Edie!

Inspired by the post below, Edie Sedgwick. Ever since I saw the movie my hemlines have been getting shorter and shorter.

Inspiration and Suffocation

There's an almost constant pain just above my right eye. I have an overwhelming desire to be creative, almost to the point of where I want to start destroying things in the hope it will be vaguely artistic.

For months now I've been suffering from 'zine block'. This is much the same as writers block except I can still write, it's just that nothing seems to be coherent or inspiring enough to form something solid, printable. There's no zine, just pages and pages of words that bare no relation to those before or after. It's a literary case of pasta jewellery.

As I dotted the full stop on the final sentence of University (available at all good distros), I was opening the first sentence to the follow-up. In my head at least. Many ideas have swam solar-plexus-like around my head, in and out of my nose, mouth and ears for the past six months, almost relentlessly. Mostly these do not come to fruition. I've hit an idea I thought genius, researched it, created art with it, written a few pages - clicked it to the recycle bin. There's not enough scope for a sizable zine. I've often thought of turning all these useless ideas into a compilation zine of sorts. The thing is, I'm not a fan of this kind of zine. There hasn't been one I've read with the genius to move me. I like novels, I like a concept. I'm a Cursive fan for heavens sake. A concept makes something whole. A tiny package of feelings and hope with two staples piercing its soul.

Yesterday I photocopied what will quite possibly be the last batch of University. I've thought of a follow-up, a sequel of sorts. There's not much else I can write; I only dearly love those people and miss then to madness. I have many more tales and frantic journal entries but neither they nor I would want some of those stories priced at two bucks on zine symposium tables across the world. Not that they have any idea I've immortalised them on photocopied A4 sheets, currently on shelves from Tokyo to Toronto. I try not to imagine the confused looks of horror that would take over their faces.

Inspire me. I'm putting the kettle on.

Ciao, Manhattan

You know you're back in Scotland when, after 5 minutes (okay, three days...) you spy with hungry eyes, Sir Bob of Fairfoull. Oddly however, it wasn't in Edinburgh but Glasgow where I bumped into my favourite Bob smoking outside Topshop on Buchanan Street. He discarded his cigarette and scurried inside where, looking so bored he might throw himself through the window, he followed an unimaginitive looking girl around the t-shirt section for what must have seemed like an eternity.

I haven't updated this blog in a while. I've been super busy (read: super lazy). Here are some things...

After two days of wandering around Edinburgh trying to find a cinema showing the film we wanted to see (because buying a paper would be far too easy!), I went to the 'movies' for the first time since Harry Potter and the (film based on a couple of pages from the novel) Goblet of Fire and saw the much (unneccessarily) hyped Factory Girl. Granted, I was slightly pre-occupied with eating my large tub of ice cream before it melted all over Becky's beloved Balenciaga, but I walked out of the cinema after two rather uneventful hours wondering why I didn't get the point, what the point was, or whether there was even a point at all. My out of date student card got me a 70p discount on a film I should never have paid to see.
I love Edie. As women go, she's at the top of my list for just about every redeeming feature posessed my human-kind. Plus the thigh-high hemlines, ecentric dangly earrings and overall wild insanity - three of my favourite things, all single-handedly invented by pixie-faced-loon Edith Minturn Sedgwick. So I went to the cinema full of expectation and left disappointed. The most obvious culprit? Sienna Miller. She was an actress in a film, I get it... but film is art and they say art imitates life, and Sienna isn't a convincing Edie. Painted eyebrows and brown contact lenses just could not turn the tanned, blue eyed, pointy nosed and freckled blonde Sienna into the pale, large brown eyed and button nosed, natural brunette Edie. Surely someone like Natalie Portman would have been a better choice. Even Winona.
Secondly, the plot. The sub-title The Idiots Guide to Edie Sedgwick would have been appropriate. I guess if you happened to be turning up to this film with no prior knowledge then hey, what a story... but if you've read any of the biographies of Edie published over the past 20 years (I like Jean Stein's Edie: American Girl) you'll notice the gaping holes and lack of explanation make Factory Girl some kind of deformed and incompleted jigsaw. Her story is so much more than nice, innocent girl moves to New York and befriends Andy Warhol, has been apparently sexually abused by her father, cuts off hair, shags Bob Dylan, falls out with Andy, becomes depraved drug addict, returns home to California, dies - I deplore you to discover it.
Still, it was nice to see Edie get some long-overdue credit and I enjoyed the music and cinematography. The ice cream was delicious too.

So, there you have it. - an on the spot and unfathomable review of Factory Girl. And now I've completely forgotten what else I had to write about.

Tea in the garden

The First and Last Make-up Post

I like music more than(almost) anything else, especially if it plays on old-fashioned formats. I also like make-up (yes, really) because it makes me look less like Wednesday Addams and more like the elfin-featured beauty I've always threatened to be- allegedly.
Two of my favourite cosmetics companies have, in their respective laboratories, that look I imagine like the house Hansel and Gretel found - all covered in candy and cake (minus the evil witch), concocted the above products.

Hard Candy's Mix-Tape compacts have three eye shadows and three lip glosses; and come in three different mixes - Workout, Break-up and Party. And in case you're like me and have no idea how to match make-up shades, the colours coordinate so there's no ending up looking like Boy George. Unfortunately, the lure of dressing up like a 80s pop star is all too much for me and I won't be buying one. Well, honestly, there's nothing I like more than dressing as Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan, but Hard Candy's claim that their compact is "a lot less effort" than making a real mix tape (effort? I ask you...) has me refusing to buy one on principle (not even to empty out the make-up and use to store mints.)

And with money still safely in my purse, there's no excuse not to invest in Benefit's Some Kind-a Gorgeous foundation which, rather excitingly for someone with vinyl-lust, has a record on the lid! It's slightly expensive to be buying just for the packaging, but does claim to be "perfection for your complexion". Whether this is true remains to be seen. I'll let you know.

"Soap"

In a week that saw 15-year-old Amy give birth on the kitchen floor and sexually confused John-Paul and his dysfunctional family visit their first gay bar, Hollyoaks finally got a new opening sequence.
We've reluctantly said goodbye to the days when Kurt Benson charmed the women with his police-chase motorbike antics and the schoolboy Max Cunningham was played by an actor with an abnormally fat face. After 10 years, the blue filmstrip opening featuring many dead and/or date rapist characters has been replaced, and by what?
For perhaps the next decade our week-daily fix of Hollyoakes will begin with a remixed theme tune (quite possibly produced by Kermit the Frog) and selected shots of semi-naked cast members touching themselves provocatively in front of a wind machine. I felt dirty just watching it.
Yet another example of the declining morals of 21st century society.

Monday, Monday...

A sunny everlasting Monday. I'm thinking I got up too early.

The sunshine has forced the daffodils from their leafy cases. The sight of their new yellow petals always gives me a 'first day of the rest of my life' feeling. The newness of spring can be quite inspiring if you're not too busy grumbling to notice it. I get the feeling changes are about to happen.

Monday is a day for thinking and I'm already on my third cup of tea. In keeping with the theme of re-birth, the thought for the day is Idlewild.

Next Monday (I believe) is new album day. I could just direct you here, but that would be cheating and my mind has changed significantly since the last record. It truly is a love/hate affair. Anyway, I haven't heard the album yet. The single, I heard it and I was surprised. Safe to say nothing like I expected but it made me want to twirl around in my very short dress and send the Royal Doulton crashing to the floor. Last time around I was obsessed with the days of 2000 when windows were broken and there were road trips to Orkney. Channel 4 filmed this and made me want to marry Woomble and grow neeps and sip whisky in front of a roaring fire. Now someone else is doing just that and I'm courting a life of spinsterhood. This time I'll be optimistic. He has his solo record to thank for that.

I look forward to hearing the album in its entirety. I might even go as far as ordering it from Amazon because I know I wont get a free copy - the only bands I ever seem to get for review are American groups I've never heard of (and one else ever should.) On a more romantic note, I have an eccentricity about holding the records of those I love in my hands and feeling the grain of the paper inlay on my fingertips. Ritual.

We'll see.

Liebe Nadiah

Sometimes the postman can restore your faith in humanity. Or rather he gets to take the credit for gifts collected and mailed two seasons and thousands of miles away that restore your faith in humanity. We do little to appreciate our worldwide postal service.
I just wanted to say thank you for my mail, Miss Nadiah.

North West Zine Works

University now has a review by the lovely Caroline Tigeress at North West Zine Works. Click here to read and vote till your hearts desire. (You can do this once every 24 hours!)

Distros

University is now available at Parcell Press and Brass Buttons. Give them your money because both are run by beautiful, lovely, dedicated boys.

One hell of a week

One week ago I was at a Propagandi gig in Derby. The building was somewhere I spent a considerable amount of time when I was younger. Around me were all the people I spent that time with. My heart still feels like it's encased in bubble wrap.

When I turned the laptop on this morning, there was nothing. No pictures, no documents, no iTunes and most importantly, no un-submitted yet finished 2006 review article. You know, the one I spent the last two weeks obsessing over. I had an almost uncontrollable urge to leap out of the nearest window. Instead I wandered to the train station and joined the Christmas shoppers on an expedition into the big city. Here I met my oldest friend Nicola for lunch. It's a bit like Sex and the City, I suppose. Except with a few minor alterations. Firstly, you would have to replace New York with a middle-English shit-city, then the trendy Manhattan eatery with our dingy local Starbucks and of course, the four stylish, successful thirty-something women with two unsuccessful twenty-somethings who look like they got dressed in the dark. So, not much like Sex and the City at all really... As for the laptop, a conversation with the man on the helpline two years ago and my obsession with notebooks proved quite useful once I managed to calm down.

New things

Dark red tights from Topshop.

Grey and black top from UO worn as a dress because it's long and I'm short.

Collate, Fold, Staple...

My best friend Nicola has an MA is photocopying! Because of this I have an immense amount of respect for her.

Since the conception of my very own publishing empire two weeks ago, I have almost had several emotional breakdowns, numerous apparently psychosomatic illnesses and symptoms of; and have been cut, stuck and very nearly electrocuted by the most unfriendly of my equipment. If I see another complicated contraption masquerading as a photocopier, it will be the final nail in the coffin of my mental health. My elderly stapler found the volume of paper it has had to bind together all too much and has had to take early retirement, leaving me with no choice but to buy a new one with funds I do not yet have (a whopping £1.73 being all I’ve earned so far!). The printer is spewing green ink, the scanner has had its cable tasted by a mischievous rabbit and if I fall over one more piece of the discarded stationary strewn across the floor, I’ll almost certainly find myself in A&E. And being as stubborn as usual, I will not be deterred. Oh no. I finally got the latest batch of zines folded and stapled today and the previous batch mailed out yesterday. My next zine is in pre-production, research is underway and when these blasted paper cuts heal I will lovingly grip my pen and attempt to bash out the same old rubbish (that everyone would really rather I didn’t.)

On a high note I will stop typing and get back to tidying and humming happily along to The Postal Service. Much in the same was as they say cheese gives you nightmares if you eat it before bed, The Postal Service make you wake up in the middle of the night surrounded by the most wonderful buzzing sound.

Fireworked

I had a good post planned for tonight, but someone appears to have chewed through my scanner cable so my plans have quite literally gone up in smoke.

I’ve come to the rather hasty conclusion that fireworks should be banned. This would prevent them from falling into the hands of juvenile delinquents and most worryingly of all, suburban fathers. These men subsequently turn peaceful neighbourhoods into extremely dangerous areas, often resembling night fall in downtown Basra.

I was sitting peacefully in the darkened conservatory last night, barely half way through chapter one of Jane Eyre, when the world outside the window appeared to end in a blaze of green light emitted by a firework, semi-vertically launched over the hedge. My furry companion, previously grinding his teeth in contentment, leapt to his feet and promptly situated himself behind the sofa, stamping his abnormally large back paws frantically. Feeling slightly unnerved as the fireworks continued to zoom erratically past my window; I was more than once tempted to join him.

Seemingly normal men take leave of their senses come the beginning of November and retreat to their gardens with excitable families, before proceeding to wave around explosives as if they were a twirling baton. Fireworks are just as dangerous in the wrong hands as any other explosive material - its gunpowder not a sherbet dip. How hard is that to comprehend? Does little Bobby have to lose an eye or Grandma suffer second degree burns before anyone will realise that fireworks belong in the hands of the professional, certified pyromaniacs. Those who skilfully put on the end of festival fireworks displays and other such supervised events, not Mr Jones from number six who just accidentally hospitalised three members of his family.

We have sound

University Zine

In case you were wondering what the picture to the left with the 'buy now' button below it is, I am now going to explain.

University is my first perzine and centers around the first year I spent at university in Edinburgh. It covers everything from making friends, international relations, incidences of alarming stupidity and an adventure in a blizzard. Doesn't sound exciting? Well, it isn't really... but I have spent a lot of time on this so just humour me a little.

Nadiah and Jessica, you have complimentary zines on their way to you this week. Anyone else, you will have to buy a copy either directly from me or from as yet unidentified distros. (Being very, very nice to me might also get you a free copy. I rather like small trinkets and vegan cookies!)

56 pages, 1/2 size, 90g.

Cellar Door

Today is the worst kind of autumn day. The grey sky leaks continual rain and the blowing wind turns the golden carpet of fallen leaves into a swirling swarm of wet, rotting foliage. We retired to the cosy fire side with warm tea and time travelled back to 1988, where Middlesex, Virginia was basking in the loveliest of autumnal sun shine.
The following is my once published and long forgotten review of the film.


“Destruction is a Form of Creation”

Donnie Darko is a film that defies the genres of modern filmmaking. Part science fiction, part thriller, an off-beat teen film about time travel, mental illness, childhood, paranoia, a giant bunny rabbit named Frank, and the impending apocalypse. But director Richard Kelly’s first film goes far beyond anything he or I could ever have expected.

It is fall 1988 in the middle-class suburban town of Middlesex, Virginia. The US Presidential election is in full swing and the inhabitants of whitewashed Middlesex are blissfully unaware that the world will end in less than one month.
Troubled teenager Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal), a highly intelligent but increasingly disturbed Schizophrenic is the only inhabitant aware of this frightening prophecy. Prone to sleepwalking and terrifying hallucinations, Donnie wakes one night to a mysterious voice calling him from outside the house. Standing on the Darko’s lawn, a 6ft rabbit known only as Frank (James Duval), informs him that the world will come to an end in exactly 28 days, five hours, 52 minutes and 12 seconds. The next morning Donnie returns home to find a jet engine – unidentified by the FAA - has crashed into the room he would have been sleeping in if he had not been seduced outside by Frank’s haunting voice. Did Frank save him from being killed?
Heavily medicated by his baffled psychiatrist, Dr. Thurman (Katharine Ross), distant from his loving but frustrated parents (Mary McDonnell, Holmes Osborne) and controlled by his new friend Frank, Donnie embarks on a quest for meaning in which he will encounter time travel, violence, isolation, love and ultimately death.

As the countdown to the apocalypse proceeds, Donnie’s behaviour becomes increasingly anti-social. Frank encourages him to carry out destructive and violent acts, beginning with the flooding of Donnie’s conservative, private high school and culminating with the burning down of the mansion owned by sleazy local inspirational speaker, Jim Cunningham (Patrick Swayze), whom Donnie publicly denounces as “the fucking anti-Christ”. The only allies to Donnie’s turmoil come in the form of innocent girlfriend Gretchen Ross (Jena Malone), reluctant science teacher Dr. Monnitoff (Noah Wyle), and mysterious local geriatric recluse and author, Grandma Death (Patience Cleveland).

Richard Kelly’s magnificent screenplay was bought to the screen with the help of actress and executive producer Drew Barrymore, who plays a small role in the film as Donnie’s ambitious yet inexperienced English teacher, Miss Pomeroy. Barrymore was responsible for hiring Jake Gyllenhaal whose portrayal of the title role is what makes the character of Donnie Darko so believable, while the haunting score composed by Michael Andrews adds beautifully to the eerie feel of the film - along with the carefully chosen 80’s soundtrack featuring Echo and the Bunnymen, Tears for Fears, Joy Division and Duran Duran.

Donnie Darko is a unique film. It is clever, surreal, funny, creepy and at times incredibly heartbreaking. Often indulgent, Kelly’s trick of switching topics from the sexual habits of Smurfs to the science of time travel is quite baffling, but shows the freedom of the independent filmmaker at its best. An ambitious debut bought to life by an all-star cast, Donnie Darko is a visually stunning and powerfully moving masterpiece.

Big Mouth Strikes Again

For HND Journalism we had to write a profile of a celebrity.

Few icons manage to outlive the generation they’re born into let alone maintain a thriving fan-base two decades later. The road hasn’t always been easy, with lawsuits, fluctuating record sales, accusations of racism and all matter of controversy, but Steven Morrissey was never one to run with the crowd.

The roots of the Morrissey phenomenon lie in the Davyhulme suburb of Manchester where Steven Patrick Morrissey was born on 22nd May 1959. The second child of Irish Catholic parents, by the age of nine Steven was a problem child. His Father later admitted he thought his only son to be a “complete fruitcake”, but his Mother, a librarian, saw the artistic side of her young son and keenly introduced him to the works of Thomas Hardy and Oscar Wilde, the latter sparking an infatuation that persists to this day. Reserved and painfully shy, the young Morrissey was already a loner, a trait which would follow him into his teenage years and adulthood.

In the early 1970’s the barely teenage Morrissey had already discovered his interest in music, worshipping bands such as The New York Dolls and Sparks. His love was made public in June 1974 when NME published a letter from the 15-year-old Morrissey praising Sparks. Soon, he was bombarding the music press with early snippets of his piercing tongue and razor sharp opinions. In Manchester indie circles Morrissey was now a minor celebrity as fellow New York Dolls fan Phil Fletcher remembers, “I said, I’ve read letters by you in the press and seen you at the Free Trade Hall. He found it hilarious that somebody would notice him. I think he felt he was a star because somebody knew him.”

Conversations with other early Mancunian peers reveal that the young Morrissey had always wanted to be the star himself. What little money he earned from his first job as a clerical officer at the Inland Revenue was spent on records and attending gigs while he spent the majority of his time in his bedroom dreaming of stardom and penning scathing letters to the music press and his ever-growing collection of pen-pals. Morrissey was not prepared to go out and find stardom, it had to find him.

Now the early eighties, Morrissey had become what he later referred to as “something of a back bedroom casualty.” Spending long periods on the dole, he was what best friend and Ludus singer, Linder Sterling describes as “totally unemployable”. With very few social skills and intimidating eccentricity forming a band now seemed out of the question. He briefly changed direction and attempted to pursue a career as a music journalist, being taken on by the Record Mirror as a freelance local reviewer. A handful of record reviews and concert reports followed, but nothing more. In his early twenties Morrissey was already a has-been.

Eager to start a band, guitarist Johnny Marr approached local musician Rob Allman. Allman, a regular on the Manchester scene knew Morrissey and suggested they meet. Marr boarded the 263 bus to Stretford in search of the mythical Morrissey. By the end of the day, The Smiths was born. Marr called upon old friends Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce to complete the line-up and in a last attempt to consolidate himself as the next big thing, Steven Morrissey dropped his forename and became the Morrissey enigma. When asked about this Morrissey simply said, "I just felt this absolutely massive relief at not being called Steven anymore."

In the five years The Smiths were together they released five albums, toured relentlessly and became the band that epitomised the 1980’s. Morrissey’s eccentricities became a trademark and his decision to appear on Top of the Pops waving a bunch of daffodils and insistence on wearing a hearing aid even though there was nothing wrong with his hearing spurred the now legendary cult of Morrissey.

The demise of The Smiths in 1987 left Morrissey heartbroken. Despite admitting he always heard “great beauty in Marr’s rolling chords,” he was still driven by his ambition and wasted no time in releasing solo material. The cult of Morrissey was to leave The Smiths behind.

In the almost twenty years since the end of The Smiths, Morrissey has released six solo albums, toured the world, become a powerful animal rights campaigner, spoken his mind on everything from politics to British soap opera and in stark contrast to his previous Anglophilia, in 1998 set up home in Los Angeles, leaving England behind.

Worshipped by fans new and old and hailed as a genius by his peers, Morrissey is and always has been a true original and a bona-fide British icon. And as his nephew Sam attempts to shed some light on the real Steven Morrissey, the man himself is as elusive as he always has been. “At the end of the day, he lives in L.A., he drives a Jag, and he goes to the beach. I don’t think he’s living in a dark room dressed in black.”

Noise Floor!

Noise Floor: rarities 1998-2005

Since the very beginning of my love for Bright Eyes, many of my favourite recordings have been the ones hardest to find. Those songs that were sessions or split singles with short lived bands; appeared on compilations for friendly labels and zines, or 7” vinyl released on some obscure label in an American town I’d never heard of and could barely pronounce - they were always the ones to cut deepest. I collected these recordings, whether on battered cassette tapes with sun melted corners or on vinyl encased in pretty pictures, now displayed lovingly upon my defunct 1960s record player. I treasure them as if they were worth all the gold in the world, but that doesn’t mean butterflies didn’t flutter inside when I read Saddle Creek were to release a compilation of rare and unreleased material, recorded 1998-2005.

Noise Floor and I have now spent three long and happy days together. There’s no polish or perfect production. There is the nostalgic rawness of those early songs, so thoughtfully put together on A Collection of Songs 1995-97. I no longer have to steal time with unfamiliar record players to listen to Motion Sickness or wind the tape back into the cassette with a broken pencil for the Trees Get Wheeled Away, and although I miss the crackle of a needle on vinyl and the chugging of an old cassette player, I am truly grateful.

With last years twin releases a fondly distant memory and the Conor backlash (I believe it was the ‘emo’ and the ‘hair’) somewhat subsided, this record is a perfect reminder of why my love for Bright Eyes began.

It’s the sound of the basement and the fragility in the voice, the foot tapping on the concrete floor.

Love/Hate

I've been rather busy lately, hence the lack of updates here. While looking through some files on my old laptop, I found this wee article from a year or so ago. I thought it tied in nicely with the review further down this page.


I’ve been trying to avoid the return of Idlewild in much the same way as one would avoid a modern day outbreak of bubonic plague or a horrifically contagious, disfiguring illness. They have much in common when you think about it. Simple avoidance and blind denial worked at first, but it’s impossible to avoid contamination and Roddy Woomble now faces me from every direction, and I believe is currently crawling under my skin.

I can’t deny that I’ve heard the new record, I can’t deny that it was my own choice to listen to it, and I can’t deny that it did have some redeeming qualities. As a whole I can’t decide what I think of it, I just feel that it’s important to keep reminding myself that somewhere along the line, either Roderick Woomble or I appear to have suffered serious head injury.

Idlewild were one of the big loves of my life. I mean, who needs boys when you have bands, right? They were one of those bands that you could so easily let yourself fall totally and completely in love with. Many nights were spent alone on my bedroom floor listening to Hope is Important in the dark, staring at Roddy’s gap-toothed grin peering from the cover of Melody Maker and wishing I was the girlfriend looking through the dirty window on the cover of Captain. Everything about them was so furious and passionate, from Roddy falling around on stage wearing only one shoe to Bob’s constant sarcastic wit. I would’ve sold them my own soul. Hell, I would’ve given it to them for free.

I was in Virgin megastore on Princes Street when I heard Bob had left the band. Within days he was back in Edinburgh, stumbling along the street alone in a drunken stupor, can of Stella in hand. It’s when the reality sets in that you fall out of love the hardest.

My dearest Roddy, a few years ago I wanted to be your wife and darn your socks in our Highland croft, while you wrote songs about dreams to sing to lonely children. Then you changed and I found that I could no longer love you like I used to, so I left you to drown in your own arrogance. Please promote your album quietly. Love always, Elizabeth.

As far as Idlewild are concerned, I’m going to continue to put my fingers in my ears and yell “la la la la la”. You may notice me doing this at Rock City in April.