Lockdown reads: Great journalism and writing you might have missed, part 11 (October 2020)

I have over the past few months mused on the relevance of calling these monthly blog posts 'lockdown reads', given that the formal, UK wide, lockdown ended in June. Given that many of us were still under local lockdowns from June onwards (hello Leicester), it still seemed fair enough, and given that two of our four nations in the UK are once again under full Covid lockdowns, it feels even more relevant this month. I suspect that some of you will have slightly more time on your hands this week than you anticipated a month or so back and, if so, I hope you find something here to entertain and inform. 

We begin, inevitably, with COVID-19. The New Scientist did a good breakdown and analysis of the Imperial College study into excess deaths by country during the first wave earlier this year whereas The Guardian wrote a more cheerful piece about teenager entrepreneurs whose businesses and earnings have boomed during lockdown. 

Greater Manchester's ten council areas found themselves increasingly under the Covid spotlight in October, thanks to Mayor Andy Burnham's two week stand off with the Johnson government over funding for the introduction of Tier 3 measures here. This followed the introduction of Tier 3 measures in both Liverpool and Lancashire, both of whom received widely differing instructions on what could and couldn't stay open, as well as different financial packages. Lancashire went so far as to say that they felt they had been 'bullied and blackmailed' into accepting Tier 3 measures.

Given that Greater Manchester had already been under local lockdown since 31st July, with no financial package to mitigate the economic damage, it wasn't a surprise that October's announcement of new measures saw Burnham and council leaders decide to take a stand. The media fallout has been... interesting. 

Not only has Covid led to a bit of a crash course in geography for many of us (one of the more popular jokes doing the rounds in Greater Manchester back on 31st July was around Trafford having to finally accept it was geographically located in Greater Manchester, not Cheshire) it's created some weirdly iconic moments: That Civil Service Tweet, for example, the politicalisation of Barnard Castle, and - in October - the starring role of iconic Mancunian geographical backdrops such as Central Library and The Bridgewater Hall in Andy Burnham's increasingly exasperated press conferences. Helen Pidd, The Guardian's North of England Editor, also pointed to another unexpected phenomenon. The Manchester Evening News, meanwhile, wrote a suitably lively take on the whole standoff as it was continuing. They were also the first to write about that northern secession banner on Princess Parkway. New media startup The Mill have also been covering the standoff as it unfolded and last week they wrote about the ongoing financial destruction of the arts, and how it's playing out in a workshop in Ashton. In a broader sense, this World Economic Forum report offers detailed analysis of the future of work. 

In other Covid news, Imperial College London are starting vaccine trials in January, but the UK wide Covid tracking survey has gone really tits up in recent weeks. Oh, and Matt Hancock got his long Covid stats wrong. 

If September's Reply All episode on QAnon and the BBC's take on the build up to and long shadow of the Oklahoma City Bombing has whetted your appetite for reporting and analysis of conspiracy theorists, you might find The Mill's take on disinformation and panic during a cholera outbreak nearly 200 years ago a worryingly familiar read. See also EM Forster's The Machine Stops for the full dystopian take, if you've already binge watched that Netflix series inspired by Brave New World. 

Another big story this month has been the ongoing pantomime that is the US election, not so much partisanship as screaming civil war in the making. Into this chaos Narratively inserted a surprisingly positive take on the whole mess in the form of a story about Justine Lee and Tria Chang, co-founders of Make America Dinner again, in which they host dinner parties in order to facilitate civilised discourse between Americans of different opinions and from different walks of life. Feel free to revisit this one in the weeks to come.

Delivering food and friendship in a slightly different way on this side of the pond are FoodCycle, who featured in a piece on Wicked Leeks this month. Also Marcus Rashford, who hasn't forgotten what nearly happened with free school meals in the UK over the summer. In an innovative modern take on the historical practice of 'rough musicing', Tory MP's in Bury who voted against extending provision of free school meals to children over half term saw their constituency office decorated with paper plates and 'feed kids' signs last week. 

On the theme of poverty, the Manchester Evening News ran two harrowing homeless stories last week that both served to reveal the basic decentness of local humanity. In the first instance, a man took off his jeans and gave them to a homeless man outside a petrol station in Wythenshawe and multiple people have been trying to locate and help a distressed elderly woman found sleeping rough in Manchester. 

Ahead of Wales and Northern Ireland announcing their own 'Circuit Break' lockdowns, the New Scientist offered a calm discussion as to what exactly a circuit breaker lockdown might look like, and what the science says about them.

My Wales correspondent (ie my sister Jenni, who is reprising her role after a long absence) has been sending me reports on how the lockdown in Wales is going, including this hilarious protest over what does and doesn't constitute an 'essential' item. There was also a massive fuck up over sanitary towels in Tesco as well, which seems odd given pharmacies are allowed to stay open during lockdowns. The tone coming from the Welsh government seems to be that they're doing their best but that it's amazing how much potential their is for misinterpretation in the phrase 'essential items'. 

Over in Scotland, regular polling since March has indicated a strong preference for Scottish independence from the UK, which the New Statesman have written about this month. 

In lighter news, CNN reported that a giant ancient cat illustration has been found carved into a hillside in Peru. And finally, my current favourite headline of the year: Python tried to eat sleeping woman while being tracked by biologists. An honourable mention should also be given to Sky's baffling Brexit: Department for International Trade in soy sauce row after Great British Bake Off claim, which came courtesy of our Wales correspondent. 

Image of Thank you NHS and Key Workers banner pinned up by a basketball court in East Belfast by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash

Image of the River Irwell at sunset by by Matthew Waring on Unsplash

Image of child playing outside against a sunset by Sujeeth Potla on Unsplash

Pandemic pop music: Or, why Allie X's Cape God should be up there with Dua Lipa's Future Nostalgia in the end of year lists

Earlier this year, probably not long after the UK went into lockdown, a number of well placed and well respected music journalists in the UK began to remark upon a specific 2020 music theme: Party albums for the pandemic age. 

Lady Gaga's Chromatica, a back-to-my-roots slice of hedonistic turbo charged pop which was released in late May, was one example of the emerging oevre, but the main release people referenced again and again was Dua Lipa's Future Nostalgia, which was released on 27th March 2020, four days after the UK went into lockdown. 

Listening to Future Nostalgia, it's easy to see why so many critics fell for it: It's exuberant, assertive, confident and stylish in tone. It's also good hedonistic pop music, providing positive vibes and escapism at a time when people were, and still are, unable to go out to nightclubs and dance the night away. It arrived at the perfect moment. Not only was the album positively reviewed upon its release but it was also shortlisted for the Mercury Music Prize and will, undoubtably, feature highly in many critics and publications end of year lists. 

I have listened to Future Nostalgia a few times now and, while I do quite like it, I didn't really get why it had been given such a rapturous reception.

That was until I listened to Canadian art pop star Allie X's 2020 album, Cape God. 

Like Future Nostalgia, Cape God provides a confident serving of stylish and hedonistic pop music. But its overall mood is decidedly darker, foreboding and off kilter. Which might account for it receiving less attention than the Dua Lipa album.

Cape God was released on February 21st 2020, pre a lot of the world's Covid lockdowns and before many countries had fully realised the extent to which they were going to be impacted by the virus and what kind of a year it was going to be.

An album with moody, dark imagery that also features X's trademark subversive lyrics (this is the woman who rhymed 'Casanova' with 'Fuck me over' on 'Casanova' after all) it is clever, complex, sophisticated pop with many a dance floor banger ('Super Duper Party People', 'Devil I Know', 'Rings A Bell', 'Life Of The Party') but which also wraps discordant, complex themes in ambitious synth pop ('Fresh Laundry') and addresses a series of atypical relationships and related difficulties. 'Love Me Wrong' for example, a collaboration with Trove Sivan, is a swirlingly off kilter slice of pop baroque whereas the slinky 'Susie Save Your Love' sings of wistful bisexual longing in a duet with Mitski. Musically the song  nods to mid 1980s Prince and the Revolution as well as the Lady Gaga and Florence Welch duet, 'Hey Girl'. 'Madame X' meanwhile, presumably in no way related to last years Madonna album of the same name, is a gothic ballad featuring a modern day La Belle Dame Sans Merci at its heart. 

Perhaps the most haunting track on this most atmospheric of albums is 'Life Of The Party' a song which, at face value, is a turbo charged banger set to rival anything on Chromatica or Future Nostalgia. Listen to the lyrics though and the story takes a distinctly darker turn:

I was the life was the life of the party

They stripped me down like a Barbie

They say I kissed the king

But I don't remember anything

The troubling nature of this is underscored at the apex of the song with X's blurred and groggy muttering of the following:

Oh I'll never forget

But I don't wanna forget

Hope I never forget

Oh I wanna forget

Oh I'll never forget

But I don't wanna forget

I hope I'll never forget

Oh I wanna forget

It hints at sexual assault while delivering unyielding pounding electro beats, something Noga Erez also did with 2017's 'Pretty', which was about a sexual assault in an Israeli nightclub. The contrast between content and style in both cases making for pretty disturbing listening. 

In its attention to cohesion and detail Cape God comes across as a loving and ambitious homage to electronica, art pop and the LGBT+ community. It feels both dark and joyous, troubling and euphoric, and it builds on Allie X's earlier work in a very satisfactory way.

She has surpassed herself with this album and that should really be acknowledged. 

Fantasy Festival 2020: Looking back and summing up

I knew from late May/early June that I was going to need to evaluate the Fantasy Festival project come October. With such a big, long term project, it seemed like a good idea to reflect on the process of compiling these 21 virtual clipfests, and what I've found out along the way. 

For one thing, as we drew closer to October I found myself asking: Was it a good idea to create a series of posts that would run all the way from late May until early October? Yes, it would ensure that the entire festival season was covered, but would people also get bored? 

Looking at my stats, I'd say that that has not proved to be the case: The viewing figures are much the same at the end of the series as they were at the beginning. There's been peaks and troughs along the way, and certain festivals do seem to have gone down better than others (for example Patti Smith and Anna Calvi) but, overall, it's been pretty consistent. Which is nice. 

I've been thinking about whether I should do another series next year and, at the moment, I'm not sure. It will depend a lot on where we are as a country (UK) with live music by May 2021. At the moment, I suspect that festivals probably won't happen in 2021 or, if they do, they will be very, very different. If that's the case, it might not be worth running a Fantasy Festival series in 2021. Not just because there might be less to get riled about without the typical slew of sausage fest lineups (though, since I started the series in May, Reading and Leeds festival have already proved true to form in that regard, announcing a very sausage-y lineup for 2021) but also because I suspect that live music clips on YouTube will be valued much more highly than they are now and, for that reason, may well be less available on a free to watch basis. We will see. 

I imagine at home gigs will still be a thing post Christmas, and I've used a number of at home/lockdown shows in this series, and they can be good. Even the low budget ones. Really, what I've found with at home or lockdown gigs is that it's the the spirit or the performance that counts, and also the intimate rapport that the artist is able to establish with those watching from home. It doesn't have to rely on really expensive kit, it can be done cheap and still be good. Both Basia Bulat and Patricia Lalor's lockdown streams proved this.

My starting point when compiling these virtual festivals has always been to create lineups made up of a range of artists who I, to varying degrees, like. This could mean an artist who I've heard one or more song by and who I quite like all the way through to an artist I really love. And all points in-between. The process of compiling the festivals, and then the watching of the one song clips and full sets when the post is published, give me a greater insight into the artist, their backstory, and their back catalogue. Some artists I end up liking the same as I did previously, some I like less, but many I end up liking more. This year, there were a number of artists who I only had a casual interest in previously who I now love intensely. Allie X and Zoe Graham being two of these artists. I also discovered a band I'd never heard before while looking for clips of another artist entirely, and promptly added them to one of the bills. A rare, joyful, example of the power of YouTube. 

The downside of YouTube is the impermanence of a lot of the content that gets posted on there. I do try to pick clips, and full sets, that look like they've been uploaded by people who might either own the content or have some clue about permissions or copyright, but even so, I still had a case of a one song clip being removed from YouTube after I'd embedded it and the post had gone live. Which is annoying. Similarly, one other video was deleted before it could be posted but, seeing as how the replacement clip I found was much, much better, this might have been a blessing in disguise. Oh, and a few videos I'd linked to (as opposed to embedded as the main clip in the post) got taken down in the time between me scheduling posts and them being published. Which made for a certain amount of re-editing after those posts had gone live. Again; annoying. 

There were, as was the case in 2017, issues as regards sourcing good quality clips and full sets by artists.  In the case of new artists this ongoing situation has (inevitably) been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic: Many of those artists I couldn't get live clips for at all were poised to go on tour this summer, or earlier in the year, and not all of them were in a position to do lockdown gigs from home. 

As regards new or emerging artists, one really good source of high quality footage turned out to be the BBC, specifically their Introducing project. Because the big UK festivals (and some of the medium and smaller sized ones too) have BBC Introducing stages at which new UK artists are booked to play, there was a large recent archive of one song clips posted by the BBC on YouTube that I could use.

I relied on these clips a lot and, while I was very pleased to discover this archive, the BBC Introducing footage came with its own set of problems. It's not that the full sets (if there were full sets available for those artists) were only available on BBC Sounds, it's more a combination of other factors.

Firstly, a number of new and emerging artists, while perfectly good on small stages in pubs and clubs, come across as gauche and over exposed when placed on a much larger stage at a festival. Even if it's the new artists stage. This can make for some pretty un-dynamic footage. Perhaps recognising that this can be the case, the BBC Introducing footage quite often concentrates on catching an overall mood and vibe by including lots of footage of the crowd responding to the artists, rather than lots of close ups of the artist performing. This can have mixed results: If the artist isn't going down well with the crowd, it tends to be obvious and make for painful viewing. If the artist is playing an absolute blinder but the video edit still includes loads of crowd footage, it can detract from the artist's performance. If you watch Koffee's one song clip from the BBC Introducing stage at Glastonbury 2019, then watch her full length set from Rockpalast in 2019, you'll see what I mean. A good example of a great clip by the BBC Introducing film team is Self Esteem's one song clip of 'Girl Crush' from Glastonbury 2019 where, perhaps recognising that Rebecca Lucy Taylor isn't a total newbie and has an ease and confidence on stage that needs showcasing, they did focus on the performance over the crowd.

In general, I relied on far more BBC clips than I'd previously anticipated. This was particularly the case for festival clips from 2019 and 2020, by which time the issue of a lack of women being booked for festivals was definitely being discussed in a big way and (some) festivals were seeking to show themselves willing to book more women. As such, this seasons Fantasy Festivals did include a surprisingly large amount of one song clips from Glastonbury 2019 and the BBC 6Music Festival 2020, which managed to sneak in ahead of the main festival season in March, just before UK lockdown. 

As in 2017, this years Fantasy Festival's have been very dependent upon content sourced from live studio sessions, particularly those recorded for public radio stations and platforms in the US. I have been very grateful to the work done by KEXP, The Current, Paste and Audiotree when it comes to showcasing a mixture of new, emerging and established artists in a variety of live contexts from a variety of nations. Despite the studio settings, many of those sessions are amazing. Good examples would include Ibeyi and Miya Folick's live sessions, both for KEXP. 

On the downside, there are still artists where - despite their profile - it's been nay on impossible to source high quality live clips or full sets. Specific examples would include Stevie Nicks and Emmy The Great, albeit for very different reasons.

Compared to the Fantasy Festivals I created in 2017, I've sourced my clips and full sets from a much wider range of festivals (despite the predominance of both BBC UK festival footage and KEXP live sessions) and also a much wider set of geographical locations, which is great. I am now aware of inDnegev festival in Israel, TRNSMT in Scotland, the various different geographical locations used by Pitchfork Festival (France, Spain, US...), and Hodgepodge Superfest in Indonesia. 

Festivals in European countries beyond the UK need a special shout out too because I did include a lot of artists from the Scandinavian countries this year, as well as sets from non Scandinavian artists who just happened to be playing at festivals in Europe. I'm especially grateful to Roskilde Festival (Denmark), Gurten Festival (Switzerland), Rock Werchter (Belgium), Open'er Festival (Poland), and Ruisrock Festival (Finland).

I've really taken a kind of delight in some of the random locations and contexts I've found artist clips in this year. The odder the situation or context, the more interesting the final result in many cases. This has included watching The Raincoats perform a full set as part of an art exhibition, Sampa The Great performing 'Final Form' at what looked like a neighbourhood party in Brisbane, Lily and Madeleine performing to an audience of commuters on a bus in (I think) Indiana, Half Waif performing 'Keep It Out' to an audience of campers at a US summer camp, and Liines performing to a duffel coated (and very cold looking) audience at an outdoor gig in Munich. Not to mention the typically surreal spectacle of both Press Club and Mallrat performing on TV in their native Australia.

Because the festival season was swept away by the COVID-19 pandemic this year, any impact the Fantasy Festival series might have had in an activism context is pretty much null and void. I will finish by saying that I may have been unintentionally ahead of the curve in 2017 when I compiled the first Fantasy Festival series: In summer 2020, the BBC constantly referred to it's own curated (I don't curate: I compile) series of 'Fantasy Festivals' on BBC Sounds, scheduled to coincide with the weekends that they would usually be broadcasting live from Glastonbury and Reading & Leeds festivals. I don't claim copyright on the phrase, but their use of it did amuse me. 

Lady Gaga - Million Reasons (Live At Royal Variety Performance)

Because Lady Gaga released her most recent album, Chromatica, during lockdown, she hasn't really begun to promote it as yet. What live performances there have been have taken place over video conferencing software from home. As such, I'm turning to performances from the Joanne era as they seem more apt. This Royal Variety Performance was a surprisingly demure one by Gaga, but it's a powerful one in which she is possibly channelling her inner Bassey. In direct contrast to, there's a live film of the Dive Bar tour she did to promote 2016's Joanne album, which you can watch here.

Kelsea Ballerini - Homecoming Queen (Radio 2 Live in Hyde Park 2019)

I haven't been able to find a full live set by Kelsea on YouTube, so here she is performing 'Miss Me More' with Halsey at CMT Crossroads earlier this year. It is well worth watching.

Aurora - Running With The Wolves (Live at Gurten Festival)

This is AURORA performing 'Running With The Wolves' live at Gurton Festival in 2018. It is possible to find her full Glastonbury 2019 set here, but I don't think the BBC know it's up on YouTube so, just in case it gets taken down, here's her set from KEXP at Kex Hostel in Reykjavik in 2019.

Kelly Lee Owens - Lucid (Live on KEXP)

You can watch the rest of Kelly's KEXP session here

Natasha Kmeto - “Pour Down”

You can watch the whole of this set as a playlist of separate videos on YouTube here.

Starcrawler 'I Love LA'

You can watch Starcrawler's full gig for The Current at SXSW in 2018 here.

HURLEY LIVE SESSIONS: THE PARANOYDS PLAY 'FACE FIRST'

You can watch The Paranoyds live set for Paste Studios in January 2019 here. The interplay between band and presenter at the beginning is very quiet, but the sound is much better once the band begin playing.

Liz Lawrence - None Of My Friends (The BME Sessions)

This is Liz Lawrence performing the timely 'None of my friends' for BBC Introducing in 2019. You can watch part of Liz's live set at Banquet Records in 2019 here.

Fantasy Festival number 21: The Lineup

Liz Lawrence: Liz Lawrence released her second album of indie rock, Pity Party, last year. It featured the understated observational deadpan of 'None of my friends are OK'. She was touring earlier this year, and it's to be expected that she may well have dates planned for the future, circumstances permitting. You can find her on Insta.

The Paranoyds: Achingly cool LA punk pop band The Paranoyds have been around for a few years now. Their debut album, Carnage Bargain, was released last year. You can find them on Bandcamp.

Starcrawler: The outrageous LA garage punk band are fronted by Arrow De Wilde, the feral lovechild of Iggy Pop and Cherie Curie. They have released two albums of stomping punk classics, are terrifying live, and you can find out more here.

Natasha Kmeto: This Portland based multi instrumentalist, producer and singer makes evocative, clever, sexy feel good electronic music. You can find her on Bandcamp.

Kelly Lee Owens: "Convention-blurring techno producer/musician" is what it says on her Bandcamp, and you can't really argue with that. Her self titled, self released debut album was released in 2017 when she was still living in Wales, and quickly became both a critical and word of mouth success. Since then it seems like everybody wants to work with her. Her second album is, it is fair to say, very keenly anticipated. You can find her on Bandcamp.

AURORA: Norwegian singer, songwriter and producer Aurora has released three highly conceptual albums of electro art pop. You can find out more here.

Kelsea Ballerini: Tennessee country pop singer and songwriter Kelsea Ballerini has released three albums of country flavoured pop and cites Shania Twain as her greatest influence. As an artist who has grown up with pop crossover artists such as Twain and Taylor Swift, it's not surprising that she is able to straddle the pop and country worlds with such ease. You can find out more here.

Lady Gaga: The phenomenon that is Lady Gaga was born Stefani Germanotta in New York in 1986. She is a singer, songwriter and producer. 2008's aptly titled debut album The Fame was her breakthrough moment, and it's been non stop ever since for her. Musically, she remains a dance and pop orientated artist but, over the years, she has taken inspirations from metal, country and Americana, and even made a brief foray into the easy listening world with her Tony Bennett collaboration, Cheek to Cheek. "Do you want to be the next Madonna?" she was asked once "No" she replied "I want to be the next Iron Maiden". You can find out more here.

Fantasy Festival number 21

Lockdown reads: Great journalism and writing you might have missed, part 10 (September 2020)

Hello and welcome to this month's journalism roundup. It does feel as though the phrase 'lockdown reads' is still contemporary so I'm going to stick with it for now even though I know not everyone in the UK is under a local lockdown. It just feels like we are.

We begin this month's summary with the economy, and a shrewd piece of economic and policy analysis conducted by the New Statesman. They predicted at the beginning of September that the UK is sleepwalking into a jobs crisis. I suspect that their feelings on the matter haven't changed much since. 

Another sign of what might be ahead of us, economy and employment wise, was this surprisingly poignant tech story from Bloomberg, which revealed a trick Amazon delivery drivers are deploying to score more gig work. 

In other driver related news, The Guardian ran this devastating piece about the life and death of Mervyn 'Mally' Kennedy, and the fight by his fellow London bus drivers to get the protection they needed from COVID-19 earlier this year.

While no one could really be said to be having a 'good' pandemic, this piece from The Conversation reveals some good news about Covid inspired innovations in Vietnam over the past six months. 

Resident Adviser ran a thoughtful photo essay on Beirut's nightclub scene, post August's blast, and The Cut ran another of their much talked about, thought provoking personal essays this month. This time by model Emily Ratajkowski, concerning her fight to own her own image. 

Using humour to talk about a serious topic, 1843 magazine provided a guide to conspiracy theory slang. In a loosely related, much darker, note the recent BBC podcast series Two Minutes Past Nine looks at the long shadow on American life and culture cast by the Oklahoma bombing in 1995 and is well worth a listen. 

New Manchester media startup The Mill began strong last month with this penetrating analysis of why Rebecca Long-Bailey failed to become Labour leader. They also got the inside take on Manchester Metropolitan University's controversial student lockdown. You can subscribe to them for free or subscribe to a paid membership in order to help keep them going. Details and the end of each article. 

Until next month. Stay safe. 

Photo of autumn leaves by Jeremy Thomas on Unsplash

Bikini Kill with Joan Jett, “Rebel Girl”

Featuring a guest appearance from Joan Jett, this live clip of the newly reformed Bikini Kill performing 'Rebel Girl' in 2019 is good quality, albeit filmed from slightly afar. It's still well worth watching though. Full length sets, either from the 1990s or from 2019, are hard to come by and the only one I could find was so wobbly it made me feel queasy watching it. For an inkling of the 1992 live experience, you can watch this clip of 'Rebel Girl' live at an outdoor rally in Washington DC here. A slightly less grainy version of the same footage appears in The Punk Singer. There's a lot of Bikini Kill footage up on YouTube, including some very atmospheric stuff from 2019, but it helps if you've a high tolerance for wobbly camerawork or people's heads getting in the way. If you're fine with that, go hunting.

The Raincoats - The Void, Live at the MOMA.

This is The Raincoats performing 'The Void' live at MOMA in 2009. You can watch a full set of the band performing as part of Dan Graham's Stage Set for Music at the Lisson Gallery in London in 2018 here.

Big Joanie - It's You (SXSW 2019)

This is Big Joanie playing at SXSW for BBC Introducing in 2019. You can watch their full live show for KEXP (on a foray to London) here.

Dream Nails - DIY (Live at The Victoria, London - 26 July 2018)

This highly atmospheric live clip of Dream Nails was recorded at The Victoria in London on 26th July 2018. You can watch footage of their set at London's Shacklewell Arms in 2018 here.