could almost feel the hopeful energy of the young starlets who arrived in Hollywood to make it in the movies during the Golden Age.

The next day, I walked to Los Feliz. My destination was Squaresville, a vintage store famed for its eclectic, low-priced goods. I like to pick up vintage clothes when I travel. It's interesting to see how location influences styles from the same era, and it's nice to have travel memories attached to your clothes. The shop was populated by groups of well-dressed young women when I arrived (one of whom, an Australian, was wearing the most perfect silver tutu), though they sell menswear as well. The range was incredible - old band tees, dusty Edwardian jackets, exquisite 1930s lingerie and ridiculous 1970s platforms all occupied the same space, and at fantastic prices, too. I could have bought half the shop, but I was trying to be conservative about my spending so early on in the trip. I ended up with a 1970s Gunne Sax maxi ($28), a cute frilly maroon dress ($25), a pink lace blouse ($18) and a beautiful tooled leather bag ($28). I also picked up some cracking items of clothing in thrift stores around LA, but I'll save that for the haul post. For a sneak peak of the Gunne Sax and the bag, check out the picture at the top of the post.

I took a trip to Universal Studios, mainly to visit Hogwarts. I didn't enjoy the Wizarding World in Hollywood as much as Orlando, which I wrote about here. Either the Forbidden Journey was different between parks, or it just wasn't as good as I remembered it. At least I had time to explore the rest of the park this time. I particularly enjoyed the Studio Tour, which reaffirmed why I love filmmaking. Watching the pink sunset over the San Fernando Valley was magical. Getting stuck under a waterfall on the Jurassic Park ride was not.

The rest of my days in LA were a blur of yard sales, exploring neighbourhoods, following the Walk of Fame, watching films, shopping for camping equipment, writing by the pool and hiding from scientologists. Yes, you read that correctly. Long story short, I was sorta kinda tricked into going into their church, watching a propaganda film, and undergoing an interrogation before managing to escape. When I tried to leave, she kept saying I didn't really want to - I only thought I did - and that I
subconsciously wanted to be there. It felt like hypnotism. It was incredibly creepy, and now I'm considering changing my name/getting facial reconstruction surgery/moving to Namibia. I sort of want to write a blog post about the incident, but I'm still unnerved, especially as they have my contact details (major doh! moment).

So to summarise, I was sexually harassed by Spiderman, nearly abducted by scientologists, had my eyeballs attacked by angry desert dust (one for another post) and lost my favourite hat, but it was the most incredible adventure. Classic rock fans, ~~turn on~~ tune in ~~drop out~~ on Monday to read about my Desert Trip experience. Happy November!

Monday, 31 October 2016 / halloween, macabre

Spoooooky.

Halloween is tied with Christmas for my favourite holiday, though I enjoy them all. I've always been attracted to the macabre and the creepy, and wait all year round for it to become mainstream. Not that I'm desperate to fit in, but it certainly makes things easier. Sort of like how the dead can walk freely on All Hallows' Eve. When else are cockroach earrings, cauldrons, black roses, and snake candelabras widely available for purchase? This time of year is perfect for investing in home decor.

I'm not sure why I'm as morbidly inclined as I am. It could be to do with my paternal grandmother - as a child, she'd tell me she was a witch, and like me, relished in the delightfully ghoulish. She definitely had more than a little Morticia in her - she once concocted a dessert laced with a litre of double cream to test whether her husband really was allergic (he was). Oh, and she confessed to murder on her death bed. We think it was the morphine... hopefully...

Happy Halloween!

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