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!’

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!