Where's North From Here?

We had a really good weekend in London. The Flightpath Estate were part of the line up at the Acid House Chancers event at The Social on Saturday night, on this occasion me and Baz third on the bill in the downstairs room with Mark representing upstairs in his Rude Audio guise. It was a fantastic night, the reaction of the crowd to the music was off the scale and I will at some point recreate the set and share it here. We got loads of good feedback and my pre- set nerves at taking over from Jenny Leamon, who already had a room of people dancing, were settled fairly quickly but the fear of clearing the floor and playing to an empty room is real. 

While we were in London on Saturday we popped into Tate Modern. I wanted to see Mark Rothko's Seagram Murals (again). On turning into one of the galleries we were met straight away by Andy Warhol's Marilyn diptych, a piece of art so famous it's almost meaningless, just pop culture wallpaper. Seeing it close up and in full wall sized glory was an experience, fifty slightly different Marilyns fading from day glo colour to black and white. 

Mark Rothko's Seagram Murals take up an entire room, a series of very large, wall sized rectangles in deep reds, maroons and black. They become the room, swallowing you inside them. I can see why some people find them quite oppressive and they certainly suggest something about Rothko's state of mind when he painted them (for a restaurant originally). When I first saw them in Liverpool in 1988, an eighteen year old just arriving at university, they had an impact on me and going back to see them in London periodically over the years since, they still do. I like big art, art you can get lost in.

On Sunday morning we went out for breakfast in Soho, looking for a morning after cure and still on a high after DJing at The Social. Just round the corner from our hotel was It's Bagels, a New York style bagel shop offering breakfast bagels, the walls decorated with pictures of Bob Dylan and De La Soul. The people sitting in the window looked like they were enjoying their bagels so we went inside. The in- shop stereo was loud, playing a weirdly hallucinatory late 70s/ early 80s soundtrack, trippy yacht rock and stoned singer songwriters. Without warning Mark E. Smith suddenly boomed out, 'where's north from here?', beamed in from his guest appearance with Gorillaz in 2010. I actually laughed out loud in the queue. The expected Gorillaz electronic glam stomp never came- the syrupy yacht rock came back in, Mark E Smith's line isolated from its source and re- appropriated in a new soundtrack. 

Glitter Freeze

The bagels were very good. Not cheap but very good. 

Fifteen

Happy New Year! 

This blog is fifteen years old today. Bagging Area was born with a whimper on 1st January 2010, with the intention of seeing if I could do it for a year and no real plan for what I was going to write about. Here we are a decade and a half later with 5, 939 posts under my belt, over 18, 700 comments from people from near and far many of whom are now actual friends in virtual and/ or real life, and over 4, 666, 787 page views (at the time of writing). I didn't expect it to be as central to my life as it has become and can't really conceive how I could do without it. Micro- blogging and social media have their place, sharing music and with the capacity to make similar connections, but there's something about long form blogging, the process of writing, that sets it apart. I'm sure it's an outdated form of internet expression in an age of Tik Tok and Instagram Reels but it works for me and many others. The comments, the connections and the conversation, are really what make it so thank you to everyone who reads and leaves comments here (or when I share posts on Facebook). There's more of the same to come in 2025- apart from a list of artists/ songs on a notepad next to the computer and a few ideas for Saturday and Sunday posts I've no real plans beyond the next few posts, but something always comes up. 

To celebrate Bagging Area's fifteenth birthday here are a trio of fifteens in song and a poster. Andy Warhol famously said that, 'in the future, everyone will be world- famous for fifteen minutes'. And he didn't even know about YouTube at that point. Two of the songs here (I think) are inspired by or refer to that quote. The first is by Johnny Boy, a Liverpool boy- girl duo from the mid- 00s who released a legendary 7" single, You Are The Generation Who Bought More Shoes (And You Get What You Deserve), a 60s girl group inspired song that was a proper music blog song, shared countless times all over the place. Their sole album included this...

15 Minutes

Thundering drums, squealing guitars, hand shaking percussion, more multi- tracked girl group vocals, an 00s feel (think The Go- Team et al).

Ride's second re- union album was 2019's This Is Not A Safe Place, an album that drew from Jean- Michel Basquiat, Sonic Youth, and post- punk, all undercut by some squally electronics. Fifteen Minutes is three minutes fourteen seconds of indie rock with some kiss off lyrics about someone who's had their fifteen minutes and who has been bitten by karmic retribution, the song interrupted by bursts of  Goo- esque dirty guitar 

Fifteen Minutes

Thirdly, a fairly obscure Joe Strummer song, the B-side to the Island Hopping single from 1989. 15th Brigade (Viva La Quince Brigada) is a song from the Spanish Civil War, Joe singing in Spanish. There's a song of the same name written by Christy Moore, a tribute to the Irishmen who fought in the war against fascism in Spain in the International Brigades, Irish socialists who were also know as the Connolly Column. As far as I can tell the two songs aren't the same song. 

15th Brigade

And finally, a Factory records fifteen. In true Factory style the catalogue number Fac 15 wasn't given to a record but to a poster and an event (just as Fac 1 had been a poster). Fac 15 advertised the outdoor gig held jointly between Factory and Liverpool's Zoo Records, the two independent labels meeting half way in Leigh. I cycle through Leigh quite often- the idea that the cream of 1979's post punk bands played in a field there is always faintly ludicrous and totally brilliant, as is the poster's advice about how the post- punk youth of Manchester and Liverpool should get there. In terms of value for me it's second to none. It was however very poorly attended- the other bands on the line up watching whoever was on stage often comprised half of the total watching crowd. Accounts from the few who attended report that Joy Division were breathtaking. 

 

What Costume Shall The Poor Girl Wear?

Three Nico and The Velvet Underground coincidences came to me recently and I don't ignore these things when it comes to writing posts for the blog. First, the latest issue of Mojo (the music magazine for middle aged men) has a feature on the 50 Best Lou Reed and Velvet Underground songs in it, in which the song below features (as you'd expect). Second, the day after reading this countdown I played a clip to my GCSE History class about opposition to the Vietnam War. As the footage of students demonstrating, soldiers fixing bayonets and tear gas blowing about played the familiar and thrilling sounds of All Tomorrow's Parties came into earshot, John Cale's treated piano powering its way into my classroom as Moe Tucker's drums bashed away. Nico's deadpan, monotone vocal just about started as the clip finished. I had a little moment quietly to myself in front of a class of fifteen and sixteen year olds, a small shudder of 'fuck me, that was good', almost like hearing it for the first time again.

All Tomorrow's Parties

It is by any standards an amazing song, discordant and adrenaline filled, with nagging, off key guitar lines (Lou's famous ostrich guitar tuning) and claustrophobic production. The song is about Andy Warhol's clique at The Factory, a place where everyone said the 'most astonishing things, the craziest things, the funniest things, the saddest things', while Andy just watched. Cale later said it was about a girl called Darryl, 'a beautiful, petite blonde with three kids, two of whom were taken away from her'. Which is one of the saddest things as an observation on its own. 

Lou Reed and the others didn't want Nico in the band. Andy pushed her in, believing she could be a star. All Tomorrow's Parties was written partly to give her something to do on stage. But she makes it- her flat, accented, dead eyed, double tracked vocals are as important to this song as any other element of it. 

The third part of the triptych of coincidences was that not long ago I finished reading Nico, Songs They Never Play On The Radio, an account of Nico and her life from 1982- 1988, by James Young, the pianist in her touring band in the 80s. It's really well written recreation of the demi- world of Manchester musicians, hangers on and promoters who orbited around her, while she existed on heroin, red wine and cigarettes. There's no money, few gigs, no seems to enjoy themselves apart from occasionally very briefly, Nico hates everyone she's stuck with, especially the musicians- sometimes she appears on stage on her own with her harmonium, reluctant to let her ban join her. Occasionally they play a gig somewhere in Europe and an uber- fan appears which pisses her off as much as no one turning up. Touring is the only way to make any money but it disrupts her drug habit. James witnesses it all, participates in the gigs and recordings, writing sympathetically and making it clear there's little romance in this world (somehow though, even the absolute lack of romance has its own grimly romantic appeal). The book finishes with Nico's sad death in Ibiza in 1988 and her funeral in Germany, the mystery of her father and what happened to him and what he did during the war all wrapped up as part of Nico's allure. Highly recommended if you're after something to read. 

Pressure

This is a good one for a Sunday. A long, very trippy, spaced out piece of bleep/dub techno from 1990. Recently re-issued but seemingly out of stock again.

Pressure Dub