Chris & Cosey, Pueblo Clowns, trains

and discovering your inner cheeky devil

Hello hello,

Short and sweet today, owing to a busy couple of weeks and a lack of time for much else beyond the bare bones of my routine. Family commitments and side hustles have eaten up a lot of my spare time, but I have been listening to a lot of music recently. Maybe this sounds silly since it’s part of my job, but just as sometimes you don’t feel much like watching tv, or feel much like reading, sometimes I have that with music, and don’t listen to it much when I don’t have to. I was having a drink with lots of music-y people quite recently and one of them, who is a musician and DJ, asked me if I like music. Everyone laughed but it was a good question! He meant did I listen to music out of choice, when I wasn’t prepping a show or something, because he doesn’t unless he has to. He likes listening to podcasts or silence. That aversion to music for him might be because he makes it; I think you have a different ear when you know how songs get made, and perhaps are more sensitive to things you would have done differently, and I am free from this. Anyway, I understood his position, but happily at the moment music is sounding good to me.

Said side hustles and family commitments have had me on quite a lot of trains recently too. I used to think that listening to music in the front seat of a car was the best - the whip test certainly still has its place - but on a train has got to be up there. So if you’re after

Something to listen to

On one train ride I listened to almost all of Chris & Cosey’s back catalogue after reading Art Sex Music, Cosey Fanni Tutti’s acclaimed memoir from a few years ago. It’s brilliant, even for me who tends to dislike autobiographies and memoirs: full of incredible stories, obviously, and insight about the realities of working in the way that she did. I didn’t know about this song they had done with the Eurhythmics before reading it, and I hadn’t listened to this early 80s thing they did - the vocal is Cosey’s lecture to fine art students at Leeds Polytechnic and the cover art is of her too. She also used to strip to this complete belter by Fern Kinney. I’ve felt really inspired by CFT and her approach to life over the last couple of weeks: I really recommend the book if you’ve not read it yet.

On another train I drowned out the sound of an unpleasant man and his asinine observations of the British countryside - “I’ve not seen one single pig farm on this whole journey. They eat so much pig in this country. Where are they? If they farmed their own pigs they wouldn’t import so much. Not one pig farm” - with Zack Fox’s Wood Tip EP. Great mood enhancer. I’ve also been tipped by a friend to this new artist from Bristol called Llainwire; insane production and out of this world visuals. So good! Or maybe you want to soundtrack your sunny mornings with beautiful guitars by David Horridge, or maybe some sweet slow soul from the Eastham Band, or as I am at the moment by rinsing Peven Everett or Joan Armatrading’s respective back catalogues. This excellent song by SG Rilla Mane (aka Slim Guerilla) also been on repeat - there’s a Morgan Buckley remix out too if that’s your bag - as has this song by Bron Area who I periodically return to and remember how good they were. On the post punk tip I loved this Martin Hannett / Factory Records mix on NTS: perfect for cooking dinner, I found. Out of the kitchen this week, I was lucky enough to see Beyonce in Edinburgh, so of course I’ve had Renaissance on repeat - I was chatting to another DJ recently about this album and they hadn’t listened to it, out of a sort of music snobbery I guess, but I love it. It’s my go to gym album too. Anyway this was the best song at the tour I thought. Sunny mornings also have been having me reach for a lot of street soul and downtempo stuff, especially on the show - here is a cheesy but perfect summer banger that got a great reception from the chatroom.

Somewhere to go??

Speaking of the chatroom, they were coming out with some fantastic tips for particularly good train rides this week. I’ll put them here for you if you’re looking for some holiday inspiration. I’m desperate to take my bike on the train this summer and do a bit of a biking / train trip, so maybe it’ll be one of these:

|| cornwall from London || along north coast in sicily || zagreb to budapest || italy through switzerland || llubjana to frankfurt || manchester to glasgow via lake district || glasgow to corrour || inverness to kyle of lochalsh || oslo to bergen in winter || cusco to machu pichu || carlisle to settle over ribblehead viaduct || Bern to Lausanne || Tokyo to Takayama || The 45 degree train up the mountain in Luzern || California zephyr train || lauterbrunnen to jungfrau || Napoli to Rome ||

A couple of honorary mentions:

‘greatest train of all time is the TH-0M45 on the little island of Sodor, always interesting things happening. Especially with the conductor who is rather a large character in all sense of the word. Best of all is all of the intercoms are narrated by Ringo Starr’

‘I love the small train at Manningtree that you need to change to get to Harwich, there is a pub on the platform and you can take pints with you.’

‘Worst train is from Preston to Blackpool. Old cast off from trains from London in the 80s. So rickety and stinky.’

and here’s a train podcast if you just can’t get enough.

Some (short) things to read

This guy hating on Taiki Waititi. I actually don’t have a strong opinion on him as a filmmaker because to me he is mainly Rita Ora’s husband, though I suppose I liked Thor Ragnarok. But I am NOT watching Jojo Rabbit. I’ve seen the trailer, which was enough. Anyway this guy really doesn’t like him / worms / Rachel Connolly being brilliant on why everyone suddenly knows the best thing to order at every restaurant, and indeed the best restaurant to go to even though you swore you didn’t like offal??? / London Hellraiser VHS mystery / this interview with the king of clowns, Philippe Gaulier. I was reading this after doing the breakfast show this week, where we ended up chatting for ages about clown school. I’d love to do it - it’s meant to be quite a harrowing experience, where you sort of reveal your deepest insecurities and get broken down on stage in order to rebuild and discover your inner clown - and indeed one listener had done it. He studied with Gaulier for 2 years, and confirmed it was a crazy experience. His clown style, he discovered after years of tears and training, was ‘a cheeky devil’. So good! More Philippe profiling if you’re interested here. And another listener shared this Stewart Lee radio documentary about Pueblo Clowns, which I am listening to as soon as I hit send on this newsletter. Tangentially related, I watched this short doc ages ago on Juggalos, Insane Clown Posse mega fans, and remember really liking it. Maybe you will too.

Hopefully that’s enough for now. I have no exciting TV to share that I haven't already shared with you here, and at the moment I’m almost only watching reality tv, my comfort viewing. If you’re interested, my current rotation is I Kissed a Boy (gay Love Island, hosted by Dannii Minogue, drip fed weekly… good), Made in Chelsea (long running but incredibly boring programme about posh young people in London: you would be surprised at how many people are still watching this), and Race Across the World (duos competing to get from one destination to another without flying or using a smartphone - permanently have the application process open on a tab on my laptop).

Thanks all who contributed to this this week - the chatroom really coming through with the tips. It is so brilliant and very very fun to get all of these recommendations and ideas from such a lovely group of people.

<3 Till next time xx