Sunday night: to Kash Point at Moonlighting, Greek Street, Soho. KP has become an occasional event in town, but it’s otherwise unchanged from its days as a monthly club. It’s still a little corner of London that’s forever Leigh Bowery Land (I guess to younger generations, Mr Bowery might be best known as the inspiration for the performance artist character in ‘Spaced’, vividly personified by David Walliams). The usual people dressed in artily outre attire: lots of homemade shoulder pads, dayglo robot androgyny, epicene young men in latex ‘gimp’  garb with 1950s housewife shades (ie pure Bowery), sci-fi widow veils, frilly mutant Ascot hats, high boys in higher heels. One thinks of the movie ‘Liquid Sky’, or JP Gaultier’s costume designs in ‘The Fifth Element’, or Japanese manga cartoons. For once, I don’t feel the most cartoonish-looking person in the room.

Actually, Heath Ledger’s Joker in ‘The Dark Knight’ wouldn’t be out of place here, either.

The most striking ensemble is worn by the KP stalwart known as Little Richard. He tends to go for the ‘things found in a skip’ approach to dressing up: lots of duct tape, foam sheets, bubble wrap and bin liners. Topped off tonight with one of those mirrors used in Tube station corridors or on sharp bends in country roads: circular and convex and large enough to mask his face entirely.  I presume he either has eye-holes (and beer holes) just behind the mirror, or that he genuinely can’t see a thing and is perfectly happy to stay that way all evening. Regardless, he’s a memorable sight, nonchalantly propping up the bar. People use his face to check their make-up.

I heard Kash Point usually provides a dressing room area for people with extreme outfits to get changed, but I still like to think Richard arrives and goes home like this, sitting on buses, standing at bus stops, big round mirror for a head.

Other faces there – at least those I can see – include DJs Bishi (who as a performer was nominated for a South Bank Show award this year), Richard Torry and Matthew Glamorre, whose 40th birthday it is. Patrick Wolf says hi, as does a young lady from Croydon who says kind things about Fosca. Young things: Lawrence G, Nat R, Harry from Club Bohemia. And from my past: Trevor, the drummer from Plastic Fantastic (and Minty, and Miranda Sex Garden). I last spoke to him on the Romo tour, in early 1996. His girlish long hair is now cut to a more boyish floppy fringe-length, but he’s still thin and cheekboney, and decked out in a Manga-style suit and tie.

We talk about the infamous Romo tour. Funny how one can be nostalgic for failure. Except of course, there were more than a few people who did like the band (Orlando), who wrote letters, who sent homemade presents.

There’s having no fans. And then there’s having little sales and meagre audiences, but a small following. Long letters of devotion from more than a few people one doesn’t know personally. Facebook messages a decade later from people who recognise your name and just want to say how much they liked such-and-such a song.

But even having no fans whatsoever (outside of friends and family) isn’t entirely failure, either. True failure is doing nothing at all in the first place – not trying. I’m glad I did, rather than didn’t. But it’s so hard to even talk about this period without getting defensive, and sounding vain (why stop now, etc.)

The trouble with talking about yourself is that you have to declare an interest.

A slapstick start to the day, when I absent-mindedly confuse my breath freshener spray with my eau de toilette. The rest of Friday is thus spent tasting eau de toilette in my mouth – soapy, synthetic, unpleasant. Not the first time this has happened, either.

It reminds me of the comedian Steven Wright’s line about mixing up his door key with his car key, and starting up his building.

I think I’ve always been like this. It’s not so much ‘losing it’ as never quite having ‘it’ in the first place. My mind is always wandering, but the thing is, it’s not out of idleness or lack of interest. It’s more a resistance to settling for one thing at a time. An awareness of the sheer sweetshop-ness of things to think about. Why choose when one can lunge for everything at once (and so miss out entirely)? What others label distraction, I call greed.

Which is an excuse to put up a photo I rather like from a year or so ago. I’m enjoying afternoon tea at the Wolseley with Ms L (in the foreground) and company. I wonder what’s causing me to gaze out of frame so? Could be something. Probably everything.

(photo by Tallulah Newton)

A mixed review of the Fosca album on the SoundsXP website.

‘Having occupied the position of the most recognisable man on the London gig circuit for many years now, Fosca front man Dickon Edwards…’

I hardly ever go to (or play) London gigs at the moment. Clearly I don’t need to if I’m still thought to be ubiquitous. Maybe I’ve left a kind of ghosting effect in my wake.

‘…Edwards never seems to show any sign of aging…’

Can’t complain about that. Though that said, when I’ve had this comment in the past, it’s often been a resentful, backhanded one; paving the way for a line about being all looks and no content.

‘…Edwards is all too often a case of style over substance…’

There you go! That train’s never late!

‘…on the plus side, his barnet and the dreadful attempt at an ‘oh-ooh’ on opener I’ve Agreed To Something I Shouldn’t Have does suggest an alternative career as a Jimmy Saville impersonator awaits…’

I’d draw the line at the shell suits, though.

‘…Confused And Proud manages to be a minor shoegaze classic despite not featuring any guitars whatsoever.’

So much for Tom’s Cocteau Twins-y guitar arpeggios all over the mix. Still, nice to have made a minor shoegaze classic.

‘It’s notable that the real highlight comes when keyboardist Kate Dornan takes over writing and singing duties on the delightfully jangly Evening Dress at 3pm.’

Good for Kate, though it’s actually Rachel singing lead on that track. Different side of the Pennines.

‘Themes of outsiderness, misanthropy and defeatism run through the record like a stick of rock…’

I think they mean ‘like letters through a stick of rock’…

‘… suggesting that Edwards retains his unique look as a way of waving two fingers at an uncaring world.’

Hmmm. I appreciate it might seem that way to some, but that’s really not my intention one jot. Maybe it was when I was a younger, cockier tyke, but not now, and not on the album either.

I just feel slightly at an angle to the universe (to use the Peter Cook phrase), and think it’s only fair to dress accordingly, rather than pretend to be something I’m not. That’s all. I’m too polite to wave fingers.

I also bristle uneasily at the idea of misanthropy: I like to think I’m closer to a New Romantic Ghandi. Or if you will, a Ghandi dandy. Oh, all right, you won’t.

I wanted the album to be more about acknowledging but resisting that very urge to walk around in a fug of bitterness, accepting – and embracing – one’s individuality without being tiresomely solipsistic and indulgent about it. Hence ‘Come Down From The Cross (Someone Needs The Wood)’. Well, that’s what I tried to do, anyway. Heigh and indeed ho.

Still, I’m grateful for the album being reviewed at all.

RIP Isaac Hayes and Simon Gray. Rather different creative artists who nevertheless share one thing in common. They both ended up as personifications of specific pleasures. Respectively, sex (Hayes’s character on South Park) and smoking (Gray’s unexpectedly bestselling diaries).

***

Recent outings. To the V&A with Ms A for the Supremes show. Frocks and costumes from Mary Wilson’s collection, as worn throughout her career with the group, with and without Diana Ross. Fantastic exhibition, particularly impressive when the dresses worn for album sleeve photo shoots are displayed next to the album sleeves themselves. One sleeve next to another, in fact. I’ve been familiar with those albums for so long; such distant glamour, such perfect music. To be face to face (or face to sequin) with the gowns in question is utterly thrilling. Best of all are the psychedelic butterfly-winged frocks, as seen on the cover of their last studio album with Miss Ross, ‘Cream Of The Crop’.

Also on show are US magazines from the Supremes’ heyday, illustrating how such immortal music arose amid somewhat less immortal attitudes. Sample 60s magazine headline: ‘Are Negro Women Getting Prettier?’

***
To the Cadogan Hall (a few weeks ago) with Ms S, to see The Magnetic Fields in concert. Same band set-up as their first posh London gig, the QEH circa ’69 Love Songs’: grand piano, cello, musicians sitting down on stools, no synths, drums or drum machines. An atmosphere of hushed, stately reverence.

Which I’m not sure is quite the best setting for the MF songs. Not for two whole sets, anyway. It’d be fair enough if every song was in the same vein as ‘The Book Of Love’, which just needs Mr M’s voice, a solo instrument and indeed, hushed reverence from an audience. But the Merritt ouevre includes jaunty, upbeat pop songs, swaggering waltzes, and unashamedly silly Dr Seuss-like ditties, too. If your music falls between stools, it seems strange to stay sitting on stools to play it.

Mr M notes this disparity, particularly as this ultra-quiet, mostly acoustic concert is promoting an album of ultra-noisy rock songs, ‘Distortion’. ‘If you like our records,’ he announces, ‘you probably won’t like the way we’re playing the songs tonight. And vice versa.’

When I first saw them at the tiny 12 Bar in 1996 (for the launch of the ‘Get Lost’ album), I think the format was Mr M and Ms G both standing up, with a synth, guitar, and possibly a drum machine. They did the same thing a day or two later, for a support slot with the Divine Comedy at the Water Rats. Amelia Fletcher joined them on guest vocals, wearing an Orlando badge. It remains my favourite Mag Fields concert memory to date, though I’m obviously biased.

Still, I can hardly blame them for wanting to take the leap, as they successfully did with ’69 Love Songs’, from entry-level indie rock bars, straight to civilised seated concert halls, the kind more suited to classical recitals. And I guess the stooled-up, ‘shhh! haughty genius on stage’ format suits Mr Merritt’s temperament to a tee.

‘Aw, he’s so miserable and stand-offish!’ says Ms S to me afterwards. ‘Don’t you just LOVE him?’

More tidying up.

I was asked to post a scan of the L’Uomo Vogue piece I’m in. Here it is, thanks to this italian website.

Here’s the cover. It’s issue #392, July / August 2008. I am told the man on the front is something to do with football:

And here’s the article. There I am: second page, top left, as photographed by Sarah Watson.

A translation of the article can be found at Dandyism.net.

Fosca are playing their first ever Spanish gig next month. My first time in Spain, apart from travelling along the southern coast to get to, or from, Tangier.

Date: Fri Sept 12th
Time: Doors 10pm, Fosca onstage 11pm.
Venue: La Pequeña Bety, c/Reina 4, Madrid 28004, Spain. Tel: 91 522 0796
Web: www.myspace.com/littlebety

Here’s the flyer:

Here’s an interview I don’t think I’ve mentioned. It’s in Zero Mag. In Swedish:

fosca_zeromag (PDF file)

We’re rehearsing for the Madrid show as a three piece (me, Rachel, Charley Stone).

After that, there’s the new single we recorded on the Swedish tour, which But Is It Art Records will be putting out.

And then… Well, I’m not sure. Maybe nothing more, maybe something else. I think it’s wrong to force oneself to write and record purely for the sake of it, if you’re not actually keen on doing it any more, and it’s not even paying the bills. But it’d also be wrong to say that’s it for my life with music, only to find a new album popping into my head, demanding to be made. We shall see. Best keep an open mind (or else).

I have some photos left over that aren’t really Gallery material, but which I want to show the world anyway…

This is from the Phoebe Allen shoot. It’s Hoxton Sq in April, which at the time was playing host to a very convincing group of mannequins. From my diary at the time:

In Hoxton Square on a rather cold morning: I pose next to a very realistic-looking art exhibit comprising life-size mannequins in forensic white suits and masks, posed as if they’re combing a section of the square in the manner of a crime scene. Except the fluttering tape around them isn’t labelled ‘POLICE’, but ‘THE TELL-TALE HEART’. As in the Edgar Allen Poe story.

On the bench nearby sits a shivering lady with a clipboard and one of those handheld clicker-counters used to count visitors. She tells me it’s part of a Harland Miller show at the nearby White Cube gallery, influenced by Poe.

I’ve been uploading lots of new high-res photos to the DE website gallery. About time too.

The new pics are mainly from the Gillian Kirby session in Brompton Cemetery last year, plus the Phoebe Allen shoot around Hoxton and Shoreditch a few months ago.

Only thing is, I’ve overdone it and need to remove a few. Do take a look and let me know which ones are your favourites, in case they’re the ones I delete…

On the Saturday, I turn up at the Gemeentemuseum for the opening of ‘The Ideal Man’ show, wondering what’s expected of me. That’s it – I just have to be present. So I sip wine, pose for photos, and chat with Dutch and English art types, including a few dandies and male models.

A journalist shakes my hand.

Him: You are now one handshake away from the next president of the United States.

Me: You mean…?

I stop myself from mentioning a name, in case he’s a fan of Mr McCain. It’s not THAT foregone a conclusion, surely.

Him: I interviewed Barack Obama last week, and shook his hand. So you’re now one handshake away from Barack Obama. From now on, anyone who shakes YOUR hand is only TWO handshakes away from Barack Obama.

Me: Right. Good. Okay. Gosh. Blimey. (more Hugh Grant noises)

I once met a UK journalist who liked playing this game, working out that he was six handshakes away from Ghandi, or Adolf Hitler, or Peaches Geldof, or whoever. Cue joke: ‘You’re now one handshake away from Dave The Terminal Leper…’

I find my suit in the exhibition. It’s in the ‘Dandies’ room. The mannequin has been given a bowler hat, for some reason:

And there my suit (plus shirt, tie and hanky) will stay until October.

Other exhibits include a parade of dandy-inspired outfits by Mr Gaultier, a pair of Elvis Presley’s pyjamas (which I wish I could have tried on), a white tuxedo with tails as worn by Marlene Dietrich, and a suit from the late President Mitterand. There’s also lots of catwalk ensembles which are, as you’d expect, more Art than Fashion. I particularly like a pink costume which exposes one leg and has a horse’s head on the shoulder. Like a gay equine Zaphod Beeblebrox:

***
The ferry back is peaceful enough, though as it’s daytime there’s a lot more people on board than the night crossing. Booking a cabin isn’t compulsory, and the fare is cheaper if you don’t do so. But not by much (£13 ish). So I get one, always cherishing a room of one’s own. Or somewhere to escape.

Well, nearly escape. As we dock in Harwich, there’s a knock at my cabin door. I open it to find no one there, but note that the old lady in the cabin opposite has also opened her door. We look about together, baffled, then spy a group of Dutch teenage boys marching quickly away down the corridor, knocking on every door as they go. They’re playing Knock Down Ginger. In Dutch. More universal teens.

One of the boys in the group – a huge, rugby-ready lad – glances back at me and catches my eye. And of course it’s me that feels he has to run away. I quickly duck back inside my cabin, and lock the door.

***

My only mistake is to come back to the UK on a Sunday evening, the day of Engineering Works. At Harwich, those three dreaded words loom into view on a notice board: Rail Replacement Service.

I have to take a ludricous boneshaker of a double-decker round the winding country lanes from Harwich to Manningtree – fearing the thing might topple over at any moment. Then there’s a second coach to Witham, followed by a 30 minutes’ wait for a slow train to London. By the time I arrive at Liverpool St, it’s nearly midnight – I’ve spent nearly four hours travelling in Essex – and I’ve missed the last Tube. I forget Sunday is also the day of Tubes Finishing Earlier.

I’m not the only one to be stranded, either. There’s an undignified scramble for taxis, with people spilling out onto the street to try and grab cabs before they arrive at the taxi rank. One £25 fare later, I’m finally back in Highgate.

The Panaroma Mesdag is a gem – a huge 360-degree mural one views by standing inside an observation tower. It’s painted in 1881 by HW Mesdag, and depicts the nearby holiday resort Scheveningen, a name so hard for non-Dutch natives to pronounce that it was rumoured to be used in WWII interrogations for rooting out German spies. The Panorama is part of a small Mesdag gallery – his seascapes are equally impressive and vivid, rather like early Turners.

Then I nip over on a tram to Scheveningen itself, to compare the 1881 painting with the resort as it is today. It’s a huge and popular place – the beach seemingly endless in either direction. I walk around in a suit while surrounded by thousands of Dutch people in swimming costumes and Speedos – that’ll be me being me, then.

While in Scheveningen I wander on the double decker pier, peek inside the ornate Kurhaus’s ceiling, and coo at the seahorses and giant turtles in the Sea Life aquarium. Best of all, I discover the Beelden Aan Zee sculpture gallery, with its Tom Otterness figures in bronze outside. He has a thing for round-headed, triangle-hatted little men, inspired by fairy tales and fiction. His ‘Herring Eater’ is gigantic:

While his Moby Dick looks rather friendly and cute, even when eating people:

(Images from Wikipedia)

Inside is a touring show from the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, on the theme of metamorphosis. It’s called ‘Against Nature’. Always a good sign. Incredible stuff: mythological figures, angels, centaurs, androgynes, humans stuck in otherworldly transitions, a man with a lace-up face (the ultimate Nike acolyte?), gooey abstract renditions of lovers melting into each other as they kiss, and Mr Epstein’s robot-like ‘Rock Drill’ creature. Except it’s not the famous bronze torso (as seen in the Tate), but a recreation of Epstein’s original 10ft-tall plaster cast, where the masked figure has a full body and rides an actual rock drill:

Language-wise, I manage okay in English – guiltily. But I do come unstuck in the Museum Of Communication, the only tourist attraction in The Hague that’s entirely in Dutch. I’m guessing the irony has already been pointed out.