Tuesday February 12th 2002

Some people assume the reason Fosca have no bass player or drummer is entirely down to our anti-rockist aesthetic, but that’s not entirely true. One reason I didn’t want a bass player was because I find bass guitars to be extremely ugly instruments. Those thick, thick metal strings… I’ve never liked the look of them. They give me the screaming ab-dabs. Plus bass guitars require unwieldy, huge bass amps to play through, which I’ve always found baffling and unnecessary. They take up so much room and refuse to go on public buses. Who the hell do bass amps think they are?

As for real drums, I do actually like the look of drum kits onstage. A spider-like silver machine at the back, all metallic angles and circles and levers and arms and nuts and bolts. It’s like a Victorian invention of unfathomable purpose, from a HG Wells story or a Heath Robinson illustration. No, my aversion to real drums is partly that carting the things around is even harder than for bass amps, but mostly because of the drum soundcheck. An eon to unpack and construct the thing, then another eon to check each part of the kit.

This is what a drum soundcheck sounds like:

Engineer: Can we hear the bass drum, please?

“DUHMF.”

“DUHMF.”

(minutes later)

“DUHMF.”

(even more minutes later)

“DUHMF”

(even yet still more minutes later)

“DUHMF.”

Engineer: Okay. Well it’ll sound better when the room’s got people in it. Snare?

“CHAKK.”

“CHAKK.”

….and so on. It’s excruciating. When Fosca played in Stockholm the other month, all the bands on the bill were drummer-free. Bliss!

The only reason I can forgive bands having drummers is if the drummer in question is aesthetically pleasing too. Last night Fosca played on the same bill as Stephen Nancy, whose drummer has incredible muscles. Like the line by DH Lawrence, his arms entirely fill his sleeves. Sharing a soundcheck with him could almost be described as a sensuous experience.

It’s the same with U2. Surely most people would rather look at the Dorian Gray-like drummer than at Nosey, Baldy or Speccy? His drum riser is more than a plinth. It’s a shrine.

Saturday February 2nd 2002

Well, I had a nice enough time recently. I went out to the Stay Beautiful Club in Caledonian Road, where lots of young freakish things gather at night and dance to loud pop music. I spent an hour standing against a pillar and playing “Spot The Gender.” Chatted to Matthew from the band Jack, who was in a sulky mood. He said something about me wanting to a ‘pop star’ while he was more of an ‘artist’, which was the point where I should have said something unkind about his beard, but you know me.

I had one girl come up to me just to say “my boyfriend fancies you”. Minutes later a boy approached and said “my brother fancies you.” A typical night out for me.

A Swedish girl extolled the virtues of buying Snakebite and Black, because it’s apparently illegal in Sweden. They wouldn’t dare make it illegal in Ipswich.

Someone with all their own hair told me about the This Is Romo website, so I took a peek. Archives of joy. I’d forgotten just how extreme some of the crowd at Club Skinny dressed. The Stay Beautiful regulars have some way to go if they really want to emulate that. There’s a decent book to be made about it all. And a film. And a musical. Happy times. Good times. I was there, you know. The ones who hated Romo were just the ones who couldn’t get on the Club Skinny guest list. Or pass the dress code. A common misconception is that we were celebrating the 80s New Romantics. The truth is we were celebrating our own wonderful selves, and each other. And the rest of the world could get knotted.

No trainers! No untucked shirts!
NO SMILING ON THE DANCE FLOOR.

… but in our hearts we were smiling like hyenas.

One of the Skinny regulars was the legendary Jim Rattail, who is to London indie gigs what the ravens are to the Tower of London. Ubiquitous, even omnipresent, he takes photos at most of the hundreds of gigs, club nights, and other events he attends every year, then puts them up on his website. Here you can find pictures of bands that often have no other Web presence. Bands that are just starting up. Bands that are people who are trying out Being In A Band, to see if it’s something worth doing between now and the grave. Bands that want to Make It Big. Bands that don’t. Bands that only ever played one gig and no longer exist. They’re all there, preserved and embalmed through his eyes. Especially bands with girls in them. Fosca included. Each performance also gets his own star rating: one for boring, two for okay, three for good. He’s given three stars to every Fosca gig he’s been to so far, so it only seems proper that I salute him. The question is, though, is he a valuable chronicler of otherwise entirely undocumented artistry? Or is he actually God?

Bought a new Crombie coat. Sherry’s in Carnaby Street seem to be the only shop in London that sell the red lining ones I like. They smell of autumn men. Which is deliriously comforting if you’re an old maid like me. I turned up at rehearsals with it, and the others in Fosca bleated “but it’s exactly like the old one!” “Except newer,” I concurred.

Similarly, this is how you find me in 2002. I am older, but feel newer.