Heroes Week: A Weezer/Radiohead Sandwich of Musical Goodness

This is Heroes Week. Helpfully, two of my musical heroes, those being Weezer and Radiohead, are neatly combined in this little video, like a tasty treat of audio goodness. The aural equivalent of a Sherbet Fountain for your eardrums, this is Weezer covering Paranoid Android.

Somehow, watching a band you normally associate with comedy lyrics and surfer pop riffs do such a serious song makes me really appreciate their technical genius. Rivers Cuomo rules - watching him simultaneously bounce on a trampette, wear a cat hat and sing at Reading last year was one of the highlights of the festival.

Radiohead have had a special place in my heart for a long time; like a lot of others, I didn't understand them as a kid, with their dark, depressing lyrics, and Thom Yorke's unnervingly weird voice. But then I grew up and found myself in Victoria Park, watching them perform as the sun set it the distance, with thousands of people hanging off every note. I got it then.

Radiohead and their dangly lights at Victoria Park, June 2008. A beautiful day.

GL

Heroes Week: Debbie Harry Has My Heart (Of Glass)

 
I can't remember the exact moment when I fell madly in love with Deborah Harry, but my obsession has now infiltrated my daily life. If I'm not listening to Blondie, then I'm cutting my hair like Debbie, attempting to perfect her unique eye make up look or deciding 'what would debbie do' when I'm having a fashion crisis. Don't worry, this is not the beginning of an identity crisis - I just like to think of Debbie as a pretty good mentor.  

Seriously, I have genuine empathy with the millions of teenage boys who gazed lovingly at their posters of Debbie back in the 70s - those same iconic images are now dotted around my living quarters. Those cheekbones...those lips...those eyes...!

 
Part of Miss Harry's enduring allure is her ability to be effortlessly, unashamedly cool. Not that she ever really cared, but as she now approaches 70, she cares even less about what the flip people think of her (I can't wait to be an outrageous granny. It's only a matter of time.)
She wears whatever the hell she wants, speaks her mind and rocks out on stage like she is 25 again. The Blondie songs still make me jump around, singing 'hanging on the telephone' into the hoover tube or pretending I'm on the cover of Parallel Lines (the only reasons I know how to spell 'parallel' is from spending so much time staring at that LP sleeve.) 
 

Oh, and she's still hot. Yeah, she has had some surgery, and yeah, she'll don a platinum wig on stage, but find me a diva of her age who doesn't? Debbie is a unique creature - a rock queen who dresses neither for the boys nor the girls. She's just Debbie; beautiful, perfect and straight-to-the-point wonderful. And she gets that we all grow old, even though most people still think of her in her seventies heyday. Lorry drivers still shout out 'Blondie!' at her, even, as she says, "I have to run out in front of the lorry first." 

GL

Heroes Week: Gaga For Gaga and Proud Of It

Heroes: a series of posts about the women that set my little world on fire. First up, Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta a.k.a MOTHER MONSTER.

 Maybe I'm really, really stupid. Or just completely gullible and naïve. But Lady Gaga has well and truly got under my skin. If it's all a big marketing scam, and every outrageous statement, every new hairstyle, and every thrust of her PVC pregnancy belly is controlled by the puppeteers at Universal, then I'm a fool for believing it. But the truth is, I'm a happy fool.

 

I'm contented to revel in the euphoric escapism she provides. It's not like her albums are my most played on iTunes; yeah, the songs are catchy as hell, but they need to be listened to in context (busting some moves on a dancefloor, not on the 8.02 from Brighton to St Pancras). What's so flipping brilliant about her is the live shows.

 No-one can match her performances for drama, style, and energy - I would happily watch one of her shows every week. The Monster Ball at the O2 last year was the greatest pop concert, in the old fashioned sense, that I've ever seen. By an intergalactic mile. For two and a half hours, one girl, just a few months older than me (eugh!) had 14000 people enthralled. Somehow I don't think marketing and branding is all that powerful, no matter what the agencies would have you believe. 

Watching her interviews and performances from last weekend's Radio 1 gig, it's obvious that she is master of her own art, passionate to the core about the music she makes and her life-consuming artistic vision. Her voice is just as dangerous a weapon as the spikes that cover her clothing. Yes, she takes inspiration from pop history like a kid in a sweet shop; a little bit of Stardust here, a sprinkling of Cher drops there, and some Like a Virgins everywhere. But who doesn't get inspired by things that have gone before? At least she is making them for her own. 

In fact, scrap that, she is balls-out OBSESSED. Deluded, pretentious, and more than a little bit mental, maybe. A girl who isn't gay, singing songs camper than a sleepover with Elton John and Graham Norton. A girl who treats her body as an art piece. An asexual who uses sex as a form of communication. A daddy's girl. But most of all, a girl who doesn't give a flying flip about what people think.

 And that's why I love her. Gaga Forever.

Images: BBC, Posh24, Shropshire Star

Teen Girls = Mean Girls (But Sometimes They Are Friends For Life)

Last weekend, I went through the twenty-something rite of passage of attending my first school friend's hen do. It was quite the heart warming female bonding session as we celebrated the new life of one of my oldest friends - even if it was surreal to think of her becoming a WIFE. Hold on, was this the same girl that I  have spent the last 12 years with, copying each other's homework, crying down the phone about boys and enduring each other's questionable haircuts?  A W.I.F.E. Serious grown up territory.

Aged 14...

 And aged 24, preparing for Amanda's hen do! 

Over the course of the weekend, I got to thinking (as you do after an Absinthe cocktail or two) about the extreme depth of female friendship. I defy the stereotyped idea of women gossiping inane nonsense; yes, we can chat, but we also trust our closest friends with our hopes, problems, ideas.  Sometimes, however, female friendships are a very weird, very specific experience. I'm not talking about the deep rooted friendships that feel more like family ties, but the strange bonds girls make when they are young and impressionable (or rather, more young and impressionable than we still are in our twenties...!)

These all-consuming, intense bonds are formed when teenage girls are at their most awkward age (anyone fancy going back there? yeah, me neither.) Friendships instantly created, that are composed of an unbreakable bond of trust, to the point where they feel more like a relationship than a friendship. Sometimes, these unions transcend to the levels of long term pal-hood, but frequently they implode when one person does something to break the bond. There's a fine line...and all that. They are the supernovas of the friendship world; blindingly brilliant but gone in a flash. A little bit like the career of a certain Ms Lohan, who starred in possibly the greatest movie about teenage girls OF ALL TIME.

Mean Girls: "I know, right?"

I had a couple of these experiences when I was younger; you make a new BFF and want to hang out with them All The Time. Then we would fall out (sometimes over a boy, more often because one of us grew out of the friendships just as quickly as we had fallen into them.) It's a very strange thing.

Speaking of weirdly intense friendships, was anyone else traumatised by Peter Jackson's 1994 film Heavenly Creatures? I sneakily watched it on my own when I was about 13, and it spooked the life out of me.

These were the days when Peter Jackson made films about actual people rather than hobbits chasing after rings, and he wrote the screenplay with his wife Fran Walsh, basing it on the true story of a murder committed by a pair of teenage girls in 1950s New Zealand. It also stars a then unknown little actress named Kate Winslet, making her movie debut. 

The unsettling story of the two girls, who form a freakishly intense friendship, has stayed with me for a long time. Their lives become completely intertwined, to the point where their imaginations take them to made-up worlds and they become characters in their own fantasy. The dangerous fanaticism that exists between them drives them together and pushes reality out, with one horrifying consequence.

(On a side note, Kate's acting is pure drama school class and the 1950s costumes probably set me on a vintage tangent for the rest of my life.)

Another equally weird movie that documents the unique female bond is Thirteen, directed by Catherine Hardwicke (aka the original and best of the Twilight directors), starring Nikki Reed before she got all sparkly as Rosalie Cullen, and Evan Rachel Wood, before she became a homewrecking Dita von Teese wannabe. 

Thirteen gets me right there because it represents how much your friends influence you as you become a weird half-child, half-adult hybrid, and how important they are as we turn running and screaming away from our families (otherwise known as the 'Kevin' phase.) However, I defy any girl/woman to not cry at the moment that the mother intervenes and forces a hug on her otherwise feral daughter, causing her to slump to the ground in one big emotional mess. She also knocks over a box of cornflakes in the process, which in my household, would have instantly killed the emotional epiphany as my Mum went off to get a dustpan and brush.

So there you have it boys; a leetle insight into the unique female experience. Thankfully, not all our friendships culminate in murder, jail time or a drugs intervention, but girls do know how to do friendship better than anyone. And as for my best buddies, I hope we'll still be celebrating knowing each other when we are 34, 44, 54... (not that we'll ever actually be that old, obviously)

GL

Images: George Langford, Wingnut films, Fox Searchlight

My Big Fat Wedding Comedown

Is it possible to go cold turkey from Royal Wedding fever? Along with (most) of the rest of the country, I was severely afflicted by this epidemic on Friday, suspended in a state somewhere between hyper and hysterical up until the Queen decided 'bugger this' and shuffled her family off Buck House balcony. As soon as those French doors closed, their fetching net curtains billowing in the breeze created by a million people screaming, I felt my mental state deteriorate faster than you can drive an Austin Martin from Buckingham Palace to Clarence House (all of 900 metres) And to think, back in November, I hadn't been all that fussed when William Wales announced his engagement to Kate 'The Hair' Middleton. I'd stopped fancying him around the time that Britney Spears stopped being cool. 

Nice Wheels!

But by Friday, I found myself in full, unbridled Royalist mode. I barely slept on Thursday and was up at 6am on the wedding morning, more excited than a kid at Christmas (and frequent readers will know just how much of a big deal that is. They don't call me George 'Three Trees' Langford for nothin'.) I woke my mother up at 8am by calling her just to express my fervent DISGUST at the couple's new titles: The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge?! Why didn't Her Maj just make William 'Earl of Boring' while she was at it? 

Having rocked up to my in-laws at 9am (we don't own a telly, and I wasn't going to miss an opportunity to watch Tara PT's nose wobble in 32 inch High Definition at their place) we quickly got in the festive spirit. Even my adopted cat got involved. He would have made a good bridesmaid. 

We then moved venues while the Beeb were doing their first of the 'unnecessary and totally random interviews with a close friend of the couple' bits, which would pepper the day's coverage. Did we really need to know what the ingredients of William's fave post-gym smoothie are, BBC? As I tweeted at the time, it really was all killer, no filler from Broadcasting Corp on Friday, saved only by the legend that is Huw Edwards, whose cheeky Welsh wit competed only for attention between his fluro-tan and his neon pink tie. Go Huw!

At 10am, I nearly flattened my friend Dan in my Roadrunner style approach to their sofa. Thankfully, we were all present and correct at the moment when Harry and Wills pulled out of Clarence House, fully regailia'ed up, looking like something out of Top Gun, except their uniforms where red and black instead of white. Hello boys! Again, I don't even fancy poshos, but those boys did wonders for the reputation for British men as their buttons gleamed and their hats neatly hid their bald patches (yes Harry, you too have succombed to the Windsor curse.)

Fast forward past various thousand digitaries and slebs arriving at the Abbey - bless David Beckham, looking so suave, only to be swiftly told he had his OBE on the wrong lapel. Doh! - to the moment we had all been waiting for. The Queen, in all her buttercup glory, was seated in a face off to Carole Middleton's pale blue coat and matching Cheshire cat grin combo, and the artist formerly known as Kate Middleton was ON THE MOVE. I was kinda bummed that even with all that poncing about with plastic sheeting, we all still saw the dress as she jumped into the car with the world's proudest dad. However, it was flipping gosh darn perfect when she stepped out of the abbey, teeth n' hair shining, looking like a 2011 Grace Kelly (with brown hair, obviously.) When Pippa 'Hot Bot' Middleton jumped out to hold the train, every male I was with dropped their Battenburg to ogle the screen, but I wasn't going to allow a little chauvinism ruin my enjoyment of this fantasy day. 

HRH Princess Perfect.

The ceremony was incredible. I'm not really into God stuff, but as a nation, we don't half do it well. The tradition, the theatre, even the trees in the Abbey looked perfect. It was obviously a bit greedy for Kate and Wills to have about four vicars to conduct one wedding ceremony, which was mostly hymns anyway, but the whole team did a 'great job!'. My highlights included; Kate nearly snapping her Dad's hand off as she gripped it all the way up the aisle, Harry whispering 'she's a bit of alright' to Wills  (in posho speak, naturally) upon spying the bride, the couple barely moving their faces during the vows for fear of cracking up, the choirboys making their mum's proud, SamCam refusing to wear a hat, Kate and Wills sharing a smirk during the sermon and the nun sat next to William wearing a pair of black Reeboks. Awesome. 

Must.Not.Cry.

After that point, I felt most sorry for the couple's hands, because no bride and bridegroom have wiggled their digits as much as those two on Friday. Those waves were spot-on. Kate's not fully up to the Queen's closed fingered subtle rotation yet, but hey, she's got 50 odd years to get it right. I particularly enjoyed the couple's sneaky hand-hold as they went under the arch, thinking no-one could see them. But not to worry, the Beeb had got a camera there! Honestly, I think if someone had picked their nose, the BBC would have had a camera positioned at exactly the right angle to capture it. Saying that, I thought we were close to that when little Grace Van Cutsem's fingers snaked up to her schnozz on the balcony. Thankfully, she went for the hysterical 'hands over ears' pose that provided yet another comedy moment during The Kiss.

Woah, devil child alert.

And what a kiss it was. To be honest, I had been hoping for a full on snog, which would have proven the Royal's really are determined to move with the times. No-one does a little peck on their wedding day; if you can't have a full on PDA then, when can you? 

Altogether in true British style, "Wahey!"

But hey, they gave us two smooches, and as the daughter of a World War fanatic, I got shivers to see the planes fly over Buckingham Palace. I think they captured the spirit of patriotism that for once, engulfed the UK. Yes, living in this country has been just a little bit, well, shit, over the past few years, but seeing the Royal's put on a display of happy, modern family life, million's of tourists pouring in to witness pomp and circumstance as only we know how, and the unity that was created from one couple being in love, I felt very proud to be English on Friday. And the celebrations aren't over yet. Now where did I put that bunting...

GL