PJ Harvey: 'England's dancing days are done'

I write quite often about how much certain music moves me, and they don't come much more moving than PJ Harvey. Last night, she played the Troxy (a strange art deco music hall in Shadwell that hosts cage fights and reeked of cooking meat) to promote her current album, Let England Shake.

 Image: gigwise

Almost two years ago now, I wrote a blog on here about her constant, impressive reinvention: how, for every album, she often learns a new instrument, finds a new lyrical field and changes her look. Last night, she came dressed as the village witch from the Dark Ages, all crow headdress and linen sack dress wrapped with leather.

It was magnificent and silly all at once (she couldn't move much) and tied in very well with her new album, which is half Wicker Man, half Jungle Book and all about nationality. Here's one of my favourite songs with an autoharp and her acquired-taste beautiful voice (just like an instrument, it goes both creepily high and gothic low).



One of the first gigs I ever went to was Polly and John Parish touring a strange, brilliant album called Dance Hall at Louse Point. Last night, she played one of the songs from that tour and it immediately took me back to 1995 or 1996 and that state of constant teenage yearning. Yearning to grow up, yearning to go move away and yearning to be noticed by a certain boy (who I dated 10 years later, who broke my heart just like I was still 16). It's a rare talent who, even on an off night (the sound was wobbly, she seemed quiet and withdrawn) can still entrance you with their sound and words, and nail things you never knew needed nailing, like 'memories that grip me and pin me down'.

Image: gigwise

After years of sitting in a stupid niche as an angry, scary woman (as my friend says, 'she looks like she sleeps with a knife under her pillow'), PJ's finally being recognised by the mainstream and that's a wonderful thing. Whether she cares what they think or not is another matter.

No Layout

I've lost count of the hours I've spent tracking down my favourite tomes in dusty corner shops across the capital. So some (really) bright spark starting up No Layout, an online digital library focusing on independent art and fashion titles, has made my Friday.

All these covers are just a taster of what they have online - I guess I know what I'll be doing this weekend...

Barbie, Brighton Rock and Dame Westwood

This week, I'm all about the Brighton Rock. No, not the film (I love Graham Green but it looks as turgid as this tube graffiti suggests)...

...but Brighton Rocks, the hottest of hot pink lipsticks from Topshop. It's Jil Sander bright, although it hasn't come out so flamingo in the photo. Here's me sporting double pink with one of my favourite bloggers, Fiona from Save Our Shoes.

I'm wearing a 60's oyster silk/black lace dress from Bang Bang, vintage gold necklace from a market and my B Store Barbie pink dinner jacket shoes from several years ago. We weren't drinking in a stately home (honest), but were very lucky attendees of Vivienne Westwood's fashion week party.

With brilliant, Westwood-esque panache, it was held in the Wallace Collection right behind Selfridges, with the beautifully dressed and famous (there was a madly high celebrity count of perhaps every third person) wandering around rooms full of 18th and 19th century treasure. Fiona and I were both equally overexcited, both by the treasure and by wondering if I could somehow copy the hair and face of AP model and general all-round French hottie Josephine de la Baume (me) and discussing Irish football with Roisin Murphy (Fiona).

Bag wars: Whistles vs Mulberry

I may spend my time developing constant mini-crushes on tartan items with piecrust collars, but sometimes a person just has to be practical. It's no use dressing up in your velvet finery and black and white stripy tights if your handbag has a big hole in it, so yesterday I bought an enormous black and gold satchel, as soft as anything, to stuff all my secrets in.

Like most twenty and thirtysomething London ladies, I've been loving Whistles recently and this is their Milligan messenger bag.

Of course, the bag I'm really loving is the more-than-two-month's-rent Mulberry Tillie, oversize, in oak snake print, but I think, for a less ridiculous tenth of the price, this is very nice indeed.

When did all the best bags suddenly starting costing over a thousand pounds...?

Submarine

Whether it's Stand by Me or Superbad, everyone loves a coming-of-age story. Right now, I'm half-way through the hilarious Elliot Allagash by Saturday Night Live writer Simon Rich (SNL's one of my secret pleasures).

Submarine's like a damp, Welsh Catcher in the Rye. The book's brilliant (it's full of attempted snogging, like all coming-of-age stories should be) and the film, out next month, looks equally great, especially as it's directed by Richard Ayoade, of Garth Merenghi, Nathan Barley and excellent pop videos fame.



I mean: drab seasides! plotting! nerdy schoolage couples! set in an interderminate retro past! I can't wait.

Just say yes

My old English teacher always used to say 'difficulty generates meaning'. It's a great phrase, but one I have a hard time sticking to. I'm lazy, and it's just so much easier to only do things you're good at!

I searched through a big pile of letters in a junk shop in Montreal to find these three, to frame and act as a reminder to take chances. Yes; one of the best words in the whole language.

Rodarte x Deerhunter: The Curve of Forgotten Things

The Curve of Forgotten Things is what happens when precociously talented pre-teen stars (Elle Fanning) meet makers of $3,000 scraps of tousled lace (Rodarte) and 4AD's finest freaky shoegaze (Deerhunter).



Pretty mesmerising, eh?

Future Human: "Information wants to be free"

Once upon a time, there was a magazine called Bad Idea. It published non-fiction short stories, some of which were mine, and held brilliant launch parties. I guess, like the rest of us, Bad Idea wanted to grow up a little bit, so it turned into Future Human, the rather serious sounding 'multi-platform media project that shines a light on cultural and economic innovation.'

Previously, they've hosted nights on the future of filmmaking and energy/climate change, and last night I went to a debate at the Book Club entitled Data Journalism. Julian Assange's lawyer, the Telegraph journalist that broke the 2009 expenses scandal, and the director of the Media Standards Trust (and founder of Journalisted, the 'involuntary Facebook' for writer types) debated Wikileaks, the current NOTW case, whistleblowers, the radical egalitarianism of the web and the relationship between hacks and hackers.

Living, as we are, in an age when traditional media outlets have no budget or manpower, and the way information spreads is evolving daily, it was fascinating. I even shoehorned in a question about the Wild West of blogs (What can I say? Must be my irrepressible hack-like impulses).

Here's what I was wearing when I asked the question; a name badge and an old H & M pink and white candystripe shirt dress, worn with a gold belt and buttoned up to the top like a matron.

The next Future Human is in March, and it's going to be about music. See you there?

Ric Rac

I loved the wobbly trimming that seemed to come on all my childhood dresses long before I fell in love with words too - and found out that it's name, ric rac, was just as wobbly and lovable as the thing itself.

Taking into account my fondness for clowny colours and granny dressing, Jaeger London's Ric Rac Striped Tea Dress seems to have tumbled out of my head and into existence.

I wish I'd imagined it cheaper.

Mama Shelter

In the most famous of fairytale cities, we stayed in a hotel that could have been from a fable.

At night, my bedside lamp's eyes burnt out.

Even the ground beneath my feet had words on.

When we turned on the computer, we could see a slideshow of everyone who'd slept in our bed before.

The mirrors told us where we should go.

The lifts gave us useful/useless facts and pink light.

And downstairs, the reception and pizza place and restaurant had eagles, tree stumps...

...neon swimming pool rings, pool tables...

...and graffiti everywhere you looked.

Mama Shelter. A little strange but oh, so very beautiful.  

109 rue de Bagnolet, Paris, 75020

In Paris, we...

...went to the Marais in search of second-hand. This is one beautiful bakery but I wrote about my favourite friperie, Coiffeur Vintage, at the day job.

...saw an exhibition on Mondrian and De Stijl at the Pompidou.

...found the bridge with the lover's locks.

...bumped into my friend Emily from Betty and the Werewolves on the train, and saw her DJ shiny pop songs and classic indie at Le Motel.

...went hunting in gorgeously gothic cemetary, Père Lachaise, for Oscar Wilde and filmmaker magician George Méliès.

...stumbled into a pocket of antique shops in Oberkampf.

...ate the obligatory blogger's macarons (and far too much unphotogenic cheese).

...got a little bit bookish at Shakespeare & Co.

And stayed in the most amazing hotel - more on that tomorrow.