Tracey Thorn's autobiography Bedsit Disco Queen is turning out to be a surprisingly good read. I've never been a huge fan of Everything But The Girl but they've always been there, on the outer fringes of my musical radar. Her story is well written, self deprecating, honest and full of the politics and passions that came out of punk and produced such a wide variety of post-punk bands. Even without a detailed knowledge of EBTG or The Marine Girls, it's an engaging book and she comes across as a real person who ended up making records and being in a band. Interestingly, having also read Viv Albertine's book recently, womens' stories of life in the music industry have a very different tone from many of the mens'- more circumspect and less bullish, more about the process and personal politics of being creative in daily situations with other people. She writes about the contradictions of being in a group sometimes viewed as sappy or sissy, playing weedy jazz influenced music (which they saw as modern and progressive) while also coming across in interviews as spikey, defensive and having very strongly held indie/punk beliefs.
This was an EBTG single from the mid 80s with Johnny Marr playing popping up on harmonica.
Ben Watt, partner in both senses, had a dance music career in the 90s and his label Buzzin' Fly put out several fine compilation cds. I remembered this song, which I bought on 12", where over Ben's Chicago deep house grooves Estelle puts in a spoken word vocal about shoplifiting and growing up on violent streets. Really good.
Pop A Cap In Yo Ass
Tracey replied to a comment of mine on Twitter yesterday. Made my day. Hell, my whole year.
ReplyDelete'Pop A Cap..' is such a great track.
One of the greatest things for me about EBTG, and they are a foundation band to my music collection, is that their music has always made them so very approachable to me. It's great when you as a fan are completely in sync with the growth and changes of that band. So often bands leave their audience mile behind them in search of some other muse, but Tracey and Ben have always met up with me on my on life journey and complimented it.
ReplyDeleteBen's new solo album is an amazing journey back into the singer songwriter land he started out in and Tracey's three solo albums since EBTG ceased recording have been simply wonderful.
Along with the Viv Albertine book, this is high on my reading list.