Sunday, August 21, 2011

Excavating

Today has been a day of excavation: up into the loft to find a chair, cushions and curtains, and then into the cupboard to look for a tiny and essential piece of music equipment. I found the very first Helen and the Horns poster, and also a book with the lyrics of a lot of Joby and the Hooligans songs, including Skateboarder Rollerballer, written by our first drummer, Dub Duncan. He was an amazing drummer and morphed from a slightly hippyish person to a very stylish punk dressed in his dad's RAF boiler suit. We did a pretty good (for us) version of How Can I Leave which Dennis Brown was having a hit with at the time. Actually, I think we probably mauled the poor song and made it into a 'miss' but I felt very proud of having worked out the bass line. We also played Jonathan Richman's Roller Coaster, which I also loved because of the bass line. Both of them nestled comfortably into our set of punk thrashes!
I had seen a photograph of Little Nell in '19' magazine wearing a costume from Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren's shop which I think was called Sex at the time. I had no money for designer clothes but this was easy to mimic- little plastic animals sewn on to a dress. I bought a whole lot of little dinosaurs and sewed them on to a t-shirt and some black fur fabric shorts that I'd made. I was the wow of the hour!
Ah memories, just the thing for Sunday evening. I am happy because Offsprog One has managed to finally film her giant zoetrope on a children's roundabout in Brighton. The things I do are little, so I am greatly impressed.
I have been writing lyrics today for Lucie; I will sing them to her tomorrow. I hope she likes them.

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