Crimson Rose O’Shea. All photography by Amelia Gregory.
Thank god for the craziness of fashion! And thank god for the couple of Central Saint Martins students who decided that their graduation catwalk show was exactly the right place to max out their creative juices. These then, side effects are the most far out collections that we saw on Tuesday 31st May 2011. Which of these names will we know in the future? Who knows, website like this but it’s sure fun to gaze on and wonder.
Crazy blue stockinged swirly coneheads wore Toma Stenko‘s collection of metallic and blue pleated and bulbous shaped dresses.
Andraya Farrag based her/his collection on blue and white lacy concoctions worn beneath cages, order echoing a popular trend for hiding faces.
But it was Crimson Rose O’Shea who really took the prize for over the top fashion madness. No surprise then that this collection closed the show. Colour refracting layers of cellophane were stacked with gay abandon over brightly coloured fake fur and crazy beaded adornments. Make up was painted on faces in drunken Mardi Gras style. There was nothing remotely subtle about this eye catching collection that fellow rainbow chaser Fred Butler would surely love. In fact my photographs really don’t do this shimmering swirl any justice at all. What a way to end a ten year stint at York Hall.
Crimson Rose O’Shea.
Written by Amelia Gregory on Thursday June 9th, 2011 5:07 pm
Joe Worricker was indeed wearing stars on his face, genericas declared on twitter twenty minutes before I arrived at his gig. I could hear Joe’s idiosyncratic voice even as I raced into this industry thick showcase at new venue XOYO, buy located just behind the main Old Street thoroughfare. He was also wearing the same clothes that he sports in his Finger-Waggers video (digital download out this week, sales though as Joe was only too happy to admit, easily downloadable somewhere online for free.)
Joe Worricker at XOYO. All photography by Amelia Gregory.
A whole 45 minutes later I was still somewhat struggling to describe Joe, who sings with a session-type band that wouldn’t look out of place on the X Factor – but then this is the lad who auditioned for that very show… and was turned down. “I think they were scared of my voice” he told me in our earlier interview. And he does indeed have an almighty set of curiously old-fashioned lungs, somewhat at odds with his outwardly trendy demeanour.
He swung through a set which included some slow tempo tales of weddings and fairytales, before returning to his trademark upbeat tracks. “We’ve got two fun ones now, don’t worry,” he told his many friends in the audience, including what I can only presume was his granny sat pride of place in the front row, and another relative who was doing his best impression of the funky chicken.
Joe Worricker is an intriguing proposition for Rough Trade. He’s poppy – he fronts a band without an instrument – dance-y, and a whole lot of soulful. Who knows where he fits into the current market place, but that distinctive voice paired with some jaunty tunes could well make him the next big thing. One thing’s for sure, anyone who puts their granny in the front row at their debut gig gets my vote. And bless, being the polite lad he is, he even thanked me on twitter.
Rumours had been circulating all year that undisputed Queen of Disco, matriarch of the 12″ record and five-times Grammy award-winning Donna Summer would perform at London’s Lovebox festival. I bought a ticket in advance and, even when Grace Jones was announced as the headline act, I hoped that Donna Summer would make a surprise appearance and I would finally see one of my favourite artists of all time perform live. So it came as a massive shock to discover (via Twitter as is fast becoming the norm) that the legend had lost her battle with cancer; a battle we didn’t even know she was fighting.
Most tributes you’ve read by now probably tell you that LaDonna Adrian Gaines was born on New Year’s Eve 1948, performed in church from the age of ten and moved to Munich in her teens, where she met and married Helmut Sommer – anglicising his name when they split. It was a chance meeting with producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte in Germany that would change Donna Summer‘s life forever.
It was in 1975 that Donna Summer had the idea for a song with the lyric ‘I love to love you’ and Moroder developed the track for another artist, asking Donna only to record a demo. Rumour has it that Donna asked for the lights to be turned off so she could get into the zone, as it were, and her recorded version was so powerful that Moroder insisted it should be released. Casablanca Records‘ chief Neil Bogart was impressed with the song but felt that discotheques would desire a longer track. Wasting no time, Summer moaned her way through 17 minutes – played in full in clubs – and the 12″ record was born.
In 1977, Moroder got his synthesiser out, and with Donna Summer created, in my opinion, one of the greatest dance records of all time – I Feel Love. This song is THIRTY FIVE years old. Its hypnotic beat and Summer‘s ethereal vocals are an impeccable match. The video’s elegant and raunchy simplicity makes it timeless. It makes my knees knock even now.
A string of Summer/Moroder hits and albums followed: I Remember Yesterday featured dance floor classic Love’s Unkind (see below) and I Feel Love; Once Upon a Time has my favourite photograph of Summer that many of our illustrators have used as a source. The end of the seventies saw Summer trying to break from disco with album Bad Girls, featuring some of my favourite records ever – the title track and Dim All The Lights and the infamous Hot Stuff, for which Donna won the Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal (making her the first woman and first African-American to win a Rock performance Grammy). You could argue, considering that this category was created the year Donna Summer won, that it was created especially for her – it would have been criminal if she hadn’t won for this incredible performance.
It’s at this point where things go a bit grey. Tensions rose with Casablanca Records, eventually parting ways in 1980. Summer renounced her saucy past as a born-again Christian and said that she resented her sex-symbol image and erotic persona. Whatever her reasons, it is my firm belief that nobody can fake an orgasm for 17 minutes with such conviction like on Love to Love You, Baby. I just don’t buy it. Hell, we’ve all had a go, but that breathy performance is definitely not a fake. Also, check her out in the I Feel Love video – she’s hot for that microphone stand and it looks pretty real to me.
Some pretty ambiguous comments followed about HIV, AIDS and the gay community. Most reports suggest Summer said that AIDS was a punishment for homosexuality. She consistently denied it whenever questioned, but I never felt like she really meant it – her documented responses always skirt around the issue, when really she should have just said ‘ LOOK, I HEART GAYS, THEY BOUGHT MY RECORDS.’ A lot of fans never forgave her, but as has been evident from press coverage, social media and online tributes, it’s her music that we’ll remember her for.
As a tribute, here are five of my favourite Summer songs. Ask me tomorrow and this list would probably change entirely, but here goes anyway:
Last Dance
Last Dance is one of my favourite disco records ever. It introduced a completely revolutionary song structure that, like Dim All The Lights and Enough is Enough after it (see below), began as a ballad before speeding up to the up-tempo mainstay that we love. It received an Oscar, a Golden Globe and earned Donna Summer her first Grammy award for best vocal performance. It’s a beautiful example of the genre at its finest – with disco strings and horns aplenty and Donna soaring vocals.
Love’s Unkind
Love’s Unkind always has me leaping around a dance floor. The lyrics are hilarious – Donna fancies some bloke who fancies her mate, but her mate fancies somebody else – oh, the drama. She’s desperate to cop off with him at the dance but the love rat has already asked her best mate and Donna is left legging it from the school in tears. It’s no sonnet but it’s a camp disco classic that I adore.
Bad Girls
Toot toot, beep beep. Need I say more? Look out for Twiggy’s hilarious cameo in this video.
Enough is Enough (No More Tears)
1979 saw Barbra Streisand‘s melancholic vocals teamed with Donna Summer‘s powerhouse disco sound . Legend has it that Summer went wild the night before and turned up to the recording studio with a terrible hangover, passing out whilst Babs was singing – hence the super long note Barbra delivers before the beat kicks in.
Love to Love You, Baby
I hadn’t got this on my original list, but the burden of not including it was too much. Enjoy 16 minutes 50 seconds (or, according to the BBC‘s statistics department, 23 orgasms) of disco heaven.
I haven’t even included Summer‘s epic version of Could it Be Magic, the hypnotising Try Me, I know We Can Make It, the wonderful Dim All the Lights, the epic cover of the bonkers MacArthur Park or Sunset People, On The Radio, I Love You or Love Is In Control. The list is endless. Donna Summer was the Queen of a genre that transformed not only dance music but music as a whole, and continues to influence the greatest producers and performers. I’m sure you’ll agree that all of the songs I’ve mentioned (and more) sound as fresh today as they ever did, and I hope they’ll be continued to be played – now more than ever. Long Live the Queen!
Written by Matt Bramford on Wednesday May 23rd, 2012 8:57 am
Joe Worricker was indeed wearing stars on his face, genericas declared on twitter twenty minutes before I arrived at his gig. I could hear Joe’s idiosyncratic voice even as I raced into this industry thick showcase at new venue XOYO, buy located just behind the main Old Street thoroughfare. He was also wearing the same clothes that he sports in his Finger-Waggers video (digital download out this week, sales though as Joe was only too happy to admit, easily downloadable somewhere online for free.)
Joe Worricker at XOYO. All photography by Amelia Gregory.
A whole 45 minutes later I was still somewhat struggling to describe Joe, who sings with a session-type band that wouldn’t look out of place on the X Factor – but then this is the lad who auditioned for that very show… and was turned down. “I think they were scared of my voice” he told me in our earlier interview. And he does indeed have an almighty set of curiously old-fashioned lungs, somewhat at odds with his outwardly trendy demeanour.
He swung through a set which included some slow tempo tales of weddings and fairytales, before returning to his trademark upbeat tracks. “We’ve got two fun ones now, don’t worry,” he told his many friends in the audience, including what I can only presume was his granny sat pride of place in the front row, and another relative who was doing his best impression of the funky chicken.
Joe Worricker is an intriguing proposition for Rough Trade. He’s poppy – he fronts a band without an instrument – dance-y, and a whole lot of soulful. Who knows where he fits into the current market place, but that distinctive voice paired with some jaunty tunes could well make him the next big thing. One thing’s for sure, anyone who puts their granny in the front row at their debut gig gets my vote. And bless, being the polite lad he is, he even thanked me on twitter.
