Spotted on the side of a van: Fluid Transfer Solutions. It's hoses. They mean hoses. Hoses!

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My Will Oldham interview for the Nottingham Evening Post has been made available online. Considering it was my first ever interview with anyone other than a job candidate, and considering Oldham's reputation as a reluctant and uncommunicative interviewee, and considering that the copy deadline made it impossible to flesh the piece out beyond a simple Q&A format, and considering that Sylvie Simmons from The Guardian beat me into print by a few hours with a clearly superior piece... then I thought I did quite well. Considering.

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Have just read someone in the comments box of a US gay blog sniffily describing heterosexuality as "gender-discordant sex". Or is it merely another Fluid Transfer Solution?

(Just savour that word "discordant". It's almost as if the commenter was forced into being gay for aesthetic reasons... because man-bits and lady-bits, well, they clash, don't they?)

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And for my next two Star Profiles, both scheduled for Wednesday, I shall be chewing the fat with Shayne Ward (from The X Factor), and Joan Baez (from the 1960s). If you have a question that you'd like me to put to Shayne or Joan, then do me a favour and leave it in the comments. (Saves valuable research time. Hooray for "user generated content".)

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K says that for his next venture, he wants to start a vasectomy business.
He's callling it Snip and F*ck.

Labels: celebs, eveningpost, gay, interviews, twitter

(This article originally appeared in the Nottingham Evening Post.)

On the eve of his first UK tour in several years, Will Oldham - aka Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy - speaks to the Post from his home in Kentucky.

So, the first date of the tour is with us here in Nottingham next Tuesday?

Yeah, but first I’m doing a show in Glasgow with Nualah Kennedy, who has put together a “Celtic Connections” festival – so I’m going to participate in that. It’s her evening, but we’re going to do a couple of my songs and a couple of traditional songs.

And this will be your first provincial English tour in quite a number of years?

There was a tour with the High Llamas and Jim White in 2001, so this is the first since then.

Any particular reasons for staying away for such a long time?

I guess I don’t play the UK and Europe that often, just because it’s so logistically difficult. But this time I’ll be performing with a full band.

You’re supported on this tour by Faun Fables, whose singer Dawn McCarthy duetted with you on the last album, The Letting Go.

Yeah, she’s on every song but one. They’re based out in Oakland, California, and for recordings there are usually two people, but Dawn will be performing solo. Then she’ll be singing with me as well. She’s a dynamic performer. It seems like there are very few performers these days, in our circles, who still have anything resembling a voice which they know how to use. Dawn has one of the most exciting commands of the voice of anyone I’ve seen.

Will this be the first time that Dawn will have performed any of the songs from The Letting Go on stage with you?

We did some dates recently out on the West Coast, about two months ago. She’s doing the first four English shows, and then that will be it in terms of doing these songs, in this way, with Dawn.

And then you’ll be continuing the tour solo - so this is an almost unique opportunity to hear the album as it was recorded.

It will be unique outside of those dates on the West Coast, yes.

To what extent will the set be drawn from the new album? I could imagine it working as a song cycle in its own right, and being performed from beginning to end.

I think it’s going to be mixed up with older material. But since Dawn will be around, we’re going to do a lot of songs from the new record.

The Letting Go was recorded in Iceland. You also did a track (Gratitude) with Björk a few years ago. Does the country hold a particular appeal for you?

Gratitude was recorded with the same Icelandic producer, and that’s where his studio is. It was nice to be in an environment that was so cloistered and hermetically sealed off from the world, and yet with such fantastical rewards. The songs weren’t written over there, but were assembled during an eighteen month period prior to the recording.

You’ve also been working on a film called Old Joy, which goes on general release in the UK next Friday. The trailer doesn’t give away much of the plot, so what can you tell us about it?

There’s not a lot to give away; it’s not a plot-driven movie at all. It’s just about two friends travelling together, over the course of a couple of days in the mountains and woods outside of Portland, Oregon. Yo La Tengo did all of the music for the score.

A few years ago, you seemed to be swapping freely between various identities: Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Will Oldham, Palace Music, The Palace Brothers. These days, you’re performing mostly as Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy. Is that a permanent switch of direction?

Since 1999, all of the recordings have been as Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy. To begin with, it was just a case of: let’s get the records out, and who cares what the name is. Then it seemed more appropriate to use the name of an individual. If I pretend it’s just an individual, then people won’t keep asking where the other band members are, and we won’t have to worry about the name thing anymore.

Are there any other popular preconceptions about you or your music which you’d like to dispel?

Ha ha! I am blissfully unaware.

That’s a very healthy state to be in. And thanks for dispelling the preconception that you’re a difficult interviewee.

Labels: eveningpost, interviews, popmusic

Oh dear. (Paragraph 6)

But there again... (Paragraph 2)

Although I did once say... (Paragraph 4)

The truth, I suspect, lies somewhere in between.

(No, not between the left one and the right one. Are you fixated or something?)

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Update: I've left some extended spin-off thoughts in the comments. In many ways, they merit re-working into a proper post - but in other ways, I'm actually happier to leave them slightly buried. Yup, it's a return to "confessional" blogging...

Labels: confessional, genderpolitics, linkage, onetrack

Amsterdam Part 3 can wait until tomorrow. I've been too busy interviewing a pop star, launching a beta test, ranting on about a telly show, and behaving like an impossible princess.

The steady trickle of hits that I have been receiving from a password-protected "panelist" page on the 2007 Bloggies site can only mean two things. Firstly, that the judges are working through the "long-lists" (typically between 20 and 30 sites in each category, if memory serves correctly), and voting on which sites should make it through to the shortlists. Secondly, that Troubled Diva has made it onto one of the long-lists, most probably in the World's Best Poof category.

At the risk of sounding complacent and blasé, this doesn't come as a huge surprise, but for one very simple reason: unlike the majority of "gay" weblogs, the readers of Troubled Diva are mostly straight. Thus, when it comes to making nominations in the World's Best Poof category, they are more likely to think of TD. It's a cute enough little loophole, but not one to which any great measure of ego-stroking self-importance should be attached.

In any case, as anyone inside our cosy little loop would tell you, this year's Bloggies have been overshadowed by two vastly more important blogging award shebangs: the First Annual Insignificant Awards (who announced their winner yesterday), and the Second Annual Swampy Awards, which came out on Monday.

Now, since last year's "Swampy" (for Best British Blog; pictured left) constitutes the only accolade I have won since picking up the school Scripture prize in 1974 (always the chuffing bridesmaid, story of me life), you can imagine my horror at discovering that this year, I have been deposed by some upstart newcomer called Little Red Boat.

Well now. If that Anna Pickard thinks I'm going to graciously hand over my tiara without an unseemly scuffle, she's got another think coming. Frankly, she's going to have to prise it out of my jealous little fingers with a sharp instrument.

I'M STILL BIG!

IT'S JUST BLOGGING THAT GOT BIGGER!

I AM READY FOR MY HYPERLINK, MISTER KOTTKE!

Sorry. Just trying to maintain some Brand Consistency here.

(But sincere thanks to everyone who nominated. I'm no Ungrateful Diva.)

Labels: blogawards, blogs, community, ego, linkage, meta

From Digital Spy:We've all gone mad, haven't we?

Update/Clarification: It's primarily the infantilisation of the public discourse which bothers me. It seeks to elevate - or rather to reduce - a complex network of relationships to an Ism, and the protagonists to Ists. Racism. Racists. When what I see are three playground bullies and an impossible princess.

Labels: bigbrother, celebs, media, television

(You might want to read Part 1 first.)

Saturday afternoon. After lunch, Alan and I wandered northwards to the temporarily relocated Stedelijk museum, now stuck out in a "post-industrial space" near the Central Station, and accessible via a series of wind-lashed pontoons. Regrettably, the museum's fine permanent collection of contemporary art was not on display. Instead, we had to make do with a load of half-baked, indifferently executed, wilfully obscure and largely clueless pile of ropey old conceptual-art-wank toss-bollocks. That most wretched and aesthetically bankrupt of genres, "video art", dominated much of the space - but it was surpassed in pointlessness by a vast installation of crudely scrawled "political" graffiti which would have shamed an SWP convention for the under-12s. However, the overall disappointment was at least redeemed by some stunningly powerful and disturbing photography, shot in South Africa and Israel, which landed some massive sucker-punches to popular perceptions of both nations.

Our cultural duties fulfilled, we rewarded ourselves with leisurely early evening drinks at the Queen's Head on Zeedijk, which connects the Central Station area with the Nieuwmarkt. The street is reassuringly chi-chi at the top end (K would have been in his element), before yielding to some funkier shops and bars, and a mini Chinatown. We liked the moderately chi-chi Queen's Head, which benefits from not being a "destination" gay venue, but more of a low-key regulars' haunt. It's the sort of place which you could visit regularly on your own with a newspaper or a book, slowly building your relationship with it.

Saturday night. Our half-hearted plans to pay brief lip-service to "coffee shop" culture ran swiftly aground, as 30 seconds inside the raucous Bulldog on Leidseplein were enough to signal that it wasn't our scene. On we trolled, to the campy bars around the Amstel, for a restorative contrast to Twinksville and the Dead Cow Zone.

Monmartre was quieter than we had led to expect - that mid-January effect again - but there was still enough residual jollity to spread around, and a much higher ratio of smiles to pouts than we had become used to.

Around the corner, the venerable Amstel Tavern instantly felt like home, with its traditional decor, its Delft mugs hanging from the ceiling, its welcoming bar staff and its camp-as-tits musical playlist. Disco-pop classics merged into singalong Dutch schlager (and boy, did people sing along), taking in a healthly dollop of Eurovision along the way (Teach-In's "Ding Dinge Dong" in its original Dutch version, woo-hoo, I have found my level at last!). Best bar yet.

Up the road and off to the west of Dam Square, it was nipple-to-nipple at Prik, the city's newest gay venue, which was celebrating its six month anniversary with half price drinks all night. A solid and seemingly impenetrable wall of flesh had to be squeezed through in order to get much more than two feet inside the doors - but we are nothing if not persistent, and minor irritations like having half a glass of lager sloshed down my cleavage weren't going to hold us back. Prik is the nearest thing that Amsterdam has to a lively and pumping Soho venue such as Bar Code, with a more cosmopolitan and recognisably Urban Gay Scene crowd to match. It is, without a doubt, the biggest Destination Venue of them all right now.

Wedged into the back bar, Alan and I spent the next couple of hours benignly observing the bobbing throng, as they jiggled their bits to an eclectic mix of classic and cheesy hits: Blondie, The Cure, Kylie, New Order, and MC Miker G & and DJ Sven's lost classic "Holiday Rap". A clump of drunken Irishmen handed out glowsticks, before brandishing inflatable guitars and roaring along to "Copacabana". Oh, it was a scene and a half.

On the way out, I remarked to Alan: You know, that would have been most people's idea of sheer bloody Hell, and I can't even explain why I enjoyed it. I mean, all we did was stand there with drinks in our hands while getting pushed and shoved by a crowd of total strangers - and yet it was great. What's that all about?

The night ended back in - oh look, shall I just spell it out this time - COCKRING. There, I've said it. Cockring. We went to a club called Cockring. Is everybody here OK with that? More of the same, only for longer. Heaps of fun. But let's not dwell, eh?

(I'll wrap this up tomorrow.)

Labels: amsterdam, art, bars, clubs, friends, gay, journal, travel

Try as I might to deny that I'm getting a little too old for Good Old Fashioned Big Gay Weekends, every nerve and synapse is currently telling me otherwise. Pack it in, Grandad, they screech, woundingly.

But I still have my drives and my juices, I protest, unconvincingly. And anyway, look at Alan. He's got a couple more miles on the clock than me, and he can still do it.

Yes, but even Alan knows when to call it a night. Remind us, what time did you leave the club on Sunday morning? 5am, wasn't it? So what was that all about?

Oh, but I'm incorrigible. It's that blasted Second Wind, coupled with the feeling that since I don't get out much any more, I should try and squeeze every last drop of experience from the situation. And now, as Michael "Mouse" Tolliver once memorably said in Tales Of The City, I am all Gayed Out. Don't want to get within sniffing distance of those awful places - at least not until the next time that our newly depleted gang congregates in the Lord Roberts for one of our midweek sessions.

Here's where we went.

Friday night. We commenced our tour of inspection on Reguliersdwarsstraat: the spiritual home of Amsterdam's twink brigade. Think Kouros, think CK1, think... well, what is the fragrance of choice for the C21st twink, anyway? I am out of touch with such matters.

The Soho bar was all faux-antiquity and "repro" stylings, with all the charm and individuality of a Wetherspoons or an All Bar One. Their attempt at cosiness was fatally sabotaged by the deafening soundtrack: a numbing parade of late 1980s and early 1990s commercial dance music, which set the musical tone for most of the weekend. Those Dutch queens sure do be loving their Crystal Waters, their Rozalla, their early-period Whitney 'n Mariah.

The April bar has expanded since my last visit, and is now dominated by three vast circular bars, with seating around each circumference. This doesn't work too well, as the arrangement puts too much distance between each punter, and the in-between areas feel like wasted space. Consequently, the ambience felt a little too stark, remote, impersonal.

Over the road, the newish Arc bar was packing them in. It is clearly one of the major Destination Venues, attracting an arrestingly high number of stylishly turned out beauties. We stood, we gawped, we paid all due deference.

A couple of doors down, Exit is one of the city's only two gay dance clubs. It hasn't changed at all in the 17 years since my first visit - but on a Friday night in the middle of January, numbers were somewhat thin on the ground. We hung out in the bar at the top of the main stairs, waiting for the late surge - but when none materialised, we moved on, leaving the antiseptic comforts of Twinksville behind for the sleazy raunch of Warmoestraat.

Most of the Warmoestraat bars are destined forever to be closed doors to me, catering as they do for the Dead Cow brigade. I don't have the outfits, and would hate for my Paul Smith stripes to cause an outbreak of mass detumescence. However, the city's second gay dance club is situated halfway up the street, and despite its somewhat alarming name (which modesty precludes me from spelling out), its relaxed door policy welcomes all comers (ahum) to the party. Dance floor in the basement (pretty decent dubby funky house), bar in the middle, and yup-you've-guessed-it on the top floor. Despite the undeniable sexual crackle in the air, we found this to be the most relaxed and unpretentious venue of the night.

Saturday daytime. Alan and I hooked up with Caroline for coffee in the Nieuwmarkt district, followed by a long, lazily paced and delicious lunch at a nearby Chinese/Japanese restaurant. (Bubble tea, that's a new one on me. I particularly liked the tight little jelly tapioca balls at the bottom of the glass, which you suck up through your straw.) Special mention should also be made of the the steamed (?) oysters with ginger, finely chopped shallots and soy sauce, as recommended by Caroline. They were sensational.

To be concluded on the morrow. In the meantime, take a look at Alan's account of the weekend.

Labels: amsterdam, bars, clubs, friends, gay, journal, travel