Time for a Postcard revival! Had a great sit-down recently with Aztec Camera's Roddy Frame, talking about Scottish independence, the Labour party - "they took this thing our fathers were into and gutted it. Did a bit of rebranding. Like Currys bought Woolworths and turned it into something else" - and Mark Knopfler's guitar strings. Nice to have him back. http://thequietus.com/articles/15467-roddy-frame-interview

She Bop - Third Edition!

FINALLY!! She Bop, the third edition is here. She's looking better than ever, with the wonderful Ari Up (RIP) on the cover. Updating this edition was an emotional journey because many of the women I'd interviewed for the original have passed away - Nina Simone, Miriam Makeba, Eartha Kitt, Gracie Cole...and punk heroines Ari and Poly Styrene. Made me realise that she's like an archive, a living document of what women have achieved in popular music. Her Mistress's Voice. Not only that, I've written a new chapter, including everyone from Gaga to Grimes, exploring how the music scene is now polarised between the hyper sexualisation of global pop and the democracy of the internet. The latter has given women freedom to create their careers with much greater autonomy. They're no longer dependent on major labels to get their music out there... so we have some innovative hybrids with artists like Santigold and Grimes. I got the chance to interview some of the 'noughties generation' and will soon post in full the inspiring chat I had with Tahita Bulmer from New Young Pony Club. In the meantime, here's a link to a review on the F Word: http://www.thefword.org.uk/reviews/2013/01/a_cut_above

Stephen Lawrence, RIP

OK, I haven't written a post for, ooh, three months. SORRY!!! New job, new life, etc etc.

But today I am moved to write because it's a historic day: Gary Dobson and David Norris were found guilty by a jury at the Old Bailey today of the murder of Stephen Lawrence. I cried...because when it first happened it seemed like his murderers would get away with it, and the crime was part of a depressing climate of ignorance and racial hatred in Britain. This case has been dragging on for 18 years, and finally the Lawrence family have justice.

I felt for the jury. I've been on a jury and you feel the weight of the responsibility of a guilty verdict. It took a lot of courage for them to make that verdict. A serious, but positive start to 2012.

Polly Harvey and the Mercury Prize!!

Here's today's Channel 4 news piece in full - by Anna Doble, and some comments from yours truly. GOOD LUCK POLLY!

Singer PJ Harvey is favourite to win the most prestigious award in British music for the "grand sweep" of her war-themed album Let England Shake, author and critic Lucy O'Brien tells Channel 4 News.

If PJ Harvey walks away with the 2011 Barclaycard Mercury Prize, her triumph will neatly bookend the last decade - she last won it in 2001.

She is in the running for her acclaimed album Let England Shake, a release influenced by war and conflict, focusing on the Gallipoli campaign of world war one.

Author Lucy O'Brien, who writes about women in popular music, told Channel 4 News PJ Harvey's conceptual approach has made her a key figure in modern music.

"She thinks in themes, ideas and grand sweeps.

"So often women are relegated to songs of romance or the domestic sphere, but PJ has a great arc of ambition - hence an album about war and history, traditionally 'male' subjects," she explained.

Harvey, who previously won the award in 2001 for Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea, has been described as "an outstanding artist" by head of the Mercury judges Simon Frith.

Next favourite is another female singer-songwriter Anna Calvi, championed by producer and former Roxy Music keyboardist Brian Eno and praised for her dark, passionate on-stage style.

"She is that Mercury favourite, a musician's musician....guitar virtuoso, textured songwriter," O'Brien said, adding that now is a good time to be a woman in music.

"I think women artists have adapted particularly well to the democracy of the internet. Now they have the freedom to develop artistically without a major label in their ear saying 'show more cleavage.'"

The Mercury Prize - won last year by The XX - is a key event within the music industry. It revitalised the career of Elbow, this year nominated for Build A Rocket Boys!, when they won three years ago.

Rod Stewart, The Faces and...Mick Hucknall?

As a teenager in the '70s, one of my most enduring Top Of The Pops' memories is The Faces, and Rod Stewart kicking a football around the stage. Their songs - 'Stay With Me', 'Cindy Incidentally', 'Pool Hall Richard'- encapsulated the world of the '70s: brash, funky, gritty.

I was suspicious recently when I heard that Mick Hucknall (he of MOR soulsters Simply Red) was going to front the reunited band. The Faces isn't the Faces without Rod, surely? But when I saw them the other week on the Rob Brydon show, Hucknall let rip with a bluesy delivery that was reminiscent of Rod, but still with his own twist. And the band's confident, piledriving riffs and humour completely swept away the audience.

I've always felt that The Faces are one of our more neglected bands, that they played a short yet explosive part in British pop history. Their biographer JIM MELLY gave me some interesting perspectives....

Q. What do you feel about Mick Hucknall: is he a good frontman, or is it destroying their legacy?

Jim: He seems to do surprisingly well. I'm not sure how much of a legacy the Faces had. One of the things that used to upset The Faces was their perceived status as Rod Stewart's backing band. I'm not sure how this will change that perception.

Q. Were the Faces one of the most important bands of the 1970s?

Jim: I don't think they were. Certainly, if you compare them with Bowie or Roxy Music. But they were definitely a major influence on the 'Pub Rock' scene of the mid-Seventies which led directly to Punk. I see them as a bridge from the creative outpouring of the 1960s to the next big thing that was Punk. If you consider 'Prog-Rock' to be turgid, dull and too obsessed with 'musicianship' (as I do), then all there was for you in the early 70s was Bowie, Roxy Music and Rod Stewart and the Faces.

In addition, from the 60s until the early 80s British groups were formed around the idea of playing Rhythm and Blues - Chicago Blues - based music. The Faces were one of the last bands to provide inspiration to new groups in that way. After the late 70s that didn't happen any more and r 'n' b stopped being the way you learned to 'do' music.

It is interesting that Stewart was included on the Vivienne Westwood/ Malcolm McLaren 'Love/ Hate' T-shirt from late 1974 - in the 'Hate' list. His entry was, 'Rod Stewart oh for the money and an audience'. So even then - before Stewart recorded 'Atlantic Crossing' - he was seen as a 'sell-out'. Yet I think Stewart and the Faces played an important role as an influence on Punk and yet they're almost entirely absent from the narrative of Punk Rock.

Many of the important figures in Punk were fans of the Faces - Glen Matlock is playing bass for the reconstituted Faces, the influence of the Faces can be clearly seen in Paul Weller's work - but they just don't figure in the discourse. I suspect this is because in 1975 Stewart chose to leave the country and effectively split the Faces. He had 'sold out'. As a result they could hardly bear to mention his name - he was the ultimate traitor. The Faces - and Stewart - had set themselves up as a working class, beer and football good-time rock 'n' roll band. And Stewart turned his back on it and went to America to make slickly produced pop records. I don't think they ever forgave him. I suspect that in this context the absence of the Faces from the narrative of Punk, the silence in the discourse, actually speaks volumes about how important they were.


Q. What was the most surprising thing you found out when researching your book?

Jim: The most surprising thing was how much they were loved, and the sense of betrayal the fans felt when Rod went to America in 1975. The fact that Ronnie Wood went off to join the Rolling Stones at the same time, or that Ronnie Lane quit a year before, doesn't bother fans at all. But Stewart going to America? People are still bitter about it.


Q. Who would you like to do next? What would be your dream biography?

Jim: When I was writing the Faces book it felt like they moved into my flat for six months, drank all my beer and took command of the TV remote control. So if I were to choose one subject - maybe Ray Davies. I don't think I'd mind if Ray Davies moved into my house for six months.


Thank you Jim. By the way, I completely identify with the 'housemate' theory. When I was writing my Madonna biog, it was like she'd moved in and taken over my life. I thought more about her than my husband and kids. It was a relief when we 'separated'!!

Erupting volcanoes...and AMY WINEHOUSE

I’ve just got back from two weeks in Sicily...we were staying in a little house amid lemon groves just 8 kilometres away from Mount Etna. While we were there the volcano erupted, several times, causing the house to shake. We stood on the roof terrace watching rivers of molten lava fall down the mountain. It was hugely exciting, like a massive firework display. Villagers around are fairly sanguine. This happens quite often, apparently, and rarely does the lava reach the villages below.

A few days later we headed up the mountain to have a look, and were amazed by a landscape of black lava, cracked earth and petrified trees. We walked in old craters and took photos Dr Who style. The smell of sulphur was overwhelming. Later we went to Riposte, one of our favourite seaside places, for supper. By then the wind had carried the volcanic ash and deposited it in the streets, so it felt like we were wading through black sand.

All this somehow got fused with a dream about Amy Winehouse. While we were on holiday I heard about her death. It felt strange being at one remove, away from England, receiving such sad news. Her death was inevitable, but it was still shocking. Such a waste, such huge talent and potential just wiped out. Gone. The world feels a little less without her in it. On an elemental level, the volcano symbolised the fire and passion of her music, her voice and her life force. And the immovable presence of the solidified black lava and the black ash on the streets symbolised her death. I was brought up a Catholic, and I remember as a child the priest daubing a black ash cross on my forehead on the Ash Wednesday before Easter...black ash here, in Italy, echoed my feelings about her death. Back to Black. May she rest in peace.

That women music writing debate....

It’s been a good summer so far for music and writing - first there was Stoke Newington Literary Festival at the beginning of June with ‘the lads’ (see earlier post). Then the Screaming Queens event at Bromley Literary Festival on July 3rd.

Bromley isn’t the most exciting place to be on a cloudy Sunday afternoon (no wonder Siouxsie Sioux felt the need to escape), but a few of us female music writers read to an audience at the Tom Foolery pub. I explored the concept of (rock)girlpower from She Bop (which will hopefully soon be going into a third edition), Zoe Street Howe read from her vivid biography of the Slits, and novelist Sarah Drinkwater regaled us with tales of Riot Grrrl. Jane Bradley from the wonderful For Book’s Sake hosted the event, giving us her flamboyant profile of punk queen Jayne County.

All this is part of breaking the male monopoly of writing about music. Women are included in the debate, but, it seems, more as marginal and occasional voices. As Ann Powers said recently on Facebook:” I was happy to see Rock She Wrote and the SPIN Record Guide on the list of Pitchfork's favorite music books a few things were left out. Like most of half the population.” She points to Daphne Carr’s timely Amazon list of pop music books by women as a more representative guide:

Amazon.com: Daphne G. Carr: pop music books by women
www.amazon.com

Daphne is diligently compiling a follow-up to Rock She Wrote with the forthcoming Pop She Wrote. I’m on the editorial board for this project, and already over 400 women from around the world are on Daphne’s list. All this vibrant writing will form part of an archive....showing women’s crucial role in the development of rock criticism.

While we’re at it - some important links to check out:

www.forbookssake.net
“an intelligent but irreverent website featuring books by and for independent women”

http://thegirlsare.wordpress.com
“UK based independent online music magazine, celebrating and supporting women in music.”

www.thefword.org.uk
Contemporary UK feminism with some great writing about women & music

And of course:

http://wearsthetrousers.com

*Please do send me further suggestions/recommendations - maybe some more from the US?!!