A mixed review of the Fosca album on the SoundsXP website.

‘Having occupied the position of the most recognisable man on the London gig circuit for many years now, Fosca front man Dickon Edwards…’

I hardly ever go to (or play) London gigs at the moment. Clearly I don’t need to if I’m still thought to be ubiquitous. Maybe I’ve left a kind of ghosting effect in my wake.

‘…Edwards never seems to show any sign of aging…’

Can’t complain about that. Though that said, when I’ve had this comment in the past, it’s often been a resentful, backhanded one; paving the way for a line about being all looks and no content.

‘…Edwards is all too often a case of style over substance…’

There you go! That train’s never late!

‘…on the plus side, his barnet and the dreadful attempt at an ‘oh-ooh’ on opener I’ve Agreed To Something I Shouldn’t Have does suggest an alternative career as a Jimmy Saville impersonator awaits…’

I’d draw the line at the shell suits, though.

‘…Confused And Proud manages to be a minor shoegaze classic despite not featuring any guitars whatsoever.’

So much for Tom’s Cocteau Twins-y guitar arpeggios all over the mix. Still, nice to have made a minor shoegaze classic.

‘It’s notable that the real highlight comes when keyboardist Kate Dornan takes over writing and singing duties on the delightfully jangly Evening Dress at 3pm.’

Good for Kate, though it’s actually Rachel singing lead on that track. Different side of the Pennines.

‘Themes of outsiderness, misanthropy and defeatism run through the record like a stick of rock…’

I think they mean ‘like letters through a stick of rock’…

‘… suggesting that Edwards retains his unique look as a way of waving two fingers at an uncaring world.’

Hmmm. I appreciate it might seem that way to some, but that’s really not my intention one jot. Maybe it was when I was a younger, cockier tyke, but not now, and not on the album either.

I just feel slightly at an angle to the universe (to use the Peter Cook phrase), and think it’s only fair to dress accordingly, rather than pretend to be something I’m not. That’s all. I’m too polite to wave fingers.

I also bristle uneasily at the idea of misanthropy: I like to think I’m closer to a New Romantic Ghandi. Or if you will, a Ghandi dandy. Oh, all right, you won’t.

I wanted the album to be more about acknowledging but resisting that very urge to walk around in a fug of bitterness, accepting – and embracing – one’s individuality without being tiresomely solipsistic and indulgent about it. Hence ‘Come Down From The Cross (Someone Needs The Wood)’. Well, that’s what I tried to do, anyway. Heigh and indeed ho.

Still, I’m grateful for the album being reviewed at all.

RIP Isaac Hayes and Simon Gray. Rather different creative artists who nevertheless share one thing in common. They both ended up as personifications of specific pleasures. Respectively, sex (Hayes’s character on South Park) and smoking (Gray’s unexpectedly bestselling diaries).

***

Recent outings. To the V&A with Ms A for the Supremes show. Frocks and costumes from Mary Wilson’s collection, as worn throughout her career with the group, with and without Diana Ross. Fantastic exhibition, particularly impressive when the dresses worn for album sleeve photo shoots are displayed next to the album sleeves themselves. One sleeve next to another, in fact. I’ve been familiar with those albums for so long; such distant glamour, such perfect music. To be face to face (or face to sequin) with the gowns in question is utterly thrilling. Best of all are the psychedelic butterfly-winged frocks, as seen on the cover of their last studio album with Miss Ross, ‘Cream Of The Crop’.

Also on show are US magazines from the Supremes’ heyday, illustrating how such immortal music arose amid somewhat less immortal attitudes. Sample 60s magazine headline: ‘Are Negro Women Getting Prettier?’

***
To the Cadogan Hall (a few weeks ago) with Ms S, to see The Magnetic Fields in concert. Same band set-up as their first posh London gig, the QEH circa ’69 Love Songs’: grand piano, cello, musicians sitting down on stools, no synths, drums or drum machines. An atmosphere of hushed, stately reverence.

Which I’m not sure is quite the best setting for the MF songs. Not for two whole sets, anyway. It’d be fair enough if every song was in the same vein as ‘The Book Of Love’, which just needs Mr M’s voice, a solo instrument and indeed, hushed reverence from an audience. But the Merritt ouevre includes jaunty, upbeat pop songs, swaggering waltzes, and unashamedly silly Dr Seuss-like ditties, too. If your music falls between stools, it seems strange to stay sitting on stools to play it.

Mr M notes this disparity, particularly as this ultra-quiet, mostly acoustic concert is promoting an album of ultra-noisy rock songs, ‘Distortion’. ‘If you like our records,’ he announces, ‘you probably won’t like the way we’re playing the songs tonight. And vice versa.’

When I first saw them at the tiny 12 Bar in 1996 (for the launch of the ‘Get Lost’ album), I think the format was Mr M and Ms G both standing up, with a synth, guitar, and possibly a drum machine. They did the same thing a day or two later, for a support slot with the Divine Comedy at the Water Rats. Amelia Fletcher joined them on guest vocals, wearing an Orlando badge. It remains my favourite Mag Fields concert memory to date, though I’m obviously biased.

Still, I can hardly blame them for wanting to take the leap, as they successfully did with ’69 Love Songs’, from entry-level indie rock bars, straight to civilised seated concert halls, the kind more suited to classical recitals. And I guess the stooled-up, ‘shhh! haughty genius on stage’ format suits Mr Merritt’s temperament to a tee.

‘Aw, he’s so miserable and stand-offish!’ says Ms S to me afterwards. ‘Don’t you just LOVE him?’

More tidying up.

I was asked to post a scan of the L’Uomo Vogue piece I’m in. Here it is, thanks to this italian website.

Here’s the cover. It’s issue #392, July / August 2008. I am told the man on the front is something to do with football:

And here’s the article. There I am: second page, top left, as photographed by Sarah Watson.

A translation of the article can be found at Dandyism.net.

Fosca are playing their first ever Spanish gig next month. My first time in Spain, apart from travelling along the southern coast to get to, or from, Tangier.

Date: Fri Sept 12th
Time: Doors 10pm, Fosca onstage 11pm.
Venue: La Pequeña Bety, c/Reina 4, Madrid 28004, Spain. Tel: 91 522 0796
Web: www.myspace.com/littlebety

Here’s the flyer:

Here’s an interview I don’t think I’ve mentioned. It’s in Zero Mag. In Swedish:

fosca_zeromag (PDF file)

We’re rehearsing for the Madrid show as a three piece (me, Rachel, Charley Stone).

After that, there’s the new single we recorded on the Swedish tour, which But Is It Art Records will be putting out.

And then… Well, I’m not sure. Maybe nothing more, maybe something else. I think it’s wrong to force oneself to write and record purely for the sake of it, if you’re not actually keen on doing it any more, and it’s not even paying the bills. But it’d also be wrong to say that’s it for my life with music, only to find a new album popping into my head, demanding to be made. We shall see. Best keep an open mind (or else).

I have some photos left over that aren’t really Gallery material, but which I want to show the world anyway…

This is from the Phoebe Allen shoot. It’s Hoxton Sq in April, which at the time was playing host to a very convincing group of mannequins. From my diary at the time:

In Hoxton Square on a rather cold morning: I pose next to a very realistic-looking art exhibit comprising life-size mannequins in forensic white suits and masks, posed as if they’re combing a section of the square in the manner of a crime scene. Except the fluttering tape around them isn’t labelled ‘POLICE’, but ‘THE TELL-TALE HEART’. As in the Edgar Allen Poe story.

On the bench nearby sits a shivering lady with a clipboard and one of those handheld clicker-counters used to count visitors. She tells me it’s part of a Harland Miller show at the nearby White Cube gallery, influenced by Poe.

I’ve been uploading lots of new high-res photos to the DE website gallery. About time too.

The new pics are mainly from the Gillian Kirby session in Brompton Cemetery last year, plus the Phoebe Allen shoot around Hoxton and Shoreditch a few months ago.

Only thing is, I’ve overdone it and need to remove a few. Do take a look and let me know which ones are your favourites, in case they’re the ones I delete…

On the Saturday, I turn up at the Gemeentemuseum for the opening of ‘The Ideal Man’ show, wondering what’s expected of me. That’s it – I just have to be present. So I sip wine, pose for photos, and chat with Dutch and English art types, including a few dandies and male models.

A journalist shakes my hand.

Him: You are now one handshake away from the next president of the United States.

Me: You mean…?

I stop myself from mentioning a name, in case he’s a fan of Mr McCain. It’s not THAT foregone a conclusion, surely.

Him: I interviewed Barack Obama last week, and shook his hand. So you’re now one handshake away from Barack Obama. From now on, anyone who shakes YOUR hand is only TWO handshakes away from Barack Obama.

Me: Right. Good. Okay. Gosh. Blimey. (more Hugh Grant noises)

I once met a UK journalist who liked playing this game, working out that he was six handshakes away from Ghandi, or Adolf Hitler, or Peaches Geldof, or whoever. Cue joke: ‘You’re now one handshake away from Dave The Terminal Leper…’

I find my suit in the exhibition. It’s in the ‘Dandies’ room. The mannequin has been given a bowler hat, for some reason:

And there my suit (plus shirt, tie and hanky) will stay until October.

Other exhibits include a parade of dandy-inspired outfits by Mr Gaultier, a pair of Elvis Presley’s pyjamas (which I wish I could have tried on), a white tuxedo with tails as worn by Marlene Dietrich, and a suit from the late President Mitterand. There’s also lots of catwalk ensembles which are, as you’d expect, more Art than Fashion. I particularly like a pink costume which exposes one leg and has a horse’s head on the shoulder. Like a gay equine Zaphod Beeblebrox:

***
The ferry back is peaceful enough, though as it’s daytime there’s a lot more people on board than the night crossing. Booking a cabin isn’t compulsory, and the fare is cheaper if you don’t do so. But not by much (£13 ish). So I get one, always cherishing a room of one’s own. Or somewhere to escape.

Well, nearly escape. As we dock in Harwich, there’s a knock at my cabin door. I open it to find no one there, but note that the old lady in the cabin opposite has also opened her door. We look about together, baffled, then spy a group of Dutch teenage boys marching quickly away down the corridor, knocking on every door as they go. They’re playing Knock Down Ginger. In Dutch. More universal teens.

One of the boys in the group – a huge, rugby-ready lad – glances back at me and catches my eye. And of course it’s me that feels he has to run away. I quickly duck back inside my cabin, and lock the door.

***

My only mistake is to come back to the UK on a Sunday evening, the day of Engineering Works. At Harwich, those three dreaded words loom into view on a notice board: Rail Replacement Service.

I have to take a ludricous boneshaker of a double-decker round the winding country lanes from Harwich to Manningtree – fearing the thing might topple over at any moment. Then there’s a second coach to Witham, followed by a 30 minutes’ wait for a slow train to London. By the time I arrive at Liverpool St, it’s nearly midnight – I’ve spent nearly four hours travelling in Essex – and I’ve missed the last Tube. I forget Sunday is also the day of Tubes Finishing Earlier.

I’m not the only one to be stranded, either. There’s an undignified scramble for taxis, with people spilling out onto the street to try and grab cabs before they arrive at the taxi rank. One £25 fare later, I’m finally back in Highgate.

The Panaroma Mesdag is a gem – a huge 360-degree mural one views by standing inside an observation tower. It’s painted in 1881 by HW Mesdag, and depicts the nearby holiday resort Scheveningen, a name so hard for non-Dutch natives to pronounce that it was rumoured to be used in WWII interrogations for rooting out German spies. The Panorama is part of a small Mesdag gallery – his seascapes are equally impressive and vivid, rather like early Turners.

Then I nip over on a tram to Scheveningen itself, to compare the 1881 painting with the resort as it is today. It’s a huge and popular place – the beach seemingly endless in either direction. I walk around in a suit while surrounded by thousands of Dutch people in swimming costumes and Speedos – that’ll be me being me, then.

While in Scheveningen I wander on the double decker pier, peek inside the ornate Kurhaus’s ceiling, and coo at the seahorses and giant turtles in the Sea Life aquarium. Best of all, I discover the Beelden Aan Zee sculpture gallery, with its Tom Otterness figures in bronze outside. He has a thing for round-headed, triangle-hatted little men, inspired by fairy tales and fiction. His ‘Herring Eater’ is gigantic:

While his Moby Dick looks rather friendly and cute, even when eating people:

(Images from Wikipedia)

Inside is a touring show from the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, on the theme of metamorphosis. It’s called ‘Against Nature’. Always a good sign. Incredible stuff: mythological figures, angels, centaurs, androgynes, humans stuck in otherworldly transitions, a man with a lace-up face (the ultimate Nike acolyte?), gooey abstract renditions of lovers melting into each other as they kiss, and Mr Epstein’s robot-like ‘Rock Drill’ creature. Except it’s not the famous bronze torso (as seen in the Tate), but a recreation of Epstein’s original 10ft-tall plaster cast, where the masked figure has a full body and rides an actual rock drill:

Language-wise, I manage okay in English – guiltily. But I do come unstuck in the Museum Of Communication, the only tourist attraction in The Hague that’s entirely in Dutch. I’m guessing the irony has already been pointed out.

Weds July 23rd to Sun 27th – to The Hague in Holland. I’m delivering a suit of mine to go on display at the Gemeentemuseum, as part of an exhibition called ‘The Ideal Man’. I’m also invited to the opening of the show. The invitation says ‘In the Presence of Dickon Edwards – Modern Dandy and British Fashion Icon.’ I’m still not tired of mentioning that.

My only other Dutch experience to date is Amsterdam, when Spearmint played the Paradiso Club – with me on guitar – eight years ago. The difference between Amsterdam and The Hague? More Serbian warlords on trial, fewer prostitutes in windows.

This week, the media seem fascinated with the unkind Mr Karadzikc’s ability to grow a big beard, then shave it off. As if there’s some kind of link between facial cleansing and ethnic cleansing. ‘Pictures – Man Has Shave!’

I’ve had a shave in The Hague too. Didn’t make the news. Must be doing it wrong.

Other general impressions about the Hague – stately, serious, expensive. A bit Bath, a bit Oxford. I’m told a Dutch satirical joke: ‘Rotterdam is where the money is made. The Hague is where the money is spent. Amsterdam is where the party is.’

The Hague’s streets have the same wide Amsterdam mesh of tram lanes and bike lanes alongside the normal traffic. One has to be so careful when walking about – I nearly always look the wrong way when crossing.

A sightseeing highlight: the beautiful Peace Palace, with its Peace Flame burning eternally and movingly in a little monument outside the gates.

Peace doesn’t quite extend to the Hague’s young people on public transport, though. Many of the tram rides I take have the requisite sulky teens on the back seat, playing MP3s of techno and hip-hop loudly through their mobile phones. The ghetto blasters of the 21st century. Whether it’s Ipswich, Camden, or The Hague, Back Seat Teens are the same everywhere. Desperate to rebel (against everyone else) yet desperate to conform (with each other). ‘Boys will be boys’. Must they?

I say this, of course, because I was never that sort of teen boy. Or at least, I like to think I wasn’t.

(I wonder what the Dutch is for ‘Oh-my-god, you’re, like, so unfair… man.’)

The Mauritshuis gallery packs the tourists in, with its famous Girl With A Pearl Earring painting by Vermeer, as in that film with Scarlett J. The gallery shop has the image on every conceivable item of merchandise: ‘Girl’ jigsaws, ‘Girl’ mousemats, ‘Girl’ wristwatches, ‘Girl’ matchboxes (dutch for matchbox = ‘luciferdoos’). Typically, my favourite paintings aren’t available as postcards: Rembrandt’s heartbreaking ‘Susanna’ and ‘Andromeda’ and Rottenhammer’s ‘Christ Descending Into Limbo’, a tiny work crammed with 16th century demons and sprites of all shapes and sizes, in the spirit of Bosch.

I also do the Escher museum – pretty much everything he did is inside, plus a floor of games based on his optical illusion works. Leaves me feeling a bit giddy afterwards.

Mum & Dad, Buckingham Palace.

At the end, there’s a dozen or so additional military honorees, who receive medals for gallantry in specific and recent events rather than long term service. Some are from Iraq, some are from Afghanistan. The very last one – and surely the most recent addition to the bill – is Staff Sergeant Douglas Leak of the Royal Engineers. He gets the Queen’s Gallantry Medal – ‘For Bravery In Dismantling A World War II Bomb In London.’ Necks crane forward: many may not recognise his name, but they know of his work. The bomb was discovered on a building site in Bethnal Green last May, and made the news. I like to think he said to Prince Charles, ‘And the funny thing is, I was whistling Kylie’s ‘What Do I Have To Do?’ while working out which wire to cut…’

Tom, Mum, DE. One of these people plays guitar for Fields Of The Nephilim.

Then it’s over. We all file outside into the courtyard with the cars. Here the honorees and their Guests queue up to be snapped by an official ceremonial photography service, though it’s optional – and incurs a fee. It now feels like I’m at  a village fete: a curiously provincial ambience, given it’s the heart of the metropolis. In our case, we decide to take our own photos, as the queues for the photo service seem to be taking forever. It’s also a hot day and we’re wilting, and there’s no bar in sight (whatever would Princess Margaret say?).

In Tom’s garden. Guess which family member didn’t feel the need to change (or remove their hat) afterwards…

Tom drives us to a pub near his place in Hertfordshire, where we meet up with his wife Vicky and her parents Rob and Georgie (Cowan), for a thoroughly pleasant champagne lunch. The pub plays vintage soul music in the background, including ‘Give Me Just A Little More Time’, by Chairmen Of The Board. Also a hit for Kylie, of course.

The coincidences go on. When I mention what I’ve been up to, Ms A, a friend who works for the Poetry Society asks ‘Did you see a poet called Debjani Chatterjee? I speak to her all the time…’

I’m reeling from it all, to be honest, but most of all I’m so proud of Mum, and so glad to go to the Palace and see her honoured in person.

I fall asleep on the train from Hemel Hempstead, the New York jet lag hitting hard. Thankfully, London is the last stop. London’s helpful that way.