Faded Hollywood Glamour.

Norma Desmond is ready for her close-up.....Sunset Boulevard

 Old film footage of long hot summers and endless days that seemed to roll on and on are an intoxicating drug. Couple this then with the hauntingly melancholy sounds of Lana Del Reys beautiful voice in her new debut single, Video Games and you have a hit that is sure to have a ripple effect throughout the next few seasons of fashion. Her voice hints at those Californian years of faded  Hollywood stars. Intrinsically sad yet once heartbreakingly beautiful. I love it. Let's hope her album, out early next year can promise more of her magic.

 Now back to my harmonica. 
 Less poetic unfortunately - in my hands anyway.

Play It Again!

Dancing the Latin way - beautiful.

 We love music in our house. I married a man who sings before he talks when waking in the morning. (An annoyance at the time but whilst writing, alone, in a normally noisy home, I am being a little rose-tinted). And what happens when you listen to so much music, largely contemporary but interspersed with classical as a relief, is that when a new sound or style comes through it can have the power to stop you in your tracks and wish you to hear the same song played over and over again. Why, I don't know. I'm an awful musician but much like many trends, when something sounds right it is because it is hitting on a zeitgeist moment. A corking example of that for me right now is 'My Brother The Gun' by Mariachi El Bronx. I love it - Mexican, passionate, rhythmic and poetic. The more rhythmic side project of a Los Angeles based punk band, this is definitely one for my tea-time crew to dance to. So tonight boys, dust off your dancing shoes and get ready to shake your maracas cause the Latinos are coming to Hackney! 
(well, through some speakers in a kitchen.)

  

Lotus Flower by Radiohead

 I've been with the lovely man that is my husband for longer than I haven't now (if you get what I mean). He is one of the few people I know who is totally interwoven with his work. If I could get inside his crazy head I'd find a factory load of psychedelic Oompah Loompahs, busying themselves over a whirring engine that is his brain. Now, I conciously don't want to write about the great works of my family, I'll leave that to the blackberry wielding, power-pram pushing, multiple extra-curricular activities parent (although there is an impresssive string tangle around the kitchen at the moment, housing one of my kids little superhero friends - an art installation to any proud parent) but on this occasion I'm going to make an exception because the husband slipped in a little directing job a few weekends back, a favour for a friend. No money exchanged. No hysteria involved. No white lillies in dressing rooms and only four people involved in the making of it, and guess what? It' a peach. I'd be writing about it even if he were married to someone else (God forbid.) 

 (Oh, I forgot to add that the music is pretty darn good too! )


 PS. Noggin, Garth did sweat without you!    

...Play On.

  
  Music is a powerful force. I have always loved sounds and rhythms and as a kid I was the tap-dancing, ballet leaping, bendy legs one, who on hearing a tune would definitely 'give it some'. But growing up in a house where the radio was habitually switched off whenever an adult walked past it, my back catalogue of tunes were somewhat limited until ... I met Garth! (His name works well with an exclamation mark.) My husband comes from a family of music lovers. His was a house that always, always, had music playing. REALLY LOUD! Before I met his Mum, I remember getting in her car with his sister (who had 'borrowed' it for a country road jolly) and on turning the ignition, we found our seventeen year old senses blasted with T-Rex' 'Get It On'! A self-taught guitarist and lover of all musical genres, my inspiring mother-in-law raised her children to have a depth of appreciation that emulates in their emotional response to life. 
  Over the years we have been together, I have begun to make up for my lack of exposure by very occasionally spotting and introducing a new song here or there to this musical dictionary of a husband. A rare thing, for a man who is only ever at arms reach from a ukelelee, guitar, piano, ipod or plugged in music industry friend. So with my daily tea-time disaster zone that is my kitchen, my mini men get fed sounds alongside their organic, quorn fed, hand-reared, massaged, buddhist chicken (cut to - a plate of beans on toast). And they lap it up. The results are boys who hug, shout, dance, sing and cry! 
  My only problem comes when they ask me to stop dancing.


-the Tea Time Crew' homework for this week is;

"Wizbot" by Sea of Bees.
(- terrible, off-putting video though.) 

... and "In Your Dreams" by Dark Dark Dark.

Enjoy.
   
   

get down!

I'm feelin' those dancin' feet...!

I love a good wedding. My husband does not. And I can understand his point of view. Most weddings can be broken up into four sections:


1.)The arrival of the guests to the church, the polite hellos and then the slightly awkward hovering amongst the graves outside as the photographer catches those 'spontaneous' exit moments over and over again. 


2.)The reception arrival where you find yourself stuck talking to old Uncle George (Is he really an uncle?) for a great deal longer than charity requires whilst desperately trying to catch the eye of the drink tray waiter. 


3.)The lunch/dinner. Because quite frankly you haven't eaten since 8.30 this morning and with the consumption of four or five half drunk, put down and then lost, glasses of warm champagne, you are starting to feel the cravings for some substantial carbohydrate action. The food is then mediocre at best and the opportunity to focus on the body' desire to shovel it in are lost, amidst the wishy-washy chunterings of your never met before and hopefully not to meet again seating companion. Then the speeches (entertainment?!) are thrown in to break up the courses, where you find yourself showing your age by politely laughing at some laboured, nervous, drunken speeches before... 


4.) the music gets going! and hopefully you might get some disco moves in if the hired band don't forget that playing ALL of Dire Straits back catalogue is really not necessary.


So as I say, I get it. Weddings are often formulaic old things that can be easily refused with a simple hand written reply but...I love them! And I love to shimmy! 
Therefore this summer we will be crossing the country for another disco opportunity and as I crash around on the 6ft x 10ft dance floor, trying to avoid the desperate gaze of my husband (whose exiting strategy has become a swift and famously honed art), I will be hoping to hear some of my favourite tunes, both old and new, that have had my four merry men and me bustin' our moves in the chaos of a post-tea explosion most evenings over these last few years. I'm sorry boss-man but when a woman' gotta dance a wedding' what she needs.


Here are three of the teatime crews' favourite tunes this week:

Caspar' rendition of PJ Harvey' The Words That Maketh Murder

(sorry this might need some neck spazzing. hoping it might enhance your enjoyment though!)

Oscar' interpretation (?!) of Joan as Policewoman' The Magic

Leo and Oscar largin' it to Ronson and Boy George' Somebody To Love Me