I thought I saw Danielle Dax once. Can't be sure. She was trying on an outfit in the old Kensington Market. At the time, lots of people looked like Danielle, or at least thought they did: Danielle Dax in nastily rumpled purple velour; fat leeching out the sides of her thigh boots? Can't be. A pencil thin Danielle Dax backcombing like crazy and filling her hair with ozone-destroying hairspray n henna, biker boots rendering her body into a Gothic golf club? Probably not her either.
But I'm sure I did see her. She was buying a record by Eric Random...
In Kensington Market a lookalike lurked around every corner. A micro-version of Andrew Eldritch trying to haggle for cowboy boots (they didn't have his size and he rumbled like the Lucretia my Reflection bassline); the Fields of the Nephilim guy (Carl?) buying sprinkle on dust, tumbleweeds and a grey greatcoat.
Other times I'd just hang around watching sexy Goth girls pushing themselves into leather catsuits; the conjunction of mirrors in the upstairs changing area and hairdressers allowing for visual entendre and 15 year old wonder at every angle.
The market closed. Goth died. Kensington upgraded to "club" wear and static inducing bra tops / designer cowboy hats / Australian surf wear for boys scared of the beach.
But somewhere there's an EC mountain of surplus Bauhaus t-shirts and Wayne Hussey sunglasses so I reckon it can't be long before we see a replication of the Motorhead/AC-DC/MC5 phenomen and find David Beckham in 'authentick', newly price-hiked Alien Sex Fiend t-shirt shock...
Danielle Dax's Inky Bloaters is one of the only albums from the Goth period that I still listen too... it transcends genre, mixing electric fizzing pop with Eastern wailing, psychedelic guitar and sitar (bits sound like the Acid Mothers in pastoral spinning out mode),tinkling metal percussion and chunky beats... nowhere does it give any indication of it's 80s origins, not even the keyboards...
Kinda suspect I'm preaching to the converted here but if you haven't tried any before then dig in and bliss out. One time pop could have been like this.
8 comments:
Not sure if the music's actually worth re-living, but I used to love those '80s goths. So pretty...so sexy...
-Yes! Finally more posts on my favourite album and the lovely Dax!!
The earlier stuff she did was definately even weirder, from soundcollage cut-ups with cheap rhythmbox blip-blops into almost medieval chanting into some residents-inspired numbers with atonal horns and weirdo guitars into...full-on lunatic mayhem!"Here Come The Harvest Buns"...fucking lunatic genious, better than most from that period..
I'm always asked "what is this?" when i play her bouncier stuff from IB at parties...
...where did you go, Danielle??!!
Oh how I miss the Bad Miss M. Last I heard she was doing interior design, but that was a couple years after the release of Timber Tongue. Danielle, we need you!
Trift stores and fishnets.
Indeed, the Dark Adapted Eye still see's into my heart.
You are so right about how timeless her records are, especially Inky Bloaters; what an album, what a song!!!
The 'goth' tag always seemed a bit of a limiting albatross.
I only recently heard stuff by the Lemon Kittens and was so instantly hooked that I'm now (vainly) trying to track it down on vinyl.
On the track P.V.S, she and Karl Blake sound like George Spiggot from Bedazzled having a conversation with Barney from the Simpsons!
Hopefully she'll realize how influential her music is and start releasing stuff and performing again.
On the whole, her work has been vastly underrated.
Time for a reappraisal!
DANIELLE DAX on RESONANCE FM, Tuesday 4th April, 1.30am
Fans of Danielle Dax, the Lemon Kittens, Shock Headed Peters and Arkkon should definitely tune in for Resonance FM's Dax Clear Spot at 1.30am on Tuesday 4th March .
Put together by Dax and her longtime collaborator David Knight, this programme concentrates on Dax's work up to the present day and also focuses Shock Headed Peters and Arkkon.
It's also a chance to hear Dax’s new spoken word recordings and comes ahead of live appearances by Danielle Dax at Brixton Library on 4th May and with Shock Headed Peters, Arkkon and Karl Blake’s Evil Twin at the 1st Chantier Musical festival in Paris on the 5th-8th of that month.
Listen online at: http://resonancefm.com/audio.htm
Speaking of Gothic Golf: http://www.gothicgolf.com :)
It could well have been Dax you saw in Kensington Market. I ruined a jacket of hers once and she said it came from there.
She is a real person you know...:)
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