Friday October 2nd 1998

Pictures and thoughts on the recent Fosca gig at Brady’s in Brixton can be found here.

I’ve just realised that the photos don’t seem to line up properly in Internet Explorer 4 as they do in Netscape Communicator 4. If anyone knows why this is, please let me know. I refuse to go out of my way to let Mr Gates have any more power over my life than he has already. Fosca say: Choose Netscape!

Tuesday September 22nd 1998

One thing that definitely sets me apart from the Romo crowd.

They all either got to be extras in the new film “Velvet Goldmine”, or should have been.

I, on the other hand, should have been an extra in “The Last Days Of Disco”.

Dress code for the film (after re-seeing it tonight, this time with Clare Wadd):

Girls: Blusher, boob tubes, bitchiness.
Boys: Suits, side-partings, sardonicism.

I still can’t recommend it highly enough.

And then there’s the photos accompanying the new Josef K compilation on Marina Records: “Endless Soul”. I don’t know enough about this band. Just the lazy soundbites: early 80s Scottish New Wave /post-punk scratchy flicker-guitar group, who had connections with Aztec Camera and Orange Juice and Momus’ first band, The Happy Family. But what I do know is that they had Great Suits and Great Side-Partings. The sleeve to this CD matches my silver-grey suit. Which is mainly why I bought it. Obviously.

Clare is talking about a disturbing new trend in London gigs. People have been thrown out or barred entry to the Water Rats etc for carrying a copy of The Guardian with them, as if smuggling in a newspaper to read at a gig is worse than smuggling in a knife. Is Jonathan Aitken starting out on a new career as an indie venue promoter?

If I one day find myself in the privileged position of being able to influence such matters, I will actively encourage reading at gigs. Never mind some naff flyer, take a good novel along to a gig and get a concession.

The line-up for Friday’s one-off free Fosca excursion in Brixton:

Self (diarist): voice and guitar player
Charley (Frantic Spiders): guitar player
Deb (Linus): bass player
Caroline (Frantic Spiders): drum player
Rachel (care worker): keyboard player, singing
Cressida (care worker): singing, flute player, keyboard player
Fiona (second-hand bookshop manager): singing, keyboard player

I have a horrible feeling there might be more people on stage than in the audience.

Saturday September 19th 1998

Club Popstarz last night:

“What’s the new band sound like?”
“slow, quiet, weepy sad songs. Eyes closed. Me singing. Galaxie 500 covering Barbra Streisand”
“God, that sounds awful. I think I’ll kill you.”

Other words thrown at my ear that night:

“You look like Lily Savage’s husband. Bob Downe. God, you really do. God.”
“This is my best friend. She’s a stripper… She DOES wear a wig, though.”
“Who was that boy you were with at the Kenickie aftershow? He looked so like you. Can’t you get him in the band?”
“But WHY do you dress like that? WHY? You don’t HAVE to…”
“We’re doing a fabulous show, modelling, this is the choreographer. I’m costumes… I see you… AS A MARIONETTE!”
“Can I fuck you while my friend watches?”

I was so taken aback by the last request, coming as it did from a very urbane looking American who’d up till then been chatting about London weather, that I just ummed and erred. He was serious. Fortunately I was rescued by an Orlando fan who recognised me.

Archway Adrian (who indeed, has many arch ways) is going to be modelling in a new calendar. It’s called “Camden Boys”. I am not sure whether to believe this or not.

Went to First Out for the first time. My dad recommended it. How many people have gay bars recommended by their dad?

It’s at 52 St Giles High Street, which is that badly-planned little bit of London around (and under) Centrepoint. Bottles of Stella Artois £1.50, Spirits and mixer £1. Sarit says there’s lots of pricing competition in gay bars. Shame there isn’t in the clubs too. I daren’t think how much last night at Popstarz cost me. I was meant to meet Howard at First Out. It didn’t happen, so I propped myself up at the bar, alone, and got quickly, cheaply drunk. Swapped numbers with a beautiful blond Norweigan. Phoned him the next day. Number unobtainable. Took some pills.

Went to see Linus at the Dublin Castle. Support bands were one featuring Mario of “Mario’s Cafe” fame, that Saint Etienne song used in some advert recently; and one featuring Hannah from Hollywood, who were part of that Romo tour palaver. I don’t know if she recognised me. I suspect she did, which is why she blanked me. Ah, London. One day a real rain is gonna come…

Charley was there to save my soul. Archway Adrian too, friendly as ever. He offered to play in Fosca. Promises, promises, Adrian. Rarely returns my calls, but he’s forgiven. Everyone is so BUSY. Went to the Black Cap, and then to the Metro, yet another tourist indie disco in Oxford Street. Erol DJ-ing. Got maudlin and upset and paranoid. Took more pills. Thought seriously about cutting my arm up. New low for me. Ridiculous, so I phoned Simon. Picked up the guitar to stop myself crying. This really must end.

Theorised on Lesbian Mannerisms. We all know about stereotypical gay male mannerisms, the wrist, the flutter, the rolling eyes, but a lesbian equivalent? Not haircut, not dress sense, not taste, but actual mannerisms?

Charley and Sarit suggested tomboyishness. I call it Lesbian Energy. The little bargirl at First Out suddenly jumping when Chumbawamba come on the bar stereo. Sarit dancing at Club V. Charley demonstrating her guitar riffing style at Bar Vinyl, startling the girl behind her. It’s not tomboyishness, because no boy really acts like that: the unnerving sudden burst of violent energy, like spiders moving quickly after hours of stillness. I’ve only ever seen it in lesbians. I’m quite chuffed with this theory.

Working title for the album is “Friendship’s Death”, after the film with Tilda Swinton and Bill Paterson. More outsiders looking in on real life… Woolf’s Orlando, De Beauvoir’s Fosca… recognise a pattern?

So today I’m sitting in Jackson’s Lane, bleary and hungover, supping milky coffee. Then I notice Bill Paterson is at the table next to me.

I’ve completely reverted to using “Dickon” again, after a period of experimenting with “Richard”. I look in the mirror, and it says Dickon, so Dickon it is.

Charley is playing Brixton Academy in October. She’s supporting Mansun in the band Gay Dad, on tour with them too. So if you’re going to see Mansun, do get there early and shout out for her when Gay Dad play. Go on.

Fosca Mk II play their live debut as part of the Queeruption free festival, at Brady’s, Atlantic Road, Brixton, London, on Friday 25th Sept. Onstage no earlier than 9pm.

That’s two weeks from today. I have no band or songs rehearsed. It’s always been this way: book the gig first, find the band lineup and songs to play second. Just like Orlando Mk I’s first gig at the Monarch in 1993. And Orlando Mk II’s debut at Club Skinny in 1995. And Fosca Mk I’s one at Club V, 1997.

Here we go again. I’ll be singing this time too, be warned O world.

The festival includes a Shoplifting Workshop.

It was my birthday last Thursday. I celebrated by going to two indie-schmindie gigs… Firstly, Mojave 3 at Borders Bookshop in Oxford Street. They were okay in an aging shoegazers pretending to be from Texas (and not the Home Counties) sitting on stools with acoustic guitars way. They played in the bookshop’s DIY section. Rachel Thing looked like she was on her break from working there: bookshop sales assistant “chic” glasses. In the last song, she didn’t have anything to do, so she got up and had a look at the books on quiltmaking behind her. Since last seeing her when Slowdive played Bristol Fleece and Firkin in 1892, I think she’s aged in that strange way only some middle class girls do: all mumsy teeth and second-house-in-the-country chin.

I’d much rather review the bookshop. Apparently it’s famous in the US for being somewhere you can pick up people while supping coffee and browsing through the books. And this new branch has a huge cafe section on the second floor, plus lots of sofas and seats. The idea is you can browse and get crumbs and coffee on books all day until 11pm. And watch passers by down in Oxford Street, giggling at garishly coloured backpacks of tourists and stressed Englishmens’ premature bald patches.

After that, I went to see Sleater Kinney at the Kings College. There were 700 flights of stairs (forgot the lift might have been a better idea) and a packed hot, sticky ball of hip people in the venue itself. Spent most of my time there chatting to Gary Wiija, Jarvis Pulp And Jon Huggybear.

Didn’t watch the band much. They dress nicely though.

On the way back, I noticed some dog mess on the pavement that I’d avoided on the way in. It had now been stepped in by someone else. Completely and utterly, with a trail of angry smears all the way down the street.
I was the happiest I’d been for ages.

Saw Belle and Sebastian at Shepherd’s Bush Empire on Monday.Well, APART from going on far too late (though they then played 16 songs: well over an hour), and APART from the ridiculous “Quietcore” nature of the PA (apparently due to their soft singing style… not to mention standing miles away from the mikes in case they bite, they couldn’t turn up the vocals anymore without feedback, and so the instruments had to be mixed under the quiet vocals… but does anyone really buy this? I just think they’re cursed) and APART from the silly self-indulgent see-we’re-not-twee-honest jamming bits (“Spaceboy Dream”, which is B&S’s own “Revolution No. 9 / Humblebee)… they were terrific. And it was the first time I’d seen them when , now that the new album was out, they played NO new songs at all (well, unless you count “Loneliness of a Middle Distance Runner”, which though unreleased has been done on radio sessions ages ago) just all the hits.

Someone made a joke about how they’d gotten rid of all the gaps between their songs and instead put them in one big gap at the beginning….lasting 9.45 (when they were due on) till 10.30 (eventual appearance)….

And as usual at most gigs I attend regardless of “target audience”, I got my view obscured by a tall man with a ponytail… until I moved to the little dais bit at the back and could then see everything fine, if not necessarily hear it all that well.

And oh, I got to chat to Stephen Pastel. And that Mojave 3 girl was following me around.

Elliott Smith did a really good version of “Isn’t It A Pity”. No one else but me apparently knew this was a George Harrison cover. And even then they though it was a Galaxie 500 song (last song on “On Fire”)…

Got stopped while crossing Archway Road yesterday by someone who recognised me. It was Jo Whiley. It’s one thing to go up to celebrities and chew their ear off, it’s another (at least as far as one’s ego is concerned) when they collar you. Jo Whiley. Jarvis Cocker. Noel Gallagher. Not Neil Tennant though: he recognised Tim once, and ignored me altogether. I’m convinced it’s because at the time I’d just shaved my golden hair off. Now the blondness is back, and I’m a “Star” again. Strange how you can be famous to the famous, but not to real people. But the ultimately depressing thing is that name-dropping is only forgiveable if you’re as famous yourself as the names you bandy about. Otherwise you’re in danger of being remembered only for remembering others.

Current culture:
Music:
– Belle and Sebastian: “The Boy With The Arab Strap”. Predictable choice, I know: old-school whiteboy indie comfort-food, perhaps, as many stalwart lyrical and musical references of the genre are present and correct. One song, “Dirty Dream #2”, seems to be either influenced by Orlando, or (far more likely) the things that influenced Orlando: disco guitar stabs, Northern Soul rhythm, swooping strings and so on. There’s no real pain or despair here though: just a sense of cosiness and relaxed happiness with one’s lot. Naturally, I am fiercely envious of this last quality. They are not as important as The Smiths, Fieldmice, Galaxie 500, or even The Orchids, though. And even this album is not as good as:

-Divine Comedy: “Fin De Siecle”. Utterly impressive: lyrical prowess to the fore, almost Sondheim-like in use of internal rhymes, and possibly the only use of Wagnerian choirs and Broadway musical arrangements on a major pop record ever. Utter disdain for current musical trends. Utterly unique. Good monochrome sleeve photos, too.

-Plush: “More You Becomes You”. Harvey told me to get this. Not sure if I like it yet. It’s a man who thinks he’s Brian Wilson and Jimmy Webb singing and playing a piano and nothing else. Which is what Harvey’s last album was like. At least Harvey wore a nice suit on the cover.

-Bowie: all his 70s albums, of course, but I’m particularly enjoying his “Thin White Duke” late 70s period at the moment. Thin White Dickon? Anthony from Jack thinks and drinks that I should strive to make my “image” more like this Bowie, the one that was in “The Man Who Fell To Earth”, the one that sang “Heroes” and “Knock On Wood”… cool blond parting, skinniness, and really, really nice trousers.

-El Records compilations. Style over success!

Films:
-“The Last Days of Disco”: I’ve waited four years for this. Whit Stillman makes films as often as World Cups: “Metropolitan” in 1990, “Barcelona” in 1994, this one in 1998. More privileged Americans talking about Life and Love. But this time there’s room between conversations for… DANCING! And lots of it! Kate and Chloe cast against type, Chris Eigemann cast as himself again, which of course is a Good Thing. He gets to do yet another “what if….” rant or two. No car crashes. Or special effects. At all. Have seen it once alone. Hope to see it at least once more with others.

-“The Daytrippers”. Saw this one twice: once with mother and once with Kate Dornan. Parker Posey, Campbell Scott: more favourite actors of mine. Great use of Stan Getz music against NY backdrop. Witty as hell.

Saturday August 8th 1998

I’ve bleached my hair again, for the first time in over a year.

Tuesday July 21st

Apropos of nothing and everything, here’s the tracklisting of a tape I made for Fiona McCarthy, who works at the excellent Magpie Bookshop in Shoreditch. If you’re ever in the area, pop in and visit the “Keen City” exhibition of comic art upstairs, featuring amongst others Oscar Zarate, Hunt Emerson and Brian Edwards (relation).

It was raining as I made this tape. I was thinking of dusty second hand bookshops, of Highgate Wood and Waterlow Park and long walks in North London, and of e.e. cummings quotes scrawled on satchels. You should really take this into account.

Side one:
MONO slimcea girl, high life, life in mono
VELOCETTE get yourself together
WOULD-BE-GOODS bayswater blues, marvellous boy, velasquez and I
SPIRITUALIZED broken heart
NORTHERN PICTURE LIBRARY here to stay
BELLE AND SEBASTIAN put the book back on the shelf, if you’re feeling sinister

Side two:
STEREOLAB stomach worm, peng! 33, french disko
BROADCAST the book lovers
VELVET UNDERGROUND what goes on (from “live 1969”)
HEAVENLY three star compartment
CARPENTERS i need to be in love
SUPREMES stoned love
SHIRLEY BASSEY spinning wheel
DUSTY SPRINGFIELD the look of love

Tuesday July 14th

I miss Tim. I feel excommunicated from so much of my recent past, from a whole bevy of social circles, but ’twas ever thus. When I first moved here, he was the only soul I knew in the capital. Today my friends are whoever’s being kind to me at the time, including the cat from next door. He still rings me up to tell when The Style Council are going to be on TV, though. Tim, not next door’s cat.

In my broodier moments, I begin to feel I’m being punished, but am not sure why. Perhaps the crime is being Dickon, and the punishment is… staying Dickon. Or perhaps it’s just that modern syndrome, for which I’m as guilty as others: fair-weather friends, the fine art of blanking, friends come and go. London’s full of it. But nothing can change the fact that I’m really, really alone. Not part of a band, not part of a gang of friends, not part of a couple (surprise!). So I sit here and write. When the songs are ready I’ll start recruiting hapless things to help colour in the music.

It’s my new mantra. CREATE, DON’T SPECTATE. Scrawl it on a decrepit hoarding today!

Another mantra is “I only go where I’m invited”, to put the kibosh on the freeloading frenzy that was my former life. Charley invited me to see Hefner last week. They performed on a tiny stage that could barely fit the three of them. The support band was a four-piece, so one member had to stand in the audience to play. This is always a fun experience: I once saw Jon Slade, former Huggy Bear member and legendary lo-fi face, playing bass for a band, when he spotted someone in the audience he knew. He then walked off the stage into the audience and had a proper conversation with the friend while still playing bass, walking back onstage just in time for the end of the song.

Hefner were very quiet: they played with undistorted guitar and minimal drumkit (brushes rather than sticks), perhaps to emphasize singer Darren’s intelligent lyrics. I completely approve: so many gigs are simply too noisy to make out the words. This way, you also can have a conversation if you want to: why shouldn’t you? Some people put on music to have in the background to doing something else at home, so why not at concerts? I used to believe in that Townshend thing of playing so loud that people had to shut up and listen. I’ve gotten it out of my system now. After all, if I’m going to be singing (and it now looks that way), the music will have to be quiet to match. I have no projection at all. I still have to repeat myself to bus drivers. The three-button speech impediment doesn’t help either..

Cressida Johnson has a new adjective for my sort of brooding, it’s called “Dickonsian”. When she told me, I was so chuffed I nearly sat through a whole football match.

I’m still hell-bent on finding eventual fame as a medical term, though: “Dickon’s Syndrome”. The symptoms being…. this. It can’t be natural to be this ridiculous… it’s certainly not immensely healthy.

I’ve changed my email address. Write me a nice electric missive (with no swear words) about your life, do. What books are you reading? Which is your favourite soft toy? Are you a born victim or a born aggressor? What are your dreams like? Do you wear clothes in them to which you’d never give the time of day in the waking world, even on trips to the laundry?

Came across my copy of Denim’s “Summer Smash”, their EMIdisc (unreleased) 1997 single today. It still had the letter from Lawrence with it. “Dickon: you’ve made a great album, you should be proud.” What are my thoughts on Orlando (at least Orlando 1995-97) today? Flawed but an important experiment in pop. Of COURSE I blow my own trumpet, anyone else’s has got spit on it. We used Boyzone and B*witched’s producer sometimes. He didn’t understand us, but where else would you have Monica/Brandy-style swingbeat married to lyrics based on Henry James quotes? Remember innovation?

It’s not to do with Warp Records. They peddle a different kind of classical music, that’s all, like Mogwai. You might as well stay at home and put the record on. I went to that Meltdown thing. Was bored witless by Autechre and their cronies, but liked Broadcast. Doesn’t anyone else understand the importance of STYLE, and WORDS as well as music? Maybe I’m wrong, I have different criteria to some people.

Music that is currently cheering my slippers: that Bran Van 3000 single, Beck-ed, sure, but I actually prefer it to Beck: the humour is more self-deprecating: sheer slacker disco lyrics (feeling kinda groovy/working on a movie/”YEAH, RIGHT!”), McCarthy, the new Spice single, Thee Headcoatees, Hefner… Reading matter includes “popgirls”, a terrific fanzine by Amanda McKinnon (also known as Manda Rin from the band Bis), featuring interviews with Amelia from Heavenly, Sleater Kinney, Mira from Disco Pistol, Lois Maffeo… and most interestingly, lots of writings about her own life, much of it personal. Autobiographical fanzines are always a winner with me. Anyone can write about some band, but the one subject a writer can be a genuine authority on is their own life. As long as you don’t lie or whitewash, how can it fail to intrigue? Popgirls is available for $2 (inc postage), or one U.K pound + 50p postage. to – Amanda MacKinnon, P.O Box 3821 , Glasgow, Scotland, G46 6JY, UK.

Something else I should recommend if you’re in London on a Tuesday night: an excellent club night called Pin Ups, at the WKD Cafe in Kentish Town Road, near Camden Town tube… the DJ is Debbie Smith, who is always nice to me for some reason. She wants to give Fosca a gig there.

New song title: “How To Tell Taxi Drivers They’re Wrong”.

Last weekend I became extremely, painfully ill. Sadly, I recovered.

I spend most of the time I’m not at home in cafes listening to “characters”. It’s only a matter of time before I become that weird person, smelling slightly, flaunting my bad teeth and insane elbows, buttonholing strangers in cafes to tell them my thoughts for no reason. What am I saying, it’s already happened! Care in the community part 374, Dickon Edwards…

I was reading a book about the Smiths, when the phone rang. It was Geoff Travis. He wanted to know what I was doing. I wanted to ask him about the Smiths. He said that Ultrasound were the new Smiths. Later on I went outside and saw a squirrel.

The day before I had a boy and girl to visit. I made them cups of tea while they read one of my magazines and listened to Momus. To their dismay, the magazine had a big picture and interview of a trendy girl singer-songwriter that had stolen my girl visitor’s boyfriend. The same magazine also had a big picture and interview of a trendy techno group, one of whom had stolen my boy visitor’s girlfriend.

This I why I try not to have people round much. Or at least hide the magazines beforehand.

Today my knees are hurting, and all for the wrong reasons.

Thursday June 11th

Oh, how time flies when Satan’s having fun.

It’s Summer 1998 and the scent of apocalypse is in the air. Perhaps not just yet in the real world, but this week NME announces the beginning of the end for the mainstream UK music industry. It’s all over! The Phoenix Festival has been cancelled! Bands are being dropped by major labels left, right and centre! The Rolling Stones have to cancel gigs because they can’t afford their tax bills! Ah, calamity!

Apparently pop music is going to be sold entirely online in a few years time. I’m already way ahead of them. I buy CDs via mail order from online CD stores like Rough Trade and IMVS, from various indie labels’ own websites, or even from band homepages. Apart from anything else, I just love to get nice pop things in the morning post. But we’re now told even physical “product” will be a thing of the past: new music will be downloaded off the Net and collated on to one’s own CD-R along with printable inlay artwork. We’ll see. I remember something similar was predicted in the early 90s, that videos and video games were taking over from music full stop. It didn’t happen. Anyone want to buy a used CDI player?

More importantly, “thoughtful” music is going underground again, like it was in the 80s with labels like Rough Trade, Creation, 4AD and Blast First catering for those who couldn’t care less about the mainstream charts: mainstream was just not cool. Now a new pop revolution is inevitable. The careerists will be out on their arrears.

I don’t know about that. All I know is that I like jumping up and down with a guitar on a stage, playing songs that mean something to me and hopefully others. I could do it every now and then at Archway St John’s Tavern forever like The Headcoats, but I also want to go to wherever people want me to come. Actually the idea of becoming an underground legend like Billy Childish or Stephin Merritt appeals to me. I want to be a sort of English wordsmith’s Andy Warhol. But I suspect I’m actually Valerie Solanas.

Fosca needs a female singer. But I’m still determined to see David Barnett front a band, and if there are no other takers, I shall have to do it myself. Working title for this new group is Caligula.

I’ve been hitting the town for the first time in weeks. Inactivity breeds inactivity: the more you mope indoors with little more to occupy your time than admiring yourself in the mirror or having a good cry, the more you do nothing else. But once I go out, I find people inviting me to this, that and the other. And more often then not I sat up very late indeed, so the next day only really stars with… the evening. And so the cycle begins again. I charge myself with the following recent offences:

Weds 27th May: Garage: Marine Research, the new group formed by members of Heavenly. Amelia is more of a star than ever. Also on the bill are Milky, the new band formed by members of Posh.
Thurs 28th May: Islington: Rob Newman’s warm-up show for the Edinburgh Festival. Patchy, but he’s still a star too.
Friday 29th May: Farringdon: joint birthday party for Cathy Rogers, 30 (ex-Heavenly, now of Marine Research) and Vicky Chester, 26, another childlike girl who is not in a band but should be. Am mainly there to meet up with Julian Lawton and Simon Kehoe (both late 20s), two nice indie boys from my immediate past. There are cakes and sweets aplenty, giving the slightly spooky impression (in an Angela Carter way) of a childrens’ party. I don’t think anyone here is a parent, despite the majority of them being over 25, and some over 35. This, I assume, must explain it. Why have children when you can keep the good parts of being a child yourself? I’m not complaining, naturally. I’m the most guilty culprit myself. Afterwards we go to a Chinatown Mod club, where the boys look like Paul Weller and the girls like Twiggy. For once, my three-button suit isn’t so out of place.
Saturday 30th May: Camden Falcon: Diablo, the band featuring young Darian and Dan, freshfaced associates of mine. Then to Soho’s club Blow Up to catch Spearmint, who are as wonderfully odd in their pariah-pop way as ever, if still a little drably dressed. Their new single rips off both The Style Council’s “My Ever Changing Moods” and Dodgy’s “Good Enough”, which is a Good Thing. Then onto the club “Where It’s At” to say happy birthday to DJ Erol.
Monday 1st June: “Chicago”, the West End musical, with Charley. There were lots of “Cabaret”-isms like slinky, snake-like women in fishnet stockings, bowler hats etc. Which was fair enough, as it was the far less well-known follow-up musical to “Cabaret” in the first place, with the same writers and directors. Two of the songs “All That Jazz” and “Razzle Dazzle ‘Em” are so classic, “standard”, sounding (you probably know them without realising it), it’s difficult to accept they were written in the 70s, and not by Cole Porter or Irving Berlin.

After the show we went to Tower Records (open to midnight!), and because she was a little drunk on the interval wine, she was running around the shelves of CDs like, well, a little boy, and I felt like the “responsible” elder relative in charge. Affects tired adult voice: “Put it back, Charley, I’m not buying you anything till you start behaving…” We both spent too much: it’s always a danger to go shopping when you’ve had a few bevvies. Still, I snaffled the Cardigans last album, and Kate Bush’s “Hounds of Love” re-release… I think Charley also got some Duran Duran album she’d been after. The ironic thing about being mixed up in that “romo” palaver a while back is that I seem to be the only person in my variable circle of (non-romo) friends that DOESN’T like Duran Duran and Japan…maybe one day, though.

Wednesday 3rd July: Kenickie at the Electric Ballroom, Camden, with young Sir Kendall, whom I constantly embarrass by asking people if he looks like my double. My narcississm really amazes even me at times. The band are terrific, playing virtually all unreleased songs. This reminds me of The Field Mice, who rarely played released songs at all at their concerts, so their live bootlegs were always in demand. I think I’ve still got their Borderline show from 1990 (god!) somewhere. I think Tim still has all his Field Mice bootlegs, too. Anyway, Kenickie… I get physically dragged to the aftershow party, even though I’d promised myself those days were over. Then I drink far too much, and have difficulty remembering the rest of the evening. I can recall dancing and falling over, and saying to Paul Heaton “you da man”, much to my later chagrin, but that’s all. Later it transpires that I was dancing to everything except Kula Shaker. It’s good to know that even in the midst of wild, uncontrolled alcoholic amnesia, I still have my principles.

“You’re a bloody bugger”, says Peter. He is, like others, rather frustrated by my current lack of activity and willingness to get Fosca up and fighting again. With no one like Tim around to goad me into action (Tim would give me deadlines for providing the goods in Orlando), I am ashamed to report that I have been tending to not so much seize the day as let it slip sinfully through my pampered paws. Perhaps it’s a fear of the future, a fear of action, a glut of passivity and indulgence and a new surge in hermit-like isolation in Highgate, being part misanthropy, part agoraphobia. On the odd occasions I’ve stepped outside the house, I’ve been careful to avoid going anywhere I might bump into someone I know and, heaven forfend, have to speak to them. Why be actively creative when there’s so much creativity to passively enjoy? Why go out and see some derivative band in a Camden cave when I can lie in bed and listen to the wonderful Orange Juice album “You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever”, recently published on CD? I weakly justify this as taking a Holiday in Heaven: being by myself in one room in a quiet leafy avenue of North London with all my favourite things. But it has to stop, and it will stop.

One of the songs we recorded with Sav, “Leopard of Lime Street” looks likely now to appear on a forthcoming indie compilation CD, one of the “Snakebite City” series on Bluefire Records.

Meanwhile, the other Fosca cohorts are playing gigs you can troll along to if you’re in the UK:

Doctor David and Prince Peter are performing in the band Ackercocke on Sunday 3rd May at London’s Islington Red Eye, billed as “Satanic Death Metal” so bring the favourite of your mothers.

Lady Charley is on tour in the UK with the band Gay Dad, supporting Superstar, taking in a town near you (Leicester, Chelmsford, Middlesborough, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester, Oxford, Brighton, Bristol, Exeter, Birmingham, Reading and London’s Garage) from April 22nd to May 11th.

If you’re going to one of these gigs, do approach the above alumni and tell them Dickon sent you.

My Least Liked Words at present:

Career
Professionalism
Bluetones
Musician and Musicianship
DUH! or WELL, DUH! (and other USA slang banalities threatening to prevail on these shores)
CD1 & CD2
Millennium Bug
Busy
Person Under A Train
Waiting List
Paisley
Sophomore
Why Did You Leave Orlando They Were Good

My Favourite Words at present:

Snog
Abba
Juno 6
Rebate
Nit
Twist ‘n’ Squeeze
Baudrillard
Jude Law
Discount
Chuffed
Keep An Open Mind Or Else
Aren’t You Dickon?

Here’s the working titles of some Work In Progress.

“Clearly I’m Going To The Wrong Sort Of Parties”
“Banned From The Cutie Disco”
“Minimum Wage Love”
“Speech Therapy Junkie”
“Stalker Of The Century”

I hasten to add that it’s not the songwriting that’s taking up the time. Johnny Marr wrote “Still Ill”, “This Charming Man” and some other early Smiths gem in one evening. Paul McCartney wrote “Yesterday” before breakfast one day. James Joyce took ten years to write “Finnegan’s Wake”. And it’s rubbish.

Tuesday March 10th 1998

I spend a lot of time pacing about in my room. This helps me think. Ideas for songs and lyrics tend to come to me when I’m walking, whether it be traipsing down Archway Road in the middle of the night, or strolling through Alexandra Park on my way to the Marxist vegan cafe tucked between the trees there. And now I have my new mobile phonic indulgence, I talk and think creatively at the same time, pacing around my room, miniature Erikkson in hand, as I enthuse about musical possibilities, life, and sollipsist philosophy whether the poor listener wants to hear about them or not.

Charley manages, on this one instance, to get a word in edgeways. She tells me that, while surfing the Internet at her friend Ronnie’s place, she stumbled on something called the AMG Database, an ambitious on-line project of Herculean proportions, based in Michigan, USA. Their plan is to document everything musical released ever in a constantly expanding directory, with biographies and at-a-glance opinions, presumably those of the Database’s philanthropic New Age editors. This way, the curious can look up an artist, find out a bit about them, and get an idea about which releases they could investigate. I know there’s a few similar encyclopaedias of pop on the bookshelves, but an on-line one hasn’t entered my consciousness, until now.

“I typed in Salad, and there was only a cursory entry,” Charley goes on. “But when I typed in Orlando, there was this huge wedge of text about them, and you in particular.”

Succumbing to my vanity, I take a look. Sure enough, the Michigan holistic, astrology-loving editors have gone to the trouble of writing more about little old Orlando than they do about… well, quite a lot of more successful artists really, albeit with a few erroneous assumptions (“explicitly gay”? ). Much of it is flattering, particularly the idea that I play keyboards. I don’t, but I’m about to try.

I’ve recently been listening to a lot of Leonard Cohen (particularly his later “wordy doom disco” period), early Pulp (particularly the gleefully misanthropic “Dogs Are Everywhere”), Daniel Johnston, Stereolab, Piano Magic, Broadcast, Trembling Blue Stars and minimalist composers like Philip Glass, Michael Nyman and Steve Reich. And I’m now keen to experiment with odd-sounding keyboards and melodic loops myself, while reverting to making my lyrics more aesthetic, and less lazy like I was beginning to get in the now former version of Fosca.

On my way through Highgate Tube station this evening, I saw a familiar-looking man getting hauled over the coals by the desultory ticket collector for not having a valid enough travelcard. It turned out to be Mathew Parris, ex-Tory MP turned TV broadcaster, political commentator, columnist and writer, and possibly the only Tory supporter I’ve ever felt friendly towards: he is still to date the only Tory to have come out and was in the Pink Paper last year (as was Orlando at one point), just before the general election, urging the readers to vote for John Major for the best deal for homosexual citizens. Talk about a lone voice in the wilderness! I’ve read and enjoyed his books on famous putdowns (“Scorn”) and political gaffes (“Read My Lips”), which convey the man’s endearing sense of wryness and charm, however your political bent. And here he was, charming his way out of a £10 fine in my local tube station. I shook his hand and went on my way.