Wednesday November 11th

I spent last Friday evening at Popstarz, a club that takes place weekly at the Leisure Lounge, a huge hangar like underground space in Central London. An expensive night out, but there are three main rooms, an indie one, a trashy disco one, and a quiet “chill out” one. In other words, you can actually have a conversation there without shouting directly into someone’s ear, dance if you want to dance, or go into another room if you want to dance, but they’re playing something you don’t like.

Like Club V, it’s another gay indie night (though you can dance all night to 70s and 80s disco if you want), but one which feels it necessary to display in large yellow banners across the entrance “PLEASE RESPECT THAT THIS IS A GAY CLUB”. As if they’ve had Trouble there previously. Not nice.

I was there to meet Kate, a gloriously androgynous creature, brimming with style and immaculate dress sense. She used to be called Richard. She looks rather like the Jack Fairy character in “Velvet Goldmine”, though I suspect she’s tired of having this brought up. She tells me about the difficulties of getting a job, looking the way she does. There’s only one thing you can do if you find yourself born into an unusual frame, whether it be hermaphrodite, androgyne, transsexual, transvestite, or just odd to the conformist’s eye, and that’s get paid for being yourself. The Profession of Being, to which we really must all aspire before it’s too late.

Meanwhile, Agnes Apocalypse is in the air: reports of the armed forces being put on standby for New Year’s Eve, 1999, in case the Millennium Bug really does create all the unthinkable events the doomsayers forecast: massive failure of electricity, hospital life supports fail, traffic lights thrown haywire, missiles being launched. And then there’s the Global Economy Crisis. And Honduras lies in ruins. And today Mr Hussein is at it. Again. He’s a one, isn’t he?

Turn the pages: pop stars dropping babies like crazy, while Pro Lifers take the lives of doctors at US abortion clinics, and Jack Straw goes on about The Family. As if the solution to all this forthcoming death and misery is to reproduce yourself as quickly as possible. Babies are sacred, emotive devices used by tabloids to gain favour, to get the populace on Their Side. “Lesbian Moms: A Mockery of Motherhood”. “Mom Dies to Save Unborn Child”. “I Won’t Abort My Baby Because I’m Vegetarian, Says Teen Rape Victim.” As if infants or even foetuses have more use, more worth than fully grown human beings with proven qualifications, resources, training, experience, character, personality. “So what are you saying, that once someone reaches a certain age, they’re instantly off your Wish List?” (Bill Hicks).

Characters like Bridget Jones and Ally McBeal brainwash women into thinking they are slaves to their wombs, that the “biological clock” is ticking, that they’re not Proper Women without children. Childless women are branded, the inference goes, as “selfish”. As if blocking already crowded streets with pushchairs, and breaking the quiet of cafes with the sounds of howling and crying is somehow a far more philanthropic move. Yes, I know that says rather more about me than society, but you get the general idea.

People in the public eye, whether celebrities or subjects of Human Interest features, rattle tirelessly and tediously on about their new offspring being The Most Important Thing In My Life, when really such publicity hounds are talking about themselves. Be honest, kids are great copy, great press angles, great excuses for a spread in “Hello” magazine, great cries for attention, great boosts to the ego in convincing yourself that you’re a Good Person, and nothing else whatsoever. Babies are not beautiful. They all look like Winston Churchill chewing a particularly rancid dead wasp. They add a large side order of Stress to an already stress saturated existence. And I haven’t even mentioned the noise, the smells, the piss, shit, vomit and jam.

“Ah, but Dickon, you’re a MAN. It’s so easy for you to rant on like you do. You don’t know what it’s like to have a WOMB…” And this is it, of course I don’t. Which is why I love the respect Germaine Greer gets when she suggests sterilizing people after freezing their eggs and sperm in banks, only letting them have children when they can prove to the State that they’d make good parents. Exactly like people applying for adoption have to. Ms Greer goes on: you need a license for a dog, why not a permit for a child?

If I said things like that, I’d get into terrible trouble, so I tend to hold the coats and leave it to the feminists, stifling a “right on!” cheer under my cowardly Liberal breath.

But until I come back in my next life as a woman (and boy, you’ll have trouble shutting me up then…), of course I realise it’s as unfair for a man to persuade women not to have children as it is for Pro Lifers trying to stop women seeking abortions. Of course I’m Pro Choice when it comes down to it. It’s just that I can’t pretend this tabloid sponsored relentless rush to breed like there’s no tomorrow doesn’t depress and obsess me more than ever.

Such sprog-worshipping hysteria only really fuels the Pro Life way of thinking: Babies Uber Alles. It’s also a great way of Keeping Women In Their Place, something that people of both sexes still think is actually A Good Thing even in 1998. It’s one of the reasons that throughout the history of civilisation female artists, philosophers, scientists, musicians and so on are somewhat dwarfed in number by their male counterparts, that the Woman’s Section in bookshops is a Minority Section, when 51% of the world are female. It’s the reason for global patriarchy. Female emancipation starts from Day One with both A Room of One’s Own and the right to abortion. But apparently it’s not that obvious to some people, male and female. Actually, I wish it was just “some” people.

You’ll realise I’m not even daring to touch on the subject of religion here. That’s an even more fruitless rant. It’s glib and inappropriate to get into the subject of Faith if you’re an unbaptised heathen like myself that only has faith in the immediately obvious and apparent.

So I’m speaking only of what IS the immediately obvious and apparent to me. Of course abortion is no picnic. But compare it to spending the rest of your life compromised, living a lie, trying to convince yourself daily that you’re a Good Parent, that homelessness and poverty and Just Having A Really Rubbish Life don’t exist, and neither does the world population problem, baiting War and Nature to do some serious levelling even more. It pretty much comes out as the lesser of two evils in my book.

If this misguided trend of headlong reproduction for its own sake isn’t voluntarily, sensitively challenged on our own terms, we may find it gets curbed externally and brutally in the near, dark future. Something’s got to give. And that’s what really keeps me awake at night.

Oh, that and the thought of Oxford Street on a Saturday afternoon. Yes, yes, all right.

Pro Lifers really astound me though. Going so out of their way (snipers?!) to stop people who have already made a pretty difficult decision, as if termination was just some kind of whim, one of someone’s funny little ways. All that campaigning throughout the century by feminists to get abortions available free to those that need them, and it means nothing to these self-righteous idiots. It’s not enough that in Catholic dominated countries, Ireland included, where abortion is illegal, dead babies are regularly found in litter bins, in rivers, in lay-bys. Pro Lifers don’t seem to make the connection at all.

It’s what keeps me going, you know. I can always set a Bad Example. “Don’t have children… they might turn out like Dickon Edwards”.

Or worse, they might grow up to be a Pro Life campaigner.

Nice Celebrity of the Week in my books: Mr Steve Coogan.

My brother Tom has recorded a demo solo CD under the name Son of Kong. Samples, instrumentals, breakbeats (whatever they are). He was always the technically astute member of the family. One track is based around samples from the series “I’m Alan Partridge”. It’s called “Norwich is an Attitude”. To trounce this, the track after that is an answering machine message from Steve Coogan, thanking him both in character as Alan P, and as himself, after Tom sent him a copy.

And so I’m shamefacedly reminded of all the letters and emails I have still yet to reply to, some of them months old. I’m really, really, really sorry, about this, everyone. Steve Coogan, proper celebrity, thanks my brother personally and there’s me, hardly a household name, hardly hard at it every night on a West End stage, and I’m too hopeless to reply to all of them. Please write again if you are out there expecting a reply. I’m trying to be better, honest.

You can buy the Son of Kong CD (which also won Demo of the Month in Mix Magazine) by writing c/o 27 Woodbridge Road, Ipswich, Suffolk IP4 4NX, UK.

I buy the new Billy Childish offering: “17% Hendrix Was Not The Only Musician”. Artwork, photos, poetry, fiction, music and manifestos, the latter about starting a war between Artists and Critics: “Only a pompous fool would de-sky a hawk, tack out its mortal guts, rummage around in its very entrails and then declare themselves to now understand beauty… The critic must be forced to his knees and made to apologise in public for his deceitfulness and the error of his ways… Under no circumstances should the artist ever strike the vile critic, even when being stroken.”

Sadly, I have a tendency to not only stroke critics, even chasing some critics with sycophantic unctuousness as if I need their approval (but I’m trying to put a stop to this particular character fault, not so much turning the other cheek but ripping it off my face and throwing it into the worldview of my detractors) but have actively befriended a few of those who have stroken my own putridly outsized head. My only defence is that I see these critics as quasi-artists in comparison to their more thick, ugly, two-faced colleagues. Certainly they’re more like artists than some of the artists they have to write about. One of my favourite writers, Dorothy Parker, was a critic. I think I’d have to part the Red Sea of Hacks here. There are two kinds: the Critics and the Basically A Good Person But Still A Critic Critics.

I understand one of the latter gaggle, Mr Andrew Mueller, formally of the IPC gang but now at the British broadsheets, reads these pages. We once appeared together on a national live radio discussion show talking about pop music. At one point he cited The Ronettes as a Motown group. I corrected him on air. “The artist should educate the critic”, after all. (Wilde). Hi, Andrew.

Actually, I tend to wince at the use of the term “artist” when describing bands and groups. Too American star-system for me. Too precious.

Billy Childish even once released a single with his band, Thee Headcoats, called “We hate the Fucking NME”. This week, he’s interviewed by the, er, NME. More proof that all you have to do to earn unconditional respect is to just not be young and new. Mitigating circumstances will always endear you to the British press and public. The Captain Scott syndrome. Such circumstances include your rhythm guitarist going missing (Manics). And being about for ages, ideally now past 30 (Pulp, Childish). And appearing to be thick and uncultured (Liam Gallagher). It’s easier to respect someone that you don’t think “sickening swine, they’ve got everyone, they’re superior, richer, better-looking, younger, more intelligent, more cultured and happier than me”. Mitigate just one of these criteria and the world is allowed to be yours.

Good interview, though.

I have only ever been an occasional critic myself, and even then only because I wanted to praise some otherwise overlooked gem. One aspect of critic life I find particularly baffling is their approach to each other. They’ll happily gossip away when artists get romantically involved with each other, but once an artist literally sleeps with the enemy, the critics close ranks around their own kind with the kind of protective furour not usually seen outside the White House. Very odd. Taylor Parkes (Melody Maker) and Lauren Laverne (Kenickie) were a fairly well-known couple in public while they lasted, but it was never mentioned in the press, only hinted at or skirted around with cowardly innuendo. Even Mr Parkes’ previous coupling with fellow critic Caitlin Moran was far more talked about in the press, not least by themselves, yet they were both in the same line of work. Just not on opposite sides of the trenches, one presumes. I’m reminded of those World War One American recruiting posters depicting the Kaiser as a savage, slavering mad-eyed ape dragging off a helpless damsel, with the slogan “Destroy This Mad Brute – Enlist”. The Kaiser and our own American-allied King George were, of course, close family cousins.

Similarly odd is the way critics will otherwise turn on each other, hating a band purely because they’re not keen on the other bands liked by the critic who likes said band. Much like me and my brother when we were growing up together: he got Frank Zappa, The Cult and Hendrix, I got New Order and the Smiths. We never crossed over territories, perish the thought. Likewise at IPC Towers, Critic A is averse to finding room in his heart for Critic B’s pet groups, and Critic B goes out of his way to slate Orlando for the same reason. This is a terrible shame to me, because I suspect Critic B, oh all right, Mr Ian Watson, has a record collection that is far similar to mine than Critic A, sorry, Mr Simon Price’s is. It’s a strange and sad set-up, but the saddest thing is it seems entirely natural and makes perfect sense. I just wish it wouldn’t. From this innate territorialism comes the dreaded Received Opinions and Not Okay To Like kind of taste-fascism that British critics swear by.

Even this week in Melody Maker, Orlando feature in a Kenickie-themed “Great Bands That Could Have Been Contenders” list. Denim, Strangelove, Northern Uproar… and Orlando are singled out by a sinister editorial comment replying to the writer (presumably Orlando-likers Peter Robinson or Ben Knowles…. oh no! I’ve outed them!) asking “you didn’t listen”. “Because they were shit – Good Taste Ed” is the addendum in parenthesis. The subtext is clear. “I don’t like them, and I forbid you to like them either”, says the anonymous oppressor of opinion, desperate to fit a square Consensus peg into a round Press hole. Spraying the room against the pestilence of Independant Thought. Why the need to go out of their way to preach such witless naysaying against one of their own kind? I can only deduce Orlando must have violently threatened their microcosmic world in some way, because we hardly threatened the real world. But isn’t that a good thing? To get a reaction? To strive for innovation? To provoke an emotion? Even a negative, inarticulate one?

Meanwhile, everyone else I know has long since wasted energy on worrying about such things: it’s just me. How hard I still reach out for the crowd-blending, ignorant Mediocrity of being Liked Across The Board! And how greatly it eludes my pariah grasp! Is it a crime to have not been born into a careful, unprovoking Embrace? Pity me on this cold Halloween night with not a press officer in sight to hurl onto the fire!

Friday October 30th

Two people phone me up. One wants me to model some clothes on World Aids Day (Dec 1st) at some staged charity event at the Freedom Cafe, the other requires me to sit on a stage with Patrick Strangelove, who wants to recreate his bedsit on stage and fill it with “visitors”. I say yes to both of them, always keen to try anything once (except paedophilia and morris dancing). Meanwhile I turn down separate requests for Fosca to play at Club V and the Poetry Cafe. Something is definitely askew in my priorities.

Ron Davies, former Welsh Secretary, when asked if he was gay: “I don’t want to get into that…. I’m aware of some of the stories and rumours in the newspapers….”.

Which of course means “yes”.

My old chum Matthew Parris (see previous diary entries) goes on Newsnight and casually outs Peter Mandelson, which is odd because he once wrote a piece on how outing was wrong. Clearly something has happened to change his views. A landslide election defeat of his old party, perhaps.

It’s strange the way sexuality is still a source of great umbrage among some of the famous, bringing to mind the saying “I’d rather be black than gay… at least you don’t have to tell your mother.”

This week Tom Cruise successfully sues, Jason Donovan-style, against such allegations. Considering what happened to Mr Donovan’s career after the court case, I’d start to worry about my future if I was Mr Cruise. Libel seems so petty if it’s not trying to do some general good, like the McLibel case, individuals battling against gigantic corporate powerblocks rather than idle gossip about self-important individuals. I plead guilty to the latter, of course. I still prefer being talked about at all than being ignored, even if it means people going about with fabricated ideas of myself that are twisted so far from the truth it’s ridiculous. I have never liked Kula Shaker, your honour.

I buy a book to cheer me up after being massively disappointed by “Velvet Goldmine”: “Manic Street Preachers – In Their Own Words”. If anything, I sometimes prefer reading Manics interviews than listening to their actual music. I occasionally put Morrissey under this category too. Towards the back of the Manics book is a page on other individuals talking about the band.

And there I am.

Not a bad quote either. I come out of it looking pretty eloquent next to Martin “Boo Radleys” Carr’s “The Holy Bible album is fucking awesome.”

Simon Price tells me I’m in his forthcoming Manics book too. The danger here, is of just being known for knowing others, or saying something about others. But again, it’s supremely better from the narcissist’s point of view than not being known at all. I recently advertised I was selling some of my “Theaudience” rarities on the bands’s internet fan-mailing-list. And I got several people asking me if I was That Dickon Out of Orlando. Not Orlando fans, just wanting to know.

I wondered, does Camille Paglia get this when she tries to sell her theaudience singles? Then I realised the solution. Don’t buy singles by theaudience in the first place. Some days I feel like selling my entire “collection” of CDs and records and tapes. All I need are The Supremes Greatest Hits. That’s all anyone needs, really.

And then Cressida says, “oh, my therapist’s husband has heard of you.”

Mad Old Charlie in the cafe yesterday: “you’ve got a great image. Image is 90% of getting there.” Getting where, exactly? Smelling slightly in a cafe?

So while I’m languishing, parasitically, on the back of other bands’ books on the shelves at Waterstones, this week Tim’s at HMV in a similar contex. Twice. I treat myself and buy four brand new, just-released CD compilations in one day, most of the songs on all four being in my possession already, but they are great compilations:

Diana Ross and the Supremes – “40 Golden Motown Greats”
Galaxie 500 – “The Portable Galaxie 500”
The Style Council – “The Complete Adventures of…”
The Field Mice – “Where’d You Learn To Kiss That Way?”

And there’s Tim in the sleeve notes to the latter two. Well, the Style Council “history” booklet “Mr Cool’s Dream Edition 3” is only available at HMV, but he gets a mention in its Genuine Acclaim of Previous Editions section. He’s in the Field Mice booklet proper, though.

It’s a strange feeling when you buy a book and you discover you’re in it.
It’s a strange feeling when you buy four CD compilations and you discover two of them have your ex in the sleeve notes.

Tim and I meet up for the first time in a while and “take in a show”. Comedy at Madame Jo-Jo’s, the site of Club Arcadia two years ago. More ghosts. He says he’s just done an interview where he describes me as Hank Kingsley to his Larry Sanders. Hank Kingsley, in “The Larry Sanders Show”, is a buffoonish sidekick. I take this in the same way I’ve taken other back-handed compliments in the past, having been described in the press as both a “likeable prat” and “sexy cadaver”. To be fair, I’ve always thought of myself as a sort of cross between Frank Spencer and Andy Warhol. I do all my own stunts. With neurotic style.

I personally prefer to instead think of Tim as Kate Beckinsale to my Chloe Sevigny in “The Last Days of Disco”. I take abuse of all kinds passively, from so-called friends and indeed so-called strangers, but I’ll triumph gently and quietly in the end. You’ll see.

Pete out of Pete-and-Amelia phones me out of the blue. For the first time.”Pop quiz. We’re racking our brains here. What is Republica’s main hit? The biggest one?”

“Ready to Go”.

“You’ve made a roomful of people very happy. Bye.”

I’m good for something in this world.

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.