Songs of the year, Number 20: The Linda Lindas - Talking To Myself

The Linda Linda's first came to public attention back in 2021 when they played a gig at LA Public Library that included the very timely track 'Racist Sexist Boy'. Footage of the song went viral online and led directly to Epitaph signing the band.

It could have been easy for cynical journalists to write off this group of teen and pre-teen punk girls as a fad, but it quickly became apparent that the band - despite their youth - were relatively seasoned performers who had been quietly honing their songwriting and performance skills for a number of years.

Kathleen Hanna praised their cover of Bikini Kill's 'Rebel Girl' (used in the 2021 film adaptation of teen novel Moxie, itself heavily Riot Grrrl inspired) and their debut album, Growing Up, was released this year. 

'Talking To Myself', a jaunty punk pop ear worm of a song, was one of the singles and it has an exuberant charm that is reminiscent of another LA punk pop band: The Go-Go's. It came as no surprise then when The Linda Lindas released a cover of 'Tonite' which - as with 'Rebel Girl' - certainly matched the original.

Songs of the year, Number 21: whenyoung - A Little Piece Of Heaven (Official Video)

whenyoung began life as Sisters in West Ireland back in 2016 and already have one album under their belts.

'A Little Piece Of Heaven', which was released back in September, is a slice of uplifting indie synth driven pop with vocals reminiscent of both The Sundays and Chvrches. It's subtly anthemic and should play as well live as it does through speakers and headphones. 

There's a lot of musical and lyrical layers to the song and, as such, it is one of those that you get different things from with repeated listens.

Songs of the year, Number 22: Princess Chelsea - The Forest

Taken from Princess Chelsea's debut solo album, the reassuringly titled Everything Is Going To Be Alright, 'The Forest' is a strutting, self confident, expansive slice of guitar driven indie rock. On one level, it feels as though it might comfortably share sonic space with the more garage rock driven tracks from Angel Olsen's My Woman album, but there's a darker, slightly gothic aspect to the track that suggests discontent bubbling below the surface. 

This might feel out of character when set against Chelsea's musical past in Auckland bands such as Teenwolf and twee pop outfit The Brunettes, but the whole context of Everything Is Going To Be Alright is of a sort of musical comfort blanket being created from a state of darkness so maybe it's not so unexpected after all. 

Sit back and enjoy this sprawling slice of indie rock, let it take you by the hand and lead you through the big scary woods, and back out again. 

The big end of year roundup post

Welcome to my annual round up of all things great, funny, thought provoking and generally excellent!

It's fair to say that 2022 has been a bloody weird, frequently sad, often farcical kind of a year. Who knows what future historians and cultural critics will make of this peculiar omnishambles.  

That said, there have definitely been many memorable moments, at least some of which will no doubt last the test of time. So, without further ado...

Albums of the year 

12) Raveena, Asha's Awakening

11) Hatchie, Giving The World Away

10) The Regrettes, Further Joy

9) Wet Leg, Wet Leg

8) Helen McCookerybook, Drawing on my dreams

7) Ibeyi, Spell 31

6) Hinako Omori, a journey...

5) The Linda Linda's, Growing Up

4) Zola Jesus, Arkhon

3) Aubrey Haddard, Awake And Talking

2) Harkin, Honeymoon Suite

1) Florence + The Machine, Dance Fever

Photo by Matt Seymour on Unsplash

12 books I've read and loved this year

(For reasons of space, I haven't included the two books I've reviewed this year. You can read about them here though)

Viv Albertine, To throw away unopened

Tracey Thorn, My rock'n'roll friend

Ellis Peters, Brother Cadfael's penance

Lemn Sissay, My name is why: a memoir

Neil Gaiman, The ocean at the end of the lane

Mercedes Lackey, Take a Thief

Phillip Pullman, The Secret Commonwealth

Ottessa Moshfegh, My year of rest and relaxation

Nicola Upson, Two for Sorrow

Vikas Swarup, The accidental apprentice

Kate Adie, Fighting on the Home Front: the legacy of women in World War I

Eliot Higgins, We Are Bellingcat: an intelligence agency for the people 

Podcasts and radio from 2022

I've probably listened to more radio than podcasts this year and would like to give a special mention to Radio 4's serial/podcast The Boy In The Woods, which proved to be a more hard hitting and sensitive take on the True Crime oevre than is often the case. The follow up discussion programme was an often uncomfortable, but very necessary, listen.

An equally necessary, but also often uncomfortable listen was Andrey Kurkov's Letter from Ukraine which took a very simple programme idea (we can safely assume the inspiration came from Alistair Cooke's Letter From America) and used it to great effect.

The return of Alfie Moore's It's A Fair Cop has also been a highlight, as has Natalie Haynes Stands Up For The Classics and Marian Keyes and Tara Flynn's gentle, thought provoking, often hilarious Now You're Asking. The much needed More Or Less meanwhile has really been earning its keep over the past two or three years. Also worth a listen would be the dramatisation of a very unusual lightly satirical historical novel, Three Fires, which has a lot to tell us about the world today and the Florence Pugh episode of the always great This Cultural Life. A much more poignant radio moment was Roger Bolton's final show presenting Radio 4's Feedback programme.

In a similar vein, the big radio news this year for me has been the BBC's baffling decision to bin Radio 4Extra at some point in the next three years. Jake Yap did a particularly excoriating rant on the station about this decision a few months ago, complete with War Of The Worlds style sound bed, and while I'd very much like to hear it again internet searches have not turned it up. In recent months, it's begun to feel like the long term strategy is to spend even less money on this cheap as chips station than usual in the hope that all the listeners will gradually switch off, thus justifying the original binning off of the station. The recent scrapping of Podcast Radio Hour confirms this, and you can listen to their final episode here. For a station that began as BBC7 and which provided us with Ben Moor's Undone, this is a tragedy. 

In podcast land, Private Eye's Page 94 very much continues to deliver and I fully intend to catch up on We Are History and Best Pick over Christmas.

Photo by Enis Yavuz on Unsplash

7 articles I've found interesting/enjoyable this year (Quirky)

Crossrail: High risk security breach as first 'customer' rides train (Ian Weinfass, Construction News)

Man 'reunited with false teeth... 11 YEARS after vomiting them into a bin in Benidorm' (Thomas George, Manchester Evening News)

Train hits trampoline after Storm Dudley blows it onto tracks (John Jones, Wales Online)

'Free Creme Eggs' and the smell of McVities: Why the 192 Bus is a Greater Manchester adventure (Saffron Otter, Manchester Evening News)

The etiquette of returning Tupperware: 'It always comes back with something in it' (Jennifer Curcio, The Guardian)

'My childhood dream to become a bus driver came true' says drag queen (Ruth Mosalski and Kirstie McCrum, Hull Daily Mail)

The wet lettuce that lasted longer than Liz Truss (Ethan Davies, Manchester Evening News)

Photo by Magnet.me on Unsplash

12 articles I've found interesting/enjoyable this year (Not so quirky)

"Adults are banning books, but they're not asking our opinions" meet the teens of Banned Book Club (Adam Gabbatt, Hannah Yoon, The Guardian)

How residential developers are quietening culture (Lily Gordon Brown, Salt)

ImillaSkate: An indigenous Bolivian skateboard collective - photo essay (Luisa Dörr, The Guardian)

Musicians Are Begging Fans to Mask Up at Concerts. Here's Why (Nina Corcoran, Pitchfork)

Among Europe's Ex Royals (Helen Lewis, Jelka von Langen, The Atlantic) 

How to Win the Abortion Argument (Helen Lewis, The Atlantic)

Florence Welch: 'Who am I kidding? I'm a showboat!' (Kate Mossman, The Guardian)

David Oliver: My personal pandemic experience is just one of many (David Oliver, British Medical Journal)

The perfectionism trap (Josh Cohen, 1843)

WFH 101: Tips For Navigating The Future Of Remote Working (Hannah Bradfield, Journo Resources)

What Working at a Used Book Store Taught Me About Literary Rejection (Carl Lavigne, LitHub)

The Winners of China's Housing Bust: Burnouts and Beach Bums (Jiang Xinyi and Fan Yiyang, Sixth Tone)

Photo by Daria Volkova on Unsplash

6 articles I've found interesting/enjoyable this year (Ukraine)

Ukrainian artists on the Russian crisis: "Now is the time to push for change" (Andrew Trendell, NME)

Ukraine's tech community rallies to support refugees and battle misinformation (Masha Borak, Rest Of World)

Shopping lists from Ukraine's frontlines: Manchester's response to Putin's war - video (Maeve Shearlaw, Alex Healey and Katie Lamborn, The Guardian)

Pasha Lee went from Ukrainian screen idol to volunteer (The Economist)

In the war room with Volodymyr Zelensky (Oliver Carroll, 1843)

Fleeing Putin, Russian tech workers find a home in Armenia (Masha Borak, Anush Babajanyan, Rest Of World)

Songs of the year

The countdown of my favourite songs of the year will begin on this blog from Saturday 3rd December. You can also find the playlist, which will be updated in real (ish) time, over on Spotify.

M(h)aol - Asking For It

The sheer rage coming off this track is both palpable and powerful.

You must watch this.

Album review: Helen McCookerybook, Drawing on my Dreams

As regular readers will know, North London singer/songwriter Helen McCookerybook is no stranger to this blog. 

The punk and post punk alumni of Joby and the Hooligans, The Chefs and Helen and the Horns has been prolific in her output these past five years or so, with albums such as Green and The Sea standing strongly alongside 2020's concept 7" album, Pea Soup.

With Drawing on my Dreams, McCookerybook has created an album that is unmistakably her own but which also nods to one of this years key musical themes: Minimalist introspection fuelled by home recording and home producing.

Lockdown has obviously shaped a number of artistic and creative decisions musicians have made over the past two years, hence the increase in introspective observation, acoustic guitar driven songs and Logic and drum machine orientated tracks. The other side of the coin of course is the "Wooh! Hedonism and glow sticks!" school of thought, leading to a Mercury Music Prize shortlist that was (in the main) relentlessly upbeat this year. The judges clearly signalling with their selection that they were done with soulful introspection after two years of being sat indoors in a onesie with only a screen for company, thank you very much. 

I mention this only because while Drawing on my dreams was home recorded, home produced and contains a number of songs that are fairly introspective, it doesn't feel like so much of a departure from McCookerybook's previous works as, say, Florence + The Machine's Dance Fever or Harkin's Honeymoon Suite both did for those artists. I mean, album closer 'Dear Life' shares a similarly self depreciating sense of humour as Florence + The Machine's 'Girls Against God', but the sound of exasperation north of the river is more pastoral and gently wry than Welch's weary-but-seething-despair over lockdown life in South London.

We open with the gentle finger picking minimalism of 'Beachwalk', where the vocal creates the melody as McCookerybook sings of the healing powers of a good sea walk and the serendipity of random shore discoveries away from the madness of the world.

It is followed by the wistfully pretty 'All I Want', an ode in which she seeks happiness not for herself, but for a friend who is tormented by shadows. It's the kind of singularly stylish and classic sounding song that would have suited both Kirsty MacColl and Doris Day.

Third song 'Wake Up' has choppier guitars and more of a political edge to it, equating as it does the boiling of the coffee with a desire for social change. McCookerybook urges the listener to feed their soul as the violin (provided by The Raincoats Anne Wood) twines in and out of the choppy guitar and sharp/sweet vocals like a smoky cat. 

In 'Amazonia', she returns to a theme she's often blogged and spoken out against: Worker exploitation. The song begins with references to a Bangladeshi garment factory fire, possibly the one in Dhaka that happened last year, but probably also the one that happened in the same region in 2012. Apple's factories in China, which relied on child labour, and "the deep dark depths of the fulfilment centre" of Amazon hell are also mentioned. The song is a lyrically skilful analysis of worker exploitation that has the same kind of restless energy of post punk intelligentsia such as Young Marble Giants. It also harks back to The Sea's title track (a scathing take on the refugee crisis) in the thoroughness of its assessment. 

Equally fierce is 'Pandora', a reference to the unfortunate Greek woman with the box and the ways in which the worlds problems are used as a stick to beat women with. 

More subtly political it seems is the deeply touching 'After the Storm', which has a real sense of gentle catharsis and a world taking a breath following the defeat of Donald Trump in the 2020 US election. The song has a pretty pastoral melody and a lovely wistful vocal and is one of my favourite tracks, alongside 'Wake Up'.

'Woodwide Web' is a welcome slice of gently strummed and sung whimsy inspired by the natural world, which showcases McCookerybook's eye for detail and sense of fun. The lyrically poetic 'Little Egret' works on a similar level and shares a similar sense of curiosity and wonder. 

With 'Coffee and Hope' the upbeat tune and lyrics are set off by the choppy guitar and quiet vocal as our author sips coffee and hopes for a better world, a feeling echoed by closing track 'Dear Life'.

Perhaps the most musically ambitious track though is 'Things Like This'. The song features hypnotic short guitar chords alongside a more finger picking style of playing and there is a catchy chorus of "Things like this don't happen to people like me" which sits nicely alongside the crisp drumming of The Go-Between's  Lindy Morrison. Emma Goss also features on double bass and the overall feel is of a slice of classy 60s beat pop. 

With Drawing on my Dreams McCookerybook has signalled a new level of sonic independence as well as a willingness to experiment. The result is a stylish and clever album by a singer/songwriter who is perfectly at ease with herself and her work. 

Drawing on my Dreams is available to buy via Bandcamp

Helen also does a very entertaining blog.

Grrrl lit

As a book reading, fanzine writing, punk listening grrrl in the 1990s I longed, and longed, to find a book that truly represented my teenage experience. 

Occasionally something would come along that seemed like it might possibly hit the spot - Douglas Coupland's Shampoo Planet and, later, Stephen Chobsky's Perks Of Being A Wallflower - only to not quite manage it: I read Shampoo Planet at least twice, but I barely got beyond the first page of Perks Of Being A Wallflower. 

A book that I felt closer to, at least emotionally and in a mental health sense, was Evelyn Lau's Runaway: Diary Of A Street Kid, which is made up of the authors diaries between 14 and 16. I read the book when I was 16. Our life experiences are massively different, but she can write like an angel. 

A few years after that came Linda Jaivin's Sci Fi erotic comedy Rock'N'Roll Babes From Outer Space, which was too wacky to be relatable but which, nevertheless, was still a book that made you want to read it in your Doc Martens and jump up and down to Babes In Toyland afterwards.

The (at face value) less relatable Beijing Doll (by Chun Sue) was probably the closest I could find to my own teenage experience, in that she was at least a teenage fanzine writer who liked punk bands. I think I was in my early twenties by the time that book came out.

With this in mind, you can see why the sudden appearance of not one but two (two!) books by women who were neck deep in the 1990s punk/riot grrrl scenes in the UK and US would make me very excited.

First out of the blocks has been Karren Ablaze!'s debut novel, Revolution On The Rock. Karren has been a fanzine writer since 1984 and was one of the Leeds and Bradford Riot Grrrls in the early to mid 1990s. She was also the singer in the bands Coping Saw and Wack Cat. I interviewed her for The F-Word back in 2016.

The second of the two books is Gogo Germaine's Glory Guitars: Memoirs Of A '90s Teenage Punk Rock Grrrl. While Germaine wasn't (at least during the course of this memoir) writing fanzines or playing in bands, she was a committed punk grrrl who was neck deep in her local scene from the age of 12 onwards. 

Cover by Joel Amat Guell.

The two books, while both very enjoyable, are very different in tone.

Revolution On The Rock follows the (mis)fortunes of Leeds sound engineer Bunty Maguire in the weeks before and after the EU Referendum of 2016, whereas Glory Guitars does exactly what it says on the tin: It's a vivid and often shocking, but also often hilarious, account of Germaine's teenage years in Nowheresville, USA.

I'd like to think that both of these books, following on from Carrie Brownstein's memoir Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl and the well meaning teenage novel Moxie, represent an opening of the floodgates when it comes to women writing about the 90s subcultural teenage experience. 

The lag in books appearing isn't entirely unexpected in that it's only since 2007 that we've really started to see accounts of the 1970s female punk experience being published. There was the odd exception before that, for example Deborah Spungeon's biography of/memoir about her daughter Nancy, the early parts of Toyah Wilcox's memoir Living Out Loud, plus the occasional book chapter or essay in wider works, but 2007 really was the moment when people started to make their voices heard again.

It takes a while for those who were present in a specific cultural moment, who saw and were seen, to decompress, take stock, process and document what happened. And the fight to have those testimonies heard is yet another battle in a long war within wider cultural histories in which women are not valued. With all this in mind, it's amazing that any punk women and punk grrrl books ever get published.

So, for this reason, I'm really pleased that these two very different punk grrrl books exist. But I also long for more.