Okay, so Elizabethan Serenade was by Ronald Binge, not Eric Coates. I got my British Light Music composers in a twist. Mr Coates did the themes from ‘The Dambusters’ and ‘Desert Island Discs’. Mr Binge did ‘Elizabethan Serenade’ and ‘Sailing By’. Right, got that.

***

There’s a photo of me on Page 96 of the current Time Out, as one of the exhibits in Jamie McLeod’s exhibition on Modern Dandies. The pic’s also in my website Gallery, though Firefox does that washed-out thing to the colours which I don’t understand:

http://dickonedwards.co.uk/jamie-mcleod/

***

Have just been trying to write about my birthday, only to go into a 2000 word rant / ramble about the nature of adult birthdays, the guilt trips, the obligations, the switch from paper cards to Facebook greetings, how I equate them with New Year’s Eve in that there’s no way I can’t feel anything but uneasy about them. I also have learned that if you DO want a gathering of friends around you, you HAVE to organise the gathering well in advance, and tell EVERYONE in EVERY possible way. A successful birthday is, like most types of success, just a question of hustling and PR.

I’ve found that the best thing for me to do is to stop moping about at home, go out to someone else’s social event (there’s always SOMETHING on), casually mention it’s my birthday, then find that the friends I’m with will kindly buy me a few drinks, or even take me for an impromptu meal round the corner.

‘So how are you?’

‘Well, today’s my birthday.’

‘Really! I didn’t know. So what are you doing for it?’

‘Well, this, now.’

‘Oh. Well, would you like a drink?’

But – oh – some people do birthdays better than others. I’ll stop that rant right here in the interests of positive thinking.

***

I’m just having an ARGH time of things lately. Forgive me. Writing’s not coming, or if it does, it’s all complaints and whining and cynicism and general self-pity. ARGH, and indeed, ARGH, frankly.

As proof you never know who’s reading, and that one must be careful in a public diary when naming times and places as well as names, I’ve received an email from a chap from the band Red Atlas, regarding my previous grumpy entry. They want to know if it was them I was referring to as The Most Awful Band In The History Of Humanity, playing too loudly in the rehearsal room next door:

I too was rehearsing at Audio Underground on Monday in the uncoveted 7-10pm spot. I’m hoping that the aforementioned Most Awful Band In Humanity next door were the fifty strong thrash rockers who peppered the evening with chirrupping “rock and roll”s and squawling twin guitar salvos – with the doors open yet! – and not our own resolutely British Pop Stuff.

Oh yes, it was definitely a thrash rock outfit. Or perhaps they called themselves ‘Sludge Metal’, a term I saw in a ‘Drummer Wanted’ ad on the studio noticeboard. Charming description: I’ll take two!

But I was more bemoaning the seemingly eternal rule of rehearsal room life: that the band next door will always be (a) too loud despite soundproofing, and (b) play the most unlovely sound in the world.

That said, it’s funny how even a sound you might quite like to hear leaking out through the walls – say, ‘Elizabethan Serenade’ by Eric Coates – is unfailingly rendered unpleasant by the process. Loud music from next door is just always unwelcome, regardless.

Actually, my upstairs neighbour plays loud 1920s Ivor Novello-type records, but as the recordings from that era all have zero ‘bass end’, the sound hardly makes it through the ceiling at all. Very considerate of him.

On the bus home last night, a Young Person was playing some loud music from their phone’s speaker – a recent common annoyance which I persuade myself to not mind by remembering the cassette-playing ‘Ghetto Blasters’ of the 80s. They were far, far worse. From the 90s till about two years ago, there was a gap between the ghetto blasters going out of fashion (with the switch to CDs) and the new phone variety coming in. So there’s been a whole generation of youths who actually didn’t play loud music on public transport, purely because there wasn’t a desirable gadget around at the time with which to do so. Portable CD players were just too mumsy, I suppose: one associates them with aerobics classes.

The phone music in this case was modern hip-hop, rather than ‘Elizabethan Serenade’ or Ivor Novello, disappointingly enough. Actually, I have heard Morrissey songs blaring out from an open topped sports car on the Archway Road, which I suppose is about halfway there.

Here’s ‘Elizabethan Serenade’ on YouTube. Whenever there’s a gang of angry bears at my door, demanding they come in and eat my face while delivering a credit card bill, it’s a perfect piece of music to reach for:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbLNigDZai8

There. All better.

Monday eve – to Audio Underground studios in Stoke Newington, for the first of three Fosca rehearsals. Myself, Rachel Stevenson and Charley Stone. We’re just doing a one-off gig in Madrid on Sept 12th – barely 24 hours out of the country. But it’s been months since the last gig, so we need a decent amount of practice (1 rehearsal is too little, 2 is risking it, 3 is just about okay).

After Madrid, there’s talk of us possibly playing Berlin and Hamburg. It would also be nice to play just one more London gig, by way of a proper farewell to Fosca. One likes to properly draw a line under things, rather than let them peter out, if at all possible. I think Fosca were always going to be a Three Album Band, like Galaxie 500 and McCarthy. I’m still interested in writing lyrics for other people, though, so hopefully there’ll be some sort of new musical adventures to come.

As for a last London gig, I’ve now changed my mind about not playing club nights. In fact, I’d also be happy doing a support slot, even fourth on the bill at the Bull & Gate with some twelve-year-olds in Trilbys headlining, because I like an early night. We shall see.

Monday: I’m reminded why indie band life suits me less than ever. The rehearsal room mixer has a broken channel, there’s no ventilation, and I have to sing with a battered, filthy vocal mic which I’m still tasting hours later. The band rehearsing next door are, of course, the loudest and most awful band in the history of humanity. What’s worse is that Charley’s amp picks up some of their PA output when we’re having moments of quiet discussion, like a Minicab Radio from Hell.

Apart from that, it’s quite enjoyable.

***

Afterwards, at about 10pm, Charley and I are wandering the Stoke Newington streets to find the right bus stop home. Suddenly, a man brandishing a can of booze starts shouting something very loudly (thanks to Charley for reminding me of the details), but to whom it isn’t clear:

“Alistair! Alistair! Alistair!”

We look around at the zebra crossing, trying to see if this Alistair person is nearby. The man goes on.

“Oy, Alistair! Hello Alistair! HELLO DARLING!”

‘Darling?’, I muse. Is he addressing Charley? Or alluding to my apparent lack of butchness?

By now he’s standing right behind us, and is just shouting continually.

“Alistair Darling! ALISTAIR DARLING!”

The penny drops. Another name to add to the long list of Things Strangers Shout At Me In The Street.

File it alongside Rhydian, Max Headroom, Billy Idol, An Extra From The Mighty Boosh, The Albino Assassin From The Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase Movie ‘Foul Play’, That Woman In ‘Liquid Sky’ When She Plays A Man, Paul Bowles (a literary reference from Shane MacG), Bob Downe, Andy Warhol, David Sylvian, Max Headroom, and (still my all-time favourite) ‘Oy! The Eighties!’

***

I turn 37 tomorrow. I’m not entirely happy about this, but prefer it to the alternative.

The fag end of an awkward August, after a July of unusual and interesting things (getting back from NYC, Buck House, Latitude, The Hague). Since then, as the song nearly goes, there ain’t nothing been going on ‘cept the rent. I’m still annoyed with the weird smell of mould (or damp, or drains) in my room, which is lingering for the umpteenth week despite my bleaching and cleaning everything in sight. And I now have a summer cold, so I’m snuffling, sneezing and battling through a oppressive headache, exasperated by the August mugginess. Right, moaning done. Thank you for the indulgence.

Am typing this in a pub on the Brighton seafront. As penniless as I am, I can just about afford to impetuously hop on a train if, like today, I’m desperate for a change of scenery, as long as it’s an hour or less away. Hence Brighton. Partly because the forecast was cooler than for muggy old London, but also because I like the sea, and piers and promenades, and you can suddenly nip off to see all those things in Brighton so very easily.

I am rather partial to Brighton, with its compact assortment of worlds: its famous gay scene, its New Age Goth and Eco-Hippy scene, its Aging Student scene, its English Slacker scene; and more, all jostling alongside the generic seaside town elements: elderly tea shoppers, football fans, and that certain strain of Middle England pub bloke whose game of darts would normally pause mid-flight if I entered the room. Brighton is not quite London On Sea, but neither is it an Everybloke’s regional seaside town. Somewhere amid this schizophrenic straining – confused and proud – I slip happily through.

***

Saturday morning on Archway Road: I pass a man out walking his cat. Not on an leash – that really would be strange – but the cat is trotting faithfully alongside its master all the way down the road, just like a dog. It even stops to investigate street lamps – or me when I pass – only to rejoin the man when whistled. I wonder if it’s a dog trapped inside a cat’s body, and whether it’s saving up to have the operation.

***

Recent outings: to the Tate Britain this morning for ‘The Lure Of The East’ show, on its last day. Victorian paintings on the theme of what’s now called Orientalism, the term coined in the 1970s by Edward Said. So the exhibition is a 2008 perspective of an 1800s’ perspective, guided via a 1970s theory. It could be subtitled ‘How Westerners Got Arabs Wrong’. Lots of glowing Holman Hunts and Lord Leightons, beautiful in any context. There’s a landscape by John Lavery of Tangier in the 1890s (‘The White City’), so that’s me happy.

Have stumbled upon the excellent ‘Leon’ chain of organic & ethical & generally groovy cafes. The branch in the Strand has a 1950s style decor (and tasteful with it), friendly staff, and free WiFi. Not too trendy, not too corporate (yet…). Somewhere to meet people now the New Piccadilly’s gone.

***

Nights out in August… Thursday eve was spent DJ-ing for Tricity Vogue at the Volupte venue in Chancery Lane. The Weds before that, I attended the Glam Racket night at the Boogaloo, saying hello to Delia S, whom I’ve known off and on for years, plus Sebastian G and his young friends, all of whom are regulars at Simon Price’s night, Stay Beautiful, which is still going strong.

Other August activity: attended The Beautiful & Damned at the Boogaloo last week, where I chatted to Taylor Parkes (now a doting dad), and enjoyed solo sets by Martin White (on accordion / piano) and Tricity V. Mr W has reached the kind of confident, audience-working level of showmanship only possible after hundreds of performances, squeezing in stand-up comedy along with the squeeze-boxing. His new EP with the Mystery Fax Machine Orchestra (featuring Fosca’s Kate D)  is a joy, by the way: Tom Lehrer meets ELO (on acid… drops). You can get it here:

http://www.myspace.com/themysteryfaxmachineorchestra

While I’m in a plugging mood, here’s a YouTube video trailer thing for the new book by my NYC author friend, Tony O’Neill:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNiXWMyKhUI

He also has a blog:

http://downandoutonmurdermile.blogspot.com/

Sometimes I like this diary to do impersonations of a normal blog. If only to get some of the internetty things I like out of my system.

So…

This is my favourite comic book cover of the moment, even if Mr Barack’s tie is too short:

(via the New York Times).

I like it almost as much as this 70s Jack Kirby number. Have I mentioned this before? Now’s the time, then:

The more I look at this cover, the more I think about it, the happier it makes me.

‘Die, bungling gnat!!’

TWO exclamation marks, too.

The phrase itself – coming from a human villain – would be pleasure enough. That it has to come from a talking killer whale, pausing to dispatch the human hero, and choosing those words, is just… oh… heaven.

Then there’s the caption above the title:

‘Men have killed for fish before… But these men were trained by them!’

Men! Fish! Blond hair! Muscles! Double exclamation marks!

There is a point to this apparent randomness. Lately, I’ve been moping about with the usual despondancy, which led to my moping about on the Net reading message boards about depression. I’ve thus found myself forking out for the latest faddy herbal happy pill. To wit: 5-HTP. Not the world’s most catchy, natural-sounding title, I know. Holland and Barrett stock it at £15 a jar, which rather rendered me more depressed (not to say feeling gullible) than I was before I made the purchase, but there you go. If they do Sort Me Out, however, I’ll happily sing 5-HTP’s praises from the hills. I’ll give them a month.

But today, my thoughts are: medication, schmedication. The Kirby killer whale is prescription enough.

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.