A date for your decadent diaries.

Dickon Edwards’s band Fosca play a London concert with Amelia Fletcher’s Tender Trap, without whom, etc.

Thursday April 13th
London, Brixton Windmill, 22 Blenheim Gardens, SW2 5BZ
£5, 8pm doors. Fosca onstage 9.30pm.
Playing with Tender Trap and Strange Idols.
Promoted by HDIF Presents.

Please come.

More details at:
http://www.howdoesitfeel.co.uk/hdiflive.html

http://www.fosca.com

The Boyfriends
Date: Monday 27th February 2006
At: Nambucca, 596 Holloway Road, London N7
Doors 8pm, onstage at 10.15pm
Entry £3

www.theboyfriends.com
www.myspace.com/myboyfriendsback

Martin Wallace’s darkly passionate homoerotic rock combo. Bit short notice with this one, I know. Forgive me.

How Does It Feel To Be Loved.
Every third Friday of the month. Now at Nambucca, 596 Holloway Road, London N7 6LB.
There’s also a South London version of the club, every 1st Friday in Brixton. See the club’s website for more.

This is Ian Watson’s excellent club for vintage indiepop / 60s soul / 60s pop, at which I”ve DJ-d myself a number of times. The website has a fairly busy forum and message board for likeminded types.

I’m particularly pleased the club has now moved to Nambucca on the Holloway Road. Nambucca is a little oasis of a venue trying to bring a bit of Camden-style arty music buzz to an otherwise featureless part of North London.

An announcement for band people in London.

A new bass player is sought for the exotic London-based project / supergroup that is SCARLET’S WELL. They’re about to release their fifth remarkable album, ‘Black Tulip Wings’ on Siesta Records. It’s already one of my favourite records of the year, even if I am one of the lyricists. Doubtlessly they’ll play a few concerts to promote it.

Scarlet’s Well songs are a unique brand of foppish folk-pop: witty, archaic and Romantic: at least in the Coleridge sense of the word. Musical comparisons might suggest The Divine Comedy, Kurt Weill, Tiger Lillies, Tindersticks, perhaps even the more vaudeville side of The Dresden Dolls. It’s all channelled by SW leader Bid, former frontman of legendary artpop group The Monochrome Set.

Contributing SW songwriters to date include Christina Rossetti, Edgar Allen Poe, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Alex from Franz Ferdinand, trendy accordion god Martin White and myself.

Please visit www.scarletswell.co.uk for more about the group. Email doctormole@scarletswell.co.uk if you think you can help find a bassist.

Oh, they have one of those MySpace pages too:

http://www.myspace.com/scarletswell

Thanks,

Dickon Edwards

P.S. I’ve decided to break my ‘no links’ rule for entries that more resemble blog postings, eg ‘Announcements‘ and ‘Recommendations‘.

What sometimes puts me off writing an entry in this diary is the worry I might not stop. But I think my readers would prefer more regular, concise musings than infrequent torrents of text. I should get into a routine – an hour or so a day.

The temptation is to write about one thing in particular – the diary as a sequence of articles. What I want to do now, though, is just write regularly, and hope readers won’t mind that much of it might be unedited and dull: the chaff with the wheat. Entries now would comprise ideas, notes to self, records of what I’ve done – pretty useful when my own memory is so unreliable. Some expiry-dated recommendations (I’m always being asked to recommend things to do, read or see), some announcements to the world.

Regular entries would also help to convince people I’m alive. Not least myself.

To describe a specific sensation or object for which there’s no actual word, there’s the temptation to invent one. Douglas Adams’s 80s parlour-game-cum-dictionary, ‘The Meaning Of Liff’, solved this dilemma using existing place names. For instance:

IPSWICH (n.)
The sound at the other end of the telephone which tells you that the automatic exchange is working very hard but is intending not actually to connect you this time, merely to let you know how difficult it is.

I once gave a talk where I wondered out aloud what the hairdo equivalent for ‘namesake’ was, given I’m often compared to others purely on the basis on my hair (Andy Warhol, Boris Johnson, etc). I was duly grateful when Ms Kate St Clair shouted out ‘manesake!’.

Today I found myself experiencing a state of:

TATECARDLESSNESS (n.)
The particular mix of consumer frustration and disappointment when realising an art gallery’s shop doesn’t stock your favourite painting as a postcard.

At the Tate Britain shop today, quite a few people are audibly tatecardless, whining to the assistant with what must be a Frequently Asked Question – why isn’t there a postcard for the main painting of the current exhibition? The show is ‘Gothic Nightmares: Fuseli, Blake and the Romantic Imagination’, and revolves around Mr Fuseli’s famous 1781 work The Nightmare, depicting a sleeping woman in an ambiguous pose: part sexual abandonment, part rape victim, part murder victim. Her back is arched over the edge of the bed, long tresses to the floor. And some kind of unhuman creature is squatting over her helpless form, with nameless intent. It’s an image that was shocking at the time, becoming a popular print, inspiring the Gothic Romantic genre (hence the exhibition) and parodied even then by Mr Gillray and the other cartoonists of the age. They would substitute the usual ugly politician for the monster, and the girl would become ‘Foreign Policy’ or something like that.

Mr Freud had a copy of The Nightmare on his study wall, and no one was in the least bit surprised. As the exhibition illustrates with a cinema booth, the first great horror movies such as Mr Whale’s Frankenstein and Nosferatu (the first Dracula) paid direct homage to Mr Fuseli’s painting. If it’s got a young women in bed at the mercy of a monster, it’s this painting’s fault.

At the Tate shop, there’s postcards of many other works in the show, but not of the main draw. Often this is down to reproduction rights, remote ownership of the painting, and other such copyright complications. I ask, and it transpires on this occasion the postcard is normally available: but they’ve underestimated the demand and sold out. On top of which, I also can’t purchase an similarly inexpensive souvenir of my favourite Blake in the show: Satan in his Original Glory: ‘Thou wast Perfect till Iniquity was Found in Thee’. I am doubly tatecardless.

I know that these days you can usually find the image online, and assuming you have enough colour ink, print out your own cards (for non-profit, private use, naturally), but it’s not the same thing. When I see a painting I like in a gallery that sells postcards, I want to buy a postcard of it. For me, there’s no greater satisfaction to a day out than perusing a well-stocked Gift Shop. And no greater frustration than finding the shop doesn’t stock the one item you actually want.

The Natural History Museum doesn’t do dinosaur Sellotape, either.

Sat night: to the Spitz for a memorial evening for Andy Roberts. A spot-on event, well-planned and organised, with live bands and talks, poetry, DJs, comics and art. It has his name throughout all of it, like so much seaside rock. He died last year in the process of putting together a similar mini-festival, so it’s entirely fitting.

I’m so glad I didn’t write the word ‘appropriate’ just then. There should be a ban on that much-abused word and its shameful sister, ‘inappropriate’ in the UK press and official press statements. At least for a while, in a kind of vocabulary detox. Other words are available, though sometimes you’d never think it.

I’m embarrassingly late, partly due to taking too long to decide which silk neckscarf to wear, and partly the fault of listening too intently to the new Scarlet’s Well album on my Muvo Slim, resulting in my forgetting when to change tube trains, and then wandering around Tower Hill for no reason on earth.

As the SW album features Mr R’s long-term friend and bandmate Jennifer Denitto, I hope I am forgiven. The Scarlet’s Well album is quite, quite splendid: fabulous melodies, witty and beautiful words, stop-start pop songs, elegant ballads, brooding shanties, and Bid recording new songs with a full band for the first time since the last Monochrome Set album in 1995. Because the band members are from varying younger generations, diverse backgrounds and musical sensibilities (whatever I mean by that), the sound is never ‘rockist’ or ‘muso’. I can hear Martin White and Bid’s shared love of Viv Stanshall bringing them together: Mr White writes half the music on the album. My own lyrics for ‘Narcissus In The Maze’ are in there, married to a White tune and a superb Bid vocal. I’m very, very, very happy about that. I received the album on Valentine’s Day. It was my only item of post (and whose fault is that?), but the CD was more than enough to make my heart flutter for a long time indeed.

I get to the Spitz and pass Ms Anna S on her way out to a gig by her boyfriend’s band The Boyfriends. Later on, I hear Mr S.P. Morrissey – himself a Monochrome Set fan circa 1980 – was in attendance. At the Spitz, I enjoy the various acts I do catch: Charlotte Cooper, Spy 51, Zombina, Ricky Spontane, The Raincoats.

Mr R’s cartoons, comics and sketchbooks are projected on the stage backdrop throughout the evening, and threaten to upstage the live acts. Favourite Andy Roberts cartoons: – a giant grinning hedgehog walks across a road, flattening a car. ‘Shave The Whale’- caption for said bearded mammal. ‘Magritte Thatcher’ – the former Prime Minister’s face obscured by a large apple.

What I didn’t know till tonight, thanks to Ms Cooper’s excellent anecdotal performance, is that he actually wrote a relationship advice column for a lesbian website, from his point of view as a token straight man. Called ‘Words From A Geezer’ or something like that.

I say hello to Ms Jenni S, Ms Tammy D, Ms Jennifer D, Mr Simon S, Ms Nine, Ms Charley S & Ms Kirsten, Ms Sarah G, Ms Caroline & Ms Lesley, Ms Amy P, Mr Roberts’s brother and parents, and the usual quota of people whose names I may not necessarily recall, but whom I’m on waving-across-the-room terms with. Like a kind of lo-fi Queen Mother. As my tube gets stuck at Euston, Ms Shanthi passes along the platform, and bangs on my carriage window to say hello.

The other day, two people told me – separately – that they’d only now realised how long they’ve known me, at least in terms of an association without ever quite losing contact. One was Lea from the band Spy 51, who I first met in my queercore music dabblings circa 1993, the other Tony O’Neill, formerly a Kenickie keyboard player in 1996, now a published author in NYC. His debut novel, ‘Digging The Vein’, is on my To Read pile. I suppose a grumpier response is to say ‘Thanks for reminding me how old I am!’ But no, I’m grateful. All I ever wanted to be was a fixed point in other people’s changing worlds. A harmless, if fragile, landmark.

I’d have liked to known the floppy-haired, skinny and schoolboyish Spitz barman better. He has the kind of young Julian Cope-like beauty (via the books of Mr Dennis Cooper) that it actually hurts to perceive. Ordering alcohol was quite a different experience for me. I could only afford one drink, but ended up buying three.

During the inter-band DJ music, I can’t help but sing along to the Jonathan Richman late 70s classic, ‘The Morning Of Our Lives’. Always thought how that song in anyone else’s hands could be construed as deeply twee, even patronising, as the eternal boy-man Mr Richman tries to cheer up his sad girlfriend in the lyrics. Particularly where he consults his band during the song:

JR: Dear, I asked Leroy and Asa and D. Sharpe, and they said,
Band (for it is they): Yeah, yeah, yeah…
JR: Don’t you love her too?
Band: Yes, we do!
JR: Then tell her she’s okay.
Band: You’re okay, you’re okay…
JR: Tell her she’s all right.
Band: You’re all right, you’re all right…
JR: You’re okay, dear. There’s nothing to feel inferior about. You can do it. (etc)

If the likes of James Blunt sang this sort of thing, it would be hard to regard as anything short of trite, even embarrassing. But Jonathan Richman is so utterly free from irony or cynicism, so sincere in his childlike-ness (the tune even resembles the theme from Sesame Street) that the song not only works but is really very moving indeed. And for me its spirit perfectly recalls that most uncommon and impressive of Mr Roberts’s character traits – his unconditional encouragement for the potential of others.

“We’re young NOW. Right now’s when we can enjoy it.
Now’s the time for us to have faith in what we can do….
And our time is now, we can do anything you really believe in.
Our time is now, here in the morning of our lives.”

Boiling alive in my own frustration. Riddled with uncertainty. Saturated with penury, debt, self-directed anger, resentment, bitterness, cynicism, and coruscating envy of those with success and money.

Quite happy with my hair.

I’m brutally clearing out clutter, mainly books. Going by the vague rule that if one doesn’t touch a book in the last year, one will never touch it. Not really.

And I’ve realised that there’s an awful lot of books cluttering up my shelves which were lent to me by others. People lend me books all the time, even when I don’t ask them to. It’s actually going to take a huge amount of time and energy to return them all. I feel like the Gallery on ‘Vision On’ or ‘Take Hart’. “We’re sorry we can’t return your paintings…”

But I’ve lent books out myself, and really don’t care if I don’t get them back. If I miss a book, I have the fun of hunting down a fresh copy. If the book was irreplaceable, I really shouldn’t have lent it out. It’s a kind of statute of limitations. After a year, you should really decide whether you actually want it back or not. I would go further: always assume when lending a book to anyone that you won’t get it back. If that’s a problem, don’t lend it in the first place. Better to give than to lend, if only to keep the amount of stress in the world down. At least with libraries there’s the professional approach. With friends, the lending process can become fraught with guilt and fear of offending.

So, Dear Reader, if you have lent a book to someone over a year ago, I ask you now to consider if you really would like to see it again. If the answer is a resounding yes, get in touch with that person now rather than leave it any later.

Particularly if that person is me. Because I’m throwing things out…

An idle evening in with the TV. Start watching one of those Channel 4 ‘100 Greatest’ clipfest things, this time on Sexiest Movie Moments. I’m watching alone, of course. Have to turn off after a while, as the constant cutting from famous smouldering sex scenes to the talking heads of balding, slovenly t-shirted critics like Heat Magazine’s Boyd Hilton is rather jarring. Now, I mean this with the fullest respect to Mr H, who I don’t doubt represents the pinnacle of erotic pleasure to someone in his life, and suspect he’ll have a less depressing Valentine’s Day than me (it wouldn’t be difficult). It’s just grotesquely unfair to all parties to juxtapose his appearance with Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen in The Thomas Crown Affair.

These list programmes are enjoyably enough TV comfort food, but I always wish there were more clips and anecdotes from those genuinely involved with the featured items, and fewer rather obvious observations from whichever media tarts are available on the day.

Of the former, I’m intrigued by photographer Terry O’Neill’s tale of a magazine shoot featuring Raquel Welch in her One Million Years BC fur bikini. Except she was a few years older and strapped to a wooden cross. The implication being she felt crucified by that particular look, and feared she’d never really transcend it. As it transpired, Mr O’Neill never submitted the photo to the magazine: instead, it emerged in one of his books. He’d gotten cold feet about offending religious sensibilities. Plus ca change…

Watch The It Crowd, Graham Linehan’s much-hyped new sitcom. I find myself in that strange position of trying hard to enjoy something despite the bullying hype. There’s giant posters for this programme all over London. Completely unnecessary: no TV programme needs to be advertised on station hoardings, full stop. I also find myself struggling to ignore the studio audience laughter, which if it isn’t canned, is nonetheless intrusive and out of proportion. No laughs at all for the genuinely witty bits, gales of Bo Selecta-like hysteria when a character is on the toilet saying the phrase ‘Number Twos’.

Still, the sight of one character reading a Dan Clowes comic book (I recognise it as ‘Twentieth Century Eightball‘, surely making me more geeky than any character in the show) is reason enough to have me rooting for The It Crowd. They just need to stop hawking it like mad to train commuters, and let it quietly develop a following of its own accord.