Skep Wax Records – chickfactor + enchanté records

September 4, 2023September 6, 2023

Swansea Sound: Hue and Amelia Interview Each Other

Amelia and Hue, image courtesy of the artists

When Pam Berry and I started chickfactor zine in 1992, you can be damn sure we were listening to both Heavenly and the Pooh Sticks. We interviewed Heavenly for CF2 (Amelia Fletcher is on the cover with Bridget Cross from Unrest), but we never got to interview Hue Pooh, though we do remember a memorable show at Maxwell’s in 1992 or 1993. During pandemic lockdown times, Rob Pursey wrote some songs that were too punky for the Catenary Wires, so he and Amelia thought of Hue for a collaboration. So Swansea Sound was born—featuring Hue, Amelia, Rob (Skep Wax Records, The Catenary Wires), Bob Collins (the Dentists, the Treasures of Mexico), and Ian Button (who plays in too many bands to list)—and they’re about to release a fab new album, Twentieth Century (out Sept. 8), and go on tour (see dates down below). They need no introduction to you, reader, but we figured it would be fun to have Hue and Amelia interview each other after all this time! This is their conversation. Swansea Sound artwork by Catrin Saran James and Jon Safari.

Swansea Sound, image courtesy of the artists

Hue: What was the first song / record you can remember hearing, Amelia?
Amelia: I have no idea, but I do remember the first time I took a real interest. My parents had the Sgt. Pepper album and the sleeve had all the lyrics on it. I remember diligently learning all the words. I think I was 7. I more or less still know them all.
How about you? And when did you first decide you wanted to make music yourself?
Hue: Mine is Beatles as well. Ob-la-di, ob-la-da. Though it wasn’t a single in the U.K. so I reckon I’m remembering the version by Marmalade which was a No 1.
Although that was ’68 and I would’ve been three so whether or not this is a half-remembered memory or accurate I’m not quite sure.
I was in a band of sorts when I was 8 but I’m not sure if what we were doing was music. I played a pink glitter guitar which is impressive considering I can’t play guitar in the 21st century. We didn’t have a name though I have retrospectively named us the Swansea Bay City Rollers.

Eithne, Amelia and Elizabeth (Talulah Gosh), image courtesy of the artists

Can you remember what was the first song you wrote and were you already in a band?
Amelia: The first song I wrote was called “Tissue Smiles”. I have no idea why! It had pretty terrible words, but a decent tune.
It was for my first band, which was called Splatter Babies. We were in sixth-form and practised in our drummer’s parents’ front room. Adam Franklin (latterly in Swervedriver) was the guitarist, and wrote most of the songs. At that point, I presume he thought it would be good to have a girl singer. Being in a band with me for a year obviously changed his mind!
Hue: Ah splendid. I think I’ve seen a picture of you in Splatter Babies but not heard anything. We could / should cover ‘Tissue smiles’ if we get to that difficult third album with Swansea Sound!

Amelia: How did the idea for The Pooh Sticks come about, and what was the first Pooh Sticks song?
Hue: The idea of the Pooh Sticks initially was just very much an idea. I came up with the name and the concept of forming ‘the ultimate ‘wimpy’ band’. I was stuck on Temple Meads train station in Bristol overnight with Steve from Fierce Records as we’d missed the last train to Swansea after a Primal Scream gig (jingle jangle version).
We then wrote ‘On Tape’ together with me coming up with the punchline and some other lyrics. Steve did the rest and we literally recorded it line by line as it was written. That was quickly followed by ‘Indie pop ain’t noise pollution‘ and ‘I know someone who knows someone who knows Alan McGee quite well‘.

Was Splatter Babies your only band before Talulah Gosh? How did TG get together and how quickly did the first songs and shows come about? Was the first gig in Oxford?
Amelia: That was the only band before Talulah Gosh. (Other than “The Peedles”, the Beatles covers band I attempted to create with a couple of school friends when I was 7!)
Hue: Ah so you were in a band at the same time as me doing the Swansea Bay City Rollers. The Peedles? I would buy a T shirt if you make one.
Amelia: Not sure how big a market there would be for that one! Talulah Gosh came together remarkably quickly. The guitarist and drummer part was easy – I asked my boyfriend Pete and my brother Mathew. I met Elizabeth at a gig in November ’85 and invited her to join the band on the basis of her wearing a Pastels badge We then found Rob to play bass – he was auditioned not on the basis of his playing but the records he had on his wall!
And we played our first gig by March ’86. Just four months after meeting Elizabeth. We had already written some of our most well-known songs by the time of that show!

Hue: So Rob did play live and was in the very first incarnation of Talulah Gosh? Before he left to join an Italian prog rock band for a tour of Sweden?
Amelia: Yep, I think Rob left TG on the basis that we were all a little annoying to be with at that point. He relented later! (I think).
Why on earth did you think of asking me to join The Pooh Sticks?
Hue: A few reasons I guess.
We had been offered a Peel Session and felt that Steve Fierce singing parts a bit out of his comfort zone couldn’t last. We could see you found it hard to say no to an indie band when they came calling, so we thought it was worth a 5p coin in the local phone box. You did reply ‘aren’t you the band that take the piss out of indie’! We actually liked many of the C86 era bands, particularly the melodic ones as we were pop fans ostensibly. I had seen you play in Port Talbot in Dec ’87 I think, which was near the end of TG. The session was maybe the April of ’88 so we figured you had some spare hours. You were a good sport. But I can’t imagine either of us thought we’d be still singing / shouting at each other 35 years on.

The Gosh seemed to attract a whole bunch of press. Some gushing, some less pleasant. What’s the most memorable for you? Good and bad?
Amelia: I think the most extreme press we got was actually in TG. On the plus side, we managed to get a whole page on page 3 of NME when we’d barely started. A rave from the Legend!, headlined “Do you remember fun? Talulah Gosh do!”
Hue: Yes, I remember that article by Jerry Legend I think.
Amelia: On the negative side, our very last press interview was also in NME but this time with Steven Wells. It was a big piece but he was totally horrible about us! He also referred to us as Aryan, which was pretty insensitive given I’m half-Jewish and huge numbers of my grandparents’ relatives died in the holocaust. The allegation seemed to be purely based on us having short bleached hair!
Hue: I know Steven Wells isn’t about any more to defend himself but he was a showboating writer and that doesn’t read well now at all does it? I met him a few years later as he made a video for a band I was managing. He found out I was from the Pooh Sticks and I got the distinct impression he didn’t like us. The video he made was totally rubbish by the way.
Amelia: We also got 1 out of 10 in NME for the second Heavenly album from guest reviewers Shampoo. But to be honest we were quite amused by that.
Hue: Ha! Shampoo supported the Pooh Sticks once at the Garage in Highbury as they signed their mega record deal. This was around the time that every band who supported the Pooh Sticks seemed to be become very successful overnight like Pulp, the Cranberries, David Gray, etc!

The Pooh Sticks with Amelia, image courtesy of the artists

Amelia: The Pooh Sticks had a good run. But I know you were actually up for trying to be famous (in a way that Heavenly never really had been). Were you ever pushed by your record label to do anything you were uncomfortable with? And how do you think you would have handled REAL fame?
Hue: I’m not sure that I was trying to be famous at all, it’s just that I didn’t have anything better to do when a major label came calling. I was working as a tennis coach at the time which I kinda enjoyed, but the chance of doing music full-time for a while seemed to make sense.
I did think signing to a major at that time would be the beginning of the end unless we sold records which we obviously didn’t, but we felt the songs we had needed more time in the studio and that this was the only way to do that. That possibly wasn’t true.
The label wanted us on the road playing lots of shows though. Up until that point we’d only ever played a handful of shows, so that became a bit of a slog pretty quickly. I’d had enough by the time we did a (successful) tour of Japan and decided I didn’t want to be in the Pooh Sticks anymore. I did return to be on Optimistic Fool (our last LP) as long as I didn’t have to tour. I had started to manage a band and work as an A&R at that point so was a busy bod.
Real fame wasn’t going to visit us, but I think it looks like hard work. I’ve got a few friends who became ‘famous’ like Catatonia, Super Furries or even the actor Rhys Ifans and it looks like hard work to me!
Amelia: Yep, I agree. Fame does looks like hard work. Stressful too! Fortunately, we got even less close than The Pooh Sticks!

Hue: You’ve never really stopped making music whereas I’ve had plenty of time away from it. Which parts do you enjoy the most? Writing? Recording? Touring? Doing fanzine interviews?!
Amelia: Fanzine interviews of course! Especially for Chickfactor, obviously!
But actually I probably like playing shows the most, although maybe because we’ve never done so many that they feel like a slog! For me, it isn’t necessarily the touring so much (although that can be good fun too) but the actually performing on stage. I’d like to say I just really like singing but it is probably just that I am an attention sponge!
I always enjoyed playing with The Pooh Sticks too—even if I quite often messed things up! Like that gig when I clean forgot I was supposed to be writing across your chest in lipstick and you were just standing there waiting with your torso exposed. Sorry again about that! I’m useless at rock antics!!
Hue: You often mention the lipstick on torso thing as if I was hanging around for ten mins! I remember it all going smoothly and there’s photographic evidence to prove it happened. I think what you wrote on me was ‘Hearthrob’! We were playing with Ween in New York and in the pic we were packing a massive stack of Marshall amps. The one and only time that happened I think.
Amelia: ‘Hearthrob!’ That’s funny. I bet I spent at least some of the time onstage wondering if there should be one or two “t”s in Hearthrob. That’s how rock n roll I ever was!
Hue: I certainly wouldn’t get my top off onstage this days. Though there’d be plenty more space to scrawl on!

What is your favourite song from the many you’ve written and which do you think is the best if it’s not the same one?
Amelia: Hmm. I think “P.U.N.K. Girl” is probably the best—mainly because it strikes a nerve but is not like anything else! But I think my favourite song might be “Memorabilia” by Tender Trap.
Partly because it was based on a silly song I invented to sing the kids when they were babies (I sang it while doing baby yoga on them to get rid of their wind!). Partly because it ended up being about memories of my brother. And partly because it’s just a good song.
So Iet’s move forward to Swansea Sound. I have very vivid memories of sending you that first song in Lockdown (“Angry Girl”), and then trying to figure out how to mix in the vocal you recorded in your kitchen on your phone! I’m still amazed at how well that worked!

Amelia playing in Splatter Babies. Photo: Vicky Bowman

But did you think at that stage that it would more than a couple of silly songs? When did you realise it could be something bigger?
Hue: You had mentioned for a little while that Rob had a song that he thought was Pooh Sticky. I’d had some friends previously send me songs but it never went anywhere or felt right. At one point I think I even talked with Liz from The School about writing some songs, but when “Angry Girl” landed it was a good time in the sense that is was in the early days of the first lockdown so I had plenty of time.
It was an odd time as I was, if not exactly shielding, very much living solo, as I have quite bad asthma and have been hospitalised a few times with attacks. So I was living rurally in a village at the time, like you do, not knowing how it was all going to pan out.
I didn’t really think “Angry Girl” sounded like it would suit me necessarily, but I could hear it probably wasn’t a Catenary Wires song! Took me a while to figure out how to listen to the track on one phone and then sing/shout into my other one. I tried a couple of rooms in the house but ended up on my knees in the kitchen.
I listened back and it sounded horrible! I sent it not knowing how you could knock it into shape, but when you did ping it back I was amazed. It sounded so fully formed.
I guess I wasn’t sure what would happen next but I think Rob then sent ‘Corporate Indie Band’ and we immediately thought we should put it out even if it was low key and very limited.
I only realised it could be something bigger when Gideon Coe played it with much enthusiasm and Rob kept writing new songs almost to order. Then the first show we did at the Preston festival worked surprisingly well.
‘Live at the Rum Puncheon’ is a pretty remarkable LP considering how it was recorded. It also set things nicely for a follow up to sound like a step up simply by the fact we were actually in the same room together this time.

Talulah Gosh, image courtesy of the artists

Amelia: Is there a plan for world domination, and if so, what’s the next step?
Hue: World domination? We’ll keep socking it the squares and straights across as many continents as we can in the short to medium term. Really looking forward to playing the U.K. shows plus in Europe and obviously going back to Japan and then hopefully the States. I just hope my dodgy hip holds out!
You’ve made/edited a few of the videos for Swansea Sound which has impressed me. Is music your only form of creativity or do you/would you write or paint?
Amelia: I’ve enjoyed making the videos. Rob and I tend to come up with the ideas and then I edit them. We did the last few Catenary Wires ones too, and a recent new video for “C Is the Heavenly Option” by Heavenly.
I think video-making is the kind of art form that suits me as it requires lots of patience and technical ability and then just a good creative idea or two. I’d love to be good at proper art or writing but I’m honestly useless at both! It is constantly galling to me. But I’m also constantly impressed by people who are good at either!

Rob and Amelia in the Heavenly era, image courtesy of the artists

What are you most excited about for the coming year? Here’s mine. Getting to play in the US and Japan again! How about you?
Hue: Yes I’m very much looking forward to going back to Japan. I’ve been twice before once with the Pooh Sticks in ’93 which was so great I left the band for a while as I thought it would all be downhill from there. I did return for another LP but never played live again until reforming in 2010. I also went in ’96 with a band I was managing which was a very intense trip. We’d been to New Orleans and then LA for shows on the way so it’s only the time I’ve kinda circumnavigated the world.

The bass player didn’t sleep for four days and had an ‘episode’ at Tokyo airport with some armed guards so we had to miss the flight bless him. He wasn’t in a good way and insisted on being on a flight where he could smoke which wasn’t easy in ’96. We finally got a flight with chain smoke-loving Air France and he returned to Wales in a fug of fags and free champagne.
I’m also excited about hopefully just being alive for another year as I’ve lost two friends suddenly in the last week.
The lovely Michel Van de Woude who you obviously knew as well as the guitarist on three of the Pooh Sticks albums. Michel indeed did play hot licks and was in our line up at Reading festival when we were the best of all indie bands. I will miss him.
Amelia: Yes, that was really sad news.
Hue: Also my mate Tim passed very suddenly this week and was only 53. He was a gig buddy but also came to our shows. Very sad about that.
That puts everything into (a Spinal Tap) perspective.
So let’s indiepop (or rock) til we drop and enjoy what we have.
Amelia: Cheers to that! CF

Swansea Sound dates
Sept. 8: Twentieth Century Listening Party
Sept. 9: LIVE album launch at Rough Trade East
Sept. 14: Manchester, The Talleyrand
Sept. 15: Cardiff, Moon Club
Sept. 16: Carmarthen, Cwrw
Sept. 17: Bristol, Rough Trade (FREE)
Sept. 27: BBC6Music Riley/Coe studio session.
Sept. 29: St Leonards, The Piper
Sept. 30: Paris, Popfest
Oct. 13: Leeds, Wharf Chambers
Oct. 14: Newcastle-On-Tyne, Cumberland Arms
Oct. 27: Brighton/Hove, The Brunswick
Oct. 28: London, The Water Rats

Read our Heavenly piece from last year and our Catenary Wires interview from a few years ago!

January 4, 2023

Looking back at CF30: Oct. 30 at the Betsey Trotwood, London, featuring the Catenary Wires and Marlody

The Catenary Wires at CF30. Photo: Andrew Bulhak

Our final chickfactor 30 party in London was an afternoon Hangover Lounge affair at the Betsey Trotwood and had kind of a chill vibe that was welcome after two nights at the packed Lexington! Marlody is a new signing on Rob and Amelia’s Skep Wax label and her moody, intimate songs were quiet and poignant at a time when finally coming together after so long was so needed. Her music was a reminder that we all need to share our stories. The Catenary Wires are of course pop legends: Amelia Fletcher, Rob Pursey, Ian Button and Andy Lewis. They played stellar songs from their latest, Birling Gap, which you should snap up if you haven’t got it, and even thrilled the audience with a Heavenly song, “Cool Guitar Boy,” in advance of their couple of Bush Hall shows next spring, which was so so fun.

London is a place I was lucky to call home for half a decade and I miss it like crazy. chickfactor’s cofounder Pam Berry has lived there since the late ’90s and I love being able to go back and see people at these events in these places that miraculously are still open. I wish we could do it every year! Thanks again to the musicians, bands, venues, Paul Kelly for backline wrangling, the sound people, Hangover Lounge, Tae Won Yu, the folks who put me and others up, the documenters, readers, fans, friends, strangers, and pop lovers who make up this incredible community.

Marlody, an artist on Rob and Amelia’s Skep Wax label, played the show. Photo: Jen Matson

The Catenary Wires. Photo: Morgan Stanley

People with great taste in music. Photo: Gail O’Hara

Pop stars meeting and smiling. Photo: Gail O’Hara

Beer mats from CF20. Photo: Morgan Stanley

Lunchbox at the Betsey. Photo: Gail O’Hara

Legends in our midst. Photo: Morgan Stanley

All the Umbrellas in London (sorry, I’ll stop saying that now). Photo: Morgan Stanley

Hangover Lounge gents Tim and John. Photo: Gail O’Hara

Raz attempting to wrangle the unruly CF revelers. Photo: Gail O’Hara

December 31, 2022January 4, 2023

our 2022 lists: round one

Christina Riley / Artsick
Chickfactor 30 NY and London
Oakland Weekender 2022
Glasgow
Breaks from social media
Rock and Roll Vegan Donut bar in Monterey
White Lotus season 2 on HBO
Simon Guild guitar pedals
Meditation
Chickfactor 19 issue, and shirt designed by Jen Sbragia
Buzzcocks tribute compilation cassette for Oakland Weekender 2022

BONUS:
-Pop sockets for saving my phone from the swiper on a bike in London, haha!

Bridget St John at our CF30 party in Brooklyn; Photo: Dean Keim

Bridget St John
my list: a collection of some of the meaningful/impactful/grateful and awe inspiring experiences of 2022

Nicola Walker – magnetic irresistible UK actor

Annika

River

The Split –
I could make the whole list revolve around her and the other extraordinary actors she works with…

Colin Farrell & Jamie Lee Curtis Actors on Actors

Brady’s Irish Ground Coffee / Celtic Blend

Banshee’s of Inishereen

every Adirondack sunset

the caeser’s salad at Da Umberto in NYC

Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard

WNYC – especially The Brian Lehrer Show & Fresh Air

Hampstead – with Brendan Gleeson & Diane

the daily, weekly, monthly endless resilience strength tenacity and spirit of the Ukrainian people

Jennifer O’Connor / musician, owner of Kiam Records and Main Street Beat
Lizzo – Special (Atlantic)
Flock – Flock (Strut)
Mabe Fratti – Se Ve Desde Aqui (Tin Angel)
Beach House – Once Twice Melody (Sub Pop)
Megan Thee Stallion – Traumazine (300 Entertainment)
They Hate Change – Finally, New (Jagjaguwar)
Harry Styles – Harry’s House (Columbia)
Cass McCombs – Heartland (Anti)
Sudan Archives – Natural Brown Prom Queen (Stones Throw)
Madonna – Finally Enough Love (Rhino/Warner)

Daniel Handler’s favorite books this year:
Kathryn Davis, Aurelia Aurelia
Fadhil al-Azzawi, Fadhil al-Azzawi’s Beautiful Creatures
Jakuta Alikavazovic translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman, Night as it Falls
Chen Chen, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced An Emergency
Fanny Howe, London-rose/beauty will save the world
Hiromi Ito, translated by Jeffrey Angles, Wild Grass On the Riverbank
Geoffrey Nutter, Giant Moth Perishes
Carl Phillips, Then The War
Keiler Roberts, The Joy of Quitting
Peter Rock, Passersthrough
Kathleen Scanlan, Kick The Latch

Jim Ruiz and Emily Ruiz from Jim Ruiz Set

9 T.V. series from the ’60s that got us through the pandemic and beyond.
1. Danger Man (a.k.a. Secret Agent Man)
2. Gidget
3. The Saint
4. Batman
5. Hawaii 5-0
6. Mission Impossible
7. The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
8. The Girl from U.N.C.L.E
9. Mannix

Royal Arctic Institute / image nicked from their website

Lyle Hysen (Bank Robber Music and Royal Arctic Institute)

Mike Baggetta / Jim Keltner / Mike Watt (Big Ego)
Everywhen We Go Dezron Douglas – Atalaya (International Anthem)
Hermanos Gutiérrez – El Bueno Y El Malo (Easy Eye Sound)
Hammered Hulls – Careening (Dischord)
Horse Lords- Comradely Objects (Rvng Intl).
Julian Lage – View With A Room (Blue Note)
Beth Orton – Weather Alive (Partisan)
Jeff Parker – Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy (Eremite Records)
Romero –Turn It On – (Cool Death)
Stella – Up and away (Sub-Pop)

Travis Elborough
In no particular order – I ended up listening to quite a few things on cassette this year, one consequence of spending 10 days in bed with Covid in April with only my walkman to hand for audio entertainment, and probably als0 vinyl pressing plant backlogs but here’s some stuff that hit my ears this year. – baker’s top 10 at 11

Artist/Album
Loop – Sonacy
Kemper Norton – Rife (cassette)
Opal X – Twister (cassette)
Telefis – a Dó (cassette)
Blue Spectre – Silver Screen
Cosey Fanni Tutti – Delia Derbyshire soundtrack album
Andrew Poppy – Jelly
Robyn Hitchcock – Shuttlemania (cassette and LP)
The Advisory Circle – Full Circle
Xopher Davidson – Lux Perpetua
Nkisi – NDOMBALA (A Journey to Avebury)

Ed Mazzucco (Shelflife Records / Tears Run Rings)
1. Billow Observatory – Stareside
2. RxGibbs – Eternal
3. Motifs – Remember A Stranger
4. Life On Venus – Homewards
5. Martin Courtney – Magic Sign
6. Marine Eyes – Chamomile
7. Humdrum – Superbloom
8. Foliage – Can’t Go Anywhere
9. Jeanines – Don’t Wait For A Sign
10. Korine – Mt. Airy

Julie Underwood (CF contributor!)
1. Beyoncé – Renaissance
2. Wet Leg – Wet Leg
3. Alvvays – Blue Rev
4. Alex G – God Save The Animals
5. Angel Olsen – Big Time
6. The Beths – Expert In A Dying Field
7. Plains – I Walked With You A Ways
8. Weyes Blood – And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow
9. Sasami – Squeeze
10. Yard Act – The Overload

Kendall (right) with Jennifer O’Connor; courtesy of these two

Kendall Meade (Mascott, CF contributor)

Songs on repeat 2022
“San Francisco” Bonny Doon
“Problem With It” and “Abeline” Plains
“Mistakes” Sharon Van Etten
“It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody” Weyes Blood
“Anti Hero” Taylor Swift
“Daylight” Harry Styles

Beatrix Madell (Girl Scout Handbook)
My top ten songs of all time from the members of Boygenius:
1) “Night Shift,” Lucy Dacus
2) “Chelsea,” Phoebe Bridgers
3) “I Know the End,” Phoebe Bridgers
4) “Hot and Heavy,” Lucy Dacus
5) “Waiting Room,” Phoebe Bridgers
6) “Timefighter,” Lucy Dacus
7) “Graceland Too,” Phoebe Bridgers
8) “Me and My Dog,” Boygenius
9) “Song in E,” Julien Baker
10) “Punisher,” Phoebe Bridgers

Gilmore Tamny

Some Stars of 2022 Both Welcome and Unwelcome

anxiety

air fryer

Excellent books that are also mysteries:
The Book of the Most Precious Substance by Sara Gran
The Violin Conspiracy: a novel by Brendan Slocumb
Vera Kelly: Lost and Found by Rosalie Knecht
The Second Cut by Louise Welch
The Verifiers by Jane Pek
The Maid by Nita Prose
Homicide and Halo-Halo by Mia. P. Manansala
The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill
Confidence by Denise Mina

despair over Ukraine (et al)

Podsies: my ability to tolerate current news became I guess you’d say…refracted (?) i.e. bearable only by hearing it through other countries’ news like The Rest is Politics, or through the lens of a specific frame like the art world, The Week in Art or The Art Angle (scammers too). Gave esotericism a twirl with The Secret History of Western Esotericism, yikes, I do not have any idea what Earl Fountainelle was talking about much of the time, but interesting all the same. Also enjoyed for different moods and needs: Shedunnit, Art Law Podcast, The Witch Wave, The Read, Bad Gays, Don’t Ask Tig, The Bald and the Beautiful, My Favorite Murder.

I watched too much TV to remember any of it

found a perfect pop song not from 2022

painting a giant gift box

Scottish Rite Masonic Museum, Salem Witch Board Museum (Ouija boards)

what is the word where you don’t want to mention anything for fear of forgetting something, i.e. some standout 2022 shows: id m theft able outdoor show in Elfland, Paulownia at Waterworks.

tried to figure out what to do about mortality

reading play aloud – The Mousetrap on a writing retreat – very fun, recommend

Desus and Mero breakup. All right, sad, but I console myself: a) performers-writers-artists need to grow and sometimes that means change b) think of all they gave us

finally watched Lord of the Rings for details of that experience read here

Brittney Griner WTF and thank god

if nothing else may I please recommend @archaeologyart on the instagrammo

Rob Pursey (The Catenary Wires, Skep Wax Records, Swansea Sound, Heavenly, etc.)
After a long pandemic period of not going out I made a list of ten places I liked to visit and was very very happy to re-visit.

1. Rye Church Tower.
You have to pay, but not very much, to climb up to the top of this beautiful old building. Narrow stone corridors, creaking wooden staircases, and then you climb a rickety ladder right next to the huge church bells – try to not to do this at midday – and then you’re out onto the tower roof through a trapezium-shaped wooden door. You get to admire the aerial view of this perfect hill-town and of the marshes and Dungeness in the distance.
2. The Betsey Trotwood, London.
One of those venues that had to fight for survival during the pandemic. A warm, sanctuary of music. Always has friends in it.
3. Larkins Ale House, Cranbrook.
A tiny purveyor of local ale. Very hospitable. On the first Sunday we went in, they asked if we wanted a free snack and handed over a plateful of them, like a free meal really. The beer is perfect.
4. Fairfield Church. A peculiar, isolated survivor on the Kent Marsh and now a place where we are able to put on Skep Arts events. No water, no electricity, no light. Beautifully basic.
5. The Oast, Rainham.
Another lovely little venue where our friends at Careful Now Promotions somehow manage to book the best indie bands, every month.
6. The De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea.
An art gallery, a cafe, a great record shop (Music’s Not Dead), all housed in one of the most beautiful Twentieth Century public buildings, right by the sea.
7. Nutmeg Cafe, Tenterden.
Best local coffee, friendly staff, dangerous pastries.
8. The Ellen Terry Theatre, Smallhythe.
Another place that became a Skep Arts venue this year. A thatched barn, converted into a theatre by a Suffragette group in the early Twentieth Century. I don’t think there is anywhere else like this in the world.
9. London Bridge Station.
I am still awestruck by the roof and the pillars of this huge building. It’s worth going to London just to see it.
10. The Chinese Supermarket in Hastings.
Everything you need is here – all kinds of noodles, of rice, of spices. And home-made bao buns in the steamer by the check-out.

Joe Brooker (Pines / Foxgloves / CF contributor) 2022 Top 10

1 / Close-Up
I’d long known of Shoreditch’s Close-Up Film Centre, but only in 2022 did I actually pay for membership and start watching films here: Bergman’s Persona for the first time, Godard’s Le Mépris for at least the sixth, Spanish films of the 1970s, in the little cinema where film abruptly starts as a light in the darkness. I love the array of thousands of DVDs to browse any time. The place reminds me a little of the Poetry Café, which I once knew as another oasis of culture.

2 / Chloe
Under-the-radar BBC drama about identity and imposture, memory and teen friendship, social climbing and social media, all refreshingly based in the West Country.

3 / Ride
As a student in Norwich I missed seeing Ride though they played only a few hundred yards away from me. Now by contrast I travel a hundred miles back to Norwich to see them play their debut LP Nowhere. Some of the audience are younger than I was then. The music is marvellous and fresh, but above all I just love the idea of seeing Ride in Norwich.

4 / Bordando el manto terrestre
In the vast last room of Tate Modern’s Surrealism Beyond Borders exhibition I’m stunned to encounter Remedios Varo’s triptych of paintings Bordando el manto terrestre / Embroidering the Earth’s Crust (1961). I’ve read about this painting, looked at reproductions, so many times that I feel a rare awe before the original painting, with its size, texture and detail. In the same year, I might say something similar of Manet’s Un bar aux Folies Bergère (1882), which I’m taken aback to find in the Courtauld.

5 / Isokon Building
Hampstead is a storied place but not well known to this South Londoner. A friend shows me around it: mile after mile of avenues green with trees, well-preserved housing, modernist outliers. Down a side street, flowering suburbia like Tolkien’s Hobbiton, I see for the first time the art deco Lawn Road Flats, known as the Isokon Building. Cherished by the many lovers of modern architecture, it’s spectacular: pure white, curved, its stairwell magnificent; an ocean liner.

6 / Sandymount Strand
James Joyce’s Ulysses was published in 1922, and set in Dublin on 16^th June. On 16^th June 2022, a Joycean friend leads me out to Sandymount Strand, to retrace the steps of Stephen Dedalus in the novel’s third episode, as evening falls instead of the book’s morning. Almost alone amid the vast space we step across wet mud, puddles, treacherous ground, as a calm dusk slowly dims all around us. Finally we must take off our shoes and socks to paddle across streams, maybe similar ones to those that Dedalus feared would sweep him away with the tide.

7 / The Magnetic Fields
Touching down in West London they play Quickies and representatives from most of their other records; songs I think I’ve never heard live, like ‘Love Goes Home To Paris In The Spring’ and ‘It’s Only Time’. The encore yields ‘100,000 Fireflies’. I don’t recall them sounding better, and the set list offers what now feels like one standard after another, a great American songbook of its own.

8 / Ross Macdonald
Ross Macdonald is like Raymond Chandler twenty years on: still droll and tough, but private eye Lew Archer tours a changing California with meditative sympathy as well as pugilistic ability. I find that I can read one of his novels in a day, if I do nothing else. I could tell you the titles, but to a degree the novels are happily interchangeable, intricate permutations of recurring features: Archer’s police contacts and helpers, wealthy clients, runaway girls and boys, seedy trailer-park characters or desk clerks. I feel that I could read them forever; there are eighteen, but perhaps a sophisticated artificial intelligence could generate many more. Archer’s narrative voice is laconic, often very humorous, but also every couple of pages flashes into descriptive fire, a margin of writerly excess.

9 / Helen Saunders at the Courtauld
She was a modernist painter (1885-1963), associated with the Vorticist movement of the 1910s. Typically enough, the work of the era’s women artists often became obscured, and curators have lately sought to reclaim them from history: in Saunders’ case, culminating in this one-room gathering of her work at the Courtauld Gallery. The retrieval is worthwhile. Saunders’ lines and strokes are clear and bold. She seems to draw and paint with conviction and native talent. Some of her pictures are figurative, showing a mother and child, a house, a canal. Some are much more abstract, imagined patterns and designs, but often with some resemblance to a real-world object or experience. She would merit a larger exhibition, of whatever work has survived the decades of neglect.

10 / The Cure
I have loved The Cure for decades, from a distance; never seen them, and often had the impression that my last chance to see them had already passed. But when their lengthy European tour reaches Wembley Arena, at last I’m in the crowd: unusually early, standing as near the front as I can, waiting through a tedious support band. Before a bright picture of the turning Earth, Robert Smith tiptoes on to the stage like a child, peering shyly at the audience. They play numerous ‘new songs that will soon be old songs’, as Smith repeatedly says. They play relatively deep album cuts; few hits in the first two hours. The music is unblemished, the voice strong. Along the way, ‘Pictures of You’, ‘A Night Like This’, the extraordinary ‘Push’ which amazed me when I discovered it on vinyl aged 17. The final encore of rapid-fire bright hits Smith calls his ‘Sunday night disco’. I haven’t felt quite this way about a concert in a long time. Outside, snow is falling.

Read our lists from punk historian Theresa Kereakes and Angelina Capodanno here (both CF contributors and music obsessives!)

October 13, 2022October 13, 2022

Heavenly in the U.S.A.

In honor of the forthcoming Heavenly reissues (Skep Wax will rerelease all the Heavenly LPs on vinyl soon: Heavenly vs Satan is available on pre-order now; Le Jardin de Heavenly will follow next April and the other two will come along at six month intervals)—in addition to the John Peel Sessions on Precious Recordings and the announcement of the band’s forthcoming gigs at Bush Hall in London in May 2023—we asked the band to think back to 30 years ago and tell us about their impressions of the U.S. in the olden days! The very first issue of chickfactor was handed out at a Heavenly / Lois gig in Sept. 1992; I reviewed their second album in SPIN around the same time, and we interviewed them in chickfactor zine (Amelia is on the cover of issue 2).

Heavenly: Peter, Amelia, Rob, Mathew, and Cathy. Photo by Alison Wonderland

ROB PURSEY
Going to America was overwhelming, partly because we were going to meet loads of people for the first time—people whose records we’d heard, but from a distance of 3500 miles. Two of the encounters I remember most vividly from that first Heavenly trip are Phoebe Summersquash (Small Factory) and Jeffrey Underhill (Honeybunch). Phoebe is one of the select band of people known as ‘girl drummers’. She was the most diminutive person in the band, she wore glasses and she smiled all the time, even while she beating the hell out of a drumkit. I loved that combination of effortless glee and thunderous noise. She was the living antidote to those theatrical drummers (and guitarists) who pretend to be working out in the gym, or summoning Satan, as if that was crucial to making a great sound.

Jeffrey Underhill, we met, I think, in Rhode Island. I don’t really remember the gig very well, but I was a big fan of Honeybunch. Their song ‘Mine Your Own Business’ was in my head all the time, and it still provides the soundtrack for my memories of our first trip to the US. Anyway, what I remember about Jeffrey was the fact that he showed up in a back alley in a really great old blue/green semi-beater of a car. I am a bit of a nut about old cars, and liked this one a lot. Me and Jeffrey didn’t talk much, I imagine we were both somewhat shy, but I do remember sitting on the bonnet thinking ‘this is the best car, and it belongs to the person who played the best song’.

The encounters with all these new people came to a head at the Chickfactor Party, where there was a whole community was assembling. I didn’t really know anyone there, of course, but I somehow felt like I could get to know and like all of them. We were a long way from the UK, but we felt at home. Part of the reason for this was that women were running the Chickfactor show, and these were wry, witty women. There was a lot of intellect behind Chickfactor, and a definite attitude, but there was a lot of humour too. The humour was a sign of confidence—there was nothing apologetic about it. That’s what being in Heavenly felt like. The women in our band were obviously in charge, but they wore it lightly. So New York, or at least this little indie corner of New York, felt more amenable to our band than a lot of places back in the UK. It was a good feeling.

CATHY ROGERS
I’m not sure any of my memories are really separable. The synapses which connect Heavenly to America all sit in a viscous bath of coffee and the new kind of cool of the straight edge punks and the smell of wet trees driving through Oregon and Massachusetts and the swooning delight of being in the same venn diagram overlap as the really rioting riot grrrls and gigs not being gigs any more but shows and the sheer heat of new experiences and new loves. America just felt so great. It was like finding a version of us that was just so sure of itself. So certain. Walk around the town like you own it…everyone, all the time.

Compared with that overpowering sense of it all, specific memories feel a bit humble. The drive down from Olympia to play a show with a band who turned out to be Tiger Trap, Calvin saying, classic understatement, ‘I guess you might kinda like this band.’ Meeting them to play a show together in this kind of basement garage, them all wearing roller skates, us being powerless to resist charms on that level. For some reason, having a conversation with a bunch of people about our favourite foods and everyone out-doing each other for eccentricity, then Molly from Bratmobile saying ‘I just want to eat rice’ and that becoming one of those weird things that I think of literally every time I cook rice. The novelty, playing at Maxwell’s in Hoboken, of being fed really well before a show. Laughing over-hearing an old guy in the audience, saying – after a whole raft of indie bands – about Lois, ‘Finally someone who can actually sing’. Meeting Ted and Jodi for the first time and being so jealous that Pete was somehow already friends with them, then seeing Jodi’s band (with another girl with a rad American name like Brooklyn or Maddison, I’m pretty sure the band was called The Runways) and thinking these were the most sensational people I’d ever met. Being interviewed for this magazine called Chickfactor and hearing of another wait what cool girls are somehow allowed to be mainstream now magazine called Sassy and realising that culture was an actual thing and the world changes and feeling that we lived in some small backwater but we were so lucky because we were here, for now.

AMELIA FLETCHER
– On our first US tour, Pete and I being dropped off by Small Factory in Hartford, Connecticut, in the middle of the night. We were near the place we were all staying with my parents, and figured we’d call a taxi to get us home. But it turned out that the place we stopped at had been robbed the week before, and we suddenly found ourselves surrounded by police cars. We were freaked out. It felt like an episode of Starsky and Hutch. Then, when asked where we were heading, we realised we couldn’t remember the address. Not at all suspicious! In the end, though, the police believed the daft English people and gave us a lift home in the police car.

– Meeting Claudia Gonson from Magnetic Fields at Chet’s Last Call in Boston. She asked if I had time to come and record a song for her and Stephin Merritt’s side project, the 6ths, the next day. I said why not. I had heard ‘100,000 Fireflies’ on the ‘One Last Kiss’ compilation and liked it a lot. I remember I sang ‘Hall of Mirrors’ in an especially breathy way, and Stephin commented that I came complete with my own reverb!

– Playing at the Fantagraphics Comics Warehouse in Seattle with Beat Happening and another band who I just remember as being very smelly! It was a great space, and I was excited because I was a big fan of ‘Love and Rockets’. Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl both came, which seemed pretty thrilling too. We were easily thrilled!

The Heavenly option. Photo by Alison Wonderland

– Arriving in Olympia at the start of a West Coast tour, meeting Bratmobile and Bikini Kill and discovering Riot Grrrl. There was a visceral buzz around the whole place, and we quickly got very excited about it too. We had always been a feminist band, but in a quiet sort of way. We didn’t really feel part of the UK feminist movement at the time. It was fighting for stuff that was no doubt important but didn’t seem relevant to our concerns. So it was thrilling and empowering to find people discussing the issues that really had affected us. And to discover a whole set of new bands who had found a way of being outspoken and angry but also huge fun. It had a big impact on us, musically and personally.

PETER MOMTCHILOFF
I have opened the drawer in which I left my old memories of Heavenly in the USA. There is a lot there, but I can’t fit it together into any kind of story. My colleagues’ reminiscences do what I seem not to be able to. As a kind of coda, I do remember that we were brought down to earth by our first gig back in England after a West Coast tour, feeling rather pleased with ourselves. It was in a pub in Gillingham, to about five men and a dog. I don’t think they even turned the pub TV off while we played.