Wet dreams, wet dishes and Wet Leg.

Who wants to hear music recommendations from an old fogey?

London Grammar; Billie Eilish; Sia; First Aid Kit; 21 Pilots; Caravan Palace and Mother, Mother, are just a few of the artists my young daughters have introduced me to.

One of the (many) benefits of having children late in life is the cultural influences they have that rub off on you.

Wet Leg are the latest musical phenomenon to pique my parental interest.

“Hang on a minute, is she singing about a ‘wet dream’?”

“Yes, dad,” rolls eyes to sister.

“Do you even know what a…”

“Yes, dad,” in unison.

Mumbles to self while washing dishes.

Anyway, much to my daughters’ disappointment, I think Wet Leg are brilliant.

The band was set up by besties Rhian Teasdale and Hesther Chambers on the Isle of Wight. And you can tell they’re best mates by the way they interact with each other on stage. They have a wonderful chemistry together. The other band members comprise of Henry Holmes, Ellis Durand and Josh Omead Mobaraki.

Their music is contemporary and reflects the zeitgeist of growing up in a consumer-driven social media society. (Yes, I really did just type that bullshit.)

They’re sassy and their lyrics don’t take any prisoners, cleverly encapsulating female empowerment (and vulnerability). Perfect role models for young girls and women. Garbed in 19th century American frontier-pioneering frocks, they’re the antithesis of the big-record-label-marketing department.

They seem to be having a hoot, (like they can’t quite believe this is happening either). They don’t take themselves too seriously and come across as pretty humble. They sing about the usual stuff – relationships, drugs and navigating the modern world, but with their quirky indie/pop-punk/rock signature harking back to the likes of The Breeders and surrealism of Talking Heads with a bit of vocal gymnastics reminiscent of Bjork. Rhian Teasdale doesn’t just sing the lyrics, she performs them. She gets into character. They’re playful, nonchalant and emotive.

Their self-titled debut album is absolutely fanatastic. Every song is a hit single. I can’t pick a favourite so here are a few for your delectation. Their videos are pretty cool too.

I’m trying to persuade my daughters to come to a gig with me. If you’re at the one in Manchester, I’ll be down the front in my wheelchair, with a tartan blanket across my knees waving a candle in the air, whilst simultaneously asking them to turn the music down a bit.

Addendum: I made my comparison to Talking Heads before I realised they had covered this.

Voodoo Rage

Perhaps you know the 1988 classic acid anthem by its proper name – Voodoo Ray by A Guy Called Gerald. AKA: Gerald Simpson of 808 State fame.

I can’t say I was ever into acid house music, but I always loved this track. I heard it on the car radio the other day and it took me right back to my halcyon nights at the Hacienda nightclub in Manchester.

Apparently, Gerald sampled a Derek and Clive radio sketch by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Cook actually says: “Voodoo rage”, but Simpson’s recording equipment only had enough memory to catch the “Voodoo Ra…” part. Thus, an acid-house legend was born.

Serendipity.

The emphatic “Later!” is sampled from Dudley Moore’s character, Bo Dudley.

The hypnotic, trance-like vocals are by Nicole Collier.

Parr Excellence.

Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.

Martin Parr would probably groan in pun-staking agony at that headline.

Oh well, you’re here now.

Martin Parr is one of Britain’s greatest photographers. Actually, make that ‘the World’s’.

He manages to capture the zeitgeist of working-class life in all its gaudy technicolour, wherever he goes. Whether that be Barnsley or Brazil.

He’s known for his satirical and ironic documentary-style images that look at our insatiable rapaciousness for consumerism. That, and people eating chips.

Martin Parr

I’m not here to write his biography, just show you some of his brilliant work. If you’d like to know a bit more about him, his life, his work, his foundation and his legacy, click here. But if you just want to see more photos of people eating chips, scroll down.

Ireland.

USA. Kentucky Derby. 2015.

ITALY. Capri. Marina Piccola. 2014.

Sexy Beast, anyone?

Uruguay.

Barry Island. 1996.

WALES. Glamorgan. Tower Colliery. 1993.

Wales. Tenby. 2018.

If you want to have a look at some of his most recent projects, have a look here. You won’t be disappointed.

GB. England. Kent. Margate. 1986.

GB. England. Bristol. Pride. 2019.

It’s me, I’m Cathy…

Regular readers of my blog will know my daughters and I make at least one pilgrimage a year to Haworth, home of the Brontes’. (Still haven’t figured out how to type an umlaut on a PC.)

This year, we visited Ponden Hall, Purportedly, Emily’s inspiration for Thrushcross Grange, home of the Linton family in Wuthering Heights.

Ponden Hall, West Yorkshire.

It’s a rather exclusive B&B now. I can imagine Bronte pilgrims from farther afield (ligature!) would love to put it on their itinerary either for a stay or just a nosey around. And that’s where we come in. The rather delightful owner, Julie, must be fed up of people ringing her doorbell on her day off, not to book a room, but to see the room where Cathy torments Heathcliff by scrathcing on his window.

What?! I hear aficionados grumble. That didn’t happen at Thrushcross Grange, that happened at Wuthering Heights, the home of the Earnshaws’ and Heathcliff!

And you’d be right.

What is widely believed is that Emily transposed the interior of Ponden Hall and plonked it into the wilds of Wuthering Heights.

We know that Emily and her siblings were regular visitors to Ponden Hall to peruse their considerable library, (which reputedly, was the best in West Yorkshire at the time), and stayed there on numerous occasions.

Perhaps Emily even stayed in the room where Heathcliff endures his nightmares. Whether that is true or not is hard to say, but what is easier to suppose, is that Emily was actually in the room that I am about to show you, as it is virtually identical to Heathcliff’s in Wuthering Heights.

What is unusual is the bed chamber in the corner of the ‘suite’. As you can see, the bed is boxed off with oak panelling, (for privacy, one presumes). It’s not a room per se as the bed is flush to the panels. So you would have to climb into it and slide the door shut. And yes, you can actually stay in this room.

On closer inspection, (photo taken courtesy of my daughter), we see the tiny window which Cathy appears at to persecute her paramour.

Spoiler alert:

“I muttered, knocking my knuckles through the glass, and stretching an arm out to seize the importunate branch; instead of which, my fingers closed on the fingers of a little, ice-cold hand!” – Excerpt from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.

Here’s a slightly wider shot for context.

I don’t know about you, but I always get goose bumps when I imagine treading the same floorboards (or ramparts) as a figure from history. Whether that be Emily Bronte at Ponden, a Roman centurion on Harian’s Wall, or a Druid perambulating a stone circle. It gives me a greater sense of connection to the earth and the universe.

Anyway, it was a grand day out, topped off with a giant Yorkshire pudding filled with sausages and onion gravy at Emma’s cafe on Haworth Main Street. And, if that doesn’t anchor you to the universe, I don’t know what will.

Addendum.

My friend, Denis Goodbody, over in sunny Dublin, suggested that the panelling was probably more to do with keeping warmth in rather than privacy, which is a very good point. One which, having gas central heating, I hadn’t considered.

I can’t finish a post about Haworth or Wuthering Heights without adding links to the following:

My favourite film adaptation of Wuthering Heights by Andrea Arnold.

And yes, Kate’s classic…

 

 

 

Happy 200th birthday, Emily.

Today marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Emily Bronte.

Haworth, where the Brontes lived, holds a special place in my, (and my children’s), hearts.

We visit the place as often as we can.

Here’s a little haiku I penned after a walk on the Moors with my daughters a couple of years back.

Knee deep in heather,

Bright red sock wavers aloft,

Boot stuck in peat bog.

Brontë Parsonage Museum

 

Brontë dining room

This is the room where, Emily, Anne and Charlotte did most of their writing. And that is the actual sofa in the background that Emily died on aged just 30. (I didn’t pass that information on to my children.)

Patrick Brontë’s study

If you haven’t read Wuthering Heights yet, I urge you to do so. I promise you, it’s like nothing you have ever read before. It’s a complex and staggeringly passionate tale of unrequited love and dastardly deeds, set amidst the bleak and rugged Yorkshire Moors.

And, if you get the chance, watch the recent film adaptation by Andrea Arnold. It’s a pretty radical take on the book and one of the best interpretations I’ve seen to date. (See trailer below.)

It’s not just the collective brilliance of the Brontë siblings that I find inspiring, but the whole beautifully barren backdrop of the moors. That, coupled with the picturesque cobbled streets of Haworth itself, makes perfect for a day out.

Haworth

“Top Withens” Emily’s inspiration for Wuthering Heights. (Now a ruin.)

“Top Withens” as it would’ve looked back in Emily’s day.

P.S. It’d be positively churlish of me not to also include this classic by Kate Bush… whose 60th birthday it also is today. Bit of a spooky coincidence, don’t you think?

Mourning Strangers

I found an old CD the other day. It had fallen under the passenger seat of the car.

The front cover was missing. It was like one of those Now That’s What I call Music compilations, except with decent Indie music on it.

I played it and it took me right back to the 90s.

It got me thinking about how we mourn stars.

I’ve seen quite a few posts from cynics criticising people who eulogise about our recently departed idols because we never ‘knew’ them.

And they’re right.

I absolutely loved Bowie and Prince but I didn’t know them. It’s not a traditional kind of grieving that one would do for a loved one, though. It’s a grieving for all those times when your favourite singer was there for you. Through the good and the bad.

They punctuate the important times in our lives. When we were happiest, when we were broken-hearted.

We didn’t know them, but they knew us.

And that’s why we mourn them.

Tara Sparling writes about it much more eloquently than I, here.

Why this Sleeper track? Well, it was on the CD I found.

Let’s just say, it reminds me of a great big exclamation mark.

Things for which I am grateful #365/365.

Some folks might think this is a bit of a cheat. I started with my kids and I’m going to finish with them. In my defence, I have two of the little rascals so I’m counting it as one post apiece.

There is nothing more precious to me on this Earth than my two daughters. Anyone who has children will know that something changes inside of you – chemically, biologically – and nothing else seems to matter.

Of course, this doesn’t apply to every parent, and true, the pesky varmints do get on your nerves a lot of the time. And yes, they bicker constantly. And they manage to talk in a stream of consciousness James Joyce would be proud of. But, when all’s said and done, they don’t outweigh all the adorable moments. I simply couldn’t live without them.

It’s been an epic year of blogging. Thank you for sticking by me and I wish you all a very happy, healthy and prosperous new year!

Right, I’m going for a lie down.

Here are my 365 things that I am grateful for:

1 My daughters

2 Water

3 Poetry

4 Baths

5-7 Notebooks, pens, pencils

8,9 Butterflies and moths

10, 11 Softball and baseball

12 Fresh coffee

13 Sound / masts

14 Indoor toilets

15 Stepping Hill Hospital

16 Birds of Paradise

17 Roget’s thesaurus

18 Mother Earth

19 Clingfilm dispenser

20, 21 Yorkshire pudding and onion gravy

22 Jorge Luis Borges

23 Classic cars

24 Curry

25 Tim Berners Lee

26 Charles Bukowski

27 Yorkshire

28 Shiraz

29 Food

30 Katell Keineg

31 Tao Te Ching

32 A roof over my head

33 Peat fires

34 Street art

35 Friends (as in – mates, not the T.V. show)

36 Wilfred Owen

37 The Penguin Café Orchestra

38 The fry-up

39 Wolves

40 W.B. Yeats

41, 42 Cherry blossom trees and haiku poetry

43 Bread

44 Boules

45 Maps

46 Refuse collectors

47 Candy Chang

48 Sparrows

49 The tomato

50 Studio Ghibli

51 Oliver Jeffers

52 Johannes Gutenberg

53 Tom Waites

54 The cello

55 Mothers’ day

56 The Phoenicians

57, 58 Bacon and brown sauce

59 Tulips

60 Fish and chips

61 Giselle

62 Airfix

63 Firefighters

64 Rain

65 Libraries

66 Raymond Carver

67 Toulouse-Lautrec

68 The Goldfinch

69 Wings of Desire

70 Silence

71 Elizabeth Barrett Browning

72-99 Ireland

100 Talking Heads

101 Sylvia Plath

102 Yorkshire Sculpture Park

103 My mum

104 Modigliani

105 Kurt Vonnegut

106-128 Electricity

129 The pop man

130-147 Comedians/comedy

148 Commando magazine

149 Pastry

150-156 Social media

157 David Bowie

158 Football

159 D-Day

160-194 France

195-230 Novels

231 Graphic Design

232 Viva! Roxy Music

233 – 274 Art

275 Betty Blue

276 Writing

277 Joy Division

278 – 287 Scotland

288 – 324 Italy

325 – 352 Photography

353 Leeds Utd

354 Love

355 Universe

356 Advertising

357 Pan’s Labyrinth

358 – 363 Democracy

364 Miscellaneous

365 My daughters II

If anyone wants to read any of the previous posts simply type the title into the search box on the right. (It’s underneath the ‘topic’ cloud.)

Joy Division – Things for which I am grateful #277

I know a lot of people find Joy Division a bit depressing, but I love their frenetic energy and controlled emotion. (Paradoxical? Absolutely. That’s why they were brilliant.) They had a unique style and voice which no one else had at the time. Plus, they were quite smart! (Punks were a bit too scruffy for my liking.)

Being at art college in the early 80s, it was de rigeuer to be in a band, and I was no exception. The only slight problem to my impending rock stardom was my musical inability. That didn’t stop me trying, mind.

A group of mates, and I, got together to do a benefit gig for the El Salvador Solidarity Campaign. (The clichés just keep on coming, don’t they.) Anyways, we were doing covers above a pub in Leeds and, as I was petrified of being on stage, I didn’t move a muscle. Well, apart from the ones in my hands to play the bass.

When we got round to playing New Dawn Fades, I started to relax, a little. I loved the song and I could play it pretty well, so I began to go for a little wander around the stage. Unfortunately, I wandered a little too far stage right, and promptly fell off the stage.

I can still see the contorted faces of the audience twisted in fits of hysterics. So much for my dream of being a rock star.

If you didn’t know, lead singer, Ian Curtis, committed suicide in 1980 just as they were becoming famous. He suffered from depression and epilepsy and, if we’re to believe the excellent biopic, Control, they link his depression to his epilepsy meds.

Ian Curtis with his daughter, Natalie.

They’re not everyone’s cup of tea, but have a listen if you want to hear a truly original voice that is unfortunately lost to us.

I think I’ll save my anecdote about playing New Dawn Fades, with a band I stumbled upon practicing in an upstairs warehouse in the Italian naval port of Livorno, for another day.

Some facts about Joy Division:

They were originally called Warsaw after David Bowie’s Warszawa from the album Low

They changed their name because of another band called Warsaw Pakt

The name Joy Division originated from a prostitute ‘wing’ of a Nazi concentration camp

After Curtis’s death, the remaining members went on to form New Order

Ian Curtis is survived by his wife, Deborah Curtis, and their daughter, Natalie Curtis.

Deborah & Natalie Curtis.

#157 David Bowie

Maybe you like him, maybe you don’t. Or, maybe you’re just ambivalent.

To me, he’s a living legend and formed a huge part of my adolescence.

Not just a writer, composer, musician and an actor – but a performance artist.

Here are a few old classics to wile away the evening…

 

And, here’s a very fabulous interview with Bowie which shows what an erudite, articulate and grounded individual he is. (Curtesy of Kelvin Hudson.)

http://blankonblank.org/interviews/david-bowie-ziggy-stardust/

 

 

Stop Making Sense – #100/365

I’d just left art college and was making my first forays into the adult world of full time employment when the Stop Making Sense movie by Talking Heads came out in 1984.

I’d never seen anything quite like it before. Nor have I seen anything like it since. (Then again, I don’t get out much these days.) The movie has been heralded as “one of the greatest rock movies ever made”.

I’d go one further and say that it isn’t just a rock movie but a piece of performance art.

I’ve always been a fan of their work, maybe because they come up with some very original and quirky ideas – not to mention – the music itself. Here’s the full movie if you fancy treating yourself for an hour and a half…