Subject: Welcome to Music week !! 11 dec - 20 dec 1998 Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 07:39:05 PDT Hi all this is an email I started long time ago, finally finished it now - only 10 more to go which will cover the past few months... This was the first music week I had, i.e. a week filled with fun and frivolity and lots of music. xxx darryl ;-) Let's start this email with the lyrics of a Marc Almond song which reminds me of London and vice versa, as I walk around in the twilight hours people pass me by and I ignore most of them, but some remind me of this song, lost people on the streets, me included perhaps, maybe it's my reflection in an Oxford Street window that catches my eye. Walking through the darker streets, the smell of piss enamates from the beggars and homeless warming the door and pavement sheltered under cardboard and eating dinner from a rubbish bin. Waifs and Strays by Marc Almond And so they say they're leaving While you sleep away the day You go out every evening Collecting waifs and strays They follow their illusions They don't know what to do They need a clear direction That's why they turn to you You're pleading Please don't leave me Don't go from me so soon I need to be found For I'm a stray too Don't go Just wait until tomorrow On the streets of Paris On the streets of Rome They find a home In shadow or in coffee bars Down the winding alleys Through the brightly lit arcades No matter where they are In and out of life they wander Little waifs and strays They stay until you fall in love That's when they slip away In the dark you'll see Those sad brown eyes come shining through Your heart will melt You felt the way they looked at you Don't go Just wait until tomorrow You find you need someone To love your days away Just when your heart is crying out Please stay Don't go away Just wait until tomorrow Yes it's true I'm a stray too! ________________________________________________ Well thanks to all of you who read that last big email I sent. I seem to be quite fussy now about what I write and like to work a bit more on it. With that last email I actually left out one detail and that was that the female bartender at the Ronnie Spector concert was the thin gothic girl I was next to in the Depeche Mode concert !! I'd recognise those fine emancipated features anywhere. Well the week after the concert flew by - even though I was desperately in need of some rest and recuperation ! Friday night is Peter's last night here so we all head off to the Walkabout Tavern again. Initially it is Peter, Me, Mark, Emma, Mark, Maryanne and Adrian. Already there with their own agenda are Liz, Kate, Sharee, Donna. http://www.walkaboutinns.co.uk/ Peter is heading back to Sydney. All us guys don hawaiian tshirts and head down, unfortunately we do not get the attention we deserve! The regular cover band runs through the normal boring set of pub party songs and I remember why I don't come here often. Though they do a good version of Depeche Mode's "Just Can't Get Enough". SATURDAY I catch up with Malcolm and Sarah from Hamilton and Tauranga and we all go to Portobello Road Market. http://www.nottinghilltv.co.uk/ Malc and Sarah have been to everywhere else in London except here so through light drizzling rain we wander amongst the more alternative marketgoers in London. They have an aussie friend they met on a European Contiki tour and she is working in The Rat and Parrot Pub in Putney (Bridge). So we head out there and grab a feed at McDonalds. They want to go off drinking so I leave them a head off to town by a whim. At the station I spot a guy with the same Front 242 tshirt I have [front : no sex until marriage, back : you deserve to go to hell] and ask him about their recent concert which I missed - the tour tshirts were black and the back looked as though your spine was exposed ! darn I wish I had one ! I've not been on a train before so grab the one to Waterloo station. A new section of it was opened a few days ago and australia's Bjorn Again were there to open it !-) I'm tired and in town at 9pm...what to do ? Well walk around as per usual ! A reprint of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" catches my eye so I guess why not ? So at 11pm I bought my ticket and went in, it was a great jokey atmosphere in there, I've not seen a horror for a while. Well it was good to see it especially that seventies style of horror and like the reviews say : there is actually no gore in it ! Most people are basically bopped on the head and they're dead ! Afterwards I hit Leicester Square and catch up with Hema and head back home. Malcolm and Sarah are supposed to be calling round at 10am. SUNDAY 12 midday and I'm still waiting.....While waiting for them to come to my place Elizabeth a friend from Auckland calls up as Kym is at work/training so she comes along with us to my favourite markets. We take the good old central line east to Liverpool Street station and descend into Petticoat Market, Bricklane and Spitalfields. Despite my worry that we'd run out of time we manage to get about and I can show everyone around. I pick up some cheap chips : 20 small packets of chips for 1 UKP a bargain ! ...Unfortunately I find out later that beef, prawn, worchestershire sauce flavoured chips aren't too palatable.......We also pick up 5 snickers bars for a pound as well. Back to Liverpool street it is pretty much pitch dark at 5pm and I show them the outdoor ice rink at the Broadgate centre. I feel like eating chinese so we head into town to Wong Kei Restaurant and me being boring I order thick chinese noodles with pork and prawn again ! YUM ! Our dinner guests who are sharing the table are a middle-aged french couple. We spy a dish they are having and order it, when my dish comes then enquire what type of 'pasta' I am eating ! Get back home at 9pm and Mark, Fred and Andrew are heading to the Walkabout Tavern for some more final drinks as Fred is heading off to Canada for a year or soon. Mark is from Wooga Wooga, Fred is from Sydney, Andrew from Perth is my beloved roommate, Dave Tetley from Hamilton is along for the ride. I drag Adrian and Arnold a peroxide chinese canadian architect whom I hung around with back in August is back for a few days before heading back to Canada. I have still to write up that particular period - oops ;-) So we head there, oh yes Jeremy is with us as well. He is a bouncer at the pub but it is his night off, it is comforting to be in such company. Even though I've only been to the Walkabout for only about 10 times for the past 7 months they seem to recognise me, probably cos there ain't many chinese that go there. Which as I may have mentioned before seems to be the case whenever I go to a pub or to a concert. Also along is Beatrice from Tasmania who is Adrian and Arnold's roommate. The band tonight is naturally a cover band more on the rock edge of things, they first launched into a blistering cover version of The Cult's "She Sells Sanctuary" !! Anyway we drink 2 for 1 (2.50 UKP) Steinlager and I am reminded of my last days with my workmates in NZ when Steinlager and Heineken used to be our drink of choice - apart from someone who had a hankering for scotch and coke ! I get home to bed at 12 after stopping off at Pasha's which is a good value kebab place just down from us. [I am writing this section on Wednesday 23rd December, today Rev. Donald Soper died. Check out http://www.speakerscorner.net/ for more info on him. I had the immense pleasure to hear him debate from his wheelchair with a little group of 10 people at Speaker's Corner some months ago] MONDAY 5 minutes late for work. Get home at 9pm. There is a Depeche Mode cover band playing at the club tonight called DEPECHE MADE. Allan wanted to come but I can't reach him by phone so only Andy and Fred are game to come down, luckily they are open minded about music so it's cool. During the night they regale me with tales of seeing Dead Or Alive in the company of some icelandic girls on Saturday night at the G.A.Y. niteclub who have a special guests every weekend - man I was annoyed at missing them, especially as I normally pass that club on my way home but that night I took another route ! Get to town at 11pm and go into the club, it is the most packed I have ever seen it, at the night's end I would've counted a (un)healthy mix of goths, punks, new romantics, gays (one bald one looked like Vince Clarke who as we know ain't gay) and two beautiful tall men dressed as women who dominate the dancefloor and slink across the walls staring at you. Fred is a bouncer so he strikes up a typical bouncer camaraderie with the bouncer here. We sit near the bar and one of the regular girls rushes in slightly rattled or inebriated followed by the bouncer who is wanting to kick her out as she told him to 'fuck off' for some reason or other. The management comes in and there is some discussion, her friend is comforting her a few metres in front of me, she releases her grip and the girl faints and makes what I would call a hollow thud as her head lands 2 metres in front of me, like a drama in slow motion I wait for her friend to turn around and pick her up. The band which comprises of a tall guy with glasses, a chinese guy and a long haired hippie type came on and did tinky-bomp versions of World In My Eyes, Never Let Me Down Again plus others, though they seemed to mainly do their own tunes. The last song is Enjoy The Silence which judging my the crowd's reaction here at the club it seems to be THE Mode song people like in a singalong sort of way. They played for about one hour. After the band the dj comes on with Erasure's "Love To Hate You" which fills the dancefloor and various other greats !! We danced till 2am then got the night bus home. TUESDAY Get to work 2 minutes early. Tonight is Fred's last night here so we all planned to go to town. I get home at 8:30pm and they are off to dinner, so I eat at home and join them at the Walkabout later which is good as I am too tired to go to town. I head there with everyone else and we drink. The as usual covers band plays normal pub party fare with a tilt towards 80s hits - so glad they don't do any Doors songs ! Get back home at 11:30pm. We all sit and talk for the next two hours with other vagrants who arrive home in the same state as us. I desperately need some sleep so call it a night. At 6am Fred and Andrew come back to bed. At 7am Dave sticks his head through the door and wakes up Fred who was supposed to get up earlier to catch his flight. A lot of noise and shuffling about as Fred heads out the door. Don't think I'll see him again. Before he goes we wake up Andrew to say goodbye and I take a photo to immortalise the moment though I don't think Andrew appreciated a camera flash within seconds of waking up. http://www.marcalmond.co.uk WEDNESDAY 5 minutes late for work. Tonight is the night, finances are a bit low so I have decided to buy a cheap seat to Marc Almond tonight so I can go to another concert later in the week. The show starts at 8pm and I arrive at the Albery Theatre in Covent Garden at 7:30pm. I approach the box office and acting like a theatre newbie inquire about the cheap restricted view seats - the pierced italian lady says I can pay for the cheapie ticket which is 7.50 UKP (top prices are 27.50 UKP) but as there are seats available way up front she'll give me one of those. I trundle in and am surprised that she has given me the far left seat third row from the front ! YAY !!! After a while an american guy called Chakdi (sp?) comes and sits next to me as he managed to secure a cheap ticket as well and we talk about our good luck. He's a web designer for AOL but is touting for work over here, and tells me he is here cos he was just passing by and recognised the name. He tells me a tale when he met a gothic girl last week who took him to a club out Islington way. Whilst in conversation two girls in feather boas come by trailing pink feathers. The lights dim and Marc steps out in all black as usual and with a black peak hat covering his eyes. He runs through an acapella rendition of Fun City and I know I am in for a treat, the venue is suited for a more cabaret and theatrical type of show. The faithful love him and the applause is astounding ! The setlist : fun city, open all night, on the prowl,the user, untitled, black heart, when bad people kiss, But I'm Alive, sleepwalker, scarlet bedroom, I've never seen your face, a taste of champagne, black kiss, bedroom shrine. break a lover spurned, beautiful loser, stories of johnny,le diable ca va, my love, crime sublime, erotic shopping, tenderness is a weakness, tragedy, st judy, night and dark encore: seedy films The show went on for over 2 hours and I definitely got my money's worth ;-) Lots of inbetween patter, three sheets behind the stage shows pictures of Marc or fitted the theme of the song. One of my most favourite songs is Blackheart and I squealed with delight when he started playing the opening bars. As was Tenderness is a Weakness, I really like his earlier stuff. With this song he had some false starts, for example where the guitarist was about to come in he told him off for playing it wrong. All playful fun !! The latest single is Black Kiss and this incorporatd a host of extra musicians and singers who made an impact to the racuous song! Anyway I won't bore you with further details. I left the venue on a high and decided against not waiting near the stagedoor and keeping in the vein of the dark seedy songs I walked through Soho on the way home with 'Waifs And Strays' ringing in my head........ THURSDAY: Work was same as usual, getting a bit tired now, nevertheless I was looking forward to the concert tonight. Finished work and took Metropolitian line to Kings Cross and took Northern line northwards to Kentish Town. Walk out and join the other lovelies to The Forum !! Get there and join the line, a few ticket touts outside. I have tickets for upstairs only. They are checking for drugs and cameras so when I head to the door I hold up camera and flash my ticket. They say I can't take the camera in so I leave it in the cloakroom, when I come back I just need to walk through without showing my ticket so I manage to sneak downstairs ;-) The venue is popular for indie bands : The Residents, Public Enemy, Supergrass, same design as Shepherds Bush Empire but perhaps slightly wider. Soon Dorothy (Dot) Allison comes out in tight blue jeans and a cardigan, this was one of the reasons I came tonight as well. She was the lead singer of One Dove who made a lovely album and absolutely wonderful songs. Unfortunately the direction she is heading is more strummy guitar based. The bad acoustics and loudness to the point of distortion didn't help. Even a set of songs with a young string quartet couldn't salvage it, as it happens though she is getting critical praise ! Soon afterwards St Etienne came out with a lot of fanfare and light and noise. The band if you're not familiar do 60s-flavoured music but still with a modern dance edge, lovely vocals and organs etc. The band comes out one by one and the lead singer Sarah Cracknell comes out with a feather boa and a slinky shiny number which during the course of the night threatens many times to fall down ! The started off with my favourite song of theirs ! setlist : nothing can stop us now, the bad photographer, sylvie, you're in a bad way, people get real, who do you think you are, join our club, I was born on christmas day,hug my soul, he's on the phone. encore : hobart paving, avenue I was right up close about 2 metres from the centre of stage. what got me was that everyone was singing along and man was it packed, a lot of stylish looking people surrounding me in 60-70-80s clothing. FRIDAY : Tonight I was going to relax.......but then Ems and I decided to head downtown to watch a movie : RazorBlade Smile. Don't watch it ! It is an english vampire movie that borrows from John Woo in the fight scenes with two-handed gun fun and slomotion action, but you hardly see any blood ! It starts off promising enough with a gothic victorian setting but the lead actresses voice is so fakely sleazy it's obviously put on. As it happens when I saw Anthony recently and he actually knows the person who directed it so I told him how shit it was. Afterwards I decided to wait backstage at Marc's concert for that night and I got his autograph, gold pen on one of his flyers, turning the corner we see people have cornered a family and it turns out to be his Mum, sister and nephew (with polio hand) so I say why not - and get the strangest set of autographs I've had so far complete with written titles to indicate whose they are. Bleary eyed we head back home, another late Friday night !! SATURDAY : I think I worked again tonight, but that's not important cos it was the final night of Marc's concerts so I had to go cos he was bound to do something different. Emma and I get cheap tickets again but these are on the top second floor, still get a good view but it soon becomes apparent that Marc does not use a microphone, I know the words but even I have trouble making out what he says so it wasn't nice for new listeners. setlist : fun city, open all night, on the prowl,the user,untitled, black heart, when bad people kiss, But I'm Alive, sleepwalk, I've never seen your face, a taste of champagne, black kiss, bedroom shrine. break a lover spurned, beautiful loser, stories of johnny, le diable ca va, my love, crime sublime, tenderness is a weakness, tragedy, st judy, night and dark encore: seedy films, hand on my heart, say hello wave goodbye,jacky Yes - that's right, basically the same sort of setlist ! This time there were more encores. Say Hello Wave Goodbye was a lovely acoustic version which had all of us including me singing along as loud as we could. Looking down from my perch I could all the ground stalls on their feet. Incidentally on the box opposite I can see Siouxsie Sioux and Budgie. Funnily enough the supposedly incidental inbetween banter and improvised bits were exactly the same - and in a few months time it was to crop up again at the Royal Festival Hall show ! oh well......... Afterwards we go to the stagedoor and there are 30+ people outside ! doh ! eventually Marc comes out, did I mention how short he is ? shorter than me ! he comes out and makes his way out to the car parked on charing cross road, everyone runs after him - a drunk englishman wearing fake rubber breasts sees the commotion and waves his breasts in the window - he doesn't know who it is as it's darktinted. As the car departs everyone waves goodbye as though they are farewelling an old dear friend.... Sunday ...rolls around, tired, the last night of this music marathon now. Today we checked out Brick Lane markets and got some cheap food etc. The rest of the day I think we did a bit of shopping. Howard Jones was playing at 8pm so as dusk rolled by Emma went home I headed off to the gig. One ticket tout outside, Howard must be getting popular I chuckle to myself. Get in there and the same old crowd, catch up with Anthony and other familiar faces. This gig is the Christmas party gig so the Jazz cafe is suitably attired. First band is the first band signed to his label they are a male and female duo doing poppy techno music, very similar to Sunscreem/Opus 3. It is uplifting music and lyrics i keeping with Howard's image I believe. It goes down politely well. The concert was great as usual but something inside me stuck, maybe cos I was dead tired but also because I'd seen all this before so I made a pledge to save my money next time. He does basically the same setlist and the new arrangements on the old classics are totally brilliant. Setlist : you know I love you don't you, new song, love is a good thing, like to get to know you well, wedding song, sleep my angel, pearl in shell, i want to be your everything, dreaming on, you're the buddha, I.G.Y., everylasting love, tomorrow is now, life in one day, what is love, what a good year that was (Sinatra cover), hide and seek, no one is to blame, let the people have their say, things can only get better. After the gig I lead the way upstairs. Anthony and some others get Nick Beggs' autograph, he used to be the leader (not the singer though) of Kajagoogoo, and despite that particular period of musical history he is well respected in musical circles as a topnotch guitarist and bassist. I ask him about the track 'Big Bubbles No Troubles' as I still cannot remember which rap artist sampled it to make a big hit, he doesn't know either, he's just happy as long as it makes him money ;-) Afterwards we head out to the buses again, Anthony and I reminisce that this was how we first met. Music always seems to be the major factor as to how I make friends. MONDAY now when I look at my notes for this period I have 'heart attack' written down -- I have no idea what it means, I don't think I saw anyone die. Or if I did and forgot it, it was probably a little death... I leave you with the lyrics to my favorite Marc Almond song. Ruby Red (Almond) Well it seems you have a heart I saw it once so I know it's true You let it out on Sundays when You let it beat me black and blue When you went and stole my heart I saw it go so I know it's true It was a ruby, ruby, ruby red It was the most precious gift I could give to you It was as red as the sun in the evening sky It was as red as the fire in a panther's eye It was as red as the rose under the summer sun Like a fire from a killer's gun Chorus Ruby, ruby red Shine a light onto this boy's bed There's a street lamp glowing in my head Oh, Ruby, ruby, ruby red Well it seems you have a soul You let it go so I know it's true It was a ruby, ruby, ruby red It keeps me warm when I'm feeling sad and blue Well you went and stole my heart I saw it go so I know it's true I wrapped it up in a bouquet of barbed wire It was the wickedest gift I could give to you It was as red as the sun in the evening sky It was as red as the fire in a panther's eye It was as red as the rose under the summer sun Like a fire from a killer's gun Repeat chorus Oh just like Johnny Rio baby I need to be desired I give up looking for my past For the ones I left behind Ruby red, ruby red, hey, hey, hey Repeat chorus It was the most precious jewel I could give to you Colour me red when I'm feeling blue The colour of a kiss In a young girl's dream The mark of a guillotine A drop of blood from a single thorn Red wet sheets in the afternoon A red light leading to my tomb Ruby red all around my room Ruby, ruby red Oh shine a light onto this boy's bed Oh, ruby, ruby, ruby red
