January Reading List

 

1. Hitch-22, Christopher Hitchens
2. Michael Clark, Violette Editions
3. Clouded Sky, Miklos Radnoti
4. Spain, Take This Chalice From Me & Other Poems, Cesar Vallejo
5. The Hounding of David Oluwale, Kester Aspden
6. An English Journey, J.B. Priestley
7. Crash, J.G. Ballard
8. Frenzy, dir. Alfred Hitchcock
9. This Is England ‘88, dir. Shane Meadows
10. Smoke Ring For My Halo, Kurt Vile

Kate Bush goes Slowdive

I stumbled over this k-hole shoegazing version of Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights, 36 minutes long and not a second wasted.

Thanks to Ben for the link.

 

Steel City Smut

I had a trip to Sheffield for the first time in years this week to meet the designer David Bailey on a project we’re working on. He used to work for The Designer’s Republic who designed all sorts of magnificent covers over the years, including artwork for Warp and Pulp.

He has recently found the original image of Windowlicker that was used before putting Richard D. James‘ head on the top. David did the graphics for this seminal work, which was directed by Chris Cunningham. Windowlicker is one of my favourite records of all time and I’m stoked to be working with the designer of the sleeve. I was never lucky enough to own the calendar, but I still have Windowlicker on VHS Video and 12inch vinyl.

So this is the picture. It looks pretty strange to see a real woman’s head on there. More disturbing than Richard D. James, though I guess I’m just accustomed to him these days…

Charlotte, Emily & Anne

Stella Vine is helping out the Haworth church campaign by creating this new painting of Charlotte, Emily & Anne.

Signed, limited edition prints are available to buy from Stella’s website and she will be giving all profits to the fund. She is planning to donate the painting to a local gallery.

The church’s roof has been the victim of two metal thefts in the past 18 months and is in a huge state of disrepair. The Bronte chapel is inside the church. The last time I visited they had made a paper prayer tree near the vestry. It had messages on it from people all around the world. Some of the messages said things like ‘I really miss my husband, please look after him up there’ or ‘take care of the poor racehorses who died running’. It was really touching and I had a little cry when I read them. Sometimes poetry appears in the places you least expect.

Sweet Dreams Are Made of This

Happy New Year to one and all. Amongst my many resolutions for this year (which include writing a poem a week, having more holidays in the sun, learning to draw and getting rake thin) is mastering the art of baking macaroons.

My recent obsession with macaroons stems from a delightful package that my friend Lisa bought me a few months back from Ladurée. It was a Eugénie box, tubular, with gold lining, decorated with scrolls and cherubs and contained six macaroons. Each one a different flavour. Lavender, apple, vanilla, chocolate, pistachio – after finishing each one I nearly cried as I knew I would never taste anything so delightful again. It was how I imagined heaven would taste.

Now, the issue with Ladurée macaroons is that you can’t buy them anywhere except in London in the UK. Apparently the Ladurée shop in Paris has queues around the block at any given time, and it may be many years before they decide to let us eat them in the North. There are many things I miss about London, but one of the main things is the variety of food and ingredients. I still dream of Maison Bertaux’s coffee éclairs, and have yet to find any in the West Riding that come close. We are blessed with Yorkshire Curd Tarts, Stodgy Cakes, and Fat Rascals in Calderdale, but fine pastries are sadly lacking in these parts.

So, I have made it my duty to learn the art of making macaroons as my 2012 resolution. Who knows, maybe my rose water and dark chocolate versions will take off and I’ll be able to give up the day job and open an artisan patisserie for us poor, deprived northern church mice…

Adelle Stripe Awards 2011

Thought it was about time I scraped together a list of the some of the finest things that have passed through my orbit this year. In no particular order…

 

• Album of the Year – Cat’s Eyes, Cat’s Eyes

The Horrors’ frontman Faris Badwan recorded this romantic side project with his girlfriend, Rachel Zeffira, a trained soprano, which is reminiscent of Nancy&Lee. I’m not keen on the Simple Minds direction of The Horrors but this record has got under my skin. The Best Person I Know is a wonderful song.

 

• Book of the Year – Savage Messiah, Laura Oldfield Ford

Laura Oldfield Ford’s journeys through London provide voyeuristic glimpses into squats, arse-end housing estates and all day drinking. Part poetry, part-fanzine, this collection of her work on Verso is a collage of time shifts, diary entries, zeroxed drawings and one-night stands. One of the best female writers out there.

 

• Poetry Book of the Year – Paraffin Van (Poems 2009-2011), Billy Chyldish

Stuff the British poetry scene and its worms-in-a-bottle circuit, some of the most devastating British poetry I’ve read this year is in this book. Chyldish enters new territory, breaking away from the confessional, to create deeper substance and depth to his work through psychological imagery and description. He is completely unrecognised by the poetry establishment who have no idea that a new William Blake is sitting right under their public school noses.

 

• Single of the Year – Video Games, Lana Del Ray

Yes, she has fake lips. Yes, she’s a music industry puppet. All this is irrelevant because Video Games is a delicate, fragile song, delivered with aplomb. When I hear her voice I conjure up trailer parks, the mid-west and broken hearts. It just works. Whoever said that myth wasn’t better than reality?

 

• Film of the Year – Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder

It has taken me years to get round to watching this film. It was like putting a detonator under my chin. Quite simply, one of the finest films I have ever seen. I haven’t watched anything else this year that comes close, so this ‘re-issue’ gets my vote.

 

• Gig of the Year – Battant, Shacklewell Arms

Fantastic to see Chloe Raunet delivering one of her best live performances at this rammed-out gig in Dalston. Joel would have been so proud of her. She wore abattoir-chic leather dungarees and premiered the new album. A special night for all of us.

 

• Hero of 2011 – Ken Russell

This year I did the publicity for a rare screening of Ken Russell’s 1972 film about the life of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. Ken was too ill to attend, but sent a letter to the audience explaining how the film was his greatest work and detailed his fascination with the genius Vorticist sculptor. His sign-off was ‘Art has no frontiers’. A phrase that stuck to me like glue.

 

• Exhibition of the Year – Dirt: The Filthy Reality of Everyday Life, The Wellcome Trust

As always, the Wellcome Trust curated a superb exhibition this year that changed perceptions of how dirt affects us in our everyday life. It doesn’t sound like a great starting point for a show, but there were some enlightening examples of the northern European obsession with cleanliness, and where our cleaning habits originate from. It included some shocking examples of Nazi propaganda through its hygiene museum (and eugenics publications), a cholera ghost map , Igor Eskinja’s dust carpet and work by Bruce Nauman. This is still one of my favourite museums in London, my first port of call when stepping off the train in Euston.

 

 

 

November Reading List

1. Twin Peaks , Series 1&2
2. Wild at Heart, dir. David Lynch
3. The Truth of Poetry: Tensions in Modernist Poetry Since Baudelaire, Michael Hamburger
4. Whores: An Oral Biography of Perry Farrell and Jane’s Addiction, Brendan Mullen
5. Black Sheep, Julian Cope
6. Pig Iron, Ben Myers
7. The Intergalactic Republic of Kongo’s End of Summer ‘Je Suis Un Rockstar’ Mixtape
8. Massive Hits Vol.1, New Age Steppers
9. Poetry of the Thirties, ed. Robin Skelton
10. Linder Works 1976-2006, Linder Sterling

Old School, Baby

The past few weeks have been some of the most painful I have ever had to experience. Losing my friend Joel has knocked me for six. I can’t write, read or concentrate. Joel was my surrogate brother, I am lucky to have known him and to have loved him. He recorded an album a few months before he died, with Chloe, and this track above, a cover of Westbam’s ‘Old School, Baby’. Joel was an incredible musician, artist and above all, friend. I keep reaching out to him in my sleep, waking up thinking that he is still here and that losing him has just been some terrible nightmare.

Despite this, Joel still lives on in his music, and there will always be a big place in my heart for him. One day I will write about Joel. Somehow, at the moment, words are useless.

 

 

 

Daytripper

One of my new poems, Daytripper, from my forthcoming collection Dark Corners of the Land, has appeared on Caught By The River today. Caught By The River is a great website that publishes some of the best in nature writing online, and in beautiful paper editions.

 

September Reading List

1. As I Ride With No Horse, Battant, CD
2. The Road to Los Angeles, John Fante
3. Bruce McLean, Mel Gooding
4. Other Voices, Truman Capote
5. Savage Messiah, Laura Oldfield Ford
6. Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class, Owen Jones
7. Cat’s Eyes CD
8. Treme, Series 1
9. Hollywood Babylon, Kenneth Anger
10. Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, dir. Beeban Kidron