'City Of Christmas Ghosts' - Goldblade ft Poly Styrene

'City Of Christmas Ghosts' - Out Now

The marvellous Christmas single by Goldbade and Poly Styrene is available for download on iTunes. Shout 'La, la, la-la' and head on over there to download it immediately. It's The Law!

Suzanne Vega - 'Daddy Is White'

Suzanne Vega writes an occasional blog for The New York Times and her latest entry is about growing up thinking she was half Puerto Rican only to find out that her father was white. She writes:

In my last blog post I mentioned that I was raised in a half-Puerto Rican family and spent five years in East Harlem as a young child. At some point, when I was about 9 years old, I learned that my birth father was actually English-Scottish-Irish. Or white, as we used to say in my old neighborhood. Actually, anybody looking at me could probably tell that this was the case, but I felt I was the last to know, partly because I was treated by my Puerto Rican abuelita and my aunt and uncle as one of their own. I was proud, and still am proud, to be a Vega.

She's written a thought-provoking blog about this and the potential for change that comes with the election of Obama. Also included in the blog is a link to a demo of a new song, 'Daddy Is White'. Click on over to have a read and take a listen.

Don Powell on 'Buzzcocks'

The mighty Don Powell was on 'Never Mind The Buzzcocks' tonight and I'll see him in a couple of weeks time at Shepherds Bush heading the 'Merry Xmas 2008 Tour'. Much as it's great to see Don on telly, I can't help feeling he shouldn't have done it. He wasn't on the panel - his righful place - he was the subject of the 'guess the former star' where they show a clip of someone in their heyday and then have a line-up of four people and you choose who the former star, the has-been, is. They poke fun at them and give them 'funny' names.

Don isn't a has-been. For a couple of years back in the '70s SLADE were as big as the Beatles had been in the '60s, three singles shot in at number 1 in the charts in one year when that meant selling 250,000 singles in a few days, not like now when a tiny portion of that secures a chart place. He's been in Slade for 40 years and is still playing. He's one of the great drummers in British rock.

I've no idea why Don agreed to be on the show in that slot. He should've been one of the panel guests, not the comedy turn.

Electric Amanda

Amanda Palmer is playing at the Electric Ballroom on 4 February and guess who ordered tickets this evening? Of course I did! Amanda is back with The Danger Ensemble so a mad night is in store for one and all.


But, and this is where I put my stern face on, why did I hear this news from Live Nation rather than from Miss Palmer? She's probably too entranced by all the belly love to remember to send out the blog...

'La Cage Aux Folles' - The Playhouse

I saw 'La Cage Aux' Folles' back in January at the Choccy Factory and enjoyed it very much. The same production is now on at The Playhouse Theatre with much the same cast except Denis Lawson now plays George and Paula Wilcox plays Mme Dindon, with Douglas Hodge repeating his role as Alban (the cast changes in January). It is still immensely enjoyable and playing on a bigger stage allows the cast to troll about even more, especially the high kicking Cagelles.

The production is drenched in colour and light, sparkling and twinkling with all the gaudy costumes and wigs and set details. And they must get through a ton of make-up what with the Cagelles and Georges slapping it on like there's no tomorrow. The Cagelles were as energetic as I remembered (and I still winced when they did the splits), looking haughty and pervy by turns but giving it good high kick.

Douglas Hodge was excellent as Alban and was in good voice. At a couple of places he does little more than whisper but the audience was so in his pocket that there wasn't a sound to prevent us hearing him. He played it for laughs and for tears and his big song to close the first half, 'I Am What I Am' ended with him leaving the stage and walking into the audience to leave by the side door onto the street, an electrifying end and tension-builder. Wonder what people in the street think seeing a wigless drag queen storming out of a fire exit from the theatre? Very dramatic though!

It's great fun and the set pieces work tremendously well but it also annoyed me a couple of times: the long comic scene where Alban tries to act straight as John Wayne (let's laugh at the camp queens, shall we?) and well, virtually every time the son opened his mouth - what a hateful little sod he is for much of the play, rejecting the love of his 'mother' Alban for his biological mother who he's rarely even seen. Of course, that's part of the basic premise of the play and was probably quite radical and shocking back in the early '80s when it was first staged, but the selfish little cunt annoyed me. He redeems himself in the end, though.

I'd definitely recommend a visit to the Playhouse to catch this show - it may be winter outside but there's love and light and colour inside and it'll send you home with a warm glow.

Oh, and Susan George was a couple of rows in front of us and she joined in the standing ovation at the end. She's still looking good.

The Rebellyon

As I've said before, Amanda Palmer is art, and she inspires art in other people too. I mentioned a while ago that she was having problems with her record company - it thought her belly looked fat in the great video for 'Leeds United'. Not in a month of Sundays could you say Amanda was fat in that video - take a look below and see for yourself.

And if she was, then so what? Is that so wrong? Are they equally concerned about the physiques of their male signings? The record company clearly doesn't know the work or appeal of it's own signings and doesn't seem to understand what Amanda or the Dolls are about.

As a result, Amanda's fan have started The Rebellyon (www.rebellyon.com) to display their bellies and things. There's also a page on MySpace and a Facebook group (naturally). There's even been an article in 'The Guardian' today.

Get with the scene, daddy-o, it's all about Belly Love!

Snowmen On Carnaby Street

One of the signs that Christmas is nigh is the decorations on Carnaby Street. In the last few years I'd award best decorations and lights in London honours to Carnaby Street where there's been a flash of imagination and they've produced something a bit different to normal. I think my favourite was a few years ago when they'd strung up huge Christmas tree lights all around the street which tickled my Christmas bone - a simple but very effective idea. It's all part of the build up to Christmas and it's a bit of fun.

This year, the theme is snowmen. Not just your average everyday snowmen, these are giant blow-up snowmen that dance along the street and, in the side streets, it's almost like the big, fat lovely things are trying to escape. When I gazed up at them with a foolish grin on my face I thought how wonderful it would be if some of them escaped on Christmas Eve and floated away over London, a collection of snowmen together having a gossip as they float over the town looking down on us as we scurry around.

Are they marvellous, malevolent or plainly manic? That mad grin on their faces, arms wide to give you a great big hug - and possibly keep on hugging you until you're squished... ooooo it's eerie. Can you trust a mad Carnaby snowman? Keep your eyes open, people, stay alert and watch out for the glint in their eyes...

Poly Styrene - 'Flower Aeroplane'

I want to share a small portion of joy with you, a portion of atomic rainbows and earth mantras and a journey on a flower aeroplane courtesy of the marvellous Poly Styrene. I finally bought Poly's last album from 2004, 'Flower Aeroplane', through the X-Ray Spex website and I'm so pleased I did.

It's described as, 'An eclectic mix of soothing transcendent sounds with a metal edge' on the Spex site and as 'Mantra with muscle' on the back of the CD. The overall sound is calming and inspiring as Poly takes the listener on a trip on her flower aeroplane while singing a love song to Govinda. The album opens with the gentle dance beats of 'Atomic Rainbow' before moving on to the first of several songs re-recorded from her 'Translucence' album from 1980, repeating the jazzy-calypso feel that engulfs you in tropical sunshine. It works very well, the mixing of styles, a melange of journeys with Poly occasionally reciting Sanskrit prayers. And, in context, it works excellently. I was entranced on my first listen.

I've never seen the track-listing for this album anywhere so here it is:

Atomic Rainbow
Essence
Beautiful
Spring
Shades
Sub-Tropical
Nice
B-Conscious
Airplane
Dreaming
Pink
Bi-Cycle
Earth Mantra

I will need to listen to it a few more times and read the lyrics in the booklet that comes with the CD but I think this stands a good chance of becoming a firm favourite. It's not part of Poly's Punky Party, but it's 100% Styrene. And that means, at the very least, that it's worth a listen. And then another. Just be conscious...

Estelle at IndigO2

On Saturday night I went to see Estelle at the IndigO2 with Chris. Well, I should probably say 'hear' rather than 'see' since I didn't see that much of the lass, but what I heard was good. There was a load of security getting into the place, walk-through metal detectors, bags through an x-ray machine and had to show tickets four times. A bit excessive to see a little lass from Hammersmith.

And you know she's from Hammersmiff as soon as she opens her mouth, that rapid-fire barrage of words ending sentences in 'riiiight' and, unfortunately, has picked up saying 'shit' a lot (I'm sure her mam will have had something to say afterwards!). She spoke quite a lot in between songs and it was nice to hear her - she was clearly having a ball in front of her home audience and that's infectious, just like some of her music. She showed off her new hair and her sparkly frock but that was wasted on me.

We were up in the balcony which is steeply banked, and all it takes is for one person to lean forward or stand and then no-one behind can see a thing. I saw very little of Estelle and this was my typical view >>>> For some reason, the lighting rigs are in front of the video screens so most of the screen is covered and you can't see that much. Quite annoying really.

Estelle played all of her last album, 'Shine', plus a couple from her first album including '1980' with it's great hook. 'American Boy' sounded better without Kanye's rap. It was a crowd-pleasing set and was well delivered.

I took some photos around the O2 earlier in the evening, so, in the absence of Estelle photos, here's a pic of my new best-horse, Perrin from the merry go round outside the O2.