And... ta-dah! The last of my Fashion Rocks 2007 moments. Oh, go on! Indulge me.
Here's La Almond, the biggest nut on the block doing a gloriously arch yet sugar sweet version of Strangers in the Night (available on the Stardom Road album, peeps).
Heads up to Adem at I'm Always Right for the Sugababes clip.
The 'babes put in a bravura performance of Lady Marmalade at Fashion Rocks 2007 - and at this point, the models are thankfully dispensed with. Amelle, quite rightly, takes centre stage and the change of hair has gone to her head. She's almost Amazonian as she belts out AND holds the 'Marmalaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaade'. The spunky fountains are a lovely camp touch.
Spot the difference:
Fashion Rocks 2007. Strange event. Who would ever think that the idea would work? This Swarovski sponsored version, at the Royal Albert Hall, shown on TV last night was no exception. And who knew that Whitney was going to firstly, turn up on time, and secondly, actually have regained her wits? The voice is a bit crack ravaged but she still got that falsetto in at the end!
Ever since giving up the Bobbie Brown drug, she's clawed her way back to the real world. I'm not a big fan but her story has been very tragic. I know everything in life is your own choice, but the tragedy is she made BAD choices. But from the look of her here, introducing the Sugababes, no less, her rehabilitation process is well under way. Expect a Timbaland/Dre co-produced epic next year, guest-starring Nelly, Justin and Missy. Probably.
The sets, dripping in Swarovski crystals, were eyepopping. Having fashion bods involved in staging the event guarantees fabulousness. And fab ideas. The musical chairs story for the Stella McCartney/Shy Child set was cute and inspired. Stand out performances this year had to be Dames Marc Almond, Shirley Bassey (wouldn't they make a great duet!), Shy Child and the Sugababes. There isn't any footage of them floating around at the minute, but as soon as I find it, I'll post.
I mentioned Kathryn Williams (and mispelt her name) alongside Ed Harcourt earlier this week and found that she has a new album (Leave to Remain) out now. I love surprises like this.
She's an accquired taste is our Kathryn. Her arrangements are sparse but full of melody. After coming to prominence in 2000 with the mercury nominated Little Black Numbers I never really took any notice until I saw her play live with Ed at the NME gig a couple of years ago. Her performance was engaging and intimate. She swore like anything and was belly laugh funny in between songs. She was also pregnant and hoping to banish her demon of crippling stagefright by playing as many gigs as humanly possible in her condition: "After I released ‘Over Fly Over’ I toured solidly for three months. I decided to overcome my stagefright by hard graft. I toured for most of the time I was pregnant. When I first had Louis and was in the middle of the euphoria of him being born and feeling reborn - it was all a bit bloody S Club 7." 
Kathryn gets lost in the one-way tunnel to Greenwich.
She's currently being mentioned in the same breath as the current crop of female singer/songwriters, but, after 8 years of recording, she's seen it all before: "I’ve been labelled in with the singer-songwriters, then with the NAM/New Acoustic Movement, then I was put in the Outsider group. Then I was shoved in with Dido and Norah Jones. And then it was KT Tunstall and Jem and all of that. I’m just in a car passing these things. If people wanna wave to me while I go past then that’s fine. But I don’t belong to any society. I don’t go to any parties and meet these people. It’s good, ‘cos it tends to make people think I actually have friends in music."
Kathryn's Leave to Remain is to be found here.
And I bloody missed it. Hey ho.
Even though I had intended going, a holiday to Turkey got in the way. Whilst Marsheaux were winging it over to Hoxton last week from Greece, I was going the opposite way. So it was great to see this report, from behind the scenes. Electronically Yours had planned the event, a gig featuring the Greek duo, Schmoof and Northern Kind, under the banner of the 30th Anniversary (!!) of The Human League.
As a second hand view on last Thursday's gig (11th Oct) it almost feels like first hand. Almost.
And here's the organiser in the outfit he wore to introduce the band. Peek-a-boo!
There's something really quite cute about Ed Harcourt. He'd probably love someone saying that despite the darker tones of some of his songs. It's because the hirsute singer/songwriter can sew a sliver lining into the worst of times. A song about loneliness? Give the music a throbbing energy with an ethereal female voice echoing in the background and suddenly it's medicinal not suicidal.
I saw the wastrel perform at the 100 Club a couple of years ago (supported magnificently by scouser Katherine Williams) when his Strangers album was out. Like every one of his London gigs during the past 7 or so years, it was sold out. And his performance was electric.
Until Tomorrow Then: The Best of Ed Harcourt is a timely retrospective. Like Rufus, the man has a huge following and critics adore him but the cross over into the mainstream resolutely refuses to happen. But there again, what's the measure of success when you've got tracks like these...
Loneliness - Ed Harcourt (mp3 Download)
Born in the 70s - Ed Harcourt (mp3 Download)
LONDINIUM, circa 1994.
Kim Phaggs (the dark haired one in slap at the front): [IN A SOFT SCOTTISH BROGUE] 'Ere, Chelsea, it's been ages since we were oot and aboot on the Londinium gay scene. I need a good old frug to Soft Cell or summat. And I need some nice boys to spy.
Chelsea Kelsey (the blonde haired one, also in slap, second in line): I know! It's all too handbaggy and nosebleed techno-y for my liking. The boys are all gurning with tops off for the lads. You try and walk through a crowd of 'em to get to the bar and it feels like foam party with just Fairy liquid and no foam. All I want is a proper boozer, a proper DJ playing proper songs like Love Action and a proper dancefloor so I can dance and letch, properly.
Kim: Yeah, being a puffter in 1994 is a bit shite, eh?
Chelsea: If only there was a DJ duo who wore wigs, wore make-up, dressed like they were in The Specials, smoked like troupers and played great records like anything by Kate Bush, Human league, Soft Cell, Xanadu by Olivia Newton-John, Uptown Top Ranking by Anthea & Donna and Substitute by Clout.
Kim: Hang on, Kim. Have you got a blonde wig on? And isn't that cheap auld Boots No.7 make-up you're wearing? And is that a box of seven inch vinyl you're carrying?
Chelsea: Why, yes!
Kim: OMG! We could be that DJ duo. We could save Londinium from a K-hole and provide thoosands of gayers with a soundtrack to their gay lives!
Chelsea: Yes! With our Siouxie Sioux, our Pulp, our Bowie, our Human League and our Soft Cell we could change the course of gayer history.
Kim: Let's call oorselves Readers Wifes - that's Wifes, not Wives. I know a bloke called Simon.
Chelsea: And I know an American girl called Amy Lamé.
Kim: Hoots Mon! Let's work some Wifey magic and put them together in a boozer in sarf London called The Vauxhall Tavern.
Chelsea: Hoots Mon, indeed! I think we've just created a club called Duckie.
Kim: Fuck. We're clever.
CUT TO:
LONDINIUM, circa 2001.
Kim: Isn't this fackin great. The club's packed to the rafters every Saturday, there's queues roond the block, Simon's having to take lager oot to 'em just to keep 'em happy and inside everyone's dancing, laughing, drinking an' loving.
Chelsea: It is. But there's summat missing. I WANT TO DO OUR OWN MUSIC!
Jeremy and Mark (the other two): Hellooo!
Kim: Oooh, hello.
Jeremy and Mark: Your voice cut through the dry ice and we heard you. We'll help you achieve your dream.
Chelsea: Aw! Ain't they nice!
CUT TO:
LONDINIUM, circa 2007.
Don't they brush up well!
The debut album Gaslight is released and it's a funny, gorgeous slab of Readers Wifes' world. Get it here on iTunes. Check out the fantabulosa Boy Ain't Right.
Go here to their MySpace
Go here for an interview with their mate Paul Burston
And here for a lovely story about the brilliant cover shoot for Gaslight.
Kim and Chelsea are on every Saturday night at Duckie, of course. My whole time, down here in London, they've been in the foreground, the background and in and out of so many of my own fabulous nights out, memories and happy times just because of the club they created and the music they play. Cheers boys!
And Chelsea, big hug...
My name is Michael Cained.
Aw! Who'd have thunk it! Michael Caine is a chill-out connoisseur. This sweet feature in The Observer Music Monthly has the Grandad of chill meeting the Daddy of chill, William Orbit, who manages to glean the nuggets that Michael has some turntables, his favourite track to make lurve to is Swollen by Bent (fnar, fnar) and that he accidentally stumbled upon the FIRST EVER discotheque in Paris in 1958. Love that.
His compilation album, Cained, (out on a Universal, a deal set up by Elton John) is selling well. Go to Amazon here for a track listing. It's quite a good collection, but no amount of drugs could account for Eva Cassidy's Fields of Gold!
Swollen - Bent (mp3 Download)
She Cries Your Name - William Orbit feat. Beth Orton (mp3 Download)
And before I went away, I didn't post my AWOL stint on here, inform anyone who emailed and didn't post any trophy 'guess where I am' status messages on Facebook. How subversive!
Anyhoo, after a week of head down at work and then a week of doing sweet FA at a gorgeous hotel in Kas, Turkey, I'm back. I'll have some pics and tunes later. But below is a grabbed pic of Kas. Cue gratuitous trophy description of blazing sun every day, temperature in the mid 30s and holiday talk like "Can you pass me the P20".
