Jay-Z at Glastonbury LIVE

"Under My Umbrella, ella, ella"

Live and direct.


Jay-Z comes on stage with a guitar playing Wonderwall, by Oasis.


Plays a few badass chords and then lets the crowd sing the rest.


OK, Jay-Z is a genius. The controversy is over.


He's got the crowd on "hello".


Glastonbury is more than just a music festival here. It's a rite of passage, as well as a tradition. When Jay-Z was billed as headliner it was seen as controversial (especially with Noel "hip-hop has no place at Glastonbury" Gallagher from Oasis) but he won the 150,000-plus strong crowd over (whether they needed winning over) with a nod to the locals: Prodigy, Smack My Bitch Up; Amy Winehouse, Rehab.... straight up in the first few minutes.


"If you didn't catch my name, it's Jay-Z."


Thanks Jay-Z, I think we got it. And it will take a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.


"I've got one thing to say", said Jay-Z and then came 99 problems, punched out with AC/DC's Back in Black for the last two verses.


BTW: Talking about genius...and Back in Black: Amy Winehouse.


How cool was it when she walked off the high Pyramid stage into the crowd. Havoc! For starters, getting into the field in 7" Louboutin heels is a feat in itself. Then she ended up punching the shit out of some guy in the front row.


Amy still looks fucked, or real, or sick, or whatever. God love her - she's animal electrifying, and I couldn't stop watching her, although I don't know whether it was for the right reasons.


She didn't do a bad rap herself between songs dot com.


My verdict: the best genius is difficult. Whether it's Jay-Z, Amy Winehouse or Noel Gallagher.


As Jay-Z admonished the crowd: "Where is the Love?"


And love is the law here at Wine Woman & Song.


That's the anthem get your damn hands up.



Link: Jay-Z Myspace interview backstage before Glastonbury gig

woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown

Rossy de Palma!


One of the stars from my all-time favourite film, Pedro Almodóvar's Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios), now has her own fragrance:


Rossy de Palma Eau de Protection by Etat Libre d'Orange.


Rossy de Palma wanted her fragrance to be based on red roses.


Sure, Eau de Protection has roses.


Red roses an angry lover might throw back in your face.


Don't try to get yourself out of this one – thorns, blood and scattered rose petals on the bitumen – you arsehole.


It's not your usual pretty rose-based perfume. And it's all the better for it.


Angular, sharp and edgy - hey, it is Rossy de Palma's signature scent after all.


So it's also ironic, cool and has plenty of sly wit.


A rich hippy patchouli note is toughened up by a good hit of black pepper, astringent ginger and tannic bergamot (Earl Grey tea).


*Breathe*


Can you handle it?


Are you sure?


It's a Spanish rose, darkly.


Mz Darkly sez, mmmmm me likey.


Actually, compared to Etat Libre d'Orange's other perfume, Secretions Magnifique, it's a real sweet heart.


"Scratch a cynic, find a romantic"...??


Link: WWS Secretions Magnifique: blood, sex - magic?
Link: Rossy de Palma Eau de Protection
Link: Pedro Almodóvar y las Mujeres (Spanish)

the taste of others

SG & Jane Birkin

Not everyone has the same taste.


I like slightly dirty wines.


So what has happened to French white wines recently?


Things seem lighter, fruitier, cleaner.


I champion the screw cap, but it's not so much because I want more fruit taste, but because I don't like spending money on a corked wine.


But corked wine is not what I mean when I say dirty.


What I mean is, in a Chardonnay, when the secondary malo-lactic characters taste closer to an aged Roquefort cheese, rather than Kraft slices.


Good old-fashioned French white burgundy smells like tangy sex, often has a dismissive gesture of fruit, and can be difficult and demanding.


How refreshing: wine that is not f**king refreshing.


French wines, even Italian wines, are becoming fresher and fruitier to compete in the crowded UK market.


Pause…sip ice water…continue.


This afternoon I had a Chardonnay tasting, and even the most opulent French wine could only be described as "Opulent Lite" - especially compared to burgundies I tasted 5 years ago.


Is it the case, as in fragrance, all the dangerous smells are disappearing?


Here are my notes for my favourite out of the eight, "clean" yet complex and a true joy to taste over time:

Vincent Girardin Meursault Les Narvaux 2006 £39.99 a bottle, 13.5%

Slight butter and smoke flavours on the nose with voluptuous but ultimately clean citrus flavours. This is not as plush as I'd expect from Meursault, but a smooth and elegant wine that would make excellent company and conversation over a few hours at dinner.

Link: Australian and French wines: vive la difference

Marlene Dietrich and David Bowie

"Dancing, music, champagne.

The best way to forget...

until you find something you want to remember."


– Marlene Dietrich, in Just A Gigolo, Schöner Gigolo, armer Gigolo (1978).

Link: Schöner Gigolo, armer Gigolo (1978)

Bon Iver: For Emma, forever ago

"Justin Vernon moved to a remote cabin in the woods of Northwestern Wisconsin at the onset of winter. Tailing from the swirling breakup of his long time band (DeYarmond Edison), he escaped to the property and surrounded himself with simple work, quiet, and space. He lived there alone for three months, filling his days with wood splitting and other chores around the land. This special time slowly began feeding a bold, uninhibited new musical focus." – Last.fm

At Rough Trade Records, where I first listened to this album, they had written beside the CD:

Is this the best album of 2008, already?

Big statement.


All I know is the gentle folk sound really comes into its own on a Sunday morning.


For Emma brings back memories of John Lennon's dreamy, syrupy acoustic sound in Double Fantasy.


And it makes me hungry!


Listening to this album makes me want pancakes for breakfast drowned in maple syrup... yum.


This is a beautiful folk album, especially on a lazy Sunday morning, and definitely one of the best folk albums of the year, so far.


Link: Bon Iver

heaven

"Because half of the world's vanilla crop is grown in Madagascar, the whole island smells like vanilla ice cream."

Link: Rob Brezsny

Let's Get Lost: Chet Baker by Bruce Weber

"Some people don't have enough ears to tell the difference"

- Chet Baker in Bruce Weber's documentary, Let's Get Lost, when asked if people confused him with Miles Davis, and every other trumpet player from the era.

An immaculate woman in her 70s sat in front of me in the cinema, by herself, dressed in a summer suit with her ash-blonde coiffure blow dried to candy floss perfection.


It is 2.30 in the afternoon.


With perfect red manicured nails, she kept checking the mirror in her gold compact.


And then I realized, she was wiping away tears - only fifteen minutes into the film.


Almost blue.
Almost doing the things we used to do,
there's a girl here
and she's almost you.


Oh! Why the tears?

Perhaps she was once one of the girls in the film? Maybe she knew Chet, and there was a time when she happily flirted with disaster?


Or, perhaps like Chet said in the film about himself, all her friends and lovers are no longer here?


Maybe it's just the way he sings break her heart all over again, and again.





Link: Let's Get Lost by Bruce Weber

Ogio Puglia Primitivo 2007

There's sauce and there's sauce and then there's sauce.


The first is the sauce you add to pasta, the second is slang for alcohol ("on the sauce") and the third is the uniquely english approach to sex; a bit naughty and saucy: ooh-er, missus!


Ogio Puglia Primitivo 2007 is all three.


Alone, it's ok, nothing really to write home about - good price from Tesco, etc.


But wait. The clove and chocolate character, with the typical italian chewy bitterness (slight chinotto) picks up the flavours in the meal (beef parmesan ravioli).


The whole wine and food thing has created a new dimension:


1 + 2 = 3.


Exactly like a sauce does with food.


The wine itself is a mellow 13%. And the label design is typically Italian and definitely sexy.


Although, is it naughty?


With the right person, and food, it could well be.


Something Pirelli, even.



Link: Ogio Puglia Primitivo 2007

in love

A happy photo from where I live in London. He looks like he is in love!


Wine Woman & Song HEART photography by Yvan Rodic.


Link: Face Hunter: on the street, soho + fitzrovia + brick lane, 14 June 2008

Valentine by John Fuller

The things about you I appreciate
may seem indelicate:
I'd like to find you in the shower
and chase the soap for half an hour.
I'd like to have you in my power
and see your eyes dilate.
I'd like to have your back to scour
and other parts to lubricate.
Sometimes I feel it is my fate
to chase you screaming up a tower
or make you cower
by asking you to differentiate
Nietzsche from Schopenhauer.
I'd like successfully to guess your weight
and win you at a fete.
I'd like to offer you a flower.

I like the hair upon your shoulders
falling like water over boulders.
I like the shoulders, too: they are essential.
Your collar-bones have great potential
(I'd like all your particulars in folders
marked Confidential).

I like your cheeks, I like your nose,
I like the way your lips disclose
the neat arrangement of your teeth
(half above and half beneath)
in rows.

I like your eyes, I like their fringes.
The way they focus on me gives me twinges.
Your upper arms drive me berserk
I like the way your elbows work,
on hinges.

I like your wrists, I like your glands,
I like the fingers on your hands.
I'd like to teach them how to count,
and certain things we might exchange,
something familiar for something strange.
I'd like to give you just the right amount
and give some change.

I like it when you tilt your cheek up.
I like the way you hold a teacup.
I like your legs when you unwind them,
even in trousers I don't mind them.
I'd always know, without a recap,
where to find them.

I like the sculpture of your ears.
I like the way your profile disappears
Whenever you decide to turn and face me.
I'd like to cross two hemispheres
and have you chase me.
I'd like to smuggle you across frontiers
or sail with you at night into Tangiers.
I'd like you to embrace me.

I'd like to see you ironing your skirt
and cancelling other dates.
I'd like to button up your shirt.
I like the way your chest inflates.
I'd like to soothe you when you're hurt
or frightened senseless by invertebrates.

I'd like you even if you were malign
and had a yen for sudden homicide.
I'd let you put insecticide
into my wine.
I'd even like you if you were the Bride
of Frankenstein
or something ghoulish out of Mamoulian's
Jekyll and Hyde.
I'd even like you as my Julian
of Norwich or Cathleen ni Houlihan.
How melodramatic
if you were something muttering in attics
like Mrs Rochester or a student of Boolean
Mathematics.

You are the end of self-abuse.
You are the eternal feminine.
I'd like to find a good excuse
to call on you and find you in.
I'd like to put my hand beneath your chin,
and see you grin.
I'd like to taste your Charlotte Russe,
I'd like to feel my lips upon your skin,
I'd like to make you reproduce.

I'd like you in my confidence.
I'd like to be your second look.
I'd like to let you try the French Defence
and mate you with my rook.
I'd like to be your preference
and hence
I'd like to be around when you unhook.
I'd like to be your only audience,
the final name in your appointment book,
your future tense.

Link: John Fuller

vintage Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

By request - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds:"The Weeping Song."


Drinking wine on a boat in a mug under the moonlight.


Vintage Nick, darkly.


Link: What wine would Nick Cave drink?

first of the summer wine

2003 Savennieres Clos du Papillon from Domaine des Baumard (Loire)


Summer always feels like a new idea in London.


Yesterday the weather man on the BBC said it was the end of the Summer weather.


*After three days of sunshine*


Well, I don't give up that easily!


This can't be the last of the summer wine, it's only June - glamdammit!


I want the first of the summer wines first...


And what is more Summer than a butterfly (papillon)?


This wine is sourced from a butterfly-shaped vineyard in the Loire and is full of pear, peach and lime characters. All it needs is a park and some sunshine...


Or just forget that. Use your imagination.


It is London, after all. The weather just is... weather.


Link: Domaine des Baumard or Leon Stolarski fine wines

What wine would Nick Cave drink?

If I was to recommend Nick Cave a wine, it’d be a black wine from Cahors.


Some wines aspire to ring-tones, these wines are epic ballads.


They take some time to yield in the glass, they are not instant and fun, you could say they are gruff and unfriendly; but once the story in the glass unfolds, it’s worth the wait.


Cahors, in South West France, has been a wine region since Bordeaux was only a swamp. Yet, they’ve only been accepted as an French wine appellation since 1971.


They're the outsider; dark, gothic and medieval, which makes me like them even more....


If you live in the UK try these “easy-to-drink” examples, all under £10, for a night, darkly:

• 2004 Cahors, Le Petit Clos Triguedina (Waitrose)
Blackberry and graphite flavours minus usual mouth-puckering

• 2005 Cahors, Château Gaudou, Tradition (Majestic)
Distinct licorice flavours with some Merlot to soften it out

• 2002 Château Paillas Cahors (Nicholas)
Classic Malbec aroma with spicy black fruit

Listening to: Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! by Nick Cave. All things I said about wines from Cahors, can equally be applied to this album.


Dark wines for the Tupelo bound.


Link: vintage Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds youtube clip
Link: For more about wines from Cahors: French Malbec

Jack The Ripper Slash Bansky

The Decapitator's Flickr photostream

An anonymous East Londoner handy with a knife – sound familiar?


Exactly one hundred and twenty years after the Jack the Ripper murders, his ghost still looms large around his old stomping ground through an anonymous graffiti artist who decapitates ad posters.


Blink.


You may miss it.


Like this one for Uniqlo on Shoreditch High Street/Old Street E1. Or the truly ghoulish Carrie Bradshaw in the Sex and the City movie poster on Mare Street in Hackney.


Despite many people at the time claiming to be Jack the Ripper, the case remains unsolved.


The most famous confession letter began, "Dear Boss..." in cut-out words from the newspaper.


Decapitated advertising in 21st-century East London?


This is "Dear Boss," writ large.


Link: Mysterious Headless corpses found all over London

Rock of crack

"Chris Rock has been enjoying his time in
London, and popped into Rough Trade records
to do some shopping. Staff were so excited
they asked him to sign the ceiling.


He wrote “I love crack”."


Surely he's not referring to certain English musicians?


LOLZ.



Link: popbitch

Cocorosie presents Loris Gréaud's Cellar Door

When people tell me that I know how this story is going to end I usually tell them: wait till the end and you will see yourself… From Loris Gréaud’s Cellar Door exhibition.

What is the sound of two galaxies colliding?


Something like this.


On Saturday night at the ICA in London, Cocorosie, will be interpreting the score for the Opera of Loris Gréaud's Cellar Door exhibition, "Once is Always Twice".


The Opera – scored by Thomas Roussel and with a libretto by Raimundas Malašauskas and Aaron Schuster – will be staged at the Paris Opera at the end of the year.


More black champagne, please!


Link: This Saturday, 8pm, at the ICA, London
Link: Wine, Woman & Song's take on Cellar Door and after-tremors.

Marcel Duchamp's Eau de Voilette (1921)

A readymade perfume by Rrose Selavy (aka Marcel Duchamp, photographed by Man Ray.


Not violet (violette), but veiled (voilette).


And still surreal as anything out there.

mindfucking

Edie Sedgwick in Andy Warhol's 1965 film, "Outer and Inner Space."

The Moor is of a free and open nature,
That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,
And will as tenderly be led by the nose
As asses are.

– Iago in Othello, The Moor of Venice

Mindfucking: A Critique of Mental Manipulation is the latest book by Colin McGinn, in a short 96 pages, McGinn defines what mindfucking is: from personal mind games to full-scale propaganda and mind control.

Hey, maybe it's just me, but I hardly use the word mindfuck in a negative sense! These are the two ways I use the word:

• "Wow, that (book, film, conversation) was a total mindfuck."
• "That relationship was a mindfuck. I'm glad it's over."

There has to be an emotional experience, after which your senses feel reorganised (or even, de-organised, like a suitcase of ex-boyfriend's clothes thrown out an 8- story window, "No more!").

McGinn argues mindfucking can be an intrusive and violating experience. Unless of course, you give your consent (!)

That's half the problem, like The Moor in Othello, mindfucking can make you feel like an ass if you are not careful. Or you ending up fucking yourself up.

Maybe if you read this book and know what's going on first, you can mindfuck back!!! OK, that's not the point... (be good, not evil!)

Link: Colin McGinn's blog with forum debate about title

Disco naps and the avant-garde: Jonas Mekas

At the Tate Modern today, I woke up two young guys when I sat on the bench in to watch Jonas Mekas'60s experimental film, Diaries, Notes and Sketches (also called Walden). I thought: well, this is not a bad place to have a disco nap.

They shook themselves awake and watched for a little while before dropping their heads back to sleep. But you know what? Dozing like this could be one of the most interesting way to watch Mekas' films. Dream a little of their dream, watch a little of Mekas' dream.

Jonas Mekas has mashed hours of personal footage shot between 1964 - 1969 in New York: pictures of sludge, a co-op meeting, a sled-ride in the park. The effect feels like the images in his head have been recorded while he sleeps.

After a few hours, I am not 100% sure which memories were mine, and which were Mekas' film; that's how intimate the film feels. Imagine the trouble the guys sitting next to me must be having distinguishing their dreams from the outside world... If they are not still there, asleep.

Link: Jonas Mekas at Tate Modern