2009, love, and all that

Wotcha.

You can stop dredging the canals, I'm back. My absence from the blogosphere (ew, hate that word) is down to, let's see, Christmas fallout slash January blues which seemed to bite particularly hard this year, what with the recession making me feel poorer than I actually am, the meat-fest of Christmas that always makes this tender vegetarian feel we really don’t stand a chance, not to mention the perpetual hangover that seems to blanket the stolid chilly month of January, Gaza on my mind as it is slowly and methodically blitzed into the dark ages ... Sad times. But hope, always hope. Obama for one thing, he made it, though I was frustrated somewhat by the general feeling that his election was the end in itself. The work has just started and I'll be sitting here with my arms folded for a while yet until I'm truly impressed. The signs are good though …




Anyway I'm not here to talk politics, that's for the boozer, my other main reason for not writing the blog is because I have been working on The Novel. (I won't call it a 'book' until it's published otherwise it's a curse - you wouldn't write a song and say 'I've written a record' would you?) As a matter of fact the book is finished, complete, and not only is it done but it's in a postbag somewhere as we speak, winging its way to the first on a hopefully not very long list of agents who will see the potential in me and send my words to the world. Ahem.

I never talk about The Novel really, I ought to try. It’s called Wilmslow Road and is essentially the diary I never kept in my first ten years in Manchester compressed into one summer somewhere between the bomb and the smoking ban and split between seven narrators who are all little bits of me and most likely, if you know me, little bits of you too. It has sex and drugs and transvestism and free newspapers and nightclubs and offices and the number 42 bus and demonstrations and temps in it, and nothing very much happens at all. Now that's tricky to write.

Anyway, potentially as important as the novel thingy is this: I've fallen in love. I really didn't expect it to happen ever again, and certainly not so soon, but fate plays her cards with me like a Mississippi boat whore. His name is Spotify and he has brought me back to life as sure as if he were Jennifer Hudson.

https://www.spotify.com/en/get-started/

Isn’t he beautiful? He takes approximately two minutes to download and will enrich your life beyond measure. I have become entirely addicted, my recent online activity shows that in one 24 hour period, give or take the odd loo break, there was only a nine hour period where I wasn't playing music on Spotify. It’s because I was asleep.

As an incentive to join me on a journey into soooound I have made this playlist for you all. It contains the finest songs that are currently giving me a big life-affirming buzz. It begins with the full-length bassoony version of 'Say Hello, Wave Goodbye' by the mighty Soft Cell. I know you think you know this song already but just turn off the telly for a moment, play it loud ,lose yourself, and at about 1 minute 30 something wonderful happens …

Manhattanchester playlist

I really, honestly, couldn't be happier.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Songs Of The Year 2008

10. 'Warwick Avenue' - Duffy
Bangor-born, Dusty all over, the sight of Duffy weeping through 60s eyeliner as a cab pulls off from an obscure tube station is the singular sorrowful comedown image which followed all my 2008 disco highs. ‘You think you’re loving but you don’t love me’ cut a little too close to the bone this year, but oh the pleasure and the pain in that voice ...




9. 'No Lucifer' - British Sea Power
Might also be my top video of the year, this track is one of the growers which BSP specialise in. In twenty years time tracks like this will make musical archivists wonder why they weren't the biggest band in Britain. To me they might be.




8. 'The Bones Of You' - Elbow
The only vinyl I bought this year and already feels like a classic, Elbow have been in my life in several wonderful ways this year and this was the prime cut from Mercury-winning The Seldom-Seen Kid. 'I took a hammer to every memento' has been a touchstone line in 2008's darker days.

7. 'Morning After Midnight' - Adam Green

My favourite accidental find of the year, Adam Green the Jewish James Dean plied one of the sassiest and (gasp) funniest tracks of the year with a glorious androgynous muck-up vid to boot.

6. 'The Rip' - Portishead

Eternal thanks to Thom for directing me to a glorious Lazarus-like infusion of faith in Portishead. Yes, that trip-hop band the stoners played to death at University. They came back with an ultra-modern album of mechanically-retrieved soul and this, their finest song to date in my opinion, was given a kiss of approval by a Radiohead cover should you dare harbour doubts as to its other-worldly merit.

5. 'Suffragette Suffragette' - Everything Everything

The great white hope. Recently discovered, homegrown, sophisticated, smart, witty, complex, arresting ... if this band were a man I'd be dating the fucker. This track belongs amongst the year's finest and the future belongs to this band.

4. 'Time To Pretend' - MGMT

I know 'Kids' is probably the cooler choice but the number of times the opening Grandaddy-esque kiddie-toy synth on this track has given me a second wind this year makes it my MGMT highlight hands down.

3. 'Lights Out' - Santogold

Not representative of her output in any way, but what track could be? This seemingly off-the-cuff pop cut is actual genius, distilling 90s guitar riffs into something Kim Deal would be proud of. Santi's finest to date.

2. 'California Girls' - Magnetic Fields

Possibly anathema to have a non-Merritt lead vocal as an MF track of the year but the mix of witty feminist critique, Beach Boys punning and crashing Mary Chain reverb combine to say what Pink's 'Stupid Girl' tried to without the painfully flat-stomached hypocrisy. Stripped down acoustic versions show what timelessly sweet structure underpinned the song all along.

1. 'Mars' - Fake Blood

Everything I love about dance music in four minutes flat, faceless, possible superstar origins (is it Soulwax??), futurist noise pollution and contagiously clipped beats. Trippy Charly-esque beast noises lure you to a darkened world where suddenly the houselights are thrown up to reveal Altern 8-styled in your face aciiied noise terror! The first 'MARS!' is guaranteed to make the hairs on the back of my neck go ping. I literally CANNOT make my feet behave when I play this track. Song of the year.

My Helen of Troy setlist

Sex and the City Movie theme
Yazoo – Don’t Go
Juliana Hatfield – Universal Heartbeat
Ladytron – Blue Jeans 2.0
Diana Ross – I’m Coming Out



The Breeders – Divine Hammer
Pat Benatar – Love Is A Battlefield
Amerie – 1 Thing
Jale – Not Happy
Peaches - Tombstone Baby
Stars – Ageless Beauty
Sugababes – I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor
Blondie – I’m Gonna Love You Too


MIA – URAQT (Root Out mix)
Jane Wiedlin – Rush Hour
Belly – Slow Dog
En Vogue – Free Your Mind
Echobelly – Insomniac
Lush – Ladykiller
Stereolab - French Disko
Eurythmics – There Must Be An Angel
Shonen Knife – Daydream Believer
Joan Armatrading – Drop the Pilot

Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing

This club has provided me with some of my bestest nights out this year so I'm more than honoured to have been asked to lend my DJ 'skills', such as they are, to their final party of 2008. Not only is it their last blowout of the year, it's the last ever of Helen of Troy in its current incarnation. Sob! So if you've been promising yourself a trip down there, NOW is the time to do it.

BUT, all is not lost, Marie-Claire and Lyndsey will be putting on more Helens with additional style and flair in mysterious new incarnations in the New Year. Eyes and ears peeled! Not to mention the fantastic Helen blog, fast becoming THE touchpoint for all things witty and wonderful in new women's music.



So, for the last time this year head down to Charlie's and feast your ears on decade-spanning music from the great and good of women in rock, dance, pop, indie, electro, r 'n' b and everything in between. You're spoiled this time too, not only will the resident girls be womanning the decks but Thom 'The Bomb' Docking and Caroline Topham are also taking a turn, plus my own 90 minute set of danceable divas, slick noise terror, platinum cheese, forgotten classics and one-hit misses. See you there.

Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing
Charlie's nightclub, Harter St, off Princess St
Manchester M1
10 pm till 4 am
£4 in, £3 with flyer or NUS

Lobotomies and London

Cocktails, dressing up, haemorrhaging from your mouth on the dance floor … why can’t every Friday be like this? Come to think of it, I think it is in certain establishments. The best Halloween, nay the best NIGHT, for ages. Outfit courtesy Primarni and kitchen knives, make up courtesy Paul Mayers and the make up of make up artists purchased at Spar. Cheap and chilling. The highlight was my very own lobotomy scar, pictured. Spookily real, in fact two punters in Via Fossa thought it was real and flinched when I made them stroke it. Mwahahaha. The Zombie Pride party at Legends was so much fun, great music, strip show and the swapping of undead beauty tips (‘But black lips make my teeth look yellow!’ ‘Just bloody them up then!’) … Amaze.

Last weekend I went to London for the first time in, God, three years? My little sis Clare is living in Kentish Town and my half-planned idea of a bit of art, bit of theatre, bit of culture went right on the train to Titsville. Instead we went on a bender round Kentish and Camden Towns on the Friday night: Abbey, World’s End, Black Cap, Dublin Castle … lager lager lager. We were so drunk in the Dublin Castle we were sitting next to the discarded glass spot at the bar and drinking other people’s skanky half-finished pints without even realising. We’ll probably all catch gingivitis and it’ll serve us right. Also met lovely Kev, an internet friend who it turns out is actually a real person, and really lovely to boot.

Saturday I managed to buy FOUR items of clothing. FOUR! This would normally represent a successful year of clothes shopping for me, never mind a single day. Very chuffed indeed so got dressed up on the Saturday night and me and Clare ate Japanese food by the river then ran across the bridge in the pouring rain and howling wind with a three quid inside-out umbrella, screaming. Halfway across we simply gave up, tossed a quid to the guy playing steel drums there and danced with the fuzzy lights of London at our feet.



Passion fruit cocktails at Lab, go-go boys at Village Soho then utterly trashed at Trash Palace where Boogaloo Stu presided over an hysterical multiple choice celebrity question cake-eating competition and uttered the immortal line: ‘Take your knickers off and eat two cakes’. Stupid queue at Ghetto so last Southern Comforts for the road in 12 Bar then a series of wobbly night buses and falafels home to NW5. Such fun.


Miserable trip home in the rain and traffic next day, punctuated by an evil meal at Burger King where I had a bean burger and fries and felt riddled with shame even as the carbo-high kicked in. Home to a weirdly dry Manchester and a forlorn feeling in the flat. As ever after a trip to London I return full of excitement and what-ifs . . . ? What if I moved there? What if I hated it? What if I missed everyone too much? What if I can never ever buy my own place? What if I go for just a year? What if there’s no job for me in Manchester when I come back? What if I grow a backbone and just DO IT? Answers on a postcard please …

New favourite band

Hello? Anybody home?


I know, it’s been a while hasn’t it? I’ve had important reasons for staying away though, and important ones for returning too. Here they are:

A while ago I was recommended to listen to a track called ‘Suffragette Suffragette’ by Manchester-based band Everything Everything. Yes, things do seem to happen twice in their world. The song kinda washed over me at first, then as I was dusting my knick-knacks later in the week it came back into my head and so I re-played it, video and all. Thank goodness I did. Listen to it at once and be glad:

The hilarious yet somehow touching closing refrain notwithstanding I think this band represent a ‘bright new talent’ ™. Some sparky journo has written that ‘This band incorporate the best bits of Foals and British Sea Power but possibly with Peter Gabriel somewhere at the helm forcing them into weirder territory than either plain old indie or math rock will allow.’ I’d say amen to that.

Went to see them live at Deaf Institute, where I now live it would seem, to see if they are worth their salt. They manage to pull the whole thing off live with magnificent panache, acute harmonies and the best drumming I’ve seen since the Wire gig . . . and it’s only a year since they first played together. I’m pinning great hopes on the album when it arrives. ‘Suffragette …’ (sorry I simply haven’t time) is their first single, out December 1st. A couple of the lads are working in caffs and pizza restaurants at the minute and it's no place for them. Listen to the last minute of 'Weights' (on their myspace) and tell me that something sublime isn't happening. This stuff should be Arts Council funded. More please.