|
|
|
|
|
|
|
musicandchips
Thoughts from 30-Something London
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tuesday, December 02, 2003 :::
Too Cool for School?
This last week or so has been an in-vitro study of the Art and Essence of Being Cool. It all started last Saturday at the Back To New York club night here in London, where Tom Tom Club were doing a rare DJ set. I hadn’t been there in a while, the last time having been to see Hooky and Barny from New Order DJ, which was brilliant. Somehow since then the club has become THE place to be scene. It was wall-to-wall trendies, all sporting this week’s trendy New York garage/punk-inspired threads, haircuts and make-up. Beautiful people looking beautiful paraded and preened everywhere, the epitome of cool. However, after an hour or so I began to notice something odd; the entire venue reeked of a strange, sad desperation. It took a while to pin down, but after some intense people-watching and eves-dropping it became apparent that no-one really seemed comfortable with themselves. One got the distinct impression that grey dressing-gowns, M&S school trousers and granddad slippers would have prevailed as the clothes to be seen in, had they only been the trend at the time, and who knows, maybe next month they will be. The entire atmosphere was loud, shallow and devoid of substance in the way that only excessive cocaine abuse can inspire, and very few people actually seemed to be enjoying themselves. I began to wonder what the night would be like were Grimsby to suddenly become the trendy place to be from. In all, the veneer of cool-ness was as thin as some of wannabe models parading around in various states of undress, easily scraped away to reveal the night-black lack of conviction or belief upon which these people build their personas.
Sunday was almost the mirror image. Kevin Ayers, founder of seminal 60’s band Soft Machine (amongst a multitude of other underground plaudits), performed a rare headline show at the Borderline, a small basement venue in the heart of the West End legendary for the calibre of it’s gigs (Bryan Adams recently played a secret show there). At first sight the patrons couldn’t have been less cool. An odd assortment of 60’s throwbacks clinging to a mythical and long-gone era, bespectacled bedsit-dwelling Ayers-obsessives, faded models and jaded glitterati whose times had long since passed, along with a few young and curious individuals like myself. When Kevin took the stage however, a strange bedraggled-looking individual, face weather- and drugs-beaten by over three decades of excess and hard living, something magical happened. Maybe it was his performance, a glorious, effortless, loose and soulful romp through thirty years of catalogue, maybe it was the vibe among the audience that only a room full of true fans can engender, maybe it was the sheer poignancy of the lyrics, but everyone in that venue, on and off the stage, just melded together into one fantastic and transcendent moment that, quite frankly, could have gone on for hours. And it was COOL, cool in a way that the back-to-new-yorkers couldn’t hope to grasp, let alone emulate.
Monday saw a third type of cool, the type of cool I suspect only Glaswegian council estates can create. Lapsus Linguae, one of my favourite young bands, headlined at 93 Feet East in Brick Lane. After the inevitable curry (for which Brick Lane is famous, non-Londoners), I was treated to that rarest of things; a band who would perform with the same passion and honesty whether at Wembley or to a man and his dog in the back room of a pub. Watching Lapsus almost feels voyeuristic, four crazy Scottish lunatics in leather and matching black T-shirts emblazoned with their logo thrashing, rocking, rolling and jittering to their own unique brand of undeniably musical noise and operatic brilliance. It’s hard to know what to make of their songs, since they refuse to conform to any method or recognizable structure, which is why I love them and many don’t, but to see them live is to be offered a glimpse of that very rarest of cool-alities – they are cool in and of themselves, and no-one else can be part of it except by imitation.
Today I’ve been listening to the Best of John Lee Hooker.
::: posted by Andy at 12/02/2003 03:07:00 PM
|
|
|
|
