Songs of the year, number 1: Mallrat - Charlie

Grace Kathleen Elizabeth Shaw, aka Mallrat, hails from Brisbane. Although she's only released a few EP's, she supported Maggie Rogers on the European leg of her Heard It In A Past Life tour and seems set to see her profile rise over the next year. I haven't heard any of her other work but I was sold on 'Charlie' on the first listen. There's a real sense of guileless and ease about the song... it's not so much naive as unpolished, what with it's slightly wonky keyboard sound and all, but it's got a simple message to it and has an easy rough diamond charm that should see Shaw's sound travel far and wide.

Songs of the year, number 2: Florence + The Machine - Moderation

Some of my regular readers among the Flows and the Florence + The Machine Army may be slightly disappointed that I haven't given 'Moderation' the number 1 position, or that I haven't included either 'Haunted House' or 'Jenny of Oldstones' in this years list.

When I compile my end of year list, I have a series of rules. Number one of my rules is that I will only include one song per artist in my songs of the year list. Hence, in the case of Florence, I needed to choose between three equally bewitching songs and, ultimately, decide which of the three I felt was the most jaw dropping. 'Moderation', which sees Ms Welch firmly in soul girl territory, won it. I won't say too much about this song, as I wrote a whole blog post about it when it was released in early 2019 but, needless to say, it is a truly astonishing piece of work.

As for why it's not number one, all I can say is that this years end of year songs list has been very tight indeed and that the top three in particular could, in another light, be regarded as being of equal parity. I hope that makes you all feel better about it.

Songs of the year, number 3: Jade Bird - 17

While I personally found that Jade Bird's self titled debut album didn't live up to the (very) high expectations I had of it, there were a number of very strong songs on the album, including 'If I die', 'I get no joy' and this, '17'.

Bird's strength has always been her songwriting coupled with her voice, and in '17' what seems like a particularly pure of intent, simple song is given the space and delivery it needs to drive its powers home. A breathtaking song, which demonstrates just what she's capable of.

Songs of the year, number 4: Georgia - Started Out

The second of two songs in my list that were released in November 2018, Georgia's 'Started Out' was such a remarkable about face, sound wise, and such a joyous floor filler that it would be an absolute crime not to give it any recognition. Her profile has really risen this year, meaning album number two, when it arrives, will be getting a lot of attention.

Songs of the year, number 5: Miss June - Enemies

New Auckland band Miss June have spent 2019 releasing strong single after strong single, not to mention a pretty damn impeccable album of strong, riff led grungey punk anthems. 'Enemies', it's fair to say, was always going to be the song to stop you in your tracks. As calling cards go, it is a sonic assault on the senses that cannot be beaten and deserved much more airplay and attention than it received.

Songs of the year, number 6: Bat for Lashes - The Hunger

When Natasha Khan announced that her album, Lost Girls, was based around a fictional group of vampire biker girls from the desert, it's fair to say that she piqued my interest. Good things were expected and 'The Hunger' is a synthy brooding affair with a yearning, wistful tone. One of the standout tracks on a very fine album.

Songs of the year, number 7: Self Esteem - (Girl) Crush

Self Esteem's debut album, Compliments Please, was one of the most eagerly anticipated albums of the year. She didn't disappoint and, ahead of the albums release, 'Girl Crush' one one of a string of strong singles that proved to be absolute floor filling bangers while subtly subverting contemporary R&B flavoured pop. All hail our new pop queen.

Songs of the year, number 8: Kelsey Lu - Due West

This is one of two songs in my list that were released in November 2018 so, technically, it probably shouldn't be in this years list. But, because songs that are released in the final months of the year tend to be ignored at their time of release and, consequently, to lose out on recognition and accolades, I'm choosing to include the majestic 'Due West' in my list. It would be a crime to miss it out.

Songs of the year, number 9: Gazel - Rain is Coming

Because Gazel's Book of Souls is such a strong album, it was actually quite difficult to pin it down to one song when picking tracks out for my end of year list. 'The Night Concierge' and 'Walk on Land' would be equally strong candidates for songs of the year but, in the end, the sonic complexities and shifting mood landscape of 'Rain is Coming' is what did it for me. There really is no one else like Gazel Algan, and I'm hoping 2020 will be a great year for her.

Songs of the year, number 10: Billie Eilish - you should see me in a crown

I'll admit it, I was slow to appreciate the genius of Billie Eilish. Perhaps because I didn't listen closely enough on the first listen of her debut album, when we all fall asleep, where do we all go? Or maybe it was because I knew it wasn't music written for me, so therefore there was a get out clause if I didn't get it.

Then, the second time I listened to the album, I must have been in a different, or more receptive, mood because I suddenly felt like I got it.

'All the good girls go to hell' is another favourite, but the sheer creepy swagger of 'you should see me in a crown' wins for me every time.

Songs of the year, number 11: Hatchie — Stay With Me (Official Video)

With her debut album, Keepsake, Harriette Pilbeam (aka Hatchie) provided a strong contender for album of the summer. With it's sun kissed post shoegaze guitar work and strong melodies, the album was full of perfect indie pop singles. 'Stay with me' is a particularly fine example of one of these.

Songs of the year, number 12: Birch - Spelling Lessons

The elegant and enigmatic Birch released 'Spelling Lessons' early in 2019. It served as a taster for her debut album, femme.one, which was released in April. As is the case with the album's title track, the subtleties of her sound can sometimes mean that the message is missed, and it also means that she's an artist who needs to be properly listened to as her music doesn't provide an instant hit necessarily. She will definitely be one to watch in 2020.

Songs of the year, number 13: Miya Folick - Malibu Barbie

Following on from last years excellent debut album, Premonitions, 'Malibu Barbie' sees an evolution in  Miya's songwriting, with the bite of a song such as 'Deadbody' being tempered by elegant melodies and intricate but quiet guitar work. There's a subtlety here, but at the same time, she hasn't lost any of her anger. Album number two will be a treat I think.

Songs of the year, number 14: Siobhan Wilson - Unconquerable

A duet with Honeyblood's Stina Tweeddale, 'Unconquerable' features on Siobhan Wilson's 2019 album, The Departure. While The Departure reflected a more indie rock infused direction for Siobhan, in contrast to her folk beginnings, Stina was adjusting to doing Honeyblood solo. The two Scottish songwriters came together at a pivotal moment for both of them and the result is a song that is a hymn to female independence and for that, I salute them both.

You can listen to the album over on Bandcamp, as well as on Spotify.

Photo of a red squirrel by Vincent van Zalinge on Unsplash

Songs of the year, number 15: Kate Tempest - People's Faces (Streatham Version)

The album version of 'People's Faces' was given a re-working when Kate performed the track live for Maryanne Hobbs on 6music not long after the albums release. This stripped down, re-worked version proved very popular, was re-played across the station, and then released as the 'Streatham Version' of 'People's Faces'.

The stripped down treatment, and minimalistic piano chords gave what was already a strong track an anthemic quality that chimed well with how 2019 was panning out. A real song for our times.

Songs of the year, number 16: FKA twigs - Cellophane

Both the song, and it's accompanying video, created a very definite stir upon their release earlier this year but, on a personal level, I mainly encountered the song without its video and learnt to appreciate its glacial understated minimalism. This is a complex piece of electro balladry, fresh for the 21st century, utterly new, and utterly devastating in both mood and execution.

Songs of the year, number 17: Skating Polly - Flyer - (Lyric Video)

'Flyer', sung on this occasion mainly by Peyton Bighorse, finds Skating Polly in a thoughtful, reflective mood and, as such, it is representative of the quietly melodic end of the bands sound. A slow burner with a number of contrasting elements, this was a strong single for the band ahead of their frenetic UK tour this autumn.

Songs of the year, number 18: The Regrettes "California Friends" [Official Music Video]

The Regrettes are a good example of an artist discovered by looking at what your 'friends' (social media friends that is) are listening to on Spotify, and giving said artist a try because you like the name. It's rare that this ends well in terms of discovering new music you like, but this was a rare example of a time when it paid off.

'California Friends' is taken from the bands second album, How Do You Love?, an instantly loveable slice of catchy punk pop with bite. If this song doesn't have you jumping around the room, nothing will.

Songs of the year, number 19: Suzi Wu - Highway

A killer slice of hip hop infused electro pop from Suzi Wu. As an emerging North London artist she is still, well, emerging and the back story is a little sparse on detail. 2017's Teenage Witch EP started the buzz while 2019's 'Highway' will ensure said buzz continues into 2020. Watch this space.

Songs of the year, number 20: Overcoats - The Fool

It's been quite quiet on the Overcoats front this year. Following on from their debut album, 2017's Young, the band have continued to tour the US while quietly working on new material.

'The Fool' was the first track to be released from a new E.P, and as well as showcasing a slightly new direction for the band, the accompanying video also klaxoned a new image.

It's too soon to tell what album number two will be like, but I wait with a good deal of excitement based on this ferocious slice of synth pop.

Songs of the year, number 21: Helen McCookerybook - At The Bathing Pond (Songs from the kitchen)

Helen McCookerybook's songs tend towards the gently and wryly observational, and this song is based on a true story, which if you've ever seen her perform the song live, you will know. I have seen 'At the bathing pond' likened to Victoria Wood, and I can understand why, but I also think it's a typically McCookerybook song, one that is peculiarly English in tone as well as peculiar in subject. 'At the bathing pond' features on Helen's 2019 album, Green.

Songs of the year, number 22: Lillie Mae - “You’ve Got Other Girls for That” (Official Video)

US singer/songwriter and multi instrumentalist Lilie Mae is an exponent of top drawer Americana. She is based in Nashville, Tennessee and comes from a family of musicians in the sense that she and her siblings have a band, The Risches. She's also worked with Jack White (who signed her to his label Third Man Records) and Robert Plant.

While her solo work is still quite under the radar, this song, 'You've Got Other Girls For That', shows that she's going to be a slow burner; one of those artists who's acclaim grows organically, and who's songwriting just gets better as the years go by.

Songs of the year, number 23: Sui Zhen - Being A Woman

Melbourne based artist Sui Zhen released her most recent album Losing, Linda in September. Dreamy, slightly offbeat, electro pop is her main mode of expression, and 'Being A Woman' is a slyly subversive expression of the genre, coupled with a very matter of fact series of observations about being a woman in the modern world. It walks no line between feminist statement and pop music: It just... is.

Songs of the year, number 24: Pale Honey - Set Me Free

It's been a largely quiet year for Pale Honey, during which Tuva and Nelly have been "Writing songs, studying and working" according to their website, while Anders has been mixing and producing. They are working on their third album, the follow up to 2017's well received Devotion.

'Set Me Free' snuck out about a month ago and it instantly excited me, with it's insistent bassline and anthemic melody, this is a tune that will endure. It also bodes well for album number three, which we should see in 2020.

Songs of the year, number 25: Allie X – Fresh Laundry

Canadian singer/songwriter Allie X is a bit of an electro pop superstar in her home country, but I must confess to not having been aware of her before the release of this slice of hypnotic wonky pop. Her biog on Spotify says she has been compared to Chvrches, Ellie Goulding and The Knife pre their Silent Shout album and, while I wouldn't normally quote from someones online biog, this does feel like a spot on description of what she's about.

'Fresh Laundry' is a slightly odd song, it's strange, beautiful and intriguing and, as such, I look forward to hearing more from Allie X in 2020.

The songs of the year list

Tomorrow I embark on my annual songs of the year blog marathon. 

Before doing so, I feel compelled to mention that two of the songs in this years list were released in November 2018. 

Given that I start compiling the list in November each year, and given that I'm only accountable to myself for the list, I've decided that this is OK.

The big end of year round up post

Welcome to my annual end of year round up!

Rather than write a long, epic post, I've decided to slim things down a bit this year. As such, I'm not doing a list of gigs of the year (because there were too many good ones...) and, having given the matter some thought, I'm not providing a list of pieces I've written this year. There was some discussion on Twitter about this custom last year and I can see why people find the practice a bit obnoxious, so I'm sacking it off.

Also, because it seemed to go down well last year, I will be posting my songs of the year list in a series of day-by-day posts again. There will be 25 this year, and number 25 will be up online tomorrow.

12 albums of the year

12) Starcrawler - Devour You
11) Helen McCookerybook - Green
10) Honeyblood - In Plain Sight
9) The Regrettes - How Do You Love?
8) Hatchie - Keepsake
7) Miss June - Bad Luck Party
6) Ioanna Gika - Thalassa
5) Siobhan Wilson - The Departure
4) Billie Eilish - When we fall asleep where do we go?
3) Bat For Lashes - Lost Girls
2) Gazel - Gazel's Book Of Souls
1) Self Esteem - Compliments Please

12 books I've read and loved this year

Yrsa Daley Ward - The Terrible
Molly Bloom - Molly's Game
Hannah Ewens - Fangirls
Amy Raphael - A seat at the table
Stella Gibbons - Pure Juliet
Hilary McKay - The Skylarks War
Taylor Jenkins Reid - Daisy Jones & The Six
Amy Engel - The Roanoke Girls
Lucy O'Brien - Dusty
Nick Rennison - Bohemian London
Celeste Bell and Zoë Howe - Dayglo
Jordan Mooney and Cathi Unsworth - Defying Gravity

12 classic Podcast episodes from 2019

I think my overall favourite podcast this year has been Best Pick, the podcast that watches and discusses every single Oscar winning movie in random order. While every episode is riveting in scope and detail, it's worth noting that they're just as entertaining when the film disappoints as when it exceeds expectations. As such, listening to them eviscerating Gladiator is just as much fun as hearing them get excited about It Happened One Night. Their recent take on Gigi was a good one, but a favourite episode for me this year has been their take on Casablanca.

The BBC's Brexitcast has obviously had a lot of good material to work with this year, and while I can't remember which episode it was that featured the Dutch mascot for the Netherlands Brexit preparations, I did find their Saturday Night Leaver episode to be particularly hilarious. On a more serious note, the international collaboration with the World Service's Global News Podcast was particularly powerful. 

There's been some really good takes on work in podcast land in 2019, particularly in the areas of women and work, freelancing, and finances. Is This Working? was launched this year by Tiffany Philippou and Anna Codrea-Rado, and it featured a particularly powerful episode about class with Vicky Spratt, plus a very useful mediation on getting fired. There was also An Honest Account, Rachael Revesz' podcast, which covers the finance end of things, and included an episode with Anna Codrea-Rado about freelancing and finances, plus a powerful take on debt and being working class with Jasmine Andersson.

At the music end of things, Canadian punk DJ Siobhan Woodrow launched her podcast, She's A Punk this year, which included many powerful portraits of punk women around the world, including this episode with War On Women's Shawna Potter. Woodrow has recently announced she's taking a break from the podcast until the start of 2020, but she certainly doesn't sound like she's done yet. Far from it.

There was also a fascinating discussion about the ten year legacy of Florence + The Machine's Lungs over on Never Marry A Mitford, a searingly powerful in depth discussion about the state of music education in UK schools on Reasons To Be Cheerful, and a fascinating, and frequently very funny, epic discussion about music and literature between Florence Welch and Rebecca Lucy Taylor over on The YourShelf Podcast.

In the realm of politics and related matters, The Next Episode discussed what happens when you effectively no longer have an MP and The North Poll provided a refreshingly non London centric take on politics. In the US, Reply All explained why that viral tweet about feral hogs wasn't all it seemed, and the TFGM Podcast provided a suitably sober take on the second anniversary of the Manchester Arena bombing. 

13 articles I've enjoyed reading this year

Catching up with the women who were expelled from school (Precious Adesina, Refinery 29)

The uninhabitable city: What happens when heatwaves become the new normal? (Hettie O'Brien, The New Statesman)

Work isn't working: The real reason more women are going freelance (Anna Codrea-Rado, Refinery 29)

Peterloo 200 years on: The Manchester bloodbath which left 18 dead and changed the course of British history (Dan Thompson & Damon Wilkinson, Manchester Evening News)

"We need this film now more than ever" (Nic Crosara, The Overtake)

Secret life of a fashion week peon (Lacy Warner, Narratively)

The 11-year-old girl taking skateboarding by storm (Joe Henley, Narratively)

The diver who brings up the bodies (Sunaina Kumar and Farah Mohammed, Narratively)

How more than 12 students at one university ended up dead by suicide (Hannah Ewens, Vice)

How communism prepared me for a no-deal Brexit (Joanna Hosa, Financial Times)

How to feed a protest movement: Cooking with Extinction Rebellion (Dan Hancox, 1843)

'I'd rather see a white doctor, if you don't mind' How patients can hurt doctors too (Neha Maqsood, Rife Magazine)

The four huge issues being overlooked in the General Election debate so far (Jennifer Williams, Manchester Evening News)

First image by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

Second image by Ross Sneddon on Unsplash

Third image by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash

Fourth image by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Louder Than Words festival 2019

Principal Hotel, Manchester by Jamie Wilson. Creative commons licence

Friday 8th November:

This evening was day one of Louder Than Words.

I only went to the middle event of the three, which was Edwyn Collins and Grace Maxwell in conversation with John Robb. It was a very funny, moving, gentle conversation between the three of them, with Grace not speaking over Edwyn, but with him. They clearly work as a team and it made for a slightly meandering, gentle interview, but one that was no less articulate than any other LTW opening night conversation.

After the interview and Q&A, Edwyn sang while a young guitarist, Patrick, played. I remember hearing Edwyn being interviewed on the radio a few years back when he was just starting to perform again, post brain haemorrhage, and I think he said then that he finds the singing easier than the speaking, and that's how it came across tonight too: He's much more fluid when he's singing, the years just drop away and you can see the young man from Orange Juice again. Needless to say, he got a standing ovation at the end.

It was Jo Wood afterwards, with her Rolling Stones memoir, Stoned, and what with not being interested in the Rolling Stones, I decided to leave and see how much of Podcast Radio Hour I could catch instead. I got on a 192 very quickly, and it was a fast moving one so we zipped along nicely. We got milkshaked in Ardwick and I had to explain to a young man who asked me how far we were from Reddish that he'd got on the wrong bus. Other than that, pretty uneventful really, save for the steady trickle of milk running down the windows on the other side of the top deck. They hit the window so hard I felt the thud and for one sickening moment thought we'd hit someone. But no, we'd been hit by a high velocity milkshake instead.

Saturday 9th December:

Day two of Louder Than Words began with Lucy O'Brien in conversation with John Robb about Dusty Springfield, the revised third edition of her biography having been published earlier this year. An evocative speaker, Lucy managed to bring both the book and the subject to life very satisfactorily. She also talked about the history of the book, and it's three editions, and how her perspective on Dusty has shifted from viewing her as a victim to a survivor, a battler. Someone asked a question I'd often thought about when reading the new edition, namely how did Lucy choose what to include and what not to include as regards Dusty's private life. There are other biographies of Dusty Springfield, all written after her death, and some of them do focus on her private life over her music. Similarly, we can all cite examples of overly salacious biographies, whether of Dusty or other stars.

Lucy did a good job of explaining about how her focus was always going to be on Dusty the artist, and that she chose to try and balance Dusty the artist with Dusty the private woman, but that she didn't want to write a book where the talent would be overshadowed by the life.

After seeing Lucy talk about Dusty I next went to see Matt Everitt talking about his book, The First Time, which is the book of the long running interview series on 6Music.

I have to confess that my interest was mainly piqued in this case because Matt has interviewed Florence Welch for the series, and she is in the book as well. Although she wasn't one of the interviewees he talked about, it was still an interesting and entertaining listen, with some really absorbing tips and hilarious anecdotes. He was very much the funny, slightly self-depreciating, debonair raconteur, and I enjoyed it very much. It was also, interestingly, a bit of a masterclass in interviewing, which I also appreciated.

After that, I nipped out for dinner at 8th Day, and had a particularly fine bangers and root veg mash with minted peas and mushroom gravy. I also had a Rasperry Dazzle smoothie, which I promptly spilled on myself. I think this has happened every single time I've ever ordered that particular smoothie at 8th Day, with fairly disastrous results. Fortunately I was wearing a pink jumper on this occasion.

Upon returning to the palatial halls and suites of the Principal, I went to see Lucy O'Brien again, this time interviewing Graham Duff about his book, Foreground Music. Graham is a comedian and writer but I hadn't come across his work before, probably because I don't watch TV. Foreground Music is a book of memoir structured around 15 gigs, and the bits he read made me want to read the book because he is very good and taking you back to a specific time and place, making you live it. This included the horror of a Cliff Richard gig he experienced aged 10, and a riot at a Joy Division show in Blackburn as a teenager. It's a simple but effective concept for a book, but it's one that seems to work well so I will read the book, and keep an eye out for his other work too.

'Is Extinction Rebellion A Return To The '60s' with Leslie Tate and Sue Hampton proved to be a bit of a puzzler, in that it actually felt like two talks sandwiched into one. I didn't find the first half un-interesting, but it did feel a bit like Leslie was labouring the point in terms of describing how the sixties were, and how he had experienced them. It felt a bit like being talked down to. I found Sue Hampton's half of the talk to be much more engaging as that was the half that dealt with Extinction Rebellion, and their involvement in it, and she is one of those people whose enthusiasm for a subject is infectious. If they do this talk again, I think they might want to re-think the structure a bit as it's a really interesting subject, but it didn't entirely come off for me.

The next event I attended was upstairs in the Directors Suite, and it was Steve Lamacq talking to Daryl Easlea about the re-issue of his memoir, Going Deaf For A Living. This proved to be an all absorbing conversation, the exuberance of Daryl complimenting the quieter personality and laconic, slightly deadpan, slightly self depreciating delivery of Steve.

He's a great raconteur, and while many dark moments were touched upon, there were also some amusing anecdotes and funny moments, including a suitably weird Nirvana interview and the discussion of early 1990s sub scenes - "Fraggle is definitely due a revival" - There was also the touching recollection of him and Jo Whiley jumping up and down in the lift across four floors of the building at Radio One after they found out they'd been given the  The Evening Session show on a permanent basis.

There were a number of harrowing moments, including his recounting of the Richey Edwards 4 Real interview incident, and what it was like to broadcast in John Peel's slot the night Peel died. I could tell in both cases that he was re-living it as he talked, and he came across as slightly haunted in both cases, and definitely upset when talking about Peel, which is understandable. If you listened to that show at the time, a show I seem to recall he did with Maryanne Hobbs, another child of Peel, it does sound like two very fragile orphans trying to hold it together.

He went downstairs to sign books immediately after talking about it and I thought I'd try and take his mind off this rather dark ending to the conversation by joining the queue at the signing table and taking the opportunity to remind him of the time me, Daniel (I'm Five fanzine) and Carl (Fancy Biscuits fanzine) once descended on him at an Angelica gig at the Roadhouse in about 1996 and he took away copies of all our fanzines plus a really rough live bootleg we'd made of Automatic playing at the Night & Day. Not the most scintillating of conversation gambits, but it was a nice memory for me and wanted to say thank you.

The queue for signings was massive so I mainly sat by some scenic foliage in a very comfy chair on the landing until most people had gone, then lurked at the end of the queue as he was finishing up. When I reminded him of the gig, his eyes lit up and we talked about Angelica and Manchester gig venues for a bit, which was really nice.

After that, it was time for the club cultures panel, which was themed around the idea of can, is, and should dance music be political? Because today marked the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, and we had a German national and resident of Berlin on the panel, there was a lot of fascinating discussion about German techno and how the fall of the wall impacted the music scene, and access to music.

Alas there was also a very agitated gentleman in the audience who kept trying to ask questions thinly disguised as attempts to pick fights with people. He left after a while though, presumably because no one would play. A milder moment of conflict occurred when another man in the audience tried, a bit smugly, to claim that only real political action counted for anything, and that politics in music was a waste of time. His argument was thoroughly and decisively shot down in flames by a particularly combative Rhoda Dakar, which just goes to show that you should never mess with someone who's been involved with Red Wedge.

On the way home the bus was full of rowdy teenagers so I put my headphones in and listened to Innocence's 'Natural Thing' (apt) while watching a young girl with a delightful smile draw hearts and write in Arabic in the condensation on the bus windows.

Sunday 10th November:

Day three of Louder Than Words began with another early start, this time to see Lucy O'Brien in conversation with Amy Raphael about her new book, A seat at the table, a return to the world of women in rock she first visited with 1994's Never Mind The Bollocks: Women Re-Write Rock, but for a post #MeToo world.

Whereas Amy didn't have a lot of problems getting people to talk to her in 1994, for this book, she did. It seems that the main reason why she struggled this time is that the big stars are so much harder to reach these days. There are so many walls of protection, so many gatekeepers between star and journalist that it meant including the likes of Beyoncé, Solange, and Björk (who is included in Never Mind The Bollocks), was just impossible.

I can see that people who want to read about the big names, and what their take on music and feminism is, would be disappointed by this, but for me the books focus on less well known performers adds to the books charms. I'd rather hear Christine and the Queens, Georgia, Emmy The Great and Kate Tempest on feminism and music; it feels more fresh, and their views are unlikely to have been over reported.

The conversation itself was a fascinating one, both riveting in detail and supportive in nature. This was definitely my highlight of the weekend, and about the only thing that would have made it better would have been if there'd also been an event today that involved Hannah Ewens and her book Fangirls. I definitely feel that Hannah is doing for fans what Amy and Lucy are doing for artists and it would have been good to have both sides of the female music experience side by side.

Afterwards it was time for the music journalism panel in Clock Tower 7, which I enjoyed a lot. As was the case last year, it was more of a free form discussion between panel and audience around various themes and issues in music journalism than it was a formal panel discussion.

Interestingly, there was a lot this year on the virtues of working for free, despite Barney Hoskyns campaign. Also, a number of folk on the panel were people who'd started their own platforms and publications. There was a bit of a discussion around print vs online, but I don't think anyone came down firmly on one side or the other really.

I made the unusual decision to speak during this discussion as I've been thinking a lot about why paid music journalism is so hard to get and how, in the past year, I've found it much easier to get paid journalism that isn't music writing. Despite having much more experience as a music writer.

The answers that came back were the kind of thing I expected, but I felt better for saying it even if no one could come up with a solution for me.

I decided I wanted dinner afterwards so I ventured out along Oxford Road to Patisserie Valerie, where I discovered all of the sandwiches and bread based things were off limits as sourdough contains egg (I did not know this). On the bright side, I did discover a very fine burrito bar about two doors down, so it could have been much worse.

Next up was another journalism panel, albeit a slightly different one, with a much more historical angle. This one was Simon Frith, John McCready and Mark Sinker talking around the themes of Mark Sinker's book, A Hidden Landscape, which is a history of the music press from the 1960s to the 1980s. I was thinking that this must be an area of history that's been well covered already, but apparently there's only about five histories of the music press in book form - it just so happens I've read and own two of them.

There was a lot of noise next door in Clock Room 6 during this discussion, which made it hard to hear what was being said all the time as over the dulcet tones of messrs  Frith, McCready and Sinker, it basically sounded as though Monty Python were putting on a Punch and Judy show next door with some help from The Clangers and a troupe of clowns. In actual fact, it was Evil Blizzard in conversation.

Towards the end of the panel discussion there was a touching moment when the panel and the audience fell into reminiscing about ritual pilgrimages to distant shops to purchase the weekly, and monthly, music press. The panel were talking about the sixties, seventies and eighties, but I was doing the same thing in the nineties to buy NME, The Zine, Sun, Zoom, Spark and The Trigger. A woman in the audience said she'd had a similar ritual 16 years ago when her granny would buy her Kerrang! each week alongside a magazine for herself, and they'd sit together, reading their magazines.

My final event of Louder Than Words 2019 was Modzines, which was Daniel Rachel talking to Eddie Piller and Steve Rowland about their book Modzines: Fanzine culture from the mod revival. I could tell it was going to be a good event when, despite sparse attendance, a discussion broke out amongst the crowd as to the geographical origins of Fred Perry, with me and two guys who run a Stockport modzine maintaining he was from Stockport and no one believing us until Eddie Piller had googled it. I feel this set the tone for the event somehow, in that it was a small audience but everyone there was really interested and engaged. Both speakers were passionate about their subject and well informed, and Daniel is a skilled interviewer who successfully kept the conversation on track and brought out the best in them. It was a funny, engaging, informative and entertaining close to the weekend.

New piece, of which I am insanely proud

In the eighteen months or so since I first went full time freelance (if you don't count the temp exam and library work...) I have, gradually, built up a network work of trusted freelance voices who can be relied upon to give useful, positive advice while also warning against, and sympathising about, the shit bits of freelance life.

In the main, this has been done through conversations with people on Twitter and through subscribing to a range of newsletters for journalists and freelancers. My three favourite newsletters are Anna Codrea-Rado's The Professional Freelancer, Sian Meade-Williams' Freelance Writing Jobs and the Journo Resources newsletter, helmed by Jem Collins.

In addition to klaxoning jobs for journalists, Jem has also been looking to extend the team working on the site. With this in mind, I applied late last year for an editorial assistant job on the platform that was part time and remote working with the added bonus of London Living Wage. I didn't get it but Jem sent back a really lovely, long email in which she explained why I hadn't got it and that she would like to work with me at some point in the future.

At first I thought she was just being nice, but when another opportunity to work on the site came up, I applied again. Although I didn't get it, Jem reiterated her desire to work with me and asked if I had any ideas for articles for the advice section of the site.

Journalism Twitter had been awash with an ongoing debate about personal essays in the wake of the Caroline Calloway/Natalie Beech piece for The Cut and, while I don't write personal essays myself, I was very interested in the ethical debate that the piece seemed to have ignited. I pitched an idea around this to Jem and, to my joy and surprise, she loved the idea and gave me the nod to proceed.

I loved researching the piece as it gave me the chance to approach a range of writers and editors, many of whose work I'd been following for some time. People were very generous with their time, and I really enjoyed emailing and talking to them about the complex issues around the personal essay as a format, and how to write and commission these pieces of work responsibly.

The completed piece was published last week on Journo Resources, and I am insanely proud of how it's turned out. Jem is a terrific, friendly, attentive editor to write for and I look forward to working with her again.

Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash

Gazel's Book of Souls

An artist and her work

When an artist tells you that their album represents:

"The first chapter in the musical story of a teenage girl who travels through the subconscious, meeting the covert spirits that govern the different areas of the human psyche."

You could be forgiven for being wary. 

As it turns out, Gazel's debut album Gazel's Book of Souls, does live up to its composer's astonishing description.  

A mixture of electronic soundscape and traditional Turkish instrumentation, the result is a beguiling, haunting feast of imagery and sound. It's rare to say that an artist is a true original, but she really is doing something different here. There are rock guitars, ritualistic dance soundscapes, and atmosphere aplenty and Gazel really has succeeded in creating an entire sonic world that the listener can fall into and inhabit. 

I missed the opportunity to see her live on her recent tour and I can see that it might take a while for such an unusual, unique artist to get the recognition she deserves, but I'm hopeful that more and more people will discover Gazel, and her unique and beautiful debut album, and give it a listen.

In addition to creating a series of beautiful, layered, carefully crafted sonic soundscapes, the videos released to promote recent singles 'You're Not Funny', 'Rain Is Coming' and 'Walk On Land' have been similarly otherworldly and gorgeous. 

The video for 'Rain is coming' (above) is perhaps the most obviously tied to the expressed journey through the psyche, and it sees Gazel observing a younger version of herself as she undertakes a quest for meaning.

'Walk On Land' meanwhile, with its summary feel and steel drums, is a glorious melange of dancing and swirling flowers and fabric that I'm hoping will lure in some of my fellow Flow's who read this blog. 

This is an album that deserves to be discovered and treasured. It has the potential to grow into a classic and should be appreciated as such. 

Rock Against Sexism event in Manchester this Saturday

Photo by Hannah Olinger on Unsplash

This Saturday Mancunians, and other interested parties, will have the exceedingly rare opportunity to hear writer and cultural commentator Lucy Whitman talk about her involvement in Rock Against Sexism. The event, which is taking place at the Friends Meeting House on Mount Street, is free to attend, but you do need to register. 

I first became aware of Lucy Whitman (neé Lucy Toothpaste) through reading Jon Savage's England's Dreaming when I was 15. She was later quoted as a secondary source in my series of punk women essays for The F-Word, which ran between 2010 and 2011.

I hadn't been able to locate Lucy in 2009 when I was researching the series, though I did try.

In the end, she tracked me down and we met for the first time in 2010. An interview piece, based on that first meeting, was eventually published on The F-Word in 2011.

At the time of our interview, Lucy had been interviewed by a number of writers, most recently Helen Reddington and Daniel Rachel, about punk, women and punk, fanzines, Rock Against Racism and Rock Against Sexism, but she had yet to write her own account of the period. Something that, in 2019, she does intend to do.

The event in Manchester should be highly interesting, and will shine a light on an area of cultural history that is rarely discussed. Rock Against Sexism was a much smaller organisation than Rock Against Racism and, as such, it's often hidden from history.

Fangirls

Hannah Ewens book, Fangirls, was published in July. A slender tome (it comes in at just under 250 pages) it nonetheless has a very important story to tell, that of the secret, rarely accurately depicted, world of the fangirl.

What makes Fangirls different to previous cultural accounts of fandom is that Ewens is interested in exploring female experiences of fandom in depth, and that she's not just after a quick take on the more extreme, hysterical end of fan culture. Similarly, while the book does feature accounts of One Direction fans, she goes far beyond the usual female fan/male object of desire definition of fandom. In Fangirls you will find accounts of Halsey fans, the Beyhive, Lady Gaga's Little Monsters, Amy Winehouse fans and older Courtney Love fans, amongst others.

When I come to think about the defining characteristics of previous accounts of fandom, I see them as largely falling into two camps. There's the autobiographical 'We were crazy and we were wild, but I'm now a sensible, grown up adult' school of thought and the 'They are crazy and wild and debase proper fandom with their hysteria' school of thought. I could be being simplistic, and Ewens' book certainly hints that there has been a good deal of positive work done within academia so far as fandom is concerned, but as her discussion of the fallout from a notorious One Direction documentary explores, the stereotype of the two dimensional deranged, screaming teenage girl with stalker tendencies is alive and well.

In one of the early chapters, Ewens travels to London's Brixton Academy on several nights to speak to fans queueing for various artists. She vividly portrays a world that few get to see, explaining the attraction of camping out overnight, how it fits into fan culture, how it becomes part of the social scene around an artist, part of friendship networks and cliques within the fandom.

Perhaps the most powerful moments in Ewens book are when she actively advocates for fangirls under attack, firstly in the chapter about emo and mental health, and secondly with her chapter on Ariana Grande, where she speaks to survivors of the Manchester Arena bombing. On the strength of the Ariana Grande chapter alone, this book deserves to be read and showered with awards. It's a powerful take on an incredibly dark moment in musical history that manages not to be sensationalist, is sensitive but also powerfully angry.

Similarly, the chapter on Amy Winehouse and her relationship with her young female fans is a new take on Winehouse, and makes for a far more interesting, three dimensional portrait of her than any of the usual accounts of her life written since her death.

The book closes with an account of Courtney Love's older fanbase, which includes Ewens herself, and gently demonstrates the ways in which fangirl culture goes way beyond the teenage years.

As I have written in this month's Sticks'N'Strings, my own personal experience of fangirl cultures tends to be drawn mainly from the Sleater-Kinney fanbase and the Florence + The Machine Army, neither of whom are featured in Fangirls. To be sad about that would be to miss the point of the book though: A lot of what Ewens describes is universal to every fandom, and that's what makes this book so relatable, and so needed.

The End of Love (Music Video) - Florence + the Machine

The Florence + The Machine fan club put this video together. To say that doesn't do justice to the amount of work that must have been involved though: It's fairer to say that it was painstakingly assembled from live clips recorded by various people during the course of the High As Hope tour, then cut with some archive clips of Florence Welch.

The High As Hope tour concludes tonight at the Herodion Theatre in Athens, Greece tonight, a very special venue in which to conclude an epic tour.

I hope everyone enjoys their time off afterwards.

My Big Fat Festival Gender Audit, part 2

Photo by Artem Maltsev on Unsplash

As promised in my previous post, I've written an opinion piece based around the findings of my festival gender audit.

In a funny kind of way, it's a sequel to my original piece on The F-Word two years ago, which started this madness...

While I relied on the BBC stats for that piece, in this case I've gathered my own.

I can't guarantee that my research has been as rigorous as that done by the BBC but I've done my best with the tools available to me. I've tried to make the piece fun and interesting to read amidst all the facts and figures. Not sure if it'll excite any debate or not, probably not, but then, who knows?

My Big Fat Festival Gender Audit

London sunset over British Summer Time Festival, 13th July 2019

Regular readers of this blog will remember that, back in summer 2017, I got a bit obsessed with the whole issue of women and music festivals.

Not so much the issue of women and safety at music festivals (although, alas, that issue is always with us... including this summer) but with how few women get to headline, or play at all, at music festivals in the UK.

It all started with a very detailed investigative report that the BBC did into the lack of female festival headliners, and some cockwomble esque comments made a pundit on the BBC World Service in response to the reports findings.

I had a pretty intense time writing my response to the report for The F-Word, and I had a hard time letting the issue go afterwards. I just couldn't stop writing about it.

I think the comments that really stung were the ones suggesting that there simply aren't any women with a high enough profile to headline Glastonbury, which I still reckon is bollocks. Admittedly, Glastonbury currently has a crowd capacity of 203,000 people, but I think that may be part of the problem: It takes a special kind of festival to book both Kylie Minogue and Janet Jackson to play in 2019 and not have either of them headline the event.

This summer I decided that I wanted to re-visit the whole issue of women and music festivals. Not just women headliners, but - again - how many women get to play UK music festivals at all in comparison to men.

In short, I did a gender audit of 10 UK music festivals of varying sizes.

I will be publishing a piece next week which will explore my findings in more depth but, if you want to see the headline stats, you can read them in Sticks 'N' Strings issue 4, which will land in your inbox on Saturday morning. If you haven't already signed up and would like to, you can do so here.

New book pile

Green is the colour

Helen McCookerybook often comes across, at a very casual first glance, as a pastoral folk singer but this is a bit of a misnomer: Musically and thematically, her work is much more complex. This is a reflection of McCookerybook’s musical history both in punk and post punk but also as frontwoman in the experimental band Helen and the Horns, who owe as much to Doris Day as they do to the Monochrome Set. 

Green is an album that encompasses musical nods towards folk, pop, jazz and swing while also containing a lyrical mix of gentle humour, wry observation and the out and out political. ‘Rainbow of the colour green’ features lovely harmonies and gentle melodies, while ‘Where is home?’ is almost French sounding, a gentle waltz of a tune with a perfect accordion sample that is reminiscent of Parisian cafes in the 1950s. It is a lullaby, a comfort blanket of a song. The pastoral lament of ‘New York’ meanwhile is short but equally sweet and ‘Change the DJ’ has an uptempo jazz feel that reminds me of Peggy Lee; it is one of my favourite songs on the album.

McCookerybook is especially good at telling complex stories simply and imaginatively, and this is showcased through two songs in particular: ‘Danse Macabre’ and ‘At the bathing pond’. ‘Danse Macabre’ opens with the irresistible line “Shoplifting books by the ton, piling them high in his room…” and is a giddy adventure of a song. ‘At the bathing pond’, as well as being structured as a great sing along, is a slyly subversive piece that relates the true life story of a peeping tom (plus his wife!) and his voyeuristic adventures at Hampstead Bathing Pond.

Green isn’t without its moments of melancholy, perhaps best demonstrated by ‘These Streets’ and ‘A good life with a bad apple’. There’s also political satire in the form of ‘So Long, Elon’, a particularly strong song:

 “We’re building a big rocket, with space for all our shoes” 

it begins

“with Bitcoin in our pocket, with nothing left to lose.” 

As environmental satire its more Randy Newman’s ‘Political Science (Let’s Drop the Big One Now)’ or Flanders & Swan than it is Barry McGuire's ‘Eve of destruction’, and there’s an atonal quality to the song which marks it out as the missing link between the Raincoats and Kirsty MacColl. Gillian Wood’s cello provides this worrisome note and her playing serves to gently suggest that things have all gone a bit wrong and that maybe we should be more worried about it all. 

This feeling of unease makes sense in the context of ‘21s Century Blues’ which, along with ‘Soldier Joe’, could be regarded as the most openly political of the songs on Green. ‘21st Century Blues’ appears to share similar sentiments to the Specials recent song ‘Vote for me’ only expressed in a more wry, observational narrative, while ‘Soldier Joe’ is about radicalisation and points to the ways in which fighters become victims of their ideology, a kind of modern day cannon fodder for a cause.

The album ends with ‘Saturday night with the London set’, which feels like the most complex song of the album. On one level it feels like the perfect jazz pop summer song, a modern day Spanky & Our Gang, until you listen to the bitingly observational lyrics. Thematically, the song probably has more in common with Blur’s ‘Charmless Man’ than with ‘Sunday Mornin’. But there’s also a wittiness that is more akin to ‘Dedicated Follower of Fashion.’ 

I suspect that McCookerybook has witnessed a lot of celebrities and hipsters, who are ageing disgracefully, out on the town, but as the song nears its conclusion you realise that she isn’t just singing about The Beautiful People, she’s also celebrating those people who are merely out on the town having a good time. This realisation epitomises the heart of Green as an album: Even when McCookerybook is angry, she can still see humour and humanity in the situation.